by Scott Baron
“Okay, people, back to the loop pod!” he called out as the building collapsed behind them. “Let’s make that rendezvous!”
Tokyo, however, was a far different story. Comms were severed, but the reserve power supplies were well-guarded, and the Chithiid who had facilitated the initial sabotage and opened the doors to the intruders were quickly cut down, shot and rent limb from limb by the angry Ra’az overseers in the base.
Upon seeing the Chithiid aiding the humans and cyborgs, the Ra’az turned their weapons on all Chithiid, rebels and loyalists alike, as they attempted to purge their facility and bring it back online.
Omar limped for cover as pulse blasts peppered the walls around him. His left leg was a mangled mess of hydraulics and metal, barely able to support his weight.
“We’re pinned down in here,” he called over open comms.
No sense shielding his messages now. The enemy most certainly knew he was there.
“The network is down for the time being, but the backup power is too heavily protected and will kick in any minute. I’ve lost half my team, and most of the others are injured or trapped.” He grimly looked around him. There was only one thing to do.
“Requesting a direct run on the facility ASAP. The northernmost area is where the power is routed. If you can breach that wall, a detonation will fry out the facility’s power source once and for all.”
Commander Mrazich replied a moment later.
“You get your ass out of there, Soldier. We’ll begin a targeting run when you’re clear.”
“Negative, sir. There’s no time. Start the run now. I’ll try to get my people out before your ships hit.”
“You sure about this, Omar?”
“Yes, I am, sir. We all know what’s riding on this, so please, don’t hesitate.”
“I didn’t. They’re already on their way. Now run, you sonofabitch. Get out if you can.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s been an honor.”
“Don’t give me that heroic death crap. Get on your feet and run. That’s an order!”
Commander Mrazich cut out abruptly.
“Okay, you dirtbags, beat a hasty retreat! We are out of here!” he said, lurching unsteadily to his feet, firing over his shoulder as he half-limped, half-ran for the smoldering hole in the wall nearest him. Far above he heard the concussion of the anti-aircraft fire targeting the incoming ships.
Only a matter of time, he thought as he pushed out through the debris as the flying bombs screamed down toward him.
Chapter Thirty
An explosion rocked the air around the Váli as she banked hard, dogfighting with a much smaller, much faster ship.
“Where did that come from?” Harkaway barked.
“It appears to have been en route prior to the attack,” Mal replied. “Simple bad luck, Captain.”
“Shit. What do we have, Gus?”
“Working on it,” he replied, sweating with the strain of controlling so many remote ships.
Gustavo had already used almost all of the drone ships at his command, and Mal was almost out of remote vessels as well.
“I’m taking the stick, Mal!” Harkaway yelled.
Captain Harkaway quickly banked and veered the Váli in ways she was never intended to move, narrowly dodging explosive flak from below, while weaving around cannon fire from the hectoring little ship flying in pursuit.
Reggie saw the dogfight above. The Váli was doing amazingly, but he knew she didn’t stand a chance. Eventually, the faster ship would get the advantage.
“Get the others to the rendezvous site. I’m going to give them some cover,” he said, racing toward the one mostly intact Ra’az ship still on the ground.
“Be careful!” Finn shouted after him.
“Never!” he yelled back as he ran toward the ship’s smoking hull.
It was damaged, and wouldn’t stay in the air long, but he didn’t need much time.
Reggie jumped over the huge alien corpse with a giant hole in its torso and scrambled into the ship. The seat and controls were designed for a much larger pilot, but he nevertheless managed to fire up the engines and get her airborne.
“Now, which ones are the cannons?” he muttered, flipping switches as he flew after the Váli and her opponent.
A burst of plasma shot out of the forward guns.
“Okay, that appears to be it,” he said, then moved to target the Ra’az ship.
The pilot of the other Ra’az vessel saw him approaching and smiled. With two Ra’az attack ships, there was no way the intruders would escape.
The blast of plasma that strafed his hull made him quickly think otherwise as the bulky alien realized his initial impression was horribly mistaken as the flames began to spread.
From the ground, a few weapons systems were unexpectedly still active, and a massive cannon blast shook the Váli, punching through her protective hull, right into the command pod. The biologic breach alarm sounded immediately, warning of the presence of plague contamination in the air.
Captain Harkaway, unlike the other crew members, was not immune.
Before he could even react, the automated protective cryogenic capsule slammed shut around his pilot’s seat, driving him into a rapid emergency deep-freeze and bio-contaminant purge.
If and when he came out of it, he would have a nasty headache, but at least he would be alive.
Mal sensed the loss of her pilot and quickly redirected her focus to steering the Váli while engaging the emergency liqui-steel foam hull-breach sealing system, closing off the command pod once more as she brought the ship down to a rough landing a few hundred meters short of the designated rendezvous point.
Meanwhile, descending from high above, Reggie watched as the flaming Ra’az vessel plunged into the Hudson River. A little smile on his face, he set down the damaged ship just as its engines began to fail and took off running to join the others and head to San Francisco to help in the fight.
Finn sprinted across the open ground to the Váli, his team right behind him.
“Come on, get on board!” he shouted as they piled into the open hatchway, Reggie following at a full-run close behind.
Satisfied they had gathered all the surviving teammates, he sealed the hatch and bolted for command.
“Mal, we’re in. Drop the rest of the drones on the building and get us out of here!”
The ship rumbled and lurched skyward, while the remaining remote ships dove as one into the heart of the building.
The explosion toppled the remaining bits of the structure, leaving no hope of any escaping communications, or survivors.
Finn ran into the command pod to take his co-pilot’s seat when he saw the captain sealed in an emergency cryo rig.
“Shit! Captain!” he yelled, rushing to the unit. All vitals were in the green. “Oh, thank God,” he sighed. “Gus, what’s the status of––”
The words fell from his lips as he saw his friend. A hole had been blown clear through his chest when the blast hit the pod. His head was still wired in, but it hung limply, his one good eye staring but not seeing. It never would again.
Daisy was running down the corridor when the comms crackled to life and Sid’s voice finally said the words she’d been waiting to hear.
“All three relays are down. Repeat, all three relays are down. It’s your ball, Daisy.”
About goddamn time.
She kept her pace as she sent the signal to the rest of the team, unslinging the pulse rifle riding over her shoulder while she ran. It would only be a matter of time now until the fighting and dying started.
The next five rooms appeared to be simple electronics labs, though one contained a disassembled ship’s engine. Daisy quickly scanned for any sign of a warp device.
Nope. Just an engine. My luck, finding a plain old repair shop, she grumbled.
Daisy realized she must have crossed nearly the entire facility when she reached a somewhat larger set of doors. She pushed them open cautiously.
�
�Hangar,” Sarah said. “To your right, Steve and Kate, tucked up against that storage unit.”
Got ‘em. You catch sight of Vince?
“No, but Daisy, the ships…”
She glanced at the vessels.
Nope, not what we’re looking for. Look at the engines. They’re partially disassembled. This is a service hangar. We’ve got to keep searching.
She crept over to Steven and Kate’s hiding place.
“What have you guys found?”
“No sign of the warp ships so far, but we’ve seen a lot of activity in this part of the complex,” Kate said.
“Where’s Vince?”
“He has circled around the other direction to attempt to access the adjacent hangar area by a less, well, difficult route,” the cyborg said.
Daisy peered around the storage unit. No one there.
“Okay, come on, it’s clear,” she said, stepping out into the open.
As she did, a wiry Chithiid ran into the hangar through the adjacent doors.
“Wait!” Daisy called to her team. They held their fire. The alien had red armbands above his elbows.
“There is difficulty in the hangar. The warp ships are there, and we have disabled the hangar door mechanism, but there is an additional vessel stored in that area as well. A powerful ship with weapons that could easily blast through the sealed doors. I have been observing from a safe distance. One of your mechanical men has been trying, but has been unable to reach the vessel with his bomb."
“He says the hangar doors are sealed, but there’s a ship with big guns in the next hangar, and we need to take it out before it blasts an exit for the warp ships. You guys up for this?”
“Do we have much choice?” Kate said with a wry smile.
“Okay then. Follow the alien.”
Daisy nodded to the Chithiid to lead the way and followed him through the door into a spacious anteroom. He caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his rear eye and dove for cover. Daisy and her team, however, lacked anything to hide behind as they spun.
A massive Ra’az burst through the doorway and charged at them, bellowing a warning into its communicator as it ran.
I hope they took out the localized comms.
Steven raised his rifle, but the Ra’az quickly whipped it from his hands with his powerful gauntlet, then swung the whip back across his torso, sending the hapless cyborg flying into the wall with a sickening crash.
He locked eyes on Daisy and smiled, then swung his whip at her head.
“Oh no you don’t, fucker!” she growled, lashing out with her own gauntlet. Fortunately, the temperamental device decided to work on this occasion.
The Ra’az’s whip was far more powerful than Daisy’s, but hers smashed against it not as a flexible whip, but as a solid beam, knocking the snaking form to a halt as it wrapped around her whip’s crackling, rigid length.
The Ra’az pulled back, startled, but his whip was tightly tangled around Daisy’s beam. A brief tug-of-war broke out, which might have been funny if it weren’t a life or death situation. The Ra’az bellowed, forcing all of his power whip’s energy into the sizzling beam.
Rather than overpowering Daisy’s, however, all he accomplished was shorting out both gauntlets, their whips both vanishing in a puff of ozone-tinged smoke.
Kate raised her rifle and fired off a burst, missing as the alien nimbly rolled to the side.
“Shit. Agile for its size,” Sarah noted with surprise.
The Ra’az quickly snatched up Steven’s fallen weapon and returned fire. His shots, unlike his target’s, did not miss, and Kate crumpled to the ground.
“Kate!” Daisy shouted as she swung her rifle up and fired just as the Ra’az did. Both ducked aside, avoiding each other’s blast.
“Oh, it’s going to be like that, huh?” she growled.
Daisy ran at the creature, and it, likewise, ran toward her, both of them firing and dodging as they flew past one another, pivoting in the air to continue their barrage.
Daisy’s shots went just barely wide, singeing the Ra’az as they passed. The alien, on the other hand, landed a shot square on her back, sending her flying into a nearby table as her rucksack was blown off, sending her sword clattering to the ground as it fell free.
Daisy rolled away and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
“They don’t give the Chithiid many shots for precisely this reason.”
Yeah, but I have reloads.
“Not in that, you don’t,” Sarah said of the smoldering backpack that had housed her extra pulse charges.
Shit.
The Ra’az pulled his trigger as well, and had the same result, but the much larger creature didn’t mind one bit. Instead, he smiled at the thought of tearing the little human apart with his bare hands.
Daisy scrambled for her sword and pulled it free, just as the Ra’az hurled a table at her.
“Daisy! Gloves!”
There was no time, and Daisy desperately swung the blade, hoping it would at least deflect the table and prevent it from causing her too much damage.
When she remained unscathed, Daisy looked around and saw the cleanly sliced table lying on either side of her. The Ra’az looked confused, and more than a little wary.
“It’s not supposed to be able to do that, Daze. You still have your gloves on.”
Daisy squeezed her sword’s grip and felt its presence reaching out to her, even through the fabric covering her palms. It was almost as if it sensed her presence.
Sensed her will.
A connection.
She knew exactly what it wanted, and today they were both on precisely the same page.
Daisy smiled a bloodthirsty grin.
The Ra’az grabbed a pair of chairs, swinging them like clubs as it charged at her. Daisy slid on her side beneath the attack, cleanly slicing both of the beast’s legs off just above the knee. The alien hit the ground and slid into the wall with a crash, bellowing in anger and pain.
Daisy quickly silenced him, driving the blade deep into its chest.
The Ra’az gurgled and died, his disbelieving eyes locked on Daisy’s until their light faded. A happy tingle tickled her hands.
Her sword, she realized, was gleefully drinking in the alien’s blood, strengthening with every warm drop.
“Damn. My sword’s a bit of a psychopath,” she said with a grim chuckle as she pulled the blade free from the alien’s chest. She watched as the last drops absorbed into the surface, leaving the pristine white blade as good as new once again.
“You like that thing a bit too much,” Sarah quipped. “You’re not going to be one of those douches who names their sword, are you?”
“I wasn’t going to,” Daisy joked back. “But now that you mention it, I think I shall hereafter call it Stabby McStabberton.”
“Oh God, you’re ridiculous.”
“Don’t listen to her, Stabby. Sarah’s just jealous,” she said with a laugh, then sheathed her bloodthirsty weapon and retrieved the scorched but functional comms device from her pack.
“No more energy bars, it seems, but far better that my snacks and spare ammo took the hit than this,” she said, hefting the salvaged unit. Her brief post-battle-survival humor faded as she looked to her fallen teammates.
A grim necessity presented itself.
Steve and Kate were dead and wouldn’t be needing their spare ammunition, so Daisy carried out the grisly task of retrieving what she could from their wrecked bodies and reloaded her rifle. She was about to walk out, but paused, stooping over the dead Ra’az to pry the shorted-out power gauntlet from its wrist and tuck it into her pocket.
It was nothing more than a paperweight at the moment, but who knew? She’d fixed one before, maybe she could do the same with the more powerful variant. If she survived, of course.
Daisy looked at her deceased teammates one last time, then headed for the doors through which the Chithiid rebel had vanished.
Across the planet on t
hree different continents, once-powerful Ra’az facilities lay burning in ruins, their surface and air forces in disarray with no centralized communications, not knowing where to respond or where they might be needed.
Donovan and Bob sat quietly drifting in the debris field once more, safely loaded with Shelly’s team, monitoring the globe, trying to discern the status of the fighters below.
“Still nothing from Mal,” Bob said. “Perhaps her communications array sustained some damage in the fight.”
“Yeah, let’s hope. If that’s all it is, I’m sure Gustavo can get ‘em up and working in no time. When it comes to that ship, the guy’s kind of a genius.”
Donovan switched frequencies, broadcasting in the clear to Sid directly.
“It looks like the missions were a success, Sid, but I’m not reading any disturbances from San Francisco yet. No explosions, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“It is a rather thick-walled facility,” Sid posited. “Unless an explosion was quite large, there’s just no way of knowing how things stand until it’s over. We can only hope they have as much success as our other teams did.” He paused a moment, thinking. “I’m going to attempt a passive hot-mic bypass of the comms unit. It may not work at all, but it’s worth trying.”
Sid then closed the line and listened. Despite being an AI, he was worried.
Chapter Thirty-One
Moving just shy of a full run, Daisy reached the adjacent hangar space in no time. Unlike the other hangar, this was wall-to-wall packed with advanced equipment. A glistening, new ship, and two slightly banged up older ones sat lined up facing the hangar door.
A much older and much larger vessel sporting a massive cannon sat nearest, its access hatchway strewn with Ra’az bodies, as was the rest of the hangar.
“Warp ships?” Sarah asked
Daisy looked them over.
Yeah. The three smaller ones. The big one looks like it’s just a heavy cruiser.
Daisy spotted a small door to the outside on the same wall as the massive hangar doors. Chithiid loyalists––or at least she assumed they were, given the lack of armbands––had charged through it, apparently, trying to reach and reactivate the door mechanism. They’d been cut down before reaching their goal.
