“The ship is Karnayer free.” Riot accepted the belt and clipped it onto her waist. She nodded to Vet. “Between his trigger finger and my hammer, they didn’t have much of a chance.”
“Oh, my gosh!” Deborah looked at Vet’s torn and bloodied uniform. “Are you okay?”
“Better than okay.” Vet ran to take a seat at his control console. “I have new baby skin already growing in over my wound.”
Riot looked out through the window. The much smaller and faster Karnayer ship was almost lost to sight. They were already miles from the fight at Silna.
“Get the ship turned around and back into the fight with the Brutes,” Riot ordered Rizzo. “Evonne, what’s the status with the dragons and on the ground?”
“Not good,” Evonne reported as Rizzo banked hard and headed back to the battle between the two warring Trilord races. “Ketrick is locked in combat with the other two dragons, neither one gaining the upper hand. The Brute forces have breached the walls of Silna.”
As Evonne related the news, images popped up on the screen. Ketrick and Vikta were literally locked in combat with the other two dragons in the air. Vikta had her front talons clenched around the gold collar of the blue dragon, while Ketrick fought on her back. His long weapon was fending off the black dragon above them.
The next image was from the battle on the ground. A wave of yellow banners carried by the Brutes streamed in through the broken front gates of the city. The fighting now took place inside the courtyard.
“Evonne, where’s Remus?” Riot asked, searching the image for the tall Karnayer.
A moment later appeared a picture of the white-haired alien swirling his hands in front of him with a weird, green glow. He looked up at the dragons he’d maneuvered into the air as they attacked Ketrick. His position was behind the Brute army in a copse to the left of the path leading to the city.
“Rizzo, hover a few feet from the trees. I’ll jump.” Riot slammed on her helmet. She grabbed her war hammer and ran from the bridge. “After that, grab your gear and join the fun. Evonne and Deborah can handle the ship.”
“We can?” Deborah asked her back. “We will?”
“Roger,” Vet and Wang said at once.
ROGER, Rizzo said in her heads-up display.
Riot pounded down the hall, jumping over the dead bodies of the fallen Karnayer soldiers. She reached the cargo bay just as the ship’s forward momentum stopped and the rear ramp began to open. Riot ran up the still-opening ramp and hurled herself into the air.
45
Riot hit the ground hard. Her armor absorbed most of the ten-foot drop. She rolled as soon as her feet made contact with the ground to cushion the rest of the fall. Riot stood from her roll, hammer ready. Her eyes and heads-up display giving her the lay of the land in a second.
The ship hovered above her, a hundred yards from the outcropping of thick trees where Remus controlled the dragons. He eyed the ship and her fall with a smile that worried Riot.
Her heads-up display soon told her why. A group of Brute Trilords’ outlines had appeared in the jungle’s thickness, just past Remus. Four of the warriors had been left with him as a personal guard.
As far as Riot was concerned, there could be double that number. If Remus thought he would be kept safe by a handful of Brutes, he was wrong. Riot raced across the open dirt road and into the jungle that bordered it.
Her heart was beating out of her chest as she sprinted in full armor, the war hammer held across her chest as she ran at a diagonal angle. Fifty yards from Remus, she saw him give his guards a nod. They burst from their poor hiding spaces, shrieking like the damned.
Riot saved her breath for fighting. Seeing that she wasn’t lowering her weapon to fire, the four Brutes also held their fire, preferring to use their weapons up close. One held a sword with saw teeth, another a double-bladed axe, and the last two, maces with spiked balls on the ends.
Without pausing her stride, Riot saw the fight play out in her mind. Much like the Karnayer ships, she had to play to her strength of speed. She didn’t need to kill all the Brutes right away; she just needed to get past them.
The Brutes ran in a line, which made Riot’s job easier. Yards from the first Brute, Riot vaulted into the air, feet first. The heels of her boots crashed into the Brute’s face, sending him staggering back. The other three Brutes crowded her, bringing their weapons down in heavy arcs.
Riot rolled out of the way, dropped a grenade, and sprung back to her feet. She ran like her life depended on it, straight toward Remus.
WHOOMP!
The concussion grenade went off two seconds later. Riot didn’t turn to see what had happened to the group of Brutes; her attention was on Remus. The Karnayer’s grin was gone.
She felt the grenade’s backblast push her forward as she ran the last few yards to Remus. The Karnayer looked surprised, but not frightened. The green glow emanating from the bracelets he wore on his wrists faded. He reached to his waist and pulled out a long scimitar hidden in the folds of his black cloak.
At once, the blade of his weapon lit up a bright green. Riot slowed her run to a trot, then stopped. The two opponents circled one another. As much as Riot would have liked to bulldoze into Remus, an enemy such as this demanded she stop and think. The two feinted and maneuvered around one another like heavyweight boxers preparing for a championship fight.
“You humans are so pathetic.” Remus shook his head. “You have no chance against us or the Ancient Ones we serve. You should have bent the knee when you had the chance.”
“Two of your ships are destroyed,” Riot said through her helmet. “One of my Marines and I took out ten of your Karnayer soldiers when they tried to crash our party. I wouldn’t call that pathetic. I’d say we opened up a can of whoopass on you.”
“No matter.” Remus glared at her. “You won’t live long enough to enjoy your meaningless victory.”
He came at her so fast, Riot barely had time to bring her war hammer up to block the glowing green scimitar. Instead of sparking and glancing off, it cut deep into the hammer’s metal.
Riot took a step back, breaking the contact between the weapons. A quick look at the handle of her weapon told her the worst: Remus’s blade had cut nearly halfway through her weapon, rendering its firing capability useless.
“Ha, ha, ha!” Remus barked. “Come on, little human, with your borrowed weapon. Come and die.”
Remus struck again and again. Riot ducked what she could and blocked where she had to. With every slice of Remus’s weapon, Riot’s hammer was notched with more and more cuts. It was only a matter of time before her weapon would break in her hands. Whatever glowed over Remus’s weapon was similar to the technology the molten blades were made from.
Another problem surfaced as Riot’s heads-up display noted the movement of the four Brutes she had managed to sidestep. The fight with Remus was taking longer than she had anticipated.
She only had one chance, and it meant gambling with her life. When Remus came with his next attack, Riot sacrificed her weapon. He sliced from the bottom up. Riot blocked with her hammer, putting her full weight down against the blade.
Remus was caught off guard. He wasn’t expecting her to knowingly allow her weapon to be cut in two. The scimitar cut the head of the hammer off at the shaft. Riot took the split second to step in closer toward Remus, her hands grabbing at his own. The two struggled for a moment, locked in a deadly tug of war for the scimitar blade.
Riot’s heads-up display was going crazy with movement as the four Brutes arrived. Riot felt a hammer blow to her right leg and one to the side of her head.
“Ahhh!” Riot screamed. She was so close to wrestling the weapon from Remus’ hands, she could feel the alien’s grasp weakening. Another blow glanced off her leg, sending her to a knee. Pain exploded across her body as another blow rocked her shoulder. Only the will to win embedded in her DNA by the Marine Corps kept her hands on the weapon now bearing down on her.
“This is wher
e you die.” Remus’s teeth were clenched tight as he drove the weapon down on top of her. “This is where your story ends.”
HI. NEED A HAND?
Rizzo’s red lettering flashed across Riot’s vision, right before the air exploded around her.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Yeahhh!” Wang screamed into his comm. “Get some!”
“War Wolves!” Vet shouted as he tore through one of the Brutes to Riot’s left. “I don’t want to be Peace Envoy One anymore!”
Riot took advantage of the moment. Every ounce of strength she had left went into ripping the weapon from Remus’s hands. It fell to the ground beside them, losing its green glow.
Riot staggered to her feet, blood from a wound she had received by a blow from one of the Brutes beginning to seep into her eyes. Riot took off her helmet to wipe her eyes from the mixture of blood and sweat that blurred her vision.
Remus’s mouth was open as the Brutes around him were cut down. He seized what he thought was an opportunity and struck Riot across the jaw. Riot turned her head with the punch. A new wave of blood erupted in her mouth, the familiar, metallic taste recognized like an old friend.
“You hit like a bitch.” Riot threw a right cross of her own that leveled Remus. The Karnayer fell at her feet, stunned. Riot tore from his wrists the metallic bracelets that he had used to control the dragons. “You’re done. Give yourself up, or I have no problem killing you, believe that.”
Remus must have seen something in her eyes, because he stayed on the ground.
“Are you sure we can’t just kill him?” Wang walked over to Riot and pointed his Villain Assault Rifle at Remus’s groin. “Nobody will know.”
“We can say he tripped on a blaster and shot himself.” Vet joined the group. “It happens.”
I say we kill him, Rizzo supported the motion in sign language. He’s kind of a douche bag.
“We take him alive.” Riot looked around at the group. “But if you guys want to kick him a few times, I’m okay with that.”
46
Riot’s nanites had done their job. Her willpower had kept her in the fight, and the nanites had kept her alive. Her armor was bent or torn in a dozen different directions. Adrenaline, combined with the nanites, had kept her from realizing how bad her wounds really were at the time of impact. Fresh skin covered the areas on her body that should have been bleeding.
After Remus had been taken out of the fight, the battle was over. The dragons he had manipulated were once again free to make their own decisions, and they decided to help Ketrick rather than fight him.
A new respect for the dragons and Ketrick’s ability to talk to them grew in Riot. She had witnessed Ketrick and all three dragons swoop down and wreak havoc on the Brute army, both with fire and claws. That, coupled with Rizzo doing a few passes with the ship’s guns on the bulk of the Brute force, and the battle was over. The Brutes laid down their weapons, pleading not to be thrown to the dragons.
That night, as the Savage Trilords buried their dead and drank to their heroic deaths, Ketrick found Riot. She had just seen to Remus’s incarceration in the pyramid. She was walking out toward her ship, thinking she, instead of Deborah, should be the one to make the report to Captain Harlan this time around.
“Some fight you had up there.” Riot motioned to the sky. “I’m not easily impressed, but you fought two dragons in the air, and that’s pretty cool.”
“You, too.” Ketrick jerked his head toward the rest of Riot’s squad who were joking with one another as they made their way to join them. “I heard of your heroic exploits both on your own ship and on the ground against Remus.”
“Well, you know, a girl tries.” Riot cracked a grin, admiring Ketrick for his ability to make her smile. “So I just turned Remus over to your mother. He has to account for his crimes against the Trilords. Whatever is done to him, though, we need him alive. He has information we can use.”
“My mother rules with a less brutal hand than I would.” Ketrick moved to the side for the rest of the squad to join them. “If she says she will return your prisoner, then she will.”
“Your people don’t look too solemn as they bury their dead.” Deborah motioned over to a group of Trilords laughing and crashing mugs together. “Is it a cultural thing?”
“Yes.” Ketrick smiled as he looked over at his people. “The Trilords see the sadness in death, but the beauty in dying a good death. We lost our brothers and sisters, but they died so we could live. What better way to honor their sacrifice than living life to its fullest?”
“That’s beautiful.” Wang looked over at Riot as if he were asking his parent for permission to partake in the festivities.
“You’re all free to go ahead.” Riot gave them a motherly look. “But be ready to take off in the morning. I don’t know how long we have left here, but I’m guessing SPEAR will want us back, ASAP.”
“Roger that,” Vet said as he, Rizzo, and Wang ran off toward Hemming and a group of Trilords who were carrying wooden kegs of beer toward the pyramid. “Hey, you need help with that?”
“I want to ask both of you if I can come with you,” Ketrick said, blindsiding both Riot and Deborah. “I will need to return to rule one day, but not now. We need an emissary to send back with you to Merth, anyway. I would go with you, if you would have me.”
Riot looked over at Deborah for consensus. At the same time, she remembered what the queen had told her of her condition and how she may not have long to live.
“I would have to clear it with Captain Harlan, but it makes sense.” Deborah looked over to Riot. “Now that our alliance is intact, we’ll send a force of scientists to learn as much as we can from one another.”
“And your mom is okay with this?” Riot looked at Ketrick, trying to keep as much of a poker face as possible. “She’s okay with you leaving?”
“She is.” Ketrick gave Riot a sad smile as if he knew what she was thinking. “We all must embrace when our time is over, but for the present, she is our queen. One day I will have to return, but I’d see what lies beyond our stars first.”
“Well, I guess the War Wolves have one more member in their pack.” Deborah shrugged then nodded to Vet, Rizzo, and Wang, who were waving them over to join the celebration.
“Did you just call us the War Wolves?” Riot raised an eyebrow at Deborah. “I thought we were a peacekeeping force?”
“Oh crap, I guess I forgot.” Deborah winked at Riot. “Maybe we can be both.”
Without another word, Deborah left Riot and Ketrick. Ketrick motioned with his head to a spot just inside the pyramid entrance where, for the time being, they were alone.
“Riot, I just want to say th—”
Riot rose on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his mouth. The feeling was intoxicating as she pressed her lips harder against his. His hands found the back of her head as she wrapped her arms around his bare torso. How long had it been since she was kissed? How long had it been since she was kissed like that?
Riot didn’t know, but by the time they pulled back from one another with the sounds of feet approaching, she felt lightheaded. Her eyes were still closed, her breath hot and heavy.
Deborah appeared in the entrance door a few moments later, irate. “Who did it? I was trying to be flexible with the whole ‘war wolf’ thing, but this is too much.”
“What are you talking about?” Riot still felt her lips tingling. “Who did what?”
“Follow me.” Deborah turned on her heel and marched around the pyramid.
Riot and Ketrick followed. Rizzo, Vet, and Wang were already on the other side of the pyramid, howling with laughter as they guzzled their beers.
“That.” Deborah pointed to the side of their ship, where “Peace Envoy One” had been crossed out, and in white paint, “Valkyrie” had been written above the words “Click, Click, Boom.” “That is defacing military property. I try to understand things with you people, and this is how I get treated.”
Riot looked at R
izzo, Wang, and Vet.
We didn’t do it, Rizzo signed as he mimed a cough and jerked a thumb toward Ketrick.
“Evonne helped me with the spelling. ‘Peace Envoy One’ made no sense,” Ketrick said, rubbing a tiny splatter of white paint off his left hand. “There is nothing peaceful about you people.”
END BOOK ONE
Book 2 - Click Click Boom
Prologue
Rippa held her breath and made her move. Her mech warrior dug its foot into the hard soil found on the planet of Raydon. She did a complete one-hundred-eighty degree turn as her heads-up display confirmed her worst fears were now a reality.
Hold it together, Rippa thought, calming herself. You’ve engaged them a dozen times before and have always come out on top.
The Zenoth were in a frenzy. Bulging black bodies gave way to manic insect faces. Six spindly legs sprouted from their dark bodies. Two massive pincers set in the front of their heads slammed against one another over and over again, peppering the air with a thunderous wave of sound.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
The Zenoth foot soldiers were only a quarter of the size of Rippa’s mech armor. When they stood on their hind legs, they only came up to the area around her armored chest where she sat in her cockpit. Still, when there were this many of them, the odds were not in her favor, or that of her Spartan warriors.
Rippa stood side by side with the three other mechs assigned to her squad, the armor hulls a dull grey, each warrior deadlier than the next. Fear may have been present amongst the squad, but it was a controlled fear, one harnessed and used to make four fight like four hundred.
The Zenoth were two hundred yards and closing fast. Rippa had decisions to make, and they had to be made soon. Stay and fight, or report back to the Dreadnaught. No one would blame her if she decided to run, no one besides herself. Major Rippa Gunna was a Spartan, and Spartans never ran.
War Wolves: Boxset 1-3 Page 18
