by Gus Flory
Diego fired off another shot.
Chief ran up to them with his head down. “We’re going to get flanked. We’ve got to move.”
Diego fired around the corner. “I’ll cover you. Run to the next corridor and take cover. Cover me when you’re in place.” Diego stood and fired a long burst. “Go!”
“Let’s move,” Chief said.
Chief, Victoria and Kona ran down the concourse as Diego fired his rifle at the special operators.
“Now, Major!”
Diego turned and ran with his head down along a row of habitations. Chief fired past him. Bullets zinged past Diego’s head. He was exposed and knew it. He dove and rolled into the next corridor.
Suddenly, a massive explosion, fearsome in force, rocked the camp. An enormous crackling beam, red and white in color, a thousand meters in diameter, cut through the orange clouds and burned through the center of Camp Hammersteel, pulverizing roofs and buildings. Explosions erupted around the beam, throwing debris down the corridors. Shockwaves shattered windows and shook the walls and floor.
“It’s started,” Victoria said.
An alarm blared loudly. Titan’s yellow air rolled down the corridors like floodwater. The temperature dropped rapidly.
Chief scrambled to Diego. “They’re going to need suits,” he said, looking at Victoria and Kona.
“The emergency breach suits,” Diego said. “Every habitation has them.”
Diego ran to an emergency locker at the far end of the nearest habitation as rifle rounds exploded into the wall and support beams beside him. He pulled open the locker. Inside were canvas moon suits with helmets. He pulled the suits out of their cases, turned, fired a long burst from his rifle and ran across the corridor as Chief covered him.
“Get down!” Chief bellowed, firing his rifle. “One of them is moving through that building. He’s trying to flank us.”
Diego ran with his head down and dove into the alley.
Two members of the SSIS team were laying down suppressive fire. Chief fired three-round bursts to keep them from advancing.
Diego tossed the suits to Victoria and Kona who were hunkered down against the wall. They were shivering from the cold and coughing from the orange dust that the camp’s ventilation system was fighting a losing battle against.
“Quickly,” Diego said. He stood and fired a long burst, then ducked for cover. He dropped his magazine, pulled another from its pouch, slapped it into his rifle and locked and loaded.
He fired another burst and turned to Victoria. He helped her zip up the suit and latch the helmet.
“Can you hear me, ma’am?”
She gave him a thumb’s up.
“Kona?”
He gave a thumb’s up, too.
Chief ran toward them. “One of them has entered the building across from us. He’s going to get a bead on us from the window. Let’s move.”
Diego fired a burst at the window and followed as they rounded a corner. He covered them from behind, firing bursts down the alley.
As they ran, another explosion shook the camp. The giant red and white beam obliterated the Tactical Operations Center. Huge explosions tore through the roof, flooding the camp with Titan’s atmosphere.
They ran out onto the main concourse. The roof above them was peeling away from the force of the beam.
Dead soldiers lay in the center of the concourse. Without their TBA-V5s, they had suffocated or succumbed to the cold.
Saturn and its rings were now visible above them in the orange sky. Camp Hammersteel was being pulverized from space.
“We’ve got to get to the hangar before that beam hits us,” Diego said. “Follow me.”
Diego bounded down the concourse and leaped upward through the collapsing ceiling. He landed on the roof. Chief leaped up behind him. Kona leaped up in his canvas suit. Diego reached over the edge and caught him by the hand and pulled him up. Victoria leaped but not high enough to reach the roof. She sailed back down to the concourse floor.
One of the SSIS operators ran down the concourse toward her with rifle pointed forward. Diego took a shot and hit him center mass, knocking him flat.
“You got him,” Chief said.
Diego jumped through the roof back down to the concourse floor.
The operators fired bursts at him. Chief fired down on them.
Diego ran low to Victoria.
“I can’t make it. Go on without me, Major.”
“Hold my hand. We’ll jump together. When I say jump, jump as high as you can. I’ll push you up onto the roof, OK?”
She nodded her head.
“Let’s go.”
He ran holding her by the hand.
“Jump!”
He jumped ahead of her and flung her by the hand up through the collapsing ceiling as bullets zinged around them. She flipped through the air. Chief caught her. But Diego lost his momentum. He grasped with his free hand for the edge of the roof but couldn’t reach it.
He fell back to the floor.
“Get them to the hangar,” Diego said. “I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll cover you,” Chief said. “Jump up, sir.”
Behind him, one of the operators leaped upward from the concourse floor toward the ceiling. Diego got a bead on him and fired, hitting him mid-jump, sending him spinning.
One of the operators popped out from behind a containerized housing unit and threw a grenade up to the roof.
“Grenade!” Diego said. “Get down!”
The grenade sailed up onto the roof and detonated. The concussion collapsed a section of ceiling and the buildings below it.
Diego stumbled through the dust and orange haze toward the entrance to a building on one side of the concourse. He kicked open the door, entered and fell with his back to the wall.
“You there, sir?”
“Roger. Got my bell rung. Status?”
“We’re OK. I’m coming down to get you.”
“Negative.”
Diego crawled to the doorway and looked down the concourse through the scope of his rifle. He could see three operators moving one at a time along the concourse walls, covering each other.
One was giving hand signals, signaling for his comrade to approach the building that Diego was hiding in. The operator made the OK signal with his index finger and thumb and then gave a thumb’s up.
Diego fired a burst as one ran down the concourse. The operator dove for cover.
“Stand fast. I’m coming up there. When I say cover me, give it to them, full-auto, and I’ll jump.”
The operators were now firing on Diego’s position in the doorway. Bullets were shredding the walls around him.
He was in the camp’s finance building. Inside, a series of offices were connected by doorways. Diego fired a burst which was answered by more blasts of fire.
He low-crawled on the floor to the doorway between the offices. The walls of the building had collapsed in several places. Diego ran through the offices until he reached the end of the building. He stood with his back against the wall next to a collapsed section that was open to the concourse outside.
One of the operators stuck his rifle through the opening and scanned the room. Diego pressed himself flat against the wall. The muzzle of the operator’s rifle was almost within reach. The operator pulled his rifle out of the opening after scanning the room, then turned and ducked past. He took a knee against the wall looking down the concourse, thinking Diego was still in the doorway at the other end of the building.
Diego turned, slid his rifle out the opening in the wall, aimed the muzzle at the back of the operator’s helmet and pulled the trigger. The operator collapsed dead from the close-range blast to the back of his head.
A torrent of bullets blasted through the hole and chewed up the office. Chief answered their fire, firing down from the roof.
Diego ran back through the offices and out the doorway he had entered.
“Cover me.”
He ran through the con
course and leaped upward through a collapsed section of the ceiling. He landed on the roof.
“Let’s move!”
Chief fired a last burst. Diego grabbed Victoria and Kona by the hands and ran across the rooftop.
Behind them, the monstrous red and white beam cut through the clouds like a cosmic lightning strike and ripped across the southern sector of Camp Hammersteel. The southern sector exploded as the brilliant beam pulverized buildings, towers and hangars. A tornado of debris swirled through the sky around the beam. Metal support beams, sides of buildings, radar dishes, antennae, glass and steel whipped through the orange air around them, smashing into the roof in a storm of shrapnel.
Four SSIS operators leaped up onto the roof and fired their weapons.
A round struck Chief in the back of his shoulder as he ran, knocking him forward and sending him sliding over the roof.
Diego lifted him and pulled him and Victoria for cover behind a half-destroyed rooftop electrical plant. Kona dove behind a fallen radar dish.
Diego leaned around the corner and fired off several shots.
“Are you OK, Chief?”
Chief grimaced behind his visor. “I’m fine.”
Victoria pulled Chief’s can of emergency sealant from his utility belt and sprayed the sealant into the puncture in the back of his armor.
“Looks like there’s four of them left,” Diego said. “They’ve got us pinned down. They’re bounding toward us, covering each other.”
Diego looked over at Kona. He was on his back leaned against the fallen radar dish.
“Are you OK, Kona?”
He looked over at Diego from across the roof. Bullets pinged against the radar dish and ricocheted off the ground near him.
“Stay down, OK?”
The sky above them was a blizzard of shrapnel. Camp Hammersteel was being obliterated in a horrific and deafening roar of destruction.
Diego leaned around the corner and fired off a shot.
The giant beam was sweeping across Camp Hammersteel, moving toward them.
“What manner of ship did you people build?” Diego asked.
“Russell built a Tesla Wave Engine,” Victoria said. “It creates limitless energy, enough to exceed the speed of light. The Wardenclyffe can reach Alpha Centauri in two weeks.”
“Faster-than-light travel is impossible,” Chief said.
“It is possible,” Victoria said. “It’s what we’ve always wanted. To be free. The Outer Solar System belongs to the Noer now. We’re going strike out into the galaxy, find new worlds, find new Earths that are free of the Federation. T-FORCE has no power over us now.”
Diego fired his rifle again as an operator moved forward behind debris.
Another operator popped up and bounded forward. Diego took a shot and hit him center mass.
“We’re going to build a fleet of T-Wave ships,” Victoria said. “I’m on the manifest as the chief biologist for the Kepler-22b expedition. We’ll colonize it if we find it habitable.”
“Three left,” Diego said. He turned and fired. “They’re getting close.”
One of the operators climbed atop a rooftop abutment. He fired down on them from behind cover.
A bullet exploded inches from Chief’s head.
“He’s got a bead on us. Can you move, Chief?”
Chief struggled to his knees. He grunted and grimaced as he stood. His legs collapsed.
“I’m losing blood.”
The building they were atop was vibrating violently and collapsing at the edges.
“Your ship sounds amazing,” Chief said. “Too bad it’s going to be the death of us.”
“No,” Diego said. “Chief, you get everyone to the hangar. Fly out of here before that beam destroys us.”
“I won’t leave you, sir,” Chief said.
“I need you to move. I’ll cover your retreat.”
“Negative, sir. I’m not leaving you.”
Two operators bounded closer under cover from the operator atop the abutment. Their bullets exploded around Diego.
“I’m ordering you. When I give the word, run for the hangar. I’ve got a plan to deal with Fontaigne and his kill team.”
Chief grunted in pain as he got up on one knee.
Victoria and Kona looked worried and frightened behind their visors.
“You two run for the bird with Chief, OK?”
Diego looked over at Kona whose back was pressed against the fallen radar dish.
“Run for the hangar. Keep moving. I’ll be right behind you, understand?”
“What are you going to do, sir?” Kona asked.
Diego looked over at him across the roof. He winked.
“I’m gonna give ‘em the Zang.”
He stood and fired his rifle. “Run. Now!”
Diego ran across the roof toward the operators. Victoria and Kona ran in the opposite direction toward the hangar. Chief struggled to keep up behind them.
In front of Diego, the giant crackling beam filled the sky, razing what was left of Camp Hammersteel, leaving behind a fiery crater of destruction.
The operator behind the abutment leaned around from his cover to take a shot. Diego fired and hit him in the visor, his bullet blowing out the back of the operator’s helmet.
A second operator jumped up from behind a steel beam. Diego fired at a run. His armored adversary ducked down behind the steel beam. Diego vaulted over it and came down on the man striking him in the chest with his boots, knocking him flat. Diego stood over him. The man rolled over. Diego saw Fontaigne’s terrified face looking up from behind his visor. Diego lifted his rifle. With a sharp blow of his rifle butt, he shattered Fontaigne’s visor. Fontaigne’s face was bloody, his eyes wide with terror. His eyeballs crystallized as Titan’s deadly cold seized him.
Fontaigne grabbed Diego’s rifle in a death grip.
Bullets pinged off the steel beam. Diego attempted to yank his rifle free but was unable to release it from Fontaigne’s grasp. The last operator walked toward him firing his rifle wildly at full-auto.
Diego let go of his rifle and rolled behind a pile of debris as rounds exploded around him.
He heard the operator on the open radio channel, yelling like a madman as he fired his rifle with abandon.
The firing ceased. Diego jumped to his feet.
The operator dropped his magazine to reload. He looked up to see Diego standing on the roof watching him.
Diego looked into the eyes of Michael Helms behind the visor.
Helms stood on the collapsing rooftop as the enormous red and white beam moved toward them, cutting a tornado of destruction behind him.
Helms fumbled with his magazine while watching Diego, who stood motionless twenty paces in front of him.
“You should’ve stayed cool and aimed your shot,” Diego said.
Helms stopped fumbling with the magazine. He threw down his rifle.
“OK, Zanger. If this is how you want it.”
Helms looked at him coldly through his visor. The giant beam was bearing down on them.
“You and me, man,” Helms said. “Two outlaws in the Wild West. It’s high noon and you’re a dead man.”
Helms stood motionless looking Diego in the eye, then reached for his pistol.
With a quick draw, Diego fired his pistol and struck Helms in the chest. Helms dropped his pistol and fell as the white and red beam bore down and the building exploded.
15. The Wardenclyffe
Kona and Victoria pulled Chief behind them as they bounded over the roof. Wind whipped at them. Large pieces of debris crashed down around them. A deafening roar shook the atmosphere as the monstrous red and white beam obliterated the last of Camp Hammersteel.
“Jump!” Kona shouted.
They leaped from the roof as the building collapsed beneath them. Victoria and Kona held Chief by the hands as they sailed upward from the roof. They extended their wings, but the wind was too powerful. They struggled to hold onto Chief as the wind lashed them
.
They fell onto the roof of the next building and tumbled and rolled as a hurricane-force gale blasted them.
“The hangar,” Victoria said.
She pulled Chief to his feet. He gripped Victoria’s hand. The three of them struggled against the wind and the debris.
The hangar’s domed side was ripped open in several locations. Together they jumped from the roof down onto the floor of the walkway that led to the hangar. They ran down the walkway, scrambling over debris, and then through the hangar’s doors.
The hangar roof was being torn away. Only a few aircraft remained parked on the hangar floor. Victoria and Kona ran to one of the TH-60s, pulling Chief behind them.
Kona pulled open the door and helped them inside.
“Get me in the pilot’s seat,” Chief said weakly.
They carried him and strapped him into the seat.
“OK,” he said. “Strap yourselves in.”
The edge of the beam reached the hangar. The back wall ripped away in blinding red and white light. Aircraft were pulled up off the hangar floor and back into the electric storm.
Chief was sitting in his seat, his head hanging.
“Sir?” Kona asked. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah,” Chief said. “Just need to catch my breath.”
“Chief, we need to start the aircraft,” Victoria said.
His face was pale under his visor. He reached into a slot in his suit and pulled out a card.
He slid the card into the ignition control panel. The TH-60’s big engines started with a roar. He punched at the control panel and pulled back on the stick. The squat aircraft rose up off the hangar floor and struggled to gain acceleration as the edge of the beam ripped across the hangar.
The front wall of the hangar broke apart and fell backward into the beam. Debris smashed against the TH-60 as it gained speed. The aircraft broke through the collapsing wall and sped out into a swirling maelstrom of red air. Debris battered the aircraft as it gained speed and altitude. Chief fought to maintain control. Cockpit alarms flashed and blared.
A large piece of debris smashed into the TH-60 throwing the aircraft into a violent spin.
“We’re going down,” Chief shouted. “Hold on.”