The surface distorted and swelled like liquid. One of the soldiers shouted a warning, but it was too late, as the light emerged within.
♦
Gunfire and screams filled the air. A roar of sound and a flash of light and Sarah was thrown to the ground. Ears ringing, debris rained down around her. Staggering to her feet, the world spun into slow motion. Sarah whirled round, hair flailing as Jason ran towards her, his mouth open in a protracted shout. Behind him the Darklight soldiers shot at the shimmering light, beams of energy and muzzle flashes blasting out like dragon fire.
Someone grabbed her arm. ‘SARAH!’
Normal time whooshed back into reality and Trish dragged her into a passageway, with Jason close behind.
‘Run!’ he said, pushing them forward.
Sarah followed Trish as they fled from the carnage, shouts, screams and rapid gunfire driving them onwards. Twists and turns flashed by and the sound of the battle faded. But the three friends didn’t stop and more frantic moments passed, ragged breathing and mindless direction only ending when Trish faltered and their flight slowed. Sarah leapt over a deep fissure and skidded to a stop beside her friend, who lent against a wall, panting and gasping for breath.
‘What now?’ Jason said, appearing beside them.
Sarah shook her head; she had no clue.
He looked at them, waiting for an answer. When none came, he glanced behind and then moved past to see what lay ahead. ‘We need the pendant back,’ he said, coming back to them, ‘so we wait it out and then go back and see if we can find it.’
‘He won’t just give it to us,’ Trish said, nursing her broken arm.
‘You think he’s still going to be alive? That thing cut through them like they weren’t there. And besides, what else can we do?’
Sarah made a face. ‘Not much.’
‘Then it’ll have to do,’ Trish said.
With their plan set, they headed off once more with Jason leading the way.
Another minute passed before sporadic gunshots echoed down the passage ahead.
Jason swore and turned them back the other way.
The twisting turns continued before they ran into a Darklight soldier.
The woman swung round, eyes glowing and rifle raised.
Jason held out his hands. ‘Don’t shoot!’
The woman relaxed, shook her head at their stupidity and turned back round before being dragged with a scream into the dark, gun firing.
Seized by terror, they ran back they way they’d come. Another heart-pounding minute later, they stopped again, out of breath and eyes wide.
No one spoke as they listened for signs of pursuit.
None came.
Running out of options, they worked their way further into the labyrinth.
A while later – with Jason still leading – they halted for a third time when he held up a hand.
‘What is it?’ Trish said in a whisper.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know; go back the other way.’
They did so, the decision putting Sarah in the lead. She heard a noise to the right and so she turned left. Creeping forward with stealth-like care, she let out a shout as three Darklight soldiers ran past, weapons firing.
‘Go back!’ Sarah said, pushing Trish in the opposite direction, as the screams of dying men chased them along the passageway.
Running again, tense moments turned to hushed minutes and they found themselves emerging into a large void, the passages and tunnels giving way to a whole new chamber. Escaping from the confined space would have been a blessing except that in the distance a sheer rock face rose high to block off any chance of escape. The new area was one vast, dead end.
Movement to their left made Trish scream.
Poised to flee, Sarah spun round to see something crouched huddled against a wall.
Jason pushed Trish behind him. ‘What the hell is that?!’
The small figure raised its head and Sarah took a step towards it. Covered in dirt and clothed in rags, Sarah stared into terrified eyes. ‘It’s a woman.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘What the hell is she doing down here?’ Jason said.
Sarah didn’t know, but one thing was for sure, this newcomer was more frightened of them than they were of her.
The woman scuttled back as Sarah approached.
‘It’s okay,’ Sarah said, switching on her helmet’s torches and holding out a hand.
‘It won’t be for long,’ said a deep voice.
Sarah turned round as the powerful figure of the Darklight commander strode out into the area behind, followed by the remnants of his unit, their torches blazing bright.
‘What do you mean?’ Sarah said. ‘Who is she?’
‘She’s the woman I’ve been searching for.’ Hilt switched out a magazine from his rifle and loaded a new one. ‘And where she goes, the light follows.’
‘What?!’ Jason said in alarm.
Hilt ignored him and beckoned to the woman. ‘Susan, come here, child, I’ll take you back to Rebecca.’
The woman whimpered in fear and edged back along the rocky wall.
Trish moved to Sarah’s side to bar his way. ‘I don’t think she wants to go with you.’
‘Then it’s lucky I don’t care what you think.’ The Darklight leader strode forward and pushed Trish and Sarah aside.
On his approach the woman sprang up and Hilt made a desperate grab for her, but she scampered out of reach to cower behind Trish.
‘You’re scaring her,’ Trish said, laying a tentative hand on the half-starved creature.
The woman flinched at the touch, but remained where she was, eyes darting this way and that.
Hilt’s mask and visor retracted into his helmet. ‘This is no time for games; that woman is under my care.’
Trish stroked Susan’s grimy hair. ‘It doesn’t look like you’ve done a very good job.’
The commander’s face darkened.
‘Sir!’ one his men said.
Hilt paused and his eyes went distant as he listened to a communication. His mask and visor slid back into place and he cocked his weapon. ‘The beast approaches.’
Chapter Fifteen
All was still in Sanctuary’s depths as the Darklight soldiers formed up behind their leader to await their fate.
Commander Hilt stood facing the entrance to the black labyrinth like an immovable force attempting to hold back the unstoppable tide.
He glanced right to see Susan still clutching the woman’s leg.
A fearsome bellow of noise gusted through the chamber. This is it, Hilt thought, refocusing on the passage ahead. No more running. No more hiding. No more chasing. It ends here, one way or another.
The last surviving members of his recon team came steaming out of the dark.
‘It’s right behind us!’ one of them shouted.
Hilt flicked the switch on his reserve rifle to full auto and the shimmering blue-green light burst from the black.
‘FIRE!’ Hilt roared.
Weapons blazed. Bullets and beams of energy tore into the light, but the creature shrieked and flew on.
Hilt dived right and kept firing as two of his men disappeared in an explosion of blood.
The creature attacked again and Hilt slid a mine into its path. The detonation rocked the ground beneath his feet, but the light persisted. Hilt rolled aside as the creature smashed one soldier from his feet and then pinned another to the ground, before dragging him screaming into the labyrinth.
Hilt signalled to one of his men. The man nodded and loaded a tactical missile into his rifle’s launch mechanism.
‘As soon as it reappears,’ Hilt said through the com, ‘take it out.’
‘Sir,’ the soldier said, ‘no one will survive the blast.’
Hilt glanced at Susan and the three civilians. ‘It’s for the best,’ he said, with a heavy heart, ‘this thing can’t be allowed to return to camp. Director Goodwin would understand.’
The so
ldier nodded and took aim.
♦
Sarah watched in horror as the Darklight soldiers fought the creature and died without even slowing it down. With over half his force massacred, only the leader and less than twenty of his unit remained. And when they’d fallen, there would be just four, unarmed civilians left to face it alone.
Sarah hoped – prayed – for another miracle and her hand clasped Trish’s locket in unconscious desperation. A lull in the fighting allowed her short relief before the light came again.
♦
The creature reappeared inside the entrance before blinking out of existence. Hilt cursed and the man with the missile launcher glanced in his leader’s direction before a gush of blood burst from his lips.
The dying form of his lieutenant was lifted into the air and Hilt’s helplessness turned to rage.
‘SWORDS!’ Sprinting forward, Hilt drew forth his thermal blade.
The light vanished again and the mangled corpse slumped to the ground.
♦
Sarah saw the Darklight leader slow to a stop, his glowing eyes turning this way and that as he sought their hunter. In his hand, a bright shining blade pulsed in the dark like a weapon forged by God. Around him seven other swords shone out with the same white brilliance.
Sarah held her breath, but as the seconds ticked by only darkness stirred.
‘Where is it?’ Trish said, her voice shaking.
Sarah didn’t know.
After a minute of deathly silence the Darklight leader separated himself from his unit and approached.
‘Has it gone?’ Trish said.
‘For now.’ The Darklight man switched off his white hot sword, retracted his mask and held something out to Sarah.
She opened her hand and he dropped her two pentagonal pendants into her palm.
He then passed her the Anakim parchments, before withdrawing the orb from another compartment. ‘What is this?’ he said, holding it up for inspection.
‘Just an artefact,’ Sarah said, making sure she kept her tone as bland as possible.
He studied the orb before tossing it to her. He glanced at Trish. ‘She seems to like you,’ he said, indicating Susan, who cowered behind her. ‘If you can keep her from running off, I’ll do my best to get you safely back to the USSB.’ He removed a small pouch from his armour and held it out to her. ‘For the arm.’
Trish reached out and accepted the offering.
‘You haven’t told us who you are,’ Sarah said, hurrying to keep up with him as he walked back to his unit. ‘Who is Susan? Why are you down here? What is Darklight?’
‘They’re used by the GMRC,’ Jason said, ‘peacekeepers for hire – mercenaries, right?’
‘There’ll be time for answers soon enough,’ Hilt said, ‘for now, we concentrate on staying alive.’
‘You intend to keep chasing it, don’t you?’ Sarah said. ‘You mean to kill it.’
Hilt looked like he was about to reply before a rumble of distant noise made everyone turn. The Darklight leader’s sword glowed back to life and he strode to the fore. His troops fanned out behind him, their own blades drawn, and odd-shaped shields slid from concealment to mechanically expand in preparation for another round with the phantom.
Coming from the opposite direction to the labyrinth entrance, a light was growing on the escarpment high above. The sound grew louder and Sarah glanced behind, wondering if they should make a run for it. She swapped glances with Trish and Jason, and they edged toward the passage that led into the sprawling maze.
Blazing light appeared over the rise, flooding the chamber and turning night into day. Sarah squinted as her visor image flared due to the sudden change in spectral input.
A powerful voice rang out into the chamber. ‘SARAH MORGAN!’
Sarah stopped and turned to look up at the top of the escarpment, which was now lined with row upon row of Terra Force commandos.
In their centre a single man stood atop an SED all-terrain vehicle. He retracted his helmet’s mask and pointed down at her. ‘I’ve come for you, Morgan!’ he said, ‘there’s nowhere else to run!’
Chapter Sixteen
Commander Hilt looked back at the SED woman, who stared up, open-mouthed, at the force arrayed before them. Whatever she was doing in Sanctuary Proper it seemed it was as he suspected; there was more going on with her than met the eye.
‘Sarah Morgan is under my protection,’ Hilt said, raising his voice and zooming in his visor on the man above. ‘What do you want with her?’
The SFSD Colonel turned his attention to Hilt and his expression changed to one of recognition. ‘If it isn’t Steiner’s pet merc. I heard you were all dead.’
‘Then you heard wrong.’
‘Keep standing in my way, Darklight, and I won’t have.’
Hilt glimpsed a glimmer of movement and thrust his blade left. ‘Take another step, assassin, and it’ll be your last.’
A shimmer of light distorted the air and a chrome-clad figure appeared, with Hilt’s glowing blade resting at its throat.
Something tapped against Hilt’s armoured chest.
‘Think again, Commander,’ a woman said.
Hilt glanced down to see the tip of a slender blade and he followed the length of the sword to where its owner emerged from the background.
He gazed into the mirror-like visor of another assassin. ‘Where’s your leader?’ Hilt said, glancing at the woman’s S.I.L.V.E.R. emblem and the gun she held in her other hand.
Motionless moments passed before she turned her head to look towards the labyrinth. ‘Hunting,’ she said, her voice distant.
Hilt studied her. ‘He seeks the light?’
The woman’s visor retracted to reveal beautiful Asian eyes. ‘He seeks Sarah Morgan, as do I … we all seek the light,’ she touched his Darklight emblem with her sword, ‘but the dark is always just one step behind.’
‘You know of what I speak; the entity – the creature.’
The woman didn’t reply as more of her colleagues materialised to confront Hilt’s beleaguered unit.
The colonel’s voice rang out again. ‘Can you hear me, Morgan?!’ he shouted. ‘You have something I want, the pendant; give it to me and you get to live!’
♦
‘They know about the pendant,’ Trish said in hushed despair.
Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. Their secret was out. They knew what she possessed, the key to the Anakim’s past, the key to their technology, the key to everything. And they’d sent an army to reclaim it.
She glanced at the chrome-plated warriors who’d appeared from nowhere to force the Darklight commander and his unit into a standoff. And then her eyes were drawn up to the escarpment and the troops surrounding the Terra Force leader. Virtually all of them had their weapons trained in her direction. She felt her throat run dry and automatically licked her cracked lips in response. She wanted to run, but she’d be lucky to get two feet.
♦
Colonel Samson ground his teeth against a sense of building impatience. S.I.L.V.E.R. had taken it upon themselves to secure the woman. Nexus had disappeared and his Chinese bitch had switched off her radio. If they get their hands on the pendant first, he thought, the only way to get it back will be to prise it from their dead hands. The only problem with that – they’d take everyone else with them by detonating their failsafe device. I have to act, but how?
‘Do you know what this woman is?!’ Samson said. ‘Does Darklight know who it protects? This woman is a thief, a murderer and a terrorist,’ – he paused for breath – ‘as are any that stand with her!’
‘Says the man that murdered Steadfast civilians,’ the Darklight leader said. ‘I know who and what you are, Colonel Samson!’
Samson had had enough of this charade. He called over one of his captains. ‘Get down there and retake control from S.I.L.V.E.R..’
The man saluted and gathered together four squads. The soldiers each fired a climbing anchor into the cliff and then dropped
over the edge to abseil down to the ground below.
Samson gestured to one of his men. ‘Bring him.’
♦
Sarah felt sick. She’d known what she’d done was right. She’d taken back what was hers. She’d defended herself and escaped false imprisonment, but now the stark reality of her choices had come back to haunt her. Being called a thief she could live with, but a murderer and a terrorist? Hearing the words spoken, and with such malice, made her feel numb.
Movement above made her refocus her attention.
‘Sarah Morgan,’ the colonel said, ‘you have something I want, but I have something of yours!’
Sarah’s eyes widened as a man was dragged to the edge of the cliff. A man she’d grown to admire, a man who’d become a friend, a man whom she loved. ‘Riley,’ she whispered. She went to move forward, but Trish grasped her arm.
The colonel jumped down from the Centipede on which he stood, removed his rifle from his back-plate and pointed it to Riley’s head. ‘The time for talking is over, Morgan! Surrender yourself to my men—’
Sarah saw more Terra Force soldiers reach the bottom of the cliff face.
‘—or this man dies. You have ten seconds!’
♦
The commandos disconnected from their descent cables and approached Hilt’s position.
‘It looks like the colonel doesn’t trust you,’ Hilt said to the assassin.
He could tell the woman wanted to look behind to see what was happening, but she kept her discipline, her sword remaining near his armour’s weak point and her sidearm aimed at his face.
‘Eight seconds!’ Samson shouted.
Hilt knew Samson had massacred his men back in Steadfast and he was as likely to kill them all as let them go. He tightened the grip on his sword, his muscles tensing for action.
♦
Sarah adjusted her visor and homed in on Riley, who struggled in vain against his captors. Seeing his face again brought memories flooding back and her heart lurched in anguish and longing in equal measure.
2041 Sanctuary (Genesis) Page 9
