Mission destructor the t.., p.4
Mission: Destructor (The Transcended Book 7), page 4
She pulled the controls towards her as gently as she could manage. The effects were instant and she felt her body being pulled into the harness. She increased the rate of deceleration until the thick restraining straps dug into her shoulders and chest.
“This going to take a long time, folks. You’d better get used to it.”
“It’s twenty years since I did any training for this,” said Hudson. “They don’t even bother putting the new recruits through it these days.”
“Consider this a catch-up session, Lieutenant.”
The following few minutes were unpleasant for everyone except Joe Nation, who stood impassively, as though the forces exerted upon his body were of no concern whatsoever. Which they weren’t, though he wasn’t about to brag about it.
Gradually, the Damocles slowed until Keller was content that she’d reduced their speed to a more manageable level. The Axtril was still a long way distant and she brought the spaceship coasting in, until it was time to initiate the final period of deceleration.
The low-res feed from the sensors was good enough to see the extensive damage the entropy factory had suffered at the hands of the Necro aliens and also Keller herself when she was in charge of the Kolanstron. From the approach angle, the ragged missing corner of the Axtril was clearly visible, along with the wide hole formed by the activation of the original master cannon. Somehow the entire structure seemed battered and bruised, far more than Keller remembered it, with a multitude of darker patches across the alloy surface giving it a charred appearance.
She glanced around to see how her crew were coping. They didn’t look overjoyed, but this wasn’t any worse than a dozen other life-threatening situations they’d been in over the last few months.
“Here’s a zoom of the main bay entrance,” said Hudson. “Though I guess you could pick one of five or six different ways to reach the same place.”
“The standard entrance will be fine, Lieutenant.”
Keller made an adjustment to their heading, taking extra care to make the shift a gentle one. With the spaceship aimed directly for the bay, she resumed the process of bringing the craft closer to its final docking speed. All the while, the two Oblivions maintained a constant distance, matching their speed with that of the Damocles.
“I’ll bet Sar-Lon is getting bored,” grunted Venters through the strain on his body.
Slowly but surely, the speed of the Damocles reduced below a hundred kilometres per second. The Axtril grew larger and larger on the viewscreen, until it obscured many of the background stars. Keller decelerated further, to the point where the spaceship’s approach seemed like no more than a crawl. She knew it was an illusion and remained fully aware that a single mistake at any stage would result in multiple deaths.
They can’t pin a medal on a microscopically thin layer of biological sludge, she thought, trying to suppress an inappropriate giggle.
“The Captain is laughing,” observed Holverson. “Now I’m really worried.”
“The slowdown has gone to her brain.”
“All this talk is distracting me. I can feel my levels of concentration slipping.”
The crew took the hint and fell silent. The opening for the bay was directly ahead, visible as a square opening leading into darkness. The ship’s sensors did their best to enhance the image, but the view wasn’t as sharp as Keller would have preferred.
“Here we go.”
She began the final period of deceleration, following the timings suggested by her implant. Her body was beginning to feel the accumulated effects of the ongoing strain. Her shoulders were bruised, and everywhere else felt dog-tired, as if she’d been doing hard exercise for many relentless hours.
A few subtle movements on the control bars got the Damocles into the tunnel leading to the central bay. For some reason, the entrance seemed far narrower than the last time. Even though the clearance was a few thousand metres on every side, it felt to Keller as if she was close to scraping the walls. Luckily, the Damocles was now travelling at such a reduced speed that a minor collision was unlikely to be fatal to its passengers.
“There’s the bay. Looks pretty busy.”
Keller was too drained to study the details extensively. She saw stacks of engine modules and a row of gauss turrets, alongside the plating which had been teleport lifted from the Atican shipyard.
“The Axtril mainframe has sent through the docking position,” said Meade.
Keller had the coordinates. In order to set down where the mainframe wanted, it would have involved another few minutes of careful fine-tuning, as well as orienting the Damocles in a completely new direction. Instead, she chose the nearest place that was large enough for the spaceship to land and brought it gently towards the ground. The expected thumping vibration through the hull didn’t come and Keller belatedly remembered the gravity buffer system used in place of landing legs. At least that was still working and the landing was as soft as any she could remember.
With a loud sigh, Keller slumped in her seat. A moment later, the crew broke into spontaneous applause.
JN> Good job.
BK> Never again.
The last thing Keller saw before the teleport node formed on the spaceship’s bridge, was the sight of the Trivanor and the Aktron-K as they came in to land a few kilometres to either side of the Damocles.
Chapter Five
The crew of the Damocles, along with the technicians unfortunate enough to be onboard when the life support modules failed, were taken to one of the Axtril’s newly-fitted medical bays.
Keller looked around from her seated position on a meagrely-padded bed, while one of the medics monitored her condition by checking the readouts on a troop-issue med-box. The interior walls of the bay were stark white, as though someone had decided that injured people had an automatic preference for the colour. Space Corps screens were fastened to the walls and a couple of tall cabinets against one wall held a variety of supplies. The other members of her crew waited patiently to be treated, whilst the technicians were in an adjacent room. All things considered, the facilities on the Axtril were somewhat rudimental.
“They didn’t send you any of the decent kit yet, huh?”
“Sorry, Captain,” said the medic, a time-served corporal by the name of Gerry Ellison. “They only opened this bay a few days ago and we’re still waiting on them teleporting up a Class 1 fixer-bot. They’ve got another bay on level XC2209-L which is a lot better equipped than this one.”
“We’re a low priority, then?” Keller smiled to show she wasn’t being serious.
“I’ll have you moved there if it’s necessary, ma’am.”
A sharp jab informed Keller that the med-box had determined, in its infinite programmed wisdom, that she needed a booster shot of something.
Battlefield adrenaline. Nature’s answer to everything from a broken fingernail to a ten gigaton nuclear detonation in your backpack.
JN> Feeling any better?
BK> I will do once this battlefield adrenaline kicks in. For the moment I feel like crap.
JN> The Axtril is on its way already. I’ve spoken directly to Admiral McGee and she’s not happy at the extra time it took us to land. On top of that, we’ll have to break out of lightspeed in order to take the Eidolon out of the bay.
BK> Yeah well, there’s not much we can do about it.
JN> Everyone knows that. It doesn’t stop them getting jumpy. Is your crew aware they aren’t invited to the first stage of the mission?
BK> I’ve let them know – they were genuinely disappointed by their exclusion.
JN> It’ll give them plenty of time to get to know the Damocles a little better.
BK> And to keep an eye on the construction.
JN> I bet Holverson won’t stop pestering the technicians.
BK> It’s good to have an officer who’s interested in the hands-on stuff.
A few seconds after the neural conversation ended, Keller felt the familiar thump of the battlefield adrenaline as it washed the feeling tiredness from her body, disguising it beneath a thousand subtle layers of deception.
“Do these med-boxes carry anything other than Trygion-893D?” she asked.
Ellison grinned. “They can carry all sorts of stuff, ma’am, but anything else would be a waste of injector space.”
“Why mess with a good thing?”
“That’s exactly what I tell every patient who asks, ma’am.”
Keller slid off the edge of the bed, reminding herself that the boundless energy which gripped her was nothing more than an illusion. She couldn’t deny the feeling was preferable to the exhaustion resulting from landing the Damocles without functioning life support modules, and she definitely didn’t want to spend days recuperating in a stark, soulless room like this medical bay.
Corporal Ellison moved from patient to patient with the efficiency of a man who’d seen more than his fair share of battlefield injuries. He cracked grim jokes with Venters and sympathised with Lieutenant Hudson when he was informed about the minor stroke he’d suffered, brought on by the strain of deceleration. The wonders of modern medicine would have Hudson right as rain within a few days, but Ellison planned to move him to the primary facility on level XC2209-L, just to be on the safe side.
“Well damn that sucks,” said Hudson.
“If they give you the all-clear, I’ll make sure you’re back on the Damocles as soon as it’s finished.”
“Don’t say that,” said Lieutenant Beck with an exaggerated wink. “He might prefer an opportunity to put his feet up while we do the dirty work.”
“You won’t keep me away,” Hudson assured her.
“I’m sure we won’t.”
Once Keller was content that none of her crew had life-threatening conditions, she bade them farewell.
“The Eidolon is waiting,” she said.
The crew looked suddenly uncomfortable, as if they feared Keller believed they were getting a free ride through what was likely to be the toughest part of the coming mission.
“Good luck, Captain,” said Venters. “Show those Ghasts how a real pilot flies.”
“I’m sure they’ll be a real asset.”
“Me too.”
“Good luck,” said Meade.
Keller hurried from the medical bay, with Nation two paces behind. The teleport tech wasn’t accurate enough to pick individuals from a crowd, so they had to be a short distance away.
“The Eidolon is shielded, right?” said Nation, as they waited in the corridor for the teleport control team to locate them and create a new node.
“So they say. It’s proof against the Axtril’s teleporters, but who knows how well it’ll work against any newer tech the Creator might have been working on since factory #12 came off the production line.”
The teleport team were efficient. The new node appeared and it carried the two of them away to a new location several hundred kilometres from the medical bay.
They arrived in an alcove which opened out into an expansive room filled with benches, tables and lockers. The place was strewn with diagnostic tablets, spacesuits, food trays and cups, while a diagnostic robot and a compact floating number cruncher hovered in one corner. A row of mid-range, freestanding replicators lined one wall, with crowds of technicians clustered around, some of them talking business, others seeking refreshments.
“One of the mess rooms for the techs,” said Nation, having interfaced with the Space Corps computer system installed on the Axtril and checked the local map data. He lifted an arm and pointed to an exit passage forty metres away. “Through there is a military storage room which has direct access to the central bay.”
They headed for the passage. The mess room was cold and filled with a thousand mingled smells of both humanity and technology. Keller breathed it in, her senses heightened by the battlefield adrenaline. It made her feel giddy and ecstatic at the same time and she reached for Nation’s hand, giving it a squeeze.
The storage room was guarded by two soldiers wearing full suits and carrying gauss rifles. They looked alert, as if their commanding officer had drummed into them that this wasn’t a place to relax.
Someone had evidently communicated the expected arrival of Nation and Keller. The two soldiers saluted.
“R1T Luther Greene!” said the first. “Ma’am, sir, you are cleared to access these stores.”
The soldier made no effort to raise his visor and Nation was sure the soldiers had been ordered to keep them lowered at all times. An override panel had been installed adjacent to the original and the soldier pushed one of the buttons. The door opened.
Keller entered, but Nation paused on the threshold. “How busy are the Necros?” he asked the soldiers.
“Busy on and off, sir. They hit and run and then lay low.”
“Any attacks on the centre?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
The Axtril was big enough that the rumours and truth might take time to circulate, so Nation wasn’t surprised that the soldier didn’t have an answer. He thanked the man and followed Keller into the room.
The store room was much better organized than the mess room. Reinforced lockers lined three of the walls, each clearly labelled with their contents. Military spacesuits dangled from half-full racks next to the fourth wall and a metal box nearby contained a hundred or more visors, along with an audit sensor to make sure every one was accounted for.
Keller had already located a spacesuit and was halfway dressed, with a visor on the bench next to her.
“Are we taking guns?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
Nation didn’t require a suit in order to function in vacuum conditions, but the extra protection was always welcome. He found himself one and got dressed.
Minutes later, the two of them emerged from the store room wearing full spacesuits and carrying gauss rifles. The entrance to the bay wasn’t far and they made for it, passing through two Necro-sized airlock doors in the process.
The bay was so large that the numbers lost meaning. Piles of supplies and construction materials were arranged fifteen kilometres away, appearing insignificant in comparison to the space in which they lay. Elsewhere, lifter shuttles flew silently, with no air to carry the drone of their engines. Nation used his sensor to zoom and noted that many of the vessels were Ghast in origin. Tiny figures hurried to and fro, some of them human and others clearly alien.
One shape rose above all others. The Damocles dominated its surroundings, while still appearing small in comparison to the bay. The quantity of missing plates and the absence of three of the four master cannons gave clear indication of exactly how much work was still to do.
Keller and Nation paused a short distance from the entrance. Keller peered around, using the visor zoom. “I can’t see the Eidolon from here.”
“It’s parked up on the far side. We should find transport, otherwise it’s a four-day walk to reach it.”
“Sounds crazy when you put it that way.”
“Welcome to the universe.”
The Space Corps was nothing if not efficient and the inside of the Axtril’s main bay was laid out in a similar manner to a surface-based shipyard. This entrance was intended for use by the army of technicians and construction workers, all of whom required transport. Lines of cars sped away from a makeshift parking lot, with others returning. Many of the workers would likely sleep in temporary accommodation blocks close to the Damocles, but it was still busy here.
“No shuttle,” said Keller.
“Let’s take a car to the Damocles. Maybe we can find a spare transport there.”
They climbed into a vehicle and Nation was relieved when the onboard computer remained silent. Freed from the safety constraints applied to traffic on the surface, the car raced away at a speed in excess of one hundred and eighty kilometres per hour, the note from its gravity engine sounding distinctly appealing.
“We don’t need a shuttle.”
“Nope.”
Keller spoke to the car’s onboard computer. “Take us directly to the Eidolon.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, there is no ship called the Eidolon docked in this bay.”
“Top secret,” said Nation.
“I’ll drive us on manual.”
The car didn’t have access to any files relating to the Eidolon, but Keller did. She piloted the vehicle on manual, taking it in a wide curve around the front section of the Damocles so as not to interfere with the crews working on the ship.
Nation couldn’t take his eyes off the business end of the cannon. The cold, deep blue seemed to go on forever, like the distilled essence of the most beautiful, deadly sapphire.
“Four barrels together is going to be a sight to behold.”
“It’ll be the last thing the Creator sees before we reduce it to atoms.”
On the far side of the Damocles, Keller saw many of the details she’d missed when coming in to land. Three massive Ghast transport craft – each four thousand metres long - were positioned closer to one corner of the bay, along with rows of smaller Space Corps vessels. The entire area was a hive of activity, with vehicles pouring out of the cargo holds, along with countless personnel. Storage crates were stacked hundreds of metres high and shuttles flew amongst them, lowering some and picking others up in preparation for transport elsewhere. Nearby, a stack of crates simply vanished, taken by teleporter to another part of the pyramid.
“Makes me proud to see it,” said Nation. “No matter what we face, humanity never gives up.”
“Nope.”
According to the security files, the Eidolon was parked in a separate area of the bay, eighty or so kilometres from the damaged area caused by a Necro attack. Visually, that area of the bay was empty.
“Got its stealth modules running.”
“I wonder if these other workers know about it.”
“Aim for the middle and we’ll find it.”
