Date Point: 12y1w4d AV
HMS Caledonia, Interstellar Space, Confederacy Territory
Daar
The worstest part was the waiting. And the scheming. And the politics of both.
Daar had many skills and very deep training in the combat arts, even if he hadn’t had too much operational practice in their use. The Whitecrest Brothers had much more experience, ‘cuz most situations nowadays needed a quiet, subtle touch. Sure, a Stoneback Claw (or even a full Fang!) could be sneaky and stuff…but that’s kinda silly and a waste of ability.
The result wasn’t good for the future; the Fangs weren’t getting much combat experience, and maintaining a heavyweight response option for the Gao was becoming harder to justify. And what’s worse, Daar had the sniff of the situation. He knew things were gonna change and change for the worse, ‘cuz the Humans had obviously found themselves a great big Keeda of an enemy out there. One they’d been very quiet about, and one they hadn’t revealed to him.
And one that would turn its eyes on the Gao, eventually. If it hadn’t already. The arrival of the Humans set the Galaxy on edge and caused much yipping and drama, but secretly, the Champions were relieved. Before the Humans showed up the Galaxy was afraid of the big, bad Gaoians, the only sapient predators known to the Dominion besides the Hunters. The response to the Humans gave the Gao much breathing room, and they took advantage.
Not that it was all sweet-herb and mating. With the Human’s arrival the Gaoians panicked a bit too, and much paranoid ear-swivelling had happened both in public and behind closed doors. But then something strange happened: the Humans loved his kind, automatically and unreservedly. The reasons were tricky and something Regaari could prol’ly talk about for days but Daar wasn’t gonna complain. He was even finding himself returning the affection, a little at first, and now unreservedly as well. Humans were strong, friendly, super smart, clever…
And they were reminding the Gaoians that they were all of those things as well. But the rest of the Galaxy was starting to remember too, and once again the politics grew ugly. That left the Champions in a tricky place; how did they tighten their growing friendship with the Humans without panicking the herd-thinkers of the Dominion? Without incurring the ire of the Alliance?
Tricky stuff, all of which Daar really should have been dealing with back home with his Clan.
And yet…
Regaari and Genshi hinted that the ‘Revelation’ would be worth his time. Hinted it in almost begging tones, in fact, and there were times when you just had to trust your Cousins.
He’d looked up this word ‘Revelation’, and had accidentally got halfway through a book by that name squinting in bewilderment the whole time before finally it clicked. If Regaari’s hints were good (and they prol’ly were!) and they had anything to do with this really scary book (and they prol’ly did) then what exactly had the Humans dug up?
The end of the world, most likely. So of course he needed to know, and the politics could go fuck themselves (the first Human phrase he’d learned!). That just left the teeny little question of how he could stay in Stainless’ good graces.
Stainless practised leadership in a manner completely different to the Gaoian mode. Where a Gaoian leader was the first one to get covered in mud, the one to wrestle the biggest Naxas, and the first one to buy the Talamay when they got back to the workhouse, Stainless was…
He was an Officer. Aloof. Calculating. Clearly fond of his men and happy to unwind around them sometimes, but not often and even then only just enough. He was a political creature in a direct, forthright sort of way and he posed a potential solution to something that had been itching at Daar’s hackles for a while.
So, obviously, he should just gut the problem and lay it out to share with Stainless. And it was something to do while they waited. Stainless was pacing the *Caledonia*’s deck at just as much of a loose end as Daar himself, wearing the fundaments of an EV-MASS without the mission load. Daar had his Suit on too. He wasn’t fully conditioned to it yet which was part of why he was only on ‘second string’ today, but the other part…Heh. Time to show balls.
“We should talk about my assault Fangs, Stainless. I kinda suspect you’re gonna need ‘em.”
Stainless paused mid-pace, which put an end to the heavy vibrations in the deck.
“Hmm?”
Stainless had an infuriating habit of doing that—he would have heard the first time, he just wanted Daar to double down. Oh well.
“SOR is very small. Clan Stoneback has nearly a thousand Brothers trained to my level. You’re preparing for something big and that’s really obvious. How are you gonna fight it?”
Stainless gave him that trademarked long, cool blue stare. “To your level, you say? An’ here I thought you were fookin’ unique.”
‘I’m the most biggest and strongest and all that but that don’t always mean I’m the best. Brother Tyal’s got more deployed combat experience than me. We’ve got a really young up-comer who’ll prol’ly be a better fighter than me, too. Eventually, heh.”
“Why the sudden attack of modesty, Tigger?”
“It ain’t modesty, it’s honesty.” Daar paused. “Stainless, what do you think a Champion is for?”
“About the same thing a champion was for back in the day on Earth. They stood for and represented their faction.”
Daar stood up and duck-nodded. “That’s pretty close. My purpose is to advance the interests of Stoneback, and that generally means advancing the interests of the Gao. And now? I think it also means advancing Human interests, too. You’ve got a pretty big manpower gap here and I think we can solve a problem for both of us.”
Stainless gave it some thought. “…Actually, aye. Something I’ve been meaning to raise when the chance came up.” He strolled over and tugged a tablet from his belt.
The data tablet was one of those universal, durable pieces of technology like the wheel, blast furnaces and electricity‚ refined upon, expanded, improved, but somehow every attempt to do something different with them such as high-tech scrolls with flexible flimsy-screens, or volumetric gesture-based holographic GUIs had failed.
When it came down to it, something rigid that could be held in one hand and worked on with the other was too practical to be replaced. Just like a wheel without spokes or a purely mechanical computer were possible but never more than a gimmick.
In the twelve years since First Contact however, human computing technology had continued to broadly obey something they called ‘Moore’s Law’. Their computers were advancing very, very quickly, so quickly that the “techie” Clans were already forming strong relationships with Human technology companies.
“This is Warhorse’s latest evaluation of you,” he said bluntly. “An’ typical bloody ‘Horse he’s bein’ all nice and stuff… but.”
He handed it over. Daar’s ears began to droop inside the first three lines, and he was downright crestfallen by the end of the fourth paragraph.
As Stainless had said the report was…nice. More than fair, ‘specially about Daar’s speed and strength! But it was also unflinchingly accurate. In particular, Warhorse spared no words when he talked about Daar’s mediocre performance on the assault course or while playing Gravball. Neither were bad by any objective standard—quite good, from what everyone said—but even considering his late start with HEAT and the resulting training gap, his freespace agility just wasn’t up to snuff. It came down to mobility and Daar’s sheer speedy bigness combined with his non-Human kinesthetics, well. He had a lot of catching up to do.
Daar already knew all of that and he’d been training ‘Back-hard to improve. But seeing his weaknesses laid bare, in writing from a Friend…though he could see some dark humor in it and chittered ruefully, “So basically, I’m too big and strong for HEAT?”
He awarded himself several points when Stainless actually half-laughed, an upward tic to every part of his face that surprisingly didn’t result in it breaking down the middle, and a nasal exhalation that Regaari knew to be one of the subtler ways that humans showed amusement.
“Aye, that’s about the shape of it,” he agreed with a twinkle in his eye. “After a fashion. Zero-G mobility in’t really your forte.”
Embarrassing flashbacks of doggy-paddling awkwardly in the middle of the gravball arena and getting so turned around in zero-G that he could only twist and flail made Daar wince.
‘In my defense, me and my kind are meant for the open ground. Also Rebar’s definitely bigger and stronger than me. So is the Beef Trio, by a lot. They all do fine…”
“Aye, but they’re monkeys.” Powell observed. “All that size and strength and there’s still a lot left that Evolution intended for muckin’ around up trees. You tend to slam into things. Now to be fair so do the Whitecrest Brothers, and you’ve been improving, but they’ve set a high bar and you’re running out of time. And they ain’t big enough to crash right through a wall.”
Daar sigh-chittered. “They can bounce off stuff and keep moving, yeah. An’ they’re light enough that Rebar and the Trio can just toss ‘em wherever.”
“Right. So, you know where I’m goin’ with this.”
“JETS.”
“Aye. And that’s got me thinkin’, why are we havin this discussion again?”
Daar paused and gathered his thoughts. “Well…I got four Fangs, two hundred ‘Backs each. All of ‘em are good. Really good. But what they aren’t is used that much. Most problems the Gao deal with, they’re little things these days. Subtle things. It ain’t often ‘ya gotta raid a Clan, disembowel every Brother inside, steal the cubs and return ‘em to the Females.”
Other Humans might have looked shocked at that, but Stainless just nodded thoughtfully. “So. You need to find a new role.”
“Sorta? We need to keep relevant, but it ain’t just ‘bout my Clan, boss. I’m pretty sure we both need what my Fangs can do. I gotta preserve that if I can, ‘cuz there are rumblings from Grandfather Garl’s staff about cutting our Fangs down to two! Can you believe that?”
“All too fookin’ easily,” Powell muttered darkly.
“Right? Anyhoo, there ain’t any other Clan positioned to do what we do so we can’t draw down the Fangs. The thing is? I think we can train ‘em up and give both our peoples a real spaceborne option with mass, one that ain’t gonna get a bunch o’ Brothers killed, y’know? Something that could bowl a Hunter swarm over and kill it! Or, y’know, whatever else.”
Stainless put on his best thinky-look. “That’s why you insisted on the HEAT training.”
Daar nodded. “Yup.”
“And the Suit.”
Daar grumbled happily.
“I take it your plan is to train your Fangs, then?”
“Well…” Daar fidgeted, “It was at first. But nowadays the Females don’t much like a Clan if they see that Clan as warmongers. Not even us, and you know how far back Stoneback and the Females go. I gotta worry ‘bout what it’ll look like if I take the Fangs out for maneuver.”
“I thought protecting the Females was Stoneback.”
“And providing for them, too. They like that part a whole lot more, ‘cuz things are easy and people forget the bad times, y’know?”
“Hmm.” Powell turned and paced away a few steps with his fingers on his chin, staring thoughtfully at the deck a few inches in front of him. “…you need a PR campaign.”
“Yeah, I need both of that at once. That’s why the JETS mission seems so good! I also gotta learn how to to be a ‘spaceman’ so I can get the Fangs ready. But, well…I can’t do all o’ that at once.”
“Then how can your Clan?” Powell asked. “Aren’t you supposed to embody it?”
“That don’t mean I can be in two places at once, boss.” He chittered low then flicked his ears, “I bet even you can’t do that.”
“Not easily,” Powell deadpanned. “But that’s my point. Maybe you’re trying to play with two balls at once here, and thus not really playing with either.”
“I always managed before…” Daar waggled his ears, which earned him an annoyed look from Stainless. “But I think I have a solution! I just, uh, need you to agree? Yeah.”
“Agree to what, exactly?”
“So I’m gonna go play in the dirt with your JETS Brothers, yeah? That sounds fun, and it’d be useful for me and the Clan, too. That’s why I agreed! Meanwhile I got an up-and-coming young ‘Back who’s prol’ly Brother material and Tyal’s really smart and skilled, too. I guess, if I can’t be a cool space fighter, maybe…”
“And what would stop ‘im from strugglin’ in the same way you have?”
“Well, the young ‘Back? He’s…imagine if, like, me and Regaari could mate and have a cub.”
Powell blinked and inclined his head as he processed that mental image. “…I presume you mean he’s got the best qualities of both?”
“Yeah! He’s strong like any good ‘Back and he’s rangy and quick like Regaari. He ain’t hulky and muscular like me but like you said, that ain’t necessarily helpin’ in this case.”
“We’re always lookin’ for good men. But that’s just one Brother. How does he solve your bigger problem?”
“A lotta my ‘Backs are closer to him than they are to me, body-wise. We’re not all the same, we breed for strength and work capacity an’ that don’t always mean males like me.” Daar tilted his head for a moment, “Well, actually, both of ‘em would be good. You may not have much use for big ‘Backs like me or Tyal, but Gao does. We need an independent spaceborne operator corps and we’ll need heavyweights there just like you have with the Trio, just…Gaoian style. More focus on speed, yeah? We need something by Gaoians and for Gaoians, ‘else we’ll be useless to you. That’s what I’m trying to do, and I’m asking for help.”
“Hmm.” Powell considered some more, then turned around with an apologetic look on his usually inscrutable face. “Hard fact is, you’re askin’ for summat I can’t give: I don’t have the authority. I can bring your Brothers in, give ‘em HEAT or JETS training, give ‘em a tour—an’ fook knows it’ll be easier for ‘em to get out after than for the Lads—but if you’re askin’ for any more than that, then you’re askin’ for resources that’re just too precious to spare. For now.”
Daar nodded vigorously. “Yup. I ain’t tryin’ to make ‘em into SOR, I can’t do that yet anyway. All I’m trying to do is, uh, sell the idea? Yeah. I need a couple o ‘Backs to see how it works so they can go back to their Fangs and think about it. What happens after that…we’ll see.”
Powell did a Human thing, then. He understood. “That’s the entire reason you stayed on. You wanted to set an example and direction for your Fangs, and to do that you needed a little Human endorsement to really make it stick.”
Daar betrayed no hint of shame. “Yup.”
Powell’s impressive shoulders heaved up as he produced an amused huff. “Well played.”
Daar “grinned” nonchalantly. “Hey, we both made out good! You’ve got a broader alliance, I’ve got ideas, direction, and prob’ly a better mating pedigree, we’re both gonna be better against whatever it is you won’t tell me about! Plus, I get a badass Suit out of the deal. Winner.”
The intercom chirped and Shipfather Yefrig was patched through from the Racing Thunder. “We’re in position and ready, Stainless. Dexter reports he is in position.”
Powell reached up and keyed the headset he was wearing. “Understood, SHIPFATHER. The SNOWTOPS are clear to go at their discretion.”
Yefrig could be heard chittering loudly over the intercom. “I like that! We shall maneuver and proceed. SHIPFATHER OUT.”
That put a halt on their conversation for now—both Daar and Stainless stood to get their mission loads fitted, just in case things went badly south.
It was a good learning opportunity for the “Cherries” too. Abbot, Irish, Spider and Postal had taken the opportunity to learn shipboard firefighting duty, which was mandatory for any military personnel with any role whatsoever aboard HMS Caledonia, even if the role in question was effectively that of cargo.
Now they were gathered around a rack of monitors at the end of the deployment bay, watching the Whitecrest helmet cams and conversing quietly with one another.
Daar felt like he should have been among them. He was easily the newest person on the team, but the term didn’t actually mean “newcomer” as far as he could tell. It was more a reference to the fact that Costello, Butler, Parata and Newman weren’t yet suit-certified, and hadn’t gone on a real mission yet. Hadn’t ’popped their cherry’ as Firth had put it. Daar was certain it was a euphemism.
They were close: Daar had seen the “before” picture each one of them kept in his room and all four of them were vastly larger than the day they had arrived on Cimbrean. He’d seen them bully through training runs and gravball games in full EV-MASS, and just last week they’d done their first HELLNO jump.
That had rattled Daar’s normally supreme self-confidence; it had taken him decades to grow into his capabilities, years and years of effort, and now here were the humans, already nearly a match for him and it had taken them hardly any time at all. Sure they had Crude, which was clever and sneaky, but even still…
Why was he on standby for this mission? Sometimes Powell’s motives were just impossible to fathom. Either he wasn’t on the team for this one, in which case why was he Suited up and ready to jump in claws-first, or he was in which case why wasn’t he over on the Racing Thunder with Regaari and the Whitecrests? Was he on the HEAT or not?
But…Powell was the Boss, and he’d shown plenty of times that he was Boss for a reason. So the only thing to do was to trust him, sit back, and wait.
And itch.
Date Point: 12y1w4d AV
Warundug–class light transport ship ’Orverendeg’, Interstellar Space, Confederacy Territory
Regaari
The boarding launch. Like a shuttle without the shuttle, really: just a warp engine, plenty of power cells. And handholds. And eerie silence.
Nothing quite drove home the sheer scale of space quite like seeing a whole hundred-meter starship dwindle behind them into invisibility and leave them utterly alone with nothing to see, not even one another. Their suits were almost too effective at camouflage in that regard: when Regaari looked at his own paw, he felt a disconcerting sense of disembodiment.
Piloting the launch fell to Deygun, and from what Regaari knew of the task it was engineered simplicity. The launch was flinging itself across light-days of distorted spacetime in the carefully shaped sheath of its own warp field, angled so as to be undetectable from in front. To hit any target at such distances was a feat of precision navigation far beyond any living creature.
So, the simple “point and click” interface on the Launch’s nose was the grossly oversimplified front-end for a starship-grade navigation computer so accurate that it could hit a moving two-hundred-meter target from a distance of billions of kilometers.
The warp hop itself betrayed no sign of anything happening. No flare of light, no sense of lurching motion. The Racing Thunder simply vanished astern and Regaari was left to count his own breaths. He was counting the twenty-third when their quarry popped into existence up ahead.
To give the Guvnurag their due, the formation was a sensible one. The three light escorts were closing off the angles of approach quite well considering that three ships could only have a two-dimensional formation rather than a three-dimensional one. But, that formation was centered squarely on the transport ship.
They weren’t counting on a Starfire-class strike ship, though. They especially weren’t counting on the Racing Thunder, which could do things that other *Starfire*s could not.
The second it had telemetry from the Launch to guide it, the Racing Thunder was able to land with pin-point accuracy, and Regaari knew that the human-made technology installed along her flanks and belly would already be strobing fiercely across the escort ships. There was nothing to see—the radiations involved were all in the wrong spectra for Gaoian eyes—but the consequences were immediately obvious. All three ships listed and began to drift out of alignment as their navigation sensors failed. Seconds later they vanished as the automatic failsafes shut down their warp drives and they fell out of the shared bubble of weird space. It was doubtful whether they would even have had time to register what had attacked them.
The Launch rocked gently as its field edge merged with the *Orverendeg*’s, then shut down. They were now inside the transport ship’s warp field and even if the ship dropped back to sublight speeds they would stay with it.
The last pounce to her hull was trivial. The forcefield “tractor beam” generator on the Launch’s butt stuck it securely to the hull, and the Brothers made short work of effecting an ingress with fusion blades and a containment field emitter, just as the humans had done on Capitol Station.
They’d kept their Whitecrest combat cant for this, sort of. It had been expanded with some of the human vocabulary and terminology. “SPLINTER, on point.”
Shim wriggled in through the hole, and his report was terse yet revealing and welcome.
”Mother’s not looking.”
Regaari followed him in. ”Cubs hide away, play Seek and Sniff.”
He paired off with Thurrsto, activated the sticky-grippy motile nanites on his Suit’s hands and feet and sprang first up the wall then along the ceiling, sticking to the surface with ease. It was the work of seconds to open up the ventilation system and let Shim and Ergaan squirm inside.
Move fast and along different vectors, that was the key. Deygun and Faarek took the under-floor maintenance conduits, wriggling like rats into a space that Guvnurag would have looked on as unusably tiny.
Regaari and Thurrsto took the actual open deck. They had to—Thurrsto’s pack was too bulky for wriggling through tight spaces, and Regaari needed to be able to move in any direction at a moment’s notice.
They scampered four-pawed down the central access corridor, then glanced knowingly at each other at the sound of heavy gallumphing feet coming their way. Thurrsto crouched down in a nook at hip-height on a Gaoian, and Regaari sprang up the wall to hide among the conduits in the ceiling. A motionless second later and Regaari could barely tell that Thurrsto was there, despite knowing exactly where to look for him.
The footfalls turned out to be four Guvnurag marines.
Guvnurag could be deceptive. They weren’t a naturally violent species by anybody’s reckoning, and their shy—even skittish—nature went a long way to denaturing their sheer size. As did their surprising fragility. A human could literally kill them with a single well-aimed punch, and a determined Gaoian wouldn’t have had a much more difficult time of it. It was easy to think of them as harmless shambling mounds of fur and caution.
But they were arguably the most technologically advanced species in the galaxy, and painstakingly thoughtful. They knew their own weaknesses and had had plenty of time to get used to the existence of both humans and Gaoians, and even longer to think about the Hunters.
Which meant that a Guvnurag outfitted for violence made full use of the prodigious real estate available on his massive frame. They were absolutely layered in redundant forcefields, a fighting vehicle’s worth, and the battle yokes high on their shoulders behind those silly, droopy-eared be-tentacled heads of theirs were turreted with twin heavy pulse guns that would give even an ordinary human or a Red Hunter pause for thought.
Those guns tracked the corridor cautiously, wired to track their operator’s eye movements and shoot whatever they looked at, but Regaari and Thurrsto both had concealment and camouflage working for them: the Guvnurag marines plainly saw nothing alarming and the four of them bustled efficiently toward the hull breach.
Another advantage of Gaoian tech—privacy field generators in the mask. When Regaari muttered an order, he did so in absolute certainty that the only people who would hear it were his Brothers.
“Mother says Cubs play nice…”
Thurrsto was utterly still, even as one of the Guvnurag paused right next to him. “…Yes, Mother…”
Regaari even held his breath. Guvnurag had sensitive eyes, especially when it came to small changes in hue and shade. The last thing he needed now was to be given away by some tiny shift in the pattern of his active camo.
He wasn’t. The search team passed below him and past Thurrsto without slowing or giving any sign of alarm, and both Whitecrests flowed from their hiding places and deeper into the belly of the ship.
Date Point: 12y1w4d AV
HMS Caledonia, Interstellar Space, Confederacy Territory
Lieutenant Anthony Costello
Newman was the first to speak. “…Fuck a duck.”
Costello realized he was actually sweating, and mopped it from his brow. “Those suits work just fine,” he commented, projecting rather more composure than he felt. DEXTER and CAREBEAR must both have had absolute ice water flowing in their veins to stay still and calm through that near-miss.
“Aye.” Powell had been watching in too, and drummed his fingers thoughtfully against his folded arm. “Bloody good work by Dexter, too.”
Costello nodded. They’d all been able to see Thurrsto’s pulse climbing up as the response party neared him. Regaari’s five short words had slowed it right down again. It was an inspiring demonstration of strong leadership in action. Thurrsto was good, but even good men could break and Regaari had shored his Brother up. Maybe unnecessarily, maybe not, but the point was he hadn’t left Thurrsto alone in a tight spot.
He just wished there was some wood available to knock on. The Gaoians weren’t done yet.
Date Point: 12y1w4d AV
Warundug–class light transport ship ’Orverendeg’, Interstellar Space, Confederacy Territory
Regaari
”Found the FOOTBALL. It’s guarded.”
Regaari paused and checked the area for Guvnurag before replying. “Acknowledged. Get ready to play Pounce.”
They didn’t have an evasive, cunning little tricksy option this time. The Confederacy troopers guarding the football wouldn’t be leaving it to check on any silly distraction they might set up. They could turn out the lights, fuck with the gravity, it wouldn’t matter: Those marines just had to go down hard.
Fortunately, they’d picked up a few things from the humans there.
They quickly got sorted out on where the coveted cargo was being held, and within a minute every one of his Brothers had called in to report that they were in position and set. Two in the vents above the cargo bay, two crawling under its floors…
…And Regaari and Thurrsto, hanging their tails out in the open to get shot. Oh well.
He glanced at Thurrsto, the two of them duck-nodded together, and Regaari gave the word.
“Cubs play Pounce.”
Momentum. Strike first, strike hard, strike once. Several things happened at once.
The first was that Ergaan dropped a flashbang out of the ventilation duct.
Flashbangs were definitely a human invention, and like all human inventions they blended low technology with unquestionable effect. The Guvnurag troopers had already turned their eyes up and begun to turn to face the squeaking threat in the ceiling when the cylindrical device landed among them.
Even if they’d known how to deal with it, it was far too late for them.
From Regaari’s perspective, even with the combined protection of the Suit and a wall the explosion and flash of light were both almost overpowering, and Guvnurag had very sensitive eyes.
There were pained bass shrieks from inside the cargo bay and all six Brothers burst from their hiding places at once, flitting into the sparse cover offered by the few spare parts and supplies the ship was carrying.
They had stick-n-sleep patches, but those were no use at all so long as the Guvnurag marines had their shields up and when it came to bringing down shields nothing was a match for rapid-fire.
Faarek got unlucky—one of the Guvnurag was flailing and firing wildly in his blinded way, but a lucky hit caught the unlucky Whitecrest full in the chest.
In any other situation, that would have been curtains for him. Heavy kinetic pulse was enough to badly maul an unprotected human and would have broken an unprotected Faarek in half, no trouble. Instead his Suit went rigid and he went tumbling across the bay before standing back up, groggy and shaking his head but very much alive.
Regaari snarled and took down the offending Guvnurag hard, raking his shields with a hail of the special shieldbreaker flechette rounds that they’d developed to work with the human weapons—each one exploded into metal dust on hitting a forcefield, forcing the shield generator to handle not a concentrated impact but a diffuse one. The energy delivered was identical, but it added appreciably to the heat load thus generated, thus overwhelming the emitter sooner. The powdery puff was much less dangerous to the person under the shield, but in this case that suited their needs perfectly.
Yet another advantage projectile-based weapons had over kinetic pulse: they were so versatile!
The Guvnurag’s shield dropped and Deygun was there in a flash, daring to slide under the spinning, blinded alien and slap two stick-n-sleep patch on, one with each hand.
In seconds, all five of the alien soldiers had been stripped of their shields, slapped with the sedative patches and the Gaoians had spun away into the shadows to hold very, very still. They needn’t have bothered—the patches were very well-designed, and the last of the Guvnurag folded to the deck with his chromatophores wavering an uncertain medley of blues and greens.
Faarek sagged as well, cursing softly in English which was frankly a far better language for cursing than Gaori. “Fuck all the… [That won’t even scar], dammit!”
“Shield that door.” Regaari ordered, as Thurrsto pounced across the room to check on their hurt Brother.
Shieldsticks were still being iterated upon, and the current generation had been given the ability to combine their strength and erect a barrier that was both larger and sturdier than the default. Six of them together was a hefty fortification by anybody’s standards and it was set up not a moment too soon, as a whole herd of Guvnurag came to the response. They were forced into cover by a disciplined volley of suppressing fire while Ergaan and Deygun unpacked the jump array off Thurrsto’s back.
Here, gratifyingly, the Gaoians had succeeded in making the humans slap their foreheads for a change. The first-generation human Array was designed to send, and that involved huge amounts of power. But of course the receiving end of a wormhole needed far less juice… so why not just carry enough to be a receiver, and send over the necessary power cells from the support ship?
The Defenders had looked about ready to go drown themselves after Ergaan had asked that one.
In the end, they’d concluded that because the humans could carry the weight to start sending straight away, they’d keep doing it but the idea had led to the creation of an Array lightweight enough to be carried by a Gaoian who wasn’t Daar.
It was much faster to set up, too. Deygun just had to undo two catches and throw it into a clear space in the middle of the room, and it snapped out into a two-meter sided cube in mid-air. Didn’t even matter which way up it landed.
The Guvnurag made a push on the barricaded doorway and were repulsed by a storm of accurate rapid-fire and another flashbang just as the Array fired and delivered a stack of charged power boxes ready for the send. Thurrsto put his back into unloading them alongside Deygun, who snapped their power leads into the magnetic sockets that were waiting for them. It was the work of seconds to have the Array charged and ready to send. Ergaan loaded the target into it and…
Regaari checked around him. “SOUTHPAW, SPLINTER, through the array.”
That was the injured Faarek, and Shim who hadn’t quite prepared for the flashbang well enough and was suffering from its effects himself. Both fell neatly back inside the array cage and were gone in a flash.
Mission accomplished, target extracted. Now came the tricky part—getting everybody else out.
The Array was good for a second send, but that involved abandoning the door. That meant not only falling back on enfilade, but also a vulnerable pause while standing in the array itself where they couldn’t even lay down suppressing fire or else they’d risk filling the inside of their own support ship with bullets when they arrived.
For such circumstances, every remotely military-minded species in the galaxy had developed the same tool: the smoke grenade.
Here, the Whitecrests had butted heads with the humans to a degree. The SOR favored their own M18, whereas Regaari had stuck by a Whitecrest-designed pellet bomb. There were advantages to both: the human grenade produced a far larger and longer-lasting cloud, but the Gaoian one was opaque across a much broader swathe of the EM band thanks to some cunning (and classified) inert nanoparticles in the smoke.
Daar had delivered the solution with his usual swagger: why not both? Stoneback had something similar to the Whitecrest pellet bomb in their inventory anyway, except bigger. Its smoke had similar (also classified) capabilities, and would also also linger and cling irritatingly to fur and eyes.
Which of course wasn’t a problem inside the Suit. Regaari produced it, weighed it thoughtfully, then pulled the safety out and bowled it through the shieldstick wall. One sharp detonation later and probably there were crew at the other end of the ship who were now coughing and groping blindly in the haze.
He gave the command to withdraw with considerable pleasure, not to mention pride.