Alien, Mine (9 page)

She pictured herself getting close to the personnel here and sniffing them.

Yeah, that’d work
so
well.

“Well, don’t. We’ll get out of here and advise base.”

Anxiety and adrenaline combined in a spirited attempt to incite her feet into running. She forced control and held her pace to Shrenkner’s as they made their way with as much outward composure as possible toward the entrance. Shrenkner halted and surveyed the parking area. Sandrea peered around her.

Fear enhanced the smell of Bluthen to permeate the entire complex.

“My mother gave me four very useful pieces of advice,” she said. “Always wear clean underwear, always wash behind your ears, always know when to walk away and—”

“Always know when to get in the nearest fast transport and withdraw rapidly,” Shrenkner completed.

“Yep.”

“My mother gave me much the same advice, except for the ears.”

“After you then.”

They set a brisk pace to the ATVEH they’d come in, scrambled inside, and accelerated away.

Sandrea flicked a glance at the now helmeted Shrenkner. “You going to drive by Braille?”

“What?”

“You haven’t got the headlights on.”

“No, I’m using night-vision.” Shrenkner steered the speeding vehicle through the night. She muttered, growled, then punched the console. “Something’s wrong.”

Oh yeah, on top of what we already know?

“What?”

“Communications are being jammed. I’ve tried to raise the base, but they’re not responding.”

Chapter 5

Holding Her Own

A dark cloud of foreboding mushroomed in Sandrea’s mind. She clung to the seat as the ATVEH flew over low rises and pulled positive G’s in dips.

“Dammit!” Shrenkner smacked the wheel. “Can’t this thing go any faster? We’ve
got
to warn the base.”

A great, booming
thump
thundered through the air. Across their forward port quarter, a huge bolt of light speared towards the barracks and exploded in a ball of light.

It appeared to be on target.

Sandrea stared in horror at the orange flames bright against the night. Her heart slammed into her gut.

Eugen!

“Where the hell did that come from?” Shrenkner demanded, a slight tremor in her voice.

Another volley blasted across the night sky. Sandrea twisted in her seat and pointed to a low hill backlit by faint, blue planet-light. “Over there.”

Shrenkner spun the wheel and Sandrea clung to whatever she could as the vehicle bumped over rocks and slewed sideways over loose gravel.

Great. Now we’re heading
towards
the bloody thing.

The light exploded again and she tried to ignore the deep, almost familiar fear that shadowed the sound.

“What
is
that?” she asked.

“Laser cannon.”

The gun picked up its pace and sent bolt after bolt into the base. Dread dug brutal fingers into her heart.

Eugen’s caught in that.

“Can they keep that up for long?”

“Depends, the way they’re firing they’ll have to stop to let it recharge soon.”

The ATVEH slowed and they coasted to a halt on the opposite side of the hill to the weapon.

“We’re
stopping?
”

“This is where the cannon is.”

“My point exactly!”

“I cannot allow this weapon to continue its assault on the barracks,” Shrenkner threw over her shoulder as she leapt from the vehicle.

Sandrea scrambled out and followed her to the ATVEH’s rear. An ominous quiet settled on the night.

“They’re recharging.” Shrenkner opened a panel and snatched out a gun.

“But you’re a medic. Besides, won’t the barracks retaliate?”

“I’m also a soldier and right now this place needs an Alliance soldier. It’s altogether probable that first volley took out the primary armament generator or the base would have returned fire by now. Either that, or they have a larger threat to contend with. Bluthen do not operate in this manner. They’ve planned something larger than just this cannon assault, you can be sure of it. Whatever—”

Another roar of the gun reverberated through the air and felt like a punch to Sandrea’s skull.

“Whatever ordnance the base has left,” Shrenkner continued, “will be required fully for its defence. If I take this gun out of commission it will increase our chances of not becoming Bluthen bait.”

“Right then,” she muttered, “what’s our plan?”

“You can’t come!”

“Why? I’m not invited?”

“General Mhartak would have me skinned if he discovered I’d taken you directly into action.”

“Then we won’t tell him.”

Shrenkner hesitated.

“If you think I’m going to wait down here by myself until one of them shows up, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Fine.” Shrenkner strapped on ammunition. “Just stay out of the way.”

“Count on it. Do you think they saw or heard us?”

“The Bluthen manning the cannon? I doubt it.” Grim satisfaction coloured the soldier’s tone.

Great
. “Why?”

“Because they’d have fired on us if they’d detected us.”

Hmpf.

“They’ll be vigilant,” Shrenkner continued, “and if they’ve got movement sensors, they’ll be making efficient use of them.”

The cannon discharged again. Sandrea gritted her teeth and curled her fingers tight into her palms.

“How close can we get before being detected?”

“About twenty meters.”

Wonderful.
“How many Bluthen can we expect?”

“I don’t know. The normal complement for a gun such as this would be ten. I think there will be less because this is obviously a covert operation.”

She caught a short rifle Shrenkner threw at her and regarded it doubtfully.

“I don’t think I could kill anyone. Besides, I wouldn’t know how.”

“Flick this switch here to take the safety off.” Shrenkner indicated a button. “Then point and pull the trigger. This is for your protection
only
. I’ll do the killing.”

“Be my guest,” she muttered.

Shrenkner leaned over and fitted a pair of goggles to her head. Her vision turned blue and black. She followed the soldier up the hill, threading between the black silhouettes of boulders. Their proximity to the thump of the big gun as it fired speared a shower of terror across her nerves. Memories provoked by the noise tried to surface. Her mind pushed them back, but the associated horror continued to crawl across her nerves.

She moved closer to Shrenkner.

Near the crest, Shrenkner came to an abrupt halted. Sandrea peered around her. Three blobs of blue became dominant in her bicolour vision. Shrenkner shoved her behind a boulder, then adamantly pointed to the ground. Sandrea obeyed, sinking to her haunches, her eyes following the soldier as she crouched low and disappeared between the rocks.

The harsh report of the laser cannon blasted her ears and intense light blued out her goggles. She ripped them off and leaned back against the rock. A familiar odour sent her sprinting pulse into overdrive. Her breath shortened, her hands shook. She gripped the gun tighter and flicked off the safety. Gravel crunched beneath boots. The stench of Bluthen invaded her senses.

She shrank into the dark and raised her weapon. A figure loomed before her. The cannon let loose another volley, its flash illuminated the area. Sandrea gasped. Absolute recognition of the being before her flashed through her brain.

The punching memory of pain and anguish turned her defence into a savage attack.

When an explosion rocked the base, General Mhartak slammed the alarm that would send all base personnel and those on the orbiting fleet to battle stations.

He knew the sound and effects of a laser cannon only too well. He was demanding a status report over the comm when the second hit came.

“Say again, Lieutenant,” he requested after the commotion rattled away.

“The first contact took out the communications array, General,” Graegen informed him.

The general alarm was not routed through that system. The ships above would have been alerted to the fact there was a problem even if communications between them were now severed, and that would only serve to heighten the battle-experienced captains’ alertness.

“And the second?”

“Receiving that now, Sir.”

The static of short-range radio crackled over the comm before Graegen spoke again.

“The north site generator, Sir.”

Damn!

“Prepare for ground and air assault, Lieutenant.”

Mhartak rammed his combat helmet on and left the office. The barracks trembled from impacts and for the first time in his life his heart trembled from fear.

Where was Sandrea?

Sandrea was well on her way to bludgeoning a Bluthen to death.

A Berserker rage incinerated every thought in her head but the need for revenge. She sprang forward on a surge of violence and rammed the butt of her rifle into the Bluthen’s jaw. Something gave beneath the force of her blow. He folded. Fury roared through her mind and she smashed the back of his head, again and again. Movement snatched her attention. Her eyes darted up and her arms froze mid-blow.

Shrenkner stood regarding her with mild surprise. “I thought I was the one to do the killing?”

Sandrea glanced down, the body by her feet quite evidently just that, and lowered her weapon. She took a step back. Reaction and unapologetic brutality quivered through her body.

“He killed my dog.”

“You recognized him?”

“Yes.”

Shrenkner’s eye ridges rose.

“I have no doubt, Shrenk’. One of the things I
can
remember is the cast of every one of those fucking mongrels’ features.” She toed the corpse. “This bastard killed my dog.”

“I see. You couldn’t have just shot him?”

Sandrea opened her mouth to respond, realized she had no defence for her actions, that the urge to kill the bastard with her bare hands had overwhelmed her, and closed her mouth.

Shrenkner’s lips twisted. “Perhaps then, you will explain to me what is a dog and why it is significant?”

Best creature God every made. Unconditional love, always forgiving, loyal to the end.

Unfortunately she’d found nothing in the Angrigan database to compare canines with. She used her imagination and did her best to satisfy Shrenkner’s curiosity.

“I take it the other Bluthen are taken care of?” she asked.

“Yes, they’re dead.”

Right, no euphemisms for this soldier.

“So what do we do now?”

“Now we keep this weapon secure.”

Shrenkner tilted her head to stare at something high in the dark sky then hissed.

Sandrea turned to follow her gaze. Minute dots of bright, white light appeared at high altitude.

“What are they?”

“Bluthen attack craft.”

“You can tell that from here?”

“It makes sense. You see, they’re firing on the base!”

Bolt after bolt landed on the barracks. A ripping, tearing, gut-wrenching noise sliced through the atmosphere and she watched as an enormous ship plummeted toward the moon.

“
Christ!
Tell me that’s not one of ours.”

Shrenkner shook her head. “No, it’s Bluthen.”

Vibrations shuddered up her legs as the ground quaked to the distant strike of the vessel and it exploded in infernos fury. The lightning of laser bolts blazed back and forth across the sky. Craft dived down out of the atmosphere to attack the base. The barracks defended itself, but they were taking a hammering. Her heart and stomach convulsed.

Eugen’s in that lot somewhere.

“Why aren’t we using this thing?” Sandrea flung a hand toward the weapon they’d captured.

“Can’t,” Shrenkner said. “The Bluthen are a much slimmer race than we. I doubt if even one of our cadets could get their arms into the firing recesses.”

Incredulity blistered through her.

“Shit, that’s it? C’mon Shrenk’, let’s not fuck around here.”

She ripped the protective headgear from the Bluthen Shrenkner had dragged from the cannon’s cockpit, shoved it on, and dived into the space where his body had been. Lying on her stomach, she threaded her arms into firing apertures. A soft clamp lowered to press against her temples. Her heart pounded a rapid tattoo. In front of her a screen showed a magnified impression of the view before the hill.

“How does this thing work?”

“Follow the target with your eyes.” Shrenkner’s voice was muffled by the density of the cannon’s casing.

Sandrea locked her gaze on an enemy craft and followed its trajectory. The gun swayed synchronously below her.

“Squeeze both the firing handles at the same time, but—”

Her hands clenched on the triggers. A thunderous roar punched her ears and the cannon bucked beneath her.

“
Balls of fire
, Sandrea!” Shrenkner’s curse filtered through the casing of the gun. “Have you any idea how
loud
these things are?”

“What the fuck did you think I was going to do?” she screamed back.

“Hopefully wait until I had some protective head gear on.” Shrenkner’s voice came clear into her ear. Obviously the other woman had donned a headset. “Right. You’re going to have to lead the target more—”

“No shit?”
Dad’s Shooting Rule Number 5, When firing at a moving target, aim just ahead of it.

“I’ve got a better field of view than you. Let me guide you.”

“I’m all ears.”

The gun jerked as Sandrea followed Shrenkner’s instructions and she swung her eyes up. Her hands and arms tingled. She conned the target, aimed, and fired. On her screen a Bluthen attack ship exploded in a minute flash of light.

“So much for not killing anyone,” Shrenkner said.

“Shut up.”

“I think we’ve been made. Incoming fighter, starboard top quarter.”

The laser cannon swung a touch more smoothly and she fired again. The near miss did not force the attack craft into a course alteration, but that just made it easier for her to bull’s-eye with the next shot.

Shrenkner hissed.

“What?”

“Ground troops have landed near the base.”

“What’s my target?”

“Take your pick.”

Sandrea aimed her sights at the base. Dismay coiled through her belly at the number of Bluthen soldiers advancing on the barracks. She peppered away in measured bursts at the attacking force.

“How’s our power?”

“Fine, continue what you’re doing and we’ll be able to keep this up for a while.” A harsh gasp grated in her ears. “Hells’ ball bangers! Northeast barracks. General Mhartak’s about to walk into an ambush.”