by Mark Wandrey
Team G had been moving at an obtuse angle to the objective, cutting through a maintenance passageway, when the point warrior emerged in a life support machinery room. The main doorway was open, and a large humanoid figure was framed in light from the outside hallway. The warrior instantly raised his laser carbine and fired a single shot at the center of the figure’s mass. The target moved sideways with deceptive speed for its apparent size, simultaneously producing a shield on one overly long arm. The laser beam was deflected in a flashing arc, cutting several pipes in the space and setting off a number of blaring alarms.
The warrior crouched while two more of its team exited the maintenance passageway. An arm came around the corner and seemingly fired blindly. The air was rent by a hypersonic Crack! as a magnetic accelerator cannon, or MAC, round tore the emerging warrior completely in half and sent its body parts flying. The Team K leader heard the narrative from Team G’s leader, and it was enough to finally understand what they faced.
“
The team leader did as he was instructed, altering his team’s course toward the besieged team. The direct route led across a largely-empty cargo bay. He and his team were racing across it when he realized his error as his point and rearguard warriors were both torn apart by laser fire.
“
His survival likely for the next minute, he checked his link with the other teams while his warriors began firing back at their aggressors. A MAC round cracked the air above their heads. He quickly verified what he’d expected, all the teams were now engaged.
“
The floor under their feet was very thick and meant to secure cargo. However, a bulkhead only a few yards away led to a maintenance and storage area. “
While two of the warriors fired in the direction of their attackers, the other four quickly used their carbines to cut through the wall as they had the earlier hatch. Under fire, it wasn’t as neat and used a lot more ammo, but after a minute, a section of badly-mutilated wall sagged outwards.
“
The two lead warriors careened into and through the hole they’d made. Part of one mangled section of steel didn’t give way, and a warrior lost a leg on its sharp edge. It spun aside and raised its weapon, taking no notice of the injury except to alter its movements to compensate for the mutilation. The two warriors fired with wanton abandon as their leader came through, careful to avoid the jagged metal and the still twitching leg hanging from it. As the last two entered a MAC round blew one apart, spraying them all with blood and gore.
Behind them, in the hold, the last two warriors fired furiously. The team leader led his remaining three warriors across the maintenance section and out the door without checking to see if it was clear. There was no time, as he felt the two warriors they’d left behind cut down. Before they died, though, he received a clear view of the fight.
A huge multi-legged insectoid shot one of his warriors and then came at the last warrior who fired its laser as fast as it could. The warrior got off at least nine shots, missing with every one. Several went right between the monster’s legs, or so close over the top that its thick black hair scorched. The monster crashed into the warrior. A much smaller furry mammal rode on its back, holding a disproportionately huge laser pistol in its hand. As it raced by, the little furry mammal casually shot the dying warrior through the head.
“
As they ran, the team leader again checked on the others. He was horrified to see they were the only ones left alive—all the other teams were neutralized!
The queen urged him onward. “
At long last, they turned a final corner to see their objective ahead, and the door was open as well! The team spread out and accelerated toward the door, only to come to a skidding halt when two of the Human CASPers stepped out and to either side. Something else raced between the suits. Small and incredibly fast, it tore across the floor toward them.
The three remaining warriors lowered their bodies almost to the deck and shifted slightly as they fired, stroking the triggers of their laser carbines as fast they would cycle. The suits deployed shields that had been folded against their forearms, the shields deflecting the laser beams with ease. The warrior directly in front of the team lead held its ground, protecting the leader and firing steadily at the streaking black thing on the deck, while the other two plucked K bombs from their belts. The CASPers both pivoted MACs down over their shoulders and fired.
The warrior on the right had his head and half his thorax blown into goo before he could so much as arm the bomb. The warrior on his left flipped the bomb underhanded a millisecond before the MAC round smashed through its thorax. The explosion of the warrior’s body was like a small bomb, blowing the team leader aside and into the corridor wall with a chiton-crackling crash.
The leader was conscious, but stunned. He saw one of the CASPers snatch the K bomb out of the air and slap it to the deck. At the same time, its laser shield fell from its arm, and the trooper caught it, reversed it, and slapped it down over the bomb. The trooper knelt on the shield just as the bomb exploded with a disappointing “Phut!” The laser shield absorbed and redirected the blast with no harm to the troopers.
He now had a perfect view of the fast-moving object. Its body was about three feet long, with six legs that propelled it at a high rate of speed. Antennae stuck out from under a shell-like carapace. Another insectoid species. His stunned mind tried to call up the name but failed. The queen spoke it for him.
“
The Goka launched itself at the last warrior, who fired at it but missed. The Goka didn’t. It hit the warrior and produced a pair of short, curved, and serrated daggers it wielded with the same speed as it had moved. The warrior let the carbine fall and tried to grapple with the Goka; it bit down on the shell of the other being with its oversized mandibles with just as much effect as the laser—a little bit of the shell’s armor flaked away. An instant later the Goka’s blades flashed in opposition to each other, and the warrior’s head was separated from its body.<
br />
The team leader’s laser pistol was a few feet away. He scrambled for it, snatched up the weapon, and brought it around. One of the Goka’s blades flashed and his arm was severed at mid-joint. The leader tried to snatch a K bomb from his harness, and that arm was fell off, too. Quite literally disarmed, he was helpless.
“” he sent, filled with disappointment. The Goka was holding both knives at his neck now, pinning him against the wall. One of the CASPers walked over, and he could hear the operator speaking; its language translated by the distant queen.
“The captain wants that one alive. It’s a combat leader. The Enforcer said it’s testimony before the courts will help prosecute the SleSha.” The Goka’s own tiny segmented eyes regarded him under its armored carapace.
“Fine,” the Goka chittered, “then it lives for now.”
“
* * * * *
Chapter 4
The Hussars’ medics were still working to get the CASPer open when the Enforcer arrived. He strode down the hallway on his hoofed rear feet, his metallic-alloy shoes ringing with each step. He was in combat armor from head to hoof, the blue tree of the Peacemakers emblazoned on his breast. He held a unique quad-barrel laser cannon in both hands with a casual familiarity. A heavy laser pistol was at his belt, and a single use rocket launcher over his shoulder. He looked even more pissed than normal.
“I said I wanted it alive,” he snarled and whinnied at the Goka.
“I didn’t kill the fucking thing,” the alien marine chittered back, kicking the dead pirate with a leg. The corpse barely moved. “I think it killed itself.”
“I’m going to verify that,” the Enforcer growled.
“Ask me if I give a fuck,” the Goka said and backed away. He moved quickly toward the downed trooper. Their race did everything quickly. The other CASPer had its suit open, the hatch standing out straight from the body because the corridor wasn’t tall enough to allow it to open all the way. A Human woman sat half-in, half-out of her cockpit, haptic leads still plugged in and pinplants engaged. “He gonna make it?” the Goka asked and pointed with a gore-dripping knife. The Human female shrugged.
The armorers finally found the problem and overrode the suit’s controls. The CASPer was slumped against the doorway to engineering control. A deceptively-small burn was the only damage to his armor. As the hatch swung open with a whine of electric motors, it revealed a man slumped forward against the suit’s restraints. There was a burn through the center of his chest, small and neat just like the one through the armor.
“Fuck,” the woman said.
“How’d it happen?” a new arrival asked. Everyone came to attention, except the Goka, who remained on the floor. He liked to keep his armored carapace between himself and everyone else.
“Captain,” the woman said and saluted, getting one in return.
“I asked what happened, Corporal.”
“Lucky shot,” another trooper said, coming out of the control room. A MinSha in combat armor, a heavy laser rifle cradled by her middle pair of foot-hands.
“That’s it?” Captain Cromwell asked.
“That’s it,” Sergeant T’jto answered with a nod of her heart-shaped head. Multifaceted red-hued eyes regarded her commander without emotion. “Corporal Daniels was holding the door with Corporal Johansson here. The SleSha fired at Zit,” she said and gestured at the Goka. “Zit jumped and the round tagged Daniels just under his laser shield.”
“He tended to hold it too high,” Johansson observed, “as if he was covering his face. We’d been working on it.”
“Apparently, not hard enough,” Sergeant T’jto said. Johansson sighed and nodded.
“Other casualties?” Alexis asked. T’jto snatched a slate from an armored sheath on his thorax. “Four total,” he said and rattled off names. Three Humans and a Zuul. All the CASPers were salvageable. Considering they’d faced over 100 SleSha, not a bad butcher’s bill.
“Where’s Oort?” the captain asked. Johansson hooked a thumb down the corridor.
“Eating,” she said. The captain’s eyes narrowed, and she just shrugged.
“Did I hear my name?” The voice was full of scratches and hisses as the Tortantula squeezed through a pair of cross-corridor doors. SleSha-colored goo was dripping from her six-inch-long fangs. On her back, sat Jeejee, stripping and cleaning his huge laser pistol.
“I asked you to not let Oort snack on the enemy,” Alexis said, addressing her comment to the Flatar riding on the Tortantula’s back. The diminutive mammal, resembling nothing so much as a large chipmunk, shrugged.
“The next time I convince Oort to do something she doesn’t want to do,” he said, slapping the hairy torso under the saddle affectionately, “it’ll be the first time.”
“Next time it’s a 10 percent fine,” the captain said, and looked the Tortantula right in several of the eyes facing her. “Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
The Tortantula chittered and scratched the floor. “Yes.”
“Good,” she said and turned to the Enforcer. “The boarding craft has delivered a prize crew to the Opportunity. They encountered no resistance.”
“Prisoners?” the Enforcer asked.
“Only the queen. All the remaining warriors were in a bay that had been purposely depressurized, and the leaders like that one,” she said, pointing to the one nearby, “were just dead, with no signs of injury.”
“Huh,” the Enforcer whinnied.
“Told ‘ya,” Zit chittered. The Enforcer glared at the little Goka. The armored cockroach pulled out a knife and began to clean and sharpen it.
“Well?” Alexis asked the Enforcer.
“I hold your part of the contract in completion,” he pronounced. She took out a slate and held it out. He pressed a finger to it and held the computer up to scan his eye. It beeped once. “The Peacemaker Guild appreciates your assistance in this matter.”
“And we appreciate your credits,” she said, taking the slate back. She noticed her XO coming down the corridor, the captain of the Topul’s Pride in tow, flapping its considerable wings and squawking loudly. A pair of little reptilian elSha followed closely behind. Trailing them was a bipedal work robot carrying tools and instruments.
“What have you done to my ship?” the captain cried out. “Millions in damage! A dozen crew dead! Cargo destroyed!”
“I’m sure my XO has already been over this with you,” Alexis said, giving a little bow to the Enforcer who was already leaving to complete his mission. He said he’d return the prize crew when they’d delivered Opportunity to Uuwato, in accordance with their agreement with the guild.
“He did, but he offered no compensation for the damage!”
“You signed the standard boarding defense contract via comms,” she said, just like she’d said for decades.
“Yes…”
“Well in that contract, it clearly states that damage to the ship we are defending is not our liability if the enemy causes it. Furthermore, we are permitted reasonable collateral damage in the defense of our lives. You are free to review the gun-cameras from my troopers. We avoided heavy weapons wherever possible, as agreed, and I lost four good beings. So, unless you want to bring in a guild arbitrator, I suggest you drop it.”
The captain looked around the damaged corridor and squawked once before turning and walking away.
“Thanks for doing business with us,” Paka said to his back. The Sidar stiffened visibly but kept walking. The pair of elSha looked at each other, shrugged, and began cataloguing the damage to the section. They gave the still corpses of the SleSha a wide berth.
“Finish up here,” Alexis ordered Sergeant T’jto. “I’ll see you back on the Pegasus.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the sergeant said; “we’ll get right on it.”
* * * * *
Chapter
5
Mercenary Company Mickey Finn
Cadre Center
Houston, Earth
Rick Culper had never minded sweating. Hell, he liked busting his butt whenever possible! Ever since he was a little kid back in the Indianapolis suburbs, he’d discovered ways to exert himself his parents didn’t approve of. They were both software engineers and had physiques to match. Both were almost five-foot-nine inches tall, and a little on the soft side. When their six-foot-four-inch, heavily-muscled only child stood next to them for senior pictures, people stopped and did double takes.
“Move your fucking ass, Culper!” screamed the drill instructor over Rick’s squadnet.
“Sir, yes sir!” he barked back without hesitation and triggered the CASPer’s jumpjets. The Combat Armored System, Personal was over 30 years old and showed the wear. The jets engaged a full tenth of a second after he’d squeezed both pinkies into his palm, and it resulted once again in a poorly-timed hop. Crap, he cursed his luck for drawing suit 898-B again. It had begun its life as a front-line Binnig Mk 7 combat suit owned by the Toussaint Irregulars. After almost a decade of service, and numerous repairs and upgrades, the Irregulars folded, and the suit was sold to the Golden Horde. It spent another 15 years there, fighting all over the galaxy, at which point the Mk 8 came out, and that was it for 898-B’s combat duty. The maintenance log after that was…incomplete. One way or another it had ended up back on Earth in the possession of Mickey Finn.
Mickey Finn wasn’t a person and hadn’t been one in about eighty years. Back then, Mickey Finn had founded a small but well-respected merc company which specialized in spaceship boarding and defense. Basically, they were space marines. He’d died only a year later, though the company lived on. When Rick joined their cadre, he’d been assigned 898-B, thus beginning his own private hell.
Rick managed to control the jump and even gained a little on the other members of his squad. They all landed together just as a simulated rocket roared over their heads.