by Jan Domagala
The last clone came at Matt once more but he heard the approach and hit him with a side kick that stopped his approach dead, then a follow up sledge hammer right cross took him off his feet and over the railing.
Apollo had stood by the side of Tanya as the fight took place. The large clone watched with serious intent at the way Matt moved, studying his fighting techniques and his speed and strength. When the last of the clones went down Apollo realised that this man was someone to be watched, maybe even feared.
Matt turned to face Apollo with a smile across his face. He was ready for this clone, he had already faced him so knew what to expect. He had tasted what Apollo could dish out and knew he could take him so he was confident. By the look in the large clone’s eyes he was eager to get his revenge on Matt for showing him up in front of Tanya earlier.
Now was his chance but Matt had other ideas.
Apollo knew what he had to do and he couldn’t wait around for Matt to make his move. He had to move first to ensure he had his revenge.
Apollo rushed at Matt, anger contorting his features into a grimace of hatred. He tackled Matt around the waist, his shoulder embedded deep into Matt’s stomach. The two of them collided against the railings of the balcony and Matt let out a grunt of pain. Apollo took this as a sign he had got his man where he wanted, he couldn’t be any more wrong.
Matt raised up his right arm and slammed the point of his elbow into the spine of the lowered back in front of him. The pain from the blow ushered a scream from Apollo who arched his back in reflex. Matt put his other hand under the upturned head forcing Apollo to arch his back further then, reaching down between the clone’s legs, he grabbed and lifted him up and threw him over the railing.
Apollo suddenly found himself flying over the railing facing a drop of over twenty feet. Apollo reached out with a hand and just managed to grab the railing as he was sent hurtling over it. He collided with the wall beneath which almost made him lose his grip.
Tanya had watched it all with fascination and when Matt was the only man left standing she took off sprinting across the balcony to a door in the distance.
Matt saw her run off and knew that, as fast as he was he would never catch her before the alarm could be raised and all hell broke loose, so he did the only thing he could do. He let her go. Apollo would climb back over the railing soon too so he ran off also in the opposite direction.
Accessing a secure comm. link via his NI while he ran he was soon connected, “Okay Guardian, make your run,” he said.
II
The Hyperion
Tony Storm was pacing across the Ready Room slowly, he knew time was getting short and the longer Matt was in the base, if that’s what it was, the chance of getting him out alive were diminishing rapidly.
He felt the familiar tingle of a call being routed through his NI and he waited for the software to recognise it and transfer it to his brain, it seemed an interminably long time but he knew it was almost instantaneous. When he heard the call he turned to his teammates and said, “We’re on.” Then he accessed another secure comm. channel and contacted the next link in the chain.
“Colonel De Boer, make the jump sir, we’re going in.”
III
The Legend, on the Edge of the Solar System
Colonel Anton De Boer was a career veteran of the Recon Delta. He had worked with the Wildfire Team before on various missions and had been crucial to the rescue of Kurt Stryder and Natasha Garvey from Tartaran not too long ago. The moment the call from Guardian came in he was sitting in his quarters in the Starship Legend going over some performance reports of the men under his command. Forever the professional soldier he was never really ever off duty. Recon Delta was his life, his family and because of that he would go to any length to ensure their safety.
“Copy that,” was all he said in reply and immediately got to his feet to leave his room. He contacted the captain of the Legend through a secure channel via his NI, “Captain, the call just came in, make the jump,” and then he was gone from his room. He reached the elevator close to the end of the corridor where his room was situated. He accessed the controls and rode it down to the cargo bay area where he knew his troops were going through weapons drills in the final preparation for their departure and engaging the enemy.
As he approached the cargo bay area he watched the elite troop practise their handling of their Remm M25 assault rifles. They were as sharp as they were going to get and now it was time to put all that practise to good use.
“Listen up,” he said to get their attention as he stood overlooking them, “We’re making the jump so make any final prep you need. We drop the second we arrive. You all know the drill, you were all at the final briefing, let’s go do this,” he said and walked into the room to gather up all the equipment he would need for this mission.
As he reached for a Remm M25 from a weapons locker he had no idea what they were heading in to.
13
I
The Cronus
Kurt and Zara appeared in a blinding flash of light that burned the eyes of the soldiers who had been looking in their direction. They fell to their knees holding hands over their eyes, their weapons discarded as they tried vainly to prevent the light from seeping through their eyelids.
They were in a corridor leading to a destination that Zara had kept from Kurt lest he tried to prevent her from going there. They had their weapons drawn in front of them the moment the light vanished. Remm M25 assault rifles aimed in front of them at whatever target presented itself. Kurt stepped forward and smashed the point of his rifle butt into the face of the nearest soldier who went down hard. The two others were beginning to recover and they reached for their own sidearms. Before they could draw them Zara hosed them with her Remm, pulsed plasma bolts stitched a path across their torsos sending blood cascading across their chests.
Kurt looked around to see where they were, all the corridors looked the same but his abilities gave him an uncanny ability to know where he was once he had seen a map of the area or, like in this case, a schematic of a ship.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he asked when the realisation hit him of the danger they were in.
“No, well a little, maybe, but think of the damage we can cause from here,” she pleaded with a slight smile on her face.
Before he could respond to her comment, the door at the end of the corridor to their left opened to reveal the bridge beyond. An officer dressed in the uniform of an Alliance Black Knight appeared in the doorway. He reached for his sidearm the second he saw the mayhem caused by Kurt and Zara in the corridor before him.
Kurt saw his expression alter as he accessed the computer via his NI; he was going to give out their location over the ship’s wide broadcast channel.
Quickly he brought up his assault rifle and fired then grabbed Zara’s arm and activated his SUT. Before the Black Knight could sound the alert a pulsed plasma bolt struck him in his head dropping him like a stone. Less than a second later and before Zara could do or say anything, Kurt had clamped his hand down on his wrist and a blinding flash engulfed them both.
II
The Pulsar
“What the hell are they doing over there?” asked Torres to no one in particular. They were all getting anxious at the delay; Kurt and Zara were supposed to have left by now.
Suddenly light exploded in the middle of the bridge, first from a pinprick then expanding until it almost filled the whole room. Just as suddenly it was gone, imploding in on itself leaving two figures in its stead.
“You sonofabitch,” Zara snarled at him as she yanked her wrist out of his grip.
“There was nothing we could do there and you know it,” Kurt countered, his anger flaring in response to hers. “You jeopardised the mission with that hare-brained stunt,” he added.
“What’re you worried about, they couldn’t have killed us, we’re indestructible,” she argued confidently, a little too confidently in Kurt’s opinion.
�
��That’s not the point Zara and you know it. If we had got ourselves captured who knows what they would’ve done to us. People could’ve died because of us, is that what you want to happen?”
“We were there to save lives!” she exclaimed.
“You were reckless and we can’t afford that, not with our abilities. We can’t allow ourselves to be captured, if that happens then any advantage we have over the Alliance is lost. They’ll subject us to experiments so they can make others like us. Do you really want our troops to have to face an army of soldiers like us, or worse, like what they turned Norsky into?” he said as the memory of what they had done to one of their own came back to him. Captain Pavel Norsky was the undercover agent who captured Kurt and handed him over to the Alliance. They had planned to duplicate the experiment that had given Kurt his abilities and they had changed him far more than they had realised. Later his DNA had been spliced with a creature from Tartaran, which had caused him to mutate into a horrific monster that Zara had stopped but only after a fight that almost cost them their lives. He was surprised that the memory was not as vivid with her as it was with him.
He saw the memory of what they had gone through on the lunar base strike her with sledgehammer force. She looked around at the faces of the Wildfire Team as they watched what was going on between the two of them. They all wore worried expressions and she knew then that what Kurt had said was the truth. She had been reckless, she had been seduced by the knowledge of what she could do and she had become complacent.
“I’m sorry, you’re right,” she said her voice breaking. This was not who she was, she knew, she hoped she had not damaged any trust she had earned in the group.
“Let’s not worry about it now. We still have a job to do and we can’t do it without you two, so are you two good?” Jake asked intervening to break the mood.
Kurt nodded his head and Zara did the same. Kurt held out his hand to her and she haltingly took it and then the white light engulfed them once more.
Jake and the team turned away to shield their eyes and when the light vanished so too had Kurt and Zara.
“Okay people, let’s get ready. They are going to need our help very soon and I will not let them down,” Jake said.
III
Omega HQ, RH426
Matt ran through the underground base looking for a means to stop Tanya and her nefarious organisation. He had left Apollo and the clones he had attacked behind and knew that very soon more would be looking for him.
There was a doorway leading off the balcony he was on and as he reached it he heard an alarm reverberate throughout the base.
They were on to him.
He had to arm himself otherwise his journey would be a short one. He couldn’t afford to wait for his backup to arrive. He had a job to do and he would get it done, or die trying.
He came across another bend in the corridor and he heard footsteps getting nearer. He pressed himself against the wall near the edge of the bend out of sight of anyone approaching. By the sounds of the footfalls he could tell it was only two people.
He saw them as they rounded the bend. Two Rover5s dressed in combat fatigues each with pistols drawn and held out on the standard two-handed grip, arms extended for maximum stability.
He grabbed the nearest one holding the pistol hand with his left then rammed the point of his right elbow into the face of the clone. Blood and smashed teeth erupted from the damaged mouth and the clone stumbled enabling Matt to rip the pistol from him. Matt stepped away and shot the second clone in the head before turning the weapon on the first for another double tap. Both clones fell to the ground at his feet, dead.
He stooped down to check them for extra battery clips for the pistol, a new Magerov P12, a weapon he was unfamiliar with. After rummaging through the dead clones’ pockets he discovered a few and then he left the lifeless forms.
Now he was able to better defend himself and continue with what he had planned.
He wanted to disable the facility and cause as much mayhem as possible until his support arrived to finish them off, but once he saw the scale of the place he doubted his plan would work. Nevertheless he would do what he could.
The familiar tingle in his NI alerted him to a call being routed through. He recognised the voice the moment the encoding had been completed.
“Captain Hawk, our ETA is three minutes,” Guardian said.
Matt smiled, he knew now he had a better chance of completing his mission.
Selecting the schematics of the facility he had covertly downloaded from the computer upon his arrival, he set off for his chosen destination.
14
I
Tartaran
Kurt and Zara had appeared close to the city that had been discovered on his last trip to the deadly planet. It was a long, low flat structure that resembled nothing he had ever seen before. There were no odd angles and no strange curvatures; it could’ve been a structure on any planet in the Confederation. It was purpose built to sustain life from the deadly creatures that inhabited this world, of that he was sure.
No one knew who had built it, just that it was there. The assumption was that it had been the original inhabitants of the planet who had constructed it and that the creatures that now ruled the world were the results of experiments that had turned on them, either wiping them out or forcing them to abandon their home world for somewhere better suited to their needs.
It was possible visitors to the world had carried out experiments on the indigenous life forms, then they had simply left although there was no evidence to support that hypothesis.
They were a few hundred feet from one of the entrances to the building and Kurt looked around him warily at their surroundings.
“Come on, let’s get inside,” he urged.
“What’s the hurry?” Zara asked a little surprised by the worried look on his face.
“Remember those creatures you saw down in HQ not so long ago?” he asked as he started jogging towards the building.
“What about them?” she asked increasing her pace to keep up.
“They came from here, and there’s a hell of a lot more of them and things that are even worse,” Kurt explained as he ran, his head turned this way then that to see if he could see anything approaching. The creatures that inhabited this world had a natural aggression aimed at humans and he knew that pretty soon, somehow, they would sense their presence on the surface and then they would be in trouble.
Zara didn’t say anything as she remembered the battle she had fought deep in the bowels of Area 15 with two of the octo-felines. Even with all her impressive strength and other abilities it was a hard fought battle that had pushed her to her very limits, or so she had thought at the time. That had only involved two creatures, what if there were more and they all attacked? It was a thought she did not want to dwell upon. She increased her pace actually getting in front of him saying, “What’re you waiting for, get a move on man.”
A cry of pure hate-fuelled rage rent the air above them as they neared the structure and their enhanced hearing picked up the sound of massive wings beating the air. Kurt glanced skyward to confirm what his hearing had already told him. What he saw chilled his blood.
A flock of winged creatures that must have numbered over fifty were heading their way.
“Run,” he shouted to spur Zara on.
She glanced over her shoulder to see what he meant, then saw what he had been looking at, a huge flock of monster birds coming straight for them.
Huge wings, each over thirty-five feet long beat the air as the long-bodied creatures swooped in for the kill. They had elongated heads with long serrated beaks and huge talons on each of the four claw-like feet. The multi-coloured plumage that adorned them belied their deadly nature.
One of the creatures broke away from the flock to swoop down towards the two fleeing figures in a sort of test run.
Kurt grabbed Zara and increased his pace to that of a sprint, pulling her along to ensure she didn’t fall beh
ind. Angrily she slapped his hand away and put on a spurt of speed that left him behind.
Kurt couldn’t help but smile at the tenacity of the woman and increased his own pace to match hers. Now it was a race to see who would get to the entrance first.
The huge creature was nearing them; its speed was unbelievable as its massive wings powered it through the air. Zara reached the doorway a half step in front of Kurt who collided with her in the doorway. The huge bird monster reared up as it came in to land, beating its wings frantically to slow its descent enough so it didn’t crash into the building.
Kurt pushed Zara to the floor so he could get his Remm assault rifle around from his back where it was slung on its belt. He aimed at the huge head of the creature and fired a continuous stream of pulsed plasma bolts directly at it. Blood sprayed out from each hit as the bolts tore up the flesh of the massive head then cauterising the wounds almost immediately.
“Get this door open now while I hold this bastard off,” Kurt shouted as the Remm bucked in his strong hands.
Without a word, Zara squirmed through his legs from her prone position on the floor and stood up behind him. As fast as she could she accessed the door-locking panel using her NI. Within seconds she had navigated through the security protocols in place and had the door easing open. She went through and grabbed Kurt by the collar and dragged him through after her. The second he was through the narrow opening she slammed the door shut preventing the creature and any more of them from gaining access to them.
Zara slammed Kurt against the wall and faced up to him. Her face was almost red with anger.
“What have I told you about pushing me out of the way of danger?” she snarled in his face.
Irritated by her misreading of the situation, he said, “I just needed to get at my rifle to shoot that fucker,” louder than he meant to. He pushed her away from him but she slapped his hands away once more and slammed him against the wall again. This time though she slowly leant forward and kissed him passionately on the mouth.
