The Fleet05 Total War

by David Drake (ed)

  Rykker trotted back to the crew quarters where his damaged life suit lay in a heap outside the shower where he’d left it. Picking it up, he headed back to the machine shop. Here he stuffed the life suit in a crucible and then placed it in a low-power solar oven. Five minutes later only the molten gold remained in the bottom of the crucible.

  Rykker used a tiny ladle to scoop out a small quantity of the molten gold. Standing on a table, he poured the gold into a bucket of ice-cold water placed on the floor. The falling gold congealed into a ball as it hit the water. It took several tries before he had the right amount in the ladle, but two hours later he had managed to drop-cast five golden slugs, and still had enough gold left over to almost form a sixth. Using a hammer, he pounded the last bit of gold into a thin sheet, which he wrapped around a ball of the Codex-3.

  Following the instructions of the computer, Rykker rolled more of the Codex-3 into a thin rope, thick enough to just fit into the shallow chambers of his Navy Colt. He placed a gold slug on top of each chamber and, rotating the chamber under the loading lever, rammed each ball home. As the golden slugs were forced deep into the chambers a small golden ring was swaged off of each ball and fell onto the table where Rykker was working. The last projectile—a bit of Codex-3 wrapped in gold like some sort of lethal confection—Rykker seated by hand, using his thumb to push the slug down on its charge.

  In the locker room Rykker pulled on two pairs of the discarded socks and then stepped into the shower. Standing under the cool spray, he reevaluated his chances of surviving the three kilometers that separated him from Melton and’ his crew. His sweats, now saturated with the sterilizing fluid from the shower, would probably dry out during the first twenty minutes; sipping from the canteen, he could probably last another fifteen minutes before the heat and glare would get to him. Pushing, he might last another ten minutes. So that was it. He had to cover three kilometers in forty-five minutes and still arrive in good enough shape to tackle Melton. It just couldn’t be done. So, on to plan B.

  On the map of the mining complex there was a shed halfway between the ore-processing plant and the administration complex. Rykker decided to head for that carrying a bucket of water. He’d leave the water, come back, pick up another bucket, and return to the shed. Two buckets of water ought to be enough to soak his clothes a second time and continue on to Melton’s retreat.

  Dripping water as he made his way through the crew quarters, Rykker paused only long enough to put on the yellow baseball cap as he headed toward the door.

  Outside, the searing dry heat sucked at Rykker’s lungs, making his legs buckle slightly under the added weight of twenty liters of slowly evaporating liquid. Forty minutes later, Rykker had reached the corrugated shed, his clothes dry and caked with perspiration. Despite the heavy charge of electrolytes in his canteen, he was beginning to feel the first waves of nausea as he stepped through the door and came face-to-face with one of Melton’s goons—fortunately, one of the humans.

  The man moved fast, but not fast enough. Rykker swung the water can hard at the man’s head and caught him a glancing blow off the side of the jaw. The human fell heavily on his side, and as he hit the deck Rykker could hear the man’s arm snap under his own weight. Before the human could fully regain his feet, Rykker was on top of him, bending the broken arm backward until it snapped again and the man shrieked in pain, going limp in Rykker’s grasp.

  Rykker relaxed his grip slightly, but the man suddenly twisted to the side, pulling a knife from his boot top and slashing furiously as Rykker jumped back. The tip of the knife caught Rykker on the front of the thigh, tracking a hairline cut down toward the knee. Rykker grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted the knife away form his body as he slammed his knee into his opponent’s face. Still holding the man’s wrist, Rykker drove the knife deep into his assailant’s chest as the man tumbled forward.

  The exertion had nearly been more than Rykker could stand, and for twenty minutes he lay flat on the floor gasping for air and hoping he wouldn’t retch again. Finally he was able to sit upright and take stock of the situation. The large puddle of dried blood around the human told Rykker that the man was definitely down for the count. As he leaned over and pulled the knife out of the man’s chest, he managed to somehow short out the dead man’s life suit. The corpse gave several galvanic jerks as the system short-circuited, and Rykker caught an unpleasant whiff of singed body hair.

  Looking around as he wiped the blood from the blade of the knife, Rykker realized that there was no going back to the ore-processing station. In the scuffle with Melton’s thug he had spilled his water, and there was no way he could make it back in dry clothes. The creep’s life suit was damaged beyond repair, even if it could be peeled off its lightly fried former owner. Rykker eyed the dead man’s boots, but even at a glance could tell that they were too small. He slowly stood up and walked to the back of the shack, the Navy Colt making a large bulge in the waistband of his sweatpants.

  Halfway across the room Rykker froze in his tracks. Outside the small corrugated building, he heard the sound of someone walking in the sand, pacing along the other side of the wall, moving in the direction of the door. Dropping to all fours, Rykker scurried across the floor and took up a position where he would be able to kill the first two people through the door. He decided to use the knife on the first two, saving his six shots for whichever of Melton’s men remained outside.

  Slowly the door inched inward as Rykker crouched to spring, knife at the guard position. As the door swung fully open, Rykker launched himself from his hiding place and was immediately knocked flat on his back by the onger. The six-legged beast bowled past Rykker and headed straight to the corner of the shack, where it buried its nose deep in an automatic watering trough and drank for several minutes. Its thirst satisfied, it turned to go, but Rykker closed the door.

  Rykker stared at the beast for several minutes before deciding that it would be futile to try to ride it; he didn’t know how to start, stop, or turn the animal, and past experience had taught him that the ride was far from comfortable. He opened the door and let it out. Walking back to the corner of the shack, he pulled off his sweatshirt and stuck it in the watering trough, soaking it thoroughly before putting it back on. He had just pulled off his sweatpants when the other human pulled up on a sand scooter and came in through the door.

  Half-naked, Rykker didn’t have time for the subtleties of hand-to-hand combat. Before the human’s eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the shack Rykker, crouching close to the ground, picked up the Navy Colt, cocked it, and fired. The 110-grain gold ball spun down the rifled barrel of the pistol and, traveling faster than the speed of sound, smashed into the forehead of the man at the door, tore through his frontal brain, and exited from the top of his head, tearing out a piece of skull the size of a small orange.

  For a moment neither Rykker nor the two dead men moved. Then, very slowly, with a look of utter amazement frozen on his face, the man standing at the door slowly crumpled to the ground. Rykker stood up, looking first at the dead man and then at the gun in his hand. There was something about the Navy Colt that made killing with it far more personal than using a modern weapon.

  To begin with it was loud. It thundered out its message of death where other weapons barely whispered of their lethality. It slammed back in your hand—recoil shoving your whole arm back into your shoulder—giving you a taste of what it must feel like to be on the receiving end of one of its deadly projectiles. Finally, it left a thin residue of burnt propellant hanging wraithlike in the air, a specter of battles long forgotten, now summoned forth to remind the victor that one day he too may be the vanquished. Rykker liked his Navy Colt.

  It wasn’t until he was halfway to the sand scooter outside, with the twin suns scorching the backs of his legs, that Rykker realized he was still naked from the waist down. Back in the shack he pulled on the waterlogged sweatpants, not bothering even for a second to consider taki
ng the dead man’s life suit. With the sand scooter, Rykker could be at Melton’s bolt hole in the administration complex in less than ten minutes.

  On the scooter, Rykker pulled his yellow baseball cap down low over his eyes and cracked the throttle wide open. The deep purple of the land effects beam threw a rooster tail of sand high behind the scooter that changed from a glittering silver to dark pewter as it fell to the ground. The hot air stung Rykker’s eyes as he raced over the dunes, and by the time he reached the administrative complex his sweat suit was bone dry.

  Rykker let the scooter glide to a stop in the shade of the building and dismounted, moving quickly along the side of the structure to the entrance. Inside, the building was cool, the solar-powered life-support system providing the maximum comfort for Melton. Unlike other areas of the mining complex, the floors in this building were highly polished stone, glass smooth and slippery under Rykker’s feet. Rykker tugged off his socks and savored the smooth, cool stone floor soothing the blistered soles of his feet as he made his way toward the executive wing of the complex.

  Room by room Rykker checked out the executive complex until he came at last to the recreation lounge and, beyond it, the galley. Peering carefully through the acrylic double doors that led from the main corridor to the lounge, Rykker could just see Melton sitting in an egg, one of those specially designed chairs that provided the maximum in auditory stimuli but were totally silent except to those seated in them—like Melton’s nearby briefcase and self-cleaning boots, another outward symbol of Alliance success.

  Rykker pulled away from the doors and headed back down the corridor, deciding that the best way to get at Melton was through the galley. Turning to his right, he followed an intersecting corridor until he came to the service passage leading to the back entrance of the galley. The door was designed to open outward, smooth on Rykker’s side, without handles, so he used the tip of his knife to pry the door open enough to grip it with his fingers and then slowly pull it open. Inside, the silver metallic sinks and cupboards reflected the soft green glow of the bacteria lighting, filling the room with an eerie luminescence.

  Dropping to all fours, Rykker began crawling toward the far exit. But as he moved cautiously across the galley floor, he became vaguely conscious that there was something about the room that was different, something that was trying to reach through to his subconscious, to warn him . . . the smell. He wasn’t sure when he first detected it, but the odor was there, and its strong, cloying sweetness was getting thicker. You only had to smell that aroma once to remember it forever. It was the Thalmud.

  Rykker dropped flat on the floor just as the Thalmud fired, the flechette from its needle-gun splatting into the cabinet inches above Rykker’s head. Rykker rolled hard to his left, coming to his feet in a crouched position between two serving carts. The Thalmud fired again, and the cart nearest to Rykker pinged and rolled a few inches under the impact of the slug.

  Flat on his belly, Rykker crawled along under a long row of serving tables, hoping to catch even a glimpse of the Thalmud’s legs as he went. At the end of the tables, Rykker flattened himself out and broke to the left, coming up against the door of the walk-in freezer. Slowly, with his back against the door, he pushed himself up into a standing position. The Thalmud stood with its back to Rykker, not ten feet away, a small, low-yield needler in its hand. From where Rykker stood, he could see the tiny red glow on the back of the weapon, indicating that it was fully charged and armed. Rykker’s hand reached for the Navy Colt at his waist. It was gone.

  Still unaware that Rykker was behind it, the Thalmud cautiously turned around, bringing its weapon to the ready position. Instinctively Rykker rushed to the attack, throwing himself over the serving tables and smashing into the alien. The impact of his body sent them both crashing to the floor, a fine gold mist of the Thalmud’s secretions hanging in the air before heavily raining down on the two combatants. Rykker grabbed for the needler, but covered in the Thalmud’s oily secretions it shot from his grasp and slid across the floor.

  The Thalmud reacted quickly to the attack, smashing its fist repeatedly into Rykker’s ribs. Rykker thought he felt one of those ribs crack, but he ignored the pain and twisted enough to bring his fist down hard on the side of the Thalmud’s face. Its central nervous system working overtime, every fiber on the Thalmud’s head was secreting thick golden slime that poured over its body and covered it with a slippery protective coating. Rykker’s fist slid off its mark without doing significant damage.

  Rykker tried to bring both hands up in an effort to gouge out the Thalmud’s eyes, but found one of his arms pinned by a viselike grip. Rykker head-butted the Thalmud between the eyes and felt its grip momentarily weaken. Using all of his strength, he brought one leg up against the side of one of the galley cabinets and shoved for all he was worth—and managed to break free.

  Almost as quickly as Rykker was up, the Thalmud got to its feet, only to be stopped halfway by a well-placed kick to the chin that sent it back down again. Seizing his chance, Rykker wrenched open the door to the freezer and dashed in, the Thalmud right behind. The freezer was large, some twenty by thirty feet, and held several randomly placed cases containing ongers held in deep storage against the day Alliance miners might return to the planet. Rykker’s bare feet wanted to stick to the frozen metal floor, and his breath hung frozen in front of him. Around the top of the freezer walls, twin blue neon tubes cast an eerie luminescence. Rykker’s sweat-matted hair began to harden with frost.

  It took the Thalmud several seconds longer than Rykker to adjust to the low-level ilumination, but that did nothing to lessen its agressiveness. Shivering, its heavy breath hanging on the still air of the freezer, the alien moved cautiously from box to box looking for the human.

  Rykker moved, and had to stifle a cry of pain as frozen skin was ripped from the sole of his foot. Limping slightly, Rykker moved from box to box, positioning himself between the Thalmud and the freezer door. In the intense cold of the freezer, he stripped off his sweatshirt and, holding it out by the arms, spun it around a few times until it formed a sort of rope. Then he crossed the cuffs one over the other forming a simple knot with a large loop, a noose ready to toss over the Thalmud’s head.

  In the few seconds that he had stopped moving to fashion his noose, his feet had frozen to the floor again. Rocking back and forth, using every ounce of willpower to avoid crying out in pain, Rykker ripped his feet loose, the blood and skin freezing in two dark blotches on the floor as his tears froze on his cheeks.

  But the cold was also having its effect on the Thalmud. A kind of hoarfrost glistened on its body as the Thalmud’s bodily secretions reacted with the extreme cold of the freezer, causing them to first thicken like syrup and then to freeze over on the surface. The Thalmud crackled as it moved, as its frozen body coating shattered and as quickly refroze. The Thalmud stopped not far away with its back to Rykker, turning its head first to one side then the other, perhaps catching the sound of Rykker rocking back and forth on his feet to prevent them from freezing to the floor again. The long neck swayed left and right, small bits of its frozen bodily fluids drifting silently to the floor of the freezer like amber snowflakes.

  Rykker slammed a fist into the small of the Thalmud’s back with all the force he could muster. The Thalmud’s knees buckled, and Rykker had his noose over the alien’s head in a flash, pulling the sleeves of the sweatshirt tight as he did so. The Thalmud reached back with both hands and grabbed Rykker’s sweatpants, its scaly palm and fingers locking onto the fabric and pulling Rykker forward, toppling him off balance.

  Holding on to the arms of the sweatshirt for dear life, Rykker twisted as they fell, managing to remain on top of the Thalmud, now facedown on the freezer floor. Pulling for all he was worth, Rykker dragged the semiconscious alien toward a pile of boxes near the freezer door and climbed up, dragging the alien after him. With effort, he tossed one of the arms of the sweatshirt over one of th
e small cooling pipes in the low ceiling and tied it fast.

  Twice the alien started to struggle, its hands tearing at the cloth biting into its throat, choking it, strangling it, and both times Rykker kicked and punched it into limp compliance. Finally, with the sleeve knotted tightly around the pipe, Rykker kicked over the pile of boxes, leaving the Thalmud hanging like a side of beef in the freezer.

  Outside, with the freezer door shut behind him, Rykker’s feet throbbed with pain, their soles almost stripped of skin from having stuck to the floor of the freezer. Sitting down with his back against the freezer door, Rykker ripped off the legs of his sweatpants and wrapped them around his feet like makeshift moccasins. He found his Navy Colt lying on the floor near to the door to the executive lounge. Each step was agony, but with the slug thrower in his hand Rykker suddenly felt a whole lot better.

  Melton’s egg was facing away from the galley door, so he didn’t see Rykker come in. He was listening to the flower duet from Delibe’s “Lakme” at full volume, the egg sending its alpha-wave transmission of the music so deep into his sensory centers that he didn’t realize Rykker was standing in front of him until he felt the very cold presence of Rykker’s gun barrel pressed hard against his forehead. As his eyes focused on the intruder, Rykker reached in and turned off the music.

  A slow smile spread across Melton’s face, but behind the lenses of his glasses the eyes remained impassively cool. Rykker took two steps back.

  “Get outta the egg, Melton. Slw, real slow.”

  Melton shrugged slightly, and then slowly rose from his seat.

  “Now, over to the table and open your briefcase.”