“No booby traps, sir,” reported the Advance & Delay expert over her radio a few seconds later. “But the seams have been cold fused together."
“Okay, clear the area,” Lt. Sakadea snapped over the command circuit. “Matulich, Berouzi, open those doors. Platoon, get ready to move!"
A salvo of rockets from the bazooka team blasted the portal to rubble, and the Marines stormed in even before the reverberations ceased, bits of ceiling bouncing off their armored hides.
Nothing attacked them in the tunnel, and the second set of locked doors was disposed of as easily as the first. Stepping over the smoking debris, across the bare room the troopers saw Leader Silverside spin on its tread and crash straight through a wall of video monitors, glass shards and pieces of wire flying everywhere. Only blackness showed on the other side.
More concerned with the job at hand, the Space Marines ignored the robot and began searching for any HN cubes. But a single glance showed the glass walled office was devoid of anything, sans a horrible mangled pile of flesh.
“Which one of them is it?” a private haltingly asked.
“Both, I think,” a hoarse voice replied.
Somebody muttered a phrase in Italian and nobody needed a translation to know that it had something to do with disgusting.
“Your opinion, Tanya?” Sakadea asked on their personal communication channel, none of the other troopers able to hear the privileged conversation.
“We have got to capture that robot,” the sergeant advised, arming the sole replacement rockets on her rifle with the twist and jerk of a safety ring. “At the very least, it knows where the rest of the HN cubes are stored."
“I agree. Let's go get the bastard."
She smiled grimly. “And kick some alien ass."
“We're going after Silverside,” the lieutenant broadcast to the rest of the soldiers. “Point men, take your positions, but shoot only to defend yourselves, we need that tin can alive."
Lieberman saluted. “Aye, sir. Okay, let's move out!"
In tight formation, the troopers traveled down a short spiraling ramp, but their helmet lights did little to illuminate the incredible darkness.
“Night visors,” Sakadea ordered.
As the Marines lowered the UV filters over their faceplates, they promptly saw a staggeringly large underground cavern, whose dimensions took their breath away. They could plainly see that this was the true interior of the asteroid. The sprawling city above them only utilized a tiny percentage of the total volume of the gigantic planetoid. Mere size did not impress these Marines, but what was in the cavern gave them pause.
Strapped to the curved rock walls high above them were countless gold missiles the size of battleships, and running down the length of the asteroid, becoming lost in the distance, was a colossal amber laser assembly that dwarfed the missiles to toys. The soldiers gulped. It was painfully obvious what they were standing in, the mammoth, twelve story tall, triangle in a circle in a square carved into the wall on their left totally superfluous.
"Ai carumba, it's a weapons cache for the Great Golden Ones!” a voice breathed in awe.
Another Marine gave a grunt. “No kidding."
“But if Silverside is in charge of Buckle,” added another soldier thoughtfully. “Then he must know about this place."
“So either the Gees are really crooks, which is highly doubtful, or this Silverside guy must have turned traitor for some reason and have taken over the place for himself."
“Great!” somebody remarked, checking the action on her nameless assault rifle. “Then killing the creep won't be marked against us, but will actually be a point in our favor. Why heck, we might even get a reward."
While the soldiers eagerly discussed the possible monetary aspects of the situation, Lt. Sakadea fiddled with the controls in his helmet and tried the radio again. “Landing party to Ramariez, can you read me? Over.” But only the static of the jamming field answered him.
Damn, this must be the source of the interference the bridge had encountered in Leader Silverside's office. Made sense. With the advent of modern sensors, you couldn't hide something anymore by just burying it under a couple million tons of rock and ore. But without contact with the ship, the Marines were on their own. Okay, no problem.
Weapon in gauntlet, Sgt. Lieberman waddled forward. “Orders, lieutenant?"
“Regardless of our location, we will continue the search for the robot,” the officer said brusquely. “Our mission is to obtain an HN cube. That objective will be accomplished."
The Marine nodded. Sounded good, now if only they could do it.
Although not designed for fleetness, Leader Silverside had nevertheless made good its escape, frantically shucking missiles along the way and taking refuge in a utilities closet inside one of the flange support legs of the Nova Grade laser. Lacking anything more appropriate, it barred the door with an electro-mop.
Feeling safe, at least for the moment, the droid took the opportunity to remove the unexploded missile from between its eye-cameras and deposit the filthy thing on a nearby shelf. The nervous machine then uncoiled its most delicate manipulators, removed a saffron colored toolbox from inside itself, and began to patch the gaping wound in its forehead. With good reason, the droid was scared lubricantless. In its many years of running Buckle, the robot had never before been damaged in a fight. The act of getting shot in the head with an armor-piercing missile was most unpleasant, and the droid had absolutely no intention of ever letting such a calamity happen again. Hot Void, no.
Finished with the temporary repair job, Silverside tidied itself up and cautiously rolled to the ventilation slits in the burnished door to peek outside and see what was happening. In a regular sweeping pattern, the armed humanoids were steadily advancing into the cavern. They were obviously searching for him and revenge. The abrupt appearance of the metal clad warriors so soon after its execution of the biped mammals in its office could not be a coincidence.
Feeling defeat breathing warm on his cranial support unit, the droid knew it had no choice but to play its trump card and released control of the asteroid's main defense computer. A control that the robot had never let rest for a millisecond after gaining it low those many solar revolutions ago.
Finally free from the onerous rule of the renegade robot, the loyal golden computer bank immediately sent out a long delayed Priority Alpha Emergency call to the planet Gee and unlimbered every offense weapon it possessed; against both the invaders inside and their ships in orbit.
The Marines halted as a section of the distant rock wall directly below the towering trademark of the Gee dilated, and out rolled a hundred warobots. At the sight of the humans, the dusty Gee droids promptly unleashed a barrage of invisible death from their neural disrupters and a fusillade of highly visible plasma bolts.
* * * *
Meanwhile, several small asteroids broke formation out in space and left the plane of the ecliptic. Once in position, they jetted forward and dived towards the amassed ships in orbit about Buckle, spraying them with sizzling particle beams. A half dozen ships of visitors and customers disappeared in silent explosions before the startled crews could react. The outer forcefield of the Ramariez collapsed under the hellish load of lethal radiation and the ship only survived the initial attack because of its Deflector Plating.
On the bridge of the starship, the main viewscreen brightened, and then went dark as every hull mounted video camera vaporized.
“Red alert!” Keller ordered, wiping tears from his eyes. “Soukup, full power to the shields. Lilliuokalani, switch to auxiliary cameras 4 through 10. Trell, seal all interior hatchways and boost engines to 40/40. Hamlisch, set the laser batteries on automatic. Buckley, fire the Proton Cannon at will!"
Nobody wasted time to reply. They just did it.
With the element of surprise gone, the surviving starships began to defend themselves. Scarlet laser beams and green Proton rays crisscrossed space in a searing network of death and destruction.
Most of the hastily aimed weapons hit their assigned targets, and bore white-hot holes in the attacking sentinels. A few of the robot craft flashed instantly into nothingness. Several more spun crazily off into the distance as their guidance systems were wrecked. But more and more rocks left the plane of the asteroid belt to join the fight, their shimmering particle beams outshining the local sun in dazzling brilliance, and soon all of nearby space was filled with the frightful, pyrotechnic splendor of high technology war.
“Sir, should we teleport the Marines back on board?” Trell asked, frantically operating his console, wishing that he had more than just four arms and one god.
“Not until they signal possession of a cube,” the captain replied firmly. It was a distasteful fact, but the HN cube was far more important than any of the Marine's lives.
At near light speed, a tumbling boulder rammed the Ramariez, disintegrating into a nuclear fireball and the ship shook under the stupendous blow. The rebuilt outer forcefield dissipated again, but the inner shield held. Telltales flashed on everybody's boards and the starship commander nervously cracked a knuckle. This was obviously no time for half measures.
“Belay my last order and prime the main gun,” he directed the Weapons Officer. “Fire when ready and make damn sure you don't hit Buckle!"
“Aye, aye, sir!” Buckley cried, flipping switches and pressing buttons with gay abandonment. Faith, this is why he had joined the space service!
* * * *
In the brig, a fast series of micro explosions outlined a square in the white metal wall of The 16's cell and the hot metal plate dropped to the floor with a loud clang. A moment later, Avantor peeked out of the hole. Behind her could be seen two other walls with similar breaches in them.
As she wiggled through the opening, the totally recovered 16 climbed off his sick bed, and from beneath the covers withdrew a floppy cap made of woven copper and several modified circuit boards taken out of his medical scanner. The battery pack of the RDP monitor dangled loosely from a wire harness.
Without a word, Avantor handed over her translator and he deftly removed the tiny Choron relay cube from inside that made the device function. Only a few seconds were needed for The 16 to fit it to the electronic hat.
Removing the bandage from her head, Avantor pulled the now-functioning cap snugly into place, crossed the cell and threw open the door. As the STOP THAT cannon kicked on, The 16 dropped to the floor with a groan, but protected by the handmade psionic shield, (training video #23: What To Do When Your Own Equipment Is Used Against You—Aside From Die) the Avantor could only feel the faintest of suggestions from the stolen weapon.
A quick yank disconnected the cannon, and soon the two Gee officers were proceeding along the hallway intent, far beyond the simple urging of their hypnotraining, to take control of this vessel and arrest absolutely everybody within.
* * * *
The initial volley of assorted death from the warobots was spent harmlessly against the round force shields suspended in front of every Space Marine. Undaunted, the soldiers then fired in return, but their heavy bullets and polycyclic lasers proved equally ineffective against the forcefields and thick bodyarmor of the rampaging droids.
Frowning inside her helmet, Sgt. Lieberman slammed a fresh clip into her assault rifle. One hundred warobots against ten Marines. If there was anything she hated, it was a fair fight.
“Take cover! Outgoing!” the sergeant barked on the radio. “Mainhardt, fire!"
As the troopers ducked out of the way, the Atomic Vortex Rifle cut loose, its swirling cone of nuclear energy washing over the machines with the expected results. As the machines paused to recover from the quantum onslaught, the Marines released a full volley of their Church Key missiles.
In a blossoming row of fireballs, the first ten droids disassembled the hard way, hot shrapnel zinging everywhere. Uncaring as the metal they were forged from, the remaining ninety war machines rolled over the burning wreckage of their fallen comrades and continued onward: pinchers, drills, electro-probes and buzzsaws extending on telescoping arms of steel from inside their bodies.
With the control panel above his forehead beeping and winking information, Lt. Sakadea dialed his visor back to normal magnification and scowled. An entire salvo just to take out ten measly robots. Without a lot more ammunition than they were carrying, this was going to be a long dirty fight.
“Prepare to evade!” a private shouted on the command circuit.
As his shocked companions turned to stare, Furstenburg raised the sights of his assault rifle and fired from the hip. The stuttering stream of bullets, beams, and rockets tore apart a center bracket for the PlanetBuster Bomb high on the wall above them. Quick on the uptake, the rest of the Marines followed suit and the end supports of the space missile were shot to pieces. With a deafening screech of tortured metal, the gargantuan yellow tube broke free, and began rolling down the slope towards the massed humans with ever increasing speed.
“On my mark, JUMP!” Lt. Sakadea ordered, and the Marines were airborne when the spinning destroyer passed underneath, clanging and banging like a runaway trashcan.
However, the ground bound warobots lacked this crucial ability, and despite frantic evasive maneuvers on their part, the machines were unceremoniously flattened under the barreling bomb. Deafeningly loud, the mega-ton missile careened off the base of the huge laser and continued rolling into the distance, eventually coming to rest against a giant power booster relay, barely scratched from its brief, but hectic, journey.
“Well, this is one even Ripley wouldn't believe,” a Marine joked, using his helmet camera to take a picture of the thin metal doilies decorating the ground.
“Eh? What ever do you mean?” PFC Ripley asked puzzled. “I was right here. I helped do it."
The Marine gave a sigh. “Never mind."
“Hey, sirs!” a private called out from the bottom of the spiraling ramp. “Look here!"
Rushing over to the gesturing trooper, Lt. Sakadea and Sgt. Lieberman saw that the woman had found a room of some kind hidden inside the rock wall, the door a hinged section of stone that perfectly matched the exterior. Briefly, the private explained how the vibrations of the tumbling missile had thrown the portal open and upon landing she had jammed her rifle in to keep it ajar.
Summoning assistance, the officers posted guards, and directed the careful forcing of the door. Warily, the Marines entered.
The square cave was anything but empty. Lining the walls were hundreds of plastic shelves jammed full of white boxes adorned with perfectly ordinary appearing bar codes, and directly under a rectangular panel in the ceiling, was a control board desk sitting on a hydraulic lift. It only took the troopers a moment to overcome their shock at finding Silverside's storage closet. With bare gauntlets, the cartons were hastily torn apart, and along with miscellaneous weapons, precision tools, forcefield belts and sundry indecipherable items, they located 27 pristine Hypernavigational cubes.
“Jackpot!” a trooper whooped, slapping the back of the nearest Marine.
“Thanks,” the man replied, his servomotors whining as he righted himself.
“Okay, everybody grab two cubes and then let's high tail it out of here before something else attacks us,” Lt. Sakadea directed, shouldering his bulky rifle.
“You heard the man,” Sgt. Lieberman said gruffly. “Let's loot the place and move it, people!"
“Aye, sir!"
“Check!"
“Affirmative!"
“HELP!"
Their scanners indicated the scream for assistance had come from outside in the cavern, and the room was vacated posthaste. There, standing beside the mammoth laser assembly was Leader Silverside with eight metal tentacles wrapped about a struggling Marine and holding the soldier as a shield before him.
“Do not interfere with my escape, or this unit will be damaged beyond repair,” the machine warned, its atonal voice adding just a touch of dire foreboding to the speech.
; “Sorry, sir,” the prisoner said stiffly formal. “I opened a door in the leg of the big laser and there he was. No excuse."
“Forget it, private,” Lt. Sakadea said soothingly. “He could have gotten any of us."
Rolling slowly, the platinum edged tank began moving towards the ramp. “My only wish is continued existence,” the hulking droid stated. “So I will trade life for life. On my oath of honor, this will be released after my shuttle has launched and I am safe from your retribution."
Silverside knew it was a gamble, but the creatures might just be stupid enough to believe him. However, even without the high tech sensors in their powerarmor, the Marines had no problem detecting bullshit when they heard it.
Growling menacingly, the humans primed their weapons and started to advance, when Sgt. Lieberman noticed somebody vanish from the rear of the group.
It took her a second to find the missing person. A trooper had used the incredible strength of the servomotors in their UN powerarmor to jump almost straight up, and presently was arcing through the air far above them, a tactic only made possible by the vast size of the cavern.
“Freeze!” Lieberman shouted over the external speaker of her suit at maximum volume, and involuntarily Silverside paused. She smiled in triumph. What a shmuck.
...and a split second later five hundred pounds of durasteel filled with Space Marine crashed directly onto the rogue droid at 32 feet per second per second from a height of almost ten stories.
Crystal, plastic, wire, bits, hunks, chunks and various stuff sprayed out from the meteoric landing like an explosion in a junkyard and the trooper buried himself to the knees inside the chassis of the rogue robot.
Though reeling from the impact, Leader Silverside swiveled its domed head about and lashed out with every working arm it still possessed to rend this unorthodox invader into bloody scraps.
Ducking under the forest of lethal limbs, the soldier dove forward and rammed his fist through the patch covering the hole made by the Church Key missile in the forehead of the warobot. Silverside went berserk at the action and redoubled the effort to kill its piggyback assailant. Ignoring the brutal pounding, the trooper shoved his hand in deeper, seized the robot's brain, and closed his fingers to perform the crudest of lobotomies.
Illegal Aliens Page 30
