by Jamie Sawyer
A warning appeared on my wrist-comp: PRIORITY SIGNAL FROM COLOSSUS COMMAND.
It couldn’t be more serious than finding Elena.
“Keep up, Jenkins!” I shouted.
Jenkins’ footsteps suddenly fell silent. There was a muffled crunch – armour plating colliding with a wall or floor. I slowed, looking back the way that I had come.
“Get up!” I shouted.
Jenkins’ body lay collapsed on the floor, eyes utterly vacant. She still clutched her rifle but her fingers were slack on the weapon grip.
EMERGENCY EXTRACT, my combat-suit said. ALL OPERATORS.
“Elena!” I bellowed.
My ears were filled with the whine of static feedback—
A familiar numbness spread through my limbs. My vision abruptly faded, everything around me blackening. My heart began a thunderous, shifting beat: not the rhythm of this body.
I fell to the floor with my eyes pinned open. The last thing I saw was a wide and empty corridor, Shard glyphs glowing on the black walls.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE DARK PROTOCOL
The neural-link severed smoothly and my consciousness followed the golden thread across the void between the Artefact and the Colossus. Then I was back inside my simulator, among the data-cables and the feeder tubes. This time, I hadn’t succumbed to some debilitating injury or condition: someone had called the extraction.
I opened my real eyes to find the SOC in disarray. Medtechs frantically dashed between simulators. Dragging operators free of the tanks, making sure that they were clothed and – I realised, with some alarm – armed. I pressed my hands against the inside of my tank canopy, sucked in warm air from the respirator.
A technician appeared outside my tank. He slammed open the door and helped me out. I scrambled into a waiting set of fatigues, the man hurrying me along.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
“Admiral Loeb has declared an emergency. All hands are to remain on-ship. Take this.”
The tech was clearly panicked. He held out a security-sealed shock-pistol in both hands – eager to get rid of the item, like it was incriminating evidence. I took it. Turned the gun over in my hands.
Lots was going on around me. A klaxon whined overhead, echoing through the halls. Outside Medical, I heard the tramp of boots on the metal-plated floor: orders being shouted. Could only be Marines and flyboys.
“Preparing to go dark in T-minus sixty seconds,” the AI declared. “All systems will be entering—”
“We need a medical assist over here!” Jenkins called. She was half-covered by an aluminium blanket, crouched in front of me.
I hadn’t noticed until then that Mason lay on the floor. She’d collapsed from her tank: naked, barely moving. She was foaming at the mouth. Blood trickled from her ears.
“Assist!” Jenkins yelled above the din. “I don’t think she’s breathing!”
A medtech answered her call, fumbling with a hypodermic. Mason’s eyes were closed, her skin fish-belly white. The flesh around her data-ports was puckered.
What is my obsession going to cost Mason? I asked myself.
“Going dark in T-minus fifty seconds…”
“Admit her to the infirmary,” Dr West declared. “Twenty ccs of methaline-alpha. Get the rest of them out of here!”
Mason was shot-up with a cocktail of drugs by one of the techs. Jenkins stood, glared at me: an ice pick through the commotion.
“Stay with her,” I commanded Jenkins. “No matter what they say.”
Martinez and Kaminski gathered around me, exchanging worried glances. They didn’t look much better. The weight of so many transitions, in such a short period of time, weighed heavily on them.
“All personnel to take emergency measures!” Dr West shouted. “Vac-suits and breathers!”
“Is it Krell?” Kaminski asked. “Are you people expecting us to protect you with these things? We should be skinned up.”
I couldn’t help but agree with him. The weapons weren’t fit for purpose. A Kiwati-Teslek shock-pistol wasn’t an anti-Krell weapon: it was a law-enforcement sidearm.
“Let’s get on with this,” Williams shouted. He was already dressed in a vac-suit and had paused at the doorway to Medical, checking on the rest of his team. “We better get down to the CIC and check out what the problem is—”
The SOC lights suddenly dipped. A ripple of concern flowed through the twenty or so gathered personnel.
“Going dark,” the AI declared.
Dressed in another of the bright yellow emergency vac-suits, and armed with a shock-pistol, I jogged ahead of Kaminski and Martinez. Williams’ Warfighters were in close pursuit.
All active systems aboard the Colossus seemed to have gone into shutdown, save for gravity and life support. The elevator grid was off-line – we used the maintenance tubes to move between levels. I slid down the greased ladder rails, my booted feet hitting the ground.
A troop of Alliance aerospace pilots ran past us at full pelt. Helmets under their arms, respirators dangling at their necks, clad in metallic flight-suits: they were one step from war. Maybe James will get his wish, and he’ll get a piece of the action, I thought. The squadron was gone before I could question them about the dark order.
“Scrambling fighter ships,” Martinez declared, as we ran, “must mean we’ve got company. Got to be xenos, jefe.”
That cold void had started to form in the pit of my gut: that feeling that the calm was over, that the Colossus wasn’t so safe after all.
I was sweating heavily by the time we reached the CIC. The route had been tortuous and awkward in the heavy vac-suits. We pushed through the Navy staff to the tactical display. Whatever was happening to the rest of the ship, power still flowed here. Ordinarily the multi-levelled chamber was expansive. Now, with every station occupied and so full of crew, it was like the chamber had shrunk. Intelligence officers wore sensory deprivation helms, charting near-space on holo-consoles. Sailors were physically jacked into consoles around the perimeter of the chamber. Above me, pointed towards the nose of the warship, weapons crews were mounted in specialised pods: hovering on suspensor arms.
Admiral Loeb presided over the circus. Flanked by junior officers on both sides, Loeb seemed to be utterly at ease with the situation – a veritable island of calm. He and his officers were the only personnel not wearing vac-suits. He glowered at the tac. The display didn’t show the familiar close-up of the Artefact any longer – instead, a holo-projection of near-space. As I went towards Loeb, two Alliance Marines barred my path.
Loeb’s eyes flickered from the display for just a fraction of a second. He waved a hand noncommittally in my direction. “Let them through.”
The Marines lowered their guns.
“What’s the sitrep?” I asked.
“If you’re going to be here,” Loeb said, “then the least that you can do is to behave with proper Naval decorum. Just stay out of the way.”
“They’re moving within an AU, sir,” an officer reported. “Accelerating rapidly.”
Oh, shit: they’re here…
I realised exactly what the CIC was focused on.
An enormous Krell warship brushed the edge of the fleet’s sensor range. On the feed – only a recreation of the data being captured by the scanners – the vessel looked almost too big to be real.
“Holy Christo…” Kaminski muttered.
“Category ten,” someone declared. “No ID on primary threat—”
“This is Scorpio Squadron,” a nearby communicator crackled. It was Lieutenant James: I could imagine him ready to gun the engine on his Hornet, finally able to get some kills in for his squadron. “Awaiting a go command, Admiral.”
“We read, Scorpio One,” a Navy officer replied. “Be on your mark for launch.”
“Wait,” Loeb said. “Just wait. Let’s see their numbers first.”
More bio-ships appeared on the tac-display. One at a time, popping into reality. Whether they had dropped out of Q-spac
e, or had just now been detected by our sensors, I couldn’t tell. It probably didn’t matter: the undeniable fact was that a war-fleet was in near-space, and it was big.
“Weapons officers at the ready,” someone else declared. “We have a target lock on primary threat.”
“Wait!” Loeb said again.
The bio-engines trailed organic components; living tendrils pushing their way through the void. Even the green holographic projections looked threatening. Titan-sized, the ships were a shoal of predatory fish in the great sea of space: eyeless, their threat undimmed by the cold desolation.
I evaluated our position, watched the enemy fleet moving slowly – so slowly – through the moon-fields of Damascus Space. That sense of powerlessness rose within me again.
A long minute passed.
“Eleven Krell warships detected, sir.”
“Are we dark across the fleet?” Loeb asked.
There was another heavy, aching pause.
“Confirmed, Admiral.”
Loeb nodded. Wireframe holos of the Alliance fleet, all cordoned around the Artefact, sat at one end of the display. The Krell fleet was moving across the other.
“They might miss us,” Kaminski said.
“If they were in Q-space, why’d they drop out here?” Martinez asked, rhetorically. “Space is big, and God doesn’t do coincidences.”
I said nothing; had no choice but to watch this play out and hope that we lived through it. Loeb’s tactic was dangerous. By reining in his primary threats – the longer-ranged railguns and the Hornet fighter squadrons – we remained under the Krell’s sensor-grid. But if they found us, then we would lose the element of surprise. And in space, a loss of initiative could be fatal. The consequence of playing his hand now, though, was that the dark order would be lifted. The Colossus, and thereby the Alliance fleet, would be immediately visible to the encroaching Krell…
“There are a further twenty-five possible warships in near-space, sir,” another officer reported. “But the readings are unreliable. The moon-fields are causing a significant disturbance to the scanner…”
“Now reading forty-six hostiles,” someone corrected.
“I’d strongly advise that we launch the fighter squadron,” the ship’s XO – the executive officer – said. “The Krell are about to enter the ideal kill zone.”
“Scorpio One ready and more than willing,” James replied over the comms. He was using an internal, closed circuit: the only safe method of communicating, with the Krell so close. “My finger is on the launch button…”
“Who is in command of this damned ship?” Loeb said. His eyes never left the display, and he barely raised his voice.
No one responded to his challenge.
I’d never seen so many Krell warships in one place. The First Krell War, as some xeno-historians had labelled it, had involved many ship-to-ship engagements. I’d seen the vid-casts of those battles: many battleships on each side, duelling it out across the dark of space. But even those tri-D recordings – the stuff of legends – paled in comparison to the war-fleet I was witnessing. The ships were huge; and there were so many packed into the debris field. In the shadow of each of the motherships, smaller vessels flitted. There was no way that the Alliance fleet at Damascus would be a challenge to the Krell Collective. We would be nothing more than a hindrance.
“Keep those sensors on low-yield,” Loeb ordered. “I don’t want anything reading our presence.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Absolutely no external or inter-fleet comms until the threat has passed.”
“Affirmative, sir.”
The holo flashed with warning markers indicating the deployment of stealth systems. Every ship within the Damascus battlegroup was equipped with high-end covert gear; even running without comms, we could still send a beacon out into space that would gather every Krell between here and the homeworld. The thought sent a shiver down my spine.
The CIC sat in tense silence for another minute.
The Krell fleet was almost, but not quite, through the moon-field. My pulse raced; that chemical tang in the back of my throat that could only be fear.
“Are they attracted by the Artefact?” I asked of Loeb, desperate for an answer.
Loeb looked at me through the thatch of his eyebrows. “The Artefact isn’t broadcasting. I’d hazard a guess that they’re moving towards the Quarantine Zone.” He rubbed his index finger against his lip, staring down at the holo. “Perhaps they are concerned about using Q-space in the vicinity of those moons. Whatever the reason, they won’t find us. We’re running dark. The entire fleet has stealth systems engaged. They don’t seem to be deviating from their flight path…”
The holo froze.
The Krell alpha-predator was still entangled in the shattered segments of a dozen moons, but she wasn’t moving any more. Neither were the gathered smaller shark-ships around her.
The holo of the Colossus – suddenly incredibly small, barely capable of supporting over two thousand human crew – had started to glow crimson.
“Colossus is broadcasting!” a red-faced lieutenant shouted in disbelief, standing from her station. “I’m detecting an encrypted broadcast from inside this vessel!”
Loeb’s calm façade shattered like one of Damascus’ moons. “Get me the location of that broadcast, immediately!”
“Tracing location…” the lieutenant replied.
She started to work, but before she could get a result, as suddenly as it had cancelled, the stealth system was back online and the ship’s icon turned a friendly green.
I let out a long breath.
“The Krell fleet is moving off again.”
In reality, the stealth system had probably been suspended for only a second or so: but that was enough. If the Krell had been looking for us, they would’ve found us. Something broadcasting from aboard the Colossus had rendered us immediately vulnerable.
One by one, the Krell ships blinked from existence. The mothership vanished last of all.
“The Krell are clear of the moon-field. The war-fleet is moving through Damascus Space.”
“Confirmation that the Krell fleet has jumped to Q-space,” a lieutenant indicated.
That wasn’t worth much. Unlike human tech, the Krell ships left little in the way of evidence when they jumped. I stared down at the map, willing space to remain empty. Thankfully, it did.
“Permission to lift the dark order, sir?” an officer enquired.
Loeb was quiet for a long moment. As senior officer on the fleet, only he could impose or lift the order. It was a significant restriction on starship capabilities: under a dark order, the only functional tech was the null-shield. The Colossus, and the rest of the fleet, couldn’t use their weapons or Q-drives. All power was routed to the extensive stealth systems. I didn’t pretend to know how those worked – Sci-Div regularly updated stealth capabilities, to keep a step ahead of the Krell bio-tech.
Finally, Loeb muttered, “Lift the dark order.”
The CIC overhead lights suddenly rose, and across the tac the various fleet assets disengaged their stealth systems. I heard captains from other ships reporting their safe status; a surge of relieved voices over the communications network. With the Krell having jumped to Q-space, there was no way that our inter-fleet communications could be traced by them any more.
“Is it over?” Kaminski asked. Like me, he was bathed in sweat, and uncharacteristically for Kaminski he didn’t seem to be smiling.
“I think so,” I said.
The admiral was still looking over data from the display. He rubbed his chin, deep in thought.
“Those ships could have been part of a larger fleet,” he said, slowly. “And who the fuck sent that transmission?” He turned to one of his comms officers. “Do we have a trace on it yet? I can’t believe one of my crew would be stupid enough to send a transmission during a dark order.”
“Whoever it was, they must’ve been in a damned hurry to get information off this ship,�
� Martinez whispered. “Weren’t comms supposed to be shut down while we are in the Maelstrom?”
“You remembered the safety briefing…” I said.
“I try, jefe,” Martinez said with a shrug.
There was a brief pause while the comms officer worked.
“Status on the trace is a positive. It was an encrypted neutrino transmission, sent from somewhere in the lab deck. I have a fix on the terminal location.”
Loeb read something from his command console. His face remained fixed, but I could see that the findings concerned him. He glared at me again.
“I’m retiring to my quarters. Major Harris, Captain Williams – your presence is requested.”
Then he stormed out of the CIC, scattering officers and service personnel in his wake.
I’d hardly noticed the Warfighters throughout the incident. They stood at the bulkhead door to the CIC, all cockiness and certainty drained from their faces.
The Krell changed everything.
They always did.
The arrival, and subsequent disappearance, of the war-fleet could only mean one thing: that they were looking for something. Damascus Space was a dangerous pocket of the Maelstrom; as perilous to the Krell as to Alliance forces. It was surely not an area regularly patrolled by the Krell. So, the question remained: what were the Krell doing out here?
Loeb prowled the edge of his stateroom, tossing his cap onto his desk, then dragged out a chair. He noisily threw himself into it. I stood in front of his desk, a Navy lieutenant on one side of me, Williams on the other.
Loeb’s answer to the Krell problem was blunt and uncomplicated.
“We’re pulling out.”
“Impossible,” I said. “We have unfulfilled orders. We can’t leave yet.”
And more than that, Elena is waiting for me inside the Artefact. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t been able to touch her with my real body; that our only contact had been simulated. The idea that she might be stolen away from me, that Loeb might abandon the mission, made me feel sick to the stomach.
