Necropolis 2 (18 page)
Authors: S. A. Lusher
They ascended a few stories, and came to an identical lobby. The fighting had mostly died down, Greg saw as they continued sprinting through the titanic metal tomb the
Anubis
had become. Dark Ops and the Augmented were retreating. The Undead were indifferent to this development, opting to hound their fleeing enemies instead. Nine minutes became eight, then seven. By the time they actually hit a hangar, they had two minutes left.
“
There,” Campbell screamed, pointing to a single jump ship still resting in its cradle.
A small squad of Dark Ops survivors raced for it as well.
“Kill them!” Greg roared.
He raised his pistol and fired as he ran for the ship. He took one of them in the knee. The man screamed and fell to the ground. He was down, so Greg immediately turned his attention to the next target. Beside him, Kyra and Campbell picked off targets. Greg squeezed the trigger and took another man through the neck.
The last trooper went down. Most of them had survived and were now lying on the ground, firing potshots as Greg and the others. It was enough for Greg. He hurried up the ramp and around to the back of the ship. Opening the ramp, he peered into the interior. Nothing within. He got inside, then turned to Campbell.
“
Get this thing going.”
“
Oh,
now
you're gonna trust me?”
“
You're the only one that can fly this fucking thing!” Greg screamed.
Campbell
seemed to agree with this assessment and hurried off to the cockpit. As soon as Kyra was onboard, Greg closed the back ramp and collapsed into one of the seats as Campbell sped through the warmup procedures.
“
Here we go,” Campbell called back to them.
The ship rumbled as Kyra sat down next to Greg. He simply held onto her and waited. He didn't want to think anymore, didn't want to do anything. He was too tired. Out the window, he saw the ship cycling through the airlock. All around them, a tremendous rumble began to shake everything. The engines must be going, Greg realized.
He tensed, expecting death, but the ship managed to clear the airlock. It burst out into the dead of space. Slowly, Greg lurched to his feet. He walked to the back and stared out the window built into the cargo ramp.
Behind them, the
Anubis
came apart. Flames rippled along its length. Explosions flared in the darkness, tearing the hull apart and sputtering out as the oxygen that supported them was sucked into space. Kyra joined him by the window. They continued to speed away from the
Anubis
. So did several other vessels, jump ships, escape pods and troop transports, like rats from a sinking ship. The explosions continued tearing the ship apart, ultimately reaching a massive climax where the entire thing disappeared in a brief, though brilliant, ball of flame.
When the flames died away, all that was left was a huge field of debris, flying away in all directions.
“Holy shit,” Greg whispered. “I can't believe we pulled that off.”
“
Yeah. We must be pretty good,” Kyra replied.
They both stood there for a long moment, watching the drifting metal fragments.
“Campbell,” Greg said after a few minutes. “Get in touch with Powell and Cage.”
“
Way ahead of you, apparently...they're contacting us right now,” Campbell called back from the cockpit.
Greg and Kyra turned and made their way into the cockpit. Greg grabbed the radio and activated it.
“What's going on?” he asked.
“
It's all gone to hell,”
Powell replied.
“
What do mean?” Greg felt fear stab at him.
“
The Drones, they attacked the ship.”
Here, Powell hesitated.
“Cage stayed behind.”
“
What?”
“
He stayed behind to hold them off so that I could get the bomb onto a ship and escape. Listen, the situation has become untenable. Only four of the initial ships are still around, all the others went critical and blew up. None of the others have functional engines anymore. We need to get to the last place in this system that might still have a ship with an FTL drive. Those mining colonies on that moon. And we need to do it fast.”
“
Powell, what about Cage? About Erebus and Dark Ops? What about-”
“
Greg, you're not hearing me. This situation is no longer tenable. We're running out of time,”
Powell replied, his voice monotone.
Kyra grabbed the radio. “What the fuck are you talking about, Powell?”
“Dark Ops panicked, just like they did before, with Dis. They've set the local star to go supernova. This entire system is going to be destroyed in forty eight hours.”
Dark Nexus Fiction is a self-publishing studio dedicated to bringing a wide variety of reasonably
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S. A. Lusher has been writing consistently for nearly a decade now and is a great lover of horror fiction. He provides content, editing, formatting and uploading.
http://www.facebook.com/authorsalusher
M. Knepper has been writing for even longer and operates primary on the far side of 'experimental fiction'. He provides content, editing and cover art.
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Regular updates for Dark Nexus Fiction can be found at:
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