Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) Mark Wandrey (e novels to read .TXT) 📖

provide vacuum protection for an hour, or for a few precious minutes in space.

The scientist had a series of bags on his belt. In addition to three extra magazines for the pistol, he had a single extra laser magazine, some emergency rations, a small canteen, and two pouches holding various equipment. Rick wasn’t sure what, and it didn’t really matter. He carried most of what he’d need within the internal storage bays of his armor. Dakkar had only his water/oxygen breather and a tiny emergency bubble. In the event they were caught in a decompression, the Wrogul could slither inside and inflate it, making himself a little safe space for a time.

“What if they get violent?” Rick asked as they approached the lock.

“Then I trigger the computer to get us out of here.”

Rick nodded and armed both arm lasers, setting one for 250kw, or full power, and the other for only 100kw. He wanted flexibility. He finished running down his list of weapons, noting the newly activated shield control. “In fact, it’ll hurt like hell, because I can’t get the bios to properly disable the pain receptors.” Sato’s words echoed in his mind and still didn’t give him confidence. He resolved not to use the thing until they finished it completely.

<Docking in one minute,> the computer told them. Vestoon bumped as a thruster fired and the trio needed to maintain handholds, or tentacleholds, as they moved forward. They reached the outside of the airlock moments before the ship nuzzled up to the asteroid. With a final lurch, they had a hard dock; the ship and asteroid were one.

They floated next to the inside lock while their ship negotiated with the asteroid’s systems. After a moment, the telltales indicated a safe mating, and the inside door opened. The three moved inside, and it closed behind them.

“Okay,” Rick said. “I’ll go in first. Sato, you and Dakkar follow.” He turned to the Wrogul. “If you see the opportunity to slip away through an air shaft or something, do it, but keep in touch. See if you can find the control room. I suspect as soon as they realize we aren’t their opSha buddies, all hell will break loose. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” Sato repeated.

“As you say,” Dakkar said.

“Okay,” Rick said and moved to the left of the outer airlock door. Sato and Dakkar went to the right. Rick pressed the cycle button. The airlock beeped, and the door slid into the lower bulkhead, revealing the inside of the asteroid base’s airlock. Nothing waited there.

Without comment, they floated into the other airlock, and Rick examined the interior of the lock mechanism. It was Union standard. “Ready,” he said, and they prepared again. Rick triggered the final mechanism.

A slight hiss sounded as the lock equalized with the asteroid’s internal pressure, then the door released and rotated inward. A smoothed-rock, perfectly round hallway was revealed. Every meter, the circular tunnel had a ring of tiny lights with their wiring visible. The illumination would be barely sufficient for a Human. Rick’s enhanced vision found it more than enough.

“Wow,” Rick said. “Took a lot of work to make this. I was expecting something like an old coal mine.”

“No,” Sato said. “This is familiar.”

“Is that good or bad?” Rick asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

The scientist closed his eyes and floated just inside the airlock for a long moment. Rick was about to ask if he’d decided to go back when Sato’s eyes snapped open.

“This way,” he said, and pushed off into the corridor.

“We agreed to let me lead,” Rick said and immediately followed.

“You cannot lead if you don’t know where you’re going.”

Rick didn’t like the answer, but he followed anyway as they arrived at an intersection. Maneuvering inside the asteroid was difficult. It clearly wasn’t made by Humans or any of the races he was familiar with. There was an almost complete lack of handholds. There seemed to only be three around each end of a tunnel when it met another tunnel, and there weren’t any doors he could see.

“What is this place?” he wondered aloud. Sato didn’t answer. He merely paused at the three-way intersection, picked a direction, and pushed off with a foot on a handhold he hadn’t seemed to look at. Has he been here before, or just somewhere like this? Rick didn’t know and didn’t ask Sato. Instead, he followed. Rick didn’t have to use the handholds; he used the fans integral to his armor to generate tiny little puffs to maneuver with great precision.

This next corridor had rooms off it. Rick didn’t stop to look in any of them, afraid Sato would get too far ahead, and he’d lose track of him. He glanced in them as he went by. From what little he saw, they looked like small cabins or maybe cells? None of them contained furniture, equipment, or anything. Yet they were all as smooth and polished as the hallways they floated through. Sato adjusted his trajectory and made another turn. Rick hurried to follow.

They’d been traveling for about 15 minutes. The suit’s inertial navigation system showed the total distance was 1,200 meters. Based on the scans of the asteroid, they were nearing the center. Yet they’d encountered nobody and had seen no significant equipment or systems. He was just about to ask Sato how much further they were going, when the corridor made a turn and revealed a large open space, the first of any sort they’d encountered.

There were six corridors entering the space, which was around 20 meters across and roughly ovoid in shape. The exits were spaced equidistant. Since they were in zero-G, there was no up or down, and the way these corridors left the chamber suggested it was made for someone who was accustomed to zero-G. Like the corridors, this huge space was ringed with the same type of light, which necessitated massive