Redemption : A LitRPG Space Adventure (The Last Enclave Book 2)

by Morgan Cole

  A deep, almost blood-red cloud of light had blossomed around the saucer's lower dome. It got brighter and deeper as the sound went on and then at its peak the light lengthened into a ten-foot-wide beam of hungry red light. That beam reached out and engulfed the fully exposed laser turret that Brick was still firing fruitlessly at it. The stumps of trees in the area instantly turned to ash and the very earth around it evaporated.

  The turret's shield held for one second, and then two. Brick's return fire was starting to weaken the saucer's shield as it was holding still to use its weapon. I saw my opportunity.

  I took aim through the doorway and triggered the Gazer again, this time targeting the saucer hanging in the sky. I was disappointed when a second defensive shield popped up to block my beam, but held down the trigger anyway. The saucer's shield was much more powerful than the one protecting the Greys, but I didn't get a chance to find out how long it could hold.

  The shield around the laser turret failed. The red beam washed over it, eroding the tier 2 metal structure like it was a sugar sculpture caught in a heavy rain. The beam dug into the underlying structure of the outpost and then swept toward the cabin. Toward me.

  "Oh shit."

  Instincts I didn't know I had kicked in. My gravity plates and propulsion units flared in unity and I smashed through the flimsy roof of Mattias's northern cabin. The whole structure—barely standing before the extended firefight and my hasty exit—began to collapse but was turned into ash before it could finish doing so. The beam dug deeply through the soil and into the structure underneath, tearing apart the entrance to the outpost. The earth-shatteringly loud foghorn noise faded as did the red light of the beam.

  I was in the air and not far from where I'd started. I couldn't fly off to avoid the Grey alien assholes with the M4s, and I probably couldn't hurt the saucer with what I had on me. I really didn't want to get hit by that saucer's weapon, whatever it was. I had a suspicion that the deaths of the ground troops had triggered the retaliation from the saucer, and I meant to test that hypothesis.

  A few stray bullets pinged off my armor as the Greys tracked my rapid flight through the air. They honestly weren't great shots, which was good for me. I was going to make it even more difficult for them.

  I stuck the Gazer and pulled the GN-75 into my left hand and Excalibur into my right with the hook at the top. It was harder to maneuver without the propulsion units in my palms, but I had enough for what I needed. With a wide arc I swung around and plunged directly toward a surviving squad of four Greys taking cover behind a stand of trees.

  They saw me coming and had almost a second to pour fire into me, but it wasn't enough. I smashed into their cover like an armored meteor, blowing a tree apart and smearing one of the Greys into the ground. His shield had flickered up to stop me but had shattered without slowing me noticeably. The Grey's torso had popped like a grape, but there was no blood, only a clear liquid. Interesting, but I didn't have time to spend on xenobiology.

  The three survivors backed away frantically, two of them fumbling for new magazines for their smoking M4s. I was kneeling on the shattered corpse of their buddy. Even though those faces were expressionless—incapable of expression—I was sure I could feel the fear I had inspired.

  "Now, let's see if your buddy up there is shy about friendly fire!" I yelled. I surged to my feet and at them.

  One of the three had managed to reload and brought his rifle up, spraying wildly. A few rounds pinged off my legs before the charged Voidcutter points of Excalibur's hook end clashed with his protective shield for a moment before extinguishing it. The Grey backpedaled rapidly, still firing. The GN-75 tore him apart with a quick full-auto burst of needles at point-blank range. The alien fell and I stepped forward and pivoted, Excalibur already sweeping toward the next member of the squad.

  The Grey's protective yellow shield parted easily underneath Excalibur's charged points. This alien had some training and tried to deflect the blow with its rifle and get inside my guard, but it had neither superior strength nor leverage. I turned off the power to the hook's points, snagged his M4, and pulled. The alien held on just a split second too long, stumbling toward me. I caved in the ugly face, leaving the impression of my armored right fist deep between its wide black eyes.

  "Incoming," Brick warned.

  I snarled, ready to leap out of the way of an incoming attack when the missing three saucers reappeared in the sky overhead. White light flashed again and reinforcements appeared on the ground. This time it wasn't just Greys, but what looked like human soldiers as well, still four per ship. I had no time to worry about that. It was time to kill.

  Again the saucers didn't stick around, disappearing from the sky after dropping their troops. So far my theory was holding out—the saucer didn't seem to want to fry its own guys. In the few seconds I'd been in close quarters with the squad, the others hadn't been firing at me either.

  The human soldiers that had been dropped off opened up, not seeming to be so worried about potentially fragging the one survivor of the squad I was near. Their shots were a lot more accurate than the Grey's had been. My armor's damage indicator read yellow to light orange almost everywhere.

  I snarled and boosted hard off the ground, my grav plates keeping me horizontal. I clotheslined the surviving squad member with Excalibur as I flew by, his big stupid head rolling away after the impact.

  I smashed through small trees toward the next squad and they scattered as they saw me coming. I reversed my grip on Excalibur and skewered the unluckiest one with the chisel tip, smashing into the Grey as I regained my feet. Casually, I flung the corpse at the rest of the squad and hosed them down with the GN-75 on full auto. The first few flights sparked off the shields but the needles kept coming. One flight was all it took to kill these alien bastards.

  The last member of the squad fell and the fire hitting me increased. I ducked and dodged, trying to find cover amid the rapidly disintegrating trees. Regar and Kiril chose just then to make their entrance.

  Through the scout's extended senses I saw the hangar doors flash open, exposing Redemption for just a moment before doors closed again. Regar and Kiril soared out and into the air.

  Regar was in his red armor and I could see the Tempest on his back. He had a plasma pistol in both hands and was already laying down fire on the attacking Greys and their human helpers. One fell under a hail of hissing bolts and his threat marker disappeared. Regar’s brief low-gravity hop ended with his feet on the ground and he continued firing.

  Kiril was dressed in light white-and-black armor, nothing like mine or Regar’s. His head was covered by a beautiful helm, something that looked like what an elven prince would wear, all shining metal and sweeping angles. His serious eyes were visible in the eye slits, and I could see the faint gleam of a protective field around it.

  In each hand he held a leaf-bladed knife, the edges glowing bright red. Each of the blades was as long as my forearm. His diaphanous wings were nearly invisible as he flitted through the air like a hummingbird. Spotting his victims he arrowed into a squad, moving erratically. His glowing blades flashed as he danced around the squad, severing limbs and cutting through weapons. I almost felt sorry for the poor bastards. I didn't, though.

  Whoever was in charge of this little invasion had finally had enough and had decided to end our resistance. The deafening foghorn started up again as the saucer charged up its weapon.

  "Shit, Regar take out the saucer!" I ordered.

  "Jake, it's a priceless Artifact! A fully functional—" he protested, but I cut him off.

  "Now or it'll kill us all!"

  I reached out to my beam drones, hoping to use them to distract the saucer. It was no good. One had been destroyed, while the other was out of juice and had docked on my back without me noticing it. It hadn't recharged enough to be useful yet. I cursed and flew toward the next squad. If that saucer was going to fry us, I was going to make sure it had to kill its own guys to do so.

  Regar br
ought up the Tempest and sighted on the saucer. I had no idea if the pilots knew what it was or not, but something saved their lives. The red light went out and the saucer moved. Just not quite fast enough. The rift in space appeared, but instead of spearing the saucer and turning it into abstract art, it clipped the outer edge of the disk.

  The rift rotated, the spacetime distortion buckling the saucer's outer edge. It was clearly fighting to escape the rift and having trouble. That side of the saucer began to fold over itself as the rift sucked it inward. It was then that all of the soldiers and remaining Greys stopped paying attention to me or Kiril and turned to Regar. Hundreds of bullets skipped off his armor, leaving visible marks on each impact. Regar covered his visor with his left arm, his right continuing to hold down the trigger.

  Kiril and I took full advantage, reaping the lives of the invaders. Whatever that personal protective shield they had was, it only covered the front arc of their bodies. I mowed down the squad of Greys I had been flying toward with the GN-75 and rocketed toward the next. Kiril was doing nearly as well, leaving Greys and human soldiers in pieces as he danced through their numbers.

  The saucer overhead groaned, an alarming noise as the rift continued to eat it. The pitiful noise of a dying thing. It was almost over, and then a bullet hit just the right spot.

  Regar's armor was thick and heavy. Heavier even than my own. It would last a long time against the bullets the M4s were firing. But the Tempest was another story. It was tough, and had shrugged off most of the rounds that had hit it without any damage. Until one hit just the right spot. The spacetime rift immediately disappeared.

  "No! I'll kill all of you bastards!" Regar cursed. He stuck the Tempest to his back and charged at the nearest squad barehanded.

  The saucer overhead was folded nearly in half, wobbling in the air. The edge that had been caught by the rift looked like toffee that had been pulled too far and thin and was just about to break off. With a tortured warble it began to move away, accelerating slowly at first before punching through the clouds in the night sky above and disappearing.

  The invading forces’ numbers had been greatly thinned out, but they weren't ready to surrender just yet. Regar was smashing them down with his immensely powerful fists, Kiril was slicing them to pieces, and I was beating them to death with my wrecking bar. I was actually surprised that they hadn't surrendered yet. I shouldn't have been.

  "We've got this!" I yelled.

  The three saucers chose that moment to return and deposit three more squads, all human soldiers this time. These guys had different rifles, bigger and bulkier ones. One member of each squad was carrying what I could only think of as a bazooka.

  It wasn't a bazooka, of course. That was just what I'd always called those portable anti-tank rockets as a kid. I didn't know the real name, and it didn't matter. These guys were stepping up their game, and while they may have run out of Greys to chuck into the blender, there was obviously a bunch more humans to come. I wondered for a moment why that wasn't reversed. Wouldn't the aliens consider the humans expendable, and not the other way around?

  A soldier interrupted this train of thought by pointing a bazooka at me and firing.

  I shot into the air as my grav plates all pushed hard against the Earth's pull. The rocket exploded where I'd been standing and killed the last surviving member of the squad I'd been engaged with, a human. I felt a bit bad, but screw those guys. They were trying to kill us.

  "Jake, I am picking up what looks like V-22 Ospreys inbound, but they are much faster than they should be. There are four of them and they will be here in six minutes."

  At that moment I was flying above the battlefield and spraying the newly arrived soldiers with my GN-75, which was running quite low on rounds. I hadn't thought to bring any extra magazines. The soldiers were returning fire and hitting more often than I liked. Each impact was noticeable, the higher-caliber rounds leaving a small divot in my increasingly battered armor.

  The rockets they had brought weren't the game-changer the soldiers might have hoped. Kiril and I could easily dodge them, and Regar was just tanking the explosions and using them to kill the soldiers he was fighting.

  "What's the status of Redemption?" I asked.

  "Ready for departure in forty-five seconds," Brick supplied.

  "I'm ready too, Jake," Marty said. "Let's get the hell out of here. Those Ospreys carry something like thirty troops each."

  "Fuck. Okay, we're bugging out. Kiril and Regar, back through to Pax."

  Kiril immediately disengaged and flitted toward the hidden hangar doors, but Regar kept fighting.

  "Regar! Let's go!" I yelled.

  "Ferals," Kiril cursed, pausing in the air. "He's lost in a battle rage, Jake. Truly I thought him beyond that. I'll try to snap him out of it."

  Battle rage was a perfect description. The plasma pistols at Regar's hips might as well not have been there. His armored fists were all he needed, and he used them like the deadly weapons they were. Near-indestructible hammers combined with his ridiculously high strength tore the poor soldiers apart. They had taken to running when he got close, but he was surprisingly quick on his feet despite his stature. He caught them.

  A rocket slammed directly into Regar and the explosion knocked him down. Kiril had seen it coming and aborted his approach, and was weaving erratically through the air as he dodged incoming fire. His armor was light and he couldn't afford to take many hits. His protection had been his proximity with our enemies, and it had been stripped away by his need to get close to Regar.

  "Forget it, Kiril. Get out of here, I'll get him," I yelled.

  I'd need both hands free for this craziness, so I stuck the GN-75 and dove toward Regar. My drone had recharged slightly, so I ordered it to do its best to distract the enemy soldiers.

  The beam drone soared free, weaving chaotically. It fired ultra-short bursts into the soldier's personal protection fields. They sparked and held, but some of them began to fire at the drone.

  I landed heavily behind Regar who had just gotten back to his feet. Every bit of his armor was deeply pitted and scarred now, marked by the hundreds or possibly thousands of bullets it had soaked up in the last few minutes. I slapped the palm of my right hand down in the center of his back armor plate and engaged the gecko pad there.

  An especially heavy bullet impacted in the dead center of my armored helm, right where my nose was. The armor soaked up the impact but my helmet indicator was now a worrying shade of orange from repeated hits. At least two of the squads were pouring fire into Regar and me. Regar had a closer target, though. Me.

  He spun to face me, his left hand arcing in a killing blow for my throat. His strength was unreal. My right hand was stuck firmly to his back and he dragged me off my feet effortlessly with that simple twist of his hips. I stumbled and tried to regain my footing as he tried to face me. I could only imagine what it looked like to soldiers watching.

  Even though I'd expected this to go a little differently, I wasn't unprepared. I triggered the grav plates and flew off, holding Regar out in front of me. Without the solid ground beneath him and leverage to use his strength, he wasn't able to throw me around any longer. He went into a frenzy, trying to strike the arm attached to his back but failing. He screamed in primal rage, a wordless sound that the Interface conveyed to me over our comms link.

  "Regar, snap out of it! Fight's over; we're leaving!" I yelled at him. It had no effect.

  I couldn't just dump him in the hangar like this and hope for the best. Maybe he'd trash the Redemption and kill Marty. I'd have to throw him through the gate to Hephaseta 2 and hope he calmed down on his own with nothing to kill. He was like one of those old-school berserkers. I had one last card to play to snap him out of it.

  "Life debt, Regar! Does your honor mean nothing? You owe me your life, so snap the fuck out of it! Life debt!"

  A rocket flew overhead and I ducked into the open hangar, momentarily out of line of sight of the soldiers. My scout drone showed
me the troops moving in rapidly. Time was short. I hovered above the floor of the hangar watching Regar's thrashing slow and then stop.

  "I'm... I'm fine, Jake. Please let me down," Regar said after a few long seconds. I deactivated the gecko pad and he fell to the floor, landing gracefully.

  "Redemption is ready," Brick reported.

  "Marty, go! I'll meet you up there. I've got one last thing to do. Regar, hang on a second."

  Marty didn't need any further prompting. Redemption faded out of sight as the front hatch closed. Even though she was invisible, the ship was still tagged in my Interface. Marty took her up fast and stopped eighteen miles up a few seconds later.

  I wasn't wasting the time and flew back out of the hangar, doing my best to dodge incoming bullets and failing a lot. These guys could shoot. I saw what I wanted not far off and swooped low to snag it off the ground with both hands. A mostly intact dead Grey, his rifle still hanging from his rig by a strap.

  Without slowing down much, I curved back and slung the corpse into the open hangar where Regar was waiting. The limp Grey bounced to a halt in the middle of the empty floor.

  "Take that through to Pax. Go! Everybody, abandon base! Brick, after everyone's through cover our tracks as best as you can and close the gate!"

  "Yes, Jake."

  Not waiting, I faced the sky and pushed my virtual throttles to their stops. The ground disappeared, our northern outpost becoming a dot and then completely invisible.

  Marty opened the front hatch and I flew inside. Once the hatch was closed, Marty turned the ship toward space and we left Earth far behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Flying to Mercury

  MARTY AND I MAINTAINED a geostationary orbit far above the base we had just abandoned, looking down through the clouds with our stealth systems fully engaged.