She was tall enough to step over the enclosing fence. Looking at it and shrugging her non-existent shoulders, she stepped squarely on it, her weight taking several sections down. Once she shook the tangled fence off of her leg, she strode into range and fired the primary at the radio hut. The center of the building simply vanished. The beam opened what should have been a four-foot-wide channel. She may not have held it completely steady, because the hole was larger than four feet. Sensors reported the primary drilled several hundred miles straight into the ground despite the fact that she used a single microsecond burst. Then she watched as the rest of the building fell into the hole. Well, OK then. So much for striding into range. I’ve been in range the whole time. Damn, I could have probably fired this thing through the intervening landscape from where I was parked.
Although Lexi warned her that the new weapon was powerful, it still startled her. Maybe I would have expected this if I actually understood the math Lexi developed. In her experience, nothing like the weapon she just fired existed elsewhere. This thing greatly exceeded the power of the top-of-the-line weapons she had been outfitted with as a Vankovian naval ship. She needed to take another brain scan on Lexi. The woman kept doing the impossible. And she miniaturized this technology to fit into handguns. Handguns that didn’t explode when fired. Amazing.
The last scan, taken after she was shot on Naragene Nine, showed the Rose of Light structure in her brain as slightly inflamed, but that didn’t explain the weapon technology she developed from scratch on the seven week trip to Hepca. Switching to the smaller “antipersonnel” gun, her next salvo left Kree’s cabin a pile of burning rubble in a very deep pit.
Lexi explained that these weapons just drilled holes by disrupting atomic bonds. In and of themselves, the energy beams didn’t generate heat. Whatever they bored through, be it atmosphere, water, rock, or a wooden cabin was subject to a great deal of pressure around the edges of the beam, turbulence even. That’s why they made the sound Lexi described as a bug zapper. That was also why they could be seen when fired. The beam itself was invisible. The turbulent air surrounding the the blast looked like a haze. The disturbed atoms in Kree’s cabin explained why it was now pretty much an inferno.
Chapter 29
Emancipation Day
She looked at the burning building. Her eyes would have still been wide, except, of course, she didn’t have eyes. I know Lexi wants to weaponize me. I hope she finds a way to do that. I want some of these things. Destroying two cabins was the limit of the damage she could do without Ron’s help. “Ron, which building are you in?”
“Fifth counter-clockwise from the radio building.”
“Gotcha, hon. Just checking. I have your GPS signal. That’ll be me ripping off the door. Keep ‘em calm in there.” All of her legs were designed with grippers as well as optics on the tips. It simplified things with the fabricator, programming it to make all eight legs identical. The grippers were cable operated. She and Geena briefly considered hydraulics, but for a one-off, they didn’t see a need to get that fancy. Geena had been forced to engineer them while Lexi built the weapons. On a starship with a crew of only two, or now three counting Lexi, everyone needed to be an engineer. Not Geena’s forte, but she did a good job.
Urania kept the grippers folded under when she walked but now she folded back the walking pads and extended the grippers on the two front legs. Balancing on the other six, she punched through the wooden frame and ripped the locked doors off of the building, tossing them to the side. Then she settled down to the ground. Ron ran out carrying a much smaller person in his arms. True, most people where smaller than Ron, but this one notably so.
“Thanks, Urania,” he called out. “What the hell happened in here?” he asked on seeing the gutted interior. No one told him about that. He almost stumbled as Urania lurched back to her feet.
“We’re going hunting, Ron. I hear gunfire. I think the guards are killing people in their cabins. There’s no one else here for them to shoot at.”
Ron set the small person he was carrying on the surgical table, strapping her down. As he rushed to the ship’s small armory to grab two guns and buckle on a double holster, he yelled, “As soon as you get a chance, see what you can do for her. I’m going after her brother. They’re just kids, Urania.”
He got to the hatch, which Urania opened for him. He caught himself before he jumped out. “Ah, Urania, I don’t think I can jump that far. I’m not completely sure I don’t already have broken ribs.”
“Slide down my third leg, Ron. I’ll hold it relatively still.”
As he climbed down the leg, which wasn’t difficult, he had time to wonder why they had covered the legs in brown and yellow striped fur. It was only then that he realized that someone, certainly Lexi, had repaired the ship’s camouflage circuitry. As a survey ship, she was supposed to be able to set down on a planet and blend in with her surroundings. That feature hadn’t worked for as long as he could remember. Now, though, Urania’s entire shell bore a brown and yellow pattern. He shook his head. Women! He later found out that the fur served a purpose, hiding the cables that controlled the legs. A sharp-shooter, or a lucky shot, could snap them, crippling a leg. The fur also used up the last of the waste material from the women’s demolition project.
“I’m down,” Ron called. “Change of plan. I’ll help with the guards. I don’t want to drag Toby out into the middle of a firefight. The people in my bunk room know to stay put until this is over.”
Urania walked the short distance to the nearest of the overseers’ quarters. Using her can opener technique she extended her forward legs and ripped the door off. Ron burst through the opening, diving inside. Damn, that hurt! Urania was standing by picking off any of the guards who poked their head out. She was positioned so that she could cover all three buildings simultaneously.
Ron, sheltering behind a counter, got off one shot, taking a man in the chest before the man could dodge back out of the way. He had enough time to register that there were still four guards, three obviously dead women and an equally obviously dead boy. “Urania, burn this one. Four hostiles inside. I’ll check the next.” In each of the three bunkhouses, it was the same story. Any slaves present were already dead. Switching back to the primary, Urania vaporized each building along with its occupants and a disturbingly large portion of the planetary crust.
After that, they went from building to building removing locked doors. Ron led Toby, who looked to be no more that twelve or thirteen, from building eleven. Once the doors on the last building were popped, Urania crouched back down. Ron sent Toby in through the open hatch, telling the boy to go forward and take a seat.
In short order, Ron stood in the center of a crowd of over seven-hundred scared, confused people. They were normally fed in shifts and this was the first time he saw all of them at the same time. Ominously, not a single one of them was Grake. He had hoped the information he picked up about them was wrong. According to the other miners, the Borgolian security detail died in a cave-in along with eight others only days after arriving.
He called out, “Listen up people. You’re free now. All of the overseers are dead. My team is up at the big house, dealing with the rest of them now. I need to get up there to help. I’ll be straight with you. Once that is taken care of, we will be leaving. I’m sorry.”
He pointed behind him at Urania. “This is my ship. She’s not large enough to take you with us.” As some of the laborers began to grumble, he raised his voice, “Quiet. Hear me out. My team was hired to rescue hostages being held in the big house.” He raised both his arms and gestured with his hands in a “quiet down” motion. “Listen to me. We didn’t know about you or we would have made arrangements to have a transport standing by. The families of the people held in the big house are wealthy. They will be grateful. I will personally ensure that their gratitude extends to having a transport sent back here to pick you up and return you to civilization. Still, it will be at least ninety days before we can get bac
k here with a transport. Probably a little bit longer. I’m sorry. This is the best we can do for you.”
After a moment, a voice from the crowd belonging to Garrett, a powerfully-built, middle-aged man who, like Ron, had been doing what he could to protect some of the weaker slaves, said in a voice that carried, “He makes sense. I trust him.” As he said this, others began nodding their heads in agreement. Frankly, those on Ron’s crew were already thinking the same thing.
An older woman who had been allowed to work in the kitchen instead of the mines said, “We should have enough food in the supply building if we’re careful and ration it. It doesn’t look like it’s been damaged. We might get hungry, but we won’t starve. This may not be too bad. Especially if some of you can go out and hunt us some lizards.”
On that relatively positive note, Ron stepped through the hatch. He made sure Toby was strapped in. Once he was seated, Urania stood and started scuttling as quickly as her long legs would carry her toward the big house. “What’s the girl’s name,” she asked over Ron’s earbud.
Ron said to Toby, who was looking a little shell-shocked, “Nina is in the back getting medical treatment. Toby, we can’t take everyone with us when we leave. We don’t have enough room. But we will take you and your sister.” Toby nodded, looking relieved.
Urania then sent, “Nina should be fine. Physically. She’s primarily exhausted and malnourished. I’m infusing her with fluids, vitamins and electrolytes for now.” She paused. “Ron, she’s also been abused. I almost think we should have used Lexi’s roofie on the overseers rather than vaporizing them. I have her sedated. Hopefully, Jis might be able to help her coping with that.”
Ron commented, “I think she’ll be OK, Toby.” Then he said, “I wonder how the others are doing?”
“So far, so good. Listen, we think they might have missiles at the chalet. If I’m targeted, I’m going to have to move fast. I’m thinking of rearing back on my hind legs with the front legs fully extended so I can angle the primary upward. It will be abrupt if I have to do it. Stay strapped in.”
Chapter 30
Attack of the Pigeon Launchers
While Urania was trundling out the eight weaponized pigeon launchers prior to stalking off on her own mission, Lexi and Geena took a couple of minutes to find where the beam from the hand-held Zapper petered out. Pack’s body certainly hadn’t stopped it. Once they found the hole in the hill, with sunlight coming through from the other side, they both stared through it. The other end of the hole was more than a mile distant. Urania had to measure it for them. They couldn’t tell how much further the beam traveled. “There’s no radiation?” Geena asked.
“No, not even heat. Not exactly true. Molecules around the edge vibrate like in a microwave so the surrounding hole gets hot.”
Geena ran her finger into the half-inch hole. It felt polished. “How does it work?”
“It disassembles molecules, down to quarks. I think it probably splits the quarks, too, but the math gets probabilistic at that point. I’ll figure it out if I ever need to.”
Geena stood, thinking that if Lexi’s hand-held did this, what the larger models were going to do. Then she put her hand on Lexi’s shoulder and nodded toward the pigeon launchers. “ I’m convinced. This is going to work. Let’s go get Jis back.”
***
The pigeon launchers, now converted into mini-tanks, proved effective, perhaps, as Lexi feared, overly so. Each was equipped with a Zapper mounted on a simple, rotating turret covering a hundred-forty-degree arc to the front. While not nearly as powerful as Urania’s exoskeleton-mounted primary, they were several times more powerful than the hand-held version Lexi wore in her left holster.
Geena was leery of that much firepower, declining the second Zapper Lexi offered her. She decided to stick with a Glock this time. Lexi promised to program the simulator on Urania so she could practice after this mission was resolved. In addition to the recently installed Zapper, the tanks still launched clay pigeons. They modified the pigeons to fly straight at their targets, exploding with considerable force on contact.
The women rode side by side at the end of the line of tanks. The other six traveled single file, spaced two hundred feet apart. They encountered randomly positioned, camouflaged weapon-emplacements on the route to the chalet. They weren’t expecting any until they reached the grounds. The first one took them by surprise, launching a mortar shell at the lead tank, completely disabling both its mobility and its Zapper while they were still a mile from their destination. Urania had it launch three clay pigeons at the bunker, leaving a smoking pit in the ground where it had been. The violence of the explosion from Accord-grade octanitrocubane explosives was so intense that the bunker’s munitions vaporized before they had a chance to detonate.
As their advance paused, Geena said, “We’re on a direct route between the mine and the chalet. We’re actually following a dirt road. I suppose it makes sense to place weapons along the route. If you’re paranoid. How far do we have to go?”
“Almost a mile yet,” Urania said.
Her eyes still on the smoking pit, Geena said, facing Lexi, “I know we didn’t have any explosives on the ship. Did you make that stuff?”
“Yes. It wasn’t difficult. Accord science knows how to make it. Hell, Earth science might by now. The chemical name is octanitrocubane. It’s completely stable. It’s also the most powerful chemical explosive anyone has ever developed. Cool stuff, huh?”
Geena shook her head. Lexi was glossing over how challenging it was to code the fabricator to build complex molecules. Octanitrocubane sounded like it has a complex structure. “Uh huh. Lexi, if we’re ever caught in a war, I definitely want to be on your side. You’re unbelievable. I mean that in a good way. Do you want to get off the road and try a different route?”
“No,” Lexi decided after a moment looking at the smoking hole herself. “They know we’re coming. If they’re paranoid enough, these outer defenses won’t just be on the direct route. We forge ahead, carefully.”
“Makes sense,” Geena said. “Is now a good time to mention I’ve never killed anyone? I think, in this situation, I can. But I don’t think I’m going to like it.”
Lexi looked across at her. Her expression was sympathetic. Geena’s comment was one she understood. “You’re like me, Mom. You’ll do what you have to do. I don’t like it either. I apologize for putting you in this situation.”
“It’s not your doing, Lexi. Like Jis said earlier, it was my decision. My choice that I’m here. We all knew when we accepted this job that, giant spiders aside, it would entail something like this. We’re going to be pretty seriously outnumbered in there.”
“I know,” Lexi replied. “But I think if there were more of us, they’d make a last stand somewhere defensible. With just the two of us, I doubt they’ll be that concerned. They’re all tough guys, right? And who are we? They don’t have a clue. Well, they know I killed two of them, but other than that, we’re just two investigators with guns and a sword. They probably think we’re mercenaries or bounty hunters. At the moment, we’re commandos. So we stalk them.”
Lexi grunted. “I’ve seen this in the movies time after time, Geena. One or two capable individuals mowing through an appalling number of the opposition. It doesn’t matter how badly you’re outnumbered if they come at you one by one. They make that scenario up for the movies but I think they might have it right. At least I hope so. We’re not going to be trying to take prisoners, Geena. We can’t. We’re putting them down. And for the most part, we will be facing them one or two at a time. That should give us an advantage.”
***
They lost a second pigeon-launcher-cum-tank a thousand-feet further in. It was a total loss. None of her remaining tanks had line-of-site on the attacking bunker. These bunkers weren’t that smart. The lead tank was two hundred feet ahead of the rest, just barely in range of the bunker itself. The bunker should have held back until more of her equipment was in range. If it had, it cou
ld have caused far more damage to her force. Possibly enough to halt their advance.
With debris from her lead tank still arcing through the air, Lexi leapt from the back of her ride without really thinking about it. She raced through the underbrush, far enough back to be out of range of the emplacement’s machine guns. It was still lobbing explosive rounds at her from its cannon. Some landed close enough that she was splattered with dirt, fragments of rock and bits of gore. She made sure it wasn’t her gore. Of course, there would be small wildlife in the area. The horse-sized lizards had to be eating something.
Once she reached a good vantage point, one still out of range of the machine gun, she fired her hand-held at the bunker. She designed the ray-gun as a replacement for their Glocks. As such, it fired a focused beam only a half-inch in diameter. It took three shots before she hit something critical, killing the bunker. Holstering her Zapper, she headed back to the tank at a run. Before she got there, the bunker unexpectedly detonated. The shock wave picked her up and hurled her to the ground. She slowly got back to her feet, spitting out dirt, as well as what she suspected was a bug or two, but otherwise unharmed. She had no clue whether the bunker self-destructed or if her Zapper ignited something. She didn’t really care.
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