The Terminal War: A Space Opera Novel (A Carson Mach Adventure) (22 page)

He and Adira moved quickly and as quietly as they could. The charging unit hissed, smoke billowing from it. A couple of the protos had approached it before it exploded. They were caught full force and screamed terribly. The rest of the group spun round as though the scream were coming from all directions.
 

They clocked Mach and Adira, and the hunt was on.
 

“Fuck!” Adira said, over and over, in time with their strides.
 

The protos had formed a kind of wild pack now, chasing after them on all fours like the others, their long, black forms reminding Mach of the hideous panthers that the horans breed for sport.
 

One of the protos, quicker than the others, leaped at Mach.
 

Swiveling the rifle up with his left hand, he fired a short auto-burst over his right shoulder, catching the creature in the waist and legs, sending it squealing and tumbling away.
 

Adira raised her rifle up and over her shoulder and fired blind while she ran toward the access panel, which waited just a few meters away.
 

With barely a second to spare, Mach crashed through it, thankful it wasn’t locked or had some intricate mechanism, the manacle that Beringer had given to him providing security credentials. Adira followed quickly behind after emptying her rifle into the face of the closest proto.
 

Panicked, Mach kicked the access panel closed and watched as it buckled with the force of the pack smashing into it from the other side, yet it remained sturdy, secure. But for how long he wouldn’t have liked to guess.
 

Adira helped him up.
 

“You okay?” she asked.
 

“Yeah,” Mach said. “Not sure my heart can take much more of this, though.”

“The reactor core is just up ahead to the left. Let’s get a move on. The quicker we get to it, the better.”

“But how are we going to get back with that lot outside?” Mach said.
 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Mach wasn’t confident of their chances. They were down to just a single rifle with half a charge against dozens of protos, with more swarming around outside. They had to find an alternative route. He took a breath and analyzed the map on his HUD.
 

Beyond the reactor core was another room that had something, a straight pipe perhaps, that went up through the pyramids and beyond into the open air.
 

The map didn’t show how wide it was, but it was clearly too narrow to crawl through. Mach wondered if there was perhaps another one of these maintenance tunnels running from it that would help them across the temple section without having to face the protos.
 

“Change of plan,” Mach said, highlighting the room on Adira’s HUD. “We’re going to check that place out before going to the core. It’ll take a minute to see what it is, and we might have an alternative route.”

“Agreed, lead the way.”

It took just a couple of minutes to negotiate the narrow passages to the new room. The dead guardian’s manacle provided entry. Inside, a console desk ran three meters or so across the back wall. The floor, walls, and ceiling were plain white and similar to the briefing room where they had first been introduced to the Guardians.
 

The difference with this space was that the console table was familiar, in that the controls and iconography were similar to his vestan-designed
Intrepid
. And, more importantly, Mach recognized a communication system when he saw it. It made sense now what the rod on the HUD map was: an antenna. “Must be the equipment they use to run the shuttles and other systems,” Mach said.
 

“Funny that the Saviors didn’t mention it,” Adira said, knowing they were likely listening in despite them agreeing on radio silence to the shuttle to keep it protected from eavesdropping. The protos had proven far cleverer than their wild appearance indicated.
 

“Probably still under the illusion they could keep this place a secret,” Mach said. “But fuck their secrets, we need help. Can you cover the door while I get to work?”

“Sure,” Adira said, making sure it was securely locked first before taking Mach’s rifle and training it on the doorway.
 

Although the system was familiar in terms of its operation and labeling, it still took Mach a few minutes to figure out how to turn it on. Once connected to the antenna, a holographic screen came to life, showing him various functions. He pictured Kortas manipulating these controls, ordering a shuttle from Vesta and sending information to Morgan.
 

That suited Mach down to the ground, because right there was the original communication channel, telling him that he was right and that this was a comms system. Wasting no more time, he punched in his passphrase that he and Morgan had used to communicate securely back in the Century War, and sent a call request to the president.
 

It took a minute or so, and all the while the sounds of baying protos grew louder as they were continuing to smash into the outer access panel, trying to get the tasty treats that hid inside.
 

“Mach?” a voice said, the signal crackling but otherwise strong and clear.
 

“Yeah, it’s me, Morgan. Listen, there’s very little time to explain, only that I know you sent us here with the knowledge we wouldn’t be coming back, but things have changed.”

“Changed how?” he said, not even bothering to refute the allegation.
 

“It’s seriously fucked up here. The Guardians are dead, and we’re trying to get the Saviors off the planet.” He continued telling Morgan everything that had happened and what a shitty situation they were in now.
 

“I’m patching your coordinates through to Babcock,” Morgan said. “I’ll have them come and get you; they’re not far away. Things have escalated out here too.”

“How so?” Mach asked.
 

Adira was listening in and couldn’t hide the disgust on her face as though Morgan’s very voice was making the bile rise in her gut.
 

“War, Mach, we’re going to war. The Axis is building up a big force. It’s not going to end well, but we can still get you lot off Terminus. Are the Saviors safe?”

“For now,” Mach added. “Beringer, Adira, and me… that’s another matter. You fucking let us come here to die, you bastard,” Mach said, unable to hold it in any longer.
 

“I know,” Morgan said, no hint of an apology. “We’ll talk about it when you’re safe. Do what you can to hold out for another few hours. The
Intrepid
is on its way. I need to go; the council is forming. Good luck, Bleach.”

Mach swore at the dead air, hating the casual use of a nickname he never wanted. The outer access panel finally gave in to the onslaught, clanging like a church bell. The door to the comms room was the protos’ next target, the metal surface vibrating with each strike, making Mach feel like a fish trapped in a barrel.
 

He and Adira shared a grim expression.
 

“A few hours?” she asked.

“A few hours,” Mach said and cringed every time the door buckled against the protos’ continued attack. He doubted it would hold for a few minutes. But at least his crew was on the way. That was something, some sliver of hope, albeit an incredibly thin sliver.

Babcock filtered the encapsulated communications data again. Nothing unusual showed up in the payload or buffers. The only thing he could think of trying now was simulating the transmissions in the hope that something, anything, leaped from the screen to give them a clue about the mole.
 

Sanchez, who refused to go to his bunk, slumped in his seat and snored. Nigel kept peering over at the big hunter as if he had some terminal condition. Vestans didn’t make a sound when they rested, and this was probably a new experience for the gunner.
 

“Coming out of L-jump in five minutes,” Adira said from the front of the bridge.
 

Babcock acknowledged her with a raised thumb and continued to configure two dummy endpoints in the emulation environment Squid Three created. He input all ingress and egress addresses, loaded the data and activated the simulation.
 

Messages streamed across the console screen. Babcock slowed the rate to a readable level and watched the transmission layer.
 

Nothing out of the ordinary happened at first. The round-trip times were all good. Occasional error correction messages went back and forth to correct the odd corrupted byte. It appeared this was another dead end.
 

“She’s gonna make it,” Tulula said through the bridge speakers.
 

Tulula was monitoring the fusion drive on the engineering deck. They were running hot after the Axis laser had hit the outer engine housing. The
Intrepid
remained at top speed, although she said another long jump was out of the question until they carried out repairs.
 

“Never doubted it,” Babcock replied.
 

Lassea glanced over her shoulder at him, looking less convinced. For the last two hours, the smooth whine had been punctuated by grinding roars.
 

Squid Three chirped and extended its tentacles. Babcock stopped the simulation and reversed it to a point that showed an extra twenty bytes of data after the header of a message from the
Chester
. The Operations Center receiver dismissed it during the error correction phase.
 

It was too clean to be corruption. Babcock filtered all messages from the
Chester
and found the anomaly five more times. He extracted the data from the mid-flow simulation and transferred it to his decryption tool.
 

The bytes were encoded with second-generation horan cryptography, which would look like scrambled data if inserted into an allied stream. This had to be inserted post-transmission by a link tap on the ship. Somebody on board had deep technical knowledge and access to the comms cables running to the roof-mounted antennas.
 

With satisfaction, Babcock smiled. Now that the mole was confirmed, it had to identify them.

Second-gen horan crypto was fairly easy to crack, although Babcock admired the solution. All other forms of encoding used horan and lactern symbols and would’ve given the game away. This was old-school espionage and something the Commonwealth never expected.
 

Six decrypted messages appeared on the screen. Three reported a vestan shuttle’s movements from a probe. The final coordinates were Terminus. The rest reported CW Fleet movements, including the patrol to Orbital Hibock and the name of the
Intrepid
.
 

The perpetrator signed off on two messages. Steros.
 

Babcock slammed his fist on the console. He should’ve known it. The young captain’s behavior was a classic double bluff. Steros drew attention to himself because it would lead any suspicion away from him.
 

“Problem?” Lassea asked.

“We’ve got our man,” Babcock said. He transferred the messages to a bridge screen above the young pilot.
 

“What the hell?” she said. “Why?”

“I suspect he’s got an axe to grind over his father. Looks like he took the nuclear option and sold us out.”

“That’s some axe.” Lassea let out a deep breath and returned to the holocontrols. “Switching to gamma drive in one minute. I can’t believe that treacherous piece of shit.”

Her words had the effect of an alarm clock on Sanchez. The big hunter bolted in his chair and blinked. “Who is?”

“Steros,” Babcock said and jutted his chin toward the on-screen messages.

Sanchez’s eyes slowly narrowed, and he bared his teeth. “That little shit. I want first shot if the
Chester
comes to Terminus.”

The fusion drive decreased in tone and the low hum of the gamma drive kicked in. No other ships registered on the scanner. Babcock sat back in the captain’s chair and looked at the distant image of Terminus.
 

The ice planet, highlighted by a distant weak sun, had a small dark square in its center. That was an obvious place to land and find Mach, Adira, and Beringer.
 

Before that, Morgan had to be informed about the mole. Babcock activated the ansible channel and called the government headquarters on Fides Prime.
 

This time, the receptionist and secretary were a lot more urgent, and within thirty seconds he was patched through to the president’s office.
 

“Babs, do you have good news?” Morgan asked.
 

“Depends on what you call good news. Your mole is none other than Captain Steros.”

Morgan grunted. “Like father, like son. Tralis’ fleet is already on their way. I’ll let him deal with it.”

“Sanchez wants first shot. That’ll be reward enough for our work.”

“Sorry, it’s an internal matter, but you won’t be seeing Steros again,” Morgan coldly replied. The sound of tapping echoed down the link. “Mach’s established comms on Terminus and needs your help with a collection. I’ve sent over the frequency and code. Good luck.”

“Do we need luck?”

“You’d better speak to Mach. Out.”

The bridge door hissed open. Tulula bounded in and moved straight toward the viewscreen. Nigel sprang from his chair at the laser controls and joined her.
 

“First time you’ve seen it?” Lassea asked.

“Yes,” Nigel replied. “My ancestors are here, along with generations of the finest vestan minds. It’s a special—”

“Fuck this mumbo jumbo,” Sanchez interrupted. “Call Mach for a sitrep. Let’s collect and get the hell out of here before the Axis show up.”

Babcock nodded in agreement. He usually gave deep consideration to alien cultural feelings, but it had its limits. With over a hundred enemy ships on the way and a potential war impending outside of Terminus’ atmosphere, he had no intention of hanging around.