by Joshua James
“Four minutes.”
Jiang didn’t look winded at all. Again, she was absently rubbing the chain around her neck.
He’d seen that fossilized fang that hung from it before. He knew it.
“Rocky?” Damn it, he wished he didn’t get his freezer burned so much.
Then something clicked in the useless caverns of his shitty memory.
Yes, he did recognize it! The tooth was from a tannierian devil. He used to have one just like. They were rare. Really rare.
He thought back to her words from earlier. ‘My brother worships the ground you walk on.’
I knew her brother, he realized. I gave that to her brother.
This close connection to Jiang hit him like a pulse to the gut.
“I’m thinking,” said Dawson. He was staring straight ahead, pumping his legs.
Lucky hadn’t even realized he was listening. He was still coming to terms with his revelation about Jiang’s brother. He suddenly felt like he needed urgently to talk to her about it, but Dawson plunged ahead.
“Running hasn’t helped me. It hasn’t helped my little girl.”
He didn’t seem like the running type to Lucky.
He turned with that lanky smile. “I’ll just hang close to our lucky charm here.”
“I’m a lot of things,” Lucky said. “But I’m no lucky charm.”
“That’s not what I hear,” said Vlad. The scientist was easily keeping pace.
Orton was huffing along beside her despite having no gear to carry.
“Oh so lucky,” said Rocky.
“Three minutes,” shouted Malby.
Lucky yelled at Vlad, “How close are these ships of yours?”
As he said it, the corridor broadened.
“We’re here.”
The group stopped to survey the space. It looked almost identical to the one they had been in. Smaller was a relative term. It was still more than a half-klick wide and just as tall. It had fewer pathways leading into it, which was a plus. One wall harbored the same alien script and set of matching arches. The access points. Unlike the earlier ones, the bands here were shifted in a different formation from the rest of the ore wall. They were detached and separate.
But the real tactical advantage was what was inside. It was full of big, featureless blocks of rock. The blocks were thrown around and jumbled, many on their sides.
Lucky spotted one that was flipped over. The underside had an array of pins that connected to a central disk.
It dawned on Lucky that these were the ships Vlad was talking about. And in that context, and knowing the composition of Happy Giant, it made sense. They shared the same exterior of overlocking sheets of banded gray ore. Arched openings were set into the side of each one.
But they were still massive. The entire party could fit into one with plenty of space to spare.
“Those are your idea of small, maneuverable ships?” yelled Malby as the group ran across the open hangar.
“No!” yelled Vlad, breathing easily. “But they were to the builders of this ship. And they were only interested in fold passage.”
It made sense. Happy Giant was a single-purpose vehicle, and so were these. Everything here was entirely devoted to transit with the Da’hune through the Great Corridor.
No wonder the Ship was pissy about getting left behind.
“Also,” she said, “small is relative. We believe the aliens were at least three times our size.”
That tracked with the oversized nature of Happy Giant. It was also a very sobering thought in light of the conversation with the Ship in transit.
“Two minutes!” yelled Malby.
“Move!” bellowed Lucky.
If this all went to hell, they needed to settle into cover. And he already knew it was going to go to hell.
“You picking anything up, Rocky?”
“Negative.”
That’s what Lucky had been afraid of.
This plan was doomed.
38
Leaving
“How are our readings, Malby?”
Malby looked curiously at Lucky. “Come again?”
“You getting any interference?”
Malby shook his head. “No, why?”
They reached the nearest of the small ships, which Lucky decided to call Little Giant. He leaned against the access point on the side and it slid open with ease.
“Defensive positions!”
Jiang looked over sharply. “Why? Just get Rocky to fly us the hell out of here!”
But Lucky was looking at Vlad now. “But we can’t, can we?” he said.
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
Lucky flipped the clip on his pulse rifle in one practiced action, spinning the weapon on his palm.
Then he shot her.
Vlad exhaled sharply as she was thrown off her feet, the blast folding her head down to meet her feet, which in turn quickly rose above her head, and she somersaulted backward, flipping over and landing facedown.
“What the hell, Lucky!” screamed Jiang.
Lucky frowned at Jiang. “It was just a stunner.”
“Wicked,” said Cheeky with a grin.
“Vlad!” screamed Orton as he ran to her side.
“But why?” said Jiang.
Lucky looked over at Malby. “Time?”
Malby seemed to shake himself out of a stupor.
“Uh, one minute, give or take.”
The Marines instinctively started scanning.
“Rocky?”
“I’m working on it,” she said. “This place is crawling with Union dirtbags, especially aft.”
“Work faster.”
Lucky turned back to Vlad. Blood spilled from a gash on her head, and she clutched her arm where more blood was seeping out.
“You’re going to need to talk fast,” he said. “But I’m going to start. You know we can’t pass through the fold without those little magical orbs, those T’ket’ka. And there isn’t a single one of them here. We’d be getting interference like crazy being this close to them,” he said. “Everything you have done since the moment we arrived was about getting those antimatter orbs. You have known everything about them before we got here.”
“I didn’t—”
“Maybe you didn’t notice, but the lies are piling up,” he said. “You also said the Marines didn’t come inside the ship. But you knew where these little suckers were based on readings you got from your scientist pals inside the ship. Now I’m no CO, but there’s no goddamned way that your brainiacs were climbing around this ship, unattended, while the Marines held a circle jerk out front.”
Vlad opened her mouth, then closed it.
“You know this, right?” Lucky said to Orton. “I saw your face. She shouldn’t know what she knows about the layout, right? She has consistently known way more than you and your research buddies.”
Orton glared at Lucky, but he wasn’t disagreeing.
“Time!” he barked at Malby.
“Thirty seconds!”
“So, now we’re screwed,” he said. “Do you have some plan to save your own skin and get these orbs back to your precious Empire handlers? Now would be the time to unveil it to dramatic effect.”
Vlad curled her lip. “I don’t have to answer to an overgrown monkey with dead sister issues.”
Lucky jerked his head back like he’d been punched.
“I know the book on you, Lucky. It’s pretty thin. And for the record, everyone I’ve talked to at command agrees. It would’ve been better if she’d lived and you’d bought it. But you can’t pick who lives and dies. That’s war.”
“Score one for the bitch,” said Rocky. “Better play your cards.”
Lucky was rattled, but Rocky was right.
“Sounds like something the Da’hune would say,” he said.
“That doesn’t actually make sense,” Rocky offered.
“Shut up.”
He just wanted to get the
word out there and see how she reacted.
It was Vlad’s turn to look like she had been punched.
Orton shook his head. “Who?” he said.
“Ask mama bear,” he said.
Orton turned to Vlad, reading her expression. “What is he talking about?”
Lucky answered for her. “This ship was real talkative inside the fold. I’ve got some answers that I bet your fearless leader here would really love to hear.”
“Ask and ye shall receive,” interrupted Rocky.
Two energy-banded locust drones burst into the room.
Cheeky jerked his rifle up to his shoulder.
Before he could squeeze off a shot, Lucky kicked the back of his leg, causing him to wobble and fire straight upward.
“Dammit!”
“Trust me, you don’t want to be shooting that.”
The locusts slipped into the little giant. A pearl-colored orb was suspended between them.
Vlad looked horrified. “You brought one of those here?”
“Well, since you couldn’t be bothered,” Lucky said. The drones slid the T’ket’ka into the shielded compartment that all the lines along the bottom of the container flowed into.
“We’re leaving, Marines!” he yelled. A smile crept onto his face. As soon as they were back through the corridor, this whole thing would be some else’s problem. They could figure out what the crazy scientists were up to—Empire and Union.
And he could go back to being very, very drunk and try to forget this whole episode even happened.
And most importantly, never give another order again.
“Hot damn!” said Malby, jumping inside.
Cheeky turned back to the ship doorway.
Jiang began slowly stepping back along the outside lip of the ship.
Farther down the hull of the craft, Dawson and Nico were doing the same.
Finally, Vlad seemed to break. “You’re right,” she said at last. “I have been hiding information from you. All of you. I didn’t know if you could be trusted.”
Lucky realized he was holding his breath.
“But you’ve got it all wrong,” she said.
And then the walls caved in on them.
39
Liar
A huge explosion threw them off their feet. The container ship bounced into the air with the blast, and Lucky found the roof and the floor equally unpleasant to bounce against.
Rocky instantly hit him with stims as he felt damage bloom all over his body.
The roof of the container ship was depressed downward, the space they were in now deformed and squeezed like a ground pounder’s beer can.
Gray rock ore and debris covered the floor of the hangar and poured into the opening on the side of Little Giant, where Jiang and Cheeky had just been standing.
The shielded home for the orb was intact. He knew it would react to pulse fire. He wasn’t sure about getting smashed by falling debris, but it was probably best not to find out.
Jiang was gone.
Cheeky was on the ground, smiling up at Lucky like he’d just been on a roller coaster and couldn’t believe how much fun it was. Blood poured from his mouth, nose, and eye. His faceplate was shattered.
Lucky could only see his head, neck and shoulders. The rest of him was pinned under the debris blocking the opening.
But he was wrong. He wasn’t pinned. The rest of him was gone, sheared off by the force of the falling debris.
Head, neck and shoulders were all that was left.
“Hey, Lucky, my AI’s having some problems here,” said Cheeky, startling him.
Lucky leaned down and rested his hand on his shoulder. “Those stims are coming now, buddy. Just rest up; your AI will get you fixed up in no time.”
“You’re a shitty liar,” he said, still smiling.
And then he closed his eyes.
There were a lot of injuries that a Frontier Marine could survive with the help of his biobots, but having your body sheared clean in half wasn’t one of them.
Lucky said the only thing he could think of, the thing his father had told him when he was very young and his mother died.
“To live is to die,” he said quietly.
It was a shitty expression, but his old man wasn’t much for expressions and neither was he. Plus, life was shitty.
He looked around the rest of the crushed cabin of the ship.
Chunks of the interior hung down where the pressure had buckled the supports.
The two scientists were on the ground. Orton had a badly broken leg, almost completely folded back under him. He was twisted at an odd angle, and Lucky worried whether he had internal injuries.
Vlad was in better shape. She still had the bloody wounds from when he’d hit her with the stunner, but now she also had a huge bloody hole in her thigh where she’d been partially impaled against a slab of ore on one edge of the ship.
She stared at Lucky, but her eyelids were fluttering and she had a glazed look on her face. She was in shock, he assumed, but she was conscious.
“Get down and stay down!” he screamed.
Malby was a little dazed beside him but on his feet.
“What the hell happened out there, Malby? I thought the drones were tracking them.”
“They were,” he said, shaking his head.
“They played us. They knew the layout of the ship, and they knew where we were,” Rocky said. “They blew an entire section of the starboard hangar wall over on us.”
Lucky realized now where all the debris came from. It was the fractured remains of the huge overlocking sheets of gray ore.
“What does it look like now?”
“Strange.”
“Show me.”
Rocky overlaid a drone view. “They have the high ground above the rubble,” she explained. “But they aren’t coming down. They’re just sitting up there.”
It was eerily silent in the hangar.
The Union soldiers were sitting patiently, and Lucky was sure his Marines weren’t dumb enough to present themselves as targets.
But what were they waiting for? They had superior forces. Just swoop down and end this thing.
“Where is everyone?”
As he said it, Jiang’s voice whispered over the all-comm.
“Dawson, I see you. Are you okay?”
“Affirmative, coming to your location now.”
Lucky heard several energy blasts.
“Damn. Never mind, I’m pinned.”
“Everyone, stay down until we get a plan,” Lucky said over all-comm. “Sound off. Where are we?”
“Jiang here. I’m under one of the ships at your nine o’clock, Lucky. Two down from your position.”
“Dawson, check. I’m about fifteen-feet from Jiang on her three o’clock. I’m behind one big-ass piece of rock.”
“Lucky and Malby here in the ship with the brainiacs,” he added. He paused. “Cheeky is down.”
No response.
Another pause. “Nico?”
Still nothing.
“Rocky, did we lose the kid?”
“I have his AI. He’s out there.”
Where? Hiding? Then he saw him.
He must have been blown clear when the wall fell. He was halfway across the hangar, lying motionless amongst the rocks.
“You sure he’s alive?”
“RTC in progress. ETA on consciousness is about two minutes.”
He’d be dead before that. The Union soldiers may have been holding back, but they wouldn’t have a hard time hitting a Marine lying sprawled out making a fine target of himself.
“Uh oh,” said Rocky.
“What now?”
“I think I see now what they’re waiting for.”
His mind’s eye showed what her drone was seeing.
A large Union battle platform slid into view, followed by another. And then dozens of Union locusts began buzzing into the hangar.
They were going to smoke them out.
40
<
br /> Tango
“Drones incoming, find cover!” he yelled over all-comm. And to Rocky, he barked, “Where the hell are our drones?”
“Already on it,” she said. “Two can play this hide and seek game.”
On cue, dozens of the Marines’ drones poured out of a handful of little giants scattered across the hangar. They had waited to vector in behind the cloud of Union drones.
The element of surprise wasn’t going to last long, but in a drone war, seconds could make all the difference.
“We have to get out there,” he said to Malby.
They began digging at the rocks trapping them inside the ship. Lucky moved a chunk, and light and sound poured in. And then a blue energy beam shattered the rock where his hand had been.
“Goddammit!” he yelled, lurching back from the hole. Two more energy arcs slapped across the rock in rapid succession, and the pile exploded inward, throwing Lucky and Malby backward.
Two drones charged in.
Lucky leapt forward at the lead drone, cutting off its room to maneuver inside the small space. Its burner was right at eye level. He could see the red heat from the port. He slapped it with his left arm as it fired, the energy beam whizzing wildly over his shoulder, singing the side of his head.
He raised his pulse rifle and fired at point-blank range on the second drone, incinerating it.
He jumped back just as the first drone completed its wild spin in the air and bore back down on him. His spiders plucked at his mind, and he jerked hard to his right, again feeling the blue energy as it streamed past his face.
And then it exploded, chunks ricocheting off Lucky’s faceplate.
Malby lowered his pulse rifle.
“Thanks,” said Lucky.
“Don’t mention it.” Malby hustled quickly to the hangar opening. “Now what?”
“We need another distraction, Rocky.”
“Okay, but this is all we have.”
Another wave of drones poured out of their hiding places, though noticeably thinner in coverage this time.
Luckily for the locusts, the Union drones’ battle tactics were piss poor as ever, even with the alien weapons tech. They charged at the defensively positioned locusts and were cut down accordingly.