Throne World (Undying Mercenaries Book 21), page 21
“What the hell’s that?” Carlos said suddenly.
My eyes began to scan the scene. Carlos was marching along at the rear of the column, so I swung my attention that way.
Among all the troops here, Carlos was probably the most experienced. He wasn’t a weaponeer or even a heavy, but he had served in the capacity of a combat soldier in the distant past. Sure, he was just a bio now, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to fight and recognize when something bad was coming.
“What’s wrong, Ortiz?” I boomed over our tactical channel.
“Don’t you see it? Don’t you see them?” he asked.
I looked in the direction he indicated with a pointing arm. I squinted and adjusted the visual gain on my helmet.
The sun was beating down on us, and you could feel it even through the air conditioning systems inside our suits. It was hot out here. That bright sun had, despite our lenses and the polarization of our visors, made dark pits out of the alleyways that led off to either side of the main road.
But there, in between a series of earthenware urns… Yes, I saw some bumping shapes, some flashing eyes. What were those? Fuzzy heads? A few snouts sniffing at the air?
There were creatures hiding in between those urns. Under normal circumstances that’d be no big deal. After all, we were walking through a whole city full of these skunk-aliens. Maybe a few of their kids were out watching the parade. Maybe they didn’t want to be seen out in the open. These guys would naturally like to skulk in the shadows of an alleyway and peep out at us as we marched by from a safe vantage point. They were like wary animals, uncertain if they should completely reveal themselves.
But then I saw it. I saw what Carlos must be talking about. A flash of bright metal. A glint of steel, perhaps? Or something else?
I wasn’t sure. But this group of aliens, the guys hiding behind the urns in an alleyway, they were carrying something. Was it a long pole, perhaps? I was confused.
“Company, halt!” I shouted over tactical chat. I switched immediately to the Mogwa channel, where Sateekas was now lecturing his son upon the finer points of selecting a servant for one’s household. I broke in on the conversation rudely.
“Sirs, we have a sighting,” I said. “Possible hostile on our left flank.”
“Is that why you’ve halted, you moron?” the garrison commander demanded. “If these aliens are planning something, our best move is to get past them as fast as possible. Start moving your lazy feet, animal!”
Naturally, I disagreed. If there was one group of skunks carrying around a mysterious length of metal, there were probably more of them ahead of us.
But I wasn’t in charge of this show, so I gave orders for my men to advance again.
“Pick it up, double time!” I boomed.
Moving at a trot in our ridiculous, chrome-dipped armor, we surged ahead. Right behind us, the Mogwa commander was hauling on the tether, urging the floater containing his charges to greater speed. This resulted in a barely perceptible increase in our pace. I frowned and shook my head at that. It would have been much better for the family members to be inside of a regular aircar. Sure, they couldn’t see everything as easily, and the populace couldn’t see them either if they were sitting inside of an enclosed vehicle. But if they had been, they could have fired up into the sky and immediately been safe from whatever was about to befall our procession.
The skunks, for their part, saw us advance at a jog. They decided to accelerate their plans as well. From both sides of the wide street a large number of skunks emerged.
They came in teams of six. Each team carried a long metal pole.
“Spread out!” I shouted. “Push them back!”
“Shall we use deadly force, sir?” Washburn demanded.
I hesitated for a moment, but then made my decision. “No, not until they do something that deserves it.”
In my heart I wondered if this choice was a mistake, but I couldn’t order my men to fire now. After all, I didn’t want to slaughter a bunch of unarmed civilians who were possibly setting up a celebration—even if they were about the most untrustworthy bunch I’d ever run into.
The skunks suddenly stopped their advance on all sides of us. They didn’t come all the way up to our lines, but rather halted, busying themselves with their odd metal poles. Each group of six raised their pole to a vertical state, standing it up in the roadway.
We were gritting our teeth, expecting something weird. Perhaps we’d be treated to a shower of bomblets—or maybe jolts of released power from a Tesla coil.
But nothing of the kind happened. Instead, the poles grew taller. With a whirring sound, each of them stretched up from two meters in height to about four. At the top of each of these tall poles, a flag suddenly unfurled.
Flagpoles? Were these just flagpoles?
We gawked in confusion. Each of the flags depicted the Mogwa standard I’d seen previously. It looked sort of like a spider with a weapon in its hand, crouching upon a large planet.
“Ah!” Sateekas said in relief and recognition. “They honor us! All halt! I will not miss this obsequious ceremony!”
We stopped marching, and so did the Mogwa soldiers. Their small tanks prowled warily, attempting to aim their turrets in every direction at once. They were nothing if not paranoid.
“My bodyguards are overzealous fools,” Sateekas said to his son. “You see that flag? That is the banner of House Trantor. This is a grand sign of adoration and allegiance. Do you recall when I spoke upon fear versus love?”
“I’ve forgotten nothing, Father. I endured your lecture only minutes ago.”
“Yes, yes. Well, here is an example of unbidden affection. This is the best kind of slave-love. Sometimes, incredible though it might seem, such displays are presented spontaneously. Mogwa xenologists have long puzzled over the phenomenon. They theorize that conquered peoples begin to take comfort in their pathetic state, coming to imagine themselves protected by a superior intellect. These delusions—”
Here, Sateekas cut off his speech. The situation on the ground had altered further.
While we were standing around in befuddlement, gawking upward at these six flagpoles which now completely encircled the procession—the skunks had been busy.
“They’re taking off!” Carlos said. “Look at those little fuzzy feet run.”
I turned my gaze downward from the high flags, which everyone was marveling over, and noticed it was true. The skunks were retreating, vanishing back into the dark shadows among the urn-lined alleyways between the buildings.
I frowned. This development seemed odd to me.
My mouth opened wide, ready to give a further warning to the Mogwa garrison commander—when a mysterious buzzing sound began. It was coming from all six of the flagpoles surrounding us.
At the base of each, my troops were staring and walking around in wonderment. A few of them had even put a gauntlet upon the metal poles. Those few men were the most unlucky of individuals.
A massive electrical charge was released. The soldiers who’d witlessly grasped a pole were electrocuted instantly. Worse than that, all the poles were now tipping over in concert, falling. I quickly realized that they weren’t just toppling over, they were indeed all converging upon the domed floater in our midst.
“Our metal armor,” Natasha said urgently. “Your men could form a circuit and short out these flagpole things. James, you can’t let them touch Sateekas’ vehicle!”
It was an impossible situation. Within a second or two, all the poles toppled. I ordered my men to smash them away with their rifles, and to shoot after any running skunks. We kicked at the dirt roadway, attempting to find the hidden cables that had to be buried under our boots.
But there simply wasn’t time to do any of these things. In the end, three of my men were electrocuted. The Mogwa garrison commander, to his credit, drove his tank directly into the path of one of the falling flagpoles, the one that was coming from the front. He blocked its descent with his mini-tank’s chassis. Inside the cockpit, I saw him do a deadly dance as he was electrocuted and transformed into a steaming corpse.
We managed to knock away four of the falling poles, but two of them got through. That was enough. They sizzled on the forcefield. Sparks flew.
None of us dared to touch the poles directly. To do so was to be immediately electrocuted. I ran forward and grabbed the tether from the garrison commander, who was quite dead and unable to maneuver it.
I yanked on the heavy cord, unable to understand the controls as I’d never been instructed on how to use them. Pulling on the cord as if it were a rope attached to a boat, I hauled upon it, attempting to drag the floater free of the trap.
To some extent, I was successful. The dome was going orange. That’s what these forcefields did. They went through a series of colors until they flickered out. It was still protecting the two Mogwa inside, who were in a snarling huddle at the center of the floater, clearly expecting death.
I managed to pull the floater a few meters away from the trap by sheer force. One of the two poles that had made contact with the dome slid away and fell into the dirt. This pole brought great misfortune to another of the Mogwa soldiers, who was shocked to death when it fell on his vehicle.
There was just one pole left, just one that seemed to cling upon the floater’s dome, unwilling to let go.
The forcefield flickered, it was buckling. It was beyond orange now, going into a fuzzing brown-red glow.
It flickered out at last, but due to my efforts, the pole struck the end of the floater rather than crashing down onto the heads of the two Mogwa. It gave a nasty jolt to the feet of Sateekas and his son.
They yelped in pain, but they didn’t die. Their bodies didn’t steam and cook.
The pole then slid off the floater, which many of my men were now pushing and hauling upon with me, trying to drag it to safety. We left the last of the poles in the dirt, where it buzzed and flashed. The surviving troops stepped over it gingerly, careful to be sure they didn’t make contact with the deadly device.
I managed to drag the floater another dozen meters along the road before we all stopped and reformed our circle of arms and armor around the two Mogwa in our midst.
“That was a close one,” I said.
“It was beyond close,” Sateekas shouted, daring to stand tall again. “Where is my garrison commander?”
“I’m afraid he died, sir,” I told him. “He stopped one of those falling poles with his own hand.”
“Did he die in agony?” Sateekas demanded.
“I believe he did, your overlordship.”
“Good! He has failed me. Here I am, exposed to this foul planet’s glaring sun, while these vicious mammalian rebels are no doubt plotting their next attack upon my person. Who is in charge of my safety now?”
“Uh…” I said, looking around. There were a couple of Mogwa soldiers left alive, but they were just grunts in their tanks. There wasn’t even a noncom among them. “I guess I am, sir. Since I’m the only officer that’s still breathing.”
“Very well, McGill. Let’s finish this tour of this despicable town. This place is a cankerous boil mounted upon an unsightly creature’s rump!”
“Uh…” I said, “finish the tour, sir? I don’t think I can get that force dome up again. It’s fried.”
“The floater still works. Proceed!”
“You might have to walk,” I said. “I don’t know how to pilot this floater of yours. Hell, I don’t even know which direction we’re going.”
“What are you grunting about? I will not be defeated in this fashion, you disgusting ape! This is my planet. It is my son’s birthright, and these people will accept their annexation. I will not give them an easy victory. They will not cheer in their burrows tonight about how they chased off their rightful overlord.”
“But sir…”
“I can handle it, Centurion,” Natasha said, stepping up and gently taking the tether from my hands.
It had a strange control system, but she seemed to have no trouble with it. Go figure. Natasha had flown more than a few alien spaceships. I guess it was no brain teaser for her to drive what amounted to a floating hay-hauler through this alien town.
“Okay, then,” I said, with a shrug and a shaking head. “Saddle up, boys. The day isn’t getting any younger.”
-25-
Sateekas demanded that we continue our tour of the city, despite my paranoia and the fact that the skunks had already managed to take down his protective dome.
“Two bullets, that’s all it’s going to take,” Washburn said.
Carlos laughed. “They don’t even need bullets. A thrown rock will do the job.”
“Shut up, you two,” I told them.
A number of my men laughed roughly. It was general knowledge that the carapace of any Mogwa citizen was remarkably thin. Their bodies would pop like melons if they encountered significant force of any kind. That’s why they rode around in walking tanks all the time.
I thought wistfully about the three tanks that we’d left behind, with dead Mogwa soldiers inside. Hell, if we just dragged them along, maybe I could have talked Sateekas and his kid into getting into a couple of them.
Forget about it, I told myself. The customer is always right, and today, Sateekas was paying the bills. If he wanted to risk death, that was his business.
We continued on, with frequent radio traffic flying every time anybody saw a skunk who looked like he was ready to take a leak. We marched along in relative peace, however, and we even began to believe the scary part of this adventure was done with. We were more than halfway through the loop now, which would eventually lead us around to the central palace again, where we had started this escapade.
Our spirits rose when we rounded the third turn along the great square road. We were now three-quarters of the way through this insane city tour.
But then, we saw a body lying in the road. It was a skunk-alien female. She was motionless, her fur puffing in the wind. There was not another skunk to be seen.
“I don’t like the look of this, sir,” Washburn said.
“Why not?” Carlos said. “The only good skunk is a dead skunk. That’s what I say.”
Again, there were a few chuckles, but everyone was nervous. My troops were aiming their weapons this way and that. We all had the feeling this could be another trick.
“What’s the delay?” Sateekas demanded when he noticed we’d slowed down.
“There appears to be a local citizen lying in the roadway,” I informed him.
“What of it?” Sateekas demanded. “Kick the corpse aside. Don’t show fear before the enemy. They will never bend the knee if you do.”
“Is that another axiom, Father?” Nero asked at his father’s side.
“Yes, consider it so, my son.”
I signaled for Carlos, who jogged forward, grumbling along the way. “What if this thing is laced with bombs or something?”
“In that case,” I said, “you should have been born a tech.”
It got a laugh from a lot of my men, but we all watched warily as he knelt and examined the body. “Still breathing. I don’t see an injury. I’m not quite sure why she’s—”
“What is this unholy delay?” Sateekas roared all of a sudden. “Soldiers, forward! Take the tether, pull me through this.”
Carlos and my front line of men stumbled aside as the floater surged and began to glide forward. The three Mogwa soldiers who were still breathing dragged the floater closer to the body in the street.
The rest of us parted before them, our chromed legs clanking as we stepped aside. I was relieved to see that at least the Mogwa soldiers did not drive one of those spiky, spider-like legs of their mini-tanks down and crush the poor alien skunk-lady. Instead, they walked around her and kept on going. We fell in on either side of the floater, forming two columns.
We marched along at a reasonable pace. But then, as the floater glided over the body in the road, I heard an awful noise. It was kind of a squelching sound. I thought I heard a small squalling sound as well.
“Whoa,” Carlos said, “some of that got on my boot.”
I looked under the floater, and I was immediately horrified. The skunk lady’s body had kind of… imploded.
That was the thing about these floating vehicles and their gravity repellers. They didn’t really make the floater itself weigh less. Instead, they transferred that weight, in this case in a downward direction, so that essentially the weight of it was immediately applied to the ground below. The body of the tiny alien that the vehicle was passing over had taken the brunt of it.
The floater had crushed her. If she hadn’t been dead before, she was quite dead now. I had to wonder if the whole “dead skunk in the road” thing had been a trick. Perhaps a ruse designed to slow us down. If it had been, she’d paid for the trick with her life.
After that fateful moment, everything changed. The streets had been empty. They’d been windblown and quiet. Now, they transformed before our eyes.
Dozens of skunks, then hundreds—no there probably had to be more like a thousand now. They surged into the street within a minute’s time. They came rushing out of the houses, out of the side alleys, from the road ahead and behind. They thronged us in a growing crowd, and not a damned one of these guys looked happy.
They showed us their sharp white teeth and their angry, slitted eyes. There were snarls and hisses.
The mob had things in their hands: weapons, tools—some even held rocks, but they all looked furious and determined.
“Uh-oh,” Carlos said. “Who could have figured that if you just made one skunk pie in the middle of the road, these guys would all go crazy on us?”
“What is the meaning of this?” Sateekas shouted. “Why are you slowing down? Push through them! Don’t stop!”
Following his orders, we surged forward, shoving aside any skunks that dared stand too close in their growling, growing circle.
We began making some headway, but I heard something behind us. I craned my neck, as did others.
It was a familiar noise, a clanking, squeaking sound. Then I saw the first of them. A Mogwa mini-tank was driving up on our six. It was being driven by one of the skunks. Behind him came the other two machines.
