Homeworld united, p.6
Homeworld United, page 6
He looked back at his assembled team.
“Bort, Ari, Gene, and Krek, you’re with me. We’re going to assassinate Greith. While we’re gone, Solomon and H’Kai are going to hammer anything that looks like a weapon before meeting us for extraction near the docks. To avoid splitting the AI between floors like we did in Area 51, and since we have more than one available, Gway will support Team Qrora while the rest of us are stuck with Mikey.” That got a chuckle out of the group. Good, laughter is good. We can’t all be on edge because of this.
Henry inserted his hand into the back of a Mark-93. The weapon added some weight to the end of his arm, but thanks to the exoskeleton, he hardly noticed it. Two by two, with each team taking a side of the airlock, they filed in. Bort and Buddy took up the rear.
At the head of his line, Henry took a breath and tried to focus on his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. As the air left the airlock, the sound of his breath filled his helmet. Remembering the words he’d heard as a young soldier, he opened his eyes. The airlock had become foggy as the atmosphere was sucked out. Soon it was just them in a vacuum.
“Hey boys, no sweat,” Carlos said. “Just a little spacewalk.” The medic’s voice came in slightly static, a familiar sound in the unfamiliar setting.
“Airlock is opening in 15 seconds,” Junior announced. “Everyone, stick close and prepare for boarding.”
A countdown appeared in the suit’s HUD, and Henry felt the man behind him place his free hand on his shoulder, a move that was repeated all the way to the Cyclops bot at the end. Like dominos, Bort pushed them forward and out of the airlock.
It all seemed surreal. Tumbling completely untethered to anything unchained from gravity. Henry focused on the object in front of him. It seemed even more massive in person. And somehow, demonic, not something he would have attributed to spacecraft. The sinister vessel loomed ahead of him, and it occurred to him that he was moving a tad fast.
“Henry, dip forward and let yourself somersault,” Junior informed him. “I’ll fire your thrusters so you don’t splat against the Lost Light.”
Henry did as the AI told him, trusting the advanced intelligence to not steer him wrong. His whole world spun as he somersaulted towards the looming vessel, the nightmarish hulk alternating between itself, darkness, and the beautiful blue marble that was Earth. The occasional puff of his maneuver jets and his breathing was all he heard for a while.
His feet struck the surface with a thud, the sound echoing in his suit even as its shock absorbers dispersed the force of his impact. Mikey earned his keep, tagging each member of Midnight in his HUD and directing them towards a sight Mikey and Gway had marked for them to breach. Gene and Ozzie had already gotten to work with the cutting torches. Flames licked out from the hull as bits of leaking atmosphere ignited.
“We’ll have an opening in sixty seconds, then it’s five minutes to enter,” the big man said, sounding like he was speaking through a soup can the whole time. No sooner did he stop speaking than the outer layer of the hull flipped away in a rush of foggy atmosphere.
“Go! Go! Go!” Henry cried as he urged his people into the hole. They had to fire their maneuver jets on maximum thrust to get through the venting atmosphere, but within a couple of minutes, the entire team was through. With Bort and Buddy following after him, Henry dove into the hole. Headfirst into hell.
Chapter
Five
Unknown
Chloe Matsura blinked. She felt like she was floating, drifting away. A bitter odor filled her nostrils and she gagged. Everything was dark. She heard whispers, but couldn’t tell where they came from. Something glowed in the distance. Was she underwater?
She furrowed her brow. That made little sense. She should be drowning, but she didn’t feel anything. Panic didn’t set in until she tried to move her arms. She couldn’t.
Where was she? Something glowed in the distance. A volcanic vent blossomed in front of her, spewing magma into the . . . water? Did they drug me? Am I on some loopy pill? Chloe drifted in . . . wherever she was. Lights glimmered around her. She thought they were some kind of bioluminescent krill until one streaked past her face.
She blinked. I can move my eyes and blink, maybe I can— More streaking stars flew past her head. Where? Chloe closed her eyes. Something keeps interrupting my thoughts. What’s the last thing I can remember? How did I get here? She’d come on a diplomatic mission. No, that wasn’t right. She was here because she had to plead her case. To whom, though? Her head hurt, and she felt like she was going to vomit.
Okay, what do I do for work? Radio came to her mind, and she thought of the last song she heard. A metal piece by her brother’s garage band. I hate metal. Why did I listen to that? A single word burned in her brain as every nerve in her body suddenly ignited. Issac!
1410 (Mountain time), 8 October 2025
One of the outer decks, the M’Nok generation ship Lost Light, Midnight November
Though they had technically found themselves on the right side of closing bulkhead doors, it still felt wrong. For one, the decks were ridiculously humid and, according to Junior, it had much higher levels of oxygen. Even with advanced cooling systems and fans to regulate his body temperature, Henry still found himself sweating. It didn’t help that the decks were dark and they had to use suit and gun lights to see.
Throwing himself into a barrel roll, he managed to dodge a flurry of spike rifle fire from the shroomhead, drawing a bead on him. The metal slugs warped and clanged against metal grating that made up the floors and lined the walls.
Coming out of his roll, he gripped his wrist with his free hand and swung the Mark-93 over the shroomhead. With a deafening crack-crack-crack, depleted uranium-tungsten rods the length of his forearm stabbed through the fungoid and the walls behind it, destroying the creature completely. Henry chortled with glee at the weapon’s raw power. I can’ believe it, it’s like I have the main gun of a Bradley at the end of my wrist!
He found his footing and advanced into the next room as Krek and Gene came up on either side.
“Going ahead,” he called as he moved.
“We’re behind you,” Qrora responded.
Henry’s team entered the next room, guns up and oriented down each of five separate hallways. A pair of shroomheads appeared down the passage to Henry’s immediate left, but before he could react, they slammed into each other with enough force to shatter both of them.
He turned to see Five with a hand on the metal grating, his gaze focused on where the shroomheads had been. Henry nodded to the alien before looking back at his team.
“Alright, Mikey, Gway, do either of you have a way out?”
“I’ve got it,” Junior replied. “Where the shroomheads came from, there’s a large chamber, then another set of hallways, then we should be in the habitat surface.” The idea behind the generation ships was that they could rotate a middle hull and counter rotate an inner hall to simulate gravity. This would allow the inhabitants to have a functional society on the walls of the inner hall, one wrapped around a fusion core under thrust or using mirrors to reflect sunlight into the inner shell when it wasn’t.
“Think we can change here?” Carlos asked. “These suits are chafing the shit out of me.”
Henry shook his head.
“Not here. Anyone who has it out for us can attack from any direction.” He pointed down the hallway Junior had indicated. “Alright people, let’s go.”
Henry let Bort take the lead, with Ari and himself falling in behind him. Krek and Gene brought up the rear, and Qrora indicated his team would follow in sixty seconds. They took to the halls at a brisk pace.
“You know, something’s bothering me about all of this,” Krek said.
Henry was bothered by all of it, but he decided to indulge the giant of a M’Nok as they snaked their way through the narrow corridor.
“Your spider sense tingling?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” Krek replied. “This all just seems . . . off. The Shepherd kept its air fairly dry. Too humid and it would be bad for the elderly and wasteful. We had millions of M’Nok that needed food and water—we had to reclaim as much as possible. Speaking of, even out here in the middle hull, we should still be running into M’Nok maintaining the ship, but I’ve only seen shroomheads.”
Henry frowned. His gut told him everything the M’Nok said was a red flag he should heed.
“You don’t think they’re all down on the planet?” Gene asked.
“No, because they’d still have tons of noncombatants. Our motherships together have far more people than the Lost Light, but only a small percentage of that are warriors, and the people maintaining the ship would still be—” Krek stopped speaking.
A quiet snapping sound filled their suits, and Henry paused. At first he thought he was staring at a pile of dead leaves, but as his light and suit optics adjusted, he saw them for what they were: bones.
Gingerly, he lifted one off the ground. A thigh bone snapped about halfway up. He could see the composition of the bone clearly, but other than missing marrow, its airy structure reminded him of a chicken’s bones. He dropped the bone as the realization struck him, and he looked up and down the hall. Bones of all shapes and sizes littered the floor.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Ari said. The young M’Nok popped open his visor to retch all over the floor. The brownish liquids ran down the grating to the levels far below. The medic struggled to breath, and Henry could hear him begin to hyperventilate and dry heave. “I can’t, I just can’t.”
Quickly, Henry took a knee next to him.
“Ari, Ari!” He shook the young warrior as he grabbed his shoulder. “You’re here to stop this, Ari. You are going to end all of this.” Ari ignored him, and his breathing became more ragged. “Ari, listen, I need you to breathe with me.” Henry closed his eyes as he spoke. “Eyes closed, take a deep breath in slowly.” He sucked in the rancid humid air as he spoke, and Ari did the same. “And out slowly. In, out.” He sat there syncing his breathing with Ari. “This helps me. All the time, in fact.” He stood. “Better?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Ari gasped. “Sorry I lost it a little, they’re just so small . . .”
Henry tightened his grip on the medic’s shoulder.
“Then you carry that with you,” he said. “And we’ll make them pay.”
Ari nodded, and Henry gestured for them to continue. They advanced down the hall, silently enduring the snap and crunch of the bones beneath them. That is until Bort rambled off a stream of gibberish and ran forward.
“The hell did he say?” Henry asked, but Ari was dashing forward as well. When he finally broke into the following chamber, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Henry figured he’d eventually get used to seeing weird shit. Especially when he saw weird shit all the time, but maybe it was a childlike sense of wonder. Or the inescapable grasp of Murphy’s Law compounding bad situations.
The thing in the room vaguely resembled the shroomheads, except it was the size of an ancient tree. If Midnight November linked arms, Henry doubted they’d be able to surround the megashroom’s base. Bonelike structures protruded from its body and glowed with an eerie light, while thick veiny growths pumped a blackish purple substance throughout its body.
“Holy shit,” Henry muttered.
Bort sounded some kind of foghorn-like noise, possibly a battle cry, and raised his weapon. The Cyclopes weapons had been briefly explained to Henry, courtesy of Tyr when Bort and Buddy were getting kitted up for their mission. Their main weapon was a massive cannon that fired bolts that would charge the particles in anything they came into contact with. The particles, overloaded with electric charge, would rupture and violently separate as they became excited. When he’d heard it, Henry thought it was ingenious, a weapon that was un-blockable and not something the shroomheads could easily regenerate from.
So understandably, the Cyclops bot let loose with a torrent of white bolts. The shots tore massive chunks out of the megashroom but didn’t land the fatal blow they were looking for. The rest of Henry’s team blew more chunks from the massive fungoid. As blackish red liquid rained on the detached portions, Henry slowly realized the monumental stupidity of his assault. The lumps grew tendrils and stood up, rapidly regenerating into shroomhead foot soldiers. The megashroom was re-growing what the Mark-93s had removed, while Bort’s Einbolter had inflicted more grievous wounds that seemed to regenerate more slowly. The shroomheads added another dimension, however, and even Bort had to divert fire just to keep them from being overrun.
Then the megashroom screamed at them. Henry’s teeth rattled and he grasped his head, but he noticed something odd. His suit wasn’t directly affected by the deafening noise. He fell to his knees as the sound threatened to overwhelm. The edges of his vision began to fade to black.
Breathe. In. Out. Henry closed his eyes and focused. In. Out.
He opened his eyes again. The screaming remained, but it had dulled somewhat. The megashroom’s veins pulsed with a purplish light. Even Bort seemed to be affected by the scream, despite being a robot. Henry had just enough clarity to raise his weapon and fire a short burst into the thing’s veins. The vein he aimed at ruptured, spilling the liquid all across the broad chamber.
Fortunately, it also ended the screaming, but now tendrils sprouted from damaged areas of the megashroom and flailed about. Henry ducked and rolled, blasting a shroomhead as he rose, and tried to figure out the best course of action. Tendrils grasped at them, and Henry caught a glimpse of Gene using his torch to cut through them as they writhed.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to think on his own for long. Qrora’s team entered the breach.
As he crossed the threshold, Qrora silently thanked Henry for adding Five to his team. The short alien, known as a gray by the humans, had been able to shield them from the psionic assault originating in the immense chamber Henry’s team occupied.
When they entered the room, they found a scattering swarm of shroomheads, one massive fungoid in the center, and Henry’s team recovering to the side. While his team spread out and laid into the shroomheads, avoiding thrashing tendrils as they did, Gway hailed him.
“Qrora, there’s something you should know,” she said. “This thing is a core. It’s like a queen in an insect hive.”
Qrora hissed.
“How do you know?” But he knew the answer as soon as he asked.
“Because this is the missing piece,” Gway replied. A familiar image filled the corner of Qrora’s HUD. “That fungal species I was telling you about? This is them. Or at least, what’s left of them.”
He hissed again.
“Five?” he called out to the small alien. He spotted him with his hands on the grate, hunched over in concentration.
“I can’t move it,” he replied. “It’s too big.”
“Can you do something else?” Qrora said. “At least keep moving so you don’t get hit.” He rolled away from a charging shroomhead and pumped three rounds from his Mark-93 into it.
“Well, I’m going to have to get close to do much.”
Qrora stepped towards the door and growled.
“I thought you said you only needed to be touching the same surface,” he said between breaths. “You didn’t say anything about needing your hands.”
Silence filled the net for a few fateful moments.
“Let me try something,” Five replied.
Suddenly, a shroomhead rocketed through the crown of the megashroom, annihilating itself with the tremendous force of its impact. More shroomheads found themselves turned into high-velocity projectiles and pierced the megashroom. Thinning the herd allowed the rest of Midnight November to focus their fire entirely on the massive fungus. Five turned any chunk that landed on the ground into a projectile that he could hurl against the megashroom. The thing withered and began to die as bolts from the Cyclops burrowed their way deeper and deeper. Smoke rolled off the creature as it howled.
Qrora let up on the trigger, even as the rest of Midnight November continued to pound away. I don’t know who you were or what you became, but you didn’t deserve this. He closed his eyes as the megashroom continued to burn. Burn to ash, and be put to rest. Finally, the massive fungus grew still as its remaining cells burned.
“This thing, whatever it was before, was a part of the old alliance,” Qrora announced as the fighting died down. “Parts of their ship are probably holding this one together.”
Henry shook his head and sighed.
“They came all that way for safety, only for Greith to turn them into monsters.” He pointed to the bones around him. “Well, we know what did all this.”
“Are you cool with changing here?” Qrora asked.
Henry shook his head.
“Not isolated, not defensible. We’ll change closer to our objective.”
Gway’s bubbly voice came over the net.
“I’ve got us some useable maps from the ship’s AI, but it wasn’t easy. He tried putting me to sleep again.” That comment made Qrora’s blood run cold, even as he opened the minimap in his HUD.
“Be careful—we can’t afford that,” he replied. “Henry, let’s reload and move out.”
1442 (Mountain time), 8 October 2025
One of the inner decks, the M’Nok generation ship Lost Light, Midnight November
The transition was probably the most awkward experience Henry’d ever had. When he looked out the threshold, he saw nothing but a sheer drop. Yet he could see the rotation of the cylindrical inner hull and structures lining the inside. A hazy orange light filled the center, reminding him of the one morning he’d woken up in Los Angeles.
“There’s inertial dampeners here,” Qrora said, “so you don’t break an ankle or hip or something transitioning.” To demonstrate, Qrora stepped out of the maintenance hatch and right up at a ninety-degree angle from them.
