The Dotari Salvation (Terran Strike Marines Book 1)

by Richard Fox

  He moved forward beside Lo’thar, who was reaching for a bunch of nuts hanging on a tree branch like grapes.

  “Visibility is crap in here,” Duke said.

  “Remember when I said you wouldn’t need that sniper rifle?” King asked. “Watch your zone and look for work.”

  “These are gar’udda nut trees,” Lo’thar said. He twisted one off and nibbled on it. “Almost ripe. These branches have been trimmed recently.”

  “Hungry,” Opal said as he grabbed a fistful of the nuts and tossed the cluster stems and all into his mouth. After two more handfuls, he handed some to Hoffman.

  “Not hungry,” Hoffman said.

  Duke sniffled and rubbed his eyes with one hand.

  Booker shined a small light in his eyes. “Allergic reaction?”

  “Little bit,” Duke said.

  Hoffman tried not to have his own sympathetic reaction. The sniper looked miserable. He faced Lo’thar. “You said we’re close to a hangar bay?”

  “Certainly. Just on the other side,” Lo’thar said.

  “We get to the hull, we can send a message to the Breitenfeld,” Hoffman said. “Call in the Barca for evac. Everyone get that?”

  The team nodded and Duke clicked his tongue into the open IR channel.

  Booker froze, then held up a fist next to her helmet. She put one hand over the Dotari’s beak and pulled him into the shrubberies. In the distance, trees and bushes rustled.

  “Good job, Booker,” King whispered as the Strike Marines crouched low and went silent.

  Heard more than seen, banshees entered through a door on the far side of the room. Branches moved. A small animal darted away from the approaching monsters about twenty meters from the team.

  Hoffman typed out a text message on his arm panel and sent it to each member of the team. “Watch your zones. Stealth mode.” The words popped up in the projected HUD that worked regardless of whether the visor was up or down.

  The first banshee continued forward until it was uncomfortably close to the team. The creature lacked most of the armor Hoffman had seen on the first wave of banshee attackers. It had no eyes or ears but picked nuts with machine-like efficiency, dropping the produce into a filthy apron with unerring accuracy. Others joined the harvest.

  “Is it injured?” King messaged Hoffman.

  Hoffman typed on his arm panel without taking his eyes off the pathetic banshee. “Unknown.”

  Booker’s message crawled rapidly up Hoffman’s and the rest of the team’s HUDs. “Don’t you do it, Duke!”

  Hoffman looked at the sniper, who was stifling a sneeze.

  A second message popped up, this one labeled with Garrison’s online tag of “Legendary Badass”: “What kind of sniper are you?”

  King killed the message board.

  The banshees froze, then turned their eyeless, earless heads. Moments later, they slowly converged on Duke’s position.

  Hoffman slid his Ka-Bar from his armor and adjusted his grip.

  The banshees moved closer.

  Another of the small, rat-like creatures scurried out of a tree and ran between the lead banshee’s legs. It half-turned to look for the rodent, then snapped its arm into the trees and grabbed King by the throat.

  Opal lashed out with his armored fist, smashing the banshee’s head.

  Worker banshees hissed.

  “So much for stealth.” Garrison snatched the breaching hammer from his pack, swinging it around and down on another as it charged, the force of the blow driving its head between its knees. Bits of bone and brains sprayed the ground.

  Adams dashed forward. “On your right, Garrison! I’m on your right!” She jumped into the air, executing a flying kick that collapsed the banshee’s chin.

  “Gotcha, little sister,” Garrison said, redirecting his next swing to avoid her.

  Booker, Max, and Hoffman rushed past King, who was still struggling to his feet. All three stabbed banshee throats with their Ka-Bars.

  “Nice work.” Hoffman wiped off his knife on the side of a gar’udda nut tree. “Time to get out of here.”

  “Wait.” Lo’thar went to one of the bodies. “I need a sample.”

  The entire team watched in stunned silence as Lo’thar removed a bundle from his pack and spread out a roll of vials and syringes.

  “Help him, Booker.” Hoffman pulled King to his feet with one hand.

  “Have you ever done this before?” Booker asked the Dotari.

  Lo’thar picked up a metal syringe. “I used to draw my daughter’s blood, though the implement I used was less frightening than this…and we could get what we wanted from her veins. Dotari immunity factors are in our bone marrow. Bit less pleasant to collect.”

  Booker kicked the dead banshee.

  “He’s not going to mind,” she said.

  King checked his gear and then the bodies of the banshee farmers.

  The sound of hydraulic doors opening carried through the trees. Hoffman looked at Lo’thar and Booker, who were moving far too slow.

  “Opal, get a sample.”

  The doughboy bumped Lo’thar and Booker out of the way, then grabbed the banshee by its bicep and forearm. He twisted, then pulled it apart at the elbow. Tendons slipped free, slick with gore and connective tissue that tore like wet sheets. One of the joints popped and blood spattered Lo’thar’s gear.

  Without a word, Lo’thar held a plastic medical bag up and watched Opal drop the severed limb inside.

  “More samples?” Opal asked.

  Lo’thar shook his head vigorously. “This is not what I trained for. At all.”

  Hoffman grabbed his shoulder, forcing the Dotari pilot to look him in the eyes. “Which way?”

  Lo’thar pointed to the right but seemed preoccupied as he stuffed the bagged banshee hand and forearm into his backpack. Two-thirds of the macabre body part poked out. He made two attempts to put it in his backpack, turning and reaching around himself with limited success.

  A heavy door banged open and closed, then bright-white energy blasts cut through the room, slicing through gar’udda trunks and exploding them into razor-sharp splinters that pelted Hoffman’s visor. He aimed his rifle and blind-fired toward the source of the attacks as he moved toward the cover of a tree reduced to blackened shards.

  “On your right, Garrison!” Adams said as she cranked off three-round bursts at banshees.

  “King. Bounding overwatch,” Hoffman said. “Assault through.”

  Watery foam sprayed down from the ceiling as fire alarms went off.

  “Booker, with me.” King and Booker raced forward as the team laid down suppressive fire. Targets were plentiful but hard to see between shattered trees and smoke that thickened rapidly.

  “Set,” King and Booker said in unison as they kneeled and fired weapons.

  “The gar’udda burn too oily to make good firewood,” Lo’thar said. “The visibility will only get worse until the ventilation sys—”

  Hoffman grabbed him and signaled Max to follow. “Bounding!”

  “Covering!” King shouted.

  Strike Marine gunfire lashed out at the flare of energy weapons and roaring banshees.

  “Can’t see through this smoke,” Max said. “Lo’thar, stay close.”

  Additional sirens went off loud enough to activate the sound-dampening properties in Hoffman’s helmet. Fire bloomed in the treetops. Smoke gave the sight an ominous glow that seemed to expand moment by moment as spray nozzles in the ceiling proved minimally effective.

  “Button up,” King said. “Since being attacked by alien cyborgs isn’t bad enough, now we’re doing it in a forest fire.”

  “Way ahead of you,” Adams said. “Why have anything that can burn on a ship? Some long-term planning on the Dotari’s part.”

  “Stay close to your partners. Don’t want to lose anyone in this smoke,” Hoffman said. “Push to the doors. Kill anything that tries to stop us. Lo’thar, is that fire alarm going to shut off anytime soon?”

 
“That second siren isn’t a fire alarm. It’s a decompression alarm. The air is going to be sucked into reclamation tanks to starve the fire of oxygen,” Lo’thar said.

  “Great. Just what we need. Moving,” Garrison panted. “Come on, little sister.”

  King and Booker bounded forward next.

  Banshees slowed their rate of fire and pulled back as the flames spread.

  “Duke, check in,” Hoffman said.

  Garrison grunted over the comlink. “Oh look, a door. And it’s closed.”

  “Duke,” Hoffman repeated.

  “I’m coming. Trying not to get shot or burned alive. Or sneeze myself to death.”

  “Get that door open, Garrison,” Hoffman ordered as he sandwiched Lo’thar between himself and Max and sprinted the final distance.

  “Can’t,” Garrison said.

  “What the hell do you mean you can’t?” Adams snorted.

  “Look at it. This monster is thick as Booker’s backside,” Garrison said.

  Booker smacked his helmet.

  “I can’t find hinges. Looks like a slider. Complicated. If I do something wrong, it gets derailed and we get cooked in a Dotari nut farm,” Garrison said.

  “Orchard,” Duke said as he joined them.

  “Whatever.”

  “Everyone get on that door and force it open. Opal, we need to get out of here.”

  “Opal open door.” The doughboy slung his rifle and threw all his weight and strength on the crossbar handle to slide the door sideways. Nothing happened. “Opal needs help!”

  “Duke, maintain security. Everyone else, help Opal.” Hoffman slung his rifle and started pushing. Inch by inch, they moved the door, slipping inside and grabbing the handles on the other side.

  “Duke, move,” Hoffman grunted.

  The sniper rushed into the outer hallway, knelt, and scanned the dark intersection with his rifle.

  “Stand clear,” Hoffman said.

  Everyone jumped away from the industrial-grade hatch and the door slammed shut, shaking the deck beneath their feet. Hoffman winced at the sound of metal shearing and supports breaking inside the door mechanism.

  “For the record, I didn’t break that by myself,” Garrison said.

  Lo’thar fell onto the deck and the bag with the banshee limb tumbled out. He stared at the gruesome body part as though he’d forgotten what it was or why he needed it. He stared through Hoffman and the others without trying to stand up as banshees howled from a corner at the end of a dark hallway.

  “Move out,” Hoffman ordered as he pulled Lo’thar to his feet and shook him. “Get it together, Lo’thar. We need you. Your daughter needs you.”

  Lo’thar stared at him with wide, unfocussed eyes.

  Hoffman wanted to shake him again but resisted the urge. He leaned his helmet visor inches from Lo’thar’s and spoke in a low, sincere tone. “Get us out of here, Lo’thar.”

  Lo’thar lifted the banshee farmer’s hand and pointed down a hallway leading away from the sounds of the banshee swarm. “Should be a hangar bay that direction.” The fingers on the severed hand twitched and Lo’thar shivered as the Dotari tried to hold the body part farther away from himself.

  Hoffman took it and jammed it unceremoniously into Lo’thar’s backpack.

  ****

  Hoffman measured the hallway with his helmet optics, tagging each opening he detected, whether it be a hallway or a hatch, in his combat computer, then motioned King over.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” King said. “A tactical retreat in a straight hallway relies on speed, prayer, and cover fire.”

  “Options?” Hoffman asked.

  King faced the sound of banshees at the far end of one hallway, then the silent hallway leading to the hangar.

  “We should split Garrison from Adams and team him with Duke,” King said. “They can give our pursuers the improvised device-sniper combo. Garrison sets traps, Duke shoots the bastards as they try to avoid them or—better yet—flop around on the deck with massive injuries inciting chaos within the enemy ranks. Buy us time to get some distance.”

  Hoffman nodded. “Good. What else?”

  “Put Lo’thar with Booker. He’s our principal and having our medic close probably isn’t a bad idea. You need Max when we try to contact Bradford or the Barca, I’ll move up to the point position with Adams.”

  “Works,” Hoffman said, then opened a link to the rest of the team. “Garrison, switch to rearguard with Duke and start dropping some toe poppers for the banshees.”

  “It’s always the right time for explosions,” Garrison said as he moved.

  Hoffman chuckled with the rest of the team. “Adams, I hate to do this to you, but King’s your new partner on point. Booker, you’re with Lo’thar in position two. Max, you’re with me. Aside from staying alive, I want you thinking about how we’re going to contact Bradford and gold squad. Opal, you’re with me.”

  King paused before moving to his new position. Hoffman faced the gunnery sergeant and waited.

  “I remember the banshees from that god-awful Last Stand at Takeni movie,” King said over the team channel. “They’re a hell of a lot worse in person. Move it, team. Contrary to what Hale and the others said in that movie, today is not a good day to die.”

  Garrison opened his helmet visor after he passed Hoffman and Max, scratched his nascent sideburns, then dropped the visor. Moving toward the banshee screams, he unbuckled his pack and dropped it to the deck. Duke covered him.

  Hoffman checked the position of each Strike Marine. “Team move.” Moments later, they arrived at an intersection of thick bulkheads. Using the reinforced corners for protection, they aimed their weapons to cover Garrison and Duke when they came running.

  Garrison shaped a charge of plastic explosives, packed it with Dotari nuts and bolts, then wrapped detonating cord around it twice.

  “You’re going to blow your wad on the first trap,” Duke muttered.

  “Do I tell you how to handle your boom stick? No, I don’t. A little professional courtesy if you please. Move and set, I’ll cover,” Garrison said. With reverent hands, he lifted his latest creation, examined it, and reached up to place it eye level to a banshee. “My baby’s so beautiful I can barely bring myself to leave her to these monsters.”

  “That you have all ten fingers is why I believe in you.” Duke popped to his feet and sprinted back to Hoffman and the others. He took a knee at the corner and aimed his weapon down the passageway. “Set. Covering!”

  Banshees entered the longest part of the hallway they hadn’t yet traversed and broke into a loping charge that ate up distance like a pack of wild animals.

  “Moving!” Garrison yelled, barely ahead of the enemy advance.

  Banshees smashed over each other, claws raking the air. High-pitched shrieks from half the banshees cut through the deep roars of the others. Their feet pounded the floor of the hallway as they stampeded forward, brandishing weapons fused directly to their forearms. In some places, the energy blasters had replaced hands. Some looked like cutting torches or mechanical saws, others like they’d been stolen from the ship’s armory and grafted to flesh.

  Hoffman and the rest of the team bounded away to the next intersection. Duke fired a steady rhythm that took banshees out at the knees, toppling them forward and tripping up the aliens behind them. The scrum of banshees snarled and swiped at each other like a pack of wolves fighting over a fresh kill. The wounded banshees seemed no less deterred in reaching the Strike Marines.

  Inaccurate but frequent blasts from the banshees’ energy weapons scorched everything from floor to ceiling. A stream of the blinding energy jetted over Duke and Garrison where they knelt and glanced Max’s armor. He paused to check his communications gear.

  “Good?” Hoffman asked.

  Max gave him a worried thumbs-up just before a bolt of energy scorched the floor where Hoffman had been a moment earlier.

  “Pick up the pace and thank God that only a few of them seem to h
ave ranged weapons. Shorter pauses on each bounding maneuver. Garrison, you better drop your IEDs on the move when you can.”

  The first IED charge—already buried by the banshee advance—exploded, slamming several of the monsters into the walls and the ceiling. A brief, bloody hole opened in the banshee ranks.

  Duke squeezed off rounds at a faster pace.

  King moved into the point position with Adams while Hoffman maintained command of the unit from the center. Booker and Lo’thar followed close behind King and Adams.

  Garrison stuck something to the wall near the corner and then followed the team around. He sprinted, then slowed to a shuffle as he assembled a smaller IED, jabbed a sensor into it, and dropped it. He ran to the other side of the hallway and did the same thing.

  With the optical enhancement of his armor, Hoffman saw the laser trip wire connecting the two devices. He hoped the banshees couldn’t do the same thing.

  Each time the passageway took a new direction, Hoffman worried they were lost and heading away from the hangar. “King, report.”

  “Lo’thar says we’re almost there,” King replied, breathing heavily as he ran someplace beyond Hoffman’s view.

  Hoffman and Max came around the corner and saw the first half of the team facing a set of large cargo doors. Explosions and gauss rifle fire boomed behind him in the direction of his rearguard.

  “Garrison, give me a sit-rep,” Hoffman said.

  “We’re leaving behind a trail of body parts and destruction, just as we planned. I’m good, but I’ll need to resupply before long. At this rate, I won’t have much left to blow open doors and whatnot,” Garrison said.

  Hoffman heard Duke’s rifle from down the hallway as well as through Garrison’s helmet microphone. He hurried toward the others. “Our rearguard is locked in a hot fight. The banshees won’t be far behind.”

  “This is the hangar,” Lo’thar said, indicating the heavy door as everyone looked at the Dotari pilot.

  “Anytime now,” Max said.

  Lo’thar looked at them indignantly. “This is identical to my service bay on the Canticle of Reason. What is the human term? Dee-jay voodoo? Day-us vult?”