The Skarak soldiers began to fall from the smaller craft—one or two from each, dropping like stones and much faster than the gravity of the moon could account for.
The nearest Skarak hit the ground in front of Boyd like a meteor, throwing up debris and dust. It landed on two legs, keeping itself balanced with two upper arms. It was clad in a dark suit, blue energy crackling deep inside the material. The Skarak raised a heavy silver weapon and pointed it at Boyd.
Boyd was quicker and shot first. As he fired his pulse rifle at the Skarak, he could hear and see more Skarak soldiers hitting the ground all across the landing zone. Weapons fire flickered everywhere as the Faction engaged.
The pulse rounds from Boyd’s rifle slammed into the Skarak and knocked it back. It steadied itself by waving its arms, the long weapon held easily in one hand.
Then Boyd saw the Skarak soldier had two more upper limbs. They did not have gripping hands like the top arms, but pincers. They were short and appeared quite useless.
Walking forward as he fired, Boyd maintained the pressure on the Skarak, keeping it off balance. Thresh came alongside him and fired her pistol. She held it with her left hand and cupped the grip with her right. She advanced in step with Boyd, firing at the Skarak as it flailed under the pressure.
Then it fell backward, its weapon fallen at its side.
Boyd ran, Thresh at his side, Skarak soldiers still hitting the ground.
A group of Faction troopers stood in formation. Their uniforms were neat, and Boyd guessed they were from Kitzov’s own company. They stood shoulder to shoulder and fired their weapons at a Skarak soldier. The Skarak went down quickly under the barrage, and the squad turned their fire to the next target.
As the squad advanced, a bolt of blue fire slammed into the ground and tore through them, sending them cartwheeling and tumbling through the air in all directions.
The Fist was only a few meters away as Boyd and Thresh dropped another Skarak soldier. As the soldier went down, a blast of blue energy erupted from its weapon. The wild blast slammed into a Faction crewman who was running frantically, dodging and weaving with seemingly no plan. The blue energy from the fallen Skarak’s weapon slammed into him, throwing him off his feet. Then the blast flickered over him, thinning to fine white strands. He screamed for a moment before the flickering white strands wrapped around his head and face, piercing his mouth and eyes. He toppled and fell forward.
“The Fist,” Boyd said.
He ran, hoping Thresh was on his tail. Running toward the Fist from another direction was Noland, the Fist’s communication and sensor operator. He had a pulse pistol in his hand. He was slowing down and breathing heavily. He turned and fired.
Seeing the Skarak soldier on Noland’s tail, Thresh turned and brought up her pistol.
“Noland, get down!” She fired at the Skarak as it raised its weapon.
The entrance to the Fist was only a few meters away. Boyd knew he needed time to bring the systems back online, and he needed Thresh.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“We can’t leave one of the crew.”
As she fired at the Skarak soldier, Boyd took aim and loosed a barrage of pulse rounds into the alien’s right side. The Skarak soldier took fire in the back of its head from close range and Poledri came up behind it, clearly struggling in the thin air.
The Skarak went down, its helmet casing cracked and gray ooze flowing out and expanding like foam.
Noland looked over to Boyd and Thresh and then turned toward the Fist. The open boarding ramp looked like sanctuary.
Boyd pulled on Thresh, but she wriggled free of his grip and made her way to the captain.
Poledri was walking slower. He looked over to Thresh and waved her toward the ship. He was too much out of breath to speak, so he waved again.
“Help me, Will,” she called over her shoulder.
Boyd knew they would not get far without Thresh at the weapons console. He ran toward her, toward the captain.
Thresh took the captain’s arm and slung it over her shoulder. He pulled it away.
“I can get there on my own,” he said, “or I’ll die. Either is fine with me.”
Boyd looked at the surroundings for any Skarak soldiers. In between the ships and the tents of the landing zone, he could see Skaraks running here and there, Faction troopers firing their rifles, and even some old banned kinetic small arms and homemade firearms using black ice accelerant for a small metal projectile.
Noland was standing on the boarding ramp of the Fist calling them over, waving his arm wildly, encouraging Boyd and the group to hurry to the ship.
Then a blue beam slammed into the Fist.
Energy scattered over the ship, turning white as it spread. It found its way toward the drive assembly and fizzled out.
White wrapped around Noland’s ankles and spread up his legs. He began to quake and collapsed.
Smaller Skarak ships flew overhead, dropping soldiers to the ground. Noland staggered off the boarding ramp and fell face-first to the rocky ground.
“Get him,” Poledri said through heaving breaths.
Boyd looked at Thresh. “I’ll go,” he said. “Stay back.”
Boyd ran toward the Fist. As he neared, he could see the inside was unpowered, the basic lighting systems were offline, and the interior was dark. The blue crackle had disabled power on the Fist, but she looked intact.
Boyd grabbed Noland. He was muttering under his breath, but managed to get to his feet with help. The pulse pistol hung limply from his hand, but the pirate was not going to give up his gun.
“Thresh, we need you here now.” Boyd dragged Noland to his feet. “We need to get power into the ship.”
He looked over to Thresh and Poledri. Boyd saw Thresh, her wild hair blowing in the wind. A Skarak soldier dropped from the warship, falling toward them.
“Thresh!” Boyd shouted, the warning so urgent that it surprised him how worried he suddenly was that Thresh was in danger.
She looked up and saw the Skarak falling. She brought her pistol up. The Skarak landed and Boyd felt the ground shake as gravel and dust were flung upward. Then he heard her let out a yelp of pain.
As the dust cleared, Boyd could see the Skarak gripping Thresh from behind. The two smaller limbs were gripping her sides, the pincers tearing her shirt and piercing her flesh. Blood began to stain the torn fabric.
She pointed the pistol over her shoulder at the attacker, but the Skarak knocked it from her grip. An exhausted Poledri tried to pull Thresh free. He had hold of her and the Skarak, tugging at them both.
And then Thresh’s feet began to lift off the ground.
Boyd ran toward her. As he ran, he saw over the tops of the assembled ships that people were being carried toward a Skarak warship that was holding position a few hundred meters above the surface of Kalis. Skarak soldiers clamped on to their captives were rising toward this ship. The ship was huge and the people with their Skarak captors were disappearing through an opening on the underside, carried away into its vast dark interior.
Boyd ran and watched in horror as Thresh was lifted, slowly, into the air by the Skarak soldier.
7
Thresh screamed and punched at the Skarak behind her, her fist slamming into the helmet so hard that Boyd thought she would break her knuckles. Poledri, holding her ankle, was slowly losing his grip.
Boyd ran, rifle in one hand. He leapt and grabbed Thresh by an ankle just as Poledri lost his grip and fell. Boyd felt himself being drawn upward, and then he felt a tight grip on his leg and he began to descend. Looking down, he saw Noland there, hanging on his leg with both arms wrapped tightly around his ankle.
Poledri lay on the deck, clearly in pain. He picked up Thresh’s fallen pulse pistol and aimed it up at Boyd, Thresh, and the Skarak.
“Wait!” Boyd said and tried to arm himself with his second pulse pistol from under his right arm.
But Poledri was not a patient man and he fired.
The pu
lse round fizzed as it passed a few centimeters from Boyd’s face and slammed into the Skarak. Boyd saw the Skarak suit respond to the pulse round. The round was enveloped by the suit’s outer surface and it dispersed through the material that seemed to have no definite outer edge. Just like the surface of a Skarak ship, Boyd thought.
Another round struck, and the Skarak lost its grip. It fell aside before rising to the ship overhead, its limbs hanging uselessly as it went.
“Back to the ship.” Poledri clambered to his feet and staggered toward the boarding ramp. Boyd held a hand out to Thresh, which she grabbed and pulled herself to her feet. She winced as she stood up.
A Skarak soldier dropped out of the sky as Thresh started walking toward the Odium Fist. Boyd walked behind Thresh. He raised his pulse rifle and took aim at the rapidly-falling Skarak, then picked the point on the ground where the soldier would land and aimed there instead. The Skarak soldier hit the ground with a thump. Through the dust cloud thrown up by the impact, Boyd could see that the Skarak was hardly affected by the impact and standing on its two legs, its four upper limbs held out for balance.
Boyd poured weapons fire into the dust cloud thrown up by the Skarak soldier. The pulse rounds lit up the cloud, showing the Skarak soldier as a dark silhouette in the white dust. Pulse rounds hit and flickered over the Skarak armor. The soldier appeared to move jerkily in the strobe effect caused by the flickering light of the pulse rounds slamming home. The Skarak soldier stumbled back as Boyd poured fire on his target, toppling as it was struck with a barrage of rounds. Boyd’s shots struck the Skarak’s upper body area, just above its smaller mid-torso limbs, and he moved up his target, aiming higher until he struck the Skarak in its helmet.
As the pulse rounds struck, the armor absorbed the punishment until it appeared momentarily transparent and Boyd saw the head within the helmet. The Skarak head was roughly triangular with two large, black, bulbous eyes on top of the narrow mouth with pincers on either side. The Skarak fell back before being lifted to the ship above. Boyd continued to move, hardly breaking his casual and measured pace as he followed behind the wounded Thresh.
Poledri and Noland were standing on the boarding ramp to the Odium Fist waving Boyd and Thresh toward them. Boyd picked up the pace, catching up with Thresh. He wrapped an arm around her and gave her support as he dragged her toward sanctuary.
Somewhere amongst the ships of the landing zone, someone had activated a spitz gun and was firing at the Skarak ship overhead. Boyd glanced over his shoulder and saw the heavy stream of rapid-fire pulse rounds racing up into its hull. The Skarak ship replied with the blue, crackling bolt of energy that slammed into the ground somewhere near the spitz guns. The Skarak ship fired again, punching into the ground until it found its target and silenced the angry spitz gun.
Boyd set foot on the boarding ramp, a reassuring thump of the composite under his boot. Poledri and Noland raised their weapons.
“Get down,” Poledri said.
Boyd dropped, taking Thresh with him. Poledri and Noland opened fire. Boyd crawled up the ramp, risking a glance over his shoulder. He saw the Skarak soldier taking fire.
A group of troopers came running toward the ship. Boyd recognized one or two of them as members of the Fist’s own company. They fired at the Skarak as they ran. The Skarak fell under the withering crossfire.
“Can you walk, Thresh?” Poledri asked as he waved the troopers over to him.
“Yes, Captain,” Thresh said she crawled up the boarding ramp into cover.
“Good. The Fist has lost all power. Get down to the reactor and get my kravin’ ship running. Boyd, Noland, stop and hold here.”
The group of five troopers came to the boarding ramp.
“You troopers stay here and guard the Fist.” Poledri turned and walked unsteadily into the ship.
Boyd took cover at the side of the entrance and scanned his field of fire. Noland took cover on the other side of the boarding ramp, pulse pistol in hand. The five Faction troopers spread out along the side of the ship and lay down on the jagged rocks of the surface, digging in as best they could, ready to defend their ship.
Looking back across the landing zone, Boyd saw blasts of blue fire slamming into the ground. Skarak soldiers were dropping and then rising again, struggling and screaming people in their terrible grip. More spitz guns were coming online and pouring fire up into the ship above. The return fire was inaccurate, but eventually did its job and silenced one spitz gun after another.
The tremendous roar of a hail cannon blasting at the Skarak ship shook the ground. Boyd had never heard a hail cannon fired in an atmosphere before. The fragments of kinetic hail screeched as they ripped through Kalis’s thin atmosphere. The hail struck home and punched a hole in the Skarak hull.
The Skarak ship began to move off. Boyd heard the cheers leaping up across the landing zone. They were short-lived, however. A second Skarak ship descended from orbit to take the place of the first, and the instant it arrived, a large cavity opened in the bottom of its hull and Skarak soldiers began falling like rain.
Through the mass of Faction ships on the ground, Boyd saw a group of Skarak soldiers running toward him. Their legs moved in a leaping, lurching manner. Jointed in odd places, the gait was strange and reminded him more of a spider than a person.
“Here they come,” Boyd said. He activated the pulse rifle’s long-range targeting scope and took aim.
The Skaraks running toward him came into range and Boyd gave fire. Automatic pulse rounds poured away in a short burst from his rifle and slammed into the nearest Skarak. The rifles from the troopers lying on the rocky ground in front of the Fist spat pulse rounds into oncoming Skaraks, who halted and raised their weapons.
The long, silver Skarak weapon, tipped with a cluster of short needles, began to glow blue before spitting out a blast of crackling energy. The beam slammed into the ground in front of the Fist’s hull. One blast struck a trooper that was kneeling on the ground, his pulse rifle at his shoulder.
The blue energy slammed into the trooper, pushing him backward across the white gravel. The energy flowed over his body and thinned out into a series of fine white lines, crackled over his body before gathering around his head. He thrashed in agony for a moment before falling to the ground.
Boyd gave a short burst to one Skarak and saw it stagger, waving its arms to keep its balance, its long weapon no longer aimed. He then picked another target and fired another short burst, also momentarily disabling that opponent. The first alien was recovering and bringing its weapon up, ready to fire. Boyd redirected his fire on that Skarak and gave another short burst.
“Keep them off balance,” Boyd shouted as he redirected his aim again. “It will stop them firing. Short bursts only.”
But one Skarak had enough time to pick his target and fire his weapon. The blue energy slammed into another trooper, who was soon wrapped in fine white lines. He dropped his pulse rifle and clutched his head before toppling over.
Boyd fired a short burst, then picked a new target and fired again. His rifle moved from one target to another in short, controlled movements; every time he stopped, he fired a burst. The troopers on the ground were firing in the same manner. They knocked the Skarak back a centimeter at a time until eventually, one succumbed to the incessant bursts. It fell, dropping its long weapon.
With the small attacking group neutralized, Boyd began searching for the next threat. Noland stood up in the doorway and scanned the distance.
“Thanks for helping out back there,” Boyd said. “Thanks for saving my ass.”
“I didn’t do it for you. You can fly, we’ll need you if we are going to get out of here, and you can shoot,” Noland said. “You’re pretty good in a fight. If you don’t mind me killing some of these Skarak. You won’t stop me killing these, will you?”
Boyd glanced over at Noland, looking down on him.
“If you are talking about the Union crew on that heavy,” Boyd said, “they weren’t attacking
us. They weren’t doing anything to us. All we needed to do was relieve them of the ice and go. There was no need to rough them up.”
Nolan shifted his position and swept his pulse pistol across the space outside the boarding ramp.
“What did it matter?” he shrugged. “The captain told you to kill them anyway.”
And Boyd had considered it, briefly. He was grateful in the end that the captain had ordered him to do it and that Noland had been required elsewhere. Noland would have gleefully murdered the crew. Boyd couldn’t do it. He had quickly set his pulse pistol to its low yield setting and delivered non-critical shots to each of the terrified crew. They would wake up with terrible headaches, but they would wake up.
Captain Poledri spoke over the group channel.
“Come on, Thresh, give me some power. Let’s get off this kravin’ rock. I’ve got nothing on navigation. Weapons are still offline. Just give me a little something to the drive and we can get out of here.”
“I can’t figure it out,” Thresh said. “Everything seems fine. I just can’t work out why there’s no power. The reactor just won’t respond. The feed and distributers are primed, all conduits are live. I scrubbed the core nodes myself just the other day.”
“No need to give me the details, Thresh, just give me some power!”
A group of three Skarak fighter craft came swooping toward the Fist, spitting out blue fireballs as they came. The Skarak fire slammed into the ship nearest to the Fist in a white, exploding flash, tearing up the surface of the moon. The fighter craft peeled off at the last moment, the last blast of blue fire slamming into the ground just in front of the boarding ramp.
Fragments of rock were blasted up the boarding ramp by the impact of the fireballs. Boyd turned away and brought his arm up to protect himself. He stepped back inside the Fist before turning around and taking his position again. The dust was still swirling and pebbles still clattering to the ground when he saw a fresh group of Skarak soldiers marching forward, their silver weapons aimed.
“I’ve got it,” Thresh said over the communication channel. “There is a low-energy dampening field coming from the Skarak ships. It’s interfering with all power. That’s why we lost communications briefly when they arrived. The Skarak warship must be flooding the area with the field and cancelling out all power transfer conduits, but I think I have it all worked out now. I just need to reset some systems and run a low-power stream through all cores, and we’ll be ready to go.”
Blue Star Marine Boxed Set Page 18
