Armageddon's Pall: Spiral War Book 4 Read online

  “If he lets me. Even with Chief Flind’s recommendation he doesn’t like pilots’ help with repairs and maintenance.”

  UCSB Date: 1003.121

  Bridge, UCSBS Mercy, Nimbus System

  Ever since he’d transferred aboard the Mercy, Gokhead felt like he’d moved into an insect hive. That feeling kept him to the computer bays, medical labs, and even the hangar. Those areas featured more ship-like interiors, with consistent artificial lines. Standing in one of the crew pits of the bridge, the feeling came back full force. Insectoid Shinekian clung to every surface of the zero-gravity space, arrayed in an open helical pattern centering on the captain’s station.

  He wouldn’t even be here if he hadn’t discovered that an old enlisted friend of his now served aboard the ship. Floating beside his old friend’s station, they commiserated about the conditions. The hot, humid interior was a far cry from the two Drashigs’ experiences aboard starships. Gokhead thought sent through his micomm link.

 

  Gokhead felt the lower half of his left snout begin to creep open, but retracted it before it could creep up his vertical lips.

 

 

 

  Something on the hologram at the station drew Gokhead’s eye and he leaned in for a better look. His eyes went wide in response and, glancing down at the terminal ID, pulled up the data on his micomm. Gokhead almost lost perception of his old friend and the dumbfounded expression on his face as he dove into the data flow. The telemetry was familiar enough, but the object he spotted was even more so. I’ll recognize that energy signature in my next three lives.

  Gokhead pulled back out of the data flow, but not before he sent his rough analysis to the captain, Tadeh Qudas, and Trevis.

  Trevis thought sent back.

 

  Tadeh Qudas ordered.

  Main Hold, Boarding Shuttle-Charity

  The shuttle was not at all what Blazer was used to. Throughout their training, the Blade Force and Explosions had used tactical and strategic dropships. The Charity was not so equipped. More an ambulance for rescuing crews from damaged ships, it bore no armament beyond the boarding collar used to cut through a ship’s hull. Their normal flight crew of Gavit, Mikle, and Acknit crowded the main hold with the rest of the squadron, with a dedicated flight crew from the Mercy piloting the craft.

  Blazer shook his head. Quit dwelling on the shuttle. Focus on the mission. This would be the first mission that the Blade Force and Explosions had undertaken together since they’d taken the GFS-Nosferat their first annura at the academy. That had been a crippled Geffer heavy cruiser crewed by an embattled and injured crew, not a Gorvian strike corvette with thirty metra tall nightmares at the helm.

  “We’re approaching the largest hull breach now,” the pilot announced.

  Blazer pulled up a diagram of the corvette on his micomm. Analysis of the one they’d destroyed just a few tridecs earlier had revealed a hull too thick for this shuttle to breach with its cutting lasers. The interior bulkheads however were sheet thin by comparison, meaning the breaching tube’s cutters would make short work of them.

  “Be remembering the plan,” Trevis said in his thick Tomeris accent. “We not be knowing the condition of the crew, but they will definitely be putting up a fight.” He patted the heavy repeating plaser beside him. “Coordinate fire whenever possible. Our objectives be the bridge, and the engineering bay. If the ship configuration be the same, then we be having equal distance to cross from the boarding point. Blazer and me be leading the bridge team, his and Gavit’s crew. Ller will lead the engine and environ teams to take the engineering space along with Marda and Arion’s teams.”

  Blazer looked over at Marda as she held her helmet in her hands. She nodded to him and rested a hand on her own heavy repeating plaser, their usual small arms unlikely to do much harm to the Gorvians. He returned the nod and flipped his helmet over in his hands. He stared into it for a long moment and calmed his breathing. He cast aside those parts of himself that would interfere with the mission, focused his mind on the task at hand, numbed his emotions, and cast aside any doubts.

  With one final breath of the shuttle’s air, he pulled the helmet on and activated the sensors that would provide him his view onto the world. The synthetic display winked on after a moment of cool darkness. When Blazer opened his eyes, he couldn’t see his wife sitting before him. Instead he saw only his team medic and third fire team leader. He felt no more emotion for her than any another squad member, a tool to accomplish his mission like any of the others.

  he announced over the micomm link.

  That brought everyone’s attention. His whole team nodded and pulled their helmets on. This would be a battle unlike any they’d been involved in before and they all had to know it. Blazer looked at Arion. His primary weapon was still Big Red. He’d built the weapon around the plasma injector from his own downed Splicer 1000, mating it to the body of a crew-served chain plaser and a backpack fed plasma tank and power supply. He stood the best chance of downing the Gorvians with that weapon of his, but Blazer still worried about his mental state. Ever since his love, Alieha, had died, ending the Gorvian assault on their cadet transports, his head hadn’t been in the right place. Blazer asked Arion on a private link.

  Arion looked over at Blazer, his helmet already on, the phrase Gorvian Slayer imprinted on the side. he replied, quoting their old slamball coach.

  “We’re entering the breach now,” the pilot announced. “So far they haven’t reacted to our approach.”

  “Be getting on your feet!” Trevis ordered.

  All twenty-four members of the two teams jumped to their feet. Those that hadn’t yet secured their helmets did so and they all primed their weapons. The humming of capacitors rang out like a starter’s whistle and they shuffled in closer to the boarding hatch at the rear.

  The shuttle rotated about, the motion threatening to topple them before the braking thrusters echoed through the hull. A thump ran through the craft, then the firing of magnetic latches before the snapping of capacitors discharging vibrated the hull.

  Blazer readied himself as the light bar above the hatch began to turn from red to blue. In moments, it shone blue across its whole length. The hatch retracted into the wall revealing the bulkhead they’d attached themselves to.

  Trevis took the lead and kicked the panel. It fell away, its edges still simmering from the intense heat of the lasers. There was a momentary burp of air as the pressure between the two spaces equalized before smoke began drifting into the shuttle. A light in Blazer’s HUD winked blue and his team vaulted into the chamber. Blazer spun about, sweeping his rifle around the room as he drifted across the null-G chamber. Reaching the midpoint, Blazer activated the mag-locks in his boots and fell to the deck. Gokhead and Zithe joined him, the chamber empty of any Gorvians.

  Blazer reported, and the rest of the teams vaulted in.

  Marda asked.

  Blazer checked his sensors: it was well below freezing in the chamber. ive on this ship?”

  Gokhead scanned the room and spotted a computer terminal.

  Trevis replied.

  Blazer’s fire team vaulted over to the console along with Gokhead, Ller and his fire team following. Gokhead leapt up to the console, locking himself in place beside it as he searched for an input jack. He looked at Ller as the Nerzain joined him.

 

  The pair made short work of the console and brought up an internal diagram of the ship. Unlike most Confed designs, the ship’s decks were parallel with the length of the ship. The graviton spinners that provided artificial gravity had long since powered down.

  Gokhead reported.

  Blazer asked.

  Gokhead and Ller exchanged a quick look before Gokhead turned to Blazer.

  Trevis held up a hand. Trevis waved Porc and Nash forward then turned back to the shuttle. “You best be sealing up. The rest of the ship be decompressed.”

  “Copy that Explosions Lead.”

  Gorvian Strike Corvette D-1563

  At the head of her team, Marda stalked down the passageway in the trail of Lind’s Engineering crew. It had been several pulses since the two parties had broken and so far, it was too quiet in the ship. Thanks to the maglocks in her boots each step felt like a stomp, but the silence of the vacuum left her ill at ease. The lack of bodies or any signs of life had turned her spine to ice.

  The group soon approached a breach in the hull, Ller’s team rushing ahead to ensure that the path remained clear.

  Marda asked.

  Kink shrugged and pointed to the hole bored through the ceiling and out into space.

  Marda shook her head and exchanged a brief glance with Chris, sure that her squad mate must have rolled her eyes.

  Dosher came up from behind and tapped Marda on the shoulder, opening a private link.

  Marda waited and motioned him to ask.

 

  Marda looked around. Feelings of hatred and death emanated from every surface of the ship, but so far she’d seen no spirit orbs.

  Ller vaulted across the hole in the floor and came to a dead stop.

  The four fire teams all rushed forward in response. Aside from the one that had attacked Marda’s fighter, this was the closest any of them had been to their enemy. Marda tried to resist but even her curiosity got the better of her and she approached the scorched body. It didn’t look anything like the monster which had attacked her fighter. That one had been hominid in form with an extra set of smaller arms, but this one looked insectoid with patches of desiccated skin remaining over its semi-hard exoskeleton. They did share a common trait however - a pair of large brain tails emerging from the creature's head.

  Marda extended a gloved hand to the corpse. Even through her gloves she should have been able to feel any residual soul energy, but there was nothing. She turned to Chris when she approached and shook her head.

  Chris replied, her voice on edge.

 

  Arion

  commented as he knelt beside an object in the floor.

  Their insectoid squad mate scurried over, and after Arion had moved out of the way grabbed the object embedded in the deck. He grunted twice then jerked back, Arion catching him. Bichard held up the cylindrical object.

  Even Marda recognized it.

  Ller stepped up and examined the smashed slug.

  Dibtel commented.

  Ller stepped away from the dead Gorvian and the slug in Bichard’s hands.

  The party moved back out, Marda watching Arion as he kept his weapon trained on the body the whole time. Even Marda kept glancing at the corpse until they were out of sight of it. Of all the beings she’d encountered in her life none were quite so alien to her, not even the Cthoid which had spawned so many terrible dreams in her youth.

  Ller held up a hand a few moments later and the group came to a halt.

  Marda stepped up and looked at the massive hatchway.

  Ller replied and motioned towards the wall beside the hatch.

  The larger Tomeris nodded and rushed ahead; the elfin Rudjick looking like a child as he followed in his wake. The rest of them took up defensive positions behind him, ready in case any of the crew exited the space and found them. Marda watched Gadcon and Rudjick affix multiple charges around the door. It wasn’t a standard breaching pattern that she recognized, but then the hatch was bigger than the docking hatches their fighters had entered the Mercy through.

  The pair returned a moment later and Rudjick took up position beside Marda.

  Ller ignored Rudjick’s exuberance, and out of habit touched her hand to the side of her helmet.

  Trevis replied.

 

 

  Marda felt her eyes go wide at that.

 

  Marda shared a quick glance with Arion. Shock Troopers had killed Blazer’s mother aboard the Vaurnel when he was a child. She set a private channel to Blazer.

  he replied.

  Marda hated that about Blazer. Even though she understood why he did it, it still chafed that he would, that he could set aside his emotions so readily on a mission. It was something she never could, never would, do. It hurt her to see him this way. But she had to admit that it had saved their lives in the past, and that it made him more effective in the field.

  Trevis’ voice bit into their signal, cutting off any further response from Blazer.

  Marda double-checked that her safety was off and that her heavy assault plaser was at full charge. It would do her no good for it to fail during the assault. Despite the lack of gravity, the weapon felt heavy in her hands. She was used to her light assault plaser, forgoing even the dual barreled plaser/mass driver battle rifles the rest of the team tended to use. Encumbered with this massive gun instead of her medical kit just served to remind her that this wasn’t the kind of mission she’d spent annura training for.

 

  Marda braced herself for the blast, but in the vacuum, there was almost no reaction. Bright flashes li
t up the hatchway frame and for a moment only a faint wisp of escaping gasses appeared, then the whole thing exploded towards them. Marda ducked as the hatch sailed overhead followed by a brief torrent of air screaming past her helmet. She held her ground, the maglocks in her boots keeping her in place as she scanned the new opening.

  Two Gorvians tumbled out, flailing for any handhold before almost everyone opened fire, plaser rounds tracing their way up the bodies. The plasma rounds seared the wounds shut as they made them so there were no great spurts of blood, not until Arion opened fire. Three rounds from his custom-made heavy weapon ripped through the nearest Gorvian, shredding its torso and head as it flew past. The explosion of grey-green blood that issued forth turned Marda’s stomach.

  Gadcon exclaimed at the sight.

  Ller snapped.

  Ller led the two fire teams forward, vaulting ahead to the destroyed hatchway in almost a single jump. Flashes of plaser fire illuminated the space beyond, scars from stray blasts appearing out of nowhere. A massive spacesuit clad Gorvian, reminding Marda far too much of the one that had attacked her fighter, sailed into view. It slammed against the bulkhead, its weapon in hand. As it brought the weapon back up, the group around her opened fire.

  Marda felt herself transfixed by the scene. She just stared at the Gorvian as it reeled from the attack. She couldn’t see any aura at first. Is it the suit? Is it blocking my view? No, that’s never been an issue before. Then she saw it. The Gorvian went limp and just hung there in space, one of its brain tails spinning by its side. A dim light emerged from the Gorvian dissipating into space all around it until nothing remained but the body. It shocked Marda to see it. She’d only seen a sentient soul dissipate like that once before and hadn’t asked her Grandmother why. What I wouldn’t give for her counsel now.