Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2)

by Marie Andreas

  “If you can get the suits off, or at the least the helmets, it could help take them down.” Terel tapped a screen and an opaque cover rose over the remains. “I’ll ready a medical team to go down, between us and the Victorious Dead we should be able to get a full team in place.”

  In normal fights, more medical personnel would have been sent from Home. They didn’t have time for that. But in Vas’s mind it didn’t matter.

  “Stay up here on the ship. This is going to be short and either it works or it doesn’t. We’re not going to have time for injuries. If you find out anything else about our friends—or ideas on how to make them remove those helmets—comm me.”

  At Terel’s nod and scowl, she hated fights with no medical support, Vas turned and left.

  “Captain,” Mac said over the comm. “I found a drill. It’s not far from here, we should be able to shuttle over and grab it, then meet you there by the time you arrive.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “There’s always an and, I can hear it.”

  “It’s going to cost pretty much what we made in total last year. Including the money Deven gave us.”

  Vas swore as she pushed the buttons for the lift. Hopefully, Aithnea had left her some money or valuables in that mess they’d pulled up. Destroying their bank to run this job wasn’t good—but if they failed it wouldn’t matter.

  “Agreed. Go get it.”

  At his sign-off, Vas took the lift to the level of her quarters. She needed to get ready for this fight herself.

  A HALF-HOUR LATER, Vas was back in a skintight black suit, her duster, and more sharp and pointy items than most smaller armies would carry. She also had a small long-nosed blaster, and a huge heavy chamber blaster as well. If she had her way with the pulse weapons, neither would be useful for long, but they’d help when they first got down there. Gosta had been sending reports as she got ready; the planet was mostly evacuated.

  There was only one other area left with any life signs—the capital of Paolian. The outskirts of the capital, where Therlian and Keara had lived, were now lifeless. Either the generational ships from Home saved them, or they’d already been killed by the black suits. Judging by the skewed life signs the odds were good there were a few hundred black suits down there. If that was the best place to stop the transformation, it stood to reason that it was the best place to start it.

  Empress Wilthuny was still an hour out but Gosta was only showing one extra ship with her.

  Vas took the lift to the command deck to find everyone there as heavily armed as she was. Gosta had taken over the command chair, he and six others would stay on the ship. Deven had even gone so far as to put on body armor, something he rarely did. He nodded in appreciation at Vas’s skintight suit. She wasn’t sure if it was at the suit’s effectiveness at accenting her curves, or that she’d be a hell of a lot harder to kill with it on. Another of Gosta’s inventions, body armor that allowed for more movement.

  “Can we fit all of us in the shuttle? Along with our package?” Marwin looked around. With Mac off the ship, and Vas planning on studying the layout and the information on the black suits in detail on the way down, he’d be flying. The look on his face said he really wasn’t happy about flying an overly full shuttle with a bomb secured in its hold. Neither was she.

  “We’ll make it work,” Vas said. If they’d had more time she would have sent part of her crew to the Victorious Dead and had them use their shuttles. She only had two left at this point, and Mac had taken one. “Change the config to standing.”

  Marwin nodded and took the lift down. Standing wasn’t comfortable but they should be able to transport the forty fighters and the nuns’ buoy to the surface with relative safety.

  “Ragkor? You ready to drop? We have to operate with the assumption the empress notified those on the ground, so be prepared to fight when you land.” The thing that disturbed her was the lack of gray ships. The only ships above Mayhira were hers. Most likely they didn’t want to be caught up in whatever hellish transformation was going to take place and figured no one would be trying to stop them.

  “Captain, the generational ships are ready to leave,” Xsit said. Then a sad chirp came out. “They confirmed that the black suits attacked the people left behind. Shoshi said they were able to get a few hundred people, but that was all.”

  There had been a few thousand life signs in that area two hours ago.

  45

  “Tell Shoshi to take her ships and run. Zig-zag home, but get out of this region immediately.” At least they saved some of the people from Mayhira.

  Vas opened the ship wide comm. “All fighters to the shuttle, it’s going to be tight, so be ready to be close together.” She had already explained their objective, to clear the area for Mac and his drill to dig down into the planet. The buoy would be dragged along behind the drill and start its work once it reached the pre-set depth. Hopefully. Gosta had calculated the estimated depth, but the nuns’ buoy still had some unknown components.

  She and Deven were silent as they made their way down to the shuttle bay. Vas hit the lift door to open, but Deven shut it.

  “This is going to work.” He looked down at her.

  “I know it will, everything will be fine,” Vas said and moved to open the door again.

  “Then why are you so full of emotions that a shielded esper five light years from here could pick them out?” His face softened.

  Vas hated it when he did that. It looked too much like concern and pity. She didn’t need those. Especially not now.

  “I am fine.” She made one more try to open the door then shook her head. “You’re right, I’m not fine. You died. You came back. Now you’re really back and all those damn feelings are alive and well. And we’re about to blow up a planet for crying out loud. Aithnea and her people all died just so we could blow up a damn planet and hope that we can slow down whatever is happening.” She reached around him, pulled him close and put all the pent-up fear and worry into her kiss. He responded with enough energy of his own that if they didn’t have a planet to destroy she would have had him right there.

  Then she hit the door open and pulled away. “And if you die on me this time—for any reason—I will find you in the afterlife and make it a hell the likes you have never seen.” She kept her voice low, but she knew he heard her. Damn bastard had one of his best smirks on.

  “Captain, the fighters are on the shuttle and Ragkor has launched his as well. Mac’s ETA should be within five minutes,” Marwin said as Vas and Deven jogged toward the shuttle.

  “Get us down there.” She buckled herself into the standing harness. Flimsy things that dangled from the ceiling, but better than not being protected at all. The plan was for of the shuttles to land behind some of the larger buildings on the side of the city they needed, then the fighters would protect Mac and his crew in getting the drill and bomb to their location.

  Ironically, they were going to be drilling right through the center of the downtown office of the president of the planet. His basement recreation room had wide doors and more than enough room to dig.

  The class one asteroid reduction unit that Mac would be guiding would make short work of the polished marble floors and work its way through much of the planet before the whole place blew up. Gosta had figured out how the buoy worked once they realized it was meant to be a bomb. It sent out waves, tiny at first, then larger. Even on a planet’s surface it could probably have destroyed it. But taking it below ground, and into the silver mantle created by the Asarlaí, assured that process. And made sure it didn’t accidentally trigger the transformation the black suits were trying for.

  The landing was smooth. Ragkor’s three shuttles landed ahead of her own, and Mac’s was landing behind all of them. Vas and her people quickly assembled outside.

  Ragkor jogged over. “I haven’t seen any movement from the black suits. Without their support ships, maybe they don’t know we’re here?” He was very impressive in full
body armor. Then again, at seven feet tall he was impressive in anything.

  Vas looked at the scanner, the black suits showed up differently than normal life signs. A few hundred were just three blocks over. They were not responding to the shuttles’ landing and appeared to be working in some kind of assembly line.

  She had a feeling she didn’t want them to finish whatever they were building.

  “Terel said they were very basic units, so you’re probably correct. The gray ships set them up for their task, then got out of the danger radius.” She opened the screen larger. They should be able to get to their destination without going past the black suits.

  Rumbling machinery and a lot of swear words cut in behind her. Providing they could get the equipment down three blocks silently at any rate.

  The asteroid reduction unit wasn’t near as bulky as she would have guessed, only about a third the size of the shuttle, and less than a fourth as wide. But it still dwarfed a very pissed off Mac.

  “Can you operate that thing or not?”

  Gon stepped out from behind the drill with a grin. “I can. He’s just upset that he can’t make it work.” He held up a control device, pressed a button, and the unit moved forward silently. The big man shrugged. “I was raised on a farm, we used drills.”

  Mac stalked over to Vas. “We’re ready.”

  “I see that,” Vas said. “Let’s go people.” She had debated leaving the larger blasters in the locked shuttle, but she’d rather lose the weapons if her crew had to dump them to fight, than need them and not have them. Gosta had modified his little toys so they disabled but no longer blew up blasters. Hopefully.

  As it was, between the full blaster in her hand, the small one on her hip, and the two swords belted around her, she felt ready to fight.

  The buildings of the capital were truly amazing. Thin spirals reached impossibly high into the sky and even though some had obviously been ransacked before the evacuation, they still held an air of wealth and power. Vas wondered briefly how much the rich and powerful knew about their beloved world and what was going to happen to it. Or how much they’d been paid to look the other way.

  A low droning whine was heard after they made their way past the first block. At first Vas thought it was the asteroid reduction unit behind her. But turning back told her it wasn’t. The sound was coming from ahead of them and a few blocks over. Right where the black suits were forming their assembly line.

  Deven had been bringing up the rear, but jogged forward. “I can go see what our friends are doing. That sounds too much like a few drills digging deep.”

  Ragkor started to offer to go instead, but Vas shook her head and hooked a thumb toward Deven. “Sorry, this one is a lot sneakier and quieter than you.” She turned back to Deven. “Make a wide circle and come at our location from the other side. We don’t want surprises and I have no idea how long it will take for this thing to get the bomb deep enough for what we need.”

  Deven nodded and silently vanished down an alley.

  The humming paused, then continued, and Vas and her group kept moving. Everyone was silent, which was expected given the need for it. The looks on the faces around her were far more pensive than usual. Every time they went on a merc job, each one of them knew it might be their time to die. But this was possibly the first time that everyone was cannon fodder—all of them would lay down their lives if it meant getting the bomb where it needed to go and slowing down whatever invasion was trying to use this planet as a gateway. True Asarlaí or not, there were some nasty looking ships on the other side wanting to come in.

  If she had time, she’d give them all some sort of rousing, let’s kick ass speech. But there was no time, and these were her people—they already knew it.

  At the second block, the whining sound became more distinct. Definitely drills. Perhaps not as big as the asteroid reduction unit, but it sounded like there was more than one. Even worse, Deven was jogging back toward them from a side street.

  He held up one hand. “I know, you told me to go around, but I don’t think we have time. They are using drills to bring up the silver substance. The black suits are collecting it and putting it in a giant ball.”

  “Like a bomb?” At his nod, Vas started swearing. “We have to stop them and we have to get our bomb set off immediately.”

  “Agreed, there are now only about one hundred of the black suits running. A number of them have collapsed.”

  “Ragkor, I want you and ten of your people to go with Mac and Gon. Get the drill moving, and kill anything that tries to stop you. Walvento, you and everyone else come with Deven and me, we have an assembly line to stop.”

  Ragkor had grabbed his ten people and was ushering the drill down the empty street when Vas ran up to him.

  “I need you to finish this task, Ragkor. No matter what you hear, finish this task.”

  A silent nod and a salute was his only response. Smart man; he might have finally learned to stop arguing with her.

  Vas jogged back to her group of fighters. “Let’s go kick some ass.”

  All of them responded with nods and a silent raising of their swords. Vas tapped her comm. They were trying to not use it, since they weren’t sure if it could be picked up by the black suits or not, but a hundred black suits could be a problem if they had the ability to speed up their movements. “Gosta, I need you to set the jammers, now.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Gosta said.

  Vas pulled out two of the pulse weapons and tossed one to Deven. “North or south?” He’d take half the fighters one direction, she’d take the rest another. They’d trap the black suits in-between. Hopefully with the jammers and the pulse weapons working, they could stop them with minimal bloodshed.

  “North,” Deven said and took half of the fighters to go the long way. Vas nodded to the rest.

  They got to the corner where the black suits were working and Vas used a scope to look around at them. Deven was right, there were a lot of them lying there. But the rest looked very active. She turned on the pulse weapon. A slight buzzing came from her two blasters but, unlike the first time she used the pulse weapon, they didn’t explode.

  She aimed her blaster at the nearest line of black suits and fired. It hit and took out four of them. Unfortunately, that meant the pulse weapon wasn’t working. She kept firing, pulling her people back when the sluggish black suits finally stopped what they were doing and fired back. She pulled out two more pulse weapons, turned on both and tried to fire again.

  Her blaster gave a violent shake, but didn’t fire.

  She tossed the large blaster aside then ran forward, ducking behind a wall in case the pulse weapon was slow. No blaster fire told her they’d finally worked.

  Vas motioned to the rest of her people and they charged the black suits.

  Deven’s people came in from the other side and at first the black suits seemed to go down without a fight. Then some other programming kicked in and they started fighting. Vas hadn’t seen any swords on them but the ones charging her people had them anyway. As they ran forward, foot long blades protruded from their arms.

  A new, and markedly unwelcome, addition.

  Vas had trouble adjusting to fighting against them, their swords moved like part of the black suits’ arms, and she took a minor hit to the leg before she got used to it. Luckily, Walvento had been behind the attacker and ran him through.

  Most of the black suits were engaging her people. But then Vas noticed a few of the black suits were still pulling in the silver matter and dumping it into a sphere.

  She needed to get to those black suits and stop that sphere from exploding.

  Pulling back from the fight, Vas hit her comm, “Gosta, can you manage to pull something up with the particle mover, immediately drop it in a secured decon chamber, then blast the chamber into space and blow it up?” She dodged as one of the black suits noticed her and gave an awkward swing. Her strike back took off its head. She knew she was asking a lot of both Gosta and their par
ticle mover, but she didn’t have a choice.

  “I believe so, Captain. I’m talking to Hrrru and he is working out the calculations. It might take a while.”

  Vas shook her head. The black suits were falling but they still had enough to finish whatever they were doing with the silver matter. “We have minutes.”

  The silence was brief, but Vas knew Gosta was thinking.

  “We can do it. What are we pulling up?”

  “A sphere of that silver matter, it’s less than two hundred yards due west of me.”

  Deven’s crew surged forward, trying to reach the black suits still collecting the silver. The ones near her went to help that side.

  “I can’t grab it, if I had a comm badge on it, maybe. But as it is, no.” Gosta’s voice dropped.

  Vas turned to Walvento who had stayed by her side while she was on the comm. “I’m running toward the sphere, I need you to attack those black suits on that side. If I don’t make it, you need to try, we have to get a comm badge on that sphere.”

  The huge man nodded and charged where she’d pointed.

  Vas sprinted for the sphere. Two of the black suits were right at it and both were moving faster than they should be. Not the full super speed they’d shown, but the jamming was wearing off. Vas disabled one, but the best she could do with the second was turn the fighting around so she could throw her comm badge at the sphere. “Now Gosta!”

  He didn’t respond, but the silver sphere vanished.

  The black suit that she had been fighting froze and the swords in his arms retracted. Vas ran him through. Then she ran back to Walvento—he handed her his comm without question.

  “Gosta? Tell me that worked?”

  “Aye, Captain, but we can’t dump the decon chamber yet. The empress’s ship has just come into this airspace. She’s only got a hauler with her, but the Flaxen Gusset is very heavily armed and they are firing on both of us.”