CASPer Alamo Read online

  He knew the door wasn’t strong enough to keep the monsters out for long, and sacrificing Wagner was only going to buy him so much time before they started trying to break through it. Travis hurried down the stairs, with the lights coming on ahead of him as he went.

  Travis reached the bottom of the stairs and came face to face with rows of stacked crates containing the Marauders’ stored ordnance. He forced himself to slow down and read their labels instead of tearing through them blindly. Travis figured he had a choice to make. He could seal the makeshift armory’s inner door and try to hold out until help arrived, or he could go out with a very big bang. Weighing his options, there was really only one that seemed logical, as he had no idea when or even if help would reach Durin II.

  Digging out a crate of K-bombs, he fought to get it open. He could already hear the creatures pounding on the door at the top of the stairs above him, and knew he had made the right choice. A fresh burst of adrenaline flooded his system as he popped the lid of the crate. Travis took a single K-bomb from the crate and clutched it in his hand with a grim smile. The bastards were going to pay the price for what they had done to his unit.

  The door at the top of the stairs caved inward with a loud crash, and the creatures began to pour through it, racing down the stairwell, pushing and shoving one another in the narrow space. Travis waited until they were almost on him before he activated the K-bomb he held and dropped it into the crate next to him. He died instantly as the entire command center was ripped apart in the blast that followed. The explosion surged upward into the air in a tremendous ball of fire that pierced the lingering darkness of the early dawn.

  * * *

  It took Neill a couple of minutes to orient himself with the controls aboard Bear. Thankfully, the instrument panel was laid out in a straightforward manner that was intuitive to anyone who had ever flown spacecraft before. Those who had survived and managed to make it aboard the ship were chattering, crying, huddled together for the comfort it provided. He felt just like they did—in need of comfort himself—but there was no time to cower, to curl up and consider past mistakes, or to mourn all the death and destruction they were about to leave behind. Neill took a deep breath and realized this was his last chance on this planet, and possibly in this life, to do something good that would save lives.

  He fired up the thrusters and listened to the howls of the devils outside that were burned by the heat of the engines. He engaged the throttle, checked his gauges one last time, and picked Bear up. It rocked erratically at first, but the controls were well-maintained. Things were smooth within a couple of seconds; the sleek metallic beast responded well to Neill’s touch.

  He didn’t need to see what was going on in the other parts of The Sanctuary to realize they had lost. Explosions rocked the ground around them. Columns of smoke rose into the sky. Fire licked the walls of the structure, devouring it from the inside out.

  The CASPers which had been their hope and salvation were nowhere to be found, likely just as broken now as the men who had piloted them. The loss, however, wasn’t a Marauder loss. It wasn’t Father Valero’s loss. It wasn’t a loss for him and his security detail. Rather, it was a Human loss, and the price they had all paid here was so much more than any of them had bargained for. Humanity had lost out to something much more savage and relentless.

  Commander Neill had just gotten Bear airborne when he felt the shock wave of the explosion that ripped The Sanctuary apart like a toy in the hands of an angry god. The ship rocked and shimmied, but continued its ascent into space as the ground beneath it turned to fire.

  They had made it with only seconds to spare, and yet in some ways, they hadn’t really escaped at all. The horrors of Durin II would haunt the survivors’ memories for the rest of their lives. Although somewhat hardened to the horrors of war, even Neill himself knew it would be months—if not years—before he got a decent night’s sleep without seeing the faces of those devils in his dreams.

  The colony was a cauldron of flame beneath them, bubbling up, roiling with fire—a stew made from the hubris of men. In a matter of minutes they had escaped the planet’s atmosphere, but not the fear that still skulked through the cabin of the ship like a wild animal. It was a palpable feeling that gripped them, made them seem pitifully small. It was such a contrast to the way they had felt upon first landing here.

  In the beginning, with their courage bolstered by Father Valero’s plan and vision, they had set foot on Durin II as conquerors, as missionaries bent on spreading their message of conversion. Little did the missionaries and the members of Valero’s order know, they would be the ones to convert, casting aside their peaceful purpose and taking up arms to wage a savage war.

  In the end, they had been the ones to become more like the devils of Durin II, while the creatures in the mountain hadn’t changed at all.

  Neill did a quick comm check, searching for distress signals that might alert him to other survivors, but the frequency they used was nothing more than static; all was lost. Neill thought about Colonel Travis. Even though he hadn’t liked the man, Neill’s heart went out to him a little. All of this could have been avoided. Of all the grand plans of man, this ragtag bunch of survivors aboard a busted ship was all that was left.

  Once they were safely in space, out of the grasp of Durin II, Neill sent out a beacon for help, hoping they would haven’t to wait long before someone came to rescue them. The ship had lost its capability to navigate, which meant he couldn’t plot a course for the stargate. Compared to the carnage on the surface of the planet, though, floating along aimlessly in Bear was like being at Club Med. At the very least, they were alive, and that was something. It was more than any of those left behind could claim.

  As they drifted into the vast reaches of the deep, Neill was surprised to see a little girl approach him. With blonde ringlets and blue eyes, she was a living, breathing embodiment of why they all had fought so hard to live and survive. Her eyes were red from crying, and she had the frightened, lost look of an animal trapped in a snare.

  “Are my mommy and daddy dead?” she asked.

  Neill considered the question carefully, not sure how to respond. The truth was he didn’t know for sure what the fate of this little girl’s parents were, although he had every reason to believe they were most certainly gone. He hadn’t seen them die with his own eyes. He also didn’t want to lie and give the girl a sense of false hope.

  “It’s ok,” she said at last, struggling to hold back the tears. “I know I won’t see them again. You don’t have to tell me something just to make me feel better.”

  “I’m sorry,” Neill said, feeling a huge burden of responsibility. “About everything.”

  “Why would you be sorry?” the little girl said. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t kill them. You didn’t bring them here either. They chose to come. They called this an opportunity.”

  Neill nodded and tried not to get choked up. “I am sorry I don’t have better news for you.”

  “That’s life,” the little girl responded. “I think I better get used to it.”

  “Would you like a hug?” Neill asked, wanting to do something to comfort her.

  “I think I would,” she said, rushing toward him, no longer able to be mature and rational.

  Neill opened his arms and hugged the girl for several seconds while she fell apart. Her whole body shook with sobs as she mourned her parents, the life she was supposed to have, and the future that had been stolen from her. At last, she pulled away from him and looked him in the eyes, searching for anything there that could help her go on.

  “What do I do now?” she asked.

  This time Neill had an answer for her. It was the same answer he would give anyone on this ship who asked. It was the same answer he would tell himself every morning when he woke up and looked at himself in the mirror.

  “Just remember The Sanctuary,” Neill told her. “Remember your loved ones, the friends you had on Durin II, and remember the good times. R
emember how brave you were on this day, and carry that bravery with you throughout your life. But whatever you do, don’t forget. You mustn’t ever forget, because forgetting is the very thing that will lead to another foolish mistake like the one we all made here. Remember The Sanctuary. It’s all any of us can do.”

  # # # # #

  Devils

  Lieutenant Ashley Rai took a long drag from her cigarette, letting its smoke fill her lungs as she sat on the edge of her bunk. Her roommate Kylie was sitting cross-legged on the floor by the door that led out into the corridors of Byrne. Although Kylie, as an enlisted specialist, normally wouldn’t have roomed with an officer, it had been the only open room besides the one with three men, and that would have caused…other issues.

  The ship didn’t belong to the Hellhounds, but Colonel Hendershot was a creature of habit. Byrne was his go-to vessel for the Hellhounds’ long-range transport needs. Over the years, Rai had been aboard the vessel so many times that it almost felt like a second home to her. Captain Garth and the colonel got on well, and Rai was sure the Hellhounds got a steep discount for their frequent use of the ship.

  Their current contract was with a wealthy mining consortium. Some planet the consortium had recently gained possession of needed to be pacified, and the angry natives put in their place. It was a common enough job in this boom of interplanetary mining.

  What made this job different was that the Hellhounds weren’t the only merc unit dropping onto the planet’s surface. Working with other merc companies wasn’t such an odd or rare thing. It was who the other merc company was, in this case, that left Rai feeling a sense of dread about what lay ahead for them.

  The Hellhounds were one of the best, albeit lesser-known, merc units around. Colonel Hendershot didn’t give a crap about anything other than getting the job done and carrying out the contracts his unit took on, to the letter. He embodied the “quiet professional”. The colonel didn’t care who you had been before you joined up, as long as you could carry your weight and knew how to kill efficiently.

  Robert’s Guard, on the other hand, was their exact opposite. The larger merc company was, in Rai’s opinion, a bunch of elitist snobs. The Guard outnumbered the Hellhounds four to one, and almost everyone in it had formal military training of some sort.

  Their CASPers were gleaming, spotless suits, as much at home on the parade ground as the battlefield. Their officers were always clean-cut, starched, creased, and squared-away. They were also starkly professional in both their manner and their zero-defects approach. A single slipup in a unit like Robert’s Guard could get you booted out of it.

  Rai had met Colonel Robert once when she had attended an Earth-based meeting with Colonel Hendershot. The man was a prick of the highest order. She remembered the cool disdain he had shown toward Colonel Hendershot and herself at the officers’ ball. He had stood there in his expensive suit, sipping daintily at a glass of champagne, smirking at Hendershot in his rough-and-tumble bomber jacket and her in the out-of-fashion dress uniform she had worn to the affair.

  Despite his condescending attempt at politeness, Rai likely would have put the jerk on his butt that night, except that Drake was with him—and no amount of booze would make her want to tangle with Drake. But then Drake was always at Colonel Robert’s side, unless they were out on a contract and he was needed on the front lines.

  Drake was more than just Robert’s second in command and bodyguard. The man was a hardened killer who enjoyed his job of enforcing order among the Robert’s Guard troops just a little too much. He was a stone-cold assassin and a sadist, too, from what Rai had heard about him. Drake’s posture and the way he moved spoke volumes about both his confidence and competence as Robert’s right-hand killer. Even at the meeting, he wore matching ivory-handled pistols holstered on his hips. They had been hidden by the long uniform coat he wore most of that evening, but any professional worth their salt could see the pistols were there, and he knew how to use them with a lethal grace. His boyish blue eyes betrayed keen intelligence but held nothing of boyish humor or innocence—only calculation and contempt. She was honest enough with herself to admit that Drake scared the devil out of her.

  Rai had fought aliens, monsters, rebels, and terrorists across the galaxy, and survived. She was used to watching people die around her on what seemed like a daily basis. She was an expert CASPer pilot and the best martial artist the Hellhounds had in their ranks, but even so, going up against Drake one-on-one was something she prayed she’d never have to do. She didn’t expect she’d survive the experience.

  “You gotta stop worrying, Lieutenant,” Kylie said from where she sat near the door of their shared quarters. “It ain’t good for you.”

  Rai took another drag from her cigarette and looked over at Kylie. “It’s my job to worry. If I didn’t, you and the rest of Cerberus Squad would have been dead a long time ago.”

  “Touché,’” Kylie said with a grin.

  Kylie got to her feet, walking over to her own bunk across from Rai’s. She plopped onto its edge. “This gig is a cake walk, LT. You said so yourself at the briefing before Byrne got underway. These aliens we’re going to wipe out are armed with spears and bows. We’ve got freaking CASPers and rifles. How does it get easier than that?”

  “Getting overconfident is the fastest way to get yourself killed.” Rai frowned. “Besides, if it were that easy, then someone a lot cheaper than us would’ve already been called in. It makes me wonder why they felt the need to hire two merc companies, if the job is as simple as it seems on the surface.”

  “Admit it. Your worrying doesn’t have anything to do with the natives on the planet we’re heading to,” Kylie pressed her.

  Rai sighed. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

  Kylie nodded. “Nobody likes Robert’s Guard, except the folks with enough credits to hire them. They’re a bunch of jacked-up, state-of-the-art bullies, and every other merc alive knows it. They’re prima donnas with assault rifles.”

  Rai watched as Kylie leaned forward toward her. “Look, LT, liking them and working with them are two different things, okay? They may be a stuck-up bunch of pricks, but they’re soldiers. They’re bloody well good at what they do, too, or they wouldn’t be able to keep the money rolling in to buy all their pretty toys. This contract will be over before we know it, and we’ll be on to the next one. We’ve just got to focus on holding up our end of it and getting the job done.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Rai said. “Guess we will take things as they come. Let’s see what Zala IV has for us, shall we?”

  The planet of Zala IV was on the fringes of known space. Most of its landmasses were uninhabited by anything resembling intelligent life. Unfortunately for the mining consortium that was their employer, the one land mass that did contain intelligent, if primitive, lifeforms was also home to the bulk of the ore that made the planet valuable.

  Rough estimates put the number of humanoid aliens who called that landmass home in the hundreds of thousands. The initial survey expedition the consortium had sent to the planet had been wiped out by the sheer number of the natives they faced. It hadn’t helped that the survey expedition hadn’t been heavily armed or expecting trouble. The poor fools had never had a chance.

  The ionosphere of Zala IV was home to raging electromagnetic—or EM—storms that made it difficult to get a clear scan of the world’s surface from above it. Those storms were powerful enough to make landing on the planet’s surface something of a feat, as well.

  Thus, almost everything the consortium knew about Zala IV and its natives came from a series of courier drones launched by the survey expedition shortly before being annihilated. The EM storms had played havoc with their electronics as they punched their way into space, so much of the data stored on those drones hadn’t survived to reach the consortium’s ship in orbit, but enough data remained to make the fate of the survey party staggeringly clear.

  Nuking the natives from orbit was out of the question. Not only was it il
legal, but precise targeting was impossible due to the EM storms, and the fallout would have made conditions difficult for the miners. Therefore, it had been decided to send in troops to clear them out so the consortium could set up the mines it so desperately wanted. That’s where the Hellhounds and Robert’s Guard came in.

  The two veteran and heavily-armed merc units were to land just outside of the territory belonging to the natives, march in, and kill every single one of the aliens they could find. It wasn’t quite genocide, but it was close. Both companies were being paid to make sure the natives would be so broken that it would be a long, long while before they were able to pose any real threat to the mining consortium’s interests again.

  It wasn’t the kind of job that anyone would speak about with pride. From all reports, the savages on Zala IV possessed some sort of intelligence and weren’t just mindless beasts. No one had even tried to negotiate, because negotiation required making concessions, which translated into expenses, and the mining companies were trying to keep expenses at a minimum. This was all about money, and the morality didn’t factor in.

  The merc companies were to march in two columns, one entering from the west, and the other from the northwest. The hope was that doing so would force the natives to engage them full out, since the mountain ranges to the east, based on the intel from the survey expedition’s drones, would prevent the natives from fleeing that direction as the attack commenced. It was easier and less time consuming to engage the natives directly than to hunt them down on their home turf.