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

by Greg Dragon

“What if one of us dies, or gets lost and is unable to find the temple?” Raileo said.

  “No Nighthawk will be left behind down here,” Cilas said. “So, if you’re lost, just survive and wait for the rest of us to find you. The same goes for me if I eat it down here. Tutt, you find my body and Ate, make sure it gets home to Rendron.”

  They resumed their trek an hour later after they’d eaten, and spent some time discussing their approach. Quentin cleaned Helga’s wounds and dressed them with new bandages, and she felt better than she’d felt in days. She shifted her holster to her thigh to make for a quicker draw on her pistol, and strapped a long knife to her waist and smeared war paint all on her face.

  Raileo joked that she looked like a movie star playing at a Marine, but she reminded him that they could make contact so she’d rather be over prepared than the alternative.

  Helga wasn’t alone in this line of thinking, as Cilas now had his rifle in his hands. Quentin was dressed in black from head to toe, and Raileo removed his shirt and applied green paint, which he thought would help him blend in with the trees.

  Like Helga, his preferred weapon was the pistol, but he wore two, both holsters strapped in awkward positions on his back. When he demonstrated the pull from the holsters that rested beneath his arms, it was a cross-armed blur that resulted in the twin pistols out and primed for killing. He reversed the motion, securing both pistols in their holsters where they hung defying gravity.

  “You omit that from your records?” Cilas said, unimpressed with the dexterous gunplay.

  “I’m sorry, but what, Lieutenant?” Raileo said, looking frightened.

  “Those are hooligan holsters on a Rendron-trained spacer. We don’t teach that methodology nor do we allow our servicemen to practice pulling like that. So, when did you join the Dark Striders, or did one of their members teach you? I don’t recall seeing it inside of your dossier.”

  “Our sergeant was a former Dark Strider back in the academy, sir. He’s the one who taught me how to shoot … taught all of us to shoot with both hands.”

  “That explains a lot,” Cilas said, furrowing his brow. “Any philosophy to go with that gunplay, or was it only triggers and targets?”

  “Please don’t worry, Lieutenant, I’m not with the Dark Striders. My loyalty is with the Alliance. I just happen to know their method. I didn’t go on record as a Dark Strider because I am not a part of the gang nor do I want to be.”

  “I do hope so,” Cilas said, his eyes suddenly cold and dangerous. “We’ve a history with humans who put their gangs and greed above the Geralos. It isn’t a good one, Lei. They are like Wolf, putting personal gain above the future of—”

  “Come on, Rend, the man has been solid,” Helga said. “When we needed him to act, he was there, using that crazy draw he picked up from whatever this gang is that he’s affiliated with. Even if he was a member, what truly matters is where his heart is now. The only gang you know is Nighthawks, right, Lei?”

  “If I give you cause to doubt me, Lieutenant, I deserve the death you’d give me. I was a kid when the sergeant inducted us into the method, but he did it to make us better than any other cadet on the ship. I’d like to think that his lessons are why I’m here with you now.”

  Helga looked over at Quentin, who had remained silent during the exchange, and she noticed that he was looking at Raileo with a very measured look. “We all have pasts,” she said, staring at him now, recalling how he’d become an assassin in both of their gunfights. “Some of us know stealth and can flank an enemy like its nothing,” she said, and Quentin raised his eyes to meet hers, understanding that she was talking about him. “And some of us shoot like gangsters. As long as we look out for one another I don’t see why we need to know every tiny detail of our pasts.”

  “Fair enough,” Cilas said quickly, and they were once again on their way.

  An hour later the trees began to thin, and they eventually stepped out onto a wide open plain. It was a beautiful break from the canopy of trees as the sun shone down onto tall golden grass, bordered on all sides by even more trees. Helga wished that they had the time to stop and enjoy the area. This was a strange plot of land, to pop up so suddenly in the middle of the jungle, and on the far side she could see twinkles through the trees, which hinted at water or something else.

  “Meluvia is amazing,” she remarked as they started through the grass towards the north. Then Cilas stopped and held up his hand, causing all of them to freeze. He pointed to where the grass was moving opposite the wind.

  They all pulled their weapons and Helga glanced down at the thick grass, which came all the way up to her knees. More grass started moving and she knew they were in trouble. Something lived here and was low enough to the ground that they had no idea what it could be.

  Quentin stepped up and then glanced at Cilas, who gave him the okay to investigate. The big man inched forward, then threw a rock a few meters from where he stood. The grass moved as several of the creatures shot towards the rock, and that was when he turned, his face a mask of horror. He mouthed the word, “run,” and they all started sprinting towards the trees.

  Helga, in a panic from the memory of the brovila, took off in a direction where she had noticed no movement from before. She didn’t see that none of the others had followed and that she had become separated from them.

  Several serpentine creatures flew up like a thick colorful cloud and that was when she saw what they were, predatory creatures with wings on the back of their sleek, scaly bodies. They had six legs with claws, and needle-like teeth in their screaming maws.

  Cilas spun and sprayed the air, dropping three of them as they converged on the Nighthawks. Raileo joined him in firing back, and Quentin threw something small and round in the air. He aimed and shot it, which caused an explosion, killing several of them. But the creatures were numerous and determined to come for them.

  Helga had only glanced back to see Quentin take aim but three of the creatures dove at her, causing her to roll out of their reach. She was on her feet now, sprinting as if it was the first trial of BLAST, then through the trees she shot darting this way and that.

  They were too fast for her, so she spun and shot the closest one, hoping the rest would slow, but it took her shooting the second one for the third to stop its pursuit.

  The ground began to soften below her feet, and she slowed her run to a walk. The trees were thinner here, and everything was damp, which was strange since there wasn’t any rain. She glanced back the way she’d come, and she could neither hear gunshots or the wings of the creatures that attacked.

  I need to find my way to Cilas, she thought, struggling with the decision to turn back to retrace her steps. “Nighthawks, if they break us up, keep moving north to the other side of this river,” she remembered him saying. So, there should be a river further north, she thought, frightened at the prospect of going it alone.

  Large spiderwebs spanned between the trees and a colorful snake slithered by, minding its own business. Then she came upon a large body of water, murky but shallow enough for her to see rocks breaking past the surface. It was a milky, greenish-brown soup, and for a minute she thought it was a pool until she looked further east and saw that it stretched off into the distance.

  Two things became evident then as she stared out into this river. First, she would have to cross it to continue north, and second if she managed to get hurt, there would be some time before she was rescued.

  Movement to her left brought her around as she raised the pistol and bent her knees ever so slightly. If something was coming for her, she would need to move, and if it wasn’t, she needed to line up her shot and squeeze the way she’d practiced on the Rendron.

  It was the colorful snake again, frightening in his rainbow coat, and upon seeing him slithering away, Helga decided that stopping was the worst thing she could do. Collecting herself, she stepped into the water and felt her boots sink deep into the soft mud.

  S
he let a moment of panic pass where she imagined being stuck and helpless, then she made another step to confirm that it was stable. Helga couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this frightened. There had been Dyn, where she had been captured by the vicious brain-eating Geralos and made to hang for near a month while they debated over who would have the pleasure of feasting on her brains.

  That had been frightening, but this was different somehow. There was an immediacy in this threat that went beyond the waiting to die that came with hanging inside of that Geralos settlement.

  To have come this far just to die in the bushes gave her an anxiety that made it hard to breathe. Why am I here? she thought. Why did I allow Cilas to convince me not to quit when everything that we do as Nighthawks turns out to be suicidal and poorly planned?

  She dragged her feet slowly through the knee-high water as she gripped the pistol tightly, scanning the trees for any movement. Something swam past her leg, bumping against her slightly, and this brought her just a hair away from completely losing it. Of all the areas we’ve explored down here, she thought, I had to find the absolute worst part to lose the rest of my team.

  She wanted to shout their names to see where they were, but doing so could alert the rebels, who she was more than sure were camped somewhere close. Come on Helga, you are a Nighthawk, and you went through this schtill in BLAST, she reminded herself. You are the apex predator. Nothing that crawls or flies can match your deadly retaliation.

  This would be the same path that Cilas, Quentin, and Raileo would be taking, so it meant a rendezvous, which more than anything else kept her going. If whatever it was that bumped her decided to bite, it would be filled with holes from her trusty pistol. That’s if it was actually small and not a four-meter-long monstrosity.

  This thought gave her a flashback of the dredge, those giant worms on the moon of Dyn. Those creatures were no smaller than a Marine dropship and could swallow a human whole. “Focus, silly girl,” she chided herself as she bit down against her instincts and kept her feet moving forward.

  After five minutes of wading with her breath caught inside her throat, she finally walked out onto the far bank. Helga wiggled her toes inside of the wet boots, disliking how the water made them feel slimy. She wanted nothing more than to pull them off and risk the terrain on bare feet instead of this squishy sensation that made her feel as if her skin was coming loose.

  Helga’s mind went to the mission and the man they were sent to extract. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they had been tricked, especially with it being a mission from someone not named Retzo Sho. No Marine or spacer she knew would ever choose a jungle over the comforts of space. Sure, the Geralos kept you on your toes, but here it was primitive, and the wildlife was as exotic as it was dangerous.

  Yet they were supposed to believe that this ESO Wolf was here selling weapons to the rebels. The cynic within Helga thought that something else was going on, something that Wolf knew, that someone on the Aqnaqak couldn’t live with him sharing with outsiders. The implications of whatever it was shook her to the bones, and it was because of Dyn, where they had been sent to die, why she felt that there was something deeper than what they had been told.

  She had to wonder if Cilas had the same thoughts she did, and though they would do whatever was necessary, what if Wolf was innocent? A noise from her right caused her to skip backwards as another colorful snake raised up to bare its fangs. Helga fired from her hip, and five rounds kicked up mud before the sixth struck the viper in its head.

  “You should respect when you’re outclassed,” she whispered at the lifeless predator as it twitched inside of a pool of its ichor. Then the Nighthawk was moving, slipping her slender body between the trees. Her focus now: to find her team and get back on track with their mission.

  17

  At one time, the temple of Merkaad must have been a wonder to behold. It was a massive tower, dwarfing the trees that spread out from it as the topmost astral room aimed to pierce the clouds. A wonder of modern architecture, it was supported by two statues of Meluvian monks, each 56 meters tall, their hands placed against the tower to make it appear as if they were holding it.

  Now as Helga pushed through the trees, she saw one of the monk’s severed hands on the ground, completely covered in grass. Several meters in front of her was the tall, looming structure, the colossi support still doing their job.

  To think that all of these trees and mountains have grown to consume the older generation, she thought. The Nighthawks had their mission, but the sights and smells of this, the real Meluvia, gave her a bigger appreciation of life and its possibilities.

  Helga had no idea that structures like the one before her could be made with people power. Ancients drawing out the plans, and their slaves to haul the stone while their artists shaped it into something grand. Long years would have gone into building something like this, and while it would have seen activity for a century or more, it was still sad to see it all fall into disrepair.

  She was about to approach it when she noticed an unsettling silence, and she ducked behind the giant hand and quickly armed herself. Closing her eyes, she listened intently. There was the subtle crack of foliage under boots, and Helga, kneeling behind the hand, shifted her weight to peer out between the thumb and forefingers.

  She saw Raileo step into the clearing, his hawk eyes scanning the area for anything, and that was when she felt a pair of strong hands disarm her before lifting her up.

  “Always watch your six,” someone whispered, and then let her down so that her feet could touch the ground. It was Cilas, who handed her back her pistol, and when she snatched it from him, she felt her knees go weak.

  When she had felt his hands, she had believed it to be Wolf, who would have tracked her through the swamp to catch her sleeping. Her first instinct was to punch Cilas hard, right in the solar plexus where none of his muscles could save him, but instead she leaned against the stone hand, holstered her weapon and asked, “Where’s Tutt?”

  “Tutt has gone ahead to track and see if he can locate the mark’s hideout,” he said. “He’s to be back within the hour while we hunker here and wait for him.”

  Raileo Lei walked over and climbed the hand to sit on the edge of the thumb. Like Cilas, he looked worn, and there were scratch marks on his neck from where one of the flying creatures had nicked him. “Any contacts on your way here, Ate?”

  Helga looked up at his mud-covered boots and relished the time when she’d be able to relax, pull off her own boots and let her feet breathe. For all of its beauty the temperature had become miserable. It was a sweltering soup of heat and humidity, not to mention the soggy socks that kept her feet damp from the river water.

  “Yeah, I had three of those damned things follow me into the trees, and then some sort of water snake that thyping freaked me out. What about you?”

  “Nothing, really. We saw a few animals but nothing else attacked after that initial craziness. We thought we lost you, but the Lieutenant was sure that you’d make it here.”

  “Speaking of that, we really need to fix our communication, Rend. We all have our helmets from the drop. Why don’t we use them to keep tabs on one another?” she said.

  “Because our mark is an ESO from the same Aqnaqak that gave us those helmets,” Cilas said. “If he suspects we’re here, which I am more than sure he does, he could very likely be tapping into the area. Don’t stress it. We’re close, and once we have him, we’ll stick together. We’re on the downward slope now, what remains is the basic extraction. The hard part was traversing the terrain and then making our way to this temple.”

  “So, what’s the plan, Lieutenant?” Raileo said as he stood atop the giant hand.

  “We have plenty of daylight left, but we should be prepared to spend the night here inside that temple,” Cilas said.

  Helga looked over at the towering structure. While it was supposed to be sacred and untouchable to the citizens of the region, she wond
ered what would be the likelihood that there were families living inside.

  They had only been sitting here for a little over an hour, so the inhabitants would be in hiding, possibly trying to wait them out. Raileo Lei walked over to it and stopped in front of the double doors. It seemed to have been created for giants, since they dwarfed him as he walked up and placed his hands on the surface.

  “Doors are wooden, but they painted them the same color as the stone. There’s a locking mechanism in the center. I have never seen anything like it before.”

  “Don’t touch it,” Cilas said as he stepped up to examine it himself. Helga, who was the last to leave the shelter of the hand, scanned the trees behind them to make sure no one was coming. “This door is a trap. I’m thinking that there is another way in, and this one doesn’t open, but sends an alarm to the people responsible for maintaining this temple. Those people are probably under the protection of the MLF, which means that touch it and this mission is over. Tell you what, Lei, let’s not risk it. Set up trackers around the perimeter of this place and meet us back here. I’m going to check the top.”

  “On it, Lieutenant, and if I see anything, I’ll make this birdcall.” He tweeted a loud, shrill noise, which surprised both Helga and Cilas. “I’m not Sergeant Tutt, but I can track pretty well,” Raileo said. “I’ll lay them deep in the trees so that no one can get the drop on us.”

  “Tutt will know to look for our traps, but stay alert for the fauna, Lei,” Helga said. “Large snakes, brovilas, giant insects … who knows what’s out there.”

  “They all fall to a good blast from my sidearm, ma’am,” Raileo said confidently, and then he was jogging away towards the trees.

  “So, Raileo,” Helga started when he had been gone for a minute, but she caught herself when she saw Cilas smirking and locked her lips shut.

  “Yeah?” Cilas pushed, seemingly interested.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said, and Cilas nodded.

  “You made the mistake of underestimating him, didn’t you? You let his ‘I’m a dumb spacer’ act convince you. Helga Ate, I am really disappointed that you allowed yourself to think your lieutenant let in someone unqualified for the team. After everything we went through, do you think I’d recruit weakness?” He nodded again. “It’s alright, Ate, you’re only human after all. Well, human and Casanian, but point being, his playful act is exactly that, just an act. It’s no different from the mask you wear with all the self-derision and the jokes.”