I thrust my Desert Eagle forward with my left hand as Ace and I whipped around the corner in unison, but we both breathed a sigh of relief when we realized that the coast was clear.
“Fifteen minutes at the most. I managed to keep most of them locked out but unfortunately The Redeemer was already in that section,” Howie warned.
“We need to hurry. The last thing we need right now is to run into The Redeemer,” Ace said as we both holstered our guns.
“Well in that case I’m sorry to disappoint,” a booming voice suddenly rang out from behind us.
My heart nearly stopped as we whipped around only to see none other than Jonas, The Redeemer standing halfway down the hall behind us. He was wearing a full suit of shiny silver and black metallic armor along with a sleek helmet with a tinted visor that hid his face from view. The long black hair that extended from the bottom of his helmet draped upon his armored shoulders and the jet-black cloak that he wore around his upper body wavered in the air like a cape as he stared at us from down the hall. In a flash Ace whipped out his gleaming sword with one hand and thrust his pistol forward with the other. I too trained my large .50 caliber Desert Eagle on the Anokian Knight Commander as we all anxiously waited to see who would make the first move.
“I’m guessing you didn’t get enough last time, maggot,” The Redeemer mocked as he focused his attention on Ace. “I’m surprised to see you come back for seconds after that last beating I put on you.”
“Seconds? By my count this is Round Three, Hotshot, and I wouldn’t count on your boys interfering this time,” Ace said firmly.
“You don’t mean those boys, do you?” The Redeemer said smugly as he pointed behind us. He then burst into emphatic laughter as we glanced over our shoulders only to see that a group of almost fifty Anokian Knights had crept in behind us, and after a few moments even more heavily armed Knights of Eden poured into the halls at both ends until the areas behind us and The Redeemer were completely blocked off.
“It’s over humans. Thrown down your weapons or else my men will tear you limb from limb,” The Redeemer ordered as the hoard of Knights slowly moved towards us.
“There’s just one problem, Hotshot! These aren’t your men!” Ace replied as the Knights that filled the halls suddenly began to clamor. Just as Ace finished his sentence the army of Anokian warriors all suddenly pressed buttons on devices that were fastened to their wrists and suddenly their bodies began to shimmer and tremble like pictures on a TV losing reception. After no more than a few seconds the Anokian Knights all flickered from view, and The Redeemer’s eyes widened with surprise as he realized that we were actually surrounded by a squadron of Strangers who had been using Equillian Holo-tech to disguise themselves as his soldiers.
Ace, Tango and a small group of my Stranger operatives had used the yellow gas to ambush the crew of the Anokian cruiser that was sent to bring The Suspect from Earth to The Pillar of Eden. Once we took command of their cruiser getting a squadron of Strangers on board The Pillar of Eden was as easy as hiding them in the cargo area and waiting for Howie to use the cruiser’s link with their mothership to initiate a lock down of the Quadrant.
“Looks like we’ll have to postpone Round Three!” Ace said as the massive flock of Strangers pushed past us and rushed The Redeemer. My heart nearly leapt from my chest as The Redeemer rocketed towards us at over one-hundred miles per hour, but even at that speed he was stopped within his tracks as he slammed into the wave of the over one-hundred Strangers that stood between us and him. Dozens of them were thrown into the air upon impact but luckily they had managed to curtail his momentum long enough for Ace and I to dash away. The Redeemer roared and violently swung his powerful fists as he tried his best to break away from the pack of Strangers in order to follow us, but even though his Anokian strength was allowing him to toss many of them away like ragdolls there were simply too many of them for him to handle by himself.
“Your boys did well,” Ace offered as we rounded another corner and continued onward.
“It’s not over yet,” I replied as I dashed alongside him.
“You’ve got that right. Reaper’s cell is just down the next hall but we’re running out of time, guys, because The Greater just headed your way!” Howie suddenly warned in our earpieces.
“Crap!” Ace cursed as we accelerated down the hall. “The last thing we need is—”
“No! Don’t say it! You remember what happened last time, don’t you?!” I protested.
“Oh yeah! Good point,” Ace replied as we dashed onward.
“Okay, I just disabled the force field around Reaper but I’m losing more control of the area by the second. You’ll have to disable his locks manually but I can walk you through it once you get there— and by the way, The Greater just fried his way through the door that I was using to lock the others out so you may want to pick up the pace!” Howie urged.
“10-4!” Ace replied as the door to Reaper’s cell came into view.
“I’ll wait outside!” I called out to Ace as I slowed my approach and allowed him to continue without me.
“Alright! I’ll be in and out!” Ace replied.
My heart skipped a beat as I realized that Reaper was just a few steps away from me. I wanted nothing more in the world than to be able to see him and hold him again but I decided to hang back because I didn’t know how he would react when he saw me. We were already working against the clock and the last thing we needed was to send him into an adrenaline filled rage before we had a chance to extract him.
“Ace!” Reaper shouted with glee as Ace stormed into his cell.
My heartbeat fluttered at the sound of his voice and even though it had come raspy and hoarse it was still the most joyous sound in the world to me.
“Okay. We need to get you out of here ASAP, Reap!” Ace said as he followed Echo’s instruction and released Reaper from his Anokian-Steel restraints.
“No! I’m not leaving without Monica!” Reaper insisted.
Of course, I silently sulked as I waited just outside of the cell.
“Reaper, we don’t have time! We’re all dead if we don’t get out of here right now!” Ace pleaded.
“Take him down, Ace! The Greater is headed right for you guys!” Howie ordered.
“Reaper!” I shouted as I pulled off my mask and popped into the room.
Reaper’s eyes widened with shock as soon as he laid eyes on me, and Ace took advantage of the distraction and used his cybernetic arm to strike Reaper hard in the back of his neck, causing him to fall unconscious to the floor.
“Holy crap, he’s heavy!” Ace exclaimed as he struggled to lift Reaper’s motionless body.
“He’s over a thousand pounds but you should be able to support his weight with your prosthetic if you can get him into the air,” Howie said.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding!” I confirmed as I pitched in and helped Ace sling Reaper’s unconscious body across his right shoulder. I was already aware of the fact that Reaper weighed over a thousand pounds despite only looking like he weighed about two-hundred due to his Anokian density, but knowing it was one thing— actually trying to pick him up was a completely different ball game.
“You got him?” I asked as Ace struggled to keep his balance.
“Yeah, I’m good. Let’s get moving,” he ordered as he headed towards the door with Reaper still draped across his bionic right shoulder.
“No, don’t go that way!” Howie suddenly shouted as we exited the cell and started to our right.
“What’s up, Echo?!” Ace demanded.
“You’ll run straight into The Greater if you go that way— and he just incinerated nearly every Stranger that got in his way so there won’t be any back up this time. There’s an elevator at the end of the hall to your left. I can get you back to the cruiser if you can make it there, but you need to hurry because he’s right on your—”
“Get down!” I yelled as I dove into Ace just as The Greater suddenly rounded the corner and unleashe
d a torrent of bright blue flames from his outstretched hands. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge as the blast of flaming energy scorched the air above us as we crashed to the floor below. White hot fire burned within his smoldering eyes as he charged another wreath of bright blue fire between his trembling hands while Ace and I scrambled back to our feet. The lights within the hall flickered and threatened to go out as The Greater’s power electrified the air around him.
“What are those?!” I asked as Ace quickly opened a pouch at his hip and withdrew a handful of black marble-sized devices.
“You’ll see!” he yelled as he flung the devices toward The Greater’s feet just as he thrust his hands forward.
A flurry of explosions ripped through the floor beneath The Greater just as the marbles bounced below him, and his raging blue fireball shot upward instead of at us as he lost his balance and fell through the gaping hole left by Ace’s tiny grenades.
“I hope you have more of those!” I yelled as I helped him lift Reaper’s body from the floor once again.
“That was all of them! Now move!” Ace ordered as he slung Reaper over his shoulder and prepared to take off once again. We both stormed towards the end of the hallway as The Greater angrily leapt through the hole in the floor and landed back in the hall behind us. The air sizzled with power once again as he unleashed another blast of his corrosive energy while we dashed towards the corner. Ace reached the corner first and he quickly ducked to the right just in time to avoid the blast but I was forced to hit the deck and baseball slide forward in order to keep from being incinerated. I was on my feet and galloping after Ace before the smoke had even cleared but my heart pounded harder than ever before as the heavy footsteps of The Greater storming after us echoed throughout the hall.
“Hurry, Audrey!” Ace yelled as he closed in on the open elevator at the end of the hall.
“She’s not going to make it!” Howie said as The Greater rounded the corner and focused his fiery glare on me just as Ace leapt into the elevator and looked back for me.
I could feel the charge in the air as he once again focused the bright blue energy around his hands into a smoldering wreath of fire that was almost as big as a beach ball. The fireball sputtered and crackled with white hot energy as he charged it between his powerful hands. Brilliant beams of light and power spilled out of his eyes and mouth as I leapt forward just as he hurled the massive ball of energy toward me. A potent wave of adrenaline filled my veins as the searing ball of flames ballooned to the size of a wrecking ball just as I landed inside the elevator.
“Get us out of here, Echo!” Ace screamed as The Greater’s raging fireball threatened to consume us all.
“Hang on!” Howie yelled as the elevator suddenly jolted upward with so much force that Ace and I were thrown to the floor.
“I thought I was dead for sure!” I said as I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath while the sound of a massive explosion rang out from below.
“Don’t start counting those chickens just yet, Audrey. Believe it or not, that was the easy part,” Howie said as the elevator continued to rocket towards the level of The Pillar where Charlie and Tango were waiting inside the Anokian cruiser that we were using as our getaway vehicle. After what we had just gone through I thought for sure that Howie had been joking about that being the easy part but as soon as we boarded the cruiser and took off, it didn’t take long for me to figure out just how serious he had been.
21. TELL ME HOW TO SAVE US
REAPER:
- 1.2 HOUR TO DETONATION
I’M NOT SURE HOW LONG I WAS UNCONSIOUS BUT I REMEMBER waking up in a daze and being surrounded by the echoes of frantic voices as I struggled to regain my consciousness. It felt like I was lying down but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where I was or what was happening to me. I was still wearing the plain, light grey prison uniform that the Anokians had dressed me in, and as I pulled my head upward and looked around my vision was so blurry that I couldn’t make out a single thing in my surroundings.
“Incoming!” a familiar voice shouted as everything around me suddenly jolted to the left as though I had been thrown into an earthquake. The instability of my surroundings continued and I was finally yanked back into consciousness as I felt my face suddenly slam hard against a cold metal floor.
“Dammit, Charlie, keep shooting!” the familiar voice yelled as the room around me violently shook once again.
“What the hell do you think I’m doin’ up here, Hoss?!” another familiar voice shot back from somewhere outside the room.
I spread my arms to keep my balance and looked around the small room, hoping to notice anything familiar. It took me a few moments to realize that I must have been inside of a spaceship or some kind of aircraft, and as everything around me continued to violently rock and tremble I suddenly remembered that Ace had come to rescue me.
“Jason?!” I shouted as I stormed out of the room and hurried towards the voices at the end of the narrow hall.
“Hey, Reaper’s awake!” I heard Howie say as I emerged from the hall inside a large control room.
I grabbed a nearby hand rail to keep my balance as the ship continued to tremble while I looked around the room. A panoramic window wrapped around the edges of the high-tech circular room and just before the front window sat Tango and Ace in adjacent chairs frantically hammering controls on the sophisticated panel in front of them. Tango was wearing his full combat gear including the two deadly ninja swords strapped across his back and Ace was wearing his sleek ninja armor as well, with the exception of his mask and long headband.
My eyes widened with surprise as I noticed the swarms of smaller triangular spaceships that were zipping around us and rapidly firing streaking blue projectiles at us as we zipped through the darkness of space. Most of their attacks were being absorbed by a yellowish energy shield that flickered in and out of view as their projectiles crashed against us, but even though the majority of the damage was being absorbed by the shield, our ship still continued to shake due to the small amount of force that was able to make it through. Powerful cannons mounted on various parts of our much larger triangle-shaped ship fired away at the relentless horde of spaceships that surrounded us, but even though we were destroying dozens of them at a time it was clear to see that there was no way we could destroy them all.
As I continued to look around the room I noticed that Howie was nowhere in sight so I figured he must have been speaking to us remotely. I was just about to call out to him in order to get his whereabouts when I suddenly realized that a group of about twenty Stranger operatives dressed in all-black body armor and white Tragedy masks were also scurrying around the control room while Ace and Tango manned our ship’s controls. My heartbeat spiked as I gritted my teeth and prepared to attack them but I stopped dead in my tracks as I realized that instead of attacking, the Strangers actually seemed to be helping us. Some of them were putting out small fires that had erupted due to the hits that we had taken from the enemy spaceships around us and others were manning the controls for our ship’s cannons as Ace and Tango fed them targeting information.
“What in the hell is going on here?” I asked as I scratched my head and tried to figure out what I had walked into.
“What’s it look like, Hoss?” Charlie suddenly yelled from somewhere above me. “We just broke your butt outta the joint and now we’re high tailin’ it back to Earth before these boys blow us into smithereens!”
“Charlie?! Is that you?!” I yelled as I looked upward and realized that his voice must have come from the speaker near a wall mounted ladder that led up to an air locked door in the ceiling.
“Damn right, Hoss! I’m up here on this here big gun and I’ll be dog if I ain’t givin’ these suckers all they can handle!” Charlie chimed as our ship took another big hit from the swarm outside.
“Sounds like you’re having fun,” I replied as I smiled and squatted to keep my balance as the ship violently rocked once again.
&n
bsp; “On a gravy train with biscuit wheels, Hoss!” Charlie exclaimed as he continued to fire the massive rotating cannon mounted on top of our ship into the endless swarm of enemy ships buzzing us.
“I’m gonna talk to Reaper for a bit!” Ace yelled as he glanced over to Tango.
“Are you kidding me?! We need all hands on deck, him included!” Tango protested.
“I’ll just be a second!” Ace responded as he unstrapped his seat belt and dashed towards me before Tango could reply. Ace and I both struggled to keep our footing as our ship continued to take fire but after a few moments Tango managed to steady the flight long enough for Ace to make it over to me.
“Jason!” I gleefully shouted as I lifted him from his feet and bear hugged him out of excitement.
“Reaper, I can’t breathe,” Ace choked out as his feet dangled above the floor.
“Oops! Sorry, bro!” I said as I quickly placed him back on his feet. “How in the hell did you guys pull this off, man?!” I continued as I stared into his familiar green eyes.
“It’s kind of—” Ace started, but his sentence was suddenly interrupted as another devastating collision rocked the ship so hard that we were both thrown against a nearby wall.
“Dammit, Ace, we’re losing our shields! I need you up front now!” Tango barked from the pilot’s seat.
“Sorry, Reap, but as you can see we’re kind of under attack. We’ll catch up later, okay?” Ace said as we stared at each other from the floor. “If you go back into that room you woke up in, you should find your gear in the back. Talk to Echo after you suit up. He’ll fill you in on the plan.”
“Wait a second, Howie’s here?!” I asked as my overprotective instincts kicked in.
“No, he’s quarterbacking the mission remotely from our base on the moon. This plan was all his, Reap. We never could have saved you without him,” Ace said as the ship jolted once again.
“That’s my boy!” I smiled as we finally pulled ourselves from the floor and parted ways. Our ship continued to tremble from enemy fire as I hurried back down the narrow hall and ducked into the room where I had awakened. A wide smile spread across my face as I walked over and unzipped a large black duffle bag that sat on the floor near the back of the room.
Savior Part 3: Legion of The Godhand (The Savior Series) Page 18
