All-Patron Reward: Demons of the Past old Draft: Baptism of Fire Chapter 3

This is in some ways one of the most interesting old chapters; parts of this chapter are practically identical, word-for-word, with not only the published version but with the original version I wrote decades ago. The characters have changed back and forth, the technology has changed, the names of devices and even the adversaries have changed, but the basic conflict in the corridor? That's stayed pretty much exactly the same for forty years. 

At the same time, this chapter is so very different from the published version. At this point I had not yet decided that Varan's Tor training should allow him to resist psionics; it wasn't clear in my cosmology yet. Thus, the entire encounter with the Zchoradan psi is absent. 

As usual, the published version is vastly superior. But I still think this one is interesting to read.

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iii.

Red fire-hammers slammed into the makeshift barricade. Being made mostly of E-steel torn from the bulkheads behind us, it didn't give much, but even a little was too much. As the glare and smoke faded, I saw the sinuous chitin-covered forms winding with deceptive speed down the corridor. Doradans. Five of them. I sighted on one antlike head, saw it was helmeted, shifted my aim to the ten clawed legs. "Jearsen!" I shouted. "Gimme a line of Null-7 charges, range 35, fast!"

Jearsen moved almost before I called the order. A stacatto roar of destruction burst out thirty-five meters away, showering our armor with debris and shattered Doradan fragments. I saw the second wave of the fifteen-foot creatures withdraw, repulsed for the moment. "that's what I like about you Marines." I said. "you're so good at mindless destruction."

He chuckled. "That's because you Navy vacuum-heads are so good at giving mindless orders. Do you realize how close we just came to hole-through?"

Damn right I had. With the bulkheads gone behind us, we could have decompressed an entire section. "You know of any other way we could have stopped that last rush?"

He shook his head, an action barely visible through the tinted faceplate. "Of course not; if I had I'd have told you."

I squinted out through the smoke. No movement yet. "Damn. Why did they have to hit our section?"

"Bad timing, I guess. Be glad we were already in our armor for that practice session or we'd never have gotten here in time." Jearsen drummed his metal-clad fingers on the barricade, a sound like hail on a metal roof. "I just wish I knew what happened to our supposedly-foolproof sensor warning! They were drilling our locks before an alarm went off."

"Yeah." I said. An unpleasant thought had occurred to me. "Almost as though someone let them through..."

"Varan!" bellowed a familiar voice behind me.

I'd been expecting this for the past few minutes. "Keep an eye on things, eh, Jearsen?"

He gave me a nod and a smile(nearly invisible inside the darkened visor) and settled into a cover stance at the barricade's point. I turned. "Yes, sir?"

Captain Tels was already almost climbing the front of my power armor; the idiot had, of course, not bothered to put his own on. "Varan, what in the Seven Towers are you doing? I ordered an evacuation of this section ten minutes ago!"

"I never received such and order, sir," I lied, "but even if I had I don't think I would have obeyed it."

"You don't, eh?" His face had that predatory gleam officers can get when they move in for the kill. "Would you mind telling me why, Commander...before you become a Lieutenant again?"

Dealing with armchair admirals like Tels comes with this job. I held my temper and explained. "Captain, at the moment the Doradans are pretty well boxed in. The blast doors sealed off Outring Port, Commander Hinla's boys have them stopped at Outring Starboard and radial 2 In, and we're holding them here for now. But if they get to that intersection you passed just twenty meters back," I hooked my thumb down the corridor, "they'll have five directions to go! If YOU want to try holding both ends of Vertical One, both sides of Midring, AND this radial, fine, but give ME a fast flight out first!"

I'll give Tel's this, he was a lot smarter than a lot of the boneheads they assign to these border stations. "I see, Commander. You're right, of course. I'll recall some of those evacuated men and put them --"

"Commander!" shouted Jearsen. "The --"

Crimson slashed the air to slivers. A bludgeon of red caught Tels in the chest, hammered him backwards and down the gaping pit of Vertical One. Whining shrieks spat from the LasCan in accompaniment to the blue bolts Jearsen was returning down the corridor. I scuttled forward in a crouch, trying to make the most of the barricade's cover. Just as I reached the Null-7, Doradans poured in a weaving, clattering horde over the barrier, mandibles and legs slashing.

They got Jearsen that way, unable to bring the LasCan to bear at such close range, with too little time to draw his rifle. Nine of the ten-legged monsters swarmed over him. The E-steel armor helped him kill three, four of them, but the others grabbed him, dragged him off the cannon's saddle, and tore him to pieces, armor and all. I heard his screams for minutes after he was dead, realized the screams were mine as I fired without aiming into the segmented alien mob. One reached me and I swung hysterically.

The power-amplifed blow pulped the huge-eyed ant's head, and actually feeling one die brought back some measure of sanity. The revulsion and terror were still there, but my training had taken over. I fired, swung, kicked, threw grenades. Bladed legs ripped the air and I ducked, grabbed, and threw the centipedal monster into a barrage of its allies' shots. A metal tube came to bear on me; my rifle vaporized the tube's wielder. Two chitin-armored forms rushed me, slammed me into the wall. The back of my head smacked the inside of the helmet, orange-red pain blurred my vision. Claws pulled on my armor, and a memory of Jearsen seared away the mental fog. I punded fists and feet into anything that moved, stumbled away from the ruins of flesh that had been my attackers. My leg was stiff and hurt when I moved it, but as a Doradan reared up through the drifting smoke I spun and leaped in a Tor kick, crushed its second thoracic segment, flung it away. Metal glinted as one aimed at me, I turned. raising my rifle. Red and blue beams crisscrossed paths, fire washed down my right side.

Then it was over, and I was standing alone in the radial corridor. At least twenty Doradans were sprawled lifeless across the barricade, in pieces on the deck, slumped against the shattered bulkheads. Smoke filled the tunnel in eddying clouds, swirling like blood in the orange emergency illumination. I almost fell as my weight pulsed; the gravity generators were going. My eyes weren't cooperating and the LasCan drifted in and out of focus as I hobbled towards it. I could hear through my one working microphone a rattling rustle as the rest regrouped for another assault. Two cracked ribs I hadn't known were there filled each breath with flame as I pulled myself up to the saddle. In the dim lighting I saw the dark, serpentine shadows begin a charge. Then I touched the trigger and hurled horror back at them with blue-shrieking light.

They tell me they found me like that, firing incessantly at the crawling shadows cast by the smoke in the orange light. All I remember is seeing a shadow move behind me, swinging the cannon about, and letting darkness claim me as I saw that the figure stood on two legs.