Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set

by Tim C. Taylor

  “I’ll tell you what that is,” he said as the Phantom urgently sought altitude. “It’s dangerous. These zombies who had you shackled to the spaceport think it belongs to them. Or, rather, to whoever is controlling them.”

  The Phantom leveled out and spiraled back down to the city.

  “Belongs?” Fitz commented. “As in, Team Zombie paid for it?”

  “Not exactly.” Osu stared at Fitz. “That ship was damaged in a war that ended before the Exiles ever came to Far Reach. I think whoever’s controlling the zombies built the ship.”

  He watched as the smuggler captain ground his jaw. The man could sit back and watch a city burn and do nothing, but the mention of that ancient war had gotten through to him. Maybe Colonel Malix had been right about Captain Fitz after all.

  “Nice backstory,” Fitz said with a grin. “Sounds even more valuable than I thought. Lieutenant Zan Fey, kindly put your delightful head together with the crew to figure out how we can steal that ship while I’m busy picking up the rest of our passengers.”

  Zan Fey turned to regard Osu with a smile that oddly reminded him of Lily Hjon. “You do realize my husband is teasing us?”

  Osu said nothing. He wasn’t so sure. Unlike Zan Fey, he’d seen the conflict fight over Fitz’s face.

  “He’s doing nothing of the sort.” Fitz sounded indignant. “But seeing as you’ve seen fit to grace the flight deck with your presence, Mr. Legionary, perhaps you can tell us where you left the rest of your team.”

  “North side of…” A red alert light flashed, and a pungent alert odor was released.

  “Pickup will have to wait,” said Fitz. “Which of you has the best gunnery skills?”

  “Bronze.”

  “Mr. Bronze!” Fitz announced over the ship-wide PA. “Kindly get your ass into the dorsal turret. We have company. Move it, Legionary!”

  OSU SYBUTU

  In less than two minutes, they had dispatched the pair of rebel Falcons with ease. Bronze had fired at the attacking fighters from the dorsal blister turret that had popped out of the hull, but he hadn’t made the kills. That had been down to the crewmember in the ventral turret. He had reported back to Osu, though, that the human-AI gunnery setup was so good that SpecMish operatives would have given their arms for a ship like this.

  The Phantom swept down upon the docks from the north. The Cora’s World rebels held this area, but they themselves had been left stranded by the speed of their advance into Bresca-Brevae. Before Fitz had begun the descent, Osu had seen a flotilla of light boats racing up the coast for the bay. Probably the rebel naval component coming in for extraction.

  The monitor by the lower hatch offered a stabilized view of the ground below for the battle-ready service droid and three legionaries waiting to drop. The docks were a mess, shelled into oblivion for the most part. A single jetty remained that looked fully functional, the access route from the bay not blocked by sunken ships and the approach from the city not yet engulfed in fire. But if the rebels were to get away on the boats, then they had a problem. Only one warehouse still stood nearby, and it commanded the approach to the jetty. Someone had fortified the building and was using it to resist the rebels. If those someones weren’t led by an ignorant oaf with a beard and a furry coat, then this was going to be a very embarrassing way to die.

  Rebels were massing in the approach roads. Scores of them. If Osu was observing Arunsen’s troopers holding out, then they were about to be overwhelmed.

  The Phantom plummeted, leaving Osu’s stomach behind in the clouds.

  By the time he’d recovered enough to scream, the ship was hanging in the air like a hover platform, nose dipped at the mass of rebels as if in respectful greeting.

  Azhanti! What kind of a ship was this Phantom?

  Whatever else it might be, it was clearly a warship. Twin front cannons opened fire, not with eye-searing blaster bolts but kinetic rounds. Bullets, flechettes, explosive-tipped micro rockets… hell, he didn’t know what Fitz and Zan Fey were firing, but it was pulverizing streets, buildings and rebel troops and turning them into a cloud of powdered debris.

  What kind of smalltime smuggler flew a ship like this?

  His mouth wide open in shock, Osu suddenly had to grip onto the handhold for dear life as Fitz accelerated away, tearing through the street before rising up in a loop that brought them back to their starting point above the street.

  Lynx hit the door hatch. “I’ll go first,” announced the droid. He curled his outer combat frame into a ball and rolled out the ship.

  “Go! Go! Go!” screamed Bronze, following the droid out into the air.

  Osu and Zavage looked at each other. All they could see below was dust. It would be a great way for Fitz to divest himself of his troublesome passengers: convince them to drop out the ship from two thousand feet and then come back to pick up the unscathed droid.

  Zavage leaped out the hatch.

  Osu had no choice. He jumped too.

  ——

  The drop was only ten feet. His armor absorbed nearly all of the impact, but none of the shame of Osu’s continued trepidation with heights.

  Through the clearing debris clouds, he saw a metal ball rolling away down the street.

  “Follow that droid,” he ordered.

  “I always wanted to hear that,” Zavage replied, laughing.

  They’d advanced a hundred yards toward the Militia troopers when blaster fire lashed at Lynx from ruined buildings to either side of the street, deflecting off the smooth body he was wearing.

  Lynx returned fire against one side; the sappers directing their reply against the other. The dust still hanging in the air glowed red where the rebel blaster bolts had passed through, pointing a finger back to the positions of the shooters.

  They took out the rebels, but if the hot dust had acted like tracers for the rebel fire, it would too for their own.

  “Move!” yelled Osu, but he hadn’t needed to because the other legionaries were already shifting their butts.

  Not quickly enough, though. A bolt took Zavage in his torso.

  “I’m okay,” said the Kurlei, but Osu wished he had a properly set up squad net that would report his legionaries’ status automatically.

  While the legionaries took cover behind the heaps of debris littering the street, Lynx pulled himself out of the building he’d assaulted. In one hand, the droid held a human leg, in the other, he directed a heavy blaster toward the shot that had hit Zavage.

  “Wait!” Osu shouted. That shot had come from directly ahead. From the defended warehouse.

  “Chimera Company!” he shouted through an amplified speaker in his helm. “Chimera Company.”

  “Identify yourself,” yelled a female voice out of the air.

  “Who do you think it is, Lily?”

  “Oh, my. It’s the pretty boy come to rescue me. How dashing.”

  “Stow it,” he retorted. “If it was up to me, I’d have abandoned you. This was all Zavage’s idea.” But he had to admit, it was surprisingly good to hear her voice.

  They shouted a coordinated plan to each other. A rebel attack on the Militia position along a parallel road had stalled without the support from the main force obliterated by the Phantom and mopped up by Osu’s team. With a little help from Lynx’s powerful limbs and blaster, the legionaries cut through the buildings to one side, emerging into the street behind the rebel pocket.

  Most of them had already fled, hearing the plans for their doom being shouted from the rooftop. Those that didn’t were ruthlessly dispatched.

  But not without cost.

  Bronze was down. Hurt bad.

  Vetch raced out of the battered warehouse to help Osu haul Bronze to safety. One of the other troopers came too, assisting Zavage and Lynx to cover their retreat.

  “Nice entrance.” It was Green Fish. Of course it was.

  “Yeah,” Zavage replied. “Not bad. But it’s the exit I’m hoping to get right.”

  Once inside, they carefully lift
ed Bronze onto a freight box. Zavage checked the external suit diagnostics to see what was going on in the inside.

  Two troopers were laid out on similar boxes nearby.

  Arunsen shook Osu’s hand. “Thanks, brother. We lost Rynter, and Deep Tone’s in bad shape. We’re low on charge packs and ammo too, but we’re still fighting for an out. We saw that ship scream in and thought our number was up. You would put my ignorant, uncouth Militia mind at rest if you told me it was coming back for us.”

  Doubts began creeping up Osu’s spine. Wrapped up in his combat frame, Lynx was a one-bot army who could easily roll out the city and be extracted by the Phantom from safety. There was no reason for Fitz to come back for his passengers.

  “Lynx?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Contact Fitz and request immediate extraction.”

  “I can’t do that, Osu.”

  “Don’t call me Osu. And you, Arunsen, stop tugging at your beard. I got this.” He took a breath. “Lynx, why can’t you talk with the Phantom?”

  “Out of range, sir.”

  “But you do trust Captain Fitz to come back for you?”

  “The only one Captain Fitzwilliam can be trusted to come back for, is Lieutenant Izza Zan Fey, and she for him.”

  “Are they actually in love?”

  “Apparently so. Also, they display a level of synergy unparalleled in my experience of humanoids. Each functions better in partnership with the other, and they both know it. It would be impertinent to speculate whether it is romantic infatuation or the efficiencies of synergy that causes them to reunite with such frequency, despite their many and noisy fallings out.”

  Zavage interrupted with his report. “Bronze is stable. His armor’s keeping him under for now, but he’ll need proper medical attention soon.”

  “If Captain Fitz and Lieutenant Zan Fey do return for us,” continued Lynx, “then it will be because they have a desperate need for us. If we leave the planet, then our client will be left stranded here, and he is not a person one crosses lightly.”

  “He? Who is your client?”

  The droid kept silent.

  “Lynx?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I am not at liberty to say.”

  “Then you’re no use to me here. Get on the roof and add to our overwatch. If your smuggler lovebirds do come back for us, your job is to cover our extraction. You’re to be last to board the Phantom.”

  “I understand and comply.”

  The droid moved off, leaving Osu staring at Green Fish and Zavage, who had united in a loose embrace.

  Talking of lovebirds…

  “Plenty of time for cuddles when we’re on the Phantom. For now, I want you two apart and minds focused on the job.”

  Green Fish shot him a lingering dirty look but joined Enthree guarding one of the warehouse entrances.

  “Zavage, check your weapon and then make yourself available to Arunsen. I’ll stay with Bronze and make sure he gets on the ship.”

  “Roger that.”

  Osu had nothing to apologize for. He felt bad nonetheless. Splitting Zavage and Green Fish was the right thing to do, even though the Phantom might never return. As far as Osu knew, these few snatched moments of peace might be the calm before the storm of steel and plasma that could come at any moment and end them all. He was denying the two their chance to enjoy that moment of calm, and it was his job to do so. He had to keep everyone fighting to get out of here and brutally crush any other thoughts. Arunsen was doing the same: issuing orders and checking in with his team. So was Hjon.

  Osu found himself alone with the comatose SOTL. “I don’t know whether that bot is playing games,” he told Bronze while he carried out a weapons check, “or whether its circuits are fried. Either way, we’ve just been given a clue to explain why the Phantom has been waiting on Rho-Torkis so long. When you wake up, you’ll figure it all out. I guess that’s the kind of thing you used to do, Hines Zy Pel. Make it through, brother, and solve me this puzzle.”

  “Incoming!” came a shout from the roof.

  Osu took his rifle off safety. It gave a satisfying whine as it charged its first shot.

  “Hey, Sybutu,” shouted Arunsen cheerfully as he came over. “It’s your taxi service. They’re late. Does that mean we get half-price fare?”

  “Shut up and move your team out.”

  The Viking laughed and picked up his wounded man, Deep Tone, in his arms.

  Osu had felt the same imperative and lifted Bronze over his left shoulder.

  The warehouse’s main entrance faced the dockside road and beyond that was the jetty. Osu could see the water churning into a white vortex on one side. Then the Phantom came into view, making a vertical drop onto the water, coming to a halt ten feet above the waves.

  “With me, Zavage.” The Militia on the roof were making their way down, but Osu was getting out now with the two surviving legionaries.

  After hanging in the air for a few moments while the water calmed, the Phantom aligned itself parallel to the jetty and gently touched down on the water. Cables shot out from its hull and secured themselves to mooring posts.

  The ship was just two hundred yards away. Osu hurried out of the warehouse as fast as he could with an armored man over his shoulder.

  The Phantom’s hatch opened, and a stubby boarding platform emerged, coming to rest on the jetty.

  Fitz’s grinning head poked out. He waved at Osu. “Sorry we’re late. I confess, I can’t resist a good dogfight.”

  Osu laughed. If they were going to spend the next little while together, Fitz might be an amusing distraction from all he’d lost on Rho-Torkis. “Zavage! You there?”

  “Coming, Sergeant,” said the alien’s voice from a short distance behind.

  They were going to make it.

  Fitz’s grin disappeared and he leaned out the hatch to look at something at the rear of his ship.

  Whatever it was, it could wait. Osu picked up the pace. Getting Bronze to safety was all that mattered for the moment.

  Then Zavage shouted the words Osu least wanted to hear. “Contact! Newts in the water!”

  Osu was almost on the boarding platform now. He put everything he had into a final dash for the Phantom.

  “Sniper!” cried Zavage. “I’m hit!”

  NDEMO-327-CERULIAN

  “No! No! No!” Enthree screamed in rage. They had survived so much. To be cut down now would be unjust.

  She shot at the sniper. The human had lodged in a window frame set high up in the only wall still standing in what had been the neighboring warehouse.

  She missed. But the war bot didn’t. It leaped across from the warehouse Enthree’s team had defended and landed on the sniper. Then the droid punched a spike through the Corrupted human before the wall collapsed in a cloud of debris.

  One sniper, dusted.

  Elsewhere, Corrupted Littoranes were emerging from the water onto the bank, the jetty, and even clambering over the curved structures that swept back from the Phantom’s main hull like horns. They were armed with primitive and possibly ornamental melee weapons. They did not appear friendly.

  Captain Fitzwilliam shot one, his oversized handgun barking once with no apparent recoil. Now, that was interesting. The impact of his shot was so devastating, it hadn’t so much hit the Littorane as disassembled it. The technological principles behind his weapon were unfamiliar to her, but merited further investigation.

  She shot one rushing at her from the road, but there were too many and coming from every direction. The war bot was supposed to be covering the retreat. What had happened to the wretched machine? She drew her swords and beat off the attack, deflecting blows, stabbing and slashing, never standing still.

  Swordplay was her greatest combat skill, but she was picking up too many wounds. She was slowing. Her swords were getting heavier.

  Blaster bolts flew toward her across the jetty, one coming so close that it seared the side of her head crest.

  The attacks ceased coming
, though, and Littoranes fell to the ground.

  Up ahead on the jetty, Vetch, Lily, Sward, and the Legion sergeant knelt with rifles pointed her way.

  “Hurry up, you great, hairy insect!” cried Vetch.

  This was good. Vetch must have safely deposited Deep Tone on the evacuation craft and appeared to be in good humor. For a human.

  She hurried over to her friends, realizing that now the war bot had fallen silent, she was the last one to make it onto the jetty.

  To volunteer for the rearguard was the Muryani way, of course. Everyone wanted to sacrifice for the greater good. Her brood sire used to tell stories of a Muryani military unit left behind on a hostile planet because when the rescue mission arrived to evacuate them, the soldiers had been so intent on fighting each other to see who would be last out that they forgot to board. A joke, of course – probably – but even as an infant, Enthree had sensed the underlying truth.

  That sense of service powered her legs and she sprinted for the floating spaceship. The most important service she could perform today was to survive and report what she had seen to the Expansion.

  More Littoranes yelled war cries behind her. A volley of bolts from her friends cleared them away.

  Yet more jumped out of the water and into her path.

  Strange. They seem to be concentrating on me.

  With a shock, the idea hit her that the Corrupted really were directing their attacks on her. She was the only Muryani around and they would not permit her to escape. They wanted her silenced.

  Yes, the Andromedan Corruption knew she was their greatest threat. And they were right.

  She turned and fended them off with her swords, but only barely. Her limbs shook with fatigue.

  Green Fish waded in and dispatched two with her plasma pistol at point-blank range.

  Then a Kurlei distress cry pierced the air. Green Fish’s attention switched to Zavage, who was lurching around the jetty a short distance ahead.

  “Vol!” cried Green Fish, but the Kurlei waved her away. The sniper’s bolt he’d taken a short while before had clearly hurt him, but not seriously. Green Fish was displaying excessive concern for his well being.