Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (55 page)

“What's
up Barry? Getting lonely?” Yvonne asked.

“I
thought you guys were nearby.”

The
admiral immediately froze. “Wait, why?” Irons demanded before Yvonne could say
anything. He looked at the map. They were still about a hundred meters away
from Barry's team. They had another set of doors to go through before they
would link up.

“Yeah
man, thought I heard some people around the corner from me,” Barry replied.

“Fall
back Barry,” Irons immediately ordered, looking at the HUD. “We've got a set of
doors in between us and you. We're a hundred meters out and several corners
away.”

“So
that's not you. Oh...
Shit
,” Barry said sucking in a breath. They could
hear him moving back and cursing softly.

“Use
your generator. Get to the nearest set of doors and close them behind you,”
Irons suggested.

“Good
idea. Only one problem. We didn't bring the damn thing,” Barry grunted sounding
a little sheepish.

“Great,”
Irons said.

“What
now? We've got sounds ahead and behind us as well,” Barry said. “We're cut
off.”

“Probe
one is destroyed,” Sprite reported.

Irons
flinched. “What? How?”

“Unknown.
Playback...” Sprite said. Irons winced again as he saw the playback. Something
had dropped on the probe from above. Fortunately military probes weren't
civilian cleaner bots. These probes had sensors on all axis. It caught the
sight of teeth and claws. There was enough there for Irons to venture a guess.
One he didn't like.

“Barry
Dilgarth
. Repeat. Dilgarth.” He had to get the warning out now.

“Shit!”
Barry snarled, voice rising. “You've got to be fracken kidding me! Those
monsters! Please not those monsters!”

“Stay
calm, we're on our way. Set up a defensive perimeter and hold tight,” Irons
said grimly, motioning them into movement again. “We've got to be cautious, I
don't want to run headlong into a trap but we're on our way,” he said. “They
like to attack from above, behind or the side. Find a nice place to hold up
that you can hold and hang in there.”

“Easy
for you to say, you've got numbers on your side. Sounds like a lot of them,”
Barry said nerves fraying. He turned up his external mike loud enough for the
radio to hear. There was the distinct sound of hissing and breathing from
outside his suit. That was ominous the admiral realized. If they could hear the
aliens... no not good.

“Not
good. Not good. So not good,” someone on Barry's team babbled incoherently.
Irons frowned. These were civilians; they weren't trained to handle combat.
Great.

“Find
a closet! A room! Anything. Watch the ceiling and any Jeffery tubes!” Yvonne
said as Savo broke into a loping run. The chimp's short legs couldn't keep up
with the longer legged Terrans. Irons slowed long enough to grab the chimp by
the back of his suit and toss him up on his back. The chimp shrieked in
surprise but managed to hold on with one hand.

“Thanks,”
Savo ground out, grabbing hold and hanging on to the generator for dear life.
Before Irons could answer the screaming and weapon fire began.

“Shit!
We're cut off!” Their point called back. He could see the light shining on a
hatch “There is another door and it's stuck like the others!” he said, voice
rising with the tension.

“Move
aside,” Irons said, elbowing the others clear. He got to the view port and
looked. It was cracked. He could see light on the other side. Someone rounded
the bend and fired wildly. Raptor shapes came out of the dark in front to be
blown away. But another pair attacked from either flank. The woman went down
wailing in terror.

“Damn
it,” Yvonne said, looking at the tablet. The probe floated nearby. She swatted
at it angrily. It buzzed and then rolled back and forth before drifting away.

“Don't
take it out on the drone,” Sprite said angrily over the net.

“I'll
take it out anyone I damn well please until we can get in there and save them!”
Yvonne snarled. “Come on they're dying in there!” she said.

Just
as Irons started hooking up the cables and the chimp climbed down off him he
saw something on his sensors.

“We're
surrounded. Coming in from all sides. Above as well. Watch it!” he called
shooting a look at Savo.

“Shit!”
Savo said, looking at the open air duct. He went from one to another, searching
wildly. “I've got topside, the rest of you watch the walls. Center of the
companionway. Admiral get that damn door open!” The chimp ordered.

“Working
on it,” Irons said. The control panel was smashed so he let his right arm morph
around the ODN cables as power came up. He could hear snarls on the other side
of the door. He turned to see their rear guard firing at shadows and eyes.
Great. He at first thought they were firing blind but then his sensor overlay
registered. The kid either had cat eyes or was just lucky. He caught a Dilgarth
on the shoulder, sending it reeling back creeling piteously. That made the
others around it hesitate.

These
things were viscous and not smart, not your typical Dilgarth. Garthians would
go silent before attacking, distracting the prey if they knew that the prey
knew they were there. These just kept coming.

“Door
opening. Watch it, others on the other side!” he said withdrawing his hand and
morphing it into a plasma gun. He fired up into the air duct over his head at
the sensor contact there. Plasma lit the area and the tube. There was a squeal
and then bits of something or other dribbled down.

“What
the hell was that? Flash grenade?” Savo asked, looking back.

“No,
me
,” Irons said as the door cycled fully open. Another Dilgarth was on
the other side. It was surprised by the cycling door and turned just in time
for it to fully open. Before it could get a claw over the hatch combing though
Irons had put it out of its misery.

“We're
taking casualties!” Adam said, leaning over the fallen rear guard. He looked up
just in time to see a Dilgarth's massive scythe take his helmeted head off.

Yvonne
screamed as she fired at his killer. Adam's body crumpled, falling on top of
the fallen guard. She rushed forward but Savo grabbed her. She tugged on his
arm but his simian strength held her back.

“He's
dead. They’re both dead. Forward,” he ground out. He used his free hand to fire
into a Jeffery tube. Something squealed inside. They could hear thrashing and
banging in the tube. “Gotcha you bastards,” he growled triumphantly “Come on!
You want to die here like them?”

Two
more people were killed before Irons could react. He had to focus; he had to
blow through the aliens to the other team. Soak up the damage and dish out a
hell of a lot more pain. Shock and awe, which was the only way to get through
this. Defender brought up his shields as spines were fired into the open hatch.
They pinged off his shield. “Admiral, power reserves are dropping,” Proteus
warned.

“Tap
the generator, I'm busy here,” he replied, firing off another shot. Its
intended target jumped out of the way. The shot kept going down the corridor in
a blinding flash before running into a pack of alien raptors. The lead one
disintegrated in surprise, spraying it's fellows with bone shrapnel. That made
them duck and cover or squeal and hiss as they took damage. He was down to three
shots left before he drained his shields completely.

The
admiral felt Proteus reach out with nanites and then build a cable in between
Irons and the generator. He grunted as his power reserves started climbing
again. “Good,” he said, turning as a Dilgarth reached out from the side of the
hatch to spear him. Had he not seen it coming on his sensors and had he not had
shields he would have been gutted. He let the scythe bounce harmlessly off his
shield and then leveled the plasma gun. One shot blew the alien's head off.

The
hover bot was firing as well; it staked out a pair of Jeffery tubes and was
taking turns swiveling back and forth between the two. Irons nodded as he
checked the surviving team behind him. They had all the openings covered now.
Good. Four dead, two wounded. Not so good.

“Damn
these things are everywhere!” Savo yelled firing around the corner blindly. He
took a chance to peek and then leaned back. “Clear.”

Irons
could hear the click and clatter of claws retreating on the metal decks. He checked
his HUD. They were retreating. Good. “They are retreating,” he said.

“If
we're going to do something we better do it now,” Derrick said. He was holding
his left arm. A spine was sticking out of it. He winced. “Suit's compromised
and so am I damn it.”

“Sorry
man,” a guard said. He reached over to pull it out but Yvonne batted his hand
away.

“Don't,
it's plugging the hole for now. Derrick you okay to move?” she demanded.

“Yeah,”
Derrick gasped out. He nodded getting into motion. His left arm hung at his
side uselessly.

“If
we're going to do something we better hustle and do it now!” Savo said.

“Working
on it,” Yvonne said, looking at Irons. He nodded.

“Sprite
sitrep. Fire one off to Kiev and...”

“Let
you know that Barry, Al, and three of his team are still alive. Two are
wounded.”

“Shit,”
Irons said, turning away from the distress written all over Yvonne's face.

“They
are barricaded in a supply closet with a Dilgarth outside. Something's off.
They are more aggressive than normal,” Sprite said.

“Fresh
meat,” Yvonne said.

Irons
turned until he spotted a trunk down the way they were going to go. It had a
life sign inside. From the read out, human. “Hang on, I think you miscounted,”
he said moving forward.

“I'm
an AI, I don't miscount,” Sprite said as a probe past over his shoulder. “What
the heck?” she said as it bobbed over the trunk.

“See?”
Irons said, lifting the lid. He caught a brief glimpse of a human child covered
in scaly armor and hair before it flashed a set of yellow teeth and brandished
a claw covered hand. It slashed at him, making him back away instinctively.

Before
he could stop the kid it was out of the box and had dived down the nearest
Jeffery tube. “Shit!” Savo said watching it go. “And you let it go?” he
demanded.

“It
wasn't a Dilgarth. It was human,” Irons said, trying to replay that last scene.

“No
time to figure it out, where are the others?” Yvonne asked, voice dripping with
anxiety.

“That
way,” Irons said, pointing straight and then to the left. “One hundred fifty
meters.”

“We
need to get to them.”

“We
need a plan. I don't want them to hit again. They didn't go far, I can see them
around us,” the admiral said.

She
stopped and looked around. She knew better than to go walking into an ambush.
“Great. What do we do now?” she asked.

“Work
on a plan,” Irons said.

On
the bridge of the Kiev the captain went pale when he heard the news. Sprite
sounded grim as she tallied the dead.

“Dilgarth?”

“They
are alien raptors captain. Smart and vicious when they devolve.”

“I
know that,” the captain said testily.

“Sorry.
They were sentients at one point. A steady diet of alien meat and no
supplements or plant material turned them feral. Devolved them into... well
this,” Sprite said helpfully. She didn't have the bandwidth to show them but
they were pretty sure they knew what the team was up against.

“How
bad is the situation?” Warner asked. He looked at the captain. “Should we prep
another team?”

“I'd
advise it. Also put the medics on standby. On another note, we've got a human
survivor here as well. Feral child. Female from the pheromones,” Sprite
reported.

“Oh,”
the captain said. He didn't really care about that. He sat heavily in his
chair. How was he going to tell the families of the fallen that their kin were
dead? He rubbed at his face.

“Dilgarth
eat meat right?” Warner asked.

“I
think I just said that.”

“I
know. I... I'm just bothered by them eating our people,” he said quietly.

“They
are trying to stay alive. Believe me,” Sprite said dryly.

“Get
them to put the dead in a safe place. I... I don't want them to be eaten,” the
captain said.

“Captain...”
Sprite said cautiously.

“Just
do it,” he said grimly. “That's an order.”

“I'm
not in your crew but I'll pass it along,” Sprite replied with a sniff.

The
medic is busy with the wounded. Irons checked behind him. He wanted to move
forward but they have a three wounded and several dead to deal with. There was
no way he was going to leave them behind to be eaten; the captain was right
about that. He'd thought he had two wounded but apparently Derrick had been nicked
in the leg. That would slow them up even more if the injury was serious enough.