The rest of the men in the corridor were already in the process of withdrawing to a place further away and around a corner. If the repeater knocked over the cabinets, it would cut the unprotected men down easily. In the confusion, McKinney missed whoever it was gave the order and he was glad either Li or Evans was on the ball.
“We need to take that turret out,” he said.
“There’s no way to hit it with a plasma rocket from here, sir,” said Webb. “Not unless you want to die in the blast.”
“Grenades,” grunted McKinney.
He twisted around and dragged himself past Roldan, trying to stay close to the floor. The enemy repeater didn’t stop firing and holes began to appear in the cabinets.
“That’s going to bring the Vraxar running, Sergeant,” said Li.
“No shit.”
McKinney slid a grenade out of his belt and left it on its default seven second timer. He didn’t want to put his head into the line of fire, so he slid the grenade along the ground with an awkward side-on action, relying on his memory to get it into the right place.
The grenade exploded with a low, grumbling boom, filling the room with white light. The light faded and the noise from the repeater turret stopped. McKinney held his breath, counting slowly upwards from zero. At the count of three the repeater started again, producing the same insistent thunder as before.
“I think the grenade just shifted it across the room, sir,” said Garcia. “The slugs are coming from a different angle now.”
This wasn’t the best time to congratulate Garcia on his perception. McKinney had no idea where the turret was, which made it much harder for him to aim his next grenade.
“Want me to move up?” asked Webb.
“Hold,” said McKinney. There was a chance Webb would get himself shot trying to come along the corridor. The repeater would definitely kill him before he could fire the plasma tube.
Gritting his teeth, McKinney crawled a little further along the floor. Each additional inch he moved revealed a bit more of the room, but the repeater remained out of sight. Room 94CCB wasn’t small, so a throw-and-hope approach with grenades would rely on luck rather than judgement.
One of the cabinets toppled backwards under the onslaught. Its top edge thudded off the wall and it threatened to fall onto Garcia. The man raised his hands defensively. The cabinet wobbled as more slugs pounded into it, but it didn’t slide any further.
McKinney realised he was taking too long and wasting precious seconds trying to evaluate the risks of every action. He remembered something he was taught, a few years ago during training. Sometimes you’ve just got to stop pissing about and start shooting.
Lying on his side, he used his left hand to pull six grenades free, letting them drop onto the floor by his chest. One-by-one he picked them up, activated their timers and sent them skittering into the room. The first one exploded before he’d thrown the fifth and he continued until he’d thrown the last two grenades. They detonated in a slow chain, thumping and sending an expanding wave of hot air throughout the room. By the time the final grenade went off, the air was well over a hundred degrees. McKinney’s suit was proof against much higher temperatures, but it chimed a warning into his ear to alert him. The repeater fire sputtered and then stopped.
The white fires died and the gloom of the emergency lightning reasserted itself. The repeater fire didn’t resume. McKinney waited ten long seconds and then looked cautiously around the battered edge of the cabinet. A greasy smoke rose from the carpet tiles and his visor dutifully filtered out the stench. Most of the cabinets on the far side of the room were knocked over, some resting against each other precariously. They were scarred and buckled from the heat but otherwise surprisingly undamaged, with their doors mostly intact and still closed.
“They must have kept something important in these cabinets,” said Garcia. “The metal is about two inches thick.”
The repeater was amongst the cabinets, tipped onto one side, with a large chunk of its body melted to sludge and its twin gun barrels bent from the heat. In the comparative quiet, McKinney could hear the humming sound it made and he cursed himself for not realising what it was sooner. He’d lost three men who might have lived.
There was no time for further reflection. McKinney heard more repeater fire start up along the corridor where the rest of his men waited. A second repeater joined the first, clunking with the sharp sound of perfectly-engineered metal. It ended quickly.
“Got hostiles,” said Evans. “Three down.”
“Confirm no more are incoming, Corporal.”
“I can confirm no more visible, sir.”
“Move up on the double. It sounds like we’ve stirred the hornet’s nest.”
“Roger that.”
The soldiers traded silence for speed and their boots pounded along the corridor. In the moments of waiting, McKinney, Garcia and Roldan did their best to get in positions that allowed them to cover each of the other three exit corridors.
“Keep your movement sensors active,” he said. “They should give us a bit more warning.”
The men arrived, fanning out and crouching where it was safe.
“Li, Evans, keep watch on the passages to the east and west,” said McKinney. “I’ll check out the north.”
With his visor on full zoom, McKinney scanned the northern corridor. His HUD overlay told him it was less than sixty metres long, before opening out into one of the lower rooms directly beneath the CCB. There were doorways in both walls – offices which led nowhere, but which might provide cover if they needed it.
“We’ve got company,” said Li. “Movement to the west.”
“Movement east as well, Sergeant. Multiple hostiles.”
McKinney opened his mouth to give the order to fire. Before the word had even left his mouth, he saw movement to the north as well. A fleeting shadow dashed across the end of the corridor. The shadow vanished, but it left something behind – an incandescent speck of something which became gradually larger as it raced along the corridor. It took McKinney a second to realise it was a rocket, fired towards them from the far room.
“Get down!” he shouted, knowing it was already far too late.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Captain Charlie Blake felt a burst of ice cold fluid enter his heart. The sensation faded rapidly as the heat of his blood warmed the drug and carried it through his body. The Vraxar watched him closely and made no effort to remove the needle, which remained protruding from Blake’s chest.
Within five seconds of the needle piercing his heart, Blake felt four of his spacesuit’s micro needles injecting him. He had no idea what remedy the suit decided to employ, but he was sure there’d be a best-guess antidote to the Vraxar truth drug and doubtless a high dose of battlefield adrenaline.
After a minute, the hands holding Blake in place lessened their grip and the Vraxar soldier stepped back. The smaller Vraxar, which clearly had authority, spoke again, its voice flat and lacking in inflection.
“Tell us where to find the remainder of the Confederation’s planets.”
Blake gave his best impression of a rebellious smile and tried to look as if he was fighting to remain awake. The Vraxar watched him without emotion.
“Tell us.”
“I can’t,” said Blake. With a grunt of pain, he gripped the end of the syringe and slid the needle out of his chest. He opened his fingers and it dropped to the floor.
Whatever crap the Vraxar had injected him with it felt vile – designed to accomplish a single purpose without a care for the host body. If it wasn’t for the synthetic adrenaline, he knew it would be a struggle to stop himself falling on the floor and retching his insides out. His suit injected him again and again as its tiny medical computer tried to figure out the best way to keep him within its programmed set of parameters.
“How many warships does the Confederation possess and what are their capabilities?” asked the Vraxar insistently.
“What do you care?” asked Pointer hotly. “Yo
u have shields and the ability to shut down our power sources.”
The Vraxar ignored her. It poked Blake hard in the shoulder with a finger. “What is your name and rank?”
“I am Captain Charlie Blake.”
The alien showed its rotting teeth and something in its manner suggested it was satisfied. “What is the nearest planet to here?”
“Overtide,” said Blake. “Two days’ high lightspeed.”
“And where would we find this planet?”
Blake gritted his teeth and swayed. “1276.281.34,” he began.
“Sir, you can’t tell them!” said Pointer.
The Vraxar soldier standing closest struck her in the base of the skull with one end of its hand cannon. The attack came so suddenly that Pointer had no chance to move and she crumpled to the floor without a sound. Lieutenant Rivera didn’t react and he continued to look ahead, doing his best to ignore everything around him.
“Where is Overtide?” asked the Vraxar.
“923.4.992.11.6456.9AAW,” Blake continued.
In spite of the battlefield adrenaline, he was suddenly feeling enormously ill and though he was trying his best to lie convincingly, he wasn’t sure how good an act it was. The suit injected him with another high-strength stimulant and a variety of anti-toxins. It wasn’t enough and he dropped to his hands and knees, vomiting. The sickly odour from the Vraxar didn’t help and he threw up for a second time.
The alien didn’t give him an opportunity to recover, nor to stand up. “I don’t believe you have provided accurate information,” it said simply.
Blake didn’t say anything, since he was unable to marshal his thoughts to produce a coherent response. A pair of strong hands lifted him from the floor and held him in an upright position. The ancient Vraxar stepped in close, enveloping him with its stench.
“Sometimes the conversion to Vraxar destroys the mind of the subject. On occasions, enough is left after the process for us to extract a few memories from the biological matter which remains.”
Blake wasn’t so incapacitated that the words didn’t register. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he needed to avoid this conversion process, whatever the cost. “Piss off,” he replied.
“On this occasion we did not come seeking conversions,” continued the Vraxar, ignoring the insult. “There will be an additional mission sent for that purpose. However, there are laboratories on the Hannixar which can attach the necessary implants. I will have you taken there to find out if there is anything we can make use of. They have a wider variety of truth drugs available, since you appear to be resistant to the one I injected you with.”
“What purpose does all this have?” asked Blake, speaking through the fog in his mind. “Why the need to kill?”
“We cannot reproduce through other means,” said the Vraxar. “We grow and we expand through the races we defeat. It is a journey that for us can never end. As soon as we stop, the Vraxar will become extinct. Ours is an eternal war and our motivation can never diminish. There will be no cessation until the universe has run out of hosts.”
“What then?” coughed Blake.
“Then we too will die. Until that time, the Vraxar will continue. The Estral were a powerful foe and would have defeated us if they had focused all their efforts on that task alone. Alas for them, they were distracted by many wars of their own making and now their flesh is ours. The walls of the universe are far apart. It may well be that we never encounter its extents, nor exhaust its supply of life.”
“If all Vraxar smell as bad as you, death will come as a relief,” said Blake.
“It is not death you will find, Captain Charlie Blake, but a period of subservience until the putrefaction of your body renders you incapable of action. At which point, you will be left where you fall, only to experience another hundred years of slow, conscious decay, until eventually awareness fades and you become nothing.”
“An existence to be proud of.”
The Vraxar was finished with the conversation. “The Hannixar’s lifter is on its way,” it said, addressing the soldiers. “Once it has collected this installation’s data array, put these three subjects onto the vessel. I will send instructions for their conversion.”
Through the haze in his mind, Blake noted how the Vraxar continued talking in the Confederation’s common language, as though it wanted him to know exactly what was planned. He looked desperately around the room for a way out and found nothing to give him hope.
One of the Vraxar stooped to pick up Lieutenant Pointer. To Blake’s relief, she groaned as she was slung unceremoniously over its metal-covered shoulder. Relief was soon replaced by a sense of helplessness when the Vraxar soldiers directed him and Lieutenant Rivera towards the door. Without an acceptable choice they followed the soldier carrying Pointer, while the others acted as escort.
Lieutenant Maria Cruz felt something pressing on her face. At first, she didn’t know what it was – it was soft and it moved in a rubbing motion over her cheeks and forehead.
A voice asked, “Are you awake?”
“Larry? Is that you?”
It wasn’t Larry. Larry was dead and this wasn’t a man’s voice.
“I don’t think Larry made it,” said the owner of the voice in clipped tones. “You need to wake up, Lieutenant. It’s not safe to stay here.”
Larry’s dead she thought. Cruz had worked with Larry for a long time and it had taken an attack by aliens to make her realise she might have just been a little bit attracted to him. Gone now, she thought sadly. I can’t let myself think about it yet.
It took a monumental effort, but Cruz forced one eye open. Even the dim emergency lighting was enough to send crashing waves of pain through her skull. The rest of her body caught up and soon Cruz was fighting to stop herself crying out. A smell cut through it all – blood and raw meat. Cruz guessed she was wearing a significant part of whatever used to be in Lieutenant Reynold’s skull
There was a figure crouched over her – not Larry and definitely not Lieutenant Reynolds. The new arrival was a woman, perhaps in her late forties with greying blonde hair and dressed in the uniform of one of the base technicians.
“Is Larry dead?” Cruz asked, not daring to wish he’d somehow survived.
“That man outside? I’m afraid so. This other one here isn’t any better.” The woman attempted a smile. “I’ve wiped most of this gunk off. We need to get out of here. If you can’t get up, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you.”
“I’m not sure if you’re joking,” Cruz said. She raised her head a fraction. “The Vraxar came. Where are they?”
“If that’s what you’re calling those invaders, I believe they’re trying to get inside the ES Lucid. They did a sweep of the bunker on their way down, but it’s the spaceship they’re interested in. Most of them are there now, I suspect.”
“Who are you? How did you make it?”
“I’m Technical Officer Kari Gibbs. On another day I might give you a little while longer to recover and gather your wits. Today, I’m going to tell you to get a bloody move on!”
With the assistance of Gibbs, Cruz struggled upright and sat on the edge of the desk, out of direct sight of the doorway. There might be a million Vraxar soldiers heading this way, but she needed a moment to gather herself. “My ankle’s broken,” she said.
“I can see that. Who was this man?”
Lieutenant Reynolds’ body wasn’t a pretty sight and appeared to be missing much of its head. He’d fallen in such a way that the worst was hidden from view, though there was plenty of blood.
“He attacked me and the Vraxar shot him.” She put the matter aside. “I don’t suppose you have any painkillers?”
“Not with me.”
“I’m Lieutenant Maria Cruz, by the way.”
“Great. Now that we’re acquainted you can stop by my house for lunch whenever you please.”
Cruz wasn’t sure if she’d been revived by the most acerbic tech officer in the bunker, or if Gibbs s
imply had an exceptionally dry sense of humour. “Why were you in the bunker?”
“I was hiding until this blows over. You’re lucky I found you.”
“How did you find me?”
“The Vraxar came down to the floor directly below here. In the meantime, I ran to the next stairwell and came up. I thought it best to be on a different floor to them.”
“Sergeant McKinney’s coming back here. After he’s destroyed the central data array.”
“So, there’s some resistance left, is there? This Sergeant McKinney is going to run into quite a lot of trouble when he arrives.”
“We should go back and warn him,” said Cruz.
“It’s a long way to the nearest exit.”
“The Vraxar have murdered enough of us for one day. We owe it to our guys to try and help them.”
“By getting ourselves killed in some vainglorious effort to forge a way through elite alien soldiers and get a message to the brave soldiers of the Space Corps?”
Gibbs smiled and Cruz could tell the technician was trying to be funny.
A lightning bolt of an idea sparked into Cruz’s mind. “How do you speak to the ship when it’s in here for repairs or upgrade?” she asked.
Gibbs narrowed her eyes. “The diagnostic tablets, mostly. They’re authenticated by a spaceship’s AI and after that, a properly-trained technician can access more or less anything – propulsion, life support, you name it.”
“Weapons?”
“Yes, weapons. And comms too.”
Gibbs pulled a flat, square object from a tailored pocket on the upper leg of her uniform. “These tablets.” She looked at the screen and gave it a shake. “The battery is dying on this one. Feels like I have to recharge it every few days now.” She squinted at it. “See this?”
Cruz stared at the tablet. It was a sea of numbers and colours, many of which were so small she couldn’t read from the short distance of a few feet. One area of the screen stood out.
“The Vraxar are trying to burn out the processing cores.”
“Looks like it. I have no idea what they hope to achieve by doing that,” Gibbs replied.
Negation Force (Obsidiar Fleet Book 1) Page 19
