The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (8 page)

Arya turned her
attention back to the task at hand. “How’s it going, Karg?”

“Almost done.
These rounds should have enough of a Corminium coating to achieve reaction, but
still fit the weapon tolerances.”

Under normal
conditions, Nick would have been studying the apparatus in the lab, trying to
learn more about this new alien technology, but that was far from his thoughts.
He was focused on the enemy and how to get home. “Know when to fight,” he said
under his breath. “And when to run.”

“Nick.”

He glanced up to
see Arya tossing a pistol through the air toward him. He reached out, plucked
it out of the air, and looked back at her. By her stern look, Nick knew the
time had finally come to fight. He held the pistol up and gave a nod, happy
they trusted him enough to give him a weapon. “Thanks.”

“It has a full
clip, and I disabled the plasma converter,” Arya remarked as she loaded spare
clips into her pockets.

The pistol was
amazingly light weight.  Even with the full 144 round clip the gun was
half the weight Nick expected. He wondered how the pistol’s light weight would
affect its accuracy. Guess he would find out soon enough.

On their way
out, Arya stopped near the door and aimed her pistol at a cabinet across the
room. With hardly a sound, and too fast to see, a round flew from the barrel
and impacted the cabinet. A loud bang rang out from the cabinet, accompanied by
a red flash. The blast left a nice round hole seared through the cabinet door.
A small puff of smoke rolled from the hole and floated toward the ceiling.

“Just checking,”
she said as she turned to leave. “At least we know they work.”

“Against
cabinets,” Nick added.

Arya called to
Argos on the bridge. “Captain, we’re ready.”

Argos answered
back over her com. “Good work, now get those freking things off my ship. More
will be here soon.”

The group made
their way back to the hangar and approached the doorway cautiously.

Nick held his
pistol at the ready. “What’s the range of these?” he whispered.

“With the new
modifications, I’m not sure. I think they should be accurate to at least fifty
urks.”

“Um, okay,
what’s an urk?” Nick’s nanites weren’t translating that one.

“Oh, um…it’s
about from here to the module. Sorry…your nanites don’t know how to convert
things like distances or time until we give them some parameters. Then it will
translate. We’ll take care of that later.” Arya paused to glance at him. “If we
survive this.”

Karg
interrupted. He turned to Nick and Arya, hunched over as low as he could get.
“They can’t see us because of the crates. We’ll sneak in and spread out. When I
give the signal, take out the Mok’tu closest to you. The more targets we give
them, the less they will be able to concentrate their fire. I can only see
three, so watch out for the other two.”

Nick gave the
big guy a nod and tried to mentally prepare himself for the fight ahead. Arya
moved left behind a row of crates as Karg went right. Nick positioned himself a
short distance from where they entered, crouching down behind the safety of a
crate. At least he was close to the door in case they needed to retreat.

“Now!” Karg’s
thunderous voice startled Nick.

“Shit!  I
wasn’t ready yet,” Nick muttered to himself.

With no choice
but to go into action, Nick popped up from behind the crate and fired two
rounds right between the eyes of one of the Mok’tu before ducking for cover
again. The Mok’tu reacted quickly, releasing several rounds from its
Gatling-gun style plasma rifle. The shots landed a little too close to Nick for
comfort, blowing pieces out of the large crate that protected him. He shook the
debris from his hair and ducked behind another nearby crate.

From his left,
the loud thunder of plasma rifle blasts split the silence again. It was easy to
recognize the distinct discharge as that of the powerful Tac Squad rifles. They
had a uniquely lower pitch than Karg’s rifle, and considerably more power.
Another exchange of weapons-fire erupted and then everything quickly fell
silent. The shots seemed to have emanated from the corner where Arya had been
moments earlier. The sudden silence didn’t bode well.

“Arya!” A surge
of adrenaline cut Nick’s cry in half.  Where the hell was she? 
Dammit! Where was she? Fearing the worst, Nick frantically swept the area with
his gaze. From all appearances, these biomechanoids could rip a person in two
with very little effort.  He didn’t like the thought of Arya meeting such
a gruesome end.

Just as he was
mustering the nerve to go after her, a Mok’tu soldier stepped from around the
corner and into his line of sight. 

“You bastards!”
he yelled, his voice echoing around the huge hangar bay.

With lightning
quick reflexes, Nick swung his pistol toward the approaching enemy. Before he
could squeeze off a shot, the Mok’tu fell forward onto its face with a hollow
metallic thud. A puff of smoke trailed up from its head, and a stream of thick
red fluid oozed onto the floor from its shiny skull. The Mok’tu was dead.

Much to Nick’s
relief, Arya stepped out from around the corner.  She smiled as their eyes
met.

“It took him
longer to die than I expected,” she said with a thankful sigh.

Nick struggled
to catch his breath. His heart was still in overdrive from the massive amount
of adrenaline being pumped into his veins. The roar of the weapons and the
pounding of his heart left his ears ringing with an annoyingly loud hum. He
managed to pull himself together and get in a couple of breaths before spotting
something moving out of the corner of his eye.

“Look out!” Nick
warned, as another Mok’tu rounded the corner behind Arya. The huge mechanical
soldier towered over Arya’s small frame. With her so close to it, Nick would
never get a clean shot in time.

Arya spun around
to bring her gun to bear, but she was too late. The enemy swung its powerful
arm, sending her pistol flying across the bay, and knocking her to the ground.
Without a second of hesitation, the metal soldier was over her.  It bent
forward and grabbed Arya with its robotic arm, picking her up off the floor and
raising her to eye level. Its long, cold, metal fingers wrapped all the way
around to the back of her neck, clutching her tightly in an icy grip.

Arya was now
face to face with the Mok’tu, staring into its unsympathetic visual receptors.
As she hung there frantically kicking at it, she tried desperately to pry its
huge fingers loose with her hands. It was no use, the metal monster was going
to squeeze the life from her body and there was nothing she could do about it.

Nick’s finger
was poised on the trigger, ready to shoot, itching to kill the bastard. But he
hesitated as he assessed the situation. Arya was so close to the Mok’tu that
the plasma blast from his pistol might kill her. But if he didn’t act quickly,
the mechanoid soldier could snap her head clean off.

“Shoot!” Arya
screamed, her muffled voice barely leaving her tightly clamped throat. “Shoot
the freking thing!”

Nick squeezed
off eight rounds in one rapid burst. As the rounds met their target, smoke
poured from the Mok’tu’s metal skull, but the beast didn’t move. Nick sprinted
toward the towering hulk, emptying another five rounds into its head as he drew
closer. The Tac Soldier seemed unaffected.

“Why isn’t it
dying?” Nick yelled.

The soldier just
stood there motionless with Arya flailing around in its grip. Nick pushed his
legs into a flat out run, planning on using the momentum and his own body as a
ramming device. When he was close enough to the Tac Soldier, he lunged feet
first into the beast, kicking it square in the hip in an attempt to knock it
off its feet. The monstrosity didn’t budge. It was like hitting a brick wall.
The impact jarred Nick’s spine and sent him bouncing off. He landed hard on his
left shoulder. The impact pushed the air out of his lungs and caused him to
bite his lip by accident. He barely missed hitting his head on the floor
beneath him.

“Crap!” he
cursed. The damn thing was solid as a granite mountain. No wonder everyone was
so afraid of them.

Ignoring the
pain in his body, he rolled nimbly and was back on his feet in seconds. With
precision born of instinct and training, Nick aimed his pistol at the eight
foot tall Mok’tu’s head and fired another burst of rounds. A stream of hot liquefied
brains flowed out of the skull and dripped down the Mok’tu’s body. But the
massive, silver hulk remained standing.

Arya still hung
helplessly in the hulk’s grip, staring at the metal soldier’s expressionless
face while steamy red liquid oozed down its neck and dripped onto the hangar
bay deck. She struggled uselessly against the Mok’tu’s grasp as the beast’s
metal legs began to buckle. The Mok’tu slowly collapsed to the floor with her
neck still held tightly in its powerful mechanical hand. Pinned under the
heavy, lifeless monster, she lay on the floor, fighting to get free. “Get this
thing off me!” she screamed in a panic.

“I’m on it!”
Nick pushed at the dead soldier’s torso.  He had to strain every muscle in
his body just to push the thing off of her. It rolled over onto the floor with
a metallic clank. Nick stared down into Arya’s frantic face. She looked up at
him in desperation, still hopelessly trapped by the Mok’tu’s huge metal hand
clasped around her neck. A tear rolled from the corner of her eye. She was
scared.  She was actually scared. Nick was surprised by her sudden show of
vulnerability. Until this moment, she had always been strong and in control.
He’d never seen fear in her before.

“I guess we’re
not so different, after all,” Nick mused.

Arya whimpered
as she gazed up at him. 

“It’s alright.
I’ve got you,” he soothed as he bent forward to help her.

Nick pried the
lifeless mechanical hand loose from Arya’s throat. As soon as she was free, she
rolled away from the thing and lay gasping on the floor, struggling for air.
 

The sight and
smell of the Mok’tu’s liquefied remains pooling on the cold metal deck was
enough to make Nick wince in disgust. The choking stench was somewhat like
burnt hair mixed with vomit. He pulled away, throwing his arm over his nose to
block the stomach-turning stink. “Ugh, they even smell bad.” He wouldn’t forget
that aroma anytime soon.

“What took you
so long? It could have killed me.” Arya held her throat and coughed several
times, still trying to get a good breath.

“I was af—” The
sound of weapons-fire stopped Nick from finishing.

Concerned for
Karg’s safety, they both jumped up to see where the shots originated. They
peered over the crates. Two Mok’tu stood in an open section of the bay. One of
the beasts fell immediately to the floor, its skull billowing smoke. The other
swung its rifle around to fire at Karg who stood nearby.

Before his
friends could react, Karg ran and leapt into the air, his feet flying in the
direction of his adversary. The Mok’tu released a barrage of rounds from its
rifle, trying to get a bead on the advancing target, but Karg’s amazing speed
didn’t give it the chance. The shots flew under Karg, one barely grazing his
leg as he soared through the air.

Karg’s foot
landed square on its mark, forcing his prey’s head down to the floor. His
massive weight smashed the Mok’tu’s armor skull against the hangar deck,
crushing it almost flat. Red gunk squirted out onto the deck from under Karg’s
huge foot as the Mok’tu’s brain was squashed like a watermelon that had been
run over by a tank.

“That’s four,”
Arya said. She quickly surveyed the hangar. “Where’s the last one?”

Loud metallic
sounds echoed through the bay, like a huge metal door being unlocked.

Arya looked
around, her ears twisting as she listened intently to the strange noises. “I’ve
never heard the ship make
that
noise before.” As she turned back to
Nick, her eyes widened. “I have a bad feeling about…this…. Frek! Run!”

Arya grabbed
Nick’s arm and pulled him in the direction of the door. “Karg, get out!” she
yelled over her shoulder as she ran.

A rush of air
howled through the doorway that led to the hangar, driving against them as they
tried to escape. Fine grains of dirt kicking up from the corridor floor stung
Nick’s cheeks as it pelted him in the face. The two struggled to reach the
door, but the air’s velocity quickly increased until gale force winds swept
Arya backwards through the air and over Nick’s head. He instinctively reached
up, grabbed her leg, and held on tight as she floundered like a kite in a stiff
breeze. The tug of Arya’s body fluttering in the tornado-like vortex yanked
Nick over and onto his back. The wind dragged them toward the other side of the
hangar, where Nick managed to grab onto a heavy crate in an attempt to anchor
the two of them in place.

Arya pulled
herself down Nick’s arm and hung onto the crate with one hand, her feet drawn
upward by the violent torrent of wind moving through the bay.

Nick’s lungs
hurt. The air pressure was dropping. And fast. He struggled to catch his breath
in the lower oxygen level, but it was no use. The swirling sensation of
lightheadedness was already upon him. If he could only get to his ship. One
good breath from the module’s oxygen supply would keep him from passing out.

At least Arya
seemed to be holding out. The firm grasp of her hand around his arm was
evidence enough of that.

Nick struggled
to maintain his grip, but he could feel himself fading fast.

Suddenly, the
rush of air stopped and the two crashed to the floor.

“What the hell
was that?” Nick spoke between gasps, his lungs burning for more oxygen.

Arya huffed back
a reply. “The Mok’tu breached the hull to get on board. Their breaching craft
must have detached, leaving a hole to space. Which means one of those baskurts
is getting away!” She looked around with a puzzled expression. “But…why did the
vortex stop?”