Victory on Terra

by Terry Mixon

  It was probably intended to keep anyone from getting down into the lowest of maintenance levels, and it looked extremely sturdy. Without a key to open it, their options fell to brute force and ignorance, as Talbot was fond of saying.

  Unfortunately for them, while Julia was fully augmented, her hands and feet were still made out of flesh. Beating on metal wasn’t going to do her any good. She needed a tool with leverage to bring force to bear on the problem, but the door was smooth and looked like it would be hard to get through.

  She shook her head. “If I had a knife, I might be able to make this work, but I’m not able to get enough leverage to pry it open. We’re going to have to find another way.”

  “Before we go back down, let’s spread out and see if there any air bottles on this level,” Jared said. “Since the life-support system wasn’t activated here, it’s more likely that we’ll find something.”

  Sadly for his optimism, the safety compartments on this level had been stripped as well. They were going to be trapped unless they found another way up or took a chance in the lift shaft.

  The latter was a risk that he wasn’t willing to take. The former was problematic because they hadn’t seen any other stairwells servicing this section of the underground.

  “I think our best bet is to find some kind of tool that will let me force my way through the door,” Julia said. “It’s also possible that we can find the air bottles that they scavenged.”

  “Without food or water, we’re not going to be able to hold out for more than a few days, but they’ll have noticed that we’re missing by then,” he said confidently. “They’ll send Carl and the others to find us, and when they find that the lift isn’t operational, he’ll know what to do.”

  Jebediah scowled. “I don’t like relying on others for my safety. Unfortunately, I don’t see that we have much choice.

  “I think you’re correct that we can productively search through some of the boxes and other storage areas to find items that have been packed away. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and find something to point us to where these people came from.”

  As the group started back down the stairs, Jared sent up a prayer that Carl and Mordechai would quickly realize that they were missing and send help. Unfortunately, with the fight going on above, it was all too likely that other events would be holding their attention.

  For the time being, they were on their own.

  Lost in his own thoughts, he almost missed the flash of something shiny on the stairs as they went back down. It was wedged into the corner of the stairs, and he’d only spotted it because he’d been worried about placing his feet incorrectly and had been looking down.

  He picked it up and found himself holding a metal pin with an enameled image on one side. The image made both of his eyebrows rise. He’d seen it before. It was the emblem of the Marine Raiders.

  While Carl was waiting for Julia, Admiral Mertz, and Jebediah to return from their trip down, he busied himself by securing more air bottles. That meant that he, Austin, and Ralph had to venture fairly far afield because they were becoming hard to find close to the air handler room.

  Not being as rushed this time, he only selected the ones that read full. That allowed him to carry a fair number back for their use without being overburdened.

  Even though the process was easy, it wasn’t quick. By the time they’d returned with all the air bottles they could scavenge and had finished sorting them out, almost ninety minutes had passed.

  Carl knew that Mordechai and the rest would be focused on the fighting, so he wasn’t surprised to discover that there was only one guard in the air handler room. What did surprise him was that those that had gone below hadn’t returned.

  That was concerning. There was no reason they couldn’t have made the trip down and gotten back by now.

  “Something might have gone wrong,” he told the others. “We need to go below and find them. Gather up your gear and split up the air bottles.”

  “Shouldn’t we get extra help?” Austin asked uncertainly.

  Carl shook his head. “These people are in a fight for survival, and they need every hand they can get. Search and rescue is going to be up to us. Come on.”

  Since they’d made the journey down once before, it didn’t take them very long to get to the room where the fusion plant had once been located. Once there, they quickly made their way to the maintenance lift. When Carl pressed the button to summon the car, it lit but went dark as soon as he released the pressure. He tried again with the same result.

  That wasn’t good.

  “They’ve either got the doors wedged open below, or it’s broken,” Austin said. “From up here, we can’t really tell which. We’re going to have to go down another way.”

  “We need to get these doors open,” Carl ordered. “Look around and find something that we can use to pry them apart. Once we get it open, we’ll start making an assessment about how safe it would be to go down the shaft.”

  The three of them spread out, searching for tools. Unfortunately, they found nothing of value. Whoever had taken the fusion plant had stripped the level. In the end, they had to venture much farther afield to find a locked maintenance room on a separate level.

  Inside, they found a pry bar and a locker full of reinforced rope. They’d have to test it to be absolutely sure it was any good, and even then, Carl was going to braid the strands to provide added strength.

  With the help of his companions, he wedged the prybar into the crack between the doors and they put their shoulders into it, forcing the doors open.

  Being very careful with his footing, Carl looked down the shaft. He couldn’t see the bottom, but that was no surprise. The shaft was lit, but the panels were somewhat dim and mounted far apart. If memory served, there were at least four dozen levels between him and the bottom of the shaft.

  Definitely not the kind of thing one wanted to fall into.

  There was a ladder on the inside of the shaft. It was made of metal and thus really couldn’t be trusted. With the amount of time that had passed, it was sure to have weakened.

  “Help me braid some of this rope together,” he ordered. “I’ll have you anchor me as I go down. Once this strand runs out, you’ll need to tie more on. Can you do that?”

  Austin nodded. “I can, but I don’t think this is a good idea. There’s a stairwell right there. All we have to do is go down and get them.”

  “If it was that easy, they’d have walked back up themselves,” Carl retorted. “There’s no way that something down there incapacitated all three of them. With the lift out of service, that means they can’t get back up through normal means. We’ve got to go down through the shaft.

  “But you’re right that it’s dangerous. I’ll keep my hands on multiple rungs and try to use the ladder’s sides as much as possible. You’ll need to wrap your end around one of the supports up here. It might take several lengths of rope to get to the bottom, but we can do it.

  “When I get down there, I’ll find out what’s going on and pass it back up by shouting. Then we’ll figure out what we need to do to get them out.”

  “This is insane,” Ralph grumbled. “We should just get help and go down once we’re better prepared. They’re going to be fine. The atmosphere is good down there.”

  “In a perfect world, that would be true. This world is far from perfect, and sometimes we’ve got to take chances. They’re worth the risk.”

  Without giving them any more time to argue, Carl gestured for them to secure the rope. Only then did he gingerly climb onto the ladder.

  Once he was fully situated, he started down slowly and carefully. He made it three steps before the rung he put his weight on snapped off and went clattering down the shaft. The experience left him partially hanging, but the rope held.

  “I guess I put too much weight on that one,” he said. “I’ll be more careful.”

  After taking a few more deep breaths, Carl started down the shaft again.

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  Talbot had to admit that he wasn’t thrilled about being slid out from a broken window this high above the ground. Even though he understood how he’d be balanced on the long plank they’d showed him—which was supported by ropes run through pulleys mounted to the ceiling—it was still unnerving.

  He’d also be dependent on others to pull him back inside once the fighting got rolling, or they simply ran out of rockets for him to fire and grenades for him to throw.

  When he got right down to it, he was showing a lot of trust in these people, and that made him uncomfortable. They were his captors, after all.

  Then again, he supposed they were trusting him as well. Their forces would be fighting down below, and he could cause a great deal of damage with the weapons they were providing if he had a mind to.

  Of course, then they’d drop him off the building.

  The five minutes that he’d been told it would take for the enemy to arrive at their location dragged out until it felt more like twenty, but that was because he refused to check his internal chronometer. Waiting for battle always seemed to take forever.

  He spent the time examining the rocket launcher that he held on the plank in front of him. The device was a tube that could be extended by grasping both ends and pulling them apart. Small sights within would then pop up, allowing him to aim at the target. It was already extended.

  It was going to be a lot like firing the sniper rifle, he suspected. The height from which he’d be firing the weapon would make the sights almost useless. They were designed for a weapon that had to struggle against gravity, and, in this case, it would be working with him. Sort of.

  On flat terrain, a rocket would rise in trajectory after it had been fired and then drop back down into the appropriate location to impact the target. Firing from this greater height and at a downward angle, it would probably strike somewhere above where he was aiming. His first shot was going to be a test.

  The second thing he’d be testing was how deadly the weapon really was. He had no idea what the lethal radius from the explosion would be, and he needed that information to allocate the weapons he had available. His allies didn’t have an inexhaustible number of rockets, so he had to make each one count.

  “The enemy is about to come into sight,” Richard said from behind him. “It looks like they have scouts out front, so we’re going to wait until they’re in position before we run you out. Once we’re sure they’re all in the trap, we’ll slide you out, and you can begin firing.”

  He nodded his agreement without speaking.

  Now it didn’t seem as if time were dragging at all. The horde warriors weren’t dawdling.

  As they began filtering into sight, Talbot wondered where they were going. Was there something further inside the city that they wanted to seize? How did they know what was waiting for them? What was their plan to locate and subdue the inhabitants?

  Those were all very interesting questions that he’d have to figure out at some later point. Right now, he needed to make certain that they not only didn’t get what they wanted but came to an unceremonious end.

  “We’re going to push you out in five… four… three,” Lydia said softly.

  Talbot steadied himself and prepared for the motion that he knew was coming. When it came, it was very smooth. They’d obviously practiced this technique many times.

  He approved since that smoothness meant that he wasn’t going to fall off the plank.

  As soon as he was stable again, Talbot began scanning the enemy spread out below him. They weren’t quite in position just yet, so he waited a couple of extra beats to allow them to get closer. He wanted them to be in place for the other ambushers to have the best effect when they sprang the trap.

  A couple of the enemy warriors shouted when they saw his movement, but the crowd below didn’t react by freezing. They kept moving. If anything, they sped up a little bit.

  Satisfied that the enemy was in as good a position as they were going to get, Talbot rotated the rocket until he could see the enemy through the sights. He depressed the trigger on top of the rocket launcher, and it fired with a loud whoosh.

  He closed his eyes tightly for two beats so that he wouldn’t get any debris from the rocket motor in them. By the time he opened them again, the rocket had slammed into the ground below him.

  It had struck maybe ten meters above where he’d intended. That wasn’t too bad. Based on the number of bodies lying around it, the lethal radius was about fifteen meters, but it still hurt others out to about thirty.

  He could work with that.

  Rather than hand the now-useless rocket back, Talbot let it fall and reached back for the next rocket they’d already extended toward him in a holder on a piece of old pipe.

  Even as he did so, he saw another rocket lance down from off to his right and strike in the middle of the crowded area below. A glance that way showed Chloe on a plank just like his, already reaching back for another rocket. She looked focused and was grinning coldly as she killed their enemies.

  He approved.

  This time he fired toward the back of the enemy column. He opened his eyes just in time to see the rocket strike. His aim was true, and he blew up what looked like a group of officers and their subordinates. That was going to affect the enemy’s ability to control their troops.

  By this point, a number of the enemy fighters below were firing bows toward his position. Some of them actually managed to strike the plank that he lay upon, but their arrows didn’t penetrate the tough synthetic material.

  He dropped the second empty tube and reached for the next. Right as he grabbed it, someone below fired off one of the antiarmor rockets they’d used in the big battle to kill his marines inside their powered armor.

  The bright projectile missed him and struck the building somewhere far above. Richard and Lydia hauled the plank in just in time for him to avoid being hit by shattered glass and other debris. This was also something they’d obviously planned for.

  Once the rain of deadly wreckage ended, they ran him back out again. The man who’d fired the rocket had killed himself—and those around him—with the rocket exhaust. Others a bit farther away writhed in pain from their burns. Talbot hoped any others that might be tempted to use one of those weapons would decide that it wasn’t worth the price they’d pay.

  Since no one else fired rockets at him, that seemed a safe bet.

  One after another, Talbot fired the rockets handed to him into the forces below, targeting the front and rear of the column. He wanted to keep them pinned exactly where they were. If they managed to slide away, the ambush would be less effective.

  Based on her targeting, Chloe was following his lead.

  “Last rocket,” Richard said, extending him the final one. “Hit them dead center.”

  Talbot obliged, shifting his aim to the packed center of the column. The enemy had congregated far too close to one another while trying to escape death at the rear and front of the column. This rocket would kill many dozens and injure far more.

  Without the slightest bit of remorse, he triggered the rocket and sent it on its way. As soon as he assessed the damage that he’d just caused—which was significant—he looked back to see what came next.

  They extended a box on another plank that was supported by a second rope and pulley to keep it balanced. Inside the box were dozens of grenades.

  He never seen anything so primitive in person, but he was familiar with how they were supposed to work, based on old prespaceflight vids that Kelsey had made him watch. All he had to do was pull the pin and throw the grenade.

  The timing of it really didn’t matter. Talbot hoped they’d actually reach the ground before they went off, but he was sure that the defenders had already taken that into account.

  In quick succession, he pulled the pins from the grenades and lobbed them in long arcs toward where he wanted them to fall. With the combat computer inside his implants calculating how far he could throw and what the wind conditions we
re, his aim was pretty good. His artificial muscles made throwing them easy, even from a prone position.

  Since there were other explosions below, Chloe was again contributing to the mayhem. Her grenades landed closer to the building they were in since she didn’t have the augmented muscles he did. Seeing that, he focused on more distant targets.

  The grenades landed in clumps of surviving enemies, detonating a second or two after they struck the ground and bounced. Talbot emptied two boxes of grenades before Richard and Lydia pulled him back inside.

  Talbot stood and stretched. That had felt good.

  He was about to ask them what happened next when there was a loud explosion from down below. He leaned out the opening and saw that the ambushers had set off the mines under the ground and blown the wall they were hiding behind.

  As the smoke started clearing, they opened fire on the enemy. Their guns were similar to those used in the old vids that Kelsey had made him watch, too. They might not be as effective as flechettes, but whatever they fired was certainly getting the job done at the ridiculously short range.

  With all the death and destruction that he’d already dropped on them, the horde warriors were not in the mental place they needed to be to strike back, and that allowed the defenders to cut them down where they stood.

  In less than five minutes, no one in the streets below moved. Most of the enemy were dead, but a number of them had fled. Since they’d scattered in just about every imaginable direction, it was going to be difficult for their commanders to get them back together again.

  Unfortunately, Talbot was sure that many of them would run to the remaining column, and word would quickly get out about what had happened here. The defenders could try to reproduce this ambush, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath that it would work.

  They’d succeeded here, but the first ambush hadn’t gone as planned. That group had mauled the city inhabitants. If all of the enemy survivors managed to get back together, this was still going to be a tough fight.