Wraithkin (The Kin Wars Saga Book 1)
Page 20
“Make sure you hit all the rooms you can, Beeker,” Gabriel told him as he and the rest of the squad followed through the door.
“On it.”
“This place is creepy,” Markus said as he looked around. “It’s like some sort of hospital but without patients.”
“Hospital?” Twist asked.
“It’s a place where you bring sick or injured,” Gabriel explained.
“Oh, a seik wyk.”
“A what?” Joshua asked.
“A, ah, sick ward.”
“I guess,” Gabriel allowed.
“You could go there to heal or die,” Twist explained. “If you couldn’t get better, they offered you a choice. Lots of Boers hate the thought of being an Imperfect but unable to–”
“But a lot of them are Imperfects!” Joshua interrupted.
“Yeah, but we are physically able, dom,” Twist sighed. “If a Boer can’t migrate, then what is the point of living? If a Boer cannot travel with the clan, then a Boer can choose whether to heal or to die. Most choose to die.”
“Why?” Gabriel asked, curious.
“Family is important to us,” Twist explained. “And if one Boer holds back the family, the entire family suffers. So, a Boer must put family first. Which means...a choice.”
“Harsh,” Markus grunted.
Sobre todo, la familia permanece, Gabriel recalled. His own family’s saying, emblazoned on their crest. Family remains. He understood the Boer’s position perfectly.
It amazed Gabriel, though, despite the differences between Belleza Sutil and Ibliss, there were even more similarities. He knew the fringe worlds relied more upon the family than the individual, due to the ruggedness of the settlement worlds. His own family, small when compared to other Sutillians, had once had over a dozen people living around it. Aunts and uncles, grandparents from both sides, all had lived in the area around Soldier’s Retreat. He recalled his father’s wistful tales of his own childhood, of how many aunts and uncles came to celebrate All Gallow’s Eve. Most had since moved on, either dying off or moving outwards to colony worlds, though his grandmother stubbornly clung to her small farm down the river from theirs. Gabriel smiled ruefully as the face of the Espinoza matriarch came to mind, berating him for not cutting her lawn before the spring rains made the ground too muddy.
“What about you, Markus?” Gabriel asked as he poked his head through a doorway. Seeing the room empty and bare, he withdrew and continued down the hall. “You never talk about your family. You guys close?”
“Eh,” Markus grunted. “Never knew them. Raised in the Holding Homes, then on the streets when I got older and ran with gangers until I got busted for...something and was given two choices: join the Wraiths or hang. I sometimes wonder if I chose correctly.”
“That sucks,” Gabriel commiserated.
“It’s life,” Markus replied. “I’ve dealt with it.”
“Omelet, I’m picking up some random chatter on frequencies,” Esau interrupted. Gabriel opened a private channel.
“Go.”
“Looks like ours, but a lot of babbling, like they’re scared or something,” Esau stated. “I’ve been keeping one ear to the sky, just in case, you know? These guys aren’t listening to my orders at all and are begging for someone to come get them.”
“They giving their location?” Gabriel asked, perturbed.
“Yeah, clear as day, too,” Esau said. Gabriel sighed.
“Must be their first drop, like us,” he mused. “You have the power to shut down their comms. Do it, and hack their suits. If they try to fight it, or run off, lock down their suits and we’ll pick them up when we get out of town.”
“They’re not in town, Omelet. They’re about ninety klicks out.”
“What the hell are they bitching about then? They’re perfectly safe.”
“I’ll warn ‘em again,” Esau said.
“Contact!” Beeker called out. “Behind me. Missed. Engaging.”
“Twist, catch up and help him out,” Gabriel ordered. “I really want to get out of this place. It gives me the creeps.”
“Gabe, they’re crying like babies now,” Esau informed him moments later. “They’re begging me to come and rescue them. Like children, but, y’know, with more swearing.”
“Holy hell. How did these guys make it through MITC?”
“Beats me. They weren’t with us, that’s for damn sure. Griffon would have eaten them alive.”
“Lock their suits down then. Jesus, as if my day wasn’t bad enough already.”
“Drones!” Beeker cried out. “Multiple drones! I got some soldiers down here! They’re like rats down here. Damn! I’m out of bangers!”
“Fuck my life,” Gabriel muttered. “Markus, go to Twist. Beeker, fall back. Twist, if they don’t know you’re there, don’t give away your position.”
“On it,” Markus grunted and ran ahead, the heavy footsteps of the lumbering suit echoing loudly through the halls. Far off, Gabriel heard a loud explosion, followed by fire from a Lynx.
“Like rats...” Gabriel recalled with a soft voice. An idea suddenly came to mind. He told Joshua his next set of orders before switching to the others. “Twist, Markus, fall back. Lead them to us. When you get here, activate your Chameleon programs. Joshua, prepare to engage.”
“You just sent me down this hall,” Markus complained as he stopped and returned. Moments later, Twist came running up the hall as fast as he could manage in the tight quarters. Beeker was right behind him, his cannon firing backwards. Gabriel and Joshua knelt down, activated the Chameleon program and waited.
Seconds later, a cluster of Abassi infantry, armed with their dreaded scythes, came pounding down the hall, their armor gleaming in the bright white light. The group was not as densely packed as Gabriel had hoped, but it was good enough for his purposes. The Abassi were followed by three Seeker drones, their engines buzzing slightly as they followed. The infantry were intent on catching their prizes, thereby missing the shimmering suits waiting for them. The drones, though, were equipped to see the suits, and let out shrill cries of alarm as their sensors detected them.
The Abassi slowed and tried to reverse course at the sound of the alarm, but it was too late as Gabriel and Joshua opened up. The Lynx rounds shredded the group, while Twist and Markus turned and engaged the drones, which were closing on the exposed Wraiths. Gabriel fired off the last of his bangers as Twist shot down two of the drones. The third, however, made it through the hail of fire and exploded less than ten feet from the Wraiths. The blast knocked Gabriel onto his back, the noise and the force of the explosion causing his head to swim slightly.
The hallway was eerily silent. Gabriel lifted his head and looked around, but all he could make out was rubble and bodies, none of which he recognized as human. The firing had stopped and another suit came into view. Gabriel recognized the suit as Twist’s.
The Boer offered him a hand and Gabriel gladly took it, pulling himself to his feet.
“Ouch,” Gabriel complained. “Stupid drones.”
“Hey, at least you only got knocked on your ass,” Twist said. He motioned to his left arm, where a small hole had punctured the heavy armor. “I got a piece of shrapnel stuck in there.”
“Does it hurt?” Joshua asked, his eyes wide as he moved to where the two men were standing.
“It did for a second, yeah,” Twist admitted. “Then the suit’s neuroblockers kicked in and now I don’t feel anything. I feel kind of good, actually.”
“These suits are a nice thing sometimes. Can you get it out?” Gabriel asked, not surprised the Boer was so calm about it.
“On the ship, yeah.”
“More incentive to getting back to the Eye after we complete our mission,” Gabriel stated.
“This building isn’t in our mission parameters,” Joshua reminded him. “We need to disable the remaining lasers so the Eye can do its job.”
“Right, right. One more hour then we’ll just blow this place up,” Gab
riel decided. “Esau, how’re the whiners doing?”
“I think one of them had a nervous breakdown when I locked their suits,” Esau replied. “Other than that, they’re fine. There’s four of them, by the way. All from different units though.”
“Hey, I found something,” Beeker reported suddenly. Gabriel brought up Beeker’s suit on the rough map he had been drawing. He frowned as he saw Beeker was not very close to their location. Sometime after the attack he had wandered off again. In fact, looking at the map, Gabriel was not sure where the Zulu was at.
“Go ahead,” Gabriel said.
“A laboratory of some sort,” Beeker told him. “Lots of large cylinders. It’s weird, too. Saw a alien but it bolted before I could shoot it. No idea where it went.”
“Be right there,” he told the Zulu. “Stay put for now. Esau, secure this location. Joshua, Markus, start clearing the other side of the facility. Twist, with me.”
“C’mon Joshua, follow the bouncing ball,” Markus said as he and the Avalonian moved across the hall and turned right. Gabriel watched them leave before following their suits on his ever-expanding map.
“Good choke point, Omelet,” Esau said as he hunkered down in a shadowed corner. “I got this.” Gabriel nodded.
“Stay loose,” he told his friend. “We might be coming back in a hurry.”
“So don’t shoot you guys. Got it.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Let’s go, Twist.”
The two Wraiths moved quickly through the facility, following the path Beeker took earlier. The hallways were brightly lit and the environment remained sterile, consistent with what Gabriel had seen of the Abassi facility so far. He still had no idea as to what the building was used for, however, and he was beginning to wonder when – not if – he was going to burn it to the ground.
They quickly made their way to the Zulu, using the map projected on Gabriel’s HUD as a guide. Twist followed close behind, occasionally turning and scanning their traveled path to ensure no Abassi were trying to sneak up on them. Gabriel was more focused to the front, and any potential threats they may encounter as they worked their way deeper into the strange building.
Presently they found Beeker hiding in the shadows near a large doorway. Gabriel noticed he had already broken in the doors but decided not to say anything. He had told the Zulu to explore, after all. He had not given specific instructions as to the “how” part of it.
“It’s weird, suluwandi,” Beeker said as he motioned them inside. “I can’t figure it out, and I don’t want to touch anything. There’s evil in this room. I feel it in my blood.”
Gabriel nodded and stepped past him, taking a few steps into the room before he began to look around.
The room was dimly lit, completely at odds with the rest of the facility, with strange devices hung along the walls. Large glass-like cylinders, bigger than the Wraith suits, were scattered between each of the devices. Gabriel realized the devices, all glowing green save for one near the end glowing red, were controlling the large tubes.
Curious, Gabriel approached the nearest cylinder. A dark mass was suspended inside it, though a viscous liquid that filled the cylinder distorted any recognizable shape. Gently he tapped the glass. Nothing. He frowned and tried to view the mass by varying light spectrums but again, he could see nothing special about it. He looked down the row of cylinders.
“Weird.”
Gabriel walked to the next cylinder. It, too, held a large mass inside, though smaller than the previous. It was blurry around the edges, as though his brain did not want to see it fully. He grunted in annoyance. The suits, while good at what they did, were not helping him determine what the cylinders were or held.
“What do you think they use these for?” Gabriel asked Beeker. The Zulu looked around and shrugged.
“They are aliens. Aliens do alien things,” Beeker replied. Gabriel nodded.
“Clear the next room,” he ordered and the Zulu left the room, leaving Gabriel alone once more. He walked past a dozen more cylinders before he came to the end, where the one whose panel glowed red stood. He paused as he looked at the mass, the largest he had seen yet. It was as tall as he was when out of his suit, but other than that he could make out very few details.
He could not figure it out. The Abassi were known for doing things that seemed absurd at the time, only to make sense later. They were definitely alien, but at times Gabriel thought they had a few human characteristics as well. One of them was curiosity. He shrugged. What the hell, he thought. He reached forward and tapped the glass.
The mass inside twitched.
“Jesus!” He shouted and jumped back, slamming into a table and knocking it over. It landed on the floor with a tremendous crash, spilling various unknown devices all over the floor. He keyed his comm. “Sorry, sorry. That was me. False alarm.”
“Stupid doos,” he heard a mutter over the link. He ignored Twist and slowly approached the cylinder once more. His feet crunched broken glass on the floor with each step he took. Carefully he leaned close to the cylinder. He pressed his head against the glass and looked inside.
Two pale green eyes were staring back at him.
“Madre de dios.”
The cylinder contained a live human.
Chapter Fifteen
“No belly button,” he muttered as he looked at the thing inside the cylinder. It wasn’t quite human; he could tell without inspecting too hard. But it was close enough it could pass for one, so long as it remained clothed. He felt mildly uncomfortable looking at it; something in the back of his psyche made the creature difficult to look at. “Eyes, nose, mouth. Hair.”
He looked at the cylinder to his right and saw a smaller shape inside, one not completely formed into a humanoid yet. It resembled an embryo, but there were things that were decidedly wrong. The eyes were too big, and open, and the mouth was filled with teeth already. There was something in the eyes that suggested to Gabriel the thing in the tank was aware.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Gabriel asked as he forced himself to stare back into the bright green eyes before him. He wondered if they could see back, if it recognized the suit on the other side of the glass. Was he an alien to the humanoid in the tank? Was he familiar to the creature?
“Doos, we got some company,” Twist interrupted his musings. “A squad of skinnies just showed up, all with scythes. This is going to get nasty, quick, if we don’t get out now.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Gabriel growled. He hurried back to the entry and looked out. He saw Twist and Beeker down the hall, their suits slowly backing away from an intersection. He could hear the sounds of the approaching aliens and shook his head. He activated his HEAVY rounds and turned back to the cylinders.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and opened fire.
The rounds shattered the cylinders, destroying them with ease as the high-explosive ammunition impacted. The bodies inside fell out, damaged beyond repair by his gunfire. He doused the room with his phosphorous spray, burning the remains as best as he could. The liquid from the tubes began to pop and sizzle as it came into contact with the phosphorous, which gave Gabriel an idea.
“Get ready to clear out of the building,” Gabriel told the others as he began to detach his HEAVY rounds from their magazine. He piled them into the corner and began moving a few of the empty cylinders around. “I’m blowing it up.”
“Omelet, we found a few survivors down here. We cleared the building of all the Abassi as well,” Beeker informed him. Gabriel grunted.
“Clear the building. It’s going up in five minutes.”
“Gabe, one of the survivors is demanding he speak with the Wraith commander,” Esau said. “Says it’s urgent.”
“One thing after another,” Gabriel muttered. “Remember when we were simply nut jobs designed to kill and break stuff?”
“The good old days,” Esau agreed. “Clearing all survivors and the squad out now. We’ll be clear in two minutes.”
&nbs
p; “Good,” Gabriel said. He bent down and began to fiddle with the HEAVY rounds. He changed the fuse from “impact” to “delayed”, and set the timer for five minutes. He pushed a few more cylinders closer before unloading all of his bangers. He carefully set them down between the HEAVY rounds and the cylinders. He knew what phosphorous could do in limited quantities, and was fairly certain a lot of phosphorous would be even more impressive.
“Four minutes,” he told the others. He moved quickly from the room and up the hall, where Twist and Beeker were holding down the fort. “Let’s get out of here. Follow the bouncing ball.”
“You know they found survivors, right?” Joshua asked over the comm as Gabriel, Twist and Beeker hurriedly moved through the research facility.
“Yeah, I can hear everything you say,” Gabriel reminded him.
“Well, wouldn’t that mean there’s a chance they kept your girl alive?”
The idea scared Gabriel. He wanted to believe it was possible, but he also knew giving himself such hope was dangerous. When he found out the truth – and if the truth were something he did not want to hear – then it could crush him. He knew he was not emotionally prepared to deal with Sophie’s death, not yet in any case.
At the same time, however, the temptation was there. To wonder, to theorize, to give himself the hope he could still save her, be there for her when he had failed before.
He reached the choke point Esau had set up earlier and stepped around the alien corpses. Seeing the carnage they had wrought in his absence reminded him just how important it was for him to stay on task. He looked back at Twist and Beeker, who were covered in gore and filth. All the suits were the worse for wear, and for the first time since the drop began he realized they had been awake for nearly four days without stopping.