The others emerged behind him. Rox and Jameson moved forward and set Foster down while Grimshaw figured out what had happened to the young Shanti.
A ghostly tentacle exploded from the tunnel nearest Jameson and snatched the human agent, pulling him into the dark. Grimshaw fired his rifle but he was too late. The agent’s cries rang out for a second and suddenly stopped.
“Where the hell did you go Manx?” Grimshaw shouted, his voice booming in the junction chamber.
He watched the first tunnel, ready to fire if the tentacles made another appearance.
To his relief, the Shanti popped his head out from the middle tunnel. “This way.”
Roars emanated from multiple tunnels at once and Grimshaw couldn’t tell how close they were. He helped Rox with Foster and followed the Tower Guard officer, Straiya and Faye guarding their flank.
The new tunnel sloped upward and stretched further than the others, eventually widening into a low vaulted room with openings on each side. Unlike the other tunnels and chambers, the walls were bare, and rubble had been piled in the corners.
“The door’s this way,” Manx said, entering a side-passage to the right.
The opening looked like it had been excavated more recently than much of the network they had traversed.
Grimshaw thought he heard whispers and distant screams coming from the left tunnel. It could have been Vadnare or Jameson. He stared into the deep void, his head feeling light.
“We need to go, sir,” Rox urged. “Minister Foster is bleeding heavily again.”
“Of course,” Grimshaw said, snapping out of his reverie.
They half-carried Foster as they climbed a steep set of steps cut into the rock face. They arrived at a dead-end and Grimshaw’s heart almost sank. Manx pointed at a door in the ceiling, not unlike the one that had led into the catacombs.
Manx jumped and banged on the ceiling-door while Straiya checked on Foster.
“Foster will be lucky to live at this point,” the Shanti Minister said hopelessly.
Manx shouted something in a language Grimshaw didn’t recognize and the door scraped open.
A cluster of armed Tower Guard appeared in the hole above and reached out to help them out of the sub-levels.
“Harnuck,” Manx said to the guard dressed in a Captain’s uniform as he was pulled through.
“Where’s Malek and the others?” the Captain of the guard asked.
“He didn’t make it,” Manx said, disappearing from Grimshaw’s view, his head hung low.
The Captain’s men pulled the others through, taking care when handling Foster.
Finally, Harnuck reached down and pulled Grimshaw into the small study, and a guard wearing a sergeant’s badge closed the opening and sealed it with a beam. Two other guard approached, carrying a long concrete block and lowered it across the hatch. Others approached with blocks of their own and did the same, filling in the section of floor that had been dug up.
The study was furnished with book-cases and fine wooden furniture. Despite room’s size, half a dozen Tower Guard packed into the space. Some moved into the adjacent room to make space. One had his arm around Manx, comforting the young Shanti.
“We need a medical team,” Straiya ordered, peeling back Foster’s clothing to check on the weeping wounds in his side.
One of Harnuck’s guard left to carry out her request.
“What the hell happened down there?” Harnuck said, looking at Foster’s bloodied robes.
The human Minister’s face was already as pale as a corpse.
“It’s a long story,” Grimshaw said, breathing heavily. “We need to get the Ministers to the safe-room right away.”
Harnuck scratched his scaly chin. “I’ll gather a team. Those bastards outside have just received fresh reinforcements. They’ll come through the main doors soon enough.”
An explosion not too far off, and the room shook, dust falling from the ceiling.
“Better get a move on,” Grimshaw said.
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, his head feeling light again. As his adrenaline subsided, the ache in his shoulder returned. He was beginning to long for the slow days he’d spent behind the desk at Fleet Academy Four.
I used to hate the monotony, but boy would I give a limb for some peace and quiet.
He wondered how Taza had faired at Dreamz. Then again, it was a bit late for that anyway. Grimshaw expected Clio was holding the fort okay back on Andromeda Avenue. He prayed to the gods that she wasn’t getting up to anything stupid.
19
Expeditious Plans
Water splashed around Clio as she dropped into the sewers under the alleyway Taza’s directions had marked five blocks from Andromeda Avenue. Her SIG and TEK illuminated the murky surroundings. A strange, brown moss spread down the curved walls and decomposing matter floated on top of the slow-flowing wastewater. She had never been more glad for her TEK’s air filtration system.
“Disgusting,” Booster complained, clinging to her shoulder.
The puck didn’t have the luxury of a TEK, and Clio made a point of getting one custom built for him. Such a thing was likely out of her price range, but after things calmed down, she could try to convince Captain Grimshaw or even Minister Straiya to invest. Booster had proven himself more than useful, after all.
Booster snorted again and rubbed his nose.
“I told you not to come. You should have waited at HQ.” On one hand, Clio knew he wouldn’t like the stench and she didn’t want him getting into a dangerous scenario without armor. On the other, she was glad to have him along. Booster had already spent too long away from her and having him back felt like part of her soul had returned. Besides, he insisted on joining the mission. “We’ll have to talk to this Monkey Man friend of yours at Bionama. See if he can make you a proper set of armor and a helmet. Maybe even get you a full TEK of your own.”
He tapped on her helmet. “Booster goes where Clio goes.”
“Fine,” Clio relented. “But don’t be complaining to me when the smell gets really bad.”
A wave of putrid water swished past Clio’s knees as Swigger dropped down into the sewer behind her.
He recovered and wiped something off his thigh, his lights illuminating the pipe further. “Are you sure about this?”
“Trust me, Swigger,” Clio said with a rueful smile, recalling the conversation they’d had back at headquarters. “My ex-archagent friend knows what he’s talking about.” Clio hoped she was right and that Taza wasn’t leading them down a dead-end. She moved back several steps as Riley O’Donovan dropped into the water, soaking them all from the head down.
Booster shook violently, spraying smaller flecks of filth-water everywhere.
Clio wiped her visor with a glove. “For fuck sake, Riley.”
“Hey, don’t give me that lip,” Riley said, straightening himself. “You’re the one with the brains, yet you didn’t move out of the way.”
Swigger shook mud from his arms. “Your friends are a strange bunch, Clio.”
“I know,” she said, cocking an eyebrow at O’Donovan.
The heavy gunner stood half a head taller than Swigger and was almost twice as wide. He carried a giant rifle, Clio could only describe as a small-cannon, over his shoulder and an array of explosives and other handy items hung about his person.
Two young Shanti guards, Clio had managed to scrounge from headquarters staff, dropped in next to O’Donovan with barely a splash between them. They weren’t Aegi, but they had entered the Order’s selection program and had been through scraps in the past.
“This tunnel will take us to the waterside west of Sentinel Square, not far from the Data District. The signal I tracked is coming from Terminal Thirteen, a short walk from there. If we can regain control of whatever hardware they’ve hijacked, we should be able to get some of the Sentinel’s systems back online. Taza will meet us at the waterfront and we’ll take it from there.”
Clio pushed through the slu
dge, following the route Taza’s coordinates had traced on her SIG. Pipelines splayed in every direction. Most were too small for humans to walk through, but several had ample room.
It’s a good thing Taza provided a map, or we’d be walking around blind down here.
She considered it strange that Sentinel archives didn’t have any record of some of the pipelines in Taza’s file. She wondered if the ex-archagent hadn’t tampered with Sentinel data. She didn’t think he was technically capable of such a thing. Then again, as close as she’d gotten to Taza and Zora, there was a lot she still didn’t know about them.
Booster whined about the smell again, and Clio gave him a warning swipe. He dodged her hand and climbed onto her other shoulder.
Swigger sidled up next to her. “Do you actually have a plan for bringing Sentinel Square’s systems back online? Or are we running into this one blind?”
“I’m not sure just yet,” she said with a shrug. “Taza will clear things up. We need to get to that terminal, but there’s no way of knowing what’s there until we see it for ourselves. Taza didn’t see any signs of a Chimera presence west of the square, and all the buildings out that way aren’t big enough to conceal a lot of troops. Hopefully, we can figure out exactly how to stop them when we get a visual.”
“We’ll stop the sumbitches alright,” Riley piped up from behind.
“Keep it down,” she hissed over her shoulder. “I told you, we don’t know if someone else has been using these tunnels. Chimera have been moving troops and equipment right under SenSec’s noses. Not even the SIA saw them coming. They could be using these pipelines too, for all we know. Vox only.”
Riley grumbled something under his breath, and they continued on as quietly as they could, sloshing through the knee-deep muck.
Eventually, they reached a sharp bend and Swigger gestured for them to wait. “Can you hear that?”
Clio listened with her TEK’s audio amplifier temporarily set to full power. “Sounds like running water to me,” she said on the vox.
Swigger moved to the corner and peered around the bend through his sniper scope. His neuroptical implants allowed him to see further than the rest of them. “I can’t see far enough ahead. It’s too dark.”
“Hold on,” Clio said. “I have something.”
She executed a predefined command on her SIG and three spheres popped out of the device and plopped into the water.
Swigger watched in confusion. “What the hell was that?”
“Watch this,” Clio said, showing him the three visual feeds on her SIG’s display.
O’Donovan looked over her shoulder. “They’ve got cameras?”
“Yup. They’re recon drones. Zora gave them to me. It took some time to fit and synchronize the unit with the Aegis SIG, and I haven’t had a lot of practice with them, but we should be able to see what’s up ahead.”
“Handy,” Riley said like a little boy watching someone playing with a toy he wanted.
“Who’s Zora?” Swigger asked.
“Like you said,” Clio smirked. “My friends are a strange bunch. I don’t think the drones can go all the way. They’ve got a range of about two-hundred feet.”
“It’s further than I can see without light, anyway,” Swigger said, watching her SIG. “I can’t make anything out. I can take one of the Shanti to scout ahead with me.”
Both Shanti stepped forward, eager to show their willingness to help.
“We don’t have time to stop and start the whole way there.” Clio worked the SIG’s controls and the three drones emerged from the murky water and floated on top. The tunnel before them lit up under their night-vision optics. Clio flicked another control and their cameras switched through various spectrums. “Just in case someone’s using a shadow or ghost-drive.”
O’Donovan punched her on the back of the shoulder playfully. “Now you’re just showing off.”
“Your friends think of everything,” Swigger added as though impressed.
Booster hummed in her ear in amazement, but Clio figured he didn’t understand what a SIG was let alone a remote reconnaissance unit.
“I look forward to meeting this Zora sometime,” Swigger said. “She seems to know her stuff.”
Clio stifled a giggle. “You have no idea. Anyway, it’s clear up ahead. Let’s keep moving.” She led them around the bend, and they carried on deeper into the sewer. They skirted a sunken reservoir where water thundered from several large pipes as it poured into the bottomless void. Clio kept an eye on the map and drone visuals as they went.
White streaks suddenly cut across her SIG’s VD, and she banged it with her right hand.
Swigger reached for his blaster. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a signal jammer.” She showed Swigger the visual feeds. “We’re getting close.”
They pressed on and static took over her VD completely as she lost signal with the drones.
“I’ll take point from here,” Swigger said, pressing past and looking down his long rifle scope.
Swigger’s heart was in the right place, but Clio often found him overbearing. At the same time, it made sense for him to take the lead. His vision was much better than hers in low light.
He led them on as they half-splashed through the mire until they found Clio’s drones floating on the surface near a ladder leading to the waterfront above. An orange light flashed repeatedly on each unit, showing they had been disconnected. She dipped her SIG into the water, and the spheres whizzed around in the liquid until they clicked back into their recesses.
“I hope you plan on cleaning those,” Swigger said.
Booster snorted in agreement.
“Stay alert,” she ordered over the vox. “It may have been quiet around the waterfront when Taza spoke to me, but there’s no telling what’s changed since then.” She grabbed the ladder and carefully climbed, each rung slippery with a layer of slime. At the top, she lifted the grate as quietly as possible. It slid free with less effort than Clio expected, dislodging pebbles and dirt, showering the guys below. She couldn’t tell whether it had been used recently.
She turned her head, taking in the overspill pipe, making sure no nasty surprises awaited. One side opened onto the Izmark River. She couldn’t see the water from such a low position, but she heard water lapping, and she recognized one of the buildings beyond. The other side of the pipe fed deeper into the network, probably serving Sentinel Tower and the surrounding area. Her heart jumped when a pair of boots emerged from the dark, but she looked up and found that they belonged to Taza. She barely recognized him in his long coat. It had been a while since she’d seen the investigator in his casual wear.
“Clear up above,” she told the guys below on the vox as she climbed out of the hole.
“We’re coming up,” Swigger said, the channel crackling.
Booster climbed out into the larger pipe and took a deep breath. “That’s much better!”
Clio followed, deactivating her helmet and taking a breath of her own. Her TEK boasted one of the best isolated environmental systems, but it had still gotten a little stuffy down below.
I’ll have to recalibrate the suit’s life-support.
Taza walked further out of the shadows, and Clio noticed he had a limp.
She looked at his leg, worried. “Are you hurt?”
“I had a bit of an accident. Nothing I can’t handle.” He brushed her attempt to help away.
“Where’s your TEK?”
“Was at a party. The invitation said casual only.”
Swigger, Riley, and the two Shanti climbed into the horizontal pipe and joined them.
Taza sized them up, paying particular attention to O’Donovan’s gun. “Glad you could bring some friends.”
“Sorry for the lack of introductions, but we don’t really have time. Everyone this is Taza. Taza this is everyone.”
Taza nodded at them.
Swigger muttered something. Clio didn’t hear him but guessed he was voicing his disapproval. Be
ing one who stuck by the book, Swigger didn’t like the idea of working with someone like Taza when it came to official duties.
“Taza has been performing tasks for the Captain,” she said, trying to ease the tension. The look Taza gave her only made it worse.
The former SIA archagent eyed them up again. “I appreciate you all coming, but is this all there was?”
“Everyone else had already left by the time you called. Lieutenant Dann took half the bloody office with him to the Financial District without informing anyone. The few he left behind ended up out on the streets dealing with various emergencies or holding the fort at HQ.”
“I guess we’ll have to work with what we’ve got,” he said indifferently. “Did you learn anything new about the situation?”
Clio took a deep breath. “Not much more than I already told you. They’ve scrambled comms in areas of interest, hitting emergency services, transport, power, and Sentinel Square. They even brought down the square’s semi-automatic defense network.”
“That would explain how they punched their way through so quickly. What about that signal you were looking into?”
“I traced their signal to Terminal Thirteen.” Clio double-checked the details on her SIG. “It’s about fifteen minutes from here. There are twenty terminal junctions on the premises. Only three connect directly to the Sentinel’s network infrastructure. Thirteen is one of them. Usually security is tight in the Data District.”
“Either Chimera took their defenses out quietly, or they have people on the inside.”
Clio was surprised. “But that would mean having a mole on the Galactic Council.”
“We can’t rule anything out at this point.” Taza looked back into the darkness that headed in the direction of Sentinel Square. “And you think you can bring everything back online?”
She chuckled sarcastically. “They say no one has ever hacked the Sentinel network before, yet the code I loaded on the STD worked fine, didn’t it?”
“Fair point. What about the Tower’s systems?”
“As long as we catch Chimera in the act, I should be able to undo whatever damage they’ve caused.”
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