“THEY’RE OVER THERE!—FIRE!” a male voice growled
from some fifty yards behind. This declaration followed by three non-sequential
bright-green directed lightning bolts, the first exploding against a tall dark
tree—the away team frantically ducked and covered their heads as they continued
running; the second immediately struck the ground just behind Jensen’s feet;
the third narrowly missed Maxon’s right shoulder, instead creating a splash in
a large mud puddle ahead.
Jensen
snapped and started running backwards, ignoring the sound of dirt crunching
under his boots—he visually confirmed four
hostiles were in immediate pursue, each roughly five feet tall and getting
taller as they drew closer, carrying heavy particle rifles—he quickly took
aim, adjusting for the fact this jungle
seemed to be bouncing up and down, and returned fire with four shots in rapid succession. He noted he nearly knocked out the
target on the far-right, but missed. NARROWLY,
he pressed his jaws together in frustration. He anticipated where they were aiming next and snapped, ducking
left, then right, feeling the warm scream of two green bolts, one narrowly
missing his left shoulder, the other nearly took his left ear off. He felt the
residual heat of the bolt on the left side of his face, but knew he was okay. He
snapped and took aim again, and then a knee, and fired—a red-orange bolt struck
the target squarely in the chest. The force of the bolt picked the target off
the ground as they tumbled into the air like a rag doll, loosely dropping their
rifle on the ground as they fell flat back-first unconscious on the ground. The
target’s chest glowed a circular dull faint dark red coloration which quickly
faded away. The other three pursuers raised their rifles and fired—Aaen heard
the hiss of the bolt and narrowly avoided a direct hit to his upper back.
Jonathan
snapped, took a knee behind a tree, leaned right, and fired back—the bolt struck
its target in the upper shoulder and was instantly pulled off its feet as it jerked
left and collapsed face-first in some dry dirt as its weapon loosely flew
several feet away.
Jensen
and Jonathan heard Aaen yell another direction he read from the scanner. They
stood up and continued running with the rest of the away team. Two more green
bolts narrowly took down Maxon and Aaen due to sheer distance, they both knew. Every
member of the away team could hear an entire army now coming after them,
both on the ground. . .and in the air.
Maxon
activated her communicator and held it to her mouth, “Mason, open the loading hatch! HURRY!” she shouted. The cloaking
device got a couple of extra hands to carry it the remaining distance to the
shuttle. The hatch was already starting to open. They all noted more footsteps, from who-knows-how-many different
directions! They all silently agreed—
—Maxon pointed
to the hatch and snapped, “Okay, get the
shuttle on-board and start working on find a way to secure it. We GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE! MOVE!” The away
team reacted with speed and precision as bolts of lightning sounded from
not-so-far-away. The cloaking device was quickly in the cabin as the away team
took their seats.
“Computer! Close the hatch!” Maxon
commanded. “Mason?” referred to what
she was hearing on the comm channels.
Mason quickly
turned around with a terrified look as numerous loud seemingly muffled
communicator transmissions sounded like they were competing for the same target. “They’re calling-in everything they’ve got on this planet, and
everything within high-translight distance.”
Oh, great—Aaen thought, withholding an exclamation,
sitting upright while hovering over his computer controls and looking at the
image of dense brush and shadows overcasting on the jungle surface in the
viewscreen.
“WOAH! WE’VE GOT CONTACT. . .coming from ten
o’clock to three—No. . .to TWO O’Clock! We’ve gotta get outta here, now!”
Jonathan declared, appearing shocked. Green particle beams scored the image on
the viewscreen—
—WE’RE UNDER FIRE! Aaen realized. He
snapped. “Captain?” The bridge turned
red with a flurry of alarms.
“TAKE US UP, MAXIMUM SPEED!”
YOU GOT IT! Aaen silently zealously replied.
Aaen wasn’t slow in carrying out the order. He brought the docking clamps up
first, then abruptly leaned left, glaring at the computer screen to his
immediate left. “Mason, make sure I’ve
got power in the thrusters!” he commanded as a flurry of green bolts
narrowly missed the hull—he noted the not-so-subtle sound of high-power particle
beam explosions against the surrounding rocks and the larger trees that were
visible, and multiple that were not. Aaen frantically adjusted the controls on
his screen. . .quickly switching to the thrusters. The hull sharply lifted off
in less than a second as Aaen noted the sound of brush slapping the hull as it
climbed above the dark shade, then Aaen increased the shuttle’s speed to full-impulse
and then immediately angled the nose to the sky. The only thing in the view
screen was blue sky and distant faint white cloud cover. They could still hear
the sharp, violent hiss of particle weapon fire from the surface. Aaen
manipulated the thrusters to subtly maneuver around the incoming fire. . . And
then there was none audible as the blue hue gradually turned a sharp black.
“Are
we—?” Maxon asked as another alarm sounded.
“Holy-cow! They’ve got every ship within a
half-parsec doing high-intensity scans for us!"
The sensor scans’ reverberating
hum was getting louder by the second,
Aaen noted, and he started wondering just
how long the stealth field was going to keep them hidden. . .
*****
Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."
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