Guardians of Eden

by Matt Roberts

  Before retreating Owyn gave it one last shot. “This isn’t the only way, Shaw. We can get you out.”

  Shaw coughed weakly. Specks of blood sprayed over his hand and the taste of iron filled his mouth – he wasn’t in good shape. He looked over at Miller who by now was probably long gone. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Take us both out in one blow and the debt’s paid.”

  “You haven’t got any debt to pay. It was Miller. Only him.”

  “The only way he goes is if I go too. Good luck, Carter.” Shaw then took his comms device from his ear and tossed it down into the depths of the crumbling tower.

  “Shaw!” Owyn screamed in one last, desperate effort, but he was too late.

  Shaw lit the fuse and the top of the tower burst into flames, flinging rubble into the air and sending Owyn flying backwards. As he hit the grass his ears were ringing. His head was spinning. He was in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. O’Brien was just as unwilling to believe it. She and Anderson were headed for the edge of the estate with their backs to the explosion. When she turned around she saw Owyn alone on the grass and Shaw nowhere to be seen as smoke filled the air above.

  While they were all frozen with shock, the air began to rumble. O’Brien looked up above the roof of the mansion to see a fleet of heavily armed aircraft headed their way. “Shit. Sully, I need evac now.”

  “On my way,” Sully responded.

  O’Brien now turned her attention to Anderson. “Get to the edge. I’ll get Carter.”

  While Anderson continued onwards O’Brien turned back yet again. “Move it, Carter,” she called. Owyn was still just as dazed and disorientated, but much to O’Brien’s relief he began to pick himself up.

  The two came together and O’Brien pulled his arm over her shoulder and dragged him into another sprint. DPD soldiers were now flooding out of the tower and taking up offensive positions. They had to get away quickly.

  They ran as fast as they could, leaping over hedges and ducking into the shrubbery at every opportunity. Soon there was gunfire raining down on them. The rumbling was getting louder with every passing second. As they approached the ledge O’Brien glanced down. Through her visor’s display she could pick out Sully’s cruiser moving alongside the building. Owyn and Anderson hadn’t a clue what was about to happen but O’Brien didn’t have time to explain. She grabbed a firmer hold of Owyn to ensure he couldn’t stop, and thrust her other arm into Anderson’s back, sending all three of them sailing over the edge and into freefall.

  To Owyn everything was a blur. One second he was running on solid ground, the next he could feel wind rushing past his face while his feet flailed behind him. Then, in an instant, his daze was gone. He smacked against the top of the cruiser, restoring his senses. Skidding face down across it he clawed at the roof for something to grab onto. His legs dropped into empty air behind him. Driven by desperation he frantically reached for his knife, ripped it from its sheath and, squeezing his hand so tightly around the handle that it stung, he plunged it down into the metal roof. As the rest of his body slipped over the edge he dangled, thankfully, by one arm. The blade had stuck.

  Beside him O’Brien was stretched out across the roof clinging desperately to Anderson’s wrist as he too dangled helplessly. The cruiser was still moving a ferocious speed, increasing the force weighing upon him. O’Brien herself was stuck fast but her grip wasn’t going to last much longer.

  Owyn couldn’t do much from where he was; Anderson was too far across for him to reach. He’d have to pull himself up somehow. First he tried it the old fashioned way. He clasped both hands around the handle of his knife and pulled. His muscles burned hotter and hotter but he couldn’t budge his own weight. The wind pushing him back was too much to overcome. He’d have to improvise if he was going to manage it and he didn’t have time to think about it. As he’d said to himself already, he was going to have to come close to death more than once if he was going to get through this.

  He lifted his feet up and pressed them into the side of the cruiser. With his free hand he did the same. He took a deep breath. “Let’s do this,” he said to himself, then released his grip on the knife and pushed himself off.

  Once again he fired his thrusters, lifting him up and over. With a thud he hit the top of the cruiser but this time he didn’t slide. Using the friction between his gloves and the surface to move himself he scrambled forwards to join O’Brien then reached down and took a firm hold of Anderson’s other arm.

  “On my mark, pull,” Owyn instructed Anderson. He had to scream at the top of his lungs to be heard over the winds whipping around them and the engines buzzing below them. Anderson nodded as best he could. Owyn and O’Brien faced one another and counted down together. “3…2…1…Now!”

  Together they succeeded in hauling Anderson up to safety and after a huge sigh of relief he lay down flat on his face.

  Sully wasn’t about to allow them respite just yet, however. “You three need to get inside now. We need to disappear now or those ships are going to blow us out of the sky.”

  “Give me an access point,” O’Brien ordered in return.

  “Already on it.”

  “Let’s move,” O’Brien said, thumping Anderson on the shoulder to get him up.

  Following her lead, they crawled across to the back of the ship where O’Brien cracked open the access hatch and they were able to drop inside. She then sealed the hatch behind them while Anderson and Owyn both collapsed in exhaustion. After giving herself a moment to clear her head O’Brien turned to see Owyn slumped down in the corner staring emptily at the ceiling. He was gone completely; his mind absent.

  She should have picked him up straight away; there was no such thing as a good time to be carrying dead weight in the team but this was possibly the worst – they needed everyone at their best. Instead, however, she strode out of the room and closed the door behind her. She couldn’t explain what had just happened and she wasn’t about to try to. They’d done what they could and she was going to leave it at that. Everything around them was collapsing at once – now even their own team had been ripped apart. She’d been through it all before but perhaps, as Miller said, Owyn hadn’t. If that was the case she needed to give him a little time or he wouldn’t be any use to them at all. It wasn’t her place to fight his demons for him. After all, she had enough of her own.

  She made her way to the cockpit to check up on their status. “Are we clear?” she asked Sully.

  “We’re clear,” he confirmed. “I’m going to leave a little time for things to calm down until I leave the city then we’ll head back to HQ.”

  “Copy that. Nice work.”

  “What the hell happened up there?”

  “I don’t know, but Shaw and Miller are gone.”

  Sully took a moment to process that information, looking down at his trembling hands and gulping. “How’s Owyn?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet. The whole thing hit him harder than I expected but I think he’ll pull through. I’m sure he’s dealt with this kind of thing before.”

  “Do you think he was right – that the DPD are going to hunt us down?”

  O’Brien nodded. “They will, but we’ll put up a fight. It’s what we’re good at.”

  CHAPTER 11

  HOMECOMING

  Sully pulled into the airlock and powered down the cruiser’s thrusters. As soon as the bay was pressurised and they’d moved out into the hanger Anderson picked himself up and headed for the door. Owyn was still slumped in the corner showing no signs of movement. He had his eyes closed and, judging from Anderson’s eagerness to escape, could have been asleep or dead for all he cared.

  The Sergeant stood waiting for a few seconds, but the door didn’t open. His foot began tapping against the floor more and more furiously as his patience quickly diminished. He eyed the manual release lever on the ceiling above his head, but before he could reach up to grab it he heard the cabin door open and O’Brien walk in. She didn’t say anything at f
irst but her presence was enough to reveal the situation to Anderson. The door wasn’t jammed; it was locked.

  “You can’t just walk out there like nothing’s happened. First we need to make sure you understand our situation,” O’Brien explained.

  Anderson slowly turned around to face her, chuckling dryly to himself. “Wow, O’Brien. I mean it’s real bold of you to stand up like that, but I don’t remember you being in charge here. Doesn’t look like officer boy over there’s going to back you up either.” He glanced towards Owyn who remained unmoved.

  At 34 Anderson had more years of service and experience than every ISO Operative bar Ambrose and Miller. He’d always resented the younger members of the other squads – especially Alpha Squad – for holding more prominent positions and ranks than him just because they’d displayed a little more skill during initial ISO training, or worse – just because they’d come from XION rather than the army. Now, with both Ambrose and Miller gone, he wasn’t going to submit to the command of his less experienced colleagues without a fight – whatever their ranks.

  “Who is in charge then; you?” She responded. “Our Commanding Officer is KIA and I hold a superior rank to you. As I see it that means you answer to me, regardless of who’s in charge.”

  “Well alright then, ma’am.” He held his hands up in a mocking gesture then stepped forward to face up to her. He had size, age and experience on his side so, of course, he wasn’t going to be intimidated by anything O’Brien said. “Go ahead and explain the situation to me, because all I got so far is that your squad’s mission went tits up and now you’re holding me from checking on my team because you want to cover your own asses.”

  Unfortunately for Anderson, O’Brien wasn’t the type to be intimidated either; she’d dealt with far worse than him. “You really think that? Are you that far up your own ass? It isn’t that simple, Anderson.”

  “I was forced to leave two of your men to die because one threatened to blow his own brains out if I didn’t, and I’m the one who’s up my own ass?”

  “Miller set us up. He—”

  Anderson cut her off before she could reinforce her argument. “Well isn’t that a grand accusation? How convenient that the man isn’t here to defend himself.”

  “He set us up, Anderson,” she asserted, adopting her most authoritative tone. “Not just us but you and everyone else on this station.” Anderson tried to jump in again but she blocked him out. “Who did you think you were fighting back there? You really think the DPD would allow an armed force of that size with those sorts or resources to exist, let alone launch a full scale assault in the middle of Kyvos? Everything in the capital is under constant tight security; there’s no chance something like that would have slipped through the net. They’d have been shut down immediately and we’d have been able to slip away without a problem. Think, Myles.”

  “So now you’re suggesting those were DPD soldiers attacking us? Well this just gets better and better doesn’t it?” He continued to knock down everything she said without taking any time to consider a word of it.

  “No – I’m telling you they were. Rodriguez was a DPD scientist. His estate was under surveillance from Colonel Bauer. As soon as we took him captive we went rogue and Bauer was forced to bring hell down on us.”

  As her claims gathered more and more substance she saw the look in Anderson’s eyes change ever so slightly. He was finally willing to listen at least.

  “Ambrose and Miller have been playing us for months,” O’Brien continued. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been sent to attack a DPD target – honestly we have no idea how many times we have – but this was the killing blow. Whatever objective they were working towards is complete, and now that we’ve been exposed the DPD will go to any lengths to eliminate us. Ambrose can disappear while we take the fall.”

  Anderson stood silently, staring down on O’Brien and chewing his lip. He wasn’t completely buying it yet but he was nearly there.

  Owyn, who had been quietly paying attention to the whole encounter from the corner, finally rose to his feet and spoke up. “We have enough evidence to back all this up if you’re willing to hear it,” he said.

  Anderson looked back at him, still a little unsure.

  “I wouldn’t want it to sound like a threat, but you’re going to have to. I can’t let you leave this ship until I’m confident we’re all on the same page,” Owyn warned.

  Anderson didn’t reveal anything with his expression but didn’t object. “Alright, let’s hear it then.”

  Owyn and O’Brien brought Anderson through to the cruiser’s Operations where Sully was waiting.

  “Sully, can you show us my visor footage from Installation 3?” Owyn requested. He smiled as convincingly as he could as Sully looked up at him. Sully’s spirits were down – they’d been hit particularly hard this time – but Owyn had full confidence he could pull through and do everything they asked of him.

  Doing his best to smile back Sully walked over to the console at the side of the room and loaded up the footage. Standard procedure was to wipe all visor footage immediately after mission completion unless instructed otherwise. Still, Owyn had no doubts that Sully had ignored standard procedure in this case.

  Through Owyn’s eyes they watched his descent into the facility and emergence into the control room as Owyn himself took frequent glances to gauge Anderson’s reaction.

  “Our last mission with Lieutenant Ambrose was an attack on a supposed rebel base on the outskirts of the Tajari desert,” Owyn explained. “While Shaw and O’Brien operated above ground, Ambrose and I were to enter the underground weapons facility where we would locate and destroy a weapon the rebels had developed there. After we located the entrance Ambrose was left behind, presumably by his own intention, meaning I was forced to enter the facility alone.”

  As the recording showed the huge, spherical chamber illuminate before Owyn’s eyes he glanced over to see Anderson’s curiosity growing in his expression.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Owyn said. “Especially impressive that civilians would have access to the resources and manpower to construct a facility of this magnitude over the course of one or two years.”

  Anderson remained silent as the video footage advanced to the point where Owyn entered the final laboratory within the inner sphere. The audio recording involving Rodriguez played back in full.

  “Rodriguez,” O’Brien acknowledged, she too seeing all of this for the first time.

  “We don’t have a clue what work he was doing there, but we do know that Rodriguez was overseeing this facility.”

  The mysterious canister full of bubbling blue liquid appeared on screen and Owyn reached for Rodriguez’ pendant in a pouch on his belt.

  He held it out in front of Anderson. “This symbol represents what Rodriguez was working on – and what Ambrose is after,” he said. “Sully, can we see the explosion?”

  Sully skipped forward to the last few seconds of the recording. They watched the blue light rip through the ground, tearing everything apart. Then the shockwave hit, putting a sudden stop to the footage. Anderson remained completely still, keeping his reaction hidden behind an inquisitive stare.

  “According to Rodriguez it wasn’t a weapon, but that’s the effect it has when it’s used as one,” Owyn explained.

  For a few seconds they all stood in silence until Anderson took a deep breath and spoke. “Why do you need me to believe all this? If the DPD are after us then we’re as good as dead.” He looked Owyn straight in the eye. “You want me to keep this quiet don’t you? That’s the only reason you’d show me this.”

  Owyn nodded. “I do.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are, kid?” After a brief period of compliance Anderson quickly returned to anger. “What gives you the right? Everyone on this station deserves to know the situation.”

  “We can’t afford a panic. If they know what they’re up against we risk one. We could have people threatening to turn us in to survi
ve. We don’t know.”

  “You think their loyalty is that weak? You and your little club of Alpha assholes don’t know us. Especially you, Carter. You’re a privileged little twat who never had to suffer like the rest of us. You don’t know loyalty, and to be honest I’m surprised you didn’t follow Ambrose like a good pet and betray the lot of us with him. Now let me off this ship.”

  Owyn sighed. “Let him go,” he said. He wasn’t going to be offended by anything Anderson could say to him but he’d done all he could. Sully looked to him for confirmation before triggering the door release. Anderson gave Owyn a final rueful glare then charged out into the hangar.

  “That could have gone better,” Owyn said, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his forehead.

  “He was never going to play along all the way,” O’Brien reassured him. “At least that takes some of the weight off our shoulders.”

  “I guess we’ve got bigger problems to worry about than what Anderson thinks of us,” Owyn admitted with a dry smile.

  The DPD were practically certain to find them eventually, whether or not they knew the location of HQ yet. Even if they didn’t find it the station only held enough supplies to sustain the crew for a few weeks. An attack was hardly even necessary; simply cutting off supply lines would starve them out. It was a nightmare scenario. Most of Owyn’s being wanted to lie down and wait for the end. He didn’t think there was any hope, and even if there was he didn’t know if it was worth wasting energy on. But, in spite all of the doubts, he was more motivated to keep going than he’d been for a long, long time. If there was any chance of making it through this he had to take responsibility and lead – he had to do exactly what Ambrose had said he wasn’t capable of.

  “So what now?” O’Brien asked. She, of course, seemed completely unaltered by the whole ordeal and was perfectly prepared to just keep going as normal. Her will and determination to carry on was something Owyn could only envy. No situation appeared to faze her.