“Quinn,” Turcotte said. “Status on the weapon?” Leahy’s voice responded, “I think it’s ready.”
Turcotte bit off his retort. He realized her life in academia had not exactly prepared her for the realities of their current predicament.
“Six hundred kilometers,” Yakov announced. “Leahy’s set up a remote firing system for the Tesla gun.”
Gun? Turcotte wondered. They didn’t even know if it would work. “What kind of range does she think we can fire from?” he asked.
“The closer the better.”
Again, Turcotte choked down a smart-ass retort. He considered the situation and came up with the only possible solution. “We don’t know what kind of armament this ship we’re approaching has. Tell Leahy if it fires anything at us, she fires immediately. If it doesn’t fire, let’s get within five hundred meters. Then she fires, hopefully breaches the hull, and we assault.”
“And if the weapon doesn’t breach?” Captain Manning asked.
Turcotte shrugged even though no one could see the gesture inside the TASC suit. He was tired of being the one people turned to for plans in situations where there were no established parameters from which to work. “Then we back off and lob a Cruise missile at the damn thing.”
“And Ms. Duncan?” Yakov asked.
“Now you’re worried about her?” Turcotte didn’t wait for a response. “We don’t have any choice. We’ve got to stop the Swarm first. If we can rescue her, fine. I don’t see any other way to do this. Do you?”
A long silence answered his question.
“One hundred kilometers and slowing,” Yakov finally said. “It’s no longer trying to evade.” “Open the cargo doors,” Turcotte ordered.
A fifty-meter-wide door slid open in front of the team. Turcotte looked ahead but he couldn’t see the Swarm ship, even when he shifted to night-vision mode. It was somewhere against the blackness of space.
“Fifty kilometers.”
“Anyone see it?” Turcotte asked. No answer.
“Ten kilometers.”
“I see something,” one of the team members called out. “Ahead and slightly to the right.”
Turcotte oriented himself, went to maximum amplification, then he saw it too. The same ship that had escaped him at Stonehenge. He could tell Yakov was slowing the mothership as the objective got closer.
“Leahy?” Turcotte found he was almost whispering. He half expected some sort of weapon to be fired at them from the craft.
“Yes?”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes. I’ve got a lock on the target.”
Why hadn’t she said so? “Then fire now,” Turcotte said. He saw no point in waiting.
For several seconds nothing happened, then the display inside his helmet went bright white and he closed his eyes as the computer shut down the night-vision mode to prevent it from burning out.
Duncan felt the throb of pain from her right arm. She turned her head and saw that Garlin was lying on the floor dead. Then the ship rocked once more. There was smoke billowing from several panels.
If the Swarm had wanted to know about weapons, then someone must be after them. Duncan looked down at the straps holding her to the gurney. Her right arm was severed halfway down the forearm. The spurt of blood ceased as she watched, but the jagged edge of the two bones poked out unevenly because of Garlin’s aborted cut. She jerked back on the arm, slipping the shortened length under the restraints. She twisted her body and jabbed the end of the bone into the restraint on her other arm. The sharp end punctured the nylon. She began sawing, using her own bone to cut, ignoring the throb of pain.
She heard a cracking noise and turned her head to the left as she continued sawing. Garlin’s mouth was wide open and the tip of the tentacle appeared, forcing its way out of the dying host. Duncan sawed faster.
Turcotte opened his eyes and his screen slowly came to life. “Did we get a hit?” he called out. “Dead on,” Yakov yelled, causing Turcotte to flinch as the sound echoed inside the helmet. Turcotte looked ahead. He saw the ship, not far away. “Range?”
“One kilometer and closing,” Yakov said. “It was doing evasive maneuvers, but it’s on a steady and straight trajectory now, no acceleration.”
There was a black mark along the top of the craft where the Tesla gun had hit it. Turcotte didn’t see a breach in the hull. “We need an opening. Leahy, can you punch a hole in it?”
“I can try,” Leahy responded.
Duncan cut through the restraint across her chest and arms as the Swarm tentacle cleared Garlin’s now-dead body. She sat up and used her good hand to unbuckle the other straps. The tentacle slithered to the floor and crept toward the Swarm orb, which was still at the controls.
Free of the gurney, Duncan looked about. She could see the display screen in front of the orb. A mothership filled the view. She could even see an open hatch near the front of the ship and several figures dressed in TASC suits waiting at the edge. There was another open hatch to the right of it and some sort of machine in the bay. A machine that suddenly began sparking.
A weapon, Duncan realized. Getting ready to fire. She looked about wildly, then made her decision.
Turcotte shut off the night vision for his helmet and watched the next bolt of power streak from the mothership to the other spacecraft. The blast knocked the craft sideways, sending it tumbling, a small hole punched in its top. The ship vented atmosphere and debris out of the hole, but no bodies that he could see. They were now within five hundred meters.
“Let’s go,” Turcotte said as he jetted out of the cargo bay.
He headed across, weapons at the ready. Checking his rear view, he could see the rest of Manning’s team following. He concentrated his attention forward as he got closer. When he was less than fifty meters from the spaceship, he slowed as the team deployed on either side and above and below.
“Hold and cover me,” he ordered.
The men spread out farther and jetted to a halt. Turcotte continued forward, toward the breach in the hull. He kept the reticule that aimed the MK-98 directed at the opening. His feet hit the deck and he slipped, then tumbled as he tried to balance himself. He slapped the barrel of the MK-98 against the hull to stop.
Turcotte got to his feet and edged closer to the opening. The plating had been torn up, leaving a six-foot-wide, irregular gap, just large enough for him to slip through. He went to night-vision mode as he entered the dark interior.
“I’m going in.”
Turcotte stepped into the hole and jetted down, spinning so that as he entered, he was turning, weapon at the ready.
A tentacle coiled around the barrel of the MK-98, pulling it and him sideways. Turcotte fired, rounds ricocheting off metal. He pulled back, trying to regain control of the weapon as he saw the Swarm orb next to him, one tentacle on the gun, another tentacle holding something shiny. With his other hand, Turcotte grabbed Excalibur, using the MK-98 for leverage to swing around as a red bolt came out of the shiny object and just missed him.
He swung the sword, severing the tentacle holding the gun. He brought the barrel to bear as a second red bolt hit him in the chest and knocked him backward. An alarm was chirping and something was flashing on the display panel, but Turcotte ignored that as he fired, the depleted uranium rounds ripping into the Swarm orb and through it, splattering the hull behind with grayish fluid. Turcotte emptied the entire cylinder into the creature and when that was done he jetted forward, the point of Excalibur leading.
He slid the blade into the creature to the hilt and jerked upward, slicing through the Swarm as if it were butter. The blade came out of the top of the orb with a spray of gray blood and viscera.