War dead, p.7
War Dead, page 7
part #5 of Marathon Series
Crap! Eckhart's mind spun for some way to pass the message to Akkek and the Atera, but he couldn't do that as long as he was still on this station. He'd come here to get DeWalt away from the Regiment. Now what the hell was he supposed to do?
Staton checked his watch. "I have to get back to work before someone figures out I'm gone. I get off duty at three o'clock. I'll meet you at the medical kiosk and I'll show you how to get down into the bunker, but I won't be able to go any further than that. I could be up in front of the goddamn firing squad for even telling you about this, but it's the only way to stop all these people from getting killed. I mean, shit! The Regiment wants to use this guy to slaughter billions of aliens. If that isn't worth the job, nothing is, right?"
Eckhart nodded stupidly. "I'll take the job. I'll get him out of here, if I can."
Staton gave him a weak smile. "The medical kiosk at three. Remember."
"I won't forget. Thank you for telling me."
Staton hurried away, and Eckhart headed back to the Sani. He still had to meet Corporal Moneybags about Bing, and now Eckhart's plan to sell his friend to plant Bing in the medical kiosk had gone right out the window.
He needed to keep Bing with him. Eckhart needed one person--just one person--to come with him when the shit started flying. He couldn't face this alone.
He would give anything to have Alice and Dallas with him now, but he never would have been able to bring them to a Regiment station. No one in their right mind would believe an Earthling could sell a Bion, and Dallas would attract too much attention.
Eckhart had one other serious problem to work out on his way back to the Sani. If and when he called in the fringe assault against Oiwei station, Staton would get caught in the crossfire.
Eckhart didn't cherish any illusions about what would happen once Aistenz's fleet and the fringe troops and Akkek Stratha started shooting at this station. He'd seen it all happen at Govax, and with so many more aliens joining in, Oiwei would only go worse for the Regiment.
Eckhart made up his mind on the way back to the Sani. He wouldn't leave Staton here to die.
Staton might be the one Regiment officer in the whole damn galaxy with a conscience. That earned him some special treatment, and now Eckhart owed him one--more than one. Staton had even mentioned stopping DeWalt from wiping out the aliens. That made Staton one hell of an unusual Earthling.
Eckhart stepped inside the Sani, and stopped.
The ship was empty. Bing was gone.
CHAPTER10
E ckhart stormed over to the weapons locker and yanked out four rifles. He loaded them fast, hung two across his chest, and barged out of the Sani.
He shot an enraged glance to right and left. There was no one around. Whoever took Bing had completely disappeared.
He set off at a fast clip toward the medical kiosk. If those bastards had taken Bing there, Eckhart would blow the whole damn place to kingdom come to get him back.
Eckhart already knew whoever took Bing wouldn't take him to the medical kiosk. No one would break into a stranger's ship to steal a Yakit if they wanted to use him in a Regiment medical kiosk.
No, whoever had taken Bing planned to sell him on the slave market. A Yakit was worth too much to keep on a Regiment station, no matter what Staton said.
The kidnapper would have hidden Bing somewhere. Damn it! Now Eckhart had to find two people no one wanted to be found.
To hell with DeWalt. Eckhart couldn't go anywhere until he got Bing back. He would delay the assault for the rest of eternity until he satisfied himself that Bing wouldn't be in danger of getting injured or killed in the bombardment.
He strode past the medical kiosk, squinting through the windows. Of course Bing wasn't there. Bastards!
Eckhart's mind spun off somewhere else. He couldn't track down Corporal Moneybags. That asshole worked at the sentry crossing in orbit over Oiwei, where Eckhart would never be able to reach him. Corporal Moneybags better not have taken Bing up there, or Eckhart would--
Torturous fantasies flooded Eckhart's head. He barely noticed when a troop of security personnel marched around the medical kiosk's other side. They halted in front of Eckhart and blocked his path.
"Hand over your weapon, sir!" the sergeant in charge ordered. "Civilians aren't permitted weapons on this station."
"Get your sad, sorry asses out of my way," Eckhart snarled. "You do not want to mess me with right now, Sergeant. Trust me."
The sergeant held up his weapon. "Stand down, sir! Put your weapons on the ground, turn around, and put your hands above your head."
Eckhart gritted his teeth. He didn't have time for this shit. He tightened his grip on his rifle to shoot down the whole troop when a piercing scream echoed across the landing zone adjacent to the medical kiosk.
Eckhart looked toward the sound and every nerve tensed. He knew the sound of a Yakit in pain, and from the way Staton was talking, there could only be one Yakit on this station.
The sergeant looked away at the same moment, and Eckhart reacted in a split second. He drove his rifle stock hard into the man's nose and then bolted behind the medical kiosk. The security troop gave chase, but Eckhart had already ducked into the shadows and vanished into the station's forgotten recesses.
He sprinted to the landing zone in time to see a bunch of Regiment personnel standing guard around an Angkarn ZK-82 attack barge. Behind them, a shaggy bunch of Regors fought some struggling aliens into the hold.
Eckhart caught one glimpse of a head with multiple eyes and a whole cluster of whipping tentacles. Another scream split the darkness.
Eckhart jerked his rifle to his shoulder and barged onto the landing zone. He took aim for the biggest Regor when the security troop burst out of an alley not far away.
The security personnel veered in front of Eckhart to stop him. The Regors turned around, and Bing's terrified eyes found Eckhart.
Eckhart paid no attention to the security personnel. They meant nothing. He trained his weapon on the nearest Regor, and Bing broke free. He floundered between the other prisoners, trying to reach Eckhart, but at that moment, a ground-shaking explosion erupted from the station's farthest side.
Everyone whirled around as a mounting column of flame lit up the night sky. A siren started wailing in the distance, and trucks and emergency aircraft swarmed toward the explosion.
Eckhart spun the other way, and his gaze met Bing's. Eckhart didn't know what had caused that explosion. What caused it didn't matter. Aistenz's forces would see it. They would assume Eckhart was calling the assault.
Bing leapt away toward the Datrium reserve. "Let's get the hell out of here!"
"No!" Eckhart grabbed him and towed him back. "Not yet!"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Bing shrieked. "This whole station is about to be--"
An answering boom finished his sentence for him. A gargantuan battlecruiser plunged out of the atmosphere, firing Triorium shots all over Oiwei Station.
The barracks detonated in an unholy crash and the whole station disintegrated in chaos. The Regors started hauling their prisoners on board. The security troop scattered. Spacecraft launched in all directions, only to get cut to pieces by Aistenz's fleet dropping out of the sky.
Eckhart hauled Bing across the exposed landing zone. The two friends dodged exploding spacecraft under heavy fire from the invading fleet.
Eckhart pulled up in front of the medical kiosk, and Bing shrieked again. "Are you insane? You can't send me in there now!"
"I don't want you to go in there! I need to find someone--" Eckhart cast around desperately, but Staton was nowhere in sight. He wasn't supposed to meet Staton here for hours.
No way could Eckhart find Staton on Oiwei Station now. Staton could be dead already.
Eckhart hesitated another beat and turned back to the landing zone. "Come on. This is pointless."
He cast one backward glance and started forward. He didn't have to pull Bing anymore. Bing went ahead of him on the way back to where they'd left the Sani.
Eckhart walked faster. He had to get back to the fleet to tell Akkek what he'd found out about DeWalt, but at that moment, the Paostea plunged overhead and pounded the medical kiosk with Triorium fire.
The building imploded, and the shockwave knocked Eckhart and Bing face-first onto the tarmac, with waves of fire licking over their heads.
Eckhart pulled Bing to his feet, but before they could go anywhere, a whole cluster of Regiment ships veered over the landing zone, trading shots with Aistenz's battleships.
The air battle raged over the landing zone, and every time Eckhart tried to push for the Sani, another catastrophic blast pounded into the tarmac in front of him.
Chunks of concrete and asphalt splintered into Eckhart's face. He threw his arms in front of his eyes and tried to retreat, but more strikes kept tearing the station apart everywhere he turned.
He tried to run to the left only to bump into Bing trying to head left. They floundered together for a minute, until Eckhart finally seized Bing and dragged him struggling all the way toward where the medical kiosk used to be.
Eckhart picked up speed, getting farther away from the landing zone, but when he got near the barracks, he ran into platoons of Regiment soldiers armed to the teeth. They formed ranks in front of the barracks all facing the same way. Eckhart's stomach dropped into his boots when an absolutely massive horde of aliens swarmed out of the darkness. They came from hundreds of species, and they had such an insane variety of weapons that even Eckhart struggled to identify them all.
These aliens wore mismatched armor and helmets, but the murderous fury in their eyes could never be denied.
They surged onto the station, running straight into the Regiment ranks, and Dallas' glistening body shone in the starlight leading the charge.
Screams broke out in the ranks, and some of the soldiers ran even before they engaged the enemy. Eckhart's blood ran cold at the sight of the alien mob closing on the Regiment troops. How much time did he have left to find DeWalt before Akkek showed up?
Eckhart had to work fast. He backed Bing away from the impending battle. Being near it would only make finding Staton even harder.
Eckhart prodded Bing back toward the officer's barracks. He couldn't think of anywhere else to look for Staton, but when he turned around the launch terminal, someone collided with Eckhart running the other way.
Eckhart grabbed Staton's shoulders. "Hey! It's me! I was looking for you."
Staton gasped, and his eyes raced around the station going up in explosions all over the place. "Thank God you're here! I've been looking everywhere for you!"
"Take me to the bunker--now!"
"But what about-- If we hand him over to the aliens--"
"Just take me there!" Eckhart yelled over the mounting noise. "I'll make sure he gets to the right place." Staton hesitated again. "Trust me, Martin."
Staton checked himself and then nodded. "Okay. Follow me."
The three men took off at a run. Bing leaned in and whispered in Eckhart's ear. "Who the hell is this guy?"
"Someone who's on our side."
Eckhart didn't say anything more. He was too relieved to find Staton. He would almost rather leave without DeWalt than leave Staton behind after the risk the officer took to stop the Regiment's plot.
Staton ran back to the officer's mess. He charged down the long corridor where he'd first asked for Eckhart's help.
Staton went into the mess and then into another kitchen behind it. Pots of stew puffed steam from the still-lighted burners. Frying pans issued smoke into the air, with no one attending them. All the chefs had fled.
Staton crossed the kitchen, opened a different door, and let himself into what looked like another supply room. He made sure to shut and lock the door behind Bing. Staton showed no sign at all that he recognized Bing as an alien, nor did Staton act surprised that Eckhart had brought Bing with him.
Staton moved some mops and brooms out of the way. He took some rotten old towels off the rail to reveal what looked like an electrical circuitry box.
He opened it and started working on a security code panel hidden inside. He entered a number code, a motor switched on somewhere out of sight, and the whole room dropped.
It purred downward at a slow, steady rate. The three men held their breath until it banged to a stop some distance below.
"We're there!" Staton whispered. "The bunker is reinforced for seismic activity, so the science team should still be down here. They aren't authorized to move the prisoner, even in the event of an all-out assault."
Eckhart didn't know what to expect once he got out of this room, but Staton acted like this was all normal. He unlocked the door and led Eckhart and Bing out into another corridor exactly like the first.
They passed down it to where the officer's mess would be on the upper levels. Staton walked right in, with Eckhart and Bing behind him.
Eckhart stopped dead in his tracks when he saw DeWalt. The banker sat on a stool at a normal wooden table. DeWalt played cards with a few Regiment soldiers, and they laughed and talked in friendly tones.
The science team tapped at their computers and workstations across the room. They didn't go near DeWalt, but they kept shooting glances toward him and his companions as if he was a rat in a very comfortable lab. Another door stood open across the lab. It led into a nice apartment with a bed, a small kitchen, and a few other amenities.
Staton, Eckhart, and Bing watched the scene from a distance. Eckhart didn't know what to do. He'd never expected to find DeWalt so comfortable, but that must explain why the Regiment didn't feel the need to guard him. DeWalt looked like he was having the time of his life.
No one moved for a second while Eckhart decided what to do. Was Akkek upstairs right now, razing Oiwei Station to the ground?
The instant Eckhart thought about Akkek, DeWalt's head snapped up. He jerked around in his seat and narrowed his eyes at Eckhart.
Goosebumps erupted on Eckhart's arms as a searing charge of some wordless understanding passed between him and DeWalt. DeWalt recognized him. Eckhart could never be in any doubt about that.
A split second later, the lab and all its comforts blurred. Eckhart had experienced this enough times with Akkek to not be surprised by it now, but it happened so fast that it took Staton, Bing, and all the lab personnel aback.
An instant later, an invisible force dropped Eckhart back on the tarmac by the landing zone, with Bing on one side and Staton on the other.
Regiment vessels exploded through the night sky. Aliens and Regiment soldiers fought hand-to-hand all over the station as one building after another detonated in flame and destruction.
Dallas stormed across the battlefield with gunshots bouncing off his armor. He mowed down hundreds of Regiment soldiers with his assault guns and left carpets of bodies in his wake.
The moment Eckhart's feet touched the pavement, a blazing supernova of light burst in the heavens overhead. It burned with the blinding intensity of a small star suspended over Oiwei. The outer margin enclosed the black shape of a woman inside it.
Eckhart kept telling himself, Run! Get back to the Sani and get out of here, but he couldn't move.
Akkek hovered over the station, firing lasers with punishing speed. They rained on the station, picking off Regiment ships, storehouses, weapons placements--everything.
Bing grabbed Eckhart's arm and woke him from his trance, but when Eckhart started forward, another light split the night. It hurtled into space on a dead course for Akkek.
The new missile collided with her, and both mythical beings exploded in a starburst that lit up the station as bright as day. The flare cleared to reveal two identical halos locked in a death struggle in space over the station.
DeWalt was fighting Akkek
"Shit!" Bing husked.
"What the hell is that?" Staton whispered.
"Come on!" Eckhart grabbed Staton's arm. "We gotta run for it!"
Staton stumbled after him. The three men veered around the wrecked remains of ships lying torn and useless on the tarmac. Eckhart wove between craters and piles of rubble.
He made it as far as the Datrium reserves when Akkek and DeWalt screamed overhead. They crossed thousands of miles, plowing ships out of the way. They punched through a Colossus, and the ship imploded in a deafening shockwave.
Akkek and DeWalt vanished behind the horizon. Only the burning Colossus gave Eckhart enough light to see where he was going. He raced around the Datrium reserve to where he'd parked the Sani.
He steered Staton toward the hatch, but when they got near it, the same two shooting stars came screaming back around the other side of the planet.
Eckhart caught one glimpse of two black shapes tumbling over and over inside one combined halo of spraying lasers. A laser sliced into the Datrium reserve less than fifty feet from the Sani, and a sickening groan resounded inside its metal skin.
The next moment the halo slammed full tilt into the Sani and obliterated it from existence. Eckhart dove in front of Staton and Bing. He forced the two men back just in time before the blast wave smacked him between the shoulder blades.
The impact flung all three of them away, but it was too late. An earth-shaking boom vibrated inside the Datrium reserve. A monstrous plume of fire rippled toward Eckhart's head.
He stared at it, trying to get his brain to come up with some option to get him and his friends away from it. His addled senses recognized shapes and faces in the flames widening to swallow him.
Staton made a desperate, hopeless noise next to Eckhart's ear, and the next instant, an invisible hand yanked all three men off the ground.
Eckhart rocketed upward so fast his head spun. He twirled through the stars, not sure what was happening or where he would end up.
Some force beyond space and time flung him headlong toward Aistenz's fleet. He rocketed toward the Atera as the battlecruiser led the air assault against the station.
Before Eckhart could even think to stop himself, he crashed through the hull and landed hard on his side in the command center.
