Last Stand on Talos Seven

by Rodney Hartman

  “Affirmative, Wizard Scout. The yellow dots denote unarmed personnel. They are currently noncombatants, but that could change once the shooting starts. The eighteen orange dots have weapons, but they are not wearing armor.”

  A flashing blue dot near the long room at the back of the dome drew Trinity’s attention. “You usually use blue for unknowns. What’s this one supposed to be? It’s stationary.”

  “As you point out, it is an unknown. I calculate a twenty-one percent probability that the blue dot is the location for the force field controls. Since I cannot be sure, I marked it in blue. Uh...”

  Trinity immediately became suspicious. “I hate it when you stop in the middle of a sentence, Jennifer. Uh, what?”

  “Well, I do not like to bring up problems when I do not have solutions, but the frequencies of four of the life forms in the far-right hangar concern me. I will mark them in green. See what you think.”

  Forming an active scan, Trinity probed the rightmost hangar. The four life forms in question were easy to pinpoint. “They’re Crosoians. I wonder if they’re buddies of the two bats we fought in the bar.”

  “The odds are less than two percent, Wizard Scout. Still, I find the probability low that encountering Crosoians and pirates together is coincidental. The good news is that they are just normal run-of-the-mill bats. They are not Crosoian scouts.”

  Trinity had to admit that was definitely good news. Crosoian scouts were the bats’ version of a wizard scout. She’d fought a Crosoian scout during her mission on the planet Cavos. As far as she was concerned, that one time had been enough to last a lifetime. In fact, it had almost been her last fight ever.

  Pulling her scan back to conserve Power, Trinity decided on a plan. “We’ll ignore the Crosoians for now. I’ve got to get the force field down. Plot me the safest route and let’s get going.”

  “Compliance.”

  A green line weaving from her position to the dome appeared on her heads-up display.

  “Well, no guts, no glory,” Trinity thought as she jumped to her feet and took off running along the route picked out by her battle computer. She made it to a stack of crates with no problem. From there, Trinity made a dash for a small tractor with four flatbed trailers attached. The trailers were loaded down with meter-and-a-half-long olive-drab metal boxes. She ducked down to wait for three pirates wearing orange pressure suits to pass by. Casting her eyes at one of the metal boxes, Trinity concentrated on the black markings on the side of the nearest container.

  “I can’t read it,” Trinity said. “What’s it say?”

  “Hmm,” replied Jennifer. “It’s Crosoian. The writing says the box contains two forty-watt plasma rifles with calibrated sights and attached grenade launchers. My database indicates they are very advanced models. The Crosoians are not known for giving their best military equipment to other races.”

  The hair on the back of Trinity’s neck stiffened. “Why would the Crosoians be selling it to the pirates? It’s not like they need the money.”

  “Maybe they are not selling it,” replied Jennifer. “Maybe they are giving it to them.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. They’re not allies or anything like that. The Crosoians pretty much stick to themselves when they’re not conquering other empires for the fun of it. Why would the pirates be getting free equipment?”

  “That information is not in my databanks, Wizard Scout. Oh, by the way, the coast is now clear. I calculate you only have twelve seconds before you are discovered if you remain where you are.”

  Leaving the mystery of the Crosoian weapons for later, Trinity left the cover of the tractor and trailers for the next leg of her zigzagging course. She made it to a large generator and from there to a stack of cement blocks. After a short sprint, she was in a prone position on the ground at the side of the dome. A quick check of her passive scan confirmed that the activity of the life forms around her continued to appear normal. She hadn’t been spotted.

  “Now what?” Trinity asked.

  Jennifer laughed. “Now watch me do my magic.”

  Trinity sensed an energy surge from the battle helmet as Jennifer connected to the camp’s computer network. A door-sized section of the dome slid open to reveal a long, metal-walled corridor. Without waiting for an invitation, Trinity jumped to her feet and ran inside. The door slid shut behind her. A camera at the end of the ten-meter-long hall was pointing directly at her. Drawing her pistol and phase rod, Trinity waited for the sound of alarms. None came.

  “I would think by now that you would trust me enough to not lead you into trap,” said Jennifer. “I hacked into the camp’s computer and disabled the camera. Like I said, we are dealing with pirates, not storm troopers. I am a battle computer. The security programs here are no match for my processing power. I can—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Trinity said a little embarrassed that she’d thought she’d been led into a trap. “Save the speech for your retirement ceremony. In the meantime, plot me a route to the force field controls. The sooner we can get Sergeant Ron and the other wizard scouts here to help, the better I’d like it.”

  “Compliance.”

  The heads-up display of the camp switched to an overlay of the dome. The green route went perilously close to the long room near the back of the building. Trinity extended her phase rod so the meter-long length of brerellium steel with its creallium core was out, but she didn’t activate the rod’s phase energy.

  “Smart,” said Jennifer. “There is no use notifying anyone that we are here until we have to.”

  Taking a deep breath, Trinity moved to the end of the hall. It was a ‘T’ intersection with similar halls going left and right. The rightmost hall had two doors in the middle on opposite sides. The leftmost hall was composed of solid walls with no sign of visible doors. The green path on her heads-up display went left. Trinity obediently turned left doing her best to remain quiet. Her stealth shield kept her pretty much invisible from scans, but it didn’t help soften the noise of her boots when they made contact with the metal floor. With her battle suit in activated mode, it basically doubled her weight.

  Scooting as quietly down the hall as she could, Trinity made her way past several life forms that she sensed on the other side of the thin metal walls. She made it to the end of the corridor without being discovered. The hall ended at another ‘T’ intersection. As soon as she stepped into the intersection, alarm bells began echoing throughout the building. The red, orange, and yellow dots on her heads-up display began moving around. Several of the yellow dots turned to orange.

  “The non-combatants are arming themselves,” warned Jennifer. “I recommend that you hurry before the entire camp is armed.”

  Trinity took off running at top speed. She was no longer concerned about noise. Turning right at the intersection, she sprinted down a long hall with several doors on each side.

  “How’d they spot me?” Trinity asked. “I thought you hacked into the security program and disabled the sensors in the hall.”

  “I did,” said Jennifer. “According to the information I am getting from their network, one of the guards patrolling the perimeter of the camp reported odd skid marks at the camp boundary. Apparently someone in charge was smart enough to put two and two together and sound the alarm. The good news is that they do not yet know you are inside the building. It might be best to keep it that way.”

  “Roger that. Contact the other battle computers. Let them know what’s—”

  A side door on the left side of the hall opened as a man and a woman wearing gray uniforms came out. They were both unarmed. Trinity activated her phase rod in stun mode and gave each of the pirates a chop to the neck. They fell unconscious to the floor one atop the other. A second door further down the hall opened. A large man carrying a pistol in his right hand stepped into the hall. His eyes widened as he spotted Trinity coming hell bent for leather straight at him. The pirate raised his pistol and fired twice. Two plasma rounds hit the wall to Trinity’s right befo
re ricocheting down the corridor. Raising her phase pistol, Trinity snapped off a single round. The heavy slug coated in phase energy struck the pirate in the chest, knocking him back into the room from whence he’d come. Coming even with the door, Trinity sensed other lifeforms inside. She fired twice more through the opening as she passed.

  “Arrgh!”

  An orange dot on her heads-up display disappeared. It didn’t matter. A hundred plus yellow dots in the long room near the force field controls were transitioning to orange. Four of the yellow dots turned to red.

  “Some are taking the time to put on their power-armor,” said Jennifer.

  “Ya think?” Trinity snapped as she pulled one of her two antipersonnel grenades off her utility belt and threw it toward the end of the hall. The grenade bounced off the back wall and rolled toward the left side of the ‘T’ intersection before disappearing from sight. A gaggle of orange dots on her heads-up display that was headed for the intersection stopped and began moving in the opposite direction.

  Boom!

  Smoke and debris blew past the intersection. Sprinklers in the ceiling of the hallway activated, spraying a clear liquid into the air.

  “Water?” Trinity asked.

  “Negative,” said Jennifer. “It is a liquid fire suppressant. My analysis indicates it is not toxic to humans. Too bad. It would have been to your advantage if the pirates not in pressure suits had suffocated.”

  “Yeah, too bad. When have I ever been that lucky?”

  “Lots of times,” said Jennifer. “There was that time on Artemis Two when—”

  “Forget it. Put that nanosecond brain of yours to work keeping me alive.”

  “Compliance.”

  Two round metal balls came bouncing around the same corner of the intersection where Trinity had thrown her grenade. The legs of her battle suit stiffened, propelling her through a partially opened doorway. Trinity rolled behind an overturned desk and came face to face with an ashen-faced man and woman wearing white lab coats as they huddled behind the makeshift cover. Neither of the pirate technicians was armed.

  “Nice day for a stroll, eh?” Trinity said.

  Before either of the shocked lab workers could reply, the grenades went off.

  Boom! Boom!

  Reaching out with both hands, Trinity knocked the man and woman’s heads together while taking care not to snap their necks. As the pirates fell to the floor, Trinity rose to her feet and dove through the doorway. Pieces of the ceiling were still falling as four pirates, two in armor and two not, came running around the corner of the intersection with plasma rifles spewing balls of green energy in her direction.

  Drawing Power from her reserve, Trinity formed a defensive shield. She sensed Jennifer angle the shield slightly to the left as she jumped to her feet and charged forward. Balls of plasma energy deflected off her defensive shield before ricocheting down the hall behind her. Thrusting out with her phase rod, Trinity caught the first armored pirate in the chest. Her phase rod glanced off the hard armor, but not before the rod’s phase energy tore the pirate’s internal organs apart with microscopic explosions.

  Kicking out with her left leg, Trinity caught the second armored attacker in the chest. Her kick did no damage, but the force of the blow sent the woman flying back into the two unarmored pirates following close behind. All three of them fell to the floor. As the armored pirate struggled to rise, Trinity bent down and stuck the barrel of her phase pistol against the weak point of the power-armor where the chest plate met the flexible armor around the woman’s neck.

  Boom! Boom!

  The heavy creallium slugs surrounded by red phase energy forced their way through the armor and began bouncing around inside the suit. Trinity didn’t wait to see the results. She turned her pistol on the two unarmored pirates and fired twice. They stopped moving as blood sprayed out the backs of their shattered heads.

  “Recommend you reload,” said Jennifer.

  Even as she pulled a fresh magazine out of the ammo pouch on her utility belt, Trinity said, “I’ve only used seven rounds. I still have ten left.”

  “Nevertheless,” replied Jennifer. “When you need the extra rounds, you may not be in a position to reload. By the way, Sergeant Ron sends his compliments. He says he’s inbound at full throttle. He says to tell you that you have forty-five seconds to get the force field down before the Defiant slams into it, and they all die in the resulting explosion. No pressure.”

  Finishing her reload, Trinity shoved the half-empty magazine back into the empty spot in her ammo pouch and charged around the corner. A half a dozen bodies in bloody uniforms littered the steel deck. She jumped over the bodies and kept running at full speed. A door on the right side opened just as she ran past. Without taking the time to look in, Trinity shoved her phase rod into the opening. She heard a scream and caught a glimpse of a gray uniform and a rifle. Then she was beyond the doorway running for all she was worth. A glance at her heads-up display showed a score of orange and red dots forming in the corridor ahead of her.

  “I’m not going to get to the controls in time at this rate,” Trinity said. “Find me an alternate route.”

  “Compliance.”

  The green path on her heads-up display reformed, taking a hard-right turn into a small room located to her left. She slammed into the door with her shoulder. The thin metal of the door gave way to the force of her battle suit’s assistors. As the door fell inward, Trinity glanced around at what appeared to be a small maintenance room. There was no exit.

  “Hey, what gives?” Trinity said.

  “Relax, oh ye of little faith,” said Jennifer. “Think three dimensional. We are going down. I should also mention that you have thirty-one seconds to get to the controls before the Defiant hits the force field.”

  Glancing at the floor, Trinity spotted a ‘U’-shaped bar of metal near the corner of the room. Jerking up on the obvious handle, a meter-square piece of the floor came up in her hands. She threw the cover aside and bunny-hopped into the hole. She didn’t drop far. After three meters, her booted feet hit the sloping sides of a round tunnel that had been dug into the asteroid’s black rock. Long, narrow pipes ran along the length of the tunnel with smaller pipes branching off into openings at the top of the tube.

  “This is a maintenance tunnel,” said Jennifer. “Now get moving, Wizard Scout. You are down to twenty-seven seconds.”

  The green path appeared on the overlay of the tube on her heads-up display. It led in the direction of the long room near the controls for the force field. The green path stopped short of the long room. Trinity made a quick calculation of her max speed and the distance remaining to the end of the green path.

  “There’s not enough time to find a way into the room with the controls,” Trinity said. “Not to mention fighting my way through a score of pirates to get to them.”

  “Change of plans,” said Jennifer. “Just get to the end of the green path. You still have time.”

  Running at max speed, Trinity ran down the dark tunnel past several openings in the ceiling. The end of the green path on her heads-up display drew ever closer. At the same time, the counter on her heads-up display grew smaller; fifteen seconds, ten seconds, eight seconds. She reached the end of the green path. Skidding to a stop, Trinity looked overhead. There was no opening; no ladder; nothing. There was only a small pipe branching off one of the larger pipes into the ceiling above.

  “Destroy the smaller pipe,” said Jennifer. “It contains the energy line for the force field’s controls. I calculate an eighty-eight percent probability cutting off the energy for the controls will disable the force field.”

  Taking a hard swing with her phase rod, Trinity slammed the end of the creallium rod into the smaller pipe at the point where the metal pipe entered the ceiling. Sparks of phase energy filled the tunnel as the metal pipe broke in two. Trinity glanced at the timer on her heads up display; two seconds, one second—”

  Boom!

  The tunnel vibrated as
pieces of black rock fell from the ceiling.

  A lump grew in Trinity’s throat. “Was that the Defiant?”

  “Negative,” replied Jennifer. “That was one of the Defiant’s torpedoes hitting the pirates’ plasma cannon. Sergeant Ron’s making a high-speed pass and dropping off the other wizard scouts as he goes. I highly recommend you make your way up and join them. I calculate a zero percent probability that the remaining pirates will stand a chance against six wizard scouts backed up by the Defiant’s hundred gigawatt plasma cannons.”

  A view of the fighting above ground appeared in the shared space of Trinity’s mind as Jennifer forwarded images from the other battle computers. It didn’t take long for Trinity to figure out that her battle computer was right. The pirates on the surface were ill equipped to deal with multiple wizard scouts and a heavily armed recon ship.

  Looking around for the nearest ladder, she spotted one twenty meters back. She ran to the ladder and started up. Within seconds she was back inside the dome. She’d come out of the maintenance tunnel only a couple of steps behind a group of pirates. They were apparently getting organized for a charge against the other wizard scouts. Trinity spotted a pirate near the back of the formation holding a small-bore autocannon.

  Apparently sensing something amiss, the pirate turned around. His eyes grew large as he came face to face with Trinity. He tried swinging his autocannon in her direction, but the barrel caught on the legs of the pirate standing next to him. Striking out with her phase rod, Trinity hit the first pirate in the side of the head. She levitated his autocannon to her waiting hands and lined the barrel up on the back of the pirate formation. Shocked pirates began shouting and turning their weapons in her direction.

  Too late, Trinity thought as she flipped the autocannon’s safety to the off position.

  Then she pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 10 – Hope

  _________________

  Nearly the entire town’s population of two thousand turned out to hear Anna as she stood on the offering platform alongside Connor and his uncle. Why his uncle had accepted the job of mayor, Anna didn’t have a clue. Regardless, it had worked to her advantage. Although it had taken most of the three days since the Donovan had returned them to Talos to convince the mayor to let her talk to her fellow citizens, he’d finally agreed. Now that she had the chance to speak, she wasn’t sure what to say.