Genesis - the Battle Within (Pillars of Creation Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

and into his lower ribs.
    Rotas watched closely as the blade bit fatally, pinning the Skink’s rifle against his chest. Quickly repositioning herself, she pushed the blade further within the armour, finishing the job, as the Skink’s eyes bulged—
    With a start, Rotas saw movement in the corner of her eye, sooka, she cursed in her native tongue, I missed one! One last Skink had remained unnoticed underneath a fallen comrade, and was pulling himself free. Rotas knew she was in a bad spot, the blast effects having worn off and she had taken too long on her last kill, thinking it was the final one. Sooka! She cursed again for her stupidity.
    Rotas tried to draw her blade back, but was dismayed to hear the sound of cracking bones and slurping flesh as nothing happened. The Skink was firmly skewered and wouldn’t budge, with the blade still confined within her enemy – Piz’duk manuals always lied. The combination of the Skink’s armoured plating and the rifle snagging on the flat sides of her blade, Rotas was firmly attached to the dead man. She desperately struggled to free her arm and shake the dead Skink free, as the final recovering Skink approached.
    The only surviving enemy, the leader of the small group, was clearly a well-seasoned veteran, like herself, who had lived through many battles to tell the tale. Unlike the others, this one pulled out of his stupor quickly, wiping the smeared blood from his eyes and forehead and searching frantically for his own weapon. Rotas panicked, shaking her arm violently … but it still wouldn’t pull free!
    Sooka! Sooka . She was going to be blown away with a freaking, already dead , Skink causing the end of her!
    The leader of the enemy group composed himself, cleared the ringing from his ears, and knew exactly what to do. Raising into a crouch, he kept himself carefully between Rotas and Delta 1’s deadly position. The Skink blinked the last remnants of the blast from his dazed eyes and reclaimed his own weapon, which Rotas noted with a tightening gut needed both hands to lift off the ground. It was one of their heavier and more expensive models, a straight out ion-rifle that needed no gauze casings; a deadly and proficient cannon for killing SED soldiers like herself.
    Carefully the Skink steadied the cannon and took aim, while Rotas desperately tore at her arm trying everything to free her blade and take cover, “Aww sooka,” she yelled, it was too late—
    She bit her lip in pain as the first three or four shots tore deeply into the left side of her abdomen, the armour absorbing the impact of at least two of them before she had time to flare her ion-shield back to life. She felt the familiar burn screaming at her as she felt the warm trickle of blood.
    The burning cold pain of an ion-round was never forgotten, or ignored, and Rotas was only slightly relieved when she felt his suit’s med-gel pour over her wounds. But it would take more than gel to numb its true effects … and a lot more to get me out of this mess, she thought angrily. The gel did blunt the pain enough for her to stay upright though, and she knew it was stopping any internal bleeding … for now.
    Shit … I’m smarter than this and normally far more careful aren’t I? How the hell have I let myself get into this situation? Rotas didn’t have time to contemplate the answer. Sparks were flying in an amazing display as her ion-shield received and only just withstood the salvo pouring into it. She felt helpless as the Skink began closing the gap between his rifle and Rotas’ shield, trying to bring down her protection.
    Rotas saw his ugly, scarred smile as the Skink drew closer and saw the exposed flesh beneath the damaged armour. Rotas could tell this Skink was one of the deranged fanatics – possibly from the Order that cannibalised its victims – he clearly relished in the sight of the injury, laughing hysterically.
    Rotas groaned as she strained to keep her arm, with shield in place, still in front