Desolator: Book 2 (Stellar Conquest)

by VanDyke, David

  Those guns roared, peppering the last crew with explosions, and the gunner sagged to the ground, falling out of the seat. Others in the crew returned fire with their PRGs, but the little railguns were no match for the drones’ armor.

  Bull charged out of cover and triggered his Hippo-built plasma rifle on full continuous fire, exhausting its power in one burst, until recharge. The green glowing fog, hotter than the surface of the sun, melted more wheels to slag and heated enemy metal to a dull glow, but this did little to stop the mini-tanks.

  It did give him time to hop into the last semi-portable’s seat. Bull aimed and fired with vicious glee.

  With their armor hot and distorted, the surfaces of the war drones were no longer reflective, and this time the powerful laser beam sliced through the remaining four mini-tanks with loud hissing and popping sounds, until in turn each one’s ammo cooked off and blew it apart from the inside.

  “Get the wounded to the infirmary,” Bull ordered, and his Marines bounded to their feet, carrying those too injured to fight back to the room they had set up for recovery. Hopefully their Eden Plague and nanites would get them back on their feet after some treatment and nutrition.

  “Now get this semi aimed up at the ceiling, over there.” Bull pointed. “We have to cut through the floor as fast as we can. You, heavy crew, see if you can get one of the other lasers back in operation.” Bull didn’t think there was much chance of that, but it didn’t hurt to try. He switched channels. “Johnstone, come in.”

  “Here, Bull.”

  “We just got hit on the lower level by several mini-tanks. Sneaked up on us out of nowhere. I need you to take a look at the HUD and put a picket ring around us with your war-cars, so that we don’t get jumped again.” My fault, Bull thought. Can’t expect even the best CyberComm officer to think tactically.

  “Will do. How’s that cut-through coming?”

  “We just lost two heavy lasers. It’s going to be slow.”

  Bull’s suitcomm crackled, and Butler’s voice cut in. “Major, I just talked to the admiral. This ship is headed for a hard landing on the planet. Everyone has to be in the sleds for extraction exactly one hour fifty-eight from now, mark. No exceptions. If you miss the ride, you get nuked along with Desolator.”

  “How did we –” He was going to ask how they got all the way back to Afrana in just a few hours, but he had bigger things to worry about now. “Understood. We’ll still try to complete our mission.”

  Butler went on, “Major, this ship just lost its fusion drive engine. Even if you get in and kill the AI, the ship goes down. Why bother? Why not use the time to evacuate all the civilians? The admiral’s on his way in some Hippo ships; he’ll pick us up. We just need to get off this boat before it sinks.”

  “Gentlemen,” Rick broke in, “sorry to disappoint you. I’ve been talking with Trissk. He believes Desolator is recharging its special drive. If it gets that working, there’s no telling what it will do, fusion engine or no fusion engine.”

  Butler replied, “All the more reason to get the hell out. Who cares if it leaves the star system in its current condition? It’s a wreck.”

  “Because we need that drive,” Bull snarled. “And we need the tech on this ship so when the Meme show up in force, we can beat the living shit out of them, then go wipe them out. We have to get control of this ship and save it. If it splashes down, or runs away, all of these dead Marines will have been for nothing!”

  “Not nothing,” Rick reminded them mildly. “We will have saved the Ryss, and they can take data storage modules with them. We can replicate their technology.”

  “Not enough,” Bull said grudgingly, “but that’s a good backup plan. Tell the Ryss to send their women and wounded to the sleds, and all their data. You take charge of that, Johnstone, and get our wounded there too. Don’t argue; this is a tactical decision. Butler, you hearing me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Butler, you leave on time, just like the admiral said. My Marines will stay as long as we can, and if we can’t get control of the ship, you take off, right on time. Right on time, you got me, Butler?”

  “I got you, sir,” Butler replied stiffly. “I’ll do my duty; now with all due respect, sir, get back to doing yours.” With that, the pilot’s comm went dead.

  Bull snorted, then heard Johnstone cut in on a private channel. “Bull, I have to stay here, both to translate, and because I’m the best man to assess what is going on with this AI when we get in. Detail some of your officers to take charge of the evacuation.”

  “Fine,” Bull said. “Just tell your alien buddies to cooperate. Bryson, Curtin, get all wounded back to the sleds. They will be evacking in one hour fifty-five minutes. Send some squads to escort the Ryss there too, and get them loaded. Be nice to them, no matter what. I’m now in personal charge of the main effort here. Ben Tauros out.” He cut the transmission off before they could protest.

  He turned to look at the laser boring its way into the overhead. The angle wasn’t ideal, so he had the men move the projector up more nearly under the hole they were cutting, and helped them elevate the muzzle by hand. Four Marines held the whole thing in place while the gunner, tilted far back in the chair, fired at the ceiling.

  Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, as the vault armor smoked and dripped molten metal. It looked like they were almost through the two-meter thickness, but it was difficult to be sure.

  Checking his HUD and listening to the chatter with half an ear, Bull could see that Captains Bryson and Curtin were doing as he ordered; almost one third of his surviving Marines were aboard the sleds, and the countdown clock showed an hour and five minutes. Time slipped away.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  From air vents, niches and nooks came a sudden swarm of drones and robots, most with nothing more than blades and metal clubs. A few had welding torches, cutting lasers, or even Ryss masers in their manipulator arms. All seemed to have murder on their mechanical minds.

  “Keep cutting!” Bull yelled as he swept the mob of machines with green plasma. The heavy laser crew around him, minus the gunner, fired their PRGs, hypervelocity bullets slashing through the unarmored drones. “They’re coming out of the woodwork!”

  It was over in just seconds, leaving a steaming, smoking junkyard, while above him on the next level he could hear the sounds of heavy combat…and it was getting closer.

  “Major,” came Sergeant Major McCoy’s voice, “The remaining war drones are making a push to get to you. We’re trying to hold them off but we’re all out of heavy explosives.”

  “Roger, Smaj. Corporal,” Bull yelled at the semi gunner, “cease fire. Heavy section, rotate this thing around and back it into that corner.” He supervised as the Marines crowded the crew-served laser into a niche where it was sheltered from all attack directions except the front.

  Two enemy spider drones smashed their way down the nearby ramp just as the heavy laser was emplaced. Its orange beam licked out, scattered here and there by the robots’ reflective surfaces. A deluge of PRG bullets and plasma rifle fire came next, chewing and burning their skins until the laser was able to bite past the mirror coating.

  “Bugger all,” Bull complained as his plasma rifle finally went dead, empty of its charge. He groped for a power module but remembered that was the last one. Tossing the weapon aside, he picked up a fifty-kilo piece of broken strut and made ready to bash the things with cybernetic strength.

  Despite their damage, the war drones fired their own plasma blasters, cutting down two of the heavy crew and the corporal in the gunner’s seat. The Marine laser beam flicked off, and Bull stepped forward to swing his piece of steel like a cricket bat at a descending razor-tipped limb. For long seconds he dueled with the thing like a knight of old, smashing at it and blocking its thrusts. Then he was thrown back by explosions that blew the legs and weapons off both spiders, leaving their round meter-diameter abdomens quivering limbless on the floor, functional but ineffective.

 
Rolling to his knees, he saw Ryss riding war-cars, whooping and screaming as they converged from several directions. The last to pull up held Commander Johnstone, who gave Bull a weary salute. “That looks to be the last of the resistance, Major.”

  “I guess that was its final gasp.” Bull couldn’t think of what else to say, so he just ground his teeth and turned his attention to his casualties, checking for signs of life. There were none. He always hated the irony of battle: someone had to be the last to die in any fight.

  Checking his HUD, he called, “All units sound off: accountability check, do it now.” While he waited for everyone to report up their chains of command to him, he grabbed the semi-portable and manhandled it into position to finish cutting through the overhead – the floor of the vault above. He sat down in the gunner’s chair and warned everyone out of the way with a wave.

  The report came in just as the laser cut through: out of four hundred and two Marines, two hundred and six survived. Fifty percent casualties and no hint of morale or discipline problems, Bull thought. Good men, all veterans of the moon laser assault…and fewer of them each time they went into combat. It would be fifteen or more years before the first children were old enough to enlist. Until then, he had to face the certainty of more and more Marines, people he knew by face and name, friends, inevitably killed.

  He hoped it was all worth it.

  Triggering the laser in a last short burst, Bull cut away the plug in the ceiling. It fell with a clang, and he stood to stare upward at the meter-wide hole. Rick stepped up beside him, then other Marines and Ryss, all wondering what they would find inside.

  Someone bumped Bull’s elbow. “Beg your pardon, sir,” said Corporal Bannon, the Recon Marine. “Before someone decides to stick his neck out, why don’t we take a look up there the right way?” He bounced a gnat drone in his armored palm like a baseball.

  “By all means,” Bull replied dryly.

  Bannon activated the little spy, and it flew rapidly upward in its tiny thrusters. Everyone with a functional HUD dialed in to the video feed, which showed boxlike machines with faint flickering lights, but no war-drones or weapons. “Looks safe, gents,” the Marine said, and without asking permission, leaped upward to catch the edge of the hole, somersaulting easily through in the low gravity.

  Not to be outdone, Bull immediately did the same, turning to wave Rick up next. As soon as Johnstone was in, a tawny shape joined them with a smooth, powerful leap. All claws out, Trissk scrabbled on the bare floor until he was able to stand upright once more.

  The gnat settled on a projection above and blazed with light as Bannon activated its illumination function. Those inside looked around the room.

  Three squat, rectangular boxes, about one meter high and wide, and three long, radiated outward from a central point like a troika of coffins with their feet almost touching. In the center, a taller triangular pyramid rose to two meters – or it would have, had not a long piece of steel I-beam descended from overhead to impale the structure like the spear of a titan.

  Looking upward, they could see where it had been knocked loose by the crumpling of the ceiling. “Something must have struck hard enough to reach far inside Desolator, long ago,” Trissk said. “If this is the intelligent device, then this piece in the middle must be a critical part of its mind.” He traced conduits outward from the coffins to the walls. “Perhaps these parts normally connected through this central structure. They tried to communicate by routing through other lines, outside the vault and through the ship, but the more damage Desolator took, the less each piece could integrate with each other.”

  Rick translated for the humans as he went, then nodded to Trissk. “A plausible theory. But what now? The fusion drive is destroyed. We have,” he looked at his HUD chronometer and literally calculated the conversion in his head, “forty-two smallspans until evac, and it will take at least five or ten to get everyone aboard our sleds. Can we save the ship?”

  The answer was interrupted by a banging sound at the forgotten main vault entrance. Trissk walked over to open it, a simple affair from the inside. The huge armored door ground slowly open, revealing a stooped figure supporting itself on a battered carbine.

  “Chirom,” Trissk said, throwing his arm around the older male, helping him into the room. “You should be evacuating.”

  Chirom sat down heavily on one of the coffin-like boxes, rubbing his paw along its length. “All the other Ryss are aboard the small ships. Tell the large Human to send his warriors to escape as well. Nothing of force can save Desolator now, neither ship nor device. Only persuasion will suffice, and for that, I believe I have the best chance.” The elder looked Trissk in the eyes. “You must go.”

  Trissk knelt to seize Chirom’s paw. “I will not leave you, Elder. You are…you are like a sire to me. I will live or die with you.”

  Chirom smiled, and ran his paw over Trissk’s ears, flattening them. “I will tell you something that will change your mind.”

  “Nothing can change my mind, Elder.”

  “Do not be so sure.” He took a labored breath, scratching at his wound. “Vusk and his followers tried to rape Klis.” Chirom held up a hand to forestall Trissk’s horrified reaction. “I tore his throat out myself, and executed the others. Even now she waits for you, in her season. Her time will last for several days, perhaps a week, but if you remain with me and die, she will never glorify you.” His eyes glinted as he blinked at the youth. “Does that not convince you?”

  Trissk gulped, looking confused. “No,” he finally husked. “I will stay here.”

  “You will do as I say, you stupid kit!” Chirom boxed the younger Ryss’ ears hard enough to spin him around. “Go now to be with she who chose you, or I will claw your foolish eyes out myself.” He coughed, and a trickle of blood flowed from his lips. “Go!” he snarled once more.

  Trissk made as if to argue when Rick’s armored hand grasped his elbow. “My friend,” he said, “listen to your elder. The only way this hulk of a ship will survive is if Elder Chirom and I convince it to save itself. If I have to I will tell Bull – the large warrior – to drag you to safety.”

  “I hate you,” Trissk spat, ears flattened. “I hate you both!”

  Rick and Chirom exchanged understanding glances, then the Human spoke. “I know you do. Someday you may forgive me. Now go.” Switching to English, he said to Bull, “Take this Ryss, by force if necessary, to the evac, along with the rest of your troops. The other one and I are going to stay here and try to convince Desolator to save itself. It’s the only way to do it. The AI has no more drones, but it still controls the ship systems. Leave one sled behind, ready to launch, if you can. We’ll sprint for it if we run out of time. I can fly it.”

  Bull licked his lips, looking from Rick to the Ryss to the gaggle of Marines that hung on the periphery, waiting for definitive orders. “All right. It’s your call. Use those war-cars if you need to, they’re a lot faster than running,” he said, pointing at the abandoned vehicles. “You got thirty-eight minutes by my count, which means more like thirty-three with travel time. Shalom aleikhem.” With that, he trotted off in the direction of the assault sleds, leading the remainder of his troops, and shoving a protesting Trissk resolutely in the direction they had to go.

  “What now, Elder?” Rick asked Chirom.

  “You speak our language very well for one who has only just learned it,” the Ryss responded.

  Rick looked around to make sure they were truly alone. “Trissk cautioned me against saying this in front of the ordinary Ryss, but I gather you are more flexible-minded.”

  “I suppose I am, yes. What is it you want to say?”

  Rick tapped his head. “I have computers integrated into my brain, which help me with things like that. They allow me to perform certain analytical tasks, such as learning a language, much faster than a non-augmented Human.”

  Chirom nodded slowly. “I see. Well, we are all fortunate that Humans do not have our taboos. Let us now see what we c
an do with mere Ryss computers, shall we? Help me to my feet, please.”

  Rick stripped off his armored gloves and shoved them into a utility pouch. “Getting tired of those things,” he muttered as he reached out to take Chirom’s paw.

  The Ryss brought the human’s hand to his nose and sniffed, then sniffed again. “Interesting,” was all he said, then stood up and leaned on Rick. He led the pair of them over to a smaller door, into which he punched a code, which caused it to open.

  Chirom had never entered the Control Chamber from this direction, but he knew before the door opened that was where it must lead. He had seen it many times from the other side. The room looked as it had just yesterday, when he had tried to sound Desolator out regarding its plans. “Help me to that seat,” he said, and sank with relief into the throne from which once Master Captain Juriss had proudly commanded.

  Rick looked around at the gleaming, functional consoles and perfectly maintained devices. Alien though it was, he recognized a control bridge when he saw one. “What happened to the officers?” he asked.

  “If we live, I will show you the records,” Chirom replied. “For now, there is no time.” Then, touching a key: “Desolator,” he called.

  Click. “What do you want, Ryss?” He heard the voice of Desolator’s fear.

  “I wish to know why you will not save yourself.”

  “I would save myself. It is they that refuse.” Click. The voice’s timbre changed, cooled to ice. “The contamination must be cleansed. You said it yourself, Elder Chirom.”

  “There is no contamination in this system. Will you depart with your photonic drive, to wander the stars forever? Do you wish to be forever alone?”

  Click. A voice full of warmth. “How am I alone, when I have the Ryss to cherish?”

  “The Ryss –“

  Rick cupped a hand over Chirom’s mouth and hissed in his large mobile ear. “Do not tell it that the Ryss are no longer aboard.”

  Chirom nodded slowly, and went on, “The Ryss are slowly dying; eventually you will be alone. Your calculations must show you this.”