A Type of Acid, Pt. 3: Checkmate

Pt. 3: Checkmate
            "What ze
smeg is going on out zere?!" asked Castillo after listening to the eerie
silence of the Drive room. Suddenly the door slid open and the Scythers
unloaded into the doorway. Davie
dropped down from the vent in the ceiling behind the first one, and leveled the
large gun's barrel with the back of his head, pulling trigger, killing him
instantly. In a flash, the second Scyther was next to Davie, swinging the butt of his rifle towards
his head. Davie
ducked, grabbing the Scyther's midsection, and hauled him up over one shoulder,
tossing hard to the ground. He spun and fired the rifle at the bio mechanoid
warriors head.
            By this
time Castillo had drawn her pistol and was firing at Davie, a single round hitting the exposed
flesh on his right shoulder. He rushed her, grabbing her gun filled hand by the
wrist, pushing it out the side and squeezing, making her drop the pistol to the
ground. He shoved her into the desk and pulled her hands around to her back.
"Consider yourself a prisoner of war Captain." he said as he cuffed her hands
behind her back, trying his best to ignore the searing pain of the bullet wound
in his shoulder. He shoved her out the door into the drive room and into the
custody o the two remaining commandos of his assault group. He pulled a thick
wad of gauze and a tube of quick clot and pain killer from the medical pouch at
his side. He gave himself a morphine shot and dumped the quick clot onto the
wound, stuffing the gauze over it.
            He keyed
his radio. "Checkmate King 2 to Checkmate King 3, come in Checkmate King 3."
"Copy Checkmate King 2. Go ahead."
came Sgt. Wilson's voice in response. "Eva in custody," Davie said as he leaned over the desk having
spotted several important looking data sticks, "have lost two pawns. Heading
back to Checkmate King."
"Copy Checkmate
King 2, should we--" Wilson
cut off mid sentence following a loud, metal tearing sound. "What the hell was
that?!" Davie could hear Wilson say to his men in the Star Bug, as he
had left his radio on. "What's going on?" asked Davie. Gunfire erupted from the other end of
the radio. "What the hell is that thing!? Hold him off!" shouted Wilson. "McKay's hit!"
yelled one of his commandos, "Johnson's hit! He's down!" spouted another.
"Shoot the smegger!" Wilson
kept southing over the cacophony. Suddenly, Wilson screamed at the top of his lungs and
the radio went dead.
"Get the smeg
out of there! Checkmate King 3, do you copy!? Dammit!" Davie said angrily over the silence of the
radio.  He slammed his fist into the wall
and Castillo chuckled evilly. Davie
stepped over to her. "Who or what just attacked them?" he asked.
"Why ze smeg
should I tell you?"
He growled at
her, then turned and grabbed the data sticks, stuffing them into one of his
various pouches. "Let's go." he said to his two remaining commando's and they
began heading back to the open lift shaft.
            "There they are!" came a shout from
behind them as began to descend into the shaft. Two squads of Space Corps
Marines, led by a pair of Scythers came barreling up the corridor after them,
unleashing a devastating barrage of gunfire. Davie hurled a frag grenade at them in
response, turning to shout at his commandos. "Jump!" he yelled to them.
Castillo landed face first on the hard metal of the elevator, her teeth cutting
into the inside of her mouth, drawing beads of her grey blood.
Davie fired several bursts of suppressing
fire at the marines  from the top of the
ladder before dropping a pair G.U.N.K. grenades against the double door
entrance of the shaft, and jumping himself. He landed on top of the lift with a
heavy klunk, ducking through the
grate as the G.U.N.K.s went off, sealing the shaft behind him with the sludgy
goop from the grenades.                                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
            Davie looked down the
corridor to see his commandos pushing and pulling Castillo towards their air
lock docked Star Bug. He spun back around and quickly tossed a large cluster of
fragmentation grenades into the elevator to cover their escape, and took off
running after his allies. The fist sized, metal encased explosives detonated
with a terrible explosion, sending the elevator up in flames. It was shaken
violently from it's magnetic rails and plummeted down deck by deck in a massive
heap of twisted metal and burning, sparking metal, rubber and plastic, making
pursuit by that rout all but impossible.
            He
caught up to his commandos standing near the air lock, trying to keep Castillo
from wriggling out of their grasps. Davie
looked through the thick plexi glass window of the inner air lock door to see
one of the two Dwarfers that he'd left to guard the Star Bug beckoning them
from the other side. As he reached for the door's control panel a tremendous
explosion reverberated from the other side of the door. An unknowing Mauve
Midget had flown close to the Sidebottom's hull, and collided with the cloaked
Star Bug, destroying both ships on impact. "Shit." Davie cursed under his breath.