Battlegroup (StarFight Series Book 2) (10 page)

“That way,” she said, pointing at Tim. “The tubeway door lies further down the room above, but this door is on the same side as the tubeway above us.”

“Good. Tim, you see any sign of a touchpad for opening that door?”

The stocky, heavyset Marine stepped back a little. His hard metal helmet moved a bit as he looked over the wall in which lay the person-high circular hatch. Now closed. “Maybe that yellow dot on the right side?”

“Touch it,” Richard said. “No need to use up all our C-4.”

Tim touched the yellow spot. “Wow!” he muttered as the circular hatch split apart like an eye opening. The top half rose up while the bottom half went down into the silvery metal floor of the room.

“Makes sense, that door,” said Jack as he moved to the opposite of Tim to point both weapons arms at the opening, which revealed a pipe-lined tubeway similar to what they had used one level up. “Flying critters don’t walk through doors. They fly through them. That kind of opening allows them to fly in and out pretty easily.”

Richard agreed. But wasp social behavior was of no interest to him, except when it posed a threat. “Corporal,” he called to Tim. “Launch a claymore drone through that door. I want eyes in that tubeway before we enter it. Gotta assume we’ve been under vid observation ever since we arrived inside this ship.”

“Launching,” Tim said as he told his suit’s AI to launch a propeller-driven drone from where it was attached to the outside of his backpack.

A small, four-limbed drone spun up its four propellers, detached from Tim, hovered, then moved through the opening. Richard tongued a stud on his helmet’s inner rim, activating the vidcam feed from Tim. Who was getting a vid feed from the drone. The tubeway’s white-yellow light strips showed an empty tubeway in both directions. Though the tubeway turned left in one direction and went down like a ramp at the other end. Since he preferred to walk rather than drop down to an unknown reception, he made the necessary decision. “Team, through that opening, then go left. Let’s explore more of this level. Might find some engineering spaces or cargoholds or whatever. Now that we know what the yellow dots do, we can check every door we pass.”

“Ooh rah!” called Jane as she led the way into the tubeway.

“Ooh rah!” he said loudly, joining his voice with the voices of his teammates as they moved into the tubeway.

♦   ♦   ♦

Seven felt frustration as he saw the Soft Skins who had killed every Swarmer in the Nourishment Chamber drop down to the next level of his nest. The team of Fighters that were just a few flights away from entering the destroyed door would now have no enemy to kill. Well, they could drop down to the rest chamber that lay below the food room, after they gave the Soft Skins time to move out into the tubeway on that level. Another perception imager showed those Soft Skins sending a flying watcher into the tubeway before they entered. It had no wings but stayed suspended in the air. Would the Soft Skins launch a similar device to watch behind them? If they did, the entry of his Fighters into the tubeway behind them would be seen.

“Fighter Leader,” he scent cast to the Fighter in charge of all Fighters on his nest. “See the flying watcher? Have your Fighters follow this group, but at a distance.”

“Hunter Seven, my caste understands how to track the flight path of any enemy of the Swarm,” the Fighter Leader said in a flush of signal, territorial and trail pheromones, with no hint of aggregation scent. “The leader of the team pursuing these Soft Skins will be alert for the flying watcher device.” The older male bent his two black antennae toward Seven. “Observe in the other imager. A different Fight team approaches the Practice Chamber, where the Soft Skins are wasting time pulling pheromone signalers from the walls. They are scattered. Soon, my Fighters will bite hard!”

Seven ignored the arrogant scent from the Fighter Leader. It was the nature of his caste to always be confident and arrogant. And he spoke truth. His caste had hundreds of generations of practice in breeding for deadly violence and superior tracking of enemies. Whether other Swarmers, or the tree thieves on Nest, the Fighters living within his flying nest knew well their task.

“I look forward to watching the actions of your teams. But what of the intruding nest that lies near our rear weapons ring? Do you control it yet?”

“Not yet,” the Fighter Leader said in a mix of trail and aggregation pheromones, as if it realized it had spoken harshly to the leader of all Swarmers on the flying nest. “I have sent two six-groups of Fighters to the tubeway where the Soft Skins from that intruding nest entered our home. The four Soft Skins who entered there are far from their nest. We think only a single Soft Skin is left inside the nest, judging by the numbers of walking Soft Skins who entered at the middle and head portions of our flying nest. Surely it will die and we will control one of these Soft Skin conveyances!”

Seven liked the multiple attack efforts now being led by his Fighter Leader. While the three groups of walking Soft Skins could not all be englobed at one time, still, they were few compared to the many Fighters, Workers and Servants living within his nest. And the Fighters were well-armed with their lightning rods. That weapon had frightened the middle entry group. Clearly the metal hard shells they wore were vulnerable to Swarmer weapons. He looked forward to smelling the scent of Soft Skin meat being cooked over an open flame!

♦   ♦   ♦

“Jerry,” called Richard as he followed after Jane and his troopers. “What is the count of wasps we have killed?”

“Twenty-nine,” the AI said brightly. “Three at your entry point, five at the entry point of Wayne’s team and 21 inside the eating room.”

That was a third or a quarter of all the wasps on this ship, depending on how close his crew estimate was. How many were armed with lightning bolt weapons? “Jerry, show me your dead reckoning map of this spaceship, based on the entry points and movements of all three teams.”

“Displaying on the left side of your HUD,” the AI said as Richard followed his troopers as they turned left to follow the twist of the tubeway.

Richard saw a side cutaway view of the log-like spaceship. The spine was up top. Three green dots glowed on the spine, where his Darts had penetrated the outer hull. Several tubeway lines showed near that outer hull, reflecting the three tubeway entries by his people. The ‘park’ area encountered by Wayne’s team near the front of the ship was shown as a box with a very high ceiling. The eating room they’d just left showed as a smaller box lying next to his team’s entry tubeway. Auggie’s team was still moving along their tubeway, heading from the ship’s rear to its middle. And his Dart. It made sense to him. Heading in the reverse direction and getting into engineering and thruster spaces would only expose Auggie’s team to tech too large for them to carry. He noted that the level they now walked on extended just a short way under the eating room. No other team had gotten as far into the ship interior as theirs had. Maybe they should fix that.

“Team, stop!” he called, keeping one eye on the flying claymore drone that he had launched from his backpack and which flew to their rear. “People, let’s drop down another level. Jane, open that entry door so we can find a room where we can blow a hole in the floor.”

“Tim, Jack, to the sides of the door!” Jane called over the comlink. She stepped to the right of the circle that outlined a person-high door on the right side of the tubeway. “Tim, call back your drone. I want yours and the chief’s following us as we drop down.” She reached out for the yellow spot that lay on the right side of the closed hatch. “Chief?”

Richard moved to the side of the tubeway and behind Jack’s hard shell. “In place. I’m calling in my drone.”

Jane reached out and touched the yellow spot.

“Whoosh!” came the sound of the two door halves opening.

White-yellow light shone from within.

Tim leaned past Jane and pushed out his gauntleted left hand. A small mirror lay in his palm. He moved the fingers holding the mirror past the door rim.

Yellow lighting hit the mirror and Tim’s hand.

“Fuck! Enemy!”

Jack and Jane threw in hand grenades they’d pulled from their waist belts.

“
Kaboom! Kaboom!
”

The two followed their grenades with slanting spurts of napalm flame. Tim’s drone, guided by the trooper’s AI even as he cradled his blackened hand against his side, flew into the room. Richard sent his drone in after Tim’s.

Many things happened simultaneously.

Richard saw the drone images on the small vidscreen in his helmet. Both showed a large square room partly filled with boxes and crates that were not metal. Behind some crates in the middle of the room there hovered two wasps, each aiming a lightning rod at the open doorway. The crates in front of them showed holes from the two grenades. Flames rose from the crate fronts. One wasp now landed atop a crate due to large holes blown in its two wings. The other shifted its rod upward, toward the two drones.

“Blow the claymores!” yelled Jane.

“
Kablam! Kablam!
”

Red flame and silvery metal balls flew away from the two flying drones as the claymore mines that sat atop each drone shot their load of large buckshot in an arc that included the two wasps.

Rasping sounds came from the two wasps as their bodies were penetrated by dozens of marble-sized metal balls.

They fell, disappearing behind the sheltering crates.

“Advance!” cried Jane, jumping through the door with her flamethrower spurting a steam of yellow flame at the two crates and the space beyond them.

In a few seconds they were all in. Richard joined his teammates in sweeping the room with napalm flame. Dozens of boxes and crates caught fire. Yellow flames reached for the ceiling of the room.

“Didier! Blow us a hole in this floor!” Richard yelled. “Jane, I’m launching my last drone to cover the tubeway behind us.”

Jane stood up from her work. A round circle of gray C4 plastique filled the floor just in front of where the two wasps had hidden. They all stepped back. As Richard watched the view from the drone he’d tongued into action to watch the tubeway, in case this was a planned pincer attack with wasps coming up on them through the tubeway, the Frenchman aimed a radio igniter.

“
Kaboom!
”

The red-rimmed metal plate that lay within the C4 ring dropped down. Jane sent her last drone into the hole. He saw another room filled with boxes and crates, very similar to the room that was now growing hot as flame spread everywhere. Water spurted from several ceiling outlets above him, working to kill the dense flames. He looked at his vidscreen. No wasps showed in the image from Jane’s drone.

“Down!” yelled Richard. “That was a planned ambush. Time to get the hell away from here!”

Jane was first to drop down. Tim, Didier and Jack followed her, their arms held out and their weapons at the ready. Just as he moved to the red-glowing hole in the floor, his helmet vidscreen that relayed the view from the drone he’d sent out into the tubeway showed a group of four wasps coming around the corner of the tubeway. Each of them held black rods. He tongued the drone into an evasion flight path and sent it flying toward the wasps.

“Chief!” called Jane from below.

“It was a trap! Pincer group of wasps coming down this tubeway. Sent my drone after them. Coming down!”

He dropped through the hole in the floor. As he dropped, his vidscreen showed two of the fast-flying wasps lift their rods toward the drone. Both fired yellow lightning bolts.

They missed. He blinked his right eye, activating the claymore’s ignite switch.

“
Kaaabooom!
” came the echo of the claymore blowing up as the sound filled the room above him.

“This door is clear!” yelled Jane as she stood beside an open circle doorway.

She was the only one left in the storeroom. The other three Marines were outside, moving along the tubeway that the door opened onto. He picked up his boots and ran for the door.

“Good work, gunny.”

“Just doing my job, chief.”

Richard gave thanks for his battle experienced team. Even Tim, whose left hand had been scorched by the lightning bolt, did not hesitate to lift both arms and aim them down the tubeway as he joined his fellows in running along the pipe-lined tube. Clearly Jane had told them to make fast tracks. Maybe they could outrun the unseen wasp attack teams that had moved in on them. Briefly he wished his hard shell could receive the video being broadcast to the ship’s wasp leader. Would be nice to know what lay ahead. Well, he knew one thing they could do besides run away.

“Team! Let’s catch us some wasps! Maybe we can use them as shields on our way back to the Dart!”

“Ooh Rah!” yelled everyone.

He joined the team cheer. They were five Marines. They were the deadliest of the deadly. No one, no matter their weapons, would ever prevail against them!