Xantoverse Shadowkill Read Free

entering hulks with Tairon Cauder. If she could just… wait, the door mechanism was melted. It was smooth to the touch.
    Another explosion erupted from behind her. They were firing blind while the dust settled. One bullet grazed against her leg, slicing through the nanoweave fabric and making her shudder and wince with the burning pain.
    Heavy footsteps of the kronac pounded nearer—as did the maniacal laughing of Chang as they sought to trap her.
    Frek!
    She ran her hands around the wires hoping to find some contacts left—but wait, the power core was good, the transformer still warm … of course!
    Kina grabbed the insulated part of the severed cable and jammed it against the contacts on the power transformer. With her free hand she pulled the power lever—not for the door, but for the …
    With a stuttering flash, the overhead algae lights bloomed bright, dousing the plant in bright yellow light. Kina squinted against the sudden change and spun round, drawing her blades.
    In front of her, both Reaper and Chang were fumbling for their night-vision apparatus, the extreme contrast of light blinding them. Not taking any more chances, Kina darted forward, clenching her jaw against the pain in her leg, and buried one of the daggers directly into Chang’s chest, piercing his heart. He dropped the shock-stick with the fall.
    Kina picked it up and threw it like a spear into Reaper’s back.
    It struck true. The kronac’s four arms tensed outward. He dropped the auto-shotgun and fell forward as he tried to reach behind him to remove the shock-stick. It wouldn’t have enough charge to hold the massive creature for long.
    In her focused frenzy, when instinct took over from thought, she leaped forward onto the kronac’s back and raised the dagger ready to bring it down into the back of his head to sever his brain stem.
    “Stop!” a voice boomed, knocking Kina out of her focused state.
    “That’s enough,” a second voice followed.
    Dzagnev and Lanat.
    Kina stepped off the kronac and spun round to find the human Wraiths but she couldn’t see them.
    “That means you too, Reaper,” Lanat said with her husky, seductive voice.
    Kina’s heart pounded against her chest. The wound in her leg throbbed and her hands shook from the frenzy of survival. She staggered away to lean against the staircase. As she looked up she saw the Wraiths.
    They were hanging from nanoweave ropes in the middle of the ceiling. Together, they leaned forward and rappelled to the floor in a single graceful moment. Unclipping from the ropes, they stepped forward and assessed the carnage. They wore their special form-fitting outfits that gave them incredible concealment. Embedded nano-particles, powered by their body heat, changed color to match their surroundings.
    Kina thought about protesting that she should have had such equipment too, but decided to keep her mouth shut. She was so close, she didn’t want to blow it now. Not to mention that her body was still recovering from the exertion and it was too much to argue.
    Lanat, with her long auburn hair tied back into pony tail, reached down and removed the shock-stick from the kronac. She tossed it aside and allowed the hunter to stand. Lanat whistled in his language, telling him his role was over. He inclined his large, scaly lizard head in understanding. He shot Kina a look that was part hate and part admiration. He stepped away from the Wraiths and waited.
    Dzagnev approached Kina. Like Lanat’s, his eyes were so dark it was hard to tell where the pupils finished and the irises started—genetic modification by the Penumbra’s surgeons. It gave them incredible vision across a multitude of spectrums. They would have seen everything that happened.
    “You did—reasonably well,” he said in that low, gravely voice of his.
    Kina balked inwardly at the superior tone and lessening of her achievements. She’d taken out three human bounty hunters and was a single second away from ending Reaper’s one