Three Square Meals Ch. 109

Thirty-metres down the corridor, their section of the Kirrix ship now ended in a gaping chasm, the edges still glowing cherry-red with the heat from Calara's orbital strike. There was a searing flash as the front of the dreadnought was hit by another Tachyon Lance barrage, the Invictus carving great rifts through the charred hulk. The ravaged superstructure seemed to collapse inward on itself, thousands of tons of armour plating crashing down to flatten any survivors in the bow.

"Well, I guess we don't have to worry about Kirrix ambushes from that side anymore," Alyssa said with a broad grin.

John roused himself from his daze and smiled at the blonde. "Please pass on my regards to Captain Fernandez."

"Calara says 'you're welcome'," the blonde replied, glancing at her phalanx of telekinetic blades as they floated back into the dreadnought from the now demolished starboard side. "She also wants to know if you'd like her to shave more off the ship?"

Turning and heading back to the crossroads, John shook his head. "We better not take any more chances. I know what a good shot she is, but we don't want to risk rupturing a fuel line or triggering any kind of Power Core meltdown. If there was an accident, we might be able to get clear in time, but the prisoners would have no chance."

Rachel looked shaken as she said, "As impressive as that was, it's the closest I ever want to come to another orbital bombardment."

Dana's nervous laugh sounded strained as she quickly nodded her agreement. "Yeah, tell me about it! Designing the new Tachyon Lances was awesome, but I never planned on being inside a ship they were firing on!"

John led the way towards the ramps which he knew lay fifty metres ahead. "We'll rush down to the level the prisoners are on, then take up another defensive position. I'd rather not fight on the ramps, our fields of fire will be far too limited."

Alyssa nodded, hands upraised as she strode along behind him. "If you want to make sure it's clear, I'll watch over the girls."

He sprinted down the corridor, weaving around the piles of mangled chitinous limbs that lay like a grotesque carpet across the floor. The walls pulsed with an eerie inner glow, hexagonal tiles casting that throbbing light across the charnel house in the passageway. Eventually he reached the end and it opened out into a larger room, with broad ramps allowing access to the upper and lower levels.

Rounding the corner, he almost ran right into a hulking juggernaut at the forefront of a squad of Kirrix. It gnashed its mandibles at him and took a swing with its bony long-bladed claws, but moving with accelerated speed, he was easily able to duck back from the backhanded swipe. His answering slash with his sword had a telekinetic blastwave accompanying it, which neatly hacked the massive black-armoured beast in half. The arc of force carved through the squad of Kirrix drones, sticky green blood spraying wildly as they were disembowelled by that razor-sharp psychic projection.

Their upper nerve ganglia still intact, the insectoid troopers flopped around on the floor, reaching for their dropped neutron rifles to fire at the intruder. John stared at them incredulously for a moment, then pointed the tip of his sword down the ramp, a tongue of blue fire curling along its length. Eldritch flames billowed out with a roar, incinerating the mortally wounded Kirrix forces, their death cries ringing shrilly in his ears.

Picking his way through the burning corpses, John descended several more levels, finding the next set of ramps clear of defenders. There was another large room here, so John stepped away from the descending ramp to search for any sign of troops waiting in ambush. He could hear the insectoid soldiers scuttling towards his position, the noise sounding more hurried and frantic than before.

*I've cleared a path. Head down and we'll make a stand here,* he said to Alyssa as he glanced around at the several entry points.

*We've reached the ramp room,* she replied a moment later. *We're just getting past your bug barbecue...*

John didn't respond as he was now listening carefully, his sharp ears having picked up a disturbing noise. He grimaced as he heard the faint but harrowing sound of sobbing coming from the broad doorway across the room. Tightening the grip on his sword, he braced himself for the horrors he knew were still to come.

***

Tony paused in the rubble strewn tunnel and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, as he swept the tight beam of his torch over the tumbled rocks piled up to the ceiling. This was the third cave-in they'd encountered in their retreat from the Mortimer mine, the first two only partially blocking the corridor and allowing them to continue onward. The miners had triggered one of those collapses when they blew up the tunnel, but the aftershocks from the Mortimer mine explosion had brought more of the ceiling down, inadvertently clearing a narrow gap. Tony couldn't believe their luck as they crawled through the narrow crevice between the fallen rock, but this time the cave-in looked extensive...

He couldn't help shivering with a cold sweat, his skin feeling clammy. Although he wasn't experiencing sharp pains from his head-wound any more, the physical exertion from this bleak hike was starting to take its toll. At least he hoped that was all it was, but at the back of his mind, Tony worried that he might be fighting off some kind of infection. Despite desperately wanting to sleep for a week, he was determined to stay strong, knowing that it was up to him to get the three of them to safety.

He glanced back at his two companions, who were stumbling along in the gloom behind him. Kelli's hobbling had grown more pronounced as they'd covered the last couple of miles, her sprained ankle obviously more painful than she was willing to admit. Meanwhile Perl was walking along in a subdued silence, either being incredibly stoic about the loss of her arm, or too shocked and numb to react.

Kelli realised he'd stopped and looked at him with concern. "What's the matter?" she asked, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the oppressive darkness of the tunnel.

"Another cave-in," Tony replied, turning to shine his torch at the rocks ahead of them. "Looks like a big one..."

"Are we trapped?!" she asked quietly this time, fear making her voice quaver.

He swept the torch beam over the rock piles that appeared to completely block the tunnel, squinting through the dusty gloom for any sign of a way through. The light failed to fully illuminate the leftmost corner and he paused to study the darker area underneath the sagging ceiling. "Dunno... looks like there might be a way around it." Glancing back at Perl, he reached out to steady her as she swayed in place. "Easy there, babe. Maybe you two oughta sit down for a minute, I'll check it out."

The blonde didn't resist as he helped her to sit, Perl staring at him with glazed eyes. Kelli gingerly sat down next to her friend, then let out a sigh of relief as she took the weight off her ankle. Pulling a bottle of water from her pack, Kelli took a deep drink then held it up for Perl, who looked at it askew before drinking noisily.

"Yeah, we'll chill here," the brunette said, giving Tony a grateful nod as she pulled another flashlight out of her pack. "My ankle's hurting like a motherfucker and Perl needs some rest."

Tony gave her a gentle pat on the arm, then slipped off his own heavy backpack and placed it behind Perl for her to lean against. Rolling his aching shoulders to ease the stiffness, he moved carefully towards the cave-in around the rocks littering the floor, the wavering light from his torch still not revealing a great deal on the left. Drawing closer, he finally realised why the beam of light wasn't reflecting off any rocky walls. When the roidquake brought the ceiling down, it had also shaken open an entrance to what looked like some kind of cave.

Thanking his lucky stars, Tony clambered over the rocks, trying to get a better look at the chamber beyond. He paused when he got closer, finding that the corner of some kind of big metallic object had broken through the ceiling, its weight probably contributing to the tunnel's collapse. The strange tan colouring was unlike anything he'd seen before, and Tony ran a hand over its pockmarked surface, feeling tiny indentations under his fingertips.

Whatever it was, he was sure it was old... maybe even dating back to the very first colonists who'd started the excavation of Karron. He figured it must be part of some kind of derelict mining equipment, long forgotten and abandoned by those pioneers. With a shrug, Tony ducked under it, being careful not to disturb whatever it was; the last thing he wanted to do was trigger another cave-in.

Shining his torchlight into the opening, Tony peered through the dust and saw that the quake had created a fissure through this part of the asteroid. The rent had opened up several new tunnel entrances, the exposed passages bored through Karron by miners following rich veins of metal. He couldn't help grinning when he lowered the beam from his torch, following the sloping pile of rocks that would let them clamber down to the lowest tunnel. The faint glint of rail-tracks in the rough-hewn floor was a very good sign, making it highly likely that the tunnel ran back to what passed for civilisation in this godforsaken place.

If the tunnel led back to the starport and they could avoid the Kirrix invaders, they might be able to loot the medical centre for supplies. He snorted, realising how precarious his plan was. Still, it could have been worse... if there'd been no way around the cave-in, they would have been trapped in the tunnel and faced with an unpleasant death by dehydration. At least now they had a chance of surviving...

When he swung his light back towards the girls, Kelli blinked owlishly against the glare, her expression fraught with worry. "There's a way through!" Tony called out to her, unable to contain his relief as he picked his way over the rocks back to their makeshift campsite. "I think we might actually be able to get outta here!"

***

Tashana glanced at her sister, who was hugging the outer hull on the opposite side of the open doorway. The hive ship had lost all power when Irillith had fried the electrical grid, so the loading doors were jammed open, the Kirrix unable to keep the attackers from gaining entry.

She held her Reaper pistols at the ready. *On three...*

Tashana couldn't see the expression on her twin's face, as Irillith's crystal faceplate was currently opaque, the Maliri being careful to conceal their identity. However, there was no mistaking her sister's firm nod, Irillith balancing her long-barrelled Reaper Cannon on her hip as she prepared herself for the gunfight to come.

*One...*

*Two...*

*Three...*

*Go!*

They pivoted around, swinging their weapons into the breach and opening fire, only to be met by a hail of neutron bolts in return. Unlike the last two boarding actions, the Kirrix were ready and waiting this time, meeting the twins' assault with a well-organised wall of guns. Tashana grimaced as rippling blue circles pulsed out across the surface of her Paragon suit's shield, the status indicator in her HUD darkening through several shades as the energy field absorbed at least a dozen hits.

Watching the two targeting reticles in her suit's HUD, the Maliri pistoleer tapped the thumb buttons to fire the underslung barrels. 10mm caseless rounds pounded into the tightly-packed defenders, leaving a glowing orange trail as a pair of flame sprites rode those bullets into her targets. As each shot made contact there were fiery explosions, dousing the Kirrix ranks in billowing flames. The twin blasts knocked the insectoid soldiers sprawling, the floor left strewn with thrashing ochre-hued figures trying to put out the fires.

Tashana sent short bursts of blue laser bolts into the passage as she picked off the fallen survivors. Remembering Rachel's briefing on the Kirrix drones, she aimed for headshots, the burning aliens collapsing in a twitching heap every time she blasted a glowing hole through their chitinous skulls. By contrast, Irillith held her finger down on the trigger, strafing her Reaper Cannon fire back and forth over the prone soldiers.

Seeing no further movement except the flickering fire that shrouded the corpses, Tashana stepped through the doorway into the hive ship. *How are your shields doing?* she asked her sister as she picked her way through the incinerated remains.

*The shield status just turned a delightful shade of vermilion...* Irillith replied dryly, moving to flank her on the right. *One of the drawbacks of carrying a big gun... everyone falsely assumes you're the greatest threat.*

Tashana smiled at the admiration in her twin's voice, then glanced at the shield status in her own HUD. *Well I'm sporting a jaunty shade of apricot, so let me take point until you've had a chance to regenerate.*

*Your will be done, glorious leader,* Irillith said sarcastically, pausing to let her sister get several metres ahead of her.

*It's admirable that you're finally acknowledging the natural hierarchy between us,* Tashana teased her playfully, watching for danger as she advanced down the corridor. She passed a couple of pitch-black doorways and glanced each way with thermal imaging activated, but saw no sign of Kirrix troops. *I could get used to this well-deserved deference.*

Irillith laughed at her sister's light-hearted banter. *You little brat! Just wait till we get home...*

Tashana was about to reply, when her sharp ears picked up the sounds of skittering claws rushing towards them from in front and behind. Dropping into a crouch, she aimed her Reaper pistols at the two archways ahead. *Cover our backs!*

Her twin had already reacted to the ambush, smoothly pivoting and bringing the barrel of her Reaper Cannon around to face the rear. When the Kirrix soldiers came pouring out of open doors on both sides of the darkened corridor, Irillith swept the long weapon from side to side, shooting bursts of brilliant laser fire that cored through the charging Kirrix. To the front, the ochre-armoured troops were met by an unwavering stream of azure laser bolts across the face of both entryways, the insectoids taking grievous wounds as they tried to rush into the corridor.

*Fuck!* Irillith hissed as a pair of juggernauts stomped into the passageway behind them. She levelled her Reaper Cannon at the one on the left and blasted glowing holes through the black-carapaced monster, but the juggernaut opened its mandibles and roared in defiance as it barrelled towards her. *Shan, help!*

Tashana spun on the spot, fire sprites leaping from her flame-sheathed gauntlets into each Reaper pistols' magazines. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the huge Kirrix beasts charging towards them, each drawing back their wicked blade arms to impale her sister. Tapping the trigger for the underslung quantum barrels, 10mm slugs punched through the armoured chest of each raging behemoth, the black chitin cratering with the impact. A split-second later the sprites detonated inside their targets, ripping apart the creatures in a pair of thunderous fireballs.

A blastwave of heat poured over both Lionesses, knocking them both to the ground with the force of the eruption. Irillith's shields flickered and died, overcome by the ferocity of the blast, her armour singed by the flames. Tashana vaulted up into a crouch, spinning around to bring her Reaper pistols to bear against the Kirrix troopers still pouring from the doorways deeper inside the hive ship. She was hit by a storm of neutron bolts from their raised rifles, her shield status flashing a red warning and winking out with the strain.

Tashana's eyes darted left and right as she aimed at the troops, trying to ignore their returning fire as she concentrated on picking them off with one fatal shot at a time. *Rill, are you okay?!*

Her sister sounded disgusted as she replied dourly, *I'm fine...*

Too busy gunning down the Kirrix soldiers to check on her twin, Tashana's precise laser fire cored through the attacking drones, brutally decapitating them one after the other with her pinpoint shooting. Much to her relief, Irillith's Reaper Cannon began to sing its deadly tune a few moments later, firing back at the squad behind her. It took them a couple of minutes to wipe out the last of the ambushers, managing to avoid any more entanglements with berserk juggernauts.

The muzzles of Tashana's Reaper pistols were glowing in a shimmering heat-haze when she finally finished shooting, white-hot from the continuous fire. After a glance to make sure all her targets were dead, Tashana jumped to her feet and whirled around to check on her sister, concerned that Irillith was annoyed at getting caught in the fiery blast. When she turned to face her twin, Tashana took one look and burst into laughter, suddenly understanding Irillith's earlier disgust.

*Yes, very amusing,* Irillith grumbled, peeling off the lurid-green string of juggernaut intestines that had splattered over her like a gruesome bandoleer. Her armour was left liberally doused in sticky green blood, ruining the once pristine finish. *At least all this will wash off; John's not going to be impressed with the state of your armour...*

Tashana glanced down at her Paragon suit and winced guiltily at the mosaic of impact craters covering the white plating. *Oh crap...*

*You look like you just fought your way out of the Khalgron tunnels,* Irillith said, patting her sister on the shoulder. She sounded amused as she added, *Hopefully, you should only get a brief lecture on being more careful.*

With a forlorn sigh Tashana turned and led the way deeper inside, following the path the terrified prisoners would have taken when herded into the hive ship. The walls along the corridor had been shot to pieces, penetrating fire from her powerful Reaper Pistols having blasted hundreds of holes through each side. One wall had partially collapsed, hexagonal tiles scattered all over the floor.

*Do you think that's safe?* the Maliri gunslinger asked, eyeing the sagging ceiling with trepidation.

*No idea,* Irillith replied with a frown. *I'm no structural engineer. If you're worried about it, we can blast another way out of the ship and avoid it.*

Tashana nimbly stepped around the piles of debris. *Let's free the prisoners first, then we can make a decision.*

They approached a big set of reinforced double doors at the end of the corridor, which they knew would lead into the impregnation chamber.

*Power's out, we'll have to cut our way through,* Irillith said, aiming at the door.

Her sister joined her in shooting holes through the door, melting a glowing channel through the metal near the frame. It didn't take long to follow the arch up to the central dividing line between the two doors, and the one on the right toppled over with a booming crash.

*I'll take out the hivelord, you clear out any other troops!* Tashana ordered, rushing up to the sundered doorway and peeking inside.

This was the first hive ship they had immobilised and the Kirrix had set up a glowing emergency light in the middle of the chamber. The light came from a globe set up on a tripod and it pulsed with an eerie radiance, the fluctuating illumination allowed Tashana a glimpse of the impregnation platform. Three unconscious prisoners had been restrained there, all recent victims of the hivelord, their abdomens bloated with Kirrix eggs.

*No sign of that bastard, he must have fled when we boarded,* she told her sister, sweeping her angry gaze around the room for threats.

Irillith seethed with anger as she strode across the room to her right, heading towards another set of doors. *I'll clear out the nesting room. The hivelord might be with the broodmother protecting their grubs.*