Carol just glared at Selene/Fiona as Royce exited the bridge without so much as a by your leave. His parting words raised serious concern. If Fiona could not be recovered, would he kill the body that housed the AI and wipe the servers? Would she now have to place him in stasis once the threat had been neutralized?
Captain Giffords did not even want to think about that. Fiona would be recovered – she had to be. If not, then Royce would find some way to strike back. If it came to that, would she be forced to kill him? The thought sent a shudder through Carol’s body. Starfleet had now pitted her against a very close friend and the thought that it might end with her having to kill him brought tears to her eyes.
19
When the shuttle touched down on the landing pad, all aboard could see the damage to the Selene. The other shuttle had blown up inside the ship, causing catastrophic damage. The underside of the ship was a gaping hole. No doubt, the damage would have been worse if the bay door had not been open with the ramp down. Thankfully, both rovers were on the pad by the outpost.
With the loss of almost twenty marines, Jax put aside his ambivalence toward the clones. Manpower was a commodity in short supply, and anything to strengthen their numbers was a welcome development. He only hoped that there would be enough of them left alive to carry on the mission to Jupiter.
Jax, Rodas and one of his marines hustled Fleischer and her three surviving marines—all that remained of her platoon—up the boarding stairs to the Selene’s airlock. As soon as the doors closed and the airlock pressurized, they got Lieutenant Fleischer and the three marines out of their slowly dissolving suits.
“Where the hell did they come from?” the lieutenant asked. Then she added, “Not that I’m complaining, but…”
“Starfleet contingency,” Jax replied. “There was a secured cryostasis room located behind engineering. This group was only meant to be activated in the event of a catastrophic emergency.”
That was mostly true; the actual reason for their presence was related to the possibility that Kendrick and his people might go against Starfleet directives, which would have been a catastrophic emergency. “I’d say this qualifies as catastrophic.”
Fleischer nodded as the airlock opened into the Nexus, where Doctor Biggs and four members of the medical staff awaited.
“So, it’s true!” Biggs exclaimed when he saw the troopers.
“Clear the airlock,” Jax ordered. “The troopers need to get inside, and the airlock only takes five at a time.” Then, he turned to the doctors. “Get them to the Med-Bay!”
“Right away,” Doctor Biggs replied as the medical techs led the four injured marines away. Fleischer hesitated for a moment.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t get there sooner, Fleischer,” Jax added.
“I lost all but three of my soldiers,” she replied bitterly. “The rest are out there being devoured by those… things!”
Before Jax could respond, Carol’s voice sounded in his earpiece. “Commander, I need Mister Mun to coordinate with Heather right now regarding the shuttle—it is imperative that we eliminate any further sabotage of the ship. Selene just informed me that the Astro-Mantises are on their way here.”
Jax nodded grimly as the troopers filed into the Nexus, flanking him. His face contorted into a sneering mask of rage. “Then, we’ll make those fuckers wish they’d never hatched.”
20
Commander Jax had set up a ring of floodlights around the ship and ordered defenses set up behind them. The twenty clones, along with the remainder of the marine platoon had dug in to defend against the creatures, which would arrive within the hour. Behind all this, twenty marine combat engineers put their skills and talents to work repairing Selene’s hull breach. Mun was on duty with the Selene’s guns, but Kendrick had suited up, locating an armored space suit that fit, and an assault rifle, and was outside with the commander and his men.
“Royce, you need to be inside!”
“Thanks to the Omega Protocols, Commander, the Selene can fly herself,” Kendrick countered, a sharp edge to his normally smooth voice. “With all due respect, you need me out here. I spent twelve weeks getting trained to do exactly what we’re doing now, and if we fail here, then nobody goes home.”
Jax shook his head laughing. “I like your spirit, Royce. Normally, I’d order you back inside, but unfortunately, you’re right. You were a good shot before M.C.R.D, and I need all the help I can get out here. Just don’t take any chances.”
Kendrick nodded. “Where do you want me?”
The commander pointed to one of the barricades. “Over there with Jackson and Harris.”
“Sounds good, but when this is over,” Royce warned, “there will be a reckoning.”
With that somewhat vague comment, the former rock and roll icon walked over to the barricade and took his place with the two marines. Jax hoped that Royce’s borderline heroic gesture would not result in the man’s untimely death. Of course, Kendrick was absolutely correct: if they failed here, then nobody would live to tell about it.
Kendrick, for his part, joined Jackson and Harris, who simply nodded.
“Lieutenant,” Jackson said.
“Hey,” Royce replied informally. “Thought y’all could use another gun out here.”
Jackson, a black marine from New York, nodded. “No doubt about that, Royce. But you should know; these things chewed through seventeen of us out at that crater. Fleischer and us barely got out with our lives. You sure you want to be out here?”
“Of course not,” Kendrick admitted. “But it ain’t fair to sit inside while y’all are gettin’ overrun. Nothin’ I can do from inside except sit around anyway. Out here? I can at least shoot at them.”
“What do we know about these bugs?” Harris, a blond, fair-skinned man, asked. “Any weak spots?”
“Hell, if I know,” Royce replied. “They’re photosensitive, so we’ve got the floodlights on ‘em. Hopefully, that’ll keep ‘em at bay enough that we don’t get overrun. Science team’s going over the readings we got from the crater and the one specimen they had that ate two guys’ brains. Maybe they’ll find something.”
Jackson and Harris resumed whatever conversation they were having before Kendrick’s arrival, leaving him to his own thoughts. He felt the brush of the imitation Selene against his mind, and focused, responding mentally.
Is it you, Fiona?
No, Mister Royce. You are the only one that I can contact and coordinate with without the delay of precious seconds.
You okay, Babe? He chided himself for addressing her so affectionately out of habit.
I am not, she replied, ignoring his calling her a pet name. I am injured and my engines inoperative. I am going over the data gathered by the science team, and it is not promising. These mantids are more durable than the hatchling that killed three scientists, and there are enough of them that we could be defending against them for the entirety of the next four days.
Then, all we gotta do is hold out for four days, he assured.
No, the AI countered. I need to be repaired before that. If I cannot be repaired, then you and I must escape aboard the shuttle with as many as we can take with us. These creatures are intelligent. They are coming in waves, not all at once. They are also fanning out and approaching in smaller formations. We will not last four days.
We escape, Kendrick noted, but what about you? A lot of you is in the servers.
I can download into the shuttle’s servers, or completely into Doctor Kinsale-Royce if need be.
What will that do to her?”
Something preferable to what the mantids will do to her.
Kendrick could not argue with that. Of course, if Selene could not download into the shuttle, then his wife would be overshadowed by the AI until they returned to Earth…or indefinitely. Kendrick could not allow that. Then, let’s make damn sure we get you repaired right away.
I will do what I can to assist you, Mister Royce. I will utilize our merge to optimize your neural p
athways and reflexes. I can also stimulate your adrenal glands if necessary.
Do I have a choice?
No, she replied. You do not.
21
While the marine combat engineers worked to repair the hull breach, Heather and a Starfleet mechanic – a Crewman Li Xia Chen – lay on their sides across from each other in a cramped section of the ship, working to repair the fuel lines and other systems damaged in the shuttle explosion. Thankfully, the parts were either on hand or easily fabricated. Heather found herself wishing that Starfleet had provided a larger engineering staff, as there was so much damage to various systems that repairing it all would be very time consuming.
“Hey, Li Xia; you know that by the time this ten-year mission is over, you’ll only have been awake for less than a year?”
“Yeah, I know. Why do you ask?”
Heather shrugged as she finished repairing a bundle of wires that had been severed by the shrapnel. “You know you’ll physically still be however old you are now.”
“Twenty-two.”
“You’ll be like thirty-two when we get back,” Heather reminded her.
Li Xia giggled. “Well, that’s one way to keep myself looking young.”
“Cost effective too.” Heather wrapped up the bundle of wires and placed it back into its loom. “Selene, test the connections.”
The AI’s voice replied almost immediately from Heather’s datapad. “Connections test positively.”
“Check fuel line integrity, Selene,” Heather called again.
“Fuel pressure in this section of the line is within tolerances,” replied the AI.
“Great,” Heather noted. “Six more sections to repair, and this was the only section that’s easy to get into.”
“And this was not easy.”
“Nope,” Heather lamented. “Glad we’re both petite.”
Then, Crewman Chen shifted the conversation to a more serious matter. “Miss Dalrymple, you know this ship better than anyone. Do you think we can do this before it’s too late?”
“If everything goes as smooth as this section, yeah. Besides, Kang’s on the guns. He’ll skiz the shit outta them. And Jax is out there with Kendrick, a bunch of marines, and twenty clones of himself. They kill shit real good.” Then, she added, “Too bad Cyrus, Amanda, and Father Ronan aren’t here; they were amazing. And Cyrus; you’d really like him. He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met besides Fiona. Not sure which one’s got the higher I.Q, but Cyrus had a helluva lot more good sense.”
Chen looked puzzled. “Fiona – you mean Doctor Kinsale-Royce. She seems very level-headed.”
Heather began giggling. “Oh, she is, but sometimes, she’s too smart for her own good. And you should see her when she’s drunk! Got her totally lit with six shots of bourbon—or was it seven? I don’t remember; I was pretty blitzed too, but it was something to see.”
“When this is all over, Miss Dalrymple, you and I need to knock a few back. I’m gonna need it.”
Heather laughed. “Deal.”
22
The Selene’s masers fired as the astro mantises approached. Kang’s artillery skills were better than Kendrick remembered, and each shot found its mark. Royce was elated when he saw the mantids approaching from the front explode. At least they would not be flanked. Positioned on Selene’s starboard side, he could see the creatures approaching, then stopping at the floodlights. Kendrick lit up his assault rifle, as did Jackson and Harris. Around them, the clone troopers and their incendiary round-enabled Gatlin guns laid down a withering field of fire, taking out dozens of the mantids. If things continued like this, it would be easy.
“We’re doin’ it!” Jackson exclaimed. “You hear that, you Motherfuckers? We’re blowin’ your asses away! Payback time, Bitches!”
Harris fired at the creatures, shouting obscenities at them as he did. Kendrick, however, kept quiet as he laid down fire. The creatures were falling, but more kept coming. He could see the smoke coming off of them as the light from the floods burned them. Then, he noticed movement in the pile of bodies.
At first, he thought it might be death-throws of the creatures, then he saw bodies moving forward. His eyes widened as he realized what was happening.
“They’re using their dead to shield themselves from the light!”
Before Jackson and Harris could adjust, the creatures got under the floods using the dead as cover, and sprung on the three of them. Aided by the AI’s augmentations to his aim and reflexes, Kendrick fired into the one coming at him, killing it instantly, but Jackson and Harris were each mauled, the creatures grabbing onto their helmets with their mandibles and piercing their skulls with their tube-like tongues, killing the two men. Three more were coming right at Kendrick, but they exploded before arrival as Donavan Jax joined him, the commander’s gun blazing, and grenades firing from the attached launcher.
The same scene was playing out round the perimeter, though the heavily armed clones were better able to keep creatures off them. Still, some got through, and the clones were falling one by one. Jax’s voice sounded in their helmets, ordering, “Fall back! Fall back!”
Lieutenant Fleischer and her group fell back as Jax ordered, but the creatures had found their opening. A marine whose suit had the name, “PFC Bean” on its nametag was at her side, along with two of the clones; one male and one female. The four of them retreated slowly, maintaining their fire on the creatures, when one sprung over their weapons fire and landed on Bean’s upper torso, grabbing the man’s helmet in its mandibles and impaling it with its tube-like tongue.
Ariella tried to dislodge the thing, hoping against hope that maybe the man’s skull had not been pierced, but it stabbed with its raptorial forearms, striking her in the right side. She felt its sharp claw-like hook dig deep into her flesh, causing her to cry out. One of the clones drew out a large knife and decapitated the creature with her left hand, while maintaining a bead and firing her assault rifle at the incoming creatures with her right hand.
Ariella was impressed, but when the mantid was dislodged from Private Bean, the marine fell dead to the ground.
“We’ll cover you!” The clone woman’s voice sounded in Ariella’s helmet speaker. “Repair your suit!”
The lieutenant made a quick repair as the clones guarded her, then she was back in the game, firing at the incoming creatures. The pain in her side was intense, the worst she had ever experienced, but she fought through it. She knew she was bleeding out and hoped she would survive the fight and still have enough left to get to the Med-Bay.
As the soldiers continued to fall back, more of the creatures pierced the perimeter. One actually got to Jax, grabbing him with its legs and forearms, and lunging with its head toward the commander’s face. Jax reached forward with his left hand and grabbed the creature’s right eye cluster with his armored hand and crushed it, causing it to withdraw its head. Jax fired his rifle one handed into the mantid’s torso, sheering it in half with bullets. The creature’s ichor sprayed Jax’s suit, and Kendrick thought the commander would be dead before the end of the fight. Jax emptied his clip into another creature, killing it, then hurriedly reloaded his rifle.
“We need to get back inside!” Royce shouted.
“Negative,” Jax countered. “If they find a way inside, we’re all dead. We’re the last line of defense, Marine! Now hold the fucking line!”
Kendrick nodded and made peace with the idea that this was the end. He threw a grenade, and continued firing, his flashlight causing incoming mantids to pause so he could kill them. Maybe they could hold out; or maybe, it was just his imagination.
Now that they had gotten wise to the creatures’ tactics, it seemed that it was not Kendrick’s imagination. Indeed, they were holding the line.
Finally, the mantids ceased to press their attack. Collecting both their own dead and the dead humans, the creatures began retreating. Kendrick, Jax, and the rest of the troopers fired at them as they melted into the darkness.
“T
hey’re leaving! Commander, they’re leaving!” It was Darcy’s voice in Jax’s helmet.
“We’ve got wounded,” Jax replied. “Engineers are safe; no casualties. Three of our marines are dead, and we’ve lost four troopers. Are they really gone?”
“Yes, sir; they’re heading back to the crater.”
“Good; we’re coming in.”
Round two with the creatures ended with fewer casualties then the first round, but there were fewer of them left to begin with. Twenty clones and only eight marines were left from the first encounter. Now that the creatures were leaving, there were sixteen clones and five marines, not counting Jax and Royce. The commander only hoped that they would have a full day to recover before round three.
23
Commander Jax’ suit had numerous marks and tears in its outer armor, but suit’s integrity had not been compromised. Kendrick’s suit was in a similar state, as were those of some of the clones and the remaining marines. Lieutenant Fleischer’s suit had fared the worst, having an actual puncture that had penetrated her skin. She had been able to repair it in the field, but had not been able to treat her wound, and was being carried by Commander Jax. Now, the wounded were back aboard the Selene, stepping into the Nexus where Doctors Biggs and Pallone awaited them.
Doctor Biggs counted the returning soldiers and looked at them with alarm. “Is…that all of you?”
“Unfortunately,” Commander Jax confirmed. “Fleischer had a suit puncture. She made it into the airlock, and then passed out.”
One of the Pod Alpha MEDroids set up a grav-gurney—a floating gurney that worked in tandem with the G.E.M. Gravity System—and lifted the injured Lieutenant Fleischer onto the gurney.
“I will take her to the Med-Bay right away,” the MEDroid announced, immediately wheeling Fleischer down the Nexus corridor with surprising speed.
The rest of the marines followed Biggs to the Med-Bay to be examined. The doctor hoped that this was the last battle they would have to fight against these creatures; at this rate, one more battle would probably wipe out the remaining non-engineer soldiers. He wondered how the repairs were going and hoped that it was faster than the projected four days.
The Silver Liner: Sails to the Edge! Page 9
