The Trilisk Supersedure

Chapter 11



Holtzclaw walked through the haphazard clusters of alien buildings behind his men. The surface of his battle suit maintained the broken red color of the rocks and walls around him. He was in constant communications with his surveillance team, the Hellraker operator, and his mission group.

His battle suit was simply a powered exoskeleton mated to a military grade skinsuit and a helmet. It increased his mass by about 50 percent, but that was not a problem moving across the hard, rocky landscape. Originally the battalion had an exoskeleton only for each officer, squad leader, and the heavy weapon operator, but almost all the men had them now. One of the few advantages of heavy attrition of the unit: the exoskeletons had survived more often than the men had.

“Any activity back at their ship?” he asked. Though he could see the ship in one of the panes of his personal view, he relied upon his men to sift through details and notice things he would miss while his attention was divided.

“Quiet. Something’s not right about it, though. This ship is nothing like I’ve ever seen.”

“It must be some fancy science mission one-off,” Holtzclaw said.

“Yes, sir. You got the fancy part right. It looks like it took some serious landing prep just to set it down. Some kind of surface construction to make a place to sit its fat ass down planet-side.”

Holtzclaw looked at the ship again. His man was right. The ship was radical. He couldn’t even see any ramps or means of ingress. The landing site had several pre-built spots to support the struts.

We must have missed some probe that arrived ahead of time to construct those landing pads. “Well, it’s about to be our fancy ship,” he said.

Holtzclaw trailed the center of his advancing mission group. He had mobilized eight squads of five men each. A Guardian machine had been assigned to each of the squads. Though the Guardians had been designed for perimeter security, they could be useful in a frontal assault.

The Hellrakers were set up and on high alert, but he preferred to capture everything intact. More supplies for him that way. If they encountered any resistance, he was ready to use up Hellraker rounds in exchange for whatever was on that big fat ship they had seen come down. There were probably literally years’ worth of supplies and equipment on that vessel. And if it was a science expedition, it could be invaluable in trying to figure out what they hauled out of the tunnels.

The rest of his soldiers were taking off in the next few minutes to challenge any assets the strangers had left in orbit. As with the ground attack, their orders were to capture what they found rather than destroy it. Holtzclaw had put Silvarre in charge of their assault craft.

On the ground, his men were spread across a two-kilometer line north to south, moving to the east. Sensor probes moved in the same direction, two to the south and one to the north. Even though he expected all the action to take place topside today, he had a moment of pause thinking about the engineers he had left behind. They had sheltered underground to defend themselves against the monster. If it chose to strike now, it could be bad. But at least he had told them to remain vigilant. There were limited avenues of attack in the long tunnels.

“We have a robot here, headed away from us.”

“Kill it,” Holtzclaw said. “Neutralize all their machines. Take the scientists alive unless they resist with arms.”

There was a pause.

“Got it. Target is down.”

A minute later, squad three, farther to the south, got another one. And another. Holtzclaw discovered the machines were armed when the third one shot back. None of his men were injured, and they killed it easily.

They’re not prepared for this. They’re no match for us.

For another half hour they swept across the old city. They killed a fourth robot in the north; then Holtzclaw got a transmission. He caught a visual feed of the officer. A long, straight nose divided the heavily lined face above compressed lips. It was First Lieutenant Racca.

“We have a couple of robots holed up in a building,” the officer said.

“Any people in there?”

“No, sir, not unless they’ve got stealth hardware. The probes are sure it’s just robots. There’s at least two of them sheltering in there,” Racca said. “We could use a Guardian machine, but I thought, maybe this would be a good test for our Hellraker calibration?”

“Yes, good thinking,” Holtzclaw agreed. The Guardian ammunition had also gotten pretty low, because those machines had been taking pot shots at the Konuan for weeks. His unit needed resupply or access to manufacturing resources they could use to produce more ammunition. Their assault ships had basic fabrication systems that could be used in a pinch, though they were slow and out of certain raw materials. The fabrication systems were meant to construct critical replacement parts for the ships in emergencies, not to supply a battalion with ammunition. Not even a heavily attritioned battalion like theirs.

Holtzclaw received a location pointer from Racca and passed it on. He announced the target on the mission channel. The fire system verified all friendlies were clear of the target.

“Incoming,” said the Hellraker operator.

Holtzclaw accessed a visual feed from one of the probes on the line. A small Konuan building sat in a clearing. Nothing moved, but his men were sure at least two of the machines were inside.

Three seconds later the dwelling blossomed into a gigantic cloud of red dust rising into the sky. The thunder came seconds later. Holtzclaw wasn’t sure if he could feel the tremor or if it was imagined.

“Direct hit,” Holtzclaw heard.

Good to know everything is still in working order. “Resume the advance,” he said. The squads started advancing again.

Holtzclaw’s link announced a communication channel opening from his task force newly arrived in orbit.

“Colonel Holtzclaw, this is the Typhoon.”

“Report,” he said.

“There’s another very large ship here, just like the first one,” Silvarre said. “We’re closing in on it, but I have to tell it to you straight, sir, I doubt a ship of that size—”

Silvarre’s voice feed cut out.

“Silvarre? Major?”

There was no answer.

I doubt a ship of that size…what?

“Major Silvarre?”

I doubt a ship of that size isn’t armed.

Holtzclaw tried to get the Typhoon’s beacon. There was nothing. Which meant the ship had gone dark to avoid attack, or it had been destroyed. The other two ships, Scion and Griffin, were silent as well. His forces in space were engaged.

“Step it up,” Holtzclaw sent to his squad leaders. “We have trouble in orbit. I want that ship.”