Starfist: Blood Contact (38 page)

Owen hopped up and down on his ration box shrieking "Woooo! Woooo!" his appendages flapping and his eye stalks bobbing up and down. In the space of ten seconds he flashed through the entire spectrum of visible colors, but neither man saw it. Nor did either man realize at the time that Owen had shouted the warning.

"Close the ramp! Close the fucking ramp!" Horner screamed before realizing the crew couldn't hear him. "Tom, cover me!" he shouted as he lunged for the emergency control that would raise it. Tom was already down on one knee, the muzzle of his hand-blaster aimed over the ramp. Horner hesitated to mash the button. No, gotta get the lieutenant on board, his mind screamed. He punched into the onboard intercom system instead. "Get the lieutenant aboard!" he screamed at the Dragon commander. The gunner began acquiring targets and firing at them. The Dragon shook with the crackling of the cannon.

Hardesty fired his handgun.

Lieutenant Snodgrass didn't know what made him turn around, but when he did he screamed in terror.

Dozens of skinks had crept out of the fernlike forest and they all seemed to be charging directly at him!

They were running upright, their bodies slick with mud, some with long metal tubes clutched in their forearms and others holding nozzles attached to devices strapped to their backs. He could clearly see their slender fingers clutching the tubes and nozzles he guessed were the acid-throwing devices that dissolved human flesh. It seemed every one of them was pointed directly at him.

The farther Dragon didn't appear to be in danger, for now. But some of the skinks had managed to creep up to the nearest Dragon unnoticed and were directing streams of acid on its armor plate. The liquid sizzled on and through the outer plating, and Snodgrass realized that if the machine did not pull out of range quickly, the corrosive acid would eventually eat through. Fortunately, the lowered ramp faced away from the direction of attack.

Without thinking about it, Snodgrass thumbed his throat mike and screamed, "Dragon! Close the ramp!"

"Lieutenant, get on board!" the Dragon commander screamed back. The petty officer's voice was so loud in Snodgrass's helmet it hurt his ears.

"No time! Close the ramp and get out of here!" the lieutenant said nervously. "They're eating through your armor plate! Get out. Get out!" For the first time in his life Argal Snodgrass was thinking of someone else first. He knew he could never reach the temporary safety of the Dragon, and if it did not get away immediately, the eight men inside would be lost.

"We'll cover you!" the Dragon commander said as his gunners directed enfilading fire into the mass of advancing skinks. Bright flashes marked hits all along their line, but there were too many of them. And the skinks attacking both Dragons now were so close, the gunners couldn't depress the barrels of their cannons fast enough. The second Dragon was fully alert now, but could not fire without hitting the other Dragon. "Essay's ten minutes out!" the commander said.

Snodgrass fingered his throat mike again, changing channels. "Essay pilot, this is Lieutenant Snodgrass.

Abort the landing. I say again, abort the landing. This LZ is hot. We are under attack. Do you hear me?"

Later the Essay pilot swore he didn't believe the Lieutenant at first because his voice was so calm.

"Ah, please say again your message," the pilot responded laconically.

"Abort the landing!" Snodgrass screamed.

"Ah, roger that, Lieutenant, we are aborting the landing," the pilot replied.

Snodgrass switched back to the Dragons' channel. "Both of you, get out of here. Go after the gunny.

We will draw the skinks off. Move, move, move!" With that he fired at one of the skinks spraying the closer Dragon, and was gratified to see it flare up into vapor. It was the first time the lieutenant had ever fired a weapon in combat.

Meanwhile, Snodgrass had quickly been backing toward a deep depression in the earth about thirty meters from the nearer Dragon. His intention was to take cover there and hold off the skinks from that position. He had no idea where he'd gotten that idea from or what made him act on it.

"The Dragons are leaving! They're leaving us!" a pirate screamed hysterically.

From just over Snodgrass's shoulder someone fired a blaster. The shooter was taking careful aim.

Crack, crack, crack! Three more skinks evaporated. It was Rhys. He really was too stupid to feel fear.

"Come back," Lowboy screamed at the Dragons. "Come back, the Essay is coming! The Essay is coming!"

"No, it isn't," Snodgrass said as he joined the small group of desperate and quivering men. "I canceled the landing. The Dragons are going after Bass. We had to get the wounded—"

With a sickening crack! Lowboy smashed his blaster's butt on the bridge of the lieutenant's nose.

Blood flew everywhere as Snodgrass collapsed to the ground, his helmet flying off his head and bouncing out of reach; now they were without any way to call for help. The skinks, momentarily disorganized by the departing Dragons' cannons and Rhys's accurate marksmanship, milled about. Screaming incoherently, Lowboy grabbed Snodgrass by the collar and started dragging him toward where the Dragons had been—and toward the skinks. "Run! Run!" he screamed, dragging Snodgrass through the mud facedown.

A stream of acid arced out and hit the pirate they called Dufus directly in the groin, splashing onto his legs and torso. He twisted about wildly, screaming hysterically as the substance instantly ate through his clothes and began dissolving his flesh. Momentarily distracted, Lowboy dropped Snodgrass.

The cold slime had revived the lieutenant somewhat. He rolled over on his back, drew his hand-blaster and pulled the trigger. The little pirate exploded in a bright flash, blood, bone fragments, and guts spraying everywhere. Snodgrass staggered to his feet, a foot of Lowboy's intestines dangling obscenely over one shoulder. He brushed the filthy innards away and waved his gun at the remaining pirates. "Back!

Back to the hollow! Now, goddamnit, do it now!" he croaked through his broken nose. Rhys was the first to turn and run for the hollow, and the others followed. Snodgrass stumbled along behind them.

They piled into the depression, gasping and choking. It was about a meter deep, filled with slimy mud and water. Nobody objected. They wallowed gratefully in the muck and struck their heads cautiously up over the edge.

"Check your weapons," Snodgrass said firmly. The whole front of his face throbbed with pain and the exertion of the run for cover. He daubed a handful of cool mud over his broken nose and the pain subsided a bit.

"Four against twenty." Rhys grinned. "I've got maybe twenty bolts left in my piece."

"Six for me," Labaya gasped.

"I'm out," Callendar said, tossing his weapon into the mud. He reached down into a boot and took out a knife. Its long steel blade glinted in the sunlight.

"I have a dozen left," Snodgrass said. "That's thirty-eight shots against twenty, twenty-five skinks.

We've got to make every shot count. We can't let them get close enough to douse us with those acid guns."

"Here they come!" Rhys shouted. He braced himself on the edge of the swale and, holding the butt of his old blaster firmly into his shoulder, began squeezing off shots. The others took careful aim and fired slowly and methodically. Callendar, crouched in the muddy bottom of the depression, took out a whetstone and began honing his knife.

The skinks twisted and dodged as they rushed forward, and only four flashed into oblivion. But when their ragged line came within range of the humans and some stopped to discharge their own weapons, their aim was bad. Apparently, charging across the open space while taking fire from the Dragons and the men in the swale had unnerved them. But some of the acid splashed into the swale. Several drops spattered the left side of Snodgrass's face, one tiny globule burning off his earlobe and another sizzling into his cheek. The pain was almost unbearable, but he reached down and smeared mud onto the wounds.

The four men crouched in their hole, breathing heavily, clutching their weapons. Rhys examined his left hand, where a drop of acid had burned all the way through—he could actually see through it. He screamed and plunged the hand into the mud and held it there. "That's better," he sighed. He held up the mud-caked hand and flexed his fingers. "Look, it still works!"

The surviving skinks dropped into a prone position and tried to drop their shots into the depression.

"Jesus, they fight like men!" Rhys cursed. He popped up and flashed a skink who had managed to crawl within a few meters of their position. "They're closing in on us!" he screamed, his voice a falsetto.

"On three we stand up and give them a volley," Snodgrass shouted. "Try for the nearest ones."

The three desperate men stood as one and squeezed off several shots. Some skinks flashed, but a stream of acid sprayed directly into Labaya's eyes. He screamed horribly and staggered backward. The others watched as the whole front of his face began to dissolve. His screams rose to a piercing high-pitched wail.

"I've seen this once too often," Callendar said, and calmly buried his knife in Labaya's heart. He reached down and picked up the dead man's pistol. "Two bolts left," he said matter-of-factly.

"You've got two shots. Rhys?" Snodgrass asked.

"Three," he answered disgustedly.

"And I've got—one." Snodgrass couldn't believe the reading on his power pack. "I've got one shot left! How'd that happen? Jesus, we've got six bolts left among the three of us."

"Shit happens, Lieutenant. When I was in the infantry—"

"You were in the infantry, Callendar?" Snodgrass said incredulously.

"Yeah. I was a sergeant squad leader. Anyway, green troops always lay down too much fire. No use crying about it now."

"Hey! They're moving back!" Rhys announced Sure enough, the nine remaining skinks were crawling rapidly. When they reached a spot about fifty meters away, they stood up.

"I could hit one from here with this hand-blaster," Callendar said.

"We can't afford to waste the shot," Rhys reminded him.

"Yeah, and they know it," Snodgrass observed. "They're just standing there. What's up?"

"Lieutenant, I think they're waiting for someone," Callendar answered.

"Who?"

Callendar shrugged. "Their officer."

Snodgrass sighed and laid his head down on the lip of the depression. "The longer they wait to finish us off, the better chance we've got that Bass'll come for us or maybe the Dragons will come back and fry them. Jesus, if I ever see that Gunny again I'll kiss him."

Callendar snorted. "I'll kiss his ass and give you twenty minutes to draw a crowd."

"You know, I can see your teeth through that hole in your cheek, Lieutenant," Rhys observed.

Gingerly, Snodgrass placed a forefinger in the hole. Sure enough, he could feel his gums through the hole.

"I wonder why it doesn't hurt," he said.

"I don't know," Rhys answered. "But I had this professor once—"

"What? You went to college?" Snodgrass exclaimed.

"Yeah. I got a master of arts in English lit," he said offhandedly.

"It was never obvious," Snodgrass said.

"If you're going to be a pirate, you don't get far running around quoting Shakespeare."

The skinks were still milling around. The sun beat down mercilessly, and Snodgrass was suddenly aware of how thirsty he'd become. But the conversation was steadying his nerves. All thought of fame and promotion had evaporated from the lieutenant's mind now. In a few moments the skinks would advance again and he would die. He reached down to remove the knife from Labaya's boot and placed it on the rim of the hollow, where he could reach it easily. He realized then that he wasn't afraid of the skinks anymore.

"Where the hell did they all come from?" Rhys asked no one in particular. "I thought the Marines greased almost the whole bunch the other night, and they're chasing the only survivors." Snodgrass could only shrug.

"Probably left over from the attacking force, and now the Marines are between them and home base,"

Callendar said. The minutes dragged by slowly. The skinks continued to mill around just within pistol range, but the men held their precious fire.

"So why did you guys become pirates?" Snodgrass asked.

"Same reason you become a navy officer: I was stupid, needed money, and love guns," Callendar said with a chuckle.

Snodgrass grinned back at him. "I become—became a navy officer because I wanted to see the universe and be famous." The other two laughed. "How about you, Rhys?"

"Me? Oh, I just sort of fell into the trade, you might say. Took a job with a school system on one of the newer worlds—doesn't matter which one—I was gonna prey on my girl students while writing my dissertation."

"Dissertation? On what topic," Snodgrass asked.

" ‘The Sunshine Motif in the Lieder of John Denver.’ Very hot topic."

"The classics!" Snodgrass cried.

"I even had some interest from a publisher. But on the way in-system our ship was taken. I got friendly with my captors and opted to stay with them when the exchange was made. Then I just drifted around several systems for a while, earning a reputation, you might say, and wound up with Scanlon.

"How about you, Lieutenant? I had you figured for a prize navy asshole, a real prima donna. You sure acted the part convincingly enough there for a while. Now you pull this Medal of Heroism shit. And you fried that bastard Lowboy." Briefly he told Snodgrass what Lowboy had planned.

"Would you have gone along with that plan?" Snodgrass asked.

Rhys shrugged. "Yeah. I am a pirate, you know."

"Well, it never would've worked. Your ship wasn't in orbit when we got here. If you'd taken the Essay, you'd only have cruised around the planet a few times before the
Fairfax
would've taken you."

"How?" Callendar asked.

"I'd have told them to," Snodgrass answered firmly. "Gunny Bass would've figured out a way to get a boarding party onto the Essay." There would be no more criticism of Gunnery Sergeant Bass from him.