Kill Before Dying (Tau Ceti Agenda Book 5)

by Travis S. Taylor

  Yes, sir. I agree. Somehow we need to speed up the builder lines.

  Right. Only way to do that is to stop the Chiata in those sections of the ship. Alexander thought about how to do that and he didn’t have any good ideas. They already had all hands fighting or building. Our troops are doing the best they can.

  Yes, sir, but we are moving way too slowly.

  “We are going to have to move faster than this,” Alexander muttered to himself as he thought about his plan briefly. The XO looked over at him as if she were going to add something, but he could tell she must have thought better of it and just kept her mouth shut. He was beyond beginning to worry that they had bitten off more than they could chew in such a short period of time and with so few ships. Something else was going to have to happen. “CHENG, this is the CO!”

  “Yes, General?”

  “How long, Joe?” Alexander asked. “How long until we can fire the weapon?”

  “Sir, the aft section is all but connected. But the forward port side is still several minutes out. The resistance is so heavy there that as soon as the bots build a conduit, the Chiata take it out. If I can ever establish the connection it will be difficult for them to turn it off.”

  “Understood, Joe. Are there any partial options?”

  “Not really, sir, no. We might could engage partial shields or something if they start attacking their own ship, but I’m not sure what good that would do.”

  “Alright then. Just, well, get this thing working as soon as possible!” Alexander felt as though he were sitting idle with his thumbs stuck up his posterior. There was nothing he could do but sit and watch his fleet get picked apart and wait for a bunch of robots to build a weapon system while under fire. They were all in on this. He had committed four ships to their doom if this didn’t work out. Alexander knew deep down, though, that if things didn’t work out here today, then humanity was likely done for as well. Oh, certainly, humanity would survive for a few years as the Chiata approached Sol, and they might even have enough escape out the back door to survive in colonies. But, if they didn’t win here, today, it was very likely that humanity as they knew it was over. In essence, this was his all-out Hail Mary play.

  And at the same time he had no idea where his little girl was and how to get her home safely. While the reports showed that the SARs teams had made it to ground safely, they were overwhelmed almost immediately before they could fly out. They ended up being stranded with the rest of the ground teams in the canyon basin. Alexander had to do something to turn the tide. And, he had to do it quickly.

  He brought the force tracker view up in his DTM. The teams from the Madira and the Hillenkoetter had faced the most resistance within the alien megaship. The Hillenkoetter even more so. He mapped out the pathways the ground teams and bots had taken, and they were directly juxtaposed to each other on either side of the alien ship. The ground team from the Madira was only a few hundred meters from the ground team from the Hillenkoetter. Both teams were stalled and ground down in close-quarters combat. They needed something to give them a shot in the arm. Alexander sat in his chair and considered their predicament for a second longer. Admiral Walker had control of the Beta Fleet and was doing all she could to keep the Chiata busy and from turning on them. While she was overwhelmed by the numbers game, she had it under control as good as or better than anyone could under the circumstances. There was little naval-style fighting he could do while stuck to the larger enemy ship. There was literally nothing to do but sit and wait. Alexander hated waiting. Alexander hated sitting.

  I’m tired of sitting in this chair, he thought. I think I need to get involved a little more directly.

  Ooh-fuckin’-rah, General! Abigail replied in his mind. Is it that time, sir?

  Yeah, it’s that time, Abby, he thought. Ooh-fuckin’-rah.

  About fuckin’ time if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.

  Alexander stood up and clenched his fists briefly. He flexed his chest and shoulders in the suit and rolled his neck left then right. Finally, he took in a long deep breath and then relaxed his body with a long exhale. He looked about the bridge and decided that they were a good crew even if they were brand new. They could do the job. He looked over at Firestorm and knew she could handle whatever came her way with few to no problems. They didn’t need him sitting in that chair. They did need him out there being a Marine.

  “Firestorm, you have the bridge,” Alexander said.

  “Sir?” Sally looked at him and Alexander could tell by the look on her face that she knew exactly what he was about to do.

  “General Rheims, I’m going for a stroll. You are in command,” he said.

  “Excuse me, General,” CMC Sowles interjected. “If you don’t mind sir, I’d like to tag along.”

  “That isn’t necessary, COB,” Alexander replied, not sure if his Chief of the Boat was going to try to stop him or join him.

  “I know it ain’t necessary, General. But, all things considered, I sure would like to join you.”

  “Suit yourself, COB.”

  Alexander didn’t waste any time getting to the elevator, and the COB clanked along right behind him without saying a word. The mission clock in Alexander’s head continued to click precious seconds away, and he thought that with each second, there was another blue beam blasting away at the Beta Fleet. The elevator doors opened and the two men stepped in almost in unison.

  Override the controls and take us on the fastest path to the engagement zone, Abby, he ordered his AIC. Have somebody at staff armaments waiting on me when I get there.

  Yes, sir. That will be down the control spire to the bottom deck and then all the way aft. Abigail paused momentarily. That will take about forty seconds, sir. The Sergeant at Arms in the aft hangar bar is ready and waiting. There are weapons and ammunition stations already in place for the insertion teams, sir. You can choose from those when we arrive.

  I waited too long. That’s forty seconds we don’t have. Alexander sighed inwardly. Forty seconds Dee doesn’t have. Where are you, girl?

  Alexander didn’t say a word or think in his mindvoice to his AIC for the rest of the trip down the command tower and back to the aft of the ship in the elevator tube. His mind was singularly focused on one thing, and that was bringing Hell to the Chiata between him and the power source the bots needed to get to. They had to succeed.

  The elevator door opened at the back of the hangar bay. Alexander bounced as soon as the door opened with his jumpboots full throttle. There were several muster stations set up and triage units evacuating wounded out and up through the various elevators and ladderwells. Alexander bounced right on by them, stopping twice at the armament bins to grab extra ammo belts, grenades, and two rifles. The sergeant at arms watched as the general and the COB grabbed at the weapons and ammo.

  Alexander didn’t hesitate. Time was critical and his feet were never still for longer than a second at each of the tables and bins, and then he was bouncing past the mechas and AEMs standing guard at the hangar entrance and into the alien megaship. At that point the general was out of the ship and in enemy alien territory. The chief of the boat was hot on his jumpboots.

  Alexander has left the building, he thought. Alright, Abby, lay out the path for me. Get me to the forward AEMs.

  The actual front line is presently being held by Lieutenant Colonel Jessica894120 with thirty-three remaining clone AEMs and a considerable contingent of battlebots, sir, Abigail explained and highlighted a path in his mind. He could see the blue dots of his teams and the red dots of the Chiata bouncing about.

  The repair bots were working like maniacal worker ants and bees, running and buzzing about cutting, welding, printing, melding, and all other sorts of construction imaginable. Alexander marveled at the conduits and cables that were already physically connecting the alien ship and the supercarrier, and the connections stretched for hundreds of meters into the belly of the alien beast.

  A few tens of seconds more and the sounds of constructio
n changed to the sounds of destruction. The familiar spittapping of HVARs, the zings of M-blasters, and the thwoomps of grenade launchers rang and boomed. The sounds of thousands and thousands of buzz saws spinning against metal, screeching so shrilly that it made Alexander’s skin crawl, resonated through the alien metal hallways. Alexander also heard blasts that he hadn’t before, and he assumed he was hearing Chiata weapons fire for the first time. They turned one last corner and there was the front line in all its blood and glory.

  Almost as instantly as they had turned the corner several red and green blurs danced about to take up aim point advantage on them, but it was neither of the men’s first rodeo. The two scattered in opposite directions and dove for cover. The COB landed behind a pile of twisted-up metal tubes that looked like exploded power conduits and Alexander bounced in behind a blown-out hovertank, landing right beside the clone commander an AEM lieutenant colonel.

  “Sir. I was not sure if I should have believed my blue force tracker when I saw your icon bouncing in here. You shouldn’t be here, sir,” Lieutenant Colonel Jessica894120 said.

  “Everyone has to be somewhere, Lieutenant Colonel.” Alexander bounced up to the top of the tank, looking for targeting Xs to turn red, and when they didn’t, he fired his rifle at yellow ones. At full sprint he dove off the tank into a forward flip, releasing two grenades from his shoulder launcher as he did so into a mix of blurs that had flanked the clone AEMs.

  The highlighted path in his mind showed him what he hoped was a downladder just on the other side of the bulkhead. He needed to drop down beneath the line if he was going to change the stalemate. The grenades burst into the bulkhead, throwing red-hot shards of metal and orange plasma onto the deck plates. Alexander rolled to a stop on the deck, firing his rifle through the hole in the wall he’d just made. Hundreds of battlebots rushed into the opening after the blurs on the other side. The Chiata troops fired their blue plasma bolts and fought hand-to-hand with the bots. Alexander fired several rounds from his rifle as he stood and rushed head first through the hole to the downladder. Almost out of nowhere, the COB bounced to the other side of the opening, laying down cover fire for the general as if it had been their plan all along. The two of them burst through the opening and down the ladder, dropping like a ton of metal to the deck below, both of them with their rifles firing at anything moving and blurry.

  “When you go for a stroll, sir, you go for a fucking stroll!” Chuck Sowles shouted over the sound of spittapping automatic hypervelocity gunfire and the occasional grenade thwoomping out of a tube. Alexander didn’t have time to keep an eye on his COB, and at the same time, he didn’t need to. The navy warrant officer was exceedingly efficient at killing shit, and Alexander highly approved. At present, there was plenty of shit that needed killing.

  “Chuck, we need to press forward though the left flank on this wall.” Alexander paused to highlight a path in their DTM view. “Blow through that passageway and into the next ante-chamber. I think if we drop down underneath the bastards there we could bring the floor out from underneath where they have the bots stalled.”

  “Hell of a plan, General! Hell of a plan!” Sowles growled over the net. Alexander turned just in time to see the man spinning like a whirling dervish wrapped up in the tendrils of one of the Chiata troopers, but the COB wasn’t trapped at all. He used his wild spin to generate angular momentum that sent the alien off its feet from the centrifugal force. Chuck popped out his blade and sliced the alien free with his left hand while firing through its chest with the rifle in his right. Alexander held his rifle in his right hand and set his targeting X on one of the two alien creatures attempting to get the drop on the COB during his mad spin and took the alien out without Chuck ever being the wiser. He pulled his blaster up with his left and fired at the other, forcing it to take a cover position.

  Abigail, keep that path lit up and don’t let me make a wrong turn.

  Understood, General.

  Chapter 33

  February 19, 2407 AD

  U.S.S. Sienna Madira

  Target Star System

  700 Light-years from the Sol System

  Tuesday, 1:05 A.M. Ship Standard Time

  “DeathRay! I’ve got your six, just go, dammit!” Fish shouted over the tac-net at her former wingman. Jack didn’t hesitate, if Fish said go then she needed him to go. He kicked the thrusters of the mecha’s boots and burst headfirst through the doors of what Jack had decided were mecha elevator platforms. The metal was weaker than he’d expected, and he almost lost his balance as he tumbled the rest of the way into the large elevator. The doors behind him were bent inward and mangled from the slides to the point that they wouldn’t close again.

  Three Chiata porcupines stood facing him as he entered. It looks as if they were being readied for takeoff as the platform lifted to the upper hull. The alien mecha in the middle raised up on amorphously shaped legs and rippled with lightning as blue bolts of energy shot from the spires on its back at Jack. But Jack was expecting company and he didn’t have time to play around with these bastards anymore.

  “Guns, guns, guns,” he shouted while falling forward and rolling so that he landed on his back. He kicked his boot boosters in, skittering him across the deck of the platform, throwing sparks as well as cannon fire. The thrust from his boot boosters pushed him right up underneath the middle porcupine, and DeathRay raised his cannon and fired it full auto at point-blank range on the alien mecha.

  The rounds burst through the shields and into the armor plating as DeathRay continued to fire into its empennage. The mecha ruptured and exploded out the topside and then split in two. Jack pushed his mecha upward through the exploding alien mecha, tearing it out of his way. He jumped upwards and fired again at the alien ship on his left, then crashed down on top of it with both metal boots of the bot-mode mecha. Jack could see the alien creature inside the cockpit looking up at him as he depressed the firing controls. The shields gave way and the cockpit exploded. This time the blast was a little stronger than Jack had expected, and he was thrown backwards and off balance. Almost instantly, the third of the porcupines was on top of him, wrapping him up and firing plasma rounds at him, but DeathRay managed to squirm about and stay mostly unharmed.

  Then an amorphous alien tendril shot through his shield generator and wrapped around his right arm near the shoulder brackets. Metal and machine squealed against the stress from the alien constricting tentacle as DeathRay fought against it. Jack grabbed at it with his left hand but couldn’t quite reach it. The Chiata porcupine transfigured to some other odd amorphous shape and slammed DeathRay against the deck plating so hard that Jack saw stars. He bit at the bite block to release some stims and air, and then kicked his back thrusters on full, forcing the two of them upwards in the platform shaft all the way to the top. Jack threw wild mechanized punches, knees, elbows, and headbutts along the way, all the while dodging and grappling with alien tendrils spearing at him and constricting him.

  “Fox Three!” Jack shouted as a missile zipped out in front of them blasting a hole in the top of the shaft. DeathRay could see stars on the other side as the two of them burst through the fireball into open space on the hull of the megaship. “Oh, shit!”

  Jack grunted against the acceleration as he turned his boot thrusters on full throttle. Grabbing the HOTAS and yanking it to the left while stomping on the left lower pedals he toggled the bot over into fighter mode. The Ares-T transfigured under the strain of the alien’s constricting tendril, but the transfiguration mechanisms were strong enough to snap him free. The porcupine fell backwards from him almost a meter or two before it reached out with new tendrils to grab him. But the mecha in fighter mode was too fast for it, and he pulled away.

  DeathRay watched in his DTM until he knew he was out of reach of the tendrils, and then he toggled the fighter back to bot, falling head over heels into a Fokker’s feint and drawing his cannon from the hip, dumping over a hundred rounds into the alien fighter in an instant. The porcupine ex
ploded as Jack landed on the outer hull of the alien ship with a thud.

  “Shit, I hope that don’t count as flying or I’m gonna get busted back down to ensign.” Jack pursed his lips and made a motorboat sound to relax and focus his mind. Then he hit the stims as he toggled his mindview. “Well, one thing about it, I got where I needed to be.”

  Jack dropped back into the elevator shaft he’d just blown out and hovered at the top-floor doorway. Reaching up with his two giant bot hands, he jammed them into the opening slit and forced the doors apart. The secondary doors wouldn’t budge. They were made from some stronger material.

  “Fish. Where the hell are y’all? Get up here,” he said over the net.

  “On our way, DeathRay. You gave us the slip,” Fish said. “Thought you weren’t supposed to be flying.”

  What do you think, Candis? He smirked. Too close for missiles?

  Don’t, Jack. Jack!

  “Fish, y’all better take cover for about five seconds.” Jack kicked back to the opposite side of the large elevator shaft and gritted his teeth against the mouthpiece.

  Jack!

  “Fox Three!” he said, and fired a missile into the wall. At the same time he cut his propellantless drive and fell downward toward the rest of the Archangels. The elevator shaft once again filled with molten metal and plasma, but since it was now evacuated to space the fireball didn’t last near as long. Jack fell to his feet with a thud against the rising platform.

  “Going up?” Fish, Bridge, and Backup clanked beside him and Jack could just imagine the smug look on Karen’s face while she spoke. “Penthouse. Lingerie, alcohol, and alien megaship bridges.”

  “Where’s the rest of the team?” He checked his DTM, and they were underneath the platform, covering their exit if they needed one. “Oh, I see. Alright, this is it, stay frosty.”

  Four porcupines dropped through the blown-open elevator shaft opening from outside the ship. Fish didn’t hesitate and neither did Bridge. The two of them kicked their thrusters, and were in death grappling matches with Chiata almost instantly. Backup stood his ground beside DeathRay and both of them raised their weapons, firing at the other two.