Chapter Nine

OK kids,” Will said over his shoulder, from the cockpit. “Time to put your shoes on. We’re at grandma’s.”

Next to him, Noah tapped on a screen on the console to his right. Lincoln felt the slight swim of deceleration before the grav system compensated.

“Eager Nine, this is Spooky One Seven,” Noah said. “We’re on final approach to our point of detachment, and are preparing to deploy the package.”

Lincoln wasn’t hooked into the pilots’ comms, so he didn’t hear Eager Nine’s answer. A few moments later, Noah spoke again.

“Acknowledged and understood, Eager Nine. We’ll keep our eyes open. Spooky One Seven out.”

Lincoln didn’t particularly care for the sound of that. There usually wasn’t much reason to keep your eyes open for anything out in open space, since it was mostly a whole lot of nothing.

“Trouble?” he asked.

Noah glanced back at him and shook his head. “Abundance of caution. I think she has to say it,” he said, referring to the comms officer back on the skiff. He flashed a quick grin. “Guessing she’s a mom.”

“Roger that,” Lincoln said. “We’ll go ahead and get loaded up.” He signaled to the rest of his team. They were all suited up, but had left their helmets off for the ride in. Now they each donned their armored helms as they stood and made their way towards the back of the gunship. One by one, the faces of Lincoln’s teammates disappeared behind smooth, faceless shells. And even as Lincoln placed his own helmet on and felt it seal, it gave him a chill to see those warriors ahead of him. Even with their names emblazoned in block letters across their backs in a digital ink only visible through the suits’ visors, it was hard for Lincoln’s mind to hold on to the fact that these were the same people. There was something otherworldly about them.

A hatch led down into the belly of the craft, where the Outriders’ low-signature delivery vehicle awaited them.

“It’s going to take us a couple minutes to get you a good vector,” Will called back to them. “But we’ll try to put you on target so you don’t have to make too many adjustments on the way in.”

“I have no doubt,” Lincoln said. “Just try not to put us actually on the target, yeah?”

“Hey, he’s the math guy,” Will answered, jerking a thumb at his brother, “I just drive.”

Lincoln was the last down the ladder. The delivery vehicle was fit snugly into the bay, facing backwards so that its top hatch more or less aligned with the ladder from above. It wasn’t quite a perfect fit; Lincoln had to drop down to his hands and knees and scoot backwards a couple of feet to reach the entry. Officially the vehicle was called a Lamprey, but the Outriders had given a name that seemed much more suitable; they called it the Coffin.

As Lincoln descended through the upper airlock, he couldn’t help but feel like part of a matryoshka doll, the famous Russian dolls that stacked neatly into one another. The gunship had deployed from the skiff; the Coffin would do so from the gunship; Lincoln, from the Coffin. In that particular moment, there was something almost comical to him about it, which then made him wonder if maybe the oxygen mix had been off in the gunship. He sealed the uppermost hatch, continued down into the main compartment, and sealed the secondary hatch.

The rest of the team was already strapping in. Sahil sat in the forward-most seat; he’d be the pilot for the final approach to target. Thumper, Mike, and Wright had moved towards the back, leaving room for Lincoln next to Sahil. Not that there was much room, exactly. Everything about the Coffin was designed to minimize its signature in open space, which meant there was basically precisely enough room for its capacity of eight personnel, and no more. The seats were staggered along either side, facing each other. And Sahil’s wide shoulders took up about a seat-and-a-half.

A second airlock led out through the back of the vessel; Wright was in the number one position to exit that way, with Mike next to her.

“Spooky One Seven, Easy One, check check,” Sahil said over comms.

“Spooky One Seven reads you, Easy One,” Noah answered back. “You guys comfy down there?”

“Negative,” Sahil replied. “Sooner you can get us on the way, sooner we can get out.”

“Roger that, Easy One. We’re lining up the shot. Two mikes.”

“Two mikes, copy.”

Lincoln didn’t intend to keep count, but his brain did it automatically anyway. It was just about ninety seconds later when Noah spoke again.

“Easy One, you are aligned. Standing by for your call.”

“Spooky One Seven, Easy One is ready for release.”

“Easy One ready for release, copy that. On my mark… three… two… one… release.”

Initially, there was no apparent change other than a subtle vibration. But a few moments later, Lincoln’s stomach lurched around as the Coffin broke free of the gunship’s grav field before its own took over. It felt something like a drop, but only for the span of a foot or two at most. His body barely had time to register it before it was over, which almost made it worse.

“Spooky One Seven, Easy One has good release,” Sahil said. “We are clear, and clearin’ out.”

“We copy, Easy One. Stay straight, and on till dawn,” Noah answered, with what had become a traditional closing. “Call us if you need us.”

“Will do. Easy One out.”

And with that final exchange, the five of them were on their own. They settled in, each silent in their places. The trick now, in the final hours of approach, was in finding the balance of sharpening the mind without exhausting the body. The waiting could dull the senses, or burn out the adrenaline before it was useful. Everyone had their own ritual for this time between, when the operation had officially begun but all the action still lay ahead. Wright meticulously checked her gear. Mike liked to sprawl out as much as the limited space allowed and listen to music. Sahil, when he wasn’t driving the bus, slept like a baby, and Thumper usually read.

Lincoln’s particular method was to walk through each phase of the hit, and to place his hands on each piece of gear that he would use at each point. It was as much physical as mental, and worked to both verify he had everything he needed and also to remind his body where to find it all when the time came. He steadied his breathing, careful to keep a relaxed rhythm, closed his eyes.

He pictured the Ava Leyla there, dangling in space. The slow approach. Sahil at the helm, careful to match velocity. Lincoln formed the images clearly in his mind, sharpened them, forced himself to imagine carrying out each individual step of the plan no matter how small, routine, or mundane. Reminded himself to breathe. There was something deeply meditative about the practice, something reassuring about placing his hands upon the tools of his trade as if in blessing.

Not that there was any magic in any of it. The ritual didn’t confer any supernatural powers; there were no special operations secret mystic techniques. Unless you counted the months and years of grueling training and dedication to discipline and practice. The ritual didn’t prepare Lincoln for what was to come; it simply helped activate all the preparation that had come before.

As he was beginning his third mental rehearsal, Sahil came in over comms.

“Got visual on the target vessel,” he said. “Y’all wanna take a peek?”

“You bet,” Thumper said.

Sahil ran his wide fingertips lightly across the console at his left, and a few moments later the forward section of the Coffin melted away, revealing the brilliant array of stars in open space, with the Ava Leyla dangling out over the great Deep. Naturally there were no windows on the Outriders’ delivery vehicle. But the inner surface could project an image so clearly it was better than any window could ever be; if Lincoln hadn’t seen the image form, it would have been easy to believe there was really nothing between him and the vacuum.

“Type-43 all right,” Thumper said. “Looks like the B-mod to me.”

“With a couple of by-owner additions tacked on,” Mike added. “I don’t recognize that tank on top.”

Sahil had rolled the Coffin to match orientation with the Ava Leyla; after having stared at all the imaging of the vessel, it was almost hard for Lincoln to remember that was the real thing sitting out there. He agreed with Thumper’s assessment that it was a “B-mod” variation, but the lines of the craft were different enough that it set off Lincoln’s instincts. It wasn’t unusual for ship owners to make modifications, but the number of changes to the Ava Leyla were outside normal bounds.

“What’s our time-to-target?” Lincoln asked.

“‘bout eight minutes,” Sahil answered. “Those Barton boys are somethin’ else. Shot us as true as could be. I barely touched anything on the way in, ‘cept to roll us on line.” Sahil had a way of talking out of one side of his mouth and swallowing his syllables that made it sound like he constantly had a ball of chewing tobacco tucked in his lip.

Lincoln activated a display in his visor, overlaid the team’s planned entry points onto the Ava Leyla. The first two were blocked by modifications. The third was still accessible, but he didn’t like the implications. Their primary and secondary points of entry had put them directly into position for the first phase of the hit. Now they were going to have work their way forward through a narrow service tunnel, which was less than ideal. And there was something else, something nagging that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“I don’t think I like the idea of attaching anymore,” he said.

For most boarding actions, the team made use of the Lamprey’s defining feature; it was equipped with a industrial-strength hull breaching device surrounded by an environmental control mechanism. Typically, the delivery vehicle would attach directly to the outer hull of the target. Once secured, the Lamprey would cut through to make an entry point while maintaining a seal around the new opening. Hull breaches were generally detected by changes in internal atmospheric pressure, so the Lamprey’s cuts went unnoticed, and the team could infiltrate undetected.

In this particular case, though, Lincoln’s gut told him directly attaching was a bad idea. He couldn’t identify a specific reason for the unease, but he’d done the job long enough to know that it was better to live with the unresolved curiosity than to ignore your instincts and find out for sure why they’d been right.

“You wanna go grapples?” Sahil asked.

“Yeah,” Lincoln said, still unsure. Confidence came with having made the decision. “Yeah, I do.”

“Roger that.”

It wouldn’t change the plan too much. Wright and Mike would still deploy from the rear and freespace to their entry point, using the microjets on their suits to navigate. The main impact would be on Lincoln’s element, requiring them to use an alternate entry method.

“Thumper, that’s going to put you on deck for overrides,” Lincoln said. It was a contingency they’d planned for.

“Sure, no sweat,” she replied.

As the team watched, the cargo ship grew incrementally. It was almost like watching an hour hand on a clock; Lincoln couldn’t really notice the moment-to-moment change, but after a minute or two he was suddenly aware of how much closer they were.

“Mir, Mike, you’re up,” Lincoln said.

Master Sergeant Wright didn’t need any more prompting. She popped to her feet like a guard dog catching a scent and moved into the rear airlock.

Mike chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve seen her move that fast since the last time they had wings in the chow hall.”

“I wouldn’t keep her waiting,” Thumper replied. “She might go without you.”

Mike got to his feet with mock heaviness, made an overly-dramatic show of stretching his back; which took actual effort, since the low overhead of the Coffin prevented him from standing at his full height.

“Mike!” Wright barked.

Mike gave Thumper and Lincoln a look over his shoulder; his faceplate was closed, so there was no expression to read, but Lincoln could picture it perfectly anyway. Somehow the blank, faceless metal seemed almost mischievous.

“See you folks downstairs,” Mike said, as he turned and headed towards the rear compartment.

“Mikey,” Lincoln called. Mike stopped and looked back at him. Lincoln tapped his own faceplate three times with his forefinger. Signaling for Mike to stay buttoned up. Beneath the faceplate, their helmets had clear visors that were rated to hold up to some small arms fire, but they didn’t offer nearly the protection that the sealed plate did. When Mike had died with his head in Lincoln’s hands, he’d had his faceplate open to investigate a mechanism. It had turned out to be boobytrapped.

“Roger that, sir,” Mike answered. He gave a curt nod, suddenly sober, and disappeared into the airlock.

“I think you sucked all the fun out of Mikey, sir,” Thumper said after he’d gone.

“I’ll make him some coffee when we get back,” Lincoln replied. “You good to go?”

“Good to go.”

“Sahil, you’ll follow us up?”

“Yessir,” Sahil said. “Soon as we’re rolled and tethered.”

“Roger. See you in a few.”

Lincoln motioned towards the ladder, which was merely a few rungs formed into the bulkhead. Thumper climbed up first, into the upper airlock. Lincoln followed behind. It was a cozy fit for the two of them. Once Sahil joined them, space was going to be tight enough to be socially awkward. Supposedly four troopers could fit in each of the airlocks for simultaneous deployment; Lincoln figured if they ever tried to squeeze that many in up top, whoever was nearest to the exit would get forcibly ejected as soon as the outer hatch opened.

“Anvil, Hammer,” Lincoln said. “Comms check, over.”

“Anvil copies, Hammer,” Wright answered over the team channel. “Commo’s clean.”

“We’re lined up,” Sahil said. “Mir, you’re good to go.”

“Roger,” Wright replied. “Anvil’s deploying.”

She and Mike were dropping out to an entry point on the port side of the Ava Leyla. They would secure the lower decks and move up. Lincoln and the others would go in through the top, starting far aft and working their way forward. Most versions of the plan had them all converging on the bridge for the final take down.

About a minute or so later, Wright called back in. “Anvil’s on site, moving to stage now.”

“Anvil moving to stage,” Lincoln repeated. “Copy that.”

Sahil’s head appeared in the lower hatch of the airlock.

“We’re locked in, Cap’n,” he said as he clambered the rest of the way up. Lincoln and Thumper had to shuffle around to make room for him. “Holdin’ off at thirty meters.”

Thirty meters of open space between the Lamprey and the Ava Leyla. There wasn’t really any cause for concern. The two vessels were at matched velocity, and there was nothing out there to use as a reference point for the motion. For all intents and purposes, the traversal would be the same as if the ships were both at a dead stop.

But Lincoln hated open space. No matter how many times he’d operated in it, it felt unnatural to him to be surrounded by endless nothingness. The sense of complete and utter exposure was unnerving. To know he could literally fall forever and never hit bottom, in a place where even the idea of direction was meaningless. And it was impossible to avoid being confronted by his own absolute insignificance in the face of that vast emptiness that was yet so full of wonders beyond his comprehension.

“We set?” Thumper asked.

“Set,” Sahil responded.

Lincoln took a deep breath, let himself feel his feet planted firmly on the deck. It was just thirty meters. Anybody could do thirty meters.

“Good to go,” Lincoln said. “Pop it.”

“Venting,” Thumper said. She flipped switches on the control panel, starting the controlled depressurization of the airlock. Thirty seconds later, she said. “We’re stable. Popping the hatch.”

Thumper activated the outer hatch, which slid smoothly open to reveal the gap. The Coffin’s grav field extended a few feet outward from the vessel; Thumper climbed up the ladder and took position on top. Lincoln was up next. He clambered up next to her, craning his neck back to look at the target ship hanging there above him. Sahil had rolled the Lamprey over to put the Ava Leyla over their heads, though as with all things in space, up was relative. The pull of the grav field dissipated abruptly only a few feet from the craft; the difference between Lincoln’s feet and head was significant. It gave him a strange sense of something like vertigo, a feeling that his feet were too heavy, and his head too light.

Sahil joined the two of them on top of the Coffin.

“Anvil, Hammer’s ready to jump the gap,” Lincoln reported over the team channel.

“Copy, Hammer,” Wright responded, then after a brief pause added, “Don’t miss.”

She said it deadpan, but there was a trace of a smile behind the words. Wright knew how much he hated open space. Fortunately, the Ava Leyla was at least ten times longer than the Lamprey, and made a nice fat target to land on. And the gap was only thirty meters.

“We good?” Thumper asked.

“Let’s do it,” Lincoln said.

“Ladies first,” Thumper said, and without waiting for a response she leapt up into space and dropped away towards the cargo ship. Watching her go, Lincoln’s world instantly flipped and he was suddenly upside down, watching his teammate plummet headfirst towards the target. She hadn’t jumped up. She’d fallen off. It made his head swim.

“You can hold a grapple if you want,” Sahil said. Thin tethers ran from four points between the Lamprey and the cargo ship. Technically, it would have been perfectly reasonable for Lincoln to follow one of the lines down. And he would have looked about as cool as if he were crossing a swimming pool by holding on to the edge and following it all the way around to the other side. Sahil was looking at him with that blank faceplate, but Lincoln could picture the exact expression the other man had on his face; the left corner of his mouth pulled down in his version of a smile.

“Thanks dad, but I’m good,” Lincoln answered. Everybody was a comedian. He half expected Mike to chime in at some point.

Leaping out of gravity was always bizarre. There was no significant pop or snap; the tug was just there, and then it wasn’t. It didn’t even take a particularly forceful jump to break free. Lincoln swallowed the vertigo and kicked off, and then he too was rocketing headlong towards the freighter. Once again, the perspective shifted. There was no force dragging him downward towards the Ava Leyla; now he was crossing horizontally, flying between two vertical islands, with an infinite well below. He didn’t look down.

Freespacing was almost exactly the opposite of swimming. It required patience, tight body control, and minimal movement of the limbs. The suit’s gyros helped stabilize, firing jets in microbursts to counter tumble. Even so, the tolerances were strict to avoid accidentally overriding Lincoln’s intentional small adjustments, so balance and relaxed stillness were the keys to success.

Twenty meters. Fifteen.

Thumper had already touched down, and she was moving in a crouch towards their designated entry point.

Ten meters.

Lincoln’s training took over. He tucked and tipped himself backwards, started the slow roll that would enable him to decelerate and touch down with a light step as the cargo ship’s grav field drew him gently on deck.

At least, that’s how they made it sound like it would work during all the training.

In reality, Lincoln came in a little faster than he’d intended and hadn’t quite completed the smooth backwards roll when gravity kicked back in. He landed on his tiptoes, leaning too far forward. One hasty step, then another, and then he decided just to bail on the smooth landing. He tucked forward, executed a combat roll over his right shoulder, came up in a crouch, shouldered his short rifle, and tried his best to look like he had totally intended to do that. He quickly checked left and right for any sign of detection. No threats.

Thumper was ahead of him, already doing work to prepare the entry point. She hadn’t noticed his landing. Lincoln glanced back and saw Sahil dropping down a few steps away, landing as light and easy as a cat hopping off a window ledge. The little man hunched his shoulders and lowered his head as soon as he touched down, immediately brought his weapon up and scanned the surroundings. After a moment, he made his way over to Lincoln. He didn’t stop where Lincoln was crouched, just passed by and swatted Lincoln’s shoulder with the back of his hand.

“Nice save,” Sahil said with a chuckle.

“I’m a true professional,” Lincoln answered. He stood and followed Sahil up to Thumper’s position, reporting in as he went. “Anvil, Hammer has touched down. We’re prepping for entry.”

“Copy that,” Wright answered. “We’re in position and holding.”

Sahil and Lincoln flanked Thumper, one off each of her shoulders, crouching to keep a low profile while they provided security. It was of course highly unlikely that there would be anything on the exterior of the ship that would cause them any trouble. But even a one-in-a-million chance was a chance, and there was no room for slack on an op.

“Thumper, how’s it looking?” Lincoln asked.

She’d fitted a device to the hull of the Ava Leyla, and was busy working some holographic display only she could see. Their point of entry was a hatch to a service tunnel; Thumper was running scans to make sure it was clear.

“Weird,” she said. “Security’s a little more robust than I would’ve expected.”

“Care to elaborate?” Lincoln prompted after a moment.

“Gimme a sec.” Her voice had the faraway quality it took whenever her brain was busy elsewhere. Problem solving. After that, she worked in silence for a couple of minutes.

“Hammer, you all right?” Wright asked, checking in after the longer-than-expected delay.

“Yeah, stand by,” Lincoln replied. “Thumper’s spooked.”

“I’m not spooked,” Thumper said with a hint of offense. “Just being careful.”

“What are you seeing?” he asked, taking the opportunity to rephrase the question.

“It’s just weird,” she answered. “Picking up more sensor lines than I’d expect, even accounting for people who are maybe up to no good.”

“So they’re paranoid?”

“Kinda. But in the wrong direction.”

“Spell it out, Thump,” he said after another silence.

“Yeah, sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s all wired up, lots of passageways and doors covered. But looks more like keeping people in than out.”

Lincoln didn’t quite know what to make of that assessment, but he knew he didn’t like it.

“Can you get Poke in there?” he asked.

“Sure thing,” Thumper replied. She reached up and plucked a long, matte-black rectangle off her back, laid it down on the hull in front of her. After a moment of fiddling, the rectangle reformed itself into something longer and thinner, and sort of sat up next to her. She patted it on the topmost part. “All right Pokey, let’s see what you can see.”

Thumper took another device off of her hip, this one flat and round, and placed that too on the hull. It made a gentle whirring sound. When it stopped, Poke slid forward and into the center of the device, and then disappeared inside it. The device was like a miniaturized version of the Lamprey’s breaching mechanism, a tiny drill and airlock all in one. Poke was the only one thin enough to use it, and that was because it could scale itself down to the diameter of a single component, which was roughly the size of Lincoln’s little finger.

“We looking for anything in particular?” Thumper asked.

“Bad news,” Lincoln said.

“Should be easy enough to find.”

Thumper went to work, establishing search parameters for Poke, adjusting them based on what she found. She wasn’t sharing the feed out to the team, though, so Lincoln had no way of knowing what she was finding.

“Anvil, we’ve got Poke doing some snooping,” Lincoln said over team comms. “Just hold tight until we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Roger,” Wright said, cool and professional.

After about twenty minutes of scouting, Thumper finally grunted.

“You got something?” Lincoln asked.

“I have a number in my head,” Thumper said. “Crew complement for a Type-43 is what?”

“Eight to twelve,” Lincoln said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You want to tell me why I’m picking up a whole lot more signatures than that?”

“How many more?”

“I’d say at least twenty.”

“We’re looking at thirty personnel?” Lincoln asked.

“If I haven’t missed anybody, yeah, somewhere around there.”

“Share it out,” he said.

A moment later, Lincoln’s suit received the data feed. He pulled up a three-dimensional wireframe schematic of the Ava Leyla on his internal display. Blue lines marked the internal structure of the ship, with the general locations of the personnel displayed as white heat throughout. The locational information wasn’t precise. Thumper was keeping Poke in between the inner and outer hulls of the cargo ship, so it wasn’t getting visual confirmation and couldn’t update them all in real-time. Instead of individual indicators for each member of the crew, Poke was providing a snapshot of concentration. If people were far enough apart and on their own, they showed as fuzzy grey dots. The more crew members there were in one area, the larger the cloud, and the brighter it was. The vessel’s bridge had a light grey, smoky splotch that Lincoln judged to indicate four or five. There were a few other dots here and there. But it was the lowest deck that was cause for concern. The cargo holds had a bright white smear; too many people, too close together to get a clear estimate.

Poke’s sensor suite was sophisticated enough to avoid double-counting. A quick scan roughly confirmed Thumper’s numbers.

Passengers? Hostages? Or were they armed hostiles?

Typically Lincoln liked to outnumber the bad guys by at least two-to-one. With a team as small as the Outriders, he’d had to get used to the idea of even numbers, or even being slightly outnumbered on occasion. Their suits usually tipped the balance in their favor anyway. But it didn’t matter how well-trained and -equipped his team was; six-to-one against was bad odds for anybody. Bad enough to consider impossible.

“What you wanna do, boss?” Sahil asked.

Scrub the mission. That was the right answer. The obvious one.

But this was their shot. Probably the only one they’d get. Aborting now would be the same as having refused the mission from the outset.

Worse. All those people back home were counting on them to get this done, to find a thread to pull on. The army and navy had both provided resources and support that could have gone elsewhere if Lincoln had turned it all down from the start.

But six-to-one against were really bad odds.

Unless the six never saw the one.

“Thumper, can you get what we need without taking the bridge?” Lincoln asked.

She turned back and looked at him over her shoulder, but didn’t reply right away. Thinking it through.

“I don’t think I can say for sure, sir,” she finally replied with a shake of her head. “Have to get a closer look at what we’re actually dealing with.”

“But it is possible.”

Possible, yes sir. Easy, definitely not.”

“All right,” Lincoln said, then opened team comms. “Anvil, we’re making an adjustment. Infiltration and reconnaissance only. I want zero contact with ship personnel until we figure out what’s going on.”

“Understood,” Wright said. “You want us to hold outside?”

“Negative, I still want the coverage. And if we screw this up, I want to be able to rally fast,” he answered. It was the dichotomy of special operations; always stick to the plan, but be ready to adapt on the fly. But always stick to the plan… but adapt as necessary.

But the plan was always about the mission first. And the mission was information. If there was still a way to get it, then that’s what they’d do.

“OK, Anvil, continue with your planned entry. See if you can get a better idea of what we’re looking at below decks. But try to keep yourself in a blocking position. If we tip anybody off coming through, you’re going to make sure nobody makes it topside.”

“Roger,” she answered. “Call it when you’re ready for entry.”

“Stand by.” Lincoln switched channels back to his element. “Thumper, how we looking? Can we get in without making too much noise?”

She nodded. “Yeah we should be good. I’ve got a bypass on the hatch sensor. Just have to be careful of our route once we’re inside. We’ll either need to take it real slow, or real, real fast.”

“We’ll start slow. Let’s move.”

“Roger that.”

“Anvil,” Lincoln said over the team-wide channel, “we’re going in.”

“Hammer making entry, copy,” Wright responded.

Sahil swiveled smoothly around and aimed his weapon at the hatch, prepared to be the first one in, or to be the first to fire in case things went wrong. Lincoln signaled to Thumper. She nodded, worked her magic, and the service hatch retracted. As soon as he had room enough, Sahil tipped forward and swept the interior with his weapon.

“Clear,” he said a few moments later. He held position, providing cover while Thumper descended into the pitch black chamber.

“Set,” she reported, once she was down.

Lincoln followed after her. There was no ambient light for his visor to amplify, but the sensor suite provided a composite view of everything else it could detect, displayed in ghostly blues. He reached the bottom of the ladder; Thumper was down in a crouch, covering the internal hatch that led to the service tunnel.

Lincoln moved to the opposite side of the ladder and likewise raised his weapon to cover the hatch.

“Set,” he said.

Sahil moved down to join them, and sealed the external hatch. It took a few moments for the lock to repressurize. Once the cycle had completed, Thumper moved up to the internal hatch controls, and accessed them through some non-physical means. She turned and gave a thumbs-up signal.

“Anvil,” Lincoln said. “Hammer’s moving into the service tunnel. You’re clear to make entry.”

“Copy that,” Wright said. “Anvil making entry.”

“Thumper,” he said. “Pop it.”

As soon as he’d said it, the internal hatch slid open, revealing a tight tube of a tunnel. He’d seen it before, during their training.

Six against one. Bad odds.

Lincoln moved forward and took point, first one in.