by B. V. Larson
Straker ground his teeth, not knowing how to answer her infuriating words. She didn’t understand. She’d never been faced with a ticking chrono and a Kort ready to eat her friends.
Things seemed so clear to him when he was in combat. Thinking about them later got tangled—or when Engels started talking. Everything was so much simpler without her… but the thought of a future without Carla just felt despairing.
“Forget it,” Engels said. “Let’s go.”
They grabbed the stunners and Straker led the charge into the corridors.
Chapter 19
Facility Alpha Six, final day.
What was usually an obsessively ordered prison had swallowed a dose of chaos, like an anthill stirred with a stick. Guards scurried through the passageways, many half-asleep and half-dressed.
The real surprise came when Straker found many of them slumped in the hallways unconscious. He couldn’t figure that out. Had they accidently released some kind of riot-suppression gas that had hit their own people?
In any case, it made things easier. There were guards still emerging from every corner of the compound, but alarm couldn’t overcome their confusion and grogginess. As it was the middle of the night, the guards not on shift were still half asleep. It all worked in the escaping prisoners’ favor.
Straker knocked out the first guard he found who carried a lethal weapon, a slugthrower handgun that wouldn’t have been out of place on Old Earth, though the date stamped upon it was from no more than twenty years ago. After that, he concentrated on opening doors and arming more inmates.
Many of the prisoners resisted being freed, cowering in their cells. “They’ll come back for me!” some said. “I’m almost rehabilitated!” said others. A few even cursed him for not being Mutual—ruining their chances to gain new futures.
Straker pitied them. No one deserved freedom if they didn’t have the balls to seize it. “Leave them with their cell doors open,” he ordered. Maybe they would find their courage.
Gathering a force of those willing to fight, mostly from POWs of the Hundred Worlds, Straker ordered the complex cleaned out entirely. Guards who resisted were shot down mercilessly. Those who surrendered, he dressed up in prison garb.
“What do we do now, sir?” asked Heiser, the big militia sergeant from Corinth. He peered out one of the barred windows and aimed his laser carbine, looking through its scope. Bright floodlights shone back at them. A slug pinged off the concrete wall. “Hok troops are holding the perimeter. They have us trapped.”
“Only if we’re afraid to take a few casualties,” replied Straker. “It’s been less than an hour since we took over this place. I haven’t seen reinforcements, but they’re coming. There are over a hundred of us with weapons, and maybe twenty Hok and guards. All we have to do is rush them and get into the jungle. But we have to do it soon, before others arrive.”
“And go where, boss?” said Loco. “I mean, I’m all for breaking out, but what then?”
“There’s a big spaceport fifteen kilometers north,” said Borda, a local truck driver. She was older, with rough skin and bad teeth. The kitchen knife she carried had blood on it. “They have sidespace-capable ships.”
“They’ll expect us to go there,” Heiser said.
“He’s right,” said Lancaster. He was a Mutualist historian being held for re-education. His crime had been to write a textbook that was true to his research instead of slanted the way the Committee wanted. “They’ll be waiting with more Hok. We should scatter into the jungle and try to hide in the population.”
“That’s all very well for you locals,” Engels said, “but for us foreigners, our accents will give us away, and we have no contacts, nobody to get us fake Equality cards.”
“She’s right,” said Straker. “Our only chance is the spaceport, but fifteen kilometers on foot is suicide. Heiser, pick twenty people. Make sure you get drivers like Borda here, who know the area. When we rush the gate, you split off and take the motor pool.”
“Roger wilco, sir,” said Heiser.
“Derek, we got one more problem,” said Loco.
“What?”
“We need the antidote... Unless you want to be a Hok.”
“Shit, I forgot. Any medics here?”
A man and a woman raised their hands.
“We have to find the antidote to the Hok injections,” he told them. “We’ve been treated, and we’re already transforming.”
They slowly backed away from him in alarm, but he ignored that insult.
“Find the antidote and we’ll bring it along. Heiser, detail off two infantrymen to escort them. The rest of you, come with me. Bring the unwounded guards. We’ll attack in one minute.”
At the front entrance to the prison building, Straker spoke to the guards dressed in prison fatigues. “You’re going first, straight toward the main gate. If you make it into the jungle, you live.”
“Yes, but… the autocannons…”
“You have to get past them. Otherwise,” he held his handgun to one man’s head, “your dead anyway. Understand?”
The guard nodded vigorously. A stain at his crotch spread as he shook with fear. Straker spared him no sympathy and gave him a hard shove instead.
“Heiser,” Straker said. “Get some shooters to the windows. When we go, give us cover fire, and then follow us up and get those vehicles.”
He found a powered shield in the riot-gear lockers, picked it up and turned it on. The glow was bright blue around the edges, and a gleaming nimbus covered his hand where he held it. Taking a breath, he readied his slugthrower pistol in his other hand and lifted it overhead.
“For the Hundred Worlds!” he roared, and drove the guards stumbling out of the doorway.
The first surge of captive guards was slaughtered as they exited the building, absorbing the fire of their unwitting brethren and the autocannons that defended the gate. The rest scattered in all directions, some for the exit, others trying to get out of the line of fire around the back of the headquarters. It really didn’t matter. His trick had done its job.
Slugs slammed into Straker’s shield as he sprinted toward the main gate. He fired in the direction of the floodlights, hitting one and knocking it out. He heard the yelling of his fellows behind him as they followed. The whine of lasers and the bark of slugthrowers were punctuated by the cries and screams of the wounded.
His shield hadn’t been built for military action, but it held up well. The autocannons slammed their bullets into it, but they were repelled all the same. Dented and flickering, the reinforced slab of armor kept him alive.
Had most of the guards and Hok not been knocked out inside the cell blocks, this would never have worked, but there weren’t many left to try to hold back the inmates, escaping in the chaos. Only a handful of prisoners had lethal weapons, but as soon as the mob got close enough, their many stunners came into play and they pummeled the remaining enemy forces into unconsciousness, and then finished them off.
One Hok with a heavy slugthrower held out in a tower, sniping prisoners with grim efficiency. Straker threw down his shield and climbed the ladder. He leaped over the railing only to find the soldier ready for him.
The Hok’s weapon boomed, and Straker twisted desperately aside with shocking speed. But it wasn’t enough to save him completely. The bullet tore through his arm.
Before he could feel the pain, Straker’s pistol spoke three times, blowing his enemy back over the railing to fall dead on the ground. He grabbed the Hok’s dropped slugthrower for himself, holstering the pistol and hurrying down the tower. There, he relieved the Hok of his reloads.
When it was over, more than twenty escapees lay dead, and as many guards.
“Patch up our people as best you can,” Straker ordered. “Including me. Where’s my transport?”
Loco pointed as a motley assortment of low-tech trucks and groundcars roared out of the motor pool and pulled up at the gate. Borda smiled a gap-toothed grin from the open window of the bi
ggest vehicle, a five-ton cargo rig. “Load up, load up!” she cried.
“You heard the lady, load up!” Straker bellowed. Loco, Engels and Heiser chivvied after the rest until they were on the transports.
The medics ran out of the main prison building, cases clutched in their hands. “We found the antidote,” the man said.
“Sir, take five—let me clean you up,” a medic called out to him.
Straker looked at his arm and tried to move it, but it had no strength. Now that the adrenaline of combat was wearing off, the pain hit him. His wound sent a sudden wash of agony through him, and he swayed on his feet. “Patch me up on the way,” he said.
“Do you humans mind if I tag along?” Straker heard in an oddly formal accent.
He turned to face the voice, the muzzle of his weapon tracking to point at a… He froze, which was the only way to keep himself from firing in reflex. “You’re a Ruxin.”
“Self-evidently,” the creature said.
He? She? It?—Straker decided to use he until he found out otherwise. The creature stood on eight boneless limbs, tentacles really, rising to about the height of a short man, looking like nothing so much as a human-sized walking octopus. A walktopus, he’d heard aliens like it nicknamed.
“The Mutuality is wonderfully indiscriminate in its attempts at rehabilitation,” the alien said. “They allow those of all races and species to enjoy their hospitality. I do thank you for helping me free everyone.”
“I didn’t even know you were in the prison with us.”
“I was with Admiral Braga at Corinth, but we had to abandon ship and they captured me. They kept me in solitary confinement. It was most disturbing.”
The alien had rips in its water-suit, and Straker could see the marks of abuse on the alien’s mottled skin— scars, possibly bruises. Visible burns emitted a bizarre smell, unmistakably indicating foreign biology. One tentacle seemed to have been severed midway. Another two held a heavy stunner, evidently recovered from a guard.
“An ally is an ally,” Straker said.
“I enabled this breakout, did you know that?”
Straker blinked at the alien. Was it actually bragging to him?
“That’s right,” the creature continued. “It was very clever, given the circumstances. Did you notice that some of the guards were incapacitated?”
“You did that? How…?”
“A difficult task. When I first gained hacking access to their networks, it was due to the fact they had a breakdown in their air conditioning systems. This facility is quite old, you know, and—”
“Could you get to the point?” Straker demanded, losing patience.
Numerous eyes looked him up and down. “Of course… To summarize, they ordered me to help them with technical issues, and I gained some influence over the riot-control systems. I simply reprogrammed the areas of the prison slated to be gassed when the emergency triggers were tripped.”
“Ah…” Straker said, pointing a comprehending finger. “You gassed the barracks instead of the prison cells.”
“Precisely. It was quite clever, you must admit.”
Straker hesitated only for a second. Some personalities required a lot of praise. This creature seemed to have that need and yet provided his own adulation.
“Yeah, it was critical,” he said. “In fact, it was brilliant.”
The creature seemed very pleased. He led Straker onto the armored transport while one fist-sized eye migrated around to its rear, along with the rubbery mouth. “I’m Zaxby.”
“Zaxby sounds like a human name.”
“Oh, it is. More like an adopted nickname. My name in the Ruxin tongue extends to over one hundred syllables. Most humans simply can’t comprehend its majesty, much less reproduce it. What is your name?”
“I’m Straker. Do you always talk this much?” Straker asked as he moved aside to let others load and hurry to the back of the transport.
“Only when I’m nervous, or excited, or interested in something. Or when I’m bored, or tired, or angry, or happy, or—”
“Shut up.”
“Why?” Zaxby asked in sudden alarm. His eyes crawled over the landscape. “Are we being observed or overheard? Being quiet seems pointless at this juncture. The gunfire alone makes it moot.”
Straker grunted unhappily. “I wish I had a mute-button for you. Now shut up and sit down over there! You did a good job in the prison, but I need to think.”
Zaxby swarmed over the seat backs toward the rear, not bothering to use the aisle. “Perhaps you should sit down as well,” he said. “You look terrible.”
Straker growled. “I’ve been tortured for weeks, I haven’t been fed very well, and now I’ve been shot, so no, I’m not feeling my best. Now for the sake of the holy Cosmos, leave me the hell alone!” The lieutenant’s large eyes had all swiveled around to stare at the barking soldier.
“Yes, sir.”
He was lashing out at Zaxby, and he knew it. His adrenaline was coursing and he was having a hard time controlling his temper. Could it be the transformation Lazarus had initiated? Everything seemed to itch—especially his wounds.
He sat still while the medics treated his injuries as the convoy raced through the night down the jungle road toward the spaceport. The sky was just lightening toward the east, almost dawn.
“The bullet went through cleanly, so I don’t think I need to do much,” a medic told him as she finished wrapping his arm. “The Hok biotech will prevent infection, and it’s already healing you at ten times the normal rate.” She opened a medical case and showed him an injector and ampules. “Do you want the antidote now?”
Straker considered it. He’d been injected only yesterday with the bad stuff. He should still have a day or two at least before the mental effects really began to take hold. Until then, the physical benefits might save his life—other lives. “No. Not yet. Give it to anyone else that wants it. I’ll let it heal me up some more.”
“I’ll take it now,” said Engels. She eyed Straker as the medic injected her. “Our skin is starting to look like a Hok’s. Loco’s too.”
“It’s a small price to pay,” he said, “if it gets us to freedom.”
“You’re taking a big risk,” she insisted. “What if we lose the antidote in the next fight? You might get away but turn into one of those things.”
Straker gave her his ‘sincere’ face. “Then you’ll have a loyal bodyguard.”
“I don’t want a loyal bodyguard, Derek...”
There was no need for her to finish her thought.
The medic moved down to Loco a couple of seats back.
Straker offered her a rare smile. “So, you want me? About time you said so.”
Engels put her head back and stared at the ceiling of the transport. She might’ve had tears in her eyes or just been pissed off that he was an idiot. “That’s not really the response I was looking for.”
“Sorry. It’s just that we’re not safe yet—I still need any edge... Maybe we should talk about this later.”
“There might not be a later, Derek.”
“All right. Okay. I… I want you too. Yes, I always have. But not like this, in the middle of a fight and with biotech inside us. I can’t think about you that way right now. If I do, I might get distracted and let these people down. I have to lead.”
She brought her dark eyes down and leveled an emotion-filled stare at him. Even with her hair in ruins, she was suddenly achingly beautiful to him. “I know you do. But you can’t put me off forever.”
Straker looked away from her piercing gaze. He didn’t need the torrent of hormones and confusion that was struggling to surface right now and forced it to stay at bay. Why did women start acting like this, usually at the worst time—in the middle of something urgent. Maybe when they’d fully escaped…
“Roadblock!” called the driver.
Straker leaped forward, trying to see out the front windshield, but the transport wasn’t first in line. “Drive around! Try to
ram through! Don’t slow down for anything!”
The driver cursed and wrenched the wheel to the left onto the narrow shoulder between the road and the jungle greenery, flooring the accelerator. The electric gears shrieked as the armored transport raced past another vehicle, and another.
At the front of the halted convoy, a firefight was in progress. Borda’s five-ton had tried to ram. It had halfway broken through a set of concrete barriers, but was now wedged into the gap. Her body hung from the open window. A squad of Hok fired at the convoy from behind cover.
“Ram the back of the five-ton!” Straker yelled. “Push it through! The rest of you open fire!” He opened the transport hatch to let loose a burst of slugs at a Hok, and the trooper fell backward.
When the transport slammed into the cargo rig, the whole mess slid forward and through the gap. Slugs popped and the transport’s armored windows starred, but didn’t break. Laser bolts sizzled into the vehicle, and Straker heard yells of pain mingled with the cries of battle.
He charged through the open door and climbed awkwardly onto the dead five-ton. Behind the enemy now, he quickly gunned down several Hok troopers that had tried to hold the roadblock. Others overwhelmed the rest of the defending force.
In the near distance he could see the jungle open out, and rising behind it, the shapes of spacecraft. “Come on!” he called. “Load up and follow, now! If that’s all they had, we have a chance!” The night had helped them so far, but they had to move fast.
Straker got everyone off the transport except for the driver, who sat behind his crumpled controls, pinned in the wreckage by ramming the five-ton. “Leave me, sir,” the man said. “You have to get away and get back home.”
“Hell with that,” said Straker. He holstered his slugthrower, set himself, and tore free one section of the dashboard, and then another.
“How did you do that?” the injured man asked.
“Biotech.” Straker lifted the man into a fireman’s carry and loaded him onto a working vehicle in the convoy. This kind of strength reminded him of his affinity to the battlefield—but without the massive hardware. He could get used to this. He wondered if all of it would go away when he was cured.