The Lazarus War: Artefact Read Online Free PDF Page A

from my chest, weeping streamers of blood. Krell tech is so much more fucked-up than ours . The spines were poison-tipped and my body was immediately pumped with enough toxins to kill a bull. My suit futilely attempted to compensate by issuing a cocktail of adrenaline and anti-venom.
    Martinez flipped another grenade into the horde. The nearest creatures folded over it as it landed, shielding their kin from the explosion. Mindless fuckers .
    We advanced in formation. Shot after shot poured into the things, but they kept coming. Wave after wave – how many were there on this ship? – thundered into the drive chamber. The doors were suddenly gone. The noise was unbearable – the klaxon, the warnings, a chorus of screams, shrieks and wails. The ringing in my ears didn’t stop, as more grenades exploded.
    “We’re not going to make this!” Jenkins yelled.
    “Stay on it! The APS is just ahead!”
    Maybe Jenkins was right, but I wasn’t going down without a damned good fight. Somewhere in the chaos, Martinez was torn apart. His body disappeared underneath a mass of them. Jenkins poured on her flamethrower – avenging Martinez in some absurd way. Olsen was crying, his helmet now discarded just like the rest of us.
    War is such an equaliser .
    I grabbed the nearest Krell with one hand, and snapped its neck. I fired my plasma rifle on full-auto with the other, just eager to take down as many of them as I could. My HUD suddenly issued another warning – a counter, interminably in decline.
    Ten … Nine … Eight … Seven …
    Then Jenkins was gone. Her flamer was a beacon and her own blood a fountain among the alien bodies. It was difficult to focus on much except for the pain in my chest. My suit reported catastrophic damage in too many places. My heart began a slower, staccato beat.
    Six … Five … Four …
    My rifle bucked in protest. Even through reinforced gloves, the barrel was burning hot.
    Three … Two … One …
      
    The demo-charges activated.
    Breached, the anti-matter core destabilised. The reaction was instantaneous: uncontrolled white and blue energy spilled out. A series of explosions rippled along the ship’s spine. She became a white-hot smudge across the blackness of space.
    Then she was gone, along with everything inside her.
    The Krell did not pause.
    They did not even comprehend what had happened.

CHAPTER TWO
EXTRACTION
    PFC MICHAEL BLAKE : DECEASED .
    PFC ELLIOT MARTINEZ : DECEASED .
    PFC VINCENT KAMINSKI ( ELECTRONICS TECH , FIRST GRADE ): DECEASED .
    SCIENCE OFFICER GORDEN OLSEN : DECEASED .
    CORPORAL KEIRA JENKINS ( EXPLOSIVES TECH , FIRST GRADE ): DECEASED .
     
    WAITING FOR RESPONSE… WAITING FOR RESPONSE… WAITING FOR RESPONSE…
     
    CAPTAIN CONRAD HARRIS : DECEASED .
    This was the part I disliked most.
    Waking up again was always worse than dying.
    I floated inside my simulator-tank – a respirator mask attached to my face – and blinked amniotic fluid from my eyes to read the screen more clearly. The soak stung like a bitch. The words scrolled across a monitor positioned above my tank. Everything was cast a clear, brilliant blue by the liquid filling my simulator.
    PURGE CYCLE COMMENCED …
    The tank made a hydraulic hissing, and the fluid began to slough out. It was already cooling.
    I was instantly smaller and yet heavier. Breathing was a labour. These lungs didn’t have the capacity of a simulant’s, and I knew that it would take a few minutes to get used to them again. I caught the reflection on the inside of the plasglass cover, and didn’t immediately recognise it as my reflection. That was the face I had been born with, and this was the body I had lived inside for forty years. I was naked, jacked directly into the simulator. Cables were plugged into the base of the device, allowing me to control my simulant out there in the depths of space. My biorhythms, and those of the rest of my squad, appeared on the same monitor.
    All alive and accounted for. Everyone made safe