Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3) by Colin F. Barnes, Darren Wearmouth, Wearmouth, Barnes Page A

you need it,” Vingo said.
    Denver sighed through the comms system. Layla surveyed other parts of the undergrowth in case other beasts were circling.
    Charlie kept his aim on the clusp and moved off. Layla knew he wouldn’t pause if the thing got within striking distance. She couldn’t take her eyes off it either. It continued to shadow them but never got any closer, like a hyena stalking wildebeest, waiting for a weak one to detach from the herd.
    The track split in two directions. Vingo headed left. The unrecognizable luminous green data at the bottom of the visor kept changing.
    “What are the visor measurements?” Layla said.
    “The one in the corner measures your filter life,” Vingo said. “You only need to worry when it gets down to one unit.”
    “I’m at four bars,” Charlie said. “Are you sure it’ll last two days?”
    “Yes. The one next to it measures calibration. Each section of the circle is a part of your suit. Let me know if one turns red.”
    “What about the symbols?” Denver said.
    “Our coordinates on the planet. It means nothing to you, but I can teach you back at the village.”
    “Why not teach us now?” Layla asked.
    “We haven’t got time,” Vingo said and gazed up.
    A lone scion fighter, with its distinctive blue rear engine, powered over the track, rustling the canopy leaves on either side of them. Small insects dropped out of the trees and scurried back up the trunks.
    Vingo led them into a fifty-meter-wide clearing.
    Layla’s visor switched back to the regular night vision. A round stone building with a domed roof sat in the middle. If it had been painted in stripes, it would’ve looked like a prehistoric circus tent. “What is it?” she asked.
    “This is the temple of Tangus,” Vingo said. “She is our god of creation.”
    “How many do you worship?”
    “Thirty, and there’s a temple dedicated to each around the planet.”
    A crack of light seeped from the middle of two solid wooden doors. Vingo paused and peered through his sights.
    Charlie aimed at the door. “I take it you know the owner?”
    “I heard a croatoan priest moved in, but I don’t know them personally. We stopped going to the temples after the croatoans came. We didn’t agree with their views on existence.”
    “You expect the priest to welcome us with open arms?” Denver said.
    “The priests are duty bound to provide shelter.”
    A metal clank came from inside the temple, followed by a whirring like an electric drill. Vingo slowly advanced. Denver moved to his left, Layla covered his right, and Charlie swept the undergrowth, ensuring a clusp couldn’t spring a surprise attack.
    “That doesn’t exactly sound like the regular activities of a priest,” Denver said.
    “Wait,” Vingo said. “Let me look. It sounds like a…” He eased the metal door open with his rifle’s muzzle.
    A black prism hovered over a table in the center of the gloomy temple, surrounded by circular benches on the outer area. It rotated in the air, firing white and red lasers down at an electronic device that appeared to be building in size.
    Layla froze, concerned that even the slightest movement might attract the prism’s attention away from whatever it was currently doing.
    “Everything all right in there?” Charlie said.
    “What the hell—” Denver said.
    Vingo fired a burst. Tredeyan rounds sparked off the sloped edges of the prism and ricocheted around the temple. Layla pulled her trigger. The rifle kicked against her shoulder and she felt its judder through her gauntlets.
    Sky blue lights flashed around the midsection of the prism. The lasers stopped and it shot to the side of the room.
    Denver hunched around Vingo and fired. Dust puffed off the wall around the scion machine as the rounds hit a decorative painting of a large tredeyan in a golden robe.
    “What’s it doing?” Layla said as the prism circled around the far end of the temple and headed back toward them.
    “It’s calculating what it