Desperate Times (Lost Planet Warriors Book 1)

by McLaughlin,K.

The first signs of battle were plasma scorch marks on the walls, still several passages away from the engine room. If the fighting had started all the way out here, then this was even more serious than I'd thought. I noted that there were no bodies. Just a running skirmish, then.

  A noise to my left startled me, and I whirled. My plasma pistol was aimed in the direction of the sound before I saw what was making it, but I relaxed somewhat when I saw it was a squad of my own men.

  "Good timing," I said. They were all in battle armor - heavier plate than my ship uniform, and more resistant to damage. Each carried a plasma rifle, with a lot more firepower than my pistol. "Follow me."

  I took off down the hall again, the men following close behind me. Now I could hear the sounds of fighting: plasma discharges and screams.

  The passage opened up onto a walkway suspended high above the engine room floor. Below us was a scene from hell. Skree boiled out of a corridor, scuttling along the floor and walls. Silvery plating covered their chitin. They'd evolved to eat metals, digest them and add the material to their shells. Like some sort of giant insect, they swarmed across the open space toward the engineers beleaguered there.

  "We attack!" I shouted. I didn't wait to see what the men following me would do. I'd fought alongside this crew in enough battles to trust them. I dove over the rail, my feet above my head for a few seconds as I flipped through space. I was already picking out targets and firing as I fell.

  Two of the monsters fell to my pistol as I dropped toward them. Aimed fire was key here. My pistol lacked the power to penetrate their shells. Only a shot to the weaker areas - the face, the eyes - would take one of these things down with such a weak weapon.

  I hit the ground hard. My armor locked to absorb some of the impact, but I could still feel the jarring through my teeth. I kept firing, my pistol beginning to overheat. Another Skree fell, and now the squad following me had joined the battle as well.

  "Sir, I believe we have boarders," Carrick said from beside me with grim humor.

  "Next time we sweep the ship, you get to oversee it personally," I shouted back.

  "Joy," he replied, firing again.

  Then they were on us. Each Skree was massive, standing half again as tall as a Cymtarrran, and as broad as they were tall. Their legs all had stabbing tips, and the damned things spat acid.

  I dodged as one little stream of the stuff flew at me. My armor would stop it, but I couldn't allow the light armor I wore to become compromised this early in the fight. I was off balance as the Skree closed with me, stabbing out with a leg. I caught the appendage with both of my arms, keeping the stabbing tip away, but the crushing impact sent me sprawling on the floor.

  All around me, Cymtarrans went down as the things piled in against us. But these were my fighters, not some civilians ripe for the plucking. These were the best of the Cymtarran fleet, and wherever they went down, they rose back up again fighting. The battle had turned into a melee, and I cursed my lack of a sword.

  To my left, two of the guards fought their way under the thing's belly and fired up into the weaker armor there, blasting a hole in the thing. A smell like cooked shellfish wafted my way. To my right another Cymtarran, horribly wounded, pulled himself up one of the Skree's legs to bring his arm close enough to fire into the thing's eyes.

  I shot down another myself. The tide of enemy was beginning to abate. To the rear of their force I could see some of the things retreating, falling back into the corridor they'd come from. That we could not allow. If they managed to hide themselves away again, they'd simply breed more like themselves and come at us at another time of their choosing.

  Time to put an end to this. I raced forward, jumped onto the back of a dead Skree and used its height to catapult myself into the air. I flew feet-first toward the far wall, a jump only made possible through my armor's assistance. I fired as I flew overhead, distracting the Skree from running. My feet hit the wall, and I rebounded to the floor, blocking their path from the engine room.

  Of course, then I had six angry Skree bearing down on me. All they saw was one lonely Cymtarran standing between them and safety. Knock me aside and they had a chance.

  But they had no chance. I took one down with a well placed shot as they closed on me, and then slid to the ground beneath another, firing as I passed. It gave a shrill cry and dropped to the ground. I'd narrowly passed from beneath it before it collapsed. They'd been counting on fighting one lone Cymtarran. They were not ready for the fury I felt toward their entire species, which I channeled into battle-rage.

  The energy discharge from a plasma rifle felled another of my enemies and I roared, feeling cheated of prey. I burned one to death through its head. Another spat acid, which turned my pistol into a smoking ruin, the caustic stuff scoring the armor over my hand and arm. I shoved the useless weapon down the throat of one of the last two Skree and let it go. The acid hit its power pack a few seconds later, exploding inside the Skree. The blast took me off my feet.

  One left, and it had gotten behind me. I tried to turn - but I was just a little too slow recovering. It's blow struck me in the head, a hammer like impact that sent me flying against a wall. The Skree was scuttling after me in a flash, legs poised to impale me. I readied myself to block. My people were still fighting their way to me, and would not arrive in time. Weaponless as I was, it was up to me to defend myself against this thing. I growled as it came in slashing down at me with a lethal strike.

  Chapter Seven

  Kim

  The red lights were seriously messing with my vision. It was just the wrong shade of red, deep enough that it created shadows where there shouldn’t be any, but bright enough that it hurt my eyes. I was questioning the sanity of my decision to leave the relative safety of the room, but it was too late to turn back now. Besides, the way the hallways on this ship twisted about I didn’t know if I’d be able to find my way back, anyway.

  Then I smelled smoke. Smoke meant fire, which had to be one of the worst nightmares possible on a spaceship. Ships in space were every bit as vulnerable to a fire aboard as the old wooden ones had been on Earth. The oxygen rich environment combined with poor gravity, lots of little ducts for air flow, and tons of electronics to make a fire the spacefarer's most deadly enemy. I didn't know what sort of suppression systems they might have on a Cymtarran ship, but I imagined that even here fire was not a friend. Something bad was going down for sure.

  From somewhere up ahead I heard yelling. Listening more intently, those yells sounded a lot like screams. That more or less clinched things. Definitely bad juju up ahead somewhere.

  First smoke, then screaming. I ought to be heading in the other direction as fast as I can go. Instead I found myself following the sounds, looking for their source. If I’d wanted to play it safe, I would’ve stayed back on earth. I was here. Now. And I’d be damned if I sat around doing nothing when there was trouble.

  I rounded the corner and found the bodies. Two alien soldiers, all decked out in fancy armor. It hadn’t saved them. One of them looked like he’d been scorched with something, and the other had been stabbed through the chest. It looked like a massive spear had been driven into him.

  I left the bodies where they lay. There was nothing I could do for either of them. Both aliens had been carrying some sort of rifle, so I grabbed one. I had the feeling that it might come in handy very soon. The weapon's mechanism was strange to me, but it seemed like it still worked like a rifle. Point end at enemy, pull trigger. Or press the red button on the grip, in the case of this rifle.

  Guns everywhere were made to be simple and easily used. This one might be flashy and high tech, but it wasn't that different from Terran weapons I was used to.

  An explosion rocked the corridor.

  "Shit," I said. Then I did the completely illogical thing and started running toward the sound instead of away from it.

  Why was I doing that? I still didn't know. I owed nothing to these aliens. But there was trouble, and I couldn't just stand around
and hide. Besides, they were at least willing to talk. Who knew if their enemy would be as reasonable? The enemy of my enemy and all that.

  I rounded the corner into a scene of carnage.

  The first thing I saw were the giant bugs. They stood as tall as a horse, gleaming with a chrome-like metallic finish. Armor or skin, I wasn't sure which, but it sure looked like they were made of metal. Each had four legs that ended in stabbing tips. They were easily the most horrible things I'd ever seen, made even worse by the splashes of red blood on their shining mandibles.

  Standing opposed to them was a small group of Cymtarrans. Their gold armor stood out against the chrome bugs. Some of the Cymtarrans had engaged the bugs in sword to claw combat, while others lay down suppressive fire with weapons similar to the one I'd grabbed. One of them was a little too slow blocking a blow from a bug, and got impaled on its claw. The Cymtarrans next to him sliced down at the limb and chopped it off the bug, while another Cymtarran with a rifle blasted the bug.

  The guys in gold were winning, but the victory was coming at a cost.

  I glanced across the room, scanning for the one alien I knew ought to be there: Bran. I didn't spot him until he vaulted free of the mess, jumping across the room and landing near the doorway where I was hiding.

  He lit into the bugs there, taking out one after another. But one of the things disarmed him by spitting some sort of goo at his weapon. Another bug made ready to stab him. Bran's back was up against the wall, with nowhere to run. His men were too far away to help. He was going to die.

  I wasn't going to let that happen. I rushed forward with a yell, firing at the thing as I came.

  "Get away from him, asshole!" I shouted. Then I pressed what I hoped was the firing button. My rifle gave a booming noise and kicked hard. If I'd been firing it from my shoulder instead of my hip it would have knocked me clean over. As it was it still took me a moment to steady myself for a second shot.

  The first blast from my gun hit the bug near a joint between a foreleg and its body. It stopped its attack on Bran. But then it turned its attention on me instead. It jumped forward, closing half the distance between us in a single bound.

  Behind the bug, I could see Bran trying to catch up with it. His feet pounded the deck as he sprinted toward me, but the gap left by its jump was just too big. He wasn't going to get there in time to rescue me.

  "Time to be self-rescuing," I said.

  I fired again, blasting the bug in the chest. The blast hammered its armor and slowed it down, but it gave a loud screeching noise and kept coming at me anyway.

  I fired a third time, hitting it in roughly the same spot. It stopped making any noise at all, and smoke spewed from the hole my blasts had made in its shell.

  There wasn't any time to celebrate. It's momentum and mass were still carrying it forward at me. I tried to dive sideways, dropping the rifle in my haste to get clear. One of the legs, still thrashing, clipped me in the side as I did. All of the wind went out of me at once, and pain blossomed in my chest.

  Worst, it had stopped my roll. I couldn't get clear. There simply wasn't time. Time seemed to slow down, and the shadow of the thing fell across my vision. I turned, raising my arm over my face in a futile feature as the massive bulk of the monstrous dead bug crashed down on top of me. The pain from the first blow was nothing compared to this. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Everything from my ribs down was pinned beneath its bulk.

  The pain tore into my senses, and I passed out.

  Chapter Eight

  Bran

  I stepped into the ship's medical bay for the first time since the attack some hours ago. Too many damned crew members here. Too many wounded and dying Cymtarrans, when there were few enough of us left as it was.

  Also one badly wounded human. I found her bed easily enough. She was in a stasis tube, kept alive by technology alone. How she'd survived long enough to get there I had no idea, but I shouldn't have been surprised. The Terran was a fighter. She'd battled a Skree and won. Without armor, without Cymtarran training or our physical advantages, she'd won.

  Now she was near death. Through the glass of the tube she looked dead already

  One of the few doctors we had on board was worriedly hovering at her bedside, turning some knobs on his instrument panel to adjust some small setting on the life support systems.

  "How is she, Idris?" I asked him.

  "Not good, sir," he replied. "She's sustained major injuries to her internal organs. Ruptures. Bleeding. Dozens of her bones are fractured, including her spine. Nerve damage to the lower extremities from the spinal injury."

  He looked up at me from his instruments. "If she was one of our troops, she would be mending already. But as she is...?"

  Every Cymtarran soldier had an infusion of nanites during our training period. The microscopic robots had multiple functions. The primary was to give us more strength and speed for brief periods. But we learned that enhanced power and agility came at a cost. Using the nanites in that manner damaged our bodies.

  Medical nanites were introduced soon after. These machines would repair damage to our bodies. They were programmed to repair not merely the damage caused by the other nanites, but also other injuries, illness, poison, and even slow aging.

  But this Terran didn't have nanites. Her injuries were well beyond the ability of her body to repair on its own. From what the doctor was saying, I doubted the Terrans even had the technology to heal her at all. Which would leave that task up to us. Up to me.

  "What can we do, Idris?" I asked.

  "I don't know!" he snapped back. "I'm sorry. I just don't know enough about her biology yet. I'm learning more every minute. She's stunningly similar to us. But what she honestly needs is a set of nanites of her own."

  "And we don't have that here," I said.

  "No."

  Not on a combat ship. Everyone aboard would already have their infusions. There was no need to carry extras on board. Each nanite would replicate itself as needed to replace those which had been damaged or lost. The medical nanites we needed so badly had died with my home world.

  "What about a transplant?" I asked.

  "It could work," Idris mused. "I do not have time to recode the nanites to her genome. If we are similar enough, it might be enough to save her. Or it could kill her."

  "She is dying anyway, yes?" I asked.

  "Yes, but..."

  "Is there any other way?"

  "Not that I can think of, no," Idris said. "But who will we get to donate their nanites?"

  I didn't hesitate. "I will."

  Idris stared at me a moment, gaping. His shock was no surprise to me.

  "Sir, you cannot! She will need fully half your nanites if this is to have any chance of success," Idris said. "You'll be weakened for days. And if you were injured, you might die. The risk is too great."

  I'd already considered all of those things. Once I knew how severe the Terran's injuries were, I knew there would only be one way to save her. I also knew that I had to be the one to pay the price for her survival, if it could be purchased.

  "How well do you think the Terrans will react to our request for help, if we have allowed one of their own to die while aboard on a diplomatic mission?" I asked.

  "Irrelevant," Idris scoffed. "Sir, if they balk we can simply take what we need from them."

  "Yes, we could," I replied. It would take longer. It would be much harder. I had the feeling that overwhelming these humans would not be as simple as Idris seemed to think it would be. Our time was too short to waste any of it. If the Skree that had snuck aboard had activated now, it had to be because there was a Skree vessel closing on us. The enemy could exit jump space at any time. I didn't feel like explaining all of that to the doctor right now, but it was vital he understood how important this Terran was to us. And to me.

  "She saved my life, Idris," I said, my voice soft. "I owe her a life debt."

  Idris sucked in a breath. "She's not Cymtarran, Bran. By the law you owe he
r nothing."

  "By my honor, I do."

  He locked gazes with me. Idris was old. Much older than I. How many years had he been serving? Since before I was born, most like. I could feel the weight of all of those years bearing down on me now. The strength of will that had let him live through all that time, centuries perhaps, was focused through his eyes.

  My eyes were still young. I was a decade away from seeing my first hundred turns of Cymtarra around our star. No one had ever been promoted to my level of command so young before. But then, no one in the Cymtarran fleet had ever been me, before I came. I was right in this. I knew it. I would not yield.

  He blinked first.

  "Very well," he said, looking down and away. "I will make the preparations. We'll need to extract the nanites from you as soon as possible, if we're to do her any good."

  He wouldn't meet my eyes again, now. He felt shamed for having questioned me, and shamed further for having lost our little battle of wills. It was a battle that I could not afford to have lost. Not if I wanted to remain in command. Yet I felt the need to lighten my touch with him. He needed to obey me, not be broken by me.

  "Idris, what was, is now gone," I said. "We will have to adjust and adapt if we are to survive."

  "I know that," he snapped, gathering instruments. He pointed to a table next to him. "Lie down there."

  I did as he bid. "If she is any example of how these Terrans are, then they are not so unlike us," I continued. "She went into a battle that was not her own, facing a foe whose strength she did not know, to save a being who was a stranger to her."

  "You hope to make allies of these Terrans, then?" Idris asked.

  In truth, I wasn't sure. They were technologically backward, behind us by centuries. They had only just discovered how to fold space so that they could voyage between the stars. How much help would they be? If even Cymtarra had fallen to the Skree, how would Terra stand?