The Parafaith War by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Read Free Book Online Page B

station wall behind and to the left of Trystin. His own breathing sounded like an overloaded ventilator, and he forced himself to breathe more deliberately as he fired three shots down the dim corridor. Ping! Spang!
    Plastcrete fragments from the revs’ shots showered Trystin as he squeezed off two more rounds. He felt that there were only two revs crouched at the end of the corridor, but they had pushed in a turner blade for a shield-far more effective than the dead rev bodies he crouched behind.
    Stifling a sigh, Trystin cranked up his reflexes to high and leaped sideways, then charged the revs. From a standing position, he had enough height to fire over the low turner blade-and sprayed the area in an effort to neutralize the revs he could see only as intermittent distortions. Ping!
    Only one shot came his way-one that creased his helmet.
    He lowered his reflexes back to one notch above normal and crouched on his side of the turner blade, almost hyperventilating in an effort to relieve his oxygen debt, feeling both his overloaded suit and body straining.
    “Shit …” he muttered. No system defenses, and who knew how many revs left. He could barely see the revs, and only if they moved. He was running through a stan’s worth of oxygen in half that time by upping his metabolism to stay alive.
    He remained concealed, but could hear nothing through the suit’s limited “ears.”
    He’d killed at least four revs, maybe six-but what had happened to the rest?
    Slowly he eased around the turner blade and headed for the lock to the garage. As he expected, the big door had been blown open. One rev body lay sprawled by the door, visible only where a slash across the suit had turned back the armored and insulated fabric-probably caused by door shrapnel.
    Peering from behind the heavy plastcrete pylon at the flat ground around the station, he saw nothing moving. Outside, the badlands looked the same, and so did the one side of the single reclamation tower in his vision Field. What was different were the dozen bodies and the fragments of composite armor strewn beneath the station walls.
    Trystin stood, chest heaving. He wasn’t thinking clearly, not at all, a sign of fatigue, and who knew what else. Fatigue? Idiot! He mentally tripped his reflexes and metabolism down to normal, and stood shaking. Step-up meant burning more energy, and he’d been in enhanced-reflex status for all too long. He almost slumped into a heap as fatigue washed over him.
    He swallowed nearly all the Sustain in the suit’s helmet • nipple, ignoring the chills and cold jolt he felt as it hit his guts.
    How long he waited, he wasn’t sure, not until he checked his implant. With no movement for nearly a half stan, he doubted there were any revs left.
    Then, picking up one heavy foot after another, he turned and headed back through the useless lock door to the tech section, and the emergency transmitter.
    At the end of the corridor were two more bodies. One was a rev with the shoulder of his suit burned away; the other was Ryla.
    “Shit - - .” Trystin swallowed; he was supposed to protect the tech.
    He stepped slowly inside the tech section. The system console looked almost normal-the gray plastic dull as ever-except for the dead lights and the corner with the hole large enough for him to insert a gauntleted hand.
    He levered open the shielded cover to the emergency transmitter, and the light winked green. With his implant working for short distances, he linked with the simple circuits.
    “Perimeter Control, this is East Red Three, from Lieutenant Desoll. Station East Red Three is down. System is red. No station integrity. Rev attack neutralized-“
    “Desoll, Major Alessandro here. How many revs? What’s your status?”
    “I’m in armor using the emergency transmitter. There were two to three squads with backpacked heavy weapons. They’ve got new shielding, and you can only see them on the fringe scanner frequencies and only at about a third of a