Rengru Depot
Shivane
“I was delivered here by your enemy,” Spock broadcast, “but I am not your enemy. I do not wish combat.”
An answer came in the form of a nearby explosion. “They do wish combat!” Connolly called out. Rengru guns opened up on newcomers to the scene: Boundless land vehicles being disgorged from one of the specialized transport modules. Across the blasted fens, Kormagan issued a command to them to move out—just in time for the Rengru cannon to find its mark. Shrapnel rained down, causing Spock to dive back for cover.
“Shivane sucks,” Connolly said, covering his head despite the fact that it was already armored.
If Spock had a rejoinder, it was lost in the screams coming over the comm. The squads from Dezik and Krall had used their disruptors to clear some of the swarm blocking their approach to the tunnel opening, but several individual Rengru had gotten through. One had leapt upon a Boundless warrior whose shields had evidently failed him, using its limbs to wrap around the unfortunate fighter. The warrior writhed, trying to get free—
“Breach! Breach! Dezik-One-Blue-Two!” warned an automated voice—and a black “X” blinked, superimposed, over the struggling pair.
“This is Dezik-One Bluesub,” called out a frantic warrior. “Purge protocol engaged!”
At once, the nearby Boundless fighters turned, robotically, and unloaded their weapons on the Rengru and its victim. After a couple of seconds, something in the warrior’s armor reacted, producing a colossal explosion that immolated both the wearer and the Rengru. The Boundless warriors then appeared to regain control of their bodies and continued fighting.
“We’ve got self-destructs!” Connolly said. “We’re walking bombs!”
Spock didn’t sound so certain. “There must be some fear of pathogens, enough that they systemically overrode the protections against friendly fire.”
“Spock, they killed their own! They were made to kill their own!”
“I did not say I approved, Lieutenant.”
“You two, step up!” To the left, Spock and Connolly saw Baladon emerge from his makeshift bunker. “We go next!”
Connolly’s eyes bugged. “Go where?”
There was no answer, because Baladon had already clambered into another depression—and a second later, Connolly saw another Boundless warrior scramble out. As the armored figure broke into a run, Baladon emerged from the hole and yelled, “You’re running the wrong way, you imbecile!”
Spock and Connolly looked at one another. Malce!
The Antaran had buried himself in a pit at the start of the action, and was now running as fast as his mechanical legs could take him toward the drop zone. It seemed like the right idea to Connolly—but not Baladon, who broadcast an alert to the Boundless’s watchers in the air. “Specter, specter. Aloga-Five-Green-Three—turn him around!”
At once, Malce’s jetpack ignited, lifting him into midair. Rotating there, he hit the ground and ran back toward the fray, no longer in control of his extremities. “Help me!”
“Point your damn weapon!” Baladon yelled. When Connolly and Spock climbed out of their crater and began to move to head off Malce, Baladon pointed at them. “Do you want to be next?”
“Baladon, look out!” Spock yelled.
The distraction had proved destructive for Baladon. Two Rengru, having broken loose from the scrum outside the gateway, charged the Lurian, one striking low with its hardened carapace, the other high. Surprised, Baladon lost his footing in the moss and staggered. “Get off !”
Spock, who had not drawn his weapon in the entire engagement, did so now. He fired a disruptor blast that flashed off Baladon’s armor, temporarily knocking the attacking Rengru off. Then he bolted toward the group. Connolly was unwilling to join in the rescue, but a nearby blast got him moving.
“We must prevent a breach,” Spock yelled, arriving at the fray, “or we will be forced to kill him!”
Connolly wondered why Spock would want to save Baladon after what he’d just done to Malce—but the subaltern’s howls of horror moved him to action as well.
“No disruptors this close!” Spock called, drawing a different weapon from his arsenal. A powerful sonic blast emanated from it, knocking the two Rengru off Baladon’s prone form. Connolly found his own device and used it in unison with Spock’s, the shrieking waves forcing the squirming Rengru back.
We can’t keep this up for long, Connolly wanted to say, knowing he wouldn’t be heard. But then two powerful disruptor blasts rendered the warning unnecessary.
Malce stepped up to the motionless Rengru, rifle in hand. “I . . . didn’t do that on purpose,” he said.
Spock moved back to Baladon, who had not moved since the attack. “He is in cardiac distress.”
“I would be too,” Connolly said.
“Armor . . . helping,” Baladon said. They’d been told that the battlesuits could play medic when needed. “Just need . . . moment . . .”
There was no moment. “Fall back!” Kormagan commanded from afar. “Troop module evac to the rally points, now, now, now!” Connolly looked back to the depot to see that the assault wave had been completely repulsed. Boundless warriors, whose jetpacks were of limited help on planets with significant gravity, were using them for all they were worth, trying to retreat across ground teeming with Rengru.
Connolly saw a blinking arrow appear on his visual interface, pointing to the left. He turned to see a flashing marker superimposed over a hill—clearly his pick-up point. A timer and distance meter had numbers in motion, depicting how far away Troop Module Aloga-Five was from the site. Malce, in control of his legs or not, was already on the way there. But Spock was trying to help Baladon up.
“Spock, let’s just get out of here!”
“We cannot escape on this planet, Lieutenant. Our prison is the only sanctuary.”
“But he would’ve sent Malce to his death. He was about to send us!”
“He is a prisoner, just as we are. Captain Pike would not leave anyone. Neither will I.”
Spock was right, of course. Connolly helped Spock get Baladon on his feet.
Aloga-Five appeared above, heading for the rally point. They had only gotten a few dozen meters toward it when a disruptor bolt from one of the depot’s cannons struck it amidships, sending it crashing down. Connolly and Spock shoved Baladon into a blast crater and dove in after him.
Shivane shook around them—and soon the rain of debris began. The flashing marker—indeed, all the telemetry Connolly had been receiving from aloft—disappeared.
Connolly plopped down, his armored butt on the ground. “What do we do now?”
“New . . . rally point,” Baladon said between coughs.
“How do you know?” Spock asked.
“Subalterns get . . . a different data stream.”
Sure enough, new telemetry loaded—and Connolly saw they’d been reassigned to Aloga-Three, currently making its way to a clearing nearby. Outside the pit, he saw Kormagan leading a firing line screening the approach; one by one, Boundless warriors escaping the failed assault made their way safely through it.
They moved with Baladon to the evac area. There, already, was Ghalka, with the Red Squad subaltern; astoundingly, so was Malce, who had just missed being killed earlier by the crashing transport. As Aloga-Three came into beautiful sight, Connolly heard Kormagan—but not over the transceiver.
“The Starfleet crew,” she said, stowing her weapon as she approached. If she was wearied at all, there was no way to tell. “Looks like you made it. Not bad for your first day.”
“Not bad?” Connolly blurted. “It was a massacre!”
“That just means it’s time for more recruits.” Anything else she said was lost in the din of the transport’s engines.