Assault on Ambrose Station: A Seth Donovan Novel (26 page)

42.

Falling from the rear of a ship can be disorienting to the inexperienced. It is a lot like stepping into an endless pit - your senses tell you that ‘down’ is exactly that, except when you step off the ship instead of going down you just drift laterally away. That first step is always the hardest, for a rookie, but I was most certainly not a rookie. I was born in the stars – this empty void is my home.

With practiced ease, I let the inertia of my last step carry me clear of the Astral Spider, turning by moving my arms and creating a light spin. When I was facing the ship, I signalled Ormund to let him know we were all clear and then I ignited the thrusters on my suit to join the others.

Ormund’s drop pattern was a funnel of wireframe boxes and figures scrolling down my vision. When one of the others drifted too close to the pattern’s edge, a red outline appeared around the offending trooper. We all had the pattern, so I did not need to order any corrections.

Our suits were fitted with laser communication systems, allowing us to talk without broadcasting radio out into space for the Ghantri to detect. We only had to stay within line of sight of each other.

Normally, a combat drop commander would disallow any sort of talking amongst their troops, but this would be an unusually long drop. For some, being out in cold vacuum was stressful enough and I decided that as long as the chatter kept to a dull roar we could talk amongst ourselves for a few hours.

Geko, the squad’s practical joker, broke the silence first.

“Hey Trip, your suit getting smaller or is that just me?”

“Stow it, Geko.” barked Kekkin.

“It’s quite alright, sarge. Geko is merely expressing his ignorance. Malforians hate open spaces, not smaller ones. I’m rather comfortable within the confines of my MAEL.”

“You got your visor darkened haven’t you?” Geko said.

“Sure do. You’re too ugly to look at.”

“What about you, Rego? Any quirky alien phobias your race has?”

“I’m at least 90% human, dumb ass. A great grandfather was Asache, got his DNA modified to be compatible with humans.”

“So?”

“Any quirky phobias I have are more likely to be from my human heritage.”

“Oh.”

We drifted in silence for a while longer, the giant structure taking up much of our view.

“I’ve been thinking about how we could locate Mr Blackburn.” said Tac, about a hundred metres ‘down’ and to my right.

“Go on. Art, you listening in?”

“Intently.”

“Very well. Rego has informed me that we have enough equipment to set up several local networks once we land.”

“Yeah, we’ll need them to access some of the equipment we’ve brought, and for secure comms.”

“Right, well if we create a large enough coverage, we can envelope anyone with an overlay interface.”

“I’m not sure we have that many web beacons, Tac. The ring is huge, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I have noticed, Seth. We will not need the network to remain stationary. If we deploy the beacons on recon drones, we can sweep large areas of the terrain every day. Once the drones return, I can decipher the overlay hits and obtain a general area of our target’s location.”

“What do you think, Art? Any information you can share about Osiris’ overlay coding?”

“I have authentication codes that should recognise his overlay. It was how I was to confirm his identity. I’ll pass them to Tac’s brain sphere.”

“I have received the file, Ms. Derris. This is sufficient for our plan.”

“Good work. Kekkin, Renthal, Masters and Harris. You guys in line of sight?”

There was a chorus of affirmatives.

“First wave is to secure the LZ, set up a perimeter. Low visibility weapons only if you need to engage. Tag all contacts on the tactical app. Once second wave comes in, lay down overwatch positions and defensive barricades. I want that secure beacon up and running as soon as third wave lands, and I want no distractions from enemy fire. Kekkin, set up a fire team for a roving patrol out to two kilometres of the LZ. Get them to report all contacts before engaging, and avoid engaging entirely if possible. Masters, once Rego has the beacon up, Tac will start a sensor sweep for any comm nodes that the Ghantri use. If he finds any, take a fire team and knock it out ASAP. Once we have a black zone set up, we can look for an ingress point for the inner ring. Until then, we are ants on the outside of a very big anthill. Let’s keep it quiet as long as possible. Last thing I want to do is kick the anthill and send them scurrying.”

In a gunfight, the Ghantri had an advantage. They used shield technology, stolen from their victims and reverse engineered, but their own weapons were not affected by them. Our shields were effectively useless, while our weapons were at least partially deflected by theirs. As with most of their stolen technology, they had yet to perfect the Prallgian-Kronnen Principle of energy manipulation and their shields were brittle and weak compared to most military grade shields.

To help offset this advantage, Protectorate quartermasters stationed in Gossamer tended to tweak their weapon power outputs. Our guns had more punch than regular weapons, but they drained the power cells a lot faster. The portable reactors we each carried in our M4s would definitely come in handy before this operation was completed.

Astral Spider is clear of the station, Seth. You’re all set. I’ll have someone monitor the battlenet at all times,

After we discussed our landing a little more, there wasn’t much else to talk about, so well drifted in silence once more. We had a long way to go, eleven hours to be precise, and the best way to make this time pass was to catch up on sleep. We had no idea if would get another chance after we landed. I ordered a rotation of watches, so that at least one person per wave would be alert at all times, then ordered everyone to get some rest.

I dreamt, as I often did, of the dark sea of nanites. The ever present Eye gazing down at me in judgement. I no longer found the sea comforting, but a place to dread. I felt exposed, as if finding myself on open ground in the middle of a firefight. I tried to swim deeper, hoping to block my view of the Eye, but no matter how far down I swam I always seemed to be near the surface. Eventually, I began to make out shapes moving within the Eye, as if they were vast things a great distance from me. I did not want the things in the Eye to find me, yet I could not hide from them. Soon, they would see me, and then bad things would happen. I tried to find an island, as I sometimes found in those dreams, thinking I could bury myself in the black sands, but no island could be found.

I tried to swim for the horizon, as far away from the Eye as I could. I soon became exhausted, my arms feeling as if filled with lead. I struggled to remain afloat, while a foreboding presence pressed in on me from above. I did not want to look, fearing the things within the Eye were getting near, but I could not help it. The Eye seemed closer than ever, yet its true size eluded me.

When I could clearly see that shapes moving, a panic overtook me. I splashed around madly, flailing in the water trying to escape their nearness.

“..eth! Wake up! Seth!” a voice jarred me from my dream. I realised that I had been flailing in my sleep. Art was drifting before me, grasping my arms, her helmet touching mine as she yelled at me.

“Mrph.” I muttered.

“You were dreaming. Or having a fit.” she said.

“Erk. I have a headache. And my throat is sore.”

“You looked like you’d been screaming. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I get nightmares sometimes. I’ll be okay in a few minutes.” I was still shaking and I could feel cold sweat evaporating from my face and body. I checked my chronographic app and saw that we had nearly half an hour to go before we needed to start preparing for our landing. In a few minutes my pounding head resided to a dull ache and I sipped a few mouthfuls of water from a tube in my helmet. The shaking just wouldn’t stop, though.
God damn mental shit,
I thought,
don’t rear your head now.

I started to breathe deeply, and focused on that. In, out. In, out. After a while, it seemed to work and the shaking stopped. I took stock of our surroundings, our spacing. We were in good shape and most of us were already awake. I hoped I had not freaked out the others if they had seen me.

I could clearly make out structures on the outer hull of the habitat ring now. It was covered in giant machinery and large metallic structures, separated by trench ways. Our landing zone would be between two such structures, a pair of industrial plants. Both were the size of giant starships. There was a wide clearing of flat terrain, what looked like a landing site for ships. Hopefully, we would be able to find an access corridor that led into the habitat proper and gain access to the habitable inner ring.

I pinged Kekkin and the other squad leaders. It was time to get this show on the road, so to speak.

43.

As far as the eye could see, the mass of the space station spanned. It was large enough to have its own horizon and one could just make out the curve of the habitat ring from the outside. We were coming down on the outer part of the ring, often the site of star ports and docking bays. None of these were in use, thankfully, but I had no illusion that they would all be empty. We needed to land, set up shop and secure ourselves a forward base. Then we needed to figure out a way into the habitat inner ring.

The first wave of Naga Team reported they were seconds from landing.

“Looks clear, LT.” came Renthal’s report, “Coming in now…boots on the ground! Mags attached. Geko, Carro, move out. Masters take point.”

I brought up a heads up display showing me Master’s helmet cam. The area appeared to be a small craft landing strip, with three buildings surrounding it. The atmospheric processor cast a long shadow across the dull metallic deck. There was debris everywhere, as if the previous workers were in the midst of loading freighters with cargo and had to abandon their task. In all likelihood, this is exactly what had happened. Masters and the two privates were moving from cover to cover, sweeping the area for hostiles.

“Masters,” I called over the laser comms, “check that container to your right.”

The corporal swept his helmet cam in the direction I asked, showing me a gutted container, its contents gone.

“Looks like they’ve been looted.” he said, his accent thick and his voice a deep baritone. Masters was from another Network, a system I’d never heard of before. He was a frontiersman, though, just like me. He came off as gruff and unfriendly, but he was competent enough. Renthal had told me that he had both his arms augmented with cybernetics, and to avoid arm wrestling the man. I took his word for it.

“Probably the Jaani, looking for tech.” I said.

“No hostiles sighted.” Masters said, “Fall back to the perimeter.”

Harris reported in. “Second wave approaching LZ. Gunther, you’re coming in too fast, light off.”

Seconds later, Harris reported his team had also landed. I was three kilometres out, time to pull my group together.

“Art, Tac, light thrusters toward me. We’ll group up on Kekkin and Rego.” I could see the faint glow of Art’s suit thrusters. Tac had mounted several small attitude thrusters to his frame and was using these to manoeuvre. They were brighter than the suit thrusters the rest of us used, and I winced when I saw them.

“Belay that. Tac, shut down your thrust. We’ll group up on you.”

Kekkin and Rego turned and headed towards Tac, while I reached Art and slowed her down as she had been heading towards me already. She was playing it smart, letting only one of us use their thrusters to minimise visibility.

“Overwatch established.” reported Harris.

I checked my distance with a laser rangefinder. Nine hundred metres to go.

We reached Tac, then joined up with Kekkin and Rego. I was tense, exposed for these final moments. If we were seen now, there was little we could do to avoid fire. Thankfully, the final metres counted down and the deck rose up to greet us. I applied my thrusters in the last few seconds and arrested my fall, gently lowering to my feet and locking my mag boots to the deck. I need not have bothered – there was gravity.

“Tac, what’s the strength of this gravity? Feels light.”

“I detect zero point seven two standard gravities. Definitely artificial. The station should only be generating point two two gee’s.”

I joined Harris at a barricade his team had just set up and readied my weapon. I had chosen a balanced spread of weaponry for this operation. I carried an Armatek E-34 Modular E-Rifle as my primary gun. It was lightweight, for an assault rifle, and configured in a carbine mode. They were the standard spec ops rifle of choice, able to be outfitted as a battle rifle, marksman rifle or automatic assault rifle. My M4 MAEL had a compartment on my lower left back that contained the other components that I could change configuration with, as the need arose. I also had my trusty PX-2, two grenades and a trio of party poppers. Lastly, I had the
lurzak
blade mounted on an easy to reach spot above my left shoulder.

“Looks quiet, LT.” said Harris, scanning the metal field before us, “Picked a good spot to land.”

“Yeah, but we’re still exposed out here. We should set that beacon up on the roof of that hanger over there. Rego! Think you and Tac can get your gear up there?” I pointed to the building.

“No problem, LT.”

He took off at a jog. Tac followed, lugging the equipment case with him.

Kekkin whacked Gunther on the back. “Go with them.” he grunted.

“What do you think, sarge?” I asked him.

“We should secure that building. Plant our gear there and start searching for access tunnels and passageways.”

“Patrols?”

“No. Keep us together, more effective when we meet the
calak
.”

“Okay. I’m satisfied this area is empty, we can move off the LZ.”

Kekkin called Renthal and Masters in, their fire team following. He gave orders to move us towards the building adjacent to the one that Rego, Tac and Gunther were just now entering. It appeared to be an admin building for the landing strip we had commandeered. There was a working airlock, which quickly filled with atmosphere, and let us enter the main lobby. There were desks, counters and rows of seating in the lobby, and we soon had the area secured. The interior was covered in detritus and debris. My suit’s sensors told me the atmosphere was too thin for safe breathing, so we were still confined to our suits for now.

Despite being bulky and heavy, the M4 was rather comfortable and so I didn’t mind. Art, however, I could tell was getting testy. Her suit was not designed for prolonged use and I knew it would be getting on the nose inside.

“How much life support do you have left?” I asked her.

“Plenty. Three hours still.”

“All right. We have two hours to find atmosphere, then we fall back to here and hook you up to the life support module we brought.”

The life support module was one of the devices we had taken down with us. We would set it up and run from one of the reactors on our suits. It was essentially an airtight tent, which could be inflated to allow a wounded soldier to be stripped of their armour in a vacuum or low atmo environment. There were also ports to connect oxygen tanks to refill.

“Triptych,” I called, “Find this building’s AI Core and see if you can talk to it. I want to know why the atmo in here is thin.”

The Malforian left immediately, carrying a small tool kit. Kekkin whacked Geko on the back, pushing him after Triptych. I silently cursed, I should have thought about that, again. I needed to start thinking like a squaddie again. I needed my head in the game. I had spent too long running solo, or with one or two allies.

An icon began to flash on my overlay, indicating the comm beacon was up and running.

On our way back, LT. Comm connected to the Astral Spider, no worries.

Good job, Rego.

I accessed my battlenet implant, ensuring it connected to the comm beacon.
Ormund,
I texted,
you getting this?

It took a moment to get a reply,
C..brat…g sig.#al. Stan4b.-. Configur02dk..ode…eth? How do you read?

You’re all messed up, hard to read.

Should be b3tter n0w.

Much better.

Takes a few messages to lock onto the signal properly.

We’re set up about two hundred metres spinward of the LZ, small admin building for the landing strip. No contacts yet. Any schematics for this area? Any maps that show us an entry point to the habitat?

Garner has been helping out with that. He’s given me two enlisted to pour over these schematics we have of the station. There should be an elevator not too far from your position. I think that strip was a small transport station for shuttles, so there will be access for the habitat for sure.

Where will it go? Through to the habitat?

There’s the problem. You’ll have a bit of a trek getting out to there. You’ll more than likely encounter any Ghantri in the passageways leading to the inner ring. From what you’ve told us, they don’t venture out onto the habitat grounds much.

My mind drifted back to the first time I’d landed on here, during the Push. We were under fire, of course, but after the initial attack we pushed down into the passageways that Ormund spoke of. The fighting there was intense, pushing down long, wide concourses and trench ways. We had battled the Ghantri down shafts and access tunnels until we pushed out onto the inner ring habitat.

My squad never made it - we got the call to withdraw before we managed to push through. We fell back to what looked like a mall, waiting for a large contingent of Ghantri to pass by before we could return to the outer surface. A few gun battles later and we were late to our rendezvous. A secondary extraction site was compromised and before we knew it, the last shuttle lifted off without us. The rest was history. After losing my last squad member, I returned to the tunnels below.

I blew the air out of my lungs in a sigh. I wasn’t looking forward to this next part.