The Eridani ships were smaller than Starkiller, yet were still something that could cause problems even with their small crew and their increased shielding tech.
“Cerberus, open fire.”
The AI was ready. Before the order had slipped from her mouth, all of the cannons fired, and the torpedo bay let loose on the ship on the right. The shots caught the two ships completely by surprise. One was shut down by the first barrage, the running lights of the ship flickering before dying out. The other tried to come about to try and mount an offense of its own, but the torpedo and two pulse cannon shots crippled it as well.
“Knapp, Jennings, Miln. Launch bay, now.” Yamahara shouted. She followed the two crewmen down the short hallway and to the lift. A short ride down and laterally brought them to the launch bay and the last shuttle they had. It was already powered up. Miln was already inside, suited up and checking on his pulse rifle. He was already shifting it into a sniper configuration. Knew it.
“Thank you Cerberus,” Yamahara said, before pulling on the armored suit’s helm and grabbing a seat in the shuttle behind Knapp and Jennings.
“Captain, they are sending out fighters,” Trevor’s voice came over the ship’s comm, a little shaky.
“You know your orders,” Yamahara said, looking over her suit one last time before pulling on the helm. “Cerberus knows his.”
“If we don’t hear from you in ten hours, jump out of here and find a place to live,” Trevor said, cutting in. “That doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“Then, I suggest you hope we get back. And monitor my commlink carefully. Yamahara out.”
“Captain, the sky is getting a little thick,” Knapp said, juking around a pair of Eridani fighters.
Yamahara had to admit, Knapp was good, but she knew that Garret would have already landed by now. “Get into the atmo. They aren’t as maneuverable in atmo.”
“You know this how?” Knapp snapped back.
“I fought them, I know what they can do,” Yamahara said back, as evenly and as calmly as she could.
Knapp plunged the craft down, taking the descent at a steep angle. Jennings gripped the arms of his chair. Miln was “resting his eyes.” How can he sleep at a time like this? A few Eridani drones skipped off the atmosphere and went careening out into space. A handful stayed and started to fire again, chasing the launch. One of their shots clipped the shuttle’s port side. There was a small burst of fire, and the launch shuttle bucked a little before evening out.
“You know what you are doing?” Yamahara asked Knapp. “Keep calm and serpentine.”
Knapp clutched the controls too tightly, and Yamahara had to remind her about the yaw again as the shuttle started to serpentine. Yamahara’s stomach dropped out of her for the last time. “Knapp, I am taking over.”
Knapp looked over her shoulder at her. “Captain, you said—”
“I know what I said. I’m taking over.” Yamahara already snapped out of the restraints and moved closer to Knapp. She leaned forward to touch the PFC’s shoulder. “I don’t want to die either. Let me give it a go.”
“Yes, Captain,” Knapp said thankfully.
Knapp snapped out of the restraint harness, and Yamahara was into the pilot seat in the blink of an eye. She didn’t wait for Knapp to grab a seat before she shoved the accelerator to its maximum and slammed through more of the atmosphere, the heat shielding glowing a bright cherry red. The pursuing Eridani ships started to peel off as the ship descended faster. Except one. It fired at the launch and missed by a narrow margin. “Fine, you want to see what I can do?” Yamahara growled. She grabbed the accelerator handle and jerked it backwards, the Eridani drone shot past them as the launch shuddered and stalled. Yamahara snapped the accelerator forward. Without lining up a shot from the small pulse turret, she fired and destroyed the ship. While the others crowed about the shot, she didn’t. They had to get in and out before they could do anything for Garret and the others.
“Don’t count your chickens yet. We still need to find Garret and the others and get out of here.”
The voices toned down to nothing. She didn’t like to cut down the cheering, yet they needed to focus ton the mission. We can celebrate after.
Landing was a bit harder than she thought. Or remembered. She looked at the rest of the crew. Miln was up and already at the door. He swept his eyes over the rest to see if they had their helms on before he popped the hatch and was outside, sweeping the area. Following Miln, she saw the other launch. Seeing the condition of the other launch shuttle, she didn’t feel bad for the rough landing. “Weapons hot, we need to be ready for anything.”
Knapp was the only one who didn’t grab a rifle and nod immediately. Yamahara shoved the rifle into her hands. Knapp looked up, shocked by it. “Get your head in the game. Knapp.”
“Yessir.”
As soon as they left the shuttle, they were attacked. It was a small party of Eridani flying drones, missile drones that dissolved into humanoid shapes. Yamahara and Jennings charged forward. Knapp was in the back, firing and missing. She didn’t know where Miln went, though she trusted he was situated. She focused on fighting the drones as they closed in, as she did, she saw that three drones were knocked from the sky by someone.
The drones were creeping closer and closer, pulse rifle fire became close combat with the thick electrified club Yamahara ripped from the back of her suit. She blinked and found her group alone, the drones had all dropped and been destroyed. Two drones appeared from over the hill, hovering, then dropped when they were shot from their position. Yamahara traced back the shots to see Miln, prone on the top of the launch. Of course.
When he signalled “all clear” and dropped onto the ground, Yamahara beckoned him over. When he did so, she said, “Miln, I need—”
“You won’t even know I’m around, but I am,” Miln said, snapping off a salute before taking off ahead of the group at a jog. He was over the small hills, his rifle ready, and his head scanning before Knapp was done puking in her suit.
Knapp looked up, bits of vomit still clinging to her lips before she flushed her helmet. “Where did he come from, Captain?” Knapp asked, nodding towards Miln’s retreating form.
“Sniper school,” Yamahara said, looking away from her.
“Oh.”
Yamahara turned back to Knapp, put her hands on Knapp’s suit, and leaned in close. “I need you to get your head back in the game, Knapp. You need to snap out of it. I know that the grey on the station—”
“Captain, that isn’t what is wrong,” Knapp said, pulling away.
“Then, what is it? You’ve been sullen this entire time. Thought you were broken.”
“I am broken, Captain. I can get through this. I need to do this on my own time is all.”
Yamahara sighed and stood fully erect. “Knapp, please stand at attention.”
“Captain?” she asked as she stood up. She loomed over Yamahara, eight inches taller than Yamahara.
Yamahara slapped Knapp hard across the helm. It wasn’t as harsh with the suit and helmet absorbing most of the blow. “Get it together. You are not in Boot. You can’t get out of things by asking to ‘take your time.’ This is war. Get over it, or I’ll shoot you myself to get you out of my way.”
Knapp was silent, her eyes wide. Her body started to quake, and Jennings was suddenly very interested in the launch.
“Not to kill. But, at least in the knee or ankle. Now, get it together and push forward, or drop your weapon—”
Knapp dropped her rifle, turned and walked towards the shuttle. “I’ll be working on the ship, Captain.” The “Captain” was thrown in with sarcasm.
Yamahara wanted to shoot her. But she didn’t. You have a mission. Discipline her later. At least she is doing something. She turned to Jennings and both headed off towards the facility.
They were close to the facility. The area was filled with the broken ancient stone edifices of one-time buildings. Yamahara’s commlink buzzed with someone’s comm s
ignal. It wasn’t any of the ones she came down with. The name “Cyrus” popped up on her HUD. She looked around and saw the dark silhouette of an I.S.S. battle suit. She and Jennings ran forward to check. When she was close, she checked with Miln while kneeling behind a broken wall. “Any sign of traps?”
“None that are showing on the scanners, but be careful, sir,” Miln said.
Part of Yamahara wanted to look around to try and find him, but she knew that wasn’t going to be possible. She crept a little closer, Jennings coming up behind and tapping her shoulder before she moved forward. When she was close, she realized it was Lt. Cyrus’s body. He had one leg, the other one cut off at the hip, his suit programmed to do it to keep from letting the crap of the environment into the breach. He looked unconscious.
Yamahara moved a little closer, until the commlink buzzed again. “Lt. Cyrus? You awake, soldier?”
“Yes, Captain, but I can’t move. Don’t come any closer. Please.”
“Why?” She asked, moving a little closer.
“One of the Eridani freaks rigged me to some explosive.”
“Miln scanned and said—”
“Captain, I am picking it up now,” Miln cut in.
“Anything we can do?” Yamahara asked.
“Make sure my mom knows I loved her,” he said with a wet chuckle.
Cyrus turned his head, and she saw the visor was cracked. His face swam with a blue and silver liquid. “Fall back!” She screamed and backpedaled as fast as she could. She tripped over something, but kept pushing herself backwards on her hands and feet. Not fucking Bloom!
Cyrus’s body ruptured into a large cloud of red and black and silver. “Shit, I thought even the Eridani stopped using Bloom?” The spray was once Cyrus. It had become a colony of spores that could burrow through the armor of an I.S.S. suit. She scrambled back faster, seeing that the cloud dispersed. She still checked herself for patches of red and green, making Jennings double check her. And she checked him.
Yamahara was tired. She and Jennings were the only ones in the ditch in front of the facility. The remains of Cyrus had been meant to blow onto her and Jennings. This mission was going tits-up in the worst way. She had to find Garret. At least find the bastard’s remains, and if needed, bring his tags to the I.S.S. He had to be in the facility. She knew better than to talk to Miln. He was out watching their asses. She felt tired. She tried to remember the last time she had slept properly. It wasn’t anytime recently.
“Captain, we have company,” Miln said through his comm.
She turned to see dozens of drones shooting towards them. Some of them took on their humanoid fighting postures, while other were still in their missile configurations. And all of them were converging on Yamahara and Jennings, who fired back wildly.
“Jennings, get ready.”
Jennings pressed himself into a firing position and nodded. “Aye, Captain.”
“Fire!” Yamahara screamed, pointing her own rifle towards the five robots as they tumbled towards her. The pulse weapons wouldn’t do much against the robots, but it was something to distract them while Miln knocked a ion grenade into his rifle and fired it into their midst. It went off with a loud pop, and the bots stopped. Three of them sparked violently and collapsed. One exploded, and Yamahara had to duck behind the stone wall to not get hit by the shrapnel.
She tapped Jennings’s shoulder. He charged forward towards the facility entrance. Yamahara and Miln, wherever he was, covered him. He made it to the doorway and waved Yamahara forward. Once she was there, she and Jennings waited for Miln a half-second. He then contacted them saying, “I’ll stay out here and keep an eye out.”
Garret blinked, unaware of what was going on. Last he remembered, he was held by the Eridani. He found himself in a bug suit, his rifle in hands, fully charged. He had no idea where he was. He was on a raised platform, and he felt before he heard something coming closer to him. The platform was needed for some reason. He had to protect it. Something’s coming, a voice hissed in his mind. He saw a flicker of movement and fired without thought. The burst of blue light from the plasma discharge lit up the area. He saw faces, Eridani faces, around him. They were all tall, like the Unity Eridani; walking on their own, striding towards him. He didn’t know where he was, he just knew he had to stop them. Their faces grinned, their claw-tipped hands glinted wetly in the light of this plasma rifle.
He started to fire at them, and each burst of plasma gave him another target to fire on. Again and again, he shot wildly, striking one Eridani, and another took its place. They were terrifying, each of them striding towards him. Their grav-chairs abandoned, their limbs longer and stronger than even Garret’s. Garret only knew he had to protect the platform. That was his job. Protect the platform, it kept repeating in his head again and again.
They were moving closer and closer. Garret fired again and again at the larger Eridani, creeping closer and closer.
Three
Part VI
Inside the facility, a door slid open. Yamahara spun around as Jennings took care of the three Eridani coming at them from one side. Trying to flank us? Not—What in the Hells!
An Eridani lunged towards her. It was not in a walker suit. It was also huge, a creature seven-to-eight feet tall, dressed in a dark armor. It roared out something, muffled by the helmet of her suit.
Yamahara looked down the rifle at the tall walking Eridani. How can it be walking on its own? The alien’s body was encased in something like the armor that the I.S.S. used. She fired at the creature, ducking behind the retaining wall as some kind of shield thrummed on, stopping the blasts form doing much harm.
All the previous guards they had run into were the normal crippled Eridani, using technology to be able to walk with shielded suits. The armor was lighter, but still tough. “We have a problem,” Yamahara whispered to Jennings’s comm. She moved backwards, firing again and again at the advancing Eridani freak. It smiled, rows of sharp, nasty teeth gleamed in the flickering light of the facility. It unnerved her. She reached back and touched Jennings’s back with her hand before snapping it back to the grip to fire at the thing three more times.
“What’s that? A problem? No, couldn’t be one Captain. Things are going so smoothly,” Jennings snarled back, still fending off the last two walking-suit Eridani at Yamahara’s flank. “What’s the problem?”
“There’s an Eridani with better armor and—”
The freak Eridani reached out and wrenched the rifle from Yamahara’s grip. From long sessions of training, her left hand reached back for the collapsible pulse baton. It snapped out and she slashed upwards hard, catching the creature in the chin. It let out a roar of pain as the pulse discharge sent it reeling back.
Jennings turned and fired at the thing. “What is that thing?”
“What I told you,” Yamahara said, holding the button on the baton to build up another charge.
Jennings reacted before Yamahara did and pushed himself back as the creature lunged forward, the clawed, thick-ropey arm catching Yamahara in the head, knocking her roughly to the side. The Eridani stalked over to loom over her.
“Unity will win out.” The freak Eridani hissed.
Yamahara was confused how she heard the Eridani speak when she realized her helmet had been ripped off. The next thought was that the air wasn’t Eridani, as the nitrogen was balanced with enough oxy for her to breathe. She rolled to the side as the Eridani’s arm lashed out at her. She slapped the floor of the facility to stop herself and pushed herself the other way to stab the baton end into the Eridani. It hit hard, and the buildup of plasma discharged into the thing’s side. It let out a keening scream and fell onto its back, letting out a moan of pain before it stopped and was still.
Yamahara was trying to gather herself when Jennings stuck his hand in her face. “You alright, Captain?”
“I’m alive. Let’s find Garret and get the Hells out of here.”
The door the freak Eridani came through was still open. Jennings nod
ded towards it. Then stopped and asked, “Captain, is the air safe?”
“Keep the helmet on for now. Who knows how much of the actual air is Earth normal.” She plucked up her own helm and found it was damaged but would still work. Still, the visor was spiderwebbed so badly, she couldn’t see.
The two crept along, feeling like they were the only two things alive in the facility. Yamahara more than once touched Jennings’s shoulder to reassure herself he was beside her. The lights of the facility had dimmed to the point the two could barely see, even with the HUD in Jennings’s helm.
“Must be using a dampener.”
They came to a door. Yamahara palmed the lock and winced from the pain of the bright light on the other side of the door. She heard Jennings say her name several times. “I’m fine, it’s just the light. What do you—”
“Garret. PFC Garret. I think he’s alive.”
When the spots started to disappear from her vision, Yamahara saw Garret: pale, trembling, and practically naked on a long metal table. A tube connected him to a small monitor. It looked like one of the datacubes that the Eridani used for everything.
“Get the cube, Jennings,” Yamahara ordered as she went to Garret. She reached out to touch his chest and felt it rise and fall slowly. “Garret, can you hear me?”
Garret’s body snapped up into a sitting position. “We’re overrun! The Eridani, they took the platform!” He then crumpled back onto the table, unconscious.
Yamahara and Jennings shared a bewildered look. She then shook her head. This is a win. Get Miln and then let’s go! She reached up to touch her commlink. “Miln.”
“Captain?”
“Come to my signal. We need help getting Garret out.”
“He’s alive?” Miln asked.
“Yes. Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Garret felt like a wrung-out sponge. His mouth was thick, and he didn’t even know where he was. He looked up at the visored face of someone. He saw the name MILN stitched across the shoulder. “Who?”
“Quiet, Garret. You’re weak. Just focus on running,” Miln’s deadpan voice came through the commlink.
Starkiller Chronicle Bundle Part 2: Parts 4-6 Page 3
