Earthfall by Joshua Guess

Author:Joshua Guess [Guess, Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure, Alien Invasion, First Contact
Amazon: B01BIIWEBK
Published: 2016-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

What passed through my head was a series of thoughts as the neurons linked to different concepts and ideas flashed and linked to each other, touching on everything from my fight-or-flight response to the complexities of tactical engagement.

What came out of my mouth was, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Rinna reacted so fast it was nearly time travel. Sand snapped into shape around her fast enough that I knew it had done using magnetic rather than mechanical force. It would drain the capacitors in the Sand, but we were in a wireless power zone. Free juice was being radiated onto us.

Her suit resolved into a variant of the Dancer template, the Blade Dancer, and blurred away at top speed. The spiny protuberances jutting from knees, elbows, and knuckles gleamed darkly as she sprinted and whirled between Gaethe energy blasts.

“Go nuts,” Rinna said over the comm. I expected her to be winded, but of course she was currently an immobile body wrapped in metal. Her voice was almost Zen in its calm.

The Gaethe soldiers landed with deceptively light thumps—their effective weight reduced by their armor, which contained miniature gravity manipulators. The armor itself was dark gray but somehow seemed to shine anyway.

Sand erupted in small puffs as the soldiers came to ground, their energy weapons lancing out from the tops of their armored hands. Integrated weapons. Smart. Eliminated the chance the soldier could be disarmed.

Of course, I had my own opinions on what weapons not in your possession could do. Jax caught the direction of my thoughts before I could more than halfway form them, and he ran with it. Bless him.

What happened next was subtle enough that even I almost missed it, and I was watching from my place atop the transport. Between one footfall and the next, every enemy soldier on the ground suddenly encountered some unseen obstacle. A portion of Sand here was suddenly rigid and sticking up just far enough to trip over, while a section there had become slippery as ice.

Basically forty bad guys stumbled all at once. If I could have pantsed them, I would have.

In a fight, even a fraction of a second of hesitation could be an enormous advantage, and it was one Rinna capitalized on without mercy. Her spiked and bladed armor sprinted to the nearest soldier, one arm sweeping in to cut even as she jumped in a graceful, twisting arc over the enemy.

Sparks flew as the magnetically-hardened blade met dense armor, pieces of black edge falling to the ground along with the poor bastard’s arm from the elbow down. Different in evolutionary background and primal imperatives humans and Gaethe might be, but cut off our arms and we have the same reaction.

We bleed. We scream. We clutch at the wound in disbelieving horror.

Rinna’s leap brought her to another enemy, who caught the left side of her armor with a point-blank blast from his wrist gun. I saw superheated pieces of her suit glow red and crumble as the Sand there was fused to slag, but it barely slowed Rinna down.

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