Vorpal Blade

31

“This is unusual,” the queen said, looking at the three armored suits. Weaver had explained to Miriam that with the report from the Vorpal Blade, she could get in her suit or she could stay in the barracks and he would try to explain what was happening through pantomime.

“Your Majesty,” Weaver said. “We have a report of a Demon breakout that has attacked our ship. It has lifted to avoid further attack, but Lady Che-chee’s manor is under assault. We intend to support her, but at this time we need to expect—”

There was a scream in the distance and the guards on the door of the audience room shifted stance.

“Commander Weaver, Marine One. Three-Charlie reports Demon breakout near the main entrance of the palace. They’re coming up through a hole in the ground.”

“Roger,” Weaver said. Over his external pickups he could hear the fighting spreading. “Your Majesty, if there is a more secure spot…”

“Your Majesty!” General Chuk-tuk said, coming through the doors on a board. “You need to retreat! The Demons are here!”

“I will do no such thing,” the queen said, rising to her full two meters of height. “Bring my armor!”

“No time, Your Majesty,” Chuk-tuk said, just as one of the low-slung beasts came through the door.

“BACK!” Miller boomed, cycling his Gatling gun.

7.62 mm fire from the M-10s might have bounced off, but the laserlike fire from the Gatling gun spun the creature around and splashed it across the doors as mush.

Weaver cycled on his own and the two strode forward, covering the door as the ceremonial guards clustered around the throne.

“That was a small group,” Miller said as they finished off the Demons. “Where are the rest? And where is this tunnel?”

“They zero in on electromagnetism,” Miriam said. “Which means we were probably the targets. The only other source is the barracks and the science arboretum next to it.”

“Uh, oh,” Weaver said. “Marine One…”

“We’re rather busy at the moment, Commander,” Captain MacDonald said calmly. “The Demons seem rather bent on entering our quarters.”

“They zero in on electromagnetism,” Weaver said. “The suits are primary targets.”

“Well, then you’d better get away, hadn’t you?” MacDonald said.

“What about you?”

“Don’t think that’s an option at the moment…”

“Die behanchods!” Lance Corporal Clay said, plastering the hole with cannon fire.

The problem was, the Demons just kept coming. Already they’d broken through in two more places, digging around the initial hole. And there didn’t seem to be any end to them. They were piled up around the holes like dead ants at a poisoned hive. When the hole got blocked they’d dig through their own dead or dig around.

“Poison,” Clay said. “There’s an idea. Next time, we need VX.”

“Claymores,” PFC Jonathan Smith said. “Grapping artillery.”

“Air support,” Staff Sergeant Rocco said. “Grapp. Gunny Hedger. Doesn’t the ship have lasers?”

“Got one, Mother!” Cha-chai called, swooping up to avoid the bouncing Demons.

“Bloody good, Son!” Lady Che-chee called. The Demons had stopped coming out of the hole once the ship was gone, but quite a few remained on her lawn. “Time to refresh our weapons, boy!”

“Mother?” Cha-chai called as he swept past where the retainers were holding spears up for the warriors. “Why is the lawn smoking?”

Lady Che-chee was wondering that herself. It was a small patch and it looked as if a volcano had started on her lawn. More of those damned Demons?

“Wait,” she said, holding up her hand as the smoking spot suddenly swept to the side, cutting one of the Demons in half. It appeared to pause again then, suddenly, all the Demons were severed, many of them into pieces.

“What just happened?” Cha-chai asked.

“I think we just saw a demonstration of our friends’ weapons,” Lady Che-chee said. She was impressed less by the power than the precision. There were narrow lines of burned grass across the entire lawn. And they were perfectly spaced.

“Right,” the CO said, satisfaction in his voice. “Head for the palace.”

“Dr. Beach, you need to get to the upper floors,” Gunnery Sergeant Hedger said. “These things are digging up through the ground. They could break in here at any time.”

“Very well,” Dr. Beach said. The stairs were wide enough, and sturdy enough, for his armor. The Marines had made the climb. But it looked… difficult. “I’ll just head up then, shall I?”

“If you please, sir,” the gunny said.

“Digging up through the floors?” Dr. Beach said, putting his foot on the stair, gingerly. “That’s interesting.”

“Yes, sir,” Gunny Hedger said. “If you could possibly hurry, sir.”

“Digging… digging,” Beach muttered, taking cautious steps. “Digging… mining!”

“Yes, sir, I suppose it could be called…”

“No!” Beach said. “That’s it! The seismic readings! They were mining indicators!”

“Is this really important, because…”

The gunny had stayed down in the lab, to cover the scientist’s retreat. So he saw the head of the Demon pop through the floor immediately.

“Dr. Beach, if you would please run now?”

“What?” Beach said, turning to look and sliding to the side. “Aaaaah!”

“Maulk!” Gunny Hedger snapped. “Dr. Beach!”

The Demons popped up through a half dozen holes and swarmed the scrabbling armor.

“It’s important!” the scientist screamed. “Tell Runner! The readings! Aaaaagh!”

“Grapp,” Hedger said, backing up the stairs and filling the room with lead. “We have breakthrough in the basement! Dr. Beach is KIA!”

“…Demons have broken through in the basement,” Captain MacDonald said. “They’ve also breached the lower doors. We’ve three KIA, including Dr. Beach.”

“Hang on,” Spectre said. “We’ll be overhead in ninety seconds. We’ll clear the courtyard then exit the building and we’ll deal with the Demons in there.”

“Roger, sir,” MacDonald said. “I’m sure we can hold ninety seconds…”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Sergeant Samson said, firing down the stairs at the wave of Demons scrabbling up it. “You want some?”

The Gatling fire smashed the Demons to the side, spinning them to where their more vulnerable flank was exposed, then blasting them apart. But more and more were pouring up the stairs, climbing over the bodies of their dead.

“There’s too many of them!” Tanner screamed, pumping grenades into the room. When they hit a Demon dead center they’d kill it, but the light fragments barely slowed them down. Some of the Demons had guts hanging down but they just kept coming.

“We can hold them, Marine!” Samson screamed. “Just hold your position! We can—”

“Sergeant!” Revells screamed as the rock floor under the sergeant’s armor gave way, Demon claws scrabbling at it.

“Aaah!” Samson said, dropping into the hole. “Behanch—”

“Sergeant!” Tanner yelled, firing grenades down into the hole. But the fire taken away from the Demons on the stairway let them charge up and Tanner was covered in a wave of bodies.

“Gunny! Second level’s down!” Revells yelled, backing towards the stairs. “I need cover!”

“Grapp,” Gunny Hedger said. “Alpha, cover Revells’ retreat.” He paused for a second then nodded. “Bartlett?”

“Here, Gunny,” the master sergeant said. He was covering Dr. Robertson, who wasn’t even in armor for grapp’s sake, on the top level.

“Dr. Beach said something,” Hedger said. “About readings. He said Runner would know what he meant. Something about mining and readings. That’s all I got. He thought it was important enough, it was his last words.”

“Not ‘oh, maulk’ or ‘grapp me’?” Bartlett said. “I’ve got it. I’ll try to retrans it to the ship. Because it don’t look like I’m going to be telling him in person.”

“We’ll hold ’em,” Hedger said. “We’ve got the stairway covered and… Aaaaah!”

“Dr. Robertson, did you get that?” Bartlett asked.

“Yes, I did,” the biologist said. “And, no, I don’t know what it means.”

“All teams,” Lieutenant Mark Van Groll said calmly. “They’re coming up through the floors. Second level is—” The platoon leader of Third Platoon was cut off in mid-sentence.

“Grapp, grapp, grapp!”

The Marines were boiling up the stairs and taking positions around the room.

“They’re tearing through the floor!” Revells yelled. “They’re—” The stone floor under him erupted and he dropped into the hole, screaming and firing his Gatling at the monsters that were tearing at his armor.

Captain MacDonald looked out the window at the courtyard. No joy, there; it was covered in Demons. As he watched, a beetlelike head erupted, looked around, then most of the courtyard punched up as the massive beast surfaced.

There was, however, a roof below. It wouldn’t hold the Wyverns, but…

“Dr. Robertson,” the captain said, holding out a hand. “How well do you jump?”

Clay felt the ground under him give way and he shook his head.

“This is a grapped-up place to die.”

“No maulk, man,” PFC Smith said, turning to present his back.

The two went back to back and as they dropped they stayed together, arms locked. The Gatlings didn’t need arm controls, being controlled by eye movements.

The Demons had stacked on top of each other to tear at the floor and the two descending Wyverns knocked the pyramid over. The Demons just scrambled back up and started tearing but the two Gatlings tore into them, ripping them to shreds. The two suits of armor were still against a wall and for a moment they held the horde off.

Then one of the ripped Demons pulled itself forward, its guts trailing on the floor, and ripped up into Clay’s armor.

“Sir, if I may,” Top said.

“Go for it,” the CO said.

“Join arms if you will, sir,” Top said. “Bartlett! Roberts! Marines! Circle up, face out!”

The Demons were coming up the stairs as well and when Staff Sergeant Rocco tried to retreat from the door they swarmed him.

“Concentrate fire on that, please,” Top said, even though he was facing the other direction. “Right, now, hop!”

Two hops was all it took and the overstressed floor gave way.

There were Demons waiting on the level below, but when two tons of rock and fourteen tons of Wyvern dropped on them, they weren’t doing much fighting.

The group not only fell through that level but the one below and, floor by floor, into the basement.

“Right,” Top said, clambering out of the rubble. “Down the hole.”

There was still a trickle of Demons coming out of the hole, but most of them seemed to have been in the upper floors. Quite a few of those had fallen with the group, but they were in a daze from the rocks and fall, those that weren’t killed by it, and the group finished them off, then darted to the hole.

“Top, this is where they’re coming from,” the CO pointed out.

“And there is a rather large one in the courtyard, sir,” the first sergeant said. “But we will fight our way to the courtyard, then hunker down. How long until the ship gets here?”

“Mac, you still there?”

“Some of us, sir,” the captain said.

“We’re on sight. Clearing the courtyard… now.”

“We’re going out of commo,” MacDonald said. “But we’ll be back in a moment.”

“Bailey, Holland, you have point,” Top said.

“Roger that, Top,” Corporal Chris Bailey gestured for his rifleman then got down on elbows and knees. “Let’s go, Holley.”

“This really sucks,” PFC Holland said, squeezing into the narrow tunnel next to his team leader. Immediately, he saw a Demon headed for them and bit down on his fire circuit, blowing it to pieces. They were big pieces, though. “How we getting through that?”

“More power,” Bailey said, firing his Gatling and ripping up the Demon even more. “Now we push.”

“Bartlett, Roberts, you’ve got back door,” Captain MacDonald said.

“Roger that, sir,” Bartlett said. “You first, Garrett.”

“No arguments,” the staff sergeant said, backing into the hole.

A Demon dropped from the upper floors and Bartlett blew it against the wall, then started backing into the tunnel.

As he did, a rock rolled aside and a Demon reached out with one claw, ripping into the back of his Wyvern, severing his ammo feed and piercing the back of his armor.

“Grapp,” Bartlett said. “Gun’s down and I’ve lost containment.” He turned his head and saw the claw ripping into his armor.

Another and another dropped from the still uncleared upper floors. The two Demons approached the trapped SF master sergeant cautiously, but he couldn’t fire.

“Right,” Bartlett said. “Gary, you well back?”

“What are you going to do, Ed?” the staff sergeant asked.

“Just get the grapp out of here,” Bartlett said. “I’m going to close this grapping hole. Get way the grapp back.”

“Top Sergeant, we gotta move!”

“We’re moving as fast as we can,” First Sergeant Powell said. “Why do we have to move faster?”

“Because this place is about to blow!”

Smart people in the military are a joy and a pain. The problem is that military life creates a great degree of boredom. And smart people try to find ways to become unbored. Certain types of smart people play practical jokes. Others act up. Still others, though, tinker.

Master Sergeant Ed Bartlett was a tinkerer. So when he’d gotten a Mark V Wyvern, he had tried to discover everything that a Wyvern should and should not do.

One of the things he discovered, and told no one else, was that under certain very precise conditions, the americium reactor on the Wyvern could be forced to do things other than engage in controlled reaction. It was a very “hot” reactor, the radioactive material very pure and very finely packed. It was, in fact, right on the edge of being a nuclear bomb, rather than a nuclear reactor.

And in certain circumstances it could be forced to change its mind.

The term is “sub-critical reaction.” The bomb was below the yield of any weapon in the nuclear inventory. Only a very little bit of the americium could be forced to enter unrestricted chain reaction. But a very little bit of nuclear explosion is a lot of explosion.

“Whoa!” the XO said as the converted barracks blossomed up and outwards. “What the grapp caused that?”

“Command, Tactical. We just got a nuclear spike from the location of the palace.”

“I’m pretty sure we didn’t issue any special munitions down there,” the CO said. “We didn’t issue any special munitions, right?”

“I’m sure we would have noticed, sir,” the XO said.

“Mac, you there?” the CO said. “Talk to me, Mac.”

“Sort of!” Captain MacDonald said.

The narrow tunnel had blossomed out into some seriously unnarrow tunnels. And the big beetle that had been in the courtyard had reoccupied them when it felt its armor getting singed by lasers.

Now the Marines surrounded it, pouring fire into the thing. Which its armor was shrugging off.

“Aaah!” Corporal Bailey screamed as one of the thing’s claws caught him and flung him across the thirty meter wide room. He slammed into the wall and slid to the ground, his armor limp.

“Check fire!” Top shouted. “Holland! Wave at it!”

The Marine lifted both his hands and cut in his external circuit.

“Yo! Ugly! Over here!”

The massive beetle spun in place and considered the Marine for just a moment.

That was all the time that Top needed. He dropped to his wheels and slid under the beetle’s rump, then pointed his Gatling upwards and opened fire.

The beetle jumped up at least ten feet, then landed, spinning again, stamping inward to try to kill its tormentor.

But the first sergeant wasn’t having any of that. He stood up abruptly and jumped himself, bringing the Gatling down as he entered the blown-open cavity and grabbed the sides.

He swept the inside of the beast until he felt its knees buckle and drop. At that point he was trapped inside the beast but he had pretty good spatial awareness.

“Top!” Holland screamed. “Top! Are you okay?”

“Just peachy, Holland,” the first sergeant said, blasting out the mouthparts of the beetle and crawling out. “Kind of a strange day, I’ll admit. You?”

“How are we going to get them out of there?” the XO asked.

“Hmmm…” the CO said. “We still got that hole in the bottom of the ship or have we patched it, yet?”

“There’s a team getting ready to put a patch on now, sir,” the XO said.

“Tell ’em to hold up.”

“Yeah, Top, I think I’d call this a strange day,” Holland said as he tied the fast-rope around his Wyvern.

“Welcome to the Space Marines,” Top said, holding out his arms.

“Everyone in place?” Captain MacDonald asked. “Right. Vorpal Blade, you can lift at any time.”

The remaining Marines and one SF staff sergeant lifted off the beetle’s shell and upwards into the light, dangling from the bottom of the ship.

“We lost a lot of people,” Holland said, looking back at the smoking hole where the barracks used to be.

“Could be worse,” Top said as they STABOed eastwards. “Could have been us.”