by E. A. James
“We need to hurry then,” Kira replied. “Thor, gather everyone up, now. Be in the airlock ready to disembark the moment the ship hits the ground. I’ll follow along soon.”
Thor nodded as he grabbed hold of Dario and led him out of the room, leaving Kira alone to search the horizon for a place to bring the Curio down. The rugged landscape of the mining colony complicated the task slightly, while at the same time gave them an unexpected advantage.
They needed to land somewhere that wouldn’t draw Mordecai and his soldier’s attention toward them. The countless ridges and craters would provide that, surely. Finding one that was level and wouldn’t end up top-siding the Curio was the issue, though.
“We’re ready to go when you give the order,” Thor’s voice came over the intercom.
“Good,” Kira said, spotting the perfect place to land the ship. She took the ship down, letting the vessel come to rest in the heart of a shallow gorge. The second the Curio hit the ground, she ordered, “Move!”
She didn’t wait to check her screens to make sure her crew got off the ship. She trusted that they did. Instead, she pushed herself up the instant the engines began to shut down and rushed out of the flight deck.
Her helmet was up and her Phantom in her hand before she reached the now empty airlock. The time it took the air to depressurize felt like an eternity. Kira's heart raced as she waited for the doors to open. Her body was pumping nothing more than pure adrenaline. They had to stop Mordecai. They had to stop Grimm.
Finally, the external air-locked door popped open with a hiss. Kira threw her shoulder into it, forcing it open faster, and stepped out into the open expanse of the mining colony. Ahead she could hear the sounds of plasma fire. They were muted due to her helmet, but she could never mistake the sound of a gun fight.
Climbing out of the gorge, she kept her head low and her eyes moving back and forth. The dark, open, vast star-speckled view of space served as the perfect backdrop for the scenes she encountered upon pulling herself out of the large hole.
Dario and Alaria had taken cover, not far from where she was. Both brandishing their weapons, popping their heads out from time to time to send a bolt of plasma flying in the direction of Mordecai and his men.
Bron, Thor, and Vinnie had moved further up. They were nearing the clearing where the enemy’s vessel was located. The large, metallic body of the ship shimmered as the glow of lasers, plasma, and electronic streams flew around it, some crashing into it, sending sparks of multi-colored matter flying into the air.
Many of Mordecai’s men were already aboard the ship, although many were still on the ground, as well. Kira marveled at the numbers. There must have been at least two dozen Arcanum and Arkadian soldiers still buzzing about their ship, using its belly for cover.
They weren’t attacking, though. Only a handful of the Arkadian warriors and Arcanum soldiers were engaging in combat. The others were focused on loading the ship.
“They don’t care about us,” Kira whispered to herself. “They just care about the mission, about getting the Divarium back to Grimm’s headquarters.”
Running up to where Alaria and Dario were, Kira ducked behind the boulder with them, her Phantom already locked and loaded. The second she caught her breath, she fell to her stomach and scooted herself around the edge of the large rock. Holding her gun out in front of her, she began to squeeze the trigger.
From that angle, it was harder to ensure precision, but it made it harder for their enemies to target her. Blasts crashed into the dirt ground around her, but none came close enough to cause her to retreat back.
Although her shots were hitting their targets, they didn’t seem to be doing much damage. Mordecai’s crew, like Kira’s, were all wearing combat gear. She pushed herself up and ducked back behind the boulder. Alaria and Dario were still firing sporadically toward the ship, but they, too, were struggling with delivering any lethal blows.
“We’re going to be here all day,” Kira said.
“We need heavier artillery,” Dario replied. “Even just a few grenades would do the trick.”
“Does Bron have any left?” Kira asked, peeking around the boulder again.
“If he did, I’m sure he would have used them by now,” Dario replied.
“Shit,” Kira muttered.
She scanned the scene in front of them. Vinnie and Bron were locked in combat with a handful of Arkadian warriors. The alien race’s large green bodies were almost completely covered by the sleek black material of their combat armor. Still, their sheer size was enough to give them away. They stood at least six inches taller than Bron, which was saying something.
Still, it seemed as if they were having some level of success. Vinnie, small and agile, was darting back and forth, getting as close as he dared, firing his plasma gun, then backing up before the bulky, clumsy Arkadian he was targeting could turn around. Vinnie’s cries of excitement continued to blare through their comm system.
Bron, too, was taking risks. He was facing off against a large Arkadian female. Her large frame made for an easy target. But, the fact that she was wielding an assault rifle of her own made it hard to get a clean shot off.
“Where’s Thor?” Kira wondered.
She fell back to her stomach and slid around the edge of the boulder, firing off a few shots as she searched through the chaos around them. A majority of Mordecai’s men had made it safely onto the ship now. There was only a handful left, buzzing about wildly, collecting any last-minute equipment they could find and ducking out of the way of any shots Alaria and Dario sent in their direction.
At first, she didn’t see him. How had she not seen him? He was in the middle of everything, locked in an up-close-and-personal fight with the largest of the Arkadians, the most well-armed, as well.
“Mordecai,” she muttered as she pushed herself up to her feet.
As she did, an Arcanum soldier seemingly fell from the sky. He landed on the boulder above them and turned his attention to Kira. His eyes flashed with evil as he threw himself forward, knocking her back to the ground and pinning her down under his thick frame.
His strength was unlike anything she had experienced before. He grabbed hold of her wrist, squeezing it tightly until she yelled out with pain and released her gun. Dario ran up behind them, firing a shot square in the man’s back. He didn’t even flinch. His eyes continued to burn down into Kira’s as he adjusted himself slightly, reaching for his own weapon, momentarily freeing Kira’s left hand.
Alaria now joined in with Dario, firing another blast at the man’s back. Still, he didn’t budge.
Kira thought fast. It was clear that his enhancement—or enhancements, there was no telling—seemed to make him invincible—to gunfire, at least. There was still one thing he was susceptible too, though.
As he shifted around to reach for his gun, she reached up and found the switch for his helmet. By the time he realized what she was doing, it was too late. The helmet retracted around his head, and within three seconds, he was clutching at his collar, desperately trying to re-engage the helmet. Kira took the opportunity to deliver a heavy kick to his ribcage which forced him to release his last remaining air. He fell to his knees, gasping at the vacuum of space before blacking out moments later.
Dario and Alaria rushed over and lifted Kira off the ground. She wiggled around quickly, grabbing her gun and glancing back to the place she last saw Thor.
He was still locked in combat with Mordecai. Mordecai, large and imposing, stood at least a foot and a half taller than Thor. He moved slowly, with precision. Thor, by contrast, moved with speed and grace, dodging each of his alternating blows with ease.
She could see that both of them had somehow lost their weapons in the fight. On the ground, just a few feet away from them, was the assault rifle she recognized as the make and model used by the Special Forces. She took a hesitant step forward, wanting to rush in and help in the fight, but not wanting to pull any of Thor’s attention in her direction. At the moment,
the only clear advantage he had over Mordecai was his focus and reflexes.
She watched, waiting for the moment she could rush forward. She saw Thor land a blow square in Mordecai’s gut. The Arkadian man stumbled backward. He clung to his stomach and let himself fall to the ground.
Something wasn’t right. He was stumbling too far, there was no way he was that injured. Sure, Thor was strong, but he wasn’t strong enough to deal a blow that forceful through the layers of combat armor.
That’s when she saw it. Thor’s gun was on the ground behind Mordecai. As he tumbled backward, he stretched out his hand and grabbed it, rolling onto his back and simultaneously kicking Thor’s feet out from under him.
Although Thor didn’t fall, his reflexes too fast and his instincts too honed, he did stumble forward slightly. As he did, Mordecai reached up and pressed the pulse gun into his stomach.
Then, he pulled the trigger.
Time slowed. She felt the blast herself. She felt it hit her square in the chest, knocking the oxygen out of her lungs. She tried to open her mouth to scream but the words didn’t come out. As she watched him slump down, her heart sunk with him. Her hands began to shake as she tried to find her feet, her voice, her ability to move.
She was frozen in place, tears stinging her eyes, blurring her vision. Her ears rang as she watched Thor clutch his stomach in his hands, his face twisting with expressions of pain and agony.
Lying on the hard stone ground, he turned to her. His eyes caught hers, and he tried to speak. He tried to tell her to run, to leave, to fight—to do anything but let them win.
In a flash, the sounds of the fight raging around her came crashing back into her mind. Her feet began to move before she realized they were, and her instincts carried her forward.
“You son of a bitch!” Kira screamed, running at the gigantic Arkadian man, her Phantom held tactically out in front of her.
Her outburst drew his attention toward her, exactly what she wanted. She lifted her gun just as she saw Thor, out of the corner of her eye, roll to his side and grab hold of the Special Forces assault rifle she had spotted earlier. As soon as he lifted it off the ground, she let out another high-pitched scream, keeping Mordecai’s attention on her.
They both fired simultaneously. Mordecai, swift and well-trained, pushed himself to his feet and dodge her blast, but was unable to escape the plasma stream fired from Thor’s weapon.
A blast that close, like the one he had shot at Thor, would do damage. Combat armor could repel dispersed energetic matter, but condensed and coming straight at its target at close range, that was a different story.
He fell to the ground, clutching his right arm in his hand. Two of his men ran up behind him, grabbing onto his shoulders. Kira took advantage of the moment and ran to Thor’s side.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his words weak. “Finish him! He’s down! You have to finish him!”
“His men are already there,” Kira replied, grabbing hold of Thor’s arm and slinging it across her shoulder. “Come on, Thor. Get to your feet!”
“Leave me!” Thor replied sharply. “Finish the job we came here to do.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Kira replied. “Get up! You have to get up!”
“You’re letting him get away.”
“I’m not worried about him right now,” Kira replied.
“Damn it, Kira, you have to…”
“You have to take an order, Thor. Shut up and let me help you!”
Thankfully, the men assisting Mordecai were too busy with their burden to return any fire. Bron rushed up to where Kira was clumsily kicking at the ground, trying to lift Thor’s massive frame. With ease, their Bandurian companion lifted him off the ground and slung him over his shoulder.
Thor let out a painful grunt.
“Maybe if you would have argued less and helped more, you wouldn’t be slung over a Bandurian right now,” Kira said to Thor as she pushed at Bron’s back to urge him to hurry.
The trio joined the others behind the boulders Alaria and Dario had been using for cover. Without a word, they ran together back to the ship. The entire time, all Kira could think about was Thor—his condition, his injuries.
She had never seen him take a hit like that before. She had never seen him go down in a fight before. He was always able to fight through the pain, to keep going, keep pushing. But, this time he didn’t. This time, she was genuinely worried.
“They still haven’t taken off,” Dario’s voice broke into Kira’s thoughts.
“Good,” Kira replied, pulling all her focus to the situation, letting her concern for Thor fade to the background, just for the moment. “Maybe we can stop them in the air.”
The crew entered the airlock together, Bron still holding Thor, who had continued to let out the occasional frustrated grunt during the short trek back to the ship. When the grunts stopped, though, Kira's blood ran cold.
Standing by the interior door of the airlock, once again waiting for the damned thing to pop open, she turned around slowly.
Thor was on the ground now, and Bron was kneeling over him.
“He’s not responding,” Bron informed them, trying to shake Thor back to a state of consciousness.
“What do you mean he’s not…?” Kira began, but just then the hiss-pop of the air-lock door opening jolted her attention back to the mission. “Damn it,” she said, spinning around. “Dario, Alaria, get Thor to the medical bay. Bron, with me.”
“What about me?” Vinnie asked, following Kira as she sprinted out of the airlock and headed toward the flight deck.
“You’re with me, too,” Kira replied. “More people, more guns, and more guns is what we need right now.”
Keeping her mind focused on moving her feet forward, on racing toward the flight deck and not toward the medical bay, was the hardest thing Kira had done on any mission to date. Her thoughts bounced back and forth between trying to loosely plan an aerial attack and wondering if Thor would be alright.
“Fuck,” Kira muttered. “Grimm was right.”
The memories of Grimm’s soldierly advice had been at the forefront of her mind. And now, one lesson, in particular, rang out in her mind. His warning—his constant warning that relationships had no place in the lives of military personnel, that all they did was distract soldiers from their ultimate purpose.
“What?” Bron asked, running alongside her.
“Nothing,” Kira responded quickly.
The instant they entered the flight deck, Kira began shouting out orders. “Both of you, to the pulse turrets,” she said as she plopped herself down into the Captain’s chair. She initiated the engines as quickly as possible and slammed her hand down on the intercom system, opening the ship-wide channel.
“Alaria, did you get him to medical?”
“Yes,” Alaria responded.
Kira held in the sigh of relief she felt pressing against her throat. This was no time to be thinking about that.
“Good, get to the engine room. I’m going to need the weapons array online as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Captain,” Alaria replied.
Alaria’s confirmation that all the ship’s defense systems were online and functioning couldn’t have come at a better time. Just as Kira lifted the ship off the rocky surface of the last mining colony, a small swarm of Zel’Dar became visible in her view screen.
“Mordecai left us a little present,” she said between gritted teeth, clutching the controls tightly. She let the buzz of adrenaline run through her, let the impending threat distract her completely from her main concern—Thor.
“Bron, Vinnie, you ready for this?”
“Hell yes!” Vinnie exclaimed.
“Do you need to ask?” Bron replied, a half-smile crossing his face.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Over the horizon, she could see Mordecai’s ship taking off. Her hands shook as she clung to the controls, her mind going too many different directions. On the one hand, she w
as preparing for the onslaught of oversized insects that continued to swarm ominously in their direction. On the other, she was trying to keep an eye on the large, unmarked vessel floating out into space. And then, in the very back of her mind, her thoughts continued to wander back to Thor.
She should just give up; she should just go to him.
She watched Mordecai’s ship drift further into space. They’d never catch them. They wouldn’t. Why should they try?
As her mind continued to race, the insects grew closer and closer. There weren’t many of them, but enough to create a very real diversion. They were on them before Kira had decided what to do. They were there, glaring into the view screen in front of her, while her mind was wandering off.
