Rebirth (Rebel Wars Book 2)

by Michael Andrews

  Sidebottom turned and fired, Isaacs and Starborn appearing out of the chaos and mowing down the Corporation soldier that had somehow flanked them. It was at this moment that Alice missed the Paladins and their ability to take down close quarters soldiers like they were nothing. She missed Fiora and wondered if the young woman was truly still alive, maybe her hopes were misplaced. She crawled to her feet and was satisfied that her body was still working, if not a bit stiffer than before. A few of the emitters she relied on were broken and further examination showed that her power source for the ranged weapons was destroyed. She lamented the loss for but a moment and pushed onwards, deeper into the ruins. The tunnel opened up as the last one did into a much wider room, where her and the Martians waltzed in shoulder to shoulder, a gun-line complete with a furious attitude. Inside the room, the ceiling stretched even higher than outside the chamber and lights of all kinds circled the walls. There was much more activity here than there had been in the other room, and it seemed like this chamber was capable of producing more than the one in Tempal.

  The crimson armor in front of her gave her pause and hope in a dual processed emotion that melted into pause and the closest thing to fear she could get. A Cydrakian with short black hair and bulging muscles was kneeling on the ground with three crimson armored Paladins, Fiora amongst them. A plasma thrower drooled blue flames next to them, threatening to reduce them all to ash. This was odd, as prisoners were almost never hostages to the Corporation. They instead preferred to interrogate or enslave them, but not use them against their enemies. A Corporation Commander clad in golden armor looked at Alice, his eyes trained specifically against her.

  “So you’re Alice. I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you. I am Corporation Battlegroup Commander Azhulhand, Keeper of the Sacred Blood Hunt and executioner of the Corporation’s Will.” He offered her a respectful nod, not moving the plasma thrower from his prisoners. He wasn’t alone, in golden armor were four more men wielding large projectile throwers like old Earth’s gatling guns, and Alice wasn’t sure the proper maneuver, they were caught dead to rights and they had the drop on them. The ground shook and knocked the plasma thrower to the ground as Azhulhand struggled to keep his feet, same with Alice and her men. The platform in the room they were standing lifted upwards with no warning, the sudden rush knocking to them to the ground. When Alice was certain they were about to hit the ceiling, the roof vanished from sight and became the ground they stood on in the daylight.

  For a moment Alice lost track of time and the soldiers she was with, the men replaced by trees. They had been scattered upwards and outwards somehow, probably another defense mechanism of the Cydrakian. They had never allowed the Corporation to penetrate this deep before, and this had to be one of the many ways they kept that from happening. Alice felt the bolt of plasma before she saw it, the heat sending her gauges spiraling upwards as it passed by and melted the bark from the tree. This wasn’t Azhulhand, but a regular Corporation soldier. She remembered that her power supply to her emitters was busted, so she rolled forwards and closed the distance into a bone crushing punch to the soldier’s sternum. He spat blood and crumpled to the ground, relinquishing his plasma projector as he did. She picked it up and heard the sounds of battle ensuing around her, one of the rapid slug-throwers started cutting down the tree-line as she advanced through the foliage. She spat bolts of plasma backwards, the blue shots colliding harmlessly against his golden armor. She threw the gun down and turned to face her opponent. The slug-thrower silenced as it emptied the remainder of its capacity into the air around her, the firing soldier still disoriented from the sudden transportation.

  Alice felt some of her body stiffen against the plasma that had struck her armor, but she had no choice but to run forward. The soldier dropped his massive weapon and was in the process of drawing a knife when Alice’s metal hands gripped his wrist that was withdrawing the weapon and snapped it upwards. Her other hand ripped the blade from his broken hand and brought it upwards through the bottom of his chin, the blade stopping just shy of the top of his helmet. She kicked the lifeless Corporation man away from her and spun in time to catch Azhulhand’s advance. His own blade shot outwards much faster than a blade that size should have been able to move. She parried it to the detriment of the blade which shattered at the force that it collided with, but the momentum had changed just enough to move the Commander’s charge just shy of her body. She leapt backwards to give herself space and found her footing narrowly missed the corpse of one of the Martian soldiers- Isaacs she believed- and she dropped to her knees on landing. He didn’t waste any time, spinning himself around like a fictional character and moving back at her. His speed seemed to double this time, a growing yellow glow encompassing his armor, giving Alice the moment she needed to realize he was wearing a built in apparatus. His charge stretched out his form as he disobeyed the laws of friction and physics for a moment and materialized next to her with a swing that took apart the tree she was nearby. She caught just a second of opportunity and maneuvered out of the way, grabbing something from the belt of the downed Martian.

  She wasn’t certain what it was and didn’t have time to examine it as she spun around and narrowly avoided yet another swing. Every time he swung at her his speed increased and he was achieving speeds that would make lightning jealous as the wind from his blade was strong enough to move the trees around them. Alice couldn’t keep this up and she knew it, so she brought out a foot to catch him off-guard, but it didn’t; instead his other hand slipped from the blade and twisted her foot away, releasing it in time to reattach to the sword. She spun out of control and the blade caught the armor of her waist, leaving a glowing slash in its wake. Alice managed to bring her foot back down, but her other foot went out from underneath her and brought her just under yet another titanic swing of the blade. She went down hard, and Azhulhand righted his swing to carry himself into the air, shifting the blade downwards in an effort to skewer her. The object in her hand revealed itself in the moment as a grenade that had slipped off the belt of the fallen Martian soldier, and in the seconds she had remaining she spun away from the sword and left the grenade in her wake. The blade penetrated the fragmenting explosion and triggered a concussive blast that shot her away from the raging Commander and into a nearby tree.

  The kinetic energy from the grenade and the subsequent crash into the flora of the primal world didn’t do much to damage her, but the slash had greatly weakened her armor and had aggravated the wound she had taken earlier on her back. The metallic drone body was tougher than flesh and armor, but the extensive beatings she had taken were wearing her down and there wasn’t much she could do about it. She felt a force yank her upwards, relaxing her responses when she realized that it was the hand of Masters. He nodded to her, offering a smile filled with blood and missing a few teeth. He had been injured during the firefight and she had no way of knowing just how badly. She looked urgently for the Corporation Commander, but she couldn’t find a sign of him anywhere. The grenade had blasted a crater in the ground where she had been less than a minute ago, but there was no sign of a dead or damaged Azhulhand.

  “Status?” She asked, her speakers delivering a wavering vocal tone.

  “Isacs, Starborn dead. Sidebottom is wounded and the rest have evacuated him back to the ruins. The Corporation is calling off the attack for some reason, they have started withdrawing troops in transports. The big transport hasn’t come back, I don’t think it was ready for fuckin’ dragons. I know I wasn’t.” He said through his pain, still managing a smile. “I grew up with Isaacs you know, I’m going to miss the bastard.”

  “We all are going to miss people. It’s why we fight, so men like this can’t just take people away from us because they feel like it.” Alice said as she supported herself and pulled away from the Sgt.’s grip. “I’m damaged, but I’ll be alright. You?”

  “Same. But we have something urgent on our hands. It seems the Paladins and the Cydrakian they captured made it. They in
formed us that Azhulhand knows where the seed to the weapon is and we need to go find it before they do. My guess is they’re withdrawing the attack to bring the forces to the ruins containing the seed. We need to get back to the ruins here, they have a quicker way of getting us there than by foot.” He said, grabbing her hand and leading her towards the lift they had unwittingly used.

  “Where’s Lisa?”

  “She’s on her way, I don’t have an ETA yet.” He said in response, letting her go and clutching his arm as he moved. They had both been heavily damaged during the fight, and Alice wasn’t certain they would be capable of surviving another encounter with Azhulhand’s forces. His apparatus gave him speed that she could barely track, and her mind was capable of tracking space-craft in flight. She started to strategize a plan for beating him, but she’d need some weapons to stand a chance.

  Lisa was nervous about flying on the undercarriage of what was basically a dragon, and she let the guide know that. He laughed and told her to not be worried about the beast, that men were far scarier. She agreed with him there, clutching her pistol with more strength than was necessary. The basket was loaded down with supplies and reinforcements, about ten Cydrakian soldiers were coming with them. She had managed to scavenge some broken metal and other parts that she intended to try to use to repair the damage Alice had taken. Sgt. Masters had messaged her and informed her that their favorite drone was broken, and that they had one hell of a fight on their hands. The storm had calmed for now, but it was going to get much, much worse.

  The harrier took off and the rush of air unsettled Lisa’s sensitive stomach, but the Cydrakian food had been much too delicious for her to risk vomiting it up, so she sat down and closed her eyes to fight the sickness. The guide put his hand on her shoulder to comfort and before she knew it, they were settling down at the ruins. The harrier dropped them off and took off in pursuit of a late lunch, and Lisa hoped he found it. She gathered the men and the supplies and looked over the destruction of the battlefield. The fight had spilled over into the trees and blood soaked the ground, small fires still smoldering. She had been about to enter the ruins when a sound like thunder filled the air, and her guide threw her to the ground. The Cydrakian snarled and transformed on top of her, doubling in mass and covering her with his body.

  The beast part of him roared in pain as thick, armored plates tore his skin and replaced the flesh on his back. Lisa had been unable to hear the attack coming, but the bestial senses of the Cydrakian native had picked it up before it had reached them. Pillars of fire and burning death filled the sky and flooded over the forest, washing it free of blood and life alike. Without mercy the fire consumed and ate the innocent flesh of soldier and animal, flora and fauna being disposed of. Lisa sobbed as a wave of heat poured over the duo, the man on top of her crying in pain as his skin blistered at the touch of the firebombs. He controlled himself, brushing his elongated snout against her neck.

  “Stay calm little one. I do not die for long, I will come back to this life and I will protect you again. Save our world…is all…I ask.” He barely finished before he rolled over from on top of her and screamed his final breath. Lisa climbed to her feet and looked over the world around her, a standard Corporation firebombing greeted her waiting eyes. The bombs had erupted pillars across the forest and rendered them to ash with their insane temperatures, she counted herself lucky to have been just on the outskirts of the blast and wondered if Tempal had been as lucky. She looked down at the guide’s smoldering corpse before her, a handful of the Cydrakian soldiers moved to stand with her. The survivors suffered blisters and burnt skin, but they grabbed the remaining supplies and escorted Lisa to the depths of the holy ground, appalled at the blood that soaked their sacred chambers.

  When Lisa’s feet hit the ground, Sgt. Masters ambushed her with a hug, his bloodied but handsome face grinning at her. Alice was slouched in the corner, unable to stand under her own power. The most surprising person waiting for her was the woman she thought dead, Fiora. The Paladin woman stood near Alice, holding her sword and offering Lisa nothing more than a disinterested look. Fiora had heavy bandages wrapped around her leg, but she was putting weight on it so the scientist assumed it wasn’t serious. A dark skinned man with short hair approached her and looked up the stairs behind her.

  “They dropped fire from above. I could feel it.” Jin said, looking at the faces of his kinsmen. “This will not stand, we will continue to fight. I have dishonored my tribe by being captured and not killed, but never again will I make such a mistake.” He said, turning back to Lisa and welcoming her over to the table. He started to play with a few of the buttons and demonstrated his mastery of the console. “You know what this is?”

  “A little bit, I haven’t studied it much.” She admitted.

  “This is the activator sequence, pay attention.” He said and transformed the code into something that nobody else besides the middle Tillman sister would be able to remember. Alice had informed Jin that she was capable of such a feat, and he hadn’t believed her; maybe now he would. Alice had learned a little bit about Jin and had heard about his rescue of her Paladin squad and she was glad he was on their side. Apparently they had been caught by disorienting weapons, grenades meant for riot control and dispersing crowds. The non-lethal weapons had made them easy to capture, and Fiora had barely survived a bacterial infection in her leg. Jin had mended the wound and hit her with enough accelerating biotics that she’d been able to survive the infection. She could move with it, but Alice noticed it slowed her down quite a bit. The other two Paladins had been superficially injured and were okay to continue fighting, though Jin seemed hostile towards Markus.

  Lisa didn’t break focus for a full minute before she locked eyes with Jin and nodded. He tried to say that he didn’t believe her, but she interrupted him by spilling the full line of code and sequencing with her eyes closed. He gasped in surprise before narrowing his eyes and nodding. Jin was a rarity amongst the Cydrakians. He had never been killed, and thus was called the Skin-Walker by both his own people and the Corporation alike. They had worked with Jin in the early days of discovering their planet, he had invited them to survey his world and extended a greeting to them. He had been the unofficial leader of the world, or so he told Alice. But the betrayal by the Corporation men had caused him to leave the roll of leadership in shame. Instead he only lead men when on the battlefield and never trusted his own judgement for anything but combat, and that he had been quite good at. He was able to adapt his flesh faster than any other Cydrakian, but only because he had lived in it longer. He had trained the silent students like the woman Alice had had the privilege of being tossed around by, and now he was there to help their mission succeed.

  Alice splayed herself out on the floor as Lisa approached her, presenting the melted armor and the damaged plates on her back and torso. Further examination had lead Alice to believe that any more damage could have taken her apart if the damage was anywhere near her torso. The connecting circuits and cables had been heavily damaged and the metal parts of her armor had started to break apart. Lisa dropped down and let out a low whistle, not noticing as Jin moved behind her. She grabbed a hot plasma torch from Alice’s toolkit and went to work on welding new plates and repairing the damaged circuits. She knew there wasn’t much she could do, but even a little bit of repairs would get their titan back to battle and she knew they wouldn’t win without her there. Alice unloaded all the information she could to Lisa to get her up to date with the plan.

  They could take an underground shuttle to the middle-hive, a section of ruin that had been abandoned during ancient times. The lair had been sealed up to prevent anyone from interacting with the seed of God in case someone thought it was a good idea to awaken the beast. Now it had been decided it was a good idea, but in order to do it they had to get through layers of stone and metal complete with an armed squadron of a Corporation Commander. The underground shuttle system was malfunctioning and old as it was no longer necessary to u
se the abandoned ruins and nobody had foreseen a need to keep it maintained. Jin was certain that there wasn’t any Cydrakian still living that knew how to keep it running and that was the first reason it was imperative to have Lisa go with them. The second reason was the fact that they weren’t going to be able to manipulate the genetic sequence of the seed without Lisa’s incredible memory and understanding of code and language.

  “Alice. You realize I’m not an engineer? I’m a scientist, a programmer, and I’ve dabbled in a lot of different disciplines…but keeping you and a train running are not really my specialties.” Lisa whined.

  “I have faith in you. Yes Andreya may be better suited to those tasks, but your genius is incredible Lisa. Give yourself some credit.” Alice responded.

  Lisa bit her bottom lip and looked to Masters for support who nodded and squeezed her shoulder. Masters was still in good spirits for a man who had lost part team on this planet, but she supposed the loss could have been greater. Alice’s track record for getting her team out was high, but war had that funny way of ruining lives. Jin maneuvered to kneel next to Alice’s prone form, the new scraps of metal fitting oddly on her torso like a spiky haircut. He shook his head and moved his hand towards Alice’s head when the mechanical woman stopped him by grabbing his wrist.

  “Don’t. I don’t need another one of your kind touching my brain.” She said.

  “Not that. It’s just…you’re off. You need to be freed.” He said