Five thousand meters was point blank range for the maser that ran through the spine of his fifty-meter-long fighter craft, but he was less than sanguine about its effect on a mechanical target. Microwave lasers were excellent for killing living Meme ships, but they had highly variable effects on inorganic materials. It all depended on the wavelength employed; he had his set for best effect against ferrous metals, but who really knew?
Sixty Crows flew in a loose formation in full view of the massive grounded ship. We’re bait, he realized. If that thing fires, some of us will die in a heartbeat. Absen is a coldblooded one. Let’s hope he’s right in thinking it’s not going to initiate an attack against overwhelming odds. Now that it’s on the ground, there’s no way it can win, but it can still hurt us badly.
High above the fighter cover, Conquest cruised inverted, like an upside-down chocolate kiss. Every primary weapon on her teardrop shape pointed straight at the unknown vessel, and every eye on her bridge stared at the holotank that now in exquisite detail presented the events unfolding down below.
They watched as the skimming sleds approached from the direction of the scavenged base, keeping below the painfully near horizon on the tiny moon, until the very last moment. Telemetry showed that the lead pilots had dropped to less than one meter above the ice, risking impact with upthrust pieces of rock-hard frozen surface.
***
In the center rear of the assault formation, Bull’s HUD filled with the overhead view fed by a recon drone. The formation looked picture-perfect, all of the pilots combat veterans. His testicles pulled up inside him as the first sled crossed the horizon’s demarcation line, and he waited with roiling guts for the shot that would cut a swath through his men.
It did not come.
Seconds later they decelerated brutally, approaching the massive ship. Glad in a way that he could not see it with his own eyes, Bull kept his HUD on overhead look-down mode, the better to give orders. It appeared as some complex virtual wargame to him, despite the fact that he was present inside of it.
Without opposition, the pilots followed their operational plans and flew their sleds straight into the rents in the structure of the alien ship. By so doing, the theory went, any point-defense weapons would only get the one chance to shoot before the Marines were actually inside their arcs of fire. After that it would be man to man in the corridors – a Marine specialty.
With the crash deceleration, Bull slammed hard into the inside of his shell. Despite biogel cushioning he felt as if he’d been run over by a truck. Nanites and Eden Plague kicked into high gear, healing his contusions and keeping him conscious, while his suit autodoc pumped nutrient solution and stims into his veins. By the time the sled came to rest he felt like he could lift a tank.
“Up and at ‘em, boys!” he yelled as the vertical clamshell popped open, and immediately grabbed his plasma rifle. Stepping out, he made the automatic turn to the ramp that every Marine could perform in his sleep. Eight of his nine men reached down as one to unbolt and hoist the semi-portable laser cannon from the deck and, like manic armored pallbearers, carried it rapidly out the gaping hatch and into the alien ship.
In front of him, Bull could see out over the ice moon through the ripped-away hull into which they’d just flown. Fusion flares far above showed where the fighter jocks hovered, but it appeared that was all for nothing.
As usual, all the hard work gets done by Marines, he thought. “Let’s go, let’s go. Secure your objectives, kill anything that shoots but try to capture the organics if you can. Remember, the bipeds may be friendly, and the drones may be neutral.”
Noise and confusion broke into the channel, then the voice of Sergeant Major McCoy spoke in his ear. “Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but we’ve already come under fire from combat drones. Three men are down. The semis and plasma rifles look good to go against these things, though. They aren’t as tough as the Purelings’ war drones were.”
“All right, battalion, if you didn’t hear the sergeant major, shoot any armed drones or bots on sight at your discretion.”
“Bull.” Johnstone stepped up at ben Tauros’ elbow. “Let’s get going to the warm area. If the Ryss are there, I need to contact them as quickly as possible.”
“As soon as we can. Right now we got a smidgen of tactical stuff to do.”
“Just remember, the Ryss may be able to help us, and that may save lives – of your men, too.”
“Yes, mommy. I’ll be good,” Bull said sarcastically. He slapped the semi gunner on the shoulder and led the way inward toward the chosen fusion reactor, the laser cannon swaying between his men as they followed.
“Bull,” Johnstone said from behind, “I’m getting intel that six more fusion generators are coming online. Whatever that means, it can’t be good.”
“Right. Better and better.” Bull stopped at a corner and sent out an active scanning pulse from his motion detector, seeing nothing moving. Stepping out into the corridor, he realized he’d screwed up as he saw two squat autoguns pointing his way, utterly still. Without thinking, he leaped upward in the low gravity and hooked hands and toes onto a pipe in the ceiling above. Just in time: the weapons woke up and erupted with jolting fire.
Silent in vacuum, he could nevertheless feel the vibrations of shells exploding behind and below him. Got to get them before they target me up here… Hanging by one hand and his toes, he pointed his plasma rifle one-fisted and pulled the trigger. A wash of green melted one gun to slag. It exploded a moment later as its ammo cooked off, knocking the other weapon off its pedestal.
Still connected by thick cable, the live gun leaped about like a mad snake, firing in all directions. One shell knocked Bull’s rifle out of his hand, and another ricocheted off the ceiling and exploded against his arm, numbing it to the shoulder while cracking the armor. Suit systems pumped sealant into the damage, and he dropped slowly to the floor while a flood of Marines ran past him firing. In a moment the enemy weapon lay silent.
“Good job, men. Listen up, all stations. Don’t rely on your detector pulses, the mechanicals are motionless until they fire. Use visual probes.” Clicks of acknowledgement came back from busy assault units.
Johnstone asked, “Bull, what do you think about concentrating on those new reactors?”
“Leave the strategy to me, will you?” he snapped at the Navy man.
Rick persisted. “If someone’s starting those things up just since we boarded, they have something to do with us – with fighting us, I expect.”
“Point taken,” Bull replied grudgingly. He changed objectives on his HUD for the six nearest platoons, to disable the new fusion generators. Turning to a nearby Marine with green blazons on his armor he ordered, “Let’s go. Bannon, you got point. Scout better than I did.”
“That won’t be hard, sir,” the Recon Marine deadpanned as he jogged past his commander. Bull and the rest followed several meters back, letting the expert check and clear the corners before they moved on.
***
Many smallspans passed and the Ryss made little progress on opening the vault door. Armored for just this eventuality, it resisted their ordinary welding and cutting lasers, and the unblooded warriors were beginning to get restless. Concerned that if Desolator retaliated they might be caught all crowded together in the corridors, Chirom sent the four other clans off with instructions to find more powerful tools, while his Rell continued to cut slowly along one edge, looking for an inner hinge or locking bar.
“This is impossible,” Trissk hissed. “With these tools it will take days to get through. Chirom, you will be needed to treat with the aliens. Let the technologists keep doing this, but we must prevent our warriors from killing our possible allies.”
“Wise words, and I will heed.” The elder picked up a communicator and selected the standard open channel. “This is Chirom. I need to know where the nearest aliens are. Has anyone seen them?”
Negative replies came until suddenly a female voice spoke hesitantly. “Chirom? T
his is B’Nur. We heard weapons fire outside the warm-room so we sealed the doors. It may be war drones or it may be the aliens.”
“We will return immediately.” Turning to the waiting Rell, he said, “Technologists and those with like skills remain here. Other warriors, follow me back to the warm-room.” Soon they were jogging the long distance back to the females.
They found their way blocked by a section door. “This was open when we came through,” Trissk muttered, running his paw along its edge, then tapping at the control pad. “It appears Desolator has closed it. Wait a moment; I believe I can bypass it.” With tools from his work suit he had the panel open momentarily, and unlocked the door. “We will have to lift it manually, but in this low gravity that should not be difficult.”
A press of warriors moved forward to scrabble at the bottom edge of the heavy door, and Trissk levered his pry-bar under to widen the gap. As he did, a blaze of plasma washed through the tiny crack at one side, and several warriors fell back, cursing from burns. He dropped the tool just in time as the bright heat moved relentlessly along the bottom, melting floor and door alike. “Back!” he cried.
Ryss warriors retreated down the wide corridor dragging their wounded comrades, pointing their weapons at the door. After a moment the blazing fire stopped, leaving a handspan gap beneath.
Falling on his face but well back, Trissk pressed an eye to the floor so he could see along it and under the crack. Mechanical legs were visible, and he reported, “Two war drones wait behind the door. It appears Desolator has decided we are a threat.”
“To some extent,” Chirom replied. “It is still showing some restraint, else it would open the door and the war drones would attack. No, it appears to be simply trying to keep us contained.” He pointed back along the way they had come, in the direction of the vault, where they could now see another section door had closed a hundred strides back.
“What shall we do?” one of the adolescents asked, clutching his inactive hotblade.
Looking at the sword in the youngster’s hand gave Trissk an idea. “You, with hotblades, follow me.” Opening the door of a nearby room, he found himself in some kind of laboratory, though the tools and instruments were gone. Leading his small band forward, he stopped facing the room’s wall congruent with the containment door’s position. “Give me a blade.”
Activating it, Trissk carefully reached out and pressed its tip against the wall. After a moment the white-hot crystal began to cut, slowly but easily, as if the bulkhead metal was soft clay under a potter’s knife. “See, we can carve through and go around them.” Withdrawing the blade, he used it to mark out a crude doorway. “Four of you, start at the corners, cut spinward and we’ll have a way through. Carefully!”
Leaving them to the work, Trissk rejoined Chirom and the rest in the corridor. “We’ll soon have a way through the wall. Perhaps we can bypass the war drones entirely.”
“Good thinking. We –” From behind them came a sudden buzzing burning sound and an orange-red beam shot briefly through a new hole in the containment door behind them, which had sealed them away from the vault. “Into the room!” Chirom yelled, pushing the rest toward the laboratory door. He saw the beam, some kind of laser, cutting its way around the edge of the barrier very fast. The bar of light sparkled each time it shot through the gap and into the smoke its heat generated. Fortunately, right now it seemed to be aimed upward, cutting along the top.
A moment later all forty Ryss occupied the empty lab. Chirom kept one eye to the crack of the door, watching the progress of the unknown cutters down the corridor. He glanced back at the youths working with the hotblades and hissed, “Trissk, don’t let the slab fall loudly. It may alert the war drones.”
Trissk nodded, and supervised the final cuts to carefully lower the makeshift door to the deck. Through the dark opening they shone hand-lights and saw a storeroom full of empty shelves, with a shut door that opened into the main corridor right next to where the war drones stood.
“The unknown cutters are through,” Chirom whispered loudly, keeping his eye to the crack. Others joined him at the narrow opening, kneeling or even lying on the deck to catch a glimpse of whatever it was. It must be…it must be…
Onto the deck the enormous door fell slowly in strange low-gravity motion, and behind it, out of the cutting-laser smoke, leaped surprisingly ordinary-looking, though armored, creatures. Not so different from our own form, Chirom thought, or of the Myrmidon armor we wore aforetimes. Smaller than Ryss they were; nevertheless he saw four limbs and a head, and weapons held in their paws akin to the Ryss’ own.
That was nearly all he ever saw, however, as the alien warriors aligned their weapons forward in response to some threat. The war drones…Abruptly the corridor filled with a sound as of rocks shaken in a mixing-machine, and Chirom felt a sting in his chest. Looking down he saw a spot of blood, then crumpled as consciousness faded.
***
Trissk leaped for the door to shove it closed and lock it. Kneeling over the elder, he probed the wound with a claw. “It passed right through him. Some kind of high-velocity projectile.” From the other side of the door he could hear the hammering of weapons, explosions, and the clang of war drone footsteps. “Get back from the door!”
Dragging Chirom’s inert form, he pulled him by the shoulders through the opening they had cut in the bulkhead. “You with armor and weapons attack through the door. Flank the war drones, take them from the rear, and do not fire on the aliens! You two, carry the elder to the far corner and attend his wounds. You four, with the hotblades, come with me.”
Back into the laboratory he led the four wall-cutters. Gesturing at the far bulkhead he said, “Open another door here, and if you can, in the next wall and the next. You must cut a way back toward the warm-room so that the elder may be brought to the females. Do not worry about noise; no one will notice now.”
Leaving them to do their work, Trissk scrambled back to the storeroom, where the fifteen or so Ryss who had been wise or patient enough to put on at least some armor crowded the doorway, firing through it and rolling neutron grenades. A few seconds later a blast threw the crowd back to sprawl among the empty shelves.
Into the open door stepped a large figure, in its armor larger even than any Ryss, with an enormous weapon in its hands. It must be a specially-bred assault warrior, Trissk thought. Making incomprehensible sounds, the thing took its weapon by the barrel and held it off to the side, as if to place it out of the way, clearly a gesture of non-hostility.
Trissk caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. “Stop!” he cried as the warriors – his warriors now, it seemed – turned their maser carbines toward the alien, but too late. Weapons thrummed and sparks flew as microwaves hit the battle-armored figure, and he fully expected it to take its oversized gun and flame them all to a crisp.
Instead, it leaped back from the doorway and out of the line of fire, leaving a sudden silence and emptiness in the smoke. Nervously the Ryss rattled their weapons, and one overeager yearsmane began to ready a neutron grenade before a grizzled veteran took it out of his hand and deactivated it with a snarl.
“Remember who the real enemy is,” Trissk said yet again. “We must make peace with these aliens.”
“Who are you to give orders?” said a voice from behind him. Trissk turned to see Vusk and three of his toughs come from behind the braver ones where they had lurked, nonchalantly waving their weapons around like holostory actors instead of true warriors. “The elder is wounded. We will not be told what to do by a maneless child like you.” His voice dripped sarcasm.
If I fight him, even a fair fight, I will lose, but where one may fail, many succeed – and all bullies back down when resolutely confronted. These platitudes did little to overcome his fear, but he mastered himself. Perhaps there is a third way…a gamble, but… He asked, “All right, Vusk, will you take command?”
Vusk looked around at the group of warriors, grizzled old ones and the maneless like Trissk, with
very few others in between age because of all the dead dams. He seemed to realize that he was the largest and most imposing male there – but also that he was not well liked by any of them.
“Please, Vusk,” Trissk said in a deceptively reasonable tone. “The aliens are right outside the door listening. There is an enormous monster we already saw, which shrugged off our shots like water.” Stretching the truth a bit, but for a good cause. “Shall we fight them and die? No? Then do you want to talk to them, as Chirom wished? If so, you must take responsibility for the Rell, or perhaps even the survival of the Ryss.” He made a gesture of invitation toward the door, and the aliens.
Vusk wavered as he seemed to think through the consequences of taking over the responsibilities of leadership. As Trissk had hoped, he seemed to realize that it was much easier to complain than to command.
Trissk clamped his tongue in his mouth to keep himself from indulging in a scathing remark, and simply let the gathered warriors see the bully’s moral cowardice for themselves. Finally, when the moment seemed right, he shoved his own carbine roughly into Vusk’s hands and stepped calmly past the dithering yearsmane, to stand in the doorway.
Calm on the outside, perhaps; inside he was shaking with fear and anger, but none of the warriors behind him objected to his bold move; in fact they crowded forward, pushing Vusk’s gang aside and growling encouragement, knowing it was a brave act to face danger unarmed.
Slowly Trissk extended an empty paw beyond the jamb of the door and into the corridor.
Chapter Eleven
Admiral Absen stared at the holotank, watching the last of the big ship’s machines drag pieces of the dismantled fuel plant inside itself. The Marine assault force had been inside for fifteen minutes and scattered reports seemed to indicate all was going reasonably well. They were advancing cautiously, clearing pockets of mechanical resistance. No organics had been spotted but the humans had yet to approach the presumed living area near the center reactor.
Desolator: Book 2 (Stellar Conquest) Page 10