Survival Wars: Books 1-3: Crimson Tempest, Bane of Worlds, Chains of Duty by Anthony James

Author:Anthony James [James, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Adventure, Aliens, Fiction, Science Fiction, Space Opera, War & Military
Amazon: B07BHJ2HQ9
Published: 2018-03-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Duggan found himself in a room ten metres wide and stretching to a hundred in length. There were two passages leading away from opposite walls. The temperature was lower here and Duggan guessed this area was heavily insulated from the mass of engines close by. He stepped a few paces forward – the floor was metal-tiled and at a fifteen-degree angle from level. Footing would have been treacherous had the Cadaveron been at more of a tilt. As it was, he found it easy enough to manage. Sergeant Ortiz appeared next at the hole and Duggan moved deeper into the room so she and the others could enter.

“Look at all these bunks,” she said. “Hundreds of them.”

Chainer came next. “The poor bastards in here must have been vaporised.”

“And not a damn thing they could do about it,” said Flores.

“Have you been reading that book you were telling me about?” asked Dorsey.

“We’re all soldiers, aren’t we?” muttered Flores, not pleased to have been called out.

The bunks were little more than alcoves in the walls, eight feet long and four deep. They were stacked three high, with the uppermost ones ten feet from the floor. There were deep, horizontal grooves in the walls next to them – ladders for the Ghast soldiers to climb up to reach their beds. Duggan headed along the room, keeping close to the wall as he went. He looked into the first bunk he reached – there was nothing within. Whatever bedding there might have been was either utterly destroyed by the heat of the Shatterer missile, or sucked out into space.

“I might hate these alien bastards, but there’s no pleasure to be gained from this,” said Ortiz.

“Yeah,” said Flores.

“We need to move,” said Duggan. “This place is too hot and we might have a lot of running to do to find the bridge.”

With that, he set off with his rifle in his hands. He kept it across his chest, rather than at his shoulder. Speed was more important than anything and he was certain there’d be no resistance. The passageways he’d seen earlier went left or right from the room. Duggan went left, guessing the bridge was more likely to be at the front of the ship. In other circumstances it would have made more sense to split up, but the density of the ship would stop any suit-to-suit communication and he didn’t want anyone getting lost.

The corridor they entered was oversized, as was everything to do with the Ghasts. Pipes and cables ran in trays high up on the walls. Every so often, there were screens embedded into the walls, with no clue as to their function. The blue light was everywhere and seemed to exude from the walls themselves, instead of having a discernible source.

“It’s a mixture of old and new,” said Chainer. “I’ve not seen a pipe on a spacecraft since we were last on the Crimson – I’m half expecting to see steam coming out of a loose joint. However, the lighting is technologically superior to anything on a Corps vessel.

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