There's always someone tougher. - Terran saying, Age of Antiquity
The emergency secondary backup bridge was still coming online as Lieutenant - Senior Grade Valandee hurried over to the Captain's chair, deploying the screens and sitting down. He wanted to stand, to walk around, but he knew that the ship might have to make maneuvers soon and didn't want to end up on the floor.
The heavy battleship Catch These Catching Hands Sucker was a Hamaroosan vessel weighing in the terratons. Classed by the Confederate Space Force Navy as a super-heavy super-dreadnought, it was built to face entire fleets if necessary. Being stationed in the Mar-gite Zone meant it had a Marine complement four times larger than the massive amount it normally carried. It carried nearly eight thousand Hamaroosan sailors, all of whom were trained on a multiple of stations.
Valandee was staring at the boards. The crew manifest board burned in red letters outlined in silver.
A quarter of the ship's complement was down, "NO CARRIER" blinking next to their names. At least three hundred were flashing extreme physical injuries.
He knew those ones were being eaten by the Mar-gite.
The Marines, all eight thousand of them, were largely intact. Only slightly less than two hundred were showing extreme physical trauma and even as he watched they kept blinking out.
He knew their shipmates were killing the Mar-gite eating them as well as them.
The tapped the screen, scrolling through to see who the highest ranking Marine was.
Get control of the ship, echoed in his head.
The communications system was out, still not spinning up as the sole green mantid rushed from panel to panel. He looked over and saw that one panel was open, glowing fiber-optic cables inside and physical integrated circuit chips large enough for him to see inside. The green mantid was rapidly spinning a wheel to bring power to the system, then running the checks.
He had one name close by.
Gunnery Sergeant Chaskell.
He tapped the icon. His datalink clinked repeatedly until the channel suddenly opened.
"Gunny Chaskell here, sir," he heard.
"Status?" Valandee asked.
"Last of the station personnel onboard. We're going to blow the transit tube," the Gunny said. "Unless you..." the statement trailed off.
"Do it," Valandee said. "Get everyone in battle armor. How bad does it look to you?"
"We've got hull breaches and Mar-gite inside the hull. We've been boarded in at least a dozen spots, but the Marines are pushing them back," the Gunny said.
"Everything that works is on local control," Valandee said. "Get those stations manned," he looked at the board. "We need the point defense, anti-missile, and close range systems manned."
"Aye, sir," Gunny said. He turned and kicked the Mar-gite against the wall, holding it there with his boot as he dumped a burst from his SMG into the cilia. The Mar-gite's organs and shredded meat poured from the long rent in the flesh Gunny Chaskell pulled his foot back, ignoring how his boot was smoking, letting the Mar-gite fall to the floor.
"Get the civilians on the emergency controls for the guns," he heard LT(SG) say.
He knew of the Lieutenant, one of the few Tnvaru aboard the ship, which was named after the Tnvaru ship that had helped clear Tnvaru space of the Atrekna all the way back during the Second Precursor War. It didn't bother the Gunny, he was a Puntimat, which weren't exactly known for their martial prowess.
He touched his link. "Any Marine with a civilian, get them into one of the intact close support combat stations and get them firing the guns," he said.
Personally, he doubted the decision, but right now, with the ship dead in the water, any decision was better than no decision.
Another Mar-gite rushed down the passage, shrieking, and he gave them a burst from the SMG, tearing open the body next to the massive mouth. Blood and shredded guts poured from the hole and the Mar-gite fell cilia first onto the floor.
For something as clumsy looking at the Mar-gite, it could move and move fast, the eyes on the 'feet' retracting inside calcite shells.
"Let's go!" the Gunny yelled out, motioning the half-dozen men behind him to follow.
He grabbed a civilian. "You need to run a point defense station," he said.
"I'm a data analyst," the civilian, a Hikken who was panting inside his thin-skinned vac-suit.
"Then you can run a point defense," the Gunny said. He slapped the panel and the door slid open. He looked back at his men. "Get someone in these stations. Comps are down."
The other Marines nodded, pushing the civilians forward.
"But... I can't..." someone whined.
"Then we'll all die. It's all hands on deck," one of his men, it sounded like Lance Corporal Fretridik said.
The Hikken nodded as the Gunny helped him inside.
He couldn't believe this was happening. Less than two hours ago he was just running data analysis on the grav waves around the system, just like he usually did to help out the astro-control systems.
Now half of his work crew were dead, eaten by Mar-gite of all things. He'd seen a Hikken female he'd dated a few times devoured by one.
She'd screamed even when her internal organs had been visible.
The Puntimat Marine, Emlret didn't know they made Puntimat males that big, was already plugging his suit into the life support module.
"Here, in here," the big Puntimat was saying.
Emlret just nodded as the Puntimat pushed him into the seat and buckled him in, then spun him around.
He was looking at a dead board.
"It doesn't work," he said.
The Marine pointed at the floor. "Work the treadle," he said.
Emlret looked down. There was a balanced metal plate with footprint marks and a stencil that said to operate in tandem to move the plate up and down on either side of the red line.
Elmret nodded and the Marine vanished. The door closed and Emlret put his feet on the plate. Pushing with one foot made the plate tilt forward, pushing with the other made it tilt back. He could feel something inside moving, maybe spinning. He kept it up and suddenly the dead board retracted.
A single screen came up and he knew he was goggling at it.
It was an old cathode ray tube design.
The control board consisted of two things.
A trackball set into the boards middle and a single red button with an upraised ring around it.
The CRT flickered to life.
Red and silver.
It showed the word DEMO on top.
A cursor moved across.
"AIM WITH TRACKBALL CONTROLLED CURSOR"
lines started moving toward the bottom of the screen. The cursor, a little box with an X in it, moved to just in front of the bright dots at the front of the lines.
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"ENSURE LEAD DISTANCE"
The box when from white to red.
"PRESS BUTTON TO FIRE"
It showed a line shoot up and a flickering 'circle' of explosion made by squares intercept several of the bright tipped lines.
"MOVE TO NEXT TARGET"
There was no other data.
"DEMO ENDED"
"What? That's it?" Elmret asked.
"REAL TIME DATA INCOMING" the screen showed him. It hung there and then the red letters came up.
"OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE"
He could see dozens of lines heading toward the bottom of the screen and he frantically moved the trackball to intercept him. His first few tries he didn't lead them far enough, then too far, then he started to get it. Whipping the trackball back and forth, up and down, as fast as he could. He found if the bright dot got too close to the bottom of the screen, the lower third, it often split into multiples.
When a massive wave came in, he whipped the trackball up and hammered the button as fast as he could as he spun the trackball and the cursor whipped across the screen.
His ammo counter flashed a few times, but was quickly replenished.
Panting, sweating in his armpits, he kept it up.
He didn't know how long it would go in, or if it would ever stop, but the single word flashed at the top of the screen.
SURVIVE
LT(SG) Valandee watched as more and more point defense, anti-missile, and close range weaponry came online. Several of the anti-missile stations, using plain old fashioned fission nukes, were spamming the Mar-gite boarding clusters out of space.
He looked over his boards. Most of the ship was down, but more and more was coming under his control.
He was not startled that when Commodore Shreling came in, the superior officer didn't take over from Valandee but moved straight to the secondard backup emergency backup helm station.
"Any cores charging?" Valandee asked.
"One, Captain," the Commodore said. He looked up from the board. "The Hellcore. It's charging where none of the others even have power."
"Hellspace shielding?" Valandee asked.
He knew nobody used Hellspace. Well, nobody except the Crusade.
"On standby," the Commodore said.
He thought fast. He couldn't remember if Mar-gite could survive in Hellspace.
Think too long, you're wrong, cadet, his instructor's voice rang in his mind.
"Do we have Hellspace coordinates?" he asked.
The Commodore looked up. "From the last test."
"Where?"
"DYN-772343, Rentwark Station," the Commodore said.
Valandee looked at the scans he was getting back. They were all passive, hell, most of them were based off of high powered optical systems.
Mar-gite were still pouring into the system even as the ones that had arrived earlier jumped out again.
"We're going to have to chance it," he said. He looked at the Commodore. "Charge the shields, charge the core, charge the engines. Set course for DYN-772343."
"Aye aye, Captain," the Commodore said.
The light blinked on his scanner to signify a major status change.
Something had jumped into the system. Something that didn't match the Mar-gite.
He tapped the icon and the data appeared.
High tech. Oval with a pointed end. The wide end was pointed toward the direction it was moving. Silver colored, almost shimmering like liquid. It was estimated to be 1.2 kilometers long and a half-kilometer wide at the widest. It was moving in the middle of a shimmering band of grav waves.
It was using Accy-Berry Drive to move into the system.
He checked the board.
He had a single weapon online. It was reporting that it wasn't loaded, the feed mechanism was down and non-responsive.
He tapped the screen. Eight Marines near it. He tapped the icon.
"Staff Sergeant Oriknaff," came the panting reply. "GET THAT ONE, IT'S RUNNING!"
"Captain here," Valandee said.
There was silence a moment. "Go ahead, Captain."
"The gun in the room with you," he said.
"It's a big one."
"I need you to get it loaded," Valandee said. "I'll open the breach from here."
"Roger, sir," the Marine said.
Valandee watched his boards as more and more of the ship started coming back as green. Not the systems, but the corridors and internal spaces. Breaches started flashing with temp-patch notifications.
He knew the Marines were at work killing the Mar-gite that had boarded.
His datalink clinked.
"Valandee," it was Commodore Freelima. Her voice was almost a whisper.
"Here, ma'am," he said. "How long till the bridge is..."
"It isn't, Valandee," she said softly. There was a gasp and fast breathing for a second. "Get our people out. Save our ship."
"Ma'am, I..." Valandee started to say.
"Don't last stand it," Freelima said. She gasped again. "Get out. Warn the Confed..."
She went silent.
"Ma'am?" Valandee said softly.
No answer.
"Ma'am?" he tried, a little louder.
The icon on his board blinked and he heard the Marine Staff Sergeant.
"We got it loaded, sir! Fragarach Cannon ready!" the Marine sounded triumphant.
Valandee closed the silent link and reached forward to grab the control stick. He looked at Commodore Shreling.
"Engage the engines," he said. "Ahead 25%. Prepare the Hellcore."
"Engaging," the Commodore said.
The ship vibrated slightly as Valandee tapped the icon to bring up the integrity fields and the backup secondary battlescreens. Over half of them crashed.
But enough didn't crash that the emitters were able to cover the ship.
He tapped the icon and the Hellspace shields came online.
Faintly he heard bellows of rage.
The Sucker swung around.
He had a single blinking icon on his screen.
The new vessel.
The anomaly.
He reached out and grabbed the other control stick, using the thumb switch rocker to quickly move through weapons until he had it.
The Fragarach Cannon.
When the light blinked he squeezed the grip, taking the safety offline, and pressed the button top.
The entire ship shuddered as the massive cannon fired.
"Helljump coordinates locked! Ready!"
"GO TO HELLSPACE!" Valandee called out. He tapped the icon. "ALL HANDS, ALL HANDS, THIS IS THE CAPTAIN! HELLSPACE TRANSLATION IMMINENT!"
The anomaly vanished from his screen.
"THREE!"
Valandee wasn't a religious man, but it felt right to make the quick sideways figure-8 across his chest with two fingers.
"TWO!"
"Prepare for jump!" Valandee warned the crew over whatever worked.
On the optical a wide tear appeared in space. Black skeletal hands pushed it wider. Barbed chains shot from the fiery tear, the barbed spikes on the end slamming into the Sucker and sinking deep.
The chains pulled the massive ship into the fiery tear in reality itself.
"JUMP JUMP JUMP!"
Valandee saw the forward Hellspace shield collapse just as the ship was pulled into the fire.
The air seemed to burst into flame around him. He felt like his nerves were burning, like his eyeballs were melting. Like his brain was boiling in his skull.
It was like dying.
It was like being born.
The images that ripped through his head were alien, foreign.
He was a being consisting of nothing but flesh, will, and rage.
He was small and frightened even as he grimly held onto his duty.
He was insane with grief and blood lust.
He was cold digital intellect.
He screamed in agony.
He cried in endless grief.
He bellowed in rage.
The forward Hellspace shield came back up, failed, came back up again and held.
The Hellspace energies around him swirled and faded into tatters that screamed in agony as they wisped away.
Valandee opened his mouth to ask the Commodore if he was alive when there was a sudden jerking feeling.
It felt like everything in front of him went flat and he slammed into the painted glass reality had become, to shatter through, to feel the jagged and sharp edges slice at him.
Then he was through and everything jerked into place.
He was hanging, limp, in the restraining belts of the Captain's chair. He knew he was bleeding from his nose and ears, that blood and saliva was spilling over his lower lip and down his chin.
He lifted up one hand and stared.
The emergency armored vac-suit glove was gone.
Instead, it was a black armored gauntlet, spikes on the knuckles, twisted barbed wire wrapped around the palm and back of the hand.
The rune for Tnvaru burned in sullen red on the back of his hand. He'd never seen the rune before, but somehow he knew that it was the ancient rune his people had used for themselves before even the Lanaktallan had arrived.
His catching arm was clad in thick plate that was engraved with runes. Barbed wire was wrapped around his forearm, the wire was ran through the middle of blackened and useless cred-chits that clicked against the armor.
"Transit successful. We're in Hellspace. ETA three hours," the Commodore said.
"Lets get the ship ready. We'll be dropping into a fight," Valandee said. He could hear his voice. It was rougher, raspier, deeper.
"Aye, sir," the Commodore answered. He turned to face Valandee.
His eyes burned red.
"Your eyes are purple fire, sir," the Commodore said.
Valandee just nodded.
He felt different.
But he also felt good.
Felt right.
"The price the Captain must pay to sail Hellspace," he said.
-----
Commodore N'Skrek was strapped into his seat in CIC, looking over the data.
The ship was about to drop out of hyperspace and into realspace.
The guns were ready. The shielding ready to be reset for realspace. The realspace engines hot and ready.
N'Skrek agreed with the Captain that there was a large chance the system was either under attack, already in Mar-gite possession, or just plain gone.
He tightened his grip on the armrests of his seat as the countdown reached zero.
The ship made a crash translation into realspace.
SHARP METAL IS HERE! rang out.
"Multiple Mar-gite Mega and Gigacluster signatures!" was called out as the data flooded into the Combat Information Center. "Planet is under assault. We've got live transponders! System Defense Forces are still engaged."
The analyst looked up and shook her head. "They can't hold. Not against this weight."
N'Skrek nodded.
"Four, twelve, twenty-two deathblossoms detected! Ships are exiting Deathblossom Group A and entering Deathblossom Group B," another analyst said. He looked up. "Gray force are retreating."
"More Gigaclusters warping in! More warping out!" was called out.
N'Skrek wished he could sharpen his bladearm with his grinding plates in his mouth, but the suit prevented it.
"Confed is issuing a retreat order," someone said. "Orders are to abandon the system, regroup further in."
N'Skrek opened his mouth to ask the Captain her decision.
"HELLSPACE BREACH!" was called out.
N'Skrek turned to look at the holotank.
DEATH METAL IS HERE! roared out with the clanging of great iron doors bursting open.
The ship that burst through was massive. Outmassing even the super-dreadnoughts. The chains trying to drag it back into Hellspace shattered, sending huge links of smouldering iron spiraling through the darkness.
"No ID."
'Find out who they are," N'Skrek ordered.
-----
Jaskel helped the damage control crew put the patch into place, holding it easily thanks to the power armor's enhanced strength while a sailor ran a fusion welder real quick around the edges.
"We're pulling out," Gunny Zolpad said over the Telkan Marine Corps channel. "Command says the system is lost. More Mar-gite are flooding into the system every minute."
Jaskel closed his eyes and threw out a quick prayer to the Digital Omnimessiah for the poor bastards on the planet.
His eyes opened wide when the roar sounded out around him.
DEATH METAL IS HERE!