Shadows played across the widening central corridors of the Triton. The emergency lights in that section had been deactivated, and Major Cumberland wasn’t about to order any of his people to try to change it. Attempting to interface with the ship’s computer, or to activate systems aboard had proven fatal for many soldiers in different parts of the ship. Cumberland’s men had been fortunate and intelligent, learning from the example of other soldiers.
His lamp illuminated the floor in front of him, where he could see lines indicating the proper direction for evacuees to take in order to get down to the hangar decks. He tried to shake the eerie feeling that there were no civilians left. They were facing dedicated volunteers, some of whom could disappear whenever they liked.
“Movement!” Called a sensor officer behind him.
Cumberland looked at the small display on his rifle and saw what he was referring to. With a quick hand signal, his remaining forty-two men and women dropped into a phalanx with the front row kneeling and the second row standing with rifles at the ready. He was right behind them with the sensor officer, and watched his own copy of the sensor feed. It was a small blip, and as he focused in he saw it was a small cleaning bot, buffing its way along the hallway ahead. “False alarm, move up.” Cumberland ordered quietly.
Loman’ group split into a room to their left, while Mazurek’s went right. According to the sonic sensors, they would be long work rooms. Major Cumberland instructed everyone else to keep watch in the hallway, they were just about to reach one of the main express lift access points, according to the intelligence he’d received from Command.
After several minutes both groups returned from the rooms. “Just a fine finishing, manufacturing and repair shop, sir. Looks like a lot of the ship’s bots come from this place,” Sergeant Loman reported.
“Same on this side,” Sergeant Mazurek agreed.
“All right, seal them up,” Cumberland ordered.
Soldiers applied several centimetres of grey material to the edges of the doors and lit one end. With a flash the doors were welded shut.
The group moved ahead quietly.
“I’ve got motion again, same as last time only there were a few blips and then it stopped,” complained the scanning officer.
“How many are a few, Private?” asked Mazurek.
“I don’t know, four? Five? Just up ahead.”
Cumberland played the last few seconds back and spotted it. “Same size, reading above. All right, move forward, keep your eyes peeled.” The whole group moved ahead, everyone watching all sides.
“Scanner’s getting low, sonic scanning is killing the cells,” reported the scanning officer.
“Someone give him a reserve pack.”
“This wouldn’t be a problem if these things still came with an AI to manage them. Can’t distinguish between a kitten and a Goddamn hungry edxi.”
“Quit yer’ bitchin’ and mind the scanner,” Sergeant Mazurek ordered. “And keep forwarding scans.”
“Manual forwarding, it’s like the first era all over again. Maybe I should strap some floodlights to my helmet and shout back whatever I’m seeing from point. I’d be faster, tell you that much.”
“I said can it.”
They arrived at the end of the corridor and fanned out. The walkway there widened so eight of them could walk abreast, but it looked even larger with the transparent wall and three meter high ceiling. Through the transparent wall they could see three heavy, thirty-five degree tracks for cargo and heavy machinery elevators. Two were angled up from aft to fore, the other one was angled opposite, and from what Cumberland could see in the dim, yellow emergency lighting that lined the tracks, there were several places where the heavy cars would be able to slip sideways. Above and below the heavy tracks were many others, for a network of smaller personnel lifts. If these were safe, we could get anywhere in the ship in seconds. He watched the space for a moment longer before he was satisfied that there was no activity to see. The hallway stretched to his right and left, and in the dim light he could just barely make out another hall on the other side of the tracks.
“It’s like a space station,” someone behind him murmured.
“Ah, not much different from one of the Enforcer Battlecruisers, only it’s not so cramped,” replied Loman.
“It’s plenty different, stay alert,” Cumberland replied.
They moved down the hallway towards where he knew there would be a lift access. When he saw the block of doors he opened a channel; “Command, I’m coming up on the deck eight access point now. What are your orders?”
“Hold there, we’re getting a few lifts on line and need you to secure that area.”
“Acknowledged.” A sound above caught his attention.
“Motion! Everywhere!” Called the sensor officer.
Cumberland batted an eight legged bot off his shoulder as he looked at the writhing ceiling above. There were buffer, sanitizer, repair and other bots he didn’t recognize covering the surface. Several of his men opened fire, reducing several at a time to a rain of metal and plastic shrapnel.
Several functioning bots landed on him and he shook them off. None attempted to harm him, in fact, they scurried away as soon as they hit the deck. Without hesitation he whirled towards the scanning officer and was about to grab his hand scanner when it was whipped out of his grip by something else, someone in a cloak suit. “The bots are a distraction!”
The hand scanner disappeared, and as Cumberland tried to get a clear shot, the tip of a nanonosaw blade came though the officer’s back. It was drawn through his side in the next instant as though the man was made of water, and his armour was air. Cumberland opened fire, hitting the scanning officer twice, but scoring several hits against his attacker.
What followed was bedlam. An invisible hand pulled Faltia straight out of the group and used him as a shield as they fired their heavy pulse rifles and sidearms at the crowd of soldiers. One of the cloak suited attackers’ suits failed after he’d been shot several times and, instead of retreating, the nafalli seemed to go berserk. He grabbed one of Cumberland’s men by the helmet and hurled him over his shoulder while he slashed at several others with his nanosaw blade, nearly cutting one in half at the waist.
The beastly alien didn’t last long, but he managed to distract half of Cumberland’s men so Sturges and Mazurek were both killed by the time they regained focus, the first was decapitated while the other was riddled with pulse rifle rounds.
“Phalanx! Phalanx against the wall! Now! Now! Now!” Cumberland cried as he either found a new depth of desperation or regained his clarity for a moment. They group fell back against the wall, half dropping to one knee and firing in a fanning pattern, while the others remained standing, adding to the cover fire until they saw a real target, which they’d focus on until they were sure it was dead.
A flash went off, not impeding their shielded sight for more than half a second, but he could hear his communicator reset. Alarmed, he pulled out his emergency hand scanner and saw the screen had frozen in the reset phase. The enemy had dropped an electromagnetic charge on them.
When he looked up he was pleased to see five enemy soldiers, not including the nafalli, laying motionless on the deck. The cover fire caught another in the back, making him visible for a split second. It was enough time for Cumberland to get several more shots off on the target, striking her in the waist, up the back and finally several times in the back of the head.
They managed to kill nine more before it was over, but had managed to take no prisoners. Cumberland took a quick, silent head count and realized that they had lost twenty-four people, including Sergeant Mazurek. “Command, we’ve defeated an enemy stealth squad. The eighth deck lifts are secure. Only our comms and rifle sights are working, they dropped an EMP and killed our scanning equipment.”
“We see that, Major. Won’t be able to get you re-provisioned or reinforced at the moment. Please hold there and keep those lift doors secure. Will keep you appraised of progress on repairs.”