Dust & Iron (Adventures of the Starship Satori Book 9)

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “I don’t taste so good after all, huh?” she asked it.

  Then she walked in toward the thing again, trying to stomp it into the ground like she had the bug. It darted sideways, avoiding her easily. The ratzards were fast, and she was too slow in this armor. Charline looked over at her rifle, wondering if she should just get out and blow the thing away. But if she cracked the hatch, it would be on her in seconds again. There might not be time to take a shot. Safer to stay inside her protective shell.

  She tried to kick the ratzard and missed, but each movement was feeling more fluid to her. It was struggling to move fast enough to avoid her blows. Confidence growing, Charline leaned forward in her suit to take a swipe at the predator with one of the suit’s powerful claw hands.

  The ratzard held position until the very last moment before dodging away, almost like it was taunting her. That was infuriating. Charline took another swing, her body bent sharply forward as she reached out to hit the creature.

  A loud clang sounded in her ears. Something had hit her from behind! Charline felt her balance shift and tried to lean back. But the ratzard that had landed on her weighed too much. The force of its impact was too powerful. She kept the suit upright for only another second before it slowly toppled face-first into the dirt.

  She flew forward against the harness. There hadn’t been time to completely strap herself in, so the webbing couldn’t absorb enough shock. Charline’s neck snapped forward when the suit smashed into the ground. Her head cracked on the panel in front of her, and stars flashed in front of her eyes.

  Charline managed not to pass out, but her head felt fuzzy. Her whole body hurt from the fall. The display in front of her showed only the dirt below her, which wasn’t much use. Snarls and scraping noises told her that the ratzards hasn’t left. They were outside, trying to claw their way in. She didn’t think they could get to her, but if she just stayed put and waited for someone to rescue her, what sort of mission leader was she?

  “Time to do this right, then,” Charline said. She grimaced as she carefully did up each strap. That would have been smart to do the first time. Now she was hurting when she didn’t have to be. “Lesson learned. Do the whole pre-flight check.”

  That done, Charline took a deep breath. She forced one of her arms out, pushing her torso up. Then she braced herself with the other arm and slowly brought the exo-suit back to its feet.

  There weren’t two ratzards arrayed against her. There were three. Charline didn’t know where the rest of her people were, but she had plenty of trouble to handle on her own.

  “A gun would be really useful right about now,” she said. Casting her eyes about, she didn’t see a handy firearm for the suit to pick up. But she did see the gleam of metal on the ground. A crowbar lay there, left over from the effort to dig out the cave-in.

  “That’ll do,” she said. She reached down to pick the tool up and took a few experimental swings, wielding the bar like it was a sword.

  One of the ratzards leaped through the air toward her. Charline let out a yelp as it grew large in her screen. She moved more out of instinct than experience and brought the bar into the space between them. It connected solidly with the ratzard with a wet thwack. The creature flew ten feet off to the side before falling to the ground. It didn’t get up again.

  “Now that’s more like it!”

  The other two creatures were more cautious now. They spread out, flanking her from both sides. Charline turned toward one and raised her weapon, sending it crashing down. The ratzard dodged. It had forced her to lean forward again in order to try to hit it, and Charline knew what was coming next.

  The other creature landed on her back again. These things learned fast! They’d figured out a trick which could work against her, so they were trying it again. But Charline was ready for them this time. She braced one of her legs against the ground to absorb the force of the impact and then flipped herself backward.

  There was a short howl of surprise from behind her as the startled ratzard fell to the ground right before a ton of steel landed on top of it. Then there was a crunching sound, but no more movement from the creature. She brought the armor back to its feet again.

  “Two down. One to go,” Charline said. “Come on then – let’s dance!”

  But the third ratzard looked back and forth at the bodies of its fallen pack-mates and seemed to think better of continuing the altercation. It gave a long howl that chilled Charline’s blood. Then it darted past her, running off and vanishing into the ruins nearby. She saw several other doglike shapes scatter as well, disappearing as quickly as hers had.

  Charline let them go. There was no catching them in this armor. The things were too fast for her. Besides, her people might need her. She had no way to know how bad the attack had been for the rest of their party. She started in the direction Andy had gone, hoping that he was all right.

  SIX

  By the time Charline came stomping over ready for action, Andy had already blunted the rest of the attack. On woman was bitten, but Karl was already seeing to her by the time Charline came stomping over. The bodies of three dead ratzards lay on the ground near Andy. He was dirty but otherwise unharmed.

  “Can’t leave that suit alone, can you?” he asked with a grin.

  “It worked. Two dead ratzards back there to show for it,” she replied.

  “Really?” Andy’s eyebrows shot up. “Good work, then. I’d never have figured that suit for a weapon, but you’ve done amazing things with it. Maybe we need to reconsider that.”

  Charline wondered why no one had been using them for combat on Earth. A smaller version of the suit was worn by some infantry like a thin exo-skeleton. It gave them the ability to move a little faster and carry more weight. But it didn’t have an armored shell like her suit. It wouldn’t have protected nearly as well. She decided to look into it more later.

  Her hands were shaking as she undid the straps holding her into the suit and powered it down. Too many life-threatening situations in too short a time. But that was probably going to be the way of things for the duration. If they could count on nothing else, it was that the planet Dust would throw surprises at them every chance it got. Charline knew that it wasn’t the planet’s fault they ended up in deep trouble every time they came there. Even so, she couldn’t help feel like the place was plain bad luck.

  She popped the hatch and grabbed her rifle. She wasn’t letting the weapon leave her side again for as long as it took to get off this planet. Then she pushed herself out of her cocoon. Hauling her body over the side and finding footholds to climb down took all her concentration. It wasn’t until she reached the ground that Charline felt she could relax. Then she sagged against the rocky soil.

  “Just one injured, then?” Charline asked, scanning the assembled faces.

  “Two if you count Arjun,” a large man said. He had a bushy salt and pepper beard and long hair, with a build that reminded Charline of a bear more than a man. That had to be Karl. Andy said he was their medic? Charline tried to imagine his bedside manner and decided that she didn’t want to find out personally.

  “Well, that was lucky, then,” Charline said. “But they could come back at any time. We need to work quickly. Set up a defensible camp to hold them off next time.”

  “You sure there’s going to be a next time?” a woman asked. “We took out a good few of them.”

  “What’s your name?” Charline asked. She needed to get to know these people fast.

  “Tessa. I’m – I was supposed to be security,” the woman replied.

  “You good with that gun?” Charline asked, nodding at the pistol the woman had holstered at her side.

  “Yup. And just about any other small arms you need me to shoot.”

  “Good. I have a hunch we’re going to need all the security we can get before this is over,” Charline said.

  There was no telling how long it might take for the Satori to return. If the ship had been damaged, they might be out there making re
pairs even now. That could take hours or even days.

  And if the worst had happened? If the Satori had been destroyed by the unknown alien ship? Earth might not be able to send another ship to check on them for weeks. There were only a few space-worthy vessels available. More would be built in the months ahead, but for the time being Earth’s space navy was frighteningly small.

  “They’ll be back. There’s not a lot to eat out there in the desert,” Charline said. “I’m betting they come at us again. They’ll wait until they have more numbers, but we need to be ready.”

  “Makes sense,” Tessa replied. “What’s our next move?”

  It was a good question. Defenses had just become a major priority. Probably more important than supplies. Or maybe they could do both at the same time?

  “Andy, take Tessa and one other person. Go check the surrounding ruins. See if you can find a building sturdy enough that it’s not going to drop on our heads. Something we can defend,” Charline said.

  “On it. Tessa and … Ralph. You’re with me,” he said.

  A tall, slim man stood and joined Andy. Charline noted that Ralph didn’t seem thrilled about being called on for the search team, but he went anyway. She might have to watch him, but for the next while she would let him be Andy’s problem.

  “The rest of you, come with me. We’re going to check the supplies and see what we’ve got,” Charline said. “Once we know what we have to work with, we can plan out our next move. Karl, please stay with the wounded and keep an eye on them? I don’t want anything attracted by the smell of blood to take advantage of our injured.”

  He nodded. “Can do. I know which end of a gun you point at the bad guy. Or bad whatever those things were.”

  There was something about Karl’s manner that told Charline he knew a lot more than that. The smooth way he picked up a rifle and ran a safety check without missing a beat told her that he was no stranger to weapons. The man was intriguing. There was certainly more to him than met the eye.

  She needed to learn about all of these people. Knowing their strengths and weaknesses was of vital importance. Charline had assumed she’d have time to do that while they set up a base of operations, but there was no margin for safety anymore. They were living on a razor’s edge. Any advantage she could win for them might make the difference. Getting familiar with her team had to be a priority.

  “OK, we’ve got our jobs. Let’s get to it. The sooner we have some security, the better we’re all going to feel,” Charline said.

  There were nods and even thin smiles from the people around her. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. She had to keep them busy enough that they didn’t have time to worry over how desperate their situation really was. Charline would let that be her job. If she could appear confident to the others, that was one burden at least that she could lift from their shoulders onto her own.

  SEVEN

  Charline’s eyes lit up when she opened the third crate. The first two had contained some spare parts and machinery. While those things would have been important for the colony, they were far from essential given the current circumstances. This container was something different entirely.

  “Guess what I found!” Charline called out.

  “Food?” replied the man standing next to her. “Because we’re going to be hungry soon if we don’t find some in one of these things. Unless those lizard things are edible?”

  Charline shuddered. The idea of eating ratzard was enough to upset her stomach. “No. Their blood does bad things when combined with water. I can only imagine what would happen if it got loose inside a person.”

  She could well imagine it, much as she didn’t want to. The black stuff the ratzards used as blood was the weapon part of their bio-weapon nature. Aside from carrying oxygen and nutrients around inside the creatures, it was a bacterial life form in its own right, living in symbiosis with the ratzards. But expose some of the blood to water and sunlight, and it reproduced itself at an alarming rate. The Naga had used it to coat every waterway on this planet, effectively turning what might once have been a vibrant world into a dry husk. All of the planet’s water had been trapped in the oceans under thick mats of the stuff.

  They’d undone that, using a counter-bacteria they’d developed that fed upon the black stuff. The oceans here on Dust were healing as their bacterium spread. In time, maybe the world would see rain again. They’d already found a few small plants trying to grow in the dry soil. Dust might someday be full of life again, but that would be a long time in the future.

  “Not food, unfortunately. But I found the fabricator,” Charline said. She fished through the crate, trying to see if all the parts were there. It looked like they had the entire machine, which would be incredibly useful. The colony mission had been sent along with a large, industrial-grade fabrication machine. It worked something like an extremely advanced 3D printer. But instead of printing only simple objects, the fabricator was able to produce a number of more complex machines as well. Things like gears, motors, and basic circuit boards would have been programmed into the computer which drove the thing. If they could input the correct materials, this machine could give them a number of advantages that might spell the difference between survival and death.

  “I still wish it had been food,” the man grumbled. But he came to stand beside her and look into the container. “It looks like the whole machine is in there.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Charline said. She tried and failed to remember the man’s name, and opted to just go for the introduction. She reached out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Charline.”

  “I know who you are. We all know who you are. I’m not dumb,” he replied.

  Charline left her hand extended. She flashed him a broad grin and cocked her head a bit to the side.

  “And ... you have no idea who I am, do you?” he asked. He looked down at the ground, shook his head, and laughed.

  “Nope, not a clue,” Charlie replied with a chuckle.

  He stood up straight, looking her in the eye and clasped her hand. “Halcomb. Roger Halcomb, at your service.”

  “And what’s your specialty, Halcomb?”

  He laughed again and gestured toward the crate beside them. “This, actually. I’m a mechanic by trade, but I love these things the most. Give me time and materials, and I can make you pretty much anything you might need.”

  “I promise to keep you all kinds of busy,” Charline said.

  Her mind was already abuzz with ideas. Having the fabricator at all was a boon. But if Halcomb was as good as he said, his expertise might be just as valuable. Making stuff was good. Having someone who knew how to create more complex machines from the parts the fabricator printed was even better.

  “Not like I can build you a starship, now,” Halcomb said. “I’m good, but I’m not a miracle worker.”

  “They’ll be back for us.”

  “You think?” He sounded dubious.

  Charlie wished that she could be certain herself. What if the Satori had been destroyed? Help might be very long in coming. If it ever did.

  One step at a time. Something she did know: her people needed to feel like she believed rescue would arrive soon. Hope was important, if they were going to fight off the fear that had to be gnawing at each of them.

  “Yes. Beth will be back. She’s been in much worse situations than this. An alien ship isn’t a new thing for her, you know,” Charline said. She worked at keeping the tension she was feeling out of her tone.

  “If you say so,” Halcomb said.

  Charline let the conversation drop and went on to the next crate. It opened to reveal a heavy machine gun and canisters of ammunition. Her eyebrows shot up. If the ratzards came back, that might come in really handy. It was heavy enough that they would have to place it someplace fixed. That would limit its usefulness.

  An idea came to mind. “Halcomb, you think we could rig a gun onto the exo-suit?” she asked.

  He stopped and rubbed his chin.
“I don’t see why not. It’s just a matter of sending a fire signal to the firing mechanism and bolting it on. You thinking to do a little robot-fighting? I’m not sure that’s going to work better than just sitting the gun on the ground the way its supposed to be fired.”

  He could be right. It might be utterly useless to configure the suit in that manner. It could make it ungainly or hurt its ability to haul things around. There were a zillion reasons why it could go very wrong. But the memory of how she’d felt inside the suit during the fighting wouldn’t leave her alone. She’d been scared, sure. But she had also felt powerful. Stronger than she ever had without the armor. Armor – that’s what it felt like. Wearing the suit, she felt like a medieval knight, festooned in heavy plate armor. She’d even been swinging a big stick at the ratzards to complete the effect.

  “And the ratzards could come at us from any direction. Unless we find more of these guns in other crates, I think we’d be better off mounting it to a mobile platform. We might need to move quickly, too,” Charline said. “Better to be prepared for anything.”

  “No arguing with that. I’ll see about it after we’re done reviewing the supplies,” Halcomb said.

  “I’d appreciate that. Sooner is better.”

  “You think those lizards will be back soon?” he asked. His eyes darted from side to side, scanning the shadows left by rocky outcrops like a ratzard was going to leap out at him.

  “We look like food. They were hurt when they attacked us, but I don’t think it will be long before their hunger overcomes their fear. We need to be prepared before then,” she said.

  Charline went on to the next container. This one looked like it might hold some sort of foodstuff, which would be as good news as the gun had been. They had no idea how long it would take for help to arrive. Food and water were going to be a major problem soon if they didn’t find some rations. She leaned in and clicked open the latches.

  “Oh! Uh, don’t need to open that one…” Halcomb started to say.