PREDATORY
PRACTICES
A Tech Infantry Novella
by
Edward Stasheff & Marcus Johnston
Copyright © 2011
Chapter 19: Predatory Practices
Heth bought himself some time to think by changing the subject. "How many of the Cronos Resistance are left?"
"Less than a hundred, I'm afraid." O'Reilly shook his head sadly. "My fault. I should have led them better."
"You?" Heth asked, whiskers twitching. "I thought Governor Smythe was leading the Resistance…?"
"Technically." O'Reilly shrugged. "But Edwina's a politician with no military experience. She's more of a figurehead. My wife Leisa and I are calling the shots." He chuckled. "I guess you could say we've got some experience operating resistance networks against religious fanatics with guns…"
"I see," Heth said, although he didn't.
As Brother Bob and Xinjao O'Reilly led Heth and his hunters out of the mountain tunnels and into the Cialt Abbey complex, Heth heard the explosions, shouted orders, agonized screams of battle, and smelled the stink of smoke and blood. Cronos resistance irregulars and monks with plasma rifles ran every which way, shouting orders and smoking joints. More that once, a monk saw the K'Nes hunters and froze, then pulled the foul-smelling hand-rolled cigarettes from their lips and stared at it, wondering if they should believe their eyes.
O'Reilly led them through the main chapel—which had been hastily converted to an overflow infirmary. In the rounded sanctuary at the far end, however, Heth noticed several Cialt Brothers standing in a circle around the altar, passing a burning pipe around and slowly chanting in a strange musical language Heth had never heard before. Given that they must be either mages or werecreatures, it struck Heth as a poor allocation of valuable resources.
"They're praying—in the middle of a battle?" Heth asked, incredulous.
"We call it prayer. The Tech Infantry would call it ceremonial magick," Brother Bob explained. "Either way, our Space and Spirit Mages are all that's keeping the Imps from jumping into the Abbey with transit portals, or side-stepping in through the Umbra."
"The what?"
"The spirit realm," Bob clarified. "Uh… or dimension, I'm not really sure, I'm not a Spirit mage. But trust me, they're far more useful in here, singing and smoking and praising Hosanna 'in the Highest'—if you know what I mean—than manning the walls." He shrugged. "Look, the Brotherhood built this Abbey to withstand a Bug attack. We know what they're doing."
O'Reilly led them into the main room of something called a "Chapter House." A large rectangular table dominated the room, with an ornate carved chair—presumably for the Abbot—at the head of the table. And in it sat Cronos Governor Edwina Smythe. One look at her told Heth everything he needed to know about the woman.
The elderly woman wore a red beret and a Light Infantry uniform—sort of. It had clearly been carefully tailored to her figure, with elements like lapels and epaulettes exaggerated to look more prominent over the cameras at press conferences. It was as if Che Guevara has been ambushed by a team of Avalonian fashion designers. An open bottle of communion wine sat on the table before her (along with an empty bottle), and she sipped it daintily from a wine glass. Edwina was a woman who understood how desperate her situation was—and that there wasn't much she could do about it. She somehow maintained her dignity despite looking either terrified or tipsy—quite possibly both.
Next to her stood a middle-aged woman with a faded Earth Fleet uniform and a plasma rifle. She was short and stocky, a powerful figure grown slightly plump with age and motherhood. Her face was hard and sharp, with big brown eyes over a long beak-like nose. She looked up at O'Reilly as they entered, and her face softened.
"Leisa!" O'Reilly rushed over to her and they locked in a brief but fierce embrace. "Rachel's safe!" Xinjao said. "She's on his ship—this is Heth, by the way, Joe Smythe sent him—he's got a letter from Rachel for you!"
Leisa looked utterly confused, but one concern cut through her mind. "A letter? From Rachel? Give it to me!"
"Why yes, of course, of course," Heth said, pulling the sheet of paper from his pocket and handing it to her—and then the two parents were lost their own private world, oblivious to everyone and everything as they read and compared the letters from a daughter neither was sure they'd ever see again.
Edwina looked up hopefully at the sound of her son's name—and her face fell. "Cats," she muttered, and took another sip of wine. "I need a Fleet rescue… and little Joey sends me a dozen kittens to defeat an Imperial Army." She sighed and dropped her face into her hand, shaking her head. "Oh, Joey, Joey, Joey… what am I going to do with you?"
Heth heard Narrah growl at the blatant insult to him and his hunters, and Heth interrupted before things could get ugly. "We're not here to defeat the Imperials, madam, just to protect you while you escape through—"
The double doors at the opposite end of the room crashed open as a huge white shaggy creature in a habit head-butted his way through and stormed in. He slammed down a huge lance cannon on the table, pointed a hoofed hand at the K'Nes, and bleated loudly. A look of surprise crossed his face. Then—remembering he couldn't speak in his were-form—he shifted back to human shape, wool shrinking into his skin and the massive curling horns morphing back into gray hair. "Who are ye wee kitties, an' what are ye doing in me Abbey?!" he demanded.
Heth opened his mouth to speak, but Narrah beat him to it. "The Miao Mercantile Mercenary Company, Captain Narrah commanding! At your service, sire!" He snapped a quick salute with his bionic tail. "Chairman Smythe hired us to extract you and your men to Federation territory. Are you the Alpha Hunter of this perimeter?"
"I'm Abbot Angus MacAries—I'm in charge here, an' don't ye forget it!" He paused, evaluating Narrah. His eyes took in the cat's stance, the way he held his rifle, the look in his eyes and the scars on his face where his fur had grown back in white streaks—or hadn't regrown at all. The Abbot nodded and grunted, apparently satisfied that Narrah was, however small, a soldier. "Aye. Ye'll do. Is that… power armor ye're wearing?"
"Eighteen suits, sire," Narrah nodded, "piloted by Vulthra War veterans." At the look of joy that swept the Abbot's face, Narrah twitched his whiskers in confusion. "Don't your men have armor, sire?"
"No!" the Reverend Father exclaimed. "Clarke turned a blind eye to our missiles and rockets, aye, but he drew the line at power armor—and we dinae dare cross it! But you'll even the score in this battle, lad, aye!" Suddenly he clasped his hands together and lowered his head in prayer. "Dear heavenly Father, I know ye work in mysterious ways—and this one takes a beating, even from You—but we give Ye thanks for answering our prayers, and delivering unto us the means of our salvation from the soldiers of the false god Vin Dane! Amen."
Heth couldn't contain his curiosity any longer. "You're a… were-sheep?" he asked, amazed. He'd never seen—or even heard—of such a werecreature before.
"I'm a were-ram, ye cheeky bugger! Aye, ye think that's funny then, do ye?" the Reverend Father demanded, then before Heth could answer, said, "Now listen here, you bloody cat—I am the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, with extreme prejudice and overwhelming firepower! Got it?" Heth just nodded mutely. "Now what's all this about an extraction, then?" He looked up. "Is that why ye called us here, O'Reilly?"
Narrah cut in again. "We have a ship with a transit antenna in geosynchronous orbit, sire."
"… and that's the problem," Brother Bob spoke up timidly. "To create a transit portal out of here, we’d have to drop the transit shield the Brothers are maintaining," he explained, "and the second we do that, the Imps will start pouring in. Besides," he shrugged, "the Imps have their own mages out there. The second they realize what's going on, they'll try to shut the portal down with their own transit shield."
"We brought signal enhancers for the transit antenna to lock on to," Heth volunteered. "Will those help?"
"A little. Not much." O'Reilly sighed, folding Rachel's letter back into his pocket. "To cut through a hostile transit shield? To a ship in orbit? And maintain it long enough to get everyone out?" He shook his head. "Even with all the mage monks in the Abbey, I don't think we could generate that much magicakal energy."
"Bloody hell!" the Abbot cursed.
But O'Reilly's comment struck a chord in Heth's memory. "Magickal energy? You need more?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out Wells' ring. "Would this help? It's supposed to convert matter to energy—an 'emcie artifact,' I believe." Heth could tell from the looks on Bob's and O'Reilly's face that he'd just struck pay dirt.
"A emcie artifact?" Brother Bob picked up the ring gingerly, examining it. "Wow… I've never seen one before!"
"Well, it might help," O'Reilly said, scratching his frizzy red-gray hair nervously. "But there's a problem, though. Converting enough matter for the amount of magickal energy we'd need? That would create a vacuum strong enough to implode the Abbey."
"What if we converted small amounts at a time?" Brother Bob asked. "And store it in crystalline batteries? Or a bank of batteries?"
O'Reilly face lit up. He snapped his fingers. "Hey, that could work! And we have lots of rock to convert!"
"I'm sure I can scrounge some crystalline batteries from the Abbey's magitech equipment," Bob said, excited.
"And if we can jury-rig them together..." and then the two technomancers were off, trading bewildering jargon and drawing schematics.
"Saints be praised!" the Abbot whispered. "An' how long will that take ye, Brother Bob?"
Bob looked up. "Huh? Oh… couple hours, maybe. Now, if we add a quintessence valve here…"
"We need a firm deadline, ape!" Narrah snapped. "To let our ship know when to activate the transit antenna!"
The room went silent as O'Reilly and Bob argued math formulas and timetables. "Three hours," Bob finally said.
The Abbot and Narrah traded glances that even Heth could read: Can we hold out that long? "Alright, then, Captain Narrah." The Reverend Father nodded. "Will yer lads join us on the walls to defend our Abbey?"
"Yes, we could…" Narrah hesitated. "But with all due respect, sire, I can think of a more efficient allocation of our resources."
"Resources?! What are ye, then?" the Abbot sneered. "A warrior? Or an accountant?"
"I'm K'Nes. I'm both." Narrah bared his fangs in a wicked grin. "And if blood was currency, my assets would be legendary!"
The Reverend Father blinked at him for a moment, shocked into silence. Then he broke into his own toothy grin, pointing at Narrah. "I like you, laddie—ye're wee, aye, but ye're fierce! Aye, then, what's yer plan?"
"The Imps don't know we have power armor in the Abbey—and sure as scat not hunters who can fly! It's dark out, and our suits have stealth suites. We can attack their lines from above and behind, throwing their offensive into chaos. With any luck, they'll have to retreat and regroup. That'll buy you some time. Besides," Narrah added, "we have to get beyond the Imperial's jamming range anyway, so we can signal our ship and let them know when and where to use the transit antenna. Might as well bomb some Imps while we're at it."
"Aye, an' how do ye plan to get yer men out o' the Abbey without being detected and massacred?"
"Through the bell tower, sire," Narrah answered. "Did I mention we can fly?"
The Abbot thought about it for a minute, then nodded. "Aye, alright then. Leisa!" The short Israeli woman looked up from her daughter's letter. "Be a good lass and take these men—er, beasties—up to the bell tower and let them go bump in the night!"
"Alright, rats!" Narrah turned to face his hunters. "Time to earn your paychecks! SWAAAAARM-HUP!"
The Abbot nodded in satisfaction. "God be with ye and yer men then, Narrah." He raised three fingers and sketched a cross in the air. "Now," he said, hoisting his lance cannon. "If ye'll excuse me, I have some more Imperial hovertanks to blow to kingdom come!" With that, he ran out the door, shifting into his were-form and bleating loudly.
As they flew through the Abbey corridors, Narrah ordered all his hunters to set their armor's comlink to automatically send a message to the Avarice with the time and coordinates of the transit antenna extraction. Only one of them needed to get beyond jamming range for the super-freighter to get the message.
It wasn't until the K'Nes swarm began following Leisa O'Reilly up to the shattered bell tower that dread began to set in. The top had already been blown off, and the higher they climbed, the more the structure seemed to sway in the never-ending Cronos winds. The rumble of explosions and the whine of plasma rifles seemed louder than ever. Heth had a sudden flash of utter clarity, fully realizing the madness of his situation. What in the stars am I doing here?
Before he could follow that train of thought any farther, Narrah began giving orders. "Supervisors!"
"Sire!" M'Rowr and Surra said in unison, the supervisors of second and third clouds respectively.
"Chose two hunters to load their railguns with high explosive rounds. They focus on vehicles and troopers in power armor while the remaining four hunters provide cover for the heavy weapons." Narrah turned to his own first cloud and chose two snipers. "Hunter Heth! You stay here—no helium, no flying. Got it?"
"Yes sire!" Heth said, feeling simultaneously confused, slightly embarrassed, and enormously relieved.
Narrah turned back to the rest of the swarm. "First cloud will take center with me. Second, take the right flank. Third, the left. The wind is steady, north by northeast, twenty-nine knots," Narrah informed his hunters. "Adjust your suits' navcomps to compensate. The wind's kicking up a lot of dust—it'll help hide us, but visibility will be reduced. And remember—keep your tails moving, constantly! Your armor does its best to camouflage you—but you want to be in motion when and if it fails! Do NOT fire while we're moving into position, or we'll lose the element of surprise. When we're directly above the siege lines, I'll give the order to pounce—attack pattern Urrkkak. Fire at will, drop plasma grenades if you get the chance. When I give the order to withdrawal, fly back to the bell tower at full speed, evasive pattern Horrath. Hunter Heth will provide cover fire for our return."
I will? Heth thought
Narrah paused, looking at each of his hunters. "Remember, leave no dead or wounded behind—the Imps can NOT know we're here. There's only one K'Nes ship in orbit, and it needs to stay there safe and sound—or there will be NO transit portal to extract us!" He bared his fangs in a grin. "Alright, rats… let's go kill some apes!"
The hunters inflated, their camouflage systems activating as they rose into the air and sped off into the night. Within seconds, Heth lost sight of them with his eyes, knowing their location only from the tactical display inside his helmet. He looked around, found a nice piece of crumbling masonry to hide behind… and waited.
He looked down at the fierce battle raging beneath him. In the sandy reaches between the Imperial siege lines and the Abbey, crisscrossing plasma fire and magickal energies lit up the night while grenades, rockets, and missiles exploded randomly. Between blasts, Heth heard the musical chanting of Energy and Matter mage-monks whose song-spells caused incoming ordinance to veer off course or detonate prematurely. Power armored Imperial troopers and armored transports full of light Imperial Guardsmen rushed the narrow breaches in the Abbey walls, all while Cialt Brothers and Cronos Resistance irregulars tried desperately to shoot them down. Imps who reached the walls engaged in fierce close combat with the enormous, vicious werecreature monks, both sides fighting desperately over the footholds into the Abbey.
Heth couldn't see the Miao hunters, but heard over his suit's comlink when Narrah gave the order to pounce. K'Nes railguns were silent and near-invisible, creating no heat, sound, or bright plasma streaks to give away their position—and the hunters were constantly moving. It sounded like it took the apes a few seconds to realize they were under attack, and even longer to figure out the enemy fire was coming from above. Then the chaos began.
On the horizon, far beyond the contested no-man's-land surrounding the Abbey, plasma grenade flashes began rippling along the Imperial siege lines. Then streaks of plasma fire sprayed into the air. The apes were firing wild, firing blind—but that much overlapping firepower was bound to hit something, and Heth could hear over the comlink as some hunters came under fire and Narrah roared out the order to withdraw. Heth knew he was supposed to be providing cover fire for the hunters retreat, but wasn't sure what he was supposed to fire at… and didn't want to waste his hideously expensive Impossibarium rounds if he wasn't sure he'd hit something.
On his tac display, Heth saw the dots of hunters weaving an intricate aerial pattern as they zoomed toward the bell tower. As they passed over the contested soil, the K'Nes fired a final flourish of slugs and grenades. A score of Imperial troopers beneath the hunters, caught up in their own fierce fighting and completely unaware of the raid behind their lines, were caught off guard and cut down.
Then something big appeared on Heth's tac display—behind the K'Nes hunters and closing fast, spraying plasma fire everywhere.
"Scat! Aerodyne!" Narrah yell over the comlink. "Hunter Heth, take it down! We're coming in hot!"
What? Heth thought. How in the stars am I supposed to do that? Yet his training automatically kicked in, and Heth found himself lifting his railgun to his shoulder as his suit's targeting computer locked on... and Heth's brain kicked into economics mode. I can’t always miss a target this big, he thought, so the hit-to-miss ratio is acceptable for my limited and expensive ammo. Heth fired, again and again. The statistical probability of hitting something vital increases with each shot...
Finally the aerodyne seems to wobble, then veer off course, then spin out of control. For an instant, Heth bared his fangs and roared in triumph—but it turned into a squeak as he watched the injured aerodyne spiral down and slam into the Abbey wall. Its sheer size and speed shattered even the steel-reinforced ceramcrete, creating the biggest breach in the wall yet. Heth just stared in horror at his terrible mistake. What have I done?
The next thing Heth knew, K'Nes hunters were deflating all around him, Narrah bellowing for everyone to get back down the tower into the Abbey.
The K'Nes raid was an attempt to buy the Abbey more time, and it worked. The Imperial command and control structure had been thrown into chaos, and they needed time to regroup and restore order before and they could launch an effective counterattack. Even with the massive hole in the Abbey walls, the Imperial troopers had stopped trying to fight their way inside, although the artillery and rocket fire continued, and opposing mages continued to slug it out, The temporary reprieve came at a high price, though—three K'Nes hunters seriously wounded, several others with minor injuries, and the Miao Mercantile Mercenary Company had suffered its first casualty.
O'Reilly and Brother Bob had set up the transit station in a mountain cavern behind the Abbey, where they'd be safe from direct fire and could fortify the only entrance. They used the emcee artifact to convert stones into magickal energy as fast as they could, storing it in a jury-rigged crystalline battery bank, but they were running out of time to build up a big enough charge to break through a hostile Imperial transit shield for several minutes. The refugees and wounded has been moved to the cavern, ready to rush through the transit beacon portal when and if it appeared… but for now, they could do nothing but tremble and pray and wait.
Narrah, of course, had volunteered his hunters to cover everyone's escape while they retreated through the portal. Heth really, really wished Narrah would stop volunteering them for all these dangerous jobs, but… well, it was in the contract. That was why the mercenary company had been formed in the first place, after all.
Finally, the moment arrived. The monks and resistance fighters abandoned the crumbling walls and fell back, fighting, to their makeshift transit room, trying to cave in the tunnels behind them with grenades. O'Reilly and Brother Bob patched the magickal battery banks into the K'Nes beacon signal enhancers, powered them up, and shot the chanting mange-monks a thumbs-up. The monks dropped their defensive transit shield, and...
Nothing happened.
Heth got a sinking feeling as terrible thoughts raced through his mind, each worse than the last. Is Kirrp having trouble with the transit antenna? Did the time and coordinates message to my crew not get through? Is the Avarice even still up there? Did the Imperial Fleet destr—
There was a blinding flash of energy as the fabric of reality ripped open and a shimmering disk appeared in the air. A deafening cheer arose as the mob of almost three hundred monks, irregulars, Fed sympathizers and refugees surged forward and began pouring through. Governor Edwina Smythe (at Heth's insistence) was the first to cross over, followed by civilians and wounded. For a second, everything went well.
Then all hell broke loose.
Mages and werecreatures suddenly stepped into the cave from the Umbra, and transit portals opened all over the room as Imperial troopers flooded in, firing indiscriminately into the escaping crowd. The resistance returned fire, and suddenly the whole room was filled with flying plasma.
Heth dropped to the floor, terrified.
Energy mage-monks threw up shields to protect the mob fleeing through the transit portal while other Brothers shifted into their were-forms and threw themselves snarling at the invaders. The battle instantly devolved into ferocious and brutal hand-to-hand combat. Plasma fire lessened, everyone afraid of hitting their own men in the chaos. Abbot MacAries raced around bleating as he rammed through Imperial troopers with his massive horns and swung a huge claymore at anything within its range. Armored K'Nes hunters zoomed around the cavern like a swarm of angry flies, slashing with vibro-claws and bladed tail-tips, hacking with the blades mounted under their rifles. Narrah was practically bouncing between Imperial troopers with unnatural grace, his rifle forgotten, ripping out throats and bellies with slashes and rakes of his claws, his tail blade whipping and stabbing.
Heth looked around. All the civilians were out, the now Resistance members were falling back through the transit portal. They were almost done, it was almost over… Heth was vaguely aware of someone screaming orders at him through his suit's comlink—but he was too petrified with fear to move..
"Heth! BEHIND YOU!!"
Heth rolled over to see a huge armored werewolf swinging down a battle-axe. Heth knew he was dead.
