Full Metal Heroine: A Military Space Opera Adventure (Lady Hellgate Book 2)

by Greg Dragon

  Helga resumed her run but as she picked up speed the lack of sleep began to haunt her. Suddenly it felt as if she weighed twice as much, and the mud inside her boots were rubbing her skin raw. She slowed her pace but kept her wits, ready for anything that would pose a threat.

  The ground became rocky and full of weeds, while the trees held dense trunks and grew closer to one another. The sun came up, but she couldn’t admire it due to the ceiling of thick, fan-like leaves. Where the light poked out was few and far between, making it very difficult to see.

  All the while, there were recruits crashing along, making so much noise that it sounded as if someone was herding cattle. When the twelfth recruit passed her, it was just too much, and she pushed past her tiredness to pick back up the run. After five kilometers she was over it. Her body stopped fighting and she was cruising. She had the spike in her right hand and her knife in her left as she pumped her arms rhythmically, pushing past the resistance.

  As she made her way through the jungle, Helga began to see casualties from the deadly terrain. The first was a soldier by a tree whose ankle had been twisted to the point that he could no longer walk, and the second had her leg broken from mistiming a jump over a gully.

  Both times she wanted to stop, but they had clear instructions not to do that. There were cameras everywhere, and the medical staff would fly in to collect the injured. So, Helga kept on moving, and before long she had found her runner’s high. It was about 13km in when she stopped and started walking.

  The heat was sweltering, and her undergarments were completely soaked. Not to mention her feet felt as if the skin was coming off. She knew this was absurd, but logic took a seat during these times when your body had a mind of its own. The thick air made it feel as if she was breathing through wet fabric, and she had no clue how close she was to finishing up the course.

  She resisted the urge to sit down and remove her boots, but instead stared forward through the darkness as she pressed on through the jungle. When she came upon the body of another one of the recruits, the reality of her situation finally hit home. The young soldier, a Meluvian from his features and the color of his hair, looked as if he were a balloon that had been inflated.

  He was propped against a tree, his bulging eyes staring out at nothing, so Helga, concerned, ran up to him and placed her hand against his cheek. A rush of panic ran through her when she realized that he was dead, and a neat row of puncture wounds in his arm seemed to have come from a bite.

  Helga had felt that she was being followed but wrote it off as paranoia. But now she turned and hoisted the spike, knowing that what had killed this recruit was likely stalking her. Suddenly from the bushes to her right a large catlike creature emerged. She saw a maw of jagged teeth when it yawned lazily and then paced a circle around where she crouched.

  Helga stood up slowly and placed both hands on the spike. She waited for an opening then dashed forward for the kill. But the creature was fast and avoided her lunge, then countered by leaping at her while swiping for her face. All Helga could do was twist to avoid its razor-like claws, and as she fell on her back, she made sure to keep the spike raised.

  The animal, already committed, impaled itself as it fell on top of her. Helga, disbelieving that she was still alive, summoned the strength to crawl out from the heavy carcass and stood up with her heart pounding as two more cats appeared from the trees.

  Knowing that she was outmatched and not wanting to be a victim, Helga threw a rock at the closest one and then took off sprinting as fast as she could.

  It was a futile escape from creatures three times her speed, but she had to try, and try she did, using the trees to keep them off her heels. There was another gully full of rushing water and she ran to the edge and launched herself over it. This one was wide and she fell short of the edge, hitting the rocks and clutching dirt, struggling against falling in.

  As she scrambled up and out, one of the cats—who was more teeth than brains—jumped towards her, paws outstretched, but missed and fell into the angry river. The second, seeing that result, pulled up short and paced the far edge.

  Helga didn’t wait to see if it followed, as she got to her feet and resumed her sprinting. She felt her body struggling at the labor of running, but in time she emerged onto a beach. There were a number of recruits swimming in the water, and from her count, she was still in the top half.

  Everything within her wanted to drop to the sand, roll onto her back, and close her eyes. She had made it through the jungle, but people had died. What have I gotten myself into? she thought. As tempting as it was to throw in the towel, she willed herself to stay upright as she raced across the sand.

  Her feet felt as if she was running on slime, and she wasn’t sure whether it was sweat or blood inside her boots. Peeling them off as she got near the water, Helga dove in with the others and swam towards the buoy. It was a sole speck of red light in that endless drink of black, and she swam like her life depended on it, ignoring her body, which begged her to stop.

  As she neared the buoy, she felt her consciousness fade, and she knew instantly that she was about to pass out. To drown in the end after doing so well wasn’t fair and she screamed, willing her brain to stay alert. Eventually the blackness took her, and she swallowed the water and drowned.

  This was not how it had gone; she had touched the buoy and dove to find the subterranean cave with the others. Yet every time she had this recurring nightmare, she would end up dead on the course.

  This time it was a drowning; the last time the cat ripped out her throat. Now she opened her eyes to a pair of suns and the feeling of floating on a body of water. She heard Raileo laughing and Cilas’s voice, so she sat up and stared off in the distance, where a bit of land was vanishing below the horizon.

  “How’re you feeling, lady?” Odam asked, from where he was steering the boat.

  “Did I pass out?”

  “For several hours,” Cilas said, moving to sit next to her as he offered her a cup. “Odam said to give you this as soon as you came to. It probably tastes like piss, but you need to drink it. That’s an order. We need you ready to fight as soon as we hit the shore, so drink up, work it out, and then we have some food for you.”

  “It isn’t meat from that village, is it?” she said.

  “No. What makes you ask?” Cilas said, but she realized that she would need to explain and decided not to answer.

  The thought of eating made her want to retch, but she lifted the cup to her lips and drank down the thick, rotten-flavored ingredients. It was absolutely terrible, the worst thing she’d ever drunk, but she held it down despite herself, and then pointed to Cilas’s canteen. He popped off the top and handed it to her, and she took a mouthful of water and swished it around.

  “Good job, Ensign,” he said, replacing it on his belt, and then handed her a protein ration.

  “Oh look, my favorite, and to think we’re on a planet. Even down here we get to bypass real food for the manufactured bricks of the Alliance,” she said, clapping slowly to emphasize her enthusiasm.

  “Ate’s officially back, men,” Cilas announced, and she shot him a look of annoyance.

  They were on some sort of motorboat with the wind at their backs, and she wondered just how covert this approach would be. Surely Wolf would watch his shores for anyone coming from the isles and would kill them long before they could swim out to his beach. “This is a motorboat,” she said, looking around. “Aren’t we supposed to be taking him by surprise?”

  “The people are used to my boat,” Odam said. “For many months now, I have traded with the rebels. It is how I am known. So, they will not suspect my boat.”

  “When we arrive, we’ll sneak off into the jungle,” Cilas said. “The beach people will think that Odam came alone, and we will be on our way, looking for Joran Wolf.”

  “What about the thugs we buried back by Odam’s village? Aren’t they affiliated? He would know something is amiss,” Helga s
aid. “Several humans showed up, built like soldiers, and one even wore camouflage pants.” She shot a disgusted look at Raileo. “They met with a local, who so happens to trade to a country where an Alliance traitor is playing militia leader. They go into the woods and men from the village follow, only to disappear into thin air. Then the local shows up, alone, on Leif a day later, trading goods as if nothing happened?”

  “If those men reported back, then yes, Wolf will be alarmed,” Odam said. “But you killed them, and all he would have heard is that there were humans, possibly Alliance, in the village. Leaving with me is not out of the ordinary since I do what I can for credits. That includes taking people around to show them our island. Sometimes that trip, the one around Kua, it can go on for a couple of days. Now, when I show up trading, he may want to question me about your whereabouts. But then I will let him know that you went off on your own.”

  “I don’t like it,” Helga said. “You’re not a trained spy, and an ESO could do terrible things to you.” She had a quick flashback of a time in the past when she walked in on Cilas torturing a man. “No, when we get to the island, you should drop us off and leave. Don’t go back to Kua immediately and stay off Leif at least until we tell you that we have Wolf in our hands.”

  “I have a friend in Leif, she lives on the west coast. I could pay her a visit once you’re all off the boat and then wait for a few days to pick you up if you like,” he said.

  “Thank you, Odam, we’ll take that under consideration,” Cilas said, and the other two men nodded with approval.

  “Nothing ever goes as planned, so you be careful, do you hear?” Helga said, and though Odam nodded confidently, she could see the fear in his eyes for what was likely to be a disastrous mission.

  Helga wondered if they’d make it across the ocean. Memories of that day during BLAST, diving through that cold, black water, made her draw in her knees as she sat facing the stern where Odam steered the boat. All around them was the dark blue water, and angry waves that didn’t seem pleased that they were sailing across.

  This was unchartered territory for her, being in a vessel whose enemy was nature itself. It was a frightening predicament, one giant wake, and boom, they’d be thrown into the drink.

  She thought about spaceships and which model would be similar to Odam’s little boat, but the waves made it impossible to compare.

  “This is crazy,” she whispered to no one in particular, as a large wave threw them up to the point where it felt as if they were airborne. When they crashed down water leaped over the edge, dousing them fully and chilling her down to the bone.

  Helga looked over at Cilas to see how he was doing and was surprised to see him having trouble keeping it together. He was on a bench staring down at his feet, his knuckles white as he gripped the edges. He’s as frightened as I am, she thought, feeling better about her fear.

  The sea evened out, but the clouds began to darken. There seemed to be no escape from getting wet. “Looks like rain,” Odam shouted. “Let’s hope that it isn’t the beginning of a storm.”

  “You get many storms down here?” Quentin shouted from where he and Cilas sat near the prow.

  “Not many,” Odam said. “But not to worry, I see the shores of Leif up ahead.”

  It was the best thing Helga had heard in what felt like months. The trip had apparently gone on for several hours, but she had slept through most of it due to the poison from the brovila. They were all wearing jackets, fashioned from a material that reminded her of plastic. It was meant to keep them dry but not against waves the likes of what they had encountered.

  She pulled back her sleeve to examine her wound and saw through her bloody bandages that there were punctures on her wrist. When she had been bitten, she hadn’t felt it, but the creature had wrapped itself around her arm and numbed the pain throughout her body.

  There had been cream on the wound from back when Quentin administered it, but it seemed to have washed off with the salty sea water. Now her arm was throbbing, and she could feel a headache coming on. She looked over at Quentin, wondering if he would be able to redo her dressing, but thought better of it when another wave rocked the boat.

  “Get ready, Nighthawks, it’s show time,” Cilas said, and they all began to dig into their packs for weapons and the rest of their gear.

  Helga reached inside for her pistol and was relieved to find it dry. It was a hardy weapon, meant for all conditions, but she still didn’t like the idea of it being wet. She looked up at the darkening sky and a jagged streak of lightning decorated the clouds. Then her eyes met Raileo’s and he looked away quickly as he pulled on his boots. He had removed them during the trip across the ocean and had rolled up his pants to prepare for the soaking. Still embarrassed, Helga thought, amused, and she reached across her abdomen to slide the pistol into a holster below her arm.

  The boat slowed and they all stood up, looking ahead at the shore. There was a wall of rock with a tiny beach below it, but high above this cliff were several buildings.

  “Chochi village, my second home,” Odam said, beaming with what appeared to be pride.

  “Where will we land?” Cilas said.

  “Further east, beyond the village. Please sit down there, below the shelter, so no one sees you when we approach,” Odam said.

  They scrambled towards the prow where there was a set of boards fashioned into a ramp, where below it was a nook for storing fish. It stunk something terrible, despite Odam’s attempts to clean it out, and he’d padded the deck with more of the plastic-like material to keep it dry for his guests.

  There was barely enough room for the four Nighthawks, and Helga knew it was bound to be cramped and uncomfortable. But they had arrived at this point where the true mission was to begin, so as a unit they slid in, sat, and faced the aft, where Odam gave them a reassuring nod.

  “Draw your knees in,” Cilas said. “We want to be as small as possible.”

  Helga pulled in her knees and hugged them tight, closing her eyes to calm her mind. What could truly happen when we hit this beach? she thought. Gunshots killing Odam, and then eventually us? No, he’s a local. Even if Wolf knows who we are, he’d know that the young man’s a civilian. The boat would be raided and then we would be captured and ransomed.

  She sighed heavily, not realizing that the other Nighthawks heard her. Imprisonment was a fate she viewed worse than death. When it crossed her mind, she doubled down on her resolve. If they were taken, she would force them to kill her.

  “This isn’t Dyn,” Cilas whispered, as if he could read her mind. “Dyn won’t happen to us again, Ate. Not under my watch.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” she said, still keeping her eyes closed against the movement of the boat. She felt certain that when they stopped the sickness she felt would culminate in a vicious bout of vomiting. But for now, she held it together and listened for what she knew would be a well thought out plan.

  “We’re sliding into an inlet that has a beach that the locals hold sacred, so no civilians should be there, and we will use it to hit the land and push into the country. Odam will take the boat back to the village where he will refuel and wait for a couple of days. We will press in to land for a few hours and then setup camp for the night. Tomorrow morning, early, we’ll start our true journey to find this traitorous piece of schtill.”

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” Raileo said suddenly, catching them by surprise, and Helga couldn’t recall when last she had heard him speak. “When we get him, how do we get out? Are we to sail back across to the Almadun village, or will we be sending coordinates for Misa to pick us up?”

  “Good question, but you need to remember that we’re sneaking into a territory of hostile rebels. Taking out hundreds of Meluvians is not our mission, even if it was possible to win. Commander Tye gave us an option: we could extract the target or eliminate it. I don’t have to tell you that this will be a difficult decision, and it will depend on several different circumstances. If Wolf
becomes our prisoner, then we will need to get him out of the area fast so his rebel friends can’t rescue him from his fate. If we find that he’s entrenched and extraction impossible, then we will do what has to be done and then focus on escaping ourselves.”

  “Extraction will require the boat,” Helga said, opening her eyes to look over at Raileo. “We will need the boat to get out fast because the rebels won’t be able to chase us across the ocean. I haven’t seen a fleet, and if we come back this way with the prisoner, then Odam can pull in and get us out. Killing him, however, will have the four of us running for our lives. Neither Odam nor Misa could be contacted. We’d risk their lives in our evacuation.”

  “So, if we kill him, we’re on our own,” Raileo said.

  “Yeah, and we’ll be in a hostile territory, working at a way to get out.”

  “Either way it’s a thyping adventure,” Quentin said, and Helga could see him smiling, despite the darkness. “It’s what we signed up for. The impossible missions. I’m so charged for this, I could explode.”

  12

  After the run-in with the brovila and the memories of BLAST, Helga found it impossible to relax. Every noise startled her, and every shadow was a monster as they pressed on through the trees of the Meradu forest on the southern tip of Leif.

  An hour had passed since Odam dropped anchor and they’d jumped out into the water and swam the short distance to shore. The sacred beach had been vacant, with no signs of anyone having passed through there, so they marched from the sand up to the rocks, and then into the forest heading north.

  Besides her paranoia there was the heat, which made her miss her PAS suit even more, but after what they had gone through back at the village she now understood why Cilas had made the choice to leave them behind. Funny dressed Vestalians could be tourists, but not fully armored ESOs. As soon as they were spotted, Wolf would have been informed, and then they’d never be able to find him.

  They were off the grid now, with no communication to Aqnaqak or Rendron. If they were hurt or killed, there would be no rescue. They had only one another to look to for support. Mistakes were no longer allowed. Everything had to be done to the letter, and due to this, Helga kept her hand on the pistol’s grip and her head firmly planted on a swivel.