Star Watch (32 page)

Leon suffered several more painful blows to his back and shoulders before he heard Rizzo firing his multi-gun. Two Sahhrain warriors fell to the ground next to him. Leon noticed nearby drones were in the process of encircling his ship. No less than twenty of them. Shiny, lethal-looking, they hovered several feet off the ground, plasma weapons pointed in their direction.

It took a few seconds for Leon to process what happened next. The drones began firing. The first one hit was Captain Stalls. His body blew apart, shredded into a scramble of bloody, fist-sized chunks. Within a millisecond, all three Sahhrain warriors suffered the same messy fate as Stalls. Leon curled into a ball as plasma fire streamed from all directions. He felt each and every white-hot bolt as it hit his battle suit. He glimpsed Rizzo, staggering, but miraculously still on his feet. He pointed a finger toward the horizon and was gone in a flash. Leon got the message. He accessed his HUD’s phase-shift menu, then phase-shifted away. He had noticed, prior to the bright white flash, Ridert standing far back … well behind the still-firing drones’ line of fire.

* * *

Lying flat on her belly, sixty-five feet up, atop the broad stone archway, Boomer watched events unfold far below her, near the landing struts of the
SpaceRunner
. She really hated Captain Stalls, but seeing him suddenly die so disgustingly—she almost felt sorry for him …
almost
. Then she thought of Bristol, safe inside the ship, and how … in just an instant … he’d lost his brother.

She wondered where Leon and Rizzo had decided to phase-shift? Rizzo was definitely hurt badly, and if they were smart, they’d stay hidden. She next thought about the human, dressed like a Sahhrain warrior, but wearing a breastplate of silver instead of leather. He’d fled from the scene so quickly—almost as if he phase-shifted—but he wasn’t wearing a battle suit. No, he’d used his enhancement shield. Boomer remembered seeing a fleeting glimmer of violet distortion waves. The guy had crazy skills! Thinking about that, her heart sank and she wondered if she should just give up … surrender right then. This whole plan was turning out to be a bad idea.

Boomer continued to watch the other guy—realizing he was the same person Hanna had spoken about—Ridert, her husband. Trying to visualize them as a couple, a disgusted expression formed on her face. Dust swirled in the distance as scores of marching Sahhrain warriors descended down the alien ship’s gangways and, like a funnel, converged into two long lines. Ridert met them, taking up position in front of their formation. In step, they came to a halt in front of the archway below her. As if a silent command was instigated, gazillions of round drones fell in line behind the warriors, extending off almost as far as the eye could see.

So now what?
Boomer’s question was about to be answered. She spotted him coming down the gangway of the nearby
Assailant
. Her heart skipped a beat and her mouth gaped open when she realized just how
big
he was. But it was more than mere size. The wind pulled at his long black cloak, causing it to flutter wildly behind him. His golden breastplate—the quick flashes of scarlet beneath his cloak—gave eerie, almost super-hero status to his appearance. But she intuitively
knew
this guy was no hero.

Lord Vikor Shakrim walked forward several paces, stopped, and suddenly looked up.
Crap!
He was staring right at her. Boomer quickly lowered her head and did her best to flatten her body against the stone blocks.

What am I doing? He already knows I’m up here
. She cleared her mind, took in a breath, and scrambled to her feet. He was still down there—looking up at her.
Waiting
. Okay, fine … so, I guess, this is where it’s supposed to happen
.

Lord Shakrim approached the warrior’s front line and spoke to Ridert. Both looked up at her. Boomer felt small and stupid just standing there.

Lord Shakrim gave an audible command and Ridert, along with the rest of the assembled warriors, marched forward, into the archway beneath her. Boomer spun around but didn’t see anyone emerge from its other side.
That’s definitely weird.
She looked back to see Lord Shakrim heading out alone toward the open desert. One hundred yards out he stopped, turned, and stood still, his hands on his hips.
Is he waiting for me?

New movement. She saw a couple of dozen Sahhrain warriors, different from the others—these were Shakrim’s Chosen Spear warriors. Equipped with spears and enhancement shields, they were hurrying toward Shakrim, and began forming in a large circle around him.

Lord Shakrim raised an arm high over his head and gave two quick flicks of his hand: the universal gesture to come forward, and join him within the circle.
Okay,
that’s it. Do-or-die time
.

What looked like hundreds of warriors, followed by drones, continued to file into the archway beneath her.
Where are they going
? She didn’t know, but at some level, she knew they needed to be stopped.

The near-countless number of warriors, drones, then Ridert, and now Lord Shakrim, caused mounting fear to slowly creep into Boomer’s subconscious. Breathing had become difficult; she’d begun to hyperventilate. She tried to recall Aahil’s voice—the hours and hours of training she’d undergone so panic, like this, wouldn’t happen. She was already failing Aahil … and failing her father, too.
Stop thinking!
One more time, she checked the settings on the enhancement shield, snugly fitted onto her forearm. Even through her battle suit she could feel its tiny protrusions, letting her know it was set to its most lethal setting. Finally, calmness settled over her.
I can do this.

Poised to phase-shift down to the ground—she stopped when she saw a sudden bright flash. A flash from someone’s phase-shift! Rizzo! Unplanned, and unexpected, he nevertheless appeared, standing five feet behind Shakrim, his multi-gun pointed directly toward the back of his head. Rizzo fired.

But Lord Shakrim was already gone, obviously anticipating the attack. Boomer silently cursed Rizzo. Shakrim had skillfully used his enhancement shield in a way she didn’t think possible: a maneuver that allowed him to block plasma fire, while simultaneously spinning his body sideways. The move was somewhat similar to her doing cartwheels … but much, much faster, and much, much more cool.

Lord Shakrim came at Rizzo from behind. He held up one hand—disruptor waves flew through his fingertips. She knew he was
somehow
channeling the enhancement shield’s distinct power through his own body.
How does he do that?

Rizzo’s body left the ground, flipping three times into the air before landing, face down, thirty feet away.

Boomer looked down at Rizzo’s unmoving body.
Is he dead?
She checked to see if there were active life-icons on her HUD, then remembered most HUD functions weren’t working. Shakrim casually walked toward Rizzo’s body.
Oh God!
He’s going to finish him off!

She screamed the words as she phase-shifted down to the ground, “Don’t you touch him!”

She didn’t land in front of him or behind him … she landed
within
him. After hundreds of phase-shifts, and many stern warnings from her father—she knew the perils of phase-shifting in too close, or landing on top of another person. But right then, she knew exactly what she must do. The instant Boomer’s physical form, battle suit and all, began materializing sixty-five feet below, three nearly simultaneous things occurred: One, it was determined that the desired end-point was already occupied by another organic mass; two, her own organic mass was determined to hold precedence over the other, pre-existing, mass; and three, Boomer’s mass would transpose the mass of Lord Shakrim. In the fleeting moments before phase-shifting, neither Boomer’s intentions, or actions, were anticipated by Shakrim, and that was what distinguished her from Rizzo … or anyone else, for that matter.

Shakrim’s body flew sideways, with such instantaneous force, such momentum, that his shiny gold breastplate was instantly ripped from his chest and landed fifty yards out in the open desert. His head and neck had been splayed awkwardly—twisted around clockwise, while the rest of his body was twisted around counter-clockwise.

The encircling crowd of warriors quieted down. Lord Shakrim’s body lay prone on the ground before her. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. Had she killed him …
had it really been that easy?

Lord Shakrim’s eyes opened to cloudy confusion. Four seconds elapsed and confusion turned to focused intelligence. His gaze locked on to Boomer.

Chapter 46

Dacci System

Planet Harpaign, Ancient Subterranean Ruins

_________________

With his battle suit’s power pack completely depleted, Ricket sprinted from beneath the descending spacecraft’s hot thrusters and headed directly for the stone archway. He quickly discovered it was actually the gateway to a wide, subterranean stairway. Down he went, more than a thousand steps, before reaching a broad, cobblestoned thoroughfare. Internal nano-devices, with specialty enhanced optics, allowed him to perceive basic shapes in the near total darkness. He determined he was in an immense natural cave—perhaps a dried-up aquifer—one that reached a thousand feet into the darkness above and extended miles in all directions, though it was too dark for him to be completely sure. He continued walking down the main road, and, in time, reached the outskirts of a city. Ricket marveled at the sheer size of the surrounding, towering stone structures—most were in a remarkable state of preservation. His battle suit’s power levels, eventually sufficiently regenerated, allowed him to use his helmet’s spotlight to take in his nearby surroundings. He turned his head and noted other buildings—buildings even paralleling the buildings behind these. The size of this subterranean world was far larger than he could ever have imagined.

A thousand rectangular windows, black and vacant, like so many empty eye sockets, followed his movements. He walked for nearly a mile, down the sprawling city’s central causeway.
Easily a hundred … maybe two hundred … thousand people once lived here, in the distant past.
Ricket briefly wondered what happened to them. Were they Blues or Sahhrain? Did it matter?

Ricket picked up his pace—well aware the
Minian
was still in grave danger—soon to be attacked by an overwhelming force. Not from space, but infiltrated from within, via one of the ship’s habitat portals.

Ricket, at first, didn’t notice but now he could clearly see various small icons and readouts coming back alive on his HUD. This far beneath the interferences on the planet’s surface, his suit’s sensors were slowly coming back to life. He tried hailing Captain Reynolds, then the
Minian
, but neither hail connected. He ran through several other HUD menus until he found, and displayed, the directional locator overlays for a relatively close habitat portal. An amazing bit of Caldurian technology that he’d used successfully in the past, within
The Lilly
’s HAB 12, and other Zoo habitats, it was an indispensable, essential tool when searching for a habitat’s entry-exit portals.

The
Minian
possessed one known Zoo portal into this small section of Harpaign, with its ancient ruins and ghastly weather. The habitat, known as HAB 7, was first created by the Caldurians a distant thousand years, or more, ago. Ricket, never aware of the towering stone archway’s presence, now so prominent above him on the surface when he was within HAB 7, thought about that—concluding, it must have been built some time after the Caldurians first created the habitat.

A smile spread across Ricket’s small lips when an aqua-colored triangle hovered before his eyes. His HUD was informing him where the closest habitat portal was located. He’d need to change direction, but it was close … less than a mile away. With such good fortune, hopefully he’d be able to access the portal, enter the
Minian
, and warn the captain.

Again, Ricket stopped in his tracks. New life-icons were popping up on his HUD—too many to count. They were coming from behind him, where he’d just been. Sahhrain warriors were on the move. Ricket didn’t understand how they could move with such speed. Even if he phase-shifted to the portal ahead, it would be too close—he wasn’t sure he’d have sufficient time to give the captain adequate warning. He interrupted setting the coordinates and stepped into an alleyway between two stone buildings as they passed by him in a blur, riding distortion waves of violet light. One by one, they whisked by, in what seemed a never-ending stream of Sahhrain.

Ricket, momentarily paralyzed by indecision, saw the last of the warriors whisk past him. As he stepped out onto the street he saw more coming, but they weren’t Sahhrain warriors—they were drones. Over a thousand of them. He inputted his new phase-shift coordinates, based on the location given on the portal directional locator overlay, and flashed away.

* * *

The battle in space continued as the cloaked Sahhrain missiles bombarded the Allied fleet. “Two Blues’ ships just fell off our sensors … destroyed, in that last missile strike, Cap,” Orion said.

“We’ve got more requests to return fire, Captain,” Seaman Gordon said, his voice anxious—an octave right below squeaky.

Jason took in the multiple overhead display segments and quickly recognized there was no avoiding the inevitable: this conflict was escalating to all-out war, despite the Star Watch initiative to keep the peace. There was tolerance, reluctance to commence new battles, but such even-mindedness was balanced by an even greater necessity: to face reality. In light of the Sahhrain’s blatant attacks, he knew he had no choice; he would have to destroy the Sahhrain in battle. But first he needed to deal with one evident problem.

“Let the Blues’ fleet captains, all of them, know we’ve got this … have them stand down and fall back.” Thus far, Jason wasn’t impressed with the Blues’ capabilities—the way they’d haphazardly assembled their forces. He wondered if they’d ever actually confronted an enemy in space before. If they had, he doubted they won. At this point, they were just in the way. “Gunny, return fire.”