Farthest Reach Page 13
The ladies ducked back into the cockpit.
More shots pinned the buzzed beauties in the mech. “I’ll cover for you,” barked Owen.
But even the corgi’s cover would not buy him enough time. He had only sabotaged two of the five mecha. Three remained fully operational. A forty percent complete job was a failure, and one that Master Balak would punish severely.
Lost in the thought, Shakkurru did not realize the sharkman picked himself up. With a roar Hemi charged him. He slapped his right palm onto his left arm brace. A fin-shaped aqua pulse blade erupted out of his bracer.
“Ah, stars and starships,” Shakkurru groaned.
Their blades met with a loud crackle. Hemi was the stronger of the two, even against the exosuit. With their blades locked, Hemi’s massive jaw rushed in chomping at Shakkurru’s nanovisor. The teeth punctured the helmet and it faltered, dematerializing, exposing Shakkurru’s face to rows of razor-sharp teeth. Mahogany ale mingled with pungent stale fish breath assaulted his nostrils.
A blaster shot struck the sharkman in the back, burning a hole in his tank top. Hemi yelped and stumbled. Shakkurru dipped into a spinning sweep kick, toppling the aquatic predator. The shark took a nosedive off the catwalk. Silence followed. Then a sickening smack. Shakkurru looked over the edge to see Hemi clawing the air in pain, still alive, but removed from the equation.
Owen returned his focus to the women still stuck in the cockpit.
Shakkurru needed a moment to form a new plan.
But Tushar gave him no time. The sliding doors to the docking lot entrance whisked open. In a matter of clicks the lizard’s cunning eyes took in the scene, put two and two together, and turned right back the way he came.
Shakkurru bolted after him, but Tushar had a head start. By the time the docking doors opened, Tushar was already out of the tunnel and up the ramp that led back up to the street level.
Sprinting to the end of the tunnel, Shakkurru stopped just at the base of the ramp. Blaster shots exploded on the ground in front of him. After his ears stopped ringing, he heard Tushar yelling into his com link.
“I don’t know. I think they got Hemi. I don’t know how many. More than one. Yeah, the Terran in the exosuit. Get out here quick.”
Shakkurru had no time to sabotage the remaining mechs. He needed to escape and try a new course of action. But Tushar had him pinned down. At his back Owen could still be keeping the women at bay, or he could have found another exit and got his little corgi legs out of there. The women could be approaching the tunnel even now. All of his skills had their limits, and fighting in a narrow tunnel with enemies on both ends was suicide. He could direct his hovercycle remotely to his location if his HUD was up. But the EMP range extended into the tunnel. Just his luck that the EMP range ended at the top of the ramp where Tushar waited to blast him.
His only hope lay in getting past Tushar to his hovercycle and hightailing it out of there. And if he was going to follow through with that plan he had mere moments to act.
A paw touched his shoulder causing him to jump.
“Eh, easy pal. Just your bud, Owen.”
“I thought you found another way out.”
“Past the shark that could awaken at any moment? No way.”
“The ladies?”
“Still in the mech. A few close blasts, but I got past ’em.”
Tushar sent a series of warning shots down the ramp.
“How many?” asked Owen, pointing up the ramp.
“Just the lizard, but the rest are on the way.”
Owen grimaced.
“Cover for me. I’ll pick you up on my hovercycle.”
Owen raised his eyebrows.
“I promise. Just cover for me.” He shoved his pulse rifle into the dog’s paws. Without waiting for a confirmation, Shakkurru ascended the ramp. Over his shoulder, the corgi lay down cover fire. About halfway up the ramp, Shakkurru cleared the EMP range and his offline exosuit features powered up. With a few blinks at his HUD, he turned on his mini thrusters, boosting him to inhuman speeds. He jump kicked into the air. His left foot contacted with Tushar’s lizard jaw.
In a few propulsion imbued bounds, he dashed over the unconscious reptile to his hovercycle. He kicked a leg over as he used his HUD to start the engine. He revved the throttle just as Cedric and the rest of the gang charged out of Paw Pints.
At such a close range there was no way they could miss. Blaster pews scored the side of the cycle. With the twitch of his wrist Shakkurru could leave them in the dust, but he could not ditch Owen. He pulled up alongside the ramp and Owen hopped on the back.
“Go. Go. Go,” barked the dog.
They sped through streets past the automated warehouse, the dark matter distillery, and cut through the maze of pipe framed streets in the meteorite refinery in attempts to lose the pilots. There was no way the beasts could track Shakkurru now.
Owen yelled in his ear. “Let’s get this thing off the ground.”
Shakkurru tried, but his HUD showed a hover system failure.
“That little rat shot up the cycle. She won’t fly.”
Going that fast on the streets would draw the wrong sort of attention from local authorities. To truly be in the clear they needed to get on the freeway. Shakkurru set his GPS to find the best route to get up onto the elevated freeway, then used the display on his cycle to access the one-man flyer. It was difficult to do while driving, but he set the flyer to autopilot so it could pick them up. Now they just had to find a good spot to get the cycle into the lift. Otherwise he had no cockpit.
They entered the raised freeway no problem. The ramp ascended high above the port city, just below skytraffic. Shakkurru switched on a holomap so he could see his flyer’s location in comparison to his current location. The flyer was more than ten clicks away. If they could steer clear of trouble for just a little longer, they would be free.
Three mechs flew into view from either side of the freeway soaring alongside the damaged cycle.
Owen took the words out of his mouth. “How did that rat find us?”
Shakkurru used the cycles display to scan the bike and cursed. “One of those shots wasn’t a laser blast. It was a tracer.”
Shakkurru throttled the engine accelerating to dangerous speeds. Traffic forced him to bob and weave. The skyborne mechs kept up with them. The orange mech, Thocko’s, broke away from the rest and zoomed ahead. One shot from his mega cannon was all it took to demolish an entire section of the raised freeway. Shakkurru slammed on the breaks, locking the cycle up. The cycle wobbled then slipped on the slick surface still wet from the previous rainfall. He and Owen fell headlong over the handles and slid on the freeway for a ways before scraping to a halt.
“Oh Terrans,” moaned Owen. “That hurts.”
“Up. Quick.” Shakkurru ignited his blade, trying to follow his own command. Though the exosuit quickened his movement and provided a layer of armor, it did little to cushion against a collision with concrete. He shook off the pain as best he could.
The pulse rifle lay a few meters from Owen. He crawled over to it and got up with a limp.
Thocko parked his mech right at the edge of the drop off he created. Apparently Cedric and the gang wanted to savor the moment, punish them slowly.
The cement shook as the remaining two mechs cut their thrusters and tested the load capacity of the freeway. The drugs must have really done a number on the gang’s comprehension levels, giving them enhanced bravado.
Shakkurru was cornered but not dead. He did the last thing they anticipated. He turned and charged Cedric’s mech.
7
His exosuit amplified his speed. And compared to the mechs he was a small target. Armed with those two advantages plus the element of surprise, Shakkurru was a force to be reckoned with. He bounded up Cedric’s small mech, this time his exosuit magnetized to the hull. As he climbed his drove his blade into the armor, dragging up as he went. He split the first layer of armor open, exposing crucial interior.
Cedric swatted a mech arm but Shakkurru backflipped off of him. His mini thrusters sent him in an arc over to Quintyn’s mech. Cedric was so flustered and loaded that he opened friendly fire on his bird companion. Shakkurru moved like a spider over the sleek merlot surface as Cedric’s Gatling gun tore into the light armor of the Precision-class suit. The birdman’s mech tottered then slumped to the freeway, out for the count. Shakkurru rode it to the ground, then dove behind it for cover. He wanted to laugh but his dampener prevented him. In a matter of moments he had damaged two mechs while on foot.
But his reveling would have to wait.
Cedric took the easy target. He shifted his mech to face Owen who had moved behind the dropped cycle. Even as stout as he was, the cycle offered him little cover. Either Cedric or Thocko could take him out in a matter of microclicks. Not to mention they would destroy Shakkurru’s only ride off the planet in the process.
Shakkurru had no time to cross the distance and attack the orange mech. He doubted that Cedric would fall for the same trick twice. Even drugged, he had to realize the mistake he made in shooting up his companion’s mech.
Still, Shakkurru had to try. Perhaps he could score an attack on the ape’s mech while drawing Cedric’s fire away from Owen. He launched himself at Thocko.
Before he crossed half of the distance between them, heliCOP chopper bots flew into view. Their red and blue flashing lights played across the overcast sky.
“Power down your mech suits, or you will be neutralized.” The mechanical amplified voice of the heliCOP bots echoed across the freeway.
Wanting no part of a firefight between the mechs and local law enforcement, Shakkurru switched his trajectory to meet Owen at the cycle.
Everything went to the scrap pile in a matter of moments.
In his drugged state, Thocko thought he could take on local law enforcement and swiveled his mech weapons on them. The orange suit was heavily armored, but also outnumbered. Thocko finished off the heliCOP bots sending them into spiraling falls, but the downed law enforcement bots were replaced by additional support. The orange mech took to the skies in an attempt to flee the COP bots.
Cedric’s amplified voice cut through the chaos. “You filthy psycho Terran. I’m going to torture you, then dissect you alive and force your mutt to eat the remains.”
Shakkurru would have met the rat’s threat head on, but his flyer descended onto the freeway, hovering meters away from the cycle. All he had to do was wheel the cycle over and hope that it was not so damaged that he could not get off this forsaken dump of a planet.
“Push, push!” he yelled at Owen. Together they lifted the cycle and edged it closer to the flyer.
Electrical bolts crackled around Cedric’s ion cannon as he charged it up for a blast.
“Almost there,” said Shakkurru, straining to get the cycle rolling.
A flash of light blinded him.
8
Electrical currents coursed through Shakkurru. He doubled over, his spine contorting, limbs forced inward, every part of him dominated into the fetal position. Something inside him snapped. The pain grew tenfold as if he experienced it for the first time. He tried to cry out but only drool escaped his lips.
The surges stopped. Shakkurru gasped for air. Whiffs of his own burned hair churned his stomach. When his ears stopped ringing, he heard the boom of a pump action pulse rifle. His rifle.
Owen hefted it, laying cover fire for Shakkurru, though it was too big and not intended for the small paw hands of a corgi anthro.
“Quick, Shakkurru. I managed to shoot into that gouge you cut with the pulse blade. I think his mech malfunctioned. But it won’t last long. Come on, pal.”
Shakkurru took Owen’s offered paw and got to his knees. His body ached from head to toe. The exosuit now seemed like dead weight. And something else held him down. Something intangible. His apathy fled, out of sight. Excitement replaced it. And the foolhardy joy of friendship being tested. And fear.
The electrical surge had fried his implant, making his dampener nonexistent. At least that was how Shakkurru accounted for the sudden flood of emotions overwhelming him. It was almost too much to bear.
They pushed the cycle the remaining meters until it was close enough to inject itself back into the flyer and resume its dual feature as the cockpit.
Shakkurru eyed the flyer and froze. There was only enough room for himself. The hatch opened and before he knew it, Owen shoved him inside. The hatch closed before Shakkurru could object.
“Just go,” woofed Owen. “I’ll be fine.”
***
He need not worry about Owen. But his opponent—that was another matter. Cedric clung to the flyer the same way his pulse rifle magnetized to his exosuit. No matter what maneuvers he performed, the Stealth-class mech stayed one click behind him.
Apparently when Cedric shot the hovercraft feature, he also shut down Shakkurru’s ability to communicate with Robutler via the flyer’s consol. Shakkurru could also not rely on autopilot as that feature was damaged as well. He would have to pilot the flyer off of Strayn IV and all the way back to Galegold manually.
Shakkurru’s expertise lay outside the cockpit. Sure he was an apt driver on the cycle, but Cedric piloted a mech for a living. The rat’s machine was designed for scenarios like this. To make matters worse, Shakkurru’s flyer was not armed to the teeth with weaponry like the Stealth-class suit. In fact his flyer was not even armed at all. An oversight on the part of his master and Robutler.
But maybe Shakkurru could use that to his advantage.
He redirected his course. The console displayed holographic lanes that were clear for leaving Strayn IV. He cut a path across all of the open departure lanes into the crowded inbound lanes monitored by the strato guard. The flyer’s console lit up with alarms. Doubtless the strato guard tried in vain to hail Shakkurru, to warn him he was driving illegally through oncoming sky traffic. But that was the point. By the time they detected his little flyer, he would already be past them. Cedric on the other hand would not be so lucky. His armed and firing mech would draw the bulk of the attention if he dared to even follow.
He dared.
Shakkurru leaned forward in the cockpit biting his lip. He wove his flyer over and under, through and around cargo ships, space freighters, and strato guards alike. Cedric still fired shots at him, but reserved them for clearer openings. Sweat beads ran down Shakkurru’s face. His hands ached from the vice grip he held the joystick controls in. He skimmed the edges of other ships even closer. The console alarm filled the cockpit like an upbeat cyberclub, matching the thumping of Shakkurru’s heart.
He banked hard and Cedric tried to follow. His mech clipped the hull of a cargo ship. Being a much heavier mass, the ship barely moved. Cedric’s mech was thrown into a vicious spin.
Shakkurru yipped in victory, then noticed he was on a trajectory to collide with two stratos guards that were crossing paths, trying to cut him off for detainment.
He celebrated too soon. He was caught. And not only would his master not bail him out, he would engage the red button. Even if Shakkurru was out of range this far away from Galegold, his master would send someone to dispose of him so that none of this mess could be traced back to Balak. If Shakkurru was lucky, Balak would put a bounty out for him. If not, Shakkurru would be facing AS-05. The thought of meeting his double in combat sent chills down his spine.
He shook his head. The stratos guards were closing the gap, but there was still a chance. His options were either to die later in a Strayn IV cell or flirt with death while escaping. He sent all power to the rear thrusters and punched the joysticks forward. At the last milliclick he sent the flyer into a barrel roll. The flyer shot through the stratos ships and into deep space.
***
Shakkurru did not let off of the thrusters until Strayn IV was a blip on the consol. Nothin
g but stars and nebulas stretched across the horizon. When he finally eased off the thrusters, he also let out a long breath. He allowed himself to ease back in his seat. But he did not feel at ease himself.
Sure, he made it off of Strayn IV alive. He had accomplished the mission. But there had been many witnesses, not the least of which were the mech pilots themselves. As far as he knew none of them were dead. They all had a visual on him at one point in the altercation. With their combined knowledge, they would have a good description of him, his hovercycle, and his flyer.
But space was as vast as it was dark. His exosuit was unregistered. That meant that when other HUDs scanned him, their holographs returned with nothing. And the credentials Robutler provided the Strayn IV stratos guard were fabricated. If Cedric attempted a scan of his flyer during their dog fight, his HUD would have drawn another blank. Shakkurru did not exist. It was a blessing and a curse. Shakkurru drew in a quivering breath. He hoped his nonexistence was enough to appease his master. What he would not give to be back in the cryo chamber. Perhaps this was all a nightmare. Perhaps he slept even now. But the thoughts were not comforting. The edge that the dampener took off of his emotions was gone. His joys and fears bit into him like a poisonous cometcobra.
He recalled his nanovisor had a chunk taken out of it. He could not check in for a status report even if he wanted to. That truth held more significance, though. Robutler had not witnessed the worst of it. That meant Shakkurru was free to embellish or retract incidents about the ordeal in his favor. No need to tell Balak all of the details. He had the whole trip back to think up his report.
Shakkurru told himself that would be enough. It would work. And afterward he could go back into cryostasis and forget all of this mess and rest in peaceful dreams of Hanae.
9
Galegold’s city lights cast long shadows across Master Balak’s high-rise office.