by Aer-ki Jyr
Esna spun around and followed the direction his finger pointed, heading out of the armor sections of the large armory and over to the racks of Star Force personal arms, all of which looked too advanced for her but she’d learned to use a few thanks to Rammak and she wasn’t going to turn any down now.
“Racks?”
Rammak walked over to a section that held little globs of machinery she couldn’t recognize, then he picked up one and reached it over his shoulder and onto his back…where it attached and expanded out into a pack with a weapon rack on top.
“Nice,” she commented as he tossed her one. She tried to do the same thing but couldn’t get it to work, then Rammak adjusted her arm a bit and got it to hit on the right spot. It stuck there but didn’t expand, though a prompt on her visor asked if she wanted it to.
When Esna accepted it expanded out and she looked over her shoulder, seeing the familiar but slightly modified design that could hold multiple weapons while leaving her hands free to run or do whatever else was needed.
“How soon will they get here?”
“A few hours, maybe longer if the mechs and base defenses force them to take their time,” he said, tossing her a pistol that she caught out of the air and tucked into a slot on her rack near her lower back as he handed her some replacement power packs.
“I can carry ammo for you.”
“No, take this,” he said, pulling a thick rifle off the wall.
“What is it?”
“Something you point away from you but don’t have to aim well. It’ll create a wide cone of damage along with a physical knockback after a short delay. Official name is ‘Papow’ but sometimes it’s just referred to as a heavy shotgun. We’re going to be inside, so just tuck yourself up against a wall and point this along it and slightly out. It’ll make it hard for a Zen’zat to get to you while dodging. Fire early and multiple times to keep them back, but be careful of friendly fire. There’s no precision aiming with this.”
“How many shots?”
“16,” he said, tossing her a couple ammo pouches while he still held the weapon. He waited until she put them in her pack, then he handed the papow to her. It was heavier than her arms liked, but when she upped the powered skeleton in her armor it wouldn’t be a problem.
Esna studied the weapon, getting a feel for its grip points and functions as Rammak showed her how to reload. 16 shots was ridiculously low for Star Force weapons, which meant this papow had to have a lot of damage potential in it.
Rammak pulled 5 different weapons off the wall quickly with his multiple arms and packed in a lot of ammo for them along with three short rods.
“Death sticks,” he said, holding one out for Esna to look at. “One shot melee weapon. If a Zen’zat gets to us and I can land this, it’ll give us an advantage.”
“A grenade?”
“That only fires in one direction. Tap the end of the stick to the enemy and the damage is sent entirely into him.”
“But just one time?”
“It’s a big hit.”
“Just three?”
“Others will need them too,” he said, putting them into slots on his rack for easy grabbing.
“Anything else?”
“Information,” Rammak said, signaling her to follow with his lower hand as he walked towards the armory’s closest exit. “Assuming the base will be invaded, we need to know where the evacuation routes are. I know they’re here, but that information is guarded so that the Viks won’t find it easily. We need to get to one of the checkpoints.”
“Checkpoints?”
“I’ll show you,” Rammak said as they entered the empty hallway outside.
The Star Force base was a lot larger than Esna had thought, and it seemed like they walked over half of it until they came to a set of heavy doors that were as thick as Esna was tall. They were pulled partway open with a trio of Bsidd soldier-variants standing guard in front of them, each of which stood a bit taller than Rammak and had some of their appendages covered in plasma swords. They weren’t ignited now, but the plain looking rods that covered the ends could fire up and blast or cut through a lot of things on contact. Esna had learned about them earlier and she still wondered how they managed not to hurt themselves with so many other ‘arms’ sticking out all over their bodies.
They also had weapons drawn…long rifles held between other mandibles like Esna pinching something between her fingertips, and two of the Bsidd turned their solid helmets towards the approaching pair while the Human could still see the far wall through gaps in their torso armor.
“We’re guests on the base and need information on the evacuation routes,” Rammak said, stopping just shy of the first guard.
“We’re confirming the exits are clear in case they’re needed, then we’re resealing the doors and throwing everything we have at protecting the shield generators,” he said with an odd dialect that Esna had come to expect from the Bsidd. “Is she the Human from Mace?”
“Yes,” Esna answered.
“You didn’t upload your ID into your armor.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“If the base falls, I need to know where to take her,” the Calavari insisted.
“We have a network of tunnels down through the ice to auxiliary locations far from here. Most are subsurface but some have connections up top. We don’t think any Zen’zat have circled around to them but we want to make sure. They’re supposed to be sensor stealthed, but this base was also supposed to be hidden. Ready for upload.”
Esna waited as the pair were silent for a bit, then her HUD lit up with a comm from Rammak. It wasn’t his voice but a download that she accepted. In an instant her battlemap lit up with new data and she zoomed out, seeing tunnels and sites marked reaching far beyond the colony.
“There will be organized evacuation channels that we will get the techs out through first, but if things go poorly get to any exit point you can. There are some concealed entrances that require codes that you now have. They will auto delete if you die in your armor and can only be transmitted via touch. Your HUD will show where and the entrances will auto close a short time later, so if you have to run, run fast and don’t look back.”
Rammak nodded his thanks, then turned and walked off with Esna running a few steps to catch up. She opened a private comm channel to him so no one else could hear as she fiddled around with the menus trying to figure out how to input an ID signature.
“Are we losing this for sure?”
“I don’t know. The base is buried under a lot of ice, but if they feel like digging there’s nothing to stop them. When they hit the shield generators we’re vulnerable to orbital bombardment…and the ice won’t protect us from that for long.”
“So if we’re caught here when the shields go down…”
Rammak stopped walking around the corner out of sight of the Bsidd with no one else in the hallway and looked at her.
“I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but if the Viks brought an Ultra out here something big is happening. I don’t know how long the base will hold, maybe days or weeks if we’re lucky, but unless we get reinforcements I don’t see how we win this.”
“How long for reinforcements?”
“Depends how close the nearest base is, and that information isn’t public here.”
“In case the Viks take the base, then they’d know where the other ones in the Devastation Zone are.”
“Not just the computer files, but the minds of the people here. If captured they could retrieve the data, so very few will actually know.”
“Is that why they’re here? To find the other bases?”
“Possibly, but we don’t know how they found this one.”
“So we have to survive until help arrives, no matter how long that is?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s leave now before the Zen’zat get in the base. Fill up our packs with supplies and head out into the ice.”
When Rammak didn’t immediately answer she poi
nted a finger up at him.
“See, you do want to fight.”
“I have to protect you.”
“Then either let’s leave now or you find something that both of us can do to help here.”
Rammak shook his head slowly. “Human to the core. I should take you out of here now.”
“But you’re not.”
“No, I’m not. If we get beyond the shield perimeter we’ll be vulnerable to orbital bombardment.”
“It extends for miles.”
“And the Viks could find us early.”
“The Bsidd said the tunnels are shielded. If we go now and hide, we’ll have the best chance of surviving. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Rammak answered with a double fist swing into the wall that made Esna flinch, though the sturdy Star Force construction didn’t seem to care.
“You’re not ready for this.”
“I know, but you can fight. Leave me in a fallback position and help the rear guard or something. Someone has to protect the techs, right?”
“The techs have more combat training than you.”
“Baju,” Esna swore. “Find some way for us to fight!”
Rammak looked back in the direction they’d come, as if staring through the wall at the Bsidd. He didn’t say anything for a long time, then Esna flinched as he turned and nearly ran into her.
“Where are we going?” she asked, hurrying to keep up.
“I could help a little, but I can’t match any of the Commandos on the base. You’ll just get in the way in a fight.”
“You said that before.”
“There’s a way we can fight without fighting and get you out of the base before it gets hit.”
“How?”
“There have been Commandos sent out to the main evacuation outposts to secure them. Not just to scout, but to hold the defenses there and make sure there is somewhere to run to. We’re going to replace one of them. She can fight better than both of us combined and us relieving her will get her into the fight. That’s the most damage I know how to do to the enemy right now.”
“How far away?”
“Far. We’ll have to run, and she can’t leave until we get there.”
“How long has she been there waiting?”
“She was sent out three hours ago, so she might not even be there yet, but the tunnels are comm shielded for range. There’s a landline to connect the outposts, but it can’t be accessed enroute aside from waystations that she doesn’t know to stop for.”
“So she doesn’t even know to turn around?”
“Even if she did she wouldn’t. We have to physically secure the outposts prior to them being needed.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
“Run,” Rammak said, taking off at a slow jog down the hallway that had Esna nearly sprinting to keep pace.
6
Chasing Rammak down the hallways until they came to another equipment room, Esna had to skid her boots on the floor to keep from slamming into the Calavari as he suddenly stopped. A quick hand on his butt prevented any further collision, then both of them were met by a Kiritas that was scrambling around collecting items and putting them into two piles on a nearby table.
“Quickly,” it said in its high pitched voice as it literally hopped around more than walked carrying additional items to them. “Fill your packs and cover them with these.”
Rammak looked at two piles of white cloth the kangaroo-like alien was indicating. “What are they for?”
“Additional sensor camouflage. They emit a low absorption field that will cover your entire body even if the cloth is only draped over part of you. We don’t know how good the V’kit’no’sat sensors are down in the tunnels, but there’s a chance they might get a ping off your weapons. This should eliminate that possibility.”
“I thought the weapons were low grade sensor stealthed?”
“They are, but we have concerns and you’ll be heading out beyond the shield. Best not to take chances. The other Commandos dispatched are likewise equipped.”
“Esna,” Rammak said, pointing to the smaller pile of foodstuffs and other survival gear, “as much as you can fit in without hindering your running motion. Don’t overfill.”
Knowing the rush they were in Esna didn’t respond other than to reach back and pull off her pack, then swing it forward onto the table where she delicately started arranging the various items inside to maximize volume. Rammak did likewise, though he was able to carry a lot more than her. That said, he did overfill his and Esna knew why. He was going to have to run slowly to stick with her, so it didn’t matter how awkward a pack he carried.
With his four hands working faster than her two his pack was filled first, which he pulled back onto his armor as he simultaneously grabbed the larger garment. It unfurled into a long white cape that he swung over his shoulders then looped over his helmet. It fell long enough to cover his chest, but he pulled it back so his arms would remain free with the help of a few built in clasps, then he assisted Esna in getting hers in place.
Without a word of thanks or fortune, Rammak tapped Esna on the shoulder and then they were off running through the base again as he sent her a waypoint. They weren’t going to one of the main exits, but rather an emergency branch a lot closer. It only took a minute and a half to get there, but ‘there’ wasn’t anything more than an empty bit of hallway with ordinary doors spaced out down its length in what Esna saw on the battlemap as the outer edge of a Bsidd residential section.
Rammak took her to a bit of empty wall and she could see a glowing patch up near the ceiling…except it wasn’t glowing in reality, only on her HUD, and when Rammak reached up and touched it the section below suddenly caved in and retracted, opening up a smaller concealed hallway that the Calavari ducked into with Esna hurrying in behind him as the doors stayed open just long enough for her to get past their motion sensors, then they recamouflaged the entrance.
The squarish tunnel was lit with a single row of subdued blue bar lights running down the middle of the ceiling that whipped by rapidly as they ran. Rammak’s arms were almost hitting the sidewalls as he moved, but there was plenty of space for Esna to race along behind him. She’d just started to get into a rhythm when the tunnel ducked down and Rammak started descending on a long staircase.
“Crap,” she said to herself, trying to get her footing but unable to double step them on the decline. Rammak started to get a big lead on her, but she knew he wouldn’t leave her behind so she didn’t bother complaining, rather trying to goose as much awkward speed out of her body as she could without…
“Ah hell,” she said, cranking her armor’s powered setting up to maximum and taking a small hop forward that skipped three steps. She landed hard, but jumped again before she could fall off balance, trying to lean backwards a bit so she didn’t topple forward. That allowed her to catch herself with her hand as her butt nearly hit on the next landing, but she didn’t stop. She kept jumping awkwardly and half falling because she was making better time that way and looks didn’t count for anything now.
When she eventually got to the bottom of the long stairs there was more flat tunnel, all of which was headed in the same direction. There hadn’t been a single jog left or right yet and Esna was thankful for that. Getting her feet back under her again and turning the powered setting down a bit, she ran off after Rammak as he was all but dragging his feet to keep from leaving her behind.
“How far?” she asked.
“62 miles.”
“What? That’ll take me two days at least.”
“I know. Do the best you can.”
“Leave me waypoints and go,” she urged. “There’s no point in that Commando sitting and waiting on me. She has to get back to the fight as soon as possible.”
“If the Zen’zat have already found their way into the tunnels…”
“Rammak,” Esna said firmly. “Go.”
He was silent for a few moments, then a route materialized on her battlemap showin
g a pretty much straight line out to the distant outpost with a few cross tunnels here and there, most of which were nearby.
“Pace yourself. When I get on station I can’t come back for you and leave it unguarded. Rest every 5 hours.”
“I know what to do. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Watch your footing on the ice,” he said, then took off running at a rate she couldn’t hope to match for a minute, let alone days.
She watched him shrink in the distance, but before he got entirely out of sight she stumbled…not because she tripped on something but because the planet suddenly got a lot lighter. Esna’s next step shot her straight up into the ceiling and she bounced off it, falling into a stumble that, after a few steps, did result in her face planting on the ice.
She held still for a moment, feeling stupid as she looked back and saw that the artificial materials of the base had suddenly ended and a perfectly cut, yet larger replica had taken over for them made out of carved ice at the spot where she had gotten lighter. That meant she’d finally come out of the base’s artificial gravity and was now in the planet’s normal gravity that was less than half of Star Force standard.
Esna got to her feet easy enough, then took a few cautious steps that sent her bouncing far too much. It took her nearly a minute before she could even run a step and she was glad Rammak was now out of sight, though his icon was still visible on the battlemap and moving faster than ever. He was using the low gravity to his advantage, so why couldn’t she?
Probably because he’d trained for this and she never had.
Cursing her own ignorance she decided that she’d just have to learn on the fly and dug her boot toe into the grooves cut into the ice floor, pushing off and almost hitting the ceiling again. Esna quickly realized she had to lean forward more than normal and risked face planting again as she was finally able to get a few good strides in with her now much lighter legs. Over the following minutes she started to get the hang of it, then the overhead lights cut out and the tunnel ahead was left in darkness. It took her a moment to find her nightvision setting, then the tunnel returned to full view and she continued on, but it wasn’t until a couple hours later that she had established a workable gait that had her running several miles per hour faster than normal.