He kept pounding until the door slid open and her unkempt face greeted him.
“Kale, c’mon, what?” she stuck her head out of the doorway, squinting her eyes at the light. She heard the gunfire. It was much closer than before. “What was that?”
“That. Let’s get out of here,” he said, gesturing at the ship in the middle of the hangar. He began to pull her out of the room when to his right, down a hallway, he saw two men, two of the researchers, come running around it only to fall in a heap. Three more men quickly followed. They were armed and armored. Kale quickly pushed Ayia into the room, tapping the console that shut the door. He was instantly thrown into complete darkness and he fumbled on the same console until it lit up. It gave off just enough glow while he looked around quickly, finding a small lamp by the bed. He turned it on and began digging around the room.
“You don’t have a gun do you?” he whispered.
Her stunned look was all the answer he needed.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“Not a clue.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“We need a name for the girl. She’s locked up in the ship. Gheno should be in there too.”
More gunfire rang out, directly outside of the door in the hangar. There were shouts, some muffled, most some unrecognizable, and then men began to shout in unison. Kale put a finger to his mouth as he looked at Ayia, who was still a little dazed having been woken from a deep sleep just a few minutes ago. He put his head closer to the door and listened to the men shouting.
“God is near! God is near!”
Kale motioned Ayia over to listen as well.
“You ever heard that?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “Religious nuts?”
“Probably,” he answered. One thing Kale had discovered in his travels across many different systems was that the one thing humans always managed to create or recreate on each and every planet was religion. The main religions to come out of Earth were based on Christianity and Islam and had quickly turned into a mix or hybrid of these two. All forms of Buddhism thrived as well as the Indian religions of Hinduism on the planets they mostly colonized. Shamanism and Animism ruled in the fringes or on the planets sparsely populated by those who wanted a return to nature. New versions continued to pop up all over while newer and wilder religions were formed from whatever nutjob decided he had encountered god in some jungle, desert or mountain. Some claimed they had found revelation in the stars and void of space. While he couldn’t deny faith, Kale knew that most of these religious people tended to lose logic, especially when their religion allowed for violence in its name.
Kale turned away from the door, thinking of his next move. Outside in the hangar were an uncounted number of men with weapons, chanting to their god. Depending on the weapons, he could be safe inside of his ship and at least he could get to his own weapon. Ayia was having her own train of thought, and was rummaging through her belongings. She pulled out a small black device and turned to smile at Kale. She tossed it over to Kale who barely caught it in the dim light. It was a small communicator tied into his suit, which at this point would be connected to the ship while recharging.
“When did you…? Ah, forget it,” he started.
He looked the communicator over, found the power switch, and brought it online. A small digital display showed available channels. He quickly found the suits channel, waited for the light to turn green showing a digital connection, then began speaking.
“Gheno? You there? Can you hear this?”
The suit was tucked away in a closet in the main room. It wouldn’t be very loud, but if they were in the room, they could hear it.
“Gheno? You have to hear this.”
There was a crackle, and as Kale looked back down at the communicator, he noticed the signal turn yellow, transmitting, but he heard nothing.
“Oh. Gheno, put the helmet on. It’ll pick up that way.”
An instant later, the light turned yellow again.
“Kale? What is going on?” Gheno asked, fear in his voice.
“Stay put. You and the girl just need to stay put. I need you to find the guns. I have mine in the hatch I showed you next to the door, and there are some of those plasma rifles down below in the reactor room. Do it quietly though.”
“Yeah, ok. But the girl, she came in, told me to stay here, and then left.”
Kale looked at Ayia in shock.
“She what?”
“She left. Said she was going after something.”
He didn’t have time for a rescue at this moment. He just needed an escape plan. That’s when they heard the voice.
“Ayia!” The shout came from outside the door, in the hangar. It was a voice they had heard before. Kale knew he recognized it, but couldn’t find it in his memories. He turned to look and saw that Ayia remembered when he saw her eyes.
“That little shit.”
“Ayia. Come out. We have all of your researcher friends rounded up.”
“Wait. It’s that kid that’s in love with you. The one that tried to blow up my ship!” Kale growled.
Cruxe stood next to Samuel Easton, who was clad in white robes, covered in a white metallic breastplate with the sign of a cross with three circles attached to the top of the cross. Seventeen of the researchers, laborers and students had been rounded up. Countless others were killed. Numerous other men in similar white robes and armor stood around with rifles, some pointed at the captured men. These they were lined up on their knees on the hangar floor. They all had their hands on their heads, except for Oganno, whose hands were on the floor. Some of Cruxe’s men were also among them, like black sheep among the white, rugged and unkempt. One of them was dragging a body away from a doorway.
The men kept chanting “God is near” until Samuel Easton raised his hand and they stopped.
“Call her,” he ordered Cruxe.
Cruxe had accepted their offer because he had hoped for fame and recognition. He had found himself being used by an eccentric egomaniac that seemed to have lost most of his touch with reality. In the weeks since he was hired, he had seen his ship overtaken by the religious men and then left back behind in some forsaken planet and the ruthless hunt for the Midnight Oil reach the small base on Devil’s Den. Their resources were impressive, but their violent natures came as a surprise. Cruxe was no stranger to religious fanatics, and knew them to get carried away, but the sense of hatred for anything that opposed them frightened even the son of a criminal warlord.
“Ayia!” he shouted. Some part of him hoped she wasn’t here, because he didn’t see it ending well.
“Ayia. Come out. We have all of your researcher friends rounded up.”
“You have ten seconds before we start killing these men, one by one,” Samuel’s voice boomed through the hangar. The man certainly had a way with commanding his voice. He pointed at Oganno and one of the white robed men raised him up.
“Long have I followed you. Your work could find God, but instead you toil for dirt and discovery,” he said, eloquently, almost innocently.
“I know you too. You’ll never find god at the end of a gun,” Oganno had a smidge of blood on the corner of his mouth. His long white hair came undone and was frazzled and matted with something dark.
“Perhaps not. But I think today you may,” Samuel said.
“What do you even want here?” Oganno asked.
“That ship has gone beyond,” he said, pointing at the Midnight Oil, “you know of this, and we need it.”
“The hook?” Oganno looked genuinely surprised, “You're here for that? You had to kill half of my men, good men, men with families?”
“No others may control the way to God. We must find him first.”
Samuel nodded at the man standing next to Oganno. The man grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the ground in front of Samuel.
“I know the old man is important to you. His life should be important as well. Release the ship to us and he may yet l
ive,” Samuel shouted out to the hangar.
“Kale, don’t,” Oganno started, but was silenced by a boot kicked into his stomach. The old man gasped, struggling to breathe.
A door across the hangar slid open and Kale and Ayia walked out. Cruxe sighed when he saw she was actually there.
“See, as simple as that,” Samuel nodded his head and two of the armored men walked over to them with their rifles aimed at them. Kale and Ayia raised their hands up admitting defeat. The crusaders walked them over to Samuel. Kale met the man’s gaze. His red beard was drizzled with someone’s blood.
“What do you want?” Kale asked, keeping his temper under control.
“The ship. Unlock it and release all your controls of it to us,” Samuel ordered.
“Then we walk?”
“You? Sure. The girl there belongs to the boy here who helped us. These men though, all must die as none can be allowed to find the way to God.” Samuel pointed at line of kneeling men, some who began begging.
“WHAT? No…” Kale began to leap at Samuel when thunder ripped through the hangar. A loud piercing sound was followed by the sound of metal shearing. Behind them and behind the Midnight Oil a whole section of the hangar wall came crashing down and all of the crusaders were startled. Two of the men began going around the Midnight Oil when a giant metallic form came through the dust and debris, crashing on top of them. A mass of blood, bone and white armor and robe snapping sprayed beneath it. In a second, the rest of the crusaders opened fire on the twenty foot beast, their bullets sparks flying off of it. It raised one hand, revealing a long tube that glowed green for a brief moment and then shot a green jagged bolt that instantly vaporized two more men. Kale reached out to grab Ayia, but Samuel had already taken her and was running towards the doorway of the mess hall. The scientists scattered in the opposite direction as Crusader and pirate alike focused their attention on the metal warrior in their path.
Oganno leapt forward, catching Kale and dragging him under the Midnight Oil.
“What the hell is that thing,” he shouted, barely hearing himself over the gunfire that was followed every few seconds by static build up and discharge of the green bolt.
“That’s one of our deep core miners. It’s a piloted mech. It’s a slow unwieldy thing, hard to use,” Oganno kept his eyes on the machine. It took a few quick steps, swinging its arm down and in one swoop crushing the life out of another crusader. From the same arm a hand formed, with fingers, and it picked up a second crusader by the head and snapped it clean off. It then turned and threw the head at a pirate that was hiding behind some crates, hitting the partially hidden man directly in the head, knocking him back. The other arm then charged and unleashed another green bolt and one more crusader vanished in green mist.
Kale crawled all the way under the ship to the other side, stood up next to the hatch, tapped his code in and the door slid open. Gheno was standing there with the rifles and his side arm.
“You read my mind,” Kale said, grabbing the weapons. Gheno smiled at him and was about to take a step out when Kale pushed him back in.
“Hey…” he shouted as Kale punched his code back in and the hatch slid shut again.
He handed Oganno one of the rifles and saw one of the other researchers that took cover next to some crates. They made eye contact and he slid the rifle over to him and then took cover in the same crates. Smoke and a sickly smelling green mist began to fill the hangar. Past the iron giant, Kale spotted a whole new group of white armored men come pouring out into the hangar. There were at least twenty more. The religious nut had brought his personal army. To their right Kale could see Samuel holding Ayia down to the ground by her neck.
The mech swung its arm down directly onto one of the crusaders. It buckled its body under when the upper torso swung to meet the new barrage of bullets flying in its direction from the line of crusaders. Kale heard a clicking sound and a small compartment opened up in the middle of the mech. A loud alarm started blaring from the mech and the small box erupted in a flash of streaming red blazes.
“The mining bolts, used to tie or bolt things down in the mines,” Oganno explained.
The super-heated bolts poured out of the chest of the mech, raining fire on the first line of crusaders. The bolts easily melted through the armor, cutting through each man and at times into the next. A whole swath of men was cut down as the smell of burnt flesh was quickly added to the battlefield. The rest of the men scattered behind anything they could find: crates, boxes of equipment, or overturned tables.
Kale saw Samuel shout into his wrist and the white armored men began to retreat back down the hallway. Kale took aim and hit one of Cruxe’s men in the leg, bringing him down. He looked beyond him and saw Samuel. He was dragging a fighting Ayia. He tried to grab her by both arms but met resistance. Kale had no chance in firing from that distance and began to move to their right to get closer. Whoever was riding the mech was clearly on his side.
“Well, I hope he is,” he guessed.
He ran up to the far wall of the hangar. The mech began following the men down the larger hallway and was standing at the very end of it firing green bolts. Kale reached the door to the mess hall where Ayia was, and took a quick peek. The mess hall connected with the main hallway at the far end and that is where Kale saw an unknown person jump the religious leader, clubbing him with the end of his rifle. He appeared to be one of the crusaders, as he or she was dressed in the robes and white armor. For a moment Kale thought they had found some help, but that realization turned to horror when he saw the same man punch Ayia once, knocking her out. He picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder.
Kale shouted and ran into the room, only to duck quickly behind one of the tables as bullets whizzed by his head. He fired his weapon towards the direction of the gunfire and heard no response. He looked cautiously over the table and saw nothing. He ducked around the table and ran back towards the end of the mess hall. He could see out through the door that led into the main hallway and there saw the mech turn and face him. Two dead pirates lay slumped down in the door in various stages of dismemberment. The mech swung back and fired a few more shots before disappearing down the hallway.
He reached the doorway and almost slipped in the men’s blood. He looked down and could see only smoke, haze and that green mist that seemed to be everywhere now. Whoever took Ayia were down that way. Oganno reached him and stood next to him.
“Isn’t that towards the main hangar? The main exit?” Kale asked.
“Yeah, however they got in, it was through there.”
“Any other way to get there?”
“No, but we can get to control and lock it down.” Oganno pointed back into the hangar the Midnight Oil was and began running. As they entered the hangar once again, Oganno shouted, “Mikel, find anyone who can walk, and help those who can’t. Get down into the bunker and lock it down. Don’t open until I tell you to and send the ParSec signal.”
Kale recognized Mikel as the man he gave the rifle to. He nodded his head and began running.
“This way,” Oganno pointed at a door way near where the mech came through the wall.
The door slid open and they stepped inside the elevator. Oganno punched a code in to release the emergency brakes and hit the top button, a letter C. The doors slid shut and the elevator began to rise. Twenty seconds later, the door opened up again into the main control tower. It was the only part of the entire base that was above ground. It was a small room with a 360 view of the outside world. Two men were sitting at chairs and swung around when the door opened.
“Oganno, what the hell is going on? We got hacked and we’ve been trying to reach you,” one of them started.
“We were attacked. Are you able to get a signal out?”
“No, nothing. We’re completely locked out.”
Oganno reached one of the screens, and put his hand on the screen. That action brought up a second screen where he typed in his own personal code. Suddenly the screens went blac
k for a few seconds, and then came back up.
“There overridden. I need radar and nav IDs up now. We also need Hangar A on complete lockdown,” Oganno shouted.
Kale ran up to one of the windows and looked down to where Hangar A was. Its top door was already open.
“Too late,” Kale pointed.
A small black ship, shaped like a half crescent, began rising out of the hangar.
“Do we have nav IDS up yet?” Oganno shouted.
The two men typed commands furiously on the screens. “THERE!”
The windows began to light up with information. It was a Scythe Mark D class ship, ID unknown. As the smaller black ship continued to rise, it began to point upward and move with more speed. Kale and Oganno watched when a larger white vessel came out from the hangar. Its ID came up immediately. It was a Hagger Build M Corvette, ID belonging to Samuel Easton and the Church of God is Near. The ship hovered over the planet’s surface and began moving away along the surface away from the base.
Kale ran to the elevator. “Get me the ID on that black ship. Someone else was here and they got Ayia. I need to know who that is.”
The men and the controls nodded and turned back to the screens. Oganno joined him in the elevator and they began to go back down. As the door to the hangar opened again, and they stepped out, a voice crackled over Oganno’s wrist.
“Hangar A is clear, the two ships are gone, no fighting. We have full control of the station and ParSec is on its way over.” The voice was from one of the men up in the control tower.
Kale and Oganno reached the Midnight Oil just as the mech came back marching into the hangar. Kale was apprehensive as the large machine whirled and ground to a halt just in front of them. There was a hiss and a popping sound was followed by the front chest cavity opening up and Kale was greeted by the smile of a young girl in long white hair.
The Emperor's Daughter (Sentinel Series Book 1) Page 22
