The Arcadia Legacy (MOSAR Book 2)

by C. R. Turner

  Max lowers his head, and I pat him on the forehead. “We’ll be alright,” I whisper. I’m sure he knows the score. I lift his reins over his head, jump up, and gently nudge him over to the cave’s entrance. Hawkins and Taylor stop by my side. The crater where the energy grenade detonated is still smouldering, Ryuu body parts are littered among the splinters. It’s eerily quiet. Hawkins reads his Core-link, then takes point with his Ashra slung and rifle in hand. I take a deep breath. I’m exhausted, but I don’t think I’ve been more awake in my life.

  Moving on, eyes peeled, I scan the canopy and stare deep into the jungle. My heart rate’s elevated. This kind of constant adrenaline can’t be good for you. I startle as an enormous bird with jet-black feathers leaps out of a branch, spreads its wings and lets out an ear-piercing shriek. The air thuds with the first few flaps of its wings and a dead branch falls to the ground. I scare Max with a sudden involuntary squeeze of my legs and have to pull on his reins to stop him from bolting. Hawkins and Taylor shoulder their weapons, and the rest of the team follow suit – faces pale.

  It’s a couple of hours on, and we’re getting really close. The crash site must be nearly in sight, surely. As I scan the canopy for any sign of the Ryuu, I notice the tops of the trees have been broken off. I press my Core-link earpiece. “Hawkins, look up.” Hawkins and Taylor pivot their heads skyward and smile with relief. Hawkins gives me the thumbs up.

  A short while later, up a steep hill, I lay eyes on the starship the MRP detected. The aft end of the starship is sticking out of the jungle and hanging over the edge of the hill. Its gunmetal grey fuselage is heavily scratched, battered and covered in foliage. I can make out the name “Equilibria” on the stern, but the “TPU” in huge, black, block lettering on the sides has been mostly scratched off. I sigh with relief as I stop Max and turn to face the rest of the team behind me. Bradley and Emerson, still carrying Pisano, look exhausted, but Sam’s face lightens for the first time since landing on Hikaru.

  It’s then that an avalanche of leaves falls from the canopy six or seven hundred feet behind the team and branches sag as if under enormous weight.

  “Ryuu,” I scream, my heart running wild.

  Ryuu rain from the canopy, thump the ground on impact and knuckle-gallop toward us with the promise of a vicious death. SF Mustang open fire with their Ashras and hurl energy grenades that detonate with solid booms. Sam and Jade run up to my position. Bradley and Emerson quickly place Pisano on the ground and open fire. Bradley hits with incredible accuracy for the distance he’s covering. The hit Ryuu roars. Bradley’s Ashra is only pissing it off.

  Bradley yells over the weapons fire. “Miller, get up to the Equilibria and see if you can get inside. I’ll be with you in a second.”

  Sam runs up the hill with Jade.

  “Hawk, over-watch,” Bradley orders as he chases after Sam.

  “Pos, sir,” Hawkins replies.

  Ashra blasts fly over our heads from the top of the hill. What the hell? The prisoners, all wearing bright-yellow overalls, have taken up offensive positions not far from the ship. Bradley shields Sam and returns fire on the prisoners as Sam tries to gain entry.

  “SF Mustang, cover the Equilibria,” Bradley calls over the Core-link.

  I leap off Max, kneel next to Pisano and set my Ashra to blast. As SF Mustang runs past and up the hill, Taylor and Emerson cover them. They open up a barrage of Ashra blasts at the Ryuu. Emerson concentrates his fire on a Ryuu that’s running flat out toward us. It’s massive. It must be the alfa Ryuu.

  Another Ryuu drops out of a tree, right in the path of the alfa Ryuu. It stands up on its hind legs, and the alfa Ryuu charges it, roaring as they slash, bite and tear at each other in a wrestle. The alfa Ryuu’s tail whips around and grabs the leg of the smaller one. It then grabs the smaller Ryuu’s lower jaw in one hand, its upper jaw in the other, and pulls, muscles flexing amongst harrowing screams. To the sound of gruesome tearing, the lower jaw comes clean off. The alpha then grabs the neck of its opponent and rips its head clean off. I’ve never seen so much blood. The headless body drops to the ground, while the alfa Ryuu holds the head, leans forward on its hind legs, and lets out a blasting roar that drowns out all the other Ryuu.

  “Stinson, Taylor, Emerson, get up here,” Bradley hollers over the Core-link.

  Emerson looks up the hill toward Hawkins’ over-watch position. “Hawkins, you right to cover us?”

  Hawkins reply is short, sharp and calm: “Pos.”

  I yell over the chaos. “You guys go, I’ll take Pisano on Max.”

  I pull the line out of Pisano’s cannula and call Max. He crawls along the ground to our position and Pisano moans as I reef him out of his blood-soaked stretcher. “Come on, Pisano … We’re getting out of here.”

  Just as Taylor and Emerson start running up the hill, the alfa Ryuu charges toward us and Max leaps to his feet before I can get Pisano on his back. Damn it! I ease Pisano back down and gasp for breath. Max has his hackles up. He lowers his head, ears pinned back, and growls.

  “MAX.”

  I’m guessing with how close the alfa Ryuu is now, Hawkins won’t risk taking the shot. I leave Pisano and approach Max from behind. Adrenaline courses through my veins like a raging river – my heart hammers and my breathing is heavy. I stumble on some rocks as I blindly follow my stare.

  The alfa Ryuu stands up on its hind legs again. Its head is now roughly sixteen feet above the ground, twice as high as Max. It charges Max and they lock onto each other. Max is slammed to the ground. I grab a large rock and throw it at the alfa Ryuu’s head so hard it hurts my arm. The alfa Ryuu turns to me. Max is winded, but he gets back to his feet. I can’t let anything happen to him. I step even closer trying to draw its attention off Max. Twenty or thirty feet away, the alfa Ryuu towers above me. Its tail flicks about for something to strangle. I grab another rock. Now I have my eye in with the higher gravity, I aim for its eye. Pain shoots down my arm as I hurl the rock as hard as I can. Bullseye! The alfa Ryuu grimaces. It lowers its head, leans forward and roars. It’s so close, I can smell its putrid breath. Max latches onto its neck, pushes it to the ground and pins one of its arms with his paw. His jaw muscles flex as he bites down with everything he has. I’ve never seen Max so aggressive. The alfa Ryuu’s free arm and legs thrash about. Although it’s bigger, its lean body is no match for Max’s massive muscles that flex in a display of raw power. Its tail whips about ferociously, grabbing hold of one of Max’s rear legs that’s anchoring him.

  I run back to my gear, grab my Ashra and set it to stun hoping it will do more than just piss it off. I take aim at the alfa Ryuu’s head and fire. Max immediately lets go, and I keep firing in rapid succession until the alfa Ryuu’s out cold. Nothing’s going to separate Max and me.

  I lead him over to Pisano, get him to lie down, then drag Pisano up onto Max’s back, before climbing on myself. There’s half-a-dozen Ryuu only a couple of hundred feet away. I rib Max. “Yah … Yah.”

  He runs up the hill lightning fast, leaving the Ryuu behind in his dust. Hawkins has set up on a terrace toward the top of the hill. As I reach the Equilibria, the prisoners are hammering the ship with blasts. Bradley, Taylor and Emerson return fire, their Ashras set to stun, while SF Mustang continue to fire on the Ryuu. I pull Max up next to Jade at the rear of the ship, then slide Pisano off Max’s back and put him down near Taylor.

  I check his pulse against the clock on my Core-link. “Ninety over forty-five. Alright, he seems stable.”

  SF Mustang isn’t going to hold the Ryuu at bay forever. I open Bradley’s backpack and pull out the G-ray Tag. “Can you keep an eye on Pisano?”

  “Yeah, go,” Taylor yells as she returns fire on the prisoners.

  I run to Hawkins’ position before we’re overrun by Ryuu. I kneel next to him while he loads more rounds into a spare magazine. Once the G-ray Tag powers up, I target the Ryuu. There are so many of them coming our way, I’m overwhelmed.

  “What frequency are you u
sing?” hollers Hawkins.

  I turn it on its side and read the small screen. “One ten point nine.”

  Hawkins calls the Firestorm through the Kyt’s radio. “Hawkins, FS Archer, contact?”

  “FS Archer, go ahead Hawkins.”

  “Hostile targets on GTF one one zero point nine.” Hawkins reads his Core-link. “TPU assets A1 and A2, zero point five miles west-south-west of targets. Confirm?”

  “FS Archer, confirm last. ETA four minutes.”

  Hawkins replies, “Bring the fire, Archer. Final.”

  Hawkins reaches into his backpack, then throws me some hearing protection. I finish targeting the Ryuu, drop the G-ray Tag, and put them on – squashing my ears tight. I hit the deck just as Hawkins slides the bolt forward, cracking a round into the chamber of his rifle. He exhales and squeezes the trigger.

  BANG. My ribcage rattles and my heart skips a beat. For a split second, the percussive explosion knocks my eyes out of focus. As Hawkins’ large frame absorbs the massive recoil, there’s a flash of flame at the end of the barrel. Then, almost as if in slow motion, small stones and dirt jump into the air, surrounding us in a cloud of dust. The round hits one Ryuu right in the centre of its chest, blowing a six-inch hole straight through till I can see daylight on the other side. It’s dead before it even hits the ground.

  Hawkins grabs the bolt and reefs it back a good eight inches. The smoking spent brass spirals through the air in front of me. The smell of burnt gunpowder fills the air. He chambers another round and I wince.

  BANG. Hell, that’s painful. The second Ryuu’s head explodes, creating a cloud of bloody mist. Blood squirts out of its neck like a hose. Its upright body falls forward like a tree being lumbered, and crashes to the ground. Nothing can survive that amount of energy.

  Hawkins fires again, and I have an instant splitting headache. This is getting old fast. There must be nearly a dozen Ryuu on the jungle floor now, all heading our way. One’s up on its hind legs sprinting toward us.

  Now that I know an Ashra set to stun is more effective than set to blast, I take aim and fire. I hit it a couple of times and it slows, but it’s still closing in fast.

  I press the button on my Core-link. “Hawkins.”

  “Ye …”

  “Thirty degrees right.”

  Hawkins swivels his rifle toward the approaching Ryuu. It’s only eighty or so feet away and closing fast. Hawkins aims, squeezes and takes it down. I gasp in pain from being so close to that thing – I can only imagine how Hawkins must be feeling.

  The Firestorm pilot’s voice comes over the Core-link, calm and clinical. “FS Archer, close air support, inbound.”

  I panic – one of the Ryuu I targeted is now lying dead only about sixty feet away. I’m about to tell Hawkins we need to get out of here, but it’s too late. The Firestorm tears overhead. I catch a glimpse of a cluster of bombs steering through the air, homing in on their targets, just as we hit the deck and bury our faces in the dirt.

  It feels like my shirt is nearly ripped from my back as the shock wave passes over us. The immense noise of the explosion floods the jungle. It’s as if the bombs have cracked the earth and unleashed hell. A dozen or so giant fireballs roar into the sky, the extreme heat toasts my skin, and a mountain of dirt blasts up and out. A good twenty acres of jungle are in flames. Red hot cinders, ash, dirt and rocks rain down from a sky so filled with black smoke it blocks out Daisuke. Seconds later, massive hunks of wood and rocks land with hefty thuds. The bombs not only destroy the Ryuu, but blast massive craters in the ground.

  I slap Hawkins on the back to get his attention, then point at the prisoners firing on the rest of the team. We’re both covered in dirt and splinters as we gather up our gear. With Ashras in hand, we take off up the hill toward the Equilibria.

  As Hawkins and I reach the Equilibria, I feel something warm running down my back. Blood! I’ve been injured. I go to take my Ashra off but can’t. There’s a large splinter of wood sticking out of the back of my shoulder. I reach around with my left hand and manage to get a hold of it. It’s in deep. The pain’s intense. I grimace as I reef it out. The splinter is roughly six inches long, the last two inches covered in blood.

  The rear door of the Equilibria is a good fifteen feet wide and ten feet high, forming an alcove – a secure spot for the team to take shelter.

  “Can’t you get in?” I ask.

  Sam and I lock eyes as she shakes her head. With Pisano out of action, it’s all up to her now. If she can’t open the door, we’re as good as dead. The prisoners are getting more and more desperate, coming out from behind their cover and running straight at us, firing off a battery of Ashra blasts. Half of the prisoners lie unconscious on the ground while a dozen remaining prisoners continue to fight.

  Hawkins pulls back from returning fire. “What’s the hold up?”

  More Ryuu are climbing the hill as several swing through the treetops. I figure the best thing I can do now is help Sam; she’s so flustered she can barely concentrate.

  “Sam … calm down. What do you need to do?” I ask calmly.

  She takes a deep breath. “They’ve changed the entry code.”

  Having learnt from Bradley, I slow my words and try to encourage her. “Try to remember your book at the cabin.”

  An Ashra blast hits the ship, missing Sam by inches. It scorches the steel, creating a cloud of smoke. Sam screams as Bradley and Emerson return fire on one of the prisoners who’s trying to flank us.

  Sam replies, “I tried using a master code and got Bradley to activate the palm reader, but nothing happened. The only thing left to try is a master reset.”

  “Do it, Miller,” Bradley orders.

  A few seconds later, Sam yells over the weapons fire. “Bradley.”

  When Bradley sees the palm reader glowing red, he places his hand on it. It turns green and the door shoots sideways.

  Bradley and Emerson take the lead and enter the ship. I run back to Pisano just as Taylor pulls him up onto her back and carries him. As I lead Max and Jade around to the door, I hear a loud thud. A Ryuu has dropped out of the trees and landed on the Equilibria. Hawkins drops his Ashra, grabs his rifle and pulls it into the air, his ripped muscles straining. He pulls the trigger, and a second later, the Ryuu crashes to the ground right in front of me. Max and Jade jump, nearly pulling my right arm out of its socket. I lead Max and Jade into the Equilibria. Hawkins and SF Mustang are the last ones in. The door slams shut.

  Sam presses some buttons on a screen. “It’s locked.”

  Inside, the halls are dimly lit. Everyone is breathing heavy, sweat running down their faces.

  “We need to get to the bridge,” Bradley says with a flick of his head.

  Taylor doesn’t hesitate. She drops to her knees and pulls Pisano’s bloodied body over her shoulder, grunting as she lifts him off the floor. Bradley and Emerson lead the way, scanning the corridors with their Ashras shouldered. I follow, leading Max and Jade, the corridors are plenty big enough for their huge frames. SF Mustang and Hawkins grab the tail. Having never been in a Talon starship before, I’m surprised at how old it appears – all scratched up and dented.

  When we enter the bridge, we have a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree view of the surrounding jungle. Sam sits at the main controls, while I get Max and Jade to lie down, then walk over to the windshields. “Why are the remaining prisoners running away?”

  Bradley watches the prisoners for a second. “Miller, can you see if the multi’s fitted with a Pulsar?”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  Sam glances up, “It’s like an Ashra set to stun but a thousand times bigger.”

  “Will it knock us out?” I ask.

  Sam’s reply is short. “No. The ship will shield us.” She pauses, then adds, “Yup … and we have enough power.”

  “Let her rip,” Bradley orders.

  Several Ryuu drop out of the trees and land on the foredeck. As they knuckle-walk toward the bridge, I glance over at Bradle
y. Sam punches away at the console. Soon a whirring comes from the ship, as if something is building up a charge.

  “What range does it have?” I ask, watching the prisoners sprint away.

  “About half a mile,” Bradley replies.

  The sound is like nothing I’ve heard – I imagine an electric motor running flat out, tied to the end of a rope that’s being swung around and around, faster and faster. The resonating sound plateaus. The Ryuu reach the bridge and ram the glass. Max has his hackles up, and Bradley and Stile raise their Ashras. I hear Hawkins chamber a round, and I spin around as he takes aim.

  “It’s ready,” Sam calls out.

  “Fire,” Bradley orders.

  There’s a really loud “doof” as the Pulsar discharges. The Ryuu and the prisoners drop, out cold. I run over to the starboard side of the bridge. Down the hill, Ryuu bodies litter the ground, and the jungle’s still on fire.

  “SF Mustang, Emerson, Taylor, take Falone’s and Smith’s body bags down to the infirmary,” Bradley orders, “then head out and cuff the prisoners. Hawkins, you stay here and secure the bridge.”

  Taylor leaves Pisano’s side, and I approach Bradley. “Sir … what are we going to do about Pisano? He’s not going to last much longer in his condition.”

  Bradley asks Sam. “How old’s the multi?”

  Sam’s taken aback. “Why?”

  “The first-generation Talon starships didn’t come with a Bridgeport. They were retrofitted decades later.”

  Sam nods. “Right.”

  “What’s it matter how old the ship is?” I ask.

  Sam replies as she types away. “It might have stasis pods.” She glances up. “We could put Pisano in stasis.”

  Bradley adds, “Before the near-instantaneous Bridgeport dive, it took ships years to travel from planet to planet. The crew and passengers would go into stasis during the flight, then wake up on arrival.”

  I run over to Sam’s side as she flicks through the displays.

  “Yup … there are a dozen pods on level five, just forward of the bridge.”