The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [61]
‘The ambassador knew,’ said the other marine, a woman called Chuang. ‘Ambassador Horst.’
What?
An older man in full armour and helmet leaned into view, visor up. He was black and grizzled and had fierce eyes.
‘How much longer? Exfiltration is inbound and we still need to get Mr Bauer into his propod.’
‘Almost finished, Sergeant,’ said Harriman. ‘We can start with the propod while we uncouple the last nodes.’
‘Get it done. When you exit, keep heads down – the locals aren’t too happy about us dropping in like this.’
As the sergeant withdrew Robert suddenly heard the zip and crack of a firefight going on nearby.
‘How did you manage to get on board?’ Robert said, remembering the defences he saw when the Shyntanil first brought him here. This was a cryptship, a heavily armoured interceptor carrier that could double as a fortified base.
‘Pretty much the same as the exfiltration pylon,’ said Harriman. ‘Smashed through the hull, secured beachhead, locate and secure target.’ He gestured for Robert to stand up, which he did, finding his legs slightly shaky. The marine was silent for a moment or two and Robert felt some more plucking sensations on his back. Several splay-ended fibre clusters were tossed onto the floor of the stall. ‘All done.’
‘And here’s your propod,’ said the woman, Chuang, holding up a saggy, wrinkled bundle of some grey material. Finally able to step out of the tank, he saw he was in a low-roofed room with another two slope-faced virtuality tanks like his. The dominant colour was a grubby brown. The tanks were battered orange hulks adorned with odd, large symbols and blocks of smaller glyphlike text, while the wall opposite was one big array of niches full of fibres, tangled cables and mysterious components. And over in the corner sat the Shyntanil torturer, arms hanging limp, upper torso sagging forwards, and half his face reduced to dark ruin by somebody’s energy weapon. Robert felt nothing as the marines dressed him in the odd propod garment then led him out of the tank room.
‘Heads down!’
Robert found himself crouching amongst a dozen or more armed and armoured marines, all taking cover behind a barricade of Shyntanil furniture and stacks of long, narrow metal cases. Shots and flashes of beamfire came from further along a windowed gallery, where bulky Shyntanil fighters held the next intersection. The windows were triangular, tall and narrow, all bearing a patina of grime that was darkest at the corners. Outside he could see immense tapering spines jutting from beneath, their tips radiating a weird greenish radiance, with others visible further along.
Chuang pointed. ‘There she is, Sarge!’
And off in the distance was what looked like the head-on outline of a ship’s prow rushing in on a flightpath aimed straight at them. Then suddenly he remembered what the marine Harriman had said about an exfiltration pylon crashing into the hull …
‘So what’s this pylon?’ he said to Chuang.
She shrugged. ‘Basically a big reinforced tube with a solid steel wedge at the tip.’
‘Punches into the hull, I’ve been told.’
‘That’s the idea, Mr Bauer.’
‘And then … decompression? Things flying around?’
‘Well, the pressure drop trips your propod, it pops into armour mode and by then we’re all heading for the pylon.’ Chuang laughed. ‘Didn’t get much chance for a test drill but we’ll hack it … ’
‘Here we go,’ said the sergeant. ‘Shackle down – Harriman and Chuang, make sure Mr Bauer is anchored. The Shyntanil aren’t pulling back so we can expect resistance.’
Marines unspooled mini-grapples from belt slots and slammed them into the deck plating. Robert’s minders lashed his arms and chest with straps and webbing but his attention was suddenly and wholly grabbed by the Earthsphere ship that was hurtling towards them. The actual prow was a blunt mass of compacted, half-melted metal substructure, clearly the result of some devastating attack, perhaps an explosion or some unimaginable shearing energy weapon. Embedded in and protruding from that ruin was a squat armoured cylinder and onto that had been fixed the pylon.