Broken Arrow: Navigator Book Four

by SD Tanner

  Broken Arrow

  (NAVIGATOR Series BOOK Four)

  SD TANNER

  Broken Arrow

  Copyright © SD Tanner 2016

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by law.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Dedicated to Mousey

  Table of Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE: A little something something (Hood)

  CHAPTER TWO: Sweet dreams (Ark)

  CHAPTER THREE: Born again (Stax)

  CHAPTER FOUR: Dance party (Bill)

  CHAPTER FIVE: Behind enemy lines (Boris)

  CHAPTER SIX: Sleeping beauty (Dayton)

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Face of the enemy (Leon)

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Act II (Mike)

  CHAPTER NINE: Navigator down (Ark)

  CHAPTER TEN: Garbage in, garbage out (Boris)

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Ship of the lost (Ark)

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Not on my watch (Leon)

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Last call (Bill)

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: We could be heroes (Dayton)

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Mission possible (Hood)

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Ray of hope (Stax)

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Future untold (Ark)

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Friends in low places (Jo)

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Too late for sorry (Ally)

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Dead men talking (Lexie)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Bugle call (Hood)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: A true knight (Stax)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Dead men talk (Dunk)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Battle rattle (Ark)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Dead zone (Hood)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Spawned (Ark)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Knight fall (Jonesy)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Heaven sent (Ark)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: I do or I die (Hood)

  CHAPTER THIRTY: Coming up for air (Leon)

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Set a thief (Dunk)

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Council of War (Ark)

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  To keep the action exciting this story is told through multiple points of view. Please see the character name in the Chapter heading to know which person is narrating.

  For other series by SD Tanner, please check out the Hunter Wars series, Hunter Wars Series.

  I really hope you enjoy the Navigator series.

  PROLOGUE

  The enormous ship was now hovering over the city, so he directed his weapons to begin the methodical process of loading the valuable cargo. With a flutter of their wide webbed wings, they lifted the people into the air and flew them to the transport. This would be their final task before shutting down and returning to oblivion.

  CHAPTER ONE: A little something something (Hood)

  “No way. There’s too many critters in there.”

  Since working with him at CaliTech, Ark had earned his respect and he would have preferred him as their shadow Navigator for this mission. He didn’t know Dom well, but the man was conservative in a way he wasn’t used to. Admittedly, the mass of green blobs moving around the small warehouse on the abandoned military base were more than they’d dealt with before.

  “We’re armed and we’re wearing nav gear, so what’s the problem?” He asked.

  “There’s only six of you and about sixty of them. They could overwhelm you and don’t forget they’ll bring their friends to the party.”

  Alice had stuck to his side ever since the attack on CaliTech. Their relationship had been platonic until she’d managed to get him alone, which hadn’t taken long. Determined to remain glued to him, she’d trained alongside his troops to become a Navigator and now she was standing next to him dressed in full armor. He supposed he shouldn’t have included her in his squad, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying the attention of a young and attractive woman, plus she was good with more than just his gun.

  Most squads had five members, but Alice made his six. Spike had decided to lead another squad, so the rest of his team was made up of four men he’d met when they’d joined them at Fields Landing. Although his squad hadn’t known one another long, they were all good guys with strong combat experience. Every squad was made up of mostly mid-range Navigators. Each one also aimed to have at least one tank, but few had anyone with fully functioning visors. No one was keen to have their eyes replaced with the orbs so there weren’t many Navigators like Lexie.

  Since the attack two months earlier, Bill and Dunk had ramped up the production of the laser guns and uranium-tipped bullets. That’s why they were at the small warehouse. It was in the middle of an old army base where they would supposedly find the raw materials they could use for the bullets and guns. Most of the time he didn’t really understand what they were scavenging for or how it would be used. Dunk and his weapons team had a knack for taking the oddest gear and using it to manufacture the weapons they so desperately needed. The only problem with this particular warehouse were the critters that had set up a home inside of it.

  They’d travelled five hundred miles to this base in northern California and dealt with more than a few critters along the way. With the country becoming increasingly mined by their tunnels, it was almost impossible to travel anywhere without critters exploding from the ground, but now he could use the Navigator gear they were more of an annoyance than a threat. He still hadn’t quite gotten over the sheer joy of being able to crush them with a single blow.

  “We’re not leaving, Dom, so think harder. We’ve wasted a lotta fuel getting here and I want what we came for.”

  Alice muttered, “You’d think it was his ass on the line.”

  Dom’s sigh was so loud it could be heard through his headset. “Okay, tough guy. There’s two entrances to the warehouse. One is through the double doors at the front and the other is a side entrance. There’s nothing other than racks of stuff in there…and critters. There’s four rows of racks and they’re about eight feet high. You’ll need to get the double doors open to load the trucks while beating off the critters that will be trying to kill you.”

  “Are you sure there’s only sixty in there?”

  “Only? And I’m not sure. It’s a small space and they’re clustered together so there could be more.”

  “Or less?”

  Dom gave a sharp laugh. “You guys are never that lucky.”

  Since surviving what should have been his inevitable death at CaliTech, he thought he was the luckiest man alive. He and Alice should have died together, and the fact that they were still alive had created a bond between them he doubted could ever be lost. If anything, these days he was feeling pretty darned lucky all of the time.

  Behind them was a large transport truck and Mack, Dave, Wade and Jon were standing nearby. Wearing their helmets, he couldn’t see their expressions, but suspected they were bored while they were waiting for Dom to decide if it was safe enough to break into the warehouse. None of them could claim to be experts with the gear, but it worked well enough even when it was only used with brute force. This wasn’t their first mission, but they were further afield than usual, and t
hey weren’t used to working with Dom as their shadow Navigator.

  “Okay, so we’ll drive the truck up to the doors.”

  “Sure, but you’ll need to be careful using the lasers or you’ll wreck the stock,” Dom replied.

  “So, we’ll beat the critters to death.”

  “And that’s the problem. There’s too many of them for hand-to-hand combat.”

  Mack sniggered. “You mean hand to claw.” His bad joke was met by a collective chuckle from the squad.

  “Fine. We’ll shoulder our weapons and only use them if we have to. Can we go now, Dad? The kids are getting restless.”

  Dom didn’t reply immediately and when he did, he sounded worried. “I don’t want to be the dumbass that loses his squad on a basic scavenging mission. I don’t think this is safe.”

  This time his squad guffawed loudly. “Umm, Dom, those of us who don’t live in a fully secured underground bunker are kinda used to that.”

  Sounding even more unhappy, Dom replied, “I don’t live in one either. We needed more consoles, so Ark moved all of the shadow navs to the training hangar.” Hesitating again, he finally said, “Alright, I suppose you can go.”

  Not wanting to give Dom a chance to waver again, he ordered, “Alice, open the back doors and then reverse the truck up to the main entrance. Jon and Dave, get the warehouse doors open and then join the fight. Mack, Wade and I will go in first. Avoid using your weapons, but if you must then use the standards with single shots first. The stock inside of the warehouse will survive a bullet better than the lasers.”

  With his orders given, Alice stomped across to the truck, opening its large back doors. While they waited, she wrangled the truck into position by reversing until it was only ten feet from the large double doors. Jon and Dave had already examined the lock on the warehouse door, but few could survive the strength of their hydraulics, so he wasn’t worried about them getting it open. Positioning themselves in front of the door, they waited for the inevitable critter rush. Alice had climbed out of the truck and joined them, standing slightly behind so they could take the brunt of the first attack. Female Navigators were strong, but the civilians often lacked the mindless aggression needed to take on an attacking horde of critters, so he’d taught her to follow their lead.

  Using the added strength of the hydraulics, Dave and Jon yanked the doors apart, practically tearing them from their hinges. Just as he’d expected, critters exploded towards them even before the doors were fully open. He, Mack and Wade stepped forward taking their assault head on. Although the spider variety were most common, this group included several of the taller chunkier ones with a spout for a mouth. They liked to spit goo, but all that did was make their Navigator armor harder to clean.

  He grabbed at the first critter, aiming for its small head and sharply yanked his arm back. If pulled just right, their heads would detached cleanly and this one did. Dropping the orange sized ball to the ground, he snatched at the next critter within his reach. Mack and Dave joined them on either side, forming a wall of armor that was stomping its way into the warehouse.

  Within seconds, his visor screen was drenched in a green glow making it useless, and he ordered his computer to give him reality viewing. It didn’t really help. With so many critters at close quarters, they presented a wall of rubbery black, making it hard to see them against the gloom of the windowless warehouse. Still effectively blind, he continued to grab at the critters, shoving them to the floor and stomping on them. Beside him, Mack, Wade, Jon and Dave were doing the same. Alice was following behind, crushing any injured critters under her heavy boots.

  Several of the larger critters threw themselves at him with so much force he rocked under their weight. Almost holding his ground, he lost the battle with gravity and fell onto his back. Inside of his gear, he felt the wind knocked from his lungs and gasped for air. The two critters followed their assault by landing heavily onto his chest and legs, effectively pinning him down. Alice stepped forward and yanked one of them from him, leaving only one for him to deal with. Clutching it by the throat, he instinctively began to throttle it until he remembered they didn’t breathe. Keeping a firm grip around its skinny neck, he pushed against its chest while it wrapped its many limbs around his body. Caught in a tussle where he was pushing its body away and it was giving him an unloving hug, he managed to get one knee against its thick torso. Using the full force of his hydraulic hips and knee, he pushed against its body, feeling the neck in his hand stretch until it snapped under the pressure.

  Free of the critter, he clumsily climbed to his feet and reached for the next one coming for him. Oxygen was being pumped into his helmet and he needed it. Hand-to-hand combat demanded a level of continuous powerful movements that quickly exhausted even the most hardened of fighters. To his left, Mack was buried under several critters, but Dave was already yanking their bodies away, giving him a chance to fight the ones that were left. On his right, Jon was punching at the critters, but his blows weren’t doing enough damage to stop them from rearing back at him.

  “Jon,” he gasped. “Not a bar brawl, dude.”

  Jon didn’t reply, but clearly having heard him, he began ripping at the skinny limbs as they struck out at him. Although a swipe from their claws couldn’t penetrate their armor, it was like being hit by a four-by-two block of wood. Even with the combined weight of their gear and bodies, the power of a single blow could easily knock them from their feet. The natural inclination was punch at them, but only tearing off their head and limbs would stop them. Jon was struggling to hold back the sheer number and force of the critters that had run from his side of the warehouse. With four critters attacking him, he didn’t have time to help, and he wasn’t surprised when Jon began firing single shots from his standard weapon.

  The sound of gunfire was joined by more coming from behind him, and he assumed Alice was executing the injured critters breaking through their line. To his right, Mack disappeared under a mass of black movement and he cursed.

  “Single shots,” Dom intoned.

  Mack acted as if he hadn’t heard Dom’s orders, and a burst of continuous gunfire came from underneath the black mass, making their teeming bodies buck wildly. As the critters fell away into an untidy heap, Alice and Dave leapt forward, grabbing them before they had time to regain their feet.

  Through his headset, he could hear Alice shrieking angrily as she brought her boot down time and again, “Die! Die! Die!”

  She might be a pretty girl, but it was her crazy streak he liked most. When pushed, Alice turned into a spitting hellcat with no regard for her life. If she could harness her insanity, she would make an excellent soldier. Mack was already on his feet and slamming the critters to the ground, where Alice was ever ready to stomp on them. They must have killed at least half of them and their bodies were beginning to form piles of broken limbs.

  Grabbing an immobile critter from the floor, he used it as a shield to batter the next one that had launched itself at him. The weapons division had used the corpses of the critters they’d destroyed at CaliTech to fashion new armor for some of the Navigators. Being virtually indestructible, it served two purposes by acting as effective armor that also confused the critters. When fully covered in their skin, the critters ignored a Navigator, obviously assuming they were one of their own. Critter camouflage was still being tested, but the engineers were optimistic and more were already being made. Just as he was always surprised at the stupidity of the critters, the ingenuity of the weapons division never ceased to amaze him.

  Moving his arm to use his standard weapon, he fired a gut shot at the critter in front of him, jarring it to a halt long enough for him to step forward and grab it by one skinny limb. The critter immediately wrapped its other legs around his body, tightening its hold and attempting to crush him. With his arm up against his chest, he fired a single shot that exploded its orange sized head, making it fall to the ground in front of him. Between the combined efforts of the squad, they’d slowly reduced
the number of critters until there were no more than a dozen left.

  Now down to the final mop up, he asked, “Dom, what’s the status around us?”

  “More headed your way, so you need to quit screwing around and get what you came for.”

  Screwing around wasn’t how he would have described what they’d been doing, but he said, “Alice, Wade and Jon, start grabbing the boxes and don’t be fussy. Just take whatever’s easiest to get.”

  In an ideal world, they would have targeted the right supplies, but the weapons division were always happy to take whatever they’d brought back. They were a resourceful group and there wasn’t much they wouldn’t find a way to use. CaliTech might not have been a military operation before the critters had appeared, but with the addition of trained soldiers, it was becoming the most impressive base he’d ever seen. While Alice, Wade and Jon began hauling the boxes and crates into the truck, he and the others continued to hold down the remaining critters. Flicking his visor to advanced viewing, he scanned the area, only to learn that Dom had understated the number of critters heading towards the warehouse.

  “Time to go! Grab a box and get into the truck.”

  Immediately following his orders, nobody bothered to ask why and Alice climbed into the driver’s seat. Within minutes, weaving along the narrow roads on the base, the open doors to the warehouse were already receding into the distance. Seeing the half-empty truck, he wasn’t happy with their haul, but Ark always told him it was better to leave with less than to die. He supposed Ark had learned something when he’d sacrificed the baby bots to save them. It might be nice to take a kill shot, but it wasn’t worth it if everyone died when you took it.

  As they drove away, he heard Bill’s voice through his headset. “Nicely done. Good work.”

  CHAPTER TWO: Sweet dreams (Ark)

  The beam that had looked wide from below was stunningly narrow now he was trying to walk across it. Not content with him being able to walk and run, Lexie was making him learn the more advanced actions to leap, land and control his finer movements. To walk along the narrow beam he had to place each step carefully, otherwise he would fall the fifteen feet to the ground. With his customized Navigator gear, it was enough for him to be back on his feet at his usual height of six foot two, but Lexie was badgering him to improve his skills with the hydraulics.