She peeked up over the crate in front of her, holding her stunner in one hand and her backpack in the other. She picked a crate across the way at random and hurled her backpack over it, then sprinted around the crates on the other side. She came across the remaining man just as he glanced the other direction, alarmed by the noise of her backpack smashing across the top of the equipment container. He lay p.r.o.ne behind a low crate with a rifle in his hands and two more grenades sitting on the ground in front of him. He had a full combat helmet on. Her stunner wouldn"t work on a man with full head protection, she thought.
Telisa dropped her stunner and slapped down across his back. She snaked her right arm around his throat and pulled back with all her might. The man thrashed for a moment, but Telisa kept her weight on him and wouldn"t let him roll out from under her. She felt the thick Veer suits between them. The suit"s collar was keeping her choke from working.
"Frick!" she cried out in frustration. The man under her started fumbling with one of the grenades in front of him. She released her choke and batted the grenade away before he could set it. Free of her arm, the man bucked violently to one side and freed himself. They scrambled to their feet but Telisa regained her balance first. She grabbed the man around the helmet in both her arms, pulled his head down and drove her knee full force into his chin.
The blow would have broken his jaw or nose and stunned him at the very least, except for the full face helmet. Instead the helmet popped off under the strike. His helmet hadn"t been strapped on! Telisa realized that she had given up her stunner too quickly.
"You b.i.t.c.h!" snarled the soldier. The man glared at her from under a thick brow. He had a lot of stubble on his face. His neck looked thickset.
One of his fists stuck out quickly and rocked her world. Telisa covered up, stunned and hurt. She knew if she could keep from getting hit for a second or two she might regain her wits. The man tackled her, but she automatically rolled straight back with it and got her legs under him, throwing him clean over her as her back struck the sandy ground. She spit out a mouthful of blood and scrambled for the stunner.
She heard the man coming back from behind her as her hand closed around it. He grabbed one of her feet and pulled her towards him, yelling in rage. She rolled to see him dropping over her, his fists balled to pummel her to death. Telisa shot him straight in the face.
The man stiffened and fell to one side. Before she realized she was doing it, Telisa brought her elbow around and smashed him in the face again. A trickle of blood ran from the edge of his mouth.
Telisa shook like a leaf. She struggled to catch her breath without coughing on her own blood. She staggered back up and shot the unconscious man in the face again for good measure.
Then she realized Magnus still needed her help.
"Magnus!" she called out. Magnus! she sent on her link.
It"s about time, he responded. Sounds like you got him.
Telisa wobbled over to where he struggled in the thick adhesive.
Is it dry yet? she asked, staring at the mess. How would she get Magnus out of it?
Yes. Cut my legs free, and we"ll run for it.
Telisa took out her knife and stabbed the thick substance where it joined Magnus" feet. The stuff was tough. Her knife struggled with it.
How can you breathe?
I covered my nose at the last instant. There"s a reservoir of air in front of my face. There"s only a few air holes, though.
Telisa freed Magnus"s legs and pulled him to his feet.
Frick, you weigh a ton.
I"m glad you got that guy, whatever you did. Good job!
Telisa spat more blood out of her mouth. He wasn"t so tough.
She cut at the glue that covered his face. She quickly realized that she couldn"t tell exactly where the grey goo stopped and his hand and face began.
Find one of the holes and make it bigger. It"s hard to breathe in here.
Telisa buried the point of her knife in a small hole on the side of the glob around Magnus" head and twisted, trying to dig into it. After a few moments she managed to make it a little larger.
"There"s gotta be some solvent around here somewhere," Telisa said. "All these crates and c.r.a.p lying around."
This is going to take too long. Others may come. Just lead me back to the ship. I can fly it through my link then we can clean this up later.
Grimly, Telisa decided he was right. The adhesive covered him in ma.s.sive lumps and sc.r.a.ping it off with the knife was slow, dangerous work. The soldiers would have a solvent for it somewhere, but how long could she afford to stumble around looking for it?
"Okay, here we go," she told him. Telisa muscled Magnus forward, guiding him past the crates and out into a new corridor. Telisa felt her back crawl, knowing that if anyone was left behind them she"d take a bullet in the back of her head.
They trod through another couple of rooms. Each time Telisa took a look at the room from the entrance to see if any enemies awaited them. Then she ran back and pulled Magnus through it. Telisa saw that his slugthrower had been glued into the whole mess. As nonlethal weapons went, she decided the tangler grenade was as good as her stunner in many ways.
"We"re almost there!" Telisa yelled, checking the map in her head. "Just sprint for it!"
Magnus increased speed, running recklessly and trusting that Telisa would point him correctly. They swung violently into the bay where Shiny had set the Iridar.
The ship looked just as they had left it.
Okay here"s the ramp coming up in three, two, one.
They scrambled up the back ramp. The two almost stumbled despite the warning as the surface angle rose sharply under their running feet.
Close it up, I"m getting us out of here, Magnus said.
Telisa used her link to close the loading hatch. She took one last look at the reddish caverns they left behind as the huge metal door closed.
Telisa linked into the ship and requested the location of the tangler solvent. Magnus fell to his knees, but the ship started to life under them.
Don"t try to fly us out of here until I get that stuff off your face.
Okay, I"m just getting ready.
Telisa took a large silver can out of one of the black equipment bags where the ship"s inventory said it would be. She accessed its directions. She skimmed the warnings then started spraying the substance onto Magnus.
The mixture bubbled and a chemical odor filled the air. A glob of the glue fell off Magnus, revealing his red face. He took a deep breath of air and then coughed. She stopped spraying for a moment and let the air clear.
"Better?"
Magnus coughed again. "Yes... thanks. Can you get my hands?"
Telisa worked to free his hands of the blobs of adhesive. Magnus started to regain his normal color. He saw the blood on her face.
"Thanks. Are you all right?"
She nodded.
"When we get outta this I want to hear what happened while I was down."
"Sure thing. How can we escape?"
"Let"s just hope the Seeker is busy. If they decide the alien is on this ship, I guess we"re going to be chased again."
"Shiny has to escape, too. I bet he jams all their sensors."
Magnus shrugged. "We"ll find out soon. The bay doors have opened for us!"
"How did the Seeker get here, anyway?"
Magnus shrugged. "That, I don"t know. I"ve scanned for latchers but I didn"t find any."
"What are latchers?"
"Tracking mechanisms. They attach to the hull and serve to point out the ship to UNSF forces. Most latchers will show up on special UNSF scans and they often transmit information about why the ship was marked. Very useful against smugglers."
Telisa nodded. "Hrm, let me guess. Stay near a crash pod?"
"Yeah."
Captain Relachik listened in on the comm traffic from his units in the alien orbital. The first wave of retaliation from the incursion had been severe, but after that the defenses behaved as if overwhelmed. A lot of men had died at the hands of enemies unseen. Slowly, the defensive equipment they faced had been identified and destroyed by sheer numbers. This was exactly the opposite from the way elite soldiers were meant to be used. Usually they enjoyed electronic superiority to the enemy which allowed them to fight on their own terms.
"Can we support squad seventeen with ship"s weapons? They"re close to the outer hull," he asked.
"There"s a lot of noise out there. We"d almost have to eyeball it," responded his weapons officer. "It might be worth a try if they"re gonna buy the farm otherwise."
"Can we be sure we won"t blow the whole d.a.m.n base up?"
"No way to be surea""
"Then no. Dispatch our last reserve shuttle to back them up. All our teams are either under extraction or turtling up. We"ll hold as is until we can get them out of these hot spots."
Relachik cursed. If the Seeker were a UNSF battle cruiser, he"d have more powerful robotic forces at his command that were harder to destroy. Although since the robots were affected by enemy countermeasures like the rest of their equipment, their effectiveness would be greatly reduced.
"Captain. I think a vessel has detached and is maneuvering for an escape vector. It has a blocking screen up."
"It"s probably only the smugglers."
"I agree, sir. Given the countermeasures exhibited by this base, I"d have to say that it"s not the same technology."
Captain Relachik furrowed his brows and let out a heavy sigh. "Let them go. We have to stay and get our men out of there alive."
"The aliena""
"Yes, the alien may be with them. Or now, even more than one. But we have men in there and we can learn a lot about them from capturing this base."
"I"ll launch a spread of shark"s teeth with tracker warheads," suggested the lieutenant.
"No. Hold that," the captain ordered. He hesitated. "Firing the latchers may be interpreted as firing on the alien base. It might retaliate."
The lieutenant blinked. Captain Relachik knew what the lieutenant was thinking. Just a second ago, his commanding officer had been talking about firing directly on the base to help squad seventeen. Now he was afraid to launch on another target just because it might be interpreted as an attack.
"Yes sir. I thought the a.n.a.lysis indicated the base"s external weaponry had been disabled in a previous battle, sir. You sure we shouldn"t try and tag"em for later?"
"The aliens are still strong enough to disable this ship with electronic warfare. So far we haven"t threatened to destroy the base. For all we know, they could interfere with the flight computers, cause our gravity spinner to blow. The smugglers are not worth the risk."
Relachik"s tone brooked no further discussion. He knew he"d have a hard time covering for this decision later. But for now, he was going to let his brat daughter escape harm.
The lieutenant at the console nodded. He closed his eyes, accessing a mental interface.
"Looks like the ship has fled the area, sir."
"Maybe next time, lieutenant."
Chapter Twenty Eight.
"I guess the question is... what now?" asked Telisa.
"We have to figure out how to get back to civilization without getting caught and shipped off to a mining colony."
The Iridar drifted through the void of deep s.p.a.ce. Out here in the vastness between the stars, no one could locate or disturb them. A morbid thought came to Telisa as they sat in the tiny kitchenette of the ship: what if the scout"s gravity spinner failed, and they were forced to drift forever in the nothingness? Would anyone ever even notice they were gone?
"We need to modify the ship"s exterior a little, in case they managed to burn through the stealth system," Magnus said. "The Iridar has a good optical wavelength scrambler, but who knows what the UNSF has these days? If they"ve made something that can defeat the scrambler since the war, you know a scout ship like the Seeker would have it."
"Maybe I"ll just call up my dad and ask him."
"Heh. Yeah."
"Okay, so you have to take that part, because I don"t know the first thing about s.p.a.ce suits."
Magnus shrugged. "Time we changed that. We have the VR, with a training module for s.p.a.ce repair. We"ll run you through it, and I"ll show you what to do."
Telisa swallowed. "Out there? If I screw up, I"ll float off into s.p.a.ce, or decompress or something, and I"ll be dead."
Magnus laughed. "After what you"ve been through, this isn"t going to kill you. You"ll keep your head. I know it."
Telisa smiled. "Okay. I"ll try it. So we both change the exterior of the ship."
"And maybe do a visual check for latchers."
"Okay. Then we have to stash the artifacts."
"Hrm. Yeah that might be a good idea."