Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4

by Smith, Nicholas Sansbury

  “I smell rain,” Sergeant Ruckley said, walking beside him.

  She walked with a bad limp, as if each step was sending a pain through her body. This is what it had come down to, using injured soldiers, some only able to walk because of pain meds.

  They needed every person and every gun on the walls.

  They paused near the open entrance into the top level of a guard tower that looked like a pillbox built into the wall. It had reinforced walls and small windows offering shooting lanes over the side of the island. Commander Jacobs was inside speaking to a few soldiers standing next to an M249 on a tripod.

  The engineers and soldiers had also positioned three automated Phalanx CIWS turrets adapted to cut down any aerial threats around the island. The closest was located at the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig museum just off the pier near the Harbor House Hotel. Another was near the hospital at the northern side of the base, and the third was south of their position, closer to the airfield.

  Commander Jacobs finished giving orders and joined Ruckley and Beckham outside the entrance to the tower. “Everything’s set. We’re just waiting on the first groups to return from injecting the anthrax.”

  Beckham looked back toward the bridge. “No one’s made it back yet?”

  “I received word from the first few teams that they’ll be back soon. Recon Charlie reported seeing a few Variants out there. Most of the other groups have remained radio silent.”

  “Any word from Recon Sigma?” Beckham asked, referring to Horn and Timothy’s team.

  “Nothing yet,” Jacobs said.

  “I’m sure they’re doing fine,” Ruckley said.

  Beckham had wanted to go with, but he trusted Horn and he was needed here to help with the final defenses.

  “Recon Sigma went to one of the farthest sets of tunnels northwest of Houston,” Jacobs said. “I wouldn’t expect them back any time soon.”

  “And we still got a long time before dawn,” Ruckley said. “Trust me, I’ve been up and down the northeast with Timothy. Driving through Houston and injecting a bit of anthrax is nothing that young man can’t handle.”

  “I know you’re right,” Beckham said. “How about news on the First Fleet?”

  “We haven’t spotted them yet, but this cloud cover isn’t helping. Seems like a storm is rolling in. They can’t hide from us forever, though. Our final aircraft are on standby to send them to the bottom of the Gulf.”

  “Good,” Beckham said.

  His thoughts turned toward the men, women, and children who were too young, old, or sick to defend the base. Those who could carry a rifle were scattered on the wall with more experienced soldiers or helping to guard the civilian shelters. Even Horn’s oldest, Tasha, had been given a pistol, in case things turned especially ugly.

  “Do we need to make another loop to ensure all civilians are at their designated shelters?” Beckham asked.

  “It’s already done,” Jacobs said.

  Beckham nodded. He thought of Kate and her team, set up at the former University of Texas Medical Branch Hospital. They were some of the best protected people on the island, along with the engineers running the SDS equipment.

  “Any reports of seismic activity?” Beckham asked.

  “Nothing to indicate any tunneling Variants yet,” Jacobs said. “We’re keeping a close eye on everything.”

  One of the soldiers in the bunker near them called for Commander Jacobs.

  “Excuse me,” Jacobs said.

  Beckham turned back toward the west where Houston lay beyond the increasingly cloudy horizon, wondering where the New Gods would start their attack.

  Wherever they did attack, he was confident his people had prepared the best they could with the resources they had.

  Jacobs returned a few minutes later.

  “Just got word the first three teams reporting successful anthrax injections into the network are less than five minutes from the bridge,” Jacobs said.

  Beckham checked his watch. “Good. We’ve got another five hours before dawn.”

  “Still plenty of time for Horn, Timothy, and Boyd,” Ruckley said.

  “More than enough,” Jacobs agreed.

  Beckham nodded and started to speak. “We can—”

  Suddenly, the buzz saw whine of the modified Phalanx CIWS turrets erupted from the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig just off the pier. Fifty rounds per second exploded from the weapon in a series of bursts from its rapidly rotating barrels.

  “What the hell are we firing at?” Jacobs shouted.

  “The CIWS detected something,” an officer replied.

  “Rockets? Missiles?” Jacobs asked.

  Another burst of fire spat from the Phalanx, modified rounds piercing the black of the night. A series of smaller explosions glowed red and orange amid the low-hanging clouds.

  “Bats!” Beckham shouted.

  From the northern most point of the base and the southern, the other two Phalanx CIWS systems roared to life.

  “All spotlights on!” Jacobs said. “Scramble anti-air units! Shoot anything that flies!”

  The lights speared into the dense clouds, sparking around the base, and air-raid sirens wailed to announce the beginning of the battle for the survival of the Allied States.

  Two of the soldiers in the barricaded tower handed out shotguns filled with all the buckshot, birdshot, and other munitions they had scraped together for just this purpose. Beckham strapped his rifle over his back and took one of the shotguns.

  “Get down,” he said to Ruckley.

  She ducked near a wall with a pistol. The weapon was all but useless against the small bats.

  Raising the shotgun, Beckham waited for the explosive-laden little devils. The horror they were capable of made his heartbeat accelerate in anticipation. Each grotesque, genetically modified bat carried only a small amount of explosives, but the rain of hundreds or more of those suicidal monsters over any outpost or base was devastating.

  The radar-guided point-defense system guided the firing barrels toward unseen targets masked by the clouds. More explosions rolled through the sky, followed by miniature rumbles of thunder.

  The fog slowly covering the base made it damn near impossible to get a good visual on any potential targets. Beckham roved his shotgun wherever the Phalanx aimed, waiting for the first of the mutated beasts to descend like miniature demons from hell.

  A couple of soldiers got antsy and fired.

  “Hold your fucking fire until you have a target!” he yelled over the noise. “Ammo doesn’t grow on trees!”

  “I thought we had until morning!” Ruckley shouted. She held the pistol in a shaky hand and aimed it at the sky. “This is way earlier than the Prophet said they would attack!”

  “Did you really trust that beast?” Beckham yelled back.

  More booms rocked through the sky. Beckham could smell the odor of burned flesh and explosives.

  The first of the CIWSs suddenly stopped firing. The second followed soon after, and less than a minute later, the third went silent. The sirens continued to blare but Beckham could hear conversations over the noise.

  “Is that it?” a soldier in the tower called. “Did we stop them?”

  “I think so!” another said.

  Jacobs had his hand pressed against his ear, listening to his radio. “Negative! The Phalanxes are out of ammunition! The bats are still coming!”

  A small silhouette flickered underneath the clouds, caught in a spotlight.

  Beckham twisted, adjusting his aim, and fired. His shotgun kicked back against his shoulder, and the bat disappeared in a spreading fan of flames that illuminated the clouds. The small explosion revealed an entire flock of bats.

  More booms of shotguns rang out in a deafening chorus. Each shot cut through the beasts, setting off chain reactions of explosions as the bats flocked together.

  All Beckham could do was aim, fire, pump in new shells, and repeat. He blinked past the sweat trickling over his face. The smell of bur
ning flesh growing stronger and closer.

  Heat washed over the guard tower platform, as the bats advanced their relentless attack.

  The first explosion rocked one of the buildings behind the walls. A scream filled the night, followed by a radio transmission calling for medics.

  Other explosions ripped through buildings, former hotels and restaurants and offices bursting into flames from the blasts.

  Firefighters scrambled throughout the base, desperately trying to put out the spreading infernos.

  Nearby, a cloud of bats rocked into a section of the western wall. A chain of blasts kicked up clouds of smoke and fire. Razor wire, soldiers, and weapons disappeared in a blinding flash.

  Beckham tried to keep his aim on the bats above his position, but each resonating blast stoked the images of Javier and Kate and Tasha and Jenny in his mind.

  He tried to turn off the tide of emotions and become the machine he had once been in battle, but never had that been more difficult. Adrenaline pumped through his vessels, his mind shutting out the chaos. He focused on the descending monsters as the fight to stop the beasts grew more desperate.

  The shells he had had in his pockets, bandolier, and tac vest were now gone. He reached into an ammo box placed near his position, grabbing the few remaining shells, then pumping them into his shotgun.

  The spotlights continued to probe the clouds, shotgun blasts and explosions echoing over Galveston. He expended the final shells and switched to his M4A1.

  The weapon was nowhere near as suitable for taking down flitting airborne targets like the shotgun, but he had no choice.

  As soon as he brought it up the explosions faded away, until there was only the emergency sirens and screams of the injured and dying.

  A light rain started to fall, but it wasn’t enough to put out the raging flames.

  Beckham checked the tall form of the hospital toward the northeast silhouetted in the fog, relieved to see no flames were leaping from it. At least for now, the science team was safe.

  Ruckley cautiously lowered her pistol. “That was just a warning, wasn’t it? Just to show us they still hold all the cards.”

  “Yeah,” Beckham said with a grunt.

  He maintained his aim on the clouds as rain splashed over his face. It would be just like the New Gods to send a follow-up attack when they had let their guard down and were helping the injured after that slaughter.

  The New Gods soon proved he was right.

  A few more bats fluttered from the clouds and the soldiers opened fire.

  This time there were no explosions. The dead bats spiraled to the ground. One landed just outside the wall.

  “Captain, look!” Ruckley said.

  A cloud of what appeared to be white smoke spread from the dead bat.

  “Gas, gas, gas!” Beckham shouted. “Masks, now!”

  He pulled on his own mask and strapped it over his face. Jacobs passed on the warning to the wall garrison, activating a new alarm that shrieked over the base.

  Soldiers on the wall and in the tower near Beckham fixed their masks into place. But for those who had been injured in the explosive attack, there would be no escaping the poison spewing from this new round of bats. The second wave of beasts had landed throughout the base, tendrils of white smoke spewing out from the small canisters attached to their bodies.

  As flames continued to chew through the surrounding buildings, poisonous gas filled the night air. The attack was quickly becoming deadlier than he had feared.

  At this rate, he wondered if they would even survive until dawn to meet the real monsters.

  ***

  Dohi ducked behind a parked semi-truck. A group of Chimeras marched down the street with cutlasses strapped over their backs and rifles cradled over their chests.

  Corrin knelt beside him, and just a few yards back, Rico and Fitz were positioned behind a Jeep just behind the truck’s trailer. They had scoured another building large enough to serve as a prison. All they had found was pulsating webbing and rotting corpses.

  For all Dohi knew, that cavern of death could have been the former prison they were looking for. As their mission wore on, he worried the army they had sought to raise might not exist. Searching building by building had only deepened those fears.

  Ghost needed a shortcut, a quicker way to find the prison, if it did still exist. Dohi ducked at the sound of more footsteps headed their direction.

  “Humans,” Corrin whispered.

  Dohi risked a glimpse around the tires, seeing the Chimera was right. All four collaborators walked casually down the street.

  Our ticket to the prison, he thought.

  As the collaborators drew closer, Dohi whispered a plan to Corrin. The Chimera listened intently, nodding, then crouched near the front of the truck, ready to intercept the collaborators.

  Dohi remained hunched behind the tires, peering around the rig. Fitz and Rico had disappeared behind the Jeep.

  Before the men passed in front of the semi-truck, Corrin strode out in front of them feigning the confidence of a New Gods Scion.

  “What are you doing?” he said with a growl. “Did you not listen to your orders? You’re supposed to be helping me with prisoners.”

  “But—” one of the collaborators began, looking at the others in confusion.

  Corrin snarled and cut the man off. “Say another word and it will be your last.” He turned and began walking behind the rig. “Follow me or you’ll be the next strung up on the webs.”

  The four men did as instructed. As they trailed the Chimera, Rico and Fitz sprinted around the other side of the truck to ambush them from behind.

  Corrin stopped and looked at Dohi, giving him a slight nod.

  At that signal, Dohi lunged from his hiding spot with his hatchet in one hand and knife in the other. The hatchet crunched heavily into the lead collaborator’s skull.

  Corrin drew his cutlass. The blade sliced through the air in a violent swoop, the gruesome weapon lopping off the head of another collaborator.

  The other two turned to run, but Rico and Fitz cut them off with their weapons leveled straight at them as Dohi retrieved his hatchet.

  “Make a noise and you’re both dead,” Rico said.

  The collaborators both halted and held up their hands. Dohi relieved them of their weapons and Corrin aimed his cutlass toward the men.

  “I’m only going to ask you this once,” Fitz said. “Tell us where the prisoners are.”

  Neither answered.

  “First of you to tell me gets to live,” Fitz said.

  “The linear accelerator!” one blurted.

  The other collaborator tried to run, but made it only three steps before Dohi’s hatchet hit the man in the back of his head.

  Dohi walked over and yanked it out with a wet squelch, eying the final collaborator. The captive man stared in horror. He was young, maybe in his twenties, with a long beard and floppy ears like an Alpha Variant’s.

  “Let’s go,” Fitz said. “Bring him.”

  “If you lied to us, your death won’t be nearly as quick and easy as your pal’s,” Rico said. She bound his wrist with plastic ties while Fitz took his shemagh scarf off and fastened it around their prisoner’s mouth as a gag.

  Dohi knew exactly where the linear accelerator was and took point, leading the group back into the shadows of the base. Every few minutes they paused to hide from hostiles, progressing slowly toward their target destination. Their trek took them to the outskirts of the laboratories, where the forest once again bordered the streets.

  The cover of the trees allowed them to advance without having to stop for patrolling guards, and they reached the northernmost entry to the linear accelerator facility.

  A group of four Chimeras stood guard outside the entry, cradling rifles.

  Even from where Ghost hid behind rocks and trees across the street from the accelerator facility, Dohi could smell the overwhelming odor of humans forced to live together in close confines.

&nb
sp; Fitz gave the order to take the Chimeras down.

  Suppressed rounds tore into the fleshy parts of their body unprotected by body armor. Three dropped immediately, but one survived the gunfire and lifted his rifle to fire.

  Dohi finished the beast with a shot to the face that cracked through the night.

  The team bolted toward the corpses with Corrin handling their prisoner.

  It turned out the man wasn’t lying.

  As soon as they cleared the entry, Dohi flipped up his NVGs to a ghastly scene.

  Sickly yellow lights hung overhead, illuminating red webbing that covered the lengths of wires and pipes stretching further than he could see. Everywhere he looked, he saw bodies cocooned in those webs.

  He scanned the vast space for guards. Seeing none, he started to check the closest prisoners.

  While some looked like little more than sacks of flesh and bones, many appeared stronger. That was good to see.

  The team had brought a few extra bottles of water and nutrition, limited by the weight they could safely dive with, but it wasn’t enough. Not even close.

  Mouths that weren’t clogged with red vines called out for help.

  Dohi went to the closest one. It was a woman who looked to be in her twenties wearing a soiled ACU. He cut away the vines holding her in place and then caught her when she sagged forward.

  “Hold on,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

  He helped her down to the ground.

  “Water,” she muttered.

  Dohi reached to his side and grabbed his bottle, bringing it to her lips.

  “Not so fast,” he said. “Easy.”

  She looked familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place her.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  “You… you’re here to save us?”

  “Yes,” Dohi said. “What’s your name?”

  “Corporal Esparza…” She glared over his shoulder at the collaborator.

  As soon as Dohi had freed her, he grabbed the man by his beard.

  “Wait, no, you said…” the collaborator started.

  Dohi pulled him to the ground and stomped on the side of his face, knocking him out. He looked over at Corrin. “Sling this bastard up in one of those cocoons.”