Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

ship. It was a good thirty feet across and went down at least a hundred feet. There was no telling how much deeper it went. The hard suits' sensors couldn't follow that far. Even though they should have been able to. Silence checked his other instruments. No ambient heat from the hole, no radioactivity, no magnetic fields, and only low traces of gravity. Maybe one-tenth human level.
    Whatever secrets the alien ship had left, it was keeping them jealously to itself. Silence activated his comm implant.
    "Dauntless, this is the Captain. Do you hear me?"
    "Loud and clear, Captain," said Cross immediately. "Sensors are locked on your position, and we have full telemetry on your hard suits. Wherever you go once you're inside the alien craft, we'll be able to follow your movements and advise you."
    "I feel safer already," said Frost. "Keep your guns trained, Cross. Whatever happens, this ship is not to be allowed to escape. You will prevent such an escape with all means necessary, whatever the cost. Is that clear?"
    "Captain?" said Cross uncertainly.
    "Do as the Investigator says," Silence said flatly. "She's the expert here. If it comes down to the bottom line, we're all expendable. The Investigator and I perhaps a little more so than others. We're going in now. Let's all stick together, people. And whatever we find inside this ship, don't get distracted. I want information, not dead heroes. Investigator, if you'd care to lead the way, we can get this show on the road."
    "Of course, Captain."

    Frost stepped off the edge of the pit and began to fall slowly down into the great hole the Dauntless had made, helped on her way by short bursts from her backpack. Silence followed her, and one by one the marines came after him, in a long line of slowly falling bodies. The shoulder lights on their hard suits pushed back the darkness as they fell, but there wasn't much to see. The inside walls of the pit were composed of the same thick white cables, pressed and twisted together. The controlled fall seemed to go on for ages, and then the floor of the pit loomed suddenly up beneath them. Frost touched down first, got her balance in a moment, and looked quickly about her, built-in weapons at the ready. Silence joined her a moment later. The massive cables beneath his feet didn't give at all, bulging around him like waves in a frozen sea. The marines drifted down around him, dropping out of the gloom into the light like great silver snowflakes. They landed easily, with casual skill, and moved out to form a defensive circle around Silence and the Investigator, who was thoughtfully studying the floor of the pit.
    "Interesting," she said finally. "We hit this ship with everything we had. When its shields went down, the outer skin of the hull, or whatever the hell this stuff is, took the full brunt of disrupter cannon firing at virtually point-blank range. Solid steel would have melted and run like water, where it didn't immediately evaporate. But I can't find any trace of heat or structural damage."
    "Self-regenerating?" said Silence, and the Investigator shrugged.
    "Maybe. If it is, it's far beyond anything we've got. And why just repair the walls? Why not seal over the hole?"
    "Because they knew we'd be coming, and they wanted to control where we landed,"
    said Silence. "The word trap suggests itself to me. Suggestions?"

    "Blast a way through to the interior," said Frost. "I brought enough shaped charges to blow a path through a small moon. Once we're inside, we'll see if anyone comes to complain about the noise."
    "If you're going to start messing about with explosives, I am getting myself and my men out of here," Silence said firmly. "I never met an Investigator yet who understood the concept of subtlety when it came to explosives."
    And then he broke off and looked sharply at the wall beside them. Two of the thick white cables were twisting slowly apart to form a tunnel leading deeper into the ship. Frost leaned in cautiously, her suit lights illuminating the tunnel as far as they could. It seemed entirely empty. Silence tried his suit's sensors, but they weren't picking up anything. As far as they were concerned, the tunnel might not even have been there.
    "Silence to Dauntless. You picking up anything on your end?"
    "We're patched into your suits' comm signals, Captain," Cross murmured in his ear. "We can see everything you can. But long-range sensors have nothing to add.
    I can say we're not picking up any life signs yet. We've