Pelquin's Comet (37 page)

“All you’re doing is forcing it to gain greater control in order to retaliate,” Drake called.

“Yeah, thanks for the update, but we noticed,” Bren assured him.

Pelquin felt his left arm grabbed, hauling him back to his feet. He and Bren stumbled in retreat, finding a bigger pile to hide behind. His slap mask was gone and blood oozed from a stinging cut on his left cheek, while his right arm felt numb, the dull ache of heavy bruising or worse just beginning to make itself known.

He stared at his open hand, only then realising that on top of everything else he’d dropped his gun. “Some swashbuckling marauder I am,” he muttered.

“Cut it out, Pel. If you’re looking for sympathy you’ve come to the wrong place. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and concentrate on figuring out how we survive this.”

“That’s easy; we don’t.”

“Well, if this really is it, there’s one thing I’ve got to do before I go.” In a sudden movement she wrenched off her own slap mask and leant forward, grabbed the back of his head and, without any further preamble, kissed him.

“Hell!” He stared at her in shock as she pulled away.

“It wasn’t that awful, was it?”

“No, not at all, but, I mean…
really
?”

“Yeah, really. Now can we talk about this later?”

“Hell, Bren!”

“Stop saying that.”

The strange shuffling sounds of the Xter suits were growing closer. Pelquin was almost glad of the distraction. Almost. Until that is, an Xter suit rounded their hiding place and raised its arm to shoot.

Mudball, where the hell are you?

I’m busy trying to save your ass from this over-excited guardian entity.

Drake had never been more pleased to sense the alien’s mental presence.
Well try a little quicker, would you?

That’s easy for you to say. You just have to sit there and avoid getting killed. Me, I have to do all the hard work as usual.

A little swift evidence of that ‘hard work’ would be appreciated about now.

Give me a break, will you? This is his home turf after all.

So you’re overmatched?

Of course not; I didn’t say that. Now pipe down and let me concentrate.

Leesa wriggled and squeezed her way to the top of one of the artefact mounds, trying to find a decent vantage point without drawing attention.

She had grown up on an Xter world, born into a community dedicated to learning all they could about the aliens and their culture. She had quite literally forgotten more about the Xters than most people would ever know. Now, at this vital juncture, she
remembered
; remembered how their powered suits were built and how they worked. Most importantly, she remembered how they could be disabled. Of course, knowing and doing were two entirely different things, but in the needler she had a tool capable of managing the job. The rest was up to her.

She closed her mind to everything around her: the shooting, the shouting, the very real threat to those she was here to help. Success depended on focus, on not being distracted and not being rushed, on performing at her optimum.

That didn’t mean dithering or wasting time, it merely meant taking the required seconds without feeling pressured into rushing. Smoothly, efficiently, she adjusted her body and positioned the gun, ensuring that the small support rested on a flat, stable surface. The needler, which had felt poorly balanced and awkward, was transformed into a perfectly designed killing tool. As soon as she activated the sighting mechanism a virtual screen leapt to life, hovering above the gun’s chamber. A final shifting of her weight and she was able to stare through the screen and along the barrel. Without moving her hand she put slight pressure on a stud and the image leapt closer, centring on the Xter suit that menaced Pelquin and Bren. A red dot, visible only through the screen, indicated the precise target area. Another gentle squeeze and the section of the suit she was after dominated the screen – the middle of the back, encased in a bulge of armour. This was where the small motor that powered the suit was situated. It was well protected, but the beam from a needler could cut through all that like a monofilament blade through cream cheese. In fact, her chief concern was to avoid hitting either of the two humans on the suit’s far side.

A minor adjustment to her aim and she was ready. She knew the gun was supposed to allow multiple targeting, but she was no expert with this particular weapon and didn’t have time to figure out how. One slow deep breath and she gently closed her finger on the trigger. No recoil, no tremor of the handle to indicate that anything had happened. Just the flash of contact and the puff of a contained explosion on the suit she’d targeted, which stopped moving, becoming suddenly stiff and lifeless. Like a felled tree the Xter suit pitched forward, nearly toppling onto the two startled figures cowering in front of it.

The only other indication that the needler had done anything whatsoever was the alarming drop in the power level bar in the bottom left hand corner of the sighting screen. At this rate, she reckoned there were only one or two more shots in the gun, so she had better make them count.

One of the surviving suits turned and began to make its way towards her. She ignored it, centring instead on the one that was closing on Nate Almont and Drake – the pair looking to be in far more immediate danger than she was.

That proved to be a mistake. The suit advancing towards her raised a forelimb and fired.

The shot went low, slamming into the mound of artefacts and trinkets beneath her, which bucked and heaved like a giant turning over in its sleep. The pile, which had seemed so solid and stable before, was now transformed into a sliding and tumbling collection of individual components; Leesa among them.

She slid sideways, rolling over as things struck her and sharp edges scratched and cut. She landed on a bed of discomfort, with something heavy coming down on top of her and pinning her left leg. For the moment, the Xter suit was lost to sight behind a heap of fallen artefacts. That worried her more than anything. She kicked and squirmed, freeing her leg, though the ankle throbbed as if it was twisted or perhaps broken. The needler was still clutched firmly in her right fist. Something tickled her left cheek and she wiped at it absently with her free hand, the fingertips coming away smeared with blood. She hauled herself onto the top of this new, low configuration of tumbled artefacts, to see the suit much closer.

As she came into sight it raised its gun once more,

Leesa didn’t hesitate, didn’t have time to seek a flat surface for support. Still on her knees she straightened her back. She brought her left arm up, forearm horizontal and across her body at shoulder height, and this was where she rested the needler’s barrel. The targeting display sprang to life. There was no time to think this through properly. She kept her left arm steady and let instinct dictate where on the front of the suit she should aim. With no room for doubt or time for hesitation, she pulled the trigger.

A bright flare as the needler’s beam found its mark, burning through the front of the armoured suit and then on through the body to find its back. For a moment she thought she’d missed her mark, but then the suit stopped, its forelimb froze. In apparent slow motion the suit keeled over; toppling forward and to the right, where it lay unmoving.

No time to celebrate, no time to feel anything other than a fleeting sense of relief. Two of the suits were still active and the needler was spent. She discarded the gun, rolling and pushing herself to her feet, sharp pain radiating from the injured ankle as she tested it with just a little of her body weight.

“The motor and power supply are in the middle of the back, well protected but it’s the only way to stop them,” she yelled for the benefit of anyone who’d listen.

No one answered, but then they were sort of busy.

A hop, a limp, and she was back on her knees, scrabbling around in the fallen mound of artefacts, desperately searching for something to use as a weapon. She thought she had a few seconds, thought she knew where the danger was; until a shadow fell across her.

Leesa looked up to find the second Xter suit she’d shot standing over her with its gun levelled at her head.

Drake flung himself forward, trying to retrieve his cane, which had tumbled from his hand as he was sent flying by the Xter suit; the same suit that Nate Almont was currently grappling with.

They might not have been the best of buddies on the journey out here but Almont was a good man to have beside you in a fight, no question.

Even so, it was unnerving fighting a corpse.

Drake had heard Leesa’s shouted advice about the suits having a possible weak spot at the back. God only knew where his gun had gone to, but, if he could get around behind their opponent while Nate kept it distracted, perhaps he could use his cane to disable the thing.

As his fingers finally closed around the cane, something went sailing over his head to land heavily. Nate Almont, he realised. So much for the distraction.

Almont groaned, rolled, and came to his feet, fragments of broken artefacts tinkling from his clothes. “Tough, bastard, isn’t it?”

“Comes from having no pain receptors, I expect.”

“Wish I didn’t.”

The suit was almost on top of them again.

“If you can keep the thing occupied, I’ll attack its power source at the back,” Drake said.

“Occupied, huh? I’ll do my best.”

With that, Almont flung himself at the suit again, which cuffed him away with a swing of a heavy armoured fist, like a batter striking a ball. Almont hit the ground hard and this time didn’t move. The suit seemed to remember the gun clutched in one of its mid-limbs. It raised the weapon, preparing to shoot its fallen enemy.

Drake knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He didn’t throw himself at the Xter as Nate had but stayed on his feet. The guardian seemed to be improving its control over the suits the whole time, but that control still wasn’t yet perfect; the suits didn’t move with the natural fluidity they would if their wearers were still alive, and Drake drew hope from that.

He ducked under a bludgeoning upper limb that swung at him, and twisted away from a mid-limb that attempted to grasp. He was close enough now, and rammed his cane against the suit’s armoured hide, triggering the repellor field. The Xter staggered backwards. Had there been a live wearer inside it might have recovered, might have brought its mid-limbs down to the ground for increased stability, but the guardian was outmatched and the suit crashed backwards, limbs flailing.

The news, however, wasn’t all good. The suit had gone over on its back, giving Drake no opportunity to attack its supposed weak spot. Also, as the limbs steadied, so did the Xter’s gun, which now pointed squarely at Drake. He didn’t have time to avoid, didn’t have time to think, he simply reacted, bringing up his cane and ramming it into the muzzle of the gun.

Once again he had reason to thank the cane’s non-conductive nature, which didn’t stop the resultant explosion from swatting him with the force of a runaway bull. He was flung through the air, crashing into something hard and collapsing to the ground.

Pain and oblivion threatened to overwhelm him but he refused to succumb, struggling to sit up. Agony shot along his left arm and shoulder as he pressed down with a hand to lever himself onto his knees. Blood ran from his nose and into his mouth. He struggled to clear his vision, to see or even to think. Once he had, part of him wished he hadn’t.

The suit was there, looming over him. One mid-limb had been torn away and the armoured carapace was scorched around that area, but it could still move and could still reach for him; and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

A frozen second of resignation passed; this was it. This was death. Then he registered that the suit was no longer moving, that its clutching limbs had come no closer but had frozen in mid-grasp. For a surreal moment he couldn’t quite accept this was real, but then a familiar voice said,
There, I told you not to worry.

Mudball?

You were expecting someone else?

No, but… The guardian entity?

Toast. Kaput. Vanquished. Fear not, it will trouble you no more.

Thank the gods… You took your bloody time, didn’t you?

Now there’s gratitude for you.

Drake climbed shakily to his feet. Looking around, he saw bewildered expressions on the faces of his companions, most of whom looked surprised to still be alive. Leesa in particular, who prodded the suit confronting her as if expecting it to come back to life at any second.

“What the hell just happened?” Pelquin said.

“I think the guardian’s burnt itself out directing all these suits at once,” Drake said as he limped towards the captain. It sounded lame even to his ears, but let someone else try to come up with a better explanation.

T
WENTY-
O
NE

The clear up was a sobering affair. Anna’s death hit everyone hard. They placed her body in a cryochamber – not with any hope of revival this time, she was irrevocably dead. No, they put her in a cryochamber because they didn’t want to leave her here and there was nowhere else to put her.

The buggy proved functional despite some minor damage. Leesa took over the driving duties. They completed the task of emptying the cache chamber because they felt obliged to now that they were here, but the joy had gone out of proceedings and the whole process had become an empty one rather than the pleasure it should have been.

The doc made a decent job of patching up the injured – Drake and Leesa being the worst off, though Nate came a close third – and all of them were able to contribute to the work, but the going was a lot slower than previously.

They laboured under the shadow of the guardian entity, afraid that it might return at any moment, all except for Drake, who knew better. “Matching limps,” he said to Leesa at one point.