New Season: Sparrow's Quest (New Sky Book 2)

by Jason Kent

  "Here!" Kate declared as she skidded to a stop in the middle of the hall.

  Vault 85's door looked exactly like Vault 77's door. Same wheel. Same chain.

  "Tral!" Dagger cursed. She aimed her big handgun at the lock.

  "Whoa!" Kate yelled. "I thought you were worried about ricocheting bullets!"

  "Only when the big guy is firing," Dagger said. She winked at Kate. "Trust me!" The pilot turned her attention back to the lock. She aimed and muttered, "Besides, I don't have time to run back for the big wrench."

  The padlock exploded as the high powered round smashed through the casing and inner works. The chain leaped up as the lock clasp separated and the chain rattled to the floor in a heap. Dagger pushed the heavy links out of the way and turned the door's big wheel. After a moment of grunting and straining the door opened.

  Merrick and Ross fired once more then dashed down the tunnel to catch up with the others.

  "Uh, you realize this leads into another vault, right?" Ross asked. "I'm just saying, I'm not sure we want to corner ourselves in there with a bunch of artwork. Especially since our new friends are so intent on following us!"

  "It's a back door," Kate announced. She pulled Sparrow along on one side and the key case on the other. Sparrow pulled out a flashlight and pointed it deeper into Vault 85. Unlike 77, this vault did not open up to reveal rows and rows of boxes. Only a long, empty corridor greeted them.

  Once everyone was through the door, Merrick bent down and grabbed the chain and busted lock. The chain he dropped just inside the door. He tossed the shell of the lock to Dagger. The bullet hole clearly visible in the casing.

  "Souvenir," Merrick remarked. He pulled the door shut and spun the wheel on the inside. He wove the chain through the wheel and looped it through the inner door handle. The sniper produced a zip tie from a deep thigh pocket and cinched the ends of the chain together. "Hopefully, they'll miss this door altogether," Merrick explained.

  "If we're lucky," Ross said, "From what I've seen, a two inch thick steel door and that chain won't slow those guys down for long."

  "Especially if they figure out we already have the key," Kate added.

  "Where's this go?" Merrick asked. He moved to the head of the group and gazed down the tunnel.

  "I have no idea," Kate admitted.

  "More great advice from the big tree," Dagger snorted. "Perfect."

  A muted explosion came from behind the vault door.

  "Better than being out there, I suppose," Ross remarked.

  Merrick led the way. Kate gladly followed, hoping to put as much distance between them and the Ater as possible. The tunnel went straight for only a little while then turned right, left, and right again. Finally, they found themselves in a long straight corridor which led to another steel door.

  "Please let it be the exit," Dagger said.

  "Actually, if my calculations are correct..." Tarun began.

  Merrick didn't wait for the archivist's deduction. He opened the door and stepped out.

  The sound of hissing steam and thrumming machinery hit Kate. She exited the tunnel and found herself on a walkway running around the perimeter of the factory they'd just left, but one level lower.

  Tarun opened his mouth. Dagger held up a hand to stop him.

  "Don't say it, bookworm!" Dagger hissed. "Just don't!"

  The Ardennes soldiers and workers were dead or had fled the factory. Only a few rearguard Ater remained. They spotted Kate and her team.

  Merrick and Ross fired down at the big aliens. As before, most of the rounds simply bounced off the Ater's incredibly strong armor. But, the incoming fire was enough to force them to seek cover.

  "Go!" Merrick shouted. He tilted his head in the direction of the tunnels the Ater had entered from earlier.

  Kate knew what Merrick had in mind right away. If the Ater got down into the factory that way, they could get back to the museum by back-tracking their route. And from what they'd seen of the Ater's methods, the path should not be too hard to follow.

  "Come on!" Kate yelled at Tarun. Sparrow was right beside her. The Link Sprite still must have felt weak, as was evidenced by the fact she had not bothered drawing either of her pistols. Kate needed to get her friend back to their ship where she could get the rest she needed to fully recover. They reached the door. A buzzing sound made Kate duck. She looked back.

  An Ater was diving for cover as Ross unleashed a burst of fire on full automatic. Kate looked down at the key case. The back had dozens of small dents where the Ater's micro-darts had made contact.

  "Hey! Priceless artifact here!" Kate yelled at the Ater.

  "They. Don't. Care." Dagger spit her words out in between firing her handgun. She reached out her free hand and shoved Kate through the doorway.

  Kate, Tarun, and Sparrow were all breathing hard when they reached the top of the steps. Kate had been right. The Ater had left a trail of blasted doors and dead Reticort workers who got in their way. Within a few minutes, they were back on the main floor of the museum.

  Kate took a moment to get her bearings. The sky outside was pitch black. She gently took the flashlight from Sparrow's trembling hand and moved it around the big hall. Shadows leapt from empty display cases and alcoves. Her light found a wide opening leading to another part of the museum. She hurried toward it, hoping it would take them back to the entrance and familiar territory.

  Gunfire erupted from the stairwell behind Kate followed by the now-familiar buzz of the Ater weaponry. Dagger rushed through the broken door frame. She took a quick look around then limped after Kate.

  "You know where we're going this time?" Dagger asked.

  "Positive," Kate lied. She glanced back as they came to a corner. Ross and Merrick dove for cover as they both hurled grenades into the stairwell. Two deafening blasts shook the entire museum wing.

  Dagger pushed back her sleeve and tapped the pad strapped to her wrist. "Let's see if we can't arrange an earlier departure from this pleasure planet."

  The sound caused Garrett to pause in his pacing along the bottom of Blade's ramp. He looked through the hole in the wall of the abandoned power plant, seeking the source of the noise. Out in the empty streets of Reticort, nothing moved in the darkness. The red emergency strips glowing along the floor of the cargo bay did little to relieve the gloom pressing in from all around. But, Garrett dared not turn on the ship's flood lights for fear that any illumination in the blacked-out city would attract residents, or worse, whatever might be roaming through the ruins under the cover of night.

  "Did you hear that?" Tivon asked softly from the top of the ramp.

  "Yeah," Garrett replied just as quietly. He cocked his head and listened. After a moment he added, "It sounded like a motor...there it is again!" He picked his way quickly across the debris scattered all over the floor. When he reached the opening in the wall, he carefully peered around the jagged edge.

  Tivon crunched up behind him.

  The sound was louder now and accompanied by a deep rumbling Garrett could feel through the soles of his boots.

  "Something big!" Garrett whispered. The groan of a big engine was joined by another sound. It was something the marine recognized easily enough; tank treads clanking over drive wheels and grinding rocks underneath. Somewhere close by, the heavy vehicle was crawling across broken paving stones and pulverizing the bricks strewn across the boulevard from shattered facades.

  "It's getting closer!" Tivon replied quietly, fear evident in her voice. "Could they know we're here?"

  "Don't know," Garrett said. "I really hope it's just some sort of regular patrol."

  "Sure," Tivon remarked. "What are the odds?"

  Garrett smiled in the dark and pulled out his handgun from its shoulder holster. He looked down the street in the direction Dagger and the others had gone and hoped they were okay. Garrett felt his arm buzz. Relieved he'd thought to silence the chime, he pushed the sleeve of his leather flight jacket back from his wrist pad and accepted the incoming
transmission. With the tank approaching Blade's hiding place and now the unexpected call, Garrett had a sinking feeling things were far from okay.

  The sound of the approaching armored vehicle grew inexorably louder. Garrett's instincts told him it was big, and, given the war machines they'd flown over to get to Reticort, presumably heavily armed.

  Dagger's picture materialized on the tiny pad screen.

  She did not wait for Garrett to say hello. "Hey boyfriend, get your rear to the museum! We need a pick-up!" An explosion blasted Dagger from her feet. The picture jerked and slewed as she dove for the ground then rolled to her feet. Garrett winced as Dagger fired her big gun without bothering to mute her end of the transmission. Dagger's face appeared again as the dim background flashed past. "Did you get that, flyboy?!"

  "Who's chasing you?" Garrett asked. He couldn't keep the concern out of his voice.

  Dagger stopped and fired before focusing on her pad once more. "Who isn't?! Just get here! Fast!" Dagger loosed two more rounds and then cut the connection.

  Garrett turned back to Blade, the mystery of the approaching vehicle solved. Obviously, their plan to slip in, retrieve the key, and then slip quietly out of the museum had failed. Miserably, by the sound of the fireworks going off around Dagger. As so often happened with Garrett's friends, the tral had hit the turbofan. Tivon put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him before he'd taken his first step.

  "Look!" the young archivist hissed.

  Garrett glanced around the broken edge. A massive shadow was moving slowly around the street corner closest to them. The grinding of gears and roar of big, powerful engines driving the giant caterpillar treads became uncomfortably loud. Although not as big as the war machines they'd seen out in No Man's Land, this beast of a tank was nearly as wide as the street and at least three stories tall. Cannon muzzles stuck out from dark ports. As he watched, the giant tank crushed the rusted remains of an ancient car, the treads grinding the remains into scrap. The tank turned the corner and started heading their way.

  "Do you think they know we're here?" Tivon asked, not taking her eyes off the lumbering armored monster.

  Spotlights mounted high up on the tank hummed loudly. A brilliant beam of white light stabbed out into the ruined buildings lining the street.

  "Tral!" Garrett cursed and pulled Tivon back just as one of the lights swept along the shell of the ruined plant. He took her hand and ran back toward Blade's waiting ramp. "I don't think we want to wait around to find out!"

  "Me neither!" Tivon shouted to be heard over the approaching behemoth.

  "Say your goodbyes to beautiful Ardennes!" Garrett shouted back.

  Merrick and Ross caught up with Dagger, Kate, Tarun, and Sparrow just as they reached the entrance rotunda. For the moment, the Ater were nowhere in sight.

  "How far back are they?" Kate asked. She let the steel case drop to the ground and rubbed her aching arm.

  "Not far enough!" Ross replied. He took a knee, facing the way they'd come, and methodically changed out a half-spent magazine for a fresh one.

  Tarun staggered as he was left holding the metal box alone. He grimaced at Kate's treatment of the artifact as he lowered his end of the case carefully to the floor. When he let go of the handle, he rolled his arm in circles trying to stretch his overused muscles. "We should have brought some porters," the archivist grumbled.

  Dagger slapped Tarun on the back. "But, we have you!"

  Tarun staggered half a step. He shot the pilot a dark look but held his tongue.

  "Garrett is on the way," Dagger reported, taking no notice of Tarun glaring at her.

  "Let's get out in the square," Merrick said. He started to head for the open front doors then froze. He lowered his voice and ordered, "Down!"

  Kate did not have time to react before Merrick reached out and dragged her to the cool tile floor with a muscular arm. She almost asked what was going on before she spotted the shadows coming up the steps.

  "More Ater?" Dagger breathed. She was flat on the floor next to Kate behind central dias. "I'm really starting to not like these guys!"

  Red beams shot out from the dark figures and danced over the walls and blank museum displays. Several beams probed the giant stack of bones on the pedestal in the middle of the rotunda. Kate heard the distinctive sound of gears whining, hydraulic pistons working, and the hiss of high pressure steam releasing.

  "Mechs!" Kate said softly as her eyes followed the progress of the machine's optical sensors. She raised her head for a better look. "What the tral are they doing here?!"

  "Little late to the party," Dagger stated. "Isn't that just like the Tallinns?" She looked back at Tarun as she checked the ammunition in her handgun with a tight smile. "No offense."

  The first mech stepped into the museum, still unaware its quarry was hiding in the same room.

  Kate noticed the emblems painted on the sides of the mechs. It was a circle featuring a stout tree standing on a field of green with a blue sky behind it. From what little she'd studied back at the Archives, she knew this was an Ardennes standard. The olive green paint covering the rest of the mech was chipped and faded. Kate hissed, "Those aren't Tallinn!"

  "Sure as tral look like it to me!" Ross whispered back.

  "Interesting," Tarun noted. "The Tallinns must be exporting their mechology to less developed worlds—"

  "Don't care!" Dagger interjected.

  "So, we need to beat both the machines and our alien buddies," Ross sighed. "Nice."

  "Well, no one ever said our job was easy," Merrick remarked. He lined up his rifle from his prone position, the first mech already in his deadly sight.

  Garrett dropped into Blade's pilot seat with a grunt. He fumbled with his harness while he tried to start up the ship's engines at the same time. Tivon slapped his hand away from his ineffective attempt to secure the seat belt.

  "Let me do it!" Tivon ordered. "Just get this ship into the air!"

  Garrett gave up with the belt and focused on Blade's control panel, leaning to see around Tivon's head. The archivist finished her task and yanked on the cinch straps hard enough to force the air from the pilot's lungs.

  "Thanks!" Garrett gasped. He sucked in air and pushed the throttle forward. Blade whined and shuddered as the engines built up power. When the readings blinked green, Garrett glanced sideways at Tivon and asked, "You in?"

  Tivon snapped the final buckle of her harness into place and gave Garrett a thumbs up. The tiny archivist was looking decidedly pale.

  "Don't worry," Garrett said with a wry grin. "This is all in a day's work for us!"

  Tivon tightened her harness even more and gave a weak smile in return. "It is around you guys!"

  Garrett laughed and hit the thrusters. "Very true!"

  Blade leapt up from the ground between the looming boilers. When the bottom of the ship cleared the top of the rusted hulks, Garrett spun Blade around until the nose was pointing at the massive gap in the wall. The tank crew had taken notice of the bright flare created by Blade's main engines and the flashes of the thrusters as they steadied the ship. All of the spotlights on the tank were busy probing through the grimy windows or the big opening Garrett was about to use as an exit.

  "Why aren't they shooting at the building?" Tivon wondered as she watched the lights cast weird patterns across the inside of the power plant.

  "Because they have no idea what's going on in here. Hang on!" Garrett warned, "We're about to give our new friends a little surprise!" He pushed the control column forward and Blade soared across the power plant and burst out into the street. The ship lurched and pieces of the building rained down as one of the engines caught on a piece of wreckage hanging down from the ceiling like a stalactite.

  Tivon screamed as she was thrown forward against her crash harness.

  Garrett cursed and fought the controls, finally bringing Blade to a hover a few meters above the street. He glanced out the cockpit window.

  The huge tank rumbled to a stop right in fro
nt of Garrett and Tivon. The wash from the ship's thrusters hurled dirt and rocks against the tank's armor and the dust cloud they were throwing up diffused the intense spotlight beams. Through the haze of the debris blasting through the air in swirling vortices, Garrett saw several of the big guns slew toward the cockpit windows. Although reinforced to handle the rigors of space flight, Garrett was not sure how the windows would fare against point-blank cannon fire.

  "Hold tight!" Garrett called as he pushed the control column forward. The Blade surged toward the unsuspecting tank. Garrett pulled up, sailing over the top of the tank's uppermost turret with barely room to spare. Down in the street, several of the tank's cannons boomed, firing high explosive rounds where Garrett and Tivon had just been.

  Garrett rolled Blade over on her side and barely made it around the corner where they'd first caught sight of the tank. He straightened out and Blade shot down the street below rooftop level, leaving a trail of swirling dust in their wake.

  "Let's not do that again!" Tivon breathed and shook her head.

  "I'll try," Garrett assured her. As they blasted through an empty intersection he started looking at the unfamiliar buildings flashing by on either side. He realized he had no idea where they were going. "Find the museum and tell me how to get there!"

  Tivon stared at him blankly for a moment, her mouth hanging open. She recovered and blurted out, "You don't know?!"

  "Look, I could get us all the way back to Earth if I had to," Garrett replied. He pointed out the cockpit window. "But, I don't know the streets of Reticort as well as I should, okay!"

  Tivon gave an uncharacteristic curse and her eyes flashed brightly. She began tapping furiously at the board in front of her.

  "Careful," Garrett smiled, "I think we're starting to rub off on you!"

  Merrick's first shot blinded the lead mech. The machine tipped back before it recovered from the hit and then stood upright once more. It shuddered and twitched as its rudimentary mechanical brain formulated an appropriate response.