Three Against the Stars (19 page)

Hopping to his feet, Makki bowed again to the statue and turned to his friends. “All done,” he announced. “This one prayed for a quick and easy escape.”

“That don’t look too likely, mate,” O’Hara said, shaking his head.

“The Maker will provide and protect, the Sybil will guide and light the way,” Makki said.

With a grin, he dashed ahead, taking the lead.

After about a hundred clicks or so, more artificial illumination from a large chamber shed cold, white light on a huge stack of plasteel crates. Another tunnel branched off to the left, and the noise of engines and humanoids at work was a cacophony that bounced off the walls and reverberated throughout the tunnel. About thirty yards ahead, the tunnel widened and revealed itself to be the entrance to an underground hangar.

The four companions paused and concealed themselves behind the crates.

Akira discarded what was left of her cigar. “I think we’ve arrived,” she said.

“Si,”
said Cortez. “There it is.”

He pointed to the hangar, where Drakonian ground crews and Khandra pilots readied three squadrons of jet fighters for takeoff. Parked in a corner at the far end of the hangar, as if it had been tossed there as an afterthought, were Cortez’s rented skycar and airbike. The service entrance in the center of the main hangar doors was standing wide open.

“Is that our only way out?” Akira asked.

“Maybe not,” Makki said, pointing to another tunnel on their left.

The sound of tramping feet suddenly echoed in the tunnel behind them. An alarm shrieked a warning with a sound akin to a wailing banshee with a nasty hangover.

Makki, Akira and Cortez turned to O’Hara.

“Oh, bloody hell!” he said.

A dozen Khandra warriors rushed toward them from the direction in which they had come, firing blasters and tazer rifles. Green tracers ricocheted off the walls. Violet rays from hand blasters sliced into stone, sending quartz dust and rock shrapnel whistling through the air.

“Hit the deck, Makki!” Akira shouted.

Makki ducked below the top of the crates and dropped to the floor of the tunnel while his friends took cover beside him and opened fire with their stolen tazers.

Three Khandra warriors went down screaming with holes burned through their torsos and faces. But the remaining nine rushed forward like Antarian berserkers, their blasters, zapguns and tazers shooting violet, blue, and green energy beams all over the subterranean passageway. Chips of hot plasteel exploded from the crates and zipped through the air.

The three sergeants had to keep low as they fired back, unable to lift their heads long enough to site their targets. O’Hara cursed and fired around the corner of one crate, missing a Khandra by the width of a cat’s whisker. Cortez wasn’t having any better luck, his shots going wild, zinging off the walls and ceiling.

Akira wiped sweat from her brow and kept firing her tazer, hoping to hit something.  She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Makki was all right. Lying there while his friends did all the fighting, Makki appeared as calm as a Marine in a bar brawl.

At the sound of stone grating against stone, Makki lifted his head and glanced toward the hangar. Huge doors made of solid rock began to slide shut, closing off the entrance to the hangar. Makki grabbed O’Hara and pointed to the tunnel on their left.

“You escape that way,” he told O’Hara. “This one will try to warn the regiment.”

Before O’Hara could bark or growl a reply, Makki leapt to his feet and ran toward the sliding doors as if his life depended on it. He dived between the doors only a second before they slid shut and cut off all access to the hangar.

Akira leapt to her feet. “Makki!” she shouted.

A green tracer screeched through the air and burned her leg. She screamed and started to collapse, but O’Hara caught her before she hit the ground.

“Go!” Cortez told them. “I will be very close behind you.”

O’Hara half-carried, half-dragged Akira into the other tunnel amidst a flurry of tazer and zapgun rounds that exploded all around them. Cortez covered their slow retreat with a rain of tazer fire, and then removed the two remaining grenades from his war belt.

“Go!”
he urged his friends.

Priming the grenades, Cortez chucked them at the Khandra, then followed O’Hara and Akira into the tunnel. He didn’t even bother to plug his ears.

Two seconds later, the grenades exploded, showering them with dust and pieces of quartz. The Khandra warriors screamed as the concussion rocked the tunnel and blew them into a bloody mess of body parts. Then the roof caved in behind the Marines, burying what was left of the Khandra beneath tons of rock and gravel that sealed the entrance to the tunnel.

Akira, O’Hara and Cortez were trapped.

444

Makki raced through the hangar like a cat with its tail on fire.

A squad of Khandra guards caught sight of him and brought their weapons into play.

Blue zapgun bolts charred the stone floor at Makki’s boot heels. Needles of green tazer shots scorched the air around him. A violet beam from a blaster scored a lucky shot when it grazed his left ear and singed his fur. He winced but kept on running, ducking and dodging enemy fire with the luck of O’Hara’s Irish ancestors riding on his shoulders.

Legs pumping, chest heaving and heart pounding, Makki charged through the hangar, crouching as low as he could and keeping his head down. When he spotted two more Khandra guards ahead of him, he increased his speed and slammed into them, knocking them down.

Without bothering to look back, Makki raced on.

The Khandra were in hot pursuit now. A zapper bolt grazed Makki’s left leg, but he didn’t let it slow him down. The young corpsman knew his goal, and nothing short of death was going to stop him—and maybe not even that would do it.

Chapter Nineteen

Valley of Death

B
ack in the tunnel, Akira wondered if she and her two buddies would make it out alive. More ropes of fiber optic light illuminated the passageway and guided their way as Cortez and O’Hara dragged her along, her arms wrapped around their necks.

“Come on,” O’Hara urged his mates, “I think I see daylight up ahead.”

Being in hopeless situations like this was something Akira and her two buddies were accustomed to. But now her main concern was for Makki. She shook her head and struggled to break free of her friends. But they held onto her, refusing to let go.

“No!” she said. “We have to go back for Makki.”

“We can’t, lass, and that’s God’s own truth,” O’Hara said gently. “Makki’s following his own road now, and may Heaven and all the angels be with him.”

“But he’s all alone!” Akira protested, struggling in vain.

“He’ll be just fine,” O’Hara tried to reassure her. “After all, you and Cortez trained him. I think the lad will do you both proud.”

“Have faith, Claudia,” Cortez told her. “Makki is beyond our help now. We can’t go back. The tunnel is blocked. We must go on and hope this way leads us out of here.”

Akira felt tears welling in her eyes. She lowered her head and clung to her friends.

Slowly, they made their way through the tunnel.

444

Makki ran a gauntlet of flashing and flaring weapons that lit up the hangar like a fireworks display. He ran as if he had wings on his boots, almost flying through the air with incredible speed and agility. All the long hours of practice and training with Akira and Cortez were finally paying off. He dived to the tarmac, rolled forward, leapt to his feet, and then jumped over the heads of two startled Drakonian mechanics who were crouched over an engine lying on a small table. Makki felt unstoppable, invulnerable—but he was wise enough to know not to get cocky, and to keep his head down.

Leaping over crates and other packing containers, Makki raced toward his objective, evading enemy fire. He had to make it to the airbike; the skycar was too big for what he had in mind. But more and more Khandra warriors joined the chase, closing in on Makki from all sides. Confusion reigned as even the Drakonian mechanics, armed with various tools, joined in the hunt to bring down the lone Rhajni storming through the hangar like a madman. 

As Makki neared Cortez’s abandoned airbike, he increased his speed and leapt into the air, scoring a perfect landing on the seat of the flier. As the Khandra tightened the circle around him, he set the controls, pressed a button—and the airbike took off, soaring over the heads of his foes, and heading toward the main doors of the hangar.

Scores of Khandra slid to a halt and raised their weapons, taking careful aim at Makki.

Angling the airbike upward, Makki steered it in a zigzag pattern in order to evade the fresh onslaught of sizzling needles, bolts and energy beams that flashed all around him like the Devil’s own Hellfire. A zapper bolt grazed his arm, but he didn’t let it deter him.

He was only about twenty-five feet in the air when he saw Vash, Flix and a dozen Khandra warriors crossing the tarmac.

“Stop him!”
he heard Vash yell out in Rhajni.

The warriors drew their weapons and sprayed the air with an array of hot energy beams.

Makki tilted the airbike left and right in an evasive maneuver but kept flying in their direction. This was a chance to nail the traitors who had killed his parents and nearly destroyed his planet.

Turning the nose of the airbike, Makki dived and headed straight toward his foes.

Vash and the other Khandra leapt aside. But Flix froze like a Terran deer caught in the headlights of a groundcar.

Makki yowled with glee and increased his airspeed.

Flix screamed louder than a cat whose tail had just been stepped on. He tried to dive out of the way of the airbike, but he was too slow. The nose of the flier slammed into his shoulder, spun him around and knocked him to the tarmac.

“I want that Felisian dead!” Vash shouted to his warriors.

The Khandra raised their weapons and took aim.

What Makki desperately wanted was to turn around and mow them all down. But his first priority was to warn the regiment. So he hunkered down, turned the airbike, and continued heading toward the hangar doors—and the service entrance that had been left standing open.

Weapons fire accompanied Makki as the airbike shot through the narrow door and climbed into the sky. Hot energy tracers, bolts and beams whizzed past him, missing him by a whisker’s length and flying off into the fleeting clouds. Makki turned his head and looked up.

“Bloody hell!” he growled.

On the roof of the Khandra fortress, two cheetahmen were powering up the laser cannon, prepping the weapon for action. He had hoped to find the great weapon unattended, but no matter . . . he knew exactly what to do.

With a wicked grin spreading across his face, Makki steered the airbike toward the laser cannon and plowed into the cheetahmen. They tumbled from the roof of the fortress, screaming all the long way to the bottom. Then Makki circled around and landed the airbike on the roof.

Opening his medikit, he pulled out the Whistler Bomb he’d been saving.

The words of the holy beggar suddenly echoed in his mind.

“The Sybil has marked you for greatness, young warrior. Her light will guide your steps toward the path of glory.”

Realizing that his destiny was in his own paws, Makki pressed the bomb’s timer.

The glass lens lit up a second later.

“Eat this!” he yelled, tossing the bomb high into the air.

Snarling with pleasure, he watched the Whistler Bomb sail high into the sky, reach its arc and begin its descent.

Then he took control of the laser cannon.

444

The Marine convoy moved slowly into Jaipur Pass, still unaware of the squads of Khandra warriors lying hidden in the foothills, preparing to attack.

In her armored jeep, Colonel Dakota and her driver kept pace with the communications van, waiting for some response to the communiqué they had sent to the
Iwo Jima.

“Anything yet, Corporal?” she asked, growing more and more anxious.

“Nothing yet, Colonel. The tech-heads say all transmissions are still being jammed.”

“Curse all technology!” she muttered.

A feeling of dread came over her, a feeling that took her stomach, flipped it upside down and turned it inside out. Her instincts warned her that something was terribly wrong.

The sound of an engine overhead caused her to look up. A skycar from the Terran Embassy in Tantrapur was heading toward the convoy. She ordered her driver to stop the jeep as the skycar landed only a few yards from them.

A wounded embassy guard emerged from the vessel and raced toward her.

“Colonel!” he cried. “The embassy is under attack! I was ordered to warn you. It’s the Khandra—they’re staging a coup!”

“I knew something was up,” Dakota said. “I felt it in my gut!”

She was about to order the convoy back to Camp Corregidor when an explosion of fireworks and shrill, whistling sounds—swiftly followed by a greater explosion in the sky above the pass, assaulted their ears.

“Colonel—we’re under attack!” said her driver.

Dakota leapt to her feet. “Sound the call to arms!”

444

Meanwhile, back inside the Khandra command center, the screeching of the Whistler Bomb ricocheted off the walls. Drakonian technicians and Rhajni workers rushed about in a panic as the second, more powerful explosion rocked the fortress. Khandra warriors on guard duty tried to maintain some sense of order.

Snark looked up from a computer screen as the main doors slid open.

Chanori and two Khandra panthermen armed with zapguns charged into the room.

“The prisoners have eluded all attempts to capture them,” said the Drakonian agent.

Chanori’s left fist smashed Snark’s computer to pieces. Circuits popped and sizzled as dark smoke filled the room. “By Azra’s whiskers! Contact my son—now!”

“Yes, my lord!” Snark obeyed.

While Snark contacted Vash, Chanori turned to a Tri-D visual display that showed him what was happening in the Giruda Foothills and Jaipur Pass. He licked his chops as he watched the Marine regiment roll through the pass and move into battle formation.

444

The Khandra gun emplacements in the hills opened fire. Needles of green tazers and blue zapper bolts tore up the ground. Violet beams of deadly energy from blasters ripped into the regiment’s vehicles and the bodies of Marines as they sought cover and returned fire.

The regiment’s laser tanks advanced and fanned out, blasting the hills on either side of the pass with a continuous volley of searing white and crimson light. Marines rushed in and took cover behind the tanks, laying down a barrage of yellow machine gun fire and salvoes of incendiary shells launched from Primo-2000 mini-bazookas. Sizzling red laser beams stitched the hills, lacerating earth and rock, and burning Khandra troops by the score. Electronic mortars and photon hand grenades tore gaping holes in the enemy’s defenses and vaporized numerous squads of Khandra soldiers.

444

Cursing under his breath, Chanori was nevertheless confidant that his forces would reign victorious before noon. He turned to another visual display and tapped a few computer keys with his sharp claws. Moments later, the main hangar doors of the fortress slid open. Three squadrons of Drakonian fighter jets took off a few seconds after that.

He roared with pride: His son was in command.

Then, another monitor projected an image of Makki at the controls of the laser cannon.

444
 

Jaipur Pass had quickly become an inferno of battle and carnage as the Devil Dogs charged the foothills, blasting the Khandra with a steady onslaught of energy beams. Tattoo Annie, Fatty Russo and Pretty Boy Steele raced into battle, weapons blazing.

“Let’s dance, you Devil Dogs!” Pretty Boy shouted.

The Khandra returned a blistering firestorm of tazer and blaster beams, and hot zapgun bolts. A laser tank exploded and flipped over. Marines died bravely, caught in the flash pulse of flames and hot, metal debris. Tattoo Annie’s legs were burned away below the knees. She screamed in horror and agony as the battle raged around her.

“Oh, God! Corpsman!
Corpsman!
” she shouted as she died.

White photon beams and red lasers fired from the regiment’s artillery scorched the foothills and the Khandra gun emplacements. Explosions tore up dirt and pulverized stone. Khandra bodies hurtled through the air. Blood and body parts smeared the whole area.

444

High atop the Khandra fortress, Makki manned the laser cannon, zoomed in on his targets and then activated the firing mechanism. Two short bursts of crimson light shot into the sky, and a duo of Drakonian fighter jets burst into balls of blue, red, and yellow flames.

Makki whooped with joy as the wreckage of the jets tumbled into the pass below. He sighted three more targets and took them out with an equal amount of laser blasts. But the Khandra hangar kept breeding Drakonian warships like a Zaturan termite giving birth. Makki never ceased firing as the jets took to the sky and flew off to attack the regiment. But his time spent with Cortez on the simulator was paying off: he knocked off one jet fighter after another.

“Makki!”

He turned his head and saw Chanori and four Khandra panthermen emerge from the stairwell and race toward him.

“Kill him!” Chanori shouted. 

The panthermen drew their zapguns and started firing.

Makki ducked as the zapper bolts hissed over his head. Then he swiveled the laser cannon and fired back at his attackers.

Chanori hit the deck barely in time as the laser blasts whizzed past him. The panthermen screamed as the hot streaks of pure energy turned them into a glittery spray of atoms. One laser beam sailed over Chanori’s head, hit the stairwell and blasted it into charred wreckage. There was no other way down from the roof.

Chanori drew his zapgun and fired.

A sizzling blue bolt tore into Makki’s shoulder, almost knocking him off the cannon’s platform. Crying out in pain, he fell against the controls.

Chanori leapt to his feet, ran forward, and seized Makki by the throat. He set the snout of his zapgun against Makki’s head.

“Time to join your family,” Chanori said.

Makki snarled and showed his teeth. “Go bugger yourself, ya heathen swine!” he said, knocking Chanori’s arm aside the way Akira had shown him.

The zapgun flew out of Chanori’s hand and tumbled from the roof.

Chanori slammed his fist into Makki’s face.

The young corpsman groaned and dropped to his knees.

444

Drakonian fighter jets swooped down out of the sky, wing-guns blazing hot death as they strafed the Marines in Jaipur Pass with blaster and tazer fire. Marines howled, riddled with burn wounds or sliced to bloody ribbons.

“Come on, you poor excuses for monkeys!” Corporal Baim shouted. “You wanna live to a ripe old age?” She hit the dirt just as two cobalt beams of pure energy flashed over her head.

“Rock on, brothers and sisters!” Fatty shouted.

Then he and Pretty Boy Steele were zapped by tazer fire. They went down screaming, still firing their weapons as they died.

Peppering the hills with a spray of electrified bullets from her Eddy, Corporal Baim caught a zapper bolt in the arm that spun her around and knocked her down.

Nervous Ned riddled the hills with quartz bullets from his own Eddy. “Corpsman! Corpsman!” he cried—right before a volley of incendiary fire blew him into Kingdom Come.

444

Chanori pounced on Makki like a housecat attacking a mouse. His fists were hammers pounding away at the corpsman. But Makki blocked each blow with his forearms. He danced back and forth, and from side to side as smoothly as a heavyweight champ in the ring.

“Felisian vermin!” Chanori growled.

“Furry freak!” Makki roared.

Faking a right jab, Chanori battered Makki’s jaw with a mean left hook. Makki grimaced in pain as his jaw shifted to one side and his teeth ground together. Then Chanori hit him again with a right cross, followed by a left jab to the kidney. With the breath knocked out of him, Makki groaned, doubled over and staggered backward.