“Flying fast and toothy,” chittered the flying squirrel.
“Firing,” muttered Frank over the ship-to-ship comlink.
“Me too,” sang Alicia.
“Targeting,” called Stefano.
In the aisle holo, things lit up.
Four spots on the compound wall flared yellow one after the other as Learned fired on them. Four green beams had reached out faster than instantly and four laser mounts were now dead.
Three green beams came from the top of the holo, striking down at an angle to hit the gray metal of the garrison building. Beams able to cut through a ship hull had no trouble turning the garrison into ground bursts of tiny fragments and orange-yellow flame as the building innards were incinerated.
Bill knew the Buyers were expecting their attack. Which meant some guards were likely in the central building and maybe at the Captives structure. Maybe all of the enemy, Buyers and surviving guards, were inside the Captive structure. That was the single building which the Buyers knew he and Jane would not destroy. Not with living Captives inside. They would learn about who was where once they landed in the open space of the southern half of the compound.
“Bill,” called Alicia. “Any more buildings we can target?”
He thought quickly, weighing likely Alien motivations and emotions. “Yes. Take out the shuttle hangar. It could shelter snipers and ambushers. And UAVs like the hover bots Stefano has. No need to leave the enemy a hiding place.”
“Striking,” sang Alicia as she nodded to him.
Frank and Stefano both waved to their Weapons Chiefs.
In seconds three green beams shot down, striking the hangar. It exploded in a fountain of yellow flame, which told Bill there had been some kind of fuel tanks inside it. Gray metal fragments flew out in a fountain of metal shrapnel. Unfortunately, there were no guards nearby to be taken out by the burst. The laser attack by the three transports left only two buildings standing. And two low piles of sparking debris, as best the scope image in the aisle holo could show. He hoped Jane, who had watched the live vidcasts of their three hours of landing, locating and liberating Captives, would feel reassured at the destruction they’d visited on the first recalcitrant compound. Which now became very real as they came into direct line of sight of the enemy.
“Learned, land us in that open space on the south side, but closer to the Captives building than the habitat.” A thought hit him. “Any chance you can land this transport between the two buildings?”
“Yes,” the Megun survival master said quickly. “Other ships, hold off on landing until I make ground contact.”
Alicia, Frank and Stefano acknowledged the pilot’s request.
Bill watched as the color-banded man brought their transport in from the direction of the local star, which approach should make difficult any launching of manpads by Alien guards. Hard to target what you cannot see. And the infrared heat seeker sensors on manpads missiles could not lock onto any craft when the orange star was dominant. Only when they were within a few miles did Learned use the Magfield drive to suddenly drop them straight down, landing in a pebbled area between the two buildings. The aisle holo showed the other three transports landing behind and away from Talking Skin, with their nose lasers aimed at the habitat building. Overhead, Builder of Joy jinked and slid and hopped across the sky at ten miles out. Which should be beyond the range of any manpads missile the guards might possess. He assumed Aliens who traveled star to star could easily create weapons equal to the SA-7 or FIM-97 Stinger. While the Stinger could reach 26,000 feet in a one gee Earth gravity, this moon’s gravity was maybe 15 percent of Earth’s. Which surely enhanced the range of any manpads system. Best to be safer.
“Builder, move out to a 20 mile range in case these guards have anti-ship and air defense missiles able to reach out 12 or 15 miles,” he said over the common comlink.
“Adjusting distance from compound,” the flyer chittered.
He looked at his people. “We exit through the midbody airlock hatch. Down the ramp fast. Take shelter behind a landing leg. Chester, you and me go first. We’re the only ones here with actual ground assault experience.” He looked to the left as Learned left the pilot station, his backpack on and his laser in hand. Like the rest of them, he wore a combat helmet fitted with night-light goggles and a side telescopic lens. Dressed in color-shifting camo created by his Megun people, the man looked nearly invisible as his clothing broke up reflected light, making him fragments of a person. The clothing, which covered his chest and back plates, did not make him invisible like the hull of the Blue Sky. But it damn well made him difficult to target. Which gave him an idea.
“Learned, you go first,” Bill said. “Down the ramp fast and over to the Captives building. Find the entrance but do not enter. We will arrive right after you.”
The black-haired man blinked green eyes, then he nodded in the human manner. Which was also a habit of his Megun people. “Will do as you say. Do I use the infrared sensor in my pack to check for Captive heat signatures?”
“Yes, do that,” Bill said, thinking fast. “Stefano! I see you and the others have landed. Before you come out, launch your hover bot UAVs! I want them up and monitoring the air space above this compound before anyone other than Learned leaves a transport.”
“Understood,” the SEAL said from where he stood in the cargohold of his transport, flanked by Cassandra and Bob. They all looked mean, deadly and ready to dispense death. There was no joking around once they deployed for combat. “I’ll feed my UAV images to your imager unit.”
Bill looked down at his right wrist, to which was attached a square plate slightly larger than an iWatch. Its face now showed blue sky, white clouds and then the compound buildings and wreckage as seven hover bots moved above the Buyer compound. “Got them. You three, and Alicia and Frank, are our cover. You see anyone move that’s not us, kill them. You see any laser beam coming from the remaining buildings, take out the source. The aim here is instant and total suppression of all enemy action!”
“Clear,” called Alicia from her transport.
“Ready,” muttered Frank.
“Watching,” said Stefano, giving him a SEAL hand gesture that meant Stay Low.
He planned too. Standing up he felt the bounciness of the low gravity. “People, be alert to the low gravity here. You jump and you’ll go flying.” No need to say the obvious about how good a target that made someone. “Also be alert for flying Aliens. This is the kind of world that big insects love. That dragonfly up on the Traffic Control station could easily show up down here, if more of his people are on this world. Stefano, are you ready to take out anyone flying?”
“Ready,” the man said, keeping to his normal succinct manner. “All my hover bots carry signal-activated explosives. When one of them dies, an enemy dies.”
Bill knew that. It was one of the experiments they’d worked on during the trip out to HD 128311. He had had to override Star Traveler’s anxiety over flying bombs. As Learned Escape moved past him, he moved in behind the man. Chester followed, holding his laser tube at the ready. As did Bill and Learned. During the trip out he’d discovered that Learned was a lover of target shooting. As a result, the color-banded man was nearly as good a sniper as Stefano. The Megun’s physical reflexes were fast, but not as well trained as those of Stefano. Or of Alicia, Mark, Frank, Chris, Bob, Cassandra, Chester and himself. Still, laser beams did not emit any sound on firing, just upon impact on something physical. He hoped the chest and back plates each wore would save them from death by ambush.
Standing at the midbody airlock, he opened the inner hatch, followed Learned in with Chester behind, and spoke. “Star Traveler, override this airlock’s programming so the outer hatch will open while the inner hatch is still open.”
A low hum came over his comlink earbuds. “Overriding. This sets a bad precedent for automatic systems,” the AI said, sounding peeved.
Bill ignored the ship mind’s obsession with proper procedure. Before the
outer hatch opened, he glanced down at his wrist imager. No bioform showed anywhere on the compound grounds. Nor at the circular windows on the upper floor of the habitat building. But surely dozens of spyeyes covered the entire compound, inside buildings and outside. Whatever the Buyers and their guards planned, it had not yet started. The image expanded to show the three transports that had landed behind and to one side of the Talking Skin. Time to attack.
“Learned, open the hatch and move fast!”
The metal hatch had opened barely two feet when Learned slipped under the hatch metal as it rose, his jagged image disappearing from view.
Leading with his red laser tube, Bill followed the brave man.
Much happened in less than ten seconds.
Learned bounded over the fifty yards separating his ship’s airlock ramp from the Captive building’s nearest wall. He went flat against the ground, next to the outline of an entry door, his own laser lifting to point toward the habitat building. The top floor of the habitat rose above the body of the transport, which gave Bill and his people partial cover as they exited.
Bill moved to the right as Chester moved to the left, running bent over and zigzagging as they had both learned too long ago. Nothing shot at them and they reached the cold metal of the Captive building nearly at the same time. He looked back.
The black snake form of Time Marker moved swiftly down the ramp on four legs, his yellow nimbus expanding out to six feet.
Long Walker followed, then passed the snake as eight feet moved his long and low form across the ground faster than four feet could.
On his wrist screen, the three transports emptied. The teams of Alicia and Mark, Frank and Chris, and Stefano with Bob and Cassandra ran down and out, spreading apart as the seven of them took position. Alicia and Mark ran behind their transport, using its bulk to shield them from the habitat. The other five ran in two groups toward Bill’s transport, aiming to shelter behind its rear legs so they could have dual fields of fire against the habitat on the right and the Captive building on the left.
A green laser beam shot down from an upper window of the habitat.
It vaporized soil barely a foot behind Time Marker’s black-skinned body.
His two Alien buddies took shelter under the nose of their transport, their laser tubes lifted as they fired two green beams at the habitat’s roof.
Two more green beams shot out from Alicia and Mark as they instantly suppressed the enemy. Black holes appeared in and around the window that had been the source of the laser beam.
“Stefano!” he yelled over his throat mike. “Send one of your hover bots into that part of the habitat! I want anyone within twenty feet of that window to get dead and deader!”
“Dropping one,” the man said as he tapped on the control slate for the UAVs even as he ran at top speed.
A hover bot fell from the sky like a rock. It curved to one side, then went at the shot-out window like a slingshot. Black smoke and yellow flame shot out from the window as the bot blew up shortly after entering.
Bill thought anyone running away from the window would be taken down by the shrapnel from the exploding bot.
That was the first ten seconds.
The next ten seconds saw the diamond-shaped entry door of the Captives building slide to one side as a red tube poked out. But before it could fire at Stefano and the other teams, Learned wacked the red tube upward with his own laser tube. Less than an instant later the door hissed shut. A green beam from Time Marker hit the middle of the suddenly closed door, scorching it black. The beam had missed Learned, who was flat on the ground and to one side of the door. Bill gave Chester the ‘place demo now’ hand signal, then reached into his backpack, grabbed a golden ball and tapped in the three second code. Next he ran toward Chester who met him midways between where the man had put his own demolition charge against the wall and Bill had put his. They both went to their knees, keeping their backpacks toward the two balls that had adhered to the wall.
“Kaboom, kaboom!” echoed over the formerly silent sand and rocks of the compound grounds.
With Learned staying outside to cover the entry door, Bill and Chester each jumped through the jagged edges of the blast holes they’d created. Each rolled to one side and came up with laser tube aimed.
A line of white containment cells lay in front of them, close to the wall they’d blown entry holes in. Overhead orange spots glowed, giving enough light to see that no one was in this end of the building. Bill looked right, toward where the entry door was. Several metal crates lay against the wall between his entry hole and the bright orange light that glowed just above the entry door. No one was there. With a wave of his hand, Bill sent Chester to the rear of the line of six containment cells, there to circle around and come up the other side. That would give them flanking ability against anyone appearing from the gloom in the other end of the long room. In that gloom Bill made out the forms of two wheeled transports with a flat plate extending from their front ends. They looked like front-end loaders, albeit Alien in detail. Behind them was darkness, with the gleam of other metal crates barely visible. A crowd could be hiding behind the loaders, let alone among the crates. He ran forward until he reached the white globe at the end of the line. Sheltering behind it, he reached back into his backpack and pulled out another demo ball, this one a yellow ball of a size equal to 100 sticks of TNT.
“Boss,” called Stefano. “We’re taking laser fire from four windows on the upper floor of the habitat. Suppressing them.”
Bill could see that on his wrist screen. “Be prepared for one end of the Captives building to disappear in a big blast!” he called. “We control the part with six Captive cells. One or more enemy in the opposite end. Which is about to be demo zapped. Learned! We are covering the entry door from the inside. You come and enter one of our entry holes. Don’t want you near the blast that’s coming.”
“Moving,” the Megun said.
Briefly Bill focused in two directions. On his wrist screen he saw Stefano, Bob, Frank, Chris and Cassandra return laser fire from behind the rear legs of Talking Skin even as Alicia and Mark fired from their transport. Ten or more holes appeared in the round windows on the upper floor. Three hover bots dropped and then went horizontal into the blasted out windows. Black gouts of smoke, yellow flame and enormous kabooms came to his ears through the blast holes in the wall of the Captives building. He had no idea how many guards were in the habitat building with the four or five Buyers, but clearly it was most of the garrison. He thought the Captives building was guarded by a single Alien. It mattered not. Even as he watched his teams take down the top floor of the habitat, Bill tossed the golden ball like a grenade, aiming for the crates area behind the two front-end loaders. It was on a three second countdown.
“KABOOM!”
Despite the earbuds for the comlink that filled his ears, Bill felt the overpressure wave as a hundred sticks of TNT equivalent blew up in an orange fireball that briefly illuminated the opposite end of the Captives building. Etched in that glow was the spindly shape of a cockroach-like insect Alien who now fired a laser tube at him, thanks perhaps to infrared targeting goggles.
A green beam shot past his right shoulder, hitting the nearby wall with a resounding “Zirzap!”
“Wing, wang!” sounded as shrapnel fragments flew past where Bill sheltered behind the last containment cell.
Alien, crates and front-end loaders mostly disappeared in the stupendous fireball flash. Seconds later, orange daylight poured in from a hole at the back of the building that was bigger than three garage doors. The roof at that end of the building was also gone.
“Wow,” muttered Chester over the comlink. “That was one hell of a grenade!”
“More like a soil-clearing charge,” Learned said as he came up from behind.
Bill gestured to Chester, then Learned as he moved through smoldering fragments, smoke, tiny flames and red-glowing embers that was all that was left of the far end of the building. He wanted the thr
ee of them to exit from the giant hole blown in the back quarter of the building. But that would put them in easy view of both floors of the habitat building, which lay a hundred yards or so distant. Briefly he wished for one of the DOD’s experimental rifles that could bend around a corner. But he had better options. As they stopped just inside the red-glowing edge of the rear wall, he looked down at his wrist screen.
On it the remaining hover bots were flying around the habitat building like mosquitoes hungry for blood. Stefano’s five and Alicia’s two were clearly visible from above. Then he recalled they had serious air defense.
“Builder of Joy, orbit around the compound so you are on the side that faces our transports,” Bill called over the comlink. “Once you get a clear view of the building frontage, hit it with your nose laser.”
“Adjusting course,” the flying squirrel chittered. “Tall Trees is approaching firing position.”
Of course a laser as powerful as that on the transport would not just burn a hole through the habitat’s front wall. It would likely burn a large tunnel right through the middle of the building, with a resulting shock wave that should disorient or disable anyone inside not wearing a vacsuit.
Just before his squirrel wingman got to firing position, one part of the roof of the habitat building lifted up.
Out flew four dragonfly Aliens, each carrying laser tubes. The four split into two groups, clearing aiming to take down his two teams from above once they gained the elevation advantage.
“Stefano! Alicia! Flying enemy incoming!”
On his wrist screen, a green laser beam thick as his shoulders suddenly appeared from the southwest. It passed through the two flyers coming toward the Captives building. They vanished like steam in a hurricane.
“Out with me and fire up at the two flying Aliens!” he yelled to Chester and Learned as he jumped through the back wall hole and turned right, lifting his laser even as he spoke.
Two green beams joined his as he shot at one of the two remaining flyers.
The last flyer was impaled by the beams of Chester and Learned.
Escape 2: Fight the Aliens Page 26
