Death Skies (Fire and Rust Book 4) by Anthony James

Author:Anthony James [James, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-12T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

When his sight cleared, Conway found himself somewhere different. He was lying on a surface that was lumpy and uneven. He raised his head and realized with disgust where he was – on a mound of dead Raggers. The corpses were dressed in grey personnel suits and sucked dry like the others. One of his hands had a tight grip on a solid object, which Conway didn’t need to inspect to realize it was his Gilner. He tugged it out from underneath one of the aliens.

With a thumping in his skull that reminded him of the last time he’d drank far too much beer, Conway got his knees under him. He heard Ragger bones snap and crackle, like they’d been made brittle by whatever process had killed the constituent members of the heap. The pile of aliens was extensive – maybe fifteen meters across - and he guessed he was six or seven feet above the floor in a large room which contained crates, lockers and a single exit. The ever-present red light of the alarm filled the rest of the space.

A few feet away, two figures erupted from beneath the surface, sending featherlight corpses tumbling. It was Kemp and Torres, neither of them in a good frame of mind.

“What the hell?” yelled Kemp on the squad channel.

“This is totally screwed up!” said Torres, no less angry.

“Quiet!” ordered Conway. The situation was crazy and he had no idea what was going on, but facts were facts – they weren’t in the pillar room, so the only option was to accept that and deal with it.

“He had his hand on my ass, sir!”

“That’s how I landed!” protested Kemp. “It’s not my fault.”

Conway counted slowly down from three in his mind. Unbelievably, Torres didn’t care that she’d been dumped in a pile of Ragger corpses, only that Kemp’s hand ended up on her ass.

“You two need to go on a date when we get out of here. That’s an order.”

“You can’t order that, sir!” protested Torres.

“I can and I did. Now be quiet like I asked!” Conway exited the squad channel before the inevitable argument began. “Who else is here?” he asked, using the chin speaker.

Rembra came out of the pile with a surge that suggested he’d woken with a shock from an unconscious state. The Fangrin snarled angrily and hauled his chain gun out after him. Corporal Freeman, Lieutenant Park and Governor Wrekstin emerged seconds later, the latter looking even more worn down than he had in the cell.

“Everyone who was in the pillar room,” said Freeman. “We left the others behind.”

“Transport hub,” said Lieutenant Park. “The Raggers are experimenting with teleportation.”

“Like instant travel from one place to another?” asked Kemp. “Cool. No more lightspeed transitions.”

“I believe the Raggers were having problems,” said Wrekstin.

“Like what?” asked Torres.

“It is not a conversation to have whilst standing on the dead,” said the Fangrin. With that, he clumsily waded across the carpet of Raggers. Every footstep sunk deep into the pile and produced a variety of crunching sounds.

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