“Hard to say, I’ve never hacked a system other than the ones I knew on my home world.”
“Adam,” Eve’s voice echoed from both Z’s and my transponder. “One of the destroyers is positioning to shoot at Persephone.”
“How much time do you think you have?” I asked.
“Perhaps twenty-five seconds. They are moving slow and trying to bring their port side cannons to bear.”
“Hurry up,” I said to Z, and the blonde woman nodded.
“Eve, disengage the boarding tube and then leave,” I said into the transponder.
“I have another idea I would like to try first,” she said.
“I’ve figured out their system,” Z hissed. “Pushing passwords through. I need fifteen more seconds, and I’ll own the doors on this ship.”
“What do you want to do, Eve,” I asked.
“I will engage Persephone’s thrusters and spin around the carrier. I believe they will be unprepared for the motion. However, it might confuse the carrier’s gravity tech for a few moments,” the vampire said.
“Try it. Let us know when you are going to start.”
“No! Wait till we are in the hallways at least!” Z shouted as she pointed to the ceiling of the hold. It was a good forty meters high, and I imagined us all falling up to smash into it.
“Eve, wait a few moments,” I said.
“They are preparing to fire,” Eve replied.
“I need a few more seconds, damn it you stupid piece of shit! Go faster!” Z shouted as she hammered the bottom of her fist into metal below the keypad.
“I have only a few more moments.” Eve actually sounded a bit nervous, and the beast inside of my soul screamed with frustration.
“There! Go go go go!” Z screamed as soon as the doors popped open.
The men with the purple cloaks began to pour into the hallway like grape juice down a drain. Z stood from her spot by the door and gave me a relieved smile.
“I am engaging thrusters,” Eve said.
“No!” both Z and I shouted as the ground started to vibrate.
Then the world flipped upside down.
I let go of my shotgun and leapt toward Z. I caught her right hand in my left as we spun in the air. My other hand hooked onto the lip of the doorway and my claws sprang from my fingers to dig into the metal.
“Arrrrrrrr,” I growled as Z’s weight pulled on my arm, chest, and shoulders. She didn’t really weigh enough to concern me, but my grip on the door would only work at this sideways angle, and the ship was continuing to rotate.
The purple cloaked men were shouting from inside the hallway, and I knew that they were getting slammed against the roof like clothes inside of an old fashioned drying machine. They were going to be unable to help me lift Z up, so I swung forward to set the bottom of my boots against the wall.
The joints, tendons, and bones in my shoulders popped and strained as I pushed out with my legs. The adjacent pressure was helping my hand keep hold against the doorway, but I didn’t think I would be able to hang on if the ship flipped completely over.
“Don’t let go!” Z screeched as she swung around from my arm like a pendulum. The craft did end up completely flipping over upside down, but I was able to keep my shoulder lose, and I only needed to pull Z a little forward to keep my arm from popping out of its socket.
Then the vibrations stopped, and the gravity corrected itself.
“Holy shit I thought I was going to die. You save--”
“Down!” I shouted as I pushed Z’s head down with my left hand and reached up with my right. I carried both my rifle and shotgun slung over my back, so when I let go of the latter it hadn’t fallen to the floor, but Z dropped her own rifle in the confusion, and I managed to catch its return fall before the weapon landed on her skull.
“Use the strap,” I ordered as I held out the rifle.
“Will do. Uhh, thanks again,” she said with a meek smile.
“I am out of their attacking vector for another few moments, but I fear I will need to keep rotating the carrier. The other three ships are getting into position. You might only have five minutes before I am forced to fly,” Eve said.
“Can you give us like four seconds heads up before you do that again?” Z shouted into the transponder as we ran into the hallway. None of our allies seemed to be injured, but they were all picking themselves up off the ground, and we had to thread through them.
“Of course,” Eve said. “I thought I gave you enough notice ea--”
“No, you didn’t, and the captain and I were--”
“Halt!” I shouted to interrupt Z.
We had reached a corner, and the woman hacker was running beside me. She skidded to a stop, and I approached the intersection by myself. I held out my shotgun and then pivoted half my body around the corner. There was no one down this hallway, and I motioned for the rest of our group to continue forward.
“I got a glimpse of the map while I was in their door system. If we make a right at the second turn, and then head another twenty meters, we’ll make it to one of the elevator stations. Then we need to go up to the fifth floor. The bridge is more toward the front of the ship on that level,” Z said.
“Can they block us from using the elevator?” The monster I shared a soul with wanted to sprint ahead of the group and kill everything in my path, and it was an exercise in agonizing patience to run slow enough so that Z could pace with me.
“They can try, but they will fail. I own all their services now. I just need a terminal to port into.”
“Gggggggood,” I growled. “Now stay back. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Aye, Captain. Thanks again for the save,” she nodded and then slowed her run so the purple cloaked men could move past her.
I didn’t let them catch up to me. I knew where I had to go now, and I wanted to taste the blood of any who stood in my path.
I sprinted ahead of the pack and rushed to the next intersection. The hallways of this carrier were well maintained, and although they were made of metal, they were crafted to look like white marble. The surfaces gleamed from the lights on the ceiling, and the glare was somewhat annoying.
“Prepare yourselves!” My sensitive ears picked up a voice in the distance ahead of me, and I reckoned that there was a group of guards waiting for me in the next turn.
I moved to run on the left side of the hallway and readied my shotgun. I didn’t have a lot of time to be tactful, use cover, and attempt to take out my opponents with elegance. Eve was on borrowed time, and we needed to take control of the bridge and the carrier’s cannons in the next few minutes, or we might lose a chance at retreating.
I was going to have to attack them directly and hope my onslaught surprised them.
One of the Alloprize soldiers poked his head around the corner and shouted a warning. He was about eight meters away, and he brought his rifle up with practiced ease. If I was running at a normal pace, he might have been able to get a shot or two off at me, but I was much faster than he expected, and he let out a screech of surprise when I ran past him.
Four soldiers were standing two meters behind the man at the corner. They all wore light plate looking body armor that was painted a mixture of gray with teal accents. The man I ran behind turned to fire on me, but my left foot hit the adjacent wall I’d been running at, and my momentum carried me onto the vertical surface.
My shotgun sang its angry sonata of malice.
The first slug took the man on the right side of the group in the chest. His armor might have deflected a rifle caliber bullet, but a solid slug shot from our distance just pushed through the armor as if it was made out of toilet paper. Half of his body exploded out his back like a red paint grenade, and I knew the man died instantly.
My second slug hit the second man on my right in the throat. His head popped off his neck like the cork of a champagne bottle, but his death caused his finger to yank on the trigger of his rifle, and bullets began to pour out of the weapon. Fortunat
ely, I was running up the side wall of the hallway, and the spray of bullets passed beneath me. The soldier at the corner was in the line of fire though, and his scream of pain from behind made me think that the bullets from his comrade had accidentally penetrated his armor.
The third slug hit the third man in the stomach, and the bottom half of his body poured out onto the gleaming floor of the corridor. The man didn’t die immediately, but the sudden disappearance of his internal organs caused his eyes to bulge open, and I guessed that he’d be dead in a few moments.
I jumped off the wall behind the fourth man, rolled on the ground to avoid his spray of bullets, and then kicked off the opposite wall into a backflip. I didn’t want to shoot back in the direction my friends were coming from, but I estimated I was still a few seconds ahead of them, so I lined up a shot that would probably take the guard out and also pass through the first man I’d run past.
I took the risk and feathered the trigger to my weapon while I was spinning in mid-air. The slug went where I intended, and the hunk of supersonic metal turned the first man’s chest into a bloody donut while it tore the gun arm off the last man.
“Damn, what in the hell are you?” Jatal asked as I sprinted out of the side tunnel and met with the group.
“He’s a fucking walking tiger-man with a shotgun. Keep moving!” Z shouted from the middle of the group of purple cloaked soldiers.
“Adam, I need to turn the ship again. Our enemies have lined up another shot.” Eve’s voice came across the transponder attached to the front of my armor.
“We’ll keep running. Do it when you need to,” I said through the device, and then I turned to continue my rush down the hallway toward the elevator.
The floor began to vibrate, and the corridors of the ship twisted under my feet. I had already been running near my full speed, and was able to just place my boots on the sides of the wall when they became the new floor. Then I set foot on the ceiling when the ship continued its turn. The men running behind me made startled sounds, but I didn’t hear anyone fall.
The change of gravity made it so that I approached the next hallway and had to look up to see the direction the elevator laid. Alloprize guards were hanging from the doorways up above me, and the men were trying to climb back up into the various rooms so they wouldn’t fall.
There were only four of them, and I pointed the sight of my shotgun up at them as the carrier’s gravity systems re-aligned with its new position. My slugs cut through the men before they could adjust to the ground being back in the correct position while I skipped down off the ceiling. I turned to look at the purple cloaked soldiers that followed me, and only a quarter of them fell on their asses when the gravity reverted.
I continued my sprint toward the elevator and took out the automated security gun on the top of the wall before it had a chance to target me. Then I checked the side passages and pounded on the call button for the lift. The keypad made a hostile beeping sound, and I beckoned to Z as soon as the group made it to me.
“It is locked,” I growled as I pointed at the keypad.
“No shit. It’s almost like they don’t want us to take the bridge or something. What nerve.” She smirked and plugged the cord from her head into the port under the terminal pad. Almost as soon as she inserted her cable, the lift doors opened, and the car was waiting for us.
“Good job,” I said as I stepped inside.
“They aren’t even trying,” Z said with a shrug as she moved to step in the car with me.
“Wait here, I’ll go up with a handful of men, we’ll clear it out, and I’ll tell you when it is safe to come up,” I said to her.
“Yeah, that’s a much better idea than the one I had,” the hacker said as she stepped away from the car.
I motioned for Jatal and some of his men to enter the elevator, and I hit the button for the floor with the bridge on it. The door closed with a pleasant chime, and then the tube lifted in the air. The trip only took us a few seconds, and I motioned for the purple cloaked men to stand to side of the doors so they would have a bit of cover.
There wasn’t enough room for me to join them at the sides, so I lay prone on my stomach and pointed my shotgun at where I thought the guards would stand once the door opened.
My guess had been accurate.
The Alloprize guards were holding position twelve meters from the doors of the elevator. They leaned out from around the hallway intersection corners, and I saw one of them throw a grenade a fraction of a second after the doors started to crack open. I already had my finger on the trigger of my weapon, and I squeezed off a shot when the guard’s hand released.
My slug hit the grenade perfectly, and the bomb launched in the opposite direction of its intended flight path. It bounced off the corner of the wall behind the left set of soldiers, and they let out a collective gasp. I was already turning my weapon to the other side of the intersection though, and I let off three quick shots. The first connected with the helmet of a woman leaning out from behind the corner there. Her head disappeared in a cloud of red colored metal fragments, and her torso began to fall away from me.
The second and third slug slammed into the metal wall behind the headless guard. The hunks of metal ricocheted off the polished surface of the carrier interior, and I heard soldiers around the corner shout. I didn’t know if I actually hit them with my slugs, but it probably didn’t matter.
The men standing beside me in the elevator started to fire as the grenade went off. The group of enemies standing behind the left corner flew across the intersection with the blast. I calculated they were all sorts of dead from the explosion, but I didn’t think the others on the right side were incapacitated by the explosion. I sprung to my feet with a growl, dashed into the smoking destruction, rounded the corner to the right, and then swung my shotgun around. The guards there had been stunned by the grenade, and I was able to end them with two close range slugs before they could point their rifles at me.
“Send the elevator back down,” I growled to Jatal.
The dark skinned man nodded, stepped out of the car with his friends, and then pressed the button on the inside to send the car back.
The animal in my soul didn’t want to wait for Z to join us, but it would be foolish to go on ahead without her. She was the only one who could open doors, and most military spaceships had stronger security around their bridge. They needed to, since it wasn’t just where the ship was piloted.
It was also where they kept the control terminals for the ship’s cannons.
The elevator dinged and Z stepped out of the car. She let out a long exhale as soon as she exited and then she turned to look at the men.
“Okay, you guys are great, and all, and I get the whole ‘underground freedom fighter thing,’ but didn’t the terraforming give your moon any water? You all smell like you haven’t showered in four Earth years.”
“It feels like that,” Jatal said with a laugh.
“How much farther?” I asked the blonde hacker.
“Forty, maybe fifty meters,” she said as she pointed down the hallway.
“I’ll continue. Give me some space,” I said to the men as I thumbed the magazine release for my shotgun. The half-filled drum fell into my left hand, and I replaced it with a full one from my belt.
Then I was running.
The blood thundered in my ears, and the sound seemed to echo off the polished hallways of the carrier. The animal that raged in my soul demanded I run faster, it demanded I kill everyone who stood in my way. The human part that lived in my brain was attempting to guess what kind of security we would encounter at the bridge, and I could only think of two possibilities.
If they had no more guards, the crew that manned the bridge would seal themselves behind the main security doors. That way they could try to hold the bottleneck at the doors and keep us from accessing the controls of the carrier. I suspected they would also use this strategy if they had less than ten soldiers left.
If they had more than
ten, they would probably have a spot they would try to hold us off at before the bridge. This would minimize their risk of us shooting any of their controls.
I made it to the bridge doorway without encountering any more guards, and the monster inhabiting my DNA screeched. It knew that our enemies were cornered. It knew they were afraid. It knew that I would soon kill them.
I tried the door, but it didn’t open when I pressed the button. Z arrived five seconds later, and the woman plugged her cord into the keypad without pause.
“Give me a grenade,” I asked the purple cloaked men as I held my hand out. Jatal placed one in my paw half a second later, and I flipped off the pin with a flick of my claw.
“As soon as you have the door open, fall back,” I growled to Z.
“Got it,” she replied with a nod. “Uhhh, this is good to go, but wait a second. I’m going to see if I can… alright! The door will stay open now. Three,”
The purple cloaked men flanked the door and aimed their weapons.
“Two.”
I stepped to the side so that I stood behind the men on the left.
“One!” Z shouted as she turned away from the opening door.
The air filled with the roar of twenty rifles shooting.
I flung my grenade into the room. It almost didn’t matter where it landed, I just wanted to cause a spray of shrapnel and blast of concussive energy. It might have been a bad idea to risk harming some of the bridge controls, but I didn’t want to get held up at this door for too long. Eve still had to worry about the other ships shooting at Persephone.
“Eve, move the carrier!” I screamed into the transponder as I ducked away from a spray of bullets that took one of the purple cloaked men in the skull.
“Moving,” I thought I heard Eve say over the sound of the weapon fire around me.
A moment later I felt the ground vibrate through my boots, and I took a deep breath.
Then I sprinted through the storm of bullets and into the bridge.
It was a stupid plan, but we were already on borrowed time, and I didn’t think there would be another opportunity for Eve to spin the carrier. Almost as soon as I stepped into the bridge, the gravity tech failed, and my feet left the ground. The wall on the left side was becoming the ground, and I was falling sideways, or down-ways, or whatever direction that Eve’s thruster pull had wrought upon the carrier.
Space Witch: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 2) Page 11