Incursion Page 5

  “Thank fuck for that,” muttered Kearney, closing her eyes and blowing out a long breath.

  “What was the battleship?” asked Mason. “And what was it even doing this far out in space with the war on? Doesn’t Sol have other fires to fight?”

  Fernandez ignored him. “Wait here. Briefing in thirty minutes.” And then he left them alone.

  “I thought things were going to be boring around here,” said Ten once they were alone, “but I think I can safely say you’ve piqued my interest.”

  “Good job on the flight plan, Conway,” Kearney said. “And on getting the ship restarted, DD. How did you know to adjust the trajectory?”

  “Do you really want to know the science?” DD asked. “I warn you, you won’t like it.”

  Mason, Kearney, Conway and Ten looked at him; then Conway shrugged. “We’ll pass, we learnt our lesson from that cloaking trick you pulled before they stationed us out here.”

  “Cloaking?” Ten asked, intrigued. He’d heard rumours of the research, but it had never gone anywhere.

  “Seriously, don’t ask,” laughed Kearney. “Just think of it like this. DD plus science and shit equals amazing. He’s got the Midas touch, seriously, this man can turn turds into gold. Though no, it wasn’t real cloaking, he cheated. But it was still cool.”

  “Just don’t rely on him in a firefight,” Mason added, walking away to inspect the coffee machine.

  “Hey, we’re not killing machines like you, Mason,” Davies protested. “Some of us prefer to use our brains as well as our brawn. Besides, it hurts less, and there’s no blood. That’s how I prefer it.”

  Kearney’s data slate pinged, and she opened a call from Kingdom 10.

  “This is Captain Nikolas Orwell, commander of Kingdom 10,” said the caller. “The station is safe thanks to you, but you’re about to enter a shit storm, ladies and gentlemen. The crew of Kingdom 10 are immensely grateful for your service here.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Kearney. “That means a lot. Can you tell us where the debris came from?”

  Orwell hesitated. “This information is highly classified, and I probably shouldn’t tell you, but it was the battleship Colossus. She delivered supplies and equipment, then went to investigate the portal.”

  “Colossus? That’s fresh from the shipyards, isn’t it?” Ten tried to keep up with this stuff as best he could, in between befriending space monkeys and shooting at enemy clones that looked like lizardmen from a fantasy game.

  “As new as they come,” replied Orwell. “Her loss is a huge blow, that’s for sure. Colossus was needed badly for the war against the Deathless. I have to go. Thanks again. Orwell out.”

  Mason passed around coffee from the machine, and they all sat down to await the return of Lieutenant Fernandez.

  “Did you ever have a telescope as a kid?” Kearney asked Conway.

  “Of course. I used to look up at the stars and hope I’d get to travel to them for myself one day.”

  “Me too. Sometimes I have to stop myself to appreciate the wonder of it all. In between shooting dickheads and avoiding exploding space debris, that is.”

  For Ten, the whole trip was a bore. The novelty of space travel had worn off already. He preferred deployment by clone. It was a lot faster, and you didn’t have to wait around for any action. So why hadn’t they just deployed his clone to whatever this ship was? Why all the diversions?

  He sensed there was something big coming their way, so it seemed a great opportunity to get some shut-eye. One thing was for sure, HQ wasn’t in the habit of arranging excursions or pleasure trips for new arrivals. If he knew his superiors, Charlie Team would barely get a chance to draw breath before they were back in the heat of action again.

  “Wake me if anything happens,” said Ten. He padded over to the edge of the mess, slid onto a long couch, and took his sleep where he could find it. He must have needed it too, because one hour and one full bladder later, he was awoken by some excitement.

  “Look at this, Ten,” said Mason, pointing at a large vid-screen in the mess, “it’s Vengeance. It’s only bloody Vengeance! No wonder they wouldn’t tell us where we were heading, I can’t believe it’s still out here!”

  Kearney was out of her mind with excitement. Vengeance was part of Royal Naval folklore, her exploits and successes well known by any Sol cadet worthy of their place in the military. The vid-screen showed a potted history of the ship and an image of her floating in space.

  “Hacked my way onto their network,” said Davies when Ten asked where the information had come from. “This is just the public stuff.”

  Vengeance sat like a mirage in space, a remnant of earlier explorations of the universe. She was seven thousand light-years away from Earth; that was still some feat at the time she’d been built. To her side was the spectacular sight of the Eagle Nebula, beautiful clouds of gas collapsing inward and dancing deep in space for millions of years.

  “She’s an Astute19 battleship,” said Davies, “one of the originals. What a sight! What the hell is she doing this far out in space? How is she even still operational?”

  “Looks like she’s seen better days,” said Ten. “They might have given her a lick of paint. I know the Navy likes to hang onto their ships, but Vengeance looks more like a museum piece.”

  “Don’t underestimate her,” Kearney answered almost defensively. “That ship has seen some shit, and somehow they always figured a way out of it. If this is the original vessel, we’re in for a treat.”

  “Didn’t somebody mention Stansfield earlier on?” said Mason. “It couldn’t be the Stansfield, could it? Is that even possible, did they have cloning in his time?”

  “I’m pretty certain they didn’t,” said Kearney. “It must be some descendant or something like that. Naval families like that tend to keep it in the family. I’ll bet it’s some great-great-great-great-great nephew or something like that, riding on Admiral Stansfield’s coattails. Lucky bugger, imagine having a pedigree like that in your family.”

  “Yeah, imagine,” Ten muttered.

  Then the door slid open, and Fernandez marched back in.

  6

  “For anyone who has already forgotten, I'm Lieutenant Fernandez, Engineering Officer,” said Fernandez unnecessarily. “Welcome to almost certain death. We also call it Vengeance.”

  Mason began to speak, but Fernandez shut him down immediately.

  “Everything you see or experience from the moment you arrived on this ship to the moment you see it disappear – if we live that long – is highly classified. The admiral will explain that to you himself at the briefing. Admiral Stansfield doesn’t like smart arses,” Fernandez warned them. “So park any attitude, and you’ll find him easy to get on with. As easy as your average ogre, that is.”

  He paused as the doors to the mess opened again, and a small group of officers came in.

  “This is Commander Vernon, second in command to Admiral Stansfield, and Executive Officer of Vengeance. Believe me, you’re honoured.”

  Vernon’s face looked like it had previously belonged to three careless owners. What hair he had was completely grey and cut short. The uniform he wore – in fact, all the uniforms on this ship – were British standard from a previous generation, with washed-out fabric and his dulled medals.

  “Commander Edward Vernon, he’s a legend too,” Davies whispered to Ten. “But how is this guy even here? He must be hundreds of years old! Possibly even older than you.”

  “He looks it, too,” Ten replied. “I hope they’ve got some paint left over, because he could do with a couple of coats.”

  Kearney stifled a laugh and straightened up as the commander approached.

  “Welcome aboard Vengeance, Charlie Team, your sixth team member is here already.”

  Davies looked at Ten, who shrugged. They’d almost forgotten the extra member. After the shoot-out in space and the near-death experience on Solux IX, they were beginning to feel like a proper team. A new addition might throw
things off, particularly if they were straight into action.

  “Admiral Stansfield has requested that I escort you to the briefing room. He’s waiting for you there. Keep your questions to yourselves until the briefing.”

  With no further ceremony, Vernon led them out of the mess and into the ship’s corridors.

  The more they saw, the clearer it was that this ship was as old and battered as it had looked from the outside. There was a faint but persistent rumble, presumably from the engine rooms or the heating system, and an all-pervading smell of age and oil. Everything was consistent with Royal Navy history and tradition, but Vengeance seemed out of place, a relic from another time. It was like nothing they’d experienced in their lives in the Commonwealth and allied fleets.

  Vernon and his small entourage said nothing as they made their way along the oppressive corridors of the battleship. Ten took it all in, watching, learning, absorbing.

  The rest of the team were also hyper-vigilant. They continuously scanned their surroundings, familiarising themselves with the layout, the signage, probable points of entry during a boarding action, and so on.

  That was a good indicator for their level of professionalism. The SBS – Special Boat Service – were elite specialists, and the selection process hadn’t really changed since World War II.

  Most troopers were recruited from the Royal Marines, so they were already trained to a standard well above the rank and file of the British Army. Even though the applicants were serving Special Forces personnel or Marines, the selection process was so tough that it weeded out more than half the applicants in each intake.

  The SBS required the highest standards of physical fitness and mental toughness, particularly in terms of endurance, intelligence, cunning and combat proficiency. Most applicants had a specialism like sniping or demolitions, and anyone who didn’t would undoubtedly pick one up after their training completed.

  Just knowing these were experienced members of the SBS meant Ten could trust them to be qualified. That didn't mean he wasn't reassured by seeing their skills in action, but it boded well for the mission.

  But none had served as long as him, of that he was certain. He was the old hand, the most experienced member of the team even though he was the newbie.

  At last, four levels up, they arrived at the briefing room. Vernon entered first and indicated that they should remain standing, even though there was a perfectly adequate number of seats. Ten missed Vernon’s cue and pulled out one of the chairs.

  “Stand, Marine!” Stansfield barked, without looking up from his data slate.

  Never one to give the stripes the complete upper hand, Ten opted for a relaxed lean instead. It was upright enough not to make Stansfield interrupt proceedings again, but casual enough to draw a smirk from his colleagues in Charlie Team. He didn’t want the others to think he gave too much of a shit now, did he?

  Admiral Thomas Stansfield was grey-faced and worn. He looked like a man who’d been asleep for hundreds of years and was no less pissed off than if his alarm clock had just gone off to wake him up for this briefing only five minutes earlier. He emanated an air of impatience and bad temper. His hair, unlike Vernon’s, still had streaks of black hanging on within the untidy mess. He looked like a forgotten retiree left on duty by an inattentive commander.

  “Welcome aboard, Charlie Team,” he said finally, his voice rich and deep. “And congratulations on what you did for Kingdom 10.”

  Oh, he’s not so bad!

  The thought ran through their heads at the same time.

  “… but you’ll need ten times that level of commitment if you’re going to be any use to me here.”

  Damn, not so good.

  Stansfield looked at Vernon. “Is he ready?”

  Vernon nodded.

  “Bring him in.”

  Vernon touched a device on his lapel. “Okay, let’s have him.”

  Stansfield didn’t bother to fill the awkward silence. He sat motionless, examining their faces as if wondering what kind of shower of shit he’d been handed this time. The wait took five minutes, but it felt like an hour. Ten almost exploded. He was dying to make a wisecrack, but even with his poorly tuned sensitivities, he could see that now wasn’t the time.

  The door opened. A completely bald man entered the room, ducking as he did so. Ten tried to guess his size. The doors were smaller on Vengeance than on more modern ships, but if Conway was built like a brick shithouse, this guy was the extension on the extension. His right sleeve was torn off to reveal a cybernetic arm.

  A cyber-bloody-netic arm!

  Again, the same thing went through their heads.

  He was cuffed, muzzled and followed by two armed guards.

  “This is Marine Rick Hunter, the sixth member of your team.”

  They moved their eyes off Hunter to face Stansfield directly.

  “That thing on Hunter’s arm is a highly illegal but cybernetic enhancement. The technology was outlawed by Sol, but Hunter had it fitted regardless. The Navy will neither endorse nor acknowledge Hunter’s weaponry, but for this mission, permission has been granted at the highest levels for us to deploy him into combat. That device makes him useful to this particular mission, and it will give you access to technology that is likely to come in handy.

  “Like Marine X, Hunter is serving in the Penal program. He's formerly a Royal Marine but technically still an SBS Trooper. If he doesn’t complete this mission successfully, he’ll be a dead Trooper, and I'm not sure anyone will bother redeploying his last backup, which was some time ago. Quite frankly, if he does complete this mission successfully, I’d still quite like to eject him into space. It seems the Royal Navy has become soft during my… absence.”

  Ten had worked for some difficult bosses in his time, but the admiral was shaping up to be one of the most prickly he'd encountered in a good long while. He seemed to have had a sense of humour bypass.

  “You should know that I have very little time for convicted criminals taking active duty roles. In my experience, prison is the best place for you. However, there have been some very rare cases of your type being able to turn around their lives and do something useful. You were highly recommended by Admiral Staines, but you start from nothing with me, understood?”

  “You won’t be–”

  “Shut up!” Stansfield exploded. “A simple ‘Yes, sir’ will suffice. I don’t need to hear War and Peace, understood? That goes for Hunter too, while we're at it.”

  Ten narrowed his eyes, but he was used to overbearing officers. “Sir,” he said. Any shit from him at that point might land the others with a harder time, so he kept his mouth closed.

  It all reminded Ten of a sorry episode at school on one of the rare days he’d decided to turn up. Only that time he’d locked a teacher in a store cupboard, and he was just as much in the dog house. There was no way he was locking Stansfield in the storeroom. Besides, from his ashen face, it looked like he’d been kept in the dark long enough already.

  “Kearney, Mason, Conway and Davies, I specifically requested you for this mission, your reputation within the Navy is excellent.”

  For a moment, the four team members relaxed a little, basking in the warmth of Stansfield’s small compliment. But their relief was short-lived.

  “This mission is dangerous. Your chances of survival are slim, but success is critical and, if we fail, the Commonwealth itself is at risk.”

  The Troopers nodded grimly; the admiral wasn’t telling them anything new.

  “Permission to speak, Admiral?” Conway asked.

  “Go ahead.” He was different with Conway, respectful.

  “What are we doing here? I mean, I know it’s highly classified and all that. But what’s the mission, in a nutshell?”

  Ten detected the faint hint of a smile of Stansfield’s face. He looked down at his slate, then up at the Marines with an earnest look on his face.

  “You’re here to help me prevent the annihilation of Earth.”

  7 />
  Ten was no stranger to planetary annihilation. He’d been bang in the middle of a slight disagreement with the Deathless when he’d been temporarily extracted for this mission, but there was something about the way Stansfield said it that made him pay particular attention.

  “The enemy that we’re fighting is formidable,” the admiral continued. “I’ve received briefings about the Deathless, but they can at least be engaged off-planet and present no real threat to the citizens of Earth.”

  Ten frowned. The Deathless were a long way from Earth, but they were a dangerous, unpredictable enemy, and he was uneasy at the way Stansfield dismissed their threat.

  He looked hard at the admiral, scanning his face. The man was weary and worn out. It occurred to Ten that the Admiral might be a bit past his best, though he was a fine one to talk at his age. However he’d managed to be sitting in front of them now, whether it be as a clone or a cryo job, the admiral had the demeanour of a man who was tired out by life. The deep furrows in his brow were like the rings of a tree, each one marking a crisis or dilemma he’d been forced to confront during his military life.

  “We’ve never encountered an enemy like this one. Nor have we dealt with a force quite so intent on destroying us. Ed, start the sequence.”

  Commander Vernon swiped twice across a console, and a 3D virtual render appeared in the middle of the large table.

  “We’re on the edge of the Eagle Nebula, seven thousand light-years from Sol. In this view, you’ll see a green point marking Vengeance’s current position. To the right, you’ll see Colossus and the orbital station Kingdom 10.”

  Ten noted the time stamp. Only fifty-six hours had elapsed, so this event had happened just over a day before they’d set off for Kingdom 10.

  “What are we looking at, sir?” said Mason.

  “Just watch!” Stansfield barked impatiently.

  As the reconstruction played out, Charlie Team followed the sequence of events as a yellow pin-prick appeared out of nowhere to the side of Colossus, growing in size at an accelerating rate until it became a massive circular fissure shimmering in space.