Janus waited, one hand over an access panel, the other stemming the flow of blood from his arm. He slumped among machinery of the cavernous launch dock. Dead machinery, powerless after the Sek reached the generators. Beside Janus the massive translucent launch doors allowed a filter of light -- and moving shadows. The Sek had found this, the last unblocked entrance to the launch dock. Like monsters from a childhood nightmare, the dagger-legged killers came into focus on the other side of the door. Their mandibles scraped away the surface, millimeter by millimeter. Janus did nothing. More Sek came. They knew Janus was the last human, and they wanted to witness his end. Holes appeared in the door. Daggered claws groped for him. Janus wrenched at a manual activator in the access panel with all his remaining strength. The emergency tube clearance system fired. Designed to remove a disabled 7 kiloton shuttle, the linear accelerator plucked the Sek from the tunnel and ejected them at roughly 1200 kph? |
