Necropolis 4: Terminal (The Shadow Wars Book 10)

by S. A. Lusher

  For a moment, she thought she might have killed him, but as she began an awkward search of him with her bound hands, she saw he was still breathing. So, passed out. Maybe some brain damage. Not that she cared. Whoever these people in black uniforms were, they were bad news. She found his combat knife and managed to, with a bit of trouble, get the cord cut. From there, she took his radio, his sidearm, ammo and knife. After attaching the sheath and holster to her belt, she fitted the radio into her ear and looked around.

  There was a vent grate on the floor.

  Perfect. She knelt, opened it with a few shots and crawled inside, scrambling into it as far and as fast as she could.

  Jennifer passed by several groups of people as she crawled what felt like hundreds and hundreds of meters. She managed to piece together that someone had cut the power to the base, they had no idea who and they were worried that the creatures were going to get out. That was enough to get her going even further.

  Finally, after what felt like ages, Jennifer found a part of the base that apparently no one visited. She kicked out a vent grate and dropped into an empty corridor. Crouching, she waited for a moment, seeing if someone would come running at the sound. Somewhere, a door opened. Jennifer swallowed, pulled out her pistol and crept down the corridor. She could hear voices, whispering. Who were they? She reached the end of the corridor, coming to a crossroads. The voices were getting louder. As they came into the crossroads, she stepped out, pistol raised.

  “Hold it!” she snapped.

  Three people raised weapons, covering her, but not firing. They didn't wear black jumpsuits. They all wore a sort of blue-gray style of combat armor. Two men and a woman, all of them what they called 'space pale'. The two men had short, dark hair, one with a dark stain of stubble on his jaw and the other clean-shaven. The woman was tall, almost as tall as both men, who easily reached six feet, and had short, red hair.

  “Who are you?” the man with the stubble asked.

  “My name's Jennifer North. Corporate security. Who are you?”

  The man smiled. “Greg Bishop. I'm here to help.”

  CHAPTER 11

  –Catching Up–

  “Holy shit!” Eve cried as a brilliant plume of yellow-red flames exploded far ahead of them. What had once been the Cimmerian was now so much free-floating debris. The explosions, which started at the engines and continued along the side of the huge vessel, culminating in one giant eruption, quickly died as the lack of atmosphere snuffed them out. Greg stared at the fractured vessel, which had been very thoroughly destroyed, so that there wasn't very much left, then shifted his attention to the pair of jump ships departing in a haste from it. They were making a beeline for the nearby lunar colony, planted firmly on a large, gray orb.

  “I guess they were done with it,” Drake muttered.

  “Yeah. What do the scans say?” Greg replied, glancing over at Eve.

  They were all stuffed together into the bridge of the small vessel that Hawkins had provided them with. It was like a speedship, except better, newer. Cutting edge. What that also meant was that the controls had been simplified and streamlined. At the moment, Eve was the most qualified among them to pilot it, but Drake or Greg could get by if they really had to. Greg had been learning a lot over the past six months.

  It seemed paramount to his survival.

  “Scans say that there's about three hundred people down on that colony and about a dozen on those ships heading towards it, and...one of them is unconscious,” Eve replied, studying her readout screen.

  “Injured?” Drake asked.

  “No, doesn't look like it.”

  “Prisoner?” Greg suggested.

  “Could be. I imagine there were enough people on that ship.”

  “Any Undead in the colony?” Greg replied.

  “Lots and lots,” she said.

  His features fell. Among the data recovered from the lunar-based research facility after they'd escaped Dis and the Rogue Ops fleet was a method of tracking the Undead: the men and women turned into living killing machines by the Nerco Virus.

  “How many is lots?” Drake asked.

  “Over three hundred, scans can't be sure though. They're largely grouped together,” Eve replied.

  Greg groaned. He thought he was done with the Undead, the zombies and the Stalkers and the Berserkers. But apparently not. Apparently the universe figured he had to go through that particular horror once more.

  “How far out are we?” Drake asked.

  “We'll be there in a quarter hour,” Eve replied.

  Greg sighed and stood up. “I'm going to go make sure everything's in working order,” he said.

  “I'll join you,” Drake replied.

  “I'll be back as soon as we land,” Eve said.

  Greg led Drake out of the bridge, back into the armory that took up about a quarter of the ship. They'd already put their suits of armor on. Greg liked them. They were no longer black-and-silver, like Spec Ops, but now an odd sort of blue-gray color that was, for some reason, pleasing to his eye. Now it was time to pick out his arsenal.

  As he and Drake did this, moving silently among the large room, Greg let his mind wander. A tremendous amount had happened over the past six months. To him, it felt like they'd finished taking down Rogue Operations, once and for all, over six years ago instead of just half a year. After he and the others had officially signed up with Anomalous Operations, it had been slow going for a bit. The first two months or so had been spent carefully cultivating a new crew, almost all of which had been culled from Special Operations, though he and the other Survivors, (that's what everyone had taken to calling them), were really the ones who were in charge...below Hawkins, of course. They'd also filled the time by running down what remained of Rogue Ops, a task which Greg had assumed they'd finished up already, but apparently not.

  There were still a handful of hidden bases that Rogue Ops hadn't ever reported to the GA or anyone else and references to these locations kept cropping up in databases they recovered over the course of their campaign against them. In the course of this investigation, they'd stumbled on something interesting.

  Enzo Rains.

  The man was still alive and kicking.

  What was really interesting, however, was that he wasn't hiding in some hole in the ground along the Far Reach. He was actually doing something. It took them about two months to piece together exactly what the hell he was doing, but eventually they got the shape of it: he was rebuilding Rogue Ops. To what end, for a while, no one knew. But Drake became obsessed. Or, Greg thought unhappily, he remained obsessed. It was all the man did. His time seemed to be taken up by training and working out and scanning endlessly for Enzo.

  The edge of his obsession had dulled a bit since then and he'd taken to at least hanging out with Greg, Allan and the others. He also seemed to be spending time with Genevieve more than any of them, which made enough sense, given that, besides him, she had been the one closest to Trent. Things kept happening all over the galaxy. Someone would spot Enzo on some distant colony or he'd show up in a security system on a transport.

  He was good though, better than they were, because the trail would always go cold.

  He'd even somehow gone as far as recruiting the good Doctor Matheson. That was where he'd made the big mistake. Greg was currently at odds with what happened next, because he wasn't sure he liked where it was leading, but Matheson had been tagged with a practically invisible sub-dermal tracer that would transmit from pretty much anywhere. Medical scans couldn't pick it up unless you knew exactly what you were looking for. It was brand-new, cutting edge, and apparently, Enzo didn't know it was there.

  Neither did Matheson.

  So he'd led them right to Enzo, out on the fringe. It made Greg paranoid. What if he had one? What if, for some reason, he was forced to go rogue? The government wasn't exact known for being kind-hearted and even-tempered. What made the situation far more frustrating was the fact that they had waited until about three days ag
o to even bother telling anyone at Anomalous Ops about this. Something about 'state secrets' and all that crap. Hawkins had about had a heart attack when he'd found out and had only soothed his frayed blood pressure by focusing on getting a team together immediately. Given his rank and authority, he had essentially called dibs on Enzo Rains. That, combined with how hectic the state of affairs of the galaxy was, (rebels were popping up again), meant that the GA let him handle it his way.

  So, he'd gathered Greg, Eve and Drake, gotten them this high-tech speedship, technically called a Viper Mark IV, and sent them on a collision course with Enzo and his army. It was a tall order, but Greg had picked up on something about Enzo as he'd searched for him: he was getting desperate. Which meant he was in pain, more pain than ever before, and pain made people do stupid things. And it looked like they'd already had the odds tipped in their favor: the ship was gone, which just left the colony to deal with.

  Greg finished checking over his pistol. It, like the rest of his gear, was modified. Made for him. That was one of the perks of working for Hawkins. He could get you top gear. Greg had customized his suit. It had blue running lights, (blue was his favorite color). He'd also made sure to get thrusters installed alongside the magnetic boots. It had a nice package that enhanced his strength, speed and stamina a bit and it could stand up to a lot stuff. On top of that, it could hold about an hours' worth of oxygen, had tons of pockets and lots of different vision filters. Fit like a glove, too, without being constrictive or constraining.

  Greg loved it.

  He selected a shotgun and placed it across his back. It was a great model, could hold ten eight-gauge slug shells. It was crazy powerful. Finally, he had his tactical assault rifle, complete with digital scope, optional silencer, extended magazines and emergency flashlight, in case, for whatever reason, his suit failed him.

  He finished packing his pockets with ammo and a few grenades. As he wrapped this up, he heard the landing gear clicking into place. Apparently, they'd made it down to the surface without alerting anyone. Perfect. The speedship's new radar-blocking abilities were just as top-of-the-line as Hawkins had promised. Either that or Enzo's crew were really off the ball. Either was possible he supposed. Behind him, he heard the door open.

  Greg turned and looked at Eve.

  Even in power armor she looked great.

  She had changed a great deal over the past six months. With the gene therapy and supplements Hawkins' medical crew had been giving her, Eve had grown a full seven inches and gained about sixty pounds in muscle. She'd been training up and working out with Greg a lot, and they went together on pretty much every mission now. She was just an inch shy of being his height. Greg thought she was even sexier now. She had crazy endurance in bed and, during one particularly memorable vacation on Mezzanine three months ago, she'd gone out and gotten a tattoo across her back of black, folded angel wings and a flaming metallic skull on her hip. Greg wasn't sure why but he'd suddenly discovered women with tattoos were so hot.

  “How'd it go?” he asked.

  “Great, we're in. Just a quarter mile from the facility. Walk in the park,” she replied.

  “Yeah, a walk in an atmospherically compromised, frozen park,” Greg replied.

  She grinned and approached him, rolling her eyes. “Quit being a baby,” she replied, then she kissed him. She didn't have to stand on her tiptoes anymore to do it.

  He kissed her back, loving the taste and smell of her.

  “Hurry up, you two,” Drake said as he slung his rifle over his shoulder. He turned and marched out of the armory.

  “I hope he's going to be okay,” Greg murmured, after he'd gone.

  “I don't know if he ever will be,” Eve replied. She started gathering her gear.

  Greg frowned, knowing it was true. He stood back and waited for Eve to finish, following another train of thought. He had to admit that he was a little disappointed in Anomalous Ops so far. Besides gathering the new crew and tracking down Enzo...not a whole lot had happened. At least, in terms of actual paranormal, weird monster or alien stuff. Which he'd kind of been looking forward to. Sure, it was grim and horrifying when he had to put up with it, but...well, it was also fascinating. Except fucking zombies.

  He was sick of those.

  “Done, let's go,” Eve said as she finished up.

  They both pulled their helmets into place and secured them. As they left the armory and moved through the ship, Greg ran a quick suit-check to make sure it was up to snuff. By the time he'd reached the back airlock where Drake waited for them, it came back clear. He was ready to go. They all were. The three of them stepped into the airlock.

  It was time to get this show on the road.

  * * * * *

  The walk across the surface was uneventful. As far as their scans had indicated, there were large sections of the outpost that were almost completely unoccupied. Enzo must have had some constraints with his power or resources and kept the parts he didn't need shut down and closed off. This would be a perfect way to gain entry into the facility. On top of that, they'd located the actual power generator and Eve seemed convinced that they could, from access along the exterior wall, find a way to potentially cut power to the whole facility, forcing back-up generators to come online and make the whole thing that much easier on them.

  And it turned out to be.

  They managed to hit the power relay and Eve cut into it without a problem. She killed the power, then they hoofed it to an airlock they'd pre-selected that would give them access to one of the more uninhabited regions of the facility. Greg began to feel really alive again as they found an airlock. It had to be manually cranked open, since there was no power, emergency or otherwise, running to it, but they managed to get in without any trouble.

  “Now what?” Drake asked.

  “We do like we always do,” Greg replied. “Find a terminal, figure out what to do next.”

  They began making their way through the dead, dark parts of the facility. Greg's light-amp filter provided him with a grainy, green view of the blank metal corridors and empty rooms. A moment later, emergency lighting flickering into place.

  “Well, they got the secondary generator going,” Eve muttered.

  “Which means we should speed this up,” Greg replied.

  They kept going, making their way for several minutes in silence. As they continued along, Greg spoke up quietly.

  “I do find it kind of hard to believe Enzo managed all this by himself,” he said.

  “He wasn't stupid,” Eve replied. “Well, for the most part. And pain is a hell of a motivator. I mean, think about it. Why do people get lazy? Why do people procrastinate? Because they'd rather be relaxing than doing whatever it is they have to do. I can remember plenty of times when I'd rather be sitting back, watching a movie or reading a book, than doing my job. That's how it is for most people. But imagine if that was taken away from you. Imagine is there was no downtime, because every time you relaxed, you were in pain.”

  “You'd want to work all the fucking time to keep your mind off the pain...” Greg replied. She had a good point. And he kind of knew what she meant. In the months since taking down Rogue Ops, he'd pretty much given up on ever recovering his lost memories. They'd tried a few more techniques, a few more drugs, but it had all amounted to nothing and he'd let it lie. This was who Greg Bishop was now. A man who worked for Anomalous Operations. And probably as a result of the fact that, as far as his memories were concerned, his entire life began at the age of twenty six in a zombie-infested wasteland and had been pretty much a non-stop horror show ever since, he'd developed a hell of a taste for an adrenaline-fueled lifestyle.

  That had drawbacks.

  One of them was that he couldn't be idle for very long. At a stretch, if he was particularly burned out, Greg might be able to handle a week of nothing happening. He needed excitement in his life or he'd start going insane.

  Obviously not the same as constant pain, but he could at least sympathize.

>   “Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” he replied.

  “Doesn't really matter,” Drake said. “He's fucked either way.”

  They stepped into a crossroads and suddenly, Greg found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol.

  “Hold it!”

  On the other end of that pistol was a wide-eyed, pale blonde woman who looked like she'd been through hell. She had a black security jumpsuit with a corporate emblem on the chest and was sprayed with sweat and blood.

  “Who are you?” Greg asked, trying to defuse the situation quickly. He had a feeling that she wasn't with Enzo.

  “My name's Jennifer North. Corporate security. Who are you?” the woman replied.

  Greg smiled. “Greg Bishop. I'm here to help.”

  Jennifer stared at him for a moment longer, then, slowly, she lowered the pistol. “You're the ones who cut the power,” she said.

  “Yep,” Drake replied.

  “Come on,” Greg said. “We need to keep moving.”

  “Where are we going?” Jennifer asked, following as they continued deeper into the facility.

  “To find a terminal that still works,” Eve replied.

  Introductions were made as they continued their trek. After that, Jennifer brought them all up to speed on all that had been happening to her and a handful of other survivors that had awoken aboard the Cimmerian. While she talked, they managed to get into an underground utilities sector that ran beneath the whole of the colony and track down a working terminal along the peripheral of the zones that had above the minimum power. Greg was genuinely impressed with Jennifer's account. It sounded like she was one of them, a survivor, someone who had gone through hell and come out the other side. Though, of course, she wasn't done yet.

  None of them were.

  “All right,” Greg said as Eve got the terminal booted up and hacked it so that anyone currently looking at the system couldn't tell it was being used. “Now it's time to bring you up to speed on what we're doing here.”