Chapter 558: Storming the Enemy Ship
Kian pulled up a map on his power armour's built-in display and took a look. He was in the middle section of the pirate boarding ship.
Where he needed to go was the stern.
The stern held the engines and the bridge. If he could get to the bridge, he could take control of the whole pirate ship.
The pirate ship was only 1.5 kilometres long. From where he was, the bridge was less than six hundred metres away in a straight line.
Kian set off at once, leaving the macro-cannon deck for a relatively wide steel corridor.
A small ship's corridors were narrow. Kian alone, in his power armour, blocked the corridor completely.
He advanced step by step, the two lasrifles on his vambraces aimed forward and the Lumberer on his head turned to cover his back.
That Lumberer, with its machine spirit, had been with Kian a long time now. Thanks to his careful maintenance and anointing with sanctified oil, it would more or less follow some of Kian's tactical instructions.
Like now. The Lumberer could aim its muzzle behind him and guard his rear.
Kian hadn't gone far down the corridor when, suddenly, masses of pirates came charging from the corner ahead and from behind him!
Kian didn't say a word. He just raised his arms and fired, both vambrace lasrifles going all out, pouring out bolt after bolt of crimson laser!
The pirates charging around the corner ahead didn't even have time to raise their weapons before the fierce lasers burned them to charcoal!
The pirates charging from behind didn't have time to attack either. The Lumberer on Kian's head kept spitting fire and tore them apart!
Pirates kept charging from in front and behind, and Kian's weapons kept firing, until the corridor ahead was carpeted with bodies and the tide of charging pirates finally thinned a little!
Kian glanced at the counter in his helmet. In that one wave alone, he'd killed three hundred pirates!
The coolant canisters pumped cooling gas into the lasrifles, and he kept going. His heavy steel boots stepped on the pirates he'd blown apart, crushing bone and sinew.
But as he walked, he suddenly stopped and narrowed his eyes slightly.
Around the left-hand corner ahead, it seemed someone was hiding.
He glanced at his auspex. Six metres ahead, around the left corner, there was a red dot.
He focused and listened. The red dot's heart was beating very fast.
There really was someone hiding around the corner ahead. And not just someone. He was holding a meltabomb!
The pirate had his back pressed tight to the steel wall. He was breathing hard, his eyes full of madness.
He pulled several injectors from his belt pouch and jabbed them all straight into his neck.
His pupils shrank to pinpricks. Then he pulled the meltabomb's pin, burst out from around the corner, and lunged at Kian!
His face was full of madness. He meant to take Kian down with him.
But the moment he came around the corner, he suddenly found he couldn't move. It was as if his whole body was stuck in gel. He stood there unable to move so much as a finger.
Kian had his right hand raised, and the psychic generator on his right vambrace was flickering with faint golden lightning.
Kian had seized the man's body with gravity control and was pushing him away, farther and farther.
When he'd pushed the man to the end of the corridor, the meltabomb went off, melting away the corridor all around it!
The destroyed corridor exposed a huge compartment behind it. This was the bridge bastion!
Behind the bridge bastion was the bridge, and everyone knew how important the bridge was. If an enemy took the bridge, the ship was lost.
So around the bridge was a ring of armed defences called the bridge bastion, packed with armed men and even crewing some heavy emplaced weapons!
The meltabomb had blown open the wall, and with the wall melted, the huge space of the bridge bastion lay open.
Inside the bridge bastion, an emplaced laser cannon locked onto Kian in the corridor through the blown-open hole.
A pirate on the laser cannon fired a crimson high-energy beam at Kian!
Kian was in a narrow corridor. It was too late to turn and run. He dropped into a crouch, pulled the adamantium shield off his back, and planted it in front of himself.
The next instant, crimson laser bolt after bolt slammed into the adamantium shield, throwing off a stream of sparks!
The Lumberer on Kian's head immediately swivelled and opened fire on the roaring laser cannon.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!
Round after round of 20mm slammed into the laser cannon's gun shield, throwing off showers of sparks.
But the gun shield was thick. The 20mm rounds actually couldn't punch through!
Fire flew back and forth, and Kian was pinned in place, unable to move. The pirate infantry in the bridge bastion came rushing over.
Kian saw that some of the infantry were carrying rockets or other high-energy weapons.
One look at the sheer size of those weapons told him they could hurt him!
With his other hand, he quickly reached down to his leg and pulled out his bolt rifle.
Shield in one hand and bolt rifle in the other, he adjusted the muzzle slightly and fired three short bursts.
Three huge holes appeared in the gun shield of the roaring laser cannon in the distance!
The bolts punched through the gun shield into the cannon behind it and blew it apart. One bolt hit the pirate gunner and turned him into a cloud of red mist!
The laser cannon stopped roaring, but pirate shooters had already rushed up to the breach and readied their weapons to attack Kian!
A pirate with a rocket launcher on his shoulder darted into the breach, aimed the launcher's muzzle at Kian in the corridor, and pulled the trigger.
Kian lashed out with a gravity tendril and yanked the launcher's muzzle down, so it fired into the floor.
The rocket exploded at the pirate's feet and blew him to pieces!
Then Kian sprinted forward, gathering a psychic shockwave in his right hand as he ran.
He leapt from the corridor through the breach into the bridge bastion and flung the psychic shockwave in his hand forward!
Several dozen pirate shooters behind a barricade were hit by the shockwave. The dozen or so in front were seared black by the heat and pressure and dropped dead on the spot. The several dozen behind them were knocked to the floor, twitching from the shock, out of the fight for now.
Once Kian had broken out of the narrow corridor into the more open bridge bastion, he could fight at full strength!
He opened up with everything he had, pouring all his firepower into the pirates around him!
The pirates shooting at him from a distance were mowed down without mercy, and the ones charging him had their heads burst by a casual backhand.
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