and Adam were hit, but the bolts were at level-two and through the thick fabric of the spacesuits, all they managed to do was knock them off their feet.
All the Humans opened up with their own weapons, their bolts much more accurate than those of the freighter crew. The passageway was lined with dozens of crates and the SEALs scrambled for cover behind some of the closer ones. At the other end of the passageway, about two dozen armed aliens were also weaving their way through the crates toward them. And that’s when Adam first spotted the Juirean.
“Do you see that?” he called out to the others.
“Yeah, I see four or five more. What are they doing here?” Tobias asked through his comm.
“They’re probably hitching a ride, too. No telling how many are here. John, see if you can make it to that stack of crates on the left. That should give you the high ground,” Adam said.
“On it!” The other SEALs laid down cover fire while Tindal literally jumped the ten meters or so to the stack of crates in question. The gravity – or lack of – made them all feel like they could fly.
Several of the aliens had fallen to the fire of the Humans, including a couple of the Juireans. Adam and Tobias moved a little closer on the right as Tindal covered for them. His aim was true and three more aliens died.
The Juireans and ship’s crew began to fall back, and the SEALs took the opportunity to rush the end of the passageway. There was a narrow exit there where about a dozen aliens were all trying to squeeze through. Adam and Tobias opened up, sending indiscriminate bolts of blue energy into the mass of aliens. It was a slaughter. Within a minute a large pile of dead aliens had formed at the doorway.
Tobias climbed onto the bloody mass and looked into the connecting corridor. He saw three aliens running as fast as they could in the opposite direction. There didn’t seem to be any more around.
Adam searched through the stack of dead and pulled out six dead Juireans. The rest of the dead were of two other races he did not recognize, but they had died just as easily as the Juireans.
Adam was covered with blood, as were the other SEALs. They stood among the bodies, panting heavily from the exhilaration of battle. Just then his comm buzzed.
“Cain here,” he said between breaths. “We’ve suppressed most of the resistance. Approximately fifteen aliens down. It looks like the others aren’t itching for a fight. The ship should be ours.”
“Eh, that’s great news, Adam,” Riyad said, even though the tone of his voice did not match his words.
“What’s up, Riyad, you sound odd?”
“It’s because we just got a message in from the fleet.”
Adam’s heart skipped a beat. Normally any contact with the fleet would be good news. But lately….
“Go ahead. What did it say?”
“This is a little awkward, but it seems as though they have made contact with Earth. The attack failed, Adam. It failed. The Earth is okay.”
Adam looked around at the other SEALs, all their expressions displaying a look of shock, yet slowing moving toward glee.
“Oh, and Adam, the fleet has turned back toward Juir, and they’ve dispatched a forward strike force at maximum well. They should be picking us up in about two weeks—”
If Riyad had said more, Adam couldn’t hear it over the cheers of the SEALs. They clasped each other and slapped backs. They would soon be picked up by their fleet and be back among their own kind!
Finally, once the celebration had died down some – and the SEALs remembered where they were – Tindal and Tobias took up defensive positions at the doorway, weary of any counterattack.
Adam looked down at the mass of bloody bodies lying at his feet, looked up at Chief Rutledge and simply said, “Oops!”
Chapter 44
Three of the larger Kracori starships positioned themselves at equal distance from the giant space rock, lined up at about nine hundred meters apart. The rock itself was only about half a kilometer in width, and nearly the same in depth, however, even with gravity drive, the three ships would have difficulty moving the massive boulder.
The problem with moving the rock came not with the power of the ships pulling it, but rather with the proximity of the ships to one another. Nine hundred meters was way too close to create effective singularities. They would have to be very shallow