Taylor felt a bitter sadness inside for seeing their loss. He had never known their names, but felt the losses as if they were his own. It was enough to get them on the enemy’s doorstep, and Taylor leapt towards the nearest Mech as a shot burst over his shield. He did not stop and struck the first creature dead on.
Taylor felt the power once again that he had grown used to as the creature stumbled back and landed flat. He fired several shots until it was dead before him and then continued on. He could see the bridge ahead and two Mechs working at one of the main consoles. He fired as he ran, striking both of them in the back. He knew he risked damaging the ship’s systems, but the risk of not firing was far worse.
He drew out his Assegai and leapt forward against his next target; and carried on relentlessly when he saw one of the Mechs firing at Parker. She was pinned behind a console and taking fire from two directions. He raised his shield just a little, so that the bent lower half came in line with his head, and smashed it forward. The impact was enough to knock the Mech off balance, and it stumbled a few paces to the side before swinging its pulse cannon around for him.
Taylor jumped to the side of weapon and grasped it inside his shield, stabbing forward with his Assegai. It drove into the head and killed in a single blow. He let go, and the Mech dropped down dead. He turned just in time to see Jafar breaking another one’s spine over his knee and then punching through the faceplate to finish it off. All was quiet now. He looked around for Moye and found him standing beside them with blue blood dripping from his own Assegai. He pointed ahead, and Taylor turned to look to the rear of the bridge where a man stood frozen and terrified.
"Captain Dokgo?" Taylor asked.
The man nodded, but he was shaking and rigid as if unable to move. Another person behind him stepped into view, and Taylor could see a gun in their hand pointed at the back of Dokgo's head. Taylor didn't even respond. He knew there was little he could do with his Assegai in hand at such a distance.
"Whoever you are, this will not end well for you," he said.
"She's with, she's one of them!" Dokgo spat.
"Yeah, I figured."
The woman was in her early twenties and strikingly beautiful, to the level he didn't want to believe she could be on the side of the enemy.
"Colonel Taylor," she finally said confidently, "You have already failed."
He smiled in response.
"Says the girl standing alone. You haven't blown this ship. You blew your cover early. You screwed up."
"You still don't get it, do you, Colonel? Every one of us you kill, we replace. A hundred lives for the price of one of yours, is worth paying."
"I don't see Karadag coming back from the dead, or Demiran," he replied.
She had no answer.
"So what's it gonna be? How do you want to die?"
"Take me to your leader, and I will not kill this man."
Taylor shook his head. "I knew you'd say that."
He released the grip on his Assegai and reached for his pistol. It was drawn and on target before the Assegai even hit the deck. It crashed down as he pulled the trigger, and a shot went right through the woman's forehead. Her blood splashed out over Dokgo. The Captain pushed her off him and looked back in gratitude to Taylor.
"Whoever you are, thank you."
"They came here to overload the engines, you know that?"
The old Korean looked fearful, and Taylor could see in his face that he knew, just as Morris knew what their intentions were.
"Then you got here just in time."
"Hell, yes. Did they get access to any of your systems?"
"I don't know. I didn't see what that woman...thing touched."
He turned around to look at the consoles, and Taylor simply waited for information; he had no idea what he was looking at.
"I...I think...no."
Taylor already knew what he was going to say.
"Is there anything more you can do from this end?"
Dokgo shook his head. "You have to get to the engine bays and shut them down in person."
"Do you have any means of contacting them from here?"
"Yes...normally, but we lost internal communications when all this began...we need..."
"I got it, I got it," Taylor murmured.
He jumped forward and led the others back the way they came until he stopped, realising he didn't properly know the way. He let Jafar pass him.
"Lead the way."
Jafar moved at an alarming pace that the others could barely keep up with him.
"Think we can make it in time?" Parker called out, breathlessly.
"If we don't, then it was all for nothing. So there is no if, we have to make it!" Taylor said firmly.
Chapter 7
Captain Reynolds looked nervous as they rode on, with Corporal Berlin looming over them on the back of Kelly's truck.
"Relax," Kelly said, "she's the least of our worries."
"Maybe. How do we know these people are even friendlies? How do we know they won't just strip us all our weapons and supplies?"
"Gotta have a little faith left in humanity, Captain."
Reynolds said nothing, but Kelly was confident they were at least being led to a sight he was familiar with. They were on a straight road, and with no signs of a way off, when Kelly suddenly turned calmly in towards the thick foliage of a line of trees. Reynolds got anxious and sat back upright in his seat, expecting to feel an impact at any moment.
"What are you doing?" he pleaded.
But it was too late. They brushed the branches aside, and it seemed there was no resistance at all. Reynolds was speechless as they passed through a column of trees that looked like they had been grown as the boundaries of some kind of road. It was broad enough even for a tank to pass down. They carried on for a few moments when he finally got up the courage to ask.
"So this is the place?"
"One of them. There was always a chance Earth forces wouldn't be able to win in open battle. Just as we knew it when we fought on our home soil. Those with a little foresight planned ahead as much as they could."
"How many people know of these locations?"
"Not many."
Ahead there appeared to be another impenetrable wall of trees and foliage. Reynolds smiled, expecting them to go through it as they had the last one. However, twenty metres before they reached it, Kelly veered left through an opening. They began descending down an almost hidden route that took them under the surface and between a rock formation, in what had to be a man-made tunnel.
Another fifty metres, and they were in a clearing between rocks and thick forest once more. Two soldiers were standing guard ahead but stepped aside on seeing Berlin wave them back. Overhead a semi-transparent canopy stretched out across the trees that seemed to camouflage the position from the sky. Armoured vehicles were parked up and partially concealed around the opening, and they could see a bunker entrance of concrete built onto the side of a huge boulder.
Several of the vehicles had taken hits and were in various states of repair, with crews working in a relatively casual manner at the jobs. Half a dozen of the crew were at the entrance to the bunker; they were sitting about in chairs, smoking and relaxing. Kelly ran his truck all the way up to their position, but none of them moved a single centimetre. He got out and looked around. He found they were a force that appeared to be completely lacking in morale.
Nobody came to greet them or even acknowledge their arrival. Kelly got out of his truck and paced up to those sitting outside the bunker entrance.
"Who's in charge here?"
No one responded.
"I am Kelly, former Commander of the MDF forces."
"The what?" asked one of the women in a thick German accent.