“Minotaur, this is Bosca. We are at the aft end of the central ladderway pair. One is blocked about ten meters in. The other seems mostly clear.”
The telemetry from the marines’ EVA suits came online and showed eight different helmet view perspectives, which Lieutenant Bosworth arranged in an arc over the main tactical display.
“Send up the bots and see what it looks like up top,” Dunstan ordered. “Remember—no unnecessary risks. Anything looks like it’s about to blow, you pull your team out.”
“Understood, sir.”
Bosca’s perspective shifted as the marine sergeant looked up the dark ladderwell, then tapped a control on his lower left arm. Half a dozen little personal recon drones, each the size of a thumb, ejected from recesses in Bosca’s armor and swarmed up into the ladderwell to scout the wreckage above the team.
“This girl really got her back snapped in half,” Bosca said and looked around for the benefit of the AIC crew. “Everything below frame forty is gone, and the rest isn’t looking so good. I don’t think there’s an airtight deck left above us. There are shrapnel holes all over these bulkheads.”
Dunstan and Bosworth exchanged a look.
“That was a war shot,” Bosworth said. “Hit it right in the sweet spot, dead center next to the missile silo.”
Dunstan looked at the array of visual feeds from the marine helmets again. The evidence was undeniable: scorch marks and jagged holes in bulkheads that only had one likely source. He had only ever seen battle damage like this during the war, when ships took hits from armor-piercing antiship missiles that got through the point defenses.
“I hate to agree with you, Lieutenant. Because that means there’s someone out there who’s deliberately gunning for navy ships. Someone who can get close enough to a modern light cruiser to get a missile through her point defenses and blow her in half before her crew can even send an alert.”
“Something stealthy,” Bosworth offered. “Like the ghost we were chasing around the internment yard right before the fuzzhead fleet blew all to hell. But they launched on us, remember? The point defense got both missiles. And our systems aren’t half as good as what’s on a D-class cruiser.”
Dunstan shrugged.
“Best guess? We knew they were sneaking around out there. We had active drones out to pin them down. They launched from over sixty klicks out as soon as we got a solid sensor return. Maybe they knew they couldn’t get any closer without us burning through their stealth. This crew here had no idea anyone was in the neighborhood.”
“The point defense only takes two seconds to fully energize once it detects incoming,” Lieutenant Mayler said from his station. “Even if the crew didn’t set it to active status manually. Another second at most for the AI to fire the emitters.”
“Two seconds,” Dunstan repeated. “They were less than five klicks away when they launched. Maybe less than three.”
“Nobody is that stealthy,” Bosworth said.
“It appears that someone is, Lieutenant. Because if they launched close enough to beat the point defense AI on a D class, it means they were just about close enough to read the registry number off the hull.”
“Minotaur, Bosca.” The voice of the marine sergeant cut into their discussion.
“Go ahead, Sergeant,” Dunstan said.
“The drones made it up the ladderwell to the pod deck hatch. It’s sealed, but there’s no atmo showing on the other side of that bulkhead. I’m going up to cut the interlock open.”
“Affirmative. But go easy with it.”
“Reckless isn’t on the menu for me right now, sir. Stand by.”
They watched Bosca float up into the ladderwell until he reached the sealed hatch of the pod deck, ten meters up from where the ship had been blown in half. The pressure indicators next to the hatch showed a red triangle, indicating there was no air on the other side. The indicators were mechanical and needed no power, but even if they were somehow faulty, Dunstan knew that Bosca would not be able to open the steel hatch up into a pressurized deck because the pressure would keep it in its seal even with the interlocks cut away. Bosca turned on the plasma cutter in his EVA armor and went to work, slicing through the bulkhead plating slowly and expertly. When he was finished, he turned the plasma cutter off and took a deep breath that sounded just a tiny bit ragged.
“Here goes,” he said. “Boarding team, stand by for a quick exit if you hear a really loud noise.”
He pushed up against the hatch with the palm of his armored hand. Dunstan heard the power-assist servos let out a little whine as Bosca increased the force of his push gradually. The hatch broke away soundlessly and slowly floated upward into the airless deck above him.
“Pod deck confirmed depressurized,” he reported. “First element, move up to my position. Second element, stay put at the bottom of Ladderway Beta. Let’s see if anyone’s left in here.”
In the beams of the team’s helmet lights, two bodies were floating in the pod deck, surrounded by drifting spheres of liquid and pieces of debris. Both dead crew members were in regular shipboard jumpsuits, not EVA gear. One wore the rank of a lieutenant, the other was a midshipman, which meant they had come down from the command deck to get into the escape pods when the ship blew apart. It was only one deck down, but whatever happened had taken place too fast for them to make the pods before the rest of the ship got depressurized.
“They weren’t suited up,” Bosca muttered. “Shit way to die.”
He turned his head to pan the sensors and his helmet light around the pod deck. This was the place where the crew from the top half of the ship would have gone to get into the escape
