Tyche's Demons_A Space Opera Military Science Fiction Epic

by Richard Parry

  Nate felt, almost like it was a stranger speaking in his mind, that he should be worried as his ship lost altitude. Grace was screaming over the comm, and through their minds too—

  GRACE We’re hit, we’re hit, we’re going down, our Tyche is hurt

  —the hull spinning faster around them. Nate felt more than heard the PDCs still firing, relentless even in the ship’s spiral, and then the ground hit them so hard he was almost jerked free of the cargo straps. The Tyche bounced once, twice, and then slid, a scream of metal against ceramicrete as the ship scraped across the ground.

  After what felt like ten minutes they stopped moving, Nate untangling himself from the cargo straps. He swayed across the deck, which was canted at an angle. The Tyche’s remaining drive still whined above him, air getting in through the rent from Engineering.

  NATE Grace, Grace, my Grace

  GRACE I’m here, I’m okay, go, go get our friends

  Kohl pulled himself from the straps holding him down, and said, “That was the worst fucking landing I’ve ever been a part of.” He moved towards the cargo bay airlock, palming the controls. The Tyche beeped, then blared an error, the airlock sliding only half-way open. Kohl tossed Nate a look that said I’m gonna kill a motherfucker, then said, “I’m gonna kill a motherfucker.”

  “Get in line,” said George, slipping past Kohl and through the airlock’s gap. Baggs gave Nate a quick salute before ducking out on her heels. Kohl put a hand against the airlock, then leaned into it. There was a screech of metal, the boots of his power armor scraping across the deck, then they bit, and the airlock door opened wider.

  Kohl walked out, Nate on his heels. Nate had his blaster in one hand, his black blade in the other, and he had no recollection of drawing either.

  Outside the Tyche, the ship had dug a long furrow through the ruins of Osaka. A dust storm hung in the air, making nice with the smoke billowing from the Tyche’s engineering bay. Nate could see the side of a building, a hole bit clean through, where they must have collided on the way down. There was, a hundred meters away, a bunker set into the ground. His HUD highlighted Hope, next to her the Empire’s Bulwark officer, both huddling close, no doubt trying to make themselves as small as possible as a starship crashed above them. On top of the bunker were three humanoid figures, and Nate thought, Ah. That’s what she meant by drones. There was a smoking pile next to them, the incandescent fire of a fuel cell bright across the distance and the dust.

  “We only got one?” said Nate. “We got one drone, after raining tungsten here?”

  “Glass half-full, Cap,” said Kohl. “We got one, only three to go.” His plasma cannon whined out from its rack on his back, and he trudged forward like he had a personal checklist of this fucker first, then that fucker.

  One humanoid pointed a weapon at Nate, and he had a flash of intuition—

  The line of fire will be through your heart. You need to move sideways this much.

  —about what was to come. He ducked sideways, a line of brilliant white lashing out from the weapon to where he’d been standing moments before. The white was followed by a lazy line of smoke, dragged away by the wind. A piece of building behind Nate exploded into fragments. As the sonic shock of the shot knocked Nate over, he thought, did that weapon just set the air on fire? Is that a hand-held railgun? If it was, it promised a number of things, but one of them was the humanoids were strong enough to be mounting platforms for railguns. Accelerating metal that fast? They needed to be strong.

  Nate raised his blaster, firing plasma at the figures. He hit nothing but air. It was like shooting at shadows. They skipped sideways, or just fucking leaned, but like Nate was caught in treacle and it was the easiest thing in the world. One of them broke towards him at what looked like a run, but sped up, and he had time to think, fuck me, before it was on him. Again, his intuition saved him, a sense of—

  It’s like a charging bull. It will try and hit you here. Move over there.

  —impending doom, and he dived. As an afterthought, he swung the black blade as he leapt, feeling the weapon hit something. The impact almost pulled the sword from his hand, but Old Empire tech, built strong and true, kept that blade in his hand as gold fingers gripped the hilt. As the humanoid ran past him, Nate caught a glimpse of his opponent. It looked like a suit of power armor, like what Kohl wore, except smaller. More compact. Like there wasn’t enough room in there even for a skeleton. Like it was the power armor. It skidded to a halt in a shower of dust and debris, spinning to face him.

  No. That thing didn’t spin. It reconfigured. The humanoid re-aligned its arms, legs, and head around its torso, facing him without turning. Nate saw the weapon it carried was lost, along with half of one of its arms. He readied his sword, holding the black blade between them.

  The figure’s remaining arm whined, a long sliver of metal sliding out, and it lunged at him. It was like fighting lightning, the movements so fast he couldn’t see them. But again, and again, the black blade came up, a shower of sparks and metal as his future sense—

  Duck.

  Dodge. No, that way.

  Block here.

  The attack is a feint. It will get you from the other side.

  —guided his arm. Every time he blocked, the impact jolted his arm, the metal prosthetic groaning and screeching with the strain. His metal leg skidded against the ceramicrete. Nate knew no matter how hard he fought, he couldn’t beat this thing. It didn’t breathe, or seem to get tired, and he already had sweat running into his eyes, breath rasping in his helmet. Nate yelled, all animal, nothing going on in his head but fight, or flight, or a mixture of the two. He fell to one knee under a powerful blow and wondered then if this thing that tried to kill his starship, his Tyche, was about to kill him too.

  There was a whine, then a concussive blast that knocked Nate off his feet. The humanoid blew into fragments, the bright blast of a ruptured fuel cell flaring. He looked past the sparking, clattering remains to see the Tyche, the painted face on the side only partially visible through the debris she rested in. One of the PDCs on the side had fired, against all hope, and killed whatever the hell was fighting Nate. He collapsed back, panting, then looked at the rest of his team. Get up, Chevell. Work’s not done yet.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WHEN KOHL PUT his boots down outside the Tyche, he patted an armored hand against the ship’s hull. “Be right back. Gonna get you a piece of someone.” His power armor whined and clanked as he walked, the HUD giving him targeting reticules over the top of those three assholes who’d shot them down. Kohl took a moment to consider that he was outside the safety of a starship, about to fight three things that had shot down said starship, and then tied that thought off with, Yeah, which means those fuckers asked for this.

  Baggs and George roadie ran, nice and low, off to the left. Nate was at his side. “We only got one?” said Nate. “We got one drone, after raining tungsten here?”

  “Glass half full, Cap,” said Kohl. “We got one, only three to go.” His plasma cannon whined out from its rack on his back, armored hands holding it steady. His HUD gave him some backchat, a little static hazing things up some, which suggested those particular fuckers downstream were using electronic warfare. Not that it bothered Kohl much. Targeting system or no, he had a full battery on his cannon, and a will to use it.

  There was a brilliant bolt of light from one figure, almost taking the cap out, but Nate was the luckiest son of a bitch Kohl had ever crewed with. Looked to Kohl like the cap had just sort of dodged right before the shot happened, which couldn’t be right, but whatever. The shot line from weapon to Nate looked like it set the air on fire, which said railgun to Kohl, and also gave him a deep level of jealousy. Plasma cannons were nice, but he’d never had a railgun mounted on his armor. So, that was the first souvenir he would collect.

  One of ‘em was running at the cap, and running fast, which meant Nate already had his target. It left two for Kohl, and if Baggs and George stopped fucking around wherever they w
ere, maybe they could get in on the action too. Kohl lined up one of the two figures, squeezing the trigger on his plasma cannon. Blue-white light fzzzt-cracked down the hundred meters between them, and if he was being honest, Kohl expected a good, clean kill. He sent enough plasma towards those assholes to tear a hole in an APC, but those things? He hit nothing but air. They jumped out of the way — like a couple of fucking spider monkeys — latching on to buildings like gravity happened to other people. Kohl followed one of them with a line of plasma, blowing chunks of ancient building into smoldering pieces. The tip of his plasma cannon glowed a cherry red, but since he had hit nothing but scenery yet, he kept his finger on the trigger, walking forward.

  The damn thing kept leaping and jumping, like it knew how he would shoot. Or, it was just fast. Either one of those options sucked hard, because it suggested Kohl could keep firing until his battery dried up. No problem. Got plenty of batteries. Kohl kept firing and kept hitting nothing but air. He spared a thought for Hope and whoever her friend was, but couldn’t see ‘em, which meant they weren’t his problem.

  His cannon clicked off, battery ejecting from the bottom, glowing with heat as it hit the ceramicrete at Kohl’s feet. He didn’t even slow down, just palming another into the bottom of the weapon, the cannon saying READY on his HUD. A couple extra lines of fire on those fuckers might help some, but he didn’t know where Baggs and George were at, and so wishing for that was a lost cause.

  Kohl heard a boom from behind him, and figured the cap had taken out his one, which left the score like this: Cap, one, Kohl, zero. Kohl didn’t like scores that looked that way. He clicked the firing mode selector on his cannon, the underslung launcher locking into place. He braced himself, pulling the trigger, and the cannon fired a rocket, straight as an arrow. This time, he wasn’t aiming at the assholes, he was aiming at the building they were scampering over. He hit the base of it, ceramicrete exploding out in a shower of dust and fragments, the wind whipping debris into a frenzy. Kohl fired again, another rocket biting deeper. Third time’s the charm. He fired one more rocket, the explosion rocking the street, before a tremor started. Kohl could feel it through his boots. The building’s facade trembled, then fell down. Both of the figures looked up at it, one of them running clear. The other was buried in a landslide of ancient building, ceramicrete and all kinds of other shit coming down on it.

  “Take that, fucker!” Kohl hollered. Score now Cap, one, Kohl, one. Better, but a tie wasn’t good enough. Where was the other damn one? Ah, right there, with one of those fancy hand-held railguns. Not great. Kohl lumbered sideways, his armor whining then catching on the side of a piece of fallen ceramicrete as big as a door, and about as thick too, a real solid cube of the stuff. It was the catch that saved him, a railgun round going right through where he would have been if he’d kept moving. Inspiration struck, and he bent over, hauling the ceramicrete up like a shield. His armor whined, motor assists working for their day’s pay, and he lumbered towards the remaining asshole. His plasma cannon, no longer needed, shucked itself on his back.

  Only problem, and technically a big problem, was that Kohl couldn’t see the damn thing while he held a shield up. He was sure it was still there on account of the ceramicrete shuddering and cracking as railgun rounds hit it. One round punched right through the material, hitting the plasma cannon mount at his waist. It sparked, errors cascading on his HUD. Ah well. Couldn’t hit ‘em with it anyway.

  Impacts stopped hitting his makeshift shield, so Kohl tossed it aside. The humanoid was right in front of him, looking down at its weapon, which looked busted. Kohl risked a glance sideways, seeing George crouched low, her weapon leveled. She must have hit the thing’s gun, which was a stroke of luck. Now all Kohl had to do was get close and personal, which is just how he liked it.

  He swung an armored fist, motor assisted joints grinding through the motions. Like with the cannon shots, he hit nothing but air. The figure didn’t seem so much to dodge as remodel itself in a slightly different location, legs and arms and torso sliding into different positions. Which meant there wasn’t a human in there, otherwise they’d be a delicate meat slurry after that kind of movement. Killing drones, was it? No problem.

  The thing’s arm unfolded, a long sliver of metal sliding free. That caused Kohl a moment’s concern, because he had anticipated nothing other than a fist fight, but hell, it wasn’t any worse than back when he’d been working a door at a club in his teens and some asshole drew a blade on him then. Kohl squared up, swinging again, and the thing dodged, slipped sideways, and then ran him through the chest with the blade.

  It hurt, like a motherfucker. Blood sprayed from the wound, and Kohl had a moment to think, That asshole just ran me through the heart, before he stumbled back. His armor held him upright, like a careful friend, which was pretty much what it was, if friends were twenty times stronger than you and had weapon mounts. Kohl coughed, blood spraying the inside of his visor. His HUD, trying valiantly to gleam through all the red, told him it had isolated the air seals on his suit. It also told him that his wound was likely fatal and was issuing a field call for a medic. Kohl didn’t know which army or war the armor had come from, but he was near a hundred percent positive the number it was calling wasn’t manned anymore, but even if it was, getting stabbed through the heart was a thing few men came back from.

  The figure stepped back, observing Kohl’s movements. Kohl felt like he was being analyzed, like a bug in a killing jar, and he coughed more blood. He laughed, although with a little less enthusiasm than he might have otherwise mustered. “You … fucker. You … have no idea.” He fell to one knee, his armor still doing its level best to help him by not letting him fall on his face.

  The figure cocked its head at him, just a blank faceplate, then looked at the blade it carried. Smoke was curling away from the metal, the bright material now mottled. About the same time, burning agony flared in Kohl’s chest. The nanites he carried, courtesy of his spine injury on the snail planet, kicked into high gear. Their job was repairing tissue and destroying foreign objects. Good news, no foreign objects left inside him. But the nanites in his blood, now coating the figure’s blade, were non-specific and hungry. The nanites still inside him went to work repairing the rent in his chest, and by association, his heart.

  Kohl didn’t know if there were enough nanites on the figure’s blade to do it any real damage, but that didn’t matter, because at that moment, George fired hot plasma death into it, again, and again, and again, pieces of armor blowing off it, until she hit the internal power core. It exploded in a brilliant burst of white fire, the rain of debris against Kohl’s armor sounding like hard rain on a tin roof.

  He wheezed around the pain of his body being forcibly repaired, coughing again. He turned to George. “Thanks,” he said.

  “No problem,” she said, then exploded in a shower of red. Kohl turned, taking in the figure emerging from the remains of his home-made landslide.

  “Let’s go,” he said, then coughed. He didn’t have a lot left, and these assholes took some killing. What he needed about now was another gun, or a grenade, or fucking Baggs to get here.

  Or, you know. Backup of any kind would be good.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “THEY’RE NOT HUMAN,” said Saveria, eyes wide as she looked out the Tyche’s windscreen. “There’s nothing inside them.”

  “Drones, maybe,” said Grace, getting up from her acceleration couch. She unslung her sword from the rack behind her, slipping the belt over her shoulder. “See if you can get the PDCs back up.”

  “On it,” said Saveria.

  Grace left the flight deck, slipping through the crew deck towards Engineering, feet quiet as she walked. She spared a glance to the hold. The ship was at an angle, the floor not level, but it didn’t look buckled. Grace found the Engineering airlock crumpled, bent, and wormed her way through a gap, careful not to tear her suit. Inside Engineering, one drive was fine, the other gone, daylight and dust visible through the hol
e. The reactor still thrummed, a beating heart, but there were warning lights aplenty across the surface. Grace couldn’t do anything about that, but it had none of the angry red emergency shutdown signs that would leave them without power or ship weapons, if Saveria got the guns online.

  She put a hand on the reactor. I’m so sorry. I was ungentle with you, and you have been so good to us. I shouldn’t have tried to be El. You didn’t choose me. Grace traced fingers across a sheared spar, the metal still cooling, and thought, they shot our Tyche down. She clenched her fists, lips pressed in a line. Then they will pay. Grace heard one of the PDCs fire, a single, perfect round. Her HUD was alive with the data for Nate, Kohl, Baggs, and George. Nate’s looked like he was in a fight, which he was, but her eyes widened when Kohl’s fluttered, a hundred warnings cascading across his signal.

  No time to go out the airlock. She had a hand on the rent sill of the hull when George’s signals snapped out like they’d been turned off. Grace jumped from the Tyche, landing in a crouch. She saw, through the dust, a bloody smear where a person used to be, fragments of black ship suit suggesting that was where George had stood moments ago. Nate was trying to get to his feet, and Kohl looked just about done.

  Grace looked across a hundred meters of broken Osaka at the one remaining opponent. When she’d brought the ship in, low and hard, the Tyche hadn’t known what to make of them. It had found Ezeroc, a known enemy, but a distance away. These four things were new targets, and the ship had chattered nervously as it tried to determine what kind of enemy they were. They gave off EM radiation in ways that suggested they had a comm network, and in their cores were power cells. Grace had told the Tyche to treat them like drones. That had been a mistake. Maybe if she’d had El’s skills on the sticks Grace might have been able to get them through, but as it was she counted them lucky to have landed in one piece after the drones had fired those fancy weapons at them. They’d hit a building on the way down, the crunch of ceramicrete feeling like the end of the world, but the ship had put them here, all alive, all safe. The enemy had torn out one of the Tyche’s drives, placing them in the worst place on Earth. Osaka, where the nanobot swarm hit first, and hardest. Osaka, where she’d lost two friends.