Garcia could smell the sour stench radiating off their wet fur. Adrenaline quickened in his veins, and for a fleeting moment, an image of his wife and smiling baby girl flashed in his mind.
He knew he would be joining them soon.
The images vanished as a piercing thud sounded above. The Alpha had finally broken through the door leading to the stairwell. Claws screeched over concrete as the monsters scrambled over the walls.
It wasn’t hard to calculate the odds. Even if they could fight off the mob surrounding them, there was no way they could kill those advancing down the stairs. The door to the command room wouldn’t hold them long. To make things worse, there was also no telling what the collaborator would do, or what he could do. Fighting their way out of this one seemed impossible, and Davis seemed to know it too.
“It’s over,” the collaborator said in the same heartless voice. “Drop your weapons and I might allow some of you to live. We may have some use for you.”
Garcia knew what surrender meant. But he was Force Recon. He’d been in enough dicey situations to know there was little chance of shooting their way out of this one.
Davis followed the beasts with her muzzle as she considered the man’s offer.
“LT,” Rico whispered.
Garcia knew what his men would do. Tank, Stevo, Morgan, Thomas, and Daniels would fight to the end in order to launch Kryptonite.
But then, they had already fought to the end.
Everyone but Tank was gone now.
And Garcia wasn’t in control.
Davis wasn’t either. His heart sank as the lieutenant slowly lowered her weapon toward the ground. Rico did the same thing, but Fitz held steady. Garcia’s shotgun shook in his hands. He was simply unable to force himself to surrender to a piece of shit like the man standing on the platform.
“Spartans,” Davis said.
The collaborator narrowed his pitch black eyes on Garcia. The cold stare told Garcia that if anyone was truly going to be spared, it wasn’t him.
“I said drop your weapons.”
Davis continued lowering her M4 toward the floor. The sour rot of the Variants drifted through the chamber as the beasts closed in. They crawled over every surface, snapping joints filling the room with the awful noise Garcia knew all too well. He tightened his grip on his shotgun defiantly.
Never in his career had he surrendered like this before.
“I’m losing my patience,” the man said.
“So am I!” Davis yelled back.
Garcia barely had a chance to react to what happened next. In a lightning fast motion, she dropped to her uninjured knee and yelled, “Open fire.”
The collaborator’s expression tightened with shock. As he raised a hand, Davis blew it off with a shot from her rifle.
Garcia quickly squared his shoulders and fired his shotgun at a thin Variant to his left, sending the beast flying through the air in a cloud of bloody mist. No prayer was going to get Spartan Team out of this one, and he doubted bullets would either.
But what the hell—it was worth a shot.
There’s no scientific answer. We’re simply out of time.
Kate still couldn’t stomach her words. There had to be some way to kill the juveniles other than dropping nukes or the insane idea of sneaking dirty bombs into their lairs. The thought of Beckham and Horn going back out there to attempt something so suicidal had sent her running back to the lab.
She was going to work until she came up with something. There was no preventing Beckham or his men from being deployed to the cities, but maybe, just maybe, she could help them fight the juveniles when they got there.
“Found something, Kate,” Ellis said. He waved her over to his laptop.
They were working inside a small conference room aboard the GW now. Empty coffee mugs littered the table. The remaining members of Yokoyama’s science team were back on the Cowpens. With the development of Kryptonite complete and Johnson hell-bent on using RDDs, there wasn’t much for them to do anymore.
But Kate wasn’t giving up.
“What is it?” she asked.
Ellis swiveled his chair to face her. “Data on the juveniles. The Brits were able to capture one a few days ago, and apparently so were the French.”
“Why weren’t we informed?”
“I don’t—”
“Because we didn’t know either,” said an authoritative voice.
Captain Humphrey entered the room and shut the hatch. Ellis and Kate both stood to greet him.
“What I’m about to tell you is completely confidential.” Humphrey ran a hand through his thick hair as he walked to the table.
Kate had had so much on her mind the past two days she hadn’t thought much about other countries. She’d had to force herself to direct her attention on saving the United States. But her family and friends overseas were always in the back of her thoughts.
“This does not leave this room,” Humphrey said. “Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Ellis said. Kate simply nodded.
“The French and British both report their juveniles are fully developed now. They do have a delivery system for their venom. Three French soldiers were killed and a dozen more injured trying to take down a single one of the beasts.”
Humphrey handed Ellis a USB drive. Ellis inserted it into his laptop and clicked on the single file it held. A room full of injured soldiers flashed onto the screen. The men were covered in bandages, but not from deep gashes. These men were burned—their skin melted away by the venom.
The video feed wobbled before centering on a double amputee lying on a bed in the center of the room. The soldier glanced at the camera with droopy basset hound brown eyes that took Kate’s breath away. His chiseled jaw was covered with a five o’clock shadow. If it weren’t for his missing legs, Kate might have confused him for Beckham. The man even had the same full lips.
“My God,” she gasped.
“This is the work of the devil,” Humphrey said. He pointed at the injured man. “The venom inflicts horrific injuries. This poor bastard reported a juvenile hit him in the legs with the liquid from thirty feet away.”
“How did these soldiers not die of toxins?” Ellis asked.
Humphrey scratched at the stubble on his chin. “French scientists are saying the venom eats away the flesh, but takes longer to spread through the human vascular system. It’s the only good news I’ve heard.”
“Interesting,” Ellis said. “Kate and I will look into it.”
“There’s something else, Doctors,” Humphrey said. “A few hours ago we received word that the juveniles are starting to move in Europe. They’re leaving the lairs for extended periods of time. Our drones are reporting the same activity in D.C., Atlanta, L.A., and Chicago. That’s why I’m here. Vice President Johnson wants your opinion. Why are they moving?”
To Kate, the answer was obvious. “Two reasons,” she replied. “Like any child, they’ll eventually leave the nest, so to speak. In this case, I believe it’s to hunt for resources. The second reason is to explore. They’re learning. As the offspring evolve, they’ll also grow more intelligent.”
“That’s what I thought,” Humphrey said. “They’re starving, just like many of the parents. In some cases the freaks are so hungry they’re eating their parents. Assuming we get Kryptonite in the air sometime soon, we’re going to have to move fast here in the States before they leave the lairs for good.”
“Assuming?” Kate asked. Her heart did a jumping jack in her chest.
Humphrey frowned. “I’m afraid the Earthfall facility wasn’t abandoned. Lieutenant Davis and her team are trapped inside.”
Kate closed her eyes. After a moment of despair, she snapped them back open and said, “Have you sent reinforcements?”
“We’re working on it.”
It took everything in Kate not to rage at the captain. She had to trust the military despite everything that had happened before, but that was proving more difficult by the minute. Especia
lly with the clock counting down on a final battle that would send Beckham and Horn back into that hell.
“Is there any other reason the juveniles might be starting to move?” Humphrey asked in an obvious effort to change the subject.
Ellis nodded. “I have a theory.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“As Kate stated, the offspring are continuing to evolve and grow more intelligent. They will start doing things their parents aren’t capable of—”
“Like what?” Humphrey, interrupted.
There was a moment of silence. Kate wasn’t sure if she should answer, but she knew her partner well enough to know he was thinking the same thing she was.
“Everything,” Ellis and Kate said simultaneously.
Ellis paused to lock eyes with Humphrey. “It’s imperative we kill them before they leave the cities, sir. The juveniles will eventually possess an intelligence that matches or exceeds our own.”
-21-
Fitz shot the collaborator in the jaw as he scrambled to reach for the computer keyboard with his remaining hand. Shattering bones made a distinct sound that had always made Fitz wince. He could still remember the sound when his legs were blown off on that dirt road back in Iraq.
But this time he didn’t wince.
The crack of the man’s jaw separating from his face and the blood splattering the computer screen filled Fitz with grim satisfaction. It streaked down the surface of the monitor as the man’s knees crumbled.
Fitz was firing on the Variants streaming from the tunnel before the collaborator’s body hit the ground. He wasn’t going to get a second chance.
Every shot has to count.
He fired his M4 in three short bursts, sending three Variants crashing into computer equipment on the east wall, gaping holes in their furry flesh. A dozen more emerged, squawking and shrieking in their terrifying language.
“Don’t hit the equipment!” Davis yelled. “Rico, on me! Garcia, Fitz, take those to the left!”
Garcia hurried over and stood on the other side of Apollo. He and Fitz stood back to back, armored shoulders clicking. Fitz had seen the sergeant’s gaze earlier—a look that had told Fitz he didn’t think they were going to make it out of this one. Fitz wasn’t sure himself. The odds were grim, but they had been grim many times before.
Across the chamber, Rico and Davis came together side by side. They turned full circle while firing precise bursts at the beasts charging into the room.
“Watch your zones of fire!” Davis shouted.
Muzzles flashed, spent casings clanked, and dead Variants crashed to the ground. Spartan team fought with the skill and honor of a squad that had been together for years, not just hours.
Maybe we do have a chance after all.
A roar boomed from the stairwell behind Fitz, shaking the thought. The Alpha pounded the locked door relentlessly. Fitz didn’t risk a glance; he continued firing on the beasts that moved with blinding speed in the shadows.
Steady, Fitz. Steady.
The chatter of gunfire echoed up the concrete walls where it resonated at the top, trapped in the chamber, just like them. Apollo snapped at the creatures that dared come to close to Fitz’s smoking M4.
Flickering light from computer monitors and the fiery glow from muzzles illuminated the beasts as they clambered in every direction. All around Fitz, his fellow Marines fired calculated shots.
His next two cracked open the heads of a pair of Variants that broke off from the prowling pack. Their jointed limbs gave out, and both crashed to the floor chin first, sliding to a stop a few feet from Fitz’s shiny new blades.
And still more continued to emerge from the tunnels. Fitz watched a monster with a swollen stomach stagger out into the room. It dragged a hairy arm across its bloody beard and focused on its next meal. Fitz fired a three-round burst into its gut, then took a mental inventory of the beasts between his next shots. There were sixteen on the left of the platform.
Crack!
Fourteen, after Garcia’s shotgun blast sent two spinning away.
A beast with long limbs leapt to the walls and threw back its head to let out a shriek. Fitz shot it in the spine. The creature dropped to the ground, an incredulous look painted across its features.
“Changing!” Rico shouted. She tossed her shotgun away and reached for her M4.
“I got you,” Davis yelled back.
Fitz counted at least a dozen on the right side, but Davis and Rico were holding their own, for now.
The Variants on the left moved in a line that twisted like the tendril of an octopus, making targets more difficult in the weak light. Several made dashes for Garcia.
Fitz killed three before pivoting to fire on a scrawny beast covered in patchy fur. He clipped it in the shoulder, throwing it off balance. In a graceful movement it leapt to the right, then to the left, and finally toward him, claws extended.
An empty magazine clicked back as Fitz squeezed the trigger. He raised the butt to block the beast when a flash of brown fur leapt in front of him. Apollo tackled the creature to the ground, snarling and snapping at the monster’s neck.
Garcia laid down covering fire as Fitz reached for his MK11. There was no time to change the magazine in his M4. He hefted the big rifle and centered it on the circling monsters. Fitz thought back to the battle topside. There were only five rounds left in the magazine.
Make ‘em count.
“Behind me, boy,” Fitz said. Apollo backed away from the corpse of the Variant he’d killed as four more broke off from the twisting arm of the main pack. They hunched their backs in preparation to strike.
The world slowed to battle time. Every breath and movement became augmented. He could smell the ripe scent of the Variants, could feel his muscles flexing and the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
He fired without thinking, his mind disconnected from his body. The first shot hit a Variant with a mane of black hair. The round struck it in the neck, arterial blood geysering out. The other three let out high-pitched shrieks that threatened Fitz’s concentration. He gritted his teeth, narrowed his eyes, and hit the beast on the far left directly in its open maw. Chunks of what had once been a human brain bloomed out behind it.
Three shots left.
Garcia took the other two creatures down with a single blast. He yelled above the echoing gunfire, “Climbers!”
The formation of moving creatures had broken in half. Five leapt to the walls, while the other five closed in on Fitz and Garcia. Out of the corner of his eye, Fitz saw that Rico and Davis were losing their fight. A Variant made it through their barrage of gunfire with a chest full of gushing wounds. How it was still breathing was a mystery. It reached out with a brown talon and slashed at Rico’s leg. She parried the attack with a kick that allowed the beast to grab her boot.
A minute had passed since Davis fired the first shot, and Fitz could see the tide was quickly turning against them. With not even a second to spare, he did the only thing he could think of.
“Apollo, help Davis and Rico!” Fitz shouted, jerking his chin.
The dog lunged at the Variant that had pulled Rico onto her back.
Fitz concentrated on the encroaching monsters. Garcia cut four of them down, but those on the ceiling were close to flanking their position.
“Behind us!” Fitz shouted.
Three shots. Three breaths.
“I got this one,” Garcia growled.
Fitz spun with his MK11, holding a breath in his chest, and lining up a shot that took off the leg of one of the beasts below the kneecap. The second creature leapt just as Fitz pulled the trigger. The shot slammed into the wall above the monster’s skull.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Garcia shot it in the chest mid-air with three rounds from his M9. Then he killed the legless beast crawling across the ground with its stump gushing blood.
Seeing an opportunity, the pack galloped toward Garcia and Fitz. Fur and flesh blurred as the monsters charged. The three remaining
Variants were all covered in abrasions and gashes, their fur torn away. Fitz had seen it before. These beasts were low in the hierarchy. They were starving and more desperate than the others. Their bulging lips smacked. Fitz would never get used to that horrifying sound.
Make. It. Count.
The final round left Fitz’s MK11 and entered the skull of the lead beast right between its reptilian eyes. The creature on the right spun away in a spray of blood and bone as Garcia emptied his shotgun, but the final monster barreled toward Fitz.
“Watch out!” Garcia yelled.
Fitz didn’t have time to reach for his knife or M9. His next action wasn’t pre-mediated. He simply planted his left blade and roundhouse kicked with his all of his strength as the beast took to the air. The spike on his right blade connected with its temple, slicing through flesh and bone like a knife cutting into a steak. He hit it with such force that he lost his footing and went down on his left side, along with the shrieking Variant.
Gunfire rang out all around him as he hit the ground. In the pause between the shots, the pounding on the door to the command center intensified. It reverberated through the chamber in a relentless echo—a reminder of the threat outside.
Fitz pushed himself up and yanked the spike on his blade from the creature’s skull. His spur free, he took a knee, grabbed his M9, and fired with one eye closed at the beasts closing in on his friends.
Rico was still on her back; the monster that had her boot was tugging on her leg. Apollo had his mouth clamped onto its neck but was struggling. Behind them, another Variant scurried on all fours. Fitz clipped it in the face with two rounds. Then he pivoted and squeezed off two more shots that killed a creature making a run for Davis.
“Garcia, we need you!” Fitz shouted.
“Reloading,” Garcia replied. He was hunched over and jamming shells into his shotgun. His eyes widened at the sound of the cracking metal. The door to the room suddenly flew off the hinges.
Extinction End (Extinction Cycle Book 5) Page 27
