Free Epic: Book 03 - Hero by Lee Stephen Page B

disgusted if he hadn’t grown used to it long ago. That he was used to it at all made him sick. He looked sidelong at Svetlana. She would never have experienced anything like this before. This was a different situation than the one she’d been in previously with the Fourteenth. Now there were twice as many Nightmen in the unit, and they were ten times more radical than the Nightmen before them, Anatoly and Baranov. This new crew took totalitarianism to the extreme.
    At that moment, Scott did something that surprised even himself—he gently squeezed the back of Svetlana’s neck. Unspoken reassurance. For a moment, he felt her tension release.
    “ Prepare to drop!” Travis yelled from the cockpit.
    Scott latched on his faceless helmet. It attached to the clamps of his armor. He stared through its interior view screen, where a transparent map of the church appeared. Maps were available only about half the time; thankfully, this was one of those times. He took a moment to study it, as the Nightmen around him got ready.
    He watched as Svetlana removed her helmet briefly to pull an insulated layer of rubber over her head. The blond tips of her hair disappeared. She slipped her helmet back on.
    The Pariah ‘s inertia shifted. They were about to drop.
    Dostoevsky readied his assault rifle. He assigned everyone a shadow. “Remington—Romanov. Goronok—Voronova. Broll—myself.”
    Scott turned to Egor. The slayer stuck out like a pillar. “Keep her safe.”
    “ I will, lieutenant.” The slayer was strapping on a single-barreled 40mm slug launcher, nicknamed a hand cannon . It was capable of firing anything from armor piercing to incendiary rounds. The one-handed weapon walked a strange line between grenade launcher and pistol—exclusively a demolitionist’s toy.
    The bay door whined open. There was no time to be leery of church now. The Bakma didn’t care how Scott felt. If he allowed the church to affect him, he’d only be more vulnerable and easier to kill.
    There was a thick layer of snow on the ground, and fresh snow was still falling heavily. What the starlight didn’t illuminate, his True Color Vision did. tcv was one of the numerous technologies EDEN shared with the Russian military sect.
    The church was grand. Red bricks formed its walls, and reaching to the heavens was a massive bell tower—the same tower Scott could see from the map. For a moment, even through the warmth of his internal heating system, the fulcrum from America felt cold.
    Then it began.
    Dostoevsky burst from the door. He dove straight from the security of the troop bay and rolled to the church’s closed entrance. Plasma blasts exploded at his feet from above. Auric charged behind, followed by Scott and the others. Their dash lasted barely a few seconds—enough time to avoid plasma themselves.
    Scott knew where the blasts were coming from—an alien inside the bell tower. It might have been a sniper. The blasts weren’t inaccurate, they were just a split second behind. Plasma was a deadly brand of weapon, but its rate of fire was slower than projectile. That was one edge humanity had.
    The Nightmen and Svetlana slammed against the front of the church, right beside a set of polished doors. The Pariah lurched into the air and turned to depart.
    Suddenly, a small metal orb fell to the ground. It stuck in the snow meters in front of the Nightmen. A plasma grenade.
    Time slowed.
    Nicolai jerked the church door open. Egor pulled Svetlana to his chest. Dostoevsky and Auric tensed. The moment the doors were fully open, all six of them dove.
    The boom that erupted behind them propelled them into the sanctuary. Immediately Scott felt a loss of control, then a searing heat against his back and the hail of shrapnel hitting his armor. He saw the ground pass beneath him as he soared facedown into the building, his arms flailing. Then instinct and experience kicked in.
    Bend knees. Lower shoulders. Turn head.
    He hit the ground in an awkward roll, one