by Marc Stevens
“Incoming Hunters!”
Her exclamation was followed by a jarring blast that caved part of the wall in, giving me a view outside of the building. I was going to boost up and out of the opening, but a Hunter stepped into my line of sight. I threw my arm up and shot it with my beam weapon. The back blast blew the rest of the wall out, knocking both Klutch and me to the floor. Klutch never saw the Hunter and was yelling at me to check my fire. Tria and Coonts appeared at the opening, yelling the same thing. They jumped inside and pulled me to my feet. Klutch looked like he still had more to bitch about, but Tria cut him off.
“You destroyed the second Hunter before it could identify us as a threat,” Tria said. “The Hunter Coonts engaged never got a lock on us. They were both buried under debris and had just freed themselves. Heavy smoke is pouring out of the material chutes and degrading visibility on this side of the complex. We should clear the area before they can determine the nature of the threat.”
“Coonts, have you tried to make a connection with the comms relay?
“Yes, Commander, several times. We still have no comms to the surface.”
“Klutch, take point,” I ordered. “We want to stay in the buildings as long as possible. Get us to the other side of the complex and try to find an exit.”
The Troop Master slapped fresh magazines into his shotgun and led us to the wall in the back of the building. He made three attempts to get a portal, all failing. Coonts pointed to a ramp that went up a level, and Klutch quickly nodded. He made another attempt with the device and got a good hole. We found ourselves in another room filled with machinery that had an open corridor on the opposite wall. Klutch ran to the opening and took a knee. He took a good look and waved us forward. He pulled a grenade from his storage pouch and wedged it between the wall and a machine console. Anything coming through the corridor behind us was going to get a rude awakening. We ran down the corridor on line and hit a junction that went right and left. The passage was a lot larger than the one we had been in. As far as I could tell, the building we were in was against the complex wall. The left-hand turn obviously went to another section of the underground base. Not wanting to go deeper into the maze of passages, I waved Klutch to the right. Tria and I took one side and Klutch and Coonts the other. We could see the end of the passage ahead. It was well-lit with large floor-to-ceiling windows. Klutch held up a fist, and we took a knee. He eased forward until he was at the end of the passage. He took his shotgun and used the HUD targeting mode to get a glimpse of what was around the corner. He hastily jerked it back and scurried to our position.
“Commander, there are six Prule in a large control room,” Klutch reported. “They look a lot like small versions of the Hivemind we captured.”
The Troop Master used his HUD to transfer the video. The effort was not necessary because one of the machines came around the corner and stopped. Its reaction told me our cloaking was not enough to keep us hidden. Tria shot it twice with penetrator slugs, bursting its bulbous upper torso like a balloon. We had no choice but to charge the control room in an attempt to kill them all before they could sound an alarm. Klutch jumped up and led the way as we ran around the corner. The five bio machines turned to us and froze. Nope! Cloaking was still detectable by their sensors. The time it took them to start reacting told me they must not have comprehended the danger they were in. It was as if they thought we would beg forgiveness or maybe self-terminate. They got explosive buckshot and slugs instead. It took us less than fifteen seconds to remedy their faulty thinking. The machines were not armored, indicating the brighter minds running this outfit must have felt no threat could ever reach them here. You would have thought that blowing up the raw materials side of the complex would have set off major alarms. I couldn’t begin to understand why it had not. It was a gross miscalculation on the part of the supposedly brilliant machines.
“Nathan! You need to look at this!” Tria called. The edge to her voice made a chill run up my spine.
I turned and saw Tria and Coonts were looking out the large windows. I pointed at a pressure door on the other side of the room, and Klutch gave me a thumbs up and headed in that direction. I ran to Tria and Coonts to take a look. My eyes opened wide and everything I had eaten before we started the mission felt like it turned to water and was heading for the out door. A couple of hundred feet below us was an assembly line. It was turning out Prule Hunters. Hanging on racks that went from floor to ceiling and spanned the length of the complex were thousands of the Prule machines. They hung like jackets on hangers. The machines were salvaging the raw materials from the wreckage on the surface to build more troops. If this was going on in secret facilities throughout the galaxy, things could take a turn for the worse if another invasion fleet came from Andromeda. I guessed the Prule had no problem losing a portion of their operation as long as this part remained intact. As we watched, we saw hundreds of the Prule maintenance machines moving in the direction we had just come from. A grim smile crossed my lips. Good luck trying to fix the amount of shit we just broke. Coonts went to the consoles the Prule were operating.
“Commander, this would be a good place to deploy the data collection modules Justice gave us,” he said, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I had forgotten all about the devices. Tria and I ran to a console and placed the compact collection device on top of it. Klutch could see through the window on the pressure door and didn’t think it would be healthy to hang around.
“Commander, this door leads to the ramp that goes to the assembly area,” Klutch reported. “We need to find another exit sooner than later. If they send even a fraction of those Hunters up here, we will be visiting our makers shortly afterward.”
As if I needed any more convincing, the console I was standing next to lit up with flashing lights. I looked at some of the other consoles, and one by one they started doing the same thing. The Prule must have been performing damage control from this location. We had put a major hiccup in the operation of the complex, and now, no one was controlling what was left. If things were going to turn to shit, they were going to do it in a big way, and fast. Klutch called out a warning.
“Commander! Several of the Prule maintenance machines are turning back and climbing the access ramp. I count fourteen coming this way, and they are moving quickly!”
“Tria! You and Coonts backtrack down the corridor and see where it leads. Klutch and I will handle the machines.”
Tria and Coonts ran down the corridor, and Klutch started messing with the controls on the pressure door. I could tell by his ongoing commentary we were not likely to get the door open. I pointed my shotgun at the large view window and blew a hole through it. Klutch frowned at me and swung his big armored fist into the remains, knocking a hole we could walk through. The loud hammering racket of machinery assaulted our audio pickups. Klutch started to unclip his plasma thrower, and I grabbed his arm.
“Unless you want every machine in here to know where we are, you should hold off on using that thing until we have to,” I warned.
I could tell he didn’t give a crap if they knew our exact position or not. I was glad when he went ahead and humored me. Drawing our shotguns, we stepped out onto the ramp and started putting well-placed shots into the legs and lower abdomens of the oncoming machines. The muzzle blasts from our weapons barely noticeable above the din. We knocked the lead machines down, and the others slowed to a stop. It looked like they were attempting to perform repairs on their fallen comrades. Before I could throw shade on the idea, Klutch took this as his cue to toss a grenade. It bounced once off the ramp and landed at their feet. The explosion was spectacular and blew most of them off the ramp and down to the floor below. It crossed my mind he was looking for an excuse to use his damn plasma caster, and now he had one. The machines were now focused on the explosion and heading directly for the ramp. Tria called to us and said the corridor ended at another large pressure door and Coonts was having no luck at getting it open. I told her we would be along
shortly.
What seemed like unorganized chaos down below abruptly stopped with the detonation of the grenade. Either the victims of the attack blew the whistle on us or smarter machines finally determined that we were the source of their current woes. An eight-foot section of the railing below us disintegrated in a flashing release of energy that knocked us both on our asses. My HUD could not pinpoint where the shot had come from. What it did show in great detail was the river of hostile icons had reversed direction and were all moving our way.
“Klutch, it’s time to go!”
I thought he would hose the ramp down with his plasma caster. It surprised me when I saw him raise his launcher. I assumed he was going to rain high explosives on the hostiles as a parting gift. My HUD started flashing red as my antimatter proximity warning gave off a piercing beep. He emptied his magazine of all twenty rounds, and they were set to maximum yield. He rolled over and gave me a horrific smile as he pulled me to my knees. I stared at him in disbelief.
“Are you out of your mind?” I cried. “We don’t even know if we can get out of here!
“Not to worry, Commander. I put a two-minute delay on the detonation timer.”
I hastily threw a grenade down the ramp and scurried back through the hole in the control room view screen. Another blast showered us with high-speed fragments of the observation window and the landing we just vacated. My grenade detonated somewhere below, and I heard the warbling shriek of an enraged Hunter. I grabbed the data devices and shoved them in my storage pack. I looked over my shoulder to ensure the Troop Master was bringing up the rear. He was right on my heels and gave me a healthy push down the corridor.
“Commander, you should pick up the pace!”
I bit down on my retort and boosted down the passage. We covered the remaining distance to where Coonts and Tria waited in silence. I could have said a lot of things but knew this little adventure was just the tables being turned on me. The looks my fellow crewmates were giving Klutch, were reminiscent of the ones I used to get when the beast in me made decisions that proved detrimental to the team. He shrugged them off and pointed the portal device at the wall next to the pressure door. There was a loud crash from the passage behind us. Tria and Coonts tossed grenades down the corridor, then crowded in close to me with their weapons ready. The timer in my HUD said twenty-two seconds until detonation.
“Klutch, when we go through, get us as far from here as possible!”
He waved me off and hit the button. His indifference to our current plight had me at the tipping point, and I was considering giving the portal device to another team member. The alien device was evidently capable of further enlarging an already inordinately large set of nads to Oolaran beast-like proportions. One such set was bad enough, but two could be downright hazardous to our health. We had a good hole, so we cloaked and jumped through. We found ourselves in a construction bay that was so huge we could not see the far end. In the middle of the bay, sitting on an antigravity cradle, was a massive starship that stretched into the darkness of the gigantic cavern. Its blunt hull design was reminiscent of a Murlak Warbringer. The large vessel was festooned with weapons. It was easy to see where the battle damage it had once sustained had been repaired. The ship was crawling with thousands of Prule repair machines. Klutch guided us to the upper superstructure of the ship. It was one of the few areas that did not appear to have Prule activity. A low rumble could be heard over the strident construction noises, and the cavern shook. Dirt, rock, and small amounts of debris came down from the overhead, creating a haze that was rapidly spreading throughout the cavern. I was more than a little disappointed it was not as spectacular as our first feat of destruction, but it was sure to have put the hurt on the Hunter production lines. Klutch guided us into the shadows of a large antenna array. We landed and went prone on the hull with our weapons pointing out in all directions.
“I am going to reconnoiter the area and make sure we are secure,” the Troop Master called to me.
“Roger that, just don’t start any trouble until we can find a way out of here.”
I thought I heard the big lummox chuckle at my statement. He got up and went toward the rear of the superstructure. So far, our cloaked battle suits had not been detected. As long as we were not in close proximity to the machines, I think our luck would hold.
“Commander, the area is clear,” Klutch said. “You should move the team to my location.”
We made our way to where Klutch was crouched at the rear of the ship. He held up a fist and then got down on his knees. Tria and I did the same, then we crawled to the edge of the deck. Coonts stayed behind and covered our rear while the rest of us took a look. We had a good view of pressure door where we had made our entrance. What seemed like a nonevent the first time we caused stuff to go boom was no longer the case. The Prule were abandoning their work and moving in mass toward the Hunter production area. This was an unexpected turn of events. I knew I could not count on them all leaving, but it sure looked like the vast majority were going to do just that. Security in this facility was almost nonexistent. I guess after the battle for the planet was won, the Prule had more than two hundred years of undisturbed peace to rebuild the base. The weapons that attacked us on the surface probably doomed any interlopers who may have stumbled upon the planet. The Prule’s complacency with the status quo was going to cost them.
I frowned as I revisited the circumstances that led us here. If it were not for the Hivemind giving us this exact location, it was hard to say how long this operation would have continued unabated. I had pretty much decided to kill the Hivemind once we returned to the Legacy. I wondered if the Overseer could get it to divulge more information on other bases. As much as I hated to think about it, the Hivemind may have anticipated my intentions. There was a good possibility the conniving piece of scat was insuring itself a stay of execution by throwing us this bone. I still had reservations concerning the access codes it gave us. My intuition said it was another trap of some kind, and that was the reason we did not use them. Tria nudged me with an elbow, purging my mind of the past and focusing me on the present.
“I have no intention of returning to the Legacy with the antimatter charge Justice gave me. This would be a good place to leave it,” she said.
I had to agree with her. There was no way we could leave without at least trying to make the Prule ship a permanent fixture of the base.
“Coonts, where can we do the most harm with our munitions?”
“The ship’s star drives. A chain reaction detonation on the antimatter containment vessels could do irreparable damage.”
I looked at the other strike team members, and they nodded in agreement.
“Okay, Coonts, you take the lead and pick the spot, and Klutch will make a hole. Let’s rig this thing to blow and get out of here so the Legacy can evac us off this rock.”
We were all in agreement. It was time to get the hell out of there, but not before doing the Prule one more nasty. The Tibor gave me a big toothy smile. He loved to blow things up. I pointed to Coonts, and he gave me a thumbs up. We eased over the back of the ship and slowly descended toward the engine room. The mass exodus of Prule was now just a trickle. Several bio machines were in and around the ship, but most went to the Hunter production area. The access hatch they were using had clouds of noxious-looking smoke flowing out of it. The haze around us was getting thicker by the minute. The less visibility the better. Coonts slowed us to a stop. He found a repaired hull plate that he reasoned would have breached the internal spaces or it would not have been repaired. It was also within a couple of hundred yards of the discharge nozzles of the star drives. He slapped Klutch on the shoulder and pointed to his selected spot. We got our weapons ready, and Klutch gave us a good portal. We charged through and found ourselves in a dark cavity between the hulls. It was filled with giant cables, power conduits, and piping that stretched as far as the eye could see. The engine room had to be close. Klutch took the lead and headed off in the directio
n of the star drive discharge nozzles. We had gone about fifty yards and found an access hatch that for sure would take us into the interior spaces. We did not mess with trying to open it. Klutch made a portal right in the middle of it. We stepped out of the portal into an occupied corridor. Two Prule maintenance machines were moving down the passage away from us and did not turn around. We crowded against the wall and, as quietly as possible, started working our way in the opposite direction.
Our progress came to a complete stop another thirty yards up the corridor. It had only one exit and was out into a large access passage that ran directly into the engine spaces. There was a huge blast door that protected the engine spaces. It was locked open about twenty feet up, and we could see a large number of Prule working on various pieces of equipment. Out in the passage, there were hundreds of Prule, and the chances of us not being detected were pretty damn slim. To make matters worse, Coonts called out a warning.