“Now!” he yelled, and Doc swiped the badge, opening the door. At least 20 Drakuls stood in the hallway watching the two Drakuls operating the blowtorch. Both of them jumped back in surprise; most of the rest recoiled slightly at the Terrans’ unexpected appearance.
Burke threw the first grenade into the mass of waiting Drakuls and lobbed the second behind the two Drakuls operating the blowtorch. One of them was already falling backward, a smoking hole in the center of its forehead from a laser bolt; the other reaching weakly for the knife protruding from its left eye.
Doc swiped the door shut as the second grenade left Burke’s hand, and twin detonations tore through the hallway just after it closed. The top portion of the door listed inward slightly with the blasts; the door only held in place by the latch and the last two feet that hadn’t been cut.
Burke grabbed the chair leg and jammed it into one of the cuts in the door, filling the cut. “Quickly,” he said again. “We don’t have much time. We need to secure this before they get reorganized.” The door rang as one of the Drakuls outside the room kicked it. The door held. Barely. “Hurry!” He grabbed his laser rifle and tore off the safety interlock. Aiming the laser at the chair leg, he fired a long blast, using the rifle as a laser welder to melt the metal and seal the cut. Seeing what he intended, MacKenzie and Jones followed suit, using strips of metal they had torn off the weapons consoles.
“I’ll get more metal,” Corporal Hall said, seeing there wasn’t enough room for him to work.
“Good,” grunted Staff Sergeant Burke. He looked at the energy readout of his rifle and flinched; the power level was already down 10%. Their rifles wouldn’t last long as welders. Hopefully, the grenade had damaged the Drakul’s blowtorch...or maybe they had killed the only two Drakuls that knew how to use it. Please, Lord, thought Burke, just give me a little break here.
The light from the Drakuls’ blowtorch appeared just above where he was working and began slicing through the chair leg. With the metal still hot, the blowtorch was able to cut through the chair leg much faster than Burke could weld the door shut.
They were in a losing race.
Task Force Calvin, Asteroid Weapons Platform, Gliese 876, February 19, 2021
Calvin shook his head. They didn’t have anything that would be able to get through the door before reinforcements arrived. Before he could tell the troops to fall back, he saw Sergeant Hattori ‘Yokaze’ Hanzo waving at him.
“Just a second, sir,” Sergeant Hanzo said. “I have an idea.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of things that looked like 10-inch long pieces of plastic with plungers attached. He held one to the wall, pushed on the rod sticking out, turned it and then released the apparatus. The plunger stuck to the wall, with the plastic piece sticking straight out from the wall. He stuck several more to the wall, and then began climbing up his impromptu staircase. He reached the ceiling just below a vent and wedged himself between a foothold and the ceiling to hold himself in place while he took off the vent’s cover.
Looking down, he said, “Mouse, come join me.” He pulled himself up and through the opening in a somersault.
Havildar Rajesh ‘Mouse’ Patel went up the ‘stairs.’ Although he wasn’t as smooth as Yokaze, he made it to the top. As he reached for the opening, Yokaze reached out and grabbed his arm, helping him into the ducting.
“This way,” the ninja said, leading Mouse in the direction of the bolted door.
Task Force Gordon, Asteroid Weapons Platform, Gliese 876, February 19, 2021
“Fuck,” the Gordon twins said simultaneously as blue lights began flashing, and a horn began sounding. The screams from the auditorium paused as the Drakuls processed what the lights and horn meant.
That was all the time the brothers needed. As they had discussed, Corporal Austin ‘Good Twin’ Gordon fired an antimatter round at the guards that stood 75 feet down the hallway. Corporal Jamal ‘Bad Twin’ Gordon also fired a grenade, but his continued past the guards and into the open area of the auditorium. 50 micrograms of antimatter contacted an equal amount of matter and exploded with the force of a ton of TNT. What little the brothers could see of the fireball was impressive...until it came racing down the hall toward them. Both of them dove to the side in the cross-passage, and the flames went past them down the corridor.
“Sweet!” yelled Bad Twin, who noticed that his voice sounded funny. Or maybe his hearing had been damaged, he wasn’t sure.
“My turn!” Good Twin yelled as he launched a 50 microgram antimatter grenade into the auditorium. If one was good, two was better.
“Dude!” said Bad Twin, picking himself up off the ground again after the second fireball had passed. “Let me know before you do that again. Like this. Austin, I’m about to nuke the shit out of the Drakuls.” He leaned out into the hallway and saw that a couple of Drakuls were silhouetted in the doorway. Somehow they had survived the first two explosions. They didn’t survive the third one, which detonated 30 feet behind them, cooking them in their own juices.
“I could really get to like doing this,” said Good Twin. “My turn!”
Task Force Calvin, Asteroid Weapons Platform, Gliese 876, February 19, 2021
Yokaze looked down through the grate at the largest Drakul he had ever seen. He guessed that the creature was the Drakuls’ head cook; if not, the creature was dressed like one, holding a giant cleaver and wearing a blue overcoat spattered in a variety of colors of blood. The monster also appeared to be an officer or senior enlisted the way it ordered the other Drakuls around.
“You two,” the Drakul said to the two near the locked door. “Do not let anyone short of the Overlord through that door.” It turned to look in the other direction. “You two, kill all of the prisoners! We’ll show them what happens to minions that revolt!”
“Mouse, we don’t have time to get the others,” said Yokaze. “We’ve got to stop them now before they kill the civilians.”
“I agree,” Mouse said, “but there are at least five of them and only two of us.”
“You’re right,” Yokaze agreed, nodding his head, “we’ve got them vastly outnumbered.”
“That is so not what I meant,” the Indian soldier said with a sigh. He shrugged. “OK, what’s your plan?”
“I’ll drop down, kill the cook and you shoot the two guarding the door,” Yokaze said. “Then, while I kill the other two, you let the rest of the squad in through the door.”
“Got it,” Mouse said. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” said Yokaze. “Don’t delay. We are in a bit of a hurry at the moment.”
Mouse looked dumbfounded. “A hurry?” he asked. “You think?”
Yokaze smiled as he silently removed the grate. “Just lightening the mood. Ready?” he asked standing up.
“Yes,” Mouse said, “remember, we’re in a hurry.”
“On three then,” the ninja said. “One...two...” he dove through the gate.
Task Force Burke, Asteroid Weapons Platform, Gliese 876, February 19, 2021
“I’m out,” said Sergeant MacKenzie as his rifle shut off. MacKenzie’s second battery had lasted the longest; the other three soldiers’ rifles were already out of power. Staff Sergeant Burke had tried using his laser pistol, but it didn’t have the same power output as the rifle. The blowtorch began cutting the last segment.
“One minute more,” said Bzzzeedlezzzzz. He held his grasping appendage over a blue button. Burke was sure that at least 10 minutes had passed since the alien had asked for five. “I’ve got it from here,” the giant spider said to the Hooolongs, and they left their stations to hide behind the furthest station from the door. Looking at the way they cowered, Burke could tell that they wouldn’t have been much help in a fight, even if they had weapons.
“Fall back,” Burke ordered, and the men withdrew to the consoles on the other side of the room from the door and crouched behind their makeshift firing positions. Burke watched the blowtorch finish the last several inches, and then the
door fell into the room with a loud metallic ‘clang.’
Immediately, Drakuls began pouring into the room, firing as they came. Experienced combat troops, they spread out as they entered, diving forward and taking cover. The Terrans returned fire with their laser pistols and remaining grenades, but they were outnumbered and outgunned.
“The ship is in range,” noted Bzzzeedlezzzzz without looking up from his console. His statement drew the attention of several of the Drakuls, and he was hit by three laser bolts before he could push the button.
With a cry, MacKenzie fell, hit in both the head and chest. In his display, Burke saw MacKenzie’s life signs quickly going to the red. MacKenzie was dead.
Burke fired twice more, downing one of the Drakuls that had been getting close. They couldn’t hold out long against the Drakul force, but they had to kill that battlecruiser. It was the only way the platoon could get off the asteroid. “Can either of you get to the weapons console?” he asked over their comm circuit. “We’ve got to take out that ship!”
“I think I can,” said Corporal Hall. “Cover me!” He ran in a crouch toward the console, but only got two steps before he was hit by some type of big weapon that one of the Drakuls was carrying. About three times the size of the Terrans’ rifles, the weapon killed Hall with a single shot. Burke’s suit identified the weapon as a Drakul blaster.
Burke took a quick look and saw that the Drakuls were almost on them. “On three,” he commed, “go for the console, Doc, and I’ll draw their attention. One, two, three!” Burke stood up and charged the Drakuls. “FOR TERRA!” he yelled. Firing at the Drakul holding the blaster, he ran screaming at the enemy forces. Outgunned, he only took five steps before the Drakuls recovered from their surprise and focused their weapons on him. Burke went down, hit by seven rifle shots and a bolt from the blaster that put a three inch hole in the center of his chest.
As Burke went down, the Drakuls saw Corporal Jones running for the center console, and all of them fired at him. Most of the shots missed, but two hit him in the chest and another in the leg. He took one more step and dove for the console. Reaching out, his right hand slapped the blue button in the center, pushing it closed. He started to smile in spite of the pain, but was killed by a blaster shot to the head. He slid down the console and crumpled to the floor.
The battle station’s 118 five-meter lasers that were in view of the battlecruiser fired as one. Although some of the energy from the lasers was absorbed by the battlecruiser’s shields, and 17 of the lasers missed, over 100 lasers hit the battlecruiser from close range, overloading its shields. Almost 50 of the lasers hit the ship after its shields collapsed, holing it like a sieve.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
Shuttle 02, Asteroid Weapons Platform, Gliese 876, February 19, 2021
“Dammit!” yelled the shuttle’s pilot, Lieutenant Matthew ‘Exit’ Kamins as the lasers all around him suddenly re-targeted on the Drakul battlecruiser and fired without warning. The shuttle jerked, but Exit quickly brought it back under control.
“What the hell was that?” asked Lieutenant ‘Foxy’ Fox, the shuttle’s WSO.
“The asteroid just shot the battlecruiser,” said Exit. “It would have been really nice to know that they were going to do that ahead of time; one of the lasers singed our tail!”
“Are we OK?” asked Foxy. “How bad are we hit?”
“Yeah, we’re OK,” Exit replied shaking his head. “A few feet further one way or the other, and we’d have been toast.”
“No kidding,” agreed Foxy. “A five meter laser is not...WHOA!” he exclaimed as the battlecruiser blew up with a flash. “I guess they hit something vital.”
“I guess so,” agreed Exit. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about the battlecruiser anymore.”
Task Force Calvin, Asteroid Weapons Platform, Gliese 876, February 19, 2021
Yokaze somersaulted through the air and landed on top of the cook’s shoulders as he had planned. What he hadn’t planned was for the cook to turn around to say something else to the Drakuls guarding the door. Instead of landing on his back, he landed with the Drakul’s face between his legs.
Yokaze, bowed to his enemy, saying nothing as he drew two eight-inch tanto knives. As the Drakul opened his mouth to bite him, Yokaze jabbed a blade into each of the Drakul’s ear holes and into its brain, swirling them slightly to ensure maximum damage. The Drakul started to collapse, and Yokaze somersaulted backwards off of the creature, landing on the balls of his feet facing the two Drakuls that were talking to the cook. Yokaze took a step forward and threw both of his tantos at the Drakuls, hitting them both. Reaching over his shoulders, Yokaze drew his wakizashi and katana, and he dropped into a ready pose.
One of the Drakuls charged him while the other drew its rifle.
“Any time, Mouse,” Yokaze said, focused on the enormous creature running toward him.
“Got it,” Mouse replied under his breath, squeezing the trigger of his laser rifle. The Drakul with the rifle stopped suddenly as the laser bolt drilled through its left eye and into its brain.
Disdaining weapons, the Drakul charging Yokaze threw away the small knife that the ninja had hit him with, and the Drakul reached forward as it approached the ninja, hoping to grab him. Yokaze dove forward and to the right, turning his dive into a roll that eluded the Drakul’s grasp. Yokaze used the momentum of the roll to stand up, and he slashed behind him to the left with the longer katana, severing the tendons in the Drakul’s left leg. The Drakul went down. Yokaze was on it before the Drakul could get back up again, stabbing the creature through the back with both swords. Not knowing where a Drakul’s vital organs were, he stabbed several times more, trying to ensure that he hit at least some of them. He must have punctured something vital; the creature collapsed.
Yokaze jumped back up and ran down the corridor in the direction that the other two Drakuls had gone. “Open the door!” he yelled over his shoulder as Mouse dropped into the corridor. A short man, the drop down to the corridor floor was a long distance for the Indian soldier, who rolled forward to break his fall. Getting up, he ran to the door and worked the mechanism that locked the door.
Opening it, he said, “Yokaze and the hostages are this way.”
Sergeant Zoromski ran through the doorway. Taking in the dead Drakuls on the floor he asked, “Where’s Yokaze?”
Mouse turned around. Yokaze was gone.
Shuttle 02, Asteroid Weapons Platform, Gliese 876, February 19, 2021
“Hey, there are some kind of wormy looking things that have come onto the surface of the asteroid,” Foxy said.
“Can you tell what they’re doing?” asked Exit.
“They look like they’re waving to us,” Foxy replied.
“How can they see us?” asked Exit. “Aren’t we still stealthed?”
“Yeah, as far as I know we still are,” Foxy replied. “I’ve got no idea how they can see us, but it sure looks like they can. Wait...they’re motioning for us to land...what the hell’s going on?”
Foxy paused. “Oh, wait, there’s one of our guys,” he added after a few seconds. “The wormy things must be all right; he’s telling us to land, too.”
The inside of the shuttle resounded with a ‘bong!’ as a piece of the battlecruiser bounced off of it. “I was wrong,” said Exit. “We do still have to worry about that stupid battlecruiser. Hurry up and get them onboard. There are a lot of pieces of the battlecruiser flying around; I’d hate to see any of those things skewered by one.”
“Roger that,” agreed the WSO.
Task Force Night, Asteroid Weapons Platform, Gliese 876, February 19, 2021
“Bombs are set, sir,” Master Chief said.
“Good,” Night replied. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Wraith, you’ve got point; get us back to the airlock as quickly as you can. Randolph, you’ve got our backs.”
“Roger, sir,” Randolph said, moving to rear guard. Wraith didn’t say anything; she just sil
ently took the point and headed out.
“You’re with me,” Night said to the Hooolong. “Try not to get lost, OK?”
“I will stay by your side,” the creature agreed. “I do not have a weapon, so I will not be going off on my own.”
“Do you want one?” Master Chief asked, pulling out one of his backup pistols. On their previous mission, the platoon had been hit by an electromagnetic pulse that wiped out all of their electronics; now, just about everyone carried some sort of backup mechanical pistol.
“I do not know how to use that,” the Hooolong said. “I would be just as likely to hit you as I would the Drakuls.”
“Never mind, then,” Master Chief said, putting the pistol back in his pocket holster. “Just stay close.”
The squad started off down the corridor. Once again, the hallways were strangely quiet. Where were the Drakuls?
After about 30 seconds, there was an explosion from behind them. It wasn’t the bombs they had left going off; that would have been far more catastrophic to them.
“What was that?” asked Night.
“They must have gotten into the ops center,” replied Mr. Jones. “Irina and I left some booby traps. I’m guessing that was the bomb in the intercom transmitter. The next person who goes in the room will have a hard time using the transmitter...or anything within about 10 feet of it.”
“Movement from the rear,” commed Staff Sergeant Randolph. Night could hear the cyborg’s pistol fire several rounds. “Looks like they may be massing for an attack.”
Theogony 3: Terra Stands Alone Page 21
