Nathen thought he might relax a little. Until the water rippled and the entire station shuddered with a heavy, resounding clang.
“What was that?” Calico asked.
***
In the core, Phillip waved his chin light across the access panel and reached out to pry it open. Inside was just what he was looking for.
“There you are,” he said, reaching out and wrapping his glove around the last breaker switch. He threw it, and felt his fist vibrate as the breaker engaged. The tech floated himself around to the waiting console.
“Come on,” he said, fighting heavy fatigue. “Come on, Phillip. People are counting on you.”
He reached the console and flipped himself over so he was reading it right-side up. The same two words continued to flash.
[Awaiting command...]
Phillip steadily typed.
[Initiate power up sequence.]
The screen blipped.
[Command confirmed.]
[Warm-up initiated. Standby.]
[Power levels: 010.50%]
Phillip grinned, feeling like his face was cracking in the dry suit air.
“Alright,” he said as the core jarred into action. “Just a few more seconds...”
***
Another clang sounded, deep and hollow.
“Are we being shot at from space?” Calico asked, concerned, but also angry. The water trembled with a heavy vibration.
“No,” Nathen said, scanning the ceiling and walls. “That's the main power coming online. If we don't get out of here before it comes online, we could...”
Nathen felt a sensation like a feather brushing the back of his neck, sending chills down his spine. He turned, bringing the light from the badge around.
Right into the face of the stalking Maul.
The two hundred pound maul was perched in the space above a pump valve, silent as a statue. The ESC had a full second to realize it had been watching him the whole time before it exploded with a wicked snarl and lunged. Nathen caught a flash of curved, blood-sucking fangs before he snapped his arm up and fired, far too late. The Maul hit him dead in the chest as the Karl 9 went off, sending a rocket round screaming into the machinery. Calico spun as Nathen and the scaly cat splashed into the water in a thrashing heap. For a second, liquid showered everywhere as the Maul tore away with its razor sharp claws, snapping and yowling. Pinned beneath the surface, Nathen's bio-light made the water glow around him as the mad struggle went on. In no time, the water went from pale green, to red. Calico, swearing in whatever language first came to her mind, staggered back and tried to draw a bead on the Maul without threatening to hit her commander.
Then one of Nathen's arms emerged from the water, pushing the alien cat up just long enough for his other fist to shoot out and uppercut the wildcat in the jaw.
It took a lot of strength—or a lot of adrenaline—to stun a predator with your bare hands. But the full-grown Maul jerked in surprise, long enough for the drowning commando to get his legs under the animal and kick. The Maul went flying head over heels before splashing back into the water, where it kicked and thrashed to get its head above the surface. The cat turned, water streaming off its scales, as it clawed its way through the water that was almost too deep to stand in, but not quite deep enough to swim in. Nathen pushed himself up, coughing and wheezing as he searched for the predator. His uniform was shredded and his chest was seeping blood. The Maul bared its snake-like fangs and hissed, stretching a paw out to rake Nathen.
And then Calico shot it, clean through the torso. The Maul choked, sidestepping and staggering through the water, confused. Calico grimaced as she fired her Coyote twice more, pumping two more shots into the cat. The Maul went down for the count, sinking into the shallow water with one last gurgle. Nathen rifled his hands through the water up to his elbows until he finally came up with Gordon's dripping Karl 9.
“Let's move!” Calico shouted, helping Nathen up and pushing him at the same time. Nathen scrambled to his feet with his mercenary jacket torn to ribbons, teeth bared in a pained grin. Calico dashed forward, just as another ferocious Maul came flying out of the darkness directly behind them, plunging into the water where she'd been standing a second before, fangs bared. It took a swipe at the girl, and losing her balance Calico dropped the Coyote into the dark water. From where he stood, Nathen simply raised the Karl 9 and fired. He didn't aim, and the shot smashed against the pipe next to the animal, but it was enough to scare the Maul off for the second it took him to put the next shot right through its slanted skull. The back of its head gushed as the rocket round propelled itself clear through its brainstem and whistled fizzling into the water. The second Maul fell face first into the water and gurgled its last. Calico got her feet under her and ran, right past Nathen. The Commander let her get a few paces ahead of him, then turned and bolted as well.
In the darkness behind them, dozens of hideous yowls and wet snarls formed a chorus of bloodlust as the station began to ring with heavy clangs.
***
[Status alert.]
[Power up progress 100.00%]
[Do you wish to execute?]
Phillip smiled. “You bet your bottom credit I wish to execute.”
The technician hit the final execute command.
There was a monumental roar, a rumble that threatened to shake the tech off his precarious perch, and the core switched on, flooding the station with power.
***
Rotan viewed the battle through the visor of his war helm with a look of cold steel. All around him, Human ships rose and hammered away, pecking at his dreadcraft with their inferior weaponry as the images of their conflict reflected off the solar panels of the starshield. The lifting of the override had shifted the tide of the battle.
Rotan forced himself to remain calm. The duration of the battle had been extended, but the outcome was still not decided.
The dreadcraft's main battle tactic was to keep an enemy formation toward the outside curve of its mantle, protecting its inside systems while presenting the enemy with a constant pinwheel of death and ever-shifting armor. Positioning over the starshield had proved costly, for as soon as the override had collapsed, every ship had a clear run inside the weapon's mantle.
Rotan was paying for his mistake, but was also making the Humans pay twice.
“Concentrate all your firepower on those cruisers,” he ordered, raising his voice above a screeching alarm. “Ignore the rest, get me those cruisers!”
Rotan tried to keep the long game in mind, scanning the three Human cruisers through an anti-beam chaff screen. Surprised or not, the Saperiah stood a better chance at surviving the battle if it could take out those cruisers. The thought had not crossed his mind before that he might actually lose the Saperiah to the Humans, and for that arrogant thinking alone he should rightfully load himself into the nearest death charge tube and fire himself at the enemy. All around on the war helm, Rotan could see what was left of his escort fleet, battling the smaller ships around the mantle, like raptors hunting leaf sparrows around a great tree in full bloom. The Human ships were doing what he was doing: ignoring all but one target. The Stelkan captain focused, despite how tightly his claws were bound against the armrests. The Human Enforcers had the firepower to punch through the dreadcraft's armor, maybe knock out his big guns, but if he forced the battle down to them, then he might still be able to...
Suddenly Rotan's last Diamondback destroyer lit up like a thundercloud, practically turning inside out as its singularity drive overloaded. The Stelkan blinked, more confused than alarmed. The Thrice-Cut had reported full combat status. It was holding its own. And suddenly in a blink, it was gone. Then, the captain realized what had happened a second before the report came.
“MARCH platforms, online!” someone shouted. “Station power is restored! Orbital defenses activated!”
Rotan didn't know whether to scream in rage or weep in despair.
“Retreat,” he said, shouting louder as his dreadc
raft began rumbling with decimating strikes from the Humans long-dormant defense systems. “I said fall back! Pull us back out of range and withdraw to light jump distance!”
His orders were punctuated as the last few craft in his fragile escort fleet vanished into sparkling silver ashes at the drum of those hideous MARCH platforms.
“Retreat to the rally point!”
Chapter 55
Overhead, a red light flickered on, as a weak alarm struggled to croak out a note. After a few tries, the alarm got going, throwing the former pitch darkness into light as bright as a raving night club. Other subsystems began powering up as pistons and pipes reactivated, banging and clanging, adding a sort of chase theme to the two Humans fleeing from the pack of Mauls hot on their trail. Up ahead Calico's bio-light led the way, bobbing as she ran. Behind them, one by one, overhead maintenance lights clicked on, barely bringing them out of the darkness with their ill-maintained glow.
Suddenly a Maul dropped from some overhanging pipes into the shallow water with a splash, blocking their path. The scaly cat wound about, coiling itself for an attack as Calico sloshed to a halt, reaching down for her Denchura. Nathen charged right past her and slam-tackled the springing bloodsucker in mid air. Almost matching weight for weight, the two brawlers twisted around the collision point, but since Nathen's center of gravity was more vertical and his feet were grounded, he managed to control the fall enough to body slam the feline back-first into the shallow water, sending up a geyser as two figures and four hundred pounds of snarling anger struck the flooded floor as one.
The starving, manic Maul struggled to find purchase, instinctively fighting to roll over so it could raise its head above water. Nathen, rather than push away from the predator he'd tackled, stuck where he was, jamming his knee into the Maul's stomach and trying to keep the cat's lower legs from shredding his stomach and groin with its frantic kicks. He tried to hold on, but there was no good grip to be found on the alien cat's slick and scaly hide. The feline's extra-flexible spine let it twist out from under Nathen's strained grip almost as easily as a snake.
The lithe cat turned, doubling over its own hindquarters, mouth already yawning open and ready to sink its three inch-long fangs into Nathen's unprotected skin. Not daring to let go of the crucial Karl 9, Nathen grabbed hold of the nearest unarmored part of the Maul's face: its nose. Nathen hooked his thumb into its nostril and sank his fingers against its snout, digging in like talons. The Maul howled in dismay as it thrashed, torn between retreating from pain and quenching its starvation by gorging on Nathen's blood. It slashed with its claws, but the rakes and slashes only reached Nathen's outstretched arm. The sound of ripping cloth and flesh were heard alongside violent splashes as Nathen fought to keep the cat at arm's reach like a rodeo cowboy on a raging bull. Struggling to keep his footing in the thick and cascading water, the commando tried to line up a hip-shot with the powerful Karl 9. The rocket pistol roared five times, steaming shell casings plinking into the tainted water.
Nathen felt the Maul's last breath shudder against his tight grip as the rocket-propelled slugs tore through the softer snake-like scales on its underbelly. The shaking commando saw its bright eyes turn to gray as its body turned to a sack of dead meat in the foaming water. Nathen took a step back, clutching the warm mag pistol to his bleeding midsection, while his left arm—a blend of shredded flesh and black uniform—dripped a constant trickle of red into the water around his shins. He walked toward Calico with a slight stagger, when he saw a light up ahead near the base of a staircase. It said, 'Exit'.
“There,” Nathen said.
He took another step, bumping past the corpse of the Maul as something crashed into the water several dozen meters behind them. Then more splashes. Many splashes.
Here comes the pack.
Nathen forced his legs into motion, building speed like a train through the inhibiting water. Calico, kicking through the water with her shorter stature, managed to stay right behind her commander. But the lathering gurgle of vampiric hunters was closing in behind them. Nathen hit the guardrail and slapped Calico on the back with the Karl 9, ushering her up first.
“Go!”
The speaker didn't argue, hauling herself up the steps two at a time. Before she got out of reach, Nathen snatched one of the grenades off the back of her bandolier and thumbed the fuse switch. He didn't have time to adjust the fuse timer as he struggled up the steps, dragging the weight of water off his heels. The default setting for the grenade was five seconds. Nathen pressed the primer switch and lifted the frag grenade, pinching the ring in his teeth and ripping it out. His arm—weak from the blaster recoil and cold from blood loss—lost its grip.
Nathen fumbled to catch the grenade as it slipped from his fingers and clattered between his feet. Five seconds. Nathen finished dashing up the stairs and hauled as hard as his leg would allow. Behind him, the spud clinked from stair to stair until it finally plunked into the shallow water, just as the first Maul came after the scent of blood.
The explosion from the frag, even in low water at the bottom of the stairs, knocked Nathen flat on his face as his hastily bandaged leg gave out from under him. The elite fell on his side, catching his fall and dispersing the impact. Nathen cried out as he landed on his blaster wound, sending spikes of pain coursing through his body. The force of the exploding frag had nowhere to go, and therefore bounced about in the tight metallic quarters, amplifying its effect, like a clapper inside a bell.
Nathen's ears rang as the sound of the frag slowly dispersed. Without even taking a second to register the pain all across his body, Nathen stood. Then, he dragged his knees under him for the hundredth time that day, demanding his body to obey his will. It responded, his legs taking the deck step by step. Water dripped from his clothes. Blood trickled from his body. Smoke clung to his skin. Something mewled on the floor, to his right. Nathen looked down. A Maul lay on its side, its hindquarters demolished by the frag grenade. It had been right at the top of the stairs when the frag went off, throwing it forward. Now it gurgled in dismay, reaching for Nathen in what could have been a plea had it not been hissing through its dry fangs, eyes still afire with the will to kill. Nathen tiredly pointed the Karl 9 and fired once, hearing the muffled gunshot with his bleeding right ear. The Maul stopped mewling.
Nathen took another step. Up ahead, he saw Calico running back toward him, bio badge waving him onwards in the hazy yellow light. She was saying something to him, motioning ahead, but he didn't hear her. His ears were still ringing. His injured leg threatened to give out. Calico moved in to apply a soldier's one-armed assisted carry, but Nathen pulled back when she touched his shredded, bloody left arm. She settled for walking by his side, watching him to make sure he wouldn't fall. Nathen sniffed, nose filling with the rusty, musky smell of death. Up ahead, the battered gray bulkhead of a maintenance pressure door beckoned. Calico reached it first and hit the open command. The door opened, spilling bright, intense light into the dark engineering sector, blinding the lost Humans. Nathen flinched and clapped his left hand on Calico's shoulder, and together, the two ESCs walked into the light.
And right into the hands of the waiting Yew boarding party.
Nathen's eyes adjusted to the harsh light as he stared into the triangular muzzles of the dozen or so cell blasters pointed at him and Calico. In the face of certain peril, he did not flinch. Nathen took cold, systematic inventory, steely gaze traveling from left to right. Seven Flogs. Five Vorch. Three Stelkans. One Golo. All armed with cell blasters, as per standard procedure amongst boarding teams. Every one of them had their weapons leveled straight at the two, battle-weary Humans.
Nobody moved, or made a sound. Nathen took a long, tortured breath as his eyes began darting from one target to the next, taking rapid readings from each alien. The Golo looked very focused; priority target. Two Flogs on his right side were closest. Then the Stelkans. Then the Vorch. Then the rest of the Flogs.
Nathen knew he wouldn't even get the Golo.
Nearby, one of the Stelkan soldier's avian-raptorian eyes squinted in a lethal stare, hooked thumb leaning on the firing stud.
Nathen gripped the Karl 9 and braced himself for death.
Suddenly, the air cracked in all ears as a shrill, controlling whistle turned everyone's head down the hallway.
Nathen spurred himself into action as Calico took advantage of the distraction, turning and diving to her left as the commander simultaneously ripped the pin and chucked the grenade through the door, falling back.
Everything happened at once. Nathen and Calico hit the deck in a heap, just as a shower of fiery golden bolts seared through the air the Humans had occupied, one bolt even catching the tail of Calico's jacket. There were multiple screams as the boarding team dropped into defensive positions in the corridor. There were even more screams as the hallway became a meat grinder, filled with tearing, flashing blue kinetic darts that cut from wall to wall. Nathen, on his back, lifted the Karl 9 and shot the only Flog that had followed them through the door, the last shell casing ejecting from the exotic rocket pistol before the magazine went empty. The grenade went off in the hallway, explosion ripping through the open doorway and flooding the maintenance area with a funeral fire.
Prime Alpha (Planetary Powers Book 1) Page 62