"We'll need to bring all of the equipment back for Jonathan and Nick to examine," I said.
"Copy that," Tabby said, spinning open the manual airlock. It was a small room and there was no reason to keep ourselves locked in with the well preserved sentries.
"Liam! We lost contact with you and we're picking up movement in the stairwell." Xie's hushed voice came over the comm. I checked tactical on the HUD, hoping it was Divelbiss returning from the ship. No such luck, he was still near Hotspur, although moving at a high rate of speed toward the building.
I dropped the equipment I'd picked up and leaned on my grav-suit, accelerating from the hidden room's airlock. A quick check of my HUD told me that two blips were converging on Xie and Clark's position at a high rate of speed and would get there before we would.
My suit's tactical comm channel thrummed with the muted sound of automatic blaster fire. They'd made contact with something and it wasn't friendly. I dared a glance through Xie's visor and saw two Kroerak warriors temporarily halted by a relentless hail of blaster fire from the two women.
"It's not getting through," Tabby said, as we landed on the ground and opened fire. Our blaster fire was punishing, even pushing the two and a half meter tall Kroerak backward, but it was as if we were firing into the very mountain itself. The first time I'd seen a three dimensional picture of a Kroerak, I'd thought they looked like a cockroach that stood on its hind legs. It was still an apt description. Standing three meters from one, however, made it significantly more terrifying, especially when it seemed invincible.
At the moment, we were at a stalemate. We were pouring fire into the Kroerak so they couldn't move forward. The problem was, that while a blaster rifle has an incredible energy reserve, it's not infinite. We were quickly running out of time.
"Clark, Mie-su, fall back to the windows," I said. "Don't let off the pressure."
"No AGBs," Xie started to say, but was interrupted by an explosion at the door. The two Kroerak warriors were thrown to the side and Divelbiss tried to use the confusion to charge through the door. He even clipped one of the bugs along the way, causing it to spin, but the Kroerak's reflexes were too quick. It jammed its pincered hand into Divelbiss's side and tossed the one-hundred-twenty-kilogram man to its partner as one would toss a meal bar. A spray of blood followed Divelbiss as the pincer was withdrawn.
The second Kroerak caught Divelbiss, snapping its jaw menacingly before biting down on his left arm, severing it just below the elbow. My AI muted the big man's scream.
"We have to shoot him," Xie pled. "We can't let them eat him alive."
Divelbiss stopped screaming long enough to incoherently mutter, "Rit ded bch,” as he punched his free hand into the snapping proboscis of the Kroerak.
She was right. I raised my gun to put down the big man.
"No! Wait." Tabby stopped me just as the bug snapped down on Divelbiss's outstretched arm. Time froze and then the big man was thrown backward as the bug exploded from the inside.
"All fire on the remaining. Tabby, get Divelbiss out of there!" I said. Without hesitation, Tabby jetted forward and picked up the broken man, retreating out the windows behind us.
Even with three blaster rifles, we made no progress against the Kroerak. I had no trouble understanding why the Belirand post had been overrun. Our weapons were nearly useless.
"Xie, Clark, I need you to trust me. You're going to jump out of the building when I tell you," I said. "We're only twenty-five meters up and .2g. You read me?"
"We can't leave you, Liam," Xie said. "One rifle won't hold it."
"We have less than a minute. Get going. That's an order," I said.
"Frak," Clark answered and dove out the window. It was a lot to ask from a heavy worlder.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Xie said as she followed.
The Kroerak, no longer pinned by three blasters, pushed forward, clawing toward me. "Nick, I hope you're lining up for a shot," I said.
"Yup. Way ahead of you. Probably best if you make your exit," he said.
I jumped up and pushed back through the broken window. The Kroerak would have no leverage to jump at me without climbing out onto the building. I gambled on the bug doing just that if I stayed close enough. I marveled at the Kroerak’s strength as it tore through the façade of the building and hooked its pincers into the nano-steel sheet. Just as it was about to spring, Nick's warning forced me to move. Jonathan had informed me that the joints of the Kroerak's hind limbs were most powerful at extending and they had difficulty with lateral movement, so I dodged to the side. Just as I did, Nick lit the office with four powerful blasts from Hotspur's top turrets. The Kroerak might be able to resist rifle fire, but the turret blasts easily slagged the fearsome bug, not to mention leaving a sizeable hole in the once proud building.
"Tabbs, what's the status on Divelbiss?" I asked.
"Not great. He's stable, but lost a lot of blood and his system is shocking bad. I have patches on him, but we need to get him to the medical bay ASAP," she replied.
"Nick, we're headed your way. Marny, I need a better plan for these Kroerak. Our blasters had no effect on them," I said as I swooped down and followed Clark and Xie onto the ship.
"Aye, Cap," she said. "Talking it through with Jonathan and Nick right now. We can discuss once you're up here."
"Frak, wait one," I said.
"What!" Tabby yelled. "We gotta go."
"Can't leave comm gear. Give me three minutes." I jumped back out of the airlock. We'd come this far and couldn't afford to lose the information on the equipment.
I pushed against the grav-suit and sailed up the front of the smoking face of the Belirand outpost. The electronics equipment and comm gear was right where we'd left them and I scooped up what I could carry, slinging my blaster rifle over my back. It wasn't as if a single gun would do me any good against the Kroerak anyway.
Back at Hotspur, Xie waited, holding the airlock door open for me, allowing me to glide in and deposit my prizes on the floor.
"He's in, Nicholas," Xie purred, giving me a wink and pulling the door closed. Her response felt overly informal for the situation, but I supposed it was a step up from 'lover' as she was used to calling him.
We moved the equipment into the berth-deck and found Divelbiss laid out in Nick and Marny's old bunk room. The med-patches had him unconscious. I felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that I'd endangered him for a pile of electronics.
"Help Nick," Tabby directed. She seemed pissed and I imagined I knew why. We'd already lifted off and Nick was more than capable of sailing the ship, but he'd be more comfortable with company. I turned from the room and saw Clark sitting at the mess table. It had been a tense situation and she didn't seem as upset as I might have expected.
"You did well out there. I guess you all saw plenty of action on Ophir," I said.
"More than a lifetime’s worth. I guess you just never get used to it, though."
"He saved us, you know. Divelbiss broke the stalemate; he saved lives today," I said.
"Is he going to be okay?"
"I think so. The med-tank on Intrepid is first-class." I stepped onto the lift and raised up to the bridge-deck.
"You doing all right?" I asked Nick, in the port-side pilot's chair.
"You can take it," he said, gesturing to the open chair.
"Hope we don't run into too many Kroerak," I said.
"Any fight you walk away from, right?" Nick asked.
"Tell that to Divelbiss."
"He'll be okay," Nick said. "Took guts - what he did."
"I just want to know what he was saying." I sailed us next to Intrepid and accepted the rigid docking collet and catwalk.
We were met at the airlock by Baker and Kerwin, who were pushing a grav-cart style gurney. I followed them to the medical bay where Tabby continued to work on Divelbiss. "I've got it," she said, still giving me the cold shoulder.
"If he wakes up, I want to know right away," I said.
She nod
ded. "I know."
"Jonathan, did Clark find you with the equipment?" I asked over comm. I'd tasked Clark with bringing the electronics to Jonathan when we'd docked with Intrepid.
"She did, Captain," he answered. "We've got it set up in the bridge conference room for security purposes. I think you're going to want to meet us in here."
"Do you have Nick?"
"He's here," Jonathan replied.
"I'm on my way."
The familiar whistle as I entered the bridge helped to calm nerves I hadn't realized were quite so on-edge. I breathed deeply and exhaled.
"Liam. What's on your suit?" Ada asked as I crossed the bridge to the conference room. I looked down and realized I hadn't cleaned up since Divelbiss' reaction to seeing the violated corpses.
"Best we not talk about it," I said and walked into the conference room. "What'd you find?"
"You wondered where all the people had gone," Nick said. "This outpost wasn't just attacked. It was raided. The Kroerak were taking slaves."
"Where?"
"We have a location. The Norigan was actually at the outpost warning them of the imminent raid. Belirand totally ignored them," Nick said.
"How do you know all this?"
"They've been sending it in that message for one hundred seventy-five stans. It was an encrypted message. I thought it was just junk," Nick said. "The key was on that note you recovered."
"Let me listen," I said.
The message was short, hitting the points already communicated by Nick. One hundred forty-two outpost staff had been abducted, presumably set to slavery, the location of the slave planet encoded in the message.
"Why would the Kroerak let that be public information?"
"You've seen 'em," Nick said. "Who's going to do anything about it?"
"Liam, Divelbiss is awake," Tabby called over the comm.
"I can think of someone," I said and walked out. It was unfair for me to be pissed at the messengers, but just because we didn't know how to defeat these bugs, didn't mean we were going to give up on whoever remained of the expedition. My mind wandered as I thought about how much time had passed. Was it possible any of their descendants were still alive? If so, what condition would they be in - that is, if they hadn't just been used as food. The very thought made me sick.
"There he is," I said, trying to sound upbeat as I walked into the medical bay. Divelbiss was lying back on a bed, not looking so hot. The medical AI was prepping him for the tank and it was easier if he was awake, although not impossible otherwise.
"Heya, Cap," he replied, groggily.
"I'm sure Tabby informed you that you're in for a ride in the tank," I said. "If there's anyone who knows about tanks, it'd be her."
"Really?"
"Probably not the time, but when you get out, you might ask her. I think you're one of the few people who might have earned that story," I said.
Tabby rested her hand on his forehead. "Frakking aye you have," she said softly.
"I gotta know. You said something right before you jammed your hand into that bug's mouth; what was it? We were having trouble picking out between… well let's say there was a lot of other noise."
He grinned a big, dopey I've-been-given-too-many-drugs grin. "I was just explaining to the bug that I was right-handed."
DIGNITY
"Did we figure out where those Kroerak came from?" I'd reassembled the team after helping Tabby put Divelbiss into the medical tank. He'd be out of action for ten days, but he'd live.
"They were on the second floor," Marny said. "It appears they have the capability to enter some sort of deep hibernation."
"And we woke 'em up? Are there others?" I asked.
"We're not detecting additional Kroerak," Jonathan said. "Unfortunately, we didn't see the two we know were there until you saw them approach. They clearly show few signs of life while hibernating."
"That makes operations planet side difficult," I said. "Our blaster rifles didn't do much beyond push them back. I don't feel good leaving all those corpses just lying out in the open, though."
"There's a fuel depot half a kilometer away," Nick said.
"No chance there'd be bugs there," Ada quipped sarcastically. "Who'd set up an ambush at a fuel depot?"
"Agreed," Marny added.
"Jonathan, what are we missing? Why were the blasters so ineffective?" I asked.
"When you refer to them as bugs, you are not specifically incorrect. Their anatomy and function is more similar to that of insects than humans. The Kroerak warrior, which is what we have encountered, has a hard exoskeleton. That is to say, they do not have bones like many humanoids. The exoskeleton has several properties that have allowed the species to rise in dominance. Specifically, the ability to absorb electrical energy, not to mention strength that rivals steel," Jonathan said.
"What about nano-blades?" Tabby asked.
"We would expect the charge around the nano-blade to be absorbed by the carapace," Jonathan said.
"You said it rivals steel," Marny said. "How closely?"
"The data we have is imprecise."
"We need to recover that body," Nick said, nodding at Marny.
"What are you thinking?"
"I've been analyzing the fight," she said. "The Kroerak are fast on a straight line, yet lack side to side agility, which is confirmed by Jonathan's analysis of their ligaments. We need to adapt our training to take advantage of this. You have to ask yourself – why did Divelbiss' attack work so well? His first grenade, which landed next to the Kroerak, almost knocked them off their feet, but otherwise they were unfazed. When he jammed a grenade down one's throat, it was lights out, because once something got inside the exoskeleton, that hard shell contained all of the damage," Marny said.
"That was one in a million," I said. "Don't get me wrong. Divelbiss was brave beyond belief, but we can't count on that."
Nick smiled and gave me a look I'd come to know. They had already solved the problem and were just letting me know. "You'll like this," he said.
Marny stood, pulled a long barreled gun from the floor next to her, and laid it on the table. "I had Moonie manufacture this. It's an old design I used back in the Amazonian war," she said.
My HUD displayed the specs of a Colt 42816 slug thrower with an optional integrated under-barrel grenade launcher. Missing from the table was the backpack full of explosive ordnance that would power the weapon. It was similar, albeit smaller, than the weapons of the mechanized suits we'd used to breach the Bukunawa dreadnaught. What I wouldn't give to have those mech-suits back at this moment.
"Bulky," I observed.
"If it'd drop one of those bugs, it wouldn't matter," Tabby said.
"Cap's right. If you wear this, you lose agility and we can’t be certain they'll do the job," Marny said, "Perhaps the most important problem is we only have enough material to fill two packs, and that’s only if we're willing to decommission one of our missiles."
"Do it," I said. "But decommission two missiles and make four ammo packs. If we get into this, who knows what we could run into. I don't want to be short."
"Why aren't we bringing Mars Protectorate in on this?" Ada asked. "I'd have thought Commander Sterra would have already contacted you, especially after we absconded with Intrepid."
"I've been wrestling with that, Ada. It's something we all need to wrestle with," I said. "Belirand’s - or at least Tullas's - position is that, for the good of humanity, we can't let everyone know interstellar travel is possible. They believe big scary aliens will find Sol and obliterate us all if we do. I hate to take her side in this, but imagine what an army of Kroerak could do if unleashed on Mars."
"Isn't that an argument for talking with Mars Protectorate?" Ada asked, sitting forward in her chair. "Sol can't defend against what they don't know."
"Humanity is horrible at holding onto secrets," Nick said. "Once the cat's out of the bag, Sol will be reachable by everyone."
Ada shook her head. "It feels preposterous that t
his has become our secret to hold. I'm all for being on the front line setting things right, but Belirand is getting away with murder and someone else needs to know about it. What if Belirand eliminates us before we tell anyone? No harm, no foul?"
Ada had said what none of us had been willing to and I nodded my head in agreement. If we died out here we'd just be gone.
"Your argument presumes that Mars Protectorate doesn't already know," Jonathan said.
"Are you saying they do?" Ada asked. She'd already said more than she wanted and was having trouble stepping back from the conversation.
"We have no information to add regarding Mars Protectorate. Master Anino long held that the North American Alliance unofficially sanctioned Belirand's covert operations in the Dwingeloo galaxy. He was unable to substantiate this with anything more than conjecture," Jonathan said. "Overall, most of us find your argument compelling; given a belief that Mars Protectorate is a benevolent government."
"It would be war," Nick said.
"What would?" Tabby asked.
"Mars and NaGEK relations are already strained. Belirand uses the TransLoc gates as a noose to restrict trade between the systems, not to mention how they’ve attempted to almost completely lock out the Chinese," Nick replied.
"That's my point," Ada said. "We have no business holding onto this information. We're citizens of Mars, operating under a Letter of Marque from the Mars Protectorate. Does it really matter that we're outside of Mars territorial boundaries? Do you really believe this information isn't going to get out?"
"It isn't fair," I said.
"What!?" Ada asked, still hot from having been called out.
"Putting all that smart and sexy into one body," I said.
"What …?" Ada asked, her pinched face turning into a smile.
Tabby backhanded me, knocking me and my chair over. "I can't believe I ever let you sail with her and Marny by yourself."
"Ada makes a compelling case." Marny gave us a quick smile, but held onto the matter at hand. "At a minimum, we need a dead man's switch to send a message."
"I trust Commander Sterra," I said, picking my chair up and rubbing my arm. "What do you think, Nick?"
Give No Quarter (Privateer Tales Book 10) Page 18