by B. V. Larson
“Let’s go.” Straker strode forward into one of the tunnels, chasing the retreating Hok.
Chapter 12
Mutuality Battlecruiser Wolverine, Sachsen Fortress Dock
Zaxby woke to the sight of his own tentacles shaking, a reaction to extreme dehydration. He wondered how long he’d been out, lying here squeezed into the constricting ventilation duct of the Mutuality battlecruiser Wolverine.
Elapsed time didn’t really matter, though. He probably couldn’t hold a device steady enough to read a chrono. He had only one imperative: find water.
It took him an interminable moment to remember which direction he’d been traveling when he fainted. Once he did, he began to move.
His skin tore in places as its usual suppleness and lubrication became tacky, sticking to the metal ductwork. The pain helped revive him, and he moved frantically, desperately onward, fully aware this burst of energy was unlikely to last.
“I am a superior being,” he mumbled to himself over and over. “I refuse to die. I will free my people. I will earn the right to create offspring. My name will be remembered in the rolls of heroes. I will not be shown up by the monkeys!”
He passed three dry vents. The spaces visible beyond held no scent of water. The fourth smelled rich and wet, engendering within him a lust as powerful as any sexual urge, a survival instinct that would not be denied.
The room was occupied by a human in stained clothing that had at one time been white. He was washing a metal cooking container in hot, soapy water…
Water…
Water…
With the last of his strength, Zaxby opened the vent grille and flowed out of it, gasping with relief as his squashed physique returned to a normal configuration.
The human turned to look at the motion and froze, pot-scrubber in his hand. He backed up slowly, jaws agape, and then turned to run, yelling in alarm.
The possibility of being captured came in a distant second to Zaxby’s desperate urge for moisture. He opened the cold tap on the large sink and, as soon as he was certain the hot soapy water in the basin wouldn’t burn him, he rolled as much of his body into it as he could and turned his mouth to the faucet.
Orgasmic relief flooded him, despite the sting of cleaning chemicals and food residues slathering his wounds. So powerful was the sensation that he almost passed out again, but he forced himself to cease ingesting water before he made himself ill.
Well, more ill than he already was.
He felt strength flooding back into his body. As soon as he could stand, he slammed the door on the room he occupied. Unfortunately, there was no lock, and no other way out… except the ventilation system he’d come to hate.
He contemplated re-entering the ductwork with a feeling verging on horror. Doing so would be excruciating, and with his skin abraded and bleeding, he would again rapidly lose hydration. Yet, he had little choice. The food worker would even now be summoning some form of armed security personnel, and as soon as the primates realized he was in the vents, he would be hunted throughout the ship.
Alarm klaxons sounded, which realized his fears. He stared at the small vent, still wavering. Would it not be better to make a stand here, than to die ignominiously in the tiny crawlspace? Perhaps he could surprise the reaction force and seize a weapon to fight his way out. If he failed, at least such a death would be quick.
Think, Zaxby, he told himself. His Ruxin body was extraordinary, of course, but it was his superior intellect that was his real advantage. As Derek Straker had once said: given two bad choices, find a third.
His eyes roved the small compartment and lighted upon a handle attached to a door half a meter square. It constituted access to some device. By the Earthan writing, it seemed to be a sonic sanitizer for kitchen implements.
Seizing the handle, he pulled open the door. Performing a quick volumetric calculation, he determined that his body would fit inside. He pulled out a rack and set it upon a nearby shelf among utensils, hoping it would not be noticed. He then clambered into the cubic space and closed the door.
A flaw in his plan soon became evident. There was little air, and of course no water, to breathe. He calmed himself and tried to enter a trancelike meditative state, but his many minor wounds and his generally deteriorated condition made this impossible.
He heard rattling, and then sudden, violent noises and yelling. That would be the security forces. They would look around the room and see the open vent. Combined with the testimony of the man who’d reported Zaxby’s presence, they should make the logical, obvious deduction and…
The sounds of humans retreated. Desperate for air, Zaxby pushed the door open slightly and pressed his mouth to the crack. He stayed that way until he was certain he was alone, at which time he exited the sanitizer.
Now, though, the ventilation system was his worst choice, as it would be investigated, possibly flooded with noxious decontaminants, certainly prodded with sharp objects.
At last Zaxby was able to spit out his bagged comlink, unroll and fit it, and check the chrono. He noted it was 0314 hours, station time. The 0300 operation start had already passed. His malware, if it had propagated as expected, should have silenced any automated notifications from the fortress.
Of course, eventually the battlecruiser’s midnight watch would detect something amiss. Independent warships, as well as civilian vessels, might be squawking about it on their comlinks, or even making emergency departures. The duty officers would wonder, and confer, and at some point they would wake their ship captain, perhaps even the commodore or admiral in charge of the squadron.
Long before that, though, Zaxby’s malware should have reduced the O2 levels within the ships to the point where sleepers would not wake, and those awake would become disoriented or fall unconscious. Only if some quick-thinking engineer put a mask on and manually overrode life support systems would this simple strategy fail.
Zaxby tried his comlink on Breaker channels but received no answer. Breathing deeply to counteract the effects of reduced oxygen—or so he hoped—he moved slowly to open the door and look into the next room, a galley for food preparation.
Two human women sat at a small table, heads down and resting on their forearms. This was good news to Zaxby.
Continuing to move slowly and breathe more heavily than normal in order to avoid hypoxia, he entered the ship’s passageway system. Soon, he found two fallen naval personnel, one with a stunner and one with a short-range, low-penetration blaster.
Both weapons were appropriate for hunting Ruxins in air vents. They should also be effective for finishing off any unarmored personnel not succumbing to the low oxygen levels. He took the two guns, thankful for his ability to employ both at once if necessary, and continued. His main concern was encountering battlesuited Hok, if such were aboard.
***
At exactly 0259, Chief Gurung, in the uniform of a Mutuality senior noncom, sauntered toward the shut personnel entrance to the battlecruiser Wolverine. He carried an ordinary hand-case weighing about ten kilos.
The battlesuited Hok guard on duty was no surprise to Gurung. The human marines aboard would take the coveted day shifts. No matter how long humans lived in space, their bodies still preferred to keep to a diurnal schedule, so the Hok got the dirty end of any stick.
A Hok guard was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, his zeal for the Mutuality prevented him from deviating from his orders. On the other hand, his literal-mindedness and submission to apparently legitimate authority could be used against him.
“You, Hok,” said Gurung as the guard turned to him and held his heavy slugthrower at the ready. “Summon your commander of the relief.”
“Aye aye, Chief,” said the Hok, and subvocalized into his comlink, never relaxing his vigilance.
Subsequently, when the hatch to the ship opened behind him, the Hok attributed it to his supervisor coming out to speak to Gurung. He never suspected malware would override and open all entrances into the warship at exactly 0300, and
prevent them from being easily closed.
When Gurung was certain both inner and outer hatches had withdrawn, opening a route into the battlecruiser, he triggered the heavy double-stunners mounted inside his modified hand-case, their camouflaged ends pointed directly toward the Hok.
The guard staggered and crumpled slowly, his tough physique resistant to even a doubled blast, but the stunner emissions had been calculated to do the job despite all that. Fortunately, the cameras and sensors had all been disabled by the malware, reprogrammed to display endless loops showing nothing amiss.
Gurung caught the Hok, dragging him out of the view of any passersby and taking his weapon for himself. Pulling out his Kukri, the razor-sharp, inward-curving dagger of his people, he slit the Hok’s throat. A dead enemy was no enemy at all.
Feet pounded across the deck behind him, and a dozen picked naval personnel joined Gurung. They wore damage-control masks, which would concentrate available oxygen and filter out contaminants. A woman handed one to Gurung.
“Override the entrance and seal us in,” he told Redwolf, one of the Breaker marines in the group. “Friendlies only.”
“Aye aye, Chief,” said Redwolf, hefting his blaster and taking position.
With the Hok slugthrower in both hands and the mask on his face, Gurung led his boarding party into the battlecruiser. He laughed with pleasure as he contemplated the enemy officers’ astonishment when they woke up with their ship captured.
He ceased laughing when he heard the noise of weapons fire ahead. Someone had not succumbed to the lack of oxygen, it seemed.
Peeking out from around a corner, Gurung spotted the back of an armored Hok, apparently engaged in a firefight. While he couldn’t imagine who among the friendly forces could have made it deeper into the battlecruiser than his own boarding party, the enemy of an enemy was likely a friend.
Raising his weapon, Gurung triggered a long burst that hammered at the Hok until his armor failed and he went down to sprawl on the deck. Two more close-range shots to the joint at the neck made sure the Hok was dead. Gurung kicked the enemy’s weapon away from his twitching hand, just in case.
Triggering his short-range comlink on the general Breaker’s channel, he spoke. “This is Chief Gurung. Anyone who didn’t come aboard with me, identify yourself. Any Breaker, any Breaker, respond.” The low-power transmission shouldn’t leave the metal-hulled battlecruiser, so replies would be confined to those nearby.
“This is Zaxby, Chief Gurung,” said a voice in Gurung’s ear. “Please do not fire upon me when you see me.”
Gurung gave hand signals for his people to continue toward the bridge. “It’s Zaxby,” he relayed.
“That’s ‘Lieutenant Zaxby’ to you, Chief Gurung.”
“Of course, sir. I should say the same, though, about not shooting friendlies. As planned, all Breakers have oxygen masks and blue-and-silver armbands.”
“I see them. I am holding in place.”
“Let me know when you see me.” In a moment, Gurung spotted the Ruxin. “Excellent,” he said with a grin that couldn’t be seen behind his mask. “What are your orders, sir?”
“My orders?”
“As you pointed out, sir, you’re senior.”
Zaxby, looked quite the worse for wear, and he was bleeding in several places. He slumped against a bulkhead and waved with a free tentacle. “Carry on with your mission, Chief. I have my own.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Gurung thought no more about the octopoid as he trotted toward the bridge. Officers were erratic at the best of times, and the most he could hope is that they stayed out of the way and let him do his job.
His greatest fear never materialized. The armored door to the bridge stood open, and his people were already shooting the unconscious crewmembers with trank guns and laying the breathing bodies out of the way. They then took the key stations and began testing access and systems. The malware should have locked out everyone until new codes were input—codes only the Breakers had.
“We have control, Chief,” said the helmswoman he’d brought along as she ran through systems checks. “Nothing out of place. But we can’t keep ship’s oxygen levels this low for long without risking brain damage to our prisoners.”
“Give me local ship wide comlink, my headset.”
“You’re connected, Chief,” said the rating at Comms.
“Powell, you in place?”
“Ready, Chief.”
“Release the gas.”
“Aye aye, Chief.”
Powell, an engineering technician, began to pump a cylinder full of human-tailored soporific into the ventilation system. The Breakers’ masks should filter it out, and Zaxby wouldn’t be affected.
“Confirm status of the rest of the squadron as they report,” ordered Gurung.
“Aye aye, Chief. I have two battlecruisers confirmed in our hands… four destroyers, seven frigates. Waiting on the others.”
“What about the non-squadron ships?”
“Nothing yet. They don’t seem alerted.”
Gurung nodded in satisfaction. Things had gone well so far, and as long as the final battlecruiser was taken, nothing would seriously impede the Commodore’s new, ready-made navy.
Nothing, that is, except for the fortress itself.
***
Straker strode at a deliberate pace down the vehicle tunnel, hunting Hok or any other resistance. A brace of rocketeers fired at him from a corner, but he triggered his force-cannon before the warheads impacted. The electromagnetic guide tube, set in a wide cone, pre-detonated the warheads in flight before the wash of charged plasma consumed them, and the attackers as well.
Flames sprang up from the intense heat as wall fittings, paint, control boxes and screens ignited—everything that wasn’t asteroidal stone. The rock itself scarred and blackened.
“You guys all right back there?” he said to the three battlesuiters trailing him.
“We’re good, sir,” said Karst.
Pressing onward through the flame, Straker almost joined the Celestial Legion right then and there as a storm of heavy fire slammed into him. Pain blossomed all across the front of his body as lasers, high-powered armor-piercing slugs, and antitank rockets hammered his front armor.
Fortunately, he’d defaulted to high forward reinforcement, electrical fields flowing through the superconducting layers to stiffen his overlapping duralloy armor plates to maximum. Yellow telltales popped up across his HUD as he retreated back into the smoke and flame, firing his gatling to cover himself.
“Back up! Fall back!” he called, surprised.
That had been a tactical error borne of overconfidence. He should have let his force-cannon recharge before advancing. He’d assumed—always an asinine thing to do—that the rocketeers were there to delay him. In fact, the enemy commander probably wanted him to charge in.
And where had all that firepower come from? The Breakers ambush had inflicted more than fifty percent casualties on the Hok, leaving perhaps thirty or forty of them alive. It didn’t seem likely they’d regrouped that entire force and managed to emplace it in front of him with heavy weapons… so, this was another, unexpected enemy, well-organized and well-led.
“Loco, you met anything serious?” Straker comlinked.
“Nope, just a few Hok stragglers.”
“I need you with me. I just ran into a shit-storm of heavy infantry fire. Proceed with caution. I don’t know if it’s more Hok, or someone else.”
“Never goes smooth, huh, boss?”
“Shut up and get over here.”
“On my way.”
Straker set his comlink beacon to high output so Loco’s HUD would find him more easily, and took a covered position at a corner. He extended one sensor antenna beyond the edge of the wall, and held his weapons ready while the smoke slowly cleared.
Multi-spectral scans penetrated the obscurants far enough to see that the enemy wasn’t pressing forward. So, a standoff. Straker loaded a tactical view and tried to predic
t his opponents’ next move.
What would I do if I were you? he asked himself. My fortress is being overrun, I’m facing mechsuiters, but I still have an intact fighting force. If I’ve got secure comms with my Mutuality comrades, what’s my priority?
The control center. That was the obvious answer. Those in command of the control center could still fire capital weapons to knock down any ships in the vicinity—except for those still docked—which were too close, of course—and they could devastate the planet below, if only for revenge.
Even though they’d lost the civilian network to malware, the control center would also have some influence on the situation inside the fortress. They could use their secured military net and devices, plus certain sensors, the comms and possibly some automated weaponry.
They would also have already fired a message drone toward flatspace to call for reinforcements, though any response would take days to arrive. Liberator or Revenge might be able to intercept it, but he couldn’t count on that. The Mutuality defense forces might also have more message drones on other facilities as yet untaken within the Sachsen system.
But that wasn’t his problem right now. The Mutualists in front of him were.
Chapter 13
Sachsen Fortress
“Coming up behind you, boss,” said Loco.
Straker was still emplaced at a strategic corner, determined to hold off this new infantry force… if he could. But the worrisome enemy hadn’t pursued him, and he was relieved to see the other Foehammer on his HUD.
“I don’t think they’re eager to attack up the center,” Straker said. “If I were them, I’d be working my way around our left flank toward the control center. They have to know it’s under assault. I bet the officer on duty is going ape-shit.”
“Roger dodger, boss. I’ll take point.” Loco turned and began a ponderous jog down the vehicular tunnel, back toward the ambush intersection.
“Battlesuiters, follow Loco. I’ll take trail.” Straker brought up the rear, slewing his waist 180 degrees so his Foehammer walked forward while his torso faced backward. Long practice made even this unnatural position second nature to him. He set his active sensors to maximum.