“Are we really leaving?” the pilot asked.
“Leaving or dying,” he replied.
He looked up to Parker.
“Get Dubois a suit.”
“Will she need it?”
“No idea, but let’s play it safe.”
“How long?” he asked Jafar.
“Any moment now.”
Taylor took a deep breath as he prayed for the plan to work. He closed his eyes and looked away.
“Sir, I’m getting some readings… what the hell is that?”
A beam of light ten metres wide surged from Erdogan’s ship. He looked up in time to see it. For a moment, they all thought it was a weapon. But the light stopped and expanded out into a huge sphere that began to spin. It looked just like the entrance of a space gateway, only without the framework.
“Have you done it, is that it?” he asked Jafar.
Jafar nodded.
“That’s it. We’ve got a way out of here!”
A few cheered, but most realised that survival meant leaving Earth, and that was a terrifying thought. He tapped his communicator.
“Jones, come in, Jones.”
“Colonel? What’s happening?”
“We’ve got our way out of here. What’s the ETA on your ride?”
“Gunboat just offered us a ride. It’s en route.”
“Good, get the hell out of there now. We’re getting out of here.”
“Affirmative, over and out.”
Jones looked back to those who remained with him. Five of them were firing back down a hallway at Mechs advancing on them. The rest eagerly looked to him for the order to leave.
“That’s it. Boat is incoming, but we can’t get aboard. We’re making a jump for it. Let’s go!”
None of them moved, as they couldn’t believe the time had finally come.
“Come on, go!”
They rushed several rooms over to the breach and looked out to space. They saw the ship approaching. A fast and agile gunship with limited stowage capacity.
“It’ll have to do,” he said. He took the leap and used his boosters to accelerate towards the incoming vessel, which banked and came to a standstill ready for them.
As he floated through space, he looked at Earth just as Taylor had and marvelled at its beauty. “It was worth fighting for, wasn’t it?” he asked through his intercom. Nobody responded, but he knew they felt it too. The large side door opened on the gunboat ahead, and Jones was first through and turned to wait at the door to see everyone safely aboard.
“Come on, come on! Come on!”
The last of them was through. He hit the door shut button and felt the artificial gravity systems take effect. He rushed through onto the bridge to find the Captain awaiting him.
“Glad to give you a ride, Captain Jones.”
“Much appreciated. Now let’s get a move on.”
“With pleasure.”
He looked out to see the fleet approaching the jump gate.
“It’s really happening? We really did it?”
Pulses and missiles continued to race before them as the two sides continued to duke it out. He could see the Mastiffs towards the rear of the fleet, but they were a distance off.
* * *
“We’ve got incoming!”
Taylor looked at the scanners at a single craft soaring towards them. It was small for a Mech craft, not a lot bigger than the Mastiff they were flying aboard.
“They’re not firing on us?” asked the pilot in surprise.
“No,” Taylor replied, “They mean to board us.”
“What? Why?”
“Because they value whatever we have aboard more alive than dead.”
“What, you?”
Taylor shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter, but count yourself lucky. They shoot us out of the sky, and we’re finished. They board us, and they got a hundred plus angry marines ready to kick some ass.”
The ship rocked as they felt the enemy vessel crash into them from above and then clamp onto their hull.
“All right, let’s great ready to deal some pain!”
He grabbed a rifle from a rack nearby and holstered an Assegai from the same source. It felt good to know he was once more facing an enemy he knew he could beat. He knew now that were he ever to face Erdogan again, he had to be a lot smarter about it, but right now, he was happy to take an easy fight.
Sparks flew from the ceiling above, and they parted out as much as they could, waiting with rifles held at the ready. Taylor grabbed a shield from the rack and waited, now still and calm. Twenty seconds was all it took them to cut through the upper hull, and a two-metre square section of the hull collapsed down and landed between them.
All was silent for a moment until a small metal object dropped through the breach.
“Grenade!” Parker shouted.
They ducked for cover, and Taylor looked away and sheltered behind his shield. The cabin lit up with a blinding flash, and their shields only provided a little cover. Taylor was slightly disorientated, but he had been saved from the worst of it. He was quickly up on his feet in time to see the first Mech descend through the hole and land in the middle of them.
There was no safe way to use projectile weapons and so dropped his rifle and advanced on the first creature, drawing out his Assegai. It carried close quarter weaponry as he was now becoming familiar with.
“Come on, you bastard!” he yelled.
He slammed into the Mech with his shield and drove it back against several of his comrades, who stabbed it in the back. It dropped dead without him having to do a thing. He turned around to see another Mech descend into their Mastiff, and one after the other they dropped in.
It was a futile attack, for the weight of numbers aboard the Mastiff swamped the attackers, and it was a killing frenzy. Within a minute, Taylor was coated in blue blood, and he was fully indulging in the pain and suffering he could inflict. It felt good to be winning once again.
Over twenty Mechs had fallen to the bloodthirsty forces of Taylor and his Inter-Allied when finally they stopped coming. Taylor climbed up on to the pile of Mech bodies and stood below the centre of the breach.
“Is that all you’ve got!” he screamed.
No response came. Then finally the clamps of the ship above began to release. Taylor pulled out a grenade and armed it before launching it up through the breaching door way. They saw a flash above them; the grenade blew just seconds after they had broken loose.
“That’s right, that’s what you get!” he screamed again.
He looked over to Parker and could see she did not share his faith.
“You’re not invincible,” she said.
“We’re the Immortals, and we always will be!” he yelled for all to hear.
A few of the marines around him placed sealing pods over the breach that rapidly plugged the hull. But as they did, they felt the ship rock. A pulse had struck it. The flood of excitement vanished when they realised how vulnerable they were. Another two impacts rocked the ship but seemed to have no effect. The Mastiffs were tough, but they all knew they could only take so much.
Taylor rushed over to the pilot to look out across his viewing screens.
“I thought they wanted you alive?” he asked.
“Yeah, well, we just proved to them that ain’t gonna happen. Guess they reverted to plan B. How long till we reach the gateway?”
“Three minutes, Sir.”
“That’s a long time to be taking such a beating.”
He looked on the screens at a dozen alien craft on their tail. One of them blew up without warning.
“What the hell was that?” Taylor asked.
“Looks like our guardian angel,” replied the pilot.
* * *
“Come on, take them out!” Jones hollered.