by S. A. Lusher
“I think everyone does,” Greg replied.
They spent a few more minutes clearing away clusters of webbing, and then killed the ventilator fans once all the smoke had been sucked out. Mike booted up a terminal and navigated the menus, hunting for the part they needed. Within minutes, they had its location, pried open the crate in question and recovered the part.
“Job well done.” Greg smirked. “If I do say so myself.”
“Don't get cocky,” Kyra replied. “That was easy.”
“Yeah, yeah. I think we deserve to enjoy this small victory,” Greg replied.
“I agree. Come on, let's get back up there. I know Burne is going to want to have half a dozen guys down here combing for supplies we can use. Best not to get in their way.” Mike headed back to the ladder.
They'd made it up the ladder and back out into the main corridor when Powell's voice cut into Greg's ear.
“Greg, you'd better get back here.” He sounded concerned.
Greg's heart froze. “What? Why? What happened?”
“I let slip that Campbell's former Dark Ops.”
“Oh shit.”
He and Kyra took off down the corridor, Mike trailing behind. A moment later they came into the hangar, where a haunting silence had descended. Greg swallowed nervously, heart thundering in his chest, hunting for Campbell. He saw Lynch pointing a gun at him. They stood in the center of a gathered crowd of survivors.
“Wait!” Greg called.
Campbell had his hands up. He glanced over, saw Greg and seemed to relax slightly. Greg shoved his way through the crowd, coming to stand next to Lynch.
“Why didn't you mention this?” She snapped.
“Because I knew you'd react like this. Listen, he's not with Dark Ops anymore.”
“For all we know he could be feeding them information.”
“He turned on them, they won't take him back. Even if he wanted to, they'd just kill him or experiment on him.”
“Let me guess, he told you that?”
“Yes, but...okay, listen. I'll vouch for Campbell. He's done a fantastic job of not fucking me over, so far. And in this situation, we need all the steady gun hands we can get. Just send him with me wherever we go from now on,” Greg said.
There was a long moment of tense silence. Finally, Lynch lowered her pistol.
“Alright, fine. He screws up; it’s on your ass. Wherever you go, he goes. He has no access to any terminals and we're all going to be watching him,” she said.
“Thanks,” Campbell muttered.
“Consider yourself lucky. Now, you two get to go and find another part. It's down in the tunnels, and this time it won't be so easy to retrieve.”
Chapter 04
–Darker Ops–
“Ah, hell, we've gotta go down there?” Campbell complained.
Greg sighed. “Yes, Campbell. You and me, buddy.”
They wouldn't let anyone else go down. Lynch claimed it was because of a shortage of personnel, but Greg figured she was testing him and maybe hoping that Campbell would be killed in the process. Kyra had argued, but the revelation that Campbell was former Dark Ops had lessened the currency of their words.
Greg had abandoned his flamethrower in favor of something more reliable. Weapons were scarce, so he'd been forced to choose just one, in addition to his pistol. He'd eventually settled on a shotgun, figuring they were going to be in close quarters combat. He loaded it and pocketed an extra helping of shells.
Campbell had selected a rifle and fitted spare magazines into the pockets on his uniform. He frowned intensely.
“This sucks,” he grumbled.
“Could've sucked worse,” Greg replied.
Campbell opened his mouth to reply, then glanced over at Greg, flicked his eyes briefly down to Greg's right arm, hidden inside a glove and his uniform, and closed his mouth. He returned his attention to preparing his gear.
“So, where actually is it?” Campbell asked.
“Weren't you paying attention? It's in a maintenance repair bay. They need a replacement part for the ship's power core. Easy to find. Just gotta yank it out of one of the big drillers in there,” Greg replied.
“When'd you get all smart on technical things?”
“I didn't. It's just that Powell is good at explaining things. We don't even need tools. They were already working on the driller's power core.”
“And the fact that it's a driller power core and not a shuttle's power core doesn't make any real difference?”
“No, they're modular.”
“Meaning?”
Greg sighed. “Meaning, most large vehicles and basic systems are built similar nowadays. Many of their parts are interchangeable. You know, like how a bullet that works for the pistol also works for the rifle?”
“Oh...okay. That makes sense.”
Greg suppressed a second sigh and finished adjusting the shoulder strap to the shotgun. Campbell seemed to be done as well. Greg slipped the strap over his shoulder, made sure it sat comfortably and then let it hang.
“Go wait for me by the-never mind, we shouldn't split up. Come with me, but shut up, okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine.”
They crossed the bay to one of the entryways and found Kyra pulling guard duty. Her gaze was smoldering with anger, but she seemed to relax slightly as she saw Greg. He smiled at her and came to stand beside her.
“Hey, we're heading down now,” he said.
“Please be careful. God, I keep saying that. Come back to me safe, how about that?” she asked.
Greg grinned. “Sounds a little too soft for you.”
She hit him in the shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Hey, you deserve it. You still owe me for slapping that goddamn bandage on over my gunshot wound.”
“It barely grazed you.”
“People are staring. Kiss me and wish me luck.”
She did, and he kissed her back with enthusiasm, then made himself let go of her before it became too difficult.
“Yeah, that wasn't awkward at all,” Campbell murmured.
Greg said nothing, unsure of what to say. He and Campbell crossed the busy hangar bay, moving through the constantly shifting crowds. As Greg stepped out into the main corridor, which was almost empty, he immediately felt a sense of lonely dislocation. The hangar felt like...well, not a home, but a community, or, at the most basic, primal level, an area of safety. Warmth, light, the company of others.
“So, Campbell,” Greg said, trying to distract himself. “I'm curious. Why in the hell did you join up with Dark Ops?”
“It wasn't always Dark Ops. You know that, right? Wait, don't answer that, you couldn't have known.” Campbell relayed.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, before the war, I mean. We had the same basic structure. See, the shady side of the government operated under the name of the Office of Intelligence. OI. They did assassinations, spying, high-risk missions, hostage situations, questionable research, you know, all that kind of stuff. Well, during the war, the Galactic Alliance panicked. They needed a magic bullet, I guess. So, they formed Dark Ops around the mid-year mark of twenty three forty four. It was basically like how it was before, with OI,” Campbell explained.
“Well, how was it set up before?” Greg asked as they reached the door they were looking for and went inside.
They came into a maintenance storage area that would grant them access to the tunnels below. Lynch had assured them that they had air, power, and heat, so there was no need for any kind of suit. Greg had decided to trust her with this.
“Teams. There'd be all these projects and OI would assemble a team of scientists, soldiers, technicians, doctors, geologists, biologists, hell, whatever the project called for. They'd work in isolation on just that one project, but when Dark Ops formed, the GA had them put all these geniuses to work on just winning the war, and winning it fast. And they did. Assassinated a bunch of key leaders, took a bunch of key areas, organized the Marines and ever
yone else and had the resistance crushed in a few months,” Campbell went on.
They found a hatch in the far corner and opened it up. Greg peered down it. The shaft was, at least, well-lit. He could see nothing down there, but did notice a cold breeze coming up to him. He lowered himself in and climbed down.
“What was the difference? Between Dark Ops and OI?” he asked.
“Less oversight,” Campbell replied. “Government pretty much put all their trust into Dark Ops.”
“Huh. That doesn't sound very smart. But it doesn't answer my original question. Why were you with Dark Ops?”
“Fantastic career opportunity. You know the story. I grew up on a shit colony, no real opportunities. I went out and joined the Marines as soon as I was old enough. I figure, it's the only thing I might be any good at. I wasn't smart. Only struggled through high school because I know they don't take drop-outs anymore. Turned out I was right, I was good. I pushed up through the ranks and when I couldn't go any higher, I just kept volunteering for dangerous assignments no one else would. I guess I finally caught OI's eye.”
“So they picked you up?”
“Yep.”
Greg reached the bottom of the shaft and brought his shotgun into play, turning around and scoping out the environment. They'd come to a similarly styled maintenance storage room. The layout said it connected directly to the maintenance bay in question. There was no way to tell if there were Undead waiting for them, as the BioScan the miners had was an older model and couldn't track Undead yet. Though Greg understood that Linda was in the process of downloading the data from his jump ship in order to upgrade their system.
The storage room was clear. Greg and Campbell moved over to the far door and positioned themselves on either side of it. Greg hit the access button. The door slid open. A sharp whiff of undead flesh invaded Greg's nostrils. He prepared himself, and then went in, shotgun-first. The maintenance bay was huge. The floor was littered with crates, foldout tables scattered with tools, spare parts, and, most obvious of all, a handful of titanic vehicles. These were the metal titans of mining.
They heard movement in the bay, but he couldn't quite tell where it was coming from. Greg's field of vision was severely compromised by all the mountains of metal. Of course, the vehicle they were looking for was across the bay, on the far side. Greg led the way, Campbell right behind him. They headed between a pair of earth-movers that had massive curved shovels fitted onto their fronts.
They were like giant, industrial yellow, rusted out insect husks. Ahead of them was a stack of crates, providing barely enough room to shift through and completely killing his view. More sounds came to him, the noises of zombies. He broke left and moved slowly towards the edge of the crate stack. Cautiously, Greg peered around.
He found himself staring into the ugly black eyes of a zombie and let out a startled sound. The beast roared and he backed up.
“Shit!” Campbell shouted behind him, and opened fire.
Greg raised his shotgun to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger as the zombie rounded the corner, blowing its head into oblivion. Behind him, Campbell had his own problems. Greg glanced over his shoulder and saw a pair of zombies coming for them. Greg heard a noise back in front of him and snapped his gaze back around.
He squeezed the trigger a second time, vaporizing the face of a second zombie. A third came around the corner and met a similar fate. Two more came, and then there was silence. Greg hesitated, waiting for something else to round the corner. He could sense Campbell at his back, bunched up with a similar tension.
After thirty seconds, they relaxed. Greg fed more shells into his shotgun, and then laughed nervously.
“Damn,” he muttered. “Alright, come on, let's go.”
“Yeah, sure,” Campbell replied. “These damned things...they still scare the shit out of me. Hate them.”
They moved around the stack of crates and then up to a cargo-hauler. They inched their way along it and when he reached the edge, Greg peered around it into an open area. On the other side of the area he could see a titanic drill bit, gleaming dully in the light. The walls of the area were made up by more stacks of crates and a couple of huge earth-movers. Greg licked his lips in apprehension. He could feel something in there with them, but...
Nothing. He couldn't hear anything. He couldn't tell what it might be, a zombie or maybe a Lancer. Not a Creeper, he usually couldn't sense those. The drill-bit was attached to a massive piece of rolling machinery, meant to chew into the earth. It was a huge, spiraling screw that came to a sharp point.
“Okay,” Greg whispered. “Cover me, I'm going for it.”
The part they were looking for was in the driller. Greg just had to get around to the side of it and dig around in the open paneling. He could even see the open panel. It shouldn't take him more than a minute altogether.
“Okay, I'm ready,” Campbell replied.
Greg hesitated, and then set off. Maybe he could get this done without any trouble, just get in, get the part, and get out.
He didn't believe it for a second.
As he crossed the halfway threshold across the courtyard-like area, the left wall of crates abruptly burst apart, sending crates and supplies flying everywhere. Greg dropped into a crouch, avoiding most of the flying debris, and let out a startled shout as he saw a Berserker step into the light. He stood up.
Campbell raised his gun.
“No!” Greg cried. “Don't do anything!”
Then the Berserker was on his ass. It made for him, crossing the short distance between them. With nowhere else to go, Greg dropped down and dove between its legs. He rolled and recovered, a plan already formulating in his mind. He backed up as the Berserker twisted around, coming for him again with mindless determination.
“Come on,” Greg roared.
The Berserker rushed for him, again. He rolled out of the way a second time. It flung itself around again in frustration. Greg knew his plan was stupid and dangerous, but there was nothing else on the table presently. He didn't dare blink as the Berserker came for him once more. Again, he dove out of the way, knowing that now was the moment of truth. He scurried over and positioned himself directly in front of the drill-bit.
The thing was nearly digging into his back.
“Come and get it!” Greg screamed.
The Berserker was furious, roaring in inhuman rage. It seemed to take more time lining itself up, seemed to want to rend his flesh like tissue paper and snap his bones like twigs all the more. Greg grinned. Good, he thought.
The Berserker charged, faster than it had before. Greg barely had time to throw himself out of the way. There was a horrible, godforsaken sound of flesh being torn by cold, unfeeling steel, followed immediately by the insane bellows of a beast caught in a trap. Greg rolled over onto his back and saw the Berserker had speared itself perfectly through the chest. It was still alive, thrashing madly, tearing itself up even more.
Black blood, like tar or oil, sprayed and splashed and flew on the air. Flesh tore. Greg decided to put the thing out of its misery, approached it from behind, took careful aim with his shotgun and blew the top of its head off.
“Dude...oh my God! That was fucking sick!” Campbell cried in triumph.
He rushed up and slapped Greg on the back, laughing wildly.
“Well, I've had practice,” Greg replied, and he started laughing too.
“Man, that was just...God, look at this thing!” He kicked it. “You like that, bitch? You like that?”
Greg left him to it, feeling high on the heady rush of adrenaline and surviving something stupidly dangerous, and came around the side of the driller. He peered into the open panel, found the part he was looking for and carefully detached it from the rest of the wiring and technology within. It wasn't very large, though it did seem delicate. He slipped it into his inner pocket and came back around to Campbell.
“Let's get back topside,” he said.
“Yes,” Campbell agreed.
As t
hey made their way back upstairs, Campbell spoke up again.
“Hey, want to hear something fucked up?”
“I'm going to respond, yes...though very hesitantly.”
Campbell laughed. “You're a nice guy, aren't you?”
“Well, I don't know. I mean I try-”
“No, no. Not like that. I mean like...like a Nice Guy, you know?” he asked, saying the words slowly.
Greg shrugged. “I'm not sure I know.”
“Like that saying, nice guys finish last? You know how nice guys are always saying that girls like guys that are assholes, the kind that are mean to them? And the assholes don't deserve the girls ‘cause they don't appreciate them?”
“That...sounds familiar, actually,” Greg replied.
“Yeah, well, I was that asshole. I was the jerkoff in high school who had lots of good-looking girlfriends.”
“And that's the fucked up part?” Greg asked as they began climbing the ladder.
Campbell shook his head. “No, man. The fucked up part is what the nice guys never admit to themselves. Those girls they always pine after, the girls that go for the assholes? They never would've worked out with a nice guy anyway. And, the uglier truth that no nice guy admits to himself, is that he only wanted that girl ‘cause she was hot.”
“Is there a point to this?” Greg asked as he climbed out of the shaft, then turned and pulled Campbell up.
“Yes. I was trying to insult you. You seem like a nice guy.”
Greg stared at him for a moment, and then let out a long laugh.
“I think I'm beginning to like you, Campbell.”
“Maybe you aren't such a nice guy after all.” Campbell laughed along.
They headed back towards the hangar.
* * * * *
When they came back to the hangar, Greg could tell something was going on. Several people, including Mike, Kyra, Burne, and Linda were gathered around Lynch, who glanced over at Greg as he and Campbell approached.
“Wow, you actually did it,” she said.
“Had to kill a Berserker to get it,” Greg replied, passing off the part to a technician, who took it and made for the ship.
