Page 45 of Fated to the Hunter
This time, aided by my mental narration, I did it.
I stepped out into the hallway, blaster ready, and faced the creature. Oh crap! It was facing me. The moment it saw me, it let out a shrill cry and started to charge.
In that split second, something shifted. Adrenaline hit like a wave, and the tremble in my hand vanished. The erratic pounding of my heart turned steady, guiding me beat by beat like an internal metronome. The panic was replaced by sharp focus. My breath steadied. My vision narrowed.
I raised the blaster, arms steadied, shoulders squared.
Sam’s voice saying, “Safety, power, brace, and shoot,” repeated in my head. I’d already done the first two, so the only thing to do now was brace and shoot, so I did.
The energy blast felt like it came straight from my fingers, shooting out from the depths of my soul like some magical fireball, and I was some vengeful sorceress. I leaned into it. And even though the first shot went low and to the left, hitting the creature from hell on the thick body carapace instead of the neck or head, I kept going, buoyed by the surge of will that filled me.
I shot again and again, steady and deliberate, stepping back to give myself more space as the flyer charged forward.
By the time the flyer slid to a halt in front of me, it was riddled with giant holes, its wings were mere tatters, and its head hung by a string of slime. Oh, never mind, there went its head. The hallway was not in much better shape.
Heart still pumping, I ducked back inside the library, glad that the flyer had expired before the library door and I didn’t have to step through it.
Holy fuck! I did it. I fucking did it!
The motherfucker was dead. Ha! Damn, that felt good.
But there was no time to celebrate just yet. I had to move on to phase two of Operation Eyes in the Sky. I giggled, my laugh sounding odd in the room.
I’d teased the Tech Wizards for naming everything an Operation This or That. And here I was doing it myself. It sounded good, though, so I was sticking with it.
I grabbed my pack and tucked the blaster into my waistband—after putting the safety on of course—and slapped a spore-minimizing mask on my face before stepping back out into the hallway.
Ugh! Gross. The flyer was already stinking up the place.
A short trip down the hall and up the stairs later, and I was back inside the observatory, broken window dome and all. Most of the dead flyer Bael’k had killed here was already gone, having been picked up by its nest mates. That was fast. Usually, it took them some time to return for the carcasses. The scourge had an efficient recycling program, and unless we burned the remains quickly, they were often taken back to their nest for processing.
Settling myself under the shadow of the only table in the room, which was covered with hand-scrawled notes by the original owner, I set my plan into motion.
Getting the drones up into the air without being noticed wasn’t that difficult, thanks to their small size and quiet operation. The scourge had become so good at ignoring our drones that we’d had to install tiny but mighty buzzers on them to catch their attention when we wanted to.
But the drones were fragile, so to make sure they were out of harm’s way while getting the Eye-Spies on the flyers, I landed the drones on the roof of the guest house before pulling out the launcher.
The next part was riskier, but I was more worried about my piss-poor aim and wasting my chances than actually getting injured. If the proverbial shit hit the fan, I’d just run into the stairwell. It would take the flyers some time to maneuver themselves down the stairs, and I’d shoot them up just like the last one.
However, if the Eye-Spies went hurtling off to Timbuktu, there ain’t no saving the operation then. That meant I had to get my targets as close as possible before pulling the trigger. Setting my pack safely inside the stairwell and making sure my blaster was ready at my side, I loaded up the launchers and took afinal breath. Then I stepped out into the open, waving my arms wildly.
“Hey, bird brains!” I yelled, insulting birds worldwide. “Come and get me!”
Chapter 25: Bael’k
“Krux!”
I slammed my palm against the navigational console again, harder this time, like sheer force might convince the damn thing to cooperate.
Nothing.
I’d managed to get the shuttle to turn on the external camera feeds, but that was all it would do. I was surrounded by scourge. The flyers that had caused my crash stayed latched onto my shuttle, their clawed feet hanging on by any means possible. There were scores of scuttlers surrounding my ship as well, swarming my position.
They covered my shuttle so thoroughly that they blocked the light of the sun.
The only good thing about that was that it didn’t give room for the flyers to use the spikes on their tails to crack my shuttle open piece by piece.
I had hoped that they would lose interest soon, but it had been at least ten or fifteen Earth minutes, and scourge were still arriving. And the worst part was that I couldn’t even send out a report or call for help. We were not on fire, and according tothe display, my shuttle was not severely damaged. Yet nothing worked. My shuttle was refusing to do anything.
