by Lance Berry
Newson’s jaw flinched, but he held his tongue. “As you say…
Ma’am.”
There was a sudden increase in the sound of Blastrifle fire from the rooftop, and the turrets went silent. The scalers had done their job. With a satisfied smirk, Mara and Cohen began to head toward the door on the far side, but both stopped as a shrill whine pierced the air. All looked up to see an immense slag of burning metal, nearly the size of a Heavy Cruiser, falling to earth. For an instant, Mara’s heart leapt into her throat; it couldn’t be—! But then she realized that even within the burning corona surrounding it, the shape of the metal was all wrong to have ever been an Earth ship. It smashed to the ground only about a dozen miles away, yet the base camp’s strata still jostled a bit. After a moment, Mara’s GTS sounded.
She toggled the line…
“This is Captain Stubbs to Lieutenant-Commander Elliot.
Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, sir.”
“In case you didn’t notice, something hit the ground near to your position,” Stubbs said facetiously. “That was a part of one of the Calvorians’ tinker-toy satellites. The immediate area of space around the planet is once again UEF territory. Enemy troops at other locations on this world have been subdued or eliminated. How’s your base coming along?”
Mara couldn’t help but smile as she answered, “Turrets are out, major obstacles taken down. We’re about to enter and take the base itself now, sir.”
“Good job, Mara. I’ll see you back on the ship soon. Stubbs out.” The line shut off and Mara clicked off the GTS and turned briefly to Newson. “See to the prisoners, Commander,” she said, then led her troops around to the south side door…
Once at the south side entrance, Mara ordered Corporal Smith to continue scanning the interior of the structure while Lieutenant Cohen set an antimatter charge at the base of the door. “It’s a little easier to read through the metal at this proximity,” Smith noted as his eyes studiously observed the readings his dsp was displaying. Dozens of fingers tensed eagerly on Blastrifle triggers as he announced, “There’s definitely thirty of them, some grouped tight together, some spread out a little bit. All are charging weapons.”
Mara glanced at her troops. “Remember, we want prisoners
—especially officers. Wound them only, if you can.”
“Fire in the hole,” Cohen shouted, and all pulled back a dozen feet as the timer quickly shot down to zero and the antimatter charge went off—creating an odd black-white flash of light and taking away the door and a third of the wall itself.
Mara made a quick semi-circle with her hand, which ended in a finger pointed to the hole. Then she and her troops charged through the new entrance, and were almost immediately beset upon by enemy fire. The humans spread out quickly, a few of them taken out as the rest returned fire at the Calvorian soldiers. The air was thick with the smell of burning ozone, cries of the wounded and screams of the dying, as the two sides—both of them alien to this world—fought for final possession of this last prize.
The Calvorians fought passionately, but their hearts were outmatched by the humans’ sheer numbers. Eventually, one of the Calvorians stood straight up and dropped his weapon. He shouted something in his alien tongue, and with confused looks and some animosity, the remaining twenty or so Calvorians stopped firing and let their weapons fall to the ground. Mara held her own hand up, and her troops ceased firing…although every last one of them kept their guns at the ready, the enemy troops solidly in their sights.
Mara walked over to the Calvorian who had ordered the surrender. He was an imposing figure—at least three feet taller than her, and Mara stood only a few inches under six feet. She had never seen any being so tall, or so muscular. The alien leader had shocks of red hair throughout his brownish mane, blue-grey eyes, and a long scar which curved along the side of his right cheek. He looked down at this little human female in surprise, and his face betrayed his revelation that he had made a tactical error. “You are in charge of this raid?” he said aghast.
“I’m in command of this ground mission, yes,” Mara answered firmly. “Lieutenant-Commander Elliot. And you are —?”
The Calvorian hesitated a moment, and sheepishly looked over his shoulder at his troops, who were eyeing him hatefully.
His shoulders slumped just barely, and he turned back to Mara.
“Z’ihlhar. Commander Z’ihlhar. If I had known a female was in charge of this attack, I would never have surrendered.” He stepped forward slightly, and at once twelve of the human troopers centered their sights on him. Z’ihlhar glanced at them warily, then lowered his head just a bit toward Mara’s ear. “As you can see, I am advancing in years, Elliot. My people do not take to surrendering well. But I do not want to die.”
Mara nodded slowly, in an attempt to seem like she understood what he meant. The truth was, while she did understand that Z’ihlhar no longer wished to die in combat, she had no idea whether he was an older or younger Calvorian until he had made mention of it. All Calvorians had always looked the same to her, and even David Christenson’s revelation that Tholin had been engaging UEF troops for over three decades came as a shock. In every picture she had ever seen of the alien general since then, no matter how old the photo, it looked as if he had never aged a day. Yet obviously Calvorians did age, and Z’ihlhar was an elder member of the species. But there was nothing about him, at least as far as Mara could tell, which betrayed his age. She played along with her nod though, trying to sound encouraging as she said, “You did the right thing.
There’s no need for further bloodshed.”
She stepped a little closer, certain that her troops were carefully watching Z’ihlhar for any sign of betrayal, as she said quietly, “We’re here seeking information. If you help us, I can promise you some amnesty…at the very least, a separate cell in the brig from your troops, who don’t seem too fond of you at the moment.”
Z’ihlhar blinked a couple of times, and Mara wasn’t sure whether he was offended by her offer or if he was considering it.
The conversation was interrupted however, when a call came from near the hole in the wall. “ATTEN-SHUN!”
Mara and a couple of her troops turned in surprise at the direction of the voice. She half expected to see Newson step through the hole, chest puffed out and haughty, as if he were about to try and take credit for all that had happened. But instead, four troopers unfamiliar to Mara quickly stepped through the hole, Blastrifles at the ready as they stood at-attention on either side of the makeshift entrance. David Christenson then stepped through, and the crowd of soldiers parted like the Red Sea as he and his personal escort advanced toward Mara and Z’ihlhar.
Mara immediately snapped to attention and saluted, aware of the instant awed murmuring that wafted among the enemy soldiers at the appearance of UEF’s famous hero. Christenson himself paid it no heed as he returned the salute. “Good to see you again, Lieutenant-Commander,” David said with a quick, easy smile.
“You as well, Captain,” she replied, and felt her heart begin to beat a mile a minute at being so close to him.
K’istensohn… The awed murmuring continued among the alien prisoners.
A moment passed, and David nodded toward the enemy leader. Mara caught herself and turned so that she was semi- facing both of them. “Captain Christenson, this is Commander Z’ihlhar, formerly in charge of this base.”
Z’ihlhar bowed his head respectfully to Christenson. “This is a type of honor for me, Captain. There is no shame in being bested by one such as you.”
K’istensohn… The murmuring hadn’t stopped, but shifted… seeming to come from only one of the aliens for some reason.
“I appreciate the sentiment, Commander Z’ihlhar,” David answered as he craned his neck to look up at the taller being, yet still managed to retain an air of authority. “But it wasn’t I who defeated you. It was indeed my capable security chief, here. Although for your honor’s sake, you’ll be brought back to
ship aboard my personal transport. We’ll talk more en route to the Horizon.”
“K’ISTENSOHN!” The murmur was gone, replaced by a desperate war cry— And in that instant, two of the prisoners darted forward—one of them drawing a thick dagger from a side-scabbard under their cloak with blinding speed. Before anyone could move, he jumped up to throw an arm around Z’ihlhar’s throat and with a savage curse, buried the dagger in the commander’s back up to the hilt.
As Z’ihlhar cried out, the other prisoner headed straight for David but was cut down by fire from three of the captain’s four escort troops while the last pushed David to his knees and interposed his own body protectively in front of the man. Too late, it was realized by Mara that this was a distraction, as two more Calvorians raced forward—one leaping into the air and throwing his entire body into the captain’s escorts, knocking them all down like bowling pins, while the other headed for David, teeth extending to their full one-inch length.
“Bloody hell,” David swore, and managed to take a quick step back and a martial artist’s stance just in time to set himself up to deliver a shocking forward kick to the alien’s face. With a grunt of pain, the alien fell unconscious to the ground even as the one that had stabbed Z’ihlhar withdrew his blade and headed for Mara.
“Troopers, brace yourselves!” David called out, but it was too late. The prisoners surged forward together, drawing the humans into a close-quarters melee. There was no room to fire, only for hand-to-hand…and under such conditions, David knew they didn’t stand a chance against such physically superior specimens.
The Calvorian who had stabbed Z’ihlhar lunged toward Mara, dagger raised high for a killing strike. But as the knife came down, Mara quickly sidestepped and grabbed the soldier’s arm and wrist with both hands. Off-balance as he now was, he couldn’t help but follow his trajectory, and Mara brought her knee up, smacking it firmly into his thick wrist. It was like bashing her knee against a rock, but luckily it still achieved the desired effect: it shocked him into dropping his blade, which fell to the floor with a heavy clang!
The angered soldier brought his other hand around, smacking Mara full across the face as he would an unruly child.
She fell hard to the ground, and barely managed to block her face with her hands, preventing her head from smashing fully into the hard metal floor. Stunned as she was, she managed to spin her head around in time to see the soldier moving to retrieve his knife. She pushed off from the floor and shot her leg up to connect squarely with his genitals. His mouth dropped open as he expelled hard air.
Although she had faced off against the enemy ship-to-ship and had been in many engagements where it was her weapons targeting that had destroyed Calvorian vessels, she had never met the enemy in hand-to-hand combat before. Thou shalt not kill—it was one of the most sacred tenets of her religion… but she couldn’t think about that now, if any of them were to survive.
Mara whirled around, picked up the knife and jumped up, thrusting the blade solidly into his gut. His cry was short yet loud in her ear as he reflexively bent over. His hands reached halfway to try and grasp hers, but fell limply to his sides instead. Red blood fell upon the knife, dribbling down its hilt and over her hand as she looked up, and could swear she saw the light fading from his eyes. With a grimace and a hard tug, she pulled the knife out and held onto it tightly, trying to will it to become an extension of her own flesh.
She looked around; there was no way that even a hand-gun could be shot off safely in this abruptly confined space without risking friendly fire hitting someone on her side. She then saw David being set on by three Calvorians, each of them trying to attain glory by being the one to kill the captain of Earth’s flagship. Surprisingly, David was holding his own quite well by delivering solid boxer’s jabs to the face of one enemy, then quickly turning and kickboxing another one away from him while the other was stunned. The third had managed to make David’s black uniform jacket and shirt into a tattered mess, and blood ran freely down the captain’s back. The other human soldiers were fighting desperately for breathing space, but it was for naught. Mara toggled her GTS link, as no one was paying attention to the lowly female of the group. “Elliot to Newson—come in!”
“Newson here. What’s going on? Sounds like a party gone wrong—”
“The prisoners have gone berserk! Make sure the ones outside are secured firmly, then send more troops in here!
Now!” She didn’t even bother turning off the GTS as, with a wild cry, she dove back into the heart of the battle, her knife slashing and twirling madly in her grip. She managed to cut across the face of one prisoner, stunning him enough that the human he had gone after managed to regroup and take charge of their own personal scuffle. She repeated the tactic again and again as she desperately made her way toward David, who was beginning to lose his ground.
“Get the hell away from him,” she screamed as she finally made her way to his side and cut one of the three aliens directly across his chest. The Calvorian roared in pain and automatically stepped back. She heard a sharp -crack!- from behind her and glanced over at David. He had managed to get one of the other two in a headlock and quickly snapped his neck. He turned just in time to find the third alien advancing on him once more, blood pouring from a shattered nose as he bared his teeth menacingly.
Mara remembered her own problem and turned just in time to see a hand containing five dagger-sharp claws headed her way. She craned her head back, but wasn’t quite fast enough.
Three of the extended fingernails skirted her face, drawing clearly defined gashes into her skin. She screamed in surprise, but quickly centered herself and stood her ground, the knife of the alien she had already killed held in a viselike grip by her right hand.
The one who had cut her looked at her a moment, and a brief glimpse of actual respect shone in his eyes. “Not bad. You want to die on your feet like a real warrior. I will not remember you long after, but I will allow you to savor this moment.”
Mara gritted her teeth. She felt the memory of that Commandment rapidly slipping away from her, but felt no shame in it. “I’m going to savor the memory of slitting your fucking throat for a long time to come.”
With a snarl, the Calvorian lunged at her. But instead of meeting him head-on as he had anticipated, Mara dropped to one knee and drew the knife firmly across his own kneecap. He staggered, almost fell to the ground, but managed to catch himself. Mara threw her leg out, sweeping his other foot out from under him. He fell to his back and she leapt atop him, bringing the dagger down with both hands. He brought his own hands up, catching hers in them; and were it not for the awkwardness of the angle he was at, he would have surely been able to push her hands away and take the knife from her. But he couldn’t, and had to struggle to keep her from stabbing him.
Mara strained with all her might to bring the blade to his chest, and sweat broke out on her brow. He looked up at her, and an amused laugh began to rise from his throat. Pissed off by this, she spat directly into his eyes—and it was enough to shock him into loosening his grip by the barest fraction. She grunted harshly as she plunged the knife deep into his chest, and watched with no small amount of satisfaction as blood gushed from between his lips and his eyes slowly closed forever.
Mara raised herself to a crouched position and turned her torso, an almost Calvorian-like snarl curling her lips as her eyes eagerly sought out the next enemy. But before she could find a target, the sound of Blastrifles going off rang out loudly within the room. She looked in the direction of the hole her troops had blasted in the wall, and saw Newson standing just inside, accompanied by at least twenty more troops. Several of them rapidly picked off more than a dozen of the prisoners, who fell like static targets in a shooting gallery. Newson finally raised his own Blastrifle high and shot out two of the overhead lights, causing a small section of the room to darken just slightly.
Between this and the deaths of their comrades, the rest of the prisoners caught on that their battle had been lost
for a second time, and the struggle with the humans ceased almost instantly.
“All right, you fuck-ugly freaks,” Newson bellowed, “This party is done, and I’m sure you know the score. I want every last one of you alien bastards to stand in a single line on the far side of this chamber! My troops will inspect you for weapons and then tag you for transport to the brigs aboard our Heavy Cruisers. Anyone who even looks like they’re about to get out of line is gonna receive a solid round right in their face!”
