by James Walker
“Not sure I like the look of that town,” Tinubu said. “Though at least I don't see any signs of battle damage or Theran occupation.”
“Still, population centers are inherently dangerous in times of chaos,” Vic said. “Looting, civil unrest, and all that. Think we should try to skirt around it?”
Tinubu took a look around and sighed. “I don't know. What do you think, Cena?”
Cena scratched at the side of her head. “We stumbled into a right mess. Our path north is cut off by that lake, and to the south, the trees are so thick we'd need an exosuit with buzz saws for hands to cut our way through. I think we'd have to backtrack all the way out of the valley to avoid the town. That'd lose us two, maybe three days.”
“It might be worth it to avoid going through town,” Vic said.
“I don't think so,” Cena replied. “We're running low on food again, and my snares ain't been catching squat in this area. Plus, this kind of marshy land is crawling with diseases and poisonous critters. I'd rather not spend any more time in this mess than I have to.”
“Let's just follow the road through town,” Hector interjected. “It's gonna be dangerous either way, and the road's a hell of a lot faster.”
“I'll put in a vote for the town,” Janice spoke up. “After so many days crawling through dirt and muck, I welcome any contact with civilization.”
“I'm inclined to agree,” Tinubu said. “All right, the road it is. As an added bonus, we might be able to scavenge some supplies from the town.”
As they started down the hill toward the road, Janice overheard Vic mutter “Mistake,” but he kept his objections to himself. She hoped he was wrong.
*
After a few minutes, they found the pockmarked road they had seen from the hill and followed it deeper into the valley. Eventually, they passed a broken holographic projector, the base of which proclaimed, “Welcome to Morganna.” Not far beyond, they came to the edge of the town.
Dilapidated hovels and rusty storage silos lined the street on either side. A stray dog rooted through a pile of trash while a pack of raggedy children played in the middle of the road. The air carried the stink of several odors mixed together: old garbage, unwashed bodies, and industrial chemicals competing with the forest smells of wet leaves and earth. Beyond the edge of the slum, a cluster of taller buildings cut dark blades through the emerald haze.
While Janice and the others hesitated at the edge of the uninviting vision, the children ceased their play and the dog stopped rooting through the trash to bark at them. Several of the children took a few tentative steps toward the interlopers, staring at them through hungry eyes. As the rest of the children fell in behind, those in the lead came on more quickly, extending skeletal arms toward the rebels.
“Hey,” the nearest one pleaded, “you got any money?”
“No,” Tinubu snapped, his eyes sweeping the oncoming pack. “Get lost.”
“What's in your backpacks?” another child asked.
Tinubu snarled, “Nothing. Now scram.”
The pack of mendicants continued their advance until Hector drew his knife and came forward, swinging his weapon in wide arcs. The children screamed and scattered, vanishing into the alleys.
Cena wheeled on her companions. “What the hell is wrong with you two?” she exclaimed. “How heartless can you be?”
Hector laughed at her as he put his knife away. “Boy, got a real bleeding heart here, don't we?”
Tinubu walked to where the children had gathered and knelt to grab something off the ground. He came back and held out his find for the others to see. It was a switchblade, its edges rough and stained from frequent use. Cena stared at the blade through wide eyes.
“Is that an icon of Mohku Shiga on the handle?” Hector observed. “My old boss used to offer sacrifices to that thing when he was strung out on ether shroud. Looks like the little darlings are demon worshipers.”
Tinubu hurled the knife across the street, embedding its blade in a crumbling wall. “Charity is a virtue,” he said, “but getting killed doesn't help anyone.”
Cena's face burned with embarrassment, but she said nothing.
Everyone in the group kept their hands near their knives as they traveled through the slums, conscious of the empty stares following them from dark alleyways. They got off the main thoroughfare at the first opportunity in the hope that they would be less conspicuous traveling through the back streets.
“How are you feeling about this route now?” Vic whispered. “It's still not too late to turn back.”
“Don't be such a pussy,” Hector replied. “It's just a little walk through the slums.”
“Hold it,” Cena hissed. “Everyone, get back. Hide.”
They pulled back and hid around the corner of a nearby alleyway. A moment later, they heard voices approaching and saw three shabbily dressed youths saunter into view. Two of them had semi-automatic handguns tucked into their waistbands and the one in front was carrying a battle rifle. They walked to the closest intersection and turned to the right, disappearing from view.
“Gangsters,” Hector said. “Notice how they were all wearing the same colors?”
“A little walk through the slums, huh?” Vic said. “I knew this place was dangerous. It's a hive for criminals.”
“Now that I think about it, I saw some graffiti a couple blocks back that probably marked the edge of this gang's territory,” Hector said. “All we have to do is backtrack 'til we're out of their turf, then skirt the boundaries and we're golden.”
“And what if the entire town is controlled by rival gangs?” Vic demanded.
“Then we sneak through,” Hector replied. “I'd still rather spend one day in gang territory than a week out in that fever swamp.”
“If we had guns, I might agree,” Vic said. “But as you may have noticed, there's a bit of a firepower disparity here.”
A brief silence fell over the group. Tinubu broke the standoff by interjecting, “Look, Vic. I understand where you're coming from, but there's going to be danger no matter where we go. It's better to push through and get to the other side of this valley than lose several days taking the long way around. We could spend weeks lost in that mess before we got back on track.”
Vic frowned as he considered this. “Well, I guess,” he conceded. “Then let's hurry up and get this over with.”
They filed out of the alley and backtracked until they found the graffiti Hector had mentioned, then skirted around that neighborhood, taking the long path to the south end of the town. Along the way, they passed a few dumpsters and managed to scavenge enough discarded food to provide a few meals. Even now, Janice was disgusted by eating food taken out of a dumpster, but the hunger pangs in her stomach didn't leave much room for debate.
Hector guided them about halfway through the town, identifying gang symbols and steering them away from the neighborhoods of heaviest activity, when the sun set and submerged the dilapidated town in a sea of darkness. After a brief discussion, they agreed that they needed rest and decided to seek shelter rather than press on.
An adequate candidate soon presented itself in the form of an abandoned warehouse that showed no signs of recent habitation. They entered the warehouse, laid out their blankets, and munched on the scraps of food they had scavenged. At Tinubu's orders, they created no light, chewing on their unappetizing meals in darkness. While the others ate, Hector took first shift keeping watch on the entrance.
“So,” Janice said softly, her voice reverberating off unseen walls, “we've traveled pretty far together. The life of a star is public property, so you guys pretty much know everything there is to know about me. But I hardly know anything about all of you. Why were you all locked up in that prison? You said that you're with SLIC?”
There was a pause before anyone replied. It was Tinubu who finally answered, his deep voice sounding like silk emanating from the darkness.
“We were with SLIC,” he corrected. “Fighting with the rebellion to
drive the Union off our world. Through a long series of miracles, we succeeded against all odds. But then somehow everything started to go wrong.”
“Demir,” Janice guessed.
“That's right. He took control of SLIC and reforged it into the Concord, with all his policies taken straight out of the Union's most despotic playbook. He had something of a pathological hatred for anyone with ties to Thera, and he started a purge of his own troops as soon as he took power. His victims became sacrifices whose blood he used to pave the way for his own ascension to absolute power. The three of us got caught up in the mess, along with some of our other friends.”
“And that's how you came to be in that prison?”
Through the darkness, Janice could barely discern Tinubu shaking his head. “No, that's all ancient history. A sympathetic officer sprung us out of prison and helped us go into hiding. We were all pretty fed up with having spilled so much blood only to have helped raise up a new regime even worse than the Union. I think most of us intended to live out the rest of our lives in peaceful obscurity, never again dirtying our hands with the blood of insurrection.”
Janice could hear the pain of their futile trials in Tinubu's voice. “So what happened?” she asked.
This time it was Vic who answered. “Pierson.”
“Pierson?”
“He was the only one,” Vic said. “The only one who wasn't content with our quiet exile. He was desperate to learn more about the Xenowave. He was sure that harnessing its powers was the key to breaking humanity's unending cycle of wars and suffering. Have you heard of the Xenowave?”
“A little bit,” Janice said, straining her memory. “I think I saw a news report once. Something about messages hidden in the radiation emanated by Saris. The Theran Union had a big research program to study those messages, but they covered it up, or something.”
“That's right,” Vic said. “The messages are real. There's someone else in our group who can hear them, but they're hard to decipher. We devoted most of our spare time to trying to establish meaningful communication with the Xenowave, but...”
“We didn't make much progress,” Cena finished for him.
“We failed,” Vic said flatly. “We couldn't figure out how to talk to it. It was driving Pierson crazy. That's when we heard reports, through one of our old SLIC contacts, of the Xenolists.”
Janice adjusted herself into a more comfortable sitting posture. “I've heard of them too,” she said. “Some kind of new religious movement or something, aren't they?”
“All we knew at first is that they were a newly founded organization dedicated to studying the Xenowave,” Vic said. “We heard rumors that they had unearthed new information about it. Pierson volunteered to leave the residential station where we were hiding and go back to Chalice, to infiltrate the Xenolists and find out more about them.”
“What happened to him?”
Tinubu took up the story again. “His reports were benign at first. But as he got deeper into the Xenolists' ranks, the tone of his reports grew more alarmed. He said they weren't really a research organization, but some kind of cult that worships the Xenowave as a god and plans to harness its power to convert the masses. His last report said that the Xenolists were preparing an assault on an old P.S.A. data facility, and he was planning to get the hell out while the getting was good. Then he went silent.”
Even hearing the story second hand, something in the tale made Janice's blood run cold. “Did they kill him?”
“We don't know,” Vic answered. “We returned to Chalice, got in contact with our old comrades from SLIC, and planned an operation to infiltrate the data facility. We wanted to see if we could find clues to the Xenolists' intentions, and Pierson's fate.”
“Were you able to find out anything?”
“Just a few pieces of a much larger puzzle,” Vic said. “It was one of the most horrifying nights of my life. But if you really want to know, I'll tell you what happened.”
Sixth Escalation
between eternity
“I'd hoped I would never have to descend into hell again.”
Vic knew these were hardly appropriate words to utter on the verge of a drop, but his quiet lament was inaudible over the noise of the VTOL's engines anyway. It had been so long since he had worn military equipment. The armored vest, helmet, and webbing felt awkward on his small frame. At least his weapons—battle rifle and backup handgun—and tactical gear didn't feel as heavy as he remembered them. Small frame or not, years of being forced to join Cena on her grueling workouts had done wonders for his strength and endurance.
“What's the matter, Vic? Weren't you getting bored building a space resort for a bunch of Theran playboys?”
The provincially accented reply came from Cena, who had discerned Vic's lack of enthusiasm from his slumped bearing. She had grown her brown hair out longer since the war, tying it back in a low hanging ponytail; but her freckled face and sinewy, hourglass build remained the same as ever. She wore the black combat uniform that Colonel Lane had provided them like she had been born in it, sporting a large bore, pump action shotgun and her personal monster sized revolver in preference to the standard issue weapons. She returned Vic's stare with a lopsided grin.
“We aren't all war junkies like you, Cena,” a deep, smooth voice answered her. “Some of us prefer a little peace and quiet.”
Tinubu gave Cena a sarcastic smile. Even on the verge of their first combat drop in years, he exuded a calming aura of serenity. Like Vic, he had accepted the standard issue battle rifle and semi-automatic handgun.
Vic turned his gaze away from his comrades and stared out the hatch of the VTOL. Sheets of rain poured from the sky, limiting visibility and drenching the craft's occupants. Save for occasional flashes of lightning, Vic could barely distinguish between the jagged black plane of the ground and the curtain of storm clouds obscuring the sky. Normally they would have waited for better weather before performing a drop, but this was a time-critical mission. They couldn't afford to delay launch for clearer skies.
Vic toyed nervously with his rifle. Everything about this mission filled him with dread. He would have given anything to be back on DEEN Station, working with Astral and Esther to study the Xenowave, even if their research was fruitless. It was only his loyalty to Pierson that saw him back on Chalice, about to venture forth into danger once again.
“The facility is in sight,” the pilot called from the cockpit. “No signs of activity. The place looks deserted. I'll bring her in for a landing. Brace yourselves.”
Vic looked out the hatch. Through the deluge, he could barely discern a complex of large buildings at the bottom of a valley, surrounded by open fields. The VTOL circled the facility until the pilot spotted a landing pad on top of the central building. Buffeted by winds, the pilot managed to guide the VTOL onto the pad with a thud.
“We'll guard your ride out of here,” said one of the other rebel soldiers inside the VTOL. “You guys check out the facility. Be careful in there.”
Vic, Cena, and Tinubu debarked onto the roof of the facility. The instant Vic was clear of the VTOL, a torrent of rain and a gust of wind blasted him in the face, chilling him to the bone. He squinted against the frigid downpour and held his weapon at the ready, joining the others in spreading out to search the roof for entrances.
They soon located a door. Cena tried the knob, found it locked, and pulled out a small wad of explosive. After she set the explosive, all three of them stood back while it detonated, destroying the lock with a flash and a muffled boom. On the other side of the door, they found a stairwell leading down into an abyss of darkness. They activated their helmet lights and shone them down the shaft, illuminating a flight of winding stairs.
“Northwood, you take point,” Tinubu ordered. “I've got our backs. Remember to watch your spacing.”
They proceeded cautiously down the stairs, with Cena taking the lead. Vic was grateful to be out of the wind and rain, but the new surroundings were hardly more
inviting. Their headlamps cut small islands of light out of an ocean of darkness while their footfalls echoed through the unnatural silence. Soon, they reached the bottom of the stairwell and pushed through an unlocked door into a long, deserted hallway. In contrast to the pitch black of the stairwell, the hallway was illuminated by dim red emergency lights. Vic and the others turned off their headlamps.
“Looks like this place is running on emergency power,” Tinubu observed. “So it's not as deserted as it looked from the air. It got cut off from the grid.”
“Then the Xenolists got here before us,” Vic said.
“That's my guess,” Tinubu agreed. “Stay alert. There's no telling what the hell is in here now.”
They proceeded down the corridor. Like many major facilities of the defunct Peace and Security Agency, this complex had no windows, creating the impression of being trapped in an underground labyrinth. They passed numerous offices, the interiors covered with dust and their terminals powered down. Cena entered one of the offices and pressed the power switch on the terminal inside. There was no response.
“Looks like this wing hasn't been used in a long time,” she said.
“But it has power,” Tinubu said. “Maybe the Concord reclaimed the facility, but they don't have enough manpower to staff the entire complex.”
“And then the Xenolists took this place out?” Vic wondered.
“I didn't see any signs of damage from the air, though,” Tinubu said. “We need to find a working terminal so we can figure out what happened here.”
They left the office and continued down the corridor. After turning left at a T junction, they stumbled upon a scene of carnage: walls and floor riddled with bullet holes, spent cartridges littering the ground, and an enormous blood splatter on the floor. A trail of blood led away from the splatter and around a bend in the corridor.
“This looks pretty fresh,” Cena noted.
