Starfist: Blood Contact (41 page)

The only questions anyone had concerned the layout inside the caves and how many skinks were in there. But realizing that nobody had the answers, no one asked.

"So who's going first?" Bass said. He knew that being the first in could be suicide, and he didn't want to make that assignment.

Schultz gave Bass a look that said he'd asked a stupid question. He, of course, would be the first one in.

"I'll go," Baccacio said.

Bass gave him a searching look.

Baccacio smiled crookedly. "If I get killed, it won't be any loss to you, and it'll warn you that someone's waiting."

Out of the corner of his eye Bass saw Schultz nod slowly one time. "You follow Schultz," he said.

"Once everybody's in, stay out of the way. You aren't in chameleons."

"My fire team next;" Corporal Kerr said.

Bass looked at Claypoole and MacIlargie, who appeared grimly ready. "You got it," he said. "Me next. The rest of second squad in the middle, then Staff Sergeant Hyakowa. First squad brings up the rear." Bass had already told them the gun squad and medical team would remain outside.

"You have to have a corpsman along," Doc Horner said. "Do you want me with you or with the platoon sergeant?"

Schultz went first. He carried a breathing unit but didn't use it. At the bottom of the tunnel he set it down and made sure it was securely fastened to its rock anchor. It was there in case anyone behind him had a problem. Ten seconds behind him, Baccacio followed. He trailed a rope that they would secure to something in the entry chamber, and each man behind the lead team would pull himself along the rope instead of free swimming. The ex-Marine carried his own blaster; Kerr, behind Baccacio, carried his own and Schultz's. Claypoole and MacIlargie followed Kerr at close intervals. Then Bass waited anxiously for the tug on the rope that would tell him the chamber was secure and he should bring the rest of the platoon through.

Schultz approached the end of the tunnel the same way he had the first time, and took the same precautions. Again he saw nothing from a few inches below the surface, so he slowly drifted upward.

Before he reached the surface he saw the shadow of Baccacio rise almost level with him and put a hand on Baccacio's shoulder to stop him. Schultz's face eased out of the water and he slowly turned in a circle.

The same guard sat looking at the same something in his hands. Hardly raising a ripple, Schultz moved toward the edge of the tunnel mouth closest to the guard and lifted his hands out of the water. As soon as they touched the floor inside the chamber, he surged out of the pool and lunged at the startled guard.

The guard opened his mouth to cry out, but Schultz was on him too fast and knocked him hard against the wall. One hand held the skink in place while the other slashed his knife across the base of the skink's throat. The skink's arms flailed about and his feet pounded on the floor while his torso twisted under the pressure of Schultz's hand. His gill slits opened wide as his gills struggled to draw oxygen from the air.

Schultz pulled his knife hand back and plunged the blade chest-high into the skink and twisted. The skink suddenly went rigid, then slumped. Schultz lowered it to the floor, and it lay motionless save for the blood that flowed out of it.

Baccacio looked at him oddly. "You knew he had gills, why'd you cut his throat?"

"He had a voice. Keep him from yelling." He looked through the opening of the lone tunnel leading from the chamber. "The doctor's got her specimen."

"Yeah." For lack of anything else, Baccacio tied the rope to the skink corpse. He yanked on it. In two more minutes both squads had crowded inside the chamber.

CHAPTER 29

The short tunnel ended in a T a few meters in. It had the same kind of woven covering as the underwater tunnel and the entry chamber. Light came from both branches of the T. Bass thought the skink voices did too. "Here goes," he murmured, and lowered himself full length along the tunnel. He pulled himself forward on his elbows until his head was at the far end and cautiously looked in both directions. To the right, the tunnel turned or ended in the corner of a room; he couldn't tell which. Voices came from that direction. To the left, the tunnel widened into a room where skinks were sitting cross-legged around a low table, talking and eating what looked like raw fish and something grainy and white. He counted seven skinks, one more elaborately dressed than the others. Then he noticed that all seven carried swords tucked inside sashes around their waists.

Swords? None of the skinks that attacked them on the ridge had carried swords. And the pirates hadn't said anything about seeing skinks with swords, though Snodgrass had said something about the skink officer handling a stick like it was a sword. The swords must be ceremonial, Bass decided.

Perhaps the meal was as well. Two other skinks came into view, females, if they were right about the images in the locket. They carried bowls and wore gowns that fell to their feet. They kneeled next to the table and ladled more food into the serving dishes on it. The elaborately dressed skink growled several words. The two females bowed low then stood, still holding the bowls, and backed away, out of Bass's view.

Suddenly, one of the skinks looked in his direction. Before Bass could pull his head back from the tunnel intersection, the others jerked their eyes toward him.

What's going on? he asked himself. Can they see in the infrared? There was a barked shout, then a sharp whisp. Hearing it, Bass had a vision of the skinks drawing their swords.

"Shields up, there's going to be fire," he said rapidly into the platoon circuit.

Nineteen Marines and the corpsman, plus Baccacio and Minerva, were crowded into the tiny chamber. They had no room to move. If the skinks managed to fire an acid thrower into it, they'd have mass casualties. If the Marines fired, plasma would be bouncing everywhere, flashing the skinks and frying some Marines as well.

There was no room for Bass to back up. Marines were crowded even at his feet, waiting for him to move on so they could leave the entry chamber. But he couldn't leave, and footsteps were coming toward him. He heard a few growled words—whoever was coming was calling to the dead guard.

He had no time, he had no choice. If he waited for the skink to come closer, he was dead and so were his Marines. Bringing his blaster to bear, Bass braced his feet against the sides of the tunnel and pushed forward until his head and shoulders were in the connecting tunnel.

A skink, bent slightly under the low roof of the tunnel and holding a sword, was scuttling toward him.

Bass pressed the firing lever, and a wave of heat from the skink-flash washed over him. In the glare he glimpsed skinks pulling back, trying to get away from the fire.

Footsteps raced at him from the other direction and a guttural voice cried, "Bungee! " Bass started to twist around, but knew the charging skink was too close and he was about to be sprayed by an acid gun or chopped by a sword.

A body thudded into his side and he heard the sharp crackle of a hand-blaster next to his head, followed by a wave of heat washing over him from the right. When he twisted around, he saw Baccacio laying next to him in the tunnel intersection.

"You told me to stick close to you," Baccacio said, then looked back down the right-side tunnel as Bass looked to the left.

"Tunnel's clear," Baccacio said.

"So's mine," Bass said. Where the skink had vaporized, the walls were singed and small flames licked at the matting. He switched back to the platoon circuit. "No one's in sight now. Squad leaders, each of you assign one man to stay with the doc. First squad, follow me, we're going down the left tunnel. Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, take second squad down the right tunnel. Everybody keep your shields up, when we fire, there'll be plasma bouncing all over the place, and we don't need any casualties from friendly fire."

"What about the dead skink?" Hyakowa asked.

"Leave it with Doc Horner. We'll get it out later. Now let's do it!"

He scrambled the rest of the way out of the tunnel then ducked low and darted into the room with the low table. As he raced through the room he saw a small skink huddled against a side wall. He flamed the skink before he noticed it was one of the females. He came up against the far wall and flattened himself against it, taking in everything in the room. Baccacio flattened himself against the wall a couple of meters away.

The room was bigger than the entry chamber, about five meters deep and a bit wider. Pillars shored up the ceiling. Woven mats covered the floor. The walls and ceiling had the same covering as the tunnels and were springy to the touch. Bass guessed the covering kept the walls from crumbling, and maybe provided structural support to the tunnels and chambers as well. The room's furnishings were spare. Low cushions surrounded the table. Four smaller, flimsy-looking tables with vegetation displays on them flanked dark tunnel mouths on the side walls. He briefly lowered his infra screen and saw first squad still in the tunnel.

He looked at the tunnels leading from the room. Did he dare split the squad and go both ways? He raised a hand and let his sleeve slide down so his men could see his hand signal. Stay put, he signaled, then dropped his sleeve back into place. He padded to one exit and listened. He heard a slow, echoing drip, as if the exit opened into a great, empty cavern. Staying close to the wall, he padded to the other end of the room. There the sound was tight, as though the tunnel squeezed shut just where the light ended. Still, he heard intermittent whispers, rustles of cloth, a barely audible metallic clink. He bared his arm, signaled "This way," then stepped into the dark tunnel and slid the light amplifier screen into place.

Immediately he could see that the tunnel continued for ten meters or more. Two other tunnels branched from each side before the main tunnel opened into another room. There was no one in that room. The branching tunnels would be tricky; they faced each other across the main one. He stopped just short of the first pair and looked back. Baccacio was right behind him and signaled that he'd check one while Bass checked the other. Bass shook him off. Baccacio was visible, since he wasn't wearing chameleons. "Schultz up," he said into the squad circuit, then looked at a blank place on the wall so he could spot Schultz's movement in his peripheral vision. Using touches, he told Schultz to check one side while he checked the other. He felt Schultz's tap acknowledging the instructions.

The two Marines lowered themselves to the matted floor and peered around the corners. The two

"tunnels" were just entryways only a meter long, shorter than they were high or wide, which opened into empty rooms. Bass lifted into a crouch and bolted into his room, spinning around as he entered it so he could command the whole space quickly. Low platforms lined the room; probably beds, he thought. A chest-high shelf that ran around the walls above the platforms held what looked like personal objects. It was an unoccupied barracks room. Without disturbing anything, he returned to the tunnel. Schultz had found the same in his chamber. The two eased along the tunnel and checked the next two side tunnels the same way, with the same discoveries. The room at the end of the tunnel had a higher ceiling than the others they'd seen, nearly two meters. Its furnishings were larger versions of the platforms in the smaller barracks rooms.

Bass was deciding what to do next when Schultz hit him hard enough to send him flying back into the tunnel. A stream of acid splatted against the wall near where he'd been standing. Almost simultaneously, Schultz fired his blaster and the other tunnel flashed with the brilliance of a skink vaporizing.

Schultz raced across the chamber, dove onto the oversize platform next to the tunnel and angled his blaster to fire into it. He sprayed several bolts into the tunnel and was rewarded by an answering flash as another skink flared into oblivion. The rest of the squad ran in behind him and took up positions that would allow them to fire at the tunnel without hitting each other.

Second fire team formed the squad's rear point. Corporal Pasquin stationed Godenov in one of the barracks room entrances and himself opposite it to watch the rear. He put Dean just inside the main tunnel to link between them and the rest of the squad.

Godenov's position let him see a moving shadow in the room with the table. "Heads up, someone's coming," he said into the fire team circuit. He took aim down the tunnel; so did Pasquin. Dean ducked into the larger barracks room and took cover behind a corner before edging far enough out to look back where they'd come from. More shadows shifted in Godenov's vision.

"Are you sure?" Pasquin asked over the fire team net; he couldn't see anything from where he was.

"Moving shadows," Godenov answered.

"Izzy sees shadows behind us," Pasquin reported on the squad circuit.

"Keep everybody in place," Bass ordered Sergeant Ratliff, then ran to the other corner of the main entrance, opposite Dean.

"Who sees anything?" he asked.

"I saw a shadow move," Dean said. "Can't swear it's a skink, but the lights in that room were steady when we were there."

Bass grunted. Dean was right about the steady light. It was very possible someone had come out of the other exit from that room. Or someone might be coming from the tunnel Hyakowa had taken second squad down. He decided to check with them.

"Lander Five, this is Six," he said into the command circuit. He wasn't surprised when only static answered him; the radios couldn't transmit very far underground. He had no way of knowing how second squad was doing, or of calling them for assistance.

He thought a shadow humped briefly along the floor and asked Godenov, "Did you see that?"

"Yeah. Someone's getting closer."

"Recon," Pasquin murmured as he slipped out of his niche. "Silent, invisible, deadly." It was the motto of Force Recon. Pasquin crawled along the tunnel to the next barracks room.

Bass wanted to call him back, but he didn't; they needed to know what was making the shadows move.

"I see three skinks," Pasquin reported. "Two of them are carrying acid guns. They look like they're getting ready to make a rush."