by Chris Turner
Chapter 10
Space mercenary Yul peered past his three companions to the twilight ridge several miles distant. A maroon-grey tint gave back a hint of eeriness unsettling to the eye. The sight of its summit, riddled with projections, made it look like a collection of devils’ horns whose shadows fell with cold disfavor. Such a sight tickled the hairs on the back of his neck. What lay beneath that ridge? Several enemy vessels had glided into its bowels but had not pulled out, as if mysteriously gobbled up. Others had banked in offensive pursuit of one another, firing live weapons and countering with shield defenses. He did not like this planet, Kraetoria. Who would? It was some home planet of the Zikri or insectoid Mentera, with its hobgoblin hybrids of alien creatures lurking about the rock pits and moon-like craters and dusty plains. Half squid, half locust creatures engaged in obscene rituals. Fenli, their newest companion, and crashland victim, had been lucky. Pulled out from one of the nearly frozen mud pools, he was standing, but by all rights he should be dead. The alien waters the hybrids had thrust him into had kept him alive despite his punctured suit—in some state of suspended animation, though that was a loose term. No doubt the pools were connected somehow to the alchemic mystery of the Mentera tanks and their green fluids’ healing technology. He hoped never to see the inside of one of those tanks. Or land face to face with one of those crab-like aliens that had jumped out of the water after them when they had pulled Fenli free.
Under the lower gravity, all their strides were longer, Yul’s the longest, being tallest and bulkiest of them all. But there was a danger of tripping or sprawling headlong, thus ripping a hole in one’s suit.
Yul lay a gloved hand on Fenli’s shoulder. “On your guard there. Easy to overshoot.” He’d have to watch this Fenli. The man was still tracking poorly, still woozy from his supine pose in the freezing water. He hoped the replacement helmet would hold, the one they had plucked off the nearby dead astronaut. It had taken them a while to revive Fenli when he passed out the last time.
Fenli’s piercing blue eyes studied Yul with a curious amusement, one that Yul did not like.
The ridge loomed nearer, grown higher and more menacing. They’d better hurry before the air ran out of their pressure suits. Shelter and resources may be within reach. They pushed on.
Yul’s massive chest heaved under the stress of the last hours. His short, dirty blond hair lay plastered to his scalp from the fresh sweat budding under his thermal suit. His stocky, muscular arms were assets in this space rogue game, particularly his left arm, completely prosthetic.
His wrist brushed over the blaster at his hip as he signaled Cloye, his female companion, to close in on his left.
Cloye was much too impulsive. Sexy as could be, and certainly no coward. He admired her voluptuous wide-hipped frame, a fiery bundle of amber-haired woman. A skilled martial arts fighter too, mercenary spy turned ally, after being hired by his nemesis, CEO Mathias, to track him down and murder him if he screwed up the mission to Remus. He had fucked up, alas, resulting in their being stranded on this forsaken planet, a fact of which he had reminded himself all too many times.
Hresh, Mathias’s middle-aged research scientist turned rogue, labored at their side. Here was a man with dark complexion, curly brown hair and radiant gold eyes. A genius of unknown caliber, as eccentric as the weather. The destruction of his secret research facility on Remus had no doubt set cybernetics back a few years, if not a hundred, but better that than having those feral alien butterflies roving around, terrorizing the galaxy. All of them had been lucky to escape Remus as it was. Only to get nearly blasted out of the sky by Mentera lightfighters on a surprise approach to the Mentera-Zikri alliance fleet, namely, several thousands of vessels strong, including L-16 Mentera destroyers. What treachery their captive Mentera pilot had unleashed, flying them straight into a hornets’ nest. The miracle was that they were still alive. Without a ship, in this hostile environment, meant doom. But that could be remedied, if they snatched any opportunity that came their way. Plenty of ships here for the picking, any one of those that were flying into that ridge.
His eyes darted uneasily about. If any more of those crab-like aliens should jump out and tear at their suits…He clutched his E1 assault rifle in a gloved palm, teeth gritted. Grim comfort washed over him at the sleek, black, ten-inch instrument of death.
“How much air you got left?” he asked Fenli.
Fenli scanned his pressure gauge. “Unit’s dodgy. Keeps fluctuating, maybe malfunctioning after that helmet replacement you did. Anywhere from three to five hours. I’d wager not a lot of time to pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
“Kinda eerie knowing you only have three hours left to live.” Hresh’s offhand remark earned him no popularity among the others.
“Not as eerie as knowing you only have two hours and 59 minutes,” remarked Cloye. “Hoof it up, Hresh, you’re lagging.” She hustled him along with her blaster prodding his shoulder.
Hresh upped his pace, seemingly in awe of the woman.
A low roar came rumbling over the ridge. Two Mentera craft pursuing a smaller Zikri Orb flew into sight.
Yul pulled Cloye down behind some boulders while Fenli and Hresh instinctively ducked. They crouched in the dust before a cluster of boulders, hardly daring to breathe. The three ships came buzzing up and over the horn-speckled ridge then dove, screaming down the valley that ran parallel to the base of the cliff. Blue rays trailed from the locust craft. The Orb’s tail end lit up in red.
“Jesus, that was close.” Yul wiped dust from his faceplate.
“Those are Zikri and Mentera vessels,” Cloye muttered. “Killing each other, snapping at each other’s tails like rabid dogs. I thought this was an alliance?”
“Funny how they’re not getting shot down,” mused Hresh.
“Ever hear of shields?” said Fenli.
“Where they disappear to though? Makes no sense.” Cloye’s eyes arched skyward. “More coming.” A bright flash trailed across the sky between two horned peaks. Two Zikri Orbs in pursuit of the attacking Mentera craft.
“They’re aliens!” Fenli croaked. “How do we expect to understand them?” He threw up his hands. “I say we get the hell out of here. We’re too exposed.”
“Yeah, and where you want to run to?” Yul demanded. “The open desert?” He gritted his teeth.
“They’re not likely going to be searching for humans down here while they’re up to their eyeballs in enemy ship fire,” Hresh pointed out.
“I don’t want to be the one to find out otherwise.” Yul stumbled to his feet. The others grudgingly followed.
On they trod toward a blemish in the cliff that might have been a crude opening. Hresh huffed and puffed into his faceplate, fogging it up, not used to the sudden brisk exercise despite the lower gravity. The older man would slow them down. He’d better not slow them down too much. Fenli could turn into a problem, too, Yul thought, for other reasons.
Before them, the base of the ridge loomed, a near sheer cliff, and they approached with wary steps. The place was layered with crumbled rock and scree. Fenli confirmed this was the place his wingmen had flown over before they crashlanded. “The rest of my team came hurtling down somewhere over there. Sket burned up before he crashed. I’m sure of it. I don’t know where Miko ended up.” He pointed a shaky finger to a distant bend off to the right. “The man saved my life—rescued me from a bug tank on some distant Mentera station. Sorry I couldn’t do the same for him.”
Like ghosts, they moved toward a crude opening in the moon-like, dust-grey cliff. What looked like massive carven ox horns curled around the arched top, creeping them out: disturbing, top-heavy things, but were actually alien tentacles carved in some bygone past.
Awe and unease left Yul groping for words. He shuddered, recognizing the eerie iconography of the squid-like Zikri.
A quick peek within revealed a long tunnel laced with sepulchral shadows, large enough to accommodate a mid-sized starship. Yul clambered forward to investig
ate, despite his qualms.
“Wait!” Fenli grabbed his shoulder. “You sure you want us to go in there? Doesn’t look that inviting to me.”
Yul looked at him with strained patience. “What is inviting in this wretched place?”
“Your ship—the one that went down, maybe you can salvage something—”
“Forget it, Fenli,” Cloye snapped. “The ship is lost. You’d better have some good reason to steer us this way. Nowhere else to go and we’re running out of air.”
“Me? What are you on? I’ve no plan. Been stuck in a frozen pool since crash-landing on this dunghill slagheap.”
Cloye cursed in acknowledgement.
Yul motioned them on. “Quit bickering. We move on into this opening in the ridge. We hope it’ll lead us to where the smoke and ships came from, as planned. There must be some life-support systems where those Zikri and Mentera have their creep meets. Oxygen, water, food. Beg, borrow or steal, we’ll get food and shelter.”
Hresh looked on with wide-eyed curiosity. Yul stared back at him, wondering what went on in the scientist’s square head. Everything seemed like an intellectual puzzle to him—death, deadly plant species, mechnobots of horror. Did the man not realize the danger they were in? Obviously not, or some side of his persona was as warped as could be. Considering the mechno-bio fusion of horrors he’d engineered on Remus that was not unlikely. No time to dwell on that now.
“We’re lucky to get two hours more out of these suits. Better hope your info is reliable,” he growled at Fenli through the com.
Fenli waved it off with an air of confidence. “Your call, Yul baby. Nowhere else to go. I’m thinking this is as good a place to die as any.”
Cloye swore under her breath. “Is this clown for real?”
Yul inclined his head. Not a few dozen feet into the tunnel, he kicked at the pale grey rubble at his feet. Skulls and vertebrae were mixed in of unlucky animals, shells too, that looked like the last macabre hybrids they’d been forced to slaughter, maybe one of the scuttling, crab-like aliens they’d blasted back at the site where they had pulled Fenli from his black frozen pool.
Zikri squiggles and symbols marked the sides of the tunnel. A wide path showed ahead, jumbles of loose rock and occasional boulders to either side, a honeycomb of passageways left and right. The dim light grew dimmer behind them.
Yul gripped his blaster in his gloved palm. Under no circumstances must they screw this up. One misstep and their chances of survival dipped even lower into birdshit.
All good so far. No alien patrols or checkpoint. Odd though. His sharp eyes narrowed, brows bristling. Obviously the squids and their bug friends were not expecting company from this quarter. Maybe they’d even forgotten about this access point? Maybe too much to expect.
Distant booms sounded in the thin atmosphere, registering through their suit receivers. The sound of gunfire? Yul frowned. Rocks caving? There was definite activity ahead. “Let’s move in,” he hissed.
Hresh looked on with white eyes—the only one without a weapon.
“What, we’re going right to the hot spot?” said Fenli.
“Where else? You want to do the scenic tour here and run out of air?”
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean, Fenli,” said Yul. “But let me do the thinking. Playing it cautious and namby-pambying around is not going to win us a blue ribbon. We need air, supplies and ship-power if we’re to survive.”
“No kidding.”
“And where there’s guns, there’s ships,” put in Cloye.
Fenli saluted. “Yeah, got it, Sarge. Thanks for clueing me in.”
Yul gave a loose-limbed shrug.
“I know, I’m a pain in the ass.” Fenli’s rangy figure did an odd scarecrow-like twist.
The others ignored him. At least he was regaining some of his mojo.
Down the rough-hewn corridor they moved like restless wraiths. Eyes wide in the dim light from the back tunnels, Yul took the lead, E1 raised. Cloye padded two steps behind while Fenli and Hresh brought up the rear. Fenli thought to tap Yul on the shoulder, ready to offer some advice but Yul silenced him, drawing a finger across his throat. He needed to think. He couldn’t have radio noise polluting his head. There was a possibility these aliens were monitoring channels within the tunnels. Why, he could not imagine, just a funny feeling he had.
These wide, snaky passageways looked like an ancient seabed. Strange snail and fish-like fossils stuck in the walls, with curlicued backs and herring-bone spines, some embedded in the shell-like chunks of rock on the pebbly ground. Their feet stirred up a chalky dust as they moved onwards. Now they passed a cross tunnel, leading to an abandoned open chamber with alien bones inside that offered eerie possibilities. A combo of squid and bug motifs were carved on the walls. At one time this place must have been occupied by both races.
The sounds of activity intensified and Yul brought them to a halt. On quiet feet, he crept round a bend where a pale glow issued out from a wide entrance. His jaw dropped as he thrust his head around. Below in a giant oval cavern sat a hundred ships shining in what was an otherworldly glow. All were arranged in neat rows. Mostly Mentera craft from what he could see. Wide, flaring mantis-bodies supporting sleek necks with smooth-curved globelike turrets. The tumult turned out to be not gunfire, but Mentera in space-suits loading supply trains of barrels, bins and various bulky equipment into the lightfighters. Packing up shop. Of course. That seemed to be in sync with events thus far, a Zikri and Mentera allied invasion of the colonized human worlds.
The bangs and booms continued, a discordant jumble of unchoreographed noise. Judging by the aerials and tower boxes, the equipment seemed to be tracking and simulation hardware. Military Mentera—they bobbed around on their hind legs, in their black and silver helmets and suits, taking orders from a few selected captains. All in all, a wash of alien menace.
This vast underground cavern, full of lethal firepower sported a primitive potpourri of elements. High tech, military locusts, scattered boulders and pegmatite rock formations poking up on either side.
Yul’s mind raced as he rubbed the side of his helmet. So…this was their base. The Mentera had secured a toehold here, with their small fleet of a hundred lightfighters and messenger craft. Why in this desolate, dry wasteland and cavework labyrinth of tunnels? Their presence mystified Yul.
Maybe Mentera and Zikri deployed joint training maneuvers within the parameters of this new, secret alliance? That would explain the ships dog-fighting over the ridge and disappearing within for debrief and cooperative discussion.
Cloye nudged up to Yul’s elbow, her broad face etched in a grimace. The others clambered at her heels.
They sidled closer to gape at the scene, crouched behind some porous rock formations from a somewhat higher vantage point. Yul’s breath came out in a harsh, aspirated echo in the com.
Fenli moved in to get a closer look, his weapon cocked in his hand. “Plenty of ships down there.”
Yul rasped, “Those are Mentera lightfighters and our ticket out of here. If we can ambush one of their crew and steal their craft…”
Fenli nodded. “Good idea. How though? Only four of us and little air left.”
“Fight our way through, how else?” Cloye grumbled. “You a chicken shit?”
“No, I’m not chicken shit. Just a little more cautious in my old age. After nearly dying out in ice and spending time in a Mentera tank for about twenty years, my days of kamikazeing are over, lady. You may want to throw yourself into enemy jaws, but not I, said chicken little—”
“Shut the hell up,” Yul hissed at him. “We don’t have much time.” He turned to the research scientist crouched white-faced and jittery. “Hresh, you got a read on those bugs over there?”
“They’re suiting up nicely, Yul, likely getting ready for a mission. I estimate they have orders to join the L-16s orbiting somewhere up there.”
“Not a bad guess. So, time to make our—Here, wait now.” Yul craned
his neck. Three Mentera worked at carrying a strange crate pulsing with a blue glow into one of the Mentera lightfighters. “What the hell’s that all about?”
“Who knows? Some bomb or devious weapon, I expect.”
“No doubt, Fenli. Whatever’s brewing, we have to sandbag these miserable creatures before they enslave the human colonies.”
Cloye crouched panther-like. She was ready to move down the slope to pick off Mentera but Yul held her back. “Until the rest of the ships fly off, stay put. See that last ship with the funny box they’re bringing on board? Seems to have extra priority. More protocol in order.
“Hresh, you keep a distance behind us. No sense you getting shot up for no reason.”
“I feel kind of useless here,” he mumbled. “No weapon or commando training.”
Fenli hissed, “Be glad you don’t have to waste yourself uselessly, old man, like us in the front line.”
A massive eye in the ceiling opened like an iris, exposing a patch of pale sky to the cavern. Mentera engines powered up, a high-pitched whining mixed with a subaural roar painful to the ears. The first row of ships took off and headed toward the open dome to fly out into the twilight gloom of Kraetoria.
Twenty ships had gone and counting. All were revving up, leaving in a hell of a hurry. Yul rocked from foot to foot. If he and his company did nothing …
“Now!” he rasped. Two ships were still on the ground, one of them accepting aboard the crate. The last three were up in the air, making for the eye-shaped dome.
“Fenli you sneak down there and draw them out with firepower—”
“Why me?”
“Because I said so. Why the fuck not? Keep your ears peeled and your guard up. Earn your keep, spaceman. You’re a distraction until we get into place for an ambush. Remember, we fished you out of that frozen frog pond.”
Fenli grunted. “Just wanted a reason for my soon-to-come demise.” He took off in a shambling run.
“Fucking rabbit.” Cloye shook her head and glanced at Yul. Yul shrugged and looked to the three ships disappearing in the open dome. This plan had better work.