Ozzy glanced over his shoulder. Zeld had her arms crossed over her chest, looking rather bored.
A soldier walked onward. He stopped and sniffed. Could they smell Ozzy?
The Dunrakee touched its pointed chin and creased its already v’d brows even more. His almond-like eyes darted around, taking in as much as he could. He made some clacking sounds, and the large group proceeded forward.
“Are you shitting me?” said Ozzy as quietly as possible.
Of all the entrances into the forest that surrounded the meadow, the Dunrakee picked Ozzy’s location.
One soldier in the back of the pack held out his rifle, pointing it in Ozzy’s direction.
8
Earth • Ancient Athapaskan Land, California
Ozzy put his finger to his lips. Jozi nodded. A loud exhale might give away their position. Hell, a silent fart may alert these guys.
The lead Dunrakee walked beneath them, his feet heavy on the forest floor, even though his walk was athletic and graceful. He was searching for boot prints, something Ozzy didn’t think about.
Ozzy cringed, and his muscles tightened. If these Dunrakee were good trackers, they’d find Ozzy in a second.
Another Dunrakee, this one bigger and much bulkier, walked by. He held a large cannon strapped over his shoulder, and the butt of the weapon rested next to his hip, bouncing up and down as he stomped forward.
The leader clicked and held up his hand. He waved it in various directions. The troops nodded and scattered. Some went easterly and further into the woods, and the others remained close.
The lead soldier and the bulky guy stayed and were directly underneath Ozzy.
The Dunrakee hadn’t looked up yet.
Ozzy cautiously leaned back farther onto the branch. He could tell this was going to take a while and be quite uncomfortable.
A crow cawed and landed on the limb next to Ozzy’s branch. Ozzy’s heart about stopped.
The lead soldier looked into the trees and tilted his head. He pulled something off his belt and held it to his eyes.
Binoculars?
Ozzy stiffened, not moving a muscle. They were dead to rights if they were caught, and they hadn’t even looked for the crystal sphere yet.
The crow took a step forward, nearing Ozzy. Ozzy did everything he could to keep his hands in one place and not shoo the crow away.
Another caw echoed.
Shit.
Several clicks and clacks came from below, and a few troops changed direction, marching toward their leader.
“Hit the bird,” whispered Jozi.
“No,” Ozzy softly said through gritted teeth.
Jozi slowly moved her arm.
Ozzy shook his head.
She extended her index finger.
“Don’t do it,” he whispered.
More clacks came from below. Troops were gathering and glaring up at the trees. They raised their rifles.
Jozi was right. It was now or never.
He slowly twisted and rapped the bird across its side.
Caw! Caw!
The crow bolted into flight, its wings spread and flapping chaotically. More birds jumped out from the trees, cawing to their heart’s content.
Whapoo! Whapoo!
A bird went limp, and blood and feathers splattered into the air. It fell to the forest floor. The rest of the birds dispersed, fleeing for their lives over the forest canopy and out of view.
Silence.
More clicks and laughter could be heard. The bulky man bent over, picked up the bird, and held it out for all to see. “Click gmolo clack monu shez clack click.”
From the little Dunrakee language that Ozzy knew, the bubble-head was bragging about his accurate shot.
The leader patted the big guy on the back, laughing as well. They dropped their weapons by their sides and trekked forward.
Their footsteps died down the farther away they went until there was complete silence. No Dunrakee talking. No laughter. No nothing.
Ozzy relaxed and let out a sigh. Zeld was already climbing down from her tree.
“You okay, Jozi?” Ozzy asked.
Jozi nodded. “You’re the luckiest and unluckiest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”
Ozzy rested his foot on the branch below him, furrowing his brow. “What does that mean?”
“It means you get yourself into sticky situations and then get yourself out of those same damn situations. No wonder the Galactic Knights want you so bad.”
Ozzy rolled his eyes, taking another step down. “Galactic Knights. If they wanted me so badly, then why aren’t they helping me on this mission?” Hell, he probably didn’t deserve any help. From his shitty decisions in life, half his family were killed—his mom, his dad, and now his brother’s wife. “The Knights are only a bump in my road.”
Jozi began her descent. “You’re doing this mission to save humanity. Don’t forget that. And what do you mean the Galactic Knights are a mere bump in the road?” She spoke as if Ozzy were the most unintelligent person in the galaxy.
“The Galactic Knights are a phase. It’s a small group of kick-ass warriors that won’t last for long. If they have to ask me to join them, it means they’re pretty low on the totem pole and can’t get enough recruits to save their butts for anything.”
“Or, they’re looking for specific people.”
Ozzy took another step down. “I don’t think so. They’re looking for all they can get. You don’t think they could get at least a dozen Martian Marines to join their ranks? Any Marine would love to take up arms against the Dunrakee scum.”
“I’m sure they would, but there is something about you that appeals to the Galactic Knights. It’s about family and about being a part of something bigger. You sometimes are so self-absorbed, Ozzy. You don’t see what is right in front of you. You. . .”
“What? Finish. Please. I’d love to hear what you have to say.”
“Never mind.”
“I mean of all the people to talk to me about family, it’s precious that it would be you tellin—”
Before he could finish, Zeld approached and walked to the tree’s base. “Hurry up, princesses.” She smirked. “We—“
“Ozzy Mack,” came a blaring voice from the meadow. “Ozzy Mack. Do you read me?”
Ozzy’s eyes about popped out of his head. He let go and dropped ten meters to the ground and tumbled. Jozi did the same.
“Ozzy Mack, I have information for you. Get your butt on the bridge, now.”
“Tell Jonas to shut up, Ozzy,” demanded Zeld.
Ozzy put his hands out. “How?”
“Ozzy Mack,” yelled Jonas.
Jonas was coming over the Eagle’s intercom for all to hear. They had forgotten to shut the ramp, and the sound was carrying in ways it didn’t carry on Mars.
Footsteps pounded in the forest. The Dunrakee had heard.
Ozzy ran toward the meadow, his heart racing and his breath coming quickly. He had to get back on the ship and, most importantly, turn off the com line.
9
Earth • Ancient Athapaskan Land, California
Ozzy pushed a branch out of the way and burst into the open meadow. He raced toward where he thought the Eagle was and surveyed the area.
It had to be here somewhere, but the camouflage was too good. So good that even the ship’s pilot—Ozzy—couldn’t locate it. He thought he would be able to see some indention marks where the landing skids were or some flattened grass.
There was none.
The camouflage worked so well it even replicated grass flowing in the breeze.
The sound of Dunrakee footsteps came louder.
“Any idea where the ship is?” Ozzy asked.
Zeld didn’t reply as she ran past him. Her pink hair bounced up and down and waved in the wind.
“Jozi,” said Ozzy. “Follow Zeld. She must know where she’s going.”
Jozi nodded, changed direction, and followed Zeld.
Ozzy unholstered his wea
pon and glanced over his shoulder. “Oh shit.”
A gang of soldiers jumped through the tree line and were heading his way.
Ozzy pulled the trigger. The gun recoiled in his hand, sending a blast toward the lead Dunrakee.
The shot jerked the lead and flung him on his back. He grasped his throat and bounced and rolled. His hands slid off his neck, and he lay motionless.
Ozzy looked at his gun, shrugging as he continued to run. “I’m a crackshot too.”
“That was my shot,” chimed in Jozi, her gun extended and her eyes on more incoming Dunrakee.
Wapooh! Wapooh!
She shot a beam and several more.
Ozzy didn’t look to see if she hit her intended targets. From the way Jozi used her gun, she probably downed them easily.
Heck, she could probably hit a fly at a hundred meters, she was that accurate.
“Duck,” she warned.
A photon bolt whizzed over Ozzy’s head. Luckily, he crouched because if the shot were a fraction lower, he’d be a dead man.
He bolted upright and pumped his arms and legs as fast as they would take him toward Zeld’s direction and his ship.
Ozzy turned and aimed his gun again and fired. A beam expelled and a puff of smoke swirled from his muzzle.
A Dunrakee jumped out of the way, and Ozzy’s shot missed.
“Nothing new,” he told himself.
“She disappeared,” Jozi shouted.
“What? Who?”
“Zeld must have gone up the ramp.” Jozi rushed forward, pointing her finger at a spot in the meadow. “That must be the ramp. She disappeared right there. It’s gotta be the ramp.”
“Ozzy Mack, do you read me?” It was Jonas’s voice. The bastard was telling every soul on Earth where the ship was located.
“Yep,” yelled Jozi. “The Eagle is right in front of us.”
She was about five meters in front of Ozzy and curled around the invisible ramp. She ran up and into the ship. “Quick, Ozzy. Get up here.”
Ozzy rounded the ramp just as a shot zipped by him.
“I’m hurrying.” He rushed into the lobby. “Get in the weapons room.” He slapped the “close” button, and the ramp whined and slammed shut.
“Ozzy Mack, this is Jonas—”
“Shut up, Jonas,” yelled Ozzy at the intercom system, knowing the crime boss, now High Judge of the Ministry, could hear. “I’m a little busy.”
“Well, it’s about time,” replied Jonas.
“We don’t have time, Jonas,” said Zeld, dashing down the hall and toward the bridge.
“I’m paying you both, which means you definitely have time for me,” Jonas growled.
Jozi rushed toward the weapons room.
“Jonas,” Ozzy bellowed. “We’ll get back to you later.” He followed Jozi, his heart beating rapidly and adrenaline rushing through him.
“Don’t you—”
Jonas’s voice cut off. Zeld must have shut down the com line.
Good.
The impatient, new High Judge could wait.
Ozzy wiped the sweat off his forehead and punched in the code to the weapons room. Jozi did the same on the other side of the corridor. His door opened, and he swiped his hands over the holodisplay above the closed tube that led into the pod.
The door zipped open, and he slid down the tube and onto the pod’s chair.
A quick touch on the holodisplay activated the pod and its attached weapons. He checked the screen. The pod’s photon power was fully charged, and he had enough missiles to take on a small army.
He ejected the pod out of the starboard side. An energetic cord connected the pod to the craft, keeping him attached to the ship.
But was the pod still camouflaged like the rest of the ship?
The Dunrakee skid to a halt when Ozzy came into view.
“Shit. Of course, it’s not camouflaged.” He shrugged. “I mean, why make something so important, like a weapons system, camouflaged.” He moaned with pissed-off sarcasm.
His dumb ass luck again.
He brought up the target icon on the holodisplay. He pulled the trigger, and the photon cannon at the bottom of the pod spun, spitting photon blasts.
Several bolts slammed into the grass in front of dozens of Dunrakee soldiers, churning tuffs of dirt and roots into the air and splattering debris across the soldiers.
The bubble-heads jumped, and others were picked up by the small explosions and thrown several meters. Some got up. Others didn’t.
More Dunrakee emerged from the forest and aimed their guns, shooting wildly.
Ozzy held down the trigger and rotated the turret, sending out thousands of hot hellion photon slugs. Many of the troops jerked back and forth like they were being electrocuted. Their weapons went into the air, and their arms flailed left and right until their bodies went listless on the ground.
The sound of a loud retreat horn erupted from the forest, and the Dunrakee turned and fled toward the tree line.
Ozzy took his finger off the trigger, and the pod stopped vibrating.
He took a deep breath and rested his palm on his forehead. He eyed the meadow but quickly diverted his gaze.
Blood was everywhere.
He shook his head and closed his eyes. He didn’t like violence. But that didn’t matter because Dunrakee deserved pain and death.
He sighed and calmed his nerves the best he could. “Guys, are you okay?”
“We’re gals, Ozzy,” Zeld said. “And, yes, we’re okay.”
“I downed several of them,” Jozi said. “The rest scurried into the trees.”
Zeld cleared her throat. “Uh, we have something coming over the radar here. Twelve ships. They are military, and no doubt they are packing heavy weaponry.”
Ozzy swallowed excessively. They would be carrying bombs, and even though they couldn’t see the Eagle because of its camouflage, the Dunrakee troops that had fled had most likely marked Ozzy’s location.
“Get the Eagle into the air,” hollered Ozzy. He put the pod restraining belt around his shoulders and hips. “We’ll park this thing someplace else, but hurry before they reach us.”
Baroom!
The craft shuddered, and Ozzy’s head went flying forward through the holoscreen and into the transparent photon-proof glass behind the screen.
“Son of a—” He rubbed his forehead. “What was—”
Another explosion shook the ship, and the pod rocked back and forth.
“Flip your pod around, Ozzy. We have heavy weapons fire coming from behind us,” ordered Jozi.
Ozzy rotated the pod, and his mouth gaped open, and his stomach shot to his feet. A hovertank was moving through the tree line behind them, pushing small saplings and brush out of the way. Smoke swirled from its double-barreled muzzle. Several Dunrakee soldiers were walking behind it, using it as cover.
Its turret shifted, pointing its barrels directly at Ozzy.
“Get the Eagle into the sky,” he roared. He switched from photon cannons to missiles. “Shoot your Grizzlies, Jozi.”
Ozzy swiped his finger on the holodisplay. The G-114’s missile rack rolled out from the side of his pod.
“Armed and ready,” said Jozi.
Ozzy shifted in his seat, targeting the tank. “Fire.” He pressed the trigger. The windows tinted, and fire shot out from one of the Grizzlies, shooting the missile at thousands of kilometers per hour. Ozzy squinted, keeping his eyes on the holodisplay.
Kakakroom!
Jozi’s and Ozzy’s missiles met the tank with fury. The tank exploded and lifted off the ground. It twirled in the air and came down on several Dunrakee soldiers with a loud thud.
Bubble-heads were strewn about. He’d be surprised if any of them made it out alive from Ozzy’s and Jozi’s onslaught.
Baroom!
His head met the photon-proof glass again and whipped back into his headrest.
“What was that?”
He twisted his pod around. Dunrakee troops, the ones he
thought had scattered and retreated after his first barrage of fire and mayhem, were back and blasting the Eagle with handheld cannons and rifles.
“I said, get this bird off the ground and into the air, Zeld.”
“I’m trying,” she hollered. “They hit one of our main ionic engine drives. We have a damn hole in our ship.”
“Great.” Ozzy slumped and puffed out his cheeks. “How long until the Dunrakee craft arrive?”
“They’ll be here in seven minutes.”
Ozzy straightened his lips. “Give ‘em all you got, Jozi.”
“Roger that.”
Ozzy squeezed the trigger, letting loose G-114’s. His pod jostled up and down, and streaks of fire thrusting out the back of the missiles lit up his pod in bright oranges and yellows.
Krakoom! Krakoom!
Chunks of earth kicked up, cratering the meadow, and fire lurched forward, spreading across the grass. The Dunrakee flipped in the air, their bodies landing like lifeless mannequins across the terrain, and their body parts littered the ground.
Ozzy could feel bile rising, and he wanted to throw up but held it in. His lips curled, and he narrowed his eyes. In truth, the Dunrakee deserved this, and he wouldn’t throw up on their behalf. They did the same thing to his ancestors except worse, and Ozzy figured he was here to return the pain to the Dunrakee scum.
Karma was a bitch.
A few Dunrakee survivors hightailed it out of there and rushed into the tree line.
Ozzy shook his head. “You give me no other option.” He switched to photon cannons. “Light ‘em up, Jozi.” He wrapped his finger around the trigger and held it down.
Photon bolts screamed into the forest, breaking limbs, slicing through bark, and falling the needle-covered trees.
A fire kicked up and quickly turned into an inferno that licked toward the sky. Any Dunrakee wanting to run back through the tree line to return fire at Ozzy would be burned alive.
He dared them to try.
“Four minutes, Ozzy,” shouted Zeld.
Ozzy nodded. “Jozi, get the energy array holopad from the bridge so we can find the crystal. I’ll grab the Ark of the Concordant’s crate. Zeld, open the ramp. We’re getting off this boat.”
Martian Quadrilogy Box Set Page 64
