John Ringo: Vorpal Blade

“Die you mother grapper s!” Pearson screamed, waving his Gatling back and forth as the Demons ripped into his armor. As a Demon face appeared in the opening, he spit at it. “I’ll eat your soul and—”

“Oh,” Lady Che-chee said as they stepped through the anomaly.

The far side was a small room, almost bare except for a pile of the blue moss. And the skeleton lying on it.

“We need to move her,” Miriam said, picking up a bone. “Quickly. Then you have to lie down there.”

“How do you know this?” Lady Che-chee said, reaching onto the dais and sweeping most of the bones away with one broad motion.

“I don’t know,” Miriam said. “I just have a knack. Please. Hurry. More than Cheerick could depend on this.”

“Pearson’s down,” the first sergeant said to Chief Miller. “Can you fill the gap?”

Miller had lifted his board up and was carefully engaging the approaching beetles with his sniper rifle while occasionally providing supporting fire with his Gatling. He looked over at the gap, where a Royal Guardsman was being ripped apart, and dropped down.

“Got it,” he said, sliding forward, then casually stepping off the board. Two bursts cleared the Demons in the hole and he strode into it, firing his Gatling into the mass of Demons, then switching to the rifle to fire at an approaching dragon. “Gotta love a target rich environment.”

“One minute to warp,” the pilot said. He wished he could wipe his face. Even through his space suit the compartment was hot as hell.

“Come on, baby,” the CO said, patting the hull. “Hold together…”

“I just lost power!” the pilot shouted. “We’re drifting. Drifting fast, but drifting!”

“Burn through in engineering! Drive down!”

“That is not holding together!”

“ EEK! ” Lady Che-chee squeaked.

“What is going on?” Miriam asked.

“I have a hard time telling,” Lady Che-chee said. “I can see… everything.”

“Can you see how to control the Demons?” Miriam asked. “Especially, are there any in space, near the planet?”

“I… yes!” Lady Che-chee said. “I think… yes…”

“Couldn’t we wait to patch these until after the battle?” Sub Dude asked, slapping a sheet of heavy steel down on a hole in the hull.

“I wish,” Red said, just as the steel blasted backwards, melting even as it moved.

“ Maulk! ” Gants shouted, trying to jump back just as the gravity cut out. “Blow this for a game of soldiers!” he continued, floating in midair.

“ Grapp, ” Red said, his hand on his arm. “I think one of those melted pieces hit my suit.” Air and red could be seen escaping between his clutched fingers.

“Hang on, Red,” Gants said desperately, trying to reach anything that he could bounce off of to get to the injured teammate. “Just hang on .”

“HOLD YOUR GROUND!” First Sergeant Powell shouted as Captain MacDonald was picked up by a dragon and killed with a single crunch. “HOLD!”

The perimeter had shrunk to a tiny handful with their backs practically to the anomaly. The Demons were up on the dais and they’d been joined by their bigger brethren.

“Die you grapp tard!” Berg shouted, firing both pistols and his Gatling into a beetle’s mouth. Even the .50 caliber rounds were sparking off of the beetle’s mouthparts. And when it opened its mouth, it was going to close on his armor. “ GRAPPING DIE!”

As he screamed that the beetle suddenly stopped, then backed away.

“Okay,” Berg said, lifting up on his bite-trigger. “Running away works.”

All of the beasts were backing away, retreating to the edge of the room even as the Marines continued to fire.

“Cease fire!” Top shouted, looking around.

Lieutenant Patrick West was dead, his armor ripped open by Demons then crushed in the jaws of a dragon. Staff Sergeant Sutherland lay on the dais surrounded by a wall of Demon bodies. Holland was just… in pieces.

Top, Berg, Seeley and Corwin were the only Marines left standing. Besides the Marines there were two Royal Guardsmen, one with a ripped up leg, Commander Weaver and Chief Miller.

The latter’s smoking Gatling tracked from side to side as the Demons settled in a distant ring around the Marine contingent.

“That’s right, you’d better run,” Miller said, holding his rifle over his head. “SEALS RULE!”

“Actually, I think the Cheerick rule,” Miriam said, stepping out of the anomaly. “Right now, I’m trying to figure out how we explain to the captain that the dragonflies are going to tow him home.”

“It’s a planetary defense system,” Weaver said, looking at the plans.

The “anomaly room” had contained more than just the control dais. There were metal plates with complex formulas, schematics and a strange language.

The entire assembly had been packed back out by the remaining Marines and Royal Guardsmen. The dead Marines from the battle were carried out on the backs of dragons. Remarkably tame dragons that followed the orders of Lady Che-chee like so many dogs. The whole procession had ended up in the palace along with the officers from the ship.

“It might even be a system designed to fight the Dreen,” he continued. “The big chamber is where the weapons are forged. But why do they track in on electrical signals?”

“Want a guess?” Miller asked. “Somebody gained control of it during a war between Cheerick. Or maybe the last guardian of it set it to the simplest thing she could imagine, knowing that any enemy would use electricity.”

“But now we know what it is truly designed for,” Lady Che-chee said, looking at the plans. “Yes, I saw all of this on the bed. Also I could see how to stop the Demons attacking.”

“And towing back the ship,” Chief Miller said, looking over at Captain Blankemeier and grinning. “That was a hell of a sight.”

“You should have seen it from my perspective, Chief Warrant,” the CO said bitterly. “There we were, dead in space. All of a sudden, the flies stopped firing. Great. Then they grab onto the ship and start towing it back to the planet. Ever seen a wasp pick up a spider it’s taking home to feed to its young?”

“Hmmm…” Bill said. “Lady Che-chee?”

“Commander Beeel?”

“Is there a way you could get one of those guys to fly over to your estate? While the ship’s being worked on I think we need to take a look at it.”

“Ahem,” the CO said. “Might I point out to you, XO, that the duty of getting this ship functional is yours ?”

“Understood, sir,” Bill replied, straightening up. “There are others that can take a look at it. Permission to have a brief discussion with First Sergeant Powell and Chief Miller before I get into reconstructing a half-destroyed ship sufficiently to make it spaceworthy back to earth?”

“Permission granted,” the CO said. “But make it short.”

“It actually does look like a dragonfly, doesn’t it?” First Sergeant Powell said, walking around the grounded… thing.

The “dragonfly” was about twelve meters long from what looked like a feeding tube to the end of its abdomen. However, it had no segmentation and no antennae, its legs were extremely stubby and instead of having a head, thorax and abdomen it had three sections not nearly as well delineated. The junctures were thick, unlike an insect. The two sets of wings were also separated by a short, indented, section where the thorax would be.

“More like a solfugid that’s evolved to fly,” Dr. Robertson said, circling in the other direction. “But the similarity is interesting.”