Star Force 11: Exile by B. V. Larson & David Vandyke

Author:B. V. Larson & David Vandyke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Fireball Press
Published: 2014-09-19T17:00:00+00:00

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The end of the corridor opened into empty space. One beetle loomed there, blocking our path. Black and brown faceted eyes, it was the size of a ground car.

My HUD teemed with contacts that moved unseen beyond the beetle in our path. The contacts were quickly identified and colored an angry red as my suit analyzed them and classified them as hostile.

Kwon didn’t wait around to see what was going to happen next. He charged the one in front of us, blasting his carbine straight at it. Unfortunately his bulky ass blocked my shot—but that turned out not to matter. This wasn’t a house-sized monster like the one that had chased Marvin around the Square.

Kwon’s splattering beams speared through its armored carapace and it flopped to the ground, legs twitching. A second later Kwon hit it like a freight train. The bug had to weigh more than a man in armor, but it nevertheless yielded to momentum and servo-powered strength as the big man slammed into it. Flying back like a tackling dummy, the bug slid ten feet, then twenty—finally, it tipped over the edge.

We moved up to see where it had fallen. We saw a big splat oozing dark ichor from the cracks in its shell—but there were others, too. A hail of horn projectiles struck us as we edged up to look over the precipice. We lifted our arms in front of our faceplates and retreated, cursing as a few dents appeared in the process. I was glad it was nothing worse.

Now we could see our passageway ended high up in the wall of in a huge room filled with cubes that were jumbled but always aligned, on one angle or another, with another cube. Some of the alien artifacts were stacked into ragged hills. Others seemed less random, forming stairways and arches as if a giant Ancient child had played with blocks.

Dozens of the beetles scurried here and there. The nearest of them were converging on us. I wondered what they ate. We’d seen little other than stardust material and a bit of trash so far.

Kwon blasted the nearest beetle, and I joined him. We stayed back to avoid the worst of their returning fire, nailing each enemy as it came into view, until one of the big ones charged us. This one couldn’t be stopped by two laser rifles.

While I kept trying to burn through the thick armor, Kwon slung his rifle and unslung his cutter. Lifting the giant powered scissors in front of him, he sidestepped the monster’s rush and intercepted a hind leg. The blades snapped shut, and there was a horrible grinding sound as the machine bit deeply, cutting off a tree-trunk thick foot in seconds. The beetle stumbled, plowing into the wall next to me. I took the opportunity to drill it through one of its compound eyes, bypassing the armor and digging into whatever passed for its brain.

Another beetle grabbed Kwon in its jaws while he was distracted with chopping off legs, lifting him in its mandibles and squeezing.

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