Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) (16 page)

“Sounds good, just let me know when the shooting starts ok?”

I blink through the HUD and fiddle around with the infrared settings; maximizing the power output and adjusting the depth at which it’ll be able to scan. Usually it wouldn’t be able to penetrate layers upon layers of soil, that isn’t its main function. However If you know what you’re doing it’s simple.

“Holy shit, this place is a lot bigger than we originally thought.”

The building’s just the tip of the iceberg; it looks like there’s an elevator shaft at the entrance of the building that leads almost two clicks down. At the bottom there’s a corridor that connects to a large cavern.

“Well, as far as I can tell there is only one way down.”

“I’m assuming we need to get to that building?” T-Rave asks.

“Yeah, that leads to what looks like an elevator shaft that goes down over a kilometer.”

“Well that should be relatively simple, as long as there are no access codes needed to operate the doors,” he says.

“There is no reason there should be, we are in the middle of nowhere, and they wouldn’t bother having a secure system.”

“Hmm, they are either very smart or stupid; regardless of being in the middle of nowhere you should always have some sort of security.”

“Agreed, well, let’s get this over with then, shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Ok, there’s only three targets; I’ll take the left one,” T-Rave says.

I pull my sniper rifle off my back and align the scopes to match the distance from the targets. I prop the barrel of the rifle on a twisted branch.

“Don’t shoot yet, my target isn’t in line of sight yet, damn trees are in the way.”

I can see T-Rave fidget in the opposite tree, anxious to fire.

“I got my target in my scope; its patrol pattern makes it so that it will stay that way for a few minutes, so take your time.”

My targets arm is the only part that’s showing from behind the tree.

“You know, won't these shots be able to go through trees?” He says.

“I don’t want to risk it, besides, he’s almost in range, just shoot after I shoot, I just don’t want to scare it off.”

The Hakorians head pops out from around the tree.

I squeeze the trigger.

A split second of travel time before the shot reaches him. The impact explodes its head and sends the body flying back several meters.

T-Raves fired moments after myself, the Hakorian drops to the ground with a giant hole in its stomach.

The middle target however had time to run after the shots were fired. He doesn’t run away however. He’s running towards us.

T-Rave and I have only seconds to think of a strategy, seeing as there’s only a distance of a hundred meters between us and the building.

“You think they can climb trees?”

“Yeah, I think so; just look at those claws eh?” I spin around and wrap my arms as best I can around the base of the tree. I slide my way down, my knees buckle as they strike the hard ground.

T-Rave’s doing the same thing; he hits the ground and trips over a root near the stump of the tree before going face first into the dirt and underbrush.

The rushing Hakorian must’ve seen T-Rave, it changes the direction that it’s running.

“Captain, get up!”

“Wha-” T-Raves voice cuts off as the clawed hand of the Hakorian wraps itself around his windpipe. T-Rave brings his knee up towards the area in between its legs.

No effect.

A sharp yelp emanates over the intercom as T-Rave tries to call for help. With the lack of pain after being kneed T-Rave ejects his gauntlet blade and tries to stab the Hakorian in the chest.

He misses and slashes its left thigh instead. It hisses in pain and tries to lash out with its other hand to slash open T-Raves chest.

That was how long it took for me to get behind the Hakorian, luckily I’m not a second later, otherwise T-raves spleen would be oozing out his front.

My blade bites deep into the Hakorians back, it howls in agony this time and tried to turn around to see the attacker, it’s to slow though. I bring my other hand over its head and I pull my arm back towards my body, snapping its neck in the process.

The body slumps to the ground. T-Rave falls as well.

“You alright? You hurt?” I say, rushing over to him and trying to get him back onto his feet.

T-Rave coughs as he tries to stand up, propping himself up against the tree for more support.

“Never felt better. You know, we should have thought of a plan in case they did that.”

“Yeah, my bad, com’on we gotta keep moving.”

I look over my shoulder and zoom in with my HUD to the lone building. No other Hakorians rush out the entrance to meet us.

I run back to the tree that I had been perched in and pick my sniper rifle off the ground. I didn’t bother taking the time to clip it into my back plate; those seconds alone would have cost T-Rave his life.

“It should just be a straight shot to the building; I don’t see any other contacts on the scanner, although I’m not sure how accurate this scanner will be at depth, that place is probably crawling with bad guys,” I say.

We make a run for it, there’s no one coming out the building yet, so either they’re unaware or very slow.

We dart in between trees; I peek around the corner and quickly check to make sure there’s still no one coming out.

“Coast is clear, keep moving,” I dart around the tree and sprint to the building, it’s only several meters ahead.

I slow down as I get closer, I wouldn’t want to slam into the side and bruise my shoulder.

“Now, how do you suppose we open this?” T-Rave interjects.

“Well, these aliens are too advanced for the good ‘ol doorknob, so I’m assuming that there is a keypad somewhere on the exterior frame.” I inspect the wall in front of me for any notches or latches.

“Ok, this isn’t working. Gimme a sec I just want to try something.” I stand back away from the wall and open my Scanner in my HUD. The scan shows that there’s a section in the wall directly in front of me that isn’t solid material.

“I think I have a point of entry,” I say.

“What, you found a way in?”

“Well, scanners show a little box in the inside of the room, so I’m guessing that it’s a control pad to unlock the door.”

“Well isn’t that just useless, how the hell does that help us if it can only be opened from the inside?”

“It doesn’t, just thought I should mention it.”

I reach for my chest compartments and pull out a small round object.

“Whoa, don’t you think that’ll be a bit much?” T-Rave exclaims as he steps back.

“Well, I guess we will find out.”

I place my palm on the underside of the device and hit two small buttons.

“Alright, when I stick this on, I’ll have ten seconds to get clear.”

“Just you?”

“Of course, it doesn’t take two people to stick a bomb onto a door.”

“Right.” He says, running along the wall of the building and turning the corner in order to avoid the blast.

I look at the device in my hand and carefully extend my arm and stick it to the wall where the door should be.

It begins to beep.

I don’t look at it a second time, instead I run my ass off to where T-Rave’s standing. I feel a bead of sweat roll down my forehead and catch in my eyebrow.

An arm is prodding out from around the corner, my hand clasps it and T-Rave pulls me around.

The ground shakes violently beneath our feet.

“Close one, thanks for the hand.”

“No problem, should we go and see if there is nothing but a crater left?”

I glance around the corner; all I can see is smoke and upturned soil.

“Looks clear, no bad guys swarming out or anything like that.” I turn around the corner and slowly walk towards the smoke, my rifle aimed and ready.

The wall is churning with smoke; I point my rifle at the hole and prepare to fire.

“Well, that was useless,” T-Rave exclaims.

There’s no hole in the wall, if anything there’s a very charred looking dent barely large enough for one person to crawl through.

“Alright, we’re screwed,” T-Rave says.

“That’s really random, why is that?”

“Just think; if their buildings can withstand our most powerful handheld explosives then I can't even begin to imagine how powerful their ships hulls are.”

My stomach drops.

T-Rave thinks fast, I haven’t even considered that. If that little bomb barely made a dent in a wall then how powerful would our weaponry be against the enemy fleet?

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to use another one.” I say, reaching up to my breast to get another explosive. “Your turn.” I hand T-Rave the cylinder.

“Well, given the size of the blast radius I believe we won’t have to go that far this time.”

I walk a few meters from the smoking dent in the wall, I signal T-Rave to activate the explosive, hand gestures seem faster, even though we’re connected with an intercom.

All I can see from this far away is T-Rave placing his hand inside the dent before turning and running.

T-Rave reaches me and he looks back at the wall, an explosion follows.

“Think that worked?”

“Yeah, I think it did. The building vibrated more this time, which must mean that the explosion went farther in and shook the foundation.”

We walk along the side of the wall.

“Wow, well that did the trick,” T-Rave says.

It wasn’t a dent anymore, a large scorched hole, large might have been an overstatement; it was big enough so that a grown man in full gear would be able to squeeze through.

“Yeah, it might have made a hole, but if we have to make a quick escape then I would feel more comfortable with that hole being a bit larger.”

“We aren’t going to use another one are we?” T-Rave says.

“No, it would be a waste, the wall here is weakened enough so that we can just use this to make it larger,” I say, my gauntlet blade comes out with a
Chuunk
.

I look along the jagged pieces of metal -or whatever kind of material it is- I scrape along the side to test how easy it is to make the hole larger. It’s just crumbling under my blade, as if it’s butter.

“I guess both explosions really softened this stuff up,” T-rave says.

It doesn’t take long for a big enough hole to be chiseled out of the original hole.

“Ladies first,” I gesture to T-Rave.

“Well in that case I must insist,” he returns the gesture.

“Smartass.”

I climb through the entrance.

The inside of the building is black, it almost seems like it swallowed up the light that’s coming from outside.

I turn on my exterior helmet light and I flood the room with light. The light is blocked instantly by fog. What seemed like fog anyways. The fog licks my armour, wrapping itself around my body as if alive.

“What the-” T-Rave bats away the mist with his hand; it’s trying to swallow him up.

“Hold out your arm Captain, and don’t resist,” I say.

“What do you mean resist?”

“Just watch.”

The fog is wrapping itself around T-Raves outstretched arm; slowly pulling it down.

“
Colonel, do something,” his voice quivers.

“Close your eyes and turn your external receivers off.” I wait a few seconds to make sure that T-Rave did those two things. I reach into my belt compartment and take out another round cylinder; this one however was more smooth and shiny. I hit the button.

The entire room illuminates with a bright flash of light, as bright as if you were looking at a lightning bolt arcing through the sky, the light is just the first step of the device. A high pitch shrieking noise pierces the silence of the chamber.

The fog vanishes almost instantly as the device activated. Without the mist to shroud it the room is revealed, nothing but a small Hakorian cowering in the corner, wearing but a simple brown robe.

“Don’t move!” T-Rave shouts at the Hakorian, his voice booming and echoing off the small-enclosed walls.

The Hakorian doesn’t have to move at all to show defeat, seeing as it’s already on its knees and crouched over.

“Was that you doing that?” I ask.

The Hakorian doesn’t answer.

I prod the barrel of my rifle into the side of its head.

“You might want to answer him; otherwise it might get unpleasant for you,” T-Rave says.

I bring my rifle down to its right leg; the barrel directed right over the kneecap.

“I’m going to ask again, was that you?”

Yet again, there’s no reply.

I sigh before pulling the trigger, the room booms with noise as the gun fires its energy into the Hakorians leg.

The screams drown out the sound of the weapon discharging, an odd scream though, it isn’t like the screams and the deep bass that the Hakorians in the power building made.