The Trilisk Supersedure

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.”