Battle Beyond Earth - Box Set (Books 6-9)

by Nick S. Thomas

  “Your greatest champion, he is nothing!” she roared.

  But CJ wasn’t willing to go down without a fight, and he rose back up. He could still feel the power in the suit. It just felt heavy and cumbersome, as opposed to the nimbleness he had become accustomed to. He rushed forward at Bolormaa. She turned to cut, but he spun and brushed her blade aside with his arm against the flat so no damage was done. He punched to her face, and she was too caught up in her victory to even see the threat. She was knocked back and stumbled backwards. She was a little stunned, but it was hard to tell if that was surprise or pain.

  “You fool,” she declared.

  She came right back at him, cutting under at his lead leg with all her force. The blade cut through the armour and deep into his thigh. Had it not been for the suit, it would have been his whole leg gone. He squirmed out in pain as he felt the leg give way, and he collapsed down onto the knee. Bolormaa didn’t let up. She was furious now. She slashed across his belly, and another against his right arm as he held it up to protect himself. The armour stopped the blade cleaving right through, but it was still striking deep wounds into his body. As he dropped down onto one hand, he looked up. King was staring right back at him. She wanted to do something, but Mirov was holding her back. CJ shook his head as if to tell her to stop.

  Bolormaa slashed across his back with a deep cut that ran from his shoulder blade down to his upper thigh. She then kicked him full force in the flank. He was thrown through the air and tumbled to a stop. He spat out blood, but defiantly got back up onto his feet.

  “That suit is nothing more than a trick, a magician’s trick. You could never hope to beat me. The best you could achieve was to prolong your life and your suffering a little longer.”

  CJ raised his hands as if to keep on fighting, but they could all see that he was barely able to stand anymore. She rushed forward and thrust her sword deep into his torso.

  “No!” King cried out.

  Once again she tried to rush forward, but Mirov would not let her go, and Kaner helped him. They knew there was nothing they could do. Bolormaa withdrew her blade, and CJ slumped to the deck as blood began to flow out. Bolormaa looked to King and seemed to take great pleasure in her pain and suffering. One of their people did get a shot off, though. Bolormaa held up her hand and bounced the shot with her palm. A small gun barrel lifted out from her vambrace and returned two shots. They struck the man in the face and killed him instantly. Nobody dared try anything else after that. She seemed to be on a completely different level. The room was silent once more, as it had been on her approach. They were at her mercy, and they knew it.

  “You are not going to die here today.”

  King stopped pushing against the other two officers in complete shock. She hadn’t even entertained the possibility that they might make it through the day.

  “You will die…soon, but not today. Go back to your Alliance. Go back to your Colonel Mitch Taylor, and tell him what happened here today. I want him to know that there can be no victory. No tricks, and no games can save him.”

  With that last statement, she turned her back and walked away as if fearing nothing they could do to her. King lifted her rifle as if to take a shot, but Kaner knocked it down, and Mirov held her firmly once again.

  “There is nothing to gain from dying here,” said Mirov.

  They watched Bolormaa board her ship. It lifted off from the station with the rest of her troops. Not once did she look back or appear to be threatened by them in any way. If it were just a matter of arrogance and psychology, it wouldn’t seem so bad, but she genuinely did feel untouchable to all of them. Neither did they trust her. They all watched and waited. Most of them expected her fleet to blow the station to hell once she had left.

  “He’s still alive!” Ross yelled.

  Their eyes were quickly drawn to the Scotsman who had turned CJ over and was checking his pulse. The Captain lay in a pool of his own blood and wasn’t even conscious, but Mirov rushed to his side and pulled out a small tube of foam spray that they used to seal wounds. He sprayed it liberally over every wound on the Captain’s body as the blood continued to pour.

  “Is he going to make it?” King approached slowly, as if not wanting to accept the possibility that he might not.

  “He’s in a bad way, but there is a chance,” replied Mirov.

  They looked back through the docking bay shield. The enemy fleet entered a jump gateway and vanished from view, as Bolormaa had implied they would.

  “We should have killed her while we had the chance,” declared Ross.

  “We would all be dead, and then there would be no hope,” replied Mirov.

  The rest of them looked stunned. Most of the Krys looked to Kaner for answers.

  “We would have died if we’d fought here today. We will take this fight to Bolormaa another day,” he boomed.

  They would be comforting words if the display Bolormaa had just given hadn’t just been so one-sided.

  “What do we do?” Ross asked.

  “I hate to say it, but we have to do exactly what Bolormaa wants us to do. CJ needs treatment, and we need to let Taylor and the fleet know what happened here,” said King.

  Kaner had command now, although he didn’t disagree with her.

  “Load up. Let’s get out of here!”

  Kaner and Mirov picked CJ up and carried him to the Phoenix. They took him to the small medical bay they had, but there was no one to administer treatment with any level of expertise more than they had. Soon King found she was alone with him, and couldn’t help but feel useless. He was alive, but only just. She slumped down into a chair beside the bed the Captain had been laid down in and began to cry. She was overcome with joy that they had lived, and yet felt more lost than when it all had begun. She couldn’t see a world where Taylor could do any better than CJ.

  “This is it, isn’t it? The beginning of the end,” she said to CJ as if expecting some response.

  It was a sad end to a project that had blossomed into something so special. She never expected they would achieve so much, nor that a band of rejects could form such a strong bond and become a determined fighting force.

  “You know I should never have been here. I am not one of you.”

  She was still weeping.

  “We should never have got on. Never have been friends, not in a millions years, and look where we are. A year ago, I’d have seen you put to death for your crimes, and now I am crying over you. It’s all so stupid,” she said, laughing through her tears, “Don’t die on me now. We have come too far, and I don’t give a damn what that bitch Bolormaa says. This isn’t over. This fight isn’t over, and this war isn’t over. We are going to find a way, aren’t we?”

  The room fell silent, but she soon heard footsteps approaching. Mirov appeared at the doorway. She could already tell it was bad news. It was that was obvious from the expression on his face.

  “How bad is it?”

  “We aren’t going anywhere.”

  “What?” she asked in astonishment.

  “We took more damage on that landing than we thought.”

  “Well, how long will it take to repair?”

  Mirov shrugged.

  “Come on, give me something,” she pleaded.

  “We are working on it, and she is working to repair herself. She is part organic, you remember.”

  “Of course I do. I was one of the founders of this project.”

  He nodded in agreement.

  “Give it to me straight,” she demanded.

  The truth is I am not sure some of the damage can be repaired with what we have.”

  “Then put out a distress signal to the Alliance. They will come for us.”

  “We do not have the power to transmit a signal, and nobody knew where we were going. No one will even be looking for us.”

  She slumped back once again in horror at that news.

  “This station, it must have the means to project a signal?”

  “Ma
ybe, if we can get them working, and if we can send an authenticated message.”

  “What? Why?”

  “A distress signal sent from enemy equipment in an occupied sector, where no Alliance mission was logged, who would believe that?”

  She looked to CJ. He was still breathing, but his face was pale. He was in a bad way.

  “We can’t stay here. The Captain needs proper medical care, and the Alliance has to know what happened here. They need to know their technical marvel is a failure,” she said, gazing at the wrecked suit lying in a heap on the floor beside CJ’s bed. It was covered in his blood and cut to pieces.

  “And what good would it do them?” Mirov asked.

  Kaner stepped into the room, but it was hard to read his expression. Like all Krys, he didn’t show much, but she would at least get straight answers from him. As a people they never sugar-coated anything.

  “Can you get in the air?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “In six hours maybe, if we are lucky.”

  “Six hours? We don’t have that much time. The Captain certainly doesn’t! Look at him! He’s dying.”

  “There is nothing more we can do. Even then our chances are slim. The damage to the ship is substantial. Structurally, she is already repairing herself, and will be airworthy within an hour or two.”

  “She is remarkable,” said Mirov.

  “So what is the problem?”

  “When we landed, the lower hull was penetrated by a fuel coupling on the deck, and it has punctured the coil of the primary power distributor.”

  “That’s one unlucky hit,” said Mirov.

  “Yes, and at a major Alliance base it could be replaced easily, but we do not have what is required.”

  “Then you patch it, improvise, something, anything!”

  She was getting desperate, and she knew it, but she didn’t know what else to do or say. She felt completely useless.

  “Our people are doing all that they can. We are salvaging anything we can from the enemy.”

  “And what are our chances of leaving anytime soon?”

  It was in that moment she saw the look of worry in his face. He cared for CJ as much as she did, they all did, and none of them had any hope of getting back in time to save him.

  “I will do all that I can,” said Kaner as he left.

  “We can only do our best, same for any of us. That is what CJ did.”

  “No, you saw it, didn’t you, when the suit faded?”

  “Yeah,” he said wearily as if suspecting she was trying to make a point.

  “When that suit was working it was something else. For a moment it terrified Bolormaa. You saw it. You must have.”

  “I don’t know. All I saw was our boss get his ass kicked like I have never seen before. Like I have seen nobody get destroyed before.”

  “Afterwards, yes. But that wasn’t because he couldn’t match her, but because the suit lost power, did you not see it?”

  “I don’t know what happened. Maybe she was just holding out and pushing him to the limits at her own pace?”

  King refused to accept that idea.

  “I saw the look on her face. She might talk tough, but she was genuinely shocked and scared. I know it, and CJ saw it, too.”

  “Even if that was true, what good does it do us now?”

  “Don’t you see? With that suit, the Captain was able to take her on, and at its peak, he might have even been able to defeat her.”

  “And?”

  “And?” she asked in shock, “It mean’s there is hope. Hope like we never imagined, and Bolormaa knows it. It means Colonel Taylor has a chance, just so long as he can time it right.”

  “And that his suit doesn’t let him down like this one did.”

  “We don’t understand those suits. None of us do. They were never meant for us, and the Captain was never supposed to use it. We have no idea why it failed, but I am betting Taylor would.”

  “If we don’t get out of here, though, we can send no warning. It will be no help at all. The secret is out about these suits now, you think Bolormaa is going to risk losing?”

  “Yes, and so we have to get out of here, somehow, even just one of us. I don’t want to die here, and I don’t want the Captain to die here either, but the Alliance has to know what happened with the suit.”

  “I know, we all know, but we can’t make this work. We can only do what we can do.”

  King strode out of the medical bay, out of the ship, and onto the deck of the enemy station. Once again she found herself walking among the dead. She was looking around for some sign. Some way out. Another ship they could take, anything. The only enemy craft in sight were badly damaged. She dropped down onto a supply crate and sighed in desperation, accepting how bad their situation was.

  CHAPTER 6

  All seemed lost. King had been sitting there for two hours. There was nothing she could do to help with the repairs, and that only made her feel worse. Neither could she face seeing CJ again. Seeing him like that was just too much. Being left alive had felt like such a blessing, and now it was excruciating. There was little hope of ever leaving the station, and that meant a slow death for them all. All while the Alliance was torn apart. She wept for the fact that CJ might not make it, and now it seemed like none of them would.

  She looked out into space through the docking bay entrance. It was peaceful and quiet; the kind of tranquillity that would be welcome in most instances, but not when you are trapped with little chance of escape.

  “It can’t end here, not after all that we have done,” she whispered to herself.

  She could feel the anger grow inside her now. It wasn’t anger towards any of her comrades, nor the Alliance, only for Bolormaa. The fear and dread she had felt was dissipating. It felt so pointless now. She was beginning to understand why CJ took his stand when he did, to do so on his terms.

  “Just give us some hope, please,” she demanded.

  She spoke quietly, and she didn’t even know who or what she was talking to.

  “Give us a chance to do what we were born to do. We can’t die like this.”

  She looked up as if expecting a response from some higher being, and when nothing came, her face turned to anger. She shot up onto her feet.

  “You can’t let us die like this! It’s not fair. Give us our chance to make that bitch pay!”

  Her voice echoed around the docking bay, and she didn’t care who heard it. But once again it fell silent. She opened her mouth to scream once more when there was a flash of light in the distance. She was silenced as she saw a tiny vessel arrive through a jump gate, even closer than Bolormaa’s fleet had come in. She tried to find some words, but her throat was dry. She coughed and tried to clear her throat as she fumbled for her rifle, lifting it to use the telescopic sight.

  She didn’t recognise the vessel at all. It looked to be at least in part a human design, though sleeker and more advanced than anything she was used to. And that is when it struck her. She had seen one like it before, when Taylor and Rogers had come to their rescue. She tapped her comms unit on her arm pad.

  “We’ve got incoming. Looks like friendly.”

  There was a burst of movement at her back as the whole unit flooded out onto the deck to join her in hope of a rescue effort.

  “Who the hell is that?” Ross asked.

  “Colonel Taylor?” Mirov said hopefully.

  King couldn’t imagine a situation where the Colonel would come to CJ’s aid, not even after the time they had worked together, and especially not at a time like this. They all fell silent as they watched and waited. The vessel came in with a super smooth landing that barely made a sound as it touched down. Nobody lifted a weapon. There seemed no point. Their situation was so dire it was likely nothing could make it any worse.

  The ramp went down and a man stepped out, a human. He wore no armour, nor carried any weapons, but was accompanied by two marines. They wore no insignia of any kind. King vaguely recog
nised the unarmed man, but she couldn’t figure out why.

  “My name is Milo Rivers, and I’m here to help.”

  “Milo Rivers? The super rich tech guy?”

  He smiled at the description.

  “One and the same, Ma’am.”

  “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “You should know by now not to believe all the news you see, Lieutenant King.”

  “You know me?” she asked in surprise.

  “Well, of course, who do you think built that ship of yours?” he asked as he gestured towards the Phoenix.

  “That was you?”

  “That is what I do. Advanced weapons and technology. That is why I am here. You have an AR2 suit. Why?”

  His face turned stern as he said it.

  “It came from Colonel Taylor.”

  “He gave it to you? I find that an unlikely story.”

  “Not exactly gave, our Captain extorted it from him.”

  Rivers looked angry at that revelation.

  “Do you know how important this technology is? Do you know how rare it is, and how vital it is to the war effort? Do you…”

  But he stopped as he saw the glares he was getting. Something wasn’t right. There was something they hadn’t told him.

  “Where is the AR2 suit?” he asked.

  King didn’t respond. She just pointed for Rivers to follow her, and he did, but not without his two bodyguards who refused to leave his side. She led him aboard their ship and to where CJ lay. Rivers first spotted the suit and the terrible shape that it was in.

  “Oh, no, what have you done to it?”

  He knelt down to check the damage. He looked surprised at both the blood and the penetrations in the suit.

  “How did this happen? Nothing should have been able to touch a man wearing this suit. It is powerful beyond your wildest dreams.”

  King was completely ignoring him and looking to the wounded Captain on the bed beside them. He stepped up to the Captain and felt for his pulse.

  “Captain Jaeger, I have read his file. The AR2 in his hands should have been untouchable. What on earth could have done this?”