Paralyze: The Scourge War Book III by A.A. Pierce

Author:A.A. Pierce [Pierce, A.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pierce Publishing
Published: 2024-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

“Take cover!” Matthew hollered.

But Ryan couldn’t possibly register the Chief Security Officer’s voice. His eyes were glued to the singed edge of the giant hole in Lieutenant Kotick’s chest.

The lieutenant’s eyes snapped open and his jaw dropped, but the only sound that escaped his lips was a wheezing gasp. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed into the pool at the base of the cascade. Char-brown bubbles rose through the entry wound in his back, bursting splashes of soot on the surface of the water.

“Sir!” Matthew demanded.

As Ryan searched the area around where Kotick had fallen, and the skies beyond, he felt the lieutenant commander’s powerful arm wrap around his neck, yanking him to the ground.

“There it is.” Matthew aimed his rifle at a distant object.

Ryan didn’t yet see it. He scanned the horizon. Finally, he thought he caught some motion, a shimmering reflection of the planet’s watery surface.

There it was. A hovering, spherical, highly reflective device practically invisible against its surroundings.

Looks just like the sphere-probe. Only much smaller. Some kinda drone weapon. And just like with the sphere-probe, he saw no sign of any gunport or other aperture. The only time the probe had shown any sign of a threat was when it had spontaneously begun to spin and brighten, leading Daniel to believe that it would imminently explode.

But this drone was doing nothing of the kind. It remained in place.

Blam! A single gunshot rang out from Matthew’s rifle.

He missed his target, or the hovering machine had sufficient armor that it didn’t even notice the attack. It floated in place for a few more seconds.

“We gotta get outta here,” he ordered.

“Couldn’t agree more,” Ryan said. “We all accounted for?” He scanned their surroundings, hoping to find the rest of the away team alive and taking cover.

Yilmaz, Liam, Buck, Daniel, Hulst, and Spencer had loosely grouped nearby, their bodies pressed firmly on the ground.

“We gotta get to the Naxos,” Ryan said.

“Agreed, sir,” Matthew said, “but not sure how we’re gonna do that. Enemy’s got us pinned point-blank, and the shuttle’s far enough away that it’ll easily be able to take more shots.”

This was a moment in which Ryan truly wished he were the tactical genius the Fleet had made him out to be. He glanced over at the drone, then back at the Naxos. He saw what Matthew was talking about. There was no way for the team to make it back to the shuttle without the enemy firing on them. And Ryan wasn’t willing to risk all their lives in some mad dash. But they couldn’t stay here.

“Options?” he asked over the comm.

“We can run scattershot for the shuttle,” Daniel suggested. “It can’t get all of us at once.”

“We can take at least partial cover.” Matthew pointed to the opposite side of the cascade from where the drone hovered.

Ryan‘s mind again flashed back to that fateful meeting with McNeil, Whitcomb, and Buzzetti. Whitcomb had asked him if he was up for the tough calls.

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