“Stay here and wait for my signal,” he told the rescued slaves. They nodded in unison.
He took a deep, calming breath. No matter what happened, he had to get the slaves to safety. He owed them that much. His sworn duty was to protect the Dominion from people like the slavers, and someone along the way had failed these poor women. He exhaled slowly, crossed himself and prayed to God, the Emperor and any other person who might have been paying attention.
He charged into the room, his footsteps loud on the concrete flooring. He had his gun up as he ducked behind a small, empty crate. He peeked over the top and snarled; he had been hoping against hope the slaver was facing the other direction.
Apparently Murphy is still a stronger presence in my life than God, he thought as he locked eyes with the last slaver. The woman’s eyes widened in recognition and shock, and he knew he would only have one chance before she killed them all.
He dove to the right of the crate and rolled, letting his momentum drag him out of the slaver’s immediate line of fire. He struggled to his feet as her gun swung up and began to track him, but he was already moving, sprinting back to the left while closing in on her. She fired twice, both shots ricocheting off the floor and embedding themselves in the wall behind him.
Andrew skid to a stop and took careful aim. It was a race, the slaver bringing her gun around as his own came to bear upon her. The muzzles of both guns flashed simultaneously, and Andrew grunted as pain flared in his shoulder.
A second shot punched him in the gut and he fell, shocked the woman had managed to get him. He lifted his head and saw that while he had hit her, her wound wasn’t nearly as bad as his. He had merely clipped her collarbone and, while it would smart, it was in no way fatal. She took aim on him and smiled coldly.
Andrew swiftly brought his gun up with his working arm and fired one final time. The round struck true, burrowing itself right between the slaver’s eyes. She fell backward and lay still, dead. He groaned and dropped the gun, pain blossoming in his stomach. He rolled onto his back and stared at the old warehouse’s ceiling.
That sucked, he groused. He closed his eyes and let out a long, painful breath.
* * * * *
Get Wraithkin now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0RGYZS.
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* * * * *
The following is an
Excerpt from Book Ten of The Omega War:
Alabaster Noon
___________________
Chris Kennedy & Mark Wandrey
Available Soon from Seventh Seal Press
eBook, Paperback, and Audio Book
Excerpt from Alabaster Noon:
Prologue
São Paulo, Brazil, Earth
The sounds of misery were nonstop as the Besquith specialist team reached their objective, the roof of a five-story building which once housed several hundred Humans. Once in position they verified none of the occupants remained, alive or otherwise, and began setting up monitoring equipment.
“Filthy Humans,” one of the sensor operators said, tossing a severed arm over the side of the building “Team leader Kreth, why didn’t they just nuke the entire area; that would have destroyed the Raknar.”
“General Peepo wanted the machines intact, and their operators alive,” his squad leader reminded him for the dozenth time. Grawts wasn’t the quickest on the uptake, but he did have a mastery with the finicky elSha-manufactured gear. Several others in the team growled their support of Grawts. “Just shut up and finish deploying the sensor drones. We have nine more to place before dark.” The five-Besquith team, including himself, all went about their tasks, but Grawts wasn’t satisfied.
“Okay, I understand preserving the war machines and operators. Peepo has them prisoner now. Why are we looking for these little creatures that accompanied them?”
“Do I look like a general?” Kreth snarled and snapped at the back of Grawts’ neck. The hapless sensor tech rolled over and whined, so Kreth didn’t rip his rotten throat out. Satisfied, Kreth turned back to look out over the remains of São Paulo.
The Human city, formerly one of the biggest if what he’d been told was true, was largely in ruins. Seven assaulting Raknar, along with hundreds of Humans in their entropy-cursed powered armor, tended to do that to a city. Massive defenses had been positioned to protect the seat of occupation, but the Raknar had plowed into, and ultimately, through them. The damage was horrendous. Kreth approved.
He shielded his eyes from the setting sun to the west and could see the six surviving Raknar. Dozens of flyers were alight on them, or flying around as heavy equipment went about preparing to move them. Peepo’s prizes. He wondered what she intended for them. It didn’t matter.
The faked cease fire worked perfectly, allowing forces to move in close to Human mercs all over the planet before springing their trap. One of the Raknar was vaporized by orbital fire. Kreth’s unit was just over a kilometer away, monitoring the mecha’s progress when it happened. They’d been flash-blinded by the orbital particle beam.
The last six went berserk, destroying indiscriminately and totally. They’d even destroyed the orbiting station. From the ground! Kreth looked at a building a block away; half its height had been severed cleanly by a Raknar particle beam. Then, when heavy Zuul tanks attacked, the Raknar unleashed what appeared to be nuclear cannon, but they were much more compact and discrete in their damage.
“Antimatter weapons,” an elSha tech in a weapons company said after the fight. Even Kreth sucked his breath in at the idea. Such unbelievable firepower, and now it was theirs! He desperately wanted to finish this mission so they could be assigned to the next stage.
“Come on, come on,” he growled. “I want to go to the Human’s secret base. Oh, to see their end will be a glorious battle.” The others grunted in agreement as they affixed their sensors. It was no secret the fleet was preparing to go to the final assault. Sure, lots of Humans were still fighting in places, but they wouldn’t be fighting for long. What chance did they have? “Aren’t you done yet?” he snapped.
“Yes, you’re done,” a tiny voice said in such perfect Besquith he thought it was a juvenile. Kreth turned, and his jaw fell open in surprise. A tiny furred creature just like he’d been told to look for was framed in the doorway pointing at him.
“Hey—” he started to say, then something slammed into his throat, and he fell backward, unable to control his body.
“Ambush!” one of his mean cried.
Good, Kreth thought, struggling to breath. My men will deal with them. Lying on his back on the rubble strewn roof, he heard his men moving, grabbing weapons, and yelling, then the sounds of falling bodies. It was all over in two, maybe three seconds. He exerted all his will and managed to turn his head. Five of the creatures were standing in the center of where his men had been working. None of the Besquith were alive, save himself. He tried to say something, and it came out as a gurgle.
One of the creatures dropped into a partial crouch, its head spinning to face him. Kreth could see one of its eyes was covered in a patch, and it had a cybernetic arm on the same side. The creature grunted and marched over to Kreth.
* * *
“Be more thorough, Peanut,” Dante snapped as he stabbed the Besquith through the eye, driving hard with his cybernetic arm to be sure the blade penetrated into the alien’s brain.
“Sorry, sir,” Peanut said.
“Did any of them get a transmission off?” Ryft asked, cleaning her knife.
“No.” They all glanced up at their leader. Splunk clung to the half-melted antenna above the roof where she’d been watching the clumsy Besquith setting up their instruments. She looked at her frequency scanner one more time to be sure. Nothing within a hundred meters. “They weren’t even staying in contact with their command staff.”
“Stupid animals,” Shadow said, putting away his long blade. “
Even the Kahraman would have not wasted time with their lot.”
“They might be pathetic at tactics, but they are strong and numerous,” Ryft pointed out.
“Peanut, take their comms gear,” Splunk ordered. “Break into their network and let’s get some intel.”
Peanut waved, and they all started piling the dead Besquith’s equipment at his feet. Like every Dusman who’d come on the mission, they were all gifted in technology, although Peanut and Splunk were the most gifted. Since Splunk was in command, she’d delegated the job. As soon as the bodies were stripped, the other four moved toward the edges of the roof to assume overwatch.
Splunk sent back. For 170 hours they would have no contact with their agents within the retreating fleet. She tried to appear confident, despite her inner feelings of failure. Jim was there, only a few kilometers away. She could point to him, if she’d wanted to. They all knew where their operators were, a side effect of the joining. It wasn’t like the texts said it would be. She’d tried to explain it to Sly, but he didn’t believe her. Well, now he did.
“Command. Echo-5, report,” said a voice from one of the Besquith radios.
Splunk pointed, and Peanut snapped it up. He had a device already set, and he clipped it to the radio. A second later, another Besquith spoke. “Echo-5 to command, system is almost up.”
“What is taking so long, Kreth?”
Peanut cocked his head and tapped on a tiny screen with his claws. The machine answered, “My team are idiots.”
Laughter came in reply. “That they are. Hurry up, command out.”
From across the ruined rooftop, Splunk could see Dante nodding without looking over. He approved of efficiency almost as much as he approved of slaughter.
Peanut sat the voice duplication device aside. It was the reason Splunk had been hanging from the antenna while the Besquith worked and gave away intel—she’d been recording their voices. “Here we go,” Peanut said, and Splunk jumped down next to him. She moved close—closer than she had to—and surreptitiously put a hand on his shoulder. He glanced at her, giving a tiny smile so nobody else would notice.
You are such a fool, she scolded herself.
Peanut reconfigured the monitor’s Tri-V and a map of the vicinity came up. In a second, a sea of tiny blue pinpoints decorated it. “These are all the units they had deployed searching for us.”
“Hmf,” she said as she examined the pattern. Efficient, but predictable. All the search teams were using the same type of equipment too. All the better. “Modify their gear to give a false positive in five minutes,” she said and pointed. “Have us going that way, toward where our operators are being held.”
“We’re not going there?” Peanut asked. He looked surprised and disappointed. “I have listened to Darrel thinking about it. There are almost no guards. We can be in and out—”
“That’s what Peepo wants us to think,” Dante said from a few meters away. “Use your head for a change, child. Splunk might be a fool for believing in these Humans, but she’s a solid commander.”
“So, you agree with Sly putting her in command?” Sandy asked, her voice obviously surprised.
“I didn’t say that,” he replied, but didn’t add anything to it.
Splunk knew he had it out for her. She’d known it ever since he turned up on Karma and tried to make her come back to Kash-Ka. When she’d told him about the Canavar, he’d been as stunned as anyone else. She’d known something was happening when the Human boy showed up suddenly that night. Known it in the depths of her being. It was time for them to come out of hiding.
“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” Peanut snapped at Dante.
“Yeah, we are,” Dante replied. “It’s the fact she thinks some sort of damned destiny is guiding her that scares the piss out of me.”
“Seldia sees it too,” Splunk reminded him.
“Seldia is insane, just like all K’apo.”
Splunk couldn’t argue. They were a necessary part of Dusman society, though. More so after The Disaster than ever before.
“Speaking of Seldia, when are we going to do it?”
“Better be now,” Splunk said, looking at the Tri-V. “We’re going to be moving too fast the next couple days to take that kind of chance. “Everyone double check for unwanted visitors.” Nobody saw anything, then they joined her.
Splunk stood in the center and the other five Dusman reached out, touching each other and making a circle. Then each put a hand on her head. Splunk sighed, reached within herself, and stretched.
came the reply from light years away.
The connection cut, and Splunk gasped from the suddenness of it. She’d been expecting something. What, anger? Accusations? But there was none of it.
“He seemed calm,” Peanut said.
“A Koof always seems calm,” Dante said and snorted. “They seldom understand what’s really going on.”
“Sly will handle his end of it,” Splunk said, changing the subject. “Our job is to not get caught, and to see if we can get our operators out.”
“We should cause as much carnage as possible in the meantime,” Dante suggested.
“I like the sound of that,” Shadow said.
Splunk found herself agreeing. Aura would have approved of some payback as well. Suddenly she felt Jim was highly agitated. Something had happened; either they were interrogating him, or he’d found some piece of information which had him highly upset. She tried to send a calming thought to him.
Splunk knew it was unlikely he would get the thought. Humans were remarkably weak when it came to receiving thoughts. Maybe it was part of what made them so different from the Lumar? The others had cleaned up any evidence of their presence, except the five dead Besquith, of course. It was time to go.
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A Pale Dawn Page 45
