Syndicate Wars: Empire Rising (Seppukarian Book 5)

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  Hayden angled his chin at her. “What say?”

  “They’re going out to meet the mysterious Mister Q.”

  “You do know that we’re sitting ducks here,” Milo said.

  “Want me to come back there and hold your hand?” Quinn asked.

  “No, but I’d like a weapon.”

  “Well, you’ve got me,” Quinn replied. “I’m a human weapon.”

  There were several seconds of silence, and then a round of nervous laughter broke out. Quinn returned to her seat, wringing her hands, ready for anything. She looked up and that’s when she spotted it. Little more than a speck in the sky at first, then slowly the speck resolved itself into a shape. What was it? A bird? But this bird wasn’t moving like anything she’d ever seen before. Drone, she thought to herself. It was a drone!

  Quinn kicked open her door and scrambled outside. “DOWN! GET DOWN!” she screamed.

  She could see Quarrels and his men reacting, pulling out weapons. Locks was covering his head and Barrows was turning to her, screaming. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, QUINN?!”

  Quinn stabbed a finger at the sky. “DRONE!”

  Barrows and the others turned, but it was too late. The drone swooped down, but miraculously clipped the top of a tree before slamming into the grassy verge and detonating.

  BOOM!

  The explosion wasn’t very large, but was enough to shatter windows and knock Quinn on her ass. Quinn rolled over and pushed herself up. Her ears were ringing from the blast and the gunfire that followed. She could see muzzle flashes from the hill above the road. Dammit, if only she had a gun!

  Blitzing forward, Quinn watching Barrows and Locks lying on the ground while Quarrels and two of his men returned the hillside gunfire from the safety of their vehicle. Quinn dropped to the ground beside Barrows and Locks.

  “Ambush!” Barrows yelled.

  “Ya think?” Quinn replied. She spotted the pistol in Barrows’ hand and took it from him, silencing him with a look. “Ladies first.”

  Quinn rose and opened fire on the hillside shooters, drawing close to Quarrels who had his back to her. The pistol clicked over empty and Quarrels pivoted to face her and Quinn stopped on a dime. There was something about Quarrels’ face. Quinn realized that she knew the man. She didn’t know from where, but she’d definitely seen him before and then it hit like a blow to the face. Samantha! The lake! Quarrels had been the one driving the motorcycle that nearly ran them over! Anger overtook her better judgment and—

  WHAM!

  Quinn punched Quarrels in the face, knocking him back into his vehicle. She heard Barrows screaming behind her. “HEY! YOU JUST PUNCHED MY BOSS IN THE FACE!”

  Quinn grabbed Quarrels by the collar as his bodyguards turned their weapons on her, exposing themselves so that they were quickly shot down by the bullets fired by the hillside attackers.

  “You were there with my daughter, you sonofabitch!” Quinn howled.

  “Lady, I ain’t never seen you before in my life,” Quarrels replied, grabbing her wrists. The two wrestled, bullets kicking up all around them, the windows on Quarrels’s vehicle blown out. Quarrels grabbed Quinn and pulled her in close. She spat in his face. “My daughter’s name was Samantha, you fuck! I saw you there!”

  She saw the recognition wash over Quarrels and she knew she’d been right. “Say her name,” Quinn said softly.

  Quarrels just stared at her. “You … you’re Quinn?”

  Quinn pulled back a fist to punch him when she heard a sound. A magazine being removed from a rifle and a fresh one slapped in. Her eyes swung from Quarrels to the other end of the vehicle. There was a figure standing there, aiming a weapon at her. Her jaw dropped.

  “Luke?!”

  Luke’s weapon came down. He stared at her, mouth open. “Jesus! It’s good to see you, Quinn.”

  Luke was suddenly tackled by Barrows who flew out of nowhere. Quinn staggered to her feet. “GET OFF! I KNOW HIM!”

  She watched Luke shrug off Barrows, who adopted a defensive crouch only to raise both hands in surrender. Quinn advanced to see another figure emerging from the brush, rifle trained on Barrows. The figure was larger and had aged, but the features were still the same. Quinn immediately knew who it was, the young fighter from back in Shiloh. Dan. Dan’s gun hopped from Barrows to Quinn.

  “It’s okay,” Luke said. “It’s Quinn.”

  Dan’s gun lowered, his face stamped with a look of absolute bewilderment. “You … you came back,” Dan said.

  Finally, Quinn saw Giovanni with them and smiled. “And you all found each other. Perfect.”

  25

  INCOMING

  “Uh, guys,” Dan said. “We’ve got a little problem.”

  Quinn turned to see Dan staring at the sky. She followed his gaze and saw them off in the distance. A handful of drones approaching from the Green Zone.

  “We need to move now!” Dan shouted.

  Dan whistled to Luke who kissed Giovanni and gestured to the others. “We’ve got a bike up on the hill! Get back into your truck and follow us!”

  Dan and Luke ran back up the hillside. Quinn swapped looks with Barrows, gesturing at Quarrels’s vehicle. “You take that, I’ll drive the other truck.”

  Barrows nodded, he and Locks helping Quarrels into the other machine as Quinn and the others darted back to the truck. Quinn slid behind the wheel, gearing the truck and driving it over the median that divided the lanes. She could see the motorcycle with Luke and Dan barreling down the hillside. The bike flew over a mound and swerved onto the blacktop, smoking off down what was left of I-295. Quinn waited for Barrows and then jammed on the gas pedal, following the motorcycle.

  In seconds, the three machines were racing down the pockmarked highway, swerving around abandoned cars. Quinn could see that one of the smaller drones had broken off from the pack and was coming their way. She honked her horn and Luke held up a hand. He gestured to the right and Quinn watched the bike exit I-295.

  Soon the three machines were speeding down a narrow side road. Quinn could barely keep pace with the bike that was now heading right, then left, barely avoiding hitting several down power lines and the burned out remains of a school bus. Quinn saw the drone in the sideview mirror, gaining ground and then she heard the horn honking on the bike. She looked up to see a tunnel in the distance.

  The drone dropped low, zooming into position, Quinn watched a chute open on its underside. It was only a matter of seconds before it opened fire. She stood on the gas pedal, the truck shaking, its engine redlining. A tiny rocket dropped out of the drone’s belly as—

  WHAM!

  The three machines roared into the tunnel, which was darker than deep space. Quinn reacted in horror to the sight of the light from the rocket fired by the drone. She saw it corkscrewing through the air and honked the horn while throwing the wheel—

  WHOOSH!

  The rocket barely missed Quarrels’s vehicle and their own truck. She watched Dan deftly maneuver the motorcycle up the tunnel walls to avoid the rocket which exploded harmlessly at the other end of the tunnel.

  Quinn keyed the truck’s headlights, but of course they didn’t work. She guided by the sight of the motorcycle which was up ahead, nearing the other end of the tunnel, slowing. Quinn jammed on the brakes and watched Luke dismount the motorcycle with Dan, both of them carrying rifles. She exited the truck and ran toward them. Luke held up a hand as if to say, stay where you are, but of course she didn’t do that. She crept up and watched Luke and Dan wait, measuring their breaths. They communicated not with words, but with hand gestures. They paused and then rushed outside and emptied their guns at something in the sky. Quinn heard an explosion and then watched the drone fall to the ground outside in a smoking heap. Luke loosed a rebel yell. “Chalk one up for the good guys!”

  He and Dan climbed back on the motorcycle. Quinn waved back at Barrows and slid behind the wheel of the truck, everyone driving off. They exited the tunnel and motored for fifteen minutes down
several streets, the entrances to which had been concealed with brush and debris, until they’d stopped a few hundred feet away from an old church. Quinn exited the truck with the others, staring at the sorry-looking church. “What is this?” she asked.

  Luke smiled. “Headquarters of the LRR … the Last Remaining Resistance.”

  Quinn and the others entered the church. She overheard Quarrels mouthing off, bitching about being taken against his will. She turned to see Quarrels giving her a nasty look. “And the next time you suckerpunch me, lady, I’m gonna fight back,” he said, pointing at her.

  Stepping up to him, Quinn reached a finger out and poked him in the chest. “I’ll give you one free punch.”

  Quarrels gulped. “Well, right now, I’m just gonna glare at you, but at a time of my choosing, I do reserve the right to hit back.”

  “Who is this asshole?” Renner asked.

  “He’s the friendly neighborhood drug lord,” Luke said.

  “One man’s drug lord is another man’s entrepreneur,” Quarrels replied, flashing a nervous smile.

  Dan scowled. “He’s a scud bitch. Deals Sunshine for the aliens. We should put the bastard down.”

  Dan reached for a gun, but Luke waved him down. “We’ve got more important things to do, including discussing where the hell everyone’s been for the last six years.”

  Quinn, Hayden, and the others traded long looks. “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” she said.

  “So where’s the rest of the resistance?” Milo asked, scanning the deserted church.

  “We’re all that’s left of the LRR,” Luke said.

  “That’s what we’ve been doing while you guys were gone,” Dan added. “We’ve been fighting and dying—”

  “Mostly the latter,” Luke said with a sigh.

  “And now we’ve got what you see before you.”

  Hayden shook his head. “We saw the footage… thousands of fighters.”

  Dan nodded. “Most of them gone… but we’ve been hard at work. We can make this happen.”

  He signaled for everyone to follow him down the stairs into the lower level of the church. “The scuds have consolidated power,” Dan said. “You saw the floating fortress. We can’t stop them now.”

  “So what are you guys doing? Just … hanging out?” Milo asked.

  Anger flashed in Dan’s face. “What do you know about what we went through?”

  Milo held his look. “I know what we went through to come back here.”

  “Yeah, well, while you and the others were flying around through time and space, the rest of us were left down here sucking on it. The scuds kicked our asses.”

  “We saw,” Quinn said, trying to defuse the situation. “We watched footage of a battle.”

  “The uprising last winter,” Luke replied, a solemn look on his face. “We made a decision to attack and they killed almost everyone.”

  “And now you’ve been laying low?” Quinn asked.

  Luke nodded. “There’s nothing else to do.”

  Renner clapped his hand and prosthetic together. “I know what we need to do. We need to start kicking some ass.”

  “With what army?” Luke asked.

  “We got us an army right here,” Renner said. “All we need to do is come up with a plan.”

  LATER, after asking Hayden and Milo to interrogate Quarrels to see what he knew, Quinn found herself alone in the lowest level of the church, admiring the drones and other machines. She heard footsteps and spotted Luke.

  “You’ve got an impressive collection of toys,” she said.

  “Hasn’t done us any good yet,” Luke said. He stopped a few feet from Quinn. She could tell that something was on his mind. “Samantha, she’s got to still be out here somewhere. It kills me that we haven’t found her.

  He filled her in on everything they knew, everything they had told Giovanni, and then stood there, waiting for a reaction.

  Quinn fought off the emotion that was surging inside her. “How is that even possible. I mean … the lake … I saw her…” Quinn looked up. “They might have taken her away. They might have taken her up into that fortress they’ve got in the sky.”

  Luke paced, eyes showing hope. “Anything’s possible.”

  Quinn’s jaw locked. “Which means we need to find a way up there. If she’s alive, we rescue her, and if she isn’t, we’ll kill the Potentate.”

  “Just like that?”

  She nodded. Just like that.

  She took off up the stairs, arriving in a rear room of the church where Hayden, Milo, Cody, and the others stood around Quarrels and Barrows. “We’ve got us a little interesting information, troop,” Hayden said.

  Quinn nodded. “I’m all ears.”

  Hayden pointed at Quarrels who pursed his lips. “So as I was tellin’ the boys here, I’m a pretty good networker which means I’ve got some contacts with the bad guys.”

  “The aliens?”

  “Ain’t no one badder than them,” Quarrels replied. “I’ve got an arrangement where I process and sell product, and deliver them a cut.”

  “Translation: he manufactures and sells drugs,” Milo said.

  “You better be grateful I do. Because if what you said is true, if you people are crazy enough to want to find a way onto the fortress, I’m your only hope.”

  “Keep talking,” Quinn said.

  “I meet my man Heidler on a set day and deliver the product to him in crates that are then taken up to the fortress.”

  Quinn looked to Hayden and the others who were nodding. The wheels were turning in her head. “How big are the crates.”

  “Big enough to fit a strong, strapping lady like yourself.”

  “When are you meeting Heidler?”

  “End of the week.”

  “We need to be inside those crates.”

  “It’s your death sentence,” Quarrels said.

  “What do you want in return?”

  Quarrels smiled. “Safe passage back to my place, a pardon for any bad acts I may have committed in the past, and blanket immunity for anything we do now.”

  “That’s a lot to ask for,” Quinn said.

  “I’m putting my ass on the line for all of you. It’s the least you can do for me.”

  26

  SHUT IT DOWN

  The day finally came when it was time to make the ascent. Everything was in order, and Quinn was in the box as a man with a scraggly beard secured the lid. It was terrifying, being in this box like a coffin, layers of drugs thrown on top of her in case there was a check along the way.

  This could be the way she died. But it could also be the way she helped save the world. Soon hands were moving the box, then machines. Robots like mechs, loading the boxes into crates that would be transported to the base above.

  All she could think about the whole time it was happening was that she sure as hell hoped this wasn’t how she went. Fighting for the life of her daughter would’ve been the best way, but now that it wasn’t possible, to die fighting for the rest of the world would have to suffice. Just please, not in a stupid box full of drugs.

  More jostling, and then she knew they were mobile. More than once she tried to fall asleep, figuring it would be wonderful to simply close her eyes, wake up, and be there. It never worked.

  Instead her mind kept flashing back to her daughter, to Sam floating at that base the day she had saved them all. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t natural. Had Samantha learned how to use some form of alien technology?

  A thought kept hitting Quinn though, and it was driving her bonkers.

  Samantha’s dad, during that brief time they had spent together, had kept going on about the world out there, staring up at the skies and saying he had to go back. He had been a Marine, and Quinn had known one too many Marines to always believe what they said, especially when sex was involved.

  She had gotten hers, gave him her number, and held out little to no hope. When he had vanished, she didn’t give much of a damn, or at
least not until she took the pregnancy test and it came back positive. What a kick in the vag that had been. At first. After a few minutes, she remembered how she had sat there on the edge of her bathtub, just laughing with pure joy. She didn’t give a damn how it happened, as long as she had a healthy child who she could love with all her heart and soul.

  He was a bastard, as simple as that, she had thought back then. Now she started to wonder, though. Aliens were real. She imagined she had only the slightest idea of what sort of aliens were out there. Now that she had this knowledge, plus having seen Samantha use those powers…she had to wonder.

  Was there a chance the man had been a shapeshifter, or a humanoid that pretended to be a Marine to get with her? Maybe all of his talk about returning to the heavens was true. That jackass! She was even more pissed now that she thought about it, now that she considered the possibility that all of that could be true, and that he, in fact, very well could have been an alien who seduced an Earth woman.

  She squirmed, feeling dirty all over again.

  Her thoughts moved on from this, replaying the early moments of the Syndicate invasion, then moving on to that day she had been reunited with Sam. Her heart ached as she lost herself in these thoughts, reliving those moments over and over as the journey continued.

  When she felt the box she was in finally come to a stop, without any sort of reference, she had no idea if it had been three hours or just one, but her body ached and she longed to get out stretch, but that hadn’t been the plan. They had to wait until the right people unboxed them, then make their move.

  Only, right away there was a muffled sound, a brief shout, and then a thud.

  What was happening?

  She considered blasting her way out of there straight away in case the jig was up, or in case some rival gang had just made its move. But she knew that didn’t make sense, She had to hold still and wait.

  There was movement nearby—she could hear the shuffle of feet.

  With a quick motion, the lid of her box went flying off! She stared, blinking, and quickly remembered to lift her rifle at whoever was there, to be ready to fire.