Daisy's Gambit

by Scott Baron

  “Oh no you don’t, fucker!” she growled, lashing out with her own gauntlet. Fortunately, the temperamental device decided to work on this occasion.

  The Ra’az’s whip was far more powerful than Daisy’s, but hers smashed against it not as a flexible whip, but as a solid beam, knocking the snaking form to a halt as it wrapped around her whip’s crackling, rigid length.

  The Ra’az pulled back, startled, but his whip was tightly tangled around Daisy’s beam. A brief tug-of-war broke out, which might have been funny if it weren’t a life or death situation. The Ra’az bellowed, forcing all of his power whip’s energy into the sizzling beam.

  Rather than overpowering Daisy’s, however, all he accomplished was shorting out both gauntlets, their whips both vanishing in a puff of ozone-tinged smoke.

  Kate raised her rifle and fired off a burst, missing as the alien nimbly rolled to the side.

  “Shit. Agile for its size,” Sarah noted with surprise.

  The Ra’az quickly snatched up Steven’s fallen weapon and returned fire. His shots, unlike his target’s, did not miss, and Kate crumpled to the ground.

  “Kate!” Daisy shouted as she swung her rifle up and fired just as the Ra’az did. Both ducked aside, avoiding each other’s blast.

  “Oh, it’s going to be like that, huh?” she growled.

  Daisy ran at the creature, and it, likewise, ran toward her, both of them firing and dodging as they flew past one another, pivoting in the air to continue their barrage.

  Daisy’s shots went just barely wide, singeing the Ra’az as they passed. The alien, on the other hand, landed a shot square on her back, sending her flying into a nearby table as her rucksack was blown off, sending her sword clattering to the ground as it fell free.

  Daisy rolled away and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing.

  “They don’t give the Chithiid many shots for precisely this reason.”

  Yeah, but I have reloads.

  “Not in that, you don’t,” Sarah said of the smoldering backpack that had housed her extra pulse charges.

  Shit.

  The Ra’az pulled his trigger as well, and had the same result, but the much larger creature didn’t mind one bit. Instead, he smiled at the thought of tearing the little human apart with his bare hands.

  Daisy scrambled for her sword and pulled it free, just as the Ra’az hurled a table at her.

  “Daisy! Gloves!”

  There was no time, and Daisy desperately swung the blade, hoping it would at least deflect the table and prevent it from causing her too much damage.

  When she remained unscathed, Daisy looked around and saw the cleanly sliced table lying on either side of her. The Ra’az looked confused, and more than a little wary.

  “It’s not supposed to be able to do that, Daze. You still have your gloves on.”

  Daisy squeezed her sword’s grip and felt its presence reaching out to her, even through the fabric covering her palms. It was almost as if it sensed her presence.

  Sensed her will.

  A connection.

  She knew exactly what it wanted, and today they were both on precisely the same page.

  Daisy smiled a bloodthirsty grin.

  The Ra’az grabbed a pair of chairs, swinging them like clubs as it charged at her. Daisy slid on her side beneath the attack, cleanly slicing both of the beast’s legs off just above the knee. The alien hit the ground and slid into the wall with a crash, bellowing in anger and pain.

  Daisy quickly silenced him, driving the blade deep into its chest.

  The Ra’az gurgled and died, his disbelieving eyes locked on Daisy’s until their light faded. A happy tingle tickled her hands.

  Her sword, she realized, was gleefully drinking in the alien’s blood, strengthening with every warm drop.

  “Damn. My sword’s a bit of a psychopath,” she said with a grim chuckle as she pulled the blade free from the alien’s chest. She watched as the last drops absorbed into the surface, leaving the pristine white blade as good as new once again.

  “You like that thing a bit too much,” Sarah quipped. “You’re not going to be one of those douches who names their sword, are you?”

  “I wasn’t going to,” Daisy joked back. “But now that you mention it, I think I shall hereafter call it Stabby McStabberton.”

  “Oh God, you’re ridiculous.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Stabby. Sarah’s just jealous,” she said with a laugh, then sheathed her bloodthirsty weapon and retrieved the scorched but functional comms device from her pack.

  “No more energy bars, it seems, but far better that my snacks and spare ammo took the hit than this,” she said, hefting the salvaged unit. Her brief post-battle-survival humor faded as she looked to her fallen teammates.

  A grim necessity presented itself.

  Steve and Kate were dead and wouldn’t be needing their spare ammunition, so Daisy carried out the grisly task of retrieving what she could from their wrecked bodies and reloaded her rifle. She was about to walk out, but paused, stooping over the dead Ra’az to pry the shorted-out power gauntlet from its wrist and tuck it into her pocket.

  It was nothing more than a paperweight at the moment, but who knew? She’d fixed one before, maybe she could do the same with the more powerful variant. If she survived, of course.

  Daisy looked at her deceased teammates one last time, then headed for the doors through which the Chithiid rebel had vanished.

  Across the planet on three different continents, once-powerful Ra’az facilities lay burning in ruins, their surface and air forces in disarray with no centralized communications, not knowing where to respond or where they might be needed.

  Donovan and Bob sat quietly drifting in the debris field once more, safely loaded with Shelly’s team, monitoring the globe, trying to discern the status of the fighters below.

  “Still nothing from Mal,” Bob said. “Perhaps her communications array sustained some damage in the fight.”

  “Yeah, let’s hope. If that’s all it is, I’m sure Gustavo can get ‘em up and working in no time. When it comes to that ship, the guy’s kind of a genius.”

  Donovan switched frequencies, broadcasting in the clear to Sid directly.

  “It looks like the missions were a success, Sid, but I’m not reading any disturbances from San Francisco yet. No explosions, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “It is a rather thick-walled facility,” Sid posited. “Unless an explosion was quite large, there’s just no way of knowing how things stand until it’s over. We can only hope they have as much success as our other teams did.” He paused a moment, thinking. “I’m going to attempt a passive hot-mic bypass of the comms unit. It may not work at all, but it’s worth trying.”

  Sid then closed the line and listened. Despite being an AI, he was worried.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Moving just shy of a full run, Daisy reached the adjacent hangar space in no time. Unlike the other hangar, this was wall-to-wall packed with advanced equipment. A glistening, new ship, and two slightly banged up older ones sat lined up facing the hangar door.

  A much older and much larger vessel sporting a massive cannon sat nearest, its access hatchway strewn with Ra’az bodies, as was the rest of the hangar.

  “Warp ships?” Sarah asked

  Daisy looked them over.

  Yeah. The three smaller ones. The big one looks like it’s just a heavy cruiser.

  Daisy spotted a small door to the outside on the same wall as the massive hangar doors. Chithiid loyalists––or at least she assumed they were, given the lack of armbands––had charged through it, apparently, trying to reach and reactivate the door mechanism. They’d been cut down before reaching their goal.

  Her team was making a solid showing, the humans and cyborgs using cartridge weapons, wisely conserving pulse rifle ammunition now that the initial shock and awe wave had done its job. Or so they thought.

  The farthest warp ship sounded a faint hum as its systems c
ycled on.

  Shit, they already made it to one of them.

  “Look again,” Sarah said. “Two more are pinned down just shy of the boarding ramps to the others. If our guys run out of ammo––”

  Daisy whistled loudly.

  “Hey! Spares!” she shouted as she flung the small pouch with magazines of conventional ammunition across the floor to them.

  A cyborg in a pinstripe suit dashed out and grabbed it, slightly shredding a sleeve as he dove back for cover.

  Habby’s going to have a fit.

  It was mostly Chithiid loyalists fighting that she could see. Only a few Ra’az were engaged in the battle. The projectile weapons flummoxed them to a degree. They were so accustomed to thinking in terms of massive pulse weapons that the tiny flying bits of lead and copper left them unsure exactly how deadly the weapons were.

  A Ra’az leaned out from behind cover and activated his massive power whip, but the awkward angle from which he was attempting to use it made the deadly coil fly wildly astray. The beam shut off abruptly as the alien’s torso was peppered with machine gun fire, dropping it to the floor in a pool of sticky blood.

  “Looks like the old-school guns work just fine,” Sarah exclaimed with glee.

  At super-close range, and against a totally unarmored opponent. I wouldn’t get too excited, Sis. The other Ra’az won’t be so unprepared. And I think the Chithiid loyalists have already caught on.

  In any case, the distraction caused by fighting the massive Ra’az was enough for one of the pinned down Ra’az pilots to manage to dart up the ramp and into a waiting ship.

  “Shit, another one got in. That leaves one empty and the big one. It doesn’t look like anyone’s on board though.”

  The big ship, as if it heard Sarah’s silent comment, rumbled to life.

  “Or not.”

  A pinned down alien saw this and grabbed an EMP bomb from his pack, shouted for cover fire, then took off at a run, dodging pulse blasts as he sped for the warp ships.

  “He’s trying to disable them.”

  But they’re shielded. Those EMP bombs were only meant for the comms units and facility equipment. They won’t do a thing to those ships.

  Daisy was about to yell for him to stop, but suddenly found it unnecessary when a pulse blast separated his torso from his lower body.

  Sonofa––

  A massive surge in pulse fire made her people duck as the Chithiid launched a volley to cover their Ra’az master as he scrambled into the third and final warp ship. The door sealed behind him, and he too began the power-up sequence. It was just a matter of time before all three would take to the air.

  “We can’t let the heavy gunship blast the doors open!” she yelled to the team.

  The cyborg nodded his understanding and grabbed a conventional bomb from his pack. It was a large breaching charge.

  “What’s he doing, Daze?”

  “Making a run for it,” she replied.

  The mechanical man took off at a sprint, his metal legs pistoning furiously as he raced for the open ramp to the gunship. His human counterparts rushed out from cover, laying down as much suppressing fire as they could with both conventional and pulse weapons. Three were hit and went down where they stood, but they managed to take a Chithiid with them in the process.

  Daisy fired from behind cover, emptying her conventional weapon and switching to the pulse rifle.

  “Limited ammo. Make ‘em count!” Sarah shouted in her head.

  The cyborg had nearly reached the ship when two Ra’az who had been hiding behind equipment, as their Chithiid servants fought, opened fire. The metal man’s left arm and leg were blasted from his body, but he nevertheless continued to try to reach the ship, pushing ahead with his one good leg, dragging the bomb with his remaining arm.

  A well-placed shot to the head put his valiant efforts to an end.

  Daisy scanned her remaining team members. There were just too few of them, and their numbers were rapidly diminishing.

  Pulse fire lit up the ground around her, pinning her in place.

  “Someone give me some cover fire! I’m trapped!"

  The others were in no better circumstances, however, and the two Ra’az cautiously moved for the open ship as their Chithiid continued to keep the intruders at bay.

  From behind them a sudden barrage of fire tore into the Chithiid ranks, dropping five of them in an instant.

  A group of Chithiid––notably missing the telltale red armbands––were nevertheless fighting on the side of the rebels.

  “The base staff!” Sarah cheered. “They’ve joined the fight on our side!”

  Good. We need all the help we can get.

  From the opposite side of the hangar, a tall Chithiid with a crescent scar on his shoulder and red band tied around each arm raced through the confused loyalists’ ranks, a weapon clutched in each of his four hands, firing wildly into their midst.

  Craaxit?

  This was the end-game. There was no more hiding their involvement. Several more Chithiid rebels joined in the fight, as Craaxit raced from cover.

  The warp ship pilots realized things were far more out of control than they had thought and turned their guns on the thick hangar doors. The reinforced metal resisted their fire, for the time being at least.

  The cannon on the powering-up gun ship swiveled and took aim at the hangar doors. Craaxit’s eyes locked with Daisy’s.

  “Run!” he bellowed. “Save both our worlds!”

  Firing as fast as he could pull the triggers, Craaxit ran toward the gunship.

  “What’s he doing?”

  He threw aside one of his four weapons and snatched the bomb from the dead cyborg’s grip as he flew past.

  I think he’s going to––

  A pulse blast hit him, then another, but Craaxit pushed on, bomb in hand, and raced up the ramp into the belly of the gunship. Moments later an explosion boomed from its interior, smoke streaming out the door. The massive cannon fell idle as the ship burned on the hangar floor.

  Up in the air, the warp ships were chipping away at the hangar doors with their much smaller cannons. It was slow going, but, nevertheless, a small hole had formed.

  Just a matter of time, and these rifles won’t stop them.

  She whipped the comms unit from her back.

  Come on, don’t be running the satellite delay.

  “Dark Side, Dark Side––Sid, this is Daisy. I’m at the north hangar doors. I need you to get me a ship, now! Donovan? Anyone? Does anyone read me?”

  Silence, then Bob’s voice crackled over the air.

  “This is Bob. Donovan’s a bit busy at the moment. Is the mission a success?”

  “Almost, but it won’t be if you don’t get me a ship down here now! Something fast, and with guns.”

  “I don’t understand. This was not part of the plan.”

  “Yeah, well Murphy paid a visit, so we’re changing the plan.”

  “Most of the drones were destroyed in the assault.”

  “No, not a drone. I need something space-worthy for a human passenger, and I need it five minutes ago.”

  Bob paused as he scanned the surviving craft at their disposal.

  “There is only one remaining that is capable of maintaining a stable cabin environment available. He’s been a bit glitchy, though, so we kept him in a high recon position. I can have him to you in under two minutes.”

  Daisy looked up at the warp ships chipping their way through the doors.

  “It’ll have to do. Have him set down right outside the hangar doors. I’ll be waiting.”

  “Copy. It will be to you in one minute forty-three seconds. You might want to stand clear, though. There may be a sizable sonic boom.”

  Daisy pocketed the comms and turned for the door off to the side of the hangar.

  “Cover me!”

  Daisy ran for the small door as the rebels and her team lay down fire. Pulse blasts chipped the ground and walls around her, but she managed to re
ach it unscathed.

  Wouldn’t it be funny if it was locked, she thought with a dark smile.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t.

  She burst out into the sunlight and slammed the door shut behind her as pulse blasts tore into the thick metal, buckling it, but not penetrating.

  Movement caught the corner of her eye. Daisy spun, raising her rifle.

  “Wait! It’s Vince!”

  Daisy’s hand twitched as she lowered the gun, glad for her proper trigger finger discipline.

  “What was the explosion? Obviously not a warp ship, or we’d all be dead,” he said.

  “There was a gunship in the hangar. Craaxit took it out before it was able to blast the doors open.”

  Vince smiled wide.

  “Fantastic! Where is he? I need to give him a high five. Or high twenty, in his case.”

  Daisy’s grim look said enough before she even spoke a word.

  “He didn’t make it.”

  Vince’s smile faded.

  A chunk of metal flew off and landed in the dirt from high up.

  “Holy shit, that’s a lot of continuous weapons discharge. They’ll run dry pretty soon, at that rate,” Vince said, turning his attention to the new problem at hand. “Let me guess, the warp ships?”

  “You got it.”

  “Can we ever catch a break?” He looked around, searching for anything large enough to take down a ship. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll make a run for the roof. There’s debris on the barge up top. If I time it right, I can drop a piece right on top of the ships as they try to exit once the hole is big enough.”

  “Vince, you can’t take out a ship that way.”

  “No, but I can damage it enough to not be space-worthy. We just have to keep them from using their warp device. If they’re stuck in the atmosphere to breathe, they won’t be able to jump.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t know that, but if these things are still in the experimental phase, I seriously doubt they can jump so accurately that they land in atmosphere at their destination. The Ra’az don’t seem to use AI, so that means they’re flying the ships manually. Lots of trial and error for test pilots, you know.”