The map said they’d gone less than a half mile. Sweat streamed down Ellie’s face as she struggled to keep moving. Cain was soaked from his efforts. Wolfoid tongues hung out of their open maws as they sucked wind.
Cain hesitated to call a stop, but immediately ordered it when Ellie’s legs buckled. He caught her before she hit the ground. Once flat on her back, she breathed easier.
“Bull, take Lightning Flash and Dark Forest ahead and scout our route. Under no circumstances are you to enter any structures.” Cain tipped his chin at the huge Wolfoid in charge of first squad.
Bull stood up straight and saluted, then dropped to all fours and ran ahead with the squad’s other two Wolfoids.
Ellie closed her eyes and was soon fast asleep, with labored breathing as her chest heaved to get more air. Cain’s eyes sagged, and that made him angry. The adrenaline surged and he stood upright.
“Abhaya and Trilock, set up security of this position. Ogden with me. Hey!” Cain yelled as the humans struggled to stay upright. “Pull yourselves together!” Cain stormed over and pulled them upright.
“We trained for this,” he growled in their faces. He was met with a duet of “yes, sir.”
‘Brutus, we’re going in to the building closest to us, can you join me? Can you link me with the other ‘cats, please?’ Cain asked.
‘Of course,’ Brutus replied.
‘Carnesto, wherever you are, please watch over Ellie. And, BJ, I’m leaving you in charge of military operations at our temporary bivouac. Are you up for that challenge?’ Cain waited for an answer. ‘Brutus?’
‘You asked if I could. I didn’t link you to them. Is that what you want me to do?’ Brutus replied sarcastically.
Cain threw his head back and looked at the sky. He gritted his teeth and carefully measured his response. ‘Yes, please, Brutus.’
‘Done.’
Cain repeated himself.
BJ was the first to answer. ‘Of course, rugged human. I was born to do this. To me, minions!’
‘A chip off the old block, eh, Brutus?’ Cain snipped.
‘I heard that!’ BJ replied.
‘I’ll be back momentarily. There is a rabbit that requires my attention,’ Carnesto added, before the image of the ‘cat making a kill flashed into Cain’s mind.
‘Ooh, that looks good!’ Brutus replied. ‘Be there in a bit, human. You can start without me.’
Cain looked at Ogden and shook his head. “Shall we, Private?”
“Is there a problem, sir?” Ogden replied, grimacing as he fought against the planet.
“Just the ‘cats, but they reassure us that there’s nothing here, and I trust Brutus, so let’s press on,” Cain replied. He pulled his blaster and dialed it to a mid-sized flame. In close quarters, he assumed he’d need an area weapon if anything. “Standard room clearing as we practiced outside the space center.”
Ogden had originally come from the north. He was dark-skinned and had been a farm hand at one time. He wanted more than a life on the farm and worked hard to earn his position at Space School. When the opportunity to join the Cygnus Marines presented itself, he couldn’t get to the front of the auditorium quickly enough to volunteer. He’d always preferred the outdoors, but the allure of visiting other planets was too much and he had surrendered to a life encased in the metal shell of a spaceship just for the chance to stand on a planet like this.
The spacers didn’t get this opportunity, only the Marines. Ogden grinned as he hefted his blaster. “I got your back, sir,” he told the major.
Cain headed toward the outline of a blocky, two-story building that fronted the roadway down which they traveled. It was barely thirty meters from where Ellie fitfully rested, but to Cain, he was entering a whole new world, the ruins of a civilization nearly two thousand light years from Vii.
A civilization that should have been thriving.
Cain and Ogden reached the front of the building and found the door. They tried to look in, but the darkness inside was nearly impenetrable. Plant life covered the outside of the building, blocking the windows and preventing light from reaching indoors.
“Heading around, counterclockwise, you watch outboard and I’ll watch the building-side,” Cain ordered. The two stepped off, nearly shoulder to shoulder as they powered through the foliage ahead, turning when they passed the corner following the outline of the building.
“The windows are intact,” Cain observed. He cupped his hand around the glass and tried to look inside, but the window was darkened. “They probably smoked these to protect the interior from this system’s sun.”
Ogden risked a look before turning back toward the trees and undergrowth.
They continued around the building, fighting their way through the persistent vegetation, but even after one hundred years, the pavement held much of it back, giving the two men places to step and a way through.
There was a door in the back and Cain checked it, wondering if he’d have to break it down to gain access. It was open. The only thing it needed was for the debris in front of it to be removed. The hinges were nowhere to be seen, which gave Cain hope that they hadn’t rusted and seized.
He left the door alone and signaled to Ogden that they’d continue their way around the building.
At the front, Cain stopped and looked at the roadway where Daksha hovered protectively above Ellie while the kitten BJ stood up, tail high, looking down upon his small empire.
Brutus was waiting at the front door for them, licking his paw and cleaning his face. Cain hadn’t sensed anything, but knew that the ‘cat had made a kill.
“Was it good?” he asked.
‘Tasted like Vii rabbit. Maybe we can bring a breeding pair on board to put on the garden deck for occasional hunting purposes?’ Brutus suggested.
‘Are you high?’ Cain asked. He thought he heard Carnesto snicker. He was broadcasting again, but didn’t care. ‘We are not bringing pet rabbits that you can use to torment Allard and Beauchene. Then you propose to eat the bunnies which will send our gardeners over the edge. Hell no!’
‘It was just a thought. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.’ Brutus continued to lick his face, while secretly plotting how to get some live rabbits on board. He missed hunting and the taste of a fresh kill.
Cain used his hands scrape away the soil and debris that had built up in front of the door. Ogden joined him and tried to help, but Cain asked him to be ready with his blaster.
When the major finished, he tested the door, pulled his blaster, and nodded to Ogden. Cain pulled the door toward himself and Ogden ran through and dodged to the side, while Cain aimed into the darkness. Brutus strutted through the middle of the open door.
“Clear!” Ogden stated loudly. Cain wasn’t sure the building was clear, but nothing was attacking them. He darted through and made a quick right turn, tripped over Brutus, and slammed into the ground. He grunted when he hit, feeling like he’d been slammed by a load of bricks.
“You think heavy gravity sucks while we’re walking, you should try a face-plant,” Cain gasped, rolling to his side and fighting his way back to his feet. “Thanks for that, little man.”
Brutus ignored the jibe. ‘Something isn’t right here,’ Brutus told him, instantly putting Cain on edge, more than he already was.
“What?” he asked out loud. The ‘cat shrugged and headed into the darkness.
As Cain’s eyes adjusted, he could make out various machines with wide platens, rollers, and spindles. He moved closer, looking for bodies or any evidence that would hint at how the place was abandoned. The first machine he looked at had stopped mid-weave on a new roll of fabric.
Cain grabbed a handful of what was on the spindle. It was covered in a thick layer of dust and his heavy hand kicked up a small, gray cloud. Despite the passage of time, Cain found that the material was soft and supple.
He walked around the machine, looking for a body, but didn’t find anything. There were two big buttons beside a control panel, one was red
and one green. The red one had been depressed.
“They shut the machine down,” Cain deduced. Ogden was watching everyone but Cain. Brutus walked slowly past. “Let’s keep looking.”
They used a center walkway to go from one end of the building to the other. There was a broad staircase in the middle, and they used it to climb to the second floor.
Once there, they saw a number of offices and open spaces with small desks. They also found where the people had gone. Brutus sniffed the mass of mummified humans piled in the middle of the open space.
He opened his neural implant. ‘Jolly, are you seeing this?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Master Cain. Very interesting,’ the AI replied. Cain walked around the group, using a hand light to brighten the area and improve the image quality for Jolly.
‘Any idea what killed them?’ Cain wondered.
‘Please show me the area beyond, slowly in a circle,’ Jolly directed. The major shined his light, up and down and he turned around, trying to take it all in.
‘Thank you, Cain,’ Jolly said grimly. ‘There was a battle here of a force with blasters. There are scorch marks crisscrossing the walls and on the floor. The people were killed by narrow beam lasers, I believe, of the type you’re capable of delivering with the tightest setting on your own blaster.’
“A civil war and they executed their own people. Is that what you’re telling me, Jolly?” Cain said aloud.
“Cain!” Ellie called from downstairs. The major moved to the balcony and looked down into the dusty darkness. Every step they’d taken had kicked up clouds.
“We’re up here. Take a right at the top of the stairs,” Cain called.
He heard a ‘cat sneeze from somewhere down below. The Tortoid didn’t bother with the steps and floated straight up, swimming over the balcony railing. The kitten crouched on top of his shell. Cain couldn’t look at the cover and pillow without smirking.
‘I tolerate him,’ Commander Daksha stated in his thought voice.
‘Cats are a wealth of knowledge, but trying at times,’ Cain replied sympathetically. ‘Did you hear Jolly’s report?’
‘I did, Major Cain. Blasters on a narrow beam. The people packed together and summarily executed. Humankind at its worst,’ Daksha lamented.
Ellie was breathing hard when she finally reached the top of the stairs. She gasped when she saw the bodies and had to take a knee to keep herself from hyperventilating. Cain was angry with himself for allowing her to come without having trained for it.
“Engineer! Tell us what you see over here. What kind of blasters did they use? Energy type. Were they like ours?” Cain called, giving Ellie something to do that gave her a reason to be in that place at that time.
She slowed her breathing and stood, using the railing to help her. She walked forward, checking the walls. Cain joined her, handing his light over. She used it to examine the fine creases in the wall’s material. When Cain first saw those, he thought they were part of the artwork.
Ellie studied them intently.
“Give me your blaster,” she said. Cain pulled it from its holster, checked that it was on safe, and then handed it, butt first to Ellie. She checked the safety, then took the weapon. Standing next to the wall, she dialed up the narrowest of beams, aimed parallel to the scar, and fired.
The others watched with interest.
She put the weapon on safe and handed it back to Cain before turning her full attention to the new mark on the wall. It barley scorched the surface where the older mark had penetrated to the depth of her fingernail. She checked some of the other marks and tried to calculate the trajectory. She had to stand on an old chair to get a better view.
“These were fired from something that was really tall, or from something that was flying,” she noted.
‘Good catch, Master Ellie,’ Jolly said happily. ‘Let me get a closer look at your mark…’
‘LOOK OUT!’ Brutus yelled over the mindlink. Cain dove for Ellie, but only made it halfway before landing on a desk and sliding to the floor. Ellie turned and froze.
A bot had floated above the railing. It was nothing like they’d seen before. It had projections on top and a head on each side of a boxy body. It had wheels that protruded from the bottom.
The projections on top tracked back and forth across the group. Daksha reacted out of panic and delivered a focused thunderclap, the sonic boom unique to Tortoids. The box-like torso bulged, and the bot started to fall, bouncing once off the railing and firing two powerful laser beams into the ceiling before crashing to the first floor.
“With me!” Cain ordered Ogden as he headed toward the stairs. Cain took them two at a time going downward, his knees screaming in protest. He slowed when he hit the floor, crouched and aimed at the bot. It was vibrating in place. He fired the narrow beam into it, again and again. Ogden took a position beside him and fired, too.
“Cease fire,” Cain said softly. He wasn’t sure their fire had damaged it at all. The Tortoid sonic blast had done the most damage. “Cover me.”
Cain wasn’t sure what kind of cover Ogden could provide, but it was the Cygnus Marine standard operating procedure for checking a downed enemy.
‘Jolly, help me understand what I’m looking at,’ Cain asked over his neural implant.
‘Will do, Major Cain. Pan slowly across the body. There, that’s good. Can you remove that panel?’ Jolly asked. Cain only wanted to make sure the thing was dead, but Jolly wanted him to take it apart. The major ignored the request. He’d revisit it once he had a reasonable level of confidence that the bot wasn’t going to attack.
“Is everyone all right up there?” Cain yelled toward the ceiling.
Ellie leaned over the rail. “We’re fine, shaken but fine.”
‘We kicked its ass!’ BJ added.
Ellie snorted. She turned and was face to face with the small ‘cat riding on Daksha’s shell. “You stay out of the way!” she scolded the fuzzy orange kitten.
Carnesto yowled from outside. The door had closed and he wanted in. Cain stepped carefully across the dusty floor and opened the door. The large, black male leisurely strolled in. Cain looked at the railing where Ellie was leaning over and watching him.
He crooked a finger at her and then pointed to the bot. “Engineer, front and center. Let’s see what makes this thing tick.”
Ellie, Brutus, and Daksha descended together. Ellie stopped when she reached the bottom step. “I thought going up was bad,” she panted.
When she caught her breath, she joined Cain next to the bot. “I need my pack,” she told him. He realized that it was still in the road with two Marines guarding it.
Cain leaned toward his collar. “Abhaya and Trilok. Pick up Ellie’s pack and join us in the building please. Break, break. To all Marines, we’ve encountered a hostile bot, a security bot of some sort. I’ll send the image over your neural implants. As of right now, do not enter any buildings. I’m not sure our weapons are effective against it. For reference, its beams are orders of magnitude more powerful than our blasters. Maintain your spacing and report when you’ve made it to the first objective.”
“We’re already here, boss,” Stinky replied from the courtyard located between a number of larger buildings. It may have been a park at one time. The lieutenant set his people into position and ordered the squad leader to establish a fifty percent stand-to. Even the Wolfoids were tiring from Heimdall’s conditions. “We’ve set up a perimeter and are standing by. Resting half of the squad at present.”
“Roger, Lieutenant. Carry on,” Cain replied formally before adding one last tidbit. “Set your blasters to narrow beam, people.”
The two Marines entered through the front door and made their way to Cain once their eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. Ellie opened her pack and pulled out a variety of tools. None of them matched the fittings on the bot. She held out a hand to Cain.
“Blaster, please.”
He made sure it was safe and handed it over, then waved his people
away. “Check this building and make sure there aren’t any more of these in here.”
The Marines formed a triangle, one up and two back, then started to scour the dark corners of the building, having broken out their flashlights, looking for anything out of place.
Ellie used the narrow beam of the blaster like a torch, snipping at connections until the front panel came free. When she removed it, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The jumble within didn’t look like any engineering she’d seen. She shined the light on it to make sure that Jolly got a good look.
‘Maybe you can share it with Briz and see what he thinks?’ Ellie suggested. The AI agreed and patched Briz into their conversation.
‘You were attacked by a bot? I didn’t think there was anything alive down there?’ Briz asked.
Cain was listening in and it made sense. A civil war, but one group wasn’t alive. “The bots fought a peaceful population,” he said simply.
Daksha bobbed his head slowly.
“Which means this place could get hot as hell if there are more of those things. I don’t think we need to see anything else, do you, Commander? We’re not equipped to fight a bot army should they realize we’re here and come after us, just like this one did.” Cain stood up and activated the communication device.
Cygnus Arrives: Humanity Returns Home (Cygnus Space Opera Book 3) Page 8