Free Star Brigade: Resurgent (Star Brigade Book 1) by C.C. Ekeke

repose.
    Silently these seven globes covered the area of immediate danger, four flew to the large crowd of gunmen, and three darted over the group of five. The protectomechs hovering over the five gunmen all sprouted mini-cannons and rained down bright red darts on the Children of Earth. One gunman went down, twitching as he did. Another got struck in the forehead, dropping to the ground. The gunman who fired at Habraum earlier was fiddling with some canister on his belt right before he too was struck down.
    Habraum looked to the side to see the protectomechs striking down the larger group, who fired repeatedly at the mechanoids but couldn’t penetrate their shielding. The Cerc smiled grimly. “Thank the Twins,” he muttered. “There should be a zoorail that can get us away from here.”
    The panicky sentients were starting to calm down and move away from the scene at a less-frenzied pace. Several bodies—mostly non-humans—lay scattered on the ground, tattooed with blast marks. Habraum recoiled and intuitively held Jeremy to his chest to keep the boy from seeing the carnage. The sooner they left the better. He looked to Sam, but saw her eyes widening. Habraum followed the direction of her stare.
    The canister of the fallen gunman began to glow, which was when Habraum recognized it. “ Rogguts, an EMP grenade!” The glow swelled and mushroomed. The energy waves didn’t harm him or any other sentient, but it felt like something was trying to forcibly yank the iron from his teeth.
    But the EMP grenade completed its task. All the protectomechs within the immediate radius of the pulse spastically quivered in mid-air and dropped like stones. That probably meant any zoorail nearby would be dead as well. The gunmen were still standing, about ten of them at a quick count. After the last protectomech fell, they opened fire again as if nothing happened.
    “The zoo doesn’t have EMP protection on their defenses? Really?!” Sam looked insulted as she strode forward. “ Fuck this!” Without another word, she jumped up off the ground—and hovered there. Habraum felt unusual warmth rolling off her body. Hot updrafts of air propelled her up off the ground, an aspect of her maximal ability—pyrokinesis. She aimed her hands at the nearest gunmen and a concentrated heat wave rippled the air, scorching over the gunmen’s weapons.
    “ARRRGH!” The two human gunmen shrieked in astonished agony. Each quickly threw away handfuls of steaming metallic goop, formerly pulse rifles liquefied by Sam’s heat burst. They tried to shake off the searing on their hands, but Sam wasn’t done with them yet. Both her arms became engulfed in bright orange flames, but her clothing never got singed. Jeremy, perched on Habraum’s arm, gawked in wonder. This wasn’t the first time the boy had seen her use her powers, but it still always amazed him.
    Sam clenched her teeth and shot a blazing plume at the Children of Earth. The force of the blast drilled them head-on into a row of tables, out of the fight. Habraum couldn’t hide his smile watching Sam in flawless fighting form…until he looked anew at the turbulently unfolding scene in the way he once viewed countless theatres of combat as a Star Brigadier. More screams, several beings running perilously close to the furious firestorm, eager to flee. Worse yet, the larger Children of Earth group noticed. There was another way; Habraum just couldn’t believe he was considering it. “Samantha, stop!” he ordered.
    Out of respect for his higher rank, Sam did as ordered and cut off her fiery torrent like one would a light switch. But that didn’t stop the woman from turning to glare at him in disbelief.
    “Look,” Habraum pointed at the scene around them; the dancing flames around the two unconscious Children of Earth agents, the other eight moving on and the civilians nearly singed by Sam’s powers.
    “I know what I’m doing, Braum,” Sam snapped.
    “Never said you didn’t, love,”