“If ship to ship doesn’t work,” Captain Ferris said, “try U.N.I.C.’s command frequency.”
Archard should have thought of that himself. Quickly, he keyed in the numbers on the console and pressed his own mic. “This is Captain Archard Rahn on drop ship M-11. If you can hear me, Admiral, please acknowledge.”
Tense seconds passed with everyone on the bridge glued to the speaker.
“I hear you, Captain,” Admiral Thorndyke said. “A sitrep, if you please.”
“We discovered Martians had snuck on board in cargo containers in our hold and ejected them,” Archard said. “The ship is now clear of them and we are good to dock with the fleet.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Admiral Thorndyke said. “Are you certain every last Martian is accounted for?”
“We believe so, yes, sir.”
“Pressurize your hold and make absolutely certain,” the admiral said. “I can’t allow a single one of those things to reach the fleet.”
“Understood, sir,” Archard said.
“We’ve lost three drop ships,” Admiral Thorndyke went on, “and two others besides yours report containers they can’t account for. We’ve been discussing how to deal with them. Decompression was considered a last resort.” He paused. “My compliments, Captain, on the fortitude it took. You could well have destroyed your ship.”
“I’m all too aware of that, sir,” Archard said, rubbing his shoulder.
“All right. Listen up. Once you have completed your search, you are to dock with the Stanley. Do you copy?”
“Yes, sir,” Archard said. The Stanley was one of three cruisers, so-called because in size and armament they compared to the U.S. Navy cruisers of long ago.
“When you dock, no one is to leave your vessel until the Stanley’s crew has run a complete sweep of their own. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. If you need me, contact me direct on this channel. Thorndyke out.”
On the screen, the Avenger I veered away to resume its original position with the fleet.
“Pressurize the hold,” Archard said to Burroughs.
“Already on it, sir.”
Archard faced the rest. “You heard the man. As soon as it’s safe, we spread out and search the hold from bottom to top. Every opening, every crack, every locker, every cabinet.”
“There can’t be any left, can there?” Katla said. “I mean, we all saw them being sucked out.”
“I hope there isn’t,” Archard said. But he had to be realistic. It was entirely possible a few hadn’t been expelled.
Private Everett patted his ICW. “Any still here will be right sorry they stayed, sir.”
“I cannot wait to dock with the Stanley,” Trisna Sahir said. “I will not feel safe until we do.”
“I don’t now as we’ll ever be truly safe every again,” Captain Ferris said.
Archard felt the same. The Martians had demonstrated a remarkable resiliency. They were able to survive in environments that would snuff humans like candles.
A large meter on the middle console showed the status of the pressurization, at the moment at forty-seven percent.
“It will take the pumps a bit longer,” Archard said. “Relax until then.”
“We could all take naps,” Private Everett said, and KLL-13 cackled.
Glancing at her in annoyance, KLL-12 said, “I have a question, Captain.”
“Which is?”
“What did the Martians hope to accomplish by sneaking those containers on board? To be taken to the fleet, obviously. What then? Destroy our spaceship in orbit?”
“Who can say?” Archard said.
“They have to know Earth would build more. That we would return.”
“Maybe they wanted to send Earth a message. Leave us alone or else.”
“Perhaps. But I can’t help but think there is more to it.”
“The hold is at sixty-one percent,” Lieutenant Burroughs said.
“Troopers, check your weapons,” Archard said. “BioMarines KLL-12 and KLL-13 will help with the hunt. KLL-10 will stay on the bridge and protect Lieutenant Burroughs and the wounded and the civilians.”
“I’m missing all the action,” KLL-10 said.
“Want me to bring you a Martian leg to gnaw on?” KLL-13 said.
“KLL-12 is right. You’re weird,” KLL-10 said.
“Booyah,” KLL-13 said.
Archard turned to the screen that showed the hold. Debris lay everywhere. Cabinets and lockers had been torn open, their contents ripped into space. Nothing moved.
“Eighty-three percent,” Burroughs said.
Katla placed her hand on Archard’s arm. “Be careful in there.”
“Goes without saying,” Archard said.
“I would hate to lose you after all we’ve been through.” She gently touched her faceplate to his in a tender display of affection.
“Sir, I have a question,” Private Pasco piped up while slapping a magazine into his ICW.
“I’m listening,” Archard said.
“The Martians. Those containers. When did they sneak them on board?”
“Probably during the attack on the colony,” Archard speculated.
“Not after, though, right?”
“I don’t see where that makes a difference.”
“Don’t you?” the young Spaniard said. “They had to find the containers. Then fill them with their, uh, people. Then other Martians had to carry the containers onto the drop ships and clamp them down and get out before they were seen. That took time. That took planning. It wasn’t spur of the moment, sir.”
“I agree. So?”
“So how much in advance did they plan all that? Did they attack Bradbury to keep us busy while they loaded the containers?”
“They’ve wanted our colonies destroyed from the beginning,” Archard reminded him. But the Spaniard’s question was troubling.
“Ninety-nine percent,” Lieutenant Burroughs declared.
Archard hefted his ICW. “Up and at ‘em, people. Time for some S and D.”
“S and D?” Katla said.
“Search and destroy.”
59
The bulkhead door slid open with a thunk.
Archard took point. His ICW pressed to his shoulder, he swung right and then left. “Clear,” he said into his commlink.
“Sir, yes sir,” KLL-13 said.
Archard suspected she was making fun of him but he let it pass. She did the same to everyone, to KLL-12 most of all. Shutting their dynamic from his mind, he said, “Everett, left. Pasco, right. Sergeant Kline, you have my back.”
“What about us, sir?” KLL-13 wanted to know.
“Wait at the door until I yell for you.”
“That’s no fun,” KLL-13 said. “Sir.”
Archard became aware of a slight hiss from the direction of the hold door and wondered if the seal was compromised. He checked his holo readings. The pressure was holding, the air okay to breathe, which reminded him. “No one is to shed their EVA suit.”
“Dang,” Private Everett said. “Does this mean we can’t prance around in our civvies?”
Sergeant Kline immediately jumped down his throat. “Clam up. Where do you think you are?”
Some of the lockers were still intact. Others, the doors had been ripped off or hung in strips. In several instances, the entire cabinet was twisted into so much scrap.
“We have to check these cabinets one by one,” Archard told the others. “But first we sweep the hold.” He moved between the rows of seats.
“There’s not a speck of dust anywhere, sir,” Private Pasco marveled.
“Pasco, what did I say about chatter?” Sergeant Kline said.
Archard crossed the length of the entire hold to the giant bay door. The hissing, he established, came from an inner seal that appeared to have been slightly crimped when the door closed. He wasn’t overly worried the seal would give way. The synthetic compound used supposedly had the tensile s
trength of titanium.
Archard signaled to let his team know he was bearing right, and did so, roving his gaze over every square centimeter of floor and wall and ceiling. The Martians could be anywhere. The small red crabs, in particular, were able to contort and compress themselves into unbelievably small spaces.
“Sir!” Private Everett called out and motioned with the muzzle of his ICW.
A subsidiary control panel hung partway open. The lid could be opened by working a latch and swinging it up. The latch appeared to be broken off.
Archard signaled for the others to fan out. Once they had, he approached the panel, his finger curled around the trigger.
Using the tip of his flash suppressor, Archard edged the panel wider. The controls themselves were on a recessed pad. To tap them, you had to reach in. Below the pad was a fifteen-centimeter space between the cover and the wall.
Archard dipped his head to try and see down in.
Without warning, a Martian exploded out of the panel. A gripper speared at Archard’s throat but snagged on the ICW’s barrel. Throwing himself back, Archard tried to bring his weapon to bear but the creature clung to the barrel with one gripper while trying to rip him open with the other.
In his frantic haste, Archard tripped over his own feet and fell onto his back. He shoved at the thing with his weapon but couldn’t knock it off. A gripper speared at his neck and missed.
Archard expected the creature’s limbs to start ripping into him. Struggling to wrest his ICW free, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly, Sergeant Kline was there, shoving his ICW between the creature’s eyes. He fired a three-round burst.
The Martian plopped onto Archard, limp as could be.
“Got it, sir,” Sergeant Kline said. Stooping, he hauled the body off and sent it sliding along the floor, then offered his hand.
“You saved my hide,” Archard said by way of gratitude.
“It’s what we do,” Kline said. “We’re always there for a brother---or sister---in arms.”
“Amen to that, Sarge,” Private Everett said.
Archard collected himself. He ran a diagnostic on his EVA suit to confirm it hadn’t been breached and signaled to move on. “Anyone sees any cracks, call out.”
Damage caused by the decompression would be a perfect hiding place. So were shadowy sections of ceiling where lights had blown out.
“Nothing on my motion sensor, sir,” Private Pasco said.
“Have you forgotten they’re next to invisible?” Sergeant
Kline said.
“I sure haven’t,” Everett said.
Neither had Archard. His EVA suit’s full spectrum of sensors were next to useless.
His earphones chirped and Lieutenant Burroughs asked, “How is it going in there, sir?”
“We’ve only just started,” Archard said. “Something up?”
“Another drop ship exploded. The captain piloting it was yelling something about Martians. They were close to the Exeter.”
“The other cruiser? Was she damaged?”
“From the chatter I’m hearing, the damage is minimal. But Admiral Thorndyke is fit to be tied. He’s issued an order that drop ships are not allowed near the fleet unless the drop ship has been confirmed cleared of Martians.”
“He must know that’s impossible,” Archard said.
“Better not let the admiral hear you say that,” Lieutenant Burroughs replied. “He might blow us to smithereens.”
She was joking, but their exchange set Archard to contemplating a disturbing chain of thought.
60
Archard set the BioMarines to roving the hold. They leaped to the task like bloodhounds to the hunt. With their enhanced senses, it was Archard’s hope that they could root out Martians that EVA suits’ sensors might miss.
One thing Archard couldn’t miss was a large jagged hole in the inner hull. Above it, the lights had blown out. Or did the Martians break them to cast that part of the hold in darkness?
Switching on his helmet’s spotlight, Archard played the beam over the hole. It was about a meter across and half a meter high. Cautiously edging moving up to it, he
bent his head to peer in.
Drop ships, like spaceships, were constructed in layers. There was the hull, then the cosmic ray barrier, then an interwoven network of baffles, filters, and structural supports, and finally the inner hull. Experience had shown that the double-hull system was remarkably effective at minimizing the chance of decompression.
The thing that bothered Archard was the realization that if the Martians penetrated the inner hull, the only way to find them would be to take the ship apart.
Thankfully, the hole wasn’t deep. Several conduits had been exposed but they were intact. Archard craned his neck to try and see if there was enough space for a Martian to squeeze past the conduits but couldn’t bend his head far enough.
“Clear, sir?” Private Pasco asked.
“Clear,” Archard said, although he couldn’t be entirely sure. Stepping back, he surveyed the whole expanse of the hold and inwardly shuddered.
“Something the matter, sir?” Sergeant Kline said.
“Just thinking,” Archard said.
Private Pasco pointed. “Why is she flapping her arms like that?”
KLL-13 was in the pallet area, waving her arms back and forth and gesturing at the floor.
“She’s found something,” Private Everett stated the obvious.
Dreading what it would be, Archard led his men over.
KLL-12, seeing them converge, joined them.
“What have you got?” Archard said.
KLL-13 squatted and tapped a floor plate. “Notice anything, sir?”
Archard hunkered next to her. At first glance, no, he didn’t. He shook his head.
“The angle, sir,” KLL-13. “The gaps.”
Archard stood and stepped back for a better view. The plate was two meters square. Unlike the other plates, which fitted snug one to the other, this particular plate had a thin gap around it. As if something had lifted it out and set it back in place but wasn’t able to fit it exactly.
“And those,” KLL-13 said, extending the tip of a claw at a specific spot.
Archard tensed. Scratch marks. As plain as anything. He motioned for his men to surround the plate. “Take either end,” he said to KLL-12 and KLL-13. “On my mark, pry it out and tilt it but stay behind it in case they come out in a rush.”
“There might be only one,” KLL-13 said.
“One isn’t enough to lift it,” Archard said. The plates were heavy.
KLL-12 bent, inserted his claws, and slid his fingers under. “What are you waiting for, woman?”
“I didn’t think you’d noticed,” KLL-13 said, doing as he had done.
“On three,” Archard said to them, crouching so he would be able to see under the plate as soon as it rose.
“One. Two. Three,” he barked.
They raised the plate as he had instructed.
Nothing happened. Archard thought maybe they were wrong and leaned out.
A Martian burst from hiding.
Archard went to fire but the first was on him before he could. A gripper clamped onto his ICW, another snapped at his face. Jerking back, he saw that his muzzle was pointed right at the thing and fired. At that range, his ICW should have dropped it. But the Martian unexpectedly let go scuttled toward the rows of seats---and the bridge.
“Stop it!” Archard bellowed.
Pasco triggered a burst but the creature was zigzagging to make itself harder to hit and none of his rounds scored.
Private Everett took deliberate aim and moved his muzzle back and forth, synchronizing his movements to those of his target. He fired on full auto.
Riddled, the Martian scrabbled another couple of meters and went limp.
Two more Martians burst out.
Archard dodged and rolled and came up shooting. He caught the closest broadside, stitching it from eye stalks to hind end. It s
prawled in a jumble of legs and grippers, convulsed, and died.
Sergeant Kline was down on one knee. His suit was ripped high on his left arm and blood was dripping out. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “The last one got past me.”
“Where?” Archard said.
With his good arm, Sergeant Kline indicated a shadowed corner. “Somewhere there. I lost track of it.”
“Get to the bridge. Have Dr. Dkany tend to you.”
“I can manage,” the noncom grunted, lifting his ICW.
“It wasn’t a request.”
KLL-13 nudged a dead Martian with her foot. “They aren’t so much when there are only a few of them.”
“One is all it takes, ma’am,” Private Pasco said.
“It will take more than a single Martian to bring me down,” KLL-12 declared.
“Humble fella, aren’t you?” KLL-13 said.
“Back to work,” Archard told them. “We have to find the third one. But first…” Moving to the exposed section under the plate, he checked for more. “There doesn’t appear to be more.”
“We were plumb lucky, sir,” Private Everett remarked in his Southern drawl.
“How so?” Archard said.
“That plate wasn’t over a maintenance crawl space,” Everett said. “If it had been, the Martians could be anywhere on the ship.”
Yet more cause for Archard to worry. Unfurling, he said, “Let’s wrap this up so we can dock with the fleet.”
“And then on to good old Mother Earth,” Private Pasco said, and he and Private Everett and KLL-13 smiled.
Archard frowned.
61
The third Martian had fled into the darkest part of the hold.
That in itself was troubling. In all his encounters with the creatures, all the skirmishes and outright battles Archard had been in, not once had a Martian fled from a fight. Not once had he witnessed what he would describe as fear. Whatever else they might be, the Red Planet’s denizens weren’t cowards.
So the fact that this particular Martian had seen fit to run troubled Archard greatly. The creature must have an ulterior motive---and it wasn’t hard for Archard to guess what the motive was. The things were determined to reach the fleet.
Species War: Battlefield Mars Book 3 Page 18
