Khai put a leather strap in Puar’s mouth and used the pliers of a multi-tool to grip the shrapnel. “Bite down on that, it’ll help.” Puar nodded and bit down, squeezing his eyes shut. “On the count of three, you understand?” Puar nodded. Everyone watched it like it was a movie on the Net’Vyyd. Khai prepped his cauderizer. “One-“
“Wait!” Puar interrupted. “Is it going to be: one, two, three, go? Or one, two, three?”
“I don’t care,” Khai said curtly. “What do you want?”
“One, two, three, go.”
“Fine. You ready now?”
Puar nodded, putting the leather strap back in his mouth.
“Okay. One…” Suddenly Khai ripped the shrapnel from Puar’s leg. He cried out in pain through a clenched jaw, biting down hard on the leather strap as tears ran down his face. Only seconds later, Khai ran the cauterizer over the wound and stopped the bleeding.
For a few tense moments, everyone held their breath, waiting for Puar to say something as he finally relaxed. The strap fell from Puar’s mouth as he took a couple deep breaths. He motioned for Khai to come closer and he did. He leaned in close to Puar. Without any notice, Puar struck Khai in the jaw. “What the hell happened to two, you asshole?”
Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief as they realized that he was going to be all right and that his charming personality was still intact. Khai grinned and chuckled as he packed up his medical kit.
“Brix,” Khai said at length. “You stay here with Puar.”
“You got it, sir,” Brix said with a lazy salute.
“Me, Naad, Sibrex and you,” he pointed at the boy, “will take the Kitchen. The rest of you search the apartment. Keep the channel open, I want to hear every word you’re all saying, got it?” He got nods from everyone. “Good. Move out.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Khai kicked the swinging door in leading into the kitchen. It was dark but the smell of food being cooked still hung in the air.
“Someone is living here,” Sibrex pointed out.
“Got that right,” Khai said, pointing his entry light at some used pans sitting in a sink. He turned to face the boy. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Ten,” he answered.
“How ‘bout your real name, son?”
“Ed’Ward Eddarri. My parents called me Ed.”
“All right, Ed, take point.”
“Yes, sir.”
They moved through the huge kitchen checking every nook and cranny.
“Khai?” Ed asked. “May I ask a question?”
“Sure.”
“Was that your plan all along?”
“Yep,” Khai said casually. “Thought I’d show you a thing or two about how to be a soldier.”
“Your performance was quite impressive.”
“Thanks,” Khai said, beaming with pride. “Not as fast as I used to be. Lots of injuries have slowed me down.”
“Still, your skills are remarkable.”
“Thanks.” Khai had to grin. “It took a long time of fighting. Fighting that I now realize was a waste of my life.”
“I am truly sorry for that,” Sibrex said, placing a gentle hand his shoulder.
“Well, now I have something—and someone—to live for,” Khai said, trying to put a positive spin on it.
“Indeed,” Sibrex agreed.
It occurred to him that everyone on that channel could hear what they were saying and no one had said word about it. That meant one of three things: they were too scared of him to speak up, they were in trouble or they were dead.
“Brix, you copy? Brix?”
“Agent Nineteen, respond,” Ed called out.
“Hm. It is as I expected,” Sibrex said.
“What’re you talking about?” Naad asked.
“Your radios are dead. So is contact to Agent Thirteen.”
“How? Why?” The tentacles of doubt and suspicion were weaving their way into Khai’s heart and mind again. “How do you know that?”
“The device I set off was an EMP. That is what disabled the maintenance robots. I was hoping that the blast wouldn’t affect our communications, but it did.”
“And when were you going to tell us?” Khai demanded, taking a defensive step toward a cooling unit as cover.
“If I had said something beforehand, would you have used my idea?”
Khai thought about it for a moment. “I suppose not,” he admitted, still not completely convinced of Sibrex’s loyalty.
“I believe the kitchen is clear, Khai. Should we go back to the foyer to regroup with the others?”
“Yeah, let’s go. There’s nothing here we can use.”
By the time they got back, the other search party had already finished with the apartment and was fixing to go into the kitchen area to look for Khai and the others.
“We lost radio contact,” Brix said. “What the hell happened?”
“The trick Sibrex used to stop the maintenance bots also knocked out our radios,” Khai said, not hiding the suspicion in his voice.
“What was it?” Brix asked.
“An EMP,” Khai answered.
“What’s that?” Brix asked again.
“An electromagnetic pulse,” Sibrex explained. “It disables most electronic devices within its area of effect.”
“Oh,” Brix murmured.
“Right,” Khai said impatiently. “Now, with the science lesson out of the way, let’s finish our mission.”
They moved to the lift opposite the foyer from the hidden lift and waited. Suddenly the floor beneath their feet rumbled like a ship being bombarded with its shields down. They all struggled to stay on their feet and the metal load-bearing beams groaned with protest. The floor bucked, sending them all crashing to their backsides.
“What the hell was that?” Puar asked.
“The depth charges,” Sibrex said.
“You think Dah made it out?” Brix asked.
“He had to,” Khai said. “At this point he would’ve drowned.”
“A more likely scenario would that the Bolt Bucket detached from the airlock.”
“So our only way out is the landing platform.” Puar said.
“Uh-huh,” Khai said.
“So, now what?” Puar asked.
“The bunker is still on lockdown, so we climb,” Khai said, prying the doors open.
They all filed into the lift shaft and started climbing. With the control/panic room being the on the next level, it was a short a climb. Khai pried the doors open and took a step in. The whole floor was shrouded in a deep umbra, like looking into the event horizon of a black hole. He flipped on his entry light and shone it around the immediate area. The lift was located in a small utility room.
“Okay, it’s clear,” Khai said. They all filed out into the small room. “Me and my team will take point. Ed, you and your team will provide cover and the police team will watch our asses. Are we ready?”
“No, but we’ll go anyway,” Puar said.
“Good,” Khai said. “On three.”
“Are you sure it’s not on one,” Puar scoffed.
Khai ignored him. Mouthing the numbers and nodding, he counted. One… two… Three! Khai kicked the door clean off its hinges and rolled into the corridor. Sibrex followed right behind him and the others swiftly behind. Khai moved down the corridor sweeping his gun back and forth scanning for enemies. The layout etched into his memory, he knew exactly where to go. The power was still down and the corridor was dark, but the combined lighting from several entry lights was more than enough to illuminate most of the corridor through which they moved. It was too quiet.
Khai came to a stop, signaling the other to do the same.
“What’s wrong?” Puar asked.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Khai whispered back. “They know we’re here. They know there’s only one way to get here. What’re they waiting for?”
“I don’t know,” Puar admitted. “I just thought maybe they were so scared, they r
an away.”
“They’re robots, idiot,” Brix growled, slapping Puar up the back of his head.
“What? A guy can dream, can’t he?” Puar whispered.
“So where are they?” Naad asked. “There must be a tactical reason they’re not attacking.”
“There were several times where they would’ve had a tactical advantage. Any one of those intersections we passed would have been the perfect place of an ambush,” Khai insisted. “There has to be another reason.”
“Khai,” Sibrex spoke up. “Perhaps they are conserving their numbers for a final stand at the control room. There is only one way in or out of that room, and if memory serves me, there are even barricades to provide a degree of cover.”
“That has to be the reason,” Khai said thoughtfully.
“So, what do we do?” Brix asked.
“We find a way to circumvent their defenses and get in,” Ed said.
“That won’t work,” Khai insisted.
“Why not?” Ed shot back, almost insulted.
“They’re robots, right? They only think logically, right?”
“Where you going with this, Khai?” Puar asked.
“They don’t have intuition, so they can only think logically,” Khai pressed.
“I don’t follow,” Brix admitted.
“I do,” Sibrex said. “If they think with pure logic, then any way to circumvent will be covered because that would be the logical thing to do.”
“So, Brix’s question still stands,” Ed pointed out. “What do we do?”
“We do the most illogical thing we can think of,” Khai said.
“And that is?” Ed asked.
Puar, Naad, Khai and Sibrex all looked back at Brix. “What?” he asked them.
“What would you do, Brix?” Puar asked.
Brix stared at them for a moment, his jaw muscles twitching, mulling over the question in his head. “Go in guns blazing?”
“Exactly!” Khai said.
“You can’t be serious!” Ed snapped. “We don’t even know how many are in there!”
I know,” Khai sympathized, “but we need to get to the Prime Minister at all costs. That’s our plan. They won’t see a frontal assault coming.”
“Essentially, taking them by surprise,” Sibrex added.
“Well,” Naad sighed. “I suppose we should get this show on the road.”
“Everyone!” Khai whispered. They all looked at him intently. “Keep your heads down!” He got courageous nods from his soldiers and it filled him with pride. “Move out.”
The control room was a relatively small room within an expansive hanger big enough to house two Dron’Jawk-Class Cargo Frigates named after hulking four-legged mammals with horns on their heads that had a unique ability to store large amounts of water within their bodies as they traversed the deserts of Seryys. The hanger door was an impenetrable force field disguised with a holoproj as the canyon wall. The corridor emptied out into the hanger on the opposite side of the control room. The retractable landing platform sat roughly four feet above the hanger floor on giant metal rails on which it slid in and out. The whole thing was supported on thick metal girders that also acted as the framework leaving the interior hollow to allow maintenance bots to enter.
There were ten SPEARs waiting in a defensive wedge formation in front of the door leading to the control room. Six of the ten were using the cover spots in front of the control room.
“So, what’s the plan?” Puar asked as they surveyed the hanger.
“You’re gonna shoot them with your grenade launcher and cause as much damage as you can. While they regroup, the rest of us charge in, guns blazing.”
“Courageous,” Brix said. “Stupid, but courageous.”
“That’s what makes it such a good plan,” Khai countered.
“They will respond quickly,” Sibrex’s grave voice rumbled.
“Once Puar fires, just follow my lead. Give me ten seconds and then charge in. Got it?”
“Ten seconds,” Naad echoed.
Khai took a deep breath and blew it out quickly. To Puar he asked, “Ready?” Puar nodded, tightening his grip on his RPG. “Do it.”
Thoomp, thoomp, thoomp! Three grenades launched into the air and the SPEARs reacted instantly finding firing solutions and unleashing hell. The grenades impacted—boom, boom, boom—right into the center of the formation. Two of the SPEARs went down immediately as their treads were blown off. They were still able to fire, but they both fell behind the barriers.
Just as the SPEARs started firing, Khai started running. In the confusion, Khai was able to sprint almost the whole distance, firing his trusty sidearm the whole way. Most of the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off their armor, but some did find their marks. Bullets shattered the receptors of two more and they started firing wildly all over. Summoning his antean strength, Khai leapt high into the air, over the leading SPEAR and landed behind it. With a thunderous kick, he solidly connected with the leading spear in the back, sending it tumbling over the first barrier to the floor. Its treads spun helplessly, trying to right itself.
Running for another SPEAR, he pulled his final grenade, lodged it into a crevice between the torso and lower strut leading to the treads, planted two steps up its back and bounded off backward into a back flip. The grenade went off blasting the SPEAR into two pieces spouting fluids and sparks as they landed.
“Ten!” Puar shouted. “Move!”
They all charged in, bellowing war cries. Naad opened up with his twin SMGs, Puar was firing off with his pistol and Brix jogged in firing his heavy machine gun. The Agents bounded in doing their acrobatic thing, while the remaining officers followed up.
It was a massacre. The remaining four SPEARs picked off the officers before they could even fire off a shot and, despite their elusiveness, only two Agents remained; the others lay on the floor dead with several bullet wounds. At ten yards out, a SPEAR homed in on Naad and riddled him. He only had time to squeak out a short yelp before he tripped over his own feet and fell to the floor dead, a pool a blood collecting under him. Brix stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of his friend taking a dive.
“Naad!” he cried. “You ba-” he caught a bullet in the head and fell back motionless.
Puar dived for cover behind a forklift which was immediately blasted with holes. The two Agents tirelessly dodged bullets with twists and turns, flips and handsprings. An Agent came down on the one that flipped over the first barrier. He sliced with his Kit’Ra removing its head and it stopped struggling. He paused just long enough to get riddled with bullet holes, reducing him to a basically a pile of goo. The final Agent came to rest down in the pit under the landing platform.
Khai was in trouble. He took cover around the corner of the control room facing away from the hanger exit. He could hear the whirring of servos in the sudden silence that enveloped them. The silence meant one of two things: everyone else was dead, so there were no targets, or the remaining people had found cover, so there were no targets. Either way, Khai was in for a world of hurt. The whirring got louder and louder; Khai was certain that the SPEAR was going to turn the corner any minute.
Sibrex stood atop the control room, fixing his gaze on the SPEAR stalking Khai. Going all the way around the hanger to get to his current position was painstakingly slow and frustrating, especially when he saw Naad and then Brix go down. He pushed his misgivings aside as he stealthily crept to the edge of the control room and activated his EMP device again. The pulse hit all three of them but nothing happened. Instead, they all fixed on Sibrex’s position. Sibrex sighed and jumped down on top of the one closest to Khai. As they both struggled, Sibrex lodged a knife into the separation between the plates on its back.
The other SPEARs fixed to open fire on Sibrex, Khai decided it was time to return his favor by drawing their fire. He sprinted out back toward the entrance from which he came, the SPEARs focused on him and opened fire. Sibrex lost sight of his friend to the darkness just before he worked
the panel off. He then haphazardly reached in and started yanking out cords and wires that looked even remotely important. After four handfuls of circuitry, the SPEAR finally sputtered, coughed up some sparks and fell dead to the floor with a final twitch.
Khai finally found cover behind a stack of metal crates and immediately knew that his situation was dire. His heroism was rewarded with several bullets ripping their way through his flesh. Most had hit his flak jacket—knocking the wind out of him, but some of them found their mark somewhere on his body—one of which hit him in the right leg just below the knee, shattering the tibia. Blood was already pooling under him where he sat and a blurry haze was clouding his peripheral vision.
As the three SPEARs moved off in Khai’s direction, Puar came out from his cover spot and fired the two remaining grenades in his launcher. Each one connected. One SPEAR flew apart spraying fluid everywhere. The other had its bottom half blown apart which showered the hanger with molten slag, circuitry and tread links.
Only one remained; and now it was severely outnumbered and outgunned. The remaining people (Sibrex, Puar, one Agent and Khai—who was crawling along the floor firing wildly at it) converged on the singled-out SPEAR. Bullets connected with vulnerable spots from head to tread. Eventually, the overwhelming fire caused a hydraulic line to rupture on the pivot point just above its treads and it sagged. Using one of its gun-mounted hands to brace itself up, it continued to fire; only now it was firing wildly in arcing sprays. The remaining Agent streaked forward and buried his Kit’Ra straight down through the head into the floor and left it there.
“Khai!” Sibrex breathed.
Khai was on his back, staring blankly up at the hanger ceiling, a bloody trail marked the gleaming floor from his hiding spot to his resting spot where more blood began to pool. The sight of that much blood caused Sibrex to reflexively salivate. He pushed his temptations deep down, despite the fact that he hadn’t fed in days, and knelt down next to his new friend.
“Khai’Xander Khail, you are not permitted to die this day,” he whispered. He looked up at Puar. “Get to the control room, free the Prime Minister and deactivate the hanger force field. We need immediate transport to the nearest medical facility!”
The Seryys Chronicles: Death Wish Page 31
