Aberrant

Chapter 64

Jinx didn't fight Kaplan as he hooked an arm around her waist and dragged her down to the deck. Linked to her battle suit, her shield auto-adjusted to cover them, Kaplan beneath her.

The world exploded into white-green hell, multiple exskel-mounted plasma weapons opening up.

She squeezed her eyes shut to protect her overstimulated retinas; covered one ear with her free hand. The other ear she pressed against Kaplan's armour. But that hardly muted the assault.

The Xykeree were aggressively coming back online—a frigging army of them. Her shield wouldn't last. It hadn't been designed for this level of shit. In a few seconds, she and Kaplan would be baked—

Hold position. A taut voice sounded in her head, coming with a familiar sense of skull-shredding pain.

Her pulse jolted, recall of a colder, disembodied voice inciting a second of panic. "Kaplan?"

The hive's regaining autonomy, but lost cohesion. Can't be controlled as a whole. We need to eliminate the Qua-zi before the Xykeree recover coherence. Give me a second. The mask-covered head next to hers shifted, as if to get comfortable in the middle of all blazing hell.

Another vicious blast of plasma.

Her shield flared wildly, its failure imminent.

She braced for annihilation.

A cataclysmic flash and boom.

The world screamed into darkness. Flying debris. Scorching smoke. Another titanic blast struck—way too close. White-green energy roared overhead.

Not a standard infantry plaz bolt.

Heavy weapons fire.

Her heart slammed her ribs. In the flashing world beyond her shield... High-energy blasts. Hot, drilling lines of kinetic gunfire. Multi-legged silhouettes racing through fire and smoke; hundreds of Xykeree infantry exskels now awake and active.

A huge, black form rose over them.

Her breath stalled.

A scorp.

Smouldering, segmented heavy armour. Pincers riding low, weighed down by kinetic weaponry and missile-launcher tech. A tail rising through smoke, arching high overhead to ... burgeoning plasma.

The scorp's tail repeater cannon laid down a withering burst of plaz—just missing her and Kaplan, obliterating dozens of hivemates instead. Debris and heat clawed across her failing shield. She and Kaplan were about to be—

Another explosion tore past, sending up showers of broken tech. Flying chunks slammed down, taking out more Xykeree.

A second scorp, one with no tail left, lumbered through the carnage, smoke pouring from it.

The first turned to meet it, weapons firing—revealed a crawling mass of smaller exskels on its back. Workers and soldiers ripping into its armour and systems.

Understanding stole Jinx's air. The first scorp, unlike the other Xykeree swarming the deployment bay, hadn't defaulted to its basic instinct to defend the hive.

It was annihilating its own kind.

Its attack sliced past her and Kaplan cowering under her failing shield. It did no more than shake the Qua-zi's vessel—a ship full of incapacitated Rha Si.

Kaplan had total control.

Jinx's head went light, disbelief as much as relief—just as the shield before her overstimulated eyes spluttered out.