* * *
Tracy led them down the corridor to a hatch labeled Metallurgy Lab, and stopped in front of it.
"We cut through the lab here, then through the biology lab," she outlined to Alan. "After that, a couple more corridors, and we're there."
She stepped to the side, and they began the room-entry ritual again. This time there were no unexpected surprises waiting for them. She began to creep along the length of the lab, while Alan paralleled her on the other side of the counter that ran the length of the room.
At the hatch leading to the biology lab she stopped, ready to key the hatch open. Before she began the countdown, Alan held up his hand.
"What?" she whispered, even though they were on a secure net.
"I hear something," Alan said, pointing at the hatch.
"What's it sound like?" She didn't hear it herself, but that didn't mean there was nothing there to hear. It was always better to be cautious than careless.
"Don't know. Sounds kind of like howling or screaming."
They dialed up the audio feed, and a cacophony of noises overwhelmed them. It sounded like all the animals in a zoo had become raving lunatics. They quickly dialed the feed back down.
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it. We either go through here or double back and take the long way around." Tracy knew that the final decision was hers, but she still wanted his input.
"I say we go. We know something's there, so we won't be totally surprised by it, and it's faster. Besides, we can always withdraw if we have to."
"Okay, here we go."
She leaned back into position and waited for him to do the same before she began her countdown.
When she dove through the hatch, she found that she had not prepared herself enough.
The center of the biology lab looked like a vision from hell. Blood ran off of the four examination tables to pool on the floor. Carcasses and hunks of meat that had once been organs littered the room. The noise was deafening as half a dozen Xan-Sskarns stood around each table, calmly dissecting the lab animals. While they were still alive.
Tracy felt her stomach roil and almost vomited. She was thankful she couldn't smell anything, or she would have, and that distraction could land her on one of those tables. As it was, she still paused, shocked by the scene before her.
The first cough of Alan's rifle brought her back, and she began servicing targets. None of the Xan-Sskarns in the lab were armed, and ten of them were down before the rest knew they were under attack. The blood and screams in the air masked their deaths from the others at first. Seven seconds later, all of the Xan-Sskarns were down, and Tracy watched as Alan fired four more bursts, one at each table. The room fell silent save for the dripping of blood.
As she watched Alan, she noted that his combat suit was a deeper red than it had been when they were outside. Looking down, she could see hers was as well. The short, sharp, one-sided firefight had coated them in blood as much as it had the room—all but their faceplates. The nonstick surface of the plate resisted all types of substances. In the case of liquids, even the slightest gravitational pull would cause it to run off, leaving the wearer with a clear view.
Too bad the rest of the suit's not like that. It'll be a bitch to clean when we get back. But given a choice between ease of cleaning and camouflage, I know what I'll take any day.
Pushing that worry aside for the time, she made her way carefully across the lab, trying not to step on anything that might have once been living, and failing at it. She slipped twice and managed to catch herself both times before she saw how Alan was traversing the room. He was merely sliding his feet along, as if ice-skating. Wondering why she hadn't thought of that, she followed his example.
The rest of their journey to the computer core was uneventful until they reached the final passageway. The sight of the bloody remains of the four marines behind a broken barricade sent a spike of adrenaline into her system. These were the first human bodies they had seen since they entered the facility.
If they were there, that meant that the Xan-Sskarns had reached the computer core first. All that remained was to see if they were still in there with the data she and Alan had come for.
She slung her rifle diagonally across her back, crisscrossing it with her pulse rifle, and drew her flechette pistol. It operated in the same manner as the rifle, though was not as powerful and thus less likely to damage any of the equipment on the other side of the hatch. From what she had seen of the schematics, the computer core was not an overly large room, and the pistol would be more than adequate if there were any Xan-Sskarns still inside.
Waiting for Alan to draw his pistol, she stepped over the bodies and positioned herself in her customary spot on the side of the hatch. When Alan joined her, she began her countdown.
They burst into the room, startling the five Xan-Sskarns there. Their first bursts took down one of the enemy each. Before either of them could switch targets, the Xan-Sskarns recovered from their shock and charged them, closing the distance in a few steps.
The Xan-Sskarn closest to Alan stopped just short of him and, lifting itself up onto its left leg, did a parody of a pirouette, bringing its thickly muscled tail sailing around to impact with Alan's chest, hurling him three meters across the room and slamming him up against the bulkhead.
Tracy had enough time to watch her partner slide down the bulkhead to the deck before the lead Xan-Sskarn reached her. Desperately trying to bring her pistol around, she was a fraction of a second too slow as the Xan-Sskarn reached out with both of its powerful arms and grabbed her on either side of her chest. Talons dug into the armor she wore as he hefted her over his head, and, like his companion, spun in place and threw her in the direction opposite to Alan.
Managing to twist her body in the air, she bounded off the wall and landed in a crouch. Somewhere during her short flight, she had lost her pistol and there was no way she would be able to unsling one of her rifles before they were on her. Reaching up to her combat harness, she wrapped her hand around the vibro-knife sheathed there and drew it, thumbing the activation stud as she did so.
A soft, deadly purring filled the room as all three Xan-Sskarns advanced on her, slowly this time.
All of them. Either Alan is dead, or I'm the more serious threat. Either way, it's not good.
Rising up from her crouch to a fighting stance, she stared at her assailants calmly as she switched on her external speakers. They might not understand the words, but she hoped they would understand the meaning.
"Come on, you rat bastards, let's dance!"
* * *
"That hurt," Alan moaned to himself, trying to sit up. Groaning, he made his way to a sitting position, thankful for the armor he wore. He knew that if it weren't for that, he would, at the very least, have multiple broken ribs, but more than likely he would be dead.
He heard Tracy's shouted invitation and snapped to full alertness, adrenaline kicking in. He saw three Xan-Sskarns closing on her, spreading out, the better to attack her from all sides at once.
Looking about him, he didn't see his pistol, nor did he want to use a rifle for fear of hitting his fire-team leader. With that thought, he reached his left hand up to his combat harness while he dropped his right to his belt. Grasping hilts, he drew his blades, activating his vibro-knife as it cleared the sheath.
Rising silently to his feet, gripping the humming fury of a vibro-knife in his left hand, and a mono-molecular combat knife in his right, he chose his target. With a primal scream bellowing from his helmet speakers, Alan launched himself at the center Xan-Sskarn.
Startled again, all three Xan-Sskarns instinctively turned to face this new threat.
As Alan collided with the center Xan-Sskarn, he saw Tracy launch herself at the Xan-Sskarn to her right. Impacting with his target, Alan could spare no more time on thoughts of his partner as he began to grapple.
Burying the vibro-blade into the Xan-Sskarn's side, then ripping outward, Alan sent a spray of blood across the
room. His right hand hooked up, attempting to sink his combat knife into his opponent's throat.
The Xan-Sskarn's left hand shot up, blocking the upward thrust, and razor-sharp talons raked along Alan's forearm, tearing the combat suit and the flesh beneath it.
Grunting with the pain of torn flesh, Alan drew his left hand across the front of his enemy before it could be blocked. Flesh parted as his vibro-knife disemboweled the Xan-Sskarn. As it went down, Alan followed. Reversing his grip on the combat knife, then driving it through the Xan-Sskarn's eye and into its brain like a spike, he finished off his opponent.
Something raked across his back, pushing him down onto the body of his enemy. Rolling over, he saw the third Xan-Sskarn standing above him, raising its arm, preparing to rake his claws across Alan's throat.
As the arm began to fall, Alan brought his own up to block it. But instead of meeting his arm, the Xan-Sskarn met the edge of his vibro-knife. Screeching loudly, the Xan-Sskarn pulled back a bleeding stump.
Seeing his new opponent turning to flee, Alan threw himself forward, ramming the tip of his combat knife through the top of the Xan-Sskarn's foot. He followed through with his stroke, stopping only when the hilt was pressed firmly against the flesh of the foot it pierced. The blade extended from the bottom of the Xan-Sskarn's foot and was lodged between the gaps of the grating that was the computer core's deck.
Rolling to the side in an attempt to escape the blow he knew was coming from the Xan-Sskarn's uninjured arm, Alan heard a soft hiss followed by a shower of blood. Turning his head, he could see Tracy standing over the body of her own opponent, flechette rifle aimed directly at the space where the final Xan-Sskarn had been standing.
"Nice shot," he said, still lying on the deck looking up at her but making a show of checking his armor for holes.
"You're welcome."
After taking a few more moments to catch his breath, Alan stood up and surveyed the carnage they had wrought in the small room then took stock of his own condition, finally turning to face Tracy.
"Can we go home now?"
* * *
"We can go home just as soon as you find the memory module with all the data on it," Tracy told him as she went to retrieve her pistol. Picking it up, she ejected the partially spent magazine and replaced it with a fresh one, then holstered the weapon. Slinging her rifles and pack off, she dropped them to the deck and knelt beside them. Rummaging around in the pack for a moment, she came up with three bricks of what looked like black clay.
"And while you're doing that, I'm going to leave a little thank you for our wonderful hosts."
Standing up, she moved about the room, peeling strips from the backs of the blocks and sticking to them to the three largest banks of computers in the room. She found Alan's pistol in her wanderings and brought it back over to him as he worked a large flat box out of one of the computer banks.
"That it?" she asked him.
"It's the backup storage device, so it should have everything Captain McLaughlin is looking for." Alan shrugged as he set box on the floor.
She watched as he began to divest himself of pack and rifles then paused, looking at the remains of his pack and flechette rifle.
"Looks like that Sally wanted to take a serious piece out of you, doesn't it?" Tracy asked.
Tracy reached out and took the shredded piece of cloth that was once his pack. Not much of it remained beyond the straps and the backing. It and his flechette rifle had taken the brunt of the Xan-Sskarn's stroke. There was a crease in the magazine well of the rifle, trapping the magazine.
"Well, at least it happened now, and not earlier," she told him, patting him on the back as she bent to retrieve the module.
"Meaning what?" he asked as he shecked to see if the rifle still worked.
"Now that we've got what we came for, and I'm sure the captain's gotten the civvies squared away, well, we're free to use these babies, now, aren't we?" Tracy patted her pulse rifle.
"Good point," Alan agreed, picking up his own, inserting a magazine into the well, and charging the capacitors.
"God, this thing's heavy," she hissed, trying to work the memory module into her pack. Thirty centimeters long, twenty centimeters wide, and five centimeters deep, the module was an impressive piece of storage medium.
She emptied her pack and stuffed in the module, then quickly looked through the former contents for anything she might remotely need in the next thirty minutes. Nothing caught her eye, so she rose.
"You want me to carry that?" Alan asked her, pointing at the pack sitting at her feet.
"No, I've got it. Besides, I think your back has taken enough of a beating on my behalf."
"Are we ready to go?"
"In a minute. Here," she said, holding out her hand to him, "go put these detonators in our thank-you presents while I get hold of the captain."
Alan slung his rifle and moved off to arm the explosives.
"Bravo Actual, this is Romeo Three One," Tracy called over the command net.
"Romeo Three One, this is Bravo Actual, go ahead." Captain Optika's voice sounded harried and tired.
"Have secured objective and are preparing to exfiltrate."
"Tracy, we've got company!" Alan shouted to her from the hatch. "At least a squad, maybe more."
She looked up to see him kneeling beside the opening, leaning around to fire bursts from his pistol. She opened the Recon net, patching Alan into her conversation with Optika.
"Bravo Actual, be advised, we are meeting heavy resistance. Romeo is going to pulse weapons," she informed the captain, not waiting for permission now. "We are preparing to break out and head home. Make sure everyone knows we're coming, and that we're probably going to bring guests."
She saw Alan holster his pistol then snug the butt of his rifle into his shoulder.
"Understood, Romeo Three One. We'll be waiting, Bravo Actual out." Captain Optika signed off.
"Okay, Alan, are we ready to go?"
"You know it." She could hear the grin in his voice.
"Good." She shouldered her pack and charged her rifle. "Light 'em up."
* * *
Alan ejected the spent magazine from his pulse rifle and drew a fresh one from his belt.
"Jesus Christ! How many fuckin' Sallys are on this planet?"
Slapping the magazine into the well, he charged his rifle and brought it up to his shoulder, looking for targets. He and Tracy were once again leapfrogging down the passageways, working their way toward the hangar and their ride home. He watched as she pulled away from her position, turned, and sprinted down the corridor toward him. Just as she was halfway to him, three Xan-Sskarns came around the corner behind her, weapons leveled, preparing to fire.
"Down!" he shouted, sighting in on the middle Xan-Sskarn.
Reacting as soon as she heard his command, Tracy threw herself to the deck, and, once she cleared his line of fire, he pulled the trigger.
A stream of hypervelocity rounds cracked down the passageway, ionizing the air before impacting the lead Xan-Sskarn. The result looked as if the Xan-Sskarn had been packed full of high-yield explosives: it came apart in a mist of vaporized blood and tissue. The hypersonic shockwave of its death took its two companions with it into the afterlife.
"Clear!"
Tracy jumped to her feet and tore down the corridor toward him. When she finally drew even with him, she took up a position along the opposite bulkhead and breathed deeply.
"You know, I've been wondering the same thing," Tracy said to him, her breath already returning to normal. "Seems to me like we've taken out a company by ourselves."
"Yeah, I know, but it's probably only been about twenty-five or thirty. Seems like more, though." He saw another Xan-Sskarn come around the same corner as the earlier three, and it shared their fate.
"Fuck this!" Tracy snapped. Jerking her rifle up and thumbing the capacitor to full charge, she aimed down the corridor. Alan watched as a long stream of rounds impacted with the corner she had jus
t left.
Hypervelocity rounds hitting flesh was one thing, but hitting solid matter was something else entirely. With a lesser charge set on the rifles, the rounds would punch through bulkheads as if they were made of rice paper. At the maximum charge, however, the kinetic impact was quite literally explosive. Alan and Tracy had both had their weapons set for a mid-level charge, but it appeared that Tracy was no longer in the mood to play.
The corner and surrounding bulkheads vanished in a cataclysmic explosion that collapsed part of the structure.
"That should slow them down some," she said.
"I hope so, 'cause I'm getting tired," Alan told her, never taking his eyes off his sector of responsibility.
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