The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [62]
Then all of a sudden there was no more time for consideration. The ship swept in closer and closer, filling all the viewports as it bore down on the Shyntanil vessel. Robert watched the pylon slide through vacuum towards the cryptship’s hull, an inexorable spear.
It struck. A massive shock passed through the cryptship’s hull. The crouching marines were knocked back or sideways. At the same time the long gallery’s windows shattered and blew out and the atmosphere shrieked as it blasted outwards. At once Robert’s baggy garment popped into a bulging shiny configuration, while the hood closed around him, its opening shrinking to nothing before sealing. For a couple of panicky seconds all he saw was the propod’s fine mesh interior while feeling himself grabbed and carried along. Then an oblong section before his face turned misty then opaque and finally transparent.
‘That’s a … relief,’ he said, hoarsely, even though all he could see was the gallery ceiling.
‘You okay, Mr Bauer?’ said Harriman, whose helmeted head came into view. His voice was coming over a tinny comm situated at about midriff level. ‘We’re about halfway there – the captain sent reinforcements inside the pylon and they’re clearing out some of those Shyntanils.’
A faint thud came from back the way they had come and the deck shuddered. A moment later Robert felt a wave of vertigo, especially in his stomach, and knew. An unseen Chuang swore.
‘Hah! – blew their own generators – they’re up to … Harriman, here they come … agggkk! … ’
Shouts mingled over the comm, with the sergeant bellowing orders, and Robert felt himself being pulled off to one side. Drifting in zero-gee, he spun slowly and saw that he was attached by a flexiline to the female marine, Chuang, who was being pushed towards the shattered windows by a plume of vapour jetting out of a hole in her faceplate. From her lack of movement Robert knew she was dead.
Then he saw the Shyntanil interceptors harrying the long blockish hull of the Earthsphere warship, sitting there, waiting. Realising there was death aplenty waiting out there, he tried to grab at the flexiline only to find that the propod didn’t have gauntlets for the hands, just smooth round stumps. He started yelling for help and was a moment from gliding neatly out of the cryptship when something unseen snagged him.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Bauer – got you … ’
It was Harriman and behind him another three marines. Under this escort he was guided along the null-gravity corridor, now a floating charnel house of Shyntanil bodies, frozen bloodspill and viscera. The pylon angled into the corridor through a mess of bent and burst plating. Robert was pushed into a hatch in the side of it, then hauled up its cramped interior to a large, dimly lit chamber. When the last marine was inside and the hatch was sealed, the sergeant said:
‘Heracles-ops, this is Retrieval Alpha – teams and objective safely aboard. Ready to up and out.’
‘Retrieval Alpha, this is Heracles-ops – acknowledged. Hold on to something – this could get rough.’
Listening, Robert had to conceal his excitement – he was aboard the Heracles, the same ship that had been on station near Darien! But what was it doing here, in the depths of hyperspace?
Everyone was tethering themselves to a stanchion or an anchor point, of which there were many around the ribbed metal walls. Before Robert could ask, Harriman pulled him round so he could see the pair of lines attaching him to the bulkhead.
There was a sudden jolt that Robert felt through the floor, then another.
‘Restraining bolts blown,’ said the sergeant over the comm. ‘Get ready for emergency manoeuvring.’
The inertia hit like a truckful of sandbags slamming him onto the chamber floor and pinning him there – for twenty or so hour-long seconds, relentlessly squeezing the air out of his lungs while his chest muscles laboured and the pressure seemed to be making his eyes bulge …
Until the weight abruptly eased off, leaving Robert