Ghost Soldiers (15 page)

No, not now.

He shook his head, shouted, and then felt something grabbing him. His voice was strange, louder, and with an obvious echo, as though he was in a small room or chamber. His instinct was to fight, so he punched and kicked. The difference in controlling the machine to his muscles was a stark one. Spartan had always been strong, but in the years since the war, he'd worked hard on improving his strength and fitness. Few in the Marine Corps could match him now, and certainly not in the arena of violent close combat. His feet kicked against air as he drifted out into zero gravity.

"Open your visor," said somebody nearby.

Spartan shook his head again, trying to get his bearings. His gut instinct was to defend himself. Sounds could be copied, as could the electronic information travelling between him and his suit. He struck out again, but once more hit nothing but air.

"It's over, Spartan. The battle is over."

As the adrenalin began to subside, and he listened more carefully, he could recognise the sound of Lieutenant Armstrong. He'd seen the man killed on the ship, and it took a moment for the wrench between simulation and reality to sink in. He tried to turn around, but he was still floating.

You're back on Euryale. You have to be.

 
Spartan carefully deactivated the faceplate while lifting his arms up, and his hands ready to fight. He expected to see the interior of the ship, but as the visor moved open, he immediately felt cool air rushing in and darkness. Instinctively, he kept his hands ready, looking for signs of danger. Everything around him was a mixture of dark reds and blacks, and the shapes of people holding on to grab handles or the cylinders from which they'd all been waiting inside. Already he could see he was back on the ship, and his pulse slowed a little.

"What happened? Did we lose contact with the suits?"

Lieutenant Armstrong helped Spartan to the ground where he then activated his boots. They clamped reassuringly to the floor plate. Internal systems were already reactivating in his suit, though there was no data connection with the ship. Instead, each of the M-3 Armour suits connected to the next, creating an ad-hoc network.

"Over half of us were already back here when the connection was lost," said the Lieutenant.

Spartan moved closer to the man and looked at his dark silhouette.

"And me?"

"Spartan. Contact with you and the other Grunts was severed in the middle of combat."

"The enemy?"

Lieutenant Armstrong shook his head.

"No, Sir. The creature was winning; that much is certain. But it was something that happened back here, on this ship. Connection was cut with no warning."

The man sighed.

"That's why our warriors are still out there...defenceless."

Spartan considered what he was hearing.

"No, not defenceless. The Grunts are programmed to follow their final orders, up to a certain point. If they were in combat, then they will continue until the mission is successful, or they are destroyed."

A pair of marines helped move the shaking body of a wounded comrade. Spartan recognised him immediately. It was the young Private Barclay, barely twenty years of age. He could see no physical trauma, yet she muttered and choked as if something had scared her half to death. Sergeant Tyler moved in from above, much to Spartan's surprise. He moved with relative ease in the zero gravity environment.

"Something got inside the connection to Barclay's Grunt. I don't know how it happened, but that thing on the derelict; well, it spoke directly to her, like a devil in her brain."

He shook his head.

"Frankly, I'm amazed she's still conscious."

The wall-mounted speaker crackled to life.

"This is Khan. What's happening down there?"

Spartan took four steps to the intercom unit and keyed the button.

"Khan, I lost contact with the derelict. What's happened?"

Private Barclay began screaming again, and as Spartan looked back, he spotted a junior officer pushing a needle into her arm. The effect was almost instantaneous, and the unfortunate marine quietened down.

"Spartan."

Khan almost sounded relieved saying his friend's name.

"We've got problems, big problems. Whatever you found out there, it managed to get into our systems, took control of the computers, and turned our weapons on us. The core is damaged and the cooling system out of action."

Khan took a breath before finishing.

"The core is going to go critical. We will have to dump it in the next hour, and that's going to leave us out here, stranded. Half of the decks are reporting casualties, and multiple door and bulkhead systems have locked down. Most of the systems are not active, and that means a lot of our crew are missing."

Spartan could hear the frustration in Khan's voice.

"Captain Delatorre has sent a distress signal to the Admiral Jarvis Naval Station, but they are over two weeks away. Five-Seven is taking us away from the derelict as fast as his engineers can manage, but we won't get far before we lose power."

The light flickered one last time and then sprung back into life. Artificial gravity returned, and it took a few moments for Spartan's eyes to adjust.

"Understood, Khan. Restore what you can. I will be there shortly. I'll get my marines to search the ship for survivors. They are best equipped for the job."

With the operations level now fully lit, he could see the grim expression on the faces of the men and women he'd led to the derelict. At least a dozen were been taken away to the sickbay, and he could only assume it was for the same reason as Private Barclay.

It found its way into their encrypted data connections. How is that even possible?

He tapped the button on the intercom again.

"Khan, I'm coming to you. Make sure Captain Delatorre is ready for me."

Lieutenant Armstrong and Sergeant Tyler turned to face the arrival of more marines. These were the seventeen men and women of 3rd Platoon, and were fully armoured and equipped for battle. At the front was Lieutenant Anne Lee; the oldest of the junior officers, in her late thirties, and sporting short cut white hair. She was short compared to most of the marines, but she moved with certainty, much like Sergeant Tyler. Her hand came up quickly as she saluted Spartan.

"Major. 3rd Platoon is ready."

"Good," he replied. "You're a little light on numbers, aren't you?"

The Lieutenant did not look amused.

"We make up for it in skill at arms...Sir!"

Khan laughed at her answer, but it wasn't a dismissive laugh. He knew their reputation, and more important, they were led by Lieutenant Anne Lee, a real firebrand. The marines looked fresh, which was unsurprising to him. Both 1st and 2nd Platoons had taken a mental beating in the fighting on board the derelict, with some still being helped out of their cylinders.

"Lieutenant Lee, I need you to send fireteams throughout the ship. Find our crew and call them in. I need the ship searched and secure."

"Sir."

With that, the officer was gone, and in her place came Lieutenant Kipling of 2nd Platoon.

"Sir, I don't understand what happened. We were at the derelict’s power unit when..."

Spartan nodded.

"I know; the connection was severed. What did you find down there?"

The man shook his head.

"Not much, just bodies. We did send back footage, but the place is a mess."

Spartan licked his lips.

"Very well. Get to it. We have a lot of missing and injured personnel throughout the ship."

* * *

Captain Delatorre and Khan were in the middle of a heated argument when Spartan arrived. He looked at the computer units and control systems throughout the deck and noted the damage, presumably from the ship-to-ship battle. He'd not been present during the short exchange, but his Grunt armour had notified him of the incoming fire. Multiple computer systems were damaged, and there were signs of impact damage and fire on one of the walls. Off to the left was the observation point, the spherical, fully transparent part of the ship.

Looks like they had fun of their own while I was gone.

The mainscreen was back on and showing the distant view of the derelict. Kanjana was there as usual, inside the spherical section that gave her such a view of space. She was busy speaking with the Thegn officers. Upon his entrance she looked at him, and her expression softened.

"Spartan, finally. I thought you'd fallen asleep somewhere
."

Her voice was thickly accented and unusual to hear, though her slender, almost white form already marked her out as Anicinàbe. She moved from the sphere and up the steps to join them. Her movement was subtle, yet quick, and barely noticeable to the others who were far too busy with their own problems to notice Spartan's arrival. Only when he moved into view with Khan did the argument stop.

"Spartan, we need a decision, and fast."

Captain Delatorre looked down and shook his head. Spartan looked for Five-Seven and found him in his position, giving orders via the intercom.

"Okay, give me the short version."

Khan looked to the Captain and signalled for him to speak.

"Go on, explain."

"The core is fluctuating badly. It has to be ejected in the next fifteen minutes, unless we can stabilise it. The powerplant is already heavily irradiated, and every second it gets worse."

"What's the problem? Just get in there and stabilise it," said Spartan.

Khan took a step away and continued shaking his head.

"This alien entity..."

Spartan raised his eyebrows at the description of the thing they had been fighting.

"It has control of the core management system. It can overload and destroy the ship whenever it wants. Or it can stabilise it remotely but keep it disconnected from our systems, leaving us dead in a matter of hours. The thing has complete control. If it wants, it will destroy half of the ship, and irradiate whatever is left. Or it can wait till we run out of air and power."

The ship creaked, and a single blinking light on the wall made Khan groan even louder. Captain Delatorre pointed into the ship.

"This vessel is turning into a radioactive wasteland. A machine can manage just fine, but we can’t. There is no way for us to get there, not without it killing whoever makes it there in one piece."

Khan nodded at glowing display.

"The engineering section. Something just deactivated the locks and vented five sections into space. Anybody in there is gone now. Sensors show those compartments are now contaminated as well."

He shook his head, clearly bitter. He also seemed a little stunned that something had been able to penetrate the electronic defences so effectively.

"Basically, Spartan, we're screwed. Even if we stop the core overloading, the radiation will kill us in minutes. This thing is flushing us away from the power units. It's stopping us from repairing our own damned ship."

Spartan shook his head.

"Then we dump the dammed thing, vent all contaminated compartments, and remove any way for this entity to get our ship. We have reserves batteries on board. We just wait this thing out until help arrives from T'Karan."

Khan turned about with a smile on his face.

"Exactly."

His tone suggested this was what he had been promoting for the last few minutes. Captain Delatorre seemed unimpressed, though, and looked away. He said something and looked back to Spartan, lifting his arms in exasperation. This was clearly the sticking point, but Spartan had no idea what the Captain's problem was.

"Come on, then, explain it to me."

Captain Delatorre pointed to one of the smaller displays. It showed partial data from the operational diagnostic systems.

"Major, it is more complex than that, much more complex. Every minute we keep the reactor running gives us time to fill the capacitors."