by Kyle, Celia
I hear incoherent shouts behind us as they start giving chase, and the wall beside me gets hit by a photon blast. I sneak a glance at it, my stomach lurching as I see the darkened blotch of metal left by the blast, and I can’t help but imagine how it would feel to be hit by something like that.
It’s enough to make me feel nauseated.
“Shouldn’t we have known these assholes were there?” Montier asks, looking back at me over his shoulder. Reaching back, he grabs me by the wrist and pulls me down the corridor, forcing me to keep running in front of him. Solair does the same to Varia, and I realize that the two of them are using themselves to shield us from the blasts. A dangerous thing to be doing, giving that their armor doesn’t stand a chance against high-powered blasters.
“It makes no sense at all,” I finally reply, forcing the words out as my lungs struggle to get the air in. “We didn’t see the mercenaries approach us in that first room, and there was nothing on my console indicating we were about to run into them. There’s someone in here blocking my surveillance access. That’s the only explanation.”
“Great,” Montier grunts. “Just great.”
Placing one hand on my lower back, he gives me one slight push, forcing me to keep a frantic pace. Unfortunately for the group, neither Varia nor I are well-muscled Kilgari with long legs and iron lungs, and it doesn’t take long before we start slowing down. The mercs start gaining on us, and Solair and Montier are finally forced to go on the offensive.
Doing their best to aim while running, they start firing over their shoulders, their blasts hitting the ceiling and the walls beside the mercs but failing to down a single one of them. The only time they manage to hit one of the mercs, the shot merely bounces off the man’s chest plate.
“They’re trapping us,” I say, taking a quick glance at the schematics. The mercs are not merely chasing after us. They’re corralling us by forcing us toward an out-of-service elevator. Soon enough we’ll have our backs against the wall, and they’re going to have an easy time mowing us down. “There’s a dead-end up ahead. We’re going to be exposed.”
“Shit,” Solair mutters under his breath. “We have to fight back.”
“Then we should do it now,” I continue. “There’s some office space after the next turn. It’ll be better to make our stand there instead of in an open space.” I don’t even wait for any of them to acknowledge my plan. Taking the lead, I guide everyone past a set of double doors, and we step in a spacious room littered with desks, long workbenches, and overturned chairs. Outdated terminals sit on a few desks, hinting at the fact that no one has used this room for a long time.
“Everybody down,” Montier shouts all of a sudden, and I look past him to see a grenade rolling past the doorway and down the corridor. A second later and the entire ground seems to shake, a sound loud enough to pierce my eardrums taking over the entire floor. Before I have the time to process what’s happening, Montier rushes forward and tackles me, using his body to shield me from the explosion.
The doors are blown off their hinges, crash landing against one of the desks, and a cloud of dust and debris slips into the room. Dazed and confused, I take a couple of deep breaths while I wait for the ringing in my ears to stop. Montier coughs a couple of times and then pushes himself to his feet and helps me up, a sense of urgency in his movements. His tactical vest is covered in dust with chunks of concrete and plaster on his shoulder, but he seems otherwise fine.
“Take cover,” Solair orders, and we all take our position in the middle of the room. Using only one hand, Montier places it under one of the heavy workbenches and flips it over, positioning its surface as a barrier between us and the mercs. We all hunker down behind it, hiding ourselves from view. Not a second later, our chasers burst into the room.
Holding my breath, I sneak a glance at them.
They slip into the room with military efficiency, their chins tucked in as they sweep the room with their scopes. Their fingers rest over the triggers, telling me they’re more concerned with gunning us down than taking us as prisoners.
As if to confirm that, they spread wide, two groups of three walking toward our flanks while the rest of them march straight ahead. They might not be IHC elite soldiers, but they’re not as helpless as I thought they would be.
The bastards know what they’re doing.
“They’re coming up the sides,” I whisper, panic making my insides clench. Solair and Montier exchange a knowing glance and, for a moment, I think I see their lips curling up into a smile. Except, of course, that can’t be. Why would they be smiling?
“Remember the Masara job?” Solair asks, and Montier responds with a nod. This time, there’s no mistaking it. These two are actually grinning like idiots. Well, at least that shows they’re confident about our situation.
I can’t say the same about me.
“Standard maneuvers?” Adjusting the strap on his blaster, Montier runs his tongue over his parched lips. Once Solair responds positively, he checks the energy levels on the blaster and takes one deep breath. “Alright, let’s kick some ass then.”
Chapter Twelve
Montier
“Get down on the ground,” I tell Fiona and Varia. Then I hand Solair my rifle and turn forward so I’m facing the workbench. The two women exchange a confused glance, but they do as they’re told and flatten themselves against the floor. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Solair replies, holding both blasters up. He places his fingers over the triggers, and then places himself right behind me. Gritting my teeth, I place my hands on both ends of the workbench and grab it. I push myself up with a sudden burst of energy and, using the bench as a heavy-duty shield, start moving up the room.
Matching my pace, Solair spreads his arms wide and, pointing the blasters at both his left and right side, starts laying a double line of fire. The mercenaries that were sneaking past our flanks are taken by surprise, photon blasts hitting them straight in their gravity center. Even though Solair doesn’t do much damage, his hits are enough to throw them off balance.
The group of six men in front of us open fire, hitting the workbench, but I just press ahead and ram them with the bench’s flat surface. Digging my heels onto the floor, I put all my strength behind my shoulders and arms, and then I push myself forward, pinning the mercenaries against the wall.
“Now,” I shout, my face only a few inches away from the asshole with the moustache. His eyes widen as he realizes that both of Solair’s blasters are aimed at their heads, but it’s already too late for him as his friends. A sudden wave of heat crashes against my face as Solair squeezes both triggers at the same time, photon rays zooming past my ears as they cut into the exposed skin between the mercs’ helmets and their breastplates.
The smell of charred meat hits me straight away, the bodies I had pinned against the wall now turning limp. Thinking fast, I take a couple of steps back and throw the bench at the three mercs standing on my right side. It hit two of them, causing them to momentarily lose their aim, and then charge at the remaining one.
“Fuck,” he says, awkwardly trying to level his blaster. Knowing he doesn’t have enough time for an efficient shot, he just fires at random, a photon blast cutting through the strap on my tactical vest. Ignoring the pain that shoots down my arm, I close the distance between the two of us. One of my hands shoots for the man’s neck, and the other takes hold of the blaster’s muzzle.
I yank the gun away from him and then, flipping it around, discharge it against the man’s exposed shoulder joints. He lets out a scream, the face behind his visor contorted with pain, and then slumps down to the floor.
Behind me, Solair has taken cover behind one of the old terminals, sparks jumping out of the burnt circuitry as the three remaining mercs spray everything around them with photon blasts. When they finally realize I’m still standing, I make a quick dive toward Solair, narrowly avoiding being hit by the blasts.
“How are you holding up?” I ask,
raising my voice so that Varia and Fiona can hear me. They give me a quick wave from behind an overturned desk, and I breathe out with relief. Even though our plan worked, we took a risk by exposing them…but it was either that or allow the mercenaries to turn us into minced meat.
“Come out with your hands up,” one of the mercenaries shouts, his voice brimming with fear. He has just seen us cut through nine of his teammates like a knife through butter, so I’m not surprised.
“Is that you, Rob?” I ask him. “I recognize your voice.”
“What?” He hesitates. “Yeah, it’s Rob.”
“Yeah, I thought so. Why don’t you lower your blaster, you groping asshole?” I continue. “We dealt with nine of your colleagues in less than twenty seconds, so you better believe we’ll be able to handle the rest of you in less than five.”
“I’m not gonna, huh, repeat myself,” he insists, but he sounds even more hesitant than before. “Come out with your hands up, or else we’ll be forced to—”
“Shut the hell up, Rob,” I cut him short. “Does your pay justify a ticket into the afterlife? Because that’s what you’re about to get. And I can assure you, it’s a one-way ticket.”
There’s a moment of silence, and it doesn’t seem like any of the mercenaries are moving. I hear one of them whispering something, and another replies in a quiet but firm tone. They seem to be debating things. That’s a start.
“Alright, I’m going to lower my gun and—”
The sharp sound of a blaster being fired cuts Rob short, and then I hear a body hitting the floor.
“No one’s lowering their blasters, you two-dick assholes,” one of the mercs says, and this one doesn’t seem to feel hesitant about things. I poke my head up for a fraction of a second, and immediately spot one of the men lying at the feet of the other two, his neck resting at an awkward angle. Whoever’s leading the charge just shot Rob because he was about to surrender.
“You shouldn’t have shot him,” Solair shouts back. “I was starting to like the guy.”
“Yeah? You’ll have a chance to join him in the afterlife.”
With that, the two mercenary survivors start firing again, their blasters causing metal splinters to fly everywhere, the terminal we are hiding behind turning into pulverized metal dust.
We roll to the side in opposite directions, going from cover to cover as the mercs chase after us. Vaulting over a desk, I grab a blaster from one of the guys I killed earlier and then go down on one knee. I take one deep breath, steady my hands, and take a clean shot. I hit the guy chasing after me in the shoulder joint, throwing him off balance, and then shoot him in the neck. He goes down like a sack of overripe potatoes, his body landing on the floor with a dull thud.
From the far side of the room comes the steady zap of blasters, Solair and the last merc exchanging volleys of photons. Cautiously, I make my way around the room to flank the mercenary, and that’s when he changes tactics.
Yanking one of the grenades hanging from his tactical belt, he pulls the pin and lobs it at Solair. Solair reacts with lightning speed and bats it away with his blaster. The grenade ends up bouncing off a desk, rolls over the floor, and then explodes right next to where I’m standing. I throw myself at the ground instinctively, and feel the heat of the explosion on my right side.
“Shit,” I mutter, rolling away from it as debris lands all over my body. When I finally manage to get back up to my feet, I raise my blaster and scan the room, ready to burn through the mercenary’s neck with a quick shot.
“Lower your blaster, Montier,” I hear Solair say, and I cock one eyebrow as I turn around to face him. He’s already lowering his weapon, a deflated expression on his face. He seems to be looking at something behind me, and so I turn around to see what has him admitting defeat this easily.
“Yeah, you better listen to your friend,” the surviving mercenary says, a relieved grin on his face. Standing beside him are two hulking mercenaries with silver skin, their muscles stretching the shirts underneath their vests. They’re as tall as I am, built like a brick shithouse, and both have red tattooed patterns that climb up their necks.
They’re Kraaj, vicious-looking maniacs with a penchant for violence.
The tallest of them has a hand around Fiona’s neck, and the other is keeping a blaster’s muzzle pressed against her temple. All color has drained from her face, and her eyes are wide with terror.
“Yeah, you heard me,” the merc says with a nauseating tone. “Lower your blasters, or else this little bird is going to have her brain pulverized by my friends here. You don’t want to see that happen. Do you?”
Chapter Thirteen
Fiona
Well, shit.
There’s a gun to my head.
Shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I swallow down a very concrete sense of terror. My stomach seems to have turned inside out, and there’s a giant ball of anxiety making its way up my throat. I feel the cold metal of a blaster against my temple and the thick fingers of the hand that’s squeezing my windpipe.
Wide-eyed, I watch as Solair lowers his blaster, and then I feel those silver-skinned fingers tightening around my throat. Something inside me lets out a panicked scream and, when I see Montier’s shoulders slumping down, I react on instinct.
“Don’t do it,” I say, pushing the words past my gritted teeth. It’s hard to speak when someone’s holding you by the throat, but I do it all the same. “They’re just going to shoot you if you surrender.”
My outburst gets me punished. The Kraaj holding me up tightens his hold on me, and he does it so hard it becomes almost impossible to inhale. He lifts me up from the floor, my feet dangling, and I slap his thick forearm helplessly.
“Let go of her,” Varia screams, standing in the center of the room. She’s rocking back and forth on her heels, torn between making her way to Solair and standing her ground. With shaking hands, she grabs her handgun and lifts it up, the barrel trembling so damn much I just pray she won’t shoot. As much as I appreciate the gesture, I don’t want friendly fire to be the reason I leave this life behind.
“Or what?” The Kraaj holding me up asks, his guttural voice sending a shiver up my spine. Wasn’t it enough for him to look like an armored tank? Does he really need a voice that sounds like the rumble of a damn torpedo? I’ve never been this close to a Kraaj, but I guess it’s true what they say about them. They’re vicious bastards, and they look the part.
“Let’s just talk it out,” Solair says, his hand never leaving his blaster. Even though he has lowered it, his shoulders remain tense, as if he’s ready to take a quick shot if given the chance. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like he’ll have it.
A distant rumbling sound starts drifting into the room from outside, and it only takes me a couple of seconds for me to recognize it. It’s the sound of a hundred boots hurriedly stomping on concrete, which means a lot of bodies are heading our way. Judging by how loud the sound gets, a violent heaviness to it, it’s almost a certainty that the ones coming are more Kraaj.
“Seems like you are all out of options.” Laughing, the Kraaj finally eases the pressure of his fingers on my neck, and I suck in a deep and desperate breath, pins and needles all over my lungs. “You’re just a minute away from being surrounded, so you better play nice. Unless, of course, you’re going to abandon this pretty little thing.” As he speaks, he drags the muzzle of his blaster across my cheek, its metallic caress making me too damn conscious of my own mortality.
There’s no way out of this, I think, doing my best to remain objective about things. It’s useless to panic. Right now, I need to keep my head above my shoulders, or else coming here was all for nothing. The mission was for us to get the files, and we succeeded. Even if I’m left behind, just as long as the Queen’s crew carries on…
The tablet!
It’s still in my pocket, its rectangular shape pressed against my backside. Knowing the files are all inside the device, I try to think of a way to pass it over to
Varia. Not an easy thing to do when you’re the victim of a Kraaj’s death grip.
“Let go of me, you filthy beast,” I hiss and then grit my teeth and bring one knee up. I miss the Kraaj’s balls by an inch, but still manage to hammer my knee against his thigh. Seizing the opportunity, I start thrashing about as wildly as I can, and then surreptitiously fish the tablet out of my pocket with one hand. Dropping it to the floor, I kick it back in Varia’s general direction.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” the Kraaj growls. Then he slaps me so hard bright lights explode behind my eyes. Dazed, I let my body go limp. When I finally look back at Varia, I see the tablet is no longer on the ground. She paid attention to what I was doing and must have picked it up from the floor.
Good.
Turning my attention toward Montier, I lock my eyes on his.
I want to say a lot of things, but I’ve become painfully aware I’ll never have the chance to do it. I thought I had all the time in the world to get to know him, but all those hopes and dreams for the future have been stolen from me. They’ve been crushed under a Kraaj’s fist. I found my mate, and we had an open road ahead of us…things shouldn’t end like this.
But here we are.
“Just go,” I try to say, but my voice comes out raspy and broken. I can hardly breathe, let alone speak. Still, no matter how much it hurts, I must do it. “Go now…there’s nothing you can do.”
Taking one step forward, Montier grits his teeth hard, his jawline becoming even more chiseled than before. His whole body is tense, and a mask of boiling anger covers his face. It hurts to see him like that but, at the same time, it only reinforces what I already knew. Montier and I are mates.
“There’s no way I’m going to leave you, Fiona,” he says. “I’m going to—”
“Just go,” I shout at the top of my lungs, my vocal chords almost snapping as I use whatever’s left of my strength to raise my voice. With a knot in my throat, I watch as Solair closes in on Montier and lays one hand on his shoulder. He whispers something I can’t hear and then pulls Montier back. “Please, go now,” I croak, the stomping of boots so damn close I can feel the trepidation under my feet.
