Wildfire (Hidden Legacy #3)(54)

"Your concern for my people is touching. If you want to avoid bloodshed, open the gates and we can talk like civilized people."

"No. You're not coming in. You're not talking to anyone. Don't come here with your bullet-meat soldiers and threaten us. Nobody is scared, Rogan. If you persist in your idiocy, we'll wipe you off the face of the planet."

"That's a big promise." Rogan smiled.

"Suit yourself. Your funeral."

Liam hung up.

Rogan slid the phone into an inner pocket and squeezed my hand. "Hold on."

The vehicle made a sharp turn and my insides went sideways. The back of the carrier dropped open, turning into a ramp. Rogan was already moving, lost ahead of me behind bodies in fatigues. Sergeant Heart thrust himself into my view and barked, "Follow me! Move!"

I grabbed my Ruger and got the hell out of the carrier.



Outside, the bright sunlight slapped me. Bullets buzzed by us like pissed-off bees, striking the top of the armored carrier with metallic pings. The space directly above us pulsed with blue as the two aegises shielded us with magic.

"Move!" Sergeant Heart roared.

I dashed forward, following the line of ex-soldiers. They grabbed the edge of the armored plate on the side of the carrier. Metal clanged, sliding into place. The armored plate split and its bottom half dropped down, forming a platform attached to the carrier's flank.



       
         
       
        

"Up!"

I jumped onto the platform and pulled myself up between the other soldiers. Servomotors whined and the platform rose, carrying us up. Rogan's people grabbed the top half of the armored plate, still attached to the carrier. Metal clanged again, and the armored plate slid up. Heart reached in front of me, yanked on a lever, pulled a rectangular shutter open within the plate, and secured it. I was looking through a window, two feet wide and one foot tall. The top of the armored carrier was right in front of me and I could rest my rifle on it.

A concrete yard stretched in front of us, bathed in bright sunlight. Sheer walls rose on both sides, and ahead, about two hundred yards away, another wall towered. Within it a massive door loomed, painted black, like the door of some giant castle.

Next to me, Heart called out, "Okay boys and girls, weapons ready. Safeties off."

I slid the selector switch on my rifle to full auto.

A chorus of voices barked back. "Roger, Top."

"Rodriguez, range to target."

A male yelled out, "Two hundred and eleven meters."

"Fire on command."

Heart leaned next to me. "We work in teams of two. I'm your teammate. When I give command to fire, you fire. When you're out, say ‘Out!' and take two steps back. If you jam, say ‘Jam!' and take two steps back. Understood?"

My heart was beating too fast. "Yes."

The massive door split in the middle, showing a glimpse of complete darkness.

"Hold your fire," Heart ordered.

My hands shook. I took a deep breath, all the way to my stomach, held it in for a few seconds and slowly let it out, concentrating only on breathing.

The gap widened. Something stirred in the ink-black darkness.

In . . . and out. In . . . and out. It wasn't working.

The doors swung open. A pale spindly leg thrust into the sunlight, a sickly mottled grey, the color of old concrete.

"Hold it," Heart said next to me, his voice echoing in my helmet.

A creature stepped into the open. It stood on four spindly legs, bent backward like those of a grasshopper, its knobby knees protruding up. Its body hung between them, little more than a sack of flesh. There was no head, no eyes, and no nose. Only a mouth, a round cavernous mouth, lined with rows and rows of conical teeth all the way around. It was a monster designed to feed.

The creatures stumbled in the sunlight. Another emerged from the shadows, then another, and another.

We were two hundred yards away. That meant, considering the door, that they were . . . the size of a small car.

The first beast froze. Two long, feathery whips snapped upright from its shoulders, like antennas. They turned toward us. A sea of feathery antennas sprang up. Oh dear God. 

"Hold it," Heart said.

The creatures charged.

They came at us in a ragged pale mob, rushing in a whirlwind of legs, their mouths gaping open.

"Range!" Heart called out.

"Two hundred meters," a male voice called down from the left.

Sweat sheathed my palms.

"One ninety."

My mouth went dry. Waiting was torture.

"One eighty."

I glanced over my shoulder. Behind us, shielded by a blue sphere of Melosa's magic, Rogan was drawing a complex arcane circle with chalk.