“You won't be getting one, I'm sorry. It has to look like Ayan and you spend every credit you have to repair her and set off. Intelligence can give you some extra parts from the colony inventory, some personal equipment, but that's all.”
“How bad is the Warpig?” Ayan asked.
“With both of us working on it we should be ready in a couple days. It won't be pretty though.”
“A couple days? Are you sure?”
“Well, maybe a week.”
She looked to Doctor Anderson and batted her eyelashes. “Could I borrow a few credits?”
“I'm sure we can get a few people from the team who kept our ship running in the compression wormhole to give you a hand,” he replied with a chuckle.
Alaka Murlen
With cover fire coming from the resort built into the high cliff side Jason and Oz did their best to help dispatch the nearest mechanized soldiers. Their agility was nothing short of incredible, rolling and dodging so they could last a little longer against Oz and Jason's new allies. The mechanized soldiers didn't last long, however, and Oz managed to blast one in half before they were all down.
The pair turned back towards the cliff side and searched the darkened interior of the broken resort facade for any sign of their rescuers. “Do you see anyone?” Jason called out to Oz.
Oz magnified his view with the systems built into his vacsuit faceplate and after several seconds of searching only caught sight of an automated energy rifle on a tripod. “Nothing alive, but there's some automation in there.”
“Bots fighting for us?”
“No, just a portable gun.”
A faint whistling caught their attention then, and they looked back to the shoreline just in time to see several dark pods violently strike the sand then crack open. Fifteen thin limbed mechanized soldiers came to life and stepped out of each pod, ready to pick up where their fallen comrades had left off.
“Holy hell!” Jason called out.
“You said it!” Oz replied, dropping his empty rifle and drawing his sidearm.
“No, behind us!” Jason said, pointing at the cliff and ducking down low.
Oz turned around and caught a welcome sight. Several armoured nafalli, issyrians and angosians with their spiny, squat bodies were emerging from the broken resort with the support of several dozen humans.
In the lead the tallest of the nafalli carried a juryrigged fighter cannon at waist height, its power plant was slung across his back. His heavy armour was a collection of many different suits. “Run towards us! We won't be able to keep the shield open for long!” he called out through an amplifier that sent his booming voice echoing across the beach and beyond.
He opened fire, sending a solid beam of blue light towards the enemy landers, the sound of the weapon firing vibrated the air with its low hum. Everyone behind found what cover they could and opened fire as well, cutting into the new wave of mechanized soldiers as more pods began dropping from the sky.
Jason and Oz scrambled up the last fifty meters to the main doors of the resort. One old fashioned door was lopsidedly hanging off its hinges, and the interior was a blackened ruin.
“Fall back! Fall back to the shield perimeter!” The lead nafalli called out. The order was repeated up and down the line, presumably because any radio or wireless signals were being jammed.
A slim hand reached out from behind a toppled counter and caught Jason. “Come on, it's this way!” said a young woman in light armour as she stood.
She led them through a maze of wreckage to a thick security door where several humans waited with rifles at the ready. They were escorted through scorched halls and ruined rooms before being rushed into a side room where a nafalli and several other humans waited. They were all armed, a few carried medical kits.
They were guided to mismatched chairs where they could watch the battle outside progress on a half broken two dimentional screen. There were hundreds of mechanized soldiers outside, the pods had stopped dropping only to be replaced with four engine shuttles that hurriedly landed, dropped off thirty soldiers at a time before turning and skimming back out across the water.
The nafalli with the starfighter weapon strapped to his side managed to destroy one incoming shuttle, sending it crashing just short of the waterline, but the mixed band of biologicals were in full retreat, most of them scurried back towards the resort.
A broad nafalli female quickly scanned Jason and Oz without saying a word, programmed a treatment into her medical pad and instructed a human to inject them with high grade medical nanobots.
“Thank you very much,” Jason said to her as she walked towards the door to get ready for more injured.
She didn't turn around, dismissively waving a hand instead.
“You'll have to excuse her, she's been tired ever since I met her,” said the young woman who had guided them inside.
“It looks like you've all been busy,” he replied with a gentle smile. He could feel the nanobots already working, repairing the burn damage to his arm. He was glad for the local anaesthetic in his hand just then, feeling that being repaired from the inside was an experience he'd rather live without.
The retreat was conducted in a quick and orderly manner. Groups ran back to predetermined positions and laid down cover fire as another group would run behind them, find relatively safe places to take shots at the oncoming mass of mechanized soldiers so the group furthest out could retreat. Within a minute everyone was behind the thick safety doors and the sound of the landing machines and marching soldiers outside was silenced.
“The shield is up,” announced an angosian who was staring at a small status display in his hand.
A moment later the armoured nafalli who led the rescue entered the room without his cannon. He stopped and touched the belly of the female nafalli beside the door, said something to her quietly and she nodded before leaving.
Removing his heavy helmet, originally made for protection against medium range stellar radiation or interstellar particles, his loping gait carried him to Jason and Oz, who were still healing. They were just starting to stand as he gestured for them to remain seated with a massive paw. He looked strange and ominous under so much armour, two and a half meters tall if not a few centimetres more, and the fur under the helmet was a thick dark brown with black stripes. “I am Alaka Murlen, welcome to Damshir,” he smiled.
“Thank you for saving us, that was a hell of a rescue,” Oz said loudly enough for several of the soldiers who had just entered behind the large nafalli to hear.
“You're lucky, the enemy had given up on taking the mountain from the cliff side. Besides, I couldn't let fighters like you be killed meaninglessly, we need every man we can find and there are fewer every day. I assume from your abilities out there that you are military?”
“Good assumption,” Jason complimented with a raised eyebrow. “I'm Senior Lieutenant Jason Everin, formerly of Freeground Fleet Intelligence and my friend over here is Captain Terry Ozark McPatrick, formerly of Freeground Fleet,” he introduced.
“Call me Oz.”
“We were on our way to rendezvous with a friend before we were forced to change our course after a malfunction. Pandem looked like a good spot to land and repair, maybe get some parts. Guess our luck could be better,” Jason concluded with a shrug.
Alaka looked at them both, his eyes wide. “We have a few police officers, some former military, but no one like you two. Will you fight with us?” he asked quietly.
“If our choices are to fight or hide away and hope it all turns out for the better, I think I speak for us both when I say we'd rather fight,” Oz said firmly as Jason nodded his agreement.
A great big smile spread across the nafalli's face. “Roman is going to be overjoyed. He's conducting things from the shield room deep inside the mountain.”
“So this is an all out war? Our ship was seriously damaged by a rogue artificial intelligence, but I didn't think
