Marathon: The Complete Series (Books 1-9) (Complete Series Box Sets), page 39
part #1 of Marathon Series
Eckhart screamed again as the creature’s tentacles gripped him tighter, but Rixby didn’t try to free him. The servants on the platform were scurrying around the giant blob, trying to get the thing to safety.
The little furry puffball sprang the opposite way and sailed off the platform, straight for Eckhart. Rixby saw Vora coming.
Rixby dashed forward as fast as she could. She dodged Dallas’s shoots and scooted around Eckhart. Vora was already halfway through the air, descending toward Eckhart’s sprawled form.
Rixby pushed off with her flappy feet and caught Vora in both hands. The creature screeched and struggled to escape, but Rixby held on for all she was worth.
Both aliens hit the floor with gunshots going off all over the place. Dallas, Alice, and Innyria fought their way to Eckhart, and the guests poured through the exits the friends left unguarded.
The guards and assassins remained behind and hounded the friends to the platform. Dallas and Alice stationed themselves around Eckhart and defended Innyria while he cut Eckhart free, but more guards gathered all the time. They shoved into the chamber until as many assaulted the friends as guests who’d just fled it.
Rixby struggled with Vora on the floor, but Rixby wasn’t built to fight anybody. Her short arms and legs left her unsuited to get a good grasp on the little thing, and Vora threw all her vicious energy into breaking free.
She squirmed in Rixby’s hold and sank her needle teeth into Rixby’s hand. Rixby squeaked in pain and Vora ripped away from her.
Vora skidded across the floor. Dallas and Alice were too busy protecting the friends from the massive force of guards arrayed against them. Innyria hooked one of Eckhart’s arms around his neck to support Eckhart away, but they couldn’t reach either exit. They were trapped.
Rixby shot to her feet to chase Vora, but Vora was already breaking away. She dove for a tiny hole in the floor barely big enough for Alice to stick her arm into. If Vora got into that hole, the crew would never catch her. She would escape to torment Eckhart another day.
Rixby scuttled after her, but she couldn’t get there in time. Vora stretched out to slide the rest of the way to freedom when—
A crackle of plasma deflected off the floor and caught the creature from the side.
The blast careened Vora head over heel, and Bing advanced into the room, firing again and again. He tumbled Vora over and over until the little monster wheeled to a bloody pulp against the opposite wall.
Bing ran over to Innyria and grabbed Eckhart. He spat a mouthful of Eplite onto Eckhart’s tongue, shoved his rifle into Innyria’s hands, and picked up Eckhart.
He pushed Bing away. “I’m okay! Give me a weapon!”
Bing didn’t have another weapon to give him, but a weapon wouldn’t help the crew now. Dallas faced the army of guards, and their shots bounced off his armor while he laid down a carpet of fire. Alice, Innyria, and Bing fired under Dallas’s arms, but they couldn’t do anything more than keep themselves alive. No one was getting out of this room.
Rixby looked around for any way out of this place. The servants must have taken the blob somewhere, but she couldn’t see where.
She looked up at the ceiling in desperation when, without warning, a whirling, spinning black shadow dropped through the ceiling. It rotated in a blur, with lasers erupting in a sphere of destruction.
The thing plummeted in front of Dallas and a million lasers sliced into the guards. Their dismembered bodies toppled in swaths of blood and death, but the spinning ball didn’t stop shooting. It cleared a path to the elevator.
“What the hell is that?” Innyria bellowed.
“It’s Mozari!” Bing called. “Come on!”
The crew packed into the elevator. Dallas turned backward to guard their retreat, but the lasers cleared the room until no one stood against them.
Alice pushed Rixby between herself and Bing. The whole crew shrank from the black sphere when it got near the elevator. There was only one Mozari on this planet who could have helped the crew escape, but why would Ilke help them now, of all times? How could she, when she was trapped on the Marathon with Akkek?
The thing whizzed into the elevator and transformed into Akkek Stratha. She beamed up at Eckhart, and her petite form went in and out of transparency even now. Every now and then, one of the blurry pieces of transparent reality peeled away to become a Mozari appendage before it vanished again.
“Are you okay?” Akkek asked.
“What the holy hell are you doing here?” Eckhart croaked.
“It’s nice to see you, too.” She looked up at the black square where Alice had kicked the grate out…and the whole crew evaporated upward in a blur.
Rixby felt her body become formless and ghostly. She ceased to exist…and yet she still existed. The friends zoomed through the elevator ceiling, up the shaft, through several layers of bedrock, and rematerialized on the tarmac outside.
Countless ships rocketed into the air, all racing for the Marathon parked a hundred feet away. Several fired on the ship, but their shots bounced off the Celdian shielding.
Rixby started to say she thought they ought to get the hell out of here, but before she could speak, Akkek disintegrated them all again.
They whisked across the base in a dizzy blur. Akkek dropped Dallas, Bing, Innyria, and Eckhart in the cargo hold, and kept on going. She carried Alice and Rixby to the bridge and deposited Rixby on her workstation.
Rixby and Alice both turned around to stare at each other in shock. Akkek was gone, but before either of them could react, the Marathon’s engines fired up by themselves.
Alice sprang to the regulators. “That rotten bitch is flying the damn ship!”
She dropped into the seat, took the helm, and the tactical web blinked on. Rixby went to work on her instruments. “We’re still transparent! Vora’s attack force is firing on us, but the shots are going straight through the hull.”
“She isn’t the only one with a few party tricks up her sleeve.” Alice ripped the regulators back, and the Marathon sprinted up through the atmosphere.
“Akkek and Ilke are back in the Crick centrifuge,” Rixby reported.
“Let ‘em stay there,” Alice snarled. “Give me a plain old gun battle any day of the week.”
“Be careful what you wish for.” A boom struck the ship.
“You said we were transparent!” Alice bellowed.
“We are! Vora’s attack force...I don’t understand it.’
“Who cares?” Alice punched the throttle and the ship ripped out of the atmosphere, with all the attack ships hot on its tail.
“Where are you going?” Rixby squeaked.
“You tell me!” Alice roared back. “Give me one destination where we can shake these assholes.”
Rixby scrambled around on her workstation, but nothing presented itself. More attack ships took off from Vora’s base and started to overtake the Marathon.
“If you don’t give me a destination in the next five seconds,” Alice bellowed, “I’m gonna have to do something drastic. Just warning you.”
“I’m sorry, Alice!” Rixby skimmed her charts even more feverishly, but every second drained her hope away. “We’re heading into the Vermax system, but that’s—”
“Not the Vermax system!” Alice snarled. “Anywhere but there.”
Rixby took a breath. “The only other option is the Dothea system.”
Alice actually took her hollow eyes off the tactical web to stare at Rixby. “Are you suicidal?”
“What else is there?”
Alice faced forward, and her breath rasped through her mask, fighting the regulators around in a steep curve.
Innyria and Bing entered the bridge just then. “What are you doing?”
“Getting away,” Rixby told them.
Innyria pointed at the tactical web and his hand shook. “That’s the Dothea system.”
“I know what it is, jackass, now shut up,” Alice snapped.
“But the electromagnetic field will—”
He barely got the words out before she plunged nose first into the atmosphere of the biggest planet. Innyria lunged for the regulators to stop her, but it was too late.
The ship crashed into an invisible barrier, and the tactical web vanished. Darkness enveloped the bridge as power switched off all over the ship.
Bing screamed, wheeling past Alice’s chair. He and Innyria smashed into the front screen, and then an almighty force tore Rixby off her workstation. She hurtled through the air and landed on top of Bing.
She swam out of dizziness and and heard the unmistakable whine of the atmospheric gas shrieking across the Marathon’s hull. Celdian shields wouldn’t protect the ship now, and with all systems offline, nothing would stop the ship from flying at terminal velocity into the ground. The ship was in freefall over an unknown planet with no way to stop it.
LOST STAR
1
Adam Eckhart stepped onto the Marathon’s bridge and caught a fleeting glimpse of the tactical web’s interlaced laser pathways crisscrossing, surrounding the command station.
His Bion pilot Alice sat in Eckhart’s usual chair, but she didn’t fight the regulators to steer the ship. She stared into the vast abyss of the tactical web at the giant planet rushing toward the ship…or the ship was rushing toward it.
Tall buildings zoomed into view, and the Marathon hurtled on a collision course for a widespread city sprawling over hundreds of miles.
The next instant, the ship broke through an invisible electromagnetic field. The tactical web blinked out and the whole bridge plunged into crushing darkness.
Just before the blanket fell over Eckhart’s eyes, he spotted Rixby standing on top of her workstation. Bing stood behind Alice’s chair, and Innyria charged forward to do…something.
The next instant, all power died and the ship smashed into something incredibly solid and unforgiving. An unstoppable force hurled Eckhart forward. The agonizing crunch and rip of the hull drowned out screams and roars from all sides.
Eckhart struck a wall and fell hard on the floor. The hull shuddered underneath him, and shrieking sounds vibrated through it from other parts of the ship. Bodies fell on top of him, and he felt something furry. It was Rixby.
A low groan reached his ears from somewhere out in the dark. “Brace for impact!” he yelled, and grabbed Rixby with all his might.
Tentacles snaked around him in an unbreakable grip, but that slithering sensation made him feel better. Bing was with him, and whatever happened to him would happen to Bing and Rixby, too.
A second later, the ship smashed into something else, and this time, the collision ripped a gigantic section of the ship’s nose off. Daylight streaked into the bridge and blinded Eckhart for a minute.
He dared to squint toward the breach and immediately regretted it. He stared through a jagged slash at giant skyscrapers rushing at him at impossible speed.
The ship was flying way too fast to avoid them, and from what he could see, the Marathon was descending rapidly into the city below.
If the ship hit one of those buildings, which it was bound to do any second now, the force would send the bridge crew spinning through the gap to nowhere.
“Hold onto something!” he bellowed.
He didn’t know if anyone heard him, except that Bing’s many limbs wound even tighter around Eckhart’s body. Rixby screamed something, but Eckhart couldn’t understand her.
He cast one desperate look around. The only thing near enough for him to hold onto was the navigation station. He heaved himself off the floor, but Bing’s weight held him down.
Eckhart didn’t try to extricate himself from Bing’s appendages. He would need Bing when this was all over.
Eckhart rolled onto his side, crushing Rixby under his weight, but he deafened himself to her cries. He dove for the navigation station and hooked one arm around the pedestal holding it to the floor just as the ship collided with one of the buildings.
A devastating rumble shook the Marathon, and the breach tore even wider. Eckhart’s forward momentum ripped him across the floor toward the hole.
He flung his free arm around Rixby and hung on to the pedestal with the last ounce of his strength. He covered Rixby with his body and tucked his head into her fur, praying to heaven on high that they made it out of this alive.
Screams mingled with the horrible sound of the ship’s hull renting to pieces. The noise muffled for a second, and Eckhart made another grave mistake by stealing a peek out.
The ship had punched through one building, sailed into open space, and plummeted headlong into an even bigger building. Eckhart buried his face in Rixby’s fur, resolved never to look out again until this was all over.
He didn’t have a choice. The next smash yanked him away from the navigation pedestal against his best efforts to hold onto it. Rixby screamed again, and the last thing Eckhart saw was the little Lemaria extending her arms to him trying to hold onto him, too.
An instant later, he smacked into the wall right next to the breach and slammed down hard on the floor.
He swam back to consciousness feeling sick. His whole body hurt and his head pounded. He coughed. “Bing…”
No one answered him. He almost passed out again when he tried to roll onto his side. His back, shoulders, and hips screeched in pain where he’d hit the wall. Where was Bing? Why didn’t Bing come to help him? Was the ship’s medic injured beyond saving? If anything happened to Bing, the whole Marathon crew was screwed, blued, and tattooed.
He pushed himself onto his hands and knees and crawled over to the navigation station. He pulled himself hand over hand until he leaned against it, but at least he was on his feet. None of his bones seemed to be broken. He just hurt like hell.
He blinked, and another wave of nausea hit him when he saw Bing and Alice bending over Innyria. The Urus security officer from Parilia lay on his side behind Rixby’s workstation, and he wasn’t moving.
Eckhart swayed on unsteady legs, took a chance, and staggered across the bridge. He collapsed next to Alice. “What’s wrong?”
Bing shot Eckhart a desperate look and went back to working on Innyria. As soon as Eckhart saw his old friend, he realized why Bing didn’t answer.
A giant shard of torn metal stabbed sideways through Innyria’s chest. Its gore-stained tip pointed at the ceiling from somewhere down on the floor. Eckhart couldn’t see Innyria breathing.
As soon as Eckhart showed up, Bing spat a mouthful of sticky black goo onto the ragged flesh around the embedded shard, but it couldn’t penetrate into Innyria’s chest.
Bing ran his wrist across his chin. “We have to get him to the infirmary now. I can’t do anything for him here.”
“You have to get this thing out of him.” Eckhart raised his hand to touch the shard, but Bing slapped his hand away.
“Don’t touch it! Go get the tool kit from the locker outside the bridge, Alice. You’re the strongest.”
“What are you going to do?” Eckhart asked. “You can fix him, can’t you?”
Bing gave Eckhart one look that answered that question. “I’d have to operate on him, and I can’t do that without power.”
“But you can heal him with Eplite as soon as you take the shard out, can’t you? Why don’t you just remove it and…”
Bing rounded on him with unusual venom. “Will you be quiet? Eplite only works on certain injuries. There are some things Eplite can’t do. You know that.” Alice came back with the tool kit and opened it on the floor next to Bing. “Get out the saw.” Bing turned to Eckhart. “How about you do something useful and go find Dallas? He can do this much quicker than we can.”
Bing turned back to Alice and pointed underneath Innyria’s body. “I’m going to lift him up while you cut it off from the floor. Understand?”
They went to work, but Eckhart didn’t move. He stared down at Innyria. Eckhart had spent nearly twenty years putting Innyria and everything else from his own past on Parilia out of his mind. Now his heart twisted at the thought that Innyria might die right here on the Marathon’s bridge.
Eckhart had even convinced himself that Innyria had sold himself out to the criminal organizations on Parilia for his own gain. Eckhart didn’t want to trust a guy like that, but Innyria didn’t stay on Parilia. He’d left his post to help the Marathon crew save Eckhart from Vora’s clutches.
Innyria would only do that if he felt he owed Eckhart a debt—which he did. Eckhart just didn’t know Innyria remembered that debt. He thought Innyria had put it out of his mind along with the rest of the past, the same way Eckhart had.
Eckhart didn’t even get a chance to thank his old friend for risking his life to save Eckhart’s. If Eckhart left the bridge now, he wouldn’t be here if and when Innyria died. He couldn’t walk away from that.
Bing kept shooting Eckhart filthy looks while Alice sawed through the shard. The scraping noise snapped Eckhart out of his trance. “Why don’t you use the laser?”
“Because the power is out, dope,” Alice husked through her gas mask. “We just flew through an electromagnetic field.”
“Go get Dallas, Eckhart,” Bing snapped. “You aren’t doing anything—” At that moment, Alice’s saw broke through the shard and Innyria’s body jerked in Bing’s grasp. “Oh, good. We’re through.”
Bing stood up and wrapped his appendages around Innyria’s body. Bing picked him up easily, but he held Innyria horizontally. He didn’t turn Innyria on his back or straighten him up.
Alice raced ahead of him and opened the door leading out of the bridge. Bing headed for the exit, and Eckhart stood up to follow them when he remembered. He looked around. “Where’s Rixby?”
“How should I know?” Bing growled over his shoulder. “Why don’t you find her, too?”
Alice and Bing disappeared onto the gangway behind the bridge taking Innyria to the infirmary. Eckhart stood where he was, trying to get his brain working, but when he scanned the destroyed bridge, he got another shock.
