Upon a Savage Shore Ch. 22

As much damage as they were doing it was taking too long and the armored giant was moving to take cover behind the heavily damaged gun turret. Spitting a curse, Tem'Me'tel took out another grenade and charged. The thing in the armor turned its projected energy weapon on her and fired just as she let fly with her grenade. The blast was rushed and poorly aimed, but Tem'Ma'tel was caught by the edge of the electric bolt. For the second time in less than five minutes she went down hard in the mud. Her vision swam, the clouds in the sky grew less clear and then everything went grey and faded to black.

***********

Whatever had happened outside the ship the alien was gone. No more gyro-jet rounds splashed into the water and Liam moved for the door. He felt as much as heard another explosion from above. Someone had used a grenade. Liam's com beeped and suddenly M'pel E'kmel was speaking in his ear.

"Sergeant, are you there?" she asked urgently.

"I'm here, Commander," Liam replied and tried turning the handle in the middle of the door again. It still didn't budge. "What's going on out there?"

"Three enemy are down and the Fauns are dealing with the fourth," she said. "Tem'Ma'tel was shot. I'm coming down now."

"Is she alive?" Liam demanded, forgetting the door in his need to know the condition of his wife.

"I don't know," M'pel E'kmel said honestly. "She was still moving after the blast. I'll see to her. Worry about getting Clot'ilda out of that ship. There is nothing you can do for Tem'Ma'tel at the moment. I'll take care of her. I swear it."

Briefly torn between his conflicting desires, Liam ground his teeth and turned his attention back to the door. He only had two grenades left and they were unlikely to open it. His rifle had already proven insufficient to the task. What did he have left? He cast about for a control panel or anything that might help him. That's when he saw a cluster of the spent gyro-jet rounds laying on the floor of the chamber. They hadn't detonated, but that didn't mean they were duds. They just hadn't had enough range to arm. Quickly he gathered them up and jammed one behind the already damaged dog on the door. What he was about to do was dangerous, but he didn't see any other option. Liam flattened himself against the bulkhead, extending the rifle so that its muzzle was right on the small warhead of the gyro-jet round. He grimaced and pulled the trigger.

Bang.

The explosion was muted due to the water, but the little warhead had bent the dog enough to dislodge it from the socket in which it normally locked home. A fierce grin spread across Liam's face as he jammed another gyro-jet round behind the next dog and repeated his procedure. One after another the little rockets exploded and tore the dogs free. He had to use two rockets on a couple of them, but the alien had been generous in his fusillade. Plenty of gyro-jet rounds lay on the floor of the chamber. Finally the last dog was blown from its socket and Liam braced his shoulder on the huge door. He shoved hard, swinging it out into the next compartment. He had not known what to expect, but there was nothing waiting on the other side. He keyed his sensors to an active scan and found the compartment empty.

Carefully Liam crossed into it, his lowlight scope picking out the details of the room. This seemed like the place the crew slept or maybe ate their meals. Maybe it was both. The room had an elliptical cross section, following the shape of the hull. Containers similar in shape to brandy snifters, but the size of small cars, lined the walls. In the center of the room was a mushroom shaped piece of furniture with multiple openings and a strange control panel in the middle. A thick ring encircled its edge. Perhaps this is what the crew held onto while they operated the strange device.

Liam pushed off the wall and swam awkwardly across the room to another round door on the far side. With a feeling of dread he saw it too had an arrangement of dogs in sockets to hold it closed. His dread eased when he tried the wheel in the center of the door and it turned. Two quick spins and the dogs pulled out of their sockets. This door swung open more easily than the first. Again he scanned the compartment, but the readings were ambiguous. There was too much the sensors could not identify, but there were no life signs. Strange shapes loomed in the dimness as he eased past the coaming.

Liam moved on to the far side of the chamber where a third door sat partly open. Feeling the acute need to find Clot'ilda he nevertheless cautioned himself. What were the odds the enemy had accidentally left this door ajar? He swam up to it and sent an active scan into the next compartment. This time the sensors registered something alive. Liam frowned and pushed the door open.

Clot'ilda! She was alive! His heart leapt into his throat at sight of his wife in a clear capsule hardly large enough to contain her. She had been stripped naked but she was alive and awake, her little hands pressed to the clear plastic of the capsule. She shouted something he could not hear and pounded her fist on the plastic, gesturing to the right of the door.

In the instant the meaning of Clot'ilda's urgent gestures registered a pair of tentacles shot through the water and wrapped around Liam's arm and tore the rifle from his grasp. Liam's other hand went to his holster and came out with an EP 12. He pushed the muzzle against the tentacle and pulled the trigger, sending three armor piercing slugs through the rubbery flesh of his enemy. That tentacle let loose only to be replaced by three more. One wrapped around his gun hand, forcing the weapon away, and the other two wrapped around his waist and chest. His suit registered an increase in pressure, but the armor held.

Liam reached for his other weapon, but more tentacles came through the doorway and dragged him into the compartment. He was slammed into a bulkhead and then flung across the room. He looked up in time to see the many tentacled thing aim a strange weapon at him. Liam didn't wait around to find out what it was. He pushed off the bulkhead towards Clot'ilda just in time. A half meter long dart powered through the water, slammed into the bulkhead and exploded, tearing a hole through the thick metal into the forward compartment. The alien reloaded the weapon as Liam sought for the release mechanism of Clot'ilda's capsule. If he could get it off the bulkhead he could get her to the external hatch and free her.

Clot'ilda hammered her fist on the plastic again and pointed urgently behind him. Liam dodged aside, not bothering to look at what was about to happen. Another dart smashed the support he had been bracing against and Clot'ilda's capsule jumped out of one of its brackets as the metal deformed. The capsule sagged, slipping out of its other bracket and then rose gently to the curved ceiling, hanging there centimeters from the metal hull.

Liam was too occupied to rejoice at this turn of fortune. The alien was already reloading and Liam's weapons were of little use at anything but point blank range in this water. He pushed off the bulkhead, intending to jam his pistol into one of the thing's eyes. Halfway to his enemy, though, tentacles shot out and wrapped around him. They pulled his arms out away from his body, forcing his pistol to point towards the ceiling. Alarms sounded in his ears as the stresses on his suit increased towards breach levels.

Struggle as he might, Liam was nowhere near strong enough to fight this creature in hand to hand. He felt increasing pressure on his torso as more tentacles wrapped around him. More warning alarms hummed in his ears. Liam fought harder, wriggling in its grasp, but could make no headway. Suddenly he realized the thing had dropped its weapon and was pulling him towards itself. Liam watched for an instant in stunned realization. The alien was dragging him into its maw! At the center of its tentacles was a large, hooked beak of black ivory or chitin. Desperately he fought, wrenching his arms back and forth. He arched his back, straining every muscle to break free. It was no use. The creature had him and he was about to be eaten feet first.

Feet first?

Liam grinned inside his faceplate. He continued to struggle, but there was a method to his movements now. The alien opened its beak and was pulling him in for the first bite when the marine levered himself towards the open mouth. His boots struck the solid material and their clamps snapped out, shattering the beak into fragments. Instantly he was thrown across the compartment as the alien shot away in horrendous pain trailing streamers of blood and a cloud of blue-black ink. Liam bounced off the bulkhead again, stunned, but he had the wherewithal to look for his enemy. Through the murk he saw it was gathering itself for a fresh attack and Liam was too disoriented to draw his remaining pistol.

Things were looking bad when an explosion sounded. The alien froze in place and seemed to look around. Liam rolled into a more upright position and glanced at the ceiling. Was the water level dropping? Another explosion sounded and suddenly Liam could hear a rushing noise. The water was definitely flowing out of the ship! The alien abandoned any pretense of another attack and shot through the open door into the adjoining compartment, sealing the door behind itself.

***********

Clot'ilda struggled inside her capsule, kicking at the sealed end. She was tiny, but the capsule was free of its restraining brackets, there was nothing but water pressure to keep it closed now. Another kick and another finally forced the lid to move. Franticly she kicked again and again, driving the lid off the end of the clear tube. Water poured in, the capsule began to sink, but Clot'ilda had anticipated that. She slid her legs out and hung onto the hoses that had supplied the air. The capsule bobbed in the water, trapping a large pocket of air around the Pah'Tht's head and shoulders. She kicked her legs and spun the capsule so that she could see what was happening.

"No!" she cried in horror at sight of her beloved mate being dragged into the alien's mouth. She had to do something! Liam was going to be killed! What to do? She was trapped without air other than the pocket in her little prison. And then she saw the enemy's discarded weapon.

Clot'ilda dropped from her capsule and swam towards the floor. She hadn't taken a deep breath before leaving the capsule and almost instantly her lungs began burning, wanting to take in the water around her, but she forced herself to swim harder. She reached the weapon and tried to lift it. She had to kill the thing before it killed Liam, but she was too small. Even with the buoyancy the water gave it, the weapon was too heavy for her to handle.

A violent current in the water made her turn and look to where the alien and her mate struggled. She saw the thing hurl Liam across the compartment into a bulkhead and the alien dart away, trailing blood and a dark cloud. Clot'ilda grinned fiercely. She hauled the muzzle of the weapon up onto a piece of machinery and then pointed it at the hull. It took both her hands to work the lever, but she let loose with a bolt. It sliced cleanly through the water and she felt the shockwave when the projectile struck the hull, blasting a hole clean through.

Her ears ringing, Clot'ilda swam up to the ceiling. Finding an air pocket she gulped in a lungful of air and dove back down, paying no heed to the monster in the corner. Another bolt slid home and locked into the gun. Again she pointed the weapon at the hull and again she shot. More water poured out of the ship and she could feel the current as it passed.

***********

M'pel E'kmel leapt into the saddle of her landstrider and slammed back her heels, startling the creature into a canter. Rover rose and followed swiftly as Sscuha and Chhal looked on confused. The commander hauled on the reins turning the beast up the lowest hill and over its top. Down the other side she thundered, the animal picking up speed as she hammered her heels into its flanks. She had to get to Tem'Ma'tel as quickly as possible. The marshland flashed by her as she steered between pools and clumps of low brush. The battle around the pool was still going, but the Fauns seemed to be handling the alien well enough. She crossed the open marsh without challenge or a shot being fired at her. The enemy must be contained. M'pel E'kmel didn't wait for her mount to come to a stop before she leapt off, landing beside her downed marine.

"Tem'Ma'tel!" she barked urgently when the younger dTel'Qohar did not react to her presence. "Don't do this to us, Tem'Ma'tel! You have to be alive!"

M'pel E'kmel tore the medical kit from her belt and opened it, running the scanner over Tem'Ma'tel's chest and head. She wasn't breathing and her heart had stopped. Instantly the commander pulled a hypo from her kit and injected an adrenaline cocktail right into Tem'Ma'tel's heart. She dropped the medical kit and placed her palm over the injection sight then slammed her fist into the back of her hand. M'pel E'kmel checked the scanner again and repeated the procedure, then began to pump on the younger jZav'Etch's chest, desperate to get her heart pumping. Finally, Tem'Ma'tel coughed. The scanner indicated her heart was beating and her breathing was shallow, but she was alive.

"Oh thank you Forger and Builder!" M'pel E'kmel cried to the heavens. "Thank you!"

She proceeded to examine Tem'Ma'tel and treat her injuries, mostly minor burns. No significant internal injuries showed in any of the scans, but the young female would certainly suffer from shock.

Behind M'pel E'kmel the Fauns were taunting the alien in the pool, shooting arrows and thrusting spears into its tentacles whenever it rose to attack them. Rover paced warily at the edge of the fight, waiting for the moment he could strike. When it came he moved like lightning, snatching a whipping tentacle as it lashed towards Stolkchiq. The big plainswalker dug his long claws into the marshy ground and hauled back with every muscle in his body. The alien struggled, using its tentacles and its weight to counter the unbelievable strength of the plainswalker.

Rover was being dragged towards the pool, leaving deep furrows in the soft ground, but he would not let go of the tentacle. Suddenly the alien surged up onto the more solid ground at the edge of the water and whipped its tentacles at Rover. The big plainswalker met them with his quills. The creature writhed in surprised pain as the long quills pierced its tentacles and trapped it in the open.

"Kill it now!" Ssteilssniq shouted and aimed his magic weapon at the slimy mass of the monster's body. He pulled the trigger and loosed sparkling blast after sparkling blast into the wet, leathery hide. Chunks of smoking flesh flew, staining the water red. The other Fauns turned their magic weapons on the thing and soon it stopped moving, deep crimson gore flooded from the many holes they'd punched in its hide and they cheered. But their cheering was cut short. A loud bang sounded from inside the huge enemy hut and water began pouring from a hole in its side. An instant later another bang sounded and more water poured out. Warrior was still inside fighting for his mate and his life.

***********

Liam felt himself being pulled upright. He looked and saw that Clot'ilda had somehow freed herself from the capsule. Using handholds on the bulkhead she was pulling him up to the surface of the rapidly dropping water. Liam opened his faceplate as soon as he was in the clear.

"Are you okay, Babydoll?" he gasped and grabbed her shoulders.

"I am okay," she said happily.

"What happened to the water?" he asked.

"I shoot ship," she said with a broad grin. "Could not lift gun. Could not shoot monster. I shoot ship."

Liam's feet touched the decking as the water continued to drain and he wrapped his arms around Clot'ilda pulling her into a hug, kissing her. He broke the kiss and with a grin he said, "Take!"

She laughed and hugged him tight, nipping his beard and nuzzling his armored shoulder.

"We have to get out of here, Babydoll," he said coming back to the moment. "We have to kill that thing and get clear of this ship."

"Okay," she said.

"Find my guns first," Liam told her.

They spent a frantic minute locating the weapons before Clot'ilda spotted one.

"Pistol," Clot'ilda said and showed him the weapon.

"Rifle," he responded and slung the qui'istle over his shoulder. "And whatever this is."

Liam picked up the big alien weapon and examined it. The butt end was a cylindrical affair with a lever instead of a trigger. It was ungainly, but he could operate it well enough. Clot'ilda grabbed a large satchel and dragged it across the floor to him. He took the strap and Clot'ilda opened the satchel, revealing several long projectiles inside. She took one and shoved it into the muzzle of the gun until it clicked, then stepped back. Liam hefted the thing up, pointing it at the door.

WHHAAAMM!!

The door buckled and water poured through a hole as big around as Liam's thigh near the central wheel. Clot'ilda reloaded the gun and Liam took more careful aim.

WHHAAAMM!!

The wheel disintegrated. Shattered metal fell to the decking and a couple of the dogs slid from their sockets. More water poured into their compartment as Liam went to the door and tore the remaining dogs clear. When the last dog was freed the door was pushed open by the water beyond. Clot'ilda fired a burst from her EP 12 through the opening on sheer instinct, but there was nothing there to shoot. Her rounds bounced around the empty compartment, tearing into control panels and ricocheting off the bulkheads. One bounced off Liam's breastplate and he looked down on his wife.

"Be careful of what you shoot," Liam told her seriously. "Some things in here don't react well to bullets. Like me."

Clot'ilda gave him a nod and then they reloaded his appropriated gun. With the satchel slung on his shoulder and Clot'ilda sloshing along behind him Liam crossed into the next compartment. This door had also been closed, but its dogs were on the other side of it. Liam couldn't just shoot the central wheel to dislodge them.

"Get behind me, Babe," he said brining the weapon up. "I don't want you getting hit by any fragments."

"Liam shoot door?" she asked, ducking back.

"Liam shoot door," he confirmed. "Shoot door a lot."

"Why?"

"Gotta get it open somehow," he said and was about to discharge the weapon.

"Use panel," Clot'ilda said, pulling on his arm.

He frowned down on her and she sloshed through the knee-deep water (Which was actually above her knees.) to a control panel on the bulkhead. Clot'ilda had to jump to slap the button, but she got it on the first try and the wheel spun, pulling the dogs from their sockets.

"How did you know about that?" he asked as more water poured in through the opening door.

"I watch when brought here," she said and turned her weapon on the opening.

Liam snorted, amused by her matter of fact attitude. She was a smart one for sure.

The dining/sleeping compartment was empty and the door to the hatch compartment beyond stood open, its bent dogs gleaming wetly in the wan light. Liam stepped through, skirting around the mushroom shaped machine in the middle. He edged up to the door, peering into the battered hatch compartment. A volley of gyro-jet rounds smashed into the door and its coaming. Liam jumped back, bringing his weapon up, loosing the explosive dart in the general direction from which the rounds had come. The dart exploded, sending a shower of sparks and fragments shrieking through the air. Clot'ild leaned around Liam's leg and fired a short burst of armor piercing rounds into the compartment for good measure as he reloaded.