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

on either side of him with biokinetic blasts. As the two slumped forward, Habraum landed in the midst of his foes and dodged left, catching the rifle a gunman swung at him. A pivot to his right and Habraum ripped the weapon from her grasp. The Cerc spun and whipped the rifle like a club, cracking two gunmen across the skulls. Both crumpled, already forgotten as Habraum tossed the weapon.
    The Cerc twisted back around to face the unarmed sentient. A stiff, biokinetically charged uppercut snapped the gunman’s head back, shattering her mask and dropping her. Suddenly Habraum sensed a gunman on either side, their rifles pointed at his head. On instinct, he dropped to a knee, crossed both arms and fired off dual energy torrents. Both assailants were knocked backward, unconscious. Habraum grinned and stood up slowly, consciously cutting off the power flowing inside him. As his senses returned to normal, he looked around at his motionless foes.
    “Guess I’m not so rusty,” Habraum smirked to himself. The rush of combat was a drug that couldn’t be overcome…even after last year’s tragedies. His gaze fell on the miniscule speaker for the Children of Earth, no longer confident or smug. He was trembling with anger.
    “You defend these…abominations?” he cried, his face as beet-red as his hair. “They’re not even human!”
    Habraum crossed his arms and laughed. “I’d say the same thing about you.” He laughed even harder when this man half his size lunged forth to tackle him. The Cerc deftly slapped the speaker’s hands aside and back elbowed his jaw with a rewarding crunch. The speaker’s face rocked back, now a bloodied ruin. Habraum caught him by the collar before he could sink into a heap, delivering a swift field goal kick between his legs. The speaker hunched up in pain, a groan escaping his busted lips.
    “Cranker,” Habraum snarled contemptuously, tossing him aside like trash. These vile thugs deserved worse for what they did. Not my job anymore. A siren’s call caught the Cerc’s ear, meaning Conuropolis MetroPol was in route. He eyed his wrist chronometer, also a comm device. Pressing on the chronometer’s transmitter button connected him with Sam’s comm device. “Sammie? You there?”
    When only silence answered, Habraum’s paranoia rushed to the surface. He almost called again when Sam responded. “Flyboy…Jeremy’s okay.”
    Habraum almost thanked the Holy Gemini at that news, until he caught the strain in Sam’s voice. “Where are you?” he frowned. The MetroPol siren rang closer now.
    “We’re in the…Garden Sector. Wait…how’d you get…past—?”
    “Be right there,” Habraum whirled and ran, sprinting across the zoo walkways. His chronometer also allowed him to track whoever he spoke with on it. Dashing through the zoo, he saw sentients huddled together. Most were shaken up but unharmed. His heart racing faster than his feet, Habraum was almost upon Sam and Jeremy’s location—just beyond a thick wall of greenery and tangled branches. He broke through the shrubbery mesh and skidded to a halt in a grassy clearing. White curls of smoke lazily rose to the sky from three Children of Earth corpses sprawled across the ground. In the middle of this scene lay Sam and Jeremy. At a glance, Jeremy looked okay. A world of worry lifted from Habraum’s heart. But Sam was kneeling, her face wrinkled up in pain. With one arm, she clung to Jeremy and tightly gripped the right side of her lower back with the other. “Jeremy,” he breathed in relief, dropping to one knee and scooping up his son tightly.
    “Daddy, I knew you’d come,” the child cried, the terror on his face clear as day. Aside from that, he looked uninjured. Habraum turned to Sam, at first not seeing any injury. But on closer inspection, the Cerc couldn’t miss the slim, shiny spike sticking from Sam’s right side. The sight sent a cold shock through Habraum. Suddenly he was back on that battle-ravaged Beridaas