by Richard Fox
****
Elias raised his rail gun over his shoulder and fired it up. Deep purple energy pulsed up and down the twin spikes like a Jacob’s ladder.
“Find a strut to stake,” Elias said. He turned around to the three jet packs that were mag locked together and to MacDougal, his magnetic liners now attached to his forearms and stuck against the sides of two jetpacks.
“Elias, this isn’t funny. What’re you doing?” MacDougall asked.
“You’re crunchy. I do this because I care.” Elias grabbed the jet packs—with MacDougall still attached to them—and tossed them up into the void, well away from the line of fire to the Toth ship. “Don’t let go.”
MacDougall let out a stream of profanity that would have made sailors of yore blush.
Elias skated across the cube’s face and found a spot over a strut. He raised his right foot off the surface, and a yard-long stake shot out of his heel. It glowed red with heat and he slammed his foot into the cube, securing himself to it.
“We’ve only got one Q-shell each,” Kallen said. “Let’s hope their point defense is asleep.”
“Aim for the base of the laser with the crystal,” Elias said. “Should be something delicate there. Fire on my mark. Three … two … one … mark!” The Iron Hearts’ rail cannons twisted magnetic fields into an acceleration vortex and fired quadrium shells the size of a man’s forearm at the Toth ship.
The recoil from the triple shots snapped the struts beneath the cube face and left a divot against its side like a giant fist had hit it.
The rounds burst against the starship’s hull, launching bolts of electricity that walked over the ship like a spider born of lightning. Lights within the ship winked out and the engines taking it toward the Breitenfeld cut out. The Toth ship listed in space.
“Get our packs and let’s get on that ship,” Elias said. He broke his heel free from the stake, leaving a human artifact in the ship to puzzle would-be explorers—if any ever dared violate Xaros space like mankind and the Toth had done.
He jumped from the cube and activated his anti-gravity thrusters to catch up with MacDougall. He got a hand against the spinning mass of jet packs and the still-cursing sailor.
“You all right?” Elias asked.
“Someone pissed in me suit,” MacDougall said. “I did not join the navy for this.”
“Recruiter lied to you too?” Bodel asked, coming to a stop near Elias.
Elias pushed a button on the side of a jet pack to unlock it and tossed it to Bodel, who attached it to Kallen’s back. She returned the favor and put the last pack on Elias.
Elias pressed MacDougall’s forearms against his own chest and looked into the face of a sweaty, stressed-out man.
“Are we going home now?” MacDougall asked.
“No, we’re going to get our people back. Hang on.”
“Sure, why not. This day won’t get any easier, will it?”
Elias activated his jet pack and soared toward the Toth ship.
****
Elias landed on the Toth hull and skated toward the edge of the hangar he had seen the Mule and Eagle enter. He detached MacDougall and slid into space, swooping through a weak force field and landing on the hangar deck.
The Eagle lay in pieces, surrounded by dead menials who’d been on the deck when it lost atmosphere during the Q-shell overload. One menial was in the cockpit, its tongue stuck to the canopy.
The Mule’s turrets had been cut away to get to the humans held within. A menial lay dead across the top of the Mule, dangling from rents that ran down the hull where the alien had held on as the venting atmosphere tried to suck it in to space.
Kallen and Bodel landed next to Elias, their weapons primed and ready.
“Clear,” Elias said. The other soldiers echoed him.
Elias grabbed the dead menial hanging from the ship and tossed it aside like a dead rat. It flopped against the deck, boneless.
“Gravity’s back,” Kallen said.
“MacDougall, get in here,” Elias said.
“Coming.” MacDougall grabbed the top edge of the hangar and swung himself feetfirst inside. He floated down slowly, then came down much faster.
“Gravity, careful!” Elias shouted.
MacDougall accelerated to the deck, hit hard and tumbled up the Mule’s ramp.
“You all right?” Kallen asked.
“Bloody giants and your god damn fancy suits.” There was a crash of tools and ammo canisters within the Mule. “What did these lizards do to my lovely Mule?”
“He’s all right,” Elias said. “Cover him and get that thing space worthy. I’m going to go find the prisoners.”
“How’re you going to do that?” Bodel asked.
“I’m going to make as much noise as I possibly can and hope Hale has the common sense to run toward the sound of gunfire,” Elias said. He slammed fingertips into the seal between the doors of the hangar. The doors groaned as they gave way to the strength in his metal arms.
He stepped into the corridor and pistol shots from a swarm of menials bounced off his armor. He fired back with much larger bullets and charged into them.
They tried to run. The sight of a ten-foot-tall biped covered in claw marks and dried Toth blood firing bullets that either tore through their ranks like they weren’t even there or exploding with enough force to kill not only the menial it hit but the two next to it was more than their obedience could handle.
Elias stomped one to death as he overtook their dwindling force. He punched one hard enough to send it through the bulkhead and tumbling into a cavernous space beyond. He looked through the hole and saw fires raging through the dark ship, skittering shadows of menials racing between infernos, some carrying tanks that sprayed retardant foam into the flames.
A growl rumbled behind him. He whirled around and saw nothing. He looked up at the ceiling and found a Toth warrior, covered head to tail in crystalline armor.
“You come here to dance or just look pretty?” Elias fired off a burst that tore through the ceiling, just missing the warrior as it leapt to the deck and pounced at Elias. Elias swung an uppercut into the warrior that hit just beneath its throat, driving the Toth into—and off—the ceiling.
The warrior’s tail snapped over its body and embedded into Elias’ chest. A dent appeared against the inside of his armored womb that Elias saw with his true eye. Elias snatched the armored tip out of his chest and plucked it from the warrior’s armor. It came away with a gout of yellow blood. The warrior reared back on its hind legs and let out an ululation that echoed through the hallways.
“What? You mad now?” Elias tackled the warrior.
****
The ship shuddered and groaned. The lights flickered, then faded out. Red emergency lighting along the edge of the ceiling came on. The restraints holding Hale and the rest of the prisoners in the air went loose. Hale fell to the ground as the heavy caps split apart and tumbled across the floor. He rubbed his wrists and looked around. Orozco, Durand and Steuben were all free as well.
The bodies of the pilot and co-pilot lay in a heap against the wall. Hale went to them and pulled dog tags from beneath their flight suits. He slid them into a small compartment on his armor.
“Hale, we should go,” Steuben said.
“I’m all for that, but where?” Durand asked.
The staccato rhythm of gunfire echoed through the brig.
“I thought they used energy weapons,” Hale said.
“That’s a dual gauss blaster if I’ve ever heard one,” Orozco said. “Only armor carries that weapon.”
“Could it be the Iron Hearts?” Durand asked.
“Let’s find out,” Hale said. “I don’t want to be big ugly’s next fix.” Hale cocked his hand and his forearm blade snapped out. Orozco did the same.
“I’ll just stand behind the two of you,” Durand said.
Steuben slammed his hands into the side of the door, digging his claws into the metal and heaving the door aside. Two meni
als, who had their backs to the door, turned around and saw one very angry Karigole towering over them. Steuben swept his arms down and bashed the two menials together, crushing their skulls.
He took a small pistol from each of the menials and tossed them to Durand.
“Five shots each, don’t waste it,” Steuben said.
The corridor was large and octagonal, meant to allow the much larger warriors easy passage. Hand rungs ran along each side of the corridor, and open hatchways dotted the sides with no discernable pattern Hale could recognize. He saw small shadows of menials racing along the walls.
“Oh boy,” Durand said. “Steuben, I hope you know where you’re going because I’ve got nothing right now.”
“I’ve been on ships of this class before. The Toth will restructure the ship based on the wealth of the overlords traveling within it. The richest will be the farthest from their engines, which have a habit of leaking radiation.” Steuben looked up and tapped a claw against his teeth. “Based on the runes and corporate markings I see on that passageway—”
Gauss rounds tore through one of the walls and passed through the other side.
“That way!” Steuben pointed to the new battle damage.
An explosion tore through the side of the passageway. Smoke and fire rose to the ceiling as an armor suit charged through debris, struggling with a Toth warrior. The armor fell on top of the warrior and pounded a fist against the Toth’s carapace. The second blow cracked the carapace and the warrior wiggled free from the armor and then jumped against the slanted wall and sprang back toward the armor.
The armor’s hand retracted into its forearm housing and a Xaros breaker spike snapped out. The warrior impaled itself against the spike, still hissing and grasping at the armor as it struggled to get free. The armor slammed the warrior to the ground, stomped a foot against its lower half then ripped the spike up.
Most of the warrior was ripped away, although some stayed beneath the armor’s heel. The armor flicked the warrior’s corpse away. It hit the ground with a wet thump and oozed yellow blood over the floor.
“Elias?” Hale waved to the armor.
“Hale!” Elias’ armor megaphones boomed through the hallway. “Are there any others?”
“No, you have a way out of here?” Hale asked.
“We might. Follow me.” Elias led them back through the destruction, heedless of the smoke and fire around him.
“I’m not complaining, but how the hell did you get here?” Hale asked.
Elias knocked aside a flaming crossbeam and fired a burst of rounds down an adjacent hallway.
“We were waiting for evac off the cube ships when this cruiser de-cloaked,” Elias said. “Valdar got a message to us about prisoners, so we hit it with our Q-shells and made our own way in. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“How’re we getting off this ship?” Durand asked.
“Same way you got on,” Elias said. “Your Mule. I left a trail of bullet holes for us to follow. … Damn it.” The helm on top of his armored shoulders cocked to the side, a psychosomatic mirroring gesture of the man inside the armor. “We’ve got a problem. Hurry.” Elias ran down the hallways. Because they were large enough for the Toth warriors, they were large enough for him. Lights snapped back on up and down the hallways, and clouds of gas blew from nozzles embedded in walls at burning fires. The ship was coming back online.
“Power? How is power a problem?” Durand asked, struggling to keep up with Elias and the Marines.
A red beam cut through the hallway. The smell of burnt hair and smoke blew past them with a wave of superheated air. Hale and the rest skidded to a halt. Black tendrils grasped through the hole in the bulkhead and a Xaros drone, morphed into a long, wormlike shape, squeezed into the corridor.
Hale looked at the small-caliber weapon in his hand, its effectiveness against the drone on par with harsh language.
Elias aimed his forearm-mounted gauss cannons at the drone and pelted it with shots. One round penetrated the Xaros’ shell and the variable mass fuse exploded. A section of carapace blew away and ricocheted off Elias’ chest. A red and gold fractal mass within the drone shimmered with energy, then the drone disintegrated, burning away from an internal fire.
Air blew into the Xaros hole, tracing back to the vacuum of space where the Xaros had burned its way in through the outer hull.
“Button up,” Hale said. He pulled an emergency hood from his armor and unfolded it. His suit’s air tanks were dangerously low, but if they didn’t find a way off the Toth ship in the twenty minutes of air he had left, asphyxiation probably wouldn’t be much of a problem.
They ran toward a T-intersection.
“There’s a drop into the hangar level just ahead,” Elias said. A torrent of blue Toth energy blasts filled the intersection, then crisscrossed with Xaros disintegration beams. A pack of menials charged across the hallway and were erased by the Xaros beams. The firefight continued.
“Guess we’re not going that way,” Hale said.
“Step back. I’ve got an idea.” Elias pointed the gauss cannons on his forearms at the deck.
Hale slapped Orozco on the arm and pointed at Durand. The two armored Marines forced her to her knees and shielded her from what came next.
Elias’ cannons pounded the deck, blowing through grates and pipes carrying everything from water to data and power cables. Chunks of metal and shell fragments careened off Hale and Orozco. Elias stood in a circle of destruction, then raised his right foot. The spike meant to anchor him for a rail cannon shot from his heel and he slammed it into the deck. The plating gave way and Elias fell through the access way of his own making.
Hale ran to the edge of the hole. Sparks showered from a burst pipe and mixed with brackish water that almost certainly came from a sewer line. Elias was twenty feet below, firing his gauss cannons.
“Get down here,” Elias said, glancing up at Hale and as he kept firing.
Orozco pulled a jagged hunk of metal from where it had embedded against the back of a leg and tossed it aside.
“Damn you, Elias!” Durand shouted through the IR. “Not everyone is a walking tank, you know. I could have been killed by your little stunt.”
“I am not a tank. I am armor. And you’re welcome.” Elias ejected spent ammo cans off his upper arms. Fresh ammo cycled into the belt feeds.
“Use your anti-grav linings,” Hale said to Orozco. He grabbed Durand by one arm and Orozco got the other.
“What’re you two—” The Marines stepped into the gap and took Durand down with them. The free fall lasted for half a second before they activated their boots, slowing their fall just enough to avoid injury.
Hale slipped in the pooling sewage and fell on his face. He pushed himself out of the muck and saw a Mule, Kallen and Bodel standing next to it. The cockpit was shattered and both turrets had been ripped out. Dead Toth littered the ground around the drop ship.
They were in a small hangar. Blade-like Toth fighters were stacked atop each other in container slips just big enough to hold the silver ships. A large mechanical arm was anchored against the ceiling next to Elias’ hole.
A sailor in a void suit ran from behind the Mule and waved to the new arrivals.
“Oye!” MacDougall yelled at them. “Get your lollygagging arses over here before this hunk of shyte falls apart for good.”
Kallen’s arms snapped against her side then rotated over her chest. Her legs pulled together and treads unfolded from her calves and the backs of her legs. Now in travel formation, Bodel pushed Kallen into the back of the Mule.
“Strap her in,” Bodel said to Orozco as he ran up the Mule’s ramp. “I’m next.”
“Hale, I need you in the cockpit with me,” Durand said.
“I don’t know how to—”
“Just shut up and follow my instructions. Cockpit. Go! Go!”
Hale ran through the drop ship and into the cockpit. He grasped the frame around the top seat and pulled himself up.
The co-pilot’s seat was far too narrow for him and his armor. He reached beneath his breastplate and found the quick-release handle. With one tug, the armor plates loosened and fell away, leaving him in his body glove and bio-augmentation layer. He got into the co-pilot’s seat and strapped himself in.
The control panel was a myriad of switches, dials and blank view screens.
“What now?”
“MacDougall, fire it up!” Durand shouted. A hum of power shuddered through the ship. “Hale, reset the anti-grav regulators to factory default. I think the gravity in this ship is a little lighter than Earth standard.”
“Umm ….”
“Hit the red switch by your left elbow and push the yellow button next to it when it flashes!”
Elias shot a burst of rounds at a menial that tried to peek into the hangar.
“Move faster,” Elias said, backpedaling away from the hangar door and toward the rear of the Mule.
“There’s only two tie-down spots for the armor. What’ll we do about the Elias?” Orozco asked over the IR.
“I’ll do a mag lock once you’re in the void,” Elias said. He hefted Bodel into the ship and slapped a metal hand against the back of the Mule.
“Raise the ramp,” Durand said.
Hale could almost feel her roll her eyes as his hands floated over the controls, uncertain.
“Lever by your right knee, hold it up for two seconds,” she said.
Elias’s cannons barked again. He walked down the side of the corridor, blowing gaps through the bulkhead.
Hale’s screens came to life and the drop ship shuddered as the anti-grav thrusters in the wings came to life.
“OK, let’s get out of here. Is that force field down?” Durand asked.
“One second.” Elias shot around the edge of the hangar until the force field flickered and fell away.
Atmosphere hurtled into the void with the force of hurricane winds. Debris skipped across the deck and bounced off the Mule. A lump of pipe flew through the broken windshield and hit the side of Hale’s seat frame with a muted clang as the atmosphere dissipated into nothing.
