Adam and Sherri had heard the commotion through the thick door to Kroekus office and had moved closer to listen. Their weapons had already been confiscated, and so they were shocked to see the guards draw their own MK’s and point them at the two Humans.
Adam and Sherri turned to face the guards. Adam opened his mouth and said, “What the fuck-” just as the wall behind them exploded at their backs. Part of wall and doors cascaded down upon them, along with a heavy lump of something that landed directly on Adam’s back.
Adam rolled over, carrying the lump with him. When the dust settled, Adam was staring into the face of Riyad Tarazi.
Riyad’s eyes widened with surprise, and then he shoved Adam to his left, firing his weapon past Adam’s left ear.
A squeal of pain emanated from behind Adam, and then an even greater weight fell on his back, as the foul, hot breath of a bear-faced creature exhaled on him. The thing was dead, but coming right behind it was his very-much-alive twin.
Adam and Riyad rolled away in opposite directions as the beast plowed a channel into the floor with its horned head right between them. The creature continued headlong into the room, crashing into the two stunned guards and pinning their now-crushed bodies against the far wall. Then the thing turned, focused in on Adam and Riyad again, snorted and charged once more.
Riyad’s weapon was pinned under him, so he rolled over more and tried to free the MK. It wouldn’t be in time, the creature was only a few meters away and coming fast Pop! A flash of a bolt launcher struck the charging creature in the side of the head, burning a clean hole into its skull, the force of the blast diverting its attack. The beast missed Riyad by millimeters. Then it fell to the tile floor and slid, dead, into what remained of the wall leading to Kroekus office.
Adam and Riyad looked up from the floor and through the ruble that covered them, to see Sherri holding one of the now-dead guard’s MK’s, a satisfied look on her face.
“Stop playing with the puppies, boys. I think we’ve got bigger problems now,” she said. She recovered the other guard’s weapon and tossed it to Adam.
She was right. They could hear yelling in the main hallway leading to Kroekus’ office, and the sound of dozens of guards filling the chamber.
The three Humans fanned out and took up a spread formation covering the door. They crouched down on one knee and aimed the weapons, sighting along the barrels of the weapons with both eyes open.
“I thought you were dead!” Adam yelled over at Riyad, not taking his eyes off the door.
“The same about you,” Riyad growled. “How did you get off the ship?”
“Does that really matter now? What did you do to Kroekus?”
“Nothing. He was going to rip me off, and then he sicced his two dogs on me.”
Sherri yelled from the other side of the room: “Whatever you did, you’ve got his whole army coming down on us. Who are you anyway?”
Adam answered, “He’s Riyad Tarazi, a slimy bastard who I wouldn’t trust to take out my trash.”
“I thought you said he was dead?”
“I was wrong!”
The door to the office slid open, and a force of guards wearing body armor flooded into the room. The three Humans let loose with accurate shots at their unshielded heads, dropping five of them before the others began to move back.
At the left side of the door, Sherri rushed in and grabbed three of the guards’ flash rifles, tossing two of them to Adam and Riyad and keeping one for herself.
The second wave of alien guards rushed forward, seemingly not to have learned from the demise of their comrades. Now armed with the more powerful and rapidly-firing flash rifles, the Humans were able to dispatch twelve of the guards before they retreated.
“We’ve got to find another exit point,” Adam cried out. “Back into Kroekus’ office! There has to be another exit.”
Sherri moved first, then Riyad, while Adam covered them. When Adam entered the office, he found the remains of the three guards Riyad had killed, plus the gaping opening where the “dogs” had crashed into the room. They entered the opening, and found themselves in another long hallway with several doors lining it. Two of the doors opened, as curious Sileans looked out to see what all the commotion was about. Riyad, who was in the lead, blasted them without hesitation.
“Save your bolts!” Adam commanded. “Manage your targets.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Riyad replied sarcastically.
“Fuck you!”
“Knock it off you two!” Sherri cried out from her position in the middle. “Concentrate.”
At the end of the hallway was a large room with numerous tables and a food station lining one wall. As they entered, a force of guards entered from the other side.
The Humans slid on the smooth floor and overturned three tables to crouch behind, just as bolts began to splash around them, with some striking the tables they now hid behind.
Adam fired into the ceiling above the guards, raining debris down upon them. As the guards covered their heads, the three Humans rose from behind their tables and sent a dozen bolts slamming to the front row of guards. Then they ducked back under cover as more bolts came their way.
Adam still had the MK Sherri had tossed him. He pulled it out of his holster and bent the barrel with his bare hands. Then he set the level to three and pressed the trigger. When the weapon began to heat up, he flung the MK over the table and into the crowd of guards. As the lower-setting charge built up, the weapon finally discharged, yet with the barrel bent, the electric charge compressed even more and exploded with the force of grenade.
The explosion sent the bloody parts of a dozen more guards raining down on the room.
“That was pretty cool,” Sherri said. “You’ve got to teach how to do that sometime.”
Adam just smiled and nodded back.
The doorway was clearing, so they set off for it one at a time, the other two covering while the forward person took shelter behind more overturned tables. Down this hallway were stationed several more guards. Riyad and Adam blasted three more before the rest retreated.
Adam knew they were getting close to the side of the building, and because of the Silean habit of putting the most important facilities on the ground floor of their buildings, he knew they could be out on the street once they found any exit.
Just then the entire building shook to its core, a deep rumbling sensation, and smoke began to billow down the hallway toward them. They retreated back into the cafeteria as the very ground continued to tremble. Taking shelter under some of the tables that had not been overturned, they managed to gain cover just as a section of the ceiling came crashing down on them. There were deep-base booms from heavy weapons, as more smoke, dust and debris filled the air. Then intermittent pops from flash rifles, answered quickly by a chorus of much heavier booms, followed then by a deathly silence.
There was movement in the hallway outside the cafeteria, and Adam chanced a glance in that direction. He saw a squad of massive creatures enter the room, each decked out in dark, full-body armor and carrying double barrel blast rifles which Adam had only heard about but never seen. The troops rushed in and circled the tables where the three Humans hid, leveling their weapons at them.