No explosion.
“Dammit!” Hiller yelled.
He dropped the crossbow and began firing plasma slugs down the hallway again. I was about to do the same when something on the discarded crossbow caught my eye—another small red jewel, with two crosses beneath it. I holstered my pistol and picked up the curious weapon. As I did, I heard the low, ominous sounds of brass instruments playing a marching theme and the crystal embedded in the handle began to glow.
I rested my testing rod against the deeply scratched wall, gripped the crossbow with two hands—I didn’t know why, it just felt like the right thing to do—and took a deep breath. I nodded, spun around the corner, and fired.
A thin, glowing red projectile shot out of the crossbow and tore through the air toward the troopers. Well, in their general direction, anyway. It actually hit the wall just to their left.
This time, there was an explosion.
Hiller’s eyes went wider than I ever would’ve imagined they could go, but he recovered quickly. “Move! To the armory!”
Smoke obscured the cramped hallway and gave us the cover we needed to escape. Glowing arrows fired in our direction, but went wide. I was still holding the crossbow with both hands as I ran when I realized I’d left my testing rod behind.
“Wait!” I yelled to Hiller. “I’ve got to get my rod.”
“No, we’ve got to move!”
“Sorry, sir. I need it.”
I fired the crossbow back down the hallway—this time intentionally exploding against a wall—and grabbed my testing rod.
Hiller was busy providing cover fire for me, but I was certain he was pissed. With my rod and crossbow in hand, we sprinted down a nearby hallway toward the armory.
More bodies of Peacekeepers littered the ground, but I was too scared to look closely enough to recognize who they were. The body count went up the closer we got to the armory, and when we made the final turn, we stumbled upon a pocket of several troopers outside the armory’s entrance.
Hiller fired twice before they could react and left two of the troopers with smoking holes in their chest plates. But they quickly recovered and returned fire. I shot another glowing arrow, this time into the ceiling above the troopers. This explosion brought down enough wreckage to block their way, so we had a moment to collect ourselves.
“Colonel, let’s go back to the maintenance common room. My crew was probably still in there when the attack began.”
Without responding, Hiller wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his dark green fatigues, so I kept talking.
“And it’s so out of the way that these armored bastards might not have noticed it yet. Nobody else seems to.”
“It’s better than anything I’ve got,” he replied. “Let’s go.”
Hiller started to move down an adjacent hallway, but I yelled after him. “Not that way—there’s a shortcut through the loading bay. This way!”
We soon reached the cavernous, poorly lit loading bay, which was scattered with large storage containers full of space trash—I mean, “valuable minerals.” There were a few run-down hauling rigs, too. Problem was, a handful of troopers were checking out one of the vehicles.
“Okay, soldier,” Hiller said. “Here’s the plan—”
But I had already let loose a glowing arrow at the rig. I don’t know exactly where it hit, but it made a huge explosion and toasted them like marshmallows.
“I guess that works, too,” Hiller said, looking around. “Which way now?”
“It’s just over here,” I said, and led him to a nearby door. I’d just opened it when there was a flash of red and an explosion to our right.
“Reinforcements,” Hiller muttered.
We passed through the doorway. “There,” I said. “At the end of the hall!”
We were on the home stretch now—the maintenance crew’s common room was just twenty meters away. This time, there were no doorways to duck into, so we’d be screwed if the troopers cornered us here. But I was sure we’d have just enough time to make it inside. Unless, of course, the crew decided to close the emergency blast doors.
Which is exactly what happened next.
6
THERE WAS NO way this would end well. As Hiller and I sprinted down the long hallway toward my crew’s common room, we saw a pair of thick metal-shielded blast doors begin to move slowly toward each other, like a giant dragon’s mouth. But without the teeth. So it was more like a geriatric dragon’s mouth closing.
“No, no, no!” Hiller yelled as he ran.
I knew the blast door sequence couldn’t be stopped once activated, but the standard door could open at any time, as long as it was opened from the inside. But we’d need a comm unit for that . . .
It was then that I noticed the dual jangling of the cargo pockets on my pants. One held the red jewel from the broken sword; the other held a few spare bolts—and Rand’s communicator.
“Hey, take this,” I said, thrusting my crossbow into Hiller’s free hand.
I pulled out the small, round comm unit, squeezed it until it let out a chirp, and yelled, “Rand! You in the common room?!”
A surprised voice answered, “Walker?”
“Open the main door!”
“But—”
“Do it, dammit! We’re coming in—”
Red streaks shot past us and exploded against the far wall. Almost ten meters to go. Hiller ran even faster and my legs burned as I willed myself to keep up. Damn, that old man was fast. To be fair, he had to be—the opening through the blast doors was getting smaller by the second. Five meters left.
Another small explosion erupted ahead of us, but then the interior door slid open. Hiller somersaulted between the blast doors and came to a graceful stop on the other side.
I, on the other hand, tossed my testing rod ahead of me and dove head-first through the doors, crashing hard into furniture and floor just milliseconds before they clanked shut behind me.
I looked up and saw Hiller standing above me, offering me a hand. My crew was all there: Rand next to the door panel with his dark glasses pushed up onto his forehead, gripping his standard issue communicator—the special-order version was still in my hand, and I discreetly slipped it into my pocket—Lopez stood against the wall with her data pad, looking unimpressed, and Kovac crouched in the far corner in front of the holovid projector and extended his vibro-hammer in defense.
Explosions sounded against the doors. Everyone flinched, but the blast doors held.
“What’s that beautiful piece of workmanship?” Rand pointed to the crossbow.
“Enemy weaponry,” Hiller said. “It shoots arrows, but I couldn’t get them to light up. But this kid . . .”
I puffed my chest out.
“This kid’s got some sort of magic,” Hiller continued with an approving nod.
Lopez’s mouth began to curl into a cruel grin.
My shoulders fell immediately. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just figured out how to fire a stupid weapon. It’s not like I’m magic or anything. Those guys are magic.”
“I’m sure there’s a rational explanation,” Rand said. “May I?”
Hiller handed Rand the crossbow. He received it with a mischievous smile, wove his way around the piles of broken equipment, and placed it on the large metal table.
“They have swords, too,” I said, following him around several pieces of dead equipment. “I’m pretty sure they’re powered by these stones. Here—I took one after I frakked up a trooper.”
Rand raised an eyebrow as I fished the ruby stone from my cargo pocket and gently placed it on the table in front of him.
“Rand, figure it out,” Hiller said. “The rest of us need to come up with an exit strategy. Lopez—is that data pad still networked?”
Lopez reluctantly handed it over to Hiller, who began tapping it furiously.
I picked up my testing rod from the floor and leaned over to Rand, who was poking at the crossbow with one of his tools. “Hey, can you try integratin
g the stone into this? Just to see if it works.”
Rand looked up at me with a blank face, then wrinkled his brow. “You know, that could quite possibly help advance our understanding. Congratulations on your first good idea this cycle.”
I left Rand to his tinkering and turned back to Hiller. “So, what’s our plan to defend the station?”
Hiller’s eyes darted back and forth as he kept tapping at the data pad.
“We won’t be making a stand,” Hiller said definitively. “Interplanetary communications are down, and we can’t even connect to the other moon stations.”
More explosions sounded against the doors.
“But we can take them—right here, right now!” I said, trying to keep myself from bouncing on the balls of my feet. “I can lead the way with that crossbow, and Rand will figure out how to get them to work for the rest of you.”
Rand grunted as he operated on my testing rod with his micro-welder. It would probably be useless for determining ground and atmospheric conditions, but if my idea worked, it could be a dream come true. Literally.
“Look—I appreciate your bravery, son,” Hiller said. “But our first priority is to get our intel on these damned troopers to the other stations. Which means we need to find a way off this rock.”
I shook my head. “But Colonel—”
“The colonel’s right,” Kovac said from his defensive position in the corner.
Lopez shifted her weight to one side and held out her hand for the data pad. “With all due respect, sir, I’ll get all of us out of here. Well,” she looked at me through half-closed eyes, “except maybe Walker.”
Hiller hesitated a moment, then handed it to her. Lopez started tapping and swiping and after only a few seconds said, “Got it. There’s a short-range maintenance shuttle in the landing bay. It should be enough to get us all the way to Pluto, if you want.”
“What about the corridors?” Hiller asked. “It’s five of us versus a goddamn army with exploding arrows and who knows what else.”
She tapped the data pad a few more times before turning it around to face Hiller. “Vid feeds of every hallway from here to the maintenance hangar. We’ll leave through the other door.” She nodded toward the smaller door at the other side of the room, next to the large, dented table I’d been sitting at earlier.
“Damn,” Hiller said with the hint of a grin. “Okay, soldiers. Let’s head out before those bastards block our route.”
I looked at Rand, who was quickly shoving his tools and equipment into a large, black duffel bag. “Any luck?”
“There’s no such thing as luck. But I do have my intellect,” he said as he picked up the yellow testing rod. I rolled my eyes. “And I did manage to integrate the crystal into the rod’s power system internally. Only one problem: I can’t get it to—”
“The blast doors!” Kovac boomed.
The dull gray metal of the main door was quickly turning red and I heard a shrill metal screeching noise.
“Take cover!” Hiller yelled.
Everyone quickly dodged the dead equipment, dashing to the far side of the room. I grabbed the crossbow just before Kovac grabbed the dented table with one giant hand and flipped it onto its side. Behind our makeshift barrier, Hiller drew his plasma pistol and I leveled the crossbow. Rand yanked the pistol from my holster and aimed it at the door with one hand, still holding the testing rod in his other hand. Lopez crouched behind the table and hugged the data pad to her chest tightly. Kovac was right beside her, clutching his vibro-hammer in a white-knuckled grip.
Suddenly, the doors flew apart with a clang and there stood a trooper with a glowing red sword. A handful of troopers with crossbows entered the room after him. Hiller and Rand fired several shots at the group, but the troopers raised their glowing purple shields and deflected each of their plasma slugs.
“Oh, yeah?” I said as I pulled the trigger on my crossbow. “Eat arrows!”
Nothing happened.
The troopers returned fire, and we all ducked behind the table. I glared at Rand. “You broke it!”
“I did no such thing,” Rand said as streaks of red sailed past us and exploded against the far wall. “There wasn’t any ammunition left when I got it.”
I yanked my plasma pistol from his hands. “Great,” I muttered as the room began to fill with smoke.
Suddenly, the firing stopped and a metallic stomping noise filled the room. Hiller, Rand, and I slowly peeked over the edge of the table.
Towering in the doorway behind the troopers was the ginormous monster in red.
7
THE MONSTER TROMPED through the growing smoke and into the room. Its layered armor was even redder and bulkier than I remembered. And the spikes on its shoulders and biceps looked like they’d been freshly sharpened—probably by some misunderstood maintenance trooper. The thing was almost cartoonish in its exaggeration. But there it was, hulking through the smoke with its writhing, glowing red whip.
It reached up with a clawed hand, pulled off its head, and threw it to the ground with a clang. Turns out, it wasn’t its head. It was actually a helmet. But the fanged helmet wasn’t all that different from what was underneath—a sharp-toothed mouth smiled cruelly under a pair of dark eyes. Thick, red fur framed the face, and pointed ears poked out from the sides of his massive, wolfish head.
I was once again hit by the sense that I’d seen this monster before, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where.
The monster touched a claw to the glowing orange stone that hung around his thick neck and said in a deep, scratchy voice, “Grand Magus Craniax—the defenses on this realm’s moon pale in comparison to ours. I shall join you shortly, planet-side.”
The orange crystal glowed even brighter. The air in front of the monster shimmered and a ghostly, orange-tinted image appeared—a large skull inside a hood. The image opened its lipless mouth and a surprisingly shrill voice said, “Excellent work, Monstros. Soon Hades and all its moons will be ours. And then—the entire system!”
The image tilted its head back and let out a loud, halting laugh: “Neh-he-he-he-he-he!” before it shimmered again and faded.
Despite the obvious present danger, we all couldn’t help but stifle surprised laughs. And that’s when it came to me—where I’d seen them all before.
I’m embarrassed to admit that my parents—they were art historians—made me watch all sorts of weird Old Earth cartoon vids when I was little. Turn of the twenty-first century art historians to be precise, which they never let me forget. And one of these cartoon vids was about an androgynous, muscular guy with a blond bob haircut who, for some reason, lost most of his clothes when he used a special sword. It had a ridiculous name, too—something like “Man-Boy” or “Man-Man.” They were totally obsessed with me learning about “cultural artifacts that inform modern hero worship” or “epic poetry,” or some other made-up phrase that kept them employed. I don’t know.
This hero from the cartoon vid would fight bumbling idiot villains every episode and always win. The one had a skull head and one of his lieutenants was this furry beast of a man. I think his name was Beast-Man, or something equally original.
My mind snapped back to the present. These definitely weren’t bumbling idiots. The floating skull I’d just seen and the monster in front of me weren’t exactly the same as the cartoon, but they were close enough for me to recognize them—like a cheap knockoff. But why were they here?
The monster—Monstros, according to the giant skull—opened his fanged mouth and yelled, “You think you can hide from me, puny ones?”
Lopez snickered.
An armored trooper stepped forward and fired a glowing arrow. We ducked behind the table just before it hit the wall behind us and made a small explosion, pelting us with shrapnel.
“NO!” Monstros boomed. I peeked back around the side of the table just in time to see something terrible. Monstros lashed out his whip at the trooper and its glowing red length wrapped around its neck before
it yanked him backward and sent him hurtling toward the wall behind them. The trooper hit the wall with a dull crunch and slid lifelessly to the floor.
Monstros took another step forward. “Do not fire. They will die at my hands.”
Lopez wasn’t snickering anymore.
The troopers fell back. Then Monstros reached an enormous clawed hand toward our table, and I saw the orange stone around his neck flare. Suddenly, the table was sailing toward him, over his head, and slammed against the wall behind him, barely missing the troopers standing there.
The five of us scrambled for cover behind the large pieces of broken equipment scattered throughout the room.
“Cowards,” Monstros yelled. “You cannot hide from me! Come out and die honorable deaths.”
He cracked his whip, which momentarily filled the room with bright red light.
“We can’t keep doing this,” I whispered to Rand as we crouched behind a crooked compressor unit.
“Might you have an alternative suggestion?” he hissed back.
I looked at the yellow testing rod that he was holding.
“Here,” I said as I snatched it from him and shoved my plasma gun into his hand.
The moment I touched the rod I heard a low, ominous tone with a strong beat begin to build inside my head. I smiled.
“Give me some cover,” I said.
Rand raised an eyebrow, but then shrugged and readied himself.
“Now,” I said.
He began to fire and Hiller joined in from across the room. Armed with nothing but my testing rod, I darted between pieces of equipment through the growing smoke along the side of the room and toward Monstros.
I glanced back at my crew just in time to see a group of chairs leap up from behind them and sail toward Monstros. One of the chairs caught Hiller on the back of the head and he slumped to the side. Kovac dove to the ground to pick up Hiller’s fallen pistol and then leapt behind the broken compressor next to Lopez, immediately unleashing fire on the monster.
I saw a frantic Lopez shake the fallen Hiller, check his pulse, and then relax a bit. Hiller was still alive, but it looked like he was out for the count. I had to act fast, before we lost anyone else.
Rebel Sword Page 4