The Road to Hell

Chapter 4

David and his team took stock of their surroundings.

"The floors and walls are sticky," Tanner observed right away.

Wizard, the team's technical expert, ran a gloved finger down one of the walls. "It appears to be some sort of resin. Most likely organic."

"Look at the size of the hall," David said. "They certainly don't make their ships like ours." HDL ships didn't waste any space. Passageways were barely wide enough to fit three men side by side. The halls on the alien ship were at least five feet across. David retrieved his compact submachine gun from his survival pack and placed it on his hip. After that, he signalled to Gadget. "Gadge, give us a scan. We need to know everything we can know about this ship. Everyone else, take a look around. With the hull breached we can be sure they've sealed off this section of the ship. Find a door and start cutting it open."

The team moved to secure the area. Tanner and Boomer managed to pull a strip of hull from a pile of debris and use it as portable cover. Soon enough, Gadget reported the scan complete. "The air in the ship is breathable, but the gravity is a bit high. We've got a basic layout of the whole ship. Thermal readings indicate several hotspots." He showed David the areas in question.

"Good," he said, and pointed to the largest splotch of bright yellow. "This is almost guaranteed to be the main power for the ship. These other heat sources are probably the artillery."

Jimmy, one of the other men, walked up and took a look at the readout as well. "Anything indicating where the CIC is?"

Gadget couldn't be sure. "Best thing to do would be to track their communications, because the CIC would be at the centre of all that traffic. But I can't do that with what I've got. If we can get someone on the Nest to do a deep scan, they'd be able to pinpoint an exact location."

There shouldn't be a problem getting that kind of support, David decided. "Call it in," he said. "Satyana's probably going to want a sit-rep. Tell her we've breached an alien vessel and are going to assault the CIC and so we need that Intel pronto."

David updated his visor display with the layout of the ship, and highlighted the team's objective with a yellow waypoint. On everybody else's displays, a yellow checkpoint overlaid itself atop their regular vision. "We have our first target," David said. "We're gonna hit their main batteries. It'll take some of the pressure off the Nest."

The team grunted their assent, and they cautiously set off into the unknown depths of the alien warship.

#

Farid's return to consciousness was slow, and indescribably painful. For a moment he couldn't remember what had happened, but soon enough the image of Rear Admiral Hawke disappearing within a bright beam of plasma stitched itself together in his pain-racked brain. He managed to open his eyes, but his view was limited to the ceiling of the Electronic Warfare section.

He thought that was odd; there shouldn't have been a ceiling, but then he remembered the plasma beam. The automatic seal saved his life from asphyxiating in hard vacuum, but nothing could have prevented the beam from hurling him into the wall and burning him to a crisp. He tried to move, but couldn't find the strength. His skin felt bulky, as though he were encased in a layer of thick clothing. He realized this was because his uniform had fused to his skin.

He took a few deep breaths before trying again. The sickeningly sweet scent of blood and barbecue lay heavy on the air. When he managed to raise his head enough to look around the compartment, his eyes found a pair of disembodied legs on the floor, which was covered in a layer of slowly congealing blood. He shut his eyes and turned his head in the other direction, but not before the bile rose in his throat. Mansfield of course. The poor guy had been standing up when the seal slammed shut.