The Celaran Refuge (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 8)

by Michael McCloskey

  “Calm,” Adair advised. “It’s on the tactical. And the mess in the air is obscuring you from detection.” Its speech was glitching out. He hoped Adair and Achaius were too close to be fully jammed.

  “Any estimates on their damages?” Marcant asked. The battle unfolded too rapidly for Marcant to keep track of the numbers on his pane.

  “The Storks took out about seventy drones,” Achaius said. “It cost half the Storks so far. The medium-sized Destroyers have picked up on it and they’re hunting the Storks.”

  70 out of 512? That’s not good enough, Marcant thought.

  “Buckle in, they’re here,” Magnus warned. His projectile rifle thundered.

  It gets worse than this?

  A source of intense light flew through the vines above, zeroing in on Marcant. The wind rose to a level that Marcant imagined must exist in hurricanes, but he did not get blown away. His back pressed against the huge spine structure behind him. Marcant struggled to keep his laser rifle up in the wind. He heard and felt debris scraping across his Veer suit. All he could see was a cloud of dead leaves and torn vines whipping through the air backdropped by the glow.

  This is it...

  Frrrrrrrrrrzzap!

  The bright light split into bright sparks that flew in all directions then went out. His faceplate bucked against his face. Marcant vaguely realized the light show had been accompanied by a tremendous noise which his suit had dampened. The force of the wind abruptly dropped back to the level of a mild storm.

  “Did you shoot it?” Marcant asked Magnus.

  “The trapdoor laser got it,” Magnus yelled back.

  Marcant nodded.

  “I didn’t see it fire, but I’m happy it did.”

  “I think the trapdoor lasers operate above the visible spectrum,” Magnus said. “It’s invisible to us.”

  Marcant had meant that he had not even seen the trapdoor open with all the dirt and vegetation whipping through the air. The force of the wind was tearing the huge leaves into small pieces and picking up segments of dead vine from the ground.

  “There are more coming,” Magnus warned.

  This isn’t anything like training. I’m doing nothing but sitting here waiting to die, Marcant thought.

  “You know what they say,” Achaius responded. “Don’t bring a Terran to a death machine fight.”

  “I came here to learn about aliens,” Marcant said.

  “We’re learning a lot,” Magnus protested.

  Marcant realized he had spoken aloud. Another Destroyer was already approaching them. The wind rose.

  An attendant popped before Marcant. He felt vibrations in the support spike at his back as if it had been hit several times by powerful projectiles. His other attendants darted about warily.

  “Fire your weapon!” Achaius snapped, but Marcant’s laser had already fired. Marcant got a report of a likely hit; then another shot report came in with the same report. The laser had expended the last of its energy.

  Marcant threw the rifle aside and pulled out a pistol. It reported readiness to his link, bringing to his attention that it was only a stunner.

  “Stunners: effective against Destroyers?” Marcant shot the question to Magnus.

  “Worth a try,” Magnus said, tossing out a grenade toward their flank. “You have two hands, though,” Magnus added, handing Marcant a laser pistol.

  “Remember that grenade’s out there, so don’t head that way,” Magnus said. “I have it set for proximity detonation on unknown targets.”

  “Your concern is touching, but I’m not headed anywhere,” Marcant said.

  “Oh, I’m not worried about you,” Magnus said. “I just don’t want you to keep the grenade from going off if a Destroyer comes in from that way.”

  Marcant thought he detected a hint of amusement in his limited view of Magnus’s helmeted face, but he could not be sure.

  “This may be it,” Magnus said aloud. He looked at Marcant.

  He’s gauging my reaction to imminent death.

  Marcant took stock of himself. He was not afraid.

  “I’ll see you when we wake up... if you’re a player,” Marcant said loudly, so his voice carried over the sounds of battle.

  “You’re a simulationist?” Magnus yelled amid the chaos.

  Marcant laughed. Magnus had no idea. Telisa and Cilreth had come to retrieve him from a major simulationist fortress on Earth, yet they had not sniffed that information out, apparently. Scientists there had developed techniques for blocking memories and putting volunteers into virtual worlds without their memories, effectively setting them on course to live brief virtual lives unaware of their other selves. There were still many catches to be worked out, but they had laid the groundwork for the n+1th level of reality.

  “Enough contemplation of the universe. Whether or not we are not at the root level of reality, it serves your purpose to optimize your survival in this level,” Adair urged.

  He told his stunner to fire. He could not hear its whine in the wind.

  Boooom!

  A shower of dirt fell across him, dimming the light from above.

  Blam! Blam!

  More loud sounds. Marcant felt someone grab his left arm and pull. He staggered forward with it, letting the person lead him. They took one, two, three steps, then Marcant plunged downward. His suit protected him from the impact a second later, though he must have bounced about comically. The white light was replaced by a dull red glow seeping through the dirt in the air. Then full darkness took hold. The wind receded.

  Marcant told his faceplate to retract. He coughed. In that moment, he had the odd thought that most of the dust he had inhaled was probably Celaran skin sheddings—full of “impurities”. By walking on the ground and diving into a hole, they had done the Celaran equivalent of swimming in a sewage treatment plant.

  “Are you alive?” Magnus asked.

  “Yes,” Marcant said. “We must be inside the trapdoors?” He saw the dull red glow before him fade. Something had been destroyed right there, probably the Celaran energy weapon.

  “Yes,” Magnus answered. “Now we find out if what they say is right. Does lightning strike the same place twice?”

  Marcant hoped it did not.

  Chapter 6

  Fzzzzslump!

  The vine shuddered under Telisa as one end of the plant exploded into boiling goo ten meters behind her. She jumped off with all her strength, sending herself shooting away despite the vine’s rapidly failing tension.

  I have to stay lower. I may be invisible, but if one of those beams hits me...

  The real trick, she figured, was not to stand in line of sight between a Destroyer and any likely target. Unfortunately the Destroyers could detect objects through the vine cover better than she could.

  Telisa’s arc through the air unfolded slowly to her heightened reflexes. With superhuman agility, she manipulated her wind resistance and rotational speed to achieve a perfect landing on another vine. A split second later she was sprinting down it, paralleling the course of a Vovokan battle sphere 30 meters to her right. Two attendants followed the battle machine to help Telisa keep track of its position. With her cloaking device activated, she was unable to control the battle spheres, but she preferred to let them manage themselves in combat anyway. She felt sure Shiny’s war machines were adept at defending themselves.

  Zwwwwap!

  The battle sphere she shadowed released a burst of energy, lighting up the big leaves around her. Her Veer suit warned her of high EM gradients for the hundredth time since the small Destroyers had started to filter into the settlement. Proximity to the battle sphere had given her a nice way to keep one flank safe, but she could not get too close or risk being fried by energies much greater than a Trilisk host body in a Veer suit could ever hope to endure.

  The battle sphere has to know I’m here... I wonder how much it values my continued survival?

  Another attendant, surviving under the cover of a half-shredded leaf, reported a me
dium-sized Destroyer moving in under the canopy from her left. This machine was much larger than the drones and many times more dangerous. Telisa jumped over an immense tangle of thick vine stems and took up a position next to one of the thick spikes that supported the vine jungle. The smaller vines whipped about crazily as the wind increased. Telisa could only hear the flapping of the nearest leaves and the incessant droning of the Destroyers on the air.

  The best way to stay alive around Shiny is to be useful. I suppose it must be the same with the battle spheres.

  Telisa caught the slightest glimpse of the bright enemy through the wavering vine cover. She activated her breaker claw and slipped behind the cover of the massive spike.

  Telisa watched the enemy machine explode through an attendant feed. The Destroyer vaporized in a flash of white-hot light. Thunder rolled over her with real impact, even behind the spike. The vines shredded around it for twenty meters, creating yet another blackened crater in the vegetation. Behind the shattered zone, a Celaran house melted. The dwellings did not burn, probably due to the aliens’ good materials science, but the houses were not armored, either. They were exactly what Telisa expected from a peaceful race like the Celarans.

  As the wind died down somewhat, a new sound came to her ears. A deep creaking...

  The spike failed with a loud crack and fell toward her. Telisa darted away. The spike crashed into heaps of ruined vegetation behind her.

  Zwwwwap! Bang!

  Something exploded behind her, killed by the nearby battle sphere. Telisa zigzagged through what cover she could find.

  Thanks, Shiny.

  The battle sphere had her back, even if it did not know it, and it drew the attention of every Destroyer that approached, allowing Telisa to flit in and kill her targets. It also engaged Destroyers coming from other directions and soaked up a lot of damage in its powerful shields. She had counted over ten drone kills and now added the medium Destroyer to her list.

  A garbled message came in through Telisa’s link.

  “Completely surrounded...” was all she heard. The message had Jason’s ID tag.

  She looked on the tactical. It had way too many holes in the coverage due to jamming and the precipitously dropping numbers of Hornets, sensor modules, and attendants in the area. She saw a rough circle of five Storks around the Space Force handlers’ tents within a hundred meters of her position.

  Maybe Jason didn’t have time to get back to the house. He could be in there with the handlers.

  Telisa ran for the zone. Only three attendants circled her within her cloaking envelope, but she sent one forward anyway to announce her arrival and reduce the chances something friendly would kill her. Terran smart weapons were not perfect; anything could become confused in the wind, smoke, light, and electromagnetic soup of the battle.

  As soon as the attendant shot away, one of her remaining spheres fizzled and dropped from the air. Telisa spun and shot her smart pistol at a bright object emerging from a cluster of vines. The enemy exploded and splattered across the ground.

  Destroyer drone. If that had been a bigger one, I’d be dead. How did it see me?

  Telisa checked her cloaking; it was working. She guessed the drone had been shooting at the other attendant as it had departed her stealth envelope—or had it been the smaller vine she stood on? It had dipped under her weight.

  Telisa re-launched herself toward the Space Force ground headquarters. She dropped lower through the vines and advanced 20 meters until she saw the tents. The rugged fabric of the tents rustled in the stiff wind. Flashes from explosions and the bright lights of Destroyers danced through the remains of the vine jungle all around them. The entire scene looked like a grotesque poltergeist VR.

  Two of the five Storks had been obliterated. As she watched, another popped up on its legs to take a shot, but it exploded at the top of its movement. Telisa deactivated her alien stealth device.

  “Telisa!” Jason sent over the PIT channel. She could see him on the tactical now too. Telisa sprinted the rest of the way and slipped into the nearest opening in the tents.

  “How many here?” Telisa asked aloud. Jason did not respond; he had not heard her over the wind. She asked again over her link. He waved her closer.

  “Our channel is dropping things,” he yelled. “What’s going on out there?”

  “How many here?” Telisa yelled, ignoring his question.

  “Myself and five Stork handlers,” Jason yelled back. “We had a line of grenades around the perimeter that held off the first wave of drones. Well, that and the Storks—”

  “Medium Destroyers started killing off your machines,” Telisa finished for him.

  “Exactly. Can we retreat? This place is falling apart.” The volume of Jason’s voice changed erratically in the turbulence.

  “No. Dig in.”

  “Our tac display is falling apart with the comms,” Jason said. Telisa was impressed. He didn’t sound panicked, only pissed.

  “The Hornets don’t have high survivability. The sensor modules are a bit better, but most of them are buried in the vine cover. Even the attendants are running out of leaves to hide behind,” Telisa said.

  “We don’t have much juice left,” Jason said.

  Telisa glanced downwards. Spent power packs had been dropped all over the webbing of the tent floor. Telisa pulled her laser rifle off her back and offered it to Jason.

  They both saw it at the same time: her rifle had been ruined by a glancing hit. The emitter was smashed. Telisa ejected its power pack and handed it to Jason instead, then tossed the ruined weapon away. He accepted the pack. She offered him her smart pistol as well.

  “You keep it,” he yelled, refusing the pistol.

  She grabbed Jason by the shoulders and brought her head into contact with his.

  “I can’t stay here,” Telisa said over her link. “A Vovokan battle sphere is moving that way from here. It’s critical to our success. I’ve been killing Destroyers left and right, only because I’m in formation with it. It’s heading out and I’ll already need to run to catch up.”

  Ka-Boom!

  A torrent of sparks rained down beside the tents from another destroyed Stork machine. They both jumped and fell apart, breaking the link connection.

  “I understand,” Jason yelled back, but she heard something else in his voice. He felt abandoned.

  Telisa hesitated one more second. Did she really want to leave him and the Space Force handlers? Then she made up her mind.

  “We’re outnumbered,” she yelled. “If we don’t trade efficiently, we’re all going to die.”

  Jason shook his head. Some of her words had been lost in the wind. He pointed away, indicating she should go.

  Telisa ran through the headquarters, startling the Space Force men with her speed, then shot up to a higher vine, driven by her dense Trilisk host musculature. Two attendants struggled to keep up with her. As soon as they reached her, she turned the cloak back on.

  That may be the last time I see him, but I have to keep taking these things down.

  Telisa had to press to catch the battle sphere, which had been moving the whole time she had stopped to talk. To her surprise, her lead attendant found not just one but all three battle spheres in formation ahead. They came to a halt. Telisa hurried to reach their left flank.

  What are they waiting for?

  Krooooom!

  A wall of energy cut through the vine jungle before Telisa like the alpha strike of a starship. Then it was over. A wall of heat and smoke struck her.

  Telisa fell back. Her Veer suit’s display panel in her PV went red. The suit told her it had absorbed all the heat it could—any more would come through and kill her. She could feel the warmth.

  Kzap, kzap, kzap, kzap.

  Telisa dug her way out of a drift of smoking plant fibers. As she emerged, she realized perhaps it would have been wiser to remain hidden. The blast had cut a blackened swath through the vine jungle a quarter of a kilometer long. She had been st
anding just outside the strike line; it was the only reason she still lived.

  I’m a gnat to whatever did that.

  Kzap, kzap, kzap, kzap.

  The Vovokan battle spheres fired again. Her tactical showed the target: one of the huge Destroyers that had disbursed the medium-sized war machines. The dreadnought floated over most of the vines with its lower side crashing through the jungle like the keel of a ship. She could not see it directly through the light and wind, but a surviving attendant fed her a view from a half kilometer away.

  Can they really kill that?

  Telisa reminded herself that a significant amount of the volume of the Destroyer had to be cargo capacity. Perhaps its size was not a good indication of its combat capabilities? She hoped Shiny’s enforcers could destroy it.

  Kzap, kzap, kzap, kzap.

  Telisa retreated. This was not her fight. She kept an eye out for smaller machines: there were not enough attendants in the vicinity for her to be sure the way was clear. Only one attendant orbited her now, and she did not dare send it ahead to scout.

  Then she heard a new noise cutting through the wind.

  Vrrrrrr-tat-tat-tat-tat.

  Telisa dared to look back. One of the long lanes burned away by the energy strikes gave her a clear view.

  Vrrrrrrrrrrrr-tat-tat. Crack! Vrrrrrrrr. Crack!

  Telisa caught sight of a large projectile slamming into the towering Destroyer. It took her a moment to understand. More of the strange sounding missiles shot into the huge war machine.

  Crack! Vrrrrrrr-tat-tat. Crack!

  The Celaran security disks! They’re coming out of the forest at top speed. Kamikazes!

  The disks had achieved impressive velocity, but Telisa was not surprised. The Celarans were flyers themselves, it made sense that their flying constructs were fast.

  The Vovokan and Destroyer war machines continued to exchange fire, but somehow they could not kill each other. Telisa guessed it might be a matter of which side ran out of energy first.

  A rifle might help—anything with range. This breaker claw can’t hurt anything that far out.