Shadows in the Rift Part V
25 Apr 2017Jellicoe
"What the hell happened?" I arrived at Airlock 3 to find Harry Soames and Cottrell the cargo deck chief ashen faced with shock."It was Palmer the SRV mechanic." Harry said in a hollow voice. "Threw himself out of the airlock screaming. By the time we got here it was too late."
"He was a bit strange last night sir." Cottrell said slowly. "Saying stuff that made no sense though, I just thought he'd been working too hard, I should have reported it, this is all my fault." He became steadily more agitated as he spoke.
"Stop that." I replied firmly. "We see our crewmates stressed all the time, we can't report every one and if doesn't make anything your fault."
"He had a wife and three kids back home." Cottrell continued appearing not to have heard a word I had said. "Thanks to me they'll never see him again."
"Cottrell snap out of it! Report to Doctor Firman for a sedative and stand down for twenty four hours." I ordered then turned to the nearest computer terminal. "MINUS apply the following protocol to all airlocks, hatches and boarding ramps immediately, none are to be opened without a spoken order and retinal scan from two of the following ships officers; Stannis Jellicoe, Claude Marsaud, Sachin Vikash, Harry Soames, Mira Hyde. Confirm?"
"Confirmed." MINUS's steely voice replied. "Override applied as directed." I had long resisted altering the voice of the ships computer but finally irritation at her unconcerned tones however serious the situation had ground me down and the haughty voice of the MINUS personality pack had appealed. it was a trivial but enjoyable change.
"Morale's on the floor skipper." Harry said. "I had to break up a fight in the mess hall last night, another in the gym, my own temper's on a hair trigger and now this, don't know what's got into everyone."
"Too much stress for too long. My fault if it's anyone's, soon as we get back we're all due a long holiday. Would you mind suiting up with me? I want to take Palmer back for a decent burial."
Claude decoded the signal. Like the last one it was in a decades old code and contained coordinates to a location on one of the systems inner planets. Once again we found a human settlement, the same familiar cluster of temporary structures, pristine but deserted that looked as if they could have been put up the day before. We followed exactly the same procedure as with the previous base, Mira made a high then low altitude reconnaissance in the fighter before I went in on the ground in the buggy. The base was close to a low range of mountains just as the ground flattened off and hard to spot from the air. I put the Warspite down about a kilometre away, in the foothills and hidden from sight of the base by a small rise. It seemed an unnecessary precaution but I was a cautious man by nature and this mission had done nothing to change that. The short drive to the base was again indescribably tense, why? I cannot tell you, but something about those instantly recognisable structures all the way out here, so far from where they should have been combined with the mystery of their fate to make me jumpy and ill at ease. The lengthening shadows of the oncoming twilight only added to the almost overwhelming sense of foreboding. Humans tell ourselves how far we have evolved, how we are creatures of reason and logic, yet in a vehicle equipped with every scanning device that science could provide me with I still found myself peering nervously into the growing dusk much as our ancestors had once done from the safety of their caves.
"I'm picking up contacts." I relayed to the ship. "Data point and a coms log, going... What the hell's that?"
"Skipper?" Claude's voice was both curious and concerned.
"Looked like a flash of light at the far end of the base, I'm going to wait here to see if there's another."
"Have you got anything on your scanners? Ours are clear."
"No, it was probably nothing, it's not flashed again. I'm going in to scan the data." I drove down the settlements main thoroughfare, my tension rising while at the same time I cursed my jumpiness. Then a sound. Very faint but it sounded like falling rocks. I turned towards the hills that formed the base's backdrop and switched the SRV's lights to maximum. Nothing. I resumed my heading for the data point unable to shake the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. I knew I was on edge, knew that I was over stressed and fought hard to keep my rational mind in control, it sounds so easy when put into words, but there, in that lost and forgotten place it was anything but. I scanned the data point and the first of the coms logs, still looking deep into every shadow while my ears strained for any noise beyond my own engines and tyre fall.
"You might want to hurry skipper." Claude came through. "Possible contact at the extreme edge of sensor range."
"Believe me old sport I'm not planning on being here a moment longer than necessary." I replied scanning the third coms log before wheeling round for the next. "Are you getting all this?"
"Yes, I'll start analysing it as soon as we're spacebourne again." A short pause, then. "Those contacts we picked up, two Asps inbound on our position, be as quick as you can."
"You think they're hostile?"
"Do you really want to take the risk?" He replied in a voice thick with concern. I scanned the fourth log. I was picking up the Asps on my own scanner now, they were coming in fast. I was moving on to the fifth log when Claude broke in again. "Get clear skipper, they're ignoring our hails. Presuming them hostile."
"Just need two more." I replied. "Not leaving without them." I gunned the engine down the back of the settlement, power slid round the generator, braked hard and began the download, about halfway through a blinding light seared into the ground to my left and clouds of earth were flung into the sky while a second laser blast gouged into the ground ahead of me.
"Skipper get clear, you take a direct hit and you're dead."
"Only need one more." I said through gritted teeth. "Get praying chaps." Seconds later the lead Asps shields flared as two thin, pale blue laser beams strobed across them.
"I don't believe in prayer Commander."" Mira's voice cut in. "I'm engaging them with the turrets but we're a sitting duck, if they target us our shields won't last forever but it might buy you enough time to get back."
"Roger that Mira, making the final uplink now." One of the Asps had pealed away from me to target the Warspite and I saw its lasers firing beyond the settlement followed almost instantaneously by the blue flash of shields beyond the low hill. The second hostile though was still focussed on me and a near miss dropped the SRV shields to 10%. I reversed into the lee of a nearby building hoping it would give me some protection, and maybe it did or maybe the Asp pilot simply moved position to get a better shot but it gained me just enough time to get the data and power forward just as the next salvo burned into the earth where I had just been. "Got the data, heading in full speed."
"Quick as you can Skipper." Claude replied his teeth audibly gritted. "We're taking a real battering here." I gunned the engine once again and set off for the ship, zigzagging frantically through the base, slewing round corners, anything to avoid the searing blasts of laser fire that threw great gouts of earth, dust and rock into the sky behind me. I knew how hard it was to hit a small, fast moving ground target with big, ship mounted guns, but I also knew that he only needed one lucky strike to vaporise me and that even a near enough miss could easily do the job. I locked on to the Warspite, her shields were now down to 70%, still engaging the enemy with her two small turrets and I imagined Mira, no doubt wild with frustration at having to just sit there and take it. I ploughed onwards, the Scarabs engine screaming as she raced across the broken ground, spinning once, rolling once, each time righted by the thrusters before the Asp could take advantage and incinerate me. I crested the small hill and powered down the other side, the Asp making another attack run on the Warspite seemed to see me and hesitate, unsure whether to pour more fire into the grounded Anaconda or switch to the speeding buggy, got himself caught in two minds and did neither effectively. His colleague pumped one last volley that landed much too close for comfort and I was under cover of the ships hull, struggling to align myself with the boarding clamps.
"Get me aboard and get us out of here." I yelled down my mic and I swear the engines were engaging before the bay door was even closed.
"Stay strapped in Commander, this is going to be a rough take off." Mira sounded like she was thoroughly enjoying herself and I felt the surge of the main drives firing and propelling us towards open space.
"Jump as soon as we clear the lock." I shouted. "Doesn't matter where to just put a few systems between us and them." I felt the surge of the afterburners, then the familiar sensation of hyperspace entry. We had made it, but would the data I had downloaded be worth the risks we had just taken?