Chapter 27
Telisa loped along behind her companion, trying to suppress the nerves that quickened her breath and tightened her guts. Hard to think straight with this much adrenaline, she thought.
The firm feel of her Veer skinsuit made Telisa feel stronger, helping her keep some of her fear in check. Vaguely she knew that it was a false confidence, especially with a gaping hole in the front, but on some instinctual level it calmed her.
Magnus turned toward her and put a finger over his lip. Telisa caught her breath as best she could, nodding at him. They crouched just behind a sharp corner and Magnus took another look.
“There’s three of them up here,” Magnus sent on his link. “Moment of truth. Do you want to take ’em out by surprise or try and spare their lives at the risk of our own?”
Telisa grimaced and buried her face in her hands. What should they do? She made a quick decision.
“Let’s try a nonlethal attack… if that goes sour, then we kill them.”
“Good enough. Remember, they have Momma Veer, too. If you use that stunner, hit ’em in the face with it.”
Telisa nodded. She held her stunner in sweaty, shaking hands. They stood up and Magnus counted off in his link.
“One… two… three!”
Telisa and Magnus bolted around the corner. Telisa saw that the intersection had large green equipment crates in it that had been set up as makeshift cover. The soldiers were only partially visible behind the three-foot-high containers.
As the marines first noticed the two loping toward them, Magnus yelled out.
“Don’t shoot, we’re human!” he exclaimed.
The marine facing them leveled his weapon for a second and then pointed it away as Magnus’ words sank in. The delay caused just enough time for Magnus to step up to the nearest crate and swing his slugthrower like a bat over the top of the obstacle. It struck the face of the soldier who hesitated. The man fell back out of sight.
Telisa sprinted past the first crate and shot her stunner at a second guard. Her target shrieked and fell back. Telisa took a blow on her back, as if someone had taken a club to her. Vaguely she realized she’d been shot, but her suit had protected her.
She swung around but didn’t see the third man. She decided he must have taken cover behind a crate. She heard the whine of a grenade and almost panicked. An instant later she saw that the first man she had stunned was up on all fours, trying to clear his head.
Telisa kicked the kneeling man in the face, sending him reeling back. Blood burst from his nose, but Telisa didn’t stop for a second. She whipped her stunner back in line and shot him at point-blank range, in the face, where his suit could not protect him. He made an odd sound like a jungle bird in distress and then fell back, unmoving.
The sharp crack of Magnus’s slug thrower assailed her ears again, making her heart jump. She half expected to feel slugs or flechettes ripping through her flesh. The loud popping sound of a tangler grenade going off erupted into the small space of the cavern.
Telisa realized she could still move and breathe, so she hadn’t been the target of the grenade. She saw someone struggling on the ground wrapped in grey goo, a surreal sight in the reddish illumination of the cavern walls.
“Magnus?” she called out.
“I’m caught,” he replied through his link. “There’s another one we didn’t see. No time. He’ll call for help.”
Telisa realized Magnus probably spoke through his link because his mouth had been immobilized by the grey glue of the tangler grenade. He could be suffocating even now.
She peeked up over the crate in front of her, holding her stunner in one hand and her backpack in the other. She picked a crate across the way at random and hurled her backpack over it, then sprinted around the crates on the other side. She came across the remaining man just as he glanced in the other direction, alarmed by the noise of her backpack smashing across the top of the equipment container. He lay prone behind a low crate with a rifle in his hands and two more grenades sitting on the ground in front of him. He had a full combat helmet on. Her stunner would not work on a man with full head protection.
Telisa dropped her stunner and slapped down across his back. She snaked her right arm around his throat and pulled back with all her might. The man thrashed for a moment, but Telisa kept her weight on him and did not let him roll out from under her. She felt the thick Veer suits between them. The suit’s collar was keeping her choke from working.
“Damn you!” she cried out in frustration.
The man under her tried to release a grenade at his belt. She released her choke and tried to pull his helmet visor up. The man bucked violently to one side and freed himself. They scrambled to their feet, but Telisa regained her balance first. She grabbed the man around the helmet in both her arms, pulled his head down, and drove her knee full force into his chin.
The blow would have broken his jaw or nose and stunned him at the very least, except for the full face helmet. Instead, the helmet popped off under the strike. His helmet had not been strapped on! Telisa realized that she had given up her stunner too quickly.
“You bitch!” snarled the soldier.
The man glared at her from under a thick brow. He had a lot of stubble on his face. His neck looked thickset.
One of his fists struck out quickly and rocked her world. Telisa covered up, stunned and hurt. She knew if she could keep from getting hit for a second or two she might regain her wits. The man tackled her, but she automatically rolled straight back with it and got her legs under him, throwing him clean over her as her back struck the sandy ground. She spit out a mouthful of blood and scrambled for the stunner.
She heard the man coming back from behind her as her hand closed around the weapon. He grabbed one of her feet and pulled her toward him, yelling in rage. She rolled to see him dropping over her, his fists balled to pummel her to death. Telisa shot him straight in the face.
The man stiffened and fell to one side. Before she realized she was doing it, Telisa brought her elbow around and smashed him in the face again. A trickle of blood ran from the edge of his mouth.
Telisa shook like a leaf. She struggled to catch her breath without coughing on her own blood. She staggered back up and shot the unconscious man in the face again for good measure.
Then she realized Magnus still needed her help.
“Magnus!” she called out and sent over her link.
“It’s about time,” he responded over the link channel. “Sounds like you got him.”
Telisa wobbled over to where he struggled in the thick adhesive.
“Is it dry yet?” she asked, staring at the mess.
How would she get Magnus out of it?
“Yes. Cut my legs free, and we’ll run for it.”
Telisa took out her knife and stabbed the thick substance where it joined Magnus’s feet. The stuff was tough. Her knife struggled with it.
“How can you breathe?”
“I covered my nose at the last instant. There’s a reservoir of air in front of my face. There’s only a few air holes, though.”
Telisa freed Magnus’s legs and pulled him to his feet.
“The Five in paste, you weigh a ton.”
“I’m glad you got that guy, whatever you did. Good job!”
Telisa spat more blood out of her mouth.
“He wasn’t so tough.”
She cut at the glue that covered his face. She quickly realized that she couldn’t tell exactly where the grey goo stopped and his hand and face began.
“Find one of the holes and make it bigger. It’s hard to breathe in here.”
Telisa buried the point of her knife in a small hole on the side of the glob around Magnus’ head and twisted, trying to dig into it. After a few moments she managed to make it a little larger.
“There’s gotta be some solvent around here somewhere,” Telisa said. “All these crates and crap lying around.”
“This is going to take too long. Others may come.
Just lead me back to the ship. I can fly it through my link then we can clean this up later.”
Grimly, Telisa decided he was right. The adhesive covered him in massive lumps and scraping it off with the knife was slow, dangerous work. The soldiers would have a solvent for it somewhere, but how long could she afford to stumble around looking for it?
“Okay, here we go,” she told him.
Telisa muscled Magnus forward, guiding him past the crates and out into a new corridor. Telisa felt her back crawl, knowing that if anyone was left behind them she’d take a bullet in the back of her head.
They trod through another couple of rooms. Each time, Telisa took a look at the room from the entrance to see if any enemies awaited them. Then she ran back and pulled Magnus through it. Telisa saw that his slugthrower had been glued into the whole mess. As nonlethal weapons went, she decided the tangler grenade was as good as her stunner in many ways.
“We’re almost there!” Telisa yelled, checking the map in her head. “Just sprint for it!”
Magnus increased speed, running recklessly and trusting that Telisa would point him correctly. They swung violently into the bay where Shiny had set the Iridar.
The ship looked just as they had left it.
“Okay, here’s the ramp coming up in three, two, one.”
They scrambled up the back ramp. The two almost stumbled despite the warning as the surface angle rose sharply under their running feet.
“Close it up, I’m getting us out of here,” Magnus sent.
Telisa used her link to close the loading hatch. She took one last look at the reddish caverns they left behind as the huge metal door closed.
Telisa linked into the ship and requested the location of the tangler solvent. Magnus fell to his knees, but the ship started to life under them.
“Don’t try to fly us out of here until I get that stuff off your face.”
“Okay, I’m just getting ready.”
Telisa took a large silver can out of one of the black equipment bags where the ship’s inventory said it would be. She accessed its directions. She skimmed the warnings, then started spraying the substance onto Magnus.
The mixture bubbled and a chemical odor filled the air. A glob of the glue fell off Magnus, revealing his red face. He took a deep breath of air and then coughed. She stopped spraying for a moment and let the air clear.
“Better?”
Magnus coughed again. “Yes… thanks. Can you get my hands?”
Telisa worked to free his hands of the blobs of adhesive. Magnus started to regain his normal color. He saw the blood on her face.
“Thanks. Are you all right?”
She nodded.
“When we get outta this, I want to hear what happened while I was down.”
“Sure thing. How can we escape?”
“Let’s just hope the Seeker is busy. If they decide the alien is on this ship, I guess we’re going to be chased again.”
“Shiny has to escape, too. I bet he jams all their sensors.”
Magnus shrugged. “We’ll find out soon. The bay doors have opened for us!”
“How did the Seeker get here, anyway?”
Magnus shrugged. “That, I don’t know. I’ve scanned for latchers but I didn’t find any.”
“What are latchers?”
“Tracking mechanisms. They attach to the hull and serve to point out the ship to UNSF forces. Most latchers will show up on special UNSF scans, and they often transmit information about why the ship was marked. Very useful against smugglers.”
Telisa nodded. “Hrm, let me guess. Stay near a crash pod?”
“Yeah.”
The Trilisk Ruins Page 43