The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH34

Jeremy leaned around the corner only long enough to fire three shots, then was back behind cover. “Four doors down. I think.” He was confident he’d seen the tip of a boot in that doorway. Possibly someone’s shadow from the light inside on the corridor floor, but the light outside made that uncertain.

He wanted a scanner to confirm what he thought, but the hunter with them had gone his own way a few corridors back. Jeremy wasn’t sure if it had happened with the beta’s approval, but he was starting to understand Thur’s dislike of them. The least they could have done was let the other packs know what they were up to.

“It’s in line with what I saw,” a hunter from the other pack said, on the other side of the hall. “With someone two doors after—”

The explosion from where their opposition rendered the rest of what she said inaudible.

“Prey, down.” Someone said in his ear, and Jeremy looked around for Thur. Who gave the signal to move. Gun at the ready, he formed with his pack and they headed toward the two doors, now disgorging smoke.

They stopped, gun on the person who stepped out of the closest room. The smoke thinned, and he saw their eyes were on a device.

“This section’s clear,” the male said, not looking up. “We can proceed.”

“We had this,” Thur muttered, and Jeremy looked at him. He wanted to ask what the problem was, but he wasn’t with his friend right now. Once the hunt was done, he’d be able to shed his rank.

Thur straightened, and his voice didn’t carry the annoyance Jeremy had heard. “What does the way ahead look like?”

“Oh,” the male said, not sounding bothered. “There’s a barricade with almost a full pack behind them, but I doubt they’ll be a problem.”

“Will you Special ops leave anyone for us to deal with?” Yamilk asked, not masking his annoyance. Hunters were allowed a certain level of disrespect toward other hunters.

“Why? Bored?”

“If you didn’t need us, I’d have happily stayed home with my mates.”

“Then turn around. They think they’re getting the drop on you.”

Jeremy spun, then moved to the side, so he wasn’t blocking anyone else’s line of fire and scanned the corridor. Too narrow was the impression of it. Suffocating. “Wher—” the motion in the celling quieted him. A panel was missing. Ear code in front of him, drawing attention upward to it. Instructions for the other pack to aim high, while his kept the corridor covered.

They fired as someone looked down from the hole. Stopped when the stump was pulled back. Jeremy fired at the head that poked around a corner, but it vanished before he could be sure he’d hit it. Ear code asked for confirmation of hits; no one gave it.

Something was lobbed toward them from the corner.

He looked away along with the others, and the explosion of light still had him see stars. His ears rang enough, he doubted he could hear someone screaming in them. He ran toward the people rounding the corner, firing at the indistinct forms. For him not to be able to hear anything, the Kelsirians, with their more sensitive hearing, had to be debilitated at the moment.

He covered the distance before his prey overcame the surprise of being attacked, shooting three down, then clawing the throat of two, before the hit sent him back, the electrical jolt having him grinding his teeth.

The surprise told him they hadn’t expected him among their target. Which meant the stun stick wasn’t for him. But anyone they encountered. Whatever else this was. They weren’t planning on killing every hunter they fought.

He pushed through the pain. Either the setting was wrong for him—he’d have to find out if Kelsirians were more sensitive to pain as well—or they hadn’t taken into account his armor.

He struck with his gun and claws, gritting his teeth when another stun stick hit him. More powerful, but not enough to disable him. A punch staggered him, and he dropped his gun. He blocked, slashed and was shoved away. He stepped forward, and the stun stick in the stomach had him on the floor twitching uncontrollably.

He fought to regain control of his body as shadows passed over him. When someone turned him on his back, he could breathe again, and Grisnir asked if he was okay in ear code. It took him three tries before he thought he managed to nod.

It was two more minutes before he had enough control to push himself to his feet, using the wall.

Skaram tapped his shoulder, then motioned from his eyes to hers.

“I can hear,” he said, while she shone a light in his eyes. By the ear code he saw, he suspected he was the only one. The conversation settled into assigning guard positions while they’d wait to regain enough of their hearing to continue.

“How’s everyone’s hearing?” Beta Grinlark Trorel Roshkirak asked, voice raised.

“Pretty much fine,” Jeremy replied. But probably had suffered damages that would need medical to fix.

“Got lots of ringing,” Trose said, shaking her head as if she could force it out. Others agreed with her.

“We can’t wait here,” Thur said. “Hunter Jeremy, you are our ears until we’re over this. Take the lead. Hunter Yolarimal Rogretref Karifte, are you operational?”

The male picked up the device off the floor and looked at it. “Still working. The upside of this is that there is no barricade anymore. My pack’s waiting for us there.”

Jeremy joined him, glancing at the screen while listening for out-of-place sounds. A scanner of some kind, but he couldn’t make sense of what he saw.

“Multiband,” the male said, without looking away from it. “Takes a while to learn to read it, but it tells me just about everything, about everything around us.”

The only thought Jeremy had about that was that it was too small for everything that implied it did. Which had him chuckling. Kelsirians did nothing small, as far as he was concerned, so that thing was even more impossible than it seemed.

“Can I get one?”

“It’s years of training before you can do anything with it.”

“Thinking more about opening it to see how it works.”

The male snorted. “You’ll make an enemy of our builder if you do that.”

“Maybe you can introduce me and I can convince him.”

Another snort. “He’s only into females.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “There are other ways than sex to convince someone, you know.”

The male grinned. “But they aren’t as fun.”

Jeremy couldn’t argue that.

“My pack’s ahead. My hearing seemed to be fine now.”

“What are you doing to my hunter!” a female yelled in the distance.

“Treating him like a hunter!” Thur replied. “The way you should, too!”

“I treat him like a hunter. One with eyes that see through everything and knows when he’s better served following what he sees. Independence is not a flaw.”

Thur’s grumble was filled with annoyance. “It is when you can’t depend on them to be where you need them.”

“He made my our job easier,” Jeremy pointed out, counting on their friendship to—the glare said he’d overstepped.

“Going to check something,” the male said, and ignored Thur’s orders to stay.

“Beta,” Jeremy said, when what was left of the barricade came into view, along with the maintenance panel. “I want to check that panel. There might be something to help against another of those grenades.”

“Go.”

He had to force the panel open, then searched through its content, until he found the rupture sealant, along with the welding lance. He put a line of the sealant the length of his hand on the floor, and it expanded until it was almost as large. Prying it off required using a knife. Then he used the lance to cut it down to shape, trying to insert it in his ear until the fit was somewhat comfortable. With two, he barely heard the discussion.

Making a Kelsirian one gave him pause. “Skaram, I need to borrow your scanner.” He kept her from leaving so he could scan her ear.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sound mufflers.” The ear canal started not too far from the bottom of the pavilion, so it wouldn’t be complicated to insert it. He’d just have to make sure to leave an extension to grab when it was time to remove it.

“Against the sensory grenade?”

He nodded. The real problem was that he’d have to do test fits, and those weren’t comfortable. The ideal method would be to fill the canal, let the foam expand and harden, then remove that, but he wasn’t attempting that with something designed to fit hull ruptures. With how hard it had adhered to the floor, it might rip the ear out in the process.

“If it’s going to block something that loud, how are we going to talk?”

He froze. That hadn’t occurred to him. “You have ear code.”

“You can’t make it.”

Right.

One problem at a time didn’t tell him which was the first problem he needed to tackle. “Isn’t this kind of protection something you all carry?”

“Something like that grenade’s illegal within the Federation. Some law because of how the Ridoshi hear, and certain sounds can kill them, don’t remember exactly.”

“And everyone respects it?”

She shrugged. “First time I’ve suffered from it. Even Taournian pirates never throw something like that at us, and if there’s one bunch that doesn’t care about laws, it’s them.”

“Hunters,” Thur called. “Status?”

“We can use this to make sound mufflers. We just need to carve sections to fit your ears. But it blocks just about everything. I figure I can make one that has an earpiece in it, but not here, with what we have.”

“You didn’t say you had a Builder in your pack the Special ops beta said in a teasing tone.”

“Then leave it. We have a hunt to finish. You can work on it, so we have them the next time Earthers get in our way. Form up. Beta, has your pack worked out the way to the command center?”

“Indeed, beta,” she replied. “I didn’t even have to order Yol to do it.”

Jeremy read the announce in his friend’s ears, but Thur remained silent.

*

The grenade exploded, still in the air, to a brightness that rivaled the first one, but no sounds other than it blowing apart. Trose returned to firing at the barricade. With the rest of them.

*

Jeremy shoulder-checked the Earther before she brought the pole down on the panting Urum, then punched her as hard as he could. He didn’t have the time to kill. Too many of them were down due to exhaustion.

The section of corridor in which they’d been ambushed was narrow enough it made it difficult for the hunters to relieve each other, so that in spite of being nearly twice as numerous as the Earthers, Jeremy was the only left not fighting exhaustion. He grabbed another Earther by the back of the collar and pulled down, then kicked him in the head. He fired at one on the other side of the corridor, then ran at the next one, punching them on the way to another.

The only thing they had going for them was that no one they fought seemed to be military. They certainly knew how to fight, but lacked precision in their strikes Jeremy had gained through his training.

Hunters took down one. Jeremy slammed a pole into another’s chest.

Something hit the back of his head, and he was on all fours, fighting for gravity to settle. A body fell next to him, face raked to the bone. Legs around him. Orders to protect him.

He told gravity to go fuck itself and pushed up. He grabbed onto an arm to help him further, and a hand added to the help.

“Jer?”

“A little woozy, beta, but I’m good.” He straightened. The hunters had gathered around him, some on the floor, catching their breath, while the others waited to be unleashed. The Earthers surrounded them, a variety of items for weapons.

“Hunters!” Thur snapped.

“We die so others live!” they replied as one, the roar of their voices shaking the Earthers, and they took advantage of the surprise.

*

“If you scan hunter had been with us, as is procedure,” Thur said, the effort to keep his voice calm visible to Jeremy. “This wouldn’t have happened.”

“We won,” the other beta replied, not quite dismissively, but certainly not as seriously as Jeremy thought the situation called for. The victory had been hard. Half the hunters were on their backs, and not all of them because of pushing themselves to exhaustion. Too many injuries because of fatigue caused mistakes. The three packs medics were going over everyone, patching cuts and securing broken bones. One female had a sheet over her.

Their one casualty.

One when they’d fought all those Earthers was amazing. But it was still one too many. One which wouldn’t have happened if they had known the ambush was coming.

She wasn’t from his pack, and he was ashamed he couldn’t remember her name.

“And what about the next ambush?” Thur demanded.

“We will deal with that when it happens, beta. We fight in the now, not the future.”

Thur wasn’t happy to have his words used against him. “Status?” he asked, turning away from the beta.

“One casualty,” Skaram said, reporting the obvious. “A few broken bones that have been set and will sustain non-combat actions. And everyone needs to rest. Hunter Yigrim Horo Imalas should be confined to bed for a few hours.”

“We don’t have hours, Hunter,” Thur replied.

“I’ve given him vitamins and boosters, but this is showing me that if going up against Earthers becomes a regular thing, I’ll need some form of stimulant added to my pack.”

“I’ll bring it up with the Alpha,” Thur said.

“Just give me a few minutes,” the male on his back said.

“Hunter?” Thur looked at Jeremy.

“I’m just winded. Whenever you order us to move, I’ll be ready.” He hated that he couldn’t think of something to help. There was always teleportation. If he wanted to attempt the impossible, that would fix all the problems fighting Earthers cause. Until someone else managed it as well, and then….

Maybe it was a good thing teleportation was in the realm of fiction. Earthers with that technology would be a bane on everyone else.

The male, Hunter Yigrim Horo Imalas, stood unsteadily. The betas consulted each other, then gave the order to move.

*

It was pure luck they hadn’t stepped into the ambush. Hunter Yigrim Horo Imalas had fallen, trying to keep up being too much for his exhausted state, and someone from his pack had heard something in the distance. Someone startled, she’d described the sound as. Her beta had sent her and another from her pack to check, and they’d returned with report that the Earthers waited at the back of adjacent corridors.

Whispers of Meddling, and thanks to various gods, followed.

“Tell me, this still justifies that male of yours not—” Thur’s low complain was cut short by the panel on the opposite wall opening.

The male behind it looked up from his scanner at the guns pointed at him. “I found us a way to bypass all of this.”

The male’s beta smirked.

Thur grumbled wordlessly the entire trek to the command center.

Outline section 

The two merged teams press into the station to find the kelsirian merchants. They don’t have the ship to back them up, but they have a large team of diverse skills aside from killing... they are also all pretty good at fighting/killing, so once the original ambush fails they don’t run into too much of a problem.

They eventually find a security office, and from there get a layout of the station. And wouldn’t you know it, there is an extensive prison system. So that becomes their destination. Combat will become more intense as they approach the prison; even without the high alert this is where some of the best guards would be. What they find is shocking...

Addition 

Encounter problems on the way to the station’s control center. Enough to give them actual trouble. Not enough to keep themn from reaching it. Important detail. Things have to happen in such a way that covert ops is shown to be important, and that Thur has issues each time they are the reason their ass is saved.

Great. More fighting. Have I mentioned I suck at writing fights? I still think I did a decent job. The main thing I aimed for was to show Jeremy’s advantage over the Kelsirians, the consequences of prolonged fighting for theim, which will problably result in me having to rework fights in the previous book. And Thuruk’s distaste for special ops.