It was weird having the old man in the field with her again; it brought back a lot of memories for Miranda. When they had started out, it had just been the two of them, but they had managed.
The old man had left his sniper rifle on the ship and carried a lit flamethrower. Its nozzle burned a hot orange in the shadows of the night. Rachel was packing a shotgun with a concentrated light mounted atop its barrel. Miranda didn’t usually carry a gun; she normally relied on her sword and didn’t need anything else. With two of her crew dead, though, and the strange nature of the monster they were after, tonight there was an assault rifle in her hands with a concentrated light weapon mounted above its barrel, just like the one on Rachel’s shotgun. Her sword was mounted on the back of her armor and still within easy reach if she needed it, but Miranda felt naked and exposed without it in her hands, despite the rifle she clutched in a white-knuckled grip.
This monster was getting to her, and she knew it. Never before had she heard of a monster that hunted the hunters in the manner this thing was. The part that bothered Miranda the most was that she had no idea why the monster was after them. What possible motive could the thing have for coming after them so intently, following them from planet to planet, and luring them into places where it could strike at her and her crew?
The only thing that remotely made sense was that the monster had been created by Earth Gov and dispatched to assassinate them before they were forced to take a side in the civil war. She wasn’t buying that, though. As she saw things, she and her crew just weren’t worth that kind of effort. One small band of monster hunters surely wasn’t a real threat to Earth Gov.
“Brook, any sign of the thing yet?” Miranda asked over the crew’s shared comm link.
“Negative, ma’am,” Brook replied. “Nothing concrete, anyway. I have some strange readings coming in from all over the colony, though.”
“Explain,” Miranda ordered.
“There are faint readings, all similar to the monster’s, in a bunch of places out there,” Brook told her. “I can’t explain them. It’s almost as if the monster is trying to mask its approach with them, much like a ship would launch of bunch of drones squawking its own transponder signal to cloak which way it was really heading.”
“Dang,” Miranda heard Joe mutter.
“That thing is bloody well smart,” the sniper added after he had recovered from the shock of what Brook had said.
“How about you, Joe?” Miranda ventured. “You see anything from up there?”
“If I had, I would have let you know already,” Joe answered. “There’s no sign of anything moving in the streets except you guys.”
“Stay sharp,” Miranda ordered, though she knew Joe would anyway. He was a professional and fragging good at what he did.
The crew was spread out, but each of them could see at least one other person. Miranda was in the center, with Lee on one side and Rachel on the other. Both of them could see her from their positions.
“Heads up! Something just came over the top of the south wall,” Joe shouted over the comm.
“That’s you, Lee,” Miranda barked. “Stand ready to engage the inbound contact.”
“I’m always ready, kid,” Lee snarled.
Lee watched the street around where he stood closely. The lights that ran along it cast long shadows that bled into the darkness surrounding them. He dug a cigarette from the pocket of the jacket he wore and lit it with the nozzle of his flamethrower. He took a long drag from it to steady his nerves. It had been a long while since he had been in the field like tonight. He would never admit it to Miranda, but the old man wondered if his reflexes were still sharp enough to keep him alive, considering the nature of the creature they were up against.
Two streets over from Lee, Rachel paced about, her shotgun clutched tightly in her hands. She was utterly terrified of the monster, having seen it up close. Rachel pumped a round into the chamber of her shotgun, readying the weapon. Doing so didn’t bring her any real comfort. She had seen just how ineffective conventional weapons were against the monster. Her hope lay in the concentrated light weapon Brook had rigged atop her shotgun’s barrel.
Something moved in the darkness to her right at the far end of the street. Her head jerked around in that direction, but all she could see were deep shadows of intense darkness. Rachel didn’t want to activate the light on her shotgun’s barrel to get a better look into it. If she did, it would tip off the creature that she had it, and she needed every advantage she could get. They all did.
Rachel considered calling in what she had seen but thought better of it. Whatever had been in the shadows was either gone or remaining completely still, because she didn’t see any more movement in them. What Rachel thought she had seen might not be anything more than her nerves getting to her. She didn’t want to draw the others’ attention away from their own positions for nothing. That could be dangerous if the thing was near one of them waiting to pounce. Besides, Joe had just called in that something was likely approaching where the old man was, and the monster couldn’t be in two places at once. That just wasn’t possible.
“Hey, Joe, I got nothing, man,” Lee snapped over the comm. “Where the hell did that thing go?”
If Joe answered, Rachel didn’t hear his response. Her heart skipped a beat inside her chest as she saw the thing come strolling out of the shadows she had been staring at. All of a sudden, it was just there, yellow eyes burning in the night.
“Contact!” Rachel wailed, switching on the light weapon atop her shotgun. A beam of high-powered concentrated light burst from it at the monster. The monster howled as the beam of light slashed upward from where it had struck the thing’s chest to the bottom of its neck. The monster, still screeching in pain, threw itself away from the light, melting into the shadows once more.
Rachel could hear the creature moving, though she lost sight of it. She swept the beam of light along the street trying to locate the monster. She whirled about to see Miranda running in her direction as the monster emerged from the darkness between them. Rachel saw the thing toss something Miranda’s way. Whatever it was, the object was small and made her think of a grenade. It exploded when it struck the ground, only there were no flames or shrapnel. Instead, the object loosed a wall of darkness that sprung up in front of Miranda, cutting the lead hunter off from coming to her aid. Rachel could hear Miranda shouting her name but couldn’t see her through the newly formed wall of solidified darkness.
Realizing she was alone with the monster, Rachel panicked. She turned and ran, sprinting along the street away from the creature. It flowed through the shadows like a wraith, melting in and out of them. Rachel’s foot caught on the edge of the sidewalk in her hurried flight. Tumbling to the street, she held onto her shotgun for dear life. It was her only weapon, other than the pistol holstered on her hip, and that was useless. She had watched the thing withstand an entire magazine from Flynn’s automatic shotgun before it had killed him. The pistol wasn’t going to do anything to it.
She came down hard on her left arm and grunted in pain. Her armed was bruised, not broken. She could still move it as she scrambled to her feet. The monster popped out of the darkness less than two yards from where she stood. Swinging the barrel of her shotgun around at the thing, Rachel squeezed the weapon’s trigger. The shotgun bucked in her hands as it thundered. The heavy slug it fired smacked into the monster, keeping it from grabbing her. Though seemingly uninjured, the monster recoiled, getting its balance back. Rachel took aim at it with her light and panicked as she saw it wasn’t there. The light had been knocked off of her shotgun when she fell.
The monster roared, springing at her again. Its claws swiped through the air like gleaming knives. Rachel managed to jerk her shotgun up into their path. They sliced through the weapon as if were made out of paper, cleaving it apart. Pieces of the shotgun clattered onto the street at her feet. Rachel backpedaled as fast as she could, trying to put space between herself and the monster. In desperation, sh
e drew her pistol, yanking it free from its holster. Holding the pistol in front of her in a two-handed grip, Rachel fired a trio of quick shots at the monster. Two of them struck the creature, slamming into its head. The monster seemed shaken by their impact, but otherwise unharmed. Rachel knew her only hope was to retrieve the light she had lost. Unfortunately, the monster was between her and the light.
“I could use some help here!” she screamed over her comm. The only reply she got was crackling static. It was as if her proximity to the monster was wreaking havoc with the comm link the crew shared.
“They can’t hear you,” the creature purred in a voice as musical and sweet as an angel’s.
Rachel stopped, staring at the monster in utter shock. The thing could talk, and in Earth Standard too. Just what in the devil was the thing?
“You can understand me?” Rachel stammered, keeping her pistol aimed at the monster, though it was making no move to advance on her again.
The yellow glow of the monster’s eyes blazed brighter as it spoke. “I have hunted you and yours across the fringes, child, and you have the audacity to ask me if I’m capable of such a simple thing as speech?”
Great, Rachel thought, now I’ve really made it angry.
The monster took a step toward her. Rachel opened fire with her pistol, putting the remainder of its magazine into the creature. Each of her bullets slammed into the creature, punching into the darkness it was composed of. Not one of them had any effect she could see. The monster appeared to defy the laws of physics and biology.
“What the hell are you?” Rachel blurted as she stood with her pistol empty and thin, gray tendrils of smoke creeping out from its barrel.
“I am vengeance!” the monster howled and closed the distance between them before Rachel could blink. The monster’s claws opened up her abdomen as they tore across it, and Rachel sank to the street. She shoved an arm tight against the wound in her guts, trying to keep what was left inside of her from spilling onto the street too. Some part of Rachel’s mind told her that she should already be unconscious from the pain she was in, but in truth, she couldn’t feel anything. She had gone numb from the shock of it all.
“P-p-please…” Rachel begged, sinking to her knees as she looked up at the monster. “Have mercy,” she croaked.
The monster laughed, or at least she thought it did. The sound that came out of it was like fingernails scraping over an old Earth blackboard.
“Step away from her, you bastard!” Miranda’s voice boomed from behind the monster. She and the others had finally found a way to get through the wall the monster had flung into their path.
Rachel saw the monster’s gleaming claws coming at her face and then nothing more.
* * * * *
Chapter 28
“No!” Miranda wailed as she watched the monster’s claws slashed into Rachel’s face. As Rachel’s corpse toppled over, there was little left of her face but mangled meat. Blood splashed outward as the medic’s head smacked onto the street and then began to pool around it.
A high-powered rifle round came whizzing through the air to hammer into the monster, driving it away from what was left of Rachel. Miranda knew the shot had to have come from Joe. The sniper had been high-tailing it to get into a position where he had a better shot at the thing.
Miranda wasn’t about to let the creature recover. She launched herself at it, swinging her sword in a mighty arc. Its blade sliced across the monster’s arm. The monster shrieked like a wounded animal and spun to take a swipe at her with the claws of its other hand. Miranda tried to dodge, but couldn’t. The thing was blasted fast when it wanted to be. Its claws scratched over the breastplate of her armor, sending sparks flying as Miranda lost her balance and thudded onto her back.
The monster rose up above her, its yellow eyes burning with inhuman rage. A geyser of flame shot through the air above where Miranda lay. It struck the monster, washing over the front of its body.
“Stay down!” Lee ordered her. “I got this!”
Miranda watched as the old man advanced on the monster, continuing to douse it in flames. The monster screeched and howled, its arms flailing about in a desperate attempt to knock the flames away. Then suddenly, the monster ran. It fled, still burning, along the street, rounded a corner at its end, and disappeared out of sight.
Lee was by her side in a heartbeat, offering Miranda a hand up.
The old man looked pale in the light of his flamethrower as he lifted its nozzle upward to touch the end of a cigarette that dangled from his wrinkled lips. She saw that he wasn’t trying to pursue the fleeing monster.
“That’s it?” she snarled. “We’re just letting it go?”
Lee shook his head. “Not on your life. We hurt it. Maybe pretty bad. But I would wager it’s done here.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Miranda growled at the old man.
“You were busy so you didn’t hear Brook over the comm, but she’s located what she thinks is that thing’s ship,” Lee smiled.
“Brook,” the old man said over his comm. “Can you confirm the creature is headed to where you think its ship is?”
“Oh, that’s exactly where that thing is headed, and like a bat out of hell, too,” Brook answered. “It’s got to be moving over forty miles an hour, and it’s still building speed in that direction.”
Miranda stared at the old man. “Let’s get to Strider! Maybe we can stop it before it takes off!”
“No time, kid,” Lee said, “but Brook’s got this one, don’t you, girl?”
“You bet I do!” Brook barked over the crew’s shared comm link.
In the distance, only seconds later, Miranda saw Strider go streaking upward into the sky from the colony’s spaceport.
“Nothing we can do now but watch, Miranda,” the old man assured her, “and hope Brook is as good as you’ve always said she is.”
* * * * *
Chapter 29
Strider’s engines burned hotly as Brook pushed the Deathbird-class ship to its limits. It flew out of the colony and soared above the fields outside it. As the ship approached the distant mountains, Brook watched in awe as a small black craft rose from them. The monster had somehow managed to get to its vessel and get airborne before she was able to reach it.
The small black ship Strider was closing on was unlike anything she had ever seen or heard of before. Its size indicated it was a fighter, but the energy readings Strider’s sensors were picking up from it were enormous. There was no way a ship that size should be able to generate that much power. The black ship rotated in the sky, turning toward her. Brook had expected the smaller ship to make a run for it, not stand and fight. Its move caught her completely by surprise. Missile tubes opened on its sides, and two missiles came streaking out of the small black ship.
“Oh, frag me!” Brook screamed, banking so hard she could hear Strider’s armored hull squealing from the strain. A lesser pilot would have died right then and there, blasted out of the sky. But Brook was among the best the fringes had to offer. The two incoming missiles shot through the space where Strider had been only fractions of a second before.
Brook jerked Strider around, settling on a course to make another run at the small black ship. Having fired its missiles and missed, the ship spun about, its atmospheric engines blasting flames as it launched itself forward. The thing was fast.
Knowing she was only going to get one shot at it before the small ship punched upward out of Nix V’s atmosphere into the black, Brook kicked Strider’s engines into the red. Strider was built for speed for a ship of her size and class, but she wasn’t a fighter, like the other ship appeared to be. Even with her engines pushed to their limits and howling, she was barely gaining on the little black ship.
Not trusting Strider’s targeting system with such a small, fast target, Brook switched to manual. She watched the black ship zig and zag through the air as it made its way upward with Strider chasing after it.
Waiting until she was absolu
tely sure of her shot, Brook knew she was cutting things close. She opened fire with Strider’s forward cannons. They spat streams of high-velocity rounds that raked across the rear of the little black ship. Given its size, they should have torn it apart. Most fighters didn’t have armor that could withstand the level of firepower a Deathbird-class ship could bring to bear. Instead of ripping the black ship apart, though, the rounds hammered into an energy field that surrounded it and bounced harmlessly away.
“No fragging way!” Brook swore, ramming a fist into the top of Strider’s helm.
The black ship burst out of Nix V’s atmosphere with Strider still following it. Now that it was free of the planet, the little black ship’s speed tripled. Brook shouted a litany of frustrated curses, knowing she would never be able to close in for another shot before her target made the leap to Void Space.
Strider slowed as she gave up her pursuit, and the black ship opened a portal into Void Space and vanished into it. The old man was going to kick her butt for letting it get away.
Brook sighed and brought Strider around to head back for the colony’s spaceport, not looking forward to the chewing out that lay ahead of her.
* * * * *
Chapter 30
Lee sat up in the bed, tossing his legs over its side. He wasn’t used to sleeping in anything so plush and comfortable. His quarters aboard Strider were very spartan in nature. Shelley groaned, stirring, but didn’t fully awaken.
Nix V’s monster problem had been ended by his crew. Technically, the crew was both his and Miranda’s, but he was the senior partner. They hadn’t been able to kill the monster as they had hoped, but driving it away from the planet had worked just as well. Shelley was pleased enough with their results, and that was all that mattered. Their payment had already been transferred to their usual account.
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