Theogony 3: Terra Stands Alone (33 page)

Lieutenant Rrower surveyed the collection of exterminators spread out across the passageway. He couldn’t call them ‘soldiers
,’ as one was a priest and another was a Psiclops civilian. For that matter he was part of the Mrowry fleet, and therefore technically a sailor, not a soldier. Regardless of their normal occupations, they all looked focused and ready. “
Open the door,
” he commed.

The giant steel door
that went across the passageway opened from the left. As the door reached the half-way point, two Drakuls came from behind it and charged down the passageway. Their charge surprised no one, as the same thing had already happened three times previously.

The two Drakuls only covered half of the distance before they were
exterminated. It helped a lot that Staff Sergeant Dantone had come over to join them. His 20mm pulse rifle was very helpful in killing Drakuls.

“
Two hostiles down,
” Lieutenant Rrower commed, “
Proceeding up the passageway.
”

“
Your destination is just past the next blast door,
” replied Azrael from the control center. “
All of the cameras have been destroyed beyond the door, so I can’t tell you what’s there.
”

“
Understood,
” Rrower said.

Rrower knew
the Terrans wanted the Drakuls cleared out of the replicator before they could do anything to destroy it. If things worked out for them, the Terrans hoped to take the replicator home with them at the end of the war. Assuming there was still a Terra to take the replicator home to.

H
e looked again at the group he commanded. In addition to Dantone, Father Zuhlsdorf and Steropes, he only had Sergeant Zoromski and Havildar Rajesh Patel. It wouldn’t be enough if they ran into a big group of Drakuls.

The group continued up the passageway to the next door, and the group took their positions without being told. “
Ready for the next door,
” he commed.

The giant steel door rolled aside
to reveal an empty passageway that ended in a door.

“
You
said the cameras are out beyond here?
” asked Lieutenant Rrower.

“
That is correct,
” Azrael replied. “
There must be Drakuls somewhere beyond there.
”

“
Well, they’re not in the hall,
” noted Rrower, “
so they must be in the room at the end of the passageway. Any idea what’s in it?
”

“
It’s marked as a storeroom,
” Azrael answered, looking at a schematic in the control room. “
There could be almost anything in there. Rare metals for the replicator, food, other stores for the crew...
” His voice trailed off.

“
What about weapons and explosives?
” asked Rrower.

“
There could be some of those, too,
” Azrael admitted. “
Like I said, there could be almost anything in there.
”

“
I guess it’s too much to hope for that the storeroom contains a lack of Drakuls?” asked Sergeant Zoromski out loud.

“I expect so,” Rrower said. “Something in there
destroyed the camera. Any guesses?”

“Divine intervention?” asked Zoromski, raising an eyebrow at Father Zuhsldorf.

The priest shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he replied.

Lieutenant Rrower inspected the door. It
was a damage control door that had a round handle which had to be spun to open it. Whatever was inside the door would know they were coming. Not good.

He moved half
of his force to each side before spinning the unlocking mechanism. Nothing happened, and the door unlocked; so far so good. Stepping to the side, he pushed it open with the muzzle of his rifle and was rewarded with five or six laser bolts that passed through the space where he would have been standing. Obviously, there were creatures inside that wished him ill.

“Staff Sergeant Dantone, I don’t think they want us to come in,” he remarked. “Perhaps we didn’t announce our
selves well enough. Could you throw a few calling cards into the room?”

“Yes, sir,” replied The Wall. He walked up to the side of the door
, unclipping grenades from his combat harness. Special grenades that had been modified for cyborgs, he could hold each with a finger. He loaded four into his right hand and pulled the pins on them. “Fire in the hole,” he warned as he swung his arm into the doorway, releasing each finger sequentially to send the grenades out in a spread pattern. There was a cry of alarm from the room, and then the grenades exploded, blowing a spray of some kind of white fluff back out the door.

“Me first?” asked Dantone.

“Be my guest,” replied Lieutenant Rrower.

Drawing a mental breath, the cyborg stepped into the doorway with his pulse rifle ready in his right hand and a laser pistol in his left. He surveyed the mess he had made for a couple of seconds, prior to stepping into the room. The majority of the storage space had been used for
storing bedding, and pieces were everywhere, with some sort of downy material floating like a snowstorm throughout the room. There were scorch marks and hotspots scattered throughout the 50 foot square room; at least four places were on fire.

He stepped forward, looking for other heat spots that indicated Drakuls that were still alive, but it was difficult to find them with the fires burning in the room
. One Drakul rose up at the back of the room; he dispatched it with a burst of five 20mm rounds through the center of its chest.

The rest of the group charged in to see the Drakul falling backward. “Is that it?” asked Lieutenant Rrower, who had been expecting more
resistance.

“It appears so,” replied Staff Sergeant Dantone as he walked further into the room.

“Well, let’s search the room and make sure they’re all dead,” replied Rrower. “There must have been something here they wanted.”

The group spread out, trying to discover what the Drakuls had been doing.

“
I found one,
” said Father Zuhlsdorf. “
I can see a Drakul leg sticking out of a pile of bedding. Lots of blood all around it.
”

Staff Sergeant Dantone move
d to stand next to the priest and pulled out his short sword. “
Yep, looks like a frog leg,
” he said. “
Want me to cut it off or throw off the bedding and shoot it?
” he asked.

The rest of the group came to stand nearby. “
Why don’t you cut it off and see what happens,
” said Lieutenant Rrower, looking at the blue puddle. “
That way, we have the initiative. It looks like it’s already lost a lot of blood.
”

“
It would be my pleasure,
” Dantone said. Raising his sword, he chopped down on the foot, which fell out from under the mattress with about six inches of leg still attached. “What the hell?” he asked.

“Ugh,” said Father Zuhlsdorf,
the breath driven from his body. He looked down to find a foot long piece of pipe sticking out of his chest. “Help...”

The group turned to find a Drakul
on its knees behind the priest, having risen out of the pile of bedding where it had hidden. It pulled the sharpened length of pipe back out of the priest and swung it like a baseball bat, hitting him in the head and knocking him aside. It turned to swing the pipe at Staff Sergeant Dantone, who blocked it with his left hand while stabbing forward with his sword.

As
Dantone stabbed the creature, he saw it was the Drakul missing its foot. Already weak from loss of blood, it fell backward into the pile of bedding with Dantone’s sword stuck through its throat.

Lieutenant Rrower didn’t have one of the Terran helmets that showed squad member’s health status, but
he could tell the priest was mortally wounded. As he leaned down to inspect the wound, he saw movement at the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he saw a Drakul running toward to the door, holding something in its arms. “Look out!” he yelled.

The only member of the group
who was close was Steropes, who had shouldered his rifle. Knowing he didn’t have time to bring it to bear, he bent over and grabbed one of the pieces of piping scattered throughout the room. Without standing up, he threw it underhand at the Drakul as it reached the door. Although it didn’t hit the monster, it went between his legs and tripped him up as the ends caught on the doorway.

Whatever the Drakul had been carrying went flying
down the passageway as the Drakul went headfirst out the door. Trying to follow up on his advantage, Steropes charged the creature, drawing his sword as he ran. Reaching the Drakul, he swung, but the Drakul had already drawn its knife and blocked Steropes’ slash. Catching Steropes’ sword on the knife’s guard, it pushed upward, and Steropes fell back, giving the Drakul time and space to get up.

Steropes saw
the Drakul edging toward the object it dropped, and he ran to block the Drakul from getting to it. “The Drakul’s mine,” said Steropes as Dantone stepped into the doorway with his pulse rifle drawn. “Leave it to me.”

While he was talking
, the Drakul made a backhand slash that Steropes barely dodged; the Drakul’s knife connected with his sword, knocking it from his hands. Steropes jumped back, dodging as the Drakul reversed its stroke, trying to take the Psiclops’ head off. The Drakul moved forward to continue its attack, stopping to laugh as Steropes pulled two six-inch knives from his sleeves. The laughter stopped as the point of one of the throwing knives embedded itself in the Drakul’s right eye.

The Drakul pulled out
the knife, blue blood dripping from the tip. Throwing the knife to the side, the Drakul charged at Steropes. Over twice the size of the Psiclops, he swung awkwardly at Steropes, who surprised the creature by diving forward through its legs.

T
he Drakul roared in frustration and turned on Steropes, swinging its knife. The monster narrowly missed as Steropes dove backward. Turning his dive into a back flip, Steropes came to a standing stop next to the knife that the Drakul had thrown away. Reaching down, he flipped it up into the air. Catching the knife by the blade, he threw it at the Drakul’s other eye. Blind in one eye, the Drakul couldn’t judge the distance so it put up a hand to block the throw. The knife embedded itself in the palm of the creature’s hand.

The Drakul
roared again, infuriated by the little creature tormenting it.

The monster
fastened its teeth on the knife handle and pulled the weapon out of its palm, more of its blood dripping off the blade.

The Drakul advanced slowly on Steropes, not wanting to make the same mistake of charging him again.
Instead of slashing, the Drakul used thrusting attacks that would not be as hindered by the creature’s lack of depth perception.

Steropes kept moving to his left, taking advantage of the Drakul’s missing eye
, as the creature advanced on him. He timed the Drakul’s attacks, noting that it thrust and recovered the same way every time. Realizing that he couldn’t avoid the Drakul’s attacks forever, he decided to try to end the fight, one way or another.

He feigned a stumble, drawing the Drakul in as it thrust at him. He caught the blade of the Drakul’s knife on the
blade of his throwing knife and guided it to the side, reaching in to take hold of the creature’s sleeve as it pulled back. The move was unexpected, and the Drakul pulled him closer by reflex.

Steropes used his momentum to take another step toward the Drakul and then ran up the Drakul’s leg and plunged his knife into the Drakul’s other eye, blinding it.
Somersaulting backward, Steropes jumped down and away from the Drakul as it slashed in all directions, trying to kill him.

“I think you can kill it now,” Steropes said to Staff Sergeant Dantone.

“It would be my pleasure,” The Wall said. He aimed and put five 20mm rounds into the Drakul’s head, putting it out of its misery.

Steropes went over to look at what the Drakul had been carrying. “We’re going to want to do something about this,” he said.

“Why’s that?” asked Staff Sergeant Dantone.

“Because it’s a bomb.”

“Really?”

“Well, it
may not be a bomb,” replied Steropes, “but it definitely looks like explosives and has something that appears to be counting down. If that’s not some sort of timer, I don’t know what it is.”

“What’s going on?” asked Lieutenant Rrower as he
bounded up.

“It looks like they made a bomb,” replied Staff Sergeant Dantone.

Lieutenant Rrower looked at the stack of explosives on the deck. He cocked his head and then reached over and pulled out the timer/detonator.