Authors: Steve Wheeler
‘What of the ACEs, Veg?’
Stephine answered without bothering to look at him. ‘They are to secure the ship.’
Marko nodded to himself as he ensured he was fully encapsulated in the machine, then said, ‘I have been meaning to ask, Stephine. What do you call this ship?’
‘Blackjack,
it is called
Blackjack.
And no, there is no AI here. Let’s go, Marko. You are wasting time. Go through the main hatch and then deploy your suit.’
Marko nodded again, and then directed a query to his suit. ‘Tux, how do I control the suit?’
An even more metallic-sounding Tux answered. ‘Just look and think about what you want to do. I will then make it happen. Do not be surprised if I act before you do.’
Marko sighed. ‘Comforting. Lead on.’
As soon as they had been cycled out of
Blackjack’s
airlock, Tux deployed the armour, becoming a tall egg shape with the outer armoured shell deploying around them; antigravity and flight systems also opened out. They flew down towards the rear bulkhead of the frigate looking for something to hit. Marko thought of Stephine and Veg and a small rear-vision screen opened up in the HUD. The large black, four-armed and deeply sinister thing that he had seen a long time ago on
Basalt
— when they went up against the AI Lotus — was moving up behind him.
He whispered: Tux. ‘What the fuck is that?’
‘That, Marko, is Stephine and Veg in the guise of Death.’
‘You getting all poetic on me, Tux?’
‘No, Marko, just stating the obvious.’
Marko pursed his lips and shook his head wondering what he was involved in, as he mused aloud. ‘OK, two units against a slightly busted-up frigate. This is going to get even more interesting.’
He thought of Lilly and Jasmine. The HUD showed him where they were and also lit up the ‘guard’ icon against them, showing him what they had been tasked to do. He saw the closed blast doors which lead aft through the frigate, then looked sideways and considered going straight through the wall instead. Various weapon icons came up as Tux started actively scanning the wall for gravity affect. Marko then simply wished the weakest part of the wall gone and two fat muzzled gimballed mortars fired twice, creating a gaping jagged hole: the blast punched inwards and then back out, towards them, as whatever atmosphere inside emptied with a maelstrom of shattered debris.
They flew in through the hole and did the same again and again, steadily working their way aft. Gravity was again in effect, so they started to walk. Whenever something blocked them Marko simply wished it gone and the suit obliged as his engineering self-belatedly kicked in. He brought up consumable lists, discovering that they were down twenty-one per cent of available munitions. He wished to see a schematic of the frigate and they spent a few moments looking for a comms jack point. He was about to interface with it to learn of the frigate’s layout when the black monster beside him tapped on the outer casing and pointed across towards a universal language ship’s layout diagram.
‘The creature is trying to make contact with us, Marko,’ Tux said.
‘Let it.’
The monster was a very strange mixture of Stephine and Veg. It had harsh martial undertones, and with a chill going down his spine Marko decided it was a weapon and that it was something completely alien to him. He realised that his friends were not really present inside the thing. It was strange and frightening and completely outside his understanding.
‘Sergeant Major. You are too slow in your advance. Follow me and keep up.’
It then quickly walked through a set of airlock doors into a corridor and rapidly moved out of sight.
‘Shit. Where the hell did that go, Tux?’
‘I believe I know. We shall make the best time possible. We are not as nimble as the Black Death.’
‘Bloody hell. Is that what it is called?’
‘No, that is what I am calling it.’
In spite of the situation, or maybe because of it, Marko giggled. ‘I’ll be buggered! You are developing a sense of humour.’
They stomped down corridors until they found the central core of the frigate and started to make better time working their way down the primary spiral staircase. There was a large lift well in the centre, but that did not appeal. They often came across shattered automatic weapons and the remains of what looked like Expeditors of the Games Board.
‘I don’t like the look of this at all. Why are the Games Board military wing here and I don’t see a single camera monitor?’
Finally they caught up with the Black Death as it was going up against a moderately large force outside what Marko assumed was the bridge deck of the frigate. The thing was an absolute blur of motion, so they simply parked themselves in the middle of the wide corridor and, as targets presented themselves, smashed them, keeping them away from the Black Death. At one stage a group of three enemy engaged Marko from the rear and the hits felt like pinpricks on his back. He looked over his shoulder and wanted the biting insects gone; three bursts of flechettes whistled out from the rear of his armour and chopped them down.
He looked forwards again and saw that a smoking hole had appeared in the doors leading onto the frigate’s bridge. They stamped down towards it just as something heavy whacked Marko in the back, smashing him high against the wall. Someone had finally brought up a heavy anti-armour weapon. He rolled down, and even as he was landing, the mortars were firing, blowing the anti-armour squad back down the central stairway.
Marko really hurt. After flashing on and off for a few seconds, the HUD came back up with flags against various components showing that they were still operational but that another big hit would put them out of the fight. Tux stood the cube unit up and they walked through the hole in the wall and stepped instantly to one side. The circular-shaped interior of the bridge was absolute chaos. The Black Death was still whirring around, slicing and dicing with its terrible blades. The GB personnel still alive were desperately trying to engage it, and they were starting to have an effect as he thought that no matter how good the technology, sufficient firepower will eventually knock it down.
He brought his remaining operational weapons to bear, but knew it was only a matter of time as they were both taking punishment. They worked their way around the bridge so he could also start bouncing mortar rounds out through the bridge door. That seemed to give them a little reprieve, but he was also starting to run out of ammunition. Then all the lights and gravity shut down. Tux was damaged and could only see about thirty per cent in infrared so life became a little more difficult.
‘Tux, we have to grab Black Death and go. We stay, we die. Use everything you have and blow a hole in the hull.’
Tux started to fire on a specific spot, but the bridge on a ship was always built superbly tough and they were not making much headway.
‘Stop. Next time that Stephine-Veg monster orbits above us, grab the bloody thing and hold on tight. We have to go back to the corridor.’
The Black Death monster had slowed down sufficiently for Tux to grab it tight as he and Marko ran for it. The armour ballooned out, opened up and took the Stephine and Veg creature into itself. It fought for a few seconds and then suddenly went totally limp; Marko wondered if they were dead. They turned and started to fight their way out into the corridor just as a terrific concussive blast blew through the frigate and everything shuddered.
Marko looked across as the central core collapsed and hard vacuum sucked on everything. The blast had slammed them hard up against the wall again and Tux tried to hold on, but it was no use as the sudden out-gassing of such a huge volume grabbed them and along with thousands of objects they shot up the central core towards the nose.
Marko hurt all over, which meant that Tux was in a bad way. Systems were shutting down throughout the armour until it was just down to both Marko and Tux’s core selves. They continued to bounce and tumble, caught in a maelstrom of materials, eventually shooting out through the wrecked clamshell doors and, along with most of the frigate’s loose contents, some of which were crew or others still alive in their suits, they found themselves drifting among the stars.
Marko pulled up the status of the suit and started activating survival protocols. Groaning at what he was seeing he said, ‘Tux, is there anything we can do for Stephine and Veg?’
‘Not at this time,’ Tux replied sombrely. ‘I am unable to access many of the internal sensors in the heavy suit. I am scanning the surrounding area using what little power is still in the heavy suit.’
One part of the HUD was still working and Marko could see that the frigate was starting to tumble slowly away from them. It had extensive damage on its exterior, but there was no evidence of what had inflicted it. Marko started to consider his options if they were not found: none of them ended favourably. Just before the sensors gave out, he saw one of the Hangers slowly moving up beside them and felt a clang as a manipulator arm grabbed hold, so he relaxed slightly.
He was exhausted and must have nodded off for a short while, as the next thing he knew he was being shoved into the main airlock on
Blackjack.
Tux must have been able to partially disengage the heavy suit as he could see out through the visor. The door closed behind them and a few moments later the entire atmosphere of the airlock turned an opaque violet as they were sprayed with a harsh cleaning agent. They were hosed down a few times and then blow-dried before Tux told him to tightly close his eyes while a few moments of intense ultraviolet light was endured. It was so bright that Marko wondered if his face would be burnt through the visor. He voiced his concern to Tux who told him that it was possible, but unlikely.
Twenty minutes later the internal doors opened and they were forcibly dragged inside by Jasmine and Lilly, as there was no power available to activate the legs of the suit. One of them appeared with a large toolkit and they dismantled part of the heavy suit gaining access to Stephine and Veg, who were lifted out and laid down on the deck. As Marko watched, their matt black armour slowly folded back off them, and they slowly separated into the two people he knew, although he thought it a very spooky thing to watch. Both were barely conscious as Lilly started to feed them from a large container of syrupy amber-coloured fluid.
Jasmine plugged a pair of power leads into Marko’s suit and Tux started to come back to life as well. Those parts that were able to now folded back into the cube shape, and slowly set Tux and Marko free. As soon as they could, Tux stepped them forwards and proceeded to fold away from Marko. The ACEs just quietly looked on with no one saying a word.
Lilly stood up and looked at Marko. ‘We still have problems. This ship had to be pushed out of the frigate by us, piloting the Hangers, as it will not respond to anyone. The ACEs are the ones who overrode the controls of the heavy rail guns and we assisted by pushing
Blackjack
into a position from where the guns could be engaged, destroying the central spine access compartments. We could not think of anything else to do to help you. We’re all worried as Stephine and Veg seemed to leave without a real plan. From everything we know of Stephine, this action is most unusual for her and denotes a loss of emotional control.’
‘Have you had a look around us?’ Marko asked wearily.
Jasmine nodded. ‘Yes, and we believe that we know where we are. The jump was at the extreme range of
Blackjack.
We are at the most distant of the nine stellar Lagrange points of the original target system. This ship is fully functional to the best of our knowledge. We just have to gain control of it and we can go back to
Basalt.
We have tried everything, but the ship’s computer will not acknowledge us.’
Marko nodded, looked at his hands and then for a place to sit down. ‘We’ll wait for Stephine and Veg then. Place them in their quarters ... it is all we can do. We’ll give them an hour of peace and I shall then wake Veg up. What is happening aboard the GB frigate? There must be dozens of crew still alive — and what about their own landers?’
‘They have made no attempt to contact us,’ Lilly reported. ‘As I was bringing you in, I saw a lander moving through the debris field picking up survivors. I do not know their status. From what I can surmise, this ship is now effectively a derelict; knowing how the Games Board operates, it is only a matter of time before another of their units comes looking further afield.’
He nodded in understanding. ‘I’d better go try and wake Veg now — we may not have an hour.’
He stood over the huge man and could see that Stephine was melded into him where they lay together on their bed. Marko shook his shoulder and Veg opened his eyes and looked at him. Marko felt a great wash of relief.
‘Veg, I know that you are hurt, but we need to go. We have to jump out of here before company arrives again.’
Veg nodded fractionally and lifted one of Stephine’s arms, whispering, ‘Grasp her hand, Marko. I shall effect a material transfer to you. I am sorry, but without Stephine’s conscious control this will hurt badly, but at least the ship will respond to you.’
Oh, shit, Marko thought, here we go again, unknown territory and muggins me at the centre of it. He reached out and held her hand in his right hand. Nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds and then a burning sensation crept through his hand, up his arm, into his spine and into his head. He screamed briefly, then passed out with the pain as it consumed his entire being.