“So we get up top and we find it,” Brandt said confidently.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Rogers answered, leaving out the attempt to sound like a special operator that time. He climbed to his feet and Brandt realized he must have assumed she meant immediately.
“Hold up,” she told him, “wait a while.”
“For what?” he asked. Brandt thought about it.
“Good point,” she answered, and climbed to her feet. “Let’s move out. Keep on in the direction we’re headed and look for a way back to the surface.” Mumbles of acknowledgement rippled back to her as the others climbed to their feet.
“I’ve got point,” Specter said flatly.
“I’m on you,” Zero responded as he mag-locked his DMR, his precious dedicated marksman rifle, to his back and silently gestured for the heavy support gun still carried by Payne. “Payne takes the mech rig at the tail, injured and precious cargo in the center,” he ordered.
And I thought you didn’t want your own team, Brandt mused to herself with a private smile bordering on the kind of pride shown by a big sister.
They advanced maybe half a mile before Specter froze and threw up the fist of his right hand. The movement rippled back along the strung-out line until Payne at the back turned and watched in that direction.
Brandt took three careful steps forward, gun raised and HUD scanning the darkness ahead intently for any indication of the threat.
“I have movement ahead,” the cyborg said softly, somehow more robotic than normal in the dark, echoing confines of their subterranean situation.
“What ki…” Brandt began, just as her own HUD came alive. Outlines of things she didn’t recognize lit up the cramped horizon as dozens of the things crawled over each other in their bid to advance. The outlines flashed, confusing her suit’s software as it tried to trace each reading to a correlating entry in a database. She had seen this before when they first set foot on the surface of Proxima b and nothing they saw made sense to their human technology. It slowed her suit almost imperceptibly then, just as it did now as the available memory lagged in the vain effort to understand what the things were.
“What the hell is that noise?” Horne yelled from further behind as the dank air filled with a chittering cacophony like pebbles tapping against one another. Before Brandt could answer, her suit registered two partial matches in the database. The legend on the lower left of her screen read:
SCORPION – 66.77% MATCH
COCONUT CRAB – 18% MATCH
“Oh, hell, no,” she cursed as she turned away, “fall back!”
They went. No ill-advised heroics from any of the team jeopardized their retreat but that made no difference. The clattering, chattering noise of hard, chitinous armor knocking together echoed behind them and sounded the advance of the unquestionably dangerous beasts behind them.
“Flares?” Zero shouted over the channel.
“Worth a try,” Brandt yelled back, “dump ‘em.” Just ahead of her, lit sporadically by the moving beams of their suit LEDs like strobe lighting, she watched Zero in what seemed like motion-capture as he pulled a handful of the tiny flares and hit the activation patch on one end until his hands glowed like he held burning embers. He scattered them with both hands over his head as he ran, raining down the lit flares to form a hopeful barrier against the onslaught.
They ran another fifty meters before Specter shot a glance behind them and called out a report.
“It’s stalling them,” he said as he raised their hopes before dashing them in the same breath. “Cancel that, the ones behind have pushed over and through. Keep running.” It was a good idea, Brandt thought, anything existing in the pitch-black underground would surely be concerned by the hot, bright light of flares but the sheer weight of the armored biomass behind them proved to be too much. They ran through the wider cavern they had stopped in before, where McMarrow’ body was so tenuously covered by piled rocks. As the tunnel widened to become the enclosed cave the speed of the advance slowed as more from behind that first wave flooded outwards and caused a constriction as they tried to force their swarming way back through to narrower exit leading back to the surface. A glance behind her told Brandt that the scorpion crab things, each one the mass of a medium sized breed of dog, filled the near circular tunnel behind her. She made a call and decided to degrade the enemy’s number.
“Payne, Specter, Zero – suppressing fire!” She turned and dropped to one knee to bring the submachine gun into her right shoulder. Beside her, Specter turned and whipped both of the large pistols from his thighs and opened up indiscriminately on their pursuers just as she fully depressed her trigger without aiming. Their bullets, charged by the ethereal blue glow of the singularity power in their weapons, drilled a firework display of damage on the packed bodies of the creatures. The advance slowed as the living behind had to force their way through the suddenly dead, but that didn’t stop the assault. Only when the huge bolts of orange energy rained laterally into them and blew great holes through to leave scorched and burning wreckage of dismembered bodies did the tide turn. When Zero added the insanely rapid-firing squad support gun with its heavier 12mm ammunition, the four of them turned the tide and gained dominance over the wave of biological mass. The advance slowed, then stopped. Brandt wasted no time.
“Go!” She ordered, and all four of them turned to sprint for the exit where the dull smear of a grey and red dawn beckoned them. The rhythmic thud and robotic whine of the mech pounding ahead of them served like a heartbeat in her head as she almost held her breath to make it outside. The others were there, waiting, waving them on and readying weapons until she bawled at them to get clear and climb to higher ground. They emerged into the wan light of the dawn, turned in a switchback and began to climb away from the tunnel entrance, where they waited with ready weapons until the flood of dog-sized scorpion crabs burst out into the open.
Instead of turning and climbing to get to them, they spread out over the rocks to fan out and search for food, as though they were acting on instinct alone and had no cognitive function to hold a grudge for the sheer number of them the humans had killed.
No sooner had the scorpions emerged into the open than the flying creatures returned to swoop down and pick off the smaller ones. The team stared for a while, watching alien nature take its course and reminding them that not everything, despite the in-built feeling of the human race as a whole, was about them.
“Commander?” Rogers asked in a shaky voice from behind. She turned to regard him, expecting an attempt at humor when she was far from in the mood. “I’ve got a read on the emergency ejection kit,” he told her as he looked at the comm device on his arm. “It’s down, and is about twenty-three clicks…” he moved round on the spot, spinning like the second hand of an analogue clock until he found the right bearing, “that way.”
Brandt turned back to watch the last of the scorpion crabs emerging into the rocky plain as the pterosaurs, or whatever they were, flew off with their kills. She saw a flash of navy blue among the dark brown of their shells, and for a second, she thought she saw McMarrow’ severed arm held aloft in a giant claw. She shuddered and turned back to Rogers’ bearing.
“Let’s move,” she said.
Chapter Ten – Bōken sha Ichi
“You cannot be considering this?” Eze asked Torres as he paced up and down in her quarters. “You’d truly abandon our post and disobey orders? Dassiova’s orders?” Torres stopped, hands balled into fists and a look of impotent rage on his face before he breathed out and deflated.
“No,” he admitted, “that would be the end of my career, despite the UNID intervening or my mother getting involved. Not that she would,” he added bitterly. Eze stood and took hold of both of his arms, running her hands down them until their fingers interlock and their eyes met.
“You need to stay strong,” she told him, “do your job and have some trust. Don’t you think Hayes is capable? Or Halstead?” He broke away from her and resumed his pacing.
/>
“No, both of them are better captains than I am,” he complained petulantly, “but they aren’t looking for their own people, are they?”
“No, not unless you count their people as other members of this fleet. As other members of their species. Out here there is no crew rivalry or prejudice over the territory you were born in; out here it is as simple as us and them. And they are out there, which is why we are here to keep watch for them and protect the fleet.” He stopped, screwed up his features and made a noise of frustrated anger, then rubbed his face with both hands. “As your troop commander, Captain, I’m giving you my best counsel. Take it or leave it.”
“I’m sorry,” Torres said as he stopped pacing again, “you’re right. Let’s get back to the bridge.” Neither of them felt much like conducting their usual routine when they managed to steal more than five minutes alone with each other, but Eze stood and pressed the side of her head into his broad chest with her arms around his waist until he relented and held on to her tightly. They stayed like that for a while, locked in an embrace of comfort on consolation as both ran through their private thoughts. Without speaking, they broke away and Torres made for the doorway to slip out into the corridor and make his way to the mess hall for the sandwich that had been his excuse for leaving the bridge. Eze waited a moment, then left to head directly to the bridge where she sat working out the revised troop rotations on both the gun teams and the standby deployment crew, the revision necessary because of the loss of key personnel from their numbers. She was still doing that, tapping away at the datapad rested on her crossed knee to provide a makeshift workstation, when Torres walked back in. Sarvanto, sitting beside her, said nothing but stood from the command chair and straightened his uniform.
“Nothing to report, Captain,” he said quietly as he stepped aside and allowed Torres to take his place again.
“Nice sandwich?” Eze asked innocently as she worked beside him.
“Fine, thank you,” he replied, stifling a burp and wincing at the discomfort of indigestion as he had swallowed the sandwich necessary for his cover story in only three bites.
Three rotations, or watches, of four hours passed by with no sign on the long-range sensors and no communications traffic being sent or received. Torres was about to end the rotation and get some sleep when the tactical officer, the same young ensign who grated on his nerves almost constantly, made a hesitant noise.
“Er, Sir?” the officer squeaked.
“What is it, tactical?” Torres answered, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his words.
“I’m er, I’m picking something up on the sensors…”
“Well, do I have to guess?” Torres asked after no more information was offered.
“No, Sir, it’s just… it’s just that I haven’t seen this before, not in real life, only on the replays of the first time the Va’alen attacked the fleet.” Torres sat up, his attention suddenly electrified after so many hours spent doing nothing. He stalked to the tactical station in a few fast strides and pushed his way in beside the ensign who seemed to shrink away from his captain. Torres peered at the sensor data, recorded at the very edge of their range, and froze with wide eyes.
“All stop, shields to maximum,” he barked confidently, “sound battle stations. Helm, bring us about to bearing one-oh-eight and proceed at two-thirds power. Comm, lock everything down; no calls in or out in case they are detected. Shut down our sub-space receiver array.” He turned to face a rightfully concerned Eze and addressed her by her brevet rank awarded in Brandt’s absence. “Lieutenant Commander, ready the guns.”
Sarvanto, in his polite and unobtrusive manner, pushed his way in to look at the console. “My God…” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Torres said back, “we might need His help too.” He walked back to his chair and sat heavily, a frown of concentration and resolve on his face, which suddenly seemed less young than it had a moment before. He hit the ship-wide comm channel and spoke clearly and confidently.
“Crew of the Ichi, this is Captain Torres. We have detected what appears to be a massive concentration of enemy ships moving at speed and under Shroud. Communication blackout is in effect and all crew are to remain at battle stations until I stand you down.” He killed that channel and called out to the helmsman.
“Time to intercept?”
“Forty minutes, give or take, Sir,” came the response.
“Passive sensors only,” he ordered, “I don’t want a combined reading that size knowing we’re in the same sector if we can help it.” Beside him Eze brought up the sensor readings on her datapad and let out a gasp.
“I know,” Torres said, “each reading the last time was at least two if not four ships. Four readings merged together to make one about a tenth of the size of that, so we’re looking at somewhere between eighty and a hundred and eighty Va’alen fighters?”
“That could destroy the entire fleet…” Eze said, trailing off as the obvious did not require stating right then.
~
Despite their obvious superiority in weaponry and shields the first time they had met, the Va’alen were still underequipped when it came to the more delicate art of covert movement and subterfuge. Torres imagined their sleek ship, not for the first time, to be like the underwater submarines of the old wars back on Earth as they slipped silently through the darkness stalking the fleet of surface ships above. One wrong move, one noise or a push of an engine too far and they risked detection and annihilation. Rising to the metaphorical surface to send a warning back to the rest of the fleet would, from what they had learned recently to their detriment, almost certainly spell discovery.
They slowed as they approached the single sensor reading which they took to be a mass of enemy ships. Torres’ theory, backed up by every scientist and engineer he spoke to about it, was that the Va’alen pushed their ship’s engines too hard, which made their energy signatures detectable. For that precise reason they never moved at anything more than sixty-six percent of maximum when shrouded, and as they approached, they reduced velocity to a little over half. Their ship was faster than the enemy fighters, but even when mixing it up with just a few of the pairs, they were outgunned by the quick and irregular maneuvers of their newest foe. While their guns and shields had been upgraded far beyond any firepower conceivably required in their own system, the sheer number of shrouded Va’alen fighters made discovery within the range of their weapons a death sentence.
“Match course and hold us steady at their parallel,” Torres said softly to the lieutenant at the helm of the Ichi. That lieutenant, nervous to say the least to be promoted to the ship’s primary pilot since Rogers went missing with the Tanto, acknowledged the captain and made fine adjustments to their course. They sailed alongside the mass of enemy ships which, even at that distance, made the stars visible behind them ripple in distortion.
“Holding steady at forty-thousand kilometers distance,” he said.
“Good,” Torres answered, placing a reassuring hand on the young man’s shoulder to calm the tension that pulsated off him in waves. “Comm, are we picking up anything from them?”
“Bits and pieces, Sir,” the comm officer responded as she worked her console, “nothing I can make out clearly and none of it voice. It’s like there are… data links between the ships or something. I’m guessing, Sir, obviously, but it’s like they’re all connected constantly, somehow.”
“Keep on it,” Torres told her, “Record anything you can for analysis.” He turned away to his favorite ensign as she acknowledged her instructions. “Tactical, tell me what you know,” he said with a hint of sarcasm.
“W… well, Sir…” the ensign stammered, “given the previous data recorded from Va’alen engagements, and going by the size of the distortion in space and the power resonation, I’ve developed a simple algorithm and calculated that the number of enemy ships inside the Shroud field, based on the estimate of how much space each ship occupied when we saw them before, that there are between one-hundr
ed-fifty-six and one-hundred-seventy-one ships. I doubt the upper number because it’s an odd number.”
Torres stared at him, dumfounded by the sudden location of his wits, and remembered not to keep his mouth open. The ensign mistook his look of shock for misunderstanding.
“You see, Sir,” he said, “they’ve always operated in pairs from every engagement we’ve seen, and if one loses the other half, they go berserk and turn kinda kamikaze, so it stands to reas…”
“Thank you, Ensign,” Torres interrupted, “I’m capable of figuring that out all by myself.” The young man, a boy really, turned crimson and seemed suddenly out of breath. Torres acted quickly before he had an aneurysm. “Good work. Stay on them and alert me if anything changes. Mister Sarvanto?” He asked as he turned away before the kid shed a tear in gratitude for the unexpected compliment.
“Sir?” the tall, gangly Finn answered.
“Would you man the weapons station, please?”
“My pleasure, Captain,” Sarvanto answered as his usually straight face cracked into an evil smile more unexpected than Torres complimenting the ensign on tactical. The weapons station, a new addition during their minor refit, controlled the singularity warheads, what they still called their ‘nukes’, despite that archaic power being abandoned long before anyone on the bridge was born. He guessed it stirred something in their species memory and created a sensation of sheer destructiveness. The weapons pods, still only four of them but packing something much heavier than the charged slugs they used to fire, were ineffective over that kind of range and against so many targets. They were reserved for close encounters, which were supposed to be avoided by a stealth reconnaissance ship.
“Sir,” the ensign on tactical piped up with concern in his voice.
Conflict: The Expansion Series Book 3 Page 11
