“Why would a cave system be protected with a camo shield?” Noland said. He raised his pulse pistol and fired another blast at the location that was still flickering, the white rocks appearing to shiver under the fire.
The crew from the ship adjacent to the Fist arrived, Skarak fire on their heels. They slowed and took up defensive positions, kneeling or standing, their weapons pointed at the Skarak threat running through the dust-filled landing zone.
“Put more fire on that camo shield,” Boyd said, his pulse rifle purring as it released a stream of rounds into the rock. “We can worry about the engineering later.”
With the entire group firing every available weapon into the rock, the shield grew weaker.
“We need to get the frequency right,” Thresh said. “If we put the pulse rounds on it with the right timing, it will disrupt the field further.”
More troopers joined the group standing out in the open with only the nearby ships for cover. They could see the flickering of the shield and soon were hammering pulse rounds into the target, desperate to free the entrance and escape the Skarak closing in.
“Stop firing,” Thresh said. “I need to take a look if we are going to bring down the field.”
The panic in the Faction was too great and Thresh’s request fell on ears deafened by the blast of pulse rounds striking the shield.
Boyd turned aside and accessed his holo-stage. The crews from all ships were bunched together as they came closer to the entrance. Soon, they would all be crushed under their own weight, pushed into the red Lake, or plucked off by Skarak soldiers.
“Form a perimeter,” Poledri said, pushing armed men to the edge of the area. “Let my engineer do her job. Fire on the Skarak, but watch out for the Faction members arriving. We don’t want to shoot them down thinking they are Skarak.”
As the fire on the camo shield ceased, Thresh was able to move forward and investigate. She pulled the shunt out of her holo-stage and waved it over the shield. Gathering data and analyzing it as it came in, she worked quickly. Finally stepping back, she drew her pistol.
“It’s Union tech. The same camo shielding they use on their ships. This is no cave system. This is a Union facility. It’s locked down. We’ll never get in.”
“You had better try, Thresh,” Poledri said. “We’re stuck out here now. Get the entrance open.”
“What about your frequency idea?” Boyd said. He crouched next to Thresh and Poledri, his pulse rifle sweeping arcs looking for targets. He spotted a Skarak in the distance and fired.
“It’s worth a try,” Poledri said as he shoved Thresh back toward the camouflaged entrance. “And you better hope she gets that shield down, Boyd.” Poledri fixed Boyd with a cold stare. “You brought us here. I’ll make sure you suffer before we all die if it comes to that.”
A fresh group of troopers and crew came running from one side with Skarak weapons fire slamming into the ground around them. One crewman turned to give fire with his pulse rifle only to be caught in the chest. The silhouette of the Skarak soldier lit up with the blasts from its weapon. It came under fire from a dozen Faction pulse rifles and vanished back into the dust, beaten back by the volley.
“They are running.” Noland said, standing up and stepping away from the tightly-packed group bristling with weapons. “They have enough. We fought them off. We can get back to our ships.”
Poledri grabbed Noland by the collar and yanked him back to the ground. “Or maybe they are just bunching us up together so they can pick us off more easily. Do you want to be the first one they take down?” Poledri snarled.
Boyd knew Poledri’s only concern was to have enough of the flight deck crew left to crew the Fist should they have a chance to escape. With so many Faction crew falling to the Skaraks, there would be no replacements available anywhere on the landing zone.
He looked over at Thresh and saw her scanning and re-scanning the area around the field. She pulled out power pack from a pulse pistol and set it down in a precise location before falling back.
“This is the best I can do,” Thresh said. “The power pack is set to deliver a staggered high-yield pulse. It might just weaken the field. I found a point in the shield where it’s buckled. It’s probably the weakest point. It’s our only chance.”
Boyd moved into the defensive perimeter and took position just behind the two nearest Faction troopers. He held his holo-stage in front of him, resting the pulse rifle on his arm. He made it look as if he was presenting arms ready to fire. He was cautious not to give away his true intentions as he tapped on the covert device and searched for any Union network in the area. Using his own personal Blue Star Marine identity codes, he sent a broad sweep request for a response.
This was dangerous. Surrounded by Faction and using his true identity, he could so easily be found out. The Skarak would not need to kill him. Any one of those around him would quite happily do the job.
Boyd had a hit. He located a sentry system operating around the Union bunkers. He requested access through the camo shield at the given coordinates.
The reply came back: access denied.
“Hurry up there, Thresh,” Poledri shouted. “I have a message from Kitzov. He will be here any moment. He is under heavy fire and wants to get those caves.”
Boyd accessed the sentry system and requested emergency access. He sent a hack code to the power system for a full-system shutdown.
Thresh shouted out. “Take cover. Pulse blast heading your way.”
Boyd needed to time this perfectly. He took over and waited for the pulse blast. It came in a sudden, white flash. Rock and dust thrown up by the exploding power cell punched out over the heads of the defensive perimeter, and Boyd hit his holo-stage to collapse the power system operating in the Union facility.
“Did it work?” Poledri said, turning toward the site of the blast where a small crater had been punched into the ground. The outcrop remained. He fired his pistol at the white rock, the image flickering under the pulse round. The shield was still operational.
Boyd looked nervously at his holo-stage, and then interface with the Union facility went offline. Boyd looked with eyes wide, suddenly filled with hope. He turned and fired himself. The pulse round slammed into the image of the rocks, and it shimmered then vanished to reveal a deep, dark tunnel leading into the moon crust.
“You did it,” Boyd said excitedly, knowing full well that it had been his efforts, not Thresh’s, who had brought down the camo shield.
“Fall back on the entrance,” Poledri said. “Tighten the perimeter. Kitzov will be here any second. Let him inside.”
Boyd scanned ahead. Faction troopers formed firing lines, holding back the few Skarak daring to come close. Why were they holding back? Boyd could not help but ask himself the question. He was not naturally pessimistic, but he had a bad feeling that the Skarak were not attacking because they had something different planned.
Movement in the dust nearby caught Boyd’s eye. He looked up and saw a group running, pulse rifles firing out to the sides.
It was Kitzov.
“Covering fire,” Poledri said, standing and firing off to the side to protect Kitzov and his group as they ran forward. Boyd climbed up onto one knee and positioned his rifle against his shoulder. He took careful aim, picking out Kitzov amongst a group. One well-placed pulse round and the Faction would crumble. One well-placed round now and Boyd would have his revenge. Kitzov was running to what he thought was sanctuary. With one shot, Boyd could send Kitzov running into oblivion.
A heavy pat on Boyd’s back knocked him off his aim.
“Well done, Boyd,” Poledri said. He kneeled next to his pilot, his rifle aimed to the distance, ready to fire. “I don’t know how you found that cave system, but if you hadn’t, we’d be finished. You’ve given us a fighting chance.”
Kitzov ran past, his well-armed troopers in neat uniforms running with him. A captain was standing at the now-open entrance, waving the leader inside. The moment Kitzov was safe,
the others began to run inside.
“Let’s go.” Poledri tapped Boyd on the arm and got to his feet. Rifle aimed, he moved backward, scanning for danger.
A captain was standing at the entrance and arranging a line of troopers to cover the retreat. They lay on the sharp gravel, rifles aimed out.
Then a barrage of Skarak fire came in, slamming into the ground in front of the troopers. They returned fire, concentrating in the direction of the incoming fire.
Boyd scurried back toward the opening. He saw Noland run inside closely followed by Poledri. Thresh was scurrying over the ground on her elbows and knees, staying under the troopers’ defensive fire.
Then Boyd made a dash for the sanctuary of the tunnels only a few meters away. Most Faction crew was already inside and now the troopers were organizing an orderly withdrawal. Boyd ran, not wanting to be the last left outside with Skarak ships overhead and their soldiers ranging over the landing zone.
Boyd saw one trooper look into the sky. He began moving backward, eyes fixed on the sky. Boyd looked up and saw dark spots across the orange expanse.
“More Skarak?” a trooper said as he raised his rifle to zoom in on the dark specks that were growing larger by the moment as they dropped to the surface.
Boyd looked up and saw right away that these were not falling in the same controlled way that the Skarak soldiers had. They appeared to be tumbling as they fell. Just as he reached the entrance to the tunnel, something slammed into the ground a few meters away. The dust kicked up off the surface obscured the impact site, but Boyd saw something moving. It was clumsy, not balanced and strong like a Skarak soldier. It came forward in a fumbling motion, dropping to the deck and clambering forward.
Then another hit, and another, and soon, large, dark shapes were raining all around the entrance to the tunnel. Scanning into the dust with his pulse rifle targeting, Boyd could make out the shape—the twisted, broken shape of a human being.
Another fell just in front of Boyd. Clearly a woman, half-naked. Blood splattered across the sharp stones as she hit.
Boyd stepped back, mouth open in horror. Were the Skarak throwing corpses at them now?
Then the woman moved, twitching at first then clambering to her feet. There was a broken bone protruding from her leg. She stumbled when the broken bone was unable to take her weight. But on she came, struggling and scrambling forward over blood-soaked ground with smashed bones.
Boyd saw a Faction trooper insignia on the woman’s tattered jacket. She was a member of the Silence’s company, one of Kitzov’s own.
And through the dust they came. More and more, lurching forward, the dead, broken bodies of the captured.
Boyd blasted at the nearest. The pulse rounds ripped through her body and she fell to the ground. Still, as the dead should be.
Boyd was grabbed and pulled back into the tunnel entrance, into the dark, while outside came the sounds of bodies slamming into the ground by the dozen.
10
“What were they?” a trooper asked through heaving breaths as they ran along the dark corridor. The way was only lit by a pulse rifle flashlight that danced across the long corridor.
“I saw one of the Silence crew,” Boyd said, falling in step with the trooper.
“I saw some flight deck crew and the captain from the Bleak Hunger. I was on that ship until a few weeks ago when I was drafted to the Silence.”
“When did you last see them?” Boyd asked.
“About an hour ago eating some pickled hast and arguing about Curveball.”
Boyd moved into the corridor. His scan showed an opening a few meters ahead. The corridor entrance opened into a control room, large enough for many of the defenders. Beyond were further corridors leading to living quarters for the outpost.
The Union insignia on the walls and on much of the control room furniture was being methodically defaced by Faction troopers, daubing their own Faction designs over them. Some were carving them out with their electron blades, cutting out the insignia that meant repression to them.
Boyd thought it laughable that these Faction people would be wasting their time on this when an army of alien soldiers stood outside the complex.
The distant sound of pulse fire echoed back from the entrance where a strong defensive position was holding the Skarak back.
“Barricades!” Boyd shouted, pulling a tall stool away from a wall.
“We need to block up the corridor to hold them back,” Boyd said, grabbing another of the stools.
A group of captains were gathered in the center of the control room with Kitzov among them. Boyd looked over at him. Kitzov looked back.
“Yes, listen, friends. We need to hold back the enemy. Help that man build up our defenses.”
Before Kitzov had finished speaking, a dozen flight deck crew from half a dozen raiders were dragging chairs, shelves, and anything else they could move away from the control room and toward the corridor. Boyd directed them toward the sounds of rifle fire and shouts of defenders.
The defenders were falling back and getting nearer to the control room when Boyd picked the spot for the barricade.
Thresh came running along the corridor leading a group of five troopers. They were carrying a large, heavy unit clearly pulled out of the control room.
“Go and call back the defenders!” Thresh shouted at Boyd as she directed the troopers. “I’ve got a field generator. I should be able to rig it to create stability field to hold this barricade together.”
Boyd clambered over the ramshackle barricade of desks and chairs and ran toward the sounds of battle. The opening to the complex was around a slight bend, and soon Boyd could see the dull orange light of Extremis in the sky. Skarak weapons fire poured into the tunnel, exploding in blue energy bolts that rapidly reduced to fine strands of white lightning.
“Fall back!” Boyd called out. A few troopers were still holding the line, but many more were lying dead. And in the tunnel, silhouetted by the orange glow, came a staggering, stuttering mass of broken bodies. Some walked upright, their arms twisted unnaturally. Heads on snapped necks, torsos smashed.
Boyd recognized one large man as one of the prizefighters he had seen when he first arrived at the landing zone.
One of the troopers stood as the Skarak weapons fire subsided. He stepped forward, peering into the gloom.
“Dani?”
Boyd watched the trooper walk forward, calling as he went.
“Dani, I saw you taken by a Skarak. Krav it all, I thought we’d lost you. Come on, buddy.”
Boyd looked at the man the trooper was calling Dani. His ankle was snapped, the foot twisted ninety degrees outward. Dani walked on his ankle with a limping, stumbling gait, leaving bloody footprints as he went.
Boyd raised his rifle and zoomed in on him. He saw that the man’s jaw was hanging loose, snapped at one side. He had a vacant look in eyes so bloodshot, that they were totally red.
“Get back, trooper. That’s not your friend anymore. The Skarak have got inside his head.”
Boyd waited a moment for the trooper to respond.
“Well then, we are going to get the Skarak out of his head,” the trooper said as he walked toward his friend.
“He’s gone. Trust me,” Boyd said. He watched as more bodies came lumbering forward, many so broken they could only crawl, sliding across the ground and leaving a bloody slick behind them. The faster ones clambered over the slower ones, but all were looking forward, toward the defenders with their bloodshot eyes.
As the trooper reached out for his friend, his friend reached out for him. Then the man called Dani clamped his arms around the trooper and began to pull him back.
“No, Dan,” the trooper said. “This way. Let’s get you to a doc. That foot looks bad.”
But Dani kept pulling, and then another lumbering, broken body clamped on to the defender and pulled.
Boyd took aim and shot Dani in the head. The man toppled and fell backward to be trampled under the advancing feet
of more lumbering bodies.
The trooper staggered back as more hands reached out for him. He leveled his pulse rifle and opened fire, rounds blasting into the relentless tide of broken bodies.
At the far end of the corridor, in the orange light, a Skarak soldier stood with broken human bodies moving around it, heading into the tunnel and toward Boyd.
“Fall back. Back to the barricades. You can’t help them now. We have to help the survivors. Kitzov orders it.”
At the name Kitzov, the troopers began to fall back. Soon they were around the gentle curve and Boyd could see the barricades that had been hastily erected by the troopers. Behind it, on the safe side, Thresh was frantically waving Boyd to her.
“Boyd, let’s go.”
He let the troopers clamber over the barricade, glancing nervously over his shoulder. The shadows of the crawling, lurching bodies flickered on the walls. With the last of the defenders over the barricade, Boyd followed, with the sounds of rasping breaths from broken bodies on the back of his neck.
The moment he dropped to the safe side of the barricade, Thresh activated the stability field. The hastily-assembled pile of office furniture was pressed into a tighter assemblage as the field kicked in. Slowly, the material settled into a tightly packed yet still ramshackle arrangement. There were plenty of gaps in the barricade—just enough to slip a rifle muzzle through.
Soon, the mass of broken bodies lumbered up to the barricade, and the defenders fell back in horror at the sight.
Boyd glanced over at Thresh. Her wall was about to face its first test. She looked confident, even a little excited, to see her contraption at work.
The bodies came up against the blockage and stopped. As more pressed forward, the front rank was pressed tight up against the barricade. Thresh checked the power readings on the field generator and appeared pleased with the findings.
“It’s holding.”
Blue Star Marine Boxed Set Page 20
