Lokians 1: Beyond the End of the World (37 page)

The first bullet hit. Its impact moved
through chitin like a wave. The Lokian was already falling by the
time the second bullet blew its head to dust. The carcass, carried
by its momentum, slid to his feet before the condensates froze the
bug over. Time returned to normal.

“
I think more are coming, Sir! You keep
moving. I’ll hold them off.”

“
Right, catch up to us,” O’Hara yelled
back.

They took off behind the captain as the
sniper saw more wasps approaching. “Nique ta mere,” he said and
fired. With the threat averted, he popped his neck and bolted to
catch up. Hands yanked him into another corridor. “Whoo!”

“
I got you, Frenchy,” Fitzpatrick
yelled.

Both of them darted off to meet the rest of
the crew just around the bend. Swain inspected a ribbed,
culvert-like floor, which declined steadily into blackness.
Nandesrikahl knelt and rubbed his fingertip against the ground. It
was covered with viscous material.

“
This will make moving a little
difficult,” he said as he stood.

Probably some kind of flushing area
,
O’Hara thought.
If where ever this is fills up with goo, we
might be done.
He checked his map again.

“
We just need to run about a quarter
mile down this corridor and take it to a raising platform. That
places use directly underneath the control room.”

“
Trouble ahead, Captain,” Franklin
said, calm as ever.

Two brawlers came barreling from the darkened
recess. They were made evident by their glowing, red, eye slit. A
mechanical groan escaped their mandibles.

“
No sweat! Big guns time,” Swain
yelled.

He pointed the mini gun at the beasts and
fired a flurry of bullets. The weapon pulsated violently as casings
spilled from his portable, devastation device. The BEC ammo froze
over after every impact, and the big man kept cheering, snarling,
and grunting.

The Lokians stumbled from the ceaseless
onslaught. Their shoulders, thighs, faces, everything froze over;
cracking and gushing, ooze sprayed every which way. O’Hara ended it
by pointing his photon gun, squeezing the trigger, and blowing the
assailants to trash with just a few beams.

“
That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout,” Swain
strutted around.

“
C’mon, Swain, we gotta’ move,” O’Hara
chuckled.

“
Can I make a weapon, or can I make a
weapon?”

“
Go, lummox,” Fitzpatrick
groaned.

Jogging onwards while the agents snickered
and Day and Nandy made awed comments about the weapons, O’Hara
spotted a dead end. It was something like a chitinous, bay door,
ribbed, and it spanned indefinitely above and out wide. He turned
to the crew.

“
What now,” Day yelped.

“
No problem. Swain! Blow that thing
down,” O’Hara ordered.

He stepped back and motioned with his head
for everyone to get away. “Time to T.C.B., baby,” Swain yelled.

Adams and Franklin exchanged a look and shook
their heads. A giddy Swain fired into the door. Chunks of it froze
over. It was riddled with holes; frozen segments imploded with a
puff of ice. O’Hara touched Swain’s shoulder.

It was evident that the barrier wasn’t going
down easily, and no one wanted to waste too much ammo. The captain
unleashed photon fury into the frozen portions, resulting in an
opening the size of a dog.

“
Okay,” he huffed and made to lift his
leg.

Something jostled them, and he stopped with
his foot at the hole. Fitzpatrick leapt into him, taking him to the
ground. Deafening, metallic droning ensued; a steel claw grabbed at
the opening from beyond the door, and tore it away with brain
rattling crunches.

Before them stood a six legged juggernaut, a
monster big as a house. All they saw was a crab-like torso mounted
to a ball joint, which hooked the legs’ platform. The sheer girth
of the beast was enough to stun them, but silvery cannons grew out
of the back and shoulder plates.

Everyone scurried off in different
directions, except DeReaux; he only stepped back and exhaled. The
juggernaut was covered in metal plating. Vital tubes ran under the
plates, exposing very small targets. The Lokian’s head was also
armored, but there was a single, organic eye in its forehead.
Unfortunately, there was a lens, something like glass, covering the
black, beady, optic.

I got this
, DeReaux smiled. He lifted
his rifle, peered through the scope, and aimed for the lens. He
fired, and the bullet smacked the optic, knocking the creature back
a step, but it spun its torso, raising its clawed appendages. The
sniper was unable to duck in time, and he went flying into
Adams.

“
Gotcha’, buddy,” the agent
giggled.

He shoved the sniper away, rolled, and drew
his batons. Before he struck, the juggernaut aimed at Fitzpatrick
and fired an orange beam.

“
Aw, shit,” Swain yelled and shoved
her.

She hit the ground just before the beam
struck, but it was a continuous blast, which inched over her thigh.
She hollered out. Nandy was quick to pull her away from more
damage.

O’Hara and Swain fired everything they had,
back peddling. Swinging wildly, firing orange blasts, and charging
around like a crazed bull, the beast was unfazed by the crew’s
assaults. The agents struck legs, but they received lightning quick
kicks, which sent them reeling dozens of feet.

Rolling his shoulders, DeReaux tried to make
another opportunity. He aimed slow and steady through his scope at
the eye and fired. Only an icy patch formed, which melted away as
soon orange lasers came flying out. The sniper rolled onto his
right shoulder, aimed, and fired again.

Shaking its head, the juggernaut lurched out
for him.
Shit,
the Frenchman thought. Even with slow motion,
the enemy was too quick. To his utter amazement, the plated arm was
thrown off course by icy impacts; Swain unleashed cold fury,
allowing the sniper to duck and scuttle off to safety.

Nandesrikahl and Fitzpatrick watched Franklin
throw strange grenades that erupted as white arcs. Steel and chitin
went flying. Ooze ran down the beast’s arms, but there was no
stopping its blitzkrieg; whatever it was made of didn’t bow to
photons, BECs, or anything else, so they fired, hoping to make any
headway.

“
Captain,” Adams screamed. “Just take
Franklin and get through the hole. Go blow up the
queen!”

“
Shit,” O’Hara huffed. “No. Keep
fighting!”

The captain started yelling orders; he told
swain to aim for the ball joint. He was aiming at the legs, and he
needed DeReaux to keep firing at the eye. The assault stunned their
opponent, until it spun its torso in circles, venting massive
amounts of plasma from shoulder cannons.

With no alternative but to leap free from the
assault, they relinquished their attack, and ran off to regroup.
Unfortunately, wasps and brawlers came barreling into the mix.
O’Hara let out a sigh of disbelief.

“
Fall back! Back to the culvert,”
O’Hara called.

Tried as they did, their escape route was
barred. Day shot wildly at wasps. Adams tossed his photon grenades.
They flew like a white-hot boomerangs and exploded in arcs of
contained light. The wasps went down, but the brawlers pushed right
through.

One struck Day in the stomach, folding her
like a paper napkin. Breath shot out from her lungs before she
slammed into Fitzpatrick. The impact knocked them both out of the
reach of the juggernaut, whose claw came smashing down right
between them. Nandesrikahl fired at the beast, drew its rage, and
made to take off when his head bounced off a wall; a Lokian leapt
at him, smashed him against the tattered door, and just ripped him
apart.

“
Son of a bitch,” Franklin growled. He
snatched a shard grenade from his harness, crawled up the brawler’s
shell, reached over, jammed the grenade into its mouth, and held it
there. “Eat it! Eat it!”

At the very last second, he flipped
backwards. Part of the Lokian’s head popped off, but it was far
from dead.

“
Move it, Frankie,” Swain yelled and
took aim.

The agent bolted, and the big man peppered
the perpetrator with freezing ammo. O’Hara ran by to finish it off;
goo splattered everywhere. Behind him, orange beams sizzled through
the air. Fitzpatrick took off, firing, trying to draw the
juggernaut from the captain.

“
Listen to me, Captain,” she called.
“Adams was right. Get Franklin and go!”

“
No, God damnit, they killed
Nandy!”

“
I know!”

Gritting his teeth, DeReaux saw only angles
of attack. It was simple after all, the juggernaut was barely
moving, so far as he saw it. Every shot Day and Swain fired helped
to stall its reactions, and it was aiming for Fitzpatrick; what
little bits of tubes exposed from plating no longer seemed too
small to hit; they were enormous, bigger than a bullet.

Each shot he fired spilled more and more
fluids, ooze, which froze, corrupting the substance the beast used
to move, or attack, or live. The beast groaned something awful,
some gut wrenching, metallic belch. The sniper didn’t care; a
sublime peace washed over him.

He fired, side stepped, ducked from a swipe,
stuck his shoulder into a kicking leg to reduce its impact, bounced
off, slid to a stop, and fired again. He was laughing at the
simplicity; the creature was limited in its attacks, and the others
were handling whatever was left.

There was something bugging him, though. He
wasn’t able to put his finger on it what it was. Someone else did
it for him; Adams had been thrown, and he crashed right in to
DeReaux. With his concentration broken, he wasn’t able to dodge a
beam. Such pain wracked his chest, his lungs were emptied, and his
vision tunneled, but the blow had sent him out from under the
agent, and away from danger.

Adams pulled out a device resembling a fiber
optical cable, a bright, white rope. Since the sniper was
relatively fine, he ran to Fitzpatrick and Day, who were fighting
off one, last brawler. He had to leap over an orange beam, but on
arrival, he wrapped the cable around the brawler’s throat.

“
C’mon! C’mon,” the agent yelled as he
scurried about the monster.

Claws snapped at him. They didn’t tear
through his armor, but they certainly pinched nerves, tore muscles,
and twisted joints. The cable started sizzling, searing through the
alien, if slowly. In a fit of rage, the creature ran backwards,
smashing him into the door.

Franklin looked from Swain and O’Hara—they
were pulling the juggernaut away—to Day. She was kneeling over
Fitzpatrick and too scared the fire at the brawler in fear of
hitting Adams. With red batons blazing, he darted over to his
counterpart, smacked the brawler around to keep it from killing
Adams, and finally, its neck melted. When the head fell to the
floor, Adams booted it out of sight.

“
Creepy crawlies, that was a tough
one,” he choked.

“
C’mon,” Franklin huffed.

During the commotion, the juggernaut snatched
Swain’s mini gun. The man held firm, but the beast pulled, slamming
him against its head. Then, it took him square around the waist and
started squeezing the life out of him.

O’Hara ran up behind the Lokian hopped onto
the ball joint, and placed his rifle at the base of the enemy’s
skull. White beams cut clean through, but it spun and vented plasma
again, sending everyone to the ground.

The captain shook his head in desperation,
crying out, “What the fuck are we supposed to do?”

DeReaux had enough time to fire a shot into
the enemy’s optics. Both Adams and Franklin had reclaimed their
cables and were wrapping them around the alien’s legs in an attempt
to halt its movement.

Capitalizing on an opportunity, Fitzpatrick
pulled free from Day, rolled over the ground, took the mini gun
from the floor, slid beneath the Lokian, and let loose every, last
round into its undercarriage. When the monster spun again, the
swiveling joint shattered, and it fell on top of her. Gasping for
breath, she wretched and choked. The agents responded quickly,
pulling it off her, but even without legs, the juggernaut continued
its onslaught, snapping with claws, firing orange beams all over,
aiming cannons and venting more plasma.

The superheated gas was on the verge of
boiling the crew and the Lokian. Bursts from O’Hara’s gun knocked
it onto its back. There, it continued writhing, so the captain
hopped on top of the chest plate, firing point blank. He dealt
serious damage until an orange beam struck him in the visor,
knocking him a dozen a feet in the air; he landed a crumpled
mess.

“
Okay,” Adams breathed “Alright. We’re
through here, pal.”

He snatched his last, photon grenade, stormed
over to the juggernaut, took hold of the top of its gargantuan
head, and by wrapping his legs about its neck, he managed to hold
the grenade against its eye. While he cackled like an asshole, the
bright light expanded then vanished. Adams careened to the ground,
unconscious.

Heavy breathing ensued. No one said a thing.
Franklin took some awkward steps before running over to his
partner. Among the remaining bits of the juggernaut, Adams lay
severely wounded, and missing most of his arm. The photons had
seared through his armor but the lockout system prevented loss of
pressure and life support. With three men down and no time to lose,
O’Hara stood and gave his orders.

“
We cross through this room and end
it.” His voice was ragged and gritty. “Fitzpatrick, take Adams’
explosive. Franklin, get ready. Day, see to the wounded.
DeReaux….”