Battle Beyond Earth: Resurrection (3 page)

The frigate was returning fire, but none of their weapons appeared to be causing damage.

“We aren’t gonna make it to the gateway! We can’t take that kind of punishment!” yelled the XO.

“We could drop an EMP. It could be our only chance!” Santos yelled.

“They hit the EMP vessel, and we could be left floating dead out here,” replied Breckinridge.

“And if we don’t we’re dead, anyway!”

“Do it!” Laska ordered.

Breckinridge rushed to a console nearby and put in her authorisation code. The others watched as the torpedo-like EMP vessel flew into view and rushed towards the alien craft. They could see the energy building at its core once again as it powered up its main weapon. They all knew that neither ship could survive its devastating effect.

“Twenty seconds until ignition! You know we’re gonna lose shields when this goes off, Captain?”

“Not like they’re any use right now, anyway,” added Santos.

The countdown reached five seconds when the main weapon of the mysterious craft fired once again, and they watched in a terrified silence as the Triglav was blown apart. Just seconds later the EMP was triggered, and the guns of their ship stopped instantly, as did half of the screens and lights on the bridge, but they still had enough displays to see the enemy vessel had lost power.

“Status?” Laska asked Breckinridge.

“We’ve lost shields, targeting systems, life support on two levels, and a lot of auxiliary systems, but we still have engines.”

“Then get us out of here, now!”

“Shouldn’t we pick up survivors?” Jones asked.

Laska stopped for a moment. He was a little ashamed that the thought hadn’t occurred to him, but even so he knew there was nothing they could do.

“We’ll be lucky if we survive this, Lieutenant. Let’s get out while we still can.”

“Gateway sequence complete, Sir,” said Egland.

“All power we have to the engines. Everything you can get.”

They were closing the distance now, and many of the crew watched a small screen to their side showing the gateway they were heading for. The start up sequence was complete, and they were on course. But Laska still stared at the shadow of the alien vessel that had torn their small fleet apart. He looked at the ship as if expecting it to once again come to life, and Santos was close by doing the same.

“Sir, I’ve got something incoming from the target,” said Egland.

They looked over the screens but could not make it out, but Egland brought up a camera that was tracking the unknown object. It looked like nothing more than a small tube that was tapered at either end, and only emitted the smallest of light from whatever propelled it through space.

“What is that? A weapon?”

“No idea, Sir. I am getting no readings of life aboard. Almost ten metres in length, and it is approaching us at speed.”

“Can we reach the gateway before it intercepts us?”

“No, Sir.”

“Have we got anything that can shoot it down?”

“We can’t track something that small manually. There’s nothing we can do,” replied Breckinridge.

“Are they going for our engines?” Jones asked.

“Negative, Lieutenant. We’re already on course for the gateway. Even if we lost all propulsion, we’d still make it through. There’s nothing left for us to do but hope we can survive whatever damage that thing does. How long until impact?”

“Thirty seconds, Sir.”

They watched the screen now as the mysterious alien object rapidly approached. They saw it come alongside, and it turned and plunged through the hull at the rear of the Bulwark, not far from the engines. It disappeared from view as if it had passed through thin air.

“We’ve got a hull breach on level three!”

The XO was already at the control screen and closing off sectors to ensure they maintained pressure. Everything fell silent while they waited for an explosion of some kind, but it never came.

“Get me a feed of whatever that thing is,” said Laska.

The screen cut to a broad engineering corridor where the alien object rested peacefully on the ground. But before any of them could get a word out, they could see rods expand out from the object, and were soon joined by more. The device formed into what appeared like a ten-legged metallic spider. It stood almost two metres tall and quickly took flight. None of them could believe what they were seeing, but Santos was quick to leap into action.

“Enemy combatant aboard, all officers to their stations. Deploy Charlie and Delta squads to engineering.”

“Sir, something is overriding our engines. Reverse and bow thrusters are firing. We’re coming to a stop,” said Egland.

“Well, stop them!”

“I can’t. I’ve lost all control. Somebody must be accessing them directly from engineering.”

“We’re seconds away from escaping certain death. I won’t be stopped by…whatever that thing is!”

“I can help,” said Jones. He was the only person in the room in full armour and equipped to fight.

Laska nodded in agreement, and Santos was quick to put him to task.

“Get down to level three. Take drone squad Delta with you, and find that thing.”

“And when I do?”

“Disable, kill it, I don’t care. Just get rid of it!”

Jones nodded in approval and rushed out of the bridge with his rifle held at the ready.

“Delta Squad, on me at level three,” he ordered over the comms.

He rushed down the ramps to the entrance to the third floor and found the squad of twelve drones were awaiting him.

“You two take point. Target is hostile. Orders are to kill or disable by any means necessary.”

Two of the drones rushed onwards as he had ordered, and he took up position amongst them. It was a relief to have a shield of sorts around him, but he still had no clue what they were facing. They quickly reached the entrance to engineering and found three bodies scattered on the deck. One had been decapitated, the other two impaled by a large object. Jones knelt down to the two, but they were long gone.

Jones gestured to continue onwards, and they reached the main room of engineering to find two more bodies and an alien device connected to the centre console. It appeared to be a machine, and yet was pulsating like a living thing, like a parasite on the machine. Jones pointed for one of the drones to approach, but as they lay a hand on the device, they were struck by a surge of electricity. The blast was so large that it blew the arm off the drone, disabling it instantly.

The Lieutenant raised his rifle and fired a burst into the device until it went still and dropped off of the console, but they didn’t have time to relax. They could hear the clatter of something thrashing through the storage containers up ahead and throwing them aside when the spider-like machine burst out in front of them. Jones fired, but the shots appeared to do little.

It rushed at Delta Squad as they fired back, smashing six of them to pieces with the sheer weight of its body and power of its legs. Jones took careful aim at what appeared to be a sensor array on its metallic body and fired a two-shot burst. These shots appeared to cause the creature some pain or damage, but it was still on its feet and turned its attention on him.

“Oh, come on!” he yelled in anger.

He leapt into a sprint to escape the creature and got to a blast door and slid through. One of the drones made it with him, and he hit the door locks. The creature smashed into the blast door with all of its force, and that even caused it to buckle slightly, but it held. Jones breathed a sigh of relief, but got up to see it race off in the opposite direction and on the route towards the bridge where he had come from.

“Captain, you’ve got incoming! We’ve destroyed whatever was taking control down here, but you’ve got big trouble coming your way!” he yelled into the comms.

He hit the door release and rushed on after the creature.

“What the hell are we supposed to do about that thing?” he asked, but he knew he wouldn’t get a response from the drone at his back.

Jones rushed along the corridor, finding a number of bodies and wrecked drones along the way. At last he arrived at the bridge but was stopped dead by the devastation before him.

“What the hell!” he whispered to himself.

Most of the bridge crew lay dead, and blood was strewn across the deck where limbs had been severed. The huge mechanical creature stood at the centre of the bridge and held the Commodore up before it with one of its pincers driven through his shoulder. Jones could not even bring himself to move as he tried to find some way to proceed.

They were on emergency lighting, and sparks flew from exposed cables. He looked down; Santos was hurt. He was unable to get to his feet and was sitting against one of the consoles trying to reload his sidearm, presumably in some hopeless attempt to resist their attacker. Jones was frozen in the doorway as he stared as the carnage.

Snap out of it,
he told himself.

He felt something tug on the slim exoskeleton of his armoured suit and looked down. Breckinridge was bleeding from a head wound and lying in Egland’s arms. She was too terrified to move and simply sat crying.

“Are we moving?” Jones whispered.

Egland shook her head.

“What do you need?”

“Twenty seconds at that console,” she said, pointing to the flight control deck behind the huge creature that still held Laska up as if it was inspecting him. Jones desperately tried to think of a solution. As far as he could tell the creature was on a search and destroy protocol, as well as determined to stop their ship from leaving.

He realised he only had one.

“You sure you can get us out of here if I give you enough time?” he asked Egland one last time.

She nodded. “Sure, you think I want to stay here to die?”

“I’ll get this thing out of the room, then you do whatever you have to do. I don’t want to be left out here any more than you do.”

She wiped the tears from her face and nodded in agreement once again, as Santos managed to prime his pistol. He futilely fired a few badly aimed shots at the creature that could just as likely have hit the Commodore. It released its grip on Laska, drew its pincer from his shoulder as he cried out in pain, and rushed towards the Captain.

“Hey!” Jones hollered.

He raised his rifle and fired two short bursts into the monster. The higher calibre shots seemed to at least cause it to take note, even if they appeared to do no damage.

“You looking for me?”

The creature stopped for a moment and appeared to study him, recognising him from their previous encounter.

What have you done?
he asked himself.

Without any more hesitation, the machine rushed towards him. He let go of his rifle, turned and ran. His suit boosted his speed, and he stormed down the corridor at a full sprint with the creature hot on his trail. He rushed for one of the life pods. It was all he could think to do. There was one up ahead at the t-junction at the end of the corridor. He looked back for just a second. The creature was closing on him, but he didn’t slow down.

The opening to the lifeboat was an open broad access door, wide enough for three people to pass, and a forty-centimetre step to get through where the blast doors closed. He drew the only two grenades he had from his suit and continued on with all the speed he could get. At the last moment, he jumped into a roll and slammed into the base of the step. It brought him to a dead stop and knocked the wind out of him.

The creature fell over the top of him and through the access door, but he felt one of its razor sharp pincers cut into his left arm just below the shoulder. It had passed through his armour like it was going through butter. He looked up for just a second to see the creature had rolled a few metres into the lifeboat and finally come to a stop. He armed the grenades and tossed them in before reaching up for control panel. He lifted the safety casing and punched the launch button, just as the creature began to rush back towards him.

The blast doors sealed shut before him as he got to his feet and looked through the tiny window. The creature was just a metre away when the launch sequence started, and the boat was thrust out from the hull of the ship at immense speed. It was only fifty metres out when the grenades clearly blew because the engines cut out, and the vessel went into a tumble as it carried on. He saw no signs of the creature.