by Mel Odom
“Goldberg,” Kiwanuka said, “head to the prow. We’re taking the bridge.”
The crew’s quarters were in that direction, back behind the ship’s drive engines. Kiwanuka expected Morlortai and his crew to hold up back there to allow transport bots to handle the cargo transfer. Humans didn’t have to do the grunt work.
“Copy that,” Goldberg said.
“Cipriano, your team is responsible for the engine rooms.”
“We got this, Staff Sergeant.”
“Remember: nobody dies, them or us, if we can help it, because we need the truth from them. But if you have to choose, they die. When you’re inside, stay on suit atmosphere in case these people get clever with their air supplies.”
Kiwanuka had heard stories of pirate freighter crews who stayed on suit atmosphere and flooded their decks with carbon monoxide or something equally as lethal to keep intruders at bay.
A half dozen dulled thunks echoed through the cargo hold as the ship bellied up to the larger vessel and locked on magnetically. Minutes passed as the two systems linked up and shook hands to acknowledge each other.
Kiwanuka wasn’t happy with the point of egress, but aside from blowing a hole in the Kequaem’s Needle, being allowed onto the ship through a subterfuge was the only way inside.
She just hoped it worked.
“We’re being hailed,” the cargo captain said.
“Answer back and stall them as long as you can,” Kiwanuka ordered.
“Roger that. Whoever I’m talking to says they’re not prepared to transfer goods for at least another twenty-two minutes.”
Kiwanuka hoped the boarding effort was over by then. And she hoped that her troops were all still alive. “Copy that.” She cut back to the op comm. “Veug, we’re waiting on you.”
“Roger that, Staff Sergeant. Working on it. I’m waiting for their boarding protocols to engage.” The electronics intelligence specialist sounded calm and steady. “As soon as they reach out to shake hands, I’ll own them.”
Kiwanuka stared at Veug, who was the eighth soldier in line. His Roley hung from his shoulder while his gloved fingers twitched, operating the virtual keyboard open to him in his HUD.
“Get ready,” Veug said. “I’m knocking through their sec firewalls . . . now.”
The oval hatch that had extended the docking tube to the Kequaem’s Needle irised open. Only a small puff of air sucked out into the vacuum of the sectional transplas docking tube. The tube was three meters in diameter and fourteen meters in length. The transplas was cloudy, but the thick material was clear enough that Kiwanuka could see the open space on the other side of it.
Kequaem’s Needle rolled over slowly as it orbited the green and blue planet far below. With all the verdant jungle covering it, Makaum looked more emerald from space than sapphire. Several space stations, including DawnStar’s huge, multilayered construction, orbited the world, endlessly tumbling to provide artificial gravity.
Goldberg sprinted across the tube with Kiwanuka at her heels. Kiwanuka held the Roley across her chest with one hand while she carried an electronic pry bar in her other hand. When she reached Kequaem’s Needle’s hatch, she slapped the pry bar into place against the vertical hatch track. She pressed the activation button and the pry bar’s telescopic arms extended and locked against the hatch frame. It was strong enough to prevent the hatch closing if anyone inside tried to block their entry.
Without hesitation, Goldberg pointed her weapon at the two sec cams in the storage hold and fired quick three-round bursts. The ceramic bullets shattered on impact and took out the transplas-covered cams too.
Kiwanuka tapped the back of Goldberg’s helmet even though the soldier could see her in the 360-view provided by the HUD. The tactile presence was how they were all trained. The tech was handy, helpful in most cases, but PsyOps said nothing beat physical presence that told a soldier another soldier was nearby.
Goldberg reached the compartment hatch, hit the access panel, and cursed. The panel light flared ruby. “Locked.”
Veug let his rifle hang from its strap and tapped his virtual keyboard. “I got it, I got it!”
Time crawled and Kiwanuka felt like someone was running liquid sandpaper through her veins. She wanted to scream in frustration. They didn’t know for certain how many crew Kequaem’s Needle carried. The ship’s manifests claimed ten, but that number couldn’t be verified.
The ruby light winked out and turned green. The hatch jerked to the side and disappeared into the wall.
Goldberg ran into the hallway and Kiwanuka followed. Behind her, Noojin slammed her pry bar against that hatch as well, in case whatever Veug had done didn’t hold. Kiwanuka didn’t want the team separated, and she wanted a clear retreat.
Most of the team poured into the hallway in seconds.
Kiwanuka tapped Goldberg on the helmet again and her team went forward, moving rapidly down the hallway now.
An instant later, the cargo ship they’d come up on got hit with an explosive packet. With no atmosphere, there was no sound, but the impact shuddered through Kequaem’s Needle. Light flooded the hallway behind Kiwanuka.
Still moving, she accessed Private Niemczyk’s HUD view. He was walking slack, covering their flank, and was still in the cargo compartment. Through his HUD, Kiwanuka watched as their ship exploded and went to pieces. With so little atmosphere loose in the vessel, flames only flickered for a moment before they exhausted all the freed oxygen.
The transplas transfer tube shattered.
Miraculously, the pilot and copilot managed to eject from Igguldeo in full armor. They headed toward the ship, thrown by the blast.
There was no way off Kequaem’s Needle. They had to take the ship or die.
“Niemczyk,” Kiwanuka called over the comm. “Tether them if you can.”
“Copy that.” Niemczyk raced toward the hatch and raised an arm to fire the suit’s built-in grappling hook toward one of the pilots. The pilot grabbed the line as it went by, then fired one of her own toward her companion.
When both pilots were safely tethered, Kiwanuka turned her full attention back to the assault on the ship.
Morlortai and his crew knew they were coming.
THIRTY-SIX
Ackurna Levee
Southwest of Makaum City
0512 Hours Zulu Time
Sage swept the Roley around the empty cargo compartment and tracked the confines through infrared vision. Small lizards no longer than his fingers scattered across the compartment walls and skittered across the surfaces all around him. No one else was in the room.
Sage strode toward the compartment hatch and hit the release control. “Clear.”
With heavy clanks, the hatch’s locks cycled and disengaged. Sage gripped the oblong plate and pulled it open. He swept the Roley across the next compartment and discovered it was empty as well.
The three soldiers in his squad followed him.
As soon as he released the locks on the next compartment hatch, orange-tinted crystal fléchettes sliced through the air and cut into his armor.
Caution! the near-AI advised. Sustained bursts of crystal ammo can cut through your armor.
Sage had already recognized the danger from past experience with the crystal projectiles. They were manufactured from native reefs on Phrenoria, although the reefs were also grown in large hydroponic tanks everywhere the Sting-Tails served. They were used on Phrenorian starships and naval vessels to prevent damage to those craft.
The staccato pings of the fléchettes shattering against the walls, the compartment hatch, and Sage’s armor filled the room.
Sage fell into profile against the compartment hatch, taking as much shelter as he could, and returned fire. Instead of unleashing a stream of ceramic rounds, Sage fired an incendiary gel-grenade into the chest of the lead Phrenorian warrior of the two in the compartment.
With a quiet whump, the gel-grenade ignited and a mass of flames wreathed the Phrenorian and quickly spread to the second war
rior as well. Shifting a little, Sage fired again and put a gel-grenade onto the second warrior.
Their armor and thick chitin might have prevented the warriors’ skins from burning, but those things didn’t keep the flames from invading breathing membranes and sinus pockets. The Phrenorians cooked with hisses and popping cracks.
Frantic with fear and pain and determined to kill their attackers, the Phrenorians were torn between trying to return fire and putting out the flames with their secondary hands. The smaller hands picked up spatters of the gel combustible and caught fire as well.
“Keep the armor buttoned up tight,” Sage ordered as he rounded the heavy compartment hatch. As he pushed the first Phrenorian back into the second and knocked both of them down, he reloaded the Roley’s grenade supply. “Pingasa.”
“Here, Master Sergeant,” Pingasa replied.
Sage drew a long combat knife from his hip and thrust it into one of the eyes atop the downed Phrenorian’s cephalothorax to hasten the warrior’s death and release him from his pain. There was no way he would survive his injuries. “The crew of this ship knows we’re on board.”
Smoke from the burned bodies and armor roiled through the compartment.
“Roger that. I don’t know that I can block the ship-to-ship comms like I have the sat relay.”
Sage yanked his knife free just as Corrigan delivered a mercy killing of her own to the second warrior. He kept moving forward, stepping over the twitching body. “Understood. Make sure Jahup knows.”
The next compartment hatch opened before he reached it. A Phrenorian warrior took shelter beside the hatch frame and opened fire. Orange fléchettes screamed from the weapon’s muzzle and shattered against Sage’s faceshield. The AKTIVsuit flaked away in fingernail-sized chips and left pits in their wake. The hammering impacts rocked Sage back for a moment.
Caution!
Sage ignored the suit’s warning and returned fire. The incendiary gel-grenade slammed into the hatch frame and splashed over the Phrenorian warrior. In seconds, flames licked over the warrior’s upper body as well as the composite bulkhead. The composite would burn free of the chems and the flames would extinguish. The Phrenorian warrior wasn’t as fortunate. The warrior tried to hold his position, but the agony of his burning flesh broke his concentration and he stepped away.
Moving more quickly now, knowing he had to shut down the crew before they had a chance to lock up the boat or perhaps trigger a self-destruct sequence, Sage drew even with the warrior and drove him backward with a shoulder. Even as he fell, the warrior swiped at Sage with his tail. The barbed end streaked toward Sage’s faceshield and he knew it probably had enough velocity and strength to penetrate the armor.
Reacting instinctively, Sage grabbed the tail in his fist and directed it to his helmet’s side. Even with the suit’s added muscle, Sage couldn’t stop the warrior’s attack, but he was able to avoid it. The barbed end slammed into the bulkhead behind him. He wrapped his hand around the tail to shorten it up, and then yanked. The Phrenorian struggled to stand his ground despite his wounds.
Sage kicked the Phrenorian’s forward leg and broke the chitin plating. With the exterior fractured and the musculature beneath torn free, the limb gave way and bent backward. The Phrenorian fell sideways and Sage shoved the Roley point-blank into his opponent’s face and squeezed the trigger. A burst of ceramic rounds shredded the warrior’s cephalothorax.
He dropped the tail and kept moving farther along the hallway.
Murad’s HUD showed Sage an image of the caravan’s people fleeing the immediate vicinity as two Phrenorian warriors reached the conning tower. The lieutenant and his snipers chopped the Phrenorians down with depleted uranium rounds as a deck gun popped up. A third Phrenorian manned the deck gun only briefly. A salvo of 40mm rounds turned a copse of trees along the riverbank into kindling before one of the snipers took the Phrenorian down.
“Jahup and his group have made contact with the enemy,” Pingasa stated calmly.
Sage flicked to an overview of Jahup’s fireteam just as one of the soldier’s biometrics blanked out.
For a moment, Sage pulled up Jahup’s HUD feed, glimpsed the frantic battle going on there, and swore softly. Then his attention was forced back to his own situation as a Phrenorian stepped from behind a wall of equipment and attacked him with one of the crystalline swords they favored as personal weapons.
Unable to avoid the attack or deflect it, Sage braced himself and brought the Roley around. The sword slammed into his faceshield and knocked him back. Momentarily stunned as the tempered faceshield suddenly starred, Sage tried to center his rifle on his attacker. Before he could, the Phrenorian knocked the Roley away.
Partially blinded by the cracked faceshield, which was also spotty with confusing colors and effects because the HUD display was shorting out, Sage got an arm up in time to block the warrior’s efforts to skewer him with the sword.
Warning! the near-AI said calmly. Faceshield is damaged. Vision is compromised. Take evasive—
Unable to bring his rifle up, Sage used it instead to block the Phrenorian warrior’s follow-up swing. The crystal sword battered the Roley but didn’t shatter. Instead, the keen-edged blade bit into the rifle’s composite barrel.
Warning! the near-AI stated. Rifle compromised. Grenade launcher still viable.
Powering forward while keeping the sword trapped, Sage drove the Phrenorian into the bulkhead behind him. The impact staggered the Sting-Tail for a moment, then he lashed out with his tail, driving it at Sage’s face. At the last instant, Sage rolled his head to the side and the barbed end of the Phrenorian’s tail embedded in his helmet.
Sharp pain bit into the left side of Sage’s head behind his ear. The burning rush of venom followed. He felt woozy at once as the neurotoxins spread from the wound.
“Inject Phrenorian anti-venom now,” Sage growled.
The command was automatic and he knew the near-AI was probably already aware of the wound, but he didn’t want to take chances. Phrenorian venom acted notoriously fast.
Anti-venom—
Inside the helmet, the side of Sage’s face immediately swelled. A sudden headache beat at his temples. His vision turned even more blurry and his eyes watered. He rammed the rifle under the Phrenorian’s head. The warrior’s chelicerae fastened on to Sage’s forearm and tried to tear through the armor covering his hand and forearm. Leaning his left shoulder into his opponent and shooting boot spikes into the deck flooring, Sage held his ground.
—cycling now, Master Sergeant Sage. Monitoring biometrics. If your system starts crashing—
Sage fisted the .500 Magnum and hauled it up. Weakness traveled through his body and the big pistol suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred kilos. He shoved the barrel into the center of the chelicerae, which tried to wrap around the weapon, and pulled the trigger three times in quick succession. The ceramic hollowpoints tore through his opponent’s flesh and spewed gore onto the bulkhead behind him.
The hollow booms of the shots rolled through the control room.
—you will be taken off-line and held in stasis till proper medical care arrives.
“Negative,” Sage told the near-AI. “You will take me off-line only if I pass out.”
Your heart rate is elevated. The venom is entering your system more quickly.
“So is the anti-venom.” Sage knew it was stupid to argue with the suit, but with the narcotic effect of the Phrenorian venom in his system, he also knew he wasn’t in full control of his thoughts.
But he was in control of his body. Training took over when a soldier was wounded or didn’t have time to think.
Supporting the dead Phrenorian, Sage wheeled to face the remaining warrior in the command center. The Phrenorian had been trying to get through on the comms. Now he picked up a rifle and took aim. A burst of orange-tinted fléchettes smashed through the dead Phrenorian’s body and embedded in Sage’s chest armor.
He fired the revolver by instinct and blasted thr
ough the final two rounds. Both struck the Phrenorian warrior and staggered him. One impacted against armor and did nothing, but the second ripped the warrior’s right primary to pieces and the rifle fell.
The Phrenorian ignored the wound and reached for his Kimer pistols with his secondaries.
The cool flush of the anti-venom spread through Sage’s head as he dropped the corpse he’d held on to. The embedded end of the Phrenorian’s tail refused to let go and he jerked forward as the dead warrior fell.
Off balance and head spinning, Sage dropped to his knees before he could stop himself. He yanked at the Phrenorian’s tail with his free hand and still couldn’t free the appendage. At the same time, he holstered the .500 Magnum and pulled the Birkeland coilgun from his shoulder holster. Before he could aim, Corrigan stepped into the command center and fired a gel-grenade at the Phrenorian.
The warrior slapped at the flames for only a moment before succumbing and dropping to the deck.
Using his combat blade, Sage cut through the Phrenorian’s tail to free himself. He tried to stand, slipped in the gore left by the Phrenorian he’d killed, and growled, “Put that fire out.”
Smoke quickly obscured the room and further eroded Sage’s flickering vision. He stood, mostly leaning against the wall, and tried not to be sick.
In order to rid your system of the venom/anti-venom, the near-AI said, you will have to purge.
Sage knew that. He’d been envenomed a few years back. The experience was one of those he never cared to relive. He barely got his faceshield up before the first torrent of bile came up so hard and so fast he thought he was going to pass out.
Corrigan paused in sweeping the fire with the mini-tank of fire-suppressant foam she carried in her kit. “Master Sergeant?”
Sage raked his armored forearm across his mouth. “I’m all right. Make sure that fire’s out.” He fumbled at his combat harness and found his own foam. When Corrigan’s tank ran dry, Sage passed his over to her.
Then he threw up again and wondered if the suit had managed to deliver enough anti-venom to counteract the poison he’d gotten injected with. He forced himself to think more clearly.
