He crawled rapidly away, wiping at the layer of grime which had formed across his visor. A hand grabbed his upper arm and pulled him along.
“Move, sir!” shouted Hendrix. “Are you injured?”
“I’m fine, Corporal,” said Recker.
Hendrix released her grip and scrambled away, leaving Recker trying to formulate a plan. The Lavorix were attacking from three entry points and when he called up the Excon-1 map on his HUD, Recker was able to form links from those adjacent rooms to one other entrance to the security station. And that entrance was directly to his left.
“Private Gantry, cover that doorway!”
“Yes, sir.”
Gantry shuffled round and the door opened. An extended burst from the MG-12 caught a group of Lavorix completely by surprise, killing six or seven and leaving a pile of mangled remains in the corridor, which prevented the door from closing. The door at the end of the exposed passage opened and Gantry killed another bunch of the enemy before they even realized the danger.
It was time to withdraw, though Recker couldn’t see an easy way back to the Axiom. He spoke to Vance and Shadar, who were at the far side of the console and able to see into two of the rooms which were hidden from Recker’s sight. The news wasn’t good.
“We keep killing them and more show up, sir,” said Vance. “I’d say the enemy numbers are increasing. Private Raimi – hit that turret.”
The blast came a moment later and Vance resumed talking.
“I don’t know how many of these turrets they’ve got on Excon-1, sir. Raimi’s got one rocket left and it’s the same for Ipanvir.”
The MG-12 fired again and a return hail of slugs smashed into the console and antenna, sending wicked shards of alloy in every direction. One of them hit Gantry in the shoulder and he swore with feeling.
A Lavorix charged through one of the far doors and Recker shot it. The next alien went the same way and then a third. A glance behind told Recker that escape through one of the remaining doorways was becoming an increasingly tough option. The soldiers couldn’t hold here much longer and Recker didn’t want to gamble that the enemy attack would break. A retreat would mean running further from the Axiom, with no guarantee the squad could return without being overrun.
“Sergeant Vance, Sergeant Shadar!” said Recker. “We’re leaving through that exit over there.”
“I will open the door for us,” said Shadar.
The Daklan sprinted across the floor, his size making him appear more lumbering than the reality. Elsewhere in the room, a rumbling detonation told Recker that Ipanvir had shot the last of his missiles. Before the sound of it faded, a Lavorix turret opened fire, somewhere out of sight. Recker turned just as the armoured gun sped into sight, its barrels spinning in a blur. A rocket hit it dead-on and the weapon was engulfed in flames.
“The way is open,” said Daklan.
Recker backed towards it, not taking his eyes off the visible entry points. On the comms, he gave orders without thinking, the skills and experience of his past life coming to the fore without conscious effort.
The Lavorix sensed the retreat and they became bold. Recker shot one in the chest, catapulting it through the doorway and tripping the soldier behind. This second alien tumbled into full view, six limbs flailing for balance. Recker put a slug into its head and another into its chest. Something clipped his arm. He felt nothing and didn’t spare it a thought.
“Sir, move!”
The way was clear and Recker hurtled through the doorway, where Sergeant Vance and Private Montero remained to provide cover. Only Litos and Itrol were left to come and, as they sprinted for the exit, the Daklan ripped grenades free from their waist belts and threw them behind, where they clinked off the floor and then exploded.
“This way,” yelled Corporal Hendrix.
Recker didn’t slow - he ran along the short passage to an intersection and followed the others left. Green-outlined shapes sprinted into the darkness, voices shouted and footsteps pounded. He darted right into a room, with Private Montero directly behind.
The last few entered, Sergeant Vance coming last.
“Close the door,” shouted Recker.
Vance spun and thumped his hand on the access panel. The door closed.
The squad had taken cover in a large room. Several members of the squad were already checking the exits and the rest were either reloading or watching the retreat.
“We hold here for a moment,” said Recker.
“We’ve got to lose the enemy, sir,” said Vance. “I’ve tried to figure out a way that’ll take us around them, but we’re in for a long trip.”
“The Lavorix know this place better than we do,” said Recker. “It might not be so easy.”
An idea came and it was the kind of idea which made him giddy with the plain savagery of it.
Recker acted on it immediately. He sent his comms unit in search of the Excon-1 open receptors which had been hidden before his biometric re-scan. The search found green lights – lots of them – and Recker linked to the first. With that done, he requested a channel to the Axiom.
Burner responded immediately. “Sir?” he asked, all business.
“We’re in the shit, Lieutenant. I’ve sent you the coordinates of the squad and the direction of our attackers. Tie them in with the map of Excon-1. After that, I want Commander Aston to aim one of the Railers at the enemy positions.”
“The Railers…?” Burner recovered quickly. “I’ll pass on the order, sir.”
Recker cut the channel and got on to the squad. “We’ve got some Railer support fire coming any time now. Keep low and stay alert.”
“Aren’t the Railers designed for…”
The rest of Private Enfield’s question was drowned out by a noise of such thunderous intensity that Recker felt like his skull was going to split open. Thousands of overlaid metallic impacts came at once, their interval so short that the sound became a single overwhelming pressure wave. The worst part was that the Railer slugs weren’t hitting anywhere close – the reverberation was travelling from back in the antenna room and still it was enough to cause physical pain.
The ongoing noise battered Recker and a high-pitched humming built in his head, as if a tiny buzzing insect was trapped next to his eardrums. He wanted to drop to his haunches and put his hands against the sides of his suit helmet – for all the good it would do. With the Lavorix so close, Recker couldn’t take a hand off his rifle and he clenched his jaw as tightly as he could.
After five seconds, the Railer fire stopped and the relief was incredible.
“Damn, shit,” said someone on the comms, the sentiments similarly echoed by other voices which Recker’s scrambled brains didn’t recognize.
With a snarl, he gathered his wits. A channel formed in his comms unit.
“Sir, do you need further Railer fire?” asked Burner.
“I don’t know, Lieutenant,” said Recker. The buzzing in his ear hadn’t gone away and he shook his head, hoping to clear it. The buzzing remained and it was already irritating as hell. “Sergeant Shadar – check the corridor.”
The Daklan ran to the access panel, accompanied by Reklin and Private Gantry. When the door opened, shimmering air from the corridor made the soldiers’ outlines appear indistinct.
“Hot,” grunted Shadar. He peered cautiously into the passage. “Clear.”
Recker crossed to the door and the air temperature climbed to eighty degrees. The impact energy from the Railer slugs had likely turned much of the security station into a no-go area and he wondered if he should order the squad to wait.
A nagging, throbbing pain in Recker’s arm distracted him. When he checked, he noticed a discoloured furrow in his suit where the material had been damaged and then automatically sealed over both the suit breach and the wound underneath. Self-healing combat suits was how the military referred to them – like a personal medic for every man and woman wearing one.
“Sir, you’re hurt,” said Hendrix, noticing th
e expression on his face.
“A bullet caught me on the way out of the room.”
In a flash, Hendrix had a wire from her med-box plugged into the port under his chin.
“Vital signs fine. I should give you a shot.”
“No shot,” said Recker, wondering why he was so reluctant. He raised his voice and spoke to the squad. “This is the best time to find out what damage we did to the enemy,” he said. “While they’re still wondering what hit them.”
With the order given, Sergeant Shadar arranged for a scouting party of five to go on ahead. They didn’t have far to travel and returned a few minutes later.
“The place is a mess,” said Gantry, showing no discomfort from the injury he’d suffered earlier. “No sign of the enemy and the air is disappearing faster than Private Drawl’s pocket money at a country fair.”
“Let’s go check it out,” said Recker.
The squad left the room and headed back to the security station.
Chapter Fifteen
Private Gantry’s assessment was an understatement of the devastation wrought by the Axiom’s Type 2 Railer burst. At four hundred degrees, the air was blistering, though it was cooling rapidly as the atmosphere was sucked all the way back towards the docking bay. The droning sound of the evacuating air was dull and already the creaking of the Excon-1 station was becoming muffled.
“Depressurisation will be finished soon,” said Shadar.
Recker turned his attention to the room. Debris in all shapes and sizes covered what remained of the floor and he spotted pieces of the console, along with fragments of the antenna which had broken in such a way that he believed the construction material was brittle instead of yielding. The top half was still attached to the ceiling and it hung precariously overhead like a technological stalactite, just waiting to crash down onto anyone foolish enough to walk underneath.
Not far from the threshold, identifiable Lavorix body parts were strewn liberally, along with other Lavorix biological matter that wasn’t so easily named. Sticky blood and clear fluids were spread like jam on most surfaces, along with crimson gobbets stuck to both floor and wall. The scents were disappearing with the air, but the harshness lingered like putrid meat on a barbecue.
“Stay alert,” Recker ordered, advancing slowly across the floor.
The Railer had left nothing untouched. The closest wall was indented and ruptured, while the places where the Lavorix had sought entry were utterly ruined by the fusillade of high-velocity slugs. One wall was almost gone, revealing the empty spaces between the inner skins of Excon-1, and the alloy glowed with the heat of multiple impacts. A second wall hadn’t fared much better and the rooms beyond it were exposed – at least what remained of them.
“That’s where the Lavorix were coming from,” said Vance, pointing with the end of his gun.
“They are dead,” said Shadar. He spun slowly around and then burst into laughter. “What carnage!”
Recker advanced deeper into the room, trying to figure out if he’d been too clever in ordering the Railer attack. The angle of the upper turrets meant the projectiles had torn through the warehouse at a diagonal and then smashed into the floors. Although the Railers were precise, and Aston had been given exact coordinates, the slugs had come through many obstacles and many had deflected. If they’d caused too much incidental damage, the way back to the Axiom might be impassable.
At Recker’s feet, a two-metre-diameter flattened disk of metal – a Railer projectile - smoked gently and he could smell the odour of heated alloy coming from it. The torn and broken floor was littered with them – hundreds or more, crushed into different shapes and sizes, most of them far too hot to touch. Recker stepped around the slug and proceeded, his eyes roving everywhere. Nearby, Private Steigers did likewise and the man’s expression was one of shocked awe.
“This was like a five-second discharge,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Private Haley. “Technology is great when it’s on your side.”
“Come on,” said Recker. With half an eye on the HUD map and the rest of his attention on the space around, he passed the mid-point of the room. Here, the floor was in an even worse state. None of the stress tears were wide enough to fall through, but Recker trod evermore carefully.
By this point, he had a view along the path made by the Railer slugs. Had the intervening walls not folded in such a way when the projectiles came through, or been so jagged, he guessed he could have seen all the way to the Axiom.
“No way we’re getting back this way,” said Sergeant Vance.
“There’s another route,” said Recker. “This door here – the last place the Lavorix came through – it looks like we can get along the passage. A couple of rooms further in and we can cut right to join the room which links to the storage bay.”
“Let’s do it,” said Vance.
The place Recker indicated wasn’t much of a passage anymore. Sharp intrusions from the sides and above made the way hazardous and the squad had to advance single file for a short distance, avoiding two large openings in the floor.
Soon, they were beyond and into the next room, without encountering any living enemies. Char, blood, bones and broken alien weapons lay plentifully about and Recker ignored them on his way to the opposite door.
The next passage was completely undamaged, except for one noticeable bulge in the side wall and the following room was cold, pressurized and untouched, its four maintenance consoles quiet and unlit. Recker was not lulled by the calm. If anything, his wariness increased and he made sure Vance and Shadar kept the soldiers ready for a possible renewed attack.
Another corridor led to a new room, square and much larger than the one which preceded it. Recker advanced a few paces and then stopped, so he could better evaluate the hardware. One of the walls was covered in screens and a long console intended for use by ten or twelve personnel was positioned in front of it. Elsewhere in the room, other smaller consoles faced the same way.
“Sergeant Vance, Sergeant Shadar, please secure this room.”
“Can we fill the data extractors in here?” asked Vance.
“This looks like a flight control room,” said Recker. “In fact, it looks like a high-level command station. If I’m right, we should be able to plug into a console and get a data link to some of the secure storage arrays.”
Recker hurried to the main console, which was covered in keypads, switches, touch-sensitive panels and many smaller displays. Confidently, he brought the hardware out of deep sleep and waited for it to reach an operational state. The top panel lit up and a moment later, the wall screens did likewise, though they only showed static.
“Are those the external feeds, sir?” asked Vance. The pale light from the screens made him appear ghostly – more dead than alive.
“I think so,” said Recker. “It’ll take a few seconds for the link to stabilise.”
He didn’t wait for the link and called up the menu on one of the console displays. Scrolling through the list told Recker he was in the right place, and he spotted several options he wanted to explore.
“Bring over those data extractors,” he said on the comms. “There’s a wide bore port to my left and another further along. Plug in and I’ll see what I can find.”
“What data are you targeting?” asked Sergeant Shadar, rising from a crouch over by the furthest exit.
“Primarily weapons schematics and technical files. The flight logs shouldn’t take up much room, so I’ll take those as well. Rest assured, Sergeant – the human and Daklan requirements are aligned. Whatever I choose will benefit both our species.”
The response was enough for Shadar and he dropped out of sight again. Recker got on with it, finding that he was becoming so familiar with the Meklon control software that he could operate it without too much thought, allowing him to focus on sifting through the available files.
Meanwhile, the sensor links stabilised and the wall screens displayed images of space, along with numerous feeds of Q
ul and other planets in the Lanak system. This revealed that the Meklon had deployed an extensive network of monitoring satellites. Two of the sensors were locked on the missile cratered Aktrivisar and tracked its slow path around the space station. Recker was interested, but he couldn’t spare the time to study the feeds.
Corporal Hendrix was crouched low nearby, her med-box on the floor and her gauss rifle aimed at the entrance door. “How long will it take to fill those cubes, sir?” she asked through the chin speaker on her helmet.
“Got a date, Corporal?”
“Unfortunately not, sir.”
“The extraction shouldn’t take longer than five minutes through these interface ports. It’s finding the right data to feed them with that’s going to take longer. We’ve only got this one chance and if we leave with junk, the mission will have failed.”
“You think the Galactar will destroy Excon-1 when it arrives?” This time Hendrix made no effort to hide her nervousness.
“I don’t want to run into the Galactar either, Corporal,” he assured her. “But yes – when it gets here, I think it’ll destroy Excon-1. Even if it doesn’t, I can’t recommend to my superiors that we return to the Lanak system. The risks are too high.”
While he talked, Recker continued his search. He’d already confirmed this was one of three main flight control stations on Excon-1 and, while it had no access to the space station’s weaponry, it did have access to the central file repository. It also controlled something called a Gateway, which Recker was determined to check out.
He identified a few thousand files which looked interesting and he copied them to the two data boxes, noticing that Litos remained close by to watch for any funny business. Recker didn’t even pretend to be upset. He certainly wasn’t intending a betrayal and he continued his search for useful data.
“Can you access everything, sir?” asked Hendrix.
“Everything we need.”
“That’s good.”
Recker located an enormous, encrypted file relating to the Gateway. While he couldn’t access the contents, it wasn’t copy-locked which meant he could put it onto the data cubes. Unfortunately, this one file would occupy sixty percent of their storage capacities.
Galactar (Savage Stars Book 3) Page 13
