The Dotari Salvation (Terran Strike Marines Book 1)

by Richard Fox

  Lo’thar clutched at Hoffman’s arm, feet kicking as he swore—or prayed—in Dotari.

  The lights in the chamber flickered out. Banshees screamed and howled. Far below, the pods remained illuminated.

  Hoffman attempted to pull Lo’thar up with one arm but didn’t have sufficient leverage. “Lo’thar, a little help?” Hoffman asked. The Dotari pilot climbed up the Marine’s arm and wrapped his arms around Hoffman’s neck. Hoffman flexed the pseudo muscles of his armor to resist strangulation and climbed faster.

  Garrison and Max dangled from a section of the swinging catwalk, but managed to climb higher, leaving bent metal handholds for Hoffman to use.

  Hoffman gasped for air, driving his suit hard to get high enough that Garrison and Max could also escape. Looking down, he saw chaos and destruction. Fires spread. Banshees flung themselves from the stairs toward the disconnected catwalk. Many of them missed and fell, only to crawl back and try again. Some of the jumpers were already wreathed in flames, their skin charring.

  “I think some of the stasis pods are still working,” Lo’thar wheezed.

  Hoffman grunted as Lo’thar squeezed with both arms. There were three more rungs to reach the top of the platform turned into a ladder. Something shook the entire structure. He flicked his gaze down, his mobility limited by the load he carried.

  More banshees jumped up, grabbing the bottom of the broken platform.

  Garrison and Max stopped. In unison, they gripped the metal grating with their feet and thighs, leaned out slightly, and fired down into the banshees.

  Hoffman reached the top and chucked Lo’thar to safety. “Move! I’ll cover.” He lay on the platform, leaning over the edge as he pulled his rifle into position and stroked the trigger simultaneously with seeing banshees through the sights.

  As Garrison and Max scrambled upward, the catwalk groaned. Hoffman thought he could feel it getting ready to snap.

  More banshees jumped on and climbed.

  Hoffman fired, hitting one target after another despite the awkward firing position.

  “I’m up,” Max panted just before the catwalk broke free.

  Garrison jumped, his feet thrusting the metal grating down more than it propelled him up. Hoffman lunged forward and grabbed Garrison’s free hand, their combined weight pulling him farther over the edge. Lo’thar and Max fell on his legs and held on.

  “Pull, LT!” Garrison yelled.

  “I thought I’d…drop you as a distraction,” Hoffman grunted. The pseudo muscles of his suit augmented his strength, but progress only came inch by inch.

  Max grabbed Hoffman around the waist and pulled with his legs, back, and arms until Garrison rolled onto the landing and gripped it with both hands, his chest heaving, his voice higher than normal. “Okay, shooting the bomb was not the best idea.”

  “You found a solution to a tactical problem, and none of us died. Good job,” Hoffman said, rolling up to one knee as he caught his breath.

  Garrison gave him a thumbs-up.

  Max stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head and gathering his senses while Lo’thar stared in horror at the monsters below. “We should leave now, yes?”

  “To the air lock. Double time,” Hoffman said, thinking how the plan had just gone sideways.

  Chapter 14

  King moved through the air duct, muttering under his breath with his IR and radio mics off. The primary benefit to wearing Strike Marine armor was the ability to talk to himself without looking crazy. No one could see or hear him rant. It was a guilty pleasure.

  “Is this dust?” Adams asked as she crawled behind King.

  “In the right circumstances, dust can be highly explosive,” Duke said from the rear of their crawling team. “So shut up and pay attention.”

  “Can the cross talk,” King said. “Booker, how’s our principal?”

  “Mister Moz’in is doing just as good as ever,” Booker said.

  “Not reassuring.” King came to a grate and looked at the room below them, where banshees milled around. One stabbed another for no reason and the victim of the stabbing barely reacted. “Crossing a grate. Maintain noise discipline and go slow. Bunch of beasties down there.”

  He moved ahead, pushing the carcasses of small, long-dead creatures aside. One came apart and smeared his glove and the wall he wiped it on. One of the supposedly dead rodent-bugs scurried out of sight. “Opal. Status report.”

  “Opal fits through ventilation duct.”

  “Not well,” Booker added.

  “Another grate. I think this is the one,” King said. “Looks like about three squads’ worth of banshees milling outside the door to engineering.”

  Vibrations rippled through the thin metal King and the others were crawling on. An ominous droning sound followed as power—invisible, unseen, and unheard until now—cut out. The dark space around them became pitch-black for a second. His helmet visor compensated a second behind both the power fluctuation and flickering light jutting up through the vents.

  King checked his mission clock. Too soon. Way too soon. “Damn it—shake and bake, go!”

  He kicked out the ventilation plate nearest to him, twisted sideways in the cramped space, and dropped a grenade. Duke, Opal, and Booker did likewise. A combination of fragmentation and flash-bang grenades exploded in the passageway.

  Shrapnel cut through the ventilation shaft like it was paper. King felt tugs against his armor as slivers of metal bounced off. His armor was proof against minor shrapnel and the deafening explosions. Feeling the hits instead of the pain of torn flesh was a relief, but he didn’t want to make a habit of trusting the lowest-bidding manufacturers. Booker shielded Moz’in with her body armor while the old Dotari pressed his hands to the side of his helmet, trying to cover the ears within.

  “Now I know how the fish in a barrel feel,” Adams said, dropping into the fray. King, Duke, and Booker scrambled through the small openings and fell into a tangle of stricken banshees.

  King came to his feet as he fired a stream of bullets into a banshee twice his size. Haphazardly placed armor plates deflected some of the bullets. Flesh fountained from other bullets as they impacted at close range. Expanding gas from his rifle barrel stapled the forehead of the monster.

  He kicked it hard, driving himself back from his dying attacker. He turned, looked for his team, and fired on a new target. “Circle up. Watch the cross fire!”

  Booker and Adams backed up to him.

  “Reloading!” Adams yelled. “Hell, yeah! Die, you ugly…”

  King heard Booker fire one quick shot at a time.

  Duke, ten strides away, jumped on a banshee and stabbed it three times through the eye slits of its armor as it tumbled backward. Standing on its chest as it struck the ground, he swirled on the balls of his feet, shooting one target after another in the throat. A second later, he moved farther away from King, Booker, and Adams.

  King switched to shot and blew out the knees of two charging banshees with a tight group of metal beads. “Duke! Rally!”

  “Working on it! Can’t get there from here. Doing my own thing for a minute,” Duke said as he fought his way closer to the door to engineering.

  “Let’s go to him, best speed,” King said. “Move closer to the wall. Eliminate at least one of their angles of attack.”

  “Shit!” Booker yelled. “He can’t shoot that thing one-handed.”

  King transitioned to his pistol and emptied it on a banshee about to take Adams out as she reloaded. He holstered and finished his reload as Adams killed things with bullets and profanity. Her face was pale, her lips and cheeks flushed red through her translucent visor.

  King saw blood and banshee bits splattered across her visor just as he realized he could barely see through his own visor. “Move! I’ll cover. Link up with Duke.”

  “Gunney…” Adams yelled.

  “Do it now!” Booker grunted, shooting as she moved.

  Focused on shooting banshees as they went down flailing, King
was vaguely aware of their progress.

  “Throat shots! They never have armor on their throats!” Duke’s over amplified voice echoed in King’s helmet speaker.

  King aimed and fired, striking banshees in their necks, shoulders, chests, and faces as Booker bounded back to cover and Duke dropped one after another with precision marksmanship.

  “We’re set! Come on, Gunney!” Booker yelled.

  King spun around and sprinted, not trying to shoot or reload. As Duke, Booker, and Adams formed a firing line and went full auto on the remaining banshees, King dove and slid on his stomach. He stood in time to join the killing frenzy, but the rest of the fight was short.

  “Where’s Opal?” Adams asked.

  King looked up. The doughboy was rocking back and forth in the air duct, threatening to bring the entire structure down.

  “Opal wants down!” he grumbled just before his huge fist punched through the side of the duct and ripped open a hole.

  The doughboy fell.

  King and the others winced when the better part of three hundred pounds of muscle hit the deck.

  “Like a sack of potatoes but dumber,” Duke said. Opal’s big gun fell on him with a heavy thud.

  King looked up. “Where’s Moz’in?”

  “I’m up here. Still here. Fine up here. Yes. Moz’in and I will just watch,” Moz’in said.

  “We need you to open this door. Get your ass down here before I send Opal back up there to get you.”

  Slowly, with all the enthusiasm of creeping fungus, the old Dotari climbed out and hung from the grate. He swung for a while as the Strike Marines stared in mute exhaustion and fascination, then dropped.

  “Oh, oh! I got him,” Adams said, running forward like a baseball outfielder. She caught him easily with the enhanced strength of her armor’s pseudo muscles.

  Banshees screamed from several connecting hallways.

  Moz’in hurried to the door and opened the control panel, typing fast. “That’s not it…”

  King cursed under his breath, turned away from the fumbling Dotari, and shot a banshee in the face as it came out of a hallway.

  “Was it five?” Moz’in said on the second try.

  Duke ran to a hallway opening and kneeled to aim. “Sooner is better than later!” He fired several times, then reloaded as Adams stood over him and provided covering fire.

  “Ah, nine? Are you sure?” Moz’in said. He shrugged and entered the code. The doors opened. “Thank you, Moz’in,” Moz’in said, then stage-whispered, “I knew it was nine the whole time.”

  A banshee reached through the door as it came open and grabbed Moz’in, but Opal snatched the banshee by the side of its face and bashed its skull against the slowly opening door. He picked Moz’in up with one hand, then set him out of the way before aiming his gauss rifle into the room and shooting several times.

  King hurried to his side and saw a mass of banshees inside the engineering area.

  Opal stepped forward and swung his rifle like a club, crushing a half-helmeted banshee’s head. Roaring like a beast, Opal shoved the wounded thing backward. Two more replaced the first, both big and grotesquely over muscled.

  Opal head-butted one hard. King looked for a shot, but Opal filled the doorway, following the head-butt with a vicious elbow cross that slammed his victim out of view.

  Three more crowded forward.

  Opal drew his block-shaped sidearm and emptied the magazine into one’s face. A second later, he front-kicked another just below the waist, then drove his knee into its face. Gripping the rifle with two hands, he slammed the butt of it into another, snapping its neck.

  A banshee climbed over its fallen comrades to stab sharp, elongated fingers through Opal’s chest armor. Opal grabbed his attacker’s wrist and severed it from the hand. Twisting to one side, Opal yanked the banshee aside and struck it in the head with his knee. The doughboy brought his oversized rifle up as he stomped the banshee lying at his feet. Opal’s weapon boomed as he shot up the rest of the banshees in the corridor.

  Backing up, Opal continued to fire as more banshees charged. His weapon clicked empty and he swung it like a club into the first alien to enter range, crushing it against the bulkhead in a splatter of dark blood.

  Opal dropped his rifle and howled at the banshees. With God as King’s witness, the sergeant swore the aliens hesitated. The doughboy shoulder-charged into the lead banshee and knocked it up and into the air ducts. He slapped his hands against the head of the next enemy and crushed it with a grunt.

  Duke and Adams watched the fight, jaws slack.

  “Let’s help the dummy out,” King said.

  All three of them opened fire on targets outside the reach of Opal’s wrath. The doughboy ripped an arm off an alien and used it to club another to the ground. When that one stopped moving, he whirled around and stomped the one-armed banshee to death. The construct picked up another corpse by the chest, then flung it to one side. He looked down the corridor and growled.

  “Opal…stand down,” King said. The doughboy looked at the banshee hand still embedded in his chest and pulled it free. Blood ran from the punctures as he picked up his rifle and swapped out the magazines.

  Duke lowered his weapon abruptly. “And…we’re done. Good work, Opie. Scary, but good.”

  “Opal, how bad are your injuries?” King asked.

  “Unit suffering compromised lung function,” Opal said. “Armor integrity compromised.”

  “Booker, patch him up,” King said.

  “Any pain, big guy?” the medic asked. She held her medical gauntlet perpendicular to his chest and three surgical probes popped out.

  “No pain,” Opal said. “No fear. Opal fights.”

  “So weird when you go from computer to lummox,” she said. The probes pressed into the holes in his armor and blood spurted out. “Can’t do this with a human…the puncture almost nicked one of your hearts. I can stop the bleeding easily enough. Time for self-repair?”

  Opal stared into the distance.

  “Opal? Time for self-repair?”

  “Unit will reknit tissue in nine hours,” Opal said as Booker pulled her gauntlet away. The probes vibrated, shedding blood onto the deck. Antibacterial mist rose from the device as it reset.

  “Nine hours is longer than usual,” Booker said.

  “System degradation detected,” Opal said.

  “How degrad—” She looked over her shoulder at King, who was speaking with Moz’in at the engineering command center. “Can you fight?”

  “Opal fights.” He hefted his rifle up.

  “We’ll tell the lieutenant about this later, OK?” Booker asked.

  “Sir needs Opal.”

  “We all need you, Opie. Stay strong.”

  “Booker! Opal!” King pointed to a door on the other side of the command center. “Secure that entrance.”

  King felt time ticking by as Moz’in went from workstation to workstation, mumbling to himself. The Dotari fell to bony knees, opened an access panel, and reached inside. There was a snap of electricity. He yanked his hand out and shook it against his thigh.

  “Serves Moz’in right. Obvious that was a live wire.” He looked up at King. “The bridge still has control. I can’t access any systems yet.”

  Silence filled the room as the sound of approaching banshees echoed down the outer corridors.

  “Then we wait for the LT to deliver,” King said. Come on, sir. We’re counting on you.

  A new chorus of banshee howls rose from the far end of the engineering chamber. Shadows flickered against huge reactors at the far end of the long, wide, high-ceilinged room. The clear walls surrounding the engineering room had been designed for visibility and oversight of a colossal power center. King didn’t think it looked defensible. The doorways were all too wide, and the blast door, heavier even than decompression doors in other parts of the ship, hadn’t fallen during the recent battle, which probably meant it couldn’t be lowered without full control of the engineering w
orkstations.

  Moz’in looked up from his work, alarm contorting his features.

  “Do you need any of that crap?” King asked, pointing at a dense row of computer banks.

  Moz’in patted the computer in front of him. “Just this station.”

  King quickly surveyed the area between his team and the new swarm of banshees. An energy bolt arched toward them in slow motion, missing, but sending a chill up his spine nonetheless. “We need barricades. Opal! Break stuff!”

  “LT said no break stuff.”

  “He did, Opal 6-1-9. But I’m giving you a new order. Break up those workstations and stack them across the doorway facing the reactors,” King said.

  Opal hesitated.

  “They’re not shiny, Opal.” King rolled his eyes.

  “Opal break!”

  Chapter 15

  Sweat ran down the back of Valdar’s neck as he studied the holo display, the slow trace of the Breitenfeld toward the oncoming Dotari ships. These were the moments naval officers trained for, the long bouts of time that could fill with indecision and doubt.

  “Estimated time of contact?” Valdar asked.

  “Nearly three hours, sir,” Egan said.

  “Any other threats trying to sneak up on us? Maybe a Toth battle cruiser or a Vishrakath stealther? Why not? That’s how things happen this far out in the void.”

  “None, sir.”

  “Well, there’s that, at least.”

  Gor’al and Egan leaned over a workstation, examining data.

  “The smaller ships have pulled into a tighter formation, blocking our line of sight with the Kid’ran’s Gift,” Valdar said as he studied the main holo and drummed his fingers on a railing. “How are the Xaros controlling those ships?”

  “Laser relays,” Gor’al answered. “Direct line-of-sight communication, not as secure as your infrared, but longer range.”

  “So there will be some communication lag between whatever’s controlling the ships, the farther they are from the Kid’ran. Won’t be much, but the slower they react to us, the better chance we’ll have when they get closer. Helm, bring us on a parallel course to the Dotari fleet, then edge us away at ten degrees to starboard.”