Charging forward, Trinity made straight for two Carsoloians swinging rifles in her direction Just as one of the tiger-creatures began firing, Trinity wrapped the end of his rifle barrel with Power and forced it to the right using telekinesis. His plasma rounds slammed into the second tiger-creature blowing bits of blood and bone out the second creature’s side.
Before the first Carsoloian could recover, Trinity was on him landing a blow with her phase rod on his chest. She sensed microscopic explosions of phase energy making a ruptured mess out of his insides. The Carsoloian dropped to the floor on top of his companion.
“Where are we going?” asked Jennifer. “I have several possible escape routes plotted to try and get us back to the surface. I’m assuming retreat’s what you’ve got in mind at this point.”
“Negative,” Trinity said. “We’re not leaving. We’ve got to find out what’s going on. Plot me the best route to the blue dot.”
“I don’t—”
“Guess,” Trinity said in no mood for a lecture from her battle computer on lack of information. “Just guess.”
A green path appeared on her heads-up display. She ran in the indicated direction. Two humans in power-armor came around the corner firing rifles from the hip. Trinity leaped high against the side wall and fired a series of phase rounds at the weak joints between the power-armor’s neck and chest. One guard went down. The other stood his ground and fired on full automatic.
Throwing up a hasty defensive shield, Trinity slanted it slightly to the side as she made her way forward. By the time the guard decided he should run it was too late for him. Trinity slammed her phase rod against the back of the guard’s helmet. The helmet cracked. A second swing opened a hole in the guard’s skull.
Holstering her phase pistol, Trinity levitated one of the fallen rifles into her right hand. It was a standard Empire model M63.
“Jennifer,” Trinity said.
“Got it,” replied Jennifer. “I’ll handle the rifle if you take care of the phase rod. The M63 has two thousand two hundred and twenty-six rounds fully loaded. This one still has over two thousand rounds remaining.”
Jumping over the downed bodies, Trinity continued to make her way forward. She heard the sound of weapons firing behind her. Since no plasma rounds came in her direction, she chose to ignore the firing.
“Too bad your scan is still limited to twenty meters,” said Jennifer. “It would be nice to know what’s happening behind us. From the echoes of the firing, I calculate it’s coming from the vicinity of the elevators.”
Trinity had a pretty good idea who was doing at least part of the firing. Charlie had given in way too easy when she’d ordered him to stay. She had no doubt he was now in the basement area.
The right arm of Trinity’s battle suit rose firing the M63 as its plasma rounds cut an unarmored tattooed man in half coming out a side door. The tattooed man’s pistol skittered along the hallway past Trinity’s feet.
A hand holding another pistol reached around the door as someone else began firing rounds blindly down the hall. Trinity ducked below the plasma rounds and kicked out with her right foot. The door slammed onto the person’s hand. She heard a satisfying crunch accompanied by a scream. The pistol fell to the floor as the hand was hastily withdrawn back inside the door.
“I calculate they’ll be calling him lefty from now on,” said Jennifer.
“Are you cracking a joke?” Trinity said.
“Apparently not since you didn’t laugh.”
Trinity turned a corner into an open area fifty meters across and a hundred meters deep. No longer limited by the walls of black metal, her passive scan picked up over a hundred life forms in the massive cargo area. Crates of weapons and other items of war were stacked around the room forming chest high walls. At her appearance, two crew-served automatic weapons fired converging streams of plasma energy in her direction. A beam of very potent energy came from a gun turret on a stationary hover-tank.
“Watch out,” said Jennifer. “That’s a disintegration beam.”
Trinity dove behind a stack of crates as the streams of plasma energy and the disintegration beam converged. Her shield of crates exploded rolling her against another stack of containers. A dozen or more boxes tumbled down on top of her, but her battle suit was tough, and the falling boxes did her no damage.
Pushing off with her battle suit’s assistors at max, Trinity forced her way out of the broken crates and boxes. She scrambled behind another stack of containers. Reaching to the front of her utility belt, she removed her two antipersonnel grenades and tossed them in the general direction of the crew-served weapons.
Boom! Boom!
Standing up amid the smoke and flying bits of debris, Trinity made for a nearby hallway. She noticed her right hand was empty.
“Sorry,” apologized Jennifer. “I dropped the M63. It was too light anyway. I calculate you need a heavier weapon.”
Jerking her phase pistol out of its holster, Trinity snapped off two quick shots at the nearest crew-served weapon. The crew-served weapon’s rate of fire didn’t slacken any.
“Your pistol’s not exactly what I’d call a heavier weapon,” said Jennifer. “By the way, you missed.”
“Ya think?” Trinity said as she fired two more rounds at the crew manning the automatic weapons.
Boom!
One of the crew-served weapons along with its crew went flying into the air amidst a mass of flames, smoke, and debris. Glancing back at the hallway she’d used to enter the cargo area, Trinity saw a four-armed humanoid wearing a power-skeleton. It was Charlie. He was removing an empty rocket launcher from his shoulder.
“Charlie, watch out!” Trinity yelled as she sensed a disintegration beam from the hover-tank heading in the Sterilian’s direction. Drawing Power from her reserve, Trinity formed a defensive shield to Charlie’s front. Most of the beam’s energy was absorbed by her shield, but a sizeable amount of energy passed through. The Defiant’s mechanic dove to one side just before the wall behind him turned into a molten sludge.
Charlie jumped up firing pistols with his two upper hands and an M12 rifle with his lower right. The 20mm grenade launcher below the M12’s barrel flashed as its explosive round headed in the direction of the second crew-served weapon.
“You’re down to sixty-three percent Power in your reserve, wizard scout.”
Trinity dropped the defensive shield she’d placed in front of Charlie in order to conserve Power.
Boom!
The second crew-served weapon exploded in a blaze of plasma energy as Charlie’s 20mm grenade hit its target. Parts of the weapon’s two-man crew flew into the air in every direction.
“Good shooting, Charlie,” Trinity said into her battle helmet’s intercom.
“He’s not online,” said Jennifer. “I think the black metal surrounding this room is playing havoc with our communication’s gear.”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sounds of muffled explosions came from far overhead.
“What’s happening?” Trinity asked as she snapped off the rest of the phase rounds in her pistol at a group of charging soldiers. They were unarmored, and all of them fell unmoving to the floor as the deadly phase rounds did their job.
“I have insufficient data to determine what is occurring on the floors above us,” said Jennifer.
Reloading her pistol with a fresh clip, Trinity said, “Aren’t you just a fountain of information today?”
Trinity ran into a side hall before turning back around to poke her pistol around the corner in preparation for firing. A blue dot appeared on the battle helmet’s heads-up display. The dot was directly behind her. Spinning, Trinity snapped off two phase rounds before she even caught sight of her target. She fired two more when she saw a winged, bat-shaped humanoid a full head taller than her. The creature wore dull-black armor that seemed to absorb the surrounding light. The creature carried a large bore rifle and was pointing it in her direction. Her two phase rounds hit an invisib
le shield and were stopped dead in their tracks before striking their target.
“It’s a Crosioian scout,” said Jennifer. “I have a feeling we’ve found our shifter. Too bad your only experience fighting something that can shift into the void between dimensions has been in halo-square simulations.”
A shiver ran down Trinity’s spine. It wasn’t a shiver of fear, but it wasn’t from being cold either.
“A wizard scout,” said the bat-creature. The noise seemed to come out of a box attached to the Crosioian’s utility belt. “That’s good. This mission had become too boring anyway.”
“I’ll try to keep you entertained,” Trinity said. She holstered her pistol. She knew it would do no good anyway. The scout’s defensive shield was shining up brightly on her passive scan. It was a strong shield, and she sensed the scout had a large Power reserve.
The Crosioian scout spread its armored-covered wings before retracting them across its back. The sound of laughter came out of its belt-mounted translator. “You put your pathetic weapon away. That’s good. There’s no honor in killing at a distance. I’ve killed three wizard scouts during my time as a scout. I proudly display their heads on my tribe’s trophy wall. Your head will be the fourth.” The scout tossed its large bore rifle to the side.
“All Crosioian scouts are females,” said Jennifer. “Did you know that?”
Trinity didn’t really care about such minor details at the moment. If the scout killed her, she’d be just as dead regardless of its gender.
The bat-creature pulled an arm-length rod from behind her back. When she gave the rod a swish a meter-long length of phase energy extended out the end of the rod.
“That’s her phase spear,” said Jennifer. “Be careful. It’s just as deadly as your phase rod. She’s got a battle computer as well, so you’re evenly matched in that arena. Her battle suit’s stronger than yours, so don’t try to outmuscle her. Your only advantage is… uh…”
“What?” Trinity asked trying to get any advice from her battle computer she could before the scout closed with her.
“Err… you’re lucky?” said Jennifer sounding not at all confident.
Great, Trinity thought. Some advantage.
The Crosioian scout moved forward weaving the point of her phase spear in a figure-eight motion. The effect was hypnotic.
“Don’t get sidetracked by the movement of her phase spear,” said Jennifer. “You’ve fought Crosioian scouts before.”
“Like you said, I’ve only fought simulations of Crosioian scouts in a holo-square,” Trinity said forcing herself to concentrate on the center of the bat creature’s chest instead of the spear point. She’d fought enough armored opponents to know the first sign of movement would be in one of the armor’s chest joints.
“Simulations are based on the actual creatures,” said Jennifer. “Just put the skills you learned in the holo-square to use now.”
“I’ll be sure and do that if a simulated Crosioian scout happens to wander by. In the meantime, keep that nanosecond brain of yours on alert. I might need a little help.”
“Might?” asked Jennifer almost sounding like she wanted to laugh.
Trinity ignored her battle computer. The scout was taking her time advancing. Trinity was confident the bat-creature had some type of surprise attack in mind.
“Try distracting her,” suggested Jennifer. “The information in my databanks indicates that most Crosioian scouts like to talk.”
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Trinity asked as she raised her phase rod and began a weave of her own. Despite her battle computer’s assurance, she doubted the Crosioian could be distracted by talking, but she figured it didn’t hurt to try.
“Unless you get distracted yourself,” warned Jennifer. “So stay focused.”
“I find this most enjoyable,” said the scout. “I don’t want to kill you too fast. There would be no honor in the retelling of that tale.”
Trinity started to take a step back, but the scout feinted a thrust with her spear. Trinity held her ground.
“It will do you no good to seek help from your friend,” said the bat-creature. If the Carsoloians and those dissenter priests don’t kill him before I’m finished with you, I’ll take his head as well as yours.”
A sound of gunfire rose into a crescendo behind Trinity. The boom of an M12’s grenade launcher told her that Charlie was still alive. How he was holding off a hundred attackers on his own, she didn’t know, but by the volume of fire, he seemed to be giving as much as he got.
“I wish my passive scan could penetrate these blasted hallway walls,” Trinity told her battle computer. “I can’t tell what’s happening with Charlie.”
“And I wish I had arms and legs,” said Jennifer. “Then I could run away instead of being stuck on top of your head. Forget about Charlie. He’s a big lizard. You’ve got problems of your own.”
Muffled explosions came from overhead. They seemed closer than before. The Carsoloian scout cocked her head at the ceiling before looking back at Trinity.
“It seems we have some uninvited guests,” said the scout. “Unfortunately, that means we’re going to have to make our encounter quicker than I’d planned. I don’t suppose you’d want to make an all-out, go-for-broke attack now, would you?” Laughter came out of the scout’s translator.
“Uh, I’ll pass,” Trinity said curious about the noise above but not so curious as to take her eyes off the scout. “That’s a very good defensive shield you’ve got there. I’ve got a good one too, but it’s too expensive to keep up for long. You must have a large Power reserve.”
“You’ve no idea,” said the scout advancing two steps forward. “But if my shield’s all that’s stopping you from attacking, I can take care of that.”
The scout’s defensive shield dropped. As soon as it did, Trinity kicked off with both legs and thrust the tip of her phase rod straight at the front of the bat-creature’s helmet. The speed of her attack apparently caught the scout by surprise because she stumbled back a step barely getting her phase spear up in time to knock the phase rod to the side. Even so, Trinity’s phase rod left a groove of smoking metal along the side of the scout’s helmet.
A high-pitched screech reverberated throughout the hallway. The scout took another step back and swung her phase spear in a wide arc to her front. Trinity ducked below the tip of the spear and kicked out with her leg catching the scout in the side of the left knee joint. The scout began falling to the floor. Trinity reversed directions with her phase rod and aimed a strike at the bat-creature’s chest. Before her phase rod struck home, the scout turned translucent and sunk downward disappearing into the floor.
What’s going on? Trinity thought.
“She’s a shifter,” said Jennifer. “She’s shifted into the void. Watch out.”
Trinity sensed a life form below her just as a meter-long length of blue energy came up out of the floor. The tip of the phase spear went straight through her battle suit’s thigh armor and continued all the way out the other side of her leg.
“Arrgh!” Trinity screamed.
The spear’s microscopic explosions of phase energy tore at Trinity’s cells making a powdered-dust out of a thumb-sized section of her thigh bone. If it had been only up to her, Trinity would’ve fallen, but the battle suit’s legs thrust upward throwing her off the phase spear. She continued all the way to the ceiling hitting it hard.
“Sorry about that,” said Jennifer. “I must be getting sloppy in my old age.”
Before Trinity could fall back to the floor, she wrapped herself with Power and held herself aloft using telekinesis. She watched the phase spear retract back into the floor.
“She’s in the void,” Trinity told her battle computer. “How can I beat her?”
“The same way you practiced in holo-square training,” said Jennifer. “As long as she’s in the void, the only thing she can harm you with is her phase spear. Both her spear and your phase rod have creallium cores. Creallium exists in the void
and our dimension at the same time. Use that to your advantage.”
Trinity sensed the life form of the scout moving to the side and up one wall. She lowered herself to the floor and dropped her telekinesis to conserve Power. When she started to stumble, Trinity forced herself back upright using her suit’s assistors.
“The pain,” Trinity told her battle computer. “I may pass out.”
“Breathe through it, wizard scout. Your self-heal is already repairing the damage to your leg. Assuming you’re still alive in thirty seconds, it’ll be healed enough to support your weight. In the meantime, I’m administering painkillers and adrenaline.”
Trinity felt a cool liquid shoot into her veins. The pain eased. She knew the effects of the drugs wouldn’t last long. Her Power reserve would see them as a poison and try to remove them from her system.
A length of blue energy came out of the side wall. Trinity knocked the scout’s phase spear to the side. As it started to retract through the wall, Trinity saw a nearby door. Drawing her phase pistol, she kicked off with both legs of her battle suit hitting the door with her shoulder. The combined weight of her armor and the strength of the suit’s assistors were too much for the door.
As the door gave way into the room beyond, Trinity snapped off two shots from her phase pistol at the translucent figure of the Crosioian scout. One round missed, but the other hit the scout in the left thigh causing the bat-creature to spin to the side.
“The core of your phase rounds are creallium,” said Jennifer. “Her armor can’t stop them as long as she’s in the void. She can’t use her defensive shield while in the void either.”
Before Trinity could fire a second salvo from her phase pistol, the scout spun through the wall and disappeared. Reversing directions, Trinity dove back through the busted door firing phase rounds as fast as her finger could pull the pistol’s trigger.
As soon as she hit the far wall of the hallway, Trinity noticed the figure of the scout. The bat-creature no longer looked translucent. Trinity sensed a wall of energy to the scout’s front. Regardless, she continued firing her pistol until no sound came when she pulled the trigger.
Trinity Unleashed (Wizard Scout Trinity Delgado Book 1) Page 16
