by J. M. Hagan
Heart in his mouth, Anderson took Siena’s arm and led her. Jeriko back-stepped by their side. He fired. Anderson looked over his shoulder as he ambled along, seeing a pale skinned woman with black eyes. A Witch!
She took the rounds from his assault rifle and was staggered.
“Jeriko – run!” screamed Anderson.
The fernode, despite his bravado, was smart enough to heed his command.
*
As Jack and Malora came to the stairway leading up to Fischer’s office, echoes rebounded from the sudden rise of chatter. They found an ocean of bodies in their path. People were standing in the street, looking up to watch what was on the viewscreens.
Jack’s PDP vibrated and distracted him from seeing what was on. He took it from his pocket and then answered while putting in his earpiece. “Hello?” he greeted.
Claudia appeared on the screen. “Jack, are you watching this?!” she blared, and he could hear her voice echoing from the crowd somewhere nearby.
He scanned the faces, then saw a girl with dark hair looking down. Jack waved Malora with him. They raced over, seeing Claudia turn as they came up on her.
“Jack!” She pointed to the screen above. “It’s HQ!”
He looked up and saw the report. Security footage from the base showed a pale woman with black eyes – the witch from his nightmares.
Then the image changed to show bodies crumpled against walls and furniture in the bullet-torn ground floor office. His eyes trailed to the headline.
STARMAN HQ – attacked!
The scrolling text at the bottom read: Situation on-going! Stay away from area. Station security have built up a perimeter of the surrounding area.
“A Witch…did you get in touch with Anderson, or Siena?”
Claudia shook her head, eyes welling up. “They’re not answering, Jack,” she cried.
Jack shot Malora a look. She started off ahead and they followed. “We need to get to Fischer immediately!”
*
It was pandemonium in the security wing.
Coms were ringing. People were barking orders. Everyone, even the night staff, had been called in to help deal with the emergency. Fischer was blaring at everyone he needed to trying to find out what the hell was going on.
“Where the hell are our god damn automated defences?!” Fischer screamed, at Tomvel.
“She’s disabled them, sir. She hacked into the mainframe and disabled all door locks and security counter measures.”
“Worthless shit! Find out what the hell is going on! Right now!”
The analyst, with paling cheeks, hurried to type on his touchscreen. Fischer heard another analyst calling him from across the room.
“Sir, Deputy Larz, is on coms,” she said. “He’s leading a team from the armoury to deal with the situation!”
“How many men does he have?”
“Current count is twelve. All Cadets. They’re recruiting whoever they can find along the way!”
“Sir, I’ve pulled the security footage,” said the other analyst he’d just barked at. “The intruder had a brief conversation with the receptionist! It seems she is looking for our tier-1 candidates – the guys from the news!”
“Murphy?”
“Yes, sir.”
Fischer’s jaw tightened. His face was beaming red. “Where is, Murphy?”
“Chief Fischer!”
He turned. Lo and behold – Jack Murphy, Malora, and Claudia, were racing toward him.
Sweat-laced, Murphy seemed to be experiencing the same thrill that had taken the entire security wing. “Chief – they’re coming! The Dok’ra are coming!”
“They’re already here, from the looks of things,” Fischer barked.
“Sir, we need to talk. Right now.”
Fischer stormed toward his office. “You better make this quick,” he warned, passing them.
*
A deputy led the team from the armoury into the office they were passing through. “She’s coming!” Siena told them.
Anderson could hear screaming, burning fires. Automatic gunfire cracked from down the corridor they just came from, then a death wail. With sweat trickling his cheeks, he set Siena down behind cover and then aimed his weapon tensely at the door. Guns were being cocked in preparation all round while Jeriko took to his knee next to Siena.
“What the hell are we dealing with here?!” the fernode demanded, suspecting that they knew something.
“A Witch,” replied Anderson, and Jeriko’s dark eyes widened. Obviously, he knew his history, as he bit down, then rose to aim his gun at the door with conviction.
The door was boot open.
“Fire!” cried the deputy in charge.
They hit the woman all over. She staggered back at first. Bullets penetrating her chest and stomach. Jeriko shot her in the cheek even. Then she took aim with her rapid-fire weapon and shot the man next to Anderson and his body collapsed into him.
As he struggled to push the body off, men dropped like flies as the pale woman advanced mowing them down. Flesh was being ripped from her body in the hail of gunfire that came in response.
Anderson shot the Witch in her heart with his shotgun. But it didn’t even cause her to flinch. The Witch’s weapon spooled, but her ammo was spent. She gave the smoking, red-hot weapon a disapproving glance, then tossed it away.
She closed her wrinkled hand into a fist at her side and a half-dozen cadets were hurled in all directions by the telekinetic blast. A blood curdling crunch of bone sounded behind him when a head impacted the wall.
He looked around. Everyone who hadn’t been killed was retreating. Anderson shot her in the belly. “Get, Siena, out of here!” he screamed at Jeriko, who was in the process of reloading his weapon.
Anderson came out of cover, his shotgun at his hip, and blasted her in the chest. Then the stomach. Then the shoulder. The Witch was flung back from the power of his weapon. She crashed through a touchscreen table and fell on her back. Glass sprinkled the bloody floor around her landing zone.
The survivors retreated laying down covering fire and Jeriko and Siena hurried to join them. Just as he turned to go himself, Anderson felt an invisible, icy hand seal around his throat that stopped him dead in his tracks. It squeezed the life out of him.
Siena screamed: “Mark!”
The Witch rose, her wounds healing as she got up. Her body shimmering with glass shards that were stuck in her flesh. Her clothing reduced to torn, bloody rags.
Jeriko let go of Siena. Shot their foe in the chest. Black eyes found him. She flicked her head his way with a stern look – he was flung into the wall with a bone-crunching thud.
“Mark Anderson…”
The Witch approached him with languid strides.
“Where is Europa?” she demanded, standing before him as he choked.
Siena crept up behind her. Anderson saw from the corner of his eye as she raised a glass shard in her hand and drove it through her neck. It came jutting out the other side with a wellspring of blood sluicing out.
*
Fischer had been listening intently to their warning at first. Then his face got lost in confusion when they told him how they knew it, where Cane was from, and the abilities he might have formed in recent times.
He took it all with a stumped look. Then he sat down. Looked down at his lap and shook his head. What a fuckin’ day this has turned out to be.
“Sir?” Jack prompted.
“I’m tempted to throw you out – call you all liars – but you already warned us about them. You didn’t have to do it. And nobody believed you until it had been authenticated as real footage. I don’t have the luxury of second guessing you in regards to this shit,” he said, falling into a growl. “You can all consider this your exam, Murphy. So can every cadet still alive on this station.”
Jack stiffened up all over, as he rose to attention in unison with his friends. “Yes, sir,” he said for them.
Fischer motioned to the exit with a head tilt
. “Get suited up. All of you. We have a station to protect.”
They left. He switched on his viewscreen to the security feed from HQ and looked at the bodies, head falling into his hands. A tear crept in his eye. Then he shunned it away. Looked at the bottle on his desk. Took a drink. Then got up and placed a call to the Captain.
“Captain – we have a situation…”
21
They were firmly in her clutches. Their cries of battle, of pain, rang over the hiss and crackle of the busted tech around them.
Despite all of their intense CQC training, two against one, she was still thrashing them around the room. Then following after them with languid strides and a calm façade. But with each exertion her expression maddened. Her black eyes lit up with bloodlust.
Anderson had never been so afraid. His gut was like a tangled cloth every time her soulless gaze fell on him. Every time she engaged Siena, his heart was in his mouth.
Siena was battling with everything she had. The Witch, with incredible vigour, blocked and parried the blows as they came. Then she assaulted her with a rapid barrage of side-kicks to her lower legs until Siena dropped on her knees, gasping in pain. She seized a fistful of her brown hair and launched a sharp knee into her face – Siena whipped away with blood spraying from her mouth.
Black piercing eyes found him. His face pale with terror, Anderson drew on the fire that had been building in his gut as he watched her beat on his friend. He launched at her with fists primed. Her hands had been at her sides, welcoming his charge, but sharply shot to her defence when he was in range.
Pain pulsed through his body. Air shot from his lungs and blood expelled from his mouth, as bony knuckles hammered his ribs. Anderson struck her with an elbow in the cheek in reply.
Her head snapped away. Then snapped back.
The Witch seized his wrist and flipped him onto a nearby desk. It fell apart upon impact, and he crashed into the ground with its broken pieces.
She circled him with languid steps like she was trying to decide what degree of pain to inflict next.
He rolled, coughing, and she reached down and scooped him up with an insane look. A shower of sparks shot from a nearby screen that was cracked but still gave off a half-glow. Squeezing the back of his neck, she thrust his face toward the fiery spray. Anderson winced and cried out.
“Where is Europa?” she demanded, throwing a meaty hook into his side.
A spark shot out and caught his cheek, burning his flesh. He kicked back his leg hitting air. Then struggled fiercely to no avail.
The Witch spun his shoulder. When he came about 180, a strong palm struck him up the chin and he was hewn.
Anderson hit the dirt. His mouth erupted with the irony taste of blood and scored as rivulets down his chin. He writhed on his back.
A multitude of pistol rounds fired.
Siena stood behind some office furniture filling her with bullets from a weapon she retrieved off the floor. But the Witch stormed toward her. Siena backed away continuing her onslaught, but her enemy tossed tables and kicked away chairs as she advanced.
Siena’s back met with the window. The Witch slapped her hand aside, tossing the weapon across the room, then pinned her by the throat against the window so hard that the glass cracked against the back of her skull.
The Witch looked over her shoulder at him as he got to his feet in pain. “Where is Europa?” she asked again, using Siena as leverage, in an unfeeling tone that didn’t match the intensity of the situation.
Siena’s eyes were bulging as she choked. She lifted her off her feet and her body slid up the window. Kicking out her feet and beaming red all over, Siena squeezed on her bony wrist with blood streaming from her mouth.
She was about to die right in front of him…
He didn’t have a weapon. All he had was his fists. His body was tantalised with fear. Anderson swallowed his bile. Then howled as he charged at her.
The Witch turned her cheek into his flying fist and her head snapped the other way with a gash spraying from beneath her eye. He wrapped his arm around her neck and buried hooks into her belly.
Siena dropped, coughing, spluttering.
The Witch, with a callous grimace, seized his wrist and broke the hold. Then twirled and chopped his solar plexus.
Gasping, he fell away. She pursued, thrusting a sharp elbow into his belly and his feet shuffled away so quick that he tripped over them and fell into the ground holding his mid-section.
Winded and wounded, Anderson tried sweeping her legs when she approached. The Witch hopped over his kick. Then she buried her knee into his chest and struck him so hard that his vision was blotted with black dots.
“Where is Europa?” she demanded, seizing his throat in an iron grip. Choking the life out of him. “Where is Europa?”
A gun cracked. The bullet entered the back of her head and shot out the front. Blood rained over his face and got in his mouth. The Witch keeled over. Siena was standing behind her with a pistol in her shaking, bloody hands.
Anderson, believing it hadn’t been enough, scampered for his shotgun.
He heard a click of the fingers as he passed their downed foe – Anderson felt a chill crawl along his scalp.
He lifted from the ground, feeling the pressure swell in his head like a fountain of blood was about to erupt from the top of his skull.
The Witch rose to her feet. The wound in her head healing rapidly. She waved her hand at Siena and she gave a shriek as she was hurled across the room by a telekinetic blast.
A roar sounded. Heavy feet stomped toward them.
Jeriko came sprinting.
Before the Witch could react, he tackled her and then flung her across the room toward the window where she had been choking Siena. He kicked her square in the chest and she was hewn against the window, making it crack all the way around.
Anderson heard a familiar sound – the spin-cock of his lever action shotgun.
Siena took aim. Blasted her in the chest and blood splatted the cracked window at her back. She advanced unloading, with shells ripping through her mangled body, until the glass bashed behind her.
For the first time her black eyes, her haunted expression, showed fear.
Siena squeezed the trigger – the shell obliterated the top portion of her skull – and the Witch was hewn out the window…
Thank God. Sucking in air, Anderson finally allowed himself to feel the pain of his injuries. He was aching all over his body, and the bloody gash on his cheek was throbbing. He coughed and held his bruised side.
Jeriko walked over to the edge and looked down.
“Bitch went splat,” he growled. Then spat.
“Good-fucking-riddance,” said Siena, as she let go of Mark’s shotgun and ambled toward him on unsteady legs, sobbing in pain.
Anderson got up with effort. Put his hand on her swollen face. “Are you okay?” he asked. The pain forced a manic kind of grin as he attempted to relay his relief.
“I’ll live,” she told him, breathless from the pain herself.
He checked the swelling around her eyes, saw the red staining her teeth. Then the gunshot in her shoulder she was putting pressure on with her hand. Her other hand was streaming blood by her side. It had been cut to the bone when she drove that glass shard into the bitch’s neck, saving his life.
He wrapped his arm around her, mindful of her injuries, and gave a gentle squeeze. “I thought we were goners,” he admitted, sniffling when water reached his veiny blue eyes.
She leant deeper into his embrace.
“Let me take a look at that wound,” said Jeriko, brushing Anderson aside.
Jeriko man-handled Siena. He pulled down her top at the back and turned her around. “The bullet is still in there,” said the fernode, after giving it a moment’s close attention. “Bleeding has slowed. She’ll be fine.”
Anderson gave a nod of appreciation. Jeriko let her go, and she returned to Anderson’s softer clutches.
“Let’s get yo
u to the infirmary,” he said, holding his aching side as he went.
22
“Chief – I can see what’s happening. Are you all right?” the Captain asked, her tone warmed with the question.
“Yes, Captain, I’m fine. But I have verified intel that a Dok’ra dreadnought is inbound. I repeat – a Dok’ra dreadnought,” he said into his wrist piece, as he stormed through the security wing to the landing pad. A hover ship was on hand that would fly him to command in less than three minutes.
This station was better prepared than the Dok’ra likely realised. It had kept its military defences active since the war thanks to the raids by pirates over the years.
The short journey seemed like a lot longer. The instant they touched down he was out, running across the bridge from the landing pad to the command section. When there, he had an elevator shoot him to the top floor of the hexagonal structure.
Although the building was within the station, the smart glass projected a 360-degree view to the outside.
Fischer stepped onto command and was confronted with a room full of people staring out the window with their mouths agape. He looked out and saw what had them all speechless.
A Dok’ra dreadnought was in the distance. Seeming small from here, but he knew right away that it was almost a match for this station in size.
“Enhance visual,” commanded the Captain, who stood centre-stage, hands behind her back.
Fischer ambled to stand over her left shoulder as the image zoomed. The thing was armed to the teeth with gun placements and cannons, and the weapons were turning their way.
“Galaxies – they mean to attack,” muttered the Captain.
“They will,” said Fischer, and she turned noticing his presence.
“Chief…they’ve ignored our hails.”
“The Dok’ra don’t communicate. They kill,” he said sternly.
She gave him a thin, mean look. Then turned it on the crew. “All hands – prepare defences. Man fighters. Set-up station security. Enable internal automated defences.”
She motioned the Chief to follow as she took off toward her cabin.