Killer Edge: Navigator Book Three

by SD Tanner

  “Do you really think we have the luxury of being fussy?” Leon asked.

  Ark raised his hand. “No, she’s right. The country has plenty of people who can handle a gun. The navs need to be an elite force.”

  She was only vaguely listening to them discussing the process to test and train the Navigators, but none of their plans really interested her. They seemed determined to create a structure out of anarchy and she wasn’t sure how they could achieve it. In comparison to the size of the country, CaliTech was a drop in the ocean, and she couldn’t understand how they could have much impact on such a well-entrenched enemy. Her missions with the squad had made it clear to her just how much damage had been done to their once powerful country. The cities were prisons and the critters were mining the land with their tunnels. Their situation looked hopeless.

  Now they were planning another mission to Albuquerque. According to their last dispatch notices, the programmable chips had made it all the way to a warehouse in the San Jose neighborhood. The company that supplied CaliTech had stored them in their distribution center, and they should have been shipped the day the country had fallen. To get to them they would probably need to breach a critter fence while they also tested the new weapons. It was another crazy plan and some days she wondered whether Leon and Ark were just trying to get them all killed.

  The team were drawing maps on the whiteboard in the simulation area. Growing bored, she walked out of the hangar and headed towards their quarters. Leon had insisted that they have their own floor to house the Navigator squad. With more beds than they needed, Ark, Donna, Bill and Jo had also moved into the same room. Unlike the other sleeping areas, this one was tidy and everything was clean. Leon didn’t appreciate that most of the time she was too tired to keep her gear organized, and his bossiness was a constant source of friction between them. Sitting on her bed, she tiredly removed her visor and everything became a murky grey.

  The sound of Ark’s chair alerted her to his presence long before he made his way to her bunk bed. “What’s the matter, kid?”

  At twenty-four years of age, she was hardly a kid anymore and she sighed irritably. “I’m not a kid.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  His hand touched hers and she resisted the urge to pull it away. When she didn’t speak, he asked, “What’s the matter?”

  She couldn’t really explain what was bothering her, so she shrugged dismissively.

  Filling her palm with his, she felt his thumb rub the back of her hand soothingly. “C’mon, Lexie, what’s up?”

  Unable to explain her anxieties, all she could do was express her frustration and she blurted, “I don’t think this is gonna work.”

  “What? The mission?”

  “No, all of it. The nests are all over the world and there’s at least a hundred of them here. How can a thousand navs beat them? Even if we had a thousand navs it’s still impossible. We’re all gonna die.”

  “What would you do instead?”

  Her answer depended upon how she viewed the problem. If she only worried about her own welfare, she would suggest they left and went somewhere far away from the critters. If she considered the needs of everyone being held prisoner then, even though she would probably die, she would stay and fight. In her lifetime, she’d never been able to make much of a difference to anything, and she wasn’t entirely sure which path she would follow even if she did feel she had a choice. It didn’t matter what she wanted to do, she already knew she wouldn’t leave Ark. Whatever he chose to do, she would follow.

  “We could leave. Go somewhere safe.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  He lifted her hand to his face and she gently traced his scars. The shape of his skin was complex, and she ran her fingers over the smooth flesh, fascinated by the slight ridges that interrupted an otherwise creaseless face. He had a wide jaw, a well-defined nose and a soft mouth that she could feel was upturned into a smile.

  Smiling back at him, she said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t want to give up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Under the palm of her hand, she felt him shake his head. “Life’s hard, Lexie. I mean, it really sucks. It’s always been this way, but the only reason we’re here is that no one who came before us ever gave up. Do you think it was easy to build the country we’ve lost? You should take a look at the graveyards. They’re filled with entire families who died building what we used to complain about.”

  Finding herself caught up in his intensity, she laughed softly. “So, what are you saying? Same shit, different day?”

  “Exactly. Life has always looked impossible. Throughout history, people have died of disease, wars and disasters. The people that were left didn’t give up just because the others around them had died. They got on with the job of surviving, and if they’d done any different, we would be here now.”

  “Do you think we can win?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know we can try.”

  “And if we fail?”

  “Better to die trying than to give up. If we give up without trying, we’re guaranteed to lose. If we fight then there’s always a chance we’ll win, no matter how unlikely that may seem.”

  His quiet resolve and confidence always made her feel safe, even when he was directing her in dangerous situations. It was why she would never leave him and he’d just confirmed he wouldn’t leave, which meant she wouldn’t either.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Blindsided (Leon)

  This was their third trip between CaliTech and Albuquerque, and he was travelling the now familiar route along the I-40. Jo had wanted to come with them again, but he’d told her no. They knew the critters were imprisoning people inside of the larger population areas, and even he wasn’t sure how they would get in and out of the city alive. Instead, he’d allowed Jenna to bring four shuttle buses driven by her squad.

  Jonesy had succeeded in opening a segment of a fence surrounding a small town and helped the people to escape. Several of their buses had arrived at CaliTech with about fifty people and camping gear. Bill believed they couldn’t risk forming large groups, so now these people were spread widely throughout the southern tip of the Sequoia National Forest. Under Bill’s guidance, they’d set up many small campsites around the tall walls of CaliTech. Ark was happy to have the extra hands to work on making the guns and the baby bots, so it was working out well. He planned to copy Jonesy and have the shuttle buses wait a mile from the critter fence surrounding Albuquerque.

  His own life wasn’t going as well. He’d moved the squad and core team onto a floor of their own in the living building, and he, Tuck and Trigger were becoming more proficient with the Navigator gear. Even Lexie had stepped up her game, and she’d make a decent soldier if she ever learned how to shoot straight. He thought that the Navigator squad was coming together well, but while everyone else around him seemed to be settling in, he was finding himself wide-awake in the early hours of the morning. His dreams were a cluttered mess of what used to be and what the world had become.

  Although he’d stoically set aside thoughts of Amelia when he was awake, she would visit him when he was asleep. In his dreams, she would be smiling at him, and then her face would shift until it was made up of the vibrating bodies of tiny spider-shaped critters. He would wake with a jolt and the sheets would be drenched by his sweat. None of what his mind was doing was right, but he didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. Not only did his squad need him to be steady, he also wanted to be able to trust himself. To admit he wasn’t coping would mean he couldn’t rely on himself, and being unwilling to talk to anyone about it, he was catching up on his lost sleep in short power naps.

  “You’re a mile out,” Ark said through his headset.

  “Convoy halt,” he ordered.

  Behind their two MaxxPros, the four shuttle buses also came to a stop. Flicking his visor to advanced vision, he studied the now familiar green blobs forming an almos
t impenetrable ring around the city. Just as he and Ark suspected, Albuquerque was now a prison. The warehouse with the programmable chips was near Sunport airport, which was south of the city and behind the mounds and tunnels circling the region. Green blobs were visible along the fence line, and the critters were moving frantically as if there was some place they needed to be.

  Climbing out the truck, Trigger observed, “Err, this doesn’t look good.”

  He agreed that getting into the city wasn’t going to be easy, and getting out alive would be even harder. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Jonesy had used propane tanks to blow a segment of the fence, but that had only been tried on a significantly smaller prison. The tunnels surrounding Albuquerque were densely packed with critters and even more were roaming just inside of the fence line. They were parading along the invisible fence, acting like a sentry on patrol, which he guessed they were. Clearly, the critters were determined no one would leave the city alive.

  Ark’s steady voice came through his headset. “I have an idea, but you’ll need to give me an hour to set it up.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “The alien controlling the critters can see through Cassie.”

  “So? How does that help? She’s in the hospital at CaliTech.”

  Ark laughed. “Yes, she is, but she’ll be wherever she thinks she is. If we hook her up to the training simulator, we can make her believe she’s in Albuquerque and that the city is under attack. If it works, then the critters might leave your part of the fence.”

  “How will you set that up on the simulator?”

  “It’s what the simulator does. The software is designed to set up false scenarios to train the navs. We just need to set up a scenario and put a visor on Cassie.”

  It was a clever tactic, but he doubted the critters would fall for it twice. “How do we get out again? You can trick them once, but do you think it’ll work twice?”

  “It’s worth a try. Even so, I suggest you get in and out as fast you can.”

  Leaving Ark to set up the diversion, he spoke to the squad. “Okay, you know the plan. We need to get closer to the fence. Tuck, you and I are testing the lasers. Trigger and Tank, you have the sound weapons. But don’t screw around with these weapons. If they fail then ditch ‘em and use your standard guns.”

  “Ya think?” Tuck replied sarcastically.

  Waving his hand dismissively, he replied, “Yeah, yeah, but I state the obvious for the stupid.”

  Ark needed an hour before he’d be ready, so they left the trucks. They walked past the small group of buildings, across several roads and along the dusty ground closer to the fence line. It was a warm day and the sun was heating their armor. The liquid inside of the armor was cool until it was hit, so it offered some protection against the heat. They were less than half a mile from the fence when he told them to wait behind a single-story building.

  “When Ark gives us the signal to go, we need to move fast. The trucks will drive up to the section of the fence we go through. Direct anyone you find to the trucks. We’ll need to move at top speed to the warehouse. It’s in, out and no messing about.”

  “Do we know what these chips look like?” Lexie asked.

  The chips were used extensively by the Navigator onboard computers, and they had plenty of them at CaliTech, but being core to everything they were all in use. The warehouse with the chips was a single-story building specifically designed to distribute small electronic parts. According to the company details CaliTech had on file, the site had a loading platform at the back of the building, and they needed to get inside to find the pallet that had their order for a thousand programmable chips.

  “Yeah, the engineers showed us pictures of the standard packaging and parcels, so we know what we’re looking for.”

  While they waited to hear that Ark was ready, he rested the end of his laser gun on the ground. The gun the weapons engineers called Hellfire was heavy, and the power packs made it awkward to carry. He’d tested it on their gun range and it seemed simple enough to use. Point and shoot or hold the trigger for a continuous beam. Unlike the sound weapon, it didn’t explode the target, but sliced through it as neatly as a surgeon’s scalpel. If the beam was focused exactly on the target rather than through it, the energy output could burn it away to nothing more than ash.

  Wanting to test both single burst and continuous fire, he said, “Tuck, set your laser to distanced beam. I want you to try slicing them up. I’m gonna set mine to fifty yards and see if I can burn them.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Tank asked.

  “The theory is you can disrupt the red shit inside of the critters using the sound waves your gun emits. I suggest you fire at them and see if anything happens.”

  “You really should have tested this on a critter from the spider shed,” Lexie remarked.

  They should have, but the weapons engineers assured them that they would work and they didn’t have time to test anything anymore. Given they all had their usual weapons as well, he thought it was worth the risk. If they didn’t work then they could drop their new guns and use the weapons that they knew would get the job done.

  Not wanting to have another argument with Lexie, he held his tongue and continued to watch the critters parading along the fence line. He insisted on drilling the discipline he’d been taught into the Navigator squad, and no one other than Lexie had a problem with it. Taking into account she was a misplaced civilian in the situation, and out of respect for Ark, he tried to keep his frustration with her in check. Lexie might test his patience, but she worked hard and he tried to remember that every time he wanted to shout at her.

  Finally, Ark’s voice came through his headset again. “Okay, we’re good to go. Cassie is wearing a virtual reality visor and we’ve got her hooked into the training simulator.”

  “What does she think she’s seeing?”

  “We’ve set up an attack in Rio Rancho. According to the simulation, there’s a thousand navs invading the city from the north.”

  “But we don’t have a thousand navs,” Lexie said.

  Chuckling, Ark replied, “No, we certainly don’t. It’s really multiple copies of you guys training in your gear. We cut combat sequences from your training and copied it into the footage from some of your previous missions to Albuquerque, so Cassie believes that’s where she is.”

  “Clever,” he said and he meant it. Ark was proving to be resourceful in ways he would never have thought of, and he was relieved he’d decided to lead CaliTech. Admittedly, Bill had yet to concede to Ark’s authority, but he didn’t see how he could stand against him without the support of his Navigator squad.

  “Okay, she’s on the simulator now,” Ark said.

  The five of them stood waiting for the critters to react. When they did, they exploded from the fence line and sprinted as a group to the north. Their screeching penetrated his helmet and they sounded outraged by the perceived assault on what they clearly thought of as their city. While he watched their frantic movement, it was good to see the critters worried about them for once, and he wished they really were attacking the city in force.

  The fence line quickly cleared of critters and Ark said urgently, “Go! Go! Go!”

  Falling into what was now a familiar formation, they ran at fifteen miles per hour towards the warehouse. Sprinting along the wide road, they lurched to the left and right almost as a single unit to avoid the abandoned vehicles. The deeper they went behind the fence, the more pink blobs began to appear on his screens. Some of the prisoners had clearly chosen to live near the fence line, no doubt hoping there might be an opportunity to escape. This was their lucky day. There was a large group of people buried behind the walls of one of the buildings and he hesitated, causing the squad to slow down.

  “Leon, do you want ‘em?” Tank asked.

  They’d brought the shuttle buses for a reason and he was determined that they wouldn’t leave empty. He and Tank tended to see things in the same way
, and without needing to explain any further, he replied, “Yeah. Take Lexie and lead ‘em out.”

  Lexie couldn’t shoot worth shit, but Tank knew how to watch her back even when she didn’t. He, Tuck and Trigger could deal with the warehouse. Tank and Lexie peeled away from their formation and ran towards the building containing a dense cluster of pink blobs. At least there should be no more goo, and after mentally wishing them luck, he ran forward towards his target building.

  With only three of them, their formation changed again, and Trigger followed on their six while he and Tuck ran six feet apart. Pink blobs were emerging from the buildings and he called, “Head south. There’s help there. Hurry!”

  Tuck and Trigger repeated his message when more survivors emerged from the buildings as they passed by them. For as much as he wanted to grab the prisoners and lead them to safety, they would need the chips if they were going to solve the bigger problem. Within five minutes, they were outside of the target building and they headed straight towards the loading platform. Now they were slowing down, green blobs were changing their course and veering towards them.

  “Tuck, get in there and find that delivery. Trigger and I will hold a perimeter, but make it fast, we’re being targeted.”

  “Ya think,” Tuck drawled again sarcastically. “You’re getting to be the master of the obvious.”

  He didn’t have time to deliver a well-deserved caustic reply before a stream of critters appeared less than a hundred yards away. Aiming the Hellfire laser gun, he waited until they were fifty yards away and fired. The gun emitted a beam, and without the feedback of recoil, it didn’t feel like he was firing the weapon until a critter fell into two parts.

  “Cool,” Trigger said with a chuckle.

  Maintaining a continuous beam, he moved the gun from left to right. The blobs collapsed and their color immediately faded in his visor, meaning they were dead. Critters clearly didn’t survive being sliced in half and he whooped with delight.