“Jess, what about the drones?”
“No idea, I think the Major’s got it covered. I’m in the elevator now, thirty seconds.”
Arime’s handball relayed him a view of two corridor approaches behind him on the far side of Medbay — he’d stuck the spherical remotes to walls and corners and had the whole thing covered, visually at least. But it was still a lot for one person.
Enhanced audio heard something from the hydroponics bay ahead. He couldn’t see most of it from the corridor, just leafy fronds from rows of multi-level planted beds, waving in a faint breeze from nearby airvents. There again, the audio gave him a visual spike, software confirming what ears alone could not. Arime turned up the sensitivity and was nearly deafened by a small control-rattle from one of his armoured legs as a myomer actuator hypertensed. He turned down the armour settings to ‘stealth mode’, which all marines knew was something of a joke, but at least standing still it allowed acoustic settings to go higher without interference. But now, past the dull hum of his suit’s powerplant, he heard nothing.
“Jess,” he murmured. “I think something’s in the hydroponics bay. Careful opening that door, my coverage doesn’t go past five metres to your right.”
A rear sensor blanked, one handball offline. Then the other, and ahead something popped, then a crack of metal bouncing off the curved wall, the angle heading straight for him. Arime knew he couldn’t dodge, braced against the wall, flipped fire control to grenades and pulled the trigger repeatedly even as the blast knocked him back and sideways, blinding all senses. The suit snapped itself from stealth mode without having to be told and he flipped back to rifle and put several shots through the corridor wall ahead to deter any advance.
“Jess, I lost coverage on your position!” he yelled. “Coordinated assault, in front and behind, don’t leave the elevator!” If they’d seen her coming down, he thought desperately, they’d probably timed it to ambush her. The thought sent him backward, pumping several more grenades for cover as fire hit the wall to his right, shots tearing through hydroponics on the way, sending plants and tubes scattering.
He scrambled back around the bend to the Medbay door, the elevator on the opposing wall of the intersection just beyond… a grenade airburst just before him, rattling armour with shrapnel as Arime ducked to an armour-supported squat and returned fire, but right-handed he didn’t have the angle around the right-curving corridor…
More explosions and heavy fire, tacnet showing him Rolonde’s position in the elevator car, difficult to read what level she was on from the top-down view, but evidently it was this one because there was holy hell exploding ahead. Then from behind came an awful screech and howl that most human marines had never heard in combat, but Arime knew only too well. He flattened against the wall and looked back, as opposite the hydroponics bay flailed a tangle of spidery limbs, and the shriek of huge vibroblade forelegs sent bits of corridor cladding and parren armoured limbs flying in all directions.
And then he could see them on tacnet — two innocuous blue dots, like any friendly units, dancing in the corridor amid several red dots that flickered and died. A brief thunder of rapid cannon and a last red dot vanished, then armoured feet clattered on the floor and walls, twin hacksaw drones moving with astonishing dexterity in his direction.
“Yo Peanut!” yelled Arime, indicating with his left hand to the far wall. “Covering fire, right here buddy! Bucket, get close, right behind me!”
Peanut screeched to a halt where Arime indicated, claws gripping for brakes in the low-G against the left-side wall, angled twin rotary cannon over his shoulders and fired. Corridor walls ahead disintegrated, and Arime switched his rifle to left-handed carry for a better angle, pressing forward along the wall as rapid fire tore past his left shoulder and return fire came back from somewhere within the carnage ahead.
Arime pinpointed it and fired, blew a parren armour suit nearly in half, then Bucket came charging past as Peanut’s fire stopped, Arime following. More shooting as the drone fronted an intersection corridor, then Arime got an angle on the hard-left corridor, saw one parren bounding away and put a round through his back. And then there was silence, save for bits of shredded corridor wall collapsing, and electrical fires breaking out from severed wiring.
“Jess!” Arime edged toward the elevator doorway, not taking his eyes off the adjoining corridors. “Jess, you okay?”
“Hey, is that Bucket?” She stepped out alongside him, armour scratched from shrapnel, the elevator doorframe chewed as though by some giant, hungry animal. “Where the hell did they get guns?”
“Styx,” Arime suggested, gasping air. “Wild guess.”
“Fuck me,” said Rolonde, looking at the devastation, and the multiple parren bodies on the ground. “These guys really aren’t armoured for this shit.”
“We’re barely armoured for this shit,” Arime agreed.
“You okay?” Rolonde asked him with concern.
“Yeah sure, why not?” He knew he couldn’t really answer the question for a few minutes yet. When the adrenaline went up like this, it drowned out all other sensation, pain included. “Where’s Peanut?”
The second drone hadn’t followed him in. Arime looked back the way he’d come and saw Peanut on the floor, writhing in distress, several legs missing. Arime swore and went back that way. Kneeling, he found himself face-to-face with those hacksaw rotary cannons — only small calibre to maximise ammunition capacity, but with muzzle velocity to turn armour to swiss cheese.
The shot had hit Peanut along the left torso, where a shoulder might be on a human. One of his forward manipulator arms was gone, and the main vibroblade leg too, with intricate armour stripped in a furrow down his side. Fluid was leaking, a slow ooze from many thousands of synthetic capillaries that looked disconcertingly like blood. The drone’s head darted and squirmed, now looking up at him with what might be hope of reassurance.
“Hey Peanut,” said Arime, disconcerted further at how distressed he felt to see it. “You’re gonna be fine, buddy. We’ll take you back downstairs and get you fixed, you’ll be just like new. You did real good, saved my ass for sure.”
“Careful Irfy,” said Rolonde, still guarding the intersection, now far enough for coms only. “Bucket’s coming back.”
Arime looked around and saw Bucket springing lightly up the corridor… and thought it might be an idea to get out of the way. Neither drone had been properly trained for combat that humans knew of, but here they were, fully armed and capable. Styx’s doing, no doubt, and while Arime was grateful for it, neither did he want to stand directly in front of it with weapons primed.
Bucket stopped before his wounded comrade and considered him. A spike appeared on local coms, something alien and high-density, utterly untranslatable. Peanut stopped writhing, picked himself up awkwardly on remaining legs, then shuffled to retrieve his detached limbs. Arime wondered what Bucket had said. If ‘said’ was the correct term. When drones talked, their speech was data. Data also programmed and reprogrammed. What humans would take as suggestions, drones could take as commands, depending on who’d issued it. Humans talked, but drones remote-controlled. But Bucket was no higher rank than Peanut. Who was truly in charge? Or was it an equal-ranked hive mind of some sort?
They’d been around these strange, frightening aliens for so long now, but still they knew so little. Only Styx could talk properly, and she was so good at disguising what she really thought that you couldn’t trust a damn thing she said.
“Irfy, it’s the Major,” Arime’s earpiece informed him. “Sitrep?”
“We got charged, Major. Me and Jess are good, Peanut and Bucket came to help, didn’t even know they were here, I guess Styx sent them. Peanut’s hurt… damaged, whatever… think he’ll be okay.”
“Good work, all of you. Charlie Two-Three are on their way to relieve you. Once you hand off, go down and check on Styx, take Peanut and Bucket with you. I’ve had only cryptic comments from her, I think there was some trouble
down there but it’s not showing up on tacnet. And guys, be careful.”
“Major, shouldn’t Irfy stay here?” Rolonde suggested.
“I’m fine,” Arime retorted.
“Sorry, but I want you two with the drones. You know them better. And Styx.”
They took another elevator down, as the one Rolonde had ridden in was a wreck. And it was surreal, Arime and Rolonde squeezed in with two hacksaw drones, two humans in amidst the tangle of legs that splayed about the car for balance as the downward acceleration began. Attempting to contact Styx brought no reply, which was very disconcerting given how she’d been the one to get the tower’s systems back online. So she’d been functional until just recently, and now fell silent? If she’d been attacked and required help, she would have reported it — Styx was neither proud nor suicidal, just ruthlessly practical. Maybe that was why the Major kind of liked her, Arime thought. It wasn’t a thought to share on coms.
As the car decelerated, they heard from the Major again. “Guys, I’ve just learned that a section of Lien Wang’s marines have diverted to the basement to give you cover, they’ve come down the third elevator. They did not do so on my orders. I do not judge them hostile but be very careful of them around the kids.”
“We copy, Major,” said Arime.
“Great,” Rolonde muttered. “They diverted to come and get a look at Styx themselves.”
“If you came all the way out here, and heard our story, wouldn’t you?” Arime replied.
The car halted on the basement level, opening onto an expanse of engineering levels, wide floors and machinery, infrastructure for this and the adjoining towers, mostly the life support that the original drysine owners of Defiance had permitted the organic inhabitants to maintain on their own. Directly ahead, tacnet showed blue dots, and Rolonde took the lead, holding up a hand for caution.
“Hello Lien Wang marines,” she said. “We are Privates Rolonde and Arime of Phoenix Company Command Squad, who’s there?”
“Hello Command Squad,” came the reply, audible only on coms at a further distance. “This is Master Sergeant Arianne of the UFS Holbein, currently assigned to Lien Wang. We have parren casualties on the ground, we’re watching the corners and waiting for you guys.”
“Lien Wang,” said Rolonde, “be advised that we have alien friendlies with us. Do not be alarmed and for god’s sake do not point your weapons at them.”
She indicated to move forward, taking point as Bucket followed, then the limping Peanut, with Arime walking mostly backward, swivelling his Koshaim side to side while watching the rear. Ahead he heard an exclamation on coms.
“Holy shit,” said someone else.
“This is Bucket, that’s Peanut,” said Rolonde. “Peanut’s hurt, we’re getting him home for repairs. In the engineering space are Wowser and Styx, also friendly. Be polite.”
Arime arrived at the meeting spot between huge air pipes and processors, and glanced around to see four unfamiliar marines in full armour, all paying far less attention to their perimeter than they should. They were staring at Bucket and Peanut. Arime had to remind himself that there had once been a time when hacksaws of any kind had been little more than a rumour, a ghost story told by Fleet veterans to frighten the greenhorns. Everyone knew that the Machine Age had been a real thing, but they knew it the way that a Homeworld resident might know that the last ice age had been a real thing — so long ago and far distant from everyday reality that it may as well have never happened. Until it came around a corner and stared you in the face, vibroblades, many legs, rotary cannon and all, powerplants humming like a distant swarm of wasps.
On the ground between the Lien Wang marines were several parren of the same armour and insignia as the Incefahd parren they’d seen upstairs. Their armour had been chewed by multiple high velocity rounds, and there was matching damage on the surrounding pipes and processors. Evidently it hadn’t been enough to endanger the tower’s lifesupport or there’d have been warnings.
“Looks like rapid fire, high velocity,” said Sergeant Arianne, eyeing the parren’s damaged armour, then looking at the twin cannon on Bucket and Peanut.
“That’ll be Wowser, I think,” said Rolonde. “Entrance is there… hang on a moment.” She switched channels. “Styx? It’s Jess and Irfy, we’re outside with four Lien Wang marines, what’s the situation here?”
“Hello Jess,” came Styx’s cool voice on coms. “We had a small encounter, a few ill-advised parren made a probe into the basement. All have been dealt with, I did not see the point in troubling the Major with it.”
Arime frowned. Tacnet would usually contribute data into the broader network automatically. If the Major did not know that there had been a firefight down here, it meant that Styx, locally at least, had turned it off. What was going on?
“I copy that Styx,” said Rolonde. “We’re coming in now.” She walked forward, rifle at cross-arms and muzzle down, standard carry position for the huge Koshaims so they didn’t catch on clutter. It was not an entirely relaxed carry position, however, and the Lien Wang marines seemed to get the idea, all falling in behind with Arime, letting Rolonde and the drones go first. Largely, Arime thought, they just wanted to look at the drones for longer. If they thought a couple of standard drysine combat drones were impressive, they were going to love what came next.
Peanut kept trying to turn sideways as he limped, to look at these strange new marines. He looked to Arime like an anxious dog in new company, wondering if the newcomers were friendly. “Don’t worry Peanut,” he told the drone. “They’re friends. All humans are friends.” Which was, he thought, perhaps the biggest lie he could ever tell a hacksaw drone.
“Hello Wowser,” said Rolonde to the third drone, who stood in the middle of the floor with a good vantage, twin cannon scanning elsewhere. Wowser did not even acknowledge their presence. Peanut was the least accomplished, technically speaking, but at least Peanut responded to people in ways a human might think he understood. Wowser was all alien drone, all the time, and it sometimes gave Arime the creeps.
Peanut stumbled and crashed into a fabricator as he lost balance, clearly disoriented. “Here buddy, hold my arm,” Arime told him, offering his right for the remaining manipulator arms to grab. “I’ll lead you.” And he flipped coms to talk to the bridge once more. “This is Private Arime, we need a tech down here asap, I don’t know if a drone’s damage gets worse the longer he’s not treated but Peanut’s in some trouble.”
“He will be fine,” said a cool, familiar voice from across the bay. An audible voice, not a coms transmission. “His systems will not suffer irreversible damage if repairs commence shortly, self-maintenance has already begun. He will sleep now.”
Peanut immediately curled into a corner between fabricators and powered down. That had been a command, Arime realised, not a suggestion. Just in case anyone was stupid enough to forget who the drones really answered to.
“Styx?” Rolonde asked, advancing past Wowser and the Lien Wang marines toward where Styx was, behind the big armour-plate assembler. “What are you doing back there?”
“An experiment,” said Styx. “One I did not think humans would approve of.” Arime heard Rolonde’s small gasp, and bounced quickly over. Behind the big-framed, multi-armed assembler, Styx loomed over her prey like a mantis upon a new kill. As Arime came closer, he saw that the object of her attention was a parren armour suit. This parren armour suit was missing all four limbs. Styx’s vibroblades, twin weapons half-as-large again as the drones’, hummed with recent activity, and the stubs of the parren’s arms and legs glowed hot on IR vision.
“Holy mother of god,” said Sergeant Arianne when he saw her. All four Lien Wang marines stood frozen where they’d moved behind for a view. Arime turned, and was close enough to see their eyes through the armoured visors. Several registered outright shock of the kind that could quickly turn to unreasonable fear.
“Don’t move,” Arime told them. “Don’t be threatening. Whatever she looks like
, she’s a member of the crew and she’s got more right to be here than you do. And she will defend herself.” With all four marines focused on Styx, none had seen Wowser climbing to a high vantage on a fabricator behind, twin cannon angled in what was suspiciously close to a covering position. And here to the side was Bucket, less aggressive, but between him and Wowser they now had the Lien Wang marines in a fatal crossfire if they chose. Styx did not leave things to chance and human judgement. Styx always took precautions.
Beneath her claws, the parren suit was still moving. Struggling, trying to protest. “Styx?” Rolonde said coldly. “Is that parren still alive?”
“The suit has kept him that way, yes. The gels retard blood loss, as with your marine armour. Drugs and implants fight the shock. But this one’s lack of response to my questions has been simple stubbornness. Drysines did always find that a most AI-like quality, among parren. House Harmony have it most, though House Fortitude are close. If this one were House Creative, he would have answered my questions by now.”
Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five) Page 11