by PP Corcoran
* * *
The elevator doors opened, and Loc led his squad of Jivool out onto Level 3. The passers-by only needed to take one look at the expressions on the faces of the bear-like Jivool and the laser rifles hanging from their shoulders to know they were trouble. Loc was already in a bad mood. The plan had been for two squads of Jivool from his HecSha cruiser to rendezvous with a third squad from the second cruiser. Loc’s squad and the one from the second cruiser, under squad leader Horal, would proceed to Level 3 and recover the data from the Flatar Deeral, while the remaining squad would secure the landing bay and the dropships. It came as no great surprise to Loc that Horal was late. Loc despised Horal, who had been selected as this mission’s leader even though he was junior. Loc supposed it helped that Horal’s uncle was the overall commander of the Jivool the HecSha had contracted for General Peepo’s attack against the Humans’ home planet. Attack, snorted Loc. The fabled Four Horsemen had run away, leaving only sniveling Human politicians to come crawling to the great Peepo and virtually beg her to rule their planet. With so little opposition, Loc had thought the contract would be reduced to becoming garrison troops.
When the orders came through to head to Ralla Station to secure some super-secret data from a Flatar information broker, Loc could not believe his luck. A big fat bonus and the chance to kill anything in his way. And now, with Horal delayed, the opportunity to make his rival look foolish too. Well, I’ll show that piece of Uilk dung that I can get the job done without him. Let’s see what your precious uncle has to say when I return with the prize we have come so far to retrieve.
Checking the station schematic on his slate, Loc set off in the direction of Deeral’s store, his squad of Jivool hot on his heels, pushing their way past anyone who failed to see them coming.
Following the curve of the corridor, it was only a couple minutes before the store entrance came into view. Loc stopped the squad as he checked the address against the one he had been given. The slate gave a confirmatory beep as he pressed his thumb down on the highlighted block number. Happy he had the correct address, Loc looked directly at the entrance to the store and was surprised to see two Humans skulking in the doorway. Something was not right here. The action of Loc unslinging his rifle alerted the other Jivool that something was wrong, and they all followed suit. The odd growl in the direction of anyone who cast their eyes toward the Jivool mercs had the desired effect of causing them to look and move away abruptly.
Loc centered his attention on the two Humans in the doorway. What the hell were they up to?
* * *
The entrance to Deeral’s store began to retract into the wall and the harrowing scream that emanated from within was like a physical thing. Alastair caught a brief glimpse of the Tortantula Zeorta’s massive, unmoving bulk just inside the doorway, and beyond, a tattered, bloodied figure that seemed to be standing in a pool of its own blood. Alastair barely recognized Deeral before the door slammed shut, causing Alastair to jump back. Still not sure what he had seen, it took Alastair a moment to register his slate was beeping for attention. Lifting the slate, Alastair’s eyebrows knitted in confusion. The slate was receiving a download, and based on the amount of time it was taking, it was a big one. A non-too gentle nudge from Tim alerted him to another problem.
“Incoming Jivool! And I think they’ve seen us—” The lead Jivool grunted something to his comrades, and laser rifles were unslung and charging handles slapped. “Correction, they have seen us, and they don’t look happy. Time to leave.”
Alastair slipped the slate back into his pocket while he eyed the approaching Jivool. “Yeah, we’ve been clocked. You got something to give them a warm welcome?” Alastair said as he retrieved his pistol.
Tim turned to him, effectively covering his hand movements, while a laser pistol came out of its shoulder holster and a small, dark canister appeared in his other hand. “Eyes,” Tim said simply, as he spun on his heel, throwing the small canister underhand to land square in the middle of the Jivool.
With a flash equivalent to staring into a powerful search light, the device exploded. The blinding, white light may have dazzled the Jivool mercs, but the little device wasn’t finished. A whine, so high pitched that it was beyond Human hearing, emanated from its tiny speakers. Originally designed in the 1970s, the flash bang grenade had been upgraded over the years and improved using alien tech. Before throwing the flash bang, Tim had used his pinplants to set it to be most effective against Jivool. The flash temporarily blinded the bear-like creatures, but the output from the grenade’s speakers was set to cause the Jivool to lose control of most of their bodily functions, cause temporary paralysis, and, in more extreme cases, unconsciousness and brain hemorrhages. The other alien and Human occupants in the corridor were only affected by the initial flash of incandescent light.
Uncovering their eyes, Alastair and Tim wasted no time. Many of the races in the corridor were suffering from the side effects of the flash bang, with the notable exception of a lone XenSha. The bipedal three-foot-tall alien used a series of tentacles which saw into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum; the visible spectrum light from the grenade barely affected him. All the same, he was hot-footing it out of the combat zone as quickly as his short legs would carry him. The XenSha were a merc race, but they hated hand-to-hand combat, much preferring drones to do their fighting for them.
Stepping among the moaning and groaning Jivool, the two Human mercs coldly and clinically dispatched each with a single shot to the head. Four ripping zips, like someone tearing cloth, from Alastair’s flechette pistol accompanied by four phizzes from Tim’s laser pistol silenced the Jivool merc squad forever. What may have seemed unusually callous to any onlooker was simple tactics to Alastair and Tim. Any Jivool they left alive was just another one who could join the fight against them when they recovered their senses, and with another eight heavily-armed bears between the Scorpions and their dropship, leaving an enemy alive was simply not an option.
Gruesome task completed, Alastair and Tim entered the elevator which would take them back to the docking level.
* * *
“Loc, answer me! Have you secured the package?” The comm unit in Horal’s hand hissed quietly. “Damn you to entropy, Loc!” Even with the admonishment, the comm unit remained eerily silent. Horal and his squad of Jivool mercs were meant to have arrived in the docking bay at the same time as Loc’s squad; however, the HecSha pilot had not received clearance from Ralla Traffic Control in time. Rather than ignore the station’s instructions, as Horal had urged him to do, the HecSha pilot had complied with Traffic Control’s instructions.
In his last communication, Loc had stated that he had arrived on Level 3 and was proceeding to the Flatar Deeral’s store; now the idiot was not answering the radio. Horal was getting an uneasy feeling about this. Ever since the Four Horsemen had supposedly fled from the far superior forces of General Peepo, Horal had an itch he just could not scratch. He had never personally had the honor of facing any Human mercenaries on the field of combat, but he had heard stories from those who had, and if these Humans were as tough as he had been led to believe, then it was hard to believe they would run away like the cowards they were being presented to the Galactic Union Tri-V audiences as.
Besides, what was so important to General Peepo that she would dispatch two HecSha cruisers and a company of Jivool to recover a single piece of data from one, lone Flatar, trading from a space station in a system that even Horal’s uncle had to look up in a Cartography Guild database? When Horal saw that three squads—twenty-four Jivool—had been assigned to this mission, and that he was in overall charge, instead of bursting with pride at being entrusted with command of so many men, Horal had wondered why it took twenty-four laser-rifle-armed Jivool to confront one Flatar. Even if that Flatar was undoubtedly accompanied by a Tortantula, they were still only two against twenty-four. Hence Horal’s insistence that one squad secured the dropships, their only method of withdrawal, and two squads went to the F
latar’s store. Now that whole plan was screwed up.
The radio hissed, but instead of it being Loc, it was Captain Po, the senior captain aboard the HecSha cruisers. “We have intercepted radio traffic on the station’s security frequency. They are reporting a fire fight has erupted on Level 3! Eight Jivool are dead, allegedly dispatched by—hold on, this cannot be correct—two Humans! What the hell is happening over there, Squad Leader Horal?”
Horal let out a silent curse. He desperately wanted to tell Po that Loc had gone off half-cocked, but now was not the time for recriminations. His mind raced to piece together a plan of action. Why had the Humans acted this way? Because they had the data, and Loc had tried to stop them. That was the only plausible explanation. OK then, the next question must be, where were they headed? Horal activated his link to Po.
“Captain, I believe the two Humans have what we are looking for. Has station security got a bead on them?”
“No. Nothing. From the intercepted radio traffic, it seems they have simply disappeared.”
Horal clenched his fists in frustration. Think! Think! Think! They must be headed somewhere, and the logical thing would be to a ship of some kind to get off the station as quickly as possible, and he was on the landing bay level. If he used the squad guarding his dropships, he had two squads at his disposal.
“Captain Po. I will take my squad clockwise and the other squad will go counterclockwise. We will search each landing bay until we find their ship, and, once we do, they will be trapped on the station. We will find them, and we will get that data back.”
“You better,” replied Po’s cold HecSha voice. “Because if you don’t, it will be you, not me, explaining to General Peepo why you didn’t. And General Peepo does not take kindly to being disappointed.”
The threat hung in the air as Horal rushed to give his new orders. Moments later, two squads of Jivool, out for blood, left the landing bay.
* * *
“Situation update, Okoro?” demanded First Sergeant Croll as he stalked back and forth in the cramped personnel bay of the dropship for the thousandth time in the past hour.
“My hack into the station security network is still holding. I can see the colonel and Captain Buchanan on the surveillance cameras, but as far as security is concerned the cameras are blank. The only problem is that security has locked down Level 3, Level 4, and the Docking Level, and they are conducting a level-by-level search for our guys. Looks like somebody has fingered them as the ones who took out the Jivool.”
“And, sooner or later, even those idiotic four-armed, no-brain Lumar are bound to stumble across the colonel.” Croll halted his pacing. “Show me where the colonel is now.” Immediately his outward persona changed to one easily recognizable as someone who was using his pinplants to access information. As far as Croll was concerned, he was now watching a live feed of the colonel and Buchanan mingling with crowds while making their way slowly back toward the landing bay, pausing at various retailers and stalls to keep up the pretense they were scavenging for parts. The ticker tape which was running along the bottom of the image told Croll the feed he was watching was from Level 4, the level below the landing bays. It looked like the colonel and Buchanan were heading for the emergency stairwell to avoid any uncomfortable confrontations with security.
“And what are the Jivool doing?”
A pause while the cyber warfare specialist reconfigured the system. “Oh, that’s not good,” said Okoro, flinging the feed across to Croll before he asked for it.
The bay, where only minutes before two squads of Jivool had been located, was now bare. Where the fuck had they gone? “Okoro, I need—” The image changed again, and this time it was split into two distinct screens. Both showed a squad of armed and obviously pissed off Jivool not taking no for an answer as they pushed their way into the landing bays, one after the other.
“I’d say they were looking for us, First Sergeant,” said Okoro.
“And I say, you are correct,” said Croll, with a wry grin. “You keep an eye on the colonel while I go and prepare a warm reception for our unwelcome guests.” Lifting his Gal 12, he wished he was in his CASPer instead of body armor. While it was good enough to stop most ballistic rounds or laser fire, that didn’t stop him wishing for more. Croll motioned for Jackson and Terhune to follow him. Without a word, the two troopers set aside the card game they had been using to pass the time and checked their weapons.
“Time to go hunting bear,” Croll said as he left the dropship with the two troopers.
* * *
“Get out of the way!” Squad Leader Nuill growled at the elSha dressed in the stupidest of purple who was, for being so small, making it difficult for Nuill to reach the bay door control pad with its constant running around between Nuill’s feet. After the third attempt to access the pad was blocked by the elSha’s bobbing head, Nuill lost his patience and back-handed the three-foot-tall lizard, sending it crashing into the side of the bay door where it slumped to the ground, dazed and with blood oozing from a long cut up the side of its thin neck where Nuill’s claw had caught it.
Ignoring the prostrate elSha, Nuill tapped in the code to open the bay doors, which responded by splitting apart and retracting into the roof and floor. Without waiting for the lower half of the door to fully retract, Nuill stepped into a bay, which was easily large enough to accommodate a dozen ships of moderate size. Immediately to his front was a pair small intersystem freighters with the markings of Ralla Station. Both were locked down and showed no sign of life. The only other ship in the bay was a dropship which looked the worse for wear. Must be from that frigate we noticed when we moved into parking orbit, thought Nuill. Something about it being ferried by a skeleton crew of elSha back to the yard for repair. The Jivool glanced back at the prone elSha by the bay door. A low moan escaped it as it started to regain consciousness. “Still alive then? Maybe next time you will remember to stay out of my way.” said Nuill over his shoulder.
Nuill was about to turn around, dismissing the dropship from the elSha frigate to go to the next docking bay, when movement in the dropship’s cockpit caught his eye. The shape was hard to distinguish in the poor lighting of the bay, but he could tell it was too big for an elSha. Nuill turned his head to look at his squad and saw that they were all still gathered around the bay door. The steady light from the corridor outside outlined them perfectly. Easy prey for anyone lurking in the bay. Movement from the top of the nearest locked down freighter was the only warning Nuill got, but it was enough to save him as a burst of semi-automatic rifle fire cut down three of his squad. Nuill rolled away from the kill zone, crashing into a heavy metal pallet, as the space where he had been a fraction of a second before was intersected by a burst of 7.62-millimeter rounds from Trooper Jackson’s Gal 12.
“Ambush!” screamed Nuill uselessly. If any of his squad hadn’t noticed by now, it was because they were dead or dying. Cursing loudly, Nuill fired off a couple bursts of his own. The coherent light from his laser rifle lashed the top of the Ralla freighter in the general location of where he had seen the muzzle flashes of one of the ambushers. Return fire battered the pallet, and he prayed the metal would hold as he tried to squeeze more of his enormous frame into its limited cover.
The sound of his opponent’s rifles filled his ears as the booming echoed around the docking bay. Keeping his head low, Nuill twisted until he could see across the open bay doors. In the light streaming through the still-open doors, he counted four of his squad down. Dead or wounded, they were effectively out of the fight. That left three of his squad unaccounted for. A sharp phizz from somewhere in the murky darkness told Nuill that at least one of his squad was still with him.
Another burst of rifle fire from his unseen enemy pummeled the pallet, and this time a round passed closer to his body than was comfortable. Whoever these people were, they had him pinned down, and Nuill was an experienced enough merc to know that in a fire fight, movement was life. If the rifleman who had him in his sights switch
ed to penetrator rounds, they would go through the metal of the pallet like it wasn’t there, and that would be the end of him. Nuill spared a glance toward the beckoning safety of the bay doors and the corridor beyond, weighing his chances of making the twenty feet or so dash. Even a half-blind K’kng could have cut him down before he made it halfway.
Nuill reached for his comm. If Horal could get his squad here before the unseen riflemen finished them off, then he had a chance. Nuill’s hand touched the place on his utility harness where the small device should be and found only empty space. Looking in horror, Nuill saw the comms unit lying four feet from him—it must have been dislodged when he dove for cover. A distinctly Jivool scream of pain came from the darkness off to his right, followed by an almost continuous stream of laser fire aimed high up one wall of the bay, with flashes of light as the laser rounds splashed off metal work. More laser fire was followed by a screeching sound as metal buckled and gave way under the near continuous impact of the high intensity laser. With a final wrenching sound, the metal gave way and, with ridiculous slowness in the lower gravity, fell the fifty feet to the bay’s deck. A single shot cut short a Jivool cry of victory. Despair filled Nuill as he gazed at the comms unit. How could the universe be so cruel as to put his only hope of survival so close, yet so far?
* * *
The bay doors leading out onto the corridor split open just as Croll was settling himself into position on the roof of the freighter. Jackson had center, nestled among a collection of raw ore containers which may as well have been a reinforced block house because no laser rifle was going to penetrate them. Terhune was the most exposed of the three Scorpions, as his area of the docking bay was completely free from anything which could be used as cover, so he selected to go for height.
