Star Forged: A Military Scifi Epic (The Messenger Book 3) by J.N. Chaney & Terry Maggert

Author:J.N. Chaney & Terry Maggert [Chaney, J.N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Variant Publications
Published: 2019-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

12

Dash lowered his carbine, eyes narrowed, and studied the Golden robot. In a brief but savage fusillade of shooting, they’d punched all three that had appeared full of holes, leaving them shedding sparks like dying fireflies. But Dash wasn’t so quick to admit victory and just watched the trio of bots, waiting to see if they lurched back to life.

“How’s Viktor?” he called, without looking back.

A groan answered him, followed by Amy saying, “Just a superficial burn!”

“Superficial? You should feel it from this side,” Viktor said.

Dash smiled, kept eyeing the bots a moment longer, then stood. “Okay, gang…it just seems to have been the three of them. And I think they’re dead. Or whatever passes for dead among the Golden robotic troops.”

Still, he warily approached the wrecked bots, Ragsdale covering his right, Leira his left. By the time they reached them, even the sparks had stopped sputtering.

Dash cradled his carbine. “Well, that was easy.”

“Remember the fangrats?” Leira said, giving him a cool side-eye. “That swarm of cute little critters that turned out to be all awwww and teeth?”

Dash did. They’d encountered the fangrats when retrieving a power core for the Archetype. Blowing the little creatures off as inoffensive and even harmless had almost led to him and Leira being stripped clean down to their bones.

“That was kind of my point,” Dash said. “Fangrats gave me trust issues.”

Leira snickered. “Damn right they did. Little balls of fuzzy death.”

Conover, Amy, and Viktor joined them. Viktor nursed a nasty, reddened welt across his shoulder, in plain view through a charred hole singed in his expedition suit. It glistened with the first aid gel Amy had applied.

Dash winced when he saw it. “Is the pain manageable?” He knew better than to ask the veteran if it hurt. He could see that it hurt.

“Pain is nature’s way of telling you you’re still alive,” Viktor replied through a certain amount of teeth gritting. “Certainly better than the alternative, which was only about”—he glanced at his shoulder— “three centimeters to the right, maybe?”

“We can take a pause here, send you back.”

Viktor shook his head. “And miss out on all the fun?” He gestured at the corridor beyond the looming door. “We’re wasting time.”

Dash nodded and started to turn, but Conover spoke up.

“I’ve taken a look at that first robot, Dash—the one that’s still mostly intact. I’d have to take more time to study it, but it looks like pretty standard tech.” He meant for the Golden, but a flick of Conover’s eyes toward Ragsdale showed why he left that bit off. “The only thing that seems different is this.”

He held out one of the boxy, and apparently entirely interchangeable, modules that seemed to be the core of most of the Golden tech they’d seen. It was just a charcoal-grey rectangle, a little longer than Conover’s hand, somehow looking both crystalline and metallic at once. Dark Metal, probably, at least for its casing. But this one glistened with more of that strange goo they’d found, that itself seemed simultaneously both liquid and powder.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.