“Material unclassified, but apparently class-four density,” the suit’s AI said, when he pushed his hand and its sensors up against the hatch. Chris allowed himself another smile. Class-four density was normally sufficient to keep out an unarmoured human, but the suits could probably smash their way right through it. He lifted one armoured gauntlet, made a fist, and smashed it home against the hatch. The metal dented under his blow, allowing the AI to continue its analysis. “Confirmed; class-four density.”
“Keep thumping it, in other words,” Chris said, as the other Footsoldiers joined him. The hatch rapidly collapsed under their blows. The Killers might have had counter-systems for the more advanced cutting tools, but they hadn’t thought of raw physical force. A rush of green mist washed past him as the hatch finally shattered, streaming out towards the darkness of space before cutting off abruptly. Chris didn’t hesitate; he launched a stream of remote drones forward into the mists, before following them into the alien starship. The gravity field caught him at once and sent the suit crashing to the deck, although it was able to cushion him from the shock.
“Two standard gravities,” the suit AI said, passing the information up the chain to the remainder of the Footsoldiers and the waiting starships. “I am detecting the presence of a class-two force field four meters ahead and a second ten meters behind.”
Chris said nothing. He was too busy examining the alien interior. He was, oddly, rather disappointed. His imagination had suggested everything from the interior of a giant biological starship, even though humanity had never even come close to inventing a biological starship that might actually work, to a completely alien structure. Instead, they were inside a corridor that looked almost exactly like a human starship’s interior, except on a larger scale. The creatures who lived on the starship, he hazarded a guess, were actually at least twice the size of an average human; they would have no difficulty manoeuvring through the corridors in their suits.
“Team one, with me,” he ordered, quietly. He had to assume that the Killers were already dispatching counter-boarding forces to their location. They had to have noticed the hull breach and the loss of some of their atmosphere. “Team two, take the other passageway. Team three; secure this location and blast anyone who isn’t us.”
A class-two force field wasn’t designed to prevent someone from breaking in so much as it was designed to prevent the atmosphere from leaking out. Chris walked up to the force field, paused long enough to allow the suit’s AI to confirm its first readings, and then pushed himself against the force field. Without his armour, it would have tingled, but he didn’t feel anything as he forced his way through the field. It sparkled around the suit, but that was all, leaving him standing alone in the midst of the green mists.
“Analyse,” he ordered. Everyone had assumed that the Killers breathed the same mix as humans did — they’d wiped out hundreds of races that breathed oxygen, as far as humanity could tell — but the mists suggested otherwise. “What’s in that muck?”
“Local environmental conditions; unsafe,” the AI said, pedantically. “The local atmosphere consists of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, methane, ammonia, water vapour and unidentifiable organic chemicals. The atmosphere is utterly impossible to breathe; do not attempt to crack your suit.”
Chris rolled his eyes. The problem with the suit AIs was that they seemed to assume that they were there to look after the humans — which they were — and that the humans were incapable of looking after themselves. Every warning had to be repeated, every danger had to be pointed out and the humans, in effect, had to be coddled. It irritated almost everyone who had to deal with them, but it was the price for developing AIs that were capable of handling the requirements of the task without getting bored.
“Temperature is around 50C,” the AI continued. “Lighting is over 50% ultraviolet and appears to be changing brightness slowly on an apparently random basis. These conditions match no known world.”
“Thanks,” Chris said, sourly. He launched another flight of remote drones — small enough to be unnoticeable and completely expendable — and watched as they flew off into the heart of the Killer starship. “Are you detecting any life signs?”
“Negative,” the AI said. “No life signs detected.”
An icon flashed up on his HUD, warning him that Paula wanted to talk to him. “Allow call,” he ordered. At least he didn’t have to be civil in the midst of a war situation. “What is it?”
“No life form that we are familiar with can survive in such an atmosphere,” Paula said, stating the obvious. At least she didn’t sound as if she were panicking. “It’s possible that the Killer crew of this ship are beyond our ability to perceive them, or to recognise them as forms of life. They could be all around us now.”
Chris looked up towards the green mists billowing around the team and shivered. Could the green mists be the Killers? The AI had picked up unidentifiable organic chemicals in the atmosphere and all life was chemicals, at least at the start. He levelled his plasma cannon towards the mists, and then realised the futility of that action. Shooting plasma bolts through the mists would accomplish nothing.
“Warning,” the AI said, suddenly. “Firing plasma weapons in this environment may cause explosions.”
“Disengage the plasma weapons,” Chris ordered, sharply. The Killers had, accidentally or otherwise, prevented them from using half of their weapons. It was possible that an explosion wouldn’t harm the team — their suits should be able to handle it — but there was no point in taking chances. “Deploy the arrow guns.”
“Deployed, sir,” they said, one by one.
“Follow me,” Chris ordered. “Come on.”
The internal map of the starship built up in front of him as the various teams advanced into the heart of the Killer starship. The remote drones sped ahead of them, charting out the interior and watching for threats, although none seemed to materialise. The links back to the starships didn’t break, but random bursts of static and confusion seemed to overwhelm the datalinks for heart-stopping seconds. The starship seemed to be making random internal RF transmissions, for no apparent reason. They passed out of the corridors into a brightly-lit room filled with strange alien machinery, but it was beyond their ability to understand immediately. Chris took one look at a device that seemed to have more angles than he would have thought possible, and then dismissed it out of his mind. The scientists at Star’s End would have to work on the captured ship — if they captured it — and work out how it all went together. He couldn’t even begin to understand it.
He looked up as the green mists pressed closer again, despite the brighter light, and he shivered. No one seemed to be able to touch the mists; they just fell back from grasping hands or fast motions. The suit’s sensors couldn’t tell him much about the mists, apart from the fact they seemed to be composed of the same components as the remainder of the alien atmosphere. It struck him as odd that any race would have mists on its starships — a human starship had to remain as clean as possible, for fear of damaging components — but perhaps it made sense to the Killers, or perhaps they needed it for their bodies, just as humans needed something akin to sunlight.
“We should have let the Spacers do this,” Lieutenant Grame Wheelock muttered, as they passed yet another piece of impossible machinery. “They’d be able to live in this muck.”
“Maybe not,” Chris said, absently. “The radiation levels in this ship are quite high.”
“They might be trying to induce mutation,” Paula said, from her position at the rear. Chris felt another flicker of resentment; five of his men were guarding her, rather than allowing her to live or die as another Footsoldier. “There were old theories that suggested that we could use radiation to push forward evolution. They never worked for humanity, but it might work for the Killers. We know nothing about their biology.”