by Nick Cook
‘Do whatever it takes to get it open; we’re absolutely relying on you now to live through this,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll find a way,’ Mike replied, his tone strained.
As the C-Rams finished their latest barrage, just to add to our really fun day out, a lobbed grenade bounced onto the ground right next to us.
Jack just had time to grab hold of it and lob it back before it exploded in mid-air.
‘Let’s return that favour with interest, Jack,’ I said.
‘I’m so with you on that,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his brow.
Jack and I pulled the pins on two fragmentation grenades each and threw them over the top of the junction box. Their explosions were answered with instant shouts and screams.
‘Hey guys, they seem to be up to something in that quarry, look at this,’ Ruby said.
A video appeared in my HUD. There seemed to be frantic activity around the quarry site; the workers were swarming like a nest of stirred ants. Of most immediate interest, people were setting small boxes around the forcefield sphere.
‘Crap, it looks like they’re setting boxes of C4 all around that forcefield thing,’ Jack said. ‘Alvarez is probably going all scorched earth on us, destroying that micro mind rather than let it fall into our hands.’
‘Then we’ll have to see what we can do about that,’ I said, loading a fresh thirty-round magazine into my MP5. Then I caught sight of a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a group of three soldiers trying to move past us to our left flank. That would leave us totally exposed and it would be game over for us if they made it.
I gestured towards them. ‘Jack!’
‘On it!’ He threw his last flashbang straight into the middle of the group and I just had time to cover my eyes as it exploded. But even with my eyes squeezed shut, the afterglow still burned through my eyelids. Barely able to see anything, I blinked them open and randomly opened fire in the direction the soldiers had been a split second ago.
But what about the rest of the squad?
I glanced over at what was left of our junction box, my eyes still burning. My blood ran cold as I caught the silhouettes of figures running forward, firing as they came. Gritting my teeth, I desperately returned fire alongside Jack, the stock of my MP5 growing slick in my hand.
Then Jack clicked empty. ‘Shit, that’s it, I’m out!’ he shouted over a fresh barrage from the C-Ram as the rounds exploded around us.
‘Shit!’ I screamed, dropping flat.
Jack threw himself over the top of me, trying to protect me from the incoming fire by using his body as a shield. And with no Lucy here, there’d be no ducking into the twilight zone this time round.
There was no sense of calm left inside me now, only sheer terror at the thought of being ripped apart in an agonising death by those large calibre rounds.
Jack’s hands clawed onto mine as we braced ourselves for the end. And it was at that exact moment, when I’d given up on any hope of living through this, that Mike’s welcome voice finally came through the link.
‘The hatch is bloody open at bloody last and the bloody drones are bloody powered up,’ he said.
‘Then launching WASPs now!’ Ruby confirmed.
Then the C-Rams opened up for a final barrage and I just prayed the WASPs would arrive in time, because if the batteries didn’t kill us first, the squad sweeping in certainly would.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Crystal splinters were exploding all around us and I felt a hot sting as one slashed through the back of my hand. I swallowed down the bile that filled the back of my mouth.
‘Is this a bad time to say how much I love you?’ Jack said as he continued to shelter my body with his.
‘It’s never a bad time,’ I replied.
Someone upstairs obviously had a sense of irony because it was at exactly that moment,
with the wail of a banshee, a lone WASP screamed past overhead. One became two, became a dozen in the blink of an eye. Then suddenly the C-Ram fire was swinging away from us and trying to shoot down the crazed drones swarming all over the battlefield, attacking the soldiers.
Jack rolled off me and together we peered out to see the WASPs swooping and diving as they fired at the enemy. They were already carving through the soldiers, their rounds dropping people wherever they stood or crouched.
The survivors were firing wildly upwards, trying to hit the darting drones with little or no success. But then I saw what was happening to the rounds that missed. The bullets were punching holes in the glass roof, cracks spreading wildly as the panels began to give way. The C-Ram batteries even stopped firing when four of the WASP units started to fly directly over the top of them, presumably for that same reason. With no incoming fire to worry about, Ruby rained drone fire down on the weapon systems. With a roar, the ammo boxes for the first exploded, quickly followed by the second, both turrets billowing smoke as their rounds caught ablaze and detonated like fire crackers.
Then Alvarez was running forwards towards his soldiers, waving his arms. ‘Stop your fucking fire, you idiots!’
But his soldiers were too panicked to register the order as Ruby’s WASPs continued to decimate their numbers. As the last soldier toppled backwards with half of his head missing, his final round hit the already crazed section of glass above and it suddenly gave way with a massive bank. Shards rained down, shattering onto the floor around the man, one large piece about a metre wide slicing straight through his body.
I braced myself for the inevitable deluge of water that should have followed. But instead of a tsunami of death the water rippled on the other side of the glass, held back by the gravity shield that once again created an upside down swimming pool. The difference this time was that this one had already begun to bulge downwards.
‘Crap, how much longer can that hold?’ Jack said, eyeing it.
‘Hopefully, long enough for me to make contact with that micro mind,’ I replied.
More soldiers had appeared and were now rushing after Alvarez, who’d already leapt into one of the vehicles. As a soldier leapt onto the back and grabbed hold of the mounted machine gun, the colonel started the engine and began to drive away along the track.
Certain he was coming to finish us off I desperately sought fresh cover to take shelter behind.
Other buggies were starting up, but Ruby had already directed her WASPs’ attention towards the remaining soldiers as they started to follow Alvarez. One of the WASPs sped in low to the ground, heading straight for one of the buggies. With a blaze of tracer fire, it sprayed rounds into the vehicle and the fuel tank exploded in a fireball that sent a dark cloud up towards the bulging roof.
There was almost nothing left of the junction box that we were hiding behind as the convoy raced along the track towards our position.
I rolled over and drew Jack into a tight hug. At least I was going to die in the arms of the man I loved.
But rather than a storm of bullets from Alvarez’s vehicle, he didn’t so much as slow down as he closed on us. Instead, all of his attention seemed to be fixed in the direction of where we’d left the bathyspheres. The rest of the convoy was following his lead, completely ignoring us.
As they raced past, Alvarez glanced at us. I had a brief moment to register his badly scarred face, no doubt everything to do with the glass pyramid we’d buried him alive under, leaving him for dead. A sneer filled his face as our eyes locked. And then he was gone, his convoy following in his dirt trail as Ruby harried them with drone fire.
Confused as to why Alvarez hadn’t grabbed the opportunity to pepper us with bullets, I stood with Jack as workers in coveralls and hardhats rushed past us on foot. They ignored us too, continually looking at the ceiling with terrified expressions. And then we found out why as Mike, who’d been sprinting back to us, skidded to a stop.
’There are too many holes in the roof for the gravity field to be able to plug the gaps anymore,’ Mike panted, clutching his sid
es.
I stared at him. ‘You mean this chamber is about to get flooded?’
‘Yes. We need to get back to those bathyspheres along with everyone else. They are the only way out of here before the whole place floods.’
Ice rushed through my blood. ‘But Alvarez and his thugs will be long gone before we can get anywhere near them.’
‘What about all those workers?’ Jack said, gesturing towards the men and women running after the retreating vehicles.
‘Oh what a surprise, that bastard Alvarez is leaving them to die while he saves his own skin,’ Ruby said, joining us. She had a nasty cut across her face, but incredibly, she seemed otherwise unharmed.
She turned to me. ‘So, Commander, any suggestions about how we can live through this shit show of a mission?’
Then they were all looking at me, expecting me to have the answer as always. And just like that, I suddenly did. Maybe my brain worked best when I was facing certain death.
‘Our mission objective remains the same. I have to get to that control pillar. If we can do that I might be able to activate a link to the micro mind, and then we can cross over to E8 to ride this out. It could be our only chance to survive this.’
Everyone nodded and within seconds we were all racing towards the excavation site. In less than a couple of minutes, our boots digging into the loose soil and rock, we climbed the slope towards the lip of the quarry. We reached the top and as we peered down my eyes began to take in the details.
The pneumatic drills and diggers had been abandoned all around the glowing sphere. The micro mind hung suspended as energy rippled out from it into crystal conduits connecting it to the floor. The C4 charges were clearly visible around the forcefield. It was only then that I spotted the one person that had remained behind, a woman standing with her back to us, who appeared to be unarmed. She was watching the forcefield as though it was an art exhibit in a gallery. As we raced around the lip, circling towards the control pillar, Jack tripped, sending a small avalanche of stones tumbling down the slope towards the woman. She turned and stared up at us. It was only then that I recognised her. Professor Evelyn Fischer, who’d I’d last seen this close up when she blew up the solar observatory at Machu Picchu.
Fischer watched us, stony-faced, as we reached the control pillar. ‘You’re too late to stop this,’ she shouted, crossing her arms.
’Oh, we’ll see about that,’ I replied. I yanked the Empyrean Key out of my rucksack.
‘You need to think again,’ she replied, holding out a small box with a button on it.
Jack stared at it with narrowed eyes. ‘What the hell have you got there, Fischer?’
‘Our insurance plan. We need to make sure that you can’t capture this micro mind intact. One little push and this trigger will have a chat with the C4 charges planted all over the roof. When they blow, the gravity field trying to protect this chamber will be completely overwhelmed and the place will flood within minutes. However, just before it does that, a second set of C4 charges around the micro mind will detonate. They should be enough to finally breach its forcefield. When that happens anyone still down here will be killed.’
‘But you’ll be throwing your own life away too,’ I called back. ‘Why?’
‘Because I vowed never to let terrorists like you and your alien allies take over our world,’ she said. ‘Something for which I am prepared to sacrifice myself, for the greater good of humanity.’
‘You’re mad if you even think that Alvarez and his kind are anything like that, Fischer,’ I said. ‘We’re the ones fighting for our species’ survival. You’re the ones throwing away any chance we have of surviving the Kimprak invasion.’
Jack nodded. ‘You’re so on the wrong side of this fight, Fischer.’
She laughed. ‘Oh I don’t think so, Professor Harper.’
I spotted her thumb beginning to tense, getting ready to press the button, and I pulled out my LRS. But then a single shot rang out and the control box flew out of Fischer’s hand. Mike immediately leapt forward, sliding down the quarry slope to retrieve it as Fischer stared in horror at the bullet hole through her hand.
I turned to see Ruby lowering her Colt. ‘We haven’t got time for this crap. You need to make contact with the micro mind before it’s too late, Commander.’
I gave her a sharp nod and dropped the stone ball into the semi-circular depression in the top of the column. But before I could activate the carrier tone in my speakers, a clear note rang out from the column and lights lit up around the Empyrean Key. With a shimmer in the air, a single icon appeared over the orb. Thanks to my synaesthesia I was the only one who could see it.
A distant boom made us all turn round to see a fireball billowing down from a section of roof between us and the bathyspheres, which were now rising out of the chamber. The charges had just blown.
With the sound of a million wine glasses being broken all at once, the ceiling gave way, falling to the ground in a hailstorm of glass. Immediately a huge blister of water began to bulge downwards as the sea above began to push down in the chamber.
Fischer was clapping despite her ruined hand. ‘Bravo Colonel Alvarez. It would seem that he had a fallback plan. I guess he didn’t trust me to blow the charges after all.’ She gave me a manic smile as Mike clambered up the slope towards us. ‘You’re too late to stop this, Lauren Stelleck.’
A second explosion detonated, this time much closer, and a waterfall broke through into the chamber.
I stood, transfixed for a moment by the shocking spectacle as the flood began to grow rapidly into an expanding wave spreading out across the floor. Then someone was shaking me, Jack.
‘Lauren, whatever you’re going to do, do it now!’ he shouted over the tumult.
I nodded and turned back to the column to examine the icon. But then my heart crunched into a ball when I realised it wasn’t the control for E8 that might have saved us. Instead it was a segmented, circle-shaped icon, one that I’d never seen before. But maybe there was still a chance that whatever it did could still save us from the nightmare death that was coming. I took a breath and activated it with a flick of my wrist.
Immediately, the column glowed fiercely as a rumbling sound came from the ground beneath our feet. Then the micro mind was blazing with light behind its forcefield as energy strobed from the light down through its crystal root system. Those same pulses of energy sped throughout the length of chamber towards the towering crystal tree trunks, shooting up into them, then the branches, which blazed with light in the sea-filled chamber. A split second later a deafening sound like a gong being hit with a sledgehammer rang out, making every bone in my body vibrate as we all cupped our hands over our ears.
‘I think you just found the on switch,’ Jack called out as we stared at the spectacle unfolding before us.
I thought my eyes were tricking me when far above, the curved ceiling that we’d first dropped through in the bathysphere began to move. I realised that the lines we’d seen in the ceiling were growing larger as the roof started to pivot upward from the edges, separating into opening petals in the middle of an expanding iris. Flashes of lightning were coming from the structures above on the ocean floor.
In the far distance, the tiny spec of the Overseers’ underwater base was now tumbling down in slow motion through the opening chasm into the chamber. Then, as though it was being struck by an invisible hammer crushing its walls, the base began to collapse in on itself as the intense pressure overwhelmed its structure. I thought of the two prisoners that we’d left tied up there and felt a spasm of guilt as the structure was torn apart.
The remnants of the structure spiralled down, straight into the path of the three bathyspheres heading straight up towards it. With no propulsion system to avoid the thing that was heading towards them, they were sitting ducks. Part of the structure crashed into one of the bathyspheres, which exploded as the craft’s hull gave way. The other two immediately severed their cables, which were being dragged down by the f
alling gantry, and began to float up towards the growing hole in the ceiling as its petals pivoted open.
I stared at the unfolding disaster, bitterness filling my mouth as Fischer howled with laughter behind us.
Another massive boom shook the quarry as the last C4 charge detonated directly over our heads. I just had a chance to wrap my arms around Jack as the roof completely shattered. Over his shoulder I saw Fischer looking exultant, raising her arms a split second before a ring of explosions went off around the micro mind’s forcefield. The firestorm engulfed her, then the expanding shockwave threw us all flat. The shattered roof exploded into a million tumbling glass pieces, carried by a torrent of water that rushed down in a roaring, frothing mass.
As fire and water boiled towards us, Jack grabbed onto me and hugged me hard. The last thing I registered was a needle of light growing bigger fast through the foaming tumult. And then there was darkness, complete, absolute and suffocating as we all died.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was pitch, can’t see your hand in front of your face, black. I couldn’t breathe, my lungs clawing for oxygen that wasn’t there. And then my mind caught up. If I was still trying to breathe, I couldn’t be dead… or could I?
In the far distance a single point of luminance appeared.
Ah, so that was it, my own tunnel of light was about to drag me into the afterlife. Fine, then. As long as they had a bar though, because I so needed a stiff drink right now. Perhaps it might even be happy hour…
Oh for God’s sake, Lauren, you’re dying and all you can think about is getting a cheap drink? Seriously?
But then the light reached me and was rushing past, growing brighter. Much to my surprise I tasted the sweetest pure mountain air. I gulped it in, greedily filling my lungs with as much of the stuff as I could breathe in.
The light became a uniform white void around me in which I was floating. Then I could feel something solid beneath my feet, a floor on which I was suddenly standing. But when I looked down, it was absolutely featureless. There were no reflections, including my own, not even a sheen, as if the floor only absorbed light and didn’t bounce any back. There were also no edges either, the floor merging seamlessly into the walls and the ceiling.
