by Richard Fox
“Who’re you talking to?” hissed Weiss from a few yards behind. “You see something, put it out on the IR.”
“When I want shit from you, I’ll squeeze your head,” Standish snapped. He hurried to the end of the tunnel and pressed against the side. A rocky pathway cut across the end of the tunnel, ending a few yards away with a steep cliff.
A pulsating vibration went through Standish’s body through the tunnel wall. Beyond the cliff was a wide stream of dirt and rocks flowing in midair. The material lurched faster with each thrum of vibration.
“That…is not something I’ve seen before,” Standish said. He snapped pics with his rifle optics and sent them to Cortaro and Hale. With one eye, he slowly peered around the corner, then pulled back.
“Oh boy,” Standish said, opening a squad channel. “Cap, Top, you’re going to want to see this for yourself.”
“Moving,” Hale said.
Standish held the optics on top of his rifle just around the corner and snapped more pictures.
“Jesus,” Weiss said as the pics hit his visor. “What the hell is that?”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I fought a Jinn wyrm? Or when I defeated the face-eating Kroar of Nibiru? Neither of those were as big as this baby,” Standish said.
“What the hell’s a Kroar?” Weiss asked.
Hale and Cortaro ran up to Standish. Hale moved awkwardly; no Marine trained to move with one arm fixed to his side. Standish looked over the new environment layer fused over Hale’s injury and the blackened and warped armor plating on the captain’s right arm. He wasn’t sure how the captain managed to keep going, but Standish had never known Hale to quit anything.
“That’s spoil, sir,” Cortaro said, pointing to the river of material. “You’re mining anything and there’s going to be plenty of rock you don’t need. Got to send it somewhere. Explains all those rocks we saw on the surface.”
“The size of that funnel…this must be the shaft leading out of Norgay Montes,” Hale said.
“Movement.” Standish went to a knee and raised his weapon. On the opposite side of the river, a sled loaded with cubes of omnium and two wraiths raced along a road running parallel to the spoil stream. The sled zipped out of view.
“Who wants to wait right here until a different sled goes right in front of us? Not me,” Standish said. “I don’t have a vote but if we’re considering personal pref—”
Cortaro put a heavy hand on Standish’s head.
Hale tapped his gauntlet screen and the images Standish captured popped up on his visor.
At the origin of the spoil stream were massive rings, the widest hundreds of yards across and studded with blunt teeth, grinding through Pluto’s crust. The next ring was flush with the outermost, crushing stone into dust. Five rings formed into a mining drill, a glowing crystal in the very center.
Tiny black figures stood along the roadways. Beams from wrist spikes pulled quadrium from the passing spoil, transmuting it to omnium where it was loaded onto waiting sleds. Several drones cut into the rock just behind the drill’s progress, building the roads deeper into the surface.
“They’re laying track as they go,” Cortaro said. “Clever.”
“We need to destroy it,” Hale said. He looked up at the top of the spoil funnel. “How much denethrite do we have left?”
“Enough to do about as much good as a spitball against armor,” Cortaro said.
“Sir,” Jacobs said as she approached, “I have an idea.”
“Another officer with an idea. God help us,” Standish said under his breath.
“We don’t have to destroy the drill, just stop the omnium from getting to the surface, right?” she asked. “The Xaros are using the wraiths and drones to transport the omnium. We take them out and the enemy can’t finish their jump gate, right?”
“There are ten of us, hundreds of wraiths and drones,” Cortaro said. “We’re good, but we’re not going to win a head-on assault.”
“Wait.” Hale flicked his fingers across his gauntlet screen. “There’s another tunnel entrance closer to the drill. Can we get there from here?” Hale asked Cortaro.
The first sergeant shrugged and consulted the data sent from Earth.
“Xaros are aggressive, brutal,” Hale said. “I’ve never seen them let up from an attack before, or hold anything back. We can use that.”
“How do you mean, sir?”
“Bailey?” Hale waved the sniper up the line. “You ever heard of a ‘come on’ ambush, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re kidding. What’re they teaching at the Basic Course these days?”
“Fighting Xaros and fighting Xaros,” she said.
“Sir,” Cortaro said, tapping his gauntlet, “you’re right. We can get to that other tunnel. We’ve got to double back quite a ways.”
“That works,” Hale said. He pointed across the stream of dust and rocks when Bailey arrived and asked, “Can you hit a target on the other side with your rail rifle? Cortaro, how much denethrite do we have?”
****
Bailey snapped her gum and touched the power line running from the stock of her rifle to the battery attached to her lower back. The rail rifle had taken a few knocks since landing on Pluto. Her status screen had been known to lie to her before. Confident that the line was secure, she put her finger back on the trigger.
With the optics in her visor linked to the weapon, she could punch a hole through a turret on the other side of the moon. Shooting across a river of rock and dust was going to be tricky.
“Got one coming,” Standish said from the corner. He and Egan pulled back from their observation post and stopped a few feet behind Bailey. They pressed their hands against their helm audio ports.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Bailey swallowed her gum and braced herself against the weapon. Firing a rail rifle in atmo was never a pleasant experience, especially when she was firing on full power.
A sled appeared on the opposite side of the spoil. Bailey locked on with her optics and shifted the rifle to keep her bead on the target. Boulders the size of cars tumbled through the spoil stream, blocking her shot.
“Here we go.” Bailey waited for a boulder to tumble away and pulled the trigger. The rail rifle accelerated a slug the length of Bailey’s hand to super-sonic speed, breaking the sound barrier with a thunderclap. The bullet tore through the spoil stream. Dust ignited with the round’s passing, leaving a line of fire tracing from Bailey’s position to the sled.
The bullet hit the sled, blasting it into splinters and shattering the omnium cubes. The cubes broke into jagged hunks, evaporating to nothing within seconds.
“You’re up!” Bailey grabbed her rifle and disassembled it. By the time she had the barrel and bolt assembly mag-locked to her back, Egan and Standish were nearly at the tunnel exit.
“Face-first into battle!” Standish skidded around the corner and leveled his plasma rifle. He fired from the hip, sending off a spray of shots toward the wraiths and drones working near the drill. Egan bothered to aim, putting fewer shots down range.
Red energy beams slashed past the tunnel opening, striking the wall and sending out puffs of vaporized rocks.
The two Marines dove into the tunnel. Disintegration beams tore through the ground they were standing on just moments ago.
“It worked,” Standish said as he scrambled to his feet. “Definitely pissed them off. Lots of very angry horrible things coming right for us.”
“Damn my short legs.” Bailey ran through the tunnel, the sounded of screaming wraiths closing fast. The sound of the Dotok twisted into banshees still haunted her dreams. She had a bad feeling the barbaric roars of the wraiths would prove a cruel complement to future nightmares.
Orozco and Lin stepped out of the side tunnel, their cannons slung at their waists. Plasma bolts streaked past Bailey, hot enough that Bailey felt their passing through her armor. She heard the crack of falling rocks behind her as the heavy gunners blew
hunks out of the roof, dropping caltrops of broken stone.
“Hurry!” Orozco yelled.
A ruby beam snapped over Bailey’s shoulder. She flinched aside and went tumbling head over feet. Two more beams seared over her head.
There was a grunt of pain and the clatter of falling armor.
“Lin’s hit.” Orozco looked at the twin smoking holes in the fallen Marine’s chest, then grabbed Bailey and hauled her to her feet. He pushed her through the side tunnel. Standish and Egan disappeared down the jagged passageway.
Standish ducked his head back and yelled, “Move your asses!”
“Lin?” Bailey glanced back and saw the denethrite charge over the side tunnel exit, the timer on the fuse promising a detonation in one hundred twelve seconds. She ran on, scraping against jutting rocks but making forward progress all the same.
“Dead,” Orozco said.
The scream of wraiths echoed through the tunnel.
Bailey had never scored top marks on the strike Marine PT runs. But now, even in her armor, she ran like the wind. Orozco dogged at her heels, unable to run around her.
She ran into the cavern where they’d ambushed the wraith work party. Jacobs waved to the fleeing Marines from the entrance to their escape tunnel. The lieutenant hit a button on her gauntlet and timers connected to denethrite charges across the cavern started their countdown. Jacobs fell in behind Bailey and Orozco as they ran down the tunnel.
“Fuck.” Bailey struggled to breathe as her lungs started to burn. “Fucking. Hate. Running.”
The exit to another cavern appeared as the tunnel veered to a side. Bailey felt a surge of energy as the finish line neared. The cries of nearing wraiths urged her forward even faster.
Explosions sounded far behind the fleeing Marines as the denethrite charges blew. A blast of overpressure slapped Bailey across the back and pushed her against the tunnel wall. The rumble of an earthquake filled Bailey’s helmet. Flakes of rock broke from the ceiling as the rumbling intensified and bounced off her armor.
A small boulder struck her back and sent her sprawling. She lay in the dirt, struggling to get up, when she felt hands grab her. Orozco tossed her through the exit with the grace and gentleness of a dock worker at the end of a long shift. She rolled over several times before she bumped into Standish’s legs.
The ground slapped against Bailey and a shower of dust washed over her. She got up on her knees and looked around. The tunnel Orozco threw her out of had collapsed. A gray armored hand stuck out from between cracks in the rock.
“Oro!” Bailey ran to the broken pile and threw a boulder aside. “Hold on!”
More Marines joined Bailey as she scooped up debris and tossed it aside. She got Orozco’s arm uncovered.
Standish wedged himself between a boulder larger than him and pressed his feet against it. The artificial muscles beneath his armor strained as they tipped the boulder over, revealing Orozco’s cracked helmet and his shoulders.
“Get his arms,” Cortaro said as he grabbed Orozco underneath an armpit and pulled. Yarrow got the other and the two yanked Orozco hard. He slid a few inches out from the collapsed rocks, one arm still buried. Bailey grabbed the heavy gunner by his chest armor.
“Ready. Heave!” Orozco’s upper body emerged from the rock slide. The arm pinned to his side came into view with the next pull, revealing another armored hand gripping Orozco’s forearm.
“That’s Jacobs,” Weiss said as he grabbed his lieutenant’s hand.
Orozco came free a moment later. The rest of the Marines went to aid Jacobs as Yarrow and Bailey knelt beside Orozco, his armor dented and caked in dirt.
“His vitals are still strong,” Yarrow said. “Maybe another concussion. This guy needs to stop getting hit on the head.” The corpsman touched a button on Orozco’s helmet and the visor popped free. Yarrow took a small capsule from his belt, crushed it between his fingertips and wafted it under Orozco’s nose.
The big Spaniard jerked up. He looked at Bailey, then to Yarrow, then swung his head from side to side.
“Where’s my weapon?” he asked.
“On your back, you big oaf,” Bailey said. She gave him a pat on the shoulder, then hugged him.
“What? What I do?” Orozco asked.
Jacobs brushed dirt off her armor and did her best to limp away from the cave-in with some sense of dignity. She stopped next to Hale and leaned on him.
“Guess it worked, sir,” she said. “Every last wraith and drone that followed us into the caves won’t be a problem.”
“Can you keep moving?” Hale asked. “We need to get to the other entrance and put a stop to that drill. No rest for the weary.”
“Or the wicked.” She looked at the cave-in. “Lin…”
“Endure, Lieutenant,” Hale said. “We can mourn later. We have to fight now.”
****
His arm ached. A dull presence of pain radiated out from his abused muscles and up his shoulder. Hale tried to focus on something else as his Marines marched through a tunnel wide enough to fit four walking side by side.
Years ago, he’d suffered a stress fracture during a road march at the Basic School. A bone in his foot snapped in half at mile ten of a twenty-mile hike. He finished the march without a word of complaint and endured some halfhearted criticism from the instructors when he finally turned himself over to the corpsmen the next morning. Pain was part of an infantryman’s life.
Hale looked up at a floating glowing orb. The objects ran from one end of the tunnel to the other, a few dozen yards between them.
“Cortaro,” Hale said, pointing his free hand at an orb, “why do you think those are here? Why would the Xaros bother with lights?”
“The wraiths, I guess. Make the environment safe for them,” Cortaro said.
“For a species that moves planets from solar system to solar system, it should be easy to put their workers in an environment suit.” Hale tapped a finger against the side of his pistol. He turned around and aimed it at a globe behind the Marines and fired.
The globe shattered, the fragments disintegrating before they hit the ground.
Marines swung around, weapons up and ready for battle.
“As you were,” Cortaro said. “Keep moving.”
The globes on either side of the new gap in the line burned brighter. Hale picked up a rock and tossed it.
The rock arced away, then floated slowly at an angle when it crossed through the gap. The stone neared another globe and fell to the ground.
“The globes generate the gravity,” Hale said. “Bet there’s a force field that keeps the air in as well.”
“Great, sir, we know something new,” Cortaro said. “We aren’t entirely sure if this tunnel will get us to the drill, or back to the surface, but we’ve figured this puzzle out.”
“This might prove useful,” Hale said.
“Sir, got an opening coming up on the right,” Jacobs said through the IR.
“Check it out.” Hale glanced at his gauntlet screen. “Should be the side tunnel we need to get to the drill.”
“Moving.”
“You doing all right, sir?” Cortaro asked. “I see your face twitching. If it hurts that bad, then Yarrow can give you something.”
“And then I won’t be thinking straight,” Hale said.
“Have you been thinking about how we’re going to get the hell out of here? If the Breit didn’t make it…”
“If she’s gone, then Earth will send another fleet through the Crucible. We’ll hitch a ride back with them. We, high command, can’t let the Grinder come online,” Hale said.
“Sir! There’s—” Jacob’s warning cut off into static.
Hale ran for the entrance, but Cortaro stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“No weapons fire,” Cortaro said. “No noise. Could be interference that cut her off.”
“Could be the enemy.” Hale ran forward, his pistol held ready next to his helmet. He made his way into a small cavern where he found
Crimson squad standing in the middle of the room, dead wraiths all around them. The trail of dead led to a doorway piled high with bodies.
“What is—” An arm wrapped around Hale’s neck and jerked him backwards. The razor-sharp edge of a silver blade pressed against his visor just beneath his eye.
“You have blundered into an ambush. Disappointing,” a low voice growled.
Hale pushed the arm away and spun around.
“Steuben!” Hale lowered his pistol. “What happened here? Where have you been?”
“Landing was a bit rough,” Lieutenant Mathias said from a terrace above Hale’s head. Four more Marines stood around him. The lieutenant held up a thin chain with several dog tags on it. “Took casualties before we ever got into the tunnels. Lost Bronx and half my team to those banshee-things a few rooms back. Bunch more just charged in here after that explosion. I assume that was you, sir?”
Hale brought the lieutenant and Steuben up to speed on what he and the other Marines had been through. The rest of Hale’s squad joined them in the cavern.
“Sounds like you’ve been through worse,” Hale said.
“You are hurt. Again,” Steuben said.
“Flesh wound.” Hale waved Cortaro, Jacobs and Mathias over to him. “Take a knee, everyone.”
Hale holstered his pistol and drew a circle in the sand. “OK, the drill is…” He stopped, feeling the thrum of distant machinery through the ground. “Close. Here’s the plan. Pipe up if you have a better idea.”
****
Standish stepped over a wraith corpse and inched closer to the end of the tunnel. The thrum of the drill jarred pebbles and dust loose with each pulse.
“You think this is going to work?” Weiss, a few feet behind, asked over the closed IR.
“I’ve fought giant Xaros constructs with Hale before,” Standish said, swallowing hard. “On Earth, we had the Iron Hearts to pull our asses out of the fire. Takeni: Iron Hearts and orbital fire support. Classified space vault I’m not telling you about: Iron Hearts and a space god…thing. This time, we have a couple more Marines,” he glanced down at his plasma rifle, “and peashooters. Fuck.”
