A Fiery Sunset

by Chris Kennedy

  The elevator bonged when it reached their floor, and Sansar could feel the Tortantula tense underneath her, ready to pounce. As the door slid aside, she almost squeezed the trigger before she realized who was on it. “Hold!” she yelled as the CASPers’ guns trained onto the Tortantulas. “Everybody, hold fire! They’re with me!”

  Thankfully none of the CASPers fired, and after a few tense seconds, she could feel the alien relax under her. “Ma’am, one day you’re going to have to tell me how you got up there,” Mun’s voice said from one of the suits, “but right now, we’ve got a bug problem upstairs we need to deal with, so if you could squeeze everyone into the elevator, we’ll be on our way.”

  * * *

  Inside the Mercenary Guild, Capital Planet

  Walker jetted up the inner part of the ramp and landed on the first floor with the four soldiers right behind him. He started off toward the security center, then stopped and turned toward the troopers. “Have any of you fought Goka before?” He received a chorus of negative answers and sighed. “Fuck.”

  “What’s wrong, Colonel?” Corporal Vattakavanich asked.

  “I have a…history with them,” Walker replied. “They’re like a cross between a cockroach and an armadillo, and they’re tough as fuck to kill. Lasers bounce off their shells. Sometimes railgun rounds will bounce off too, if they don’t hit squarely. The best time to shoot them is if they’re flying and their shells are open. I have some experimental rounds for them, but I don’t know how well they’ll work. Stomp on them, if nothing else.”

  Polanis chuckled. “Stomp on the cockroaches. Got it, Colonel.”

  Walker stomped over and stood in front of the medic’s CASPer. “Those damn bugs are tough,” Walker said. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t have to fight them. Keep that in mind.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s go,” Walker said. “Keep your eyes open. The bastards could be anywhere.”

  Walker tried to go as fast as he could, while still maintaining as much stealth as a half-ton mecha could, which wasn’t much. After a couple of minutes, he heard firing in front of him and zeroed in on it. Suddenly, as they rounded a corner, they found the battle, or at least part of it, as a mixed force of Goka and MinSha advanced on a group of CASPers. “Fire!” Walker yelled.

  The small force spread across the passage and began firing, and the enemy troopers turned to meet them. The MinSha came at them in the air, flying down the hallway, while the Goka skittered down the passageway’s floor, walls, and ceiling. “Polanis, Ritchey, on the MinSha! Figueroa and V-man, with me on the Goka!”

  Walker fired as quickly as he could at the giant cockroach-looking aliens, and the modified ammo seemed to work on them as he’d hoped. The mini-HEAT rounds hit the aliens, and the superheated metal washed through them. In Sato’s testing, the round had punched a hole through two inches of steel; it did wonders against the Goka. He shot four of the aliens as they approached, and suddenly there were no more. He looked up. The passageway was a killing ground for the troopers with their railguns, and the hallway was littered with the bodies of the MinSha. There were also six Goka…but there had been a lot more of them when he’d initially attacked.

  “What the fuck?” Walker asked. “Where’d the damn things go?”

  “I don’t know,” Vattakavanich replied. “One second, there were lots of them, then there were none.”

  “They’re in the overhead!” one of the Asbaran troopers called. “Watch—”

  The trooper might have completed the warning, but Walker didn’t hear it as the Goka detonated a small breaching charge to open the ceiling, and they were all over him. It was like Planet B’zuz, when he’d been overrun by the Goka, all over again. No! he thought, after a brief moment of panic, This time I’m ready!

  He slapped one off his railgun arm and fired through its head. Then the one on his leg. Dead. Then the one on his other leg. His right shoulder went yellow, and he slammed himself backward into the wall, and scraped his back along it. The Goka dropped off. Two rounds through the thorax for being a pain in the ass.

  The other troopers weren’t doing so well. Figueroa was down, his icon red, and Ritchey and V-man were covered in the aliens. As he strode over to Ritchey, one of the Goka drew a laser pistol and fired through the center of the suit. Ritchey dropped. As the aliens crawled away, Walker shot them. One. Two. Three. He nailed the fourth one as it jumped up to attack him and shot it out of the air. V-man’s icon went red, and he spun toward the trooper. He was down with one of the Goka on his chest. It dropped the pistol it was holding and launched itself toward Walker. He shot it in the face, and it was blown backward against the wall.

  Polanis had been a few steps behind the rest of the troopers, and two of the Goka had attacked him. Somehow they’d gotten his canopy open, and the two were inside the suit with him. Polanis screamed once as he fell over backward, but it was cut off in the middle.

  Walker raced over and grabbed a Goka with each hand, ripped them out of the suit, and slammed them together. They were still moving, so he did it again. And again. Then he threw them to the floor and shot them each once.

  He heard a moan and turned back to Polanis. Dear God, he was still alive! The trooper was missing most of his face, including both of his eyes, yet he was still alive, and his arms and legs were convulsing.

  Walker stood and looked down toward the Asbaran forces. “Medic!” he yelled. One of the Asbaran troopers came running. He couldn’t look back at Polanis—what was left was barely Human anymore—so he spent his time watching for any more Goka.

  The trooper arrived—a Sergeant Epard, if the name on the mecha was correct—popped her canopy, and jumped down to examine Polanis with a medkit. She spent a couple of seconds with him, then drew her slug-firing pistol and fired it once into his head. The twitching of his extremities ceased.

  Epard looked up from the smoking barrel of her pistol. “I’m sorry, sir; it was all I could do.”

  “Damn it, I underst—”

  “Golf Hotel One, Alpha Sierra One, we need your assistance at the security center ASAP!”

  “Golf Hotel One, I’m on my way!”

  Walker turned and headed toward the sounds of new gunfire, scooping up one of the laser pistols the Goka had dropped. Although now by himself, he’d tried out the new railgun rounds and knew he had a fighting chance against the Goka. If he could keep them off him, anyway. The pistol turned out to be a standard laser pistol, but one modified to use the whole battery’s charge in a single, ultra-powerful bolt. No wonder it had gone through their CASPers. He shook his head—what’s worse than Goka? Goka with fucking death pistols. Shit.

  The building shook with what could only have been a rocket or similar explosive, and he stopped to get his bearings on where the sounds of fighting was coming from; it was close enough that he could hear it from both the front and the right. As he listened, he heard the clicking of the Goka as they ran. He froze, waiting to see where they were, and a platoon of Goka soldiers ran past him from left to right at the next intersection. He waited for them to clear the intersection, then followed them around the corner.

  He entered the next passage; Nigel was 75 feet further down the hallway, fighting for his life, with what looked like a company of Goka swarming him. Walker fired at the closest Goka, and it dropped. A yellow light illuminated in his display—Low Ammo. He only had 25 railgun rounds left…and there were more enemies than that.

  He decided to worry about it if he was still alive when the ammo ran out and fired at the next one. A shot through the thorax, it mortally wounded the trooper, but the alien’s scream caused several of the others to turn and face him. Within two seconds, half the attacking force turned and swarmed him instead.

  * * *

  Inside the Mercenary Guild, Capital Planet

  Nigel fired his last rocket, knowing he couldn’t hold off the Goka by himself for long without them. He fired the railgun on his left arm as the company of Goka attacked, and the first
one dropped. His knife blade snapped out as the railgun cycled; it was going to come to close quarters. He fired again, and again, dropping two more, then several of the Goka took to the air, complicating his targeting solution.

  He’d initially advanced up the corridor toward the aliens, and he now gave ground as he developed a rhythm. Fire the gun, step back, swing the knife, and repeat. He lost track of how many times he fired at the Goka; part of the time the rounds bounced off rather than getting the kill. The low ammo light illuminated, then seemed like it immediately went red right after that. Then the gun went dry, and he was down to his fist and knife.

  He pummeled one from the air, then cut off a leg holding a laser pistol at the first joint, but as he swung, he overextended, and a Goka landed on his left arm. The weight overbalanced him slightly, and he awkwardly tried to scrape it off with the knife as he tried to regain his balance. Before he could, two landed on his right side, and all of them pulled out blades, searching for joints to get into his suit.

  Before he could get them off, more joined, and his vision was nothing but black as the Goka covered his cameras, searching for ways to get at him. Several of them found joints and pain erupted in his right thigh, his left shoulder, and his right arm. He knew he had to keep moving or they’d get him, so he staggered into the wall, trying to crush the ones on his front, then turned to the left and slammed into it again. The weight on his right arm lessened, and he was able to use his sword to scrape off the Goka on the back of his right leg that kept stabbing him in the thigh. The other Goka on his sword arm fell away, and he sliced into one on his left arm.

  Vision returned as Walker pulled the one off his main camera, threw it to the ground on its back, and stabbed it, ripping through it in an explosion of guts. Able to see again, Nigel cut the head off the one on his left leg, then knocked the one off his torso and stomped on it.

  “Turn around,” Walker ordered.

  Nigel spun, and he felt something pulled from his back. He turned back as Walker slammed it into a wall headfirst, then threw it on the floor and stabbed it. He ripped the knife blade back out, then stomped on it. “Fucking hate those things,” he said. He looked up at Nigel. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, cover me a sec.” He could tell from his bio-monitors, and the fact his foot kept sloshing in the blood at the bottom of his boot, that the wound in his leg was fairly deep, so he took out his medkit, dialed it up to “3,” and sprayed the back of his leg. When he was able to see through the pain again, his leg monitor was yellow rather than red. That would have to do for now. He treated two other, less serious wounds, then turned back to Walker. “I’m good…now. Thanks for coming for me.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Nigel looked around. “Where’s the rest of your platoon?”

  “Dead,” Walker said, his voice flat. “They didn’t make it past the first group of Goka.”

  Nigel’s jaw dropped. “You came by yourself?” Nigel asked.

  “Yeah,” Walker replied. “It sounded like you needed help.”

  “Fuck…” Nigel said. He stared at Walker’s CASPer for a moment, then shut his mouth and shook off his amazement. They had things to do. “Stay here a second and watch for the bastards while I get a status check,” Nigel said. He turned and walked the few remaining steps back to the security station and stuck his head in the hole. “Are they out yet?” Nigel asked.

  “They got Colonel Enkh and just made it back up to the second sublevel,” Corporal Gabol replied. “They’re heading for the surface.”

  “Good,” Nigel said. “Get back in your suits. We’re leaving.”

  Nigel walked back and tapped Walker on the shoulder. “They got your boss and are heading back up.”

  “I’ve been waiting to hear that all day,” Walker replied. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  * * *

  Behind the Mercenary Guild, Capital Planet

  The two groups of Humans, along with the two Tortantulas, met up at the loading docks and raced up the ramp to where the dropships were just touching down.

  “Hang on a sec,” Walker said. “Wasn’t the Cartwright kid looking for Raknars?”

  “Yeah,” Nigel said. “He kicked the shit out of a bunch of Tortantulas with one and thinks we’re going to need them since the Merc Guild now has Canavars.”

  “Well, how about that?” Walker said, pointing to the warehouse where the Raknar could be seen.

  “Stand by,” Nigel said. After a few moments, he said, “The pilots said they’d meet us there. They aren’t sure if they’ll be able to lift it.”

  “Worth a look, since they don’t seem to be chasing us at the moment,” Walker said.

  “It won’t take long before they organize something, though,” Nigel said.

  “And I’m not staying here,” Sansar said. “I’m done doing what they want. It’s time to kill the bastards, and if that Raknar can help, let’s grab it. Quickly now!”

  She started running as fast as she could hobble, and the rest of the mixed company followed. Walker, Nigel, then the rest of the group toggled their jumpjets to get there faster.

  Walker slowed to a stop as he approached it. “Fuck,” he said, looking up. The mecha was enormous, with giant gantries on both sides that went all the way to the top. Several pieces had been removed and were laying on tarps in front of it.

  “What do you think?” Sansar asked, as she pulled up with a grimace.

  “I don’t know if it’s worth it,” Walker said. “They’ve got a bunch of pieces off. I don’t know if they were experimenting on it to try and get it running again, or if this one is special for some reason.”

  “Does it matter?” Nigel asked. “Either way, if they want it, we don’t want them to have it. If we can get the dropships to carry it, I say we take it.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Sansar said. “I think—”

  An enormous explosion rocked the Mercenary Guild headquarters, and all eyes turned to watch as the end of the building closest to them sagged, and parts of the top 15 floors collapsed over the side.

  “What the hell was that?” Sansar asked as Nigel slapped metallic hands with Walker.

  “Well, we couldn’t carry all the suits and the bodies of our dead,” Walker said, “so we made them a nice little burial mound, using all the remaining explosives we had. It was booby-trapped so the first person to approach the pile of suits would set it off. I’d hoped to drop that whole section of the building, but it looks like we didn’t have quite enough explosives left. Still…they’re going to have to do some major-league renovations on that building before it’s habitable again.”

  “That probably bought us a little time to get the Raknar, but I still don’t see a good way to get it out of here,” Sansar said, looking around. “I see a bunch of chains, but it’d take a long time to get it rigged.”

  “If it would help us get out of here faster, or before any more troops get here,” one of the Tortantulas said, “we could probably run up it and get it chained up pretty quickly.”

  Sansar nodded. “Perfect. Get to it.” She switched to the tactical net. “Everyone, Asbaran and Horde, both. Give the Tortantulas a hand so we can get the Raknar rigged for travel. The faster it’s rigged, the faster we’re out of here!”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Winged Hussars Prime Base, New Warsaw System

  Splunk didn’t talk about any of the events for most of the week in hyperspace. Jim had a list of questions he needed her to answer, like where had all the other Fae come from, and how did they get to Karma? How had they known about the secret hyperspace shunts and systems on Upsilon 4? What was the Fae’s motivation for doing what they did? And, most importantly, why had Splunk never told him she could communicate telepathically with him? He shook his head. How well did he really know Splunk, after all?

  He kept mostly to himself for the trip, enough so that Hargrave could tell something was wrong. The crew of Bucephalus and Empress Jito hailed him a
s a conquering hero. First he’d learned to operate a Raknar, now he had a mobile asteroid base! “Evil Emperor Cartwright,” one of the lieutenants on Empress Jito called him at dinner one day. Jim got up and immediately left. The next morning the man found him and formally apologized. Jim told him it was okay and laughed. Of course, it was anything but. Still, he let it go, and nobody joked about it again.

  The crews of both ships had fun exploring the asteroid base. It turned out in the weeks since Jim had left it, the army of Fae had invaded and fixed everything from the hyperspace system down to the micro-gravity toilets. In seven days, he hadn’t found so much as a light that didn’t work. He began to remember that Adayn had called Splunk, “My Little Watchmaker.” Now that didn’t seem as funny.

  In the book The Mote in God’s Eye, there were creatures called Watchmakers. They weren’t intelligent in the way most beings were. The aliens of the system where the Watchmakers were found used them as a biological repair system. They’d keep a few, and the Watchmakers would repair and even upgrade any technology they found. The problem was, if they were allowed to breed uncontrollably, they’d become evil, take over the ship, and try to kill you. Had the spy who pretended to be his girlfriend stumbled onto the truth?

  Jim listened carefully to the crew’s conversations whenever possible, and even asked a few pointedly if they’d seen any other Fae. None had; not a single one. Wherever the Fae were, they stayed carefully hidden. Jim guessed that made sense. The creatures had managed to remain on Karma station, in large numbers, and had never been spotted. Of course, now he knew that all the sightings of Splunk stealing things were more than likely other Fae.

  The day before they’d leave hyperspace, he found her in his office in Upsilon 4 with a slate, tapping away. She looked up when she saw him, then she looked down. He recognized her mood; she was sad. She got up to leave.