“The answer probably isn’t important,” said Berg, sounding disappointed that Conway hadn’t been able to give him a precise answer.
“Do you believe the Sekar copied this warship?” asked Rembra.
Conway nodded slowly. “This lump on the wall here could have been a maintenance console on the original spaceship. We saw half-formed door frames earlier. I reckon if we reach the bridge, we’ll discover a whole bunch of stuff that was meant to be control kit.”
“This is crazy,” said Torres. “Does it give us anything we can use against the Sekar?”
“I don’t know,” Conway admitted. “Fleet Admiral Stone has plenty of bright minds he can set working on questions like that.”
“We should proceed,” said Rembra. “I feel we are on the verge of something.”
The Fangrin didn’t usually offer up predictions for the future, so Conway took notice of this one.
“Yes – let’s get on.” He hesitated. “We’re on one of the lower levels. I can’t imagine the bridge will be down here.”
“Doesn’t look as if this place has many lifts,” said Warner.
“We won’t know if we don’t look.”
They exited the room through the forward passage. A short distance further, they came to an alcove in the wall where the floor was missing. Conway stopped long enough to shine his torch beam into the square hole. Ten or twelve meters below, he saw the solid black of the floor.
“Should have been steps in there,” said Kemp.
Every few paces after the unformed stairwell, they encountered new features – lumps and shapes on every surface. The squad maintained their vigilance at the same time as they guessed at the function on whatever spaceship this had been copied from.
“Hatch,” said Warner, pointing at a square ridge on the floor.
“Maybe this was a door,” said Barron, patting the wall.
Conway wasn’t so much interested in the specifics as he was with the notion that the Sekar adopted the forms of the other species they encountered.
“I wonder if they can only copy other aliens after they’ve killed enough of them,” he said.
It was a sobering thought and the soldiers forgot about their guessing game.
“They wiped out Rundine,” said Freeman, his voice hoarse. “How many do they need to kill in order to produce a replica?”
“I don’t know, Corporal. Don’t tell yourself I’ve got the answers. I’m just throwing out ideas.”
Externally, the Sekar battleship was monumental. Inside, Conway was sure it would be rather more compact. Much of a spaceship was generally taken up by engines, weapons and other huge lumps of tech required to make it work. In comparison, a crew didn’t require much space to fulfill their duties.
“We’re about six hundred meters from the entry point,” he said. “We’ve got to find a way up soon or we’ll overshoot the command and control area.”
“I’m gradually losing signal to the Revingol, sir,” said Freeman. “Last report says the Raggers set down twenty klicks north.”
“Good luck with them covering that ground in a hurry.”
“That’s what I told the guys on the Revingol, sir. If my signal degrades much further, we’ll only have your boosters.”
“My comms unit is getting a strong signal, Corporal. We shouldn’t have to worry about reaching the outside world.”
“It doesn’t sound like it’s going too well for Attack Fleet 1.”
“Let Admiral Yeringar worry about that,” said Conway.
“What about our pickup?”
“Like I said – we’ll deal with it later.”
They came to another alcove, bigger than the last one. The floor here was in place, only this time a shaft went directly upwards. Conway peered up and discovered the top was out of the visible range of his torch. He thought it might have been an airlift on the original spaceship only there was no car and no way to climb.
With increased urgency, Conway strode off. While he had no doubt the known Ragger deployment wouldn’t be getting here any time soon, it was the unknown troops that concerned him. It might be that AF1 was able to keep them from landing any closer, but if the enemy was determined enough, they’d find a way.
“What about the rest of the Iron Cell’s troops?” he asked.
“Making their way here under heavy fire, sir. A few of the squads are too far away and they aren’t risking an approach.”
It was the same answer as last time. Conway thought about requesting an order from the Revingol telling every man, woman and Fangrin outside to move their asses to the battleship’s entrance. He refrained - if it meant fifty soldiers dying in a suicide run, he didn’t want to be part of it. Admiral Yeringar had a better view of the area outside. He could make the order if he wanted.
The passage ended at a solid wall, which Kemp kicked twice. “They managed to copy this door.”
“I’m going to put a bullet in it,” said Conway.
He stepped across and shot the door. As he expected, the tharniol bullet vanished and left a hole which he pressed his visor against. It was difficult to shine his torch through at the same time, but he was left with the impression that a large space lay on the far side. Something glinted and he wasn’t sure what it was.
“Corporal Barron, Private Kemp, help me out,” he said.
The three of them each emptied a single magazine into the door, creating a big hole. Without being asked, Sergeant Lockhart offered Conway a full magazine, which he took.
“Thanks.”
Conway checked again through the larger opening with his heat and movement detectors active. On the far side was a big open area which contained no hostiles.
“I’m going in.”
The original door must have been a couple of meters thick and Conway was required to crouch-crawl to the other side. He stepped away from the door and swept his gaze watchfully around the room.
“The lights work better in here,” said Lockhart, emerging with a fraction more difficulty.
“Yeah. And look at all this real metal, Sergeant.”
While the rest of the squad passed through the ruined door, Conway and Lockhart walked cautiously deeper into the room. The lights were indeed much stronger here, as though the suppression of the Sekar was reduced. Conway turned his head, sweeping the beam everywhere.
From what he could see, this was a long room, with the far end out of the light’s range. It was also comparatively narrow at sixty meters from one side to the other, with the entry point in the middle. When he looked upwards, Conway got the impression that the ceiling curved inwards, but he couldn’t be sure, since a huge cylindrical beam filled much of the space above his head. This beam protruded from the wall above and vanished into the darkness towards the forward end of the battleship.
The most notable development was that everything appeared to be made from real, honest-to-goodness metal - a material which Conway knew and felt comfortable with.
“Look up there,” said Lockhart, pointing at the bulkhead behind them. Part of it was black and some was dull silver.
“The blackness turns to metal,” said Conway.
“My suit’s reading tharniol in the walls and that cylinder might be a big old lump of it,” said Lockhart. “That must be why the Sekar influence didn’t extend too far into here.”
“Yeah, that’s got to be it.”
“So, we find that some of the original spaceship exists,” said Lieutenant Rembra. “I wonder how much.”
“We thought the Sekar had copied something they’d seen or fought against,” said Conway. “Looking at this, it seems like they captured the original.”
“Part of it, at least,” said Rembra, his yellow eyes narrowed in thought.
“We’ve got to keep moving forward,” said Conway, reluctant to stand here theorizing. He half smiled. “Not that we have much choice in the matter.”
They set off into the room and Conway found his eyes drifting to the overhead cylinder. It was hu
ge and reminded him of a drive shaft from an old mechanical vehicle. He couldn’t imagine this one would turn, but he couldn’t shake the thought.
A hundred meters further, the dark material of the Sekar was nothing but a memory. They came across a door in the left-hand wall and Conway waved the squad over to it. He studied it for a moment – it was bigger than most doors and smaller than others, probably made to allow maintenance kit in and out. The surface was smooth and Conway couldn’t see anything which resembled an access panel on either side. More in hope than expectation, he stepped right up to find out if his combat suit would make a connection to a hidden security system.
“Nothing,” he said in disappointment.
“Want me to blow it open, sir?” asked Private Lester. He hadn’t said much since they left the Ternius, but he was there as always with his bag of explosive charges.
“We’ll leave this door. I might need you later.”
A little way on, a set of steps exited from the same wall. Access was once again protected by a door, though that door was open and in its recess.
“Fail open security?” asked Kemp.
“This door open, the last one closed,” said Torres. “Who knows?”
The steps were narrow and Conway couldn’t see what lay at the top, though his HUD informed him of a slight increase in ambient light. His naked eye couldn’t perceive a difference.
“Private Kemp, Corporal Barron, Gundro, you’re coming with me. The rest of you hold down here.”
The steps were so solid it was like they’d been cut from solid alloy and Conway’s feet made hardly any sound. The treads and risers were a comfortable size and he climbed rapidly. The steps came through the floor of another room.
He watched carefully from the shelter of the stairwell. The room was rectangular and maybe a dozen paces long. On the far wall, variations in the image enhanced greens told him that a piece of control tech was fitted there.
A single speck of light glowed faintly on one wall. When he turned off the enhancers, Conway saw that it was red in color. He finished his ascent and walked towards it.
“What’s that, sir?” asked Kemp.
“A sign that not everything on this ship is dead.”
The light came from a square plate on the wall adjacent to one of the room’s two exit doors. Conway crouched for a better look at the panel. It was square and made from a silvery material that his suit analyzer didn’t recognize. The light shone from dead center.
“Press it, sir,” said Kemp encouragingly.
Conway touched the light with the tip of his forefinger. He was expecting failure and got something else. With a quiet whine, the door slid rapidly to the left. Light spilled from the opening and Conway squinted to protect his eyes.
“Well look at this,” he said, once he’d become accustomed to the brightness.
On the far side of the door was another room, this one large enough for fifty men in combat suits to enter. Unlike everywhere else on the battleship, the power was on. When Conway checked out the details, he noted that the ceiling itself appeared to glow with a calming white-yellow light.
Elsewhere, he saw nine identical cube-shaped waist-high consoles in a square pattern in the room’s center. Their top panels were covered in faintly glowing buttons, which would doubtless get Corporal Freeman excited. Aside from that, one wall was covered in blank viewscreens, while thick cables ran in bundles across another. A further three exits offered a means to progress.
Something else caught his eye – the left-hand wall was partly corroded, leaving patches of it duller than the surrounding metal. He remembered how the Sekar caused a similar effect when they walked through solid matter. Seeing it here set his internal alarm bells ringing.
“Sir, I can see light,” said Lockhart on the comms. “What’s happening up there?”
“You’d best get up here, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
At first glance, the room seemed as deserted as the rest of the battleship. Conway didn’t wait for the other members of his squad to climb the steps and he crossed the threshold carefully. Kemp, Barron and Gundro came after him, also with increased caution.
“See that corrosion on the wall? Sekar came through it.”
A dead body lay on the floor, out of direct sight from the door. Alert for danger, Conway walked quickly towards it and crouched.
“Got a dead one,” he said. “Not ours, not Ragger and not Sekar.”
The alien hadn’t been wearing a spacesuit when the Sekar emerged from the wall. Instead it was clothed in drab red – a uniform which was now crumpled and far too large for the creature inside it. The body was a shriveled bag of drained, grey flesh, which Conway didn’t want to touch. Still, he felt like he needed to see it better and he laid a tentative hand on its shoulder in order to move the corpse into a different position. It turned over, stiff from the icy temperatures, and Conway saw a face with wrinkled skin and missing eyes. In life, it had a larger skull than a human and a wider jaw. Other than that, he guessed it was similar – a biped with eyes, nose and mouth.
“Four fingers and one thumb - just like us,” said Barron.
“The universe knows a good design.”
Conway stood and sighed with a feeling he couldn’t quite describe. The battleship had a story and its crew had their own. It was another sign of conflict in an effectively infinite universe. Conway reckoned that some parts of it should by rights be at peace. So far, he hadn’t seen any indication of it. What he saw in this room was enough to convince him that the Sekar hadn’t created or copied this battleship. Instead, they’d captured it and then subverted the onboard systems.
“Where’re the dead Sekar?” asked Kemp. “They don’t seem like the kind to be piloting a spaceship.”
“They might be elsewhere,” said Conway. “Maybe some of the Sekar have more intelligence than the others.”
He had another thought – a thought which bothered him greatly. Perhaps there was no Sekar crew and perhaps something else controlled the spaceship. They might have installed a computer to do it for them, but that didn’t sound right. The only explanation he could think of was that the black matter surrounding the battleship was sentient. If it was true, he couldn’t begin to think of the ramifications or the possibilities.
The time to consider it wasn’t now and Conway put it from his mind.
Chapter Eight
The ongoing engagement was at something resembling a stalemate. The Raggers didn’t let up in their efforts to drop troops onto Glesia, while the warships of Attack Fleet 1 tried hard to prevent them from managing it successfully. The presence of Prime011 was a spanner in the works and Hass-Tei-112 showed no inclination he planned to move the huge vessel away from the flashpoint. The capital ship couldn’t be everywhere at once and though it was a pain in the ass, it wasn’t enough to prevent AF1 making life difficult for the Raggers.
“We believe the enemy have made three deployments,” said Kenyon. “The closest suspected location was eight klicks from the battleship and thirteen from the Refuge 9 entry point.”
“The moment Prime011 is confirmed at one location, we sweep another area with Vipers,” said Dominguez.
“They haven’t found anything,” said Griffin. “The terrain is pretty rough.”
“Not enough to prevent our sensors from detecting a Ragger in a stealth suit,” said Shelton. “If the Vipers fly low, they’ll find those bastards.”
“Another five minutes and our tharniol detonators will be ready for remote activation, sir,” said Kroll. “The maintenance team have removed the last hardware fail safes and I’m finishing up at my end. I’ve completed a run of the modelling software – when the detonators go off, it predicts a 99.89% chance that the main tharniol drive will also explode.”
“You said the Gradior completed its own preparations a few minutes ago?”
“Yes, sir. Admiral Yeringar could order the Gradior’s detonators to blow any time he wants. Do you think that order will
come?”
“It’s looking more likely,” Griffin admitted. “I wouldn’t like to call the moment.”
“We’re still onboard,” said Jackson. “We’ll be ordered to set down and disembark in plenty of time, so the detonation isn’t happening soon.”
Griffin wasn’t so sure. In fact, he believed that in about five minutes, Admiral Yeringar would speak to him on a private channel. During that conversation, Griffin expected to be told to program a course into the Broadsword’s navigation system that would - at the right time - take it on autopilot to the Sekar battleship. And he’d get to watch - from the backseat of another spaceship - his heavy cruiser fly itself off to destruction.
“You’ll never guess what Captain Conway’s found, sir,” said Kenyon, his voice excited.
“Tell me.”
“Underneath that black stuff there’s real alloy and tech. Captain Conway is sure the Sekar didn’t construct that battleship.”
Griffin blew out his breath. “Is it Ravok?”
“No, sir. Definitely not Ravok.”
“We blew up a Sekar ship on the way back from Qali-5,” said Kroll. “I was kind of unable to keep track of what was going on at the time. I read the reports and didn’t see mention of the enemy ship being made of any recognized material.”
“The Trojan didn’t locate the wreckage before we entered lightspeed,” said Shelton.
“Getting back to Rundine was more important,” said Griffin, feeling the regret. “That and the fact most of the Trojan’s sensor team was dead.”
“I know, sir. If wishes were horses.”
“Anyway, it seems like we’ve discovered another new species,” Griffin continued. “First you find one bunch of aliens and before you realize it, everywhere is crawling with them.”
“The universe is getting smaller all the time,” said Shelton.
“Makes me wonder how insignificant the Unity League really is,” said Kroll. “Fifty years ago, we were a big fish. Now we’re one fish amongst many.”
“And every other fish has a mouthful of sharp teeth and a big appetite,” added Shelton.
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