by Marc Stevens
“That will be the easiest part of all. I will be seen as the only leader to ever broker a permanent and lasting peace agreement with the Prule!”
Gredda and her crew were double-crossing the council, and there was nothing the council could do about it. I was lying next to Klutch and saw the vents in his armor lock into the open position. I was pretty sure the Troop Master was getting ready to do something really nasty. I grabbed his leg and shook it. He looked back at me with a look that confirmed my suspicions. I held a finger up to him and shook my head. I cleared my visor so he could plainly see the stern look on my face. I knew Sael Nalen could be a real pain in the ass, but she was no traitor. We needed to see how she was going to play this out. I was already having a major tug-of-war with the beast, and I was losing ground. If the Tibor started something, I knew the monster in me would push aside my attempts at control and happily join in. Tria must have been reading my mind and commed me and Klutch on a private channel.
“Sael will not stand for this! She is stalling to determine a plan of action. We should follow her lead!”
I hoped for all of us Tria was right. We were in a tight spot and outnumbered by well-trained experienced troops with powerful weaponry. The weapons we would have to use to extract ourselves from this scat would more than likely cause serious injury to us all. I called up antimatter in my launcher menu. I immediately got dire warnings from my HUD. The warnings were in my teammates’ visors as well. Tria rolled to my side and gripped my arm, while Klutch just nodded and gave me a goofy smile. Even the lowest attenuation of the antimatter settings gave me targeting arcs well beyond my intended target area. Sael must have somehow sensed my deadly intentions and was waving me down with two of her hands. She cleared her visor and looked at me pleadingly. I drew my finger across the neck of my armor and pointed in the direction the voice was coming from. She again waved me down.
“The human and Tria Burlor died when the shuttle crashed down on them,” Sael called back to Gredda. “What about the Tibor Troop Master?”
“The Prule Hivemind wants the spacecraft that you penetrated the shield with. If the Tibor turns them over to the Prule intact, he will be allowed to leave with his life!”
I was getting the feeling this bullshit session had more to do with Gredda stalling us instead of the other way around.
“Tria, see if you can get a look behind us without exposing yourself to a weapons tower.”
Tria quickly crawled across the transport road behind us. She slowly eased up to the corner of the thoroughfare and pointed her shotgun around the corner against the ground, using the weapons sight in her HUD to get a safe look.
“Nathan! There are three Prule Hunters moving rapidly up the main transport road,” Tria whispered. “We need to move now, or they will have us surrounded!”
Gredda was still trying to keep Sael distracted until the Hunters jumped us.
“I need an answer now, Sael, or you will die!”
The hellish fire burning the remains of the warehouse and the shuttle was disrupting Gredda’s strike team enough they had quit sniping at us. There was a good chance their sensors were being overwhelmed by the blaze and intense heat signature. I called to my team and Sael.
“Everyone on me now! Klutch, we are going to get as close to the burning warehouse as we can, and I want you to start making portals until you hit the underground tunnel that leads to the power station!”
The news of the Hunters bearing down on us was all the encouragement Sael needed to give up whatever plan she was working on.
“It took you long enough. I did not think I could stall Gredda much longer!”
I shook my head, knowing she never had a plan to begin with. She was counting on me to pull our fat from the fire. I should have let her know it was desperation that drove me to this last resort. We ran to the edge of the scorching blaze, and Klutch made his first attempt and got nothing. His second attempt was the same thing. I was thinking that the world of hurt routine was coming around for seconds when Klutch yelled out he had a good hole. He didn’t even wait to tell Sael to jump; he just pushed her in and grabbed Tria by an arm and went through, pulling her with him. He just saved me a massive amount of grief because I was going to shove her in before she could try to pull me with her. I momentarily stood there as the three Hunters came barreling around the corner. I dialed up a full-yield antimatter round and set it for a descending air burst at thirty feet. The Hunters came to a skidding halt and noticed me standing at the edge of the inferno. They turned in my direction and spun their weapons around. I launched the shell straight up into the air above me and dove through the portal.
12
I came crashing helmet-first to the floor of a huge tunnel. Before I could yell at Klutch to close the portal, he shut it down. I jumped to my feet.
“ANTIMATTER OUT!” I yelled.
Tria and I grabbed Sael by her arms and boosted down the tunnel hard enough she groaned out in pain. My HUD showed Klutch was wasting no time bringing up our rear. I was wondering why the scat was taking so long to foul the ventilator. As if on cue, the whole damned asteroid seemed to jump up in front of us. The tunnel that was straight just a second before somehow changed direction. We plowed into the tunnel wall, losing our grip on the Operative. The tumbling stop on the tunnel floor reminded me how much it hurt to be shot by Chaalt weapons. I sat up only to be freight-trained by Klutch. The collision had me wondering if the evil robot had installed a Tibor ass magnet in my helmet. A grinding crash and thick dust cloud let us know that going back to the shafts that could have given us access to the power generators would no longer be a viable option. The tunnel had collapsed behind us, leaving a solid wall of debris blocking our path.
Sael Nalen slowly rolled over and sat up. “You primate! Couldn’t we have just slipped away without trying to kill us all!”
I almost cracked a smile. There was some of the old Sael still left after all. Sarcasm coming from her was a lot more tolerable than her endless bitching that seemed to be the norm lately.
“I was just thinning the herd, Senior Operative. Get ready to move out! We need to get back to the surface before any of the survivors can regroup. Klutch, find us a spot to go up and make a hole.”
My retort muzzled any reply that Sael might have had. She unslung her rifle, quickly inspected it, and nodded. We moved down the tunnel about another hundred yards and found it dead ended into a large lift. There were three gravity sleds loaded with different pieces of equipment sitting on it. Looking at my HUD map, I could see we were underneath another warehouse at the base of a weapons tower. We were also to the rear of the Chaalt forces. Klutch climbed up on the equipment stacked on the sled. He leaned back and projected a portal but got a negative red band, and it closed. I heard him swear something about scat parked on the lift doors, and he adjusted his aim to the corner of the shaft and tried again. We got a good hole that was smaller than usual, but it was a clear passage. Klutch boosted up and through. Fifteen seconds later, we saw his arm poke through and wave to us. Tria and I grabbed Sael and sandwiched her between us so we could negotiate the smaller diameter opening. She was forced to embrace me; it had us helmet to helmet. The look on her face and the way she was gritting her teeth insinuated I should not comment on this unlikely position. Me being a primate and all meant I could not keep my primitive mouth shut.
“They call this a ‘ménage à trois’ back where I come from.”
I was confident Sael knew nothing of the French or their language. It must have been the silly smile on my face that defined the comment. She headbutted me with considerable force. Tria leaned around Sael’s shoulder, and I noted there was nothing silly about the look on her face. We boosted up through the hole, and Klutch shut it down. The first thing I noticed was the front of the warehouse was blown inward at a forty-five-degree angle. There was a huge rend to one side of the wall. I bent low and moved up to it so I could see the results of my handiwork. In the distance, plasma fires and pieces of buil
dings were splattered everywhere I looked. The epicenter of my detonation was barren of structures for several hundred yards surrounding the crater of the collapsed tunnel. I started getting sensor warnings on pop-up targets. Pop-up wasn’t exactly the right phrase. There were Chaalt soldiers crawling around and, in some cases, dragging members of their strike team with them. They must have been trying to encircle our position when I left my party favor behind. Welcome to my world of hurt.
“I have twenty-two targets that appear to be combat capable,” Tria said from my side. “There are eleven targets down showing small amounts of movement and thirty-seven fading heat signatures. I have no Prule machine emanations present in the area.”
Klutch called out that there were no aerial targets and requested permission to disable the weapons tower. There was little chance the tower could depress its main battery at a steep enough angle to shoot down at us if we moved out of the building. If we decided to close the distance with the Chaalt strike team, that would change. It presented a clear and present danger that needed to be dealt with sooner than later.
“Take Sael with you for backup. Try to disable it without drawing attention to our position.”
They ran to the back of the building, and Klutch made a hole. They both jumped through and it disappeared. I was going to concentrate on the targets in front of us when Tria leaned down next to my helmet.
“What is a ménage à trois?”
I almost bit my tongue trying to stifle my reply. It was not a good time to have that discussion. The hesitation in my answer was not overlooked.
“It means three’s a crowd!”
“The truth will prove to be less painful than the bullshit you seem to have an endless supply of.”
At least she said it with a small smile on her face. Not knowing when I would be forced to pay for my Earth boy sense of humor was bothering me more than the how. It would remain a mystery as to how Klutch may or may not have known that I had my tit in a wringer. His method for remediating the situation would not have made it on my list of approved actions. It started with a rather loud exclamation from Sael over our group comms.
“Nathan said not to draw attention!”
Tria and I both turned and looked up through a hole in the partially collapsed roof. Our view of the weapons tower suddenly brightened with a burst of plasma fire jetting from its upper reaches.
“I think we should leave now,” Klutch calmly told Sael.
A hole appeared in the back of the building, and Sael ran through cursing the Tibor’s indiscretion. Klutch quickly followed and then shut down the portal, declaring with no uncertainty that he had accomplished his mission. I was honestly lost for words. Tria and Sael ran to the front wall to observe the enemy’s reaction to the fact we were probably still alive and causing additional havoc. This was accompanied by the weapons tower collapsing inward, sending a fountain of flames and smoke into the already congested atmosphere.
“Here they come!” Sael warned.
Klutch and I took up positions next to Tria and the Operative. The Chaalt troops were indeed charging what they must have perceived as an ambush. We hit the floor as they opened up with everything they had. The collapsed wall shuddered under the impact of the fusillade. The wall became so riddled with holes it fell inward affording us no protection or cover. I felt the beast pull free of its cage and assert itself over me. I pulled my beam weapon up and fired multiple times into the rallying combatants. The leaders were blown to pieces, and the shock waves flattened more than half of the oncoming troops. Klutch’s follow-up shots broke the back of the charge and left no one standing. Tria ran to me and pulled my arm down.
“Nathan, they are finished. Cease fire!”
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. The beast skittered away into the back of my mind, leaving only its haunting laugh at the murderous mayhem. I could see the pain on Tria’s face. She had not fired on the troops with her beam weapon. She had little stomach for slaughtering her own people, traitors or not. Sael Nalen stared wide-eyed at me. For a change, she had nothing to say.
“Commander, it is advisable to strip the survivors of their weapons,” Klutch said, bringing us all back to the reality of our situation.
The comment seemed to snap the Operative out of it, and she moved out, weapon up and ready. I suspected she was wondering if anything remained of Gredda Porsha. Tria nodded to me, and we spread out on line to check for survivors. All the combatants that were out in front of the charge were reduced to unidentifiable body parts. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Operative kneel next to a body and then draw her pistol and fire point-blank into the soldier. We went on a little further, and I saw Tria do the same with her needle gun. While the beast in me thought of it as revenge, the human in me knew it was a mercy killing. Most of the bodies were blown apart or missing appendages. Klutch was going around collecting weapons and throwing them in a pile. I turned to Sael when I heard her talking to one of the downed soldiers. The warrior was groping at Sael and begging to be killed.
The Operative stood over the soldier. “Where is the traitor Gredda Porsha?”
The warrior’s hand pointed to a group of bodies in the distance. I heard the soldier say that Gredda was severely wounded in the blast we unleashed upon them. Sael stood and then shot the soldier in the head. She stalked off to see if Gredda still lived. Klutch reported he had collected all the usable weapons. I waved him over as I walked to Tria. She turned and looked up at me. It was not hard to see the sadness on her face.
“There are no more survivors.”
I helped her to her feet and pointed to where the Operative was going. She nodded and moved out without a word. I called to Klutch, “When we are a safe distance, burn it!”
We were most of the way to where the Operative stood when a pinkish glow lit the street behind us. I turned and saw Klutch send a plasma ball into the stacked weaponry. He looked a tad close to be burning live ordnance. What I thought might be a simple meltdown turned into a flaring pyrotechnical display that ended with an explosion that nearly knocked me over. I reflexively ducked and then looked up to see the Troop Master picking himself up off the ground. He came running by me with a stupid smile on his face and threw me a jaunty salute.
“Mission accomplished, Commander!”
There were times when I thought the beast in me was the only maniacal psychopath on the loose. I was now revisiting that thought. I hurried to catch up with Klutch. He ran to Tria’s side and stopped because she would go no farther. The results of my antimatter shell were just as morbid as the damage from our beam weapons. There were dead Chaalt soldiers laid out in rows. Most were horribly mutilated and unidentifiable. I stopped by Tria and Klutch and watched as Sael worked her way around the bodies. She paused just long enough to try to identify whether the remains were those of Gredda Porsha. She suddenly stopped by a body propped up against the wall of the building they were sheltering behind. The body was missing two of its arms on the right side and had a large gory chunk torn out of the armor on an upper thigh. The helmet was peeled open and revealed a partially charred face. Sael kneeled next to the soldier and pulled the body closer to her helmet. Groans of agony escaped the soldier’s incinerated lips. If it was indeed Gredda, she was still alive.
“In all the stories throughout our history that involved treason, not a single one was about the glorious rise to power of a traitor! None! Not a single one!” Sael yelled at the body. “What made you think you would somehow be an exception? The Prule only told you what you wanted to hear. They were never going to share power with any race. You would only have placed our people at the end of their extermination list. Once the Prule had a firm foothold in this galaxy and started reproducing in mass, all would die! There would be no exceptions!”
Gredda’s head lolled to one side, and she gurgled out, “Kill me now, Kala Mor Dee. I would not have stood over you and gloated!”
“I am not gloating, you fool! Your treachery has endangered the entire galaxy
. We must try to stop the Prule Hivemind before it is too late! Where are the council members being held?”
“What makes you think I would help you?”
“Because your actions are only suspicions at this point. If you want me to try to clear your name and restore the honor of your clan, you will help me undo the treasonous poison you have unleashed upon us all!”
Gredda’s remaining eye grew large, and tears flowed from it.
“They are held in the crew quarters of the engineering labs. The four remaining members of my strike team guard them. A few resisted and were executed, but the rest still live. As for the Hivemind, it is hiding down in the weapons lab on sublevel three, where it is building an army of abominations.”
The Operative stood and then pointed her pistol at Gredda’s head. I saw the Chaalt warrior close her eye and nod. Sael shot her and turned away. She cast a disapproving eye at Klutch.
“The Troop Master is correct,” Sael said. “We should eliminate the remaining defensive towers. We need to move quickly before the Hivemind decides the council members are no longer a bargaining chip. If I might suggest a plan of action, it would be for the three of you to make aerial strikes on the seven remaining towers while I investigate the shield dome complex.”