Test of Mettle (A Captain's Crucible Book 2) (14 page)

“I don’t suppose our eye in the sky has spotted anything unusual?” Robert asked the chief.

An MQ-95 Raptor had deployed directly from the ship to offer reconnaissance and air support. Capable of atmospheric and space flight, it flew overhead at an altitude of fifteen thousand meters. The drone was currently in full stealth mode, and made no sound whatsoever. It carried a payload of four Hellfire X91 precision strike missiles, and also sported a Cobra Z80 tactical laser for those hits requiring surgical exactness. Its high-zoom military-grade camera was rated for biometric identification, meaning it could zoom down to the level of a target’s eye or fingertip.

HS4 scouts were usually employed in tandem with Raptors, because while an overall view of a battlefield was nice, having multiple eyes on the ground was even nicer.

“Negative,” the chief said. “Our eye has nothing on the thermal, visual, or EM bands. If they’re hiding out there, they’re hiding real good.”

Robert nodded, then told him: “Take us to within fifty meters of Charon, Chief.”

A
ssume unknown intent,” Robert added.

“Assuming unknown intent.” Chief Galaal glanced at Aaron and used his callsign: “Helium, if you will?”

“Traveling overwatch, people!” Aaron said over the comm line. “Light gunners on point. Heavy gunners on drag. Commander, you’re with Bravo. O’Rielly, you’re with Alpha. Bravo-3, give the commander a boost. Alpha-4, you get O’Rielly.”

The combat personnel were equipped with jetpacks for the mission. However, Robert and O’Rielly had not been outfitted with said accouterments, as the pair were badly out of practice. Before the mission, Robert had spent several minutes in VR reacquainting himself with the tech, but in the end he decided that if jump ability proved necessary, the combat robots could act in an assistive fashion for the pair.

The designated Centurion, Bravo-3, wrapped its thin metal arms around Robert’s waist assembly and waited to take its place in the formation.

Alpha Squad set out first, its members taking up zigzag positions as they bounded across the ice. Robots armed with M114 laser rifles assumed the lead, while those with the heavier M1170 lasers brought up the rear. O’Rielly was at the center, carried by one of the Centurions.

When Alpha was roughly thirty meters away, Bravo began its advance. Bravo-3 waited until the first two combat robots had set out, then it fired its jets, hoisting Robert off the ground. It continued releasing quick, strategic bursts, taking two-meter-long bounds to hold its zigzag position in the squad. Sometimes its metal feet clanged off the black rock or ice; other times its legs were swallowed to the knees in the yellow snow of the glacial plain.

While Bravo-3 kept its arms wrapped around Robert, the other Centurions had their plasma rifles pointed outward, constantly compensating for their movements to scan the surrounding terrain in a steady surveillance pattern.

“Nothing on the visual or thermal bands,” Aaron sent over the comm. “The only heat I’m reading is from Charon. If someone’s hiding out there, they’re dug in good, as the chief said.”

Robert kept an eye on the overhead map. When Alpha was roughly fifty meters from Charon, the chief transmitted: “Alpha, full stop.”

The blue dots representing Alpha Squad came to a halt, spreading out.

Bravo Squad arrived and assumed a similar position roughly twenty meters to Alpha’s three o’clock.

Bravo-3 released Robert and lay flat in the snow. The commander followed its lead and did the same. The yellow snow pressed up against the bottom portion of his faceplate. Because he was looking up, the angle of his chin caused each breath to mist against the polycarbonate, PVB and glass combination, but the defoggers quickly cleared it.

Around him, the other robots of Bravo aimed their plasma rifles at the captured Dragonfly. Robert wondered if the aliens had augmented the shuttle with alien tech in some way. Given their weapons engineer’s own progress with the captured fighter, it was doubtful. Then again, these aliens had Barrick to help them. Though the telepath likely knew nothing about shuttles, he could use the trainer AIs to walk him through the inner workings and translate the information to his captors. He was the worst possible individual for the aliens to have in their custody. Who knew how many of their secrets he had betrayed already?

“Alpha one, two and three,” Chief Galaal said. “Circle to the other side. I want you on their nine-o’clock.”

“Roger that.” The three designated Centurions moved out at a crouch.

Robert waited until the blue dots representing those three were in place on the far flank, and then he said over the comm: “Chief, I’m going to try calling out to Barrick.”

“Go right ahead, Commander,” the chief returned.

“Barrick, come out!” Robert amped up the volume on the external speakers so there was no chance the shuttle occupants would fail to hear. “Barrick!”

Nothing. The Dragonfly remained squatting there lifelessly, its legs buried in the snow.

Robert began to worry that the Raakarr intended to nuke the site from orbit. He was about to order the chief to send in some of the combat robots when his internal helmet speakers transmitted the noise of hydraulics activating.

The rear ramp of the Dragonfly opened, crunching into the yellow snow a moment later.

The commander heard muted clangs coming from the craft. Then a man in a spacesuit abruptly emerged, followed by five rolling, black mists. The darknesses shifted and flowed as the things moved, and sparks of light occasionally lit up their depths.

“Don’t move!” Robert said via the speakers.

The individual in the spacesuit froze, raising his hands. The flowing mists stopped beside him.

Robert zoomed in on the faceplate. Barrick lurked within.

“What took you so long to get here?” the telepath’s voice issued via the external speakers of his suit. His tone oozed mockery, contempt.

Robert felt a surge of anger and he wondered for a moment if the team should simply give the order to mow down Barrick and the aliens. Maxwell would have encouraged it. And, barring his own rage, the commander could certainly see the logic in that. Barrick was too valuable a prisoner to remain in the custody of the aliens, and too dangerous to capture. But Bridgette...

“Join our frequency,” Robert answered instead. He sent the private access code Barrick would need to communicate on the common band.

“Do you read me?” Barrick asked a moment later.

“Loud and clear,” Robert returned. He muted the others so that only Barrick could hear his next words. “My wife better be alive.”

“She’s being treated like royalty,” Barrick said sarcastically.

Robert squeezed a gloved fist. “She better be. Otherwise I’m going to hunt you down, and when I get my hands on you, by the time I’m done, whatever is left won’t survive very long.”

“As I said, royalty,” Barrick retorted.

Robert unmuted the others.

Small spheres of living mist moved away from the main darknesses that accompanied Barrick. The tiny masses spread out quickly.

“What are those?” Robert said. “Answer me or we’ll shoot them down!”

“Calm down,” Barrick transmitted. “They’re the alien equivalent to the HS4s.”

One of the dark spheres paused near the group, while the others proceeded toward the target site, Calypso.

“Shall we begin making our way toward the anomaly?” Barrick asked.

“Your group is to maintain a fifty meter distance to our nine o’clock at all times,” Robert said. “Come no closer. And pull this thing back!” He gestured toward the small sphere of darkness that had taken up a position near the party.

“Then pull back your HS4,” Barrick said.

Robert nodded at the chief, and the HS4 in question retreated from the Charon group by twenty meters. The darkness ball did the same.

Robert muted Barrick from the common band and transmitted: “Chief, I want at least five Centurions to keep their weapons aimed at the alien party at all times.”

“Roger that,” the chief returned.

The commander unmuted the telepath. “All right, Barrick,” Robert said. “We’re moving.”

The members of Alpha turned from the shuttle craft and leapfrogged Bravo. The latter squad followed shortly, proceeding forward under traveling overwatch. Robert was carried once more by the combat robot as it used its jumpjets to bound from place to place, moving over that jagged surface of ice, rock and snow. Deep crevasses littered the glacier, promising death to any who fell within. Even someone equipped with jumpjets would have a hard time getting out of those tight gorges.

The alien party kept pace on their left, remaining fifty meters away as commanded. The three Centurions Chief Galaal had earlier ordered to the far flank mirrored the alien party’s movements from the other side. The small ball of black mist floating near the latter party indicated that the aliens knew of the trio.

If Barrick had any difficulty reading the minds of his fellow humans, he didn’t show it. Robert knew that if their places were switched, and the commander was the telepath,
he
wouldn’t have tipped his hand in that regard, either. He’d just have to hope the psychic shielding was working.

“I’m detecting gravimetric distortions,” O’Rielly sent. Robert noted that he had excluded Barrick from the transmission list.

“From Calypso?” the commander asked, also excluding Barrick. He could see the science officer up ahead, carried by another Centurion in Alpha Squad.

“False alarm,” O’Rielly returned. “The emanations are coming from the aliens. The readings are typical with what we’ve seen from them before.”

“We’re entering the region of temperature drop,” Chief Galaal transmitted. “How near do you want us to get to the cylindrical objects the HS4s detected?”

“Close to a maximum of ten meters,” Robert said.

Alpha Squad abruptly stopped.

“We’re in range,” the chief sent.

“I’m looking at them on the thermal band,” O’Rielly said, excluding Barrick on the transmission. “These things seem to be literally draining the heat out of the surrounding air. And I’m definitely detecting gravimetric distortions emanating from them now, too. The impression patterns in the surrounding rocks are similar to the patterns we recorded on the crashed Elder ship in Vega 951, though perhaps a little stronger.”

Bravo-3 carried Robert into the region of colder air. Because of the regulated environment of the suit, the only difference Robert noticed was that the crunch of Bravo-3’s metallic feet in the snow deepened slightly in pitch. When he was at the ten meter mark from the objects, the robot released him.

O’Rielly had moved to within five meters of the things.

“I said a maximum of
ten
meters, O’Rielly,” Robert said.

“Sorry sir.”

Before O’Rielly could retreat, Robert stepped forward and joined him. He hadn’t been able to tell the scale of the five cigar-shaped objects from the remote view of the HS4s, but standing there beside the things, he realized they were each the size of a man.

“So what are they?” Robert asked O’Rielly, who was holding a small scanning device retrieved from his utility belt. “Alien eggs of some kind?”

“My readings return a blank,” O’Rielly said. “The surfaces reflect my signals right back at me. I can’t tell if they’re inorganic or organic, rock or flesh.”

Robert noticed one of the balls of darkness hovering overhead, beside an HS4.

“Barrick,” Robert sent. “Do the aliens know what these are?”

Barrick didn’t answer right away. Either he was mentally addressing the aliens, or putting on a show of doing so.

“If they know, they won’t tell me,” Barrick responded a moment later.

“The Raakarr admitted to using the Vega 951 system as a breeding ground,” Robert sent the telepath. “We found evidence that the crashed Elder ship served that purpose, perhaps acting as a hatchery. Though we didn’t find any actual eggs, we detected gravimetric distortions similar to what these things are emitting. So now, no lies: can the Raakarr confirm or deny that these are eggs? Perhaps their own?”

Again Barrick paused. Then: “They say these are too big to be anything produced by their own species. I believe them. The Raakarr seem... stunned. That’s the best word for their current states of minds. Stunned. Uneasy. Anxious.”

There was something uncanny about those objects. Robert felt uneasy himself. He thought he saw the rightmost of them shudder slightly. He narrowed his eyes, staring at it, waiting for the thing to move again.

Images abruptly flashed through his mind. Of battles fought between human vessels and Raakarr. Of planet killers detonating. Of a future where intergalactic war would bring humanity to its knees.

“Sir?” someone said beside him.

Robert snapped out of his trance. Shaken, he glanced at O’Rielly. “Say again?”

Was the psychic shielding not working? Was Barrick attempting to influence his mind? Or had the source of those images truly been the cylindrical object, which potentially used a different psychic energy than the shielding was designed for?

O’Rielly spoke again. “I said, are you all right, sir? The chief was asking what you wanted to do.”

“I—”

The snow began to come alive to his right.

“Ambush!” a combat robot shouted over the comm.

The internal speakers of his helmet transmitted soft whooshing sounds from outside. Though Robert saw no incoming fire, beside him the torsos of the robots began to disintegrate in turn.

A Centurion threw itself at the commander, hurtling the two of them to the snow.