A high-caliber blaster bolt sliced the air not five centimeters in front of Nolan’s face. “Shit!”
He gave the mental command to snap his glider wings inward and cut the ion burn to fifty percent. His upward trajectory quickly leveled out, then gravity took hold and pulled him downward. He plummeted below the level of the cliffs, falling for fifty meters before once again extending his wings. His suit caught the air and he soared upward to skim along the sheer rock walls.
Two hundred meters south, he pulled up hard and rocketed skyward, rising above the level of the canyon. Instantly, he doubled back toward the cleared space in front of the cabin—and the tanks stationed there.
His heart leaped into his throat as he saw the second Mameluke’s plasma cannon glowing, the charging mechanisms heating up and preparing to fire. Without hesitation, he banked into a steep dive and dropped toward the treetops. He pulled up just twenty meters short of crashing through the uppermost branches and skimmed straight toward the front of the cabin. He’d only have the forest canopy’s cover for a few more seconds, but it was all he needed.
With his free hand, he pulled out a Gatecrasher grenade and thumbed the timer onto three seconds. The instant he caught sight of the Mamelukes, he threw. The second and third Gatecrashers followed in quick succession.
He banked hard to the right, swooping over the crumbling roof of the cabin and flying at full speed toward the trees on the cabin’s east side. A stream of blaster bolts reached up toward him, blue-white fingers that sizzled through the air in his wake.
Then came the explosions. Boom, Boom, BOOM! Three detonations in quick succession, right in the middle of the Mamelukes. He had no idea if his Gatecrashers actually punched through the tanks’ armor plating—doubtful—but it was all he could do to buy Bex time to—
“Done!” Bex shouted over comms. “Get your ass in here, Cerberus!”
“A-firm!” Nolan circled high and to the south, then looped back the way he’d come. His eyes locked on the two tanks in front of the house—the Gatecrashers had damaged the exterior-mounted turret, and one of the plasma cannons had been reduced to a smoking ruin. The Mameluke that had been firing at him was slowly turning on its treads, lowering its plasma cannon toward the house.
Nolan poured on all the speed he could muster, rocketing toward the eastern back door of the cabin. He had to get inside and into the basement before—
Something slammed into his helmet, chestplate, and right shoulder. The impact spun him around and sent him hurtling straight toward the ground. He had no time to stop or slow—all he could do was give Taia the mental command to retract his glider wings before he crashed into the nearest treetop. Branches whipped around him and cracked beneath the force of his flying, armored form.
Then the trunk of a massive tree loomed in front of him, and Nolan knew he had no chance of avoiding a bone-shattering collision.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Somehow, impossibly, Taia managed to keep him from crashing into the tree. She activated one of his boot thrusters, and the sudden burst of ion energy sent him hurtling to the side. Instead of striking the trunk, he tore through the upper branches of a smaller tree, burst free above the canopy, then fell again. This time, however, though he had no control over his momentum, Taia managed to slow his descent enough to avoid breaking every bone in his body when he plowed into the forest floor.
Pain exploded through his torso, spine, neck, and shoulders, and he slammed face-first into the ground. The world spun end over end, fading to darkness around him. How long he tumbled, he had no idea, because when he finally managed to clear the spots from his eyes, he found himself lying on his back, staring up at the clear blue sky.
“Get your ass in here, Cerberus!” Bex shouted over comms.
Nolan could barely summon a groan. Everything hurt in a way that it had never hurt before. It felt as if he’d just been run over by an Imperial battlecruiser traveling at full speed. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, and the simple act of lifting his head set everything spinning dizzily around him.
“Taia, get him moving!” Bex ordered.
“Nolan?” Taia asked.
“Do…it!” Nolan gasped. Even forming those two words proved almost more than he could manage.
He felt his armor moving of its own accord, controlled by Taia. She pushed off the ground with his left elbow to roll him over onto his stomach, then propelled him to his feet with one explosive movement. That sent a fresh wave of pain coursing through his battered body. Somehow, however, he managed to remain conscious and keep breathing as she sent him racing the fifty meters to the cabin’s rear door.
Nolan found his hands were clutching something hard—looking down, he realized he’d managed to keep a tight grip on his rifle. The Balefire appeared to have escaped any serious damage, though the mud-crusted leaves stuck all along the gun’s length sent an instinctive worry flashing through his mind. If some had gotten into the barrel, it could seriously foul up the works.
Time for that later, he thought to himself, gritting his teeth against the pain. First, I’ve got to get inside.
The rear door burst open, and Bex appeared there. “Get in here, you goddamn idiot!”
Nolan didn’t slow—he couldn’t, not with Taia controlling his armor—as he barreled past her and raced toward the basement entrance.
Bex was hard on his heels, shoving him through the door. “Get down there!” She paused only long enough to slam the door behind him, then stormed down the stairs. “I swear to fuck, you’d get yourself killed every goddamn time if it wasn’t for me watching your ass.”
Only once he’d reached the bottom of the staircase did Taia allow him to stop. He groaned, and would have sagged to the ground if she hadn’t been in control of his armor’s lower body. Nothing felt broken, but his whole body had to be a mess of bruises. Maybe there’d be a damaged organ or two if he was really lucky.
Somehow, he found the strength to retort, “Maybe less ass-watching and more bomb-setting next time.”
Jadis’ voice came over comms. “Either of you want to tell me what the hell happened?”
Bex spoke first. “Cerbie pulled a flying act that nearly got him killed.”
“And kept you alive!” Nolan pressed a hand against his chestplate, as if that could somehow help him breathe through the pain. “Pretty sure that’s enough—“
“You’re right, that is enough!” Jadis sounded tense. “Nolan, get your ass over here. Bex, you’ve got someone who’s been waiting for days to see you.”
Nolan scanned the dark basement—he’d switched off his Omnistalker vision—and frowned as he saw Jadis kneeling next to the heavy durasteel door that led out to the hover-train tunnel. Turning on his helmet’s lamp, he hurried over and knelt beside her. “Tell me what you need.”
“Taia says the EMP fried the lock,” Jadis explained, shining her helmet’s light at the lifeless biometric mechanism. “She’s using this suit’s smart metal to hack it, but it needs more juice to work the controls without draining my power cells.”
“With the additional power of your suit,” Taia said, “I will have current enough to deactivate the locking mechanism. After that, you’ll need to open the door manually.”
“Got it!” Nolan lifted his hand and rested it atop Jadis’, which was connected by smart steel filaments to the lock’s panel. “We need this door open now. That tank’s going to fi—“
“Mommy!?” Roz’s childish cry of confusion and delight echoed through the basement. “You came back!”
“I did, Boop.” Bex’s voice was oddly strangled.
Glancing over his shoulder, Nolan found the woman had removed her helmet and knelt next to where Roz had been sitting and holding Jared’s hands. Now, the little girl was leaping up and racing across the basement to throw her arms around her mother.
“I told you I would, baby,” Bex whispered. “I’ll always come back for you.”
She held her daughter tight, burying her
sweat-soaked face into the little girl’s neck. There was an unfamiliar, desperate ferocity in the way Bex clutched Roz—almost as if she hadn’t truly believed the comforting words she’d just spoken. Truth be told, Nolan could think of more than one occasion when he hadn’t been certain they’d return, either.
But they were back. Nolan squeezed Jadis’ hand, as much for his benefit—to feel the solidity of her presence—as to reassure her. Her other arm wrapped around his shoulder and pulled him close, allowing her to rest her helmeted head against his.
“You’re okay,” she said over a private comms channel. “Had me worried for a second.”
For one brief moment, Nolan felt a strange sense of peace. The crackle of machine gun and assault rifle fire fell silent. Even with the knowledge that the enemy was advancing on their position, he couldn’t help noticing the calm filling him. Somehow, being with the people that now surrounded him—his brother, Jadis, Bex, and Roz—felt like the closest thing he’d had to a family since his days in the Silverguard. Their presence seemed to push back his pain, restore his energy, and clear the exhaustion from his mind.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” he told Jadis. “We’re getting out of this alive. All of us.”
Oddly enough, with the solid feeling of Jadis’ body next to his and the sound of Bex’s whispered words and her daughter’s giggling, Nolan actually began to believe it.
The roar of an explosion shattered that momentary calm. It wasn’t the throaty BOOM of a detonating grenade or an impacting missile. No, this had a hissing, growling fury, the sort that grew louder over the space of a few seconds. The ceiling above him seemed to buckle and twist beneath the force of the blast, and bright, blistering heat tore the door at the top of the basement stairs off its hinges.
A huge fireball rolled down the stairs and thrust its scorching fingers toward them. Nolan instinctively threw his armored body in front of Jadis as the wave of heat washed over them. Behind him, Bex cried out in fear and pain.
The fire died in an instant, but the damage had been done. Through the doorway at the top of the stairs, Nolan saw no walls, ceiling, or second floor, only blue sky darkened with thick, choking smoke. The Mameluke’s plasma cannon had done its work and destroyed the last remnants of the cabin that had been Nolan’s final safe haven. It would take sixty seconds to recharge and prepare to fire again, Nolan knew. When that happened, the superheated liquid particulates would turn everything in the basement to cinders.
“Bex!” Jadis cried.
Nolan’s eyes snapped toward the spot where Bex held her daughter. Bex had possessed the presence of mind to cram her helmet onto Roz’s head, shielding the little girl from the blast—at her own expense. The back of Bex’s hair had been singed—a few strands still burned, filling the air with a nasty stench—and the bare skin on her neck burned a blistered red.
“I’m okay!” Bex called back, but her voice was shaky. She clutched Roz tightly to her chest, as if unable to release her daughter. “We’re okay. Right, Boop?”
“Yes, mommy,” Roz said, speaking through Bex’s helmet. “That was so hot!”
Fear spiked in Nolan’s chest, and he spun toward Jared. Thankfully, his brother had been at the opposite end of the basement, and the fireball hadn’t reached him before guttering out.
Nolan’s relief at finding his brother unharmed proved short-lived. The locking mechanism gave a tinny beep and the durasteel door slid open…just two centimeters.
“That’s all I can do!” Taia said. “The opening mechanisms were fried by that EMP.”
Nolan and Jadis both pulled back as Taia retracted the smart steel filaments back into their gauntlets. A quick glance at his HUD sent worry thrumming through Nolan. 21% power, the energy readout proclaimed. He’d burned through a lot of power using the ion boot engines and digital cloaking.
“Let’s get this door open!” He slid his fingers into the crack and gripped the durasteel door. They had to get out of the basement before the Mameluke recharged its plasma cannon or the Black Crows stormed what was left of the cabin. The odds of surviving either were virtually nil.
Jadis stooped to help him, but their combined strength—enhanced by the servo-powered limbs of their combat suits—had no effect. Nolan could feel the door beginning to budge, but the hydraulic mechanisms that normally opened it now held it fast.
He let up for a moment, just long enough to catch his breath, then threw his back into the effort once more. “Come on!” A growl rumbled low in his throat, growing louder as he taxed every muscle in his body in the desperate attempt. There was a slight shifting, a squeal of buckling metal, but the door refused to open.
“Cerberus!” Bex called over comms once more. “They’re breaching. Whatever charges survived that blast are going to go off in a matter of seconds.”
Nolan strained to hear, and a mental command to Taia increased the sensitivity of his helmet’s auditory sensors to full. Sure enough, he could hear the sounds of heavy boots crunching over rubble on the floor above.
“Shit!” Nolan’s pulse quickened. Releasing the door, he rolled his shoulders once to loosen up the muscles, adjusted his stance to get into a lower crouch, and grabbed ahold of the durasteel edge once more.
Before he could pull, Bex was there, shouldering into place beside him. “You’re good, Cerbie, but even you’re not a superhero.” She had replaced her helmet and now looked down at Jadis, who knelt on the floor between Nolan’s legs and grabbed the door down low. “All together now, on three. One, two, three!”
Nolan summoned all of his strength to fuel the muscles of his arms, shoulders, and spine. Hope surged within him as the door squealed, groaned, and began to slide.
“Pull!” Bex shouted.
Nolan did as commanded, roaring with the strain. The door continued to slide open, slowly at first, yet growing faster and faster. Then it stopped, so abruptly that Nolan and Bex both lost their grip on the edge. Nolan managed to catch himself on the wall and grab Bex before she stumbled. With a nod, she righted herself and pushed him upright, too. They both turned toward the door.
The crack had widened to about fifty centimeters, just enough for Jadis to slip her armored body through.
Bex spun and beckoned to her daughter. “Boop, baby, come here! Time to go.”
Roz, who had returned to kneel beside Jared, leaped to her feet and rushed over to her mother. Bex took the little girl’s hand and pulled Roz through the opening.
Nolan turned to his brother, who remained unconscious on his blanket. With speed born of desperation, he stooped, lifted his brother into his arms, and carried him toward the gap in the door.
Jadis was waiting for him there. “Pass him to me!”
Nolan dropped his brother’s feet onto the floor and propelled him upright. Jared’s limp frame collapsed through the door, but Jadis’ armor-enhanced strength sufficed to catch him before he fell. The moment she was clear, Nolan squeezed himself into the opening. His combat pack stuck for a brief instant. With a growl, he dragged his body through and into the stone tunnel beyond. Helmet light on, Balefire rifle clutched in one hand, he raced after Jadis and helped her haul Jared down the tunnel.
Faster! The thought clawed at the back of Nolan’s mind. They had to get out of the narrow passage, had to reach the hover-train tunnel before—
A deafening roar echoed from behind him, and a wave of fire rolled down the basement stairs, through the open door, and into the tunnel. Nolan and Jadis just managed to get Jared beyond the reach of the flames, but the passage around them shook so violently Nolan feared it would collapse atop them. The deep, angry rumbling of the explosion was punctuated by the crash of the cabin’s remnants crumbling.
The path behind them was sealed, the last vestiges of what had once been Nolan’s life gone up in smoke and reduced to rubble. The only way out now was forward.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dust still shook loose from the roof of the tunnel as the cabin finished collapsing above No
lan’s head. He paid it no heed—his attention was locked on the lights moving ahead of him. Bex and her helmet light led the way, with Roz clutched tightly in her arms and her MK75 slung over her back. Jadis helped Nolan half-drag, half-carry Jared’s limp body down the passage toward the hover-train track.
There was a chance, though a slim one, that the EMP blast hadn’t cut off the hover-train’s power. That would make the hundred-meter ride to the hidden landing pad far quicker—quick enough that they could vanish into the rainforest long before the Black Crows finished sifting through the debris of Tanis’ cabin.
The moment they reached the hover-train tunnel, Nolan handed his brother off to Jadis. Taia had control of her combat suit and would help compensate for Jared’s weight. Unslinging his Balefire, Nolan moved around Bex to examine the hover-train itself. Hope flooded him as he spotted the lights still blinking on the console—it hadn’t been killed by the EMP blast!
“Get on!” he called to Jadis and Bex over comms. “It’ll get us—“
His words were interrupted by the hiss of firing blaster rifles, and blue-white bolts zipped down the tunnel toward him. Nolan dropped into a crouch, using the hover-train car for cover, and shouldered his rifle. His hope turned to dismay as he caught sight of the armed and armored figures appearing at the far end of the tunnel.
Damn it! The Black Crows had found their hidden landing pad and now cut them off.
Nolan drew in a breath, letting his mind settle into that cold, calm place as he took deliberate aim and squeezed the trigger. Once, shift aim, twice, shift again, three times. Three white-hot projectiles sped through the darkness and ripped into the foremost Black Crows.
Yet even as the bodies dropped, more shadows darkened the mouth of the tunnel. By the time Nolan squeezed off his fifth shot, more than twenty Black Crows had taken up position just outside the tunnel, using its sides for cover as they traded fire with Nolan.
Rampant Destruction (CERBERUS Book 10) Page 26
