Stigmata Invicta, page 16
“Thraw?” Brigid says at the same time as Bernhard says, “F19 is the primary waste heat vent.”
Johns clears his throat. “Well... can it be anything else? Thraw, I mean,” He tosses a glance at the captain, trying to answer both officers. Nods. “Yessir. Waste heat vent. Like a... a pronounced hood kind-of thing.” Johns is flying through screens of video feeds, fingers clicking on one as the next visual feed comes up, then the next and the next after that. “Its organic scan was incomplete but now the drone is off-line and what else could it be? We already had one Thraw clinging to the hull and now... let me get— for goodness sakes, I can’t get a clear view.”
“Send another drone over,” Bernhard says. “Keep trying to raise Franz.”
“Yessir. Already on it,” Johns says. His display has the word MANUAL in all red at the bottom corner. His hands deftly press keys as the newest video feed changes angle in a rolling motion.
Brigid turns away from the others and hits his comms. “Gonzaga, Santa Cruz, what’s the status on our war-fighting gear?”
Brother Santa Cruz comes back, “Commander, five functional suits of FFA gear that are piecemeal, each with approximately seventy percent ammo load, most with full batteries.”
“So be it,” Brigid says. Looks at Bernhard. “Five piecemeal full frontal assault kits. It’ll have to do.”
Brigid clicks his comms, “Knights. Suit up. We’ve got an exterior walk on the double. Possible combatant on the hull of the ship. Meet in the hatch in five.” Acknowledgments overlap and he returns his attention to the displays. Studies the feed Johns is focused on as he controls it.
“Where are you?” The captain asks.
“Coming up on the vent from the portside now, sir.”
They watch the display as the drone rounds the last feature in the hull. Space itself is hurtling along past them, the view from the screen sharp and fantastic. The vent hood is aerodynamic by necessity; the St. Joshua is atmosphere capable. Many ships in their fleet are built in space for the purpose of only ever being in space. With the vacuum providing no friction, there’s no need to design a ship with aerodynamics in mind. Some of the Knights 15 13 vessels look like side-facing tubes, studded with gargantuan boxes and antenna arrays. Things too vast, bulky and awkward to enter an atmosphere of any significance, but extremely effective in space.
The St. Joshua is sleek and long, and possesses short, stubby wings, more flap than an actual recognizable wing. The heater vent is forward of them, aft of the nose section.
Father Cho enters the bridge and sees the group. He approaches and the captain steps off to the side. Accepts him with a single hand on his shoulder and speaks quickly, quietly. The priest nods and watches the display.
All gasp.
Petty Officer Franz, magbooted to the hull, is floating limply in space. Some kind of thick chunk of semitransparent, silvery crystal speared in his chest. Frozen rubies trickling out of the wound.
“Franz, buddy... you okay? Franz?” Johns asks, but the tone of his question is answer enough.
“Lord bless and keep him,” Father Cho says, makes the sign of the cross over himself.
“Can you pull up his suit?” Bernhard asks. “Get a read on his vitals? Anything medicinal the suit might have administered?”
“No, sir. It’s a basic vacuum suit. This was just a patch job...” Keo says, shrugs.
Johns pilots the drone over to Franz and bumps into him. No response. Drives around until they’re facing one another. Angles the camera up and it becomes obvious why he doesn’t respond.
“All right,” Bernhard says with a heavy sigh. “Carry on for now. We’ll recover his body when we can. Stay on mission.”
The bridge acknowledges and Father Cho recites, “For our brother in Christ Franz, may eternal light shine upon him, dear Lord, and eternal rest grant unto him and on all the faithfully departed, amen.” The bridge echoes his prayer and that is enough for now.
The drone rolls to the main exhaust and stops several meters away. Johns adjusts the magnification to turn a blurry and small wad on the hull into a fleshy, organic sac. A massively muscled arm out hanging out a tear in it. Its grotesquely abnormal fingers flexing slowly. Like they’re trying themselves out. Or savoring. Something inside the translucent tissue is moving, stretching. Next to it a few fluid tanks.
“Zoom in on the labels there.”
Johns does, sees some familiar placards. The stylized G/PTE in its universally recognized DNA strand-based logo. The letters are flanked by blocky gears. Mixing of the organic and the technological. Bernhard grimaces. “Gosnell PTE. Supplying Arithraw with some kind of mutagenic compounds.”
“Gosnell PTE would be stupid enough to sell to the Thraw, and the Thraw would be stupid enough to leave all the logos and labels on when they commit atrocities,” Brigid says. The reality of it all is unsurprising to think about, but very surprising to see it. Brigid rubs his chin. “How tall is that heater vent?”
“The opening is a bit over two meters, looks like,” Bernhard says.
“Two point three,” Keo says in an awed whisper.
“That thing there is nearly as big as the opening.”
Keo sits upright. “It can’t really get inside that way, though. It’s not really an open vent. There’s layer after layer of honeycomb-style heat sinks all the way down, and at the base of it is a basically a blower fan. Even that is connected to a gearbox and motor—”
“Whatever it is, they planted it to continue the fight. A living boobytrap like a spore on this ship,” Bernhard says. “We can’t even catch a break when we leave their solar system.”
“It looks too big to be a Skreeve,” Brigid says. “Skreeve are bad enough. But this thing, thank our Lord there’s only one.”
“Do we know that?” Petty Officer Bonilla chimes in.
Everyone looks around at each other and Bernhard twirls a finger. “Get those HIDs checking, double time.”
Father Cho makes a sound in the back of his throat. “I was assigned to Unit #51-Ca when I was fresh out of seminary. We went to a fairly nascent planet in the Quaw solar system. We encountered a predatory beast about that size, maybe a little smaller. Animal, though. Not a corrupted rational soul. Two of our Knights were truly Earth-born, and they took to calling it a gorilla-rhino because of how it looked. I guess that was a close-enough description. I’ve only ever seen those two animals in pictures. But this... it was terrible. Awe-inspiring and absolutely terrible.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. It got our scent and for whatever reason, it saw us and saw red. It was bloodthirsty. Unquenchable, too. It hounded us for hours—even into the night... and killed three of our brothers. Our weapons were not enough against its hide. Every shot just enraged it more. But the Lord, God of Hosts intervened for us. Little angels in the form of a vast cloud of things like butterflies, glowing in the night air. Bioluminescent. The gorilla-rhino was distracted by them, became preoccupied. I thought it to be so blood simple with its relentless attack on us that it just wanted to kill.”
“A raging death machine distracted by pretty little butterflies,” Keo says.
“The distraction was all we needed.”
Brigid waits for a moment so as not to disrespect the old priest’s memory. Then, he clears his throat and says, “We’re heading out there. This is some last-ditch effort to get the nun, and I can only imagine it’s going to kill her and all of us if it can. There’s nothing else that’s a possibility at this point. No escape, no back-up. Only murder. Looking at Franz there, this thing can kill, and it hasn’t even hatched yet. We’ll try and get to it before it fully emerges.”
“Wait,” Bernhard says. He looks at Keo. “Emergency evac all the heat down to an internal temp of 5 degrees Celsius. Cook that thing. We might get lucky and not have to engage it directly.”
“Yessir,” Keo says as she begins tapping at her terminal.
Brigid checks the time to see when he needs to step out with his Knights. The captain turns to Keo. She makes eye contact as if that is the cue she needs. Taps a final command button. The ship drastically begins to cool as the sound of the HVAC system growls at the intake ducts.
They all look at Johns’s display, see the vent’s rim turn red as an entire ship’s worth of environmental and waste heat plunge out into space. The abomination quivers violently and boils begin to form on the sac’s tissue. Then scorch marks. Whatever is inside squirms as if in panic. It presses its elbows out through the tissue of the sac, heaving and stretching. The one arm that was protruding begins clawing at it from the outside. Anything to escape the heat.
But before much else happens, the exhaust shuts off in one final click. Blown out. Even the super-hot red lining the vent begins to die down, cooling off in the frigid expanse of space.
“That’s it?” Bernhard asks.
Keo leans back, speaks, and as she does her breath is a cold cloud before her. “Yessir. The emergency evac protocol is just that: an emergency. It’s designed to dump everything in a big hurry in case of reactor overload, all that. I know we wanted more, but from an engineering perspective, that was a fantastic procedure. Very very efficient.”
“It’s still alive. Look.”
On the screen the abomination slaps a hand against the inside of the sac, presses out. One claw pierces the tissue. A burnt-brown fluid leaks out, freezing to little icy gobs, trailing off into their engine plume.
“My turn, then,” Brigid says. He clicks his comms channel, says, “Knights, form up. I’m on my way. Briefing will be in transit.”
Bernhard watches as the crusader gets to the bridge hatch, asks, “I can look at the report, but who are our patron saints for this op?”
Brigid turns his head over his shoulder and says, “Saint Michael. Saint Martin De Tours. Saint Xohig SomphambiXo.”
“Yes, yes. All fantastic warrior-saints. We’ll pray. See what else we can do from down here.”
“Thank you, Captain,” and Brigid walks out, the hatch sealing behind him.
Petty Officer Bonilla rubs his hands together, looking at the HVAC register nearest him to see if it’s putting out heat yet. Petty Officer Cavins leans back in his chair and digs around in his back pocket. Withdraws a watch cap and puts it on.
“Let us place this in the hands of our Lord,” Father Cho says, his silvery cloud of breath like incense around him. He makes the sign of the cross over himself and the bridge crew does the same. “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,” he says.
“Have mercy on us,” they follow.
“Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,”
“Have mercy on us.”
“Most Sacred Heart of Jesus...”
Controlling the Fight
Commander Brigid gets to the rallying point outside the exterior hatch. Brother Santa Cruz waits there with a portable rack, hanging upon it the commander’s armor. Brigid dons it, and as he does a moment passes between him and the other Knights when not so long ago they were at the same lock waiting to go outside with Brother Cleopas beside them.
Finally, he nods. Clears is throat with a cough. Checks his helmet’s comms and uses eye flickers to interface with his Visuals. Scrolls through radio channels, asks, “Johns, you on this one?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Status on that thing?”
“Actively squirming, sir. My money is on it trying to hatch.”
“Okay. We’re en route outside.”
“Copy, sir.”
Brigid switches back over and asks, “Everybody got the briefing?”
“New Thraw super-mutant getting ready to hatch outside on the hull and it’s already killed somebody?” Brother Gonzaga says.
“Torching it with a super-heated dump of the entire ship’s HVAC didn’t kill it?” Brother Nonnatus adds.
“We’ve got about twenty minutes to get rid of it before we enter the planet’s atmosphere?” Santa Cruz asks.
“God is the perfect embodiment of pure love?” Brother Pio says.
“Yup,” Brigid says and turns to the airlock. Cycles it open. They step inside. “Where’s the nun? Still in medbay?”
“No. She’s in the chapel with Father Cho,” Santa Cruz says.
“Father Cho was on the bridge.”
“Well, he must have left her in the chapel. They were together there. To my knowledge, the sister is still there. Deep in prayer.”
Brigid raises an eyebrow. “She’s always deep in prayer,” He says, “Okay, then. Blessed be the most Sacred Heart of Jesus,”
“Amen.”
“Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary,”
“Amen.”
“Patron saints of the mission, please intercede for our victory. Saint Michael,”
“Pray for us.”
“Saint Martin De Tours,”
“Pray for us.”
“Saint Xohig SomphambiXo,”
“Pray for us.”
The atmosphere drops to nothing inside the lock and the strobe lights flash, prepping them for the outer hatch to cycle open. Brigid says, “Captain Bernhard says he’ll do us a favor and stay out of the Centauri Astoria’s atmosphere for longer than the estimated twenty minutes. Not sure how long—the ship is pretty damaged. We’ve been decelerating for quite a while now. He’s ramped up the decel to buy us some time, but if he goes too long or too hard on that we’ll need to re-accelerate to get back to the approach vectors, blah blah. If it takes us that long to blast this thing off the hull, we’re in trouble.”
“Is it still in the egg sac-thing?” Santa Cruz asks.
Brigid shrugs. “Still hatching. Let’s go interrupt it,” The airlock cycles open and Brigid exits, gun first.
“Roger—” Gonzaga begins. Johns’s voice comes across the comms, screeching with a burst of static as he talks over Gonzaga. “—advised, the thing— hatched. Took off. I’m looking—”
Nonnatus is second out the lock, and sees Brigid sweep and clear, turn left. Nonnatus begins to follow, covering their right and Brigid is struck so hard from out of nowhere his gun shatters. The pieces fling off into the void. The commander falls over, wildly sliding down the length of the ship. Flailing to catch himself before he’s left behind in space or incinerated in their thrust plume.
“Contact!” Nonnatus shouts as he rushes forward, creating a gap between him and the abomination. His voice over the radio speakers becomes distorted because of his volume. “Contact aft! Commander down!” He opens fire at the thing rushing towards him.
WHATEVER THAT WAS, Commander Brigid lost his breath with it. He tumbles, rolling wildly. The blackness of space, ever-expanding, tumbling in his vision. Distant stars just a scattering of pinpricks spinning about with it. The hull rotates into view, and he has enough sense to reach for it. The click of his mag-gloves latching down onto it like a welcome prayer. His body slaps down on the hull and bounces off the other way. Equal and opposite reaction. He sees his feet pointing up away from the hull. To the stars. They should be on the St. Joshua.
Head rattling. Shouts and heavy breathing in his helmet speakers. The tether his rifle was attached to floating free now, a bit of broken metal still lashed to the end of it. He flexes, twists. He looks down at his chest, sees a fine dust of something he must have just picked up sprayed along him. Some twinkling crystals, too.
He turns to where he was looking near the vent and there it is, massive as a boulder, arms extended. So ugly. It was larger than two meters tall upright, with a shoulder width of at least one and a half meters. Must have formerly been Thraw, but so mutated now. Still with the bipedal stance, primary arms like tree trunks and so long they’re almost another pair of legs. Its secondary arms bizarre—especially the left one, a blackened claw-thing for its hand, and bundled close to the body.
Its face grotesquely misshapen, an upside triangle. Its hide now a ghostly translucent, and with its distorted skeleton underneath, there are bony spikes growing off it and puncturing out through the skin. Weird shapes inside its organs, and they twinkle like lights as well. Brigid thinks he’s seeing stars through its body. In its previous life as a Thraw, it must have been tattooed. Remnants of ink lines still draw shapes on its new skin, but even they are hideous.
There are sacs on its primary forearms, and they are undulating like toothless mouths chewing. They have thick orifices on the ends. Organic barrels. One of the arms squeezes and a crystalline spike emerges from it. Ready to fire.
“What did they do to you, poor soul?” He asks, and as he speaks he sees a little bit of blood spit up onto the inside of his visor, smearing the information along his Visuals.
BROTHERS GONZAGA AND Santa Cruz spill out the airlock, barrels raised and blindly firing where Brother Nonnatus is aimed. The abomination is a tremendous blur as it dodges, scrambling in a terrific rush for its size. Commander Brigid’s observation from when they met the priest comes to their minds, reads take note how fast this species moves. Now imagine the combat. Brother Pio rushes out last, going opposite of the others, trying to get behind it.
Nonnatus rushes for Brigid, whose one hand is holding him to the hull. Gonzaga and Santa Cruz fire. The rounds strike the abomination and barely penetrate before it stops them cold. The flesh ripples and disperses the impact, its whole body gelatinous to the point of nullifying the transferred energy of being shot.
“What is this thing?” Gonzaga shouts.
“Just the next obstacle,” Santa Cruz says. His gun sending vibration chattering up his suit in the deaf expanse of space.
A crackle of static in their ears, “Wh— they do to y— poor sou—” in the commander’s airy voice.
“How is it clinging to the hull?” Nonnatus asks, clomps against his magboots to get to the commander. Every step they must disconnect, sense contact and reactivate. Unimaginably slow in the adrenaline rush of life or death. He looks once towards the abomination, a heaving bulge of bone-white mutation, and turns away.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Gonzaga says, clomping his own way off to the side. Looking at its bare feet with long, slender toe-like protrusions that make its footprint almost a half meter in diameter. “Suction cups? Feet covered in goo?”
