Temple of S.A.R.A.H. 4 Hard Wired Read online

  Temple of S.A.R.A.H.

  Hard Wired – Episode IV

  By Ben Winston

  Copyright © 2015 Ben Winston

  Published by Blue Space Publications, LLC.

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  Hard Wired – Episode IV

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  Books Published by Blue Space Publications, LLC.

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  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Hard Wired – Episode IV

  Fleet Command Battleship, Honor of Vengeance

  Geo-stationary orbit, North magnetic pole

  Earth, Sol System

  Senior Fleet Captain Edgigly, Commanding

  Slinging the Marine pulse rifle, I picked up the modified street sweeper anti-riot gun and a bandoleer of white phosphorus grenades I had just made. I used the design of the normal .12 gauge weapon, making it a .10 gauge that would take magnum rounds filled with razor sharp, titanium shards. Strictly a close range weapon since the spread would be horrific. My idea was for it to be more like a portable claymore mine than an actual shotgun. I quickly loaded the large magazine and chambered the first round.

  I thought the grenades would give the Aracs something else to think about other than enemy soldiers. Normal 'willy-pete' or white phosphorus grenades just exploded and burned really hot in only one spot. These new willy-petes would explode and spread the phosphorus around a roughly ten-foot diameter area. I warned the Marines I was with not to toss these anywhere near a friendly soldier.

  "Won't that melt through the bulkheads?" Tul-sa asked me.

  "No more than a heavy laser would. Its burn time is only about ten seconds, but it will be an eternity to anyone that gets this stuff on them," I replied. Hell, I had no idea if this stuff would even hurt the Aracs, but it sure wouldn't hurt to try it.

  Tul-sa held out her hand. "Give them to me. I'm used to throwing grenades, you're not."

  I handed them over. "They work just like standard grenades; open the cover, punch the activate button, close the cover, and throw."

  "Timer?" she asked.

  "Three slow seconds after it leaves your hand," I replied, grinning.

  She looked around the corner of the ramp, and quickly ducked back. "Let's see if they work!" she pulled one of them off the band, activated it, and lobbed it around the corner. "Fire in the hole!" She yelled.

  A muffled 'whump' was heard followed by a lot of high-pitched screeching, and furious activity by the Aracs. Tul-sa peeked around the corner to see what was going on, and then calmly stepped out. She held her rifle at her shoulder and was firing almost continuously. "Come on, they definitely aren't worried about getting shot!"

  Seeing the carnage she was talking about, I was wondering if the big spiders weren't hoping to get shot. The new 'willy-pete' grenade had work even better than expected. The phosphorus paste seemed to seek out joints and flaws in the carapace armor and then burned its way in. The paste that didn't find a flaw in the armor simply heated it to the point of glowing almost white hot.

  The spiders were writhing around on the floor, in obvious pain from the burns.

  "Damn, Doc. What was in that grenade?" One of the troopers asked.

  My little squad had just finished putting the four Aracs down when Tul-sa was knocked to the floor from a laser hit to her armor. Before she stopped moving, three more of the large spiders ran around the landing craft toward us.

  Even with the strength enhancements in the armor, the shotgun kicked like a mule. The idea of the shotgun was only partially successful; the one Arac I hit in the 'face' had serious problems. It was blinded, and the unarmored parts of its 'head' were shredded and a green ichor oozed out of the massive wound. It fell back, stunned.

  The other spider I hit at a joint, for a front leg. The leg flopped, uselessly, but the spider itself only seemed to be angered by the attack.

  The spiders had been developed so that the front two, and sometimes four, 'legs' could be used to carry and fire weapons. The one I angered had been carrying two, and it turned the remaining large bore laser directly at me. I dove for cover, knowing I wouldn't make it before that hellish beam hit me. I was surprised that I made it back to the shuttle ramp without feeling the pain I knew would be coming.

  My squad mates saw what I had done, and covered me. Tul-sa had pulled herself into cover near me. "You stay here! Dammit!"

  I dropped the shotgun, and pulled the pulse rifle off my back. "You don't have to worry about that! I've had enough fun for now!" I said as I lined up a shot on one of the big monstrosities and fired.

  "Leg joints, Doc!" Tul-sa added as she too fired. "Shoot for the leg joints, you'll never get through their armor before they kill you!"

  "Sarge!" Felse called. "Some of these fuckers are carrying particle weapons! They just blew through a squad of regulars on the far side of the bay!"

  "Lovely! Squad! Get ready to move! If those particle weapons come this way, we're running!" Tul-sa ordered.

  "Gimme those grenades, Sarge," I said.

  "What do you think you're going to do, Doctor?" she asked, taking the time to actually look at me.

  "With luck, creating a little chaos," I replied, and began climbing up on top of the shuttle.

  "Ca'lis! Cover the doc!" Tul-sa yelled. "Crazy fucker is trying to get killed again!"

  "On it!" one of the troopers said and ran across the field of fire coming from the remaining arac. The squad had killed the other one. When the trooper saw where I was going, he looked at the sarge. "Where the fuck is he going?"

  "Don't know, just make sure he survives, got it?" Tul-sa ordered.

  The trooper nodded once and quickly climbed up after me.

  I was lying on my belly behind one of the heavy mount lasers the shuttle carried. It was too big to use inside the ship, so it was powered down right now, but it made pretty good cover.

  "Doc, are you trying to get killed?" the man asked when he caught up to me.

  Fleet Command Battleship, Honor of Vengeance

  Geo-stationary orbit, North magnetic pole

  Earth, Sol System

  Senior Fleet Captain Edgigly, Commanding

  "Nope, I'm trying to keep us from getting killed. How's your throwing arm?" I asked.

  "My what?" he asked, looking at me like I was insane.

  "Do you see that group of Aracs over there?" I pointed to the group that was carrying different looking weapons.

  "You mean the spiders with the particle weapons, yeah, what about them?" Ca'lis asked.

  "Do you think you can toss one of these into the middle of them?" I asked, and handed him one of the grenades.

  "I'll have to stand up, but yeah, I could," he replied.

  "Then let's get to it," I replied and got into a squatting position.

  "You are one crazy fuckin' scientist, Doc," the man replied and got ready.

  I grinned. "These won't go fully active until they leave our hands, three seconds after that, someone has a very bad day. On three, ready?"

  He opened the cover, hit the button, and nodded.

  After turning mine on, I looked at him and started the count. On three, we both stood up, found the group we wanted, still in the same place
, and threw as hard as we could.

  The odd thing about a three second timer; if you throw it at something that is a little bit further away, you can get unexpected results. The group of Aracs with the funny looking weapons were three and a half seconds away.

  The grenades detonated, and blossomed into a wall of white-hot death, and fell, like a blanket, over the group of six Aracs that had been setting up to attack the group of Marines defending the main entrance to the ship. I wanted to stand and watch the result, but Ca'lis pulled me back down just as several laser beams melted the far side of the heavy mount turret.

  "Sorry Doc, but standing to watch the party is not a very good idea. They know where we are now, we need to move, come on, over the side," he said, indicating the twenty foot drop from the side of the shuttle. Before I could protest, he pushed me over, and down we went.

  Thank god for the armor, or we would surely have had at least broken our legs, or worse.

  "Whoever just took out those Aracs, we owe you big time! Thanks!" came out of the comms.

  There must have only been that one group of spiders carrying the particle weapons, because the fight seemed to balance out again after that. I ran back inside the shuttle and had my panel use the replicator to fashion a Russian made RG-6 grenade launcher, and my special 'willy-pete' rounds for it. Just for grins and giggles, I made smoke rounds as well. I tried to have it make rounds full of a chemical spider poison from Earth, but the replicator refused, fair enough. Then I had the idea to make a few rounds filled with a quick drying resin-epoxy that should cover the spider and basically freeze it in place.

  When I came back out of the shuttle, the squad had pulled Tul-sa back inside and had removed her abdomen armor. She was bruised from the waist up it would have been a very nice view, except for the nasty looking and very painful burns on her left shoulder and breast.

  "You gonna be alright, Sarge?" I asked.

  She nodded, oblivious to the fact that her breasts were exposed. "Yeah, what kind of weapon are you gonna try now?"

  I showed her the grenade launcher. "Nothing fancy, this will just get the grenades out further, and give more control over what they hit," I said.

  She nodded. "Good, if we get out of this mess, I'm putting you in for a medal."

  While she had been talking, our squad mates dragged more wounded people up into the shuttle. That was when I noticed the white armored medic moving around to care for the wounded. "Wow, things sure happen fast around here."

  "Blame yourself! Those grenades of yours have the Aracs spooked. They aren't coming anywhere near this corner of the bay now, so we're using it as a temporary aid station. Our forces are shifting slightly to protect us more, and the command section will be getting here soon. Grab Ca'lis, and teach him how to use that thing," she pointed to the launcher. "You're getting out of here. We're sending you back to the command center. It's safer there, and we know you won't wander off to test a weapon!" she teased and tried to laugh. She started coughing, and the medic rushed over.

  The medic pushed me out of the way and quickly sedated the sarge. "Sorry, Doctor Cowan. Visiting hours are over."

  "Okay, take care of her please," I asked.

  The medic winked at me. "She'll be fine after a short stay in Main Medical."

  "Thanks," I said, I found Ca'lis and showed him how to use the grenade launcher and described the various rounds I'd made for it.

  "This'll be helpful, I know it sure has the Aracs spooked. I think some of them are refusing to fight!" he replied.

  "Heads up everyone! They're getting ready for another offensive... oh fuck! All units be advised, there is a Queen with this group! Seal your suits, now!" came a voice over the comm.

  Ca'lis scrambled to get his helmet on, so I did to. "What's going on Ca'lis? What's so special about a Queen?"

  "The presence of a Queen means that they will fight harder for longer. It's like they go into a frenzy trying to protect her. She also has the ability to use pheromones that can immobilize us, or in some cases, make us start firing on one another. Having her out there is just seriously bad gorga-fee." My computer translated his last word into 'Karma'

  I shook my head and put my hand on his shoulder. "She's just a big spider with a couple of extra tricks. Drop one of these rounds on her, and she won't amount to much."

  "I doubt I'll get close enough to do that; they tend to really protect their Queens," He replied.

  "This has much more range than just throwing," I said and patted the launcher he now held. "Hang on, I think I might know something that might help you."

  I returned to the replicator, and he followed me. I used my tablet to quickly build a computerized targeting module for the launcher that would interface with the suit.

  When it was finished, I attached it to the weapon and turned it on. "There, that should give you a better chance to hit what you need to."

  "Whoa, you weren't kidding about this thing have more range!" Ca'lis said.

  "Can you build at least three more of them?" a tall woman asked from the door. "I'm Captain He'rsree, Alliance Marines. I've been told you are the one responsible for that fire weapon that has the Aracs spooked."

  "Just a modified version of some Earth weapons, Captain. I thought I’d see what kind of affect it would have on the bugs," I replied.

  "Well, it works great, and we need more of them before some bleeding heart group in the core worlds decides they are to cruel to be used. Can you teach a few others while the Doctor works on them, Corporal?" the woman asked Ca'lis.

  "Yes Ma'am. The new targeting module he added makes it pretty much shoot itself," Ca'lis replied.

  I turned back to my panel and had it put together three more of the launchers and the appropriate ammo for them. After checking the reading, I turned back to the Captain. "Be ready in five minutes, Captain."

  "Excellent, I'll get three troopers in here to learn how to use them. If we can take out that Queen, it'll go a long way to beating these bastards back off the ship," she said.

  Fleet Command Battleship, Honor of Vengeance

  Geo-stationary orbit, North magnetic pole

  Earth, Sol System

  Senior Fleet Captain Edgigly, Commanding

  Just as I was getting the last of the launchers finished, the defecate cycled through the hyperdrive as they say. The Queen must not have been very happy with us roasting her minions because when she took the field, she was surrounded by particle weapon toting spiders that where shooting at anything that so much as twitched.

  Ca'lis had been teaching the three volunteers how to use the launchers, and amazingly enough, the guards around the Queen managed to shoot down the first few rounds launched.

  "Ca'lis! Use the smoke!" I called to him. The idea seemed to click for him then as he lobbed enough grenades to totally block the spider’s lines of sight, then they fired the 'willy-petes'. During all of this, the rest of the Marines were still firing their pulse rifles, since the suits let them track their targets even through heavy smoke. The Queen must have had a few other tricks up her sleeve since she still managed to stay out of the way of the grenades.

  The smoke provided a medium in which the normally invisible laser beams could actually be seen, and with the fires from the grenades behind them, it looked like hell had come to River City. Very slowly, the spiders began pushing the Marines back. Casualties were horrendous. Marines hit by the particle weapons had a very low chance of survival since the part hit by the beam was disintegrated. Without the heat of a laser beam, a soldier that lost an arm would bleed out in seconds.

  We were losing.

  "Captain, we're all sealed in suits, right?" I asked.

  "Yes, except for the wounded, we're all protected from that bitch," she replied.

  "Pump the bay down," I suggested.

  "What?" she asked.

  "They aren't wearing suits. Take the oxygen out of here," I said. "It might not get all of them, but it might slow them down!"

  "Hell, I'll try anyt
hing once!" she hit her comm. "All units, we're decompressing the bay. Make sure you’re on internal air, or you'll be breathing vacuum!" she changed channels. "Vengeance Command, please depressurize the bay."

  "What's this? You trying to die, Captain?" I recognized Edgigly's voice.

  "No Sir, just trying to kill us some bugs!" the Captain replied. "We're all sealed up because of the Queen. Anyway, Doctor Cowan suggested we make life hard on the bugs."

  "What the hell is he still doing down there? Never mind, nothing to be done about it now. Flight, dump the air in the landing bay!"

  It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it did have the same affect and end result. The flight control officer simply shut off the force field covering the landing port. Everything that wasn't nailed down was immediately sucked out into space. Tools, dropped weapons, bodies of the fallen of both sides, the smoke, several hundred spiders, and two Marines that hadn't secured themselves when the Captain warned them.

  It did indeed make life hard for the spiders, in fact it made it impossible. Even the Queen slowly fell to the floor after the oxygen was removed, although it took her a few minutes to die.

  Once she was down, and the boarding craft they used was checked, the air was restored to the landing bay, and the difficult job of cleaning up the mess began.

  ESAR ships were sent out for the two Marines, as well as the bodies of the fallen. Even though I knew I was most likely in trouble from Captain Edgigly, I stuck around, and did what I could to help.

  Before I left the bay to report to the Captain, I noticed that my plain, nondescript armor had gained a few decorations. Amid the blood and greenish ooze from the bugs, the unit patches for my escort squad as well as the crest of the Honor of Vengeance now adorned my suit. I still had two guards with me, but it looked more like three Marines walking along than it did an escort and a VIP.

  When we arrived at the bridge, I steeled myself for the interview. "I think I'd rather go back and fight a few more bugs!" I said to my two guards, who chuckled and nodded. "Good luck, Doc."

  I entered the bridge and realized that the landing bay had not been the only place involved in the fight. Two of the new stations I'd created were dark, and another was on manual control. Techs were already fixing them, but what disturbed me the most were the missing operators.