Independence Read online

  A few minutes later, and the computer confirmed that all the pods had been able to achieve a vector that would allow them to reach the planet of Orpus-4 with enough reaction mass to make a safe atmospheric entry. If felt like the shuttle itself breathed a sigh of relief. Their comrades were going to be OK. They would live to tell what happened.

  “Where do you want me to head Commander?” the pilot asked on a closed channel. “We burned a lot of fuel getting away from Repulse. I’ve just about got enough to make planetfall.”

  “What about the enemy ship?” queried Johnson.

  “Given our relative velocity I could make one attempt at docking. I’d be on fumes though, no chance at making the planet afterwards.”

  “How is your comms array?”

  “Working fine,” replied the co-pilot after a quick glance at his display, “We’d be able to relay to the pods on the surface if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Johnson unclipped her straps and floated out of her seat. There were ten marines and a handful of techs and deck hands crammed into the rear shuttle compartment with her. Even with the pilot and co-pilot up in the cabin front there were less than twenty effectives left from her command. Left from a crew of almost four hundred. Every death weighed on her. Hanke’s young face came to her mind.

  I wonder if he made it to a pod.

  “We continue with the boarding mission,” she stated flatly. No-one looked surprised. They all knew it had to be done. It had to be done for Congress. It had to be done for form. It had to be done for their departed crewmates.

  #

  More memories were coming to him now. They were in the front of his mind, coming in an unbidden cascade.

  Some were simply knowledge with nothing sensory attached. Actually they reminded him of learning programmes; sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between biological and electronic memories.

  There were a few glimpses of real memories. Space battles mostly. He was piloting a warship. The total immersion environment stripped away the bridge and gave him an unimpeded view. He didn't even need manual controls, he could just think and his EIS would send the commands to the ship. It was a system that was turning the tide back into the Republic's favour.

  Nothing recent though. Nothing about how he ended up like this. At least he knew which side he was on in the war; it had been rather hammered home! Well perhaps not. They did seem too regimented and one-sided.

  Have I been brainwashed?

  #

  Johnson looked down the compartment and watched the marines. They were preparing themselves for action in the normal range of ways. Some sat quietly; praying or simply zoning out. Others joked and slagged each other off; typical bravado. A few toyed with talismen; lucky charms or mementos of loved ones. All dealing with the nerves in their own way to make sure they would be effective when the time came.

  Interestingly, she realised, not one of them was fiddling with their kit. That spoke volumes to their professionalism, reassuring given how many had been posted to Repulse after only a few weeks training.

  With a final breath of cold gas to nudge it into sync with the rotation the shuttle hit the surface. Given their luck recently, she was actually rather surprised the clamps held and it didn’t just bounce back off.

  The marines released their straps and floated out of their seats.

  “Remember, it doesn’t look like there is gravity on the target either,” called Sergeant Cheung from where he had anchored himself to a handle next to the hatch.

  Patta did a final quick status check then looked to Johnson. She nodded. He fired the breaching charge.

  “Go, go, go.”

  Two at a time the first detail of marines dived out of the shuttle through the short tunnel joining it to their target. They emerged into zero gravity and, with practiced ease, spun about their centres of mass to bring their weapons to bear covering off their allocated arcs.

  Within thirty seconds of the charge going off all six marines were attached to the walls, ceiling and floor, hunkered as low as they could get and watching for trouble. No shots came, nothing moved save for a few small pieces of debris.

  The second detail came through at a more sedate pace, still alert for danger but making full use of grab handles and clamps. Patta and Simone followed them. Last aboard was Johnson. The Sergeant had been very clear about that. He was now in effect her XO and was taking that duty seriously.

  As expected from the scans, she emerged into a space about ten metres across and roughly cylindrical. What the scans hadn’t shown was the internal architecture. She gazed around in awe. Some sections were linear metal, ceramic and plastic. Others were more organic, grown rather than built. If it weren’t for the Republic iconography throughout, and the Earth-standard atmosphere, she would never have doubted it being alien.

  #

  A sharp prick got Indie’s attention and a warning alert flashed up. The hull had been punctured at the crew exercise area. There weren’t any decompression warnings though.

  He felt the ship shift focus. Until then it had been prioritizing getting the jump drive working, trying to escape. Now that there was a specific threat, it was moving from flight to fight.

  Power was diverted to external repair routines. Defence systems started to wake up. He didn’t have to do anything, it was a purely reflex action by the ship.

  #

  Johnson surveyed her people. She was back to being one of the least experienced in the team. She was a warship captain not a footslogger. The marines knew far better than her how to run this kind of operation. Even now Cheung was gathering a fire team of four marines to send ahead to scout. She recognized two of them without needing to read their IDs. Imran Mollah was one of the ones fresh from training. He had literally bumped into her within minutes of coming aboard. He had been so flustered, she had only kept a straight face by biting her cheek so hard it bled. William Parks had been in her office a few weeks ago requesting leave. His wife was ill and he needed to look after his kid. She hadn’t been able to spare him. Her promise that the navy would look after them seemed rather hollow now.

  “Johnson, Shuttle. Something’s happening out here. Patching through a feed.”

  Johnson accepted the feed. A window opened in her vision showing the view from one of the shuttle’s external cameras. The surface of the enemy ship was starting to move. A nearby plasma scar was already starting to shrink, replaced by the terribly familiar rippling blacks.

  “We are reading pressure on the breaching tunnel. Climbing steadily.”

  “Get out of there.”

  “Already on our way Commander, just grabbing anything that might be useful.”

  “No! Leave them. Get out now.”

  It was too late. It was her fault. She shouldn’t have left them on the shuttle. She clenched her fists and clamped her jaw shut.

  Yet more blood on my hands.

  #

  With power restored to the surface of the ship, the skin had come back to life. Indie sensed the ablative layer start to regenerate and flow over the plasma damage. It also sealed off the recent puncture.

  As his relief grew at getting more control over the ship, so he noticed the pain from his injuries less.

  Internal sensors were coming back online. He started examining data from around the puncture site.

  Radio signals were the first thing that jumped out at him. The sensors were only picking up stray bits and nothing was intelligible. It was possible it was just damaged equipment emitting bursts of static, but it could be leakage from tight-beamed encrypted traffic.

  He started opening more and more optical feeds until he found what he had suspected he would. A view down one corridor showed Congressional marines. They were leapfrogging, taking turns bracing in place and covering the other while he handed along the rungs.

  Were they coming to kill him or rescue him? How could he tell? Something deep inside him screamed that he should already have been killed. If they found him they wou
ld terminate him for sure.

  Diving into the defence systems, Indie was amazed to find that one of the internal security options was available. The ship certainly hadn’t repaired it, so it must have survived the accident. He activated it and directed it to the area of the breach.

  Accident. That seemed improbable now. Sabotage or a battle were much more likely.

  #

  Losing the shuttle meant they could no longer relay data to the planet. The priority now was getting control of the ship.

  “Sergeant. We need to move right now.”

  If we can take the bridge, we should be able to use its comms system. If not, it’s all been in vain.

  Her EIS flashed up an alert. Four marines’ icons now showed red; no life signs. It was the fire team scouting ahead. Cheung and the other NCOs were already reacting, calling a halt to the main body and putting marines between the techs and the position of the lost scouts. The worst thing she could do right now was get involved in the minutiae. Her job was running the overview. She reviewed the last few moments from the dead marines’ helmet cameras. There hadn’t been any warning. Their proximity detectors hadn’t even flickered. The lights had gone out and in the second it had taken for them to switch on their own beams a single flash of plasma from the corner ahead had hit each one.

  “They’re using robots!” she broadcast to the marines. “Forget your scanners. Lights on. Eyes peeled.”

  Mollah, Parks, Jones and Ndiaye were gone. More families left alone.

  #

  The robot sounded pleased with itself when it reported in. It was only a low-level AI but it was obviously capable of taking pride in its work. They had been easy kills but well executed. Plasma weapons were still too heavy for humans to carry, but aimed with robotic precision they made light work of armoured suits.

  Now that the marines knew about the robot, they’d be relying much more on their eyes not their sensors. He would have to come up with some more ingenious ways of whittling down their numbers. Something that would play on their fears would be good, they must already be scared.

  #

  The new scouts hadn’t reported any contact for several minutes now. However it soon became clear that there were more passages than the scans had indicated. Either they just hadn’t shown up or they had formed recently.

  The techs and last couple of marines were with Johnson. They moved steadily through the passages, despite having to approach every corner with great caution. They weren’t relying too much on their sensors now they knew that the enemy was using armed robots.

  Another thing to report to the Senate if we ever got home. No, when we get home, I can’t give in yet.

  A priority broadcast cut through her thoughts.

  “Command, Panagakos. We just got shut in. Situation stable but we aren’t going anywhere for now.”

  The words were bitten down. Trying not to let the strain show. She’d at least thought to broadcast to command personnel only, not to spread panic.

  “Panagakos, Johnson. Clarify.” She should let Cheung handle it but she needed to do something. She had to complete the mission. Her ship couldn’t have been lost for nothing.

  “There weren’t any hatches. The corridor just contracted in front and behind us. We are working on placing charges but we can’t get them to stick to this fleshy stuff.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re on our way.”

  Waving the others along with her, she pushed from rung to rung using hands and feet. A text message from Cheung appeared at the bottom of her vision.

  The font implied a raised eyebrow. From a seasoned warhorse like him it showed he was impressed, but also reminded her of her place in this kind of action.

  #

  Indie was wondering which would be more effective, hearing the screams of their comrades dying or having them just disappear. He decided to jam their comms. He was even able to broadcast fake telemetry from their suits, a recorded loop of the last few minutes.

  Once he was happy he sent the command for the passage to contract. He congratulated himself on the idea of guiding them into the recycling centre.

  #

  Johnson approached the first constriction. The scouts had been keeping her informed of their attempts to use charges and their weaponry to cut through. Recently, though, it had been very quiet.

  One more bend.

  Her EIS started glitching. She couldn’t make out anyone’s beacons.

  She turned the corner in time to see Cheung reach out. The barrier relaxed and opened up. The passage beyond was the now familiar blend of organic and technic. It was empty.

  Perhaps they got out the other side.

  The other marine, Jackson, bent over. He opened his faceplate and started retching, the acrid stench filling the corridor. She looked where he had been facing. She couldn’t make anything out. She zoomed in using the helmet’s camera. The patterns resolved. One of the ceramic plates embedded in the muscle had a marine logo on it. Looking harder now, she could make out other parts of marine armour all around the walls.

  Johnson couldn’t keep her desperation hidden any longer. If they couldn’t get the intel out her crew had all died for nothing. Deep down in her mind, little black pointy daemons started to emerge. Daemons she’d managed to keep suppressed for a long time.

  Get to the bridge. Take out the command crew. It’s the only chance.

  #

  The metal and organic mass that the ship had just ingested would provide a little extra material for the repairs. Hull regrowth was expected to be complete within the next few minutes. Main propulsion and jump drive were marked as online though he couldn’t access their controls. Indie never failed to be impressed by the effectiveness of the blend of electronic, mechanical and organic components at overcoming damage.

  He still couldn’t access any feeds from the bridge. That gave him an idea about the access issues. He sent out a query across the network. Moments later he got a reply. It confirmed that a lockdown was in place. The captain must have engaged it before he died.

  Indie could lift it. Any crew member could. All he needed to do was remember the codes.

  There were only a handful of intruders left. Unfortunately he’d lost the internal defence robot. It had just dropped off the grid with no warning.

  #

  Everyone was jumping at shadows. The threat of robots was bad enough. Now the ship itself was reaching out to get them. Even the marines were firing at anything that looked like it was moving. The rip of gunfire erupted every few heartbeats. The flashes cast more shadows. The sharp smell of cordite even penetrated Johnson’s helmet filters.

  We have to make it.

  We have to make this all count for something.

  #

  It worked. They are running scared.

  Still, they were getting very close to the bridge. He hadn't expected them to take such a direct route to him. They must know more about the layout of the ship than he had thought.

  They approached a repair station. Just in time he got through to a damage control bot and took over its functions. As they passed the alcove, he pushed it out and swung with its circular saw.

  #

  Movement. Noise.

  A monster of swirling limbs was among them. Cheung and Jackson went down. Before they even knew it the creature hacked at the joints in their suits. Patta and Simone emptied their pistol magazines into the thing. Everyone was in each other’s firing lines.

  It hasn’t seen me. Carefully now. Take the shot.

  #

  That last one was either tough or lucky. She had commander’s insignia on her uniform, so she was probably both to have reached that position. She had been shielded by a marine. Nothing heroic on his part, just luck on hers. As the ‘bot set upon the techs, she lined up carefully and took a couple of shots. She must have hit its power unit. The explosion embedded chunks of metal deep into the walls, the marines’ armour and her shin.

  She was just outside now. He could see her
on a camera in the corridor leading to the bridge. She couldn’t have much left in her though; the cut to her leg was still pulsing blood.

  There was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t get a robot to her; they were all hardwired to avoid the bridge and the passage running up to it. There weren’t any fixed internal defences, even if they had been working. People were afraid of an AI going off the rails; conducting a killing spree. He’d never understood that. Humans were more likely to go mad than a computer was to change its programming that much. It wasn’t as if they could have an epiphany.

  #

  No one left.

  No chance of getting a message out now.

  Losing blood. Surprisingly little pain.

  The bridge hatch. Made it.

  Locked down. Would be of course.

  I have to see inside.

  Just to have done it.

  Show them they weren’t invincible.

  #

  The intruder had an engineer’s pad, a cable snaking into the open maintenance hatch. She was hacking into the door control system. She wouldn’t be able to do anything from there though. With the bridge in lockdown it was deactivated.

  He felt her getting deeper. She had found the lockdown and was working to override it. He thought about stopping her, but realized that lifting the lockdown would get him back control of the remaining systems. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. He’d just have to deal with her afterwards.

  She had done it. He could feel the lost systems reconnecting. He could feel the whole ship again. The heavy blast door slid aside.

  The world slowed down. His thoughts sped up. His awareness exploded.

  #

  Made it!