Chapter Thirteen

With the echoes of shots ringing out in the metal around them, Scanlon and Ski were flat on the floor and Tumbler made one leap to take his special weapon up high. He almost slipped as he was scooting up again on one of the hanging black armors.

“I have negative target, how about you, Tumbler?”

“Negative. I see Deeks down, not moving.”

The noise was still loud and bullets were flying out from between one of the aisles. The wall over Deeks was being pitted with pellets banging into it with a noise to deafen the best of ears.

Tumbler clicked. “LT, I’m going over the top to get closer.”

“Affirmative. Ski, let’s try to move over under the hanging items and then scoot forward slowly.”

Ski did two clicks to acknowledge and they both acted like snakes. Ski ended up ahead of his Lieutenant and with a tap on his boot he began to do the shimmy forward. This was the one they had all been taught in their initial training when crawling under the old fashioned barbed wire.

It was an effective way to move without raising any part of the body. Spreading the legs and pulling a knee forward to push it against the floor would move the body in the direction you wanted.

At last the bullets quit pounding, but there was still the sound of something that reminded them of triggers and barrels working. All of this went on with the noise of the two straining men that seemed like forever. They wanted to reach their fallen teammate, but they needed to stay alive and in one piece.

After what seemed like too much time, Scanlon heard the click in his ear from Tumbler.

“Boss, I got it. It is another shooting box. It is far enough away from Deeks so I am dropping a grenade. Be ready.”

The two men on the floor covered their heads and still heard the explosion.

There was another click. “Enemy eliminated.”

Scanlon got up. “Full alert. Hard to tell how many of the shooters are up here. Let’s see if we can help Deeks.”

Tumbler clicked. “I’m covering from up here. I will bounce from aisle to aisle to watch for enemy approach.”

Scanlon thought it was a good idea. “Ski, lets still stay close to the first armors hanging in each row. We have no idea what is tripping these boxes off and sending them after us in blasting mode.”

All three of them wanted to run to their downed teammate, but they knew off the tricks the enemy could play. It was necessary to move slow and sure until one of them reached the rare metal expert that had been part of their team for so long.

At last Ski and Scanlon were close enough to have one of them go to Deeks. Ski was in front, so with a nod from Scanlon, he got on all fours and crawled over to his buddy. A quick check told him what he knew but was hoping he was wrong about. Deeks was dead.

“Fuck Loo, he died as bullets tore through him. He never turned his shield on and his armor protection didn’t stop some of these bullets.” Ski looked back at his Lieutenant who was standing with his back to Ski to watch for more enemies. Ski could also see Tumbler moving carefully from the top of one aisle to the next, taking positions to see down each opening.

Scanlon glanced back with a look of real anger showing in his eyes. “I hate to do this, but we can’t take him with us. Do a field closure.”

Ski looked around at his teammate lying in blood on the floor. “Ah fuck boss, isn’t there another choice? I don’t want a cleaning bot taking him away.”

A field closure meant that you took everything important out of the dead marine’s pockets and pulled his tag. You plunged a finder on him and you pushed the one man sleeping enclosure that would seal the body from head to toe.

Tumbler spoke from one of his spots. “So cleaning bots pull everything away?”

No one answered as Tumbler moved again. “I have an idea. We open one of these holders, throw out the armor on the floor and put Deeks inside. We will be able to find him by his signal later.”

Taking the wires from Deeks’s pocket and some of the newer bullets, they finally closed up the sleeping unit and then struggled to get him into the hanging black holder. The cloth had dropped to the floor, so it now required that they pull the cloth back up and drape it over Deeks’s sleeping shelter. The shelter was hooked to metal where the armor had been hanging. It looked a little smaller than the rest of the armor hanging in the rows, but it was done.

They left the armor on the floor, pushing it over to where Deeks had fallen.

“Okay guys, we have lost a good marine and a lot of time. Let’s move and stay alert. We can’t jog with the shield on, but we need to be more alert than we were in the past.”

* * * *

Not knowing what the rest of the team was doing, she thought about her own problem. Sergeant Margaret Bloom, who was a member of the Marine Corps, which was a part of the United Countries under her own USA in development of the military in space.

She was lured into the military with promises of free labs and supplies and the time to work with Professor Dunn. Dunn was the leader in the field of mental ministration and matching cognitive controls to circuit stimulators. In other words and making it seem simple, letting the brain turn a switch off or on without the body touching anything.

Like almost everyone in the military with possibly the exception of First Lieutenant Scanlon, no one bothered to read the small print when they signed that long paper as they enlisted. The Marine Corps, was all volunteers.

Here she was, out in space, so far away from her lab that her home star was not even in the heavens above her. She was in an unknown floating container, built by undetermined beings and in the company of a mythical shape shifter. Oh wait, to be politically correct the natives of his jungle world were called human modifiers. My life sucks all because of that small print.

“We are coming to a barrier.” Teve’s whispery voice interrupted her feel sorry time.

Flashing her light up and past him she saw a pile or barricade blocking their direction. Mags broadened her light and it only showed her that the pile reached the ceiling and stretched from the wall out into the room as far as her light would shine.

Mags thought for a moment before speaking to Teve. “Uh, Teve, do you have a title or are you in the Marine Corps?”

Teve looked at her and the light reflected off his beautiful blue-green eyes. Then she shuddered as she could imagine the change into a jungle beast with those eyes, looking for its next meal.

He stepped out of the light. “You have a lot of mixed emotions about Veld and my kind, don’t you Sarge?”

She wasn’t sure if it was better to have him in the light or in the dark. “What is Veld?”

“That is the name of my planet. You call it something else, and no I am not part of your Marines. My full name and title is just Teve. In my own language and on my own world there is a lot of understanding attached to the word that is my name.”

She flashed back at the barricade to change the subject and get her mind back on business. “So, how big is this mess and what is it? Why didn’t the little cleaners get this out of here? What is its purpose?”

She heard him chuckle, surprised that she didn’t know he could laugh.

“My answer to all your questions is the same. At this time, I don’t know.”

She let her flashlight roam over the strange barricade. Walking over close she decided it all looked like the same material, just different sizes and different colors. She took time to put on her gloves and reached out to touch a piece that was sticking out at an angle. It was soft and gave, almost like the foam used in some cushions and mattresses.

“Since I can see in the dark, perhaps I should go out and see how far this pile of soft discards is stacked.” Teve spoke in his whisper, but he was so close she fought not to jump.

“Good idea.” Mostly Mags thought it would be good if he would just step back away from her. At last, she felt him step back and then he was gone. He made no sound and there was no slapping of feet on the metal floor without any heavy breathing. Yeah, he was a jungle beast inside an alien vessel.

She did what she hated to do and sat down, turning out her penlight. The shooters were less likely to find her without the light and Teve would find her in the dark.

At last she heard his voice. His whisper was far enough away to give her warning. “Sergeant, it goes farther than I thought it wise to leave you. I didn’t think it wise for us to be separated for too long a period.”

She turned her light back on and spread the light. It wasn’t as big as the ones the other teammates carried. “So, I guess we do some mountain climbing.”

Teve pushed against the soft material with one foot. “It won’t be easy. It will be like climbing sand. I don’t like the idea of disappearing down into smothering soft pillow material. Any better idea?”

She thought for a moment then started to hunt through her pockets. “Do you think it might burn?”

He threw a small piece near her and she used a separate small unit that could light items. It was actually electric but would do the job. She wadded a piece of paper next to what he had thrown over to her and lit the paper first, then stepped back to watch. The foam-like material did begin to bubble but it also sent up a lot of smoke. Mags decided it made more smoke than what one would expect from the small piece.

“Burning is not a good idea.” She muttered and she waved a hand to keep the acid smoke away from her eyes. She turned her penlight on the barricade again.

“Do you think we can dig a hole through that pile?”

He pulled out a few large pieces and tossed them aside, further than she could have tossed even one of the pieces. Within seconds the pile shifted and it seemed like there was now more pieces in front of them.

Teve moved directly into her light. “What next, intuitive female?”

She turned the light away from his large body to study the wall beside them. The barricade was stuffed to the top and stretched outward. Unfortunately, it led her to believe it was very wide or even covered the area up to the end of this room.

“I refuse to stand here and wait for shooters that maybe just once you can’t outrun.” She looked up at the wall again. “I think we try to climb next to the wall. If and when we slide down into the soft piles we try to use the wall to work back up to the top. I think we need to cover our faces with our glasses and something over our nose and mouth.”