Escape from Endeavor by Daniel A. Jones
***
Outside, Daemon screamed as he became aware of what was happening to his sister.
Mystique pulled her legs free and jumped off his back. She landed running, determined to get a safe distance away before stopping.
Shektee stopped and crouched, not sure what was going on but sensing the anger building in both Daemon and the ancient. She could see the edge of the clearing where the ship had landed; she decided to move up to take a better look. She didn’t like being close to Daemon when he was this angry. She could easily escape Daemon’s wrath but not the ancient’s.
Mystique watched as Daemon stood shaking with rage, wondering if she should go with Shektee before she realized what she was thinking. She scolded herself for forgetting Shektee was a Rift demon. Shektee would kill her slowly and enjoy every second of it if she were allowed to. She must never forget that because there was no telling when Shektee’s master would let her kill them. Mystique pulled her knives and hid near a tree and waited. Daemon would snap out of it soon and then the fighting would start.
Shektee crept through the broken trees that had been blasted over so the ship could land. She’d thought about circling around the ship but didn’t want to get too far away from Daemon in case he decided he needed her. She didn’t expect him to, but it was safer not to risk giving the ancient any reason to turn its wrath on her. She spent a few minutes moving through the broken treetops to get to where she could see the ship. It didn’t look like much; the main cargo hatch had its ramp down but the hatch itself was closed. She spotted a few smaller personnel hatches but they didn’t look like they were in use.
She could sense that Daemon was getting closer so he must be on the move again. Shektee decided to step out and then leap back over the downed treetops. It would be a lot faster than crawling back through them. She walked out onto the trunk of a large fallen tree and was surprised to hear a whirring noise. Shektee had learned over many years to move when surprised so she leaped as far as she could a fraction of a second before the gauss canon fired. The projectile had only grazed her hind leg but instead of leaping over the treetops she was out farther away from them. A piece of her hind leg was missing causing her to crash and tumble when she landed.
The turret tracked her path and prepared to fire again but its sensors alerted it to additional movement in the woods.
Daemon and Mystique had heard the sound of the turret and the weapon firing when they reached the wall of treetops surrounding the ship. Daemon was still full of the rage that had been triggered by the attack on his sister. He called forth his ax and started clearing a path through the treetops. Mystique shifted to the side, giving Daemon a wide berth and started climbing over the branches. She had no idea what she was going to find on the other side and hoped the noise Daemon was making would distract anyone waiting for them.
Mystique reached the top of the wall and looked at the clearing around the ship. She spotted Shektee lying motionless halfway between herself and the ship. A large gun of some kind was mounted on a stand about ten feet from the ship. It was aiming in her direction but didn’t fire; instead, it turned to aim at a large branch Daemon was hacking out of his way. Mystique realized what it was and knew she had to disable it before it had a shot at Daemon.
Mystique cursed her luck as she jumped from the branch she was crouched on and started running. The turret instantly reacted to her movement and started swiveling to track her.
Shektee recognized what Mystique was doing and transformed to her natural form and started rolling toward the mount. The ground was uneven and littered with debris from the shattered trees. Shektee didn’t care about the many scrapes and splinters she was collecting as she rolled.
Mystique was trying to evade the gun mount’s tracking but even her speed couldn’t outmatch the turret’s sensors and servos. The gauss canon fired an extended burst, cutting through trees as it tracked toward Mystique. Luckily for Mystique, the targeting sensors were having a hard time locking on to her, which made it slow to react to her changes in direction.
Daemon broke through the last of the branches blocking his way just as Shektee rolled right into the tripod base of the heavy gun. The mount was designed to be stable but it wasn’t built to take the impact of something slamming into the legs. Even so, the mount barely moved when Shektee hit it, but the impact was strong enough in jarring it off target so that it missed Mystique. The turret changed targets to Daemon, finding his mass easier to lock on to. In the time it took it to start swinging the barrel to its new target, Shektee grabbed one of the gun mount legs and pushed it over.
Mystique was there by the time the barrel hit the ground. She grabbed the cables connecting the gun to its power supply and pulled. At first the cables resisted but the rush of adrenalin coursing through her gave Mystique the strength needed to pull them free in a shower of sparks.
Mystique looked down to see if Shektee was all right and noted that a chunk of her right calf muscle was missing just below the knee. The flesh around where it should have been was ragged and covered with a black oily liquid that Mystique assumed was Shektee’s blood. “Can you regenerate that?” Mystique asked as she reached down to help her up, forgetting once again Shektee was not to be trusted.
“Yes, it will heal,” Shektee replied as she took Mystique’s hand and pulled herself up. Shektee was surprised that Mystique would offer to help her.
Shektee couldn’t put any weight on her leg and it hurt. She had a very high pain tolerance and normally didn’t even notice wounds that would have a human screaming in agony. She could feel the skin and muscle starting to heal already but it was going take most of the energy the ancient had given her. She was going to have to feed if she used much more.
***
Jim watched the girl help the demon from inside the ship, on the monitor. He recognized the man as the one he’d killed or thought he’d killed when he retrieved Sara. This time he would make sure that sucker was dead and stayed that way. The guy had a battle ax, of all things. Jim chuckled as he remembered the classic words of wisdom: “Never bring a knife to a gun fight.” Jim lifted his plasma rifle into the ready position and triggered the door to cycle open.