Andy’s mini-me, inside the Arena, Prasinos system
Further movement from behind the human caught Andy’s attention. Only this time it wasn’t human, it was bugs, lots of bugs, and seeing that the human wasn’t turning around to engage them, he obviously didn’t know they were there.
Andy soared over the head of the human and sprayed the oncoming swarm with cannon fire. The bugs weren’t used to this, they seemed confused, the ones not cut to pieces ran in all directions. Including out into the open, where both Andy and the armed human could pick them off at will. In a matter of seconds the bug numbers had dwindled to just a handful. Andy flew down past the human and waved, before turning and heading in what he hoped was the direction of the egg layers.
A column of smoke in the distance was his target. He surmised that the fire in the bug tunnels had ripped up the elevator shaft and was now creating problems inside the habitable zone. He thought right, egg production had ceased, but the egg layers he’d hoped to kill were noticeably absent.
‘Where the hell are they hiding them?’ he said to himself, searching around the area. ‘They’re huge.’
The bugs present were making a valiant attempt to the extinguish the fire, so he spent a few minutes disrupting their efforts and destroying everything in sight that was of obvious bug origin. Disappointed he hadn’t managed to kill the egg layers, he returned to the area he’d seen the human and hovered around seeking the hatch again.
The antigrav drive on the tiny fighter certainly hadn’t been designed for stealth – its high-pitched howl could probably be heard for kilometres – and it wasn’t long before the hatch reopened and a head popped up. Whoever it was wasn’t being caught out from behind again, as he swivelled around checking in all directions, before paying Andy any attention.
Andy swung in close and waved again, getting a wave back and a pointing finger jabbing enthusiastically off to the right, so he turned the ship in that direction.
In the distance, some five hundred metres away, he could make out a flashing white light. Sitting at about ten metres up, he moved slowly towards the beacon, arriving to find two heavily armed humans gesticulating downwards with their weapons. A section of what looked like a landing pad or vehicle park opened slowly to reveal a dark space below and while the humans kept one eye on their surroundings with their weapons at the ready, they continued gesticulating madly downwards into the gloom, seemingly wanting Andy to hurry up.
‘In for a penny,’ he mumbled, turning on the mini-me’s lights and settling it down into what looked to be a small hangar of some kind. As he was doing so, the two humans disappeared down into another smaller hole in the ground, reappearing in a corner of the hangar, their weapons in the shoulder pointing at Andy’s ship. Six more rounded a corner, again weapons up and bearing anxious expressions.
Andy winced as he clunked the mini-me down in the centre of the room. It instantly tilted to one side and settled with a rather ominous crunch and rattle. It didn’t have its cradle and it had sustained damage in its earlier crash, so it was never going to be a particularly attractive landing.
The antigrav scream died quickly down to a low whine before going quiet. Andy unsealed the small canopy and slowly stood. He smiled, keeping both hands in clear sight.
His armed meet-and-greet committee weren’t smiling however, and approached tentatively, keeping their weapons trained on him.
‘Calla heen adifay,’ one of them said officiously and gesticulating with his rifle for Andy to get down.
Andy remembered that the inhabitants of the Arena didn’t speak Ellinika, so he delved around in his DOVI’s language menu for the Arenian file.
‘Sorry, can you say that again?’ he said in Arenian, once he’d found it.
‘I said, get down here,’ the armed man said.
Andy clambered down and two of the armed men frisked him for weapons, removing his pistol from his belt.
‘Clean,’ one of them said, nodding to the man who’d spoken first and handing him the weapon.
‘Who are you?’ the leader demanded, his eyes flicking between Andy and the fighter behind. ‘And what the hell is that thing?’
‘I’m Andy, a friend of Conor’s’ he replied. ‘I’m with Edward Virr and the Gabriel.’
‘He was on that damaged ship that came into the hangar a couple of years ago, sir,’ said one of the others. ‘I recognise him. I was on guard duty that day.’
‘Hmm,’ he grunted, turning his attention back to the mini-me. ‘How did this get in here? It wouldn’t fit in the elevators.’
‘I jumped it in,’ Andy said, shrugging.
The man stared at him as if he’d just grown another head.
‘You’re trying to tell me you jumped a ship inside a moving planetoid?’
‘Well, I was already inside the hangar destroying all their eggs, so that reduced the risk.’
‘GDA,’ said the man, shaking his head. ‘You’re all crazy.’
‘I’m not actually GDA,’ said Andy. ‘More private contractor. But anyway, enough about me, let’s concentrate on getting the Arena bug-free.
‘And why would you want to help with that?’ the leader asked, shouldering his rifle and crossing his arms.
‘Because at present, the Arena is attacking Dasos and the GDA naval fleet,’ Andy replied.
The man’s eyes widened. He glanced at the others before turning back to Andy.
‘They don’t think it’s us do they?’ he said, nervously.
‘No,’ Andy replied. ‘The bugs have commandeered it as a staging post to conquer more human worlds, so my first question is, how did they get on here in the first place?’
‘We were betrayed by some of our own people. They just let them in.’
‘They would’ve been kidnapped and brainwashed,’ said Andy. ‘They wouldn’t have had any knowledge or choice in the matter.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’
‘Because they did the same to my wife,’ Andy replied, taking a deep breath and swallowing the wave of sadness that suddenly came over him.
‘Oh, okay.’ The man recognised Andy’s anguish. ‘We’ve been fighting the stinking things ever since,’ he continued. ‘But not with any great success.’
‘They hit you with weight of numbers, don’t they?’
‘Every time we think we might’ve got them on the back foot, another thousand of them appear and we end up worse off than before.’
‘How many of you have survived?’
‘About a third we think, but it’s hard to know exactly. There might be other groups holding out elsewhere that we don’t know about.’
‘The construction tunnel and airlock, is it still operational?’
The man took a step back and stared at Andy.
‘How d’you know about that?’ he asked, concern washing across his face.
‘Educated guess,’ said Andy. ‘I’m an engineer and it’s what I would’ve utilised to get the heavy boring machines in here and the waste rock out.’
‘Hmm,’ he grunted again. After a pause and another glance at his colleagues, he continued. ‘It’s sealed at both ends. Well, that’s not completely true as there is a pedestrian walkway in there from this side, but there’s several hundred metres of replaced rock and carboncrete on the outside.’
‘The airlock is still operational then?’
‘Who knows? It wasn’t decommissioned, if that’s what you mean.’
‘We could get a few more of these in here and wipe the bastards out,’ said Andy, nodding over his shoulder at the mini-me.
‘I would need to run this by Conor,’ the man said, his eyes lingering on the fighter.
‘Conor’s still alive?’ Andy asked, raising his eyebrows.
‘He is, but he was wounded a few days ago when the fighting got a bit up front and personal.’
‘How badly?’
‘Lost a leg,’ said the armed man.
‘Is he well enough for a meeting?’
‘I’ll find out.’