“Dodge left now, sir!”
Siv darted aside, and the attack missed. He popped shots off at it with his plasma pistol and his neural disruptor, but missed, as Silky knew he would. Siv had never excelled at marksmanship, despite years of Shadowslip training and Silky’s assistance. Mitsuki managed a glancing shot along the cog’s force field, and Kyralla landed a solid strike. Its field strength dipped to twenty percent.
Tamzin continued to take shots at Kaleeb, her laser rifle’s beam keeping him distracted enough to reduce the accuracy of his shots.
Faisal swept around for another attack, approaching with remarkable speed. Siv readied his force-shield, but before the sky-blade reached him, Octavian sprayed a jet of oil onto the cog, and it careened off course. Clever.
“Tamzin, beam the sky-blade.”
Surprisingly, she followed his order without question. The beam sparked the oil still clinging to the sky-blade’s force field, and it erupted into flame. That wouldn’t harm it much, but it would distract it for a few valuable seconds.
Tekeru was only four meters from the Outworld Ranger’s boarding ramp when Kaleeb scored a deep hit to the researcher’s abdomen. He went down, instantly knocked unconscious from shock.
Bishop darted over to help. One bolt sliced across the gizmet’s right arm, a second cut through his left thigh, and a third grazed his neck.
Kaleeb holstered one plasma pistol and drew his sniper pistol. His next shot, a precisely guided round from that weapon, slammed into Galen’s hip.
“We’re getting torn up!” Siv said.
“He’s laming the easy targets to pin the rest of us, sir.”
“Can’t you do anything?”
“I’m doing all I can, sir, but we are dealing with an experienced, highly elite soldier, not a thug or bounty hunter.”
“Damn it!” Tamzin cried, shouldering her laser rifle. The power pack had finally burned out.
The flames on Faisal had disappeared, but so had the cog himself. Cloaked and planning a sneak attack, no doubt. Obsession blinded it. Otherwise, it would have boarded the Outworld Ranger. If it took hold of the ship, then they’d be screwed and at Kaleeb’s mercy.
Despite his latest injuries, Galen rose to his feet and continued on with determination. In the lead, he would actually reach the Outworld Ranger first. Oona, ducked low at the top of the ship’s ramp, cried out in joy, despite the danger.
“Daddy!”
“Oona!” he cried.
With a tense smile, Kyralla patted him on the shoulder as he passed her. She continued to harass Kaleeb with well-placed shots that had his force field falling steadily, but it was only a matter of time before he focused his attention on her again. Unfortunately, even without the force field, his armor and body could withstand a lot of punishment.
Octavian picked up Tekeru and wrapped an arm around Bishop’s waist and rushed them toward the ship.
A plasma shot bounced off Octavian’s back and flashed into the loading bay of the Outworld Ranger, narrowly missing Oona.
A guided round streaked toward Kyralla. She dived aside, but not quickly enough, and it tore through her left forearm, ripping flesh and shattering bone. She went down with a scream. Galen hesitated near the boarding ramp, and Oona cried out.
“Rosie, tell her to calm down. I do not want another unpredictable incident.”
“What if that’s the only thing that could save us?” Rosie asked.
“There are too many players here,” Silky replied. “A localized incident won’t be enough this time.”
Kyralla waved her father off and struggled to stand.
"Sir, Tamzin, Wings, we need to hit Kaleeb with a coordinated strike to buy the others time to board the ship. On my mark, everyone, focus your fire on him then make a run for it. We're nearly there."
All at once, they fired at Kaleeb. He rotated his torso and deployed a force-shield from his forearm. Damn! Silky hadn’t detected that emitter. Kaleeb blocked all the shots except one from Kyralla that slipped under the force-shield. It was too bad he still had his normal force field up. Silky would have loved to see Kaleeb get pegged by a hot bolt of plasma to the balls.
“Go! Go! Go!”
Kaleeb returned fire. A guided round pierced Tamzin's right hand, and she dropped her pistol. His plasma shot shattered her environmental suit helmet, and she fell. Silky thought for a moment she might be dead, but she started cursing up a storm, and the life-scan didn't show any significant damage, just blistering and several cuts on her face.
Only a step away from the boarding ramp, Galen stopped, turned, and cried out in alarm, “Tamzin?!”
The sky-blade dropped in, and Silky managed to scramble its cloaking as he sped toward Siv’s head. “Sir, Faisal incoming!”
Tamzin crawled along the ground, and the sky-blade passed over her. Siv and Mitsuki opened up on it while Kyralla continued to fire at Kaleeb. As if possessed, Faisal weathered their fire, not giving a damn about its failing force field. It closed to within a meter, and Siv knocked it aside with his force-shield.
Mitsuki’s plasma shot took out the sky-blade’s force field and scorched its hull. Not hesitating, it reaccelerated back toward Siv, blades whirring on maximum attack mode. Siv’s force-shield was weak, and his arm was out of position. He wasn’t fast enough to recover. And Mitsuki’s shot had failed to stop it. Silky hit it with every jamming sequence he knew, but there was no stopping it. Kyralla couldn’t help. She had just dodged a plasma bolt that burned a mark along her cheek.
Tamzin, still lying on the ground, leveled her blaster and fired. The solid shot struck the cog. “Gotcha!”
Sparks shooting from a fracture in its side, the sky-blade slowed and veered slightly off course. Siv recovered and rammed it with his force-shield, shoving it away.
Faisal wasn’t done, but he was greatly weakened and vulnerable now. Silky enjoyed a moment of elation. Then he spotted Kaleeb, boots on the ground, his sniper pistol aimed directly at Siv who was fully exposed with the left side of his head turned toward the bounty hunter.
“Hit the deck, sir!”
Confused and off-balance, Siv failed to react immediately. Now he wouldn’t be able to duck far enough, fast enough to avoid the guided round. In a split second, Silky beamed a jamming sequence, hoping it would hit the bullet fast and effectively.
Lined up for a perfect shot, Kaleeb’s finger twitched against the trigger. Siv had barely bent his knees. This was it. The killing shot. The guided round would pass straight through him and Siv’s brain.
“No!” Kyralla shouted, surging toward Siv. She must’ve seen what was about to happen a moment early.
The round fired out from the pistol's barrel, and Kyralla tackled him. The jamming sequence worked, and the bullet didn't adjust its course.
It flew straight, sailed over them emitting a high-pitched whistle, and then plunged into the back of Galen’s head. The round tore through Galen’s skull and brain and exploded out through his forehead.
He fell dead.
Kyralla glanced back to see what had happened and froze. Faisal zoomed around. Mitsuki fired a blast at him but missed. Muttering a curse of dismay underneath his breath, Siv rolled out from under Kyralla. Kaleeb aimed his gun at Siv again. Siv wasn't even paying attention. Kyralla's action had doomed her father, only to grant Siv another few moments of life.
Before Faisal reached them, before Kaleeb could fire his pistols, Oona unleashed a blood-curdling scream and fell to her knees.
A wave of shadowy hyperphasic energy blasted out from her. The shockwave knocked everyone down. Electronics went out en masse. Faisal struck the ground and rolled along like a ball. The ScanField-3 stopped. The Outworld Ranger’s systems and engines shut down. Kaleeb’s jetpack and force field deactivated. The spy-flies crashed. Every gun powered down. Every chippy winked out.
Silky had developed a new trick thanks to his recent experiences in wraith space. A split second before the hyperphasic wave hit, he dropped himself into a
protected state so he could boot back up faster.
A moment of darkness passed, then he was once again aware of everything. The humans and Kaleeb stirred awake. Siv’s eyes opened. Through them, Silky watched the dark haziness shrink back onto Oona, flame around her, then fizzle out as she fell over in a wide-eyed catatonic state.
Noting the time, he unleashed a string of the vilest curses he knew. Fifteen minutes had passed, and now they were royally screwed in a whole new way.
Overhead loomed the seven starships of the Thousand Worlds’ fleet. A dozen troop shuttles glistened as they penetrated the atmosphere while a drop-ship lined up above them, preparing to deploy its burst-pods if necessary. Several hundred centurions would be on top of them within the next ten minutes.
Perhaps even worse, he felt confident the girl's Trial of Corruption had begun.
Kaleeb staggered over to them. Silky was impressed to find the android already on his feet and active before the biologicals. Siv struggled to lift his plasma pistol. Kaleeb batted it away.
“No time for that, boy.” There was something odd in Kaleeb’s tone. It had changed somehow. Kaleeb held out a hand. “We’ve got to go. Now.” He glanced upward. “Empress Qaisella Qan…the Dark Messiah… She is here.”
Silky paused. Every thought, every calculation, every subroutine hesitated as that fact sank in. Then he said the first thing that popped into his circuits.
“Shit-damn.”
To learn more about Silky’s early adventures, check out Forbidden System, Book One of the Fall of the Benevolence series. In Book Two: Terra Lost (coming later in 2018), you’ll be able to learn more about the part Vega Kaleeb played in the last days of the Benevolency.
Afterword
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Also by David Alastair Hayden
Outworld Ranger
Rogue Starship
Shadow Agents
Fall of the Benevolence
Forbidden System
Storm Phase
The Storm Dragon’s Heart
The Maker’s Brush
Lair of the Deadly Twelve
The Forbidden Library
The Blood King’s Apprentice
The First Kaiaru
The Arthur Paladin Chronicles
The Shadowed Manse
The Warlock’s Gambit
Pawan Kor
Wrath of the White Tigress
Chains of a Dark Goddess
Who Walks in Flame
Breaking Point Page 37
