Cornerstone, page 17
When he reached the door to the target building, Gabriel crashed his hand onto the access panel. To his great fury, the door opened only a handful of inches and then stopped. Cursing, Gabriel looked over to where the enemy soldiers were ever so slowly advancing towards the crater. Several had started turning their heads towards the doorway, while the others continued staring straight ahead, as the speed of his squad had been enough for them to evade notice.
“Kill them,” shouted Gabriel.
At the same time as he grabbed the edge of the door and heaved, his eyes sought out possible new avenues of escape. Gabriel needed to check the base map on his HUD to be sure, but he had too much to juggle. Grunting with the effort, he pulled at the door, his feet slithering on the grit and the dust.
As the door opened, bit by bit, Gabriel listened to the sound of his squad discharging their weapons. He twisted enough that he could see across the road, and witnessed the carnage his soldiers were visiting upon the enemy. Clouds of blood were frozen in the air, along with pieces of glistening flesh. A dozen or more Sagh’eld had been torn to shreds by the colossal firepower of the RAHD guns, and the aliens, dead without even knowing it, their arms and legs blown off, were falling glacially towards the ground.
“Rocket out,” said Castle.
The missile streaked north and detonated amongst a cluster of Sagh’eld. Plasma blossomed in a flash and then, before the explosion had expanded to its normal size, it slowed to the speed of everything else outside the acceleration field. Within the fringes of the blast, Gabriel saw the shapes of incinerated enemy troops as they were hurled away from the detonation point.
With one final, monumental expenditure of energy, Gabriel dragged the door wide enough open that he and his squad could pass.
“Everyone, inside!” he shouted.
Having given the order, Gabriel strode to the north side of the doorway to make room. He raised the barrel of his gauss rifle and fired shot after shot into the Sagh’eld. The killing brought him no joy, but he didn’t stop – not until the ammunition readout on his gun was at zero.
By now, the rest of the squad was inside, and Gabriel stepped sideways through the part-open door to join them. Another corridor stretched ahead, just like it showed on the base map, and Corporal Ziegler was already leading the soldiers away from the entrance.
“The crew on that Ex’Kaminar aren’t going to let us escape, Sergeant,” said Corporal Hennessey, who’d stopped a few metres along the corridor to wait for Gabriel.
“I don’t know how long until they start taking more direction action,” said Gabriel, addressing the unspoken question.
With practiced fingers he released his rifle’s empty magazine and slotted a new one into place, at the same time as he began a slow jog after the others. Once the magazine change was complete, he accelerated, urging the rest of the squad to keep moving.
The corridor leading away from the entrance was little different to all the others. Every visible surface was burned to one degree or another, and the sprinklers – which were no longer operating – had left everything soaked, though the water had already been turned into ice by the Galos module.
As he ran carefully after the others, Gabriel couldn’t help but glance up at the ceiling towards the unseen battleship. Despite years of fighting the Sagh’eld, he still found them difficult to read, and he couldn’t begin to guess how much more patience the crew on the Ex’Kaminar would have for this continued hunt.
The only glimmer was that there’d be nothing arriving at Lorimos to challenge the battleship for several days. Gabriel was sure the Sagh’eld already knew this, and maybe that would prompt them to stay their hand for a while longer at least.
Trying hard not to second guess fate, Gabriel ran on.
TWENTY-TWO
Unfortunately for Gabriel and his squad, the Sagh’eld had already saturated his intended escape route with ground troops, as if they’d been concentrating their search on this area of Cornerstone before they stumbled upon the location of the Galos.
Not far from the entrance to the building into which they’d escaped, Gabriel’s squad encountered resistance.
“Incoming!” yelled Corporal Ziegler from up front.
Followed this warning came the thumping discharge of a RAHD gun, along with multiple gauss rifle shots.
Gabriel took immediate refuge in the room he was just passing, and the other members of his squad did likewise, either in the room opposite, or those just ahead.
Crouching at the doorway, Gabriel looked east. The corridor was long, with doorways for most of its length. Checking the base map on his HUD, Gabriel cursed when he saw there was also an open area ahead, with four entrances.
He watched for a moment longer. Although the night vision enhancement was good enough, it did add the slightest of ambiguities to shapes and objects, and Gabriel was beginning to look forward to the time when he could rely once more on the honest-to-goodness human eye.
Right now, the corridor was empty of hostiles, and all of Gabriel’s squad had taken cover. “Corporal Ziegler, please report.”
“Three hostiles down, sir,” said Ziegler. “I believe there are others ahead.”
“We can’t stick around,” said Gabriel. “I’m moving up. Corporal Ziegler, you’re coming with me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Taking advantage of his enormous speed advantage over his opponents, Gabriel exited the doorway and sprinted east, going straight past Ziegler and Wolf, and on to the next two opposite doorways. Checking each quickly and finding them empty, he dashed to the next two doors, with Ziegler not far behind.
Before Gabriel could check the two rooms for Sagh’eld troopers, he noticed the slowest of movements farther along. An enemy soldier was in the process of emerging into sight from the open area, though so far it was only showing an arm and a shoulder, along with most of one leg.
Finding his own room empty, Gabriel, indicated to Ziegler there was danger ahead, and the two of them continued, relying on speed rather than caution.
Enemy soldiers began slowly emerging from other doorways, and Gabriel saw two more Sagh’eld troopers in the open space ahead. Since the aliens remained partly in cover, they made difficult targets – at least when it came to getting clean kills. Bracing himself, Gabriel fired shots at the parts of his opponents which were in his sight. Blood sprayed, pieces of flesh wrapped in grey combat armour were torn away, but he doubted these injuries would be fatal.
“I reckon we’re only wasting ammo here, Sergeant,” said Ziegler, holding fire after sending a handful of shots along the passage.
Gabriel nodded. “We need to be more forceful.”
Turning west, so that his voice would carry more clearly to his squad, he gave some brief orders. Breaking from cover, the soldiers – all bar Teague and Davison - advanced rapidly east along the passage.
Gabriel resumed his own journey east, with Ziegler alongside. In the next room, Gabriel discovered a Sagh’eld trooper slowly heading for the exit onto the corridor. A second enemy was also present.
Since neither of the aliens had their guns aimed at the doorway, Gabriel stood brazenly in the opening and shot both. From this proximity, he could clearly see the face of the nearest Sagh’eld. The creature had yellowy, parchment skin, reminiscent of an ancient corpse, and small green eyes. Its features were almost humanlike, but with a narrow nose and mouth. In common with others of its species, this one only had sparse hair.
Despite the two cavernous bullet wounds Gabriel had just put in the Sagh’eld’s chest, the alien’s expression didn’t change one little bit.
“Moving up,” said Gabriel.
“Sergeant, we need to take care that we don’t exit the acceleration field,” said Ziegler.
“Good point,” said Gabriel, drawing to a halt. “And it would be damned useful to find out how far it extends.”
Not wishing to be shot dead in the name of scientific experiment, Gabriel called for Teague and Davison to advance with the Galos module. Moments later, they emerged from one of the side rooms about fifteen metres back. Darkness continued swirling around the device and Gabriel wondered if the effects of it had grown over the last few minutes.
Something made him think that fifteen metres was a good number upon which to base his estimate of the acceleration field’s radius, and he communicated this thought to the rest of the squad.
Proceeding once more, this time with a greater awareness of his distance from the Galos, Gabriel checked the next side room, this one being empty. Soon, the other rooms had also been confirmed clear.
“Time to see what’s waiting for us in this room up ahead,” said Gabriel.
The open space was about ten metres away, and the two Sagh’eld he’d seen earlier were still visible, and still coming towards the corridor. One had lost half of its left hand to a gauss shot, but it didn’t seem to have noticed.
Ensuring that Davison and Teague were following, Gabriel approached the opening. With each step, his visibility arc improved, and, five metres from the room, he shot the enemy soldier on the right, while Ziegler’s RAHD tore out the stomach cavity of the alien on the left.
Advancing to the corner, Gabriel checked out the room, which was about twenty metres across, and with a floor covered in the same sorry debris as everywhere else.
Aside from the exit opposite, there were the two other exits he’d seen on the base map earlier. Both of these exits – north and south – were crowded with Sagh’eld troops, all heading towards the human squad. East, the corridor was empty and, not far along that way, Gabriel expected to find the entrance to the subterranean tunnel which would take him and his squad most of the way to the underground bay.
“Private Damico,” said Gabriel, pulling a grenade free from his side belt. “Clear the north corridor.”
“Yes, sir,” said Damico, moving up from the back.
“The firing angle isn’t perfect from this entrance, so you’ll need to head towards the middle of the room.”
“Gotcha, Sergeant.”
Indicating that Corporal Ziegler should accompany him, Gabriel turned right at the corner and headed south along the wall. Stopping at what he thought was fifteen metres from the Galos, he armed the grenade and hurled it into the corridor, bouncing it off the upper wall so that it would land deeper amongst the enemy.
The grenade went off with a flash and a truncated crack of expanding air and enemy soldiers were knocked down. Gabriel sent a second grenade after the first and the device exploded moments after Damico opened fire with his Kahn-3.
Motioning for Ziegler to head deeper into the room, Gabriel took several steps east, so that he could see farther along the south corridor. He and Ziegler fired many shots from their guns, and soon, they were joined by Private Damico, whose repeater had chewed through almost two dozen Sagh’eld in only a few seconds. With that done, the soldier had repositioned to fire south.
Soon, the slaughter was complete, and the number of dead aliens to the south approximately equalled those to the north. Gabriel backed away, deeper into the acceleration field, his hands swapping magazines on autopilot. The corridors in both directions were a mess of blood and bone, and a few of the Sagh’eld were on their way to the ground. For others, the reality of their deaths hadn’t yet caught up, and they pressed on towards the room in super-slow motion.
While there was nobody in the squad had any sympathy for the aliens, most of the soldiers stared at the brutal outcome of this short engagement. One or two shrugged, Wolf swore, and that was the extent of the reaction.
“Let’s go,” said Gabriel. “While the going’s good.”
He led the squad east towards the far door.
“Uh, Sergeant, the other half of the broken containment shield just fell off the Galos module,” said Private Davison.
Despite the need to make haste, Gabriel came to a halt and turned. Davison and Teague were only a few metres away, and the latter pointed at an object on the ground, this object being a piece of shielding. Hovering nearby, the once partly exposed face of the Galos module was now fully exposed. The darkness around the device had grown unmistakeably and, to Gabriel’s eye, it possessed a hunger which he hadn’t noticed before.
“What happened?” he asked.
“It must have been loose already, Sergeant,” said Davison.
“And we haven’t tried too hard to avoid pushing that part of the device,” said Teague. “On the last push, it just fell off.”
Out of curiosity, Gabriel approached the cube. The darkness within was mesmerising, though he felt nothing physical from it. When he reached out a hand – without touching - his fingers and hand seemed to elongate, as though the device wanted to draw him inside.
Crouching next to the broken piece of shielding, Gabriel tried to slide his fingers underneath it in order to pick it up. To his surprise, he was unable to do so. Although the broken plating was hardly a quarter centimetre thick, it was incredibly heavy, and he couldn’t budge it.
As he was about to rise, a tiny object caught Gabriel’s eye, stuck to the corner part of the shielding. Reaching out, he pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and pulled. The object wasn’t as heavy as the shielding and Gabriel felt a snap as it came away. He looked at it in the palm of his hand.
“What’s that, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Hennessey.
“I don’t know,” said Gabriel.
The object was no more elaborate than a black-coloured one-centimetre cube, and a pinpoint of green light was visible on one face. Bringing the cube closer to his visor, Gabriel stared at it. Whatever it was, this object had definitely formed part of the Galos module. Since he didn’t know what he’d found, and because he wasn’t a man to just throw things away, Gabriel dropped the cube into one of his leg pockets. Maybe someone else would know if the object had a use.
Rising and stepping around to one of the Galos module’s intact adjacent faces, Gabriel tapped on the plating with his knuckles near to where the shielding had broken away. The action produced almost no sound. Tapping again – harder this time – Gabriel was sure he felt movement.
Crouching, he stared at the lower edge where two faces joined. Although a property of the shielding made it difficult for him to focus, Gabriel was sure he could see a split in the material. He tapped again and the movement was more noticeable near the join.
Rising, he smiled thinly at the others. “I reckon the plating is loose on at least two of these other faces.”
“That’s right, Sergeant,” said Davison. “I noticed while I’ve been pushing the device along.”
“And you didn’t think to mention it?”
Davison did his best to look contrite. “Sorry, Sergeant – I thought you’d already guessed the rest of the plating was damaged from all those bullets we fired at it.”
Gabriel sighed. After the first section of the containment shield fell off, there’d been too many other things to think about, so he hadn’t considered that the rest of the plating might have been damaged as well.
“Let’s not worry about it,” he said.
“Maybe it doesn’t matter, sir,” said Chan.
“Judging by how much this darkness around the module has grown, I’m going to guess that it does matter,” said Gabriel. “Our best hope is that it doesn’t matter to us. Or to the crew of the New Beginning.”
He pondered the situation for a moment.
“Damnit, let’s test the range of this acceleration field,” he said. “While we have the chance.”
Having instructed Davison and Teague to leave the Galos module where it was, Gabriel went east. At fifteen metres he turned. Corporal Hennessey gave him a wave to indicate the soldiers were still moving at the same speed.
Next, Gabriel took a long stride east. Turning once more, he found himself confronted by an intensely peculiar view. Starting from just in front of his face, the light was pulled in such a way that it was stretched towards a vanishing point in the centre of the acceleration field – a vanishing point which Gabriel felt sure was the Galos module. Rather than reaching this vanishing point, the movement of the light was further distorted into a twisting spiral centred on the alien device.
Somewhere in the middle, Gabriel sensed movement, but it was too fast for his brain to fully comprehend.
Then, Corporal Ziegler appeared right in front of Gabriel and within the sphere. The light distortion didn’t affect the soldier so much, but it was still apparent, and gave him an otherworldly appearance.
Gabriel stepped back into the acceleration field. “That was…unusual,” was the first thing he could think of to say. Striding back with Ziegler to join the others, Gabriel told them of his experience.
“The way you described it, sir – the way you said Corporal Ziegler appeared right in front of you – makes it sound like we’re moving much faster than we first thought,” said Hennessey.
It was a good observation and Gabriel considered it for a moment. “Maybe we are moving faster than before,” he said. “And what if it’s because that other piece of the containment shielding broke off?”
“If you’re right about all of this, then we’re going to give the Sagh’eld an even greater headache next time we run into them,” said Private Wolf.
“I was brought up to believe that for every upside there’s a downside,” said Private Castle. “And right now, I’m expecting to be kicked hard up the ass by whatever unknown side effect results from us breaking the shielding on this alien cube.”
“We can’t let the worrying stop us from achieving our objectives,” said Gabriel. “Maybe the New Beginning has its own containment shield and once we deliver the Galos, whatever’s inside this thing will be sealed up again.”
“I’m not sure that’s—” Davison began.
“Enough,” said Gabriel. “Whatever comes from this, we have to keep going.”
Resuming the journey east, he tried not to think too hard about the Galos module. He wasn’t successful and his brain kept returning to the alien device. Any lingering belief that the Galos was the product of a Human Confederation research lab had completely faded, and if it wasn’t made by humanity, and it wasn’t made by the Sagh’eld, that meant it had been created by a different species entirely.
