by Rick Partlow
"That was outside," she decided, yanking a bandoleer of magazines off of one of the invader corpses and slinging it over her shoulder. Before she could rise from the task, however, another burst of autoweapons chatter erupted much closer, reverberating off the corridor beyond her door.
"That wasn't," Jock commented wryly, ducking out into the hallway with Stark on his heels.
The corridor was a smoke-filled, murky vision of hell, tinged red by the flames licking off the splintered walls around the intrusive pod. Shannon didn't have the time to debate in her mind if the fire had begun from the thing's ambient heat, left over from orbital friction, or from the invaders' weapons; she and Jock were too busy thinking with their feet, racing toward the section of the guest wing that housed Valerie O'Keefe and her party.
As they reached the end of the corridor, where it split into a "T," the chatter of gunfire was abruptly interrupted by the sharp, painful concussion of a trio of explosions in quick succession. The blasts shook the walls around them and nearly sent Jock, who was in the lead, tumbling head over heels. The sergeant managed to turn the potential spill into a controlled skid that put him into a crouch at the intersection of the hallways, and Shannon took up a position at the opposite corner, rifle trained down the corridor.
The scene before them was a canvas painted in blood. Shannon knew from a brief glance at the mansion’s floor plan prior to landing that the section of the mansion's upper floor that O'Keefe and her party were staying in also housed several of the governor's more highly-placed personal servants. She hadn't met any of them, but she thought it was a safe bet that the handful of half-naked human bodies sprawled half-in and half-out of doorways all along the hallway belonged to those people.
The other four corpses visible, with large chunks of them blended with chunks of smoldering wall material, were obviously those of the armored troops which had emerged from the pod. The author of their fate was Vincent Mahoney, whom she immediately spotted at the opposite end of the hall, auto-grenade launcher cradled in his hands and pointed her way.
"Vinnie!" she called, not trusting him to recognize her and Jock with the eddies of smoke roiling in the half-demolished corridor. "It's Lieutenant Stark! Don't shoot."
"Yeah, I see you, ma'am." Vinnie let his weapon's muzzle drop, his voice as neutral as the look on his face. "Come on ahead."
Shannon and Jock advanced slowly through the bloody carnage, not wanting to look down but forced to against the chance that one of the invaders could still be alive. Shannon tried not to let her gaze dwell on the bullet-riddled corpses of the mansion staffers, with their open, lifeless eyes; she tried to avoid stepping in the slowly-spreading pools of blood, but both tasks were impossible. The blood was everywhere, and the dead eyes of the bodies seemed to draw her in.
She forced herself to concentrate on the invader corpses, instead. They were half blown apart, but the grenades had charred what flesh was visible beneath the armor beyond recognition, and what wasn't black and burning was coated with blood. The armor, she noted, was laminated metal of some kind, not the advanced composites the Marines wore, and it covered them from head to toe. The camouflage pattern was a brown, black and green general woodland design singularly unsuitable for the Aphrodite Waste or even the planet's more temperate regions.
And the weapons---they were a bullpup configuration like the issue Marine rifle, but that was where the resemblance ended. Marine weapons fired caseless ammo, with the projectile fixed on a cartridge made of molded hyperexplosives. Their ignition system was electronic, and they incorporated a sophisticated recoil-dampening mechanism to control muzzle climb. The carbine she had picked up used what looked like brass cartridges, technology that had been obsolete for over fifty years, and had kicked like a mule. She would have liked to have peeled the armor off one of them and found out just who she was dealing with, but there were more pressing matters at hand.
As she and Jock reached Vinnie's position at the corner, she saw Glen Mulrooney crouched beside him, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, eyes wide and skin pale from abject terror. Behind them, half around the corner, was the RHN reporter, clad only in bikini briefs, sprawled out on the pile carpet. Half his head had been shot away. As they approached, Glen Mulrooney rose from his knees, hands clenching and unclenching nervously.
"Did you find Val?" he demanded, spittle flying off his lips as he struggled to control his muscles. "Did you see her?"
"She wasn't in her room?" Shannon snapped, temples beginning to throb with each bit of bad news.
"He says she went for a walk," Vinnie told her, seemingly cooler than any of them. "Haven't had much time to look around."
"What about Lieutenant McKay?" Stark wanted to know.
"I looked in his door on the way down here," Mahoney shrugged. "Not around."
"Goddammit," Shannon hissed, eyes flicking around instinctively to watch for any more of the armored troops. "Well, we can't stay around here much longer. We've got to get out before the place burns down around us!"
"Doesn't look like the fire control system's working," Jock agreed, eyes still locked down the corridor, following the aim of his mini-grenade launcher.
"Let's see if we can find the governor," Shannon decided, "Then we'll try to find some transportation and..."
"Won't have to look too far for His Honor," a voice announced casually from around the corner. All heads snapped around to see Tom Crossman approach from behind them. He was dressed in a pair of baggy fashion pants, with a submachinegun tucked in the crook of one arm and a young, female mansion employee in the grasp of the other: she was wearing the shirt that matched Crossman's pants, but nothing else.
"The Gov's in his chambers." He glanced back down the hall, a grin playing across his face. "Y'all gotta see this."
He headed back the way he had come, and the others followed him around the corner to a set of large, inlaid-wood double doors at the end of the hallway. Sprawled at the base of the entrance was one of the invaders, its neck blown out---by Crossman's weapon, Stark assumed. One of the doors was slightly ajar, and Crossman kicked it open, revealing the interior of the Governor's private bedroom and a kinky diorama the likes of which Shannon hadn't seen in all her young life.
The bed was the latest in magnetic suspension technology: a thin, pliable sheet of metal topped by a water-filled cushion held off the base by superconductive electromagnets. Since the power had failed, the heart-shaped floater cushion had collapsed over the base; but the holodisplay over the bed apparently ran on batteries, since it was still active. Amid a coruscating rainbow of pastels, a pair of teenage boys whose endowments, Shannon thought, had to be computer enhanced, were engaged in activities with a live horse that would have made a hardened sailor blush. The opposite wall was home to another such projection, different only in the lack of a farm animal and additional leather.
Governor Sigurdsen was crouched half-in a closet too small to contain his herculean frame---even though that frame looked decidedly less imposing in the lacy negligee that covered it at the moment. Pressed up against the wall behind the bed, a Hispanic youth Shannon recognized as one of the servants she'd seen on their arrival at the mansion was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible in nothing but a spiked leather harness.
"Holy shit," Jock muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Takes all kinds," Vinnie agreed.
"Governor Sigurdsen." Shannon tried to keep the distaste out of her voice---she respected everyone's right to their own sexual preference, but these kind of B&D power games turned her stomach. "The mansion is apparently under attack and on fire. We have to leave. Now, I'm going to close this door. When I open it in exactly thirty seconds, I expect you and your...friend to be as dressed as possible and ready to go. If not, we'll have to leave you here."
"No!" The Governor's eyes widened and he jumped to his feet, all embarrassment gone with a sudden rush of fear. "Take me with you!"
"Thirty seconds," she repeated, pulling the door shut. As
they waited, Shannon glanced back over at Crossman, and the young woman clinging to him. "Nice shirt," Stark commented to him wryly, regarding the garment that was all the clothes the Hispanic girl possessed.
"Thanks." Crossman grunted, gaze falling upon her bare chest. "Like to borrow it?"
She swallowed a sharp reply as she realized just how ridiculous they must all look, and found herself chuckling softly instead. At least, she mused, she had managed to get her boots on.
The sudden clomp of heavy footsteps behind them sent Vinnie and Jock into a defensive crouch, their weapons coming on line.
"Wait, hold your fire!" Shannon ordered, recognizing the blue utilities of the mansion security force on the forms running their way through the haze of smoke in the hallway.
The trio of blue-clad figures solidified into three of the mercenary guards, the leader of which she recognized as Captain Trang, head of the security force.
"Lieutenant Stark," he said, not even showing a hint of embarrassment at her state of undress. "Is the Governor safe?"
"As safe as any of us are at the moment, Captain," she assured him. "He's getting dressed. What's the situation outside?"
"Not good," the thin-mustached, fortyish mercenary captain reported. "Whoever the invaders are, they're everywhere. My men are trying to hold them out front, but it is a losing cause."
It didn't even take the full half-minute before the colonial governor and his companion emerged, the big man in hastily-thrown-on, mismatching dress shirt and pants, his face redder than his beard. Glancing out of the corner of her eye at Trang's face, Shannon saw a faint look of amusement.
"Lieutenant Stark..." Sigurdsen began, obviously on the verge of some kind of explanation.
"No time for talk now, Governor," she said curtly. "Follow us. And stick close."
Jock took the lead, guiding them toward the main stairwell, with Vinnie bringing up the rear and the three security men clumped around the governor. Shannon could still hear the distant stutter of gunfire outside, suddenly capped by the rumble of another explosion, and she began to wonder again just how many of the invaders there were and what they would do once they got outside.
The stairwell was clear as they swiftly but cautiously descended it, but smoke was already beginning to flood through the mansion, and they could feel the heat behind them as the fire continued to spread. As they came around the curve of the staircase, the front entrance came into view. The doors were shut and no threats were visible, but the raucous sounds of the firefight between the invaders and the governor's security force echoed off the foyer walls.
"It might not be wise to go out the front," Captain Trang recommended, obvious pain on his face from being forced to abandon the bulk of his men.
"Head for the back," Shannon ordered Jock, as their party clumped together at the base of the stairs.
Before he could take a step, another explosion from outside shattered the full-length windows on either side of the front door and a shotgun-blast spray of shrapnel ricocheted off the walls. The governor's young companion screamed and made a break toward the rear exit, but he hadn't gone more than a few strides when a burst of slugs took him full in the chest, jerking him around in a nerveless dance before he collapsed in a blood-spattered heap.
"Get down!" Shannon yelled above the continuing din of incoming machine-gun fire that chopped across the staircase's wood bannister, punching into the walls and shattering the row of mirrors that hung in the foyer.
Governor Sigurdsen stayed on his feet, staring in horror at the bullet-riddled body of his lover with a look of loss that made Shannon almost regret her harsh thoughts about him, until Trang grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him down on his butt with the rest of them.
Shannon cringed at a ricochet that whizzed inches from her face, and was about to call for Jock to lay down some return fire when she saw that the big Australian was already inching around the base of the staircase, angling his selective-fire grenade launcher at the force of Invaders advancing from the rear entrance. The sergeant squeezed off a long, magazine-emptying burst, then rolled quickly back behind cover to slap home a spare stick of ten mini-grenades before the first round went off.
A string of sharp "bangs" marked the ignition of the volley, curiously not punctuated by the screams that someone with combat experience would associate with a grenade explosion. Shannon and Trang leaned out after the last blast and had a brief view of the tableau of destruction that had been the mansion's living room---the priceless furniture shredded and smoldering, the rug charred and splattered with the blood of the three Invaders that Vinnie's barrage had taken out---before they targeted the four armored figures still on their feet.
Shannon's rifle punched through the neck of one of the Invaders, sending it crashing to the floor; but the others retreated to cover under the chattering fire of Trang's submachinegun and took up a position behind the huge wet bar against the back wall, returning their fire.
"Goddammit!" Shannon rolled back behind the staircase. "We can't get out that way!"
"We'll have to chance the front," Vinnie agreed, reloading his grenade launcher from a pouch of spare mags slung over his shoulder.
"Cover me," she ordered, getting her feet beneath her and sprinting toward the front door.
She was still over ten meters away and at an oblique angle from the heavy, oaken portal when it exploded inward with a thunderclap of sound, heat and pressure that threw her off her feet and back into the foyer wall. She shook her head clear, a whistling in her ears and a dull pain in every part of her body, just in time to see the Invader trooper advancing through the ruin of the doorway.
Somehow, she'd managed to keep her grasp on the autorifle, and she desperately fumbled to bring it on line with the approaching trooper, her mind still fuzzy from the concussion.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Tom Crossman was sliding in beside her, emptying his machine pistol one-handed at the Invader, while he brought her to her feet with the other. The armored trooper took a blast of slugs in the visor and was thrown backwards through the doorway; before its comrades could take its place, Crossman had her back at the staircase and Vinnie was pumping minigrenades into the foyer to hold the Invaders off.
As the numb ache began to recede, Shannon dimly realized that her left shoulder was bristling with a half-dozen fiery blossoms of sharp pain. A quick glance downward revealed a handful of long, wooden splinters from the door sticking out of her bare skin, and she felt a wave of nausea pass over her. At least there wasn't a lot of blood.
"What the fuck are we gonna do?" she could hear Jock yelling over the hollow whistling in her ears. That was a damned good question. The upstairs was on fire, and the front and back exits were blocked by enemy.
"In my considered opinion," Vinnie grunted an answer, firing off another burst at the Invaders at the front door, "we're gonna die."
Shannon was about to agree with him, when a series of ground-shaking explosions rocked the front of the house, the crimson fire of the blasts visible through the shattered windows. Stark at first thought that the Invaders had brought out the heavy artillery, but then she saw the charred and blackened husk of one of the armored troopers collapsing through the front door, and more of them running away from the front entrance outside.
Deciding that going forward was the lesser of the two dangers---and frankly curious---Shannon ignored her various aches and pains and pushed herself up, bringing her rifle to hip level.
"Move!" she shouted hoarsely. She began jogging stiffly toward the door, with the others following after her, Jock and the two security guards hanging back to lay down covering fire at the Invaders behind them.
They stepped through the doorway onto the smoldering, shattered remains of the front porch, scattered with the bodies of more than a score of Invaders as well as the bulk of the mansion's security force. Shannon tried to keep a watch for any further attacks, but her eyes, like those of the others, were drawn to the two vehicles approaching a
cross the front lawn. The lead car was a sleek-lined, heavily-armed scout vehicle, bristling with missile launchers and machine guns, while the trailing machine was a boxier, bulkier APC; both bore the markings of the Fleet Marine Corps, and they were the most beautiful sight Shannon Stark had ever seen.
"Are those ours?" Glen Mulrooney wondered aloud, hope mixing with trepidation in his voice.
"Yeah," Vinnie muttered ironically, thinking how happy the man suddenly was to see representatives of the same military he had unceasingly bitched about. "They're ours."
Tracking a small group of Invaders that was fleeing around the side of the house, the scout car's 25mm chain gun spat out a burst of high-velocity slugs with a sound like a giant zipper being pulled down, and the explosive-tipped bullets chopped the armored troopers to bite-sized pieces in a tenth of a second. The scout vehicle halted abruptly in a spray of dirt a good fifty meters from the mansion, maintaining an overwatch while the APC pulled right up to the front of the building, braking only meters from their position.
So intent were Shannon and the others on watching the vehicles' approach that their first warning anything was amiss was Glen Mulrooney's panicked scream...and the cold hand fastening like a vise on Shannon's shoulder, jerking her back, sending her rifle clattering to the pavement.
Spinning around, trying to shake the talon-like grasp, Stark found herself looking up into the face of a nightmare. Tinged a pale, sickly blue, the face was at once both too humanoid and all-too-inhuman, with its ridged brows and nose and recessed ears and, God, those horrible, dead eyes! For a moment, Shannon Stark was too frozen with shock to even speak as the thing grasped clumsily at her throat.
Then a blurred, black-clad shape flew out of the shadows and slammed into the thing, knocking it backwards, but not off its feet. The blur materialized into the form of Nathan Tanaka, looking for all the world like some avenging dark angel but for the blood splattered in places across his black clothing.
Staggering away from the---yes, it had to be---alien creature, Shannon noticed for the first time that the thing was badly damaged, probably from the scout car's missile attack. Its helmet had been torn away, along with a good bite of the left side of its awful face, and there were great, bloody chunks missing from its armored chest and legs. Yet the thing was still on its feet, trying to kill them with its bare hands.