Kali's Fire

by Craig Allen

  “But signaling who?” Francis asked.

  The proximity alarm sounded in Cody’s suit.

  “Shit,” Sinclair said. “Francis, check those guns and make sure they’re operational. Doc, better tell the fliers to take shelter.”

  “They should get in the hopper instead,” Cody said. “I don’t know how deep those caves go, but I can’t see how they’d be safer.”

  Sinclair frowned. “Yeah, good point. Get ʼem in the hoppers. Gunny, get the hoppers warmed up, but don’t engage the engines. The camo will block electromagnetics.”

  “But not gravimetrics,” Sonja said. “On it, sir.”

  Cody ran toward the fliers. The lot of them had gathered in one place and were heading underground.

  “Wait, wait!” They stopped at Cody’s shout. “Get on the hoppers.”

  Confused, they all lifted their heads in the air.

  “The loud beasts.” He pointed at the hoppers. “We can get you out of here faster than you can fly. Remember?”

  They started bouncing up and down again. One flier held up the viewer while another tapped out a message.

  The beasts are loud and painful and we would be safe underground.

  The fliers flinched suddenly as a shadow covered the island. From the east, a large ship appeared, blotting out the sun like a skyscraper hovering in the distance. Battle cruisers were huge, but to see one so close to the ground was chilling. Slowly, the Kali vessel drifted toward the island, its main engines shifted to the underside.

  “That thing can get you in the caves.” Cody pointed at the hoppers. “Get aboard now!”

  As if on cue, the mounted heavy coilguns rattled off. The staccato roar was muffled by the audio systems in Cody’s suit, but for the fliers, it must have been deafening. They charged toward the hopper, pushing past Cody, and practically flew toward the hoppers while the Kali ship approached. The G-1s could have been firing at the Kali vessel, which wouldn’t have done any good, but that was unlikely. The ship was still too far away and, fortunately, not moving very quickly for some reason. That meant something else was approaching the island.

  “Shit. We got inbound torpedoes!” Sonja called from one of the hoppers, both of which had running lights on.

  Cody’s suit HUD registered them, two dozen zooming through the air. That many nukes would easily vaporize the island, and tacs would vaporize much of the ocean around it.

  Fortunately, that didn’t matter. The coilguns roared as the tripods twisted again and again, aiming and firing far more quickly than any human could ever manage. Within a few seconds, every torpedo had been shattered to pieces before they could reach the island, dropping the remaining debris into the ocean. The guns continued searching the sky tirelessly for more targets.

  The main drives on both hoppers whined, and the grav plates glowed gently. At that point, showing up on gravimetrics didn’t matter.

  Sonja dropped down from the hopper. “Hoppers are ready to go, sir.”

  “Good work, Gunny.” Sinclair charged across the open field from the shelters with Francis trailing him. “Doc, get your ass on board. That cruiser ain’t done yet.”

  Francis pointed at the vessel. “Eyes on. We got more incoming.”

  Cody was busy corralling the panicking fliers onto the two hoppers, hoping they had enough room to carry them all. “More torpedoes?”

  “Nope,” Francis said. “Much worse.”

  On Cody’s HUD, the incoming bogeys were much larger and approached much more slowly.

  “What are they?” he asked.

  “Power armor pods, probably full can. And the cruiser is hanging back to provide support.” Sinclair gave Cody a shove. “Get your ass on that hopper now before—”

  The heavy coilguns started firing again. On Cody’s HUD, he tracked more incoming pods. A handful got taken out of the sky, but the rest zigzagged in their approach. At the current rate, the coilguns couldn’t take them all out.

  Half a dozen squeals echoed from the caves. From the entrance emerged two fliers, surrounded by a dozen much smaller ones. The younger ones started to head back into the cave, only to be stopped by the larger ones, who pushed them to run for the hoppers.

  “Tin cans will be here in fifteen seconds,” Sonja said. “We gotta be in the air before—hey!”

  Fliers poured out of the hopper, all led by Stripe. Most raced toward their young, but three took to the air, flying past the boundary of the camo field. Stripe flapped his wings at them without taking to the air himself.

  “No!” Cody charged toward the edge of the plateau. “No, you can’t fight them!”

  One of the incoming pods altered its trajectory and let out a burst of coilgun fire that lasted for half a second. All three fliers disintegrated under the burst, turning into a bright red mist.

  Seconds later, the same pod exploded, showering debris across the shore of the island. Cody couldn’t tell what had happened, if it was a midair collision or if it got caught in crossfire.

  “Well, fuck.” Francis charged toward the power armor. “Get the buzzards on board. I’ll hold them off.”

  “Francis!” Sinclair started toward the ensign then stopped. “Shit. All right, Doc, let’s get these guys on board before we lose any more.”

  “C’mon.” Cody pointed toward the hopper.

  Stripe understood human body language better than the others, and he guided the rest, who simply stared at Cody’s finger.

  “Get aboard!” Cody yelled. “Hurry!”

  Each flier clutched a child flier in its central claw and half flew, half jumped toward the hoppers. Cody had to run to keep up.

  Francis stood inside the power armor as the plates wrapped around his torso automatically. In three seconds, the full-suit power armor had encased him and activated with a resounding clap. The three-meter-tall machine stepped out of its portable docking bay as the coilguns on the arms unfolded.

  Two pods crashed near the hoppers, embedding themselves in the ground behind Cody as he ran for the hopper. An instant later, the pods popped open, and two sets of power armor emerged, but nothing like any power armor Cody had seen before. Each suit rolled out like a wheel then unfolded into four-legged power suits smaller than Francis’s.

  Cody aimed with his coil pistol. It wouldn’t do much, but he had nothing else to protect himself. They’d tear him apart in seconds.

  Francis’s voice chimed in on the comm. “They sent armored dogs after us?”

  A gun unfolded on the back of each four-legged power-armor suit. Francis didn’t hesitate. The coilguns on his forearms sounded like a chainsaw as they tore at the enemy power armor. The weapons atop the four-legged suits were the first to vanish, followed by the leg of one of them. The creature inside let out a howl, but Francis didn’t let up.

  The toad power armor was impressive but nothing compared to the juggernaut Francis piloted. He shot the helmet off the other one, revealing the misshapen head of a toad. A second later, nothing was left of it. The toad with a missing leg tried to run, but Francis cut it in half.

  “You’re clear by the hoppers,” Francis said, “but we got more incoming.”

  Sinclair charged toward the side door on the hopper and boarded. “Get out of that thing, Ensign, so we can get the hell out.”

  “Still got work to do, LT.” Francis left large footprints as he turned in place.

  Near the portable shelters, a dozen pods kicked up dirt as they landed. Out of each rolled a four-legged suit of power armor, each armed with a coil rifle.

  Francis stepped in front of the fleeing fliers. A cluster of tubes emerged from the back of the power armor and rotated onto the shoulders. Two rockets launched and impacted the campsite. The miniature thermonuclear blast destroyed two of the armored toads while two of the others were tossed into the air and taken out by the G-1s.

  One toad had rolled out of the way, avoiding most of the blast. Its top-mounted coilgun went live and sprayed one gun emplacement, blowing apart its firing mechanism. Two
other toads rushed the second emplacement. The gun managed to blow one apart before another toad wrapped its armored legs around the gun and ripped it from the turret.

  “More incoming!” Sonja shouted over the comm.

  Francis stepped toward the water and opened fire on the next wave of pods. Red reeds rose from the water and wrapped themselves around the power armor’s legs. Francis fired a burst into the water, severing the reeds at once. He kicked the remains of the reeds away.

  Cody got the last of the fliers on board Sonja’s hopper. They were wall to wall with the creatures, with barely enough room for him. They mewled, something he hadn’t heard them do before, and he saw why.

  Three young fliers emerged from the cave and wandered out into the open, out into the battle.

  Cody dropped from the hopper, ignoring the shouts from Sonja. “Francis! Cover the cave entrance!”

  “What? Oh, shit.” Francis sprayed a group of toads near the hillside, who were trying to creep around him, blowing the toad armor and its occupants to pieces. “I got it. Somebody—hey!”

  Cody sprinted across the open terrain toward the cave opening. Coilgun fire echoed through the air, and he did his best to ignore it. He focused on the young fliers, who jumped up and down when they saw him.

  Francis’s power armor reached the cave in three massive steps. The young didn’t even flinch at the massive armor standing over them.

  At seeing the easy prey emerge, a toad bounded toward the cave. The pistol vibrated in Cody’s hand as he squeezed the trigger repeatedly, sending round after round into the incoming toad. Divots appeared along its armor, tracing up to the armored helmet. The toad fell to the ground as two rounds pierced its helmet.

  Francis aimed his arm-mounted Gus Ace to finish him off but didn’t get the chance. A burst of gunfire from three other toads ripped through the crippled toad at Francis’s feet, tearing it to pieces.

  “The fuck are they shooting their own for?” Francis fired a burst at the group of toads that had taken out their own brother. “Doc, get ready to move.”

  Cody just managed to holster his pistol as all three young fliers jumped into his arms. He nearly fell, but his envirosuit actuators kept him steady. Peering between the shivering children, he headed for the hopper.

  Cody broke into a run. “Francis, cover me!”

  Sonja had jumped down from the pilot’s seat, a coil rifle in her hand. She opened fire on the toads as they struggled to reach both Cody and the hopper. Francis kept pace with Cody, covering him and the young as he crossed the open field to the hopper.

  One toad dodged and weaved just enough to avoid getting hit by coilgun fire. It lunged at Cody. Even if he didn’t have his hands full, he couldn’t have drawn and fired in time.

  One robotic hand of the power armor caught the toad midjump. With the other hand, Francis grasped the armored toad’s head and ripped it off.

  Cody didn’t watch to see where Francis threw the body. He charged for the hopper, his legs aching in the high gravity, even with the help of the actuators in the envirosuit’s legs. Seconds later, he reached the hopper.

  “God damn it, Doc.” Sinclair leaned out the open door of his hopper. “You try that shit again, I’ll nail you.”

  “Had no choice, LT.” Cody handed the children to the waiting fliers.

  There were three more children than fliers, by his count. That meant the three fliers who’d died might have been the parents of those he rescued.

  “We’re leaving,” Sinclair shouted over the comm. “Francis, I’m not fucking around here! Get your ass on board now!”

  “We’re still not clear, sir.” Francis opened fire again on the toads that had destroyed the G-1s, blowing two of them in half. “Check your lidar. They want this place bad.”

  Cody connected with the hopper’s systems, and the readouts from the active lidar appeared on his suit’s HUD. At least three dozen more pods were inbound as the Kali ship approached.

  Though the Kali vessel was still a good distance away, Cody was certain they were in torpedo range. “Why hasn’t the Kali vessel fired more torpedoes?”

  “Torpedoes travel slower in the atmosphere,” Sonja said. “That’s why those G-1s knocked them out so easily. Now they’re waiting until they get real close. Which won’t be long.”

  “I can’t get clear of the suit without getting gunned down by these guys.” Francis launched another rocket, taking out two more armored toads. “These toads will tear me to pieces as soon as I step outside, and I can’t fit this tin can into a hopper.”

  The hatch started to close. Cody searched for the control mechanism and waved his hand over the emitter, but the controls wouldn’t activate.

  “Sonja?” He tried to look into the cockpit past the multitude of fliers. “We have to wait for Francis.”

  “You heard him, Cody.” Sonja launched the hopper across the plateau. “He can’t exit his armor without getting shot to pieces. And that battle cruiser will grase the shit out of us when it gets close enough.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Cody made his way between the fliers, all of whom shivered as the hopper gained altitude. “Sonja, he’s going to die out there.”

  “I know that,” she said. “I don’t want to leave him, but he’s right. We can’t help him.”

  Cody jumped into the copilot’s seat. Sonja hovered the hopper a good fifty meters over the island while the other hopper still sat on the ground. Her watering eyes echoed Cody’s heavy stomach. They had left Bodin behind, and now they were leaving Francis behind.

  Cody hated everything about Kali.

  Francis’s voice sounded a lot calmer than Cody felt. “Both of you get the hell out of here.”

  “Shit, Francis.” Sinclair finally took off. “We’ll see what we can do to help you from upstairs.”

  Coilgun fire erupted over the comm, and three armored toads were cut to pieces, only to be replaced by more. God only knew how many armored toads the Kali vessel had.

  Francis spoke again. “Just bug out. When that ship gets in, she’ll take all of you out. There’s nothing you can do here.”

  “And you think you can?” Sinclair spun his hopper as it rose and hovered near Sonja.

  “I’ll make a dive for the water, sir,” Francis said. “Maybe they’ll think I’m too small to bother with.”

  A dozen more pods landed on the island. More would be there in seconds. The reeds still surrounded the island, undulating.

  “Gunny,” Sinclair said. “Go hot on coilguns. Take down anything on that island and in the sky that’s unfriendly.”

  Sonja activated the hopper’s weapon system. “Roger that.”

  The hopper didn’t budge at all even as both her coilguns ripped into the island below. Most of the toads didn’t get a chance to roll out of their pods. Those in the sky were shot to pieces, which rained down into the ocean. The reeds pulled the remains of the creatures out of the pods and pulled them beneath the dark water.

  “Can we use grapples?” Cody asked. “We can carry him out.”

  “That’s a good idea, Doc.” The grapples on Sinclair’s hopper extended. “Francis, head for the water. I’m gonna carry you out of there.”

  “Better hurry, sir. She’s getting awful close.”

  As Sinclair’s hopper dropped in altitude, Cody went full active on the hopper’s sensors. It didn’t matter at that point, given the Kali vessel knew precisely where they were. Lidar registered four bursts along the Kali vessel. Red lights sounded at once.

  Sonja shouted. “Incoming! Four torpedoes!”

  “Shit!” Sinclair’s hopper dove for the water. “Get in the water now! Maybe the island and the water can block most of the blast!”

  Francis charged into the water, wading in so quickly he created waves higher than himself. The reeds were nowhere in sight.

  “If those are tacs,” he said, “it won’t matter—”

  Sinclair cut him off. “Just do it!”

  Sonja already had the hopper pointing
toward the water. Although the hopper could submerge, it wasn’t supposed to do it at full burn. Cody quickly pulled up the internal gravity and increased stability to maximum, hoping the impact wouldn’t hurt them too badly.

  The ocean rushed up and darkened the canopy. Even with the internal gravity, Cody’s harness strained to keep him in his seat. The fliers danced around a little, particularly those who had a view through the cockpit canopy, but were otherwise unhurt.

  The hopper sank farther, and in seconds, the ocean floor was in sight. Sonja dodged around rocks as she piloted the hopper further away from the island. Alarms went off as she pushed the hopper past the recommended depth limit. Reeds ahead of them reached for the hopper, but Sonja drove right through them as though cutting a lawn. They quickly retreated into the ocean bottom, hiding from the massive hopper.

  Sinclair kept pace in the other hopper, just off starboard. Bubbles streamed off the hot gravity plates that propelled his hopper forward.

  Cody ran over the sensors. The water was distorting the readings. So much metallic material was on the planet that even the water was infested with it. Even so, he should’ve picked up at least a shockwave.

  “I’m not reading a detonation,” he said.

  “Neither am I,” Sinclair said. “Nothing’s—What the hell?”

  “Sir.” Sonja raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s just that someone joined me in the cockpit.” Sinclair snorted. “Looks like I got a new copilot.”

  Cody was musing over how a flier would be able to fit in the seat of a hopper when a garbled message filtered through. It sounded like Francis.

  Cody tried to clear up the signal. “Francis, say again?”

  The transmission was still garbled but intelligible. “Shockwave! I say again—”

  The hopper bounced around in the water, scraping a rock on the ocean floor. Sonja struggled with the stick. Sinclair had his grav-jets pointing downward at high burn, trying to avoid impacting the ocean floor. Suddenly, his hopper disappeared as their hopper headed for the surface.

  “Shit!” Sonja struggled with the controls as the hopper pitched around and then broke the surface.