by John Davis
“Fuck this!” Kato said, grabbing the Mauler that he had become so comfortable with over the years and jumping down to assist the members of his crew, while Dalton quickly took his place on the minigun. He sprinted to the fight as the Fang thrust his claws into Roman a second time, tearing vital organs and opening a river of blood onto the ground. With Roman defenseless, Steiner swung his machete with every ounce of power in his body, nearly severing the head of the Fang, which combined with several shots from the Mauler, was enough to send the monster to the ground screaming in pain. Steiner quickly hoisted Roman onto his shoulder and sprinted as best he could to the Gunship, Kato clearing a path behind them with the Mauler.
Reaching the ship, Steiner lifted his fallen friend carefully into the arms of Lieutenant Michaels, who was covered in blood within seconds of the transaction, laying Roman onto the floor of the ship as he frantically tried to stop the bleeding. Steiner looked back as he boarded long enough to see Kato fall to his death, several gunshot wounds leading him to it. A small group of Hunters sealed the deal as they sent nearly a dozen more shells from a pistol into the chest of the fallen hero, who lay dead with Mauler in hand.
In shock from the events, Kelly trembled in the pilot's seat, thinking of nothing but the death of Kato and the imminent demise of Roman Raines.
“KELLY, GO!” Adam yelled with no result. “Damn, we gotta go now!” Dalton yelled inside the ship as gunfire ricocheted around him; prompting Sarah to quickly make her way to the pilot's chair, tossing Kelly, who was obviously in shock onto the floor.
Sarah quickly assumed control of the ship's flight stick, bringing the vessel to a full burn as Dalton shut the exterior door and helped Adam tend to the dying warrior.
“We've got to catch up to that Colonial Star, otherwise he isn't going to make it!” Adam yelled desperately, trying to stop the internal bleeding of the former Gali commando.
“He isn't going to make it either way Adam, it would take a miracle.” Dalton said solemnly as the Gunship blazed a trail of neon colored fumes across the sky, hitting orbit as it chased its only hope for a miracle to Glimmeria.
The adventure doesn't end here. Be sure to check out other books in the series, available now:
Glimmeria: Gunship II
Reflections: Gunship III
I also personally recommend the Vitalis series by Jason Halstead. Great series(one of my favorites) and an exceptional author. Here's an insert, and a link to try out his adventure:
Kira knew Eric was following her down the stairwell towards the airlock but she didn’t wait. It was exciting and terrifying, but she knew what she had to do. She burst through the open hatchway into the passage and threw herself into the far wall. She felt the heat of a passing energy weapon blast and it brought the reality of the situation to her. She’d already seen several of the invaders through the open door to the airlock: one on the inner side of the door, two on the outer side, and a fourth kneeling further back in the middle. She had also seen the twitching leg of a fifth on the ground.
Tarn was kneeling behind an open panel that he’d removed from the wall. He was sporting multiple scorch marks on his clothes. The panel glowed where the raiders energy weapons had struck it. Captain Sharp stood in another hatch, trying to angle for a shot. She could see the Captain was being driven back each time he moved.
Kira threw herself forward, springing off the wall and crashing on the floor in the middle of the passage. Her rifle was held ready for the moment she stopped moving. She pulled the trigger mechanically and jammed her right hand and right knee into the floor.
When next she came to rest she was kneeling with her left hand on the deck and her right knee spread wide for balance. She sensed more than felt the beams from the pirates’ lasers that missed her spinning form. She held her breath long enough to send another high density magnetic sliver at supersonic speeds through the faceplate and head of the pirate that stood on the right side of the hatch, then she dove forward into a roll. She felt the heat along her buttock and thigh from a highly focused light beam that grazed her. The suit fragmented and disbursed the energy, causing discomfort but not injury.
With teeth clenched, Kira fired a round blindly and then let her mind go enough to drop supine to the deck. Her rifle hummed as the magnetic rails in the barrel sent a round into the crouching invader on the left side of the airlock door. It hit him high on the left side of the chest, near the shoulder, but the spray that coated the wall of the airlock behind him and the way he spun away from the impact gave proof that he was out of the fight.
With only one visible attacker left, Kira knew what her next move should be. She gathered her legs in preparation to spring and then noticed the spherical ball that was only now slowing its roll toward her. It had just passed Tarn, leaving it half a dozen feet behind Captain Sharp. With less than ten feet until it reached her, she drove her hands into the deck.
The concussive blast from the grenade swept over her, knocking her off balance and leaving her disoriented. It was a LF grenade, or Low Frequency, which let loose a powerful subsonic blast that was great for disorienting people and damaging delicate electronics. She tried to make sense of how the floor and the ceiling seemed interchangeable, fighting back a wave of nausea at the same time.
The remaining pirate held his position while five others rushed past him and down the passage. Tarn was slumped against the wall, the steel panel resting on him. Captain Sharp was rolling on the ground, trying to find his feet much the same as Kira. She rolled onto her back, clamping down on her lips to prevent her stomach from emptying. She tasted the bile and screwed her eyes shut. When she opened them, she saw one of the men pointing their laser rifles at her.
Their weapons had been modified, she noticed instantly. Without knowing how she understood the bulky modifications amplified the power considerably. As a trade-off, she estimated the guns had to cool longer between shots or, if ignored, would shut down to prevent damage. That or the pirates went through a lot of weapons.
Tarn and Sharp were also being covered, though Tarn was only beginning to show signs of coming out of the grenade-induced stupor. The fourth boarder walked up to Kira and chuckled when he saw her rifle laying in the passage. “Well, well, what have we here?” he said. He’d opened up the external speakers on his suit to allow his voice to be heard.
The man guarding her turned to look at the other pirate as he bent down to pick up her rifle. Kira realized that if any life lay ahead of her it would be short at best, or long and filled with pain and suffering. Her body wanted to act now that the dizziness was fading. She was terrified of having another one of her black outs, but living through what was about to happen scared her more.
“One last time,” she thought to herself. She was surprised at the thought and the fact that she wasn’t sure it had even come from her. Kira let out her breath and fell back within herself.
She watched, almost as though she was staring at a display screen, as her body spun on the floor so her legs were between the man’s standing above her. She scissored her legs open, hitting his at the ankles and sending them flying. He fell, so surprised he barely had to time to yelp. He slammed into the deck roughly.
Kira, or her body at least, sat upright and grabbed the laser rifle from his hands. She lay back down and planted both feet on him, and then propelled herself across the floor even as she sent him rolling into the pirate that was rising with her magnetic acceleration rifle she’d dropped. As she slid, she oriented the laser and fired, burning through the soft portion of the pirate’s suit at his neck and making him lurch backwards. Off balance, he crashed to the floor.
Kira felt another wave of nausea hit her as her body flipped up into the air, driven by a powerful convulsion of her back and legs. Then she was on her feet and running forward. Distantly, she smelled scorched hair and she knew her head had been narrowly missed. Another beam struck her in the chest, burning her badly and charring her bodysuit with the direct hit.
She fire
d her laser with one hand, puncturing the suit of the pirate that stood near Tarn but doing no damage. He pulled himself back into a crouch, an instinctive reaction that Kira suspected whoever was controlling her body had expected. Her free hand grabbed her own rifle from the wounded pirate, which she fired point blank into his chest.
Spacesuits were designed to be radiation and energy resistant. Against a sharpened ballistic projectile travelling close to three thousand feet per second, they were no better than papier-mâché. He collapsed onto the deck, gasping for breath and clawing at the hole in his suit over the hole in his chest.
Another beam staggered Kira, this one warming her thigh. It had come from the pirate in the airlock that had remained to cover the others. She gestured at him with the uncharged laser rifle, making him duck behind the wall. The beauty of beam weapons was that they fired at the speed of light and the beams themselves were invisible to the human eye. Calling her bluff would have been a very dangerous gamble.
Even with that threat momentarily averted, Kira had no idea how she was going to survive. The man near the senseless Tarn was a heartbeat from firing at her. The man who had slipped through the hatch to cover Captain Sharp had stuck just enough of his body out to fire at her. She winced internally, preparing to be consumed in a painful fiery death.
“The wall!” the same voice inside her said. “Jump to it, spring off it, and put a round through the man ahead of you. Then use the laser to deal with the man in the hatch.”
Kira stumbled and realized her body was her own again. Her stumble saved her, based upon the curse she heard from the pirate in the hatch. She lurched forward, knowing she only had a few feet to go. The laser rifle throbbed in her hand, a feedback control in the grip notifying her that the capacitors had recharged. She leapt to the side, dodging the beam from the man ahead of her, and then planted her foot on the side of the passage as instructed and boosted herself higher into the air so that she had a better angle at him over Tarn’s slumped figure. She fired and felt a jolt of exhilaration flare through her as he fell back to the floor and fed a growing pool of red liquid.
Then her head hit the ceiling of the passage. She hadn’t considered what the extra boost might give to her already impressive height. She fell down, crashing to one knee, and struggled against the pain that threatened to tip her over. She struggled up while the remaining nearby pirate shouted something at her. She failed to make it out, so intent was she on her own course of action.
She felt her right arm on fire even as it swung the laser towards him. The rifle broke in half as it hit him, but so, too, did the viewport on his suit crack. The pressurized suit hissed as air escaped from it and the pirate fell back, stunned by the physical assault. She fell on top of him, reversing her broken laser rifle and jamming it into his body time and again until she was certain he was no longer a threat. The sharpened fragments had pierced both suit and skin many times.
“One left,” she whispered to herself…
Vitalis Omnibus link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0089MZ09M/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwboo024-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0089MZ09M