Wings of the Magpie: Space Operettas by Loch Erinheart Read Free Book Online

women and children all.
    Gunny looked down at the zapgun in her hand, then up at me, then back to the zapgun. “Dammit!” shouted Gunny, throwing her zapgun to the floor. She dropped her hand to her side, cast her eyes towards the ground.
    “Gunny,” I said, touching her shoulder. “We only win by being human.” I put my arms around her, held her close, listened to her breathing, her heartbeat.
    “I’ve been a soldier forever, Magpie,” said Gunny. “What if I don’t know how?”
    “Learn.” I felt a tugging on my coverall, and glanced down to see the little Badger that had been hiding behind her mother. In one of her hands she held a toy, a bit of stuffed cloth and leather, a doll. She smiled up at me, teeth sharp, but grinning. The little Badger grasped my hand, her paw was warm, comforting. I looked around at my exhausted battle-sisters, meeting each woman’s eyes in turn.
    “Yeah,” said Gunny. “I guess you’re right.” She turned to the Grummand. “Stand down,” she ordered.
    That was when the little Badger sank its jagged teeth into my wrist. Immediately, I screamed in pain. The next few moments passed in a slow-motion blur, still images strobe-lit with zapgun fire. I discharged my sidearm point-blank into the creature’s face, knocking its tiny smoking carcass to the deck, then watched as Lawrence fell, the side of her head caved in by a Badger’s bludgeon. Gunny dived for her weapon, grabbed it and Lawrence’s in a single motion, and came up firing, two-handed. Poynter dropped to one knee, downing first one charging Badger with a precise zapgun blast, then another. The Grummand cut loose with its plasma cannon, disintegrating clusters of advancing badgers a dozen at a time with glassgreen bursts of energy.
    “Pull back! pull back!” screamed Gunny, and somehow, though the rapacious horde of Badgers closed in, we managed to press our way back into the liftshaft corridor and into the liftshaft itself, the Grummand providing covering fire as we retreated.
    Once the liftshaft’s doors slammed shut, isolating us from the Badgers, our ascent back towards the observation deck began. Gunny bound my bleeding hand, saying, “In the future, Magpie, remind me not to take your advice.”
    Poynter sat at the Grummand’s feet, nervously scraping carbon away from the barrel of her zapgun. “Cripes, how could we have been so stupid?”
    “We’re not getting out of this alive, are we?” I asked, my voice dry, crumbling.
    Gunny bit her lower lip pensively, then reached into the breast pocket of her coverall and fished out a somewhat bent cigar. “We’re alive now,” she said. “And we’re still Marines. We’ll suit back up, reload, and head back down there to show those mangy bastards what’s for. Semper Fi, Marines.”
    “Semper Fi,” echoed Poynter, her voice weak with exhaustion. The two women, my battle-sisters, both looked at me expectantly.
    “Semper Fi,” I said, in as strong a voice as I could muster. I met their eyes, feeling a wave of pride, of honor, of duty sweeping through me. “Always faithful,” I continued, “faithful to our fallen sisters, to Terra, and the Corps.”
     

Tech Support
     
    Hello, Technical Support Services? Yes, this is Doctor Sabot, in lab number three-three-seven-oh-five, concourse AA-thirty-five B. Who am I speaking to? Ah, Cogswell, I thought I recognized your voice. It’s about this new sweeper unit. It appears to be on the fritz. What is it doing? Well, it’s not sweeping, for one. I’ve got two broken test tubes on my floor and it’s ignoring both of them. In addition, it keeps making a strange noise, sort of a wheezing, sniveling sound. It’s rather distracting, disrupting my work. It’s also been waving its forelimbs at me, chattering, pacing to and fro, and refusing, flat out refusing, to do its job and sweep up my workspace.
    Yes, of course I’ve gone down the list, tried all the usual troubleshooting tips. I’ve shouted at it, I’ve