Cloye swore.
“Shit, they locked our warp! We’re all targeted for Quenrix.”
Every bug ship within radius of the Mentera L-16 destroyers was auto-locked for the target planet.
“Even if we wanted to fly the fuck out of here, we’re committed to Quenrix.”
“No shit,” croaked Fenli. “Happy with your decision now, Yul? We should have just blasted our way from the beginning.”
“Maybe, but how could we have known?” said Hresh. “They could have gotten wise to us and torched us all the easier.”
“Shut it, Hresh. We’re sick of your theorizing,” said Cloye.
“Quit arguing!” Yul spoke over the secure-encrypted network, “NOA, this is an urgent call! Repeat, urgent! Large Zikri and Mentera task force plans an assault on Quenrix. They’re an estimated 3-6 hours away from deployment, max. The next target is a neighboring world, I’m guessing. Maybe Aljo or Baltair. Repeat Aljo or Baltair. Put every ship you have into sector 3.115 DZ. Only way to avert a planetwide disaster. Repeat, urgent—”
His ship, along with a thousand others, blazed in a blinding flash of light. All communication went dead.
“Damn!” Yul cried. He banged his fists on the console. He looked hard at Cloye who cringed as the mantis fighter shot down a cone of light toward their destination light years away. He hoped the hell NOA got the message.
* * *
For Audra to outwit the last locust patrol left in the dim tunnels on Kraetoria was an exercise in ease. The mantis lightfighter landed back at the underground base after fruitless hours of searching the tunnels for its mixed bag of fugitives: a rebel Mentera, two humans and one Zikri. The exhausted locust crew awaited further orders. Audra crept round the back of their mantis’s silver hull. She made note of the sleek, special scout-model design, ideal for her purposes. Her piloting skills, even in the arena of alien Mentera craft, were not to be faulted. A single guard was posted at the starboard hatch, as was normal procedure. The insectoid was starting to nod off, its locust head dipping in the space helmet.
Audra struck like a viper. The guard fell in a flurry of tentacles, crushed beyond recognition. Audra dragged the mangled corpse into the rocks scattered about the periphery. Waiting for some moments, she kept her eyes trained. No immediate reactions. The hatch opened; another locust emerged and peered about with suspicion, tapping its grey helmet’s audio link, lumo blaster raised. Audra struck with no less lightning efficiency. She let motilators guide her through the open hatch and on through the decompression chamber where she made her way to the bridge. In seconds, she disposed of the remaining pilot. With three Mentera neutralized, she had herself a starship.
Chapter 15
Regers’ eyes roved in appreciation to the defensive metal sheets hanging across the wall by Xaromar’s weapons racks. “Get them down!” He swept a brisk hand to Vincent and Deakes. “The horned Daulks had it right by keeping this here fireproof shielding for just such occasions. Slide ’em over to the controls, boys. We’ll create ourselves a nice barricade. Ramra—seal that bridge door. Bugs aren’t going to be kind to that door. Jiminy…Creib—you two stay close to those controls. Guard them with your life, in case anything comes back online.”
The sounds of furious drilling and cutting tools scraped somewhere on the upper hull down the hall. Regers glared up with baleful eyes. His metallic fingers gripped his blaster while Deakes and Vincent dragged the sheeting over past the weapons grid. He tucked himself in behind the makeshift firewall, grumbling his dissatisfaction, racking his brain for ways to win this unwinnable war.
Deakes settled in a wobbly crouch beside him, flush-faced, muttering over the grating noise on the exterior hull. “Regers, you sure you want to do it this way? There may be another option.”
“Like what?”
“Blow the oxygen tanks? Fry the fuckers? Get the ship online and moving away and have us gouge the top of that drone against something hard, like the hard rocks down on Remus—”
“You’re not thinking, Deakes. The locusts’ve corkscrewed us. Cut a hole in our hull. Hear that metal-grating and tinkering? That’s them piling Mentera soldiers into our ship right now. We blow that drone off us, nuke the air seal and we’re suddenly flooded in vacuum. Kills our ship. We can’t hyperdrive out with a hull like a honeycomb.”
“Yeah, okay, so maybe I was wrong. Scratch that.”
Regers clenched teeth. “Yeah, scratch that. What do we have that’s working? What resources? Think, you fuckers—Creib? Jiminy?”
Creib pulled at his muff of stringy hair. “Nothing. Just bridge auxiliary power, electrical, oxygen, life support, but that’ll do us no good against the locusts. Wait, artificial grav is still up.”
“What good is that, ass-fuck?” Vincent snorted. “We’re already in grav, being a dove’s dive from Remus.”
Jennings asked, “Does the AG have a sliding scale?”
“Yeah, why? Quit wasting our time.”
Jennings ignored Regers’ insult. “Max the AG out. Coupled with Remus’s grav, it’ll make them heavier than lead.”
“Yeah, and us too.”
“Well, we’ll know it, but they won’t.”
Regers rubbed his jaw. “We could take them by surprise. Okay, here’s what we do. We hole up in the bridge, spike the artificial grav at a key moment. Creib, you stand by and max it when I tell you to. Teach those bugs a lesson. We give them a mouthful of pure hellfire when they come through that door. Vincent, you and Deakes get yourself ready to be 300 pounds heavier. Lay flat on your bellies, fire around each end of the shield. Make sure you blast the shit out of those crickets before they hone in on us or we’re dead! Ramra, you’ll be backup. Cover ’em like a fly on shit.
