“So what do you propose? Trade away what we have here just to be sworn to you?”
“That would be a pretty terrible deal. All you have to do is follow me out of here. What you do after that is up to you. However, I will provide protection from those who would hunt you down and bring you back here should you wish it. And if you want to make sure you’re never poked or prodded again, that you never see an injector again, I will make sure that happens. You will not be prisoners any longer.”
“Well then, what are you waiting for?”
I looked to Janix. “What exactly are we waiting for? I thought they’d be open by now.”
“Viys’k says they’ve got protections up a mile thick. She’s almost done.”
“I would argue that this was particularly anti-climactic,” Anjali purred. “But I would like to know who is chasing you so ardently that you flew in here like prey?”
“Long story, but basically it’s an interdimensional being set on the destruction from everything we know and the one who created the virus.”
“I see. I do not like them then.”
Finally, the doors dropped to all the containment units, and each of the subjects came forward. Anjali turned to them, and snarled something in a language I did not understand. They all roared back, except for Usha, who made a very specific gesture with his hand.
“They say they would like to take their chances with you, Miss Natalie of Maintenance.”
“It’s Andi, actually. And I’m not quite sure what to do next. Angel?”
“I prefer Anjali.”
“Oh no, I wasn’t talking to you. We’ve got friends who are helping us.”
“I see. Now I look foolish.”
“Angel says there’s a biohazard disposal chute. We can take that to a landing where they sort the wastes, then they’ll pick us up at the dumping hatch.”
“What about the ship?”
“What ship?”
“The ship that has Jyra’s coordinates in it.”
“Apparently Viys’k’s already on it.”
“Good to know.” A large bang startled us, and I looked to the door to see Maven/Genesis standing on the other side of the two doors.
“Andi, what have you done now?”
“Set at least one thing right in a very long list of wrongs. Bye-bye now!”
“Not quite.”
The fabric of reality seemed to ripple for a moment, then abruptly Maven was inside of the doors and very much not on the outside.
“Run!”
We took off en masse, a mini-horde of paws and feet. Janix lead the group, but I quickly realized we would not have enough time for all of us to get away.
I turned just as Maven shot forward once more, reality warping in his path. I grabbed the nearest object and slammed it into his path as hard as I could.
He fell out of whatever teleporting-slip-stream he was moving through, but caught my arm. My skin burned at the contact, and a scream punched itself out of my mouth.
“You’ve had a very good run, but it’s time to stop with all of this.”
“You can kill me, but someone else is going to keep this going?”
“Foolish little Andi, there is no one else who-”
Suddenly something very big and black barreled into Maven, freeing me from his grip. I scrambled to my feet, only to see Anjali crouched over his body, tearing into his throat.
After a few moments she stood, and padded over to my side on two legs. “Are you well, Miss Andi?”
“Yeah. We should get back to the others.”
We turned to run back to the group that Janix was still trying to urge into the chute one by one. We only got maybe a few steps before an enraged yell sounded behind us. Looking over our shoulders, we saw Maven rising unnaturally from the ground, stiff as a board, as if and invisible hand was pushing him up from behind.
“That. Hurt.” He was truly a terrifying sight. His throat was gashed open and blood covered his entire front. His skin was split apart almost to the point of sloughing off, revealing the terrible blackness lying just below.
Anjali gave him the most bored look I had seen in ages. “It’s going to hurt a lot more, strange glowing man. You’re infected.”
“Infected?” He laughed. “I am the infection!”
“You may be, whoever is speaking, but that vessel you are in is not. I would have smelled it on him ages ago. You have a few moments before the fever starts to set in, you will start to slow, and then your joints will stiffen and swell. Perhaps an hour or so later, your host will die. Enjoy.”
“Wh-what?” I heard a warble in the dual resonance of their tone, and the fissures on Maven’s face closed a bit. “That can’t be true. Andi is infected and she’s fine. You can cure me! You have the cure!”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Bullshit, it’s not that simple! You need this body to fight her, you take care of it! That’s the deal.”
I pulled at Anjali’s arm and we both moved to the chute. There Janix was just helping/shoving the last of the kodadt into the narrow channel. He took one look at the two of us before shaking his head and diving down feet first.
Anjali and I were not long after, and we rocketed down the metal length faster than was probably safe.
I had envisioned the tube as being smooth, like a slide, but there were unfortunate metal rings every twenty feet or so that scraped at the back of my thighs and butt every time we sped over one, causing me to yelp. So much for the glamorous life of a galactic hero.
When we finally did drop out onto a large platform, our momentum had us continue into a large pile of trash. It smelled awful, but it was only the second worst thing assaulting my senses as an ear-splitting siren cut through the air. A chorus of hisses and yowls sounded around us, courtesy of the kodadt in our company.
“Sounds like they rebooted the system then.” I grumbled, struggling to my feet.
“Quick, get to the dumping hatch!”
“That order would be way more useful if I had any idea what the dumping hatch was!”
“This way!”
We all followed, a very strange herd as we bounded towards a trashless square of shining metal. It was hard to breathe, hard to think, and I didn’t even want to try to guess what kind of disgusting wastes we were sprinting past.
We reached the edge of the square, and Janix was already at the console, pushing buttons and punching in codes. Slowly, the floor began to open, a translucent barrier of environmental shielding separating the room from the void of space. Once it was fully retracted, the top of a small manned ship pushed through.
“Did someone order a pick up?” A blessedly familiar voice called over the com.
“Is this a friend?” Another kodadt who I didn’t know the name of asked.
“Yes. This is a friend. Her name is Angel.” The door at the side of the ship opened. “And it looks like it’s time to meet her. Everyone onboard!”
“It’s going to be a tight fit.” Angel’s voice boomed. “Also, there may or may not be about twenty council fighters zoning in on this location.”
“What? How did they get here so fast?”
“Apparently, a security breach on this station is a big deal. Who knew.”
We all rushed to the ship, and Angel was not exaggerating about the tight squeeze. It was supposed to be an eight-man craft, and we were shoving far more into that. Plus, most of the kodadt were about the opposite of compact.
Janix and I waited until last, as good rescuers were supposed to. There was hardly any room, so Usha solved the problem by picking the diminutive smuggler up and holding him to his chest. I sorta expected Janix to protest, but he mostly just looked resigned to his fate.
I looked around for a place I could squeeze myself, but my quick search was interrupted by the none other than our cloudy friend shooting up through the floor, a familiar spinning disc of a portal above its form.
I slammed my hand on the side of the rescue ship. “Go, go, go!”<
br />
“What about you?”
“I’ll figure it out like I always do. Unless you have a way of outrunning Genesis, I’ve gotta slow ‘em down.”
“Whatever you say. But I hope you know what you’re doing.”
The door closed, and the ship started to lower through the floor. My enemy’s laughter filled the room, and the portal it was creating finally solidified.
“You’re so noble, yet so foolish. No wonder pathetic little Jyra is so in love with the idea of you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, rolling my shoulders and stretching my arms. “Let’s get to the part where you try to kill me and I somehow do something miraculous and beat you in ways you never thought were possible. This is what… the third time we’ve done this dance?”
“Arrogance does not become you.”
“Yeah, and neither does death. So come on, bring your beasties out.”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you go to meet them?” The cloud roiled forward, all churning evil and venom. Before I could dodge to the side, or even really comprehend its plan, the portal slammed into me and I was swallowed whole.
Chapter Nine: Destination Death-cation
This was worse than the wormhole jump.
So much worse.
My body stretched out, twisting around and inward on itself while punching through the fabric of what was not and what should be with little regard for any of the rules. I was shaken, rattled down to the core of my frame, then flipped inside out and whipped around.
Just when I thought I wasn’t going to make it to whatever my destination was, I was thrown violently out into the hottest pile of sand I had ever had the displeasure of touching.
I ground to a halt, effectively grating off a few layers of my skin. My first instinct was to groan, but that just resulted in a multitude of fine particles to pour into my mouth and nose. Coughing and sputtering, I fought my way to the top of the gully I had made myself and spat up everything I could.
Unfortunately, most of it stuck to my tongue and the inside of my mouth like it had been glued there. No matter how much I hacked up, or spat, I tasted and felt sand.
Great.
A low growl sounded from a few feet away, and I craned my head to examine my surroundings.
As far as I could tell, I was in a massive, sprawling desert sometime past midday. The dunes were almost hyper orange, and craggy rocks bordered the skyline far off in the distance. The sky was a brilliant shade of green and yellow, with not a single cloud in sight.
The growling sounded again, and I whirled to find the sound. At first I couldn’t pinpoint anything in the sea of warm tones, but then the light glinted off of something reflective, and I found myself staring into the five eyes of a rabid kodadt.
It lunged at me, jagged teeth bared, and I threw myself down the dune I had crashed into. Hot sand burned my legs as I landed in a hard stop, but I forced myself to find my footing and rush forward.
Running in sand was as miserable as I imagined it would be. But I was motivated to pick up my speed as more and more predatory sounds began to punctuate the air around me.
I knew better than to look back, yet I did anyways and instantly regretted it. There were at least six of the mutated, monstrous beasts chasing after me, all gnashing jaws and discolored spittle.
I turned my head back to the direction I was running in, just in time to be bodily tackled from a beast that I hadn’t seen. We crashed into the sand and compared to all the solid surfaces I had been slammed against lately, it was a welcome change of pace.
We fought for dominance, the kodadt and I. Thankfully, it was one of the smaller ones, which was probably who it had gotten the drop on me so fast. Granted, small still meant several inches taller than me and at least fifty pounds heavier.
I held its snapping jaw only inches away from my face. Although it couldn’t infect me, it sure as hell could still eat me, or rip my throat out line Anjali had been so kind to do to Maven. But my tenuous grasp on its muzzle was growing increasingly slick with spittle, and its equally rabid friends were closing in all around us.
With a cry, I wrested my other hand from between us and gripped its bottom jaw. Jerking my hands in opposite directions, the beast let out a horrible cracking sound, then collapsed to the side with a whimper.
Just in time for another mutation to strike down where I was.
I tried to concentrate, to focus my power in shooting me forward, or deflecting the blow, but I was so thoroughly exhausted through every part of my being. Instead of reaching down into a pool of molten energy, I was coming up empty.
Belatedly, I dove to the side and rolled down another dune, but not before the beast’s claws dug into my side, tearing through both uniform and flesh.
I cried out, and stumbled, only to have another kodadt jump onto me. It’s teeth attached to my shoulder, sending white hot bolts of agony through my body. It was turning out to be a very, very bad day for me.
I struggled to gain the upper hand with this one as well, keeping its hands and gnashing teeth on it’s second head at bay. But it was a losing battle. I could feel myself weakening with every second, losing my own mutations to become nothing other than a human girl again.
Not that there was anything wrong with being a human girl, but that would not be the form I would choose for hand to hand combat with the most violent creature known to the universe.
The creature finally released its primary jaw from my shoulder and I grabbed that. A jagged and primal sound punched from my throat as I pulled the heads in separate directions. The beast squealed and slashed, but I didn’t stop. I felt tendons and tissue rip. It’s whine vibrated through my hands. My fingers grew sticky with blood.
Then the creature stilled, it’s arms finally dropping to its side. I shoved it off and stood, ready to fight, only to find myself surrounded by dozens more, each one bigger than the last, with more running towards the cluster every second.
Looking out at the sea of reflective eyes, I had the sneaking suspicion that I was at the last place I ever wanted to be: the kodadt homeworld.
A.k.a. ground zero for this whole tailspin.
There was no way I could fight off an entire planet of these monstrous beasts, and I couldn’t help but wonder why Genesis had never sent me here to start with. That certainly would have made very short work of me.
Well, if I was going to die, I was going to go down swinging. I had certainly had enough of running.
I crouched down, and that seemed to break the spell that kept the mutated monsters at bay. They descended on me, a surging wave of murderous intent.
I readied for the first one, jumping over its head and grabbing the boney horns sticking out of the back of its skull. I yanked down hard as my arms were jerked backwards, using the momentum I had to pull the monster off of his feet and plant my legs square in the chest of another.
The three of us went down, but before I could get up, another was on top of me. I barely had time to hike up my knees to my chest to keep it off, and I punched at its grotesquely slack jaw. My arms were aching. My back was screaming. I could hardly breathe. I was sure that this was the end of me and any hope I had of seeing my friends again.
Until a volley of blasts sounded around me and the weight of the kodadt settled down in full. Groaning, I used the last of my strength to kick it off, and looked to see that the entire crowd had been blasted to death around me.
A shadow swooped over me and I realized it was a tiny little two seater fighter. But who on earth could…
It landed just a few yards from me and the hatch popped up. I bolted towards it, only to skid to a stop when I realized just who was in it.
Pale, with sweat dripping down his colorless face, Maven stared at me with doleful eyes. “Get in.”
“What? Why?”
“If that sonofabitch thinks he can infect me then leave, he has another thing coming.”
I didn’t need more explanation than that, and quickly clambered in. “You’r
e not going to die mid-flight, are you?”
“No. Too pissed. Hurry up before more of our friends join us.”
I strapped in and the hatch lowered, just in time for me to see another horde on the Verizon. Engines rattling, we lifted off and made a bee line right for the same portal I had come tumbling through.
We erupted through the barrier into the cold of space. I couldn’t help but let out a triumphant cheer, but it was quickly interrupted by an extreme protest by my stomach.
“He’s coming.”
“Who?”
“Who else?”
He pointed to the side and rolled the ship, just for that same miasmic cloud to skid past us. “Can he damage the ship?”
“Not specifically. But he might be able to absorb the energy from the engine long enough for us to freeze in space.”
“That sounds like a fun fifteen seconds.”
“Probably about twenty considering our cabin has some insulation against energy loss.”
“Right, well let’s not do that then.”
The Rescue (Alternate Dimensions Book 3) Page 10
