by C. G. Hatton
They dropped.
He walked forward, heart pounding, Pen hesitating and almost grabbing him again.
“We’re clear,” he said, shrugging him off.
Pen didn’t believe it, still not trusting a word he said, but following cautiously, scanning his guns round until he saw them on the floor. “Holy shit,” he said, walking up to them, aiming both guns down at them until he was sure they were dead. He nudged one with his foot. “Did Mendhel know you could do this kind of crap?”
“Pen, no one knew. I didn’t know.”
The big man didn’t believe that either.
NG was shivering despite the heat. “You have no idea,” he muttered, petulant. Pen didn’t bring out the best in him.
Pen turned suddenly, grabbed the front of NG’s shirt and pulled him close. “You think I have no idea what you are?”
Quinn stepped between them, breaking it up. “Not the time or place, gentlemen.”
“Guys,” Duncan broke in. “Incoming. We need to get out of here.”
NG pulled the rifle round and walked away.
Pen let him go, swearing.
He could feel Quinn smouldering behind him, LC and Hil watching.
He led the way down, avoiding any more as best as he could, running when they could and waiting when it got too hot but he was having to start leaving people at cross points and intersections, a rear guard to keep them off their back. Ultimately suicide missions because he knew they couldn’t hold for long. Little more than an interruption to the Bhenykhn as they pushed after them and it was reducing his numbers each time. Their group was getting smaller. He was trying to get down into the heart of the ship to where Elliott had said the shield generators were most likely to be. That was their first target. It was going to be tight. At this rate he was going to run out of people before they ran out of ammunition.
They moved down and round to a central core. His head was pounding in time with his pulse. He knew there were Bhenykhn marines blocking the way. They were protecting essential ship systems as well as hunting them down. They knew he was here. The fleet commander knew he was here and it was sending everything it had to intercept him. He could feel Sebastian taunting it, feel the immense effort it was taking to protect him from the outright assault it kept trying.
“We need that shield down,” Elliott sent.
“Working on it,” he sent back and cut the connection.
He scanned ahead. There were four squads camped in front of them, guarding two massive doors. Another squad was approaching from above so they needed to move quickly. They couldn’t afford to get slowed down, or worse, trapped.
“We need to speed this up,” he said, looking round. “I can’t take them all at once. LC, with me. Everyone else, be ready to hit them with everything we’ve got as soon as their shields are down.”
He turned to LC. “You take the left,” he muttered. “Take out the pods, all eight, fast as you can.”
LC nodded, holding back a splitting headache but managing to focus it somehow, the kid channelling it into the intensity that had kept him at the top of the standings.
‘The child is learning,’ Sebastian whispered. ‘I told you he had the potential to be even stronger than you. And yes, you do need to speed this up.’
They split up and moved forward. He gave the signal and sent a burst of energy into one pod after the next, the Bhenykhn howling as the pods exploded against their spines. LC was doing the same. The shields dropped and they all opened up with rifles, all targeting the same one until it dropped and moving onto the next, moving round the central structure that wrapped around the core.
NG doubled up, firing his rifle at one squad leader and sending a targeted blast into another. That one fell and its unit froze for an instant, reassessing. The others charged round, roaring. He took out another squad leader, still firing the rifle at one of the others, the massive figures falling faster with no energy shield to protect them but still absorbing a shit load of ammunition and damage. It was taking too long.
One of the elite guard dropped, right next to him, a huge axe hacking through the guy’s neck armour.
NG froze, couldn’t help flashing back to the rain and seeing the same curved axe head slicing across Leigh’s chest, blood spraying.
‘Move,’ Sebastian hissed.
He spun. It was right there, brown chitinous armour looming over him, axe blade glinting, orange eyes gleaming as it leered down at him. Shit.
Chapter 35
“But must we?” said one.
“We can’t fight them.”
“We can’t trust the Seven. How can we trust machines?”
They had decided.
That was clear enough.
He sat quietly, amongst the clamouring cries to flee. He wasn’t disappointed. It was almost a relief to know in the end where they stood. He had never come here on bended knee. He had always been different. But they had always asked how fared the guild, how goes the preparations. Now it seemed simply that all they wanted to know was when to run.
She alone was steadfast. “We are fighting them,” she said. “You cannot deny that the humans are fighting them and they are making their stand. I vote that we make our stand. Here. We have mistakes to mitigate. We already carry a huge burden of shame and a debt to those we abandoned as we ran to save ourselves. Do not forget that in your haste to flee again.”
•
He was almost gagging with the stench of it. It swept the axe up, blood dripping. NG staggered back and blasted it, throwing everything he had into frying its brain, fuelled by a boiling, unchecked hatred as if it had been the same damned alien that had killed Leigh.
It hit the deck, the axe clattering beside it.
He fell back.
The firing stopped.
NG scrambled up and leaned against the bulkhead, shivering, about done, quickly scanning around.
They hadn’t lost anyone else, a couple of dinks and wounds but nothing serious.
“We need to get inside,” Quinn was yelling.
‘Keep your head,’ Sebastian hissed. ‘Get this done and get out, you’re getting surrounded.’
The door was locked with twisted knots that glowed as he looked into them and bust them open as he had in his nightmare.
He pushed his full weight into it to get it to move and heard Pen say, “Holy shit,” behind him as he walked out onto a wide balcony overlooking a chamber filled with a seething mass of leathery pods, thousands upon thousands of them, crowded together, fleshy parts pulsing in harmony like a colony of coral waving in a warm water current.
Except the air in here was fetid and chokingly rank.
NG tried to breathe through it, pulled out incendiary grenades and primed them. He waited until the others had done the same then nodded and tossed them in.
They didn’t wait to see what happened.
They moved back out into the corridors.
‘Incoming.’
There was no time to get clear. A hail of shots peppered the bulkhead around them. NG flinched back. He couldn’t sense anything but the thousands of hissing screams from the pods as they died pressing against his mind. It was disorientating. He spun around, gun up.
He caught sight of Quinn grabbing LC and bundling him clear, the elite guards moving into position to cover them. He could hear Evelyn shouting.
He didn’t know where any of the others were.
A burning pain sliced across the back of his shoulder, a blade biting deep and poison pulsing into his bloodstream. His knees gave way and he fell.
Someone grabbed his arm and pulled, gunfire echoing loud in his ears. He couldn’t get his legs to move, could hardly breathe through the paralysing sting squeezing his entire body. He was dragged backwards, felt immense heat at his back and heard a door slam.
He was turned, someone hissing in his ear, “Fuse the damned lock. Whatever the fuck it is you do, fuse the damned lock.”
He couldn’t concentrate.
Sebastian
shoved him aside viciously. He didn’t fight it, couldn’t think straight and faded out.
He could hear faint talking, far away, became vaguely aware of a bright orange glow. Sebastian was sitting on the deck, back against the bulkhead, sucking in energy from the pod creatures dying in the blaze still roaring in the central core and using it to seal the wound and neutralise the alien toxin.
Pen was sitting next to him, he realised, injured. Badly injured.
“You’re a fucking son of a bitch, NG,” the big man murmured.
“I told you, I’m not NG,” Sebastian said. He flexed his hand. NG could feel the wound in his back healing slowly. Nowhere near as fast as Sebastian did it usually. They were all exhausted. Even Sebastian had his limits it seemed.
‘Be grateful it’s healing at all, Nikolai. This isn’t exactly going to plan, is it?’
‘There was a plan?’
He could breathe at least, the numbing grip of the toxin finally dissipating.
‘One thing at a time,’ Sebastian muttered and said flippantly to Pen, “You shouldn’t hate him, you know.”
Pen glowered. He’d taken the helmet off, the suit damaged. “You’re more insane than I thought.”
Sebastian turned round. “You really don’t know, do you? It wasn’t Nikolai who sent your brother’s wife – Anya’s mother – on that tab. It was the Man who sent Arianne away. Nikolai didn’t even know until it was too late.” He laughed. “My god, Pen. All this time you’ve hated him for something he didn’t do. The soft bastard loved her.” He leaned forward. “Nikolai met Arianne years before he met any of you. He knew her before Anya was born. Think about it.”
‘Don’t,’ NG whispered.
‘Why not, Nikolai? Why should he not know that the Man sent Arianne to her certain death just so you could move back in to the Alsatia as his head of operations. No sticky little problems like a former lover in the way, a former sweetheart who might notice that you hadn’t changed in the fifteen years since she’d seen you last? The Man told her you were dead, did you know that?’
He hadn’t.
‘And how many others were sent away to preserve our little secret? Did you never ask what happened to Carmen in the time you were out gallivanting, playing soldiers? How she was so conveniently not there to question it when you got back, just the same old you when everyone else was a quarter of a century older?’
It had never occurred to him to ask. His relationship with Arianne had been a million miles from the Alsatia. He hadn’t even realised she’d got married until he got back and by then she was already gone.
Sebastian sneered. ‘Why should Pen not know the truth? He’s going to die here anyway.’
Pen was turning, anger welling, adding it up.
Sebastian clasped him on the shoulder, making the chameleonic armour glow beneath his hand, healing the worst of the wounds, fast, making the big man falter.
“Think about it, Pen.”
He stood, rotating the shoulder.
NG could feel the pressure of the hive pounding against his mind, an incessant thumping intrusion like a battering ram hammering at every nerve.
‘I don’t suppose you could take out the commander from here?’ he thought.
‘Where and when in the seven levels of hell could it ever be that easy? Get me to the bridge, Nikolai.’
And he relinquished control.
NG caught his balance. “We need to go,” he muttered. “Can you move?”
Pen forced himself to his feet, dark eyes glowering. He towered over NG, big anyway, more so in the armour. He moved fast and NG didn’t fight him as the big man pushed him up against the bulkhead.
“You son of a bitch, NG. You and Arianne?”
“Forget it,” NG said, defiant, even though he was pinned. “Sebastian shouldn’t have said anything.”
The core was a blazing inferno behind them.
“I want to know,” Pen said, seething.
“She died,” NG said quietly, a lump in his throat as the guilty memories of Arianne competed with those over Devon. “Mendhel died. We’re all going to die, Pen, probably right here. What does any of it matter?”
That got him another shove. “Did Mendhel know?”
“What do you think?”
Pen growled and threw him aside. The big man pulled round his rifle and readied it, and for a moment, it felt like he was going to swing it round and shoot.
His eyes were dark. “I think you’re a son of a bitch. Find us a way out of here and get up to that bridge. I hope they kill you slowly.”
They had to climb, finding some kind of maintenance ladder, arduous work in the intense heat and tough even for Pen with the difference in scale. The big man was pissed, fuming, grabbing NG a couple of times and shoving him forward. Pen didn’t know what to feel so anger was easiest. He could relate to that.
They slipped through a vent and after that, it was a race to hook up with the others. LC and Jameson were intermittent. Hal Duncan gave him a steady commentary and talked him through.
Sebastian was struggling, quiet.
Rumbles were echoing through the hull of the ship as it started to take hits now the shields were down, the damage providing the distraction they needed as the Bhenykhn were forced to pull away resources for damage control.
One of his elite guard appeared at his shoulder, only one, no word of what had happened to the others. Pen moved away as that guy moved in.
NG slowed down. He was starting to lose track of where everyone was, an increasing pressure building behind his eyes as he got closer to the bridge. At one point, Evelyn slid in next to him. She squeezed his shoulder without a word. She was bleeding from a gash in her arm. He took energy from her to heal it and got a nudge in thanks. She scavenged a couple of magazines from his pouches and split to move round. He watched her go. Couldn’t help thinking it could be the last time he saw her.
‘Don’t be soft, Nikolai. We’re here for a reason. She will die. Accept it. Now or later. What the hell is the difference?’
He didn’t want to lose anyone else.
‘And that will get you dead, fast. Get a grip, Nikolai. How many times do I need to say that?’
The Senson crackled. “How are we doing there, Nikolai?”
“How long do we have?” he sent back.
“Before we blitz the crap out of that ship you’re on or before they manage to take us out and turn on your remaining ships?”
NG shivered. He pressed his palm against his forehead.
“We need that commander taken out, Nikolai,” Elliott sent. “Now. Don’t screw this up.”
The connection cut.
‘How far?’ he asked Sebastian.
‘Too far. You need to move.’
He gave the order and it went to hell fast. The adrenaline kicked in and he stepped it up, running on auto. He fried one after the other as they piled in.
The elite guard at his side dropped.
NG stooped to grab the fallen rifle and ran, hooking up with LC and Quinn, the kid hanging back and sending burst after burst of raw energy into the Bhenykhn, the big handler covering him with the rifle. They were both bleeding, running on adrenaline themselves and retreating towards the bridge.
NG joined them, rifle up, blasting the squad leaders.
Quinn took a hit to the chest that took him down, the armour taking most but not all of the damage. He rolled, came up on his elbows and carried on firing despite the wound, yelling at them to go.
That wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t about to leave Quinn behind.
LC hesitated.
Pen appeared from behind them, grabbed the kid and pulled him round. “Go,” he shouted. He knelt by Quinn and fired shot after shot down the corridor. “Go, dammit, NG, how the fuck long do you think we can keep this up? Go.”
NG turned and ran, propelling LC ahead of him.
One more level. They ran past three of the Security guys who were holding an intersection. Jameson and Evelyn were close. He had n
o idea where Hilyer was.
‘Meet up,’ he thought. ‘Duncan? Meet up.’
They ran around a corner towards more gunfire.
A massive rumble thundered through the deck, throwing them off their feet.
“Shit, Elliot,” he sent, “give us a chance.”
There was no reply.
He scrambled up and ran on, heart plummeting into his stomach as he saw Evie slumped against the bulkhead, blood flowing down her neck and chest, still firing two handguns, Jameson standing over her and pumping round after round down the corridor.
NG slid in beside her. He didn’t have much left but he did what he could, fast, aware that LC wasn’t behind him.
“Go,” she breathed. “We’ve got this. Go.”
‘Never argue with an assassin, NG,’ Jameson thought at him, no respite in firing his rifle except to reload. ‘There’s still a price on your head. You screw this up, we might all cash in on you. Retire. I know someplace nice.’
He glanced up. The big Earth colonel was in his element, thinking deep down that he should have been working with them a hell of a lot sooner.
They all should have done things differently. He wiped a hand across his eyes. It was getting warmer. The stench was almost unbearable. Cloying. Straight out of his nightmares.
A Bhenykhn warrior came rushing out of the shadows, bellowing a battle cry, axe swinging. The pod on its belt exploded as it ran at them. It screamed. Jameson shot it between the eyes as NG threw a desperate blast into its brain. It roared, raising the axe, then thudded down, sliding to a halt in front of them.
Jameson prodded the massive body with his boot. ‘You know, I didn’t believe all this crap when you showed it to me in that hallucination…’
“NG, go,” Evelyn said, reloading both her guns.
He nodded, stood and backed away. LC was at the corner, leaning against the bulkhead, hugging his hands around his chest, waiting for him.
Duncan hooked up with them at the next intersection, backing towards them firing. ‘The steps are just round here,’ he thought. ‘There are two of them guarding it. You guys wanna do your thing?’
