The damn things had flanked them!
Panic threatened to take over Mach’s thinking, but his training soon kicked in and he quickly assessed his options. They had few worth considering. With the signal jamming, they couldn’t get a message back to the Intrepid or communicate directly with each other.
Something glinted in the low sun, catching his eye. From above Voyager’s hull, Squid Two hovered toward them, its shining chrome body reflecting the golden light as it moved quickly.
Mach and Adira turned to face the enemies coming from the south—from the tree line. Sanchez and the CGM faced the north. As one, the four of them fired, trying to stall the aliens’ progress. If Mach could hold off long—
A burst of static came through his comm system’s internal speaker, making him wince and falter on the trigger of his auto-rifle.
The previous semi auto burst of incendiary fire had created a wall of superheated flame around the onrushing spiderlike creatures, slowing their advance, but to his dissatisfaction, not entirely. The flames flowed around their smooth carapace armor as if it were nothing but water, proving to be nothing but a mild irritant to them.
Sanchez and the CGM had taken down two of the creatures, but there were still ten or so descending on them. They were just fifty meters away now. Mach spun round and emptied the rest of his magazine, but his shots fell short and their enemies just ran through the wall of fire with no hesitation.
Fearing they would be swarmed, Mach’s first instinct was to look for Adira. He needn’t, though, she was right by his back, one arm on his shoulder. She pointed up to the sky.
They all looked up as the Intrepid roared into action, swooping in low, the downdraft from the thrusters knocking them to the ground. A burst of laser fire from the quad-linked laser array burst out, slicing beams of red light through the sky. They struck the onrushing group of aliens. This time, the damned things didn’t continue running unaffected. The lasers pierced through their tough armor, taking down three-quarters of the group. The Intrepid flew overhead and banked around for a return swoop.
They must have seen the situation via Squid Two, whose little chrome shell was floating around above them, sending back tactical images to those on the bridge. Mach smiled, proud of his crew for anticipating the situation and reacting accordingly. But he didn’t want to wait around to receive the charge from the remaining half-dozen aliens before the Intrepid had time to get another angle of attack.
Sanchez pulled on Mach’s arm, bringing his attention back to the group. The guy in the CGM had removed the canopy and was shouting something. Sanchez had his helmet visor open and was encouraging Mach to take his off, which he did.
Over the roar of the Intrepid’s engine, he heard the pilot shout that his name was Felix, and they needed to follow him if they wanted to survive.
Adira nodded to Mach.
“Okay, lead the way,” Mach said, not seeing much choice. The spider creatures had swelled in number yet again, and now their attention was off the Intrepid’s lasers and fully on Mach’s group.
The CGM motors whirred up and it crunched westwards away from Voyager and through a dense part of the forest. Mach, Adira, and Sanchez hurried behind him until they had to sprint at full speed to keep up. Mach heard through his visor the thrum of the lasers and the screams of the aliens, but he didn’t look back, not wanting to trip over a tree root or vine.
After a few more seconds, the CGM had taken them through a narrow passage cut into the dense forest. The light was blue-gray dusk and the trees created an eerie silence. Only the vibrations through the ground told Mach that the aliens were still chasing them.
Felix, the pilot, stopped, and spun the top half of his vehicle around so that he was facing Mach and the others. He popped the canopy and shouted at Mach’s group to fan out. He pointed to an area in front of him and shook his head. Mach understood and took Sanchez and Adira around the right of the clearing until they were behind the CGM.
The aliens were right on their tail and came crashing through the canopy and into the clearing. Many of them showed laser burns or missing limbs, yet they carried right on as though that was perfectly normal.
Sanchez lifted his visor, as did Mach and Adira. Mach took a breath of air and fought the urge to cough as the thin atmosphere failed to deliver enough oxygen in one breath. His lungs protested, but a few more quick breaths later they cooled.
“Stand back,” Felix shouted as he raised the CGM’s twin Gatling guns. He fired down into the ground as the aliens were almost on them. Mach reached for his Stinger, swung it over his shoulder and emptied a magazine into the onrushing mass.
Adira and Sanchez bellowed as they too fired everything they had.
As their arsenal took down a single alien, at least twenty others took their place, but it was too late for them. The CGM’s fire had weakened the surface of the ground; the aliens rushed forward, sensing their chance, and collapsed into a giant pit that swallowed the entire mass of them.
The creatures screamed that horrible high-pitched tone and thrashed at the base of a hole twenty meters or so deep. To Mach’s disgust, they were clambering on top of each other, making a kind of organic ladder.
“Move,” Felix shouted. “We don’t have time to stand and stare. Get to the bunker!”
“What bunker?” Sanchez responded.
“This one.”
Mach turned away, breaking his hideous fascination with the creatures, and saw Felix pointing to a break in the forest, beyond which stood a titanium-reinforced concrete wall. Mach smiled, knowing exactly what it was: a CWDF military outpost. Mach had spent considerable time hunkering down in one during the Century War. He had been posted to some shitty outer-rim world that held no valuable resources of any kind, but had become a strategic battleground against the filthy lizards, the horans, and their Axis Combine. It had become a matter of pride and honor during a war that displayed very little of either. To control that pointless floating rock was to make a statement.
Mach and his squad had survived then because of the strength of the bunker.
“Come on,” Adira said, grabbing him by the arm and breaking him away from the flashback. He sprinted along with them until they reached the heavy fortification. The CGM stopped at the entrance as the great heavy blast doors began to slide open.
Mach received a garbled message from the Intrepid through his comm speaker. He could barely hear it with his helmet down, so he pulled it back on while they waited for the blast doors to fully open.
“Say again,” Mach said, trying to hear Lassea’s words through the waves of static.
“We’re facing… gun platforms… retreat… our orders?”
“Get out of range!” Mach said, shouting through his comm as if volume were the only thing needed to communicate. “We’re safe down here for now. We’ll communicate soon. Over.”
“We hear you,” Lassea said through a brief clear spot in the signal. “Stay safe!”
Finally the blast doors had opened and the CGM had gone inside into the gloom of the bunker. Adira and Sanchez ran inside. Mach followed. As soon as they were all in, the doors began to close again, but to Mach’s disappointment, the creatures had managed to get out of the pit and half a dozen of them were clambering over the ground toward the bunker.
He fired the rest of his SamCore Stinger’s ammo, taking down one of the creatures, but they just kept on coming.
“They’re going to get in!” Mach yelled. “Fire everything you’ve got!”
He knew it wouldn’t be enough. The doors were still slowly closing. The creatures sensed they would get in and sped up. Mach withdrew the combat knife from the holster on his left leg and crouched, ready to receive their charge.
If he were going down, he would do so fighting.
But then above them, the same chromatic glint.
“Squid Two,” Adira said, pointing.
“What the hell is it…” Sanchez began saying before grabbing Mach’s shoulder and pulling him away
, yelling, “Get down!”
On his way to the ground, Mach caught sight of the little drone swooping down over the top of the rushing aliens. A compartment slid open on the base of its chrome shell, and something small and metallic fired out. The projectile slammed into the ground just a few feet in front of the doors—and more importantly, a few feet in front of the aliens.
The blast erupted in a blinding flash. Mach covered his face with his arm and felt the wave of heat wash against his face. When it finally cleared and he could see through the spots of flashing light in his vision, he saw two of the aliens fall to the ground, just inches in front of the door, the rest of the group slamming into them, but as they did so, the blast doors slammed shut, sending the place into darkness.
“He saved us,” Sanchez said, coughing wetly. “Babcock’s little fucking device saved our asses.” The old hunter bellowed out a laugh so infectious that Mach and Adira joined in, letting out the pent-up adrenaline and fear in bouts of relief.
“Fuck that,” Adira said eventually as the laughing stopped.
Mach’s eyes, specifically his prosthetic, grew accustomed to the low light levels. He saw a figure approaching them. “Felix?” he said. Then noticed that, yes, it was the CGM pilot, but he was also armed with a pistol.
Chapter 17
Felix stood there, finger on the trigger. He looked haggard now that he was out of the CGM. Mach estimated he was in his late forties given the deep-set eyes and heavy bags. His teeth were crooked and yellowed.
Sanchez crouched beside Mach and tensed his great thigh muscles, preparing to launch like a predator. Mach placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, not wanting the fool to do something stupid just because he thought he was dying.
Adira, as ever, remained cool and collected. “Don’t be so stupid,” she said to Felix from his left, her form blurred from the shadows.
“We’re here to help,” Mach said. “We’re here for the Voyager crew. OreCorp sent us. And I really don’t appreciate a gun in my face. Step back and lower your weapon before you force us to do something you really wouldn’t like.”
Felix’s hand trembled before he finally gave up and lowered the pistol. His head dropped to his chest and he let out a long exhale. He shook his head. His sandy-colored, shoulder-length hair obscured his face. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “It’s just… things are crazy here. I had hoped OreCorp would send help… but it’s hard to be trusting at a time like this. Thanks for backing me up out there. I found a destroyed drone; I assume it was yours?”
“Yeah, that was ours. What the hell are those things?” Mach asked even as they continued to crash against the doors uselessly.
“I don’t know what they call themselves, but I call them the phane. I’ve noticed three different forms of them. Those outside are their soldiers and general workers; they seem to be like ants in that they have a hive mentality. I can explain more later.”
“Are you one of the Voyager crew?” Sanchez asked.
“No, I’m… it’s hard to explain. But I have one of them here with me.”
“And the cargo?” Adira asked.
Felix’s face became pale. “It’s… deployed, but there was a malfunction, as is obvious otherwise we wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
Mach stood up and took a breath to calm his racing heart. He looked around to get his bearings. While the creatures scratched and banged against the blast doors, Mach noticed that the design was very similar to the outpost he had stayed in during the war. They were in the docking bay, which held the CGMs and other ground vehicles. He knew it was about twenty meters square, although he couldn’t see much beyond a couple of meters due to the low light level.
Overhead, a pair of amber strip lights bathed the group in weak light, barely able to beat back the shadows. To the right of the bay, Mach knew there was a ramp that led down to a basement level. To the left was a corridor that, if it were indeed the same layout, would lead to the mess, the science rooms, and the medical bay.
Mach’s lungs hurt less with each breath; the bunker’s atmosphere re-pressurized with a low hiss now that the blast doors were firmly shut. Sanchez rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced.
“Are you okay?” Mach asked.
“Yeah, just took a hit during the fight. It’s not the… well, you know.”
“You’re actually looking better than you were before the fight,” Adira added as she joined the group. Mach agreed; he did.
Sanchez shrugged. “Perhaps it was just the adrenalin.” Then he turned his attention to Felix, who stood there awkwardly as the conversation went on. “You, do you have any medical supplies here? Food, water?”
“Communications?” Mach added.
Felix stammered something before a new voice interrupted him from somewhere off in the gloom. “Felix, bring them through to the lab. We don’t have much time.” The voice was female… could it be?
“Captain Sereva?” Mach called out. “Is that you?”
The woman stepped out into the weak light. She stood half a foot shorter than Felix but had broad shoulders and close-cropped red hair. Her green eyes rivaled Adira’s for their glittering quality. She smiled with thin lips and bowed theatrically. “The one and the same. You took your fucking time, didn’t you?” she said, dropping the smile and looking Mach up and down with an unimpressed sneer. “I sent a message back to OreCorp HQ a few hours after this one here saved my ass.”
Adira looked the woman up and down and sniffed with derision.
“They never got the message,” Mach said. “When they waited for a week with no radio communication, they sent us. Whatever the hell those things are out there are screwing with the radio frequencies with jamming techniques.”
“You’re a smart one, aren’t you?” Sereva said. “I gathered that much, but still, it shouldn’t have taken you this long to find the beacon’s signal.”
Sanchez stepped forward. “Listen, we’re tired and pissed off. How about we cut the bullshit, and you give us something for our wounds and then we can chat about what the hell we’re going to do next. I do believe we have a bomb to discuss.”
Sereva stepped up to Sanchez and tilted her head back, looking up at the old hunter whose body dwarfed that of hers, yet she simply smiled, not in the least intimidated. “I like your attitude. Perhaps unlike the rest of my crew, you’ll be able to stay alive for more than a few minutes on this godforsaken hellhole. Follow me.”
Adira smirked at Mach as the woman led Sanchez away. Felix followed, leaving Adira and Mach to take up the rear. “She’s a feisty one,” she whispered to Mach.
“She is, isn’t she? I think we’re going to get on well.”
“Not too well,” Adira added with a hint of a warning in her voice.
Could that be a hint of jealousy? Surely not from Adira: she rarely cared about anyone being a threat to her… but the way she looked at Sereva… Mach smiled to himself and followed the group through the dark corridors of the bunker, leaving behind the bangs and screeches of the phane soldiers.
The layout was indeed similar to the outpost Mach had known before. They went through the left corridor and followed the slate-gray, featureless walls until they arrived at a junction. They went left again, going through yet more boring plain passageways until they stopped in front of the lab.
Back in the war, Mach had spent a lot of time in the lab, working on battle analysis with the strategists. When they stepped inside, it was like stepping back in time. He took a seat at a desk. Adira did the same, sitting to his left, and Sanchez to his right.
As Sereva and Felix stood at the head of the room, in front of a large holographic viewscreen, their words morphed into the voice of Officer Morgan, his superior back in the war. Orders about their next battle strategy were barked out, striking Mach in his heart, swelling him with thoughts of glory and victory—until they left the outpost and the plan went to shit as soon as they made contact with the horans. The horans didn’t much care for strategy; they just thr
ew numbers, bullets and muscle at the problem. Mach and his company were lucky to survive the onslaught; over half of the three thousand soldiers from the outpost were butchered.
That was the last time Mach listened to strategists. From then on, he fought on instinct alone, reacting to the enemy’s movements rather than trying to force a strategy onto a chaotic situation. His unique fighting skills brought him and his company to the attention of the CWDF hierarchy and they were separated from the outpost.
He and Morgan, along with the rest of the company, were assigned black ops status and were given carte blanch to attack the enemy at will based on whichever intelligence they wished to use. Mach suspected they’d have to use that same level of cunning to complete this mission.
Sereva brought up a 3D image of a mining system. It ran for hundreds of miles in all directions, through dozens of different shafts and tunnels.
“Where is that?” Mach asked.
“About five miles west of here beneath a mountain range,” Sereva said. She indicated a flashing red circle three-quarters of the way into the mine. “This is the bomb.”
“What happened?” Sanchez said. “I mean, you were attacked; how’d it get down there?”
“The phane,” Felix said. “We attempted to detonate it ourselves after I had rescued Captain Sereva from a group of the soldiers, but we were set upon, forcing us to flee. The soldiers took it and carried it, along with the bodies of almost all of the crew, down into the mineshafts.”
“We can get a ping from it,” Sereva added, “when we’re not jammed, but it’s unresponsive to the arming procedure.”
“Tell us more about the phane,” Mach asked. “What kind of numbers are we talking about here? What are they like, these other forms you mentioned?” Mach leaned forward as Felix sat down opposite them at the round table. Sereva joined him, placing a carafe of steaming coffee and five cups onto the surface. They helped themselves as Felix brought them up to speed on their enemy.
“They’re highly virulent,” the old security officer said. “Those soldiers outside, they swarm in packs. There’s seemingly no end to them. Smaller versions of them carry eggs out from the mines, thousands of them at a time. They hatch within minutes of being in the open air.”
The Lost Voyager: A Carson March Space Opera Page 13
