Halud felt his chest stutter. “But Sarrin will okay, right?”
“Evasive maneuvers,” Hoepe shouted, one of the men already sliding into the Pilot’s chair.
“I’m bringing the cannons online,” replied Kieran. He pointed at Halud.
With a start, Halud realized he was steadying himself on the Tactical station. The controls were foreign. He’d never had need to drive a ground vehicle, let alone a starship or weapons system.
The pilot swung the ship around. Everyone stumbled.
He gripped the targeting control. He’d done this — arcade simulators anyway — as a boy. The warship headed straight for them, coming closer at an alarming rate. Laz-fire flashed repeatedly across the view-screen.
“Cannons,” shouted Hoepe, pointing to him.
Halud’s fist clenched on the trigger, feeling the powerful weapons shake the ship. He heard Kieran swear.
Hoepe rushed over pushed him away from the console. “You hit us,” he growled.
“Just grazed the side,” reported Kieran, but his face was pale and he pressed his lips into a thin line. “No significant damage.”
“You could have blown a hole in the hull!”
One of Hoepe’s men took over the Tactical console as Halud stepped back. Had he actually hit them, his own ship?
The ship rocked again, the lights flashing as Halud stumbled to the floor.
“That was a direct hit, knocked out most of our shielding,” yelled Kieran.
“They’re hitting us hard,” Hoepe said. “Any word from the ground?”
“No, not yet,” said Kieran.
Halud felt all his blood drain into his toes, leaving a solid rock in the pit of his stomach.
“Can you get the shield’s back up, Kieran?”
“Working on it.”
“We’ll have to jump away.”
“No!” Halud’s stomach turned. “We can’t strand them here.”
Hoepe grimaced. “We can’t hold up in this firefight much longer.”
“He’s right,” said Kieran. “If that Kepheus Drive explodes, we won’t be able to jump back. We’d leave the shuttle defenceless.”
Five fingers tapped Hoepe’s chest, and he closed his eyes. “Rye, keep us close to the planet. Between them and the warship. I want to be ready as soon as they come back. We might have to go, but we’ll wait as long as we can.” He tapped his chest repeatedly, and Halud, too, felt the need to pray.
The lights flickered continuously, the floor unsteady, and Halud sat against the wall. A violent shake knocked him sprawling to the side.
“Shit, that last one surged,” shouted Kieran.
Hoepe spun. “Damage?”
“The shields overloaded and spiked the power. I’m checking the systems now.” Sweat glistened on the engineer’s forehead as he typed rapidly into the console. “Shields are still operational at twenty-two percent.”
Halud blinked rapidly, suddenly dizzy. The ship rocked again. A dark pit ate away his insides.
“We can’t take much more of this,” said Hoepe. “We have to go. Draw them away. We’ll come back.”
Kieran shook his head. “The FTL got hit with the surge. It’s offline.”
Hoepe paused, suddenly still amid the chaos. “Without that FTL, we’re dead.”
Another jolt sent Kieran stumbling. “I’m on my way already.”
SIXTEEN
SARRIN RAN DOWN THE STAIRS as the sedative was still being sucked from the room.
There were only three Augments still standing, but they each gasped hungrily.
“Twenty-seven, is that you? All grown up?” The Augment smiled when he saw her. “I should have known it would be you to come save us.”
She hated the nick-name. “Sarrin,” she corrected him.
“Thomas,” he said.
She nodded. He had been with them in the war for the catastrophe in the North. “I know.”
“The bars are electrified.”
She nodded — she knew that too, but hadn’t been able to find the controls in the console in the guard station.
“The generator is over there. And the locking mechanisms are biometric — combination scan of retina, palm, and pulse.”
She studied the small box, identical boxes on each of the cells. Conduits running between them and overhead.
Grant ran up. “No more guards,” he smiled.
Sarrin stared at the puzzle in front of her. “Rigged with explosives,” she said quietly.
Grant looked at it. “We’ll just pull off the connecting wires, rewire the thing.”
“No.” She held up a hand to stop his reaching arm. “Find the generator to turn off the electric current.”
Thomas pointed. “It’s over there, somewhere.”
Grant nodded and went to search.
“Annika tried to rewire it,” said Thomas. “She and four others ended up dead.”
The panel was rigged, judging by the shape and thickness. Taking it off could trigger the explosive, could self-destruct the whole cell block if she was reading the wires right.
She heard the electric buzz relax. Grant sprinted back to them.
“Who can unlock the scanner?” she asked.
“I don’t know their names. A handful of researchers.”
“Maybe the guards out front,” Grant muttered.
“No.” Thomas shook his head.
“Then we’ll find the researchers.”
She bit her lip and looked at Thomas. And at the tens of other Augments, some of them starting to stir. It would take hours to locate the researchers, if they were here at all. They would have to be captured and brought back alive without raising alarm.
Augments all around them were starting to wake, to raise their heads up and stagger to the edge of their cells. Still no alarm, no warning klaxon. Something didn’t feel right and she found her legs shaking, preparing to flee.
“Don’t lose yourself.” An image of Kieran’s easy smile broke into her thoughts. He had a way of seeing things differently. He could probably engineer a solution around the whole thing and not even worry about the explosive hand scanner.
“What do we do?” Grant said, shaking the bars with his fists.
“We should have brought Kieran.” she said, but it would do no good to get angry with Grant now. There had to be a solution to get them all out alive.
Around the whole thing.
Of course.
She pulled her remaining laz-pistol from its holster. The idea unfolded clearly in her head, wrapping her in a steady rush. She popped the side panel off and stripped the connections — her hands barely keeping up with her mind.
“What are you doing, Sar?”
She needed something to reorient the laz-stream, focus its energy nearer to the outlet. Pulling at her pockets, she emptied the contents on the ground.
“Sarrin?”
Two knives, spanner set, power cell. How could she collect all this and still not have anything useful? Auto-sealing gasket, spice packet, length of string. Her hands landed on a riveting gun, and she smiled.
Pulling it apart, she wedged the components into the laz-pistol. Rapidly she pressed the connections into place and lifted the modified pistol to the cage. She squeezed the trigger and the bar snapped with a loud pop. A second pop shot it across the cell. And then the next bar and the next until she had cut a hole big enough for Thomas to climb through.
Shaking, he broke into a grin. “I thought I was going to die in that cell.”
She handed the bar cutter to Grant. They still had to release the others, the long line of cages stretching out of sight. Time ticked by relentlessly in her head. A deep sense of foreboding tightened around her like smog. The little anteroom shone like a bright beacon in the dark dungeon, and she moved towards it, towards escape.
* * *
Rayne blinked, lids heavy with unnatural sleep. She coughed twice, something pressing sharply into her back. Her surroundings came into the focus, all the beams and stru
ctural supports crisscrossing in the dark. Around her, more sleeping bodies started to stir. She recognized Hoepe’s men. They were in the ceiling. Above an anteroom. In a UEC facility. On Junk.
She sat up. Where were Sarrin and Grant?
Grant had insisted she come along. For no reason other than her combat skills were adequate, the best they had to offer anyway. She hadn’t argued. The Path of the Gods was true, and opportunities always presented themselves. It was her duty to warn the UECs before it was too late.
Sluggishly, she rolled herself to her knees, and then onto her feet. The space in the ceiling was low, but enough for her to run if she crouched.
With a final glance, she wondered if she should bring the men with her. They were just as caught up in all of this as she was. But they were still asleep. She would come back for them.
Light shone up from the anteroom, quickly dimming as she moved farther away. The facility didn’t follow a standard schematic, certainly not with its three subterranean floors, but she had spent their mission briefings memorizing its layout.
She pulled up a panel and dropped down into what should have been a research laboratory. The smell of combat armour wafted heavy into her senses, and the sounds of shuffling boots and settling laz-guns. A platoon of soldiers spread out in front of her.
A dozen rifle barrels aimed at her.
* * *
Sarrin climbed in to the ceiling where Grant had tucked the others to keep them safe. Sutherland sat up, resting against a support. Two others laid beside him. “Where’s Rayne?”
Sutherland shrugged sleepily. “She muttered something about the Gods and stumbled away.”
The worry at the back of Sarrin’s mind slammed into her full force. She sprinted through the narrow space, following the commander instinctively. It wasn’t far. A gleaming square of light shone where the panel had been removed.
Voices drifted from below:
“What a surprise.” A familiar, icy voice shot shivers down her spine.
“My name is Commander Ray—.”
Sarrin leapt, time moving slowly.
She pushed Rayne to the ground, landing on her. She gritted her teeth as Rayne’s energy passed into her like an electric shock, and a laz-bolt seared across her back.
Dr. Guitteriez stared, his wicked scar curling up as he grinned.
She pulled Rayne up by the back of her coveralls, straining to push her up through the open panel in one fluid movement. Laz-beams blurred across the room towards them, grazing Sarrin’s arm, leg, and cheek as she launched herself through the hole after Rayne.
She hit Rayne, slapping her across the arm, not as hard as she could but hard enough.
The other woman squeaked.
“Stop being so stupid,” Sarrin growled. The darkness crept across her vision, close to taking over, and she stumbled.
“I… I just. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
Nearly blind, Sarrin staggered away. “Guitteriez is here.” She clutched the bulkhead, looking for something to ground herself. She tapped at her chest repeatedly. “Sarrin DeGazo. Female. 005478F.”
Kieran’s green eyes peered at her through the darkness. Don’t lose yourself.
The soldiers came, their hands grasping the edge around the open panel.
Rayne stood and reached a hand towards her. But Sarrin could not see the commander or anything else in the ceiling space. Her vision, her fear, latched onto Guitteriez, seeing him even though he stood, watching the soldiers, a floor below. His maniacial grin spread.
Rayne reached her. “Sarrin?”
“…005478F. Sarrin DeGazo. Female. 005478F….” Her vision went completely black.
* * *
Halud stumbled to the shuttle hangar. Sarrin and the others still hadn’t returned from the surface. And the ship wouldn’t last much longer. He had to buy them time, if he could. The whole mess was his fault.
“What’re you doing, Poet?”
Surprised, Halud turned. Gal sat on the bench behind him, nursing his flask.
He had done his best to keep her safe, to rescue her and protect her. But nothing worked the way it was supposed to. How had he been so wrong? She was worse off than when he found her.
Gal cleared his throat. “I said, what are you doing?”
He took a deep breath. He absolutely could not afford to let anger rattle him, not with the desperate plan he had concocted.
“Poet?”
“I’m no good at this fighting and attacking and plotting,” he sighed. “Politics is my game. Give me a room full of Hap Lansfords and I can dance my way out of any trap.”
“Except this one.”
“I’m no good to Sarrin here. I don’t belong. There are plenty of people here who can keep her safe. People she likes more and trusts more than me.” He didn’t owe Gal an explanation, but he still wanted to give him one. Let him know how badly he’d cracked it. “You know she hasn’t said a word to me. I thought maybe she couldn’t, but she talks to Kieran all the time.”
Gal’s lips quirked into a sort of smile. “Oaf,” he muttered.
Teeth clenched together, Halud growled, “He’s not the only one.”
The flask tipped up, Gal’s eyes glinting with acknowledgement.
“Sarrin doesn’t need me here.”
“She’s your sister.”
“I can do more for her over there.”
Gal sighed. He gave a half laugh, lifting his flask as though he was going to toast the Poet. Instead, he quoted the rebel, tongue in cheek: “Embrace your fears, and you will become brave.”
Halud opened the door to shuttle bay. “You know, I really thought you could help me.”
“Why would you ever think that?” Gal winced. “Everyone I’ve ever helped is dead. Or will be.” He hung over himself, sloppy and drunk.
“What happened to ‘never give up the fight,’ Galiant? You wrote that, didn’t you?”
He stared at the floor. “You wrote it too.”
“You wrote it first.”
“John P is dead, Halud.”
“Fine.” He opened the shuttle, climbing through the door.
Gal called after him, “There’s a firefight out there.”
“I have to try.” The shuttle powered up around him. He could be brave, he had to, for her.
“It’s suicide,” Gal said plainly.
From the pilot’s chair, he could see Gal take another sorry drink. He pulled up the autopilot, and the shuttle took over. The airlock sealed and vented atmosphere, the shuttle launching into space.
Laz-beams seared around him. Somehow, the little shuttle continued on its course, adjusting side-to-side, casually dodging the weapons fire that blazed through the dark space.
He squeezed his eyes shut, touching his five fingers to his chest and then his forehead. “Faith, guide me.”
When he opened them again, the shuttle hovered in front of the big bay doors of the warship. The doors opened, and the shuttle landed on the deck. Halud blinked. He had made it.
On the other side of the viewport stood a squadron of soldiers. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Fortitude, don’t leave me now.”
* * *
The darkness rolled over Sarrin in waves, deadly directions flooding her mind. Save yourself, it said, there’s too much danger. Forget about anything else and save yourself.
She groped in the dark, hands moving one steel beam to the next as she navigated through the ceiling.
“Sarrin, come on.” Rayne’s shrill voice nearly pushed her beyond panic.
The guards hadn’t pursued through the open panel. With Rayne’s urging, they made it back to the others, Sutherland and the others already stirring. Augments paced uneasily in the anteroom below, the last running in as they were freed. Three lay dead in their cells, their cold death burning in her mind and making her hands shake.
“We have to get out of here,” Rayne said.
The darkness stabbed into her mind, and she gasped. Don’t lose you
rself.
Grant leapt into the ceiling, pushing past her through the tight space. “This way. Follow me.” He grinned. “See, nothing to it.”
She didn’t have the breath to tell him about Guitteriez or the platoon of class A combat soldiers.
They moved, all thirty-five of them, inching through the ceiling toward the hangar.
Without warning, the Augments ahead started to wince and groan. Some of them stumbled. It passed through their line in a wave.
Sarrin lit on fire. Her hands screamed. In her mind, electric blue flame licked up and down her body. When it cleared, she was on the floor, uninjured, unburnt.
Rayne stared at her, eyes wild.
“What was that?” Grant asked.
One of the others answered, “Bio-energetic pulse. They’ve been testing them recently. Nothing serious.”
Sarrin struggled to get her body moving. The pounding in her head crescendoed, battering her insides. She fell, stifling a scream.
Beside her, Thomas glanced down. “Twenty-seven?”
Without warning, laz-bolts tore up the ceiling beneath their feet. Grant cut left, everyone sprinting behind him. Again, laz-bolts erupted. Funnelling them. Herding them.
Guitteriez.
Sarrin ran as flashes pinged off the metal support structure. The dark crawlspace transformed into a chaotic show of lasers and wide, panicking eyes. Deadly fire surrounded them on all sides. Trapped. A flash of memory played in her mind, unbidden: Kids, dirty and bloody from the fight, screaming and running in the training arena. More kids hammering them with 50V laz-rifles. With a shout, a young boy fell as he ran, trampled by those behind him.
Gasping, Sarrin threw herself out of the way of an errant bolt. Her mind turned all the moving objects into targets — laz-fire and Augments alike.
Don’t lose yourself. She nodded, agreeing with the ghost of Kieran, making his voice louder than the monster’s.
A laz-saw cut through the ceiling. Pieces fell away, exposing them. Someone stepped back, surprised, and fell through the hole. The girl clutched at the scaffold, clinging for only an instant until laz-fire from below tore across her. The crawlspace filled with the putrid stench of burning flesh and her short lived scream.
Augment Page 27
