Chapter 46

‘The guardian failed,’ the senior intelligence informed the Masters. ‘Also, our defensive fleets are scattering, and the prey are closing in.’

‘This is most disturbing. Do we know how they took the guardian out?’ a Master asked.

‘They used explosives to tip it over onto its back.’

‘Ah... ‘

‘Utilise other guardians on the Corsuuli,’ the senior Master ordered. ‘They will suffice for now. Order the ship’s Master to a screen. We need to consult.’

‘By your command,’ the senior intelligence replied, forgoing mentioning that even if the guardians were sent after the prey, it would be a long series of time units before the nearest even got close to the prey.

‘You wish to consult?’ the Master of the Corsuuli asked as he appeared on a screen.

‘It seems this prey have lodged well onto the Corsuuli. You have the choice of fighting or fleeing,’ the senior Master advised.

‘I will fight.’

‘As expected. Good fortune.’

The three of us were doing an in-depth scan of the flipped giant alien, hoping to find an easier way than high explosives in front of our own lines to take one out.

“Tough bugger; multi-layered armour as well as a built-in beam weapon,” Flinn commented as she scanned.

“Those frontal claws are no joke either,” I added.

“Only advantage we have so far is that it’s slow and we can plant explosives under it,” Torun noted. “We could mount them on a low level grav-skid, the sort that kids like to play with, and guide the explosives under it that way.”

“That’s a thought,” Flinn nodded. “I’ll forward it to Fleet Engineering.”

“I’ll order in a few more long-range high-powered pellet firers as well,” I added. “If we can keep the smaller aliens to the rear of these big things, we’ll stand a chance.”

“Go via Gust, he’ll shorten the AI requisition process.”

“Yeah, planned on that,” I chuckled.

“Rank has its privileges.”

“Yep, also its responsibilities. He already wants me to lead the next advance,” I frowned.

“Price of success,” Torun giggled.

“Yep, do a good job and you end up with a harder one,” I laughed.

“Can’t think of anyone else with a success record against the aliens like yours though,” Flinn added.

“Just got lucky at times and they’re not too bright.”

“You got that right about the smarts.”

“We need a high velocity, armour-piercing explosive pellet to do any real damage to this monster,” I finally concluded.

“Recoil might be an absolute bitch if it’s hand-held, even with armour,” Flinn replied with a frown.

“True, but I was thinking of a floor-mounted, two-man operated version.”

“That might work if we mount it on a frame with shock absorbers for the recoil.”

“Send it to FleetEng with the other ideas and see if they can come up with something along those lines,” I suggested.

“We appear to be doing a lot more for the fighting Troopers than healing these days,” Torun chuckled. “Preventative healing, in a sense.”

“The less we have to do, the better care they get,” Flinn commented.

“That’s true,” I agreed. “Now, it looks like I’m needed for a briefing.”

“Off you go, we’ll finish off here.”

“We finally appear to be getting on top of the situation in the boarded command ship,” Gollant informed Clessik during a Bridge update.

“That’s a relief. I can’t imagine that our combined Fleets will take down one of these monsters easily,” Clessik replied thoughtfully.

“Yes, defensively they appear well capable of holding us off, even though we do outnumber them,” Gollant admitted.

“Outnumber, yes. Out mass? That’s another thing again, even if we managed to disable their antimatter beam.”

“Their primary weapon now is easily as good as ours and has better range; it’s more than capable of doing extreme damage to a Superdreadnought and those things mount nearly fifty of them.”

“Best weapon we have are our fighters, bombers and the Heavy Fighters I take it?”

“Yes, sir, along with the Ground Force complement.”

“Very well, let’s plan accordingly, even if it’s only one ship at a time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You want me to lead a reconnaissance force?” I queried Commander Gust.

“Yes, Kiria. Though as yet we have nowhere we can insert such a force, as it’s pretty obvious they have us surrounded,” he replied.

“There’s always a hull walk,” I suggested.

“Even so, we can’t guarantee what you’ll find once you try to regain entry.”

“Won’t know until we look.”

“That’s true. It’s up to you. I won’t order it and it will be volunteers only,” Gust replied after a moment’s thought. “Real volunteers as well,” he added with a glance at the Senior Monitor for the Division we were part of.

“Of course, sir,” the Senior chuckled by way of reply. “Don’t worry. If the Troopers know sub-Commander Kiria will be leading it, you’ll have more than enough.”

“Thought as much,” Gust snorted. “Your reputation for fighting your way out of trouble precedes you these days,” he added to me.

“I don’t expect them to let me down, so they don’t,” I replied seriously.

“I see,” Gust nodded. “Very well, plan your mission; see what you can find; then report back.”

“Yes, sir!” I replied with a chest-slamming salute.

Several hundred rotations later I was leading almost a whole regiment of volunteers across the hull of the command ship, looking for a way in that might give us a chance to infiltrate into the depths of the ship rather than just be confined to the outer layer.

“Over here, sir!” came a cry from one of the scouts I had sent out.

“What is it, Trooper Ganna?” I asked when I reached them.

“Looks like a hatch entry. AI scans can’t detect any power though,” she replied after saluting.

“Probably monitored somewhere, but yes, worth a look,” I nodded. “Entry team, over here, now!” I ordered.

The team swiftly opened the hatch by sliding aside a white panel and turned a locking lever to open the outer door. Once inside and under gravity they were able to peer through the viewing port and ascertained that the way was clear.

Several rotations later we were all inside and I had scouts out to carefully explore what I hoped was an empty area of the ship.

“No power to the airlock at all, sir,” one of the Troopers reported. “Just a mechanism designed to prevent both hatches being opened at the same time.”

“Feels like a trap of some kind,” Monitor Liovol opined. “Though not necessarily for us.”

“Yep, possibly for some sort of explorer as and when these ships go active, if the reports I got about them hibernating are to be believed,” I replied.

“So they harvest any intelligent species, go into cold sleep and wait for the next rise of intelligence to come, wake them up and they start over again, sir?”

“Pretty much it, yes.”

“Bet they wish they’d slept through the rise of the Empire,” he chuckled.

“Heh, yes. Though we haven’t won yet.”

“Just empty cabins so far,” a scout reported. “Kind of looks like some sort of set up, as they aren’t designed for any of the aliens we’ve seen. No furnishings or other effects either.”

“Keep on looking ... carefully,” I replied.

“Yes, sir.”

“Rest of you spread out and expand our perimeter,” Liovol ordered.

“Yes, Monitor!”

“Found an AI unit, switched off though,” the scouts reported.

“On my way,” I replied. “Do not switch it on or otherwise interfere with it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Liovol and I made it to the scout’s position to view what had been found. Scans by the scout had found the ultra-dense unit and had designated it as an unpowered AI. Whilst I agreed with that designation, I also suspected that switching it on would act as a beacon to whatever was running the ship and spring any trap they might have set up for this area.

“Trap, sir?” Liovol asked.

“I suspect so. Again, not necessarily for us, but it would certainly send out some sort of signal that would let the aliens know someone’s here. Plus, we don’t have the connection tools to plug in our own AIs.”

“We can scan it,” the harsh tones of my suit AI interrupted.

“Without setting off alarms?” I asked.

“Yes, sub-Commander.”

“Do so, please.”

It took several rotations whilst the AIs of various Troopers amalgamated with mine and scanned the alien AI using protocols they’d gleaned from previous units captured in battle.

“This unit, when activated, will open pathways to certain non-vital parts of this ship enabling a ‘visitor’ to be scanned and assessed,” my AI reported. “It also triggers the awakening of the resident Master and various crew from cryogenic stasis.”

“I take it that there are hidden doors to the vital parts of the ship?” I asked.

“Yes, sub-Commander, several.”

“Do we have a map?”

“Only of this and adjoining sections.”

“Can you disable the alarms?”

“Yes, sub-Commander.”

“Time to report to Ground Force Command. We may very well have found what we were looking for,” I nodded in satisfaction.

“Word from Ground Force, they may have found a way in to get at various important parts of the ship without initial detection,” Gollant reported to Clessik.

“Interesting. Wonder how they managed that?”

“They found an airlock that had been set up to entrap an explorer and decide if they were worth waking up the aliens. Hence they didn’t alarm it, after that it was what the GF component thinks was a series of tests to see how smart they were, including the switching on of an AI which was the key to waking up the aliens.”