“Die, Monkey Boy,” screamed a slant-eyed albino-faced human, with hooks where gauntlets should have been.
Glue grunted and refrained from speaking, since he was going to need all his breath for the battles ahead.
Blocking one hook and then the next required the full power of both hands on his sword. A Sundered in his prime might be able to stand toe to toe with power armor, but a human in a battlesuit had the advantage of raw, servo-assisted strength.
Striking out with his armor-less knee, he pounded the albino in the torso to little effect, except to imperil the human’s balance.
“The League will put a bounty on your kind for this betrayal,” screamed the human, smashing Glue in the face with his elbow and sinking a hook into the Primarch’s shoulder armor.
Using his free arm, Glue released a hand from the hilt of his sword. Pulling a vibro-knife from a sheath strapped to his waist belt, Glue brought it around abruptly, slamming the knife into the side armor of the human. The Primarch gave a mighty heave of pure effort, and drove it through the armor, and into the albino’s thoracic cavity.
The albino grunted and slammed his helmeted forehead into Glue’s face.
The albino head butted him repeatedly, and Glue could feel his broad, flat nose break under the force of the repeated impacts.
With a primal shriek, he pulled out the vibro-knife and jammed it into the pirate’s neck servo.
The Pirate’s punishing head motion ground to a halt and he jerked away, pulling his hook free, as well as the knife now lodged in his collar.
“The Deep Fleeters are right; the only thing you’re good for is—” the albino’s tirade was cut off abruptly when Puko’s spear drove into his side and through his heart, the force of the blow slamming the pirate into the side of the wall.
“That is why my generation prefers the spear,” the Elder snorted, bringing his shield up to ward off a human which was attempting to chop him down with repeated blows of a boarding axe. “You can put your whole body behind a blow, not just the power or your arms!”
The Elder pulled on his spear, but it failed to come free. He tried putting a foot on the dead albino to pull it loose, but the axe-wielder was ferociously raining down blows, the force of which were slowly driving down the shield. Soon, it would be too low to protect him.
Stepping forward, Glue launched a mighty two-handed power blow, swinging his sword like a human baseball bat right at the head of the axe wielder. The Human was too focused on chopping the Elder down like firewood, and failed to see the strike until it was too late.
The side of the pirate’s helmet stove in partially and the human dropped to the floor. Unconscious or dead, the Primarch didn’t care, and the power of his two hands jerked his sword free of the metal helmet.
“This is why the younger generations prefer the sword,” Glue explained dryly, raising the weapon in his hand and brandishing it, while the Elder still struggled to free his spear.
With the grace of a moment free from battle, the Elder placed a foot on the dead albino and used both hands to jerk the spear free.
“The spear takes skill to wield; you can’t just wave it around in the air like your little metal stick,” Puko grumbled.
Glue’s father and most of his uncles, save one, had felt the same irrational love for the spear. It must call to something deep within the older generation, because while Glue admired its length and elegance, he vastly preferred the sword he wielded, since it was much more maneuverable at close range.
“Waving around in the air, with no skill,” Glue scoffed angrily, “what is this blade, a toothpick?” He decided to let the matter drop, knowing a lost cause when he saw one. He needed to keep his wind. Glue knew that the Elder’s arm was going to get tired soon, carrying around that heavy shield. Glue’s arms were going to still be relatively fresh and besides, he liked the ability to carry a second weapon at need. Too quickly, he knew he would see if Puko was still as proud of his spear, when the humans kept coming and the Elder’s arms drooped with fatigue.
Chapter 77: Wainwright Under Siege
“They’ve still got us pinned down, but the weight of their attack has lessened,” Wainwright said into the general push.
“We must renew the advance immediately,” declared Captain Atticus.
Wainwright scowled within his helmet, the Lancer Captain had to be just about the most insanely gung-ho company commander the Colonel had ever had the displeasure of serving with. The other Lancer Captains weren’t nearly as bad, but every time Captain Atticus advocated a attack, all the others started clamoring in support as if they were obligated to enthusiastically charge the enemy, despite the fact they were certain to get slaughtered.
“What do you think, Captain Darius,” Wainwright sighed, disgusted at the games he was forced to play to keep his battered forces in line.
“We should mass our forces for a big push, but there is less than no point in running out one by one, the fastest to the front, like the heroes of old,” Darius said after a moment’s contemplation.
“An old man in a young man’s body,” countered one Captain. “Jumping at Shadows,” mocked another. “What is this waiting for the enemy to recover business? We should strike now,” demanded a third Lancer Captain on his command channel. Within moments, those Captains quickly fell to infighting among themselves.
As far as Alabaster Wainwright could tell, Captain Darius was from some rival native ethnic group on their home world, Lyco-something or other. If Atticus said it was night, Darius was just about the only Lancer Captain who seemed inclined to take a long, hard look before agreeing with everything that fool Atticus said. Meanwhile, Atticus and most of the other Captains could be counted on immediately rejecting anything Darius had to say without pause.
It was all very frustrating. However, the infighting had a single redeeming quality: it kept the various Captains from charging headlong into the enemy, like the savage, bloodthirsty barbarians they were proving to be. Such a charge would fritter away their remaining strength, and ultimately result in the deaths of everyone involved in a series of glorious, pointless battles.
How Suffic managed these people, Colonel Wainwright had no clue.
As he waited for the Captains to argue themselves dry, his communicator crackled on his private line and he could hear the sound of heavy breathing and some kind of wet popping sound.
“Whoever thinks this is a sweet time to hack into the Brigade Commander’s private channel, had better get off it right blasted now, and hope I never find his sorry self,” Wainwright said angrily.
There was a surprised hoot in response over the comm.. “Sundered come in force from your galactic south. Prepare,” said a strange, deep voice, one that pronounced his Confederation Standard very strangely.
“Larry Help you when I get my hands around—” the line suddenly went dead, and his built-in suit computer blared a warning. A flashing light indicated that someone had externally hacked into top level Brigade communications.
“A day late and two dollars short,” he snarled, and then the impact of what the prankster had just said penetrated.
“Where the red blazes is the galactic south as it relates to our position,” he barked over the Brigade’s tech channel.
A Marine tech sergeant instantly popped up on his HUD. “I don’t know, but I can find out,” the Sergeant said promptly. “Galactic south is directly below us, Colonel,” he reported after a moment’s pause. “Why do you ask, Colonel?”
Wainwright cut the channel immediately and switched to the general push. “Prepare for Sappers, someone’s coming up from underneath us,” the Marine Colonel barked.
“Are you sure? We’ve got nothing on short range scanners, Sir,” reported Sergeant Kopenhagen.
“Somebody just broke into our secure network, compromised our internal communication and said they, or someone else, is coming up under our feet,” he snapped. “So don’t stand around arguing with my orders; get near a wall and point your weapo
ns at the floor!”
A section of the floor perilously near his position turned red around the edges, and then a ten foot circular section fell to the level beneath them with tremendous clang. The newcomers had just cut through two and a half feet of reinforced duralloy decking, and Wainwright barely had time to process this fact before a foot-long jet of super-cooled fire suppressant struck a man sized section of the super heated edge.
A hairy, black hand quickly grabbed the no longer super heated edge, and Wainwright stared for a moment his mind racing.
“Hold your fire,” he bellowed to the Marines around him.
“We’re under attack, are you crazy,” Kopenhagen demanded, taking aim with her blaster rifle.
“Anyone who fires without being fired upon will be executed for treason,” roared Wainwright. “I repeat: fire when fired upon only!”
“This is stupid,” muttered the Sergeant in charge of his protective detail.
They watched as a hairy, black creature as tall as a short human. It may have been short, but it was almost twice as thick as a human. In an incredible display of strength, it pulled itself up over the edge in the floor in a one handed arm curl; in its other hand was a flash shotgun. Melissa Kopenhagen grabbed Wainwright by the shoulder and unceremoniously hauled him away from the edge.
Landing on his posterior with a thump, his view of the weapon-wielding creature was obstructed by the Sergeants legs and body as she crouched over him with her weapon raised.
The creature stared at them for a moment. “Is this a critical position,” it asked impatiently in a soft, guttural voice.
The Marines around the hole, including their Colonel stared at the creature.
“Hurry,” bellowed a deep voice from down the hole. Wainwright could hear the sound of metal clanging against metal, and weapons firing as fast as they could cycle.
“Come,” the creature with the soft guttural voice said with an underhand scooping motion, clearly indicating the hole.
“What foul AI pit did that thing crawl out of, Sir,” Kopenhagen asked with distaste.
“I think that is one of our mysterious reinforcements,” Wainwright replied, trying to keep the horror he was feeling out of his voice.
“It might be better to throw in with the Pirates before even thinking of trotting down the primrose path with an AI Slave Creature,” Kopenhagen suggested, rearing back.
Seeing his chance, Wainwright scrambled out from underneath his overprotective guard.
“You’ll follow orders is what you’ll do. You’ll kiss that foul creature and say you’d like to do it again, if ordered too, Sergeant!” Wainwright yelled, sensing a genuine threat to his authority.
Then a low, angry sound that did not quite rise to the level of an outright growl, came from the men and women around him.
“What’s next, fighting side by side with droids,” Kopenhagen snarled.
The Colonel slapped a fresh power cell into his Ion Cannon, the deadly sound of its capacitor charging up to full power shooting through the rebellious silence.
“Suffic’s Lancers are man enough to follow me down this AI-Rabbit hole, and I daresay fight beside droids if I ordered them to. It’s just too bad my own Marines are an undisciplined band of gutless wonders too afraid of their own pantyhose to follow their Colonel into battle,” he glared, striding over to the hole and bending his knees.
“We just had a breakthrough into the level below us, Lancer Captains. Home in on my signal and prepare for combat alongside our furry friends,” he ordered, his voice rising to a shout over the shared Lancer Officer Command Channel before jumping down into the hole.
His ears echoed with the faint sounds of joyous shouting over the Lancer channel, as his drop down a deck seriously degraded the signal.
When he was not immediately shot down, and no one tried to restrain him, he figured he must have made the right call.
For a long moment, none of his Marines followed him down the hole and he stood there alone, surrounded by what looked like nothing more than a bunch of giant, vibro-blade wielding, overgrown gorillas in non-powered metallic armor. Behind them were smaller gorillas, sans armor like the first one he had seen. But these smaller ones had deadly looking ranged weapons, which they clutched professionally.
A few more moments passed and Wainwright figured he had finally lost control of, if not the entire Brigade, at the very least his protective detail and the company they were positioned alongside.
Then a series of four thumps sounded behind him as four figures in marine issue battlesuits dropped down beside him. Another three dropped in close after that and scrambled to clear the hole. The rest began to follow them down in a flood of thumping metal boots striking the duralloy floor of the station.
“Pantyhose, is it,” Sergeant Melissa Kopenhagen demanded as she clomped to a position at Wainwright’s side.
“Secure the drop zone, but make sure not to upset our new friends while doing it,” he ordered, unable to resist a grin at the Sergeant’s consternation.
She was clearly unwilling to let the matter rest. “Gutless—”
“The pantyhose comment put you off your stride,” he interrupted her, “but I was wrong on the last part, and happily so,” he added, glad that his grin was hidden behind his face plate.
“If you weren’t an Officer…,” she glared.
“Oh but I am, Sergeant, and it’s an Officer’s duty to keep his soldiers moving, which I’m pleased to report that you are,” he remarked dryly, as he swung the barrel of his ion cannon around. “Now form it up!”
A large, powerful Uplift strode toward him, followed by a second. The second was surrounded by little child gorillas, which seemed to shadow the second massive Uplift. The large ones looked almost big enough to take on a man in power armor. Almost, he thought uneasily.
“Are you General of Confederation Lancers,” asked the first one, the one without the accompanying children.
Wainwright glanced back and forth between the two creatures, his mouth twisting. He forcefully ignored the feeling of disgust twisting his gut into knots.
Looking at the creature’s ear to avoid the stomach churning wrongness of its face, he sucked in a breath as soon as he spotted the flashing light of electronics implanted in the back of his head.
“I’m a Colonel,” he said shortly, not wanting to confuse the issue with facts or the rising sense that maybe he was on the wrong side. Better if the galaxy were ruled by pirates, rather than AI’s!
“We’ll have not cost/benefit ratios under my watch,” Wainwright snarled under his breath.
“What you say,” demanded the childless gorilla man.
“I’m the Force Commander here,” he growled, neatly side-stepping several inconvenient truths by plunging his dagger right into the heart of the issue.
“I am Primarch,” the creature retorted, giving its chest a quick double slap, causing its chest armor to rattle.
Wainwright could barely contain himself as he stared at the creature and its cybernetic head with disgust.
“Personal designation Glue; the Hold Mother will have told you of this Sundered,” the creature said with such confidence that Wainwright was beginning to suspect Suffic, at least, had been told about this… thing. He also knew why the Lancer Colonel had been so tight-lipped on the subject.
Suffic had to have known that the Marines would have never followed him into an alliance with an AI Slave Race if they had been given time to think about it. Withdrawal would have made so much more sense, were they not already stuck in so deep. It was clear that now, the only way out was forward.
“Hold Mother?” the Colonel inquired, repulsed that he was actually making small talk with this creature while his Marines were dying, but he needed some time to regain his mental bearings.
“The mate of Confederation Admiral, the Lady Akantha,” the creature, this Primarch Glue (whatever that meant) clarified.
“Uh-huh,” Wainwright said non-committally.
“
The Sundered have pushed to Deck 2a, but automated defenses difficult to deal with,” the Primarch grunted, likely with displeasure.
“What kind of defenses,” the Colonel demanded, professional interest taking over at the thought of some hard intel on the target.
“Shock barriers, roving plasma turrets and hidden pop-out blaster mounts in walls and ceilings,” the Primarch explained in what Wainwright would swear was a sour voice.
“Moving my boys and girls down a level helps take off the immediate pressure,” Wainwright admitted, “but those pirates are going to be following us down this rabbit hole as soon as my last Lancers and Marines are down here.”
“Our male’s armor not as effective against defenses as your battlesuits, and most our Females carry no armor, only weapons,” the Primarch stated, slapping the wall with the hand not holding his absurdly top-heavy sword. “We can hold pirate humans and Battlesuits, while you deal defenses at Station Command.”
The Marine Colonel absorbed the fact that the smaller child-like gorilla people were actually females.
“Must be nice,” he muttered thinking how much nicer his life would be with a child-sized version of Melissa Kopenhagen running around. Then he took another look and realized there were a lot more of these small females than their more deadly looking male counter parts. On the other hand, one normal sized Marine Sergeant was better than three or four smaller versions, each determined to show her displeasure. No doubt there would be an even bigger chip on her shoulder because of the size disparity, he sourly.
Then he gave himself a shake. There was no point in humanizing the former Slave Races, they were what they had always been designed to be, which was most definitely not human.
“There’s a lot of the Blighters,” he warned the creature, “we’re down to somewhere around twenty five hundred effectives, and there must have been six or seven thousand in power armor and twice than unarmored surrounding our old position.” He fudged the numbers some by including the walking wounded which made up around half his current forces, but if the injured were unable to help walk this thing to victory, they were all finished anyway.
Spineward Sectors 03 Admiral's Tribulation Page 43
