Xenotech Queen's Gambit: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 2)

by Schroeder, Dave

  Macerators had been developed by the United States Army before First Contact. They were designed to protect soldiers and increase their effectiveness in combat, but were impractical without a better power source. In 2013, their lithium battery packs would only last seven minutes under combat conditions and all four packs together weighed a whopping ninety-seven pounds. The Army kept the units on the shelf for thirteen months until Earth joined GaFTA and congruent technology solved their power problem. Now, Macerators didn’t run out of juice and each of the two cylindrical congruent power packs on their backs weighed less than an old fashioned heavy-duty flashlight.

  These units were painted matte black and had the word “SURPLUS” stenciled in white letters on their chests. They were blocky and asymmetric and looked like overbuilt Iron Man suits designed by a committee. Mission creep, like adding the Emergency Rescue capabilities to get Homeland Defense funding, added mass and impractical accessories. Older units had lots of faults, which was one reason why the government was glad to sell them to allies, and private—read mercenary—organizations.

  Macerators weren’t fast, but they were very strong, and extremely well armored. Mastering one took years of practice, but a fully-trained Macerator operator was the equivalent of a platoon or more of regular infantry. An expert could go toe to toe with an adult Dauushan and win more often than not—and there were two dozen of them out there. Scratch that. They were inside now and moving toward us as fast as their servomotors could carry them.

  “Jack,” said my phone urgently. “I’m monitoring their comm channel. Their objective is to capture Sherrhi and Terrhi.”

  “So no guns?” I said. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about the twin machine guns built into the units’ forearms designed to “chew up” their opponents.

  “We can hope,” said my phone.

  Then Mike surprised me by jumping up on the table and running over to Tomáso.

  “Fastball special,” he told the queen’s consort.

  As a comic book fan, I’d bet he’d been waiting for years for an opportunity to say that. Then Mike saw how quickly the Macerators were closing.

  “Better make it a pop fly.”

  Tomáso flattened all nine of his sub-trunks and squeezed them tightly together to form a flat, spatula-like surface. Mike moved on top of them, bending his knees and balancing carefully. With all his sub-trunks stiff, Tomáso tossed Mike high up in the air in the direction of the attackers. To my amazement, Mike did a forward somersault with a twist and managed to land on the back of one of the units in the second row of attacking Macerators. He pulled two long cylinders off the unit’s shoulders and it froze in place.

  That’s one way to detach power packs, I thought.

  I asked myself why anyone who could do something like that would have needed my help to cope with the relatively minor problem of a hundred thousand rabbots. Maybe he was showing off for CiCi? I’d have to write up Mike’s job offer ASAP if we both lived through this attack.

  The two armored Dauushan guards, part of Diágo’s security team, were each double-teamed by a pair of Macerators attacking them fore and aft. I stood up to have a better view of what was happening. The units weren’t shooting—they were using their fists and augmented strength to try to pummel the guards unconscious. Good thing Dauushans, especially armored ones, can take a lot of punishment. So far, the guards were holding their own.

  Then I had more pressing things to worry about. Three units were heading around my side of the table, closing fast on Queen Sherrhi. I was about to launch myself at the first of them when Diágo barreled around his monarch. He slammed his armored mass into the lead Macerator, spinning it into the trailing two units like an eight-ton bowling ball knocking over duckpins. Macerators may be strong, but it’s hard to beat physics. All three units landed on their backs. Poly, Pomy and I took advantage of holding the high ground on the raised platform surrounding the table. We tossed our heavy chairs down on top of the Macerators to keep the discombobulated units in that position until we could remove their power pack cylinders.

  Did I mention that Macerators have a tendency to fall over backwards? Once down, all but the most experienced operators have trouble getting back up. It’s a gyroscope response problem, exacerbated by extra emergency rescue equipment included in the units’ upper rear storage compartments.

  Macerator are a lot like the exoskeletons I used for heavy lifting when I worked for a Terran shipping company during my first year in graduate school on Orish, before I got my casino going. With a Human Augmented Ship Loading rig, moving containers in and out of star freighters’ holds was no HASL at all, but I’d ended up on my back more times than I cared to remember.

  To my right, Poly was leaning out across the table, grabbing four self-moving trays from under bowls and tossing them on the floor.

  “Smart move,” said my phone, noticing her actions. “Reprogramming now.”

  My girlfriend and my communications device both seemed to be ahead of me. Then I got it. Pairs of self-moving trays positioned themselves where Macerators were about to step. They held onto the units’ armored boots then scuttled around in odd patterns that made the units fall over, do splits, or get too dizzy to stand. The disoriented units got in the way of other attackers and knocked several more of them down in a chain reaction. Good thing the brutes’ helmets limited their visibility.

  “Nice!” I shouted at Poly.

  “Watch out!” she shouted back, grabbing my arm.

  François, driving the forklift, had captured a Macerator between its blades and was driving full-tilt toward the raised platform below me. The pencil thin black mustache on his upper lip quivered in glee as the blades crashed into the platform, trapping the unit.

  “Disrupt my dinner, will you!” shouted the server.

  The trapped unit didn’t say anything, but Poly did.

  “The crane, the crane,” she said, pointing up.

  “Got it,” I said. Where were the controls?

  Poly had grabbed my arm to keep me from falling and I’d enjoyed the physical contact, if not the circumstances. She gave me a peck on the cheek and shifted to help Pomy gather large cruets of extra virgin olive oil from around the table. It was a smart move. The sisters were pouring the olive oil in the path of another pair of attacking Macerators, with the expected results. Barbara and Perry used their chairs to anchor the slippery units in place temporarily.

  The Macerators’ movements were clumsy and their reaction times were slow. Thank goodness the person or group behind this attack hadn’t had operators who knew what they were doing. Maybe we’d captured all their best people at Zwilniki’s hangar and these were what they could scrape up on short notice. Either that, or this whole attack was a diversion.

  Tomáso had rounded the table and was heading for Sherrhi and Diágo, absorbing damage from several Macerators in passing but not allowing anything to stand between him and his mate. I wouldn’t want to get in his way in a battle tank.

  Terrhi and Spike weren’t anywhere to be seen.

  I saw Martin out of the corner of my eye while trying to figure out a way up to the crane controls. He’d commandeered the Dauushan cutter-lifter and had managed to use it as a lever, causing one of the units to do a backflip, then a turtle imitation. Apple was using a similar maneuver with her martial arts skills and her chair when I spotted the scissors lift that had delivered the cake. It was off to the side, not far away. I ran toward it, reaching it only after dodging a unit trying to remove my spleen with its fists. The Macerator slid past me on a patch of floor covered in olive oil. That gave me time to hop on the platform and trigger the lift. A steel cable with a hook on the end was only a few feet away, so when the lift reached its highest level I jumped for it. Good thing, too. The Macerator attacking me collided with the lift seconds later, tipping it over. It tried to leap up an
d catch me, but Macerators would never make it in the NBA. A Tigrammath seven-year-old could out-jump them.

  I pulled myself up the cable until I reached the rafters, glad I didn’t have any olive oil on my hands. Then I flipped my leg over and got on top of the wide steel beam, disturbing a small, furry flying creature with owl-sized eyes that I expected was an escaped snack from a Quirinx flyer’s lunch. Twenty feet further, I made it to the crane hoist itself. It was about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, with the same rounded shape to cover the large spools of cable. I was sure the primary operating console for the crane was close to the kitchen, but there were duplicate controls up here. I sat in the narrow seat in the tiny open operator’s compartment and tried to learn them tout de suite.

  It seemed simple enough—user interface design has come a long way in the past decade—so I sent the cables that had transported the Dauushan Strata back down to recapture the heavy metal pan still half full of food. I felt like a kid trying to grab the best toy with a mechanical claw at an arcade and was completely focused on the cables and my target. Then somebody smacked a baseball bat into my right side—at least it felt that way. My Orishen pupa silk shirt went rigid and I heard something small and metallic hit the floor. I looked down. It was a flattened piece of lead. I’d been shot. Again. Enough was enough. I’d just recovered from the last time. Unfortunately, the Macerator down below was still using me for target practice, and since I wasn’t royalty, he didn’t have to play nice. At least he was using a smaller caliber weapon, not his machine guns.

  I leaned farther into the operator’s compartment and hoped my attacker didn’t have a clear line of sight to shoot me again. I heard six more shots, but didn’t feel any more impacts, so apparently he didn’t. I thought I was home free until he escalated. Something the size of a beer keg or a Tōdon smart watch—probably the motor from the scissors lift—struck the side of the crane housing—and me. It made a noisy clang and knocked me off my seat and out of the operator’s compartment.

  I didn’t like the idea of falling from a fatal height twice in three days, so I flailed my arms and found a purchase before gravity could consummate its unrequited love. I was holding on to the lower rim of the operator’s compartment with four fingers and trying, not very successfully, to do a one-armed pull-up. Just as the ATP in my finger muscles was exhausted and I lost my grip, a metal tentacle reached down and secured my wrist. Another tentacle circled my chest and pulled me back up to the crane operator’s station. An octovac was holding me, gently bouncing up and down and looking like a dog that wanted a word of praise from its owner.

  “Nice octovac,” I said, rubbing the red light on its rounded dome, “Good octovac.”

  “You’re welcome,” said my phone. “They’re helpful, aren’t they?”

  “You can say that again,” I said, guiding the cables back on their way. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said my phone. “I sent the other one to help guard Terrhi.”

  I looked down. Several units were still operational, but not as many as I’d expected. CiCi had taken off her gown and heels and left them on the table. She’d joined Mike in removing Macerator power pack cylinders from the downed units, dressed only in a black slip and her underwear. Mike must lead with his head, because his forehead was bleeding from another gash—or maybe the one he’d received during the explosion at WT&F had reopened. CiCi’s left shoulder was cut, but it didn’t look too serious. Martin and Apple were unscathed and impressive. They’d taken down two units apiece and were looking for new targets.

  The most remarkable sight on the battlefield, however, was Perry. He was looking proud and a bit smug after piercing the side of an attacker’s armor with a six-foot Dauushan skewer like Achilles wielding his spear. He held a three-foot round metal lid in his left hand that he’d been using as a shield and his right foot was in the middle of his conquest’s chest. I expected him to start quoting from The Iliad. Barbara was kneeling on the floor, looking up at him and smiling. She was holding a power pack cylinder in each hand.

  One of the guards was down, lying on his side, but he’d managed to take one of the Macerators with him. The other guard had fared better. She’d knocked over and incapacitated two of the units and was keeping a third distracted with fancy footwork while they traded punches.

  Something big thumped outside in the dark, like a house landing on the Wicked Witch of the East, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I focused on the crane controls. When the magnetic cables connected and the Strata pan rose, I moved levers on the crane to get the mass of metal swinging in a circular arc a few feet wider than the table.

  That’s when I saw where Terrhi and Spike had been hiding. They were under the table at the spot that had been cut away for Queen Sherrhi to stand in. There was plenty of room below the tabletop and the tablecloth covered the edge and hid what was underneath. I heard Terrhi’s high pitched voice, sounding terrified, in an artificial sort of way.

  “Help, help, save me,” she cried.

  The kid knew how to act.

  A Macerator came to investigate and capture the Princess, if possible. From my vantage point overhead I had a perfect view of what happened next. Terrhi slipped around the unit and positioned herself directly behind its knees. Then Spike jumped up and forward from his hidden location under the table, hitting the unit with all his mass at a high leverage point on its chest. The Macerator tilted, encountered the fulcrum of Terrhi’s body, and flopped over to land on its back. The octovac helping Terrhi scuttled around the unit, removed its power pack cylinders, and scooted back under the table with Spike and Terrhi right behind, ready to pull the same trick on another unsuspecting victim.

  I noticed that Queen Sherrhi, guarded by Diágo and Tomáso, had retreated to the far end of the hall and climbed up the awards ceremony platform, seeking a highly defensible position. Three units were attacking, but Sherrhi, Tomáso, and Diágo held the high ground and none of the Macerators had yet reached the top. Then a machine gun fired from a spot in front of the platform and bits of soundproofing fell from the ceiling. When the echoes of the gunshots ended you could hear the pin on a hand grenade drop. Metaphorically, not literally.

  I looked down in horror to see that two new Macerators had joined the attacking trio and were facing the platform. One held Poly by the neck, lifting her two feet off the ground, and the other held Pomy the same way.

  “Queen Sherrhi,” said the first unit’s amplified voice. “Surrender now, or these women die.”

  Poly and Pomy were squirming, trying to get free, but the Macerators’ grips were too strong and the sisters would choke if they struggled too hard.

  “Don’t do it, Your Majesty,” said Diágo. “Billions of lives are at stake.”

  “And he’ll probably kill them anyway,” said Tomáso.

  Thanks for that cheery thought.

  “You must do your duty, my Queen,” said Diágo.

  “You must follow your heart,” said Tomáso.

  That’s better, I mused.

  They were stalling for me. I changed the arc of the heavy pan, making it more of an ellipse then a circle and moving it closer to the Macerators holding Poly and Pomy. Turns out I didn’t need to bother.

  Poly’s dress billowed and extended long arms of fabric from its hem up and around her captor’s shoulders, as if to embrace the unit. Then the mobile armored combat suit froze in place. Poly’s dress returned to its normal shape and two power pack cylinders made a metallic clang as they landed on the floor. Her captor froze, with Poly, unfortunately, still two feet off the ground. At least she was no longer directly threatened. The unit holding Pomy took a step forward and restated its threat.

  “Surrender, or she dies.”

  The Macerator’s grip on Pomy’s neck tightened and she gave a dry croak. Then, without warning, the unit dropped her and fell over on i
ts back. Chit crawled out of the ear slot on the unit’s helmet and flew to Pomy’s shoulder.

  “Did ya know you can trigger power failures from inside?” said my little friend in her big voice.

  By then I’d managed to get the pan swinging on just the right arc. I let out more cable and watched with pleasure as the pan smacked into the three remaining Macerators and knocked them asterisk over arches.

  I slid down one of the cables to the Strata pan, ruining my tuxedo shirt and tux in the process. Then I timed things and jumped off at just the right time to be able to land next to Poly. I didn’t want her to be choking for any longer than necessary. Partners help each other.

  When I reached her she was already on the floor, having, as usual, rescued herself. She’d asked the telepathically sensitive dress to pry open the unit’s fingers. The two-foot drop hadn’t been a problem. Have I mentioned that Poly is incredible?

  We hugged and exchanged a brief, but quite satisfying kiss, then I took a look around to count noses.

  Pomy was removing the power pack cylinders from the recently downed Macerators. Queen Sherrhi, Diágo and Tomáso were on the awards platform. Terrhi and Spike and her guardian octovac were coming out from their refuge under the table. The other octovac glided down from the rafters to join them. CiCi had tied a napkin around Mike’s forehead and he’d tied one around her left shoulder. Martin was checking the rest of the downed Macerators to make sure none of them were playing possum and Apple was checking on the downed Dauushan guard, who just seemed to be unconscious.

  The other guard had deactivated the last of its opponents and Perry and Barbara were giving each other the look that couples do when they’ve just survived a harrowing adventure with lots of adrenaline pumping. Their earlier coolness towards each other had vanished. Maybe they should take an autocab back to Ad Astra?