Jammin raced to the tower. “What’s next?”
* * *
Irons’s shot missed the next target and glanced off the wall, redirecting it to an already dead Catter. The miss gave one of the enemy room to finally get out of the confined space. It launched itself at Irons and was met by a swift Nordic fist, shoving the Catter into the wall. It bounced off the metal and shook off the dizzy spell. Irons slammed his armored fist into the Catter’s head, knocking it out cold.
The Captain turned to see Haddron dodging the swipes of a knife wielder. He was holding his own just fine. Irons moved farther up to keep any more from getting by.
Hannah turned to see Haddron keeping one of the aliens at bay. “You need to…” The sight of one so close scared her. She grabbed the gun leaning against the chair and felt only slightly better.
“What’s next!” Jammin yelled.
“The two from the right,” she said.
Haddron cursed something in Nordic and Hannah turned to see him falling backwards. She stood out of the seat and aimed the gun. Four rapid shots fired at the Catter. The first two hit the walls and bounced off but the other two found their marks. They weren’t kill shots but they stunned the alien enough, giving Haddron time to recover and finish it off with his blade.
“Done!” Jammin yelled over the radio.
Hannah retook her seat and laid the gun in her lap. “Then you need to enter this sequence into the display on the readout.”
* * *
“Hurry with it,” Jammin said, watching Durham as he backed up toward the tower, making well placed shots on the nearest Catters.
“Hit the seventh button,” Hannah said. “Then the third. First then—“
Jammin was shoved away from the tower.
The Nordic rolled to a stop and hopped to his feet. A pain shot along his back. He growled and reached over his shoulder to feel something wet. The unexpected attacker smiled viciously as Jammin noted the blood on his hand. His blood.
Durham killed one more then checked on his ally who swung at the Catter, missing by inches. The wound on his back opened further with the twisting of his body. The Catter thrust its foot into the Nordic, knocking him back.
Durham blocked a knife strike with the gun then fired a quick shot at the Catter attacking him. As the alien fell, Durham took aim at Jammin’s opponent. One trigger pull gave the Nordic a reprieve.
Jammin rushed back to the tower. “Next?” he asked, his breathing labored.
“Fifth then seventh,” Hannah directed.
“I already hit the seventh.”
“Two of them are used twice.”
“Ok. Seventh.”
“Look out!” Durham yelled.
Jammin looked up at a Catter blade making its way toward him. He fell to his side as the knife came down, hitting the roof and sparking between the metal on metal strike. He kicked at the knife and plunged his own into the Catter.
Durham tried rushing to Jammin but was stopped by a set of claws swinging at him. The Catter’s strikes kept Durham on the defensive. He blocked one attack and dodged the next all while being backed up toward the hatch.
Jammin pulled down the head of another assailant right into his knee, knocking the enemy warrior away before continuing with the code.
“Now hit the second one then the first,” Hannah said.
“Second then—” Jammin cried out as a Catter blade stuck him in the shoulder blade. He pulled the knife out and swung it, wildly, at its owner. The knife met the leg of his attacker, dropping it to one knee where the Nordic finished it off.
Durham finally sidestepped his attacker and fired a round into its head. He spotted more enemy soldiers converging on Jammin. Two of them already swung their blades down. He fired at one of them and watched as the knife came up, trailing blood with it.
A foot stomped down on Jammin’s back as he reached for the readout panel. He slashed at the offending leg and finally hit the last number. “Done,” he said weakly as more feet stomped on him and more claws raked at him.
* * *
“That’s it,” Hannah said. “Captain! Signal boosted!”
“What are you waiting for?” Irons yelled, smashing a Catter’s head into the wall.
Hannah leaned into the receiver. “Commander Hill, this is Hannah Xuyen, calling for mayday assist. XO, if you’re getting this our coordinates are eighteen degrees north, one seven six degrees east. Planet side hemisphere. Repeat.”
* * *
Durham fired more shots into Catters still moving toward the tower. They had stopped their assault on him, making Jammin their primary target. He fired five more rounds before the gun clicked empty. There was no time to think or strategize. He dropped the gun and reached down for the knife of a fallen enemy. He threw that one, driving it into a Catter.
Jammin groggily stood to his feet, blocking a couple of strikes but missing a third. Another fist clocked him in the jaw. More and more Catters were cramming in to get a piece of him.
Durham grabbed another knife and stabbed the closest Catter he could. The knife went into the base of its skull, buried all the way to the hilt. The others didn’t even notice as their comrade fell to the roof. It was as if they had orders to ignore the human and focus solely on the Nordic. He glanced to his left to see a steady stream of Catters climbing over the roof. It didn’t deter him. They may have been rivals on Earth but here they had a common enemy in the Ka’traxis Brood. As far as Durham was concerned, Jammin was a full ally.
He slashed at another Catter, trying to get them to focus on him but it was no good. He could hear the pained cries of the Nordic, surrounded by enemy combatants.
“Gun!” Jammin yelled.
Durham looked back at the useless weapon then realized the sudden stop of flaling Catter arms. They had quit their assault of the Nordic. Durham looked back at the crowd of enemies all gathered around Jammin.
“Gun!” he yelled again. His voice was weak and groggy.
Durham unstrapped the unconfigured Catter gun when two of the Catters turned to him. He saw Jammin’s hand reach for the sky and Durham backed away as the two aliens made their way toward him. It wasn’t long till the others started to join.
“But it’s gonna—“
“Do it!” Jammin interrupted.
Durham hurled the gun over the heads of the Catters. None of them bothered to try and catch it. And just as his aim with shooting was expert level, so was his throwing skill. The rifle landed in the Nordic’s hand as Durham finally hit the roof hatch door.
Jammin’s eye was swollen and his face was pulverized. He looked at the vicious Catters, all waiting to make the death blow.
Jammin aimed the gun and the aliens’ expressions changed, the sudden realization of his plan.
“At least I saw Erra one last time,” Jammin said.
The Catters tried to turn and run but they’d bunched themselves up too much.
“Now.” Jammin placed his finger on the trigger. “Sterven, rotzakken,” he said in his language before pulling the trigger.
The high-pitched whine from the gun grew louder, drowning out the protesting hisses of the Catters.
The smaller group making their way toward Durham spun around to see their brethren racing to get away from the radio tower.
Finally, the whine stopped and the explosion blasted out, tossing Catters up and away, catching them in the fireball.
Durham dropped behind the hatch as the flame and heat passed all around him, engulfing the enemy troops. He could hear the twisting sound of metal and peeked up to see the tower falling down right on top of the LAV, shoving it to the ground.
Another explosion went off from beneath the building, followed by another and a short chain of even more.
Twenty-Six
Reunion
A final pop went off in the distance, startling Durham. He slowly opened his tightly shut eyes. The air was brown with smoke and smelled like burnt engine fuel and singed fur. He stood and finally got a lo
ok at the carnage caused by the explosions. The roof was littered with the corpses of dead Catters. Some had it worse than others. Some were barely recognizable as anything living while others were missing limbs. One nearby reached out to the human soldier, no sound came from its moving mouth. Durham observed its wounds. It would be dead in minutes but until then it suffered. And even though he hated the Ka’traxis Brood, the violence was senseless enough, there was no point in prolonging pain. Not that they would have the same qualms about it.
Durham pulled the knife from the waist of disembodied pair of legs and approached the dying Catter. He held the knife high and plunged it directly into the alien’s temple. Its life extinguished before the tip of the blade hit the roof on the other side of the Catter’s head.
Private Taylor Lee Durham turned around, gazing at the plumes of smoke trailing off in the distance. He approached the edge of the roof as the feeling of shell shock started coming over him. The fallen radio tower kept him from going too far to the edge but he was close enough to see the rest of the damage. The burning LAV had landed on top of one of the Catter ground vehicles, exploding it and setting off a chain of other burning vehicles down the street. It was a complete accident but a fortunate one. Along the base of the building were more dead enemy troops.
“Jammin!” Durham spun around to the low profile tower foundation. He leapt over the dead till arriving at the point of detonation. The space was devoid of anyone, dead or alive. Only a black spot on the metal roof. Jammin’s sacrifice had saved Durham. Maybe even the others inside.
Durham shook his head, saddened at the loss of an ally. Their allegiance may have been tenuous but when it counted, Jammin proved his loyalty and earned Durham’s respect.
He rubbed at his eyes, finally feeling the weariness of combat.
“Durham! Private!” Irons’s voice called out.
Durham raised one arm, signaling his location. The Captain flew to him and landed, taking note of the violent results of the rooftop battle. He deactivated the battle armor to take in the sight with his own eyes. It was grisly to say the least.
“Jammin?”
Durham silently pointed at the black spot on the roof.
“You both did all of this?” Irons asked.
“I’m tired, Captain,” Durham said. “Feels like we’ve been fighting for a long time.”
Irons put his hand on the soldier’s shoulder. “It’s cuz we have, son.”
“We’re gonna end it soon, though, right?”
“That’s the plan.” Irons watched his crewman’s eyes redden. It was hard to tell if it was sorrow or rage. It was just another look the Iron Albatross wasn’t used to seeing on the Private.
“Did Hannah get the word out, sir? Tell me this…” Durham motioned around the roof. “Tell me this wasn’t for nothing.”
“I don’t wanna lie to you.” Irons pressed the lens on his teleporter and they both disappeared.
The communications room flashed white then instantly returned to its normal illumination. Haddron and Hannah pulled a dead Catter away from the doorway, giving them more walk space.
“What were those explosions?” Hannah asked.
Haddron searched between Irons and Durham. “Jammin?”
Durham shook his head. “He’s gone.”
“I see.” Haddron’s tone was sorrowful. “May I ask how?”
“Saving me. Saving all of us.”
Haddron’s gaze dropped to the ground. “His one goal was to be seen as a leader. We had so many arguments. So many fights about who was most fit to lead. And now—”
“Now he’ll be seen as a hero,” Durham interrupted.
The sentiment brought a small smile to Haddron’s face. “A more fitting title. It brings honor to him and his name.”
“Then let’s not waste it,” Irons said. “Xuyen, Did you get the message out?”
“With the tower down, there’s no way to know, sir.”
“Then we’ll get moving till something changes. We still got a mission to carry out. Let’s go.”
* * *
Lindsay Brooks pressed her palms against her eyes. The data and numbers were giving her a headache. “How do you do this, Hannah?” she muttered.
“I am sorry I cannot be of more help,” Sitasha said. “The merging of the different technologies is something I am unable to grasp.”
“We’ll just have to keep trying.” Lindsay started to input a new command when she stopped at the sound of digital static. The first part of the message was unclear. The rest came in muffled but clear enough to make out the detail.
“… Xuyen…mayday assist…coordinates…eighteen…north, one seven six degrees east. Planet side…”
“Commander!” Lindsay yelled.
“I heard it!” Syracuse ran to the mariner’s wheel and readied his hand on the throttle. “Can you enter in those coordinates?”
“Negative, sir. I don’t know how.”
“Then I guess we’re eyeballing it.” Syracuse threw the throttle up, giving the ship maximum thrust. “Hang on, Captain,” he said under his breath as he pushed the teleport lens.
* * *
The Slagschip Lucky Liberty shot toward Erra as the larger teleport lens glowed brightly then flashed in a blinding white. Just as it had many times before, the vessel vanished, leaving empty space behind it.
When it reappeared it was at speed and within several thousand yards of Erra and the planetoid above it.
* * *
“Bring that display up,” Syracuse said. “I want a visual.”
“Aye, Commander,” Lindsay said.
“What can I do, sir?” Lou asked.
“Just be ready, Lieutenant. Last I heard this place was crawling with Catters.”
The display screen came online revealing to them, for the first time, the full extent of what they faced. The band of Ka’traxis Brood ships surrounding Erra was as dense as it was high. Far more ships surrounded the planet that those that had hovered around Jupiter.
“The whole planet?” Lou asked.
“Even the Slagschip cannot—”
“Brace for maneuvers!” Syracuse cut Sitasha off at the sight of an LAV swarm heading straight for them. “Brooks, Wave Cannon!”
Lindsay said nothing as she ran for her own console. Her level of proficiency was high enough that she could usually remember a system if she used it before. This time was no exception. “Firing!” She activated the destructive weapon as the ship plowed straight through the enemy swarm, shaking them apart in less time than it took for them to fire their guns.
“Half that planet is metal,” Lou said.
“It’s facing Erra. That’s gotta be planet side.” Syracuse steered for the reflective metal surface of the planetoid above Erra.
* * *
As the merged ships rocketed toward the satellite planet, the red glow of heat from re-entry grew brighter and brighter until the entire Slagschip was as a burning ball of fire, plummeting through the half-terraformed planet’s atmosphere.
The ship pulled up to level out and was rapidly cooled by the colder air high above the surface. It slowed its decent as it neared the surface. There was no use in being stealthy about it anymore. Any Catters on the ground would have surely seen it by now.
* * *
“How do we reach them, now, sir?” Lindsay asked.
“Hopefully, the Captain will come up with something.”
Everyone on the ship suddenly rocked forward. Alerts went off on the console in front of Sitasha.
“That came from above,” the Nordic woman said.
“Everybody, grab onto something. We ain’t out of the woods, yet.” Syracuse pointed at several Catter tanks as they entered airspace, heading straight for the Slagschip. “Damn things are attacking in planet. Back to work on those guns, Private!”
“Aye, sir!”
Twenty-Seven
Lost Together, Again
Irons stopped at the corner of a building, well away from the carnage
at the communications tower. As prepared as he and the others were for a fight, after the last close call they had, he was hesitant to get any of them involved in another one so soon.
He peered around the corner, hoping to see nothing but empty throughways. The sight of a ground vehicle made him swiftly duck back behind the wall.
“You saw something?” Haddron asked.
“One of those cars,” Irons said. “And two guns between us. How many shots you got left, Specialist?”
“Not sure, sir. Maybe enough for Catters on foot but without knowing the puncture strength, I wouldn’t want to take chances against a vehicle.”
“I can tell you from experience,” Durham started. “Those things don’t work on LAVs.”
“Then it’s settled. We ain’t going that way.” Irons motioned toward the ground vehicle.
“Do we even know where the Terraformer is?” Durham asked.
“The center of the planet,” Haddron told him.
“And we’re supposed to make it on foot?”
An explosion echoed high above them. Hannah stepped away from the wall and looked to the sky. She narrowed her eyes and saw several massive cruisers in an aerial battle. “Is that..?”
Irons stepped out and looked up. From their vantage, it was impossible to make out any details but the way the ships were moving and the flicker of gunfire made it unmistakable what they were. Five of the vessels were maneuvering around one.
Irons activated the armor and got a magnified view of the battle above. His mouth turned up into a smile. “That’s our girl.”
The Slagschip Lucky Liberty dwarfed the Catter tanks in size but its offensive capabilities were not in use.
The Captain looked back at Hannah. “They ain’t firing back. We need to get you up there.”
“Sir?” Durham asked.
“You, too,” Irons said. “Haddron, can we teleport onto that boat from here?”
ROYAL LINE (War In The Void Book 3) Page 18