Into The Fire

Prologue-2

Novol slipped into the forest, ducking between the trees, hiding in a place where that orange bastard couldn’t find him. Except that visor probably had all sorts of useful scanning equipment that would locate a target even in all this dense foliage.

He heard the plodding of mechanized feet and watched the orange man stomping toward Melissa. The son of a b***h wasn’t even trying to kill Novol. Now that the little soldier man was gone, he decided to focus on his primary objective. Kill the Justice Keeper.

“We’ll see about that,” Novol hissed.

Down on one knee between two pines, he lifted his rifle and squinted through the sights. He lined up a clean shot.

The armoured man spun to face him, another force-field appearing to intercept a bullet that could punch through his suit. This one came speeding into the forest, snapping trees like twigs, kicking up rocks and dirt.

Novol dove to his right.

He landed on his side and rolled down the hill, narrowly avoiding the flickering energy barrier. Gasping for breath, he got up and found his enemy stomping into the woods. The i***t didn’t seem to care about the rough terrain.

“Standard ammo!” Novol shouted.

The LEDs went dark.

He fired a volley of bullets that bounced harmlessly off the other man’s chest. Not because he thought this pointless attack would accomplish anything. But if he could keep his opponent on the defensive, he might survive long enough for Melissa to come and save him. Sadly, that hope died when the armoured man pulled a spherical grenade from his belt.

Panic welled up inside Novol. He was no Justice Keeper! He wasn’t fast enough to dodge explosions.

Reacting by instinct, he lined up a clean shot, aiming for the one weak spot on that suit of armour. The visor. He fired before the other man could throw his grenade and felt a swell of satisfaction when his enemy stumbled backward onto the tarmac.

These jerks thought they were so-

The other man staggered a few steps and then regained his balance. His angry gaze latched onto Novol. Green eyes in a pale face, one of them bleeding from a thin piece of shrapnel. Yes, the visor had shattered, but the bullet had come up at a steep angle.

It was lodged in the eyehole, a few inches away from the other man’s forehead. Noval groaned inwardly. Why couldn’t he catch a break?

His enemy threw the grenade.

Novol snatched his portable force-field generator off his belt, activating it and angling it behind himself as he ran. He scrambled through the woods, hopping over roots and fallen logs on the steep hillside. The explosion roared behind him, a plume of smoke and flame rising into the air. He couldn’t fight this guy! He couldn’t!

So, he would have to outthink this guy.

Thump, thump, thump: the armoured man stomped along the tarmac just outside the forest, following Novol. “This isn’t going to work out for you!” he shouted. “You can’t hope to defeat me, Leyrian!”

“I’m no Leyrian!” Novol barked in his native language. “Security officer, second-class, assigned to the flagship! I’m the one who freed Jack Hunter!”

Silence.

A moment later, those plodding footsteps resumed. “Then I have even more reason to kill you! Come out here and fight!”

Novol spun to face his adversary and found the man crashing through branches on his way into the forest. He froze, examining Novol with his one good eye, then thrust his left arm out to the side.

Nanobots scurried out of a slot in his gauntlet, linking together to form a blade three feet long. The man snarled, then sliced through the trunk of a tall pine with almost no resistance.

The tree began to fall.

Novol hopped out of the way just before the damn thing hit the ground with a mighty crash. Some of the needles scratched him. He flinched, turning his face away, stumbling sideways with the rifle drooping in his hand.

He let it go, drawing his sidearm instead, setting it for High-Impact rounds. Lifting the weapon in one hand, he aimed for the other man’s chest. Another force-field popped up, a flickering barrier that intercepted his bullet.

Novol fired again, marching forward.

With his free hand, he snatched a grenade off his belt and pulled the pin out with his teeth. He kept moving, closing the distance, forcing his opponent to hide behind that force-field.

The other man got wise to his plan. He drew back his arm for a gesture that would send the force-field hurtling toward Novol. Novol saw him through the crackling curtain of energy. Hopefully, the reverse was not true. A wounded eye made that more likely.

Novol leaped to his right, a tingle washing over him as the force-field flew past. He walked the last few paces to his enemy, raising his gun for a headshot.

A thick cord shot out of the other man’s gauntlet, coiled around Novol’s pistol and yanked it out of his hand. In that moment of distraction, he quietly dropped the grenade. The armoured man laughed. “Did you really think-”

Novol was already running away. He didn’t care if the other man shot him in the back. If the i***t was doing that, then he wasn’t paying attention to the bomb sitting at his feet. With a gasp, Novol ducked behind a tree.

The explosion left a ringing in his ears.

Shrapnel flew past him, a thin piece of it leaving a gash in his arm, He hissed, falling back against the tree trunk, clenching his teeth as hot tears leaked from his eyes. “Damn it!”

Ignoring the pain, he twisted around and found his enemy lying on the tarmac. The orange armour was scorched and mangled, the man within it was almost certainly dead. He saw small fires all over the place. Trails of smoke rose into the air.

Melissa descended from the treetops, landing on one knee with her head bowed. She looked at him. “Novol,” she gasped. “You’re all right.”

“Is this the part where you tell me that I was reckless and stupid?” he panted. “That you could have handled it yourself?”

Standing up slowly, she smiled and shook her head. “No,” she said. “You saved my life, dummy. I owe you one.”

“Oh.”

He ran to retrieve his fallen rifle, then spun around to find his girlfriend waiting at the edge of the forest. “We’ve got a new problem,” she said. “Those reinforcements have arrived.”

Novol hurried over to her, then peeked around the tree she hid behind. More Ragnosian soldiers had emerged from the base, all carrying assault rifles. Too many for him to count, but he figured there had to be at least three dozen out there.

Novol turned his head to lock eyes with Melissa, blinking slowly as he considered their next move. He was so damn tired. “What do we do?”

She answered him by unclipping a force-field generator from her belt and holding it up for his inspection. A devilish smile spread on her face. “We run like hell,” she replied. “Are you ready?”

He nodded.

“On three. One, two, THREE!”

Together, they burst out into the open. Melissa pointed her force-field emitter at the oncoming platoon and triggered it to produce a screen of static that stretched for ten feet in each direction. Enough to cover both of them. Bullets slammed into that energy barrier, falling uselessly to the ground.

They ran across the tarmac and ducked into the space between two shuttles. Bryse and the others were there. The former captain had the barrel of his sidearm pressed hard against the cheek of a man in a gray uniform. The red epaulets on his shoulders marked him as a commander in the Space Force, but Novol didn’t know him.

The guy was tall, lean and fit with an olive complexion and a ring of stubble around his otherwise bald head. He sneered when he saw Novol. “So, you’re the one who freed Jack Hunter.” He must have heard Novol shouting.

“Shut it!” Bryse said. “Open the shuttle.”

“No.”

Red-faced, Bryse trembled with fury. “Open the shuttle or I will pull this trigger. If we’re all going to die here, I’ll make certain that you are the first to go.”

The commander sighed and then pressed his hand against the palm scanner. The shuttle’s hatch opened, unfolding as a gull-wing door. Everyone piled inside. During their long hike through the mountains, some of the Salusians had expressed misgivings about riding in a flying machine, but their reluctance evaporated like a drop of water on a hot skillet. Better the alien spacecraft than the storm of gunfire they would endure if they remained outside.

Melissa was the last one in, firing a few parting shots at the enemy soldiers who had gathered around the shuttle. Once she was through, Novol pulled the hatch shut, and it sealed with a hiss.

Bryse still held his captive at gunpoint. “Novol,” he barked. “You’re up.”

The enemy commander had stopped struggling. He seemed to have decided that further resistance was pointless. “This won’t work,” he insisted. “You can press my hand against the palm scanner, but I won’t give you my authorization codes, and this shuttle isn’t going anywhere without them.”

“Ye of little faith,” Melissa muttered.

She moved awkwardly in the cramped shuttle cabin, fishing a multi-tool out of her pocket and shouldering two squad-mates out the way as she approached Novol. He could see the anxiety on her face. Was this crazy scheme going to work?

He pursed his lips as he held her gaze and then nodded once. Yes, it would. He was not even remotely sure of that, but he had learned to project confidence in situations like these. He extended his hand, palm out.

Melissa pointed the multi-tool at it and sprayed a torrent of tiny nanobots onto his palm, covering every inch of skin to the tips of his fingers. When she was finished, Novol shuffled through the crowded cabin to the cockpit. “Everybody, strap in!”

He claimed the pilot’s seat, pressing his palm against the scanner. The console lit up with a blinking cursor on a field of blue, waiting for his password. “Recognize Lieutenant Jonan Denoro,” the computer said with a dour man’s voice. “Please input authorization code.”

“What?” the commander shouted from the cabin.

Novol ignored him, tapping in the code that Larani had provided. He prayed that it was still valid. Getting that code had been a trial. Emma, the former butler of Braynar Manor, had used one of Anna’s schemes. Posing as a Tarnadoni barmaid, she had plied the young lieutenant with lots of alcohol, convincing him to relinquish his passwords and covertly scanning his palm with a multi-tool.

The code was valid!

Novol let out a cry of delight.

His console displayed a series of icons and menus, ready for his input. Looking up through the window, he found a gray sky waiting for him. It was time to fly! He got to work, activating the artificial gravity and life-support systems.

The shuttle lifted off, rising into the air.

Bent over the console, Novol grinned and chuckled. “How sweet it is,” he muttered, hands tapping in commands.

The soft ping of bullets striking metal made him grunt. The Ragnosians had started shooting at him. Their weapons wouldn’t do much good, but Novol decided to play it safe. With a few quick taps, he raised the shields.

Taking hold of the flight-stick, he angled his tiny ship downward with a quick yaw turn. The other shuttles came into view in his window, all parked in a line. He accessed the weapons system.

Novol squeezed the trigger.

Pulses of green light erupted from the shuttle’s nose, striking one of its companions on the ground. He fired shot after shot, pounding the tiny spacecraft until it exploded in a massive fireball. That done, he moved on to the next target and didn’t stop until he had destroyed the entire fleet.