The other firearms were not particularly dangerous. The majority were caseless assault rifles that had been furnished to the Optigene clones by their Indonesian hosts. These serviceable weapons, named Pindads, were unable to penetrate the Ktoran light armor at all. And while the hailstorms of slugs fired by the enemy’s autoshotguns could batter one of the Evolved to the ground, their penetrative power was even lower, and their raw kinetic impact was easily distributable through the smart armor fabrics of the Ktor.
“Idrem, are you ready?”
“I am.” He inspected the corridor ahead. “The Aboriginals are around the far corner?”
“Yes,” Brenlor confirmed. “According to the deck plans, it is a double-width passageway that opens out into a wide marshalling area with multiple egress routes. That is where their main body has deployed itself. And if the engagement goes against the humans, they have various retreat options that lead to regrouping points.”
“In that case,” Idrem replied, “we must ensure that they are unable to make use of those options. Please load the nanite marker grenades into your launcher.”
Brenlor took the three thirty-eight-millimeter grenades that Idrem proffered, none of which were fitted with rockets, and loaded them into the left-hand cassette that fed his needler’s underslung launch tube. “I have not had the occasion to employ this system, nor this tactic,” Brenlor admitted in a low voice.
“It is not difficult, and it is most effective against lightly armored targets, such as our present adversaries.”
Vranut and Jesel continued to guard the corner screening Team Two from the mass of Aboriginal defenders. As Idrem loaded three miniature signal-seeking submunitions into his needler’s side-by-side grenade cassettes, he watched Brenlor guide three of the remaining upt’theel back into their carrier. “If we lose the rest in this assault, these will enable repopulation,” he explained, almost defensively.
Idrem ignored the gruesome images that Brenlor’s comment invoked. “Whenever you are ready.”
Brenlor nodded and, using the right combination of attractant and repellent scents, prompted the nine remaining upt’theel around the corner.
They lifted their noses, catching the fresh prey scent — just before two of them were blasted to slimy mauve and gray bits by the hammering of an autoshotgun. As if they had been one creature, the survivors sped in that direction. The volume of gunfire rose precipitously. The Aboriginals were now busy enough for the Evolved to commence their actual attack.
Idrem nodded at Brenlor, who lifted his needler, stepped forward so he could see partly down the corridor at a very shallow angle, and discharged his grenade launcher at a distant point along the opposite wall.
The round struck the bulkhead, caromed off as per Brenlor’s intent. Abruptly, through the many awakened eyes of the warhead’s submunitions, Idrem could see the casing split off, freeing a flock of small gray balls that flew in a wide arc, and then rolled as Idrem directed through his HUD. As these devices drew near to the defenders, he activated their proximity deployment systems. Nanites sprayed out into the spaces occupied by the enemy.
Idrem nodded to Brenlor. “The next two, now. In rapid sequence.”
When Brenlor’s second nanite-dispersing grenade landed nearby, the Aboriginals attempted to assess what nature of weapon was being fired at them. But seeing no explosion or gas or other aversive effect, they returned their attention to the onrushing upt’theel, and the raiders they presumed to follow shortly behind them.
When the third canister ricocheted down toward the defenders and broke open, a few of them discerned that the small rolling balls were something other than debris and shot at them without effect. That last swarm of rolling nanite dispensers made it into the deepest reaches of the defender’s positions, thereby also providing Idrem with extensive advance reconnaissance of their enemy’s deployment. Not that it would be required.
Idrem stepped forward, watching the munitions-cued timer tick down in his HUD, measuring the elapsed seconds since Brenlor’s third round had deployed its spherical submunitions.
“How long—?” Brenlor began impatiently.
Idrem stepped in front of Brenlor and fired the first of his signal-seeking cluster munitions on a similar, wall-glancing trajectory. A moment later, Idrem patched the streaming recon-view that the nanite dispensers fed to his HUD through to the other members of his team.
The first cluster munition was angling off the wall when its seeker head emitted a brief, powerful microwave pulse. Instantly, human silhouettes glowed into existence on the Ktor’s HUDs. The nanites, primed by settling on warm moving objects, responded to the microwave wash by absorbing and then reradiating it, albeit much more gradually.
In the same moment, the round’s flechette warhead discharged. Over a hundred of the small darts whined forward like mosquitos, jetting into the same cone that the microwave pulse had illuminated. But each flechette was equipped with a seeker-head that detected the now-radiant bodies of the nanite-dusted humans. The flechettes twitched their tail fins slightly; each altered its flight path to intercept one of those glowing silhouettes.
The effect was gratifying. The defenders in the corridor went down in windrows. The micro-tine neographene penetrator points breached their suits easily, and the fins of each flechette stripped off upon contact with flesh. Consequently, whereas the entry wounds appeared like sudden sweeps of tiny stigmata, the exit wounds were akin to those made by a tight pattern of pistol slugs, pulping whatever they had passed through. The Aboriginals fell, their clutching fingers attempting to staunch wounds that could not be staunched.
“Impressive,” Brenlor allowed. “The corridor is clear.”
It was, except for one terrified Aboriginal who had been out of the signal-seeker’s line of sight at the moment the flechettes were discharged. Idrem changed the next round’s setting — spherical dispersal — and laser-painted its discharge point at the entry to the cargo marshalling area. He fired again.
This round glanced off the wall at roughly the same spot but bounded until it reached the discharge point. The sharp flash momentarily hid the sudden sprawling of almost a dozen bodies all around the warhead, including the hapless Aboriginal that the first round had been unable to “see.”
Idrem changed the next aimpoint to a spot deeper in the marshalling area, stepped out into the body-littered passageway, fired it, set a fourth and final round for a still further discharge, fired. He waited for the glowing, thrashing bodies to settle as the two rounds went off in quick succession. Six figures, two only partially dusted by the nanites, were running toward the exits. Most were limping or staggering. “Vranut, Jesel; follow those six and eliminate them. Brenlor and I will dispatch the enemy wounded, unless we find useful survivors.”
“And who among these slaughtered sheep would be useful, now or even beforehand?”
Idrem suppressed three Progenitor axioms that seemed to have been written expressly as rebukes for Brenlor Perekmeres’ impetuosity. Instead, Idrem merely countered with, “One may always be surprised by advantages arising from unexpected sources.”
“I suppose so,” Brenlor allowed. “Let us eliminate the unexpected sources.” He led the way.
Too eagerly, Idrem thought.
* * *
Nezdeh made sure that she arrived on the bridge of the Arbitrage while Brenlor was still securing the rest of the ship. Thankfully, Idrem remained with him; the Progenitors only knew what he might have done without some tactful supervision.