Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) by C.C. Ekeke Page A

with a dull thunk .
    Habraum, witnessing the exchange, laughed aloud. Sam gave him a shrug and a lopsided grin.
    A Korvenite warily poked his head out. Seeing Sam, a human, he and a few others recoiled and yelled out in Korcei.
    “[It’s okay,]” Sam said in impeccably ennunciated Korcei, holding up her hands disarmingly. “[You’re safe now and we’ll get you out.]” The words calmed the Korvenites enough to let Sam explain what was happening.
    Near the smoking remnants of the vehicle lot, Jan’Hax appeared and vanished repeatedly, delivering a flurry of acrobatic punches and kicks at the remaining CoE operatives wherever he appeared next. His invisibility served as an advantage against their foes, fortifying Sam in choosing him for CT-2’s roster.
    But Jan’Hax missed the faraway hostile aiming her pulse pistol at him, ready to fire.
    Sam called Jan’Hax’s codename in warning, startling the Korvenites gathered around her. Then the hostile’s pulse pistol exploded with a bright green burst, the stunned woman yelping and shaking her burned hands in pain. Jan’Hax wheeled around, holding another hostile by the throat, just as surprised. Sam, however, already knew who was responsible. “Here comes trouble,” she whispered.
    Right on cue, Jan’Hax’s statuesque rescuer sailed through the smoky billows from behind the CoE hostile. Bounding over the hostile’s shoulder, Marguliese straightened out in midair with a flawless back kick. The blow dropped the CoE woman to her knees and into unconsciousness. Jan’Hax recoiled in fiendish delight. The Cybernarr landed on her feet and assessed the scene with cold, probing blue eyes. Her power over certain forms of machinery had destroyed the pistol, but Marguliese could deal with foes just as efficiently using hand-to-hand combat.
    A brilliant white glow flashed from Marguliese’s cybernetic hand and instantly extended into a long, double-sided blade of energy. Two strapping CoE hostiles popped out of the vehicle-lot breach. Pulse rifles cocked, both unleashed a brilliant, barking volley at the Cybernarr. But Marguliese approached casually, deflecting their pulse blasts with expert whirls of her blade in one hand. Whatever courage these hostiles possessed shrank away steadily. The Cybernarr stalked closer and closer, her golden face chillingly blank…
    SWISH! A swift arc of light chopped the barrels of both rifles clean off.
    “Shit!” one hostile exclaimed.
    “Truly.” Marguliese pivoted sharply, pulling her energy blade apart into two smaller blades. It happened in a flash, the two operatives frozen in stupefied shock. The next instant, the Cybernarr was facing away from her foes, a blade impaled through each hostile’s chest.
    “Marguliese!” Jan’Hax called out as she curtly yanked out both blades and reconnected them, not bothering another look as her victims fell over.
    “They attacked, I retaliated,” Marguliese’s reply was as glacial as her stare, silencing Jan’Hax.
    Sam caught Habraum frowning at the scene briefly, then moved on. Her eyes found Jan’Hax’s and they exchanged a dark look. Just tolerate her for a little longer, Sam promised, before soaring across the smoke and debris in search of the cell’s leader, Kingston Reyes .
    She didn’t have to look far. Reyes was on the periphery on all fours, scurrying past fallen minions. He had never looked more pathetic, in Sam’s eyes. Seeing an exit just a few metrids away, Kingston gritted his teeth and crawled faster.
    Covered in dust and rubble, one of Reyes’s underlings reached for his leader with a trembling hand, moaning for help. Kingston glanced at the man. Then, to Sam’s further disgust, he kept crawling toward the breached wall. A strong gust of air whooshed by Kingston, the kind that just rippled with power. Sam smiled as Khrome’s hulking metallic form landed in Kingston’s path. This’ll be amusing.
    “Some unity you ‘Earthborn’ have. If I were human, I’d sign