The explosion was deafening in the narrow corridor. His ears instantly popped, and he felt multiple impacts on his right arm and right side of his face. He completed his twist and drop and felt heat wash over his upper back. He dropped to all fours, the rifle clattering to the floor, and coughed with the impact of the pressure wave.
His neuretics alarms pinged incessantly. His ears rang like a thousand church bells, and he shook his head to clear the noise. He opened his eyes and saw the rifle through the smoke that filled the corridor. The acrid tang of spent explosives mixed with the pungent odor of burned plastic assaulted his nose, and he coughed again to clear his airway. He grabbed the rifle and sent the arming command again, receiving an operational status.
His neuretics gave one more alarm: the closest gunman had entered his line of sight down the sloping tunnel. His vision was blurred from the shock and the corridor obscured with gray-black smoke, but his neuretics painted a perfect tactical picture in his Mindseye.
Energy pulses sizzled past Gabriel. The gunman fired blindly into the smoke, hoping his target was low and still near the lab door. Gabriel’s quick move away from the mine to the opposite wall saved him again.
He ordered the tactical scan projected into his internal heads-up, and a red icon appeared, just over a hundred feet away and moving rapidly towards him. He turned and rose on one knee, brought his own rifle up, and linked the sights with his neuretics. Though it was a cheap Chinese knockoff of the M-74, it still possessed the same electronic targeting systems.
Blue crosshairs centered on the approaching icon, and Gabriel pressed the trigger pad. Three coherent light bursts spat from the end of the blocky barrel, disappearing into the smoke, leaving twisting vortexes in their wakes. The incoming fire ceased immediately, and the red icon stopped moving.
He stood up and grabbed for the wall as dizziness washed over him. The smoke began to clear as Cielo’s environmental systems attempted to process the air. The sharp burnt odor was still present, and reminded him of the scorched mud he trekked across during the Canary Islands campaign. Smells were the most powerful triggers of memories, he had been told once. He’d just as soon get rid of the memories as well as the smells.
His right arm began to throb, and he felt something sticky on the right side of his face. He wiped the blood off his cheek and rubbed his hand on his pant leg to clean it off. He felt the sting of several small cuts, but no major damage, and his vision was no longer impaired. Glancing at his bloody arm, he wasn’t as confident, but for now it still worked, and he had two more targets that knew where he was now.
The ringing in his ears subsided to the point where he could hear the air recyclers whirring above him. The smoke had all but cleared, and he could now visually see the fallen gunman down the corridor. He was sprawled face-first on the floor, another M-74 copy lying a few feet in front of the body.
With a quick check of his pulse rifle’s charge, he took off at a run towards the gunman’s body when the lights went out in the corridor, plunging it into darkness.
Chapter 9
Gabriel froze in mid-sprint and waited, listening. No sound but the overhead air recyclers. He tapped into Cielo’s security system for the video feed, but was greeted with static feedback. The system was offline along with the lighting. He was blind in more ways than one. But so were the remaining two hostiles. And he still had his heads-up fed by his own scans.
He pressed his back against the wall and reached out with a passive scan. He detected the signs of the two hostiles. They had stopped moving when the lights went out; they appeared to have been caught off-guard as he was, or perhaps it was another part of a larger orchestrated plan. Orchestrated. He rolled that word around in his head for a few moments. The dogged hatch, the limpet mine, the gauntlet of gunman, the security feed outage. Even the blood drops in the lab. All were pointing to a set strategy. But by whom or why, he had no idea. He only knew he had a missing doctor and captain. And a target.
His heads-up showed the location of the room where the remote wipe transmission originated. No activity or electronic leakage from the room, and no sign of life inside, though he dismissed that as inconclusive. The thick steel walls of Cielo prevented much of a passive scan from seeing through, and the target room was no exception.
The other two hostiles hid behind the next elevator bay, so they were still over a hundred yards away. He cautiously moved up the corridor, hugging the wall, and approached where the downed gunman lay. Suddenly Cielo’s backup lighting kicked in, and strips along the walls inches above the floor lit with a light blue glow.
The gunman was a woman, he saw as he kneeled down beside the body. Her lifeless face was turned towards him, eyes open. The blue lighting made her skin appear ghostly white and her eyes black. Her close-cropped hair showing from under the half helmet was unisex, almost military style, unlike the two men in the lab, but there was no doubt it was a woman.
Gabriel rocked back on his heels and set the pulse rifle across his knees. A woman. He knew she was a combatant, someone tasked with killing him, and had even fired first, but something deep down inside of him hurt. He had killed before; had actually become quite good at it in the past few years, even received a commendation as an enlisted man after an operation in South Africa after singlehandedly taking down a particle cannon nest manned with four gunners.
But none of them were women.
No one he had ever faced and defeated in combat was a woman.
It made a difference.
The body had three burn holes in the back of the armor. His shots were straight and true and had dropped her immediately. Quick and painless. A twinge of discomfort from his right arm coursed through his system. Maybe not completely painless.
He took one last look at the woman’s unseeing eyes, and thought back to the bloody pullover in the lab. He clenched his teeth, remembering there was still a woman he needed to find.
He noticed the woman had a waist pouch strapped to her body armor. He leaned over and unsnapped the pouch. Inside were two frag grenades and two gas canisters. He grabbed the frags and shoved them into his left thigh pocket. He shifted the pulse rifle from his right arm to his left and picked up one of the gas grenades. The black stencil on its silver surface read, “CS-30.” His neuretics immediately ran the code through a database and displayed “2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile 30-s” across his Mindseye image. He frowned and reprocessed the data, asking for plain English. Tear Gas - Temporary Effect, came the response. Well, these might come in handy. He put both into his right thigh pocket.
He pushed up from his kneeling position and checked the position of the other two hostiles. They were taking advantage of the cover provided by the far elevator bay and stayed motionless. He glanced in that direction. The elevator bay where the dead woman had been hiding was just twenty feet away. He had a choice: take cover behind this bay and wait for the hostiles to come to him, or take the fight to them. He squeezed the pulse rifle’s trigger guard and knew what his strategy would be.
Still shoeless, Gabriel took off at a dead run.
The icons hadn’t moved. Both were still behind the defilade created by the wide elevator bay. At this distance, still over two hundred feet, Gabriel wasn’t able to determine their armament, but based on the last three, he had to assume pulse rifles and possibly grenades.
Grenades. As he ran, holding the rifle with his undamaged left arm, he patted his right thigh pocket and felt the two tear gas grenades. He remembered the other three hostiles had half helmets only, no gas protection. If the other two were the same, he could use their own weapons against them.
He slowed to a jog, 140 feet from the bay. The icons were still unmoving, but he had no doubt they heard the explosion and the rifle fire. They were waiting for him. He pulled one gas grenade from his pocket and his mouth twitched in a small smile. They may be waiting for someone, but they probably aren’t expecting me, he thought as he flicked the arming switch.
He stepped his pace back up t
o a sprint and threw the grenade overhand. It bounced once a few feet from the elevator bay, then detonated with a flash and pop. Smoke spewed from the top of the canister as it rolled past the elevator bay and came to a stop just feet from where Gabriel’s heads-up showed the hostiles taking cover.
It wasn’t long before two gasping, choking forms came out from behind the bay. Gabriel was on them in seconds. The closest one to him brought his rifle up with one hand while the other hand pawed at his face. Gabriel knocked the rifle aside with his own and smashed the stock into the man’s face. The man staggered backwards into his partner, who at least had the good sense to throw the man aside and bring a magnetic pistol to bear.
Gabriel’s momentum from his run carried him into the second man and the two crashed together. Gabriel heard the pistol click twice before the two of them fell to the floor, and his neuretics blared an impact alarm in his head.
As they landed in a heap, Gabriel slammed his pulse rifle into the forearm of the other man’s gun hand. The gunman cried out in pain as bones shattered, and the pistol fell from his grip. Gabriel pulled his other hand back, curled it into a fist, and swung. The impact of his fist with the new power of enhanced muscles snapped the man’s jaw, and his eyes rolled up into his head. He fell to the floor, gurgling coming from his throat. He lay still as blood pooled under his mouth.
Gabriel looked over at the other man, who was lying on his side, unconscious and bleeding from his shattered nose. He stood up from the second man and rubbed his eyes. The tear gas was as advertised, a temporary effect. It smoked out the two men, but dissipated in a matter of seconds. Either that or my systems have been upgraded more so than I was told.
He looked down at the two men. One was out cold with a badly broken nose. The other had several broken bones, including one that, if treated soon, would have him eating through a straw for a long time. If not treated… He clenched his fist and felt the power of the augmented muscle fibers.
HAMR indeed.
His neuretics pinged again and projected a medical diagnostic. He looked at the image in Mindseye and saw that in addition to the wounds from the explosions, apparently he had taken one of the two pistol rounds the second man had fired. Just below his rib cage, on his left side, a through-and-through. Now he was bleeding from at least half a dozen wounds, and while none were life threatening, he’d need medical attention soon. Or at least some bandages. He thought back to Knowles’s description of the medpack and wished he had completed the procedure before all of this shit went down.
Knowles. He pulled the station schematic up. The target room was just on the other side of the next elevator bay, so he was less than 500 feet from his destination. He reached down to pick up his pulse rifle and noticed the barrel was cracked where he had slammed it into the hostile’s arm. He frowned and kicked it aside. The broken jawed man armed with only the mag pistol. Gabriel grabbed it and tucked it into his waistband, then picked up the first man’s pulse rifle. As with the first one, his neuretics tapped into the code lock and armed it. He felt the tingle of connection in his hand and turned towards his target.
Chapter 10
The security feed was still offline, but Gabriel’s passive scans showed no additional threats between him and the target room. The room where he hoped to find answers. Where were Knowles and Biermann? Who were these gunmen? And why the hell were they trying to kill him?
He ran at a medium pace, feeling the strength in his legs with each step. The nano machines had done their job. He felt different from head to toe; his muscles felt almost refreshed, like just waking up from a nap and taking a long, slow stretch. In fact, he thought as he ran, he was waking up from a nap. A very long one.
This was a zero point for him. He was different. Stronger, faster, more capable. He only hoped he’d live through whatever this was to be able to use all his newfound abilities.
He slowed as he approached the last elevator bay. He could see the door just past the bay. It was closed and had a simple palm lock. It was very nondescript, like most others he saw on Cielo, but behind this one was his target.
He took one last passive scan of his immediate surroundings and walked slowly around to the other side of the elevator bay. Suddenly a flashing icon popped up in his Mindseye. His neuretics threat assessment algorithm had detected movement, but his scans were clear. He froze and brought the rifle up. Again the icon flashed, but had no vector or location.
Gabriel spun around, rifle up and armed, but the corridor was clear behind him. He looked up at the ceiling, but saw nothing. The dim light wasn’t preventing him from seeing; his scans enhanced his vision far better than even radar would be, but he still saw nothing. He queried his neuretics to pin down the source of the movement, but his systems couldn’t. Something was moving, close, but it was invisible.
Make them react. A voice from his past echoed in his head. His instructor back at RTC Great Lakes, showing recruits how to flush out an unseen enemy. Don’t be predictable, be unconventional. Draw them out by forcing their hand.
Gabriel pressed his back to the wall of the corridor and slowly reached down and pulled the two frag grenades from his thigh pocket. They were close-quarters models, smaller than ones used for room clearing, and both easily fit into one hand. He used his thumb to flick both arming switches. He threw one down the corridor he had just come from, and one a few feet past the door he was approaching. Both rolled to a stop around twenty-five feet from him in opposite directions. He was now in the middle of the explosion zone of two grenades, and he hoped he remembered the correct blast radius of these particular models.
Gabriel dropped to his knees and covered the sides of his head with his forearms. He heard a muffled curse just before the grenades went off.
The blasts were within a split second of each other, sounding like two firecrackers going off. Gabriel heard the corridor walls get peppered with shrapnel as the grenades dispersed their anti-personnel contents. He had calculated the distance properly; only a few pieces of metal struck him, and none with enough force to cause any damage. The same couldn’t be said for his unknown and unseen companion.
Gabriel’s neuretics lit up with a bright red icon, just a few feet before the target door. Stealth suit, he saw. The hostile stumbled away from the explosion, his electronics and heat blocking suit shredded from the impact of the frag grenade shrapnel. In the dim light, with the stealth suit’s capabilities, the man was invisible to anything short of a full power active scan, and almost had the drop on him. Almost, Gabriel thought as he stood up from his crouch and started towards the man.
The hostile recovered quickly. The suit offered some protection from projectile impact, so his disorientation was only momentary. He pulled a wicked looking curved blade from a hidden pocket and lunged towards Gabriel.
The distance was too close for Gabriel to use the rifle as anything more than a club, and the mag pistol was tucked away behind his back. He flipped the rifle backwards as he moved, grabbing the barrel, and parried the blade arm of the hostile.
The man grunted as the rifle stock struck his arm, but he held the blade securely, and Gabriel lost his grip on the smooth rifle barrel. It fell to the floor behind his attacker. Now that Gabriel was up close and personal, he got a better look at the man. He was tall and broad, about his own size, and the head covering of the stealth suit was torn in several places, showing part of his face. The man wore a cruel leer as he swung the blade in a wide arc towards Gabriel’s head.
Gabriel stepped back as the blade whooshed through the air in front of him. As it passed, he lashed out with his free hand and struck the back of the man’s elbow, and was rewarded with a sickening crack as the bone snapped.
The man howled in pain, and quickly shifted the long blade to his good hand. Gabriel began to reach behind him for the mag pistol, but the man stepped forward and flailed with his broken arm, apparently oblivious to the pain. His hand caught Gabriel’s wounded arm just as he pulled the pistol from his waistband, and a shock
of pain staggered Gabriel. The pistol, like the rifle, fell to the floor. He stepped back, as did the hostile, and each man warily eyed the other.
Gabriel was now unarmed, wounded, and apparently evenly matched size-wise with his attacker. Evenly matched except for the blade, which reflected the dull blue light as the man waved it in front of him. The two were just outside of arm’s reach, and both of them dripped blood from multiple injuries. Gabriel knew he’d have to end this conflict quickly, as whoever was behind the door was well aware of his presence at this point and could be preparing for an assault.
Realizing this, he ran a full active scan on the room, all the while staring into his attacker’s eyes as they slowly circled each other. Gabriel was now on the door side of the corridor as they changed positions. The scan showed two people in the small room, no sign of weapons, no electronics save for a reading from a basic comm terminal. Whoever was in there wasn’t likely a threat. Whoever was running this show was counting on the five — no, six, he thought as he eyed the blade again — mercenaries to take him out before he ever opened the door.
Suddenly the other man stepped forward, inside the arm’s reach area, blade outstretched. Gabriel calmly deflected the slow move to the side, but was caught off guard by the man’s foot crashing into his lower leg. He grimaced in pain as his knee collapsed inwards, feeling his tendons stretch. He dropped down onto that knee.
His attacker took another quick step in and swung the blade down. Gabriel raised his left arm to block the incoming blow, and then saw his own opening. As the blade arced downwards, Gabriel lashed out with his right fist deep into the man’s stomach. The blade fell from his grasp and bounced harmlessly off Gabriel’s left shoulder, and the man doubled over. Gabriel fired his open left hand upwards into the man’s chin and heard teeth shatter as his lower jaw smashed into his upper.
Gabriel: Zero Point (Evan Gabriel Trilogy) Page 5
