by M. R. Forbes
“What if we can’t?” Lutz asked.
“Then we’re out of options. Solino, tell Bale to get airborne with the rocket. I want it ready to fire at a moment’s notice.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He started to go but stopped when she grabbed hold of his sleeve.
“Once you’re done, I want every able-bodied fighter on the move south toward Sanose. We need to try to slow Alpha down as much as we can to buy some time.”
“Governor, why not use the rocket now?” Hicks asked.
“Because it will kill Alpha, and then what?” she replied. “We’ll still have thousands of trife on the ground with no way to stop them all. Like it or not, the UWT exists because of the goliaths. We can’t handle this many trife on our own, especially now.”
Hicks couldn’t argue the logic and remained silent.
Natalia didn’t like it either, but they were stuck between a rock and a hard place, and there was only one way she could think of to possibly get themselves out of it.
“Hicks, you need to slow them down,” she said. “Whatever it fucking takes. Do you copy?”
“I copy, Nat. I’ll think of something. Hicks out.” The tablet went dark.
“Solino, go. Bring whatever resources you need. Weapons, armor, vehicles. Throw the fucking kitchen sink at them if it’ll help.”
“Pozz, Governor,” Solino said, turning and running from the lab.
“Hess, Lutz, we need to set up the system.”
“How do we know what level of imbalance will be effective?” Hess asked.
“Use the data we collected earlier and make your best guess.”
“There are no guarantees it’ll be right.”
“There are no guarantees of anything. Do your best.”
Hess nodded. “What about you?”
“I’m going back in. Hayden’s going to signal me when he’s ready to hit Shurrath.”
“Through the Collective?” Lutz said. “How?”
“I don’t know how. But I’m sure I’ll know when it happens. Let’s get on it.”
Natalia turned away from them, heading back for the interlink. It took all of her concentration to stay on her feet. She was weak and getting weaker.
What was the use of the Collective doing to her?
“Hayden, whatever you’re going to do, do it soon,” she said to herself as she put the goggles back on and fell back into the interlink.
Chapter 54
“Max!” Hayden shouted from the passenger side of the APC. “Now!”
“Affirmation,” Max replied. “Hahaha. Haha.”
A blast of blue plasma launched from the top of the vehicle, sizzling past the front and across the flat terrain leading to the massive blast doors of Shurrath’s underground bastion. A mass of trife stood between the APC and the doors, a slick nearly five thousand strong, holding position until the Relyeh ancient gave the orders to attack.
That order arrived a moment later, the entire slick surging forward as one to greet the incoming assault. The plasma bolt reached the front line, reducing dozens of demons to slag as it powered through them and continued its journey to the door. When it struck the heavy steel slab, the superheated gas spread across it, sinking its heat into the metal and beginning to melt it.
“Don’t slow down for anything,” Hayden said, glancing over at Isaac in the driver’s seat.
“Pozz that, Sheriff,” Isaac replied, pressing the accelerator to the floor. The heavy APC gradually gained more speed.
“Here we go!” Hayden yelled, the trife rapidly approaching. The demons rushed the vehicle, ready to do whatever it took to stop the advance and kill the passengers inside.
On top of the truck, Max fired another blast of plasma from his hands. Hayden knew each shot reduced the strength and lifetime of the cage the Intellect could form to contain Shurrath, but they didn’t have any other choice. He had tried sneaking up on the Relyeh ancient. He had failed.
Blunt force was the only option left.
The second plasma blast again cleared the lane ahead of the truck and further weakened the steel door.
They had already crashed through a rusted, barbed-wire gate a few klicks back after passing a sign that announced the area was a former testing facility, though the sign hadn’t said what they were testing. After dispatching a pair of infected followers left to guard the outer perimeter, they’d had to maneuver the APC around nearly a hundred people making the pilgrimage to the site—most of them hungry and in ragged clothes—desperate for Shurrath’s salvation.
But there was no salvation here—only a different kind of subjugation. But once Shurrath was gone, and if they survived the trife, maybe Hayden could help these people. Maybe he could make them whole again.
The APC cleared the crowd of people only to encounter the trife. The entire vehicle shook as the creatures hit it, some of them jumping in front of the vehicle, letting it crush them to slow it down, while others rammed the side or leaped onto the roof. Hayden heard the top hatch slam closed behind him. Turning his head, he saw Max take refuge in the rear of the vehicle, grabbing on tight to whatever he could find. Even he wasn’t impervious to this version of trife.
The truck’s engine roared as it worked harder to maintain momentum, the swarm of demons blotting out the environment and burying them in a wave of black leathery flesh, claws and teeth. They tried to get through the hardened transparency of the windows. They tried to reach through the slits in the armor and past the hastily re-soldered passenger door that Hayden had ripped off. They hissed and howled, becoming a living tunnel for the vehicle as it continued to power forward, mowing through their ranks.
Hayden didn’t even see the blast doors when they hit them, but it was impossible not to feel the impact. The sudden deceleration shoved both him and Isaac forward in their seats, their bodies straining against their harnesses. A loud crack and echoing rumble signaled their success in breaking through the doors, the ruptured steel curling around the armored truck as it plowed into the underground facility.
“Don’t slow down!” Hayden yelled again, grabbing his revolvers. The viewport was nearly clear again, and he could see how the open outside cavern split into multiple caves. “Max, which way?”
“The third from the left,” Max replied. “Hahaha. Haha.”
Isaac adjusted their course. Soldiers began spilling out of some of the tunnels while the trife started pouring through the hole and rushing inside.
It was getting ugly in a hurry.
Hayden grabbed his Skin’s cowl, pulling it up over his face. The HUD appeared, and he used it to activate the shields. He didn’t know how much power the suit had left, but he would take whatever it would give him.
Bullets started peppering the front transparency of the APC and pinging off the armored hull as the soldiers tried to stop the vehicle. The trife continued to chase it from the rear, leaping onto the roof and tearing at the sealed hatch with their claws.
“Uh, Sheriff,” Isaac said. “We aren’t going to fit into the tunnel.”
“I know,” Hayden replied. “Neither will they.”
Isaac glanced over at him, a small smirk forming at the corner of his mouth. “I like the way you think, Sheriff. Hold on.”
The APC roared as Isaac set the course, speeding across the stone floor toward the tunnel Max indicated. The attack against them intensified, the shooters becoming more desperate to stop their advance.
“Get down!” Isaac shouted as the truck reached the tunnel. The roof hit first, slamming into the stone at the top edge of the cockpit and instantly causing the hardened glass to crack. Hayden lowered his head, the force of the impact shoving him against the restraints again as the real force of the crash hit them.
The tires burst under the sudden pressure, the axles crumpling and breaking, dropping the clearance of the APC by more than half. The sides scraped the walls, the screeching whine echoing across the open space behind them and through the tunnel ahead. As the truck continued to slide forward, it
compressed into the smaller space by the force of the insertion and finally came to rest, stuck there like a cork in a bottle.
Hayden released his harness and jumped up, grinning as he threw a hard punch into the already cracked glass of the forward transparency, sending more veins across it. He hit it again and again, rapidly bashing it with both augmented hands. It continued to splinter until finally coming free of the chassis at one corner. Hayden grabbed it there, shoving it out and climbing past it to pull it away entirely.
“We’re in,” he announced, looking down the currently unoccupied tunnel. “Let’s move!”
Chapter 55
Hayden, Isaac, and Max sprinted down the tunnel, following the excavation as it descended deeper beneath the mountainside.
They ran for nearly two kilometers before the first sign of trouble, a pair of—no doubt khoron- infected—soldiers rushing up the tunnel to meet them. A man and a woman.
They were each carrying a mini-railgun, trailing a belt of flechettes connecting the single-handed weapons to large packs on their backs. They came around a turn in the passage twenty meters away and immediately started shooting.
The barrage was impressive and should have killed them, but somehow, Max saw the attack coming. He moved ahead of Hayden and Isaac, rushing the enemy without slowing as the flechettes chewed into everything around him but somehow managed to miss him. Within seconds, the two people turned to face one another, continuing to fire until both dropped in a nasty mutual suicide.
“Disruption,” Max said. “Hahaha. Haha.”
The ease at which the Intellect had overcome the minds of the pair left Hayden uneasy. On one hand, he was glad Max was on their side. On the other, how much longer would that be the case? Hayden wanted to trust Max and his stated desire for friendship, but their past made that hard to do.
Hayden knelt beside the bodies, jabbing a microspear into each to make sure their khorons were dead. They kept going, the tunnel dropping at least a hundred meters along the way. Hayden expected the air to get colder as they went deeper. Instead, it became warmer and more humid until he reached the point he was sweating beneath the Skin. Isaac was equally affected, his forehead dripping and his hair wet from the rising dampness.
“Nobody told me we were heading into a sauna,” he said.
“Explanation,” Max said. “The Relyeh prefer moist environments. Given enough time, they would terraform the entire planet.”
“What?” Hayden said. That outcome was new to him.
“Confirmation. This is only the beginning, Sheriff, if Shurrath has his way.”
“Great. Just fucking great. Let’s make sure he doesn’t get what he wants.”
Shurrath sent another small group of militants out to meet them. They suffered the same fate as the first, unable to resist Max’s neural disruption. Hayden could feel the pressure of it in his own mind, but he had learned to fight the hallucinations, to counteract them out of pure willpower, and of course Isaac was wholly immune.
The tunnel finally branched out, splitting at a t-junction. Max guided them left to another junction, where they went right. They began to pass rooms barricaded by heavy blast doors or sealed with fused steel sheets—remnants of the underground facility’s original purpose, which was still unclear to Hayden. There were no more attacks. No more defenders.
Had Shurrath given up?
It took twenty minutes from the time they crashed through the front doors to finally emerge from the tunnel into a massive cave that was dark, damp and crowded with people.
There had to be a thousand of them, maybe more. And none of them paid any mind to Hayden, Isaac, and Max. They were dressed in a wide variety of light clothing. T-shirts, shorts, bathing suits, bras and panties, and some were completely naked. All of them were on their knees, facing the front of the cavern, their foreheads bowed to the ground and their voices droning on in a deep chant as if they were all under a spell. Maybe they were.
The cavern was easily half a klick across and equally as long and high. Jagged stalactites hung from the top of the cave while the floor had been sanded so smooth it was practically reflective in the light of the small LEDs lining the walls and floor. A large aperture—the entrance to yet another tunnel—was visible at the front of the cave. Shurrath’s symbol had clearly been etched there, into the stone floor.
“This is it,” Max said. “Shurrath is through that tunnel.”
Max had already told him that Cyrus had never seen the ancient’s final form. The opening at the rear of the space was nearly twenty meters high. Did that mean Shurrath was equally as large? If so, why would he need to hide?
“What now?” Isaac asked, sweeping his rifle over the crowd.
“We go through,” Hayden said, starting to walk forward, down the natural aisle that split the followers into two distinct sides.
They had gone a quarter of the distance when the first of the followers stood up, turning to face him.
“Sheriff Duke,” the woman said. She was wearing only an oversized t-shirt, stained and sweaty. “You came here to die.”
“Sheriff Duke,” another follower said, standing up. “Have you learned nothing from the loss of your planet?”
An entire group rose to their feet, saying his name. “Sheriff Duke. Sheriff Duke. Sheriff Duke. There’s no way out of this.”
Sheriff Duke. Do you want to see?
Shurrath’s voice boomed in Hayden’s mind, the first time the ancient had spoken to him like this since Salt Lake. His vision changed behind the HUD, and he found himself looking down on a city, his massive hand coming down hard on a building and collapsing the top of it.
He realized he was looking through the eyes of the goliath, Alpha. Shurrath was showing him what he was doing with the giant.
Sanisco is next, Sheriff. I’m close. So close. And you can’t help them. You survived my efforts to stop you, but this is where your story ends.
“Really?” Hayden replied. More and more of the followers were getting to their feet, saying his name and turning in his direction. “Because from my perspective, I’m just getting warmed up.”
“Sheriff Duke,” a man in front of him said. “Die.”
The man lunged at Hayden. Isaac shot him, knocking him down.
“Die,” someone else said.
“Die,” a third said.
“Die, die, die, die, die.” The crowd began chanting it, turning on Hayden and the others and beginning to close in.
How many can you kill, Sheriff, before they drag you down?
Hayden turned in a circle. Shurrath was right. They were badly outnumbered. But Natalia had told him to send a sign. She had some kind of trick up her sleeve.
So where the hell was she?
“Nat,” he said softly. “If you’re going to do something, do it now.”
Another follower threw themselves at Hayden. He caught the woman, turning and throwing her back into the crowd.
All of that effort wasted.
“And I owe you for Cyrus,” Shurrath added, using one of the followers to speak out loud.
“Sheriff,” Max said. “There is another option.”
Hayden glanced at the Intellect. He understood what the AI was suggesting. He could still use the battery as a bomb. It would blow the entire compound to rubble, and kill Shurrath and everyone else beneath the mountain.
“You promised,” Hayden said.
One of the followers stepped in front of Max. “An Intellect,” the man said. “Your kind is nearly extinct. You don’t need to suffer the same fate. Keep the body. Join my army.”
Max stared at the follower. “Consideration.”
“Max?” Hayden said. The Intellect told him ‘promise’ was a fucking code that bound him to keep his word. Was it all bullshit? Had he been dumb enough to fall for it again? Would the Intellect really change sides on him after they had made it this far?
“Decision,” Max said. “Rejection.” He shoved the follower back.
The action seemed
to incite the rest. They all surged forward, surrounding Hayden and the others and quickly closing the distance.
Isaac raised his rifle to fire, but Hayden put his hand on it, pushing it down.
“Sheriff?” the Marine said.
The first of the followers put their hands on him, grabbing at his arms. Another joined her, and another after that. Within seconds, he was being held by a dozen hands. They did the same to Isaac and Max.
Shurrath’s voice boomed in his mind.
You’re going to die here. You know that, or you would resist. Where is your fear, Sheriff? Where is your terror?
The followers froze, waiting for Hayden to answer the question.
“You’re the one who should be afraid,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
What do I have to fear? You’re in my home. Surrounded by my followers. Under my control. I have no reason to—”
Shurrath froze, falling silent for a moment before releasing a howl that rippled through Hayden’s mind, leaving him to fall to his knees and cover his ears as the followers holding him suddenly let go. They began to cry out too, each of them in rapid succession, an immediate and powerful deliverance of pain.
Nooooooo!
Shurrath roared in agony, and then suddenly fell silent.
The followers stopped screaming at the same time, their anguished cacophony vanishing in a simultaneous instant. For a moment, the thousands of worshippers stared at one another in confusion.
Then they all collapsed.
Hayden didn’t move. His heart pounded along with his head. He had expected Natalia to do something.
He hadn’t expected this.
“Hell, Nat,” he said softly.
“Deceased,” Max said. “All of them.”
“Shurrath?” Isaac said.
Their eyes lifted toward the passage at the far side of the room.
“We weren’t supposed to kill him,” Hayden said.
The cavern began to shake.
Something was stirring deep within the earth.
Something big.
