* * * *
Using the link between his HUD and rifle sight he surveyed the burning wreckage. Bryson's fire team had ripped the treads off the tank and the smouldering upturned wreckage lay at a crazy angle on the shattered remains of a couple of cargo containers. A fierce fire was burning off to their right where a gun emplacement had been. Between the thick sooty grey columns of smoke spiraling upwards into the vicious gale, he could see a fresh wave of heavily armed troopers fanning out from the main refinery building on the far side of the yard. As he panned left the remaining plasma cannon, situated on top of another container, hit the loader sending shock-waves through their bodies. He could feel the heat of energy through his suit as the heavy chassis of the loader melted and buckled under the impact. He stowed his rifle and tapped Bryn and Harvey on the shoulder.
“Flash grenades, in one, two, three!”
Blinding white light erupted around him, as he sprinted from cover, temporally blinding their sensors and adding to the general confusion of the devastation around him. He tripped and nearly stumbled as his foot caught the severed leg of a corpse. He tried not to think about it. Who it had belonged to. Why and what they'd fought for, family, friends, how Malstrom had bought their loyalty. Random bolts of energy whizzed through the air as they fired blindly hoping to score a lucky hit. So long as he kept moving and didn't return fire they couldn't draw a bead on him. By the time his sensors were coming back on line, as the flash grenades EMP pulses dissipated, he was already atop the cargo container. He swung himself into the gun emplacement kicking the ammo loader over the side and sending him head first onto the hard surface of the yard below. Then pressed his pistol against the gunner’s neck and fired. The armour absorbed the first shot, buckled under the second and after the third he pushed the lifeless body aside and turned the gun on Malstrom's advancing horde sending them sprawling for cover.
“Status report, we need to check out, this place is crawling with troopers.” he yelled as he reloaded the cannon.
“In position and good to go.” replied Bryson.
“Thirty seconds and I'm clear and counting.” said David as he place his final charge.
“We're with David and good to go to.” added Anna.
“Bryson call in the freighter, tell them they're coming in hot, we'll evac from your position and where the hell is Carol?”
“I'm in. I've jacked a computer at an engineering station.”
“There's no time we have to go. Activate the zombie virus and get the hell out of there.”
“Wait, I've got something, the refinery’s just a cover. There's some sort of heavily guarded and fortified research facility underneath it.”
“Heavily guarded? Tell me something I don't know.” he yelled as he pummelled the advancing troopers with cannon fire, forcing them into another hasty retreat.
“Okay, I've penetrated their control systems. I'm initiating a facility wide lock down of emergency bulkheads and recalibrating their automated defences to fire on Malstrom ID transponders. That should slow them down a bit.”
“The charges are primed and counting down.” interjected David
“Good work lets go.”
“Wait there more, there's a file on the research facility Angel-1 and a file about you codenamed Guardian. I just need a couple more minutes to...”
Bryson cut across them. “The freighters inbound ETA three minutes.”
“David do you know where Carol is?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Get her off that terminal, whatever it takes, shoot her if you have to, but we need to leave now.”
He set the plasma cannon to overload, grabbed a fresh magazine and leapt off the cargo container. His armour absorbed the impact as he landed heavily in the yard below. The cyberweave of his cloak deflecting a couple of energy bolts off his back as the troopers, realising the plasma cannon was no longer firing, raced out of their cover guns blazing. Springing to his feet he sprinted back towards the others as they covered his retreat with the blinding white light of flash grenades detonating behind him.
“Run.” he yelled as he leap over what was left of the loader and the three of them sprinted for the door. Just as the EMP pulse of their grenades faded the overloading cannon erupted in a massive ball of burning plasma. The shockwave hurling them through the door. As they picked themselves up he shoved them forwards. “Keep going I'll catch up.”
He pulled out his pistol and setting it to overload strapped it to the plasma magazine, calmly sliding the whole package into the doorway, before setting off after them. Seconds later the doorway was engulfed in fireball of detonating plasma charges, sending debris high into the air, as the walls either side of it collapsed leaving a mangled pile of rubble in their place.
Suddenly there was a second deafening roar as the freighter came screaming in over his head dragging a billowing slipstream of snow in its wake. The rear cargo ramp was already open, grappling nets hanging from it, with zephyr team standing ready to cover their retreat and help haul them aboard.
“Move it people, we've got incoming and this rides a one way ticket.” Lucy's the pilots voice was instantly recognisable.
He smiled, but only briefly, as energy bolts flashed around him. Undeterred by the trail of death and destruction the surviving troopers had scaled the smouldering rubble and were in hot pursuit.
Suddenly there was a burst of return fire. Bryn waved at him. “Over here.”
“I told you to run.” he said as he joined them.
“We're the resistance and no one gets left behind.”
“I hate it when you quote me. I'm court-marshalling you for disobeying orders when we get back.”
“Ahhhh... Sweet. I hate to break up the little boy thing you've got going on down there.” Lucy cut in sarcastically. “But they're bringing their turrets back on-line and I'm a sitting duck out here!”
“Okay, Bryson get everyone aboard and Lucy keeps those engines running hot.”
“We're on it, by the way you'll have some explaining to do when Carol wakes up. David had to shoot that terminal out from under her and carry her back. Anna reckons the feedback from it will leave her with a headache that lasts a week. When she wakes up.”
“David's problem not mine. Get ready to cover us. We're coming in.” he yelled as they weaved through the snow. Ducking from drift to drift, looking for cover, trying not to get caught in the cross fire. The freighters single turret had been rotated rearwards to bring it to bear on their pursuers. The air around them fizzed and hissed.
“They've got a turret back on-line, shields down to eighty percent.” yelled Lucy as they leapt for the grappling net.
“We're pulling them in now, go on my mark.” said Bryson. “Keep it steady.”
“Easy for you to say, shields at seventy-two percent. Damn it, they've got two more turrets powering back up.”
Bryn was the last up. Bryson was about to give Lucy the all clear as they hauled him in, but just then a shot smashed into Bryn's wrist. He screamed in agony as letting go of the netting he fell back into the darkness. Bryson shook his head he knew it was pointless trying to stop him as he fired his grapple into the roof of the cargo bay and releasing the line plunged after him. He slammed his fist against the fuselage in frustration.
“Cover him.” he said to the recovery team, strapped securely into the cargo bay to prevent them being sucked out into the cold night.
“Shields are down to sixty-five percent. What the hell is going on?”
“Man overboard, the boss has gone after him.”
The impact of another turret finding its mark nearly took him off his feet. Moments later the line went taught. “He's coming up.” cried the man nearest Bryson, firing rapidly at the Malstrom troopers on the ground beneath them, as the freighter rocked again under another impact.
“Shields at forty-seven percent, minor structural damage, we need to go now.”
He was coming up so fast the line was smoking. At the last min
ute he jettisoned the overheating grapple as its motor burst into flame and threw himself and Bryn into the hold.
Bryson hit the control panel and slowly the cargo ramp began to close. “Go, go, go, now.” he yelled as another impact pitched them forwards sending them nose first towards the ground.
“Hold on!” yelled Lucy as she pulled the nose back up and cranked the engines for all they were worth. The hull groaned under the strain and the inertial dampers kicked in as they attempted to accelerate away from danger. “Shields at twenty-one percent, engine one is venting and we have two, make it three missiles on our tail.”
He pulled himself to his feet, Bryn lay beside him clutching his right arm groaning softly. There was a bloody pulp of tangled metal and flesh where his hand had been. He retracted his helmet and slipped his spectacles on.
“Stabilise him, I'll be in the cockpit.”
Anna nodded and her team went about their work quietly and efficiently. Just as he disappeared into the cockpit Carol came round, shaking her head groggily.
“Oh, that hurts.” she said gently rubbing her temples. Looking up the first thing that came into focus was David. Instantly she leapt from her seat and grabbing him by the throat thrust him against the cold metal fuselage. “If you ever do anything like that again I'll fry every last synapse in that tiny little pyromaniac’s brain of yours and see how you like it.”
The craft rocked gently as if caught in a summer breeze and she released her grip overcome by a sudden wave of dizziness and nausea.
“That I'll be the shock wave from the reactor going up.” David smiled.
Anna caught her and guided her gently back to her seat. “I'll give you a sedative.” she said quietly, as she strapped her securely into it.
“That's what I like about the resistance,” said Bryson “we're just one big happy family.”