The forward ROR, Katadromiko 52, non-system space
Grogun didn’t waste any time. Code locking and shutting down the systems in the ROR, she quickly exited after checking the corridor was clear. Doing a similar code change to the door to ensure the girl couldn’t escape, she pulled her way as swiftly as possible to the captain’s hangar.
Peering through the inner airlock porthole, she could see her personal shuttle was still there on its magnetic struts – although, it had been dragged nearer the hangar exit by the rapid decompression of the room as the power had failed and shut down the atmosphere shield. Any loose equipment had gone, the hangar was very bare and she could make out deep gouges in the main door frame where some of the equipment had smashed into it on its way out. She hoped there hadn’t been any of her crew working in any of the other many hangars big and small on the vessel. She felt sick in her stomach the more she thought about it; there was always maintenance taking place day and night to keep the hundreds of smaller vessels spaceworthy.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, she turned and albeit a little awkwardly, she managed to open a storage locker to the left of the airlock and removed one of the grey Hostile Environment Suits or HESs from within. Checking it was fully prepped and charged she activated its magnetic boots and donned the slightly bulky piece of kit before running its start-up diagnostics.
Once she had a row of green lights shining on the inside of her visor, she re-entered the airlock, closed the outer door and vented the chamber. She could feel the cold through the suits many membranes as soon as the inner door slid away and allowed her access to the hangar.
Ignoring her shuttle, she clunked straight to the gaping outer door and sticking her head out, she peered rearwards. The hull wasn’t crawling with bugs as she’d feared and seemed reasonably clear. Suddenly thinking of something, she clunked her way back to the shuttle, opened its small airlock and disappeared inside. Reappearing a moment later cradling an assault laser rifle, she returned to the door and carefully stepped around the frame until she was standing on the outside of the hull.
Checking the suit’s status one last time, she took a deep breath and began walking towards the stern. Walking thirteen kilometres in normal gravity is a long walk, but doing it in a HES, on the outside of a ship’s hull in mag boots was going to test her stamina to its fullest degree. She certainly wasn’t a stranger to the ship’s many fitness rooms, but even so, the trek was going to be long and arduous.
After an hour or so, she was beginning to wish she’d taken the captaincy of a destroyer. The boots were becoming heavier to disengage from the hull and the stern seemed just as far away. She stopped in the lee of one of the larger laser gun turrets and rested for a few minutes. Staring upwards into the complete blackness, she could make out the occasional vague shadows of something or somethings moving around. It was only the sweeping disappearance and reappearance of distant stars across the void that gave their existence away.
She shivered, gathered her thoughts and continued.
Reaching the middle of the vessel, she dropped down to one of the many larger gaping hangar openings and peered down inside, illuminating her suit lights. It was full of assault landing ships of various sizes, their magnetic struts the only thing keeping them attached to the deck in their neat regimental columns.
Movement in her peripheral vision caused her to shrink back and extinguish the lights. Turning her head slowly, she gagged as the frozen body of a crew member floated slowly up towards her. Its empty eye sockets seemed to stare accusingly as it bumped into the door surround and began to float back down into the darkness. Swallowing the bile in her throat, she took a few deep breaths and continued quickly on her way. A mixture of renewed anger and dogged determination gave her legs an extra boost of endurance. She marched the rest of the way to her destination without a break, only slowing once as she gave a wide birth to one of the huge jagged rocks buried in the hull. She noticed some sort of shiny sticky residue had been injected around the edges of the penetration.
Her destination was an airlock on one of the upper recreation decks and on arrival, she clunked her visor against the small outer door inspection window and checked the interior. Confirming the airlock was empty, she keyed in her security override code and waited while the door sank inwards and slid aside into the hull. She waited a few moments, watching for any movement in the inner door window before carefully entering and closing the outer door.
She knew there was a narrow corridor inside with access to the chief engineer’s ROR not too far away. She’d changed the design and position of the ROR right at the last minute. It hadn’t gone down well with the shipyard or the project manager, but she’d argued that engineering was genuinely one of the first targets for any attack. It was pointless having an emergency ROR right where any initial strike might render it unoperational. The attackers had somehow known where the captain’s ROR had been located and even knew the access codes. She was relying on this eleventh-hour change of position being unknown to the enemy.
Holding her breath and her rifle with the safety off, she equalised the pressure and stood by the inner door. The small window only showed what was within a couple of metres of the door, so she couldn’t be sure what might be further up the corridor to greet her. Igniting her suit and rifle lights she entered the code to open the airlock. As it turned out, no armed six-legged bugs were anywhere in sight in either direction, so after closing the door, she clunked her way quickly deeper into the ship.
In a stairway, she came across the floating corpses of dead bugs, hundreds of them. It was the first time she’d seen her enemy and she slowed to get a closer look as she pushed them to one side. Noticing they all had some form of body armour and carried a similar weapon to the girl in the ROR, she stepped by them carefully. She found it was impossible to avoid all of the floating bubbles of ugly grey goo seeping from the corpses and it stuck to her suit and made the stairs extremely treacherous, especially underfoot where some had settled.
‘FREEZE,’ said a sudden loud electronic voice from above on the next landing.
She did as directed, as an armoured marine suit clunked into view, its weapon pointed straight at her face.
‘IDENTIFY YOURSELF,’ the unnerving voice continued.
‘Whipper, Grogun, Captain,’ she said as confidently as she could with an activated heavy laser pointed at her head.
‘CODE?’
‘WHIP11442233,’ she repeated from memory, at that moment really glad she’d been issued a number that was easy to remember in stressful situations.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ said the voice, a little less demanding in tone this time. ‘Do you have any idea what the Ancients is going on? I’ve had no contact with my section commander for a while.’
‘I’m as much in the dark as you, marine,’ she said. ‘But I believe these bloody insects are attempting to commandeer the ship.’
‘That cannot be permitted to happen,’ he said, standing back to allow Grogun to pass.
She stopped and thought for a second.
‘Were you on your way up or down?’ she asked.
‘Down, Captain,’ he said. ‘Then I bumped into that lot coming up towards me.’
‘I have to go up another seven decks,’ she said. ‘Is it clear that far?’
‘It was a few minutes ago, but I can’t vouch for the deck level itself, as I came from one of the marine hangars higher up.’
‘In that case come with me,’ she said. ‘You can provide my forward defence and a diversion if I need it.’
This slowed Grogun’s progress somewhat, as she had to wait for the armoured suit to clunk its way up the stairs in front of her. Eventually, they reached level 209 and Grogun peeked through the small circular window and out into the corridor beyond.
‘Shit,’ she muttered under her breath, as she ducked back out of sight. ‘The passageway’s busy with bugs.’
‘Just wait a few moments,’ the marine said. ‘I’ve noticed they travel around in groups, so they might have moved on in a bit.’
Sure enough, when she checked the window a couple of minutes later, the corridor seemed deserted again.
‘Which way are we headed?’ the marine asked.
‘To the right,’ Grogun replied. ‘Then left at the first junction.’
‘That’s away from engineering,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘Aren’t you going to the engineering ROR?’
‘How d’you know about those?’ she asked, as he opened the door.
‘I was escorting a senior engineer on his way there when he was taken. Unfortunately I was unable to save him.’
Grogun nodded and pointed in the direction they had to go.
‘First on the left up there,’ she said. ‘It’s a dead end, so you guard the junction and I’ll fire up the control room.’
It was only about a hundred and fifty metres to the turning and they both arrived without incident.
‘Wait there,’ she said, indicating the wall opposite the turning. ‘Don’t make it obvious you’re guarding this passageway. I don’t want them getting too suspicious about what might be down here.’
‘Understood,’ said the marine, taking up station with his back against the wall she’d pointed at.
Grogun counted her paces as she walked almost halfway down the corridor, before stretching up and waving at the left-hand wall high above her head. The hidden keypad she was looking for illuminated and she quickly keyed in the code. As a lower panel of the wall sank inwards and then slid upwards, she became aware of another noise behind her. She turned to find the marine in the armoured suit directly behind her. His laser cannon pointing at her head again. The big mistake she’d made struck her immediately. He’d checked her identification, but she hadn’t returned the favour. She’d just presumed he’d killed all the bugs on the stairs and was on her side.
‘Fuck,’ she mouthed silently, knowing what was coming.
‘Thank you for showing us where this was,’ he said, the whirring of the suit servos and the whine of the fully charged cannon loud in the quiet corridor. ‘The queen will be very pleased.’
Grogun frowned in puzzlement as a small black canister rolled past the armoured suit. It popped open almost immediately, ejecting a handful of black objects around the corridor that stuck to the walls, ceiling and floor.
‘What is this?’ asked the marine, turning to see where it had come from.
Grogun’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, as a young girl dressed in a skintight matt black jump suit and a large backpack appeared directly behind the marine. She winked at Grogun and reached out, her hand passing straight through the suit’s personal shield and touched it on the shoulder.
Grogun shielded her eyes as a shower of sparks turned the dark corridor into daylight and the noise of the suit went silent. Puffs of smoke effused from the suit’s joints and the smell of burnt electrics and plastic filled the passageway.
The girl relieved the marine of his cannon, slung it up on her shoulder and pointed at the open doorway.
‘You’d better get in there and start taking your ship back,’ she said, with a wry grin.
‘Who the Ancients are you?’ Grogun asked, still rooted to the spot, her eyes wide with astonishment.
‘My name’s Cleo, I’m here all week and programmes are available in the foyer.’