Gunz

by William Stacey

  Elizabeth flashed a message to Cassie and Leela: Guys, get ready.

  I don't know where you are, Leela answered. I can't see you through the ash.

  You will, she replied.

  Then, for the first time since she almost burned to death a year ago, Elizabeth channeled fire. Bright-orange flames spun about her, creating a whirling vortex of fire and light that shone through the ash cloud like a lighthouse. The dragon glared in rage at her with its one good eye as black gore oozed from the other. Time slowed to a series of moments. She saw the flames flash about her and remembered the horror of burning. Then she saw Clara dying once more and heard Cassie's words: Love can't be a sin. The dragon opened its jaws, and blue fire rushed from its open mouth.

  "I love you, Clara."

  The fire washed over her.

  Then around her.

  Leaving her unscathed.

  Leela's shield, enhanced by the magic of the Brace the young native woman had been wearing since stepping off the helicopter, had been strong enough to protect her from the dragon-fire after all.

  God hadn't abandoned her.

  As the dragon-fire died off, Elizabeth clenched her fists. The ground outside Leela's shield bubbled, but neither the flames nor the heat could get at her.

  Wow! thought Leela.

  Wow, indeed, answered Cassie. You should see it heal.

  The dragon stared in confusion. Then it breathed fire once more, a much longer blast this time, lasting a dozen heartbeats. Again, the pavement bubbled and flared, melted around her—but again Elizabeth stood protected within Leela's shield, defiantly confronting the dragon.

  "Is that the best you got?" She channeled another bolt of lightning and struck it in its open mouth, sending lightning arcing from fang to fang. The dragon shrieked in pain, tossing its head from side to side. "That's right. Choke on it!" But her words were hollow, she knew. Now that it knew its breath had failed, it would just rush forward and crush her. Maybe the others can get away while—

  A whistling noise knifed through the air, growing impossibly loud. Even the dragon turned its head toward the sound.

  "Incoming!" Huck yelled.

  The world went bright white, then she was flying through the air. Something slammed the air from her lungs, and a white-hot lance of pain burned through her skull as if someone had just driven ice picks through her eardrums. She lay on her back, a ringing in her head. She saw nothing, not even shadows.

  She was blind.

  49

  Elizabeth's sight and hearing rushed back in on her, accompanied by a surge of healing mana. She bolted upright, gasping for air. Cassie knelt before her, holding the Brace against Elizabeth's forehead. "Don't. Move," Cassie said through clenched teeth, beads of sweat running down her face.

  Someone reached behind Elizabeth and held her upright as Cassie continued to heal her. Cassie swayed in place. What's keeping her going? Elizabeth's fingers brushed her ears and came away wet with blood. Whatever that explosion had been, it had ruptured her eardrums as well as blinded her, but thanks to Cassie, she could see and hear again.

  Cassie's hand fell away from Elizabeth's forehead, and she ceased channeling. A moment later, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, exposing only the whites, and she fell. Lee, sitting beside her, caught her with his left hand—his right sleeve was soaked red with blood from the shoulder to the elbow. Despite only having one uninjured arm, he gently laid Cassie onto her side.

  Elizabeth's blood ran cold. "Is … is she…"

  Lee placed his ear near Cassie's mouth then exhaled in relief. "She's breathing, just out cold."

  Swamp Thing took a knife to Lee's sleeve, slitting the fabric and exposing a bleeding bullet wound through the meat of the bicep. "How the hell you take a bullet?"

  "Don't know," answered the young man, grimacing as Swamp Thing applied pressure with a bandage.

  "Ricochet, probably," said Alex. "That thing's scales are hard." He knelt beside Elizabeth, his eyes filled with concern. "You okay, Gunz? I was sure you were dead."

  "I … yes. I think so." She stared at her bloody fingertips. "What happened?"

  "You did it," Alex said. "Kept the dragon focused on you."

  She looked about, staring at the others gathered about her, worry on their faces: Leela, Paco, Kargin, Corinna, Swamp Thing, Sharon, Huck, and Helena. The others seemed okay, although Sharon was clearly favoring a leg and limping. Clyde whined then darted past Paco's legs to rush Elizabeth and lick her face. Maybe a hundred feet away sat the smoking carcass of the dragon. One of its wings as well as most of its monstrous, serpentine head were gone, leaving only a shredded, smoking ruin of scales, tissue, and bloody rivulets pooling about the charred ground. The stench of burned flesh was like a slap in the face. Dead. It's dead.

  Clara, you can rest now.

  "Your people should sing songs about you, Lizbeth-Chambers," Kargin said with wonder in his voice. "First Gaze-Killer, now Bale-Fire? You are a hero of the ages. Are you sure you're not part dwarf?"

  "I don't know how you're still alive," said Huck in wonder. "You were way too close when the Excalibur round struck. You should be dead."

  "When the what struck?"

  "A GPS-guided howitzer shell used in close-support missions. Normally accurate within about twenty meters, this time I used the CSOR laser targeting device to put it right on that thing's skull while its attention was on you." Huck shook her head in wonder. "That was a hundred-thousand-dollar bullet, Elizabeth."

  "And worth every penny," said Swamp Thing.

  "At any rate, that's all the help we're likely to get," said Huck. "My comms have gone silent, so I suspect someone finally got the word to the battery that we're not supposed to be here. Firing a howitzer tends to get people's attention. Brigade Group HQ likely went apeshit."

  "Well…" said Alex, "that was more fire support than I thought we'd get. The two of you saved our lives."

  Huck shrugged off her radio backpack and left it on the ground as she looked from the dead dragon to Elizabeth. "I still don't understand how you made it. The barotrauma—the shock wave—should have jellified your internal organs and squeezed your body like a tube of toothpaste."

  "I was still shielding her," said Leela. "With the Brace. I guess it also protected her from the blast." She stared at the blood on Elizabeth's ears and neck. "Most of the blast…"

  "It's okay, Leela," Elizabeth said. "Thanks to Cassie, I'm okay—again. Help me up."

  With Huck's help, she climbed to her feet, unsteady but alive. Leela handed her the SCAR she had dropped, and Elizabeth checked its chamber. Then she stared at the still out-cold Cassie before a frigid realization suddenly swept through her. Her eyes met Alex's. "Where are–"

  He shook his head, pain in his eyes. "We lost Tops, Masters, and Ward. There's … there's not even anything left to bury. But if you hadn't created those swirling flames, drawing the dragon's attention, we'd all be dead now."

  "You saved us, my magic lioness," said Swamp Thing, now tying Lee's right arm across his chest in a sling. "And now, you and Huck killed a dragon with Excalibur. Talk about legends coming to life."

  A weight settled on her heart. Three more friends dead—including the two men who had been her bodyguards…

  Swamp Thing must have seen the anguish in her eyes, because he left Lee to rush to her and embrace her, crushing her against his thick chest. A moment later, she broke down. Huge sobs wracked her frame, the tears flowing. "Shush," he whispered, cradling the back of her head with his huge but surprisingly gentle hand. "They died like Spartans. We'll honor them later."

  "He's right," said Alex gently. "We need to keep moving."

  "Cassie's done," said Lee, staring down at her. "I'm amazed she made it as far as she did."

  Alex reluctantly pulled the Brace from her hand. He glanced from her to Lee and to Lee's arm. "Take her to the Chinook."

  "There'll be a medical kit and blankets as well as a stretcher," said Sharon. "You might be able to drag he
r."

  "You can both drag her," said Alex. "Wait for us at the aircraft."

  "But—"

  "You're a great pilot, Sharon, but not much of a gunfighter. Besides, limping like that, you'll just slow us down."

  "I can tough it out. I just smashed my knee."

  He shook his head. "You're done. Besides, if we somehow do manage to pull this off, we'll still need a ride home."

  She bit her lip. "Are you—"

  "I'm sure."

  Lee looked about at the others, his face reflecting his indecision. "But … won't you need—"

  "I need you to stay with Starlight. She's saved our lives more times than I can count. Now, it's our turn to look after her. Besides, what are you gonna do with one arm?" Alex handed Elizabeth the Brace. "Gunz, think you can keep us alive long enough to find this orb and destroy the machine?"

  "Sure as hell try," she said, taking the Brace and pulling it up her arm.

  As always, it slipped down around her wrist.

  ELIZABETH FOLLOWED as Swamp Thing led them, now only eight men and women and a dog, down the reservoir's abutment and to the fire-blackened concrete steps leading into the overflow auxiliary spillway, which met the main spillway with its sluice gates and generating station before intersecting at a right angle with the fifty-foot-high earth-filled concrete dam wall that cut across the Peace River. Just before going down the steps, Elizabeth looked back at the smoking carcass of the dragon. It was hard to believe any of them were still alive, let alone most of them.

  Maybe Cassie had been right and God wasn't angry with her.

  Maybe her love for Clara was part of God's plan.

  Her mother was wrong.

  Love wasn't a sin.

  They moved down the spillway, its concrete walls rising up on either side of them like a tunnel. The generating station had been gutted by fire. Entire electrical turbines, transformers, and power lines had melted like wax. Just ahead of them, the two sides of a barred metal gate had been forced outward, creating a two-foot space between the two gates, through which they could slip. "That you?" Alex asked Swamp Thing, pointing his rifle barrel at the gates.

  "Yeah," the large man answered. "The gates were locked and rusted shut when we came out." He pointed at a small black door on the opposite side of the gates at the end of the tunnel. "This maintenance entrance didn't see much use." He balanced the stock of his LMG against his hip and used his other hand to adjust the straps of his duffel bag. Then he pointed to the charred forest on the shoreline to their right. "Didn't see the dragon, so we made a break for those trees—well, there were trees. The fire hadn't spread that far yet."

  "I had no idea there was even a maintenance tunnel here," said Alex.

  "I did," Helena said. "First thing I did as head of the science department was to familiarize myself with the blueprints for the entire complex. Operation Rubicon was an impressive achievement. Sadly."

  "We were lucky to have you, Doc," said Swamp Thing.

  "Wait," said Alex. "I don't get it. A back door into a top-secret inter-dimensional gateway project? Bit of a security risk."

  "There are two blast doors below, both code locked," said Swamp Thing. "Nobody was gonna accidentally wander in."

  "I know the codes," said Helena. "Director's clearance."

  Alex snorted. "Well, at least something's finally going our way. Let's get down there before the dark elves turn this doomsday machine on." As they approached the black door, their steps echoed against the concrete walls.

  Elizabeth heard Clyde whine. She paused and turned to see the dog sniffing at the end of the gates. The hackles on the dog's back stood stiff. Paco knelt beside him, examining the edge of the gates. Elizabeth moved back and joined him. "What is it?"

  "Don't know." He pulled a scrap of something stuck to the gates that looked like fur or a clump of hair then brought it to his nose and sniffed it. "Could be wolf or coyote, or maybe even bear. With all the corpses, this place is attracting animals."

  They heard Alex hiss at them and turned to see him motioning them to catch up. He stood with the others before the closed black metal door.

  Paco dropped the scrap and wiped his fingers on his blue jeans. "Whatever it was, it's gone now, buddy," he told Clyde.

  They hurried to catch up.

  50

  Alex turned on the powerful flashlight rail-mounted next to the 40mm grenade launcher beneath his SCAR. The others turned on their own lights. Alex set the SCAR's butt in his shoulder and nodded at Swamp Thing. The large American soldier yanked open the metal door, revealing a low, dark corridor lined with cables and pipes. Alex scanned his beam back and forth but saw nothing. "Clear," he said, stepping through the doorway. "Helena, I'm going to need you with me."

  "Right behind you," she said nervously.

  Her breath was hot on his neck as he moved down the dark corridor, sweeping his beam over electrical boxes with rows of now-powerless LED monitors lining the walls. "No emergency power?"

  "Not here, not so close to the surface," she answered. "These maintenance tunnels are outside the magnetic shielding that protects the underground complex. Deeper down, once we pass through that shield, we might find the emergency lights still on … maybe. It's been a few days, and the batteries were never meant to last that long, not without starting up the emergency generator."

  "Okay. Stay close, but give me room to maneuver."

  She backed off just a bit.

  Kargin came next, followed by Swamp Thing, Leela, Huck, and Corinna. Paco, Elizabeth, and Clyde came last. Alex reached an intersection, and Helena pointed left. "There's a stairwell down that way. It'll take us lower, to the shield access."

  He took the left corridor and saw nothing moving that was larger than a spider the size of his thumb. Just as Helena had said, he came upon a concrete stairwell descending into the dark depths. "You didn't see anyone else when you came through?"

  "No, although I expected to see the skeleton staff working the night shift. We were … otherwise occupied and didn't look for them. Maybe we should have. I was out of my mind with fear, to tell the truth. If not for Sergeants Tio and Topper … well, I think I would have died that night."

  "You figure they're still down here?"

  "Maybe. It's safe, and there are enough supplies for months inside the shield, maybe years."

  Alex began to make his way down the stairs, shining his flashlight before him. "With a dragon trashing the place, hiding underground might be the smartest move. Maybe we'll find them along the way. How many?"

  "Six technicians."

  The others moved down the stairs behind him, crowding the stairwell. "How come they didn't start up the emergency generator?" Swamp Thing asked.

  "Maybe they snuck out through the same maintenance door as you," Alex answered, pausing to scan his flashlight on the landing below him.

  "If I were them, I know I would have got the hell out of Dodge," said Swamp Thing.

  At the bottom, a wide corridor led in two directions. Alex glanced over his shoulder at Helena. "That way." She pointed to the right.

  The corridor ran for hundreds of meters. The sound of their steps echoed loudly. In the distance, Alex heard what sounded like dripping water. That can't be good, he mused. Gone two days, and the piping breaks down.

  A few minutes later, they came upon the first of the two blast doors Swamp Thing had mentioned. The wide metal door—a foot thick, like a bank vault—was still partially ajar. "You didn't secure it?" he asked.

  "Couldn't." Swamp Thing indicated the now-powerless key code console affixed to the wall beside the door. "Doc had the codes for us to get through, but we didn't want to trap anyone else down here."

  Alex gripped the metal blast door and pulled it open, exposing another corridor with a brightly polished floor and painted walls wide enough for a forklift. He recognized this corridor, identical to the others within the underground complex. Inside the Shield. They followed the corridor for several hundred meters until it came t
o the second blast door, also left partially open. On the other side, he saw a large room marked Armory. The room was empty now, with discarded cardboard boxes and ammunition containers on the floor. Alex flashed his beam across the room.

  Swamp Thing joined him. "We took everything we could carry, which was, I guess, everything."

  "Well, you are a big guy."

  "I don't know why the brass wanted this armament down here, but I'm glad they did."

  "It was after the basilisk attack," said Helena, joining them. "The new commander, Colonel Collingway, wanted a reserve—just in case."

  "Looks like this Colonel Collingway was right," Alex said. He turned away. "I know where we are now. Let's motor." He stalked away, moving down the wide corridor in the direction of the Bore Hole, the vast circular tunnel carved into the bedrock upon which they had built the shielded complex. At the very bottom of the Bore Hole, hundreds of feet down, they'd find the heart of Operation Rubicon—the massive natural cavern that housed the interstellar Gateway Machine and Jump Tube, as well as the hermetically sealed secure storage lockup in which they'd find the Shatkur Orb.

  He hoped.

  ELIZABETH FOLLOWED in the rear with Paco, Leela, and Clyde. She glanced into the empty armory as they went by. As always when underground, the air grew cooler, but it was only temporary. The deeper they went, the warmer it would become, especially now that the central air was out. Does that mean we'll run out of air?

  What's that about air? Leela asked.

  Nothing, she flashed back. Tired and losing control, letting my thoughts wander. Sorry.

  Alex led them to the Bore Hole. She joined the others, now standing near the controls for the cargo elevator—an open-air lift with guardrails that slowly descended by rotating along the inside of the Bore Hole.