"Six hours of work and we should be free of this place," I said. "Did you sleep all right? Any dreams?"
"Like, did I see myself on top of a pyramid, throwing brined cucumbers at my worshipers type of dream?"
"That's the dream you had?"
"No. Totally hypothetical," she said. "No dreams. You?"
"Nothing I can remember," I said as we stood, planning to get back to work. More than half of the mechanized suit parts were already gone and no Piscivoru were in sight. "I guess our friends are already up and going."
I grabbed the heavy boot I'd been moving through the tunnel and flipped over onto my back like an otter in an old nature vid. I'd discovered the AI would keep me from hitting objects and I could just float along with relatively little effort until I came to a spot where the boot, sitting on my stomach, had to be moved to fit through a tight passage. Even in those cases, I was almost always able to turn to my side, hold the boot out in front, and shimmy my way through.
Two hours into the journey, we ran into the first of the returning Piscivoru. I felt like such a slug. If it were up to Tabby and me alone, we would have taken weeks to retrieve the suits, but with the Piscivoru, we'd only been required to make a single trip.
It was 1100 in the morning when we exited the cave. According to Jonathan's best estimates, we had at least two and a half Picis days before the fastest Kroerak ships arrived.
You might think reassembling a mechanized infantry suit that had been torn apart, buried in a cave, dunked in water, dragged through the mud, and generally mishandled as much as any machine could reasonably be, would be difficult, if not impossible. Turns out, wars are rarely held in clean, dirt-free environments and as a result, most military equipment has a certain capacity to resist the elements. Caked mud, grit, slime, mold, mildew, and all other things generally absent in a shiny spaceship have a way of defeating even these hardiest-of-machines.
"We need to find water," I said, as I looked over the pathetic mudball that represented the Popeyes.
Water – the ultimate solvent – turned out to be less than a click away. Free from the confines of the cavern and with access to the grav-truck left behind by Jaelisk, we moved the pile to a nearby stream, worked mud from the panels, and slid the three massive, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles back together.
"I feel disgusting," Tabby said as we mounted the final piece, an armored glove, onto one of the suits. Even though we'd been standing knee deep in the stream for five hours, we were both covered from head to toe in mud.
"I have a feeling it's not going to get any better," I said. "We better load up and head back. How about you help me mount Sendrei's Popeye to mine and we head straight for the defensive gun emplacement?"
"What would you have us do?" Jaelisk asked, gesturing to the troop of Piscivoru who watched us curiously from the bank.
"Prepare for war," I said. "The Kroerak could arrive in less than two moon rises. We need to shut down all electronics that lead into the mountain, as the Kroerak are able to locate them. You should gather as much food as possible and stay beneath the mountain. I’m afraid the Kroerak are likely to attack with a fervor we’ve not seen before. If we fail to hold Dskirnss, they will come for you with a vengeance."
"I will not hide," Jaelisk said, picking up an Iskstar staff and straightening. Behind her, the entire group of Piscivoru also stood or straightened, each holding their weapons. Poignantly, the juveniles, Boerisk and Baelisk, drew their small daggers and stood next to their mother.
"What of your family? The boys?"
"We cannot go back to living in the mud, Liam Hoffen," Jaelisk said. "Where would you have me hide them? No. The time to stand and fight has arrived."
"If the Kroerak take the city, we won't be able to protect them," I said. I didn't have time for the conversation, but the idea of the young Piscivoru being in combat was too much for me.
"We will protect you," Baelisk said bravely.
"There will be too many." I recognized that I was losing the argument, but I didn’t think they understood the danger.
"Where will the Kroo Ack strike first?" Jaelisk asked.
I breathed a sigh of relief; I appeared to be getting through to her.
"They'll try to take out the defensive weapon to the south and will hit the bunker in the middle of the city. They'll have enough ships to focus on multiple targets," I said.
Jaelisk turned and looked at her people. "I will drive this truck to the first location Liam Hoffen has identified. We will defend it with our lives. If you are with me, climb aboard. If you would defend our mountain, then stay here."
"What about us?" I was surprised to hear the voice of the often dissenting elder Ferisk. I'd last seen the elder leave Dskirnss in a huff, angry that so many Piscivoru joined us to restore the city. He'd effectively split the Piscivoru people, choosing instead to stay beneath the mountain and embrace the feral existence they'd devolved into over several centuries.
I located Ferisk as he entered the clearing next to the stream. Hundreds of Piscivoru silently filled in behind him as our eyes met. Only a small number of the people had Iskstar staves, the remainder, however, had crystals tucked into belts or held in their hands.
"Will you fight for Picis?" Jaelisk preempted whatever dumbfounded speech I might have stumbled through.
"We are a family," Ferisk said. "We argue but we will face danger together."
Jaelisk raised her staff and snapped her jaw, making a clacking sound. Her sentiment was echoed by all the Piscivoru in the clearing, including Ferisk.
"Then take your place, Elder Ferisk," Jaelisk said. "Lead us."
"This day I learn from Jaelisk," Ferisk said. "This day I will follow the strength of our people."
"Hate to break up the hugs that are sure to follow," Tabby interrupted, "but we gotta get rolling. You got this, Jaelisk?"
"We have the resources that are required," she answered.
I nodded. Tabby was right. We had yet to test the Iskstar crystals with the planetary defensive weapons and there was no shortage of details that could go wrong with that process. I slogged through the muck left over from cleaning the Popeye parts and tapped a code that would open a small hatch on the suit's primary weapons hatch. The rifle, while currently configured for ammo-mixing with the smart ordnance packs we carried, could also be switched to blaster fire. With sufficient fuel, the blasters could fire almost constantly. Against Kroerak, the blaster option hadn't been that interesting, as the armored skin of a warrior seemed impervious to those rounds.
Of course, the thing I'd been dying to try was to replace the blaster’s resonance crystal with the Iskstar chunk I'd plucked from the grotto. Carefully, I pulled the brilliant yellow crystal from its housing inside the suit and laid it gently on the ground. I extracted the Iskstar crystal from my grav-suit and set it down next to the resonance crystal. I should have been amazed that the crystals were a perfect match except for color, but somehow, I wasn’t. There was something going on with the Iskstar crystals and I'd eventually need to admit that and face the strange reality. With Kroerak on their way here to annihilate us, however, the mystery didn't seem to be much of a priority.
"This is disgusting," Tabby complained. I looked up from my work and noticed that she'd climbed into her Popeye. "It smells like dead fish."
"Hang on. I'll load your blaster crystals." I moved to her suit and opened the panel beneath the heavy plating on her back.
"No, seriously. I think I'm going to barf," she said. I slapped the back of her suit as I closed the panel and pulled the ordnance pack into position.
"Don't be such a whiner," I chided as I opened my own Popeye, climbed onto the knee, and threw my leg into the open cavity in its abdomen. As the suit closed around me and the systems fired up, I suppressed an involuntary wretch as the atmo systems blew fetid air across my nose. Over comms, I heard Tabby chuckling at my discomfort.
"Hold on, you have a problem," Tabby said.
I scanned my HUD. Accordin
g to my AI, I had way more than a single problem. Only a small amount of fuel was left in the suits. We had enough to get us back to Gaylon Brighton, but not much beyond that. Further, most systems were reporting well into the yellow for maintenance. Generally, the suits were self-maintaining because they were designed to spend an extended amount of time in hostile territory. Their use here, however, had been anything but normal wear and tear. Luckily, when I looked for red statuses, I found none.
"What's going on?" I asked, alarmed. My suit was shaking like I'd never felt before and I wondered if there was heavy equipment approaching. I quickly discarded the idea, as my sensors were all online and the only vehicle within two kilometers was the truck Jaelisk had driven over from Dskirnss.
Tabby laughed out loud and brought her arm up to point at my lower half. "You're pooping."
"I am not," I said indignantly.
"No, look. You're like those rabbits old Marge used to have in her hutch back on Colony-40," she said.
I pulled up a panel on my HUD, trying to see what Tabby was looking at. I was shocked to discover that indeed, my suit was dropping small round brown pellets from beneath an armored panel just below my backside. It looked like I was doing exactly what she said I was.
"Hang on," I said.
I grabbed Tabby’s shoulder and pushed so I could get a look behind her. Little pellets were falling from her suit as well. I leaned down and allowed a few of them to fall into my gloved hand.
Tabby, seeing what I was up to jumped forward. "Eww. What are you doing? That's disgusting."
I rubbed the pellets between my armored fingers. The material was obviously mud and not what she'd alluded to previously. I say obviously, because I had no desire to believe otherwise.
"It's just the cleaning nanobots," I said. "My suit just asked for a refill on the bots. We'll need to stop by the bunker to pick 'em up from the replicator."
"You really can't escape it, can you?" she asked.
"Escape what?"
"Dealing with septic systems."
I chuckled. "True. Now, help load Sendrei's suit onto my back."
The Popeyes were designed to carry the extra weight of an incapacitated buddy. While I'd never done it before, my dad, Big Pete, had told of how he'd once carried a teammate out of a combat zone. As Tabby pushed the suit onto my back, my Popeye adjusted the balance settings, given the additional weight. I'd have to run slightly hunched forward, but I could manage.
As Tabby loaded, I connected to Sendrei.
"Good to hear from you, Liam," Sendrei said. "We're a bit anxious to give this system a test run. Can you provide an ETA?"
"We're forty minutes out," I said. "Is there anyone you can send north to grab a couple bags of suit cleaning nanos we replicated?"
"Roger that, Liam. Sklisk is up there right now, just about to head back. I'll have him pick them up," he answered.
"You should be advised. I wasn't able to dissuade the Piscivoru from joining us at the military base," I said.
"Copy on that," he answered. "Elder Noelisk just informed me of the same. Looks like the Piscivoru want to ride this thing out on the front line."
"You're good to go," Tabby said, slapping my helmet twice.
The first few steps with the Popeye on my back were difficult. While the suit did most of the work to adjust balance, I found the new cadence of steps hard to adjust to and all but stumbled forward. Fortunately, I figured everything out and fell in line behind Tabby, who was picking up speed as we left the clearing. We soon caught up with the stragglers in a long line of Piscivoru headed toward Dskirnss. My AI estimated no less than fifteen hundred Piscivoru in the group as we jogged past, gaining speed. There was no way to accurately count the numbers, as often enough they were well hidden behind brush as we passed.
"Sendrei, a lot of these Piscivoru are just carrying crystals. You think we could manufacture a thousand or better staves before the Kroerak arrive?" I asked.
"Negative, Liam," he answered. "We have a long queue on both replicators."
"That might not be necessary," Jonathan interjected.
"What do you have?" I asked. I'd started to get used to the extra weight on my back and was following along behind Tabby.
"Hold on," Tabby said, before Jonathan could answer. "I have a patrol of Kroerak coming off the mountain at two clicks off and closing. We could leave 'em for Jaelisk to deal with, but I think they've seen us."
I caught the red flash on my HUD and turned to see a group of four warriors chugging toward us. Part of me wanted to tell them to turn around, that they would find nothing but death if they attacked. I knew better, however. Warriors had exactly one purpose in life. Having seen us, they would follow and attack until only one or the other of us stood.
Even with the Popeye's intelligent targeting, two thousand meters was a heck of a shot. We turned toward the fast-approaching group and I identified a kill order, highlighting the targets. This would be a good test of our Iskstar weapons.
"Liam, we have incoming at south base," Sendrei cut in, just as we closed to eight hundred meters and Tabby fired a single blue blaster bolt.
"Come again?" I asked. I didn't fire because I wanted to see how effective Tabby's shot had been, but now Sendrei had my full attention.
"We expect contact in less than ten minutes," he said. "We need you back here immediately."
Tabby and I both switched from single-shot to a fast triple-shot at the same time and shredded the group that was coming for us. The triple-shot was unnecessary as the bolts melted through the Kroerak armor, killing them almost instantly.
"Frak. We're short on fuel but we're Oscar Mike." I mentally kicked myself. The previously abandoned military base where the city's southern defensive weapon sat had one of Gaylon Brighton's turrets. The problem was, I'd taken the Iskstar crystal with me. It had been a subconscious thing, although I'd made a very conscious decision to grab the Popeyes instead of heading back directly.
I punched the release on Sendrei's Popeye and allowed it to fall from my back. I also dropped my ordnance pack. While it felt good to have the extra weight gone, I hoped I wouldn't regret the decision. Mimicking my move, Tabby punched off her own ordnance pack and together we accelerated to the maximum speed we could manage across the rough terrain, soon hitting twenty-five meters per second. While that might not sound crazy fast, it’s a lot faster than a person should move across uneven ground in a Popeye.
"Jonathan, I think you were trying to tell us something before the Kroerak arrived," I said.
"I find that multitasking is difficult for humans during combat," Jonathan answered. "Perhaps a conversation suited to another moment."
The top of my boot caught an unyielding rock outcropping that I thought I'd cleared. I hadn’t. I pitched forward, and my suit's defensive linkage pushed me into a ball, causing me to bounce across the ground like a giant pod-ball. Big Pete had referred to the maneuver as armadillo mode and while he'd explained that it was an automatic thing, I'd always expected I'd have some warning before it happened. Aside from a bit of disorientation minimized by the suit's inertial dampeners, I took no damage. As soon as I was out of danger, the suit sprang back to an open position and I rejoined the pell-mell race.
"Nah, I think I'm good with multi-tasking," I lied. Even though the situation was tense, my answer caused Tabby to chuckle over the comms. "What do you have?"
"There is a stock of energy-based weapons beneath the Dskirnss bunkers. Your reference to the staffless crystals the Piscivoru hold caused us to query their potential operation," he said.
"There is not enough time," Sendrei said. "We would need to train them on how to replace the crystals and fire the weapons."
"Negative," I said. "Jonathan, send instructions to Jaelisk. She's leading a large group and knows how to use her AI. We tested the Iskstar-tuned blasters on a group ten clicks back; it's a game changer."
"Even if they could switch out the crystals, communication is impossible," Sendrei said. "They d
on't have comms or any sort of training. That's insane."
"The weapons have a fail-safe," Jonathan answered. "They will not find it easy to fire upon their own kind. We will work to send an update so the weapons, once online, will not fire upon human or those who might accompany humans." I grinned. Jonathan was reticent about sharing details of his various species’ origins. "I have communicated instructions to Jaelisk and Ferisk."
Coming in from the higher elevation, we could see the compound from ten clicks out. The cloud of dust we'd seen since turning south was already upon them and blaster fire from Gaylon Brighton's turret ripped through the air as Sendrei frantically defended against a column of approaching warriors. If there was good news, it was that the blasters ate through the Kroerak ground troops. The bad, of course, was that ten fast-flying ships were about the same distance out as we were. The ships would overtake the base well before we arrived.
It was horrific to watch as the ground-mounted turret stitched lines through the air, firing at the approaching ships. The blaster had little effect on the heavily-armored vessels. Helplessly, we watched as the ships dropped their payload into the middle of the compound: dozens of warriors each. The Kroerak, while unsophisticated as far as tactics were concerned, had a simple goal of delivering overwhelming numbers in constant waves of destruction.
"Sendrei?" I called out as we ran across the plains. The turret had stopped firing. I could easily imagine the havoc those paratrooper bugs caused and I knew they would have targeted the blaster first.
My HUD showed us still three minutes out and we urged our suits forward, firing wildly into the melee. The blue bolts from my suit sailed off, poorly aimed, as we careened toward the battle. Nothing would fix the fact that we might be too late. My frustration rose as mere minutes felt like an eternity. Suddenly, flashes of blue became evident through the waves of Kroerak. A small group of Piscivoru fought valiantly against the bugs, their staves arcing through the dust-filled air.
We flew across the terrain, each step bringing us closer until our shots started finding their Kroerak targets instead of impotently passing above the mayhem or into the ground. Finally, realizing I’d been gritting my teeth, I relaxed, opened up, and unleashed the automatic fire I'd been impatiently holding back.
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