by J. L. Lyon
Even at the dome, a small contingent had remained behind to waylay the Great Army and give the rest of the force time to escape into the Wilderness. They had died to the last man. Sacrifice was ingrained in the psyche of every Silent Thunder operative, and so she counted it no loss to give her life in exchange for those people, who otherwise would fall by the edge of a Specter’s blade.
Novus Vita dug repeatedly into the ground with a dull clink as she emerged back onto the main pathway, where the five Specters continued to drive the fleeing Undocumented like wolves after a herd. Grace planted herself in the middle of the path, a pillar amidst the stampede, and raised the sidearm level with the wolves.
She squeezed the trigger, and the first one went down. The second shot sank into his companion’s left shoulder, and the rest looked at her with wide eyes, shocked that their prey actually had the gall to fight back. The second man was up, holding his shoulder with an angry and murderous expression. But he did not wear it long, for she dropped him with a third bullet.
The remaining three converged on her, the fleeing stampede forgotten, and she squeezed off five more bullets in quick succession. Two disintegrated on the Specter’s blades, and the other three hit their mark in a single body. The Specter fell to his knees with wounds in his shoulder, arm, and gut. But he got back to his feet and kept coming.
Grace pulled the trigger again, but this time all that happened was a click. The magazine was empty. She tossed the worthless weapon aside as the last of her people passed by, leaving her to face the three Specters alone. They paused, eyeing her with cool anger at the loss of their bloodsport, and then spread out to surround her on three sides.
She gripped the hilt of her Gladius tightly and tried to slow the frantic throb of her heart. She would only get one block before being knocked to the ground, and though she would not be completely helpless on her back, it would only be a matter of time.
I did my job, she thought with a sigh. I saved those people, at least for now. That’s all that matters.
The Specters came at her, Gladii blazing, and she drew Novus Vita from the ground, reigniting its diamond armor as she raised the blade above her head. The Specter on the right reached her first, and she sacrificed her balance for a powerful downward swing. The Specter blocked the predictable strike easily, and—as expected—Grace fell onto her back. He thrust his weapon down at her, thinking to stab her through the chest, but she knocked the blade away and shot upward for a thrust of her own. Hers hit home and impaled the Specter. She withdrew, leaving his dead body free to fall to the ground. Unfortunately, it landed on her legs. Pain shot up through her wounded shin, and she cried out in frustration. She was pinned.
Dark shadows fell upon her as the two remaining Specters split and approached on either side of her. Their blades were poised, points down, in preparation for the kill. She could stop them, perhaps, by revealing that she was Grace Sawyer, but that would only last until they brought her to Derek Blaine. She would not allow that man even one small victory. Grace closed her eyes, ready for the fiery spikes to make an end of her.
Four gunshots rang out, and her eyes snapped back open. The Specters had both fallen to the ground. She heard footsteps coming from behind her, and then Aurora was there, shoving the dead Specter off her legs. She helped her back to her feet and handed her another gun, this one from one of the men she had just killed.
At about that time more Specters came onto the pathway: at least ten at first glance.
“Can we go now?” Aurora asked.
“Yes,” Grace nodded as the Specters caught sight of them. “Now we can go.”
-X-
Crenshaw pulled Renovatio from the body of its latest victim and turned to Davian, who fought beside him on the front line. “Status report?”
The lieutenant commander’s face was streaked with blood, and he parried an enemy blow as he replied, “Evacuation complete, General! Give the order!”
“Withdraw!” Crenshaw yelled over the cacophony of battle. “Silent Thunder, fall back to the rendezvous!”
The line broke, and the black-clad operatives made for the ridge that bordered the southern edge of the camp. Once it was clear that the Spectorium had found them, the operatives had drawn them here to the most fortified section to allow non-military personnel to escape. Without the ridge it would have been a suicide mission.
Members of the Spectorium stepped over the bodies of the fallen on both sides as they chased after the fleeing rebels, screaming with bloodlust. Crenshaw drew his sidearm and fired over his shoulder, hoping to slow the charge down to give them enough time to climb the ridge. Several of his comrades did likewise, and the Specters fell several feet behind them. It won’t matter if this doesn’t work, Crenshaw thought dryly. Now that they’d been found it would be tough to shake the Spectorium off their trail. They would just keep coming, again and again and again. Unless Silent Thunder could scare them…stop them in their tracks with shock and awe.
Crenshaw’s muscles burned as he raced up the incline, a task that would not have bothered him even five years before. He was in extraordinary shape for a man of almost fifty, but that did not stop the painful deterioration of age. It was a reminder that his time was running out, as old warriors do not survive long on the battlefield. One day he would wake up and see the sunrise, not knowing it would be his last.
But not today.
He grabbed hold of the top of the ridge and pulled himself over the lip, then turned to join the line of operatives already waiting. Despite lamentations about his age, he noted that he had overtaken several younger men in the retreat, who now passed through the gaps left by the men in line at the top of the ridge.
Crenshaw pulled on the hilt of Renovatio, sliding the top half back and down behind the bottom to form a shotgun-esque handle. His diamond armor went dark, and the tone of the weapon’s hum changed along with its magnetic alignment. The metal shards shifted, shortening the blade as it transformed into a cylinder. He took aim at the charging line of the Spectorium coming up the incline just as Davian’s voice rang out above the enemy’s screams:
“Volley one, ready!” Pause. “Fire!”
The hilts of twenty Spectral Gladii churned, and Crenshaw yelled, “Volley two, ready!” The first volley launched from the ridge a split second before his command, “Fire!” He squeezed the trigger.
Earth and Specters flew backward on the hillside as the first volley of Solithium photons hit the front line. Two seconds later, the second volley hit, and then a third, a fourth, a fifth, raining down destruction on the Spectorium unlike anything Crenshaw had ever seen. The hillside was a mess of exploding ground, contorted bodies, and electric light. When he had first learned about the secondary form of the Gladius Crenshaw had considered a maneuver such as this. But nothing he imagined could compare to the chaos of death and ruin that lay beneath that ridge.
“Hold!” Davian shouted after the eleventh shot. Silence descended suddenly on the ridge, punctuated by occasional shifts of rock and dirt. Dust from the explosions rose high on the hillside, shielding the entire camp from view. It was…mournful. Those dead were the enemy, for certain, but no sane man could witness such a heavy loss of human life without feeling pity or regret.
“To the rendezvous, men,” Davian said, barely loud enough for the line of operatives to hear. “Make haste, before Blaine’s whips drive them on.”
The line withdrew from the ridge and followed those who had already made their escape. Crenshaw restored Renovatio to its primary form and then deactivated it. The glow of the others’ blades winked out as well, a precursor to their disappearance into the night.
Crenshaw found Davian amidst the runners, and sped up to run beside him, “Grace?”
Davian would not look at him, “I sent men to retrieve her. We can only hope they got her out. If so, they will meet us at the rendezvous.”
The general gazed back over his shoulder toward the camp, shrouded in the smoke of their photon massacre. On Gra
ce rested the hopes of the last generations of American freedom fighters. If she died, those hopes would die with her.
-X-
Grace slid down a rocky incline, dragging Aurora with her, and fought the urge to cry out in pain. The area was full of drop-offs and cliffs, and she said a silent prayer of thanks that they had accidentally happened upon the former.
At least ten Specters continued to pursue them, though they had gone several hundred yards north of the camp by now. Derek Blaine’s men were persistent, and would not stop until they either had her in their claws or were called off by their master.
She attempted to rise again, thrilled with the way she had adapted so quickly to her handicap, but Aurora pulled her back down, “Wait. They can’t see us here.”
Aurora pressed her back against a huge rock lodged in the incline right next to where they had slid down. Their pursuers had not yet crested the hill, but surely would think to check here before moving on. Then again, they were only about halfway down. There was a chance, in their haste to catch them, that they would just rush on by. A fool’s chance.
“We have to keep going,” Grace said breathlessly as she joined Aurora behind the rock. “We’re still too exposed.”
“Then you’re going to have to go on without me,” Aurora wheezed. “I can’t make it any further.” Her face was white, and beads of sweat formed on her brow. Her eyes rolled for a moment before she snapped back to her senses with a violent jerk, and Grace nearly gasped. Blood smeared the rock behind her…Aurora must have been wounded much worse than she had let on.
Grace felt a sudden weight of finality pressing in around her. Aurora could not go on, and she could not go on alone. If not for her leg she might have carried the woman, but there was no chance of that. She chuckled lightly in spite of it all. What a pair the two of them made.
The sound of boots on rock betrayed their pursuers' approach, and Grace pressed her body against the icy cold rock to become as invisible as possible. She said a silent prayer for protection as the noise grew louder. Within a few moments she could even hear their heavy breathing, and she held hers.
Navy shadows darted past them, throwing up dust in their wake, and then they moved on into the darkness of the night. Grace exhaled slowly, though the danger was not past. They would know soon that something was amiss, and they would backtrack. If she and Aurora stayed here, it would only be a matter of time before they were found.
Her operatives would be headed to the rendezvous in the west, but the camp and the entire force of the Spectorium barred the way back. There was no way the two of them would make it. She surveyed the area, hoping only for somewhere to hide for the 48 hours until her leg healed. An unusual patch of darkness caught her eye farther northeast, and she squinted in that direction. It appeared to move from time to time, as though swaying…like trees.
She swallowed hard. One of the first things she had learned as a little girl in the Wilderness was to stay out of the forests unless absolutely necessary. There, in those confined quarters, were the places were wild predators hunted in droves. They sometimes ventured out into the open for food, but the forests were their domain. Those who entered did so at great peril.
Death waited north, south, and west. Peril would have to do.
Grace, satisfied that she could no longer see the Specters, pushed off the rock and knelt beside Aurora, “There is a forest northeast of here. If we go now we can make it.”
“How far?”
Grace raised her eyes to the forest again and tried to gage the distance. It was dark, so her calculations might be prone to error, but it was about equal to the length they had already traveled from the camp. They would have to go slower this time, which meant greater risk. Unless…
She removed the pack Aurora had given her from her shoulders and unzipped it, rifling through the contents. After a moment she found what she needed: a half-empty bottle of epinephrine. Adrenaline. She found the syringes as well and started to go through the motions. It was only after she had drawn the liquid in through the needle that she hesitated.
I’m no doctor, she thought. If I give her this it might kill her. Aurora was already bleeding bad enough to soak through the uniform. If adrenaline increased her heart rate, would it also increase the rate at which she bled to death?
“If you wanted revenge you could at least be more creative,” Aurora said groggily. She smiled at Grace’s indignant look. “I’m just messing with you, Commander. But you’d better do it, ‘cause that’s the only way we’re making it to that forest.” She rolled up the pant leg of the Silent Thunder uniform she had stolen to reveal flesh as white as her face.
“Go on. Right in the thigh, just like I did with you. Be ready to move.”
Grace held the syringe between her teeth as she zipped up the bag and slipped the straps back over her shoulders. Then she took hold of the adrenaline and held it point down over Aurora’s thigh.
“The anticipation is the worst part,” Aurora said. “Do it, before I freeze to d—”
Grace inserted the needle into Aurora’s thigh and depressed the plunger, then withdrew it quickly. She cringed, remembering her own awakening just moments before. Despite what Aurora said, no anticipation could be worse than the feeling of those first few seconds. Grace had been sure her heart was about to explode.
But Aurora did not gasp for air. She did not cry out in fear or pain. In fact, the only change was that some color returned to her skin, and those fierce blue eyes became even more determined. She let out a slow, deep breath as she rose to her feet, pulling Grace back up along with her. “You know what probably waits for us in there.”
“I’m from the Wilderness,” Grace replied. “But it has to be better than what waits out here.”
Aurora grimaced, and they began to walk, “I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
15
DEREK BLAINE STRODE THROUGH the forlorn remains of the Silent Thunder camp, his lips pulled into a tight, disapproving line, “What’s the final count, Specter General?”
Marcus cleared his throat, dry from the smoke of battle, “Twenty dead in the camp, sir. Forty-three on the ridge.”
For a moment Derek stopped breathing. Sixty-three of his men, dead. Almost a third of the full force of the Spectorium. “And the enemy?”
“Initial count is thirty-five. But only eighteen were Spectral-adepts.”
Derek gritted his teeth, trying his best to hold in the explosion of anger he longed to spew forth. But no, that was something Napoleon Alexander would do…something Donalson would have done. He was neither of them. This mistake did not belong to those beneath him. The decision had been his.
“Any sign of Sawyer?”
“We believe she was in this tent,” Marcus replied, motioning to the large canvas structure beside them. “Looks like it was their main medical room.”
He gave the man a cold stare, “Then I take it the answer is no.”
“Some of our men saw her heading north. They said she was wounded, and another person was there helping her.”
Derek nodded. She had fallen a long way in order to escape him, so he was not surprised she did not get away unscathed. “I’ll need a survey of the surrounding landscape. If she was wounded, she can’t have gone far.” He pushed aside the tent flap and entered the medical room. It was largely empty, save for a few beds and a half-empty box of supplies. The rebels were good; they had gotten away with most of their belongings.
One bed, off to the right, had an operating table nearby. Clippings littered the ground next to it, and Derek bent to examine them. Cotton and plaster.
“She was definitely here,” Derek intoned. He straightened and studied the ground. His tracking skills were sub-par, but even he could tell there had been a battle here. “Three Specters died in this tent, yes?”
“That’s correct. Spectral Gladius wounds, all three.”
“And the soldiers who sighted Sawyer, they said the injury was to her leg.”
“Also
correct,” Marcus said. “With all due respect, sir, where are you going with this?”
“You expect me to believe a woman with her leg in a cast managed to kill three Specters? No. Whoever did this had full mobility.”
“There is the other person, the one who helped her escape north,” Marcus offered. “Perhaps she was the one who fought.”
Derek walked over to the line of beds, where a pile of rags that might once have been clothes sat half-folded. He flipped them over, grimacing at the blood stains and the gashes that suggested an attack by some animal. Surely whoever had been in these had not survived.
“She?”
“Sir?” Marcus asked.
“You said ‘perhaps she was the one who fought.’ Her companion was a woman?”
“That is my understanding, sir.”
Derek felt a deep sense of foreboding. There had to be female Spectral-adepts in Silent Thunder, but he doubted any of them had the skill to overcome three of the best that had been trained in the World System. If so, there would have been rumors among the prisoners they had captured over the last year. That left him with only one theory: illogical, but sound.
“What color was her hair?”
“Blonde, I think.”
At that moment Derek saw letters on the shredded clothes—not an official uniform insignia, so it was subtle, more like a logo sometimes imprinted on civilian clothing.
ICC.
Liz. She was here, and she was with Grace Sawyer…had helped her escape him, no less. That woman had always been a thorn in his side. But what could she possibly be doing here? Had Sullivan sent his Chief of Command to treat with the rebels? It was a bold risk, especially considering that there were no Imperial boots on the entire continent.
Sullivan has moved his queen to the front lines. Looks like I might get two enemies for the price of one.
