The Trilisk Supersedure (4 page)

“I
guess it’s up to us to find out what we can with the scouts. Shiny didn’t know
much except he swears this used to be a Trilisk planet,” Magnus said.

“Well,
he said it used to have Trilisks on it,” Telisa corrected.

“So, I
did manage to get a scan off from orbit,” Cilreth said. “According to the
Clacker
,
there aren’t any major settlements, at least not at any level of technology we’d
notice. The interface still needs some work. I know the ship has to be capable
of more thorough searches; I just can’t operate it well enough yet.”

And it’s
so damn advanced I can barely find my own location marker in it.

“Any
information is better than none,” Telisa said.

“So,
anyway, I was kinda rushed with that work and didn’t get a chance to learn
about the planet from Terran sources,” Cilreth continued.

“I didn’t
find much on this planet anyway except that it’s one of the open worlds,”
Telisa said. “It says there was a group of creatures here called the Konuan.
Now extinct. Some kind of primitive culture. Shiny, are you sure Trilisks were
here?”

Shiny
joined the channel they shared, presumably at Telisa’s invitation. “Certain,
verified, known. Ruins around you contain traces of Trilisk presence.”

“They
may have been here because of the Konuan,” Telisa said. “They may have been
studying them. Or conquering them. Or whatever it is the Trilisks did.”

Cilreth
could tell from the edge in Telisa’s voice that her companion didn’t like being
in the dark about the Trilisk’s modus operandi.

“Let’s
get in there and find out what they did,” Magnus said enthusiastically.

Chapter 2

The
smart screen above the camp flexed gently in a light morning breeze. The screen
lay just below most of the green clumps that terminated the stalks, about three
meters above the rocky ground. Soldiers worked under the screen. The thin,
translucent fabric contained a network of sensors and emitters that scattered
their radiation signatures, providing excellent camouflage from orbit. The camp
adjoined an escarpment where two square tunnel entrances had been put into the
rock. Some men moved in and out of the tunnels while others rested in tents
that shifted color lazily to match the densest part of the alien flora above.

Colonel
Lance Holtzclaw stood in the center of his camp. This had been home for seven
long months. Long enough to become familiar with a place. Long enough to hate a
place.

Holtzclaw
scratched his infernal itch for the thousandth time. He had started to leave
his armored suit open at the front so he could slip his hand in to scratch the
pink skin where his replacement arm had been grafted on.

Dammit.
What did they do, put someone else’s arm on me? Why does it still itch so much?

He
glanced at the graft site on his shoulder. The skin of his new arm had proven
more aggressive than his old skin. It had grown out from the old line between
his new arm and the stump, taking over the original skin of his shoulder. A
star-shaped scar still held on at the edge of his chest where part of the
seeker round that had taken off his arm had flown out of him.

Maybe
they did too good of a job selecting cells to seed the arm. That skin is just
healthier than the rest. It’s going to take over my whole body…and itch me
insane the entire time.

“Colonel,”
a soldier addressed him, saluting.

Holtzclaw
took a deep breath. “Yes?”

“I’ve
picked up activity in the atmosphere. A big ship. It landed on the other side
of the ruin, down past the broken spire.”

“Any
chance it’s one of ours?”

“No,
sir. It’s got to be space force. The signature is nothing civilian, nothing
like I’ve seen anyway, and it’s really big.”

Just
when you thought things couldn’t get any worse.

“Tell
Silvarre and get him to the Hellrakers,” Holtzclaw ordered. The soldier rushed
off.

Holtzclaw
opened a channel to his perimeter captain as he hustled to the artillery. “Possible
incoming,” he said. “I’m showing up at HR-2 for an inspection. Double check the
perimeter drones.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Are
all the Guardians active?”

“Yes,
sir, though Shredder—that is, number five—has only seventy rounds. It’s on the
north side.”

Holtzclaw
nodded. It was as he remembered. He simply wanted to double-check everything
and get everyone ready for the worst. If the UNSF was here, chances were it
wouldn’t be a minor attack.

Hellraker
number two sat beside one of the largest alien plants in the camp. The men
called it Thor. The robotic artillery piece was in the best shape of the four
Hellrakers his unit had once operated. One of the four had been cannibalized
for a few parts too sophisticated for their assault ships to fabricate. The
other two were operable though compromised in one way or another. Thor was just
about perfect. It was a treaded vehicle, five meters on a side, taller than
Holtzclaw, and covered in dull black armor with a group of four stub barrels
pointed at the sky.

With
the help of the spotting drones, or any other accurate information source, the
machine could deliver anti-personnel shells to any location within thirty
kilometers. The smart shells it launched were rocket/projectile hybrids. They
were also highly configurable and could alter their own course enough to change
the destination by kilometers on the way down. They could also be
directionalized to deliver more power in a particular direction upon impact.
The kill radius of each smart shell when the blast was evenly distributed
extended over one hundred meters.

The
Hellrakers could launch two shells per second (though the one dubbed Conan had
to fire more slowly), which was often useful for saturating defenses. The
Hellrakers were their only real chance of fighting back if the UNSF had found
them. Though with only three machines left, Holtzclaw knew any engagement with
space force robots could be disastrous for him and his unit. They were simply
running too low on men, machines, parts, and ammunition.

The
fourteen Guardian robots on their perimeter could buy them time, but those
machines were old and had limited range. As soon as any sophisticated fighting
unit acquired them, the Guardian’s lifespan would be measured in seconds. To
make matters worse, the space force usually fought with support from orbit.

Silvarre
showed up ten seconds after Holtzclaw. Silvarre had short charcoal hair and a
deep tan. Holtzclaw’s highest ranked subordinate looked lean compared to the
solid block of Holtzclaw’s square body. The man’s cheeks looked more sunken.
Holtzclaw thought Silvarre looked worse than when he last saw him, but said
nothing.

Holtzclaw
thought about their other ordnance. He had four lightly armed assault ships,
designed to carry his men from world to world. The ships had been able to
produce just enough food and parts to keep them going. He could scramble those
and try to attack the enemy ship while they were on the ground. If the UNSF was
conducting an armed drop, though, there would be other ships in orbit prepared
to interdict.

More
men started to arrive.

“Crack
open the backup magazines,” Holtzclaw ordered. The men obeyed, showing him the
reloads they had waiting for the artillery machine. Silvarre and Holtzclaw
examined what they could and ran some diagnostics while their UED remote sensor
probes waited for signs of an incoming attack.

Fifteen
minutes ticked by with no sign of the enemy. If the space force came, he would
order his officers to disperse, have the link jamming turned on, and bolster
the defense. They saw only the red rocks pocked with holes, the tall alien
plants, and the old buildings of the Konuan ruins. All their scans,
electromagnetic, seismic, and chemical, indicated nothing amiss.

“They
must not know we’re here,” Silvarre said. “There would be no reason to hold
back after a drop in the open like that.”

“Then
why are they here? This isn’t exactly a point of strategic interest. And they’ve
won the war, at least for now.”

“It’s
time to reexamine our assumption that it’s the space force,” Holtzclaw said.

“Whoever
they are, maybe the damn monster will get them,” Silvarre said.

“It’ll
get a few of them, sure,” Holtzclaw said. “Then they’ll get wise and start
hunting it. Unlike us, they’re bound to have plenty of supplies to use against
it.”

Which
means we should make their supplies our supplies,
he
thought.

“Maybe
it’s just a big science expedition,” Silvarre suggested. “We could take ‘em.”

“Hang
low. Maintain surface camouflage discipline. We’re getting close to some of the
inner chambers. I’d like to see if we can find what we want before they notice
us.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Send
out a couple of probes under cover of darkness. Don’t let them get too close,
you hear me? Set up some surveillance about a kilometer out from where they
touched down.”

“Yes,
sir…” Silvarre hesitated. “It’s going to be a dicey night here without those
sensor probes, sir.”

Silvarre
referred to the monster that hunted them. They had just enough detection to
make it challenging for the creature to hunt them. Every now and then a scout
probe spotted the thing and recruited a nearby Guardian to take a few shots at
it. When that happened it usually retreated.

“I know
it. But we won’t be here much longer. Either we’re going to get out of here, or
we’re going to hit them and take everything they have. Just sleep with your
finger on the trigger tonight.”

Silvarre
nodded grimly.

Maybe
we’ll get lucky and blast the monster’s brains out this time. Or maybe it will
find easier prey across the ruins.

The
next hour drew itself out slowly, agonizingly. Holtzclaw finally decided no
attack was coming. He left men at the ready by Thor just in case. He went down
into the tunnels to check on progress. The arrival of the strange ship meant
the schedule had to be accelerated even further.

He
entered the room near the heart of the Trilisk complex, or at least the spot
they had decided had the most promise. Men worked all around him.

We’re
already working as fast as we can,
he told himself.
You can’t
make it any faster. You just can’t.

The
room had been enlarged, though it had cost them dearly. The Trilisk walls were
strong, amazingly strong, and self-healing. After a few failed attempts, the
UED soldiers had placed large steel columns around the room and slowly jacked
up the ceiling after they had cleared the stone above the room from the
outside. They cut the ceiling and held it open with cables. Then the Trilisk
columns inside were pried from their mounts. All three columns would be removed
together, as they were still attached to each by several umbilical lines of
varying thickness. No one knew what the lines were for or how they could be
disconnected.

A heavy
lifting robot stood ready to carry the Trilisk machines. Parts of the robot had
been stripped down and reconfigured to fit down into the tunnel. Everything had
been a struggle from the beginning. Yet it had given the men purpose, and hope.

It is
as if the entire tunnel system was just grown in place, all in one piece by nanomachines
, one
of his engineers had said. Having to take out the columns by themselves had
been like trying to remove a brain intact from its skull with a few wooden
sticks.

The
whole time, as they had worked feverishly in the tunnels, the monster had been
hunting them. Extracting these devices had been their last hope. The
scientifically inclined among them had chosen these columns carefully. They had
said one was a power source. A staggeringly powerful one. No one knew what the
other two columns were, but sitting next to that power they must be important.
Possibly weapons or defense of some kind. And that was all they knew.

Forty-three
lives lost, and a good part of our sanity, and we don’t even know what we’re
stealing.

Holtzclaw
wondered what he had done to anger the Five Entities in a previous life.

Chapter 3

The
trio of Terrans followed their scouts toward the center of the ruins around
them. Magnus and Telisa eagerly took the lead, while Cilreth was content to
follow behind. The rocks were ridged and sharp, clearly not worn by weather as
they would have been on many other habitable planets. Cilreth couldn’t spot a
speck of dirt or even one dead leaf; just the red rocks, the greenish clumps
atop their stalks, and the blue sky.

I’d
probably be more useful back on the
Clacker
, trying to figure it
out,
Cilreth thought as she picked her way over the rough terrain.
But
after being stuck in there, it’s nice to get out and see a new world.