Ouroboros 4: End Read Free Page A

get out of this.
    Though initially he’d thought the two of them could just punch through the Barbarians and get to the Farsight, or steal a Barbarian ship, he now knew it was impossible. Not only was Nida rapidly declining, but he’d underestimated the Barbarians.
    No.
    The only option was to wait for the cavalry.
    Getting them here would be another task though.
    To do that, he had to do the impossible. Though his armor was certainly capable of sending communications, it had a limited range. Plus, the Barbarians were jamming all incoming and outgoing signals.
    But that still left Carson one option: the Farsight. If he could remotely patch his armor into the Farsight’s computers, he could use its coms array to boost the signal from his armor, and hopefully together they could punch through the interference and get a message off.
    So that’s what he was doing right now.
    Hunkered down in one of the tunnels close to the surface, Carson desperately commanded his armor as he shot at any Barbarian that rounded the corner.
    He was ensconced in a wide room that was completely filled with rubble and debris. From gun casings to abandoned armor units, there was nowhere to sit.
    He didn’t have to get comfortable though—he just had to get this message off.
    So he spent the next five minutes doing just that. They were some of the most pressured seconds of his life. As he stood there with his back pressed up against a ruined wall, he kept sending commands to his armor—instructing it on how to remotely access the Farsight—whilst he defended his position.
    With every passing moment, the fight grew more and more intense, and the corresponding split in his attention—between thought and action—more painful. Sweat caked his brow, his veins thrummed in his throat, and his eyes were soldered so far open, the skin surrounding them could have cracked and crumbled.
    His body ached, but his mind ached harder.
    . . . .
    And yet, he did it.
    Somehow, just as two enormous Mascars rounded the corner blasting away with heavy-duty pulse rifles, he gained access to the Farsight and sent the message.
    For a split second relief washed over him, then so did a cloud of rubble as the Mascars destroyed the ceiling above.
    They did not pause for thought or reason, they just aimed at the ceiling and let loose with a relentless volley of fire until they obliterated it, sending a hail of dust and stone raining down on them all.
    Carson ducked down automatically, punching to his feet just as his roll brought him over the rocky ground.
    Once he stood, he did not pause: he powered forward, right at the far wall.
    It was pockmarked, but it was still solid.
    Yet he ran right at it.
    As he did, he brought up his own gun, thumbed the setting to its highest, and shot the wall at the last moment.
    A super-heated charge lanced from his gun, powering into the wall and turning a whole section to nothing but vapor.
    He rolled right through the opening.
    He’d already used his scanners to ascertain there was a room on the opposite side, and he jumped right into it, flipped, and headed for the closest door.
    Now he’d done the impossible in calling the cavalry, it was time to get back to Nida.
    Though she was incredibly strong, and seemed capable of drawing on reserves deep within her, she was still just human. Like him, she couldn’t keep pushing on forever.
    And to think she could, would just get her killed.
    He’d deliberately left her in a section of tunnels far away from the current battle, and as he powered forward through the tunnel before him, he checked to see that she was still there.
    Though his scanners didn’t work perfectly down here, he’d already got them to tag her, so he narrowed in on her location easily.
    With a sigh that didn’t make it out of the confines of his helmet, he realized she was still alone, still standing, and clearly still alive.
    Still, he didn’t let up—he pushed himself as fast as he could go until he reached