I tried to ignore the last emotion, but it was probably the most potent motivator the tiger in my soul felt. I didn’t think Juliette was my woman, but the monster sure as hell did, and he was angry that some fucker was keeping her from me.
Other side of this door.
Eve’s voice came in my mind as I turned left into a hallway. My sensitive ears could hear distant shouting through the halls, but it was in a language I didn’t know. I didn’t hear any voices or movement on the other side of the door where Eve and I ducked, but I trusted the woman’s powers.
I leveled my shotgun at the door and pulled the trigger until the screams on the other side stopped.
They are dead. More coming from ahead in the main hallway.
I spun around Eve and leaned out from the corner. The far door was fifteen meters away, but the handle was starting to twist open. I pumped another volley of slugs into the metal of the door and was rewarded with a series of agonized screams. The sounds poured through the holes my slugs resonated like a sweet symphony of death, and I let out a roar of pleasure as I yanked on my trigger more.
They are returning fi--
Eve started to say in my mind, but I had already ducked back around the corner and pushed her behind me. Hundreds of rifle bullets sprayed down the hallway and chewed into the corner where we hid and bounced off the floor. I put a fresh drum in my shotgun and realized that I was being a bit wasteful with ammo. I only had one more drum on my belt, and there were many more fuckers who needed a slug punched through their skulls.
Now. Aim down left on the door.
I twisted back around the corner with Eve’s command and punched three slugs through the door slightly down and left of the center before I swung back around the corner. I didn’t hear any screams at first, but I did a few seconds later.
One more. He is falling back to meet with the reinforcements. We are going to be pinched between the group ahead of us and the group on the left in a few minutes.
“Shit!” Kasta said. “The Black Heart leader is reloading his pistol and stepping back into the cell.”
“Zea?” I asked as anger threatened to turn my vision red.
“I just broke into the harbor!” she shouted through my transponder with relief. “I’m four minutes ahead of schedule. Working on the docking manifests next, but I’m expecting it to take another ten minutes.”
“Should I ask Nikki to leave our dock and move over to Harbor B?” Madalena asked, and I heard an echo of the pulse rifle fire come from my transponder and the direction where she guarded the front door.
“Just give me four minutes to make sure I’m making headway,” Zea said. “If we exit now, they might not let us dock again, and then we’ll be screwed if we want to escape.”
I was about to tell her that the chances of escaping, even if we wanted to, were slim to none, but I kept my mouth closed, and focused on surviving the next few minutes. I really needed another shooter up here with Eve and me, but I couldn’t pull Madalena from her position without leaving our rear exposed. The obvious choice was for Eve and me to fall back to the lobby. Then we could hold off the combined group of mercenaries in this tunnel.
But it would take forever to clear them out, and Warren Royzar would just kill more innocents in the meantime. I needed to get to that fucker as soon as possible.
Then I got a crazy idea.
“Madalena, do you have a smoke grenade?” I recalled that Mikhael had used a slim one while we were on the slaver station, but the Prime Valkyrie hadn’t put any in the stack of weapons she brought me.
“Yes,” she answered when her rifle fired paused a bit.
“Throw one into the lobby to buy us some time. Then move up through the hallway to where Eve and I are. We are punching through and down into the lower levels.”
“Yes, my lord.” I felt pleasure radiate from her and pour down the hall toward me.
“Kasta, we need directions to the lower level. I think I remember how to get there, but we are going to make a mad dash and kill any fuckers in our way.”
“Ha!” the android laughed. “You are crazy. Go straight ahead through the door you just shot full of holes, then you’ll make a right at the T intersection forty meters past that. Then second left is the stairs leading down. I see twelve fuckers coming up from those stairs you’ll have to get through, and there are ten more coming down from the stairs on the other side of that T intersection. If you don’t move fast, you’ll get stuck in between them.”
“We’ll move fast,” I said right after I heard Madalena’s grenade go off behind me.
Then the Prime Valkyrie was at my side, and we sprinted toward the door while Eve ran behind us.
“That’s the turn up ahead,” Kasta said through our transponders. “Hurry! They are coming down the stairs to your left.”
“I will use another smoke grenade,” Madalena said as she pulled a disc free of her belt with her left hand. She waited on the corner for Eve and me to pass, and then she tossed it in the opposite direction.
“Second left,” Kasta reminded us. “They are coming out with their weapons ready, but I suspect they don’t know you are coming.”
They do not think we are right here. They suspect we are still by the lobby.
“I will take the far side,” Madalena hissed at me, and then her back thrusters engaged to push her into a forward dive. I increased my sprint a bit more and then twisted around the second corner a hair of a moment after Madalena spun on her back.
The Prime Valkyrie pointed her rifle down the hallway and fired the same time I did. My slugs and her blue pulse bullets filled the passageway ahead of us, and the group of black armored men fell back against our waves of death. They screamed and tried to return fire, but their bullets sprayed the sidewalls instead of finding Madalena and me.
“The group behind you is shooting through the--” I didn’t hear the rest of Kasta’s words, I just spun around, wrapped Eve in my arms, and twisted us around so that my armored back protected her. She was wearing the same armor I was, but I didn’t want to risk her catching a bullet.
Rifle fire sprayed through the distant smoke of Madalena’s grenade. Most of the shots missed, but I felt one brush past my whiskers as I pulled Eve back around the corner. Madalena had already moved to that position, and she was spraying blue bullets across the bodies of the black armored men on the ground.
“There is a group of twelve on the bottom level,” Kasta said. “They have eyes on the only entrance. You are going to have a hard time getting inside without getting shot a bunch first.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said as I let Eve out of my arms.
The rifle fire from down the hallway continued, but Madalena reloaded her weapon, stepped to the corner next to me, and leaned out to return fire. Her weapon sounded like a high pitched snare drum, and even though she was shooting at them through her own smoke grenade, I heard distant screams of surprise when her blue bullets pierced armor.
“I’ve set the docking manifest!” Zea shouted. “Persephone is good to dock at B-13. It is the closest one I could get to us.”
“Nikki, did you hear that?” Madalena asked as she leaned back around the corner.
“Yes, Prime Valkyrie. I will move Persephone.”
“Adam, do you want us to use the drones once Persephone is docked?” Paula asked.
“Yeah,” I said as Eve and I stepped over the corpses on the ground.
“We’ll let you know when we are coming,” the engineer replied.
Eve and I reached the door leading to the stairwell, and I poked my shotgun over the side just in case Kasta had missed someone. There was no movement, and Eve didn’t alert me to anyone’s presence, so I guessed we were clear.
“Madalena!” I barked, and the Prime Valkyrie sent out a final burst of blue bullets before she pulled away from the corner and ran toward us.
“You guys have a ton of fuckers entering the station from outside,” Kasta said.
“Yeah,” I g
rowled, and hoped Persephone would be able to dock, and the drones would be able to get here in time. I doubted they would, but we might be able to hold out on the bottom levels with the other cops.
At least, that was my plan.
“He’s killed the next set of five people,” Kasta hissed as we made it to the door, and I let out a frustrated growl before the three of us moved down the stairs.
“He is a coward,” Madalena whispered in reply to my emotions, but I doubted her words were actually true. These were the actions of a man who thought he would win by pissing me off. He was confident in his abilities to capture Eve and me.
But why was he so confident?
“Hold up,” I growled, and the two women stopped as we walked down the stairs.
“What’s wrong?” Kasta asked, but the two women with me could both read my thoughts differently, and they each fixed their eyes on me.
“Kasta, what exactly is in the jail cell?” I asked. “I feel like this might be a trap.”
“Uhh. Yeah, of course it is a trap!” Zea shouted. “He knows you are coming.”
“I’m looking at the room right now, and I don’t see anything besides the mercenaries and their prisoners,” Kasta said.
“Hey,” I heard Zea say. “Look at their armor.”
“Their armor?” I heard Paula say.
“What about their armor?” Kasta asked.
“By the neck pieces, what is that?” Zea asked. “Looks like a--”
“Tube!” both of the twins said, and I felt my heart drop.
“An air tube?” Madalena asked.
“It looks like it, but it could just be the design of the armor,” the hacker said.
“Zea, can you access the station’s air systems?” I asked.
“Uhh. Yeah. I’ve already got my hands in it.” I heard her fingers pound across her controls through the transponder.
“The men at the end of the smoke intersection are moving in your direction, and the ones who entered the front lobby are inside the first hallway,” Kasta updated. “You don’t have much time to get lower.”
“We’ll keep pushing,” I said. “Zea, figure out what they are up to.”
“I’m trying!” she hissed, and I gestured for Eve and Madalena to follow me down.
We reached the bottom of the stairs a few moments later. The door leading to the jail floor here was made of thick metal, and there was a security panel on the side. A beeping red light convinced me that it was locked, but I had faith Zea would take care of it quickly.
“They just made it to where you killed the last group,” Kasta said, and I could taste the tension in her words.
“Zea, I need this door open, and you need to figure out what they are planning,” I growled.
“Fuck! I’m trying!” she shouted, and the door panel beeped green.
“They are down the hallway and pointing their rifles at that door!” Kasta warned as I grabbed the handle with my left hand and prepared to fling it open.
“Eve?” I asked as I turned to her.
“As soon as I see them, I can use my powers,” she said.
“Cover her,” I said to Madalena, and the Prime Valkyrie nodded as she stepped in front of the vampire and raised her pulse rifle.
Then I threw up the door, ducked behind the corner, and unleashed my shotgun blindly down the hallway as the mercenaries fired their own rifles.
My weapon kicked in my hand, but three bullets slammed into my shoulder while I fired. Two of them bounced off my armor, but one of them hit me like a freight train, and my arm spun around. I felt my arm pop free of my shoulder joint when I twisted backward, causing me to lean away from the corner and focus on not dropping my shotgun.
Madalena and Eve had also stepped away from the hallway, and the rate of gunfire coming from the exit made me think that Eve hadn’t been able to get a visual on the enemy.
I saw them and read their thoughts. They do have a gas system that they have just engaged. We are going to be in trouble if Zea cannot turn it off quickly. Tell me when you are ready, and I will distract them.
“Use your powers,” I growled as I rotated my shoulder and felt my arm pop back into the joint. The bullet that hit me hadn’t broken my armor, but the impact did a number on the limb beneath. My shoulder throbbed terribly, and I guessed the bullet had caused my armor to twist and break my humerus and clavicle bones.
Eve’s eyes began to glow, and I heard the mercenaries down the hall start screaming.
It sounded like their skin was being torn from their bodies.
I ignored the pain in my arm and forced my shotgun up to firing position. Then I rolled my back against the wall and leaned out into the hallway. The eight men at the end of the passage were acting as if they were on fire, and they were either trying to pat themselves down or were rolling on the ground. Madalena fired her pulse rifle a moment after I let my first slug go, and the group of men died a few seconds later.
“They are at the top of the stairwell!” Kasta shouted, and I gestured for Eve and Madalena to push into the hallway we just cleared. Bullets poured down the gap in the center of the stairs a second after Eve stepped inside, and I reached out to yank the door closed behind us.
“Zea, lock the door!” I growled, but then I started coughing, and my throat started to burn.
“Done!” the hacker shouted. “They are filling the bottom floor with some sort of paralysing gas!”
“No shit!” I roared as the beast made anger spiral through my head.
Eve started to cough, and she reached out a hand to steady herself against the wall.
“The cells are up ahead. Make a left at the door,” Kasta said. “There are four more mercenaries, their boss, and the cops in the jail. Everyone not wearing armor is starting to cough.”
“I’ve got it!” Zea shouted with joy. “I shut off the poison, and I’m putting the air filters into overdrive.”
“Great job,” I gasped through another round of coughs. It didn’t feel like it was any easier to breathe, but I trusted my friend.
“Leave their leader alive,” Eve coughed. “I can read his thoughts and determine who hired him to capture us.”
“Can you use your powers on the men in the next room?” I asked.
“Yes, but I am drained. I will need to feed afterward or risk fainting.”
“Got it,” I said as I quickly weighed the possibilities. I didn’t exactly want Eve drinking the blood of a bunch of people right in a room with a bunch of cops observing, but I also knew her powers would help tremendously in a hostage situation. Madalena and I could probably shoot all these fuckers, but one of the bystanders might get hit by a stray bullet.
You could also make love to me, but that has its own strategic flaws given our circumstances.
Her laughter was clear in my mind, and we shared a quick smile as we stepped over the corpses of the men we’d just butchered. The scent of blood, gunpowder, and burning from Madalena’s shots made the beast in my soul growl with pleasure.
“If you open the door, I will kill the men.” Madalena’s eyes bore into my face, and I could feel her desire.
“We can both do it--”
“I wish to please you,” she interrupted me. “Please give me this opportunity to impress.”
“You already do impress me, Madalena.” My words caused pleasure to flow from her.
“Then give me this,” she said. “Eve should save her powers for the next fight.”
“Alright.” I nodded, and then we ran to the end of the hallway. This was another security door, but I saw the light was already flashing green on the panel.
“The group behind you is at the bottom of the stairwell,” Kasta said, and I heard pounding on the door behind us.
“We are going,” I said as I reached the handle, glanced, at Madalena, and then yanked it open.
The Prime Valkyrie fired through the doorway as a hail of bullets poured out through the door. Most of the shots hit the wall behind the armored woman,
but a few connected with her armor. These bullets compressed liked cheap metal and bounced off the feather etched suit without leaving a mark.
Madalena’s blue power bullets lanced out from the muzzle of her rifle like a solid laser stream. She moved the front of the weapon a bit while she fired, but her stream lasted less than two seconds. Then she lowered her rifle and motioned for Eve and me to follow behind her.
“Zea, can you lock this door?” I asked as I pulled it behind us.
“Yeah,” the hacker said, “But you’ve got those fuckers behind you planting bombs on the stairwell door.”
“I know,” I said as I turned to the carnage in the hallway.
“Maybe you should just send Madalena out there,” Kasta laughed, and I could see why.
The four armored men were dead, each with a trio of bullet holes in their skulls. The man I recognized as Warren Royzar, was at the back of the long hallway by the cell where Juliette was being kept. His rifle was on the ground in front of him, and blood poured from each of his arms.
Madalena had placed a pair of energy bullets through the other four armored men, across ten meters, and into each of Warren’s biceps so that he couldn’t use his weapons.
“Damn Madalena, great job,” I said as the mercenary leader’s grunts of pain brought my attention back to the present.
“I am the Prime Valkyrie,” she replied, but I could feel the pleasure my words brought her.
“I will speak with him,” Eve said as she stepped toward the handsome mercenary man. The walls on both sides of us were the bars of the cells, but I realized there was a reflective glass wall set up between two sets of metal bars. The cops inside of the cells couldn’t see out, and I guessed that they probably didn’t hear us.
Madalena and I followed Eve to the end of the hallway, and my eyes set on the ten dead police officers when I walked past the first cell. Rage boiled in my chest, and I felt a growl escape my throat. As soon as we talked to this fucker, I’d let everyone go, and then we’d take back their station.
“Hey,” Warren gasped through his clenched teeth we reached him. “A fucking tiger-man. I didn’t believe it.”
“Perhaps your eyes lie,” Eve said with a shrug.
King Killer: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 7) Page 10
