Sunday Snippet

 

 

     “Unknown vessel, you are ordered to stand down,” he leaned over and barked into his helmet’s microphone that sat on the desk next to him. His amplified voice boomed across the port of entry, echoing from dozens of high-powered speakers. He reached to put the helmet on, fumbling for the thing as he kept his eyes riveted to the monitors.

     The tar-like substance on the bottom of the craft exploded like a water balloon of black ink, each a human-sized blob of grotesque, twisted proportions.

     His scanners screamed at him, warning of nanite contamination from the horrid, scrambling things. The newly-emerged beings scrambled from the craft at inhuman speeds, leaping over shimmering force-field walls and nimbly dancing past barriers, traps, and barricades.

     The strange creatures reached the first ring of automated weapons turrets. A trio of the oozing runners reached a Dersh repair technician caught in the open, servicing a battery of laser cannons still open and under maintenance. They ripped her apart in a flurry of blood and body parts, giant rows of teeth emerging from oversized mouths. Others began attacking the nearby turrets, long claws tearing at the armored shells of the gun and missile emplacements.

     Sam and his partner both gasped and uttered profanities at the sight of the gory murder, but only Sam had the presence of mind to engage all weapons systems. The arena of ordnance erupted, turning the tranquil facility into an instant war zone. A cascade of red and green tracer rounds from all directions focused on the craft and its scattered cargo of oily, black intruders. Deflected ordnance poured and careened off the undaunted grav-yacht in all directions, a nimbus of energy shielding shrugging off the ungodly amount of firepower directed at it.

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I am clearing past 72K on Book 3 of the Junctionworld trilogy.

Stay tuned.