by Mark Wandrey
Good, Hargrave thought, having trouble with one of your damned monsters? “Come on,” he said to the squad and fired his jumpjets. He did a perfect leap and landed lightly on the edge of the cargo door without having to use the jets to level the landing. His squad did likewise. Once inside he moved to the side and shared the feed with them.
“I think those fucking monsters are operated,” he told them, “just like that Raknar Jim is running.” They all exclaimed in disbelief. “Yeah, I know, sounds stupid. But look at the feed.” Now the one in the suit was bending over, half its body inside the body of the Scorpede. The drone wasn’t close enough to see how it was getting inside. Hargrave guessed an access hatch was installed.
He remembered the first time they had buttoned him into a CASPer. The claustrophobic, helpless feel it gave you at first, and tried to imagine being inside a breathing animal. Especially a fucking insect? He shuddered, the suit shuddering in reply.
“Whatever the case, two of those things are bad enough, we don’t need three of them out there. We’re going to cause a small malfunction.” The others laughed. He knew they’d like that plan.
As silent as a three-yard-tall armored trooper could be, the squad made its way down the cavernous interior of the transport until they were across from the Scorpede and its flurry of workers. There Hargrave took a few seconds to examine the stall and how it held the monster in place. It looked to him as if the rider was in a hole dug just behind the beast’s “head.” Powerful restraints, spaced every twenty-five feet or so, held the creature in check. There was also one robotic arm added to each claw. This didn’t speak to him of a domesticated creature, but rather of a dangerous animal barely kept in check. A feral grin cut his grizzled features. He sent target data to the others in his squad who quickly acknowledged.
The aliens working on the monster suddenly became very excited. The one in the haptic suit clapped another on the back and began to climb into the hole in the monster’s back. Game time, Hargrave thought.
“On three,” he said. “One...two...” He triggered his jumpjets and soared up over the workers. Several looked up in confusion at the “WHOOSH!” of the jumpjets and tracked the CASPer soaring over their heads. “THREE!”
All four of his troopers fired at the same time. Armor-piercing rockets lanced out, several from each. All the restraints were hit except one holding a claw. They’d been fabricated to keep a Canavar controlled, not to shed armor piercing rockets. They were either blown loose or substantially damaged. The creature shuddered from the stimulus.
About fifty feet above the Canavar, and at the apogee of his flightpath, Hargrave gave a little wave to the technicians prepping their charge for combat. Hargrave chuckled as he fired a single rocket.
Inside the Canavar, the linked operator was plugging in his relays and situating himself in the mushy, fleshy areas just behind his mount’s ventral nerve ganglia. All the bio-feedback monitors that controlled the creature were in the green, mood-altering chemical levels were ideal, and he was ready for action. He was just about to signal the crew to button him in when Hargrave’s rocket flashed through the open hatch and blew up between the driver’s legs.
The Canavar’s interface and controls were destroyed, along with a fair amount of nervous system feedback. So, in addition to no longer being able to be controlled, even if the operator wasn’t blown to gooey, smoky bits, the animal could no longer feel with its limbs. That didn’t mean it wasn’t in pain, because it was. More pain than it had ever felt before.
The monster howled and reared. All the restraints exploded in a staccato cracking line as it flexed its seventy-yard length, legs thrashing, scoring steel from the hull and its stall. The technicians – those not unlucky enough to be right next to the operator’s hatch when it exploded – all screamed and ran. The Canavar reeled, still held by one claw, and the technicians were sent flying in every direction. They were already up almost fifty feet in the air on the gantry where the operator mounted, so it was a long way to the deck.
Eyestalks panned from side to side, looking for the source of the pain that was drilling into its brain. It tried to move and could not as its one claw was still restrained. It wrapped half its immense length around the structure of its stall’s support and pulled. The restraints were not individually stronger than the Canavar; they were designed to work in concert. Any pair was more than enough, however, and they were all mounted to key support points within the ship’s interior structure to further burnish the strength as best as possible. As the Canavar’s powerful body flexed, the restraint didn’t give, the connection did.
With a bang loud enough to be heard outside, the restraint tore away with a ten-foot section of hull and all the cabling running through that section. A second later a gout of flame issued from the hole, energetic and indigo blue. Now free, the Canavar uncoiled, rose, and screamed a challenge, dripping fluids and former operator parts from the hole in the back of its head.
“Dave,” Hargrave called.
“Go, sir.”
“There’s someone inside those things driving them.”
“Sir?”
“Trust me. I know it’s crazy, but look for the door behind their heads and target that area.” A roar echoed over the radio, and he didn’t hear anything back from his man, so Hargrave assumed Sergeant Blackard had it under control. The Canavar was thrashing around the hold looking for something to punish for the pain it was feeling. He decided to give it a target. “Men, on me!”
Jim figured he was done for as it felt like the two Canavar were trying to tear his Raknar limb from limb. Splunk didn’t look like she was critically injured, but she wouldn’t wake up. He didn’t know what to do. His eyes strayed to the medkit hooked to the bulkhead not far away. He snatched it and jerked the package open. There were some basic dressings and two nanotherapy injectors. The nanites were designed for most races in the galaxy, though there were exceptions. The question was whether Fae was one of them. While negative side effects were rare, they did happen with some species – generally ones who were not listed in the medical database. His inability to find the Fae meant they weren’t listed. Jim inserted the needle into her tiny forearm and released a single dose then dropped the dispenser on the floor.
The Raknar shuddered, and he heard explosions echoing through the hull, closely followed by one Canavar roar and then another. He looked down at Splunk, who was looking up at him.
“Okay, Jim...?
“Am I okay? Forget about me, are you okay?” Another series of explosions, and the Canavar howled sounding really pissed this time.
“Splunk, okay...
“You bet,” he said and settled into position again. He felt her delicate fingers in his hair. “Akee,” he said.
“Yes, Jim...
“
* * * * *
Chapter 42
Jim got to his feet and felt the damage to his leg as pain, and the damage to his motor centers as a slight sensation of dizziness. But he had plenty of power, and the Canavar were distracted. Amazingly, there was part of a squad of CASPers inside the shield with him now, and they were giving the monsters holy hell. The small, dashing combat suits were like flies to the seventy-yard-long centipede nightmares, but they were flies with stingers.
As he watched, one made an insane leap just as the Canavar shot toward it, mouthparts open to crush it to oblivion. The trooper cleared the eyestalks by feet, spinning in midair and firing a single rocket, obviously intended for a specific target. The missile struck, and it looked like it did some damage! The beast roared and flicked the rear half of its body, and the trooper was swatted from the air like a fly. His suited body spun wildly and slammed into the force field before sliding to the ground.
“That one,” Jim said as he moved forward, “while it’s distracted.” He was weaponless, outnumbered, and dam
aged. This was no time for subtlety. He let the complex combat system that was part of his brain predict the movements of the Canavar as he closed. As he walked he triggered the release of the right battleship barrel. The explosive bolts popped and it began to fall. He caught it in his left and flipped it around, added his right hand to the grip, and swung it. The plan was perfect, just as he walked within range, the one that had killed one of his troopers turned and lifted its head to follow another trooper in flight, putting itself at the perfect height.
“Batter up, bitch!” Jim snarled and swung for all he was worth. The Raknar’s fusion-powered “muscles” pushed the bat handle in a rotation that, had it been a human-sized player, was about 115 mph at the swing’s maximum extension. However, because the Missouri’s gun barrel was more than twenty times the length of a regulation baseball bat, the tip of the bat/barrel (being the gun’s two-ton breech mechanism) was, when it hit the Canavar, travelling is excess of Mach 2.
“Craaack!” went the sound barrier. “CARRUNCH!” went the Canavar’s torso. The sonic boom of the approaching weapon gave the monster just enough warning to slide to the side, making the impact strike its left side, pulverizing one of the pincers in a spray of chitin and goo.
The Canavar screeched in pain and lashed out with its deadly spiked tail. Jim had foreseen that as a high probability should his strike not get a kill. He side-stepped and back-swung the gun barrel. It didn’t have nearly the force or speed as the first swing, but it didn’t matter. When 20,000 pounds of hardened steel hit the extended tail, the alien creature’s armored carapace shattered, and the tail tip went flying.
As that Canavar screeched in agony from its serious injuries and backed away, the other monster realized the CASPers had been a deadly distraction. It launched itself at Jim like a bullet, low to the ground with its legs churning. Its tail tip was raised and pointed over its back as it approached, a 200-foot-long ribbon of living, armored, alien nightmare with a killing spine poised for battle.
With a nearly perfect sense of his surroundings, Jim saw it coming, but he waited until the last second before half-turning to his left and swinging the barrel again, this time like a golf club. The Canavar tried to change direction, stop, do anything. The ground was hardened ferroconcrete which provided very little traction, and physics was a stone-cold bitch. Sparks and shards flew as its legs dug at the ground. The barrel again boomed as it broke the speed of sound, and there was a thunderous, earth-shattering crash as his weapon struck home. The Canavar’s head and first twenty-five feet of its body half-split, half-splattered into a wet, chunky explosion of guts, brains, and tiny bits of operator. All four claws went flying, and Jim hopped back as the rest of the body flew crazily past him in a spinning, rolling, out-of-control death spiral into the side of the huge transport.
Die adversary! His other self exulted. Unfortunately, his celebration was premature. The remaining Scorpede rushed up from behind while he’d been avoiding the other one and jumped on his back. Jim tried to spin away, losing the cannon which crashed to the ground at his feet. The Canavar’s mouth segments tore at the top of his chassis, not far above his head, trying to rip open the armor. Pain registered as armor plates parted, and a sliver of sunlight came through above his head. He pounded at the thing and only managed to get a hand on one of the pincers.
“Jim, throw it at the ramp!” Hargrave’s voice came in over the radio. He spun, reached up with the other hand, took hold of the claw, and jerked! Either the Canavar was coming off, or the claw. It was the entire monster. It wasn’t much of a throw; the thing was twice as long as he and weighed almost as much. It spun and managed to land almost on its feet while Hargrave and his squad rocketed out of the hold, soaring over its head.
The Canavar’s eyestalks followed the flight of the five CASPers and was about to turn toward them when the fourth monster came tearing out of the ship and down the ramp. It was in a headlong rush of unspeakable rage, chasing the tiny racing suits. Driven to the point of insanity by the pain in its brain, it attacked the first thing it saw, which was its brother. The two collided and instantly rolled into a ball of clawing, biting, stinging fury.
Jim backed away as the two monsters tore into each other. Claws, pieces of chitin, and bodily fluids flew for hundreds of feet in every direction. It was like watching a lobster thrown into a blender. The fight only took about thirty seconds. Despite the brain damage to the last Canavar, it was fresh and uninjured, while the other had been ravaged by the Raknar. The third Canavar lay in twitching ruin as the final one, now missing a claw and leaking fluid in several places looked for another target. The last thing it saw was the breech of a ten-ton battleship gun arcing into its head. Jim stood over the monster and pounded.
“Crunch, crunch, whang, crunch!” Jim pulverized the last beast into gooey pieces. Finally standing upright, he inspected the gun barrel. It had a noticeable bend where the second monster had almost finished him with its tail spike. The Canavar on the ground moved, and Jim stomped on the bigger parts a couple of times for effect. Now it was dead, he figured.
“Boom!” fire and debris erupted from the side of the transport, and the shield failed.
Galrath watched in stunned disbelief as Project K, the culmination of decades of research, was systematically shot, pounded, baseball-batted, golf-swung, and curb-stomped to death. One damned museum piece had not only devastated all the mercs he’d brought with him, but killed all the Canavar he’d managed to breed in the twenty years of the project.
“Get me out of here,” he snarled and snapped at the captain. “Entropy take that damned thing!” he exclaimed, pointing at the Raknar. He’d been bragging a short time ago to the cruiser captain about how the Canavar would use the Raknar for sport – a great test of their abilities. When the cursed machine blew the first Canavar to bloody bits, he’d been stunned into silence.
Hope returned briefly when the machine seemed to be disabled, and the humans’ powered suits arrived. His creations could deal with those easily enough. Only they hadn’t. The little things were tough and fast, and they managed to sting the big Canavars. He’d called the last one into action, the one having trouble with the bonding process. The rest...was not worth remembering.
“Get us into the air,” he ordered, “and we’ll obliterate them from ten miles up. Shields as soon as we clear the ground!”
The captain had had enough of the arrogant Acquirer and his crazy schemes. If he’d had time, he would have ordered his mercs to toss him out to be eaten by his own monsters. However, with the guild’s ground forces destroyed, staying on the ground could well cost him his ship. Or worse, that Raknar could decide the precious cruiser was just as valid a target for its wrath as any. Yes, leaving was a good idea. He gave the order, and the cruiser’s ascent/decent engines roared to life, just as the Canavar transport’s near side blew out in a gout of flame, and the shield fell.
“Hurry!” Galrath yelped in very un-Acquirer-like fear as the Raknar turned to regard the ship. The captain and most of the bridge crew were so preoccupied watching the thirty-yard-tall killer robot they failed to see the dozens of ten-foot tall CASPers bound onto the stricken transport, and up onto their cruiser. The shields came on and Galrath laughed.
“What are you going to do now?” he yelled, as if the Raknar could hear him from inside a roaring space ship a mile away and climbing. “Your gun is broken, and you cannot fly! I will rebuild. We still have the embryos, and the next generation will be even bigger and more powerful—”
Galrath was cut off as the cruiser lurched violently and slowed its ascent. Alarms began to howl, and the bridge crew worked furiously, calling out damage reports.
“What is happening?” he demanded of the captain, who ignored him and fought to save his ship.
“Primary lifters 3, 5, and 9 are destroyed!” his pilot called out in a panic.
“Lateral thrusters,” the captain yelled. “Get us away from them; they’re penetrating our shields somehow.” The great cruiser
angled away from the processing center, no longer climbing but slipping sideways. On the exterior of the ship, Hargrave reached the top of the superstructure and found what he was looking for. He yanked his last grenade from his belt, set it for a five-second delay, and dropped it into the howling lifter intake.
“Get the shields down,” he ordered the troopers who were all over the outside of the ship. Seconds later, explosions pocked the surface and the shields flickered out. Another second and his grenade went off deep in the bowels of the jet-ascent engine. The ship began to pitch violently.
“Everyone clear,” he called, set his angle, and rocketed off the crippled ship.
Galrath grabbed the arms of his chair on the bridge as the ship rolled over on its side. The crew fought to use the ship’s secondary thrusters to right it, but they were unable. The ship rolled all the way over and accelerated toward the ground. Everyone on the bridge was too busy to see the tiny human combat suits leaping away on the viewer, their mischief done.
“Humans,” Galrath growled as the ship plummeted out of control. They were more than a mile away from the processing center now, but he could still see the 100-foot-tall Raknar standing, watching the ship crash. As the ground rushed up, the Raknar raised one hand, made a fist, and elevated its middle finger. The ship slammed into the ground and exploded.
* * * * *
Chapter 43
Jim sat in the ground car sipping a bottle of water, wishing it were an ice-cold Coke, as one medic looked him over and another examined Splunk. He’d given himself a massive gash in his head and never even noticed it. They said the nanites had worked fine on the Fae, and she had no signs of injury at all. One of the troopers had given her an entire package of beef jerky, and she was busily chewing and trilling happily.
