by C H Gideon
Now all I have to do is to eliminate five Orau before they kill any of the hostages, she thought, staring hard at the people below.
Easy, right?
“Now, Geroux,” Ka’nak shouted over the comm.
Geroux swallowed her doubts and eased around the corner of the building. She aimed and squeezed the trigger.
She knew if she hesitated for even a second, gave in to the nagging worry that threatened to consume her, she would sit there and do nothing and the Orau would win.
She couldn’t have that.
Instead, she did as Ka’nak wanted her to and engaged the Orau before they realized she was there.
One of the Orau was shot in the back, and he staggered forward screaming. A second Orau went down, then a third as she fired without mercy, raining hell on the unsuspecting soldiers.
The element of surprise lasted little more than a heartbeat.
They spun and dove for what little cover they could find before returning fire. Geroux ducked behind the wall as dozens of energy blasts ripped into it. Shards of wood and dust peppered her as she crouched, waiting for a lull in the onslaught and the opportunity to fire back.
That came seconds later.
She heard screams from the mass of Orau soldiers and the attack on her position ceased as quickly as it had begun.
Geroux cautiously peered around the corner to see Ka’nak wreaking havoc in the midst of the Orau.
He shouted his battle cry as he attacked. Gun in his left hand, he darted through their confused ranks, shooting them up close and personal. Those he couldn’t shoot, he attacked with his other hand and knees and feet.
He spun through the enemy, bloody fists slamming like pistons, crashing into faces and breaking bones.
The Melowi warrior gave the Orau no room to escape.
Like a storm of violence, he cut a swath through the enemy.
Within seconds he had wiped out half of the Orau, leaving the others scrambling.
The Orau had just started to organize when Geroux hit them from behind.
Careful not to hit the whirlwind that was Ka’nak, she targeted those on the fringe of the group, pelting them with weapons fire. Caught between the fury that was the Melowi and Geroux’s discharge they died quickly, barely aware of what had killed them.
Geroux dropped to her knees as Ka’nak went to work on the missile launcher, disabling it with brutally efficient blows. When it gave way, she sighed in relief, a grin stretching her cheeks. Ka’nak roared his fierce cry of victory.
Maybe she wouldn’t need the desk job after all.
Jiya steeled her nerves and jumped before she could talk herself out of it.
Fortunately, gravity was on her side this time.
That was what happened when you jumped off a building.
She gritted her teeth as she soared through the air—well, soared might be too graceful a word.
It was more like she fell like an awkward stone, but she hadn’t held high hopes for the maneuver to begin with.
As she careened toward the cluster of Orau soldiers below, she targeted the one farthest from the group. He didn’t even notice her as she blew his head off.
The others, however, saw her, and their weapons started to come up toward her hurtling figure. She crashed into their ranks, bowling them over after colliding with a solid thunk.
She bit back a grunt as pain flared, her spine crunching into the launcher, limbs flailing.
As much as the impact hurt, she couldn’t help but savor the joy as the Orau crawled around her trying to regain their senses.
She didn’t let them. With the Orau guards eliminated, Jiya started cutting the hostages down, freeing them from the chain of limbs that tied them together in a circle around the site.
She flopped to the ground as the last of the Krokans was released, grunting in pain from the injuries she’d sustained during the attack. They gathered around her, rubbing their wrists and muttering thanks with wide and grateful eyes.
Too tired and sore to join in their growing jubilation, she gestured toward the missile launcher with her chin.
“You guys want to break something for me?”
The Krokans leapt to the task with relish, using the dropped Orau weapons as Jiya looked on, laughing all the while.
Chapter Eighteen
Reynolds circled the school and darted across the street in an attempt to flank the Loranian crew and their child hostages.
As badly as he wanted to teach the bastards a lesson in brutality, he knew better than to put the kids at risk.
He pressed his android body to its fullest as he circled around his enemy, knowing Takal would need to focus his full attention on a replacement. There was no way it would hold up much longer, given how much damage had been done to it and how much he demanded of it.
Inherent in all AI programs that Bethany Anne sanctioned was the requirement to protect children. Reynolds knew he couldn’t risk their lives. He’d been programmed that way. As long as the children were in danger, Reynolds would do whatever it took to rescue them safely, even if it meant sacrificing his mobility.
I can always plug back into the Jonny-Taxi body.
With that disgusting thought in his head, he zigzagged back around the shuttle crew, staying out of sight while they cast glances around to find him. Their anxiety rose with each step where they didn’t know his location.
Reynolds swore he would kill all the shuttle crew to save the children, even if it meant not capturing one to interrogate.
“Don’t think you can stop us, heathen,” the melted-face male taunted. “These kids’ll be dead before you can do so much as—”
Reynolds killed him first.
He hit him so hard and fast that the alien was dead before the final word left his mouth.
Reynolds unleashed his fury.
With perfect precision, Reynolds hurled the corpse down the line of the Loranian crew. It slammed into the others in rapid, bone-jarring succession.
The shuttle crew grunted and groaned as their companion bounced off them, plowing them aside. The last in line managed to squeeze off a shot, but he’d been knocked to his knees and the shot had gone into the air.
The kids screamed and scattered, and only four enemy and Reynolds remained. He had to maintain the initiative to finish this before the crew reacted.
Reynolds stomped the face of the nearest crew member. The AI ignored the brittle snap of bones and kicked the next in line in the ribs, following that with a gunshot to the head.
The last two scrambled to get back to their feet, raising their weapons and firing, but Reynolds shrugged off the impacts. He grabbed the wrist of the first crewmember and bent it back as he fired a second time.
His face looked worse after it absorbed a close-range blast from his own pistol.
Reynolds flung his body aside and went to grab the last of the living Loranian crew, but he was too slow.
The crewmember squeezed off a shot…
But it wasn’t at Reynolds.
Kids screamed as their teacher was struck in the back while shielding target: a little female who lay trapped in her teacher’s arms as she collapsed.
With a growl that sounded more like a volcano erupting, Reynolds stepped in front of the next shot, taking it full in the chest.
The blast warped the metal there and sensors went off, warning him of internal damage, but the end was in sight.
He crushed the weapon in the male’s hand, along with his fingers.
The alien shrieked, and Reynolds drove his fist into his face so hard that his head snapped backward, his jaw broken and crushed by Reynolds’ armored hand.
The body dropped to the ground.
Reynolds kicked him in the face out of spite and spun, running over to the fallen teacher’s side.
He breathed a sigh of relief to find her alive.
“I…I…” She tried to speak, but Reynolds hushed her.
He rolled her over, freeing the young female and making sure she was okay. He
let out another sigh when he realized she was okay.
All of them were.
The children huddled around him, terrified but alive and unharmed.
He returned to the Loranian, hauling him roughly to his feet.
“Why are you here?” Reynolds demanded.
The gurgled response was unintelligible.
“Tell me!”
The male’s eyes rolled back in his head, and bloody bubbles around his destroyed mouth marked his last breath.
Reynolds groaned, angry at himself for failing to capture any of the aliens. He already regretted the violence of his last punch, but it was done. They’d have to capture the Loranian ship instead.
The one thing he wouldn’t regret was saving the children’s lives. When he went back to the teacher on the ground, he found that she was still holding on.
He tore a strip of cloth from his uniform and started binding the teacher’s shoulder and back. A cluster of Krokans emerged from the nearby buildings and hurried over.
The people were shy and afraid of him, but they swarmed out to aid the teacher and the kids. He eased back to let them, understanding they could do more than he could.
A short female, barely a wisp who might blow away if the wind were too strong, stepped up to Reynolds and planted her feet in front of him.
For all her frailness, there was a strength that practically glowed in her eyes as she stared Reynolds down.
“I am Mahd Si,” she told him, proffering her hand. “We are in your debt, off-worlder.”
Reynolds shook his head. “You can call me Reynolds, and you don’t owe me, or anyone for that matter, anything,” he answered.
He hated the idea that his and the crew’s presence had put these people at risk even more than they usually were. Jiya had been right. Ending slavery was worth the risk and the loss.
The crowd lifted the teacher and gathered the children and swept them away in a bustle of movement. Reynolds watched them go, wishing them luck.
He turned back to Mahd Si after they were gone. “Are you in charge here?”
She chuckled. “As much as any slave can be,” she replied with a smile, showing off crooked and badly maintained teeth.
“You’re not a slave any longer,” he told her, realizing how much he sounded like Jiya, promising something he might not be able to deliver. But it was the right thing to say.
“Is that why you’re here?” she asked.
Was it? he wondered.
It might not have been part of the plan, but after seeing the ruin wrought by the Orau, Reynolds was starting to think that maybe freeing these people was part of the plan. A strong federation of planets could stand up to the Kurtherians. A Federation. Damn, Bethany Anne was right, too.
“I think it is,” he told her, smiling.
There was no way he could leave things the way they were after seeing all they’d been through.
President Jaer Pon might not appreciate Reynolds’ generosity when they returned to Krokus 4, but Reynolds didn’t give a damn what he thought. The president had sent them there to stop the Orau, and that came with consequences.
Reynolds would see to it that the people on Krokus 1 were taken care of the same as those on Krokus 4.
Better even, seeing how the war footing hadn’t been kind to those on Krokus 4.
Regardless, while the SD Reynolds and crew were in the system, they would rid it of the Orau and make it so the people could live in peace, without the fear of having their planets raided and razed by pirate scum.
“Can I find you here when I return?” Reynold asked Mahd Si. “I suspect we’ll have much to talk about soon.”
“I’ll have someone keep watch for you.” She nodded. “You planning to go after the rest of the Orau?”
Already committed in his head, Reynolds confirmed that was exactly what he planned. “They don’t deserve this place,” he told her. “It’s not theirs, and we’ll go after them until we drive them back into the hole out of which they crawled.”
“Thank you, Reynolds,” she told him, patting him on his arm as if he were one of the children. She offered a soft smile and followed her people without uttering another word.
He wondered for a second what he might be getting himself into, but he knew Bethany Anne would approve of his decision.
In fact, she’d insist on it.
The thought made him smile. Still, there was work to do.
He went over to the bodies of the Loranian crew and crouched to examine them more closely.
He had hated having to kill them all…
Well, he really hadn’t hated it, actually.
He had enjoyed killing them, and they had deserved it several times over for their attacks on the superdreadnought and his people.
He’d find out what the crew of the Loranian ship wanted from him eventually.
They’d regret picking him as their target.
Until that time, though, he could still learn a little about his would-be opponents.
Melted Face was the first of the crew he looked at.
In charge, at least until he died, Reynolds figured he’d be the one to carry any mission-sensitive equipment or intel if there was any to be had.
Reynolds searched the body and found a small communication device. He thought about triggering it and taunting the enemy ship’s captain into doing something stupid.
Fortunately, the AI understood that calling a battle-ready cruiser down on his head could have negative repercussions.
He was sure the Krokans would appreciate his restraint.
As he went through the pockets and pouches of the melted-faced male, he found nothing of substance beyond the comm device. The armor and weapons were influenced by Kurtherian technology.
Somehow or another the Kurtherians were behind the ship and its mission, whatever it was. Reynolds could come to no other conclusion.
The Kurtherians had had more than one opportunity to come after the superdreadnought, yet they’d been hesitant, working through intermediaries or being careful. Maybe they had already fled the galaxy.
What the hell could they want?
The options were limitless, from wanting Federation tech to needing a captive to use against Bethany Anne and the Federation, to simply wanting Reynolds alive so the Kurtherians could torture him for the hell of it.
Reynolds mentally shrugged. He needed more data to draw a better conclusion before shaping his counterattack strategy.
He went on to search the next body, but there was nothing there. The same was true with the remaining shuttle crew. That didn’t mean there wasn’t anything he could work with, however.
He memorized the details of the various aliens and examined them for anything—scars, tattoos, markings, whatever—that might set them apart, so he would have the visual information if the opportunity arose to identify them.
That was a long shot, but at least he could research the races they belonged to and possibly find a connection to the Kurtherians or the Loranians. Reynolds would learn what races those were, and they would be next on his list of planets to visit.
With the Loranian crew offering him nothing to ponder, he knew there was little left to do on the planet but wipe out the remaining missile sites, clear out the last of the Orau, and get back to dealing with President Jaer Pon to see what he could do to help the Krokans here on Krokus 1 while also helping those on Krokus 4.
Ready to get on with things, he opened a channel to the superdreadnought.
“Asya! Are you finished playing around up there yet?” he asked. “We’ll clean up a few things here and then we’re going to need a damn ride back to Krokus 4. I need to have a conversation with Jaer Pon.”
“You have the absolute worst timing,” Comm replied from the bridge of the SD Reynolds.
“Is that Daddy?” Tactical asked. “Tell him to bring pizza for dinner.”
“If you continue teasing me with that mystical pizza thing you keep talking about, Tactical, I’m going to shoot you,�
� Asya muttered, watching the viewscreen as the latest sortie of Orau ships closed on them. “It sounds sooooo good.”
“You have no idea,” Tactical told her.
“Exactly,” she shot back. “I have no idea, and I want it!”
“If you two are done chatting about dinner, can I get a sitrep?” Reynolds ordered, his voice filling the bridge.
“Six Orau fighter-bombers incoming,” Asya reported. “Tactical has taken out most of the launch sites already, only a few left. We’ve eliminated eighty percent of the missiles, but another wave is already on its way. We have a plan, though.”
“Is it a good one?” Reynolds challenged.
Asya chuckled. “I’ll let you know in a little while, boss,” she replied, wondering at the angst in Reynolds’ voice. “Takal came up with it.”
“Well, at least we know that if it doesn’t work, it will be a spectacular failure,” Reynolds mumbled.
“What about you?” Asya asked. “You get the shuttle crew sorted?”
“Sorted, twisted, and all but buried,” Reynolds answered.
“We have pretty loose operational terms for success, but that doesn’t sound much like one to me,” Asya told him.
“All depends on the perspective, but we won’t be bringing home any captives to interrogate, sadly,” the AI reported, disappointment in his voice. “And we still have a number of Orau running around the planet causing trouble, so we’re a ways from the finish line on this one.”
“Well, as soon as we can spare the shuttle, we’ll send it down to collect you,” Asya replied, grimacing at the viewscreen. “San Roche is still engaged. Gotta go now, sir. We’ve got company dropping by.”
“Take care of business and maybe we’ll find you some of that pizza, Captain Asya,” Reynolds replied. “Just don’t let Tactical convince you that it needs pineapple on it. Reynolds out.” He closed with a laugh as the connection shut down.
“What the hell is pineapple?” Asya asked.
“Fruit of the gods!” Tactical announced.
Further discussion was curtailed by the thunderous rattling of the Orau fighter-bombers engaging the SD Reynolds.
