Kill Before Dying (Tau Ceti Agenda Book 5) Read online

  At first, the Slayers and the Juggernauts didn’t see Chiata anywhere planetside. The surface of the northern continent was mostly wilderness, with occasional structures and buildings sparsely set about, not much more populated than a very rural area in old Earth farm country, but even those structures seemed to be abandoned and deteriorating. There were no Chiata military centers in the area as far as the tankheads and AEMs could determine, but that could mean they just hadn’t detected them yet. Or, the Chiata hadn’t been concerned with them yet. Or perhaps, there was some other strange alien reason that was too bizarre for humans to grasp at the moment. Maximilian had no idea, and more importantly, he knew he didn’t really give a shit at present, as the Chiata seemed to rain down on them from the sky like red and green blurs of fire and brimstone.

  Once the shooting had started full bore above the planet at less than two minutes into the mission clock time, several giant porcupine-shaped ships screamed over the tankheads and the AEMs, dropping Chiata armored multi-tentacled amorphous red and green glowing monsters on top of them. And that is when things went to shit. For cover fire, the larger alien ships laid down the zig-zagging blue beams of death from Hell.

  “Watch targeting locks and the blue beams from above!” Max warned the tankheads and AEMs. “Don’t bunch up!”

  “Four, take cover!” was the last thing Max heard Slayer Nine say as one of the blue beams hit Nine’s tank dead center. Max caught a glimpse in peripheral view of the tank as the shields appeared to hold for almost two seconds, but then, in a flash of green and blue light, they flickered and failed. And then the tank was almost instantly vaporized in a flash of blue engulfed in orange and white plasma and vapor. There was no explosion or parts being scattered about, just the tank being vaporized and the plasma disseminating into the atmosphere.

  “Nine!” his wingman Slayer Four shouted as the beam tracked from the vaporized Slayer Nine to Slayer Four. Again, the hovertank only lasted seconds against the alien death beams.

  Maximillian did his best to react, but could only watch as the beams tore through the tanks, scattering their formation and totally vaporizing two of his team as well as taking three AEMs with them. Gouges of scorched trees, rock, dirt, and molten mecha parts pockmarked the countryside where the beams had torn through. The two downed Slayers popped up as KIAs in his DTM battlescape view. Serendipity was the only reason his hadn’t popped up in somebody else’s blue force tracker. For now, Max was fine with serendipity being in his favor. But the onslaught of enemy mecha and ground troops dropping on them from above was quickly turning the probabilities against them.

  The hovertank shields are no match for those beams, Colonel, his AIC James One Mike Alpha One said into his mind.

  No shit. Max thought. James, we need to find a weak spot and hit it. That, or turn tail and run like a mother.

  Should I consider retreat and evac, sir?

  That was a joke, James. Hell no, let’s show these alien bastards how the Army goes rolling along right up their alien asses.

  Yes, sir, the AIC replied.

  “Slayer One, you see that shit!” Colonel Jones said through the ground systems tac-net. Max adjusted the sensors on his longer-range scanners to give him a larger mindview of the battle so he could get a mental fix on just how outnumbered they were and would be in the next couple of minutes as two more alien dropships lowered from orbit. He kicked the hoverfield into full ahead and toggled his tank over to bot mode. The giant metal vehicle shifted upward into its menacing mechanical bipedal form just as one of the blurs screamed by and stretched out a glowing green tentacle that encompassed his bot-mode tank.

  “Shit!” Dragon grunted and kicked the boot thrusters to full. He struggled like a safari hunter wrestling a giant anaconda, clutching the alien beast with the metal hands of his mecha. The mecha strained against the tendrils that continued to force themselves into cracks of the Buckley-Freeman shields, but the shields held. As ripples of blues and greens scattered across the energy barrier, Colonel Slayer managed to squeeze and pull at the Chiata until it burst like a water balloon filled with red and green phosphorescent paints. The thing let out a squeal that was as much eerie as it was earsplitting, but Max continued ripping the thing apart until the writhing and squealing stopped.

  “Slayer Two to One! You’ve got one taking up your three-nine line!”

  “I see him, Two.” Dragon released the dying Chiata and leaped up high and backwards, firing his main cannons and DEGs as he somersaulted over the blur beneath him. The creature followed at mind-numbing velocity upward into the air after him, and the weapons firing at it didn’t seem to give it much concern. “Fox three!”

  But the damned thing should’ve been concerned because the DEGs and cannons were doing their jobs. As the beams and rounds tore into the creature, it weakened the armored and shielded exoskeleton of the amorphous alien, creating a soft spot for his missile to drive home. The mecha-to-mecha missile twisted and turned around countermeasures and then exploded, splitting the creature in half and slinging orange, red, and green plasma in every direction.

  “Dragon, you seeing the cloud of targets moving in from the west?” Colonel Jones pinged him over the commander’s net. “That’s a shitload of bad news.”

  “Roger that, Colonel. I see ’em and am already working out targeting solutions. Guns, guns, guns.” Max fired at another of the strange armored blurs cutting in between him and the AEMs as he sent out a sensor ping at high resolution and repainted the red and blue dots in the direct-to-mind battlescape view in his head. His guns tracked along behind the blur, sending fiery armor-piercing high-order explosive rounds that just missed the alien and passed through several large trees in their path. The trees exploded on impact and fell forward as the trunks scattered in splinters. The amorphous tentacled red and green blur bounced off the ground and began to tear through the atmosphere, leaving a blue ion trail as it disappeared into the trees. But it wasn’t fast enough as Slayer Two U.S. Army Major Jackson Applegate bounced across the clearing catching one of the large falling trees by the trunk and slamming it into the fleeing Chiata baseball-bat style. The alien blur squished and morphed around the tree trunk, sticking to it just long enough that USMC Master Gunnery Sergeant Rondi Howser kicked her jumpboots at full thrust upward, rolled over the swinging tree, and popped grenades into the mix. As the grenades detonated, the tree and the alien burst into a fiery ball of splinters and alien goo.

  “Good shot, Marine!” Slayer Two noted.

  “Behind you, Slayer Two!” Howser shouted as she fired her hyper-velocity automatic rifle nonstop into the oncoming alien blur. The rounds tore through the planet’s atmosphere, leaving a bright purple ion trail as they tracked the amorphous alien attacker. Then Slayer Two turned his bot-mode tank just in time to fire his larger cannon into the creature’s midsection. The large plasma rounds exploded against the alien on impact, punching through the shields and then into and through it, splattering red and green viscous liquid in all directions.

  “Guns, guns, guns!” Colonel Slayer saw the alien trying to take up position on Slayer Two’s six in time and let loose his guns, driving it backwards. “Keep it together, Slayers, and we need to keep pressing through that oncoming line.”

  “Great shooting, Dragon! Thanks.”

  So many of the alien blurs had dropped on them, filling the battlescape, that their wild, rapid motions created eerie screeching sounds and sonic booms that thundered across the mountainous forest before the Madira ground team. At least for the moment, the area of operations was so crowded that the blue beams of death from Hell weren’t zig-zagging about them as often, most likely for fear of friendly-fire kills on their own troops.

  “Maximilian, this shit is pretty damned thick,” Colonel Jones said over the private command channel. “Our best bet is to run a phalanx up the gut and find some natural cover.”

  There is a ravine several klicks to the east, sir. His AIC painted the planet’s geography in his mindview. I
t might make a decent killbox.

  Damned right, he thought.

  “Roger that, Colonel,” he replied.

  Okay, James, plot me some battle solutions and let’s start leading the bastards in there.

  Yes, sir.

  “Listen up, Slayers! We are vastly outnumbered, but remember our training. We are better if we stay together and not spread out too thin. We need to pull these things into the fray here on the ground and keep the pressure off of the mecha jocks as best we can manage. The jarheads will hit them from the top and keep them jumping and hopefully soften them up. And keep the alien bastards close enough to discourage the dropships from firing those fucking death beams.”

  “Roger that, Slayer One!” resounded from the eight remaining Slayers. Max made a mental note that Slayers Four and Nine, who were now showing on the KIA list in his mindview, would require letters written for them at some point. He just hoped to survive long enough to write them.

  “I’ve got more targeting solutions than I have ammo, Slayer One!” Slayer Three exclaimed. “There’s more than a shitload of them!”

  “Fire at will, Slayers. We’ve got to find a way to mix ’em up and make a crease in their attack plan so the AEMs can penetrate in and raise hell. I’m passing along a modified battle plan to your AICs. Let’s stack the sonsabitches up and start burning them like cord wood,” Slayer One ordered. “Fox three!”

  Colonel Slayer let go another mecha-to-mecha missile across the bright green landscape as the radar locked onto a blurred target. The sensors would lock on briefly and then would lose track for a microsecond. That microsecond was enough advantage to the Chiata ground trooper that it morphed its body away from the missile. The missile passed through the alien blur like it wasn’t even there, and then a tentacle jutted out from the creature, wrapping itself around the missile. The alien then spun the missile about like an Olympic hammer thrower, letting it go at just the right moment and sending it back at him. Maximilian fired the thrusters on the tank’s feet and leaped upward into a forward roll, all the while firing his guns at the missile he’d just fired.

  Max’s bot-mode tank pounded through the giant fir trees at a pace of nearly one hundred kilometers per hour, all while the single cannon at the bot’s nose fired volleyball-sized incendiary rounds that ripped through the tree canopy at targets of opportunity. The first and foremost target was the mecha-to-mecha missile he’d fired only seconds before. His guns struck home on the tip of the warhead, setting it off and blasting him backwards just as the Chiata ground trooper closed in on him, stretching out amorphous tentacles. In a red-and-green oscillating blur it spun about him as if trying to put him in a straitjacket.

  “Not this fucking time!” he said as he shoved the barrel of his giant cannon into the thing’s front orifice and fired several rounds. The close proximity to the alien’s shield armor was enough advantage to the guns that after several rounds the barriers failed. Amor-piercing rounds tore through the back of the creature, scattering its internal bits across the battlescape with a splash of green glowing goop. Colonel Slayer thought for a brief second that he was getting better at killing these alien bastards, and then as his targeting locator pinged wildly, he thought again that he was going to have to get a hell of a lot better.

  Chapter 5

  February 19, 2407 AD

  U.S.S. Sienna Madira

  Target Star System

  700 Light-years from the Sol System

  Monday, 2:01 P.M. Ship Standard Time

  “Holy fucking hell! What just happened?” Joe Buckley pulled himself up off the deck plating, doing his best to shake the ringing in his ears away. The helmet of his armored suit automatically started pumping fresh oxygen and stimulants at his face. He took a deep breath, hoping to take some of them in before he was coherent enough to assess the situation in Engineering.

  As far as Joe could tell, things were in a hell of a mess. A jet of white-hot plasma streamed from the hyperspace projector tube overhead, cutting through the wall like butter. Molten slag metal popped and skittered across the floor in sticky, glowing red embers.

  “Benjamin, I need a report on the projector tube ASAP!” Joe shouted but got no response.

  “Benjamin? Report?”

  Joe, check your blue force tracker, his AIC thought to him with a solemn tone. Her suit shows complete failure, and she and her AIC are listed as KIA.

  What? No!

  “Benjamin?” Joe could see, out of his peripheral vision to his right, his second in command. Her armored suit was melded to the metal plating in the wall with almost all of her right shoulder, and most of her head from her mouth up was burned away. Commander Keri Benjamin and her AIC were dead.

  We need medics and firecrews in here now! he shouted in his mindvoice.

  I’ve already called for them, Joe, his AIC replied.

  “CHENG! What the hell is going on! Status report!” He could hear General Moore’s voice shouting over the command net.

  Joe thought a DTM view of the FTL projector up in front of him and expanded it. He swiped his hands in the air, pulling back layer after layer of complexity until he got to the root of the problem. They had managed to jaunt through hyperspace, but just as they had slipped into the vortex’s event horizon, one of the blue beams of death from Hell had hit the overloading DEG generators on the front of the ship. The Buckley-Freeman barrier shield protecting the area held against the blue beam’s energy, but for whatever reason had caused the failing DEG generators to lock into an energy-absorption mode rather than transmission mode as directed energy weapons were supposed to do. The alien beam somehow managed to convince the DEG generators to absorb as much of the blue beam’s energy as it could until the overload breakers blew, dumping that energy into the vortex projector conduits. Joe wasn’t sure if the aliens had meant to do that or if it was a freak accident of engineering components. Either way, it had killed his second engineer, and according to the blue force tracker view in his mind, three other enlisted sailors were dead as well. There were many wounded. And to top it off, the hyperspace system was down, which was bad. Very. Bad.

  “Hyperspace is out, General!” Joe shook himself to get his thoughts straight. “I need a minute to figure out what to do.”

  “We don’t have a minute, CHENG!” Moore shouted. “We’ll be taking on blue beams in half that time!”

  “Understood, General! We’ve got casualties, fires, and plasma explosions all over down here. I’m working it as best I can. The shields are holding. I can tell you that. But I don’t want to see if they can take many more of those blue beams, sir!” Joe turned as a fire crew rushed into the room near another large hole burned through in the wall on the opposite side of the engine room. Several firemen and firemen’s apprentices in armored suits were ducking through the hole, beneath the white-hot plasma jet that was now streaming out in two opposite directions, welding whatever it hit into a chunk of molten slag.

  “How do we put that out, CHENG?” one of the firemen shouted over the noise of alarms and the secondary and tertiary pops, sizzles, arcs, fires, and explosions that were scattered about engineering. Gases were venting from everywhere they could vent from, and Joe wasn’t sure if some of the coolant leaks weren’t coming from places that had nothing to leak.

  “We’ve got to cut the power to the conduit and it’ll burn itself out quickly. Then we’ll have to replace that power conduit section or repair it before we can cycle up the FTL system. That’s a several-hour job. We’ve got minutes at best before the Chiata blast us into oblivion.”

  The breakers will not cycle, Joe. I’ve attempted to reset them several times. If we can’t recycle the breakers we can’t shut off that plasma fire in the energy conduit.

  We’ll have to do it manually then, he thought.

  “The control software is hung up. We’ll have to shut it down manually!” he shouted over the noise to the fire crew. Joe turned toward the wall where Benjamin’s body was welded upright against it in what was left
of her suit. He could see that Chief Petty Officer Sarala Amari was coming around and pulling herself up from the floor. There was a gash in her nose but her suit had sprayed organogel on it. Joe checked her vitals in his DTM and she was fine. He was relieved. He sure as shit didn’t want to lose another of his team. Joe could tell that once she caught a glimpse of the remains of Commander Benjamin though, her olive skin nearly turned green. Her heart rate increased dramatically and he thought for a minute that she was going to lose her breakfast, but the seasoned sailor got herself under control.

  “Somehow, we’ve got to get through that bulkhead right there right now.” He pointed just to the right of Benjamin’s body. “There are three breaker boxes in there that have to be shut off. But with that shit burning right there, the only way into the utility closet is, well, welded shut!”

  The white-hot plasma continued to burn hot like a solar flare against the metal bulkhead, melting Benjamin’s body even further into the wall and suit as it blasted away. The metal several tens of centimeters away from where the plasma jet impacted the bulkhead glowed red hot. The door on the starboard side of the breaker room had been melted and welded together. There was no way of getting through easily. The other door, the one on the port side of the breaker room, well, there was no door there anymore, but nobody was getting through that opening either, as it was filled with star hot plasma.