Nullifier (Fire and Rust Book 6)

by Anthony James

  “Head pressure,” said Kemp. “Come back like a badly-flushed turd.”

  The squad hadn’t been on the ground for more than a couple of minutes and already the challenge had begun. Conway raised his gauss rifle and prepared to deal with whatever the mission threw his way.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  In Dominion’s zero-atmosphere conditions, the Hantisar gauss rifles didn’t make a sound. Conway fired four times in quick succession, feeling the barrel vibrate in his grasp. The pop-up sights ensured that each shot thudded into the approaching Sekar’s chest. Dozens of entry wounds appeared on its massive body and then hundreds more when Lieutenant Rembra and Hacher opened up with their chain guns.

  Conway had never become accustomed to the peculiarity of such brutality happening in complete silence and here on Dominion it seemed as eerie as it always did. The Sekar didn’t slow – didn’t even stumble. It rushed on and every few strides it thumped a huge hand against the flank of the adjacent spaceship.

  “Hold fire,” came Isental’s order on the comms.

  Conway glanced at the shuttle, three hundred meters above his head and with its nose pointing down. He couldn’t hear the nose cannon, but he saw the barrel recoil. A moment later, the entire upper part of the onrushing Sekar vanished like it had never existed, leaving a pair of muscular legs and a lower torso to tumble to a halt, a safe distance from the squad. One of the creature’s arms landed nearby – where the other went, Conway didn’t know.

  The next thing, Captain Isental’s raucous laughter filled the open channel. “Did you see that?” he bellowed. “A pair of legs and an arm!”

  Conway had no doubt the situation was much more comical when viewed from the comparative safety of a shuttle. He rose from his crouch and resumed his descent, glad to find the weight in his skull was gone, as suddenly as if someone had flicked a switch.

  “Any more of those things come, feel free to do the same to them, sir.”

  “I am tracking six targets, Captain Conway. You had better make haste.”

  “Shit,” said Kemp. “I hope that nose cannon reloads quickly.”

  “Me too,” said Conway. He couldn’t see any other Sekar from his current vantage, but they’d be here soon.

  Thirty seconds later, Conway came near to the bottom of the debris. The lower part of the slope was made from larger chunks, some of which wobbled beneath his weight and slowed him down. Once he stepped onto solid ground, he watched anxiously in case anyone took a fall. The Fangrin were heavier than a human and Hacher almost fell when he stepped on a badly balanced section of reddish wall which tipped under his weight. Rather than suffering an injury, the Fangrin sprang nimbly away and landed on both feet.

  “Easy,” he rumbled.

  The opening to the flight control building wasn’t far – a fifteen-meter sprint across the gravel-littered surface. Left and right, the disintegrated rock fell away into the depths, leaving the squad on a narrowing section of intact ground.

  At the end of the path - a ragged cannon hole. The planet’s stark light shone a little way inside – enough to illuminate the thickness of the original stone walls and offer a glinting sight of the inner tharniol casing. Beyond that was a room and suggestions of alloy equipment.

  “Got a visual on another one of those things, sir,” said Corporal Barron. “Make that two.”

  Conway sized up the hole, wondering how far one of those Sekar could squeeze inside if Captain Isental didn’t shoot in time. Far enough, he guessed.

  “In,” he ordered, going first.

  The opening didn’t line up with the floor on the other side and Conway put one hand on the ground to assist his drop. Dominion’s gravity wasn’t high and his landing from four feet up was secure.

  With the outside light not enough to fill the room, Conway turned on his helmet torch and ordered the others to do likewise once they got inside. The beam illuminated the kind of stuff he was expecting.

  “The Nullifier’s map of this building indicates we haven’t got far to go from here,” he said.

  “Having a map beats endless wandering through the bowels of an alien base,” said Barron.

  Conway advanced into the room, turning his head so that his torch beam washed over everything.

  “Consoles for the personnel based in here,” he said. “These aren’t what we want.”

  “How do you know that, sir?” asked Kemp.

  “Weren’t you listening, Private? The flight control computer is inside the inner casing.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “For old kit, these look pretty sophisticated, sir,” said Freeman.

  Conway agreed with a shrug. The Hantisar control stations were metal construction, semi-circular and with room for four operators in the middle. This room housed six of them, three of which were badly damaged by the recent passage of the cannon projectile.

  “No sign of viewscreens.”

  “Maybe they’re projected onto that wall over there, sir. Or into midair.”

  “Nothing’s online,” said Conway.

  “How’s the flight control computer working, then?” asked Kemp.

  “Backup power,” said Torres. “There must be a generator.”

  “I bet these consoles would tap into it and fire up if we had time,” said Freeman.

  Conway wasn’t too interested. The last man – Sergeant Lockhart – was inside the room. With his squad ready, Conway walked to the opposite wall which the cannon slug had also punched through. This next hole was much less convincing and Conway assumed the projectile was out of energy when it got this far. The angle of the shot had also ripped a furrow in the twelve-inch-thick floor, creating a narrow gap through which he could see another room below this one.

  Ignoring the furrow, Conway stepped carefully into the next room, avoiding the gleaming edges of sharp alloy. This next room was ten meters squared, with a large cube-shaped object in the center, from which emerged flexible, silvery cables. These cables ran along grate-covered channels in the floor, before disappearing into the walls. The cannon slug – now flattened and broken into several pieces - had struck the cube, crumpling its protective housing and probably causing havoc to whatever delicate parts lay within.

  “Let’s find the way down,” said Conway, setting off around the damaged cube. “The map indicates a stairwell through the door over here.”

  He wasn’t expecting to encounter any hostiles in this building, so he didn’t spend time on a careful sweep. The longer the operation took, the greater the chance the Sekar would enter through the breach in the outer wall. Time was of the essence.

  “You must finish quickly,” said Isental on the comms, driving home the urgency. “The shuttle’s cannon fires rapidly, but not rapidly enough.”

  Conway detected a note of something else in the Fangrin’s voice. “Are you under threat, sir?”

  “I see nothing to concern me. Still I am worried. And we are already losing comms – soon I will be unable to offer guidance.”

  That was enough to make Conway sure that something was coming and he cut the channel. The cube room had three exits, all sealed by doors and the one leading to the stairwell was in the opposite wall. Conway paused to study the access panel. It was unlit and didn’t respond when he placed his palm upon it.

  While the Nullifier had the security codes for the main flight control computer, it apparently didn’t have codes for the internal doors. That didn’t stop Conway attempting an interface. When his suit failed to link, he asked Lieutenant Rembra to try. The outcome was the same.

  “Lester, get up here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “See this door? Blow it open.”

  “There’s more finesse to it than that, sir,” said Lester, beginning a lecture.

  Conway would have told him to shut up, but Lester didn’t allow his talking to slow him down.

  “It’s all in the type of charge and the placement.”

  “I’m sure it is, Private.”

  A sin
gle kick of the door was evidently enough to determine its thickness and strength. One of Lester’s hands plunged into his pack and extracted a pale blue explosive charge.

  “Best get back, sir.”

  The squad were already out of sight and Conway followed them to the far side of the cube. Then, Lester appeared, a wide grin on his face.

  “Does that expression mean we’re all going to die?” asked Torres.

  “Have some faith, Lole,” said Lester.

  “It’s Lola. You know I hate, Lole.”

  “Only Elvis allowed to call you that, huh?”

  “Shut up the pair of you,” said Lockhart.

  Without a word, Lester disappeared once more around the edge of the cube. A second later, Conway followed. What had once been a door was now a hole into the next room. The edges around the opening glowed with heat and half-melted globs of alloy.

  Conway shone his torch beam into the opening. “Corridor leading to stairwell,” he said.

  Rather than waiting for the retained heat to dissipate, Conway sprinted through the opening. His suit registered a temperature of four hundred degrees and then he was through.

  “Come on,” he urged.

  Without waiting, Conway advanced along the corridor. He passed two closed doors and stopped at the landing on top of the stairwell. The steps were solidly made from concrete and steel, and descended to a switchback. According to the Nullifier’s archive map of the Dominion facility, the stairwell went deep underground to where the flight control computer was housed.

  Conway went first. The Hantisar were human-sized and everything they built was comfortable for a human to use. Down he went, one hand on the bare steel railing, to the next landing. He saw no sign of hostiles. When the head pressure returned, that’s when he’d worry.

  After ten flights, the squad came to another landing, with an opening onto a corridor. Conway peered both ways for the sake of it and saw nothing of interest. Two more flights, another landing, only this time the stairs were blocked by a door.

  “No luck on the access panel,” said Conway, withdrawing his hand. “Lester.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The squad retreated to the level two flights up and waited in the corridor for Private Lester to declare the timer on the charge had expired. This time, he’d got it wrong. The door was breached and warped, but not enough for anyone to get past.

  “Ah crap, sorry,” said Lester.

  Conway grimaced in frustration and held the criticism. Lester planted a second charge and the squad retreated again. This time, the door was blown completely free and it lay diagonally across the compact landing on the far side. The way it had fallen made it difficult to proceed without the combat suits taking heat damage.

  “Burning hot,” said Torres.

  “Maybe we can jump over?” said Corporal Brice.

  “I’m not sure,” said Conway. It looked possible to jump, but the steps began just past where the door lay. A misstep would result in a headlong tumble down thirty steps.

  “We cannot wait,” said Lieutenant Rembra angrily.

  With a surge, the Fangrin charged the fallen door. He ducked beneath it and then stood, using his immense strength to shift the heavy slab of metal a few inches. Hacher stepped in and grabbed the closest edge, ignoring the heat pouring off. Unwilling to let the Fangrin do all the hard work, Sergeant Lockhart placed his gauss rifle on the floor in order to assist.

  With the three of them working, nobody else had room to come close. In seconds, the door was brought to a more upright position, with enough space for the squad to pass. Lockhart, Rembra and Hacher moved rapidly to where the others were standing, their suit polymers blackened from the heat.

  “Anyone got a suit breach?” asked Conway. When the answers were in the negative, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Nice work getting that door moved.”

  “Sorry, fellers,” said Lester, apologizing again.

  “Shit happens,” said Conway.

  “Only once, sir.”

  “That sounds like a promise.”

  “It is.”

  Conway edged between the now-upright door and the wall. His HUD warned him about the proximity to a heat source and then he was onto the steps.

  “This must have been a security door,” said Freeman. “Means we’re close to the inner casing.”

  “Yeah, the map tells me the same thing, Corporal,” said Kemp.

  “Does the map also tell you that you’re an ass?”

  “No, sir,” said Kemp innocently.

  “Stop bitching, you two,” Conway warned. “What the map tells me is that we just went through the inner casing.”

  “Oh shit, yeah,” said Freeman. “I see it now.”

  With a shake of his head, Conway finished his descent to the landing below. Something was amiss and it took him a moment to realize what it was.

  “Getting hotter,” he said. “I thought it was the aftereffects of Lester’s explosive charge.”

  Conway didn’t block the landing and he climbed down to the next. The interior of the facility so far had been much colder than the outside ambient. Here, it was twenty degrees warmer than the rooms above. It wasn’t enough to trouble a combat suit, but enough to make Conway take notice.

  “Nothing new on the environmental scans, sir,” said Barron. “Just warmer, that’s all.”

  Two more flights of steps and the temperature went beyond a hundred Fahrenheit. Conway didn’t want to stop to discuss the possibilities, so he continued. The Nullifier’s map indicated the squad should be nearing the bottom. After that, a short run to the holding room for the flight control computer.

  They descended the last flight of steps. Conway expected to find another closed door. There was a door, but it was open, allowing heat into the stairwell.

  Through the doorway was a short passage and then another open door. Conway advanced and the temperature kept on climbing. At 180 degrees, he was seriously concerned about the potential risk to the mission.

  Conway entered an unlit, mid-sized room with three further open doorways and a single, circular console in the center of the room. Corpses in faded grey suits remained at station, some upright in their seats, others slumped forward. One lay on the floor. They weren’t about to stand up and shoot, so Conway advanced to the nearest and crouched next to it.

  “Corporal Brice, take a look,” he said.

  The corpse’s reddish skin was taut, with a glossy, waxy sheen. If the Nullifier’s control entity was telling the truth, this facility had fallen to the Sekar a long time ago, making this alien particularly well preserved. Even the eyes were in place, though they had a milky greyness about them and were smaller than the sockets.

  “This was not caused by Sekar,” said Brice. She attached a cable from her medical box of tricks and waited for it to send the result to her HUD. “Heat death, sir. Also, the cells show signs of asphyxiation. This one was a female.”

  “HVAC Control, sir,” said Freeman, pointing to an overhead sign. “Something failed and the people in here cooked. That might be why all these doors opened.”

  “Just not the door for the inner casing,” said Barron.

  “What’s the heat source?” Conway wondered. “Shit,” he said in realization. “Maybe the flight control computer required cooling and now the HVAC isn’t doing its job.”

  “The ULAF and Fangrin stuff runs without generating heat, sir,” said Freeman. “Or at least most of it does.”

  “This isn’t our stuff, is it, Corporal?”

  Conway rose from his crouch and got his bearings. “The left-hand exit should lead to the place where the flight control computer is housed. Plug in, inject code, leave,” he said, not sure who he was trying to convince.

  Since the HVAC operators hadn’t managed to get the cooling up and running, Conway didn’t waste a second trying it himself. The operator console was offline and he let it stay that way.

  Urging his squad to follow, Conway headed for the left-hand exit.

>   Chapter Twenty-Three

  A short corridor led to the flight monitoring room. This was a large space with numerous exits and several rows of consoles, all facing a single huge screen which covered the entirety of one wall. The screen was active and it showed a topographical view of the Dominion facility. The landed spaceships were displayed as green circles and the other buildings as broken lines. Not only that, the Sekar rift appeared, though much smaller than Conway remembered it.

  “Plenty more bodies,” said Barron. “There’s someone at each of these stations.”

  “Poor bastards,” said Torres. “They hoped to fix things even as they burned alive.”

  “Duty and loyalty,” said Rembra. “These Hantisar had both.”

  Conway was eager to be away. He noticed Sergeant Lockhart staring at the main viewscreen and gave him a tap on the shoulder.

  “Must be that some of Dominion’s orbiting monitoring stations remained active for a time after the Sekar showed up,” said Lockhart. “Then those stations failed, leaving this monitoring screen with an image that’s frozen in the past.”

  The words sounded logical enough, though Conway wasn’t keen to get involved in a discussion. He pointed to the right-hand exit, which was about fifty meters away and beyond several rows of consoles.

  “Let’s get this done and we can be out of here.”

  “I’ll record a copy of this image,” said Lockhart, turning reluctantly away. “There’ll be someone in an alliance research team that can use it to figure out how fast these Sekar rifts grow.”

  “We don’t know when the viewscreen was last updated, human,” said Lieutenant Rembra.

  “I’m just interested is all, Lieutenant.”

  By the time Conway reached the right-hand exit, the temperature was nearer three hundred. He had no idea how heat levels escalated in vacuum conditions as you neared the source. In fact, he didn’t know how they escalated in any conditions. What he did know was that a ULG combat suit wasn’t rated for use above 650 Fahrenheit and that was only for heat spikes rather than extended exposure. Conway didn’t want to go hunting for a computer interface port while his suit burned up around him. Already he could feel heat penetrating the insulating layers.