Theogony 3: Terra Stands Alone (32 page)

“Ha!” a voic
e said thinly from the side. Lieutenant Finn’s head rolled over to where the three corporals lay amidst the pile of dead Drakuls. Corporal Cuillard was up on one elbow, Corporal Owens’ laser rifle resting in the dirt in front of him. “Three Caballeros...always...win.” Spent, he fell forward into the dirt.

That
only left him to arm the bomb, thought a dazed Lieutenant Finn. Shit, he thought, swearing for only the second time in his life. He looked at the weapon, but the bomb was six feet away. He didn’t think that he had it in him. He
knew
he didn’t have it in him. One step, he thought. If I can get up and take one step, I can fall forward to it.

He rolled over, screaming as his
mangled shoulder hit the ground. When the pain had receded enough that he could see again, he managed to get up on his knees and his remaining hand. He looked down and saw his blood was starting to pool. Got. To. Do. This. He managed to get one foot under him and then most of the other. Pushing off, he stood up weakly.

Lieutenant Finn coughed up another gob of blood as he tried to stanch the flow of blood from his left shoulder.
The shoulder seemed more important, although he didn’t know why. The Doomsday Device beeped once, indicating its readiness to be activated. Remembering his purpose, he took a step toward it and then collapsed in the dirt. His combat suit would have helped stabilize his shoulder, but it was lying in a pile on the other side of the bomb.

Raising his head, he looked at the device.
The bomb was only four feet away. It might as well have been a mile. He took his hand off of his shoulder and used it to pull himself a foot closer. Blood spurted anew from the hole where his arm used to be.

He lay face down in the dirt. Although the planet was hot and damp, he was cold. So very cold.

It won’t be long now, he thought, the edges of his vision going gray. He pulled himself forward again with his remaining arm. Two feet away, the button was still just out of his reach. Rolling onto his left side, he stretched out his right arm. The pain that shot through him as his left shoulder hit the ground cleared his vision for a few seconds, and he pushed off with his right foot. Pressed into the dirt, maybe his shoulder wouldn’t bleed out quite as fast.

He fell short of the button again. Only a couple of inches more. As he pushed forward, he
saw motion through the gray in the periphery of his vision. Looking over, he could see several Drakuls approaching. From his vantage point at ground level, they looked immense. And fast, they were moving way too fast. He wouldn’t make it.

The first
Drakul drew a rifle and aimed it at Lieutenant Finn. Finn closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable. The Drakul had him; he wouldn’t make it. When the expected blast didn’t come, he opened his eyes again. He only had vision in the center of his sight, but could see two Drakuls fighting over the rifle. The second one must have recognized the device was a bomb and was worried about setting it off.

He pushed off with his foot again, moving another couple of inches closer. With a shout,
a third Drakul ran around the two fighting for the rifle and sprinted toward Finn. All Finn could see was a dim outline of the bomb. Reaching out, his hand slapped at the side of the device, just as the Drakul grabbed the bomb and tried to pull it out of reach. The Drakul succeeded in turning the weapon slightly, and Lieutenant Finn missed the blue button.

His hand
hit the red button with just enough force to activate it. His pain vanished in a flash of light.

* * * * *

“Break orbit!” yelled Ensign Sommers from the science station
. Although they were orbiting around the planet’s furthest moon, she wanted to be even further from the planet. “Now! Now!
Now
!”

“Uh, what?” asked the helmsman. “To go where?”

Captain Sheppard looked over. “What’s going on?”

“Sir!” Ensign Sommers said. “My system just picked up
an anomaly from the planet’s surface. It looks like there is a black hole forming!”

“Dammit!” growled Captain Sheppard. “They weren’t supposed to
do that!”

“
Sir, it doesn’t matter whether they were
supposed
to do it or not,” Ensign Sommers said. “They
did it
. There is a black hole forming, and if we don’t move,
we’re going to be caught in it!
”

“Shit!” said Captain Sheppard, wrap
ping his mind around the problem. “Break orbit! Maximum speed away from the planet!” He paused to ensure his orders were being obeyed, and then had another thought. “What about the shuttle? Will it be caught in it?”

“Sir, I haven’t had communications with
Shuttle 02
for a while,” said the communications officer. “They reported they were taking heavy fire as they lifted off. Since then, I haven’t heard a word. They aren’t overdue yet, but I haven’t heard from them.”

“I think we have to assume they have been destro
yed,” said Ensign Sommers. “If they aren’t in orbit now, they will be caught in the gravity field. We only just avoided it.
Shuttle 01
should be OK; the replicator should be outside the black hole’s area of effect.”

* * * * *

Calvin looked back
as the access tube to the replicator clanged shut, blocking out the flashing blue lights in the replicator. “The other group must have been discovered,” he said as the squad became visible. He glanced back to Master Chief. “You know where the bridge is; let’s get there ASAP.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Master Chief replied. “I’ve got point
; everyone, follow me.”

Before they could move, the door next to Calvin opened
, and a Drakul filled the doorway. Seeing the soldier in front of him, the Drakul clubbed Calvin to the floor with a fist. Moving quickly despite its bulk, the Drakul drew a giant knife. Raising it over his head, he stabbed down toward the officer. Lying semi-conscious on the ground, there was no way for Calvin to avoid it. As the knife started down, though, a metallic hand flashed out and grabbed the Drakul’s wrist, stopping its downward travel.

“Not today, froggie,” said The Wall, reaching up to punch the Drakul in the face with his free hand. Although smaller than the Drakul, the cyborg had as much mass and rocked the Drakul backward with the punch. The punch only
stunned it for a second or two, however, and the monster reached for The Wall with its free hand. Seeing that it intended to grapple with him, The Wall grabbed its other hand, momentarily holding it at bay.

The Wall looked down at Calvin, still on the floor between them. “Hey Skipper,” he said, “it would be kinda helpful if you would move please.” The Drakul, taller than the cyborg by two feet, had moved in on him and was beginning to use its leverage to force The Wall’s arms down and apart.

Calvin slid out from under them and back to the rest of the group. The Wall’s hydraulics were not quite up to the task of holding the Drakul, and he saw a smile, or what he thought was probably a smile, begin to form on the Drakul’s face. The Drakul could see that it was winning their wrestling match. In another few seconds, the Drakul would force the cyborg’s arms far enough apart that the monster could step in and break them off.

The Wall gave a small smile of his own. “I’ll bet you don’t have
one of these,” he said. With a thought, an eight inch blade sprang from the toe of his right boot. Bracing on his left foot, he kicked the Drakul as hard as he could in its knee, driving the blade all the way into the joint. The Wall twisted his foot and the blade, pre-stressed to do so, broke off in the knee of his enemy. The Drakul crumpled to the side as its knee gave out. Seizing his advantage, The Wall dove onto the 10 feet tall monster, and his added weight collapsed the Drakul’s leg the rest of the way. The Drakul fell to the ground with The Wall riding it down, both knees on its stomach.

The Drakul thrashed around on the ground, but was unable to throw off the 450 pound cyborg. After a few seconds its motions became less violent, finally going still. As The
Wall climbed off of the now motionless creature, the rest of the squad could see why; matching eight inch long blades protruded from both of his knees. The entire stomach area of the Drakul had been pureed. “Stupid frog,” The Wall said, wiping a wad of blue from his right knee blade. “Now I’m going to have to get disinfected again when I get back.”

The Drakul twitched as he started to walk away. Without looking back, he drew his pistol and fired once, hitting it between the eyes. It went still.

“I got it!” said Bob ‘Danger’ Jones, looking up from his camera. “My audience is soooo gonna love that!”

“Wonderful,” said Master Chief, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “We’ve still got a ship to capture. Space Force,
follow me!
”

He took off at a lope down the larger than normal corridors. The ceilings were four feet higher and the passageways four feet wider than any Terran ship he had ever been on; there was plenty of room to run, especially since the
Drakuls hadn’t set general quarters or gone to any kind of higher alert status.

B
lue lights started flashing in the passageway, and a voice announced the intruder alert.

“Damn it to hell,” Master Chief grunted. In a louder voice, he said, “Faster! We’ve got to get there before they lock the bridge.”

The stairs were right where Azrael had said they would be, and he began climbing. As he reached the second landing, there was a pounding from above, and he could see two sets of oversized boots coming down. Hiding behind the stairs, he waited until they were right above him and then stuck a hand through the gap between the stairs and grabbed one of the Drakul’s feet. Pounding down the steps as fast as it could, the Drakul couldn’t get its balance and went headfirst down the last five steps. There was a loud ‘crack’ as it hit the deck and lay motionless. From the angle of its neck, it wouldn’t be getting up. The other Drakul hadn’t seen Master Chief’s hand come out, and it stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking at the Drakul on the deck.

Staff Sergeant Dantone firmly but
silently pushed Master Chief out of the way and went to stand next to the Drakul. “Too bad,” he said in Drakul.

“He was an
ass...” the Drakul started to say as he turned. He was cut off as The Wall shoved 15 inches of steel up through his throat and into his brain.

Dantone pulled out the short sword
, and the Drakul fell to the floor. He swept out a hand toward the stairs. “All yours, Master Chief,” he said.

Master Chief ran up the last flight of stairs and looked carefully into the passageway. One Drakul could be seen going away from them.
It went through a door and was gone.

The doorway to the bridge was just to their left.
It was ajar; the last person in hadn’t noticed that a piece of plastic, negligently discarded as part of the replication process, kept it from closing all the way. It sounded like a beehive of activity on the bridge, with contradictory orders being shouted by a number of voices.

“Cast us off!”
a voice yelled.

“We can’t!” another
voice replied. “We don’t have a qualified engineer.”

“I don’t give a shit,” the first
voice answered. It looked up in surprise as two cyborgs strode onto the bridge.

“I love a target rich environment,” said Staff Sergeant Randolph, firing a burst of 20mm shells from his Mrowry auto cannon into the Drakul that was trying to take charge.

“Plenty of ‘em here,” agreed Staff Sergeant Dantone, putting a burst of 20mm shells from his pulse rifle into the other Drakul that had been arguing with the first. The eight other Drakuls on the bridge stopped what they were doing at the sound of gunfire and began pulling out weapons.

“Just another day on the target range,” Randolph said, shifting targets from his second target to his third. The second no longer had a head
; it seemed a waste of ammo to continue shooting it.

“Save some for me,” Dantone said, shifting to his own third target. The second had a huge blue hole in
its chest, and most of its internal organs were now external.

A laser beam glanced off Staff Sergeant Randolph
, but Master Chief killed the Drakul before it could shoot again. As the rest of the squad poured onto the bridge, the remaining Drakuls were quickly put down.

“Now
that
made the whole cyborg conversion process worthwhile!” Randolph said in glee.

“Yeah, it did,” agreed Dantone. He
turned toward Calvin. “What next, sir?”

“
Guard the door,” said Calvin, as he got an incoming comm.

“
Calvin, Night,
” his XO transmitted.

“
Go ahead,
” Calvin replied.

“
We’ve got the control center,
” Night commed. “
You’re never going to believe this, but all of the doors lock from here. The replicator was built to have a minimal staff, so all of the passageway doors and damage control stations can be controlled from here. We’ve locked the Drakuls down. Assuming they don’t have a torch or a space suit, they’re not going anywhere. There are also cameras in most of the spaces, so we can tell where they are and what they’re doing.
”

“
Good,
” replied Calvin. “
Take whatever steps you think are necessary to secure the replicator. We’ve got control of the bridge here, but there isn’t any sort of camera system onboard, so we don’t know where any of the Drakuls are. I am going to send a group to secure engineering. If you get some extra hands, please send them over. This thing’s huge!
”

“
I’ll send what I can,
” agreed Night, “
but I could use a cyborg to help with clearance for a short while.
”

“
I’ll send Staff Sergeant Dantone back,
” Calvin replied. “
Anything else?
”

“
Yeah,
” Night said. “
One more thing. Azrael recommends making an announcement over the ship’s intercom. He says to tell everyone onboard that you have taken the ship and that anyone that wants to kill Drakuls is free to do so. If they don’t want to kill the Drakuls themselves, tell them to call you on the bridge, and you’ll send a unit down to do it for them. There should be a large number of non-Drakuls onboard; put them to work for you.
”

“
Roger, that,
” replied Calvin. “
Good info, we’ll give it a shot. Calvin out.
”

He glanced around the bridge at the array of consoles. “Jones, Rozhkov, see if you can find
the intercom system. We need to talk to the crew.”

“Me?” asked Bob ‘Danger’ Jones. “I’ve got a microphone, but have no idea where to plug it in here.”

“No, dipshit, he meant Jones the spy, not Jones the reporter,” said Master Chief. “As far as plugging it in goes, I’m sure I can help you find somewhere to shove it, if that’s an issue.”

“Nope, not an issue,
Master Chief,” said Danger. “I’ll just be over here out of the way if you need me.”

“
Found it,” called Irina Rozhkov, standing next to a dead Drakul that was wearing the remains of a headset on the remains of its head.

“Really?” asked Mr. Jones, walking up.

“Da,” Rozhkov said, pointing at the panel. “It is just like the one in the asteroid.” She pushed a couple of buttons. “Testing, odin, dva, tri,” she said in Russian.

“
They can hear you in the hallway,” said Staff Sergeant Dantone from the doorway as he left to join the group on the replicator.

Rozhkov pointed to a green button. “Just push the button and talk, sir,” she said.

Calvin took a deep breath and pushed the button. Using his implant to translate into the Drakul language, he said, “Attention throughout the ship! This is Lieutenant Commander Hobbs of the Terran Space Force. We have captured this ship, and I am declaring open season on the Drakuls. If you are not a Drakul, feel free to either kill any of them that you see, or call the bridge, and we will do it for you. If you are a Drakul, you have five minutes to come to the bridge and turn yourself in; otherwise, we will consider you an enemy combatant and shoot you on sight. If you choose to exercise this option, place both hands on your head and walk to the bridge. You have five minutes; your time starts now.” He repeated the message.

“Think any of them will give up?” asked Master Chief.

“No,” answered Calvin, “I don’t. Would you, in their place?”

“Hell, no, I wouldn’t!” replied Master Chief. “I’d figure out a way to overload the engines and...
holy shit.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” said Calvin. “That’s why I want you to take Randolph, Wraith, Witch
, Mr. Jones, Miss Rozhkov and Jet and go make a sweep of the engine rooms. I have a feeling that you’ll find the rest of the Drakuls on the ship down there. Go stop them.”

“Can I go, too?” asked Bob ‘Danger’ Jones. “It looks like that’s where the story is.”

“Sure,” said Calvin with a smile, knowing Master Chief wouldn’t want the cameraman along. “Be my guest.” He turned to find Master Chief looking at him with a pained expression.

“You know the engine rooms are well over a mile from here, right?” asked Master Chief.

“Yep,” replied Calvin. “They’re probably closer to two. That’s why you’d better hurry. Good thing you’re in shape; I’d probably pass out along the way.” He paused, then raised an eyebrow at Master Chief and asked, “Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?”

“No, sir,
damn it, I’m not,” replied Master Chief. “Randolph, Wraith, and every other damned person he just said, let’s go.” Calvin heard him mumble as he went out the door, “A fucking master chief’s job is never done.”

Calvin smiled. A grumbling master chief was a happy master chief.