Droad examined it. “Isn’t that Steinbach’s satchel?” he said after a moment.
Jarmo nodded his head. His jaw was tight, his face grim.
“Any sign of Steinbach among the dead? Or of the codekeys?”
This time Jarmo shook his head.
Droad looked him in the eye. “I’d like to give you your second chance at Steinbach, Jarmo. But the Mech is better for solo duty. Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Rem-9 reported instantly for duty.
“Go retrieve the General, please.”
Moving with sudden, unnatural speed, the mech raised his plasma cannon and vanished through the cooling ring of melted metal that had been the blast doors. Droad looked after him, wondering if he had done the right thing. He trusted Jarmo’s judgment more, but without Jarmo at his side, things wouldn’t have felt right.
Twenty-Two
Rem-9 moved swiftly through a hatch, down a long ladder of steel tubing and through a low-ceilinged chamber into a service elevator. The elevator hummed vaguely while he descended. He knocked out the overhead lighting with his plasma cannon. Standing tensely in the dark, he held his plasma rifle ready, muzzle directed at the elevator doors.
There were three possible destinations for Steinbach. He would definitely move to a spot where he could use his codekeys in private. Somewhere that would afford him a considerable amount of power. That meant either the laser turret, the engineering deck or the redundant bridge. The redundant bridge was a less elegant, smaller and more functional version of the bridge, located in the center of the ship. In case of a ship board disaster, navigational control could be diverted to that location. The mech headed for the redundant bridge first.
The elevator halted and the doors slid open. A long corridor stretched seemingly into infinity ahead, going right to the center of the ship and the redundant bridge. The corridor was choked with bodies, mostly of unarmed crewmen. Clearly, the aliens had slaughtered them. Rem-9 wondered if any of the crew or passengers aboard were still alive. He doubted it.
As he stepped out, he felt a deep, throaty rumble from somewhere inside the ship. If he had been able to smile, he would have. The primary engines were being stoked. He had guessed correctly. Someone was working the controls in the redundant bridge.
The slideway was not functioning. Nimbly vaulting the bodies, he raced up the corridor. Reaching an intersection, he slowed and caught a fluttering movement out of the corner of his eye. The culus was too close for his plasma cannon, so he smoothly grabbed it and destroyed it with his clicking, partially-metallic hands. He threw the destroyed alien over his shoulder, where it smashed into the bulkhead behind him. It slid to the floor and began to quiver and bulge. The shrade inside burst out of its guts, hissing and spraying vicious liquids about the corridor. The mech had his plasma cannon targeted and turned the shrade into molten, bubbling flesh. Satisfied both aliens were no longer a threat, Rem-9 set off down the corridor again at a dead run.
It wouldn’t be long now before more aliens were on him, the sentinel had had long enough to communicate with its comrades. As he ran, Rem-9 couldn’t help but wonder if the redundant bridge was in the hands of the aliens, if he was racing into a trap. Could they have learned enough of human technology to operate the Gladius? He couldn’t be sure, of course, but he would put nothing past them.
He slowed as the entrance came near and approached with extreme caution. The security doors yawned wide. He listened for a moment, hearing movement inside. Then mumbled cursing.
The mech lieutenant quickly identified the source of the sounds. He rounded the corner and advanced on the militia General. Steinbach was bent over a control board, inserting his codekeys into the slots beneath the board and fiddled with the controls. He moved with quick, fluttering motions that displayed his state of high tension. The mech noted the bodies of several multi-tentacled aliens on the floor, a variety that he had not previously encountered. He wondered if they could be technicians, as they didn’t look to be effective combatants. Perhaps these were the types that had flown the Stormbringers against the human forces.
When Steinbach looked up, it was into the dark muzzle of a huge plasma cannon. He squeaked, staggered back.
“You are away from your assigned post,” Rem-9 said.
A rapid series of emotions flickered across Steinbach’s face. Shock, rage, frustration, then calculation and finally a welcoming smile. “Lieutenant! You have survived! Excellent!”
The mech stared at him with fixated optics.
“I couldn’t know if anyone was left alive in the wake of these aliens. I’m glad you’re here, I need your help and your guns to fend off the aliens that are sure to try to retake this bridge.”
“What happened up on the main bridge?” asked Rem-9.
Steinbach’s face fell. “It was awful. A fierce struggle. Hundreds dead on both sides. I was one of the few survivors, knocked out and left for dead beneath a pile of aliens and Mai Lee’s simians. Not, mind you,” he added hurriedly, “that I was in any way working with that witch and her band of renegades. But when humans face aliens, one must choose one’s own kind to stand with.”
The mech was not able to nod, his neck being constructed of rigid materials. But he was capable of sarcasm. “The way you stood with the rest down at the spaceport?”
Steinbach blanched, but quickly recovered. “Look, I panicked. It’s one thing to stand shoulder to shoulder against a normal, human foe. It’s quite another to hold before an onslaught of vicious, seemingly invincible aliens.”
For a fraction of a moment, Rem-9 was almost taken in. “But you have not operated like a man in a panic, General,” he said quietly, nudging Steinbach in the chest with the muzzle of his weapon. “You operate like a man with a plan.”
“I didn’t say I lost my mind entirely,” complained Steinbach, waving for him to remove his offending weapon. Rem-9 didn’t budge. “Besides, all that is history now. All that matters is that we take over the ship and get rid of these damned aliens. I can be very useful there.”
“Yes, the codekeys,” said Rem-9, nodding to the slots at the base of the control boards.
Steinbach appeared startled. “Ah, yes. We must power up the ship and escape to warn the Nexus.”
Rem-9 began to reply, but at that instant, there was a rustling sound out in the corridor. Without hesitation, the mech vaulted the control board. He crouched beside Steinbach, leveling his weapon on the entrance.
The aliens came in a rush. Rem-9 scattered the first wave of killbeasts with several powerful gushings of energy from his weapon. The attack lulled somewhat. Occasionally, a culus dashed through the entrance and got in close. The mech obligingly tore them appart bare-handed.
“We will never take the Gladius back to the Nexus. I insist you direct the pistol you have concealed behind your back at the entrance and help me in defending this position.”
“But don’t you see?” Steinbach sputtered. “They’re a genetically superior species. We can’t win.”
Rem-9 stopped firing for a moment, his optics swung up in honest surprise. “Why do you say that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? They can rip us apart. Any one of their various types could kill any one of us.”
“I reject your theory. I have slain many in hand-to-hand combat. Even if they could defeat me, I would not consider them genetically superior beings.”
“But it’s not just that,” Steinbach sputtered. “It’s their entire attack, their entire approach. No band of humans could drop onto a planet and just openly assault an indigenous species the way they have. They breed so fast, they are so technologically competent.”