EMP Catastrophe , Hamilton, Grace [phonics readers txt] 📗

“Negative,” I said. My magboots clacked as I paced and stared at the nothing in the starfield through the window.

“Did he just say negative?” Deepspace asked Darwin as if she wasn’t standing a meter behind me. She had already locked her helmet on, and her voice came through comms. Even though it was only the three of us in tactical, it made it sound like she was in another compartment.

I shook my head. “I said negative. There’s some factory shitting out drones faster than we can sling them down. Darwin, give the stick back to Chicky.”

“They’re right there,” Darwin said. “I can practically smell them. Come on, we’ve been sitting here all day, let’s take this.”

If we were some Assembly unit from Center Core, I could have decked him for talking back. But that’s not at all what we were, and he knew I would never do that. I also knew if I said we were staying where we were, drifting in the orbital wreckage of the GSS Salvation like another piece of shattered bulkhead, he’d listen. He unlatched his magboots and swiveled to face me.

Damn puppy dog eyes.

“I am not wasting ammo on another dance with drones,” I said. “There’s a solid chance they’re scouting ahead of an Aggregate ship. We take down a cruiser that big, kill some actual Opterans and not just ticks, maybe we can do something that matters. We stay here. We wait.”

Darwin turned, re-clapped his boots to the floor, and opened allroom comms.

“Doc says sit tight,” Darwin said. “Chicky, stick’s back to you.”

In a transport that small, he probably could have just shouted through the dividers. The can was divided into small cabins so a puncture would only vent one section out and the rest were sealed. Suck three into the vacuum rather than all nine of us.

Even though control of the can went back to Chicky, he didn’t have to do a damn thing. We were just tumbling along outside of the atmosphere of some backwater enemy territory planet, hiding in a floating graveyard of debris.

“Eyes on wormhole in four,” Chicky said over the speaker, and I could hear the deep-fried disappointment in his voice as well.

“Eyes on” is not a phrase that factually applies to wormholes. It’s just tradition. When that wormhole crested over the horizon of the useless planet we were orbiting, it would be a giant gray circle. From every angle. A giant circle. It was spherical, but it didn’t reflect light and the color was really a shadow of some starfield millions of clicks away. No matter how hard I tried, I could never tell the things were three dimensional. It was a bad trick on the eyes, and staring at one gave me a headache as my brain tried to decipher just what the fuck I was, or rather wasn’t, seeing.

“Looks like that swarm is heading for the worm,” Darwin said, watching the dots in the tacglobe.

“We can squash them before they make it,” Deepspace said, pulling off her helmet. Her scalp was more polished than the rest of her gear. “We can get them before they even know we’re coming.”

I looked at her over my shoulder. At the single black line tattooed under her right eye. She had as much a right to Opteran blood as any of us. Maybe more. But this wasn’t blood. Ticks were just rank and file gear no one cares about.

Like us.

“You act like they’re harmless,” I said. “Remember Cody.”

It wasn’t fair, but it got her off my back. She scratched the back of that finely polished head and looked away. None of the rest of us went full cue ball, mostly just buzzed. Otherwise, the black bipoly weave of the suits between the armor plates would yank a fistful of hair out every time you pulled them off.

“Doc, I got incoming from the wormhole,” Darwin said.

“See,” I said. “Spoils go to the patient. What we got?”

Darwin didn’t have time to answer before the comm bleated an emergency tone.

“Mayflower Six. This is Allied Cargo Transit Mayflower Six. We have just crested the wormhole at P9. We are in need of assistance. Incoming Opteran drones. Requesting assistance.”

“Fuck, that’s not the roaches,” I said. That gamble did not pay off at all. I pulled my helmet on and sealed in. The ticks were heading to intercept the Mayflower, blocking off our path. “Darwin, what’s the armament on the Mayflower?”

“Chart says a Carrol class freighter. Two heavy rails, front facing. That’s it. No escort.”

“We’re the escort now. Chicky,” I called, hitting the open comm button. “We’re going in.”

The starscape outside moved as Chicky pulled us from the wreckage of the Salvation. I looked out the window and saw the edge of the wormhole. No way in hell to judge the distance by eye. Darwin unlatched and pushed off to the locker on the ceiling to get into his bubble helm. I heard the whistle of Deepspace’s hand slinger as I readied and primed mine as well.

There was no pair I’d want to go gunning with more than Darwin and Deepspace. I met Darwin right out of basic. Since then, we were never far from each other. Same units, same assignments, same damn bunkroom when we met. Can’t forget that day. I opened the door and he was naked as can be in the middle of our room. Hairiest motherfucker I have ever seen in my life. I thought he was wearing a mohair sweater. That’s the moment he became Darwin. The missing link.

Deepspace was new. But she handled a slinger like some sort of training robot. It was precision that made me question whether her eyes were what she was born with or some fancy upgrade. Given the right intel and arms, I have no doubt she could squash twenty ticks by herself. And she wouldn’t even sweat. Colder than Deepspace. Joke was, any man who earned his way into her bunk would end up getting a certain delicate part of his anatomy