The Shortest Straw

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Phineas
Phineas
742 Followers

I was dismissed then, so I headed back towards where the shipside barracks we were quartered in. My mind kept flashing back to Jethallin and how she slipped in and out of danger. She was as ferocious a warrior as any I had ever seen, myself and my marines included. I never got another chance to talk to her, but I did see her again on my way to the transport that brought me back up to the Columbus. She was standing on a rock a ways off, staring at our transport and, I would like to think, me as well. Damn that girl had done a number on me.

A few more of her people, the Pudarin, had arrived before we shipped out. I had to admit, they were all surprisingly admirable. I have no idea why, but for some reason I felt drawn to them. She occupied my thoughts more then the rest, of course, but I attribute that to her being the first one of them I saw. Maybe it was those damned impossibly blue eyes of hers. Could have been the pointy ears she had too. They already had started calling her and the other Pudarin elves.

Sometimes I swear if I was not fighting for the human race, I would like nothing more then to kill some of the ignorant sons of bitches. It is actually a shame we had to find an inhabited planet. Humanity had left racism and petty differences behind. The archaic practice of religion had been all but abolished since the early 21st century, and once that was gone people began to realize they really did not have any decent reasons to hate each other anymore. At least not in a stereotypical sort of way. Now here we were already applying slang racial terms to one of the first new races we had encountered.

Commander Tomlonovich had said something interesting to me. I guess she had sensed my irritation because she had felt the need to remind me in the debriefing that Earth was gone. All the core worlds were gone, actually. Our (former) sun, the closest star to Alpha Centauri, was now a supernova.

We (the human race) knew that was going to happen over 50 years ago when the scientists figured it out. Left us with about 40 years to develop a lot of technology, since traveling beyond our own solar system had not yet been accomplished by any manned ships. The explorer class E.S.S. Columbus was the result, along with a handful of other lesser ships. 5 Colony ships holding a thousand people a piece, plus hydroponic gardens were all that was left of the Earth's civilian population and natural resources (animal and vegetable, at least). 4 vindicator class vessels (new name for a good old navy destroyer), 8 expansion class ships (cruisers / frigates), and close to 20 tankers carrying spare equipment, ammunition, fuel, food, and other expendables. Not all the tankers had arrived in system yet, since they had less powerful engines. Of course we had lost a few ships during the space battles too.

For some odd reason all these logistical thoughts went through my mind while I was on the shuttle heading back down to the planet. Our fighter screen dealt with the Acathian ships that flew after us, buying us enough cover to get under the protective cover of our basecamp's anti-aircraft guns. I watched a 3d display showing the air battle around us and was alarmed to discover that I was actually pleased to see that lots of damage was done to both sides, but nobody was killed. I think I need to get my head examined.

After checking in with my platoon I decided that it was sack-time. We were off duty at present, with 2nd platoon covering base defense. The privilege of being an officer means I do not have to sleep with the grunts… normally. Considering our hasty preparations and still unfinished camp, space was at a premium.

I entered the hastily erected pavilion tent with the shirt of my uniform already halfway off. Pulling it over my head I located an empty ready-bed and headed for it. The ready-beds were one of the only nice invention ever made for us poor grunts. They were made out of some kind of industrial strength plastic that was inflated or deflated rapidly via a small motor that ran off of the same battery packs we used for our weapons. Kind of handy. When compressed they folded up into a nice little plastic ball the size of a softball. Very handy.

Other marines were in the pavilion, most sleeping and others just trying to relax. It was fairly dark, a welcome relief from the way-to-bright sun outside. Someone had cobbled together a makeshift fan, blowing the hot air into the tent from the entrance. Sadly, it beat the dead air we would have otherwise had to put up with.

I tossed my Kevlar threaded shirt onto the floor next to the bed I had chosen and worked on removing the flat black armored vest I had on underneath. The armor only protected my vitals and was not terribly effective considering we were in the age where a bullet can move so fast it ionizes the air it passes through and leaves you dead before you realize you have even been shot at. Still, it had come in handy in the past keeping shrapnel and other dangerous objects that were not instantly lethal away from my innards when the body armor we wore did not. It worked a lot better then the cheap Kevlar and ballistic nylon threaded uniforms we were issued, that's for sure!

I started to ditch my pants too when I stopped and realized that we were very much in a combat zone still. No sense in literally getting caught with my pants down. I scowled unhappily and wished I had thought to use the 'fresher up on the ship. I was used to my own stink, but if I was anything like the aroma of all the other marines in the relatively closed air space, then I was no daisy.

With nothing left to do and my eyelids burning from too many reports and too little sleep, I gave in and collapsed on the ready-bed. My last thought was of removing my boots. Nah, too much work.

*****

Then I was up. The unmistakable sound of combat had roused us all. The low roar of GAR turrets spitting out thousands of rounds nonstop at supersonic speeds, the crackle of discharging enemy particle beams, and even the barely felt hum of Soundblasters going off that causes the hair to rise on your skin and makes you clench your teeth. Smoke was filling the air as well, burning my sinuses and making me cough, but I was not sure what it was. Then I realized – it was our tent!

All of this was in and out of my combat trained head faster then I realized it.

Superior genetics; what can I say? I found myself on the floor of the tent next to my bed, I had instinctively rolled out and gotten low for cover. Good girl. I grabbed my vest and slipped into it quickly, not bothering with any of the latches, if the elastic fabric would not hold it on, then I guess I was just screwed.

"Ell-Tee!"

I heard Gunnery Sergeant King call for me from over near the door. It was getting bad in there, the smoke was thick enough I could barely see more then a few feet. Flickering light made me realize that the source of the fire, or at least one of them, was between me and the door. That will teach me to pick a bed in the back.

"Gunny, I'm going out the back way!" I called out to him. I never waited to hear his response, I had more important things on my mind. Staying as low as possible, I tried to breathe shallowly through my mouth while moving towards the back of the tent. At the back wall of the tent I pulled a small stiletto knife with a 5 centimeter blade out of my boot. The blade was small and mostly useless for any sort of self defense, but it shone in moments like that one. I slipped it through the wall of the tent, it's mono- molecular edge making short work of the armored threading in the fabric. I had to resist the urge to retch from the smoke as I finished cutting a slit in the tent. Some fresh odors had assailed me, including that most distinctly unpleasant smell of burnt flesh. I hoped it was not mine.

Outside of the makeshift barracks I stumbled for cover behind the nearest rock, hacking out what seemed to me to be important parts of my respiratory system along the way. So much for flame retardant materials. Alternately panting for fresh air and coughing out bad air, I noticed the black smoke rolling out from the tent I had recently occupied. Flames licked at parts of the roof of it as well from within. Then a particle beam sliced into it, whether on purpose or not I do not know, but that only added to the fire.

Above us our fighters appeared to be giving as good as they got. I urged them on inside, after all, those bastards had tried to kill me in my sleep. A few hours ago I was hoping for peace, now I wanted to strangle every last Acathian I could. I am a woman, I can do that.

I spat out some coughed up phlegm and tried not to notice what color it was. Everything came in at a rush then, and I felt my repetitively trained instincts calling me. I sprinted out from behind the rock and made my way towards the front of the tent. What I saw there took any possible feelings of compassion I had for the acathians. A group of them had somehow managed to get into our base on a hovercraft that had crashed into a stone hut the Faradwim used. The three that survived the crash were sniping any of my marines that tried to escape the burning tent via the front entrance. Coming out the back of it was the only escape, and odds are I was the only one able to do so.

The three acathians seemed preoccupied. One kept the tent covered, firing at it occasionally even if he saw no one. The other two kept a watch towards where the rest of the men were trying to come to the rescue from near some hastily erected tents to the south. Some of those were on fire too. That left me on my own to the northwest of the acathians that I wanted so very badly to meet. Me and my pocketknife. Sneaking up on the acathians was not a difficult task. They were preoccupied, as I said, and even had they not been the windows out of the stone hut did not allow for much visibility. Conversely, those same windows provided good cover to the acathians, and the stone was dense enough and thick enough that our GAR's did not seem to be able to punch through them.

So there I was, crouched low and hiding under one of the windows waiting for a chance to do something. My chance came when one of the attackers stuck his gun out the window and prepared to fire another shot at the tent. I grabbed the barrel and yanked on it. Hard.

Being a marine I have had a good chance to familiarize myself with the enemies weapons. The hand held ones, at least. Their most common weapon was something our techs called a particle rifle, because simply put, it fired a charged particle beam. What that meant, so they told me, was that it was a burst of super-accelerated neutral particles. Or simply put a beam of hydrogen traveling at nearly the speed of light. To anyone who has seen a particle rifle that was fully powered up close, they would note the strangely glowing fog contained within the coils that made up the barrel. A flash of light indicated that a low power laser had just fired through the plasma (the glowing fog), setting up acceleration waves within it. Of course, if you saw this flash and had it directly pointed at you, the next thing you would see would be nothing. After all, the particles are released so quickly after the laser is fired that it defies the ability for humans to even note that there is a delay of roughly 250 picoseconds.

Did I mention that plasma is incredibly warm? Naturally, in order to combat the heat of the plasma, and to keep the magnetic containment rings from overheating from the high levels of power they have to put out themselves, they must be cooled. Keeping things simple, the acathian particle rifle uses liquid hydrogen to cool the magnetic rings. Those rings are what I grabbed. The rings are held in place by means of some slender metal rods on the outside of them. Those rods, in addition to keeping the rings stationary, also serve as tubes for the liquid hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen… that's –253 degrees Celsius at 1 standard atmospheric pressure. 20 degrees above absolute zero. Luckily for me they are insulated pretty well, the pressure within the rods is much higher then standard, and the heat from the plasma cloud is intense enough to further overpower it.

The end result was fingers that felt like I had exposed them to the vacuum of space for a few seconds. So cold that I did not even realize it was cold at first, they just went sort of numb on me. As I yanked it out of the acathian's hands, the chill caught up with me. He was pulled forward himself in surprise, and found that his upper body and head was sticking out the window.

I swung that rifle with everything I had, and I do not mind admitting, that is quite a bit. The stock of the rifle was covered in black solar panels that reflected almost no light back whatsoever so good was the Acathian solar cell technology. They cracked and shattered when they connected with the acathian's jaw, proof that with a big enough hammer you can break almost any tech. He went sailing back into the stone hut, unconscious before he hit the floor. I would like to think I even managed to lift him off the ground with that homerun swing, but that is probably just my imagination. I reversed the rifle in my hand and stabbed my left thumb onto the firing button on it. A half-hearted particle beam spat out, stabbing into one of the other two acathians that were only just now turning around to see what had happened to their buddy. Have I mentioned now nasty particle beams are? Even wimpy little ones that have not had enough time to charge all the way up for a full blast? The accelerated hydrogen particles are going so fast that they generally punch into, and sometimes through, their target. Along the way they interact with the atoms in the atmosphere, slowing the particle beam and releasing various types of radiation that tends to wrap the beam itself in a cocoon of hurt. Then when it passes through its target (or whatever it hits), it releases all that kinetic energy, causing soft enough targets to just explode from the heat and power of it all.

Well, at a range of about 2 meters even a particle beam fired at less then half power can really do some damage. My targets mouth opened in a silent scream of agony as his stomach and chest were flash boiled from inside. Dimly I heard some muffled popping as some of his organs exploded inside of him. The only visible damage from where I was standing was a small burn hole in the strange shirt that he wore and some blistered up flesh on his chest where the beam had hit him. Needless to say, his invitation to the barbecue had been revoked.

The other acathian saw his friend drop and tried to fire his particle rifle at me. He had just fired it though, and it had not cooled enough to allow him to fire it again without disabling the safety mechanism built into it. He threw it at me and charged. I batted his rifle away with my own but then dropped mine too, for mine was as useless as his, having just discharged. Normally they took roughly 3 to 5 seconds to cool, then another 2 or 3 seconds to recharge for another firing. He did get the drop on me though, crashing into my stomach with his shoulder and wrapping his powerful arms around my back.

The increased gravity on Acathia had made the natives quite strong in comparison to us puny humans. Fortunately for me, I was not quite human. Still, I was impressed when he lifted me off the ground and set to squeezing me for all he was worth. Acathian and human biology was quite similar. Similar organ layouts and purposes, similar nervous system, and a similar skeletal structure. This clown was clearly trying to break my back. If I had not done something about it soon, he would have done it too! I arched my back away from him, causing me more discomfort, but letting me reach my boot. The same boot that had my trusty little dagger stashed in it. I pulled it out and slammed it into him, aiming for his throat. At some point something strange happened, and I am really not sure what it was. All I can be certain of was we were suddenly on the ground and that my knife found a home, sinking in as deeply as possible into his right shoulder. He growled at me and spat something out in his language. I suspect what he said was non-complimentary and had to do with my sexual orientation and or relationship with animals. Clearly not something a lady should have to put up with.

Damn shame I was not much of a lady.

He squeezed even harder though, making me lose my grip on the handle of my knife. My vision began to get a little blurry as I struggled to get some fresh air into my nearly collapsed lungs. My ribs screamed at me from the crushing they were taking as well. On the plus side, my spine seemed to be holding up well, thanks to that armored vest I had.

I was certain that I was hallucinating then. Colored spots in my field of vision, black spots crowding the edges of it. I had little left in me when I thought I saw a momentary glint of light come out of him. He dropped me then, and continued to fall forward onto me. His head fell free of his body, landing on my stomach before rolling off while the rest of his body lay collapsed on my legs.

I gasped for breath, feeling the pain of tortured ribs with each breath but unable to stop myself. I crab walked out from under him as best I could, wondering how in the world he had managed to lose his head. I knew he was upset with me, but I did not think he was that upset!

Jethallin stood there, staring down at me like a guardian angel. I could have kissed her if I had been able to move better. Instead I just gave her a weak smile and fell backwards onto the ground. I wanted to lay there for a few days, but it was less then three breaths later I realized that my men were still trapped in that burning tent. I managed to stumble to my feet a bit unsteadily and move to the door of the hut. Already other marines were converging on the tent. They had rushed forward as soon as they saw me make my move on the first acathian. Chemical fire retardants were sprayed and thrown on the tent while some fully armored marines charged in, looking for survivors.

I ran over there, my hurts forgotten in the fresh adrenaline rush. I plunged into the black and smoky interior of the tent, spotting several of my men collapsed on the ground. I grabbed the legs of the closest one to me and dragged him back out into the open. Heedless of my own safety, I went back in and did it again and again, perhaps five times before all of my platoon that could be evacuated had been evacuated. At some point during my suicidal rescue mission a piece of burning tent had fallen on my back. It took me a second to realize it, and I was at a point where it was more important for me to pull Gunny out of the doorway to the tent then it was to save myself from a little burn. I found out later that the fire retardant materials they use in those tents are pretty good at what they do. When they do burn though, it takes such a high temperature that they burn hot. It melted almost completely through the armor plate on the back of my vest, and gave me some very impressive burns on my right arm and side to think about for a while to come.

The good news is most of the marines made it. That is, most of the ones we were able to get out, which was about 12 of them. As they came around and seemed good enough to hold a gun, I sent them up to help 2nd platoon bolster the defense against the acathian force that was bound and determined to break us.

"Lieutenant Snow!" a corporal called out after he ran over to our makeshift infirmary on the ground.

"Here, what is it corporal?" I asked, standing up and turning around to face him. The look on his face told me that as bad as I felt, I probably looked worse.

"We're pulling out of here, Ell-Tee. Get your men together and get them loaded into a transport," he said.

Phineas
Phineas
742 Followers