by Richard Fox
Standish sniffed the air. “What’s that?”
A Kroar vaulted over the edge of the wall and charged at the Marines, a crackling energy staff held high over its head. Bailey swung around and snapped off a round that hit the wolf-headed alien in the chest.
The Kroar rocked back, then continued its charge.
Baily aimed for the Kroar’s legs and fired. The bullet hit a knee and sent the attacker sprawling. The Kroar rolled forward with its momentum and Bailey got a glimpse of the energy staff as it arced toward her.
Bailey dove to the side. The staff stuck the edge of the roof and knocked out a chunk of masonry as the staff discharged. A bolt of electricity connected with her armor and the display on her visor went mad with static. She tried to roll over, but her armor was sluggish.
The Kroar slammed massive paws against her shoulders and lifted her into the air. Razor-sharp teeth glinted in the alien’s snout.
She kicked and hit nothing but air.
The Kroar opened its maw and stuffed Bailey’s head between its jaws.
Her visor cracked and squealed as the teeth clenched down. A purple tongue pressed close to her eyes.
“Standish!”
“Forget about me?” Standish asked. The Marine jabbed Bailey’s carbine beneath the Kroar’s chin.
There was the snap of gauss fire and Bailey fell to the ground. The Kroar, most of its head lying in a steaming pile at its feet, stumbled backwards and fell off the building.
“Bloody thing was going to eat me,” Bailey said.
“Your face! It was trying to eat your face!” Standish wiped black blood off his face. “Not only do I have an alien ghost in me, but I’m on a planet full of face-eating aliens! What? No you shut up. Nobody asked your—what’s on the local defense net?”
“Are you OK, mate?” Bailey snatched her carbine out of Standish’s hands.
A Toth shuttle banked around the pyramid and hovered a few feet above the road. The rear hatch opened and its wings waggled.
“That’s our ride!” Hale called out to Bailey and Standish as he and the rest of the Marines ran from the pyramid to the waiting shuttle.
Bailey grabbed Rohen’s sniper rifle and jumped off the roof.
****
Elias lay against the hull, his back and heels magnetically locked. He pressed his right heel against the hull and felt the stiff resistance of the frame beneath the outer hull. His cloak held steady, just a few percentage points above zero as the batteries held steady from energy pulled off the solar panels integrated into his armor.
One of the dreadnoughts passed between the cruiser and Nibiru’s sun, a black wedge cutting through the pale-white disk.
An alert icon popped onto his visor.
“The nuke inhibitor field is down,” Elias said. “Drop cloaks. Lock and load.”
He got to his feet and the rail cannon mounted on his back extended up and over his shoulder. He took the black and yellow case off his thigh and popped the end off. Elias slid a long metal dart from the case and held it as gently as his giant fingers could manage. Arrows on the dart near its center pointed up on one half, down on the other. He twisted the two halves of the dart until he felt something click.
Radiation warnings popped onto his UI.
“We’ve got a live munition,” Elias said. He set the nuke between the vanes of his rail cannon and watched as the magnetic field guided it to the base of the cannon.
“Got eyes on the other dreadnought,” Bodel said. “We going to wait for word from the Breit?”
“No time. Drop your stakes.” Elias raised his right foot and the tip of a drill bit extended from his heel. He felt the vibration go through his body as the bit whirled to life. He slammed his boot against the hull and felt the drill bite into the ship. Puffs of gas escaped around the drill as it bored into the frame.
“We’ve got our rails on the other dread,” Kallen said. “Big boy will trace the attack back to these poor, unsuspecting bastards that I have little to no sympathy for. Anchored.”
“Anchored,” Bodel said.
A green icon flashed on Elias’ UI.
“I’ve never fired a nuke before. Gott mit uns,” Elias said. He lined a targeting reticule onto the dreadnought and fired his rail gun. His armor rocked against the stake holding him fast as the cannon accelerated the warhead to several hundred miles per hour before it cleared the tips of the twin vanes.
Elias fell to one knee, hunkered down and wrapped his arms over his helm. His sensors went mad with radiation and heat warnings as the nuclear weapon ignited. Terrestrial nukes came with blast waves and a whole host of nasty second- and third-order effects, problems the Iron Hearts didn’t have to account for after the initial blast.
Elias looked up and saw a blackened crater gouged out of the dreadnought’s hull. Trails of debris and floated through space like blood in ocean.
“Hit,” Elias said.
“We tagged the other one,” Bodel said. “Got it right in the forward energy coupling. Good luck firing your cannons, lizards.”
The dreadnought Elias hit rolled on its axis, and the glowing weapon emplacement slewed toward the Toth ship beneath the Iron Hearts’ feet.
“Time to go.” Elias twisted his right foot and broke off the stake. He crouched slightly, then pushed off into space. His jump pack blasted at full power to build up velocity, rattling him within his tank for several seconds before he cut the jets.
“We’re clear,” Kallen said.
“Cloak, run off your weapon batteries if you have to,” Elias said. “Let’s hope they were too pissed off to notice our little exit.” His UI washed with static as his cloak activated.
A volley of energy blasts the size of a cargo shuttle sprang from the dreadnought. Searing bolts of energy lanced through the void. Elias kept his eyes open as the bolts neared, ready to face his end. The bolts neared…and missed him and his fellows by a few hundred yards.
Elias twisted around. The first blasts from the dreadnought slammed into the Toth cruiser, blasting wide holes out of the pearl and ivory hull. The hits sent the cruiser rolling over, and it collided with another cruiser. The hulls bent and cracked. Licks of flame erupted from the fissures.
The second dreadnought opened up on the anchorage, and a trio of cannons toward the aft end of the ship rained indiscriminate retaliation on the mass of ships.
The anchorage expanded as ships on the outer edges broke away. The cruiser punished by Elias’ target exploded in a brief sunburst, destroying the ship it had collided with in the process. Blasts of energy sprang from a pair of cruisers and struck one of the dreadnoughts, wrecking an energy cannon and sending it hurtling through space.
More Toth ships opened fire on the dreadnoughts and each other, turning the anchorage into a veritable knife fight of a fleet engagement.
“Good job, boys,” Kallen said.
“Now the hard part,” Elias said. He looked to where the cloaked Breitenfeld should have been and triggered an IR directional beacon. The ship rematerialized seconds later, and four Eagles spat from the open launch bay.
“Iron Hearts, this is Gall. Stand by for mag-lock recovery,” Durand said. “De-cloak. We run into you and that won’t be any fun.”
“Roger, Gall. We’re ready for pickup,” Elias said. He cut his cloak and extended his left arm out ahead of him.
The four Eagles overshot the now visible armor soldiers and flipped around.
“Elias, this is Manfred. You’re my pork back,” the Dotok said through a private channel.
“You mean piggyback?” Elias asked.
“I thought that was for children to store currency.” Manfred’s Eagle flew parallel to Elias. Tiny adjustments from the fighter brought its relative speed almost equal to Elias’. The Dotok glanced between Elias and his control panel several times before slowly approaching Elias. Manfred pointed to the left of his cockpit.
“That’s the connection point. Got it,” Elias said.
Manfred’s fighter i
nched toward Elias, and the Iron Heart could see sweat on the pilot’s brow as the two neared. Elias activated the magnetic locks in his forearm and reached to the Eagle. He pressed his arm against the hull and felt the magnets in his armor and the fighter grip together. Elias gave Manfred’s canopy two pats.
“Too easy,” Manfred said.
“Bogies in bound!” Durand called out.
“What were you saying, brother?” Lothar asked.
Elias looked back to the battle raging behind them and saw flashes of light emerge from one of the dreadnoughts as its fighter bays emptied. Most broke toward the scrum with the Toth ships, but dozens angled toward the Breitenfeld.
“It’s going to be real hard to dogfight so long as we’ve got the armor on our back,” Lothar said.
Elias powered up his forearm cannons.
“How long until they get here?” he asked.
“Couple minutes,” Durand said, her tone dark. “They’ll reach us before we can get within the ship’s defenses. She’s moving all out to make a pickup on the civilians from the surface. The whole flight deck is empty.” Elias heard the thump of her fist against her control panel over the channel.
“Let them come,” Elias said. He felt a tug against his arm as Manfred gunned his engines.
****
Hale ran into the shuttle’s cockpit just as it flew through the hole in the blast shield. The surrounding ocean was tranquil, but a few tall storm clouds were on the horizon, each bleeding dark sheets of rain.
“We have to go back,” Hale said. “Rohen is still there.”
Egan did a double take at his lieutenant.
“Sir.” Standish stood in the cockpit’s doorway. “This thing in my head hacked into the Toth networks…they got Rohen.”
“Alive? Dead?”
“Alive is my guess. Mentiq got on the line himself and ordered Rohen brought to him,” Standish said as he face fell. “Not much they could learn from him if he’s dead, is there, sir?”
“Mentiq is still alive…” Hale turned around and looked back at the city. More and more shuttle craft spat through the escape hatch, like wasps trying to escape a damaged hive. Most angled upwards, heading for orbit. Their shuttle couldn’t have made it through the traffic if they tried.
Rohen had his mission. Hale knew this, but the thought of leaving the Marine behind to that fate broke his heart.
“Sir, what’re your orders?” Egan asked. “The shuttles Lafayette slaved together will be at the village soon. If we’re not there to help get them on board, I—”
“Get us to the village,” Hale said quietly.
“But what about Rohen?” Standish asked.
“We can’t save him.” Hale shook his head slowly. “It’s not fair but there’s no choice.”
“He’s one of ours!” Standish shouted. “You know what they’re going to do to him.”
“We go back and we all die.” Hale pointed to the city. “What do you think Mentiq or the rest of the Toth will do to the village? They’ll be wiped out if we don’t get them off this planet. We can’t save everyone, Standish. We can’t.”
Standish turned his head away from Hale.
“Your call, sir.” The Marine went back to the cargo area.
“I’ve got eyes on the extraction birds,” Egan said. Five Toth shuttles flew low over the ocean in a line toward the human enclave.
“Any pursuit from the city or from orbit?” Hale asked as he looked over Egan’s controls.
“I think they’ve got more important things to worry about than our little jailbreak,” Egan said, pointing straight up.
High above the clouds, red streaks of dying ships burned through the upper atmosphere. Flashes of explosions and Toth weapon’s fire spoke of a fearsome melee at the anchorage.
“The captain promised us a distraction,” Hale said. “Looks like we’ve got one.”
CHAPTER 20
Rohen drifted in and out of consciousness. He remembered the sky blocked out by ugly armor, the claws of a warrior ripping his weapon—and several fingers—off of him. Broken bones in his legs and arms jolted him back to wakefulness with an avalanche of pain every few minutes. The concussion from the blow that knocked him out kept his mind foggy, like everything that was happening to him was some sort of half-remembered dream.
All he could see through his one remaining eye was the cobblestone streets of the city. A heavy warrior’s hand pressed against his neck and tightened around his throat every few minutes to choke him until his vision darkened and he almost passed out. Blood dripped from his face onto the pavement, red breadcrumbs for whoever might be foolish enough to follow him.
Don’t be stupid, Hale. Don’t be brave, he thought.
His view shifted to richly veined marble floors then to red carpet with golden thread. His captors dropped him to the floor.
This is it, he thought. Remember the sequence. He tried to close his jaw to concentrate, but shattered teeth sent agony through his head. He pictured an owl in flight and felt warmth spread through his body. He imagined the owl landing on the Marine Corps Memorial near the Pentagon and every injury in his body lit up like a plasma torch as his mind went into overdrive. He remembered Admiral Garrett pressing a coin into his hand and saying something…
“For the brave,” Rohen whispered.
“Such a weak creature,” the words were in Toth, a language Ibarra had given to him.
A massive scaled hand grabbed him by what little of his armor remained and lifted him into the air. Mentiq twisted Rohen from side to side, examining him with his bulbous eyes.
“Like what you see?” Rohen spat from split lips.
“It speaks?” Mentiq asked an alien creature Rohen didn’t recognize.
“Nonsense words, my lord, but its vitals are unusually strong for one so injured.”
It has to be now, Rohen thought.
Rohen brought his head back, then spat a glob of bloody spit on Mentiq’s face.
The Toth barked out a curse and hurled Rohen to the ground. He felt his shoulder dislocate and his broken femur stab through his leg.
“Come on.” Rohen turned his head to Mentiq and watched as he floated toward him. “Do it.” Mentiq grabbed Rohen by his injured shoulder and lifted him into the air. Rohen let out a pained scream and looked into Mentiq’s face.
“Do it!” Rohen could see every detail of Mentiq’s features as his overcharged mind raced to process every sensation screaming through his mind.
“Let’s see what you have to offer,” Mentiq said.
Mentiq wrapped his glove around Rohen’s skull and sank his feeder wires into the Marine’s brain. Mentiq held Rohen out at arm’s length and laughed as Rohen twitched and spasmed in the air. He dropped Rohen’s dead body to the ground and floated back toward his throne.
“Much…much to process,” Mentiq said. His head shot to the side and his teeth clicked together over and over again as his jaw worked. “Not like other human meat…what is this?”
Mentiq pressed his hands against his skull and whimpered. He slapped a palm against his head as his forked tongue shot out of his mouth and twitched. His jaw clamped shut and his severed tongue fell to the floor.
“Fellerin!” Mentiq let out a scream of pain. “Get my…my…” Mentiq’s claws dug into the false flesh over his skull and tore bloody canyons down his face.
“No! No!” Mentiq’s head exploded. Hunks of brain matter splattered against the golden throne. His body toppled off the palanquin and flopped to the ground.
Overlords stood in shock as Mentiq’s body bled into the carpet.
Fellerin backed away, then ducked behind the throne.
Pandemonium broke out as the overlords devolved into chaos. Some attacked their rivals, others tried to break through the doorways, and more than one made a dash for the empty throne.
Ranik broke away from the crowd and found an open doorway behind the throne, one large enough for her tank to fit through. She couldn’t let this crisis go to waste.
****
Fellerin ran through a dank passageway, fixated on a glowing doorway well ahead of him. Mentiq’s death was never supposed to happen. As the right hand of the Toth that had led the species to such awesome heights, he knew how the overlords would rather devolve into anarchy than allow one of their peers to ever gain absolute power.
Mentiq’s hold had been the only thing that kept them unified. It would be anarchy. The city would burn in the fighting, the gardens of invaluable stock plundered. The Toth home world would descend into civil war.
There was a shuttle for him to inspect the gardens. He could escape to the Haesh compound, perhaps broker a deal with an overlord to keep his family alive.
He tripped over his robes and fell into a puddle. Fellerin got to his feet and heard the sound of metal on stone from behind, a sound that grew louder with each strike. He scrambled forward and felt his legs get knocked out from under him. He fell face-first into the same puddle.
Claws grabbed him by the arms and flipped him over. An overlord loomed above and extended its feeder arm from the base of its tank.
“Hello, Fellerin,” Ranik said. “I have a proposal. You give me access to the tank codes and work for me.” The feeder arm lowered to rest just above Fellerin’s nose. It opened with a click and filaments reached for the Haesh’s face.
“Or I’ll just rip the knowledge out of your mind. I can be a kind and generous master, at times. What will it be?”
CHAPTER 21
Hale stood at the edge of the shuttle’s open ramp as it lowered into the village’s main square. Hundreds of people lined the perimeter, their hands up to protect against the blast of air from the shuttle’s engines. Children clutched their parents and looked up with fear and awe at the once-mythical craft.
Back in his armor, Hale leaned over the side of the ramp and saw the shuttle’s course. “Egan, watch out for the statue in the middle of—” The edge of the ramp clipped the golden statue and knocked its head clean off.
