Sklisk frantically searched for a solution as bug warriors raced toward Jaelisk from all angles. She’d been wounded further, but was alert enough to understand the danger as she sluggishly pulled her Iskstar weapon from her back and prepared to meet the onslaught. Sklisk’s eyes lit on a round disk embedded in the once-flat, but now crumbling roadway. The disk was made of iron and while he wasn’t sure of its purpose, he knew two things: it was Piscivoru made and if opened, would provide more cover than standing in the open where Jaelisk was currently trapped.
Sklisk skittered downward and timed his leap from the building to meet the first of the bug warriors. The warrior’s face held no expression as he plunged the end of his Iskstar into its open proboscis. Sklisk slid to the ground, drawing the blade through the bug's breast plate. He spun to meet the second bug but saw, with some satisfaction that Jaelisk had already drawn deep furrows into its underside and would finish it.
"Leave me," Jaelisk demanded.
Three more bugs skidded to a halt and rose to attack, as the sounds of many sharp pincers clacking against the stony surface rang out. Sklisk was pushed forward as a claw struck his back. He rolled with the strike, his scaled back deflecting the claw to the side. Wincing at the pain from the forceful attack, he instinctively reacted. With a swift swing of the Iskstar pole, Sklisk cut off the bug's pincered hand. Without pause, he spun the weapon through the bug's carapace, killing it.
Understanding slowly sank in and he understood how their deaths would come. An individual strike from any bug would do a small amount of damage and that bug would pay with its life. The bugs, however, had no concern for their lives and would not stop coming, regardless of the price paid. He and Jaelisk were fighting a microcosm of the battle his ancestors had been fighting since the Kroo Ack arrived on Picis.
He turned again and searched the ground for the iron disk. He'd been pushed away from it, as had Jaelisk. A great horde of the bugs flowed over the rubble like water, coming for them even though piles of dead bugs grew around them.
"To me!" Sklisk sang out and dropped to his stomach, running for the iron disk's position. A weak strike on his back was followed by a second. Sklisk had been told that the bugs had difficulty striking at the low target of a Piscivoru on the ground, but to experience it while in combat was a lesson well learned. Two of his adversaries collided above them as he and Jaelisk arrived near the disk at roughly the same moment. Swinging around, he dropped one of the bugs, unfortunately it fell directly atop the disk.
"I have always loved you," Jaelisk said, her strength flagging.
"Do not give up," Sklisk ordered, pushing his shoulder into the bug that blocked the disk. He was unable to move it.
"What are you doing?" Jaelisk asked.
"Help me move this," he demanded, not explaining.
Jaelisk pushed with him, but the bug's weight made it difficult. Sklisk jumped back to a defensive posture, slicing into another warrior that had clambered over rubble to attack. Turning back, he sliced into the husk of the bug at their feet and ripped away at its body.
"Have you gone feral? They come for us!" Jaelisk exclaimed, fighting off another.
Sklisk didn't answer but dug through the pieces of the warrior’s body, his blade finally hitting the iron of the disk. Rushing, he clawed frantically, pushing the remains away until he found what he was looking for. Just then, a warrior crashed into him from behind, rolling him and several of the body pieces away from the disk. Jaelisk, while not understanding the objective, recognized the danger he was in and jumped atop the pile, slicing her blade across the attacker's chest.
"The disk on the ground!" Sklisk yelled as he freed himself from the viscera. "It is a tunnel."
Jaelisk turned and discovered the target of Sklisk's interest. Without hesitation she jammed the end of her Iskstar staff into a hole at one edge of the disk in an attempt to pry it up. Nothing happened and the disk appeared so impossible to move that she straightened, intending to remove the staff and try something else. Before she could finish the thought, Sklisk's feet landed on one end of the staff, driving it from her hands. The staff bent precariously under his weight and yet miraculously, the iron lid flipped up onto the ground, exposing a darkened hole.
"Go!" Sklisk said, urging Jaelisk through.
"My weapon," Jaelisk cried back as she slid into the darkness below.
Sklisk looked for the staff, but it had been flung many body lengths away. For a few moments he considered going after it, but quickly decided against the thought. A warrior had grabbed the weapon in its maw, turned from the fight, and raced off. Shocked, but with nothing else to lose, Sklisk turned and dove into the hole behind Jaelisk.
Bouncing against smooth walls, he allowed gravity to pull him downward. Tentatively, he reached out with his feet, seeing if he could grip the sides. He was gratified to discover he was able to hold on just enough to control his fall. Blinking, he pulled back his inner eyelids and peered around the tunnel. Before Sklisk could see much, he collided with Jaelisk, who had come to rest at the bottom.
Still concerned about the bugs, he looked up, calculating the distance that separated them from the surface. He estimated they had gone three seconds in free fall and no bug warrior would ever fit within the hole they'd dropped through.
"We're safe for now," he said, turning to where Jaelisk still sat. He could feel that something was off as she began moving; her actions seemed slow and distracted. "Are you hurt?"
It was at that moment his eyes fell on a scene he would never forget. For as far as he could see, mummified remains of Piscivoru lay haphazardly against the rounded walls of the long tunnel.
Chapter 8
Born to be Wild
I sat on the corner of the bed, staring at the floor with my throbbing head in my hands. I was waiting for the med-patch nanobots to finally decide that my headache was a priority. My body had taken quite a pounding during the pod-ball match, mostly from the claws of Mshindi Tertiary.
"You going to be okay?" Tabby asked as she stepped from the shower room. She leaned over to wrap her hair into a turban with the luxurious towels that were standard in the station's new VIP suite.
I'll admit it; I'm a very visual person. Even with my entire body aching, the sight of my beautiful warrior queen caused me to think of other things. She'd faced away from me at a slight angle and my eyes traced up her angular legs to her bottom and along her six-pack abs. She finally stood back up and turned toward me.
"Um …" was all I could manage.
She smiled that smile she reserved only for me, then walked confidently over to place a cool hand on my forehead. Pushing hair away from one of my numerous injuries, she sank to my level to place a kiss on it.
"Why, Mr. Hoffen, I do believe your answer, while terse, communicates all that is necessary," she said, pushing me gently back onto the bed, straddling me.
There is very little a man is not capable of doing when his very beautiful – might I add, naked – woman whom he loves, brings herself into such proximity. A distant and almost closed-off part of my brain registered complaints from my body as injuries were exacerbated in the activities that followed.
Twenty minutes later, worse for wear but happier because of it, I gratefully allowed Tabby to reapply med patches to the numerous injuries across my body. "Oh, Liam, you should have stopped me," Tabby said, removing a patch that had soaked through with blood from my back. "Are you sure you shouldn't be in the tank? My AI is showing damage to your kidneys. Majida did this?"
"You can't expect to parade naked in front of me without consequences," I said, not wanting to give Mshindi Tertiary any further credit. The pod-ball match had turned into a bare-handed brawl, which was entirely to the benefit of Felio, who have claws at the end of their hands. Call it hubris if you need, but give me a decent weapon and I'd rematch Majida any time, any place. Of course, that could just be my bruised ego talking.
"You're ignoring my question. I can't believe she caused this kind of damage,"
Tabby said, inspecting the wound. "We need to say something. This isn't okay."
She was sitting on my legs with her knees on either side of my body, her warmth causing a certain drain of my cognitive abilities – again. "Just put a new patch on," I said, trying to fight the battle I would lose if she continued to sit atop me. "Med advisor says I'll be fine. I don't want her getting wind of the fact that she did enough damage to warrant the tank."
Tabby sighed and wiped a disposable towel across the wound, immediately clotting the sections that had opened. "I don't know what her problem is with you." She lifted her leg off and pushed me onto my back, her focus on my other wounds, most of which were smaller and had been closed already. Of course, the move exposed the fact that my mind had wandered during the conversation. She leaned down and looked into my face with an unraised eyebrow. "No. Not until your back wound is fully closed."
I shrugged innocently.
"You're such a bad man," she said, leaping off the bed as I lunged for her. My hand slid from her bottom as she easily escaped me. "Get in the shower. We'll talk about things tonight."
"We'll be sailing for Abeline by tonight," I complained, looking for an angle that was not in my body's best interest. "I'm not even sure what the sleeping arrangements will be."
"Are you saying Gaylon Brighton has no dual-bunked quarters?" Tabby asked, pulling a freshly-folded suit liner from where it sat next to the suit freshener. "I believe the captain should have considered this before deciding to take her on such a long journey to the Central Planets."
Recognizing I was fighting a losing battle, I rolled from the bed and gingerly stood, walking stiffly to the shower. With warm water washing over me, I pushed pain from consideration and switched from thinking about play time to that of our mission. Jonathan had a thin lead regarding the information he'd gleaned from the Kroerak noble about the Piscivoru. According to what Jonathan had come up with in his research, they needed to talk to an information broker who worked out of a bar on the planet Abeline.
The mission was straightforward – sail to Abeline, some fourteen wormhole jumps and three ten-days away if we sailed at maximum speed on our fastest ship. In reality, we'd end up taking our second fastest ship. Fleet Afoot was faster by six or seven percent than Gaylon Brighton, but she lacked the state-of-the-art Mars Protectorate sloop armor, weaponry, and somewhat limited stealth capacity. I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to taking command of the little marvel. The sloop was hardly in the right weight class for taking on Kroerak, but then that wasn't the mission this time around – at least that's what I believed at the moment.
"You're like a light switch," Tabby said, when I got out of the shower and dried off. "Might give a girl whiplash."
I grinned, looking up at her. She'd already braided her long coppery hair and was in her tight fitting grav-suit. I could have pointed out that it was her actions that had redirected me, but I'd learned she didn't have quite the same capability to compartmentalize. I looked into her eyes as I approached, rested my fingers beneath her chin, and kissed her lightly. "I happen to know the captain's quarters has a queen-sized bed configuration. I've already sent instructions."
"Who all is going?" Tabby asked.
She'd been in on the initial conversations, but we hadn't made any decisions, wanting to give people time to talk about the trip and respond. In my mind, the ideal complement was my original crew: Marny, Nick, Ada, Tabby, and me. The fact was, however, that Nick had a business to run, Marny had reservations about allowing Munay free reign, and Ada wasn't about to abandon her baby, Intrepid, while it was being worked on.
"So far it's Sendrei, Jonathan, you and me," I said.
"Extras? What about Semper, Robie, and Jester Ripples?"
"We need them working on Hornblower, we can't afford to lose their productivity, especially Jester Ripples and Semper," I said.
"Semper?" Tabby asked.
"Seriously. She and Jester Ripples have worked out a quirky style of communication where she's almost an extension of him. He's taken to sleeping in her quarters and everything," I said.
"I wondered where the little guy had gotten off to," she said. "That’s going to leave us running pretty short-handed for a thirty-day journey."
"Nick's got a line on a couple of rookies we could bring along. One's a Petty Officer from Mars. She was part of Gaylon Brighton's original crew – Larkin Bray, and a man Nick hired from York – Todd Hunter. Believe it or not, Nick had him working on the plant's gray water processing system."
Tabby smiled at the inside joke. I always complained about being put into the position of fixing our septic systems, but I really only minded the smell. "Let's hope Gaylon Brighton doesn't need any of that."
Not the type to overpack or make long goodbyes, Tabby and I gave final hugs to friends and family who would remain behind and stepped onto the catwalk that led onto the thirty-meter long Gaylon Brighton. As far as ship designs went, she was something of a mix between our first and second ships; Sterra's Gift and Hotspur. With the light-and-signal-absorptive armor, top and bottom turrets, and twin missile tubes, Gaylon Brighton was stealthy and had nearly as much punch as Hotspur. Not as focused on cargo, however, she boasted only a single deck and carried ten very comfortably. In a pinch, passenger capacity could be doubled with no stress on the triple-redundant biological systems.
Turning aft, I nodded to the two new crew members, Bray and Hunter, who looked up from where they were stowing supplies in the galley. They both sported Ada's newly-designed two-tone crew vac-suits; the top was a deep blood-red and the attached leggings were matte black. The boots and gloves had small, built-in arc-jets that looked to be handy in a pinch, but I worried they wouldn’t be much in an extended EVA situation.
"Welcome aboard, Sir," the blonde-haired Petty Officer Larkin Bray quickly added, stiffening to a semblance of attention. Todd Hunter, from York on the planet's surface, nodded back. He didn’t have any military background, but seemed comfortable enough with the formality.
"Are we good to go?" I asked.
"Aye, Sir. Absolutely," Bray answered immediately, her eager Petty Officer attitude still intact.
"We'll be underway in a few minutes," I said. "I'll be looking for a ready check shortly."
"Aye, aye!" Bray answered yet again, earning her a bemused look from Hunter.
Turning forward, we walked past closed hatches en route to the bridge. I nodded to myself, it was good practice to keep hatches shut, especially when near other ships. Damage from a hull breach, while not likely next to Petersburg station, was easily dealt with if a compartment was closed.
"She's beautiful," Tabby said, running her hand along the glossy, bright two-tone white and gray bulkhead.
"Not quite the Belirand fit and finish," I said. "More than I'd have expected from Mars Protectorate, though."
I placed my palm on the bridge door and heard the familiar whistle announcing my arrival as the hatch disappeared to the portside.
"Captain on the bridge," Sendrei's deep baritone announced.
"Your timing is good, Captain," Jonathan said. "Nicholas has deposited the prototype machines we are to deliver to a distributor on Abeline. We have sufficient supplies and fuel for a direct trip. I believe there is no reason for further delay."
"Sendrei, are we good for missiles?" I asked. In studying the ship's design, I'd learned the turrets had the capacity for both energy-based blasters and projectiles. My AI showed we had three missiles aboard. We had capacity for six, but we would have to make an additional stop if we were to take on further ordnance.
"Like you, I'd rather have a full load," he said. "I don't believe our mission parameters justify a stop only for this purpose, though."
As with most ships I'd sailed, Gaylon Brighton had two adjustable pilot’s chairs at the extreme forward of the bridge. New to me, however, was the fact that all chairs within the bridge were configurable for any purpose. According to what I'd read, the chairs could be stowed in the deck
out of the way, turned to face center, lined up in a row, or pushed to any of the stations that lined the aft and interior bulkheads.
"All hands, this is the captain. Please prepare for immediate departure," I said, comfortable that the ship's AI would route communications appropriately. Before boarding, I'd assigned responsibility for each of the ship's critical systems to different crew members. It would be their responsibility to run the checklists against their systems and report back with a simple go/no-go when given the preparation order. I immediately received 'go' from all stations.
"Petersburg, this is Gaylon Brighton requesting exit vector. We're ready for departure," I said.
"Gaylon Brighton, your navigation is approved. Safe travels and happy hunting," Katherine LeGrande's bust appeared on a crystal-clear holo projection centered forward of the pilot’s chairs. Accompanying her projection, a navigation path was also transmitted. Ultimately, Katherine wanted us to stay clear of the activity around Hornblower, but otherwise we had open space.
"One last thing, Petersburg. Please patch me into station public address," I said.
"What? Oh." Katherine chuckled. "You're live, Gaylon Brighton.”
"Cue Steppenwolf – Born to be Wild," I instructed.
Tabby shook her head as electric guitars from ages long past played on both the station's and Gaylon Brighton's sound systems.
Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
With theme music in place, I rolled the acceleration stick forward and twisted slightly on the directional stick. "All hands, prepare for hard burn." Giving it a moment, I pushed the stick forward until we reached a Class B, hard-burn acceleration. I forced my breathing to slow as I was pushed back into the pilot's seat while inertial and gravity systems negotiated. The actual acceleration of hard-burn was generally the point where the two systems resulted in a constant 1.25g to 1.5g downward force. Given that we'd be sailing for an extended period, the preference was to keep it at the lower end of the range for comfort.
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