by Isaac Hooke
“Nor is waking up to find a Phant aboard one’s ship,” Rade said.
“Not that, either,” TJ replied. Then: “Got it.”
The hatch slid aside.
Rade tightened his grip on the stun rifle.
“TJ, with me,” Rade said.
two
Rade and TJ entered the engineering department, their stun rifles held to eye level.
Rade swung his weapon to and fro. He used the iron sights rather than the scope, since the range was so close. There was no sign of the liquid Phant on any of the bulkheads or various control panels.
He glanced at the overhead map, which marked the last known location of the entity as recorded by the lightfield cameras in engineering. The intruder lay around a bend in the L-shaped compartment.
Rade signaled TJ forward with a gesture, and the man took up a position next to the bend in his jumpsuit. Rade moved forward, wide of the edge, and then rapidly stepped past.
He scanned the deck, ceiling, and bulkheads, but there was no incongruous liquid anywhere.
He checked the overhead map again; the red dot indicated the Phant should have resided in front of the bulkhead directly opposite him.
“Must have seeped into the metal,” TJ said.
“Is that a panel?” Rade asked, gazing at the outline of a square line engraved into the bulkhead surface.
“It is,” TJ replied.
“Algorithm, come here,” Rade said.
The combat robot promptly arrived.
“Bax, if I fire a stun shot into that panel, it’s not going to affect any key ship systems, is it?” Rade asked.
“It shouldn’t,” the Argonaut’s AI replied.
Rade squeezed the trigger, unleashing a plasma channel into the bulkhead. Then he glanced at Algorithm.
“I want you to open up that panel,” Rade said, gesturing toward the bulkhead in question.
Algorithm approached it.
“Careful,” TJ said. “It could be anywhere behind there.”
“In theory I have nothing to fear while the anti-Phant emitter is active in my jumpsuit,” Algorithm said.
“Oftentimes reality proves much different than theory,” TJ said.
“Noted,” Algorithm replied.
Rade kept his rifle aimed at the square outline as Algorithm retrieved a tool from its utility belt and promptly opened the four fasteners. Then the robot grabbed the panel by the inward facing handle and separated it from the bulkhead.
Algorithm hesitated before removing the panel entirely. It glanced at Rade, who nodded.
Algorithm stepped back all at once, revealing the inner workings of the panel.
Rade saw several different conduits, some of them color-coded, a couple with blue or red LED markers streaking across their surfaces, but otherwise no Phant.
“Bax, where is it?” Rade asked.
“I am unable to detect the intruder when it traverses the ship via the metal composing the bulkheads and deck,” Bax said. “I will let you know the moment it returns to one of my video feeds.”
“I don’t like this,” TJ said. “It feels like it’s toying with us. The Phant purposely revealed itself when it emerged from the package, when it could have remained hidden, advancing to engineering from inside the deck, staying out of view of the AI. But instead it decided to possess one of our robots and provide a theatrical show. Feels like a distraction to me.”
“You think there are more than one?” Rade asked.
“Either that, or this Phant takes cruel pleasure in teasing humans”, TJ said.
“Given what we know about Phants,” Rade said. “The latter seems entirely feasible. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was acting alone.”
Rade glanced at the tactical map; the Marauder ships continued to close.
“Fret, keep trying to communicate with those vessels,” Rade said.
“Will do,” Fret replied.
“TJ, see if you can repair the engine and weapon system damage,” Rade said.
“I’ll get on it,” TJ said. He knelt in front of the open panel. “I’d appreciate it if you left a few of the robots here to help me out. And send Harlequin my way.”
“I’ll leave them all,” Rade said. “As well as Harlequin. Consider them your personal honor guard. In the meantime, the rest of us have to get ready to repel a boarding party.”
“You don’t sound too confident in my repair abilities,” TJ said.
“Let’s just say I’m not about to sit around idling while you work,” Rade told him.
“And what about the Phant?” TJ said.
“We’ll deal with it when it rears its ugly head,” Rade said. “But if you see it, you know what to do.” He nodded toward the stun rifle that TJ had slung over his shoulder.
During Rade’s return trip to the bridge, the Centurion assigned to cargo bay five tapped in.
“Ernie, you have an update on the package?” Rade asked.
“After Surus disabled the beacon,” Ernie said. “I finished removing the contents of the package: several bottles of Flame.” That was an expensive perfume produced by a rare strain of bacteria that thrived in zero-G. “I emptied the contents out into separate vials, but otherwise discovered nothing else in the bottles. Then I cut the container open. I found the power source for the beacon, along with a small, empty holding cell, with no clear openings. It was obviously where the Phant hid. There does seem to be some shielding in place. We’ll have to analyze the material further. But otherwise, the package is clean.”
“Did you have a look at Koala?” Rade asked.
“I did,” Ernie said. “I have recovered the AI core from Koala’s damaged body. It appears undamaged.”
“Glad to hear it,” Rade said.
He reached the bridge. That circular arrangement of stations affectionately known as the Sphinx was very difficult to navigate in the bulky jumpsuit, given the proximity of the stations and their occupants to the bulkhead. And he thought it was tight before...
Before sitting, he issued the appropriate widening instructions to his chair so that it would fit the cumbersome suit. Even with the extra space, there was no way the chair would fit a jetpack—it was just as well he hadn’t given the order to don them.
After taking his seat he began making plans with the crew, going over different boarding scenarios, and how to repel them. He wasn’t satisfied with any of the procedures, and hoped he could find a way to prevent the boarding in the first place.
There were no further sightings of the Phant—or Phants—over the next hour and a half.
“The Marauders are well within long distance firing range at this point,” Lui said over the shared comm line they used while inside the jumpsuits. “But still haven’t unleashed any weapons.”
“Why would they?” Bender said. “We got our wings clipped and our beaks snipped. A giraffe’s dick could cause more damage.”
“A giraffe’s dick?” Lui said. “I don’t get the analogy.”
“Well, giraffes have long necks, right?” Bender told him. “So it goes without saying that they have long dicks, too. A giraffe’s dick is like a long range weapon in my analogy.”
“I still don’t get it,” Lui said.
“Ah, I’m surrounded by dense prudes,” Bender said.
TJ tapped in from engineering. “Boss, I finally got the weapons systems online. Essentially all the Phant did was burn out the equivalent of a few fuses, and I replaced them.”
“I didn’t know starship power systems used fuses,” Rade said.
“I said the equivalent of fuses,” TJ clarified.
“So the missile tubes and Vipers are online?” Rade asked.
“Fully,” TJ said. “As well as the mag-rail point-defenses.”
“What about the engines?” Rade said.
“Those will take a little longer,” TJ said.
“What do you mean by a little longer?” Rade said. “Are we talking minutes, or hours?”
“Hours, unfortunately,�
� TJ said.
“Keep me posted,” Rade said and disconnected. He turned toward Manic. “Prepare to unleash our weapons against the Marauders: begin charging Vipers. Target their missile tubes.” Rade intended to fire the heavy lasers at essentially point-blank range, allowing the Vipers to hit with maximum punch. He was confident the attack would cause any queued missiles in the enemy ships to detonate, the explosions fusing their launch tubes shut. With luck, the explosions might even cascade to missiles in the storage bays beyond, causing multiple Hellfires to detonate, inflicting further damage.
“Plan to follow up the Viper attack with a volley of Hellfires,” Rade continued. “Target any missile tubes that survive the first attack, such as those on the opposite flanks of the Marauders, and then aim for their heavy lasers as well. Use up every last one of our Hellfires in that final volley—seeing as we’re outnumbered three to one, I doubt we’ll get another chance to strike. So make it count.”
“I’m programming in a firing solution,” Manic said.
“You know, it’s possible they might detect the heat signature of the charging Vipers,” Tahoe said from where he sat beside Rade. “They might realize we’ve repaired the weapons.”
“Bax, thoughts on that?” Rade asked the Argonaut’s AI.
“There is a chance, yes,” Bax said. “But the thermal pattern could also be interpreted as heat leakage, caused by internal damage when we attempted to defend against the intruder. The AIs of the Marauders will come to similar conclusions.”
“So what’s to stop them from firing?” Tahoe asked. “If only to confirm that our weapons are offline?”
“They would have fired already if that was their intention,” Bax said. “I believe they are under specific orders not to use their weapons any more than is necessary against our ship.”
“Why?” Tahoe said.
“They don’t want to damage my precious cargo,” Bax said.
“You mean the Phant?” Tahoe asked.
“It’s impossible to say at the moment,” Bax said. “Though I doubt the Phant is the cargo.”
“What are they here for, then?” Tahoe said. “They intend to capture Surus?”
“Again, impossible to say,” Bax said.
“I think the more likely scenario is they’re mercenaries in the employ of the Phant,” Rade said. “And the Phant has promised them salvage rights to our vessel. After it collects what it came for, the ship is theirs. Why damage the prize more than necessary? Far easier to repair a few damaged components in engineering than to replace a melted focusing mirror in a laser core.”
“Wait wait wait,” Bender said. “What color is this Phant of ours? Is it a Green? A Black? Or what? If it’s a Green, then that tells us the target is Surus. Anything else, and all bets are off.”
“Actually it’s a Purple, according to camera logs,” Bax said.
“Purple?” Lui said. “What are those again?”
Rade tapped in Surus, who had returned to her quarters in cargo bay six, and shared the channel with the bridge crew.
“Surus, what do we know about Purples?” Rade asked.
“They are the fighting class of the species,” Surus said. “And the tacticians, responsible for developing the strategies used to conquer other races. The Purples also contain a clandestine branch, whose members are responsible for infiltrating new species and preparing the way for the main invasion force.”
“Lovely,” Rade said. “I’m dispatching four Centurions to guard you, Surus. Bax, see that it’s done.”
“Yes boss,” Bax replied.
The minutes passed and the Marauders continued their approach. Still none of the ships opened fire.
“The vessels have reached the ten thousand kilometer mark, and are rapidly decelerating,” Lui said.
“Should I open fire?” Manic asked.
“Hold,” Rade said.
“If they fire now, and eliminate our weapons, we lose our chance...” Tahoe said.
“They won’t fire,” Rade said. Though his voice betrayed no uncertainty, he knew they might fire at any time. It was a gamble, yes. But if he wanted to do the most damage, he needed to wait.
The minutes ticked past. Finally:
“They’ve halted,” Lui said. “Three kilometers out.”
“All right,” Rade said. “Looks like that’s as close as they’re going to get. Set the proximity fuses on the missiles to detonate at two hundred meters from the target.” That range would be more than enough to cause significant damage. “On my word, Manic.”
“They’re launching shuttles on an intercept course with the Argonaut,” Lui said. “I’m counting three of them.”
“Do you want me to include the shuttles in my volley?” Manic asked.
“No,” Rade said. “It’s of utmost importance that we disable the weapons on the main ships. Fire when ready.”
Rade watched as white lines appeared on the tactical display, connecting the Argonaut to the different ships. Those lines represented lasers, and were followed up nearly instantaneously by yellow dots representing missiles fired from the Argonaut. Those Hellfires rapidly closed, some diverging to make for the far flanks of the different ships. He saw similar white lines flash from the three vessels as the Marauders targeted the yellow dots of the Hellfires with their own lasers.
The deck vibrated as some of those enemy lasers struck the Argonaut.
A moment later, all of the new dots and lines vanished. It was over.
“What happened?” Rade said.
“Our laser attack eliminated the missile tubes across all three ships,” Manic said. “I launched the Hellfire volley almost at the same time, but the enemy fired back with their own Vipers. They spread out their targeting between the incoming Hellfires and our Viper turrets: they managed to prematurely detonate about half of our missiles, despite the minuscule time window afforded by our close range. They also knocked out all of our heavy lasers. We still have our missile tubes, but seeing as we have no Hellfires left, those are useless. “
“You say they prematurely detonated half our missiles,” Rade said. “That means the other half hit their targets. So how many Vipers do they have left?”
“The remaining Hellfires struck the laser turrets on both flanks of all three ships,” Manic said. “It appears their Vipers are offline across the board. If the enemy had concentrated their laser fire on the Hellfires instead of dividing their shots between them and our Vipers, these Marauders might still have some weapons left.”
“Too bad for them,” Rade said.
“So we’re all disarmed for the time being,” Tahoe said.
“Not entirely,” Rade said. “We still have mag-rails.”
“Not for long,” Lui said. “The shuttles are firing onboard cobra lasers at our point defenses.”
“Unleash the mag-rails!” Rade said. “Take down those shuttles.”
“Unleash the Kraken,” Bender muttered.
“The shuttles are issuing evasive maneuvers,” Lui said. “We’ve lost thirty percent of our mag-rails.”
“Keep firing,” Rade said.
“Shuttles have closed to within three hundred meters,” Lui said. He looked up. “We’ve disabled one of them.” His eyes defocused. “The remaining two shuttles are spreading apart and moving beyond the sight lines of our mag-rails. They’re approaching our hull, preparing to dock.”
“Bax, I need to know what hatches they’re heading to,” Rade said.
“They’ve chosen airlocks located on opposite sides of the hull,” Bax said. “It appears they’re heading to 3S on the starboard flank, and 3P on the port flank.”
“Prepare for boarding,” Rade told his crew.
three
We’ll have to defend both airlocks,” Rade continued. “Tahoe, organize two fire teams.”
Tahoe split the crew and Centurions into two fire teams. Rade led Team One, while Tahoe took Team Two.
Rade tapped in Shaw. “You’ve heard the news?”
“Yes,” Shaw said. “We’re about to be boarded. I’m staying in sickbay to protect the twins.”
“I’m ordering Bax to send you two more Centurions,” Rade said. “Bax? Do it.”
“It’s done,” the Argonaut’s AI said.
“Do you want more, Shaw?” Rade asked.
“Two is more than enough,” Shaw said. “Considering that I already have Cora and Dora. Not to mention myself.”
“Any members of the enemy boarding party will be in for a rude awakening if they manage to reach sickbay,” Rade said. “And discover the angry momma bear waiting for them.”
“They’ll never reach sickbay,” Shaw said. “Not while poppa bear is out there.”
“Probably not,” Rade said.
He disconnected and headed down to 3S; once there he had his fire team assume defensive positions in front of the airlock: the team members hid inside the small alcoves formed by nearby hatches, and also around the bends located on both flanks of the passageway.
Rade lurked inside the alcove closest to the airlock on the righthand side with Bender, who was ducked underneath him. Both of them had their rifles aimed past the edge at the airlock. Rade had stepped most of his body out from cover so that he had the entire outer hatch in his sights. He had dropped by the armory to pick up a laser rifle for himself, which he used now; he kept the arcing stun rifle slung over his opposite shoulder as a backup. He had given Surus one of the remaining non-arcing stun rifles.
Rade felt vibrations issue from the deck.
“Both shuttles have docked,” Bax announced. “Prepare for forced entry.”
Rade saw the sparks of a laser cutter as the enemy boarding party got to work on the other side.
“Let’s open the airlock outright,” Rade said. “Surprise these a-holes.”
The outer hatch opened up, catching the cutting personnel off guard: two Centurions, of similar make and model to his own units. Their bodies and limbs were of blocky polycarbonate, and their joints spherical. They weren’t wearing jumpsuits—all the better for their Phant master to possess them.
Rade and the others opened fire.
The two robots clattered to the deck.
