The two commanders were almost together.
Just another few moments…
The divine Zhoogene pointed at Bronze’s head, and the soldiers under her command unleashed an intense blaster volley at him and Sinofar.
Bronze fought to keep his feet on the ledge that was shuddering under the fierce onslaught. Molten chips of wall material splattered the area, burning Bronze’s clothing.
“Bronze,” said Sinofar. She sounded worried. “I’m down to my last few shells.”
With such a concentration of fire, they would get their heads blasted off sooner or later. The air filling with incoming blaster bolts was also blinding. All he could see were streaks of deadly plasma.
“Can you see the commanders?” he asked Sinofar.
“No. But I’ve already locked their position into the scope. Let’s hope they haven’t moved. Wish me luck, Bronzy.”
He put a hand on her shoulder and pushed his head into the firestorm. Through her body, he felt the ferocious kick unleashed by the 110mm Khrone cannon as she sent four shells at the target. How she wasn’t thrown off the firing step by the recoil he’d never understand.
Twitching, he felt the death of the commanders.
The enemy blaster fire ceased.
But he could still sense the demigoddess.
As the afterimages of the bolts cleared from his vision, Bronze saw what had happened.
The super-mutated human had been reduced to a pair of booted legs. The Khrone had cooked everything from the hips up into burned chum.
The Zhoogene was completely unharmed. Bronze cringed as she hurled her anger at him in the form of a gut-wrenching howl.
Sinofar fired another shell at her. The impact revealed a shimmering violet cocoon that dissipated its energy. Force shield. If the Khrone couldn’t punch through, nothing could.
The enemy walked toward the wall, their blaster fire slowly picking up again in intensity. A few of the mortars fired.
Bronze sent hellfire rounds into the nearest soldiers. They went down, but it seemed to remind the others of his existence. The return fire was ferocious.
He ducked down. “We’ve done all we can here,” he said over the squad net. “We’ll have to run for it in the tubs.”
“It’s my last shell,” announced Sinofar. Her Khrone roared a final time.
Two blaster bolts flew into her, hurling her off the wall.
Helplessly, he watched her fall over thirty feet.
Enthree had been waiting for this. She caught Sinofar in her arms and cradled the big Pryxian as she dropped to the ground.
Bronze fired a pointless volley at the demigoddess and then hurried down to join them.
Sinofar was sitting up. Dazed, she stared at the twisted metal in her hands. “My Khrone,” she groaned. “My beautiful Khrone. Dead.”
“Back to the vehicles,” ordered Lily. “We’ll have to break out.”
“Wait,” Sybutu called. “Bronze, do you remember that battle on the frozen lake near Camp Faxian? Blaster fire wouldn’t get through the force shield, but your crescent blade did. Have you got it?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Swords and crescent,” said Enthree. “Our victory shall make a fine tale.”
Bronze pointed up at the sky filled with flying rocks and blaster bolts. “We can’t just walk up to the commander and challenge her to a duel.”
“Have none of you ever lived on a farm?” asked the Nyluga. “The hungry animals who charged us earlier are herd creatures, which means they can be herded.”
“Damn! She’s right,” said Hjon. “Bronze, Enthree, it’s time you joined the cavalry.”
* * * * *
Chapter 43: Hines “Bronze” Zy Pel
Bronze could hear the hover-tubs herding the animals. It sounded like fun…
For everyone else.
All he could see was the underside of the beast he was clinging beneath, and that was no fun at all. The animal stamped its hooves and tried to shake him off. Several times already, he’d lost his grip on the folds of tough flesh, and they were barely underway. He didn’t fancy his chances if the creature broke into a run or simply thought to lie down on its belly and crush the life out of him.
The animal picked up speed. Its legs thrummed a steady beat that caused its udders—or whatever they were—to slap him in the face.
“The beasts have built-in handholds,” Enthree shouted from beneath the animal next to him. “Use them!”
The Muryani hung beneath her ride, looking so comfortable, the beast could have been bred for her.
Bronze held on for dear life by squeezing his knees and ankles into the animal’s belly and shifting his hands onto its teats.
They were soft and squishy. And oozed brown fluid. But they made perfect handholds.
The creature disagreed and hooted in anger at this violation. It sprang into the air and crashed down onto the flanks of its neighbors. The impact nearly shook Bronze off, but the animal didn’t jump again.
Blaster fire erupted behind the animals, sending them into a full-on stampede.
All his senses merged into one. The animal bellows, the blur of motion, the earthquake of pounding hooves, the sense of helplessness as he was carried along by a raging storm of muscle, hooves, and horns. He couldn’t remember ever being so terrified.
He tried to look across at Enthree, but everything was an oscillating haze of legs, dirt, and udders. So, he willed his artificial eyes to cancel the disruptions and saw the Muryani calmly glued beneath her stampeding monster. She seemed without a care in the world.
Azhanti! Was she asleep?
“How do you do that?” he called across to her, remembering she’d also had a special bond with the Saruswine. “How do you get animals to trust you so easily?”
“Experience,” she replied, his auditory augmentations filtering out the cacophony so he could understand.
“You mean you were a farmer?”
“No. Not my experience. The experience of the Muryani over thousands of generations.”
“And it works on humans too?”
“Of course. Although we are still gaining experience on your species, I have you exactly where I want you.”
“Don’t even joke about it.”
“I would never use humor on such an important topic.”
“Damned bug.”
“Or would I?”
They must have passed through the archway, because, suddenly, Bronze was breathing in the oxygen-poor air, and his brain couldn’t decide whether the Muryani was serious or joking. His oxygen mask lay by his left hand, but he didn’t dare reach for it.
“You remember how I was influenced in Bresca-Brevae?” he yelled at his companion.
“And in Flux City.”
“Yeah. Same rules apply. If I go weird, don’t hesitate to kill me.”
“I won’t.”
“You did with Meatbolt.”
“That…was…”
Not for the first time, Bronze was certain he was about to die. He’d never imagined making his exit by being crushed beneath the hooves of giant rat unicorns. But for the first time, he’d unsettled the bug. That was something at least.
“Meatbolt was a friend,” Bronze told the Muryani. “I know I’m not, but if you respect me as a comrade, you might experience the same reluctance. Kill me. Don’t hesitate. You have my permission. Promise me.”
“I promise, Bronze. If you go bad, you die.”
He thought he heard blaster fire, but he wasn’t sure as his ears were tuned to the conversation. He set them to a more general mode and heard a repeating pattern of three blaster bolts. The signal.
“Let’s do this,” he screamed and let go.
He dropped to the ground.
Momentum ripped his spine along the rocks and dirt, but the hooves he’d feared would crush him passed over his body and carried on, away from him.
They had climbed beneath animals at the rear of the pack, but in the crush, his ride had p
ushed deeper into the herd. Another beast was coming straight for him. He rolled to one side and escaped with just a sideswipe from a hoof.
Then another thundered his way. No. It was running at Enthree, horn aimed to skewer the big bug. Something about the alien seemed to spook it. At the last moment, it dug in its mid limbs and shifted direction, cutting diagonally away from the Muryani. Straight at Bronze.
He curled into a protective ball. But it did no good. The creature pounded him on the back, cracking ribs and leaving him stunned in pain, face down in the dirt.
To be crushed under the hooves of giant hairless rat unicorns. It was to be his end after all.
Enthree came to him.
And stabbed him in the neck.
“Unggh!”
His neck surged with heat. Stim pen!
“Forget your wounds,” said Enthree. “Our only hope is to move forward.”
Bronze bellowed. And stood.
The titaness saw it all and sneered at them.
She turned her head away to concentrate on the rest of the battle. Damned monster didn’t see him as a threat.
The hover-tubs charged forward, having used the stampede as a shield. Bolts, bullets, and flechettes were crossing the gap in both directions. The battle’s moment of decision had come.
The stim pen did nothing to hide the pain. Bronze just didn’t care about it as much.
Still in agony, he stepped forward and accelerated into a lumbering charge at the titaness. He felt gurgling in his chest. Damn! Must have punctured his lung.
Didn’t matter. Enthree soared overhead and jumped down on the titaness, who raised her extra pair of arms to ward off this aerial attack.
Bronze ran past her, ducking under a blow from her right fist. He came to a sharp halt that sent blades of pain slicing through his lungs in a thousand places.
He drew his crescent blade and pushed inside her force bubble.
Force shields sucked the energy out of attacks, fusing it with haloes of exotic particles to create searing bright sheets of electroweak forces. Ironically, the less energetic your attack, the easier it was to get through the force shield. All you had to do was lean in with your shoulder.
Back at the Academy, his instructors had described the experience as being like pushing through a vat of molasses.
Which was a strange expression, because he would have laid credits on his instructors not having experience with molasses vats or pushing through an energy shield.
Whereas Bronze had.
One of those things, anyway.
He mused on these thoughts to distract himself from the shards of agony in his chest. Whether from the drugs or the adrenaline, the pain was lifting as he eased through the last of the shield’s resistance. He stumbled as he fell into the protected bubble around the green titaness.
Thumbing the control studs built into the handle of his blade, Bronze retracted the tip shields and then released its dark secret from the chambers hidden within. With the twin tips of the crescent blade dripping with green poison, he slashed at the back of her thigh.
Instead of the slick wet sound of advanced metals slicing through flesh, the blade struck a jarring blow that felt and sounded as if he’d struck rock.
The super Zhoogene had grown thick, hexagonal plates beneath her skin. They must be acting like armor plating.
He aimed a more careful strike, planning to run the poison tips of his blade along the cracks between her plates, but the titaness mule kicked, and he only just managed to dodge to one side.
While the monster was busy with Bronze, Enthree tried to wriggle free of her grip. To no avail.
Ever since Enthree had leaped onto her, the magnificent commander had been holding the Muryani above her head with three arms, pinning Enthree’s limbs so she couldn’t strike with her swords.
With her free arm, the divine monster pummeled Enthree with fierce blows that thumped like bass drumbeats.
Bronze tried to slash again, but the super Zhoogene spun and smashed Enthree to the ground, using her as a club to batter Bronze.
He dodged, stumbled, and fell, his chin making a sudden acquaintance with the rocky ground. But what made his vision strobe was the glancing blow to his chest he’d caught from Enthree.
The pain was blinding.
But so was death.
He pushed through the pain and breathed air into his brutalized lungs. It didn’t help. He couldn’t get the oxygen he needed.
Tilting over to one side on the ground, he grabbed some breaths from his mask and looked up at the titaness.
She was beyond Zhoogene. The narrow face of her kind had expanded into a heart shape, with cheekbones like battleship railguns above sunken cheeks that glowed red. In place of ground cover head growth, thick vines writhed angrily.
And she was angry. He could hear it in her deafening wails as she grabbed the stunned Muryani and hurled her out of the force bubble.
It was just the goddess and him.
The ten-foot-high being stared down at him, eyes blazing like golden suns. As small as he was, she screamed in her expected triumph over him. No, not merely triumph but anger multiplied from before. Bronze had betrayed her. He should have yielded, yet he had defied her.
It was an outrage against the natural order of things. What had he been thinking? To defy the divine was blasphemous.
She stumbled.
It was the slightest give in one leg. The one he had slashed at.
The titaness quickly recovered her stance, but Bronze had seen.
He had done that. Pathetic, wounded mortal though he was. He had no desire to fight her, but he had to all the same.
He had to hold the line. For Chimera Company. For everyone.
“Your problem,” he yelled at her, his voice feeble against her insane shriek, “is that however much your kind tries to corrupt me, I’m still human. And that means it’s game over. For you!”
He dove between her legs, slashing up at her soft inner thighs as he went.
This time he felt the blade cut flesh.
The blade cut so deep, his fingers were ripped from the grooves in its handle. He let the weapon go. One nick with its poisoned tips, and he’d be dead within a minute.
But the titaness was far from finished. She arched backward like a tumbler about to backflip and brought her upper arms all the way down to pin Bronze by his shoulders.
He tried to squirm free, but her strength was far too great. Her weight pressed down on him, the grip so strong, his arms were numbing.
She completed her backward flip and landed back on her feet, holding Bronze in front of her gaze. A titanic hand gripped each of his limbs.
She said nothing, but her golden eyes sparkled with pleasure, and he knew she intended to rip him limb from limb.
“No,” she said in Zhoogene-accented Standard. “I prefer you alive. As my unwilling servant.”
“Damn you!” he screamed. To serve beside her…It would be glorious. “I will never be your slave. Kill me, damn you!”
The vines on her head whipped up and she opened her mouth…
But her words remained locked inside.
Twin swords scissored through her neck. Her head tumbled from her shoulders and bounced off the crown of Bronze’s head.
“You make a great distraction,” said Enthree, riding the back of the titaness as her headless body toppled to the dead ground.
The creature’s spirit descended to hell, dragging Bronze with it.
He staggered away, slack-jawed, unwilling to look at Enthree or the decapitated titan. It wasn’t the pain so much as the loss of something profound. Like a thumping music beat suddenly cut into a shocking silence.
A layer of the binding spell she’d cast over her soldiers dissipated in the hot, still air. Bronze had caught the edge of it but far less than the Corrupted, who were still utterly dazed by the loss of their commander.
“Chimera Company!” Bronze shouted. “Kill them all! Do it now, before they recover.”
It wasn’t a battle, though. It was slaughter and execution.
It was many things, but it was in no way a victory. All the slain—even the titaness and her human counterpart who had been vaporized by the Khrone—had once been innocent Federation citizens. Well, as innocent as they got in these parts. They hadn’t wanted to be there. They hadn’t wanted anything because they were already dead.
Bronze was tired of killing Corrupted. Let the others finish that task.
He wanted to kill the Corrupt-ors.
The world thumped back in sharp clarity.
He’d been woozy for a moment. The pain in his chest was still intense, but the firing had stopped, and Phantom had an excellent med bay. He took a few breaths of oxygen, then injected a trauma pen into his chest where it hurt most.
“Leave that to me,” Sinofar snapped.
Enthree was holding the Pryxian aloft as she hurried over to Bronze. Sinofar sounded angry about something.
“Did we lose anyone?” Bronze asked as she tended to his wound properly.
“We were fortunate. Lieutenant Zan Fey has a concussion. Lieutenant Hjon took a bolt to the chest, but she’ll live. And you have three cracked ribs and a punctured lung. I’ve injected your left lung with medical foam and bound your wounds. Do not exert yourself until I say so.”
“Don’t worry, Verlys. I’ll have a nice lie down during jump space. If you like, you can hold my hand while I recover.”
“Silly human man. We must get off the planet first.”
“Is there a reason to think we won’t?”
“No. I’m just being cautious.”
Something was bothering her. She’d patched him up before. But she hadn’t been like this.
Enthree picked him up and carried him over her back as she’d carried Sinofar earlier.
She was gentle, but he couldn’t help thinking he was playing the part of a leaf in a leafcutter ant procession.
An image of a Muryani convoy carrying helpless humans over their backs marched across his mind’s eye.
“Ever thought of working in horror-holos, buddy?” he suggested. “We might have to play to some stereotypes, but we could make a killing.”
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