Refuge 9 (Fire and Rust Book 5)

by Anthony James

“You’ve gone and said it now, Captain.”

  “Yeah, I should know better than to talk about luck.”

  Conway cursed himself. He tried not to be superstitious but when your life was in constant danger, it was easy to convince yourself that wearing one pair of socks brought a greater chance of success than wearing another.

  He led the squad towards the teleport node, relieved to find the quantity of Sekar reduced significantly a little way along the side turning. The teleporter fired up as normal and the soldiers exited at the far side. Everyone’s head was clear. So far so good. Conway set off as fast as he dared, halting briefly every time he was uncertain of the route. Lieutenant Rembra and Lockhart helped out. Between the three of them, Conway was sure they were going the right way.

  After what seemed like many long minutes of running, they came to the stasis room. It was empty like before and Conway approached the viewing sphere which was no longer illuminated. He touched it once with his fingertips and it lit up again. The view inside the tharniol sphere told him that the Refuge 9 entity had upheld its side of the bargain. He wasn’t surprised.

  “No more warships,” said Conway. “I wonder how long ago they got out.”

  “It’s going to be hell out there,” said Barron.

  “I reckon.”

  Conway backed away from the viewing sphere and they continued to the hemispherical room which housed the Refuge 9 entity. The door to the inner hemisphere room was closed and its access panel didn’t respond when Conway commanded it to open. He wasn’t desperate to speak with the computer but couldn’t understand why he was denied entry.

  “The ways of aliens,” he said.

  “Maybe it didn’t like you, sir,” said Kemp.

  “Go and sweet talk that door if you’re so confident, Private.”

  “He can’t even sweet talk Torres, sir,” shouted Warner.

  Torres had a predictably pithy response which she delivered into the open channel. A few others waded in with opinions and Conway had to order silence. He didn’t have any reason to stay here and once more they moved on.

  Conway was aware that he’d taken a longer route than necessary on the way in and he considered attempting a few improvements to the return journey. After a brief discussion with Lockhart and Rembra, he decided to play the odds and go the route they knew, rather than risking the unknown in order to shave a few minutes.

  “Does this mean we have to go through that room with all the dead people in it?” asked Lester.

  “Yes.”

  “Damn.”

  They travelled through the industrial areas of the facility. The pipe-lined corridors seemed tighter than before and the gloom remained. They crossed several areas which Conway hardly remembered from last time. He’d been under a lot of pressure – in more ways than one – and it must have played with his memory.

  Eventually, they arrived at the bottom of the fifty-flight switchback steps. The reluctance to climb was obvious and a couple of the soldiers wondered aloud if it would be easier to go hunting for a teleporter. According to the map, one of the nodes wasn’t too far away. Conway wasn’t eager to climb the steps either, but he was even less eager to become lost.

  “We’re going up,” he said.

  “Ah, my bad leg is playing up again,” said Berg. “Gundro, how’s about you give me a carry up these steps?”

  “I’ve been carrying you long enough already, human. Your aim with a rifle is terrible and your jokes are worse. I cannot understand how you made it through basic training. Perhaps you offered financial reward to one of your officers.”

  “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

  Up they went and Conway counted every flight. His breathing deepened and his heart rate increased so much that his suit computer gave him an amber warning. The extra gravity on Glesia had been manageable so far. Now it was a pain in the ass.

  Conway halted at landing fifteen, pulled out a stim injector and gave himself a shot. He wanted to get out of here and he wanted to go home to see his wife and little girl. If that meant boosters, then that’s what he’d take.

  A few of the other soldiers followed Conway’s example. Many of the rest had taken their shots earlier. For some soldiers it was a habit to take their stims on every mission. Conway trusted them enough to make the right decisions.

  He started upwards again before the drugs had taken full effect. By the time he came to landing sixteen, Conway felt like a million dollars and his feet pounded the steps like they had a mind of their own. With an effort, he reined himself in. The stims worked wonders if used wisely, but they exacted a price later if you overdid it while boosted.

  At the top, Conway gave the soldiers a minute to catch their breaths. It had been a long climb in full kit and high gravity.

  “Anyone got head pressure?” he asked.

  “Not me,” said Barron.

  “All clear in my skull, sir.”

  Nobody talked about luck, though it was obvious that most of the squad were cautiously hopeful that the Sekar weren’t coming. Conway had yet to unravel the method by which the aliens tracked down living creatures – sometimes they came fast, other times they didn’t give chase immediately. He was certain the tharniol in the walls and floors slowed them down. Other than that, Conway wasn’t sure.

  They moved off once more, through the interconnected rooms of seats, tables and screens which Conway mentally thought of as the recreation area for the Ravok who’d once lived here. The rooms were sad, cold and empty like before. Then came the garden area with its dead plants and dying artificial sun, and after that, all the other places which reminded Conway of the people who had lived here. He thought it strange that he automatically called the Ravok people, while the Raggers were aliens. He’d long ago stopped thinking of the Fangrin as dogs, though they didn’t seem to mind the term.

  With respectful silence, the squad entered the room filled with dead Ravok. The moment Conway set foot inside, six other areas on his HUD map automatically highlighted in red. He guessed the meaning – this was only one space out of seven within Refuge 9. Perhaps millions gone, their bodies perfectly preserved, yet serving no purpose other than as a reminder they had once existed.

  This part of the journey was harder than expected – worse than the first transit of the room - and Conway felt infinite relief when it was over. They left the Ravok behind and continued through the once-habited level of the base.

  When they came to the teleporter that would take them to the next level up, Conway felt as if he was somehow running away. He knew it was foolish – the Ravok were gone and he couldn’t help them. Even so, an inner voice came to the fore, as much as he didn’t want to hear its message. Perhaps, this voice whispered, the people in those other six areas weren’t dead. Perhaps, somewhere within the Refuge 9 facility was a way to bring them out of stasis – to save them from eternal slumber and have them contribute their knowledge to the fight against the Sekar.

  It was one of those ideas which a restless mind cast up to torment a person. Conway had no justification to go chasing after remote possibilities, but he knew he’d forever be left wondering what the outcome would have been had he done so.

  Once the teleporter had cycled, the squad exited into the uppermost level of Refuge 9.

  “Man, I can almost taste that freedom,” said Warner.

  “The captain definitely owes us a cold one after this,” said Torres.

  “If we make it back and we get some time off, I’ll pay all evening,” said Conway.

  “Really?” asked Kemp.

  “Time off?” laughed Torres. “I think the captain’s money is safe.”

  “And I bet you dogs drink your beer straight from the barrel, huh?” asked Kemp. “A captain’s wage isn’t high enough to cover that sort of bar tab.”

  “I have not experienced beer, however I will gladly outdrink any seven of you for my first experience of it,” said Gundro.

  “We’ll be scraping you off the floor after ten minutes.”
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  Conway let the talk continue for a while longer. The soldiers were no less alert while they exchanged good-natured insults and the head pressure was still mercifully absent.

  They proceeded carefully through the rooms and passages. It was difficult for Conway to keep his optimism in check. He wanted to believe they were on the brink of a tremendous success. However, he’d been in this position before and had the rug yanked out from beneath his feet. As soon as everyone was onboard the Iron Cell and travelling at high lightspeed, that’s when he’d relax.

  The dead Raggers which the squad had discovered on the upper level of the base on the way in hadn’t gone anywhere. They lay about the place in silent testament to their own failed attempt to pillage the secrets of Refuge 9. Unlike the dead Ravok, the Raggers didn’t stir the emotions of the soldiers. Conway couldn’t even bring himself to feel hatred. The corpses were just another irritant – something to step over or divert around.

  “What happens when we get topside?” asked Kemp. “Are we going to hide out in those ruins?”

  Conway remembered the windborne ice and the darkness on the surface of Glesia. He also remembered what had turned the exit-point building into rubble. The planet didn’t have much worth shooting at and Conway didn’t want to loiter in the middle of a place which might be of interest to both the Raggers and the allied fleet.

  “We’re going to run as far from those ruins as possible, soldier. Then we’re going to hunker down somewhere and wait for rescue.”

  “Yeah, we might find a cave or something.”

  Privately, Conway didn’t think there’d be anything so civilized as a cave. Right this moment, he’d be thankful for a rock big enough to shelter everyone from the worst effects of the storm he was certain still raged above Refuge 9.

  “What about we steal that Ragger shuttle?” asked Warner.

  “I already thought about it, Private, and it may come to us doing exactly that. First things first – I don’t want anyone mistaking us for Raggers and shooting us out of the sky. Until I’ve got reassurances, we’re keeping our feet on the ground.”

  “That’s why you’re the boss.”

  The squad entered a room which Conway only vaguely remembered from earlier. The facility was filled with hundreds – perhaps thousands - like it. Something felt wrong about this one and Conway entered warily. He saw a couple of offline consoles, three exits and a handful of dead Raggers.

  Then, his helmet microphone picked up the rustling sound of light footsteps. He swore, guessing the source at once.

  “Get ready!” he ordered.

  None of the soldiers realized what was happening, but they responded at once, darting to the sides and preparing for combat.

  “Humans and [Translation Unclear],” came a hissing voice from a place deeper in the room.

  “Show yourself,” said Conway.

  A Ragger soldier appeared, eight or ten paces from Conway, the silvery tracing on its stealth suit dull in the suppressed light. It held an assault rifle and it peered at the squad with undisguised hostility.

  “You should not be here,” said the Ragger.

  “We have a truce,” Conway replied. He detected quiet sounds and suggestions of unseen movement. Whatever the Ragger was doing here, it wasn’t alone.

  “The truce was our decision. Perhaps we no longer require it.” The Ragger drew back its thin lips, revealing needle teeth. It hissed softly. “And who is to know what happens here so far beneath the ground and so far from home?”

  As soon as he heard the words, Conway knew he and his squad were in real trouble. He’d allowed himself to think about escape and now this had happened. It felt like a kick in the balls and Conway felt his fury rise that he might be denied so close to the finishing line.

  If he couldn’t talk his way out, hostilities seemed unavoidable. Conway didn’t want to engage with an unknown number of invisible Raggers and he tried to think of something he could say that would get his squad out of this. The odds didn’t seem good.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  For an honest man like Tanner Conway, lying didn’t come easy. Faced with the treachery of the Raggers, glib words spilled from his mouth.

  “We’re all soldiers here,” he said, lowering his rifle a couple of inches to give the impression he was relaxed. “I’ve been in this crap-hole for long enough. How’s about you let us walk straight past? That way, you get to do what you’ve come here to do and we get to go home.”

  The Ragger’s face was difficult to read, half-hidden as it was behind a suit visor and also because the aliens didn’t seem to have an expression that wasn’t overtly hostile.

  “Why should we do that?” it said mockingly. “We are many and you are few. And even were I to allow your request, what do you expect to find on the surface of Glesia? A slow death there or a quick death elsewhere.”

  Conway detected a peculiarity in the way the Raggers spoke – this one’s threats had an element of the indirect to them, as if the aliens always felt obliged to bend the truth as much as possible.

  “You’re here for secrets, right?” he asked. “Before the death pulse hits you.”

  “The death pulse will not fire again.”

  “Even if you’re correct, this is a big facility. It’ll take a lot of searching to find anything useful.”

  “We will locate the databanks.”

  “What if there’s more?” asked Conway. He muted the chin speaker and spoke rapidly into the squad open channel to make sure they didn’t think he’d gone turncoat.

  “The databanks contain everything,” said the Ragger.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am losing patience, human.” As if to add to the threat, four other Raggers switched off their stealth suits. They were in different areas of the room, with their rifles trained on the squad.

  “If you let us leave, I can show you how to bypass the security. I have spoken to the base control entity and it provided me with clearance to access everything.”

  In the short time it took Conway to speak those two sentences, he detected hints of pressure behind his eyes. The Sekar were coming.

  “There is no everything,” said the Ragger.

  Conway detected a note in the alien’s voice. It was a born liar which made it suspicious of others. At the same time, it was greedy and it wanted to believe.

  “The death pulse hardware would benefit us all. The Sekar are powerful and the pulse destroys them.”

  Conway glanced behind, as if he was giving a hint of the direction in which the death pulse weapon lay. In reality, he was checking to make sure that Gundro was keeping the schematics module out of sight.

  “Where is the death pulse?” hissed the Ragger.

  “Two rooms from here. I can override the security on one of the consoles and extract the data.”

  “You have the data already?”

  “No – the quantity is too great for our combined suit computers to contain. We will speak to our spaceship and request a data cube to allow a complete extraction. You take the data, we take the data. Nobody loses out.”

  “Yes,” said the Ragger, smiling nastily. “Nobody loses.”

  “Let us return to the surface so that I can request the data cube.”

  “First, you will show us the console. Then you may return to the surface.”

  Conway nodded. “We need this truce. We all do.”

  “Yes, the truce is important.”

  “I will show you the console,” said Conway. He thumbed over his shoulder. “It is this way.”

  With that, he turned and shouldered his way through his gathered squad. A few paces beyond the last man, Conway’s arm brushed an invisible object and he thought he detected an imperfection in the air.

  “They’re behind us,” he warned on the comms. “Gundro, keep in the center and hide that schematics module.”

  With his squad and an unknown quantity of Raggers following him, Conway strode along the passage into the adjacent room. He exited
left and continued to the next one. The Ravok had installed their generic hardware in each corner and Conway walked fifteen meters to the furthest console. He checked once over his shoulder.

  “This?” asked the Ragger, looking suspiciously at the console. “This does not contain anything useful.”

  “It connects to the central data stores,” said Conway, winging it. He knew how to turn these consoles on and he did so. Lights appeared and a prompt flashed on the lone display screen. Pretending that he was bored waiting for it to boot, Conway turned and sat on the edge of the front panel. He waved his squad against the nearby wall as if to allow the Raggers to obtain a better view of what was happening.

  “Give our friends some space to see,” he said. All five of the visible Raggers had joined him in the room and he hoped the rest – the hidden ones – had also joined their buddies.

  “Override the security,” said the lead Ragger.

  “Do it now,” said another. “Our patience is not extensive.”

  Conway half-turned his head to check on the progress of the console. It might have been fully booted - he didn’t know for sure. “This Ravok hardware is slow. It’s almost ready.”

  He gave it another few seconds, but it was clear the Raggers weren’t in the mood for any kind of delay. Perhaps they weren’t so confident that the death pulse had stopped working after all.

  “Enough,” said the Ragger with clear menace.

  It was time. “Anyone like Ragger soup?” Conway asked on the comms.

  “Love it with a drop of chili sauce, sir.”

  Conway accepted the flashing prompt on his HUD.

  Activate?

  Yes.

  “Blow the shit out of the bastards,” he ordered on the open channel.

  The concealed hatch in the ceiling opened and the auto defense chain gun emerged on its runners. Its motor whined and the closest Ragger spun around at the noise. Conway’s rifle wasn’t quite high enough and he shot the alien in the guts. The stealth suits weren’t good at stopping high impact rounds and a bloody wound appeared where the bullet went through. The Ragger began its tumble to the ground and Conway helped out with a second shot, this time in its chest.