Read Online War of Alien Aggression 1 Hardway by A.D. Bloom - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: A.D. Bloom
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are... better technology... interstellar capabilities... but their hulls still break and their bodies bleed. They die just like we do."
"This isn't a warship, Mr. Cozen. I didn't see anything that looked like a gun on the outside of the hull and we've only found one sidearm inside. Those three battle suits are almost the only weapons we've seen." He saw Cozen's eyes flick down to the alien maser in his hands. Then, Ram saw movement behind him in the reflections off Cozen's helmet - movement to the right of the tube, on the other side of the compartment. He knew what it was. Ram spun to face it.
It must have come out of some kind of service panel in one of the consoles. They'd never looked in there. They thought it was too small a space to hold one of the 3.5m-tall bodies, but a half-meter high door in the console hung open and in front of it, a boneless, alien thing silently unfolded and uncoiled itself in less than a second.
Dana and Mickey and Hollis were around the corner of the bulkhead with Biko, where Tse was cutting the hatch. It was just Cozen and Ram standing there in front of the alien. They were the only ones it saw.
Ram held the captured alien maser and he knew how to fire it. It's not that he didn't want to kill the alien thing in front of him. He did. Just out of fear he wanted to kill it, but for a quarter second he hesitated. He didn't know why, but he knew because of that, he started moving too late.
Even Ram knew he'd never fire in time. That thing would fire first and kill him. Ram could see it as clearly as he'd ever seen anything in his life and now that his life appeared to be over, the weirdest part was that he was alright with it. Even Ram thought it was crazy. Watching the alien move faster than him in that strange, slowed moment, it struck him that if he'd believed Cozen's lie that we'd been attacked first or if he'd really believed in this fight like Mickey did then he would have moved faster. And he wouldn't have been okay with dying. Righteousness, Ram thought in his last moment. Not having it can get you killed.
Only it wasn't Ram that got killed and it wasn't Harry Cozen either.
Mickey Wells came out around the curve in the bulkhead with the Honma & Voss hand cannon already raised. She drilled easy holes into the narrow chest of the Squidy's unarmored exosuit, and it vented liquid and gas and pale blue blood, but it still discharged its weapon.
Ram hadn't seen the beams from their masers before, but this time, the space between the Squidy and Mickey flared up with a bright cone of vaporizing residual gasses.
Mickey's head. Most of her torso. Her left arm. That's what the burning beam hit. Those are the parts of her Ram looked for and couldn't find because those parts of Mickey got burned away. All Ram could find was a Mickey-shaped shadow the alien maser burned in shallow relief on the bulkhead behind her.
Those impossible, spindle-thin, boneless limbs waved wild like a parody of a thing in pain. It had overloaded its weapon and now, a half-molten lump of metal was fused to the end of its garden hose arm. The gangle of limbs holding it off the deck collapsed.
Mickey was gone and that thing was still alive.
Ram put the alien weapon to the Squidy's face and discharged the maser point blank.
Chapter Eight
An hour after the crew of Gold Coast disabled the alien jamming and called in to Hardway , the carrier told them two unknown ships had appeared inside Saturn's orbit. One alien vessel headed for the inner system. They said it was massive, an alien dreadnought that dwarfed anything in the underdeveloped United Nations fleet. Two capital ships were already moving to intercept it near Deimos and the Staas Company's Martian shipyards.
They said the other alien vessel was smaller and much faster, roughly the size of a UNS destroyer. They said it was making for Moriah.
Decontamination was brief. There was no procedure in place, so before they boarded a longboat for
"This isn't a warship, Mr. Cozen. I didn't see anything that looked like a gun on the outside of the hull and we've only found one sidearm inside. Those three battle suits are almost the only weapons we've seen." He saw Cozen's eyes flick down to the alien maser in his hands. Then, Ram saw movement behind him in the reflections off Cozen's helmet - movement to the right of the tube, on the other side of the compartment. He knew what it was. Ram spun to face it.
It must have come out of some kind of service panel in one of the consoles. They'd never looked in there. They thought it was too small a space to hold one of the 3.5m-tall bodies, but a half-meter high door in the console hung open and in front of it, a boneless, alien thing silently unfolded and uncoiled itself in less than a second.
Dana and Mickey and Hollis were around the corner of the bulkhead with Biko, where Tse was cutting the hatch. It was just Cozen and Ram standing there in front of the alien. They were the only ones it saw.
Ram held the captured alien maser and he knew how to fire it. It's not that he didn't want to kill the alien thing in front of him. He did. Just out of fear he wanted to kill it, but for a quarter second he hesitated. He didn't know why, but he knew because of that, he started moving too late.
Even Ram knew he'd never fire in time. That thing would fire first and kill him. Ram could see it as clearly as he'd ever seen anything in his life and now that his life appeared to be over, the weirdest part was that he was alright with it. Even Ram thought it was crazy. Watching the alien move faster than him in that strange, slowed moment, it struck him that if he'd believed Cozen's lie that we'd been attacked first or if he'd really believed in this fight like Mickey did then he would have moved faster. And he wouldn't have been okay with dying. Righteousness, Ram thought in his last moment. Not having it can get you killed.
Only it wasn't Ram that got killed and it wasn't Harry Cozen either.
Mickey Wells came out around the curve in the bulkhead with the Honma & Voss hand cannon already raised. She drilled easy holes into the narrow chest of the Squidy's unarmored exosuit, and it vented liquid and gas and pale blue blood, but it still discharged its weapon.
Ram hadn't seen the beams from their masers before, but this time, the space between the Squidy and Mickey flared up with a bright cone of vaporizing residual gasses.
Mickey's head. Most of her torso. Her left arm. That's what the burning beam hit. Those are the parts of her Ram looked for and couldn't find because those parts of Mickey got burned away. All Ram could find was a Mickey-shaped shadow the alien maser burned in shallow relief on the bulkhead behind her.
Those impossible, spindle-thin, boneless limbs waved wild like a parody of a thing in pain. It had overloaded its weapon and now, a half-molten lump of metal was fused to the end of its garden hose arm. The gangle of limbs holding it off the deck collapsed.
Mickey was gone and that thing was still alive.
Ram put the alien weapon to the Squidy's face and discharged the maser point blank.
Chapter Eight
An hour after the crew of Gold Coast disabled the alien jamming and called in to Hardway , the carrier told them two unknown ships had appeared inside Saturn's orbit. One alien vessel headed for the inner system. They said it was massive, an alien dreadnought that dwarfed anything in the underdeveloped United Nations fleet. Two capital ships were already moving to intercept it near Deimos and the Staas Company's Martian shipyards.
They said the other alien vessel was smaller and much faster, roughly the size of a UNS destroyer. They said it was making for Moriah.
Decontamination was brief. There was no procedure in place, so before they boarded a longboat for
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