Technokill Read online

  Content

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Graakaak, High Chief of the Cheereek, cocked his head this way and that as he looked past his circle of guards to study the vista that swept beyond the roof of his High Tree. Under his eyes, Cheereek darted to and fro about their daily business, their cries a cacophony of caws, hoots, and warbles. High Chief Graakaak saw the small clusters of sharp-eyed guards spotted around the perimeter of the sprawling rookery, watching all possible approaches. The landscape was properly barren from the guards to the horizon.

  Graakaak dipped one hand to his perch, richly studded with yellow, orange, and purple stones, and plucked one. He held the stone before his critical eyes, decided it was worthy, and popped it into his mouth. Instantly he swallowed and the stone rippled down the length of his throat. He refocused his eyes and looked at his guards, resplendent with iridescent sashes sparkling beneath their pectorals of shinies. But that wasn't what caused him to break out in gleeful reaction. No matter how often he looked upon it, the sight of his guards all holding the Clumsy Ones' weapons swelled his chest with a power and pride that demanded to burst out and be announced to the world. Rising from his squat, he stretched out his neck, leaned forward, splayed the skin-fringes on his bowed arms, spread his tail fringe, and crowed. Beyond the high tent, Cheereek paused in their chores and looked up at their High Chief. Many returned his jubilant cry. Pleased, Graakaak ruffled his neck and shoulders. His breastplate of shinies, far larger than the pectorals of his guards, sparkled and jangled with the movement. He lowered himself back to a squat, plucked at the iridescent sash that crossed his chest under the glittering breastplate, then lowered his head to nestle restfully at the top of his chest.

  Someday soon, he thought, enough of my warriors will have Clumsy Ones' weapons for me to attack. Then the wide world will tremble at the name of Graakaak.

  After a time, naked slaves brought bowls of shredded meat mixed with seeds and berries and other peckings, and held them before three of the guards. Graakaak cocked his head and carefully watched the guards as they held the bowls close to their faces with one hand and pecked the food into their mouths with the other. When the guards stopped pecking and handed the bowls back to the slaves, Graakaak continued to watch them while the slaves, heads held as high as their necks allowed, faces pointed at the ceiling, brought the bowls to him. When enough time had passed, and none of the guards showed any sign of distress, Graakaak pecked his fill from the dishes, knowing the food was safe to eat.

  The High Chief had barely finished when his eyes spotted a mounted scout galumphing toward the rookery. He watched the dull-dressed scout all the way into the huge encampment. Cocking his head and observing through the gaps in the floor of the High Tree, Graakaak saw the scout jerk his eeookk into a skidding, wing-milling stop, then bound to the lattice-branches and scrabble up the High Tree toward him. Under the roof, the scout stopped less than two paces in front of the central guards, standing fully erect, neck stretched up, face pointed to the roof. The scout waited to be commanded to speak.

  "Tell me," Graakaak commanded:

  "Clumsy Ones come, High Chief," the scout announced. "I followed their tracks until they disappeared on the Frying Rocks. There I waited long enough to miss two meals. The Clumsy Ones finally appeared in the middle of the Frying Rocks, riding their Clumsy Ones' steed in this direction. I waited until I was certain they were headed this way, then I galumphed with all speed, taking a course their steed could not follow so I could reach you before they did."

  Graakaak looked out beyond the roof of the High Tree and saw a cloud of dust rising on the horizon. Deep within the cloud he saw the shimmery speck of the Clumsy Ones' steed. He stood and crowed. Yes, soon he would have enough weapons to arm all of his warriors.

  "You missed two meals and you brought me timely news of the Clumsy Ones' coming," Graakaak said to the scout. "You have done well. You may lower your face."

  When the scout complied, Graakaak pecked a stone from his perch and tossed it to him. The scout snagged it out of the air with his mouth and swallowed. The stone rippled down the length of his throat.

  "Take him away and feed him."

  A slave approached the scout, stretched her neck up, then chirped and gestured as she scampered down the lattice-branches. He followed.

  "That artificial tree with the tent on top of it," Dr. Spencer Herbloc said to the landcar's driver, "that's where we'll find him."

  "Then you've been to this camp before?" Jum Bolion asked. "I thought they were nomads." He remembered Herbloc's earlier instructions and adjusted the air-cushion pressure to raise the landcar and increase its speed.

  "No. That's just the way they are, the big mugwump always has the highest place." He chuckled softly. "When they say ‘top of the ladder,’ they mean it literally."

  The landcar whooshed over the hard, rippled dirt of the ancient lake bed, its air cushion kicking up a huge rooster tail of dust and pebbles. It sluiced into the hollow of an ancient, dry cove, becoming invisible from the encampment save for the wake it had stirred.

  "I thought they're supposed to be fighters," Bolion said as he looked around at the size of the broad dip. "Someone could hide an army down here and get awful close before those Cheereek know they were here."

  Herbloc chuckled again. "After you've been here a few times you'll be able to spot the sentries. I can see three watchposts from here. There's probably more."

  Bolion couldn't spot anything that looked like a watchpost. He glanced at Herbloc to see if the man was joking, but Herbloc was taking a nip from his flask. Bolion tried to hide a wince. If he'd known how much Herbloc drank when he was planetside, he might not have volunteered to be the driver on this two-man parlay. Even though he'd never been on Avionia before, during the voyage he'd read everything about the planet the Marquis de Rien carried. The people—if "people" were the right word—were apt to fight over any slight, real or imagined. The two of them wouldn't stand a chance if Herbloc got drunk and said something he shouldn't, even though they were illegally armed with Confederation military hand-blasters.

  Herbloc saw the half-hidden wince out of the corner of his eye. "Don't worry about it, boy-o," he said, and took another nip. "They need us. Their mugwump wants to conquer his neighbors, but they're bigger than he is. He can't do it without our weapons." He took another nip before tucking the flask back into a pocket.

  They reached the far side of the dip and skittered up its bank. The encampment spread before them when they topped the rise. Hundreds of sideless tent roofs were scattered randomly. Some hunched over low-walled hollows scraped from the ground, others hung over low mounds. A few were mounted above stilt-legged towers. The highest tower held the largest tent, and it was at this that Bolion pointed the speeding landcar.

  "Don't dodge them," Herbloc reminded the driver. "Just plow straight through. They'll get out of the way. An
d if they don't..." He shrugged. "We're showing power. They respect power."

  Moving with a speed that startled Bolion, the Cheereek scattered out of the path of the landcar, shrieking and chirping their fear and indignity—but none made any threatening move.

  Again remembering his instructions, Bolion didn't brake until the last possible moment. The landcar bucked to an abrupt stop that caused a huge cloud of dirt to bellow as high as the tent roof above them. They waited for the dust to settle before breaking open hatches and dismounting.

  "We're supposed to climb that?" Bolion asked incredulously as he looked at the helter-skelter assemblage of wood spars from which the artificial tree was constructed.

  "It's stronger than it looks, boy-o. And we've got to climb if we want to see the mugwump." Herbloc reached for a spar above his head and began to climb.

  Guard Captain Cheerpt paused in his inspection of the perimeter sentries to eye the two Clumsy Ones. His hands twisted on the Clumsy Ones' weapon he held and his head bobbed in resonance, causing the triple string of shinies hanging on his chest to tinkle.

  He eyed the pouches at the waists of the Clumsy Ones as they awkwardly lumbered up the High Tree, and knew they held weapons, though the Clumsy Ones never withdrew anything from them. He was certain those weapons were more powerful than the weapons the Clumsy Ones dealt to the Cheereek. If he had one of those weapons, he would challenge Graakaak, and the Cheereek would have a new High Chief.

  Graakaak watched with amused interest as the Clumsy Ones labored up the High Tree, and marveled again that a people so ungainly could make the wonderful weapons they did. The Clumsy Ones paused under the eaves, gathering breath in their puny chests, then approached his perch.

  The two Clumsy Ones walked with delicate balance, fully upright on their legs instead of easily balanced between them, as were the Cheereek and all other people Graakaak had ever seen or heard of. When the Clumsy Ones were three body lengths from his guards, with one sudden movement Graakaak rose from his squat. He thrust his torso forward horizontally, arm fringes splayed at his sides, tail fringe fully opened, stretched out his neck and shouted his battle cry.

  The Clumsy Ones stopped in place. Much less swiftly than Graakaak had, they dropped their torsos to horizontal, legs bent to compensate for lack of a counterbalancing tail-nub, stuck out their short necks, splayed their fringeless arms to the sides, and shouted their battle cries back at the High Chief.

  The High Chief and the two Clumsy Ones held their threat postures for a long moment as their battle cries changed to prolonged hisses.

  So fast the Clumsy Ones' weak eyes couldn't follow the motion, Graakaak stood erect, arms down, neck stretched upward. He did not point his face up, as propriety required. He had no desire to indicate to the Clumsy Ones that they were powerful enough for that obsequiousness.

  The Clumsy Ones, too, now stood erect, their movements slower than any but the feeblest of the Cheereek. They dropped their arms to their sides and stretched their necks as far as their short length allowed. But despite the formality of this submissive posture, exposing their soft parts to demonstrate acceptance of the other's dominance, they did not hold their faces up, but instead arrogantly returned Graakaak's stare.

  After a long moment, Graakaak abruptly squatted again on his perch. The High Chief watched with disinterest as slaves brought out the odd perches the Clumsy Ones preferred to squat on, perches on which they rested their upper legs. At an almost imperceptible gesture from the High Chief, the guards who stood between him and the Clumsy Ones moved to take new positions behind the visitors, denying them retreat.

  "What have you brought me this time, Clumsy Ones?" Graakaak demanded in the trading language used by all peoples of the steppes. Of course, the Clumsy Ones had difficulty in speaking even that simple language.

  "Have I got a deal for you," said the Clumsy One called Heerk-kloock, and twisted his obscenely soft mouth parts in what he understood was an expression of friendship.

  Chapter 1

  "Move, move-move!" Sergeant Bladon's radioed shout reverberated through Lance Corporal Rock Claypoole's helmet.

  "Blow that hinge, Rock!" Corporal Kerr shouted, adding his demand.

  "I'm trying, I'm trying," Claypoole shouted back.

  "Want some help?" PFC Wolfman MacIlargie asked. "Let me in there, I'll get it." He had already blown his hinge.

  "Stay away," Claypoole snarled, and tried again to clamp the blower onto the upper lever, where it hinged into the airlock hatch. MacIlargie squirted closer and bumped him. For a vertiginous moment Claypoole spun slowly away from the spaceship in orbit around Thorsfinni's World. His tether jerked him to a yawing stop a few meters away. "Back off, Wolfman," he snapped, and hauled himself back to the hatch that second squad's second fire team was trying to breach. In his ungainly armored vacuum suit, Claypoole struggled to lock his boot magnets to the hull and hatch on either side of the hinge. He managed to seat the cup of the blower over the hinge. He reached one thickly gloved hand to the crimper and pulled on it. The cup closed securely onto the end of the arm.

  Claypoole looked down the length of the meter long tool and decided it was perpendicular to the hull and his feet were widespread enough. He gave the top end of the blower a quarter twist, bent it down to a ninety degree angle to expose the trigger, stuck a gloved finger through the trigger guard and pulled.

  The shaped charge inside the blower jetted its force into the metal, abruptly raising its temperature from near zero Kelvin to more than a thousand degrees centigrade. The rapid temperature change shattered the hinge, buckled the metal around it, and sent shock waves thrumming through the surrounding hull and hatch. One of Claypoole's feet was knocked loose, but the magnets on the other boot held.

  "Move, move-move!" Bladon shouted again.

  Claypoole shifted one foot so both were on the hull and removed the blower. The tool drifted at the end of its tether.

  Kerr clomped carefully to his side and slapped the end of the puller he held against the hatch. He gave the handle the twist that shot its mollies into the metal, then raised a hand in signal.

  "Do it," Corporal Linsman said, and Lance Corporal Watson slapped the Go button on the winch. The cable that ran from the tripod to the puller tautened and the hatch slowly lifted. The Marines readied their weapons. As soon as the hatch was clear of the hull, Watson slapped another button on the winch to move the hatch to the side.

  When the gap was wide enough, Kerr demagnetized his boots and stepped over the lip of the hatchway. He fired a quick puff from his suit's top jet and plummeted down into the airlock, where he twisted around so the inner hatch was in front instead of below him. He reactivated his boot magnets to hold his feet to the deck. Claypoole and MacIlargie followed.

  "Hey, watch it," Claypoole snarled at MacIlargie, who bumped into him as he tried to mimic Kerr's maneuver.

  "Sorry," MacIlargie replied, and used handholds to pull himself away from Claypoole. "Kind of cramped in here." Their boots clunked to the decking as they activated the magnets.

  The airlock was big enough to hold four vacuum-suited deckhands along with the equipment they'd need to work on the hull, but three combat-armed Marines in armored vacuum suits filled it almost to overflowing. The inner hatch was barely wide enough to admit them one at a time.

  "Quiet," Kerr ordered, and bent his attention to opening the inner-hatch access panel. He freed three corners of the small plate and swiveled it aside on its remaining corner screw. He briefly examined the boards and crystals inside the control box while he fished an override from a cargo pocket on his thigh, then stuck the override onto the right crystal. "All secure?" he asked.

  Claypoole and MacIlargie made sure they each had a grip on a handhold and a tether clipped onto another. "Secure," they replied, and pointed their blasters toward the inner hatch.

  Kerr checked his own tether then tightened his free-hand grip. He made a quick visual check of his men to affirm that the two of them gripped handholds an
d held their blasters pointed at the inner hatch, then pushed the activate bar on the override. The inner hatch began sliding to the side.

  Ship's atmosphere explosively evacuated through the widening opening, slamming into the three Marines as it gushed into the vacuum. They twisted to keep their blasters pointed at the opening, strained to avoid being pulled loose and thrown out, and managed to ignore the pings and thumps of the small, unsecured objects that bombarded them in the atmospheric blast.

  The hatch stopped halfway open with a grinding they could feel though the soles of their boots and the gloves that gripped handholds. Kerr punched the override again. The hatch ground again, but didn't open any farther.

  "Damn, it's jammed!" Kerr let go of his blaster, grabbed the lip of the hatch and gave it a jerk. It didn't budge. Rushing air continued to pummel the three Marines. "Hold me."

  Claypoole extended his left leg and planted it as firmly as he could behind Kerr's right leg. Macllargie, behind Kerr, leaned forward and pushed against his back.

  Kerr let go of his handhold and gripped the edge of the hatch with both hands. He strained against it, and it opened a few more centimeters before again grinding to a stop.

  Spots of red light suddenly speckled the three Marines from inside the spaceship and sirens went off in their ears.

  "All right, Three-two-two—" Gunny Thatcher's voice was booming even before the sirens stopped. "—you're dead. Get out of there."

  The inner hatch, which had so strongly resisted opening, gently eased shut and cut off the evacuating atmosphere.

  It took a couple of minutes for the three Marines in ungainly armored vacuum suits to exit the airlock and stand on the hull of the spaceship. Sergeant Bladon stood looking at them from next to the winch. The bulkiness of his suit and the near opaque facemask made it impossible to tell, but it seemed to all three of them that he was shaking his head.

  As one of his primary functions in garrison, Gunnery Sergeant Thatcher was responsible for the daily training regimen of Company L, 34th Fleet Initial Strike Team. He didn't officially pick the training exercises—that was the province of Captain Conorado, the company commander—but the Skipper usually followed his advice on what training the Marines needed. He was also the man in charge of making sure the company's Marines had everything they needed to conduct battalion and FIST level training exercises. Thirty-fourth FIST hadn't trained in ship-boarding tactics during the time Thatcher had been the company gunny—and he himself hadn't participated in one since he'd been a squad leader many years before. The only null-g work most members of the company had done since Boot Camp was the routine boarding and disembarking of navy vessels during deployments—few of them had even worn an armored vacuum suit since Boot Camp. The equipment the Confederation Marine Corps had available for hostile boarding of a ship in vacuum was cumbersome, not very efficient, and probably outdated as well, though nobody had anything better. Still, at Camp Ellis, Thatcher had done his best to orient everyone on the use of the breaching equipment, though equipment didn't perform the same in null-g vacuum as it did in the bottom of a gravity well with atmosphere. Moreover, years had passed since a FIST had had to board a hostile ship in planetary space. So nobody could blame him if the Marines of Company L failed so miserably in the training evolution.