Operation Chimera (21 page)

“Zav?”

“Yeah,” replied the Talnurian, peeling himself off the wall.

“I’m getting really tired of sucking on this floor.” Michael stood up, working his arm around in a few small circles to ease the pain out. “Landed wrong from that last explosion.” He drew in a breath. “Green Wing, this is Dragon. Will you
please
stop kicking the mung out of this thing until we are clear?”

Zavex followed the map line, stomping right over a fallen Draxx on his way to a door that did not open. He reached for the panel, but wound up holding on to the wall as another explosion shook the room.

“Green Wing, what’s going on out there?” Michael clung to the bulkhead, trying to avoid another high-energy meeting with solid ground.

“Sixteen hostile contacts,” said Aaron. “Whatever you’re doing in there, do it fast.”

“Don’t forget we are in here. Stop hitting the
Lewis
.”

“Sorry, Dragon,” said Emma. “One of the Kraits chasing me just crashed into a sensor obelisk.”

Zavex made four quick slashes in the door with the Azsha, and punted the metal slab into the hole. Smoke billowed through the opening, several glops of biomatter on the left wall burned. They ducked through, using the map overlay more than their eyes to make their way down the hall. Another detonation, this time behind them, caused them to stumble.

Emma rolled from left to right to slip through a narrow channel between two sections of the
Lewis & Clark
. One more Krait failed to follow the tight maneuver, and clipped the edge of a long-range communication array, bursting into a cloud of flames and debris. She accelerated as dozens of plasma globes peppered the
Lewis’s
hull just behind her. The last three light fighters made it through a forest of panels as she slalomed the solar array. Ahead, the forest of cover ended. With nothing but smooth hull waiting for her, Emma committed to a sprint. The Mosquito left the Kraits behind, racing an endless stream of energy orbs until she dove over the mangled end and broke line of sight.

She eyed her rearview, waiting for them to appear over the edge. As soon as they did, she cut her throttle to nil. The Mosquito’s engines went dark, thrust vector plates closed, and Emma kicked the lever forward. Her willowy body lurched forward in the straps, knocking the wind from her lungs as the ship lurched backwards. The Kraits overshot. She sent a stream of pulse laser into the engine port of the far left one, throwing it into a death spin as she retracted the vector plates. With the engines no longer redirected, the Mosquito’s full thrust once more pushed it forward. Emma crashed against her seat as if she had flown into a solid wall. Grunting, she fought to cling to consciousness as she found herself on the tail of the last two.

The one she shot tried to keep its course, and wound up swerving into the center ship, destroying them both. As the two winged ovoids collided, Emma pulled hard right to avoid the deadly fragments, and settled in on the last Krait.

Aaron flew through a mass of Draxx fighters, taking pot shots whenever angle gave him the opportunity. There were too many to settle on a specific adversary, target focus would also give one of them a good shot at his backside. He sent bursts of pulse lasers, three streams of red light from the wingtips, at the small fighters while using the body-mounted particle cannons on the less agile medium fighters.

The Draxx were just as aggressive, foiling most of Aaron’s gunnery by making him avoid incoming fire. Liam had taken to borrowing Emma’s tactic of using the
Lewis & Clark
as cover, though the Manta was far too large to fit in the same narrow trench Emma had used. Keg winged one of the Monitors, leaving it slow and limping to a point where the ponderous Manta could outmaneuver it. As soon as he got position, Liam fired, slicing it apart with a raking blast of four neutron beams. With most of the cloud of angry hornets chasing Aaron, Liam tucked the Manta against the bridge tower and started sniping.

“Keg, watch my ass.”

“You got it, boss.” The turret whirred around to face the rear.

Liam fired four times, taking out four Draxx ships before they realized where the attacks were coming from. Out of about sixteen remaining contacts, nine turned and came after him. Aaron pounced, accepting a few nicks on the wing for the prize of sending particle beams into the engine ports of two Monitors. One careened into the lower reaches of the bridge tower while the other bounced away from the side and went spinning off into the nebula.

Michael and Zavex ran down the final leg of the navigation line. Beyond another door Zavex had to cut open, the entire right side of the hallway was missing. Dozens of mangled Draxx adhered to the wreckage of a section about eighteen meters long where the wall was gone. Clusters of burned black biomatter rimmed the twisted metal; the gore that remained did so only due to the artificial gravity field. They stopped to stare out at the streaks of energy against the endless black. Both men would have rather been out there.

“Aaron, you got one on your six,” said Michael.

“How the hell”―his voice broke up into a grunt as an explosion came over the comm―“do you know that?”

“I’m watching…” Michael’s stunned voice faded out as a Monitor lined Aaron up for a kill shot.

Just then, four neutron beams lanced by. Two went above Aaron’s ship, two below, with inches to spare. The Monitor went into a fatal tumble, exploding into a dendrite-shaped cloud a few seconds later. Faster smoldering chunks trailed ember-tipped fingers out of the smoke.

“Damn, nice shot, Tell.” Zavex clapped, not that any of the pilots saw.

Aaron remained quiet.

“Come on.” Michael tugged on Zavex’s arm, leading him through the remnant of corridor.

Just as he reached the end, he floated off the ground. All the lights failed. “When it rains, it pours.”

“Are you hallucinating, Dragon? It is not raining here,” said Zavex.

“I’ll explain later.” A puff of the RCS sent him sailing to a door. “My guess is that big explosion took out the power core; bet the capacitors just went dry.”

Michael pushed the door open with ease; the lack of power anywhere in the ship took the strength out of the magnetic actuators. The infirmary waited twenty paces beyond it. Amid a cloud of drifting linens, pillows, surgical instruments, meds, and various other things, a man floated in a liquid-filled tube. At least, he would have been floating if the substance had not been frozen solid. Michael kicked away from the wall, gliding through the darkness until he caught himself against the cylinder. He brushed a glove’s width of clear through the frost, staring at the occupant.

“Record log. Lieutenant Michael Summers on board the derelict ship,
Lewis & Clark
. We have discovered a survivor preserved in medical stasis. Caucasian male, approximately thirty five to forty five years of age, brown hair, average build.” He recorded video of the man, then moved to the stasis console, appraising the readouts. “There is no indication of the reason for the individual’s stasis. The ship has lost power. We are about to recover the survivor.” Recorder paused, he stared at all the controls. “Zavex, are you familiar with this equipment? The ones I’ve trained with had about eight buttons.”

“I’m afraid we do not use such technology. The Ra’ala”―again the translator spat out the word ‘priests’― “can induce a similar state with their Na’zshri.” The translator hesitated for a few seconds and spat out “powers.”

“Great, I don’t want to kill the guy. We’re out of comm range to the
Manhattan
, we can’t hit the archives for century old technology.”

“No one studies these things?” asked Zavex.

“As if anyone expected to find something this old drifting through deep space.” Michael scratched at his helmet. “Century old… Keg, acknowledge?”

“I’m here, boss.”

“Betty, patch my helmet feed through to the Manta. Keg, do you know how to work one of these old stasis units?”

“Hold on, boss. Liam, hold ‘er steady, son. You’re doing a bang-up job.”

Liam’s sigh rolled over the comm.

“Okay, boss. I can see what you see. Looks like a GE Healthcare model S9410. Umm.” The soft clanking of a metal hand tapping a metal body followed his words. “Yes, I have it. Woo hoo!”

“Keg, stop dancing and help them,” growled Liam. The electronic thrum of neutron beams firing underlined his words.

“Right, boss. Sorry. I haven’t seen one of those things for at least… umm… a long time. They used to put people to sleep for spaceflight. Interplanetary travel used to take decades. Generations could come and go before people got where they were going.”

“Keg…”

“Oh, right, boss. Sorry.” Keg made a throat-clearing noise. “Lieutenant, you’ll want to initiate the primary gas phase interlock and then warm up the sublimation unit.”

“Keg, just tell me what buttons to push.”

“Oh, sorry, boss.” Keg, able to see Michael’s hand entering the bottom of the frame in the image, guided him through the twenty-seven button (and two dial) process of reviving the man.

“Good thing you’re as old as this ship, buddy.”

“Aww, I’m not old. For a droid, I’m just getting started. Now when that blue graph gets into the 83-85 range, push the button on the bottom right.”

The machinery chugged to life. From the top of the cylinder, silvery opacity spread through the cryonic gel until the entire chamber looked like a mirror. The next few buttons started a ventilator that sucked fog away from the man, now drifting loose in the tube. Zavex de-boxed the spare e-suit while Michael worked, and by the time the clear tube retracted into the wall, they scrambled to get the man into it as fast as possible. Vacuum had not infiltrated the med bay yet, but there was no telling how breathable this air was.

“Keg, is it a problem that this guy isn’t awake?” Michael checked for a pulse, and found one.

“Uhh. He’s been a mansicle for almost a hundred years… who knows?”

“Point taken. Green Wing, this is Dragon. We have the survivor and are on our way out, how’s it looking out there?”

“Get it off me, get it off me,” yelled Aaron.

“Too small, I’ll hit you,” responded Liam.

“Turn at me.” Emma did a good impersonation of an emotionless android. “That’s a Krait-II, you won’t be able to shake him.”

“Krait-II?” Aaron sounded rattled.

“Notice it’s only got energy lances on the side wings? Vertical stabilizers are half the size. They traded firepower for added maneuvering thrusters.”

“Not very fair, is it?” asked Keg.

“What?” asked just about everyone at once.

“Their little fighter has weapons that are dangerous. Mosquito has flashlights.”

Emma sighed. “They’re not that small, they just take finesse.”

“Why does that line never work when I use it?” asked Liam.

Michael clipped a tether to the recovered man, and pushed off the wall. With their route already explored, they made better progress on the way back through what remained of the
Lewis & Clark
. He tugged his passenger along like a boy with a balloon, moving through the zero-g environment at a speed just shy of reckless. Within two minutes, they were once more at the door they had entered from, urged on by the radio chatter of a roving dogfight outside. Without power, it was impassable.

“I think I have a key,” said Zavex, readying his blade.

Michael backed off, pulling the still-unconscious man away. A few swipes of the vibroblades detached the bulk of the door. This time, the kick launched the metal rectangle out into space. Michael’s Glaive had tipped to the side, one wingtip touching the ground, no doubt from the massive explosion earlier. It had not rolled so far that he considered it impossible to take off―just tricky.

He jogged out into the large, open chamber. “Dammit, I knew I should have moved it.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that just yet,” said Zavex.

Michael turned to ask him what he meant, but froze at the sight of a Draxx D-14 “Monitor” medium fighter floating up into view just past the end, aiming its particle beam cannons at the two men.

“Proc.” Michael slouched, seeing no cover that would withstand the blast. “We’re procced.”