M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance) (6 page)

There was a large enclosed area aft and another smaller one forward. Capt. Rodriguez took the aft compartment to be the antimatter storage and ordered her Marines to breach the structure, using minimal explosive force.

“Captain, we got a bunch of them big egg things in here,” called a corporal whose name she couldn't recall at the moment. “What should we do?”

“Cut any wires or cables leading to the egg racks. Those storage eggs have fail safes that should cause them to lock up tight if the mechanism they are attached to loses power,” said Technical Sergeant Fukushima. Fukushima had been given a crash course in alien antimatter technology by the scientists back at Farside before departure. Despite all the chaos and diversity in the galaxy, one constant factor seemed to be that all species used the same standard antimatter containers, a design that must have originated millions of years ago.

“What if cutting the cables sets 'em off,” came the reply.

“In that case, Corporal, we will never know what happened,” Rodriguez snapped. “Now cut the damned cables.”

“Aye aye, Ma'am.”

OK, securing the antimatter was priority one, second priority is to make sure the aft spaces are clear of aliens
she thought. “Sgt. Tuttle, take your fireteam and sweep the spaces aft, I don't want any surprises from our rear.” 

“Aye aye, Captain.”

 Next, set a blocking position to keep any of the crew from making their way aft.
“Sgt. Aurora. Deploy 1
^st
squad forward and cover anything trying to come aft from that next set of enclosed structures.” 

“Aye aye, Ma'am,” the she-bear replied. Many bears were still having problems understanding the concepts of “rank” and “chain of command.” Mostly, the bears just wanted to get in a position so they could attack the enemy and didn't much care who was in charge. Aurora was more perceptive and, because she got on well with humans, had been promoted to sergeant and put in charge of 1
^st
squad.

As the Marines moved out to follow their orders the Corporal from the antimatter storage, who Jennifer remembered was named Green, called back. “Captain, We got these egg things lose from the racks they was in. What should we do with them?”

“Wait one, Green,” Jennifer changed frequencies and called the ship. “Peggy Sue, Rodriguez.”

“Go, Captain Rodriguez.” Captain Curtis was anxiously monitoring the Marines' progress from the CIC, where the central 3D display showed an expanding X-ray view of the alien vessel. As the robot survey drones made their way into the ship from both ends, that view became more detailed. The position and vital signs of each Marine were also noted and transmitted back to the ship.

“We have secured the aliens' antimatter store and taken up positions in both fore and aft sections of the hull. We are sending the recon drones into the hull sections we have not yet entered.”

“Affirmative, move the antimatter to the shuttle ASAP. The sooner we get it away from the hulk the safer we will all be.”

“Roger that, Peggy Sue. So far we have encountered no appreciable resistance...”

Bridge, Destroyer of Worlds

“The aliens have breached the outer hull fore and aft, and are blasting their way into the pressurized internal sections, Captain” one of the crew reported.

“Get the crew into pressure suits and issue weapons.” The Captain scurried over to a bank of controls, thinking,
if the crew can hold off these monsters for a few minutes I should be able to set off the scuttling charges. At least we will take them with us into the void.
 

With several forearms the Captain executed the complex sequence that would command the ship to destroy itself, detonating a number of antimatter charges in the aft section of the hull. The key was to create sympathetic explosions in the antimatter store. That would blast the entire ship to atoms.

Let us see how sweet your victory is when your boarding force is vaporized along with the rest of the ship,
the Captain thought with malice. Still, he could not help thinking of the fate that had befallen his ship and his crew.
For centuries we have sent out ships to lay waste to distant planets orbiting faraway suns. Never have we encountered a foe that offered more than token resistance. Yet these creatures have attacked us with ships we cannot match; they brandish weapons we cannot counter. We are like primitives before these warm life demons.
 

A sequence of indicators lit on the control panel. But the sequence stopped short of completion—the scuttling charges were not responding.
The control lines to the antimatter store must have been severed...
 

BP-2, Forward Section

As promised, the Marines in Shuttle Two felt not the slightest tremor on impact. The sites for the incursions had been selected using thermal imaging and were rotationally about 110 degrees apart with respect to the target's central axis. The Marines of 3
^rd
& 4
^th
squads encountered an environment much the same as their compatriots in the aft part of the alien vessel. A mostly empty interior space laced by girders and support trusses with embedded enclosed structures woven into the tangled mess.

“What is with this shit?” asked one puzzled Marine.

“It's like some weird, alien jungle gym,” said another. “No atmo and no deck gravity.”

“Yeah, it's like a humungous trailer park suspended in the world's biggest sewer pipe.” 

“Move out and find cover,” ordered GySgt Washington.

“The prey has got to be in those tubes and boxes,” rumbled Tornassuk, one of the polar bears.

“You may be right,” agreed Lt. Westfield. “Let's go say hello.”

The Marines of 3
^rd
& 4
^th
squads spread out through the chaotic erector set interior of the alien warship, bounding weightlessly between girders and supports. Forward they could see open space and the ship's bow section still ponderously floating away. Looking aft there were a number of solid structures embedded in the web of supports. Approximately on the ship's center-line was the largest of these. 

“Sir, that large enclosed structure up ahead looks like some kind of central control. There's bundles of cables and pipes and stuff coming out of it. What do you think, LT?” GySgt Washington asked Westfield. “Should we blast our way in?”

“Yeah. I don't know what those cables all do but they must have some purpose. Use the breaching missiles to open a way inside.” Aside from their normal armaments, the weapon makers back at Farside had come up with some man launched missiles. Similar to RPGs, each packed the wallop of a large artillery shell.

“Aye, Sir. OK, you heard the LT, ventilate that large structure aft.” Four of the advancing Marines quickly found stable positions in the spiderweb of support beams, unlimbered tube shaped launchers and fired on the structure.

Bridge, Destroyer of Worlds

After minutes of dithering, the chief engineer verified that the scuttling charges were no longer functional. “Captain, what are we to do? If we do not destroy the ship the Dark Lords will slaughter our brood-mates and the People will be no more.”

“Stiffen your carapace, you sniveling coward!” the Captain snapped. But the engineer was right, his highest duty at this point was to those back home. He was entrusted with a sacred duty, to return victorious or to sacrifice all on board while taking as many of the warm life enemy with them as possible. “Is everyone armed and suited up?”

“Yes, Captain,” replied his first lieutenant. Those left on the bridge had donned pressure suits that sealed tightly against their segmented exoskeletons. With their arms encased in the clumsy suits the crew were milling about, several holding projectile weapons.

The Captain finished slipping on his pressure suit and signaled to his crew. “All right, we are going aft, by way of the laser battery on the lower starboard quartile. We will show these invaders that the People will not simply roll over and die! Attack!”

His crew raised a somewhat half halfhearted cheer and headed aft. The Captain grabbed the engineer with several forelegs and hissed, “You and I are going to retrieve the antimatter container that powered the laser battery. You will rig it with a detonator and we shall work aft, as close as possible to the main antimatter store. With any luck we will still be able to set off the main AM store and send this hell-spawned plague of demons back to the fires they came from.”

As the alien Captain left the bridge of his disabled ship for the last time a series of tremors shook the command structure. This was followed by a brief whistling as the structure’s atmosphere—mostly nitrogen and methane, with traces of ammonia, at a pressure of close to three Earth atmospheres—escaped into the cold emptiness of the main hull enclosure.

BP-2, Forward Section

 Immediately following the breaching explosions debris, blown by what must have been the aliens' atmosphere, gushed out of the newly created openings. In all his years with the U.S. Marines Dirk Westfield had never dreamt that he would one day be in an armored space suit, about to attack alien invaders from the stars.
Sometimes, you just gotta' go with the flow.
“That should have let them know the Marines are here.” 

“Aye, Sir,” GySgt Washington acknowledged over the command frequency, signaling to individual squad members to advance. From left, right, top and bottom the Marines closed on the interior structure. Along with the chunks of debris were a number of strange bodies.

Bodies with multisegmented carapaces and an inordinate number of legs hanging down. Hunchbacked bodies that looked like a cross between a tailless shrimp and a clawless crab, grown to the size of a pig. As one of the bodies bounced off of a support beam and pinwheeled slowly back into the empty space within the hull, the front of the creature could be seen—a small head low and forward of the hunched back, five small unblinking eyes strung across its brow.

“That thing almost looks like a giant sand flea,” said LCpl Joe King, “well, except for the five eyes.” King was from Pensacola in the Florida panhandle where a “sand flea” was not really a “flea” but a type of crab without claws. Fishermen favored the critters for bait when trolling for red fish and pompano. 

“I don't care what it is, it's butt ugly,” someone else said.

“Yeah, like you're Mr. Universe.”

“Can it!” Washington yelled. “They ain't comin' out so we have to go in after them. Morrison, King, take point.”

Just as the Marines began to move forward to enter the structure more of the alien pseudo-crustaceans popped out of the holes the Marines had blasted. These were not drifting cadavers, however. They moved with purpose, ducking behind parts of the supporting structure from which they opened fire with projectile weapons.

Random flashes sparkled around GySgt Washington, who quickly ducked behind cover. Morrison and King also came under fire. 

“Damn, I think they're shooting at us,” King proclaimed.

“So shoot back, Joe,” Morrison yelled. “That's what the thing you're carrying with the trigger is for.”

“Hey, there are funky sand flea things popping out all over the enclosed structure,” reported another Marine. “I guess blowing those holes in the enclosed part stirred up a hornet's nest.”

“You know, I never cared much for shellfish,” Tornassuk chuckled as he opened up on the swarming aliens with his 15mm. “Let's see if they know how to fight.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Tornassuk,” replied Washington, “there's room for a shitload and a half of those things in there.”

The bear rumbled something undecipherable and loosed a short burst at three aliens hovering near a hole. A cluster of soundless orange detonations flashed, turning the aliens into a rapidly dispersing cloud of shell fragments and body parts.

“Gunny, we need to get inside that structure and secure any navigational or computational equipment,” Dirk ordered.
Assuming that there is such equipment in there and we can identify it just by looking at it.
“BP-1, BP-2. Things just got much hotter up here. We have armed aliens swarming from the enclosed structures...” 

Chapter 3

Commanding Officer's Quarters, Farside Base

Ludmilla had retired to her quarters to finish working on the endless stream of reports and authorizations that accompanied every action, no matter how trivial, required in running the lunar base. But despite the growing number of messages in her in box, she sat staring sightlessly at the desk's surface display. Her mind was on matters far away.

Out on the edge of the solar system her friends were locked in battle with alien forces unknown. The last message from Gretchen said simply, “Enemy sighted, about to engage.” Ludmilla knew that what she was doing, no matter how mind-numbingly boring, was necessary, but she could not help wanting to be with her friends on board the Peggy Sue as they went in harm's way.

What if there are casualties? I am the ship's doctor, damn it! I should be there,
Ludmilla thought in frustration. She knew that there were other doctors on board, doctor's she had worked with and trusted, but it still ate at her to be so far away and unable to help those she cared about. That thought triggered an even sharper pang of emotional anguish.

Oh Jack, where are you? Are you alive? No, you have to be alive, you have to come back. Humanity needs you, I need you!
Savagely clamping down on her runaway emotions she pulled her mind back from the precipice—as comforting as it might be to descend into gibbering irrationality, it would solve nothing.

“Der'mo! To hell with this,” she said out loud. “I need a drink, and I am not going to drink alone in my quarters.” Flicking open her contacts book on the desktop display she scrolled down and tapped on the entry for Elena Piscopia, a fellow scientist and comrade from Peggy Sue's previous voyage.