“Shit!” Tag yelled. “Check the ducts!”
One of the Mechanics raised his wrist at a vent. Flame started to roll from his wrist-mounted barrels. The puff of fire did nothing to stop the pillar of Dreg bursting from the vent and slamming into the Mechanic’s body. Tag fired into several of the Dreg then used his rifle to bat them away and smash them against the bulkhead. The Mechanic was being buried under the aliens. Flames spurted intermittently from his flailing limbs, but he was quickly losing his battle.
“Oh no,” Gorenado said. He started charging, building up momentum, and threw himself into the pile of Dreg. He burst from the other side, clutching the Mechanic by one arm.
“Keep going!” Tag yelled. “Run!”
Bull bounded ahead and barreled into the oncoming Dreg. He shoved through their bodies like a man fighting a gale. A Mechanic next to him matched his stride and used his flamethrower like a shield, breaking the ranks of Dreg before them. The group ran across the park, firing periodically in wild volleys as Dreg swirled down from the ceilings and descended on the squad like ravenous locusts. Carried by inertia and unbridled ferocity, the Dreg flung themselves at the group, and the impacts of their bodies smashed against Tag’s armor, over and over. Through his suit, the grinding of their saw-blade–like teeth resonated in his ears. Their weight dragged on him as they plopped onto his suit and stuck to him like leeches. Lactic acid built up in his muscles as he pushed himself across the dead lawn. He willed himself to fight past the pain creeping into his legs, and even with fresh oxygen pumping into his suit and adrenaline flowing through his blood, his lungs burned. A coppery taste filled his mouth.
“We’re almost there!” he yelled, his throat raw and scratchy. He said it as much to his crew as to himself. Get to the next corridor, slow the flow of the Dreg, lose a few of the bastards clinging to my suit. Just put that on repeat for a little longer.
The grinding and gnawing sounded louder until he heard a pop. Air rushed from a hole in his left leg, and coldness snuck in to replace it. The sounds of gunfire and the yells of the crew were muffled by the din of the Dreg attack. One of the aliens slapped onto his visor, and he reached up with a Dreg-covered arm to rip it off. A hatch appeared before him, just ten meters away. There it was, their escape, their temporary refuge. Two forms sprinted ahead, each covered in squirming Dreg. It was impossible to tell if they were Mechanic or marine. More shapes rushed past him, and flames hissed through the blizzard of Dreg behind him, providing an ephemeral barrier against the rest of the swarm. The Mechanics and marines beside him flung Dreg off each other, throwing themselves against the bulkhead to smash them and stomping those that came loose. Tag gasped as he struggled against the aliens. Each breath seemed weaker than the last. He was losing too much air too fast.
A sharp agony tore into him, and lightning zigzagged up his nerves. He let out a tormented yell. His vision churned in pulsating shades of red, and he reached down to grab the culprit. One of the Dreg had punctured the leg of his suit and was boring into his flesh. Tag peeled the creature off, and blood drizzled from its circular jaws, forming crimson icicles. The cold worked itself into Tag’s torn skin, and dizziness muddled his senses, the whole station fading and tilting around him. He fell against a bulkhead, fighting the blackness threatening to overtake his consciousness.
They were almost there. Almost back to the ships and almost off this hellhole. They had to make it. Had to.
And if they did, then finally they’d be—
“Captain!” Alpha’s voice pierced the rampant confusion flooding his mind. “We have incoming contacts. More hostiles!”
“Dreg?” Tag managed. The word felt clumsy on his tongue as he staggered forward.
“No, not Dreg. Drone-Mech!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Drone-Mech?” Tag repeated. He must have heard her wrong. The agony, the lack of oxygen. It was all adding to the confusion drowning his brain. There was no way the Drone-Mechs had randomly followed them here. No way.
“Yes, Captain,” Alpha said. “The Drone-Mechs. They...they found us.”
“How did they find us?”
“I have no idea. They transitioned into normal space without warning, and they’re headed straight for us. Approximately twenty minutes out.”
Something spiked through Tag’s body. A final wave of energy. Desperation, maybe. Alpha and Sofia were stuck in the ships, completely immobile, without so much as the full protection of the energy fields. Not to mention Bracken’s ship was in an equally vulnerable position.
“We’ve got to move faster!” Tag said. He dashed ahead of the group. Every loping step he took sent shuddering waves of agony coursing through his calf. He began to hyperventilate, his mind reeling from the lack of oxygen. Dark stabs of pain pierced his brain, an increasingly violent reminder that he needed to do something about his suit, something about the loss of atmosphere.
But the buzzing behind him, the Dreg still clinging to him, and the Mechanics and the marines around him kept him going. There was no stopping now. They would be devoured. It was either do or die.
His sight seemed to fade in and out, and he blinked, trying to settle his double vision. The corridor to the docking ports finally appeared before them, but the proximity to his refuge didn’t quell the burgeoning pain. Tag’s limbs started going numb, turning colder and clumsier. Vaguely he felt an arm slide under his shoulder.
Coren.
Together they limped into the Argo’s docking port and through the hatch. Tag watched, relieved when Bull, Sumo, Lonestar, and Gorenado came in after him. The hatch shut, and the sounds of the Dreg throwing themselves at the door echoed throughout like a shower of miniature asteroids pinging against the alloy. As the docking bay repressurized, Tag gasped for air. Warm atmosphere filled in around him, and he welcomed its comforting embrace. It didn’t allay the pain from the Dreg wounds, but it helped against his frozen flesh.
A few Dreg still gnawed at the marines’ armor, and the group finished them off with satisfying stomps. Sumo fell to her knees, chest heaving. A large gash on her upper right arm glistened with red. Gorenado wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Lonestar started to stand next to him, then her eyes rolled up into her head. Tag dove forward and caught her before her head slammed against the deck. Something wet, sticky, and warm dripped over his fingers. Blood.
“She’s hurt!” Sumo said.
“Bull, Gorenado, grab a hoverstretcher,” Tag said in as calm a voice as he could. The blood seeped between his fingers and puddled at his feet, giving off a ferrous odor. It was a wonder she had even made it to the ship alive. When the marines returned with the stretcher, Tag gently laid Lonestar on it.
Something slammed against the Argo’s hull, and the reverberations echoed in the cargo bay. Tag braced himself as something else hit. A series of six or seven growling bangs sounded from around the ship.
“Alpha, Sofia, we’re all aboard,” Tag said. “Take us away from this damned station, and tell me what is going on.”
“We’ve got Dreg ships attaching to our hull,” Sofia said. “They aren’t even bothering to aim for hatches. I don’t know what they’re doing.”
“I don’t think they need hatches to get into the ship,” Tag said. The pain in his leg lit up as he started ushering the stretcher with Lonestar to the passageway. “Bull, you know how to operate a regen chamber?”
“No, Captain.”
Tag wanted desperately to be at the bridge. The threat of the two-pronged attack of Dreg and Drone-Mech caused a rash of anxiety. His heart raced fast enough to propel the Argo into hyperspace. He couldn’t just let Lonestar die, either.
“Alpha, engage energy shields. Shoot off as many Dreg as you can. Coren’s coming to take over weapons shortly.”
The Mechanic nodded and dashed off.
“Captain,” Alpha said as Tag rushed Lonestar to the med bay. “Some of the Dreg ships have attached themselves in blind spots or areas we cannot risk firing
at.”
“Son of a...” Tag burst through the hatch into the med bay. He ran to a regen chamber and slammed a fist on its terminal to initiate the system. Constant whining like drills through metal reverberated throughout the ship. If the Dreg ships were anything like the Dreg themselves, they would be forcing themselves into the ship, and there was no telling how many of the little bastards would come pouring in to wreak havoc. “Bull, you hear that? I need you guys to suit up. Mag boots and rocket launchers if you have them, too. We want these bastards off our ship before we go hyper.”
“Understood,” Bull replied. “Suiting up now.”
The regen chamber hummed. Its internal lights glowed blue, and Tag opened the cylindrical chamber’s door and then gently pressed Lonestar inside. He waited for the door to seal shut and the diagnosis and healing regimen to begin before taking off toward the bridge. The regen chamber’s AI would have to finish the job.
“We’re outside,” Bull said. “Headed to the first Dreg vessel.”
“Good. Stay sharp out there,” Tag said.
He hated sending them out there while the Drone-Mechs were bearing down on them. It was goddamned dangerous. Near suicidal. As soon as the Drone-Mechs started firing, they would be as defenseless and vulnerable out there as a courier drone against a Mechanic dreadnought. He couldn’t wait until they went into hyperspace. Once there, if they so much as tried to leave the ship, they stood a damn good chance of being destroyed by the gravity distortions, coursing plasma, or simply losing their footing and being lost somewhere in the black eternity of space.
On the bridge, Coren was already firing at the Dreg he could safely shoot with the PDCs. Alpha was spooling up the T-drive and entering a trajectory for their escape to the next Mechanic station. A holoscreen map showed in red the locations of the smaller Dreg ships leeching onto the Argo.
“Sofia, take us around the other side of the station,” Tag said. “Put it between us and the Drone-Mechs.”
“You got it,” Sofia said. On the holomap, the Argo was swinging around the huge U-shape of Nycho Station’s remains.
“Bracken,” Tag said, “we’re not ready to jump. Got to take care of the Dreg first, then we’re going hyper. If you need to jump before us, we’ll meet you on the other side.”
“Copy,” Bracken called back. “We are currently engaged with the Dreg as well. So far they haven’t penetrated the hull, but it has been challenging trying to shake them.”
A jarring clang exploded against the hull, and the bridge quaked slightly.
“What was that?” Tag asked. The Drone-Mechs were still out of pulsefire range, and their holomap hadn’t detected any incoming rounds or warheads.
“Took care of one of the Dreg ships,” Bull said. “Bastards don’t seem to much like rockets.”
“Good,” Tag said, willing his heart to settle. “Keep it up.”
“We have five more to go,” Alpha said.
“Get me a live feed.”
Alpha entered a few commands on her terminal, and the holoscreen around Tag split up into live video feeds. He saw the beetle-like shapes of the Dreg ships. Scaled plating covered their exteriors, giving them a distinctly organic, almost animalistic hide. He shuddered, wondering what the interior of those ships looked like, imagining a slimy, claustrophobic anthill look to them.
An alarm screamed from one of the screens, and a warning flashed in red. “Exterior hull breach near port quarters detected.”
“Did you get that?” Tag asked Bull over the comms.
“Just popped up on the HUD. We’ll make that asshole our next target.”
A few minutes later, he saw three humanoid shapes saunter around the portside hull toward one of the Dreg ships on the cam feed. They hid behind an outcropping of alloy, and a marine lifted a tube-shaped weapon on their shoulder. Before the marine could fire, a volley of spikes shot out of the tube-like vents on the Dreg ship. Tag flinched. He didn’t dare tear his eyes away from the cam feed, as if doing so would ensure the enemy hit their target. All the shots seemed to have gone wide or else burst against the outcropping the marines had sheltered behind.
“Everybody okay?” Tag asked.
“So far,” Bull said. “Didn’t know if these assholes would fight back.”
“Now that they are,” Sumo said as if she was gritting her teeth, “this is going to be a bit more fun!”
She added special emphasis to the last word as a rocket accelerated from the tube and smashed against the Dreg hull. The ship cracked open like an egg, and black-and-brown slime oozed out, freezing in space in long, whiplike tendrils. Dreg spilled out with the slime, their gossamer wings flapping wildly until they slowed and froze. Grotesque bodies drifted away from the site of the blast. The Dreg ship didn’t detach, but from the sounds of it, it seemed the drilling had at least stopped.
“Four more ships, marines,” Tag said. “Alpha, how close are the Drone-Mechs?”
“They’re—Captain, they just fired their first round of torpedoes. Estimated time of impact in five minutes.”
“Countermeasures ready. Chaff going out,” Coren said.
“Very good. Bull, I have faith in Coren, but by the gods, let’s finish the cleanup out there and be back in the ship before then, got it?”
“We’ll do our best,” Bull said, “but trying to use these mag boots to stay attached to the ship means we’re clumsily and slowly making our rounds. Not exactly a fast process.”
“Understand,” Tag said. “All the same, let’s try not to get nuked by the Drone-Mechs today.”
Three more Dreg ships exploded in clouds of floating slime and slug bodies. The remaining shells of the ships stuck to the Argo like the carapaces of cicadas that had molted and long since flown away. One ship was left, and the marines crested the hull toward it. Several of the Drone-Mech warheads shooting toward them had already been knocked out by PDC fire, and Coren was bent forward, leaning into his terminal, trying to engage the rest.
“Three minutes until first impact,” Alpha said.
Tag stared at the stream of projectiles glaring across the holomap. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. He desperately wanted to flick it away, but he had already locked his helmet into place again. Another part of the holoscreen brightened as a rocket trailed from one of the marines’ launchers and shot toward the final Dreg.
Then Tag saw something that made it feel like someone had thrown a rock at his stomach. A spike flew out of one of the Dreg’s protrusions. Even as the rest of the ship went up in a plume of debris and freezing slime, the spike flew straight at the marine that had launched the rocket. Tag wanted to do something, anything, but he didn’t have time to cry out a warning. The spike impaled the marine, cutting into the right side of their chest, and the body was flung off the ship, carried by the impact.
Tag watched the holoscreen reporting the marines’ blinking vital signs. There was a sudden arrhythmia and drop in blood pressure in Gorenado’s reports—he had been the one that had been shot. Tag expected the EKG spikes to flatline as Gorenado cartwheeled into space. They never did.
He was still alive.
And with Bull and Sumo desperately reaching for Gorenado, their fingers outstretched, unable to grab the man as momentum carried him away, the Drone-Mechs closed in. They had already lost G, and now this. Tag gulped, finding it difficult to swallow. He could leave Gorenado behind. The marine would probably die anyway. He could order Sumo and Bull inside. Jump to hyperspace. Avoid the Drone-Mechs and carry on with the mission.
He knew that was what he should do. What Admiral Doran would want him to do.
But he also knew he couldn’t do it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Bracken,” Tag said. “We have a man adrift. Hit by the Dreg. We’re going in for a recovery maneuver.”
“By the time you reach him,” she replied, “the first salvo of the Drone-Mech weapons will be hitting.”
“I know,” Tag said, checking over the holoscreen to see the energy
shields still at one hundred percent. “We’re going to survive it.”
“At least we’re going to damn well try,” Sofia helpfully clarified.
“Bracken, get to the next objective,” Tag said. “We’ll meet you there.”
There was a pregnant pause before Bracken spoke again. “Normally I would find that course of action prudent. In fact, I agree that is what I should do now. But I will not. I believe it was one of your marines who Sharick owes his life to. And to paraphrase him, we will not leave a human—or a human ship—behind.”
The Stalwart maneuvered in front of the Argo like a whale putting itself between a harpoon and a hapless fish. Energy rounds coursed through the void, glowing across the darkened Nycho Station. They connected with the distant warheads, and space seemed to be filled with brilliant dying stars.
“Focus your efforts on your crew instead of countermeasures,” Bracken said. “We can handle them for now.”
“Mech tech is better than human tech anyway,” Sofia said in a mocking tone.
“Let’s hope,” Tag said. “Alpha, calculate Gorenado’s trajectory. Sofia, take us in gently. Bull, I want you guys to be ready to catch him.”
“Yes, sir,” Bull said.
“We’re on it, Cap,” Sumo said. “Let’s do this!”
Blazing light continued to glare as Bracken’s crew provided temporary cover from the Drone-Mechs. Tag’s fingers tensed around his armrest. The Stalwart might be able to hold off the first wave of the incoming volley for a few minutes, but they couldn’t withstand much more. The closer the Drone-Mechs pressed, the harder it was to fend them off. The Argo and the Stalwart had barely had time to lick their wounds from their last encounter with the mind-jacked aliens.
“Coming in a little fast,” Bull said, his usually stern voice wavering.
“Don’t you worry your little bum,” Sofia said.
Edge of War (The Eternal Frontier Book 2) Page 15