by Doug Hoffman
“What?”
“From Go Rin No Sho, the Book of Five Rings by master swordsman Miyamoto Musashi.”
“The samurai philosopher?”
“Hai. He was once attacked by ten swordsmen and he killed them all. It is said that he wandered the land dressed in rags, left his hair unkempt, and would not bathe for fear of being ambushed in the bathtub.”
“And the lesson in that is?”
“Beware of poorly dressed, smelly swordsmen.” Mizuki paused to see if Bobby would comment. He did not. She continued.
“His sword technique was lost because he never started a school to train apprentices. Most of his writings are very zen and often impenetrable to western minds, but some of his saying are quite perceptive.”
“And he would advise us to strike...”
“...when our opponents least expect it.”
“I figure they will take us to a cell or some place where they think it safe to release us before removing this crap.”
“But you have devised a way to remove the crap earlier than they expect.”
“Right. We're still moving upward so we are probably in one of those elevator shafts. Hard to fight in mid air.”
“They will have to exit the shaft at a platform and then drag us to where they will try to interrogate us.”
“So the place to break out is right after we get out of the elevator and onto a landing.”
“Yes, they will probably relax, having almost reached their destination. We will take them by surprise.”
“Does Musashi-san say what to do when you achieve surprise?”
“Cut your opponents strongly.”
“Got it. Send another neutrino pulse, I have a feeling things are going to get a bit busy when we reach the landing.”
“Hai.”
“And Mizuki?”
“Yes, Bobby?”
“I love you.”
Chapter 20
Main Plaza
“The computer says that Dr. Ogawa and Cmdr. Danner are now in the next spire over?”
“That is correct, Ice Castle. They are still moving and we have the SEALs standing by for an extraction.”
“Will that be enough? We killed at least fifty aliens of several different types fighting off the ambush.”
“The plan is to have the SEALs locate the abductees. Once they have eyes on, they will decide if they can do an extraction or if we need to send more assets. Over.”
“I copy, Peggy Sue. Both squads are clearing the shopping mall, shop by shop, to make sure there are no surprises left. One or both squads can be back to the shuttles in twenty minutes, just give the word.”
“Roger, Ice Castle. We will advise. Peggy Sue, out.”
JT shut off the comm channel to the ship. “Well crap. It sounds like the SEALs are going to try and spring Ogawa and Danner.”
“Hell, we lost 'em, the Captain should at least give us the opportunity to get 'em back.” The Gunny was as embarrassed about losing the officers as JT was.
“I hear you, Gunny. But the Captain wasn't in a mood to take requests. How is clearing the site coming?”
“We've found some more of those big rodent things...”
“Hoon?”
“Yeah, and a pair of octopus looking critters that our pet weasel says are called Orloo.”
“But no hostiles?”
“No live ones. We've just about finished, you want to send a couple of fireteams down to the lower levels?”
“No, not until we see how the hostage situation plays out. We may need to pull back to the shuttles and go reinforce the SEALs. By the way, how's Inuksuk?”
“He's guarding the main plaza, mainly because he's hurt worse than he will admit.”
“Yeah, male polar bears are like that. Supposedly because showing any weakness out on the Arctic ice can get you attacked by your fellow ursines.”
“Sounds like the neighborhood where I grew up, only colder. In any case the last time someone asked how he was he muttered something in Sami. PFC Takala said it roughly translated as 'I will kill you and eat your livers'.”
“Great. Unless we have to evacuate, let's let grouchy bears lie.”
“Roger that. So where are the officers supposed to be?”
“Over there.” JT motioned toward a large expanse of crystalline wall, through which more of the station could be seen. “In that next large spire.”
Mizuki & Bobby
They both felt the change in motion as their encased bodies were pulled from the elevator and onto the landing. As soon as movement ceased, Bobby shouted, “Now!”
Triggering the programed sequence of shield pulses, both Mizuki and Bobby were shook by violent vibrations and a sound like dueling jackhammers. As Bobby had hoped, the concentrated repulsive bursts from their shields shattered the hardened material around them. Blocks of petrified foam flew from their suits in all directions.
Bobby took a tentative step forward, knocking rock hard rubble aside. In front of him were several little gray men and a large cat-lizard thing. The cat-lizard reacted first, springing toward him, fanged mouth agape, swiping at his head with a large clawed paw.
Next to Bobby, Mizuki moved forward, sliding her feet as kendōka are taught. Reflexively, her hands reached over her head and drew her katana as a second cat-lizard sprung toward her. She met its leap with a diagonal cut that started on the creature's left shoulder and exited its right side. The Earthlings' swords were constructed from a carbon-metallic nanocomposite, stronger than steel and scalpel sharp. A wedge containing the cat-lizard's head, right arm, and part of its rib cage fell away from the rest of its body, coming to rest atop fractured cement near the edge of the platform.
The remaining, larger portion of the attacking cat-lizard continued forward, its hindquarters not yet aware that its head had gone missing. Lung and viscera spilled from the diagonal wound that split its body. Mizuki ducked and spun, gliding to her right, allowing the dead beast to continue past her. It tripped over its other half and the still squirming corpse went over the platform edge, disappearing out of sight.
Bobby was not the swordsman that Mizuki was but remnants of foam still blocked access to his pistol. He drew his sword single handed and removed his attacker's extended left arm with a downward stroke. The cat-lizard yowled and stood up straight in front of him, staring at the stump where its arm had been. Bobby stepped forward, grasped his katana with both hands, and struck the three meter long monster in front of him with a horizontal cut from right to left.
The blade of Bobby's sword caught the cat-lizard just below the rib cage, cutting its long, slender body to the backbone. The yowling stopped as intestines and unidentifiable organs spilled from the gaping wound. The creature toppled to Bobby's right.
As he had been taught by his wife, Bobby followed through with the belly cut and brought his blade to an upright position above his left shoulder, ready for a follow up strike. The cat-lizard didn't require another blow, but over its fallen carcase three slender gray bipeds with large heads and almond shaped eyes charged at the swordsman.
Mizuki, having dispatched her primary opponent, finished dodging its falling body and ended in a position facing four of the gray humanoids. With hands arched into talons and open mouths displaying an unreasonable number of needle like teeth the creatures attacked.
Hopping nimbly over a large chunk of hardened foam, Mizuki moved among the gray creatures like a wraith, her sword a continuous silver blur describing sideways figure eights. She moved beyond the attackers and halted. Behind her four gray bodies fell, transformed into eight large pieces.
Lacking his wife's artistry with the katana, Bobby simply cut the head off the first of his gray attackers. Its head spun away, end over end, and bounced across the floor. The next two he took with the return stroke, catching the first across the jaw line and the second at the temple. The upper portions of both heads flew away, their owners dropping like puppets whose strings had been cut. That threat dealt with, he finis
hed removing the shards of hardened foam that clung to his armor.
Looking across the platform, Mizuki spotted another group of the gray humanoids clustered near a wide door. Unlike those she and Bobby had just dispatched these carried some form of weaponry. Knowing she could not cross the ten meters to where the gray men stood before they fired, she shouted: “Bobby!”
Her husband spotted the new threat milliseconds after Mizuki. Leaving his sword in his left hand Bobby went for his pistol. His suit sensing his action, popped open the security cover exposing the weapon's grip.
There is a mystique surrounding quick-draw gunfighters in the American Old West—who was the fastest gun alive? In modern times, Bob Munden was given the title “Fastest Man with a Gun Who Ever Lived,” by the Guinness Book World Records. With a draw and shoot time of 0.15 seconds he claimed he was the fastest shot in history. Bobby had naturally quick reflexes—they were part of what made him such an exceptional pilot—but those reflexes had been enhanced by T'aafhal medical technology. His nerve responses were more than twice as fast as a normal human's. Even encumbered by armor he drew and fired the 10mm railgun pistol at his waist in under one tenth of a second.
Bobby fired four times in rapid succession. The first round struck the closest armed humanoid, who was pointing what looked like a plasma rifle at the Earthlings. Its chest and upper torso vanished in a bright yellow flash—the 10mm slugs from Bobby's pistol were filled with a nano-engineered explosive-oxidant mix pumped to elevated orbital energy levels for extra yield. Weapon, head, and arms all flew in different directions.
The other gray hostile with a weapon suffered the same fate. The last two rounds exploded in the crowd of aliens, killing three and wounding an unknown number. The hostiles who could, fled.
“You OK, sweetheart?”
“Yes, Bobby. And you?”
“Yep. Let's find a way out of this place.”
“It is either the door, or back down the elevator.”
“The elevator is too exposed.”
“Hai, we should head to the outer wall of the spire and call the ship to come get us.”
“Sounds like a plan to me, Mizuki-chan. You notice that the little gray guys bleed blue?”
“Yes, it is very pretty. The big cat-lizards bled red though.”
“OK, just making sure I'm not seeing things.”
Mizuki looked over the carnage around her mate. “You did well with your sword, I am proud of you.”
Bobby holstered his pistol, flicked the blood off his katana, and resheathed it. “You may want to make sure you can get to your sidearm. Swords against plasma rifles is a bit too exciting for my tastes.”
Mizuki harrumphed. “You are becoming an old fuddy-duddy. But I still love you.”
“And I love you, my crazy little samurai. After you sweetheart.”
The couple stepped over the scattered body parts and headed for the door.
Keti, Grits, & Brains
After following the drag marks made by Mizuki and Bobby's abduction to the open hole of a service elevator, the three Marines fanned out to secure the surrounding area. Rounding a corner a lone Karf jumped from hiding and fired a plasma bolt at Keti. Keti's armor lit up, surrounded by a nimbus of orange flame.
Grits quickly raised his 15mm and fired a three shot burst of beehive rounds. Beehive rounds are like shotgun shells, packed with multiple flechettes that spread-out when fired. The flechette pattern had widened to almost three meters when it reached the gray attacker. The velocity of the flechettes was not high enough to penetrate Keti's armor, but more than energetic enough to perforate the Karf. Its body was riddled, blood and tissue painting an abstract blue pattern on the wall behind it.
“Hey, I never noticed before but these little gray peckerwoods bleed blue.”
“You're right, mate,” Brains replied. “In nature, copper turns things blue or blue-green. Horseshoe crabs have a copper-based molecule called hemocyanin to distribute oxygen instead of hemoglobin like we do. That’s why their blood is blue. These gits must be copper-based as well.”
“Fascinating, you two. But next time shoot the bastards before they shoot me.”
“Then don't get so far out ahead of us, luv.”
Keti waved an arm to silence the two men. “I've got movement.”
The three Marines spread out into positions with clearer fields of fire and prepared to receive whatever Keti's sensors had detected. Around that same corner the Karf had appeared from a two meter wide disk, surrounded by stubby short arms, slid around the corner. It was about a third of a meter thick and was colored a shocking pink.
“Hold your fire!” Grits called. “It don't seem hostile.”
“What the hell is that?” Keti demanded, as the fringed saucer seemed to glide across the floor toward the body of the freshly killed Karf. Reaching the body, the strange creature slid over top of the fallen Karf, covering it entirely. The hot pink discus began to spin slowly and move in widening circles.
“I think the bloody thing is cleaning up the floor.”
“I think you're right, Bubba. Look it's moving over to the wall.”
Sure enough, the pink beast slid over to the wall and then slithered upward until it covered the blue splatter put there by Grits's earlier efforts. It slid smoothly back down the wall and onto the floor. The blue wall splatter was gone.
“It's some kind of alien street sweeper,” Keti marveled. “Didn't 2nd squad say something about finding an alien vacuum cleaner?”
“Yeah, but nothing that big. What they found was more like a Roomba.”
The sweeper, now with a noticeable bulge in its center, moved off down the hall toward the site of the ambush the trio had broken up earlier. From around the corner came a second, and then a third of the disk shaped things, all heading toward the big hall and presumably the plaza beyond.
Brains keyed his comm on the squad frequency. “This is Davis, there are a number of large, hot pink, fringed Frisbees headed your way. They are not, repeat, not hostile. They seem to be the custodial staff.”
SEALs, Small Shuttle
Chief Morgan, PO Bud Jones, and PO Phil Kowalski were seated in the passenger compartment of the Captain's pinnace, a small shuttle about the size of a corporate jet. On the flight deck Lt. JG Pauline Palmer guided the small craft on a looping course around several minor spires, a stealthy approach to the major spire where the hostages were located. Over the comm, Captain Vincent was briefing them on the objective.
“According to Peggy Sue, the missing officers are moving higher within the spire, on a somewhat erratic course. Our tracking info is sketchy at best, since we only get a ping every few minutes, but this seems a strange route for their captors to be taking.”
“Meaning you thing that they may have escaped, Sir?” asked Morgan. Each of the three SEALs was looking at a holographic projection of the Starflake showing the ragged path marked by Mizuki's neutrino signals.
“We don't know, Chief. They are still deep inside the core of the spire. The interior construction seems to be made of metal, which could continue to block communications.”
“Aye, Sir. We will bring along a recon drone to scout ahead and scatter comm repeaters along the way. We still may end up losing contact.”
“Understood. We've been scanning the exterior of the spire with optical sensors and it looks like there may be airlocks at the locations here and here.” Two green dots lit up on the model. “They don't seem large enough to accept the pinnace.”
“We planned for that, Captain. We are wearing maneuvering modules on our suits. If the boat can just pull up close to the spire and let us out, we can EVA over to it.”
“Roger that, Chief. We'll keep sending you position updates on your targets. Report when you are ready to leave the shuttle.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.” Switching to the shuttle's internal comm he addressed the pilot. “You get all that, Lieutenant?”
“Aye, Chief. I've got the surface active camo on and will sneak u
p next to the spire real causal like. I'll come to a hover next to one of the locks and you fellas can just hop out and do your thing.”
“Sounds like a plan, Ma'am. We're standing by.”
Chapter 21
Mizuki & Bobby, Karf Spire
The two former captives were about to ascend a stairway to the next higher floor when they came under fire for the third time since escaping. Angry orange plasma bolts splattered off the walls as Bobby covered Mizuki's escape up the spiral staircase.
“Be careful, Mizuki-chan, they may be waiting for us at the top.”
“Don't worry, I am ready,” she replied, drawing her pistol. Though she preferred her sword, and was not a quick draw like her husband, Mizuki was a perfectly competent marksman with pistol or rifle.
Bobby fired a couple more rounds to keep their pursuers' heads down and started up the stairs himself. Halfway up he paused and stuck a small object to the inside of the spiral—a grenade. Pressing the arming button the explosive device began to blink, telling him he had five seconds to clear the area before its motion sensor became active. He sprinted up the stairs three steps at a time.
“We need to move out of the stairwell.”
“We are clear, Bobby, I see no enemy ahead.”
He exited the staircase and followed his wife down the curving hallway. “Don't these little shits ever build anything with straight lines? Curved halls, spiral staircases, and the damned steps are too close together.”
“They are smaller than us, and lack of straight halls keeps them from being pinned down by weapons fire.”
“It also hides enemies sneaking up on you.”
“So far, they are the ones sneaking up on us.”
As the hallway curved back to the left an open doorway appeared. A bored looking Karf with a plasma rifle stood guard on either side of the portal. Without hesitation, Mizuki shot them both.
“I wonder what needs an armed guard in the middle of their home territory?” The explosions from Mizuki's shots did not trigger an attack from beyond the guarded portal and the door itself remained open. Providing counterpoint to Mizuki's attack, another explosion echoed down the hallway from the direction they had come.