"A Trooper's gotta do what a Trooper's gotta do," Bruiser reiterated with simplistic stupidity.
"Maybe we should think it over," muttered Christianson. "I agree with the captain. It might be wisest if we could come up with a plan that doesn't involve possible officerial casualties."
"Too much jawin'!" bellowed Bruiser. "Action. Kill! Destroy! Reenlist! Go! Rambette, you lead. Slasher and me we take up rear — no cowardly stragglers here!"
With great reluctance the herded troops started slowly down the metal steps to the floor of the repair dock. As they reached the halfway point, the alien charged them. Larry threw all his grenades at once as Rambette and Bill opened fire with their flamethrowers. The alien staggered back just long enough for the crew to finish their scramble down the steps.
"We split two teams," yelled Bruiser. "Force dat t'ing to da airlock."
"I'm not being on Larry's team," cried Moe.
"How about three teams?" Curly suggested ingratiatingly. "I vote for three teams and personally volunteer to go back and watch the door."
"We ain't got time to count ballots," cried Rambette. "You! You, you, and you come with me. Over this way! Now! The rest of you go with Bruiser."
Bruiser yelled, "Get over here!"
"He's beginning to sound worse than an officer," complained Larry as he shouldered his flamethrower and lined up beside Tootsie. "He's ugly enough to be one, too."
"Back her up easy. Dose of you wit da flamethrowers, use 'em. Go! Go! Go!"
The flamethrowers roared into action, bathing the giant monster with a wall of flame. Uhuru hurled grenades at the thing's feet, keeping her hopping around, but otherwise doing no noticeable damage. Bill felt like his finger was welded to the FULL POWER button on his makeshift flamethrower.
"Spread out!" cried Rambette. "You stand that close together she'll take you all out with — hey! — watch that tail!"
Rambette's team scattered as the mother alien swung her massive tail in a wide arc, catching Captain Blight in his massive stomach and sending him flying and bouncing across the floor.
"My leg!" he cried. "It's broken!"
"Then shoot sitting down," yelled Christianson, dodging another swing of the tail and throwing two grenades. "Don't be such a coward, Blight. It's only a leg."
"Hold your fire!" cried Rambette. "Back off! She's got Caine!"
The smoldering beast held Caine in her enormous clawed hand, jaws dripping ichor as her huge teeth clacked horribly mere inches from the android's face. The smell of smoldering orange fur was singularly revolting.
"I'll get him!" cried Larry, dropping his flamethrower and running past a stunned Rambette, grabbing two knives from her belt and leaping at the monster.
He landed on the creature's kneecap and was climbing up a furry leg, hacking and slicing away, when she reached down and plucked him off, holding him at arm's length. The indescribably repulsive alien looked hungrily first at Larry and then at Caine.
"Come on, Curly!" cried Moe, running toward the monster. "We've got to help Larry!"
"I'm right behind you!" called Curly. "You take the right leg. I've got the left!"
In an instant the mother alien was crawling with clones. Her initial reaction was to bite off Caine's left hand. She grimaced and spit it out, throwing the android down and turning her attention to the presumably tastier trio of cloned humans.
Bill rushed to Caine and dragged him away from the action.
"It'll be okay," lied Bill, tearing his shirt and wrapping it as a tourniquet around the android's severed arm. "Try to stay calm."
"I am losing considerable hydraulic fluid," moaned Caine, his eyes fluttering. "Please tighten the tourniquet. I must doze now, my batteries are so weak.... If you could locate my missing appendage, there is the faintest possibility it could be reattached."
"I'll get it," said Bill.
"I'm ... drifting away..." whispered Caine. "Thank you for your assistance. Good luck. And, maybe, goodbye..."
The android closed his eyes. He lay still and stopped breathing. Bill wondered if he was dead. Or had he ever been alive — at least in the strictest sense — to begin with? He tried to remember what he knew about android physiology and drew a big fat blank. He put his ear to Caine's chest and heard gears grinding and relays snapping on and off. At least the android was still running.
"Here's his hand, Bill," said Tootsie, laying the chewed-on extremity gently on Caine's still chest. "You've done all you can for now. We'd better go. Bruiser needs help."
Bruiser and Rambette had gone on a clone-rescuing mission. Bruiser was hacking at one leg with Slasher while Rambette gave the creature a flamethrower hotfoot on the other. Uhuru was astride the wildly swinging tail, sawing away at it with one of Rambette's biggest pig-stickers.
"She's going to eat Larry," cried Curly, who had a precarious grip on one slippery shoulder.
"I've got it!" Moe yelled, scrambling up the alien's rib cage like it was a ladder. "Take this, you alien mother!" he screamed as he tossed a grenade between the creature's gnashing jaws.
It was one of Uhuru's finest grenades and went off with a tremendous roar. The alien dropped Larry and staggered back with smoke puffing from its ears. Curly fell off, but Moe somehow managed to hold on.
"What did it do?" cried Bill, helping Rambette in her attempt to fry the foot. "Did you kill her?"
"I think it might have chipped a tooth," moaned Moe, peering into her horrible mouth. "I'm abandoning ship!" he cried, jumping down.
Barfer was circling the alien, growling and snarling in a really convincing imitation of a ferocious dog, snapping at any handy part that came near.
"I'm all busted up," cried Larry. "I can't walk!"
"Dis is it!" snarled Bruiser, taking a full-force swing with his axe, finally breaking through the alien's thick skin. What passed for alien blood spewed out as the creature fell to one knee.
"Splatter that punk!" roared Tootsie, spraying the nearest arm with Larry's flamethrower.
"Watch out!" cried Uhuru. "She's falling over!"
Everyone scattered as the massive mother fell to the floor, still snapping her fearsome jaws and grabbing at anyone within reach, dripping ichor and blood, crawling and snarling.
"Everyone here!" cried Bruiser. "Gotta force her back into da airlock."
It was a toss-up as to who was doing the forcing. Even with all the remaining crew providing a solid front, flamethrowers and grenades were just about even with claws and fangs. It was two crawls forward and one crawl back, Bill's flamethrower ran out of fuel and he used it for a club until the alien batted it away. Then he turned to lobbing grenades. At last they had the creature backed up against the open outer door to the airlock.
"What now?" cried Tootsie. "She's not going in!"
"Me and Slasher gonna convince her," growled Bruiser.
The big man went face-to-face against the sprawled-out monster, swinging his axe at anything within axe-length. Alien fingers and toes went flying. Barfer had a death-grip on the tip of her tail. Bruiser hacked and chopped. The creature retreated back into the airlock, but not before she lashed out with one bleeding arm and sent Bruiser skidding across the floor into the flattened remains of the forklift.
"Hey! Dat t'ing broke my arm!" he roared. "Close da door and dump her!"
"It won't close!" moaned Curly, pressing the green button. "The switch is broken!"
"Let me at it," yelled Tootsie. "I'm the queen of the switches!"
She tore the cover plate off the wall and dug into the switch's innards with a knife. One of the alien's hands reached out and grabbed her tightly around the waist. Tootsie fought desperately as Rambette hacked at the creature's gigantic hand. Sparks flew from the switch and the door started to close.
"Back off!" cried Uhuru. "Get away!"
"Help!" yelled Tootsie, using all her strength to keep a claw from spearing her. The door stopped, jammed against the alien's arm. It was all that kept the airlock door from closing.
&
nbsp; Bill charged to the door.
"I can't hardly breathe!" gasped Tootsie. "I'm going to die!"
"Not yet," said Bill, leaping into the air and landing on the arm with his elephant foot. The weight of it pushed the arm down and back. The door slid shut with a sharp clang.
Rambette hit the red button and a loud whooshing sound vibrated the walls as the outer door opened and the air pressure blew the alien out into deep space.
The crew sat stunned. It was over.
Blight moaned. Bruiser staggered over and picked up Slasher with his good arm.
They were battered, broken, and bruised. But they had won.
"You did good — for a MP, Bill," said Bruiser.
"We all did good." Rambette started gathering up her knives. "It was a group effort. Even Christianson carried his own weight."
"I rather enjoyed the tossing grenades part," he said. "They ought to teach that in officer's school."
"Where's Caine?" asked Rambette. "I lost track of him."
"He's over there," said Bill. "Right next to the — No! No! It can't be!"
"Now I'm sure we're going to die!" cried Tootsie as an alien even larger than the mother monster came snarling and dripping slime out of the shadowy back corner of the repair dock.
"Over there!" cried Curly. "There's another one! There are two of them!"
"Three!" yelled Christianson as another alien lurched into sight. "And each one is bigger than the one before."
"I think I agree with Tootsie," said Bill. "This time we're all going to die."
CHAPTER 20
"I have a rather important observation to make," said Caine, sitting up, looking down gloomily at the severed hand in his hand.
"We don't need observations," sighed Rambette. "What we need is an instant miracle."
"It was naive of us to assume that this colony had but a single mother," said Caine, speaking with some difficulty. "Single-parent families are the norm only in the most primitive of species."
"So we got both mothers and fathers breathing down our necks," said Rambette. "Big bowby deal. Our flamethrowers are empty. We're almost out of grenades. We're crunched and beat to death, got broken arms and legs. And you want to discuss family ways?"
"No," gasped Caine, a LOW HYDRAULIC FLUID light flashing on his forehead. "What I wanted to discuss was a highly relevant observation."
"Observe away," said Bill. "We're goners any way you cut it. I figure we've got about thirty seconds before they make up their minds to charge."
"Who among us has not been attacked by the aliens?" asked Caine.
"We've all been attacked and crunched," said Tootsie. "None of us are immune, not even you."
"No, wait!" said Bill. "Barfer's been left alone. They seem to avoid the dog."
"Maybe it's his breath," moaned Tootsie. "Pass out the dog biscuits."
"That's close," said Caine, his LOW BATTERY light glowing brighter. "What does the dog's diet consist of?"
"Okra," cried Bill. "He won't eat anything else."
"And where is the one place in the ship we haven't seen any aliens?" asked Caine.
"The control room?" guessed Curly.
"No, I saw them there once," said Uhuru. "Guess again, and guess quickly. I think they're getting ready to eat us."
"The okra room!" cried Bill. "There's never been one in the okra room."
"Clear thinking," suggested Caine, his LIFE FORCE DRAINING light blinking weakly. "I strongly suggest that we retire to the okra room and bar the door. However, someone will have to carry me. I no longer have sufficient hydraulic fluid remaining to enable my legs to function."
"You mean we might have a chance?" said Rambette.
"Only if we hurry," said Uhuru, lifting Caine. "They're coming."
"I got some signal flares," said Curly. "Okay to throw them?"
"Why not?" said Bill, taking one and tossing it. "Everybody close your eyes!"
The room was filled with a powerful bright light, and the aliens staggered around, confused and temporarily blinded.
"Leave me a flamethrower," said Captain Blight, crawling forward. "I'll keep them occupied while you escape."
"Are you serious?" asked Bill.
"Not really," said Blight, "but I thought I ought to make the offer before I asked someone to carry me out. My broken leg, you know."
"Around dis way," cried Bruiser. "Den up da stairs."
They went as fast as they could, which was not very fast on account of all the people that needed to be carried and their various wounds and bruises. With incredible weariness they reached the stairs, just a few steps ahead of the snarling aliens.
"Here go the last of the flares," said Curly, throwing them in front of the ichorous monsters.
It was a temporary measure, but it bought them just enough time to make it to the top of the stairs, then out the melted door before the aliens recovered. They set a new world record in the wounded troopers-running-down-the-corridor-to-escape-from-ichorous-aliens category, handicapped division. Finally they reached the okra room and piled inside, bolting the heavy steel door in place and stacking bags of potting soil in front of it. Only then did they turn their attention to repairing their various injuries.
"How much oil he take?" asked Bruiser, his arm in a sling made out of plant stakes.
"He's down three quarts," said Bill, checking Caine's dipstick. "I think he'll come around after his batteries have time to recharge."
"It was brave of you guys to come after me," Larry said to Moe and Curly. "Of course, I would have done the same if our positions had been reversed."
"Sure, knucklehead," said Moe. "I guess maybe you would."
"I wish we hadn't tossed the mother alien out the airlock," mused Blight, leaning on a rake he was using as a cane. "She would have made wonderful compost."
"You want to try for one of the others?" asked Tootsie. "There are three potential compost heaps out there just wandering around drooling ichor and shedding fur waiting for you to hit them on the head with your rake."
"Ten," said Uhuru shaking his head. "I got the tracker back. It shows ten huge aliens and about a hundred smaller dots that are probably pods, or maybe scuttlers. Most of the aliens are right outside the door."
"I, for one, am not planning any strolls in the near future," said Christianson. "This looks like a good place to ride out the voyage."
"We may not have that choice," said Bill, standing by the door and holding his hand against the metal. "This is starting to heat up. I think they're using acid on the other side."
"But the okra —" said Tootsie.
'They're so hungry, I bet they would eat anything," said Bill.
"True," said Caine, sitting up and blinking his eyes. "And if they're laying eggs, they'll need even more food. We can assume — hey! — what happened to my hand?"
"Good job, huh? Bill and I put it back on," said Curly proudly.
"It's upside-down," cried Caine. "You did it wrong!"
"It's the only way it would fit," said Bill. "Some of the wires had been chewed on pretty badly and wouldn't reach the other way."
"This is awful," moaned Tootsie. "What are we going to do?"
"We could try splicing some more wires," said Caine, examining his hand and flexing it. "We could probably get it going that way."
"I figure we've got a half-hour before they get through the door," said Rambette. "If anyone has a plan, it better be a quick one."
"We could press the ship's self-destruct button," said Curly. "There's one in the control room."
"Wonderful. You're a moron," said Bill disgustedly. "That would blow us up, too, bowb-brain. I'm all in favor of not bringing any of the aliens back, but I do have my limits and you bumped into one of them right there."
"How about if we blow the air valves on the rest of the ship but leave this room sealed off?" asked Uhuru. "Suck all the air out. Could that be done?"
"It's possible," muttered Blight thoughtfully. "When I designed this room I made it as i
ndependent as it could be. It has its own air and water systems. The door and the two air vents that connect with the rest of the ship will need to be sealed, but that's all."
"I can weld the door shut!" shouted Bill. "But how are we going to blow the air from the rest of the ship?"
"A few well-placed bombs ought to do it," said Uhuru, grinning. "I'll blast the Bounty so full of holes it'll look like Swiss cheese."
"I can patch the autopilot into the garden computer," said Curly. "We can run the ship from here."
"A garden computer?" asked Tootsie. "That little thing over there by the flower pots?"
"If it can run an irrigation system, I can make it run the navigation system, warning controls, navigation feedback parameter loops, and atomic engines," said Curly. "The principles are roughly the same."
"I advise haste," Caine said hastily. "Time is of the essence."
Things started hopping. Blight and Caine mixed gunpowder while Christianson helped Uhuru construct the bombs. Bill went to work creating an airtight seam around the edges of the door with a heavy-duty electric welder. Tootsie devised a clever magnetic clamp to hold the explosives in place. Moe made several timing devices out of a pile of rusting garden equipment and assured everyone the bombs would go off simultaneously. Rambette volunteered to go through the air ducts with Uhuru and help him put the bombs where they would do the most damage.
"Remember, we don't want to blow the ship apart," said Blight, helping Uhuru into the air duct. "We just want to poke a few holes in it. Don't get carried away."
"Let's do it," said Uhuru, hauling up a bag of bombs.
"In spite of everything, and despite the mutiny, I feel that I am responsible for this ship," said Blight. "If it is destroyed, they'll take it out of my pay. I can afford a few holes, but total destruction is beyond my budget."
"If it's destroyed, you won't be around to worry about it," said Rambette, following Uhuru.
"Now that's a cheerful thought," said Blight, turning to Bill. "How is the welding going?"
"Not bad," he said, bending over the torch. "If you would move that extension cord for me, I could reach the far corner."
On the Planet of Zombie Vampires Page 15
