The Trilisk Supersedure (8 page)

Chapter 6

Holtzclaw
forced himself to look over the body of one of his soldiers. It lay broken
across the red rocks at his feet. It was the same as always. Most of the flesh
had been gouged or dissolved away from the shoulder blades upward. Only parts
of the brain remained within the skull. The stench of ammonia lingered over the
corpse. Holtzclaw did a mental accounting.

The
forty-fourth victim of the monster. Assuming there really is only one.

Captain Arakaki believed strongly it was the work of only one
Konuan. She had a lot of data to back the idea up. The pattern of kills, their
distance apart, and the frequency of attacks all supported the idea that only
one creature was out there killing them.

Or at least only one creature at a time. Maybe they take
turns like some kind of hunting club.

Holtzclaw
had Arakaki on the Konuan almost full time. She had the authority to pull a
kill team whenever she chose. She had yet to do so, and Holtzclaw knew it was
because she was a perfectionist. She wouldn’t scramble the team until she knew
they had a very real shot at slaying the creature.

Until
then, it had the initiative. Their sensors weren’t tracking it for the most
part, though there were tantalizing clues, ghosts really, and half the time
even those proved to be deceptions. Holtzclaw had no doubt about one thing:
that creature was smart, smart on the level of full sentience. Maybe smarter
than the Terrans.

A
couple of soldiers wrapped the man up in blackvines. The dead had two
destinations here: cremation or burial in one of the plant fissures. Most of
the men chose cremation, but this man, Hummel, had been something of a nature
lover and had chosen to be put into a fissure to become plant food. The
soldiers carried him away.

Holtzclaw
looked after the receding corpse and felt his morale slip one iota further into
the void.

We’re
slowly dying here. Not just from the Konuan, but from everything. There can’t
really be any point in resisting the UNSF any longer, can there?

Sometimes
Holtzclaw would discuss it with his officers. The new frontier was a big place.
They wouldn’t necessarily have to surrender. They could go out and join some of
the outfits coming together far from Earth, and no one would come looking for
them for a long time, if ever. Yet the dream of humanity freed from the old
government of the core worlds was something they all believed in so strongly,
they hadn’t given up.

Holtzclaw
thought about the recent landing again. Whoever it was, they had come in a big
ship. They had to have a lot of supplies. Maybe even mobile factories that
could produce new hardware with the right specs to feed into them. He had a
feeling they had to turn this to their advantage or it might be over. They had
to risk action now.

He used
his link to call his officers in for a FTF. He told them to show up at the
surveillance tent. It was close to Holtzclaw, in his sight at the moment. He
headed for it at a slow walk, knowing the others would take longer to arrive.
They had built their above-surface camp carefully, molding it to the terrain
and the alien plant stalks to achieve concealment. They only needed access to
one of the Trilisk tunnels, because the entire system was interconnected
beneath the ruins. A system of active camouflage nets covered the entire camp,
open space and all, so that men could walk between the tents and the
underground entrance without notice from above.

Holtzclaw
arrived at the surveillance tent, a long, low tent set to a green that matched
the clumps of plant material above. He scratched fiercely at the growing skin
on his shoulder, then ducked into the tent. Captain Caicedo sat inside among a
large collection of stripped drones. The machines had been cannibalized for
parts.

“Anything?”

“I don’t
think there’s many of them, sir,”
Caicedo said,
focusing his attention on some virtual display. Caicedo was a calm, strong
officer. His expansive forehead displayed bulging arteries, even though his
skin was dark. “But the ship is huge. There are robots crawling around that
quarter of the city. Looks like about a dozen small scout robots. I’m thinking
they’re looking for something—same as us.”

That
idea bolstered Holtzclaw’s resolve. If someone else was willing to expend a
huge amount of resources to come here, then maybe, just maybe, there was
something worth finding. Alien artifacts had turned the tide of the war
once—against the UED—and finding more artifacts might turn the tide again. Or
so the ragged band of soldiers hoped. But they had lost so many, and their
ships were dwindling. It was a hope that diminished every day.

Holtzclaw
waited for more officers. Major Kowalewski, Major
Silvarre,
Captain Arakaki, and First Lieutenant Racca walked in within two minutes.
Holtzclaw took a peek outside.

“Where’s
Schimke?” he asked.

“I
think he’s too far into the tunnels,” Racca offered. Holtzclaw shrugged and
decided to start.

“We don’t
see that many of our guests. We can take that fat ship for ourselves,” Holtzclaw
declared.

“What
if there’s a lot more of them inside?”

“If it
had been a drop ship filled with a battalion of space force marines or frontal
assault robotics, we’d already be dying,”
Major
Kowalewski said. “You can rule that one out.”

“So if
it’s not a military ship, it has to be either a big settlement going down or a
scientific expedition,” said Racca. “The fact they landed here at the edge of
the Konuan city indicates the latter.”

“Not
necessarily. Settlers might make use of the shelter in the Konuan buildings or
tunnels,” Silvarre said.

Holtzclaw
dismissed the idea. He shook his head. “If they came prepared, they have their
own more advanced shelters in mind. It would only be a bunch of refugees, a
group that was out on their luck, that would think like that.”

This
could be the best thing that could have happened to us,
Holtzclaw thought.
If they’re scientists in a ship that big, they have all
the equipment we need to get the Trilisk machines and get out. One step closer
to being able to fight the UNSF on even terms again.

“No
matter who they are, they have things we can use. And this planet is just
hospitable enough they’ll be able to survive even if we take some of the best
for ourselves. We won’t be sentencing them to death.”

“Except
by the monster,” Arakaki said.

She’s
the only one who would say that
, Holtzclaw thought, but he
wasn’t angry.

“They
have to deal with the monster one way or another, now that they’re here, same
as we have. Unless you can kill it before we take off. In fact, they may have
something we can use to finish it off.”

Arakaki
nodded. Holtzclaw wanted to try and use the Hellrakers on the thing, but given
they could barely detect it, he didn’t know if it would work, and he couldn’t
afford to use the supplies or the wear and tear on their smart artillery
machines. Besides, most of the time if it appeared on their scans, it was
because it was right on top of their camp.

Still…with
a Hellraker it only takes one good shot. And we’re about to that level of
desperation.

“We
should use the whole unit, show them how outnumbered they are in a fast strike,
and force a quick surrender. No need to let this get bloody,” Silvarre
suggested.

“I
agree, but I think the Hellraker is all the leverage we need,” Holtzclaw said. “However,
time is important here. We’ll jam their communications and make our move. Take
their equipment and use it to find what we want, then get out of here before
any other ship could show up.”

“Should
we approach by ground or by air?”

“Ground,
in case they have assets in orbit we don’t know about,” Racca said.

No one
dissented. Holtzclaw agreed.

“T
minus eighteen hours. Once we’re set up to cover that entire side of the city,
activate the jamming systems. I want them cut off from any other people they
have in the system. Then we’ll move in and seize their supplies.”

“Yes,
sir.”

Chapter 7

A
nearby scout alerted Cilreth of the approach of her teammates. She stood amidst
the chaos of a nascent camp. She had selected a reasonably flat, clear area
nestled against an old Konuan building. The foam floor she had sprayed down was
almost dry. With the help of her scout robots she had moved the containers from
their sleeping spot to the new camp. Most of the equipment was better left in
the containers until needed, but every container could be quickly accessed and
wasn’t part of the support for the tent. She addressed them through her link as
Telisa and Magnus cleared the last stand of native plants.

“That
was fast. I’ve got hours left to go,” Cilreth said, though in truth the camp
was perfectly workable already, though it had no well or solar array deployed.

I just
enjoy setting stuff up in a new place.

Cargo
containers had started to form a shelter around the perimeter, and she’d put up
an all-weather fabric cover to the area. A scout robot showed up, carrying one
of the last containers on its back. It looked like an ant carrying a squarish
boulder.

“We don’t
know what killed the scout, but Shiny found people, Terrans I mean, on the
other side of this old city.”

“I can’t
reach Shiny,” Cilreth said. “I was meaning to ask you about it.”

Telisa
was silent for a moment. “I don’t know, but it can’t be a good sign,” she said.

“What?”
Magnus said, lagging in the conversation. “Oh. I can’t reach him either.
Something is jamming us.”

“Something…”
Cilreth started.

“It
must be the other humans,” Telisa said. “They’d be the only ones who would know
how to do that without examining our links.”

“It is
probably the Terrans, but of course, any advanced race could have detected the
signals and decided to disrupt them,” Magnus said. “Shiny could.”

“You’re
still thinking he’s against us?” Cilreth said.

Magnus
shrugged. “That’s not exactly what I meant, but still, it’s possible he’s doing
it.”

It’s
dangerous enough going to the frontier. We need to trust everyone on the team.
Of course, I guess I quickly trusted Arlin and Leonard. Easier to trust my own
race, I guess, justified or not.

“We can
get along without him for now. The jamming could mean an imminent attack,
though, down here or up there in orbit,” Telisa said.

“It’s
worse than just losing touch with Shiny. I can only reach five scouts now,” Magnus
said.

“What
will the others do?”

“They’ll
try and complete whatever mission each is on, then return to
Clacker
.”

“Maybe
we should return to the
Clacker
, too,” Cilreth suggested.

“We
need more information. I bet Shiny will figure out how to get back in touch
with us. It’s true he’s not down here by our side, but he’s a valuable asset up
there.”

“I’m
going to go take a look at our Terran friends,” Magnus said. “We can’t make
good decisions in the dark like this.”

“Be
careful,” Telisa said.

Magnus
looked thoughtful. “I know you’ve earned the stealth suit, but in this case it
might be of more use to me. Just temporarily, of course,” he said to Cilreth.

“I’d
love to share,” Cilreth said sweetly. “But no way is it going to fit your
frame.”

Magnus
frowned. Telisa smiled.

“Don’t
be sad. I’m glad you’re a large specimen, dear,” she said playfully. “I have
the stealthing sphere we picked up on Vovok, if you’d like to borrow it. And I
do mean borrow! I can’t go giving away all my superpowers.”

Cilreth
felt a bit of jealousy.
On a frontier expedition with your lover. Nice on
the surface of it. Unless things go horribly wrong.

Telisa
tossed Magnus the tiny sphere from her pack. Somehow the Vovokan attendant
spheres knew it was a peaceful transfer, so they didn’t move to intercept.

Those
things are amazing,
Cilreth thought.
I need to figure out more
about how they tick. Sigh. Later.

“Thanks,”
Magnus said, slipping the sphere away in his pack. He headed off toward the
center of the city. Telisa looked after him.

She’s
dependent on him. But I should cut her some slack; she just lost her father.
Who else does she have? I think that was it.

Telisa
hadn’t mentioned a mother or other family, nor had Leonard.

“Well,
at least it will go faster setting up the camp with two of us,” Cilreth said.
Telisa returned her attention to the campsite.

“The
camp looks sleepable,” Telisa said. “Let’s go take a peek in those big
buildings over there before nightfall. I promise I’ll help with the camp more
later.”