John Ringo - When the Devil Dances

“Step back,” Wendy warned. “That stuff could make you anoxic in a heartbeat. Interesting, the door looks like memory plastic, but it’s blasplas.”

“What’s that mean?” Shari asked, exhaustedly. The trek had drained her to the floor.

“It means somebody wants it looking absolutely normal, but impenetrable,” Wendy said. “Try the left door; we don’t have time for mysteries.”

The second door immediately turned to gray and then white, the memory plastic hardening from the cryogenic bath. When the fog began to clear she stepped forward and placed the punch gun against the door, firing it and shattering the brittle plastic.

The Posleen normal on the other side looked down at the suddenly disappeared door then up at the human blocking the doorway and started to raise his boma blade.

Shari let out a yell and pointed the wand at the Posleen, firing a stream of the liquid into his face.

The normal let out a shrill garbled cry that only served to open his mouth to the stream. Shrilling in pain it tumbled backwards into the room as Wendy leaned over Shari and fired two bursts into his chest. The first burst bounced off of and shattered the flattened breast bone that armored the Posleen’s chest and, but the second burst pierced through to the heart and the normal slumped to the ground as if genuflecting.

Wendy swept the rest of the room but, as far as she could tell, it was all clear.

The vast chamber was obviously a mixing room of some sort, nutrients from the smell of it. There was a rich stench of ammonia and phosphate in the air and the floor was lined with massive tanks, ten or twelve feet high and thirty or forty feet across. The room was gigantic; the ceiling was high with large fans at the top and it was at least a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards across.

The doorway had opened onto a small metal-grate platform. A catwalk led from it, between rows of tanks, to a door on the wall in the distance. In the middle it was bisected by another catwalk that crossed the room side to side and there was a large control station at the intersection.

Wendy waved the others in and trotted towards the center. It had been decided that since the greatest threat was the Posleen coming up behind them, Elgars would cover the rear. She was backed up by Billy, who had his pistol and reloads for her. Shari had the nitrogen tank and the bag full of uniforms and respirators while Shannon carried Amber. Wendy led the way, both as the second best fighter and the one who knew the route.

The children followed wearily behind her. The trek had been long and extremely tiring, but they understood that they had to keep up. One of the adults, usually Wendy, would carry the youngest ones from time to time. And they slowed down for them when they felt they could. But the children had grown up with the war and the Posleen were the ultimate bogey-men; they would keep running until they dropped of exhaustion or were told to stop by an adult.

Wendy had reached the intersection before the captain entered the room. When she got there she consulted her map, but the last “secure” area would, according to the map, be through the right-hand door. She considered it then walked over, palming the pad. From the inside, the door opened easily. Sticking her head through, she checked the far room. It was, as the map said, a storage room for the nutrient materials. She waved the rest to follow and waited for them to catch up.

Elgars swept her rifle from side to side, turning to cover back and sides as she closed up the group. As she passed through the intersection something seemed to scream at her from the back of her mind. She had learned to listen to these little internal comments and she did now, looking around the room for whatever threat the voice was trying to tell her of.

After a moment she leaned her rifle up against the console and considered it thoughtfully while rubbing the bridge of her nose.

Wendy checked the far room again, but it was still clear. When she saw Elgars put her rifle down she swore.

“Shari, get the kids through to the other side; I have to go find out what the captain is up to.”

“Got it,” the older woman said wearily.

“Take a break, but we won’t be long.” She paused and contemplated the captain again. “I hope.”

By the time Wendy had reached the center consoles there was a massive gurgling sound echoing through the room and Elgars had headed to the nearest tank.

She walked over to the ladder on the side of the tank and started to climb up it, drawing her combat knife.

“Hey, Captain America,” Wendy said. “We’re on our way out of here in case you’d forgotten.”

“I know, ’twon’t take a minute,” Elgars said in a strangely deep voice. “Could you possibly rummage me up a spot of wire, baling wire will do well, and a few scraps of duct tape and… oh… a can of spray paint? There’s a good lass.”

“Hey!” Wendy said, catching Elgars’ eye. “Hello! Anne! We have to make like a tree and leaf !”

Elgars shook her head and looked down at her hands, which had started to strip out the wiring harness for the tank motor. She shook her head again and nodded. “I know,” she said in a normal, if distant, voice. “But I think the Posties should have a something to remember us by, don’t you?”

“So you’re mixing up a really nice batch of nutrients?” Wendy asked sarcastically.

“Not exactly,” Elgars said with a death’s-head grin. “What’s in nutrients, Wendy?”

Wendy thought about it then said: “Oh.”

“ Roight, ” Elgars said, her head going back down to her task. “Now go get me a spot of wire and some duct tape, there’s a good lass.”

“Wire and duct tape,” Wendy muttered, shifting the MP-5 to a better grip. “Where in the hell am I going to find wire and duct tape?”

There would be some in a maintenance section, but the nearest one on the map was further away than the elevators and in an area the Posleen were bound to have overrun. She walked to the far end of the room and thought about it. Something one of the long-time “pro” firefighters had told her floated up to the surface of memory and she smiled. She looked at her map and figured out which door an administrative puke would come in. All things considered, either the one they came in or the one they were going out. So, where was the furthest away from that you could get?

She climbed down from the catwalk and began hunting along the walls of the room until she found what she was looking for. On the south wall, the furthest from the door they had come in, behind the last tank, carefully hidden from all but a determined search, was a chair.

And a toolbox.

And a pile of oily rags and roll of baling wire. And a can of gray spray paint, half full.

And a pin-up calendar.

“Well, at least he had some taste,” she said sourly. “Although that chick has no idea how to carry a rifle. And I guaran tee that’s a dye job! If she’s a natural blonde, I’m Pamela Anderson.”

She opened up the toolbox and, after extracting a hard candy from the bag in the top, found the roll of duct tape in the lower compartment.

“Okay, all the comforts of home,” she muttered, rolling the candy around in her mouth. She put the baling wire in the toolbox, closed it up and picked up the can of spray paint. “Now if I can just get it all up the ladder.”

“What took you so long?” Elgars asked.

“Gee, sorry, Captain,” Wendy snapped back. “I just found a toolbox I thought you could use and all the other shit you asked for. I guess I should have hurried carrying the heavy fucker up the ladder! And trying to breathe in here isn’t helping!”