Predator - Incursion (10 page)

“Something’s going on, Johnny. Across the Rim.”

“We’ve seen no signs that they’re gearing up for war.”

“I didn’t say war.”

“It’s what you were thinking.” Mains shook his head. “We take out a few ships and it’s tit for tat, always has been with the Yautja. If we burn their habitat, that’s an act of war. We have no idea what the death toll would be, because we don’t really know how many live there. But you know these freaks. Ask Snowdon. No one knows how long they live, and it’s all pride and honor with them. If you ask me, that’s just another cause for hunting and killing, but if we destroy something like this, they’ll come after something bigger. Escalation. Our job out here is to prevent war, not cause one.”

“Yeah, okay, but we have to consider that the habitat’s a target, if the situation calls for it.” She turned away, but Mains grabbed her arm. The others were looking. Even Frodo seemed silent and expectant.

“We’re in combat now,” Mains said to them all. “Let’s stay frosty.”

Suited up with all personal systems in ready mode, weapons ready in slings beside their seats, they took their places. Mains walked among them, saying nothing but watching them work in a loaded silence. They held together like one oiled machine, only this one was missing two parts.

“L-T,” Faulkner said after a few minutes. “I’ve got a combat solution.”

“Let’s hear it.”

* * *

“On my mark,” Mains said. “Three… two… one…
hit it
.”

Frodo was ready. All systems had been programmed, and they’d gone over the action profile three times. Now all they had to do was sit in their seats and monitor events.

The
Ochse
’s cloak was disengaged. At the same time the sub-space channel was opened and their message fired through to Tyszka’s Star. A second later their thrusters fired, throwing the ship into an acceleration that would have turned its occupants into wet smears had the hull not been shielded.

The Yautja ship designated Bastard Four showed the first signs of reacting, but Faulkner’s combat solution was already in play. Brought to bear on very precise trajectories, the
Ochse
’s front laser cannons let loose a staggered series of shots that perforated the space around the enemy ship. Seconds later it bloomed into a cloud of gas and debris, and disappeared from the scanner.

“Bastard Four down,” Faulkner announced. “Drone One launched.” With a disconcerting thud, one of the ship’s drones dropped from the hold’s open bay doors and then streaked away from them, ion engine blasting at full thrust as its onboard weapon systems hunkered ready.

“Status of the other three ships?” Mains asked. He could see the screen, but knew that McVicar would be analyzing even the slightest changes in bearing or velocity.

“Bastards One and Two maintaining their original courses,” McVicar said. “Three is swinging around and coming for us. Largest of the four.”

“Have they seen the drone?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“L-T, three more ships are leaving the habitat,” Snowdon said.

“Faulkner?”

“Frodo, Drone Two.”

Another thud and the second drone left the ship.

“Bastard Three’s down,” Faulkner said. “Drone Two is heading for One and Two.”

Mains had already seen the green arrow wink out on the screen.

“They got it?”

“Yes. Hold on.” Faulkner’s fingers danced across his control panels. “Frodo?”

“Ready.”

“Micro-nukes away. Particle modulator firing up.”

“Let’s not aim that thing anywhere near the habitat,” Mains said.

“L-T!” Cotronis said, but he sent a stern glance her way.

“We’ve had this discussion. We’re not here to start a war, Corporal.”

“But maybe they are!”

“Second wave of Yautja ships are splitting up, courses staggered,” Snowdon said. “They’re coming for us.”

“Sure they are,” Mains said. “Okay, evasive action.”

“The modulator?” Faulkner asked.

“Only if we get a shot that doesn’t put the habitat at risk.” He’d seen a particle modulator at work before. An immense weapon, but with a spread of effects that were difficult to control, it required a sustained, focused shot to work properly. Not ideal when they were already taking evasive action.

“Bastards One and Two have spiraled up to light speed and vanished,” McVicar said.

“Bearing?” Mains asked.

“As before.”

“Removed themselves from the fight,” Lieder said.

“Or taken it elsewhere,” Cotronis said.

“The micro-nukes have been taken out by Yautja countermeasure,” Snowdon said. “Sir, we need to make a decision here.”

“Fight or flight,” Lieder said.

“We don’t run from a fight we started,” Mains said. “Lieder, swing us around so that we’ve got a clear field of fire on Bastards Five, Six, and Seven.”

Lieder’s fingers danced across her controls and Frodo twisted their ship. Mains felt the movements, an unsettling sense of leaving the ghost of himself behind. It was always disconcerting, but something they were all trained for. It didn’t prevent him from wanting to puke.

“Five and Six have fired,” Faulkner said, but even as he spoke Frodo had launched their countermeasures. Light bloomed on the screen as explosions grew and faded a hundred miles behind them.

“L-T, I’ve got a—” Faulkner began.

“Bastard One uncloaking!” Snowdon shouted. “Fifteen miles to starboard, laser cannons—”

The ship jumped. Atmosphere vented. The gravity system flicked off, making them sickeningly weightless. Someone screamed. Mains was pressed back in his seat as protective restraints locked down across his body, and just before a shield of hardening foam closed around him, he saw a combat suit bouncing from the bulkhead above him. Sliced neatly in two, it trailed strings of viscera.

Blood flowed, spiraled, and splashed.

Swartwood Station 3, orbiting Weaver’s World
July 2692
AD

“Of course you can have chocolate, Honey, but only after school.”

“Promise, Mommy?”

“I promise.”

Lucy-Anne pouted. “Do you have to go to work?”

Her mother smiled and tickled her, reducing Lucy-Anne to the usual squirming, giggling mess. The girl tried to run away, darting across their cabin and expecting her mother to follow, grab her back, tickle her some more—but her mother had been acting strange lately. Distracted, not sleeping very well. She looked tired, and sometimes Lucy-Anne crept from her sleeping cubby and saw her sitting in the middle of a darkened cabin, hand resting on the comms control as if expecting it to speak to her.

The only person who spoke to them regularly was Daddy, and Daddy was away.

Though only eight, Lucy-Anne already recognized the future that was laid out for her. She’d only seen her father six times in the last four years, and the joy of seeing him in his Colonial Marines uniform had dulled. Now her mommy was training to do the same, and the time would soon come when the schooling wing of Swartwood Station would become Lucy-Anne’s home.

She knew that when the time came, she would also don the uniform. She wasn’t quite sure what she felt about that. She liked the warm feel of her daddy’s combat suit, the way it closed around her, and all the things she could see, hear, and do inside. Its computer even seemed to know her name.

She would still rather they were all home together.

“Mommy?” Her mommy was looking at her in a weird way. Head to one side, eyes wide and wet, right hand fisted and tapping at her thigh as if to a tune only one of them could hear.

“You’re a good girl.”

“I know,” Lucy-Anne said.

“Chocolate after school.”

“Okay.”

Her mommy was quiet for a moment longer, and Lucy-Anne thought she was going to cry. But then she blinked a few times, turned her head as if listening, and smiled.

“So can you walk yourself to school today? Mommy’s got something to do.”

“Can I go across the walkway?”

“Sure you can.”

“Yay!” Lucy-Anne loved the walkway. It made her feel like she was flying. “Love you, Mommy!”

Her mother came close and hugged her tighter than she ever had before, but she didn’t speak.

* * *

Lucy-Anne was known among many of the residents of Swartwood Station 3. It was her bright pink dungarees that set her apart. Most girls her age were already dressing in combat fatigues matching their parents’, but Lucy-Anne had always loved pink.

People smiled and nodded to her as she left the accommodation wing, a few exchanged brief pleasantries, and soon she was halfway to the station’s hub and ready to cross the walkway. Swartwood Station 3 consisted of a large hub and four huge pods, unofficially called Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Lucy-Anne didn’t know where the names came from, but she liked that her school was in Luke. It was a nice place, brightly decorated and run by teachers who everyone liked.

Mark was the accommodation pod, Matthew the training center, and John was the hangar, where ships came and went. The Hub was the main control center of the space station. There were almost two thousand people on board, and a third of those were kids. She liked having so many children to play with. From the moment she headed out on the walkway, she forgot that one day soon her parents would leave her here alone.

That was the main reason she liked the walkway between Mark and Luke. Not only did it feel like flying, but it helped her to forget.

Six hundred and fifty yards long, the tunnel was made almost entirely of diamonite-impregnated glass. Wide enough for several people to pass each other, it gave an all-round view that never got old. Usually when she came this way, alone, she ended up being late for school, and sometimes she got into trouble for that. That was why she normally had to go all the way to the hub and back up the main arm to Luke. It wasn’t very often mommy let her come this way. And she’d been promised chocolate after school.

Maybe she’s missing Daddy
, Lucy-Anne thought.
Like me
.

She stood and stared.

Beneath her, visible through the clear floor, was the hub of Swartwood Station, the whole structure spinning in its orbit to provide artificial gravity. So she looked up and out, through the glass ceiling at the endless space beyond. She never tired of looking, and didn’t understand how anyone could. She was staring at forever. Anything could be out there. If space really was infinite, her daddy had told her—and scientists, he said, still couldn’t agree exactly on that fact—then somewhere out there was a square planet. In infinity, anything was possible.

Somewhere out there was another her.

Lucy-Anne still wasn’t sure whether she liked that idea, but she enjoyed staring, and thinking that if she could expand the direction she was staring, just enough, she might see an alien somewhere far, far away who was looking right back at her. She wondered what that alien was thinking, and whether it was thinking about her.

She wondered all the time.

As she watched, the glowing arc of Weaver’s World slowly swung into view. It was an amazing place that mommy told her was called a Goldilocks planet because it was already somewhere people could live. They’d been down there a few times together, and once with Daddy, all three of them taking a trip north from the space elevator station on the equator and enjoying twenty days on safari. The main island of Weaver’s World was called Ellia, and it was home to an amazing array of flora and fauna. Lucy-Anne had worried that humans being there would get in the way of the planet’s nature, but her mother had told her she shouldn’t worry about that.

They’d watched a herd of cat-sized lizards hunting massive elephantish creatures. They’d seen a cloud of sparkling bats forming complex shapes and patterns over a deep ravine at dusk. Eight-winged butterflies had sung to her, and for dinner they’d eaten fruit that tasted of coconut and chocolate.

The thought of chocolate stirred her from her reverie, and a tall Marine passing by chuckled.

“You’ll be late for school, Lucy-Anne!” he said.

“I just can’t help looking at—”

Something punched her feet. Her vision blurred, stars smeared, and the visible shoulder of Weaver’s World pulsed as if the planet had taken a deep breath.

“Oh my God!” the Marine shouted, and Lucy-Anne looked down between her feet, through the glass floor, at what was happening below. As she saw, the noise came—a boom, thumping her ears; a roar, like water boiling; a crackling, crumpling sound. The hub was birthing fire, great shattered swathes of its superstructure shoved out into space on boiling plumes of flame and debris. The fire quickly retreated as air was drawn out, and then other objects followed. A deck of seating from the large conference center. People, spinning and colliding with wreckage. Some of them were burning as they emerged. Some of them were coming apart, limbs cartwheeling away from the station, colliding with the arms and pods, disappearing into the void.

“Mommy!” Lucy-Anne screamed. She looked at the tall Marine for help, but he was already running back along the walkway toward the accommodation pod.

A huge chunk of the hub powered into the leg connecting it with Luke, crumpling the metal like paper and ripping it aside. The chunk ricocheted up and away from the station, the leg tearing and parting, and the mass of Luke itself started to rip free of the walkway.