Incursion Page 8

“Twenty-nine per cent, I don’t think we’re going to make this,” came Conway’s urgent warning.

  “Get yourself out of here, Conway, there’s no point all of us getting stuck. Go! Go!” said Ten.

  “Twenty-five per cent and the portal closure is accelerating, Ten,” she said, pushing her SEV towards the portal. “Good luck, boys, see you on the other side.”

  Ten leaned across from his SEV, reaching out as far as he could to get hold of Hunter as Conway’s SEV disappeared through the portal.

  And just like that, the two men were alone.

  10

  Conway ran through in her head the steps that Ten and Hunter would need to take to get out of there. There was no way they’d make it, surely?

  As she emerged from the portal, her radio crackled back into life. Kearney and Mason were waiting, ready to step in and assist if necessary.

  “Status report, Conway?” came a voice from the bridge of Vengeance.

  “The portal’s closing, fast. Hunter’s SEV is down, Ten’s pulling him out, but there’s probably no more than half a minute until they’re stuck in there,” Conway replied, a resigned tone in her voice.

  “Acknowledged,” came the response from Vengeance.

  Conway watched anxiously as the collapse of the portal accelerated. The entire team were willing Ten and Hunter to get out of there. Even if they could survive on the other side of the portal until it next opened up, their SEV power wouldn’t last them that long. Nor their oxygen supplies, come to that.

  “Anything to report, Conway-Davies-Mason-Kearney? Anybody?” came the ever-present voice from the bridge of Vengeance.

  “Nothing yet, keeping my fingers crossed,” said Conway. “I don’t think Ten’s big on punctuality!”

  The swirling mass of colour was now collapsing on itself. By Conway’s calculations, there would be a critical point at which the portal was still open, but the SEV wouldn’t be able to make it through.

  “Davies,” said Conway, “you’re the mathematician. What do you think, how much more time have they got?”

  Davies, now safely back on Vengeance, could be heard slightly off the speaker on the deck, where he’d joined Vernon and Stansfield to monitor the ongoing operation.

  “Tricky,” he said. “We have so little data about the portal, and the information we do have is inconsistent. This thing doesn’t seem to follow any predictable patterns, so it’s anybody’s guess how long until it’s completely closed. And even then, I don’t really know what happens if it closes on them.”

  Kearney took a close look at the contracting fissure. “How big a ship might pass through that thing?” she muttered to herself. Even this close, it was difficult to estimate size and scale.

  It didn’t matter anyway, because at that very moment, just as she’d convinced herself that there wasn’t enough space to squeeze a cargo box through, let alone an SEV, Ten’s voice came crackling on the radio as he emerged from the portal.

  “Sorry to keep you,” he said as his SEV emerged from the collapsing portal. “Hunter got a little tied up back there, and we reckoned we’d got a few extra seconds to bring back a souvenir.”

  Ten emerged directly from the core of the fissure, the glass casing of his SEV blown off by the momentum of his vehicle, with only his power armour and helmet providing protection from the lack of oxygen in the expanse beyond. Fastened to the headrest of his SEV was a bright red external inspection rope, and moments later came Hunter, still clipped to the rope and hanging on to some foreign object for dear life.

  “There were no seats left,” said Hunter. “I had to travel third class.”

  Mason chuckled as they watched the ridiculous sight of an SEV towing a Marine on a high-tensile wire rope at a speed that would have paralysed most people with fear. Instead, Hunter looked like he’d just taken a ride on a Big Dipper at the fairground. But more interesting than that was the thing he was clutching.

  “We have a partial visual on whatever that is that Hunter is holding,” came Vernon’s voice. “Can you confirm the nature of the item?”

  “Well, let’s put it this way,” said Hunter. “If it’s a bomb, we’re celebrating our escape from the portal a little too soon. Please parcel up the bits of my body and send them to my family to help them remember me by. If it’s not a bomb, I think we just grabbed ourselves a bit of alien technology. Only if you asked me to guess, bearing in mind I’m being towed by a spaceship, using my finely-tuned observation skills, I’d say this is human technology.”

  “What makes you say that, Hunter?” Stansfield asked, taking a conciliatory tone with the Penal Marine for the first time.

  “Well, I’m no space scientist,” he began, “but there’s a little lid at the side of this thing that reads Open Here. Unless that’s some alien language and I’m mispronouncing it, I’d say that’s human!”

  Ten slowed the SEV, making sure that Hunter didn’t come crashing directly into his rear thrusters. The cable, built to withstand extreme stresses in space, was glowing red at his end, and he was pleased that he hadn’t shared his doubts that it might actually melt in the burners before it brought Hunter to safety. Not that it seemed to bother Hunter, who shared Ten’s sense of adventure. Ten was almost jealous that he hadn’t been the one hanging on to the rope and getting a tow through space.

  “I’d appreciate a lift from somebody. Conway? Kearney? Mason?” Hunter pleaded. “It’s all right, you just hovering there in space enjoying the spectacle, but some of us could do with a ride back to Vengeance!”

  “Moving in, Hunter,” said Mason. “That was some stunt out there. Nice work, troopers. It’s a long time since I’ve enjoyed watching a couple of pros at work like that.”

  “Agreed, good work, Hunter. Reckless, dangerous and aggressive, but keep that up and I might feel inclined to take my finger off the trigger for that thing in your skull,” Stansfield added.

  “Stop, sir, you’ve brought a tear to my eye, I’m all choked up now,” said Hunter, making his best effort to sound a bit emotional. For the first time since Hunter had arrived on Vengeance, Stansfield cut him a moment of slack.

  They’d made progress. Stansfield had been able to move things on without having to sustain the massive loss of a battleship this time around. The Admiralty had been too gung-ho in entering the portal. Stansfield had warned them but, impatient to bring this matter to a close and focus on the battle with the Deathless, they’d been careless and assumed they could send in their latest technology and have everything wrapped up by sundown.

  “Get yourselves back to Vengeance, Charlie Team,” said Stansfield. “Let’s let the techs take a look at that thing.”

  Twenty minutes later, the team were back in Vengeance’s main bay. Fernandez was there to greet them, wearing what they were coming to recognise as his customary pissed-off look.

  “I sent you out with seven SEVs, and you’ve destroyed three and damaged one. At this rate, we’ll run out. I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful,” he said coldly, “but I really would appreciate it if you’d look after our property.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” said Ten. “I failed my driving test and never quite got the hang of using my mirrors. You can patch them up, can’t you, sir? You have spares?”

  The rest of the crew looked at him. “Driving test? How fucking old are you?” murmured Kearney.

  “I honestly can't remember, Kearney. You could ask your mother, I suppose,” Ten replied.

  “Yes, Marine X,” said Fernandez with a glare, “we should be able to patch them, but I’d still appreciate it if you took a little bit more care. Now, where’s that thing you brought in? We’d best give it a scan before moving it into the heart of the ship, just in case it is a bomb or something like that.”

  “A bomb?” asked Conway incredulously. “Why would anyone booby-trap a portal?”

  “It pays to be cautious,” said Fernandez as two technicians removed the device from Ten’s SEV.

  “Yes, well,” said Fernand
ez when the device was set on a table, “this is clearly some sort of sensor, and that,” he said, pointing at a part of the device, “is a comms device, so I think this has the capacity to relay data back to a ship, device or location. It looks benign, but we’ll take a closer look in case it helps give us a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

  “I’d like DD to take a look, sir,” said Conway. “He’s pretty good at this kind of thing.”

  Fernandez frowned, then gave a curt nod.

  Davies arrived from the bridge a few minutes later with Woodhall in tow. The lieutenant had tried to regain a little of his dignity by antagonising those around him and detracting from his incompetent work piloting the SEV, but no-one was buying it.

  “I shall be reporting to the Admiralty,” said Woodhall. “I know exactly what you did when you ignored my instructions not to go into the portal, and the sooner you understand that this is an Admiralty-led mission, the better. Vengeance does not have command.”

  “Your diligence does you credit,” muttered Fernandez. Then he turned away to supervise the small team of technicians who were going to strip down the device. The team worked swiftly, removing the metal casing from the contraption and getting into the electronics so they could assess its purpose.

  “These things were all over the other side of the portal,” said Hunter. “I just grabbed one.”

  “I think I saw one on this side as well,” said Woodhall. “I did,” he protested when the others gave him sceptical looks.

  “I have a theory,” said Davies quietly. “They’re monitoring the mouth of the portal. They alerted whoever created the technology to the fact that Colossus was passing into their territory, and that triggered either a defensive system within the portal itself or offensive weaponry on the other side.”

  “That makes sense,” Fernandez said with a grudging respect.

  “So how did the SEVs get through them?” Conway asked.

  “That’s just it, that’s what tipped me off. Vengeance and the SEVs are old kit; the Navy changed its propulsion system years after Vengeance was built. The SEVs, Vengeance and some of the older craft on this ship give out a different signature. I think these gizmos detect old-style ship signatures and destroy anything that doesn’t match their records when it attempts to cross over the portal. If I’m right, the SEVs got through because they have an old, obsolete signature, so these devices just didn’t notice them. In effect, Ten was invisible when he went shooting through the mouth of the fissure.”

  “So, if I’m following your train of thought,” said Fernandez, eyes flashing as his brain worked overtime, “we could actually go through that thing with Vengeance next time the portal opens?”

  “Precisely, sir,” said Davies, “that’s exactly what I’m talking about. If we can prove that theory correct, we should be able to send Vengeance right through the heart of that thing and send whoever’s sniffing around our territory back home with their tail between their legs.”

  The members of Charlie Team exchanged glances, smiling, excited at the prospect of taking a battleship – even if it was Vengeance – into uncharted enemy territory. Not only did it give them the necessary firepower to greet any foe, it meant they didn’t just have to sit and wait for whatever was heading for the portal. There was a spark of excitement in the air until Woodhall interrupted and threw a bucket of cold water on the lot of them.

  “After what happened to Colossus, we will be sending Vengeance through that portal over my dead body!”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” Fernandez mumbled as the spark of energy on the bridge was extinguished by the rude intrusion of the Admiralty and the tedious necessity of sticking to the rule book.

  11

  Within the hour, Fernandez and his team had learned three things. Firstly, the design of the device was rooted entirely in Earthly origins. The similarities were clear, but multiple generations of development had taken this device down a different technological path. It was as if somebody had taken sensors from the Vengeance itself and then developed them in a completely different way – the same starting point, but a different endpoint.

  Secondly, it was definitely a scanning and sensory device. There was no question that it was in any way an offensive weapon, nor could these mechanisms have been the means by which Colossus was repelled and destroyed.

  “Part of a sensor array,” said Fernandez. “It has a database of Vengeance-era Royal Navy engine signatures. They’re watching for us. Sentinels.”

  So it seemed Davies was right. The reason the SEVs had got through the portal safely was that they were ancient pieces of junk, and whoever had created the sensors had no expectation that Sol would be sending museum pieces into their universe. There seemed to be other data sets in the code, but they were heavily encrypted.

  It wasn't until Davies and Fernandez were discussing the Sentinels near Ten that they had their answer.

  “It's obvious, isn't it? Dormant code. We found the same thing in the Deathless gear. They have their own language, right? But once you know enough of it, you can go into a settings menu on their power armour or ships, and literally flip the switch to set it to English, or Russian, or French. They never bothered removing all that stuff. Storage isn't an issue for them, and when they left Sol, they had scientists and engineers from all over the world. So they just left it in.”

  Fernandez and Davies stared at him in amazement.

  “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Just surprised, is all,” said Davies with a shrug. “I wouldn't have taken you for a tech specialist.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot,” sighed Ten. “I haven't managed to shut out Gooders when she's yammering away about her latest discoveries. Then there's this group of surveillance pilots in New Bristol who insist on coming to me with their stories. You wouldn’t believe the way they drone on and on about, well, drones. Nice kids. Bloodthirsty, but nice in their own way.” He trailed off, frowning down at his data slate.

  Davies opened his mouth to ask more, but Fernandez gave a subtle shake of his head and mouthed, “Let him be.”

  And now, with the final clues from Ten, Fernandez was able to make some headway with the software and run some tests on the older, unencrypted Royal Navy scan data. He quickly demonstrated that the sentinel detected signatures, ran them against its database, encrypted or otherwise, and sent reports to some central service, the nature of which was still unknown.

  They gathered the rest of the team for an update on their findings.

  “They’re basically fully-automated electronic snitches. They watch the portal, categorise every ship they see, and relay the details to a hidden master service,” said Fernandez. “So the big questions are, who or what is receiving this information, and how did they manage to repel a ship the size of Colossus with such apparent ease?”

  “I think that if we could answer those questions, we’d quickly get a sense of what we’re up against,” said Conway. “Is Admiral Stansfield completely signed up to the fact that this is a hostile force? Other than the fact that they destroyed Colossus, of course? I mean, that might have been a defensive manoeuvre, we did send a kick-arse war machine right through their front door, after all. I think I might be a bit pissed off if somebody did that to me.”

  Fernandez opened his mouth to reply, but the ever-present Woodhall spoke over him.

  “This is good work,” he said. “I will send a glowing report back to the Admiralty. Send your data and a summary of your conclusions to my console so that I can pass it over for immediate analysis and recommendation. Needless to say, we won’t be taking any action until we hear from Earth.”

  Woodhall marched off self-importantly, and the atmosphere relaxed the minute he stepped out of the hangar, allowing the team to speak freely once again.

  “Stansfield seems convinced that this presents a huge risk to Earth, though I’ve seen nothing to support that so far,” said Fernandez, breaking the silence. “However, I’m new here, n
ot original Vengeance crew. A bit like Woodhall, I’m a modern-day Admiralty crony. Only I’m not averse to a bit of creative rule interpretation from time to time to get the job done. I can’t say I subscribe to Woodhall’s reading of the guidelines.”

  “Stansfield is a tough geezer,” said Hunter. “And much as I resent his attitude, men like him are warhorses, they know the heat of battle, the fear of defeat and the terror of losing good men. I gotta tell you, if he tells me that he’s shitting bricks about what’s coming through that portal, I’ll happily shit a few with him. Besides, I’ve heard him and Vernon talking, and those two know more than they’re letting on. In fact, this whole crew feel like they’re manning a ghost ship.”

  He paused to check that they weren’t being overheard, then lowered his voice.

  “I’ve been on Vengeance for three weeks now, and if you asked me to wager on it, I’d say these guys know exactly what we’re dealing with. Only they’re not letting on.”

  “So how about a test to move things on?” Davies asked. “Let’s not get bogged down with red tape, we can leave Woodhall and Stansfield to squabble about that. I say we send in two shuttle ships, one of those beat-up old things over there, and, if you’ve got one, a modern Sol cruiser.”

  “Risky,” said Fernandez, “but it would test the hypothesis, and I think I agree. If any good came from Colossus being this far out in space, it was that they delivered some decent bits of kit and spare parts to Kingdom 10. And some of that stuff is now on board, so we’re not restricted to the limited technology that came with Vengeance, and we have some decent weaponry available. All of it’s ready to go right now, but at least we’re not stuck with stripping old vehicles for parts.”

  “We should send in the newer ship first,” Davies advised. “But let’s strip it first so that we salvage as much kit as possible. What do you think Stansfield will say? Is he going to be happy to sacrifice a shiny new space vehicle in the name of science?”