Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3)

by Wearmouth

  Mike used his free hand to scratch his nose. “Okay… it’s got to be something simple, then. The design makes sense, the parts are good, and the wiring as you say is fine, so what could it be? Must be a bug in a part somewhere in the chain. We need to start right from the beginning…” He sighed at the thought.

  “There isn’t time,” Mai said. “Aimee is working with Ryan and the others to get fighters into defensive positions. Khan and Baliska managed to take out a couple of Augustus’ scouts, but… I think this might be it.” Mai dropped her head onto his shoulder and wrapped her arm around his neck.

  “Damn it, Mai, we’ve survived worse than this. I’m not giving up now. Think of what Charlie, Denver, and Layla have done for us. We can’t just stand back and let this place go down, least of all to someone like Augustus.”

  He hugged her back with his good arm, wincing as he reached round. He kissed her on the head and stood up from the bed, swaying slightly, still groggy from his wound and the medication. “I’ve an idea,” he said. “I need your help, though, to get back up to the platform.”

  ***

  With Mai and Gib’s help, Mike got to the top of the town and clambered up to the platform in order to inspect the hardware again. The sun was dipping down behind the pines to the west of their position, casting long shadows across the clearing and lush root field.

  It wouldn’t stay lush for long, though, not once the battle commenced. The orange field would soon be red. He just hoped most of it would belong to Augustus and his cobbled-together army.

  “Okay,” Mike said, shuffling down to the small square device, multimeter in hand. “Gib, you reconnect the power supply, and Mai, my love, can you check the readings in the dish.”

  Both nodded and moved into position as Mike prized the lid off the device showing the alien transformer inside. It looked like an old cotton reel but made of a highly magnetic material that generated a seemingly impossible amount of wattage for such a small device.

  From that, the charge powered the microwave transmitter.

  Mike switched on the device and like before got the green light. He checked the contacts and made sure the energy was flowing through the device. “We’re all good here,” Gib said, monitoring a tablet connected to the croatoan batteries.

  “Here too,” Mai said. “I’m getting a current.”

  “Right,” Mike said, kneeling closer and sighing as his back clicked. He switched on the flashlight attached to a band around his head to illuminate the insides of the device in the ever-dwindling daylight.

  With the sun down, the wind seemed to increase, bringing with it a chill that whined and whistled through the tree branches, each baleful note making Mike think of the hover-bikes. He kept looking back across the field to make sure there weren’t actually a group of bikes about to bear down on him.

  The image from earlier blazed bright in his mind. He closed his eyes and steadied himself with his good hand.

  “Are you okay, love?” Mai asked, bending to him and placing her hand on his shoulder.

  Mike forced a smile. “I’m fine, just a bit tired from the drugs.”

  He knew Mai wouldn’t believe that; the root was a potent stimulant and would give him all the energy and alertness he needed. But what it wouldn’t do was erase memories or the fear of being a sitting duck while the croatoan hover-bike riders bore down on him.

  “I think I can make some modifications,” he said, looking back at the device. The power coupling from the transformer to the microwave transmitter was set to allow only a certain amount of power through, so as not to overload the individual parts. He thought that perhaps if he opened the gate all the way to let the full load in, that could help push enough power into the transmitter, and thus into the dish.

  Explaining his strategy to Gib and Mai, they both nodded and agreed that it sounded like a sensible option. With time running out and no other obvious fix, Mike got to work disassembling the coupling so as to readjust its settings.

  “The Unity defense personnel are really digging in,” Mai said from her position just above Mike. The sounds of hover-bikes, some old harvesters and marching feet conjured their own image as sweat started to break out on his forehead.

  “Mai, I can’t do this one-handed. Can you remove the coupling for me while I handle the wiring?”

  “Sure.”

  Like a thousand times before, they both got to work, their hands agile and seemingly working of their own accord, supplementing each other’s skills rather than getting in the way. It always made him smile how in-sync they were, but today he couldn’t find the energy to smile as the time clicked down.

  As he adjusted the coupling, he took a look around, seeing Unity preparing for Augustus’ onslaught. The thought of the battle brought back lots of old memories of when the croatoans first came out of the ground.

  The sheer indifference with which they slaughtered anything that moved made him feel sick, as it usually did. How ironic, he thought, that here he was, helping to defend a city made up of more croatoans than humans, and beside him, one of them, Gib, was lending a hand.

  “That should do it,” Mike said, adjusting the throughput capacity of the coupling. “Help me reinstall it and we can give it another test. How’s the battery capacity, Gib? Did my first test take much out?”

  The croatoan engineer consulted his tablet and shook his head, a gesture he had learned from the humans in Unity. “Not much. Plenty for at least three more full capacity…” He couldn’t find the words and mimed it with throwing his arms out toward the woods.

  “Bursts?” Mai prompted, getting an affirmative from the small alien.

  “With any luck, that’s all we need,” Mike said, finally standing up and stretching his old, sore back. During his fall he had landed on his spine heavily, bruising most of his back and left ribs.

  The radio around Mai’s neck crackled with Aimee’s voice. “How are you guys doing up there? Any good news? Over.”

  “We think we might have found a solution,” Mai said. “We’re just putting it back together and preparing for another test.”

  “Make it quick,” Aimee said. “We’ve spotted two shuttles and a dozen hover-bikes on the horizon. They’ll be here any moment. We really need this weapon of yours up and running if we’re to have any chance.”

  Mike closed his eyes at the sound of the desperation and panic in Aimee’s voice. He didn’t blame her. For years they had lived here in peace without any outside involvement, and now they were perhaps just hours away from extinction. He knew exactly how that felt and wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemies… human enemies at least. The croatoans could burn in hell for all he cared.

  He snapped the lid to the device back on and reconnected the cables to the power source and the dish. He flicked the first switch and got the green light again telling him it was all connected and ready to go.

  “Right, let’s give this another run, shall we?” Mike said, hovering his trembling fingers over the switch.

  At first nothing happened when he flicked the switch. Mai and Gib stood at the rear of the platform, watching on. Mike stepped back and traced his mind through the process, wondering if he had forgotten to connect something.

  Gib stepped forward to stand beside him. “Problem?” he asked.

  The red LED light on the device turned green. Before Mike could move him out of the way, the lid on the device blew clear of the chassis and the transformer glowed red, then exploded.

  The burst of fire and electrical power struck the batteries, igniting them until one of them exploded too. Gib screamed, clutching his face as he fell back. Mike dived out of the way, dragging Mai to the base of the platform as he expected the rest of the batteries to go up.

  But after a few long seconds, there were no more explosions, just the acrid stench of cooked electronics and boiled battery acid.

  Gib lay motionless on the platform floor. His face was badly burned and the skin around his neck and shoulder bubbled. His breathing appa
ratus had stopped working and he lay still, his chest no longer rising and falling.

  Crawling over to him, Mike checked his pulse… and didn’t find one.

  Gib was dead… as was the device.

  “Everything all right up there? Over,” Aimee said over the radio.

  With a shaking hand, Mike took the radio from a shell-shocked Mai and replied, “No, we’re not okay… I don’t think we’ll ever be okay.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  With the sun starting to rise behind them, the light cracking over the top of the hill, a dark shadow split the yellow line as the monstrous croatoan mech breached the horizon and made its way over the hill.

  Vingo hissed a string of what Denver assumed were expletives given the tone in which they were given. The tredeyan looked over his shoulder and veered the catamaran across the rocky shoreline, the engines kicking up a spray of pebbles and shells behind in its wake.

  “It’s going to shoot,” Denver said. “Do something!”

  Vingo gunned the catamaran to maximum power and arced around the edge of the shoreline, sending up a rooster tail of white water spray. Denver slipped into Charlie and Layla on the bench seat, but they all held on as Vingo’s driving became increasingly more erratic.

  The first blast from the mech boomed and a fraction later a fountain of water exploded just behind and to the right of them; the waves from the blast sprayed up and over the catamaran, drenching them.

  “That was too fucking close,” Charlie said. “You really must have done something bad to piss the croatoans off.”

  “Explain later… if we survive,” Vingo said, pulling back on the controls so that the craft increased to its maximum height of ten meters off the ground. They flew over a copse of trees that lurched toward the water like great animals bending down to drink.

  Denver spotted a number of slithering, dark shapes beneath the shadowed canopy. Their forms slipped into the sea, rippling its surface. Vingo turned toward the sun and dropped the altitude until they were obscured from the mech’s view by the trees.

  Half a kilometer to their left, a cliff side rose up almost completely at ninety degrees to the shoreline. Cut through the cliff was a chasm that looked entirely too narrow to take them, but Vingo steered toward it as they continue to pick up speed.

  “I hope he knows what he’s doing,” Layla said, clutching onto Denver’s arm with her gauntlet. Charlie, next to him, gripped the side of the cockpit with a grimace on his face, as another blast struck just above their position, knocking down a huge chunk of stone.

  It echoed with each impact as it tumbled down the cliff face. Vingo managed to easily swerve around it, which brought them within a straight run for the chasm. Even with the lights on, Denver couldn’t make out any details in the dark shadowy gap.

  “Where are we going?” Denver asked.

  “Away from the mech,” Vingo replied, still not giving anything away.

  They flew with great speed into the chasm. Vingo hadn’t quite got his approach lined up and the left edge of the catamaran slid along the rough-hewn sides, sending vibrations through the hull and creating an awful screeching sound.

  A few adjustments and the panicked tredeyan found the right space between the two cliff sides. Denver just hoped it wouldn’t narrow any time soon. At this rate, they’d have no way of avoiding it. Once they were inside, the whine of the engine echoed around the split in the cliff, making it sound like they were deep inside a cave.

  Rushing water below them frothed around rocks and splashed up in squalls of white water as the tributary narrowed. Thankfully the gap between each face of the cliff remained the same distance apart, making Denver realize that it was probably made this way by the tredeyans to filter some of the water into other parts of the planet’s surface.

  Layla seemed to be thinking the same thing when she asked, “Where does the water go?”

  “Underground, into water-pumping stations. Hold on, we’re coming to a difficult branch. Where’s the mech?”

  Denver and Charlie looked behind them. At first it seemed they had avoided it, but when Denver lifted his head to look up to the sky, a massive shadow blotted out the tall, thin gap of sun.

  “The bastard’s still on us,” Denver said. “Above us, on the other right cliff—”

  The sudden lurching bank to the left cut off his words. He slid into Layla and they both crashed into Vingo. The catamaran flew out of a narrow gap at the end of the cliff, the base of its hull scraping against the rough stone.

  Their momentum took them out over a cascading waterfall.

  “Jump!” Vingo yelled as the craft fell away from them.

  A blast exploded at the rear of their position, crumbling more rock into the rapid white water. The blast caught the rear of the catamaran, flipping it stern over bow. Denver, Charlie, and Layla suddenly became victims of gravity and descended into the waterfall.

  Denver tried to grab Layla, but the force of the water knocked him sideways. He crashed into an outcrop, jarring his outstretched arm and sending him cartwheeling out into the rushing rapid below.

  He just caught sight of Charlie and Vingo splashing into the water and their helmets bobbing along. When Denver hit the water, he automatically held his breath out of habit, forgetting that the environmental suit provided his air.

  The sound muffled, though, as his external mics picked up the crashing of the water. He tried to reach for the control panel on his arm to switch the mics off, but the force of the water was too strong even for the suit’s servo-assistance.

  “Layla!” he yelled. “Charlie?”

  No answer, just gurgling noises and another blast coming from somewhere up ahead. His body struck a rock, but the impact was lessened by the dampening within the suit. The shock of the direction change still made him wince.

  His head rose briefly out of the water. He was facing back toward the cliffs now shrinking behind him as though they were nothing more than small rocky outcroppings. The croatoan mech turned and headed back to the east, its shape silhouetted by the rising sun. It either assumed they were dead in the blast, or that they would soon be dead, which didn’t fill him with much confidence as the raging water continued to drag him away to god knows where.

  ***

  Denver lost track of how long he had floated before he came to a stop. For a while he knew he had fallen asleep, exhausted by the constant flood of adrenalin in his body. His muscles were sore and cramped and the water and air provided by the suit made his mouth dry and crack at the corners.

  He became aware that his body was slumped up against something solid and stationary. “Hello?” he said. “Anyone hear me?”

  No answer. Where the hell were they? They couldn’t be that far out of range. The alternative was too much to bear. They’d come all this way, survived for this long, he couldn’t handle it if they had died during a bit of a swim.

  “Talk to me, dammit!” he yelled, letting the unfamiliar feelings of fear and panic go with a single exhalation. “If you can hear me, just stay where you are, make some noise or movement, I’ll come find you.”

  Denver gritted his teeth and forced his body to move up. He discovered he had hit a rock and stuck there as the speed and power of the rapid had dulled to what now looked like a barely moving brook. The sun had risen above the now-distant cliffs, shining brightly down onto his position.

  He was in an open area with fields to his right beyond a steep bank some five or so meters high. To his left was a shallow sloped cliff face rising up in a gentle arc. Large-winged creatures flew lazily over his position, circling far above. He got the distinct impression they were looking at him as a potential meal.

  He searched around him for a gun, but he had lost that during the fall. All he had on him was the combat knife attached to the suit. He pulled it free with his right hand and kept it ready to use.

  Making his way to the narrow shoreline beneath the shallow cliff, he saw dark shadows swimming in the water. He stopped and crouched d
own, looking into the water. The visor’s polarizing filter automatically kicked in, removing the flashing reflections from the surface, giving him an almost x-ray vision into the water.

  The shadows were three times as long as an average human man and twice as wide. Now that he looked closer, he spotted that there were at least a dozen of them moving like snakes through the water.

  Denver stepped back quietly away from the water, not wanting to get their attention. Even with the suit, he didn’t fancy his chances against a school of alien snake-sharks or whatever hideous creature they were.

  Trudging along the shore, Denver kept talking, hoping one of the others on his frequency would reply. He must have walked for at least an hour. His limbs were growing tired and his chest tightened with every breath. He really need to rest, eat, and recuperate. Even his athletic, fit body couldn’t handle too much of the exertions that they’d had to go through since they got here.

  He let his mind wander as he trudged on until he came to a makeshift dam that stopped the flow of the water. The shadows of the water predators reached it and swam around in circles for a moment before heading back. He realized then that they must have been tracking him—what else could have followed him that he hadn’t had the awareness to notice.

  This was not like him; he prided himself on being a great hunter back home, but then he had to admit that he wasn’t exactly in a familiar environment, and he was so tired he could just collapse where he stood and let the local wildlife crack open his suit like a tin of spam.

  Even the thought of biting into a lump of spam made his mouth water.

  With a grim smile he knew it was bad when he craved that muck.

  Come on, Den, get a grip, he thought, urging himself to carry on.

  He reached the dam. The top was ridged into what looked like a walkway. With no other way to go, he crossed it, walking carefully, making sure the structure, made from some kind of gray material, wasn’t about to send him into the hungry mouths of the snake-shark things.