A massive eye in the ceiling opened like an iris, exposing a patch of pale sky to the cavern. Mentera engines powered up, a high-pitched whining mixed with a subaural roar painful to the ears. The first row of ships took off and headed toward the open dome to fly out into the twilight gloom of Kraetoria.
Twenty ships had gone and counting. All were revving up, leaving in a hell of a hurry. Yul rocked from foot to foot. If he and his company did nothing …
“Now!” he rasped. Two ships were still on the ground, one of them accepting aboard the crate. The last three were up in the air, making for the eye-shaped dome.
“Fenli you sneak down there and draw them out with firepower—”
“Why me?”
“Because I said so. Why the fuck not? Keep your ears peeled and your guard up. Earn your keep, spaceman. You’re a distraction until we get into place for an ambush. Remember, we fished you out of that frozen frog pond.”
Fenli grunted. “Just wanted a reason for my soon-to-come demise.” He took off in a shambling run.
“Fucking rabbit.” Cloye shook her head and glanced at Yul. Yul shrugged and looked to the three ships disappearing in the open dome. This plan had better work.
Chapter 11
A score of locusts scuttled about loading the last ships. In a running sweep, Fenli fired point blank, taking out the first Mentera hostiles a bit shy of twenty feet from the nearest mantis ship. Then he sprang back and forth like a spider, spraying fire and whooping into the com, waving his other hand to attract attention his way. He dove for cover behind some boulders just as streams of lurid green fire lashed out at him.
“Idiot,” mouthed Cloye.
Mentera heads turned. Yul surged into motion. “Now!” He nudged Cloye forward and they came sprinting in to gun down the startled enemy.
A half-dozen Mentera who had been loading the ships dropped like flies. Yul roared a cry of triumph.
Blue-green fire lasered up at them from the loading platforms, smashing chunks of rock behind them. Yul ducked. The splatter smacked his suit and he paled thinking of the consequences.
Gauges still holding. Lucky. Gritting his teeth, he came in charging like a bull. He smashed edgewise into a locust distracted by Fenli and looking the other way. The bug face stared up at him in bewilderment as he stomped on its faceplate. The glass cracked, depressurizing the suit. The insect’s mouth opened in a rictus of horror as its black-green chitin iced up. The thing froze on the spot. Yul kept moving. Cloye covered him from the side. Mentera streamed from the cargo bay of the nearest ship, many more than Yul imagined or thought possible at this time. “Kill them quickly!” he wheezed. “This is not turning out as planned. Cloye, ream those bastards to your left!”
Cloye turned. She blasted Mentera flesh to shreds, then crouched and roundhouse-kicked an unarmed Mentera in the faceplate. The glass cracked. The air hissed out of its suit as it writhed on the ground dying. “Yul, behind you!” she cried.
He ducked as fire flared and rock splintered from above his ear. A jagged shard nearly skewered him. His weapon shot up, pegged a Mentera on the run, firing his way.
But they were not killing them quickly enough. More were streaming out from the second ship.
This free-for-all blast fest was turning sour. Death was just a breath away.
Yul’s head turned to some inexplicable movement. No, it couldn’t be. A Mentera lumo-blaster lifted of its own accord in midair. It started pegging off its own kind. What the hell? How was that even possible?
Mentera from the second mantis ship pitched over in agony. The Mentera were in an uproar. Pincers pointing, fire lashing out at the strange weapon that moved by some invisible hand and fired in their direction. But the moving lumo-rifle sent still more bursts in rapid succession, shooting point blank at Mentera’s faces, shattering faceplates, shredding suits, reducing alien flesh to bloodied green and yellow chunks. Mentera blood sizzled on the dusty rock, forming ice crystals in the cold air.
Yul grimaced. Mentera body parts piled up in a long cold line of blood and shredded meat. No further movement.
“What the fuck! Yul?” Cloye gasped. Both she and Yul saw the alien blaster rise and aim, ready to take out and kill more enemy Mentera that came out of the woodwork.
“I know that signature,” croaked Fenli through the com. He came running over to where Yul and Cloye gazed uncertainly at the upraised gun. “Miko! You sly bastard. I’ll be damned if you’re not still alive. Up to your old tricks.”
“Who the hell is he talking to?” Cloye roared, bug-eyed. Yul just shook his head in perplexity.
Hresh spoke up in a wise voice. “Stress, post-traumatic anxiety, not uncommon in trauma victims. He’s hallucinating.”
“Shut up, old man,” said Fenli. “You think this blaster is a hallucination?” He leveled his weapon at the scientist huddled behind the pegmatite and Hresh shrank back. “That’s my friend, Miko.”
“Easy, you fool, we still need Hresh,” Yul grunted, slapping Fenli’s weapon aside.
Fenli looked around wild-eyed as if a window of opportunity was closing. “I don’t have to waste time on you here, chief.” With a surly grunt, he sprinted toward the second ship, now unprotected. Activity loomed in the iris-shaped escape portal far above. Yul swore. “Quick, get into the other ship!”
Almost as soon as he’d said it, Bzt, a human figure came shimmering into existence before their eyes with the mysterious lumo-blaster clutched in his hand. Yul’s jaw dropped. The mystery man, Miko?
How in hell? Unsuited and quickly asphyxiating, the man opened his mouth, face congested in blue. His hands
