Angry Ghosts Read online

  “Open a channel to Korom.”

  A large Holoscreen opens at the front of the bridge. In it, a younger black-uniformed officer stands from his comfortable looking chair. He, too, wears the metallic decorations, though in smaller clusters.

  “Yes, Seyun-gee?” he asks with a slight bow.

  The elder captain nods in acknowledgement. “Are you receiving any interference?”

  “No, Seyun-gee. All channels are clear.”

  “Then begin your sweeps. Anything you find, I want to know about it.”

  “Understood. Korom out.”

  The Holoscreen closes and the senior captain leans over his science officer’s shoulder.

  “What do you see out there?”

  “A whole lot of nothing, sir.”

  “Well, let’s start with the obvious.”

  The science officer nods, and pulls up data on his console. “We have a local binary of young super-giant stars, hottest spectral class, no planetary system. The region is populated with numerous globules of dense gas, collapsing within the surrounding nebula. Stellar winds from the binary are strong enough to sweep this area clear.” Leaning back in his chair, he adds, “I don’t think we’re going to find much here.”

  The captain grips the end of his chin. “Why is that?”

  “A freighter’s engines leave a trail of charged particles. Usually, that lets us see where it’s been, but these stars would blow that delicate trail away almost instantly. Might as well track a boast in a windstorm.”

  The captain scans across the images of the dark globules, concentrating on the close pair of bluish stars gleaming in their midst.

  “Makes it a good spot for a hijacking, doesn’t it?”

  The officer looks up at his captain in surprise. “Yes, it would… Does Command believe our ships are being captured?”

  “That’s the working hypothesis. The dissident factions have used terrorism before… They may’ve become even more despicable in their methods.”

  Standing straight, the captain turns to his tactical officer. “Get the weapon systems primed and online. The instant we find anything, I want to be ready.”

  “Aye, sir,” she replies, powering up the defenses with experienced keystrokes. The captain strolls leisurely back to his chair and seats himself, opening intercom to another part of his ship.

  “Team leader,” he calls, “are your troops ready?”

  “Momentarily, Captain. We’re suiting up now. Just tell us when and where.”

  The black-uniformed captain closes intercom and sits, silently considering his options.

  “Let’s look at our archives on the disappearances again,” he announces suddenly. “Start by plotting the last locations of all vessels that have disappeared and been completely unaccounted for. Put the data on screen.”

  The science officer sighs quietly, having looked at little else for the entire voyage. The broad Holoscreen opens with a virtual representation of large expanses of space, and one by one, twelve points appear, captioned with ship information, cargo, and date of disappearance. The dots seem totally random.

  “What do we know?” the captain demands.

  “Well,” the science officer begins, swiveling away from his console and gesturing toward the screen, “we know that all of these vessels were on course until they disappeared. We know that a large flare of broadcasted noise directly preceded their disappearance, and we know that with the exception of two passenger liners, the disappeared ships have been heavy cargo class, most filled with raw Tungsten and Titanium ores, and Carbides.”

  The captain strokes a patch of hair beneath his chin as the science officer continues.

  “We know that no evidence of crew or ship has yet been recovered, and we know the early disappearances had long, regular intervals, but the last two occurrences have been within a very short span of one another.”

  “Da’oma Kachi’in,” someone whispers.

  The captain spins on his toe, his hard eyes drilling holes into each of his crew, seeking the one who uttered such reprehensible nonsense.

  “The idea that Angry Ghosts are swallowing our ships is childish and moronic,” the old officer declares. “and has no place in the military service.” The veins in his strong neck throb as he swivels his head, looking every crewman in the eye. “Moreover, it is an insult to the families of the missing to say it is anything other than criminals bent on disturbing our peace with violence and terrorism. Do you understand?”

  All heads bow as one and with somber tone reply, “We do.”

  “Good. Let’s focus on our duties.” The captain restores his more typical demeanor, tucking his hands behind his back and gripping the end of his tail. “Tactical, transfer all fire control to your console. What ever we find, if it isn’t one of ours, shoot it down. Helm, program a circular search and rescue pattern, and coordinate with Korom to maximize the area covered. Communication, listen for any potential signal that could be an enemy and use the mainframe to assist in isolating any embedded codes if you find them. Science, let’s pick up where we left off.”

  Before the science officer can begin, however, the captain of Korom overrides the Holowindow. He is on his feet and frantic.

  “Seyun-gee, three objects have landed on our hull and are boring thr—”

  The transmission bursts into bright static distortion, and Seyun-gee’s communication officer throws off his headphones as they screech and buzz.

  “This is it!” the captain shouts to his crew, setting himself down on the edge of his chair. “Science, start recording all data you can. Communication, what’s happening?”

  “Massive interference, sir.”

  “Source?”

  “Three point sources, sir… attached to Korom’s hull.”

  “Visual!” shouts the Captain.

  Korom’s long, shining outline fills the screen. Three black bulges protrude from its midsection like cancerous moles.

  “Reestablish contact with Korom, and magnify those black objects!” Pointing to his tactical officer, he adds, “Target those objects and wait for my command!”

  In the Holoscreen, the picture zooms in to one of the objects. It is a streamlined blob, like a teardrop cut in half with the flat side pressed against Korom’s hull. Perfectly black, it is held in place by four spidery legs. The captain squints at it, unsure of what he is looking at.

  “Are you... alive?” he wonders aloud.

  “Sir!” calls out the communications officer, “I have a patch to Korom, very faint.”

  “Put it on!”

  The Holoscreen switches back to the bridge of Korom, barely intelligible from interference. The junior captain is frenetically issuing commands, and his crew rushes to comply. When he notices the Holoscreen, he steps into its view.

  “Seyun-gee,” the image crackles, “we’ve been boarded! We need assistance!”

  “I have the objects targeted, ready to fire,” explains the senior captain.

  “No! They’ve cut through the hull, and if you shoot them off, you’ll depressurize the whole midsection of my ship.” He looks off screen giving more orders, and turns back. “We need your boarding teams to—”

  A great shudder shakes Korom’s bridge, swaying the captain off his feet. Alarms sound stridently.

  The Seyun-gee captain mashes his intercom. “Team Leader, we need your troops on Korom. She’s under attack.”

  “Understood, sir. Standing by for clearance.”

  The seasoned captain leans forward in his seat. “Communication, send a message to Command via coded laser: ‘Have engaged unknown enemy.’ Helm, get us close enough to Korom for boarding. Keep Korom between us and those stars so our teams have some shade to cross through.”

  “Aye, sir!” The helmsman guides the sleek frigate alongside the assaulted Korom.

  In the Holoscreen, Korom’s captain is more frantic, sounds of combat and explosions filtering through the garbled audio. Bellowing orders, he grabs a sidearm from his chair.

/>   “Seal the bridge! Don’t let them up—” A bright flash washes out the Holoscreen, and it drops entirely into static.

  Seyun-gee’s captain clenches his fists, his claws digging into his palms. “Get them back, Ensign!”

  The communications officer wrestles with his console, but to no avail. “Sir, the patch is still functional, there just isn’t any response.”

  “Can you get a visual of the bridge?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The ensign makes the appropriate key taps, and a noisy window opens showing Korom’s bridge. There is dense haze from smoke, but a seated figure can just be made out at the tactical console. It wears oversized headgear, linked by numerous wires into the consoles around it, and large goggles that flash with light. When the seated figure notices the Holoscreen, it calls out to a hulking, armored biped that marches forward and shoots into the screen with a bulky weapon.

  “Hardware overloaded at the source, sir,” informs the communications officer. The captain can only stare blankly.

  “It couldn’t be…” he mutters.

  “Couldn’t be what, sir?”

  “Nothing,” the captain says, unaware he had spoken aloud.

  There is a quick series of pulses, and the tactical officer announces, “Grappling clamps to Korom are secure.”

  Taking his cue, the captain triggers his intercom. “Team Leader, you are cleared for transport.”

  One by one, the troopers hook on to the grapple lines, jetting over to their companion vessel. While they file across the stout cables, the Team Leader addresses them as a group.

  “We don’t know who we’re fighting, and it doesn’t matter. We anticipated an attack, and this is what we trained for. Go in through the personnel hatches just below the bridge, and push back from there. We’re not trying to capture here, so if you see anything out of uniform, kill it! The medical teams are right behind us to patch up anyone that gets hit. Now get fierce!”

  On Seyun-gee’s bridge, the captain paces anxiously. The communications officer looks over his shoulder at him, asking, “Sir, what did you mean when you said, `it couldn’t be’.”

  “Ancient history, Ensign, never mind. Is the boarding team there yet?”

  “Nearly, sir.”

  “And the interference? Any luck cutting through it?”

  “Negative. It’s washing out our positional fixes. I can’t align the antenna, not without…”

  “Without what, Ensign?”

  “Not without destroying the sources of interference first.”

  The captain continues pacing, debating if he should risk depressurizing his sister ship to contain the threat. It could kill everyone aboard, even jeopardize his teams jetting across, but he could sift through the remains and, at last, find some answers to this mystery, possibly ending the disappearances. His fists open and close reflexively, a visual analogue to the raging discourse in his mind.

  “Sir, boarding teams have reached the personnel hatches,” announces the communications officer.

  A searing energy bolt streaks by Seyun-gee’s bridge.

  “Tactical!” roars the captain. “Where did that come from?”

  The tactical officer looks out in shock. “From Korom, sir!”

  The captain whirls in frenzy. “Lock all weapon batteries on Korom’s bridge and fire!”

  “But, sir,” protests the tactical officer, “the boarding teams!”

  The captain leaps at the tactical officer, ripping her out of her chair. He scrambles to program the target, but too late. Energy blasts shred through Seyun-gee’s bridge, exploding the compartment and venting all into space.

  From the outer hull of Korom, the Boarding Team Leader watches the energy blasts continue, sweeping along Seyun-gee’s full length, tearing her inside out. Secondary explosions incinerate troops still jetting over on the cables, rocketing their singed bodies through comrades farther ahead. Large chunks of metal scatter in all directions, tearing through anyone unable to move in time. Gritting his teeth, the Team Leader curses.

  “How did they get control?” yells one of his troopers.

  The Leader bellows, “The HATCH, you cack-faced mutt! GET IT OPEN!”

  Seyun-gee glows with damage, venting long plumes of flame and plasma. The venting strains the grappling lines, stretching them taut.

  Looking over his shoulder, the Team Leader sees his troopers getting clipped, slashed and crushed. All the while, fresh explosions aboard Seyun-gee renew the metallic hail, peppering the survivors with still more lethal fragments. The Leader turns away only to watch Korom’s weapon batteries reorient toward the taut grappling lines. With precision shots, the cables are sliced; and Korom lurches, swaying them in their magnetic boots.

  Like snakes striking prey, the cables whip at the teams—slicing some at the waist, sweeping others off the hull. Their voices flow into the Leader’s headset, turning from desperate pleas for rescue into screams of searing agony when they drift out of shade into the stars’ full radiance.

  Fury grips the Leader, squeezing his heart in a vice, and he pushes past his troopers to get a view of the locked personnel hatch.

  “WHAT'S TAKING SO LONG?”

  A soldier is hunched over the lock control with a small electronic device. “They must have changed all the codes. I can’t get in!”

  Hauling out a small torch, the Leader shoves the soldier aside and kneels down to cut the lock itself.

  Korom lurches again with thrust, building distance from its burning twin and putting an end to the rain of deadly debris. The troopers all breathe a grateful sigh of relief, until they see Korom’s weapon batteries swing back toward Seyun-gee and loose a coordinated barrage. The shots rip through Seyun-gee’s engines, igniting a spherical blast consuming the tortured ship like a swelling sun. The sphere grows faster than the departing ship is traveling, and the moment of relief yields to new tide of panic.

  “Get it open!” someone yells, starting a riot of frenzied shouting.

  While the Leader continues to cut, the troopers hack into the lock with their rifle butts. Some spin their weapons around and shoot into the lock, careless of the ricochets plunging into their comrades.

  At last the bar severs. The surviving troopers crowd around their Leader and shove the door aside as the blast wave of superheated plasma rakes the full length of Korom. The Leader’s team chars around him, the sudden vaporization of their flesh blowing him through the door. He gets to his feet and shoulders the door shut. More tired than he should be, he slumps down, exhausted, and gasps for breath. Perplexed, he looks down at the radiation gauge on his suit. It glows vividly.

  Looking around the small airlock, what he knows will soon become his tomb, his eyelids get heavy. Before they close completely, a shadow steps into the window of the interior door.

  Fear energizes him in his final moments as he searches for a weapon, but he finds none. Once the air pressure equalizes, the interior airlock slides open, and the gasping Team Leader looks his foe over from head to toe, accepting what he sees with great difficulty.

  “Da’oma Kachi’in…” he whispers with his last breath.

  The figure strides in, clad in stout dark armor, a heavy rifle trained squarely on the slumping Team Leader. It closes the interior door and depressurizes the airlock. Keeping the rifle aimed, it steps over and jabs the creature with the barrel.

  A light on the outer door shifts color, and the figure slides it aside one handed. With the swift shove of a boot, the Team Leader is sent unceremoniously into space.

  The metal clad figure reseals the airlock, pressurizes the compartment, and lifts his face plate, revealing a sweaty young man with thick stubble, already going gray. Scars cross his eyes and lips like topographical features on a map.

  “Maiella, this is Thompson, over.”

  Via radio a female voice replies, “Go ahead, Thompson.”

  “We’re clear. Let’s get under way.”

  “Roger, that. Coordinates set.”

  Bit
ter Harvest

  Thompson slings his rifle and walks slowly to the bridge, looking carefully at the ship around him. Along the way, he stops to investigate a curious panel here and there. Soon, he strides through the twisted and wrecked doors of the bridge where a gargantuan man in bulky armor steps into his path and salutes briskly.

  The big man’s faceplate is raised, displaying a great round face more weathered with lines and old burns His free hand grips a massive cannon still wavering with heat. Grenades and detonators encircle his waist. There are many gaps in the ring.

  “At ease, Brick,” Thompson says. He looks the huge man over, taking in the numerous new blast and burn marks his armor shows. “Good to see you’re all right, Argo.” Thompson claps the Brick warmly on the arm.

  Argo smiles back wryly. “They’ll have to build better guns.”

  Thompson grins then becomes stern. “Was anyone injured?”

  “Some laser wounds and contusions but nothing serious.”

  Thompson raises his hand to Argo’s shoulder. “I want you, Brick Brahe, and Brick Talu to set up a medical facility. Treat every wound, no matter how slight, understood?”

  Argo stands straight and salutes again.

  “Aye, sir.”

  The huge man hefts his massive weapon in both hands and jogs down the corridor, his hefty footfalls reverberating solidly.

  Thompson looks around the damaged bridge, kicking lifeless blue bodies aside as he goes. Scorch marks streak the walls and panels where precision shots burned through the blue-skinned defenders. There is still a thin layer of acidic smoke, just enough to scent the air and sting his eyes.

  Sweat rolls from his forehead in a sudden deluge as his body tries to return to normal temperature. The end of combat stress sends his super-stimulated Limbic system into rest, and the tall soldier nearly collapses on wobbly legs. In another moment, his blood pressure stabilizes and his shoulders, pectorals, and thighs twitch with residual adrenaline.

  Seated in the midst of the disarray is a slim woman in armor, wearing large goggles that flash with data. Various cables extend from her oversized headgear to the consoles like a web. She plants one boot at the console’s edge and casually twirls a machine pistol around her finger. Thompson makes his way over, careful not to disturb her network of lanyards and data leads.