M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance) (36 page)

Billy Ray took a sip from the cooling mug of coffee he held and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Jean-Jacques offered a faint smile and clasped his hands behind his back. Staring out the observation port he continued.

“I told them that, as a young race, we would not think of comparing our wisdom with theirs, but that I wished to relate a story. I told them of how an idealistic young human once thought many things to be true, all for the most noble of reasons. This young man pursued a career in service of these ideals, never once questioning that they might be erroneous. Never thinking that what he thought were good deeds were, in fact, harmful to others. Then one day, events transpired that shook his beliefs to the core—all the truths he held sacred crumbled and blew away like dust in the wind.”

The Frenchman paused, causing the Captain to prompt him to continue. “And this story convinced the Triads to send a bunch of their Guardians back to Earth with us? Surely there was more to it than that.”

“Oh yes indeed,
mon Capitaine
. I humbly suggested that changing one's mind, admitting that perhaps one's previous beliefs were not correct was not an admission of weakness, but a sign of wisdom. I told them that our species was often wrong, and had made many mistakes in the past, but we strove to do better in the future. That is why we place such faith in the power of redemption—the belief that even a man's worst sins can be forgiven if he repents and honestly tries to do better.” 

“That was it?”

“No, I said one last thing—a statement attributed to the Irish statesman Edmund Burke: 'When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.'”

“Ah, how appropriate, Monsieur,” the Captain said, nodding. “Or as Benjamin Franklin phrased it: 'We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.'” 

“Precisely, Captain.”

“You know Jean-Jacques, there appears to be some use for diplomacy after all.”

The Frenchman looked at the Captain, inclined his head in a slight node and smiled. Both men returned their gaze to the procession of alien plants outside the viewport, happy to stand silently in each other's company.

Railgun Test Emplacement, Farside

The long barrel of a corvette class railgun hung down into the cone shaped chamber. Suspended from its muzzle, the 32 meter long weapon was free to swing within the chamber, like the clapper in a gigantic bell carved out of stone. Suddenly the barrel pivoted on its axis and then swung twenty degrees from vertical. 

“OK, Clem. Fire a three round burst.”

The gravatonically driven cannon cycled three times in quick succession. On the third shot it broke free from its mounting and fell the short distance to the bottom of the chamber.

“Well crap,” said Lem.

“The mount is just not strong enough for continuous fire, Lem.”

“Ya think?”

As the two armorers stood looking at the now dismounted railgun a hover sled approached their viewing platform from the right. All of the railgun emplacements were joined by a perimeter tunnel that was kept under vacuum, just like the gun chambers themselves. It was decided that making the gun mounts air tight was a complication they did not need, since they were having a hard enough time making the guns fire more than a few times between failures.

Driving the hover sled was a large Marine with an insignia stenciled on his armor's left shoulder. Displaying three chevrons over two curved rockers it was the rank insignia of an E-7, or gunnery sergeant. There were two other Marines in the back of the sled.

Turning to face the newcomers Clem called out to the driver. “What can we do for you, Sergeant?”

“Just came by to make a delivery,” the Marine replied. “I got two containers each holding thirty 10kg railgun projectiles. I'm to give 'em to either Clement Mathews or Lemuel Souther.”

“You found both of us, Sergeant...?” Lem prompted.

“Washington, Gunnery Sergeant Lawrence T. Washington,” the big man smiled, “but you can just call me Gunny.”

“Hey, I know you. You were on the big alien hunt.”

“I surely was. It's the story of life in the Corps—one day you are locked in a desperate battle with vicious space aliens, the next you're making delivery runs to the Army.”

“Ex-Army,” Lem corrected. 

“Hey, that's OK, nobody's perfect. Heck, my best friend used to be a snake eater.”

“Marines and Special Forces have a lot in common, like being crazy. Clem and I were smart enough to stick to artillery, where the enemy is kept at a sensible distance.”

“And that there is supposed to be the base's new artillery?”

“Yeah, except right now it's busted artillery. We still need to work the bugs out of the mounting system.” Clem leaned forward and let the Gunny scan his left iris through his suit's clear helmet, signing for the ammunition.

“All right, Grissom, Bradley, get that ammo unloaded,” GySgt Washington yelled at his two companions. Then he turned back to the engineers—gunnery sergeants do not offload vehicles. “I haven't seen many cannons that fired straight up through the roof. It's a big sucker though.”

“Yeah, we call her Big Bertha,” Lem replied. “We expect that anyone attacking the base will probably come in from above. This is more like an anti-aircraft installation than a howitzer or tank's main gun.”

“Which is why it's being such a pain in the ass to get working,” his partner added.

“We figured we would let most of the barrel hang down from the mount, both to conceal it and protect it from enemy fire. Instead of traversing the tube we rotate the whole weapon, changing the orientation of the trunnion that supports the slide. Then we can change elevation by as much as twenty degrees off vertical by pivoting the assembly on the trunnion.”

“We can't hit things close to the surface, but with six of these surrounding the base we'll get a field of fire that should cover any attacking spaceships overhead,” Clem concluded. “At least that's the theory.”

“I hope you get it figured out,” Washington confided, “because according to the scuttlebutt, the brass is expecting an alien attack sooner rather than later. And not just a recon patrol trying to blow through like the last time.”

“Trust me, Gunny, we are motivated.”

“Where do you want this stuff, Gunny?” interrupted one of the Marines. They were standing beside the sled, each holding a 400 plus kilo crate of projectiles. The Gunny looked at the engineers and raised his eyebrows in question. 

“Just set them over by the wall, out of the way,” answered Clem. “We gotta fix the damn thing before we reload it.”

The Marines deposited the crates in the indicated location and climbed back onto the hover sled. Seeing that all was in order, the Gunny remounted his vehicle and bade the artillery men good day. “See you later, gentlemen, and good luck with your toy.”

Clem and Lem waved as the Gunny's sled disappeared down the tunnel, headed back to base.

“You know, Clem, I got a better idea about how to build an aim-able slug thrower. A few years ago, some folks were trying to build a hyper-velocity mass accelerator based on a type of particle accelerator called a cyclotron. They wanted to launch stuff into orbit with it, so the acceleration would have been about the same as Big Bertha in there. I think they called it a slingatron.

“It was pretty compact because the path used to accelerate the launch payload was wrapped around in a spiral. From the drawings I saw it would probably fit on a large telescope mount. You could elevate and traverse it all you want.”

“So put a suggestion in the HQ suggestion box. Right now we need to get what we have working.”

“That's why we're such a good team, Clem. I'm the visionary with big ideas and you're the down-to-Earth guy that makes sure stuff gets done.”

“Lem, I ain't been down-to-Earth since they pulled us out of that field in Kansas. Now let's go see what broke this time.”

Chapter 22

Ring Station Expedition, Day 11

Bear roared as he knocked the leaping raptor from the air, his suit claws leaving deep lacerations in the creature's thigh. Another came at him from his right, which he clotheslined with his cannon. The 100 kilogram cross between a velociraptor and an angry rooster back-flipped through the air and landed in a heap at the Captain's feet.

Casually glancing down, Jack put a three flechette burst into the alien's chest. “Don't just knock them down, kill the damn things Mr. Bear.”

Bear looked at the Captain and grinned. The big carnivore was definitely enjoying himself.

To Bear's right, Sanchez took a plasma bolt on his suit's shields, temporarily surrounding the Marine with a glowing nimbus of orange fire. He pivoted and shot his assailant as it leaped toward him. Another landed on his back while he was so occupied.

Bear swatted the raptor off of Joey's back, commenting, “You heard the Captain. Stop playing with these things and kill them, Sanchez.”

“I'm trying, LT,” Joey yelled, turning back to their front and loosing a long burst of flechettes. “They keep hopping up into the air when I shoot at them.”

“So shoot them in the air,” Bear growled, hitting one of the aforementioned leaping feathered dinosaurs with a single shot from his 15mm cannon. The explosive shell turned the raptor into bloody spatter and pink mist.

The march to find the antimatter repository had covered many types of terrain, and the Earth mercenaries met several new forms of adversary along the way. Leaving the wooded territory of the white insects they passed into a grassy coastal region where they were attacked by ground dwelling cephalopods with ten tentacles and fearsome beaks. They grappled with the Earthlings at close quarters, requiring the use of claws, machetes and sword.

As they walked along the dunes next to a shallow sea they were assaulted by club wielding amphibians with six limbs. Driven off by railgun fire, they retreated into the water where a volley of explosive rounds set on time delay had the same effect as a stick of dynamite dropped in a fishing hole. The expedition headed inland leaving a bay full of floating bodies behind it.

Each set of opponents was formidable, but the bipedal, feathered carnivores, with their long tails and enlarged sickle-shaped claws on each hindfoot, were by far the worst. They would have been dangerous enough given just their claws and teeth, but the darting, feathered host was also armed with weapons—a form of plasma gun carried by most with their two short forelegs. 

On the left flank, Rosey Acuna and Ronnie Reagan were calmly blasting leaping raptors out of the air using 20mm shotgun rounds, with Kevin Brown hosing down any trying a more land-bound approach. Another attacker leaped toward the Marines, clawed legs and ruffled neck extended.

“Mine!” called Rosey, catching it square in the chest.

Two more simultaneously tried a high/low attack from the right. Ronnie took them both out in quick succession.

“You are supposed to call your shots,” complained Rosey.

“Sorry,” Reagan grinned back at her.

“You two are crazy,” complained PFC Brown, kneeling between them. “This ain't no duck hunt.”

“Just 'cause the ducks here have claws and teeth doesn't make it any less fun,” Rosey replied, blasting another bounding reptile. “Shit, two are making an end run!”

To Rosey's left two raptors raced by, running low with their necks out parallel to the ground. They were headed for the inner circle formed by the Trader's bodyguards. As Acuna and Brown pivoted, trying to get a shot at the fast moving creatures, the fuzzy weasels opened fire with their air rifles. The lead raptor stumbled and fell, obviously hit, while the second pulled up short and fired its weapon.

Simultaneous flechette bursts from the two Marines knocked the raptor off its feet, but not in time to throw off its aim. One of the bodyguards was hit, falling backward with his fur on fire, his chest reduced to a charred pit. 

“Damn. Remind me not to get hit by one of those plasma things without armor,” Brown said.

“Just be glad they don't have any really big plasma cannon, like they did on the Space Mushroom,” yelled Reagan. “Look to the front! Here comes another wave!”

* * * * *

As usual, Hicks, Jacobs, Doc White and Mizuki were defending the column's rear. Hicks was standing on top of one of the sleds trying to spot attacking raptors.

“Man these things are fast,” he exclaimed, loosing a burst at a target unseen by the others.

“Stevie, get your ass down from there before they draw a bead on you,” yelled Jacobs. As Matt was yelling, Hicks was hit first by a plasma bolt and then by a flying raptor. This knocked him off the sled and into the makeshift redoubt containing the other humans.

Raptor and Marine sprawled on the ground. As the raptor tried to regain its footing, Doc White blew its head off with a shotgun round. This action momentarily distracted Mizuki and Matt.

A flock of red and orange butterflies swooped by in front of Mizuki, passing from left to right. Attention captured, her focus followed them around to see two more raptors bounding over the sled behind her. Unable to raise her railgun in time, one of the raptors landed claws first on her chest and the pair tumbled over backward.

Matt also caught the motion of the butterflies out of the corner of his eye. He instinctively stepped sideways, raised his weapon and fired. The second raptor took the burst in its chest and tumbled to the ground beside him.

Mizuki, significantly out massing her assailant, continued their backward tumble and threw the angry reptile off. It quickly regained its feet and lunged at the armor encased woman—just in time for Mizuki to slice its head neatly off with a single blow of her sword. The raptor downed by Jacobs struggled to regain its footing. The katana wielding astrophysicist turned the follow-through of her first strike into a second clean blow that removed that raptor's head as well. Above her, the flock of butterflies swirled in a festive rainbow display. 

Hicks and White recovered their composure enough to send a hail of 5mm tracers down range. To this, Jacobs added a volley of time-on-target 20mm air-bursts, breaking the momentum of the raptors' attack. Betty looked up at the swirling cloud of tiny winged creatures above Mizuki, now turning more placidly in shades of green and blue.