Refuge 9 (Fire and Rust Book 5)

by Anthony James

  “We’re going this way,” he said, advancing towards the passage. With each step, he could see further along the corridor, while the teleporter behind faded into the gloom.

  The soldiers withdrew from the east and west passages and waited for Conway to lead on. Everyone’s expression was grim, like they’d accepted the inevitability of another crap mission. Conway understood what they were feeling - the soldiers’ fear was suppressed by their desire to see this through. It was the best he could expect from them.

  “Let’s move,” he said.

  With that, Conway strode into the passage, his rifle level and ready to shoot anything that moved.

  Chapter Ten

  Conway didn’t get too far. Less than forty meters into the passage he came upon the bodies of both Raggers and Sekar. They were everywhere and in some places the corpses were piled high enough to make progress difficult. Conway didn’t know how long the aliens had been here, but the Sekar appeared to be decaying, in spite of the sub-zero temperatures.

  “These Sekar were moving fast, sir,” said Corporal Brice.

  “What do you mean?” asked Conway. Then, he saw it in the way the aliens had fallen. They’d been coming towards the transport room. “What happened here?” he asked.

  “Maybe the Raggers and the Sekar were fighting,” offered Torres.

  Kemp stooped and then rose with a Ragger assault rifle in his spare hand. He examined it and then expertly dropped out the magazine, which he also studied. “I can’t tell if these are tharniol rounds or not. My helmet sensor’s gone screwy – it’s detecting the stuff everywhere.”

  “Mine too,” said Brice. She stepped towards one of the walls and brushed her fingers across it. “These plates must contain traces of tharniol.”

  The words answered a question which Conway hadn’t yet thought to ask himself. “That’s why these Sekar came through the passages, rather than jumping out of the walls,” he said.

  “We get a chance to shoot them fair and square,” said Kemp.

  “That’s good,” said Conway nodding. “A real relief if it works out like that.”

  Brice crouched next to the body of a Sekar which had landed on its back. Its appearance was as disturbing as all the other ones – a three-dimensional shadow with no face and a hint of sinews beneath the surface.

  “This one hasn’t been shot. Unless its wounds closed up after death.” She moved across to another and carefully lifted one of its limbs. “This one is unmarked as well.”

  Kemp had another one of his infrequent illuminating moments. “The death pulse killed them.”

  “Private Kemp, you are sometimes more than you appear to be,” said Lieutenant Rembra.

  “Shit, Lieutenant, I’ve been telling you that all along.”

  “If the death pulse killed these Sekar while they were running towards the transport room, that means they got here in the eighteen minutes between the first pulse and the second one,” said Conway, suddenly even more worried.

  “And look at the numbers,” said Hacher, gesturing ahead with a wide hand. “They knew when you arrived, Captain Conway, and they were coming for you.”

  “Damn, there’re enough here to have killed us all,” said Freeman.

  “Maybe,” said Rembra. “Certainly, the death pulse came at a favorable time.”

  “We can’t piss around,” said Conway. “These Sekar came through rifts on Qali-5. There must be open fissures here as well and they might be pouring through.”

  “I got about 300 rounds left,” said Kemp. “Easy.”

  “Not so easy,” said Torres.

  “I’m just trying to make everyone feel better.”

  Conway stepped over one of the corpses by his feet and continued along the passage. He felt like he had a few answers as to what was going on – or at least some guesses that appeared to fit. If any of the speculation was correct, he expected to run into more of the Sekar before this was over.

  The passage entered another room with three more exits. The lights were heavily suppressed like the corridor and the transport room. More Raggers lay on the floor and not so many of the Sekar.

  “Must suck to be a Ragger,” said Kemp. “They’ve been running for the data stores and trying to make it before they get hit by a death pulse or killed by the Sekar.”

  “They have the numbers,” growled Hacher. “And I am happy to see them lose so many.”

  Something caught Conway’s eye – a tiny insignia stuck to the shoulder of a Ragger on the floor to the left. He crouched mid-stride and pulled it free.

  “Hass-Tei-112-98342-001,” he read.

  “According to the mission docs, that’s the same name as the Ragger on the mothership with a few extra numbers,” said Lockhart.

  “I will tell you something about how the corpse-eaters are ordered,” said Rembra. “At a more appropriate time.”

  “I’d like that,” said Conway.

  He entered the far passage and kept on going. When he didn’t know the way to go, Conway usually chose at random and didn’t worry too much about getting it wrong.

  “Eight minutes since the last death pulse,” said Kemp, evidently more interested than he pretended.

  “Still no pressure in my head,” Warner remarked.

  “It makes a good early warning,” said Barron sourly. “Though I don’t know if it indicates the presence of Sekar or an incoming death pulse.”

  “It means the Sekar are nearby,” said Conway. “It was the same on Qali-5.”

  The squad entered a third room. This one was the same size as the last and with three additional exits. A smaller quantity of Raggers and a couple of Sekar were strewn wherever they’d fallen. In each corner, Conway saw alien consoles set diagonally so they faced into the center. In front of each was a rudimental metal-frame chair.

  “Want me to have a look, sir?” asked Freeman.

  Conway didn’t answer and he went left to look at the console in the near corner. It was two meters wide and waist high, with mechanical buttons and a single screen. It looked as basic as the chair, like something the Unity League was building three hundred years ago. The console was powered off and silent. He beckoned for Lieutenant Rembra to approach.

  “You’ll know better than I do, Lieutenant. Is this Ragger kit?”

  “It does not resemble their usual technology. This was built by the species which constructed the spaceship Zemilius.”

  “Yeah,” said Conway. “I’ve got a feeling this facility is something the Raggers stumbled upon, rather than something they built.”

  “The motives of our enemy are unknown. However, we can assume they are not acting in our best interests.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Conway reached out a tentative hand and pushed one of the buttons. It made a sharp clack and the console illuminated at once, though its light wasn’t any better at piercing the gloom than the spheres in the ceiling. The screen displayed an image made up from many interconnected green lines, with a green square at each intersection. Some of the green squares were ringed with blue circles and one of the squares near the top of the screen was red. To Conway it looked like a basic map and he realized it might be exactly that.

  “A map of this facility, with us located at that red square,” he said to Rembra. “What do you reckon?”

  “I agree,” said Rembra. “If these squares are rooms, the lines must be corridors.”

  Conway traced one of the lines leading away from the red square, followed it over two room until it stopped at one of the squares with a blue circle around it. “These circles are teleport points,” he said. “This one here is where we came in.”

  “Yes,” said Rembra. “We should take a copy of this image.”

  “It doesn’t have any text to denote the depth or a level number,” said Sergeant Lockhart, peering at the screen.

  Conway turned. “Corporal Freeman – this is your big chance. Come over and have a look at this.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Shou
ldn’t we get moving?” asked Corporal Barron, shifting uncomfortably at the entrance to the east passage. “I’m feeling that pressure again.”

  “Ten minutes since the last pulse,” said Conway. “Damn.”

  The death pulse came again and Conway was gripped by pain. He groaned and his vision dimmed for a moment. Even Rembra was affected and the Fangrin snarled, his white teeth visible through the faceplate of his helmet.

  “So much for an eighteen-minute interval,” said Conway. “That one was only ten.”

  “At least the pressure has gone, sir,” said Barron.

  If any newly arrived Sekar were dead it was a positive, though Conway wasn’t happy to find that the death pulse ran off its own clock. He wanted consistency – something he could rely on and plan around.

  “Eighteen minutes, ten minutes,” said Lockhart. “The next one might be in two minutes or a hundred.”

  “Any significant interval is going to make it tough for us,” said Conway. “This is screwed up.”

  “Look at this, sir,” said Freeman, pulling his hands from the console.

  The map image was altered – Freeman had somehow managed to rotate it and convert it into three-dimensions. This updated view appeared significantly more convoluted than when it was shown flat, though Conway was certain it didn’t show any more information than previously.

  “I think these are the levels arranged from top to bottom,” said Freeman.

  The red square was still up near the top and Conway made a rough count of the levels. “Dozens,” he said. “And with no indication of where these data stores are located.”

  “From the evidence we have discovered, the Raggers may be no more familiar with the interior of this facility than we are,” said Rembra.

  It was an excellent point, though it didn’t bring them any closer to finding what they were here for. Conway spent another few seconds looking at the map and trying to get his bearings. He had a decent memory and his sense of direction wasn’t bad either. As well as that, he took snapshots using his helmet sensor and stored them in his suit’s memory banks. It didn’t take long before he was confident that he could lead the squad towards the closest teleporter.

  “If we come across a real lift first or some good old-fashioned stairs, that’s the way we’re going,” he said.

  “We should embrace this new technology, sir,” said Kemp, deadpan.

  “How’s about your ass cheeks embrace the toe-end of my boot, Private?”

  “Steps it is, sir.”

  Conway turned fast to hide his grin and strode towards the east passage. Barron was already waving the rest of the squad away from the far exits and in moments everyone was ready to move again. They’d found some beneficial information, but Conway was still filled with unease about this place.

  His squad had hardly even begun to explore and already the enormity of the task was impossible to ignore. Not only was it potentially overrun by Sekar, but the signs of Ragger treachery were becoming clearer all the time. The Broadsword and Gradior were out of comms sight and even if they weren’t, they couldn’t hope to defeat the Ragger spaceships. All of which left many problems to face in the future, regardless of whether Conway and the squad were successful in recovering the data stores.

  “One step at a time,” he said under his breath. It was an old mantra that he hated yet still found value in repeating it.

  The squad exited the room and followed the passage. A few Raggers lay about, ready to trip anyone not paying enough attention. The number of their dead was noticeably lower than earlier, which seemed logical given the seeming irregularity of the death pulse. Some of the Raggers made it further than others, though evidently not far enough to recover the data arrays.

  At the end of this passage was another room. A groove in the floor indicated that a door existed to separate room and corridor. Conway paused.

  “The door is open,” he said, pointing to where it had slid into a gap in the wall.

  “I detect traces of tharniol,” said Rembra, laying a hand on the smooth, visible edge. “It would be useful if we could control these doors. I will attempt to operate this one.”

  “Go ahead,” said Conway.

  Failure took only a few seconds. “The override software does not work,” he said.

  “It worked fine on the teleporter door.”

  “I believe the Raggers may have disabled the internal security for this facility, Captain Conway. On the surface of it, such action would make sense. It would allow them to move freely without having to stop for every door.”

  “Can you enable it again?” asked Conway. He could activate the Fangrin software, but didn’t have any idea about its subtleties.

  “No. The suit override lacks the facility.”

  “Damn.”

  The room appeared empty, aside from a dozen or so dead Raggers, and Conway gave a cursory glance into each corner. A dimly visible exit led north, which tied in with his understanding of the map. It was encouraging.

  Without dropping his guard, Conway set off into the room. A faint sound caught his attention – it reminded him of the quiet whirr of noise-suppressed motors. He turned his head sharply in time to see a dark shape emerge from a concealed hatch in the ceiling.

  “Chain gun!” he said in sudden realization.

  Conway spun, lifting his rifle at the same time. He heard the barrels of the gun spin up and he knew he was going to be too late. The facility was equipped with automated defenses and he’d just stumbled right into them. The chain gun was going to rip the squad to pieces. Conway knew it was all over and he didn’t even have time to curse his stupidity and carelessness.

  Chapter Eleven

  The chain gun emitted a high-pitched whine and its multiple barrels spun at incredible speed. The anticipated hail of bullets didn’t come. Conway had emptied a quarter of his magazine into the chain gun’s housing before he understood and released the trigger. Several others fired longer, their slugs clattering off the alloys of the gun.

  “Cease fire!” Conway yelled.

  The shooting stopped at once. In the center of the room, the chain gun still whined, but nobody died.

  “It’s out of ammo,” said Conway.

  A sense of relief washed over him. He was alive and he knew what a let-off this was. A Ragger corpse lay nearby and he lashed out a foot, knocking it away.

  “None of these Raggers have been shot, sir,” said Corporal Brice. “The automated defenses must have run dry before they came.”

  “Where are the bodies with holes in, then?”

  “From what we’ve seen of the Sekar, they decay rapidly, sir. Maybe this room was once piled high with their corpses, assuming that chain gun was loaded with tharniol rounds.”

  “This entire facility has been constructed solely to defend against the Sekar,” said Rembra. “In the same way the Zemilius was fitted with defenses designed for the same purpose.”

  “I wonder how long ago this all happened,” said Sergeant Lockhart. “Everything about this place makes me think it’s ancient.”

  “An old and forgotten war between the Sekar and this unknown species,” said Rembra. “The evidence suggests the Sekar were in the ascendancy. The side which is losing retreats and defends. The Sekar were coming for them.”

  A chill swept through Conway. He felt the history too and the Fangrin’s words drove home the significance of this past conflict.

  “This could be what happens to the Unity League,” said Lockhart.

  “And the Fangrin,” said Rembra quietly. “A part of me wishes we had never come here.”

  “We’re just guessing,” said Conway. “Maybe we’ll find something elsewhere in the facility that tells us what really happened.” Deep down inside, he didn’t expect to find anything other than more death and more evidence that the creators of the Zemilius were gone from the universe.

  Once again the squad set off and this time the weight they felt came from more than the oppressive gloom. The burden of histor
y was one easily carried by the ignorant, but a millstone for those with even a hint of empathy. Conway didn’t want the distraction and he added another floor onto his mental tower of experiences that he would deal with when the time was right.

  They approached a room of identical dimensions to the others. This time, Conway ordered the soldiers to stand way back while he inched towards the threshold in order to look for signs of automated defenses. The ceiling panels looked unblemished.

  “Volunteers?” he joked.

  “I’ll do it, sir,” said Warner, in an atrocious impression of Private Kemp’s voice.

  “I knew I could rely on you, Private Kemp,” said Conway.

  “Sir, it wasn’t me!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got a better idea.”

  Conway stepped into the room and then back again. The action didn’t trigger the defenses. He leaned further into the room and dragged a Ragger corpse towards him. The body was stiff and he avoided looking through the suit visor. With a grunt, Conway hurled it into the room, hoping the movement would trigger any defenses. A sophisticated system wouldn’t be fooled, but he suspected the chain guns weren’t subtle.

  “No gun,” he said, aware that time was passing.

  “Twelve minutes since the last death pulse,” said Rembra, reading his thoughts.

  “Get ready,” said Conway.

  He took several steps into the room, aware that he couldn’t outrun a bullet. No chain gun appeared to reduce him to bloody pulp and Conway was reassured that not every room was fitted with automated defenses.

  “This is going to slow us down too much,” said Lockhart. “Was there anything on that map to let us know where the guns are?”

  Conway shook his head. “I don’t think so. Rooms, corridors and transporters only.”

  The squad proceeded. According to the map, another one of the teleporters was nearby. There was no indication as to where it was connected and Conway was left to rely on hope that it would take his squad somewhere closer to their destination.