Excerpt from Savior NovelChapter 20

TOO FEW BULLETS AND

THE FORTUNATE SON

Red Squad was led by Caleb, and it was him and his squad's job to insure that Ghost and none of the others, including Cain, took a single step out of that elevator. He regretted that he was about to have to kill a man that he had once called friend.

There was no mistaking it, though, Cain and the others were allied. Somehow retired Ex-SAVIOR commander Archangel had gone ‘off the reservation’, joining up with a known Meta female assassin. The two of them had stolen the comatose body of an injured sensitive out of his hospital bed. To make matters worse, it seemed that Cain, the SAVIOR agent that was in charge of security for that shift, had either decided to join up with the fugitives or had always been a part of their insane conspiracy.

“Cain, of all people!” Caleb said to himself. Cain was a damn good soldier. If he hadn't seen footage from the SAVIOR agents’ mounted cameras that had shown them facing off against the man and the woman, he would have scarcely believed it. But the proof was there—Cain was a traitor for whatever reason, and now the three of them were enemies of the state.

More importantly they were enemies of SAVIOR. The last thing that Caleb wanted was for the world to find out that two retired SAVIOR agents and one active agent had become turncoats. For that reason alone he had decided that he and his men would take the point and, put an end to this fiasco. Caleb and five other men waited for confirmation that the elevator had made its way to the bottom of the shaft. As soon as they had it, they would open fire.

On the left and right flank of the main group were two groups of four men, all SAVIOR agents with heavy field experience in a variety of foreign combat zones. Each man fully understood that it was his job to make sure that Archangel and the others didn't get past Caleb’s group. Everyone had been briefed to put their misgivings aside and just think of this group as any other three enemy combatants, not an unarmored and well known old soldier, one man wearing standard issue SAVIOR armor, and a retired female Meta.

Caleb had his own Meta, Gabriel, who stood slightly behind the squad leader. Gabriel was six foot tall male Meta with short wavy blond hair. His father had been an assistant to a state Senator, and when it was discovered that the son might possess the genetic anomaly necessary to qualify for the enhancement program, the father made arrangements and greased the appropriate palms. Nothing fancy, no untested experimental mutational ability. Nope... just strength, speed, and superhuman levels of physical resistance to injury—the side effect of which was that it cured him of the hemophilia that had plagued him most of his life.

Caleb got confirmation that the elevator was proceeding down to them.

“Gabriel, you concentrate on restraining the Meta. For the rest of you, the priority is Cain. Take them both down hard and fast—the old man at least shouldn't give us too much trouble,” he added as he leveled his own weapon at the doors of the elevator.

Caleb felt a slight tingling at the back of his skull and heard a slight ringing in his ears but ignored it.

Suddenly a wave of intense pain and nausea washed over the SAVIOR agents directly facing the elevator doors, all except for Gabriel the Meta. Several immediately fell to their knees. It caused the majority of them to hesitate just long enough for Fox to hurtle out the door and towards the main group, throttling the first man's neck and crushing his throat.

Momentarily stunned at the savageness of her attack, the two SAVIOR agents on either side of the injured man leaped to his defense, engaging her in physical combat while a third man pulled the now unconscious man away from her. That was when her three companions stepped out, with Cain going first, laying down heavy fire from his high powered machine gun.

“Get–” was the last word that squad leader Caleb ever uttered. A well placed slug from a military issue .45 entered his skull right below his left eye and exited out the back, instantly ending his life. Archangel was still cool headed under fire, and he understood well that a leaderless group never fought as well.

By this time the two flanks had started firing their weapons at Cain, Archangel and Ghost. The three of them were quickly closing the distance to what remained of the lead group, and so care had to be taken by the flanking groups to not hit their own troops. It made it much harder to successfully wound any of them.

With Gabriel rushing to engage Fox, she utilized the opportunity to toss one of the agents that was on top of her fast and hard into the men facing them from the left. Not even pausing, she delivered one hard blow to the gut of the second armored agent right before Gabriel was able to grab that hand in a crushing grip. He released a staggering punch to the side of her face with his other fist. It cracked bone and nearly dropped her to the ground.

“Stop it! This ends now!” Gabriel said, his voice unnaturally amplified as if it had been broadcast through powerful speakers. Fox struggled to free herself.

Cain fired off several bursts from his machine gun towards the group to the right, wounding several, while Archangel used his deadly accuracy with .45 Automatic to exploit weakness in the armor of two nearby SAVIOR agents, mortally wounding the both of them. On the right side, one of the agent's head suddenly exploded.

“Let me go you bastard, or I promise you, I'm going to tear you from limb to limb,” Fox threatened.

“No!” Gabriel said as he picked up Fox by one arm and swung her, using her as a weapon to knock Cain to the ground while never releasing his iron grip on her. Cain was taking heavy fire, but Ghost and Archangel had to move away from him, hoping his armor was enough protection.

Fox barely had time to react before Gabriel was lifting her again, only this time slamming her down so hard it made the floor shake from the impact of her body. She lay still and limp.

Archangel and Ghost both crouched down as low to the floor as they could, using fallen and unconscious armored Savior agents as cover from the shots that were being fired at them from both sides. The colonel was carefully firing strategically placed shots that either wounded or at least distracted their opponents, while the sensitive worked on amplifying the SAVIOR agents’ feelings of terror and dread at what was happening to them, raising their reactions to such a level that several started to flee the field of battle.

Cain got back on his feet, bringing his gun up and firing several quick shots into Gabriel's chest, the large rounds immediately ricocheting off.

Gabriel started slowly walking towards Cain, dragging a half-conscious along Fox along with him as Cain continued to fire round after round at the male Meta only to have them bounce of ineffectively.

Quickly ejecting the empty ammo cartridge and replacing it with another, he fully emptied the gun again. Still Gabriel closed the distance between the two of them. They were nearly face to face.

“Crap!” Cain said as Gabriel reached out crushed the gun with his free hand. The soldier immediately back peddled, because he could not take the same kind of punishment that Gabriel had dished out to Fox or his gun.

Fortunately Fox had regained some of her wits. She had to stop Gabriel from getting his super punishing hands on Cain. Channeling all the energy she had, she made herself as strong as she possibly could be while yanking the arm of the male Meta, doing her best to slow his advance on her friend.

Gabriel looked back at Fox. “You again! I thought you had enough already!” He punched her again with his free hand, the other still gripping her arm.

Blood spurted from both of Fox's nostrils. “You arrogant sonofabitch!” she shouted as she returned his punch with one of her own. It landed in his side and knocked the breath out of him, and he had to let go of her.

Fox's hands were now free. She and Gabriel started trading powerful blows back and forth, her adrenalin and melee combat skills momentarily compensating for his higher strength and resistance. Once free, she was the better fighter, and had far more finesse and knowledge of how to make her punches extra effective.

Archangel and the other two took full advantage of the opportunity and combined their efforts to take care of the few armored SAVIOR agents that remained. Even before the dust started to settle the commander sent Cain to get the SAVIOR van. He and Ghost moved cautiously over to where Gabriel and Fox were still viciously slugging it out. The enhanced kid was strong, but he was no fighter.

“We're leaving Gabriel, and you're going to let us go. See to your fellow SAVIOR agents, there's plenty that can be saved and you’re in the basement of a hospital,” Archangel said with authority.

“You're aren't going anywhere! None of you are!” Gabriel exclaimed defiantly.

“Yes we are son. If you don't let us go, then we'll have no choice but to take you down.”

“Impossible!” Gabriel laughed.

“Is it? You're having a hard enough problem holding your own against Fox. You know that old saying, ‘Not the size of a dog in a fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog?’ Fox has got you beat hand's down in that department. Right now we just don't have the time for the both of you to beat each other to a bloody pulp. So if you don't cease and desist immediately, the three of us are going to have to combine our efforts to put you down hard and fast before Cain drives up with our vehicle.

Gabriel looked around at all the fallen SAVIOR agents. “I...”

“I'm sorry son, like I said we don't have time for this. Ghost, you know that little tidbit of knowledge that you just pulled from my surface thoughts? Send it on to Fox. I figure with the serious hurt he put on her, she's going to jump at the chance to exploit laughing boy's little weakness and start doing some serious damage to him.” Archangel finished even as Fox started smiling maliciously.

“He's right. This is going to be fun.” Fox said as she cracked her knuckles, preparing for what was to come.

“What did you tell her?” Gabriel asked uneasily.

“Something that's going to damage more than just your body,” Archangel replied bluntly. “Unless you stand down now. There’s only one of you and three of us, and look at how many we took out. It’s over son.”

Gabriel just stood there. He had a Meta’s body but only a desk jockey’s mind and very little battle experience.

“I’m not feeling all that great at the moment but… Cain is coming.” Ghost informed the others as he started to pass out from the strain he had put his body through during that conflict they had just survived. Fox rushed right over to him.

There was nothing but a tense silence as the four of them, including Gabriel, waited for the SAVIOR van to drive up. And when it did, the three of them got into the van and left Gabriel still standing there wondering what they would have done to him.

THE END.