Astraeus 5 Read online

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  Hearing the gunfire and general commotion outside his cell door, Will moved to it to try to work out what was going on. Unfortunately for him, the marines were fully suited, as they had expected to need the protection they afforded from the stun grenade, and were communicating by their suit radios. Not knowing what was happening, he moved away from the door and tried to hide as best he could but the design of the cell gave him no real options in this regard.

  Although quiet, he could hear someone calling "Will. Will, where are you? Give me a sign as to which cell you’re in. We need to get out of here and quick."

  Realising this was likely to be a friend, rather than someone from this alternate universe, he moved to the door and beat it with his fists, hoping he was right.

  After a minute or so, he heard the voice call "OK, I think I have you. Move away from the cell door. I’m coming in."

  As asked, Will moved away from the door, just in time for it to open and see a fully suited individual standing there brandishing a weapon, pointing at him.

  "Will?" said the figure.

  Slightly surprised, Will could only nod at the figure.

  "Good. We need to get out of here, now. I’m Major Auryn Truran and my team are here to make sure we get out of here safely. Do you have a suit? If not, we have a standard one you can use."

  "I don’t have mine. They took it off me" replied Will.

  "OK. We’ll sort that out."

  Switching to the radio, he called his team so they were all together and pressed the button on the remote, sending them back.

  Pointing at the spare suit on the floor, Auryn said "OK, Will. Get this on and don’t hang about. We need to get out of this base as quickly as we can. One of the guards managed to trigger the alarm and it won’t take them long to work out what’s happened and follow us here."

  As Will started to put the suit on, Auryn used his radio to say "Captain Lockwood. Got him. However, I’m expecting incoming at any moment so we need to get out of here. Be ready to repel enemy troops."

  "Yes, Major" was the brief response.

  As soon as Will was suited up, Auryn moved him to the airlock and they went through to the rear hangar. Once clear of the airlock door, Auryn started to jog towards the lander. As he approached it, he heard the sound of gunfire from behind him. He turned to look behind and saw the hangar now contained a number of enemy soldiers chasing them, firing in their direction. Fortunately, at the moment, they were currently far enough away that their shots were mostly missing them. Even though his suit and that of the other marines would protect them from this level of gunfire, Will’s suit was only a standard emergency suit and offered no protection from it. Ducking behind a workbench, he was able to get a better view and estimated that there were around twenty or thirty enemy troops heading their way at full speed.

  "Sergeant, we need to get Will out of here. Make sure that you protect his back. All we need is a stray shot to hit his suit and we’re going to have a problem getting him out of here. Take three people with you. The rest stay with me and we’ll slow this lot down a bit while you get Will to the lander.

  "Yes, Sir" replied the Sergeant, ushering Will towards the lander. As they turned to enter the doorway, Will was briefly unprotected by his support troops and was hit in the right shoulder, sending him forward. The agony was intense and he nearly fell over. However, there was enough support nearby to stop him falling all the way.

  "Will, you need to grip your suit, to make sure the air doesn’t escape any faster than it can be replaced" advised the Sergeant.

  Holding back the pain, Will clutched his shoulder as tightly as he could. As he squeezed the suit’s fabric, the pain became more intense and he cried out in agony.

  "Sorry, Will, forgot to mention that" called the Sergeant, and helping Will to sit down on one of the benches, moving towards Will to apply a sealing patch to his suit. Although it wouldn’t do anything for his gunshot wound, it would keep his air supply intact. The suit’s air supply would quickly replace that lost through the damage.

  "Major, we’re on the lander" he said.

  "Thanks, Sergeant. We’ll retreat." With that, he threw a stun grenade towards the enemy troops and was relieved to see that this one went off. The amount of gunfire coming towards them immediately dropped off but someone seemed to have escaped the grenade’s effects, as the gunfire didn’t stop entirely. He felt, however, that it was low enough for him and the remaining troops to get safely to the lander.

  Moments later, the marines were safely on board, although one had fallen en-route and had twisted their ankle.

  "Let’s go" he called and the lander lifted from the ground and shot towards the main hangar doors and out into the open. "Everyone else get out of here, now."

  "Captain, once the landers are clear, you know what to do."

  As he saw the base explode through one of the lander windows, the Major breathed a deep sigh of relief. He regretted the loss of the lives of the soldiers who had pinned them down but recognised that there was little he could do about it.

  "Will, just hang on there. We’ll be at our ship in a couple of minutes. Once we’re there, medics will deal with your wound and give you something to numb the pain."

  A combination of the pain and the reduced level of oxygen caused by the hole in his suit made it so that Will was feeling a little light-headed, so didn’t quite know what to say in reply, so just nodded. He’d never been shot before and hadn’t realised just how painful it was.

  Five minutes later, the lander entered the landing bay of the Sea Lion and set down.

  As the lander door opened, a pair of medics entered and helped Will out. The marine who had twisted her ankle was helped out by one of her colleagues, heading for the sick bay.