Before the front Terran could collapse to his knees, Keryn launched a roundhouse kick that knocked aside the second soldier’s rifle, jarring it free from his hands. Disarmed, he reached forward, his thick hands closing around her neck. Shifting her weight backward, she drove the heel of her left foot into the Terran’s kneecap. With a satisfying snap, she heard the bone break. Howling, the Terran dropped to his knees, his leg no longer able to support his weight. Keryn broke free of his grip and leapt in the air, bringing her heel around in a spinning kick that landed solidly on the Terrans plastic visor. As it shattered, shards of the visor flew into the Terran’s eyes and bit into his flesh. Keryn watched him only momentarily, reveling in the blood seeping from his ruined face and running between his fingers, before drawing her knife and driving it into his chest. Twitching once, the Terran laid still. She didn’t have to bother turning toward the other soldier. His destroyed windpipe had allowed blood to pool in the depths of his lungs. The amount of blood that had poured from his body coated the ground, leaving it tacky. Looking down, Keryn wasn’t sure if the soldier had asphyxiated before dying of blood loss. In the end, his means of death mattered little.
Leaning down, Keryn rolled the bloody Terran over so she could see his face. A deep seeded curiosity filled her as she knelt beside his body, running her hand over his strong features. Though she had spent enough time around Adam, her former roommate Iana, and the other Pilgrims onboard the Revolution to not be surprised by the appearance of the Terran soldier, it felt different to stare into the face of an enemy. She had never seen a Terran so close before, though she had heard more than her fair share of stories of the atrocities they committed during the Great War. She couldn’t help but associate the ideal of the Empire with violence and aggression. Growing up, the Terran Empire was the antagonist in all her childhood bedtime stories. But the face before her didn’t seem as demonic as the stories had always described. In his death, the Terran almost looked at peace.
“Keryn, are you there?” The radio broke her from her meditations. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
Keryn keyed her microphone. “I’m fine,” she said calmly, before remembering why she came aboard in the first place. “You need to get your group out of there now, Yen. They know where you are and are closing in on your position.”
Suddenly, the lights went out, casting the interior of the Destroyer into impenetrable darkness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Yen frowned in the darkness. The inky blackness was so encompassing that he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. “Everyone switch to thermals,” he ordered.
The world slowly came back into focus, bathed in the cool blue hues of the ship’s interior, contrasted sharply by the vibrant reds and oranges of body heat being emanated from his team. Under the scrutiny of thermal imaging, Yen could see the quickly cooling puddles of heat, pools of blood that had poured from the bodies of his injured men. Already three of his men were injured, one severely. Though they had broken through the Terran ambush, the enemy had taken their toll on Yen’s small strike force.
Yen looked down the hall, where shades of increasingly deep blue stared back. The view was unnerving. While using the thermal goggles, Yen lost his depth perception. Objects that were dozens of feet away looked no further than Yen’s own men, who stood less than ten from him. At first, Yen felt a sense of vertigo wash over him. He remembered feeling the same way during his first trip into space. He had seen planets on the front view screen of the ship and they had appeared as massive orbs hanging in the night sky. But as they flew closer, at speeds rivaling the speed of light, the orbs grew no closer. With no sense of depth, it was nearly impossible to tell how near or far an object truly was.
Straining to look down the hall, Yen could see no sign of the pursuing Terran force, but Yen wasn’t fooled. It would only be a matter of time before the wide hallway was filled in an angry yellow glow as nearly thirty Terrans reached Yen’s position. Turning back toward his team, Yen watched as they loaded the wounded onto collapsible litters. Though his soldiers needed medical care, Yen refused to leave until they had completed their mission. Still, their mission would have been unfortunately brief had Keryn not risked her own life to warn Yen.
Keying his microphone, he called to Keryn. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied. “I lit a glow stick, so at least I can see again.”
“I need you to go back to the ship,” Yen said sternly, eager to cut off any argument before she could make foolish recommendations about coming to his rescue. “There are too many Terrans between you and my team. You’d never make it if you tried to come get us.”
“So what about you? I just leave you all here to die?”
Yen looked around the darkness. “We’ll find another way.”
“How?” Keryn asked defiantly.
“I don’t know,” Yen replied harshly. He didn’t want to argue with Keryn right now, not when he had so much more to contend with. They were finishing loading the wounded soldiers onto the litters and were almost ready to move. Yen wasn’t happy about the arrangement, however. Three soldiers were wounded and unable to fight, but six more would be slow to react since their hands were full with the litters. Until they escaped the ship, Yen knew that his team would be moving slowly, which put them at a greater risk of the Terrans surrounding them before they could escape. All the more reason, Yen realized, to complete their mission, find a way to escape, and put some space between his team and the Terran Destroyer. Without speaking, Yen gestured for his team to move out. Moving deeper toward the aft of the ship, Yen felt his frustration build. Logic and emotion battled within him. He knew Keryn was just concerned about him and wanted him to be safe, but in a time of war emotion was a detriment. She needed to think less about keeping him safe and worry more about self-preservation.
When his radio clicked back on and he heard Keryn’s voice again, Yen realized how long the uncomfortable silence had stretched between the two. Is this what it would be like to date Keryn? Uncomfortable silences as both played their passive aggressive roles? Shaking his head, Yen pushed aside thoughts of a future relationship with her. It was a distracter he didn’t need right now.
“I think I might know a way out,” Keryn said excitedly, snapping Yen free of his wandering mind.
“How?” Yen asked.
“When we docked, there was another Cair ship that docked near the far end of the Destroyer, just above where the hull swells to compensate for the engine room. It was still there when I left the Cair Ilmun, which means that the infiltration team may still be somewhere around your location. You’ll need to head up one floor, but you should be able to evacuate the Destroyer on their Cair.”
“We’ll head that way,” Yen said. Though they were speaking on a private channel, Yen still lowered his voice so as to not let others hear what he said next. “Be careful, Keryn. I mean it.”