Metal Boxes - At the Edge

by Alan Black

Hammermill shouted over comms, “Fire. Fire. Fire.”

  Numos shouted, “Flanking movement on the right, ready on Peebee’s command.”

  Stone crouched down aiming a rocket through the port. It was not an easy shot, but the barricade was looming larger and larger. He did not stop to watch the impact, but stepped back so Dollish could take a few shots.

  Tuttle said, “Imminent impact on the barricade. Brace. Brace. Brace.”

  Stone looked, but there was nothing to grab onto. “Barb, dismount as soon as we stop.” He pointed a finger at the trap door. “Come out shooting.”

  Tuttle balled up a fist and hit a huge button on the bunker wall. The button was red with a large white upward pointing arrow. A series of small explosions started in one corner of the bunker and moved across its solid roof. They spread, blowing in a series as they raced around the bulkheads and the ceiling seals. With a final puff, the roof blew back and away clanging to the corridor deck a hundred feet away.

  Fresh air and light flooded the bunker. The burning bodies flared by the renewed oxygen, but the smoke flushed out. Dollish quit firing and flattened himself against the front wall of the shelter. Dozens of Hyrocanians rained fire into the bunker through the now open roof. It spanged and ricocheted around, buzzing like angry insects. Any bullet that found its mark was spent long before it hit Stone and his team’s bullet resistant suits.

  Peebee shouted, “Now.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The front of the bunker slammed into the Hyrocanian barricade. It jolted, shuddered, and crashed through the hastily built wall. Stone vaulted up and over the bunker to the sounds of angry wonking from Jay and Peebee.

  Passing into clear space, Stone saw the bunker had forced a wide gap in the barricade and shoved forward meters beyond its protection. Peebee had turned right. Jay had turned left. Both drascos were in a whirling frenzy, killing and throwing Hyrocanian bodies so fast the four-armed freaks could not get out of the way. Peebee was standing on her hind legs, instead of blasting away with her tri-barrel cannon, she was using its stock and mount as a club. Jay was hunkered low to the deck, her tail scorpioned over her head, spearing slow Hyrocanians. She grabbed several that tried to run away and tore them into pieces.

  Numos’s team swarmed into the Hyrocanian flank. If the veterans pushed hard enough, they could squeeze the alien enemy line between them and Peebee. A few of the Hyrocanians were in armor, but most were not. The unarmored aliens died in clouds of pink mist when Peebee danced away from the barricade wall and opened up with her tri-barrel cannon. Even armored Hyrocanians were thrown around by the force of the shells though the shells would not kill them unless they smacked into a weak crease on their suits.

  Stone shouted, “Peebee, watch your friendly fire.” He spun around, still not having reached the apex of his jump. Jay had unstrapped a belt fed chain gun and was ripping a hole through the clustered enemy. Stone fired six missiles along the enemy’s defensive line, blowing holes in the barricade and enemy armor with equal ease.

  At the height of his jump, he glanced down. Dollish had jumped with a slightly lower bounce. Following Stone’s carelessly placed missile barrage, he spaced a long string of white phosphorous cluster bombs into the enemy ranks between Stone’s explosions. The bombs stuck and burned holes into anything they splattered against, armor and flesh alike.

  On his way down, Stone was about to pull his rifle and begin picking off unarmored Hyrocanians. They were fleeing their defensive positions, racing up the docks toward ramp sixteen and beyond. Before he could draw the weapon, a torrent of weapons fire from Hammermill’s fireteam, high above the corridor in the rafters, began cutting down the retreating enemy.

  Allie bounced high over the barricade, coming down hard on a suited alien. The greater weight of the new Galactic Marshals suits crushed the alien. Rather than stop to admire her handiwork, she grabbed a pair of armored aliens and tossed them a dozen yards into a clear space, flexed her fingers, and began firing slugs from her wrist-mounted guns into the enemy.

  Stone slammed to the ground, then bounced in a flat arch toward Allie. Before he hit the ground again, the whole enemy line disintegrated as the remainder of Allie’s platoon poured over the wall into them.

  Normally, the platoons had sixteen deputies, but Tuttle was detached from Allie’s unit for her regular protective detail, babysitting Stone. That should have left Allie and fourteen deputies. Stone’s HUD showed nine including Allie. Whether the remainder of their unit was tasked elsewhere or she had condolence letters to write was yet to be seen. He saw Allie’s nine deputies smack the Hyrocanians with a fierceness that bespoke of revenge.

  Galactic Marshals dropped from the ceiling as Hammermill’s platoon joined the fray. Each deputy whirled and crashed into the melee of angry humans and retreating aliens. The enemy’s front line dissolved into hand-to-hand combat. They were all too close to use weapons without risking friendly fire.

  Piles of construction material were scattered along the corridor from ramp fifteen all the way to the end of dock eighteen. Material close by had been used by the Hyrocanians to build their temporary barrier, leaving dozens of places for the enemy to hide or duck behind for cover.

  Stone shouted, “Put your backs to the barricade. Pour fire up the corridor.” Spinning in place, he backed up until he stopped against the metal wall. Pulling his TDO-960A, he fired short bursts at every Hyrocanian who crossed his line of sight. A hundred Hyrocanians began a full-fledged route away from the barricade.

  Dollish disemboweled a big four-armed freak, then leaped over to stand next to Stone. Setting his suit to autofire, he blasted away at the Hyrocanians. Humans all up and down the line began backing away from the up-close hand-to-hand combat. Bracing their backs against the barricade allowed them to fire in the same direction, forming a 180-degree kill zone. Stone launched a few cluster bombs in arching curves, dropping them behind piles of material. Most of them exploded on empty spaces, but enough exploded in misty clouds of Hyrocanian guts that it made the whole thing quite satisfying.

  Stone glanced to his right. Jay and Peebee had mounted the barricade, sending heavy artillery shells raining down on the fleeing aliens, tearing up chunks of corridor decking and enemy armor alike. The human firing line rippled and spread as men and women took up their positions from one side of the corridor to the other.

  Hector was on Stone’s right, frozen in place. He was aiming his weapon up the corridor, but not firing. Stone blasted at the retreating back of a pair of armored Hyrocanians, his rifle bullets ricocheting away. The gun was too light against armor. He was not surprised when the pair exploded into a puddle as an anti-tank shell from Peebee’s current weapon cut through them.

  Taking a brief respite from pulling the trigger, he switched his HUD to see Hector’s view. The man had the back of a retreating Hyrocanian centered in his suit’s reticule. Rather than fire, he watched the exceedingly obese creature run away at an incredible speed for something that wobbled and shook more like pudding than a racer. The four-armed freak wore little more than a blindingly garish pair of purple and yellow pants. As fat as the thing was, Stone was sure it was a ship’s captain or an admiral—probably both since he’d never run up against a Hyrocanian ship’s captain that didn’t call himself an admiral. The shot should be an easy one that even an FNG like Hector could not miss, but the boy did not shoot.

  Stone shot a scampering enemy, putting a bullet through the back of its head, what brains there were vomited out the alien’s mouth. He glanced back at his HUD, checking Hector’s visuals just in time to see the obese four-armed freak scurry past the ramp of docking port sixteen. A phalanx of armored and unarmored Hyrocanians clustered around the fat admiral.

  Suited enemy aliens picked up the officer and bounced down the corridor. Stone centered his targeting reticule on the back of the fattest one in the middle of the fleeing Hyrocanian mass and sent his last missile streaking toward them. Just before impact, a suited alien darted between the a
dmiral and the incoming missile. It smacked into him. The creature exploded taking half a dozen others with it. The admiral and what remained of his entourage raced up the ramp into the ship at dock eighteen.

  All too soon, the enemy was gone. Either they had ducked into one of the three remaining warship buildouts, plunged into an access tunnel, or dropped into a shaft. They left a large number of their dead behind. Stone was not pleased that any managed to escape.

  Neither was Peebee as she shouted in his head, “Chase them! We can’t let them get away.” She was excited enough that she had not used her TTS.

  Allie said calmly over unit-wide comms. “Cease fire. Cease fire. Cease fire.” Taking a deep breath, she asked, “Hammer, is your medic up? Nurse Tiny is down.”

  “Yes, Captain. Doc, triage the whole unit. Walking wounded help the others back to the Platinum Pebble.”

  Stone could tell by a hiss in the comms that Hammermill switched channels. A quick look at his HUD confirmed Hammermill had switched from unit-wide push back to the small command group.

  Hammermill added, “I’m down to thirteen effectives.”

  Allie said, “I lost six, but three more are showing signs of damage, either suit or soft parts.”

  Numos said, “Only minor injuries among my contingent. Signore Stone?”

  Stone had already checked his team’s suit functions. Everyone was unharmed, although Hector’s heart rate was beating like a dance band drummer on amphetamines. Glancing up at Peebee and Jay, he gave them a thumbs up, wiggling it back and forth in question.

  Jay said, “We’re good, Mama? We have to go after them.”

  Stone said, “My team is good. Are we pressing our advantage?”

  Numos started to speak, “Vedrian and Hammer—” He stopped. “Sorry, Allie. That command habit is hard to break. This is your party.”

  Allie snorted. “The ramps to those last three ships are nothing more than murder holes, short enclosed tunnels with gun emplacements facing us the whole way in. Racing into them now is suicide, but we can’t let them push those ships away from the dock.”

  Numos said, “Hold a quick one, please.”

  Stone took the moment to turn to Hector, switching comms back to one-on-one. “Did your suit malfunction?” He knew it had not, the command functions in his suit gave him a clear readout of all of his team except the drascos. Trying not to think of it as a test, he wanted to see what the boy would say if given a reasonable out. “I saw that you had a Hyrocanian in your sights, but you didn’t shoot?”

  Hector said, “No, Signore Stone. I tried to pull the trigger, but I couldn’t. I don’t understand it since I’ve been shooting at them for hours. I just couldn’t shoot that thing in the back while it was running away.”

  Stone said, “I get that. We’ve only been at this for a few minutes, it just seems like hours. That four-armed freak was in rout, but it could have turned quickly and come at us again if we gave it a chance. Killing it now means we don’t have to fight it later when it is more prepared. Understand?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Stone laughed. “Close, Hector. Aye, aye means “I hear and will comply.” It is used when I tell you to do something. The answer to a question is “yes.” So, when I ask you if you understand the answer is “yes” and when I tell you that you damn well better pull the trigger next time, or I’ll send you back to babysit the civilians with your buddy Riley, the answer is…?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Numos said, “Captain Vedrian, I just got a report from the piglet engineers. They followed my unit through the below deck tunnels. They’ve managed to freeze the docking clamps on every ship up and down the spacedock. Those ships aren’t going anywhere.”

  Stone thought, “Unless they try copying the human captain on that freighter full of slaves and try to yank a hole in the spacedock.” He kept that thought to himself.

  Numos continued, “We don’t have enough explosives to put scuttling charges on every ship.”

  Allie said, “We could use everything we’ve got on these last three ships, even if we have to strip it away from ships already ready to scuttle.”

  A hesitant female voice said, “Um…hello?”

  Allie cleared her throat and said, “This is Captain Vedrian. Hello and please identify yourself.”

  Doctor Kat Emmons said, “Oh Allie, good it’s you. Is Trey or Dash around? I have a small issue that I need some help with.”

  Allie said, “Stone and Numos are on this circuit, Doctor Emmons, but we’re all a little busy right now trying not to get killed. Can this wait?”

  “Well, I suppose so, but I just wanted to let someone in charge know that the Prophet escaped his cage.”

  Stone said, “Crap, Kat. How did—doesn’t matter how. Can you catch it if I send help?”

  Emmons said, “Catch it? No. We had him cornered with a team of volunteers using hypospray bottles of antibiotics, but everyone who got close enough died or just laid down with a big grin on their face. Half of the refugees here wanted to lynch him, the other half wanted to space him.”

  Allie said, “Keep him cornered or kill him. We don’t have time—”

  Stone interrupted, “Wait. We need it alive for interrogation.”

  Emmons said. “That’s the problem. Marybeth Stone wanted to do an interview with him. Gonzo was getting the whole thing on video and she started to get too close to the Prophet. That idiot, Riley Lowther jumped in between them. He grabbed the Prophet, they struggled for a bit, and the Prophet just fell to the deck dead. Scanners don’t show any signs of living virion in the body—”

  Stone spat, “Stop! The virion nest has jumped bodies.” He turned to Peebee and Jay, still sitting high on the barricade. “Girls, the Prophet has escaped its cage.” He thought hard about the smell of sandalwood, knowing that he could not send the message to the drascos, but if they were poking around in his brain, they could catch the fragrance. “Peebee, go help Kat catch and cage that thing. The last we knew it was in Riley Lowther, but it could be in any body by now. Sniff it out. Get some piglets to check how it got loose from its cage and make sure it’s sealed tight this time.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Peebee said and was gone, running almost as fast as a suit could bounce. It would still take a while for her to run the thirty kilometers back to the Platinum Pebble. Neither drasco liked the virion nest, so Stone knew she would not dawdle. Sandalwood may be a somewhat pleasant fragrance to humans, but it rankled the drascos.

  Stone said, “Sorry to contradict you, Allie. But, we need to know a lot more about that virion nest and others of its kind.”

  Allie snorted, “Yeah, I was thinking like a marine, not a Galactic Marshal. I was thinking just kill it, not about gathering intelligence.”

  Hammermill laughed, “First, we gather intel, then we kill it.”

  Allie said, “Well, Stone, do we need intelligence from the rest of these Hyrocanians?”

  Stone said, “The only thing I think we need to know is how many there are and how do we kill them.”

  Hammermill interrupted, “No, Stone. We need confirmation on where the navigation coordinates are for the jump point Gordy thinks they use to gain entry into this system, when their friends are showing up to take possession of the new ships, how many they expect to come, and what they have done with any humans they may still be holding captive.”

  Numos said, “Nice strategic thinking, Hammer.”

  Hammermill chuckled, “That’s why I made it to lieutenant and Stone never got past ensign.”

  Stone said, “Yeah? But no human interrogator has ever gotten any information from a Hyrocanian captive. We’ve had bunches of them in a P.O.W. camp on Allie’s World, but the only time they even acknowledge our existence is when we’re late bringing them their supper.”

  Hammermill said, “Oh? Well, in that case, we just kill them and try to get any information from their computers…so, back to Captain Vedrian.”

  Allie said, “We could do this piecemea
l, taking one ship at a time, but I’m inclined to hit all three ships at once. It’ll be tight with the numbers we have, but we don’t have enough people to do it any other way.”

  Hammermill said, “We’re Galactic Marshals, Captain. We make do with less.”

  Allie was quiet for a moment. “Captain Numos, please have your civilian crewmen man this barricade. Nothing gets past you that isn’t human, drasco, or piglet. If we can’t stop the Hyrocanians, I want your engineers to seal those ramps for atmospheric containment, blow all three of those ships free, and scuttle them.”

  Numos said, “But—”

  Allie interrupted him, “Captain, your signal to blow those ships is when the Hyrocanians come pouring back out. That means we’ve failed to contain them and we aren’t coming back. You blow it, Major. Understand me?” From the sound of steel in her voice, there was little room for negotiation.

  “Ooorah!” Numos said, but it was obvious he was not pleased about her order.

  Allie said, “See if your piglets can find us access points into those ships that get us around those murder holes.”

  Numos replied, “Checking, Captain.”

  Stone said, “I’m only short one drasco, so I volunteer my team for the ship at dock sixteen. We know a lot of Hyrocanian’s made it to that ship when they ran from the barricade.”

  Allie began, “You’ve got the smallest team, so—”

  Interrupting, Stone said, “Smallest, but the only team with a drasco. As far as I know, there isn’t a creature in the galaxy that hates Hyrocanians more than drascos. Come on, Allie. Even without Peebee, I’m nothing more than Jay’s mop up crew. Besides, you don’t have a full compliment either.”

  Allie said, “I have nine effectives. However, some are walking wounded who refuse to get off the line.”

  Hammermill said, “Sorry, Stone. I have thirteen, so we’ll take the nearest ship as that looks to be where most of the enemy ran.”

  Numos said, “I’ve got piglet reports that say the ships at sixteen and seventeen are only partially built out. They can cut through some of the substructures on sixteen to get a team in that way. They are still looking at the other two ships but so far they don’t see any of the usual access ports. So, Hammer you can take your team under the corridor deck and get behind their defenses at the ramp.”