Death Skies (Fire and Rust Book 4)

by Anthony James

  The timer was heading for eight minutes. Aware that it was going to be tight, Griffin approached the propulsion section door.

  “Be ready,” he said, getting a comfortable grip on his rifle.

  With a steady hand, Griffin activated the panel and the door slid open with a rumble of mechanical gears. The propulsion section was spread over several levels, but most of the controls and instrumentation were here. Griffin looked cautiously through the doorway into the largest open space on the Hurricane.

  The four detonators were opposite – each a five-meter-diameter cylinder which protruded horizontally from the visible end of the tharniol drive, like a piston in a combustion engine. The detonators were about ten meters apart, with banks of control stations between them. Griffin noticed several pieces of mobile diagnostic kit were plugged into the hardware for the fourth detonator, away to his right. The technicians lay here and there, most of them in the vicinity of the final detonator.

  “No sign of life,” said Kenyon.

  Griffin darted into the room and crouched next to the first body. The technician was dead beyond a shadow of a doubt. Behind the visor of the spacesuit Griffin saw a wizened face, with eyeballs shriveled into tiny, gray balls, and white teeth stark against the tight skin. He lifted one of the arms and it was light as a feather.

  “Dead.”

  “This one too,” said Lieutenant Kroll, over by another body.

  “And here. All dead,” said Faulkner, sounding like he was badly shaken up. “Shit, what happened to them?”

  “Industrial accident my ass,” said Shelton. She rose to her feet and approached the wall opposite the detonators. The way she kept her rifle ready suggested to Griffin that Shelton could handle the weapon with competence. “There’s more of that flakiness on the wall here,” she said.

  “How long on that timer, sir?” asked Kenyon, watching the doorway with suspicion.

  “Five minutes. I’d like to check every one of these bodies before we move out.”

  Kroll had something else in mind. He stepped carefully across the floor and picked up one of the fallen diagnostic tablets, which was still connected by a cable to the control module for detonator four. He peered at the screen and prodded it a few times.

  “I think this is fixable,” he said. Like most engine men, Kroll had a solid background in the hands-on stuff.

  “You can do that?” asked Griffin. He turned over one of the still figures and saw it was dead like all the others.

  “These guys here had isolated the fault already. It’s going to need a replacement part out of stores.” Kroll looked around, to see if the maintenance crews had already brought what he wanted. He made a grunting sound. “Not here. Even if I’m right, it’s a ten- or fifteen-minute job for a team of three.”

  “Too late for us,” said Shelton.

  “Here’s Lieutenant Dominguez,” said Kenyon.

  Dominguez stood on the threshold, holding a rifle with both hands. Her expression was difficult to make out through the visor, but her body language wasn’t positive. “Any sign of that maintenance team?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “They should have been here by now.”

  “I don’t think they’re coming,” said Faulkner nervously. “That means it’s our turn next.”

  “Not if I can help it,” said Jackson, patting her rifle.

  Griffin accepted that the maintenance crew in this section were dead, leaving him to confront the ongoing reality of the situation. “We’re returning to the bridge. We’ll stick together and try to pick up that last maintenance team on the way.”

  “Whatever killed these poor bastards is coming for us,” said Faulkner.

  “Stop that talk or I’ll leave you in here,” Griffin said angrily.

  Faulkner got the message and he didn’t say anything else, though his eyes spoke volumes about fear. The group exited the propulsion section and Jackson closed the blast door behind them.

  Griffin led the way. He was alert, but one part of his mind was still playing with that mental picture of the Hurricane’s interior. It told him the last maintenance team should be only a little way from here. The group entered a corridor where the lights were dim. Ahead, he could see one of the maintenance areas for the spaceship’s two mid-rear Ultor-VI clusters. Across that area would be another passage, then steps leading to the upper portside and from there a more or less straight run to the bridge.

  The lights dimmed further and Griffin felt that same, unusual pressure in his head again. He did his best to ignore it and proceeded into the maintenance room. Ladders went to three hatches in the ceiling and there were other hatches in the floor. Cables and pipes ran up the walls and the humming of the missile cluster launchers was audible. Exits led forward and also to the center of the warship.

  A shape stepped out of the right-hand wall in front of Griffin. It was terrifyingly fast. He caught sight of an arm or something lifting up and coming towards him. Griffin’s reactions took over and he threw himself to one side, turning as he did so.

  Some of his crew scattered. Lieutenant Jackson fired a short burst from her gun before darting towards the center of the room. A second shape emerged from the wall to join the first. In appearance, it was a moving shadow, sort of humanoid in shape but with different proportions. This second creature swung a clawed hand that went clean through Lieutenant Faulkner, who was too slow to avoid it. The attack didn’t cut him open, but his body shrunk with a noise like crumpling paper and he dropped to the ground.

  Griffin recovered and squeezed the trigger on his gun. His bullets punched into the closest alien, which flinched with the impacts. At the same time, he noticed that the counter on his HUD was at zero and he wasn’t sure how long ago it had run down. Lieutenant Kroll fired as well and the group backed towards the exit leading towards the center of the Hurricane.

  “What the hell?” asked Kroll when he saw that his shots weren’t taking out the attackers.

  From the distance came the sound of detonator number four exploding. The blast was immense and the shock of it was easily felt through the floor. An alarm went off and the dull blue-white light in the maintenance room turned deep red. No sooner had the red light appeared than it faded until it was almost non-existent.

  “More behind!” warned Shelton.

  Griffin spun and discovered that another five of the aliens had stepped out of the wall behind him, blocking the exit. They were hard to make out in the gloom and now they appeared exactly like shadows.

  The first two had already cut off the exits leading to the bridge and the propulsion area. The aliens stood, hardly moving and Griffin got the impression that they savored the moment of the kill. He didn’t give up and fired until his magazine hit zero. He had a spare in his leg pocket, but it was clear it was useless trying to kill these things with bullets.

  For once, Griffin couldn’t see a way out of this. No option was available that might offer a chance of escape, however remote. He hated to lose and he didn’t want to die. The thought of both happening at the same time pissed him off so much that he felt himself shaking with fury.

  “Screw you,” said Griffin, in futile defiance. He ejected the empty magazine from his gun and pulled out the spare one, ready to face death head-on.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A few seconds went by, which felt like an age. Griffin sensed the tension holding the aliens was about to snap. Then, he heard an unexpected sound. The noise of a second blast - as deep and violent as the first - rumbled along the corridor and into the room.

  “There goes another detonator,” said Kroll. “If the others go, these bastards won’t be taking our ship anywhere.”

  “What are they waiting for?” asked Shelton.

  Nobody had an answer. A draft of hot air flooded the room, coming from the engine bay. As one, the shadowy aliens surged towards the crew. Griffin saw which one was coming for him. It raised its arms high, the dark claws nearly touching the ceiling. Those claws descended and G
riffin sidestepped and prepared himself for a sprint to the door, aware it was no use.

  The claws missed and the alien fell clumsily on top of Griffin. It felt dense and heavy, yet also malleable. The weight of it almost drove him to the floor, but he managed to break free and push it to the side. It dropped with a thud and thrashed like it was in agony. Limbs flailed and Griffin deflected them with his rifle while he got some distance.

  “Help me!” said Shelton.

  Griffin turned at the sound. The lights came back to full strength and he could see properly again, though he couldn’t believe what was going on in front of him. Each one of the seven aliens writhed on the floor, with their arms and legs lashing out in all directions. Two of them had fallen on top of Lieutenant Shelton and she was trying unsuccessfully to drag herself clear. Griffin came closer and was nearly struck by claws.

  Within seconds, the aliens fell still. A couple of the crew had taken glancing blows, but nobody was on the deck apart from Shelton. Griffin stepped in, took her outstretched hand and hauled her free.

  “Anyone dead?” asked Kenyon, looking dazed.

  “Not me,” said Kroll.

  “I’m here,” said Jackson. “What just happened?”

  “I don’t know, Lieutenant.” Griffin still couldn’t believe it. He checked and discovered that everyone was alive, except for Lieutenant Faulkner.

  “Maybe I should have let him sleep,” said Dominguez miserably.

  “This has happened, Lieutenant. We have to deal with what comes next,” said Griffin. “I’ve got a vacuum warning on my suit computer, so we’ve got a hull breach.”

  The other members of the group all wore full flight suits, so they weren’t in any immediate danger. Griffin had a number of conflicting priorities and he paused for a moment.

  “We should get back to the bridge,” he concluded.

  “What if there are more of these aliens?” asked Shelton. “Something just killed them and it wasn’t us.”

  “There must have been something in the air from that second explosion,” said Griffin with a flash of inspiration.

  “Yes,” said Kroll. He leaned against one of the walls, panting and with the red light making his skin look a peculiar shade of grey. “The first detonator took out the blast door and the second one took out these aliens.”

  “You look sick, Lieutenant,” said Griffin with sudden concern.

  Kroll straightened and pushed himself away from the wall. “I’ll be fine.”

  Griffin didn’t mention it again. He wanted to return to the bridge, but Shelton had a good point. If any more of these aliens were hiding onboard, Griffin would prefer to be here where the first bunch had died in the hope that the same would happen to the new arrivals.

  “What’s the chance of another detonator going off, Lieutenant Kroll?” he asked.

  “Ask me again in another couple of minutes, sir.”

  “Good job there’s a vacuum, huh?” said Shelton. “It’ll put out any fires in no time.”

  “Lucky us, huh?” said Dominguez.

  For the next few minutes, Griffin paced around the maintenance room. The other two detonators didn’t explode and no more of the aliens showed up. Then, he ran out of patience.

  “We’re going back to the bridge right now,” he said.

  Nobody questioned him and the group followed as he led the way. It wasn’t the time to give honors to the dead and Griffin left Lieutenant Faulkner and the maintenance team where they’d fallen. He doubted there’d be anything left to recover from the propulsion section anyway.

  As for the dead aliens, he had no plans to honor them. Someone else could clean them up when the Hurricane got back to Rundine. That’s assuming there was anything left by then. The bodies already seemed to be decaying.

  Every door had sealed automatically in response to the hull breach and Griffin was obliged to stop at each to override the security. Eventually they made it back and took their stations. The bridge door was closed behind them, but it didn’t make anyone feel safe.

  The moment he was seated, Griffin entered his codes to remove the security lockdown Dominguez had put in place before she exited the bridge.

  “Lieutenant Kenyon, send that FTL signal like we discussed on the way here. Include everything that’s happened.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Kroll, what damage have those detonators done to the propulsion?”

  “You’ll know as soon as I do, sir.”

  “What exactly are you planning, sir?” asked Shelton. “Are we waiting for pickup or are we going to resume our journey if the tharniol drive will activate?”

  “I’ll make that decision when I’m ready, Lieutenant.”

  In truth, Griffin wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He felt enormous relief once Kenyon finished sending the FTL signal to base. That would ensure high command had a first-hand report of what had happened on the Hurricane in case something else went wrong and they didn’t make it home.

  “Any ideas what that was all about?” he asked. “Obviously something – an alien species we are unfamiliar with - came onboard. I want to know how it happened and why.”

  “I count two possibilities,” said Dominguez. “They either found us by chance or we did something that allowed them to find us.”

  “Bad luck is a possibility, no matter how big the universe,” Griffin replied. “If we pretend it wasn’t chance, what else do you think it was?”

  “Something we did at Qali-5, sir. Either the Raggers control these new aliens, or they’re at war with them.”

  “This is the first time we’ve seen anything like this, Lieutenant. And if we trust the Fangrin to tell us what they know about the Raggers, they haven’t told us about shadowy aliens that can walk through walls and kill people by touch.”

  “It’s a possibility, though?” said Kenyon.

  “We’re trying to nail down the most likely possibility at the moment, Lieutenant. And I don’t believe the Fangrin have encountered these creatures before.”

  “So how did they get onboard?” asked Kroll, looking up from the engine control panel.

  “They either boarded when we were at Qali-5 and hid out someplace in the Hurricane, or they did it when we were in flight.”

  As soon as he spoke the words, Griffin felt sure this new hostile species had somehow managed to attack the Hurricane when it was at lightspeed. His brain clutched at dangling threads of possibilities.

  “The Fangrin have tech that can predict the destination of a lightspeed transit. Some of us have seen it in action. What if another species figured out how to go one better and can actively chase another spaceship through lightspeed, rather than just predicting the end point of a journey and heading in that direction?”

  “You told us the Raggers were experimenting with teleportation on Qali-5,” said Shelton. “Maybe that’s how those things got here. We were followed by a spaceship into lightspeed and it teleported a few assholes onto the Hurricane.”

  “The sensors aren’t detecting anything in our vicinity, sir,” said Dominguez. “We’re all alone out here.”

  Griffin had another thought, which sent an icy chill through him. “Why stop for one ship when the rest of AF2 are flying towards a potentially far more interesting destination?” he said. “What if several of these hypothetical enemy spaceships followed us, but they kept on chasing the other members of the fleet when we entered local space?”

  “We got lucky here,” said Kenyon. “Something totally unpredictable happened and the alien invaders on the Hurricane died. What’re the chances of the same thing happening on another ship?”

  “As close to zero as doesn’t matter,” said Kroll. “A fleet of ghost ships could arrive a few thousand klicks from Rundine with dead crews and a new species of enemy a short distance behind.”

  “A species of enemy who didn’t know anything about the Unity League and maybe even the Fangrin, until we paid Qali-5 a visit.” Griffin felt like putting his head in his hand
s. “Lieutenant Kenyon, we are only speculating, but please keep sending those FTL comms to base.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I think I have an idea what killed those aliens for us,” said Kroll. “Part hunch, part educated guess.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “The detonators work by superheating tharniol particles and then firing a jet of them into the main drive. When they explode, they release that tharniol – along with some other crap – into the air. I’ve got a list of three possible emissions that might have killed those aliens, but I know which one my money’s on.”

  “The rarest substance we know of,” said Griffin. “What else was it going to be?”

  “Those were my thoughts as well.”

  “What’s the status of the remaining two detonators and the tharniol drive, Lieutenant? I don’t want to hang about here and wait for rescue. We’ve got to get our asses to Rundine as soon as possible.”

  “The stress test modelling is just finishing up,” said Kroll, leaning forward to peer at his display.

  “What is the result?”

  “It recommends we cease all activity across every propulsion system, including sublight.”

  “How safely can we disregard the outcome of the stress test?”

  Kroll still had the energy to laugh. “Captain’s call, sir.”

  “What are we even going to do when we arrive?” asked Shelton.

  “Warn them,” said Griffin, aware that the FTL distress signals would reach base ahead of the Hurricane. “Maybe I just want to be there in case the shit really does hit the fan.”

  “It might not happen,” said Kroll. He didn’t sound much like he believed it.

  Griffin drummed his fingers. “Lieutenant Kroll - if we cut out the crap and ignore the stress model, what will happen when we activate the detonators?”

  “Gut feel?”

  “I’ll settle for that.”

  “The Hurricane’s a tough ship, sir. They built it well. A previous-gen Lansom would be out of action already.”