When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony (30 page)

“
Do what you can,
” replied Calvin, “
and we’ll have them out of here in no time. By the way, please call me Calvin; everyone else does.
”

As the rest of the squad came onto the ship, the Mrowry all jumped back in surprise
as Staff Sergeant Dantone stomped aboard. Although he was moving a little better, and his actions were a little more fluid, he did not look like something that you would want to trust in combat. “Sorry,” said Rrower. “I didn’t know that there were any civilizations that used robots for mobile combat.”

“He is not a robot,”
replied Calvin. “He is a cyborg that hasn’t quite finished the conversion process.”

“How long...ummm...how long has it been since
it was converted?” asked Rrower, obviously a little worried.

“
You do realize that I’m standing in front of you and can hear you, right?” asked Staff Sergeant Dantone. “I am functional, and that’s all that matters. Put me somewhere in a blocking position. I’ll do my job.”

“Good enough for you?” asked Calvin.

“Um...OK,” replied Rrower, not sounding any more confident in the cyborg. He paused and then said, “On second thought, I know just the place for him.”

“Good,” said
Calvin. He looked at Top. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, sir,” Top replied. “Ready to kick some
lizard ass!”

“I like your attitude,”
said Lieutenant Rrower. “I think we’ll get along fine.”

“Lead on,” said Calvin.

Shuttle 02
, Ross 248 System, August 24, 2020

“
Five seconds to docking,”
commed the WSO, Lieutenant Faith Ibori. “
The ship says to be ready for anything; its sensors are out in this section.
”

Night looked through the window as the shuttle crewman secured the docking collar. He quickly withdrew his head from the window. “
Squad, we just landed in Lizard Central. There are at least three lizards in the area outside of the entrance. I don’t think they saw me. None of them appeared to have armor on. Hopefully, they are expecting the reinforcements that our fighters blew up and will think that we’re them. We’re going to get one chance to break in here; let’s make it a good one.
”

“
I’m going to go in first,
” continued Night. “
I’ll go in low. Wraith, you go left. Master Chief, you go right. Everyone else pile in after the three of us. Check your targets; I don’t want anyone shooting me in the back with the new lasers. Make sure all enemy combatants are dead, I don’t want any of them playing dead and hitting us from behind.
”

“Ready, sir,” said the
shuttle crewman at the docking collar. He moved out of the way. Night stood just outside the view of the door and asked, “
Ready?
”

A chorus of “
Gluck ab!
” answered his question, as well as several other, more profane, indications of eagerness. “
Here we go then. One...two...THREE!
” Night slammed the door open and dove through the three foot tube. As he started his dive through the door, the thought came to him that the ship’s gravity might not be working due to the battle damage the ship had sustained. If so; he was going to go flying right past the lizards. Not good.

As
he crashed to the floor in front of two of the seven feet tall lizards, he realized that the gravity was working, and also that the lizards seemed a lot bigger up close. Night didn’t know anything about lizard expressions, but he had their looks pegged as ‘confusion’ as they looked down at the unexpected Terran soldier lying in their midst. The moment of indecision was all he needed. Before he had even come to rest, he had shot one of them through the head and was tracking to the other. It started to rear back in alarm but never completed the motion. Two blasts from his laser rifle killed it; the extra shot from Master Chief that hit it was overkill. Night quickly got up in time to see Wraith standing over a third lizard. She pointed the rifle at its head as it flipped around and fired once. It went still.

“
Look out, suh!
” commed Corporal Sanders. Night dove to the side, and Sanders fired three shots past him, killing a fourth lizard that had been coming into the room.

“
We’re in,
” Night commed Calvin. “
Four hostiles down. No friendly casualties.
”

“
Good,
” Calvin replied. “
Hit ‘em hard. Hit ‘em fast!
”

“
Let’s go kill some lizards,
” said Night to his squad, indicating the route of travel on the map that the
Paw
had sent. He looked down at the last lizard and shot it once more through the head. “
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,
” he said as he stepped over it.

* * * * *

Mrowry Ship
Emperor’s Paw
Aft, Ross 248 System, August 24, 2020

“
If you can hold this passageway,
” said Lieutenant Rrower, watching several of his men firing down a corridor at a large number of lizards, “
that will allow a couple more engineers to go back to work on fixing the engines.
” The lizards were slowly moving down the corridor, leapfrogging each other. Half would fire while the other half tried to move up to the next doorway or cross passage. It was costing them dearly in casualties, but they were slowly getting closer and closer to a breakthrough.

“
No problem,
” said Staff Sergeant Dantone. “
If you need defense, call a cyborg. I’ve got just the thing for this.
” He pulled off his right hand and attached it to a peg on his side. Reaching behind his head, he took an attachment that looked like it had a number of barrels and placed it onto the end of his right arm. With a click, it snapped into place. “
Ready to rock and roll,
” he said.

Dantone walked up as far as he could without exposing himself to the laser fire. As he went past Calvin, the officer noticed a large box on his back that
he hadn’t seen before. Dantone reached behind him and pulled a metal band from the bottom of the box, which he linked into the attachment on his right arm. “Hi guys,” he said to the felinoids. “Cover me.” Something started whirring. With a start, Calvin realized he had heard that sound before. It was the sound a mini-gun made as it cycled up to ready status. His gun hand couldn’t be a mini-gun, though, thought Calvin. The barrels were way too big.

Without another word, he walked into the middle of the passageway and turned toward the lizards. Laser beams immediately began playing off of him. “That tickles,” he said as he began firing
.

“What in the hell...” asked Rrower as a line of shells
exploded down the right side of the passageway, shredding it.

“
Oops, sorry,” said Dantone, “didn’t have time to sight it in.” He made an adjustment, and this time the shells walked into the closest group of lizards on the right. Whatever armor they had wasn’t able to stop what Dantone was firing, and they all fell backward. Some of them in several pieces. “That’s better,” Dantone said. He changed his aim point, and the closest group on the left was blown apart.

He began walking down the passageway so that he could get a better angle on the lizards that were further away. “Here
lizzie, lizzie, lizzie,” he called. Incoming fire had fallen off noticeably, and the remaining lizards didn’t show any further inclination to move forward. Before he could drive them any further back, a loud snap was heard, and he came to a stop.

“Dammit,” Dantone said. “Something just popped in my leg.
Gimme a second.” He started dragging himself back to the intersection with his good leg. “Shit,” he added. “It’s broken, and I can only move backward. I can hold this corridor for you, but I can’t advance any further.”

“What the hell
does that thing fire?” asked Rrower.

“
It’s an older version of the Hooolong pulse rifle,” said Dantone. Even with the tinny sound, Calvin could still hear pride in his voice. “It fires 20 millimeter explosive-tipped caseless standard light armor piercing rounds. Why?”

The Mrowry shook his head. “
That was impressive,” he said. “Aside for the ones that went into the wall, anyway.”

A couple more laser beams came from the lizard end of the passageway
, and Dantone fired another couple of seconds, sending over 100 more rounds down the corridor. The lizard fire ceased.

“
I think he’s got it,
” said Calvin. “
Any idea how many lizards there are on the ship?
”

“
We don’t know for sure,
” replied the Mrowry, “
but we think there were four shuttle loads that came over before you blew up their shuttles. If they were fully loaded there could be almost 800 onboard, but it doesn’t seem like we’ve been fighting that many. If they had 800, they would have overwhelmed us. I don’t think they have more than about 200 onboard.
”

“
Yeah, we saw their ship,
” said Calvin, “
and it was pretty messed up. They were probably just scraping up whatever they could and sending it over as fast as they could get a platoon or company’s worth together.
”

“
Our records show that class of ship should only have about 150 marines onboard,
” Rrower added, “
so if they have 200 over here, they’re sending their sailors as well. They won’t be as good in a fight as the marines.
”

Calvin knew that was true, having been a sailor himself until recently.
“
We can do this one of two ways,
” Calvin said. “
We can either take them head on or try to get around them and hit them from behind. Are they only on this deck or have they spread out?
”

“
They’ve spread out and are on all of the decks,
” answered the Mrowry.

“
Well, are there any maintenance spaces that we can use to get around them?
” suggested Calvin, looking at the ship’s floor plan. It had eight main decks. The first deck was at the top of the ship, with a ladder up to the superstructure and bridge from the center of it. Decks two through eight were numbered sequentially down from it. “
How about any crawl spaces in the ceilings or under the floors? If there are, we need to use them before the lizards find them and use them against us.
”

“
No, not that I can think of,
” answered Rrower.

“
How about tankage?
” inquired Calvin. “
Water tanks? Fuel tanks?
”

“
That is a great idea!
” commed Rrower. “
There is a water tank on the seventh deck. Are those suits waterproof? We could go in one end of it and come out the other end behind their lines.
”

“
Perfect!
” replied Calvin, “
That’s exactly what I was looking for. Let’s go!
”

Mrowry Ship
Emperor’s Paw
Forward, Ross 248 System, August 24, 2020

“
Lieutenant Train,
” commed Wraith, who was the point person on the first deck, “
I just looked into a room, and there’s a lizard holding some type of dagger or knife to the throat of a Mrowry that is strapped to a chair. I don’t know anything about lizard body language, but I get the feeling that the lizard is angry, and the conversation is about to end violently.
”

“
Be right there,
” Night replied. He had split the squad in half and was with the group on the second deck; Master Chief was leading the group on the first deck. He consulted the map in his head and was there within 30 seconds. He found Master Chief waiting there, having sent Wraith forward to keep watch.

“
Are they still in there?
” Night asked.

“
Yes,
” replied Master Chief. “
There are at least two other lizards in there with the one interrogating the Mrowry. One is to the left, the other is to the right.
”

“
I’ll go in first,
” said Night. “
I’ll take the one with the knife. You follow and take the one to the right. First one done gets the one on the left. Work for you?
”

“
Works for me, sir,
” answered Master Chief. “
Ready when you are.
”

“
Sir,
” commed Wraith, “
I’ve got a group of lizards coming down the passageway!
”

“
Squad, we’re going in,
” commed Night. “
Kill ‘em all!
”

Night looked at Master Chief and saw his readiness. He put one hand on the door, nodded and threw it open, diving into the room. While still in the air
, he began firing. The lizard with the knife stood up in surprise and was hit twice in the chest and once in the head. Hitting the ground, Night aimed at the lizard to the left, who was drawing a pistol of his own. Night was faster and shot him three times in the chest. The third shot coincided with one from the other side as Master Chief shot him too, so he knew that the third lizard was down.

Night could hear repeated rifle fire from the passageway. “
Go give them a hand,
” he told Master Chief. “
I’ll take care of the Mrowry.
”

Night released the Mrowry from the chair
as Master Chief left the room. “Thank you,” it said. “Who are you and where did you come from?”

“I’m afraid
that is a long story that we don’t have time for,” answered Night. “For now, just know that we are here to help get rid of the lizard problem that you seem to have.”

“If you’re here to kill the lizards,” replied the
Mrowry, “then I salute you and thank you for the assistance.” He made a fist with one paw and placed it over his chest. “I am Commander Andowwn, the executive officer of this ship.”

Night reached down to pick up one of the rifles from the dead
Ssselipsssiss trooper. “You might want one of these,” he said as he handed it over.

“I think I would, at that,” replied the Mrowry.

* * * * *