“Set up another run, Pilot,” Spectre said. “Commander Weaver, how far away from the unreality node are they?”
“About seven light-seconds, sir,” Bill replied.
“After this run we’ll head back there and see if any Marines survived,” Spectre said. “No, I hadn’t forgotten about them.”
The Marines had exited the hangar bay from the port, forward door. Beyond they found a large corridor with regular blast doors on it. The first two segments were unoccupied, the doors sliding open at a touch. The fourth, though…
“What the hell?” Berg muttered.
The corridor was filled with overlapping filaments that were lightish green and pulsing. Berg touched one with a monoknife and it didn’t react so he used the knife as a machete to hack an opening.
Through the hole it was apparent that the corridor was coated in the stuff. Along the walls were small pods and the floor was slippery with goo.
“Movement,” Himes said, targeting the subject.
The movement turned out to be something that looked like an amoeba, but hugely magnified, being nearly two meters in diameter. It was slowly undulating over the pods on the outboard side of the corridor. It might have been eating or cleaning, it wasn’t apparent.
“Don’t,” Berg said. “Don’t fire.”
He stepped into the corridor gingerly but got no reaction from the amoeboid. Going over to one of the cocoons he cut it open and a half-formed creature flopped out.
“What the hell is that?” Smith asked. The creature looked like an octopus. Or maybe an octopus in a surrealist painting.
“No grapping idea,” Berg said.
The radical abortion caused a reaction from the amoeboid, but not a hostile response. It turned and flowed across the corridor, palpating the cut edges of the pod with pseudopods and then flowing over the octopoid.
“I think it’s eating it,” Himes said.
“Weird,” Smith replied.
“It’s a nursery,” Berg said. “For whatever those things are and whatever they do. And we’re not getting anywhere. Staff Sergeant?”
“Keep moving forward until we find something better to do,” Hinchcliffe replied. “Maybe find the nursery for the dog-demons. I’d rather kill them stillborn.”
“I didn’t know you were a Democrat, Staff Sergeant,” Berg said with a grin.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell, Two-Gun.”
Air loss four percent. Attack in Class Three Repair Unit nursery. Port side, corridor fourteen, section ninety-six. Localize intruders and destroy. Increase production of combat units. Increase production of Repair Units. Cease replenishment of fighters. Divert all nutrients to internal defense and repair.
“Conn, Tactical. I’ve got beacons from two Marine suits.”
The Blade had approached the node and changed its relative motion to that which it had had when the mines were dropped. Then it went hunting for Marines.
“Marines, this is the Blade,” Spectre said. “You still alive and sane?”
“Oh, Jesus, sir,” one of the Marines replied tightly. “Thank God you came back. This is Wagner. I think Vote’s dead. I’m hanging in there. I’m coming alongside.”
“Roger,” Spectre said. “Maintain current course and heading. Send word to the Marine commander that we’ve got at least one of his boys. Wagner, this is the CO. What’s the word on the others? Were they killed in the blast?”
“Negative, sir,” Wagner replied. “We were assembling on the node when that big Dreen ship came through. The metal one. I think some of them may have managed to board it.”
“Ho, ho,” Weaver said. “And the mystery of the fighter bays is less mysterious. One of the things Marines are best at is breaking things. It might even have been an accident, knowing them.”
“It also makes it harder for me to kill that damned thing,” Spectre said. “Knowing there are Marines on board.”
“Conn, Commo. The Caurorgorngoth is coming into range to engage the enemy flotilla. She is requesting assistance.”
“Tell her we’ll be there as soon as we pick up our boys,” Spectre replied. “Keep her pants on.”
“Conn, Tactical. We’re picking up neutrino readings consistent with Cheerick boards. Multiple signatures. I think the Marines dropped their boards off the ship.”
“We’ll pick ’em up as soon as we pick up our Marines. Somebody is using their head over there. And I’ll give you dollars to donuts who it is.”
At the fourteenth blast door, Berg didn’t even have to hit the open button. It opened while the team was halfway down the compartment and he flopped to the prone and bit down on his firing clamp even before he could see the enemy.
“Dreen!” Smith shouted unnecessarily. He’d taken a knee and was hosing the corridor with his cannon.
The first wave were dog-demons again. The combined fire from four suits, three 14.5s and a cannon, stopped them butt cold. But this time they were backed by thorn-throwers, bipedal creatures that fired a dense carbon “thorn” out of launchers on their heads.
“Uh!” Himes gasped, falling backwards as a thorn penetrated his armor.
“Stay on target,” Hinchcliffe snarled. “Security, keep your positions!”
“Himmie’s down!” Smith yelled.
“I can see that, Lance Corporal,” Hinchcliffe replied. “And there’s not a damned thing we can do about it right now.”
There had been a round dozen of the dog-demons and six of the thorn-throwers. All of them were down before the dogs got to within five meters of the Marines.
“Two-Gun, check on Himes,” the staff sergeant said as soon as the corridor was clear.
Berg crawled over to the suit and flipped up the readouts. There were monitors for heartbeat, temperature, blood oxygen and brain waves. All but the blood oxygen and temperature were flat and those were dropping.
“He’s gone,” Berg said.
“We can’t leave him for the Dreen, Staff Sergeant,” Smith said calmly, all things considered. “They’ll eat him.”
Earlier, they’d managed to get Uribe’s body freed and spaced it when they blew up one of the fighters. It was the closest they could do to a funeral.
“Two-Gun, put a thermite grenade inside his armor,” Hinchcliffe said. “Then we need to move out.”
“Where are we going?” Smith asked. “We don’t know where anything is on this ship!”
“We’re going forward, Marine,” the staff sergeant barked. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Negative, Staff Sergeant,” Smith replied tightly. “I apologize for my outburst. I am gung-ho, Staff Sergeant. Let’s go kill some Dreen.”
Berg tried not to look at his teammate as he opened the armor. It was apparent that several of the thorns had gotten into the armor and a few had bounced. The lance corporal was riddled with holes, and blood filled the bottom of the Wyvern.
“Pull his cannon and ammo before you do that,” Hinchcliffe said. “We’ll tote the cannon. Nich, get over here and pull this ammo. You’re going to need it.”
“I want one of those,” Spectre said.
The Caurorgorngoth was in the fray at last. The Chaos Destroyer was half the size of the Dreen battlewagon, much less the carrier. But it made up for its relatively small size in firepower.
The ship was retreating towards a nearby Jovian, not the one that the fleet had assembled at but the Dreen didn’t know that. The idea was to delay the Dreen by convincing them the Hexosehr fleet was gathered at the nearer Jovian refueling instead of on the far side of the system. The Chaos Destroyer had even laid decoys that simulated the emissions of the refugee fleet ships. The longer the Dreen headed the wrong way, the longer the main fleet could continue to refuel.