by Marc Stevens
“Contact! I have at least one Prule Hunter and three more unidentified targets moving in the tunnel that leads to the entrance to the complex.”
I pointed at Klutch and then the ramp. He nodded, then ran to the top of the landing, exchanging his shotgun for the plasma projector. I pulled a grenade from my leg storage and tossed it in the bottom of the down tube. Tria did the same to the other one. If something came down from above, we would have fair warning. We ran to where Klutch waited and quietly navigated the crisscross ramp till we reached the bottom. It was dark enough in the tunnel that my low-light sensors kicked on and I could see Sael laying prone near a low wall. She had her weapon pointing down the tunnel peering over the long barrel.
“They have not reacted to our presence and appear to be guarding the entrance to the tunnel.”
We crouched low and kneeled behind the wall. I carefully eased the barrel of my shotgun around the corner. Using my HUD targeting system, I increased the magnification to maximum. I frowned because I could easily identify the Hunter, but the other targets were a mystery to me. They looked like the cobbled-together junk one might see at a steampunk convention. They did, however, have what looked like two Chaalt assault weapons mounted on short struts protruding from their sides.
“Sael, are those Chaalt weapons?”
“Yes.”
“You told me the IFF on your weapons are tied to the DNA of your people and the military chips are implanted in the owners. I don’t think the Prule would waste time mounting them unless they were operable.”
“That is correct, but I fear the Prule have worked around those precautions,” Sael said. “The mutilations on the bodies we discovered are consistent with the forceful removal of the hosts’ military ID chips. The Prule were either adept at the procedure or Gredda’s assault team medic showed them how!”
The disgust in Sael’s voice indicated the hard-on she had for Gredda Porsha was now a permanent fixture. The traitor was going to die a horrendous death if Sael had anything to do with it.
“Can you still detonate the weapons?”
“Unknown. I have the capability, but the transmitter in my armor has a limited range. There is a security check point about halfway to the targets. We already know our cloaking capabilities will not conceal us from the Prule’s sensors, so unless you want to bypass them altogether, we will be forced to do it the old-fashioned way and attempt to sneak up on them.”
This was turning out to be a waste of time. I very much doubted we could sneak more than three hundred yards through the tunnel without being discovered. A shootout would only reveal our location to hostile forces. Justice had already foreseen the need to destroy the facility to prevent any possibility of spreading the machine infection. The traitors in the Chaalt government were planning to do it as well. I guess it was up to me to get that party started.
“Fall back to the lifts on the upper level, I will join you momentarily.”
I could tell Klutch didn’t like the idea and was going to protest. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder.
“All of you, now! That’s an order!”
They grudgingly moved toward the ramp, but not before Sael saw the look of distress on Tria’s face. She looked back at me with a frown. Klutch gave her a shove, and she turned her venomous looks on him. They started up the ramp, but Sael couldn’t keep her piehole pinned.
“Nathan! What are you going to do?”
I decided I didn’t want to have this discussion right now and didn’t need to explain myself to her. The less she knew of my intentions, the better. According to Tria, my next course of action was at the very top of the Chaalt no-no list. I used my implants to call up my weapons menu. I selected weaponized nanites, and the high-pressure nozzle on my wrist extended from its port. If we got this joint to jumping and Sael’s intel was correct, all latecomers to the party would have to pass through this tunnel or the skybridge that was our current waypoint. I gave the tunnel a twenty-second stream of the highly concentrated nanite gel. My team was waiting for me in a defensive perimeter at the top of the ramp. I pointed to the lifts.
“Lead the way, Troop Master!”
Of course, Sael could not stand it and had to run her mouth. After all the time we had spent together, you would think she could tell when I was not in a talkative mood.
“Nathan, what have you done?”
“Sael, shut up and move out!”
It took more than a few seconds for her look of rage to downgrade itself to anger. In that time, her weapon swung around almost one hundred and eighty degrees. If it were not for Tria swatting it aside, the arc of the barrel may have ended with the business end pointing at me. The old Kala Mor Dee was still in there somewhere. I guess my natural human charm had a way of bringing out the best in Sael. She gritted her teeth, turned around, and stalked over to the lift tubes. Justice was going to have to explain in detail exactly why he wanted the Operative on board for this mission. So far, she has been nothing but a pain in my ass.
“Klutch, you and Sael take the left tube, and Tria and I will take the right. If we get separated, make your way to the skybridge, and we will meet you there. If scat hits the ventilator, sing out and we will try to flank any opposition.”
Klutch gave me a thumbs up. Sael gave me the stink eye. The Troop Master must have liked Sael’s stare as much as I did. He grabbed the back of her armor and pulled her into the tube. Tria and I jumped into the other side and were whisked upward. We stepped out of the lift into the control center of the comms array. We were not alone. There were more than a dozen of the bizarre junk collections standing around. Now that I was close enough to clearly see them, I winced in repulsion. The frameworks of junk supported a grotesque glob of mutilated flesh inside of them. They seemed just as surprised to see us as we were surprised to see them. They all started scurrying around on an assortment of different protrusions that passed for legs. Several were armed and opened fire. Tria went left and I went right but not before catching a glancing blast on my right leg that spun me to the floor. I rolled over and yanked a grenade out of my storage pouch. The beast was taking control. I wasn’t sure where Tria ended up but could hear her giving them hell with her shotgun. Against the Oolaran soldier’s better wishes, I yelled out a warning.
“Grenade out!”
I tossed the gift from the Chaalt people into the air, and it came to a hover near the large structural support beams above us. It immediately started passing out souvenirs that left no doubt this place was going to need some serious repairs. It was not one of my better choices because pieces of shrapnel were wrecking equipment and hostiles alike. More than a few stray ricochets pinged off my armor. The rapping impacts brought with them the haunting cackle of the crazed killer lurking inside of me. One of the mechanized surrogates came around the side of a console as I was raising my shotgun. Everything was moving in slow motion. The beast must have been on the trigger because I don’t recall pulling it. The machine was on the receiving end of a penetrator slug at point-blank range. The abomination, sans gut sack, hobbled on its protrusions a few more paces before collapsing on the floor next to me. The Prule must have been throwing these things together willy-nilly. They didn’t have shields to protect them, so they were vulnerable to all our weapons. The room was suddenly still, and Tria called to me. Her voice pushed the demon aside and cleared my thoughts.
“Nathan, are you hurt?”
“No, how about you?”
“I am well, but I don’t think we got them all. I’ll go high, you go low!”
I was going to acknowledge Tria’s plan of action, but the words caught in my throat when a pulsating circle appeared on the overhead. The Troop Master fell through, croaking out his favorite Tibor oath on his way to the floor. He was quickly followed by the Operative, who came through with both her swords drawn and pistols out. She chose to slow the fall with her gravity boosters, making her a prime target. One of the machines hit her in the side with a volley from close range before she could open
fire. She was blasted into a wall and disappeared to the floor somewhere behind the free-for-all Klutch started. Tria and I charged around the control consoles as Klutch unloaded a magazine of explosive buckshot. Parts of the machines flew in all directions. Several rebounded from the fronts of Tria’s armor.
“Check your fire!” she warned.
Klutch dropped his shotgun and dove on a machine with his climbing hooks extended. Sparks flew along with various parts of his victim. The hostile that shot Sael was trying to turn its weapons on Klutch. I savagely kicked it into a console and jammed my needle gun against its torso. A one-second burst of hypersonic shards turned the biomass inside of the machine into a crimson cloud of gore. I was not aware that Sael had regained her footing and was attempting to join the melee. She popped up from cover with her pistols ready, only to catch a portion of the mess along with a few deflected needles right in the faceplate. She reeled over backward out of sight. Tria finally put an end to the chaos with well-placed slugs from her shotgun. I stepped around the wrecked consoles and found Sael. She was wiping the mess from her faceplate, apparently okay. I reached down to help her up, but she swatted my hand away.
“The equipment in this room was our only means of communicating outside the shield dome. Your careless misuse of the weapons I so foolishly supplied you was unwarranted,” she reprimanded. “The murderous demon inside of you has stripped us of that option!”
The reality of her statement sucked. I would have liked to get a heads-up from Justice. The dome was blocking our outbound comms, and I had no way of knowing whether he had returned from his mission. Sael stood up glaring at me. If anything, I shortened the battle. Sael was delusional if she thought this place would still be operable after all the indiscriminate fire from the hostiles. It would be a waste of time giving her a fact check. I turned my back on her and waded through the wreckage to Tria and Klutch. My teammates were reloading their weapons and looked at me questioningly.
I shrugged and commed them on a discrete channel. “Sael is learning the hard way, but she is learning. It remains to be seen whether or not she will continue to resist or finally adapt to her position in our chain of command.”
The Troop Master croaked out a laugh. “Her decision to join us has left her no choice. She will adapt or die trying!”
Tria stepped close and brushed pieces of gore from my armor.
“Sael did not receive the title of Kala Mor Dee because she is inept or stupid,” Tria said. “She will overcome the clumsiness of working with a new combat team. Her only remaining obstacle is her inability to accept your position as commander. She was trained from a very early age to be a leader among the warriors of my race. To accept an alien male from a primitive race as her leader is something that goes against everything she knows or believes.”
I smiled because I knew Tria was right, but I was going to have to say it anyway. “You and Klutch did not have any issues elevating me to the position of commander. Both of you were more qualified, yet you chose to saddle me with that responsibility. I still question your decision on a daily basis.”
“It is because we understand what Justice sees in you,” Tria said. “We embrace what Sael refuses to accept. You are just the beginning. At some point in our future, the human race will arise and become the cure for what has sickened this galaxy.”
I quickly hid my skepticism with the monstrous image of my war face. If they knew just how screwed up the power-hungry leaders on my world really were, they would probably vote to take us off protected planet status.
I slapped a fresh magazine of penetrator slugs into my shotgun and pointed to a corridor I hoped would take us to the skybridge. Klutch masked his features then moved out with his shotgun up and ready. I glanced over my shoulder to confirm Sael was covering our backs. Klutch gave us the all clear from the corridor, and we moved in that direction. We made it about a dozen paces before we felt the twin thumps of the grenades we had left in the lower level. Something must have passed very near the down tubes and triggered our booby traps. A warbling screech identified the recipient.
Klutch came barreling by us. “Commander, we should take cover and give that Throgg a warm welcome!”
There was no arguing with that logic. We ran back out into the control room and took up firing positions. The Oolaran soldier inside of me was fairly quiet in our last engagement, but now it was egging me on to make use of the most lethal tool in my arsenal. I lifted my arm and made ready with my beam weapon. When Sael realized what I was doing, she dropped behind the consoles and moved to the back of the control room. Tria eased up beside me and commed me on a private channel.
“You are in command, Nathan! Lead, and the beast will follow!”
I shook my head to clear my thoughts but did not lower my arm. What happened next brought a grim smile to my face and a look of horror to the Operatives.
Two large spiked appendages dug into the edge of the floor, and the Hunter pulled itself out of the tube. Its shield was flickering as it staggered forward. It looked like the lower portion of the metallic monster’s capsule-shaped body was rotting away. It had made it this far on only two legs; the other four were missing. The shield failed, and one of the machine’s remaining legs buckled under its weight. It collapsed, thrashing wildly with its last appendage. It suddenly broke away, flying across the room and crashing into the wall just above Sael’s head. She didn’t even flinch. She instead ran to the Prule Hunter and stared down at it.
“Nathan, you fool!” she cried, turning to me with a wild-eyed look. “All the crimes we have committed up till now were forgivable. Releasing weaponized nanites within my people’s exclusion zone is not! There is no amnesty for such a crime! Now, no matter the outcome of this mission, we will be judged guilty of breaking one of my peoples most prohibitive laws!”
“If you want to wait around and tell them, go ahead. We are going to continue the mission whether you are with us or not.”
“I will not have to tell them anything. Chaalt scientists will discover the evidence!”
“Oh really? Take another look at the evidence.”
Sael turned back around and watched the last of the Prule melt away before her eyes. The floor where the machine dissolved bubbled and steamed until the corrosive completed its task. She opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off.
“Tria and Justice have discussed this scenario at length. All our contingencies are based on the use of our entire arsenal. It would be the height of stupidity to purposely hobble ourselves by not using every weapon available to us. We came here to win! There is no other plan of action! This is the last time I will explain myself to you. If you are not ready to follow orders and continue this mission, you can stay here because we will have no use for you.”
Turning to Klutch, I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “Troop Master, we are done wasting time. Get us moving!”
Klutch took off with Tria and me right behind him. I did not bother to look back and see if the Operative would follow. I was beyond caring what she thought and wanted to get on with the reason we had come here.
11
We turned a corner and found ourselves at the skybridge entrance. Klutch was short enough he only had to lean over slightly to avoid being seen through the observation windows that lined the walkway. He went across first, momentarily stopping to take a quick peek down into the alley. He commed us the all clear. Tria and I bent low and crossed. Looking back, I saw the Operative was still with us. She hazarded a quick peek out of the windows, then bent and ran to our position.
“I saw an open doorway two buildings down on the left side of the alley,” Klutch said. “When we exit the skybridge ramp, cross the alley quickly and take up defensive positions against the far wall. Cover me while I investigate the doorway. If all is clear, we will move on to shield control.”
He made eye contact with the Operative to make sure she understood. She nodded, and he ran out into the alley to the opposite wall. He took a knee with his plasm
a weapon pointed up the alley at the open doorway. Tria had her shotgun poked around the edge of the skybridge entrance covering his rear. We waited for what seemed like an eternity, and then Klutch waved us over. Tria and I crossed and went prone against the wall with our weapons pointing in both directions. Sael waited until we were set then came running across. She crouched just down the wall from us and waved us toward Klutch. I slapped Tria on her munitions pack, and we took off to Klutch’s position. He nodded to me and went low through the doorway. It was taking forever, and I was getting ready to call him. He came over our group comms with a surprising statement.
“Commander, I have a live civilian, and he thinks I am here to kill him!”
“Tria, Sael, find out what his story is!”
I waited until both the Chaalt warriors were inside and then followed. I could hear someone pleading for their life in the Chaalt dialect. I motioned to Klutch to give Tria and Sael some breathing room because he still had his war face on his face shield. I wanted to close the open doorway but had no luck with the controller.
