by S D Tanner
A shocked voice called softly. “Lewis, why have you brought them here?”
The sound of multiple guns being cocked made it clear that they weren’t welcome. Flicking up the faceplate on his helmet, he raised his hands. “We mean no harm.”
Bodies were rising from the floor, separating themselves until he and the squad were surrounded by men and women pointing guns at them. “You’ve done enough damage.”
A woman spat on the ground in front of him. “Fucking Defensors.”
Every face looking back at him was lean and smudged with dirt from living inside nothing more than a hole in the ground. Whatever the Defensors had done, it had devastated the city and its people. Guilt gnawed at him, and he wondered if he’d been the one to bring the people so low. What else had he done that he couldn’t remember? How else had he and the squad been used? Judge had removed his helmet, revealing his clenched jaw and deeply worried frown.
The woman who had brought them to the room moved until she stood between him and the people threatening to kill them. “They’ve come from the arks.” Her quietly spoken words were enough to make the people lower their guns and, instead of bullets, a barrage of questions was fired at him.
“Are they still alive?”
“Where are the arks?”
“Are they here?”
“Where did you land?”
Raising his hand for silence, he tried to answer their questions. “We lost Ark Prognatus and Ark Animax was fully compromised. Ark Extrema is hiding in space, but we can reach her.”
“What about the sleepers on the Extrema? Are they still alive?”
The voice sounded childlike and he looked for the speaker. She was a no more than four feet tall and studying him with dark, solemn eyes. “Most of the sleepers are alive.”
“What about the other Defensors?”
Confused by the question, he looked at the man who had asked it. “Only nine of us survived.”
Snorting in disgust, the man shook his head. “I’m not talking about you.” Scanning his face and then Rok and Judge’s, the man asked, “Where’s the rest of the Dead Force?”
“Who are the Dead Force?”
Instead of allowing the man to answer his question, the woman with them raised her hand. “They don’t know what they are.”
CHAPTER EIGHT: Free Ride
The tunnel had once been a freeway underpass for the downtown area of the city. It was only half a mile long and the survivors had sealed segments of it with debris. The only way in and out of the rooms they’d created were through hidden tunnels they’d carved into the earth. Some linked to the sewers that crisscrossed the city, and others were shafts with doors hidden inside buildings. Every entrance had an armed guard, but they acted more as a warning if a quaesitor hunter approached their hidey-hole.
After their initial introduction, they’d been ordered to hand over their weapons. Rok had refused, and he’d only been willing to lay his own by his side. Surrounded by an angry and armed mob wasn’t the best place to be, but he wouldn’t go back to Jessica without answers.
Crouched on his heels, he reached his hand toward the woman who had guided them into the tunnel, resisting the urge to touch her. “You need to catch me up. I don’t know what’s happened here.”
Judge was hunkered next to him and Rok was leaning against the wall behind him. They were cornered, surrounded by people willing to at least try to kill them, and he wasn’t sure they wouldn’t succeed. Without the pods to repair them, perhaps they would die inside the filthy tunnel, not that he cared. His life, such as it was, wasn’t worth much to him anymore.
The woman’s mouth turned downward with bitterness. “The Dead Force destroyed every city in the world.”
“How did they do that?”
“You don’t die,” the man next to her said. “Can’t beat what won’t die.”
“When did the Dead Force attack you?”
“Centuries ago. They systematically went through every city, destroying the government, homes and the army.”
“What happened then?”
“They came.”
“Who came?”
“The other sleepers.”
He glanced at Judge, sharing a confused look with him. “What sleepers?”
“The underwater sleepers.”
“Do you mean the venator and quaesitor hunters?”
“Not just them.”
Thinking he understood what she meant, he nodded. “You mean the ones who live in the floating cities.”
The woman shook her head, seeming unsure how to explain herself. “They’re…not the same as the water sleepers.”
“In what way?”
“They don’t come from the water. They’re…they’re like us, you know, human.”
He’d seen the humanoid creatures feeding on humans and spitting acid, which didn’t make them the same as the people he was looking at inside the tunnel. “Are they human?”
The woman shrugged. “They’re people who have been on the arks and colonized other planets. When they come back, they’re…not the same as they were. The experience changes them.”
Judge snorted softly. “Why did they go on the arks?”
Looking at him as if he was stupid, the woman replied, “Because it’s the only way to get into the floating cities. We fight for those pods.”
Now he was genuinely confused. According to the woman, the people on the arks fought for the privilege to colonize new planets, but once they were in space they were used as food for alien embryos. Scanning the dirty faces looking back at him, he realized they were being sold a pup, one that was costing them their lives. Not only had he been lied to by Lunar Horizon, it seemed so had the people who were scraping out a life on Earth.
“Who are Lunar Horizon?”
“The government.”
“You mean they rule Earth?”
Sounding wistful, she replied, “Yes. They’re the people who got a pod on one of the arks. When they come back, they live inside the floating cities.”
“How many arks are there?”
She shrugged and looked up at the people standing around them. “A dozen? Maybe more.”
It meant the aliens had kidnapped millions of people from Earth, sending them into space to feed their young. If they’d been doing that for three hundred years, then there could be hundreds of millions of aliens living inside the floating cities. Earth hadn’t just fallen into the hands of the enemy, it was probably irretrievably lost.
Rok leaned away from the wall, bending low until the woman looked up at him. “Why don’t you all live in the floating cities? Why are you stuck down here and hunted?”
Blinking as if it was a question that she’d never asked herself, the woman replied, “Everything has its place. Mine is on Earth.” She pointed at Rok. “Yours is as a Defensor.” Shrugging, she added, “We don’t get to choose what we are. We have to fight for what we get.”
It appeared not only had aliens taken control of Earth, they’d rebuilt society. Lunar Horizon had used technology to take control of the army, which in turn had destroyed the cities. The hunters were another weapon used to hold down the human population, but he guessed some were still needed to populate the arks. Far from being lucky, the people on the arks were being used as fodder. Nothing was as it seemed. Everyone had been told one lie or another until the facts were so buried no one knew the truth.
Sharing a worried look with Judge, he asked, “Where are the other Defensors?”
The woman shrugged again. “No one knows where the Dead Force sleep. Their job is to guard the arks.” Narrowing her eyes at him, her expression became resentful. “They all look like you and they don’t die.”
Once proud to wear a uniform, it seemed his army had a lot to answer for. Keen to keep the woman talking, he asked, “Have you ever been inside a floating city?”
The woman’s eyes widened in surprise and her voice grew hushed. “Onl
y people who win a pod get to go there.”
Rubbing his eyes tiredly and sounding depressed, Judge asked, “How many arks are…colonizing planets right now?”
Glancing at the man beside her, the woman gave him a questioning look. “Three. But more will be launching soon.”
Judge elbowed him. “We have to stop that.”
“Do we?”
Earth was so lost the people didn’t even know they were being held prisoner on their own planet. The aliens had weaved a clever mythology, one that gave people hope when they were really being betrayed. Even if they stopped more arks from launching, how could they unravel the civilization these aliens had spent centuries creating? The people around him were so hoodwinked into believing this was how their life should be that they had no idea there was any other way to live.
He had come to Earth to learn what had happened to it and find out why he’d woken inside a chamber full of sleepers. The answer was nothing he could have predicted, but now he knew, how was he supposed to undo what had been done? Why was it his problem to restore what he couldn’t even remember? Was Earth even worth rebuilding?
Clearly seeing his attention had drifted, the woman tapped his arm insistently. “Why don’t you know any of this? Defensors kill humans. Why are you different?”
It was a bad day when not trying to kill someone was considered wrong. None of the people surrounding them knew they’d been trained to protect them. When he’d died, humans had been the superior species, but now they were no more than cattle. How was he supposed to unravel generations of brainwashing? It was a mission too large for he and his small squad to contemplate. There were only nine of them, ten if he counted Jessica.
He shook his head. “I come from a different time.”
“I thought you didn’t remember anything.”
Although his recall of specific people and places was hazy, his feelings were not. He’d come to Earth looking for something and it wasn’t the woman or even the truth. Daisy had asked him never to leave her and he had. None of the people around him were her. She was long dead, possibly by his own hand and probably by one his brothers. The aliens had taken their training and warped it, turning them into mindless killers. Rage was only despair turned outward, but he didn’t have the army to do more than die and be resurrected time and again. The aliens had cornered the Defensors almost as perfectly as they had the people in front of him.
Looking across at Judge, seeing the same flatness he was feeling, he was about to suggest they return to the surface and wait for an extract when a voice echoed through the tunnel.
“Huuuunteeerrs!”
CHAPTER NINE: Armed and Dangerous
Where the venator cried like a child, the quaesitor didn’t appeal to anyone’s softer side. The debris protecting one end of the tunnel exploded inward. Spinning wildly, two balls hurtled along what had once been a road. They were moving so quickly, he couldn’t make out any shape other than they were about eight feet in diameter. Already bullets were hammering into the spinning balls, but they were moving with such speed and force that nothing was stopping them.
When one finally spun slower just twenty feet from where he stood, the main body was only six feet in diameter. Surrounding its round core were at least a hundred sharpened spikes, adding two more feet to its size. Bullets were landing on the spikes causing it to spit back small fragments. In less time than it took to blink, the spiky ball exploded outward. The sharp spikes became legs and the round body expanded until it was shaped like an armadillo. It had no head or even eyes, and the entire body was armored with a brownish hide. With a hundred spiky legs shifting in tandem, it moved left and right, up and down, changing direction without warning.
Not only did the long, powerful legs give it speed and directional control, it could also jump. One of the two balls leapt in the air, tucking its many legs into its body as it spun toward the shoulder on the road. Slamming into the concrete, the spikes sprang outward, slicing into a man who had been down on one knee firing at it. At least forty of the survivors were disappearing through several hidden entrances, leaving only ten to defend their escape. More spikes carved their way through the man and a red spray exploded from his neck. While the platform became slick with his warm blood, the quaesitor was already rolling rapidly toward its next target.
He might be dead and confronted with a mission he knew was a lost cause, but he’d be damned if he let a pair of porcupines kill anyone else.
“Rok!”
“On it!”
Rounds exploded from the KLAW, sending a deafening hammering through the tunnel. Sound bounced against the walls until the entire tunnel was banging with rage.
“Judge!”
Even as he called for Judge, he had already jumped onto the road. The spinning ball had stopped moving and the armored hunter was bouncing on its many legs. With a single spring, it zipped upward and stuck to the ceiling on the tunnel, hanging down like a cheeky monkey. A squeaking chattering greeted him, but he suspected it was only the movement of the armored body that was making the noise.
He didn’t have a life to lose or blood he cared to keep. Running toward the hanging porcupine, he launched from his left leg, reaching for the spikes as he did. The razor-edged leg cut through his armored glove, but he grabbed another spike, feeling it tear open his hand. Holding on with his ripped hand, he pushed his other arm around the fat armored body, using his weight to haul it from the ceiling. More spikes were stabbing into his abdomen, but they only managed to cut into the armor on his suit.
“Down, boy!”
The hunter tumbled to the ground and spikes jabbed into his shoulder and legs. Some pierced the armor over his thighs and tore open muscle. Judge joined him on the road next to the platform. The hunter was bouncing on its many legs and, forcing his way through the spikes, Judge grunted as he too grabbed the round body.
While they wrestled with the hunter, the tunnel continued shuddering under the never-ending fire from the KLAW. Rok had his own problems, so it would be up to them to work out how to kill a heavily armored porcupine.
“Frag?” Judge gasped.
“Two.”
Detonating a grenade while they clung to the hunter was just as likely to blow off their own limbs as it was the target. His hand was already shredded and his leg wasn’t moving right. He worried they wouldn’t survive the explosion, but more of him didn’t care. If Jessica didn’t arrive in time to save his ass, then he’d be dead the way he should have been long ago.
Using his free hand to rip a fragmentation grenade from his tactical belt, he flicked off the cover and pressed the fuse switch. On the other side of the still bouncing hunter, Judge was also priming a frag.
“Ready?”
“Frag out!”
The warning was usually given so everyone could get out of the way, but not this time. Jamming the grenade against the armored porcupine, he managed to push it into one of the jointed layers. The explosion flung his arm away from the hunter and, losing his tenuous grip, he fell backward onto the road. Exploding a fragmentation grenade on each side of the spiky monster was enough to blow it open, and slimy translucent fluid burst from its wounds. For a moment, the hunter’s legs waved wildly in the air, and then deflated until the limbs lay sprawled around the leaking carcass.
A pair of boots appeared by the side of his head. Rok was holding his still smoking KLAW and peering past him at the deflated quaesitor. “That was your best plan, Tag?”
Rolling onto his elbow, he stretched up to look at the other hunter on the platform. Rok had shot it up good, and greasy fluid was running over the edge of the curb and onto the road. A row of stunned looking faces were looking back at him, making him wonder what they were seeing that he couldn’t.
Judge was trying to climb to his feet and Rok leaned down to boost him. “Not liking you right now, Tag.”
Putting down his hand to lever himself onto his feet, his body slid to the left and pain jarre
d his shoulder. His robotic left forearm and hand were gone, leaving strips of flesh hanging from his elbow. Had he been human then he might have bled out, instead only a few large drops of blood ran from the fleshy strands. “Damn.”
Several of the survivors had dropped onto the road and helped him to his feet. Looking across at Judge, he too was missing his left arm below the elbow.
Standing between them, Rok first looked at Judge and then at him. “Bet that stings.”
Sniffing dismissively, Judge waved his bicep as if testing it was still under his control. “Nah, not so much.”
They had ten hours before Jessica would be within range and they could return to the ark for repair. His arm felt more strange than painful and he walked back to the curb to pick up his gun. Awkwardly slinging it over his right shoulder, he used the stump on his left arm to leverage himself onto the platform by the side of the road. Eager hands reached for him and the survivors pulled him upward.
The woman who had brought them to the tunnel unwound the headscarf from her face, revealing sharply edged cheekbones and a full mouth. For the first time since he’d met her, she smiled warmly, making her hazel-colored eyes twinkle even in the dim light.
“My name is Brook.”
One by one the survivors called out their names as if they wanted them to know who they were. No longer faceless, the survivors became people with names and he knew that’s what they wanted. If they were people, then he couldn’t walk away and leave them to live a life he knew wasn’t right.
