Claire Takes On The Galaxy

Claire - Chapter Sixteen

Claire and Lou were ordered north to their originally designated position within a couple of kilometres of the valley’s northern cliffs. They moved on, listening to the sporadic sounds of battle – an explosion here, the bark of an assault rifle there – and the chatter over the force net. They passed Adria who, busy with a few casualties, did not look up.

“Wonder if she knows about Taylor?” asked Claire.

“With the mood she was in I ain’t going to ask,” said Lou. “Bad ‘nough fighting with the Mercs.”

Clou team exchanged words with a few other units they passed. Like all soldiers since the year dot the sniper team had little idea of the big picture, but they became aware that the Merc forces were not pushing forwards as they might have done. There had been sporadic activity, such as Clou team’s sniper battle, but no big push. The sergeant of one platoon thought the Mercs were waiting for something. They wondered what it could be.

Captain Chan was also wondering what his opponent was waiting for. Time was on the marine side. The marines had a whole base with stored supplies and ordinance behind them, while the Mercs only had whatever was in their transport ships. They had to succeed in the next few days or get back on their transports and hope to avoid the Federated navy on the long trip home. But the subject of supplies was now not so simple for the marines. More than half the defending force’s transports had been destroyed in the first encounter. The marines had nailed the bulk of the Merc pop-ups in response, but the Mercs still had surprisingly effective anti-transport missiles. Moving supplies and evacuating wounded by transporter would prove difficult.

He called Lieutenant Addington still at the base and outlined the problem.

“You guys got any solutions back there?”

Addington promptly called James and then called back. “The locals say they can use their transporters in the tunnels to get close to you without getting shot at. They can get it to that area they call Access which is in the cliffs to your rear. We can shuttle from there, under cover, with one of the cargo beasts.”

“Sounds good,” said Chan, looking at the spot on the cliffs indicated. “Make it happen.”

“One thing sir, James says Shades are known to use that area.”

“See what you can do to secure the site for the time being,” said Chan. “We don’t want to kill Shades, but we will have to keep them out of our way.”

“Yes sir.”

Captain Chan went back to studying his tac displays and wondering why his opponent had chosen to swing so far north in his approach. With the whole valley to manoeuvre in their respective flanks petered away in outposts well inside the shade of the gigantic northern cliffs. The Merc commander had the numbers, why constrict his freedom to swing around either of the marine’s flanks? While he was considering this, Lieutenant Ashington, commanding three platoon in the Two-One on the Marine far left, called to say that there was an opening in the cliffs behind her unit.

“A hole?” said Chan.

“Yes sir,” she said. “We tracked a Merc missile that went astray and hit the cliffs. Seems to have opened up a hole in the cliff big enough to fit a person, sir. There’s supposed to be tunnels in those cliffs further back. Maybe they come down this far?”

A missile that went astray? Captain Chan thought that the Merc electronics was as good as that of the marines, and if a marine missile went astray he’d want to know what the maintenance people thought they had been doing. Whatever. Tunnels behind his position should be checked out.

“Clou sniper team is in your sector. They know about the tunnels. I’ll get them to take a look.”

“A hole in the cliffs, sir?” said Lou, when the mission was explained over comms.

“Back west. Check your tac displays. There’s nothing happening to your front that we can see and I’m not pushing the snipers forward just yet.”

“Williams here sir,” said Claire. “There’s a good chance that Shades are behind that hole. They’re known to be in there somewhere.”

“Just check it out. If you find Shades or Mercs come out running, yelling on the comms – try not to shoot Shades if you can help it.”

“Have the Shades also been ordered not to kill us unless they have to,” said Lou privately to Claire as the moved to the hole.

“Maybe we’ve got them wrong and they’ll invite us to tea?”

“Yeah right, C – more likely dinner with us as the main course.”

The Merc missile, as near as they could tell when they reached the spot, had hit whatever had been covering the opening, scattering bits of stone and metal all over the landscape. The marines crouched on either side of the opening while Claire looked down it with her sniper scope.

“This ain’t no tunnel,” said Lou. “All the sides are flat and smooth – shiny.”

All the tunnels the marines had seen up to this point with their respective boyfriends had been circles and jagged holes. This shaft was shaped like a triangle but with the top cut off and the sides, as Lou had observed, covered in a glossy black material.

“And this is a doorway,” said Claire. “See the lining where it starts?”

“What do I tell command?”

“This can’t have been an accident,” said Claire. “The missile hit exactly where it was supposed to.”

“Command this is Clou team,” said Lou. “This is no hole, it’s a tunnel with smooth sides and we think there was a door here. It ain’t natural, it ain’t Merc, and the Merc hit here doesn’t seem like an accident to us.”

“Anything inside?” asked Chan.

“Pictures from my sniper scope on your screen, sir,” said Claire. “A doorway inside, 117 metres down. Some sort of handle on it.”

“Stars, you’re right,” said Chan. “Damn, this is something for archaeologists not us, but I don’t like doorways and tunnels behind my left flank. Go and open the door if you can, carefully, and see if there are any Mercs on the other side. If there’s any problem, come out fast. I’ll get a squad to guard the exit, and not to shoot you when you come out.”

“Command, Clou acknowledge,” said Lou. “The squad’ll be able to tell us. We’ll be the ones screaming.”

“Wait, Lou,” said Claire, as they were about to step inside. “Turn off all electronics. Our helmets, phones and weapon sighting systems.”

“The weapons won’t work with the electronics off, girl,” said Lou. “Whadda we going to do when we meet Mercs or Shades down there? Reason with them?”

“Um.. use our side arms. They just have laser sights we can switch off. Not as if we’re going to miss targets in there, anyway – and our grenades.” (Each marine had two grenades that could be thrown.) “Those are just explosives with an electric detonator that doesn’t do anything until you press the button.”

“Hmmm! Still don’t like the idea of not being able to spray bullets out there first and ask questions later.”

“You know about the Shades. If we go in there with systems on, we’ll be lit up like Christmas trees – really annoying trees as far as they’re concerned. We’re supposed to be the guys that sneak around remember? And we can switch back on when we want to spray bullets.”

“Command this is Clou,” said Lou. “We want to take all systems off line, go fully dark and switch to side arms and grenades. We don’t want to rile any Shades we meet.”

“You want to what?” exclaimed Chan. “This is this business about them reacting to electrical systems? At your discretion, just be careful in there.”

They slung their main weapons and switched off everything. Their phones were already switched off as required in combat. They took out their side arms, nine-millimetre pistols, but refrained from turning on the laser sights.

“I let you talk me into this,” whispered Lou as they eased inside, Claire leading “going into this hole with only sidearms, just like I let you talk me into going to sniper school.”

“I told you it’d be all guys except us, that’s why you went,” said Claire.

“The guys turned out to be annoying.”

The marines groped their way down the shaft, keeping one hand on the walls as their guide, until they reached the door, but by then it was so dark that Claire had to fumble around for the handle they knew was there.

“How are we going to see anything on the other side of whatever this is?” whispered Lou.

“Glow sticks don’t seem to bother them,” said Claire. “We can use our marking flares.” The flares were used to mark night-time drop off or pick up points for transporters, among other applications. “Found it.”

She pulled on the handle – it moved easily when she did so. She pushed. Nothing. Then it occurred to her to pull, and the door shifted, letting in warmer, mustier air, typical of the tunnels she had been in with James further west.

“Light a flare?” whispered Lou.

“Not just yet, let’s see what’s ahead.”

They eased through the door. Beyond was a chamber about the size of an apartment living room, as far as the marines could tell. They found that they did not need masks to breathe and could see a little, but could not tell where the light was coming from. Maybe the ceiling is glowing, thought Claire. The far exit, which did not have a door, gave way to a wide, smooth expanse of the same shiny material that lined the entrance tunnel but with a slight curve to it, like that of asphalt on a highway back on Earth.

“Getting weirder,” said Lou.

Claire lit one of her marking flares and threw it well out into this new chamber. It bore more than a passing resemblance to a highway tunnel – a road in a semi-circle carved through rock.

“It’s even got drains,” said Claire, pointing at the metalled ditch, a gutter, on their side of the road.

“In case it rains in here?” said Lou.

Claire shrugged.

“Not much to see. Let’s just take a look on the other side and then to the left maybe, while the flare’s still burning, and then get out of here.”

“Getting out, sounds good,” said Lou.

The crossed what could be called the roadway, and found another gap in the wall which led to another chamber. Claire peeked in but, without her helmet powered up, could see nothing in the blackness, and was reluctant to waste a flare.

“Shades around?” whispered Lou.

“The one time I encountered one I could hear it in the darkness. A sort-of sigh. Maddie said she could also hear them. No sighing, no Shades, I guess.”

“Well that’s something.”

“This place is a big empty, nothing, like the tunnels West. Let’s throw flares each way.”

The flares rolled back the blackness to the extent of showing that the tunnel extended some distance on either side. They moved back to the same side as their entrance point and walked on to the left for a couple of minutes, passing more gaps in the wall that led, no doubt, to other chambers.

“Okay, we’ve seen enough,” said Claire. “Let’s bug out and report.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They had turned to go when Claire heard the tell-tale low, sigh, and gripped Lou’s arm. She could just see her friend in the light of the still burning flares.

“Shades,” she whispered. “Let’s pick it up.”

They knew about where the exit should be due to the first flare which was now burning low. It was not far. Then they heard a human voice echoing in the chamber far ahead of them.

“Unknown flares, sir, burning down,” the voice said.

“Mercs,” whispered Lou. “Now our day is complete.”

Another voice spoke. It was more indistinct, but Claire thought she heard the word “scanning”. The sighing behind them increased sharply. She realised that they were right by one of the gaps in the wall and pulled Lou into it.

“We’ll hide out for a minute,” she said.

“Good idea, C.”

A party of Shades, maybe twenty strong, pattered by, sighing.

“So those are Shades,” whispered Lou. “They ain’t paying attention to us, but weren’t there supposed to be just a few of them?”

“No one knows how many there are,” whispered Claire. “We didn’t even know this place existed until just now.”

The two marines looked out of their nook to see the party of Shades dash across the roadway and vanish into the wall on the opposite side, about where Claire had found another chamber. More sighing to their left. Much more. The Mercs came into sight well to the marine’s right, on the edge of the dim glow cast by the now spluttering flare that Clou team had thrown down tunnel. A huge, bearded man who could have been the senior non-com, picked up the flare. He flipped open his helmet and glanced at the end of it, as it spluttered. His booming voice echoed around the tunnel.

“Marine standard issue. They’ve been here, sir.”

The man beside the non-com said something as an armoured Ogre walked by, then another. Behind them was a missile beast; then more Mercs.

“It’s a whole platoon,” said Lou. “They’re going to come out of that tunnel and flank us. We gotta warn our guys.”

“How do we get a signal out?” said Claire. “We’re under a lot of rock here, and now we can’t get to the exit point without a shoot-out – which we’d lose.” Claire was about to observe, reluctantly, that the pair of them could do a lot of damage to the Merc unit before they were blasted out of existence, when events out on the roadway speeded up.

“Big signal, sir,” said a female voice.

Claire was aware that the sighing from her left had become almost deafening.

“Shades!” said the non-com.

“Big signal, rear,” said another voice.

“Perimeter, guys, everyone in infrared,” said the man beside the non-com, raising his voice. Claire surmised he was the officer. “Across the tunnel facing both way, keep it tight. Ogre A face forward, Ogre B face back. Anyone found our exit point?”

“Here sir,” said another voice. “It’s clear.”

“Then we retreat on that, if needs be,” said the officer. “The Shades aren’t our problem, but we’ll take this attack.”

“Nice formation,” said Lou. The Mercs had their combat suit lights on, so the marines could see their dispositions. There was no cover in the tunnel but they were all lying flat or behind Beasts and Ogres, all well spread out. “How can we mess it up?”

“Enemy of our enemies?”

“Yeah, give the Shades a chance.”

“A grenade will spoil the party nicely,” said Claire.

“Missile from my launcher?”

“You’d have to switch it on then switch it off real quick. We have our throwing grenades. I’ll use one.”

“Fire on my command,” shouted the officer out on the roadway. “We want ’em up real close.”

Back in Devil’s Pit, Maddie was horrified to find that she was consigned to the same area of an underground emergency bunker used by the townsfolk as her nemesis, Useless Graham.

“What are you doing here?” asked Graham belligerently, when Maddie walked in.

The boy had lank, brown hair, a spotty face and a general demeanour which suggested that everyone else was not worth listening to.

“They’ve sent me here like you while the battle’s going on in the valley.”

“What battle?” he said.

“Our marines versus Merc invaders. We’re in the emergency bunker in case of stray missiles.”

Graham looked around. “Is that why my olds dragged me here.”

“Yep.”

“A battle? Who are the Mercs?”

Before Maddie could answer, Jenny Alder, Graham’s mum, looked in. She was a pleasant-looking woman, flustered by events. “Graham, what happened to the emergency ration boxes?”

“Why would I know about ration boxes?” he said, apparently affronted by the question.

“You were with the Synth when he brought them in. I thought you might have seen where he put them.”

“I dunno anything about boxes.”

“Excuse me Jenny,” said Maddie, “aren’t those the boxes in the corner?”

Jenny pushed the door open further and looked around. “That’s them, thank you, Maddie. I hope Claire will be okay.”

“I really, really hope she will be.”

“How did you know about those boxes?” grumbled Graham after his mum left.

“They were boxes and had “emergency” in big letters on the side.”

“Is Claire that honey marine?”

Maddie rolled her eyes.

“They’ll see you when you throw,” said Lou.

“They may not, if I’m quick,” said Claire. “Here goes.”

The throwing grenades were about half the size and weight of those thrown in World War II but much nastier to anyone on the receiving end. Claire was right handed but, unless she wanted to step out into the tunnel, and be cut down by the Mercs, she would have to throw left handed. In the end, as the tunnel ceiling was low, and in defiance of regulations, she threw under arm. Intent on the Shades gathering on either side of them, the Mercs did not see the projectile until it landed in front of one of them.

Lou and Claire heard a panicked shout of “grenade” and then a shattering whump! that shook them in their hiding place. Seizing the opportunity the Shades attacked, their sighing rising to a collective, unnerving shriek. They rushed past the sniper team’s hideout, arms up and mouths open, screaming. The firing started, a continuous ripping sound, muzzle lights flaring. Claire realised she could see dimly inside the alcove they were in glanced over her shoulder. With a shock she realised that there was a table with what looked very much like a vase on top of it. Above that was a plaque with strange writing on it. To the right of the table was a corridor. A Merc scream yanked Claire’s attention back to the battle.

Despite Clou team’s intervention, the Mercs had plenty of firepower and should have held the Shades, except for the first group that had passed the Clou team. That group had hidden in the alcove Claire had seen on the other side of the roadway, which was within rushing distance of the far side of the Merc perimeter. They rushed, and the Mercs preoccupied by the Shade host at their front, did not react in time. Mercs were tossed like rag dolls. The line crumpled.

“All back to me!” yelled the officer. “Keep the line.”

Another Merc screamed. The firing spluttered, as Mercs falling back blocked the fire lines of comrades. The Shades were immensely strong, Clare realised. Their fists smashed Merc combat helmets, their hands tore at fittings even on the side of Ogres. As the marines watched, a group of Shades picked up one of the two Ogres and threw it so that it landed head down, still shooting. They smashed human Mercs to the roadway and pummelled them into a shapeless mess. The second Ogre, as if outraged at the treatment to its fellow, started scouring the tunnel with its mini-gun.

“Get down!” screamed the officer.

One Merc was too slow and was flung on his back. The officer and non-com, safely out of the kill zone, added to the noise with automatic fire. One bullet ricocheted into the Clou alcove making the marine’s duck but then hit something, Claire suspected the table, which absorbed its force.

“Cease fire!” said the officer above the din, then “I said cease fire, dammit.”

Silence. The marines looked out into the bright glow of the Mercs lights. The survivors of the platoon, plus an Ogre and an artillery Beast were pressed up against the wall at the access point the Clou team had used. The Shades had inflicted casualties but at terrible cost to themselves. The Shade survivors were now crouched down behind a pile of bodies of their own kind, still sighing, just metres from the Mercs. Claire wondered at the Shades knowing enough to take cover. As the marines watched, the upended Ogre unit righted itself slowly and moved towards the Mercs, its pillbox head at an odd angle. The Merc officer was cursing.

“s**t! s**t! s**t! s**t! Eight of our people gone, a chunk of our ammo, and one of the Ogres damaged.”

Someone asked a question Claire did not catch.

“There weren’t supposed to be this many,” the officer replied. “I was told to expect a hundred at most” (this was the off-the-cuff estimate James had given to Fake-Horne) “and they wouldn’t be organised. That grenade didn’t help, but the main problem was a group that came out of the far wall.

“Did anyone see where the grenade came from?” Claire thought that was the noncom speaking.

“Oh oh!” said Lou.

“Marines down here, no doubt. We’ll leave them to the Shades,” snapped the officer. “Everyone into the exit point. We’ll have to jump the Marine flank as is.”

“We’ve got to get some message out,” said Lou.

Claire thought for a moment. “Our Merc friends are busy retreating, and the Shades are occupied with them, but we’re not going to be able to get out that way for while. We’ll sneak out to our left. The other way. This place must connect up with Little Central – can’t be too far – and we can get a message out. Bound to be too late for whatever trouble the Mercs are going to cause, but best we can do.”

“What happens if we meet more Shades?” said Lou. “Now I’ve seen ’em in action, I don’t wanna get to know ’em better.”

“We’ll do the brave thing and hide,” said Claire.

The two crept out of their hiding place, on all fours, just metres from the rear of the Shades, hunched, waiting to attack again. With the Mercs lit up, the two marines were in deep shade, as well as behind a host of the aliens. They would not be detected. A short distance on, Claire stopped and grabbed Lou.

“Grenades,” she whispered in the spotter’s ear. “Throw the last. Big noise, might be heard out in the valley. Throw real quick and now.”

They stood up, threw the three remaining grenades and then dropped back to the roadway, before the first had hit. The explosions, magnified in the tunnel, shook the ground they hugged. An Ogre unit, left at the exit point, sprayed bullets around the tunnel and fired rockets in both directions. The marines clamped hands to their ears and tried to merge with the ground. The rocket aimed at their end hit the roadway close enough to spray the marines with hot gases and bits of metals. Beside her, Claire heard Lou yelp and double up, clutching her leg.

Shielded from the grenade blasts by walls of the comrades’ bodies, this new human devilry enraged the Shades. The rose and charged the Ogre guarding the exit. They picked it up, still spitting bullets, and flung the armoured humanoid through the entrance. While that was going on, Claire picked up Lou in a fireman’s lift and dashed across the roadway. With a better idea of the spacing of the alcoves, Claire found another chamber went a few paces into it then put Lou down. Her friend was groaning.

“Oh no,” Claire was thinking. “Oh no, no, no, no.. Not Lou..” She struck a marker flare, ripped open her first aid kit, grabbed scissors and cut open the pants leg.

“How bad is it C?”

“You’ll live,” said Claire. Like all marines she had been given basic, first aid training. “Piece of metal sliced open your calf muscle. You’ll have an interesting scar to show Brew. Hold on.” The medical kit was state of the art. Claire applied wound healing lotion, then injected broad spectrum anti-biotics and local anaesthetic from disposable ampules, then put on a bandage that wrapped around the leg, adjusting to the wound. It would hold until Lou got to medic, but she would not be very mobile.

“You know what, you should leave me here,” said Lou. “You’ve got to get out and get word to command.”

“What? No! If I leave you here I dunno if I’ll be able to find you again.”

“I’ll slow you down.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you and that’s flat.”

“It hurts like hell,” moaned Lou, “even with the good juice”.

“We both go now, while the others are still busy.” The Shades and Mercs were still fighting each other, down tunnel.

“I’m no good to you like this, C.”

Claire stooped and picked up her friend, putting one of Lou’s arms around her neck. Lou condescended to support her weight on her good leg.

“If you come with me now, I’ll tell you about my wedding day.”

“What?” said Lou. “I’ve been trying to get you to tell me about that since the transport to basic, and now you’re going to tell me?”

“You want to hear the story or not?”

Lou sighed. “Lead the way.”

“My fiancé, Brad, was a really charming guy.”

“It has to start with a charming guy,” said Lou.

They slipped out the alcove, and went West, the sounds of battle behind them.