by Marc Stevens
Klutch shoved me aside and pointed the plasma projector at the metallic monster. A pinkish glow lit the passage, and in the blink of an eye, a blue glowing ball of energy hissed out from the weapon and splashed onto the Prule’s faltering shield. Everything in the narrow passage that came into contact with the splattered plasma either melted or caught fire.
Klutch’s eyes were as big as silver dollars. I heard him mumble loud enough over our comms to understand what he was saying.
“Tria was correct. This is not of Kashuga design!”
We looked on in disbelief as the Hunter’s shield failed. It started flailing savagely as the hellfire engulfed it. Its lower appendages were starting to melt. Two more blinding flashes exploded on the Hunter, plowing large misshapen furrows completely through its armored torso. If it weren’t for the rapidly spreading flames, it would seem things might be going our way.
That kind of defective thinking usually always got me in trouble, and this would be no exception. A powerful energy beam sliced downward through the debris-choked tunnel we had managed to excavate, collapsing our only exit. Another one blasted a hole not four feet in front of Klutch and me, knocking us sprawling. Klutch put his foot to my armored ass and shoved me toward the exposed end of the Dagger. I could hear Tria ordering her AI to arm the Dagger’s defensive weapons, but Justice’s subsystem replied it was unable to comply. Another shot from above collapsed the little hollow we had worked so hard to clear. We were now pinned against the side of the Dagger. I had my share of receiving and decided to start giving. Forcing my arm upward against the better wishes of my servos, I fired a beam shot that created a hurricane of destruction point-blank in our faces. The unsteady floor beneath was giving away. The Dagger along with the weapons turret rolled on top of Klutch and me.
We were now pinned with possibly tons of debris on top of us. The servos that assisted my movements gave me an assortment of warnings to stop what I was doing. Klutch’s nonstop caustic dialogue let me know in no uncertain terms that he was firmly trapped as well. Thinking it could help, I tried moving with little burps of my gravity thrusters. That only made matters worse as more rubble settled in on us. Klutch got a little testy when he asked me to kindly refrain from trying to crush him to death.
There was one redeeming factor to my actions: Tria yelled over our comms that she was now free. Her exclamation was followed by a blast that felt like it was directly above us. I panicked and started yelling her name, adding to the confusing chatter of everyone talking at once. This was actually good because I could hear Tria and the Operative yelling over the top of Klutch’s endless swearing. Unfortunately, an unfair percentage of my good experiences were always accompanied by bad ones. In this case, the bad was the loud creaking and crunching noises my external mic was picking up. The beast inside of me was attempting to dismiss the bad feeling I was getting when the entire floor went bye-bye.
Everything went crashing downward. The objects included on that list were the Daggers, turret, and a couple of Prule Hunters. Justice’s subsystem chose a very opportune time to lend a helping hand and engaged our gravity thrusters. I was sent careening out of control upward through an assortment of trash. I quickly righted myself and came to a hover. My HUD showed two blue icons just behind me and to my left. Tria and Klutch formed up on me, but Sael was nowhere to be seen.
The dense dust cloud below us was settling, and I wondered if the Hunters were as fortunate as we were. The only thermal signatures I was picking up were the plasma fires burning in the rubble below us. We no longer had cover above us and would make good targets hovering in the open framework of the wrecked weapons tower.
“Tria, Klutch! Spread out and see if you can get a fix on Sael or the Hunters!”
We split up and dove to the corners of the gutted tower. Klutch sounded off.
“Commander, I have movement!”
“Hold your fire!” Sael shouted over our comms.
Klutch dropped to the rubble pile and yanked the Operative up and out of the debris. She jerked her hand free of Klutch’s and got down on her hands and knees, rooting in the hole she once occupied. She pulled her rifle from the mess and slung it over her shoulder. I stomped through the wreckage with my fist raised at Sael. Before I could tear her a new one, we felt the junk under us heave and then settle. At least one of the machine monsters was trying to dig its way out. We boosted above the ruins and pointed our weapons at the quaking pile. Glancing around to make sure we didn’t get any more unexpected guests; I spied the holes the Daggers had made through the tower. I got an idea that would upset the beast in me because it would not involve personally blowing the alien machines to pieces.
“Justice, activate the phase fields on all the Daggers!”
“Commander, you are within the minimum safe distance of the phase drive transition field,” my suit AI warned. “I highly recommend vacating your current location.”
That was all the warning needed, and we boosted to the top of the decapitated tower. Looking down into the debris, we saw it heave once more and then a metallic claw thrust upward. We took aim and were going to open fire when a tremendous roar made me shut down my external audio sensors. The massive pile below us was being sucked downward. Inside of the grinding suction typhoon were four blindingly bright pulsating globes of light. The Hunter that had managed to dig its way up through the rubble let out a warbling screech as it was pulled downward. I could see it flailing wildly trying to find something to grip onto. It disappeared into the brilliance, and the phase fields abruptly shut down. The Daggers now sat in perfectly round hollows of what remained of the rubble. Some unknown dimension of hyperspace just became our personal dump. I sure hope it was not inhabited.
We landed next the Daggers and armed their defensive weapons systems.
My anger once again flared at Sael for her disregard of my command. Tria, Klutch, and I all turned on her. Before I could say a word, she held up two of her arms.
“Nathan, there is no excuse for my actions. I have recklessly endangered the mission and my team because I resented your command authority. If this were a Chaalt mission and one of my subordinates were to do such a thing, I would have executed them. You would be well within your rights to pass that same judgment on me. I should have been focusing on the mission and not my petty vanity.”
The old witch took all of the steam out of my rant and left me lost for words. She had already proven that she will say one thing and do another; it was just a matter of time. I was still pissed as hell, but it would do nobody any good to stand here and rip her a new ass. We needed to get moving because surprising the Prule was no longer an option. That thought was reinforced by two warning beeps in our helmet visors.
“Incoming aerial drones!” Tria called out.
We spread out and kneeled down in the debris. The defensive turrets popped out of the Daggers and their weapons rotated upward. The two aerial weapons platforms zoomed overhead, looking for targets. The Daggers turned them to clouds of fine metal dust. I was now wondering who was operating them: the Prule or someone else. I needed a no-shitter from the Operative.
“Sael, do you have any idea where the additional Prule forces are coming from?”
“I have already told you the remnants of Prule have been collected for a great many solar rotations. All were inert and were the objects of study. Many were only fragments. Other than the single active Hunter you turned over to my people, I cannot explain the presence of other Prule forces.”
Klutch’s helmet visor was transparent. I could tell he doubted the intel Sael was giving us. He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her down to his visor.
“The Hunters we destroyed did not appear to be fragments or inert objects!”
Sael pulled away from Klutch and turned to me. “I have given you all the information that I have. It is possible the Hivemind is using resources at this facility to repair and activate additional units. If this is the case, we could be facing several dozen.”
W
hen we started this mission, I felt our tactics and equipment gave us better-than-average odds of a successful outcome. Now those odds were favoring the opposition.
10
We had to push on, no matter the odds, but first things first. Sael was not going to get off that easily.
“You are now under Klutch’s command. At his request, you are to give him the support and directions necessary for us to complete this mission. Is that clear?”
I was standing close enough to Sael I could see her reaction through her faceplate. She flinched as if I had struck her and gritted her teeth.
“Yes, I understand!” she spit out.
I glared at the Troop Master to wipe the large, toothy grin from his face. “We need to be able to control the shield dome. Give Klutch a heading to that location. I have no idea why the Hivemind has not sent additional forces to attack us. It is a historical fact from my world that you should never interrupt your enemy while they are making mistakes. If you have information you feel I need, give it to me now or let’s move out!”
She cast her eyes downward then slowly looked up and locked them on mine. I could tell what she was going to say would not be a confidence builder.
“A lot has changed since I was last here. There has been a great deal of modernization. What was once a small collection of buildings is now the size of a settlement. I recognize a few of the older structures but nothing else.”
That little tidbit set Tria off. She banged her armored fist into Sael’s battle suit hard enough to make her back up a step. I grabbed her arm because she had balled up another fist and looked like she was ready to plant it upside Sael’s helmet.
“Is there anything else you would care to share the truth about?”
“Tria, I never lied to any of you. I just omitted some of the facts in an attempt to manipulate Justice into thinking I was a necessary component of your team. I had hopes you would let me lead the mission.”
I was more than a little skeptical as to whether or not Justice was so easily duped. I was leaning heavily on the theory she was needed more for her fighting skills than her brains. I had considered letting her lead, but not anymore.
“Sael, I want the facts without the omissions!”
“I do have rudimentary knowledge of the base’s layout and defenses,” she admitted. “We need to stay in cover and out of a direct line of fire from the weapons towers. They have a limited ability to fire on ground targets. As you already know, there is an unknown number of aerial drones with advanced antipersonnel weapons on board. We need to avoid exposing ourselves to their detection sensors. There were originally several missile launchers seeded throughout the base in hidden locations. I speculate that due to the current size of this facility, there will be considerably more. You should also know that if we attempt to breach the shield control building by force, we will activate the internal defenses. The counter measures were very formidable. There are lockout contingencies that will render the systems inoperable by hostile forces. Once that happens, the only way to bring down the shield will be to destroy the power source built deep within the asteroid. I would also like to point out it would be madness for the Hivemind not to concentrate its forces at that location.”
“I already had that figured out on my own,” I said. “Let’s get moving!”
Sael pointed to a structure in the distance that had high walls and a large orb protruding upward behind them. Our insertion point was in the shadow of a huge dish that pointed off into the void. We boosted through a large crack in the tower’s wall and landed on a narrow-paved pathway. We pulled our shotguns, and Klutch took the lead with Sael at his side. Tria and I brought up the rear with both of us taking turns glancing over our shoulders. We worked our way around the building with the dish and came to a much wider thoroughfare. Klutch put his arm out to halt Sael and then called to me.
“Commander, I just saw a shadow retreat into an alley down this access road on our right. If we move out onto the road, we will be exposed to the weapons towers and possibly an ambush from that alley.”
Tria and I took a knee with our weapons pointing down the alley. Sael kneeled next to Klutch, pointing her large rifle out into the access road.
“Let’s hear some options, Klutch.”
The Tibor leaned down and stuck his weapon around the corner using his HUD targeting system to study the problem from a different angle. He surveyed the street for about thirty seconds then pulled his weapon back.
“I recommend we backtrack to the building with the transmitter dish and make use of that skybridge that spans this access road. That will keep us in cover and give us a vantage point to look down on whatever was hiding in that alley.”
I got up and tapped Tria on the shoulder. She stood up and slowly walked backward with her shotgun up and ready. When I got to Klutch, he kneeled down and leaned around the corner so I could peek over his shoulder. I followed his arm to where he was pointing, and it looked like a good overlook location.
“I have toured that installation, and there is no ground-level access to the building,” protested Sael. “It is the central comms transmitter for this complex. It is only accessible through an underground tunnel at the main entrance of this facility. If you intend to blast your way in, the Prule will have no problem tracking our location.”
It was frustrating to finally make a little progress, only to turn around and go back the way we came. What Sael did not know was that we didn’t need to blast anything to gain access.
“We’re following you, Troop Master. Lead the way!”
Sael just shook her head but kept her mouth shut. We turned around and ran back the way we came until we were at the side of the large communications building. Tria stopped several feet behind us and took a knee, pointing her weapon down the passage behind us. Sael went several more paces up the passage and did the same. Klutch and I were standing together at the wall. He looked at me and pointed to the portal device. I gave him a thumbs up, and he slapped his shotgun to its clip and placed his fingers on the activation buttons. I leaned down and readied my weapon, then gave him a nod. The flash of the device triggering momentarily dimmed my HUD. We got a good portal first try, and I ran through with Klutch right behind me.
The Operative ducked when the device flashed. She spun around with her weapon and was dumbstruck to see me and then Klutch run into a glowing spot on the wall and disappear. Tria waved her over but Sael stopped short with a look of shock on her face. Tria none too gently helped her step through and then did the same.
I stepped out of the portal and went prone just to the right of my entry point. Klutch came through taking note of my position and did the same on the left. We were in a brightly lit room that had four lift tubes against one wall and a ramp going downward on the opposite side. If it were not for the dead decomposing bodies scattered about the floor, the lack of resistance would have made this an appealing entry point. The Operative came stumbling through the portal and froze in place. She was apparently still shocked by our newly acquired tech. She should have kept moving because Tria came through and collided with her, knocking both of them to the floor. Klutch promptly hit the kill switch, and our only means of escape disappeared.
Tria rolled away from the Operative and took a defensive posture. Sael should have done the same but instead pushed herself across the floor until she was at my side. She seemed oblivious to her surroundings and only had a single subject on her mind.
“You could have told me you now have transporter technology!”
Not wanting to go into any details, I was going to blow her off but remembered something she had once said to me. I was sure she wouldn’t miss the nuances of sarcasm interlaced in the retort.
“It is information that we wished to keep secret, so it was disseminated on a need-to-know basis. We decided you didn’t need to know!”
Nothing was moving around us, so I pushed Sael away from my side and called to Klutch and Tria. “Make a quick sweep of the area and check for s
urvivors. Sael, see if you can ID any of the bodies!”
Without comment, Sael got up and started checking corpses. She must not have found any council members because she made her way to the ramp that went down to another level and descended. Tria, Klutch, and I worked our way around the room until we converged on the lifts. We counted forty-one dead bodies. All were Chaalt, and all the corpses showed signs of mutilation. My guess was the Prule needed biological materials. For what, I had no idea. Judging by the decomposition of the bodies, they were all killed roughly a week ago.
Tria was shaking her head and stepped close to Klutch and me.
“They are research scholars and security personnel,” she explained. “The Prule may have taken the precaution of sterilizing the complex. If this turns out to be the case, it does not bode well for the council members.”
This was just another grim reminder that it was the intended goal of the bio machines to do this very same thing to the entire galaxy. I was going to call Sael and tell her to get her ass back here, but she called me first.
