Animus Complete Series Omnibus, page 270
“Kaiden Jericho.” He glanced at Lok, who nodded. “Raza might have mentioned me.”
“Indeed. Wolfson’s apprentice,” Ken’ra remarked and Kaiden twitched a little with impatience.
“Is Raza here?” he asked to change the subject. “If he is, I would like to fight with him.”
The Sauren’s mouth tweaked into a small smile, as did Lok’s and a few of the others behind them. “We would all like to fight by our War Chief’s side,” he remarked. “He went to the ship’s core and sent us here. The rest of our brothers and sisters are fighting around the ship.”
“He’s alone?”
“Has any of the force you’ve battled so far led you to believe our War Chief would be in danger?” Lok asked.
The ace shook his head. “Nah. I’ve fought Raza and even holding back, he kicked my ass. But my guess is it’ll be a hell of a walk to the core by himself and he could use some company.” He folded his arms, suddenly thoughtful. “How do you guys know where everything is anyway? Is it smell or hearing?”
“To some extent.” Lok nodded.
“We have engaged this type of vessel before,” Ken’ra explained and held a pad up—a rather old one by the looks of it—activated it, and displayed the layout of the ship. “The Horde has been an issue in our sector for many years. We downed one of these ships on one of our hunting planets and had a team of technicians examine it.”
“Do you mind if I borrow that?” Kaiden asked. The war chief stretched to hand it to him. “Chief?”
“On it. Downloading.” The EI downloaded a copy of the map in seconds and brought it up in the HUD. “I assume you want a path to the core?”
“I want to try to meet up with Raza, but heading that way is a start.”
“All right. You need to go up.”
“Up?” He looked at the catwalks and floors above. “Which floor?”
“No, just up. There’s a space between floors on the ship near the top. You can use that to fly over to him without having to make too many detours.”
“Right.” Kaiden primed his jets and nodded at the Sauren. “I’ll go to find Raza.”
“And we will continue the hunt,” Ken’ra responded.
Lok eyed his compatriot curiously. “Should we not make our way to our War Chief as well?”
“He said that if we run out of things to do, we should join him but he wanted…privacy,” Ken’ra explained. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind an old friend joining him, especially one he hasn’t seen in some time. And I doubt he will interfere much with the War Chief’s hunt.”
“Uh, sure thing.” Kaiden crouched and vaulted up, activated his jets, and ascended rapidly while the Sauren watched him from below.
“Prepare to fire,” Chief warned. “Unless you wanna splatter on the ceiling and fall back in front of those warriors. That’ll lose you some goodwill.”
“Tell me when, smartass,” he ordered, aimed Sire in front of him, and held the trigger.
The ceiling approached quickly and moments later, Fire flashed across his HUD. Kaiden did so and rode through the blast while Chief slowed the jets somewhat so he could get his bearings and scan the new area, which appeared to be a dark ravine-like conglomeration of pipes and wires.
“All right, now go straight,” the EI instructed. “For…a while.”
Raza swung an Omega soldier into another. The one who received the blow toppled over the railings and into the deep banks below, a fall of several stories. The War Chief crushed the head of the soldier in his hand. The final man, a titan, attacked with a large ax, pressed a switch to activate boosters on the back, and attempted to bisect him from head to toe. He simply turned, held his staff up, and blocked the strike, which also shocked his assailant.
The Omega leaned into it to increase the force of the boosters and gradually inched closer. He grew a little cocky when he saw the Sauren’s arms shake slightly and added pressure to push his adversary back and swing the ax at him. The warrior bared his fangs, rolled to the side, and allowed the blade to drive through the floor inches from him. He roared and pierced the man’s heavy armor with his bladed staff, yanked it free, and let the body fall and slide through the hole the ax had made. With a grin, he watched it fall and was about to turn away when he heard something mechanical approach.
A group of four thinner droids marched toward him. He had grown more annoyed than bored with them by this point and swung his staff in preparation to attack. A blast rang out from above as something blew through the ceiling and a figure in black sailed down. He paused as a wash of green energy swept the mechanicals and destroyed them in a single dramatic onslaught, and the figure landed amongst the sizzling energy and raining parts.
He turned to the War Chief, held his hands like claws and placed them together, and bowed slightly before he straightened and his visor slid away. The Sauren clicked his teeth together and let a smile form briefly. It had been some time, but he recognized the new arrival. “Kaiden.”
“Hello, Raza,” the ace responded and shouldered his rifle. “I heard you wanted to blow up a ship.”
Chapter Seventeen
Raza walked forward, his arm extended. “It has been some time, young hunter. I’m glad to see you still fight on.”
“And on and on and on.” Kaiden chuckled and took the Sauren’s arm. “It’s good to see you too, Raza. I don’t think I ever got to thank you in person for helping with the Gin situation.”
“There’s no need. I was more than happy to end that wretch.” The warrior grinned, released him, and stood tall. “How did you find me?”
“Lok and I destroyed the jump engine and met some of your other hunters who said you were heading to the core. Ken’ra gave me a map of the ship, which I followed to try to meet you until Chief picked up a life sign. Saurens kind of stand out.”
“I see. Yes, I expected the trek would be long but I had hoped for more worthy fights than the ones I’ve had thus far.” He growled his displeasure.
“I don’t think you’ll have much luck with that,” Kaiden told him. “We’ve fought for so long and we have the advantage now. They still have numbers but I think most of the guys left on Earth are basically the B-team.” He pointed above. “If you want the good stuff, I assume most went back to guard the guy who caused all this.”
“Hmm…I see.” Raza clicked his teeth. “We will have to discuss the events before this battle, but we should finish this first.”
“Agreed.” The ace nodded, vented Sire, and closed his visor. “Lead on, War Chief.”
The Sauren smiled again as he turned and began to jog, and Kaiden had to sprint to keep up. “I think this might be the first time I’ve heard you refer to me by my title.”
“Well, this is a war so it seems appropriate,” he reasoned.
Raza chuckled. “Tell me, where is Wolfson? Is he facing other foes outside the ship?”
He was glad his face could not be seen through his helmet. “He’s…I’ll fill you in later.”
“Some other mission, then?” the warrior questioned with a huff of air. “Those are concerns for later, you are right. For now, we should…hold.” He extended an arm, craned his neck, and listened. “Something is activating.”
A rumble farther along the route confirmed his statement. Something significantly large was engaging its systems behind the big doors to the main core. Kaiden shut the vent on Sire, charged a shot, and aimed at the barrier as Raza leaned down and rolled his staff.
The doors opened and a massive machine emerged. A curved black body with red stripes lumbered forward on four pointed legs with four cannons, two on each side. Kaiden saw no head, which meant no obvious weak points. It resembled a combination of a Goliath and Dragoon and as it marched out of the engine room, the glow of the power core illuminated its dark frame.
“That’s…that’s new,” the ace muttered.
“Most machines are not worthy prey,” the Sauren growled. “This one, I suspect, is an exception.”
The cannons began to charge and both hunter and soldier darted forward rather than to the side, which would have meant off the ledge. Fortunately, the area close to the access point widened somewhat, but the cannons had more maneuverability than Kaiden had anticipated. Two moved immediately to target him and he fired instinctively down the barrel of one. It created an eruption that forced the barrel beneath it down.
When the second one fired, the large explosion flung him off his feet, but he rode the blast and rolled hastily to his feet. Smoke issued from the barrel he had damaged, but the light came on again as well. It was able to self-repair, obviously, or had at least enough power to force the weapon to function.
Raza sliced at the droid’s legs and darted from one to the other as it tried to maneuver its cannons to enable a clean shot. A couple of loud clicks accompanied the mech’s successful attempt to right itself and straighten its limbs, which began to pound the ground rapidly beneath it. The force was enough to stop the ace from getting close, and the Sauren was forced to leap back, running on all fours with his staff in his mouth. Their adversary turned all four cannons on the War Chief and Kaiden fired two more charged rounds to try to get its attention. He was successful and the droid rotated two of the weapons to retaliate. Thinking quickly, he retrieved his shielding array and began to run back while he activated it and he tossed it in front of a column that he dove behind.
“Chief, any ideas?” he asked and readied his rifle as the machine fired. The attack struck his shield, broke it, and impacted the column, and the force catapulted him away and cracked his shoulder pads and chest plate.
“Not dying is a good start,” the EI recommended. “I don’t see anything we can break through, and we’re gonna need a ton of power to defeat it. Which makes me think we can kill two birds.”
“What do you—” An arrow appeared in his HUD and pointed to the core. He immediately reached the obvious conclusion. “All right. So we only need to force it in there.”
“Shooting the cannons made it step back,” Chief reminded him.
“A little, yeah, but we need it to move more than only slightly. Probably, if I hit all four… All right, it’s been a while since we’ve done this, but I have an idea.”
“I think I follow. Let’s do it, partner.”
The ace nodded, swung Sire to focus on the target, and raced to the droid. Raza had pierced its chest with his staff and currently roared at it as he now tried to climb higher.
“Raza, jump!” Kaiden called, activated his last thermal, and lobbed it at the mech. The Sauren leapt off seconds before the explosive caught the rear of the enemy and damaged a piece of its armor. More importantly, it turned its attention to him.
He looked at the War Chief, made a shoving motion with his hand, and pointed at the core. His companion’s eyes widened for a moment before he nodded, stowed his staff, and armed himself with what appeared to be a club. From the reverberating energy that issued from it, though, it was clearly a kinetic force hammer.
Kaiden turned and the mech loomed over him while all four cannons charged. “Chief, activate battle suite.”
He raised his weapon as time began to slow and breathed out slowly. The energy coalesced in each barrel and he pulled the trigger—only a partial charge but enough for the blow-back. He switched to the left cannon, did the same, then repeated the process with the final two. Each shot struck home. While the combined blast forced his opponent back, he held himself steady against the pressure.
The mech staggered into the engine room and Raza seized the opportunity. With an aggressive bellow, he rushed at it and held the hammer high as it glowed a bright white. He drove it into the body of his enemy and a wave of kinetic force surged from it and hurled the machine back several more feet so it fell directly into the core.
The Sauren landed and Kaiden deactivated the battle suite. The engine began to disintegrate and poured out a wave of destructive energy. They dove to the sides as it funneled out of the room, consumed the path behind them, and melted the mech inside. The pressure gathered until the explosion rocketed skyward, blew through the ceiling, and caused the rest to collapse.
They had won but now, they were trapped on a ship that would soon be aflame.
Chapter Eighteen
“Damn, something happened down there,” one of the pilots exclaimed. Genos narrowed his eyes to focus as a large explosion ripped through a couple of floors of the command ship.
“It would appear that our Sauren allies have been quite effective on your left, C-2,” he remarked and added a notification to another pilot of an incoming fighter.
“That vessel will go down hard. It’s a good thing it didn’t make it to shore so it won’t drop over a city or anything,” Haldt added.
“Indeed, a most fortuitous battle—if a battle can be fortuitous.” The Tsuna scanned the sky. The few Omega ships that had gotten away jumped and finally retreated from the battle. “I wonder where Kaiden ended up.”
“We might not have thought the plan through enough,” Kaiden shouted as he scrambled to his feet and grimaced at the rapidly collapsing area and everything now on fire.
“That’s kind of normal for you, though, ain’t it?” Chief snarked. “Still, it made one hell of a boom. I didn’t expect that. It must have been a mixture of the power sources between the mech and the core.”
He ran to check on Raza. “And you didn’t factor that in?”
“I didn’t know what the power source to the mech was,” the EI explained. “I haven’t seen one like it either. Also, it’s not in my data and I have to work with what I have.”
“Fine, fair enough.” The ace knelt and checked the War Chief. “Are you doing all right, Raza?”
“I’m fine.” He grunted and pushed himself up. His armguard was gone and his flesh had been gouged sufficiently that blood poured from the wound. “You know how difficult it is to kill a Sauren.”
“Thankfully, but that looks like it could have done it,” Kaiden replied and helped him up.
“War Chief!” A voice shouted from a communicator on Raza’s belt. He took it off and activated it, and the screen displayed Ken’ra on the other end. “I’m glad to finally reach you. From this destruction, I feel secure in assuming you were successful?”
“We were indeed,” Raza confirmed. “This ship will fly no longer.”
“Unfortunately, we are on the ship,” the ace reminded them.
His companion narrowed his eyes at him but exhaled a long breath. “There is that, yes. I shall send the order out to fall back, get going, and meet me on the ship.”
“Of course, War Chief.” Ken’ra saluted. “If you can give me a destination, I can have a chariot waiting.”
Raza looked at the blazing trail that used to be the path to and from the core. “We are unsure of where that will be. Do not wait. We will find a way.”
“Understood, War Chief.” The Sauren placed a claw against his chest. “A successful hunt. We shall celebrate together.”
“Indeed we shall.” Raza shut his comm off and folded his arms. Already, a couple of scales had begun to grow back. “And not even a trophy to claim. What a waste.”
“You do realize a trophy wouldn’t mean much if we die, right?” Kaiden asked as he put Sire away. “Or can the Sauren survive a command ship crashing and exploding and I’m merely a frail human?”
“We could not survive such an impact,” his companion stated. “You are a frail human, but that matters little right now.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if this is tough love or simply tough.” He sighed. “Chief, do you have anything?”
The EI appeared in front of them and displayed the map. “I don’t see a way out of here with the bridge gone. Not conventional paths, at least.”
“But there are other routes?” Raza asked as he studied the map.
“Yeah, above and below,” Chief explained and highlighted two markers. “Head up and you can go through the pocket we came from, punch your way into the upper floor, and find a hatch or jump out the windows. As for down, this goes all the way to the bottom of the ship. Once there, you can punch your way through and you are golden.”
“Can we simply punch through? I don’t have any explosives left,” Kaiden asked.
“Buddy, this place is falling apart. The falling debris, compromised structure, and big explosions have done most of the work. A few charged shots and some Sauren muscle will get it done.”
“All right, but I don’t think I have the power in my jets to carry Raza. Or the strength, for that matter. Are my mods compromised?”
“Yeah, about that…your jets are partially compromised,” the EI revealed. “I can probably get you one good boost or slow your fall a couple of times at best.”
He felt behind him and grimaced at the heat that came off his jets and the melted parts. “Damn. Why bother talking about going up if that isn’t a possibility?”
“Because it is. The War Chief would simply have to carry you.”
The two looked at one another and the ace glanced again at the Sauren’s wounded arm. It still healed far faster than a human’s would but remained a problem. “So down?” he asked and pointed below.
Raza huffed in irritation and nodded as a large piece of metal landed behind them. Taking the hint, they both ran, leapt over the railing, and plunged down the deep cavern. “Chief, I’m gonna need you to pull double-duty right quick,” he stated and twisted so his jet faced down. “Make sure I don’t go splat and call Genos and Haldt.”
“Hey, I’m getting a link from Kaiden,” Haldt announced to Genos.
“As am I. Activating and going to group link.” The Tsuna pressed a couple of buttons. “Are you there, friend Kaiden?”
“Yep, need a favor from both of you,” he stated. “I’m with the Sauren War Chief and we have to take a rather indirect route out of here through the bottom of the ship. I assume the vessel is fairly high?”
