Galactic Frontiers: A Collection of Space Opera and Military Science Fiction Stories Page 28

  Side by side they stood, two Bazarians. One hundred yards away, a human popped out of his trench, but he wasn’t looking their way.

  “Well?!” the MarPul demanded.

  “Well, what?” Ak’Tiul wondered.

  “Shoot him! Shoot the enemy, dickface!” the junior officer howled, stamping one foot in the mud.

  Ak’Tiul looked at it, curious that there was mud up in no man’s land, too. He figured all the water made its way into his trench. He couldn’t imagine that there was any remaining to make mud elsewhere. Maybe the planet wasn’t a rock, but one big mudball. He looked at the terrain, certain that no argument could convince him otherwise.

  “Fire!” the officer yelled.

  “Right!” Ak’Tiul said, thinking about the mud and that this would all be over soon. The winner would go home. He called out, “Time to win, your preeminent supremeness!”

  Ak’Tiul took aim with his old slug thrower and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing. The MarPul was not pleased and jammed the shock stick against the enlisted man’s leg. Ak’Tiul screamed in pain until his whole body convulsed and he dropped his weapon. It slid in the mud and back into the trench.

  The third level MarPul released the button, and Ak’Tiul doubled over. “I shall recover my weapon, sir,” he said without any derision. He resigned himself to the fact that he would die in pain. He hated the humans for being here with him. He hated the Council for sending him to the godforsaken place. But he hated the MarPul most of all.

  “No. You’ll fight them hand to hand. Look at their frail pink flesh! You’ll rend them into tiny pieces. Now forward, ho!”

  Ak’Tiul walked ahead as if carrying the casket to his funeral. The perceived weight on his shoulders was equally great.

  ***

  Riskin had every intention of running as soon as the lieutenant was out of the trench, but when Riskin threw him forward, the officer twisted in midair like a spider monkey and landed, aiming his pistol at Riskin’s astonished face.

  With a sigh of reservation, he reached up and the lieutenant pulled him to the top. They both leaned back down and grabbed Chen’s outstretched arms. Besides holding his hands in the air, the private was incapable of helping. They dragged him up the mud wall and deposited him face first in the mud.

  He lay there, weaponless. His slug thrower was still in the trench.

  “You first, Private!” the lieutenant growled. “If you can’t shoot, then you can be our human shield. Now move! Lance Corporal, rifle up!”

  Riskin whirled through one hundred eighty degrees. The lieutenant ducked to avoid getting brained by the weapon’s barrel as it flashed past.

  “Watch it!” the lieutenant yelled, focusing all his attention on the two junior enlisted and none of it on the enemy.

  Riskin had never had any respect for him before, but that clinched it. He decided that he had to kill the man. He looked across no man’s land to see who was watching

  As far as the eye could see, horizon to horizon, he saw no more than ten Interstellar Marines. Most were singles, by themselves in the middle of nowhere. The story was the same on the other side. The Bazarians had an equal number.

  “You have got to be kidding me! Are we it? We’re all that’s left?” Riskin glared at the lieutenant. “How in the hell did I get so unlucky to be stuck here and with an idiot like you?”

  “No one ever leaves…” the lieutenant whispered, as if talking to himself.

  ***

  Ak’Tiul shuffled toward the humans. The MarPul stayed behind him, hiding, but carrying his shock stick and ready to inflict pain should Ak’Tiul try to run.

  “I have no weapon, dickface, maybe you give me your stick? Or better, why don’t you go first?” Ak’Tiul said, continuing to slop through the mud.

  His answer was the stick jammed into his leg, followed by a short burst of voltage. Ak’Tiul spasmed and fell.

  Pain and death were becoming one and the same. As he lay there, he saw the few bodies walking across no man’s land. The final push. It looked like wayward souls stumbling through the mist of life.

  The third level MarPul screamed at Ak’Tiul to get up and keep walking.

  Pain and death. He had no incentive to rise. The MarPul stabbed the stick against the prostrate Bazarian’s leg and pressed the button, holding it to inflict the maximum punishment.

  ***

  “Shoot them!” the lieutenant screamed fanatically. Chen dropped to his knees and covered his ears. His pinched his eyes closed and rocked himself.

  Lance Corporal Riskin Devereaux raised his slug thrower and took aim. If we win, I get to go home, he thought as he zeroed in on the one spiker jamming some stick into a second one lying on the ground.

  They don’t want to be here any more than I do, he thought. But if we win, I get to go home. Losing is dying.

  No one ever leaves, the lieutenant said. What the hell?

  “What did you mean by that?” Riskin asked, lowering his slug thrower, which enraged the lieutenant. “What did you mean when you said no one ever leaves?”

  The young officer aimed his pistol at Riskin’s face. “What I meant isn’t for the likes of you. Now raise your weapon, Marine, and get back into this battle. For the glory of the IM and a battle banner for the longest battle ever fought in all the interstellar wars. We must win!”

  The whites of the lieutenant’s eyes showed as his mouth hung open and he panted like an animal. His pistol shook as his knuckles whitened from his fanatically tight grip.

  Riskin raised his slug thrower’s barrel and aimed at the Bazarian cajoling the one in the mud.

  Sight picture, sight alignment. He focused on the front sight post, positioning the slightly fuzzy silhouette of the spiker in the middle of the rear sight aperture. When everything was aligned, he exhaled and gently squeezed the trigger.

  The weapon barked, and the trigger froze to the rear. It cycled uncontrollably like a machinegun, making the barrel jump. The first round hit the Bazarian center mass, in the middle of its chest. As the barrel jumped, the impacts climbed.

  The next round hit the enemy in the throat, and the last impact blew a hole through its head. The weapon jumped out of Riskin’s hands as it continued to fire.

  The lieutenant was too slow diving out of the way, and the last round from the magazine tore through the lieutenant’s head.

  The slug thrower splashed into the mud beside Chen, followed closely by the lieutenant, who toppled over backward.

  Riskin stood, eyes wide with shock at what had happened. He barely breathed. He’d killed his lieutenant.

  But it was an accident! he tried to reason. Chen mumbled and whined.

  “Shut up, Chen!” Riskin yelled, realizing his mistake. Chen didn’t do anything wrong. The man was terrified.

  Riskin thought he should have felt worse, but he seemed oddly relieved. He felt free for the first time in a long time. He was out from under someone else’s boot, even if only for a short while.

  “It’s okay, Chen, stand up and let’s go. There’s no one left to report anything, no one left who knows anything.” Riskin looked around and saw a few figures here or there, but wasn’t sure if they were human or Bazarian. The enemy closest to him was picking himself up out of the mud.

  ***

  Ak’Tiul heard the sound at the same time he saw the slugs impact the third level MarPul. The officer was close, and Ak’Tiul simply laid there and watched as the Bazarian was torn apart. The dead body flopped like a wet rag, splashing into the mud.

  The enlisted Bazarian crabbed backward, away from his dead officer. He thought about running for his trench, but if he didn’t stand, then maybe they would think him dead.

  He remained where he was, but watched the humans closely. Where once there had been three, only one remained standing. Of the other two, one knelt and the last looked as dead as the MarPul.

  One helped the other to his feet, then they turned and walked back to their trench. When they reached it, they sto
od there, motionless for an interminable amount of time.

  He saw his opportunity to return unseen to his trench.

  ***

  Riskin and Chen stood at the top of the wall, looking down at a heavy yellow gas. It rose chest high within, and that was if one knew where the high points were.

  “Damn the lieutenant,” Riskin said softly, then turned back to the officer’s body and screamed. “DAMN YOU!”

  Chen was coming back to himself, having raced through the five stages of grief, from denial to anger, bargaining, and depression. He was ready to accept his depression as the final state of his life.

  “What if we surrender?” Chen asked. As a private in the IM, he’d never had to think for himself. Someone else always told him what to do. He needed that in his life. Riskin Devereaux was the opposite; he despised people telling him what to do.

  Which was how he ended up as a Marine--to show his father that he couldn’t tell him what to do. Riskin had no idea how much freedom he’d had when he lived at home.

  The irony wasn’t lost on him. The years of being ordered around by an idiot like the lieutenant had convinced him how smart and how wise his father was.

  And how young and stupid Riskin had been.

  Now I’m going to die for it, killed by my own people because everyone wants this little planet and this little war to go away.

  “I wonder…” Riskin started to say. “Come on, Chen, let’s see if I’m right.”

  He turned Chen around and they started walking toward the muddy Bazarian, who was looking at his trench the same way they’d just looked at theirs.

  “You speak Chinese, Chen?” Riskin asked.

  “What do you think?’ the private replied sarcastically, trying hard not to look at the lieutenant’s exploded head as they walked past. He failed miserably and he couldn’t keep his eyes off it.

  “Tell that Bazarian not to go into the trench, it’s poison,” Riskin said.

  Chen translated the phrases in milliseconds in his head and then spoke Mandarin Chinese in a normal tone of voice.

  “Come on, Chen, everyone knows that the spikers don’t have ears. You gotta really belt it out!” Riskin threw up his hands in hopeful encouragement.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Chen asked.

  “You ask a lot of questions, Private,” Riskin sneered. “Why would I kid about something like poison and death?”

  “If they don’t have ears, why would yelling make any difference?” Chen explained, eyebrows raised.

  “Damn straight; maybe he can read lips?” Riskin suggested, then laughed heartily. The Bazarians didn’t have lips.

  Riskin and Chen kept walking across no man’s land.

  ***

  Ak’Tiul looked at the green gas in the trench. He could smell it.

  Death.

  He thought he heard someone tell him not to go into the trench, but it was in the human Chinese language. He knew the voice spoke the truth, although the truth sounded strange, no matter which language it was communicated in.

  “Hate humans,” Ak’Tiul said. He looked back at the dead body of the MarPul. “Hate MarPul more. Sorry, your cerebral supremeness, in that I didn’t recognize your superiority sooner and race across the wasteland with reckless abandon to dispatch your enemies.”

  He saluted haphazardly, then swaggered to the body, picked up the stick and jabbed it against the leg. When he depressed the button, the MarPul’s body jumped, but the stick shorted out, sending electricity through the water and into Ak’Tiul’s foot.

  He dropped the stick and jumped around on one leg, feeling like a moron for shocking himself.

  The humans stopped on the other side of the MarPul and stood there watching Ak’Tiul’s antics.

  He stopped hopping and stood still, returning the humans’ gaze.

  “Don’t go into your trench. The gas is death,” the Bazarian told them in the sing-song language of diplomacy.

  ***

  The creature was the same size as the two Marines, but to Riskin, the Bazarian looked like a cross between a bumblebee and a wasp. When it spoke Chinese, Riskin was relieved, but still couldn’t understand the creature.

  Chen nodded and replied.

  Riskin slapped the shorter man on the arm. Chen remembered that the other Marine didn’t speak his language. “He said to not go into the trenches.”

  “We know that,” Riskin said.

  “That’s what I told him.” Chen looked oddly at the lance corporal.

  “So what the hell do we do now?” Riskin asked. Chen translated the question for the Bazarian.

  “Dammit! I was asking you, not him,” Riskin clarified.

  Chen shrugged.

  “Ak’Tiul,” the Bazarian said, pointing to himself with one spindly arm.

  “Riskin,” Chen said, pointing to the lance corporal. He said it twice and then pointed to himself. “Chen.”

  “Who was that?” Riskin asked, leaning toward the Bazarian that he himself had killed.

  “The MarPul, an officer, a bad officer,” Ak’Tiul said, and Chen interpreted for Riskin.

  “Our officer too, bad and dead,” Riskin said succinctly.

  “What do we do now?” Ak’Tiul wondered.

  “Find a way off this godforsaken mudball!” Riskin exclaimed. Chen smiled before telling Ak’Tiul what the lance corporal had said. The Bazarian bobbed excitedly.

  “Like humans,” he said. The clicks and whistles of the Bazarian language were lost on his new companions.

  About the Author, Craig Martelle

  I’m a lifelong daydreamer and student of human interaction. I have some degrees, but those don’t matter when it comes to telling the story. Engaging characters within a believable narrative- that’s what it’s all about. I live in the interior of Alaska, far away from an awful lot, but I love it here. It is natural beauty at its finest. If you liked this story, you might like some of my other books. You can join my mailing list by dropping by my website www.craigmartelle.com or if you have any comments, shoot me a note at craig@craigmartelle.com. I am always happy to hear from people who’ve read my work. I try to answer every email I receive.

  Find Craig online: Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Website

  Books by Craig Martelle

  The Terry Henry Walton Chronicles, a Kurtherian Gambit Series, co-written with Michael Anderle

  Free Trader Series

  Cygnus Space Opera – set in the Free Trader Universe

  End Times Alaska Series, a Winlock Press publication

  Plenty

  By Jenetta Penner

  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the Tempest just coughed.

  “Come on, old girl.” My hands fly over her controls as I check to make sure the heading is still correct. The entire ship rattles incessantly behind me, but if I get these goods to Taruk’s lair in the Letiri System by tomorrow, I can get her fixed. Again. And have plenty of credits left for me.

  She’ll be okay.

  “Ferek, if you call me an old girl again, my life support system may suddenly develop a malfunction.” Tempest’s flat, female voice comes from everywhere and nowhere throughout the small, ancient cargo vessel built for a crew of one.

  I roll my eyes.

  “I detected that,” the ship AI says.

  “Now Tempest, you know I couldn’t do anything without my best girl. Don’t get your thrusters all in a wad. If we don’t deliver this load in time—”

  “I am acutely aware of your need to arrive in the Letiri System by 1600 hours tomorrow.”

  “And you know if we don’t get there it’s…” I raise my finger and swipe it across my neck in a slicing motion.

  “Tardiness is your issue, not mine. In the case of vehicle confiscation, I’ll simply be auctioned off to a new owner. One which may keep me in better working order.”

  “Or sell you off for par—”

  Clunk.

  The Tempest reverberates and lets out a high-pitched whine, settling into a slow glide
. I fly out of my seat to manually check the ship function.

  “What’s going on?” I yell, slamming my hand to the console. “Did you break the hyperdrive on purpose?”

  “Disabling myself would be a poor choice,” Tempest says without a hint of concern.

  “Then get busy performing a scan!” Stupid fifty-year-old, stolen, junkyard salvage ship. I scan through the diagnostics Tempest feeds me. The propulsion system crapped out again.

  A vision of my head on a platter being fed to Taruk’s new favorite beast hijacks my brain. The last one was aqua blue with stripes and teeth…

  “Ferek? Ferek?” Tempest’s voice breaks me from my nightmare.

  “What?” I yell as the vision of the hairy beast vanishes.

  “We are currently on approach to a small moon.”

  “Moon? There shouldn’t be a planet, let alone a moon in this area.” I race back to the pilot seat and engage the view on the screen.

  The white orb fills the screen, a reddish planet swirled with orange and yellow gases behind it.

  I stare at the large bluish craters on the satellite. “Where are we?”

  “Analyzing the system’s charts. So far unknown.”

  A beep comes from the view screen.

  “Incoming communication,” Tempest says.

  Ignoring her and cursing under my breath I ask, “How could it be unknown?”

  “Don’t use that word or I will discontinue the scan.”

  The beep sounds again.

  Letting out a sound of disgust, I throw my hands into the air. “Just play the comm. Maybe that will tell us something.”

  The screen flickers on, revealing a man my grandfather’s age; white hair, a little jowly around the mouth.

  “Oh hello,” he says. “My name is Proden. I see you are in distress.”

  I look around. “You could say that.”

  “We would love to be of assistance,” Proden says, his lips turning up into a smile revealing a set of perfect white teeth.

  “Stars, that would be a lot of help. I have someplace I need to be.” As I say it a massive, round, silver and blue space station orbits around the moon toward us.