by T. C. Edge
And close by now, those sirens roar, and the fresh troop of reinforcements begin to appear down the streets, hurtling towards the battle.
They turn our way, ready to pass right below us. Rycard, despite being only half a Hawk, is still able to quickly count and number the vehicles and determine, using his experience, the likely force of City Guards within.
“Five cars. Three of them City Guards. Two Con-Cops. Five men to each. Twenty five total.”
“No Stalkers?” queries Freya, stacking her heavy machine gun onto her shoulder. Hers isn’t a pulse rifle, but a minigun of sorts, capable of spewing out thousands of rounds per minute.
“I don’t think so,” says Rycard. His eyes scan the horizon, noting the many columns of smoke now issuing forth to the once-blue sky. “Looks like they’re busy elsewhere.”
Freya now sees it. I see her eyes crawl into a scowl beneath her visor, and her square jaw tighten.
“Thirty seconds, they’ll be here,” says Rycard, once more scanning the incoming force.
“Brie, aim for the second car, I’ll hit the first. We’ll disable them and block off the others or force them to go around. Freya, light them up.”
She seems to like the suggestion. Enough to forget her reservations about Rycard and happily take orders from him.
I swing my rifle to my shoulder and take aim. Crouching low beside Rycard, who does the same, I hear him coaching me through it as the cars pour up the street towards the battle.
“OK, steady your breathing,” I hear him say. “Make sure your safety’s off…”
Damn!
I lose my cool for a second, fumbling about to flick the switch. I settle the gun back into position, the cars now growing close.
“It’s OK. Settle down,” says Rycard calmly. “Take a breath, aim for the front of the second car. When I shoot, you shoot. Count of three. We shoot on one.”
My heart bounds within me, pressing at my chest. I hold my breathing as steady as I can, the tip of my rifle following the second car as it speeds down the road.
“OK, here we go,” says Rycard. “Three…two…ONE!”
Our rifles spit fire. A ball of red gallops from his, a ball of blue from mine. With the cars about to pass beneath us, the rounds hungrily race towards their targets, hitting in unison right on the front of the vehicles and cutting straight through into the engines.
The first reacts immediately, spinning to its side and doing a barrel role. The second, close behind, skids to a stop and comes crashing right into the base of the building below. The three following slow immediately, preparing to eject the City Guards and Con-Cops hidden within.
And now it’s Freya’s turn.
With a muscular finger clamping down on the trigger of her minigun, she lets rip. The tip of the weapon, dotted with half a dozen holes, lights up as dozens of rounds a second begin to rain down on the soldiers below.
Standing tall, she swings the gun over the three rear vehicles, chopping them all to piece as the men within them attempt to escape. They can’t.
Limbs are lost. Torsos shatter. Bodies are engulfed in flame as the vehicles catch fire and explode. A fog of red flame and blood mixes in with the grim grey as Freya methodically swings the gun from each car to the next, each person to the next, destroying them and sending their parts, mechanical and human, splashing all over the streets.
It happens so fast and with a ferocity to match the towering woman’s image. I see the light in her eyes shining bright as she goes to work, revelling in the killing, the deaths of these men.
I look at her, and see a product or war. She’s lived and breathed it, been hardened by it. She doesn’t see the men below as men at all. She just sees them as things that need to die, things standing in our way.
Rycard, however, appears a little more conflicted. I catch his eyes and enter his mind and see the flash of doubt. He’s wondering right now if an old friend of his is down there. An old buddy from the City Guard, sent here to do what they were trained to do, born and bred to do.
They know no better. And he’s up here, picking them off like fish in a barrel. Killing his old colleagues as his heart continues to blacken, the ashes of his injury darkening his soul.
He has no choice. Neither do they. War is unrelenting, unremitting.
It doesn’t take sides or wish favour on one party or another. It just revels in death and destruction, feeding off the loss of life and the loss of innocence.
And looking at Rycard, I see a man in transition. His code of conduct, his moral centre, skewed and turned on its side by his experience. He wonders only briefly if an old friend might be down there. But holding his pulse rifle, he fires anyway, his red flame joining the thousands of spitting silver tears crying from Freya’s weapon.
Such is war. It can turn even the most kind-hearted of men into a merciless killer.
That is its truest desire.
That is its truest gift.
Soon, however, the massacre is complete. After a minute of devastation, Freya’s minigun begins to cool, its spinning barrel slowing to a stop. And Rycard’s rifle halts as well, its many discharges having torn the streets to shreds.
And the many bodies down there too.
And as their weapons calm, I turn my mind and my eyes back to the battle down the streets, and peek through the mist to find that that, too, has calmed.
Only a few guns continue to fire. Only the odd rattle of a grenade shakes the earth.
And then, suddenly, all is quiet.
13
Displacing from the roof, we quickly rush down the steps, through the door, and out onto the now crumbling streets.
The entire place is burning, the smell of cooking flesh filling my nose. Carcasses of cars and corpses appear amid the mist, requiring us to step carefully through for fear of trampling over a severed limb or some pool of thick red blood.
It’s gruesome, the concoction of what I see and smell enough to turn my stomach as we work past the flames and cracked tarmac until we’re free of the morgue of our making.
Ahead, away down the street, I see a gathering. Several shadows in the fog begin working their way quickly through the crumbled remains of the buildings around them, perhaps checking for survivors or those they need to finish off.
As we prepare to tumble towards them, Freya cools our heels with a warning.
“Are we sure it’s them?”
She can’t tell. Not from here.
But Rycard and I can.
We both nod.
“It’s them,” says the half-Hawk.
Then we go, moving quickly towards them, weapons still primed in case we should encounter some trap. Before we even get close, I hear words of warning at our imminent arrival, the many super-senses of the ensemble seeing us and smelling us and hearing us before we get too close.
All of them form up once more, weapons ready to crackle and pop. Then, I hear Beckett’s gruff voice echo through the street.
“Stand down. It’s Freya…”
A few moments later, we’re arriving at the scene of the fight. It makes the carnage of our battle look like playtime in comparison.
The count of dead are twice what we managed, and all dispersed over a much wider area. They lie in crooked shapes across broken walls and piles of brick, covering an entire block of half destroyed buildings. At the core of it all, the dead are most prolific, the entrance to the underlands turning to a death-trap for those who attempted to breach it.
I find my brother on the edge, looking down into the depths. My arms lock around his body to see that he’s safe. By the sight of our group, all bar one have made it through.
“Did you all surv…” I start.
“Hilton,” cuts in Zander. “Hilton didn’t make it.”
Beckett marches over.
“A fine soldier. But he’d consider his death a small price to pay for saving all of ours and seeing to the end of theirs…” His eyes turn to the huddled group of corpses in the pit. “The tunnel was
blocked off before we arrived,” he continues. “They managed to explode the failsafe and trap them down there.”
“And the Stalkers?” I ask, scanning for their infamous black outfits. Amid the carnage, it’s hard to make out what’s what.
“Six,” says Kira, dancing over in her light-footed manner. “Only six of them, but a lot more City Guards than I thought. They’re clearly well dispersed across the city.”
I turn my eyes and ears again to the faint sounds of fighting in the distance. The war has well and truly started.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Other breaches most likely,” Zander says. “This is a coordinated attack. They’ve clearly discovered the locations of several of our entrances.”
“Yes, and we just have to hope they managed to trigger the failsafes and bury them,” says Beckett. “But regardless, it won’t take them long to dig their way through. We’ve done what we needed to here. We must return to the factory…”
His orders are heard by all, the other hybrids gathering around and concluding that all enemies have been killed. Collecting once more into a troop, we step back in the direction of the war room, off to the south.
Above, through the misty grey skies, the sight of buzzing drones appear, following our step. I gaze up and see half a dozen of them at various points within the smog.
Zander turns to Astor.
“Take them out,” he grunts.
Astor nods, lifts his rifle – his is a sniper rifle, a particular speciality of the man – and takes aim. A split second later, all six drones are tumbling to the earth, dropping like flies in a spectacular flash of sparks.
The precisions and speed of the man’s aim makes me look at him in a different, awestruck, light. I suspect, too, that it was he who sent the sniper bullet that killed Commander Fenby several weeks ago.
“Good job,” says Zander, before we rush on away from the scene, no longer under surveillance.
We reach the secrecy of the war room quickly, our journey unimpeded by any patrols. Away in the distance, more sirens ring out, and Kira announces that they’re arriving at the site of the battle already, most likely to secure the area and check for survivors.
Only once they’re done that will they resume their excavation. Like Beckett said, it will only be a matter of time before they dig their way through.
Surging down the stairs, the tunnel, through the blockage, and into the war room, we find Alfred nervously stammering down the comms link. His eyes swivel to us as we bundle inside, armour dripping in blood and ash, and skin drenched in sweat.
The technician’s eyes are wary behind his spectacles, his cheeks appearing to have hollowed out even more during the last thirty or so minutes.
Beckett marches straight for him and takes possession of the communicator.
“This is Commander Beckett. Whom am I speaking with?”
There’s a delay. He stiffens a little, stands up a little taller. I watch as he takes on board the information, nodding and grunting along, before telling of the events we’ve just faced.
Then he signs off.
“Yes, Lady Orlando,” I understand. “I’ll send him right back to you right away.”
The rest of us watch and wait in silence. The rumble of the factory above is no longer audible. I can only assume that the workday has been suspended given the events occurring across the northern quarter.
The Commander turns to us.
“Our mission here needs to be expedited,” he says. “We all know what’s happening out there. I have just received confirmation from Lady Orlando that several of our secret entrances have been attacked. All failsafes have been triggered. We have bought ourselves some time, but not much.”
He takes a breath, running his hands through his short, damp hair.
“Emergency level 4 is about to be activated,” he continues. “Our men are sealing the tunnels as much as they can to help delay Cromwell’s forces. They are arming traps that will also give us time. You all know that it won’t last. Within a day or two, one or other of the tunnels will be cleared and the underlands will swarm. We know the protocols. Ours is to stay here and complete our mission. And we have to do it fast.”
A round of heads nod. Each person here knows the state of play.
“OK, all of you, straight back to work,” he finishes. “Zander, step over here.”
The room turns from silent and still to loud and active. Weapons are returned to their places against the wall. Armour is discarded. The men and women of this mission turn straight back to their task as if the massacre of so many soldiers had never occurred.
I watch from the side, amazed by it all, but knowing I have absolutely no place here. My eyes turn to Zander and Beckett, and I gravitate towards them, listening in.
“Lady Orlando needs you back at HQ immediately,” says Beckett. “She has a task she requires you to perform.”
My brother’s eyes find me watching. Beckett’s follow.
“Brie, come here.”
I walk over.
“Your brother is to return to the church,” says the Commander. “He will take you with him. Your role isn’t here, we know that. But you have one out there. Good luck to you both. Zander, I will see you back down here as soon as you’re done.”
“Yes, sir,” says Zander.
Beckett moves back over to Alfred, who’s back on the communicator, gathering intel. Somehow, I rather wish I could stay down here now. The idea of going back up top doesn’t exactly appeal to me.
“OK, sis, shall we?” says Zander with a composure and slight cheerfulness that has absolutely no place after what’s just happened.
I suppose it’s to help me feel at ease. It doesn’t work.
I’m still fully armed and armoured. So is he. We step straight back to the door without hesitation. Only Rycard steps towards us before we pass the threshold.
“You’re heading back?” he asks.
“I’m taking Brie back. I’ll return soon enough.”
Rycard’s eyes are hooded, cast with fear. I know he’s thinking of his wife and child.
“Are the people going to be taken to the mines?” he asks.
Zander nods.
“We have no choice now. The underlands are mobilising.”
Rycard’s eyes turn to mine.
“Make sure they’re OK, can you do that for me, Brie?” he asks. “You go with them. Protect Sophie. Protect Maddox.”
He smiles weakly. And I return the look. Then we embrace, our bodies tightening briefly before releasing.
And just as we step through the door, he says one final thing.
“Oh, and Brie,” he says. I turn. “Protect yourself too. Be safe out there.”
I stand tall, hiding the fear brewing inside, and merely say: “I will.”
14
Part of me is happy to be alongside my brother, and him alone. The remainder is terrified to be entering onto the streets without the rest of the gang.
What they did to that force of Stalkers and City Guards is enough to persuade me that they can do just about anything. Sure, they had the element of surprise on their side, and managed to trap most of their foes in the blocked tunnel, but still, it’s pretty impressive that they dispatched so many with the loss of only one life.
Then again, losing the life of a powerful hybrid like Hilton is worse for us than it would if the same happened to Cromwell. His most powerful allies outnumber ours by an alarming factor, and it’s clear that his most potent weapons are right there alongside him at a time like this.
As we reach the exit to the factory and creep through the still hidden door, Zander performs his checks to ensure that the coast is clear. His eyes turn down the alley and to the skies, seeking out surveillance drones, before he leads me straight on and into the midst of the industrial region.
It appears I was right about the workday being suspended. From the many factories, plants, and warehouses that spread across the vast area, a sea of workers storm, returnin
g to the safety of their homes under the shadow of the growing war.
A war that for so long has, in fact, been in the shadows.
No longer.
From the depths of the eastern, western, and southern quarters, the sounds of battle will be heard. They just have to hope that the fighting is contained to the north, something that I myself am currently praying for given I care about so many in the west.
It’s easy enough staying hidden as we venture away from the factory. Once more, it’s crucial that we do so without being seen. We move in silence, using our Dasher powers to work our way further to the northeast, growing alarmingly close to the perimeter wall as it appears in the distance against the backdrop of the darkening skies.
The hour isn’t yet late. It’s only creeping towards the latter stages of the afternoon. Yet above us, the skies have been filled with the fumes of war, adding to the endless pollutants being coughed into the sky from the chugging factories and plants.
It creates a dark grey blanket that settles below the clouds, layer upon layer of dense and putrid air blocking off any suggestion of sunlight. Given our mission, such a thing is welcome, our forms hidden under the cover of the slate grey skies.
No one sees us. Zander makes sure of that. Here, the world is quiet, so few workers remaining who might identify us should they be unfortunate enough to catch us unawares.
Buzzing above the tops of the buildings, however, the occasional drone emerges from the smog. Whether security, surveillance, or even just errant worker or postal drones going about their operations, Zander takes no chances.
His weapon rises. He pulls the trigger. The machine hits the earth with a metallic clang.
I even get in on the act. Spotting one before my brother, I instinctively zap it from the sky using my pulse rifle. The blue flame connects with its flank, burning it away, and the metal insect spirals away into the roof of a nearby warehouse.
Zander seems impressed. And I realise then, if I didn’t know it already, that his approval is something I crave, particularly in this theatre of war.
