The Gatekeepers (The Survivors Book Eight)

by Nathan Hystad

  “Where are the others?” I asked, and he pointed down the hall to the left.

  A dozen guards stood between us and our Gatekeeper friends.

  Fifteen

  Loweck didn’t wait for us to make a plan. She held a pulse rifle, the one she’d taken instead of Magnus, and fired a succession of quick shots at the ground. Two hit the walls; one hit the ceiling, where rocks crumbled around them. What it did was send the guards scattering, unsure where the next shot would end up.

  Slate was right behind her, and I stayed with Karo, keeping watch. Two guards made it past Slate and Loweck and ran toward us. Slate shouted to me, and I fired at the lead one, striking him in the facemask. Slate intercepted the other and quickly returned to firing at the ones in front of him.

  Seconds later, the halls were quiet, even from the stunned prisoners. Loweck kicked a prison guard’s head and waved us forward. I noticed Slate watching her with impressed eyes.

  Karo moved with more speed than I expected, and he grabbed a gun from one of the dead guard’s sides. “This way.” He led us past three more cells, and there he was: Polvertan, the Motrill prince. He stared at us with disbelief.

  “You’re really here. When Karo told me…” Pol stopped. He was a tall Motrill, thinner than a Keppe, although much larger than a human. His gray armored skin was bulkier than I remembered it, but his waist was thinner. Three months in this hellish prison would do that to anyone. It was the combination of unrelenting work and an absence of calories. His snake eyes blinked at me.

  “Where’s Dreb?” Slate asked.

  “I’m here,” his low voice said from across the corridor. Loweck was already at work on Pol’s energy barrier when alarms rang out through the prison.

  “Took them long enough,” I muttered. There were at least ten or so dead guards. With the alarms notifying the rest, I expected we’d have company very shortly. “We have to hurry.”

  Pol’s barrier evaporated, and our new cyborg friend set to work on Dreb’s control panel. He shuffled from foot to foot. He was wide, a real Bhlat guard. His hair was long; thick dreadlocks swung side to side as he moved. The Empress had claimed him as her own, and what that exactly meant, I wasn’t sure. Either way, I knew I needed to bring him home or suffer her wrath.

  His barrier disappeared, and he let loose a warrior’s challenge to any enemies listening. The sound was like the roar of an angry bear, and I stepped away from him as he reached for a dead guard’s gun.

  “Everyone’s here. Let’s move outside to the extraction point,” I shouted. The other prisoners were all yelling now, desperate for our attention.

  “Where’s the main control room?” I asked, a new idea forming. If I could let all the prisoners out, they’d take the target away from us, giving enough time for Magnus to swoop in.

  Pol answered, “I saw a building out in the courtyard. It was guarded by two of them, and not the usual dummies you see every day. These ones were watchful. Bigger guns,” he told us.

  “That has to be it. Everyone to the courtyard. I’ll locate the control room,” I said.

  We rushed through the corridors, finding another three guards. Dreb and Loweck were at the front of the line, and they dispatched them quickly, nearly fighting over who would take the last guard on. In the end, they each shot him. A fair bargain.

  The outside air felt cool as we emerged from inside the prison. Alarms rang out here too, red lights flashing along the huge stone walls. A bullet hit the side of the rock behind me, and I glanced up to see the guards atop the wall in the towers.

  “Magnus? Can you take out the tower nearest us?” I asked into my mic.

  “On it,” came the reply.

  “When that tower is hit, you all regroup into the center of the courtyard,” I said, and ran for the building Pol had spoken of. No one tried to stop me, and I was glad for it. The usual guards were vacant, and I found the eight-foot-tall door unlocked.

  It was quiet inside, save the whirring electrical motors and cooling fans of the immense computer system the room held. I stayed close to the door, sliding my back along the wall. I fully expected someone to be here; perhaps not a warrior, but someone familiar with complex systems that would control the lights, power, and utilities of the prison.

  In the end, the room was empty. I slid another of Magnus’ special explosive devices from my pack and placed it in the middle of the room. Everything told me the largest piece, with the most blinking lights, was the key to overthrowing the prison. I hoped I was right as I stuck the device on it and ran for the door. Right before I pressed the detonator, a guard stepped into the building, pointing a harpoon gun in my direction.

  “Do you know where the little boy’s room is?” I asked him, trying to look as innocent and lost as possible.

  He stood up, a full three and a half feet, and tipped his visor, covering his bulging eyeballs. In the moment he took to look flabbergasted, I had my pistol in my hand. I shot at him, running toward the guard, at the same time pressing the detonator. The bomb exploded, throwing me and the guard out into the courtyard. Another second or two slower, and I would have been torn apart.

  Magnus was shouting into my earpiece, but the explosion had sent my ears ringing fiercely.

  The guard was up, and he kicked me in the ribs, surprisingly hard for such a small foot. He struck again, and his gaze scanned for his dropped gun. I took the blows.

  Magnus was across the way, using the square ship’s beam to pluck my friends from the courtyard. The tower was in shambles, rock spread out like an avalanche around everyone.

  The alarms were ringing endlessly, adding to the noise in my head, and as Magnus lifted them away, I reached out, grabbing the guard by the leg. I pulled him towards me and punched him in the visor, bending the slots. I hit him again, and he went limp, my hand aching.

  More guards were pouring from the outside walls. They’d arrived from the pits. These ones had the jet packs, and I formed an idea.

  “Over here, you scum!” I grabbed my pistol and fired at the group of half a dozen or so. I struck one and felt one of their bullets slice into my thigh as I dropped another two guards. My leg burned, but I pushed the pain away. If I was going to live another day, to see my wife and daughter again, I needed to forget the injury. It wasn’t even there.

  I ran behind a large chunk of rock that had fallen from Magnus’ attack on the tower, and felt a half dozen shots hit the stone from the other side. I crawled along the ground, dragging my injured leg, and fired at the remaining three guards. I hit two: one a death shot, the other grazed a leg, but he dropped his weapon. I shot again, hitting his chest.

  I had to steal one of their jet packs.

  “Over here!” I yelled, trying to coax the last standing guard to come to me. I pressed myself against the rock, and finally, the ringing in my ears subsided.

  “Dean! We’re coming for you,” Magnus said, and I forced a smirk.

  “I’ll meet you in the sky,” I said, pushing to my feet. I fired the pistol, but nothing came out. It was spent. I guess it needed some Inlorian coil cores, because the charge hadn’t lasted very long.

  The guard arrived, grinning at me. He lifted his visor, displaying strained red eyes. I peered to the ground, seeing the grass patch Slate had tucked his knife under when we first arrived. The guard fired, and I rolled, my hand pressing under the earth. I felt the cold steel of the blade and pulled it out, throwing it at the guard with every ounce of balance I could. It struck him in the center of the forehead, and he dropped.

  With great effort, I stood up on my leg again, which was bleeding profusely at this point. “Almost done, almost done,” I kept saying as I rolled the guard over, removing the jet pack from his shoulders. I strapped it on myself and fumbled with the controls. I’d used something like this before, but usually in space, where the rules of gravity didn’t hinder me.

  I lifted slowly, tilting too far forward. I tried again, only to find that I was angling too far sideways. I wondered if I was t
oo heavy for the device, since the guards were all so small. I was two feet off the ground when more guards arrived. They searched around, trying to understand the destruction and dead bodies in the courtyard. Then they spotted me.

  I wasn’t even armed and felt the cold clutches of death coming closer. I fought the controls and lifted higher, and just as the guards took aim at me, prisoners rushed from inside the walls. My explosives had done their job. The prison cell’s energy walls had failed, and the courtyard now flooded with angry inmates. They rushed the guards, taking the ten or so down in seconds. They cheered me as I slowly rose from the ground.

  I waved at them as Magnus arrived, his tractor beam aiming for me.

  “I’m in the air,” I told him through the earpiece.

  “Of course you are,” he said with a laugh. Seconds later, he had me nabbed, and we lifted high into the sky, safe from the prison.

  ____________

  Smoke poured from the prison as we moved toward the portals. “What about the factories?” I asked, wishing we could affect the little buggy-eyed aliens even more. They were horrible people, imprisoning innocents for free labor. Loweck stared at the prison. She’d spent five years there. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling right now.

  Slate put an arm around her and pulled her close. “Let’s get out of here. Head for Haven,” he said.

  Pol and Dreb stayed close: new best friends, from the look of it.

  My leg was wrapped up, and already I felt the skin healing. I didn’t talk about it much, but I consistently healed faster than the average human, ever since Mae had transfused her blood into me after I’d been shot on a Kraski cube ship. Magnus had brought a medkit and the pain-dulling shot was working its magic too. I hobbled toward the portal stone and set the Modifier on the table.

  “It’s time to go home,” I said, and Pol smiled widely. Even Dreb managed a grin, and he clapped Pol’s back.

  “Looks like you owe me a drink,” Dreb told the prince.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I bet him you guys would come for us,” Dreb said.

  I was honestly a little hurt. “Pol, you didn’t think we’d come?”

  “It had been a month already. I was in a bad place,” Pol said. He didn’t even look like the same man we’d found in Fontem’s collection, searching for the time-travel device.

  “Fair enough, but you’re one of us now. A Gatekeeper. We don’t leave our own behind. Ever,” I told him, and he nodded with resolve.

  “What a start,” Pol said. “What about the rest of our missing people? We want to help,” he said.

  “Spoken like a true Gatekeeper,” Slate told them, and I pressed the icon for Haven.

  Sixteen

  “You didn’t see anyone on the portal trip to Haven?” Mary asked. We were side-by-side on the couch in our penthouse, and Jules was fast asleep after running me ragged for hours after I returned home. I didn’t mind spending time with my daughter. She’d almost been as worried about me as her mother had.

  “No. What do you think it means?” I drank my cup of coffee and kept it cradled in my hands. I’d told her about the other version of me, the older one who’d warned me of things to come.

  Don’t let them die, Dean! My own voice echoed in my head, and I tried to shake the bad energy off.

  “I think it might have been your own subconscious. Do you think you really time-traveled and spoke to yourself through a portal transition?” Mary asked. She wasn’t judging, only asking, and I knew I was in a safe place beside her.

  “It might have been. It looked like me. It felt like something I’d do.” I laughed at my own comment.

  “It does sound like you. Save who, though?” Mary’s eyes told me she knew.

  “I think it involves you or Jules, or someone else very close to me. That’s what Not-Dean told me.” I took another sip of coffee. After ten or so days without it, the hot beverage was even better than I remembered it. It was also going to keep me up all night.

  “I don’t like you calling him that,” she said.

  “What? Not-Dean?” I asked.

  “Exactly. It’s creepy.”

  “So should I call him Old Dean, then?” I laughed again, and she slapped my arm.

  “This is serious. If he… you… made it through the portal to talk to yourself, maybe the portals don’t end up dying out,” she said.

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Who knows? I’m beat. Do you think we could change the subject?” I set my cup onto the table, and she leaned into me. I accommodated, wrapping my arms around her as she relaxed. I kissed the top of her head. She smelled like home.

  “I’m just glad to see you. We were so worried about you guys. Ableen was a wreck. She just met Karo and then he was gone. It’s clear how she feels about him,” Mary told me.

  I lifted my eyebrows. “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  “You know Loweck?”

  “The orange woman Slate couldn’t stop praising?” It was obvious Mary knew what I was going to say.

  “Slate’s in love with her. At least, I think he is. Also…” I paused for dramatic effect.

  “Go on.”

  “She’s a cyborg,” I finished.

  Mary didn’t reply for a second. “A cyborg? What is that, exactly?”

  “Part Rescap, that’s her race name, and part robot. Her story is amazing.” I told Mary about her village being invaded, and how she was found and repaired. Years later, her ship from Udoon was debilitated outside the prison world, and she was the last of her organic crew to survive.

  “She’s been through a lot. I hope we can give her some peace at Haven.” Mary always had a huge heart, and I pulled her in a little tighter as we lay there on the couch.

  “She can also kick some serious butt. It was like watching Bruce Lee beat up three-foot-tall ugly aliens,” I told her.

  “Another reason for Slate to like her. You think he’ll do anything about it?” she asked.

  “Who knows with that guy? I think it’s time. But a cyborg? I’ll talk to him,” I said.

  “What’s tomorrow? We bring you to New Spero with the kids, then head out on our trip to the next two missing Gatekeepers?” Mary asked.

  I hated the idea of them leaving us behind and heading into danger.

  “Can you and Nat do me a favor?” I asked.

  Mary spun around slowly, looking up at me from my chest. “Depends on what you’re asking.”

  “Can you bring Dreb and Pol with you? Or at least Dreb?” I didn’t know if this would go over well. “They want to help.”

  “They can help by learning from you. Plus, all they managed to do was get captured by the prison guards and thrown behind bars,” she said, implying the two rookies would be more in the way than helpful.

  “If you recall, Mary Lafontaine-Parker,” I started, and used her old last name hyphenated in there for emphasis, “Slate and I were also captured and thrown into cells.”

  “That doesn’t help your cause. You’re basically saying that you’re all ineffective.” Mary was prodding me, but in a playful way.

  I nodded and smirked at her. “True. Good thing we had Magnus with us… and…” I had an idea, and hoped Mary would run with it.

  “I know that look. I can literally see the cogs spinning behind those eyes of yours, Dean,” she told me.

  “Take Loweck with you.”

  “Dean…”

  “Hear me out. She’s a woman, and if you’re doing this No-Men-Allowed club, she fits the criteria. Honestly, I’ll feel better knowing she’s there with you three. Magnus will too,” I admitted.

  “What about Slate?”

  “He can wait until you return to ask her out on a date. He’s waited this long, what’s another day or two?” I asked.

  “And if it’s longer? What if something happens?” she asked, her face turned serious.

  “Then we’ll come for you.” I kissed her on the forehead, and she relaxed into me again.

 
; “I know.”

  “Then it’s settled? Loweck goes with you?” I asked.

  “Fine. As long as the others accept her, and she wants to come. We can’t force her to do this. Plus, she’s only been free from prison like, a day.”

  “Technically two.”

  Mary didn’t take the bait. We lay there for another hour, talking about the little things that meant so much to us. It was the best time I’d had in a while.

  ____________

  The trip to New Spero had been uneventful, and as discussed, Loweck was heading out with Natalia, Mary, and Ableen for the rescue of Bee and Da-Narp from the Oryan system. Ableen didn’t sense the same disturbance as before when we used the portal, but she also said it was almost as if the Theos inside weren’t there. She felt none of their energy or attention. It didn’t feel like a good sign.

  “You know how to use the Crystal Map and Modifier, right?” I asked from outside the caves at Terran Five. “I wish we’d held on to the other end of the communicator.” It had been lost when our belongings were confiscated at the prison, along with our custom EVAs. Good thing we’d had the common sense to have alternates made.

  “Me too. We need to check with Clare on a few priorities. Communication across millions of light years is something we desperately need these days,” Mary said.

  The four women appeared ready for battle in their EVAs. They carried pulse rifles and supplies for three weeks’ survival with them. Loweck and Slate chatted for a moment to the side, and Jules was standing beside her mother.

  “I want go,” she said, sticking her lower lip out in a classic pout.

  I scooped her up and stood beside Mary. “Mommy will be right back. And you get to stay with Daddy,” I told her.

  Jules’ eyes were welling up with tears. “But Papa go and no come back.”

  “Honey, I’m here now. And Mommy will be home soon,” I said.