Relic Hunted (Crax War Chronicles #2)

by Terry W. Ervin II

  Just before Nollie reached the shaft, about twenty-five paces ahead of me, the alien thrall stopped and pointed up, toward the outer hull with it large claw. One of its eye stalks swiveled and focused on me.

  Looking up, I didn’t see anything, not even a seam in the smooth reflective metal.

  McAllister stared upward too, squinting and searching. Color patterns on the thrall’s large claw communicated to me: “Obscured varying spectrum observation apparatus.”

  Lt. Burian looked back at our delay.

  I pointed up then signaled using the Galactic Sign Language. “Watching us.” After I’d done it, I realized it wasn’t a bright move. The Primus Crax could understand the GSL. Not every human could, so maybe the enemy on the other end couldn’t either.

  “Pierce with your simple severing tool composed of the Masters’ alloy,” the thrall said through the shifting patterns on its claw’s surface.

  Pulling my bayonet, I jumped and thrust it into the ceiling where the Bahklack had focused a narrow laser light. The grav harness recognized my effort and compensated. The blade only penetrated a half inch. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, I pulled my stun baton, activated and discharged it against the imbedded blade. Twice.

  At the same time Nollie, using a telescopic-handled mirror angled down the shaft, shouted, “Armored bot!”

  Some of the Marine teams had their own armored bots. Not A-Tech, which I imagined drove the urgency in Nollie’s voice, but they had a bot. Not us. We had a Thuckich hive. We were supposed to be part of the second wave, not part of the point of the spear.

  An emerald plasma bolt destroyed Nollie’s mirror, knocking the melted reflective metal from his hand, and sprinkling the Marine with several droplets of superheated matter. He dropped his laser carbine and fell back screaming, gripping the wrist of his damaged hand. I didn’t have to see to know that in an instant, flesh and bone had been painfully consumed.

  Plasma at this scale wasn’t energy efficient. That meant we were up against something top-of-the-line, probably with a strong defensive screen. There wasn’t anything I had that could penetrate that, let alone the certain-to-be armored casing.

  To add to our troubles, Stegmar Mantis sounding came echoing down the corridors, by my estimate, from behind and from down the shaft. It put me on edge, but the CNS modulator held the panic it induced at bay.

  Smith and Xiont were already chucking grenades down the shaft while Umpernilli dragged Nollie back from the edge.

  I slapped the Bahklack on its carapace. “You’ve got the only weapon that can take it.”

  McAllister shouted, “The rails are energy conduits.”

  The thrall pulled the baton from its belt. “Trained human warriors, evade,” it said through its translator. I had trouble hearing it amid the din and confusion, so I flicked on my com-set. Through my earpiece came the thrall’s next translated message: “Abandon energy rails.”

  “Marines, down!” I ordered, flicking my com-set to full broadcast strength and getting against the wall. I didn’t think they’d hear me above the sounding and concussion of grenades, but maybe through my com-set despite the electronic damping. I made sure my Troh-got shield was off. It wouldn’t stop emerald energy bursts and would limit my most effective weapon.

  In front of me, McAllister had taken up position behind O’Vorley on the left. Umpernilli dragged Nollie up to Burian ahead on my right. The lieutenant slapped a med patch on Nollie’s wounded hand.

  The hive dropped to the floor, sheltering Nollie, with the Chicher climbing to position both of his pistols to fire over the top. Brooker stood ready, aiming his laser carbine. That offered the downed Nollie a small measure of cover.

  From behind, Villet and Pallish fired off several 20mm grenades the other direction. I was hoping the Turbo Crank’s area denial weapons would stymie the enemy’s advance on that front. If they had their own plasma-spewing armored bot we were really warp screwed.

  Xiont had retreated some and taken a prone position right between a pair of the rails, carbine ready to open up.

  “Move, Xiont,” I shouted the same time Lt. Burian ordered, “Now, Private Xiont, reposition against the wall opposite Smith!”

  Either he didn’t hear us, or simultaneous commands confused him, or he was too stubborn or focused to respond.

  The bot swung up along the curved railing, wheels clinging like magnets to iron. It was triangular, like a slice of pumpkin pie, where I thought it’d’ve been spherical.

  Even as it came up, over the edge, the Umbelgarri thrall’s energy weapon lanced toward its exposed underside. The silvery beam didn’t reach where one of the roller’s legs disappeared into the bottom of the smooth metallic chassis. Intercepted by a defense screen.

  Everyone else opened up, including me with my shotgun adding to the mix. Blam, ca-chunk, blam! My sound damper wasn’t working.

  Through the flashes and projectile impacts the armored bot came on, unscathed. Its surface was smooth as polished steel, with seemingly random bumps, like tiny, sugar-white ant hills. Those projections, probably sensors, didn’t concern me. What did? The pair of stout, rotating plasma gun barrels. Imbedded in the armored sides of the pie slice. Evil, stout-barreled eyeballs seeking a target for their consuming emerald fire.

  The configuration allowed the barrels a wide range of fire, except to its rear. Worrying about its aft firepower was pointless when it had more than enough forward, facing us. Oddly, one of my thoughts was that it’s the right height and length for a coffin.

  Nothing we sent at it penetrated the energy shielding. McAllister wasn’t firing, but had turned her laser carbine on one of the rails, setting it for narrowed focus continual fire. That’d burn out its components, if it didn’t drain the battery first.

  Xiont hadn’t moved from between the rails. Instead he’d shoved several grenades forward and then tried to shuffle backwards, away from the oncoming armored bot.

  Two emerald plasma bolts raced toward the Umbelgarri thrall. Even though that caused me to flinch, I sent a slug round at the compact war machine.

  Two plasma bolts proved more than the thrall’s defensive screen could handle. Although nearly depleted, remnants of the bolts splattered on the thrall’s primary claw, burning through the chitinous exoskeleton.

  The thrall staggered back, emitting a primal gurgling screech, its primary claw half dissolved and locked a defensive, shielding position. Collapsing to the floor, the thrall again energized its baton followed by a narrow-arc sweep beneath the enemy bot. The silver beam sliced through the rail conduits behind the enemy where they curved down the shaft. Xiont, lying flat and covering his head—and still between the rails—died instantly, laterally bisected a fraction of a second before his trio of grenades detonated.

  The concussive force slammed against the defensive shield, rocking the bot upward an inch or two. Every Marine and O’Vorley poured laser fire into the oncoming machine. McAllister slammed a fresh battery into her carbine and continued the rail cutting. We’d all be dead before she succeeded—if her carbine and battery supply held out.

  The bot stopped, and fired again, prioritizing what it deemed the two most dangerous threats. One plasma bolt took the Umbelgarri thrall in the main body. The other raced toward McAllister. O’Vorley must’ve anticipated this and dove in front of her. The emerald bolt slammed into my friend, turning his chest into smoldering cinders before his body hit the floor.

  Just like that, I’d lost a friend. Blam, ca-chunk, blam! I didn’t need another reason to hate the Crax and Capital Galactic.

  The thrall’s final action was to follow through with its strategy, using its energy beam to sever both rails several feet in front of it. Maybe it succeeded because of follow through, or on instinct, or a twitch resulting in blind luck. At that moment, just witnessing O’Vorley’s death, I wasn’t open to the notion of God’s hand and mercy.

  The armored bot engaged some sort of anti-gravity device and lifted off the section of track isolated by severing,
moving toward the undamaged pair on its right.

  I shouted, “McAllister,” and kicked the Umbelgarri weapon along the floor to her.

  Cussing, she threw aside her spent carbine and snatched up the baton. It looked different from the one I’d seen Diplomat Silvre use years ago. Instead of disks along the bottom, the thrall’s had sections fit for its claw to depress and activate. But McAllister was a dozen times brighter than me. I loaded more shells while moving forward and dropping to a single knee, ready to fire. She had to survive if any of us hoped to live. I flicked on my shield. Maybe it would stop a plasma bolt. Lying to myself, saying it counted as a kinetic weapon, made no sense. I flicked it off.

  The Chicher had pried open one of the hive’s slats, releasing an angry stream of the blue-green hornets. The Marines continued to fire their lasers, the armored bot being too close for 20mm grenades—but maybe not for the Stegmar Mantis warriors climbing out of the shaft, flapping insectoid wings assisting.

  The bot was lowering itself onto the undamaged rails. In a flash, the wooden hive erupted in an emerald burst and Lt. Burian toppled backwards, dead as O’Vorley. The Chicher must’ve seen the blast coming and leapt away, only taking a fraction of the blast and a few wood splinters in his back.

  “Keep your head down, Keesay,” McAllister shouted over the mayhem. Even before she finished, silver energy lanced out, flashing against the armored bot’s shielding before shearing into the rails beneath it.

  My shotgun blast slammed into one of the bot’s sides, the buckshot deflecting off, but taking two of the sensory bumps with them. Laser blasts impacted, scorching the armor. Smith’s shot hit one of the plasma guns, deforming the barrel.

  From behind, Villet and Pallish hurled fragmentation and white phosphorous grenades, sending them beyond the armored bot and among the Stegmars before they fired upon us.

  I fired again, my slug striking the undamaged plasma gun’s ball swivel mount. That caused its shot to miss me high and just to the right. “Torch it, McAllister!” She had to know that last plasma bolt had her name on it.

  “Shut up, Relic!”

  Several more laser blasts and grenades and another buckshot blast from me impacted the bot before McAllister managed to discharge the Umbelgarri weapon into the Primus Crax combat bot. The silver energy pierced the unshielded bot’s armor. She only managed to slice laterally a few inches before the weapon sputtered out.

  It was enough. The bot fell silent.

  Smith ordered, “Umpernilli, Brooker, advance! Mop up the Stegmar.”

  He looked over his shoulder. “Relic, McAllister, make sure that bot’s dead.” He glanced at Nollie with his MP pistol in his uninjured hand. “Contact Arnold. Have him send that little maintenance bot down here to help drag you back, and what’s left of the lieutenant, Xiont, O’Vorley, and the crab. Then remain and help hold the fort for our return.”

  The Chicher Handler scampered unsteadily on all fours up to Smith as I trotted past the sergeant. The alien’s translator emitted only a scattering of static. “Warrior Leader’s Trusted Hand, now Warrior Leader, I before dawn released the Thuckich upon the lizards, only a morning of a full day’s span escaped before their nest’s end. I ask to graft…auxiliary member of your infestation pack.”

  I didn’t hear Smith’s reply as I’d drawn my revolver and fired two rounds through McAllister’s hole and into the bot at slightly different angles. It rocked and bits of smoke that smelled like burnt plastic and seared metal drifted out of the hole. Wisps of smoke rose from a narrow fissure opened along a lateral metallic seam, and where several of the sensory bumps had been.

  “If it was set to self-destruct,” I said over my shoulder to Smith, “whatever might’ve controlled it isn’t working.” Ahead of me Brooker finished off a Stegmar with his MP pistol while Umpernilli cautiously glanced down the shaft, carbine held ready.

  “Him first,” McAllister ordered, staring at Private Nollie while pointing to O’Vorley’s body. A tightness filled my chest and a lump in my throat formed, but I pushed it back. There’d be time later to mourn my friend. The time now was for the mission. Beyond that, whatever measure of revenge in his name I could inflict. Today and every day moving forward.

  The senior engineer had picked up the oblong metallic device that the Bahklack had carried and was detaching what I guessed to be the alien thrall’s shield generator, depleted as it was.

  “Engineer McAllister,” Smith said. “Will you be able to complete our secondary mission without the Bahklack’s assistance?”

  The sergeant knew her answer. Probably asked it to head off an argument. Private Nollie had his burned hand, numbed and hastily wrapped in gauze, held to his ear as he communicated with the breaching pod’s pilot. Glancing back, by the shattered Stegmar Mantis bodies, it appeared that the Turbo Crank’s area denial defenses had stopped the enemy’s advance against our rear.

  “The secondary mission should’ve been the primary, Sergeant Smith.” McAllister stood, O’Vorley’s laser carbine in hand and his MP pistol stuck in her belt. “And affirmative, my knowledge and skills are sufficient to continue that mission.”

  Smith shot her an uneven grin. “We could always just wreak havoc, and draw forces from the other teams.”

  “They should be doing that for us,” she replied, tossing Smith several unused grenades, probably retrieved from O’Vorley’s body.

  “Let’s move out,” Smith said. “Brooker, take point. Umpernilli and I will follow.” He turned and pointed from the Chicher to Engineer McAllister. “You guard her, along with the other Relic. Villet and Corporal, you watch our rear.”

  I quickly knelt, placed my hand on Kent’s forehead. It was still warm. Probably from the plasma bolt’s incinerating heat. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

  McAllister squatted next to me. “Appropriate words.” She stared at my name patch. “Bleys. But I also remember you once quoting: A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. C’mon. You know which of those it’s time for.”

  Chapter 31

  We worked our way down, seeking some sort of computer or communications hub where McAllister could connect with the ship’s system, even if it meant descending into the bowels of the Crax frigate. We weren’t the only ones with the mission and I wondered if McAllister would be stepping on the other hackers’ feet, or vice versa. That was if any of them survived and found a connection. Or if we survived. Some Colonial Marine teams were still alive and fighting, as evidenced by Smith’s brief communications with Pilot Arnold.

  The anti-grav harnesses were effective in allowing us to descend into the dark shaft. Maintaining frequent contact with the wall kept me steady. The point Marines ‘walked’ along the wall, but that would’ve been too distracting for me, like constantly falling forward or being suspended, despite the harness’s effect.

  Shortly after beginning our descent, the Marines activated their helmet LED beams. I could’ve too, but got better satisfaction from McAllister watching me tape my pen flashlight to my shotgun’s perforated jacket. I didn’t turn my light on, preferring to use illumination provided by everyone else. The flashlight would be a beacon pointing right to me as a target, as their LED beams did to their heads. The enemy had sensors and hidden cameras, but the Stegmar Mantis soldiers probably didn’t, or weren’t tied in. So me and the Chicher, the only other Relic, travelled in our small puddles of darkness.

  It didn’t matter much as about forty yards down we came to a cross section. The one to the left had a lit cross section about thirty yards away. The other was completely dark. Nobody pointed out any doors or hatches. Being A-Tech, maybe the Primus Crax doors were seamless.

  Smith moved ahead, then glanced back at McAllister. She tipped her head, signaling toward the lit tunnel.

  When we reached the lit corridor Private Brooker took a peek with his own mirror. This one was probably swiped from a dental technician’s equipment. Brooker signaled,
then whispered into his collar mic, “One downed Primus Crax and six Stegmars attending. Looks like the Chicher’s wasps got him.”

  It was a very low-power direct line of sight transmission. Everyone got the message via their implants, and me through my com-set’s headset. The Chicher did too, through the earpiece wired to his translator. He stood up straight, showing his teeth and bobbing his head. Smith went forward to take a look.

  Anger still brewing, I stepped up to Smith, tearing the penlight from my shotgun’s barrel and fixing the bayonet. “I got this,” I said, and moved past him, not waiting for any reply.

  My appearance caught the Stegmars off guard. They were crowded around a Primus Crax lying on the floor. It looked like a four-foot long, veiled chameleon turned a sickly mottled gray. Maybe it was one of their normally black warrior caste. Dressed in a harness like the Chichers wore but with more bands and what looked like ceramic-coated electronic gear attached, the reptilian alien’s tail twitched while its clawed feet flexed, grasping at the air.

  What looked the most dangerous was the Primus’s headgear. It consisted of straps holding glass and ceramic-coated goggles that flexed with its independently movable eyes. Two cords ran from the goggles and their straw-shaped fixtures to what I figured was a power pack affixed across its shoulders.

  One Stegmar stood, clicking and chittering into a box—what I knew was a radio communication device. Luckily the one assigned to sentry was looking the other way.

  Blam! I took out the communicating mantis warrior with a lead slug. Charging forward, I shot from the hip, sending a round of buckshot into the group. One went down and two others staggered back, wounded. As expected, the Primus Crax had an active shield protecting it from the mixture of lead and steel shot. I flicked on my shield. As expected, my Troh-got shield intercepted the sentry Stegmar’s spray of needles fired from its compact machine gun. Two laser blasts shot past me. One took out the sentry. The other struck one of the wounded alien’s lower legs, causing it to topple to the floor.