Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3) (18 page)

To his right, shrouded in darkness, the croatoan gun platform roared into action. The barrel started to move, following the sweeping path of its searchlights—right into Denver’s path.

Through his blurred night vision, he spotted a trio of hunters drop down from the side of the hulking, square machine. They carried heavy, wide-bore automatic weapons, a bandolier of ammo hanging over their right shoulders. Over the din of the machine, Denver made out an increasingly high-pitched whine—hover engines.

He spun round, facing south, looking down the valley. From a darker patch that just looked like a large hole in the wall, at least two hundred meters away, four hover-bikes shot out into the war zone of the valley.

Before Denver had a chance to run for extra cover within the barren, rocky valley, one of the hunters opened a volley of auto fire in his direction. A series of wide-caliber shells pounded into the carcass of the downed scion fighter. Sparks and debris lit up the air around him, and he was running, strafing to his left, going northwards down the valley as stones and dust kicked up behind him.

His pulse pounded as he leapt over boulders, desperate to stay one step ahead of the croatoan hunter’s fire. And then there was the plasma cannon… and, hovering above him like the Sword of Damocles, the scion prism, which seemed unusually quiet… until the sky cracked and it seemed like the universe itself was splitting apart to reveal the swirling blue mists of creation beyond the tear. From that awe-inspiring wound, a directed bolt of lightning the width of the valley and the thickness of an insect’s wings struck down, slicing the croatoan’s heavy weapon’s platform in two as though it were made of nothing more than cardboard.

Denver, his attention on the scion prism and the blue mist that surrounded and obscured its base, struck his boot on a low boulder and crashed onto his chest.

He didn’t have time to tense in the suit and the impact rattled him within his shell.

Swearing with the pain of the jolt, he spun over on to his back to take a deep breath when he saw the shadow go over him, created by the croatoans’ hover-bikes. Like the birds he used to watch fly over the clearing back home, the bikes rolled and dived, but unlike the birds of Denver’s memory, they did not make it safely into the woods.

Denver just laid there in among the black sand of the valley’s floor, staring up into the cracked sky, mesmerized by the crackling blue energy, the likes of which he’d never seen before and had no words to describe.

Once, twice, four times, the ribbon of lightning slashed outward, cutting through the croatoans’ hover-bikes in much the same easy, almost carefree manner as it had the cannon platform.

The heavy fire of the croatoan hunters belched out. Their shifting, phasing forms swarmed over the wreckage of the gun platform, aiming their weapons at the scion ship above them.

A laugh started to bubble up inside Denver’s throat. “You fools!” he shouted, almost delirious with panic and humor. How could their weapons possibly damage something so advanced, so… massive?

But it didn’t stop the hunters, their need for vengeance and honor driving them to fire everything they had at their enemy. To Denver’s surprise, black fragments of hull started to peel away from the giant prism and crash down into the valley like flaming meteorites.

One piece, at least twice as large as he, smashed into the ground a few meters to his left. He heard a scream over his intercom, the slight sound almost drowned out by the thundering fire around him.

From the hole in the valley wall, another gun platform rumbled out. This time, it wasted no time in aiming its colossal barrel at the scion prism. Two ground-shaking pulses thrummed out, sending vibrations through his suit and scrambling the visor’s imaging systems.

Dark red bolts of superheated energy slammed into the prism, rocking it violently. My god, Denver thought, they were winning. The croatoans were defeating the scion.

For some reason he found this to be a particularly disturbing thought as though he were on the scion side. What was it about them that seemed to draw his admiration and feelings of understanding? For a moment, he viewed them as an ally, but he dismissed that, finally getting to his feet, as a counteraction to the hatred he had for the croatoans.

On and on the thunder roared as increasingly more parts of the scion ship came clattering to the surface. It flashed out its laser beam, but it was weaker, narrower, and missed its target as the great pyramid listed to the side.

“Denver!” a voice over his intercom shouted.

She hit him before he had a chance to turn around. They both slammed into the rocky, sandy surface as a stream of heavy shells from one of the hunters flew overhead, slamming into the side of the valley wall, blasting great chunks of rock and debris over their heads.

“Layla, that you?” Denver asked. He tried to move out from under the weight on him as yet more firing flew overhead. His reactions felt slow as though someone had just turned up the gravity on his suit.

“Come on, we need to run, now,” Layla said, grabbing his arm and dragging him to his feet.

They sprinted toward their catamaran. A blast of croataon weapons had knocked it loose, sending it hovering sideways along the valley on its twin engines.

Following Layla’s lead, Denver raced across the ground, most of it now on fire with burning fragments of hardware and debris. The scion ship was now lowering, its blue lasers becoming increasingly weaker, but not weak enough for the hunters to call off the attack.

Layla had vaulted over the side of the catamaran and took the driver’s controls. Denver looked over his shoulder just in time to see two of the hunters raising a large rocket launcher onto their shoulders.

“Move!” Layla yelled.

Smoke billowed out from behind the rocket launcher and Denver tried to reach the catamaran. A falling piece of debris struck his hip plate and he staggered to his left.

The collision jarred Denver’s suit mechanism and he couldn’t move inside the suit for a moment as the servos failed to respond. He panicked and thrashed, only to meet solid, unyielding resistance.

This is it, he thought. My time is up.

From the reflection in his visor, he saw the croatoan hunters adjust their aim on the rocket launcher. He kept his eyes open, wishing to burn the image of his murderers into his cold dead eyes so he would know them in the afterlife—if there were such a thing.

The scion ship became dark. All of its lights shut off, sending the valley into a deeper black. The bottom part of the ship, some hundred or so meters tall, broke away from the main bulk and didn’t just fall to the ground—it launched.

The scion projectile launched faster than the hunters could get their aim and fire their rocket.

Their bodies were speared by the point as it slammed into the ground with the force of an earthquake. The crash sent a wave through the valley floor, a rolling rippled crest of dust and rocks flying outward.

The wave slammed into Denver, pushing him into the air. The impact reactivated the servos in his suit. He adjusted himself, reached out for the catamaran, and managed to grip the outside edge of the craft’s cockpit.

His momentum sent his legs and hips slamming into the side, but he locked his hands and rode the wave as further ripples continued to buck the catamaran.

“Go!” Denver shouted.

With the hunters dead, they had a route out, but there was still the second croatoan gun platform to contend with.

For now it seemed preoccupied with the final piece of the scion ship barely hanging in the air, slipping over on to its side like a massive seafaring ship taking on water and being dragged below the surface.

Layla punched the throttle on the catamaran. The engine warbled to life, raising the craft off the ground with its anti-g drive. “Go north through the wreckage!” Denver yelled as he hauled himself into the cockpit.

“I’m on it. Hold on.”

Layla pushed the catamaran’s engines to their full capacity and they shot like a dart from their position as they weaved in and out of the wreckage of war. The croatoans’ pulse cannon boomed into the remaining part of the scion ship.

Eventually they managed to weave their way through the worst of the debris and out into a clearing of the valley. A hundred meters away it ramped up and banked to the right. “It’s a road,” Denver said. “Follow it; it might take us back to that damned priest’s tracks.”

“Will do,” Layla said, piloting the craft with surprising skill. When they were clear of the valley and heading into a wooded section, Layla slowed down until they came to a stop. She leaned down and looked into his eyes. “Are you okay?”

Denver checked himself over. The stats on his visor told him he had lost some air and water, but there were no major mechanical malfunctions. But his mind, though… he wasn’t entirely sure what happened back there.

“I’m… in one piece,” he said. “What happened to you?”

“I just fell down the valley wall and bumped my head. I was out for a moment, but I’m all right. I’ll just need to rest at some point. I thought you were…”

“Dead? Yeah, me too… I know this sounds crazy, but I think…” He tailed off, his thoughts now suddenly ridiculous when put into words.

“Go on, what is it?”

“I think the scion were helping us.”

Layla didn’t say anything, just stared ahead. He wondered what she was thinking about. Was she assessing his level of sanity? Before he had time to ask her, a crackling static came over the intercom.

Layla spun to face him. “Is that?”

Denver listened to the static. Mixed in with the white noise was a voice, the words not quite clear, but the voice was unmistakable.

“Dad?” Denver said. “Is that you?”

No response, just shouting and the sounds of distant fire.

“Through the woods,” Denver said, pointing toward the sound of the fighting. “It’s Dad; he’s there!”

A smile crept across Layla’s face as she gunned the engines and flew toward the gunfire. Denver reached over to the back of the catamaran and grabbed hold of the priest’s rifle, loading a magazine and preparing for another fight, this time with renewed energy and hatred for the croatoan scum. Earth or Tredeya, he didn’t care, he wouldn’t stop until those bastards were no longer a threat.

And deep down, he felt some kind of desire… a desire for vengeance at the destruction of the scion prism.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mike turned, staggered back toward the basin, and glanced over his shoulder. The snap of croatoan rifles split the air. The riders of both hover-bikes paused above the edge of the forest, steadied their black beasts and fired.

Mai’s head appeared above the step leading to Unity. He flapped his right hand, motioning her to get down.

Projectiles whistled past and threw up lumps of dirt and root. Mike’s right boot snagged between two thick stems of the flourishing crop and he crashed against the ground.

Pain coursed through Mike’s right shoulder after it took the brunt of the impact. Turning on his front, he expected to see the bikes hovering above him, ready to deliver their coup de grace.

Both remained in the same position. Four more whined into view, smoothly fanning out in an extended line. Mike fumbled around his belt and clipped off his handheld radio. “Enemy over the forest. I repeat, enemy over the forest.”

Mai extended a hand toward him and mouthed something. She disappeared below the top step cut into the ground around the edge of the drained lake, to provide solid foundations for the better houses in the city.

Mike didn’t blame her for running. He wanted her to be safe. It would be a pointless sacrifice if they both died in the field.

Already out of breath, and ignoring the twinges in his chest, Mike scrambled to his feet and squelched through the root field, expecting to be killed at any moment. He never thought he’d be the first casualty in the battle for Unity. If his plan had worked, they wouldn’t even be facing one. As it stood, because of the failure, they were at the mercy of Augustus and his advancing army.

A tweak would probably correct his new weapon. Mike was sure he had the fundamentals in place and all he needed was time. He looked over his shoulder again at the force that would deny him that chance.

One hover-bike thrust forward over the root field, directly at him. He planted the radio to his mouth. “Please. Come quickly.”

Mike internally kicked himself for not requesting a protective guard to carry out the field trials and ending up in this situation. With an attack on the horizon he should have known. He was the inventor who worked behind closed doors and had no idea about combat strategy beyond the video games he played forty years ago.

The heat of a projectile flashed past Mike’s ear and hit the dirt in front of him. His boot slipped in the loose soil and he dropped to all fours, gasping for breath. The hover-bike swept around in a wide arc and came for a second run.

In the distance, Unity’s own bikes punched into the air above Aimee’s residence. A few small figures ran from between the houses toward the field. Neither would reach him in time. The enemy’s engines rose in volume and the croatoan rider aimed a rifle down.

Mike closed his eyes and bowed his head. The alien wouldn’t miss a second time. He thought about some of the things he and his friends had been through to this point. The years living in a New York basement with Mai, supplying Charlie and Denver. Creating the bomb to bring down the mother and terraforming ships.

It led them to the brink of peace, but Augustus intended to snatch defeat from the jaws of human victory. Mike wasn’t a man of violence, but would drop his beliefs to give the old Roman a kick in the nuts.

The approaching engine stuttered and cut to silence, leaving only the distant whine of the other enemy and approaching Unity vehicles. Mike glanced up at the clear blue sky.

The stalled bike twisted on its side and veered down. It crashed nose first into the field. A shower of mud sprayed forward and splattered against Mike’s face and body. The croatoan rider flipped over the handlebars and cartwheeled through the air, landing on his helmet just five meters away.