Spartan’s second mistake is leaving
himself exposed to an attack when he was trying to lord over me.
I rush him before he can prepare for an
attack. With one hand I rip his gun out of his grip and with the other, I punch
him in the gut.
Let me tell you something, hitting
someone in the gut is a lot more effective when they aren’t wearing power
armour.
Spartan recovers quickly as he tries to
kick the side of my knee. It is even less effective than my gut punch. I had
the element of surprise and the superior suit of armour.
I react, leaning back to avoid a swipe
from Spartan. I fly into the air to avoid further attacks.
Bad move.
I’ve gotten use to fighting weaker foes that
lack the firepower to shot me out of the air. Spartan’s people have that sort
of firepower.
I glance at Spartan’s people, wondering
why they haven’t opened fire yet. They’re fight with Darrac is going poorly
from them. The space pirate has already taken two of them down and disarmed
most of the rest.
I finch as Spartan punches me in the
head and sends me flying. I got distracted in a fight again. At least this
time, armour has protected me from any harm beyond the shock of getting hit.
I stabilise myself near the edge of the
carrier. Where’s Spartan?
I spot trying to flying into me and I
dodge to the side. Spartan crashes into his own carrier deck.
That’s when I get hit when I’m not looking
a second time.
I stagger away, spinning somewhat. In my
daze, I raise my arms and get a lock on with my lasers. I fire them and attempt
to regain my balance.
I don’t get a chance to see if I hit
anything or anyone before Spartan grabs me. He pins me to the ground and starts pounding
my helmet.
What do? It’s hard to think when you got
someone trying to pound your head in.
I hear a scream and something smashes
into Spartan. I roll over as his grip breaks and fire my lasers.
There’s no
target for me to hit when I look a second later.
I need a better view and I can risk
getting shot at.
I fire up my rocket pack and zoom into
the air. A single look gives me all the information I need. Half of Spartan’s
bounty hunters are down, a few severely injured while Darrac is easily taking
out the rest. He even had time to throw one at Spartan, which was what broke
his grip on me.
I focus on Spartan and aim and fire my
lasers in rapid succession. They leave melted holes that don’t go all the way
through in his armour. Spartan snarls and leaps at me. I ready a punch and
smash faceplate in as soon as he comes in range.
Spartan falls and crashes into the deck
again.
I fly higher as fast as I can when I
hear a thundering boom. The carrier’s guns have decided to open fire.
I cut the fuel to my rocket pack and
drop to the deck. I doubt the carrier’s gunners will risk damaging or destroyed
the carrier itself.
I look at Darrac. He’s finishing off the
last two of Spartan’s people. He slashes one across the chest with his spikes,
tearing through the armour and into the flesh below with ease.
Even though I can tell the wound isn’t
deep enough to do fatal damage, it still has to really hurt. Darrac kicks the
man’s leg and the armour crunches. The man screams before fainting with pain.
I focus back on Spartan. He is still recovering
from my last attack and has discarded his helmet. I’m surprised by this
appearance. A firm, rugged face with a mane of long black hair.
And there is a minigun in his hands. I
can’t believe I almost missed that.
“Surrender!” snarls Spartan, “Or die!”
When most people meet a crazy man in a
suit of power armour holding a minigun tells you to surrender or die, you do as
he says.
I am not most people.
I roll forward and fire off two
electro-spyders at Spartan’s exposed flesh. He pulls the trigger, but barely
gets few shots off. The spyders electrocute Spartan as the bullets pass over my
head.
“Should have let us go,” I mutter at
him, “How you are Darrac?”
“All down with no fatal injuries,” says
Darrac, “I took a bad hit to my right leg.”
I turn around to face him and get a
better look at his injury. The armour around his lower right leg is cracked and
Darrac clearly has limp.
“You really ought to get that looked
at,” I tell him.
“I’m a Neriarr,” says Darrac, “Injuries
are fact of everyday life for us. Those that cannot cope do not make it.”
“What’s a Neriarr?” I ask him.
“That’s what my people call ourselves,”
answers Darrac, “The human sub-breeds created by the Sektain that is. I’m
unsure of what the Earth word is.”
“We don’t have one,” I tell him, “Like
with Black Storm’s invasion, not many people seem to care about it afterward or
place any value in the threat that was posed by the Sektain Invasion. Only
those that were involved or had friends or family that were involved took them
seriously.”
“A pity,” sighs Darrac, “Civilians never
believe in danger until it is at their gates.”
I hear a thump on the other end of the
carrier and spot an unwelcome sight.
The Machine.
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