UNIVERSAL TURBULENT

XXXVI - PLANET ELGIRON

The bodies, some of which were forty eight hours old, were piled like offerings before a pagan alter. There were at least fifty of them. Blood had seeped down onto the floor. Coaster's best friend, Jane Hopskins, lay on her back. Insects crawled in and out of her mouth.

A servo whined. The tech looked up, and there was Davide. The quad looked like what he was - a monster.

Some poor slob had spent hours on the huge, glaring eyes, the wide, grinning mouth, and the rows of razor-sharp teeth.

Coaster turned and tried to run. The troopers caught the tech and brought her back. Urine soaked her pants.

The voice had a hard, metallic quality, like the synthesizer that produced it. "Nice job, Coaster. There we were, all ready to suck Kairo in, when you spooked him".

The discovery that Davide knew what had transpired down in the Ops Center would have surprised the technician, except for the fact that she knew he had access to the fort's command and control systems.

"So", the squad continued calmly, "what should we do with a piece of crap such as yourself? A little extra duty? No, I have it! How about we rip your stinking guts out and hang them around your neck? Yeah, that sounds pretty good, now, doesn't it?"

Coaster looked at her dead friend's face and licked her lips. The internal voice pushed through her fear. "Do something! He's going to kill you!"

Coaster pretended to faint, felt one set of hands drop away, and straightened up again. Her back-kick made contact, the second trooper swore, and the tech ran like hell. Not away, as her captors might have expected, but ahead towards the pile of bodies. They made for uncertain footing as Coaster high-stepped her way up and over them. Her plan was simple: Get inside Davide's defenses, where she would be momentarily safe.

The better part of two seconds went by while Davide absorbed what had occurred and considered his options. Most of his weapons were designed for long range use. That left the quad with the Gatling g*n, some small caliber machine guns, and six grenade launchers.

The cyborg deactivated the safeties and heard the bio bods yell warnings as servos whined and the Gatling g*n emerged from storage.

Legionnaires dove every which way as the weapon opened fire. Gouts of flesh, blood, and bone erupted all around as the technician made it to the top of the pile, tripped over an out-thrust leg, and tumbled down the other side.

The bodies pummeled the technician as she fell. A fist struck Coaster's face, a boot kicked her thigh, and an elbow stabbed her gut. Bullets followed. They plowed a trench through the corpses and stalled as the Gatling g*n hit a mechanical stop.

Knowing that all sorts of things can and do happen during the heat of battle, the design engineers had taken steps to ensure that the Legion's quads would be unable to fire on themselves.

Davide had forgotten that, and was still in the process of reabsorbing the knowledge when Coaster hit the duracrete, rolled to her feet, and checked the cyborg's ramp. It was fully deployed. She put her head down and ran.

The cyborg swore, ordered the ramp to close, and knew he was late.

Metal bounced as Coaster pounded her way up toward the cargo bay. She felt the platform start to rise, threw herself forward, and made it inside.

The engineers had considered every form of possibility. What if the cyborg was injured or killed? No problem; a control panel, complete with a lockout button, would allow passengers to access critical subsystems and command the ramp.

Coaster flipped the protective safety up and out of the way, waited for the hatch to close, and stabbed the button. Bolts snicked into place. The door was locked, and the mutineers would need a laser torch to cut it open.

Davide felt the partial loss of control, screamed incoherently, and sprayed the entire maintenance facility with 30mm cannon shells. Three Trooper IIIs, one Trooper II, and nine bio bods were killed. A half million credits worth of support gear was destroyed.

It took Coaster the better part of ten minutes to stop shaking, realize that she wasn't going to die, and remove her urine-soaked pants.

Once they were off, and tossed into a corner, it was time to "think, organize and act". That was what they had taught her in basic, and, difficult though it might be, that was what Coaster planned to do.

* * *

Because of the planet's rapid rotation, the equatorial region had bulged outward and formed a spectacular mountain range. Many of the peaks were more than eighty thousand feet tall but, because of the gravity differential between the poles and the equator, weighed only half what they would have weighed on Earth. As another two hour and forty minute day came to an end, their snow-covered peaks faded from pink to purple.

The area occupied by Kairo and his troops grew quickly dark. Helmet lights bobbed this way and that as the legionnaires fortified their hilly positions.

The quadrant had been bombed by the Midvalians more than four decades before, and used for countless exercises since.

That being the case, the entire area was riddled with half-collapsed tunnels, urine-soaked bunkers, and heavily eroded slit trenches. A dangerous place, especially at night. So much so that the medics had already started to treat a variety of cuts, abrasions, and sprains.

Noncoms, worried lest someone die in a cave-in, made their rounds. One swore as she fell into an old bomb crater. Her troops laughed and soon wished they hadn't.

The command post (CP) had been established in what had served as a domicile many years before. The sleeping shelves, fire pit, and odor of incense were typical of most Naa homes.

Not that Kairo cared who had lived there, so long as the enclosure could take some punishment and protect his staff from flying shrapnel.

The general nodded to one of his bodyguards, said hello to the battalion runner, and entered the CP. A fire glowed in the ancient pit. Kairo felt the warmth against the palms of his hands, accepted a piping hot cup of tea, and thanked the trooper who served it. The liquid had a soothing effect and helped the officer think.