Crystal Venom (5 page)

As was always the case with the installation of non-matched components, there were a number of cable bundles which did not automatically lock correctly and instead gently but insistently tapped against each other, trying to mate. Marko and the other techs slowly moved around the unit watching for them. When located, they would grasp the coupling then manually unlock further parts of it, allowing it to reconfigure then lock itself on. After fifteen minutes the computer lifted the humans away from the unit and the entire thing lifted a few centimetres, rotated and then, after powering up, floated down into the housing, locking itself. The onboard computer, once satisfied, would flash the results to the techs so they could move onto the next task.

As each task was completed, the covers would fold over the exposed parts, so that, as the hours ticked by,
Mudshark
slowly started to look more like a ship than some bizarre flower. The final jobs they completed were adding their own weapons systems, and housings for their drones, to the hull using the universal locks and electricals common to most Administration and Gjomvik craft. Fritz upgraded the comms gear, loaded his drones, then installed a backup computer system. Jan upgraded the medical suite on board, then checked everyone for fatigue and passed out stims as required.

A Manta V two-man combat submersible was loaded into
Mudshark’s
hangar, with the refurbished Harpoon missile in its launch housing loaded onto the side. Two four-man escape pods were also loaded. As they could not get them to fit in
Mudshark’s
afterdeck cradles, they stored them in the hangar. Harry considered this solution a messy one, but at least they had something and when asked about the pods by Fritz, he confirmed that they were good. ‘MK-19 units. Basically, four coffins each built around a life support and propulsion system. Really cramped, but very tough and able to support their occupants for one hundred standard hours in hostile or extreme conditions. If they decide that rescue is not imminent within that time period, you will be turned into an icicle. Just hope you never have to spend time in one.’

By 7.00 a.m. planet time
Mudshark
was ready. With the mechanics and engineers watching, the
Basalt
crew climbed into their new craft.

The major took the main helm seat, with Harry in the co-pilot’s seat and Flint perched on his shoulder. In the compartment behind the cockpit, Marko naturally took the engineer’s seat, with Fritz on comms and sensors. Jan took the commander’s seat, which earned her some stick, to which she responded by saying she was the colonel for the day and that they had all better behave.

Topaz elected to stay behind in the workshops. Marko had no idea where Glint was until he saw him outside with his head jutting out over the side of the machine. He smiled, knowing that sometimes he acted like a dog with its head outside a vehicle window, tasting the slipstream.

The major powered up the main generators and then eased the antigravity units online.
Mudshark
lifted a metre or so off the hangar floor; a tractor pushed them out through the main doors into the sunlight. Main propulsion was then brought online and the major taxied it up and down a large shoreline access slipway to get a feel for it. Once he was satisfied, he moved them at a respectable speed across the ocean bay towards the huge crater walls, where the seaborne craft-firing range was located. Once at the range, the major slowed
Mudshark
down to a walking pace so Jan could test the weapons.

Jan, as weapons controller, deployed the rail guns on their high-speed hydraulics, allowing them to slew forty-five degrees sideways and swivel one hundred and eighty degrees through vertical as well. She then test fired each gun with different power settings and using the varieties of ammunition that they had on board. Once everyone was satisfied, they took
Mudshark
on a high-speed series of manoeuvres across the ten-kilometre-wide bay, guns deployed and at rest, snuggled against the main body. They were pleasantly surprised at how fast it was, easily cruising up to two hundred and fifty kilometres per standard hour and able to climb to an altitude of fifteen metres before the AIs detected flight instabilities. They were horrified, however, by the flight characteristics when the guns were deployed away from the craft’s main body. Harry remarked that this was an artillery-style support craft and most definitely not a fighter.

While all this was happening, Fritz was testing the computer systems, together with the newly augmented sensors, and also trialling the parameters of available flight control with and without computers or AIs. Flying the beast without AIs or computers was possible, but created a very obvious strain on the major and Harry’s capabilities. Satisfied, the major nodded. ‘Right, back to base, refuel, rearm, provision and off we go hunting a sub. Any questions or observations not already covered? No. OK, take us back to dock twelve, please, Harry. Base Techs, please stand by, we will be there in ten minutes.
Mudshark
techs, please also report. Once docked, you have one hour for final checks of all systems.’

An hour and fifteen minutes later they were heading at speed out of the bay towards the point in the moderately salty ocean from where they had originally recovered
Mudshark.

As they had some five hundred kilometres to go and the AIs were perfectly capable of running the ship, the humans dozed away the couple of hours’ travel time. The major alerted them all when they were fifty kilometres out and they went to light alert as
Mudshark
slowed down to twenty-five kilometres per hour. They already had their combat suits on, so it was more of a heads up to visit the loo, grab a snack and a drink, then run checks at their appointed stations. Glint and Flint were inside the Manta V submersible checking the systems and running some last-minute adjustments on the Harpoon for probable subsurface deployment, so Marko called them up to come to the cockpits.

They cruised around the area where they had first spotted
Mudshark
from the air prior to organising its retrieval.

‘Major Longbow.’

‘Games Board monitor. How may I be of service?’

‘I wish to conduct a background interview with one of your crew as to how this craft was captured by you.’

‘Yes, of course. Sergeant Major Spitz, can you assist, please?’

Marko groaned to himself then turned from his engineering board to look at the monitor, first affixing a welcoming smile on his face. The once-human had lowered himself to Marko’s face level and was looking intently at him as if he was some moderately interesting biological specimen. Marko looked at the handsome male face and wondered if the individual ever thought of his family or had even visited them since he had been recruited as a child. He had changed beyond all the usual human augments into the part human but mostly audiovisual recording and editing antigravity-assisted machine.

‘Sergeant Major Marko Spitz. For our viewers, can you please tell us your thoughts and actions when this craft was liberated from the Gjomvik interlopers.’

Marko, who had done so many interviews that he’d lost count, slipped into what Jan called his ‘Sphere persona’. She’d teased him about it many times, saying that he almost came across as being knowledgeable and sincere.

‘It is amazing to think that only forty-eight standard hours ago we captured this craft. At the time the major had been way ahead of us, flying high cover for our hovercraft, when he relayed sensor data of two escape pods disappearing over the horizon. Some hours earlier one of our satellites had noted a large, unusual disturbance on the ocean surface and, as we had been out doing test firings and aerial recovery of the Harpoon seizure and electronic control missile, we were vectored to investigate. The Aurora combat reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft the major was flying had been stripped of its weapon so that it could carry its standard surveillance drone and the Harpoon. The high-speed drone had relayed the first images of
Mudshark
as its chameleon-ware shut down. Major Longbow made a snap decision and deployed the Harpoon, realising that this craft was something new, because the Intel AI could not identify it as an Administration craft or any other known vehicle. The Harpoon accelerated to Mach 4 to get to
Mudshark
as quickly as possible; it was quite literally down to its last ten litres of pure fuel water as it deployed its air brakes and latched onto the communication mast at about thirty kilometres per hour, shearing it off, then swinging around and locking into the electronic feeds.’

Marko watched the monitor as he was talking, knowing that as he spoke the hybrid of human and machine was editing and splicing images of the Aurora and the Harpoon missile into its data feeds, over the recording that it was making of him. Marko wondered how much humanity the monitor still retained as he continued his story.

‘The Harpoon’s control protocols, designed by Sergeant Fritz van Vinken, then crashed what remained of
Mudshark’s
computers and seized control of the propulsion systems. Control was given to Fritz at his console aboard our hovercraft so he could start moving
Mudshark
away from the area. We rendezvoused with the craft some hours later and jumped across into the open hangar door to take possession. As we discovered later, the only reason it was afloat, with no AG, was due to the huge amount of flotation built into it. We then managed to coax one hundred kilometres per hour out of it and nursed it back to the base.’

The monitor nodded, gracing him with a tight little smile as it spoke. ‘My thanks, Sergeant Major, and my compliments to you. Folks, it looks like things are starting to happen. We shall bring you the action of the day in this special presentation from the Games Board, so stay focused on us! And now a message from our very latest Games Board-approved energy drink.
Vapour
! Drink it to stay alert and focused while relaxing and enjoying all the Games Board presentations! And yes! It is perfectly safe, designed specifically with you, our wonderfully supportive viewers, in mind. Gloriously safe even for the pregnant among you who are bringing into our Universe the next generation of viewers, who we of the Games Board will faithfully serve as always.’

~ * ~

Three

The major keyed his microphone again. ‘We are in the main area. Sergeant van Vinken, you ready to go? Right, do your stuff.’

‘Subsurface drones deploying, aerial drones away.’

The plan was to drop ten Intel drones around the area, within a one-kilometre radius of the battle site. Nautical Meteorological had advised them earlier that the area in question had been relatively quiet at the original battle time, although, with two of the planet’s moons in conjunction, the tidal flows would peak six hours after they had arrived in the vicinity, which would mean unpredictable high waves. Everyone was now constantly watching their own instruments and keeping an eye on the Intel feeds as well. They scanned the entire area, found nothing, recovered the drones in sequence, stepped out another kilometre and did it all over again, and again and again.

They had covered a rather large chunk of water. It was midafternoon, the ocean was now very lumpy with the huge tidal shifts and Marko, for one, was getting rather annoyed about still being in combat gear. It was really good kit, but it was designed to keep them alive, not necessarily comfortable. So, as always it seemed, the excitement started when they were ready to go to sleep with Fritz yelling, ‘Contact, contact, fifteen degrees starboard, seven hundred and fifty metres, depth eighty-five metres, sea mount; anomaly is present on top of the sea-mount, considerable aquatic-life activity around it.’

Count on Fritz to be correct in his language most of the time, Jan mused, and it was always good for the monitors.

‘Seal up, combat protocols! Stand-off at five hundred metres,’ the major responded. ‘Recover, refuel and redeploy drones.’

Fritz, totally immersed in his numerous data feeds, reported again: ‘Drone six destroyed, sir, drones five and seven under attack. Same as the octopoids in configuration, but massing twenty-five to thirty-five kilograms, and a few up to the one-hundred-kilogram mark.’

‘OK, let’s climb to fifteen metres and take the speed up to two hundred, co-pilot. If any surface targets are acquired, Staff Jan Wester, you are cleared to engage.’

‘Acknowledged, Major.’

‘Anomaly moving towards the centre of our orbit. Surmise that it is the Gjomvik Submersible, as it is trying to communicate with this craft,’ Fritz called out.

From the co-pilot’s chair, Harry asked, ‘Method?’

‘Long-wave acoustic. Comms buoy away.’

The major nodded his approval. ‘Acknowledge the signal. Is it human or AI?’

‘Feels human, sir,’ Fritz replied. ‘Female Germanic accented. Unusual for an AI.’

‘Right, Fritz, standard parley protocol.’

‘No acknowledgment, sir, but it’s still moving, being intensely attacked. It must be a very tough piece of kit.’

On a side screen Marko watched the visual feeds from the submerged drones, fascinated as hundreds of squid-like creatures zoomed up out of the depths to engage each drone. The controlling computers on board
Mudshark
and the small computers in each of the drones tried every defensive tactic available to them, from firing tiny short-range high-speed torpedoes into the larger octopoids, to tumbling into the masses of smaller ones to suck the creatures into the twin, side-mounted, shrouded propellers, to lasering the eyes of the creatures with intense ultraviolet light, or high-speed ramming. But the numbers of octopoids just kept increasing, slowly wearing the tough little drones down.