Sunlord (38 page)

Myshia was glad to leave the dead body of the
Hartrias behind them; the smell and closeness of the death had
disturbed her more than she realised.

They ran as fast as their spent legs would allow
them, moving quickly through the smooth finished corridor. Shaun
was mildly surprised to find very few Hartrias, but figured it
would be because a vast number of the crew were planetside setting
up the installation.

Myshia skidded to a stop as Shaun abruptly changed
directions. He had the ID card and was running it through the
reader of a door lock.

"What are you doing?" asked Myshia.

Shaun grinned and nodded his head at the painted sign
on the door, the row of finely etched letters totally
unrecognisable to Myshia.

"It's a secondary armoury," explained Shaun. Barely
had he uttered these words had the door hissed open, sliding to the
side and revealing a dark interior. As he stepped inside motion
detectors detected his movements and lights flickered on.

"They have them scattered through the ship incase
they are overrun." Shaun spoke over his shoulder as he moved
between the compact rows of dark gleaming weaponry. Fearsome
looking rifles were slung from the walls, great belts of ammunition
stacked in orderly rows along the wall. The weapons lost individual
shape such was their amassment; there were so many barrels and
projections it looked like an regimentally ordered tree sprouting
black metal.

Shaun's eyes glowed as he picked out a choice
selection. As he slung a heavy multiple barrelled machine gun over
one shoulder he glanced out at Myshia. She hung back uneasily,
staying in the corridor and glancing up and down its length.

"If an enemy manages to get aboard the crewmen can
arm themselves here," Shaun continued. "Once they are finished
Avatar lock the rooms closed so that the enemy don't have access to
any weapons left. It's quite an effective sys-"

Myshia spun around as Shaun's voice was cut off
abruptly with a sharp hiss of machinery. Her nose was now no more
than a centimetre from the plastic coated door that had slid closed
in the blink of an eye. It had happened so quickly it was almost as
if Shaun, still inside the armoury, had been swallowed alive - the
quick chomp of the sliding door like jaws sealing Shaun's fate.

Myshia hit her hand against the door, suddenly
afraid, shouting his name. Her efforts seemed lost upon the cold
surface that seemed to absorb the sound waves like a sponge.

She stopped and put her ear to the door, and thought
she could hear a banging from the inside. It was definitely Shaun
thumping against it.

Inside Shaun blinked his eyes as if this would induce
his retina's to open quicker. He stood in complete blackness, a
darkness devoid of all light. He had been taken unawares when the
lights had snapped abruptly off, the door closing at the exact same
instant.

Shaun raised his hand close before his nose but
couldn't see a thing; he may as well be blind for all he saw. He
was still bewildered - one minute he had been standing in full
light selecting weapons, the next he was in utter darkness in a
small, isolated room.

Shaun slung the rifle he had selected over one
shoulder and tucked a pistol into the small of his back. He reached
out in the black until his fingertips met with the cool metal
surface of the door. He tried his fingernails against the crack
where the door met the wall but couldn't budge it in the slightest.
It was as if the force of tons heaved against it, sealing closed as
if intending to stay so for a millennium.

He found his screwdriver and attacked the seal, but
it would not give to his frantic efforts. Muscles strained until
they shook with effort, but still the door did not move. It was
like a lid slammed down on a coffin.

Stopping, he held his ragged breathing and tensed in
the dark as faint sounds filtered through the heavy walls. He
cocked his ears, this time distinctly catching a distant sounding
whump, whump like deep subterranean explosions. It confirmed his
worst fear - they were caught in Avatar's trap.

He whirled about as a violent hissing filled the room
as if the very molecules of the air were being ripped apart. A
terrible stench met the back of his throat and he gagged, doubling
over and blocking his eyes from the foul steam that now filled the
air. He expelled all air from his lungs, tears streaming from the
corner of squeezed shut eyes, as the gas thickened.

It was all so clear in that instant. It could only be
a trap, a trap that they had stumbled into headlong. Shaun cursed
his stupidity and rashness; he had not even suspected a thing when
the keycard had opened the weapons room door. The only explanation
was that Avatar had allowed them to roam free down corridors with
the intent of trapping them at the soonest opportunity. The
computer knew they would leap for weapons like a rat for cheese,
and all it had to do was set the trap. Once inside it was a simple
matter to open the gas vents, and a small team of armed droids in
the corridor outside would take care of the bodies.

His thoughts spun about one another like pieces of
tissue paper thrown into a whirlpool, disintegrating and tearing
into insanely coloured fragments. His temples throbbed and his
lungs started to burn, and he knew he would have to take a breath
soon. If he did it would be his last.

Myshia's thought was like that of a swooping eagle, a
dark shadow flickering through the waters of his mind as if born to
it. He detected no words, but felt her presence like a rope cast to
a drowning man.

Open the door, he cried. If only she could open the
door from the outside...Avatar had expected them to both be trapped
in the room, and Myshia's freedom was a bonus. Perhaps all was not
lost after all...

Myshia huddled into a small ball as bolts of laser
arced overhead. The droids had closed in from either side and
within moments were firing at her and her quick dive to the ground
had saved her from a grisly death.

She reached out with her mind found herself skimming
over Shaun's consciousness. She knew immediately something was
wrong for his thoughts were a maelstrom of activity. Moments after
establishing contact she felt Shaun's words and hurried a reply,
communicating more by feeling and specific impressions than words.
Her question was clear.

How?

Her thought dropped into the sea of Shaun's mind and
instantaneously she received a faint picture of a door mechanism,
and the feeling of strength driven by desperation. It was clear
Shaun wanted to beat the catch to a pulp. Brute force and ignorance
was the way to go.

She opened her eyes, searching for the mechanism in
question. She found it after a quick scan - it was located about
waist level at the side of the door. It was a small panel with two
dark lights topped by a keycard slot, the whole thing recessed into
the plastic coated steel of the wall - to reach it she would have
to move across the corridor and out of the protection between two
wall supports and into the hail of laser fire.

Shaun's mind prodded like a pin, jabbing her into
action.

Uttering a subdued curse she drew together the last
remaining shreds of her courage, gripped the haft of her bow in
both hands, and drew her legs under her. She tensed for a second,
shifting her grip slightly, her eyes never leaving the door
mechanism.

Then she lunged, the bow held out before her as if
she were harpooning a whale from a raft. Her feet left the air as
she dived across the open space, hands held back over her head. She
brought down the hardwood bow at the last instant, the end
connecting solidly with the mechanism.

The bow snapped and twisted her wrist as it pulled
away. Her momentum carried her weight crashing into the door, the
snapped bow buckling into her stomach. Unaware, her subconscious
mind reached out and hit the device with a force far greater than
her physical lunge. Her strange powers dug into the circuits in the
instant her bow connected and the locking device shattered in a
shower of electricity. Myshia curled her head and absorbed the
shock with her shoulders to fall in a heap at the base of the door.
She was vaguely aware of bolts of laser nicking her as if someone
was plucking at her clothing. It would only be a matter of seconds
before the droids found their aim.

The instant the door had snapped open he leapt out,
the two events almost simultaneous. Myshia's blow to the catch had
flung the door back into its recessed mountings with a savage
crash. Then Shaun was there, yellow angry fire erupting from the
muzzle of the huge machine gun held at his waist. Mind shattering
noise filled the air as he fired off countless rounds of ammunition
- the machine gun spewing out shrapnel to carve the droids into
pieces.

He about-faced, holding up on the trigger only long
enough to bring the heavy muzzle around. A split second later he
was firing again, knocking all resistance back as if he wielded a
fire hose to a row of tin cans. He moved his left hand over the top
of the gun, pulling back and cocking a separate mechanism that
lobed a grenade into the droid's midst. A huge wall of smoke
broiled out, forcing a wall of concussed air before it.

He hit the ground and covered Myshia's body with his
own as the terrific blast hit them. He held his breath as pieces of
shrapnel whizzed overhead and thick smoke filled the narrow
passageway.

Shaun recovered and hauled Myshia to her feet. The
latter's eyes were wide with surprise and her hands still clenched
stubbornly to the splintered half of her once sturdy bow.

Shaun passed a long barrelled pistol to her. "Take
this."

She dropped the bow to her feet and took the pistol,
its weight awkward in her small hands. Now that she was familiar
with the principle of the Sunlord weaponry it was an easy matter to
slide her finger around the trigger guard, putting it before her
like a rattlesnake held at arms-length before squeezing off a blast
at whatever presented itself in the smoke.

The small blasts punctuated the heavy rattling of
Shaun's heavy K-gun. Round after round churned through the massive
machine, empty shells spilling at his feet. His muscles ached with
strain and Shaun knew he couldn't hold it up for long; the gun was
made to be mounted on a tripod as a stout defensive weapon and not
to be carried on the shoulder.

He was mildly surprised when the heavy beating of the
bullets changed abruptly to a hollow ringing and the muzzle that
had been throwing a finger of flame now spun harmlessly like a
turbine, empty of cartridges. Shaun cast aside the large gun, his
right arm crying with relief as the dead weight fell to the floor
with a deep reverberating clatter.

He dropped a shoulder and allowed the rifle he had
slung earlier fall into his hands. He pulled back the cocking
mechanism with a rasping click.

"Okay Myshia, on my count we run. We've got to break
through those droids before they have a chance to recover."

Myshia nodded, crouching low and hard against the
wall, the pistol tight in her hands. For a brief instant Shaun was
caught by the steely look in her eyes like that of a caged beast
itching to be free. He found himself caught in that gaze, and when
she turned her wide insectile eyes to face his own he felt a rush
of energy surge through his soul.

Raising his eyes back to far end of the corridor
Shaun saw the smoke had started to disperse via the ventilation
fans, and already dark silhouettes were emerging from obscurity as
the droids and soldiers rose from the shattered husks of their
downed comrades. Myshia was caught off guard when Shaun saw that
exact instant fit to break into a run and begun charging the wall
of droids, wielding the slim rifle like a battering ram. A wild cry
burst from his throat as the shadows rose up into humanoid shapes,
bringing weapons to bear upon the wild human.

Shaun ducked and rolled at the last instant as the
wall behind splintered with meteorite-like craters pimpling the
hardy material. Shaun tucked his head into his shoulder as he spun
head over heels, the world a chaos of colours and noises as he
crashed into a solid barrier, halting his progress.

Droids spun as the human rolled into their midst.
Electronic eyes whirled and spun to dilate and bring the form into
focus, but by then it was too late. Shaun raked those droids
nearest in two, the slender bullets ripping through metallic
torso's and spewing cables like intestines.

Heaving for breath Shaun lowered the smoking muzzle
of the rifle and motioned Myshia forward. Her eyes were alight with
anger.

"Warn me when you're about to do that next time," she
muttered.

Shaun couldn't help but grin. "I'll let you
know."

"Thank you. Now what's your plan."

"Plan?" Shaun feigned surprise. "Who said anything
about a plan? As far as I can see it, we've been exposed and if we
stop for much longer we'll be buried in a mound of troopers so
thick we won't be able to shovel our way out."

"Then lead!"

Shaun nodded, and was about to reply when a movement
caught the corner of his eye. He spun about in time to see motion
in the debris at their feet - a ragged hand raising, a thick heavy
duty pistol in the green gloved hand. Shaun dropped and twisted at
the waist, turning around backwards to bring a raking kick around
in a low semi-circle.

A yellow light flashed overhead, blinding Myshia for
an instant. The bolt of laser had brushed her head, diverted only
because Shaun's boot had kicked the would-be assassin's hand off
target. Shaun had lowered his rifle in the next instant and
returned the fire from point blank range, bullets smashing into the
helm of the Sunlord guard as if it were a watermelon.

"Cunning," muttered Shaun under his breath. "He was
just sitting and waiting for his chance."