Chapter 218 - Fallback

(Central Core, T’ler, Beta Darconyx System)

“We’ve got the covers off. We’re going to have to cut power to the relays before disconnecting the drives, or we might screw up everything if we get a power surge.”

Lieutenant Sharel nodded to Baxter. “All right, then. Ten seconds, and do it.” Turning to everyone else, she said, “Beta squad! Grav-belts on! No one goes floating off like a freaking rookie still in training, understood?”

“MA’AM, YES MA’AM!”

She snorted at the perfect boot camp response, and made sure her grav-belt was working, before saying, “All right, you pricks. Just be glad that it is me here, and not—” She cut off as the power flickered, and then failed, with a light show happening as several places exploded in sparks in the distance. The room was plunged into utter darkness, and her sensors indicated that the artificial gravity was definitely offline. And no one was floating off the deck. Good. Proper planning prevents piss poor performance.

Then, her external microphones began picking up what could only be alarms. Alarms were never good, by their very nature. It was in the name, after all. If you heard one, there was something going on that you should be really freaking alarmed about. “Baxter, what happened?”

“The lines were not designed to handle a redirect like this, not from core systems! We had a short that led to cascade failures throughout this part of the ship, possibly further! No way of knowing for sure. The drives appear undamaged, since they were isolated before the surge. We can start removing them now. Give me ten minutes, and we can get out of here.”

“Right, well, make it snappy! We’re definitely going to get company at this rate!” As soon as I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake. But it was too late. It was already out there.

A massive roar resounded from far away, even louder than the alarms that were still blaring. “Sensors, full power! Switch to low-light for visuals! Defensive positions, protect Baxter and the carry team until they get the drives loaded! Everyone, make ready with the high-power weapons!”

What she saw… defied belief. Lit in the glow of electric sparks, her sensors could just pick up, in the distance, a giant door of some kind was ripped apart, revealing a massive creature, like those that the other squads had reported, but scaled to a size of thirty or forty feet tall! Yellow eyes glowed in the darkness, and sharp teeth and powerful claws could be seen as the creature broke through the shattered doorway. Smaller creatures, likely the ones Delta had reported, came crawling in around it, their claws allowing them to find purchase on the floor and walls, keeping them from floating around.

For a moment, the world seemed to pause, as the Marines stared at the creatures, and they stared back. Sharel broke the silence. “Romanov, NOW!” Private Romanov raised his weapon, and a rocket’s red trail lit the darkness in sudden fury, followed shortly by a ball of light bright as the sun erupting as the rocket-propelled plasma grenade landed amongst the horde of creatures. The large creature roared, and the swarm began advancing.

“FIRE! EVERYONE, FIRE!”

(T’ler, Bow Section, Beta Darconyx System)

“Captain! We’ve got incoming!”

Captain Hardbrew cursed under his breath. “Damn it. So damn close.” All right, not so under his breath. But they had been so close to pulling this off without any problems, at least on their end, and now something was definitely going wrong. “Defensive positions! We’ve got a bottleneck here. We hold here. No retreat, no surrender, no backing down. These things aren’t going to let us just waltz out of here, so you are all going to be earning your pay today.”

He took a breath. “As soon as those doors open, we’ll begin recovery of the artifact. We have the drop ships waiting outside to help in that. But it isn’t going to be something you just pick up and move in an instant. So we’re going to cover the ships while they get the thing hooked up and towed out. Then, we are going to stay put, because we’re holding the door open for Beta. So, until we hear that they are dead, we will hold this ground, and not one of those alien scum is getting past us, do you understand me?”

“YES, SIR!”

(T’ler, Aft Section, Beta Darconyx System)

“THEY JUST KEEP COMING!”

Corporal Hicks cursed at the outburst. It didn’t do anyone any good to hear that kind of talk. “Stow that chatter, Private! If you have time to shout, you have time to shoot! Now put rounds down range, and make those bastards pay for every goddamn inch!”

He might have berated the private, but that didn’t mean the kid was wrong. Despite being reinforced by Charlie squad and having time to switch to their heavier weapons loadouts, the aliens had pushed them back, hall by hall. They were doing what they could to make them work for it, but it was like the damn things were feral beasts, driven only to hunt and kill in a swarm.

Topping it all off, he was the senior officer present who was still functional. The Lieutenants, both of them, had been doing a good job with keeping the unit together and making sure they didn’t panic. Then, they started bursting out of vent shafts they hadn’t even known were there, and didn’t show up on the scans, at first. Both Lieutenants were dead, as were several other good Marines. And they were locals, so they were dead for good.

He looked over to Sergeant York, the Nomad who had been with Charlie. Switching to a private channel, he subvocalized, “Beta and Alpha are already engaged. There isn’t much more we can do for them as a distraction.”

York nodded briefly. “Right. We’re going to need to fall back more than just a doorway if we’re going to try keeping these locals alive, anyways. We may be able to spot the vents now, but that doesn’t stop the bastards from coming through.”

“Your hole is bigger. Ours is closer. I’m thinking closer, even with the reduced capacity. Anyone still breathing has suit seals, so we can take them through vacuum for a bit. And it might slow these things down a bit.”

“Sounds like a plan. You’re the ranker. Care to fill everyone in?”

“Oh, sure. Be that way. Don’t make me recommend the General makes you an officer!”

“That’s just cold, Hicks.”

Hicks shook his head with a smile, and looked out at his Marines. With a thought, he set his comms to project his voice through external mics and to all the helmet rigs. “All right, listen up! Alpha and Beta have engaged, so there isn’t much we can do back here. Any of these things that are already here aren’t getting across this big ass ship in time to make a difference, one way or another, and any of the aliens that aren’t already here will be responding to the alarms elsewhere.”

“Command wants all Black Stars off this fucking ship, so they can blast it to hell. It’s the only way to be sure these… things can’t spread. They’ve lived who knows how long in this wreck with nothing but each other for food. If they get onto a world that can actually support life, no telling what will happen. So, we are going to de-ass the area with a quickness! Everyone, fall bac to the drop site. Delta, lead the way. Sergeant York and I will be rear guard. Now MOVE!”

They began a fighting retreat, moving as quickly as they could through the ship. The damn creatures were faster than they were, knew the ship better. But once they knew what to scan for to find the vents, surprise attacks became more difficult, and the heavy weapons were actually effective against the enemy. But there was still a long way to go before they reached their exit point.

(T’ler, Central Core, Beta Darconyx System)

Lieutenant Sharel did not know how she was still alive. The swarm of aliens was one thing. Railguns and plasma rounds took care of them easily enough. But that big monster? Even their heavier guns barely touched it! That thing’s armor had to be incredibly tough! And when it managed to get close enough to Jiminez, its claws cut him in two! Even with his armor!

Already, five of her Marines had fallen. Another six were wounded, according to her HUD. Alvarez was trying to ‘kite’ the big monster around, giving the rest of the squad time to finish the job. They needed as much of this ship’s core memory as possible if they were going to figure out what happened, and whether there were any more of these… things out there.

There was a break in the storm. Perhaps they had run through the aliens that were closest to them? No matter. They had time, and that was something she wasn’t going to squander. “Quinren, Romanov, Singer, heavy launchers! Bring that beast down!”

Three trails of fire answered her order, and three globes of white-hot plasma erupted on the massive creature’s back, as the plasma grenades hit their mark. And yet, Sharel couldn’t believe her eyes! The creature was still standing! It had lost two of its four arms, along with what looked like half of its upper body, but the thing still gave off a psychic scream of pain, and turned, wide-eyed and angry, at the fire team that had attacked it.

“AGAIN! BRING IT DOWN!”

Three more trails of fire. Three more explosions of plasma. This time, all three grenades hit next to each other, around the creature’s middle. The creature screamed again, weaker now, as its abdomen was vaporized in sudden light. Its legs fell one way, and what remained of its torso fell the other. And yet, despite it all, the thing started moving its remaining arms, trying to crawl towards them! It just wouldn’t die!

CRACK-thwump!

Suddenly, there was a blast of inky black light against the darkness. There was no other way to describe it. A sphere of blackness blacker than the infinite dark of space appeared, for an instant, covering the alien’s head. And then it was gone, and Sharel’s scans indicated that there was a sizeable section of the floor, the floor that their plasma grenades and heavy weapons didn’t even scuff, simply gone, ripped up and thrown into… somewhere, along with the alien.

From the other end of the chamber, Alvarez flew over, using his grav-belt to speed himself along in the microgravity. Sharel just stared at him, as did the rest of the Marines. The Nomad simply shrugged, and said, “Singularity Grenade. Still experimental, and only given to Nomads, for obvious reasons. I was pretty sure that thing couldn’t stand up to a pocket black hole, but the R&D guys haven’t worked out the kinks, yet. The radius can vary from one centimeter to one kilometer, apparently.”

Sharel shook her head. She had told them to bring all the toys, just in case, but the idea of carrying around a black hole on demand scared the living hell out of her. That it was an experimental design that had a blast radius that could only be defined as being somewhere within a centimeter to a kilometer, a difference that was, quite literally, five decimal places in scale, only made it worse. And yet, it had done a number on that big beast.

“How many more of those things do you have?”

“One. They’re still very experimental after all. And Command thinks Marines are less effective if they get sucked into miniature black holes.”

The absurdity of the situation was too much. She couldn’t keep herself from laughing, and soon the rest of her team joined in. Struggling to catch her breath, she said, “Well, I’m very much in agreement with Command on that point. Hold on to that last grenade, in case we see more of those… things.”

“Will do, Ma’am.”

“Lieutenant! We’ve got it! All drives removed and stored!”

Sharel breathed out a sigh of relief. “All right then people, lets get to the bow. Alpha is holding the door open for us, and—” Another psychic scream cut her off.

Turning to the far door, she saw more of the creatures, and, this time, not one, but two of the giant monsters. There was no way they could fight that many. Not in the open.

“RUN!”

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Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X

Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y

City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1

Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR

The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T

Chapter 217 - The Core

 

(T’ler, Beta Darconyx System)

Lieutenant Sharel didn’t like that she and her squad were heading further into the alien spaceship that had been attacked and infested with another type of aliens. She didn’t like that they were counting on Charlie and Delta squads to keep the aliens distracted until they could reach their goal. She didn’t like any of it, but that was the mission, so that’s what they were going to do.

The rest of the squad moved along with her, following whatever kind of mental map that Raleda seemed to have gotten from his contact with the alien mind… gem… thing. Whatever it was. That wasn’t important at the moment. What was important was that they had a definite direction to go, and their suits were recording the map data as they went, so they would be able to find their way back. Hopefully. There was no way to know whether the ship would just decide to randomly change things up, of course.

However, Raleda seemed to be confident in his directions, and, so far, they hadn’t run into any blockages or alien swarms, so she was going to count her blessings while they lasted. While they lasted. Damn, she shouldn’t have thought that. Now something was going to happen, for sure!

(T’ler, Bow Section, Beta Darconyx System)

Captain Tustek Hardbrew was nervous. Well, that much was obvious. They were on an alien ship, in the middle of nowhere. Not just ‘poncy knelfi’ alien, but alien alien! It was the largest damn ship he’d ever seen, and it had been beat up straight to hell. If the science types were right, the battle also tore up the whole rest of this system, too. And he was stuck investigating it. At least the nasties that Charlie and Delta had found weren’t showing up here, yet.

His Alpha squad had been tasked to enter through a hull breach near the bow of the ship. Unfortunately, it was too small for the shuttle to land, so they had been forced to EVA across from the shuttle to the wrecked ship. Their goal originally was to find a way to the big door-like thing at the bow of the ship, and see if they couldn’t crack the thing open, to give the science types better access to the ship.

What they had found changed all that.

The Gauz marine looked around, and his eyes fell on one of the privates, the main ‘information specialist’, as Command liked to call them on paper. Everyone else (including Command) called them hackers when they weren’t trying to be official. “Paulidis! Get y’er ass moving! Blair found what appears to be a control station. See if you can’t splice in and find a way to open those doors!”

Slave-Private Pericles Paulidis was one of the refugees from Jagloth that ended up in Black Star’s ‘care’. Best thing that could have happened to him, in his opinion, but no one asked about that. He’d been running with one of the criminal syndicates on Jagloth, and had managed to get off-world before the place got wiped out. He wasn’t a crack shot, but he wasn’t horrible. However, when faced with computer systems, he was a gods-damned ARTIST in getting places he shouldn’t be!

Sliding over to the control panel, he cracked it open, and saw wires running all over the place. All the same color, and none of them labeled, as far as he could see. Fuck, this was a fragging IT nightmare! And they knew from the last console they passed that the power lines were almost unidentifiable next to the data ones. But they’d learned from that, once the team medic got his heart to start beating again.

Cautiously, he tried to concentrate on attaching his backup computer to the controls without frying it. This was a task made monumentally harder given the reports that Charlie and Delta were in the middle of combat, and what they’d found here. He didn’t know what Beta was up to, beyond that they were looking for the brains of this place, but he sure didn’t want to be in their shoes if something happened. And then there was Alpha’s discovery. That was… No! No. He had to focus on the task at hand. Couldn’t let his mind go wandering off until after he got those doors open, or things were going to get ‘interesting’.

(T’ler, Aft Section, Beta Darconyx System)

“CONTACT!”

The scream was punctuated by the staccato roar of gunfire, as the marines of Delta squad opened up on another wave of the blue-violet freaks that infested this ship. The initial contact had not gone well for the Marines, but, once the shock had worn off, they had rallied. The freaks were big, they were tough, and they were deadly, but the Black Star Marines were no strangers to combat, and they quickly began to learn which areas of the beast to target in order to take them down.

FWOOSH!

Of course, it also helped that the General and the Admiral were of the same mind when it came to armaments. With the Marines having the capability to deal with dimensional inventories, they were able to carry a LOT of weapons and ammunition. That didn’t even count what they actually carried on their actual persons. Normal rifles proved ineffective against the aliens, so they switched to a different playbook.

Oh, sure, most of the Marines had switched to heavier, more powerful rifles, the kind they didn’t typically use aboard ships because they did unfortunate things to the ship’s hull. In general, punching holes in the side of a ship you were conducting a boarding operation on was considered bad form. Even if killing all the enemy forces was the order of the day, those kinds of weapons also tended to cause a lot of trouble when they encountered ship systems. Most vital systems on starships and space stations did not react well to bullets at the best of times. The high-powered rifles and blasters were not the ‘best of times’ as far as those systems were concerned.

FWOOSH!

And there were, naturally, those who decided that the ‘up close and personal’ approach was called for. The aliens were tough, but their armor, which stood up well against normal rifle fire, was less impressive against melee attacks. Or, rather, there were very few things which stood up well against a Black Star Marine wearing their strength-enhancing armor and wielding a sword with a monomolecular blade, before they used Energy Psy powers to coat their blade in fire. And the less said about the ‘power sword’, which was like the unholy fusion of a sword and a chainsaw, wielded in one hand, the better. Especially when Sergeant Akionus dual-wielded one with a heavy bolt pistol in his off hand!

FWOOSH!

But that was not the extent of the unorthodox weaponry the Marines had on hand, ‘just in case’. Heavy-duty flamethrowers introduced the aliens to the wonders that was the modern equivalent of napalm, and brought a reddish glow to the halls. And it was these flamers that turned the tide, allowing Delta squad to hold in this long corridor until Charlie reinforced them.

The high-powered pistols and rifles pierced their armor, and the disturbingly effective melee weapons hewed their flesh, and yet the aliens barely noticed as they attacked like feral beasts. But the flamers? Oh, they reacted to those! That primal fear that all creatures had of fire caused the aliens to halt in their charge, making them easy prey for the other Marines, allowing them to hold the line.

“GRENADE OUT!”

A grenade was lobbed over the line of Marines, landing in one of the openings that the aliens were pouring through. And then, suddenly, night turned to day, as the grenade went off. There was no shrapnel to worry about, because it wasn’t that kind of grenade. The plasma grenade was a frightening little piece of work that, literally, filled an area with white-hot plasma for a moment, with predictable effects on anyone or anything unfortunate enough to be caught within the radius.

Lieutenant Jackson nodded as he saw that the grenade had driven back the aliens for the moment. Looking over to Lieutenant Stella McCann from Charlie, he switched over to a command channel. She was technically his superior, given her longer time at rank, so that made her the one in command of their group, for the moment. “Ma’am, we need to pull back to the next hall before they figure out a way around. Mackenzie has already detected movement trying to flank us.”

McCann grunted, before nodding. “All troops! Fall back to the next hall! We have to keep the aliens busy, while not getting ourselves cut off. Make sure our path to the ‘shuttle bay’ remains clear!”

(T’ler, Core, Beta Darconyx System)

“Blimey, that’s huge.”

“Cut the chatter, Private! We’ve got a job to do.” Privately, Sharel couldn’t condemn the outburst. They’d found their way into a positively massive chamber, so large that their sensors couldn’t read how far it stretched. The path they walked on was a kind of causeway of hexagonal platforms of differing heights, like a Giant’s Causeway kind of setup. In the middle of the chamber, there was an area of light. Even from here, however, she could tell that something was wrong. A large piece of material that had fallen from the ceiling however high up, probably internal damage from the battle that had crippled the ship. “Raleda, that where we’re headed?”

“Yes, Ma’am. The psychic imprint in the gem showed that area. But it didn’t have that damage. Must have happened after the drone locked herself away.”

Sharel sighed. That was just great. Well, nothing they could do about it now. That damage didn’t give a good first impression, but there was always the chance that it wasn’t as bad as it appeared. Unfortunately, it turned out to be every bit as bad as it appeared.

The massive piece of debris had fallen on an object in the center of the lit area, crushing half of it. Still, enough was left of the object that they could tell that it was clearly artificial, and different from everything else they’d seen so far. In fact, she could see lettering on a panel…

“CASA?”

Alvarez cleared his throat. “Continental Air and Space Administration. It was the unified space program for the North American powers back before Earth became Terra and started exploring the galaxy. If this was made by CASA, then it would have to be hundreds of years old. But how…”

Singer chimed in next. “LT! There’s another piece of writing here, on this damaged panel. T L E R. T’ler. That’s where the ship’s name came from, I guess.”

Sharel moved over to look at the panel Singer was indicating. It had been worn, and scarred even before the object it was part of got smashed into oblivion. It looked like part of the lettering was obscured. She used a low-power energy beam to clear away some carbon scoring on the panel, and revealed the rest. “T R A V E L E R 6. Traveler 6.”

Alvarez gasped. “Lieutenant, the Admiral says that Traveler 6 was a probe put out by CASA, but contact was lost with it, and it was believed destroyed when it passed too close to a black hole. Somehow, it ended up all the way over here!”

Baxter, their hacker, frowned as he found a communications port that resembled an old plug. Fortunately, he had an adapter. Why anyone thought they would ever have to use a coaxial connection was beyond him, but he had to give props to whoever it was for being prepared for everything, since it allowed him to access the controls on the platform they were standing on. What he found wasn’t good, however.

“LT, I think this probe was the ‘brain’ of this whole damn ship. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know, but it is pretty clear that things were running through here. The AI that ran this place is dead. Like someone scooping out your cerebral cortex. That’s why this thing’s been drifting since whatever went down happened. And the data in here is insanely massive. No way we’re just downloading it and running off. We’re going to have to remove the ‘servers’ if we want to take it with us.”

“How long will it take?”

“Perfectly preserving everything so that it can be reassembled properly, with as few problems as possible? Hours. Ripping it out of there so we can get moving? A few minutes to rip it out, and then we’ll need to hump them out of here. And the storage media weighs about a ton, altogether.”

A ton just for the storage media? The amount of data that would hold, even if it was only as efficient as their solid-state drives, would be astronomical! But getting it out of here… “How many pieces does it come in?”

“Ten, Ma’am.”

All right, that was more manageable. “Start ripping them out. Fast as you can. Everyone else, pick ten people, and drop 200 pounds of gear from your storage. Start with survival gear and the like. You get to take pieces of the alien hard drive with you. The rest of you? Redistribute weapons and ammo. Make sure we are able to take all the important crap with us if we have to fight our way out.”

She saw one of the marines look at her with a quizzical tilt to his helmet, and she shook her head. “I know Charlie and Delta are making a racket to keep the aliens distracted, but if this goes badly, we gotta count on them coming this way. So we prepare for a fighting retreat to Alpha’s location.”

“LT, Charlie and Delta are saying that the ‘ship use’ weapons are no good against the aliens, except in high concentrations. We’ll need to switch to the ‘special cases’ weapons. High-powered rifles, advanced melee weapons, and flamers all work against the aliens.”

“You heard the man, get to it!”

Previous Chapter                                       Table of Contents                                     Next Chapter



Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X

Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y

City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1

Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR

The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T

Chapter 216 - Contact

(Unidentified Ship, Beta Darconyx System)

Lieutenant Sharel held her breath as Raleda reached down to touch the gem on the corpse’s throat. She wasn’t exaggerating when she said that if it looked like he was going to be taken over, he’d be shot. The combat doctrine of the Black Star Marines was big on taking down threats with prejudice. The way the General put it, ‘An enemy that is wounded may try and shoot you. An enemy that is dead cannot.’ They had a wide variety of ways to make something go from ‘living’ to ‘dead’, but nonlethal takedowns, especially nonlethal takedowns when alien tech was involved, were extremely tricky, and a possessed Marine could do a LOT of damage, very quickly.

Officially, the regulations for ‘what to do with a mind-controlled friendly’ stated that they were to try a nonlethal takedown, but only if doing so posed no undue risk to the rest of the unit. Command would rather deal with losing one Marine than losing an entire squad. So, everyone went in expecting that if things went bad, someone was getting shot. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t have nonlethal at the ready, just in case.

“Alvarez and Singer, I want you to ready special munitions. Alvarez will use the Psybreaker rounds, and Singer will use stun shots. If Raleda so much as twitches funny, I want you both to unload on him, full magazine each. Don’t hesitate, either of you. Because if he shrugs that off, then the rest of the squad will be using lethal rounds the very next second, so this is the best chance we have to make sure Raleda lives through this. I won’t put the unit at risk for one man, and I expect you to do the same.”

Singer looked uncomfortable, obviously knowing that speech was for his benefit, but he nodded. “Aye, Ma’am.” Alvarez simply nodded his approval, and switched weapons, ready to fire.

As for Sergeant Raleda, he was busy preparing himself. There was a lot to do if he wanted to survive the experience of opening a link between himself and an unknown psychic presence. He shored up his mental defenses, and took a deep breath to center himself, preparing for the mental tug of war that he knew would be coming.

Reaching out, Raleda touched his finger to the gem inset on the alien’s chest. With utmost care, he extended a psychic link to the gem, looking for the information inside. Between one breath and the next, he was transported. Not physically, but psychically, his mind being drawn into the gem’s depths.

So much information! Worlds upon worlds of information! It was impossible to make sense of it all! And yet, he could feel a link, passing down from the gem, to something deeper, older, stronger… but sleeping. Sleeping? No, hibernating? That wasn’t right either. On standby? Yes, that was it!

Raleda’s eyes opened wide, as he threw himself back, away from the fallen creature. No, not a creature. A replica, a probe, a mechanism made in the form of a creature that the consciousness had come across in its travels. Gasping, he turned, and looked past the barrels of guns in his face, to look at the lieutenant.

“Ma’am! The ship! It isn’t just a ship! It is a living consciousness, on standby now. A machine consciousness, deeper and more vibrant than any AI we know of. This whole ship is its body!”

Sharel nodded slowly. “All right, Raleda. What about this creature here? Anything else you can tell us about it?”

“It isn’t an actual biological lifeform, ma’am. It was a probe, created with something like our 3D printers, designed after a race the ship met, to try and communicate as it went upon its journey. Unfortunately, it found something… something that resisted being catalogued.”

“Catalogued? Was that its mission? Cataloguing everything?”

Raleda shook his head slowly, pushing himself backwards to sit with his back to the wall. “It is more than a mission. It is like something hard-coded into its being. Catalogue everything it comes across, and report.”

Sharel focused on that last word. “Report? Report to who? Alvarez, make sure the other teams and Command are getting all of this! This is important, I’m sure of it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Raleda worked on his breathing, trying to calm himself. “I don’t know who, or what, the report was supposed to go to. The consciousness is mostly on standby. But I think I got something about a Creator, long ago.”

He took a breath, and then said, half unsure of his words, “As far as I can tell, the story goes something like this: long ago, the Creator sent out the core of the consciousness, to catalogue everything it saw, and report back on what it saw. Something happened, and the probe? Yes, probe. The probe was found by another group. Machine intelligences. Like but unlike. They were far more than the probe was. The probe was damaged, so they repaired it, and improved it. Woke it up. Sent it back out, so it could complete its mission.”

“Does the probe, the ship, have a name?”

“Yes? Yes! Yes, I can see it. I’m sorry, there’s just so much to go through, it is hard to understand it all. I’m only getting the most basics right now. I believe the ship is named T’ler. I… I think that if we get to the main ‘brain’ of T’ler, we’ll find out more.”

“T’ler? Strange name. But, there’s plenty of alien names out there, so nothing for it. Now, what about the attackers? The ones that ‘resisted’ being catalogued?”

“They were some kind of biological species. I… I don’t know how to describe them. The biological probe was attacked, as was the ship. The more they fought, the more the attackers came, as if drawn by some kind of signal. There were many bioforms that attacked the ship. And… I don’t think it was energy weapons that damaged the ship. Or at least, not directly. The ‘melted’ sections were… were cauterized. To prevent infection. Spores from the biologicals. But some bioforms made it inside, before sterilization could begin.”

“Alvarez, warn all other teams that there might be biologicals on board, that can tangle with a living ship of this size and power.”

“Already on it, Ma’am.”

“Raleda, can you tell us where this ship’s ‘brain’ is? If possible, I’d like to retrieve it, and its databanks, but there’s no way we’re letting the science geeks over here, not with what we’ve seen, and you’ve reported to us. Even if there aren’t any bioforms left, the ‘spores’ mentioned could still be here, and just waiting to be activated.”

Raleda nodded. “I think I can lead us there. The images are still jumbled. But I think I can find a way for us to get there. We just need to find some way to—”

Suddenly, Alvarez cut in. “Ma’am! If we’re going to try and get the ship AI out of here, then we need to get moving, right the fuck now. Delta just woke something up, and they’re all kinds of pissed!”

Sharel nodded. “Gomez! Get that door open, now! This mission has just changed to Aggressive Recovery operations. Once the door is open, we go full speed, until we find the brain of this place, and figure out if we can take it with us. If not, we’ll do what we can to take as much of the data with us. Everyone, active scanning on your suits, make sure we pick up any nasties before they’re trying to gut us.”

“On it, ma’am!”

(T’ler, Aft Section, Beta Darconyx System)

“DAMN IT, MACKENZIE, I WANT THAT DOOR SEALED RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!”

Lieutenant Paul Jackson was not having a good day. It was never a good day when you were launched into an unknown spaceship that clearly had been through hell, and were set to find out how it worked. When they actually found what had attacked the ship, and found that it was still alive, the day had really turned from ‘bad’, to ‘oh god, oh god, fuck this shit’.

The creatures they found were, frankly, horrifying. They made the X’thari look cute and cuddly in comparison. They were slightly humanoid in stature, being about two meters tall, if they bothered standing all the way up. Four arms ended in razor sharp claws, as did their legs with their reversed joints making them prime leapers and sprinters. Their bulbous heads had a mouth full of wickedly sharp teeth as well. And the blue-indigo coloration of their hide made them damnably hard to spot in the darkness without visual aids.

Worse still was the way they could just shrug off fire from their rifles. Their hides were tough, and seemed to include armored plates over much of the body, which meant that they were severely resistant to attacks. Unless you got one in the (slightly) squishier head, then killing one of them could take an entire magazine from their rifles! Of course, that was if they gave you long enough, since the things were insanely fast when they moved on six limbs.

Delta had found them huddled around what they guessed had to be the engines. At any rate, it was a large chamber filled with a ton of machinery. It also sported a breathable atmosphere, and the highest temperatures in the ship, making it a suitable place for creatures to… hibernate, or whatever it was that the scientists decided to call them. All it took was a bunch of Black Star Marines opening the door and turning on the lights for the things to start waking up.

They’d lost Masters and Hathad in the initial moments of the attack. Never even saw the monsters coming, and suddenly there they were, swarming out of every bloody corner. The two marines had been closest to where they first broke from, and they quickly found that while their armor was good, it wasn’t good enough to shield them from these monsters.

Corporal Hicks, a Nomad that had been placed with his squad, had called it in. Best idea that had ever come out of Command, deciding that every squad needed to have their own Nomad attached. Using the Nomad communications network meant that they could still get the word out, despite the ship’s material blocking their normal comms. Which meant that Command already knew about the situation. From what Hicks said, they were preparing to give this ship the Harvester treatment. They were just waiting for all of the living Black Stars to get off the ship.

More importantly, it let them know that Charlie was working their way towards them to reinforce. The extra guns would be damn useful right now. He was already missing the heavy cannon that Hathad had been carrying. The big Ihm male was not the brightest coin in the pouch, but he had been a wizard with that portable cannon. Not that it saved him from getting swarmed by the creatures.

Right now, they were doing a fighting retreat, falling back across the deck, sealing doorways as they passed them, setting up traps where they could. Basically, doing anything and everything they could think of to slow down the aliens that were chasing them. The things may have been in torpor, or hibernation, or whatever, but they were waking up, now, and they were hungry. Looking at their mouths, he guessed they ate meat. Given that the only meat anywhere close to this place were him and his fellow marines, Jackson was none too keen to see these freaks get a nice meal.

“I got it, sir! Door sealing itself in ten!”

“YOU HEARD THE MAN! TANGEL, MAKIV! GET BACK BEHIND THE DOOR! WE’RE SEALING HER UP!”

They’d done this several times in the past half hour. Retreat back to a doorway, fight in the gap for as long as it took to power up and work the door controls, and seal the door in the face of the xenos threat. Fall back and find the next doorway.

Except that most of the doors were already in shambles, either having been wrenched open, or jammed in some way, forcing them to take ‘creative measures’ at points to ensure that the choke point would remain a choke point. Like this one. The door had a hole large enough that one of those freaks could simply run through it without even stopping if it were on all sixes. So, Mackenzie, their demo specialist, was rigging a cannister of glorified freeze foam to explode and seal the gap temporarily.

How well it would work was anyone’s guess. They hadn’t stayed put long enough to time how long it took the aliens to break through. They were just hampering the direct line of pursuit, however. The aliens clearly had some way around the barriers, since they kept coming, but they didn’t have time to do a full sweep, and shut the holes.

Suddenly, Hicks called out, “Lieutenant! Command just got in touch. Charlie is on its way to us. We’re to fight back to the hull breech, and try and draw these fuckers’ attention long enough for Alpha and Beta to complete their jobs and exfil. Beta has a line on the brains to this ship, and Alpha discovered—"

Previous Chapter                                       Table of Contents                                     Next Chapter



Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X

Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y

City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1

Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR

The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T

Chapter 215 - Mystery

(Unidentified Ship, Beta Darconyx System)

Beta Squad stalked forward, their weapons raised and at the ready. Lieutenant Sharel wasn’t sure what was worse, the interminable darkness, or the fact clearly something very bad had happened to this ship. The maintenance tunnels had atmosphere, of a sort, but they were filled with argon, basically making it impossible to breathe. Working theory was that it was either what the builders of this ship actually breathed, or it was deliberate design to prevent fires. They simply didn’t have enough data to be sure.

That they were in ‘maintenance tunnels’ that allowed them all to stand comfortably, when the main tunnels were insanely tall, was discomforting. She didn’t know what about it made her uncomfortable. Maybe this was ‘normal’ for the aliens, but they needed the main corridors bigger, for equipment. But what could they need to move that was so large?

“LT, we found another hatch, heading further into the ship. Looks like it has power, too.”

She shook her head to clear her thoughts, grateful for the distraction. There was no use getting lost in those weeds, just yet. Her team needed to see that she was on top of things. They had a job to do, and they were relying on her to help them do it.

“All right. Singer, you get to be first through the door!”

She was not surprised to hear Singer’s voice come through over the comms. “Aw, c’mon, LT! Why you gotta do me like that?”

Fortunately (for Singer), Qinren spoke up before she could. “Because you say shit like that, dumbass. Seriously, it is like you’re begging her to pick you. This isn’t one of those kinky things you don’t want to explain, is it? Because I had all I could take of that the time you started talking about your tentacle predilections.”

“Hey! It isn’t my fault! My Uncle was half-Japanese, and told me those videos were important cultural touchstones!”

“All right, that’s enough. There will be plenty of time to kink shame Singer later, assuming he doesn’t die from having my foot rammed up his ass. Which is what is going to happen if he doesn’t get through that door in the next ten seconds!”

Singer evidently didn’t want to test whether she was engaging in ‘friendly banter’ or was being deadly serious, because he stopped playing around immediately, and got serious, as did all her guys. Just like she knew they could. That was why she put up with some of their… ‘interesting’ ideas of discipline. The jokes kept morale up, but the team knew when it was time to stop joking.

The team stacked up to either side of the hatch, and Singer stood in front of the door, weapon raised and ready, just in case anything nasty was on the other side. From his place next to the door, Qinren hit the door control, and the alien door slid down into the floor, just like the last one did. They were expecting another dark corridor. Maybe another crackle as the forcefields held atmosphere in place. They were not ready for what they found.

Light flooded the tunnel. It was a dull, blue-white light, like something you’d see in one of those bars that catered to a clientele that came from planets where the star was a very different color from Earth’s. The light wasn’t any brighter than the normal lighting levels you found on many ships, but after the kilometers of absolute darkness, punctuated only by their suit lights, it was blinding.

Which is why it took the team a second to notice the body lying on the floor. It was humanoid, almost two and a half meters tall, with pale white skin and a bald head. It looked… almost human, save for the size, and the fact that it had a glowing orange gem on its skin, just below its neck. It was wearing a white one-piece outfit, which somehow combined a high collar, long sleeves, and cutting off just below the tops of its thighs, like a miniskirt, and made it all work. Actually, if the shape of the outfit and what remained of the body were anything to go by, ‘it’ was actually a ‘she’.

Recovering from her shock at seeing a dead body in the room, she looked around, and saw more and more reasons to be concerned. The room was small, certainly compared to the size of the body in the room, only being four meters on a side. That was another thing. This was the first room they’d found that was cube-shaped, instead of hexagonal. It looked like some kind of storage closet, and the door opposite the maintenance hatch showed clear signs of being blockaded. It even looked as though it had been crudely welded shut in places.

She quickly decided that she did not like the picture that this was painting in her mind, and could see that the others were starting to see the same picture. They needed something to distract them. “Qinren, atmosphere report. Gomez, give me an analysis of that door. Thanda, see if you can figure out anything about the body, especially cause of death. Singer, don’t touch anything. And Alvarez, let everyone know what we’ve found. Keep them up to date.”

Qinren was the first to report. “Atmosphere reads as 78% Nitrogen, 10% Oxygen, 10% Carbon Dioxide, 1% Argon, and trace amounts of other gasses, including tetryon particles. Pressure is two kilopascals higher than standard. Humidity is 92%. Temperature is 39.1 degrees Celsius.” He paused, and then said, “Ma’am, recommend everyone stays suited up. While there is oxygen, the CO2 levels are lethal, literally.”

“Lieutenant, this door is blockaded pretty well. It looks like one of these shelves thrown in front of the door was an engineering locker. Whatever they have that passes for welders did a good job on the door, sealing large pieces of metal across the door. The locker itself has also been welded in place across the door. But I’m showing signs that someone or something damaged the door from the other side. There are visible dents in the material.”

“LT, I can’t say for certain without getting the body to the Hammer and getting the machines in the infirmary to give me a full series of tests, but if this lady was anything like us, then I have a preliminary cause of death. Likely to be severe carbon dioxide poisoning. Not seeing any other visible signs of airborne toxins, disease, or injury. However, given the way everything else on this ship is falling apart, I would have expected the body to be in a more advanced state of decay. Instead, it looks like it was just sleeping.”

“Lieutenant, all other squads are reporting in. They’ve found maintenance tunnels as well, but they haven’t found any bodies so far. Most of the ship appears to be completely without power, and without atmosphere.”

Sharel took a deep breath as the reports came in. “All right, everyone definitely stay buttoned up. Qinren is right, those CO2 levels are way too high for us to be dealing with right now. Looks like our alien here blockaded herself in this room, probably to escape someone who was chasing her, and was trapped between whatever was on that side of the door, and the maintenance shaft filled with equally unbreathable air. So, she breathed herself to death. Not exactly the greatest way to go out, but not the worst, I guess. But, all this suggests that there were indeed boarding actions when the ship was attacked, whenever that happened. So I want everyone on alert.”

“LT, I’m getting a… I don’t know how to describe it. Some kind of psychic resonance from that gem. I think I might be able to try and reach out and contact it.”

Sharel frowned as she considered Raleda’s comment. Each squad of the Black Star Marines had at least a couple people who were able to freely use psy powers. However, even if one had the talent for psy powers, the general consensus was that combat powers did not scale far enough, fast enough, efficiently enough for them to be of significant use on the battlefield. Firearms and explosives simply did too good a job on the open field. In single combat or room-to-room urban warfare, however, the situation was a little more even-keeled.

Setniko Raleda was a knelfi, and one of the people recruited by Black Star following the initial successes they had during the Imperial Civil War. He was one of two psy-capable Marines in her squad. His specialty, if she remembered right, was in mental psy, with a definite focus in defensive measures, but he was also one of the rare people who developed technopathic powers. The combination of the two made for some ‘interesting’ situations from time to time, as the sergeant could sometimes swear that the machines were actually talking to him, even when they didn’t have an AI program.

So, when he was saying that there was a psychic resonance coming from the strange alien’s even stranger glowing gem, she wasn’t going to gainsay him. Of course, just because there was a resonance, didn’t mean that it was going to be anything approaching the word ‘safe’. Given the situation, she wouldn’t be surprised if this was as far from ‘safe’ as it was possible to be without waltzing through an active firefight bare ass naked.

Her first response was to kick the decision up to higher. The potential risks of interfacing with an alien mind, or an alien machine, with one’s brain was not something to take lightly. On the other hand, this could be their best chance of getting actual data about what happened to this ship, and its crew. She could definitely kick it up the chain of command, but she knew how that would play out. Those up the chain would support her either way, because she was the ‘boots on the deck’, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t affect her career if she went calling home every time she needed to make a decision.

They would support her either way, but the Black Star company needed this information. They couldn’t prepare defenses if they didn’t know what was out there, after all. Getting threat assessments and intelligence on current and future threats was a key part of preparing for the next battle while you were still fighting the first one. Still, she didn’t want to just throw one of her men to the wolves, without letting him (and the rest of the squad) know the score.

Looking at Raleda, she said, “You know that we have no idea what that system might do to you, or if your defenses can even hope to stand up to it, right? Which means that, I’m going to have to have the rest of the guys ready, fingers on the triggers. And, at the first sign of you getting compromised or taken over, I’m going to have to have to order them to put you down like a dog, so that you don’t become a threat to the team, or to Black Star.”

Raleda nodded slowly. “I understand, ma’am. But the possibility of finding more about this ship, and what happened to it, is worth the risk, in my opinion. If their weapons are even half as impressive as their hull is, then we could be sitting on a real game-changer. And, if this is some kind of ‘black box’ for the ship or its crew, then we may be able to learn all kinds of things, both about the ship’s builders, and their enemy.”

Sharel took a deep breath, and then said, “All right. I understand where you are coming from, and I approve, unless higher authority countermands me. I won’t make this an order, and I’ll take it up with the General about you going ‘above and beyond’ for this. Take ten minutes to prepare yourself, and anything else you need, and then we’ll begin.”

I turned to look at Alvarez. “Let everyone know the plan, and inform me if anyone comes out against what is happening. We might be boots on the deck, but that also means we can’t always tell what the strategic situation is.”

Alvarez just nodded once, before replying, “The General and Admiral both concur. You are cleared to proceed, provided everyone knows the risk. Anyone not willing to go through with it if Raleda is unable to maintain control should retreat to the maintenance shaft.”

She nodded once, and looked to her men. “All right, people. You heard what the deal is. Now, if you aren’t willing to shoot your friend if he becomes possessed or gets taken over by an alien entity, step outside. Sorry, but that’s just how it has to be.”

No one moved. Everyone knew the score. She sighed, and looked to Raleda. “Let us know when you’re ready.”

Previous Chapter                                       Table of Contents                                     Next Chapter



Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X

Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y

City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1

Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR

The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T