Speed of Darkness

by Tracy Hickman

  “Here they come!” Bernelli announced, his voice rising. “Make ’em count!”

  The multilegged Zerglings began skittering across the blackened and pocked ground of the outer perimeter. Ardo snapped shut his combat helmet, saw the targeting display come up at once, and began aiming his gauss rifle at the nearest of the creatures.

  The targeting was eerily effective. The laser designator pinpointed the location of Ardo’s shots. The gun jerked repeatedly with each shot as he shifted targets quickly from one Zergling to the next. The new ammunition was doing its job well. The explosive-tipped bullets smashed open the carapace of each approaching Zergling, blowing open the exit wound in a horrific, deadly display.

  “Whoo-ho! It’s a shootin’ gallery out here!”

  “I’m goin’ for the high score today, Marines!”

  How does this game end? Ardo thought. He continued to shift targets, but he was firing faster and faster trying to keep up with the onslaught. It was like trying to push back the tide. The Zerglings continued to come in wave after wave . . . and they were nearing the inner minefield.

  Ardo glanced at Merdith. Her weapon had a built-in-target designator. Her grip on the weapon had not eased as she fired faster and faster.

  Suddenly, a deafening, high-pitched shriek from a thousand Zerg tore across the sand.

  Shaken, Ardo’s eyes went wide. “They’re charging!”

  The second line of Hydralisks thundered toward the outer minefield. Instantly the entire perimeter exploded in a deafening cacophony of fury and death. The defensive towers erupted again as well, the Mutalisks driving forward at the same time. Again the Mutalisk dead rained down, but their bodies were falling closer and closer to the outer walls of the base. Ardo could not be distracted, however. The crawling carpet of Zerglings was crossing the inner minefield and was now only five hundred meters away and closing quickly on the outer wall.

  Ardo’s gun suddenly went dry. He ejected the clip and slammed home another from the racks above him. When he raised his weapon again, the Zerglings were within four hundred meters.

  “Lieutenant! The Zerglings are about to pass the inner mines!” Ardo called out over his quick succession of shots. “We’re not holding ’em!”

  “You’ve got to hold! We need the mines for the bigger Zerg!”

  The Zerglings were within a hundred meters. Closing in on the base, they were forced by their numbers to come closer together, a nearly solid carpet of scarablike locusts looking, in Ardo’s mind, to devour Ardo personally. Ardo switched his rifle to automatic and began spraying the approaching horde indiscriminately.

  He was so preoccupied that he failed to register the thunderous sound of the mine detonations suddenly dropping off in the distance beyond. It shocked him when in a flash they resumed, this time only five hundred meters out. Towering columns of smoke, dirt, and rock shredded the charging Zerg. Their deafening roar surrounded the entire base as they charged from all sides simultaneously. The sun was blotted out by the waves of destruction. The detonations, no longer distinguishable one from another, now merged into one seemingly continuous demonic roar.

  Stones and charred Zerg flesh began raining down on the bunker and the space beyond. Ardo continued playing his deadly stream of explosive shells against the Zerglings, who were now within a few meters of the bunker. Beyond them, the demon wall of death continued to march toward him, its sound shaking the plates of the bunker and threatening to knock him off his feet. The wall of mine explosions was now within a hundred meters of his position.

  Ardo knew that the minefield ended within eighty meters of where he stood.

  “Lieutenant! They’re breaking through!”

  “Fall back! Fall back now!”

  Ardo did not have to hear the order twice. He grabbed Merdith’s arm, quickly pulling her away from the gun port. He shouted. “We gotta go now!”

  Merdith stepped quickly back from the port. As she did, the armor plates above the port began to peel upward.

  A Zergling scrambled through the opening, hit the floor, and instantly leaped toward her.

  Ardo fired his weapon, slamming the creature away from her in midair, exploding it across the front wall of the bunker.

  “Fall back!” Ardo yelled at her. “Run!”

  The last thing Ardo saw as he slammed the hatch closed behind him was a wall of Zergling underbellies covering the gunports as they climbed up toward the torn opening.

  CHAPTER 22

  FAREWELL

  THE SOUND WAS OVERWHELMING. THE DEFENSIVE towers were firing into the sky, disgorging their contents in a frenzy of flame and destruction. The missiles must have been arming just as they left their protective tubes, since their targets were close and pressing closer still. Merdith ran in front of Ardo. The dusty stretch of ground between the outer wall and the inner bunkers was a veil of ash, smoke, and burning Zerg falling like a black snow from the sky. Acid splashes smoked against the ground here and there. Ardo followed the woman quickly. The intervening street between them and the inner bunker complex had never looked so far before.

  Ardo sprang into the street at once. He looked up as he ran, desperate to protect himself. The defensive towers above him were scarred with repeated acid splashes, two of them already twisting under their own weight on their weakened frames. The sky beyond them was a roiling wall of flame and smoke with occasional patches of sky flashing through by some whim of chaos.

  The bunker was ahead of him. Its main hatch stood open. Framed in it, he could see someone waving him onward.

  Then he heard it—a sound he had heard before. It was a thunderous roar that overwhelmed even the sound of their own desperate battle. He looked up.

  The rescue transports! They were coming in hot, bleeding off their speed in enormous heat through the atmosphere. The Sons of Korhal ships arched through the sky, their flaming contrails falling toward Mar Sara Starport to the west. They would be on the ground soon—their most vulnerable time as the ships tried to evacuate anyone who could reach them.

  Time. They needed more time . . .

  Gauss rifles suddenly chattered to life through the gun ports on either side of the bunker hatch, shocking Ardo into action. He leaped for the hatchway. Hands grabbed him and pulled him inside. His feet barely cleared the hatch seals before it slammed closed.

  Ardo scrambled to his feet. Merdith was firing a stream through one of the gun ports. Bernelli had pulled him in, yelled something unintelligible at him, and then jammed his own rifle through the second set of gun ports.

  Ardo quickly took his place beside Bernelli, positioned his gun, and then looked down his sights into hell.

  Hydralisks were pouring over the base outer wall. They had thrown enough of their own against the minefield until there was nothing left to explode. There must have been thousands dead surrounding the complex but still they kept coming. Now they slid like a terrible wave over the wall, approaching the bunker en masse.

  The tactical channel continued to chatter.

  “Xiang! Report!”

  “Xiang’s down, Lieutenant! We’ve gotta get outta here! I can’t hold ’em back!”

  Bernelli continued to yell as he fired. Ardo joined him, the exhilaration of the sound in his own ears driving him as he poured death from the muzzle of his rifle.

  Still the tide of dark horror tried to advance over the bodies of their own dead, but now the constricted field of fire was working against them, The dead were piling up before them, but they were not getting any closer to the bunker.

  “Melnikov! You copy?”

  Ardo ejected a cartridge, holding the fire trigger down even as he was slamming the new cartridge home. “A little busy here, Lieutenant!”

  “We’re coming in!”

  “What?!”

  “We’re falling back to your position!”

  “Affirmative,” Ardo grimly replied. “Bernelli, keep ’em off! I’ll get the back door!”

  Ardo moved to the back section of the bunker. Throug
h the ports he could barely see the vehicle pad off to his left. Behind that, he could make out the other two bunkers on either side of the Command Center. The left bunker had been Xiang’s but was swarming with Hydralisks. Ardo could see them tearing at the plating, pulling apart the seams even as the bunker burned furiously. Good-bye, Xiang, Ardo thought.

  Hydralisks were also tearing at the bunker on the right, but there a bright light suddenly flared to life. Cutter, Ardo realized. The rolling flames from the Firebat’s plasma weapon were getting closer and closer. Ardo pressed his weapon through the port and blasted away at the Hydralisks trying to flank his own bunker and get to easier targets. At the last moment, Ardo smashed his hand against the release and opened the rear hatch.

  Breanne stumbled through first, dragging the cursed box and Tinker Jans with it. They all fell heavily to the plated flooring. Cutter stood in the open hatchway, his plasma fire scorching several enraged Hydralisks in the process. With a final burst, Cutter took a step back through the hatchway. Ardo instantly slammed the hatch shut.

  They were firing from all points around the bunker now. The dead Zerg were piling up in shining heaps.

  Suddenly, the Zerg stopped advancing. The Hydralisks drew back into the shadows of the inner base complex. Within moments, there were no targets left to them, and their firing stopped.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Cutter demanded. “They givin’ up?”

  Lieutenant Breanne was breathing heavily, whether from adrenaline or exertion, Ardo could not tell. “No. They never give up. They’re just drawing up their forces . . . gathering strength. As soon as they’re ready, they’ll walk in here and take us.”

  Bernelli laughed nervously. “Oh, well, as long as we’re not losing . . .”

  “We are losing,” Breanne said, flipping open her helmet and pushing her fingers back through her short-cropped hair. “We won’t last ten minutes in here once they decide to make their move. You saw those ships coming down on Mar Sara! They’re on the ground right now—fat civilian transports shoveling passengers in with a loader if they can. They’re sitting ducks on the ground, and I can tell you that the best of them won’t be able to get turned around inside forty minutes. Some longer.”

  “So?” Bernelli shrugged. “These Zerg slugs couldn’t cross that distance in half a day, let alone an hour.”

  “The problem isn’t the crawlers,” Merdith shook her head. “It’s the flyers—the Mutalisks. The only thing holding them here is that box. As soon as it’s destroyed, the flyers will head straight for the starport, and all this would have been for nothing.”

  “All we need is to hold out for thirty minutes,” Ardo said. “Just a lousy thirty minutes.”

  “Yeah,” Breanne sneered. “And who’s gonna buy you those thirty minutes?”

  “I will.”

  They all turned.

  It was Tinker Jans.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll buy you your thirty minutes,” the engineer said coolly. “But I’ll need help.”

  Bernelli glanced out the port. “Hey, I think they’re moving up!”

  “You’ve got to get me into an SCV!” Jans said. “You’ve got to do it now!”

  Breanne thought for a moment, then decided. “Cutter! Melnikov! You heard the man! Get him to an SCV!”

  “There’s definite movement out there!” Bernelli yelled.

  Ardo punched the rear hatch release. Grim-faced, Cutter jumped out through the opening. Jans followed him, looking shaky and vulnerable in his soiled fatigues. Ardo ducked out after them, snapping closed his combat helmet—not that he thought it would help him much.

  The ground was carpeted with the mutilated bodies of Zerg attackers. There was no time to think. They ran toward the vehicle pad, stumbling across the slick, greasy ground.

  The nearest SCV stood silhouetted against the burning factory unit. Jans released the front access hatch, which popped open with a satisfying hydraulic whoosh.

  “Come on! Come on!” Cutter encouraged nervously.

  Jans clambered up the footholds in the face of the suit and settled backward into the control cabin. The access hatch started to lower smoothly.

  “Here they come!” Breanne called out.

  Ardo could see them. They were charging around the factory, over the compound wall, around the Command Center. They were everywhere.

  “Now what do we do?” Cutter demanded of the engineer.

  “Get back inside! Quickly!” Jans replied.

  “And leave you here?” Ardo was shaken.

  “Do it now, and just keep ’em off me as long as you can!”

  Ardo had no time to argue. He and Cutter ran back toward the bunker. He could already see the tracer fire ripping through the gun ports in all directions. The Hydralisks were pouring across the ground, surging toward the bunker itself. Their carapace shells were distended, their armor-piercing spine quills at the ready for the attack.

  Ardo fell back through the hatchway just as the Hydralisks attacked. The spines shot through the open hatch, slicing through the outer layers of his combat suit as though it were cotton cloth. Searing pain erupted in his leg, a quill having passed completely through and lodging in a neosteel beam.

  Cutter helped him off the floor. “You dead yet?”

  Ardo winced, unwilling to look at his leg. “Not yet.”

  They both took up their own port firing positions, dreading what was coming next.

  The hull of the bunker suddenly rang with the sound of a thousand armor-piercing darts. It was a deadly hail, hammering repeatedly on the metal exteracy. wthe acid-coated quills shearing away pieces of the metal shell with each impact.

  “Kill them! Kill them all before they can get to us!” Breanne raged. The hull overhead was already buckling downward, large indentations pressing down into their space.

  Firing desperately through the port, Ardo saw the SCV start to move.

  The motion barely attracted the attention of the Zerg around them. The creatures appeared so intent on reaching the bunker that they barely took notice of the single craft.

  If I could just get to one of those Vulture cycles, Ardo thought to himself wildly. I could slip away . . . I could . . .

  He shook his head. Who would die because he lived? How many would die because he ran when his own life could buy so many others? No one would ever know who he was or why he was here. Anyone who ever cared for him would never know his fate. Maybe God would know. No matter what the Confederacy told him he was, Ardo knew who he was at last, and that he had something of his own that he could give.

  The SCV lumbered up to the bunker complex. Tinker had left a stack of armor plating next to the bunker. Ardo wondered suddenly if the engineer had planned this all along. Jans picked up the plating with the massive arms of the SCV, looked at the bunker, found the weakest point, and slammed the plate across it. Holding it in place with one mechanical arm, Jans activated the plasma welder on the other and began reinforcing the hull.

  The Zerg must have realized what Jans was doing. Several of the Hydralisks wheeled suddenly on the SCV.

  Cutter and Ardo both saw it. In a moment, they shifted their fire. “Keep ’em off him, he said!” Cutter sneered through his sweat. “And just how are we supposed to do that?”

  Jans continued to work frantically around the bunker, welding, reinforcing, replacing plates as quickly as possible. The Marines kept up their stream of death against the invaders, knocking down the Hydralisks in row after row as they advanced and fired.

  The battle raged in an agonizing stalemate. Ardo’s gun was hot in his armored hands. Somehow, Jans was keeping up with the repairs as quickly as the Hydralisks were damaging the bunker.

  “Hey, I think it’s working!” Bernelli laughed. “I think—”

  The Hydralisks surged forward.

  “No!” Ardo raged.

  Jans could not see them coming in the SCV. Several of the Hydralisks had gotten shots at the work vehicle, and it was badly damaged but still operating. Suddenly,
the fiendish wave had reached him. They were swarming about the SCV. Jans tried to beat them off the shell of the machine. In moments, however, they had dragged him and the entire SCV up and out of sight of the gun ports.

  “They’ve got Jans!” Cutter yelled.

  “We lose him and we’re done for!” Breanne yelled back.

  With a terrible cry, Cutter hit the hatch switch and dove outside.

  Great sheets of plasma flame erupted outside the ports. Ardo could barely make out what was happening outside. Then he caught a glimpse of Cutter, his huge form standing outside the hatchway pouring out his superheated carnage.

  Ardo’s gun suddenly silenced. He ejected his cartridge instantly and then reached for the next in the overhead rack.

  There was none.

  “I’m out!” Ardo shouted.

  Breanne tossed him another clip. “Make it count, kid. We’re all low!”

  He slammed home the clip and turned back toward the port.

  Cutter was gone.

  Ardo looked desperately through the ports but could not see the huge man anywhere. “Tinker!” he called through the tac-com channel. “Where’s Cutter?”

  “They . . . gone . . . they’re all over me! Can’t last . . .”

  Breanne pitched back from the gun port. A single spine from a Hydralisk had found its way through the port opening, slamming through the faceplate of the lieutenant’s combat suit. Hideously, it passed through her head and pinned her combat helmet to a neosteel support. Lieutenant L. Z. Breanne hung there, still standing.

  Ardo glanced at Bernelli and then at Merdith. “I’m going out to save Jans. He can buy you some time. Bernelli, you got a clip left?”

  “Yeah,” he sighed.

  Ardo looked at Merdith. “He’ll take care of you.”

  Merdith nodded and looked away.

  “See you on the other side,” Ardo said to them both, then turned to the rear hatch.

  “Hey, soldier-boy?”