Illegal Aliens (29 page)

Finished with the temporary repair job, Silverside tidied itself up and cautiously rolled to the ventilation slits in the burnished door to peek outside and see what was happening. In a regular sweeping pattern, the armed humanoids were steadily advancing into the cavern. They were obviously searching for him and revenge. The abrupt appearance of the metal clad warriors so soon after its execution of the biped mammals in its office could not be a coincidence.

Feeling defeat breathing warm on his cranial support unit, the droid knew it had no choice but to play its trump card and released control of the asteroid's main defense computer. A control that the robot had never let rest for a millisecond after gaining it those many solar revolutions ago.

Finally free from the onerous rule of the renegade robot, the loyal golden computer bank immediately sent out a long-delayed Priority Alpha Emergency call to the planet Gee and unlimbered every offense weapon it possessed against both the invaders inside and their ships in orbit.

The Marines halted as a section of the distant rock wall directly below the towering trademark of the Gee dilated, and out rolled a hundred warobots. At the sight of the humans, the dusty Gee droids promptly unleashed a barrage of invisible death from their neural disrupters and a fusillade of highly visible plasma bolts.

* * *

Meanwhile, several small asteroids broke formation out in space and left the plane of the ecliptic. Once in position, they jetted forward and dived towards the amassed ships in orbit about Buckle, spraying them with sizzling particle beams. A half dozen ships of visitors and customers disappeared in silent explosions before the startled crews could react. The outer forcefield of the
Ramariez
collapsed under the hellish load of lethal radiation and the ship only survived the initial attack because of its Deflector Plating.

On the bridge of the starship, the main viewscreen brightened, and then went dark as every hull-mounted video camera vaporized.

“Red alert!” Keller ordered, wiping tears from his eyes. “Soukup, full power to the shields. Lilliuokalani, switch to auxiliary cameras 4 through 10. Trell, seal all interior hatchways and boost engines to 40/40. Hamlisch, set the laser batteries on automatic. Buckley, fire the Proton Cannon at will!”

Nobody wasted time to reply. They just did it.

With the element of surprise gone, the surviving starships began to defend themselves. Scarlet laser beams and green Proton rays crisscrossed space in a searing network of death and destruction.

Most of the hastily aimed weapons hit their assigned targets, and bored white-hot holes in the attacking sentinels. A few of the robot craft flashed instantly into nothingness. Several more spun crazily off into the distance as their guidance systems were wrecked. But more and more rocks left the plane of the asteroid belt to join the fight, their shimmering particle beams outshining the local sun in dazzling brilliance, and soon all of nearby space was filled with the frightful, pyrotechnic splendor of high technology war.

“Sir, should we teleport the Marines back on board?” Trell asked, frantically operating his console, wishing that he had more than just four arms and one god.

“Not until they signal possession of a cube,” the captain replied firmly. It was a distasteful fact, but the HN cube was far more important than any of the Marines’ lives.

At near light speed, a tumbling boulder rammed the
Ramariez
, disintegrating into a nuclear fireball, and the ship shook under the stupendous blow. The rebuilt outer forcefield dissipated again, but the inner shield held. Telltales flashed on everybody's boards and the starship commander nervously cracked a knuckle. This was obviously no time for half measures.

“Belay my last order and prime the main gun,” he directed the Weapons Officer. “Fire when ready and make damn sure you don't hit Buckle!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Buckley cried, flipping switches and pressing buttons with gay abandonment. Faith, this is why he had joined the space service!

* * *

In the brig, a fast series of micro explosions outlined a square in the white metal wall of The 16's cell and the hot metal plate dropped to the floor with a loud clang. A moment later, Avantor peeked out of the hole. Behind her could be seen two other walls with similar breaches in them.

As she wiggled through the opening, the totally recovered 16 climbed off his sick bed, and from beneath the covers withdrew a floppy cap made of woven copper and several modified circuit boards taken out of his medical scanner. The battery pack of the RDP monitor dangled loosely from a wire harness.

Without a word, Avantor handed over her translator and he deftly removed the tiny Choron relay cube from inside that made the device function. Only a few seconds were needed for The 16 to fit it to the electronic hat.

Removing the bandage from her head, Avantor pulled the now-functioning cap snugly into place, crossed the cell and threw open the door. As the
STOP THAT
cannon kicked on, The 16 dropped to the floor with a groan, but protected by the handmade psionic shield, (training video #23: What To Do When Your Own Equipment Is Used Against You—Aside From Die) the Avantor could only feel the faintest of suggestions from the stolen weapon.

A quick yank disconnected the cannon, and soon the two Gee officers were proceeding along the hallway, intent, far beyond the simple urging of their hypnotraining, to take control of this vessel and arrest absolutely everybody within.

* * *

The initial volley of assorted death from the warobots was spent harmlessly against the round force shields suspended in front of every Space Marine. Undaunted, the soldiers then fired in return, but their heavy bullets and polycyclic lasers proved equally ineffective against the forcefields and thick body-armor of the rampaging droids.

Frowning inside her helmet, Sgt. Lieberman slammed a fresh clip into her assault rifle. One hundred warobots against ten Marines. If there was anything she hated, it was a fair fight.

“Take cover! Outgoing!” the sergeant barked on the radio. “Mainhardt, fire!”

As the troopers ducked out of the way, the Atomic Vortex Rifle cut loose, its swirling cone of nuclear energy washing over the machines with the expected results. As the machines paused to recover from the quantum onslaught, the Marines released a full volley of their Church Key missiles.

In a blossoming row of fireballs, the first ten droids disassembled the hard way, hot shrapnel zinging everywhere. Uncaring as the metal they were forged from, the remaining ninety war machines rolled over the burning wreckage of their fallen comrades and continued onward, pinchers, drills, electro-probes and buzzsaws extending on telescoping arms of steel from inside their bodies.

With the control panel above his forehead beeping and winking information, Lt. Sakadea dialed his visor back to normal magnification and scowled. An entire salvo just to take out ten measly robots. Without a lot more ammunition than they were carrying, this was going to be a long dirty fight.

“Prepare to evade!” a private shouted on the command circuit.

As his shocked companions turned to stare, Furstenburg raised the sights of his assault rifle and fired from the hip. The stuttering stream of bullets, beams, and rockets tore apart a center bracket for the PlanetBuster Bomb high on the wall above them. Quick on the uptake, the rest of the Marines followed suit and the end supports of the space missile were shot to pieces. With a deafening screech of tortured metal, the gargantuan yellow tube broke free, and began rolling down the slope towards the massed humans with ever increasing speed.

“On my mark, JUMP!” Lt. Sakadea ordered, and the Marines were airborne when the spinning destroyer passed underneath, clanging and banging like a runaway trashcan.

However, the ground-bound warobots lacked this crucial ability, and despite frantic evasive maneuvers on their part, the machines were unceremoniously flattened under the barreling bomb. Deafeningly loud, the megaton missile careened off the base of the huge laser and continued rolling into the distance, eventually coming to rest against a giant power booster relay, barely scratched from its brief, but hectic, journey.

“Well, this is one even Ripley wouldn't believe,” a Marine joked, using his helmet camera to take a picture of the thin metal doilies decorating the ground.

“Eh? What ever do you mean?” PFC Ripley asked puzzled. “I was right here. I helped do it.”

The Marine gave a sigh. “Never mind.”

“Hey, sirs!” a private called out from the bottom of the spiraling ramp. “Look here!”

Rushing over to the gesturing trooper, Lt. Sakadea and Sgt. Lieberman saw that the woman had found a room of some kind hidden inside the rock wall, the door a hinged section of stone that perfectly matched the exterior. Briefly, the private explained how the vibrations of the tumbling missile had thrown the portal open and upon landing she had jammed her rifle in to keep it ajar.

Summoning assistance, the officers posted guards, and directed the careful forcing of the door. Warily, the Marines entered.

The square cave was anything but empty. Lining the walls were hundreds of plastic shelves jammed full of white boxes adorned with perfectly ordinary-appearing bar codes, and directly under a rectangular panel in the ceiling was a control board desk sitting on a hydraulic lift. It only took the troopers a moment to overcome their shock at finding Silverside's storage closet. With bare gauntlets, the cartons were hastily torn apart, and along with miscellaneous weapons, precision tools, forcefield belts and sundry indecipherable items, they located 27 pristine Hypernavigational cubes.

“Jackpot!” a trooper whooped, slapping the back of the nearest Marine.

“Thanks,” the man replied, his servomotors whining as he righted himself.

“Okay, everybody grab two cubes and then let's hightail it out of here before something else attacks us,” Lt. Sakadea directed, shouldering his bulky rifle.

“You heard the man,” Sgt. Lieberman said gruffly. “Let's loot the place and move it, people!”

“Aye, sir!”

“Check!”

“Affirmative!”

“HELP!”

Their scanners indicated the scream for assistance had come from outside in the cavern, and the room was vacated posthaste. There, standing beside the mammoth laser assembly was Leader Silverside with eight metal tentacles wrapped about a struggling Marine and holding the soldier as a shield before him.

“Do not interfere with my escape, or this unit will be damaged beyond repair,” the machine warned, its atonal voice adding just a touch of dire foreboding to the speech.

“Sorry, sir,” the prisoner said stiffly formal. “I opened a door in the leg of the big laser and there he was. No excuse.”

“Forget it, private,” Lt. Sakadea said soothingly. “He could have gotten any of us.”

Rolling slowly, the platinum-edged tank began moving towards the ramp. “My only wish is continued existence,” the hulking droid stated. “So I will trade life for life. On my oath of honor, this will be released after my shuttle has launched and I am safe from your retribution.”

Silverside knew it was a gamble, but the creatures might just be stupid enough to believe him. However, even without the high tech sensors in their powerarmor, the Marines had no problem detecting bullshit when they heard it.

Growling menacingly, the humans primed their weapons and started to advance, when Sgt. Lieberman noticed somebody vanish from the rear of the group.

It took her a second to find the missing person. A trooper had used the incredible strength of the servomotors in their UN powerarmor to jump almost straight up, and presently was arcing through the air far above them, a tactic only made possible by the vast size of the cavern.

“Freeze!” Lieberman shouted over the external speaker of her suit at maximum volume, and involuntarily Silverside paused. She smiled in triumph. What a shmuck.

 . . . and a split second later five hundred pounds of durasteel filled with Space Marine crashed directly onto the rogue droid at 32 feet per second per second from a height of almost ten stories.

Crystal, plastic, wire, bits, hunks, chunks and various stuff sprayed out from the meteoric landing like an explosion in a junkyard and the trooper buried himself to the knees inside the chassis of the rogue robot.

Though reeling from the impact, Leader Silverside swiveled its domed head about and lashed out with every working arm it still possessed to rend this unorthodox invader into bloody scraps.

Ducking under the forest of lethal limbs, the soldier dove forward and rammed his fist through the patch covering the hole made by the Church Key missile in the forehead of the warobot. Silverside went berserk at the action and redoubled the effort to kill its piggyback assailant. Ignoring the brutal pounding, the trooper shoved his hand in deeper, seized the robot's brain, and closed his fingers to perform the crudest of lobotomies.

To the watching Marines, Leader Silverside seemed to simply explode. Both eye-camera lenses extended to their full length, and black smoke poured from every crack in the dented metal body. Its belly tread unlinked and every tentacle went stiff, accidentally hurling the struggling hostage away to a bruised freedom. Then, spewing forth a shower of sparks, the criminal droid shuddered, its cruising lights went dark and the machine entered into a highly deserved state of total and permanent dysfunction.

Quite satisfied with the results, the soldier pried himself loose from the tangled innards of the demolished robot and hopped down to the rocky floor. He was pleased that his lifetime habit of crushing drained beer cans had finally become useful.

“Good work, Corporal,” Sgt. Lieberman praised.

PFC Furstenburg paused before answering. “Thank you, sir.”

“And we mean it this time,” she added, genuinely sincere.

Wise from experience, the Marine remained reticent, not willing to tempt fate, or the brig, by saying a single word.

“Okay, back to the tavern before something else happens!” Lt. Sakadea snapped impatiently. “Double time, harch!”