Our way out was the gaping hole in the roof that allowed a vehicle an entry and exit into the garage.
But the big centerpiece was the armored, octagonal structure about a third of the distance from the end of the room. I could see the heads of two vrak through a slit cut into the thick concrete, their eyes illuminated by multi-colored lights. It reminded me of data panels, but I hadn’t seen that kind of technology on the planet before.
A beam of blue light traced its way from across a stack of small cargo containers. A moment later, the containers began to brighten, then dissolved into floating bits of glowing ash. The three guards who’d taken cover behind the boxes started darting for cover before another blue beam pulverized the boxes.
I snapped my head to the right. Yaltu smiled and ducked back behind the container that served as her and Beatrix’s cover. Skrew only stared in wonder at the woman and her rifle, while Beatrix was busy watching the enemy and shooting at the ones who poked their heads out a little too far.
There was silence for a few seconds before the light coming through the hole in the ceiling darkened. The sound I’d heard earlier wasn’t more hoverbikes, but an oval-shaped vehicle. It dropped into the garage and stopped only a few feet from the ground. Hatches popped open from its sides and guards jumped to the ground.
Beatrix was the first to fire, but her weapon was ineffective against the armored hull of what I recognized as a troop transport.
Reaver took a few shots at it and shattered a thruster.
A squad of vrak piled out of the transport before Yaltu hauled herself out of cover and took aim with her energy weapon. A blue beam lanced into the vehicle, cutting it in two. Both halves fell hard to the ground, filling the room with acrid smoke. Two of the guards, the last to exit, were squashed under the wreckage as Yaltu dived for cover to avoid a new hail of gunfire.
The air was thick with the smell of smoke, blood, and cordite.
“Find them!” a guard said. “They have infiltrated the barracks!”
The room was too narrow to bother trying to flank us, but he could draw us out of position and catch anyone his troops found in a crossfire. I couldn't let that happen.
Reaver was too focused on the center of the room, where most of the unaimed enemy fire was coming from. Beatrix was engaged with troops to her right.
It was time I showed these vrak why Martian Storm Marines were the best in the business.
Chapter Thirty-One
I broke away from cover and took out a vrak as he aimed past a crate. Energy weapons sizzled as they blitzed past me and bathed the air with the smell of burning plasma. I kept the pressure on and forced them to switch their aim to me as I pressed toward the central control hub of the garage. I ducked behind a metal shelf, and it shuddered as it absorbed heavy fire from the enemy. I twisted out of cover, blew another vrak’s head into a smear of brains, and poured on the speed as I dodged between crates.
A vrak’s eyes widened when I surprised him from the left and took his head off with a rapid swipe of Ebon. Another enemy screamed as I vaulted over his cover, stomped him into the concrete, and pierced his skull with my blade.
Yaltu was holding back behind me. She had the most destructive weapon of our entire squad, but her weapon didn’t leave a lot of options for medics to fix afterward. She was probably afraid of hitting me.
From what I’d seen, our enemy had a combination of energy weapons and laser rifles. The former was far more destructive, but laserfire drilled clean through crates like paper and fizzled out against the stone walls of the complex.
I ducked a second before I would have lost my head to a plasma bolt. Luckily, there was enough smoke coming from the wreckage of the transport vehicle, so my enemies couldn’t get a clear shot at me.
I dove, rolled, and came up between two vrak and promptly relieved each of them of their heads. As their bodies fell, I rolled to my left as I fired at the nearest enemy. I bored two smoking holes in the chest of a sneaky mechanic trying to brain me with his hefty firearm.
Reaver was in her element, and her smile was so big, she looked like it was her birthday, and someone had just bought her a pony. She rolled out from behind one box, dropped two opponents with precision shots to their throats, and rolled behind another. Skrew and Yaltu were busy collecting energy magazines from her victims. They tossed her a fresh one every time her weapon went dry.
Beatrix had obviously decided to take the more direct approach. I didn’t see a lot of her, but when I caught a glimpse, she was leaping over, under, or through something. It was almost like a dance, except her partners always died.
She crouched behind a storage container with the glowing warhammer in her hands and waited, like the patient cat who’d spotted the mouse. A second later, two vrak guards crept up to the edge. When she sensed they were close enough, she spun out from behind her cover. The first guard’s head evaporated in a cloud of pink mist. The second dropped his gun in surprise a moment before a glowing hammer sent his brains through his guts and into his pants.
A second later, she caught me watching her and smiled. It was the devilish grin of a woman who knows what a man was thinking… and liked it. Her gaze flicked up to somewhere above my head. I raised Ebon and split the skull of
