Dark World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 9), page 31
“Enemy ships…?” I asked, talking to myself. There was no one on the deck. They’d all run off to take defensive combat positions.
Peering at the ships, I came to realize it was more than a squadron or a wing—it was a fleet. There had to be fifty ships—no, seventy! They were still rising up, circling into view over Dark World’s horizon.
The configuration of the vessels was strange to me. They weren’t rounded or delta-winged. They resembled flying parallelograms. Oblong bricks of metal with a forward-leaning cant to the prow. In my opinion, they were sort of mean-looking.
Right off, I knew what I had to be looking at.
“Rigel’s fleet…” I said, stunned.
I didn’t know what to do. Heart pounding, I looked at the bent, crushed buzzer which I’d picked up, then glanced at the jump-gate, which still glimmered nearby.
I thought about trying to contact Turov or Deech—but I realized there wasn’t time. In fact, they probably wouldn’t even care about what was happening back on Dark World at this point.
Flashes began outside, in space. They were silent, but I could tell the approaching ships were firing at us.
Missiles? Railgun darts?
I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t think it mattered. We were outnumbered seventy—no, make that more like a hundred to one. More were still rising up out over the planet’s purple horizon.
Coming to a sudden decision, I spun around and launched myself toward the jump-gate.
At that moment, the world jumped. The deck came right up and smacked me in the face.
For a second, I thought the ship had taken a hit—but no, I knew that sound, that kick—they’d fired the broadsides.
Sixteen fusion shells were away, traveling with fantastic speeds to meet the approaching fleet. I could see them streaking away from our ship toward the approaching fleet.
Nostrum was designed along the lines of an Imperial warship. Possibly, Earth had built her that way because we knew it best. The functionality of the ship was more than that of a transport, it was technically a dreadnought-class vessel.
Imperial ships were built to operate in formations of similar ships. They didn’t have much in the way of small, independent or defensive armament. They were built to either bombard a planet, or stand in line with a thousand others and blast away in unison.
As a result, Nostrum had one single, hard punch in her, and she’d just sent it hurtling toward the Rigellians.
I got up to my knees and did a scrambling crawl toward the jump-gate.
Why? Partly, to keep on breathing for another few minutes. But it wasn’t just that. A ground trooper was as useless as a one-inch cock in a space battle. I much preferred to be on solid ground, where my rifle at least had a chance to affect the outcome of events.
Getting to my hands and knees, I half-crawled, half-fell toward the gateway.
In the last instant, my rolling eyes caught a silent gush of white incandescence. Out there in space, we’d nailed one of the enemy vessels.
Then, I found myself pitching and rolling in the dirt. My right boot was smoking, and I trailed it behind me.
“McGill!” Natasha called out, grabbing me and rolling me onto my back. “What did you do?”
I held up her buzzer, crushed to a nearly unrecognizable state.
“I ran into a little trouble,” I said.
She grabbed up the buzzer. She examined it while growling, then slapped me a hard one. It was a good thing I was wearing a helmet, as she only managed a glancing blow.
“What’d you do? Step on it?”
“Yep—but listen to me.”
I told her what I’d seen. She stared, and although she didn’t want to believe me, I could tell by her eyes that she did.
Graves came to see what the ruckus was about before I was done, and I showed him my tapper video. I’d been wise enough to walk through to Nostrum with my suit cameras rolling just in case there was a misunderstanding.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “How do you make these things happen, McGill?”
“What? Me?”
He shook his head and waved me off. He walked away, thinking hard.
When he spun back on one heel, the light of determination had returned to his face.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re going to execute our mission regardless.”
“Uh…” I said. “I think it does kind of matter, sir. Nostrum appears to have just been destroyed. That means no commanders. No revival machines. Two legions, wiped.”
He came close and glared up at me. “Is that all you think about? Your next squalid life? Earth is in a war out here—a real war. An interstellar war.”
“Yes sir,” I agreed, “but I don’t think getting ourselves permed as fast as possible is our best course of action at this point.”
“Fortunately, as the senior officer present, I’m in command. You’ll follow my orders.”
I heaved a sigh. For a few seconds, I thought about killing him on the spot. I could probably do it—but I didn’t want to.
Graves probably knew what I was thinking. He stared back at me, watching my eyes, daring me to do something.
“Primus,” I said. “I think our best course would be to warn Earth, if at all possible.”
He got into my face. “Agreed—if it was possible, which it’s not. Our second best option—maybe even first in my estimation—is to complete our mission as assigned.”
“A few thousand Vulbites more or less isn’t going to change the outcome of this—”
“McGill, I know you’ve got a soft spot for aliens. I don’t get it. Almost no one does. Under different circumstances, I might even find it commendable. But today, right here and now, I need to know if you’re up to following my orders.”
He had his hand on his sidearm. When Graves did that, he wasn’t fooling around. He meant business, and he didn’t care if a disobedient soldier such as myself was merely inconvenienced by a trip through a revival machine—or permed.
“All right, sir,” I said. “I came back to die with my troops. I’m willing to do so.”
“Good to hear it. Now, get over there with the weaponeers. I’m accelerating our schedule. The heavies will rush the egg chamber, and one minute after they engage the defenders in a firefight, you’ll blast your way down and lead a secondary attack on their flank.”
“Got it, Primus.”
“McGill, one more thing—take out the queen first. Ignore the enemy flank. Just kill the target. If we all die here, well, we’ll have at least completed our mission. Clear?”
“Yessir! She’s as good as dead!”
He stomped off and gathered a few hundred men to make the rush down a long, dusty, curving ramp.
I moved toward the weaponeers, but Natasha stopped me with a gentle touch.
“James? I—I think I might be able to do something.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You know—about getting a message through to Earth.”
I blinked twice. “Really? How?”
“Can’t explain now. I just thought I’d tell you. I’ll be working on it.”
My face split into a grin. I grabbed her shoulder, but I didn’t squeeze. I didn’t want to hurt her.
“That makes this easier,” I told her. “Go for it, girl. If anyone can come up with a tech trick it’s you.”
I meant all that I’d said—but I didn’t believe her. She was probably just trying to make me feel better.
Natasha was like that, always thinking of others. She wanted me to have hope, so I acted like I had it.
But it was all horseshit.
-45-
Graves led his attack right on time. Every armored troop he had rushed down a dirty ramp into the darkness. They were a hundred-plus strong—but it didn’t seem like nearly enough.
Down below, a firefight broke out right away. The bugs were waiting for us, of course. They’d set up ambushes using stealth suits, and when that failed, they rushed the human troops by the hundreds.
To make matters worse, the Vulbites guarding the egg chamber seemed to be of a different breed. Mostly, they were bigger. They were grand-daddy Vulbites, the size of draft horses in some cases.
When a thousand-pound insect charges into you, you damn-well know you’ve been tackled. I watched the vid feed of the action below on my tapper, and even though it was hard to make out details, things looked pretty bleak.
Darkness, dust, screams—utter chaos reigned. Pinchers like twin curved swords clashed and screeched on armor. Legs were pulled off, heads gushed blood then the struggles ceased, and they moved on to catch another legionnaire.
Plenty of Vulbites died as well—but not enough to change the math. We were outnumbered and out-massed.
Ignoring these realities, I watched the counter I’d set up. One minute after the fight had begun, I signaled the weaponeers.
The charges popped like flash-bangs, and dust obscured everything. Long before it had cleared, I rushed into the midst of it all and fell, more than jumped, into a hole.
Crashing down heavily into the chamber below, I scrambled to get out of the way. More troops were coming down, one every second, and they’d trample me if I didn’t move my tail.
Rolling, climbing to my feet, and then throwing myself down behind the first cover I saw, I tried to get my bearings.
The main fight wasn’t far off—only fifty meters away to my left. There was so much dust, darkness and confusion I could only see the blazing guns and force-blades. The Vulbites seemed to be out of sophisticated weaponry, but they didn’t need much of that down here in their lair.
Where was the queen? That was my biggest thought. Twisting, peering, I saw a pile of white, crystalline objects. They were stacked up, like diamonds the size of footballs. Could those be the eggs? They had to be.
Beyond the egg pile, off to the rear of the chamber, something big stirred.
When I say big, I mean bigger than an elephant. Bigger than a blue whale, even.
Segmented, brown and shiny, the carapace rippled revealing a long, long body. It—no, she—made me think of tales of dragons found in the depths of the earth. If anything had ever resembled a dragon in its lair, it was the Vulbite queen.
My twin stabbing chest lights ran up the length of the beast to the head, which was a good three meters above the floor of the chamber. Sensing the light, the head swung in my direction.
Black, intelligent eyes hove into view. She saw me. I sensed it, and I knew it was true.
My first move was to heave a grav-grenade at the monster. It flipped and landed under the mid-section. A moment later, a blue, pulsing flash exploded. Grabbing up every pebble and fragment of rock, even the sand grains, it weaponized them all and showered them in every direction with great force.
The queen shivered and released a strange sound. It wasn’t a howl—not exactly. It was more like a deep, warbling groan. The throat was so huge, the sounds were a very low bass, painful to the ear even through my helmet.
At least a squad’s worth of light troops had joined my picnic by now. They tossed more grenades after mine and unleashed hammering sprays with their snap-rifles.
But the monster wasn’t showing any signs of dying. To the contrary, as our attacks increased, so did her speed of motion. I got the feeling we were pissing her off, not killing her.
How many pins would you have to stick into a man before he died? A hell of a lot, that’s my guess. Our weapons weren’t punching big enough holes. Tiny wounds, even a lot of them, weren’t doing the job.
In the meantime, the tenor of the struggle at the front of the chamber had changed. The number of flashes and the raging sound of hungry Vulbites softened.
I turned to look over my shoulder. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did it. I couldn’t help myself.
“They’re coming to save her!” Cooper said, gripping my arm in panic. “What do we do, sir?”
That was it. The question every officer must have an answer for, every second of any battle he’s in.
“Snap-rifles, lay down suppressing fire on the Vulbite guards!” I roared. “We’re not killing that queen with these pop-guns anyway.”
Cooper and the rest redirected their fire. They blazed away, weapons chattering on full-auto. Some Vulbites fell and thrashed in the dirt, stricken—but just as many climbed over them and kept coming.
We’d had the poor manners to attack their queen. We had to die, and it didn’t matter to them if they died getting us killed. They were in a frenzy.
A few weaponeers had come down with us. They didn’t have belchers, unfortunately. All the heavy weaponry had gone with Graves into the main assault.
What they did have, I soon saw, were satchels of explosives. Whatever was left after they’d blown a hole in the floor and allowed us into this pit.
Grabbing up a satchel, I started to trot with it, but a strong arm yanked me back.
“Sargon?”
“That’s my kit, sir.”
“You dumb-ass—all right, you’ve been volunteered. Come with me and die gloriously.”
“Thank you, Adjunct sir!”
He ran after me, his satchel banging into his legs. We approached the queen, who reared up and hissed at our approach.
“String her up with another set of those cube-bombs of yours!” I ordered.
“Uh… she doesn’t look cooperative, sir.”
“You should have thought of that before you yanked my chain.”
Sargon scuttled forward, cursing. He didn’t lay the charges at the queen’s feet—which consisted of a hundred or so thrashing limbs, each the size of a thick tree branch—he tossed them under her body instead.
He got out a detonator, fumbled open the lid—and that was it for him.
Two massive blades like curved scythes scissored where he’d been standing, and he fell, cut in half.
Cursing, I rushed up firing my snap-rifle in bursts. The queen reared up, and I saw the gory ruin of her belly. It ran with yellow ichor from a hundred injuries.
What I did next would be a familiar move for any ballplayer—I feinted left, and dove right.
It was simple enough. She lunged that hulking body where she thought I should’ve been—but wasn’t. She was too big to reverse herself, as her mass and nervous system was by nature slower than mine. Her twin curved blades furrowed the dirt, and I landed on the detonator.
Fumbling, I almost didn’t get it off in time. The queen was rearing up again, ready to strike like a snake.
But then, a ripple of explosions went off right under her.
She collapsed, stone dead.
-46-
There’s something particularly satisfying when a man brings down the biggest baddy, the one that defeated all the rest. I basked in that glow for several long seconds, staring at the dead queen. I didn’t bother to glance over my shoulder—what would have been the point? I fully expected a horrid and well-deserved death was coming up behind me.
Grave’s attack had faltered. The guards were rushing my light troopers—I could still hear them firing sporadically—but that was a joke. Once the Vulbites got to my recruits, they’d tear them apart. They were green, lightly armed, and didn’t even have metal suits to protect them.
That left no one of consequence in this dusty, football stadium sized egg-chamber other than me, the queen-slayer. I just hoped the bugs would make it quick in their righteous fury.
After a half-minute or so, the chamber fell strangely quiet. But, for some reason, the thundering approach of a thousand churning bug-feet didn’t come to my ears.
Turning around, I took a look at last. My squad of light troops was dead already. That explained that.
Graves’ team had been overwhelmed as well. I saw a few of them fighting still, down to force-blades and standing in tight circles, surrounded by hissing Vulbites.
“Why’d they stop?” I asked no one in particular.
To my surprise, I got an answer.
“Your foul action has confused them,” a voice said.
It was a strange voice. A warbling, wet-sounding thing. It was as if a man spoke from underwater. It was the voice of a thing that had been drowned.
Looking around and cranking up my suit lights, I located the source at last.
A creature stood nearby. It was shaped vaguely like a shaved bear. There were devices on it, clearly technological in nature. The devices were—alive? Or maybe they were robotic. They crawled over its skin and peered at me.
The robots were like bugs made of alloys and polymers. One resembled a snake’s skeleton with jewel-like eyes that lit up redly when they looked at me.
It was the metal snake-skeleton that spoke. Could it be some kind of translation device?
Maybe it was more sophisticated than that. I got the feeling the artificial snake-thing was more like my tapper.
Standing tall, I whistled at the alien, long and low.
“A Rigellian!” I shouted. “An honest-to-God Rigellian right here, and I’ve captured it!”
The naked bear-thing regarded me. “Captured? You are mistaken, barbarian. You are the one who is my prisoner.”
“How do you figure that?”
The Rigellian made a gesture toward my snap-rifle, which was lying some distance away. He made another motion, indicating the Vulbite guards.
So far, they weren’t charging at me. They were sliding around in a tightening circle. It was true, though, that their churning legs and undulating bodies were even more creepy to watch when they moved slowly. They seemed to be artificially restrained and full of menace.
“These Vulbites can’t save you,” I said in a tone of utter confidence. “You’ve come too close. You’re as good as dead already, Teddy.”
The bear cocked its head as it listened to the translation. I’d heard enough to understand when it was speaking, and what its language sounded like. The artificial snake-bones were clicking together in patterns—that seemed to be how they talked, with clicking sounds.
After grasping my meaning, the alien took a half-step backward.
Immediately, I took a half-step toward it, but then halted as the Vulbites leaned close.
