The creature was so much larger than when Alerna had shown it to me in my dream. It had to be the size of a small house. A thick black body was supported by six legs. A head with giant black eyes and a set of pincers the length of lances sprouted from its face.
It turned its attention to Nemesis while the rest of us were still figuring out what to do next. With a giant cry that burned my ears, it slammed its head into the man called Nemesis so hard, it actually broke through his barrier. A sick thud could be heard as the alien’s head met the man’s body.
Nemesis was hurled through the air like a rock from a sling. He came to a crash, landing near to where I sat with the rest of the team. Meters from me, the shirtless man with the tattoos struggled to his feet.
Their hero collapsed and the addition of the giant Voy insect set a fire under the Shadow Praetorians. The fight started anew as the GG poured everything they had at the bug and the heartened Voy soldiers.
“Please, please, it hurts so much,” Nemesis said beside me.
I looked at the man who was on his knees, clawing at his throat.
I had a better look at him now. His eyes were plain white orbs with no pupils. His face still eerily familiar, as if I knew him. He scratched and clawed at his neck, drawing blood.
A thin silver necklace I had not seen before sat secured around his throat.
“Please take it off,” Nemesis begged. “I can’t—I can’t breathe.”
Thoughts of who I was and who I had been flashed through my mind. Was I the type of guy to stand over someone begging me for help and do nothing? Maybe I had been that type of person, but not anymore.
“Hold still,” I said, dropping to my knees. I holstered my MK II and pulled the knife from the sheath at my belt.
“No, don’t,” the colonel called, reaching for my arm. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
Jax caught him in time.
I gently slipped the blade of my knife sideways between the tight-fitting collar and his neck. A quick twist separated the piece of metal from his throat.
Immediately, Nemesis’ eyes reverted from white orbs back to normal. He looked up at me, massaging his throat.
“Thank you, Daniel,” he said, not just looking at me but through me. “I knew I’d see you again one day.”
Twenty-Six
“Nemesis has gone rogue,” the colonel yelled into his comm. “I repeat, Nemesis has gone rogue. Fall back!”
“Daniel, Daniel, what’s going on down there?” Wesley said in my comm. “Daniel, do you read me?”
Right now, I ignored the yells for my attention. I had to know how the man knew me.
“How do you know me?” I asked, tearing off my helmet. The cold night air washed against my sweat-dampened brow. “Who are you?”
Nemesis was about to answer, when a splatter of weapons fire painted the ground around us.
“Enemy, twelve o’clock,” Cassie shouted, taking a knee. Her bionic forearms opened fire, sending red laser beams at a group of Voy warriors that broke through the front lines.
With the introduction of the massive bug creature to the fight, utter chaos erupted through the settlement. The Shadow Praetorians were being pushed back by the bug and the newly formed ranks of Voy soldiers.
As much as I wanted answers from Nemesis, I wanted to live more.
I twisted around, dropping my knife back in my belt and pulling my MK II in one smooth motion.
I switched to explosive rounds and followed Cassie’s line of sight. Sure enough, the four-armed Voy warriors charged our location. In their top two hands, they held swords; in their bottom two, they fired heavy blasters.
Lucky for me, the Voy sucked at aiming, and along with that, they were running, further sending their bolts off course.
I sighted and squeezed the trigger of my weapon as I locked in on targets. The rounds exploded from my MK II detonating with explosive force on the approaching enemy.
Along with Cassie and Jax, we made short work of the Voy screaming toward us.
“Daniel, Daniel,” Wesley yelled again. “I need you to answer. We have the mechs ready to be deployed.”
“Get ready to drop them on my location!” I shouted. “There’s one of those crazy alien bugs here and we could use the support.”
“Understood,” Wesley confirmed.
“Listen, Nemesis or whatever your name is, I’m not sure how much more juice you have left bu—” I turned to address the shirtless man.
He was gone.
“Son of—”
A screech from the alien insect plowing through a squad of Shadow Praetorians retreating toward us ended my thought.
General Armstrong led the group in our direction. He bled from a deep wound on his forehead. His blaster exchanged for a heavy rifle he used to lay fire into the giant insect.
The small arms fire of the weapon didn’t pack enough punch to do more than nick and scrape the bug’s armor. We’d need something a lot bigger.
I half expected the colonel who stood with us to go play tattletale and tell the general what I had done. Instead, he surprised me.
“Sir, please issue the retreat order,” the colonel shouted to his commander. “With Nemesis gone, this is over. You have to see that.”
The Shadow Praetorians joining us didn’t voice their opinions, but they looked at General Armstrong for consensus. I could imagine behind their black helmets visors their eyes looked expectantly to their commanding officer.
“No!” General Armstrong roared, spittle flying from his mouth. “Nothing’s over. We’re the Galactic Government. No alien comes to our galaxy and tells us—”
His face erupted in a spray of blood as a rogue Voy round slammed into his face. The general fell to the ground, dead.
The colonel in front of me didn’t miss a beat.
“We’re pulling out of here now!” the colonel shouted to both the soldiers around him and to the channel in his comm.
“We can help!” I said. “Let us cover you. We have mechs inbound that can deal with the bug as well as dropships and fighter crafts to keep the Voy ships busy.”
“Colonel Jonah Strife.” The man held out a hand. “Thanks for the assists. And you are?”
“Daniel Hunt,” I replied, accepting the offered hand. “We’re with a few corporations who understand we need to fight the Voy threat as one or we don’t stand a chance.”
“I’m obliged to agree with you there, Mr. Hunt,” the colonel stated. “All right, we’re pulling out.”
“We got you, go!” I called.
The colonel began barking orders to the men around him as well as through his comms.
“How are we going to do this?” Jax asked, peering around the corner of the building and letting out a few rounds from his blaster. “There’s a lot of those suckers to try and hold back.”
“Angel, they’re pulling out,” I said in my comm. “We’ll need you back here.”
“On my way,” Angel reported.
“Wesley, we’re ready for you to drop those mechs on our position,” I said. “Tell them to come in hot.”
“Understood,” Wesley acknowledged.
“Here,” I said, motioning to a low one-story building Colonel Strife and his men had taken up a defensive position behind. They shot around the corners.
I ran over to them with Jax and Cassie.
“Jax, you cover the other corner of the building and have Angel back you up when she gets here. Cassie, you hold this corner.”
Both warriors nodded and moved to obey.
The ground quivered once more, but this time, not from any kind of alien bug burrowing its way through. When it shook this time, a smile touched my lips.
“Jeff and Mandy have arrived with their mech units,” X informed me. “I’ll patch them into the comm channel now.”
I peeked around my corner to the cloud of dust and debris each mech had kicked up. One of the Phoenix mechs landed on my side of the corner of the building while the other one landed
on the opposite side nearer Jax.
The mech nearest me stood tall and undaunted like some titan of old entering the battlefield. Dual compartments opened on its back, introducing a pair of rotating barrels each long enough to be a cannon on its own. The spinning barrels came out of their back, lifted up, and rested on each shoulder.
The next thing I knew, each weapon was rotating at a blinding speed, firing so quickly into the Voy horde, it was impossible to pick out individual rounds. Instead, a barrage leveled the first wave of Voy soldiers dumb enough to try and charge the armored units.
I could hear the same kind of destruction coming from the opposite side of our building.
“What in the Voy’s unholy name is that?” Colonel Strife shouted to me.
“Retribution,” Cassie called back from her position firing around the corner of the structure.
“We’re pulling out,” Colonel Strife answered with a hard nod. “Dropships to the rear of the settlement. You best be pulling your team out as soon as possible. The Voy have the numbers to surround us. Or maybe bring on more of those bug creatures.”
“We’ll be right behind you. Go!” I shouted.
Colonel Strife slapped me on the shoulder. His eyes said everything the moment didn’t allow time for. Soldier to soldier, he knew he owed us his and his men’s lives.
A second later, he was running for the rear of the settlement wall where a door opened out to the Martian desert.
“Woohoo!” Mandy bellowed over the comms. “If this isn’t a target-rich environment, I don’t know what is. Talk about target practice.”
“Nothing like the simulations,” Jeff hollered from his mech. “The Order fighter squadron can wrap up the Voy in the air for a few minutes while we watch the retreat.”
“Got it,” I answered, still amazed by the sheer volume of fire power each mech produced. “Wesley, we’ll need to pull out in about five minutes.”
“I see the GG retreating in their dropships,” Wesley passed. “We’ll touch down on the other side of the rear wall as soon as they clear out.”
“Got it!” I approved.
“Jeff, watch out!” Angel cried over her comm.
I was on the opposite corner of the building, so I couldn’t see anything but the very top of Jeff’s mech. The way the ground shook told me what was coming for him.
“Giant bug incoming!” Jax yelled.
“I got him!” Jeff called.
A sound the likes of which I had never heard echoed through the battlefield. Hundreds of tons of bugs met armored mech.
The sound was something like a car wreck if the vehicles were as large as houses.
Unlucky for Jeff, while his mech matched the bug for height, it couldn’t compete with the alien for sheer weight. The bug slammed into the red mech, bullying it back past the corner of our building to the rear.
Jeff’s mech fell in a heap of twisted metal.
“Daniel” Mandy asked worry etched in her voice.
“Go,” I told her. “We’ll hold the corner here. You and Jeff are on bug duty.”
“Roger that,” Mandy said, already turning to move behind our lines and the massive bug stalking toward her friend.
“Jeff, you still with us?” I asked.
“I think so,” Jeff coughed. “Man, that bug packs a punch.”
Mandy opened up on the bug with both rotating barrels on her shoulders. Casings fell from the weapons like rain. I was sure they weren’t using traditional rounds. They had to be some kind of high tech impact ammunition developed by Phoenix. An answer to that question would have to wait.
The rounds tore through the bug as bright green blood gushed from the creature onto the sandy ground below us.
As much as I would have loved to watch the battle take place behind us, the Voy army was on the move again. They skirted down the street hugging building walls. Unlike before where they ran at us in the open, they were more cautious now. They still moved forward but looked for cover, making it much harder to defend our position.
Cassie and I took turns dodging out around the corner and choosing targets. I was out of explosive rounds and switched to regular tungsten steel bolts a second later. The smell of sweat and death mixed on the cool night air. A chill in the wind pushed icy droplets of sweat on my brow.
A round struck Cassie’s left forearm as she peeked out to fire on the oncoming Voy once more.
Cassie roared in pain, grabbing at her arm.
“How bad is it?” I asked, giving her a moment of reprieve. I jumped out and fired two shots at a pair of Voy who thought they were being cute and popped their heads around the building directly opposite us. My aim was true, finding headshots for both enemy soldiers
“It’s not pretty, but I’ll live,” Cassie said.
I looked down at her left arm. Her mechanical arm was sparking. Cassie maneuvered around the wounded appendage, batting away the smoke as she did so.
“I’ve still got an arm to use, so I’m not out of the fight yet,” Cassie informed me. “Can’t let you wolves have all the fun.”
“You fit right in,” I said with a grin. The Voy numbers against our four without the help of the mechs was suicide. We all knew that. Still, we were going to hold as long as we could. They’d overrun us in a few minutes and it would come down to hand to hand.
As if my thoughts heralded the future, the Voy realized their superiority in numbers and descended on us.
Twenty-Seven
“Here they come!” Jax yelled from his corner of the building.
“The Galactic Government is lifting off now,” Wesley chimed in over the comm. “Buy us a few minutes. We’ll secure the landing sight. All you’ll have to do is run toward us.”
“You make it sound so easy,” I said through gritted teeth as the Voy rushed our position.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of them charged us, screeching into the cold night air. Cassie was beside me, one arm dangling by her side.
I unloaded my drum on them, pulling the trigger as fast as I could track targets. I clicked dry of regular rounds and went to gas munitions, hoping it would spread out among the first wave of aliens and knock more than a few out.
As fast as they sprinted toward us, I wasn’t able to take out more than a dozen before it came down to the axe and knife. I holstered my MK II and brought up the weapons I was so familiar with in the same move. The First Voy to reach me swung his sword down on me. I batted it to the side and sank the axe head deep into his skull.
The Voy trembled then fell to his knees. There was no time to even see him fall. They were on top of us like a bursting dam long past due.
Somewhere in the background, I heard the sounds of the bug fighting the mechs. I couldn’t afford to even look in that direction. I just reacted. My thoughts came quick and left faster.
Block, stab, parry, swing. I moved amongst the Voy, never daring to stay in the same spot for more than a brief moment. Kick, duck, stab, swing.
Their blood spattered my armor and the ground around me. A Voy got a lucky shot in and hammered me across the face with a closed fist. In the second it took me to recover, another tackled me to the ground from behind.
Cassie kicked the Voy off me so violently, I definitely heard bones snap in the alien. She blasted another at point-blank range, opening up a smoking hole in its chest.
I fought to my feet.
“Your recallers, Daniel,” X reminded me of my new toys. “Make them fight your game.”
Muscles already burning, I faced the Voy again, this time taking X’s advice. I put my back to Cassie and started hurling my axe and knife at the closest targets. As soon as the weapons found their marks, I beckoned back with my fingers. Just like in training, they obeyed, flying back to my hands thanks to the silver bracelets I wore.
Breathing was hard. A lucky shot found my torso and made me double over in pain for only a second. The armor I wore stopped the round from penetrating, but it was enough to bruise ribs and take my breath away.
&
nbsp; Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes, hours.
Cassie still wore her helmet. Her visor was cracked. Sparks still poured out from her left forearm.
“Head for the rear wall, go, go, go!” Wesley shouted over the comm.
I stopped only long enough to make sure Cassie was on my left as we retreated toward the wall. The settlement’s rear gate stood open where the GG had also made their retreat.
I saw Angel helping a limping Jax back toward the gate as well. The thought of leaving them behind never crossed my mind. I veered to my right, sprinting toward them as hundreds of Voy cried in frustration.
As I made my way toward Angel and Jax, I was able to take a quick look at the fight taking place between the bug and the two mechs. I wasn’t sure which party was wounded the most.
Fires and smoke along with electric sparks exploded over both mechs. I couldn’t tell which mech was Jeff’s and which was Mandy’s, but one of them was missing a weapon from their shoulder torn off at the mount. Another was limping almost as badly as Jax.
Left palm facing outward, the mech with the limp poured fire on the bug. The other mech held a blade that extended from its right forearm at least eight feet in length.
The alien bug leaked bright green blood all over the ground. The mechs stumbled and fell in the stuff. Despite losing a river of fluid, the bug remained on its feet screaming hate at the pair of mechs.
I grabbed Jax around his free arm and helped Angel carry him to the wall.
Cassie hadn’t left us behind either; she followed close behind, sending a burst of fire into the oncoming enemy.
“Give us some cover!” I yelled at Wesley.
I could see Wesley had personally come out of the dropship with a suit of his own armor and a heavy rifle. He along with a dozen Order soldiers stood at the entrance to the rear wall firing on the enemy, trying to provide as much help as possible.
We retreated with the roars of the enemy and the bone-crushing sounds of the mechs doing battle behind us.
“He’s not going down!” Mandy yelled from her mech. “Just die, you piece of—”
Vendetta: A Near Future Thriller (Forsaken Mercenary Book 4) Page 17
