Extinction (21 page)

Special ammunition was used for CQB to reduce
the amount of injuries from ricochet accidents. The rounds used jet fuel for
propulsion, so they tended to bounce around for quite a while in a close
quarters area before they ran out of fuel. This was not a good thing.

CQB ammunition used a slug that almost
disintegrated on its second hard impact. A trigger in the nose of the slug was
set off when it hit its first hard object; that allowed the round to shed its
hard exterior coating. The second solid object it hit that it couldn’t
penetrate would just about dissolve the slug.

The pros outweighed the cons of this
clever round. Of course, if you were in the way of it before it made its second
contact, personal armor or flesh wasn’t solid enough of a contact for the round
to disintegrate. So tough luck for you in those cases, but in general it was a
good idea.

Everyone removed their standard ammo and
slapped home CQB in the magazine receiver. A push of a button behind the
trigger cycled the first round into position for firing. A faint hum was heard
as all the weapons powered-up. A small electrical charge was used to ignite the
round’s fuel source. It was set on a very specific voltage so that accidental
misfiring was avoided from electrical fields that soldiers sometimes
encountered.

The two teams edged into entry positions
while Bloom keyed in the opening sequence and said a private prayer. “On my
mark,” he began, “three, two, one, mark.” Almost as a whisper, the last word
left his mouth.

The wall before them seemed to slowly
vanish into thin air. Fang waited until the object was completely gone before
entering. The doors and hallways that followed were huge compared to the humans
and even considered large by the much bigger Shirka leading the way. It was
actually ideal for an entry team.

They swept the hallway and cleared rooms
as they found them. Each room had equipment that was completely alien to each
member of the team. Emily tried to keep herself in formation but felt an almost
uncontrollable urge to stop at each console and display to examine it. Her
newfound warrior side won the battle and she focused in on Daria’s back to
cover her.

The initial floor of the building was
small, with only twelve rooms altogether, none of which led anywhere. After the
floor was cleared, the team gathered by what seemed to be a lift shaft.

“I think that it’s safe to assume that because
we’re all still here,” Emily began, “we can take a closer look at what’s on
this level before proceeding.” OK, so her scientific mind was exerting itself a
little more than she cared to admit. “We should get as much information as we
can with what we have before we continue. Wilks, deploy your men to give us a
safe perimeter. Bloom, you’re with me. Daria, take Davies and see what you can
find.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” came in unison from
all who were given orders.

Wilks deployed his unit to cover the
entrance and the lift shaft and placed sentries intermittently in the hallway.
Daria started at the rear with Davies while Emily took Bloom to the front rooms
to begin their investigation.

Scan looked nervous. “I just don’t feel
right”, he mumbled to Snake, who was standing beside him at the shaft. “Something’s
wrong.”

Vengeance’s Pride
–
The Decision

Supreme Command be
damned, he thought. He was in command of this mission and if he was wrong, they
could torture him later. But something had to be done now.

“Get a team together.” He motioned to
his first officer. “Now.”

Aboard the
Vanguard
– The Briefing

“Gentlemen,” the general began, “no,
scratch that. We’re not gentlemen, are we? If we were gentlemen, none of us
would be here. No, we’re killers, each and every one of us. Do you know the
difference between a killer and a soldier?” No one answered. “A soldier kills
because he has to. He’s sent into battle with orders and a weapon. He points
his gun in the direction he’s told to, and he kills whoever is in that direction.
Each one of you in this room could walk up to a stranger, look into their eyes,
and end their life without a second thought if you felt it was necessary.

“It’s that ability that makes you unique
and exactly what we, the Coalition, needs right now. You know of the hostile
forces that are invading our sector and of their superior weaponry. The way the
Coalition sees it, we only have one of two chances. The first involves a team
of scientists and marines on a world at the outer rim of our known explored
space.”

Glances and murmurs began after the last
statement. Seth wondered to himself just how much they were going to tell them
and how much was actually being left out. His personal feelings for the general
made him think that the old man would tell them everything he knew, whether he
was supposed to or not. The general allowed the murmurs to subside before he
finished telling the group what the other team’s mission was.

Then he continued debriefing the
soldiers—killers—on what their role in this whole thing was. “We are traveling
deep into the heart of what we believe to be our enemy’s territory. We are to
undertake the single most dangerous recon mission in the history of man.” He
smiled a smile that made most of his cadre shiver from deep within. There was
just something eerie about his grin. “You might be wondering why it is that I
say that. For starters, we don’t even know where we’re going. We’ve never
charted this region of space and have no idea of the layout of our enemy’s
forces, bases, or even home planet. Our job is to stumble around this sector
until we find something or get captured.” His grin widened, almost too eerie to
take at this point.

“The top brass hopes that a team of
extremely fine-tuned soldiers will be able to live long enough after capture to
escape and bring back valuable information. That’s how desperate they are back
home. They’re willing to throw away your lives on a chance, a hope that they
might get something, no matter how slight, in return for your death. Well, I’m
not.

“This ship is the finest in the fleet.
It uses some of the alien’s technology that we found at the initial dig site more
than five years ago. We are currently traveling nine times faster than our
normal propulsion systems would allow.” Again murmurs and looks were passed
through the crowd of listeners. Seth noticed that Surgeon was taking it all in
stride, never losing focus. Damn, how he admired that guy.

“The exterior hull is also designed from
information gathered at the dig. Although the interior is standard Coalition
layout, the exterior hull shape and the energy signature that the engines
produce should allow us to be undetectable to any of the aliens’ sensors.”

“Isn’t the information from the site more
than a thousand years old?” Joker asked.

The general continued, “That’s a good
point, son. Based on the very limited amount of information we gathered from
our outposts that were destroyed, it seems as though their weapons signatures
are exactly the same from the information we obtained at the first excavation
site. Our scientists find it very odd that there has been no variation in their
weapons signature for a thousand years. However, they are hoping that if their weapons
haven’t changed in that time that maybe their sensor packages haven’t either.
It’s a pretty big IF but unfortunately it’s the best they can do.

“Now,” he continued, pointing to the
star charts, “I have decided to head in the direction of this solar system
here.” He highlighted a system containing fifteen planets and a binary star. “Strategically
speaking, this is where I would place a primary defense grid. We’re going to
sneak in to the system using this ring of asteroids for cover, along with the
radiation from the binary star to mask our presence in the system.

“If our recon comes up empty-handed, I
have mapped out five other systems that I feel are likely to hold military
forces based on their location, size, and resources. Of course, they may not
think as we do and could possibly have a completely different strategy when it
comes to troop placement.”

Joker, feeling confident, decided to
speak up again. “Or they just don’t have anyone as smart as you running things,
sir.” This actually got a small, if not careful, laugh from the group.

“Hopefully, son, they’re as dumb as you.
Then we won’t have any problems at all.” It was hard to tell if he was joking
but when he threw his head back and began to laugh, everyone joined in. The general
eyed Joker and gave him a wink to let him know that there were no hard
feelings.

The briefing continued for another four
hours and two kegs. They went over maps and information from long-range probes
as well as information gathered from the original dig site. During all this,
Seth just couldn’t help thinking about the other team. He wondered how their
mission was going.

The water was warm and viscous,
so different than what Murgag was used to. The sensation was invigorating and
even pleasurable as the fluid swirled over his scales, almost as though a
hundred pilot fish were embracing him and cleaning him from head to toe. The
only downside was the thick fluid also made it feel as if he was swimming with
a rope tied around his waist and holding him back; it was damn hard making any
progress in the stuff that passed for water on this planet.

Murgag finally reached his
destination and planted the device. He couldn’t talk in the fluid so he used
his wrist communicator to type a message and send it back to his handlers: Mission
complete. With that done, he took a look around and decided to take a different
route back to the extraction point. The oceanic life on this planet was
extremely interesting and a few of the locals were actually very playful with
the new stranger.

Murgag found a few underwater
coves that would have been perfect for nesting if he were back home and ready
to procreate. Much to his family’s dismay, he wasn’t remotely ready to have any
children yet. He had donated his seed to more than one Trizite that was ready,
but he just wasn’t emotionally ready to have his own.

Murgag found it odd that when he thought
about himself, he used the two-sex species’ concept of a “male.” His species
only had one sex, but spending so much time with humans lately, Murgag was
starting to think of himself as a “he.” Maybe it was because he had only been a
donor so far and not a grower. In most other species, the donor was thought of
as the male and the grower was the female.

Trizites lived on average between
two hundred and twenty years to two hundred and fifty years, Earth standard
time. During that time, they could both donate or receive genetic information
from other Trizites in order to procreate. A Trizite could donate at any time
during their life but the ability to receive only came a few times, and
randomly at that. When the time came to receive, the Trizite could ignore the
calling or go find a partner to donate.