by Marc Stevens
Sael could no longer hold her tongue. “The crazed machine is going to overfly the council chambers on the Chaalt home world of Athella! That would not be possible unless the Legacy gained access to restricted information, information that only Tria or I would possess. Who do you think they will blame for the breach of security?”
I had no doubt that Sael was right and Justice managed to burgle the data from her shuttle’s computer systems. Why he would jab Sael in the ass with that information was beyond me and hinted at the AI’s use of his less desirable human traits. While the evil robot’s intended plan was a bit startling and I’m sure my reaction might have given that away, the surprise quickly passed. Since we were going to enter the Chaalt exclusion zone uninvited anyway, what difference did it make how many laws we broke. If Justice could cover our backs long enough to rescue the Chaalt people’s rightful government, we should be able to talk our way out of just about anything. I was ready to start the mission, and Sael’s endless bitching was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My give-a-shit was officially busted!
“Sael, did you or did you not come here to be part of the rescue mission? I don’t want any more out of you, just a yes or a no!”
I could tell she wanted to explode, but my piercing stare stifled her rebuke.
“Yes.”
“You have already turned over classified information identifying your council members and the location of the research station. At this point, it will not matter how many of your laws we choose to break. What’s done is done. Quit sweating the details, and let’s get on with the mission!”
“The research center is located on the fringe of the exclusion zone and nowhere near our governing home world. Justice’s perceived threat to the council will mark your clan for termination if we do not succeed.”
She had a point, but I had no intention of failing. I looked back at Tria and Klutch. They both were standing up in the cockpits of their Daggers with arms crossed. Neither looked worried, just annoyed that I would be standing here arguing with Sael when we had a mission to complete.
“Justice! Take us to the jump point!”
“Affirmative, Commander. Launching now!”
“Senior Operative, I am ordering you to get your ass in the Dagger or the air lock. I don’t care which you choose, but do it now!” I barked.
Sael stiffened. The look of anger seemed to melt from her face, and then she nodded. Without another word, she climbed in Sierra Five, and Justice closed the cockpit and canopy. I got a thumbs up from Tria and Klutch and returned it. The beast was snickering in the back of my mind; the jubilant dark echoes brought a grim smile to my lips. We were going into the fire once more, and I embraced the thought of killing the enemies of all. It was as if it was all that I was ever meant to do. Maybe there was something to what many aliens were whispering. Perhaps I am the sword of my maker.
9
The ruminations on my destiny were interrupted by my reality fading away. When I became aware of my surroundings once more, I heard Justice calling to me.
“Commander, launch is in thirty seconds. I have eight hundred and forty Chaalt warships in this sector of the exclusion zone. One hundred and twenty-two are in close proximity to the area of operation. Our transition has been detected, and all vessels have commenced scanning at full military power. The Legacy will be visible to Chaalt scanning systems during the Dagger launch sequence. Once you are away, I will make several short transitions to draw as many of the warships away from the target as possible. When the ships are a predetermined distance from the research center, I will activate your phase drives and align you with the optimal insertion vector. The Legacy will be back in the area of operation in approximately fifty-one minutes. My ETA could be sooner or later depending on any number of unknown factors. Good luck and good hunting!”
The Legacy was cloaked and accelerating in the general direction of the lab complex. Justice made a hard turn and spit our Daggers out into the void with the tow beam. The reaction from the Chaalt warships was instantaneous. My holo display showed that all but a few made a rapid turn in our direction. We were coasting in toward the target several degrees off of our insertion vector. The Legacy’s icon disappeared from my display and reappeared a blink later and uncloaked in the midst of several Chaalt ships. The icon turned to a blue circle when Justice cloaked. The Legacy made another hard turn and transitioned away. The warships continued toward the Legacy’s transition point, but Justice was already gone. His theory that they could no longer track the Legacy was proving accurate. Many of the Chaalt ships were now spread out and broad-spectrum scanning in all directions of the exclusion zone. The Legacy was moving through multiple scan fields with no reaction from the Chaalt.
Justice moved further away from the warships and uncloaked once again. This time he got a response from all the ships in our detection zone. All were turning in the Legacy’s direction, with several making jumps directly to the location. Again, Justice jumped away, and this time it was followed by my phase drive activating. The Legacy never reappeared on my display, so I assumed it was going to do a little showing off somewhere over Athella. I was intently watching my HUD as our Daggers closed up to a tight four-ship formation. We were moving rapidly at a large asteroid that had an orange blinking box around it. My pulse kicked up a notch as did my respiration when every ship on my holo display turned and accelerated in our direction. I felt the telltale positive G load of maximum phase, and my display blanked out. An alarm sounded and quickly increased in pitch and intensity. My holo display was blinking on and off, and I was sure it didn’t mean my popcorn was done! Last time I had the displeasure of hearing that clamor, the Quill were trying their best to incinerated me and spread my molecules about the universe. Closing my eyes, I pushed back hard against the cockpit as it suddenly expanded. The interior of my battle armor followed suit and started squeezing the hell out of me. I thought it would crush the air from my lungs. It was the last thing going through my head when I blacked out.
I awoke to Klutch rapping on my helmet with his armored fist and calling to me. I almost freaked because I knew my eyes were open but I could not see. I hurt everywhere and wondered if my skeleton still resided in my body.
“Commander! Tria and the Operative are unresponsive, and we need to move now!” the Tibor said urgently. “There is something below us, and whatever it is, it wants up here awful bad!”
My vision became a small white dot that progressively got bigger. I groaned out loud and attempted to pull myself upright, but my arms felt like dead weights. I felt my head being pulled forward, and then my eyes could make out Klutch. He had his helmet pushed up against my faceplate.
“I hear something digging below us, and that can’t be a good thing!” he reiterated.
I grabbed the edges of my cockpit module and pulled myself up. I was wobblily, but Klutch kept me upright. My eyes were getting their act together, but I was having a hell of a time deciphering the information they were pumping to my G-mashed brain. I was inside some kind of structure that had collapsed on the interior.
“Where are we? Are we inside the complex?”
“We made it through the shield and crashed into the side of a defensive weapons tower. The phase drives were still active for a few seconds after impact. The wreckage of the tower was siphoned into the phase field. The inside of the structure has collapsed onto the levels below us.”
My eyes were back on duty, and I could see Tria’s Dagger sitting in a hollow that was perfectly round. She was slumped forward in her open cockpit module. Looking over my shoulder at the exterior wall, I saw two large round holes and two that were touching each other in a pattern that resembled bullet holes on a target. Just below us was the Operative’s open Dagger. I pulled away from Klutch and face-planted next to my Dagger. He helped me up, and we trudged through the debris toward Tria. Relief washed over me as she jerked back into her cockpit module. She was cursing a blue streak and then called my name. I made it to the side of
her Dagger and grabbed her by her arms.
“I am here. Tria, can you see me?”
“Just barely, Nathan. My eyesight is impaired but getting better.”
I pulled her out of the cockpit module and embraced her till she could stand on her own. We started hearing a string of expletives that told us the Operative was now coherent. Tria and I slowly made our way over to Klutch, who was trying his best to get Sael out of her Dagger. She was slapping at the Tibor’s hands and cursing me in a case of mistaken identity. Klutch had enough of that crap and unceremoniously jerked her out of the Dagger and let her fall into the wreckage. She was now cursing me harder. I shook my head, and we stood her up. That was when I noticed the loud crunching and grinding noises coming from below us. Klutch was not kidding: something was working overtime under our feet. Sael was still cursing me pretty good and now repeating herself. Taking a lesson from Klutch’s playbook, I rapped her upside the helmet.
“Sael! Shut up and listen! Something is digging its way in here!”
That got me a murderous look that quickly faded. The sound was progressively getting louder, and the Operative in Sael finally took over. She turned and reached into her Dagger and pulled her rifle and swords from it.
“We must find defensible cover!”
I wanted to tell her “no shit,” but decided to recover my weapons before whatever was tunneling its way toward us made an appearance. We armed ourselves, and I called to Justice’s subsystem.
“Lock the Daggers and activate the point defense systems!”
The canopies slammed shut and the upper weapons turrets popped out. The projectors swiveled around, pointing at a mound of debris that started to shake and settle. My suit AI called out a warning.
“Commander, it is advisable to seek shelter!”
That was all the heads-up I needed. I pointed to an outcropping that was the remains of a floor well above us. We hit our gravity thrusters and flew up through the massive cavity and landed on the ledge. We went prone, and I called out, “Weapons free!”
Justice’s subsystem never heard the command “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” because the turrets fired point-blank into what remained of the floor. The blinding flashes of energy sent a storm of pulverized debris upward at us as we recoiled from the edge of our perch. We could plainly hear a warbling screech as the raining wreckage finally quit falling around us. We didn’t have to guess as to what would make such a hellish racket. There was a really pissed off Prule Hunter somewhere below us. Looking into the huge glowing hole that was once a floor, I didn’t know how anything could have survived the inferno unleashed by the Daggers. If nothing else, we now had a way to stay in cover and exfiltrate the area. I had every intention of pointing at the hole and telling Klutch to take the lead but was interrupted by a loud crunching noise. A large weapons turret and the remains of the upper floors came crashing down on us, burying the Daggers and leaving us sprawled among the wreckage.
I was hoping this goat rope was not a premonition of things to come. I pushed a piece of roof beam off me and looked around for Tria. Hearing movement to my right, I started digging until I saw an armored hand doing the same. I grabbed on and pulled, getting several croaking oaths as my reward. Klutch burrowed out of the fallen mess. Seeing debris shifting to his right, Klutch moved in that direction.
“Commander, I think I am on the level below you,” Tria called to us. “One of the Daggers and possibly the weapons turret have me pinned. When I attempt to move, more rubble settles in on me.”
“Hold where you are and do not move! We will come to you.”
I waded over to where Klutch was helping the Operative climb out of the fragments. He pulled her up to her feet. She gave the Troop Master a strange look.
“What sort of device do you have strapped to yourself?”
She reached out to touch it, and Klutch batted her hand aside.
“It is something you should not concern yourself with!”
She glared at the Tibor but kept her mouth shut. She moved past him and pulled her rifle from the trash. I could see an opening downward through the wreckage. It was the hole the Daggers had made with their point defense weapons. Pulling my shotgun from its clip, I waved in that direction.
“Klutch, Tria is somewhere below us. Let’s move out!”
The Troop Master grabbed his plasma caster and armed the projector. The Operative quickly stepped behind him.
“You fool! That is not a close-quarters weapon!”
Klutch gave her an evil grin. “I do not tell you how to use your weapons, so don’t tell me how to use mine!”
He moved out, leaving the Operative staring at me in disbelief. I pushed past her and threw a thumb over my shoulder.
“Cover our flank!”
The disparaging oath was under her breath but still loud enough to hear. My concern for Tria made Sael’s bullshit intolerable. I turned on her and gave her a stiff arm.
“If you spout anymore of that scat, you are on your own. You got that?”
She looked shocked at my anger but nodded.
“I said, have you got that?”
“Yes!”
I turned and closed with the Troop Master. He had a grenade in his hand and was peering down the hole we were getting ready to descend into.
“It is suspiciously quiet below us, Commander. We already know a Hunter would not give up so easily.”
He tossed the grenade to the bottom and nothing happened. He called to his suit AI, “I need a vector to the Dagger at Tria’s location.”
Justice’s subsystem put a directional marker in our HUDs and Klutch jumped in. He started sliding downward and threw his hand out, snagging a beam to arrest his fall. He pulled himself to the side and held an arm out. I jumped next and caught his outstretched hand, and he hoisted me to his side. I stuck a hand out for Sael, and she jumped. She made no attempt to reach for my hand and slid right by me. It pissed me off, but I was not going after her until I had Tria extracted. Several seconds later, she called up to us.
“I have no movement and will set up a defensive position.”
Technically she should have stayed with us as our tail gunner. When we freed Tria, we would be going down to reconnoiter our surroundings. I would let it slide for now but if she did it again, she would find out what it feels like to have my foot in her ass. Klutch took the lead and started pulling pieces of the upper floors out of our way. We quickly uncovered the drive end of a Dagger, and I called to Tria on a private comm channel.
“Tria, Klutch and I are close. What is your status?”
“I still cannot move my legs because the Dagger has me firmly pinned. I have tried lowering the landing struts, but they have nothing solid to support them.”
“Roger that. We will see what we can do to get something under them.”
I looked around at the collapsed mess surrounding us and saw a heavy door panel wrenched from its frame. I looked back at Klutch, who was rooting through the wreckage like an old boar hog. He had about half of one side of the Dagger cleared and called to me.
“Commander, I see Tria’s legs. She is on the opposite side of the Dagger. There is a structural beam wedged under it, and it is pinning her legs. We need to raise the Dagger enough to remove the beam.”
“Alright, Klutch, let’s see if we can get something solid under the landing struts. Tria thinks if the Dagger can raise itself, she can get enough wiggle room to pull herself free.”
Klutch stopped digging through the debris long enough to give me a thumbs up. I grabbed onto the door slab and started pulling it free from the frame. I was making good progress when something thumped down hard above us, causing debris to rain down. Klutch and I both stopped what we were doing. Two more thumps sent dust and trash falling into the cavity we had just cleared around the Dagger. Klutch came scurrying out of the mess, pulling his plasma projector from its clip. I commed Tria and told her what she probably already knew.
“Tria, we have movem
ent above us. Sit tight until we know what is going on!”
“I do not have a choice. Nathan, please be careful.”
Changing comm channels, I called to Sael. “Sael, get your ass back here now! I think we have at least three unidentified hostiles above us. If they crawl down after us, you will be trapped down there!”
“Moving!” she replied curtly.
Klutch grabbed my arm and pointed behind us. I turned and saw the metal spiked legs of a Prule Hunter that was attempting to crawl down the narrow passage. Sael was not going to make it back to our position. I cursed her for going it alone rather than staying with us. Adrenaline started flowing, and I could feel the beast commandeering my emotions. The Oolaran soldier manifested itself as a hate-filled sneer. The Prule crawled down until it filled the passage. Its capsule-shaped upper torso rotated in our direction, and a pale green corona materialized around it. I was going to give it a good reason to go elsewhere, but several blinding flashes exploded on the Prule’s shield, making it flicker. The Operative decided to start the party without us.
