Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3) (17 page)

All that work, and for nothing!

He reached for the radio and pressed the button, but the words wouldn’t come. An entire town was hoping for good news, that the weapon would work and they would have a strong defense against Augustus.

Before he could say anything, he heard a sudden crack of tree limbs. He spun round and saw the tops of the trees at the edge of the wooded area shake as yet more branches snapped.

Then he saw them: two hover-bikes bursting out of the woods, driven by a pair of armored croatoan drivers.

With his finger still pressed on the radio’s transmitter button, Mike shouted, “They’re here!” and scrambled to his feet, running with any remaining energy he had left to get back to the safety of Unity, but the hover-bikes were gaining on him, the whine of their engines splitting the air.

Then they fired.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

After executing the remaining aliens in the individual cells, the croatoan bounty hunter, along with most of the slavers, left for the shuttle. The remaining three blue-robed tredeyans dragged dead aliens from their cells and piled them up in front of the two chained-up clusps. They guarded the mouth of the cavern and hungrily glared at the surviving prisoners, preferring living meat to their recently delivered meals.

Sweat trickled down Charlie’s back as the humidity of the planet’s atmosphere clung to his skin. A warm breeze blew through the cave, providing minor relief. Already feeling thirsty and weak, it would soon get to the stage where he would be as useless as Vingo.

Taking long deep breaths, he summoned as much energy as possible.

One of the three slavers opened the door, grabbed the lead tredeyan by his neck, and dragged him forward.

All three shackled tredeyans shuffled obediently toward the exit. The cable around Charlie’s neck tightened and he jerked forward. One of the guards led the prisoners, the other two flanked them, armed with rifles, as they filed out.

“Vingo,” he whispered. “This is our last chance. Work with me here.”

The slaver on the right spun and gargled. Vingo’s shoulders slouched. He ignored Charlie’s request.

Both clusps stooped on all fours and gave low hollow growls while their eyes darted along the line. One flicked a tentacle at the front prisoner, whipping him across the face. The slaver picked up a rock, threw it at the creature, and shouted. The rock thumped against the crumbling wall behind it, making the creature retreat to its pile of corpses.

Electric lights buzzed overhead, providing thin light as they proceeded forward. Charlie flexed his muscles and muttered under his breath as he went along. The timing had to be perfect if he wanted to avoid ending up in a clusp’s gut.

The open metal door at the solid barrier, protecting the route to the main cavern, led to darkness. Stars twinkled in the distant sky. The rangy alien in green armor had vanished and it appeared they were the last to leave the place, before the scion gained full control of the planet and accessed all areas.

One of the slavers walked just ahead of Vingo to the right. Charlie quickened his pace, making the cable slack and drop to the floor.

“Listen to me,” Charlie said, keeping his voice low. “Move to your right when I say.”

Vingo ignored him again, adding another layer of frustration.

The prisoners shuffled through the metal gate and would reach the cave’s mouth in full view of the shuttle in a matter of seconds.

A loose fist-sized rock lay just off the roughly cut path. Both slavers on either side remained focused to their front. Charlie stooped down and grabbed it.

The cave thinned to around four meters wide—the perfect opportunity to cause a little mayhem and confusion.

Charlie paused, letting the cable around his neck become taut.

It pulled tight as the tredeyans continued forward.

Vingo turned to look over his shoulder.

Charlie sprang forward three paces, hunched down, and thrust his shoulder into the middle of Vingo’s back. The alien wheezed, toppled forward, and fell into the slaver on the right-hand side. Both staggered and hit the wall.

The cable jerked Charlie forward. He raised the rock, and using the pace of the forward momentum for extra power, smashed it against the side of the slaver’s head.

Dark purple blood pulsed from the deep wound. The slaver fell to all fours before collapsing on his side. Vingo turned to face Charlie and repeatedly blinked with what Charlie assumed was fear or confusion.

Footsteps scuffled on the ground behind him, but he didn’t have time to look, he knew the other two slavers would react. His main focus was the rifle slung around the injured slaver.

Charlie ducked down and dragged it from under his quivering body. He twisted on one knee and swept his newly acquired rifle across the cave.

A muzzle flashed, brightening the dimly lit cave. Rounds smacked against the wall above Charlie’s head. Dust and small pieces of rock sprayed against the back of his helmet and shoulders.

Vingo and the two other tredeyan prisoners ducked, inadvertently providing Charlie cover. One of the slavers crouched behind them, only two meters away. He held his rifle over the prisoners’ heads in a one-handed grip and fired a loose burst high into the ceiling. Multiple ricochets echoed through the air. The other slaver retreated behind a large boulder, showing a similar level of guts to Vingo.

Vingo rasped, clutched his left arm, and dropped to the ground, dragging Charlie’s neck to one side by the cable.

Keeping his cool, Charlie quickly repositioned himself in the prone firing position to make himself a smaller target.

The slaver behind the boulder raised his head. Charlie fired a burst at it. Blood spattered against the wall behind and the slaver fell to the side. Only one left to go, who continued to use the prisoners as a shield.

Charlie feared others would hear the commotion outside and soon come flooding in. They needed to be ready to defeat the croatoan, the alien in the green armor and the rest of the slavers.

The remaining armed slaver wrapped his arm around the prisoner at the front of the shackled line and aimed around him.

Shooting through the prisoner was an option, but he would be transformed into a dead weight until they could free the restraints, meaning they’d be sitting ducks when the crew of the shuttle realized what was going on, if they couldn’t do it quickly.

Instead, Charlie fired three times between the prisoner’s legs. One of the rounds hit the slaver’s ankle. He collapsed with a twist and let out a high-pitched scream. Charlie leaped forward and fired at his face, finishing the immediate job.

If the shuttle’s engines obscured the sound of rifle fire, they had a small window to escape. Being caught in a tight section of the cave would be a turkey shoot for an armed group outside. Charlie spun his back to Vingo. “Untie the cable.”

Vingo picked at it with his uninjured arm. Another prisoner came to help and the cable dropped by Charlie’s feet.

“Do you all understand English?” Charlie said.

“I can translate,” Vingo said. “What do you want me to say?”

“Do we have an escape route to the right of the cave?”

“It’s rocky ground leading around the coast.”

“We have to move now. Free your shackles. Two of you grab the slavers’ rifles.”

Vingo turned and spoke to the other two prisoners. They bashed rocks against a locking pin in the circular metal joints of each other’s shackles and freed them after a few meaty blows.

The two tredeyan prisoners Charlie didn’t know picked up the rifles. Vingo slid a knife out of the first casualty’s belt and held it in front of his face. Charlie hoped the realization had sunk in that they didn’t have a choice now, after three slavers lay dead around them.

Gesturing them forward, he edged to the mouth of the cave. A beam at the front of the shuttle cast light across the black volcanic sand. He glanced to his right at a cluster of jagged rocks. Good terrain for putting distance between themselves and the remaining slavers. Hopefully they would be more interested in preserving their own lives, rather than getting involved in a firefight.

“Head for the rocks,” Charlie said and waved them forward.

The three tredeyans scampered out. Charlie followed and backed away from the shuttle, keeping his aim on the side ramp.

A slaver walked down it and looked toward the mouth of the cave. He took a few steps forward and glanced around.

Charlie fired two aimed shots, careful to preserve ammo. The slaver clutched his chest and crumpled headfirst off the side.

The tredeyan prisoners scrambled behind the rocks. Charlie followed, skidding by their side and observing the shuttle for signs of movement.

A white shaft of light punched through the darkness from a square assembly mounted on the shuttle’s roof. It swept across the rocky ground, brightening the area around their hiding place.

The tredeyans and Charlie ducked. He couldn’t see a pulse cannon on top of the shuttle, but only had a view of the front end of the craft.

It was only a matter of time before the slavers would be either forced to assault them, or decide it wasn’t worth it and leave.

Charlie hoped for the latter, but things never worked as he wanted. The alien in green body armor sprinted out of the side of the shuttle, dove behind rocks and focused a thin red beam on their position.

“You were right, Charlie—” Vingo said.

A hollow pop split the air. Charlie glanced up. A projectile fizzed into the dark sky and arced down toward them. Vingo and the other two prisoners pressed themselves against the sand. A loud explosion boomed in front of their cover. Fire and sand shot in the air.

Through the decreasing flames, five slavers split in different directions and projectiles peppered the rocks and ground around them.

Charlie grabbed the tredeyan prisoner who crouched by his side, clutching the captured rifle, and shook him. “Get up and fire the damned thing.”

Dark figures moved from rock to rock on either flank while rifle fire kept Charlie and the three tredeyans pinned down. He knew they would be quickly overrun and killed if the tredeyans didn’t start to fight back.

Taking a deep breath, Charlie leaned around the rock and hoped they had enough ammunition, and luck.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

An explosion erupted a few meters behind Denver’s position, the sound reverberating off his helmet as though he had been struck by Thor’s hammer.

The force pushed him back into the seat of the catamaran, bringing with it the realization that the craft had struck the ground of the valley and embedded the front of its twin hull into the black, volcanic sand, upending the rear so that the vehicle was lying at a steep angle.

Only his left arm, trapped between the door and open window of the catamaran, stopped him from falling over the smashed windshield and crashing to the ground. Denver’s arm freed. The suit’s servos whined as he hauled himself upright, placing his feet against the dash panel and then clambering up the netted section until he could fling one leg over the rear of the vehicle.

He shook his head, trying to clear his blurred vision.

Another explosion, only marginally less powerful, lit up his surroundings as a cloud of sand and dirt launched into the air and rained back down. In that brief scintilla of light, he managed to see from the corner of his eye what at first glance resembled a croatoan harvester, the outline of which remained visible on the inside of his eyelids even as the flame-yellow nova of the explosion dissipated into the inky black night sky.

A deep rumble, made louder by the vibrations travelling up through the dead priest’s transport, shook Denver from his perched position. The harvester-like machine lurched forward and stopped some fifty meters away from him.

Twin headlights, shining out sharp slices of pale blue light, cut through the darkness and showed him that they had crashed into a valley. High walls on either side of the hundred or so meter expanse rose up to the sky, showing him just how far they had fallen.

As the croatoan vehicle continued to scan the landscape with its antennae-searchlight beams, Denver scanned the vista for any sign of Layla. He knew she was still alive; her breathing came over the intercom in short shallow undulations.

He suspected, given the regularity of her breathing, that she was unconscious somewhere. That ignited a flicker of hope, even as the croatoan’s searchlights arced around to his location.

Flinging his legs over the side of the catamaran, he braced himself for the fall as he hit the ground and rolled with the momentum. The suit dampened the impact, enabling him to get to his feet and dash behind a section of a destroyed scion ship lying between a sheer rock formation and the catamaran.

The matte-black angular fighter had clearly been shot down some time recently, given the heat still coming from its single engine and the smoke that rose from an ugly wound in the side of the fuselage.

Looking at the size of the hole and the splintered metal surface around it, he guessed the fighter had fallen victim to the croatoans’ massive plasma-gun platform—the thing parked just half a football field away from him.

Although it shared a few similarities with the machines the croatoans had brought to Earth, it looked to him to be an upgraded or more powerful version. The cannon barrel extended out from a circular base at the top of the roof.

A pair of the small driver croatoans were sitting behind an armored glass panel at the front, the low interior blue light giving them a ghostly hue in the pitch blackness of their surroundings.

Coming from overhead, a deep subsonic growl grabbed his attention.

One of the huge scion ships was descending from the clouds.

Half a dozen of the smaller, triangular-shaped fighters launched from bays within the larger craft’s four pyramidal sides and headed off to the east, disappearing behind the valley’s tall walls to Denver’s left. Their low altitude meant that light from their engines showed him the deep ridges of where the catamaran had gone over the edge and gouged into the side of the valley wall before coming to a jolting rest.