It did not make it any more pleasant.
Spock moved his hands to his temples. The reflex was far from helpful to his concentration, given the size of his covered fingers. They had not seen Kormagan again after that day on the training floor; Spock understood from Baladon that her domain extended to all five carriers, as well as the processing vessel and multiple support ships. He had spotted other members of Enterprise’s crew, dispersed among the other squads aboard the processing ship. He had counted seventeen, himself included—but had no idea whether he had encountered everyone. They seemed healthy, if just as bewildered as Spock’s companions were.
The problem was, he had not seen most of them in some time. After a few days in training, Spock and his group had been marched—there was not a more accurate way to describe a process in which one’s legs walked against one’s will—aboard Combat Module Carrier 539-Aloga, reputed to be Kormagan’s flagship. Their squad had been assigned to Aloga-Five, the modular troop transport they were in now. Nowhere in between had Spock seen any of the other Enterprise captives, save Connolly and Ghalka. Baladon, who was always willing to answer when he thought his words could cause unhappiness, had suggested they could be on Kormagan’s other ships or possibly traded to some other wave.
If the latter, Spock wondered, how would we ever find them?
Navigational thrusters sent a horrid creak through the ship. Another black-shouldered warrior entered—this one with an identifier light shining ruby-red. The unmasked being’s hairy orange face marked him as belonging to one of the more common species within the Boundless—and his armor markings made him the red squad subaltern. He greeted Baladon. “How’s command treating you, Greensub?”
“We’ll see after today, Redsub.” Baladon cast a leering eye toward his teammates. “My curse in life is to bear the failings of others.”
“You’ll live.”
“I’m surprised that you’re alive. I thought you did a recon this morning.”
“We did. I lost one on the way out. One of your kind.”
“I know who you mean,” Baladon said. “That was Garnam. A consummate oaf. It always surprised me he lived past birth.”
“Yeah, no great loss.”
“So the Rengru know we are coming.”
“They always know we’re coming.” The subaltern looked to Baladon’s troops. “Listen, I’ve got a slot to fill.”
“You want one of these?” Baladon laughed. “Rookies, all. They haven’t seen a thing.”
“A body’s better than nothing. What’ll you take?”
Baladon’s eyes focused on one of the weapons affixed to Redsub’s armor. “I like that assault cannon.”
“The Ripper? For one of them? You’re crazy.”
“And you’re a trooper short—and we’re about to go in.”
The subaltern listened to the straining of the transport and growled. “All right. But I get to pick.”
“Not a chance, my friend—not when the store is about to close.” Baladon looked over to his squad. “You there. Andorian!”
Ghalka looked up, broken from her fretful haze. “What’s happening?”
Spock fixed his eyes on Baladon. “What do you intend?”
“It’s a deal,” Baladon said. He spoke into the mic before him. “Transfer personnel, Aloga-Five-Green-Five, to same, Red.”
“Accept transfer,” the other subaltern said, and the light on Ghalka’s shoulder assembly went from green to red. Redsub passed the weapon to Baladon. “Have fun.”
Ghalka couldn’t see the light directly given its position on her armor, but she could see its glow—especially when she brought her hand up before her to block it. Her eyes widened as she saw the changed color. “Spock, what’s going on?”
Spock’s eyebrows lowered. “Baladon has traded you. For a gun.”
“For what?” Connolly erupted. “What, no draft pick to be named later?”
“Stow that nonsense,” Baladon said, admiring the weapon. “Or I’ll throw you in for free.”
“Sorry, pal,” the Red Squad subaltern said. “We’re full up. But maybe soon.” He pointed to Ghalka. “Come on, Red-Five.”
Ghalka jerked upward from where she was leaning and lurched into motion. “No!”
Connolly and Spock reached for her, but Baladon barred the way. “Stay put. Either the surveillance tech on the deck above can stop you, or I will.”
The two Starfleet officers could only watch as Ghalka followed her new leader out, objecting all the way. “We will see you again,” Spock said, unsure of how he might make good on the promise. He felt as if he had to say something.
A klaxon sounded—and at the same moment, the transport banked. “That’s us,” Baladon said to his squad, now down to three. “This is Shivane, a Rengru forward depot. Destroy everything that moves. That’s it.” Baladon made purposefully for his drop alcove.
“That’s it?” Connolly gawked as Baladon stepped onto the sealed trapdoor. “We don’t even know what kind of environment we’re going into.”
“We’re in a higher radiation zone, so keep your headgear deployed. Beyond that, these units can handle anything.”
“Except whatever hit that guy that Ghalka’s replacing!”
Spock spoke firmly. “Baladon, I will not attack someone who is not my enemy.”
“Then I’ll have two openings to fill,” Baladon said, disgusted. “The Rengru do not care about your morals, Vulcan. Now button up and get into position before I have to walk you there myself!” Baladon’s angry face disappeared behind his reactivated headgear.
Spock watched Malce walk, hypnotized, into the Green-3 drop chute alcove. Connolly looked at Spock, rattled. “Tell me you’ve thought of something. A way out of this—anything.”
“I have not. Perhaps we will find a way below.” With that, Spock stepped onto the plating assigned to him.
Hearing the rumbling grow thunderous outside, Connolly reluctantly went to his own spot. “Are we going to be okay?”
Spock did not respond. “Insufficient information” felt unsatisfactory, even to him.
21
* * *
Rengru Depot
Shivane
Evan Connolly’s Starfleet career, an ex-lover had once said, resembled the sport that so fascinated him: years of training followed by a lot of standing around, waiting for something to happen. The words had been spoken in unkindness—and were, he thought, unfair to baseball. But only to the game: about his work, it rang true. A specialist in planetary gravimetrics didn’t have a lot to do until they actually got someplace—and as nearly happened at Susquatane, he didn’t always get to leave the ship even then. He longed to hit the dirt at every opportunity.
Twenty seconds on Shivane gave him a sudden determination to never leave the confines of a starship again. There had been no ports on the troop module for passengers to see where they were; Connolly now understood that to be a right and sensible decision. The sky alone was an abomination: a cacophony of nebular gases, nauseating in color. It served as backdrop to more than a dozen combat modules landing or leaving—and a variety of other Boundless fliers of a kind he hadn’t seen before.
Shivane itself, meanwhile, was a filthy sponge. What passed for “ground” was a fetid mat of slick moss that gushed oils with the least provocation. Connolly and his teammates had descended to the surface using their battlesuits’ jetpacks, but even controlled landings couldn’t keep them from sinking knee-deep. Further—and far more alarming—was that the ground responded to their jet exhaust by catching fire. It posed no threat to his armor, and so for a long moment, Connolly simply stood, wondering what the proper response was to standing in fire.
Out of earshot, Baladon called over his comm linkage to the team: “Quit daydreaming. Form up!”
Throwing up seemed more appropriate to Connolly—and he could hear that was exactly what Malce was doing. The Antaran had been the first to spot their destination, the Rengru depot, close to the horizon. Multiple dark str
uctures huddled in a half-kilometer-wide circular area, covered by a dome of magnetic shielding that appeared in red on his headgear’s visual interface. At regular intervals outside its circumference were five raised openings into the ground, dark maws that led into tunnels beneath the protective shield. Surrounding the portals were gun emplacements, firing disruptor bolts at the Boundless ships.
Connolly looked up to see several hits being scored, blasts deflected by the troop transports’ shields. The oddball Boundless vehicles were in play now; gunship and bomber modules, according to the text that appeared on his interface when he looked at them. The vehicles dropped ordnance near the Rengru cannons in an attempt to cover the landings.
“Lieutenant!” Spock called out, pointing to a descending transport whose markings both of them had seen before on Susquatane. As then, Boundless troops debarked from meters in the air—also setting the spongy moss on fire as they landed. One, however, acted differently. Kormagan, distinctive in her older armor, triggered her jetpack again until she hovered just above the flames. Then she unleashed flames of her own—a cauterizing chemical spray from a weapon attached to her armor. Within seconds, she had burned a dry crater within the morass.
“Follow the lead!” Baladon pointed to one of the weapons protruding from his backpack gear. “Deploy Agent Urdoh-Forty, triple strength!”
Connolly saw the same instructions appear in text on his interface. He reached over his shoulder with his right hand—and felt the proper weapon leap into his hand. Some caddy, he thought, pulling the hose-connected sprayer forward and pointing it. Easy enough!
But while Connolly had been taught to use his jetpack on the processing vessel, he hadn’t been much in the mood to learn anything else, including how to hover. Thus, his attempt to replicate Kormagan’s maneuver sent him spinning in the air, spraying chemical fire wildly before pitching back into the guck. The flaming reagent, disliking close contact with its target, caused the tool to explode in Connolly’s hands. A loud clang announced ejection of the remainder of the chemical canister from his gear. Dazed, Connolly found himself on armored hands and knees in a burnt-out pit of his own making.
Baladon looked down into the hole at him. “Are you sure we’re not related?”
“I didn’t know how to—”
“Never mind! Get out of there!”
Determined not to try the jetpack again, Connolly clambered up the charred and smoking bramble walls. Doing so with more than a hundred kilos of extra mass was no easy chore even with mechanical assistance, but after repeated tries, he was back on the surface. Spock had burnt a proper shoulder-deep foxhole, he saw; Connolly made for it and entered.
Before he could say anything, Kormagan transmitted. “All squads from Dezik and Krall, infiltrate opening and destroy depot shield. Aloga and Vesht squads, provide fire support and prepare to reinforce!”
Warriors from Kormagan’s other carriers charged—and Connolly could see in his interface that they had glowing personal deflector shields of their own, protecting them as they moved forward. I have to figure out how to turn that feature on, he thought. Something was also happening above: the Boundless gunships were firing frenetically, trying to protect the warriors on the move.
That was when Connolly saw the black opening to the depot grow cloudy, and then white with movement.
“The Rengru,” Spock said.
“I don’t see—”
“Your armor has telescopic capabilities. Focus your eyes and use vocal commands to enhance.”
Connolly did—and wished he hadn’t. The faraway “cloud” was a stampede. Countless creatures, alabaster white, exploded from the tunnel onto the grounds before the depot. They bounded, twisted, and ran, seeming to take new shapes as they went, the wretched soil no impediment to them at all.
They were mesmerizing. “It’s somewhere between a trilobite and a crustacean,” he said. “If they grew three meters long.”
“The Japanese spider crab does,” Spock said. “But your comparison is apt. The Rengru do almost appear arthropoidal.” Spock seemed steps ahead in his observations of the creatures, still distant. “Exoskeletons with multiple body segments and paired jointed appendages. Shielded carapace, also jointed, running the length of the body and topped with a crown. Robust motor abilities, almost protean in movement.”
You forgot “scary as hell,” Connolly thought. Some internal musculature within the Rengru’s long limbs allowed each one to move independently and be used for support. As he increased magnification, he realized the many limbs were themselves multijointed and prehensile, miniature versions of the Rengru body plan. And they, too, had smaller limbs at their tips. “Fractals in action,” he mumbled.
“Indeed. Observe, north of the gateway.” There, Connolly saw something he hadn’t noticed before: the anti–air battery on that side had several Rengru perched on it, manipulating it. “Here as elsewhere,” Spock said, “fine motor skills are nearly a prerequisite for a spacefaring society.”
They didn’t look like they had any society at all to Connolly. Mesmerized by the sight, without thinking, he drew his disruptor rifle from his gear.
“They are highly intelligent,” Spock said. “I see them reacting as a group. They must be transmitting information to one another.”
Connolly wasn’t interested. “Spock, I think we’d better—”
“Rengru!”
“Spock?” Snapped from his trance, Connolly looked up to see that Spock had jetted out of the depression and onto the surface. “Spock, get down!”
The Vulcan stood with his weapon stowed, his hands out. Connolly heard him over his comm system. “Rengru, if you can hear this broadcast: I am Lieutenant Spock, of the United Federation of Planets. I wish to communicate!”
22
* * *
Rengru Depot
Shivane
“I was delivered here by your enemy,” Spock broadcast, “but I am not your enemy. I do not wish combat.”
An answer came in the form of a nearby explosion. “They do wish combat!” Connolly called out. Rengru guns opened up on newcomers to the scene: Boundless land vehicles being disgorged from one of the specialized transport modules. Across the blasted fens, Kormagan issued a command to them to move out—just in time for the Rengru cannon to find its mark. Shrapnel rained down, causing Spock to dive back for cover.
“Shivane sucks,” Connolly said, covering his head despite the fact that it was already armored.
If Spock had a rejoinder, it was lost in the screams coming over the comm. The squads from Dezik and Krall had used their disruptors to clear some of the swarm blocking their approach to the tunnel opening, but several individual Rengru had gotten through. One had leapt upon a Boundless warrior whose shields had evidently failed him, using its limbs to wrap around the unfortunate fighter. The warrior writhed, trying to get free—
“Breach! Breach! Dezik-One-Blue-Two!” warned an automated voice—and a black “X” blinked, superimposed, over the struggling pair.
“This is Dezik-One Bluesub,” called out a frantic warrior. “Purge protocol engaged!”
At once, the nearby Boundless fighters turned, robotically, and unloaded their weapons on the Rengru and its victim. After a couple of seconds, something in the warrior’s armor reacted, producing a colossal explosion that immolated both the wearer and the Rengru. The Boundless warriors then appeared to regain control of their bodies and continued fighting.
“We’ve got self-destructs!” Connolly said. “We’re walking bombs!”
Spock didn’t sound so certain. “There must be some fear of pathogens, enough that they systemically overrode the protections against friendly fire.”
“Spock, they killed their own! They were made to kill their own!”
“I did not say I approved, Lieutenant.”
“You two, step up!” To the left, Spock and Connolly saw Baladon emerge from his makeshift bunker. “We go next!”
Connolly’s eyes bugged. “Go where?”
There was no answer, because Baladon had already clambered into another depression—and a second later, Connolly saw another Boundless warrior scramble out. As the armored figure broke into a run, Baladon emerged from the hole and yelled, “You’re running the wrong way, you imbecile!”
Spock and Connolly looked at one another. Malce!
The Antaran had buried himself in a pit at the start of the action, and was now running as fast as his mechanical legs could take him toward the drop zone. It seemed like the right idea to Connolly—but not Baladon, who broadcast an alert to the Boundless’s watchers in the air. “Specter, specter. Aloga-Five-Green-Three—turn him around!”
At once, Malce’s jetpack ignited, lifting him into midair. Rotating there, he hit the ground and ran back toward the fray, no longer in control of his extremities. “Help me!”
“Point your damn weapon!” Baladon yelled. When Connolly and Spock climbed out of their crater and began to move to head off Malce, Baladon pointed at them. “Do you want to be next?”
“Baladon, look out!” Spock yelled.
The distraction had proved destructive for Baladon. Two Rengru, having broken loose from the scrum outside the gateway, charged the Lurian, one striking low with its hardened carapace, the other high. Surprised, Baladon lost his footing in the moss and staggered. “Get off !”
Spock, who had not drawn his weapon in the entire engagement, did so now. He fired a disruptor blast that flashed off Baladon’s armor, temporarily knocking the attacking Rengru off. Then he bolted toward the group. Connolly was unwilling to join in the rescue, but a nearby blast got him moving.
“We must prevent a breach,” Spock yelled, arriving at the fray, “or we will be forced to kill him!”
Connolly wondered why Spock would want to save Baladon after what he’d just done to Malce—but the subaltern’s howls of horror moved him to action as well.
“No disruptors this close!” Spock called, drawing a different weapon from his arsenal. A powerful sonic blast emanated from it, knocking the two Rengru off Baladon’s prone form. Connolly found his own device and used it in unison with Spock’s, the shrieking waves forcing the squirming Rengru back.
The Enterprise War Page 11
