She must not have been the only one to sense it, because all of a sudden there were bodies next to hers grabbing the legs, pushing the monster. Blood-streaked faces filled her vision as the other prisoners—some she recognized as Byzzie’s siblings, others she didn’t—joined them in the effort. Three of its legs dug into the ground for support while two others were being held firm by the people trying to kill it. Using its only free leg, it stabbed out at its attackers.
Raquel squeezed her eyes shut and continued to push, not wanting to know if its efforts had struck home on anyone trying to approach it.
The stink and heat of all those bodies pressing against her felt like some sort of heaven. For the first time since their capture, these citizens were united in fighting back. Not scattered. Not panicking. But acting as one. Avenging their fallen. Defending their home.
And just when Raquel wasn’t sure they’d be able to hold any longer, the air was pierced by the burst of an energy rifle. The weapon fired again and again in tight controlled bursts and it never even occurred to Raquel that it might be PUC soldiers. At this point, it didn’t even matter, so long as the monster died.
The massive six-legged creature that had caused so much destruction in such a short amount of time shrieked in agony as the energy rounds blasted it apart. And although she couldn’t see it happening through the press of bodies and the cloud of smoke that surrounded her, Raquel felt the glorious spatter of the thing’s blood rain down on her. The thrashing body suddenly tensed and then began to relax in her arms. Still not wanting to let go, fatigue brought her slumping to the ground along with the weaponized leg, and finally, there was nothing but the sounds of heavy breathing and quiet sobbing.
There was a metallic clack, and the body of the creature abruptly fell back out of the cage as the door was opened. Afraid to look up and see weapons leveled at her, Raquel had to fight her nerves to see who had opened the door.
With a long rifle in one hand and a cylindrical key-like object in the other, 49 stood there among the wreckage like some metal angel, gleaming and deadly in the brilliant sunlight.
“We need to get out of here now,” said the android, and before Raquel could even get to her feet two more of the creatures were bursting out of the tree-line.
When 49 had escaped his captors, he knew that his only real chance to turn the tide against the PUC would be by freeing prisoners. And to do that, he needed a key. As he was being walked down the street, he had seen a few soldiers walk by with what looked like cell keys dangling from their belts. The problem was, he wasn’t sure if the ones the soldiers carried could open all of the cells or just one. Chances were good that the PUC had assigned different squads to different cell blocks, and in doing so, assigned them all different keys with the hopes of minimizing the chances of what 49 was currently trying to do. If everyone had keys to everywhere, the possibility of a full-blown prisoner uprising was almost guaranteed. But, by assigning them all different cells with different keys, it ensured that if one of the soldiers was killed and his key fell into the wrong hands, they would still only have to deal with four or five cells worth of prisoners at most rather than all of Glenhold and its surrounding areas.
It was a good plan, but 49 knew enough about the PUC at this point to understand one thing: they needed to be in control. No way they would trust a bunch of individual keys to a bunch of individual squads only. It simply wasn’t in their nature. So, 49 had thought to himself as he was marched along at gunpoint, there has got to be at least one master key. Probably a few. The person leading the entire attack would probably have one plus at least one other person in charge of prisoner management.
That person had been Rear Admiral Jeannine Davis and she had gone down like a bag of rocks before she even knew what was happening. 49 had gotten as close as he could to the two soldiers that the rear admiral was standing in front of, and then rushed in to take them out with three quick firm blows. He had moved with lightning speed, but even so, the last soldier to go down had his rifle raised and was almost able to get a shot off before the android’s metal hand clobbered him upside the head.
There were more soldiers inside along with what were sure to be some pretty deadly prisoners, but 49 wasn’t sure he’d be able to deal with them all at once. So instead, he quickly reached down, grabbed the master key from around the Rear Admiral’s waist, stole both of the soldiers’ rifles, and then bolted into the woods before anyone saw him.
He ran toward the city and began to free what prisoners he could so long as he didn’t have to walk through an entire platoon of soldiers to do so. He took a few patrols out and ushered as many groups of prisoners into the woods as he could.
Then, just as he was spotted by a passing patrol and they began trading energy bolts, the pulse wave hit.
“Take this,” 49 said without preamble as he chucked Raquel a spare energy rifle. “You get King to his feet and I’ll grab the captain.”
“Wait,” Raquel shouted, still lying exhausted on the ground. She felt frozen. Half of the crew was injured. Monsters were roaming the streets. She had just watched multiple people torn apart in front of her eyes. All of this was horrid and paralyzing in its own way, but none of it was what gave her pause. What froze her in place was that look the android had given her as he saved her from falling to her death back at the Jackson home. A knowing look. A look of something fierce and hateful.
She didn’t know what it meant, but the idea that this person—this monster—was about to pick up Ritz while he was at his most vulnerable seemed to root her body right to the ground where it had collapsed.
She tried to explain it. Tried to ask. But what could she say? How could she question him? Not only had 49 saved her from that collapsing building, but he had just saved her again not ten seconds ago. Still, there was that feeling in her gut. The unease of an animal seeing hatred in its purest form.
“We have to go,” King said, struggling up to his feet.
Remembering where they were and what was happening, Raquel began to do the same as a loud cracking sound erupted from off to their left.
Two of the monsters suddenly blasted out of the forest in a spray of snapping brush and branches. If Raquel thought the one in the cage had been fast and agile then these were practically moving at lightspeed. Her training taking over, Raquel brought her weapon up and fired. The gun bucked against her wounded shoulder, sending hot rivers of pain down her arm and through her chest. The burst of energy bolts cut the leg off of one of the approaching creatures, sending it stumbling to the ground. 49 brought the other one down with a few well-placed shots to its crab-like head. He then began to approach it firing again and again, the creature’s legs kicking in the air as it thrashed and died.
Meanwhile, the one Raquel had shot was back up and moving. And even though it seemed slower now, it wasn’t moving slow enough. People were pouring out and around Raquel as she struggled to close the distance with the monster, but people kept running into her line of fire. Suddenly, the wounded creature lashed out just as 49 finished off the other one and sent a spiked arm through the android’s chest, his robe billowing out with the blow.
Liquid golden light sprayed out of the android’s back as he was pierced. He didn’t moan or cry out, he simply stood there, shocked as if he didn’t know he could be wounded in such a way. To be honest, Raquel hadn’t even been sure he could be hurt. She wasn’t sure exactly what would happen if someone were to try and damage him—maybe it would be like trying to stab an automobile engine—but the idea that he had something akin to blood stopped her in her tracks.
Recovering quickly, 49’s arm snapped up and latched onto the arm of the creature as it tried to pull it back out. It then pivoted to use its other forearm but before it could, 49 raised his energy rifle and fired a long burst into its face. Black blood and pieces of its hard outer shell blasted in every direction as the monster’s head and body were shredded apart. And when 49 had finally finished firing, there was no doubt that it was dead.
“Gosh, are you ok?” Byzzie said as she approached him, holding her own wounded shoulder. She wore an expression that seemed to be closer to amazement than worry.
“I’m fine,” 49 said, reaching up to tentatively prod at his wound, and as he did Raquel could already see the silver fibers around his chest beginning to spread over the hole. “I think…I think I’m going to be ok.”
“Does it hurt?” Byzzie asked.
“It does,” 49 replied, as if realizing it for the first time. Then, snapping out of it, “go see to your family, Byzzie. Some of those people are in a lot worse shape than I am.”
And he was right, Raquel suddenly realized as she turned around. At least three of Byzzie’s siblings lay dead on the ground from the first creature’s attack and the fact of it hit Raquel all at once, almost forcing her to her knees. Two boys and a girl, including Cory, the young boy who had helped make room for King as he tried to save Ritz’s life.
He was by far the youngest of the fallen Jackson children. One of them was a girl around the age of 17, the other boy being maybe a year older. Raquel didn’t know the names of either. Trying to hold back tears as she turned away from the bodies, she saw Byzzie standing there, still looking at 49’s wound.
Raquel was shocked. Was she more interested in the mechanics of this android than her very own flesh and blood? She didn’t even like 49. The whole scene was completely incomprehensible, but as Raquel stepped forward to confront Byzzie about it, a hand clamped down on her arm.
Whirling around, she found King standing there with a look of pain and sorrow on his face. His shirt was tattered and soaked in blood. He was leaning against the side of the turned-off fence and it looked like every ounce of energy had drained out of him.
“Don’t,” he said quietly. He shifted his weight and almost lost his balance. He may have even fallen down right there if Raquel hadn’t rushed in to catch him.
“Don’t,” he repeated, even quieter this time, mere inches away from Raquel’s ear. She planted her feet and hoisted him up, his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder. “She can’t deal with it right now.”
“What?” Raquel asked, confused.
“She can’t process-” King nodded back in the direction of Byzzie’s dead siblings, “-that. And to be honest, we can’t afford the time. We need to find a ship and get the hell out of here or Ritz is going to die. Us too, probably. We need to leave.”
As cold as it sounded, he was right. Ritz was still laying on the ground suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Half of the Leopold seemed to be injured in one way or another. And they were currently in charge of more than half a dozen kids with God-knew-how-many of those monsters running around.
They needed to leave.
Vanessa Jackson pulled herself up out of sleep and into a world of pain.
Her head was pounding. Her chest ached. Fire seemed to dance down her side with every breath. But still, she was alive. It was surprising and she couldn’t exactly understand why they hadn’t just executed her on the spot. Then, as she slowly rolled over, careful not to draw attention to herself, she understood.
Men were running around, shouting into the radios on their shoulders. Apparently, the Light Wire had done something. From what she could gather from the frantic chatter, the wire had emitted a pulse that transformed dead flesh into living monsters.
A deep and vivid ultra-violet emanated from the Light Wire’s spire and bathed the huge room in a purplish glow. Minister Clark himself seemed to be shocked into immobility, leaning against the platform where Vanessa had tried to wrench his gun away.
The most shocking thing however—the most unexpected and surprising part of the whole scene was the thing on the roof.
High above, crawling over the transparent bulletproof glass ceiling was a creature unlike anything Vanessa had ever seen. With thin legs and a hard carapace shell, it looked like some sort of ant crossed with a crab. Desia had many creatures in both of those species groups, but none like this. This thing looked cold and alien. Less like an animal and more like a shadow given a hard material edge. She was transfixed by it.
As she watched, she saw another appear from the south side of the building and then two more from the west. Before she knew it there were at least seven of the crab monsters on the transparent roof. What was more was that she seemed to be the only one in the room to notice. Everyone was frantic and focused on their comms.
“Hey,” Vanessa tried to shout, pointing up at the ceiling. Pain clenched her sides and smothered the warning so she tried again. “Hey,” she managed a little louder, pointing up at the ceiling.
The only one who noticed was Seamus Clark. Looking over at her curled up on the floor, Clark saw her as if noticing her for the first time. In fact, the look he gave her was comparable to how someone might address an unwanted insect that had somehow found its way into the house.
“Look,” Vanessa begged, still pointing. She felt as if she had about a tenth of her normal lung capacity and her voice reflected it.
Clark wasn’t hearing it. Pushing off of the platform, he strode slowly over to her, unclipping the strap at the top of his holster. Rage and disgust alternated in his expression. There was a light scuffing sound of metal on leather as he drew his weapon.
“Up there,” Vanessa cried, forcing the words out. Each syllable was another kick in the ribs. The words did nothing however. She could have been speaking gibberish for all the effect they had. Clark kept approaching, slowly lifting the gun until he was mere feet away and the barrel was aimed directly at her head.
It looked like he was looking for something to say—some final words to deliver before killing her. Anguish roiled on his face and for a second Vanessa was convinced that she actually was the source of whatever was going on. His finger began to tense on the trigger.
“What the fuck is that?” Someone yelled.
The words themselves probably wouldn’t have been enough to save her. What saved her—at least for the time being—was the fact that all of these men and women had been hearing the screams of their friends and comrades dying over the comm system for the last fifteen minutes. With no decipherable words or explanation, the only flow of information they had been receiving was the violence and horror being distilled into panicked cries of pain being pumped over their radio frequencies.
And when they finally laid eyes on the culprits, whose appearance struck some deep and primal chord of disgust on all who saw them, it only took one of them to break. After that, all was lost.
Before Clark could recognize what was happening, one of his soldiers had brought his rifle to his shoulder and unleashed a torrent of energy bolts at the ceiling. There was the sound of air being ripped apart by the burst as ten deep gouges stitched across the bulletproof glass.
“Hold your fire,” Clark bellowed, suddenly turning away from Vanessa. There was a brief moment of silence as the soldier who had fired stared uncomprehendingly at the monster, now obscured by damaged glass.
Then the creature began thumping its strange-looking legs down on the ceiling. It struck with one leg, then two at once. There was a furious clicking sound as others raced to its position and then began doing the same, alternating between beating on the glass and digging at it with what looked like a sharp pair of pincers.
“Will this glass hold?” Clark asked. Everyone had their guns up and were aiming at the spot where the creatures were congregated and no one seemed willing to respond. “Will it hold?” Clark asked again, turning towards Nathan, the man behind the computer counsel.
“Uh, yeah,” the man stuttered. “That glass is military-grade. It should be able to stand up to .50 caliber machine-gun rounds.”
And, as far as Vanessa could tell, it was holding up. The initial burst of energy rifle fire had put a few deep nicks into it and a few scratches were appearing as the things tried to dig their way in, but if the glass was anything like what was used onboard the space vessels she had commanded then it would take weeks for t
hem to dig through.
The glass held. The doors, however, didn’t.
After taking off in the Leopold and ditching the bodies of the dead and unconscious SEUs, Kit and Nadia had skimmed low along the tree-line away from the city and then slowly looped back, all while attempting to stay out of radar range. They made a couple passes at the city but each time they did they had to either dodge patrolling gunships or they received a red warning light on their counsel that let them know they had been detected by radar. Each time they were forced to either discreetly back off or outmaneuver any gunships that were dispatched upon their detection.
They monitored the radio channels the crew typically used but they were silent. Then after the pulse wave hit, every channel was flooded with cries for help. Furiously flipping from channel to channel, Kit heard an endless torrent of soldiers begging for assistance, punctuated by screams of pain. His heart was heavy with the sheer amount of death. The PUC invasion had been bad enough, but this…
When shit hit the fan, they were able to cruise closer and closer to the city, and then they finally saw what the problem was.
In a small clearing near the edge of town, almost twenty PUC soldiers were crouched in the center trying to set up barricades. They were using everything from barbed wire to small dressers and tables in a furious attempt to set up some sort of perimeter. And before they were even close to being finished, Kit watched with a sickening feeling growing in his stomach as a massive wave of what looked like some sort of giant insects crashed over the desperate soldiers. Some of the monsters appeared to be cut down by gunfire, but the sheer speed and number of them ensured that the tiny PUC force was overwhelmed in less than twenty-seconds.
“Swinging around,” Nadia said from the pilot’s side of the small bridge. With the seat having been removed for 49, she had to stand hunched over the counsel with the magnetic boots of her armor engaged to make sure she didn’t slide sideways or fall.
Shattered Light Page 12
