Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3)

by Wearmouth

  “Not many people with our experience could have that view,” Mai said. “It’s difficult to forget what their fellow croatoans did to this planet.”

  “I do understand, my love, but we have to trust them.”

  Two pairs of footsteps echoed from the hallway outside the workshop until Ryan and Aimee stepped inside, their shadows casting obtusely across the rough-hewn floor. Aimee was wearing a pair of jeans and a plain black sweater—all rather utilitarian for her, Mike thought. Ryan, as ever, wore his fatigues.

  Both of them had shadows and bags under their eyes.

  “Hi,” Mai said. “You two look as tired as we feel.”

  “It’s not been an easy night,” Aimee said, rubbing her eyes with her right hand.

  Mike noticed a slight tremble—she’d been dosing up on the root, which wasn’t entirely surprising given the threat to the town. She had to remain alert and functioning as the leader of this small community.

  “Any news?” Ryan said, nodding his head in the direction of the bag over Mike’s shoulder. Ryan and Aimee both had an eager, almost hopeful expression on their faces that reminded Mike of Denver’s dog, Pip, when she would sit at his feet waiting for a tidbit of food.

  He missed that dog. He hoped she was okay. But like Denver, she was a single-minded and highly capable animal. Wherever she might have run off to, Mike didn’t doubt she was surviving—just like Charlie and Denver.

  Ryan coughed, bringing Mike back to the present. “With Gib’s help we got the device complete sometime early this morning,” Mike added. “We were just going out to test it—it may need calibrating or tweaking.”

  Aimee’s face seemed to lose a shade more color.

  “What’s wrong?” Mai asked, not missing a thing.

  Aimee fidgeted and looked to the floor for a moment before focusing back on Mike and Mai. “It’s Augustus—he’s closer than we expected. Khan and Baliska returned a few hours ago with information on his forces. Although they’re not organized, they’re more numerous than we first anticipated.”

  Mike sighed, feeling the muscles in the back of his neck tighten with the stress. “So what you’re saying is that we really need to hurry because that bastard will be on us at any moment?”

  “That’s about right,” Ryan added, patting a bulky form in the pocket of his cargo trousers. “I was up listening to their radio communications—or the ones before their scout returned to them. Khan and Baliska couldn’t get to them in time. It seems they’ve either found an alternative means of communication or have scrambled the frequency. It’s just dead air now. We don’t know their movements.”

  Aimee cut in, adding to Ryan’s report. “Although Khan and Baliska managed to inflict a number of casualties and take out one of their shuttles, they still have a sizeable force and we have to expect an attack at any moment.”

  “That’s just great,” Mike said. “Well, it just means we better stop standing around gossiping and get on with the test before that psycho turns up and spoils our day.”

  Mike shifted the bag higher on to his shoulder and made to move out of the dim workshop. Aimee and Ryan didn’t move, blocking his exit. He looked up at them and sensed from their tense body language there was something else.

  Mai was no slouch in her observations either as she asked, “What else is wrong?”

  “It’s… Maria,” Aimee said. “Khan saw her in the Freetown complex.”

  Mike’s jaw tensed. “What’s that bastard done to her?”

  “Nothing from what Khan could see. She was seemingly there of her own free will. He saw her walking into your workshop building with another member of Augustus’ army.”

  “Was she hurt?” Mai asked.

  “Not that Khan could notice, but who knows what Augustus has in mind,” Aimee said. “She could be used…” Aimee tailed off, but Mike knew exactly what she was hinting at. Augustus would use anything he could to get his own way. He just hoped for Maria’s sake that she was savvy enough to avoid him because Mike had no doubt he would torture her for information or use her as a pawn in the battle if it came to it… or worse.

  “I understand,” Mike said. “All the more reason to test this out right away.”

  Without waiting any longer, Mike, along with Mai, sidestepped around Aimee and Ryan and headed for the surface.

  Although Maria was a confused, troubled woman, he had grown to like her in the short time she had been with them at Freetown. She just needed time to come to terms with her new life and the fact that she was a clone. Deep down, Mike knew she was a kindhearted woman and it pained him to see her so… interstitial.

  “I’m sure she’ll be okay,” Mai said, as they continued to climb the steps up to the surface and into the light of a new day, a new dawn—as long as the microwave weapon worked, otherwise this might be the last morning he and the rest of Unity would see.

  ***

  The chill wind whipped through Mike’s sweater, making him shiver as he stalked up the steps of Unity’s steep sides.

  Mai had remained at the bottom to save her energy. They kept in touch via a short-range two-way radio they had salvaged from a nearby town.

  As he climbed ever closer to the ridgetop where the swaying fields of root crop waited, he felt like the entire town was watching him with bated breath and expectant hearts. The pressure, he was sure, was not good for him. His chest tightened with each step, but he carried on until he finally reached his destination.

  Some of the Unity engineers had erected a staging platform for the weapon: a wooden plinth two meters high. A set of steps, adapted from a crashed aircraft, led up to this plinth. Mike climbed up and let out a long breath as he finally reached his zenith. The platform, however, didn’t stop there.

  The engineers had built a wooden tower some three meters high, upon which was attached the directional dish that would be used to aim and fire the concentrated beam of microwaves.

  Mike recognized the dish as one of the US Army’s own take on a microwave weapon. Matte green in color and hexagonal in shape, the dish was once used to pacify protestors.

  How awful that now seemed, Mike thought as he placed his bag of equipment onto the platform. How could humanity have been so cruel to its own people? If they only knew what was coming, then perhaps human life would have been held in higher regard. Though a nagging doubt in the back of his mind told him that was still unlikely. It’s not as if the teachings of religion and art from ancient civilizations had any effect.

  “How are you doing up there?” Mai asked, her voice crackling over the two-way radio.

  Mike reached up to his lapel where he had it attached. Pressing the button, he said, “I got here in one piece; the engineers have done a good job on the platform. I’m just connecting up now. I’ll report back in five, over.”

  With the ripe scent of root wafting on the cold breeze, Mike rubbed his hands together and got to work connecting the device to the batteries and the dish. He had to admire the combination of human and croatoan tech and ingenuity. If only the croatoans had come to them peacefully. They could have perhaps worked together for the benefit of both races—or at least to avoid wholesale slaughter of the majority of one species.

  The hate filled him as it always did when he thought about what could have been. With the memories of finding that blue bead and the excitement it brought, Mike attached the final wire to the dish and flicked on the power switch.

  The device hummed to life and two green LEDs flashed, indicating that all was as it should be; the first light confirmed the device was receiving power and the second confirmed connection to the dish.

  “The first two checks are good. Over,” Mike said into his radio.

  “That’s great to hear,” Mai replied, then her voice cut off to be replaced by Aimee’s. “Good job, Mike, we’re all very proud of what you, Mai, and Gib have done. Are you ready for the test? Over.”

  Mike stood at the edge of the wooden platform and looked across the root field until he saw the pair of
croatoan breathing packs held up on wooden poles fifty feet apart and about a hundred meters away. If they had done their work properly, then the microwave blast would overload the apparatus’ electronics, damaging them beyond repair.

  The croatoans in Unity had long ditched the interconnected systems and had built smaller, mechanical units. Although they weren’t as sophisticated as the electronic ones, they did the job and weren’t reliant on power beyond their own breathing. It was all done with filters.

  Those still on the farms, now part of Augustus’ united group, did not have the time or abilities to build a new system—and why would they when they thought they were in charge and faced no threat?

  “Mike?” Mai prompted. “Are you there? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, sorry, I was just thinking… no matter, I’m firing the test right now. Over.” He stepped back to the small square device and held the chrome switch between his fingers. This was it…

  His body trembled with a mix of fear and excitement just like it used to when he was on the verge of an archeological discovery or some kind of engineering breakthrough. He wasted no more time and flipped the switch.

  The green LEDs blinked out to be replaced with a pulsating red one next to the firing switch on the device’s aluminum surface. The air around him hummed as the device dumped a massive amount of energy into the dish in the form of encrypted microwaves.

  The red LED blinked out and the strange sensation stopped. “It fired,” Mike said excitedly. “I’m just going to confirm the apparatus is no longer working. Over.”

  “Be careful,” Mai said.

  “I always am,” he replied. He must have said that a million times over the years as he and Mai worked on their various projects.

  As fast as his old legs could carry him, Mike stepped off the platform and strode through the pungent field of root crop toward the two breathing packs. Each step added to his anxiety. He felt sick as he reached the first one. He almost didn’t want to know the answer, but he had an entire town waiting on him, so he wasted no time and removed the multimeter from his trouser pocket and placed the prongs into the breathing apparatus’ power conduit.

  With the second one attached, he held his breath and closed his eyes as he muttered prayers to the gods of electronics. When he opened his eyes and stared down at the instrument display, his heart sank.

  It was reading perfectly normal! The microwave blast hadn’t blown the workings as hoped. A sheen of sweat rose on his face and neck. His legs shook, but he tried to remain calm and tested again. The result came back the same.

  Okay, try the other one, he thought, quickly dashing over to the second machine. It too was still fully operational.

  It had failed.

  He had failed.

  Mike fell to one knee and hung his head, the night’s efforts finally catching up with him. He pounded the compacted hard ground with his fist and yelled an incoherent word, just to let out the frustration and rage.

  All that work, and for nothing!

  He reached for the radio and pressed the button, but the words wouldn’t come. An entire town was hoping for good news, that the weapon would work and they would have a strong defense against Augustus.

  Before he could say anything, he heard a sudden crack of tree limbs. He spun round and saw the tops of the trees at the edge of the wooded area shake as yet more branches snapped.

  Then he saw them: two hover-bikes bursting out of the woods, driven by a pair of armored croatoan drivers.

  With his finger still pressed on the radio’s transmitter button, Mike shouted, “They’re here!” and scrambled to his feet, running with any remaining energy he had left to get back to the safety of Unity, but the hover-bikes were gaining on him, the whine of their engines splitting the air.

  Then they fired.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After executing the remaining aliens in the individual cells, the croatoan bounty hunter, along with most of the slavers, left for the shuttle. The remaining three blue-robed tredeyans dragged dead aliens from their cells and piled them up in front of the two chained-up clusps. They guarded the mouth of the cavern and hungrily glared at the surviving prisoners, preferring living meat to their recently delivered meals.

  Sweat trickled down Charlie’s back as the humidity of the planet’s atmosphere clung to his skin. A warm breeze blew through the cave, providing minor relief. Already feeling thirsty and weak, it would soon get to the stage where he would be as useless as Vingo.

  Taking long deep breaths, he summoned as much energy as possible.

  One of the three slavers opened the door, grabbed the lead tredeyan by his neck, and dragged him forward.

  All three shackled tredeyans shuffled obediently toward the exit. The cable around Charlie’s neck tightened and he jerked forward. One of the guards led the prisoners, the other two flanked them, armed with rifles, as they filed out.

  “Vingo,” he whispered. “This is our last chance. Work with me here.”

  The slaver on the right spun and gargled. Vingo’s shoulders slouched. He ignored Charlie’s request.

  Both clusps stooped on all fours and gave low hollow growls while their eyes darted along the line. One flicked a tentacle at the front prisoner, whipping him across the face. The slaver picked up a rock, threw it at the creature, and shouted. The rock thumped against the crumbling wall behind it, making the creature retreat to its pile of corpses.

  Electric lights buzzed overhead, providing thin light as they proceeded forward. Charlie flexed his muscles and muttered under his breath as he went along. The timing had to be perfect if he wanted to avoid ending up in a clusp’s gut.

  The open metal door at the solid barrier, protecting the route to the main cavern, led to darkness. Stars twinkled in the distant sky. The rangy alien in green armor had vanished and it appeared they were the last to leave the place, before the scion gained full control of the planet and accessed all areas.

  One of the slavers walked just ahead of Vingo to the right. Charlie quickened his pace, making the cable slack and drop to the floor.

  “Listen to me,” Charlie said, keeping his voice low. “Move to your right when I say.”

  Vingo ignored him again, adding another layer of frustration.

  The prisoners shuffled through the metal gate and would reach the cave’s mouth in full view of the shuttle in a matter of seconds.

  A loose fist-sized rock lay just off the roughly cut path. Both slavers on either side remained focused to their front. Charlie stooped down and grabbed it.

  The cave thinned to around four meters wide—the perfect opportunity to cause a little mayhem and confusion.

  Charlie paused, letting the cable around his neck become taut.

  It pulled tight as the tredeyans continued forward.

  Vingo turned to look over his shoulder.

  Charlie sprang forward three paces, hunched down, and thrust his shoulder into the middle of Vingo’s back. The alien wheezed, toppled forward, and fell into the slaver on the right-hand side. Both staggered and hit the wall.

  The cable jerked Charlie forward. He raised the rock, and using the pace of the forward momentum for extra power, smashed it against the side of the slaver’s head.

  Dark purple blood pulsed from the deep wound. The slaver fell to all fours before collapsing on his side. Vingo turned to face Charlie and repeatedly blinked with what Charlie assumed was fear or confusion.

  Footsteps scuffled on the ground behind him, but he didn’t have time to look, he knew the other two slavers would react. His main focus was the rifle slung around the injured slaver.

  Charlie ducked down and dragged it from under his quivering body. He twisted on one knee and swept his newly acquired rifle across the cave.

  A muzzle flashed, brightening the dimly lit cave. Rounds smacked against the wall above Charlie’s head. Dust and small pieces of rock sprayed against the back of his helmet and shoulders.

  Vingo and the two other tredeyan prisoners duc
ked, inadvertently providing Charlie cover. One of the slavers crouched behind them, only two meters away. He held his rifle over the prisoners’ heads in a one-handed grip and fired a loose burst high into the ceiling. Multiple ricochets echoed through the air. The other slaver retreated behind a large boulder, showing a similar level of guts to Vingo.

  Vingo rasped, clutched his left arm, and dropped to the ground, dragging Charlie’s neck to one side by the cable.

  Keeping his cool, Charlie quickly repositioned himself in the prone firing position to make himself a smaller target.

  The slaver behind the boulder raised his head. Charlie fired a burst at it. Blood spattered against the wall behind and the slaver fell to the side. Only one left to go, who continued to use the prisoners as a shield.

  Charlie feared others would hear the commotion outside and soon come flooding in. They needed to be ready to defeat the croatoan, the alien in the green armor and the rest of the slavers.

  The remaining armed slaver wrapped his arm around the prisoner at the front of the shackled line and aimed around him.

  Shooting through the prisoner was an option, but he would be transformed into a dead weight until they could free the restraints, meaning they’d be sitting ducks when the crew of the shuttle realized what was going on, if they couldn’t do it quickly.

  Instead, Charlie fired three times between the prisoner’s legs. One of the rounds hit the slaver’s ankle. He collapsed with a twist and let out a high-pitched scream. Charlie leaped forward and fired at his face, finishing the immediate job.

  If the shuttle’s engines obscured the sound of rifle fire, they had a small window to escape. Being caught in a tight section of the cave would be a turkey shoot for an armed group outside. Charlie spun his back to Vingo. “Untie the cable.”

  Vingo picked at it with his uninjured arm. Another prisoner came to help and the cable dropped by Charlie’s feet.

  “Do you all understand English?” Charlie said.

  “I can translate,” Vingo said. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Do we have an escape route to the right of the cave?”