“I will get you as close as possible, then you traverse the rest of the way. Suit thrusters only. Tactical intelligence thinks the Skarak will not be able to target anything as small as a Demon or an individual Marine, at least not with their main weapons. Watch out for Skarak soldiers that may be deployed against you. Speed is the key. Deliver the Demon and then get out of there. Yes?”
The Blue Stars answered with their battle-cry. “Blue Stars!”
Boyd noticed Dorik had not called out with the others. He gave him another heavy nudge.
Featherstone looked to Boyd.
“You ready to do some front-line work again, Sergeant?”
Boyd nodded. “Just what I’ve been waiting for, sir.”
Featherstone nodded then turned on his heel and left.
Boyd clapped his hands and called out to the Marines. The sight of the mastership was growing larger in the view from the open hangar door.
“Okay, grab a hold of this bomb. Let’s be the first to get our package delivered.”
The Marines arranged themselves around the Demon Detonator. Boyd looked at the holo-stage, which showed the four Blue Star frigates moving in toward different parts of the mastership that was almost as big as Supra Eight itself.
A beam lanced out from the mastership and engulfed the Forthright. She glowed blue for a second and then was gone, the blue crackle beam spiraling around in space and shrinking down into a dense point where the Forthright had once been.
Boyd looked up at the device next to him. The Forthright had been swallowed up by its Demon. The device next to Boyd was capable of generating a mass field powerful enough to swallow an entire frigate and crush it out of existence.
A siren sounded across the hangar deck and then came Featherstone’s command.
“Deploy the Demon Detonator. Go, Blue Stars. Go.”
Boyd gripped the weapon and moved it across the hangar to the open outer door. At the last minute, the deflection field dropped and the Blue Stars were out into space, delivering the Demon to the Skarak mastership.
14
The massive, dark oval mastership, bristling with stiff kilometer-long rapiers projecting out in all directions from its slick hull, blasted out another flickering blue crackle beam that slammed into the upper hull of a cruiser. The Union ship, maneuvering away from the beam, was too slow and was struck near its drive assembly. The ship instantly broke in two, spilling fluid and bodies into space. As the plasma fires of the smashed cruiser cooled, the small Skarak fighters swept in to snatch the floating crew.
Boyd focused on the mastership. He saw a group of Skarak fighters deploy from a warship and make directly for a group of Blue Stars from the Bold and their Demon Detonator. The Marines fired with their pulse rifles, tiny points of light flickering over space. The rifles did little to deter the incoming fighters. Bolts of shimmering blue blasted away from the fighters and killed the Blue Stars, leaving the demon drifting alone toward the mastership.
Boyd’s holo-stage alerted him to a group of fighters moving in on his position.
“Blue Stars. Loose formation. All rifles to concentrate fire on a single target. Follow my fire.”
Boyd raised his pulse rifle and picked a fighter sweeping in at speed. He fired a single well-aimed pulse at the target. Immediately, the Blue Stars around him followed his fire and a dozen pulse rifles poured heavy fire onto the incoming Skarak.
The blue glow at the front of the fighter told Boyd that the Skarak ship was about to fire, but then it was overwhelmed by the pulse rifles of the Resolute’s Marines. The fighter bucked under the punishment, and the blue fire erupted haphazardly and flowed back over the fighter before it finally exploded in a brilliant flash.
Punching through the blue flash left by the destroyed fighter came the rest of the Skarak group. Boyd took aim again. Just as he fired his targeting pulse, a squadron of Blades from the Titan’s fighter wing swept in to give Boyd and his team fire support. Holding station over a kilometer away, the Blades’ high-powered lasers sliced across space in front of Boyd and the demon, destroying the Skarak fighters that dared to move in too close.
The mastership’s crackle beam was powering up, blue lightning flickering at the bases of its thousands of rapiers. The blue lights shimmered over the hull and Boyd thought it looked slick, like a swamp, or a thick layer of slime. It did not have a hard edge like any Union or Faction ship he had seen.
A cruiser swept in and fired all weapons into the mastership, the blasts of laser and spitz fire sinking into the mastership’s shimmering outer hull. The hull appeared to boil away in places, but it quickly flowed back over the damaged regions.
A Skarak warship pivoted and directed its primary weapon at the cruiser attempting to sweep away, having completed its attack run on the moon-sized enemy vessel. The rapier cluster at the front of the Skarak ship blasted out a blue crackle beam that slammed into the cruiser’s upper hull. Lights flickered and blinked out as the ship went dark. Immediately, a swarm of Skarak fighters leapt away from the mastership and descended on the cruiser.
Boyd looked away, unable to help those in the cruiser, then out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flash of the cruiser exploding. His faceplate darkened to save his vision from the sudden brilliant white eruption only a few kilometers away.
The range finder on his personal holo-stage showed he was only a few hundred meters from the hull of the mastership, but the reading was changing all the time. It was impossible to get an accurate fix on the surface. Boyd tried to judge the distance visually, but the surface was impossible to pinpoint that way as well. It appeared close and then suddenly far away, the flickering lights of battle sinking into its depths.
The Titan’s lights came back as it recovered from the mastership’s attack. The massive Union carrier immediately blasted the mastership with all its forward weapons. The entire front circle of the ship lit up with spitz guns, mass beams, and high-energy lasers. They slammed into the mastership, punching deep holes in its thick, viscous hull.
A group of three Skarak warships broke away and powered toward the Titan, their rapier clusters glowing in readiness to strike. A pair of cruisers and a group of supporting gunships swept across the advancing warship’s flank, pouring fire into one warship and then the next.
The Skarak delivered their crackle beams and lights across half the Titan blinked on and off, the carrier’s power systems interrupted, but the Titan’s spitz guns continued to fire.
With only a few meters to go, as far as Boyd could make out, he felt sure he could make out his reflection on the hull of the massive Skarak mastership. Its surface rippled like black tar. Boyd had touched the surface of a crashed Skarak warship, not the surface of a live mastership, but the look was the same—a deep shimmering darkness.
“Steady, Blue Stars,” Boyd called out. “We are nearly there.”
Boyd looked at the point where he was going to land in a few short seconds when he heard a Marine over his helmet communications device.
“Skarak ships. Dozens of them,” the Marine shouted in anger, frustration, and fear.
Boyd knew there had to be thousands of Skarak fighters inside the mastership, so what was another dozen or two? Then he saw the flashes of Skarak crackle beams overhead. He looked up and saw a new group of over twenty Skarak warships firing on the Titan.
“I saw them appear, as if out of nowhere,” the panicked Marine shouted out.
“Steady, Blue Stars,” Boyd said firmly, restoring some calm to the Marines under his command.
The blue beams rocked the outer hull of the Titan. She fell dark a moment before her hull cracked, dust and shimmering fragments blasting out into space.
The Silence raced up from the ecliptic plane, the upper face of the Sphere still over a million kilometers away.
“Another kravin Skarak warship,” Kitzov said in disbelief and brought both fists down hard on the edge of the main holo-stage. “How many of the bastards can there be?”
He had b
een evading one on his tail for the best part of fifteen minutes and now another had appeared and was closing in on his starboard side.
Thresh staggered onto the flight deck.
“I thought I already saw you off the flight deck,” Kitzov said, glancing over his shoulder.
Thresh moved awkwardly toward the engineering console.
“What is a little pulse pistol blast to a Faction girl, eh?” She shoved the operator at the console aside and got to work. “You are wasting power all over the ship, Kitzov.”
“Do what you can.” Kitzov looked up at the image of the two Skarak ships closing in.
“I’m taking weapons offline,” she said. She pointed at the operator at the weapons console. “Power down the laser and I’ll take the spitz guns offline.”
The operator looked at Kitzov. “Sir?” the operator asked uncertainly.
“Do as she says,” Kitziv shouted. “And don’t waste time.”
“That’s good,” Thresh said. “Five minutes to the Sphere. We’ll lose them in there amongst the asteroids. The Silence can maneuver through those asteroids better than any Skarak warship. I’m going to take power from internal systems, routing everything to the engineering console here.”
“Life support?” Kitzov said. “You will leave me some air to breathe, right?”
“If I can,” Thresh said. She pointed at the communications operator. “Tell everyone to the rear of the third bulkhead that it is going to get dark, they will lose gravity, and it’ll get cold too. But they should have enough residual oxygen to keep them going for a while. Tell them to relax and save their breath.”
Thresh cut power to the rear sections. All crew quarters and corridors were plunged into total darkness. She routed the extra power to the drive and kicked the Silence forward, pushing the ship closer to the safety of the asteroid and further from the pursuing Skarak.
Thresh looked up to the holo-stage and checked on the range to the asteroids of the Sphere, and the Skarak behind. She had held them off and calculated she had done just enough to get them to the cover of the Sphere.
Then directly ahead of the Silence, a blue glow grew between two asteroids. A blue glow that built to a crackling ball of energy. A Skarak warship lay directly in their path and was about to give fire.
Thresh reacted. She dropped the base core in the reactor and spun the ship to starboard before kicking up the core to full again, sending the Silence on a sudden turn. The hull of the Silence creaked, and she felt the variations in the stability field as the ship was pushed to the verge of tearing itself apart. Gripping onto the console to steady herself, she looked over to the holo-stage.
The Skarak warship in the Sphere blasted out with its crackle beam. The image showed it slam into the Silence’s port side.
A moment later, Thresh saw the first flicker of blue across the flight deck. A single tiny thread of blue. It crawled across the deck like a sidewinder snake before fading to white and disappearing. Then she saw another, longer than the first, and it flickered for longer before it finally blinked out. Then another, and another. Within seconds, the deck was covered with the fine blue lines. They arced up off the deck, climbed up the bulkheads, and flickered over the ceiling plates.
Then the first touched her.
She felt a shudder. The fine energy line wrapped around her leg, and in an instant, she was covered. She began to convulse; she heard her voice quivering and moan. The flight deck was awash with fine blue and white lines of energy. Thresh collapsed to the deck and then, with cries of pain from the Silence flight deck crew in her ears, all faded to black.
“Keep her steady,” Boyd called out. The Blue Stars were distracted by the punishment being poured down on the Titan, and the Demon Detonator was tilting so a corner of the base looked set to touch down first. Boyd wanted to achieve a clean placement. He didn’t want to set this thing off accidentally, so slamming a corner of it into a Skarak hull didn’t seem like the smartest move. The Blue Star Marines were supposed to be the smartest in the entire service.
One Marine had drifted ahead of the rest and was going to be the first to touch down. He reached up and steadied the Demon. Boyd twisted it and made it level. The light of weapons fire from the Union and Skarak ships flickered over the dark hull beneath him.
The first Marine touched down and brought the Demon down carefully. Boyd watched and thought he saw the Marine’s boots sink into the surface of the mastership.
Then another touched down, then another, all bringing the device down carefully. Finally, the bomb itself touched the surface.
“I’m stuck.”
Boyd heard the Marine’s word, spoken calmly at first and then again in panic. Soon he was repeating it over and over. Boyd looked over and saw the Marine attempting to pull his foot out of the surface of the ship where it appeared to have sunk up to his ankle.
Then the others on the surface reported the same.
“Use your thrusters,” Boyd said.
He looked over at Dorik and saw he was floating just above the surface of the mastership’s hull.
Boyd moved to the activation panel on the top of the dome. He floated above the device and checked that the activation circuit switch was clear. After a moment, he realized the device too was sinking into the surface of the Skarak mastership.
“Thrusters are not helping,” a Blue Star said.
Boyd looked and saw the stuck Marines getting help from their brothers. One Blue Star grabbed the ankle of his stuck comrade and pulled. Boyd saw the dark, slick surface move up and take hold of the man’s hands.
“Hey, it’s got me.”
Boyd heard the panic as the Marines began to fight to get free. He looked back to the activation circuit. The Demon was in place and ready to arm.
“This is Boyd of the Resolute Blue Stars. Device deployed. Ready to activate.”
He looked down at the struggling Blue Stars. No others went to help, certain they would become stuck too. The only Marine who did not appear in distress was Dorik, who was still floating face-first over the surface of the ship and staring into its depths.
A message came in from the Resolute.
“This is Featherstone. Activate the device, Boyd. That is an order. Do it.”
15
Boyd had not been away from the Blue Stars for so long that he did not know to respond immediately to the word of command. The Titan was floundering, a huge crack running from the edge of the central drive generator to the outer ring of a spitz cannon. The ship was venting atmosphere, lights flickering inside the dark ship as power conduits ruptured.
Boyd activated the device. The countdown began. Only a minute until the Demon Detonator did its deadly work. Boyd had seen what one of the Demons had done to a Blue Star frigate and knew he didn’t want to be anywhere near this one when it detonated.
The Marines on the surface of the mastership were sinking even deeper into the hull. One had been swallowed up to the waist. Boyd could see his legs deep within the surface, stretched away in great ripples like waves. The Marine’s head lolled sideways, and his suit’s bio readout told Boyd the man was dead. A casualty of the Skarak war.
Activating his electron bayonet, Boyd dropped down to hover just above the surface of the Skarak hull, the meter-long blade lighting up on the end of his rifle. He plunged the blade into the hull next to a Marine’s leg. The blade cut into the hull with ease, making a deep, wide scar in the material.
The Marine tugged desperately, but then the hull closed up, flowing slowly back into place. The Marine let out an agonized yell and then fell silent before he was drawn deeper into the hull before being totally consumed by it, lost in the deep dark of the Skarak hull.
The countdown on Boyd’s holo-stage let out a warning signal, telling him he had only seconds to leave if he was going to make it to safe distance. He hated himself, but he had to give the order.
“Blue Stars back to the Resolute.”
One Marine was firing his pulse rifle down into the hu
ll near his legs where he was trapped. The rounds slammed into the surface and then appeared to slide inside, defusing and spreading out.
The Blue Star Marines could not leave their trapped comrades behind, but Boyd knew it was hopeless. He grabbed a Marine and spun him around.
“Go! That is an order,” Boyd shouted. He flung the Marine away from the hull and out into space in the general direction of the Union ships that were still exchanging fire with the Skarak armada.
Sergeant Dorik was floating a meter above the hull, face down, arms outstretched, looking into the surface. Boyd could see the sergeant’s reflection in the hull. Dorik appeared mesmerized by it.
“Rik. Let’s go.” Boyd grabbed Dorik by the arm.
Dorik shrugged him off and let out a quiet grunt.
“Sergeant Dorik. Move.” Boyd pulled him hard.
Dorik pushed Boyd away and continued to stare down into the strange hull.
Boyd drew a short tether from his suit’s belt and hooked it onto Dorik, then he fired his suit’s thrusters and powered away. As Boyd moved off, Dorik in tow, he saw Sergeant Dorik reach out to the hull, trying to grab hold as he was drawn away.
The countdown on Boyd’s wrist-mounted holo-stage showed that he had only a few seconds before the Demon detonated. Boyd pushed his suit’s thrusters harder and gathered in the tether as he went, drawing Dorik to him. With a final heave, Boyd drew Dorik into his arms. Boyd manually activated Dorik’s thrusters and accelerated away.
Looking back to the mastership, Boyd could see that the Demon Detonator had sunk almost completely into the hull. Only the top of the dome was still free of the strange, viscous surface. All the Marines that had been trapped had sunk in fully and Boyd could see them, frozen or floating in the dark material.
Boyd saw the device slip under the surface…
…then it detonated.
As it imploded, it shrank down to a tiny point in a fraction of a second, leaving a flash of light as the speed of collapse exceeded the speed of light.
Blue Star Marine Boxed Set Page 36
