Forgotten (The Forgotten Book 1)

by M. R. Forbes

  “They’ll kill the civilians,” Hayden said, his voice weakening, the light fading away from his eyes. “I’m telling you.”

  “They won’t kill one another, and they won’t kill me,” she replied. “I’m willing to risk it. That’s the difference between you and me.”

  “I woke you up,” Hayden said.

  “And you think I owe you something for that? You brought me into your fucking nightmare. Thanks a whole lot. You didn’t do yourself any favors, but you did help out the people you swore to protect. Somebody is going to live because of you; it just might not be you or your wife. I’m sorry if you regret it now.”

  She turned away, leaving the laboratory. Hayden tried to stand, finding his legs had no strength and stumbling onto the floor.

  His world went dark.

  43

  Hayden’s eyes opened to a world of blurry white boxes resting on narrow metal legs, a hard gray floor, and a horrible headache.

  “Natalia,” he said, his first thought of his wife.

  A sense of panic crept over him when he realized he wasn’t in his bed back in his cube, and she wasn’t there with him.

  It calmed only slightly a moment later when he remembered where he was. Special Officer Jennifer Kozlaski. She had drugged him. Knocked him out on his ass.

  He pushed himself to his knees. The body armor was heavy on him, gathered at his back where he had shifted it so she could inject his arm. What the hell had he been thinking? He was going to let her dope him up with a gene mutating serum. Was he getting that desperate?

  He was.

  He heard rattling, and something fell off the counter, landing beside him.

  Huh?

  He tried to stand, but the ship was moving beneath him, trying to knock him back off-balance.

  Turbs, he realized. He had never experienced them from anywhere other than Metro. They seemed more subdued here, where there was less equipment to knock loose. Not that it made it any easier to stand.

  He tried to shake the sleep from his eyes. How long was he out? There was a clock on the terminal a few meters ahead of him. He stumbled toward it, catching himself on his hands when he fell forward. Thirty minutes. He had only been out for thirty minutes.

  He struggled to pull the armor back on, getting it straight on his back and letting himself fall against a counter to ride out the shaking. It was already fading. Had he slept through the worst of it?

  He grabbed at the armor’s zipper and pulled it all the way up, the motion signaling it to condense against his body. It hurt where it pressed against the injection site, but he ignored it.

  Stupid. He was so stupid. He felt for the identification chip beneath his wrist. It was still there. He was lucky Jenny had decided not to cut off his wrist, thinking his chip was keyed with the security clearance. He was lucky she hadn’t discovered Malcolm’s chip, either.

  But then, where the hell had she gone?

  He felt a pang of guilt. He knew where she had gone. To find the Scrappers. To talk to Pig. Maybe to bring him back down here? Did her code give her access to this area?

  For all he knew, they were on their way.

  He reached up, grabbing the edge of the counter and yanking himself to his feet. His legs were still unsteady, but he managed to stay upright, hanging onto nearby equipment to guide himself to the door. There was no time.

  He moved out into the corridor. There was only one way out of the area. He had to go back to the lift, even if the Scrappers might be coming for him from the same place.

  He leaned against the wall, pushing his legs to move as quickly as he could manage. It wasn’t very fast at all. They were weak and tired and unprepared. He made it thirty meters before he fell again, his left leg refusing to hold him up.

  “Come on, damn it,” he said to himself, smacking his leg with his arm. He got up and kept going, racing for the lift.

  The turbs continued to lessen, fading away to the softest of vibrations. He hobbled through the corridor, wondering what he was going to do when he made it to the lift. It was crazy to descend, to take the path Jennifer had suggested. There were too many xenotrife, and he was too damn weak. What else could he do? He wasn’t going up, and there were no other directions.

  He reached the Command Center, the door opening at his approach. Just as he stumbled inside, the hatch on the other side of the room started to open.

  He dove behind one of the workstations to avoid being seen. He crouched there, looking through a small crack between the legs of the desk to the center of the room. Two pairs of dirty boots appeared there a moment later.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen anything this clean in my life,” one of the wearers said.

  “That’s because you been wandering too long, mate,” the other said.

  Hayden cursed under his breath. Damn it. He hadn’t made it in time.

  “That was something, the way Pig did that bitch,” the first one said. “Right in front of everybody like that. And not a lick of hair on her entire body.”

  “I’ve never seen an adult woman like that before. I wish I could’ve got me a turn.”

  “Don’t worry mate. I’m sure she’ll taste just as good cooked.”

  The first one laughed. “Oldest woman he ever did. That’s what he said. Har har.”

  The second one joined him. “Prime aged beef,” he said, laughing. “Like a fine wine.”

  Hayden felt sick. Jennifer had left him unconscious down here to find the Scrappers and try to reason with them. Instead, they had taken what she had to give before attacking her.

  He wanted to say he was surprised, but he wasn’t. He had read them right the first time. It didn’t stop him from being guilty or angry, emotions he had every intention of taking out on the two men. He could only hope she hadn’t told Pig his plan.

  “Let’s just find the Insider and get back to Pig. The sooner we can get out of here, the happier I’ll be.”

  “Aww, are you afraid of a few bugs?”

  “It’s been more than a few. And yeah, I think it’s only a matter of time before one of them gets its claws into me.”

  “I don’t see him in here, do you?”

  “Are you kidding? Let’s go that way.”

  He watched the boots start moving, heading for the corridor he had just emerged from. There was no way they were going to walk past without noticing him.

  He reached for the revolver, moving as slowly and deliberately as he dared so he wouldn’t make a sound. The Scrappers were drawing nearer, reaching the other side of the station he was hiding behind.

  Hayden grabbed Baby with his other hand, moving his arm behind his body so he could get some momentum going in any swing. The first Scrapper reached his position, head up and looking out toward the corridor beyond. He was carrying one of the electric spears in his hands, ready to use it.

  His head turned as Hayden threw his arm forward, swinging Baby in a short arc toward the Scrapper’s leg. It caught on the man’s calf, digging in deep and taking him by surprise.

  “Ah, my grepping leg,” the man shouted, at the same time Hayden brought the revolver around. At this range, it was impossible to miss.

  He pulled the trigger, the large shell punching into the Scrapper’s gut and exploding out of his back, continuing into one of the workstations and destroying it in a shower of sparks. The body started to collapse as Hayden rotated his gun hand toward the second Scrapper.

  He was caught as unaware as the first, and he scrambled to stab out at Hayden with his spear, his attack nowhere near close to making contact. Hayden raised the revolver and fired, the round destroying his opponent’s chest.

  If they were military, they weren’t very skilled military.

  He leaned over the first, quickly rifling through the pocket in his robe and checking him for weapons. The man was only carrying the spear, which attached to a pack he wore on his back. It was too big and bulky to be useful.

  Hayden crouched beside the second body, finding it was armed
similarly to the first. Had Pig taken their guns to ensure they wouldn’t kill him? It wasn’t out of the question.

  He continued toward the lift, his body still waking up. It was getting easier to move, but he was nowhere near one hundred percent.

  The hatch to the lift opened ahead of him. Two more Scrappers were rushing his way, responding to the gunshots they had heard. Neither seemed to be carrying a gun because when Hayden raised the revolver in their direction, they both looked surprised and afraid. The weapon echoed in the passage, twin cracks that saw both the remaining Scrappers drop in sprays of blood and bone.

  He paused beside each, checking them. He pulled more of the torn pieces of paper from one of their pockets, and a pair of smaller caliber bullets from the other. The rounds were useless without a matching weapon, so he dropped them on the floor. He was getting to his feet when a crackle of static next to one of the bodies alerted him to a transceiver.

  He moved to that Scrapper, pushing the man’s robes out of the way and finding the device. It was roughly square, with a long, wide antenna extending from the top of it. He picked it up.

  “Sergeant Dunn, what’s your status?” Pig’s voice was like gravel over the transceiver. “Sergeant Dunn, come in.” There was a pause before the man repeated the message.

  Hayden brought the box to his face. It had a trigger on the side, and he depressed it to speak.

  “You didn’t have to kill her,” he said.

  “Insider,” Pig said, sounding almost happy to hear from him. “Is that you?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Hayden replied.

  “I did have to kill her, my friend. Nobody, and I mean nobody, likes a snitch. And she gave you up to me like a whore gives up her nethers. Negotiate? Grep that. We take what we want. I take what I want. I assume my boys are dead?”

  “Very,” Hayden said.

  “A little more pain I owe you, then. If your woman was still with me, I’d make her pay for your indiscretion. She might even enjoy it.”

  “Where is she?” Hayden asked, clenching his teeth.

  “I told you, friend. She’s on her way.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’m on Deck Three. Come on up, and I’ll show you.”

  “If you hurt her, I’ll-”

  Hayden stopped talking when Pig interrupted in a fit of laughter.

  “That’s cute. Real cute. You aren’t going to do a grepping thing to me. Do you know why? Because you’re soft, and I’m hard. You’re paper, and I’m steel. But don’t worry Sheriff, we wouldn’t dream of hurting an Engineer of any kind. We have needs, and bitches like your wife? They’re the key to the future. You want to talk more, come on up. I’ll be waiting.”

  The transceiver clicked as Pig disconnected. Hayden stood there trembling with anger. What else had Jennifer told the Scrapper about him before he killed her?

  It didn’t matter. One of them was going to die. That much was guaranteed.

  He reached the lift, activating the control panel and calling it to him. He backed away, propping one of the Scrapper corpses up in front of him and aiming the revolver while he waited for it to arrive. He expected an ambush when the doors opened, but none came. The lift wasn’t empty, though.

  Special Officer Jennifer Kazlaski’s naked and bloody body was lying face up inside. The stomach had been cut with a knife, scarred with the word ‘bitch.’ Only the ‘b’ had been crossed out with a line and ‘sn’ added above it.

  More surprising was that the cutting wasn’t the worst of it. Her left hand was missing, cut off above the wrist. There was no question Pig was sending him a message. He knew about the identification chip, and what it could do. He didn’t need to take Hayden alive. Not anymore. He was going to take what he wanted.

  Hayden huffed out a breath, fighting against the disgust. He stepped into the lift, leaving Jennifer’s body in place as he keyed in ‘29.’

  44

  He had the revolver reloaded and in his left hand, Baby in his right, when the lift reached Deck Twenty-nine. According to the schematic he had seen, he would only be a hundred meters or so from the USMC module that had been loaded into the ship beneath Research.

  A hundred meters populated by at least twenty xenotrife.

  That fact hadn’t caused him to hesitate to descend instead of heading uplevel and taking his chances with the Scrappers. He could hear the evil in Pig’s voice. The arrogant malice. He didn’t know how many people the tyrant had with him, but he knew Pig scared him more than the trife did.

  His only regret was that Jennifer hadn’t given him the mutation she had promised. Or more importantly, it wasn’t as effective as she had promised. She said he would have been dead in a few days. Maybe it would have been worth it?

  Her time had been cut short. Incredibly short. She had gambled and lost, refusing to listen to him or any of his warnings about the Scrappers. He didn’t blame her. Not completely. She was right; he had woken her up to a nightmare. One she just wanted to escape from.

  He glanced down at her body. It was a reminder of what Pig and the Scrappers were capable of. More than cannibalism. More than murder. Outsiders were objects to them. Things to use and discard. Whatever had happened to them over the years to make them that way, it wasn’t an excuse. They had turned to evil by choice.

  At least the xenotrife were being what they were supposed to be and doing what they were supposed to do.

  The lift slowed as it reached the deck. Hayden’s body was almost awake again, and he knew he would need every ounce of his strength. He couldn’t fight that many trife on his own. He had to run, and hope he made it to the module’s hatch.

  Even that might not be enough.

  He tried to prepare himself to accept death, but he found it impossible. He couldn’t accept it. Not until Natalia was away from the Scrappers. Not until she was safe.

  The lift stopped. Hayden crouched, testing his legs, preparing them to run. He raised Baby into position to swing the blade. He had used four of his nine rounds, leaving the revolver with an empty chamber.

  The door slid open.

  He pushed off, leaving Jennifer’s body behind, catching sight of the module hatch directly ahead, a mass of darkness to its left. He managed two steps before the mass changed, shifting and moving, the trife unwrapping themselves from one another.

  He didn’t make it to them before he was attacked. There were trife on the other side of the lift, and they hissed at his back, forcing him to turn his attention that way. They rushed toward him, and he swung his left arm back and fired the revolver. A single round blasted through the first of them, his luck holding as the bullet exploded through it and into a second, knocking both down.

  He counted each footstep, his eyes dancing around the hub. He could feel the increased warmth down here. He could smell the trife, sweet and sticky like the reproductive gel that had gotten onto him.

  He covered ten meters. The bundle of trife revealed half a dozen, though they were moving slower than he expected as they reacted from a relaxed state. He fired the revolver again, into the mass, the slug tearing through parts of three of them, barely slowed by their hollow bones. They hissed and screeched.

  One of them dove at him from his left. He caught it on the corner of the armor, its claws skidding off the shoulder plate. He rolled it past him, not letting it slow his momentum. He heard a hiss over his head, looking up as one dropped toward him. He raised Baby over his head, letting the creature impale itself on the weapon and then swinging it and throwing it forward, into one of the demons ahead of him.

  He jumped over them both, still charging for the hatch. One of them reached up, catching his leg as he passed, claws digging into the softer armored material. It got stuck on something, and Hayden was brought face-first to the ground.

  He kicked back, hitting the arm and freeing himself, struggling desperately to get back to his feet. A trife jumped toward him, and he barely managed to get the revolver up to squeeze off a round, detonat
ing its head in a spray of dark blood. He stood up, eyes flailing, realizing they were surrounding him, eight in all.

  They were motionless around him. Two at his back. Two on the ceiling in front of the hatch. Two on either side. They had maneuvered intelligently, holding back to get into position instead of attacking.

  Eight xenotrife. One bullet.

  He looked back at the hatch. It was still fifty meters away.

  Damn it.

  He wasn’t ready to die.

  “Come on then,” he said, shouting at them. “Come on. Do it. Let’s go.”

  He waved Baby around himself, threatening them. They hissed in response. But it wasn’t the same hiss he had heard before. It was in a variable burst of length and pitch.

  They were talking to one another.

  Then the hissing stopped. They all fell silent. Hayden could hear himself breathing, the air ragged through his throat. He gripped Baby a little tighter, tensing his legs again.

  One of the trife screeched, and then they were all on the move. So was Hayden. He burst forward again, focused on the two by the hatch. They leaped from their positions, long jumps sending them arcing toward him. He only had one round. He raised the revolver and fired, hitting the first of them square in the chest and knocking it away. The second landed only a meter ahead of him, swinging its claws at the same time.

  He barely ducked beneath them, slashing at the demon with Baby. It shifted aside, avoiding the blow, turning and lashing out with a foot. It caught Hayden in the side, sending him reeling toward the pair in that direction.

  He spun off-balance, letting himself fall, dropping the gun and using his now free hand to stop himself on the floor, pivoting on the hand and swinging the blade. It caught one of the trife in the neck, nearly severing its head as it was thrown aside. He shouted in triumph as he stabbed the second, driving Baby hard into its chest and then kicking it away.

  He started rotating back toward the hatch, five of the trife remaining.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lift door slide open again.