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

by Greg Dragon

  One shot caught Helga’s peripheral vision, and she saw it as a thin line that stretched from the front wall all the way back to another room. The fever was on her now, the adrenaline, and this coupled with her supposed seeker senses made her see every one of those bullets as deadly lines of death.

  To anyone else, non-ESO and non-Combat tested, this would have been the moment when they would hit the ground and shut down. But the Nighthawks had been trained for this dance, and though the ambush left them scrambling to survive, it was the BLAST training that steeled them, and had her sliding to the floor for an eventual retaliation.

  Without knowing where her attackers were, she knew their general location, so she shot several rounds through the door, adding more holes for the light. Raileo was still on the ground near the entrance, his pants the color of burgundy speckled with a beige color from the building’s dust. Helga realized that her night vision was still on, giving everything a vivid quality.

  Cilas was at the window, shooting out, and it was a wonder that he was still alive. The bullets cut through the building as if it was built out of paper, and Helga slipped behind a fallen chair made of the right material to stop them.

  She cursed herself for not having a bigger gun. What was she to do with a sidearm against the likes of what they faced now outside that house? The thought was a breath, it came and it went, and everything she thought, saw, and did in this instance was strictly based on instinct.

  They all acted on that instinct, seared into them from BLAST. Helga couldn’t see that Raileo may never walk again, or that Cilas’s uniform had protected him from eleven shots that had struck his body. He didn’t seem to notice either, as he shifted his aim this way and that.

  One by one he marked his targets, ducking for cover as they fired on him before popping up to kill them. All the three of them could do in that instance was survive and volley death back at the men who fired on that house.

  Time was sporadic and everything seemed to be happening simultaneously. One moment had her next to Raileo, applying a makeshift bandage to his leg, and in another moment, the three of them were at the window, firing out at the tree line where the men stayed hidden.

  Helga hadn’t realized that she too had been hit. She was in that strange alternate zone where the best fighters tend to go. Thought and fear were locked away, replaced by instinct and survival. There was no pain, there was no thought. The hour was growing late, and their weapons were overheating.

  They had been trading shots for what seemed like an eternity and neither side had gained an advantage. The three of them together, however, had made a rather successful suppression, and the bullets whizzing back had slowed down enough for awareness to return somewhat.

  “We have to move or this is over,” Cilas said. “They could be prepping a mortar to bomb us out. Ate, I am going to hold this position while you work at getting Lei out. Find a place to hole up, and I will join you as soon as I can.” His voice was cut off abruptly as a bullet grazed his helmet, forcing him to duck.

  Helga couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was he really expecting her to leave him alone? Cilas, her hero, her mentor, her … everything. If he were to die taking matters into his own hands, then what would he expect her to do? But he had given his order, and now wasn’t the time to argue. Raileo made to object, but she quickly shushed him and pulled him back into an adjacent room.

  Behind them they heard Cilas firing more aggressively than before, pushing his already hot weapon to the limit. If he went over the line his auto-rifle would stop and force itself to cool, which would make him a sitting duck. We should have left one of our weapons, Helga thought, but remembered that Cilas normally carried several guns.

  She glanced through the window at a building, her night vision showing the outline of a man jimmying a lock. But Raileo dropped him before she could raise her pistol. Together they moved to the window where she helped him scramble out.

  Before Helga followed him, she took one last look at Cilas, still firing out of the front. This was how she would always remember him, alone and facing the most impossible odds.

  21

  Raileo Lei ran as if the bullet in his leg was just a mere scratch that he didn’t have to deal with. Inside his hand was an OKAGI “Widow Maker” rifle, lifted from a corpse that they had passed. It was a modern model of the OKAGI rifle, with laser rounds and a coolant mod. Since the guns they had experienced since coming in the village had been mostly ballistic, he was quite surprised to find this gem, which was an Alliance weapon designed for spatial combat.

  Helga too had picked up a fallen weapon, but hers was an auto-rifle of the Vestalian ASR variety. It was an older automatic but rated high on most catalogs due to its reliability. This was how it was chosen from the three that she saw, and now it hung across her back as she ran with her pistol in hand.

  They had made it out of the house and then onto the neighbor’s rooftop where they ran along the length before jumping across to a taller structure. Raileo had suggested that while they waited on the lieutenant, they should offer topside support in case his escape was messy.

  Helga initially was hesitant to comply since Cilas had ordered them to hide, not to initiate action. But the rage was in her at the atrocities she had seen, so she allowed the rebel inside her to win and took them up to the rooftops.

  She kept her eye on the house as Raileo slid to the edge and wedged himself behind a reservoir tank. When he was ready, he gave her the hand gesture which indicated as much, and Helga slid the pistol down into the holster on her leg. Standing next to him, she placed the auto-rifle on top of the tank where she leaned into it, aiming at the house.

  “Cilas,” she whispered into the comms, not bothering to switch to a private channel.

  “I’m here,” Cilas said, after what must have been the galaxy’s longest second.

  “How are we looking on that escape from the house?”

  “Not good, they got reinforcements, so escape has been delayed for—”

  Helga saw movement so she muted her comms. “I’ll take the heat on the insubordination, Ray. Put some fire on that bush to the left of the house.”

  As if he had been waiting for her words, Raileo fired and a spark of fire erupted from the forest across from the house. Cilas was still talking, but it was hard for Helga to pay attention when she saw a man embroiled in flames stand up and collapse into another. All of a sudden Cilas was running through the backdoor, darting between houses before ducking down next to a stack of logs.

  “Ate, report, was that you with the fire?” he said in a voice both harsh and out of breath.

  “It was me, sir, we are on the roof,” Raileo said before Helga could come up with an excuse. “I had the shot, so I took it upon myself to use an ignition round.”

  “Ray, you’re sniping with ignitions?”

  “Yes, sir. I figured it would take the extra heat off your location. Worse that could happen was them trying to retaliate, and then Ate here would have covered me and mopped their schtill up.”

  There was a pause then two more shots from Raileo, causing the trees to go up in flames. Helga saw through the shadows that a whole company of men were burning, and they burst from the bushes running, then rolling on the ground. One by one she fired on them, letting the auto-rifle sing, and where she missed, Raileo found the mark, and their escape was halted just like that.

  Now as she looked around, she saw that the MLF was now aware, and soldiers were breaking off from their push on the capitol building to run towards the fire in the forest.

  “Ate, get down here and follow me to the mark. Ray, you stay and cover us, and we’ll be back this way once we have him,” Cilas said.

  Helga wanted to argue but there wasn’t time, so she knelt down next to the wounded Nighthawk and squeezed his shoulder in a show of friendship. Then she was sprinting across the rooftops until she was able to join Cilas behind the logs.

  “We’re going to need
to split up to find the mark. If any of you learn anything, report back through the comms. Tutt, how’re we looking?” Cilas said.

  “I put a call through to the Alliance HQ on Meluvia and requested military support on that town,” Quentin said. “They responded positively, apparently someone beat me to it. They have rangers on the way and the local military, so we’re going to have to find him, fast.”

  “That’s if he’s even here,” Cilas said. “I won’t rush to conclusions until I see the people leading this raid at the front. Ate and I are on it, but if we go up and it’s not Wolf, we will need to retreat back towards the bush.”

  “Hold,” Quentin said. “I can get you an answer a lot faster than that.” There was some shuffling on the comms and then a shout followed by whimpers and men talking in hushed tones.

  As this went on Cilas pulled open one of the doors and Helga slipped inside to check whether it was occupied. The place was furnished beautifully, but no one was present, which sent a chill down her spine at the implications of it all.

  Motioning for Cilas to come in, she pulled off her helmet to see the place with her own eyes. The air was thick with smoke and something else harsh that forced her eyes to water. When she started to cough Helga quickly pulled the helmet back on. There was a chemical in the air that the MLF must have deployed to put the people at a disadvantage.

  “Um, Lieutenant,” Quentin said suddenly. “Our mark is here, and he isn’t the only ESO in their little group.”

  “What,” Cilas said. “Are you serious, he’s here with more?”

  “If my friend here lied after what I just did to him, I would have to give it up to him as the toughest cruta I’ve ever crossed. Now, if he was telling the truth, which I’m prone to believe, then our traitor is in the front of the capitol, leading the rebels to hurt civilians and takeover a town.”

  “Of course, he is,” Cilas said grudgingly. “Ray, if you can put eyes on him, light him up, and let us know when it happens. Tutt, if it’s you, be sure you have your escape plan tight. Ate and I will work our way to their flank to see what can be done to get him. Just stay on your comms, whatever you do, and do not let them capture you, do you understand?”

  Those last words were eerie, and Helga felt them to her bones. “Do not let them capture you,” meant that you were not to become a hostage, not under any circumstances. If the choice was to be offered of your life in captivity or eating a bullet, you may as well get your appetite ready because a bullet is what you’ll be eating.

  She understood why it was necessary for him to give this command. Under torture any of them would give up secrets that could damage the planet of Meluvia or the Aqnaqak and Rendron. Even if you were strong and held out under duress, they would find chemical means to tap into your head and force you to tell them everything.

  Helga felt the chill, but she didn’t understand why. She had conceded that if given the choice, she would rather die than be captured again. While she hadn’t been tortured, she had experienced the solitude and madness of isolation. They had violated her chemically, and hung her from a hook, frozen for weeks. Never again would she risk getting captured, and she would sooner join her mother in the afterlife.

  “Let’s go,” Cilas said, and he led her out through another door, then back behind some houses leading down to the square where the capitol building loomed. Helga noticed that the roads and buildings were on an incline, and she remembered Quentin saying that it was built deep within a valley. She imagined that if she was to stand upon the capitol’s roof, she would see the buildings spread out and up, like a tower in the center of a saucer.

  There was a squat shack in front of them, sticking out like a sore thumb next to the stone buildings. “Does that thing have a suppressor?” Cilas said.

  “Already engaged,” Helga said. “I have it primed with cryo rounds.”

  “Fancy,” Cilas said, as he led her up to the shack’s back door. To Helga’s surprise, the door was unlocked, and he nudged it open, peering inside. “One guard at the front,” he whispered, motioning her forward. They crept inside, and when they neared the front door, Cilas skipped forward and killed the man with his knife. He never saw it coming, and the Nighthawk pulled him back into a dark corner.

  “This is some sort of weapons depot,” Helga informed him as they got to the door, hugging the sides to stay out of sight the way they’d done before. Outside a storm was brewing and it began to rain, bringing with it a fog that complicated their visibility. It was both a blessing and a curse, due to their current situation. A blessing because it aided their stealth, but a curse because now they would never find Wolf.

  Another guard was outside smoking a long cigar, and a man with half his head missing lay face down at his feet. The guard seemed aloof, as if he was unaware that several of his fellows had recently died. It made Helga wonder if they bypassed radios, but she knew better than to assume.

  “Hit him, Ate,” Cilas ordered, and she aimed and exhaled while touching the trigger. The bullet was out and it flew true, catching the smoker in the back of his head.

  “Good kill,” Cilas whispered, and then took a wide detour away from the shack. All the while Helga heard nonstop gunshots and victims pleading for mercy. “Run,” he said suddenly, and they took off down a road, which ran on the border between the houses and the trees.

  Helga didn’t know what they evaded but didn’t bother to ask. Each time they would pass a shadow, her heart would skip a beat. She hoped that Quentin would find Wolf before they did, and all they would need to do was escape south through the bushes.

  She thought about that plan and how likely it was to fail. After all, the MLF knew this country better than they’d ever hope. No matter what they did, they’d be at a disadvantage. Expert trackers along with drones would catch them within an hour of escaping with Wolf.

  The town was a mess, but she could see from the streetlights and bonfires all around that before the MLF it had been a place that people would be proud to call home. The houses were block constructs, made entirely of brick, and some of them were stacked up to three or four floors.

  There were some reduced to shacks, like the one they had just left, but these were mostly stores, where they stacked meat, water, and produce. The roads were like Kua in that they were lined with tiny pebbles, and some even had street signs, electricity, and technology.

  To move this far away from modern civilization only to be violated by a rebel organization had to be both frightening and disappointing. These thoughts ran through Helga’s head as she considered the enemy they faced. They were human and Meluvian trash of the slimiest variety, and she felt nothing for killing them when Cilas pointed them out.

  “There,” Cilas whispered through the comms, and she knelt on the road and lined up her sights. There was a man on a rooftop who looked to be armed with a rifle. He was watching the streets and once in a while, he would put the scope to his eye. Three shots from Helga’s rifle struck him in the chest, neck, and armpit.

  He would have screamed a warning, had the cryogenic round not found his throat, and he fell like a rock, frozen, and his head shattered when he hit the ground.

  Cilas and Helga ran across a lot for transports, but the vehicles were all burned-out husks. The rain and fog made visibility poor, and all she could see was Cilas’s silhouette. “Hold,” he whispered, and she stopped, crouched behind the twisted remains of a transport.

  Helga saw Cilas’s shadow move quickly to one side, and the bloody knife went up and down three times in succession. When they moved again, she saw the result as she stepped over a man with an elaborately plaited beard.

  There were several trees inside the town, each decorated with symbols that she assumed were religious. These were massive behemoth’s whose branches went up and over the buildings, and some of them held lamps, casting light across the town. Their journey across the lot seemed to go on forever, but she knew it was her nerves, so she bit down and kept on running.
r />   “I have eyes on the capitol building,” Raileo announced, and Helga had to wonder how he’d beaten them north.

  “Hey, Ray, how’s the leg?” she said.

  “Don’t ask. I’m glad that this is my last stop.”

  His words seemed ominous, and she almost missed Cilas’s command for them to cut the chatter. “Do you have a shot?” Cilas said, as he pulled them up against the wall of a long building.

  “I can see the group but I can’t make out which one is our mark,” Raileo said. “Lieutenant, there’s something else you should know. There’s a burnt out Phantom X2 fighter parked in the center of one of these plots.”

  “A Phantom?” Cilas sounded exasperated. “Burned out, so it can no longer fly?”

  “Yes, sir. Hold, I think that I finally see our man,” Raileo said, and his voice took on a rather somber tone. “Maker take the fallen. He just threw a man from the top floor of the capitol. I think that was the mayor. The MLF have the capitol. I have a shot, need permission to—”

  “Take it,” Cilas said. “Standard round, don’t light him up. We don’t know if the mayor’s family is still inside that building.”

  They heard the axe chopping sound of Raileo’s rifle deploying a round, and then there was a silence followed by a flurry of movement. “Thype me, thype me,” Raileo was muttering, his heavy breathing revealing his pain. “Lieutenant, that bastard had on a personal shield generator. The laser went wild. I’m on foot, running south. I’m so sorry, I got made.”

  “Take it east, to the outskirts, Lei. Ate and I will come and find you, we’re going to finish the job.”

  “Meluvian troops just landed to the south, Nighthawks. We need to take out the mark, fast, or all of this is going to be for nothing,” Quentin said.

  “You heard the man, Ate, we need to move. It’s time to get loud, since time is not our friend. We’re going to the capitol. There is no way that traitorous schtill is escaping our grasp tonight.”