The Infinity Brigade #1 Stone Cold (19 page)

We had just under a week to get ready. Four of those days would be spent traveling to the far reaches of the Sol system so we could execute a hyperfield jump to the Hupenstanii system. The remaining three would be traveling from the outer reaches of Hupenstanii space to their home world. 

Eventually the Captain wound down his review of what was expected and I was dismissed to report to Commander Savage. On the way down to Marine country, which is what Red called deck four on the
Puller
because that is where the Marines assigned to the
Puller
had their billets and workout facilities, Red confided that in all the time he had been serving on the Puller he had never heard the ‘old man’ spend more than two minutes talking to anybody.

The fact that he had taken fifteen minutes to take my measure and personally brief me must mean something… the question was I was forced to ask myself was ‘what did it mean?’ It turned out I didn’t have long to wait to get my answer…

Chapter 19: Hazing…

Commander Savage reminded me of a hairless grizzly bear only not as adorable. Think big, intimidating, mountain of meat… and you pretty much nailed it. Despite his muscular bulk, or maybe because of it, he had an infectious sense of humor and a perpetual twinkle in his eye.

He was of American Indian descent and was virtually hairless. He kept his head shaved to a short white stubble which added to the man’s mystique… that and the impressive collection of oversized weapons he had mounted on a board behind his desk. He had everything from a WWII bazooka to a state-of-the-art hand-held plasma cannon strapped to that wall. 

I entered his office and immediately came to attention and saluted. Commander Savage raised a single eyebrow.

“Red, did I not tell you to house-train any new puppies you brought home?”

Red rubbed his chin. “Yeah Doc you did. I guess I forgot the whole saluting thing.”

Commander Savage stood up from behind his desk. He was almost seven feet tall. His physique was so perfectly proportioned he could have easily passed for being a foot shorter. It was only when he stood next to someone else that you realized how big the man was. In fairness, I was a bit jealous. I’m a big guy and I’m proud of the shape I’m in but Doc was huge!

With his bronze skin and white skullcap haircut he reminded me of a fictional character I had read about once… For a few seconds I struggled to place it. When it finally hit me it was like a load of bricks.

“Doc Savage,” I said in awe.

“That’s me,” the Commander said with a grin as he folded his arms in amusement.

“As in the ‘Man of Bronze’,” I continued.

The Commander’s eyebrow went back up. “Red, I do believe we have a book reader here.”

Red shook his head in disbelief. “It is shocking what they will let into the Corps these days,” he answered with his own grin.

Doc clapped me on the shoulder and told me to have a seat. His office had a simple plain table with a computer screen and four dura-steel chairs. I took one of these while Red took another. The commander spoke into the air. “Kitty, get your anal orifice in here… chop chop!” I had always heard Marines, were by nature, a crude bunch. ‘Doc’ Savage and his band of merry misfits did not disappoint.

A second later a Lieutenant Anderson made her way into the office. She was the shortest Marine I had ever seen. She was by no means petite though. I was quite sure she would be a lot of fun to wrestle… but I was by no means confident that, even with a lot more training, I would have ever been able to take her. I’ve seen wild mountain lions that didn’t look as dangerous.

Doc looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t even know what to call you at this point. You got a handle son?”

Before I could answer Red offered “We should call him ‘Young Padawan’.”

I gave Red what I hoped was a sufficiently dirty look and said to the commander, “My friends call me AG.”

“He’s got some fight in him. I like that. Not hard on the eyes either,” Lieutenant Anderson said.

“Down Kitty,” Doc said. “Word has it… he isn’t even house-trained yet.” 

***

It didn’t take me long to figure out where in the pecking order I fell. Red was ordered to introduce me to all the officers and noncoms. Each one insisted of seeing what I was made of. I suspected this was some sort of hazing ritual. Scratch that… I
knew
it was a hazing ritual. As such there was nothing to be done about it other than to endure it.

I was sent to get everything that needed getting. As just one of many examples, I was sent to grab ‘linear graphite dispensers with reverse-articulated, self-attenuating, vulcanized mitigation devices’.  Later, having returned with some pencils (complete with erasers) I was sent by another officer to fetch a ‘dunsel.’ This time I had less luck finding one of these. I had no idea what a dunsel was and the ship’s computer was no help.  When, after much searching and fruitless investigation, I begrudgingly admitted a lack of success to the Marine combat engineer that had sent me after the part in question… he just laughed… and told me not to sweat it… he had all the dunsels he needed. To this day I have no idea what a dunsel is.

The one good thing about the day’s adventures was that I got to walk the entire width and breadth of the ship. Truth be told… I suspect that was the point of the exercise.  

Red informed me that nights in our bunks that the first week would be the worst… but not to sweat it because things would just go downhill from there.
Great
, I thought.
I can hardly wait
.

***

The next day the Marine recruit trainees finally arrived. They had been delayed for a day at the request of Captain Mueller because Commodore Kimbridge had asked the
Puller
to install some upgrades. I had no idea what the upgrades were but I was sure I would be the first to find out if and when I needed to know.

It’s funny how in life you can look back at some points in your life and say… ‘
Wow did I ever get that one wrong
!’… I didn’t know it yet but this was one of those times.

Senior Drill Sergeant Harris was the first off the shuttle. I started to raise my arm to salute but Red grabbed it lightly before I could finish raising it.
Right,
I thought. I’m an officer now and the Drill was a noncom. As I relaxed my arm Red took two steps back. He was once again functioning in his role of mentor.

Sergeant Harris walked up to me and executed a smart salute. I returned it just as crisply.

“Permission to come onboard Ensign.”

“Permission granted,” I responded. “Welcome to the
Puller
Senior Drill Sergeant.”

Sergeant Harris’ lips twitched slightly before he regained his business-like composure. “I see you have already hooked up with the less reputable elements onboard the ship,” he said with a nod towards Red.

“Good to see you too, Dad!” Red came over and went to shake the Drill’s hand before pulling his arm wide to hug the man instead. To my amazement the Drill hugged him back.

“Good to see you son. Have you been showing our young prodigy the ropes?”

“Son?” I said by way of question.

Red grinned. “Did I forget to mention Sergeant Harris is my stepdad?”

“I do believe you did…
forget…
to mention it,” I replied dryly.

“That hurts,” Red quipped.

“Truth often does,” I answered with a grin. 

Getting back to business I turned to Red’s stepdad, Senior Drill Sergeant Harris… It was going to take me some time to wrap my head around that one.

“Senior Drill, the Puller has received a shipment of Mark Three Tactical Armor Combat suits. As soon as the men have set up their temporary billets here in the cargo bay I’ll need twenty men to help move and distribute them. We have only a few days to get comfortable with the differences between the Mark Twos and the Mark Threes.”

“Is twenty men enough Sir?” Sergeant Harris asked.

“More would be quicker,” I agreed, “but the Puller’s corridors are somewhat busy. Twenty recruits tramping up and down them with Stark suits on is going to be disruptive enough.”

“Very good, Ensign. I’ll detail a squad to assist in the distribution.” He checked his subdural wrist chronograph. “Will 0400 be soon enough?”

That was twenty two minutes from now. I nodded my head. “That would be excellent Senior Drill.

***

The next several days flew by for me. There was nothing like on-the-job training. Sadly while I had a full day just getting training set up for the recruits, I also had Officer Training School classes that Doc insisted I begin.

To add to my fun, there was a lot the recruits were learning that I needed to know in order to be an effective leader. They tended to be little but important things… things like
How
to care for and maintain a Mark Three Stark suit
… things like
How to avoid pissing off a three hundred and fifty pound feathered kangaroo
… things like
How to find and utilize a life-pod should the starship you are flying in becomes disabled
. Like I said… little but important things.

We were going to enter Hupenstanii space while I was on a sleep cycle. I was bummed. I had wanted to watch the hyperfield vortex as we jumped from the far edge of the Sol system to the far edge of the Hupenstanii system but I was just too tired. I was operating on four hours of sleep… which in Boot Camp I had gotten used to… but for some reason I found more difficult now. I suspect the difference was that before I was in ‘practice mode’. Everything I did was make-believe. Even the guns we fired and the battles we fought were contrivances. The fact that they were not real took some of the pressure off. By way of contrast, everything I did now was in the real world. If I screwed up now… people could die. This simple truth changes the entire dynamic.

It seemed that my head had just hit the pillow on my bed when there was a loud thump and the sound of screeching metal… followed by a moment of absolute silence… followed by the emergency klaxon.

This did not feel like an exercise. I flew out of my quarters and ran as fast as my legs could carry me down to the hanger deck. My emergency duty station was with the recruits. The first order of business would be to make sure everybody got into their Starks as fast as possible. If the ship lost hull integrity those suits might very well make the difference... not just for the Marine inside of it but also for the entire ship.

The gravity plating was fluctuating wildly. Every few steps it would flicker which would cause my foot to float off the floor… only to crash back down hard when the plating reasserted itself. The normal bright lighting had been replaced with the harsh red of the emergency systems. I could literally feel the ship shuttering. Whatever was going on, we seemed to be taking a beating.

There were so many people running to various emergency duty stations that it would have been easy to get disoriented and lost. I was thankful I had spent the previous day in a forced exploration of the ship. Intentional or not… it was paying dividends now.

As I approached a corridor that split into a tee I went to turn right. Either direction would get me to the hanger where my people were. Two steps down the corridor and the ship took an especially massive hit. A power conduit blew out, showering the passageway with sparks and an arid odor.

I reversed course but not before popping an access panel and hitting the power bypass. The fire suppression systems were already going to work so I continued to make my way to the hanger using the other passageway.

The entire time I had been trying to raise Red and the others on my commlink. Nothing but dead air and the occasional burst of static.
What in the hell had happened
?

With one final burst of speed I flew through the hatch into the hanger. I was relieved to see that most of our troops were already in their new Mark Three Starks. Mine was waiting on the rack in the open position ready for me to enter it. As soon as my back settled against the rear shell and my arms settled in their correct positions I activated the suit’s AI and instructed it to seal up.

My hope had been that the Stark suit’s superior communications suite could cut through whatever was jamming the Puller’s comm systems.

“Report!” I barked over the recruit network.

“Alpha platoon ready and accounted for,’ newly promoted acting Ensign Cochran responded.

“Beta platoon ready and accounted for,” Gretchen said.

“Delta platoon ready and accounted for,” their Ensign reported.

There was nothing from Echo platoon. I waited the barest of seconds before reaching out to their acting OIC.

“Ensign Miller. Give me a status on Echo.”

Nothing. I activated the hydraulics on my Mark Three and stepped out of its charging alcove. As I started to head over to the Echo section of the hanger I began to get dizzy. Something was wrong. Something was very very wrong.

Chapter 20: Trial by Fire…

The first thing I felt when I woke up was fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. The sound of silence was deafening. The room I was in was almost pitch black. I could see an occasional surface as a single red emergency beacon slowly rotated at the far end of the hanger. My Stark suit had three status lights in the helmet that were twinkling for my attention. My weapons and power systems where online but in a low-power mode. I ordered my AI to bring both fully up. The final status light was for my connection to the
Puller’s
AI. It was red indicating that the connection was down. I tried to reinitialize it but no joy.

I opened my communications diagnostics display. Nearfield communications were online and I was seeing about one hundred and fifteen active stations. Those would be my Marine recruits. They all showed positive life-signs but none of them were responding to my status pings.

Radio comms were also online but I was showing no traffic whatsoever. I tried hailing Doc… again no joy. Next I tried the bridge. Ditto. Finally I tried an all stations broadcast. This was technically dangerous as I still didn’t know what had happened to the ship but I reasoned that the chances of finding somebody with more experience handling emergencies was worth the risk.

If bad guys had taken the ship and I was all that was left… we were pretty much toast anyway. If bad guys had invaded the ship but not yet fully secured it then my guys could provide a valuable distraction while the captain marshalled his troops.

I ordered my suit’s AI to access the local hanger controls. I was relieved when I received an electronic confirmation that the connection had been successfully established.

“Lights on, fifty percent,” I commanded.

Slowly the lights in the hanger began to brighten until they hit the fifty percent mark. The scene was not one to inspire confidence. There were scorch marks on the walls where power systems had overloaded. An oily haze had filled the air. I was glad that I was wearing my Stark suit. I suspected that the air outside my suit cause my medical nanites to work overtime clearing the toxins that I suspected were floating about out there.

“Computer, why did I pass out?”

My suits AI responded immediately. “The air supply for your Tactical Combat Armor was compromised.”

“Compromised? How?”

“A foreign substance was introduced in the umbilical supply port and automated filters disabled.”

“What was this foreign substance?”

“Insufficient data to identify.”

“What is the likelihood of this or a similar substance causing me to pass out again?”

“Non-existent. Your suit is no longer attached to the tainted air supply.”

Suddenly I understood why I was awake and the rest were not. Per protocol, recruits had stayed in their charging alcoves so they could avoid drawing down their suit’s consumables for as long as possible. In a combat situation those few minutes lost while milling about could be the difference between life and death. It seemed our opponent knew how we operated.

“Computer, in your estimation was the contamination of the air supply an act of sabotage?”

“Affirmative.”

“Who in the crew and passenger list of the Puller would have the necessary access and skills to perform such an act?”

“Unable to determine an exact list.”

That was curious. I had expected a relatively short list of potential candidates.

“Computer why are you unable to supply the requested list?”

“The list would potentially include the entire crew compliment and passenger manifest on board the
GCP Puller
. While not every member of the crew would have the required access and training as a part of their official duties, it is reasonable to assume a saboteur would receive or otherwise acquire training sufficient to conduct the sabotage in question.”

So the short answer is… everyone is suspect. Great. One thing was clear… I was going to need help if I was going to find out what was going on and put a stop to it. 

“Computer. Disconnect every Stark suit currently in an alcove from its umbilical supply and purge the contaminated air from the suits using the onboard suit supply and filters.”

***

About fifteen minutes later the recruits started waking up. I had been working with my Stark suit’s AI to get access to information on the status of the ship. I was eventually able to access some internal sensor logs that were about an hour old. I knew that most systems were offline. We had partial grav-plating in some areas. The bridge was gone. Not damaged… not breached… gone. Whatever had befallen the
GCP Puller
, it had hit there first. According to the sensor log there was a forty eight meter wide hole in the side of the ship that extended a full sixty meters into the ship. It was as if someone had taken a massive melon scoop and carved out a section of the ship. The chunk they carved out exactly corresponded to the bridge.

A part of me was immediately angry. I had just met Captain Mueller but he had seemed the type of man who cared more for others than the average bear. That he was in all likelihood now dead seemed grossly unfair and unjust. Whatever force or forces was behind this attack, I was committed to bringing them to justice.

  As I dived through the sensor archive, I noted that there were hull breaches on decks four, five and six. This might have explained why I had been unable to raise the Marine contingent.

According to the logs the hull breaches had all occurred within seconds of one another. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that whoever had sabotaged the Stark suit air supply had also planted charges around the ship in an effort to take out as much resistance as possible. The problem was my data was old and I didn’t know what I was facing in terms of force composition or size. Nor did I know their ultimate objective other than seizing control of a GCP starship.

“Man my head hurts,” JJ said as he made his way to my position. “Anybody get the number of the guy driving the bus that hit me?”

“Stow it soldier,” I said crisply. People had died and I was in no mood for joviality.  I toggled my commlink to address all four platoons at once.

“Attention all recruits. This is Ensign Stone. As of this moment your training is done. The
GCP Puller
has been attacked by an unknown agent or agency. We have no idea of the nature or size of the force we will are facing. What we do know is that the ship is disabled and that lives have been lost… to include many, if not most, or all, of the command staff.  The saboteurs have managed to hole the ship’s hull at key locations. The Marines on deck four are not responding nor do I expect them to. Their deck was exposed to hard vacuum at about the same time as the bridge. The reason many of you have headaches is because the umbilicals feeding air to your Stark suits were tampered with and software safety protocols overridden. This was not an accident… this was an attack. We may represent the only effectives left on the ship. I know I’m asking a lot of you. None of us were expecting to go to actual battle today but this is where we are. I’m going to need you all to grow up a little faster. I believe in you and our ship needs us. NCOs take charge of your platoons. Ensigns report to me directly. Sergeant Hammond, turn your platoon over to your Corporal and report to me as well. Stone out.”

I closed the channel and waved the Ensigns over to my position. I had my AI setup a new group channel with a unique encryption key. Grabbing JJ’s helmet I physically held it against mine. I wanted to be able to speak to him without anybody else hearing what I said. I knew that the sound of my voice would conduct through the metal of the helmets.

“JJ, I need you to set your nearfield comms to channel six and your decryption key to 951413. Got it?”

“Roger that Sir,” he answer immediately. A second later his nearfield radio was matched to mine. “What’s the plan Sir,” he asked.

“JJ, I’m going to level with you. I’m making this up as we go. We need to figure out what the hell is happening… and we need to control the flow of information. It seems clear that we have a rogue agent or agents onboard. The problem is we don’t know who or how many there are. This channel is our private channel from this point forward. Don’t share it with anybody. I’m going to setup channel 9 with 314159 as the command channel.”

“I understand AG. Does this mean we are it? We are on our own?”

“At the moment yes,” I confirmed. “The Drills were in a meeting when the crap hit the fan. I have no idea about them or any other member of the crew. The comms are completely fried. I need you to do your magic with the computer systems and get me access to whatever is left of the data net on this ship. In a few minutes we are going to need to break out of here and I’d like to know what we are facing.”

I looked up. The others had all arrived so I switched channels and encryption codes and passed the information on to each of the others using the same helmet to helmet protocol.

***

I divided the recruits into four teams based on platoons. It was not the most efficient use of limited personnel but I was factoring in the relative inexperience of the recruits and the fact that they had become used to working within the structure of a platoon.

Our ultimate objective was to regain control of the ship… or failing that… to deny our enemy its use. To accomplish this goal I needed to discover who or what we were fighting and what the current condition of the ship and existing crew was.

JJ was helpful in this regard. While I was still conferring with the four platoon Ensigns he managed to hack his way into the
Puller’s
computer net. According to him the net was a mess. Apparently one of the systems targeted was the computer core. Fortunately for us that objective had only been partially achieved.

While the primary core had been knocked offline the backup core was able to pick up the slack and begin nanite repair operations. Already sixty eight percent of the computer system was back online.

The information he was able to retrieve did not paint a pretty picture. The vast majority of the ship was open to hard vacuum. Those areas that were still pressurized were effectively isolated. In all cases, to include our hanger deck, the air supply had been tainted with desflurane which quickly rendered its victims unconscious. The only reason we were functioning was because we were breathing air supplied by our Stark suits. While the suits could filter and reprocess our air supply for days, their CO2 scrubbers would only last for so long. We would need to address the environmental situation at some point.   

Surprisingly, there was no sign of continued enemy activity within the ship. It was like they had staged the attack and then left after the deed was done.

With JJ’s information in hand I addressed the Ensigns.

“I want Alpha platoon to guard this hanger. Right now it’s one of the most functional areas of the ship and it’s defendable. Gretchen, I need you to take Beta down to engineering. Keep a sharp eye out on your six. If I were the enemy, Engineering would be one of, if not the most important objectives. Since there is no longer a bridge, Engineering is going to be the only place that can control this ship. See if you can’t rig up something to allow us to access critical systems from within our Starks. These Mark Threes have some pretty clever AIs and interface software. Take JJ with you. You’re going to need his computer skills.” I paused, “Also, see if you can’t get ship to ship or FTL comms going. We need to let the GCP know what’s going on.”

I sent the Deltas to environmental. I was not optimistic but if we could get the air cleaned up and some of the hull breaches sealed we could double our manpower and potentially get some experienced personnel into the fight that might be better equipped to handle this situation than I was. It was wishful thinking but hey… I still believed in Santa Claus.

The last group, the Echoes, I sent on deck by deck sweep of the ship. Their orders were to locate and contain the enemy until support could arrive. All we had access to at the moment were pointers which were next to useless in a vacuum but even knowing were the enemy was and what they were up to would be a major victory.

As for myself, I grabbed one person from each platoon and I headed out for Marine country. I had to know if any of the others survived. If there was a fight to be had I knew two things beyond any doubt… I wanted Commander ‘Doc’ Savage on my side and I wanted a few of those weapons in his office.