The familiar mountains surrounding the basecamp were in view when the sun rose, but they weren’t close. Our basecamp was in a mountain at the end of the range, but we had gone farther north than I’d realized. In the night I had slowed down, being careful not to damage the cargo hauler. Trip had propped himself up and managed to sleep for a few hours while Mook crawled back under the bench seat and slept.
I had to bring Scout 2 down and recharge the drone during the night, and when the sun rose, I found that we weren’t just being followed by one Orrkasi ship, but three. One moved around and in front of us. It didn’t take long to realize that the three ships were converging on the cargo hauler. I reached over and shook Trip.
“Wake up,” I told him.
“What’s going on?” he asked, sitting up, his hands going immediately to his injured leg.
“We aren’t going to make it back to the basecamp,” I said. “Mook!”
The Polytrot crawled out from under the bench seat and stretched. Trip was looking around, trying to get his bearings.
“Three ships?”
“That I can see,” I said. “Can you get Scout 2 in the air?”
“Yeah, yeah, just a second.”
Mook jumped up on the bench seat and looked out across the desert. The ship ahead of us was turning to come straight at us. The ships were close enough to identify. They were all transports, which meant that they didn’t have weapons, at least to my knowledge. Once they got on the ground and deployed their troops, we would be vastly outgunned.
“They’re trying to hem us in,” I said, changing course.
“Man, this is like a nightmare,” Trip said.
Mook growled, but it sounded odd, like a child trying to display his anger. I understood the Polytrot’s frustration. If we stopped, they had us, but we couldn’t run forever.
“Scout’s up,” Trip said, just as one of the ships shot ahead of us.
I knew what was going to happen but held our course. The ship flew several kilometers ahead of us and then made a rapid descent. Scout 2 could travel faster than the cargo hauler. On the video feed, I saw the Orrkasi troopers disembarking.
“They’re putting boots on the ground,” I said.
The other two ships spread out and did the same thing, rapidly descending to deploy troops. I saw that only about ten troopers disembarked from the first ship. They came out on the run. The Orcs lumbered across the desert, spreading out in a line directly ahead of us.
I turned the cargo hauler around and started back the way I had come, but the Orrkasi transports were faster than we were. They moved to repeat the process of dropping troopers around us. I angled toward the mountains, hoping I could get us close to the protection the mountains might give us.
“What are you doing?” Trip said. “They’ll trap us against the mountains.”
“We don’t have a choice,” I said. “We can’t outrun them.”
“Shoot them down,” Trip urged.
It wasn’t a bad idea, but if I stopped to try, the Orcs could put troops between us and the mountains. I didn’t want to get stuck out in the open, where the Orrkasi troopers could come at us from every side.
“Soon,” I told him.
He slid across the seat, forcing Mook to jump out of the way. “Aaahhh!” he shouted. “Let me drive.”
He reached for the yoke, and I let him take it. The cargo hauler was a simple vehicle to steer. He kept us moving toward the mountains, while I turned and pulled my Gnashii from the cargo area.
“You good?” I asked as I checked the rifle’s power. It was fully charged.
“Yeah,” he said through clenched teeth. “Where do you want us?”
I looked at the mountains ahead. There was a narrow valley with high, steep bluffs on either side. I couldn’t see how deep the valley went, but I didn’t imagine it went all the way through to the other side of the range. But it would give us some cover, especially if we could get around the curve in the valley.
“There,” I pointed ahead, “that valley.”
“I see it,” Trip said. “Now start shooting.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I turned and brought the Gnashii to my shoulder. The best chance of success was to fire at full auto, but that would burn through our ammunition too quickly. I took aim. The cargo hauler was bouncing around too much to get a bead on the cockpit of the transport ship. It was half a klick away and descending. I fired. The shot missed—at least, it didn’t impact the cockpit and cause any damage that I could see. But I didn’t give up. I fired several shots, maybe ten, before I got close enough to make a difference. The ship turned quickly. It was almost on the ground and swung around suddenly, moving the cockpit away before slowly settling into a landing. But the troops didn’t pour out quickly like they had before. The rear hatch didn’t even open.
I turned around on the bench seat and fired at the ship behind us. It began zigging and zagging to avoid my shots. It was a futile effort to keep wasting shots at the transport vessels, but it made me feel a little better. The odds of surviving the engagement had to be in the single digits, but I was determined to keep fighting as long as I possibly could.
A ship came down right in front of us, blocking the last five hundred meters to the valley we were trying to reach. Trip eased off the throttle, but I traded my Gnashii for the LAR wedged beside me.
“No, keep going,” I told him. “Don’t slow down.”
“There’s a ship right in front of us,” Trip argued.
“If we don’t make it to the mountains, we’re dead anyway.”
I raised the LAR to my shoulder and flicked the fire control switch to full auto. The ship already had its rear hatch open, and the pilot—fearing that I would shoot through his canopy—had turned the ship’s hatch directly toward us. As soon as I saw movement, I pressed the trigger on my rifle and poured laser fire directly into the back of the transport. For three seconds, my rifle chugged. I even screamed as if it would make the laser blasts more lethal. We were just out of range at first, but the laser hit their targets. They weren’t killing blows, but they wounded and caused chaos. I emptied the power in the LAR’s battery pack. Several Orcs dropped from the back of the ship, while others dove back inside, knocking into their companions. The ship suddenly swung to the side, dumping out two of the wounded troopers, who fell hard and didn’t get up.
As quickly as I had ever done, I swapped the batteries in the LAR. It was something I had done tens of thousands of times in my career. I could do it in total darkness, underwater, and under heavy fire. I didn’t need to see what I was doing or think about the steps. As soon as the charging lever snapped back into place, I brought the rifle up and fired a quick burst. We had gotten closer during the attack, and the laser’s blasts were more potent. I saw the transparent canopy over the cockpit fracture. The pilot panicked and forgot how close to the mountains he was. With a jerk, the transport ship slung around, rising higher and then crashing into the mountain. The repulsor engines died, and the ship rolled down the side of the mountain. When it hit the ground, the ship exploded in a ball of flame.
The shockwave smacked hard into our little vessel and knocked us sideways, but Trip corrected and kept us moving toward the valley. The other ships were closing in, but the crash of their companion vessel made them cautious. I was screaming in exaltation as we sped by the burning ship and into the valley between the tall cliffs.
“That was awesome!” I declared.
“Yeah, amazing,” Trip said through clenched teeth. “What about the other two?”
The valley wasn’t straight. It curved around the foot of one mountain, the space opening up a little before narrowing again between two rugged cliffs. Suddenly Mook started shouting at us.
“Cho! Cho!”
I looked over at the four-legged creature, who leaped out of the cargo hauler. We weren’t going faster than Mook could run. He dashed toward the far wall of the cliff, yipping at us over his shoulder.
“Cho! Whovat!”
“He wants us to follow him,” I said.
“Great, now we’re following the dog,” Trip said. “I think maybe I’m losing my mind.”
Mook ran straight at the cliff, then butted his head against the rock. I didn’t know what he was doing, but as Trip turned the cargo hauler, I could see that Mook had the pointed end of his cranial shield stabbed into the rock. He made a swift upward thrust of his head, and the stones that had looked solid from a distance crumbled away from the wall and fell back over the Polytrot’s wide bone shield. He kept digging, and the stone came loose quickly.
“He’s crazy!” Trip lamented.
“Get your rifle and stay low,” I said as I hopped out of the cargo hauler and picked up my sniper rifle.
My left hand still didn’t want to squeeze with any real force, but I made it grasp the weapon. Pain flared up my arm, but I was used to pain by that point in my life. I raised the weapon, but the Orrkasi ships weren’t in sight. I glanced down at the video feed from Scout 2, but it was gone.
“What happened to the drone?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Trip said. “It’s offline.”
I couldn’t see what was happening. We were far enough into the valley that I couldn’t see beyond the cliff walls. Were the Orcs coming in? The mountainsides were too steep for the transports to land. I was glad the Orcs couldn’t take the high ground and pour plasma on our heads with their big rifles.
Glancing back, I was shocked at how much dirt and rocks Mook had removed—and then I realized that he wasn’t just digging into the mountain; there was a tunnel or cave in the side of the mountain. Mook had found a covered entrance to a tunnel.
“Look at this,” I said to Trip. “Look at the cliff walls. Have you ever seen something like this before?”
“It kind of looks like it was carved out or something,” Trip said. “The way they used to blast out sections of mountains to put in roads back on Earth.”
“Back when travel was by wheeled transports,” I said, nodding.
“Yeah, but no one lives here,” Trip said. “And I don’t think the Orcs could have done this.”
I reached over and pulled on some of the rocks where Mook was digging. They broke free easily. Flicking on the LED headlamp on my heavy armor helmet, I looked into the tunnel. It was wide enough for the cargo hauler; all we had to do was get the opening large enough, and we could get inside. It would be even easier to defend than the valley, and yet the Orrkasi might just let us waste away in the darkness. I also had no idea where it went or what was inside.
I had to make a decision. “We can get in there,” I said.
“Where’s it go?” Trip asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “But I don’t think we can go much farther in this valley.”
As if to emphasize the point, an Orrkasi transport flew past high overhead. I didn’t think they had a good enough angle to see the tunnel, but they certainly had us trapped in the valley.
“Well, I ain’t climbing out of here,” Trip said. “I’m not even sure I can walk.”
“Watch for the Orrkasi,” I said. “I think we can get the cargo hauler inside.”
I began ripping at the rocks, and they fell away in clumps. Mook darted into the tunnel. I grabbed my trusty spear from the bed of the cargo hauler and smashed the butt of the weapon into the sides of the opening. It only took a few minutes to break through the thin layer of dirt and stones. Soon I reached solid rock on both sides of the tunnel. But as I turned back toward the cargo hauler, I heard a different type of engine sound. Looking up, I saw a ship arching through the sky. It tilted down and raced straight toward us.
“That’s a gunship,” I said, hurrying back to the cargo hauler.
“Get us out of here,” Trip said.
I backed the vehicle up and turned toward the entrance to the tunnel, just as the sound of weapons fire erupted overhead. I pushed the yoke forward and started for the tunnel as powerful clusters of plasma smashed into the mountainside above us. Huge sections of stones were blasted loose and started tumbling down toward us. It felt like the rock, laced with super-heated plasma gel, would rain down on us, but we shot into the tunnel without incident. I pulled back on the yoke and turned in the seat. Trip did the same. We were safe inside the tunnel, while just outside rock and dirt rained down.
Then—without warning—a massive block of stone dropped. It smashed into the ground where we had been just a few seconds before and hit with such force that the mountain above us shook. I looked up, hoping to see rafters or some sort of support, but there was nothing but stone. It had the same wavy, chiseled look as the valley walls. The ceiling arched overhead, and inside the tunnel all we could hear was our own breathing as we panted from the fear caused by our ordeal with the Orcs. And we didn’t know if we were actually safe or if we had just been trapped in a cave we could never escape from.
I’m not claustrophobic; I’d spent months in a sealed med pod after Luyten C. But the darkness of the tunnel and knowing we were under a mountain made me nervous. I looked at Trip, who had just turned on his helmet lights. We were alive, and that was a relief, but we didn’t feel safe. I could see the fear on his face and knew my face surely looked the same.
“Cho!” Mook called, his strange voice echoing through the tunnel as the Polytrot ran back to us. “Whovat! Whovat!”
“He wants us t—” I began, but Trip cut me off.
“Follow him, I get it.”
I nodded, and he returned the gesture. Then I eased the yoke forward and started down the tunnel toward Mook, hoping that I hadn’t seen the sun for the last time.