by C. W Tickner
Damen growled, dropped to one knee and unleashed a torrent of shots at Four. The blue blasts went wide as Four turned side on and when a single shot struck his thick armour, the plates absorbed the energy. Damen threw down the rifle when it emitted a series of clicks that signalled an empty clip.
Dana leapt forward with Troy beside her, taking advantage of Four’s attention on Damen. She held a blade in either hand and Troy had managed to grab up a sword.
As she crouched to spring on Four, Troy overtook her. Four stepped forward in a blur of movement and landed a kick square into Troy’ chest. Troy flew backward into Dana, forcing her to drop her knives or risk stabbing him. As he crashed into her, they rolled backward, clattering into a collection of empty suits of armour.
Four sprang forwards landing beside Troy and loomed over him.
Harl sucked in a deep breath, tightened his grip on his sword and rushed in before Four could finish Troy and Dana. He pulled his sword back to slice through Four’s back but Four sensed his approach and whipped the axe around in an arc.
Harl twisted his blade to parry but the axe knocked the sword from Harl’s hands as the vibrations tore into his palms. A heavy boot planted into Harl’s chest. It threw him back and forced the air from his lungs. He slid backwards across the smooth floor towards the edge and only Damen lunging forward and grabbing his arm stopped him falling off the end of the shelf.
Damen made sure he wouldn’t fall and turned a furious glare on Four. His face was bright red where the skin showed under the beard and his dark eyes narrowed as Four laughed.
Clutching his stomach in agony, all Harl could do was watch Damen rush the laughing man.
‘Kane, Go!’ Damen called, his legs pumping to close the distance. Four’s grin widened, and as Kane flew the platform away he sprinted at Damen. The gap between them shrunk as the hatred on their faces grew.
Harl knew the sheer speed Four was going would throw Damen back, but the hunter didn’t seem to care.
Just before the crash, Damen pirouetted at the last second and Four dash past. Four tried to stop himself but was too slow and ran head first into a still-life warrior mounted on a huge horned bull. He lost his axe as the still warrior collapsed on top of him and the bull was shoved sideways with the impact. He threw the stiff body off him like a log tossing champion and as Damen skipped back to avoid it, Four rushed him.
This time there was no stopping the rage that consumed Four.
He skidded to a halt in front of Damen and with lightening speed, threw a dozen punches to batter Damen’s ribs. The thin membrane of the strange suit offered no protection from the blows and only a desperate kick from the hunter shoved Four back enough to give himself space.
Damen landed two square punches, clipping Four’s face left and right. Four roared in anger. He grabbed a handful of the tight suit, hauled Damen into him and smashed the flat of his elbow against his cheek, twisting Damen’s head around and he slumped unconscious to the floor.
Four turned to face them, his chest pumping in and out like forge bellows.
Dana had been silently gaining ground and was crouched only a few paces away, a knife in each hand. She sprung like a coiled animal, leaping high to close the distance, her daggers pointing down at Four.
He raised his arms up, unable to stop the blades slicing his forearms as she landed on him. He didn’t sink as she planted herself on his broad shoulders and managed to wedge a dagger under one armour plate.
Four roared and heaved her off, tossing her away towards Troy as he had the frozen warrior. Troy had only just got up as she slammed into him, sprawling together in a tangle on the floor.
Four strode to the couple and stood triumphant over them, a nasty grin on his face as he seemed to contemplate their inevitable death.
‘I can’t abide traitors,’ he said.
Harl’s heart was a pounding sound in his ears. It was like the tread of an Aylen as he clutched the pain in his stomach and watched Damen stagger towards Four.
‘I’m not done with you yet,’ Damen said. He rocked as he took a few paces towards Four, each move exaggerated as if in slow motion.
Four turned to face him.
When Damen was twenty paces away he stopped and grinned at Four. Four was no longer smirking but instead was staring open mouthed into the centre of the office behind Damen.
Harl’s heart skipped a beat. The empty Aylen mech suit from the corner had moved. Not fallen, but had actually stepped away from its station and moved across the room. Harl had thought the noise had been his heart but it must have been the loud tread of the two hundred metre tall machine as it stomped across the room. It now stood facing the shelf like a silent steel Aylen waiting to sense movement before it struck. Only the thick armour plating of its upper half was visible above the shelf line.
Harl did a double take, each time expecting to see Grakka strapped into the silver plated machine. It was empty, as if a ghost had taken residence inside the exoskeleton.
Fours eyes widened and he staggered back as the mech took a single booming step forward, rattling the shelf beneath their feet. He dragged his gaze away and turned to look at Damen.
The hunter’s mouth was a line of blood seeping from his lips and through his beard until it dripped from the tips of the braid. His bloody teeth showed as his grin widened and he raised his arm as if to slap four from fifty paces away. A whirring noise made Harl tear his gaze away from Damen as the mech’s arm lifted, mimicking Damen’s gesture.
Damen swiped his hand in front of him as if to bat away a fly and before Four could dive aside the metal fist rose between the shelves and whacked into him. It propelled Four across the shelf and against the frozen bull he’d knocked over previously. The bull’s horn punctured the chrome armour, sliding through his back and erupting from his stomach in a wash of red. He let out a low moan as Damen reached a hand out. The plates and tubes that made up the hand, hovered over Four than picked him up between two metal fingers. The mech hand clamped around him and slowly drew him off the horn. The sucking sound mixed with his cries of pain was horrendous to listen to but like watching a criminal hang, there was a sense of satisfaction.
Damen flicked his wrist and Four flew so far across the room that no sound echoed back when he hit the distant wall.
Chapter 47
Senior technician K. Sims is the one I have picked. I can’t say why, but their psych records indicate a calm temperament under stressful conditions. What could be more stressful than forced cryo awakening? Perhaps I can make it seem like an accident?
Harl looked up at the titanic mech, not believing his eyes. Damen had controlled the machine like a puppet master.
The platform was hovering beside the mech’s shoulder with Kane balanced precariously on an armour plate. He hopped on the platform and into the control seat.
‘What in all the world was that?’ Troy asked when the platform crossed to them and slowed to a halt on the shelf’s edge.
Damen wiped the blood from his mouth and stomped over to Harl, Dana, and Troy as they gathered around the platform.
Kane was jubilant as he clambered over the platform rail and onto the shelf. He almost embraced the hunter in his happiness but stopped short.
‘It worked,’ he said, slapping Damen on the back. Instead of the usual black look, and for the first time since Yara’s death, Damen smiled.
‘Well?’ Troy prompted, ‘Care to explain any of that or should I assume it was magic?’
Kane beamed at them. ‘I managed to design a suit that can control Aylen mechs, directly overriding their command unit. It was initially designed to be used remotely but I couldn’t finish that once they had bombed Gorm, the lab was ruined.’ He pointed to the shoulder of the mech to a small box with a flashing light on the top. ‘I attached the unit manually and it worked perfectly.’
‘How do you keep up with it?’ Harl asked, ‘Five strides and it’ll be too far out of sight to be of much use.’
Kane frowned at the dampening wor
ds then scratched his chin as if debating how best to explain to a layman. ‘In relation to the suit user, it is adaptable and can be changed so that it moves one step to two of yours and so forth.’ He glanced at Damen. ‘Like I’ve been saying it’s not really ready.’
‘Just needs more practicable testing,’ Damen said, looking up at the mech like a proud father.
Kane found his bag among the scattered items, strewn across the shelf and fished inside. He pulled out a small hover drone and a flat panel of clear glass the size of a hand. He clipped the glass to Damen’s chest, using small built in hooks that allowed it to be placed at a forty five degrees so Damen could look down through it.
‘This screen,’ Kane said, fiddling with a thin wire that reeled out from the base of Damen’s backpack and plugged into the side of the glass, ‘should allow you to follow what the mech is doing through the camera mounted to this drone.’ He picked up the hand sized triangular drone and flicked a switch on its side. The small fans at each corner whirled into life and it buzzed, hovering mid air as Kane let go.
Kane reached for the glass panel on Damen’s chest and tapped the blank screen. A grainy holographic image popped up on the screen. It was an image of the five of them, and like an out of body experience, it was looking down at them from the perspective of the drone.
‘It has a camera feed,’ Kane said.
‘Who controls the drone?’ Troy said, waving a hand at the small hovering drone and watching the view on the screen.
‘It follows the backpack on the suit by default,’ Kane said. ‘But it can be voice controlled to move independently.’ He tapped the screen as Damen watched intently.
‘Back fifty,’ Kane said and the drone’s mini fans whirred to life and it zipped away from them along the shelf, going more right than back.
‘It’s still a work in progress,’ Kane said quickly as it nearly bumped into the mech suit.
Damen pressed a few controls on the screen. ‘Right ten,’ he said and it obey in a few seconds except it shifted backwards instead of right. ‘Forward twenty.’ The drone glided forward.
‘Just a couple of teething problems,’ Kane said.
The screen showed the outline of a suit of armour on the shelf, just behind where Four had been impaled on the bull’s horn.
Damen jogged over and they followed behind.
‘What is it?’ Troy asked, stopping in front of a shiny black set of armour.
‘Fascinating,’ Kane said as Damen reached out to touch the series of separated plates that made up the suit. ‘It’s made entirely of densium.’
Harl finally realised the fascination when it became clear the that the suit of armour matched the black gauntlet Sorack had given Damen. If the suit was the same as the black fist the anyone wearing the armour would be able to withstand an Aylen stepping on top of them.
Damen’s face was of a torn man The dilemma warring in the hunter’s head must have been torturous. The densium suit would be an incredible asset in the fights to come, but on the other hand the motion suit would let him fight an Aylen head to head.
Troy saw the battle and looked at Kane. ‘If only you could make the densium armour the controller for the mimic suit.’
Kane looked impressed at the suggestion then shook his head. ‘Not enough time,’ he said, ‘but possibly it could be done one day.’
‘We can’t leave it,’ Damen said, having made a decision.
Troy perked up, ‘I’d be happy to wear-’
‘Harl, take the densium suit,’ Damen said quickly.
‘Why me?’ Harl asked.
‘Yeah why him?’ Troy pitched in.
‘Because I have a plan,’ Damen said.
‘One that doesn’t involve suicide?’ Kane said.
‘On second thought,’ Troy said, ‘you take it, Harl.’
Chapter 48
I have managed to rig the cryobed to receive a power surge if any of the ships batteries become overloaded. It’s a simple task of increasing the reactor power for a few seconds and hey presto. Note to self; encrypt these logs before waking the subject.
Harl manoeuvred in the suit, testing the plates. The black armour was lightweight and with so many kinks in the metal it was remarkably flexible. Once he had it on he’d found switches inside the gauntlets, one at each finger tip. Unlike the one Sorack had given Damen, which Troy was now wearing, the hands were activated by switches instead of a wrist flick. Using the switches he could independently lock and unlock his hands, arms, chest, head and legs. A few minutes practise in the suit hadn’t been enough to for Harl to feel confident but with Grakka at the table outside, time had run out.
The six Aylen females watched them as they stepped off the shelf and onto the platform before flying over to the mech.
Kane positioned the platform above one shoulder while Damen limbered up in the space at the back of the platform where the weapons had been piled up.
‘Can’t we just use the gun on the mech?’ Troy asked, glancing down at the hand which had the weapon strapped just behind the wrist on the outer forearm.
‘Not unless you do down and activate it manually,’ Kane said, ‘Like a rifle you must use the trigger.’
‘Ready?’ Damen asked and flicked the screen on his chest to show a video feed from the drone at the front of the mech, where the Aylen head would normally rest.
Troy and Dana stood poised by the rail around the edge in case Damen went too close. Kane had explained how the user could quickly turn off the suit and step back before turning it on again so he had more space. He just hoped Damen knew what he was doing. He had seen the hunter’s skill with weapons but his use of technology left something to be desired.
Damen moved the mech to the door. The machine buzzed and whirred beneath them. He lined it up with the door that led out in to the lift room with the archway that led through to the games table. Harl watched him take a deep breath and strike a foot out mid air.
The thunderous sound of the door buckling under the impact was deafening. It flew outwards, revealing the lift straight ahead and an empty room.
Damen stepped forward and Kane kept the platform close, moving just above the mech’s shoulder to give them the best view. On their left was the archway and Damen didn’t hesitate to walk out to it and turn to face three Aylen with their backs to them. They were hunched over the table in the centre of the room.
They turned at the noise to face the intruder. The one closest was the security guard, kitted out in a mech suit. The second looked to be one of the Aylen scientists and Harl recognised the face as one that often came to watch the bloodshed. The final one was Grakka looking as perplexed as the other two at his empty mech suit that was stomping through the archway into the room.
The security mech was on the right of the table and was about to intercept them when a series of explosions peppered the air around the top of the table.
As planned with Gold and Silver, the men inside would be using the catapults to launch hundred of collars up at the Aylen, exploding when they hit the limit of their range.
As Damen strode forward, rings of explosions broke out around the Aylen’s feet. Men had climbed down from the table using tied together sheets, threaded down through the un-repaired hole beneath the table to place more collars on the Aylen’s feet while they’d stood watching the battle unfold.
A regiment of men, scurried on the floor and used the grappling guns Kane had designed to shoot up at the giants and in a daring stunt, reel in and ascend the titanic bodies. They carried more of the explosive neck collars and using a thick tar they stuck them to the upper legs before detonating them manually.
The security mech slammed into Damen’s and like a vengeful wrestler, Damen punched and kicked as the guard tried in vain to pull out the power cables on Damen’s mech. The battle was like watching steel mountains fight, two titans beating each other with thunderous strikes.
Damen jabbed the unprotected face of the guard roaring as each blow landed. The head of
the mech suit protected the sides of the Aylen’s head in a cage but left the front open. Damen crammed the metal fist between the thick bars, crunching the tender flesh of the Aylen’s grey face. Yellow ichor dripped from cuts, splitting down its face to join the growing pool of gore at its feet from the gouge holes made by the explosives.
The men on the floor had taken massive casualties as they were stomped by Aylen feet and they had retreated under the table, seeking shelter from the stamping and rain of blood.
Grakka had stepped back from the table, sensing the danger from the army inside as more collars were flung up from the catapults towards the watchers.
The scientist Aylen had reached the fighting mechs and was crouching, trying to pull the power box from Damen’s mech that was embedded in the upper leg where there was a box of charges. Its head was directly below the hovering platform.
‘Dana, grenades,’ Kane yelled and she popped open the lid on the supply crate as Damen stood fighting with an invisible enemy. She pulled out a pair of grenades and used her teeth to extract the pins before lobbing them over the side of the platform.
Harl rushed to the edges and holding on to the rail, peered down as the grenades landed on the Aylen and rolled down its back. They blew half way and the Aylen suddenly straightened as the explosives tore holes through its mesh clothing. Its head came level with the platform, its mouth opened in an ear shattering roar of agony.
The yellow eyes widened at the sight of them.
‘Damen,’ Harl called, hoping the hunter could turn their mech on the Aylen before the hand it raised could hit them. Troy fired a rifle at the craggy face as Damen tried to disengage the guard and turn on the attacker. But the mech was too slow to respond. As the grey hand swiped for them a female Aylen barged into the scientist like two hills of flesh colliding, and knocked the blow off course.
Harl tried to asses everything that was happening, from Damen’s mech pulverising the security guard, to the six furious Aylen females that had just entered. One was locked in a struggle with the scientist, still under attack from the humans who had used the grappling guns and were clinging onto its body.
