The Trilisk Supersedure Read Online Free Page B

reserve. The new
scout robots used Vovokan power plants and mass detectors, allowing them to
operate for weeks without recharge and giving them the capability to see
through walls and other obstacles. Their legs were also much stronger, as
Magnus had given them each six legs modeled after those on Shiny’s walking
machine.
    It
almost takes the fun out of it, Telisa thought. If there’s
any alien nasties, though, better a scout than me.
    “I’m
already seeing tunnels under the ground from the scout feeds,” Magnus noted.
    “Tunnels?
Damn. We barely made it out of the tunnels last time,” Telisa said.
    Magnus
shrugged. “Underground habitations survive better across long periods of time.
I’d get used to it.”
    Telisa
sighed. She heard a sound behind her. She turned and saw nothing, until Cilreth
materialized from thin air.
    “Sorry,
just testing,” she said. Cilreth wore the stealth suit.
    “You
better not have been using that thing to get a peek into my shower tube,”
Telisa joked.
    Cilreth
had made it clear during the voyage that she preferred women, though with
Telisa already in a monogamous relationship with Magnus it hadn’t impacted the
group’s dynamic much if at all.
    “Oh, I
have spy programs for that,” she said.
    Telisa
smiled. She noticed Cilreth had a stunner on one hip and a machete sheathed on
the other. Our weapons fetish has already spread.
    “I
guess it’s up to us to find out what we can with the scouts. Shiny didn’t know
much except he swears this used to be a Trilisk planet,” Magnus said.
    “Well,
he said it used to have Trilisks on it,” Telisa corrected.
    “So, I
did manage to get a scan off from orbit,” Cilreth said. “According to the Clacker ,
there aren’t any major settlements, at least not at any level of technology we’d
notice. The interface still needs some work. I know the ship has to be capable
of more thorough searches; I just can’t operate it well enough yet.”
    And it’s
so damn advanced I can barely find my own location marker in it.
    “Any
information is better than none,” Telisa said.
    “So,
anyway, I was kinda rushed with that work and didn’t get a chance to learn
about the planet from Terran sources,” Cilreth continued.
    “I didn’t
find much on this planet anyway except that it’s one of the open worlds,”
Telisa said. “It says there was a group of creatures here called the Konuan.
Now extinct. Some kind of primitive culture. Shiny, are you sure Trilisks were
here?”
    Shiny
joined the channel they shared, presumably at Telisa’s invitation. “Certain,
verified, known. Ruins around you contain traces of Trilisk presence.”
    “They
may have been here because of the Konuan,” Telisa said. “They may have been
studying them. Or conquering them. Or whatever it is the Trilisks did.”
    Cilreth
could tell from the edge in Telisa’s voice that her companion didn’t like being
in the dark about the Trilisk’s modus operandi.
    “Let’s
get in there and find out what they did,” Magnus said enthusiastically.

 
     
    Chapter 2
     
    The
smart screen above the camp flexed gently in a light morning breeze. The screen
lay just below most of the green clumps that terminated the stalks, about three
meters above the rocky ground. Soldiers worked under the screen. The thin,
translucent fabric contained a network of sensors and emitters that scattered
their radiation signatures, providing excellent camouflage from orbit. The camp
adjoined an escarpment where two square tunnel entrances had been put into the
rock. Some men moved in and out of the tunnels while others rested in tents
that shifted color lazily to match the densest part of the alien flora above.
    Colonel
Lance Holtzclaw stood in the center of his camp. This had been home for seven
long months. Long enough to become familiar with a place. Long enough to hate a
place.
    Holtzclaw
scratched his infernal itch for the thousandth time. He had started to leave
his armored suit open at the