Before he could hear the response, there was a hollow thrum. Nathen looked up, slapping a fresh magazine into his rifle. Out from behind the charging stations came a second tank, powered on and gliding forward on a cushion of anti-gravity. Something else must have made it past them. Nathen backpedaled as the tank unceremoniously smashed past its sullen counterpart with a crude ram.
“Tank up!” Nathen spoke into his comm, backing away rapidly. “Everyone clear back!”
On the other side of the tank, about twenty feet away, Jonathan snapped his head in Nathen’s direction. Seeing the tank begin to lurch forward, Jonathan threw his Coyote to Calico, who somehow managed to catch it without dropping her Casper. The stealthist reached over his shoulder and detached the Morning Star thermal charge from his back. He slapped the prime switch on the anti-vehicle charge and hefted it in one hand. Jonathan cocked the eight-inch discus back, took a breath, and hurled the mine at the ground just in front of the tank. The disc spun through the air with perfect precision. It deflected off the duracrete and skidded under the tank, just as the Zorba was powering up its main cellbore blaster turret.
BLAMPSH!
The Yew tank's Omnium armor melted like wax in a microwave. The thermal charge went off directly under the tank's main repulsor, creating a feedback into its engine that split the craft open like an overripe melon. White ion fire mixed with the red thermal explosion, creating a mosaic of destruction as the warped hulk of the tank slammed to the platform and burned. Several secondary explosions went off as the power packs for the tank's blaster cannon overloaded, adding to the wreckage. Jonathan eyed his work as he reached over and took his assault rifle back from the awed Calico.
Nathen ran up and shot his stealthist a thumb's up. “Good kill, Fiend.”
Jonathan raised a fist in recognition. As the tank wreck crackled, metal heating and whining, the rest of the platform fell eerily quite. Nathen tapped his temple. “All teams, report.”
“Platfohm secure,” Kyler said, from the top of the antennae wreckage to Nathen's right.
“It looks like we finished off the survivors,” Helen said, stepping up next to her commander, Coyote resting on her shoulder. “No sign of reinforcements.”
Phillip ran up a few seconds later, huffing to catch his breath and coming to attention, saluting with his BOAR. Doc was a few paces behind him, carrying both his Casper and Phillip's.
“Lower crater clear,” the technician said. “I think we got a little carried away. There's no one left.”
“Better too much than not enough,” Nathen said, touching his helmet. “Sharps. Blow the Meteor and let's wrap this up.”
No response.
Nathen pressed his fingers against his helmet. “Sharps?”
“…Commander,” the sniper said, voice strangely unsteady. “We have a problem.”
Nathen looked up at the Northern slope, but couldn't find the sniper's faded brown aura anywhere.
“What's the situation?”
“...It'll hear me...”
Nathen tapped his helmet again, growing worried. “Come again, Sharps, I'm not reading you.”
“...in the perimeter.”
Nathen frowned. “Where?”
“South!” the sniper hissed, urgently. “It’s-”
“Stelkan!” shouted Helen.
The entire team spun and zeroed on the same target. One of the Stelkans they'd thought to be dead had pulled itself up, dragging its broken wing with it. And in its hands was a disruptor suicide charge. The team all focused their weapons on the alien, but none fired. The suicide charge was meant to blow bunkers and demolish starship hulks. Nathen had no doubt that it would damage the foundation of the already punished platform. The Yew leader held the massive charge in front of it like a shield. The spherical explosive burned in the center, already activated. A stray shot would set it off, and the ESCs were well within the blast radius. The wounded Stelkan's eyes shot from one Human to the next, almost daring someone to try a shot with its hand on the detonator. Nathen, keeping his rifle trained, touched his helmet.
“Sharps,” he hissed. “Take the shot.”
Trent did not shoot.
“Sharps,” Nathen hissed through his teeth. “Take, the, shot.”
The Stelkan squawked harshly, shaking the charge in its claws. It was heavy, meant for Golos to carry, so it couldn't hold it out for long. Helen had her Coyote halfway to her shoulder, finger twitching over the trigger.
“Let me take him, Boss,” she said.
The Stelkan screeched and advanced half a step, desperately trying to get them to back down. Nathen knew this standoff was only going to end one way, and in the next few seconds, when that Stelkan's arms gave out, he'd blow the charge. Nathen was scrambling for an answer when Trent's voice screamed in his ear.
“Oh God! Incoming!”
The Stelkan shook and let loose a suicide declaration and was about to activate the death charge when a strange sound filled the air. The reptilian avian cocked its head in confusion as the loud, mind-numbing thrum got louder very quickly. Nathen saw it, but all the Stelkan saw was a shadow fall across him before it died.
The frail, bird-like body cracked like a house of twigs under a thousand pounds of nerve and exoskeleton. The platform shook from the twenty-five yard leap, muffled by the meaty splorch of the Stelkan underfoot. The detonator bounced away from a twitching, lifeless clawed hand.
Nathen and the other ESCs stood frozen. The platform had fallen silent, allowing them to clearly hear the threatening hiss emitting from their new foe as it examined the gore seeping from under its armored foot. The round disruptor charge began to beep furiously, but it was effectively silenced when a piston-powerful leg rose, then pressed down forcefully on the device, splitting it like a brittle eggshell. The bomb whistled one last, pitiful noise, then sparked into fizzled silence.
Slowly, the Warhead looked up.
Black Flog blood dripped from its vice-like mandibles as the massive killer sized up the Humans in unknown armor. There was a soft grinding noise as the Insectoid's oversized Reaper talons twitched on its right side. The impenetrable five-foot war ax dominated the Warhead's left side, clutched in an unbreakable death grip. Red, pulsing eye lenses peered at the ESC's from under the staghorned helmet. On its back—still radiating with repulsor power—fluttered six cybernetic wings under warship-grade beetle shell armor.
Nathen swallowed and gently touched his finger to the trigger.
“Everyone stay calm,” he said, solidly. “We are the elite. We will not back down.”
The Warhead turned its sweeping gaze to Nathen. Fixated.
The two stared at each other, as if waiting to see who would blink first, neither able to make real eye contact. The Warhead opened its mandibles and clicked them shut with a sound like scissors. Nathen moved his left hand up to his mounted grenade launcher. The Warhead twitched its antennae, digging its clawed foot into the Stelkan corpse like it was about to lunge. A withering, hellish breath exited the monster, and its body shuddered. The massive cyborg took a slow, threatening step forward.
Nathen's fired his rifle grenade straight into its chest, enveloping the Insectoid in a blossoming explosion.
For a second, everyone’s heart skipped a beat.
Then, with a shrieking scream of the damned, the Warhead attacked.
Chapter 21
“Take 'im out!”
Kyler's scream was drowned out by the hail of lead everyone unloaded at once. Phillip's BOAR, Doc and Calico's 45's with Doc firing dual wield from the hip, and all three Coyotes as Nathen, Helen and Jonathan all unleashed their mags like a firing squad; fire control out the window. All the commandos held down their triggers until their weapons gasped for air.
Not one shot made a difference.
The racket of the storm of rounds finally faded. The Warhead emerged from behind its ax, twisting it through the air like a fan, pocked with scorch marks and bullet dings. It had broadly deflected every round. Nathen
hissed through his teeth as he dumped his mag and slammed a fresh one in fast. The Warhead let loose a heart-piercing scream and charged, seizing the wreckage of a destroyed fuel pod with its Reaper and thrusting it out of its path.
“Break!” Nathen shouted.
The commando's scattered, breaking formation and running for cover while reloading their weapons with rapidly dwindling ammo. Nathen backed away quickly, rattling off his magazine as he retreated. Each and every shot ricocheted harmlessly off the Warhead. Nathen sprayed 5.56 rounds, hitting everything, scrambling for a weakness. Where there wasn’t exoskeleton, there was cyber-armor. Where there wasn’t armor, the bloodied ax got in the way, deflecting everything. The giant Insectoid lunged forward with a burst of unexpected speed, drawing its ax up to blot out the sun before bringing it down with a crash. Nathen hurled himself out of the Warhead's path and dipped his shoulder under him as the duracrete shattered under the ax where he'd stood seconds before. Nathen's evasion threw him into a forward roll that brought him crashing against a stack of supply crates.
He started to get up, but then threw himself down again as the Warhead's Reaper exploded into the crates, its spread X-shaped talons impaling the containers. The commander looked up and saw the thick tether line connecting the deployable Reaper to its powerhouse cybernetic arm dangling over his head. The cyborg gave a yank as it retracted the cable and brought the harpooned containers down on Nathen. Or at least it tried to. Nathen managed to just barely slip out from under the collapse as the Reaper cracked back against its housing, and the locked X position of the four sharp claws shifted back into a mechanical hand.
Nathen was preparing for another strike when a barrage of thirty caliber bullets struck the Warhead in the side. The monster Insectoid shuddered and turned, using its war ax to shield itself from bullets with the same attitude a person would use their hand to shield an inconveniently bright sunbeam. Kyler Jeston paused from firing long enough to jump down from the antennae wreckage and then resumed unloading every round he had into the alien.
“Eat lead!” Kyler yelled, threateningly. “Come on, eat up! I got second helpin's right heah!”
Nathen took his chance and slipped into cover, breathlessly checking his ammunition. He had no more mags, and he was down to a quarter in his Coyote.
The Warhead seemed to take notice of Kyler's meddlesome barrage and endeavored to stop it. The massive Insectoid stomped its feet down, anchoring itself in place while it continued to brace its ax against Kyler's onslaught. With a loud snap, its six cybernetic wings burst from their folded positions on its back and locked out like a drawer of switch blades. The resonance of the air changed, stirring in Nathen's ears as the wings started into motion, repulsors brushing against each other and charging up until they were just a blur against the monster's back. The Warhead crouched itself into a starter's position, Reaper and war ax poised as Kyler continued to harass it.
“Come on!” Kyler cried, standing his ground as his Blitz machine gun steadily depleted its ammo. “Get a cut oh thet Paxton prime rib, right heah!”
“Buckshot, GET DOWN!” Nathen yelled, just as the Warhead reached critical charge.
One second, the Warhead was standing anchored to the platform, patiently taking Kyler's abuse. The next second, the thousand-pound monster blasted forward like it was shot from a cannon. Kyler didn't even have time to swear before the thousand pound cannonball smashed into him, ax broadside, throwing the seven foot hunter spinning like a ragdoll across the platform, Blitz shattered to pieces. The Warhead continued on like a runaway train until the wreck of the antenna stopped it. Metal and debris shattered and bounced off the platform as the Insectoid came to an abrupt stop. Before anyone had a chance to wonder if the crash had hurt their foe, the Warhead came charging back out of the smoke, screeching almost as though it had enjoyed it and looking about eagerly for its next target. It zeroed on Jonathan and Helen.
Helen pulled out the one magazine of armor-piercing rounds she'd thought to bring and grimly loaded it into her Coyote. Jonathan lifted an Arcane incendiary grenade and glanced at the co-commander. Helen shouldered her rifle and nodded to the stealthist.
“Burn it.”
Jonathan lit the fuse, took a step, and hurled the Arcane grenade. The Warhead saw it leave Jonathan's hand, analyzed it mid-flight, and crouched as its repulsor wings shot into motion, charging. The grenade was thrown perfectly. It hit the platform, bounced once, and then clattered almost right at the feet of the Insectoid. The second it exploded, the wings reached critical speed.
The Warhead rocketed into the sky, escaping the ensuing fireball that would have engulfed it. Everyone's head tilted back, watching the oversized alien launch itself like an arrow. Its repulsor-charged leap reached its apex, thirty feet up, and then the Warhead changed direction and came back down.
Right toward its attackers.
“Take cover!” Helen shouted, diving out of the descent of the thousand pound bomb. Jonathan was already moving, and was out of the way when the Warhead hit. It went after the nearest target in a flash: Helen. The Monenite warrior was on her feet, dancing back gracefully as the Warhead slashed at her with its ax, plowing through an entrenched stack of saltbrick like it was a child’s pillow fort. Nathen peppered it in the back for a second before his Coyote clicked empty. He cursed and dropped the mag for a new one, but he was out. He was wondering if he was going to have to enter battle with his pistol when two magazines skidded across the ground toward him. He immediately snatched one and slapped it in as Doc and Calico dropped in on either side of him, reloading their own weapons from Doc's ammo bag.
Helen was vaulting over the lower end of a Yew tank when the Warhead caught up with her. She had her hand down for balance as she swung her legs across. Suddenly the entire tank slammed to the side and Helen collapsed in a heap, rolling onto the ground, dropping her Coyote in the process. She didn't have time to recover before the killing machine was on her. Helen found herself crushed under the spread-X of the Warhead's Reaper as its ax went overhead. She gasped for air as the armor held out against the pressure, but it was debatable whether the armor would survive against the ax. In one more second, Helen would be in two places at once.
CRACK!
The Warhead shrieked in pain and fury as the sniper round smashed into its left glowing red eye lens. The monster released Helen from the clutch of its Reaper and staggered in place, almost trampling its intended target under its feet as it clutched at its assaulted eye. Helen scrambled back, sides bruised from the Reaper's constricting clutch. Then another sniper round shot hit it in the head. Then another. And another. The Warhead thrashed its weapons, trying to discern where the precise attacks were coming from.
Then Trent had to reload.
“Someone get Helenade, I'm reloading!” he cried from halfway up the Eastern slope.
The Warhead turned with a flash, locking onto the sniper.
Trent hurriedly pulled his bolt back and felt for his next stripper clip, well out of range of the deadly Reaper claw. Not out of range of everything, though. The Warhead, now infuriated as its damaged eye lens glowed dim, searched madly for a means to hurt the attacker. It found one. The Reaper reached out and wrapped its massive battle talon around the hull of an undamaged microtank and clutched it tight. The light armor cracked like a soda can under the punishingly tight grip, but it didn't matter. The Warhead leaned back, swinging the five hundred pound microtank behind it, and hurled it like a trebuchet.
The microtank sailed through the air, fifty yards to its destination. Trent was just cycling in fresh rounds when he saw the deadly projectile bearing down on him. He had a heartbeat to react, attempting to dive aside.
“Holy SPI-”
The sniper cut off as the five-hundred pound projectile slammed him into the side of the crater, sending up a cloud of dirt and wreckage that engulfed the ESC.
Nathen saw his sniper disappear under half a ton of armor and dirt. Then he snapped his sights onto the Warhead and
opened fire again, rising out of cover. Doc jumped up and joined his commander, walking side by side as he fired both of his Caspers in sheer sheets of lead. Most of Nathen's rifle rounds just pinged off the Warhead's armor, cracking occasionally against nerve or exoskeleton, and Doc's 45 rounds may as well have been marshmallows for all the difference they appeared to make. The Warhead turned to face the two ESCs head on, flinching in annoyance as bullets ricocheted off its body. The monster locked its feet down and crouched, popping its wings and charging power as it aimed right at them like a hissing steam engine. Nathen and Doc both prepared to dive to the side while emptying their clips. The Warhead clacked its jaws together as its wings reached critical charge. It failed to notice the purple-alloyed Human setting up behind it with a Pennington on her shoulder.
Right at the moment when the Warhead should have launched, an explosion backlit it, shadowing its frame onto Nathen and Doc as both ESCs sidestepped away. The Warhead took an injured step forward as the rocket shattered its cybernetic wings into shrapnel. The explosive designed to breach tanks and turn armor into putty only made the Warhead mad. The Insectoid wailed in half anger, half dismay, trying to look back as its one remaining wing trembling damaged against its back. The rest of its repulsor wings were either crippled or falling off in hot pieces.
The Warhead spun, armored feet scraping across the duracrete as it rounded on Helen. The co-commander dropped the smoking Pennington and kicked to her feet, turning and parkour diving over some smoldering tank wreckage, disappearing into the smoke.
For a second, Nathen and Doc just watched the Warhead stare after the warrior.
Then it snapped around, whipping its Reaper out at the end of its tether in a solid flail attack.
Nathen ducked, his sixth sense going off a second ahead of time. Doc ducked in time too, his reaction time unparalleled.
Calico did not.
The girl was standing from cover to Nathen's left at the same time he was ducking. She didn't see the attack in time, squinting down the sights of her Casper. She had no chance to react. Jonathan, on the other hand, did. The stealthist, crouched next to the girl, saw the mace swinging in from his right, looking to connect perfectly with Calico's side. Nathen had no idea if the stealth expert knew what he was about to do to himself, or if he was just acting on instinct. Jonathan shot to his feet, elbow coming up and catching Calico under the jaw of her helmet. The girl’s knees buckled and she fell down, stunned, below the incoming Reaper.
Prime Alpha (Planetary Powers Book 1) Page 27