by Jake Bible
Visibility actually became better once inside the nebula, but that didn’t make the situation any better. It was easy to see that Motherboard’s suit was quickly being eaten from the outside by the various deadly gasses that made up the nebula. Hunks of plastic and carbon began to flake off the suit, dissolving into nothing as they floated away.
Geist gunned it. He put all of his reserve energy into his thrusters and said a quick Tcherian prayer just before impact.
“Forget this one!” Geist said. “We have seven already!”
Motherboard turned her head as Geist reached her. She nodded then pointed at her helmet then down at her boots.
“Can you read me, LT?” Geist asked, grabbing the lieutenant by the shoulders. Motherboard nodded. “But you can’t respond?” Motherboard nodded again. “Okay, understood. Just disengage your boots and let’s get out of here. I’ll blast this probe to pieces the second you’re free.”
Motherboard shook her head and pointed at her boots again.
“Fo,” Geist said, getting the message. “Boots won’t disengage?”
Motherboard gave him a thumbs up. Bits of her gloves crumbled off and her eyes went wide.
“Crud, your suit is about to have a serious breach,” Geist said. Motherboard pointed at him and he looked down to see the same problem with his. “Yeah, but I can handle vacuum better than you.” Motherboard rolled her eyes. “Oh, right, we’re in a nebula. Yeah, I can’t handle a nebula. Better than you can, but it’s still going to eat me up.”
Geist thought for one second then just started firing. His pistol blasted the probe’s thrusters to nothing. Sparks and fire erupted from the machine, but were quickly extinguished by the nebula. Motherboard gave Geist a quizzical look then smiled as she saw what he was about to do.
He positioned himself under the probe and engaged his own thrusters, pushing Motherboard, himself, and the dead machine back to the edge of the nebula. They wobbled wildly since the suit was not designed to steer that much bulk with any type of efficiency, but Geist managed to keep them in a semblance of a straight path.
They shot from the nebula and Geist began yelling for assistance. Of course, the time in the nebula rendered his com as useless as Motherboard’s. But words weren’t needed as the others turned to look at them and came racing over to help. The fact that Motherboard’s and Geist’s suits were still disintegrating was message enough that they were in deep crud.
Geist killed his thrusters and let Cookie and Wanders, who had no more targets to shoot, each take a side and grab Motherboard, along with the dead probe. Once they had the lieutenant in hand, Geist fired his thrusters back up and aimed for the Eight-Three-Eight’s belly airlock.
He shot past Hole as she worked to connect the disabled probes into a manageable group. It wasn’t easy since the guns were still firing, but she was doing a good job of keeping the plasma bolts from hitting either the others or the ship.
Geist reached the belly airlock just as his suit started to bark warnings at him of its impending disintegration. He slammed a hand on the airlock controls and clambered his way inside, getting out of the way so the rest could fit next to him.
Once Cookie, Wanders, Motherboard, and the dead probe, were past the airlock seal, Geist shut the door and cycled the atmosphere. Nothing happened.
“Dammit!” Wanders yelled. “Atmosphere to the ship is centralized in the bridge only!”
“We have to get it back on here now!” Cookie yelled.
Geist popped his helmet off and almost tried to take a breath, but the lack of a green light by the airlock seal told him there was nothing to breathe. The others looked at him like he was crazy, but he shook his head at them. He pointed at his skin then shook his head again and turned to the airlock door leading directly into the ship.
Motherboard was completely limp in Cookie and Wanders’ grips. Geist gave her one quick glance then focused on what he had to do. He manually opened the inner airlock then manually closed it as he moved out into the corridor. He snapped open the control hatch on the wall and began to reroute atmosphere away from the bridge and to the airlock.
There was a banging and Geist saw Cookie giving a thumbs up through the airlock door’s porthole window. He nodded back then spun about and quickly stripped off his suit. He grabbed up a spare from the line of suits on the wall directly across from the airlock and put that on as fast as he possibly could. Once the suit beeped in his ear, he took the sweetest breath of air he’d ever taken in his life.
“I’m heading to the bridge to get atmosphere back in this corridor so you can get her into a new suit before I shut it back down,” Geist said over the com. “How’s LT doing?”
“She’s unconscious, but breathing steady,” Cookie replied. “You’ll want to turn atmosphere on in the med bay, as well.”
“We’ll be draining a lot of energy and resources, but we can’t help it,” Wanders said. “Hole better get those probes working soon. I have a feeling we don’t have much time. Someone’s going to come checking on these probes when they don’t return or report in.”
“Don’t worry,” Hole said over the com. “They just reported our deaths to the moon. It’s a garbled message and probably not on the right channel or using the proper codes, but I’m hoping some sleepy tech will chalk it up to the nebula’s interference.”
“Yeah, let’s hope,” Wanders said. “Bust ass, Geist. We need to get LT into a med chamber STAT.”
Geist took off down the corridor and towards the bridge as fast as he could.
Twenty-Eight
The four BooshGon fighters came roaring out of the wormhole portal at full speed with weapons hot and scanners at full. That last part was all that saved them from instant annihilation.
“Gun probes!” Fighter One shouted. “Engage!”
The gun probes opened fire, the BooshGon fighters opened fire. It was plasma everywhere in the area surrounding the Klatu System’s wormhole portal. Blasts shot this way and that, up and down, left to right, diagonal, in a swirling vortex as fighters and probes dipped and dodged each other.
The probes had the numbers, but the BooshGon pilots had the skills.
“Split into twos!” Fighter One ordered as his plasma cannons ripped apart two probes. He had to ditch the guns and concentrate on his flight controls, though, to keep the third probe that had come at him from turning his ship into scrap. “Draw them apart then come back together for a whammy!”
“Tight quarters for a whammy!” Fighter Three said. “We ain’t careful and we’ll destroy the wormhole portal. Then how we gonna get home?”
“You aren’t paid to get home, you’re paid to take orders and shoot what, where, and when I tell you to shoot!” Fighter One snapped.
“Copy that,” Fighter Three responded, sending his fighter closer to Fighter Four.
“We do have to make sure the portal stays open so the boss can get through,” Fighter Two said.
“Keep intel like that off the coms!” Fighter One shouted. “There are ears everywhere!”
“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” Fighter Two replied. Just before being blasted into nothing as two probes came at him from both sides.
Wreckage filled the space and a huge chunk of fighter slammed into one of the probes, turning it into a brief ball of fire and then an exploding mass of carbon steel.
“Watch the shrapnel!” Fighter One yelled. “Watch the shrapnel!”
He sent his fighter diving below the dangerous debris field. His cannons ripped into a probe before he was forced to pull up and bank hard right to keep from being blasted himself. Two probes pursued and he launched defensive measures to shake them from his tail. A hundred bright red flares streamed from between his aft thrusters.
One of the probes broke off and gave chase, its guns firing impotently at what were just sparks and light. The other probe ignored the countermeasures and stayed on Fighter One, surprisingly gaining speed as the larger vessel dipped and dove to try to shake it the old fashioned way.
“Anyone have a bead on this thing?” Fighter One yelled.
“I’ve got my own problems!” Fighter Four shouted back. “Two on my ass, as well!”
“Let’s take care of those problems for each other!” Fighter One said.
“I hear ya!” Fighter Four replied.
Fighter One sent his ship directly at Fighter Four. The two ships leveled out then increased speed. The probes behind them started closing the distance. Then Fighter One pulled up hard and Fighter Four dove steeply. The pursuing probes didn’t have time to react and collided with each other. More shrapnel was added to the already deadly field of debris.
A probe shot up at Fighter One, but was quickly sliced and diced to scrap as shrapnel hit it again and again. Fighter One checked his scanners and counted only five probes left. He had no idea how many he’d taken out, but it was inconsequential since the five left were all that mattered.
The probes came together in a tight group and took off after Fighter Four.
“I can’t shake them!” Fighter Four called out. “Someone cover my ass now!”
Fighter One dove down at Fighter Four, but was too late as the five probes opened fire as one, concentrating their plasma on Fighter Four’s thrusters. The engines went black then critical and the fighter exploded, sending shock waves out in ringed ripples. Fighter One fought against the concussions, pushing the flight stick all the way forward so he did a complete circle upside down.
“I’ve got the foing bastards!” Fighter Three announced and headed for the still clustered probes. His cannons picked off one, two, three of the probes, but the last two broke away from each other and avoided the kill shots that had been sent at them. “Son of a gump!”
“I’ve got the left one!” Fighter One said and gave chase to the fleeing probe. Which didn’t seem right. Probes engage, they don’t flee. “Where’s the second one? Do you have a visual?”
Fighter One got the visual he needed, but not in the way he wanted. The probe came speeding at his cockpit and he didn’t even have time to scream before his ship became one more fireball in the blackness of space.
“Pilot Haskel calling BooshGon Command!” Fighter Three yelled into the com. “Pilot Haskel Calling BooshGon—!”
He never finished his sentence as the last probe came up from beneath, all guns set to auto. The probe fired until the guns clicked empty and the last BooshGon fighter was destroyed. It changed course, ready to return to the Hoonnaann base to reload, but it didn’t make it more than a quarter of a kilometer before it was destroyed.
A Grabal 31 personnel carrier came out of the wormhole portal, fore guns firing. Once the probe was dispatched, it paused briefly then set a direct course for the Hoonnaann base. It was a good-sized ship, able to carry a full platoon of Marines, if needed, as well as two small fighters in its extended side pod bays.
During the War, the Fleet had used them extensively to deploy Marines into hot zones, relying on the near psychic capabilities of its defensive guns. The AI that ran the guns never engaged an enemy first, but waited until engaged then unleashed a Hell storm of plasma on the unlucky combatant. Even the developers of the AI weren’t sure why it had decided not to be the first to shoot, and why it was so deadly because of that choice.
The Fleet brass could have cared less as long as the carrier did its job and dropped off the Marines where they were supposed to be dropped off without them dying before touching land.
But the Grabal 31 that came through the portal was not Fleet and did not carry Marines. It was a recommissioned ship purchased by BooshGon Security to deliver its incursion squads where they were hired to be delivered. The AI was still a crack shot, but not quite as accurate once the programming had been shifted to offensive as well as defensive.
On the bridge of the carrier stood Z Gon, co-head of BooshGon Security. She was a full Jirk, which meant she was a skintaker, a species that rarely had a form of its own, preferring instead to kill and take the skins of its victims, basically becoming that other entity, no matter what race it was. To the naked eye, or even naked scanner, the Jirk would look exactly like the coopted species. Except for the teeth. Only the higher castes of the Jirk race were able to alter their teeth to match the species of whose skin was taken. The lower castes had sharp, nasty-looking teeth that were a dead giveaway.
Z Gon had perfect teeth. They looked exactly like how the teeth of a Skrang should look. Her business partner, Meeks Boosh, had scoffed at her taking a Skrang’s form, but she loved the irony of it. Being hired by a Fleet Councilman while looking like someone from the Council’s sworn enemy, despite there being a treaty in place.
“A sad loss of equipment,” Z said as she watched the carrier’s pilot navigate through the wreckage of the probes and fighters. “But we had a feeling there would be a surprise waiting for us.”
“Not much of a surprise,” a Leforian said from off to Z’s right. He was seated at a console, but payed zero attention to any of the readings or information streaming past on the holo. “I mean, if you knew there’d be a surprise then it ain’t a surprise, now is it?”
Most Leforians were employed in assistance jobs within the Fleet. Similar to Slinghasps in their genetic need to be of help, Leforians were sometimes called Moms because they fretted and worried over their employers, partners, co-workers. It was behavior incongruent with their size and appearance. They looked like seven-foot-tall beetles mixed with a Great Dane. Many joked around and called them bug dogs.
No one did to the Leforian that sat to Z’s right. Not if they wanted to keep their limbs. Or lips. Or ears.
The Leforian’s carapace was battle-scared and dented, the exoskeleton showing evidence of a life of warfare and violence. He was missing one mandible of four of his quad-jaw and in its place was a shiny hunk of pure carbon steel. His left arms and lower right was gone, and there was no cyber replacement since Leforian biology was not compatible with any type of tech. Scientists had tried, but nothing would work once hooked into a Leforian’s system.
“You hear what I’m saying, Z?” the Leforian asked. “Not really much of a surprise.”
“I heard you, Tnort,” Z replied. “I just didn’t care to answer since you were spouting nothing but useless drivel as you always spout.”
“Good thing I can shoot a Kinter fly out of the ash from a thousand paces,” Tnort said, pulling the pistol form his hip, giving it a quick whirl, then putting it back in less than the blink of an eye.
“Yes, it is good you can do that,” Z said. She stepped closer to the pilot and placed a lizard hand on his shoulder. “ETA?”
“We’ll be in sight of the moon within the hour,” the pilot replied.
“That long?” Tnort asked. “Why so long?”
“Because we’re running a stealth protocol that requires us to maintain an even speed,” Z said. She turned and glared at the Leforian. “Do you ever pay attention at briefings?”
“I paid attention to how many chits will be in my account when we fetch the Keer brat,” Tnort said. “That’s all I really need to know. That’s all you really need to know that I need to know. Knowing more would be useless since I always do the job I’m paid for.”
“Perhaps if you paid attention more, you’d still have all of your mandibles and arms,” Z said.
Tnort shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s up to the Eight Million Gods anyway, so why sweat it?”
“Because I do not subscribe to the superstition of the Eight Million Gods,” Z said. No one on the bridge reacted to her declaration, despite it being the highest of galactic blasphemies. She grinned her acquired lizard grin. “I put my trust in my skills.”
“And chits,” Tnort said. “I am certain you put your trust in chits. That much we have in common.”
“Yes, and chits,” Z responded.
She sighed and rubbed at her face over and over until the scales were a bright red. It was a reaction Skrang facial scales had to physical stimuli. The action helped the skin integrate better
with her Jirk metabolism. Rarely was there an issue with transformation, but Jirks had learned over millennia of existence to not take anything for granted, so the stimulation not only felt good, it kept the skin from rejecting its new host.
“I’m heading down to get the troops ready,” Tnort said as he stood up, towering over Z’s much shorter Skrang stature. “Care to come with? It always gets them fired up when the boss lady makes an appearance.”
“I trust you to have it all well in hand,” Z said. “If just the one.”
“Oh, you are very funny,” Tnort said and laughed. It was a genuine laugh. “It never gets old how you can bring up my lack of ambidexterity. You always find new ways to jest. Good for you, Z, good for you.”
Z couldn’t help but smile at Tnort’s earnestness. He was a stone-cold killer, but he was still Leforian which meant loyal and optimistic almost to a fault. She watched him go then returned her gaze to the wreckage and debris that still filled the carrier’s view screen.
“I want all eyes on the sensors,” Z said. “If there is even a hint that the base has detected us then I want to know that second. Understood?”
The bridge crew all eagerly announced that they understood and Z smiled. She liked the way the Skrang mouth stretched when smiling. From what knowledge she’d assimilated from her chosen victim, a Skrang smile meant pleasure, pain, and also deceitfulness. Z planned on keeping the form for a while and looked forward to time to practice the subtleties between the three smiles.
But, first, she had to retrieve the Keer boy and return him to his councilman father. However, that was only part of her mission. BooshGon generally didn’t take on two clients at once, but the pay offered was far higher than any job BooshGon had ever received before. She would complete the first job, and deliver the boy, then complete the second job, and kill Councilman Keer’s son right in front of him. Then kill Keer.
It was supposed to be a message from the Collari Syndicate that they did not appreciate being double crossed. They were the criminals, they did the double crossing.