“We’ve surprised them,” Brenlor shouted. “Vranut, prepare to advance. We will fire high-power bursts to clear the near doorways. You are to take cover in the furthest one you can reach.”
“And Vranut,” added Idrem, “I will follow up with a grenade down the hall.” He stare-selected a spot just behind and beneath the barricade, letting his eye remain fixed until a crosshair appeared at the desired point. “Wait until it discharges. It should interrupt their fire for several seconds.” Or perhaps permanently.
Brenlor grunted something that sounded like consent, then yelled. “All fire!”
Without exposing any part of themselves other than their weapons, Brenlor and the ’sul named Jesel set their needlers on maximum propulsive power and began firing four-round bursts. In the HUD, Idrem could see the four-point-two-millimeter projectiles go through defenders and the doorjambs behind which they hid.
Idrem did not wait for the bodies to begin their slow slump to the deck. He leaned his grenade launcher around the corner, depressed the trigger that showed the thirty-eight-millimeter self-seeking rocket grenade the aim point he had stare-selected, and then squeezed the firing trigger. The grenade sped towards its target, self-correcting for any post-firing motion of the launch tube with micro thrusters while the grenade launcher itself selectively counter-vented the propulsive gases to eliminate muzzle jump and recoil.
The grenade exploded — noiselessly in the air-evacuated corridor — sending obstacles and bodies spinning away from its point of detonation.
Vranut did not wait for Brenlor’s “Advance!” Consistent with training and reflexes ingrained since he first sprouted facial hair, the Evolved maintained a low posture as he glide-sprinted forward, making it to the furthest doorway along the corridor. He turned to wave the other three boarders inside with one hand, keeping his weapon pointed back toward the ruined barricade with the other. His weapon’s scope evidently showed him a defender rising up from the blast, wielding an archaic assault rifle. Without turning, Vranut used the HUD to aim at the figure behind him, squeezed off a low-power five-round burst. Three of the rounds were stopped by the tangled remains of the barricade; the other two made pinhole puncture marks in the defender’s chest. The four-point-two-millimeter flechettes’ biosensitive nanites instantly registered contact with living tissue. The stabilizing fins snapped backward and perpendicular to the axis of the penetrator core, inducing wild cavitation before they emerged, corkscrewing, from just beneath the Aboriginal’s scapula. In contrast to the modest entry trauma, the exit wounds were marked by broad gouts of blood.
“Corridor cleared,” Vranut reported as the others took shelter in the doorways.
Except Idrem, who remained at the control panel alongside the interior airlock hatch. He entered the codes for full override authority, triggered both doors to close — and then the illuminated keypad grew dark. The roaring cyclone of the automated repressurization system died down to an anemic wheeze, and amber hazard lights began glowing along the junctures of the deck and the bulkheads.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Brenlor demanded.
“I believe the Aboriginals have performed an abrupt termination of their computer’s function. They have ‘crashed’ it, in their parlance.”
“So they no longer have control of the ship?” Brenlor’s voice was not merely eager, but malicious.
“No, but nor do we.” Although I was about to secure it.
“Then they are helpless.”
“They have fewer options. But now, so do we. I can no longer terminate their life support, nor can I secure tactical advantages by controlling bulkheads, lighting, and other on-board systems.”
“They are not needed.” Brenlor rolled out of from behind the cover of a doorway and into the corridor. “And I suspect they won’t have many defenders left.” He slid a thick tube off his back and began undoing one tightly sealed end. “Jesel, check for thermal blooms at the intersection.”
Jesel complied, moving forward and turning up the sensitivity of his faceplate’s built-in thermal imaging sensor. He stopped about three meters away from the corner. “Faint signatures to the left; none to the right.”
“We might miss some of the defenders, particularly if their duty suits are sealed and fitted with cold cans,” Vranut pointed out.
“It is unlikely that they are taking precautions to conceal their body heat,” Brenlor countered. “Look at these.” He toed a dead Aboriginal. “They’ve left their helmets unsealed. Probably to conserve the pittance of air they have in their tanks. But today, that conservation of resources will prove their undoing.”
“How?” Jesel asked.
“Because today they are going to meet these.” Brenlor smiled as the lid of the canister came off with a depressurizing hiss. The open mouth was a honeycomb of twenty-two hexes in two concentric rings around one central hex. A hideous head, somewhat larger than that of the animal that the Aboriginals called a weasel, popped out of one of the cells of the honeycomb.
Three similar heads followed shortly. In the thin air, the creatures emitted coarse, clattering whines, akin to sand being tossed into a desk fan. “These are upt’theel,” Brenlor explained with a smile. “They are old friends of our Family, used for boarding or other assaults where a well-prepared defender has taken refuge in tunnels and similar close structures.”
More upt’theel heads emerged from the canister. Idrem had only seen the diminutive monsters twice before, had only used them once, and did not relish the memory. The upt’theel was a long-bodied octoped with chitinous legs that were even sharper than they looked. Its almost neckless head was liberally and evenly speckled with light sensors, with two genuine eyes directly above the mouth. Its wide-hinged jaw hung open to pull in as much of the thin air as possible, revealing a serrated ridge in place of teeth. The ridge was the color of obsidian and, by repute, harder than basalt.
“Should we not be moving?” Vranut asked from the corner of the intersection.
Brenlor watched the other creatures emerge, with the same rapt fascination of the Evolved who patronized helot death-arenas. “We do not need to rush. Their slow movements tell us that no enemies are near.”
“They are…Awakened?” Jesel asked.
Brenlor laughed aloud. “Idiot. No, of course not. But their sense of smell is acute. They will detect a carbon-based animal, or its decaying flesh, quite readily.”
“So the other defenders of this ingress point have fled?” Jesel sounded dubious.
Idrem looked at Vranut, who ran a thermal imaging sweep down either branch of the tee intersection.
Vranut shook his head. “No; they are edging closer again.”
Brenlor actually smiled. “Then let us welcome them back.” Taking an opaque vial off his light cuirass’s left load-strap, he walked to Vranut’s position, the canister of upt’theel in his other hand. “They are unique creatures.” He spoke with the didactic detachment of an aficionado. “Their world was at the inner edge of the habitable zone — such as it is — of a blue-white giant. Not many species can evolve, much less thrive, under the gaze of such a punishing furnace of heat and radioactivity. Yet this species did.” Brenlor laid the canister down. “It is always gratifying to watch them do their work.” He slung the opaque vial around the left-hand corner, ending the toss with a sharp twist of his wrist. The glass container smacked into a walclass="underline" its shattering elicited one or two cries of caution from the Aboriginals who had apparently been trying to sneak up on the boarders.
The sand-and-fan whine of several of the upt’theel suddenly rose to a full chorus of pebbles-into-a-turboprop screeching. Like a horde of perverse lemmings mutated into pangolin-centipede-gila monster hybrids, the strange beasts flowed out of the honeycomb cells of the container with serpentine fluidity, snuffling as they sped around the corner. Not one bothered to look down the other, right-hand extension of the corridor.