by Lee Stephen
Suddenly, the tunnel door to the underground hangar burst open. All four men turned as a breathless slayer approached them. “General Thoor!” he panted.
Thoor frowned and eyed the slayer with a look of displeasure. The slayer bowed apologetically. “Captain Antipov. Captain Marusich. General Thoor.”
Antipov chuckled. “You mean Commander Marusich, slayer.”
“Damn Strakhov to hell,” Marusich spat. “He fails, so I get demoted. Only here is that justice.”
“Silence,” said Thoor, cutting them off. He turned to the messenger. “Why are we interrupted?”
The slayer swallowed before speaking. “General, it is about the Fourteenth.” As soon as the unit was named, Antipov and Marusich arched their eyebrows. “They have defied you.”
“Defied me how?”
“The message comes from Colonel Saretok. You ordered all transports back to Novosibirsk. Commander Remington removed the colonel and fled to rescue the Fifty-first and Forty-second. Now we have just learned that another unit has left Novosibirsk to help him!”
Thoor’s eyes grew large, but not out of anger. Out of genuine surprise. “What other unit?”
“Commander Brunner from the Thirty-ninth. She and several of her men left with the Australians. They lied to the sentries to gain access to a Vulture. We believe Remington requested their assistance.”
“Wait,” said Marusich, raising a hand. “What do you mean, Remington removed Saretok?”
The slayer hesitated. “He physically removed the colonel from their Vulture. They left him stranded with the Bakma prisoners from the Noboat.”
Silence prevailed. A pin could have fallen in the hangar and deafened everyone. No one breathed.
Then it happened—something that almost never happened at all. It caused a physical reaction from everyone else in the room. General Thoor laughed. Not in triumph or in wickedness, but from a genuine thrill. His voice bellowed off the walls.
The messenger said nothing.
“Antipov,” Thoor said, “take the Third and rescue Saretok from humiliation. Tell him we will shave his head as punishment. I will mount his mohawk on my wall.”
Marusich stared at Thoor in disbelief. “Will you allow this, general? Remington has gone against your will!”
“That is what he does. That is why I sought him out. A lion cannot be kept on a leash. I want a predator, not a pet.” The general walked to the Noboat, running his hand along its hull. “The perception of freedom is stronger than any chain. Let him think he has defied me and escaped unpunished. That will only make him more effective.”
“General, what other man would you let get away with this? He grows more brazen by the day. First he takes prisoners from the Walls of Mourning, and now this?”
“What other man has brought me a Noboat with a functional crystal?” After posing the question, Thoor turned around. “Or given me a necrilid hatchery as a gift?”
“It is favoritism just the same!” Marusich shouted, challenging the Terror. “The fact that he is a commander at all is absurd. Remington has not been a soldier for nine months. No other man has been given so much so quickly.”
Thoor answered matter-of-factly, “Remington is a leader, and leaders should be put in a position to lead. That is why he is a commander now, and that is why he will be a captain when he returns, should he survive. His actions today, defiant or not, are exactly why I chose him. I require no one else’s approval.” He turned to the messenger. “Monitor the situation, and inform me of the Fourteenth’s progress.”
“Yes, general.” With those words the slayer turned and left. Only after he’d exited the hangar did conversation resume.
“What will you do with Brunner?” asked Antipov. “And the Australians?”
“Nothing,” Thoor answered. “Any punishment she or they receive will cause Remington to hesitate in the future. Hesitation is an unacceptable fault.” His face grew sterner as he turned to find Marusich. “Find the sentry who allowed Brunner to leave, and execute him. Resourcefulness is valuable. Carelessness is not.”
“Yes, general.”
“And mind your tone when you challenge me in the future. I chose you for your vehemence—not your tongue.”
“As you wish, general.”
Thoor turned to Antipov again. “Exercise patience in your retrieval of Saretok. Let him know that he failed.”
After an exchange of Nightman salutes, Antipov and Marusich left the general’s presence. Turning back around to the Noboat, Thoor ran his fingers over its metallic surface. A trace of satisfaction gleamed in his eyes.
* * *
Becan dropped back as a plasma bolt crashed against his cover. He looked at Svetlana from inside the wrecked Vulture. “I migh’ need yeh up here!”
The medic was working frantically on the injured young soldier. Several meters away, the older man she’d abandoned began to moan in half-conscious agony. Svetlana continued to operate, her hands bloody but steady.
“Sveta, did yeh hear me?”
“Stay alive,” she whispered to the boy. “Please stay alive.”
The Bakma were on the verge of storming them; Becan couldn’t hold them at bay for much longer.
All of a sudden, the sky above the Irishman roared. He hunched down and peered up to see the Pariah hovering overhead. Its frontal cannon opened fire.
Becan fired again. “Travis, can yeh lift us ou’ o’ here?”
“On my way down—whoa!”
A plasma missile shrieked past. The Pariah swished through the air. “Check that,” Travis answered. “Apparently they’re saving those for me.”
“Bollocks.”
Suddenly, from the corner of his eyes, Becan saw a distant human-sized movement, dark and awkward. When he turned to focus on it, his face fell with shock.
“Auric!”
The German was stumbling to his feet in the open snow. With one hand, he wildly fired his assault rifle, while his other hand swayed to keep balance.
Becan burst from the Vulture, kicking up snow as he ran toward the soldier. Auric met him on wobbly feet. Once again, the Pariah swooped past, providing just enough cover for the two men to move. Slinging an arm under Auric’s shoulder, Becan struggled to rush him back to the wreckage.
There was no time for Becan to ask questions or even ease the slayer down. The Irishman threw Auric aside and returned to the defense.
Auric rolled on the ground. The right side of his helmet had been decimated by gunfire; in its place, from the back of his head to his cheek, was a mess of burnt flesh. Half of his right ear was gone. He tried to stand up but failed.
The dog Flopper slid clumsily in the Pariah‘s troop bay, his four paws digging out each time the ship veered, and each time slamming against a wall. Travis pushed forward on the stick, sending the transport strafing across the Bakma front. Plasma bolts crashed against the ship’s hull.
“Boris, what’s it looking like down there?”
“We found one survivor. She couldn’t save him.”
“Come on, Varya,” Travis whispered off-comm.
“We are on our way to the other Vulture.”
Below, on the ground, Nicolai and Derrick held cover for Varvara and Boris. The second crashed Forty-second Vulture—the one with actively firing survivors—was a short run away. The moment Varvara and Boris ran, every survivor from the Forty-second held suppression to aid them. Varvara ducked her head and dashed into the wrecked ship with Boris on her heels.
An officer addressed her immediately. Half his armor was gone, and he was bleeding from multiple wounds. He was battle-ready nonetheless. “We have four wounded, one of them critical. What is your name?”
“Varvara Yudina.”
He showed her the injured. “We will protect you, Varvara. Thank you.”
”’Thank you?’”
“You are saving our lives.”
Varvara stared at him as he moved away. The blood from the man she hadn’t saved was still on her hands. She
stared at the new batch of wounded. The three less injured men were watching her; the critical one was incoherent.
“Help me, God,” she whispered. “Help me do this.” Swallowing hard, she opened her kit.
In the cruiser, Max, David, and William had little trouble slashing through the initial front line of Bakma. They’d blindsided the extraterrestrials with a barrage of bullets and hand cannon blasts. They were on the verge of reaching Torban, their medical contact with the Forty-second.
They were about to breach the first open section of the Cruiser, a large circular room known as a silo. The two-level room held stations ranging from navigational controls to tactical operations. It was like a separate bridge. Every station was gigantic—every console larger than humans could comfortably operate. The floors were a mud-colored brown; the walls were barely brighter. Typically, the room held many Ceratopians, but it was empty now.
“Three hallways ahead,” Max commanded, “at ten o’clock, twelve o’clock, and two. Torban’s down two. Harb, stick with AP.”
William reloaded his armor-piercing rounds.
“I hear neutron,” said David.
Max adjusted his comm. “Torban, we’re coming at you from the silo. Don’t shoot us.”
Torban’s affirmation was barely audible.
“Get ready,” Max said. David and William positioned their guns. “Go!”
The three men burst into the silo. It was empty, but the hallways were not. The twelve o’clock hall resonated with plasma and neutron. Projectile fire came from the two o’clock.
Max waved off the inter-species clash. “Let ‘em fight—we gotta get Torban.” The three men jetted down the two o’clock hall.
It took one turn to find human operatives—a man and a woman. Both were hunkered down, protecting the corner Max’s team appeared around, their E-35s at the ready. When they saw the men from the Fourteenth, they relaxed their stances.
“Where’s Torban?” asked Max.
The female operative motioned around the corner in the direction of a projectile-neutron exchange.
Max saw Torban when he rounded the corner. Four men lay unconscious around him, all of whom Torban was working on. “You are here!” Torban cried in relief.
“Who’s your gunner down there fighting the lizards?” Max asked, pointing further ahead in the direction of the active exchange.
“Gritsenko. He is alone. We had no one else to spare.”
“Harb, go help him.”
The demolitionist swept past them and ran down the hall.
Max motioned to the wounded. “Can they be moved?”
“Yes, if it is clear on the way out.”
Max turned to the two other operatives—the man and the woman—who were watching the corridor. “The silo is clear, but we’ve got Bakma and Ceratopians down one of the halls. If I can steal one of your soldiers, we can secure the exit hall.”
Torban pointed. “Gavrilyuk, go.” The female soldier rose to her feet.
Max detached his technical kit from his belt, swapping it for extra ammunition instead. The kit was abandoned on the floor. “Dave, check on Harb and see if he needs help. If he doesn’t, come back in the silo.”
“Right.”
Max shouldered his assault rifle and tracked down the hall. “C’mon, Gobbledygook, you’re with me.”
The female soldier stared at him from behind. “Gavrilyuk.”
“Whatever.”
Farther down the hallway, William and the lone soldier from the Forty-second—an older man named Gritsenko—were in the midst of a firefight with Ceratopians. The two men had taken position where the hallway opened into a living quarters, where numerous Ceratopians were firing their neutron blasters. A dead canrassi, riddled from head to toe with bullet holes, lay sprawled in the center of the hall. The operatives ducked in and out of an adjacent cleansing room, using it as cover while they fired down the hall. William had already dropped one Ceratopian, doing considerably more damage than his less heavily armed comrade. Readying his hand cannon with another set of rounds, he prepared to lean out again.
“Will,” David said through the comm, “I’m coming toward you from behind.” Moments later, David appeared. “How’s it looking?”
William leaned out, launching an armor-piercing round into the living quarters. It blew apart a Ceratopian’s head. “Nothin’ like a little fun ‘n’ gunnin’!”
“Can you hold this?”
“Gritty and I got it down,” William said. Gritsenko glanced at him.
David nodded. “We’re going to secure the silo and start ferrying out the injured. Don’t let them press in.”
Gritsenko leaned into the open and fired a volley. His bullets hammered down the hall but failed to find flesh.
“Take off, man,” William said to David.
“If you need help…”
“I’ll call.”
David slapped William on the back then turned up the hall.
Max and Gavrilyuk had fortified the twelve o’clock hall in the silo, where the exchange of plasma and neutron was taking place. In the midst of a momentary lull, Max got on his comm. “Travis, where are you?”
“Holding cover for Sveta. What do you need?”
Max looked at the two o’clock hallway as David emerged. “Can you pick up some wounded?”
“No way, man. I gotta stay by Becan, he’s holding fort by himself.”
“Veck.”
“Necrilids!” David screamed behind Max.
Max and Gavrilyuk spun around. Out of the ten o’clock hallway, a pair of necrilids bounded into the silo. All three operatives opened fire. The creatures were gunned down just before they had time to strike.
Without warning, while the three operatives were trained on the necrilids, smooth doors slid down to cover the three main hall entrances. Every hallway in the silo was suddenly sealed off.
Max ripped off his helmet. “No, no, no!”
“What the hell is this? This thing had power?” David slapped his palms against one of the sealed doors.
Gavrilyuk was already on her comm. “Aleksi! The silo doors came down!”
Torban answered immediately. “We know! They came down all over the ship!”
“All over the ship?” Max jumped back on the comm. “Harb, where are you?”
A short burst of static ensued before William answered. “What the hell just happened? We just got cut off!”
“Max,” David asked, “can you take control of the ship? Crack into their system?”
“To an extent.” Max lowered his gun. “But it’ll take me a few minutes—” he stopped. His hand froze over his tool belt, where there had been a technician’s kit minutes before. Where there was now an extra cache of ammunition instead.
David’s face sank.
“Freakin’ hell!” Max screamed.
Back in the Battleship, Scott and Esther were closing in on Papanov’s trapped team, leaving a handful of dead Bakma behind in a trek with surprisingly little resistance.
“Lieutenant Papanov,” Scott said through the comm, “we should be coming up on you right now. Stand by for contact.”
“Standing by.”
Rounding a final corner, Scott and Esther found the trapped team. Papanov and his injured commander were hunkered down in what looked like a security checkpoint—a square room that served as a joint for an otherwise straight hallway. Several dead soldiers were sprawled around them.
Papanov was in no position to greet them. He was in the middle of an exchange with a Ceratopian down the hall. Scott joined in the effort, while Esther checked on the injured commander.
“There could be Bakma coming behind us any minute,” Scott said. “We circled around some, and there are still Noboats outside.” It was unrealistic to think that Travis was watching their backs—the Pariah wasn’t a fighter, and it was being torn in numerous directions. Bakma could have been storming behind them as they spoke.
Papanov looked at Scott for the first time. When he s
aw Scott’s golden horns, he arched an eyebrow behind his blue-tinted EDEN visor. “Are you a new kind of fulcrum?”
For a moment, Scott had forgotten about his personalized armor. The battle was the only thing on his mind. “Something like that.”
“I know a way out of here,” said Esther. “There’s an exit to the roof from the third level.”
“The third level?” Scott asked. “Do you have any idea how many Ceratopians are between us and the third level?”
“If you go my route, not very many.”
Scott stopped firing. He turned around to face his British scout. “Was that a 300 course, too?”
She leered back.
Scott resumed the gunfight. “All right, Brooking. Third level, it is.”
Esther picked up an extra pistol from one of the dead soldiers. She now held a gun in each hand. “The Golathoch are brave, but they’re not stupid. If I’m right, they’ve—”
“The what?” Scott asked.
“The Golathoch. Did you really think they call themselves Ceratopians?” She went on. “If I’m right, they’ve mustered in one of two places: the stalls with the animals, or the bridge. The stalls are on this level. The bridge is on deck three—where we’ve got to go.”
Papanov felled the Ceratopian in the hall.
“So how do we get to deck three?” asked Scott.
“If we can backtrack thirty meters, we’ll hit a maintenance shaft. We can take it all the way up.”
Scott grabbed some clips from the soldiers beneath him. “Let’s go. Papanov, help your commander to his feet.”
“Wait!” the injured commander shouted. He looked up at Papanov from the floor. “The slayer.”
Scott arched an eyebrow. “The slayer?”
Papanov sighed. “We had two Nightmen in our unit. One of them is dead. Commander Ozerov sent the other ahead, but he got cut off from behind. He is surrounded by the Ceratopians alone.”
“I cannot abandon him, Foma,” the injured commander said, “Nightman or not.”
Scott didn’t take offense at the remark. “We’ll go get him. Esther, come on.” He started down the hall and Esther followed.
