Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3)

by Wearmouth

  “Together we’re stronger,” he said, unclasping his grip on her shoulder. He liked how she bit her lip to avoid showing the pain. This one would tolerate a great deal, he thought. Yes, she would be a fine bedmate… “Come visit me in my office when you’re finished with the drills. I have something I want to give you.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, her bottom lip was red and swollen with the bite, but before she had a chance to say anything, he spun away and headed toward the now-empty breeding lab.

  Inside, he had set up a secure, private office. He had just one more task to complete before he could relax for the day. He gripped the prism that hung on a chain around his neck and felt it buzz faintly like a dying moth, but the thing on the end was very much the opposite. The scion had news on Charlie and Denver.

  Augustus had waited to hear the news, extending his fantasy like a child refusing to open a wrapped gift. The anticipation was glorious in its own right, but with his army falling into place, there was no time left to wait.

  He needed to know if the trap had sprung and caught its prey.

  ***

  How the scion truly worked he would never know. He wasn’t even sure how they existed without a physical form, but it was of no concern to him; he had seen enough in his lifetime to know that out there, beyond the moon and the sun, were billions of things humanity would never see or understand.

  All he cared about was carving out a section of the cosmos for his own. And working with the scion fitted into the plan.

  Augustus locked the office door and sat at his desk, the surface of which contained dozens of books that he was in various stages of correcting. He placed the prism on the surface and activated it, creating a beam of light that drew a holographic keyboard.

  This time he didn’t need to use one of the radios to transmit the signal and connect to the scion server. His handler, Drone 21, had instructed him on how to hardcode the prism’s communication crystal to the farm’s transceivers.

  Within seconds of tapping out his unique passcode, a purple holographic cone appeared above the crystal, giving the dark room a rich tint. Augustus shivered as he thought about the prism and how it was actually conscious. It contained a living entity that the scion used to connect to their great binary hive mind.

  Drone 21 didn’t bother to construct a humanlike face on the cone this time. Instead, Augustus was greeted with a neutral voice he had come to know well over the years.

  “Agent 3982, you wish to know the status of your algorithm?”

  “Yes,” Augustus said. The idea of an algorithm never ceased to intrigue him. The scion believed life was just a set of rules—a problem-solving program that met particular conditions, and that life could be coded and manipulated as though it were a math problem. “But not just mine… I was promised news on others.”

  “The Jacksons.”

  “Indeed.”

  A stream of code flooded the display too fast for Augustus to make out. The scion often did this to inform him that they were thinking on the problem, sending data across the galaxy to their server farms to analyze the probability factors.

  “The Jackson function will meet its terminus in the near future. The probability is undeniable. As for you, Agent 3982, you are entering an uncertain phase that even the Order of Things cannot dictate.”

  Augustus coughed, clearing a dry patch on the back of his throat. He wanted to press his handler further; this was a different answer than he had previously been given—the promise that Earth would be his, that his algorithm would know no end.

  “The future has changed?” Augustus finally asked.

  “It’s mutable. Your kind would say you’re at a crossroads. Defeat Unity, Agent 3982, and your algorithm will continue as promised. Fail… and the Order of Things cannot predict your fate.”

  The cone disappeared, the crystal turned dark, and the prism was once more a trinket. Sweat beaded behind Augustus’ mask. Up until now he hadn’t doubted his success. With the scion’s promise behind him, the thought of defeat had never entered his mind… but now…

  He stood up and flipped the table, sending the books flying and crashing around the room. Zoe gave her identifying knock.

  “Come in!”

  The door crept open and Zoe stepped inside. She had removed her hair tie and wore her locks draped over her shoulders. She looked around the room with fear in her eyes.

  Augustus removed his mask. “Lock the door.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Charlie shouldered his rifle and searched the darkness for the owner of that dreaded shriek. A light flickered overhead, providing a brief exposure of a lean four-legged creature, at least six feet long. Two tentacles writhed on its scaly green back. Bones were piled on the floor next to its black front talons.

  It was like a komodo dragon with more weapons. The sight of it made the hairs on Charlie’s neck tingle as he raised his rifle.

  The creature screamed. Its left tentacle whipped through the air, cracking rigid between Charlie and Layla, who managed to duck out of the way of the attack.

  With Denver’s rifle on the floor and the hunter closing in, Charlie didn’t waste another second and fired. His muzzle flashed with a three-round burst, sending the creature scuttling back into the shadows.

  A boom echoed around the cavern. The ground shook. Scion bombs were the least of their worries right now. The overhead light flickered again. A rainbow of varied alien blood smeared the walls.

  Denver skidded to the ground and retrieved his rifle. He rolled and fired as a tentacle lashed his leg, dragging him toward the beast.

  Charlie aimed over Denver’s prone position and fired another three-round burst, this time at the encroaching figure of the croatoan hunter. With satisfaction, Charlie saw the hunter spin to the side with a grunt and collapse to one knee.

  Denver fired twice at a position above him. The tentacle loosened and he scrambled to his feet, joining Charlie and Layla.

  “You okay, son?”

  “I think so… I’ll look later.”

  “Quick, there’s a tunnel to the right,” Layla said. “This way.”

  She grabbed Charlie’s shoulder and pulled him into the gloom. Denver’s erratic footsteps followed. It sounded like his son was dragging his leg. That wasn’t good. Charlie hoped he hadn’t broken it. When the adrenaline wore off, they’d know more.

  “Keep going, son,” Charlie urged as he followed Layla through the narrow tunnel. It led to a dimly lit wide space. Small white lights ran along the roof like raised sidewalk markers as far as the eye could see. Shafts of light stabbed into the darkness from hundreds of entrances at either side.

  Denver limped past and scanned the area with his rifle. His cargo pants had a six-inch bloodstained rip around his left calf.

  Rapid footsteps pattered through the tunnel behind them.

  “Take cover here,” Denver said, wincing as he jogged over to a metallic box on their left. He crouched behind it and aimed at the tunnel entrance.

  Layla and Charlie joined him, sliding behind the alien machinery.

  Charlie leaned his rifle over the warm humming box. Layla extended her pistol in both hands. The komodo-like creature with the twin tentacles ran out of the entrance and climbed the opposite wall some twenty meters from them.

  “Hold your fire unless it comes for us,” Denver said. “The hunter’s close by; I’m sure of it.”

  The creature snapped its head in their direction. Its tentacles unfurled and swayed in a hypnotic cobra-like fashion.

  “I already hate this place,” Denver growled.

  A glinting sword thrust through the entrance and the hunter bounded out, yellow blood spotting his arm where Charlie had hit him earlier. Charlie detected movement to his left. Something stood in one of the tunnels further into the cavern and watched on from the shadows, but didn’t appear to move. Charlie returned his attention to their immediate threat.

  The hunter rushed forward and Charlie was about to fire when the creatur
e lurking on the wall behind it leapt down and dragged the hunter to the ground, wrapping its tentacles around the croatoan’s neck and waist.

  The hunter let out a loud grunt and dropped the sword. It punched the creature in the chest. The second tentacle wrapped tighter around the hunter’s neck as they struggled in a deadly embrace.

  Before any of them had a chance to fire into the wrestling match going on in front of them, a raspy voiced called out from the shadows of the tunnel to their left.

  “Come here,” it said. “If you want to live.”

  Charlie and the others looked at each other with their eyebrows raised.

  “I mean you know harm,” the tredeyan said again, waving them away from their position and toward the tunnel entrance.

  That was when Charlie realized the voice was coming over their intercom. Denver realized too. “How did it get into our intercom?”

  “Come before another hunter arrives,” the tredeyan said, more urgently this time as it looked over at the creature slowly strangling the croatoan to death.

  “What about that thing in front of us?” Denver said.

  “Do not worry for now, come quick.”

  With options severely limited, Charlie decided they had little choice, even if it was a trap. He didn’t want to hang around and waste ammo when they might need it later. He stood and carefully crept away from the area around the entrance, toward the tunnels. Denver and Layla followed, both keeping an aim on the creature. It shook its head and tore out a section of the hunter’s bowels.

  Layla’s foot crunched against a piece of rock. The creature looked up and bared its teeth. It stooped low and extended its tentacles. All three of them were out in the open and the creature prowled forward.

  The tredeyan ran ahead of them and burbled something. The creature’s features softened. It turned back, coiled a tentacle around the hunter’s neck and dragged its limp body back through the dark tunnel, leaving a trail of croatoan blood on the ground.

  Charlie turned to the tredeyan. “What the hell is that thing?”

  “A clusp. They guard some entrances and will attack if you are not tredeyan. Like your guard dog.”

  Denver grunted. “Huh, some dog.”

  “The croatoans let you keep them here?” Layla said.

  “They are not allowed in our private areas, but it often happens. Some go hunting and pay the price. I am Vingo. Follow me.”

  The alien, whose gender Charlie couldn’t make out, turned and headed back to the tunnel where it first appeared. Charlie shook his head, trying to get over the bizarre turn of events since they’d arrived at the gate. He just wanted five minutes of peace and safety to take stock and figure out what the hell to do next—they had just forty minutes of air left. After that… well, he didn’t want to think about that.

  ***

  Vingo smoothly stepped along in his quietly whirring suit and led them through a wide carved-out hallway. Small rooms lined either side. Each looked sterile, with a bed, workbench, screen and speaker attached to the wall. Not untypical of any barrack rooms Charlie had seen throughout the years. Several were occupied, but only a couple of the tredeyans looked up when the group passed.

  “I thought you lot would be pissed off about the gate?” Charlie said.

  “You did us a favor,” Vingo said. “It might stop the croatoans coming to our planet.”

  “What kind of alliance do you actually have?” Layla asked.

  “As the ancient species, they believe they are the guardians of the universe. That means taking what technology and resources they want to maintain control. We had the gate and negotiated access. Earth was a root and food resource for them.”

  “Why even bother coming to our planet?” Denver said. “Seems like a lot of effort.”

  “They have limited space on their homeworlds and need to expand. I suppose their belief system helps justify their actions. It’s not easy to explain.”

  Vingo ushered them into what looked like a warehouse of sorts with solid dividing walls stretching up to the ceiling that split the space into eight football-field-sized sections. Hundreds of empty armored suits stood in neat rows of twenty in the first compartment. Opposite, thousands of different-shaped small arms were mounted on metal frames with ammunition boxes below.

  Gurgling and raspy shouts echoed around the spacious chamber.

  “How is your English so good?” Layla said.

  “I was part of the integration team that brought humans to Tredeya. We took from one area to keep a common language in place.”

  “Why did you do that?” Denver said.

  “The human decision-making process and ability to change is second to none. You’re a valuable resource… to many of the galaxy’s various factions.”

  “What made you think we were there for the taking?” Charlie said, hiding his irritation about the alien’s apparent flippancy over kidnapping his own flesh and blood.

  “It’s a question of development and requirements. Think about your own planet and you will see a microcosm of the universe.”

  Charlie shook his head. “Do you understand the word bullshit, by any chance?”

  The tredeyan nodded and its nostrils closed and opened. “Regional areas develop at different rates, whether that’s intra- or interplanetary. The stronger usually take from the weak. Some claim it’s a divine right, others that they are doing it for the sake of enhancement. Whatever the reason, it matches the requirements.”

  “So what exactly did you do with the people you took?” Layla said.

  “There’s more of your kind in the universe than on Earth. We expanded your race. I spent a long time at one of our outposts with a team of fifty humans. We work well together.”

  “Are we expected to believe this was all a selfless act?”

  “I never claimed it was. The human-adapted suits are near the back. This way. You’ll need them, as your air is running low.”

  They passed rows of purple body armor to a section of navy blue suits with helmets propped on the top of each one. Charlie remembered the crew of the fighter in the staging area and wondered if humans born in space, brought up in alien cultures, would even acknowledge or view him as the same species.

  The suits had a knife attached to the chest and a small black screen on the right forearm. Vingo activated three and checked the data display. “Suit up. We’re leaving this place.”

  “Are we now? And where do you think you’re taking us?” Denver said, sweat beading on his face. Charlie saw that he was leaning his weight on his good leg. His leg no longer bled, but it looked bumpy beneath the fabric of his cargo pants.

  “To my village. I can keep you safe. We have systems to produce oxygen and you can eat our food.”

  “Why are you doing this for us?” Layla said, not hiding her suspicion.

  Vingo pressed the pad on the closest suit. It split down the left and wound half open with an electric grind. “I want to make sure my family are safe. You can help me get there. We are going to pose as a patrol. Work together, yes? Or, you can always stay and fight your way out of the tunnels full of clusps. Your choice.”

  This sounded more like a personal mission rather than clandestine help from the tredeyans behind the backs of the croatoans. Charlie was flying blind since he’d arrived on this godforsaken planet; they had little choice. With Hagellan out of action for whatever reason and his warning to run, along with a lack of oxygen, and Denver’s leg… staying would be suicide.

  “Wait,” Charlie said, grabbing the tredeyan. “My boy got injured by that clusp of yours. Do you know medicine?”

  The alien turned to look at Denver and lifted the leg of his pants.

  Layla gasped. The flesh had turned black and in the middle of it all was white puss seeping from a wound. The blood had coagulated.

  “Not too bad,” the tredeyan said, his little black eyes focusing with sharp movements as he knelt to inspect the leg. “You’ll lose the leg, of course, but it could have been far worse. Ho
ld for one moment. The rest of you, suit up now.”

  Charlie and Layla just stood there in shock. Lose his leg? Charlie was about to say something when Denver held up his hand. “Don’t. Let’s just see this through; then we’ll figure something out.”

  Layla’s eyes welled with tears, but she choked them back. She made to step toward him, but Vingo appeared carrying a small graphite case. He flipped the lid and took out a metal cylinder.

  “What’s that?” Denver said, pulling his leg back.

  “Antivenom. It’ll stop the clusp’s toxins from infecting the rest of your body and reducing your brain to mulch. It’s your choice if you’d prefer I didn’t administer it?”

  “For the record, Vingo, I fucking hate your planet and everything on it.”

  “That makes two of us,” Vingo replied as he jabbed the cylinder into Denver’s leg, just above the wound.

  Denver sucked in his breath and went stiff before breathing out and relaxing. “Okay, that stuff’s good,” he said, swaying.

  Charlie steadied his son. “Are you all right?”

  Denver looked at his leg then back to Charlie and Layla. “I… think so. The pain is numbed and I kind of feel… gooey.”

  “The chemical is binding to the venom proteins. You’ll feel suboptimal for a few units.”

  “Units?” Layla said.

  “You call them hours,” Vingo said. “Now hurry, I can answer questions on the way. The hunters will be here soon.”

  “What about our weapons?” Denver said.

  “I’ll give you something better. You may keep your own if you wish, but I don’t know how effective they’ll be in our atmosphere,” Vingo said. He connected a thick flexible tube from each helmet to a pack on the back of the suits and checked the readings on the wrist pads. “You need to put on the helmets first. Just place it over your head and wait a short time.”

  Charlie’s pulse quickened, but he realized they had nothing to lose. He took a few deep breaths, released the oxygen system’s shoulder straps, and ripped off the mask. Vingo passed him the helmet and placed it over his head. Two clamps gently rose against Charlie’s jawbone, securing his head in place. A soft rubberlike material sucked against his neck, forming a seal.