“Have you uploaded or destroyed all of your data, Rich?” Thorsten asked.
“Yes, Adriene. All of our research up to the instant of attack was sent out on our TRIPWIRE data stream. The automate systems began erasing everything in Obsidian the second we were cut off.”
Avery paused and looked at Thorsten tentatively.
“I just need my datapad. It has petabytes worth of personal research notes, years worth of information, all of my correspondence and—”
“And what?!” demanded Thorsten.
“Detailed information on the BLUE MONARCH program, up to and including Project GRYPHON.”
“Wasn’t it uploaded with everything else?” asked Thorsten, already knowing where this was headed.
“No, Adriene. It was too sensitive for the TRIPWIRE data stream,” replied Avery defensively.
Correlli interrupted.
“I’m sorry, doctor, we do not have time. This discussion is over. Please follow me.” he said, striding toward the door and stepping into the corridor. He keyed his comm piece, “This is COBALT ONE, I have the package.”
Correlli had Subject A slung over his left shoulder and in restraints. The extra weight did not seem to impinge on the BLUE MONARCH’s movement in any way.
“But I NEED that data! It’s crucial for advancing the BLUE MONARCH program. It has access to DARAC!” protested Avery. His eyes pleaded with the two soldiers.
Correlli turned and fixed him with an intense glare.
“Where is it?” he demanded evenly.
“I left it in the Core earlier today. We can retrieve it on the way to the main tube station. It’s on our evacuation route, for heaven’s sake!” Avery was getting desperate.
“Can we make it, Correlli?” asked the Colonel.
The BLUE MONARCH looked at his small holographic projection again and scanned the tactical data feeding into his helmet visor.
“Wait here. Don’t move until I come back for you,” he answered, gently placing Subject A on the floor.
He sped back down the corridor and was soon hidden by darkness.
“I’m sorry, Adriene.”
“It’s all right, Rich. You just could have picked a better day,” Thorsten chided.
The sound of gunfire erupted down the corridor in the direction Correlli had gone. Shrieks and growls, similar to Subject A’s, but deeper and more menacing, started and ended abruptly.
“Get down!” hissed Thorsten, aiming his sidearm down the dark hallway and dragging Avery down to a kneeling crouch beside him.
Subject A twitched at the sharp sounds reverberating against the corridor walls.
“How long will it be out?” asked Thorsten warily.
“The sedative should last up to three hours, but with the way his internal chemistry has been changing lately, it might be less,” Avery estimated.
Thorsten thumbed the safety off his sidearm.
“If it becomes a liability ...”
“It won’t be an issue,” Avery assured him.
The staccato report of Correlli’s assault rifle sounded perilously close to their position, and Subject A thrashed in response. Thorsten pushed Avery to a completely prone position and inched forward. Multiple flashes of intense light briefly illuminated the dim corridor, forcing Thorsten and Avery to shield their eyes.
“Incoming!” yelled Correlli, as something hissed above and beside his retreating silhouette. Whatever it was ricocheted off one wall in a fusillade of sparks, then imbedded itself in the other.
A thought raced quickly through Correlli’s mind: They’re using spine casters—they want us alive!
“Covering fire!” shouted Thorsten as he jumped up into a two-handed firing stance and began filling the darkness in front of him with twenty-millimeter armor-piercing flechettes.
Correlli dove for the ground, the deadly flechettes missing him by mere inches, and somersaulted back to his feet just behind the Colonel.
Pivoting quickly to face their attackers, Correlli could see the impact flashes and flares on the Triven’s tactical shields. He added his own fire to Thorsten’s and the hail of kinetic energy soon overwhelmed the Triven energy barriers. Richard Avery covered his ears and pulled his legs up to his chin while trying to keep an eye on Subject A, whose tail was beginning to undulate with alarming frequency.
The characteristic flash/crack of failing shields was followed immediately by hideous gurgling shrieks and hisses as flechettes and bullets penetrated Triven body armor, then natural armor, and finally soft tissue.
“I’m not carrying a ton of ammo here, Correlli!” snapped Thorsten. “We’ve got to keep moving!”
“Copy that, Colonel!” answered Correlli, picking off another advancing Triven with a double-tap between its saurian eyes. Once again he consulted the small hologram on his left forearm.
“Fire in the hole!” the BLUE MONARCH shouted.
Thorsten turned away, dropped, and covered his head in one fluid motion. He felt the air in the corridor rush towards the Triven, nearly dragging them all with it, then violently push them back in the opposite direction.
In the confined hallway space, the heat and noise was overwhelming, even to Correlli’s genetically superior physiology. But the BLUE MONARCH recovered quickly and was back on his feet before the blast had dissipated.
“I’ve bought us a little time, Colonel, but not much,” reported Correlli as he slung Subject A back over his left shoulder.
“C’mon, Doctor, let’s go get your datapad,” he said almost jauntily and started down the blast-damaged corridor.
Avery looked at Thorsten.
“The man loves his work,” he said wryly.
“Go ahead, Rich,” said Thorsten. “I’ll bring up the rear.”
Richard Avery needed no further urging and quickly followed in Correlli’s wake.
Passing the intersection by the main elevator shaft once again, Thorsten paused and knelt down in the feeble light. He tried to slow his breathing, listening for the scrape of talons against the metal floor grating, or the telltale screeches and hisses of Triven shock troops. All he could hear was the dull rumbling of whatever fighting was going on above ground, something else he was completely in the dark about.
Correlli’s voice reached back to him faintly in his mind, but he did not answer.
Still nothing.
He backed slowly down the hall, then turned and ran after the others.
Behind him, two yellow eyes narrowed and stared fiercely after him.
They nearly reached the ceiling.
13
Obsidian’s central tube station was a grim study in the duality of war.
Chaos and control vied for supremacy amid the scenes of human hope and hopelessness. For every tube car that arrived with the living came another filled with the dead. The sights and sounds of misery caused by the Triven attack assaulted Emerson Avery and the Reed family as they emerged from the relative silence of their tube car.
“Medic!” yelled John Reed, barely out of the car and still dragging Claire behind him. “I need a medic over here now!”
Two young men in bloodied gray fatigues with a portable med bed scurried to them, skirting those already lying in rows along the terminal floor.
“Okay, Doctor Reed, we’ll take her from here,” said the one closest to him.
“I’m coming with you!” insisted Reed.
The medic started to protest, but Reed grabbed his arm and begged, “Please don’t argue with me, son. That’s my wife bleeding out on that bed and I’m not leaving her!”
“Fine!” said the medic, pulling his arm away in frustration. “Follow us and watch your step. The floor is—”
“Well go then!” ordered Reed, practically pushing the medic along in front of him. He turned and called over his shoulder through the enveloping cacophony.
“You kids stay together and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Branden, you and Emerson get Ashley to our assigned evacuation ship and I’ll meet you there!”
“But Daddy!” protested Ashley, not wanting to be separated from both parents.
“Just do it, Ashley!” Reed felt a twinge of guilt for yelling at his daughter, but this was not the time to be gentle.
She watched him until he disappeared into the crush of people, his arm still visible over the sea of heads, pointing emphatically to the tunnel leading to the subterranean airfield.
“Sis, we need to go.” Ashley was startled by her brother’s voice. It was the first thing he had said since the attack began. He seemed more with it now and the bleeding from his ears had ceased. But he was still holding his left arm gingerly with his right one.
“You should get your arm looked at,” she replied.
“They’ve got medical automates on the ship. We just need to get going.”
“Emerson, are you coming with us?” Branden asked.
His ears still thudding from the thermobaric pressure waves, Emerson gave no sign of hearing the question.
Ashley waved her hand in front of his face and slowly mouthed the words, “Are ... you ... coming ... with us ... to ... the ship?”
She pointed in the same direction her father had.
“I can’t leave without my dad,” he said, the sound of his own voice alien inside his head.
“I’ve got to find him.”
“Are you sure, Ave?” said Ashley, feeling like she was losing everyone in her small universe.
Emerson tried to straighten up despite the glass still in his back and looked steadily into Ashley’s eyes.
“Ash, get to our ship. I’ll catch up to you,” he said as convincingly as he could. “Here,” he handed her his datapad. “Hold onto this for me, okay?”
A soldier in black full-body armor and wielding a deadly-looking assault rifle ran up to them, injecting himself into their discussion.
“Do you know your designated evacuation ship?” he demanded through his helmet mike.
“Yes—yes, sir,” answered Branden unsteadily. “We were just leaving.”
“See that you do!” said the soldier, who slapped him on his good arm and dashed off to the next group of civilians.
Emerson turned to leave, but Ashley caught him by the corner of his shirt.
“Be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
She hugged him gingerly, let him go, then briefly watched him swim against the tide of humanity now flowing swiftly around them. She saw him thread his way through the knotted clusters of people and finally disappear into the tube station’s main entrance.
Another black-armor-clad soldier ran by, also trying to make his way through the throng of civilians.
Then another.
Four more in loose formation.
Another bringing up the rear turned and shouted through his helmet mike, “You kids get out of here now!”
A sound Ashley did not recognize echoed in the cavernous space of the tube station, causing many in the crowd to start running. Wounded and wild-eyed people pushed past her, threatening to crush her in the scrum.
“Ashley, grab my hand!” yelled Branden, holding out his good arm.
She reached out to her brother and felt him pull her close.
“Emerson will be okay,” he said confidently. “He can take care of himself.”
“I hope so,” she answered, uncertain of everything.
Chaos began to triumph all around them and they were driven inexorably forward by the weight of the crowd. Gunfire erupted close by, seeming to come from all directions. Her senses were overwhelmed by flashes of light, sounds that beat inside her head, and the press of the panic-stricken masses around her. Despite Branden’s best efforts, Ashley felt herself ripped away from his grasp.
“Ashley!”
“Branden! I’m here!”
She staggered onward, towards her brother’s voice, wanting nothing more than to curl up in a tight ball on the ground and cover her ears. Alien noises skittered and scraped along the ground behind her, dodging and weaving within the human herd. She felt small grasping claws on her legs. Something leapt up on her back. Tripping, she lurched forward and hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of her. Emerson’s datapad flew out of her hand and was instantly trampled to pieces. Pinpoints of light occluded her vision, her lungs screamed for air, and finally Ashley Reed’s body and brain said, Enough. She lapsed into unconsciousness and lay unmoving on the cold cavern floor.
14
An unassuming and utterly empty point in space near Entropia was suddenly twisted and rent by powerful energies and violent forces it could not withstand. The crackling thin blue line of an artificial event horizon expanded quickly to over a mile, disgorged its contents, then snapped quickly back into nothingness. In the blink of an eye, the special warfare ship Tempest appeared and shimmered hazily in the light of the system’s sun, then fully materialized, solidifying into position behind a massive interstellar leviathan: a Triven supercarrier.
“Captain Kristie, we have exited hyperspace near Entropia and are in relative attack position behind a Tyranus-class Triven supercarrier at bearing 000 degrees mark 23,” reported the navigation officer.
“Very well. Thank you, Nav,” acknowledged Kristie, quickly scanning the tactical hologram projecting from the weapons station. His ship was a very small green dot closing behind a very deadly three-inch red line.
“Weps, warm up tubes one through four, ready starboard railguns, and prepare to fire on my command.”
“Aye, sir. Loading all tubes. Starboard railguns energized to maximum capacity.”
Deep in Tempest’s forward hull, thraceium-laced nuclear weapons were quickly loaded by the ship’s automated munitions-handling system.
“Captain, I confirm we have green lights for tubes one through four. The weapons are loaded and ready to fire,” reported Weps.
“Eyes, have they seen us yet?” asked Kristie.
“No, sir. It does not appear they have detected us,” reported the Sensors Officer.
“Maybe they don’t care about one little cargo ship,” suggested Nav.
“Well, they’re going to get a lesson in about two minutes when we cram these up their cloaca,” smirked Weps.
“Agreed,” said Kristie. “Hangar bay, I want those Makos airborne and flying top cover once we’re in the atmosphere.”
“Understood, sir,” crackled the response through his command chair intercom.
“Range to target 2,500 kilometers relative, sir,” reported Weps.
“Prepare to fire at 1,000 kilometers relative, Weps,” ordered Kristie.
“Aye, sir, 1,000 kilometers relative confirmed and input into firing computer,” answered Weps.
Nav and Eyes exchanged a quick glance across the bridge. Captain Kristie pretended not to notice; he knew what he was doing.
The range numbers scrolled rapidly down on the tactical hologram.
“Weps, I want the nukes fired in five-second intervals. We’re going to punch a hole through their shields with the first warhead big enough for the others to follow.”
“Aye, sir, ripple fire with five-second intervals confirmed.”
“Captain, we’re getting IFF from the TRIPWIRE force. The frigates Cossack and Hotspur have just exited hyperspace and are closing to weapons range,” Eyes reported.
“Good. They could not have timed that any better. Now our scaly friends will really be preoccupied with what’s in front of them instead of behind,” said Kristie. “Eyes, send a microburst transmission so they know we’re here, but nothing more.”
“Yes, sir, sending now.”
Weps interjected, “One thousand kilometers relative in 30 seconds, Captain.”
“Very well. Nav, as soon as those missiles have finished launching, make an evasive turn to port so we can give them a full broadside, then head directly for Obsidian at flank speed. Weps, continue firing starboard railguns for as long as we have range and bearing.”
“With pleasure, sir,” answered Weps. He continued, “Captain, we a
re now at 1,000 kilometers relative to the target.”
“Very well. Execute on my mark.”
Seconds ticked by.
Cerulean Rising - Part I: Beginnings Page 4
