Chapter 6: All Hands

We were awoken by blaring alarms, the emergency lighting in the dorm glowing red. We climbed out of bed, sticky and covered in stale sweat. Raz kissed the back of my neck, and I rubbed my eyes, wondering what time it was.

“What is it?” she asked, “a drill?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied, concern replacing my grogginess. “Let’s get our uniforms on, I think something serious might be happening.”

We got dressed and opened the door to the hall, poking our heads out to see that the other trainees were doing the same, their bleary eyes looking around in confusion. It must be some time during the night, or perhaps the early morning, as the only thing lighting the corridor were the emergency strips in the floor. The recruits began to emerge, chatting to each other as they tried to figure out what was going on.

Suddenly, the floor shook beneath our feet, my hand darting to the doorframe reflexively to keep myself steady. The entire station seemed to quake, the superstructure making worrying groaning sounds that seemed to emanate from all around us.

I saw Vasiliev come jogging down the hallway, still in the process of zipping up his coveralls, the worried trainees turning to him for guidance.

“What’s going on, Staff Sergeant?” I heard someone ask.

“That’s a battle stations alarm,” he replied, an expression of confusion on his face. He looked as if he too had recently been roused by the noise, he didn’t have much an answer for us right now. “Just ... stay in your dorms for now,” he continued, setting off down the corridor at a brisk jog. The recruits shared worried glances. This wasn’t a regular occurrence, it seemed.

“Battle stations?” Raz muttered. “Is there a battle going on?”

“Battle stations means that everyone has to get to their post, so maybe,” I replied with a shrug. “But I can’t imagine who would be crazy enough to attack a Naval base, there must be enough ships here to make up two whole fleets.”

“Is there a way to shut off that noise?” she complained, flattening her ears against her head.

“Nah, we’ll just have to sit tight. Come on, let’s go back inside and wait for the Staff Sergeant.”

It didn’t take long for the alarms to subside, much to Raz’s relief, and then we heard Vasiliev calling to us from the corridor. We stepped out into the hallway, joining a crowd of recruits who were all jostling for space, the Krell and the Borealans who had not been hospitalized standing head and shoulders above their human counterparts.

“Listen up!” the Sergeant shouted, the low murmur of conversation dying down. “The general alarm was sounded because the station’s sensors detected a Betelgeusian fleet exiting superlight in range of the station.” There was a chorus of worried gasps and muttering, but Vasiliev waved his hands dismissively. “Judging by the fleet’s composition, it’s unlikely that they came prepared to attack us. They probably didn’t even know that we were here before they arrived. It’s likely that they landed on the outskirts of the system sometime in the last five or six hours, scouted out the inner system using long-range telescopes and spectrographs, and then decided to move inward. Because of the light speed delay, they were able to see the station before the light from their ships reached us here, that’s how they surprised us. They only have a hive ship and a support fleet, so I’m not sure what they’re trying to accomplish. Needless to say, the Pinwheel and the ships on station here are more than capable of-”

Another tremor passed through the hull, the trainees glancing around nervously.

“ ... of handling the situation,” Vasiliev finished, with a little less conviction than when he had started. “Alright, I want everyone to move toward the mess hall in an orderly fashion. We’ll wait for more instructions there.”

I closed the door behind Raz as we joined the procession, marching toward the mess. It must still be night, or at least early morning, because all of the lights were off. Vasiliev turned them on, and we sat around the tables, feeling the occasional rumble pass through the hull as we waited for more information. It sounded like there was a battle going on outside.

After talking with a couple of other Staff Sergeants for a minute, Vasiliev activated a large monitor that was mounted on one of the walls. He fiddled with a tablet computer for a moment, and then a field of stars appeared on the display. The view shifted, a white horizon extending into the distance, and I realized that it was a view from the hull of the station.

“Take a good look, recruits,” Vasiliev said. “This is a real Naval battle, not a simulation or a wargame.”

Panels on the station’s hull had opened up, massive railguns on flexible arms rising from their recesses, titanic power cables trailing down into the darkness. They weren’t dissimilar from the XMRs, with large coils lining their long barrels. Although it was hard to gauge their exact size with no frame of reference, their reinforced and bulky construction betrayed their impressive scale. I could see three of them from the camera’s point of view, and they all began to swivel in unison, aiming at a distant target that wasn’t visible from our perspective.

They fired, rocking back in their housings, the impact shaking the station around us. So ‘that’ was what was making the floor shake, the railguns. I had assumed that we were being bombarded by the enemy, when in reality they weren’t even in visual range yet.

“Wait for it,” Vasiliev said, the room going so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. There were a trio of bright flashes in the distance, flaring like stars, and then slowly fading. “Direct hit!” the Staff Sergeant exclaimed.

The apprehension in the mess hall was starting to erode, replaced with a kind of nervous energy and excitement. A few of the more confident trainees let out a cheer as though they were watching a sporting event, and their infectious enthusiasm quickly spread.

“Those guns are firing slugs the size of a man,” Vasiliev explained. “They don’t have explosive warheads, the bright flashes that you’re seeing is just kinetic energy being transferred to the target.”

The camera zoomed in, magnifying until I could make out the shapes of individual vessels in space. From this angle, the harsh, unfiltered light of the system’s star was reflecting off their hulls and making them glint in the velvet darkness. The grey shapes of the UNN fleet were immediately recognizable, they had burned out to engage the enemy at close range, or at least what passed for close range in open space. I could see a carrier, a cruiser, and a couple of frigates. Their main engines flared blue, burning hydrogen fuel as they accelerated, their smaller escorts invisible at this resolution save for the tiny points of light from their engines. They had already fired torpedo salvos, I could see the wispy trails and the fading blooms of orange flame. Fleet engagements were usually fought at extreme range with volleys of missiles, and then mopped up at medium range with railguns. It looked as if the Betelgeusians had jumped in close enough to spur a charge.

My eyes focused on a less familiar shape, malformed and alien. My first impression was that it looked like an armored shrimp, its distinctly biological, bony shell layered with shining plates of metal that resembled the armor of a medieval knight. It had spindly, insectoid legs that were tucked beneath its belly, like the segmented limbs of a spider. It had no portholes that I could see, and no visible bridge windows, at least at this resolution. Instead, it was covered in organic sensory organs. Black, glittering eyes bulged from the off-green flesh between its protective plates, long antennae and feelers protruding into space like whiskers. Along its flanks, flexible thrusters that angled and flexed more like muscles than engines belched jets of green flame, the behemoth maneuvering to meet the advancing ships. Flashes of green light erupted from turrets that were mounted on its living hull, spears of glowing plasma cutting through space toward the advancing vessels.

So that was a hive ship, the flagships of the Betelgeusian fleets, their equivalent of our carriers. True to form, smaller vessels began to emerge from its hull like maggots wriggling free of a corpse, seeming to rain down from beneath the great creature. They were small and hard to make out, about the size of a fighter or a gunship, the green flare of their engines picking them out against the stars as they burned toward their targets like a swarm of angry bees.

Its escort fleet were similar in appearance, like blends of deep-sea crustaceans and armored insects, albeit smaller in size.

“One of the carriers that was on-station is engaging,” the Staff Sergeant said, “see how she’s turning belly-up? She’s making use of her ventral guns.”

The bulbous carrier was indeed keeling, bringing the arrays of railguns along its underside to bear. I couldn’t see them fire from this angle, but I could see them impact, bright flashes erupting on the hive ship’s hull as they dug craters like asteroids. Where they penetrated the thick armor, glistening fluid spewed forth like blood, freezing into a cloud in the coldness of the void.

One of the escorts was incapacitated by the volley, smeared like a bug that had been swatted by a giant hand, fragments of carapace and synthetic armor breaking away in a spreading cloud of gore and viscera as it drifted listlessly. Again the room erupted into cheering, and while it was hard not to join them, I found the sight more morbid than thrilling.

The station rocked as the guns fired another volley, the deck trembling beneath our feet. There was a short delay, and then one of the smaller Bug ships that had been breaking away was obliterated. One moment it was there, and the next it was just gone, vaporized into fragments too small to make out.

I watched as long, snub-nosed torpedoes rose from open hatches on one of the frigates, climbing on plumes of fire before reorienting themselves and speeding away toward their targets. The carrier too loosed its own volley, as did the approaching cruiser, the missiles hurtling toward the enemy fleet and leaving long vapor trails in their wake. Flame billowed where they found their mark, more of the living vessels breaking apart and spewing fluids into space.

They were like fish in a barrel. Why had the fleet decided to attack such a heavily defended starbase? When they had arrived at the edge of the system and had scouted it out, why had they not simply retreated, or waited for reinforcements? It felt almost suicidal, desperate. Did they hate us so much, or was there an ulterior motive?

The cruiser barreled into the melee, one of the most heavily armed and armored ships in the fleet, second only to the battleships. Its hull was long and sleek, all geometric angles to reduce its radar cross-section, scarcely an inch of it free of gun batteries and torpedo tubes. Salvos of railgun fire rocked the frigate-sized escorts, and they returned fire in kind, splashes of green plasma leaving dark smears on its armor like acid burns. It powered through, unflinching, passing by a Bug ship and hitting it with a full broadside. The Bug vessel lurched, green explosions tearing it apart from the aft to the stern. The cruiser must have hit an ammunition depot, or maybe the fuel tanks. Lines of tracer rounds crisscrossed the darkness now, point defense fire from the larger ships intercepting threats, drawing glowing trails that looked like streams of sparks at this range.

The station shook again as its railguns fired, the heat making their coils glow red, before dissipating into space. The hive ship took another wound, the projectiles punching through its layers of metal armor and organic carapace, leaving ugly tears in its hide like bullets. It was the only Bug ship still standing, the trainees cheering as they watched it turn to flee.

No, it wasn’t fleeing. It turned its torn flank toward the station, and then there was a series of small explosions. Something shot out of the vessel at high speed, so small at this distance that it looked like a cloud of buckshot, the projectiles coming into focus as they neared. They were made of twisted flesh and shell, with armored tips like arrowheads. Were they torpedoes? Nukes? The shining tips detached from the main bodies of the craft, racing ahead of them, and then the feed went dark.

The station rocked beneath our feet, and this time it wasn’t the firing of the guns. The lights flickered, the monitor displaying hissing static, and the enthusiasm of the trainees was quickly snuffed out as warning alarms began to blare.

“Hull breach alarm,” Vasiliev shouted, “stay in your seats and keep calm. The atmo won’t vent, you’ll be safe here.”

The Pinwheel trembled again, the halogen lights in the ceiling wavering, plunging the concerned faces of the recruits into intermittent darkness. There was a loud clattering sound as pots and pans in the kitchen fell from their hooks.

“What the hell is going on out there?” one of the other Staff Sergeants wondered aloud, huddling with one of his colleagues as they examined a tablet computer and talked in hushed whispers. Not even the Staff Sergeants seemed to know what was happening, and I exchanged a worried glance with Raz, who was seated beside me.

“What is that?” she asked, her ears swiveling toward the door to the corridor.

“What do you hear?”

“Something...” she muttered, rising from her seat and turning her head. The other Borealans seemed to be picking something up too, their yellow eyes all pointing in the same direction. The station’s superstructure groaned, the lights flickering again. “Gunfire, shouting,” she added as her eyes widened. She spun toward Vasiliev, who was standing beside the glass counter at the far end of the room, raising her voice over the murmur of conversation. “Staff Sergeant! I hear gunfire!”

“What?” he replied, “are you certain?”

She hissed and spat at her Borealan counterparts, and they nodded reluctantly, confirming her assessment. There was another quake, the lights cutting out completely this time, plunging the mess hall into near darkness. The red warning strips on the deck lit up, casting everything in an eerie, red glow.

“Everyone stay where you are,” Vasiliev repeated, jogging over to the huddling Staff Sergeants. Their faces were illuminated by the display of their tablet computer, I could see their mouths moving, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“New orders just came through,” one of the other Sergeants announced, “the station has been boarded. We’ve been told to move everyone to the armory, which is the safest place for you to be right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re all going to line up in the corridor in two orderly rows, then the Staff Sergeants and I are going to escort you across the military quarter to the armory, where we’ll hole up until the... ‘situation’ has been resolved.”

There was a lot of worried muttering as the trainees lined up in the corridor. I stuck beside Raz, her ears twitching and swiveling as she tracked sounds that my dull, human ears couldn’t hear. One of the Staff Sergeants vanished, returning a few minutes later and passing handguns to his counterparts. Things were getting serious, were they expecting to meet resistance along the way? The armory wasn’t far, but we would be exposed on the torus.

Vasiliev took point, standing beside the door with his weapon raised.

“Alright recruits, we go on my order. Keep moving, and don’t stop unless you’re told to, is that clear?”

The automatic door slid open, and he took a look outside before waving us forward. We filed out into the torus, around a hundred recruits in all, and I was alarmed to see that the sunlamps in the painted ceiling were dark. Instead, the habitat was lit by the same red warning lighting that was present inside the barracks. It gave everything an unearthly look, the previously pleasant and reassuring trees and plants now cast in crimson, as if illuminated by a distant forest fire. The puffy clouds and the blue sky that adorned the roof now looked similarly hellish. The breeze that I had so enjoyed was now absent, the air was still and stale, the leaves of the trees frozen in place. The usually crowded walkways were deserted now, there wasn’t a soul in sight, they had all retreated to safety.

“Emergency power state,” Vasiliev explained, noticing our expressions. “Energy is being diverted to critical systems. Now come on, stop gawking and get moving, recruits.”

The Staff Sergeants fanned out, escorting our column as we set off at a jog. My heart raced, and not because of the exertion. The odd lighting created dark shadows, my mind playing tricks on me, warning me of horrors that were barely glimpsed out of the corner of my eye before they were revealed to be planters or kiosks.

Not only had the lights been turned off, but there were barricades that had risen from the deck to provide cover, chest-high walls spaced along the torus at intervals. As we proceeded deeper into the military quarter, the distant sounds of XMR fire came echoing through the torus. It sounded far away, but as Raz had said, there were indeed gunfights going on.

I was startled by the sound of running, turning to see a squad of a dozen Marines in black combat armor jogging past the column, their rifles at the ready. They ran past us, headed upspin. The subtle curvature of the torus let me see above the recruits in the line ahead of me, and something slowly came into view from beneath the roof ahead of us.

It was one of the objects that the hive ship had launched, its surface covered in uneven, rough flesh that almost looked like off-green modeling clay. It was layered with bony armor, which was overlaid with sturdy metal plates, concentrated toward the front of the thing like an arrowhead. It was about the size of a semi-trailer, maybe slightly smaller. It had cratered into the deck of the torus, digging a jagged hole in the white metal, embedding itself deep into the underlying machinery. It looked like a giant bottle rocket made of meat and carapace, the red warning lighting illuminating it from below.

Above it was the entry hole, a tear in the painted ceiling through which expanding foam had poured in the projectile’s wake. It hung from the breach like stalactites in a cave, leaving large pools where it had dripped to the deck, and it had poured over the Bug missile like melting wax before setting. The foam systems were standard on spacecraft and stations, rapidly expanding and hardening both to seal hull breaches, and to choke out fires. It was a good thing, too, or all of the atmosphere on the station would have been vented into space.

The object was surrounded by several squads of Marines, taking cover behind planters and the raised barriers, their rifles trained on it.

“Hold!” Vasiliev ordered, and the column came to a stop. I leaned over, looking past the recruits in front of me as he ran over to one of the Marines. They talked for a moment, then Vasiliev came back, waving his arms at us. “Get back, get back. This one hasn’t popped yet!”

The recruits took cover behind kiosks and barriers, the Staff Sergeants doing their best to corral them into adjacent structures and out of the line of fire. Raz and I hid behind a planter, watching as the strange structure began to move.

Sections of the carapace ejected from the main body, bouncing as they hit the deck, ringing the metal like a gong. From within the gaping wounds that they left behind them came a swarm of creatures, flooding out from the shadowy interior of the craft. Their pearlescent shells gleaming in the red hues of the emergency lights, their compound eyes glowing green in the gloom as they dropped to the floor, scrambling over one another almost mindlessly. They climbed up the uneven surface of their vessel to perch atop it like gargoyles, their sharp mandibles flexing.

I recognized them from my studies, Betelgeusian Drones, the front-line troops of the Bug armies. They stood at around five feet tall on a pair of segmented, digitigrade legs, the three claw-like toes on their feet clicking against the deck as they moved. Their bodies were protected by a shining, iridescent exoskeleton that came in a myriad of colors, like the protective shell of a beetle or a crab. It was stiff and smooth, resembling plastic or some kind of resin, pink flesh visible between the articulated joints. Some of that shell was also synthetic armor, the same color and texture as the alien’s natural defenses. It was impossible to tell where one ended, and the other began. They had four arms, the upper pair slightly larger than the lower, knives and plasma pistols clutched in their three-fingered hands. Sprouting from their foreheads were ornate horns that came in a variety of shapes. Some resembled those of a stag beetle, others those of deer or elk, and some even looked like tree branches. No two Drones were alike in the color of their shells or the shapes of their horns, their glowing, bulging eyes peering at us.

In the space of a heartbeat, battle commenced. The Marines unloaded at the invaders, their XMRs sending tungsten slugs tearing into the swarming insects. The chatter of automatic fire was deafening, and I pressed my hands against my ears, the glow of magnetic coils joining the warning lights as they heated up. The colorful carapaces of the Bugs shattered into fragments, fluid that had the consistency and color of syrup spewing from their ugly wounds, their limbs twitching as they fell to the deck. It seemed as though the Marines had cut down dozens of them, but there were always more, climbing over the ruined bodies of their comrades as they charged forward.

Those that had clambered up on top of their breaching craft fired down with handheld plasma pistols, made from some kind of sculpted resin. Bolts of crackling, green energy rained down on the Marines, splashing against their cover to leave black burn marks on the metal. A few of the Marines took hits, screaming from within their helmets as the superheated gasses melted through their ceramic armor. The Drones that were coming in from the front popped handheld energy shields, forming a phalanx as they advanced, a device on their wrists projecting an oval-shaped barrier of wavering plasma. They fired around the barriers with their pistols, keeping up the pressure as the tungsten slugs melted on contact with their shields, transforming into showers of molten metal that seemed as harmless as sparks to the insects.

Only moments ago, the Bugs had been surrounded and defenseless, but now it was the Marines who were being forced to fall back. They covered each other with volleys of railgun fire, sticking to the planters and barriers, one of them narrowly avoiding a plasma bolt that slagged the plastic of the kiosk that he was taking cover behind. The pristine trees and bushes burst into flames where the bolts drew too close, smoke billowing into the air.

Some of the Marines had swapped out their receivers, and now plasma bolts were traveling in the other direction too. It was a blinding display, overpowering the red glow in the environment, the magnetically-contained projectiles that streaked across the torus illuminating everything around them like airborne glow sticks.