The tech spent the next few minutes groping through the dark, trying to find a clue as to where he was supposed to go, constantly breathing hard like he'd just run a mile. The core remained pitch dark, forcing him to move at a slow pace. Eventually he worked his way back to the console he'd slaved over for more than a day.
It was still on.
Phillip blinked, surprised. The screen was dark, but it was receiving power. In the darkness, partially illuminated by Phillip's chin light, two small words flickered.
[Awaiting command...]
Phillip hesitated, then put his hand to the keyboard. He had to steady himself so the force of his typing wouldn't propel him away; his safety line was gone. He input the command:
[Access Main Computer].
[Negative - False command.]
Phillip tried again, scowling. [Access root control.]
[Negative - False command.]
[Access security.]
[Negative - False command.]
[Please access mainframe.]
[Negative - False command.]
[Please?]
[Negative - False command.]
Phillip scoffed, indignantly. “Come on,” he croaked, painfully. “I asked nicely.”
The console remained dark. Phillip thought for a moment, then tried something different.
[Display operational status.]
This time, the screen flickered.
[Guardian core operational report.]
[Status: Inactive.]
[Emergency power grids: Active]
[Auxiliary Power units: Inactive.]
[Situation: Awaiting hard reset.]
[Awaiting command...]
Phillip couldn't believe it. It was actually good news. According to the status report, the core was still functional, just inactive. It made sense. The plasmatics hadn't been attached to the structure at the time of detonation. Perhaps the blast had just surged and flipped the main breakers. If Phillip could find those, maybe... maybe, he could get the Angel to live again.
“Alright,” he groaned, pulling himself along the surface of the core, hoping there wasn't a radiation leak somewhere. “You never did know when to quit, Daytana old boy. Get through this, win a nap. Easy.”
Phillip looked back to see how far he'd come. He was about six feet from the terminal. Even when he didn't weigh anything, in his injured state, he moved slower than a crippled bird.
“Yeah,” he said, grimacing as he pulled himself forward. “New rule. Never look back.”
Chapter 53
General Scizzor Synks waited until the door opened and found himself frowning at the backs of the dozens of soldiers crowding the landing. The General received several skittish looks from the various Vorch, Flog, Golo, and Stelkan soldiers grouped unceremoniously around the deck access point. They were all speaking in hushed tones, checking their weapons, or pretending to maintain their gear. Scizzor scanned their faces. They weren't waiting for something... So why weren't they advancing? Down the hall, an explosion rattled through the deck, carrying several screams with it. Scizzor looked up, nose flap curling.
“Hmm,” he muttered curiously. The general walked through the growing crowd of his troops, not wasting so much as a breath to ask questions. Best to analyze the situation himself.
A minute later, it was necessary to raise his boots to step around the many wounded that littered the corridor. A wounded Golo could take up half the width of the floor, while groups of Stelkan clerics scrambled from victim to victim, working their claws for healing. The vitality banners on their wings fluttered as they ducked from one to another of the wounded. Scizzor took it all in, intrigued, as he rested his Xazzler pulse thrower on his shoulder, resting his other hand on the hilt of his left J'fin war sword. As he passed, those able to stand came to attention and clasped their hearts, respectfully saluting their general while also expressing as subtle a look of apology as they could manage.
Then Scizzor was stepping around bodies. Many bodies. He slowed, examining the corpses of his troops as he passed in his pristine red Master General’s armor. He could see the cause for most of the casualties. Bullets, shrapnel, concussive damage. But as the general drew closer to the sounds of epic battle, he started seeing something else. Instead of bodies, the walls were lined with death shrouds; something that wasn't often applied until the conditions for collecting bodies were met. Teams of Flog combat engineers followed Stelkan clerics from shroud to shroud of all sizes. As Scizzor walked behind one team, he saw a Flog lift one shroud, harshly uttering a guardian prayer as he did so. And the General saw why. The body of the Flog underneath was rotten practically to the bones, still seeping pussy secretions as it visibly degraded. The Stelkan cleric took notes and started running a test, but Scizzor didn't stop, picking up his normal pace and continuing on toward the sounds of screams and weapons fire, dwelling on what he'd seen as he went.
Interesting.
Scizzor finally found the source of the sounds of battle. He passed several field officers until he found the war prince in charge; a spirited young bloodletter named Tars Nfal. The Vorch War Prince was shouting something heated into a phantom communicator while several Stelkan Glasseye snipers stood sentry at the corners, blinking at the sight of the general with their targeting monocles. Scizzor waited a moment, simply looking about at the troops crowded in the hallway. After a few awkward moments, one of the Flog aids slinked in and tugged on the war prince's sash, pointing out the general. Tars did a double take, then threw down his communicator and spun, clasping his hearts in an appropriate Vorch salute.
“General Synks!” he stammered before recovering his tongue. “Please, forgive me! I did not hear you approach!”
Scizzor ignored the apology and inclined his fierce-faced helmet in the direction everyone seemed to be afraid of.
“Prince Tars, what is the meaning of this?” he asked, as though the warrior had just spilled a drink across a desk. “We were supposed to have taken Central Command by now.”
Tars hissed through his canines. “I can't explain it, Master General. The resistance we've encountered here is... incredible.”
Scizzor sighed, shucking the Xazzler off his shoulder and pointing it at the deck. If the war prince was going to treat a minor delay so dramatically, this was going to drag on for a long time.
“Contact the other spearheads and establish a joint flank,” he ordered, disinterestedly. “I want this hub cleared in five minutes.”
Tars swallowed. “I... We've been trying for nearly half an hour.”
Scizzor's eyes perked up.
“That long?” he said, curiously.
Tars nodded, snapping a look over his shoulder as a concussion grenade went off somewhere out of sight. “All spearheads are stopped, dead. We are taking casualties faster than we can replace them. War Prince's Jjahn and Korji are reporting crippling casualties to their vanguards, and no one can raise Prince Sylzoi at all!”
Scizzor listened in steady patience, letting the weight of the damage sink in. He cocked his head back, raising his chin as he looked down his nose flap in thought.
“How many are there?”
Tars looked over his shoulder at his Glasseye snipers, who flashed him a number they'd been keeping track of. The prince faced Scizzor. “Still two.”
“Two squads?”
“No, two... soldiers.”
General Scizzor eyed Prince Tars with a strange look. “Just two Humans?”
Tars lightly shook his head, hesitantly. “I'm not sure they are Human.”
Scizzor sighed, unable to take any more. Appeasing his curiosity, he walked up to the dreaded corner that led straight to the axis hub. Pulling back the Stelkan snipers for a moment, Scizzor took one step into the intersection and peered past his helmet's visor. There, at the far end in the central axis hub, were two alien figures, dancing about in the raging din of a firefight. Slugfest charged projectiles peppered the hub, golden energy bolts flashed, grenades went off with regular frequency,
and yet the brown and blue avatars never stopped fighting. Every once in a while, there was a scream, the explosion of a rocket launcher, or the ripping, tearing exuberance of a .30 caliber Blitz machine gun. And, when the opera of battle rose to its peak, suddenly there would be an eerie silence, a series of hissing spits, followed by the most hideous screams Scizzor had ever heard. The general pulled back behind the corner.
“They've held this hub all on their own?”
Tars nodded, enthusiastically. “No support that we've detected. They're wielding more firepower than the rest of the resistance we've encountered... combined. And there's something else. Every time we get close to taking the hub, they unleash this... this big, black Djin that vahking eats our troops! They're unstoppable!”
Scizzor paused, slowly looking over his shoulder armor at the war prince. Tars swallowed, looking both scared and apologetic. The general looked thoughtful for a moment, saying nothing. Then he nodded curtly to the attentive soldiers watching him.
“Order a cease fire on all fronts,” he commanded, casually.
Several aides did so immediately. Prince Tars sighed out in exhaustion.
“It cannot be taken,” the war prince said, defeated. “We've tried everything.”
Scizzor idly checked the charge core for his Xazzler and propped it back on his shoulder.
“Hmm,” he said, as though he hadn't actually heard. “Excuse me for a moment, Prince Tars.”
Scizzor walked away as Tars nodded in agreement. Then the prince looked up in confusion. Scizzor strolled around the corner into the killzone as though he were taking a calm walk through a garden. Prince Tars started after him.
“G-General?”
Scizzor kept walking, stepping over or around the bodies that clotted the hallway. Tars ran as far as the corner and stopped.
“General Scizzor! Come back!”
The general never turned, walking straight ahead, Xazzler on his shoulder and hand on his sword hilt. Up ahead, the two aliens stopped moving, scanning for the threats which had suddenly stopped coming. Scizzor continued to stroll, as Prince Tars watched horrified from safety.
***
Silence seemed to come crashing down around the ESCs as the struggle paused, as if for a deep breath. Trent knelt, loading fresh rockets into the back of the Pennington during the lull in action. Kyler Jeston stood several feet aside, arms wrapped around one of his Blitz machine guns. The other had taken a direct hit and now lay on the floor in shattered pieces. He still had ammo, though. The blue giant was looking about like an energetic boy, spoiling for a fight in the schoolyard.
“Come one, come all!” he called, tauntingly down the multiple death-smeared corridors. “See the amazing Buckshot end his ugly assistant Sharps slaughter en entire army oh empty-headed buggahs! Tickets due upon death!”
Trent finished loading the Pennington and took a knee, cautiously scanning with a sniper's stare. “If you're going to taunt them, do it when we're not so low on ammo.”
The giant turned toward the marksman. “We got moh then enough to hold off these blightahs for some time. I'd be surprised if-”
Kyler stopped, catching sight of something past Trent. The sniper turned, and both ESCs stared down the hallway at what was coming at them.
“Blimey,” Kyler said, straightening up. “Es thet what I think et es?”
“Yeah,” Trent said, oddly. “Armor says it all. Master General.”
Down the hallway, still a ways off, General Scizzor continued to stroll toward them, leisurely. Propping one massive, gorilla hand on his hip, Kyler scoffed.
“Look at 'im,” he stated with chagrin. “He acts like theh's nothin en the universe thet ken hurt 'im.”
“He's wrong,” Trent said, taking a knee and glaring down the sights of the Pennington. “Clear backblast!”
Trent squeezed the trigger the moment he'd settled his aim dead center on the general's chest plate. The Pennington belched out a rocket that went hissing down the corridor, streaming smoke behind it. The rocket closed on the general's slow-moving figure in a second-
-and kept going as Scizzor effortlessly shifted his body out of the explosive's path without breaking pace.
The general was backlit with heat flash for a heartbeat as the rocket detonated against the far wall, not so much as inconveniencing the Vorch. Both ESCs suddenly were completely serious as the Vorch continued to approach them, silently.
“I... missed.” Trent sounded shocked.
“You missed?” Kyler repeated, disbelievingly.
Trent snapped up the sights, triggering the Pennington's automatic recycle. The elite sniper took a second to breathe out as his target drew closer, and fired again. The Pennington belched and a fresh rocket took flight, screaming straight toward the slow-moving Vorch's center mass. For a second, both elites could see the rocket, perfectly aligned with its target. The next second the hallway erupted in a teeth-shaking explosion that ripped the wall and ceiling panels to pieces. A cloud of debris showered the corridor with the sound of hot, chunky pieces raining about the floor.
And then Scizzor walked through the cloud, Xazzler pulse thrower extended at the end of his arm, straight as a spear.
He'd shot the rocket out of the air.
The two elites were speechless. The general had just outshot Trenton Baxter. And he'd done it without so much as a flinch. Beneath the ridge of the fierce-faced visor, Trent and Kyler could see the outline of a curved grin. Trent stood, still stunned at his own failure, as the launcher automatically cycled a fresh rocket.
“...that's not possible,” he muttered under his breath.
As though he'd been invited there under the kindest of circumstances, Scizzor stepped out of the corridor and into the hub, letting the pulse thrower dangle toward the ground. Kyler stepped in and pushed Trent back.
“Geddout my way,” the hunter said. “Thes chucklehead's mine.”
Trent stepped back as Scizzor walked toward Kyler with an almost friendly swagger. Kyler, hefting the light machine gun in one arm, beckoned with the other for the general to get closer.
“Come on,” the Aussie giant coaxed. “Lessee what youh made of.”
Kyler dropped his hulking mass down into a crouch, looking like a bear standing on its rear legs as he swiped with his empty hand. Scizzor drew within fifteen feet, looked straight at Kyler, grinned...
...And blew Trent away.
The Xazzler blast caught the sniper unaware, right in the chest. Kyler whipped his head around as Trent took a frightened, staggering step back, armor absorbing the pulse in the alloy. He gasped, stunned, dropping the Pennington. Scizzor didn't so much as even look in Trent's direction as he lazily fired again, walloping the sniper in the stomach with another pulse that knocked him to the floor, choking and gasping for air. Kyler spun around and roared.
“Thet's et, youh dead!”
Scizzor finally moved to attack the giant, closing the distance to five feet. The giant Paxtonite charged, swinging the Blitz around like an enormous hammer, hard enough to drop anything short of an elephant. Scizzor skidded back, dropped to one knee as the weapon passed, and blasted the giant once in the knee. Kyler cried and started to go down, but his anger quickly overcame his pain. He snapped the Blitz up at point blank range, leveling it on the general. But the general wasn't there anymore. Kyler had less than a heartbeat to wonder where his target had gone before his arm on the same side as his injured leg twisted behind him and wrenched behind his back in a classic arm lock. He started pulling out of it, counting on his superior strength, until the point blank pulse shot to the back of his already throbbing leg sent him crashing down on one knee.
Kyler roared and started twisting around as Scizzor pinned his beefy arm tight, locking up his strength. The Blitz began to turn, trying to awkwardly aim behind the hunter. Scizzor snapped a leg up and kicked it away, then threw down the empty Xazzler and ripped his cell blaster from its sheath. In the span of two seconds, the general fired enough high-powered pierc
ing shots into the giant's left shoulder to melt tank armor. The cell blaster nearly melted itself at that level of abuse. Kyler screamed as the Genesis armor soaked up the damage, sending the pain across the dermasuit and down his arm. He dropped the Blitz amidst waves of searing pain. Scizzor dropped his hissing cell blaster, legged over the doubled-over giant, hooked his head under his armored leg, and flipped. Kyler slammed hard, square on the back of his neck as the rest of his body unfurled like a rug.
Scizzor completed the roll onto his feet in one fluid motion, landing in a light combat stance that visibly undermined the atrocious beating he'd just dealt out. Scizzor looked away from Kyler just as Trent was rapidly getting to his feet. The sniper was twisting in agony, but was still reaching for his holstered Wolfhound with rapid speed. Scizzor snapped his forearm up and showered the sniper with a paralyzing amount of shredder bullets from his Vorch wrist rifle. Trent recoiled, the nano-fiber glove tearing apart, fingers threatening to snap, pistol shattering in his hand. The onslaught continued until the wrist rifle ran dry.
Showing an enormous amount of self control, Trent didn't give an inch to the surmounting pain. There was a sharp metallic crack as the nozzle for the Mojave extended and locked. Before the shell casings had even settled on the floor, Trent snapped his left arm up and shot a burst stream of black, hissing liquid straight at the Vorch master general.
Scizzor dropped his hand, and the J'fin war sword came into play, screaming from its ornate scabbard in a flash of tempered steel. The incoming stream from the Mojave was cut—cut—from the air with a single snap with the width of the blade. The liquid hissed, absorbing into the surface and instantly oozing into the air. Not a drop hit the general . Flipping over the handle with the skill of a flaming baton twirler, Scizzor hurled the spinning war sword underhand back toward the sniper. Trent stumbled aside, just barely averting the toxic blade as it slashed by like the rotors of the ESC's Hybrids. The sword stuck the far wall and clattered to the ground as toxic vapor rose from the liquid compound on the blade. Trent spun back around and extended the Mojave for another blast, pulling the trigger to-
Prime Alpha (Planetary Powers Book 1) Page 60