Ghost Soldiers (6 page)

“For some reason, this ship was sent out, and then…Well, I suspect these other vessels joined it during its journey. Some of the connections are a little off, like they were trying to attach components to random sections.”

Captain Dutch nodded in agreement as he listened.

“Interesting.”

He looked at the information carefully, not wanting to jump to any rash conclusions. The more they studied the vessel, the clearer it was becoming to him.

“So...for reasons unknown to us, this ship was moving into deep space and carrying a large number of people. The computer shows the habitation section to be large enough to contain the population of a small town, and the rest could only add to that. There could have been anything up to fifty thousand on that thing.”

They both looked at the new information coming in via the radar scans. More and more of the ship was being carefully mapped, even though they could only reach so far inside. Captain Dutch rubbed his right eye and looked back at the Lieutenant.

“It was a long-duration mission, maybe even a lifer mission, that much seems clear. Yet for some reason, other vessels continued to join them. Why?”

It was more a rhetorical question, and as he thought about it, he signalled to his communications officer.

“Continue to hail them. I need information and fast. Are you getting anywhere?”

Lieutenant Jones shook her head.

“Everything I’m sending is just vanishing into a black hole. Absolutely nothing is coming back. Even the beacon has deactivated.”

“Strange. Keep at it.”

“Aye, Sir.”

Lieutenant Jones proceeded to send out messages in all known languages, and on multiple random bands. It was principally an automated procedure, but she still needed to configure specific data packets and targeted them directly at what appeared to be the communication arrays on the unusual vessel. Just seconds after sending a digital burst transmission, she turned around excitedly and lifted her hand to get the Captain’s attention.

“Sir, we’ve got something.”

The ship rumbled once more as the manoeuvring thrusters made further course changes. The derelict might have been massive, but it was nowhere near substantial enough to distort space-time enough to pull the Alliance ship into an orbit. Lieutenant Jones nodded to her part of the holographic display filling the space in front of the deck officers. It showed the newly discovered ship and marked the areas now responding.

“I’ve got two transmissions, both coming from these dish arrays on the vessel.”

Lieutenant Meyer left his seat and joined the Captain to examine the data. The three-dimensional schematic of the derelict spun about and then zoomed in to show the location of the transmission. At the same time the speakers played the sound. It was little other than noise, but clearly mechanical and produced by a person or machine.

“What does it say?” he asked.

Lieutenant Jones shook her head.

“No idea. The translator circuits are working on it. I think it...”

The lights on the ship flickered and then three cut out. Several of the crew spoke quietly, but there was still no sign of serious concern and no panic whatsoever. Then the mainscreen went black, flickered, and then came back but with almost all of the specific data regarding the derelict now gone.”

“What the hell is going on?” Captain Dutch demanded.

The holographic display increased in brightness and transformed to show a bizarre shape moving yet without form. For a second, Captain Dutch thought he could see a person, and then the entire system shut down.

“Security breach!” Lieutenant Meyer yelled.

He’d been away from his station for just a few seconds, but that was all the time it took for him to be locked out of most of his systems. His voice sounded nervous as he tried to assess what was happening, and then his tone shifted considerably.

“Network is compromised...losing system controls, fast!”

His hands moved like lightning, desperately fighting to contain the security breach. At the same time, he called out to other crewmembers to perform an emergency lock down. Captain Dutch was taking no chances and grabbed the intercom.

“Battlestations, this is not a drill. Battlestations!”

The emergency lighting changed as always, then flickered and returned to normal. Even as Lieutenant Meyer made changes, he could see system after system rerouted or locked down. After another panicked five seconds, he looked back to the Captain, his face now dripping with sweat.

“Something got into the computer system. I’ve never seen...hell...nobody has ever seen an attack like this.”

“What have we lost?”

The Lieutenant didn’t answer; instead his attention focussed on the locked view on the mainscreen. It showed the ship in front of them, and icons were flashing up all over the vessels as numerous systems activated.

“Their own systems are coming online. I’m getting readings throughout their ship.”

He glanced at the Captain and then remembered his initial question.

“Our engines are down; life-support has been disabled.”

Captain Dutch was stunned at the news.

“What? How? Do we still have communications, weapons?”

Lieutenant Jones was moving through systems in a similar manner to Lieutenant Meyer, and she looked just as shocked. She shook her head while continuing to work with what little computer power remained.

“No, Sir, all communication systems have been disabled. The system has been rerouted and is running additional routines....I will...”

The imagery flashed and then vanished in front of her. Captain Dutch looked around the deck in frustration.

“Somebody get a lock on this. I want networking disabled between systems; tell me what we have right now.”

Lieutenant Meyer was already running through logs and data pathways until finally he slammed his hands on the computer system and leaned back and sighed as though content with his work.

“Right. I’ve locked it down.”

He turned around completely to face the Captain.

“There’s one hell of a complex, polymorphic algorithm inside our primary core, and it is working away like a Trojan. I’ve isolated it and cut off power to the systems it has contaminated. Even so, those systems will need to be purged manually from engineering.”

He licked his lips.

“Until then, we’re stuck with artificial gravity, manoeuvring thrusters, and partial weapons. Switching on our main drive system or life-support would give it further access, and who knows what it could do?”

Captain Dutch blinked slowly, taking everything in.

“All right, good work, people. Lay in a course away from the derelict. I want us as far away as possible. Prepare an emergency data buoy. We’ll launch it as soon as possible.”

“Aye, Captain.”

A number of white lights flashed on the mainscreen, but with most of their systems offline, there was no way to assess what they were. For anybody watching that one area, they could have been little more than the glint of light from the derelict. They were nothing to do with light, but in fact the opening salvo from the vessel. Only when the first volley of hardened slugs ripped into the bow did the crew know what was happening. The projectiles were the size of a man’s fist, and easily punched through the armour plating and embedded inside the hull of the ship. Less than a second later each of them exploded, sending a cloud of super-heated matter out in all directions.

“They’re firing! We have to...”

Those were the last words of Lieutenant Meyer before one of the projectiles hit him in the chest. His lifeless body was slammed against the inner hull and then the round exploded. The material vaporised his body and fused bone directly to the deck. There was no time to mourn his loss, as more rounds punched inside. Automated sealant systems kicked in to repair the damage, but the ship continued being hit, and chunks of the vessel ripped out with each shot.

“Bring us around, weapons free,” said Captain Dutch.

Any other ship captain might have been panicking by now, but not him. Captain Dutch had seen his fair share of combat, but he knew this was different. Out here, so far from home or help, left him in a dangerous position. One serious piece of damage to his ship would leave him stranded, and he knew exactly what a ship’s chances were in that scenario.

“Turn everything on the derelict...let the bastard burn!”

Lieutenant Jones took the place of the dead Lieutenant Meyer and sent orders to the remaining automated systems. ANS Orion was a powerful ship; that much was obvious. But unlike others in the Alliance arsenal, she was no brawler. Both her bow and stern gun turrets swung around and began unleashing a veritable storm of projectiles against the target. These were quadruple 20mm coilgun mounts, perfect for destroying incoming missiles or fighters, but little more than harassment against larger ships. It was impressive to see, but only caused surface damage to the ship. The primary anti-shipping weapons of her class were her missile tubes, also known
anachronistically
as torpedo tubes.

“Firing.”

The Liberty class missile destroyer carried a total of eight anti-ship launchers, each carrying multiple reloads. Six were launched; two tubes failed completely. Instead the automated infiltration routine worked its way deep inside the launch guidance system. Firewalls should have kept out the intrusion, but it smashed its way through in seconds, and then activated the fail-safe on their missiles. This was a procedure that even the crew should have been unable to do, at least not without direct physical access to the systems. Without one being launched, they exploded where they sat. An entire mission module, a full one third of the ship’s weapons capacity vanished in a white flash that shook the shop. Huge pieces of debris and malfunctioning missiles struck other parts of the vessel, and in less than thirty seconds, internal fires were burning in a hundred different places.

The remaining six missiles flew to their target and exploded on impact, sending large chunks of debris into space. As the debris cleared, the derelict looked little worse for wear, and her large amount of extra ships attached to her primary hull served as an effective layer of ablative armour.

By the time the Alliance destroyer unleashed her remaining arsenal at the enemy ship, over half her crew was dead. The first lifeboats were already trying to escape, with many shot down as they tried to get away. Some were engulfed in explosions, as more sections of the ship were lost in catastrophic blasts. The entire hull was now burning from the internal damage already sustained. At the same time, the derelict responded with firing its weapons continually at the bridge, as well as to the smashed superstructure near the lost mission module.

The battle between the two vessels was like a battle between two wooden ships, each effectively operating at a fixed point in space. There was no romance in the bloody battle, however, and crew were being cut apart by the second. The last stage of the fight did not last long. By the time the last lifeboat was ejected, ANS Orion was nothing more than a hulk, another large piece of metallic flotsam to drift along the long lost derelict.

* * *

The Black Rift, Centauri Alliance

The newly recommissioned IAS Euryale moved to the entrance of the Rift with no pomp or ceremony of any kind. She bore the same name, but her allegiance to the Alliance had been removed, along with her experimental moniker. Instead of classed as an Alliance Naval Ship, she was now simply an Interstellar Assault Brigade Ship. The Brigade part of the name had been dropped to maintain uniformity in the fleet. Other than the exchange of letters, she was painted and marked up in just the same way as the other warships. Even the font for the name was the same as used in the fleet.

At her flanks circled a pair of Liberty class destroyers, the standard escort ship in the Alliance; powerful ships in their own right. They had not returned from the operation at Spascia, and were instead part of the growing contingent posted to the Black Rift security force. From where Spartan was standing on the main deck, he had the perfect view of the Rift.

“Home.”

Spartan said it quietly, almost as though he wanted nobody to hear. Five-Seven looked over to him. For the first time, the alien was wearing Alliance Navy Auxiliary insignia on a harness across his chest. There was little point in clothing or armour, as the entire race of Thegns had been created to be entirely self-contained soldiers. This harness was little more than a webbing system, but it did help Five-Seven and the other many Thegns fit into the ship’s complement.