Angry Ghosts Read online

  Any operator would be qualified to take this mission out to deep space, he reasons. Yet brooding will change nothing. General Dryden has given his orders, and they must be obeyed. Period.

  “We have achieved minimum safe distance to engage deep space drive,” alerts Maiella.

  “Very well. Lock in navigational coordinates.” Reactivating his helmet microphone, Thompson hails base. “Cadre One, we are ready to depart. Note date and time of mission start, over.”

  “Team Spectre, time and date noted in mission log...” The voice becomes more personal. “Bring us something good, okay? Cadre One out.”

  “We always do. Team Spectre out.” Thompson kills his helmet microphone and looks over at Maiella. “Let’s do it.”

  Her goggles flash with calculations and engine controls. “In three...two...one... Mark.”

  The ship’s drive surges with a burst of white light, and the craft leaps away into the abyss.

  The Arms of Somnus

  Something is beeping.

  Thompson is barely aware of it, yet an urgent, repeating tone draws him through the murky folds of slumber, carving past his blunted senses to find consciousness within.

  The sound is a beacon, a singularity in the distance, summoning him, reeling him toward it. It gets closer, stronger, clearer. He cracks open one eye.

  The smeared red glare of a flashing diode assaults his vision and blinks in synch with the tone, its color conveying the same urgency as the sound. He strains to focus, and the thick fog of his eyes recedes to a haze, giving the light a halo with each flash.

  As his sight clears, he squints at a cramped cockpit, every centimeter covered in frost. The red light continues to flash in unwavering tempo, its light refracted by the crystals of ice around it. He can feel the iris of his eye dilating and constricting as his eyes adjust, and he notices more lights around the cockpit in random locations, all red or deep orange. Disorientation swallows him whole.

  What is this place?

  He searches for clues around him, noticing first his legs extending away from him. He cannot feel them. With tremendous effort, he turns his stiff neck to each side, finding two other people in the space with him, frost still covering their bodies.

  Who are they?

  At once, the numbness yields to biting cold, sending spasms down his length. He sits amid the twitches and jerks of his own sinews, now hearing something loudly clacking together. He cannot see anything moving, nothing that could make such a sound, but the sound seems to surround him, very near. At last he realizes—it is his teeth.

  Thompson tries to focus on the flashing red diode on the console before him.

  “Gith-ththhts—tgh geh...” His own voice is unrecognizable as he slurs through syllables, attempting to voice-command the console. Rather, he gropes clumsily with his right hand, flopping his armored fist into various buttons. Grazing the bright flashing one, a small holoscreen opens in front of him.

  PROXIMITY ALERT. PROXIMITY ALERT, it reads over and over.

  Thompson recoils from the bright white letters, shrinking back in his recliner. His head sways loosely on his shoulders, and he blinks to recover equilibrium. Once steady, he peers at the Holowindow, making out the letters for the first time. In a rush, his mission returns to him. He remembers where he is and who the others are. Adrenaline mixes with the antifreeze in his bloodstream, propelling him from stupor. The clacking of his teeth subsides as do the violent shivers, being replaced by a sensation of warmth blooming along his spine. The blissful heat is short-lived, however, as millions of chilled nerve endings awaken simultaneously, igniting an inferno beneath his skin.

  He throws his head back, unable to contain a long bellow of agony as pain builds upon searing pain until every neuron in his body is on fire. His muscles clench involuntarily, his eyes squeeze tears through their corners, his brain disbelieves the quantity of pain. Like a slow tide the intensity ebbs, leaving his whole body aching and throbbing.

  Fighting through the haze and disorientation, he forces himself to look at the holowindow in front of him with watered eyes. Feeling more in control, he reaches out to the console and taps some keys, highlighting the distant object on screen. Further magnifying the image, he finds a ship larger than he could ever have imagined. Thompson studies the details of its hull, looking for clues to its origin, guessing if it could be a blueskin vessel or some other species entirely. From his vantage, he can see no external markings, just multitudes of scorches and dents. The ship looks poorly maintained, almost shoddy, and ancient.

  Thompson reaches for the panel again, but his left arm will not move. He casts an annoyed glance at it and discovers it is still covered in a layer of frost. Taking a deep breath, he returns to the console, entering in the commands to pursue the giant vessel with one hand. When he strikes the execute key, the entire cockpit goes black.

  Thompson’s eyes stretch wide in shock, searching the darkness. The silence is complete. He realizes he is holding his breath, and he lets it out, the sound of his elevated heartbeat thumping in his ears. In another moment, a panel of lights switches on, then another, eventually resuming the dim red illumination; and a low hum rises in pitch when the engines finally come online. Thompson’s relief is immediate, but in its wake is a serious concern: with triple redundancy built into every system, there should never have been a power failure.

  “Ar-r-rgo,” he stutters, “have a l-l-look at the power syst-tems, and... Argo?”

  The Brick’s still-frosted body offers no response. Thompson looks over at Maiella, and he finds her encased in frost as well. He blinks hard, not daring to ask what else could go wrong.

  With his one thawed arm, he reaches to the console, calling up schematics and diagnostics of his modified craft; and he is immediately aware of a considerable lag in the computer’s operation. Several seconds pass from when he enters a command to when he sees it enacted on-screen. The system was running fine before the power failure...or was I working just as slowly as I thawed?

  Waving off the irrelevant dilemma, he impatiently waits for the screen to load diagrams of the main power systems on board. Every part of it displays critical failures: primary and auxiliary power, the passive collectors, even the batteries.

  His face curled with confusion, he tries to lift his left arm, already forgetting it is still frozen. A powerful twinge in his shoulder where the thawed and chilled sections meet reminds him. He grips his shoulder protectively and reaches for the console to bring up a diagnostic of the three recliners.

  After many seconds, the three diagrams appear side by side on-screen. Maiella’s and Argo’s diagrams read, WITHIN TOLERANCES, despite the abnormally low levels of power flowing to their recliners. In his own diagram, the recliner indicates a problem in his left arm. He wrinkles his brow at the information and enlarges the image of the main inflow/outflow tubes. At the outflow nozzle on his left wrist, the computer has detected a blockage, stopping the flow of antifreeze.

  Thompson looks from the screen down to the corresponding outflow tube. With his right hand, he reaches over to it and twists it off easily. Like the computer diagnosed, nothing flows out. He looks back to the console, tapping some keys, increasing the flow pressure. Immediately, a cloudy, gelatinous clog is booted out, and clear fluid seeps across his frosted armor. He replaces the outflow tube and watches the frost on his arm sublimate. In a minute, his arm is loose; and he lifts it from the cradle, flexing it gingerly. First comes the warmth, then the fiery burning, and then it moves normally.

  With the use of both hands, he types much faster, poring over diagnostics of his companions’ sleep recliners. His breakfast seeps in through the many connected tubes and hoses in his armor, feeding him nutrients and the neurochemical equivalent of a hyper-caffeinated espresso. His foggy mind clears, permitting him better thought, and he digs through the craft’s systems attempting to troubleshoot the power problem. Try as he might, however, he finds no answer. The passive collectors are supplying only a trickle of powe
r, the main energy source is not functioning, and the batteries are nearly drained.

  Thompson glances at the distant ship he is pursuing and pressure builds. I can’t cut the engines. If we lose this target, another may never present itself. I can’t cut life support. To do so would doom my team to the death of an improper thaw...

  In a snap decision, he starts flipping off circuit breakers: navigation, communication, interference generation and countermeasures, grappling arms, computer-assisted maneuvering—every system not immediately tied in to pushing the ship toward their quarry or unfreezing his crew. The lighted panels in the cabin go dark as each system is switched off, and the remaining lights glow brighter. With the reduced draw of the additional systems, the power bars for Argo’s and Maiella’s recliners climb out of red to amber.

  “Initiate awakening, recliner 1 and recliner 3,” he commands in a steady voice, and the whirring of pumping fluids resounds in the quiet cabin.

  Lines of frost retreat from their faces, tracing down over their torsos, then out to their extremities. Monitoring the process closely, he watches the power draw; and just when it looks as if it is going to bottom out, he diverts power from his own recliner to see the process through.

  Maiella sputters and coughs violently with harsh neural stimulation, then gasps with breath. Thompson anticipates her disorientation.

  “You are aboard a virus ship on a collection rotation. I am Gun Thompson.”

  Maiella peels herself up from her recliner. Her back arches, arms back, and her mouth falls open in a silent scream, too painful to vocalize.

  On the opposite side, Argo lifts his thick head and stiffly cranes it around, trying to cope with the unfamiliar surroundings. Then, he grips the rails beside him, shaking with the intensity of his burning nerves. He tucks his chin into his chest, tears streaming from his tightly shut eyes, a fierce growl his only utterance.

  Thompson busies himself with the ship ahead, monitoring his craft’s engines, and making minor course corrections manually. Beside him, Argo sits up in his recliner, holding his head in his hands. He heaves several times and coughs again then settles. He squints at Thompson, seeking answers.

  “Wha-huppond?” he slurs.

  “Power loss,” Thompson replies. “I’ve diverted power from other systems to revive and sustain us.”

  “Kun-tact?” he asks, shivering.

  “Affirmative,” answers Thompson, “contact dead ahead, unidentified vessel, 1,200 meters long, 600 meter beam.”

  Argo blinks sluggishly. “Big-un.”

  Thompson nods in agreement. “Lie back, Brick. Let the metabolic support bring you up to speed.” The huge man leans back into his recliner sleepily.

  Not hearing anything from Maiella, Thompson looks over to see how she is doing. She is lying back, both hands up at the sides of her face, and her goggles pulse intermittently as she tries to reboot.

  “Geek?” Thompson calls.

  She persistently tries over and over, but no matter which method she uses, it brings the same result. Maiella drops her hands to her side, staring at the message repeatedly displayed on the inside of her goggles: NEURAL INTERFACE FAILURE.

  “I’m damaged...” she announces despondently.

  Argo, already more animated, pulls up his console and selects Maiella’s recliner in his holowindow. “Stay hooked in a minute, Maiella, I’m going to check you out.”

  “Two minutes thirty to intercept,” announces Thompson.

  While Maiella lies patiently, Argo sifts through her implanted hardware from his console, zeroing in quickly on the trouble spots. What he finds is that almost all of her contact neurons have receded or atrophied away from their connections. With all of his medical expertise, he is still puzzled.

  “Your synaptic bridges have retreated... You won’t be able to interface any systems at all.”

  Maiella stares straight up, exhaling with exasperation. “Perfect. I was worried this rotation would be easy.”

  Argo looks over Thompson’s physical diagnostic and notices his arm is still a few degrees cooler than the rest of him.

  “How’s your arm, Gun?”

  Thompson swings his arm in a narrow circle at the shoulder. “A little stiff, but I’m fine. Two minutes to intercept. Geek, take over manual piloting.”

  “Sir!” she responds and activates her console.

  Once his two comrades have had their intravenous cocktail of nourishment and stimulants, Thompson shuts down all life support on board. “Switch to rebreathers,” he orders, and they pull their helmet masks down over their faces. With a hiss, they lock tight.

  “Argo, ready the laser drills and grappling limbs.”

  “What about interference generators?” he asks via helmet radio.

  “No. Not enough power.”

  Pushing away his console, Thompson disconnects the multiple inflow/outflow hoses connected to his armor and grabs his rifle from its cradle above. With automated precision, he checks it, loads it, and primes it.

  “Argo, are those systems ready?”

  “Laser drills coming online... capacitors filling... grappling limbs standing by...”

  “Gear up!” Thompson demands.

  Argo quickly clears the tubes from his armor and grabs his heavy weapon from its storage cradle. Thompson reaches over to Maiella and clears her tubes for her as she guides the craft closer to their target. “Sound off equipment check... power armor?”

  “Check.”

  “Check.”

  “Rebreather?”

  “Check.”

  “Check.”

  “Helmet infrared displays?”

  “Check.”

  “Check.”

  “Mission hardware?”

  “Complete,” Argo states.

  “Compromised,” Maiella states.

  “Weapons?”

  “Locked and loaded.”

  “Locked and loaded.”

  Thompson clears his lungs and fills them again. “We have never seen these creatures before, and they have never seen us. We will have the advantages of initiative and surprise, but because we can’t jam their transmissions, we’ll have to move very fast. That means risks. Geek, can you determine where the control center of that ship is located?”

  “I can make a good guess and put us right next to it,” she replies confidently.

  “Good. Brick and I will assist you in locking down the ship computer systems. If we can’t lock them down, we may have to destroy them to keep radio silence.”

  Maiella and Argo nod in understanding, replying in unison, "Aye, sir."

  The three stare into their screens at the behemoth ahead of them, leading into an uneasy stillness.

  "That's the biggest ship I've ever seen," Argo volunteers, and the same thought occurs to all of them at once: there could be thousands aboard a vessel that large.

  “I’m not losing either of you today," Thomspon says abruptly. "Is that clear?”

  Argo nods. “That was my understanding, sir.”

  “I’m with you both,” Maiella adds. “Nothing touches us today.”

  The craft’s engines fire again, and it decelerates starkly. With a punishing jolt, the craft slams onto the target’s hull, and cutting lasers shriek to life.

  “Clear restraints!” shouts Thompson above the noise, and all three debelt at once.

  Thompson presses his rifle butt into his shoulder, gritting his teeth as adrenaline and stims surge through him. He rocks at the edge of his recliner, shoving conscious thoughts aside. Pleasure centers of his brain fire with the anticipation of violence, and his eyes narrow into the hard gaze of murder.

  Maiella leans forward on her recliner and snatches her pistols from their cradles, flicking the safeties off with her thumbs. Rows of caseless ammunition clips stand like thick bristles on her armored thighs, ready to be slapped into an empty pistol with a simple wrist snap. Her eyes lock on to the exit hatch, and her boots scrape against the cold metal deck like a racehorse in a stall. She ta
kes great breaths of air, limbering up reflexively. Her lips curl away from her teeth in a sneer.

  Argo hauls his weapon into his lap and drops his chin to his chest. His eyes narrow to slits and he stares through his eyebrows at the hatch before him, ready to charge like a bull. His respiration escalates, every breath carrying a growl. His cheeks flare with the rush of air past them, and his brow furrows with menace.

  Humanity is left far behind. There is no thought at all, only training and instinct. What once were Argo, Maiella, and Thompson are now Brick, Geek, and Gun.

  The whining of drills abates, and the hatch explodes open. Gun leaps into the smoke, followed closely by Brick and Geek. Glowing infrared images appear before them, folding and lurching as they are cut down by expert shots.

  A mottled cluster of creatures runs behind a heavy door and seals it, but Brick levels his cannon and triggers. The door shatters in its middle, blasting inward, shredding all who had taken refuge behind it.

  Geek sprints up the corridor through the billowing smoke; her machine pistols echoing along the way—brrrrrrak-ak, brrrak-kak.

  Gun runs up behind her and takes the lead, sniping every moving heat source he sees, his rifle loudly panging with every shot.

  Brick keeps pace with them running backward, blasting anything behind them. With no time to clear every corridor, the trio bolts flat out for the control center, guided by Geek’s one-word directions. To their surprise, they do not see any other creatures about.

  The race ends when Gun jogs to a halt before a large round blast door. Geek and Brick lope up behind, shiny fluids splattered all over them. Brick steps past Gun, savagely punching the door three times, and it bends a bit, but does not yield.

  “Find cover,” he instructs.

  Geek and Gun scramble around a corner and lie prone. Brick pulls a block from his belt and slaps it on the blast door. With a cursory turn of a dial, he sets the timer and runs past Geek and Gun, diving to the deck just as the device detonates.