The last couple of days flew past once he found out about the CASPers, and he spent as much time in the cargo bay with the maintenance personnel as he could. When they arrived in-system, an exhausted Verne said goodbye to the mercs as they began loading into the shuttle, and he went to get some much-needed rest.
* * *
He’d only been asleep an hour when James banged on his door.
He didn’t get up; instead, he snaked one of his sensory tentacles over from the VASPer where he was sleeping to open the door. “Mph? Yes?”
“The shuttle is having some electrical issues,” James reported. “Dad wants you on it so you can fix whatever the issue is and get the mercs down to the planet.”
“Okay,” Verne replied, and James left.
Verne was too tired to push his way to the docking collar and decided to take the VASPer. Until then, he hadn’t mentioned it to the mercs. It had seemed too juvenile and too much like hero-worship. He wanted to be accepted as one of them, not seen as some sort of childish pretender.
When the mercs saw the VASPer, though, they were very complimentary of both the suit and Verne’s skills for making it. A couple of them asked to see inside when they reached the planet, making him literally glow with pleasure. He was immediately interrupted by Sharon Buck, who was piloting the shuttle with James. The electrical issue was back, and he set off to track it down.
Verne noticed peripherally when the shuttle undocked, his VASPer experienced a number of back and forth accelerations, before dropping back to zero G. He continued to trace the issue and kept the VASPer’s boots locked to the deck, generally ignoring what the pilots did. What finally broke into his consciousness was when the red lights began flashing.
“Take your seats and lock in!” Sharon exclaimed. “We’re taking fire.”
Verne went to the cargo bay to strap in, but all of the seats and CASPer lockdown points were filled with the Copperheads’ CASPers. With nowhere else to go, Verne locked his boots to the deck and tightened his straps. The shuttle began maneuvering, hard, and Verne was thrown from side to side inside the VASPer.
“What’s up with this?” one of the troopers asked. “I didn’t think it was going to be an opposed landing.”
“I don’t know,” the CASPer marked Colonel Triplett replied. “It’s not supposed to be.”
With an enormous BANG! a missile detonated on the cargo ramp, ripping it off and opening the back of the shuttle like a can of sardines. The force of the explosion broke the magnetic lock Verne’s boots had on the deck, and he was catapulted toward the yawning opening in the back of the craft. Several of the mercs reached out, trying to grab his suit, but they missed, and he was through the hole and flying through the air.
He had a glimpse of the shuttle as he pinwheeled through the air—it was on fire, trailing thick, black smoke, but the horizon kept rotating, and he lost his orientation. If there was one part of mech operation Verne was familiar with, though, it was uncontrolled flight. When he’d been first learning to operate the VASPer’s jumpjets, he crashed it a couple of really painful times, and he had developed a failsafe button for it, which he pushed as the G forces tried to squash him to the side of the mecha.
The failsafe program activated, locking out Verne’s control inputs, and, using a series of gyros and sensors, the suit determined where the ground was. The computer fired the thrusters to orient and stabilize the suit, then triggered the jumpjets on full thrust until the suit was no longer falling. Two flashes of yellow light indicated the return of suit controls to Verne, and he took over, gently landing the suit.
The first thought Verne had on landing was that he was as lost as a being could be. He didn’t know where he was on the planet. Hell, he didn’t even know what planet he was on or what system he was in. It hadn’t really mattered. They were just supposed to drop off the Copperheads and then return to Karma, and it had not seemed important to know anything else about the mission. During the trip, he had been too busy to care where they were headed.
He turned on all of his sensors and surveyed his surroundings. He was in a rocky, barren land. Some short scrub brush dotted the land, but there was no sign of habitation. In the sky, he could see a line of black smoke, which had to be from the shuttle. Since it was heading to the settlement the Copperheads were supposed to defend, Verne decided habitation had to lay in that direction. The habitation was probably controlled by some group that was working to actively counter the Copperheads, but habitation none the less. He scanned his VASPer’s memory banks, and the response was unsurprising: the suit’s computer had no idea where he was either, as Verne hadn’t downloaded any of the operation’s information to it. There had been no reason; Verne was not supposed to be here.
Based on gravity, terrain, and curvature of the planet as determined by the suit’s sensors, he was on any one of 287 planets which fit the parameters. Of course, those were just the planets in the database, there were probably others. That was no help.
The smoke was rapidly dissipating, so Verne marked the direction it pointed and began following it. Using the suit’s failsafe program had depleted about half of the suit’s jump juice, which was a problem. While he wanted to jet from peak to peak, he realized he would rapidly exhaust his supplies. As the land was broken, and he could see a number of areas which would be hard to cross, he decided to save as much of his jump juice as possible. Which meant walking in the suit, something he still was not very good at.
He walked until dark, then took a break. He had not intended to fall asleep, but he had not gotten enough sleep over the last week, and he was used to sleeping in the VASPer anyway…and it just sort of happened.
He woke up feeling better and more clear-headed. He took stock of his situation. His jump juice was down to 34%, he had no food beyond a couple of emergency rations he had stored in the suit, and he had no idea where he was or where he was going. The situation was bleak, as the Humans would say.
But he did have one ally, he realized. He couldn’t figure out why he had not thought of them the night before. He decided exhaustion must have played a part.
“Leaf, this is Verne. Are you there?” he called over his radio on the frequency he used to talk to the bridge when he was on the exterior of the ship.
“Verne? Is that really you?” asked Susan Steele.
“Sadly, that is so,” Verne said. “I fell out of the shuttle and am…I do not have any idea where I am.”
“Give me a long count,” Susan said.
Verne turned his transmitter on and counted to ten.
“Got you,” Susan said. “I triangulated your position to a spot about twenty kilometers west of the mining camp.”
“What mining camp is that?”
“The mining camp the Copperheads were supposed to defend. You remember the Copperheads, right? Did you hit your head on the way down?”
“No,” Verne replied. “I am fine, I think. Aside from not having any stores, that is, and being almost out of jump juice.”
“Well, I hate to say that you’re alone, but you’re alone. The shuttle landed at the settlement, but all of the Copperheads were captured. The enemy forces down there are trying to negotiate a hostage settlement with my dad so we can get back James and Sharon, but they haven’t worked it out yet.”
“Why is that?”
“The shuttle is trashed—it got hit with a missile—and can’t make it to orbit, and they want us to bring the Leaf down to the planet, but Dad’s saying no way. The enemy is a group of Besquith. They say they’re going to eat our pilots and the Copperheads if Dad doesn’t do what they say.”
“That is stupid,” Verne said. “Where is the profit in doing that?”
“I don’t know,” Susan said. “All I know is that’s what they said, and the way they said it, I believe they’d do it.”
“Well, see if you can stall them, and I will see if I can find out what is going on down here.”
“Copy,” Susan said. “I’ll let Dad know.”
“No,” Susan said. “You are twenty kilometers west of the settlement. You need to go east.”
“Oh. Okay. Verne, out.”
He could make it twenty kilometers. That would be easy.
* * * * *
Chapter Fourteen
It was decidedly not easy.
Susan had neglected to mention the twenty kilometers in between Verne and the mining settlement—whose name Verne still did not know—was even more barren and mountainous than the terrain he had already covered. Still, he made it to the correct valley, stumbling and bumbling, and looked down at the settlement from a hill to the west as the sun went down behind him.
The settlement was not much to look at. It was laid out in a four-street by four-street grid, with some of the buildings obviously facilities for the miners. He could see what was probably the mess hall, with a large number of individuals coming out of it. The beings looked somewhat like bi-pedal anteaters from books on Earth’s flora and fauna, with big claws. Verne did a search on races via his pinplants and came up with their name—Caroons. They were listed as being good miners. No surprise.
The mine facility was equally obvious behind the small town. A large facility nestled at the base of one of the mountains, with an enormous hole leading to its interior. Trucks continued to come and go from the entrance, which made sense to Verne. There was no need to stop work at nightfall; it would be dark inside the mine no matter whether it was day or night outside.
To the south of the town lay the mini-starport, nothing more than a couple of pads where shuttles could land. Verne did not see how the Besquith expected the transport to land there. Even if the shuttle had not already been there, it would have been impossible to fit it on the pad. Perhaps they just wanted the transport to get close so they could shoot it down, as well.
Along the periphery of the starport, Verne could see the Besquith camp: a bunch of pre-fabricated buildings clustered in between the settlement and the landing pads. Verne wished he knew a little more about mercenary operations, so he could get a better idea of how many Besquith were on the planet. There also appeared to be three other small clusters away from the main Besquith camp. He dialed up his magnification in the fading light and was able to make them out—missile emplacements. Anyone coming from space was going to have a rude awakening…like the Copperheads and the Leaf’s shuttle had.
Near one of the missile emplacements was a large pen, which had a large number of shapes in it. It looked to be the Human mercs, although there only appeared to be fifteen or so of them, rather than the platoon that had been aboard the shuttle. Either some had been killed, or…Verne couldn’t come up with another alternative. The Besquith must have killed them. And if they had killed the mercs, and they were trying to get the transport down to a pad it would not leave from again…it meant the Besquith intended to kill all of them, including Verne, if they got their claws on him.
He had to do something, but what? There was at least a company of Besquith in the valley, and that was more than even the best CASPer driver would take on by himself. Worse, he was not the best CASPer driver, nor did he have any misconceptions that his suit was as good as the Mk 8 suits the Copperheads had. His suit was armed with one laser and—this time he knew—an arm blade. He could easily kill a Besquith if he surprised it, but if they massed on him, he was dead…along with everyone else, shortly thereafter.
He needed more assistance. He looked up the information on the Caroons and found they were not fighters. Not only were they not a merc race, they also would not fight to defend their territory. They would not be helpful in a fight. It would have to be the Humans…but how?
He looked at the layout of the valley as it faded into darkness and then moved to where he could not be seen from the valley before getting out of his VASPer.
He had a long way to go, and not long to get there.
* * * * *
Chapter Fifteen
It took Verne over half the night to get to the shuttle. He kept the rubber suit on as long as he could to protect himself from the rocky ground, but eventually it became so cut up it was more of a hindrance than a help. The fluid it had contained was long gone and he was beginning to overheat. At least with the suit off, he wasn’t in as much danger of that. It helped that the sun was down, at least.
The valley floor, while not “plush,” was not as rocky as the hillside had been, and he was able to make fairly good time without hurting himself too badly. Crossing the ground hurt—his kind was not made for overland excursions—but it was survivable. For a bit.
The shuttle was pretty much the way he remembered it. It was generally in decent shape, other than the missile strike aft and the missing the cargo ramp. A single Besquith was guarding it, but it was easy for a small, low shape to sneak up behind him and into the shuttle.
Verne quickly found what he wanted, and was soon back out on the ground working his way toward the pen. Verne timed his approach so the patrol—two Besquith armed with lasers—was on the far side of the pen as he approached. He waited behind a ground vehicle until they passed again, then crawled up to the pen. As he approached, he recognized one of the men near the fence.
“I’m here,” he whispered through a voice box connected to his pinplants as he reached through to tap one of the Copperheads’ technicians. He was careful not to let his chromophores illuminate.
“Uh, what?” the merc said. Evidently he had been sleeping, and it took him a few seconds to orient himself. By that time, Verne had cut several links of the fence with the wire cutters he’d brought, though it wasn’t easy for him; he didn’t have the leverage and arm strength.
“Here, give me those,” the merc said when the hole was large enough to slide them through. Verne gratefully passed them over, then had to crawl back to the vehicle as the sentries went by. Once they were past, Verne made his way back to the fence and found a couple of Humans there.
“Do you have a plan?” one of them asked as the technician again went to work on the fence. Verne recognized the voice of Colonel Triplett, the Copperheads’ commanding officer.
“I have knives,” Verne said. “And, yes, I have a plan.”
* * *
The next time the sentries came around, Verne was sitting on the ground vehicle, and he flashed some of his chromophores at them.
“What’s that?” one of the Besquith asked, with a growl.
“It’s just me, Verne,” he said softly.
The two Besquith took a step toward Verne, but were overcome as Humans jumped on them from behind and slit their throats.
“Now what?” Triplett asked.
“Follow me,” Verne said, leading them toward the landing pad.
“Would you like me to carry you?” Triplett asked. “It might be faster.”
“Yes, time is of the essence,” Verne said. “Also, I am somewhat wounded from my ground travel, and not having to do it any more would be…pleasant.”
Triplett picked him up without the display of distaste Humans usually had the first time they lifted a Wrogul, although Verne knew that most of his skin was now dry. His underside had started to itch halfway down the mountain, but it no longer itched. Instead it now burned like all the fires of the Humans’ proverbial hell.
The Humans sneaked to the edge of the starport, avoiding the closest missile site by a wide margin.
“There’s a sentry by the shuttle,” Triplett noted.
“I know,” Verne replied. “I will have to take care of this one. When you see me make my move, please hurry.”
Verne hopped down and began the laborious process of crawling across the starport to the shuttle. He stuck to the shadows, and since he did not have a Human’s shape, the Besquith did not see him. Verne crawled into the cargo bay and then up onto the shuttle’s roof. He tapped the side of the shuttle on the far side from the sentry. The Besquith turned to see what had made the noise, and Verne tapped it again.
The sentry
came over to investigate, and Verne launched himself off the shuttle. The sentry saw the motion and put up an arm, trying to fend off whatever was hurtling toward him, but Verne wrapped an arm around it for leverage and used it to swing onto the Besquith’s face. The sentry drew a breath to yell, but Verne wrapped arms around its mouth, nose, and eyes, and the alien jerked around, trying to fling Verne off him.
The sentry dropped his rifle to free his hand, but Verne caught it in another arm before it clattered to the ground. The struggling Besquith, unable to break Verne’s hold or get his arms to release, then did the only other thing it could: Verne struggled not to scream as the Besquith bit a chunk out of his arm.
The Besquith grabbed the arm over its mouth and tried to bite more off. Verne struggled, trying to fend off the Besquith while simultaneously holding up the rifle, and the pair went through what probably looked like some sort of macabre dance. Eventually, Verne closed his eyes and tried to hold on through the pain.
Just when Verne was sure he would either have to scream or remove his arm from the Besquith’s mouth, there were several impacts. Verne opened his eyes to find two Humans stabbing the Besquith, while a third grabbed the rifle.
After a couple of seconds, the Besquith collapsed, and Verne happily let go of it.
“Are you okay?” Triplett asked, running up.
“It…it bit off part of my arm,” Verne said, holding up the wounded appendage, which leaked fluid onto the starport’s ferrocrete.
“Will you be all right?” Triplett asked. “We have to go.”
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