A Space Odyssey Chapter 12

Author's Note: Unable to contact their ship, the crew of the Gorion find themselves divided and pinned down by more of the Helios's undead crew. To make matter's worse, even more of the undead are preparing to storm their positions. Our story continues.... now!

Disclaimers: Violence, combat, some technical stuff.

1. This is a rather combat heavy chapter. I've tried ot make it exciting and interesting, so I hope you'll enjoy.

2. There are two rather technical paragraphs. You'll know them when you see them. I think they fit, but I know not everyone likes them.

That aside, I hope you enjoy.

 
Pinned down and divided by enemy fire from the corpses holding the staircase to G Deck, the crew of the Gorion prepared for the additional threat that now loomed outside the hatch to H Deck proper. Imoen and Bran Varnas trained their weapons on the heavy pressure door, knowing full well they had to stem the tide of undead crewers or their fellow crewmates sheltering on the stairs down to I Deck would be overrun. Eyes focused on rangefinders, the two siblings watched in silence as the aged pressure doors creaked open.

First through the opening hatch was the undead corpse of one of the Helios’s marines. She was still dressed in full combat gear; dark gray combat armor and matching helmet with its clear blast shield down. In her left hand was the ubiquitous heavy blaster the undead crewers carried and strapped to her right arm was a transsteel riot shield. Bran opened fire as soon as she cleared the doors. His aim was true, but the undead marine managed to jerk the transsteel shield up in time. Instead of dropping her, the bolts from his Bladesinger simply scored the transparent metal. A second and third shot did little better, only pocking and blackening the shield.

Imoen set her sights lower, realizing the slugs in her Krobler wouldn’t punch through the transsteel and that the shield didn’t cover the whole body. Her weapon thrummed as she pulled the trigger and the rings of shielded electromagnets fired in sequence. The iron-nickel slug sliced through the air and caught the charging marine in the left leg, right below the knee. Ancient bone and sinew shattered on impact, nearly severing the limb. A second slug slammed into the right leg, splintering both bones of the lower leg. Her legs cut out from under her, the undead marine collapsed, crashing to the deck. She struggled to rise, but Imoen’s third shot bored right through her composite helmet, sending her to her long deserved rest.

Undaunted, a second marine leapt into the gangway, but this one without a body shield. Two blasts from Bran’s Bladesinger shattered the aged and degraded visor of his helmet and the head it defended. Now truly dead, the body slumped against the far wall.

Two more marines leapt into the breech, firing wildly. Neither marine managed to score a hit, but both defenders did. One slug to the forehead from Imoen’s rifle dropped the first. Bran’s aim was off, scoring a hit on the shoulder, spinning him around. Before the marine could recover, Imoen relieved him of duty with a well placed slug to the temple. As the body collapsed, Imoen quipped, “Gettin’ sloppy bro.”

Seeing another marine appear in the doorway, Bran cut her down with a scarlet lance of coherent energy. As the body crashed into the charging form of another, Bran replied, “But that one was right pretty.”

A chunk of metal exploded next to Bran’s head as one of the marines actually took the time to aim before leaping into the fray. Imoen’s slug caught him mid-flight, the slug tearing through the protective visor and out the back of his helmet. The force of the blow flung the now unanimated corpse back into the corridor. “Yours was good. Mine, better,” replied Imoen, her smirk visible even in her voice.

“Enough showboating you two. We need to get out of this gangway before they can rally enough troops to hammer us from above and below,” admonished an exasperated Jaheira. “It won’t be long before they’re cutting in down here.”

“Nothing wrong with friendly competition, Jaheira. But you’re right. We stay here, we eventually will run out of ammo if nothing else,” he replied as another marine trying to leap into the gangway fell to the concerted firepower of the Varnas siblings.

No more marines followed the crumpled marine, but Bran’s sensors indicated that some still lurked in the corridor. It did not take them long to announce their presence as they began to fire from the cover of the hatch, forcing the two defenders deeper into cover. Trying to draw a bead on one of the attacking marines, Bran growled, “They’re changing tactics on us. Guess they realized that a blind bullrush wasn’t going to work.”

“Stupid zombies. Don’t they know they’re not supposed to be smart?” complained Imoen as she winged one of the marines in the wrist, knocking its weapon from the shattered remnant of its hand. “They’re supposed to shuffle around and groan ‘Brains!’, like they do in the holovids.”

“You want to go tell them that?” Bran replied, lacing a few more shots into the corridor beyond but unable to tell if he actually scored a hit. “Course, if you do go over there, you’ll be safe. There aren’t enough brains in that cute little head of yours to be more than an after dinner mint.”

“At least I’d qualify for a snack,” fired back Imoen as she fired another heavy slug at the open hatchway. “They’d crack your empty cabeza and return it. Punks would probably demand a dang refund.”

Bran started, looking from rangefinder to sister. “What did you just say?”

“I said your head is empty,” sighed Imoen dramatically. She sent another slug speeding towards an exposed knee. “Hollow. Unfilled. Unoccupied. Vacant. Pure vacuum.”

“No no no, what you actually said. You said… return it?”

“Um.. yeah, I guess so,” replied a confused Imoen. “You just take a hit to that empty skull of yours?”

“Im, you’re brilliant!” exclaimed Bran. “Let’s return ‘em! Give me those two grenades you pulled from the trap.”

“Huh? The grenades?” Imoen was even more confused but pulled the two grenades off her bandoleer and handed them over to her brother.

Putting his Bladesinger on the deck, he took one grenade in each hand. Flipping open the safety covers, he said with a chuckle, “Well, you wanted to return them, didn’t you? We don’t know exactly which one it was who left them, so might as well address it ‘To Whom it May Concern.’ Now, cover me.”

Hearing Imoen chuckle as she poured a lethal stream of iron-nickel slugs into the open hatchway, Bran placed both thumbs over the arming buttons and shouted, “Fire in the hole!”

Arming the grenades with two quick stabs of his thumbs, Bran coiled and hurled them towards the open hatchway. The two metal spheres arced gracefully through air, blissfully ignorant of the deadly mix of crossfire flying through the air. Both were on target, sailing through the open hatch and bouncing on the deckplates beyond. A moment’s desperate scrambling could be heard before the roar of twin explosions silenced it.

Smoke and debris poured into the gangway from the damaged corridor but no more weapons fire joined it. Bran scooped up his rifle and pumped his fist, flashing a smile to Imoen. “Well, at least they went out with a bang.”

“Bran, that was terrible,” Imoen groaned. “I wish I thought of that.”

“I know. Now we just have to figure out a way to get the ones above us.”

“Minsc could use more grenades! Minsc and Boo and Valygar can’t reach them with our mighty blasters because of the railguards, but Minsc could get a grenade in there!” boomed Bran’s gunner.

“Umm.. Minsc, while the metal plating on these stairs is pretty thick, its not thick enough that I want to be hiding under it when something explodes!”

“Boo says the armor should be thick enough!” Minsc paused. “Or at least he is pretty sure. Ooh! What about rockets? Minsc could..”

Imoen tuned out the litany of disastrous ideas from Minsc on how to get past the gunmen hiding behind the relative safety of the staircase railings. All she knew is that they held the high ground with cover and had them pinned. It was an elegant trap and for the second time, they’d strolled right into it. Rolling on to her back, she glared up at the bottom of the staircase, cursing at the undead crewmen who still fired bursts of weapon fire down on the trapped crew.

“These guys are really starting to piss me off,” she grumbled, her hand tightening on the grip of her rifle. “If only we could hit em through…” Imoen paused, a slow smile crossing her face.

Swinging the rifle up, she ejected the half full magazine and cleared the chamber. Resting the used clip on the deck, she worked her way through her bandoleer until she found the magazine she was looking for. Pulling it free of its holder, she flipped it around to confirm that it was the one she was looking for. There, painted on its side, as she expected, was a stylized jack of clubs.

“Blackjacks’ll do the trick,” she said to herself, sliding the fresh magazine into the receiver. Sliding the magazine lock into place, she swung the rifle up at the staircase above and flipped on the Penetrator sensor on her scope. It only took a moment’s adjustment for the high gain bioscanners to pinpoint the location of the four lurking undead. She aimed at each one in sequence, just to time her target transition then swung the rifle back to the one closest to the top of the stairs and G Deck. She lined up the skull dead in the sights and pulled the trigger.

At the depression of the trigger, the Krobler’s computer controlled electromagnets began to fire in sequence, propelling the Blackjack round down the barrel. Blackjack slugs were different from most gauss slugs in that the slug was not comprised of an iron-nickel alloy. Instead, it was a superdense slug of moberditium enclosed in a magnetic iron-nickel casing.

It was this moberditium, the creation of which was a tightly guarded secret of Trichan Corp, that made the Blackjack round special. It gave it unsurpassed armor piercing capacity, able to slice through a meter of military grade durasteel or tritanium and still be have enough kinetic energy to be able to wreak havoc on its target. This armor piercing ability made Blackjacks the favorite rounds of snipers and anti armor specialists. It was also because of this armor piercing capacity that Blackjacks were not cleared for use in space, so much so that Trichan insisted on waivers indemnifying them from any damages due to their use on space faring craft.

It was one of these armor piercing rounds that now accelerated down the barrel. As soon as it cleared the barrel, the casing disintegrated, freeing the slug. It passed through the metal plating on the bottom of the stairs as if it was paper then sliced through the wiring and magplates above, erupting through the top of the riser in a cloud of atomized durasteel. Unabated, the slug pierced the surprised crewman right below the sternum. Traveling up through his body, it exited through the top of his skull and continued on until it was finally halted by a support beam on C Deck.

Before the first crewer could collapse, Imoen switched to her second target. Sighting in quickly, she fired again, sending another slug into the upper reaches of the ship through the stairs and second crewer’s skull. She fired a third time and scored another kill as the armor piercing slug relentlessly tore through metal and flesh. Her fourth target was on the move, running for the illusion of cover on G Deck. She fired for a fourth time, but the undead’s rapid pace threw off her aim just slightly. The slug missed the skull, instead blowing through its chest before exiting through the back of the neck and severing the head.

The bouncing of this severed head down the stairs brought the rapid fire planning of the others to a halt. Silence crackled over the comms as the others realized what just happened. Bran looked down to see Imoen safing her rifle and then up to see four large holes gaping in the stairs above. Looking back down at her smiling face, he suddenly remembered what he’d heard her say.

“Blackjacks?” he asked incredulously. “You brought Blackjacks with you?”

“Yup. Never know when you need to punch through some armor.” Imoen replied cheerfully.

“Imoen! You could have punched a hole in the hull with one of those things and vented gods know how much of the ship!”

“Well, I figured since we’re on H Deck, we’ve got a good number of decks between here and the hull, so we’d be safe,” Imoen replied as she switched out the Blackjacks for regular rounds. “And plus, no air whistling out on us, so why worry? Now, why don’t we get out of here and back to the ship before more special friends come and visit us, huh?”

“Reckless,” Bran rumbled as he rolled out from under cover.

“Yup. And that ‘recklessness’ has saved your butt how many times, bro?” came her reply as she joined him. As she stood up, Minsc and Valygar came up out from the stairwell down to I Deck, followed quickly by Fentan, the doctor and Jaheira.

The others surveyed the wreckage and Valygar let out a low whistle. It was Jaheira that asked, “How did you get the ones on the stairs?”

“Blackjacks. She used bloody Blackjacks.”

Jaheira gave the stairs and then Imoen a hard, measuring look. Then she nodded. “Risky, but considering the situation, an acceptable risk. Now, let’s get moving before more of them show up.”

An absolutely beaming Imoen marched past her flabbergasted brother, whistling a jaunty little tune. Bran just stared at her and then Jaheira. As Imoen started up on the stairs, Jaheira patted Bran on the shoulder plate and asked quietly, “Would you rather have had Minsc clear them out with a rocket?”

“No, but..”

“Then it is an acceptable solution to the problem at hand. Now, can we get going and get off this accursed ship?”

Still shocked, Bran nodded and headed off after his sister, pausing only to fire once to end the enslavement of the decapitated crewer. Halfway up the stairs, Imoen was prying the needle gun out of the dead hands of one of the slain zombies. Bran shot her a questioning look, and as she slung the antique weapon, she fired off a quick explanation on the rarity and value of such antiques before heading off up towards G Deck. Bran followed, carefully stepping around devastated corpses and wrecked risers, the others close behind, including a better armed Fentan who had stopped to loot one of the dead marine’s heavy neutron carbines.

The landing on G Deck was undefended and the hatch stood open. Cautiously, Imoen snuck forward to hatch, looking out on the main corridor. From the safety of the armored hatch, she checked for traps or troops and found none. Scans from her suit snoopers and a visual check of the corridor registered as all clear. Silently, Imoen stepped out on to G Deck’s Broadway, rifle held ready.

Broadway was empty. Imoen waved to the others to join her. The Gorion and freedom was only a few dozen meters away.