Assault on Ambrose Station: A Seth Donovan Novel (28 page)

Renthal, Kekkin, Harris, Geko, Carro and Gunther slipped in behind me, a cold steel in their eyes. I was starting to weaken, holding so many Paradigms together at once, so I nodded to the others and picked my target.

I dropped the holo gram, the image winking out. The motion drew the attention of one of the Jaani, who turned to see what must have been a blink in the corner of its eye. It let out a squeal when it saw seven heavily armed men pounce on them with knives. The high pitched squeal was cut short, but I did not see who had silenced it.

I drove my blade into the back of my target’s throat and violently yanked it aside. Blood spurted from its neck – I’d nearly severed the head and the thing died instantly.

“That felt good,” whispered Renthal, “For Tucker.”

Kekkin nodded solemnly, while Harris echoed Renthal’s dedication.

We made sure there were no nasty surprises in the room, and then called the others in quietly. Tac approached me.

“I am detecting low frequency RF signals nearby.”

“Comms node. Rego, can you pin point the node?”

He nodded and opened a case that he drew from his equipment bag. In a few minutes, he uploaded the location into our overlays and superimposed it on the map we had.

“We take this out and any Ghantri we find won’t be able to report in. They look like metal boxes, half a metre on a side. It will have several ceramic coils on top.”

“Will they guard it?” asked Harris.

“There’ll be at least one Ghantri nearby, but not necessarily next to it.”

“Drone charge?” asked Triptych.

“What does it do?”

“Tiny flyer, rigged with a 20 megawatt EMP burst.”

“Rego? Tac?”

“Should do the trick, LT.”

“I am unable to accurately predict the outcome,” said Tac, “without further information pertaining to the device in question.”

“They’ll take out a level three shielded Takoma Industries emitter.” explained Rego.

“Oh. Then yes, I believe the drone should be sufficient. I, however, should be a minimum of two hundred metres from the detonation.”

“Noted. Send it out. In the meantime, lets scout the area outside. Map says it’s a concourse, leading to the transport hub. Let’s ditch gear, helmets on. Rhondel and Geko stay here with Tac. Everyone else, on me.”

Art stripped out of her space suit and pulled some armour plating from a duffel bag one of the guys was carrying. Renthal helped her get suited up, and when she was ready, we moved out.

I tried my best to hide the fact that I was nearly out of my mind. In a few moments, I would come face to face with my greatest fear - the killers of my old squad and my enemy during the darkest period of my life.

45.

Maxine sat with her feet up on the pilot’s console. She knew she shouldn’t, as Crege gets rather peculiar about his station, but she did it anyway.
Fuck it, it’s my ship
, she thought,
Crege is down in the hulk, anyway, he won’t find out.
She was on shift, monitoring the ship’s systems while the rest of the crew explored the newest hulk they had uncovered. The asteroid field was practically littered with them.

Despite what Melafenaseance had told them, Max felt that inspecting the previous dig sites was necessary. She had argued that since most of the work had already been done for them, it would take less time to investigate the old sites than it would to dig a new one. Of course, Mel had pointed out that such foolishness would be a waste of time regardless. However, once Max had put her foot down, there was no changing her mind. It had irritated the Votus to no end.

“That Votus sure could get his whiskers in a bind.” she said to no one in particular. With a chuckle, she realised that the AI governing the pilot’s station was listening in and had queried her as to her meaning. “Nothing, go back to stand-by.”

In one day, they had investigated three such sites. All three had been empty, stripped of most of the tools and equipment, with rudimentary life support systems and power generators left in place. The lack of results was starting to eat at Maxine’s confidence that they would find anything at all and she was beginning to think the stuffy old alien was right.

The communications panel lit up. Max hastily pulled her feet from the console and slapped the open channel controls.

“Go ahead, Max here.”

The crackly voice of Cuts broke in over the command module speakers. “We’ve found something.”

“Well, don’t leave me in suspense! Is Mel going to eat humble pie or am I?”

“Definitely Mel.”

“Ha! I knew it! What have you got?”

“Looks like a section of an engineering space. We gained access through some piping and we can clearly see that there is other machinery here, but a large section is missing.”

“Can you identify anything?”

“Nothing. Most of it has simply melded together into several piles of corroded slag. I mean, I can see that there are slight similarities to known tech here, but their placement just doesn’t make sense. Maybe Eric could make something of all this, but it’s beyond me.”

“What about the missing section?”

“That’s just it. It’s clearly been removed. Recently.”

“How can you tell?”

“The cuts around the edges, they’re made with plasma shifted hyper-diamond blades. I’ve analysed fragments from the dust.”

“So?”

“We haven’t used them for about thirty years. We just use nanites now.”

“But the tech left behind for the Ghantri to steal would match this.”

“Yup. I should be a detective or something.”

“Is Melafenaseance close?”

“Couple of chambers across. Want me to get him in here?”

“He
is
an engineer.”

Moments later, after Cuts had called Melafenaseance to the compartment, they contacted Max again.

“My analysis concurs with Engineer Cutler’s assessment, Captain,” came the Votus’ gravelly voice, “The primitive cutting techniques do indeed suggest this was a recent removal.”

“What can you make of it? Any idea what it may have been?”

“The hulk contains several vacuous chambers, arranged in a spherical pattern. I believe this matches our descriptions of
ghru
transport frigates, and this is one such wreckage.”

“So this asteroid is just one ship? It’s nearly a kilometre across.”

“Rather small for a
ghru
vessel.”

“Space me...”

“The use of crude vernacular is hardly necessary, Captain.”

“I thought you’d be used to it, by now.”

“Indeed. One would also think one of your standing would have put such language aside, by now.”

“Touché.”

“My preliminary scans indicate this compartment has residual traces of
esso-paeli-thot
emissions. The molecules are even now…”

“I’m sorry,
esso-
what?”

She could hear the Votus sighing over the radio. “Travelling through extra-planar boundaries, over long periods of time, leaves a signature energy emission on molecules continuously exposed to dimensional energies.”

“Heat?”

“Not precisely. Heat is a side effect of exposing three-dimensional matter to higher planar properties. Other branes, for example. What you younger races call heat is essentially the result of short-term exposure, which bleeds off harmlessly over time.
Esso-paeli-thot
emissions are the build-up of extra-dimensional tension and stresses. When three-dimensional matter is converted through a brane’s skin – shifting, as you call it – these stresses emit exotic radiations. Tac, your unique AI, should begin to emit EPT within the next thirty standard years.”

“Okay, so what does that mean? This transport frigate has gone through a lot of Jump Gates?”

“Not exactly.”

Now it was Max’s turn to sigh. “So what the fuck are you saying?”

“Captain,” Max hated how the Votus could make it sound like he was explaining something simple to a small child, “The readings I am getting are consistent with
ekte…
with Shift inducing devices.”

“Like a Jump Gate?”

“A Jump Drive.”

She was silent a few moments, letting it sink in. “Is that even possible?”

“Of course. How did you think the
ghru
were able to so effectively decimate your Protectorate seven centuries ago?”

He had a point. Everyone learns the history of the Destroyer War, what records survived that is. There were many tall tales of entire fleets simply appearing in star systems, sending Protectorate guardians racing from their tactically pointless positions guarding Jump Gates to engage the Destroyer ships.

Shutting down a Jump Gate is a very serious decision to make. They can’t simply be turned back on again afterwards. The process of linking two points in space across light years is a very tedious, expensive and difficult task. To establish a successful link, the two Jump Gates need to be precisely calibrated at the same time, at the same location, using the same equipment. A quantum entanglement occurs, such that both Gates react simultaneously to a shift occurring regardless of their distance.

Once accomplished, a long distance scout ship is sent to the nearest inhabitable star system. This journey often takes decades to succeed, and more often than not end in failure. The scout ship is laden with the core components of the Jump Gate technology, entangled with a sister Gate that remains in the system of origin. When a suitable system is located, the scout crew completes construction of the new Jump Gate and ignites it. The whole process can take generations to complete.

Closing a Jump Gate disrupts the entanglement properties, such that recreating the exact conditions that enabled the link to occur next to impossible. It is often considered easier to simply build an entirely new Jump Gate, albeit using the old one as parts.

The decision to shut down several key Jump Gates during the Destroyer War held a terrible cost for those systems that were isolated. A cost that yielded no tactical advantage at all. It took many generations to repair the damage done in the name of galactic defence alone, not to mention the damage caused by the Destroyers.

A Jump Drive, essentially, made a Jump Gate obsolete.

“You think this is what the Ghantri were looking for?”

“Undoubtedly. I believe I owe you an apology, Captain.”

“Oh, come now, you had good reasons for avoiding these sites.”
Eat it, you smug bastard,
she thought.

“Nevertheless, I once again bow to your wisdom. I shall endeavour to consider your arguments with more austerity in the future.”

“That’s a win-win for both of us, Mel.” she was practically brimming from ear to ear. A sudden alert on the sensor console made her start, and she dropped the smile immediately. She nearly fell over climbing out of the pilot’s seat to get to Fel’s station in a hurry. “God damn it.” she swore.

“Are you all right, Captain?”

“Shit, got an alert coming through. Sorry left the mic on. Give me a sec.”

She hastily acknowledged the alert and brought it up on the display. As the data streamed in, her eyes darted back and forth as she desperately tried to make sense of it. When she’d read enough, she lunged for the communications controls behind her on her own console, sending her next message to everyone.

“All teams! Break off what you’re doing and get back here immediately. We got Ghantri incoming!”

46.

The dark, normally the stuff of bad dreams and nervous dashes to the bathroom, enveloped us like a comforting mother. I’d spent months down in tunnels such as this, trying to survive. I only evaded capture for so long because I embraced the dark as an ally, instead of shying away from it. The light, normally a source of comfort and warmth, was definitely not my friend in places like this. Fortunately, the Ghantri suffered from similar limitations in the visible spectrum to humans. I, on the other hand, was augmented.

Half of Naga Team had their eyes and optical nerves upgraded through bio-augmentation to allow a wider band of light frequencies to be detectable, and Rego boasted that he cause pick up electrical signals in exposed cabling through a cybernetic implant. The rest of us were outfitted with the Tactical app I was so fond of using in situations such as this.

It took a moment for my overlay to synchronise what visible space I could see with the blueprint schematic I had shared with the app. Once completed, a wireframe outline appeared of the surrounding terrain. Linking with the other members of the squad allowed me to see them clearly, as if standing in a well-lit room. My rifle, calibrated to the app, also showed a targeting crosshair where I pointed it.

The dark was indeed my ally.

A quick nod from all my squad mates told me we were ready to go, and we started at a steady creep. The concourse ahead was roughly three-hundred metres long and fifty wide, a vast cavern of steel and concrete. The roof of the compartment was nearly forty metres up, and upon approaching a railing and looking down we realised the floor below was a staggering hundred metres down. All around us were mezzanines and gantries, crisscrossing and reaching between the sides of the concourse like some kind of shopping mall on a grand scale. We paused to take it all in and locate a way down to the Ghantri node below.

“What is this place?” whispered Harris, to my right.

“High density living spaces, or some sort of mall.” I replied.

“People would live this far out near the outer surface?”

“Some species don’t mind the higher gravity, but low income workers and welfare recipients don’t really have a choice. Low cost housing and a daily work out. What’s not to like?”

Harris shook his head in wonder, but said no more. Kekkin, ever the pragmatist, prodded Carro in front of him and we continued on our way. We found a deactivated personnel elevator shaft, but decided to use a nearby stairwell instead. We were able to go down three floors this way, before we found the well collapsed from damage. The blueprint told me there was another well, across a gantry and seventy metres ahead, only we’d need to cross into an open space in the middle of the concourse.

The others started discussing crawling across the walkway, but I put an end it.

“I’ve been in dozens of areas like this before,” I began, “The construction of the walkways left support frames underneath, like a grill. Deck plates were just welded onto them. Quick and easy. I evaded notice many times by using them as hand holds to climb below them. We should be hidden.”

“There are no lights below the gantries?” asked Renthal.

“Sometimes, the trick is to find one with all the lights out.”

“Can’t we just run across?” asked Art, “There’s no Ghantri nearby that I can see.”

“Listen.” I said.

She tilted her head to the side and concentrated, everyone else did as well.

“Sounds like rats.” she said eventually.

“You ever see a Ghantri in armour before?”

“No.”

“A few things are starting to make sense to me, now. This infatuation the Ghantri have with the Destroyers?”

Renthal’s eyes widened as he came to the same conclusion. “Their armour! They make them to look like insects.”

“They mimic how they remember the
ghru
looked like.”

“All those extra legs…”

“The most common Ghantri we’ll face,” I explained to Art, “are cybernetically linked to their armour. They surgically graft a base of four or more limbs to their lower extremities, and often attach extra upper limbs to their torso and back.”

Kekkin traced a line down the neck of his armour. “This scar? Ghantri scythe limb. Did not know it was there until
calak
extended limb from socket.”

“So what’s that got to do with the rats?”

“They’re like cockroaches, scurrying about up there. Dozens of them.”

“What are they doing?” she started craning her neck to look above us and around us.

“I never figured that out. I think they’re trying to
act
like insects too.”

“Can they see in the dark?”

“I’m certain that they can’t. I’d probably have never made it off this station alive, otherwise.”

“They are so weird.”

“Warrior is reminded of
fek’se
from Garz’en,” explained Kekkin, “When a hive is weakened, or loses their queen, the worker drones seek out other hives. At first, new hive will attack intruders, but when they realise the drones not fight back, new hive accepts drones. Drones remain loyal to old hive, though. Eventually turn on new hive, inject new hive eggs with pheromones from old hive. All new young become loyal to old hive too.”

“Never pinned you as an entomologist, birdman.” said Artemis.

“Warrior has hobbies, human.”

“You mean besides losing duels?” Kekkin bristled at being shamed, and I gave her my best look of disapproval that I could manage through a helmet.

“All right, we’ve loitered enough. We need to keep moving. Rego, what’s the status of that charge drone?”

Rego checked a readout on his left sleeve. “It’s five minutes from target.”

“Good, let’s get going.”

I swung out onto the gantry, lowering myself from the railing and swinging one handed to the underside of the walkway. The ease with which I performed this feat surprised me - these exo-rigs bolted onto our suits were amazing.

Bracing my feet either side of the gantry, I shimmied across to the other side and dropped down to the level below, followed closely by the others. The Coriolis Effect was noticeable, this far out on the station, from the rotation of the ring. It affected my balance, causing the M4’s gyros to kick into high gear. I watched Art as she clamoured across – she was the only one of us without an exo-rig, or an internal gyro-stabiliser and I needed to know if she could keep up. I need not have bothered. She traversed the climb with ease, looking graceful all the while. I noticed Renthal was standing beside me watching as well.

“She’s pretty good,” he said, admiration clear in his voice, “I’d have struggled to make that unaltered in this gravity.”

She landed perfectly, rising from a crouch with a grin on her face. “I saw you watching me.” she said in a sultry voice. She walked away, a swagger in her hips.

Renthal was shaking his head, smiling.

“Keep focused, don’t get distracted out here.” I warned. He nodded, and put his game face back on.

When we had all crossed, I sent Gunther ahead to scout while we checked in on Rego’s drone. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but when the countdown reached zero Rego simply switched over to a tablet and nodded to me.

“Done.” he said.

“Just like that?”

“It
is
a stealth drone.”

“Huh. Neat. We are weapons free, ladies and gentlemen.”

“You hear that, sarge?” said Renthal, “Payback time.”

“
Ur kah lem, calak
.” Kekkin said, checking his rifle over.
Fight well, my enemy.

Gunther returned, reporting that there was a gathering of Ghantri one level down, further along the concourse. I mulled it over – we could evade this whole bunch, not firing a shot, but that meant getting Tac through here while hostiles lurked about. Besides, I could gauge the mindset of everyone. We were itching to bring the fight to the Ghantri. We had the advantage, we had their comms cut off. Do I order them to engage the Ghantri? Would this be putting them needlessly into harms way?

I pondered briefly, turning to look at everyone. I could see they were waiting for me to order them to attack. I’ll admit, I was on edge as well, keen to put an end to all the sneaking around. I wasn’t sure if the pounding in my head would stop once I confronted my fear, or would I freeze up? Kekkin stepped up to me, putting our helmets together to speak privately.

“Wrong decision is bad. No decision is worse.”

“As a marine, I’m used to attacking. How would Naga Team handle this?”

“We are warriors, first and fore most. They need to see you fight.”

“And if I get some of them killed?”

“They have accepted death, the moment they stepped onto the Astral Spider, the moment
kitrak
Garner ignored the withdraw order.”

“What do we gain by engaging now? We can avoid this group entirely.”

“No way to know if we’ll engage
calak
further on. Warrior with back exposed to
calak
is
fedang
. Tactically, removing threat here removes threat for later.”

I blew the air out of my lungs, then nodded to myself. “We’ll need to keep an eye out for the ones above us.”

Kekkin nodded, a wicked grin on his face.

The decision was made. I could see the squad was excited, eagerness plain on their features. Gunther described their layout and numbers. After a brief discussion, we decided to break up into three fireteams. Kekkin and Art joined my fireteam while Renthal, Masters, Rego and Triptych made up the second. Lastly Harris, Gunther and Carro made the third.

We crept along the concourse until I could see the Ghantri below us. They were milling about in three groups along a widened section of the concourse. The largest group, four Ghantri strong, were sharing a meal near another walkway reaching across to the other side. Further down the concourse was the second group, three Ghantri chattering rapidly with two Jaani who appeared to be working on a vehicle of some kind. Two Ghantri were furthest along, near the now disabled communication node deployed near the edge of the walkway. The node jutted out near the centre of the concourse.

The sight of the Ghantri made me catch my breath. I had been trying to prepare myself mentally for this eventuality, but failing utterly. I could hear their voices, a guttural harsh sounding bark. In battle, they liked to snarl and snap at their foes. I’ve had nightmares about that sound, running down impossibly long corridors with them at my heels.

When I got close enough to make them out, a chill went through me, like an electric shock. I found that I was hyperventilating. I focused on my breathing, trying to shut out everything else. When my breathing was under control, I steeled myself to take it all in. I needed to face this, or I was doomed.

I crawled to the edge of the walkway above them, getting the best vantage point to plan the attack. I forced myself to study them in detail. I focused on one in particular, one who bore the markings of their leader.

Physically, the Ghantri are easily half again as large as a human. At first glance, one could be excused for thinking the Ghantri to be slothful and bloated. Some aspect of their home world’s survival depended on them to have excessive body weight. They were humanoid, tall, and blubbery. They were immensely powerful, far stronger than a human. They could endure naked vacuum for several minutes before suffering harm and could ignore wounds that would kill a man. Their natural limbs were long, much like the Jaani, and perforated from elbow to hand with bony protrusions. Similar rounded spikes dotted their backs, in random patterns. They were hairless, stone grey in colour with thick, rubbery skin.

Their heads, rounded and animalistic, were ursine and lacked ears. They had small, droopy black eyes. Long nasal slits ran up through half of their faces, the flapping folds of skin often making an unforgettable wet sound when they breathed heavily during combat. A wide, gaping maw presented those unfortunate enough to witness a row of uneven, oversized canines and jagged teeth. Their appetite for the flesh of the fallen, whether an enemy’s or their own kind’s, made me sick to the stomach.

Most Ghantri adopted crude, low-tech cybernetic augmentations. Whether they intended the horrid looking surgical scarring to terrify their foes, or they cared little for physical appearances the result was the same. Almost all their warriors had their natural legs removed and replaced with a prosthetic insect walking frame with many scurrying legs. Sometimes their upper limps had been replaced, other times more had simply been added. They often had festering surgical wounds, which appeared to cause them no discomfort, but which created a fetid odour like rotten meat.

Body armour, if worn, looked like overlapping plates of carapace, much as a beetle would have. It was often grafted onto their bodies. The fearsome Ghantri heavies, as they were colloquially known, were entombed in oversized, powered versions of this armour. Weapons were bolted onto their frames. I was thankful we were not facing one of those behemoths.

Taking in the vista before me, I let the fear that bubbled to the surface of my mind run its course. I focused on my breathing, repeating a mantra in my head –
I am in control, I am the one they should fear.
I let the fear boil over - let it go within me while I was safely above them, hidden from them. Once I became aware of the fear, I had control over it.