Kali's Fire (Kali Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  The most expensive and valuable substance in the universe, a requirement for superluminal travel, had become as plentiful as sand.

  Cody focused on the lights again. “What if I kept touching the light? I could get a lot more, two kilograms at a time.”

  “Forget it,” Hayes said. “We can come back if we want more. You two get your asses back on board. We gotta report this.”

  “Cody, please be careful.”

  Cody winked at Sonja. “I always am.” He wondered how true that was, though, when he’d volunteered to go into an artificial environment designed by an alien species who’d likely disappeared half a million years prior.

  The comm squealed briefly as Hayes activated long-distance communications. “Banshee Four Niner, this is Banshee Five One. Sending all our logs and records on this signal. Reconfigure your Daedalus collar to squirt all said information to Washington ASAP. Then return Daedalus collar to normal operations. Out.”

  Bodin spoke when the comm cut off. “How long before they get that, LT?”

  “They’re far enough away it’ll take about eleven minutes for them to receive the message and then another eleven to hear back from them.”

  Cody crawled back across the canopy, dragging the tiny fragment of light with him. “What do you mean about reconfiguring their Daedalus collar?”

  “I want them to refocus the exotic matter inside to open up a tunnel through bridge-space,” Hayes said, “essentially turning their engine into a bridge satellite.”

  “Can they still use the engine to get back?” Cody asked.

  Hayes shook his head. “At least, not until they can put it back together again.”

  Cody hefted the globe, his fist still wrapped around it. “So can’t we just take the information back ourselves? Why risk taking apart their Daedalus drive?”

  “It’ll take us hours to get back to the other hopper,” Hayes said. “Nailer can shoot that information to Washington so they’ll have a full report before we leave the globular cluster. It’s the quickest way to get them the information.”

  “What’s the hurry? The star’s not going…” Cody’s heart pounded as reality sank in. “We’re not the first ones here.”

  “That’s right, Egg,” Bodin said. “The toads probably got ex-mat, which means they can go anywhere we can.”

  “Including Earth,” Sonja said.

  No one spoke. No one had to. The most vicious creatures in the universe had adapted technology from humans for their own purposes. The only reason the UET didn’t demand Kali be incinerated was because they didn’t have ex-mat, which meant they couldn’t create an Alcubierre field and travel interstellar distances—a fact which had just changed. For the toads, Earth was a couple of months away at most instead of centuries.

  A moment later, Cody and Bodin were aboard, with all tow lines secured. The rear hatch was still closing while the hopper retreated from the alien controls.

  Sonja was there, waiting, her hands clasped in front of her in a very unmilitary fashion. She wrapped her arms around Cody, squeezing so hard it felt good. “Christ, you’re out of your mind, babe.”

  Cody wished they were back aboard the Washington, where they could do more than simply hug. “That’s why I’m out here, hon.”

  Bodin ignored both of them as he waited for the rear hatch to secure then headed toward the cockpit. “Sir, how much longer till we hear back from Banshee Four Niner?”

  “Eight more minutes to get the message and another eleven before we get a response,” Hayes said. “They should have their Daedalus engines reassembled by the time we rendezvous. Then we can all head back to the Washington together.”

  “Assuming they don’t get interrupted,” Bodin said.

  Hayes wagged a finger at Bodin. “Positive thoughts, Sergeant.”

  “I hope Washington doesn’t do anything drastic,” Cody said.

  “Like what?” Bodin asked. “Like nuke the whole planet? Can’t see how that would be bad, given they’re now an actual threat to us.”

  “I understand that,” Cody said. “It’s the fliers I’m worried about. They haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “I know, babe.” Sonja held Cody’s hand. “But they won’t do anything until the brass gives the word.”

  Cody squeezed her hand. She was right, but the brass would give the word sooner or later, and planet Kali would be no more. Even if they could rescue the fliers, their home would be gone forever.

  The hopper passed through the translucent barrier, and soon the edge of the neutron star appeared. Cody brought up an exterior view on his station behind the cockpit. The purple barrier remained for a few seconds then vanished, presumably along with the air behind it.

  Cody sat in a seat behind Sonja while Hayes rotated the hopper until the nose pointed up. Bodin sat in the seat behind Hayes.

  Minutes later, the Kali vessel floated in front of them, the aft end pointing down toward the planet. She looked as she had before, at least at first glance. Her profile was different, but he couldn’t place why.

  Cody pulled up the hopper’s sensor records and rolled them back to when they’d first passed the Kali vessel and put them on the HUD, comparing the before and after images. The Kali’s main drive was situated midsection along the aft, as it had been before, but the Daedalus struts were in the wrong place. When they flew down the corridor, the struts faced the wall of the zero-g corridor. On the way back, though, the struts had flipped so they faced the interior of the corridor, as if the entire craft had rotated.

  Cody sent the image comparison to Hayes. “Lieutenant, I think you should see this.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that.” Hayes brought up the weapons console. “No way that ship just drifted. Gravity is zero, and our passing wouldn’t have disturbed that big girl by that much.”

  “So, it rolled over on its own, like a dog?” Bodin grimaced. “We didn’t get no power readings from it earlier, did we?”

  “And there aren’t any now,” Sonja said.

  “Do we stop?” Cody asked. “If this is a trap—”

  “We’re not stopping.” Hayes tapped the side of his suit collar, and his helmet unfolded and sealed at once. “Seal your suits. We’re passing that thing in less than one minute. As we do, we’re going to drop a tac nearby and see if we can—”

  The sensors started shouting an alarm. Hayes swore and yanked the stick, sending the hopper starboard.

  Grasers poured out of the Kali ship like water from a fire hose, licking at the spot where the hopper had been, and then again when the hopper changed course. Bodin’s helmet was already unfolded and pressurized when he hit a button on his seat. The seat straps emerged and fastened around him automatically. Cody hit the same button as he struggled and also unfolded his helmet and sealed his suit.

  Hayes yanked the stick every which way, trying to dodge the energy-weapon fire while at the same time trying not to fly outside the confines of the zero-g corridor even though he approached within ten meters of the barrier. Grasers would kill as easily as the high gravity of the neutron star, though.

  “Well, God damn it.” Hayes barrel-rolled the hopper as he avoided the graser fire. “We got one chance.”

  “The anterior?” Sonja brought up a flight path on the hopper’s HUD, one that would guide the hopper right next to the anterior of the Kali—and dangerously close to the corridor edge.

  Cody’s helmet hissed as it sealed automatically. “What if they have grasers on that side, too?”

  “If they did, they wouldn’t have needed to rotate the ship.” Hayes adjusted the hopper to follow the path Sonja had set. “Thirty seconds to cover. I don’t think we can make it.”

  Sonja took over fire control. A second later, the hopper’s grasers returned fire. The HUD tracked the direction of the grasers as Sonja painted the sides of the Kali vessel, which was like throwing rocks at a suit of armor, but then Cody saw what she was doing. The hopper’s grasers torched the Kali’s graser ports, causing them to erupt in flame
. She had managed to disable one of the guns already.

  “There!” Cody pointed at the piece of shield from the engine core, hovering where they had left it. “Will that protect us?”

  “It’s designed to shield against massive radiation in a fusion bottle. It just might.” Hayes maneuvered off course and headed for it. “Stand by on the tacs, Gunny. We’ll need ’em when we get close.”

  “Two tacs ain’t gonna take that thing out, LT,” Bodin said.

  “Probably not.” Hayes yanked the hopper to the side once again. Lights flared, showing minor damage on the hull. “But maybe we can dazzle the shit out of her sensors long enough to get away. But first, we need that cover.”

  The debris loomed large in the canopy until it was all they could see. Sonja passed her hand through a holoswitch, and the hopper’s grapples emerged. Once in range, the grapples gripped the piece of shielding.

  “Secured,” Sonja said.

  The piece of debris closed in until Cody couldn’t see anything except a tiny sliver of space on either side of the canopy. The battle had been bad up until that point, but now he couldn’t see anything, which made it worse. All he could do was sit there and feel his heart pound.

  “Here we go.” Hayes shifted the controls, engaging the hopper’s port thrusters.

  They slid toward the edge of the corridor outlined on the HUD while dragging the slice of hull with it. The hopper vibrated as the hull plate glowed in sections where the grasers struck the other side.

  “Shit,” Hayes said. “She’s sluggish with that extra mass.”

  The hopper’s HUD showed the course of the hopper and an outline of the massive Kali ship. The gap between the ship and the edge of the corridor looked narrow to Cody. Too narrow.

  Cody stammered. “Uh, Lieutenant—”

  “Don’t start.” Hayes rotated the hopper so the anterior faced the corridor’s edge.

  The hopper shuddered so violently Cody was sure they’d had a breach. An alarm sounded, and after another hit, the debris outside vanished, along with the grapples. Beyond was the hulk of the dismantled Kali ship, along with flashes from her graser ports.

  “Well, shit.” Hayes pushed the throttle forward. “We got five seconds. Maybe—”

  Another graser port on the gutted Kali ship flared. The hopper shuddered and lurched to the side, much too close to the edge of the zero-g corridor for Cody’s liking. In another two meters, they would discover how permeable the anti-g wall really was.

  Hayes worked the stick like a madman. “We got a problem.”

  “You mean other than playing patty-cake with a battle cruiser, sir?” Bodin’s eyes widened when he looked at the holoconsole. “Oh, shit.”

  Red lights lit up the cockpit, most of which were emanating from the weapons systems. Cody wasn’t an expert, but when red letters hovered over the holocontrols indicating “torpedoes offline,” the problem became obvious.

  The hopper sailed along the port side of the Kali vessel, close to the anterior, just meters from the edge of the corridor.

  “We’ll have to drop the torpedoes manually,” Hayes said. “If we don’t blind her or wreck her, she’ll grase us as soon as we start up the corridor. You know what to do, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. On it.” Bodin unstrapped himself with the push of a button. “C’mon, Eggman.”

  Cody unstrapped himself and hurried after Bodin, who had already activated a set of holocontrols on the wall. The seating area folded into the wall so quickly Cody couldn’t quite see how it was done.

  “Help me out.” Bodin reached for a section of the floor grates where the seats used to be on the starboard side. After a handle popped up, he lifted the floor.

  Cody reached for the other end of the grate and helped Bodin throw it aside. Through the cockpit canopy, he saw the hopper appearing to rotate, but the stars behind them didn’t. That meant the Kali vessel was rotating, trying to bring her grasers to bear on them. They didn’t have much time.

  Underneath the floor sat two cylindrical tubes, each in a docking collar. Further aft, still concealed by the hopper’s deck plates, were two more torpedoes. A thin red stripe wrapped around the bases of the nose cones on the front torpedoes while the rear ones had a blue stripe. Cody assumed the port side had the same configuration.

  “Red means tac, Egg. That’s what we want. Those blue-striped ones are nukes. Too small.” Bodin straddled one of them. “Lieutenant, how many you wanna drop?”

  “Two,” Hayes said. “Wait until I give the word.”

  Bodin ran his hand over the same controls that had made the seats vanish, and two tethers popped out from the wall. “Hook up.”

  Cody grabbed the second tether and held it behind him. The suit automatically connected and sent him the message “tethered” on his suit’s HUD. A split second later, the tether tightened. Cody activated his magnetic boots, which gripped the deck of the hopper. They didn’t make him feel any more secure, though. They might keep him from flying out into space, but if the hopper took a solid hit from a graser, he and everyone aboard was doomed—including Sonja.

  Bodin manipulated the controls again. A red sphere emerged from the control panel. Over each torpedo, a hologram appeared, showing a schematic of the weapon. All highlighting showed green except for the launch mechanism.

  “Check your seal, Egg. No time to depressurize.” Bodin activated his suit’s comm. “Check your suit seals, everybody, then we’re ready when you are, LT.”

  “Hold on to your gonads,” Hayes said. “We’re dropping in five.”

  Cody checked the seal on his suit. A green message appeared, and he prayed that the sensors had no faults. When they dropped those torpedoes, they would be opening up into space, which meant massive depressurization. For luck, Cody checked the tether one more time.

  Ahead through the cockpit canopy, space appeared as the Kali vessel fell away behind them. Lights flickered across the canopy, indicating target locks from the Kali ship.

  “Drop ’em!”

  At Hayes’s shout, Bodin swiped at the glowing red orb. A hatch opened below Cody, and the air rushed out of the hopper, pulling Cody toward it. The actuators in his suit strained and helped him remain upright though just barely.

  The tactical torpedoes vanished into the void outside the hopper. For a split second, Cody saw blackness and the dull shine of the neutron star. He barely had time to catch his breath when the hatch snapped shut again and the air ceased escaping the hopper.

  “Pressurizing.” Bodin disconnected his tether. “Hope you guys can get out of the way in time.”

  The hopper lurched, which was odd. The grav plates should have compensated for acceleration. Cody was sure those were graser hits, but when the hopper’s velocity went into the red, he understood. They were accelerating past the hopper’s design specs.

  The reactor alarmed as Hayes pushed the reactor over twenty percent above the safety limit. Cody felt his weight pulled toward the rear of the hopper. The surrounding grav plates should have compensated for the extra thrust but could barely compensate for the high g’s. He would’ve crashed into the rear hatch if not for the magnetic boots.

  “Five seconds,” Sonja said as if they had little hope. “If we got caught in the blast, LT—”

  “You worry too much, Gunny,” Hayes said. “Everybody, hang on to something.”

  Cody grasped handholds as he headed toward the cockpit, struggling against the g-forces pulling him aft. Part of the hopper’s HUD showed a camera aimed behind them. Two indicators highlighted the torpedoes as they tumbled. The Kali ship fired attitudinal jets, trying to orient its functioning grasers to destroy the floating torpedoes, but they didn’t have enough time.

  The problem for the Kali ship was twofold. First, the grasers in question were designed for ship-to-ship combat. Firing at a single torpedo was like firing a heavy Gauss rifle at a spider. Second, the torpedoes were tumbling too close to the Kali vessel for the grasers to lock on. The ship fired uselessly until the
torpedoes finally detonated.

  The image went white then became opaque as the camera blocked the bright light. The hopper shuddered, whether from the massive acceleration or the blast, Cody wasn’t sure. In a vacuum, nukes didn’t have much of a shockwave, but those torpedoes held warheads that could vaporize several cities.

  “We’re clear.” Sonja reached for the throttle, which Hayes had on full. “Sir, ease down.”

  For two full seconds, he didn’t answer. Behind Cody, the deck plates bounced. A groan spread through the entire hopper, as if she was about to give up.

  Finally, Hayes breathed as though he hadn’t done so for some time. “Backing down. Bringing the reactor down to nominal levels.”

  The hopper ceased shaking, and the deck plates stopped rattling. All was quiet through the hopper, or at least as quiet as it usually got. The actuators in Cody’s suit relaxed, and finally, so did Cody. He leaned against the bulkhead, too afraid to shut off his magnetic boots.

  In the rear view on the HUD, the opaqueness vanished, revealing the Kali vessel, or at least what was left of it. A battle cruiser’s hull was designed to absorb high-energy impacts, but at such a close range, little hope remained of survival. Half the ship was simply gone, reduced to vapor. The other half floated toward the other end of the corridor until it made contact with the edge.

  The ship collided with the invisible barrier, which was solid enough to stop the drifting battle cruiser. The vessel buckled against the wall then literally bounced off the corridor wall to careen to the other side of the corridor, where it again impacted along its anterior side.

  That side crumpled under the stress. The Daedalus struts were gone, whether from the tacs or the buckling, Cody wasn’t sure. Pieces of the vessel floated away as she bounced around in the narrow corridor like a billiard ball, and each time she bounced, she lost a little more of her structural integrity. She continued bouncing until the hopper had accelerated far enough away that Cody couldn’t see the final outcome. He only hoped it wouldn’t destroy the Antediluvian technology below them.