Requiem
Page 7
Bennett braced himself between the pilot’s seats. “If there are survivors, where would they be in the ship?”
With a soft thump, Azure landed them beyond the slipface of a dune providing a barrier between them and the crashed collector and growing crowd. “Life-slots are on the lower deck. Any chambers not broken will have to be unlocked. I know how.”
He dropped the rear ramp, spilling daylight inside. Cutter hustled out into the hot sand, Tanner at his side, the rest of the team unloading behind them. The torrid air took their breath away, a drastic change from the chilled hallways of Agutra in space.
A ring of outraged villagers had formed around the mangled ship half-buried in the distance. Flames ripped out of a shredded airfoil. The masses staggered back, uttering a collective gasp.
Five lanky, muted-red figures with black freckles stumbled out of a gaping hole. Their long arms and vertical mouths had the people tripping over one another to get away, stretching the perimeter.
“Snipe!” Josie shouted, pushing through. The team cleared out of her path, storming toward the rear of the downed ship. Panton dropped to his knees in the sand behind them, Josie resting her e-rifle across his shoulders, the sights narrowed on the Linoans.
A crack from her barrel laid a Linoan out flat. She snagged one more, the crushed side of the collector painting currant-red. The body slumped to a pile, exposing three more scampering like frightened deer toward the shelter of the village.
“Running west!” Cutter extended an arm.
Bennett doled out the orders. “Josie and Panton, with Azure. Secure the crash site and check for survivors. The rest of us are going after the Linoans.”
The team gave a host of “Yes, sir,” and the pairs separated.
Cutter eyed Azure’s colorless skin and dark stripes under the sun. “Try to stay out of sight, if you can.”
Azure’s eyebrows rose. “Almost forgot.” He changed course to weave through the shelter of the wreckage trail to a rear opening.
Knowing his leader was defenseless, Cutter whistled through his teeth at Bennett. When he’d caught his golden eyes, he slung the Standard Issue handgun from his thigh holster at him.
Bennett caught the SI, pointing to the staggering trail. “Long feet. They’re not used to sand!”
Cutter and Tanner tossed their thumbs up and took defensive positions behind the first building while their leaders opted for a different street. Peering around a corner, shotgun steadied in hand, the pellet igniter primed and glowing, Cutter crept out on the side of the road. The humming in his nerves strengthened like it had the last few times his finger slid over the trigger.
Tanner followed, hunkered over his e-rifle, watching their six. The yells of the civilians at the crash site faded in the distance.
Adobe buildings stood over the buried suburbs. Cutter ducked beneath a rusted metal sign for a hair salon as it swung from the steel skeleton of a withering building. The gentle breeze sent it squeaking. Across the street, a window blinked as something light in color crossed its opening. Cutter scanned the road, signaled to Tanner, and they jetted through its vulnerable zone to the other side.
Sticking tight to the adobe exterior, Cutter inched for the door. Every muscle in his body thrummed in anticipation. Sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes. He didn’t dare move to wipe it away. Checking Tanner in his periphery was the signal for entering.
Tanner gave him a subtle nod.
Whipping his shotgun up into the opening, Cutter dissected the room in a split-second, his finger keeping pressure on the trigger. Three men and one woman, dressed in faded tactical gear and thick head-scarves dropped the guns they were reloading. The weapons thudded onto tables made of wooden crates while the four backed away. Each had a blood-red K smudged on their attire.
“No shot? What’s the deal?” Tanner whispered.
“Kronos Clan. Cover me.”
“What do you want with a village this small?” Cutter demanded, stepping into the room.
Kronos had been trying to take over UP since its formation decades ago as the Shepherds United. They had become their primary combatants after the Three Hundred Year War. He didn’t trust a single one.
“We’re from here; we’re fighting back,” one man said. His gaze swept outside. “The creatures from the wrecked ship— O-our village took it down.”
The hesitation and upward inflection in the man’s voice made Cutter’s skin crawl. They weren’t from this village, judging by the copious metal buckles on their clothes and winter boots on their feet. “Don’t lie.”
The woman scoffed, a tendril of brassy hair slipping from her scarf. “To what, a mindless drone like you? We don’t have to.”
Cutter brushed off her implication. Kronos wouldn’t be this far out of the main urban areas unless they were on a specific mission, one usually involving a lot of civilians and shepherds dying.
The man in the middle leaned back against the wall, a few pale fingers curling up into a palm.
Cutter hovered his barrel over the man’s chest. “Show me your hands!”
“Why?” The man’s cool reply was coupled with a shrug.
“You know exactly why.” Tanner snorted outside. “Hot-heads.”
The woman raised her arms, a sadistic grin spreading her face.
And there was that tingling again, forceful and demanding, thrusting through Cutter’s body, an itch to move.
Fabric brushed against metal as Tanner adjusted the e-rifle in his grip. “Motion, three o’clock.”
Cutter’s heart rate spiked, sending a hot wave of adrenaline through his veins.
Reaching between her shoulders, the woman drew a blade and flung it at Cutter, who dodged on instinct. He took the shot as one of the men stepped in front of her. The flaming pellets sent the man crushing her against the wall behind them as he fell.
Another tugged a handgun from his belt, and the third reached into a box at his side, ink-stamped with a blast symbol. Cutter’s two shots hit their marks, leaving the woman trembling and alone in the corner, a singed, mist of blood settling to the floor.
At the swish of sand and a loud grunt behind him, Cutter spun. His igniter darkened. He was out of ammo, and Tanner’s e-rifle had dropped into the soft earth, beyond his position.
Blocking a heel from hitting his face, Tanner slung a punch himself, missing the sinewy figure as it slid out of his path. Towering over him, the Linoan attacked with a barrage too fast for Tanner to deflect every hit. A slice through his sleeve and a knee to Tanner’s ribs knocked him off balance, exposing his other side and a bladed fist arcing toward it.
Cutter launched himself out the door with a furious growl, forgetting about the woman, and slamming his larger form into the Linoan. They toppled into the ground. Tanner scrambled away.
“What do you want with us?” Cutter shouted. The humming inflected to a high pitched ring through his body. He blocked another swing of the Linoan’s merciless fists and glared into its obsidian eyes. Why are the Kronos here?
It screeched and winced, waggling its head.
A maniacal laugh spluttered out from one of the downed men in the building.
“Grenade!” Tanner’s e-rifle slung back into his shoulder as he fired, knocking the fleeing woman face first in the sand. He rolled away, curling up and shielding his soft-spots.
A ripple coursed through the surface of the earth, followed by a parching, taupe plume and a pelting terra cotta rain. The vibrations in Cutter’s body plummeted to the lower hum of his shotgun. He didn’t flinch at the explosion, still locked into the fight.
“The Suanoa are all dead! You’re free!” Sand sprayed up around him and the Linoan as they scuffled. Why are these things still on our planet?
With lightning speed, it whirled over Cutter’s shoulder, drawing him into a headlock, shouting some indecipherable sounds.
Cutter inhaled sharply as the pair of fist-blades dug into his neck. Strength was no match for agility when fighting with Linoa
ns. He’d made a fatal error. He shouted through the murky air, knowing he could no longer protect his assignment, “Tanner, retreat!”
The Linoan backpedaled, dragging him along the dune road.
Cutter’s shotgun strap caught on his wrist. He tugged on the Linoan’s arm, attempting to free himself from the sting and throb of the metal filleting his skin and straining his fingers toward the muzzle.
Coughing, Tanner stumbled to his feet in the haze, picked up his e-rifle and, ignoring Cutter’s request, charged after them.
“Guard’s order, Sergeant!” Cutter yelled so loud his voice graveled.
Ramming the butt to his shoulder, Tanner lifted the barrel and marched after them, bright eyes narrowed on the Linoan. It was Cutter’s first glimpse of defiance in the young man. And it was malicious, fearless, deadly.
Sand drained from Tanner’s clothes and clung to his lips, lips that curled back in a savage growl. “Let him go!”
Chapter 11
BENNETT’S NERVES WERE ON FIRE. The susurrus of their bare toes in the sand was silent beneath the exhausted whooshing of blood in his ears. Atana plucked up a small, jagged fragment of the collector as they ran.
At least she was with him—carrying a hunk of metal. Great.
Worked with less, she muttered. We’ll be fine.
They wove among the huts, adobe structures, and partially buried concrete buildings. The Three Hundred Year War had rendered massive climate change. The winds had reversed directions, sweeping sand and dust over the towns, filling the bottom stories.
Bennett steadied the SI in his hands, flashing back to waking up naked in the scorched fields. Weapons or clothing?
That would break rule six. Atana blinked an eye at him between structures.
Oh but a wink, Sergeant Atana. I think I will have to report you. He snorted a quiet laugh and checked a room through an open door.
We were exposed up there, in front of everyone. Atana peered around the corner of a building. It was rather embarrassing, wouldn’t you agree?
Nope. He tried to keep a straight face as they kept moving. Azure clearly had no insecurity about dropping his cover.
When Atana rotated to scoff at him, he coyly lifted his brows. What?
Sort of cocky for a shepherd. Proud of yourself?
It was a joke. I was mortified. Thanks for the shield.
She assessed the whirls of Linoan tracks darting in every direction. They’re all over the place like they didn’t know what to do.
Yeah. He neared her side, eyes following the path she’d locked onto. You, uh—see anything before it went up?
Atana was quiet for a long moment. No.
You hesitated.
A scream shattered the air up the road.
They bolted through the street to where the chickens squawked and flapped in their crates. Two teenage boys lay piled up outside an adobe market stand. Atana scanned while Bennett stepped in to survey the vendor atrium.
A woman wrapped in thick, ivory cloth trembled underneath a cart. She pointed up the alley.
“Bennett!” Atana planted foot in sand, launching herself down the street. He spun and charged after her, catching up as she neared a building corner.
Ushering her behind him, Bennett lifted the primed SI. Its wad igniter glowing, he moved to glance around the edge. A heel with a pair of arced blades strapped to it swung out of the shadows at his chest.
Atana thrust her arms at the leg without pause. The world slowed as Bennett watched the heel press into his rag clothes. He reared back into the warm, adobe wall behind him.
Atana’s fingers dug in. She bared her teeth and twisted. With a rain of sharp cracks, the Linoan’s thin bones splintered.
It howled and swung a fist at her, time speeding forward again. Bennett deflected before she could move. The crisp blades burrowed in the wall beside her head, spraying clay dust into the air. Bennett released a punch of his own into its side and slung the Linoan back into the soft Earth.
Atana launched forward, straddled its narrow torso and, in a single thrust, buried the metal shard deep into its throat. Blood coursed out when she freed her improvised knife, lungs heaving.
A second Linoan bounded in their direction on all fours, a sneer warping its mouth. Bennett grabbed her, tugging her up. Shielding Atana with his body, Bennett raised his SI, blue-green knots of fire shredding skin and bone, knocking the Linoan into a bloodied pile against the wall.
“You okay?” he asked.
She straightened, her eyes circling the golden dust around them. “What was that?”
He shrugged. No idea. “Sand.”
A faint shout came from the next street over. “Let him go!”
The two stumbled over one another as they booked it between the buildings to where Tanner and Cutter were sweeping. They slammed on the brakes, discovering Cutter in a head-lock in the middle of the road.
Bennett had yet to see a Linoan take a prisoner. Beside him, Atana gasped quietly, sounding equally surprised.
It pressed a bladed-fist firmer against Cutter’s arched back, carmine fluid draining from three holes in its shoulder. The black chrome of its body suit was shriveled and peeling around each.
Cutter snatched up his shotgun, repeatedly slamming the butt into the Linoan’s face. The creature didn’t flinch.
“Let him go!” Tanner shouted again, his e-rifle trained on the Linoan as it backed away, placing Cutter between them. The shepherd’s blond hair was a mess, his harness askew.
The Linoan made a sound, tightening its grasp on Cutter, now bound up too tight for a clean shot.
“I don’t know what you’re saying! Let him go!” Tanner roared, face red, slender body primed, still advancing.
Bennett didn’t know where the understanding came from, and he blurted without thought, “Tell him to stop probing my head.”
Atana glanced at Bennett out of the corner of her eye. You speak Linoan now?
He lifted his SI at the Linoan, praying for an opening. I have no idea what the hell is going on anymore.
A grinding of metal blades whistled through the air, punching a chunk of the building out over Tanner’s head. He tucked forward, the clay assaulting his back from above. “Shit!”
“Tanner!” With renewed fortitude, Cutter struggled to free himself, straining to glimpse his fallen partner. “Get off of me!” He rammed an elbow at the Linoan’s side, then arched in pain.
Bennett shoved Atana behind the protection of a building. Ideas? He peered out, scanning for the shooter.
She eyed the sliver of an alley the Linoan backed toward. “It’ll run the instant it’s in the clear.”
Bennett looked, and a cold feeling of helpless dread ripped through his veins, slowing the world around him. His team had been at risk before but never from combatants as unpredictable as aliens.
Cutter had just lost his entire home base. He was the team’s rock, the one that kept them calm and on-point. Watching the man struggle was intolerable, not just for Bennett, but the new energy swirling within him. “We can’t let him die,” he said, scouring the broken buildings for options.
“If Cutter doesn’t move—”
Bennett whipped his head back at her. Atana’s eyes swayed with the Linoan’s long strides. She fingered the soaked metal in her hand.
Bennett’s attention drifted to Cutter who closed his eyes.
Please—
He wasn’t talking to Bennett or her. The tone was too fuzzy.
Cutter was praying.
“Do it.”
She reared back and, taking a long step forward, slung the bloody metal at the Linoan. Air rushed through her teeth from the force. The wedge curved through the air, fury in its spin, and burrowed into the side of the Linoan’s spotted head. Released, Cutter fell like a sack of potatoes to the ground, a hand flying up to the lacerations on his neck. Without delay, he clambered toward the pile covering Tanner’s body frantically freeing clay and metal. “Remmi!”
The Lino
an staggered, tripped, and landed on the impalement, falling limp.
Rubble shifted with a groan from Tanner.
At the sound of another whistle, Cutter thrust himself on top of his co-shepherd, blood seeping through the fingers over his neck. Bennett tackled Atana into the sand, a set of rotating blades nipping at the back of his shirt. Her aquamarine shield wrapped around them, pushing out toward Tanner and Cutter.
A third metal device whistled, followed by a fourth.
Cutter grunted, his leg knocked back by a ball of sharp rings before her shield could encompass them. “Bennett, I can’t see him!”
“Second building, south side,” Atana whispered from beneath. “When you’re ready, I’ll drop the barrier. Better make it good. I’m not sure I have the energy to form another one. Not this big.”
Bennett tightened the arm around her back, half-buried in the sand, steadying himself. He knew she felt compression waves with a sensitivity most others could not. He had to trust her. If he took too long, the combatant would run—or worse, attack again.
Extending the SI, he searched the direction she’d mentioned and pinpointed the faint shadow of a face repeating up and down movements. They’re reloading.
When the individual neared a window, Bennett gave the command. Her bubble popped, and he sent two flaming shots tearing through the cutout in the adobe wall. A gaunt human with long, bony limbs careened through the doorway, folding up in the sand.
“Thank you, sir.” Cutter helped his partner from the debris. Still holding his neck, he pulled the med kit out of his pocket, sat, and drew out two coagulant-infused bandages while Tanner coughed and collected himself. Slapping one to the slices dangerously close to his carotid artery, Cutter taped off his patch.
“Tanner, you okay?” Bennett shouted across the road.
“Wind knocked out is all.” Tanner wheezed and took the next bandage from his co-shepherd. “Did you get the other two?” he croaked out.
“Yes.” Bennett propped himself up to inspect Atana, hot sand raining down from his body onto hers. “How are you? Anything broken?” He tracked over every inch of her rag dress and skin in case she tried to lie to him again.