Impulse (35 page)

“Break for the hangar deck!” I yelled into my com. “Get back to the shuttles!” Our units broke ranks as ordered and beat a hasty retreat from the advancing Imperials, running down the hallway. We'd rounded the last bend to the hangar deck, the doors only ten meters away, when we came under fire from the other direction.

“We're trapped!” said Babayan. “Form ranks!” she ordered. We pulled together, using what small wall space was available in the corridor as cover. The rounded curve of the inner wall provided some defensive angle, but not enough. They were going to mow us down.

“Now what?” asked Babayan. I looked at the situation—both sides of our line coming under fire, bursts of orange and white energy being exchanged. We were sitting ducks in this hallway. I scanned the walls and located a door about halfway down the corridor, directly in the enemy line of fire and farther away from the landing bay.

“Do you have an A4 charge?” I asked Babayan.

“Yes, but only for blasting bulkheads. You set it off in here and it could kill us all,” she said. I watched a moment as one of the Carinthian marines fell in a hail of coil rifle fire. I stuck my hand out.

“Give it to me,” I demanded. She did as ordered and I set the charge for a three-second delay. Another marine fell, this time Quantar. I got on the command channel. “Marker, I need suppressing fire to your rear for five seconds. After that, everyone hit the ground and cover. I'm going to drop an A4 charge. On my mark,” I said, then switched back to Babayan. “When the charge goes off you'll have to collect your troops and get into that room. Then I want a dozen compression grenades in the hallway. And don't stop to pick up any wounded, including me. If we survive the A4 blast and the compression grenades don't kill us, it should buy us enough time to get back to our shuttles.”

“Unless we're all unconscious too! That room won't protect us much if the door's blown off,” she said.

“It will have to do,” I replied as I hefted the A4 charge and switched back to Marker's channel. “When this goes I want your men in that room in a second flat, Sergeant,” I said.

“Got it,” came back Marker's stressed voice. I hesitated only a second.

“Go!” I said. The air filled with a hail of orange coil rifle fire as I broke down the hallway toward the door. A line of white return fire went past my helmet close enough for me to feel the searing heat through my visor. I ducked and dipped, then tucked into a roll and came up in front of the door, snapping on the magnetized charge and pressing the fire button in the same motion. I bolted back toward my original position taking one step . . . two . . . three . . .

The detonation sent me flying back toward Colonel Babayan and her marines. I spread-eagled in the air as I bounced off the wall and skidded several feet before landing hard. My head was buzzing as I felt someone grab me by my chest plate and drag me down the hallway. There was a rush of blurred activity, bodies streaming into the room I had just blasted open, then I was tossed down on a pile of marines as the second blast from the concussion grenades shook the walls.

I must have blacked out as the next sensation I had was of being dragged down the hallway by two marines, one in Quantar blue and the other in Carinthian green. I looked ahead as we made for the landing deck doorway. There was a firefight going on inside the landing bay, but the orange glow of our weapons was far exceeding that of the white of the Imperial marines' returning fire. I shook free of my escorts and started to walk on my own, wobbly though I was. Down the hallway, a couple dozen Imperial marines lay prone on the deck, out cold. For how long was the question. I came up next to Babayan at the entrance to the landing deck and stuck my head inside. Our marines were just finishing mopping up the Imperials.

“They didn't put up much of a fight,” Colonel Babayan said, “given their rather legendary reputation. Do we finish them off?”

“No,” I said, looking at the deck strewn with bodies. “We get the hell out of here.” I ordered a full retreat to the shuttles. As we were filing back double-time Colonel Babayan stopped beside one of the dead Imperial marine's bodies. I watched as she knelt down over him.

“Colonel, we don't have time for this.”

“Wait!” she said. I went over to her as the last of our marines streamed by me with Jenny Hogan in tow. Marker stood by the open hatch of the shuttle, impatiently holding his rifle.

“Almost out of time, sir!” he called. I bent down over Babayan and the dead Imperial marine. She pulled back his uniform, which had already been ripped open by coil rifle fire, and pointed to a tattoo on his chest. It was over his heart and still visible even though the rest of his body was badly burned.

“This tattoo, it's the double eagle,” she said.

“The what?” I asked, not sure what she meant. She looked shocked. I waited for a second to give her time.

“The double eagle,” she repeated. “Of Carinthia. Cochrane, this man is from
Impulse
.”

“What?” I said. “That can't be.” I looked down at his face. It wasn't familiar, still . . .

“Believe me, I know this symbol. Half the navy gets it tattooed on their chest when they enlist, over their heart, right here.” She pointed again, then she stood up, clenching her fists. “Now we know what happened to the crew of
Impulse
.”

I looked around the bay. A half-dozen dead men in Imperial marine uniforms.

“But what could make them change allegiance?” I said. She looked straight at me with those green eyes, now filled with rage.

“Nanotechnology. You experienced it yourself. The machine took you over, for a time. It must have been something similar here. No Carinthian would turn on his own like that, not willingly,” she said.

“Commander . . .” came Marker's urgent voice in my ear.

“C'mon,” I said, taking Babayan by the arm. “We've got to go,
now
.” She gripped her rifle tightly, unmoving, finger poised over the trigger. “Lena, we can't fight whoever did this here. We have to do it from
Starbound
. Now we've got to
go
. That's an order,” I said. She relinquished her anger then and I rushed her back to the shuttle and inside, then ordered us up off the deck. A few straggling Imperial marines started firing at us as we pulled away, but it was too scattered and too distant to hurt us.

“Do we return fire?” came Marker's voice over my com as I held onto Babayan in the personnel bay.

“Negative,” I responded. “Just get us home.”

“G
et me in touch with Maclintock,” I ordered as I entered the shuttle's command deck.

“He's already on,” Marker said. I nodded and activated my com, switching to the navy band.

“Captain, we have three dead and fifteen wounded here, but we recovered Jenny Hogan from
Impulse
. No other survivors. Colonel Babayan,” I hesitated here, “Colonel Babayan believes the troops in Imperial uniforms that we were fighting were in fact the missing crew of
Impulse
, acting under some form of compulsion from Imperial nanotech. Do you read me,
Starbound
?”

“Affirmative,” said Maclintock. “Put Colonel Babayan on with Commander Kierkopf. I have another assignment for you.” I called over to Babayan and then switched to back the main com channel.

“Here, sir,” I said. To my surprise the voice on the other end of the line was that of Serosian.

“Peter, you need to get back here as soon as possible,” he said.

“We're on our way now. What's up?”

“We've located
Impulse
, and I need you onboard the yacht with me,” he said.

“The yacht? Why?”

“Because we're going there,” he said. “To
Impulse
. And we don't have time to waste. The dreadnought, that
thing
, is starting to move.”

I switched the main shuttle display from tactical to a reverse angle. Sure enough, the dreadnought was lighting up, charging weapons, and starting to move slowly toward us, like a colossus trying to move in heavy seas.

I tried to swallow, and felt nothing but a thick lump of bile forming in my throat.

Thirteen minutes later the shuttle's hold was empty, the marines were offloaded, Jenny Hogan was on her way to the med deck, and I was back in space, the yacht pushing full bore for the abandoned
Impulse
.

“How did you locate her?” I asked Serosian. His reply was swift and clear.

“It's not important,” he said from the control console. “I'll introduce you to the technology later. Right now I need you to focus, Peter. I need you to access the yacht's power core and prepare to release her HD crystal.”

I was confused. “Now? Why?”

“You'll need it when you get to
Impulse
,” he said.

“For what?”

“To refire her engines.” I stopped.

“What?”

“I convinced Maclintock that I could get
Impulse
back in the fight. You're going to have to take the HD drive from this yacht and load it into
Impulse
to replace the one Tralfane destroyed. We'll make it back to
Starbound
on impellers,” he said.

“Will it have enough power to run
Impulse
?” I asked. He nodded.

“It should, if we can survive long enough to install it. Now go.” He nodded to the inner chambers of the yacht. I went in as he started the process of shutting down the HD crystal. After a few seconds, the doors to the inner tabernacle opened and the crystal began floating toward me with an appearance of intent that made me uncomfortable.

“What's our status?” I asked from the chamber over my EVA suit com. The line stayed silent for a moment.

“The dreadnought is closing on
Starbound
,” he finally said. “Maclintock has it under control, for now. The good news is that it's not paying any attention to us.”

“That sounds like we're getting lucky,” I said.

“We're not,” he said. “That dreadnought is on automated attack, most likely powered by the hyperdimensional drive stolen from
Impulse
's yacht by Tralfane. It has nearly as much power as
Starbound
has, with superior delivery systems. That's why it's critical—”

A wave of crackling energy came across the channel as interference. It was so loud I scrambled to cut off the signal, but it still left my ears ringing. I gathered in the HD drive and placed it in a protective case that Serosian had given me, then went back to the main console.

In the rearview display
Starbound
was being menaced by the dreadnought. White fire rained down on her in a blizzard of cannonade from the four massive coil cannons of the dreadnought.

“We've got to get over there,” I said to Serosian. He looked at me, his face grim, but said nothing.

Impulse
was a complete wreck, scarred and burned all along her main hull with large holes blasted in her midships. The conning tower and the bridge where I had spent so much time on my first assignment were gone. She was dark and spinning in empty space, a slow death ballet that both frightened and saddened me. She shouldn't have to go down this way, no ship should.

Serosian matched the yacht to
Impulse
's spin and then came alongside her, aligning the airlock to one of her aft cargo docks. It had a small utility port that looked undamaged. It seemed to be the most likely place where I could get in and get to the galleria, the ship's central lifeline. From there I could access the forward engineering room and hopefully install the HD drive.

“You'll have to make it back out the way you come in. Once you fire her up you'll have to activate an automated defense protocol and point her toward the dreadnought. The tactical computer should do the rest,” Serosian said in my ear as I stood in the yacht's airlock. “And we'd best use the longwave channel for communication from here on out.”

“Acknowledged,” I said, switching to the longwave channel. I was ready and emptied the airlock from the inside. The last time I had stood in a similar place I'd nearly killed myself by misfiring the cone jets. This time I strapped them on tightly, determined to get it right. I would have to, there was no time for a tether. I would have to navigate open space on my own.

I keyed in the code sequence and the outer hatch slid open. There was a tug as the airlock adjusted to the full vacuum of space. I held on to the handrails and then gently pushed myself to the edge of the doorway. I secured the HD crystal case to my suit, then looked across the abyss.
Impulse
floated some five hundred meters away from me, the sealed utility port door my only focus. I pushed away and fired the jets, just a small pulse to gently increase my speed. My EVA suit display gave me time and distance to my target, even recommended jet pulse timing and power settings. But I had to ignore them. They were designed for safety first, and safety was a secondary consideration. Time was something I simply didn't have enough of.

A flare of orange and white light flashed off the singed alabaster hull of
Impulse
as I floated closer. It was the glare from the death struggle going on behind me. I could only hope that
Starbound
was a better match for the dreadnought than
Impulse
apparently had been.

I was halfway now, breathing so heavily in my suit that the EVA controls were having trouble keeping my faceplate clear of the fog of my own breath. The crossing was taking too much time.

I recalculated time and distance, then adjusted the jet burst to cut the remaining crossing time in half. The suit warned me against such a course, but I shut the alarm off. My comrades were out there fighting for their lives, and I was determined to do something to help them.

I reset the jets for a six second burn, then fired them without hesitation. I accelerated toward
Impulse
, cutting the distance in half again in seconds. But then I realized I was off course. I was going to miss the utility port and splatter against the hull, or maybe just skid right along it until a piece of broken hull metal cut me into pieces. I only had one chance.

I pulled out my coil pistol and aimed it at the cargo door, now looming larger and larger with every passing second. I primed the pistol and fired it. The door exploded from within, releasing gas and air and debris into space, right at me. I rolled into a ball as a huge section of the door whipped past me. Small pieces of the door bounced off of my faceplate as I drove on, an out-of-control missile heading for an open gash in
Impulse
's side. I reached out with my hand, desperately grabbing for a dangling cargo line. I caught it, but my forward momentum whipped me around through open hole in
Impulse
like a kite in the wind. It felt like my arm was going to come out of the socket, but I held on, grabbing at the line with both hands and pulling myself under control, finally killing my momentum against the padded cargo bay walls and then descending to the floor. I held on for dear life to a floor hook, then settled on to the deck.

After a few seconds to rub my shoulder and catch my breath, I floated slowly toward the doorway that would lead me out into the main decks, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Jesus Christ!” I said to myself. “What a ride!”