Witness [A First Contact Romance]

28. Guerrilla Warfare (Part 2)

Lumiea

Year -19 (L.D.)

Jace and the rest of the squad were severely outnumbered. Even with the advantage of their more sophisticated weapons and gear, this situation had suddenly turned into an emergency.

Trin called for reinforcements, which would likely only take a few minutes. With the kind of threat they faced, that could be too long.

The four injured rebels had crawled away into other apartments to hide and some of the dozen had disappeared, likely planning to surround them.

Information constantly came through Jace's earpiece, nearly too fast for him to register. Alix ripped off the rest of his deployables and scattered them throughout the hall, some of them providing more eyes for Trin, while others fired laser beams automatically.

Jace and Nikka pressed their backs to one another as they each fired on opposite ends of the hall. Alix and Lyon raised up energy shields with one hand while throwing powered punches at the closest rebels.

He was too busy to check on Trin and Aeryn. Needed to. Couldn't.

Jace and Nikka both leapt to the left at Trin's direction, avoiding a beam of energy that bit a hole into the floor.

Attacks came from all sides, even through the walls and into the hallway.

Jace darted forward and threw himself toward the ceiling with his aerial mod, raining down rapid blasts of energy from his palms on the people below. At the same time, Nikka fired, letting them attack the rebels from both directions.

He twisted mid-air and narrowly avoided the shots from a laser gun.

With a boom, he kicked off the wall and dove for two enemies. One dodged, but Jace hooked his arm around the other's neck and threw him out the window. Glass shattered. The scream seemed cut short.

Too easy. Not all of the enemies were equipped with the same level of advanced weaponry.

"Reinforcements arriving," Trin said in the earpiece.

He finally had time to look at their analyst and bioengineer. Trin equipped a shield around her whole body, like she stood beneath a small shimmering dome. But Aeryn had her rifle against her shoulder, shooting.

A rebel stabbed a knife for his midsection. He caught the woman's wrist, snapped it, and shoved her so hard that she knocked the person near her onto the ground.

Bullets tore through the walls. Jace and Nikka turned as one to deflect them back into the apartment they came from with a wave of energy.

Their fellow combat soldiers from another squad burst into the hall, already attacking.

There was no time for relief, though. Jace didn't know how many rebels were left. They may have been coming to provide back-up as well, because it seemed that for each one they took down, two more appeared. The floor had become a morbid carpet of bodies twisted with one another.