“We did it,” Khan whispered into his intercom, all the while squeezing his eyes closed due to the burning pain in his leg. He held his hand tightly against the wound, warm blood oozing out. “We need to stop somewhere… My wound… needs dressing.”
“Hold on,” Baliska said as he looked for a safe place to land.
Regardless of the pain now, it would just be one more wound to add to the one on his ribs that even now was hurting again, the applied root poultice having exhausted its active ingredient.
Khan didn’t care, though. The adrenalin and high of a successful mission helped him look beyond the pain. Aimee would be pleased with him, that’s for sure. Maybe then, she would truly see his worth to her.
Maybe.
Chapter 12
DENVER SCREAMED Layla’s name as the scion prism hovered above her, the green targeting laser finding its target: her heart.
Letting instinct flood through him, he raised the rifle and fired off a full burst of automatic fire while letting out a primal roar. Each round just bounced off the prism, but the impact was enough to knock it back, the laser leaving Layla’s body.
She rolled out of the way and raised her rifle. They were facing each other now. Layla looked into his eyes before shifting her gaze beyond him. She backed away. “We’re surrounded by them.”
Denver spun round just as a pair of clusps slithered out of the long grass. Two more came out from just beyond his vision.
“Fire!” Denver yelled, engaging a new magazine into his rifle and holding the trigger, aiming at the two clusps to either side of him. They were trying to flank him—or herd him… either way, the fuckers were working together.
His spray of projectiles caught one of the clusps in its rear leg, but it didn’t stop the beast as it padded forward on massively muscled forepaws. Its tentacles whipped forward, knocking the rifle from his hand. He pulled himself back to avoid being caught, but the clusp on the other side moved quickly, wrapping its pair of tentacles around his legs.
Layla yelled amid a burst of fire. An animal screech told him that she had at least got one, but then when he spun, trying to free himself from the strong grip of his clusp, he saw the largest of the group pounce on Layla. Its weight knocked her to the ground.
He heard the breath knocked from her lungs. The clusp snapped its jaws at her helmet, but its teeth just scraped against the strengthened polymer.
“Get it off me!” Layla screamed, flailing her arms.
Denver hit the ground as the clusps’ strength outmuscled the servos of his power suit. He punched his fist into the ground and grabbed a hold of some thick roots, trying to stop himself from being dragged away.
“Shit, the scion’s back,” Layla said between heavy pants. Her efforts to hold off the clusp’s attack were quickly sapping her energy.
Denver remembered the knife tucked into a compartment on his chest. As the two clusps continued to pull against him, he used his free hand to retrieve the blade.
On his front, however, he couldn’t reach behind him, so he had to let go of the thick root in order to spin over. As he did so, he shot forward under the tension of his attackers’ efforts, but he was on his back now and he slashed forward, cutting into the tentacle. The thing was pure muscle and it took him three more determined shanks before he managed to cut through the scaly hide.
The animal screeched with pain and stiffened its tentacle, spraying poison all over Denver’s power suit. Fuelled by the small success, Denver gritted his teeth and used his remaining energy to cut through the other clusp’s tentacle.
It too retreated, wanting to protect its limb rather than fight to the death, but the two beasts weren’t giving up just yet. They lowered their heads and stalked forward just as he regained his feet.
He turned to help Layla, but the scion prism hovered just in front of his head.
The glowing blue line around its surface grew brighter until Denver had to hold his hand in front of his visor to block the blinding light. With a series of whumps the prism’s glowing light ebbed to a dull pulsating beat.
The smell of cooking meat wafted through his external sensors.
Through a cloud of smoke, he saw the clusps laying still… dead.
“Layla!” Denver rushed forward to her prone form. He kneeled over her and placed his gloved hands on the chest of her suit. He shook her and cleared the blood and dust from her visor.
She blinked up at him. “What the fuck happened?”
The answer came from the scion prism. It floated down, hovering just a meter above them. A thin green laser shined down onto Denver and made its way up to his visor. He tried to close his eyes, but the laser struck his right iris and he became still, unable to move, as the prism seemed to scan him.
As soon as it started, the laser shut off, the prism spun on its axis and sped off behind a distant hill.
“Den, are you okay? Can you hear me?” Layla’s voice was hoarse over the intercom. “Den!”
He looked down at her, finally able to move. His throat was dry and his words croaked out. “I… can hear you…”
“What did it do? Are you okay?”
He checked himself over to make sure he was actually alive and this wasn’t some weird post-death dream. The bodies of four dead clusps, still steaming from being superheated with lasers, confirmed he was still alive, and more bizarrely, they were saved by the scion.
Denver’s entire body ached as he leaned down and helped Layla to her feet. They retrieved their rifles and staggered away from the scene of death and the strange structure. With the scion prism nowhere to be seen, Denver said, “We should get back to the temple… shit, wait… Dad? You there? You should have heard all that; where are you? Dad?”
No response.
“Of course,” Layla said, realizing too. “We’re on the same channel; he should have heard everything. Charlie? You copy? Charlie!”
“Damn it… back to the temple right now.”
With a renewed hit of adrenaline, Denver sprinted back toward the temple, and right into the path of the largest clusp he had seen yet. He assumed it was the parent of the ones that the scion killed.
“Oh, just fuck off!” Denver yelled, raising his rifle and emptying the magazine into the beast’s face as its tentacles tried to whip out. Layla also opened fire, cutting through the scaly hide of the whipping limbs.
With the magazine empty, Denver grabbed his knife and launched at the creature that, despite taking over sixty rounds, was still thrashing for its life. Denver collided with it full force, yet its squat, powerful hind legs dug into the ground. It was like running into a tank.
The suit absorbed most of the impact. He used the momentum to run the nine-inch blade right into the beast’s throat. The blade pierced a soft part of its hide and plunged in with satisfaction.
The clusp hissed and tried to bite Denver, but its jaws were too weak to get a grip on his arm. Denver pulled down with all his strength and the suit’s capacity, dragging the blade down its throat, cutting the creature in two.
A host of organs fell out of its split neck and the damned thing finally collapsed.
Layla helped Denver to his feet as they continued on to the temple. They both slid through the front door into the main area only to discover the place utterly empty save for the scion machine.
“Dad!” Denver yelled, the sound from his external speakers reverberating off the temple’s walls. Both he and Layla rushed further in and searched every nook and room. But it was no good.