Colony: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Battle Ring Earth Book 2) by Jon Frater

Author:Jon Frater [Frater, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2021-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

“Save the cargo pod! Save those samples!”

The order fell from Kessiduss’s mouth as he hunkered down and spun, so that his armor would take the brunt of the damage. The flash took them all by surprise. One moment he and his crew were spinning their power systems down, watching as automated robotic arms dropped from the ceiling to clamp onto the cargo pod and lift it to safety well to the rear of the hangar bay. They hadn’t even gotten to closing the main door yet. The drudgery of shuttering the bay, pressurizing it, then doing the reverse after the Sleer soldiers transferred to different armor struck all of them as pointlessly redundant. No one’s suits were damaged, but their assault walkers were badly taxed.

Kessiduss had become distracted by his own walker’s rent, a ten-inch wide gash that stretched from the crotch to the knee. He took the time to carefully extricate himself from the interior harness to climb out of the control station and verify the damage with his own eyes when one of his men broadcast a question across the unit channel.

“What in the maker’s name does that idiot think he’s doing?”

The question made them all pause, freezing in place to see what was going on. One Sleer was even pointing toward the open hatch. Something was definitely moving past the open bay door. Kessidus rose on his legs, straining to see above the Kezekken’s open hatch.

The human spacecraft was careening toward them, sweeping across from their left and wobbling as it moved. How the insane design for the ancient and primitive ship stayed together was a question he’d never see answered. It looked like a conventional aircraft riding the back of a massive cargo pod, for that matter. He paused a moment to admire the sheer insanity of the design and then realized the wobble wasn’t a matter of an unstable flying machine. It was a maneuver that was intended to change direction on a dime.

The shuttle pulled up, flared its drive, and pulled away from the flying machine it was attached to. Kessidus froze as he watched the huge tank drop ever so slightly. He saw the space between the shuttle and tank grow wider and the tank was growing larger as the shuttle shrank and careened off, showing them its underside.

Kessiduss gave his order: “Save those samples!”

He never followed the order himself, merely casting a gaze upward to see that the robotic lifter had nearly secured the cargo container. He spun his armor to put its bulk between the tank and himself and was surrounded in flame as the giant tank exploded and spewed its contents over them.

The fire was bright and gloriously destructive. The blast wave scattered his crew deeper into the cavernous hangar bay, pushing the Kezekkens and assorted battle suits like toys before an angry child’s fist. Kessiduss shrank down inside his armor, reaching up to pull the canopy closed as he rode out the blast wave.

When it ended, he struggled to breathe, saw that the green lights on his status display were all red.

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