The Impossible Future: Complete set Frank Kennedy (freenovel24 .TXT) 📖

Neither friend budged, but he saw the defiance as he lighted out into the battle. He took stock of the situation. The “chief” and her fighters had reassembled, finding defensive positions in the newly-formed trenches. The hill dipped beyond them, but the enemy staggered forward, seconds from full engagement. He was exposed; they would target him first.

“No more running,” he whispered.

He aimed the thump gun, and instinct told him how to fire. He tightened his fingers inside the weapon’s viscous fluid until they lined up. Then he jolted them forward in unison, and a bolt of concussive energy chased down the hill. The disrupter hit its target, knocking one fighter back on his feet, but not enough to level him.

Fire rose in his chest. Jamie let go of his inhibitions. He locked his fingers into the forward firing position and leveled continuous bursts across the breadth of the approaching line. He had no sense of proper aim, only a wish to spread confusion.

It worked. The advancing line halted, their eyes met his, and they retaliated. Jamie stood in the open as a barrage of thump energy and tracer pegs converged.

6

T HE CHIEF TACKLED JAMIE as death raced over them both, the tracers exploding in a series of impacts several feet beyond. She lay in front of him, her weapon facing the enemy.

“All right, Junior,” she said. “I’ll retract what I said. You are no nine-year-old. You are merely insane.”

The other members of her team rose from their positions and unloaded on the enemy with a steady barrage.

“Follow my cudfrucking order.” She grabbed Jamie’s head and shifted his view. “You see that trench? When I say go, you move on all four as fast as you damn well can. Got it, Junior?”

“James. My name is James.”

“I wouldn’t care if you were Frederic Ericsson himself. Now, go.”

James did as told, while the chief laid cover fire before joining James in the narrow trench.

The chief snarled, but James did not bother to contain his smile. He never felt more exhilarated.

“It worked, didn’t it?” He said. “All you needed was a diversion.”

“I don’t know who taught you military tactics, but you gave us at best an additional two minutes.” She spat on his t-shirt. “My unit is dying because of you, and you decide it’s a good day to be a martyr. Oh, yes. I saw the stream. I know what you are. Or at least what Ophelia Tomelin and her crazy lot claim you are.”

James refused to back down, even though this woman could have snapped his neck like a twig.

“I am the Jewel, and that wasn’t all of my plan. Let me out there. I’ll finish them.”

She took a step back. “Like I saw instream? I always had a bad feeling about signing up with these re-gen fanatics. Maybe I should have let them take you down.”

“Look, I get it, OK? I ain’t had much time to figure it all out myself, but I know what I can do. I can save everybody.”

A tracer scraped the trench and exploded just off the edge, dropping a cloud of dirt down upon James and the mercenary.

“You’re just a runt,” the chief said, unfazed. “You have no idea what it means to save others. Now, you stay put.”

She reared up, towering above ground, enough to find her bearings and release concussive blasts. Fighting intensified.

The ground shook, and the soil shifted beneath him. The trench was about to collapse, maybe a section of the hill itself.

He peered over the edge, looking backward toward the rock face. Sammie and Michael rose, fired, and dipped for cover. They wasted bullets. The bodysuits were far stronger than bulletproof vests.

“I got too much work to do,” he muttered, “and we are not going to die today.”

James defied the chief and bolted from the trench, rolling over onto his stomach. His chest burned as he searched for targets. A strange and glorious thirst arrived when he zeroed in on two.

A cloud of fire descended upon the nearest enemy, throwing the fighter to the ground, writhing as he crumbled to a cinder in a matter of seconds. Another cloud followed five meters east, and then a third to the enemy’s farthest flank. All at once, every weapon redirected toward the western sky, where a dramatic mechanical whirr was interrupted by cushioned bursts.

An Admiralty Scramjet – a crab-like shadow twenty meters long blocking the heart of the afternoon sun - released a barrage of fireballs from its starboard cannons. The concentrated flames set patches of hillside ablaze.

The five mercenaries defending Ophelia’s team jumped from their trenches, as if understanding what this meant, and moved forward to take on the enemy, which fired tracers at the Scramjet.

James looked at his hand, which quivered, unfulfilled. As the fires grew, and the shouts of agony intensified, James caught his breath and grasped his madness. He turned back to his friends, who remained behind the rock face but no longer dipping for cover.

The Scramjet closed in, returning tracer for tracer, still a hundred meters away and as high. And then, something gave James pause.

Three men, decked head to toe in crimson bodysuits, leaped from the ship’s open port and defied the laws of nature, maintaining a steady course en route to the battle. They drifted, as if on a powerful gust of wind, but configured as if fighting on land. They fired continuous rounds from long, rifled extensions to their arms, with their legs poised to take a running start when they hit the surface. He saw the impact of ground fire against their bodysuits; the tiny silver explosions did not slow the descending fighters.

James watched in awe as these warriors descended upon the Earth like angels. They abandoned fear, embraced the deadliest opposition, and sought to destroy their