Renegade (20 page)

He looked back to Trace’s feed. If they had to move in a hurry, it was going to be a hell of a rush to get all those marines back aboard in time. But they couldn’t be snuggled up close to a hollow and possibly inhabited rock without knowing what it was. He glanced at the deployment timer — T-plus-7 minutes and counting. Come on Major, don’t take too long.

T
race found
the elevator platform at the end of the massive shaft in the rock. It loomed ahead like the nose plate of a starship, a big circle of solid steel, fifty meters across. It latched to the rock sides on big runners that ran down the walls, accompanied by powerlines and piping.

“
Wow,
” someone murmured, at the sheer size of it.

“
Keep it tight boys and girls,
” said Dale. “
Close to the walls, you’re a sitting duck in the middle of the shaft.
”

Alpha Platoon floated in a ringed deployment about the shaft, three squads of twelve in three sections of four, for thirty-six total. Add an eight-man heavy squad for forty-four per platoon… and Trace’s Command Squad of eight including herself, and there were fifty-two of them, while Charlie Platoon’s forty-four went up the other shaft.

“
There’s the platform access,
” said Sergeant Manjhi, as tacnet lit up that space, filling in the architecture as they went. It looked like the mouth of a hangar, dark and opening onto the elevator platform. The suits generated enough of their own below-vis spectrum light to make everything bright enough, if ominously patchy. But inside that hangar, all was dark.

Alpha’s lead elements took position about the doorway with little bursts of thrust, while others drifted gently into far-range, touching feet down on the platform. “
Looks clear,
” said one.

“
Proceed inside,”
said Dale.

“
Second Squad, proceeding inside,”
said Sergeant Hall. “
Watch the blindspots people, nice and easy.
”

Trace watched them go, hovering off a further wall and watching on tacnet as Charlie Platoon did similar up the other end. So far the asteroid layout was looking symmetrical. She’d come with Alpha instead of Charlie because she had to pick one, and to her usually reliable memory she’d gone with Charlie on another op more recently than she’d gone with Alpha. Tough headkickers or not, marines could get quite sensitive if they thought she was favouring one unit over another, and she had to be careful she wasn’t. None of her units needed micro-managing, and at this point she could watch from the rear and only speak when needed.

Her point-men’s visuals showed her the hangar layout while she was still outside — there were three branching corridors, all wide and flat-based, suggesting rotational gravity when the asteroid was spinning.

“First Squad take the left corridor,” she told them. “Second and Third, take the right. Ignore the third corridor, it looks like a circumference route, it’ll just take us across to Charlie Platoon. I want us moving down and away from
Phoenix
, and I want division into groups no smaller than squads. Lieutenant Jalawi, you hearing this?”

“
Major you’re a little broken, but I hear you want us moving away from Phoenix, divisions into groups no smaller than squads, affirm?”

“Affirmative Lieutenant, let’s go.” She caught every word of Charlie Platoon’s commander, but the static was worse than she’d hoped. They deployed ahead, allowing her command squad to move in, small bursts of jet thrust into the hangar’s cavernous mouth. Here was another huge chamber, with what might be control room windows overlooking. She could imagine shuttles here, anchored to the floor by gravity, serviced by… chah'nas workers, probably. Back in the Empire, tavalai had been doing the office work, not flying shuttles.

The branching corridors were also big, though nothing like the size of the elevator shafts behind. Huge piping filled them, running along like bundled straws. Ahead, armoured marines drifted into those gaping mouths like children playing in the hallways of giants.

Dale took First Squad right with Second Squad, Trace took her Command Squad left with Third Squad, while Heavy Squad split into two sections of four, one behind each. They progressed at what would have been a sprint had gravity been in effect, but at this scale felt like a very slow walk. Now the static really began to break things up, tacnet flickered and showed units a tentative orange rather than blue, and accompanying vis-feeds turned snowy. Air temperature remained a steady minus 110C, though laser-scan on the walls showed a warming trend. At the next forty-five degree junction she sent Third Squad ahead, and went right with Command Squad and the four-man Heavy section.

“Okay people,” she told them, “we’ll have as many as seven different groups spreading through this rock and our coms are snowy. Let’s not shoot each other by mistake — if you see movement, query and identify.” Because tacnet was telling her it could only be sure of where half of her guys were.

“
This middle pipe here’s reading plus-50C,”
said Private Rolonde. “
Something’s definitely on.
” Her voice was tense. Far-deployment in a hostile environment did that too — if someone lost environmentals out here, the air looked only marginally breathable and the temperature was positively deadly, and
Phoenix
’s warm corridors felt a long way away.

But this was more than that. They were in a search pattern because
Phoenix
required them to thoroughly search the asteroid, and quickly. But what
Phoenix
required was putting them at greater risk, by dividing their numbers, if something hostile was about. But there was no choice to it — the ship’s safety came first, and with all the hostile shipping about, they didn’t have time to examine the rock more slowly in strength. She could deploy another platoon, she thought… but that was against all established practice in these situations — carriers never deployed more than half their marines at a time if they could possibly help it, in anything short of a full scale strike. That way if something very bad happened,
Phoenix
would still have a reasonable complement left.

They flew past smaller side corridors, cut into rock but capped with steel bulkheads… and on the right, something slightly larger, but still far smaller than this current one.

“Check this,” said Trace, and put an arm out for a blast of sleeve-thrust to slow her down. “Deploy right, all cover.” They moved like a well-oiled unit, several in tight by the corners while Private Ugail tossed a handball into the corridor. It spun and adjusted its flight, feeding vision and scans back to them all, showing nothing. Save for some tubes in the wall further up that didn’t look like more pipes. “Might be elevators, could lead to the core. Advance. Heavy Section, watch our tails.”

The Heavies covered the entrance, their massive chain-guns and cannon no effort at all in zero-G. Until they had to fire them, that was. Sergeant Willis led them in, and the temperature began climbing to minus 90C.

“
Radiant heat,”
said Willis. “
No convection in here, it won’t travel much. I guess it’s coming through the walls.”
The tubes on the wall ahead were indeed elevators. They burrowed up into rock and disappeared.

“
What’s the bet those go to the core?”
said Private Van.

Trace ran laser-scan on it… and got a vibration. She cut some static-filled conversations elsewhere through the rock, and listened just to the vibration. A ticking. Clatter clatter. Tick tick. Like someone rolling a tin can along a metal floor. Click clang. Very faint.

“
What the fuck is that?”
asked Rolonde, evidently listening to the same thing.

“
What’s what?”

“Laser-scan on the elevators, listen.
”

“I don’t know of any auto-mechanism that makes a noise like that,” said Trace, suddenly very aware of how isolated and walled in they were in this vast, alien place. Her heart thudded harder, and she took a deep breath to calm herself. On the climb, the fearful ones fell. “We’re going to assume something’s alive in there.” She flipped to broadcast. “All units this is the Major, reassemble on my position, we’ve got a way to the core but we’re only going in there in force…”

A roar of gunfire over coms, then explosions. Shouts and yells, garbled static and a screech of metal on metal. Trace wanted to yell at them to report position, tacnet showed little but orange and blank space, but she knew that more shouting would just add to clutter. They were marines, they’d get a clear com soon enough…

“
Hacksaw!”
someone was yelling above the noise. “
This is Alpha Two, hacksaw! Hacksaw!”
And even Trace’s blood ran cold, because far worse than krim were hacksaws — AI drones, remnants of the Machine Age twenty five thousand years gone, the bloodiest horror known to have befallen flesh-and-blood sentience in this part of the galaxy. Humans had only encountered their surviving warriors a handful of recorded times, though every now and then a ship would disappear in some remote region, and people would wonder.

“Form up!” Trace shouted. “All units rendezvous and regroup!” As Sergeant Willis yelled at Command Squad to make defensive formation. “Let’s get away from this elevator now — Willis, heading 110, let’s get to First Squad!”

They displaced, thrusters firing, jetting down the narrower corridor with terse instructions back and forth to watch formation… the elevator exploded just as the Heavies left it, showering them with shrapnel — something up above had put a bomb down the shaft as she’d feared.

“Third Squad, make my position! Make my position! We are headed 110, rendezvous with First Squad, Alpha Company rendezvous on First Squad!” Just hoping they could hear as the walls shot by, and tacnet showed a static mess of blue units and red, meaning hostile, but nothing that made sense…

“
Clear that corner!”
said Willis as they approached another big transit corridor ahead, and Rolonde and Terez fired airburst grenades to clear anything hiding around that corner… explosions then something else flashed…

“
Cover!
” And Trace hit jets and slammed herself back-first into the wall as fire came in, bounced and fired back amidst a hail of outgoing fire. “
Seekers!”
Someone threw a handball and tacnet showed a flash of visual, something many-limbed and spider-like amidst smoke and fire, then vision vanished in a burst of thrusters.

“Advance!” said Trace and they went, the handball recovering enough to show several more spidery things jetting onto the walls in the opposite direction. Trace locked on an SR and fired it on tacnet, jetting forward as she saw it turn that sharp corner, then something blew in a flail of legs, and incoming fire shredded the exit ahead. “Wait!” Trace yelled over the shriek of disintegrating metal, grabbing a pipe to halt herself short. “Let ‘em spend ammo! Load SRs!”

These units hadn’t spotted the handball, so didn’t know they were being watched. It suggested visual vulnerabilities, or processing ones.

“Fire!” More short-range missiles streaked from backracks, turned a sharp corner and… “Go!”… before they hit, a burst of thrust as they did, then into the vast open corridor as multiple strikes hit the walls. Trace fired right where one ought to be, auto-jets correcting for recoil to stop her tumbling as she skidded sideways and into the far wall — multiple strikes amid the smoke, she saw metal limbs coming apart, fragments flying.

Then the others of Command Squad were firing at the second as it jetted forward, losing limbs and weapons in a hail of heavy fire, but Trace was already looking around for others… and directly above was a hole in the ceiling. She put a grenade through it just as they came, blasting one into a tumbling collision, yelling “Above you!” and firing on full auto and rapid-cycle grenades.

Command Squad split in all directions, as amidst them came twisting debris, and several still active hacksaws — and for the first time she saw it, six-limbed, an armoured thorax, variable-articulated sensor head with multiple weapon mounts blazing fire. It slashed and spun in all directions at crazy speed, someone’s suit went spinning, another spider came apart at close-range fire and shattered. An explosion sent it Trace’s way and it hit the wall alongside, twice the size of an armoured marine, and she jetted backward to dodge a squealing saw-blade that sliced straight through the wall she’d been on.

She blasted it, and then the Heavies were firing from the corridor exit, and the last one still fighting came apart like paper in a hailstorm. Tacnet told her Ugail was dead, and she could see Sergeant Willis was too — his suit was in two pieces, that saw-blade had gone straight through him.

“Cover and reload!” she commanded, smacking in a new mag. “Blow those things’ heads off, let’s be sure! Injuries, report!”

“
Major, Sergeant Willis is…
”

“I know that, I said injuries dammit! Pay attention!” Elsewhere she could hear fighting ongoing. Echo Platoon would be deploying now from
Phoenix
, making Bravo and Delta the fighting reserve — she couldn’t talk to them from here and so couldn’t stop it if she’d wanted to.

“
Major I’m legged.
” That was Rolonde, voice tight. “
The suit’s drugged it, don’t feel much.
” More firing, as others finished off the twitching hacksaws.

“Private Arime, escort Private Rolonde back to
Phoenix
, don’t stop for anything.” It was a risk — if they met hacksaws on the way they were probably dead, two marines alone couldn’t defend much, especially with one wounded. But Echo were on their way, and they’d meet backup soon… and she couldn’t take wounded where she was going. “The rest of you, that hole in the ceiling is our way in. Hacksaw nests have queens — we attack the queen, the others will rush to defend her, we take pressure off our units. Let’s go.”

It was insane, of course — that little hole in the ceiling was tight and dark. But it led somewhere where the hacksaws were, and as Trace recalled reports on nests, the AIs were reluctant to use heavy firepower near their core. They built things in nests, mostly other AIs, self-replicating the only way machines could, by powered construction. Damage to that, in this isolated facility, could be difficult to fix, especially in this system where survival depended on not drawing attention to themselves. It gave attacking marines a slight chance, and forced the drones to get up real close to engage them. It meant that she and her Command Squad would probably die, but at the benefit of saving, if it worked, nearly everybody else.