Chimera Company: Rho-Torkis. Issue 2.: A sci-fi adventure serial Read online

  SEASON-1: RHO-TORKIS

  ISSUE-2

  Copyright © Tim C. Taylor 2019

  Artwork by Vincent Sammy

  Edited by Lauren Moore

  Published by Human Legion Publications

  All Rights Reserved

  For a free Tim C. Taylor starter library, join the Legion at HumanLegion.com

  Welcome to Chimera Company

  Welcome to Issue #2 of Chimera Company, in which cover star Hines “Bronze” Zy Pel and his fellow Legion sappers have to choose whether to seek out survivors of Camp Faxian’s betrayal or press on into the Great Ice Plain.

  With monsters stalking the snowy forests, and a rebel invasion underway, they haven’t much time to make up their minds. Soon they learn that their greatest enemy is not flesh and blood, but the ice world of Rho-Torkis itself.

  It’s time to charge the gravitics of your hover bike and ride headlong into Issue #2.

  — Tim C. Taylor, April 2019

  ISSUE 2

  OSU SYBUTU

  Oso Sybutu’s world had broken.

  The heat from the irradiated firestorm he called home licked at his face through the opening in his cloak’s hood.

  The main guns had turned inward.

  In the woods below his position on the glacier’s edge, phony legionaries swarmed north on an unknown agenda.

  We have been betrayed.

  And Sapper of the Legion Stryker had just ridden his bike off the sheer edge of the glacier.

  “Sarge!”

  Osu didn’t know what to do next.

  Hic manebimus optime.

  Hold the line.

  Hic manebimus optime. The legionary motto.

  The Legion had excavated a desiccated language – long dead even before the Scramble for Earth – and found a saying they had made their own.

  We are here. That’s what the words meant in the original Latin. We’re gonna make a success of this place. And we ain’t budging for nobody.

  These were history’s earliest recorded words spoken by a legionary. The first legionary… It made for a good story and the Legion lived for its ancient tales of glory even those borrowed from the ancients: the Czech Legion and the Romans.

  That suited him just fine because Osu was Legion to his core. Cut him open, and you would find the guinshrike emblem stamped onto his bones.

  Hic manebimus optime.

  Hold the line.

  He steeled his nerves and forced himself to look into the mushroom cloud above Camp Faxian.

  “We are Legion,” he told it. “We’re not done here. We’re just getting started.”

  Then he scrambled out of the hollow so he could lay his body over the edge of the glacier and look down.

  Until very recently, a single sheet of ice must have covered the entire region, but as the climate warmed and the ice receded, it had left behind a block on top of a rocky outcropping that dropped forty feet to the forest below.

  Osu watched, horrified, as Stryker completed a near-vertical descent. He’d picked the man for his bike handling skill, but this was something else. Stryker had dipped his ride’s nose and was surfing a cushion of repulsive force down to the base of the slope. At the bottom, he sprayed snow over the figures in legionary armor as he kicked down into an abrupt halt.

  If anyone else had attempted that, they’d have broken their necks. Only one problem. Although the soldiers Stryker had joined in such a dramatic arrival had appeared as stunned by the air attack on Camp Faxian as Osu’s team, that didn’t mean they were friendly.

  Actually, that wasn’t the only problem. Zy Pel was gesturing to the west where a gray army was swarming across the cleared zone around the camp and advancing on its ruins. They were newts. Hundreds, maybe more. And they were gunning down anything that moved.

  First things first. Since Stryker hadn’t broken his neck, they’d better go rescue him.

  Urdizine and Yergin were already on their bikes, ready to take the longer way down to join Stryker.

  “Wait! Don’t let yourself be seen.”

  The two on the bikes looked around at Osu as if he’d gone mad.

  “I know that’s legionary combat armor down there, but I don’t know who or what is wearing it. We will hope they’re friendlies but assume they’re not. Zavage, join Urdizine and Yergin. Work your way down their right flank. Zy Pel will do the same with me on the left. I want a closer look.”

  As Osu was activating his bike, they were all blown flat against the snow as enemy Falcons screamed over their heads heading east, their force keels bending trees and raising a cloud of fine snow in their wake.

  The sappers dusted themselves off and descended the slope with their bikes in stealth mode.

  During the Orion Era, equipment running stealth mode had been completely invisible to the eye and even to the most powerful sensors. It sounded fanciful today, but the accounts of the tactical doctrine that resulted were so detailed that Osu believed them. As he circled left, with Zy Pel following in the footsteps his boots had punched into the snow, the bike’s motor ran near silently. Osu held it by the handles, putting its snow-camo body between him and the suspicious legionaries.

  This was the extent of stealth mode in the modern era.

  Whoever Stryker had ridden into, they were more interested in him than in keeping watch. Osu was within a hundred yards and still hadn’t been seen. Stryker was gesticulating and shouting at the mystery soldiers, unable to understand why they wanted to head north and not west to help any survivors at Camp Faxian.

  They certainly didn’t seem alert enough to be intercepting comms. “Zavage,” Osu called over the radio. “What’s your status? Over.”

  “Inside tree line due east of Stryker. We saw a few stragglers deeper in the trees, but whoever they are, they look like they’ve moved off to the north.”

  Without warning, the soldiers around Stryker sprang into life, leaping onto the sapper and dragging him off his mount and into the snow.

  “Zavage,” radioed Osu, “move your team in and grab our man. We’ll cover.”

  Using their bikes sideways-on as cover, he and Zy Pel sighted targets in the uneven struggle going on in the snow. Stryker was doing his best to give his attackers hell, but whatever they really were, they wore Legion armor with muscle amplifiers, and they outnumbered him five-to-one.

  What made Osu hold his fire was their reaction after they had Stryker upright in the snow with arms and legs pinned. They just held him there, as silent and as motionless as Stryker’s occasional lunges for freedom would allow.

  Waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  Not waiting for anyone to come rescue their captive, that was for sure. A single bike approached silently from the tree line beyond. They didn’t appear to notice it. But Osu did. He noticed the absence of the other two bikes even more. Where are they?

  “This is Zavage,” came the answer over the radio. “We’ve sighted more of them in the woods. Estimate company strength. So far, they seem more interested in getting north quickly than engaging us, but we’re keeping an eye on them while Yergin moves in to snatch Stryker.”

  From the forest to the north emerged three figures in legionary armor. Osu took the one in the middle to be an officer. Stryker’s captors shuffled him around to face the ‘officer’, pulling back his hood to reveal Stryker’s snarling face.

  “That’s right,” Osu muttered to himself. “Keep your eyes on your boss.” Then in a clear voice he added, “Zy Pel, when Yergin moves in, take the shot on the officer.”

  “I have the shot,” replied the team’s marksm
an. “Holy skragg… not again!”

  Osu couldn’t see what was getting Zy Pel worked up.

  But there was no time to ask. As if the situation weren’t already weird enough, the VIP walked to within touching distance of Stryker and removed her helm.

  She was a Kurlei. Gray, narrow face with razor-sharp cheekbones, oversized eyes, and empathetic head fronds like metal-sheathed fishy dreadlocks. Same rare species as Zavage, who would flirt with anything carrying a pulse, irrespective of species or gender, but was so terrified of the females of his race that he would lock himself away rather than encounter them.

  Yergin gunned his bike and sped in to make the rescue.

  Osu steadied his blaster sights on one of the Kurlei’s escorts and whispered, “Zy Pel, take the shot.”

  As soon as he heard the crack of the slug thrower rifle next to him, he pulled on his blaster’s trigger. Bolts sizzled through the air, but Osu already knew he’d missed and so too had Zy Pel.

  A pressure wave was pushing from behind, ramming his cheek against the saddle of the bike he was using as cover. Then a scream of protesting air assailed his ears as a flight of fighters flew low overhead in pursuit of the aircraft who’d destroyed his home, the oversized force keels revealing them to be FVA-7 Spikeballs.

  He picked himself up from the toppled bike he’d sprawled over and resighted on a confusing scene. The Kurlei’s escorts had picked themselves up from the snow and were trying to protect her with their bodies, facing outward at the new threats. Those who had grabbed Stryker now opened up his clothing, baring his chest to the Kurlei officer who was rubbing her face in the man’s flesh.

  What was she doing? He couldn’t take the shot; she was too close to Stryker. So he poured blaster bolts into one of the escorts.

  Beside him, Zy Pel was muttering in horror. “Not again. Not again. Not here. Not now.” But he kept it together enough to put three rounds into the other escort, who staggered back.

  Exposed now, the Kurlei officer was revealed as a creature from hell. Its jaw had extended until its chin was now a sharp spike. But it was her teeth that transfixed him. She was sprouting huge canine fangs before his eyes. As she licked her growing fangs with her long tongue, she opened her arms as if in prayer and sniffed greedily at the frozen air.

  She appeared oblivious to the weapons fire. Her only desire was to sink those fangs into Stryker’s flesh.

  Yergin flew in at speed, spraying the group with blaster fire and knocking the ring of captors around Stryker into the snow.

  Osu and Zy Pel poured fire into the enemy who had been thrown clear of Stryker.

  But it was not over yet. At this range and against legionary armor, Osu’s blaster was not delivering kill shots, and Zy Pel’s rifle was faring only a little better. Yergin was deadlier, firing into armor weak spots at a range measured in mere inches.

  From the woods over to the east erupted scattered bursts of blaster and railgun fire. It sounded like Urdizine and Zavage were too occupied to help any time soon.

  “We need to get closer,” said Osu, and mounted his bike, ready to drive into the fray.

  The enemy seemed confused by the sudden close quarters combat, but not the Kurlei. She employed the renowned athleticism of her race to jump through the melee as Yergin kicked and fired his way through to Stryker. She landed on the bike’s control panel beneath the handlebars, facing the sapper.

  Zy Pel – the man who would keep calm in the direst circumstances, more than any legionary Osu had ever known – gave such a scream of horror that Osu’s blood turned to ice.

  Osu abandoned Zy Pel, driving his bike straight at the enemy.

  Yergin’s advance had stalled under the blows of railgun stocks raining on his head. Stryker had his hands around the Kurlei’s waist, trying to tug her away from the bike, but she kept an unbreakable hold around Yergin, her face buried inside his cloak as if feeding upon his flesh.

  “No!” yelled Zy Pel as Osu slammed his bike into two of the enemy with a sideswipe against the backs of their knees.

  The Kurlei raised her head, licking Yergin’s blood from her fangs with a long tongue. The fronds in her head were erect and quivering, and Osu could feel the emotion of raw triumph she was broadcasting through them. As he stuck a blade through an enemy’s neck, he could also feel the moment when her confidence changed to confusion. She snapped her bloody jaws at Stryker’s hand, which he snatched away just in time. She used the space she’d won to sniff the air and then stare into the distance. She was staring directly at Zy Pel.

  A rifle report rang out from the sniper’s position, quickly muffled by the snow and trees, as Zy Pel put a round through the Kurlei and blew her alien brains out.

  At the officer’s death, the enemy appeared stunned, confused.

  “Yergin, get him out of here,” Osu shouted, taking advantage of the confusion to put coldly murderous fire into the false legionaries.

  Yergin recovered his senses and hauled Stryker up to ride pillion behind him. They sped away, passing Zy Pel and heading back to the hollow they’d scooped out from the top of the glacier.

  Osu drove off on a looping curve that put a little distance from the group of phonies who were by now dead, wounded, or too confused to fight. Then he circled back, savaging the area with his bike’s blaster cannons until no one was left alive.

  Covered by Zavage and Urdizine who had emerged unscathed from the trees, he retrieved Stryker’s bike and set it to auto follow.

  As they raced back to rejoin the others on the glacier, the red sky made a fiery backdrop for an uneven aerial battle. Legion Spikeballs tore into the fleeing enemy aircraft, bullying through the escort fighters and cutting a swathe of destruction through the bombers that had almost escaped to orbit.

  Even at this distance, the fireballs blossoming in the upper atmosphere from the dusted bombers cast sharp shadows along the tree line.

  Osu prayed that not a single enemy aircraft would escape.

  They regrouped in the hollow. Osu saw immediately that it wasn’t Stryker who was the most shaken by the experience; it was Yergin.

  With Zavage, Stryker and Urdizine mounted on their bikes and providing overwatch, Osu knelt in front of Yergin under the cover of the camo-sheets. He was shaking – and not from the cold. His eyes were wild, and he was sweating despite the ice, but when Osu took a closer look at the wounds the Kurlei officer had inflicted on his chest, they were bloodied scores, but they were far from the deep gouging wounds Osu had expected. She seemed to have sunk the tips of her fangs beneath Yergin’s skin and moved them from side to side, but no more.

  Had she used venom?

  “Skragg!” screamed Yergin. “Holy Azhanti, they were vampires, man! Alien vampires. They fucking bit me! I’m gonna turn into one of them.”

  “There are no such things as vampires,” Zy Pel told him with calm finality. “But…” He looked away. “I’ve seen things that are much worse.”

  Yergin grabbed his shoulders and drew him down till their foreheads were almost touching. “Is that what we’re facing, brother? This nightmare you met in your past? Tell me it ain’t so.”

  “Maybe.” Zy Pel shook his head. “Almost certainly not.”

  “Suppose it was,” said Osu. “What would you advise then?”

  Zy Pel gave him such a look of pain and loss that Osu took a step back. With a visible effort, he calmed himself and reached for a med-kit. “This isn’t what I saw before. But if it were, we would need to watch you, Yergin. Give it an hour to get on our way and then…”

  Yergin shook him by the shoulders. “C’mon, Hines. What? Decapitate me? Stake through the heart? Spit it out. C’mon, man!”

  Zy Pel started cleaning Yergin’s wound. “There’s no such thing as vampires, okay? I encountered an alien cult once at a place called Azoth-Zol. They bit people to make them more pliable. Some kind of mind-control shit. But their victims were aliens, and you’re Marc Yergin. You may be a borderline case, but technically you classify as human.�
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  His words calmed Yergin a little but had the opposite effect on Osu. That Kurlei had sniffed out Zy Pel, and his scent had confused the hell out of her. There was much more that Zy Pel wasn’t saying.

  While Zy Pel applied an active dressing, Osu tried to calm Yergin further. “Mind control drug administered through false fangs,” he said. “As alien freak cults go, that’s pretty mild. How long after being bitten did the effects surface?”

  “An hour,” Zy Pel replied as he stowed his med-kit.

  Zy Pel’s words were spoken casually, but Osu took them seriously. Within an hour, he would ensure Yergin would be restrained and under armed supervision. First, they had to get out of there. Fast.

  “Are you all in denial?” It was Stryker, who had slid into the hollow.

  “Get back to your position,” Osu snapped at him, beyond furious.

  But Stryker only glared back. “De Ketele,” he said. “Krynox, Grymz.” He peered at Osu. “Sanderson,” he whispered. “Newts in protective rad gear are assaulting what remains of Camp Faxian. Fires are still burning, and the air is thick with blaster bolts. There are hundreds of damned newts. But there must be survivors too, though not for much longer unless we do something. And here you are talking about vampires. You’re in denial! Let’s go help our friends, already!”

  “I don’t like it any more than you,” said Osu, “but the colonel trusted us with a vital mission. And we will carry it out.”

  “Is that it?” Stryker roared. “Is that our skragging response? Everyone we know either died or will do soon, and we let those RILs get away with it?”

  “I think this is bigger than the RILs,” said Osu, raising his voice to Zavage and Urdizine who were doubtless listening in from their watch positions outside. “Bigger even than Camp Faxian. We won’t forget this, I promise you that. I swear we will send a multitude of newts to meet their precious goddess, but first” – he cast a worried look at Yergin – “we need to move out.”

  “I’m still Marc Yergin. What about you, Sarge? Are you still Osu Sybutu or did those nukes mutate you into a vampire hunter? Because I know the real Sybutu would never abandon his comrades.”