Dark Energy Supernova - An Anthology of SF SD Shorts

Part 3 - Turn on a Dime

"Do your best to just knock them out," Tony said as he finished with a pair of teenagers before directing them off the platform and down the tunnel.  "Rip them apart and we won't be able to save them later."

"Great," Kennedy grumbled as she thumbed her Helixes down to their lowest settings.  "Now a kinder, gentler defense that just knocks the enemy down instead of taking them out so they don't come back later and kill us."  Then she was jerking herself behind cover as a hail of bullets filled the space where she had just been standing.

"It doesn't appear that our adversary has the same reluctance," Jasper grimly noted as he also took cover.  "It does beg the question, though: why do you think the breathers call them reclaimers?"

Their answer was swift in coming.  Even as they drew behind cover, several figures in heavy, dark gray body armor exploded out of the stairwell, automatic slug throwers in gauntleted hands.  They quickly saw that the armor was positioned to ward against biting, protecting every millimetre of exposed skin, including the face and hands.

Clear of the doorway, the reclaimers hesitated slightly.  Then Kennedy heard one speaking to another in a low voice:

"It doesn't matter if you see a face you recognize this time.  You see a breather, you put a bullet in their heart.  Because last time you didn't, and good people got turned."

"She,...she was my wife, sarge," a second voice said.  "I just couldn't,..."  One of the reclaimers made a sharp gesture.

"I told you to kill her but you didn't.  We got her back, but she claimed hundreds of us before we did.  Any of which can now bite you!!  And now you gonna turn and you gonna tear away the flesh of her bones. In this life now you kill or you die. Or you die and you kill.  It can't be any more simplified than that!"  Then the speaker was making a gesture and the slug throwers were spraying a cloud of ordnance across the platform towards a handful of recently turned humans that were trying to get away.

Most managed to avoid getting hit.  But a handful were struck, each crying out with pain as the bullet impacts spun them around and dropped them onto the platform's uncaring concrete floor.  And, as Jasper and Kennedy watched in astonishment, they almost instantly turned back into zombies as soon as death took them.  They quickly scrambled back to their feet and, with whispered thanks, ran between the reclaimers and back up the stairs.

"Well, that answers that," Jasper rumbled.  Then he was stepping out from behind cover, his percussion rod humming.

First to go were the slug throwers.  Barreling into the lead reclaimers, rod humming, Jasper smoothly knocked them flying with tight, precise swings of his weapon.  With the percussion field, a cylinder of hyper-excited sonic force, active, the rod bent weapons in half and dented the reclaimer's heavy armor.  Then Kennedy was joining him, using short bursts of devastating sonic force from her Helixes to knock individual reclaimers back with shots to the chest and torso.

Unused to an actual counterattack that didn't involve teeth or grasping hands, the reclaimers were instantly thrown into disarray by the expert assault.  Then Kennedy stepped into the stairwell to scatter the reclaimers that were gathering there, the Helixes making short work of their attempts to stand and fight.

Knocking aside a sidearm lifted in a trembling hand, Jasper knocked its owner out with a sharp blow to the top of its helmeted head.  Then he was looking over at Tony.

"You've got room, Tony.  Maybe two or three more minutes," he said.

"Gotcha," the heavy-set fellow replied, pulling the last of the turned humans to his feet before pushing him towards the ladder leading down into the tunnel.  "And we're clear here.  Back towards us quickly, before they reset."