Sarin's War
Page 24
“Take her down,” yelled the soldier.
The soldiers fired, but the bullets hung in the air around Kita and her group. Kita laughed wickedly. “You got your try. My turn,” she yelled.
“Run, go,” Snowy ordered her team. “Go through the far door back to the shuttle.”
Snowy and her team sprinted across the bottom of the cellblock. Bullets hit the floor around them. Snowy wasn’t surprised the soldiers missed. Kita was watching out for them.
The far door opened ahead of them revealing a team of soldiers. Snowy phased in front of her team and blasted out a sheet of lightning clearing the way. Behind her, she could hear Kita laughing maniacally as she tossed the pods around, crushing the hapless soldiers.
The station shook, knocking Snowy and her team to the ground. There was a low moan of stressed metal.
“Christ on the cross,” yelled Snowy. “Masks down, prepare for decompression.”
Her team closed their helmets’ faceplates and switched their breathing over to internal. Snowy didn’t have to do anything. Her body was rated for space, and she carried a canister of air for when she needed to take a breath.
A loud crack reverberated through the prison. A ripping sound followed. A chunk of the prison crashed down in the middle of the cellblock.
“Go, go, go!” cried Snowy. “She’s going to rip this prison apart.”
Snowy and her team dashed through the maze of empty corridors. Ahead of them, a pair of decompression doors slammed shut.
“Charges?” asked one of Snowy’s team members.
“No time,” said Snowy. “Everybody touch me.”
Each member of the team reached out and touched Snowy. She phased, transporting the entire team to the other side of the door.
“Move,” she yelled.
They reached the first of three doors they had had to blast through to get to the cellblocks. The prison shuddered, throwing everyone sideways into the wall.
“Come on, Kita. Keep it together long enough for us to get off,” muttered Snowy.
They reached the second door as an elevator door opened. Snowy’s team brought their weapons up.
“Wait! Don’t shoot!” said a soldier wearing the same yellow armor as Snowy’s team.
The new group was led by a Djinn female wearing custom yellow armor. She raised her visor, revealing a sand-colored cat-like face with big brown eyes.
“Sahara! We have to hurry. Kita’s ripping this place apart.”
“What about saving her?”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll pick Kita up when she’s done.”
“How is she ripping this place apart?”
“That’s a long story, but the short version is she’s a god.”
“A what?”
“A god able to control the universe and everything in it. Last I saw her, she’d lost that power, but she’s found it again. And now she’s got months of imprisonment to take out on someone.”
“She sounds wonderful,” said Sahara in a sarcastic tone.
“She...can be. She’s just cranky.”
“I get cranky when I wake up, and I just hit the alarm clock.”
“This prison is her alarm clock.”
The group turned a corner into the docking area. A group of prison guards were trying to get the door to one of Snowy’s shuttles open.
“Hey, back off,” yelled Sahara. She drew a pair of haladie daggers from her back and threw one, hitting the unarmored prison guard in the neck.
“Sorry to spoil your escape, Warden Kiiz, but these shuttles belong to us,” said Snowy.
Kiiz, a large Djinn male, snarled. “No dirty inbred female orders me around. You will submit.” He drew a pistol.
Snowy’s team fired. Kiiz crumpled to the ground.
“Care to insult me?” Snowy said to the other guards, a mix of Djinn and Verisom males.
“Pathetic sandkicker males, obeying a dirty female?” snarled one of the Djinn guards.
Snowy snarled and leaped at him. The male raised his arms and extended his short claws on his hands. Snowy’s claws, which were much longer, sliced through his arm. She landed, plunged her claws into his chest, lifted him over her head, and slammed him to the ground.
“Anyone else want to call me a dirty female?” Snowy demanded of the remaining Djinn guards.
The Djinn bared their teeth, glaring at Snowy, but stood aside at the behest of the Djinn males that made up Snowy’s group. Only Sahara and her slender frame stood out among them.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Snowy.
Her team members opened the shuttles, and the two teams boarded.
“So, now what do we do?” called Sahara to Snowy over the shuttle’s comm.
“We let Kita have her fun and pick her up when she’s done.”
Also by L. Fergus
Warmache
* * *
Game of the Gods
Rebirth
Clouds
Sarin’s War
Li’ve