Theogony 3: Terra Stands Alone (31 page)

“
It’s this way,
” commed Azrael, pointing to the right at the “T” intersection. Lieutenant Rrower bounded off in the indicated direction, invisible to everyone who didn’t have a suit. Down a number of people due to casualties on the asteroid, Lieutenant Rrower joined the Ground Force and volunteered to take point. Night let the natural-born hunter have it.

“
How much farther?
” asked Night. Their advance was painfully slow, having to wait for the Hooolongs. It was a rapid advance...in slow motion.

“
About 100 yards or so,
” Azrael replied. “
We’re almost there.
”

“
Drakuls!
” called Lieutenant Rrower. “
Four coming your way.
”

“
Understood,
” repeated Night. “
Four inbound.
” He set up a firing line across the passage as the four Drakuls made their appearance. “
One, two, three!
” he commed. The soldiers fired, and all four Drakuls dropped. One wasn’t dead, though, and it pulled out a little box and said something into it before Night could finish the creature off.

T
he box was obviously some sort of transmitter, as blue lights began flashing, and a voice began repeating over the replicator’s intercom, “Intruder alert! Intruder alert!” Behind them, a door began rolling across the passageway, sealing it off. With an electrostatic ‘pop,’ all of the soldiers became visible as the suits’ stealth modes died.

“Quickly!” cried Smetlurge. “We must get to the control room.
It’s just a little further on the right.” He began an end-over-end method of travel that the Terrans hadn’t seen before. As one of the end pads of the creature touched down, the other end pad flipped up and over. As the end came over the top, the end in contact with the ground pushed off, giving the Hooolong a bouncing effect as it vaulted down the corridor. The creature moved so quickly that the Terrans were left behind; the only member of the group able to keep up was Lieutenant Rrower, who bounded after the Hooolong in four-legged pursuit.

Smetlurge didn’t have far to travel, and stopped in front of a closed door
about 50 yards farther up the passageway. “This is the control room,” he said. “I am in contact with a Hooolong in there. The Drakuls are killing all of the non-Drakul races. He will open the door for us when we are ready, but we have to hurry; they are discussing killing him, too.

Master
Gunnery Sergeant Kinkead took charge of the entry. “Zoromski, you’re in first and go left. I’m second and going to the right. Sergeant Hanzo in and left, followed by Corporal Westbrook, who goes in and right, followed by the twins and everyone else. Ready? Let’s go!”

“Open the door!” said Night.

“Stand by...” said Smetlurge. “They’re looking at him...They decided to kill him...Door opening!”

The door opened
, and Sergeant Zoromski charged into the room in time to see a Drakul picking up a Hooolong, with several other Drakuls looking on. He didn’t have a shot at the Drakul holding the Hooolong, so he fired at the one closest to him, hitting it in the chest.

Master Gunnery Sergeant Kinkead followed Zoromski into the room. She saw that the Drakul would kill the Ho
oolong before anyone could get into a position to shoot it, so instead of going right, she charged it. Again.

Seeing her coming, the Drakul tossed the Hooolong to the side and opened its arms, ready to grab her. Kinkead put her head down and launched herself at the creature, driving her head into its stomach. She had hop
ed to knock the wind out of it, but it didn’t have that effect on the Drakul. Instead, it latched onto her and rolled to the side, using her momentum against her as it threw her to the ground. Momentarily stunned, the Drakul dove on top of her; she felt her ribs re-break inside her and something vital tear. Momentarily stunned, she watched as the Drakul tried to bite her through her helmet, but only succeeded in leaving slobber trails from its fangs down her face mask.

Regaining her senses,
Kinkead drew her laser pistol from her leg holster and began firing into the creature’s side. The Drakul shuddered every time she fired, but still drew its knife from a sheath. Kinkead saw it coming, and her eyes widened in horror; the oversize knife was as big as a Terran short sword. Kinkead struggled to get her pistol arm free from under the Drakul, but it had her pinned. She fired as quickly as she could pull the trigger, the pistol growing warm in her hand. She could tell that the pistol was having an effect as the monster’s actions slowed...but it didn’t stop the Drakul from grasping the knife in both hands and driving it into her chest.

Night
entered the room with the second rank of soldiers, diving forward and then rolling up against the feet of one of the Drakuls. The creature looked down in time to see Night’s rifle come into alignment. Night fired, killing it with a shot through its right eye. Pushing the falling Drakul to one side, Night propped himself up on a knee and surveyed the room. He fired one more time, killing the last Drakul standing. Jumping up, he went to assist Master Gunnery Sergeant Kinkead, who was trying to push off the Drakul that was on top of her. He could see where she had shot it repeatedly on one side; half of its internal organs were open to view, and most of them looked cooked.

Pushing the
dead Drakul off her, he saw why her motions were weaker than they normally were. The Drakul had left its knife buried in her chest. Checking her life signs in his monitor, he saw that she was fading fast. Her suit showed dark red, fading to black. She struggled to get her helmet off; he helped her remove it.

“Told you...” she said
, “tougher than...stupid frog.” Her head fell to the side, and her suit went black in his monitor. She was dead.

“I am sorry for the loss of your soldier,” said the Hooolong, who had come over to thank her
for saving its life. “I will do anything I can to help you.”

“Good,” growled Night. “Show us what we have to do to take over this
damn station.”

* * * * *

The l
aser fire was nearly continuous now, and the terrestrial missile batteries had opened up as well. “
30 seconds to go,
” commed Boom Boom. In the back of the cargo bay, Lieutenant Finn’s eyes darted wildly from side to side with every near miss. The troopers riding alongside him could see the sweat pouring off of him and knew he had never done a combat drop before. It was their first combat drop, too, but they had the training and knew what to expect. Finn didn’t.

With the loss of the stealth module, i
t seemed like every missile and laser had opened up on them at once. The troops in the back were slammed from side to side as the Venturas tried to defeat the weapons aimed at them. Knowing that the terrain would help hide them from the enemy’s radars, Boom Boom dove for the ground and the mountain range just to the east. The nose of the shuttle glowed a bright cherry red as it overheated, moments from failure.

Without warning, they were hit by an orbital anti-ship laser, which put an 11-foot diameter hole through the starboard side of the shuttle and
glanced briefly off the bomb, melting the straps that held it to the bulkhead. The air screamed explosively from the cabin, and Lieutenant Finn watched in horror as the Doomsday Device fell onto its side with a clang. He held his breath, but the weapon didn’t detonate. The ship maneuvered again, and the weapon rolled off the pallet, giving Lieutenant Finn a look at where the laser had hit. All of the external equipment had been slagged, and all of the covers to the buttons, dials and gauges down the side of the bomb were melted off.

“
Crap” he said. “
I think we just lost the ability to remote detonate the bomb,
” he commed.

“
We’re kind of...fuck!...busy up here,
” replied Boom Boom. “
What does...bastard!...that mean to the mission?
”

“
You’ll have to drop me off and run,
” Finn replied. “
I’ll have to manually detonate the bomb. Hopefully the arming mechanism hasn’t been destroyed, too.
”

“
Roger that,
” said Venturi. “
We will set down in as clear an...bitch!...as clear an area as we can find. As soon as you are off the shuttle...damn it!...we’ll take back off and try to lead them away.
” He paused as he fired the shuttle’s anti-missile laser, detonating a missile just outside its effective kill range. The blast rocked the shuttle. “
It’s pretty hairy out there,
” Venturi continued. “
They’re everywhere.
”

The WSO paused as there was another blast close aboard. The shuttle began to shake violently. “
Stand by,
” said Venturi. “
10 seconds.
” The shuttle’s boarding ramp started down. Finn didn’t think it possible, but the ramp’s movement made the shuttle’s swaying even more violent and uncontrolled. The bomb rolled toward the opening, but got stuck on the corner of Finn’s seat.

Lieutenant Finn
’s shoulders slumped, and tears threatened to break free from his eyes as he saw the weapon up close. “The remote receiver
is
melted,” he said. “I’m going to have to detonate it manually.”

“Manually?” asked Corporal
Cuillard. “As in, set it off while you are standing next to it?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” replied Lieutenant Finn
, looking destiny straight in the eye. “That’s not the worst part. It looks like the arming mechanism is going to need some work, too. It will probably take me five minutes once we get on the ground before I will be able to set it off.”

“
We will stay with you to make sure you have enough time,” said Corporal Stump. “The Three Caballeros do not leave men behind.”

“And the Three C
aballeros always win,” said Corporal Owens, as if it were one of the tenets on which the universe was built.

“Gluck ab!” all three chorused.

“Well, I won’t say that some company wouldn’t be appreciated,” said Lieutenant Finn with a small sniff that he did his best to hide. “I can’t work on the bomb and defend myself...especially from 10-foot tall monsters.”

“That is why we will be staying,” said Corporal
Owens. “We have been taught by Lieutenant Cristobal Contreras that duty and honor are important, but honor most of all!”

“We will not leave an officer to fend for himself,” added Corporal
Cuillard. “You fix the bomb; we’ll kill the Drakuls.”

“
Crash positions,
” commed Venturi. “
This is going to be violent.
”

F
inn looked out and saw the ground rush up to meet them. As the pilot applied power to brake their descent, there was another blast close to the shuttle, and the troops winced as shrapnel sprayed in through the ramp opening. Hot metal pinged off the inside of the ship, but the shuttle was already so damaged it didn’t appear to cause any additional harm. Finn felt something hit his seat and looked down to see a six-inch sliver of metal sticking out of the seat between his legs. If it had been four inches higher...he didn’t want to think about it.

As the
shuttle touched down, there was another explosion behind and to the right, causing the back of the craft to swerve violently as its landing skids hit the ground. The shuttle slid to a stop, its sideways motion causing it to tilt down to the left, and the right skid to lift off the ground. Before the shuttle could begin to roll, the pilot activated one of the thrusters, and the shuttle crashed back down, coming to a halt. “
Thank you for flying Devastation Air,
” called Boom Boom. “
All ashore who’s going ashore.
”

Finn hit the quick-release button
s on his harness and the bomb pallet. As the chains fell away, he rolled the bomb back onto the pallet and activated the pallet’s anti-gravity system. The corporals charged down the ramp, taking covering positions behind large rocks in the landing zone. Finn continued to work the controls, and the pallet moved forward. It picked up speed as the pallet reached the ramp and gravity helped pull it toward the planet.

“They’re clear,” said Venturi, watching the cargo compartment monitor.

“Good,” said Boom Boom. He reached across his body to advance the shuttle’s throttles to full with his right hand. Venturi looked over and saw that the lower portion of Boom Boom’s left arm hung at a strange angle. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

He yanked back on the stick
with his good arm, and the shuttle lifted. He immediately rolled the ship 90 degrees to the left so that they stayed within 50 feet of the ground. Using a mountain range to shield the shuttle from the majority of the missile systems around the capital, he continued to accelerate; hoping to build up enough speed to avoid the missiles he knew would come when they climbed.

The
crew never saw the Drakuls in the small gully, nor the missile that was launched at the shuttle. A heat-seeking missile, they didn’t get any indication that it was coming until the automatic defense system opened fire. Boom Boom tried to jink, but it was too late. The missile hit, and the shuttle’s right engine exploded, cart wheeling the damaged craft through the air and sending pieces raining back to the planet below. The shuttle hit the ground and rolled, tearing off its wings and rupturing the craft’s fuel tanks. The ship finally came to a rest at the bottom of a small knoll. Unconscious, neither of the aviators had a chance to get out. It exploded.

The Three C
aballeros had their own problems. As Lieutenant Finn disassembled the arming mechanism, they saw a group of at least 10 Drakuls heading their way. “So much for leading them away,” sighed Corporal Stump.

“Think you could thin them out some?” asked Corporal
Owens, looking at Corporal Cuillard, who had the group’s sole trident. “I don’t mind sharing, but I think there are more in that group than we really need.”

“My pleasure,” said Corporal
Cuillard. He leveled the trident and began firing antimatter grenades into the approaching Drakuls. Most of the Drakuls got back up from a barrage that would have killed all of them...if they’d been any other species. “This is going to take a little work.” He tripled the strength of the antimatter mass and fired again. The force of the blasts pushed the corporals backward. This time only a couple got up; they were finished off by the other two corporals’ rifles.

“Behind you!” yelled Lieutenant Finn, looking up from the bomb. The corporals turned and saw two groups of three coming from different directions
; both of the groups were wearing some kind of armor. The corporals fired their rifles as fast as they could at the new groups, and Cuillard threw explosives where he could. Lieutenant Finn glanced back down at the bomb. He couldn’t get a hold of the wire with his suit on. “Damn it,” he swore softly as he quickly stripped out of his suit. Bare-handed, he grabbed the loose wire that had eluded him. “One more minute,” he yelled to the corporals.

As he started to wrap the wire around the terminal, the sounds of lasers firing pick
ed up again. He forced himself to finish connecting the wire, counting on the corporals to do their jobs while he did his. As he tested the circuit, there was a scream of pain. Knowing that Drakuls didn’t scream, he unintentionally looked up. One of the corporals was on the ground, unmoving. Judging by the pool of blood he was lying in, he probably wouldn’t be moving again. It was Corporal Owens, missing a leg. Two Drakuls each held onto one of Corporal Stump’s arms, and he was suspended in the air while they used him like a human wishbone. He screamed again as they pulled him apart. Corporal Cuillard was trying to fend off a third Drakul with his sword and laser pistol. The Drakul was missing a hand on one arm and several fingers on the other, but that didn’t seem to bother it. As the Drakul reached in one more time, Cuillard blocked its hand with the sword and shot the monster several times in the chest. The Drakul finally went down, and Cuillard started shooting at the ones pulling on Corporal Stump.

Lieutenant Finn looked back down to the bomb, connected the last wire and ran a circuit test. Success! The bomb would
finally work. He cycled it to ‘on,’ and heard it start to run through its boot up process.

“Look out!” Corporal
Cuillard yelled.

Finn looked up to see
a Drakul stumbling toward him holding one of Corporal Stump’s arms. The second Drakul was down, and Cuillard continued to shoot at the Drakul approaching the officer. Finn drew his pistol and tried to aim at the Drakul, but found his hand wouldn’t hold still. He fired once, missing to the left of the Drakul’s head and then a second time, missing to the right. As the Drakul got within 10 feet, its eyes suddenly rolled up into its head, and the monster fell forward. The Drakul’s head came to a stop between Finn’s feet, a smoking laser hole in the back of its head.

“Ha!” said Corporal
Cuillard. He put his fists on his hips and boasted, “the Three Caballeros always win.” He didn’t see the Drakul behind him rising to its feet.

Finn screamed a warning, but
Cuillard only had time to turn before the monster was on him. Lacking hands, the Drakul stepped on his right foot and pushed. Finn could hear Cuillard’s leg bones shatter as his leg dislocated. Cuillard screamed in pain as he fell backwards. Barely able to see, Cuillard fired at the Drakul and saw it collapse. Again. He fainted.

As the last Drakul went down, Finn breathed a sigh of relief.
The bomb was still going through its boot-up process, so he started forward to check on Corporal Cuillard. He had only taken two steps toward the downed soldier when something grabbed his left wrist and lifted him off the ground. As he dangled, he spun slowly, eventually coming eye to eye with the Drakul holding him.

Before he could
break free, the Drakul reached forward with his other hand and grabbed Lieutenant Finn under his left arm. Holding him steady, the Drakul twisted the lieutenant’s arm with its other hand, dislocating it at the shoulder. The Drakul then ripped Finn’s arm out of the socket and tore it from rest of his body.

Lieutenant Finn screamed as he fell to the ground, blood spurting from where his arm used to be. In shock, he stared up at his tormentor. The Drakul looked down at him, considering, before finally stepping forward to stomp on his chest with
a massive foot. Finn screamed again as he felt things inside him shatter. He coughed up a gob of blood and realized the end was near.

With the Terran pinned beneath him, the Drakul paused to look at Finn’s arm.
It took a bite out of the meaty part at the end and then looked back down at Finn.

Pinned like a butterfly on a mounting board, Finn was done. Even if he had a way to get the Drakul off of him, he
knew he couldn’t reach the bomb before he died of blood loss, either from his arm or the perforated organs in his chest.

Feeling faint, h
e looked up at the Drakul standing over him. The Drakul looked back down, inspecting him with its three eyes. It took a few precious seconds before Finn realized that Drakuls only had two. Just long enough for the Drakul to start to fall backward.