Then the girl pointed her finger at the team and hissed loudly as the symbytes passed on by her and began to fire at the team.
'She's one of them!' shouted Grod as he began to fire his plasma weapon into the approaching crowd.
'They're coming from over here too!' said Tiet as he ignited a kemstick and began to repel incoming blaster fire.
'They're mentally linked to one another,' said Wynn. 'We've got to get out of here fast or they'll be on us from every direction!'
The group began to run as fast as they could toward the West Quarter Hangar almost a mile away from their position. They returned fire as they ran from the growing mob of symbytes. Some were armed and others, probably recently assimilated to the organism, were not. The blasters they were using were set to the maximum setting. They definitely weren't trying to capture and assimilate Tiet's team.
The Horva soldiers were returning fire using their plasma gloves. But the laser-fire coming from the symbytes was beginning to overwhelm the small team. Some of the Horva were shot and killed. As the team passed another alleyway, some of the Horva toward the rear were cut off as the symbytes poured out of the alley, attacking them.
'They're everywhere!' shouted Grod as blaster shots rang into his E.M. shield.
Tiet and Wynn rebounded incoming shots with their kemsticks and shielded themselves kinetically, but the onslaught was becoming more than they could handle. The sheer number of symbytes pursuing them was unbelievable. It appeared the whole city was now a part of these organisms.
Finally the hangar came into view, but the streets were filled with symbytes coming from all directions.
'We're cut off!!' shouted Wynn above the sounds of the mob's footsteps and gunfire.
'Into the building!!' shouted Tiet as he ran for the entrance to the building adjacent to the hangar complex.
'We'll be pinned in!' said Grod as he reluctantly followed.
'Too late for that now,' said Wynn at his side.
Once inside, Tiet headed for the stairs and ran up as fast as he could with the others following.
'Where are we going?' asked one of the soldiers.
'The roof!' said Tiet from way up ahead.
Only ten people remained of their group now. The others were gunned down or torn apart by the symbyte mob. They encountered only minimal resistance on the way toward the roof. Those who came at them from within the mostly empty building were quickly dispatched by Tiet up ahead of the rest of the surviving team members.
When they reached the roof, Tiet was already at the western side looking out over the distance between them and the eastern launch platform of the hangar complex.
'We can make it!' shouted Tiet.
'Sure, we can, but what about the others?' said Wynn coming up beside him.
'We'll get to a ship and bring it back over here.'
'Those things are already coming through the building after us. There isn't time; there must be another way,' said Wynn.
'No! There is no other way,' said Grod as he joined them.
'But, Grod, we-'
'No, my friend. This is the only way. Go! We'll do our best to hold our own here.'
Wynn knew they were right. He clipped his kemstick and then he and Tiet took a short run to the ledge and jumped. They carried themselves across the entire expanse kinetically and soft landed on the eastern platform. Without stopping, they ran into the hangar area out of Grod's sight, as they went looking for a ship to take.
The building was tall but not very wide. It only had a few access doors to the roof and Grod stationed himself and the other Horva soldiers in positions to defend those exits. At least, he thought, they can only file through the doors a couple at a time.
Wynn and Tiet broke into the first sizeable troop transport they could find.
'I don't have the right access code,' said Wynn as he punched the keys on the panel with frustration.
Tiet didn't answer. He turned to find him concentrating on the controls mentally. Wynn heard a beeping from the display and the engines fired up immediately.
'Excellent!'
'I had a good teacher,' replied Tiet with a grin as he jumped into the pilot's seat and took over the controls.
The transport lifted off of the platform and headed for the bay entrance.
When the transport climbed to the level of the roof on the adjacent building they could see the remainder of the team blasting away furiously at the symbytes pouring through the roof access doors. As one person was being hit by the plasma weapons the others would jump through over top of them. The roof was quickly becoming overrun.
Tiet brought the transport down near the few team members who were left; five more had been overrun by symbytes and had been pummeled by the crowd or thrown over the side of the building to their deaths. Grod and the others ran for the transport with symbytes hot on their trail, firing with blasters.
Wynn took the controls of the mounted gun turret through an access panel behind the pilot's chair and began to fire into the crowd of symbytes chasing after the Horva. He mowed them down as Grod and two others jumped into the transport.
Tiet wasted no time lifting away from the roof. Several of the symbytes tried to jump and cling onto the transport but they quickly fell off over the city as Tiet brought the engines to full power.
'We've got to get to the wilds before they catch Mirah and the boys,' he said plotting the navigation data into the computer.
'I only hope we're in time,' said Grod.
KALE adjusted the controls slightly to keep on course for the campsite that he and Emil had previously scouted out for their post trial outing. It was located deep in the wilds. They had relished the idea of a rigorous survival trip, but had never intended on this.
The Whiplash glided just above the massive treetops as the sun began to set. Electronic eyes watched from orbit above the planet. A skynet satellite locked onto the fast-moving target. The satellite network had been intended to help repel invaders, but was now under the control of the symbytes.
The satellite's laser focused to a tight beam as the guidance system compensated for the speed of the target. A precise pinpoint shot was needed to bring the ship down in a controllable fashion.
The satellite fired from the silence of space. Onboard the Whiplash, the fighter rocked with the blast that took out its engine cooling system.
'We've lost the coolant system, something hit us, but I can't find it on the scope.'
'The temperature will go up fast if I don't bring her down. How far to the campsite?'
'We're still twenty minutes out.'
'That's too far. I've got to find a place to land now.'
'I'm scanning the terrain…I've got something…I'm loading the coordinates.'
Kale changed his course to reflect the new landing zone on his display. Smoke billowed from the laser burn on the hull as the engine began to heat up rapidly. He slowed the speed and spotted the clearing among the massive trees as he began to land the ship before it exploded.
'Kale?! Kale?! What's going on, where are we?'
'Hold on, Mother, we're on landing approach.'
He continued the landing and got the ship safely on the ground. Smoke still billowed out of the laser burn as the ship's engines powered down.
'The engines is still at critical temperature, Kale, we'd better hurry.'
He popped the latch on the spare compartment and quickly helped his mother out of the space.
'Where are we?'
'Out in the wilds. We didn't know where else to go with the military conducting attacks on us and at Wynn's home.'
