Good, keep the snipers marked and let’s go at them two at a time. Dee bounced sideways from the trunk of a tree over the top of the beetle mounds lining the stone and skittered onto her backside back into the doorway of the ruin. She popped four grenades and ducked behind the stone corner for cover.
The grenades popped and scattered the remaining five aliens a bit further out. The wingman of the one she’d just killed was closest, and the blast was close enough to it that it seemed to have lost its balance and was rolled over face first. Dee took the advantage and leaped forward and bounced at full sprint of the suit. The pain, even though she was pumped full of medication, was still almost unbearable. But she pushed through it.
Dee came down with a knee into the back of the alien and fired the HVAR on full auto until its shields flickered out and red and green goo exploded from the back of its ugly head. A plasma bolt caught her on the back of her right shoulder, throwing her head over heels into the vines. The armor plating of her suit turned molten hot and boiled away from the outside. The organogel on the inside reached dangerously high temperatures, broiling the already damaged shoulder with third degree burns or worse.
“Aahhh! Fucking son of a fucking goddamn alien fucks!” She screamed in pain but couldn’t stop moving or screaming. Through rage and pain she dragged herself as fast as she could across the stone road underneath the vines and took up cover behind the nearest beetle mound as the plasma bolts continued to pound into the foliage around her. Small fires in the grass were starting to smolder and catch up.
Where are those bastards when I need them? Dee looked at the beetle mound and thought, all the while grimacing and doing her best to fight through the ever-growing level of pain. She bit on her bite block for a quick burst of water and more stims. A burst of pure oxygen hit her in the face as well, and the result was a brief moment of clarity and false bravado.
You need to throw some Chiata blood on them, maybe, Bree suggested.
I’ll keep that in mind.
The mound snapped and chips of stone vaporized as the Chiata plasma bolts bounced off them. The material they were made of was tough, but there was no barrier shield on them and the enemy plasma bolts would eventually chip away her cover. Dee hoped the damned bugs would wake up and lend her a hand, but she wasn’t sure she wanted that to happen while she was leaning against one.
Battlescape view, Bree!
Battlescape on.
Dee looked for the active sensor pings and other tracking scanners to show her where the Chiata were. They were close enough that the active sensors in the red force tracker gave her good readings. Two of the Chiata had moved to high ground on top of the ruin entrance and the other two were working themselves around behind the stone road to the river and flanking Dee to her three o’clock.
“Shit. I wish I had my mecha right now.” Dee started to turn away from the mound and move towards her nine o’clock position, but the two snipers hanging back cut her off quickly with plasma-round fire. She rolled from left to right in prone position, firing her rifle the entire time on full automatic. At least twice she’d have sworn that the targeting X was red, and she saw shield flickers in the distance.
Two grenades left and I’m getting low on ammo. Give me a location on the blaster and keep it marked in the battlescape view.
Roger that, Dee. The blaster is more than twenty meters away in the vines nearest the entrance.
Yeah, thought that’s where I dropped it. Dee checked the mindview and could see the two Chiata from her three o’clock were now almost on top of her. She had to make a move or it was going to be the end of her right there.
Dee popped one of the last two grenades at the two Chiata trying to flank her and decided a full-on attack at the snipers was her best plan of action. She bounced and serpentined across the stone road, behind the mounds, off of several trees, all the while dodging, ducking, rolling, somersaulting and whatever else it took not to get blasted by the Chiata snipers. With a final leap as she approached the entrance she bounced her kickboots, hard and up she flew, firing her HVAR on full auto into both of the aliens standing atop the ruin. They became blurs and moved to avoid her gunfire as she bounced to a stop on top of the vine- and grass-covered ruin.
One of the vines caught her left boot with enough force that she fell face first against the stone and scraped across it, making a screeching noise and throwing sparks that ignited the vines with the red flowers on them. Apparently, they were extremely flammable. Fire raged up around her, distorting her targeting system, and fortunately doing the same for the Chiata. Dee pushed herself up to her feet, turned her torso, and ducked just in time to miss an alien tendril shooting through the flames at her head. She deployed the knife from her left wrist again and fired several rounds in the general direction from where the tendril had come. A second tendril shot in at her from the right, hitting her in the leg. But before it could push through and harpoon her she swiped down with the blade quickly, severing the amorphous line from her.
Dee turned and ran in the direction of the sliced tendril and dove forward, catching it with her right hand. As the tendril was retracted it pulled her forward through the flames toward the Chiata. The vines continued to burn like rocket fuel, bursting all around her and crackling and engulfing the top of the ruin and spreading up the vines into the nearest trees. As the alien dragged Dee to it, she pulled up the HVAR and fired it until it clicked empty. The alien’s shields dropped out with a flicker and one of the rounds hit it mid-torso, penetrating its body armor. She rolled to her back and spun her legs break-dancing style up onto her hands, and capoeira-style kicking the Chiata on the side of the head with her jumpboots. Pushing herself in the direction of the Chiata and over backwards crotch first into its throat, her bodyweight, and that of the suit, forced the alien onto its back with a thud against the stone. As Dee landed she drove her blade through its chest, splitting it from sternum to balls, if the thing had them. She wasn’t sure and she didn’t really give a fuck. It was dead. Time to move on to the next one.
The battlescape view in her mind collapsed on her rapidly as the three remaining red dots landed almost instantly on top of her within the engulfing flames. Dee jumped as hard as she could and fell over the edge of the ruin’s top into the burning grass and vines at the edge of the road twenty meters below. Her wounds were taking a toll on her and landing hard against the ground knocked the wind out of her. Atop that, one of the Chiata landed feet first into her chest, knocking her completely off her feet and making a cracking noise in her back that was followed by spasm pains the likes of which she’d never felt before. All Dee could see was the alien’s weapon being raised to her face. Time slowed for her just like in a pukin’ deathblossom, and she turned her head and spun her left hand into the weapon, driving the knife blade through the wrist of the Chiata and severing its hand free.
The Chiata screeched and pounded her with its other hand, and several tendrils jutted out from the amorphous torso armor into her armor. But Dee wasn’t stopping there. She popped the remaining grenade, caught it with her right hand, and punched it into the alien’s neck, and lodged it into the seal where a helmet should be. She retracted her hand and pulled away as best she could.
Detonate it now, Bree!
The grenade blew out the alien’s back and front, vaporizing the head in a fireball and throwing red and green molten bits against Dee at hypersonic speeds. Her suit mostly protected her but several fragments managed to tear through her armor into her body. She gasped for air and choked back blood as she coughed and wheezed and cried bloody tears. Suit alarms continued to ring in her ears and the diagnostic image showed catastrophic damage.
Shit, Bree. I think I’m done. Dee coughed again. I can’t feel my legs right now.
Get up, Marine! her AIC shouted into her mind and pumped more chemicals and immunoboost nanomachines into Dee’s body, hoping to keep her moving. Major Deanna Moore! Get up and fucking fight! Fight, Dee! Goddammit! Fight, Dee!
Dee started to tunnel out, but the drugs were holding their own against her wounds. The organogel flowed into the open tears in her circulatory system, replacing missing plasma and blood with the specially developed organic fluids that coagulated rapidly over open wounds and flowed freely within her veins. The immunoboost machines raced through her body to repair critical lifesaving bits and the stimulants coursed through her like battery acid. But there was just too much damage to her body. Her will had been pushed beyond even superhuman breaking points and she was spent. The world spun for a microsecond and the thought of dying crossed her mind. Then an image of her father flashed before her.
“Up and at ’em! Quit your goldbricking, Marine! It is time to get up!” The image of General Alexander Moore filled her mindview at over three meters tall looming over her. “Move it, princess! Get your ass up!”
“Up and at ’em! Quit your goldbricking, Marine! It is time to get up!” The image of General Alexander Moore continued at a higher volume. “Move it, princess! Get your ass up!”
Dee could see the red dots of the two remaining Chiata moving toward her and in the mindview she realized that she had made her last jump off the top of the ruin with purpose. The icon for her blaster lay in the burning grass only a meter from her. It might as well have been a kilometer. She couldn’t move her legs at all. She was stuck in place and those two Chiata were coming for her. She was going to die.
“Up and at ’em! Quit your goldbricking, Marine! It is time to get up!” The image of her father continued. “Move it, princess! Get your ass up!”
“Move it, princess! Get your ass up!”
“Move it, princess! Get your ass up!”
“Move it, princess! Get your ass up!”
Dee couldn’t let her father down. She couldn’t give up, but she couldn’t move either. She searched the mindview for anything that would help. If she could just reach that damned blaster. She reached out with her left hand but felt something against her chest and instantly her mindview filled with an image of herself from above. Dee could see one of the little skyballs at the top of the burning tree canopy. The image from it zoomed in on her. The Chiata she had just blown in half was laid out across her legs, covering her in blood and putting off bright pinks and blues in the burning flames. As the image zoomed closer on her chest, Dee smiled inwardly.
“I’m not going to fucking die right now!” She bit the bite block for another burst of stims and air and with one last push of all that she had left, Dee grabbed the alien plasma rifle with the severed hand that was lying and drooling green fluid across her chest still attached to it. She raised the muzzle upwards and looked for a red targeting X to appear in her mind. There were two. She squeezed the alien’s trigger finger against the trigger mechanism. Blue plasma bolts shot out from the weapon into the first Chiata, taking it by surprise and dropping it. She quickly tracked the last one and dropped it as well. The alien bolts were apparently better at shutting down the barrier shields than the HVARs were. She fired several more rounds at the downed bodies just to make sure, and then she was spent.
Bree, are we clear? Dee asked as she laid the alien weapon across her chest.
Yes, Dee, for now. The skyball download doesn’t show any traffic this way, right now, and we are still more than three hours from the shift change here. Even if they deployed another search team we are hours from any Chiata locations.
Dee looked around her as best she could, but could barely move her head. So, she cycled back to the skyball view to get a better view of the area and the damage done. The fire was burning away from her as the vines were being cleared away. She was in no immediate danger other than possibly dying from her injuries. A hole burned away from the canopy of trees above her and Dee could see the night sky above her. The stars were bright enough that she could see them even in the firelight. She cycled the red filter and removed the flames from her view, and the stars stood out even better. She could see the Milky Way and her visor illuminated the locations of Sol, UM61, and the rendezvous point.
Dee wondered if the Fleet was there and if her family was alright. She wondered if she’d ever get off this fucking planet and be safe again. She wanted to go home even if home meant the inside of a starship. She wanted to hug her mother and cry on her shoulder and have her mother tell her that everything was going to be alright. She wanted to hug her father and thank him for willing her to stay alive. She wanted the pain to stop and wanted her body to feel strong again. She wanted the feeling back in her lower body, but for now, at least her legs weren’t hurting.
For all of that to happen, Dee knew that somehow, some way, no matter what it took, that she’d have to stay alive and get home. She had to get home because she knew she wanted to see Davy Rackman at least once more. She knew she had to see him so she could tell him how she felt about him. She meant to really tell him and not pussyfoot around the issue and chicken out this time. She had to tell him she loved him. She just had to stay alive. She’d come all that way to do something that might help save humanity and all she’d done was get herself shot down and shot up. Just maybe, she thought, if she could stay alive, there was still more she could do. Maybe there was more, but she had to stay alive. Dee brought the suit health monitor page up and looked at the damage. The suit was barely holding her together and many of its systems were offline.
“If it’s all the same to you, Bree,” she gurgled audibly through blood in her throat. “I’m just gonna lay here a while and look at the stars.”
Chapter 26
February 19, 2407 AD
U.S.S. Roscoe Hillenkoetter
Hyperspace, 7.25 Light Days from Target Star System
700 Light-years from the Sol System
Monday, 10:47 P.M. Ship Standard Time
“At our current speed we should be back in system within two hours, ma’am.” Commander Davy Rackman stood beside his console on the bridge of the Hillenkoetter debating what his next move should be. He’d already volunteered to lead the ground team to rescue Dee, but the General had nixed that idea. They were going to drop search-and-rescue crews with no other mecha support to minimize the risk of losing more pilots. Rackman didn’t like the decision, but he was a soldier, he’d deal with it.
“Commander, I’d like a word with you in my ready room,” Captain Penzington told him, and turned to the Air Boss clone. “Zander, you have the bridge.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the clone replied. Davy turned as the Captain stood and clanked her way to the exit. He followed her, not sure what all this was about.
Out the exit and down two doors to the right they entered the Captian’s ready room, or office. Davy liked how the bot-built ships that Sienna Madira had designed were all built upscaled to accommodate everyone wearing body armor suits. Supercarriers of the Separatist Wars were gigantic to start with, but the new ones that the bots were building had been scaled by at least fifteen percent in every dimension to accommodate for three-meter-tall armored soldiers running about as if they were in UCUs. The lady, whether or not she was crazy, had a flare for being prepared. Captian Penzington clanked in behind the oversized desk and sat back in the big, beefy chair. Davy stood at ease but remained silent. This was her show.
“Commander, I’m going to take you up on an offer you made me to lead some wet work,” Captain Penzington told him.
“Ma’am. I’d be pleased and more than honored.”
“There are plenty of clones that can jump in and do the X.O. job in your stead right now. Don’t take that the wrong way,” Penzington started, but looked to make sure she hadn’t insulted him. Davy wasn’t insulted and understood exactly what she meant. “But I really need a seasoned combat veteran who can lead the attack into the Chiata ship once we ram it. I’d prefer that person be a combat veteran I trust. I’ve seen you in action for more than two years now and I’d prefer you lead that team.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Davy’s heart fluttered a beat or two. He’d be much happier leading a strike team into the belly of the bea
st rather than sitting up on the bridge moving icons around on a virtual battlescape getting bounced around like a monkey strapped into a carnival ride.
“I’m uploading the team roster and battle plan as designed by the General’s team and the various ship captains. If you want to make any changes or additions you’ll have to hurry. As you know, we’re only a couple hours out.” Captain Penzington raised her chin in a slight nod to the Navy SEAL and then sighed. “Davy, you and I both would prefer to go down there and save her. I’d like nothing more. But I think this is how we contribute to that rescue.”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand.” Rackman thought about what the Captain was telling him and agreed. “Major Moore can take care of herself, ma’am. I’m sure you believe that too. I’ve seen it firsthand. We just need to give her the opportunity to make a move and she’ll come through. She comes from good stock.”
“I hope you’re right,” Captain Penzington said through a forced and very subdued smile. “Okay then, get your team ready. We take the parts of the ship mapped out by the CHENG and protect the builder and repair bots at all costs. Damage to the other parts of the ship and Chiata are of no concern provided said damage is not in conflict with the missions of the other teams. Is that understood, Mr. Rackman?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a salute. Captain Penzington returned the salute, and with that, Davy was dismissed to his new mission to kill alien monsters and protect robots. It was one hell of a Navy day in space.
Chapter 27
February 19, 2407 AD
U.S.S. Sienna Madira
Hyperspace, 7.25 Light Days from Target Star System
700 Light-years from the Sol System
Monday, 10:47 P.M. Ship Standard Time
“Just stop it right now, Alexander,” Sehera Moore told him. Alexander looked at his wife and knew that there was no use. Besides, it was too late to send her back now anyway. “I’m not having the same conversation twice in one day, especially while our daughter is stranded out there and needing our help.”
Kill Before Dying (Tau Ceti Agenda Book 5) Page 25
