Sonata in Orionis (Earth Song Cycle Book 2)

by Mark Wandrey

  “I don’t care if she’s going to be the new Buddha; she’s still a girl, and she still has a thing for you.” Aaron shook his head uncertainly and sighed. Gregg grumbled at the intractableness of his friend. “All I can say is if you don’t make one good try—tell her how you really feel at least once—you’ll never know what might have been. You’ll end up hating yourself someday. Besides, sooner or later she’ll decide that moron is good enough for her, and it won’t matter what you say.”

  “You think they’d get married?”

  “How should I know? I can tell you this much. Minu is the kind of girl who won’t screw around with a bunch of guys. Cherise told me she never went out on a single date in school. She’s a one-guy girl, and she waited a long time before letting one get close to her. It’s like she was waiting for something, or someone, and finally gave up and stopped waiting.”

  “I’ve really fucked this up. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You can fix most things by trying.” Gregg suddenly stopped talking, cocked his head and listened, thinking he’d heard something. It sounded like skittering boots followed by random fire near the doorway. He grinned darkly. “Little reptiles are getting sneaky,” he said and dropped to one knee. Peeking around the corner of the crate, close to the floor, he saw twenty Rasa soldiers a few meters away, their backs pressed against a tall stack of crates. Without hesitation he unleashed his beamcaster on the crates, which exploded in a thunderous crash. The entire stack collapsed on the screaming soldiers. Aaron and Gregg fell back some more, giving away precious ground for even more precious time.

  * * *

  Julast 13th, 518 AE

  Warehouse 11, Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass

  Jacob’s anxious voice came through Minu’s communicator. “Minu, report!”

  “We’re holed up in Warehouse Eleven. Quite a few Rasa followed us here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but it better be good. They’re keeping us pinned down and sending everything they have after you. Surveillance is spotty because they’re wrecking the network as they go, but it looks like at least two hundred soldiers are swarming you out there. If you can get out, I would do so—” The transmission dissolved into static.

  “I figured they’d do that sooner or later,” Pip said, working with Minu’s mystery machine. It rumbled and churned. Every thirty seconds it released another object from a chute. Pip caught it and set to work. Minu did her best to help him with the complicated tasks. His hands were a blur, seemingly able to act without his brain. “I sure hope this isn’t our Waterloo.”

  Minu scrunched her face as she thought. “General Custer?”

  “No, that was Little Big Horn.”

  “Oh, uhm…Napoleon Bonaparte!”

  “Bingo.”

  “What does ‘bingo’ mean, anyway?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. It’s probably a marksmanship term.”

  They heard a loud series of explosions from the front of the warehouse that sent some burning debris flying over their heads. “Gregg and Aaron are having fun,” she said as she closed a casing and quickly tightened the cover with a microdriver. Lucky for them, the basic field kit included a well-stocked tool kit.

  “One man’s nightmare is another man’s fun.”

  “You don’t like conflict, do you?”

  “What’s there to like?” He gestured helplessly at his ankle. Pip sat on a low crate and worked, using an empty shipping crate as a foot stool to rest his foot and ankle. The ankle was turning black and swelling, and at least one bone poked through the skin.

  “It’s not my fault you can’t rappel.” They heard another thunderous crash and some more weapons fire, both the crack of beamcasters and the Bzzzaaar of Rasa flechette guns. “The boys aren’t using guns anymore, only beamcasters. We’re running out of time.” She finished what she was working on and snatched her first aid kit. She drew out a syringe and leaned over his ankle.

  “I hate this,” Pip moaned and looked away as she plunged the needle into his calf muscle. He squeaked as the needle pierced the skin.

  “Honestly,” she said and rolled her eyes as his grimace of pain turned to a contented grin when the drugs kicked in. She sprayed his lower leg and foot with bluish goo that instantly dried and formed a cast. Between the field cast and the additional buzz, he was soon able to get to his feet.

  “Good as new!” he crowed. She didn’t bother telling him what kind of damage he might be doing under the cloak of buzz; better to save that for later. Just as she would have a price to pay for her ravaged calf, so would he.

  “Okay,” she said and began slinging the results of their work over her shoulders, “here we go.”

  * * *

  Julast 13th, 518 AE

  Warehouse 11, Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass

  Only a few meters away, Gregg and Aaron squatted behind a gravitic cargo lift. They both breathed heavily from running back and forth across the warehouse, using precious shots from their nearly-depleted beamcasters to harass the Rasa. Already, the alien soldiers were losing patience with the game and trying to rush them. They didn’t fire directly at the soldiers. On the power setting they were using, it was ineffective overkill. Instead, they aimed at crates and the floor. Crates sometimes exploded, often spectacularly, and caused multiple injuries or blocked a pathway. The ceramic concrete floor shattered and created deadly shrapnel, or splashed molten concrete that burned and maimed. The holes left behind caused some of the soldiers to trip, further slowing progress.

  The pair managed a quick power theft from the forklift, which gave them enough power for an extra shot each. “Two left,” Aaron said.

  “Same here,” Gregg replied. “I hope she’s ready.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He turned to run for the next aisle and almost lost his head. Luckily, the Rasa didn’t aim the flechette guns like most weapons; they used them like firehoses. He heard the weapon fire and saw sparks flying in front of him. He stooped and rolled, and the burst passed just over his head. Gregg saw the attack and cut sideways, away from the buzzing death, and right into a squad of Rasa. They were more surprised than he was. He skidded to a stop and fired the beamcaster twice from the hip, at point blank range. The hapless soldiers had no idea what happened to them; they simply exploded. Four other Rasa raised their weapons as Gregg screamed like a madman and dove into them, swinging the empty beamcaster like a club at the helmet of the closest.

  The Rasa were unwilling to fire the flechette guns because of the risk of hitting their own, so he used their momentary hesitation to his advantage, wresting a gun from their hands. He didn’t have the time to figure out how to fire the gun, so he smashed it into the face of the surprised owner instead. The three Rasa still on their feet set on him with razor sharp claws and snapping teeth. One quickly clamped down on the hand holding the confiscated gun. He yelled and dropped the weapon. Another tried to rake its claws along his neck. Gregg jerked back far enough that the claws missed their mark and only gouged three deep cuts down his cheek.

  Gregg drew his knife in a flash and nearly decapitated the soldier clamped on his hand, then fell back into a crouch. He was in danger of the last two reaching their guns. They took his stance as a challenge and rushed him, claws out. He grabbed the first outstretched claw with his off hand and pulled the soldier off balance, bringing a knee up with crushing force into its long jaw. The second one tried to come at him around his stunned comrade. Gregg brought his leg down and pivoted on it, snapping his other foot out. He aimed for what would have been a human’s stomach and caught the Rasa in the neck instead. Its bones snapped on impact and it fell like a sack of potatoes. He cut the throat of the one he’d kneed in the face, then ran for all he was worth. More were coming—a lot of them, by the sound of it.

  Gregg sprinted around a corner and almost collided with Aaron. A sleeve of Aaron’s jumpsuit was torn completely off, and blood flowed freely from several gouges. They’d both been brawling with the
Rasa. Behind them the soldiers fired flechette guns and beamcasters, and they both dodged wildly as they turned the final corner. The Rasa, not needing to dodge, were gaining precipitously. A few meters away, Pip and Minu waited behind a line of meter-tall crates, waving and frantically urging them to hurry. There was no time for subtlety as Aaron and Gregg sprinted and hurdled over the crates. All around them flechette darts sparked off the shields they’d given Pip and Minu. Several beamcasters cut brilliant lines of blue-white light as the shields struggled to divert the massive energy.

  Minu and Pip stood their ground as Gregg and Aaron flew past. This was the riskiest part of the gambit, and she’d known it from the beginning. Should the Rasa stay back and engage them with their beamcasters, they were in trouble. She was counting on the constant harassment her two friends had delivered in the past twenty minutes to drive the cold-blooded enemies into a hot-blooded rage. It was one big calculated risk. Making sure the Rasa saw them leap through the shields was crucial. If they knew the humans had a force field, they were sure to attack from further away.

  “Come on,” she pleaded to them quietly. Several more beamcaster bolts hit the shield. Pip jumped slightly, but she held her ground. Both had their handguns ready. The Rasa stopped firing, looking at them with reptilian curiosity. Why were the stupid humans just standing there? “Come on!” Minu screamed and held up her middle finger. More Rasa were arriving every moment, some pointing and hissing, others looking around in confusion. The humans had no exit; they’d trapped them. Easy prey.

  “Kill them with your claws,” one of the Rasa soldiers hissed loudly, “taste their flesh!” Then they charged with a hissing roar.

  Minu and Pip waited as the Rasa raced across the intervening meters. When they were halfway, she and Pip set the pistols on the crates. The lead soldiers thought the humans were surrendering and hissed in glee. This vendetta was revenge for what the humans had done to their outpost; they would give no quarter. Since the humans weren’t going to defend themselves, they would tear them limb from limb.

  “Now,” Minu said. As one, Aaron and Gregg popped up, each holding a newly finished shock rifle. Minu and Pip raised theirs from where they’d hung on slings along their sides, just behind their hips. Shock registered on the front line of Rasa as the humans fired the new weapons.

  Bzzzsnaap! Bzzzsnaap! The Chosen volley-fired the shock rifles over and over. The cycle rate was easily five times that of the beamcasters and reminded Minu of M-1s from old Earth WWII movies. Under the shock rifle fire, the Rasa toppled over like ninepins. One after another screeched and fell as the new guns worked with deadly precision. Little puffs of smoke seemed to hit most of the victims, evidence of the tunneling laser ablating their armor and scales. Others’ chests ruptured explosively as their internal organs boiled, or their heads exploded like melons. The shock rifle firing cycle was so fast, it was nothing more than a quarter-second pulse of brilliant light. “All you really see is the plasma discharge,” Pip had said during bench testing months earlier.

  This wasn’t a bench test; they were the culmination of Minu’s idea, and they worked to deadly effect. In less than ten seconds, the four Chosen swept the entire end of the warehouse clear, leaving a heaving pile of dead and dying Rasa. Many never got the chance to return fire or flee.

  “Wow,” Gregg said, looking down at the weapon. The main needle-sharp emitter, where the muzzle would have been on a firearm, smoked slightly. There was no heat like there was with the beamcasters.

  Dozens of Rasa raced away, skittering for the exit as fast as their legs would carry them. “Pip, the jammer, now!”

  “It’s not a jammer,” Pip said. Minu spun and smashed the butt stock of her shock rifle down on the device, smashing it to pieces. Pip shrieked and dove on the remains. Obviously, the buzz was not being kind to the diminutive scientist.

  Back by the entrance they could hear hisses and more weapons fire. Then they heard the panicked Rasa running back toward them. Minu raised her gun and vaulted the crate. “Time to clean this lot up.”

  “Over ninety percent charge remaining,” Aaron said as he examined the displays.

  “That low?” Pip said and looked skeptically at his own, “Must be something wrong with the calibration.” He went back to salvaging the remnants of the PUFF, all the time mumbling incoherently.

  “Come on,” Minu snapped, “we can do a postmortem later.” They each slung two additional rifles over their shoulders. It wasn’t difficult; they only weighed five kilograms each. Aaron also took five and Gregg four. With Minu in the lead, the four of them spread out as they moved toward the exit, firing intermittently as they went. A dozen teams of Rasa were still in different parts of the warehouse; most were unaware of what was happening and confused as to why their communications were down. Others knew very well what was happening and were trying desperately to fall back or hide. Wherever they were, the shock rifles eventually found them.

  As the team approached the door, they started finding dead soldiers who were dead, but not shot. A small army of loader crab-bots was attacking them. They weren’t armored or as deadly as those the Rasa used, but there were dozens of them, and they were just as bloodthirsty, thanks to Pip’s reprogramming. Minu whooped when she saw the Rasa’s tactics turned against them. They watched for a moment, and Minu thought about new combat tactics. Pip came up behind them cradling the remnants of his PUFF, looking like a mourner at a funeral.

  “I need you to get it together, Pip.” Minu said, “This isn’t over yet.”

  “You owe me for this,” he said accusingly, as if she’d killed his pet.

  “Okay, fine. Can we finish shooting the bad guys, now?”

  The team moved forward using sporadic fire to finish off the Rasa the bots missed. There weren’t many. As they reached the doors, they encountered their first challenge. A squad of heavily-armored Rasa had maneuvered some cargo crates outside and were using them for cover. They cut loose with beamcasters as soon as Minu popped her head out. The energy beam blasted into her shield and turned it bright blue. There wasn’t much capacity left. Luckily, she wouldn’t need it. Behind her, Gregg and Aaron dropped to one knee, braced their shock rifles, and fired. The Rasa’s heavy armor was no more useful than the other soldiers’ light armor. They took five shots, and there were five dead Rasa.

  The four friends advanced through the ruined door and swept the lawn clean. The enemies that were still alive ran toward the building, retracing their steps in an all-out retreat. The foursome walked at a steady pace, shooting the retreating Rasa soldiers in the back as they tried to flee.

  Only Pip fell behind. Halfway across the lawn to the smoking Steven’s Pass building, he looked around. There were dozens of dead Rasa soldiers strewn on the grass marking a trail to the facility. Already, Minu and the guys were climbing up the rope they’d used to rappel down the side of the building. The drugs in Pip’s system were beginning to weaken. The pain in his ankle started to return, and the wave of euphoria he’d been riding began to fade. He sat down on the grass and sobbed. Nearby, a Rasa soldier gasped for breath, a huge hole in its torso revealing smoking ruins where his organs had been. It reached for him, eyes surprisingly expressive in its agony. Pip moved closer, his human compassion getting the better of him. There was a shimmer as he moved close enough for the alien to be inside his shield. The Rasa raised his flechette gun and fired.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 8

  Julast 13th, 518 AE

  Science Branch, Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass

  Minu was first through the destroyed wall, rolling in and coming up on one knee, her shock rifle raised. A turtle-bot sat near the doorway, its shield glimmering. She felt a thrill of fear race through her. How would the shock rifle react to a shield? It lacked the raw punch of a beamcaster. The turtle-bots’ twin flechette guns began to swivel toward her, and she fired, stroking the trigger as quickly as she could. She needn’t have worried. The first shot passed through the shield like it
wasn’t there, burning through the bot’s armor and releasing a million volts of wild plasma into it. The bot twitched once and exploded.

  “That was different,” Aaron said, his head sticking over the edge of the hole.

  “Yeah,” Minu agreed, “I wasn’t expecting that. Pip can figure it out. Where is he?”

  The two guys clambered in through the hole. Gregg leaned back out and turned around, shaking his head. “He’s out there lying in the grass. Looks like he passed out.”

  “Drug must have worn off,” Aaron said. Minu nodded; it made sense.

  The three friends made their way down the hall, using their shock rifles to dispatch any bots they came across. There were no living Rasa. In no time, they reached the field breaching mechanism overlooking the courtyard. They leaned out and saw piles of Rasa bodies next to two heavy defensive works, assembled from dualloy and shields. Behind those defensive works crouched a few dozen Rasa, all waiting. Occasionally, one would fire a beamcaster or a bolt would hit their shield.

  “I wonder what they’re waiting for?” Aaron asked.

  “Who cares?” Gregg said. They leaned out and opened fire.

  As with the turtle-bot, their shock rifles ignored the shields, and Rasa began to fall. The lack of spectacular explosions and massive energy beams allowed the three Chosen to kill almost half the enemy before they realized what was happening. When they finally did, the three Chosen’s shields provided enough defense for them to finish off the enemy before they could mount an effective retreat or surrender.

  “Come on,” Minu encouraged them and jumped on the floating platform the Rasa had used to carry them up to the third-floor mezzanine, “we’re almost there.” They followed as she figured out the simple controls. They rode the platform to ground level, and they could see into the lower floor of the complex for the first time since the fight began. The Rasa had breached the field here, as well. Rasa and human bodies crowded the hallways leading toward the front exit. It was immediately obvious the Chosen were making a last stand by the atrium, right in front of the exit. They were exchanging weapons fire furiously. The Rasa, sensing victory, were completely unaware of Minu and the two men flanking them.