“Any last questions?”
There were none.
“Then let’s load up,” Rev said.
This wasn’t a combat op, but it was as close to one as he’d experienced since being exiled. He’d lost Marines, of course, but the fight with the buffalo had been a reaction, not a planned operation, and he’d been merely a spectator in the space battle with the BGs. In this case, he’d gone through the entire planning process from scratch, and he hadn’t realized how much he . . . enjoyed was not too strong a word . . . putting together all the pieces in order to run an operation.
An added benefit of going through the planning process like they did was that it gave him time to have Pashu brought up from the planet. He should have known better. Never separate a Marine from his weapon. But he’d let personal comfort trump combat readiness.
Lesson learned.
He'd come a long way from the boot private who’d been forced to join the Corps. While he expected this to be a quiet mission, it had felt good to stretch his leadership muscles—muscles that had been atrophying over the last several years. If nothing else, this was a decent enough training exercise.
The assault force started loading the Charon landing craft. There was no sign of life on or in the asteroid, but he wanted the landing craft’s offensive capabilities in the fore. Once the breach was made and the initial entry cleared, then the shuttle, with the main body, would link up with the breaching tube and enter the asteroid.
Rev was the last person in the stick to board the Charon. He turned to look across the hangar where the Genesian party was midway through boarding the shuttle. It wasn’t difficult to spot Punch. His shell might be indistinguishable from those Genesians who chose to keep their shells unadorned, but he moved his shell in a stiff and somewhat awkward manner.
Adding Punch had been something that had taken Rev a bit of time to accept. His friend had asked to come, noting that having his own body was useless unless he could actually do something. But just the awkward gait was proof enough that Punch was not totally in control of his shell—and Kurt had confided to Rev that Punch might never be totally synched with his new body.
More than that, Punch was not trained for military operations. He probably knew more about them than anyone in the expedition, but academic knowledge was different than having boots on the ground. Punch had argued that he’d been with Rev on every single operation, but that wasn’t the same thing. Observing didn’t build the kinetic reflexes and muscle memory—or in Punch’s case, shell memory. It was only because the asteroid was empty that Rev agreed to the request. Let Punch get his feet wet where it was relatively safe.
Rev switched over to the P2P. “You OK, Punch?”
“Of course, I am OK. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Rev thought he could detect a bit of excitement in Punch’s voice. His friend might be using actual speech instead of a direct input, but he was still Punch, and the flow and tempo were the same.
“No reason. I was just checking.”
“Thank you, but I’m fine.”
“OK, then,” Rev said, not knowing how to extend the conversation without seeming not to trust Punch. “I’ll see you at the objective.”
Rev cut the connection and, within a minute, was walking up the ramp. He went to the front and jacked into the Charon’s internal comms. The follow-on shuttle was being flown by the AI, but Lieutenant Nissen was piloting the landing craft. After his attempt to extricate Rev and his team in the middle of the storm on Seventy-One, Rev trusted the pilot with his life, and he wanted him for the mission, leaving the expedition’s other shuttle/landing craft pilot with the shuttle on station over the camp on the planet’s surface.
“Everything good?” he asked.
“Going through my checklist. Probably five minutes, Sergeant Major,” Nissen said.
“Take your time.”
The back ramp closed, and the Marines strapped into their harnesses. Rev settled in, wishing he still had Punch to start some music. He could pipe music into his PAL, but there were a few more steps, and he was feeling a little lazy.
It didn’t take long until Nissen announced, “Prepare for launch.”
The Charon lurched as the tractor beams took hold. Rev, with his prime position near the porthole, could see their progress as the landing craft rotated and moved into position. The lights counted down, and with barely discernible acceleration, they were shot out of the hangar.
Rev unconsciously held his breath until the “Engine Engagement” light went green. They were under power and on their way.
The “cabin secure” light turned on. Rev cracked his helmet and twisted it off, then removed his gauntlet. They were in their PALs for the duration, but at least they would be bareheaded, and those with two hands would have them free. Rev could see a deck of cards already make its appearance halfway down the hold.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I know you had a choice of liners to take today, so I want to thank you for choosing What the Fuck Lines. You just settle in for our short, ten-hour ride. Unfortunately, our flight attendants all showed up drunk, and they’re not on the flight, so if you want a drink, get off your Mother-loving asses and get it yourself. I’m flying this thing.”
It was corny, but the Marines, including Rev, laughed.
“We hope you choose What the Fuck Lines for your next vacation, and please remember to leave a review.”
“No flight attendants? No booze? You’re getting one star from me, Lieutenant,” Rev said over the commander’s circuit.
“One star? Then I’ve got nothing to lose, so you might as well add ‘couldn’t find his ass with both hands, much less the objective,’” he said before cutting the connection.
* * *
“You ready, Mouf?” Rev asked Sergent Chef Henri “Mouf” Vasseur.
“Ready, Sergeant Major,” the former Hégémonie Liberté Legion 2ème REP said.
There were four of the Legionnaires left with the expedition. With their hyper-augments, they were the most skilled in vacuum ops, so as with the Century ship Loman’s Haven, they were the breach team.
“Then let’s do it,” Rev passed.
Vasseur gave a cocky salute, then performed a back-flip off the ramp and was followed by the other three Legionnaires. Rev just shook his head. He could do a backflip, too, but it would take him too long to recover, and he didn’t want to be flailing around like a walrus on the beach.
He motioned to Tsao, and the rest of the assault element followed the Legionnaires. Rev could see the asteroid while still on the ramp, so there wasn’t much in the way of orientation. He reached the edge and turned off his geckos just as he jumped. His exit was smooth, something he couldn’t say about Tiwari. The Dalit sergeant pushed off but was a little late with the geckos, and he jumped, only to be jerked to a stop as his sabatons wouldn’t release from the ramp.
Geckos automatically released and powered up in normal walking, but as a safety measure, they had to be manually turned off if subject to a stronger force—and while powered up, their grip was almost unbreakable. Tiwari wasn’t hurt, except for his pride. He’d hear about this later, Rev knew.
The Charon had come to a stop 500 meters from the asteroid. They could simply push off and make the crossing without fear of missing and drifting off forever. But Rev gave his impellers a few short hits as he slightly adjusted his course.
He took a moment to locate Punch, who was easily identifiable without a combat suit. But his friend seemed to be making the crossing without issue.
Rev came to a halt thirty meters from the hatch. Vasseur and his team were arrayed around it as they contemplated the best way in.
“Sergeant Major, this doesn’t look very robust,” the Legionnaire passed on the P2P.
“Can you get in?”
“Probably. But it doesn’t make sense. I’m thinking that this is just here for micro impacts, and there’s something a little more substantial inside. I might be able to just open it.”
“Wait. Have you scanned the other side?” Rev asked.
“No sign of a booby trap. I think it’s safe.”
But thinking something was safe was not the same as knowing it was.
Rev was tempted to jet forward, but Vasseur was the closest thing he had to an expert. He didn’t need to be sticking his nose in the Sergent Chef’s business.
“It’s your call, Mouf.”
A moment later, the other three Legionnaires shifted back. Vasseur planted his feet alongside the edge of the door, squatted, and grabbed something—mostly likely a handle.
He pushed with his legs, and the door swung open. There wasn’t a blast as a result. In fact, it was rather anticlimactic. Vasseur poked his head into the asteroid.
“I was right. There’s another door inside. It looks like an airlock.”
“Can you open it?”
“Sergeant Major, we can open anything.”
He disappeared inside, followed by the rest of his team.
“Tum, let’s get a team on the surface to cover them,” he told Tsao.
“Roger that.”
A moment later, Corporal Weld and his Marines started slowly approaching the asteroid’s surface.
This was the part Rev hated—waiting on others. He managed to stay off the net, though. But the time stretched on, and he was getting more and more anxious. He was just about to ask for a status report when three of the Legionnaires emerged. They saw the Marines near the entrance, then motioned them away.
“All hands, back up. And if you can see into the opening, you’re in the line of sight,” Rev passed.
There was a scurry of maneuvering as Marines moved aside. Rev edged closer to the surface, using the asteroid’s bulk to shield him. Rev didn’t know what Vasseur planned. He’d been told to use just enough force to create a breach, but the final decision on how to do it was his.
“Fire in the hole!” Vasseur passed on the net. A moment later, he came shooting out of the opening, performed a picture-perfect Half Whip maneuver maneuver, and darted to the side.
Rev held his breath, and twelve seconds later, a flash erupted, causing his face shield to polarize. There was a flash of something else, too, shooting out of the hole. Rev couldn’t quite make it out, and he spun . . .
“Oh, crap!”
The shuttle was standing off the surface of the asteroid, generally in line with the opening. But the gods of war were with them this time. Almost before Rev realized the danger, whatever it was flashed past the waiting shuttle, missing it by less than a hundred meters.
Rev’s heart was hammering in his chest. A disaster was averted by pure luck, but it shouldn’t have ever gone that far. He’d gotten Marines out of the way, but he hadn’t considered the shuttle.
“What the hell was that?” Lieutenant Nissen asked. He’d had the Charon well out of the way.
“That was a near miss,” Rev said, his heart still pounding. “Something was blown free and almost hit the shuttle.”
“Coming out? Whatever that Legionnaire did, it should have blown in instead of out,” Nissen said.
He’s right. What the hell just happened?
There would have to be a full forensic investigation on how that had happened. How was something blown out? And while he should have checked the shuttle’s position, something had gone wrong with the shuttle’s AI pilot. It should have realized the danger as well.
He glanced around his assault force. Vasseur was already looking into the opening.
“We’re clear!” he announced on the force net.
“Tum, take your people in,” he passed to Tsao.
Whatever had happened, that didn’t stop the mission. They had breached an entry. Now it was time to go to work.
Tsao led her team inside, right according to the book. Rev would have thought they’d have rehearsed the operation for weeks. He waited impatiently for his turn to enter with Over-sergeant Nunt and Second Team—he’d rather have Strap leading the team, but with Tsao in the assault, his policy of not having two parents on the same mission kept him from that. Finally, Tsao signaled the entry point was secure, and it was his turn. He gave one last look at the shuttle, shuddered, and dove into the entrance.
The sides of the walls were scorched and gouged, but he could see they had been perfectly smooth, a sure sign that they were artificial. He’d assumed that. The interior of the asteroid had been a construct, but it was still good to have that confirmed.
The door leading into the interior was gone, leaving a twisted frame in place. The frame was warped outward, not inward, so the door must have been what had shot out with such force. And just on the other side of the frame, the walls were scorched but relatively sound. A cable of some sort ran along the wall. From the look of the frayed end, it might have run past the vacuum door and all the way to the asteroid’s surface, but if it had, there was no sign of it past the frame.
Mouf must have drilled through somehow and set a shaped charge aimed out.
If he was trying to minimize damage to what was inside, then that made perfect sense. Rev just wished they’d been warned about what he decided to do. He was going to have to talk to the Legionnaire during the hotwash.
That still doesn’t give you an excuse not to have cleared the area. Lesson learned.
“Tum, what you got up there?” he asked.
“We’re at Bluebird,” she said, using the codeword for the first intersection. “There’s a sort of conveyor-looking thing, like a rope tow on a ski slope, but otherwise, the tunnels are bare.”
Rev wouldn’t know a rope tow ski lift if it bit him. Skiing wasn’t a thing on Safe Harbor, but Tsao was from New Hope, and they were famous for cold-weather sports. He had to assume that she meant the cable running alongside the wall. Was it some sort of conveyor belt to get supplies in and out through the entrance? Even with no discernible gravity, supplies would still have mass, so a system like this, while much more primitive than a tractor system, might work.
If the BGs are this primitive, how much of a threat are they?
Yes, they’d run the humans out of the EFP-1 system, but they’d come in force. The Centaurs had seemed almost invincible when they first clashed with humanity, causing tremendous death and destruction. But once humankind recovered from the shock and started being proactive, they realized that while the feared enemy was more technically advanced in many areas, they had too few numbers as well as a lack of military resourcefulness to truly have humanity on the ropes.
Could the BGs be something similar? Then again, this place was built long ago, so whoever did it had probably advanced quite a bit since then. Several millennia ago, humankind couldn’t even fly on their birth planet.
Maybe we can find something out from this place.
“OK. As soon as you’re ready, start heading down Lion. We’re right behind you, and we’ll take Antelope. Don’t forget to place your repeaters as you go.”
“Roger that. We’re on our way.”
This close to the surface, they’d been able to map out the tunnels pretty well. The farther inside, though, the murkier it became. There looked to be some open areas, but it was difficult to be sure. As they advanced, they labeled both junctions and paths—bird names for junctions and mammal names for the spaces between. Hopefully, they’d be able to map out the place as they advanced. And with the repeaters, they’d have a line of communication that would be able to connect a full data flow from anywhere inside the asteroid to both the Charon and the shuttle, and from them, back to the Galaxy Explorer.
It was only about fifteen meters from the blasted vacuum door to Bluebird, and Second Team, with Randigold on point, reached it just as the last of First Team headed down Lion. Rev told Vasseur to secure the intersection, covering Lion, Antelope, and Badger, a small, side passage that ran along the surface of the asteroid. Then he gave Nunt the OK to proceed.
Antelope had slight curves, winding like a snake as they got deeper into the asteroid. Rev—his mind on military applications—wondered if that was for defensive purposes, making sure there were limited lines of sight along the way. The passage was otherwise bare and about six meters across.
The curves were not conducive to pushing off from, so the Marines had to advance using small puffs of impulse from their impellers. Rev glanced back several times at Punch, but for someone newly introduced to his body and without Null G training, he was doing quite well.
They didn’t have a good magnetic map of the asteroid, so Rev’s vaunted inner navigation system was useless, but he estimated that they had traveled at least 125 meters—or almost a quarter of the width—before Randigold brought them to a halt.
“We’ve got an opening ahead. I’m taking Lymon and checking it out,” she passed.
Nunt put the rest of the team on ready and moved forward. Rev wanted to go forward as well, but he managed to hold himself back.
“You still doing OK?” he asked Punch on the P2P.
“All we have done is proceed down a passage. I don’t think that’s a test of my capabilities.”
Rev mentally recoiled at the rebuff, but then he wondered . . .
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“Me? Sarcastic? Whatever do you mean?”
A little relieved, Rev smiled and turned back to face the front. The two of them were still working out their relationship, but maybe humor would help.
It was a good two minutes, though, before Randigold came back on the net.
“It’s gotta be thirty meters across,” she said. “And it’s full of shit. Do you want me to enter?”
Rev almost replied, but she wasn’t asking him. Nunt was the team leader.
“What kind of shit?” Nunt asked.
“Boxes, maybe. Machines. Fuck, I don’t know what the hell it all is.”
“Wait one,” Rev said, breaking into the conversation.
He didn’t want to step on Nunt’s toes, but this was the first . . . well, something they’d encountered. He wanted to get a better look before they just waltzed on in.
“I’m coming up. Nunt, you come with me.”
The passage was plenty wide enough for Rev to pass the other Marines ahead of him. Nunt waited until Rev came abreast of him, and together, they both moved forward. The two reached Randigold and Lymon, who had stopped at the end of the passage.
Rev ran his helmet torch across the open space. Nothing he saw made immediate sense. The walls were cut, making the space an octagon, and along each wall were machines in no discernible pattern. Some of the machines crossed the corner where the walls intersected, and four of the machines/consoles/whatever stretched across the space from one side to the other. The nearest wall was mostly empty, with only six domes, each about a meter and a half in diameter, evenly spaced.
The domes were about the only things that were evenly spaced. The rest of the place seemed to be rather haphazard. Still, despite the hodgepodge appearance, Rev got a CIC feeling.
“What do you want to do, Sergeant Major?” Nunt asked.
Aside from the fact that the mission was to figure out what this thing was, Rev was curious. And this place was long dead. They weren’t sure how long, but there was no sign of life.
“Let’s take a look,” Rev ordered. “Standard clearing techniques.”
Nunt called the rest of the lead team forward. Once they were in place, he gave the command, and they entered at once, with Lymon oriented to the front, Salib to the left, D’agosti to the right, and Randigold overseeing. Rev should have let the team leader follow, but he went next as he triggered his PAL to take still photos along with his visual feed.
Gotta give the civvies something to analyze.
Lymon reached the first row of containers when suddenly, harsh, too-white lights flooded the space.
Rev blinked as his face shield compensated, Pashu raised.
“Hey, I’ve got—”
Whatever Lymon was going to say was cut off as an energy beam flashed and cut through his PAL like a hot knife through butter.
Rev was already acting. He mentally cursed his rot-induced slowed-down movement. One of the half domes on the far left had unfolded like a pill bug. Unbelievably quick, it shifted what looked to be a simple tube toward Salib a split second before Rev acquired it and fired, the beam dropping the sergeant in his tracks.
Rev shouted in anger as his heavy twenty-millimeter bullets stitched the creature, staggering the thing. For a moment, Rev thought it could withstand the onslaught, but when Randigold joined in and when the fifth or sixth round struck, pieces started to fly off, and sparks shot out. A puff of smoke filled the vacuum before something from deep inside the thing flashed, and it collapsed in on itself.
Rev put another burst into it as a closing argument.
“What the hell was that?” D’Agosti asked in awe.
Rev had thought it was a living being at first, but it was obviously mechanical. He just started to answer when two more of the things started to unroll.
“Get the hell back,” he shouted at Randigold and D’agosti while he engaged the nearest one.
Both Marines grabbed the dead man’s handles on the downed two and dragged them out of the way as Rev destroyed the first, then barely targeted the second before it could completely deploy.
He hurt the thing. He could tell. But it skittered behind the row of machines as the rest of the things started to emerge from their old state.
“Clear!” Nunt, who’d been just behind him, passed.
Rev didn’t need to be told twice. He jumped back into the tunnel.
“Nunt, retreat back to the breach,” he said over the open net, then added, “Eth, get someone to take Lymon from you.”
Then he switched to Team 2’s net and tried to raise them. No luck. Their comms repeaters weren’t doing their job.
He switched to Vasseur, who was back at Bluebird. “Contact Team 1 and tell them to get back. Send a runner if you have to. Let the Charon know we’re getting out of here.”
Randigold returned to him, and he signaled her to take the other side of the corridor. “I saw six of those domes. Were there any more?”
“Shit. Maybe. I didn’t see any, but I didn’t have eyes on the back side.”
“It took both of us to drop the one, so they’re tough sons of bitches. I hurt another, but it took cover, and we can’t count it out. So, we know there’re five of them and maybe more.”
“No biggie, Sergeant Major. We’ve faced worse.”
Typical Eth, thinking she can take on the universe.
Rev’s face shield flashed, and his alarms went off. He’d been painted with some sort of energy weapon, probably the same one that had hit Lymon and Salib. But either it was a side lobe or reflected energy because his shields were only minimally affected.
Randigold let loose a burst from her twenty.
“What do you got?” Rev asked as he peered at the opening into the space.
“Nothing. I just wanted to remind them we’ve got teeth.”
Rev turned around. The team was retreating down the passage, carrying the two downed Marines. Give them a few more moments and he and Randigold could retreat.
She fired another burst, and Rev turned to tell her not to waste ammunition when another wave of energy flooded the passage. His alarms increased in tempo, and his shields flickered. Randigold bent double, her body drifting off aimlessly as she struggled to raise her IBHU, and still, Rev didn’t have a target.
“Shit!”
He darted toward her, firing his own weapon into the opening. After two bounds, he caught sight of one of the mechanical constructs taking cover behind a machine of some sort. Rev shifted his aim and took it under fire as he reached Randigold, who was now using the muzzle of her IBHU to push off the bulkhead and orient herself.
The BG construct was either knocked out or had taken cover. Rev grabbed Randigold by the shoulder and pulled her back.
“Can you move?” he asked.
“You go, Sergeant Major,” she gasped. “I’ve got you covered.”
“You can barely move, Eth. Go!” he said, turning her and giving her a push, which almost sent her spinning.
She hesitated, then grabbed the cable and pulled herself along. Rev caught just the flicker of motion toward the back of the space. Without thinking, he fired a Moray, hoping that it could arm in the confined space. The missile shot down the corridor, into and across the open space, and swerved to hit another of the constructs it detected, before detonating with a satisfying flash.
“That’s right, bitch,” Rev said as his warrior self swept to the fore. And Rev didn’t stop him.
The enemy evidently couldn’t stand up to a Moray, but unless another exposed itself at the back of the space, the rest of his missiles would be useless.
“What about my beamer?”
As if waiting for the question, a construct darted across the opening. Rev fired almost simultaneously as he was hit. The construct might have faltered, but it kept going past and into cover.
Rev turned off his alarms. He didn’t need the distraction. His shields had taken a hit and were down to 54%. If the mechanical fighter had been able to hold onto target a second or two longer, his shields would have failed.
“Pull back, Sergeant Major,” Randigold passed.
Rev risked a look back. Randigold had her arm wrapped around the cable about fifteen meters back, steadying herself as she aimed Cruella de Vil. She was covering him.
He wasn’t going to argue. Rev placed his feet along the bulkhead and pushed off toward her. Just as he passed, she fired her twenty. He kept going another ten meters before he turned and took up his own firing position.
“Go, Eth!”
She was slower, struggling to gain traction, but she made it and fired her impulse modules. Which caused her to shoot toward him.
Rev no longer had a direct line of sight into the space. He kept Pashu aimed at the curve of the passage, watching for any sign of movement. There was nothing for a moment, and Rev began to hope that the robots or whatever they were were constrained to the open space.
That was too much to hope for.
One of the constructs darted into sight. It guessed wrong, its barrel aimed at the center of the corridor. It quickly picked up Rev and was blindingly fast in adjusting its aim . . . but Rev was quicker. His ability to maneuver Pashu might have suffered, but his reflexes were as reactive as ever. His first round hit center mass. His second round hit the barrel, knocking it to the side. His fifth round penetrated, and the demon thing collapsed in a heap.
“Go!” Eth shouted, which almost killed him.
Rev started to rise just as something shot down the passage and ricocheted off the wall, and headed right at him. He blindly fired his impulse module and twisted as whatever it was missed his head by millimeters. It exploded midway between him and Randigold. A surprisingly strong shock wave slammed into Rev on one side and knocked Randigold to her back on the other.
“Mother fuck!” she screamed in anger.
As Rev regained control, she started pouring twenties past him, the recoil knocking her back with each round. Rev hugged the wall and kept a low profile as he retreated.
This wasn’t the first time Rev or Randigold had conducted a bounding overwatch, and they quickly fell into the routine. Only one retreated at a time, while the other covered. Randigold fired once more as a construct became a little overeager, but they quickly covered the distance back to Bluebird.
Rev hesitated as the control point came into sight. There was rubble where the walls had been smooth, but it quickly became apparent that the breach team had somehow knocked chunks of rock out of the walls and were rapidly attaching the chunks to other sections, making obstacles that could be used as firing points.
To the best of his knowledge, the Marines didn’t have a way to accomplish this, at least not without their engineers. From the ease with which they were working, the Legionnaires sure did.
“Where’s First” Rev shouted as he reached Vasseur.
“Coming,” the Legionnaire said.
Rev looked back down Antelope. He couldn’t see any sign of pursuit, but he knew it was coming.
The last of Second Team was heading out of the breach, leaving only Rev and Randigold. 1re classe Ouray maneuvered a loose chunk of rock to the side, and Vasseur pointed at another boulder that had already been emplaced.
“No,” Rev said. “Give me something on Badger.”
He might not know how they were securing the chunks of rock, but he knew where he wanted one.
Ouray pushed it to where Badger took off. Caporal Boudin dove forward with what looked like a caulking gun and shot three globs of something along the walls, then together, they eased the boulder into place.
Rev didn’t know how long it would take to set, but as long as it stayed in place for the moment, at least, they had some degree of protection.
That was the last large chunk of rock, though. Vasseur probably could break loose some more, but there wasn’t any time. This was better than he could have expected.
“Go,” he told Vasseur.
The Legionnaire was lightly armed when compared to a Marine in a PAL, much less an IBHU. He hesitated just for a moment, then gathered his team, and they dove into the breach.
“Go with the Mother,” Rev whispered, then louder, he told Randigold, “You, too. Go.”
“Fuck you, Sergeant Major. With all due respect, of course.”
“Don’t give me shit, Eth. You can barely move.”
“I can still shoot. So, I’m staying. You can’t cover Tum and the rest alone.”
He wasn’t sure that they could hold the position even with the two of them, but he wasn’t going to get into a pissing contest with her. She was a big girl, and she knew what she was doing.
And secretly, he was glad. He could use the support.
He pointed to Badger. “Take that, then. But be ready to support me if I need you.”
She didn’t argue, thank the Mother, but slipped into position.
Rev settled in behind one of the hasty obstacles Vasseur had set. It didn’t give him complete cover, but it was much more than had he been out in the open. He gave it a tentative shove with his right arm, but it was him who moved, not the rock.
“Remind me to find out . . .” he started to subvocalize before stopping in embarrassment. This wasn’t the first time he’d started to tell Punch something, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
I need to learn more about how they do this.
“Tum, where are you?” he asked, not expecting anything.
But she immediately answered.
“On our way. The lights came on, and then a couple minutes later, we got hit by some sort of attack bot. Fiore’s down, but we’re retreating now under heavy pressure.”
“Hurry your ass. There’re more of those things coming down Antelope, too.”
“On our way.”
Make it fast, Tum.
He didn’t see any way that the enemy bots could advance without being spotted, but he took a moment to go through his face shield settings, before finally settling on heat signature to supplement his direct sight. The passage was bitterly cold, and the constructs might be emanating heat, which could be picked up before they actually reached his line of sight.
Less than fifteen seconds later, a wave of energy came at them, reflecting off the bulkheads and seemingly gaining in power.
Rev instinctively ducked down behind the rock, which was closing the barn door after the horses got out. The upper part of his PAL had taken some of the blast. He checked his shields: another eleven percent gone.
Rev immediately aimed Pashu down the passage, waiting for the constructs to follow their energy weapon blast, but there was nothing.
“You still with me, Eth?” he asked as he peered down the passage.
“That singed my ass, but yeah, I’m good to go.”
“Then keep your ass down.”
“Now, he tells me.”
Twenty seconds, thirty seconds passed with no sign of the enemy. Then they were hit again. Ten percent of his shield strength disappeared. If they were moving closer, their beams should have more power.
So, what were they doing?
Rev aimed at the far curve of the passage. He fired a burst from his beamer, then another from his twenty. If they could be using the walls as some sort of focusing mirror, then he could as well. And as Randigold had said, it would remind them that the Marines had teeth, too.
He automatically kept his peripheral vision on his beamer LED, breathing a sigh of relief when it turned green. It had probably been stupid to waste the shot. If they’d chosen that moment to charge, he’d have been down to only his twenty.
“Move it, Tum,” he passed.
“Doing our best. We’re under heavy pressure.”
Rev glanced at Lion. On a planet with an atmosphere, he’d be able to follow the sounds of the battle. Up here in the vacuum, there wasn’t a sound.
Except for his curse as the next blast enveloped him. And again, his shield strength fell.
They couldn’t put up with much more of this.
“Eth, can you scoot farther into Badger? Get some more cover between you and the bots?”
“Not and stay behind this nice rock the Legionnaires put here.”
A ricochet round slammed past him and exploded somewhere in the breach. It barely registered. He had the feeling that was just harassment fire, while the energy beams were the real deal.
“You might have to,” he said. “And we don’t know if any of them are coming down Badger.”
“And we don’t know if they aren’t. It’s not smart to keep a flank exposed.”
Rev considered that for a moment. But a potential threat was outweighed by a known threat.
He was about to tell her to move into Badger when another wave of energy washed over the corridor, this time knocking an additional eleven percent from his shield. The enemy were throwing waves of energy, trusting the rock walls to reflect the waves and fill the passage. And it was working. If they moved a little closer, less energy would be attenuated, and that could spell the end of them. That end was coming soon enough, anyway. It seemed like the enemy bots were firing every thirty-some-odd seconds, willing to wear the two humans down until they could administer the coup de grâce.
And Rev was just crouching here, taking it. This wasn’t how the Marines went to war.
“What’s your shield strength?” he asked Randigold.
“Twenty-two percent.”
“Get the hell into Badger. You can still engage from there if you need to.”
But that might give her another thirty seconds beyond what Rev had.
“Break contact, Tum, and run,” Rev passed to Tsao. “We can’t hold them.”
“Roger that. Four minutes.”
Rev didn’t think they had four minutes.
“Make it three minutes,” he told Tsao.
He peered down the corridor. The bastards must have figured out that to show themselves was suicide. But did they know how damaging their energy weapons were?
Two more blaster waves might be enough to break through and cook both of them.
If they would only make a mistake and show themselves, Rev could target them with his twenty. But they seemed to have figured that out, too, that the two Marines needed a direct line of sight, and they were holding up just around the curve of the tunnel.
I need that line of sight.
Another wave rolled down to wash over them, and everything fell into place. The time lag between volleys. Just like Pashu’s recharging.
Rev reacted. He pulled himself over the rock and pushed off, aiming at the curve of the wall. He performed a Cat Reflex that would have made Corporal Cathcart, his zero-G instructor back on Cephalus, proud, hit the wall feet first, and pushed off again.
Three of the constructs were clinging to the walls ahead. Two were connected as if hugging each other, their barrels synched in the same direction. The third was on the opposite side of the passage.
Rev immediately assumed that the third was a sort of security, and he locked onto it with his twenty and fired a burst. He let the recoil shove him to the side, hoping that would spoil the aim of the two that were connected. But they didn’t fire. They didn’t do anything.
Rev wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He fired a long burst that blasted into them both. Still, they didn’t react. Nor did they separate, even when Rev’s fire chewed them into pieces. Portions were smashed free to be flung down the passage, while the “feet” of the things seemed to be stuck to the surface of the walls.
Another of the ricocheting rounds zipped past him. It had come from back down the passage. Rev’s rush while they were recharging might have bought him a little bit of time, but there were more of the vermin coming.
The grace with which he performed his Cat Reflex vanished as he struggled to reverse his direction. He gave his impellers a burst, which only seemed to send him tumbling. It wasn’t until he crashed into what was left of the two bots in their death embrace that he was able to get some semblance of control. He kicked off the debris and managed to push off back to Bluebird.
“Where the hell did you go?” Randigold asked.
And he realized she couldn’t see what had happened, nor had he told her. One moment he was there, and the next, he’d sprung off and out of sight.
“I took care of the bastards targeting us. Now we just need First Team and to get out of here before reinforcements show up.”
He came to an almost smooth stop at his firing position and looked over at Randigold.
She was on the far side of her firing position, and he could see the relief in her eyes as she spotted him.
The round hit her high on the shoulder, driving her face-first into the rock. Rev dove for her. He caught a glimpse of at least a dozen small crawling bots covering all sides of passage as they charged forward.
Rev swept the walls with his beamer on guillotine mode, dropping five or six, but the little bastards had a bite, too, as they shot large bullets from the middle of their bodies.
He couldn’t reach the rest of them without hitting Randigold, who had rebounded from the rock and was floating motionless. Rev twisted to land feetfirst on her firing point. He let his legs flex all the way and reached forward with both arms. It was Pashu who reached her, the grasping members clenching closed on Cruella de Vil, her IBHU.
Rev extended his legs, yanking Randigold with him back over her firing point. His body arched back, and something hard glanced off of his chest. But his suit kept its integrity as he pulled her away.
He twisted her to the side, and the moment his beamer LED went green, he fired again, sweeping three more off the walls. The remaining bots kept firing. Rev could actually see the rounds as they shot past him.
Three of the bots emerged past Randigold’s firing position and seemed to aim their entire bodies at the two Marines.
His beamer was still charging, and he had nothing other than his twenty. He got one, but he knew the others had a beam on him. He couldn’t engage them, not while struggling with Randigold.
But the two disappeared in violent explosions, and a moment later, Micky Cocker jetted past him and lit up Badger.
Rev pulled Randigold around and only then saw that the “bullet” that had hit her was some sort of spike, like the ones that secured their expeditionary shelters. It had hit right at the juncture of her pauldron and cuirass. What surprised him was that any physical round had penetrated, no matter how high-tech a round it might be.
Her PAL had been breached, but it had sealed around the break, and she was out, but alive. He didn’t know what else might be damaged, and she had to get to the Charon.
First Team was pouring into Bluebird. Rev grabbed the first Marine he saw—Jellyroll—and told him to take Randigold and go.
With Cocker covering Badger, he started directing Marines through the breach. More of the ricochet rounds started coming down Antelope, as if the BG constructs could sense the humans were escaping. One detonated right next to Weld’s head, but his PAL held, and he disappeared down the breach.
An energy blast filled Bluebird, coming from Lion. Rev’s shield took a five percent hit, so either it was a less powerful weapon, or they were firing it from farther away.
Finally, Tsao and Jones emerged into view.
“Are you the last?” Rev asked.
“We’re it. No one’s behind us.”
“Then move it, Tum. I’ve got you covered.”
She twisted about and shot forward, her impellers close to max, with Jones on her tail. Rev braced himself on one of the firing positions and started pouring twenties at the unseen enemy.
“Get everyone out of here,” Rev ordered as he kept up a string of fire.
He was vaguely aware of bodies disappearing behind him, but with his warrior self in full control, he was lost in the heat of the battle. He caught sight of movement and shifted his fire, driving the bot back.
His battle blood boiled, and for a moment he wanted to charge, to finish the devil’s tool off, but Tsao’s voice stopped him.
“That’s it, Sergeant Major. Come on.”
It took a moment to realize what she was saying, and his battle lust faded while reality set in. She was just inside the breach, beckoning him to join her.
He twisted around to shove off the wall, but he was too far away, and he had to goose his impellers as he suddenly felt extremely vulnerable. A ricochet round struck just off the opening as he too slowly edged to it.
He looked over just as he started to enter and caught sight of two of the constructs coming into view.
Rev disappeared into the breach and followed past the wrecked door. But he knew they weren’t out of the woods. The landing craft was some four hundred meters away. They had to make the crossing and get into the landing craft’s shielding before the BG bots reached the entrance.
They’d be sitting ducks, and Rev was at—he checked his shield strength—6.2%.
He couldn’t take another hit.
A feeling of helplessness came over him. He didn’t want to go out like that. As he reached the opening, he considered stopping there to cover the rest. At least he’d go out like a warrior should. Images of Willow and Aspen flashed before his eyes, but he took control and willed them away . . . until maybe the most beautiful sight he’d seen was in front of him.
Lieutenant Nissen had brought his Charon almost to the doorstep. Tsao launched herself and crossed the twenty meters into the back of the landing craft. Rev scrambled forward, set his feet, and pushed.
“I’m the last one. Get out of here, Lieutenant!” he passed on the commander’s net.
A very familiar person was on the edge of the ramp, waiting for him. Rev flew across the space to be grabbed and stopped by Punch.
“Glad you decided to join us,” his friend said.
“I think I outstayed my welcome.”
The ramp immediately started to close as the Charon began to move away from the asteroid. Rev stood there, arm around Punch, expecting to see the bots appear and take them under fire, until the ramp snicked to a close.
As the cabin started to pressurize, Rev moved forward to the interior comms and jacked in.
“You’re beginning to make a habit of this, Lieutenant,” Rev said as he linked to the outside feed of the asteroid.
“You’re making it a habit of getting yourself into trouble, and someone has to pull you out of it.”
“I’m glad you’re there to do it. But I need you to get a message back to the Explorer. Tell them to get everyone off the planet and get ready to run. And tell them to send a torp to Titan. They need to know what’s going on.”
“Because there were some bots on an asteroid?”
Rev was about to respond when BG constructs started crawling out of the entrance. Two fired at the landing craft as it pulled out, but the Charon had pretty robust shields. A moment later, first one, then another construct came apart, and the pieces drifted off the asteroid’s surface.
Robust shields and a very potent bite.
He went back to Nissen’s question. “The bots there are just the beginning. Credits to doughnuts, the BGs are coming.”