Must be a sonic weapon.
He sank to his knees and controlled his breathing, but the noise lacked the gut churn of sonic weapons he’d been trained to endure.
Looking up, he saw that the agonizing noise was coming from the engines of a flight of Andromedan aircraft. They looked like pulsing sacs of rolled fat with a puckered maw at the front, which was bracketed by twin pairs of curved horns. Bone hairs stood erect over their hide-like hulls, same as he’d seen that night with Nydella.
But the ship the Legion had dug up on Rho-Torkis had been a fighter. These were giant lice the size of corvettes.
The alien craft slowed their descent and dropped munitions.
“Get down!” Osu shouted.
Explosions crumped across the air.
The sound was muffled. The shockwave minimal.
A foul stench suddenly burned at his sinuses…
“Gas!”
He got to his feet and stared at the Alvie with the side gunner still beckoning him forward.
So close. But if that was nerve gas, he’d never make it inside in time to beg for a spare helm with its seals and independent air supply.
But he was Legion, so he ran anyway.
Again, he found himself lucky. He had no convulsions. His head felt clear.
But the world was going gray. And the grayness was swallowing the sounds of the battle until they were soft and distant.
He waved his hand in front of his face. The grayness ruffled a little and then fell back into a homogenous gray fog.
“Captain?” called Catkins. “Anyone there? Sybutu? Nyluga-Ree?”
“Over here,” Osu shouted. “I’m nearly at the dropship. Walk slowly to my voice.”
Osu kept talking as he stumbled on, tripping over ground he could no longer see. He carefully covered the final, short distance like an old man who had lost his stick. The Andromedan smoke munitions wouldn’t stop him.
The dropship wasn’t there.
“Catkins?”
He could hear people calling, the sound of a voice amplified by a legionary helm. All of this mixed in with explosions and gunfire that sounded hundreds of klicks away.
“Catkins!”
But there was no sound of Catkins.
* * *
Justiana Fregg
Fregg ran a silent countdown in her head.
Then she ran through it again with a sterner resolve. This time, she ended it by shoving against the removable patch of bulkhead in the Engineering Eyrie.
It fell to the floor, scattering Catkins’ favorite playing dice, which had been mounted on that part of the bulkhead.
The feathered human with a blaster rifle was right where she expected. He turned around, but she melted his head with two shots from her pistol.
Fregg pushed feet first into the compartment, then Hubert squeezed past her in his own assault on Engineering.
“Urrggghhh!”
There was another Corrupted soldier there!
Fregg spun around and snapped off two shots. Center mass.
But this one had crude armor. He grunted even less coherently than before and staggered back, but he returned fire.
The shot seared past Fregg’s ear, missing because Hubert had deployed his hoof claws and sliced through the soldier’s ankle and deep into his bone.
Fregg finished him off with a shot to the head. The air smelled foul with singed feathers and burned meat.
With her blaster chiming that its charge pack was empty, she rushed to the door and secured it.
She breathed deeply until the panic was a little further from overwhelming her.
Hubert was standing by the Corrupted man he’d sliced. The wool around his mouth was bloodied, and his mouth was filled with feathers.
“Good boy,” she told him. She fussed his head. For the first time, Hubert let her do it without snapping his jaws in warning.
Darant’s pet had proved himself a fighter, but he wouldn’t be much help in taking the flight deck. Surely the captain didn’t expect her to take on that mutated four-armed brute. Did he?
* * *
Osu Sybutu
Without warning, a figure cut across Osu’s path in the fog.
And was gone.
His heart hot and pounding, Osu stalked the ghost, not knowing whether it was friend or deadly foe.
As the seconds stretched on, he was forced to accept he’d lost whoever it had been in the fog.
It had been a humanoid. Maybe it had been Catkins. Or one of the legionaries sent to recover them.
Where was everyone? Where had the dropships gone? And the enemy’s ramparts? He should have had to scramble over them by now to get to Phantom.
Skragg it!
He was so lost, he accepted defeat and came to a halt. He had no idea which way he was facing.
The ghostly figure sliced through the fog once more and was immediately swallowed up by the soupy air.
This time, Osu didn’t hesitate. He dove into the patch of fog the figure had disappeared into and grabbed hold of somebody, crashing them to the ground.
They were human.
“Captain Fitzwilliam?” he queried.
By the time the human had squirmed out of Osu’s grip, Osu had his pistol trained on them.
It was Darant.
“The jack sergeant,” said Darant. “You’re more annoying than that damned goat.”
“Don’t believe what that man says.” Zavage’s voice floated through the impenetrable mist. “I can sense his concern for his little, fluffy friend. He loves that goat more than he cares for us.”
“That’s not saying much.” Darant got to his feet. “Very nice chatting with you, but we’re on a mission. The captain wants the ship back, and so do I.”
“Which way is it?” asked Osu.
The trooper looked at the inside of his wrist and then pointed out a direction.
“Are you sure?” asked Zavage who was swimming into view. The fog must be clearing a little.
“I know you jacks are a bit backward,” said Darant, “but haven’t you heard of a sodding compass?”
They followed Darant through the thinning fog. The gray cleared abruptly. It was denser than air, sinking and spreading so their heads were now above its grip.
Doloreene’s sky dazzled with its brightness. It sparked and streaked with a running aerial battle that looked as if it was being fought all the way up into space and beyond.
Enemy and friendly dropships were still screaming down from space. Legion aerospace superiority fighters were buzzing around the living ship from Rho-Torkis. Annihilation was joining in that fight too.
He saw the Andromedan ship smash one fighter out of the air with its tail while vaporizing a descending Alvie dropship with an energy beam breathed out of its mouth.
There was no sign of the three dropships that had been there before. The enemy defensive line they’d tried to jump lay just ahead, Phantom not far beyond, but in their path, a squad of legionaries was battling a giant, armored louse.
The jacks were blowing chunks out of its fleshy sides with railgun fire and grenades, but the beast just kept going, oozing for an Alvie already in flames.
“Hey!” shouted a woman’s helm-amplified voice behind Osu. “The exfil cavalry’s here.”
An Alvie dropped in front of them, hovering just above the ground with its side panels fully open. The jack who had spoken was standing next to the side gunner, one hand clutching a rail and the other waving them in. The dropship’s nose cannon opened up on the louse thing.
“Everybody in,” Osu told Zavage and Darant.
They’d crossed half the distance when the jack in the Alvie yelled, “Get down!”
Osu hesitated a fraction to check that Darant was dropping before making his own reacquaintance with the ground.
The side gunner fired his SFG. Segmented rounds flew over their heads, the noise an insane death rattle mixed with the screech of corpse nails. The way the segmented rounds sliced through the air inc
hes above his head felt as obscenely unnatural as standing in a starship’s engine compartment when the jump drive was switched on.
Osu prayed he’d never repeat either experience.
The fire ceased.
“Go! Go! Go!” yelled the Alvie jack.
Osu raced for the dropship.
Ahead, it looked as if the giant louse had been gashed wide open, its insides awash with the blood of its occupants. Osu guessed it was a troop carrier.
Despite its wounds, its front lifted over the wrecked dropship, swallowing it beneath a fleshy skirt it extruded from its base.
Beyond the louse, he could see Fitzwilliam and Zan Fey mowing down the Andromedan Corrupted by Phantom’s main hatch.
He registered all of it in an instant.
“I’m not coming with you,” said Darant.
“Hop in,” Osu ordered him. “Trust me. I haven’t forgotten Hubert.” He jumped into the waiting dropper and scooted over to one of the vacant bucket seats. Zavage and Darant joined him.
“Who is Hubert?” asked the jack woman—a sergeant by her insignia, though he didn’t recognize her unit patch. She was a Kurlei. Oh boy. As if there wasn’t enough going on, Kurlei males and females could never mix safely.
“We weren’t briefed on a Hubert,” she said.
“Not a person,” Osu replied. “More an aspirational ideal.”
He felt the urgent throb of the engines spooling up to lift them out.
“Don’t lift up yet,” Osu shouted. He pointed out the other side of the dropship at Fitz, Zan Fey, and several more of his comrades, fighting to get into Phantom. “We need to pick them up too.”
The Kurlei sergeant didn’t reply, but Osu guessed she was communicating with the pilot, because the dropship hopped over the ramparts and the wounded louse toward Phantom, both side gunners firing as they moved.
“Ready?” he asked Darant and Zavage when the Alvie was hovering by the rest of Chimera Company.
“What are you doing?” snapped the sergeant.
Osu stood. “Following orders.”
He jumped out of the dropship, hit the ground hard and rolled. He heard Darant and Zavage follow.
Damn! This kind of thing was so much easier in combat armor.
The ground shook. His ears threatened to pop when a new aural assault hit him.
It was the dropship’s nose cannon firing over his head. One of those louse things was coming for him.
The cannon fire stopped, though its barrel still rotated.
Out of ammo.
The louse kept coming. Slow but unstoppable.
But it had slowed. Osu judged they would get away on Phantom first.
He drew his pistol and readied to join the fight for the ship.
But Fitzwilliam was screaming curses.
Phantom had gone.
* * * * *
Chapter 55: Justiana Fregg
The camera outside the door to Engineering showed several Corrupted shouting and pointing. Three stayed on guard while two of them ran off.
“Whatever they’ve gone to do,” she told Hubert, “it won’t be good for us.”
The basten goat didn’t care. He was standing on a dead mutant as though he were a prize hunter.
She switched to a view of the flight deck. The four-armed creature was there, yelling orders. And behind him, through the cockpit window, was a cone of fire as Phantom pushed through the atmosphere and into the black of space.
Fregg’s blood froze.
When had they taken off?
She was lost. The captain couldn’t get to her now. If the ship jumped…
“Bleah!”
The goat seemed to admonish her.
“Get it together, Justiana. Don’t let Hubert show you up for the coward you are.”
Zan Fey or the captain would know instantly what to do. So would Sinofar. It was easy for them to be heroes.
Fregg had no idea.
* * *
Osu Sybutu
The thunderous roar had been Phantom taking off for orbit without them. Osu watched her streak through the sky, where she was met by the ship dug up on Rho-Torkis. The Andromedan ship circled Phantom like an animal sniffing a newcomer to determine whether friend or foe.
Friend, it seemed. The Rho-Torkis ship shot back into space, Phantom following.
“Get back here!” shouted the Kurlei sergeant over the din of the side gunner’s fire. Her railgun was aimed at Osu. “My orders are to take you in. If I have to shoot you in the legs first, so be it.”
Osu waved Zavage and Darant onto the waiting dropship.
He followed, though he took a moment to assess the battle zone.
The louse that had been coming for him had bled out from concentrated fire from several Alvies. Andromedan humanoids in basic armor—Corrupted Federation citizens, he thought—were rushing a Legion perimeter around Chimera Company. The Corrupted were being blasted away by concentrated railgun and machine gun fire, but they were employing wave tactics, heedless of loss.
Behind these waves, 20-foot high stacks of concentric rings were being assembled by enormous four-armed humanoids.
Their shape looked more natural than the higher form of Corrupted Osu had seen before. Was he finally seeing the Andromedans in their true form?
Everywhere, the ground was littered with burning wreckage.
Osu shut down his speculations and followed Darant and Zavage into the Alvie.
“Don’t get any ideas about jumping out again,” the dropship sergeant told them. “All your friends have been picked up. You’re the last.”
The dropship reached for orbit.
As the armored side panels descended, he saw one of the ring stacks glow and then belch out a glowing green projectile that soared out of view into the sky.
“Strap in!” said the Kurlei. “Ready for evasive maneuvers.”
An explosion ripped through the air nearby. The ship lurched violently.
“Are we hit?” Darant cried.
“No.” The sergeant laughed. “That’s your pilot moving into her flight path. She’s about to commence evasive maneuvers. When she does, you’ll wish you’d been hit.”
Darant soon learned she wasn’t joking.
* * *
Justiana Fregg
It was no use.
Fregg couldn’t think like Zan Fey or the captain. Couldn’t even channel Green Fish.
Instead, she took another deep breath and tried to think about what Catkins would do.
He’d told her so many of Phantom’s secrets, but she had let most of his words wash over her. The problem with Catkins was that, while he was teaching her, he was also trying halfheartedly to get inside her underwear and simultaneously expressing his love of gaming and telling her about the multiple tragedies of his life.
Catkins could route most of the ship’s systems through here. So could she!
The engineer had left a slate on his workbench. A few moments of delving through its operation showed it was hooked into life support.
Lynx had been moaning about something, she recalled. According to Catkins, Lynx had complained that Phantom’s corridors smelled like the inside of a legionary’s jockstrap. She didn’t believe, for a moment, those were the droid’s exact words, but they worked for her. It meant she was hooked into the Phantom’s heart.
She accessed flight systems. The slate only had a single holo-projector, which she flipped through tac-view, general status, and nose-cam visuals. There was a huge spheroid ship in combat with a much smaller mechanoid space dragon with a spiked tail. A flotilla of other ships was standing by just off the action.
The dragon was the ship they’d chased down the rift tunnel from Rho-Torkis. It was her enemy. Did that mean the battle sphere was on her side? She’d never heard of such a huge ship. It dwarfed the dragon ship but was being hammered by an energy beam shot from the dragon’s mouth and physical blows struck by the club on the end of its tail.
Phantom was hurtling toward the battle
between these two.
The mutant commander was standing at the rear of Phantom’s flight deck, ordering his minions to run through the ship’s armaments. His voice was snarling out a language she’d never heard before, but it was clear they were about to join the fight.
“Bugger that!” said Fregg and redirected all flight controls to Engineering.
Cautiously extending the ship’s force keels, she came about and directed the ship back to Doloreene.
A thrill shot through her gut as she watched the flight deck mutant roar in fury at what she’d done. The captain would be proud of her.
The mutant pulled the feathered pilot out of the captain’s seat and took his place, screwing his enormous, filthy buttocks into the re-upholstered leather.
She locked glances with Hubert and winced. “The boss isn’t gonna like that.”
The mutant shifted flight control to manual. Fregg was locked out.
She hadn’t considered that. Like most ships, she supposed, you might be able to control systems from elsewhere, but flight deck would always take priority.
Phantom wasn’t like most ships, though. It had many secrets. What else would Catkins do?
Looking around the space for inspiration, she spotted the monitoring cables stuck into the ventilation grille. She also noticed the view from outside the door to Engineering. The Corrupted had assembled a tripod-mounted cutting tool and were powering it up.
“Why didn’t I think of this earlier?” she asked and accessed life support. She switched off the air scrubbers. Then she turned off the entirety of the air circulation system.
Outside the Engineering door, the tip of the cutter began to glow.
The ship’s tac-screen showed they were racing once more toward the space battle.
And Hubert was giving her a dirty look, probably because the comforting noise of the scrubbers had died. He had good reason to be pissed: there were human-compatible pressure suits and air cannisters in Engineering, but nothing Hubert-compatible.
“Don’t you worry,” she told the goat. “We’ll be dead before anyone begins to asphyxiate. And if the Corrupted get a little groggy from the lack of oxygen, there are plenty of pressure suits and air throughout the ship. Which means…I need to speed things up.”
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