Empire: Assignment Darklanding Book 12

by Scott Moon

  “Let me do a PCI on your gear,” Sergeant Victory said.

  She liked the man, a newer member of TerroCom but well respected by his men and General Adam Quincy. Unfortunately, she didn’t feel like a pre-combat inspection. Her gear was good. She’d done this before.

  “He’s trying to do his job, Penelope,” Quincy said from his place across the aisle. “Don’t take it out on him because you’re pissed at me.”

  “I’m not pissed at you, Adam. I’m just irritated I have so many exes and keep having to work with them,” she said, then nodded to Sergeant Victory.

  The man checked her gear with pinpoint precision. “You’re good to go.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Do you need me to do you?”

  The man blushed despite his years and weathered skin. “I think my gear is squared away.”

  “You think it’s squared away. That’s the point of a PCI, isn’t it?” She checked his armor, ammunition, and other essentials. “Don’t mind the general. He’s not that jealous, and I was just messing with you.”

  “That’s not what I heard, about the general being jealous I mean,” Victory said.

  Penelope couldn’t resist. “Maybe you can be my future ex-lover. That’s how my luck has been these days.”

  General Adam Quincy pointed at Sergeant Victory and then the other side of the dropship. The man made a hasty retreat.

  “Penelope, you’re lucky I let you come. You’re not a TerroCom soldier and so far, you’ve done nothing but disrupt the efficiency of my men.”

  She knew he was right. “Do you want an apology or something?”

  “I want a second chance.”

  “I meant an apology for interfering with your soldiers.”

  “No. They’re professionals. I’m not worried about them.” He paused. “Unlike your ex-husband, I haven’t gotten over you. Thought I did, but I didn’t. There. I said it.”

  “You sure did say it,” Penelope said. “What’s gotten into you, Adam? You weren’t one of those ‘in touch with his feelings guys’ when we were an item.”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this mission,” he said. “Tiberius isn’t right for you. Give me a second chance before it’s too late.”

  “Deployment in thirty seconds,” Sergeant Victory shouted.

  “Give me another chance. Tiberius Plastes isn’t right for you,” the general said.

  “We’ll see.” She looked at the ramp that was about to drop. “You can buy me a drink when we survive this. Don’t get your hopes up about anything that might come later.”

  The ship touched the street and the ramp slammed down. Penelope and the soldiers rushed into a nightmare battle. Monsters of every shape and size threw themselves at the Mother Lode. Citizens and the remains of the first TerroCom squad fought a desperate battle for survival.

  Spiders scurried down walls, climbed out of street drains, and rushed over the boardwalks on each side of the asphalt street. Sergeant Victory took one half of the reinforcements, General Quincy took the other. She couldn’t believe he was here in the thick of the fight. Maybe he was showing off in a misguided attempt to get her back. Maybe he really cared about his men.

  She decided it didn’t matter. Shooting and moving took her full attention.

  ***

  Shaunte aimed her pistol into the shadows between two warehouses, edging forward as she chewed her lip. She had to go this way. The bad things were behind her. “Just be empty, just be empty, just be empty.”

  A mischief of rats knocked over a trash barrel as they fled the oncoming wave of monster things. Shaunte leapt into the air as she squealed. Despite the danger of her current situation, she smoothed her outfit and collected herself. No one saw her outburst, thank goodness.

  The chittering sounds approached.

  “Right! Time to go, Shaunte!” she said to herself as she ran toward a large freight car in the repair yard. It was up on blocks and had a very solid-looking door she could shut once she made it inside.

  This wasn’t the way she wanted to go. Getting lost in the relatively small town of Darklanding had to be impossible, but she’d done it. At first, she’d been trying to reach Thad at the Cornelius Vandersun Correction Facility and Rehab Center, then she’d been trying to get anywhere safe.

  She looked over her shoulder. Hundreds and hundreds of the little nightmares raced after her, gaining ground as though she were out for a casual stroll and they were being fired from a catapult. She grabbed the ladder steps and started to climb, scuffing the toe of her left shoe.

  “Oh, drat.” She took off the shoes and tossed them into the black storage area of the freight car. The monsters sprinted, whistling word-like sounds that drove her crazy.

  Up and up and up she went, sacrificing skin from her toes in lieu of damaging her designer shoes from Melborn. They hadn’t been anything as stylish as high heels, but neither could they be replaced on this planet.

  The door was on rollers. She grabbed the handles with both hands and heaved it shut, shouting triumphantly as it boomed. Thousands of tiny feet and sharp pointy things pattered harmlessly against the exterior of the industrial strength box.

  Exhausted, she sat against the wall, hugging herself. It was too dark to see her own hands. Safety had a price, it seemed. There was no way the small, scurrying versions of these monsters could break into her simple sanctuary.

  Something heavy slammed against the door. Moments later, another massive form joined it. Soon, the door was rocking on the rails that kept it in place.

  Shaunte told herself she wouldn’t cry. Her body trembled with fatigue. That was something different from sobbing uncontrollably, she thought.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Desperate Measures

  Proletan listened to the sheriff, promised he understood what the man wanted, then lied to his face.

  Why would he wade into the center of the crisis to save a poorly-trained native unsuited to the type of violence the situation required and an animal that was as likely to bite him as it was to bite their mutual foe?

  “You want me to help Mast and the pig-dog, then rendezvous at the Mother Lode for the last hurrah. Understood,” Proletan confirmed.

  “Can you do it?” Thad asked. “I really need to know, because my gut says splitting up is a mistake. I’m relying on you. Can you live up to your reputation?”

  “I can do it. No problem,” Proletan said, spreading his hands to display his large, perfectly muscled physique. “I am Proletan.”

  “Okay. In that case, it’s time to move out.”

  Proletan checked his gear with a few pats of his hands, a ritual he always performed despite his complete confidence in his pre-mission preparation. The weapons and gear Thad provided would be more than adequate for his purposes.

  Having memorized the exact route he would travel from the town maps in Thad’s mission briefing, he jogged for a block to warm-up, then ran at an aggressive pace. He ignored the Yakti minions that tumbled toward him when he passed. Perhaps he should have explained to Thaddeus and the others what they were facing. No one knew where the Yakti came from. Many bio-war historians would be crap-their-pants excited to see a living incarnation of the flesh multipliers.

  He didn’t know this creature’s full name. Evidence of three had been discovered on a derelict starship: Yakti-kaan, Yakti-droon, and Yakti-meglan. His access to the Melborn government’s secret files on the discovery had been limited to a brief perusal before he left the body of an unusually interesting victim. The scientist he’d been sent to kill had his workstation open when they met.

  Proletan had been going through an emotional phase at the time. Discontent and bored with his life, he lingered too long with his victims in an attempt to learn what they had done to deserve his attention. The answers were never clear. Sometimes he stumbled across novel information.

  He’d read the Yakti files for hours before making his escape from the research facility. The race that created the monsters was, hopefully, long dead from one of their
many experimentations with living weapons. The derelict starship had been the scene of a horrible massacre, requiring two generations of top-level scientists to examine forensically.

  What they came up with was a theoretical construct of Yakti. Facts were scarce, but disturbing. The creatures called themselves Yakti and a name designator, avoided the planet of Glakridoz at all costs, and used organic matter to build—rather than birth—their minions.

  A large wolf-like thing with spider legs twitching along its back jumped down from a building ahead of him. Its fur was a mass of greasy strands that could be more legs or fine, hair-like tentacles. Yellow and green slime oozed from its eyes as though it had been marinating in poisoned blood for thousands of years. Blood dripped from its maw as its lips trembled in rage.

  Proletan reached behind his back and pulled a small knife from a sheath. The four-inch blade would be adequate for piercing the brain if he could thrust through the eye socket. A miss would be a problem. The creature was large, strong, and fast. Built from organic parts from who knew where, the monster might have abilities he didn’t anticipate.

  Give yourself to Yakti-droon, food creature, a voice said in Proletan’s mind.

  “You’re psionic,” Proletan said in fascination. Pain cut through his mind. He fought it off with mental discipline and a few other tricks he had picked up from very esoteric training sources over the years. “I’m not your dinner, Yakti.”

  “Yakti-droon!” it croaked angrily. I am part of Yakti-droon that you may kill me and not affect the master of my fate. That you may feed me and thus feed my creator, that you may die in a spray of bloody misery.

  Proletan would reach the thing in three more steps. At his current speed, this was less than a second of time for the telepathic exchange to occur. Plenty of time, it seemed. Send your master a message, he thought, wondering if the telepathy went both ways—which would mean the thing had to be a mind-reader.

  The creature’s mind was struggling to process this directive when Proletan thrust his knife through the monster’s left eye. At the same time, he swept his left arm in a large circle to deflect dozens of the hair-spine things lashing at his throat. Sidestepping, moving back at an angle, and keeping his hands up to defend himself kept him alive.

  His forearms were riddled with dark, bloody puncture wounds when it was done.

  “That’s the message, servant of Yakti,” Proletan said. “Die.”

  The corpse lay motionless as blood and dark red brain-slime leaked out of its eye socket.

  A scientist would mourn the loss of a valuable research subject. Proletan wasn’t a scientist, he was an assassin with an addiction to reading and asking questions.

  Smaller creatures gathered around the scene. Proletan ignored all but those who blocked his path to the Mother Lode. Mast and Maximus had a decent chance of surviving on their own. Proletan had seen the emotional flaw in the sheriff’s plan immediately. Failure was something a man like Proletan didn’t do. He would go to the Mother Lode, rally the TerroCom Soldiers, and destroy his newest enemy—Yakti-droon, the ancient instrument of bio-war. In short, he would do what he needed to do to emerge victorious, as always. If he should die honorably in that pursuit, so much the better.

  All across the city, the minions of Yakti-droon chattered the name Proletan.

  ***

  Thad hated this plan worse than anything he’d ever tried. Sledge and Proletan were the only reason he finally decided to risk taking three objectives at once. These men were unbelievably determined warriors. He had no choice but to put his faith in them. Now there was nothing he could do but follow through and make it work.

  Nothing I can do? What kind of talk is that. Don’t make excuses for being in over your head, he thought.

  Angry, frustrated, and terrified this would be his big mistake that got everyone killed, he went in search of Shaunte Plastes.

  ***

  Sledge walked toward the shrieking mass of alien creatures. Everyone was running here and there and wherever. Yes, he was in a hurry. No, running wasn’t something he was going to do right now. Not that he couldn’t. He wasn’t as fast as Fry and couldn’t come near matching Proletan, but his conditioning was better than most men. Running ten miles wasn’t that hard as long as he chugged along at his own pace.

  The reason he was walking was that he needed to think and be ready for his one chance to do this right.

  “Dixie, do you read me? I need more information,” he said, holding his radio phone in front of his face, looking at it like he might see her through the simple, screen-less device.

  Static.

  He walked faster. Her last location had been very specific—radio tower 1810b. It was visible a few blocks away as a rough outline with a red light at the top. Shadows swarmed around the base.

  “Dixie,” he repeated.

  “I’m here. Stop being so impatient. I had to fish this thing you gave me out of my bra. Have you ever tried to dig something out of your very cute, extremely hard to find in a place like this, brassiere while climbing a radio tower?” she asked breathlessly.

  “You’re on the tower?”

  “I told you I was in trouble. Where are you?”

  Sledge dashed forward, blaster in hand. Gone were his careful plans to slip through the growing horde of enemies and pluck Dixie out of harm’s way undetected. His lungs were pumping air when he arrived at the radio tower. Sweat poured from his skin.

  He slowed to a walk, taking a moment to settle himself and adjust the grip on his blaster. The radio tower was in its own lot. Twenty meters high, it was held in place by eight cables bolted to the ground. Two of them had been chewed through by the spider creatures.

  The sight of them was alarming even to someone like Sledge who had seen it all. He called them spiders because that was the quickest description he could think of. They varied in size and texture. Some were slick as a snake and twisted back on themselves as often as they twisted forward. Most were covered with shaggy, hair-like tentacles, and most had five or more legs.

  That was one of the most disturbing aspects of these things, they often had odd numbers of appendages. Eyes in strange places, pincers, claws, and spikes made them look like something from a mad scientist's nightmare.

  There were perhaps a hundred of the things swarming up the narrow tower after Dixie. She kept them at bay with a small blaster in a purse she swung with impressive accuracy. Sledge realized they were in a hurry because they were bringing the entire tower down. Before long, they would be able to overwhelm her as she lay dazed from the fall.

  Another of the cables snapped as a group of the creatures chewed through a different cable. The sound was like a laser bolt from an action vid.

  A few of them had seen Sledge and started for him. He shot them with his blaster and then put both hands on his hips, including the hand holding the blaster. He needed to catch his breath.

  More and more of the monstrosities flowed off the tower to surround Sledge. He counted them and looked for a way to destroy them en masse. Without a crew-served weapon or a pile of grenades to throw, he was screwed. The terrain was no help; it was flat and open with enemies on all sides. He wasn’t wearing armor and doubted Thad or the others would come to his rescue.

  He wished he knew where the pig-dog was right now. Something Proletan had said during one of their long conversations about life, Darklanding, and everything had made Sledge think these creatures were afraid of the obnoxious mutt. It was the sheepdog versus the wolves analogy. Maximus the sheepdog, the very ugly and rude sheepdog, that was a thought.

  You’re stalling, Sledge. Don’t fear the end. Face it like a man. We all die sooner or later. Right now, all you need to do is make sure Dixie gets away.

  Sledge used all of his blaster bolts. He punched, kicked, and threw the spider things at walls. Several of the little bastards were fast enough to bite him before he flung them away. Getting knocked down was the worst part. He wasn’t used to it. Each time he staggered to his feet b
loodier than before was harder than the time before.

  “Sledge! Are you okay?” Dixie shouted from the radio tower.

  “Stay up there!”

  ***

  Blaster fire and screams resounded from the direction of the Mother Lode. Several citizens and TerroCom soldiers were strewn across the street leading to the place. Proletan moved from shadow to shadow watching the alien monsters surge forward en masse. It was a brute force attack with little strategic subtlety.

  I might've made a mistake, he thought.

  The sound of three grenades, one right after another, bloomed from around the corner. He paused until a new barrage of blaster fire stopped. Someone screamed. A soldier shouted stern commands to fall back.

  He recognized the voice of General Adam Quincy. Interesting.

  A woman’s voice argued with him, shot a blaster at the swarm, and argued again.

  Proletan paused for less than a second to access his well-structured memory, an artifact of his spy days. She was most likely Penelope Grigman.

  “You may be the general, but you’re not my boss. I’ll damn well risk my life if I feel like it. Thad’s out there and we can’t do a damn thing about it until we fight these things off,” the woman said.

  “Just stop being so reckless, Penelope. Please,” the general said.

  Proletan returned to the task at hand just in time to stab a large centipede-spider in the eye with his belt knife. It had been too close for comfort. The monsters were everywhere.

  He rounded the corner unseen, moving between two groups of Yakti minions without drawing their attention. The street in front of the Mother Lode was crowded with the things. He slowed his breathing as he searched for the hive queen, the entity that was the brain of this swarm. Unsure exactly what it looked like, he nevertheless believed it was not here.

  He had miscalculated. A human would have assumed the enemy leader was where the strongest fighting force was making a last stand. Apparently, the Yakti creature was cleverer than he had believed.