Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

As if being progressively drowned by an advancing wave of darkness, the screens in the bridge went blank, one after the other. The carrier signal in her earbud died as well.

Piet spread his hands upon the bridge controls. “What just happened? How did—?”

Ayana interrupted, looking at the sensor logs. “We were just swept, from the docking cradles to the bridge, with some kind of focused EMP wave. Our less robust electronics have been disabled. The rest seem compromised.”

Piet leaned aggressively over his console. “That’s not possible.”

“Apparently, it is,” Kozakowski muttered.

Ayana turned on him, her sidearm out of its holster with considerable speed. “Tell us what you know about this weapon. Now.”

“Kn-know?” Kozakowski stammered, his hands rising in a mix of haplessness and tentative surrender. “I don’t know anything. There are rumors that the Ktor might be capable of such things, but I have had no contact with them or their technology.” He blinked rapidly. “Now, put up that pistol, Ms. Tagawa. I am not the enemy.”

“That,” she said, “remains to be seen.” She turned away from Kozakowski, but did not reholster the gun. “Mr. Brackman?”

“Yeh, Ms. Tagawa?”

“Since you no longer have a bridge station to run, concentrate on trying to raise the captain through one of the hardwired emergency intercom sets.”

Piet frowned. “This megacorporate econobucket doesn’t have an extensive intercom system, sir.”

“Do your best. We must inform the captain that the boarders are not attacking toward the bridge, as we anticipated. They are heading straight toward him.”

As Team Two moved by leapfrog toward the Aboriginal defenders in the cargo and docking modules, Idrem’s helmet comm buzzed: a private channel from Nezdeh. He toggled it with a push of his chin. “It is Idrem.”

“The deck plans indicate you are approaching the defenders’ primary concentration. Do you expect that Brenlor will be able to defeat the Aboriginals with only minor damage to the facilities?”

Idrem wondered at the directness of her question and what it implied: that she was depending upon him, Idrem, to attempt to limit the operational excesses of their mission’s nominal commander. “Yes, I can see to it,” Idrem replied.

Nezdeh was apparently not expecting that answer: she was silent a moment before asking, “How?”

“Before leaving Ferocious Monolith , I purloined several canisters of antipersonnel heat-seekers and marker nanites. I have already convinced Brenlor that this would be the most expeditious, and least damaging, means of securing the ship.”

“That could be a risky operation, Idrem.”

“Do you trust my competence, Nezdeh?”

Another pause. “Yes.”

“Then I shall not do anything to risk the success of this mission, nor shall I fail you.”

“Very well. I must coordinate with Brenlor now.”

“Acknowledged.”

The circuit closed at the same moment that Brenlor paused to shoo some of the upt’theel away from an Aboriginal corpse. After he used a spray bottle to douse the body with chemicals that the creatures found aversive, they came wriggling up out of the thoracic cavity, dripping gore and whining irritably. He herded the remaining dozen beasts forward to break up another knot of defenders who had been too late to help their comrades at airlock C-2.

Judging from the flags on the sleeves of the corpses, and from snatches of their panicked exclamations, they were all from the human political entity known as the Trans Oceanic Commercial and Industrial Organization bloc. Usually referred to as TOCIO, its acronym was neither a subtle nor coy referent to the capitol of the nation state that was its dominant power. Many of the bloc’s nationalities were represented among the casualties inflicted thus far. Other than the red ball of Japan itself, Idrem had identified national patches indicating that their wearers were from Brazil, India, Myanmar, and Chile.

Even without control of the ship’s command systems, defeating the ill-equipped Aboriginals had not posed much difficulty and even less threat. Only the Japanese nationals had been carrying truly dangerous weapons: dustmix battle rifles which, at these ranges, were certainly just as deadly as the Ktor’s own needlers. However, they did not have the muzzle velocity that made it possible to penetrate almost every wall or floor in the ship except for vacuum-rated bulkheads and hatches. But for the Ktor, constrained to wearing only the light armor augmentations that were standard issue for the crew of a patrol hunter such as Red Lurker , there was still risk involved if they rounded a corner into a torrent of automatic fire from the Japanese rifles.

The other firearms were not particularly dangerous. The majority were caseless assault rifles that had been furnished to the Optigene clones by their Indonesian hosts. These serviceable weapons, named Pindads, were unable to penetrate the Ktoran light armor at all. And while the hailstorms of slugs fired by the enemy’s autoshotguns could batter one of the Evolved to the ground, their penetrative power was even lower, and their raw kinetic impact was easily distributable through the smart armor fabrics of the Ktor.

“Idrem, are you ready?”

“I am.” He inspected the corridor ahead. “The Aboriginals are around the far corner?”

“Yes,” Brenlor confirmed. “According to the deck plans, it is a double-width passageway that opens out into a wide marshalling area with multiple egress routes. That is where their main body has deployed itself. And if the engagement goes against the humans, they have various retreat options that lead to regrouping points.”

“In that case,” Idrem replied, “we must ensure that they are unable to make use of those options. Please load the nanite marker grenades into your launcher.”

Brenlor took the three thirty-eight-millimeter grenades that Idrem proffered, none of which were fitted with rockets, and loaded them into the left-hand cassette that fed his needler’s underslung launch tube. “I have not had the occasion to employ this system, nor this tactic,” Brenlor admitted in a low voice.

“It is not difficult, and it is most effective against lightly armored targets, such as our present adversaries.”

Vranut and Jesel continued to guard the corner screening Team Two from the mass of Aboriginal defenders. As Idrem loaded three miniature signal-seeking submunitions into his needler’s side-by-side grenade cassettes, he watched Brenlor guide three of the remaining upt’theel back into their carrier. “If we lose the rest in this assault, these will enable repopulation,” he explained, almost defensively.

Idrem ignored the gruesome images that Brenlor’s comment invoked. “Whenever you are ready.”

Brenlor nodded and, using the right combination of attractant and repellent scents, prompted the nine remaining upt’theel around the corner.

They lifted their noses, catching the fresh prey scent — just before two of them were blasted to slimy mauve and gray bits by the hammering of an autoshotgun. As if they had been one creature, the survivors sped in that direction. The volume of gunfire rose precipitously. The Aboriginals were now busy enough for the Evolved to commence their actual attack.

Idrem nodded at Brenlor, who lifted his needler, stepped forward so he could see partly down the corridor at a very shallow angle, and discharged his grenade launcher at a distant point along the opposite wall.

The round struck the bulkhead, caromed off as per Brenlor’s intent. Abruptly, through the many awakened eyes of the warhead’s submunitions, Idrem could see the casing split off, freeing a flock of small gray balls that flew in a wide arc, and then rolled as Idrem directed through his HUD. As these devices drew near to the defenders, he activated their proximity deployment systems. Nanites sprayed out into the spaces occupied by the enemy.