by Ken Lozito
Noah was cut off as gunfire erupted from the end of the line, and Connor’s attention snapped toward the sound. There were three ryklars charging toward them. Compton and Jackson fired their weapons with precision. Sean Quinn aimed his M-Viper and took out the third ryklar with a shot to the chest. Connor called for them to follow him. Abandoning all pretense of sneaking around, Connor led them from the trees into the ruins.
They ran near the remnant buildings and Connor looked at Noah. “If I can get you into that spire, do you think you can shut down the signal?” Connor asked.
Noah’s eyes widened. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
Lenora’s mouth slackened. “The two of you can’t go off by yourselves.”
Connor gestured for the others to come closer. The ryklars were searching the forest but hadn’t detected them in the ruins yet.
“We’re going to split up,” Connor said. “Compton, I want you, Jackson, and Quinn to take these people and hide in that building over there. Noah and I are going to take out the signal coming from that spire. Once it’s down, call for backup.”
“Sir, you need more than just the two of you if you’re going up to the spire,” Sean said.
“I’m going with you,” Lenora said. “I’m the most familiar with the ruins.”
“Bling is right, sir,” Compton said. “Take him with you.”
Connor didn’t like it, but he knew they were right. Their odds of success were higher if they had a few more people with them.
“I hope you guys can run fast,” Connor said. “We’ll draw the ryklars away.”
Connor sprinted away, with Noah, Sean, and Lenora following close behind. He screamed and fired a few shots into the air. The ryklars responded almost immediately, as howling and snarling sounded nearby. Connor weaved his way through the ruins, pushing toward the spire. He glanced behind him and saw a ryklar galloping on all fours, closing in on Sean Quinn. Connor raised his weapon and Sean darted to the side. Connor squeezed the trigger and an incendiary round shot out, hitting the creature in the chest. The ryklar roared and kept coming. Connor shot several more times before it stumbled and fell.
Noah and Lenora passed him, and Sean thanked him when he caught up.
They had reached the bottom of the bronze-colored spire, and Connor saw glowing lights on the inside. He glanced behind him and saw more ryklars running toward them in a frenzy.
“Go on. We’ll hold them off,” Connor said.
An octagonal entrance lay open before them, and Noah and Lenora ran inside while he and Sean positioned themselves on either side of the entrance. Connor squatted down, using the wall for cover, and Sean did the same thing. A horde of ryklars came toward them down the main thoroughfare. Connor applied the high-density nano-robotic ammunition to his grenade launcher and fired grenades one after another into the horde. As the grenade timers expired, he and Sean took cover. Several loud explosions shook the ground at his feet. Connor came out from cover and ryklar corpses littered the road. Some ryklars crawled away, their roars becoming whimpers. Ryklars beyond the blast radius shifted their clawed feet, rocking from side to side. Some of the ryklars started shoving others, and a vicious battle broke out among them.
Connor heard Sean load a high-density ammo pack into his M-Viper. More ryklars showed up and Connor noted that several large alphas were driving the others forward. The ryklars’ growls came from within their mass of thick red tentacles, and with so many of them, Connor felt that he was looking at a horde of bloody beards bringing the promise of death.
Connor heard shots being fired from somewhere within the spire.
“The others are in trouble,” Connor said.
He looked for a way to barricade the doorway, but there was nothing. What he wouldn’t give for some heavy explosives.
“Fall back into the spire,” Connor said.
They left the entrance and headed into the spire’s interior. The inside of the spire was an empty space with a hollow shaft running toward the top. There weren’t any stairs, but a wide ramp ran along the wall. Connor glanced up and saw that a platform extended from the wall about fifty feet above them.
Connor and Sean ran toward the ramp. They’d just completed their third time around when Connor heard more shots being fired, but he couldn’t see what the others were shooting at. He glanced downward, expecting ryklars to come inside at any moment.
Sean Quinn had turned out to be among the strongest of all the recruits, and it was no surprise to Connor that he could keep up with him. They quickly closed in on the platform. There was a pedestal in the middle, and hovering above it was a twin-sided pyramid with a glowing light emanating from the two bottoms. The bottom point of the pyramid hovered between two small columns. There were workstation panels near the pedestal, and one of them glowed red. Five ryklars dropped down from above. Connor brought his rifle up to shoot but waited to see if the ryklars would attack. They seemed enthralled by the twin pyramids. Connor heard a strange hum and the floor began to vibrate. The ryklars turned toward Connor and Sean, then charged. They fired their weapons, tearing the ryklars apart at such a short range. Even in the creatures’ final death throes, they tried to claw their way toward them. It was as if they were hyped up on some kind of stimulant.
Connor and Sean ran over to the others. Noah was hunched over the wide glowing panel, which was made out of a curved translucent material.
“Is this the source of the signal?” Connor asked.
“It is, but I can’t figure out how to turn it off. I don’t know what any of these symbols mean,” Noah said.
Connor looked for some kind of power source but couldn’t find anything.
“It’s held up there by a magnetic field,” Lenora said.
The sound of ryklar screeches came from the bottom of the spire. Noah slammed his fist down and growled, then looked back at Connor and held up his hands in silent resignation.
“Stand back,” Connor said.
Noah glanced at him and then pulled Lenora away. Connor raised his weapon and fired it at the floating pyramid, but the high-grade incendiary ammunition ricocheted off, making a loud gong-like noise that reverberated off the walls. The ryklars howled in response, almost as if they were in agony. Seeing that his shots had no effect, Connor stopped shooting.
He had another grenade but didn’t want to waste it. The ryklars resumed their snarling, which became louder as they got closer to the platform. Sean went to the other side and knelt down. He aimed his weapon and started shooting.
“There’s nothing I can do. I’m going to go help him out,” Noah said.
Connor looked at Lenora. “Any bright ideas?”
“Well, shooting it was a waste of time,” Lenora said and started circling around it. “The ryklars are clearly conditioned to have a response to this thing, and they don’t want anyone . . .”
Lenora’s voice trailed off. She walked over to the pedestal where the bottom point of the twin pyramid hovered about a foot above the top. She looked back at Connor and belted out a loud whoop. Lenora’s voice echoed off the walls of the spire.
Her eyes widened. “Come here!” she said, waving him over.
Connor rushed to her side.
“Does your helmet have a speaker? Can it amplify the sound of your voice?” Lenora asked.
“Yeah, but what good is that gonna do us?”
Lenora whipped out her PDA and brought up the small holodisplay. “This place is one big acoustic resonance chamber. It’s designed to amplify sound waves. If we can match the frequency coming from this thing, the acoustics in this chamber will amplify it and cancel out the original signal.”
Connor’s heart raced. “What do you need from me?”
“Just leave your helmet here,” Lenora said and glanced over at Sean and Noah. “And get their helmets and place them on two opposite sides of the platform.”
Connor ran over to the others. The ryklars were quickly coming up toward them. He brought his weapon up and fired his last grenade
into the ryklars storming up the ramp. Connor ducked down, and Sean and Noah did the same.
Boom!
Connor winced at the sound, the brunt of which he bore without the protection of his helmet.
“I need your helmets,” Connor said.
Sean and Noah snatched off their helmets and handed them to him. “Keep slowing them down. Lenora might have a way to stop them.”
Connor ran and placed the helmets on opposite ends of the platform and used his implants to connect the output from his helmet to the other two helmets.
He went back to Lenora, who was busy working.
“How long is this going to take?” Connor asked.
Lenora glanced up at him. “I need to record one complete sequence of the original frequency. Then we’ll see. Should only be a few minutes.”
The ryklars were getting closer.
“We may not have a few minutes. Do we have to stay in here to transmit the broadcast?”
Lenora jumped at the sound of the ryklars. “No. No, we don’t.”
Connor grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him. He called for the others and they went back out onto the ramp. They headed upward, and as they curved around the spire, they saw the ryklars from across the way.
Connor glanced at Lenora and she shook her head. The ryklars noticed them and quickened their pace up the ramp.
“Getting low on ammo,” Noah said.
Sean echoed the same.
Connor already knew he was low. “Hold your fire. We just need to keep them from doing an all-out charge.”
The ramp came to an end and the top of the spire was still high above them. The ryklars came around the ramp. The redness of their stubby tentacles extended upward so their entire faces looked inflamed. There were hundreds of them on the ramp.
“I’ve got it. Signal broadcasting!” Lenora said.
Connor glanced around, looking for something to happen. The ryklars came to a stop, their heads making jerking movements.
Connor and the others bunched together at the end of the ramp. The ryklars’ growling gave way to a high-pitched whining, and the reddish color of their tentacles began to fade. One creature pushed its way through the others and let out a vicious roar.
Connor took a few steps away from the others and howled in response. The ryklar beat its claws on the ground and came closer.
Connor strode forward. “Is that all you’ve got?”
He heard Lenora say something and Noah urged her to stay back. “The commander knows what he’s doing,” Noah said.
Connor hoped he knew what he was doing. He glanced down at his AR-71 and the ammo meter showed that he was nearly empty.
When the ryklars reared up, they were easily six feet tall and thickly muscled, but they spent most of their time hunched over.
Connor watched as the ryklar’s claws twitched, and he ventured even closer, screaming and waving his weapon back and forth. The ryklar jerked its head to the side and looked as if it were wincing in pain. Then it collapsed to the ground. Other ryklars did the same, but there were still hundreds of ryklars between them and the exit.
“It’s working,” Lenora said.
Connor slowly moved back toward the others. With the ryklars quieting down, Connor was able to hear the loud groans of metallic supports protesting under too much weight.
Shit.
The others looked around in alarm. The floor shook beneath their feet and there was a loud crashing sound beneath them.
Connor grabbed hold of Lenora. “Hold on to me,” he said and pulled her into a firm embrace.
“We’ve got to get down. Use your suit jets to slow down your descent,” Connor said.
“I’m almost out of propellant,” Noah said, his eyes wide with terror. “I had to use some—”
“I’ve got you,” Sean said. “And if you tell anyone about this, I’ll kick your ass.”
The loud snap of a cable ripping echoed throughout the spire.
“No time,” Connor said.
Holding on to Lenora, he leaped away from the ramp, using a burst from his suit jets to push them out into the middle of the shaft. They quickly closed in on the central platform. The twin pyramids tumbled to the side, falling off the pedestal, and then the platform crashed down to the side. Lenora cried out. They were free-falling down the spire. Connor gritted his teeth. Without his helmet, he had no readout that told him how far away the ground was, so he had to judge based on what he saw. He fired his suit jets in a long burst. Holding on to Lenora threw off his center of gravity, and they sailed toward a ramp filled with ryklars, but the creatures hardly noticed them. They were still disoriented from the signal going offline. Connor leaned toward the left, angling the suit jets, and they moved away from the ramp.
Sean and Noah flew past them. Connor saw that Sean was trying to slow down using his jets, but the two of them weren’t aligned. There was nothing Connor could do. He could hardly keep himself and Lenora stable as they barreled toward the ground. He saw the two young men slam against the side of the ramp and bounce off, hitting the ground hard.
Connor fired his suit jets at full blast and they landed roughly. He clutched Lenora’s body to him while holding her head to his armored chest. His feet got tangled and they both went down. Above them the ramp supports were coming apart faster and soon the whole thing was going to come crashing down. Connor quickly regained his feet and helped Lenora up.
“I’m fine. Go check on the others,” Lenora said.
Noah and Sean were sprawled nearby, and neither of them was moving. Connor ran over to them. Without bothering to check whether Noah and Sean were alive or dead, he grabbed hold of each of them and started pulling them toward the exit. Lenora came to his side to help. Connor heaved and pulled, and they dragged the two boys through the exit.
Sean Quinn cried out in pain. There was blood coming through the arm of his combat suit. Connor could hardly breathe as he kept pulling, and he heard Lenora gasping as she did the same. He glanced up at the spire towering above them, and it looked as if it were swaying.
“Come on, damn it,” Connor said through gritted teeth.
He wasn’t going to let those two boys die here. He made his burning muscles move through sheer force of will, and Lenora grunted with effort. Connor’s foot slipped and he fell back. Then he heard the pounding boots of people approaching from behind.
“We’ve got this, sir,” Compton said.
Connor looked up in surprise. Compton and Jackson, along with the two other Field Ops agents, picked up Noah and Sean.
Connor pushed himself to his feet and helped Lenora get up.
“Sir, we have to move,” Compton said.
“Don’t wait for me,” Connor said.
Lenora stumbled, favoring one foot. The spire started coming down. Connor scooped Lenora up and ran.
“To the side!” Lenora said.
Connor bolted to the side, following the others into the forest. Loud cracking sounds came from behind him, and a blast of air pushed him onward. Connor tried to go faster, but he had almost no strength left. Lenora told him to put her down. Connor glanced behind them as the spire crashed down right where they had been.
Connor gasped for breath. “How are they?”
Sean and Noah had been placed on the ground. Sean was awake, wincing if he tried to move, and Noah was unconscious.
“This one has a broken arm and the suit computer says a few cracked ribs,” Compton said, gesturing toward Sean Quinn. “I’m not sure about Noah. He got banged up pretty bad.”
Lenora hobbled over to Noah and began assessing his injuries.
Connor glanced around. “Where are the ryklars?”
“They hardly chased us. Most of them followed you into the spire. There’re still some in the ruins, but they’re acting strange,” Compton said.
“Sir,” Sean said, his voice hitched higher in pain.
Connor went over to him. “Just lay there.”
“In my pack . . . flares, sir
,” Sean said.
Connor rooted through Sean’s pack and found the flare gun just as a comlink registered with Connor’s suit computer. With the spire down, communications had been restored. Time enough to figure that piece out later.
“This is Search and Rescue,” Connor said.
“Search and Rescue team, this is the Hellcat. What’s your position? Over,” Diaz’s voice said over the link.
Connor held the flare gun above his head and fired. He waited a few moments and fired again.
“I have your position. Will be there in a few minutes. Hellcat out,” Diaz said.
Connor sat down because he couldn’t stand up anymore. He was spent. Compton told him that he’d found a safe place for the archaeological team to stay while they made their way to the spire. Compton offered him some water and Connor drank it. Not wanting to get too stiff to move, he got back on his feet and looked out toward the ruins. The ryklars swayed on their feet as if they were too exhausted even to stand. Some of them collapsed to the ground. A few of the creatures glanced toward them when Diaz came with the Hellcat, but none came any closer. They carried Sean and Noah on board.
“Evacuation of the base has started,” Diaz said and paused to take a good look at him. “What the hell did you do in there?”
Connor coughed and felt a sharp pain in his side, which made him wonder if he’d broken a few ribs, too. “Oh, you know. Jumped down off a tall building after Lenora fixed our communications problem and saved our asses.”
Lenora glanced over at him. She’d just secured Noah to the stretcher in the Hellcat. “You need to sit down. Diaz, make him sit down. He’s got injuries. I know it.”
“So do you,” Connor replied.
Diaz shook his head. “You guys are a pair, I tell you,” he snorted.
They finished getting everyone on board and Diaz flew the Hellcat out of the alien ruins. Connor sat down and leaned his head back, took a deep breath and blew it out. He’d thought colony living was supposed to be easier than this. He hadn’t been this exhausted in a long time.
He activated the wallscreen nearby. There were hundreds of ryklars among the ruins, but they were hardly moving at all.
