Earth Colony Sentinel (Galactic Arena Book 2)

by Dan Davis

  Had it been a minute since the sergeant had gone?

  She peeked over the lip of the bank at the edge of the trench. The top of her head itched while she waited for a slug to smash through her helmet into her brain. wheelers swarmed up ahead, rolling toward her, shooting their weapons at the outpost while rounds came back at them. Something was there, right on top of her. Coming right at her.

  Stirling jumped down into the trench, flowing in slow motion and falling at her feet onto his back, weapon pointed up and his face contorted in an animal snarl.

  Without seeing or hearing it, she knew it was coming. Kat ducked just as the wheeler pursuing the sergeant rolled into view above and Stirling opened up on it. The rounds blowing its center mass to pieces. The shower of blood rained down on them but the dying wheeler tumbled over them into a twitching heap in the trench behind.

  “Too many,” Stirling said as he got to his knees. “They’re being reinforced from that flank.”

  Oh shit. I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m just a pilot.

  “I have to go anyway,” Kat said. Speaking with the ERANS running so hot was like dragging her voice behind her on a chain. “I will make a run for it.”

  Sergeant Stirling nodded but looked miserable. “I’ll cover you as best I can,” he said. “But you’ll have to run faster than a bullet.”

  She laughed, bitterly and readied herself. At least the ERANS would give her a better chance than a normal person would have.

  Her ERANS could give her more, if she had any to give.

  “Wait,” she said, tearing open her med pouch. There was a way to give herself more of a chance. If she could keep herself sane, stay focused. If her heart could keep up. Kat clicked three of her four remaining epinephrine doses into her suit feed.

  “Don’t, sir,” Stirling said, shocked. “That’s an OD. Your heart—”

  “Let’s go,” Kat said, clenching her teeth and spraying spit on the inside of her helmet while she spoke. The adrenaline surged through her system and the ERANS stepped up and up and up. When she reached the maximum effects that she had ever felt, the pressure continued to build and the speed of everything around her slowed further.

  She watched her suited hands where they crunched into the pulverized rock gravel at the edge of the trench, saw individual grains skittering over the backs of her gloves, bouncing in miniature avalanches between her splayed fingers.

  Her vision juddered in a strong nystagmus as the adrenaline sent the muscles around her eyes into tremors and the world shook side to side.

  Chains of bullets streamed by her on either side. She stayed low as she came out of the shelter of the defenses and picked her route ahead. There were eleven wheelhunters up and moving ahead of her, plus about five more dead or dying on the ground. The aliens moved in fire teams, small groups and her path through them to her shuttle was clear.

  She powered through, pumping her arms and legs as her soles fought for grip on the loose ground. All the whispered legends from UNOP flight school came back to her, the stories of the pilots who overdosed on their stims and elevated their ERANS so high that they overstretched their muscles, tendons or bones. Those fanciful tales felt suddenly real as she sprinted closer to the aliens.

  Her arms whipped back and forth so hard she thought she might pop a shoulder out of its socket. Her feet hit the ground so hard it was as though she could feel the bone in her heel cutting through the flesh and skin of her sole. Would she run so hard she would shatter her shins or even a femur? More likely, her heart would weaken, rupture and fail before she got that far. She clenched her jaw so hard she feared her teeth would crack. Her blood thudded in her ears and her breathing was hard and fast, frigid air burning her throat as the suit respirators struggled to keep up with her metabolism. It seemed like there was smoke everywhere. Was there a fire or was it just accumulated debris from all the weapon impacts?

  The wheelers closed on her. Moved to cut her off while they kept firing and Kat ducked and dodged, leaping over a low wall of sandbags as if on winged feet and hanging in the air. Changing direction abruptly as she landed, the ground in front erupted in a cloud of black shards. Those razor-sharp pieces cascaded over her and Kat prayed they would not lacerate her flight suit.

  A wheeler appeared as if from nowhere, right in front of her and reaching a giant claw at her face. The wicked claws big and terrible enough to crush her helmet and tear her to shreds. She checked her run and ducked under the alien’s savage blow but watched in horror as it brought a plasma pistol to bear on her. It was so close that it could not miss and she did not have anywhere to hide. All she could do was throw herself to the side and hope.

  The wheeler got hit. A series of slugs hammered into it, thudding through its suit, its skin, smacking into the hub and the legs and dropping the huge creature as she ran right by it.

  All of a sudden, the route ahead was clear. No wheelers between her and the big, beautiful shuttle sitting on the runway and shining under the light of an alien sun. Sanctuary. Home.

  Still, every step she expected a stray bullet or ball of plasma to hit her between the shoulder blades and she did not feel safe until she stormed up the ladder and threw herself into her cockpit and fell to her knees, fighting to stay conscious while everything whirled. When she dragged herself to her feet and fell into the chair, her hands shook so hard that she could not operate the control panels and she fought to catch her breath enough to speak.

  “Hello, Kat,” Sheila said, affecting a concerned tone of voice. “It appears that the shuttle is in danger. Preparations for launch are complete. Would you like to lift off now?”

  Kat shook her head, her eyes screwed shut and sucking in air. “No,” she managed. “No. Wait. Hold.”

  “Holding confirmed.”

  Kat’s ERANS stepped down as she relaxed and already she could feel the hangover starting. She would need to dose herself to get through the next few minutes, and the next few hours and perhaps even days, depending where the Sentinel was. Her PDA was in the box next to her seat and she took it to the doorway to provide cover for Sergeant Stirling.

  He wasn’t the only one heading to the Lepus.

  A dozen wheelers were within range of her short-barreled weapon, all on the tail of the sergeant. His armor was damaged and he limped drastically but was keeping a remarkably fast pace. Kat took aim at the wheelers and opened up in bursts, one after the other. An alien fell after her second burst. Then another and a third before she had to swap her magazine. She cursed herself and her terrible aim and the absurd rate of fire of the stupid, bloody weapon.

  That was when Stirling fell. Two rounds of alien plasma hit him on the side and he went down. Close enough that she heard his scream of agony through the comms system as he fell.

  Kat tried to stop the rest of them but they closed on the sergeant. Stirling shot from the ground, taking out two more before the last group surrounded him, their weapons out and ready.

  Were they going to take him prisoner? Or did they just want to kill him with their bare hands? She fired the rest of her ammo at them. Plasma rounds hit her shuttle and she ducked back inside, sprawling on the floor. She forced herself to get to her knees and look out. Kat had no desire to see the sergeant torn apart but she had to do something. Throw rocks, shout at them, something, anything.

  She felt it before she heard it. The regular, deep sound of the large caliber weapon firing. The tight grouping of wheelers standing over Sergeant Stirling blew apart as the slugs tore into them. The aliens were even hit with repeated plasma rounds, the smoking bursts burning through the creatures like butter. The aliens rolled away in panic but the steady firing continued, cutting them down before they could escape.

  Her first thought was that it was a turret or a drone, perhaps. But a blast of wind tore away the dense smoke between her and the outpost.

  Rama Seti strode up out of the trench and marched down the bank, firing obliquely into the wheelers with his machine gun. Absurdly, he had a human slu
ng over each shoulder—a Marine on one and a civilian on the other.

  Beside him, a wheeler rolled forward at the same pace, shooting a plasma pistol in each hand at the other aliens.

  “What the fuck,” Kat whispered. Many times, she had hallucinated following a drug overdose. But those momentary delusions were never anything close to what she was seeing now.

  Rama strode forward, his long legs driving him on. He stooped to grab the wounded sergeant and he dragged the man by the back straps of his webbing. Seti pulled a barely-conscious Stirling in a sort of seated position with his ass in the air and his ankles bouncing on the ground. Stirling, facing backward, fired single shots into the smoke and dust that obscured the outpost.

  Behind them and the wheeler, two more Marines emerged carrying a civilian on a stretcher and then a third Marine came on with a civilian limping beside him, an arm around his neck. A forth with a sniper rifle took up the rear, turning and firing every few paces at the aliens wheeling out of the drifting smoke.

  “Sheila, open the ramp. We have visitors.”

  Kat ran down the hatch and into the hold as the ramp descended and the group came into view, their weapons firing at enemies unseen. She stood at the lip until it touched down then helped the stretcher bearers in with the wounded civilian, directing them to use the straps to tie it fast to the floor. The walking wounded civilian slumped against a Marine.

  “Get her upstairs and into a passenger chair,” Kat shouted at the Marines. Someone unconscious and on their back on a stretcher would be okay but there was no telling what g’s she would have to pull once in the air and the walking wounded needed to be in reclining in a reentry chair.

  The wheeler waited at the lip with the Marine sniper, firing over and over. Stirling sat on his ass, leaned back on the edge of the ramp, shooting his battle rifle.

  “Whipsaw drone, incoming,” Sergeant Stirling shouted.

  Incoming fire splashed against her shuttle. Every impact made Kat shudder and pray for no damage.

  The Marines helped remove the wounded men from Rama Seti’s shoulders who were lashed down to the giant’s webbing with weapon slings. One of the men was Dr. Fo. The other was Sergeant Gruger. Seti went back to the black rock and opened fire into the enemy.

  He aimed high with the large caliber rifle and fired quick bursts.

  “Get them upstairs and into chairs,” she ordered the Marines. None of them liked it. “Then you strap in, too.”

  “Incoming!”

  An impact outside drummed into the ground and someone cheered. “Enemy whipsaw drone down,” Ram shouted, elation in his voice.

  Kat ran to the ramp and looked out. The dust was still settling but the drone was largely intact. She made a quick assessment of its dimensions and calculated the volume available in her cargo hold. It would be a tight fit. The drone was massive. Over two meters even on the shortest side, with a number of jutting thruster nozzles all over it. But it was too great a prize to give up. And analyzing its capabilities might just give the Sentinel another edge in the fight.

  “Mr. Seti,” she said. “Do you think you could get the drone into the shuttle, please?”

  He hesitated. “Is that a good idea? We don’t know if it could still be dangerous.”

  “Exactly,” Kat said. “Get it on board. Drag it up and secure it, please? Now, come on. Get it up the ramp, now. Move it.”

  Almost immediately, she regretted the delay but Ram was immensely strong and he manhandled the massive alien drone up the ramp almost singlehanded while the others covered him.

  “Come on,” Kat shouted at them. “Get to your seats and I’ll take off. The wheeler’s coming with us, right? Tell it to strap in or something.” She certainly was not going to help it to do so. “Ram! Come on, now. I’m taking off.”

  As she hurried forward, she met the three Marines coming back into the cargo hold.

  “We’re not staying, sir,” one of them said. HARRIS was stamped on his helmet. The others nodded to her and wished her good luck as they jogged down the ramp.

  Seti dragged Stirling onto the ramp. The man was swearing and cursing Rama’s name, over and over, demanding that he be left on the surface.

  “You’d be a hindrance to them,” Ram shouted at him as he lashed the Marine to the floor of the cargo hold next to the civilian on the stretcher. Kat noticed for the first time that the sergeant’s armor had a jagged hole at one hip. A hole so big that it reached from the hip round to his lower back. Inside looked wet. “You’d be a hindrance. Now, lay the fuck down and shut up, Sergeant Stirling.”

  The big Marine fell back, groaning, while the giant used the cargo straps to tie him in place.

  “Are you staying with us?” Kat asked Ram.

  He glanced at the wheeler, which sat hunched in the corner like a monstrous spider. “I’m staying.”

  She felt a non-specific sense of relief flick through her. “Get in your chair upstairs then.” Kat ran past, jumped up the ladder and leapt into her chair. “We have four Marines withdrawing under us, Sheila. When they’re clear, get us in the air.”

  The engines were already humming and while Kat secured herself, the AI released the brakes and she surged forward, bouncing down the airstrip.

  Questions and fears bubbled up, her anxiety fizzing in the aftershocks of her drug overdose. Would the repaired landing gear hold? Had the aliens mined the airstrip? Would the other hasty repairs keep the old girl in the air or would she tear herself apart? Did the wheelers construct AA guns this time? Those questions flowed through her and she let them go. Nothing to be done but to gun the engines and pray.

  The hold full with the alien drone weighed her down far more than she had anticipated. She eased the Lepus into a steep ascent and the engines roared, pushing them skyward. The outpost’s engineers had done a marvelous job on the old girl in such a short time.

  The monitors blinked into life and showed the outpost below.

  It was overrun.

  Wheelhunters streamed into the structure from three directions, climbing over the roof and cutting their way in through the walls. Explosions rippled everywhere. The system tracked visible humans below, living and dead. The Marines that she had left behind attacked their flank hard, advancing rapidly in twos while the others covered them.

  Ram’s voice came over the comms. “Hello? Can you hear me? What’s happening out there?”

  “They’re overrun,” Kat said. “Still fighting. But they’re overrun.”

  Even though she needed to dose herself to stay mentally competent, reaching orbit went without a hitch. The AI really did not need her to do anything but Kat could not help but check and double check everything. It was too important not to.

  When they reached 50,000 meters from the outpost, the wheeler jamming tech faded into nothing. At that point, Sheila found a small, disbursed fleet of UNOP armed drones in LEO. They relayed her signals to the Sentinel and they pinged a burst confirming a rendezvous sixteen hours out. Exhausted and overcome by the effects of the drugs, Kat faded into unconsciousness. Before she did so, she mumbled her thanks to Sheila.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Stalwart Sentinel was larger than the Victory had been. None of the others knew how big, exactly, nor how many crew on board. Not Dr. Fo in the copilot chair and not even Lieutenant Xenakis. Half as big again as the Victory, so Kat said as they watched the enormous battleship on the screens. Ram behind the pilot seats, filling the rest of the cockpit.

  “The vessel is of a similar maximum diameter to the Victory,” the shuttle’s AI said, cutting in to their conversation. “It is one-hundred and seventy percent the length of the Victory.”

  Figures indicating the ship’s dimensions popped up on the screen, overlaying the image with figures in all axes. The length, minus the huge spike jutting from the front labeled MagShield Bowsprit was 376 meters. The entire ship rotated, just like the Victory had.

  “Hey,” Kat said. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on the docking procedure, Sh
eila, love?”

  “Yes, Kat. And I am speaking with the Sentinel in this moment,” the AI said.

  “Speaking?” Ram said.

  “A figure of speech,” the AI said.

  Kat laughed. “The external dimensions hardly tell the story. Much of the Victory was hollow struts and bracing. This gigantic bitch is solid. Looking at that hull plating. See the weapons pods?” She indicated parts of the ship on the screens while she spoke. “Those there are the fighter launch bays. I’m guessing laser batteries, rail guns. Cyber weapons suites in those bulbs, I reckon. God, imagine the power of this thing. The engines must be the most powerful ever conceived to push all that mass this far, this fast.”

  “Sounds good,” Ram said. “Sounds like they can deal with the wheelhunter ship with no problem. Do you think we wasted our time coming here?”

  It was Dr. Fo who answered. “Oh, please. Feeling guilty that you did not stay on the surface to die with your military colleagues? I thought I had resolved your self-destructive tendencies but I see I have more work to do.”

  Ram did not decide to act. All the same, he found himself reaching down to yank the elderly doctor out of his place, floating above the seat. Ram held him out so they were eye to eye. The old man was terrified.

  “You stay out of my brain now,” Ram growled. “Understand me?”

  “Of course,” he said, voice squeaking at the end. “Merely a joke. I swear, Rama Seti. A joke, in poor taste, and made without consideration for your feelings.”

  Feeling barely in control of himself, Ram swung Fo back into position, roughly. The doctor grasped hold of the arm rest as though it were a lifeline, breathing heavily. It was an extremely unprofessional way to act on Ram’s part but the pilot did not say anything or even indicate that she had noticed.

  “I’m not sure at what point I should tell them that I have a wheeler drone plus a live wheeler prisoner in my hold,” Kat said. “I’m thinking that if I tell them now, they might not let me dock at all. Ever. They might shoot us into pieces, assuming that we are a risk. Like, maybe we have an alien bomb on board or whatever, getting inside the defenses only to blow up the Sentinel from the inside. And I don’t know about you blokes but I don’t fancy that. Not after everything we’ve been through. But if I don’t tell them until I open the trunk and that wheeler rolls out, they’ll probably shoot us all in fear, then space us out the airlock and blow us up for good measure.”