Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library

by Kevin McLaughlin

  Seventeen

  Charline was panting, laying with her back against a small rock. Well, she’d worked hard enough to get to this spot without being seen. Low crawling over rough rocks and stones was no picnic. She felt like half the sand on this planet was ground into her scalp, not to mention the grime that was coating her everywhere else. But she’d made it. Crossing the distance from where John had knocked her down to her present position had felt like a huge risk. The rocks she’d used to conceal the movement hadn’t offered much cover, more concealment than anything else. If they’d seen her she would have been hit for sure.

  But she’d stayed low enough to the ground that they hadn’t spotted her yet. Which meant that she had a great flanking position on the aliens. They were behind cover to protect from Andy’s gunshots, but from this angle they didn’t have much protection at all.

  Not that the rocks shielding her were much better. The stones weren’t big enough to be much of a shield. They seemed entirely inadequate protection against the guns those lizards were still firing at Andy and John. But it was what she had. She’d wanted to tuck in behind the boulder with the others. Or better, go hide in the hole again. But the boulder was taking such heavy fire, she didn’t dare try. And besides, with John and Andy pinned down, somebody had to do something.

  The aliens were continuing their advance, covering each others movements with a steady stream of shots that kept her team-mates pinned down and unable to return fire. The leap-frogging method of approach the aliens used was taking time, but in another minute they’d reach the boulder. Then her friends would be captured. Charline looked to the sky, hoping to see the Satori swooping back in, but it was nowhere to be seen.

  She checked her rifle. It was loaded, ready to go. She flicked the selector switch from safe to single-shot.

  Andy had asked her if she’d used this weapon before. She’d answered no, but that she’d fired other rifles before. And she had. Charline had used guns for hunting, and for target practice. She’d never been a soldier. Until today, she’d never shot at anything that could shoot back. The ratzards had been pretty easy. But she was shaking at the idea of firing on these aliens, and at the thought of them shooting back at her.

  This wasn’t like shooting a deer for dinner, either. The aliens might look like monstrous lizards, but they had technology. They used a language to communicate - Charline had heard them shouting to each other over the rolling cracks of gunfire. They were sentient beings, probably more like humans than not.

  The aliens were also trying to kill her and her friends. If they were going to survive this mess, she was going to have to find it in herself to be a soldier. Somehow.

  “Dad, what do I do?” she whispered under her breath.

  Her father had always taught Charline to stand her ground. Don’t start fights, but finish them. Don’t let bullies win, and to never be afraid to fight for what she believed in. She’d taken those thoughts into her programming world, such a different place from the battlefields where he had won those lessons. Charline used her skills to fight battles in cyberspace that were no less important, but a lot less brutal.

  Now she found herself facing the same existential threat she knew her father must have once been challenged by. More than ever Charline understood how those battles had shaped the man who helped raise her, had turned him into the gentle but fierce person she remembered. He wouldn’t tell her to hide. He wouldn’t tell her to back down. Sometimes you had to fight.

  Charline took a deep breath, calming her nerves, just like she would have before a competitive shooting match back when she was in college. She’d been state long rifle champion thrice, medaled at nationals once.

  But those were just targets, her mind screamed at her.

  These things were alive. They thought, talked, walked, built things.

  Another volley shook the rock Andy was hiding behind. He and John were helpless, and the aliens were getting closer. She looked at Andy across the way, saw him try to return fire only to be forced back under cover again. A flash of bright red decorated his forehead. The aliens were coming faster now, sure their targets were unable to fight back.

  She remembered the feeling of Andy’s arms around her, after they almost lost Beth in the engine room. She shook her head fiercely. Not a good time to get distracted! But she couldn’t help feeling a hot anger rise in her heart. Andy and John meant something to her. She would not let them fall while she could do something about it.

  Charline took another calming breath. She rolled slowly from behind her cover, expertly placing her sights on the head of one of the aliens. The shot was clear. At this range, with her skill, there was no way she could miss. For a moment she tried to think about the aliens as being just targets, but her heart knew that wasn’t true. They were more than targets, and thinking of them that way wouldn’t make killing them any easier. It might even get her killed.

  “Not targets, enemies,” she breathed, pulling the trigger. The alien she shot tumbled backward. She knew it was dead; she didn’t need to check to be sure. Charline was certain where her round had impacted. She swept her rifle an inch to the right and fired again, taking out another soldier.

  The race was on. In another few seconds they would spot her and pin her down, too. Charline shifted her rifle a third time. She had to take down as many of the things as she could before they figured out where she was shooting from. If she could even the odds a little bit and slow down the aliens’ advance, it might just buy enough time for the Satori to come back and save them.

  Eighteen

  Beth picked herself back up from the Satori’s deck where she’d fallen when the enemy fire had hit the ship. Furious, she stepped back onto the bridge.

  “OK to shoot at them now?” she asked Dan. “Or should we let them put more holes in our ship first?”

  “Not the time for ‘I told you so’,” Dan said. “We’ve got to deal with these fighters and get back in there.”

  Beth slid back into her seat and read her screen. The fighters had strafed them and kept going, maintaining speed. Dan had increased speed to match them, and they were dead ahead.

  She touched the screen, designating a firing sequence. “Majel, lock targets and fire,” she said. Time to see how well the railguns worked.

  All four guns spat slugs of iron with depleted uranium cores. The slugs were accelerated by electromagnets drawing on the ship’s main power. They left the railgun barrels fast enough that they heated to incandescence from friction with the air.

  Two slugs ripped into each fighter, tearing through them and setting off a concussive explosion that scattered bits of debris across the sky.

  “Yes!” she shouted. “Got them. Let’s go back for the others, now.”

  “More trouble,” Dan said. “Check radar.”

  Every other fighter in the air was converging on them, and the mother ship loomed above them, slowly descending. Worse, the fighters seemed to be tracking the Satori. Dan jinked the ship around at a right angle, and they changed course to match.

  “Majel, damage report – has the cloak been hit?” Beth asked.

  “Cloaking device still operating. Damage confined to right wing area, no pressure loss.”

  Somehow, the aliens were detecting the ship even with the cloaking device on.

  Dan changed course again, gaining more altitude. That brought them even closer to the huge alien ship, which was still slowly descending. The fighters changed course to match them. They were being herded closer to that monstrous ship. When Dan tried to drop the Satori to a lower altitude, the fighters coordinated their movements to block him.

  Beth wracked her brains for an answer. She was an engineer, damn it! She ought to be able to figure out how they were doing it. If the aliens could have seen the Satori perfectly through the cloak, they wouldn’t have waited till the ramp was lowered to engage. They would have just attacked. If they could see the ship clearly now, they’d simply shoot the Satori down. However they were detecting he
r ship, it had to be imperfect. When Dan was creeping the ship in closer, they didn’t seem to take any notice.

  Was speed the answer?

  One of the fighters got very close to the ship, and she had to fire the railguns before it rammed them. The shot missed, but the fighter veered off. The others saw the shot and closed again. Dan swore, twisting the Satori around to evade them.

  She remembered how the lizard troops had ducked for cover when Dan brought the Satori in low enough to kick up dust from the ground. The ship wasn’t emitting anything the aliens could detect, she’d bet her tools on that. But the ship’s movement could affect the world around it...!

  “Dan! You need to slow the ship down!” Beth said.

  “What?” His eyes stayed on his console, his voice incredulous. “I’m barely staying away from them as it is!”

  “I think they’re following the pattern we’re making by moving through the air at high speed. Our wake. Slow down, then drop altitude and see if they follow.”

  Dan jinked sideways again, forced to gain still more altitude by the pursuing fighters. “And if it doesn’t work, they’ll blow us to bits.”

  “Dan,” Beth said, her voice soft. He turned to look at her, this time. “Please. Trust me.”

  “I do trust you. I always have.” The tenderness in his voice made her regret, for a moment, the stones she’d used to carefully wall off her heart.

  He looked at her a moment longer before snapping his attention back to his controls, slowing the Satori to a crawl, dropping her nose toward the ground and descending at a gentle rate straight toward the pack of enemy ships.

  Beth held her breath, hoping she was right.

  She watched her screen, looking for the slightest hint that the fighters could still see them. The Satori’s altitude reading continued slowly ticking down, while the blips representing the fighters on her radar rocketed toward them, speed unabated.

  They were almost spitting distance when Dan twisted the Satori into a turn, making her gasp at how narrowly they avoided one of the fighters as it sped past them.

  And then they were through, the alien ships continuing to hunt them higher in the sky. Beth heaved a breath, relaxing her shoulders.

  “It worked,” Dan said. He was grinning at her. She smiled back.

  “Yeah. Let’s go pick up the others and get the hell out of here. I don’t know how long it’ll take them to figure out what we did, but it won’t be too long.” Already, the pattern of the ships above them had altered, changing from a pursuit into a search.

  Dan was feeling better about the rescue prospects than he had in a while. Beth’s guess had been right on the ball. “Right. Majel, can you get us a close up view of the street where John and the others are?”

  He inhaled sharply as soon as he the computer put the image on his screen. Too soon to feel good, and too late to knock on wood. “Shit.”

  Beth called up the same view to her console. He looked over to see her reaction and saw her blanch.

  It wasn’t good. Another shuttle had landed, down the street in the other direction, so that the troops from that ship could flank the Satori’s crew on the ground. Scores of the aliens were walking toward their position, tucked behind a few rocks, blasting as they went.

  She turned her seat to face his. “Dan, they don’t have time for a slow approach. At this rate, we won’t get there in time.”

  “But if I speed up, the fighters will see us again, right?”

  Beth thought a moment. “Yeah, probably.”

  He wanted to scream in frustration. “So what I need to do is fly into a narrow street at high speed, taking out two shuttles as we come in, so they can’t fire on us. Then stop on a dime so you can open the hatch, get the others in here, and take off before the fighters come and blow us to bits.” He tried to keep his voice even, but wasn’t doing a very good job.

  His eyes flicked to the image on his screen again. Someone – it looked like Andy – was trying to return fire and slow the aliens’ advance. But they weren’t going to be slowed long.

  “Dan, if anyone can do this, it’s you,” Beth said.

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “You think so? After everything else I’ve screwed up? The people I let down?” He paused, continuing more quietly. “After I let you down?” Over and over, he thought. Some days, it seemed like he’s spent half his life letting Beth down, and the other half disappointing someone else. In his head, he knew it wasn’t true. But that didn’t make his heart less sick when he failed.

  She closed her eyes. “Dan, you’ve never let anyone down but yourself.”

  He kept his gaze on her face, so their eyes met when she opened hers again. “John said you were the man for this job. He’s counting on you. He believes in you. And so do I.”

  Dan held her eyes another moment, searching there for her real feelings. He knew Beth as well as he knew anyone. He looked for the slightest sign she was mocking him, or telling him what she thought he wanted to hear. He half expected to see it there.

  All he could find in her eyes was honesty.

  He turned back to his console. Beth and he had traveled a rocky road. They’d fought. They’d split up in the end, going their separate ways to pursue their dream careers.

  But through all their troubles, she’d never once lied to him.

  “Let’s do this, then,” he said, his voice gruff to hide a flood of emotions. “Going to be a little bumpy.” The corners of his eyes were wet, and he let them dry untouched, so Beth wouldn’t see him wipe tears away.

  At his command, the Satori burst into sudden speed, racing to where she was needed most.

  Nineteen

  John coughed on the dust filling the air around him. The blasts from the aliens’ rifles were coming so fast now that they were blowing clouds of the stuff all around them. He held his rifle around the corner of the boulder and fired off a burst. It was just wild shooting, but it might slow their advance a little bit. He was still praying Dan and Beth might be able to come back for them, but it was looking less likely by the minute. John was proud of his people though. They weren’t going down without a fight.

  “Sorry, John,” Andrew yelled over the racket. “Wish I had some grenades. Or a couple of claymore mines. Something.”

  “Pack better, next time,” John replied with a weak smile.

  “I’ll do that.” Andrew paused a moment, picking off one of their attackers who was getting too close to Charline. She was pinned worse than they were. His careful fire was keeping their attackers honest, making them work to get closer. But with the enemy coming in from their flank as well as their front, it was only a matter of time.

  “She did great,” John said.

  “Hmm? Charline? Yeah, she took down four or five of them before they figured out where the fire was coming from. She’s a trooper.” John saw Andrew smile as he looked over to her, but the smile was quickly replaced by a worried frown.

  Charline was laying flat on the ground, her arms over her head to ward off bits of shattered rock as they rained down around her. The other alien troops had been hammering her position since they’d figured out where she was. She couldn’t fire back, couldn’t so much as lift her head above the ground without being blasted. It had to be terrifying, and there was nothing they could do to help her. They were almost as badly stuck as she was.

  “I wish we could get her over here. Maybe retreat back into the hole,” Andrew said, looking around to see if there was some tactic to get her to safety that he hadn’t yet tried.

  “On the plus side,” he added, after taking another quick shot. “I think they want us alive.”

  “What makes you say that?” John asked.

  “Those big guns on the troop ships? They look like they could have taken us out any time they wanted to.”

  “Maybe they don’t want to blow us to bits because they’re hungry,” John said, wincing at the memory of the carnivore’s maw each of the attackers had.

  “I was trying not to
think about that,” Andy said drily.

  Bits of blasted rock rained down all around Charline. The aliens kept up a continuous fire on the rocks she was hidden behind, once they realized where her shots were coming from. It had gotten worse – much worse – after the second shuttle landed and another bunch joined the fight. All she could do at this point was duck behind a few rocks, cover her head with her hands, and pray.

  She’d never been so scared.

  Andy and John were pinned, too. She could still hear the crack of their rifles, but if they hadn’t come to get her out of this by now, they probably weren’t going to be able to. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking, trying to hit the aliens from a different angle. She wasn’t a hero. Charline had never been one to daydream about swashbuckling adventures.

  And this was why. Because she was enough of a realist to know where that sort of thing ended up – face down in the gravel with people shooting at you.

  But she remembered how Andy had looked, trying to fight back and protect them, but pinned down and hurt. She’d felt she had to do something, had to help. Charline closed her eyes. She was glad she’d tried. At least she’d demonstrated that her aim was still as good as ever; she’d taken a few of them down. And she wasn’t dead yet, she reminded herself.

  A massive explosion shook the ground, making Charline wonder if she’d thought that too soon. The blast was so strong that it lifted her from the ground. She covered her head for protection. Out of the corner of her eye Charline saw bits of twisted metal and fragments of burnt stone ping off the rocks around her. Comprehension came slowly. The enemy fire seemed to have stopped, but her ears rang so much from the blasts that she wasn’t sure. She peeked up quickly.

  The shuttle in front of her, the second one that had landed, was a burning wreck. Between her position and the shuttle, the aliens were all down, and none had yet staggered to their feet. Some of them were partially buried. She risked a glance to her left, and saw the other shuttle burning as well.