by David Hardy
At the shuttle control panel, Tolliver obviously didn’t share this cool absence of hope.
The skill-tech worked at the communication system furiously, desperately trying to bring their only link to Syndicate patrols back on-line. The electro-magnetic pulse grenade had done its work however. There would be no signal getting out, nor would the Crew Delivery Vehicle be making any sort of last minute, seat-of-the-pants take-off. Everything digital or electronic along the port and aft sides of the shuttle was toast.
It was that simple.
They were trapped, crammed like sardines inside what had become nothing more than a metal alloy can. And the alien flesh-eaters outside had every intention of eating them just like sardines when they finished popping the lid.
Crew Leader Fallows watched the outer door growing hotter and hotter through the closed circuit HD cameras. The delicate circuitry for the observation systems had been outside of the blast radius of the EMP detonation. Sweat stood out like bullets on Fallows’ forehead and her leg was heavily swathed in bandages now soaked through with blood where she had caught a bullet near the knee.
She was thinking, Kali knew, and that was definitely the crew’s last hope. They weren’t calling for help; they weren’t taking off; and they weren’t fighting their way clear.
In Fallows’ hands, like a magical fetish or religious icon was the briefcase stamped PROPERTY OF TAPEI SYNDICATE, the impetus that had sent the salvage company into motion in the first place. Inside a hermetically Plexiglas tube contained four next-gen flash drives. It had lain for three years beneath the rubble before Kali unearthed it – exactly the amount of time, even at FTL, that it took their Warp Platform to manage the trip from Moon Base Obama. She wondered if whatever was on those drives was really worth their lives.
In the corner Benz, the med-tech, spilled coagulation powder over Blue Sentry Designated Marksman Jeric's wounds to stop the bleeding. Benz looked up and caught Fallows’ eye. The iron-haired woman raised an eyebrow toward the medic. Benz shook his head. Fallows nodded once and the stark features of her face congealed in a mask.
Kali had been on the crew for three salvage runs now, long enough to know Fallows, to see the Crew Leader had made her decision. The tall woman turned toward Kali who felt her stomach suddenly flush with cold squirts of fear-adrenaline.
Oh, jeez, she thought, why me?
But Kali found herself rising to her feet even as Fallows said her name. Eaton, the Red Sentry team leader, came over at a look from the Crew Leader as well. Besides Kali he was the only one unhurt. The two stood there listening as Fallows outlined her plan.
It’s suicide, Kali thought. But she heard herself say “Yes, ma’am,” just the same.
Eaton looked over at her, their eyes met and something passed between them. He was good-looking, Kali realized with a start. Not since Kevin had she thought of someone like that.
“You owe me dinner when this is over,” she said in a sudden, reckless impulse.
Eaton flushed like a little kid and it made Kali feel like smiling. He nodded once, eyes a bright blue under his military-style brush cut. “I owe you dinner?” he laughed. “Who got the Search and Recovery bump, here?”
Kali laughed, too, and suddenly anything seemed possible again, a feeling of hope she’d thought Kevin had taken with him when he’d left. Then they were suiting up and Tolliver was using a cordless drill to unscrew the floor hatches.
Tolliver stopped her before she went down through the opening. He gave her Jeric’s pistol and stun baton. “Here," he said. “Good luck.”
Kali took them, looked at him, tried to smile. “Your momma needs good luck.”
Tolliver tried to laugh. It sounded like he was strangling. He nodded and backed away as Kali followed Eaton down into the hold.
The Hostile Environment Suits always made her feel like the Pillsbury Doughboy, but then breathing an atmosphere made up mostly of chlorine gas was obviously a worse choice. Under the CDV in the little cargo bay she and Eaton hit the digital ignitions on their flash-bang grenades.
They let the timers run down as the containment doors unsealed and slid open. They tossed the grenades underhand out of the vehicle at the last moment and waited a heartbeat for the bangs. The flash of light came, blinding even through the HEV polarized face plates. The concussion from the shock-bang could knock a grown man off his feet.
Bang!
The grenades went up and then they were running.
Kali came through the hatch first and started sprinting. She was faster so it was her job to make it to the old bomb shelter and the working General Emergency Beacon inside. Eaton, well, Eaton was a combat-tech. His job on salvage was mostly to be cannon-fodder.
Through her helmet she heard the muted pop-pop-pops of his auto-carbine going off in controlled bursts as he covered her run. Still, the Skells were like blades of grass in a field all around her. Grey-green skins and distorted, monstrous features making Kali think of fairy tale goblins from when she was a kid bouncing through the Refugee Detention Centers.
One of the Skells made it past Eaton’s lethal aim and bounded toward Kali, all teeth and nails. She whipped her arm out like a lion tamer snapping a whip and her extendable baton opened with a snik. She twisted on the run and backhanded the alien-thing as it attacked. 70,000-volts jarred the Skell to a stop and it tumbled away.
Kali put her head up, desperate to pick a safe path through the Skell infested rubble. With a sinking feeling she realized there wasn’t one.
○●○
Eaton shuffled backwards, firing his auto-carbine. Spent shells kicked up and out of the hot breech in a tight golden arch. The bolt locked in the open position as the last round in his magazine fired. Smoothly Eaton grasped the spent magazine, disengaged it from the magazine well and then turned it over so that the top of the full magazine taped to the old one slid home. He pulled his finger out of the trigger guard and reached up to tap the bolt release.
The bolt slid forward and chambered a round. Eaton spun and fired into a pair of leaping Skells. The rounds slapped into them and they crumpled, their forward moment sending them into face first slides. Eaton turned and saw Kali.
“Go! Go!” he shouted.
Kali turned and looked for a clear path. Skells were coming through the rubble all around them. Behind her an empty one story structure stood like a tombstone on an endless prairie. It was nondescript and formed from a featureless concrete mold, old blasts had stripped it of any vestiges of identification.
Behind her Eaton fired madly, she could hear his bursts growing longer and more ragged as the Skells grouping pushed on, heedless of those killed. Behind them the Skell Alphas drove them forward. Kali was hit with a sudden, suicidal burst of inspiration. She darted through the open door into the building.
“Eaton!” she yelled.
Eaton risked a quick look over his shoulder, frowned. He turned back around and tore loose with a long burst, sweeping his muzzle in a loose figure-eight pattern. He spun and sprinted through the door. Behind him the Skells shrieked, leaping over the torn corpses of their brothers to give chase.
Eaton looked around, taking in the room as he dropped the magazine from his weapon and inserted another. The little building was a hollowed out shell. The walls were scorch marked and the single room filled with dust and debris but nothing else. The window and door to the front were blown- out cavities along with two windows in the back wall.
Eaton shot the first Skells to come through the door. Turned and shot another climbing through the window. Jesus, how many are there? He looked over to Kali just as she pulled a grenade from her kit. Automatically Eaton ran down the specs in his head.
MK3A2 Offensive Hand Grenade. Size 136mm cylindrical. Weight 15.6 oz. Blast Radius 22.9mm. Eaton didn’t consciously call the facts up, they popped unbidden into his mind, a product of conditioning.
He looked up as Kali yanked the pin and released the safety lever. He met her gaze with eyes big as saucers. She dropped th
e grenade where she stood and spun toward the rear of the structure. Behind them Skells poured through the door or dove through the empty window frame, mindless in their killing frenzy.
The two salvagers sprinted toward the open window. The room was thick with shrieking, gray-green hides. Kali leapt up and grabbed hold of the windowsill. Coming up behind her Eaton put his hand on her ass and unceremoniously shoved her up and out. Behind him the room was a mob scene.
He caught movement out of his peripheral vision and twisted at the waist. The Skell loomed above him, all tooth and claw. He smashed the butt of his weapon into the thing’s mouth and drove it back into the others.
Eaton turned and threw his auto-carbine through the window before jumping up and diving after it.
○●○
Kali twisted, bounded up a pile of rubble and then slid haphazardly down the other side. She could see the bomb shelter entrance now: a Ferro-concrete building no bigger than a toll booth, the titanium blast doors painted in characteristic yellow and black stripes.
Screaming, she dove for the cover of a burnt-out vehicle, an old Syndicate drop-ship. Her scream echoed shrill inside her helmet. Kali landed on her shoulder and somersaulted behind the twisted hulk in a tight roll, losing her stun-stick.
In the hollow building the grenade went off and even through the helmet Kali winced at the explosion. Shrapnel cut into the already perforated and scorched armor skin of the drop-ship. The building made a tremendous crash as it collapsed.
She came up. Thought, Eaton! Then put the thought out of her mind. Fallows had put the crew’s lives in her hands, she had to come through.
Kali bounded over to just in front of the bomb shelter doors. With deft movements she attached the Field Electronic Interdiction and Disabler Device. It could hack the code on any security sequence programmed before the consolidated police actions – if it still functioned. As a last resort she carried a satchel of shaped-charge plastique on her equipment belt, but if the FEIDD failed her Kali doubted she’d have time to use the demolitions.
The FEIDD clicked into place and the LED screen began spinning out 010101’s. She sensed movement behind her and spun in her HEV suit. Eaton ran up. Kali scanned him and saw with relief that his suit remained undamaged.
"Good to see you,” she said.
"See me? Bet your ass!” Eaton laughed, terrified. “You owe me dinner!”
Kali drew her sidearm and the two salvage-techs turned to face the approaching Skells, both going to one knee. In a waste like this only Skell leadership carried weapons. The badland Skell bands were like combination wolf pack and street gang. Skell leaders often had as much to fear from their own cutthroat scavengers as they did from their prey.
Keep cool, kid, Kali told herself. Keep cool!
She squeezed off her shots the way the private contractor self-defense instructors had taught. She taking aim and firing at rushing Skell grunts while Eaton used the longer range and superior fire power of his auto-carbine to keep the better armed Skell leadership pinned down.
Return rounds scorched by the crouching fighters. They tore into the polluted rubble, bit chunks out of the Ferro-concrete and ricocheted dangerously off the alloy doors. Squeezing her trigger again and again, Kali prayed no rounds struck the FEIDD.
After what felt like a millennium she heard the hacking device chirp success. She heard the doors hiss as they slid open and without looking she jumped backwards.
And fell.
She felt her knee give way as she struck the hard floor six feet below the entrance among the collapsed wreckage of scaffolding stairs. She grunted in pain as the hinge-joint wrenched out of alignment but her real fear was that she'd somehow damaged the integrity of her suit. She looked down at her oddly twisted leg, saw with relief that the outer skin of the HES remained intact.
She felt a sharp prick in her shoulder and knew the automated med-systems in the HES had injected her with both an analgesic and a stim-shot to keep her mental acuity focused. Salvage contracts were dicey business and the technology available to crewmembers reflected this.
Above her she heard Eaton screaming at her through his throat-mike.
“Are you okay? Kali! Are you okay?”
She waved a hand at him, heard his auto-carbine start firing again and scanned the dark interior of the bomb shelter for the General Emergency Beacon box. She couldn’t see a thing and switched her visor over to ultraviolet. She saw the box on the wall and made for it.
Kali limped badly, but the pain had been reduced to a dull ache by the analgesic and she forced herself forward. She came up even with the box and glanced back at Eaton. The combat-tech had been driven back to the very lip of the doorway. She saw him eject a spent magazine and fumble in his cargo pocket for a fresh one.
It was then that the gray-green-skinned fairy tale goblin of an alien got him.
The Skell hit him like a cornerback on a pass receiver, clipping Eaton through the open door and into the bomb shelter. For one long moment the pair hung precariously, frozen in midair. Then they dropped like Newton's apple.
Kali felt helpless, like she was watching a horror movie in slow motion, or like when Kevin had left. Struggling desperately, the pair fell. They hit the shelter floor with twice the force Kali had. She saw the feral Skell go spinning head-over-heels into the shadows while Eaton rolled over to land a body length from her. In Kali's ultraviolet light the Skell stood out like a beacon in blurred silhouette against the cooler smooth metal blast walls, but it was Eaton she couldn’t take her eyes off of.
She saw his helmet bounce hard against the unforgiving floor. Heard the smack with sickening clarity, saw the attachment for his Self-contained Breathing Apparatus pop free and the housing crack open. Then the atmosphere rushed in to fill the vacuum and she turned away.
The Skell came charging, its war cry echoing weirdly in the confined space. Kali brought her sidearm up and fired. And fired. And fired until her magazine ran dry. For a long moment she just kept pulling the trigger on her empty sidearm, the pistol still pointing at the motionless Skell.
A bullet struck the floor next to her and she looked up. Skells in the doorway. Two leaders and a pack of grunts. She saw them spill over the ledge, saw bright flashes as the leaders fired. With one hand she broke the glass on the GEB with the butt of her sidearm, engaging the emergency signal. With her other hand she pulled Eaton closer to her.
The Skells came swarming across the floor as she dropped her sidearm and pulled the demolition unit from her equipment belt. She hugged Eaton to her and thumbed the timer right down to zero. She let the demo unit slip out of her hand and she closed her eyes against the flash of light.
○●○
First she felt pain and then Kali heard Fallows’ voice barking orders as if from behind two inch panes of safety glass. She felt like her body lay immersed in scalding water. Forms moved around Kali. She made out Syndicate drop-trooper markings on combat exoskeletons.
“Let him go,” Fallows’ voice echoed gentler than Kali could recall ever hearing it.
“Let him go, girl. It’s over, honey, it’s over.”
She’s right, Kali thought. It is over.
But she didn’t let Eaton go.
About the Author – Nathan E. Meyer
Nathan Meyer has published close to 20 novels over his career. Most recently, he completed an apocalyptic thriller for Relay Publishing, and a SF/Horror novel, JUDAS PROTOCOL, for gaming company Privateer Press. His 2011 fantasy for Wizards of the Coast, ALDWYN'S ACADEMY, won the Scribe Award for best YA media tie-in. He began his career working as a house author for an imprint of Harlequin Publishing where he wrote 15 novels across three separate military thriller series. He is currently publishing under the collective pseudonym, Rowan Casey, on an urban Fantasy series with 12 other professional authors.
Freemen’s Stand
Sarah A. Hoyt
“Insurgent, suspected armed, flying a dark blue Gryphon double-seater. If spotted, immediately alert t
he authorities. Do not try to apprehend unless you have been trained.”
The insurgent – known as Molly McCauly Smith when she was at home – stared at her com, which was repeating the can’t-be-shut-off-warning at an ear-splitting level, the same level used for tornados, or malfunctioning guiding towers, curled her lip upward and said, “Oh, poo.”
At least, she thought, they hadn’t given a description of her. Just as well, though, to make some transformations, as part of her ditching efforts.
The ditching started immediately. Her flyer was not making the obligatory transmissions to the nearest towers, of course. This was perfectly acceptable in normal circumstances. No one scanned the skies constantly. But with an alert out and a description of her vehicle, someone would notice. Someone would be on her like bees on pretty flowers, any minute now. And she would get way more than stung. She would get dead.
The only thing to do was to ditch, which meant removing the emergency broom – the anti-gravity device put into every flyer in case of crash – from its closet, grabbing the backpack where she kept extra clothes and weapons, activating the route sequence she’d put in earlier – just in case – then rushing to the door – the flyer already tilting wildly around her – opening it, and jumping out on the broom, screaming “George and Freedom.”
It took a good ten seconds for the broom to catch, but that was just as well, because she was in the shadow of the falling flyer. By the time she edged away from it, it was more than halfway to the spot of ground she’d programmed it to, a spot with neither houses nor trees, about ten miles away from where she landed – minutes later – in thick forest. Chances were any self-respecting scanner would be tracking the big object falling fast, and not the slim, emergency, three-foot-long broom carrying 100-lbs-soaking-wet Molly.
Still, just in case, Molly left the broom where it fell, and started making tracks away from the place where she landed. Not towards the nearest zipway, where everyone and their blind brother would expect a crash victim to head. Mama might say that Molly was far too young to be active in the Sons of Liberty and running dangerous missions – Molly wrinkled her little freckled nose at the thought – but she wasn’t, in point of fact, born yesterday. Instead, she headed to the little rough cut road in the middle of the forest. She’d seen it from the air, and it had the look of the kind of track that only locals used, flying at treetop-level, out of tower scanning height so that they didn’t have to worry about traffic control.