Relias: Uprising

by M. J Kreyzer

  There was a burst of air as a smoke grenade sent wispy plumes of white through the air. Quick footsteps pattered across the smoky gap. Without thinking twice, Hendrick fired his Blazers into the smoke. Several men screamed.

  There was no moving forward. Not with those Legionnaires positioned like they were. Slowly, by sheer force, the Legionnaires wedged themselves out of cover and returned fire on the three warriors.

  They found what little cover they could behind cement pillars that ran alongside both walls. Bullets sprayed bits of cement in every direction as they impacted on the shoddy cover. Morlo and Luke returned their fire while Hendrick wrapped an arm around the edge of the pillar, concealing his body and retaliated blindly with a plume of flame.

  “Nate!” His radio blasted. Hendrick shouted in pain at the sudden burst of sound.

  “Price! Wha-“

  “Where are you!” She shouted. “I’ve been covering the LZ for more than a minute and I can’t hold it forever!”

  Hendrick cussed. He looked out the windows and saw the incoming Helio battlecruisers. Solution after possible solution poured through his mind. “How much longer can you hold it?”

  “You kidding?” She yelled back. “No more than a minute! I’ve got incoming Blackshredders and Machbikes!”

  No time at all.

  “How many we got left?” Hendrick said back to Luke.

  “Six. One’s a Berserker.”

  Way too many. But their exit was leaving. Hendrick looked over to Morlo, who stood amidst a pile of empty, brass. The pile grew larger by the second.

  “Take up front!” He yelled loud enough to be heard. “We got one minute to get two hundred yards!”

  After firing off a few final shots, Morlo nodded, slung his cannon over his shoulder, and drew his massive steel axe. On its blade was a crude engraving of a smiley face and the words ‘Get well soon.’ He grunted and left his cover.

  Luke gave him cover fire as both he and Hendrick moved up behind him. Beneath the solid stream of bullets, the Legionnaires stayed behind their cover.

  Luke’s clip emptied. With ten yards to go, the Legionnaires came from around their cover, zoned in on them, and went to fire.

  Morlo had closed the distance fast. Before they could fire a shot he was on them. With a single, crippling swing, Morlo hacked the first soldier on the right, halving him against the wall, moving onto his next target and swinging wildly. Hendrick rounded the corner and started flaming.

  “Get moving!” Luke shouted, raising his rifle and aiming quickly down the vacant and seemingly safe hallway to the left.

  Hendrick spun fast. At Luke’s concern, he knew something was wrong. And realizing that, he began to hear the claws scraping against the ground. He cussed as he yelled back to Morlo who was finishing off the final Berserker.

  “Nightwolves!” He yelled as he darted up next to Luke.

  “You gonna start moving?” Luke said over to Hendrick.

  “They’re a lot faster than we are.” Hendrick said with a shake of his head.

  The claws and growls came closer. Luke looked back down his sights. “I’ll cover you then.”

  Hendrick shook his head and stepped in front of Luke and raised his Blazers. “Not this time. Morlo!”

  Without needing explanation Morlo obliged, putting a hand on Luke’s back and forcing him down the hallway.

  “What you think you’re-“

  “We’ve got thirty seconds to get to the extraction! Move!”

  The barking, howling and scraping claws were right on top of him. Just as his eyes returned back down the hallway, he saw them.

  They barreled around the corner at full speed, redirecting themselves by bounding off the walls and gunning straight for Luke. They were big, muscular, ravenous, and worse yet, armored. Hendrick opened up his Blazers and consumed half of them. The others, at full speed, darted right past Hendrick and shot at Luke.

  “Not today!” Morlo yelled. He pushed Luke on, got a running start and punted the Nightwolf in the face, cracking its skull and sending back down the hallway.

  Gunshots rang from Luke’s rifle as he shot at the other Nightwolves. There were dozens, and they kept coming.

  They had already piled up on Morlo, trying to find spaces on his armor where they could sink their teeth in. Morlo had entered into a blind rage and was grabbing at any Nightwolf he could get his hands on. In a frenetic motion, Morlo ripped a Nightwolf from his back by its head and pounded its skull with the heel of his hand against the wall, crimson squirting out from beneath his hand like an exploding berry. A wolf on his stomach was the next to go. He ripped it off, put his entire body behind it and hurled it to the ground. Before it could get upright again, he put his heel into the beast’s head and crunched it lifeless.

  “Get moving!” Hendrick yelled, his knee on the neck of one last Nightwolf as he slit its throat with his combat knife. “That’s not all of ‘em!”

  They broke into an immediate sprint, Morlo leading the group. Hendrick sprung to his feet and followed in step, bounding over the lifeless Legionnaire corpses as they continued towards their objective.

  Twenty seconds.

  The next set of stairs came into sight. With Luke in his weakened state, Hendrick was able to catch up without difficulty. As they reached the next floor, a new series of gunshots rose above the raucous fray.

  “That the roof?” Luke asked breathlessly, keeping respectably quick despite his obvious weakness.

  “Just another open veranda.” Hendrick said between breaths. He thought he heard engine noise and he ran faster, not just because he knew that engine noise to be Price, but also because he heard the Nightwolves right behind them.

  At the top of the stairs the hallway on its left side opened up, revealing a large area that cut down through the center of the skyscraper to the ground floor located seventy five floors down in a massive, hollowed out chasm. Across the void, other Legionnaires fortified the balconies, windows and verandas and fired upon Price’s Battlecraft, a heavily armored transport with large sliding doors on both sides. It rocked violently in place, taking fire from every direction while a thin, armored and athletic young women fired the massive Gatling gun on the other side, showering empty golden shells to the ground far below. Beneath her combat scarf and thermal goggles her face was hidden, her only defining feature being her colorless, a-symmetrically cut hair. It was Sable. From the cockpit, the pilot yelled and cursed profusely at her approaching cargo.

  “YOU CALL THAT A MINUTE!” She screamed, her head darting between the countless squads that were marauding her Battlecraft.

  “Just get moving!” Hendrick yelled back. He checked behind him and saw that Luke had fallen behind. Blood soaked his leg as he scrambled on, using what little energy he had left to make it to the Battlecraft.

  Morlo leapt off the ledge and landed inside the Battlecraft, turning back to help the others. “Keep it up, girly.” He said back to Sable. She was too busy to reply.

  Monoliths with AA cannons moved into position on the opposite side of the chasm, moving to the edges and breaking into the golden sunlight. Hendrick cussed. He had to help Luke.

  One of the Monoliths fired. No sooner had that thought hit Hendrick’s mind did a round scream past the Battlecraft and impact on the ground between Hendrick and Luke with incredible force.

  A crack shot across the floor. The ground shifted and sagged. Hendrick swore. Sable ditched her gun, ran to the Battlecraft’s edge and screamed for him. Bullets whizzed in every direction.

  Luke attempted a dive as the floor collapsed. Morlo yelled as he tried to jump into action. The last thing Luke saw before plunging into the darkened floors below was Hendrick plunging through the dust and smoke, his hand outstretched and going for Luke’s hand.

  Their fingers scraped. But as Luke fell into the dark, the floor collapsing in on top of him, Hendrick disappeared behind a cloud of dust. Above the rumbling, he could hear only one thing.

  “Take it!”

>   The floor stopped and Luke tumbled into darkness, a small, metal earpiece tumbling along next to him. Rubble and jagged pieces of floor immediately filled the hole behind him. The sounds of the battle above became muffled and distant as Luke was thrust into a disturbing and alarming calm. Without hesitating, Luke snatched the earpiece from the ground and stuck it on his ear.

  “Nate,” He said as he got a bearing of his surroundings. It was a darkened hallway. The power to the entire tower had gone out and there weren’t any windows until the next hallway, creating a light-at-the-end –of –the-tunnel effect towards its end. All around him he could hear footsteps, hushed conversations, and noises that made it perfectly obvious that he wasn’t alone. The Legionnaires had heard the explosion. They were coming.

  Hendrick didn’t reply immediately. As Luke moved slowly towards the light, his rifle raised and scanning across every potential hiding place, he thought of another way he could escape, maybe sneaking his way to ground floor. Of course, that was a pipedream: the Legionnaires no doubt had every entrance, exit and potential exit sealed and guarded.

  There was a flurry of activity heard through the earpiece as a microphone on the other end was tossed and rattled as somebody scrambled to use it. “Where you at!” Came Hendrick’s rough voice blaring through the earpiece. There was a flurry of alarms that went off on Hendrick’s end. He cursed. “They are literally everywhere down there!”

  Hobbling on his bloody leg, Luke approached the corner. Footsteps ran towards him. He darted behind a pillar and did what little he could to conceal himself.

  Six Legionnaires moved slowly into the room, looking down the sights on their rifles as they investigated the explosion that they had heard. They were quiet, using the microphones on the insides of their helmets so that they could speak without anybody else hearing. They made their ways towards the rubble, looking everywhere that there was to look though having luckily skipped over the one place that Luke had chosen to hide.

  But if they turned around they’d see Luke, and if Luke so much as mumbled they’d hear it through their amplified audio receptors.

  Hendrick took a minute to check over the building schematics and match it up against their reading on the Legionnaire’s positions, knowing Luke’s silence was a sign he was in a tight spot. “Get to the roof. Helios are coming down on us hard. We’ll call in some Blackshredder support groups and circle around until we see ya.” Another alarm. Hendrick cussed as another voice in the cockpit became suddenly frantic. “Get there quick, man. Stay in touch.”

  The radio went silent. Luke was on his own. Sensing the Furo around him, he was able to determine that there were three other squads within fifty yards. Beyond that, who knew. But what he did know was that they were in every hall, at every stairwell, and literally around every corner.

  And Luke was five floors below the roof.

  Luke only had a few minutes. After taking one look back at the investigating squad, Luke slowly crept around the corner. Seeing that they weren’t looking back, Luke broke into a run.

  There was a Skirmisher just around the corner. Stupid mistake. Why hadn’t he looked?

  Before the Skirmisher could issue a call for help, Luke drew the man’s own knife and jammed it into his neck. The investigating squad heard the noise and spun quick. Before the Skirmisher hit the ground, Luke plucked a particle grenade from his belt and hurled it towards the squad. He was in a full sprint before the bomb exploded, cutting the squad’s angry cries short.

  Other squads had heard it and tore towards the new threat. Luke wasn’t more than fifty yards down the hallway when they opened fire.

  Bullets from over half a dozen guns screamed past him, nicking his billowing pants, grazing his arms and legs. Luke aimed his rifle backwards and blindly fired behind him.

  They were just behind him. They all knew exactly who he was. Radio call after radio call was issued as the pursuing soldiers reported Luke’s position to every Legionnaire in the complex.

  Bullets pounded holes in the door that lead into the cement stair well as Luke kicked it open. Without looking back Luke bounded up the stairs, grunting with every step as his leg was still healing from an examination he’d had just a few days prior. Blood dripped down his right leg and soaked his pants as he ran. He had no energy, he was malnourished, he hadn’t ran like this in over six years. But thinking of the consequences of capture and knowing how close he was to freedom, Luke forced himself on. He took three stairs at a time with every step, putting all his strength behind every stride, listening as the echoing yells that sounded up through the stairwell got closer and closer.

  He’d made it two floors before he encountered the next Legionnaires. They came through the door to the hallway just as Luke approached it. When the first soldier was only halfway through Luke put his shoulder down and charged it, hitting the door with all his might.

  The soldier was a Knight, and the only thing that kept the door open was his armored forearm. Before he could free it, Luke shoved the barrel of his gun through the cracked entry and unloaded a dozen rounds into the soldier. The spurt of blood and agonized yells that came through the slim opening told Luke to move on.

  Bullets ricocheted off the metal railings and impacted into the cement walls. Luke ran on, faster now, with the Legionnaires being only a flight of stairs behind him.

  Faster he ran, wheezing with every breath. His legs and throat burned, his heavy breathing made his chest feel like he’d been hit in the sternum with a sledge hammer. His body didn’t have it in it to take him to freedom.

  But his will did.

  Legionnaires condensed all around him, coming down on him with every weapon they had. Luke didn’t have the time or strength to fight his way out. He was just lucky to have fed the gap just right.

  In a moment that Luke never thought would come, he reached the end of the staircase and found a windowless steel door; Locked though. With pained yell Luke kicked it open and nearly lost his footing as he did beneath complete weakness. Stumbling for his first couple steps, Luke ran across the roof towards the outside edge.

  The sky was red now, the sun a dark, bloody scarlet circle that shone through the plumes of dark, malicious smoke. The sky was filled with massive battlecruisers, Helios, firing their blue sweep lasers towards the infantry on the ground while other cruisers engaged in spectacular and explosive ship-to-ship combat. Fighter jets screamed through the plumes of smoke chasing one another, while glowing streaks of lead streaked upwards into the sky.

  “Nate!” Luke yelled with the last of his breath, the end issuing from his mouth in a defeated wheeze.

  “We got ya!” Hendrick came back.

  The Battlecraft burst through a wall of black smoke that swirled around it as it emerged. It was half a mile out and several hundred feet higher than the roof. There were several Blackshredder fighter jets tailing the transport as it made a sharp descent. Luke got an idea where the craft would be passing at his level and he sprinted towards his imaginary launching point.

  The Legionnaires that pursued him burst through the rooftop door that Luke had used and opened fire immediately. Bullets impacted all around his feet. A bullet passed through his shoulder. He yelled but kept running.

  The edge was just fifteen yards away. The Battlecraft was almost there.

  Another bullet tore a hole through Luke’s pants and grazed his thigh. He nearly fell. That would have been the end of it.

  “We only get one pass at this so make it count!” Hendrick shouted. As Luke watched the ship he could see Hendrick standing on the edge next to Morlo, who held his chain gun and sent streaks of .50 caliber bullets shredding through the Legionnaire ranks.

  He was almost there.

  There was a sudden burst of air from the pursuing Blackshredders, and on a column of white smoke, a missile shrieked towards the Battlecraft. Hendrick yelled to Price. Frantically she jerked the Battlecraft hard to the left and dodged it.

  It was a fatal maneuver. The gap wasn’t one t
hat Luke could jump now. He didn’t have the strength to make it. He was almost there, and the Battlecraft was so close that Luke could see that dreaded realization on Hendrick, Morlo’s and Sable’s faces.

  “Come on.” Hendrick muttered. He yelled to Morlo. “Keep the fire down!”

  It was a twenty yard leap. There was no way that any person could make that jump, and with the Blackshredders tailing them and the Legionnaires just behind him, there was no time for a second pass.

  A grenade bounced across the roof and rolled just in front of Luke.

  It was his only chance. Luke had to take it.

  With a snappy kick, Luke sent the grenade tumbling towards the edge of the roof in the direction he’d be jumping. It stopped as it reached the roof’s precipice. Hopefully the soldier that threw the grenade hadn’t baked it at all. Luke didn’t have much room for error.

  With the Blackshredders right behind it, the Battlecraft was level with the roof now and was nearly in front of Luke’s path.

  Just a few more steps. As he placed one foot on the roof’s edge he got a look at the ground. Over a thousand feet far below him, hundreds of muzzles flashed, explosions erupted all through the shaded streets and across the city. The cars were mere specks and the prison tower, as Luke got a look at it, narrowed sharply towards the bottom, putting the building’s height in full perspective.

  Then, with one last powerful movement, Luke took a flying leap.

  With that final strain being too much, Luke’s knee popped out of place. He got his loft but his landing would be a rough one.

  He hung in midair, catching every detail as he floated through the air several hundred feet above the ground. He felt the bullets tearing past him, the forceful vibrations of the Battlecraft’s powerful engines as he plunged into the open air, his hands and feet stretched out all around him, moving and touching nothing. He heard the deafening scream of the Blackshredders that followed just behind it and, above the deafening fray, Hendrick’s voice calling him onward. Morlo had set his chain gun down and reached a hand out towards Luke.