21.
"BROOK, I NEED YOU, NOW!" Brook woke with a start, hand instinctively grabbing for the crowbar. Sounds like Si is trying to get into the sleeping cabin again. She swung her legs out of the cot, iris display telling her she'd been asleep for fifty four minutes after a long shift. What is going on? She stepped towards the door which remained resolutely shut. No sign of that berk trying to break in again.
"BROOK, I NEED YOU, NOW!" Brook woke with a start, hand instinctively grabbing for the crowbar. Sounds like Si is trying to get into the sleeping cabin again. She swung her legs out of the cot, iris display telling her she'd been asleep for fifty four minutes after a long shift. What is going on? She stepped towards the door which remained resolutely shut. No sign of that berk trying to break in again.
"BROOK,
SHIT, SOMETHING ISN'T RIGHT. FUCK" but his voice wasn't coming from the
other side of the door. It was from her communications augment. The realisation
made Brook stumble, still half asleep.
"Si?"
she tentatively spoke out loud.
"Thank
fuck" Si replied, he sounded freaked out. "The main bay, my drones
are stuck. The AI won't talk to me. Fuck. The other ship's nearly on us.
Something is wrong"
"Si,
slow down" Brook was struggling to catch up. "What is going on?"
"There
is something wrong with the ship AI. It won't release my drones. Engineering AI
wouldn't respond. So I asked Phelps to have a look" a nervous pause
"I can't get through to her now"
"When
did you send her? Why didn't you contact me?" Brook was beginning to
focus.
"About
half hour ago. You were off-duty. Didn't want to piss you off any worse by
waking you"
Brook was out
of her cabin and running, gravity provided by the ship still breaking in order
to enter Europa orbit after the drop ship deployment. She tried to raise Phelp
on the communications augment, but was only greeted by static.
"Hurry"
urged Si.
"When
did you lose Phelp?" Brook sub-vocalised, her actual voice would have been
interrupted by the exertion of her current sprint.
"'Bout
three minutes after she entered the main-bay. She said that she'd got to the
drone control mechanism, then broke coms"
"Ok, I'm
nearly there"
"Brook,
listen, we got to get the drones out"
"I think
finding out what happened to Phelp is slightly
more important than you playing space fighters with the other ship" Brook
replied briskly.
"Shit,
Brook, that's the point. I don't think they're playing"
"What
are you talking about?" Brook had reached the drone control room, and was
hastily pulling on a vac-suit.
"They
released two drop ships seven minutes ago. Just after that, they released
drones which are coming straight at us. Hard"
"So?
Just part of your stupid games, isn't it?"
"They’re
hitting us with some hard-core electronic warfare. I can barely keep up with it.
This is for real, Brook, trust me”
Brook
wouldn't trust Si as far as she could throw him in 5g, but the admission that
he was struggling must have hurt him to make, especially making it to Brook. She
stepped into the airlock, gripping her crowbar tightly.
The main bay
was dark, not even the emergency lighting was on. Brook flicked on her suit
lighting, but that only gained her a few metres vision. A lighting command to
AI went unanswered. An instruction for a spotlight engineering drone was
similarly ignored. What the heck is going
on? Brook worried Something to do
with Gumelar? She hadn't seen the Sergeant for a while.
Brook moved
cautiously towards the side of the bay containing the drones, suit lights
casting strange shadows on the hull. The weight of granddad's crowbar felt good
in her hands.
"You
need to hurry Brook" Si's voice made her jump, but she managed to not
scream.
Keep it together girl she told herself,
before replying to Si. "Why? What's going on?"
"Couple
of minutes till they get here. They just launched long range ordinance, that'll
hit in 30 seconds unless I can divert it" his words came fast, the picture
of him in her feed looked flustered.
"WHAT?!"
Brook stopped dead, the seriousness of the situation starting to become
apparent. "Why isn't the ship AI on alert? Shouldn't we be headed to crash
vats?"
"Ship AI
won't acknowledge the threat. I'm getting this from my own bypasses. Hurry
up"
Brook had
restarted her journey to the drones, now at a jog, but her brain was still
turning things over.
"So it
was you?"
"What
was?"
"That
went through the wall behind the b4 equipment store to get to the
AI?"
"No idea
what you're talking about. You at the drones yet?"
"Then
how you bypass the AI?"
"The
fuck Brook? I get past the AI cos I'm fucking awesome. You know that. What the
fuck you on about equipment room walls for? Now get to my drones. FUCK!"
"WHAT?!"
she stopped again.
"I can't
intercept it all without my ladies out there. HOLD ON TO SOMETHING"
Brook was
just about to ask another question when everything turned to chaos. There was
no sound in the main-bay, but the explosions were spectacular enough purely in
the visual spectrum. For an instant she got to appreciate them, before her body
was hurled across the bay, and smashed against the hull side. Suit lights extinguished,
the only light remaining was from the small plasma fires licking at the walls
of the bay, and from the stars visible outside through the holes ripped in
superstructure of the unresponsive intervention ship.
Si had no
visual feed in the main-bay, just what he'd managed to hack into Brook's
augments; communication, location, vital life signs.
All went
blank.
****
"WHAT IN THE TWATTNG FUCKING FUCK WAS THAT?" Sully was jerked violently against his restraints by the force of the explosions.
****
"WHAT IN THE TWATTNG FUCKING FUCK WAS THAT?" Sully was jerked violently against his restraints by the force of the explosions.
"We're
taking fire. Ship AI unresponsive." The calmness of Fuller under pressure
was a stark contrast to Sully's demeanour.
"SHIT.
THE OTHER SHIP? FUCK"
"Most
likely"
"What
the fuck do we do?"
"YOU DO
THE FUCK AS I TELL YOU, WEASEL FACE" Sergeant Gumelar's voice boomed
across their feeds "YOU SIT TIGHT. PREPARE FOR LAUNCH"
"Launch?
What?" said Sully.
Evacuation beamed Fuller direct to Sully. It was
impossible to convey emotion in a single word of text, but Sully suspected that
even the big marine was now starting to worry.
"Sarge,
can't we help on the ship?" Fuller said over the link, the front of
calmness at least maintained, if not the actual feeling.
"Under
control marine. Launch in five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One"
Sully braced
himself, the drop was never a pleasant experience, as despite the high g
absorbing gel inside the tac-suit, his stomach always felt like it was trying
to make its escape via his ears.
Nothing
happened.
"Negative
on the launch Sarge" Fuller was suffering the same inaction as
Sully.
"DOLPHIN
RIDING TWAT WEASELS. STAY WHERE YOU ARE" Sergeant Gumelar's link blinked
off.
"Shit
shit shit shit shit shit" Sully was breathing hard, trying to get a
grip.
"Si?"
Fuller was at least thinking a little straighter, pinging a coms request at the
drone controller.
"Fuller?
Shit man, you guys ok?" the panic in his tone was something Sully had
never heard before.
"Yeah.
We got no outside or AI feeds though, what's happening?"
"Everything's
turning to shit, that's what" Si grumbled
"Need a
few more specifics"
"Ok,
shit, well, we're under attack"
"We
guessed that bit, what else?" asked Fuller.
"I can't
get my drones out, something wrong with the release mechanism. The AI won't let
go"
"Are
engineering on it?"
"Yes,
no, shit, I don't know. I lost Brook"
"Brook?!"
Sully and Fuller said at once.
"She was
down in the main bay when that first volley hit. I keep trying to get through
to her but I can't. Shit guys. This is fucked up"
"Tell me
about it" Mason added, her image popping up next to Si's in the marines'
iris displays.
"Mason,
we're under attack up here" Sully explained to try and quickly head off
any more gloating from her.
"Join
the club boys"
"Why?
What's happening down there? We don't have any visual on you" Fuller
questioned, his image frowning in the feed.
"The
ship that is currently fucking you guys up there threw a couple of drops ships
down here. They didn't contain puppies and bunnies"
"So what
did they contain?" Sully was wary as he asked this
"Titans,
two of the fuckers"
"What?!
Who tenders Titans for a sodding probe recovery?" Fuller's calm outer
shell was starting to crack.
The Titan was
one of the most expensive war machines created in the modern world. At over
seven metres tall and five tonnes in weight, they loomed imposingly over the
battlefield. They were humanoid in shape, complete with ominous red lights
where the eyes would be. But their psychological impact was nothing compared to
the physical punch they packed. Lower arms were represented by large
auto-cannons, the left usually some kind of pulse weapon, the right spitting
out explosive shells. Missile silos were built into the shoulders and chest,
with multi-directional beam weapons on top of the shoulders. Heavy armour and a
top of the line electronic warfare suite made them hard to damage.
Especially by
knife wielding plastoids.
"OK FUCK
WEASELS, LISTEN UP" The Sergeant was back, and had been listening in.
"Marine Fuller, pass your Thumper bio-link to Sulamah, then go find your
girlfriend and release the drones. Mason, wait for support, do NOT engage the
Titans. Yet. Si, you keep those drones off us. Play dirty, think like the
little snivelling weasel that you are"
"What do
I do?" Asked Sully.
"Sit
tight Sulemah, you'll be moon-side as soon as I've wrung Billington's flabby
fucking neck"
"And the
pirates?" Mason spoke up.
"You not
dealt with them yet?" Sully was curious to see how his competition was
doing, even despite the seriousness of the wider situation.
"They've
proved to be more, er, resolute than
I anticipated"
"Forget
them for now" Gumelar interrupted "Stay mobile"
"Will
do" Mason ended the link, followed by Gumelar and Si.
"Stay
safe done there" said Fuller, with only he and Sully left on the link.
"Ostrich
versus Titan. Can't wait" Sully said with gallows humour, but there was a
small part of him keen to actually be doing something.
****
Gumelar would have angrily stomped over to Billington's small office come cabin, but had to settle for grumpy bounces as gravity was slackening off. Their ship was entering orbit, surrounded by a haze of wreckage from the first drone salvo. She was sure more salvoes were coming, Si's frantic whimpering from the crash vats told her that much.
Gumelar would have angrily stomped over to Billington's small office come cabin, but had to settle for grumpy bounces as gravity was slackening off. Their ship was entering orbit, surrounded by a haze of wreckage from the first drone salvo. She was sure more salvoes were coming, Si's frantic whimpering from the crash vats told her that much.
She had no
idea why they were under attack, but to her that didn't really matter right
now. This was a combat situation, and combat required a very steady presence in
the here and now. Too much daydreaming about the whys and wherefores was liable
to get you dead. Decades of practise had taught her this, and now was no
different.
"BILLINGTON"
she pounded on his cabin's door. The ship liaison had been unresponsive to her
contact requests ever since the mysterious other ship attacked them.
"BILLINGTON, YOU IN THERE?" more pounding.
The ship
rumbled, lights flickering. Not as violently as before, but it had been hit
again. Why was the AI just sat there
taking it? Gumelar silently rebuked herself for thinking about the wider
problem. For now this cabin door was her world. This soon to be ex-cabin
door.
Gumelar had
come prepared. She always made sure that her machine shop was fully prepared
for all eventualities, for bent and broken drones especially. You wouldn't
believe the amount of different ways that the dumb fuck trainee marines found
to damage her drones. There was rarely training run that didn't result in the
following days spent repairing. She didn't trust the engineering drones to do
the work for her. The fact that she couldn't stand Brook was one aspect, but
the more important fact was that she was just plain better than them. The
drones were her domain, her one joy.
Getting the
dents and scrapes out of large heavy drones took some large heavy equipment.
Including the rather gruesome item she'd lugged over to Billington's cabin.
Designed to manipulate armour back into shape, it looked like a sleek black
crocodile, jaws capable of exerting metal crushing force. She worked the jaws
around the electronic lock assembly of the door, turned the machine on and
watched with grim satisfaction as it ripped the device clean of the door. This
exposed the locking rod that kept the door sealed against the bulkhead, and was
the next meal for her device. With that crushed she dropped the tool, which
fell gently in the low g, and hauled the sliding door open.
Billington
hanged, crying. Hanged in the tie-turned-into-a-makeshift-noose sense, and also
in the doesn't-work-in-next-to-no-gravity-sense as well. Gumelar sneered,
produce a stubby knife from the folds of her uniform and unceremoniously cut
him down. Before grabbing him by the throat in a much more effective means of
strangling.
"What.
The fuck. Is going on?" she leant in close, almost smelling his fear.
"Central
AI. It says we do not exist. I think I messed up"
"What do
you mean, don't exist?" even in full g Gumelar was strong enough to hold a
man up by his throat, in low g it was too easy.
"We have
been erased from Lanark Horishmo fleet records. It is my fault I think"
"That
erasure what's making the AI fuck up?"
"I would
suspect so"
A part of
Gumelar was curious as to what this incompetent shit weasel had done to piss
off LH quite so badly, but that wasn't going to be of use at the present
time.
"What is
the AI telling you right now?" she demanded.
"That it
is in an error state. Basic functions only"
"Basic
functions like life support?"
"Yes"
"But not
combat manoeuvring?"
"No,
engines were shut down"
"Can we
release the drop ships?"
"Our
lifeboats can still be used for an emergency evacuation"
"And the
drop ships?" Gumelar didn't care about the lifeboats. Little more than a
crash-vat dropped out of the air lock, they were a last resort for a ship
abandonment.
"Only
the lifeboats may be released with AI in an error state. All other Lanark
Horishmo equipment must remain on board for subsequent salvage" Billington
sounded like he was reading out of a corporate handbook. In fact, he probably
was, eyes flicking about.
Gumelar
slapped him.
"Release
the drop ships" she said.
"But..."
Another slap.
Wanton violence always helped her think.
"Tell
the AI that the lifeboat release shoot is blocked. We are loading survivors
onto the remaining drop ships as a result"
"Yes"
Billington’s eyes flicked up as he contacted the ship AI.
"And...?"
"AI
authorises drop ship deployment"
"Excellent"
she slapped him again, but that was just for her satisfaction. Letting
Billington go, the man cowering into a floating foetal position in the now zero
g, she pushed off his desk and back out into the corridor.
"Sulemah,
you're green to go" she instructed Sully over a new coms link.
"Yes
maam" Sully quickly replied.
"Good hunting" Gulemar said gruffly.
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