By Other Means (22 page)

Sorilla didn’t recognize the weapon in question, but it was clear to her that someone had popped off some form of EMP device on the flight deck.

“There’s the alien ship,” A Marine spoke up, nodding ahead of them.

Sorilla looked as the ship loomed out of the darkness, now reflecting some of the infrared light from the floods back.

“No sign of anyone on board,” Another marine said as they closed enough to see into the open hold of the ship.

Sorilla didn’t reply, she just stepped up onto the boarding ramp and walked into the ship.

“Major, it may not be my place, but are you sure you should be going in there?” Colonel Krieg asked sternly. He knew that he was technically in charge, but was also aware that Aida had her own orders from on high.

“Worst they’ll do now is blacklist me from entry into Alliance space,” Sorilla said as she continued up the ramp, “The treaty negotiations are almost done.”

The Marines spread out and took up posts around the entry to the ship while Krieg hesitated a moment, the followed the Major into the ship. He found Sorilla kneeling in front of an unfamiliar device, one that looked scorched and smelled of smoke.

“What is it?” He asked, standing behind her.

“No idea,” Sorilla admitted, “never seen one before, but I’m betting it’s an advanced EMP device.”

“It is a micro-gravity pulse weapon.”

Krieg and Sorilla spun, weapons snapping up to cover a figure that had just appeared across the other side of the ship’s hold. Sorilla instantly recognized the stout figure, making her take a step back to clear more distance between them as she centered her pistol on him.

“You.” She muttered.

Sentinel Kriss just crossed his arms, staring back, “I could say the same, Sentinel.”

“You two know each other?” Krieg asked dryly, his own rifle not wavering from where it was covering the alien commando.

“Oh, intimately, you might say,” Kriss said in passable English, “She killed several of my team on that world of yours, I believe you call it Hayden? Normally I’d be… angry about that? However we
were
trying to kill her at the time.”

“I wasn’t sure if you recognized me,” Sorilla admitted.

“You left an impression.”

“Yeah, yeah, the homecoming is sweet and all,” Krieg interrupted, “but I think we have business here. What did you do?”

Kriss spared him only a momentary glance before refocusing on Sorilla, “I didn’t do this. Neither did any official group, this weapon is highly secret and was not issued to anyone on the diplomatic team.”

Sorilla pursed her lips, annoyed, “Your Alliance is looking a lot shakier than ever. If these dissidents could get cleared into a diplomatic mission like this…”

“I know,” Kriss admitted, “this is a concern, a very great one.”

“How did you get down here anyway,” Krieg demanded, “You were in the chambers, weren’t you?”

Sorilla snorted, “I expect he got down here the same way he escaped the America, through the engineering access to the lift. Isn’t that right, Sentinel Kriss?”

Kriss snorted, “We did map this particular ship design quite carefully when we had the chance.”

“Yes, I’m sure you did.” Sorilla grumbled, “and I have to assume that if you have it, so do our uninvited guests.”

“That’s probably a good bet.”

Krieg grimaced, “That’s just great. Your Alliance security has more holes than swiss cheese.”

“Swiss what?” Kriss looked perplexed.

“Never mind. What matters now is just what do they intend to do,” Sorilla said, “This group is trying to kill your ambassador, but there’s no way they get through
our
security.”

“Agreed.” Kriss said, stepping forward to kick over the device on the deck between them. “and that presents us with a very large problem.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This device is considered highly secret,” Kriss said, “even using one against you is probably grounds for execution, the Alliance would have preferred that you never learn of this technology. For them to use it, for them to even have it, means they know that quite well… and I expect they plan to eliminate all witnesses.”

“So that means they plan to take us all out this time,” Sorilla growled, thinking furiously, “so the best plan they’ve got is… Oh shit.”

Krieg looked sharply over at her, “Major?”

“We’ve been monitoring a stray gravity source since the day these yahoos did their assault on the council the first time,” Sorilla said, “We thought it was a ship, but never could figure out which one. It’s still here, but… it’s almost in sync with our own core now.”

Kriss stiffened, “You’re sure of this?”

Sorilla nodded, “They’re transporting a space warp device, aren’t they?”

“It is possible. To activate such fully in the presence of a ship’s core, such as that on your vessel… the results would be destructive.” Kriss said dryly.

“I get the feeling that you’re understating that,” Sorilla turned, “Time to go, Colonel. We need to get down to the Core’s engineering section before it’s too late.”

Krieg nodded, retreating from the alien ship to dispatch orders to his team. Sorilla started after him, then spared a glance at Kriss.

“You coming?”

Kriss shot her an amused look, but followed her out of the ship and onto the flight deck beyond. The Marines shot him distrusting looks and he saw their weapons twitch in his direction more than once, but Kriss explicitly ignored them.

“Are you sure about this, Major?” Krieg asked, eyeing the alien balefully.

“I’d rather have him where I can see him, Colonel.” Sorilla said simply, “Besides, we don’t have anyone else who can decode their tech.”

“Very well,” Krieg reluctantly agreed, shooting orders through his implants to four of his squad.

The four men in question tightened the grip on their weapons and turned their entire focus on Kriss. They wouldn’t be letting the alien command out of their sights anytime soon.

“We need to stop at the armory,” Sorilla went on as they walked, “break out heavier kit. Without knowing how well the enemy is setup, we’d best assume the w…”

Her last word was torn from her throat as she was drive to one knee by a sudden slamming force slapping her down. Around her, the others all joined her on the deck, some being spread flat out and some barely keeping to their knees. Only Kriss stayed standing, and he was clearly doing so with significant effort.

A rumble through the deck of the ship announced the firing of the VASIMR drive and in an instant the force was gone. Sorilla and the others slowly got back to their feet, looking around.

“What the hell was that?” A marine asked, swinging his rifle about as if looking for something to shoot.

“Gravity surge,” Sorilla gasped out, her implants filling her in on the environmental changes, “Something’s interfering with the space-time warp in the forward singularity. It’s at eight gravities and climbing. Fast.”

“How the hell are we standing then?” Krieg demanded.

“The Mexico’s computer kicked in the VASIMR drive,” Sorilla filled him in, “The only thing keeping us from being flattened now is the acceleration of the ship. We need to get the singularity back under control, and we need to do it fast.”

“How long do we have?”

Sorilla started moving as she crunched the numbers, “Current rates? The singularity will exceed four hundred gravities in twenty minutes… we’ll be a smear on the deck three minutes after that.”

Krieg shook his head, “You heard the lady! Move it!”

The broke into a jog, heading for the lift, as Krieg called to the bridge.

*****

Hiro Usagi was not a happy man.

The Captain of the Mexico had a nasty gash along his scalp from where he’d been slammed into a console when the gravity acted up. He could tell from the blood that he was going to need stitches, but didn’t have time to worry about that just then.

“Engineering! What the hell is wrong with my ship?”

The poor Ensign at the engineering station looked like he’d take a hit to the face as well in the jerk, but was clearly more flustered by his Captain’s voice than any pain he was currently enduring.

“Unknown, Captain! No reports from the warp control stations!”

“Well get a report from them!” Hiro growled, wiping blood from his eyes. “Someone get me a bandage or a rag, hell I’ll settle for some crazy glue.”

A young crewman ran up with a first aid kit in her hands, “Just hold still a moment, Captain, I’ll…”

“Message from Colonel Krieg, Sir!”

Hiro twisted away from the crewman trying to bandage his head, “What does he want?”

The Lieutenant at the comm board paled, “Sir. Krieg reports probable infiltrators on board, the blackout around the flight deck was caused by an EMP from the alien ship. His team, Major Aida, and one of the Alliance Security Officers are proceeding to Engineering.”

Hiro gaped at him for a moment, “Say that last part again.”

The Lieutenant stammered out the words a second time, causing Hiro to seethe.

He wasn’t one to second guess the decisions of his people in the field, even if the field was occasionally his own ship in some way, but the very idea of bringing an enemy agent into the Mexico’s space-time warp control was enough to make Captain Usagi consider section eighting the Colonel in charge of his marines right on the spot.

“That’s what I thought you said,” He ground out, “Please relay to Colonel Krieg my concern over the… composition of his detachment.”

“A… aye, Captain.”

Given the seriousness of the situation, and his lack of immediate intelligence on what exactly the
hell
was going on, Hiro would leave it at that for the moment. Hopefully someone down there hadn’t lost their ever loving mind and actually knew what they were doing.

Hopefully.

“And get the teams moving on restoring power to the affected areas!”

The armory was black as the deepest depths of space, but for the humans that was of little import as their equipment flooded the room with infrared light that they could easily see. Kriss didn’t say anything as he followed along with them, though he supposed that they would probably guess quickly enough that Lucians could see well into that part of the light spectrum as well.

Heat was a common vision type among Alliance races, actually, in varying forms so the human’s flood lights worked well enough for his needs. His attention was brought to the Terran sentinel, however, as she immediate began to shuck clothing as she walked through the armory. He wasn’t familiar with terran habits, but most races would find this a particularly odd time to find a driving desire for nudity.

His curiosity was answered when she snapped open a pair of locks and opened a cabinet to reveal a discomfortingly familiar piece of equipment within.

“Are you sure that will work, Major?”

Sorilla didn’t look back as she stepped out of her undergarments and pulled open the chest plate of the armor. “It should. SOLCOM armor is hardened, of course, but it was also powered down and in a launch box.”

She turned around, then stepped back into the armor one piece at a time. It closed around her as she settled in, flooding slowly with the heavily oxygenated blue gel that served multiple purposes. Sorilla shivered slightly, the chill raising goosebumps on her skin and incidentally flashing the marines a more exciting picture of her chest than she’d have preferred before the armor closed entirely, but she was long since inured to embarrassment over body image issues.

“Shows over,” She told them as she pulled her helmet on, “grab some guns and gear, we’ve got a job to do.”

“Major’s right. Move it, Marines,” Colonel Krieg ordered, “The clock is ticking, unless you jarheads want to try a new career as modern art spread across the decks.”

Her armor booted up on demand, a gentle whirr of motion sending a shudder through her body as Sorilla stepped out of the launch crate and looked around the room. She grabbed a pair of M-Tacs instead of one of the heavier assault rifles, sliding them into cross draw holsters before grabbing  a full ammo case and flipping it over her shoulder and locking it into the armor’s hard points on her back.

The metalstorm pistols would serve her far better in the enclosed corridors of the ship than a full battle rifle ever could, since most of the hard hitting power of the rifle didn’t even reach maximum efficacy until three hundred yards plus. She absently logged into the CPU of both pistols, linking them to her armor and implants with a thought while the Marines kitted themselves out with better armor and weapons than they’d retrieved from their go-room.

“We’re ready, Sir,” One of the marines said to Colonel Krieg.

“Alright, let’s move em out.”

*****

“What the hell is going on?”

The near panic in the voice of the Engineering Chief was enough to powerfully underline just how had the situation had become. A short time earlier the entire system that managed the powerful space-time warp apparatus that provided the Mexico with one half the equation that allowed them to achieve such great accelerations had gone completely berserk. Nearly flattening everyone on the deck and, they assumed, the rest of the ship as well the on duty crew had so thrown themselves into trying to correct the problem that they had only now realized that all the comms were dead.

“Alright, alright… let me think for a minute,” Chief Harrowitz grumbled, forcing himself to calm down. “Jacks!”

“Yes Chief?”

“I need a runner,” Horrowitz ordered, “Get in the lift and ride it up, right to the bridge if you have to, get in contact with the Captain and tell him what’s going on down here.”

“You got it, Chief!” Jacks said before running off.

“Parker!”

The next crewman stepped up, “Yes Chief?”

“I need readings on the core,” He said, “Pull the external diagnostics gear, I don’t trust what I’m seeing here.”

“On it.”

That, Harrowitz decided, was the core of the problem. What he was seeing on his scans didn’t make any sense at all, and he just couldn’t trust that his instruments weren’t faulty somehow. As best he knew there wasn’t enough power in the entire system to have done what he
knew
had been done, which meant that either he and everyone around him had lost their senses, his instruments were faulty, or something was so very much more wrong than should be possible that he was really hoping that he and his entire crew had just gone loco.