Species War: Battlefield Mars Book 3

by David Robbins

  KLL-10 was with them. Her wound hadn’t healed yet, so Archard told her to stay with the others. She didn’t like it one bit.

  Now, Archard stood at the front end of the first container, holding a flamethrower level at his waist, the tank heavy on his back. Beside him was Private Everett, similarly set to unleash liquid flame.

  Off to one side, Private Keller had her ICW’s to her shoulders. So did young Private Pasco, a personable Spaniard who had been with Archard from the beginning at New Meridian.

  “Remember,” Archard said to the Kentuckian. “Confine your flame to the inside of the container.”

  “Easier said than done, sir,” Everett said.

  KLL-12 and KLL-13 The other two stood to the other side, patiently waiting.

  “Are you ready?” Archard said.

  “I was born ready, Captain,” KLL-13 said, and laughed.

  KLL-12 nodded. “You can depend on us to do whatever is necessary.”

  “Then up you go,” Archard said.

  Tucking at the knees, KLL-12 and KLL-13 poised on the balls of their feet. Then, with deceptive and impressive ease, they leaped the full four meters onto the top of the container. Landing lightly, they moved to the front end and crouched.

  “Sergeant Kline, you’re up,” Archard said. “Then get out of the way.”

  “You don’t need to remind me twice, sir,” the noncom said, coming around them to the control panel. “I don’t intend to be fried to a crisp.” He raised his fingers to the keypad. “Now?”

  “Do it,” Archard said.

  Punching the code, Sergeant Kline skipped backward, raising his ICW as he did.

  Archard heard the usual series of clicks and the hiss of the seal being broken that inevitably preceded the opening of a container door. The doors were designed to slide straight up. This one didn’t. The hissing stopped and the door stayed closed.

  “It must be jammed, sir,” Sergeant Kline said.

  “Try the panel again,” Archard commanded. “Hit ‘clear’ first.”

  Once more the noncom sought to gain access. The light glowed green as it should and more clicks ensued, yet the door still refused to rise.

  “What in hell?” Private Everett said.

  “Maybe it’s damaged,” Private Pasco chimed in.

  “Or someone doesn’t want us to open it,” KLL-12 said from his perch atop the container.

  “Someone?” KLL-13 said. “Don’t you mean something?”

  Frustrated, Archard was tempted to give the door a kick. As fate would have it, his helmet crackled, causing him to turn partly away.

  “Captain Rahn!” Lieutenant Burroughs said, sounding agitated. “I’ve talked to four of the other drop ships. They all report having containers in their holds similar to ours.”

  “Damn. Advise them to check the containers out, but to be careful.”

  “Will do.”

  “Captain!” Private Everett suddenly cried. “Lookout!”

  The door was opening. Not slowly, as it should, but with lightning rapidity. In the blink of an eye it was all the way up---and Martians spilled out in a living river of grippers and waving eye stalks.

  Archard had no time to congratulate himself on being right. He opened up with his flamethrower, sending a jet of obliterating fire into the container’s maw. So did Private Everett. Their combined chemical balefire charred the creatures in their tracks. But the deaths of those in front didn’t deter those packed in behind them, and there were, as Archard had surmised, hundreds of the things, crammed into every centimeter of space. Some were burning, some were smoking, some were sizzling, yet out they came, scrabbling over the bodies of the fallen, using their blackened fellows as stepping-stones to get clear of the container.

  “Open fire!” Sergeant Kline bawled, and he and Privates Keller and Pasco added a hailstorm to the fiery death dirge.

  Still, Martians poured out. So far, only the crustoid crabs had appeared. But then, from the midst of the pack hurtled a blue warrior, smaller than most of its kind, probably so it wouldn’t take up as much space in the container, but no less formidable.

  Suddenly, the drop ship’s hold had become a killing field.

  “Back up!” Archard bawled at Everett, and they retreated in swift steps, their flamethrowers continuing to spew lethal tongues of orange and red.

  Like a living battering ram, the blue warrior threw its massive bulk into the very heart of the flames, using its body to shield the rest.

  KLL-12 and KLL-13 dropped onto Martian crabs scuttling wide to spread out and engaged then claws-to-grippers.

  Pointing his nozzle at the blue warrior’s sloping carapace, Archard poured on the fire, seeking to bring it down before it reached them. Everett was doing likewise, his flames splashing over the thing like sea water splashing over a boulder---but they had no effect.

  Archard realized the warrior was going to reach them. A gripper, covered with sizzling fingers of fire, extend toward him, another toward the Kentuckian.

  Faintly, over the din of their flamethrowers and the rattle of autofire, Archard heard the wail of the ship’s alarms. Above them, the sprinklers activated, spraying a combination of water and fire-retardant in a downpour designed to put out any fire as quickly as possible.

  Just as Archard’s flamethrower went empty.

  56

  Archard braced for the worst. The blue Martian was almost on him and Private Everett.

  But an incredible thing happened.

  As the chemical rain fell on the Martians, they froze in place except for their eye stalks, which curved up toward the downpour. They stood as if transfixed, the fight seemingly forgotten.

  Archard froze, too, momentarily baffled by their behavior. Then it hit him. According to the planetary scientists, it never rained on Mars. Or at least it hadn’t in millennia. They attributed it to the low atmospheric pressure and low temperatures, and claimed that while it might snow now and again, the snow never reached the ground.

  Which meant the Martians had never seen precipitation.

  Never experienced rain or snow or sleet or hail. Never known a drizzle or a thunderstorm. To them, the chemical rain was a wonderment beyond their ken, or maybe something so sublime, it rendered them inert in fascination.

  Whatever the reason, Archard seized the advantage. Flinging his flamethrower down and hurriedly discarding the tank, he unslung his ICW and bellowed, “Kill them! Kill them all!”

  Everyone else had stopped firing, as astounded as Archard by the turn of events. Now they renewed their defense of the drop ship, with a vengeance. Lead poured

  into the Martians.

  Archard and Everett concentrated on the blue warrior. The Kentuckian went so far as to run up to the creature and practically shove his muzzle into the thing’s face. At that range, his armor-piercing rounds couldn’t fail to penetrate.

  Creatures dropped in heaps. The blue warrior lowered its eyes from the rain, staggered, and collapsed with a great flailing of its limbs and grippers.

  Grabbing Private Everett by the scruff of his EVA suit, Archard hauled him backward before one of the flailing limbs struck him.

  “We did it, sir!” Everett cried in elation. “We killed the critter!”

  Archard gazed about the hold. The others were mopping up. KLL-12 and KLL-13, smeared all over in blood and bits, had cornered several crabs and were ripping them apart. He turned the other way, and stiffened.

  Private Keller lay amid fallen monstrosities. She had been torn open from her navel to her neck, and her intestines had oozed out.

  Private Pasco had been wounded in the leg but he was still on his feet and his suit appeared to be sealing.

  Archard joined in the last of the slaughter. The Martians seemed sluggish. He wondered if it was the shock of their defeat, then decided, no, the chemical rain must have something to do with it. Unfortunately, the rain was ending. With the fire out, the ship’s computer was shutting the system down.

  Archard ordered the two B
ioMarines to rove among the dead creatures and make sure they were.

  Sergeant Kline and Everett and Pasco came over.

  “Looks like we did it, sir,” the noncom said.

  “We kicked butt,” Everett said.

  “Tell that to Private Keller,” Archard said and turned toward the other containers on their pallets.

  “Are there Martians in those, too?” Private Pasco said.

  “Odds are,” Archard said.

  “Why didn’t they help the others?” Sergeant Kline said.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Archard said.

  His helmet crackled, and Lieutenant Burroughs practically shouted, “Captain! You need to get up here right away!”

  Archard raised his left arm and waved it in a circle. “Listen up! Get to the bridge!” he shouted. “Everyone,” he added when the BioMarines looked at him questioningly.

  At the bulkhead, Archard pressed the comm button. “Open up, Lieutenant.”

  Katla was waiting just inside and embarrassed Archard a little by throwing her arms around him.

  “Thank God you’re alive.”

  “We’re not done yet.” Archard moved to the pilot’s chair.

  Burroughs was glued to her screens. The nightmarish spectacle they displayed explained why. “They both went up not seconds apart,” she said.

  Two of the drop ships had exploded. Coruscating clouds of debris were all that was left of their crews and refugees.

  A speaker above the main console flared to life.

  “This is Captain Sylvia Washington in drop ship M-23. Our ship has been overrun by Martians. We were examining the containers in our hold and out they came.”

  Archard was amazed at how calm she sounded.

  “Everyone else is dead. I made it to the bridge and sealed the bulkhead but they are battering it down. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Her tone took on a harder edge.

  “I’ve pulled away from the fleet. As you can see on your screens, none of you are in danger of being collaterally damaged.” She paused. “I’m about to self-destruct the M-23. I do this with a clear head and with full knowledge of the consequences. I can’t let the Martians take control. There’s no telling what they might do. They might be able to use my ship to ram the Avenger I or our other spacecraft. I can’t allow that. Goodbye, one and all. This is Captain Sylvia Washington signing off. Booyah.”

  The explosion was spectacular.

  Lieutenant Burroughs bowed her head, then swiveled her chair toward Archard. “What about us, sir? What do we do about those other containers?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Archard said. “And I have an idea how we can dispose of them and maybe not get ourselves killed.”

  “That would be nice,” Burroughs said.

  57

  Since drop ships weren’t designed with comfort in mind, the bridge wasn’t much bigger than a rec room at U.N.I.C. headquarters. Archard had Katla and Trisna and the children huddle around the chairs, and then the troopers huddled around them.

  “As for you three,” Archard said to the BioMarines, “I’d like you to lie flat against the bulkhead.”

  “To what end, Captain?” KLL-12 said.

  “It’s going to get bumpy,” Archard said.

  “I told you before,” KLL-12 said. “We can handle a little bouncing around.”

  “Not this you can’t. Lie down. That’s an order.”

  Looking as he were lying down on a bed of putrid fungus, KLL-12 reluctantly obeyed.

  KLL-13, laughing, slid down next, contriving to position herself so the upper part of her body was pressed against his. “Isn’t this cozy?” she exclaimed with delight.

  “I hate you,” KLL-12 said.

  KLL-10 eased down without complaint.

  “Seal the bulkhead,” Archard said to Burroughs.

  She stabbed a button and a small screen lit with the words: SEAL ACTIVATED. “Done,” she said. “But why? What in the world are you planning to do?”

  “We’re going to blow the containers into space.”

  Burroughs sat up so quickly, she almost bumped her head against his chin. “You want me to open the hold---in outer space? The decompression might rip us apart?”

  “We can’t risk the Martians getting on board any of the spacecraft to Earth.”

  “But opening the hold?” Burroughs said. “It’s not a trick they encourage us to try at the Academy.”

  Archard chuckled, then sobered. “If you have a safer means of doing them in, my ears are open. We used up the flamethrowers. And we certainly can’t try grenades.”

  “But we’re in space,” Burroughs said almost breathlessly.

  “Archard?” Katla spoke up. “How serious is this? The degree of danger?” She glanced apprehensively at Piotr and Behulah.

  “Let me put it this way,” Archard said. “If I had any other choice…”

  “Oh,” Katla said when he didn’t go on.

  Straightening, Archard surveyed the whole group. “Brace yourselves, people.”

  “Us too, sir?” KLL-13 said and giggled.

  Archard leaned on the console and ran a forefinger along a row of controls until he came to the one he wanted. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “It will unclamp the pallets the containers are strapped to,” Lieutenant Burroughs confirmed. She indicated a large red button. “That’s for the hold door. See the switch next to it? You have your choice of fast or slow.”

  “Slow would give them time to scramble out if they guess what we’re up to.”

  “Fast it is, then, and may God help us,” Lieutenant Burroughs said.

  Archard looked around one last time. Katla was as grim as death. Private Everett and Captain Ferris nodded. KLL-13 waved.

  “Do it, sir!” Private Everett said.

  Archard pressed the release for the pallets, and on one of the screens the clamps attached to the bottoms of the containers popped off with loud clanks.

  “Here we go,” Archard said.

  He pressed the red button. For the span of a single breath, nothing happened. Then the drop ship gave a violent lurch and the ship filled with the roar as of a thousand lions all at once. Behulah screamed.

  There was a loud hiss, and metallic shrieking and grinding. Even though the bulkhead was sealed, Archard would swear some of the air was being sucked from the bridge.

  He thought the worst was over, that it hadn’t been as bad as he feared, but he was mistaken. The ship seemed to drop out from under them and then flipped back and forth.

  Both Trisna and her daughter were screaming. Katla cried out. Several of the troopers swore and Private Griffin cried out in pain. KLL-13 laughed.

  Struggling to hold onto the console, Archard saw Lieutenant Burroughs working to regain control. Before she could, the drop ship gave another spin and Sergeant Kline was thrown against the co-pilot’s chair and fell.

  On the screen, the containers were sliding toward the open bay door. As huge as they were, as heavy as they were, they were resisting the pull of the vacuum---but the void was relentless and slowly winning. Each container left drag marks on the floor.

  Suddenly, one of them opened. The door slid high and out scrambled Martians, straight into the grasping maw of interstellar space. They were gone in a blink, whisked out and away with their limbs thrashing. Even a blue warrior was helpless in the grip of a fundamental force of nature.

  Riveted to the screen, Archard was caught off-guard when the ship gave a brutal wrench. He crashed against the console, shoulder-first, forgetting his own plight. A brutal wrenching of the ship reminded him. Burroughs had her hand poised near the red button but she held off pressing it.

  One of the containers had been sucked into space but the other hadn’t been expelled yet. It had spun around and a rear corner was wedged against the inner hull. Bucking and shaking, it tilted up at the other end. The door opened and desperate Martians bolted out, to be flung from the hold like so many leaves caught in
a gale. Then, with an ear-blistering screech, the last container slipped loose and tumbled into the abyss.

  Lieutenant Burroughs slammed the red button.

  To Archard, it seemed to take forever for the bay door to close. The drop ship shook in spasms, like a sick patient, its gyros doing what they had been trying to do since the hold decompressed. Up became up and down became down, and the ship stabilized.

  Moans and muttering filled the bridge.

  Burroughs, her face caked with sweat, looked down at him and smiled. “We did it, sir.”

  “Booyah,” Sergeant Kline said with a grimace.

  Troopers echoed him.

  Archard leaned on the console. “Sing out. Anyone badly hurt?”

  “I stubbed a toe,” KLL-13 said.

  Archard grinned. She was something else. His grin faded, though, when he saw the wide-eyed expression of pure fear on Lieutenant Burroughs. “What?”

  She pointed at the main view screen.

  The Avenger I had pulled away from the fleet and was bearing down on them in full battle posture.

  “What are they doing?” Burroughs said.

  Archard grasped the significance even if she didn’t. “Contact them! They’re about to blast us to atoms!”

  58

  Burroughs anxiously nodded and flicked a switch and a speaker above the console blared to life.

  “…is Admiral Thorndyke. If anyone on drop ship M-11 can hear me, respond immediately.”

  Pressing a tab, Burroughs said, “This is Lieutenant Ulla Burroughs on M-11. We can hear you, Admiral.”

  Thorndyke didn’t acknowledge her transmission. Instead, the speaker blared, “I repeat. If anyone on drop ship M-11 can hear me, reply at once. Our sensors have picked up an ejection event on your ship. We have serious concerns you have been overrun by Martians.”

  “No!” Burroughs responded. “We are still in control!”

  “If you do not respond,” Admiral Thorndyke said. “I will have no recourse but to open fire.”

  “What’s going on?” Captain Ferris said. “Why can’t he hear us?”

  “I don’t know,” Burroughs said while frenziedly flipping switches. “Maybe our communications have been damaged.”