Wings of Steele - Flight of Freedom (Book2) by Jeffrey Burger Page A

rotating back and forth but they were all too close, the barrel could not lower far enough to target them. “Look up,” he said drawing his pistol, “twenty feet out it would've shot us all in the back.” He raised the muzzle, clicked off the safety and let two rounds loose from the hybrid 1911, barking a very distinct, BWWAP, BWWAP, sending a pair of .45 caliber charged particle rounds up into the turret, a spray of sparks and debris falling to the floor around them, the turret going dark and lifeless. He grinned, glancing down at the 1911, “Niiice...”
    “ Can you see the other one?”
    “ No dammit, it's too dark... I think the ship put us in the dark on purpose...”
    “ Lemme try,” a Marine Private moved past Jack and edged around the corner, laid prone, bringing his electronic sight up and flipped off his carbine's safety. “Somebody run across...”
    “ Uh, let's not. I've got a better idea... ready?” asked Jack.
    “ Go ahead...”
    Steele extended his arm and flashed his wrist light, then pulled it back. The laser shot sizzled past almost taking his hand off, splattering on the wall behind them. “Got a target...” breathed the Marine. He squeezed off a full-auto burst and literally blew the turret off the ceiling, the pieces and mechanism clattering to the floor of the air car troughs. “It looks like it's right above where the next alcove is,” said the young man, standing back up, “so I'm guessing there will be one at each.”
    Since the ship had taken upon itself to shut down the air car system with the lights, it meant another long walk... at least they had gravity now. The heartbeat sound was still there... and the ship's air supply system produced a sound freakishly akin to breathing, fine dust floating in the red lights. Out of reflex, Steele turned his head in his helmet like a dog honing in on a sound, “Do you hear music...?”
    The Sergeant paused a moment as he jumped down off the platform into the air-car trough, “Don't know if I'd call it music exactly but yeah, I'm hearing notes...”
    They began to move up toward the bridge, walking in the troughs. “Sounds like a whale's song...”
    “ What's a whale?”
    Steele thought about that for a minute, he wasn't sure how to describe it to someone who might not have anything to relate to it. “It's a very large sea creature that swims in the oceans on my planet.” As they neared the first alcove, they turned off their lights to prevent the next turret from targeting them... he hoped the turrets didn't use any type of thermal vision.
    Stepping around the stalled air-car they had passed on the way in, Steele angled toward the alcove while the PFC set-up atop the car, pushing the corpse it contained to one side, setting up for a shot on the next turret, “Same plan Captain?”
    “ Yeah,” he mumbled, preparing to climb up onto the alcove platform, “I'm gonna try not to get my hand shot off...” The seven foot tall monster that stepped out of the dark red shadows of the alcove sent a jolt of adrenalin through his body that sent him wildly backpedaling, drawing his sidearm and cursing an unintelligible warning. A blue-green heliarc beam lanced out of the shadows sweeping across the tunnel in an arc towards him. Meeting the nose of the air-car behind him with the backs of his legs, he toppled over backwards, landing in the lap of the corpse belted inside. Out of sheer reflex, he had thumbed the safety off and began pulling the trigger long before falling, his first round ricocheting off the floor of the alcove, but the others connecting and stitching the thing starting at its thigh and continuing upward across its body, the last one cratering the forehead. Intense crimson streaks passed back and forth over Steele's sprawled body as the next turret worked to find him and the Marines returning fire from all around him, the PFC using Jack's helmet as a perch for his elbows, giving him a perfect view of the underside of the Marine's