by M. R. Forbes
“Sheriff,” Hotch said, reaching the top of the steps. He and Hicks were carrying Caleb.
“There,” Hayden said, pointing to the bunk across from Walt. “Close the shield so they don’t see one another.”
“What happened out there?” Hotch asked.
“Save it for later,” Hayden replied. “We’ve still got trouble. Hicks, can you fight?”
“I’m still breathing, Sheriff,” Hicks answered as he helped place Caleb onto the bunk.
Hayden smiled. “Get downstairs and tell Nathan you’re ready to serve.”
“Roger.”
“What about me?” Hotch asked.
“I want you to stay with these two,” Hayden replied. “Make sure they don’t kill one another.”
“I want to fight.”
“Believe me; you’ll have your chance.”
“Okay, Sheriff.”
Hayden rushed back down the steps, stopping at the door to the bridge. He knocked on it and it slid open. Pyro didn’t look back at him, keeping her attention focused on the route ahead.
Hayden looked up at the primary display. He found Sanisco near the bottom, visible only because of burning fires and muzzle flashes. The power was out, and apparently, so was the emergency backup. The city was dark, leaving the xaxkluth impossible to see from this altitude, but he was sure they were there.
“We’re almost there, Sheriff,” Pyro said, reading his mind. “You should head to the hold to get ready.”
“I wanted to see it,” Hayden replied. “Get us as close to the pyramid as you…” He was cut off by a sharp tone through the comm, followed by someone issuing an emergency transmission.
“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is the Capricorn. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack. Can anyone hear me?”
“Where’s that coming from?” Hayden asked.
“Tracking. Standby.”
“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is the Capricorn. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack. Can anyone hear me?”
“I’ve got it, Sheriff. She’s on the ground just north of Sanisco.”
“On the ground? That doesn’t sound good.”
“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is the Capricorn. We are—”
“Capricorn, this is the Parabellum,” Pyro interrupted. “Do you copy?”
“Parabellum?” The woman’s voice relaxed slightly, the tension replaced with confusion. “That ship was decommissioned and sent for recycling twenty years ago.”
“Not exactly,” Pyro replied. “I’ve got your position. What’s your status?”
“We were attacked on the way in. We’re still under attack. Who are you?”
Hayden moved back onto the bridge. “Capricorn, this is Sheriff Hayden Duke of the United Western Territories.”
“Hayden!” Isaac’s voice boomed through the comm, his excitement palpable. “We’re in trouble. We need help.”
Isaac? He had said he wanted to come back to Earth, but Hayden had never thought Proxima would let him return so soon.
“The whole city’s under attack,” Hayden replied. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
“They’re hitting the ship,” another voice Hayden recognized said. Rico. “Crushing the hull. We won’t last much longer.”
“Damn it.” Hayden looked up at the display. The city was getting close. There was no sign of xaxkluth near the pyramid yet, but it didn’t change the fact that nobody was answering their comms. “We’re on our way. Be ready to make a break for it.”
“Roger that, Sheriff,” Rico said.
“Pyro, drop me off at the pyramid. The observation deck. Then go and help the Capricorn.”
“We should stick together, Sheriff.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Pyro smirked slightly and nodded. “Pozz that, Sheriff. Get down to the hold and hang on tight, we’re going in hard.”
Hayden went back to the door, stopping there as it slid open.
“Pyro,” he said, getting her attention. “Thank you.”
“Good hunting, Sheriff.”
5
Hayden
“Change of plans,” Hayden said, dropping into the hold. Nathan had already laid out a fresh round of arms for him. A P-90 plasma rifle to go with the MK-12 assault rifle, armor and a helmet. Except there was no time to put it on. He couldn’t manage two guns without the armor to hold one, so he settled for the plasma. “Where are my glasses?”
“I didn’t know we had a plan,” Nathan replied. “There.” He pointed to Natalia’s creation. Hayden quickly grabbed them up and slid them on.
Nathan had reloaded his rifle and packed two more boxes of ammunition on his back. Hicks was there too. His arm wasn’t moving too well, but he had managed to get a grip on a plasma rifle, which didn’t have recoil.
Three men against an entire army of xaxkluth. If Hayden could get to the comms and rally his deputies, they might have a fighting chance.
“Well, it’s changed. Pyro’s going to drop me at the Pyramid. Nate, there’s a Centurion dropship down on the other side of the bay. My friends Rico and Isaac are on it. They’re getting battered by xaxkluth.”
“You want me to rescue them?”
“Pozz.”
“Consider it done. We’ll pull them out and haul ass back to you.”
“We’re over the city,” Pyro announced. “Find something to keep you planted.”
There were straps against the bulkhead. Hayden and Hicks hurried over to them, buckling in. Nathan activated the magnets on the feet of his armor, securing himself to the deck.
The dropship did what it was made to do. It dropped straight down like a stone. Hayden’s stomach dropped with it, and he clenched his teeth as the ship shook against the air resistance—a brick falling from two kilometers up. The restraints kept him planted, but it still bothered him. Never much for flying, let alone falling, he closed his eyes.
At least he wasn’t HALO jumping.
The thrusters fired a dozen seconds later, shaking the dropship even more violently. The craft began to slow. Nathan walked over to the ramp control and activated it and the back of the ship started to open.
Hayden undid his restraints. The g-forces were driving him into the floor now, making it harder for him to walk across the deck. They eased quickly as the dropship came to a stop, the ramp hanging open at the back. The glass of the Pyramid’s forty-second floor sat directly behind it.
“Good luck, Sheriff,” Nathan said as Hayden broke into a run. He reached the edge of the ramp and jumped off, falling two meters and rolling on his shoulder, back to his feet. He heard the ramp start closing behind him, the thrusters firing and the dropship launching back into the sky.
He heard other things too. The groaning of the xaxkluth. The screaming and shouting of the people below. Gunfire, but not nearly enough. They weren’t ready for this. They weren’t prepared.
It was his damn fault.
He had assumed there was time. That he could get Natalia an ick and they could use the Collective to find out what was happening. He was wrong. He should have put the city on alert. He should have gotten the people out of there.
But where the hell would he have taken them?
There was nowhere safe out here. Nowhere the xaxkluth couldn’t find them. Edenrise hadn’t managed to survive the assault, and that was with an Axon shield. What chance did they have?
What chance did any of them have?
For two hundred years, the Relyeh were content to let the trife keep the population under control. To ignore Earth while they waged war against the Axon. But something had changed. Something had driven them to put a new focus on the planet and finish what they had started.
But what?
He had hoped to build a new civilization from the rubble of the old. The United Western Territories were the start of something bigger and better. Was that the reason the Hunger had come? Because they were getting too organized? Because he had started turning the Earth into a threat? Or was h
e giving himself too much credit?
The seeds had been sewn a long time ago. The xaxkluth were already here, planted and waiting. Were they designed to hatch when they did? Or had something triggered it?
The questions swirled through Hayden’s mind as he sprinted through the patio doors and into the newly painted room, across it to the stairs. No power meant he would have to make the descent on foot. All forty-five floors.
He didn’t care. Motivation gave him strength. He had to find Natalia, Hallia and Ginny. He needed to know they were safe.
He entered the stairwell. With not even emergency lighting to see by, he activated his glasses and checked the battery. Fifty percent. More than enough. The night vision filters activated, painting the stairs in grayscale.
Hayden bounded down the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. He used his augments to brace against the walls on the landings, crashing around the corners hard and fast. Slipping more than once, he nearly went down entire flights on his back, desperately trying to get to the bottom and beyond.
The sounds of conflict began to leech in through the walls the lower he went, the attack continuing outside, the xaxkluth drawing closer to the Pyramid. He was breathing hard when he reached the fifteenth floor, his lungs burning, his heart thumping rapidly. His legs were tired, his muscles like rubber. But he didn’t dare slow down.
He was on the twelfth floor when the building shook for the first time, the sound of breaking glass and cracking stone a sudden blast of violent noise that echoed in the stairwell. The shaking knocked him from his feet, finally enough to send him tumbling down to the eleventh floor. He hit the wall with his side, catching the worst of it with his augment. Dust and debris filled the air, threatening to choke him as he heaved in deep breaths. It took him a couple of seconds to get back to his feet, and he stumbled downward, heading for his apartment.
A xaxkluth groaned outside, close enough he could hear its deep rumble clearly, removing any doubts about the truth of the situation.
The enemy had reached the Pyramid.
6
Isaac
“You two get to the hold,” Able said. “I’ll stay here to communicate with the Parabellum.”
The dropship groaned, the pressure the xaxkluth tentacles were putting on its frame increasing. The whole thing could give any moment, allowing the aliens to bend the alloy and crush them all.
“We’ll need to move fast,” Rico replied. “There’s nothing you can do here.”
“There’s a lot I can do here,” Able countered. “Like tell you when they’ve arrived, or if they aren’t going to make it.”
“You might not make it either,” Isaac said to the older woman. Her uniform had been torn in the crash, and he noticed the area near her abdomen was darker than the rest. “You’re injured.”
“Piece of metal went through my back,” she said. “The fact is, I’m not going to make it anyway.”
Rico whipped toward her. “Able…”
“Don’t cry about it, Rico. I’m an old lady. I had my life, and I don’t have any regrets. I refuse to die before I help you get to safety.”
Rico stared at Able for a moment and then turned away again. “Ike, let’s move.”
The door to the bridge slid open. Isaac stopped in front of Able. “Thank you.”
“For what?” she asked. “You’re the ones who have to go out there with those things.” She laughed. “Get moving, Sergeant.”
Isaac looked away. He hated the idea of leaving anyone behind. But if her wound was as bad as it looked from the bloodstain, she wasn’t getting out alive anyway.
“Ike, today!” Rico snapped from the doorway.
He glanced at Able one last time before following Rico from the bridge.
They ran across the top of the deck toward the bow. The bulkhead was already warped, the jump seats dislodged or bent, the dim emergency lighting casting the whole thing in an eerie glow. The Organization’s soldiers were huddled together over Jorge, the youngest of their number.
Drake noticed them first, rising and looking at them. “What’s the situation, Major?” he asked.
“We made contact with another dropship,” Rico replied. “They’re coming in for an extraction. We need to be armed and ready to move.” Her eyes shifted to Jorge. She didn’t ask if he was alive. It was clear he wasn’t.
“Broke his neck when we flipped,” Drake said. “He locked the buckle wrong.”
“Is anyone else hurt?”
“Banged and bruised, but ready to get the hell out of here. Able?”
“She’s covering the comm,” Isaac said.
“She needs to get out of here with us.”
Drake started toward the bridge. Isaac put his hand on the soldier’s chest. “Forget it, Drake. She won’t come.”
“I’ll drag her ass out.”
“She’s already dead,” Rico said. “She’s got shrapnel in her kidney, and we don’t have a doctor or a hospital to bring her to.”
“Your fancy Sheriff doesn’t have a damn doctor?”
“You haven’t seen what it’s like outside. We’ll be lucky to get out of the area alive.”
“Good pep talk,” Drake said.
“I told you, there’s a ship en route. We have to be ready to go. Get to the hold and grab whatever gear you can. That’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am. Centurions! Get your tails up and moving. We’ve got zero seconds to prep for extraction. Let’s help each other get home alive.”
The other soldiers got up, moving away from Jorge.
“Are we on Earth?” Lucius asked.
“No, dipshit, we’re in Uranus,” Drake replied. “Yeah. Welcome to Earth, bro. Now try not to die.”
Lucius leaned over Jorge, tapping his chest. “RIP, brother.” Then he joined the rest of the soldiers, following Isaac and Rico to the upside-down stairwell.
“How do we get up?” Spot asked.
“Grab the edge of the risers, climb back until you can twist to the ceiling,” Isaac said.
“You’ve done this before?” Drake asked.
“No,” Isaac replied.
“Ike, you’re the tallest,” Rico said. “You go first. Once you get up there, see if you can reach the latches for the crates. They’re all mag-locked to the deck, so they shouldn’t have moved during the crash.”
“Roger that,” Isaac replied. He moved into position, looking up at the stairs over his head.
A loud crack sounded, followed by the piercing whine of bending metal to the aft.
“And hurry,” Jesse said.
Rico looked around, her eyes suddenly wide. “Where’s Bennett?”
“I haven’t seen him,” Drake replied.
Isaac could see the fear on Rico’s face. Even though this Bennett wasn’t her late husband, she couldn’t help but worry about him.
“Rico!”
Bennett’s face appeared over the edge of the stairwell above. The left side of it was bruised, and he had a gash on his forehead, but he was up and moving.
“Shit, Bennett,” Rico said. “You scared the hell out of me.”
He smiled, reaching back and then tossing a climbwire down to them. “Do you want to complain, or do you want to get out of here?”
She smiled back at him. “Drake, secure the line.”
Drake took the end and pulled it taught, dropping to his knees.
“Ike, you first. Let’s go.”
Isaac grabbed the wire, finding it had a surprisingly comfortable grip despite its smooth metal appearance. He lifted himself onto it, Drake holding it in place while he started scaling it with his hands and feet. The wire vibrated slightly as Spot grabbed it beneath him.
“Centurions,” Able said over the comm, her voice soft. “The Parabellum is closing. Two minutes.”
“Climb faster, Centurions!” Bennett barked.
Isaac reached the lip of the ceiling, and Bennett helped pull him up. Isaac’s breath caught in his throat when he saw the back of the deck was
crushed, the ramp a mangled mess of metal. A xaxkluth tentacle was reaching in through a separation, trying to get to them.
“Portside hatch,” Bennett said, motioning. Isaac looked. Guns and armor were already arranged nearby. “I took the liberty as soon as we stopped crashing.”
“You didn’t buckle in?” Isaac asked in shock.
“Only until we hit the ground.” He touched the side of his swollen face. “I’m a clone. It’ll heal fast.”
Isaac couldn’t believe Bennett had survived the impact, especially considering both Able and Jorge hadn’t.
“You’ve got two minutes, Ike,” Bennett said. “Suit up.”
Isaac hurried to the port side. He found his armor by eliminating all of the suits that weren’t his. The combat armor had been new tech when he went into stasis, unavailable to MPs. He grabbed it almost reverently. Under any other circumstances, it would be exciting to put it on.
Spot joined him a moment later, followed by Jesse, Lucius, and Rico. Drake was the last one up, making it to his gear with less than a minute to spare.
“Help him out!” Rico snapped.
Lucius and Jesse hurried to Drake, each taking a side to help him get his armor on and clamped. They had just closed the last clasp when the xaxkluth at the back managed to tear away a larger piece of the hull and clear enough space for its tentacles to enter.
Isaac turned on it at the same time as the others, getting his rifle level and opening fire. Six guns pounded the few tentacles, driving them back and out.
The xaxkluth vanished, leaving the highway they had crashed on visible, the cracked pavement and rusted cars mingling with brown vegetation. Then its central mass appeared in place of the tentacles, toothy mouth churning as more limbs pulled at the metal, trying to enlarge its access point.
Isaac and the others continued shooting, expending hundreds of rounds within a few seconds without serious effect. Had they survived the crash to die minutes later? How was anyone supposed to kill these damn things?
Another pair of tentacles ripped at the starboard hull, peeling it away like a lid to a sardine can. It reached for the group, nearly grabbing Bennett before Rico’s attack tore the limb apart.
