by S. A. Lusher
Speaking of which...
The pain was spiking.
Enzo rubbed his shoulder, gritting his teeth against the agony. He stopped, knelt in the corridor for a second. His vision began to white out, the pain growing teeth. Enzo glanced down, realized his hands were shaking.
He clenched them into fists. “Please...” he moaned, his fists now trembling.
“Rains, do you have eyes on target?” He barely heard Stern.
Enzo groaned, squeezing his fists tighter, feeling the fingernails of his left hand digging into his palm. He realized he was grinding his teeth slowly back and forth.
“Rains? Do you have eyes are target?”
The moment passed, the pain began to abate, slowly simmering down to a more tolerable level. He took a deep, shuddering breath and stood back up.
“Rains?”
Enzo broke into a light jog, catching up to the creature.
“Almost,” he whispered, still feeling slightly sick from the pain.
Sometimes it got like this. The pain would spike for no reason. There were no warning signs, nothing consistent to tell him it was coming. He was never doing the same thing when it happened, he could be dead asleep or in the shower or gunning some bastard down. It was totally random. Enzo couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten a good night's sleep that didn't result from getting blackout drunk or taking a near-fatal dose of sleeping pills, Hypno, Drowze, Drone, or any of the other dozens of new designer drugs on the market.
He'd largely come to terms with the fact that he'd deal with this shit for the rest of his life. It was what fueled his fundamental lack of fear of dying. Sometimes dying looked dangerously seductive. Something to make the pain stop, really stop, even for a fucking minute. If he was dead, there'd be no more pain, no more suffering or burning agony. No more waking up in the dead of night screaming. No more misery.
Of course, there'd be no more women, no more booze or drugs or the adrenaline rush, the thrill of combat and danger.
The only things worth living for at this point.
Enzo rounded the final stretch of corridor between him and this Bio Creature. He finally got a good look at the thing. It must be, he realized, the thing that had escaped from the massive cage he'd come across a floor below. Either that, or that had been the Alpha's cage. This thing had to hunch to fit in the corridor as it was. It easily reached fifteen feet in height. Its flesh was a pallid network of crimson lines, like a roadmap of hell, stretched tightly over a collection of thick, powerful muscles. It still retained a vaguely human shape, though each of its hands seemed to end in pincers that snapped close occasionally.
It was facing away from him and even from this distance, he could hear the massive huff of each breath. It was growling gently, a low, incredibly deep bass rumble that prickled Enzo's instincts and touched him on a very primal, ancient level, making him bristle in an utterly basic response. A throwback to caveman days when some particularly deadly animal cut loose with a growl. He took a few steps back, waiting.
“I have eyes on target,” he murmured into the radio.
“Good, we've hit the network room and are beginning repairs. We'll let you know when we're ready to initiate,” Stern replied.
The Bio Creature paused. Enzo tensed, waiting for it to pick back up its pace. A long moment passed. Finally, it set off again. He wondered what it was looking for, or how it had even gotten into this situation to begin with. Minutes passed while he played this stupid game with a monster that had a thousand pounds on him. It kept stopping every thirty feet or so, and he had to stop too, falling back each time until he actually lost sight of it. Not that it really mattered whether or not he could see it, he just didn't need it seeing him.
Finally, the call came through. “We're ready. Drone guns are repaired and we're in position. Bring it to us,” Stern said.
“On it,” Enzo replied.
Now came the fun part.
Enzo raised his rifle, flipped it to full auto and tucked the butt of it against his shoulder. He jogged forward a few meters and aimed at the thing's broad back. It stopped again. Good. He squeezed the trigger. The creature let out a roar that shook the whole of the area as he emptied the entire magazine into its back, spraying a thick ooze of deep crimson blood across the walls and ceiling. The creature spun around as Enzo hastily reloaded.
“Come get it!” he screamed, then turned and began running.
The entire area shook as the beast came for him, the ground trembling with its approach. Enzo sprinted down the corridor, orienting himself. He'd made two complete circuits at that point, having neared his original point of origin where he'd stepped out from Mess Four. He had to go a little over a third of the length of the entire corridor, back to the massive, vault-like doors that admitted access to the whole complex.
Enzo glanced over his shoulder and felt his heart leap into his throat. The Bio Creature was faster than it looked. It was gaining on him, already killing half the distance between them and coming closer. He picked up the pace, breaking into a flat-out dead run. He dodged slicks of blood and the occasional bit of debris or body part that hadn't already been crushed to dust by repeated trampling from the thing as it wandered the corridor.
Within a moment, he had it in sight. The doors were opened and Stern was waiting for him. The Staff Sergeant urged him on, sighting the Bio Creature with his rifle and firing over Enzo's head. Enzo ducked and kept going, listening to the beast howl and rage as it gave chase. He almost crashed directly into Stern, instead managing to get around him at the last second. They both retreated into the lobby and Stern began screaming for them to hit it.
The beast began ripping the door frame out of the wall trying to get in. Enzo took in the lobby at a glance. The central area was a broad, wide-open section beset on both sides by security checkpoints, where Lee and Beam were waiting. Enzo and Stern split up, each of them heading for opposite checkpoints as the creature tore its way into the room.
“Well?” Stern called.
“Working on it!” Lee shouted back.
“What's the problem!? You said you had it ready!” Enzo said.
“We ran into some technical difficulties!” Lee snapped.
The creature roared, silencing all conversation. Enzo trembled in anticipation, his gaze snapping back and forth between the drone guns and the Bio Creature. It was looking at him and Beam, then across the room at Stern and Lee, as if deciding who to go for. A sharp whirling sound suddenly filled the air and Enzo felt relief pour through him as the quartet of huge, dark drone guns sprang to life, tracking the monster.
A second passed, then another.
Abruptly, the drone guns died, the sound falling silent.
“Lee...” Stern said, the fear obvious in his voice.
“Shit! They're not going to come online! Everyone out! Plan B!” Lee called.
“What the fuck is Plan B?!” Enzo cried as they left the security checkpoints and raced past the monster, towards the exit they'd just led it through.
“Run!” Stern screamed.
The Bio Creature roared once more, making a grab for Enzo. He narrowly ducked beneath its pincer hand, feeling the displaced air as it came within inches of the top of his head, and ran out into the central corridor. The quartet of them sprinted away. The Altered titan came after them, crashing back into the main corridor.
Enzo had no idea where they were going, but figured it must be somewhere with guns. Big guns. A back up they had failed to mention to him. Sure enough, a dozen meters ahead, almost out of sight, Stern was the first to disappear into a doorway. Beam was next, then Lee.
“Give us some cover fire!” one of them shouted.
Enzo growled, spun and shouldered his rifle. The Bio Creature was coming for them. He aimed for its twisted caricature of a face and loosed a volley of bullets, squeezing the trigger until the gun clicked empty. The spray of lead took it mostly in the face, small eruptions of crimson gore spraying the ceiling, dripping onto the floor.
“Any fucking day now!” he screamed.
“Coming!” Stern called. “Clear the way!”
A second later Stern emerged from the room they'd all disappeared in to. The Bio Creature was closer now, much closer. Stern was holding a double-barreled rocket launcher. He dropped to one knee, shouldered the launcher and fired both rockets simultaneously. Enzo barely had time to fall back and cover his eyes before the twin rockets shrieked from their metal nests and smashed directly into the Bio Creature. A wave of heat washed over Enzo, pushing him back several steps as he twisted instinctively away from it.
When he opened his eyes back up, he stared in horror. The creature was still standing. Its right arm had been blown off, but it was still standing, and coming for him.
“Beam!” Stern called.
The Marine shot out of the room. “Found them!” he called, handing a pair of a small, silver rockets to Stern, who quickly fed them into the launcher. He raised the weapon a second time and fired again. Another wave of heat and light and fire tore through the corridor, forcing the survivors back into the armory they'd grabbed the weapon from. This time, when the dust and smoke cleared, they were relieved to see that the Bio Creature was down and out. They cautiously approached it, studying the body, and saw that one of the rockets had hit it dead in the face, the other in the chest. Twin craters had opened up, killing the creature.
“Damn,” Enzo breathed, letting out a deep breath. “That was fun.”
“Not exactly what I'd call fun,” Beam muttered.
“Come on, let's go see Brooks,” Stern replied. “After we raid this armory.”
Enzo followed the three Marines back into the armory. His rifle was tapped out for ammo and his pistol wasn't far behind. What was worse, he couldn't seem to find any magazines for either. What he did managed to find was a shotgun and a box of fat blue shells for it. He let his rifle hang across his back and added the shotgun to his arsenal, loading it up and pocketing the rest of the shells for future use. It had been a while since he'd used a shotgun.
After picking the armory clean, they returned to the corridor and followed it around until they came to the big door that led to the Control Room.
It was still firmly closed.
“Come on, Brooks, we've taken care of the big monster. Open up,” Enzo said.
“Fine. Opening the door now.” She sounded reluctant.
After a moment, the door slid open, revealing the technology-packed interior of the Control Room. It was spherical in nature, the exterior ringed and utterly crammed with all manner of workstations, consoles and terminals. The floor was littered with infopads and spent shell casings, and not a little bit of blood. A lot of the screens were either dead, cracked or registering only static. In the exact center of all this was a raised dais with a single chair and workstation built around it in a half-circle. This is where Eve Brooks sat.
Enzo took her in at a glance. She was about as hot as she sounded over the radio. She was a little under average height, trim and fit, she looked like she did a lot of cardio. Shoulder-length red hair, startlingly blue eyes, clear, pale skin. No, forget that, she looked better than she sounded, Enzo decided as he came closer.
“So,” she said, looking up, finishing whatever it was she was doing, “we're all finally here.”
“Yeah. Did you get do what we discussed?” Stern asked.
“Yes, I finally managed to fix the BioScan,” Eve replied.
“And?”
“There are, by my count, forty nine people left alive in this base. Five of them are in this room, and twelve of them are clustered downstairs in the holding area, which means that the remaining thirty two are either all Dark Ops or random survivors we haven't encountered yet. But this late in the game, I'm willing to bet they're all Dark Ops. Only a few of them are on the levels above us anyway, and I don't have access to the abandoned mines or the topside weather base. There's a solid chance that those people above us are scouts.”
“So there's a dozen still in stasis?” Stern asked.
“Yes.”
Stern was silent for a moment. Enzo simply leaned back against a wall and waited, watching everything play out. Finally, Stern seemed to come to a conclusion.
“How long will it take to get all the relevant data on this godforsaken hellhole into a mobile data storage unit?” he asked.
“At least an hour if we want multiple copies. I can do three in an hour,” Eve replied.
“Fine, then. Start the process.”
“That's what I was just doing when you came in.”
“Good. Beam, Lee, stay here, guard Brooks, make sure everything goes to plan.” Here, he turned to Enzo. “Rains, if you really were in Spec Ops and if you've got a shred of dignity left in you, you'll agree with me that those people can't be left behind. It isn't right.”
“What if they're all prisoners? Death row convicts?” Enzo replied.
“What if they aren't? What if they're guards, techs, pilots? Does it matter? You could have just as easily been left to die down there, but you weren't. We owe those people.”
Enzo considered his words. Roughly ninety nine percent of him said to hell with that, he didn't owe anyone anything. He hadn't gotten to where he was today by doing unnecessary favors that could get him killed. But there was a very small part of him that seemed to be gaining traction ever since waking up in this horrible place that remembered that he was still in the red in his life, he'd done a lot of bad things over the past few decades, and that maybe something like this could help him get closer to being in the black.
And besides, it sounded dangerous, and he liked dangerous things.
“Fine,” he said. “Let's go.”
Chapter 11
–Brutal–
The vents, yet again.
Enzo followed Stern down yet another stretch of bland, crimson-lit metal. They were dropping back down to the research level. He'd popped a handful of painkillers before crawling back into the vents and they were barely doing anything for him. He focused on their plan. Originally, he wanted to know why Eve couldn't just free them from their tubes the same way she'd done for him. She explained to him that that was no longer an option, as Dark Ops had been working steadily to cut her out of the operations of the installation. She could still do a few things, but it wouldn't be long before she was cut out completely.
As it was, they'd be lucky to get away with all the data.
So Enzo and Stern had to do it manually. Climb back down, navigate the dark, bloody corridors, fight the Altered and probably Dark Ops. Though another Bio Scan had shown a retreat. Dark Ops were leaving that level, bypassing the Military HQ level entirely. They were using a series of maintenance hatches and ventilation grids to get up. But where were they going now? Wherever they were going, it was clear the war wasn't over.
Enzo still wasn't sure what they were going to do with these people once they rescued them from the cramped hell they were locked into.
“Hey, Rains,” Stern said.
“Yeah?” Enzo replied.
“What happened with Spec Ops?”
Enzo sighed softly. He was wondering when this was going to come up. For a moment, he considered ignoring the question, but then he figured, why not? Maybe his story would actually get the Sergeant to cut him some fucking slack.
“Politics. Bureaucracy. Bullshit. Also, I'd like to preface this by saying that I did four years as a Marine before Spec Ops,” Enzo began.
“I call bullshit, you need a minimum of five
years in any branch to be considered for Spec Ops,” Stern said, then paused, hesitating, as if remembering something, “unless-”
“Unless you are really good at your job. And I was. I was your rank when they yanked me. I'd been in Spec Ops for five years. For most of it, I thought we were doing the good work. We tended to cut through all the red tape and political bullshit that keeps soldiers from getting the job done, it was great. Lots of rescue ops, demolitions, the occasional assassinations. We were killing guys that'd gladly blow up a starport or a schoolyard, then claim it was in the name of some cause or another. I had a squad, eventually became the leader of it when our commander got killed. We were doing a lot of good out there in the galaxy,” Enzo said, trailing off, remembering.
“So what went wrong?” Stern asked.
“Like I said, politics. I'd been running into more and more political BS, the politicians sticking their fucking noses in our business, questioning fucking everything, when they didn't know what the hell was going on out in the galaxy. My last mission...me and my squad were running exfil for a recon team. Their job was to infiltrate a facility, gather some data and get out without anyone the wiser. Unfortunately, their cover was blown and they ended up having to shoot their way out. We were sent in to get them out of there.”
“Seems like a direct mission,” Stern murmured.
“You'd think, only there was a big problem. The base they were investigating was a Russian base. The Galactic Alliance plays like they're one big happy family, but it's all the same bullshit. The Russians are spying on the Chinese, who are running illegal deals with the Japanese, who are lobbying against the Brazilians because they staked a claim to what was supposed to be a Japanese asteroid belt...shit, you get the idea. Obviously, if the Russians found out it was an American Spec Ops team who infiltrated their base, had to shoot their way out...well, that wouldn't look good. And was it was, we weren't on too friendly terms with the Russians just then anyway.”
“What was the other squad looking for?”
“We thought that the Russians were harboring American criminals. Really sick bastards that might have some knowledge they weren't supposed to, I think it might've been secret missile production sites. We never got the data, but the recon team did find something out. The Russians had intercepted a secret communique that a squad of slavers was going to hit a Japanese colony. The Russians passed it along to the Japanese, but both of them decided not to do anything about it because the colony was technically outside their jurisdiction. When we pulled the squad out, I presented the data to my superiors, told them we should defend them, or, for fuck's sake, at least send them some kind of warning.” Here, Enzo paused, as he'd heard something.
