Archangel Falling is officially off to the editor, and while I wait to get it back, I’ll be posting a couple of excerpts from the book for your enjoyment. Like all the rest, these are unedited.
Sergei grunted in affirmation, unable to argue Andrey’s point. “Fair enough. You want to do this now?”
“If we keep waiting, those bastards might come up with some new scheme to stop us.”
Sergei sighed and pulled his regulator hose back over his head. He checked the straps on his goggles and the pressure gauge on Andrey’s air tank. Andrey did the same for Sergei, and they both swapped out the partially depleted magazines in their guns for fresh ones.
“Ready?”
Andrey nodded. Sergei pushed open the door and advanced slowly and steadily down the right side of the corridor, staying a few paces ahead of Andrey who stuck to the left. Though the hall was narrow, it still offered Andrey the opportunity to shoot past Sergei if necessary, and kept them far enough apart that they couldn’t be taken down at the same time quite as easily as if they were side by side.
As they reached the hatch for the lock-out chamber, Sergei heard a creature emerge from the next compartment up before he saw it. He began firing as soon as its body emerged, allowing the recoil of the weapon to carry the bust from the creature’s chest up through its head. Its body slumped to the floor with a muffled thump and a few seconds later the remaining creatures began to howl in rage.
“Get it open!” Sergei yelled behind him at Andrey who was frantically turning the locking mechanism. He hesitated and winced with each turn, wondering which would be the one that caused the hatch to explode open and begin flooding the sub. When the moment finally arrived it was exactly as he had anticipated. The hatch flung him against the wall and the water began pushing him back down the corridor toward the reactor compartment.
Sergei reached out and grabbed Andrey’s hand, having thrown the strap of his gun around the inside handle of the hatch as it flew open. The pair’s regulators were torn from their mouths by the force of the water and their goggles were ripped off and lost to some far recess of the sub nearly instantly. As they strained to hold on against the force of the water rushing in, the creatures’ howls of rage turned into cries of panic.
I knew when they picked up those teeth there was going to be a big problem😱