The swarm finally reached Kalinar's Hope only four minutes after being sighted and slammed into the walls. The makeshift wooden palisade lurched under the strain, but held as the thousands strong group pushed against it.
Alistair and Reaper were at the front gate that faced the road along with twenty other troopers,
while Garcia was at the rear entrance with another thirty. They realized only stragglers would be coming from their flanks and were able to devote an enormous amount of firepower into the horde. Infected burned and exploded with gore, littering the ground with their remains.
Reaper had a plasma pistol in each hand which he used to score headshots one after another while Alistair thrust himself into the most dense portion of the wave.
When they first set foot on Kalinar II early in the morning it was an eerily quiet graveyard with corpses and blood painting nearly every surface. Now, as the sun began its descent behind the horizon, it had transformed into a literal version of hell. The storm of plasma fire ignited raging wildfires while man fought beast in a near constant struggle for survival. Fire rained from the sky as Valkyries played the role of gunships and heavy plasma cannons spewed death at a constant rate.
The battle was turning in favor of the human defenders when three of the largest creatures they had seen thus far showed themselves. They were hiding under cover of the dense trees and rushing straight for Alistair and Reaper.
“Alistair!” Reaper shouted, his first words with any hint of emotion since the two had met.
“Roger,” Alistair responded. His voice was deep, gravelly, and determined.
He swung his hammer and shattered the skulls of three normal infected in his path, then sprinted for the monstrous trio rapidly descending on Reap's beleaguered squad.
“Not to add to your troubles, but we've got two fleets in system converging on Kalinar II from different trajectories. The both came out of warp alarmingly close and will be here in ten minutes,” The Commander reported from aboard The L'Appel du Vide. “We're going to hold while we can.”
Alistair knew there was nothing he could do about it and instead focused on the lives of the roughly 60 troopers and 200 remaining civilians still stuck on Kalinar II. He screamed as he lifted his shield to deflect a swipe from the largest of the three infected and swung his hammer to shatter one of the creatures legs. Reaper saw his charge and covered him with his pair of sidearms, bathing the nearest giant in molten fire. The creature screamed as its organs cooked and its skin melted.
The third beast saw an opportunity to strike and took it, jabbing its left arm's scythe directly at Alistair. He darted to his right, just barely dodging, but putting himself in a bad position to be stabbed by the first creature who he had just pissed off by cracking one of it's front legs. It stabbed out with its other front leg and impaled him through the chest. His left lung was obliterated immediately and his heart just barely managed to not be severed.
He slammed the bottom of his shield into the creature's leg as it tried to lift him up, smashing the long spindly limb in two. Just as he raised his hammer, the second surviving monster was put down under a hailstorm of fire from Reaper. In the back of his mind he could hear Mel screaming and he realized she was probably watching the battle unfold from her relatively safe position in the sky.
Alistair, bleeding profusely and barely able to breath, summoned his remaining strength to raise his hammer above the face of the largest of the creatures, bringing it down in a glorious arc to smash the monster's skull.
Its brain rapidly evacuated its collapsing skull and Alistair immediately felt weak. He tried to stand, and could hear Reap calling out to him, but his legs failed him as his power armored suit did everything it could to staunch his bleeding and flood his system with various medicinal concoctions.
Almost in slow motion, he felt the ground come racing up to him from behind. His massive armored form slammed into the ground. His eyes stared up at the sky and saw enormous shapes maneuvering around one another. A flash of white engulfed his vision, brighter than the sun yet close enough to part the clouds hanging lazily in the sky. A battleship had been destroyed in orbit over Kalinar II, and he realized immediately what was happening as his eyesight began to rapidly fade.
Civil war has found the Republic, was his final thought before darkness enveloped him.
◆◆◆
About the author:
Mr. Shrader lives on a farm in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and son. When he's not working the farm he spends his time reading, researching, and playing games. His favorite genres (for books and video games) are science fiction and fantasy, with post-apocalyptic being close behind. Writing has been his passion since he was young and he truly enjoys sitting down with a fresh cup of coffee to hammer away at the keyboard for hours on end, nonstop classical or thrash metal playing in the background.
To the reader:
I sincerely hope that you've enjoyed reading this book – it's the first story in a long line of many. Writing it (and the subsequent stories) has been one of the greatest joys of my life. When I was young I dreamed of being a lot of typical things – astronaut, firefighter, super hero – but I also loved to create worlds and stories. It's something that has been a pillar of who I am as a person since as far back as I can remember. The opportunity to share these stories with you is more than I feel I deserve and I will be forever grateful to anybody who takes time out of their lives to read what I have here.
If you're curious as to what happens next, the second book in the Retribution series, Oppression of the Unknown, will be released shortly! It's already written and in the process of being edited.
If you'd like to speak with me directly about this story, the characters, your favorite food and why it's guacamole burgers, or anything else – please don't hesitate to do so! Feedback and corrections are more than welcome!
[email protected]
Thank you again for taking the time to read my book. I hope you'll come back to explore this universe soon – the story is far from over!
Retribution_Downfall of the Republic Page 25