Kill Team, page 26
‘Everyone knows the drill,’ I say to the other two. ‘Come on Last Chancers, time to die.’
With that I toss a smoke grenade through the arch, and follow it through a couple of seconds later. Shots detonate around me, too close for comfort, and I hit the ground, returning fire down the corridor. Tanya sprints across the tunnel and takes cover in the next door alcove, Quidlon following her, snapping off shots from the hip as he does so. I push myself to my feet, rattle off another burst of fire and follow them through. The magazine’s empty so I pluck it out and discard it, slamming another one home with well-practiced ease. Another corridor and another smoke grenade, Quidlon firing back through the arch we just passed through, and I hear a shout of someone hit.
We get to a closed portal and I signal Quidlon to get it open. He searches around for an access panel and finds it just above the floor inside the archway.
‘Come on, Brains, we haven’t got all day,’ I hiss at him, before firing at a glimpse of movement to my right. I glance back and see he has the panel open, an odd-looking instrument in his hands, like a pair of compasses made from crystal and wires. There’s a hiss and the door slides open.
Tanya ducks through first and comes scurrying back a second later as explosions rock the room beyond.
‘Grenades!’ I tell them, and Quidlon tosses one through the doorway, followed a moment later by one from my belt. The twin detonations scatter shrapnel across a wide area, the smell of explosives hanging in the air. Another, much louder, explosion rocks the walls and I see debris pile up further down the tunnel. Trost comes bursting through the hole, firing blindly behind him with his lasgun.
I grab Tanya and force her forward, pushing her ahead of me until we reach the next alcove. The smoke, dust and yellow lighting makes everything look foggy and polluted, and it threatens to clog my mouth and nose. Tanya pulls out the lascutter and gets to work on the next door as we provide covering fire. Three more fire warriors go down further along the narrow corridor, and many more duck back out of sight. I can hear the hiss of the lasburner melting through the door, and a moment later Tanya calls out that she’s through.
Crawling through the opening I find myself in the middle of a jungle, like I expected. The humidity and heat makes sweat jump out of my skin straight away, and it takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the relative darkness. Trost is rigging up a grenade and tripwire next to the opening as we take positions against the trunks of the trees, up to our waists in large fern leaves.
‘Drones!’ snaps Tanya, levelling her sniper rifle to the left.
I look that way, and half a dozen of the things come flitting down through the leaves. They’re domed discs about a metre across, with thick aerials protruding from their curved tops, each underslung with a pair of linked guns that track and swivel as they scan the jungle for us. Tanya opens fire, plucking the closest out of the air with a single shot, its fractured casing spinning to the ground trailing sparks. Quidlon and I shoot next, a converging salvo of las-bolts and bullets that sends three more of the drones out of control, smashing into trees and plunging into the bushes.
The two that are left return fire and we duck for more cover as the shells smash fist-sized chunks from the tree trunks, hurling bark everywhere and spattering me with sweet-smelling sap. I roll sideways through the ferns, flattening leaves, and finish on my back, firing up. The shots ricochet off one of the drones, causing it to judder in its flight, but it recovers and dips down out of sight. Smart little beggar. A swathe of falling ferns is the only warning I get of the drone’s shots and I roll to my feet and dive sideways, landing awkwardly behind a fallen log. The shells strip through the leaves at knee height, splintering along the log – the drone must be hovering just above the ground. One of them hits a more rotten patch of wood and passes straight through, scoring a bloody cut across the back of my right leg just below the knee, but missing the bone. I bite back the pain and fire back blindly, resting the autogun on the log and squeezing off the remainder of the magazine.
Banging more ammo home, I glance over the top of the fallen trunk, and see the drone gliding towards me, its guns tracking left and right, smoking gently. When it’s just a couple of metres away, I burst out of my cover and leap at the thing, diving right on top of it.
It sways sideways trying to escape and I drop the autogun and grab its circular rim with both hands. My muscles strain against its anti-gravity motors as I turn it vertical, its guns spinning wildly, trying to point at me but instead just finding thin air. With a shout I break into a headlong run at the nearest tree, pushing the drone in front of me, and smash it against the trunk, gouging a strip from the bark and causing one of the guns to snap off its mounting. I smash it against the tree again four more times, until the motors die and it suddenly becomes heavy in my hands. I drop the drone to the ground, where it wobbles uncertainly for a few seconds before falling still. I go back and pick up my autogun and shout for the others.
Tanya appears first, her right cheek bloodied, splinters of wood imbedded in her face.
‘Any closer, I would have lost my eye,’ she tells me, sitting down against a tree and dabbing at the blood with her cuff. Quidlon and Trost appear together, apparently unharmed.
‘I think it’s this way, but I got turned around in the fight and it all looks the same, so maybe it isn’t,’ Quidlon says, pointing up a trail to our left.
‘Check your direction-finder, idiot,’ I tell Quidlon, and he pulls the magneto-compass from his belt, turning its dials to align properly. He gives it a shake and adjusts it again.
‘It’s no use,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I think the tau have got some kind of interference generator, or perhaps just the structure of the dome is jamming the scanning beams.’
‘If you hadn’t stabbed Eyes, we would know for sure,’ snarls Trost, inspecting the shot counter on his lasgun.
‘Forget about the past, it’s better to be moving than a sitting target for more drones, or worse,’ I snap at the pair of them, slapping the compass from Quidlon’s grasp. ‘According to the set-up on the Laurels of Glory there should only be one other exit out of this area. We find that, we know where we are.’
‘Oh, and the tau will just let us, will they, Last Chance?’ spits Trost, pulling Tanya to her feet.
‘No, but we can make them think twice about stopping us,’ I tell them. ‘Come on, less arguing, more moving.’
Progress through the jungle is slow, hampered by the undergrowth and the need to keep alert at all times. The arena is only a few hundred metres across, but we take our time, not wanting to run into the tau without expecting it. After about ten minutes, Trost hisses and hits the deck, the rest of us following suit.
‘Movement, twenty, maybe thirty metres to the left,’ he whispers. I rise to a crouch and see he’s right, I make out fire warriors advancing cautiously between the trees. I’m not sure how many, maybe half a dozen, perhaps more. I point upwards and they all nod, understanding the plan. Keeping the trunks between us and the tau, we shin up into the lower branches and wait for the enemy to pass beneath us. The first few walk by without noticing, but a drone buzzes past just below me and then stops.
‘Now!’ I shout, dropping down, the gun blazing in my hands. At this range I can’t miss and the drone explodes into a shower of flaming shrapnel. The tau turn, but I’m on them, swinging the butt of the autogun into the helmeted face of the closest, smashing the small cluster of lenses that are where his eyes should be. The next in line raises his rifle to blast me apart but I kick the muzzle aside and the shot tears through his comrade, nearly slicing him in half. I reverse the kick and power my boot into the tau’s chest, smashing him on to his back, and then leap on him, driving the autogun under his chin and pulling the trigger. The top of his helmet explodes across the ferns in a bloody spray.
I look up to see Quidlon driving his knife up into the groin of another fire warrior while Trost smashes a rock over the head of another. The two remaining aliens turn and flee, but Quidlon snatches up his lasgun and cuts them down with an intense salvo of bolts before they get out of sight. I take a pause to catch my breath, looking at the mutilated bodies. Rather them than me.
We head off in the direction the tau came from, figuring they must have entered through the doorway we’re looking for. Another hundred metres or so, and there’s a stream across our path, cutting through a wide clearing. It looks like a killing zone to me, good lines of fire from all around the perimeter, the stream to splash about and slip around in. But we’re up against the clock here, no time to look for a better spot up or downstream. The drone attack has put us behind schedule already, we need to get out of here fast and into the central chamber.
Movement across the clearing catches my eye and I instinctively bring up the autogun, ready to fire. I look harder, but all I can see are leaves and branches. Then to my right, there’s more movement, and I focus on the area quickly, but still there’s nothing to be seen. I peer out through the foliage, keeping my head down, trying to see what’s moving out there. I catch a glimpse now and then of something, but nothing I could definitely identify as a tau. It’s then that my attention is drawn to the large bole of a tree pretty much directly opposite from where I’m crouched. I look at the deep score lines in the bark running up and down, and they bend and twist slightly. The strange thing is, the pattern of the lines is almost a perfect humanoid shape.
‘Sneaky bastards,’ I whisper to myself, lining up a shot on what I take to be the head of the near-invisible warrior. I pull the trigger softly, sending a single round cracking out across the clearing, it impacts on something in front of the tree and it’s then that I see a figure thrashing to the ground, the light somehow bending around it, making it near impossible to see. Then all hell breaks loose. There’s muzzle flashes from all around us, just within the far tree-line. There’s incoming fire from every direction, a massive fusillade of bullets that converge on our position, shredding leaves and branches and punching into the thick trunks of the trees spraying iron-hard splinters around us, forcing us to hurriedly duck further back into cover.
‘How do we get past?’ asks Trost, leaning back against a tree, glancing back over his shoulder nervously. ‘I can’t even see them.’
‘One of us draws their fire, the others shoot on the muzzle flashes,’ I say.
‘Great. Who gets the job of target?’ Trost says, obviously not volunteering himself.
‘I’ll do it,’ Tanya says, and before I can stop her she’s heading out towards the clearing. Trost and me follow quickly after her, scanning the trees for signs of movement. Tanya breaks from cover for a couple of seconds and then dashes out of sight again, but not before the tau open fire. I see a blaze of light just to my left and fire quickly, emptying half a clip, before turning my aim on more movement to my right, using up the rest of the magazine. I pull it out and slam another one in. Three reloads to go, and there’s still plenty of fighting to be done.
‘Rush ’em!’ I shout, ducking my head down and dashing out, firing wildly from the hip, before diving down into the cover offered by the shallow lip of the stream. There’s more return fire, which kicks up dozens of impact splashes in the water around me, and I quickly wriggle my legs out of the way and fire back, targeting a cluster of bushes where I saw three or four flashes of light. There’s a crackle of sparks and something crashes out of the bushes, flattening the leaves underneath it. I hear fire from my right and see Trost targeting the same spot, and open fire again, guessing that there’s more than one of them there.
Something buzzes past my head and carves a furrow in the bank behind me before exploding, showering me with dirt.
‘Demolition Man, show me some fireworks!’ I shout out to Trost, who’s now just upstream from me. He gives me a thumbs up and pulls a large canister from his pack, about the size of my forearm. Pulling the pin, he hefts it towards the far tree-line. I watch it spin through the air.
‘Don’t look!’ Trost shouts, but too late. I’m just twisting my head away when the bomb explodes and a sheet of white fire erupts in a circle, searing my vision and causing spots to dance in front of my eyes. I feel someone grab me by the shoulder and haul me to my feet.
‘Follow me,’ I hear Tanya pant in my ear and I stumble into a run as she guides me across the clearing. All I can smell is burning, and I can feel the charred earth crunching under my step. Blinking my eyes rapidly, my vision starts to return, first a blur of yellow and green, but after a few more seconds hazy shapes of bushes, and a grey blob I take to be Quidlon or Trost.
‘Door’s not far,’ I hear Quidlon say, and rubbing at my eyes, I can see him much more clearly.
‘You got any more of those incendiaries, Demolition Man?’ Tanya asks.
‘Just one more,’ he replies.
‘Better save it,’ I tell him. ‘Use ordinary grenades.’
We charge the exit, which isn’t that well held, the ten tau taken down with three simultaneous explosions.
‘I thought it would be harder getting out,’ Tanya admits as we pound down the corridor towards the entrance to the power chamber.
‘A lot of them came after me,’ Trost tells us. ‘I caused a hell of a bang, nearly took down half the dome, I reckon.’
‘And there’s the Colonel causing mayhem as well,’ I remind them as Tanya goes to work with the las-cutter again. ‘We have to keep the advantage of surprise. I don’t know how quick they can respond, but something tells me the tau are good at getting organised very quickly.’
‘I’m through,’ Tanya informs us, snapping closed the cutter and hanging it on one of her pack straps.
‘Remember the plan,’ I say, readying a smoke grenade. ‘Cover the ground to the tower and get inside. Demolition Man and me hold off any attackers while Brains cuts the power and locks down the doors. Sharpshooter gets to the top of the tower ready to fire. Any trouble, just shout out and I’ll come running.’
‘Got it, Last Chance,’ Tanya says with a nod, pulling out one of her own smoke grenades. ‘See you at the top of the tower.’
We roll the grenades through the opening cut by Tanya, and I glance after them to see thick blue smoke spilling everywhere.
‘Go!’ I slap Tanya on the backside and she jumps through the hole, followed by Quidlon. I hear a burst of gunfire and follow through quickly, Trost bringing up the rear. I hurl myself through the smoke, not bothering trying to fire as shots whine and whistle around us, and nearly slam face first into the wall of the tower. Something explodes above my head and showers me with debris from the tower wall.
‘Get inside, right now!’ I bark at the others, and they head off in the direction of the door. I see shadowy shapes to the left and right and sight along the barrel of the autogun, picking my shots. I loose off one burst to the left and see a figure drop, then another to the right is kicked off their feet by the volley. I take a few steps along the wall to change my position, and return fire begins to send splinters up from the floor and wall where I was standing. I fire back at the muzzle flares and hear a muffled scream as my shots hit home. A few more steps and I can see Trost in the doorway, waving frantically at me.
‘What’s the matter?’ I ask, hurrying over to him.
‘Quidlon’s gone awol, disappeared out the other side of the tower,’ he tells me, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.
‘Okay, hold position here, I’ll drag the stupid fragger back,’ I tell the saboteur.
The inside of the tower is wide open, a single spiral staircase winding up to the other floors around a central pole, small landings at regular intervals going up towards the ceiling. I glance up and see Tanya still running up the stairs, her rifle over her back as she steadies herself against the central column, with no handrail to guide her.
Pulling myself back to the task in hand, I look across the circular hallway to the door opposite, where the door is still open. I dart a look outside: there’s no tau in sight, but there is a line of five empty battle suits standing on the concourse, in front of a pair of heavy armour doors, and I see Quidlon over by them. The suits stand open, the front part of the bodies hinged up, the thigh panels lowered, showing the cockpit inside. Glancing around again, I sprint over the open ground to Quidlon.
‘Hey, Brains, what the frag are you doing?’ I shout at him.
‘Magnificent, aren’t they?’ he says, grinning like a fool. ‘Think, if we had one of these, there’d be no stopping us, we’d cut through the fire warriors with no problems.’
‘If we don’t get a fraggin’ move on now, then a bunch of tau bastards in these suits are gonna come for us, and we’re not gonna stand a chance,’ I bark at him, spinning him round by the shoulder. ‘Now shut the damn power off before more reinforcements arrive along the grav-rail!’
‘I’ll just take a quick look in one of them,’ he says, pulling himself away and stepping towards the nearest battle suit.
‘We have not got time for this crap!’ I yell at him, grabbing his arm. He twists suddenly and drives his fist into my gut, knocking me to my knees.
‘Back off, Last Chance,’ he snaps. ‘I might die here, and I want to have a look at one of these machines before I go.’
He climbs up onto the battle suit, but I jump after him, dragging him back to the ground. He rolls easily out of my grasp and swings a kick at my groin, which I barely deflect with my thigh. I guess I taught him well. His fist hammers into my right eye, faster than anything he ever threw at me in training. I fall back on my arse, dazed, and he climbs back up again.
With the fronts of the thighs lowered down for access, I can see that there’s a seat inside, surrounded by display panels and rows of illuminated buttons. Hooking his leg inside, Quidlon drops into the seat, and I notice how his legs drop into the thighs of the suit. Bracing clamps close with a hiss around his legs, locking him in place.
