Damnation, page 13
part #3 of Forgotten Vengeance Series
“Ease up, break engagement and regroup,” Caleb said through one of the khoron, easing off on the throttle and gently angling the Stiletto up and away.
“Sir?” one of his pilots said, confused about the sudden decision to break away from the fight but following the order regardless.
One down.
Ishek, bring us in through the airlock and touch down as close to Sheriff Duke as you can. I’ll take care of the opposition.
He felt the Advocate’s affirmation. The dome was directly ahead of them, all four remaining starfighters rocketing toward the open seal.
“Sir, we need to take him out, now!” one of the other pilots said over the comm.
“Negative. Hold your fire until we have a lock,” Caleb replied through the khoron.
“Sir, there’s no more time. We’re coming in too fast.”
“Abort!” Caleb snapped. “Abort! Abort!”
The wing commander smiled as the two fighters broke formation behind him, cutting their thrust and angling to get over the dome. Caleb stayed on target, following Ishek through the seals. Ishek was already slowing their craft, bringing it closer to the tarmac. Caleb shot overhead, able to look down at the passing starfighter and see his body outside of it. The surrealness of the moment nearly stole his focus, and he recovered quickly to establish the Badger robots as targets. He was coming up on them way too fast. He cut the thrust and hit the retro-rockets, yanked hard against his restraints as the fighter slowed.
He armed and launched a pair of missiles, which streaked across the short distance and slammed into the backs of the robots.The explosion tore them apart and put a wall of fire and shrapnel between Hayden and the pursuing Centurions.
Caleb Card.
The sudden pressure gripped Caleb’s mind, forcing him out of the khoron’s and costing him control of the Stiletto. The darkness returned, a cold shadow looming over him.
Nyarlath.
The pressure was overwhelming, the Relyeh Ancient’s presence overpowering. He felt as if he was going to explode.
You’re mine, Caleb Card. Mine and his. You defied him, and now you will die.
Caleb couldn’t resist. He couldn’t even think. He had taken too long. Nyarlath had him pinned in the Collective, with no way out.
She appeared over him, materializing out of the darkness, her monstrous maw hovering over him while her tentacles writhed around her. He sensed her hesitation. Her desire to fight back against the Axon holding her captive and her complete inability to do so. Her glowing eyes stared at him, practically pleading for him to do something to set himself free.
He couldn’t.
Her mouth opened, ready to consume him. Her tentacles reached for him, wrapping around his arms and legs and lifting him up. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t fight back.
He was only vaguely aware of a sharp crack somewhere far away. But Nyarlath reacted instantly, tentacles slipping away and dropping him back into the Collective, her connection fading away.
Set me free.
Caleb returned to his body, heart pounding and cold. He looked around frantically, trying to remember where he was. There was nothing but fire and destruction in front of him, the road filled with burning debris from the robots, the APC and the Stiletto he had slammed into it. The buildings were burning too, suffering damage in the epic crash.
He realized his abdomen was on fire and he looked down. The pistol he had taken from the Judicus was in his hand, which was resting on his lap. He was bleeding heavily from his stomach.
Ishek had shot him.
“Ish?” he said weakly.
It was the only way.
He grunted in pain before telling the computer to open the cockpit. The canopy slid away, and he pulled off the helmet, struggling to get to his feet.
“Tell me you can fix it.”
Not completely, or it wouldn’t have worked.
“What?”
If you don’t get outside medical attention, we will die.
Caleb squeezed his eyes closed against the pain and gritted his teeth, strengthening his resolve. He needed to catch up with Hayden, or he was going to die.
“Knuckle-up, Marine,” he said, dragging himself over the side of the fighter and onto the ground. He was fortunate. The Centurions were more concerned with the crash and fires than they were with him, but that wouldn’t last.
He dropped the pistol to the ground. Then he grabbed the cowl of the Intellect Skin and pulled it up over his head as he quickly shed the clothes he was wearing. Within a few seconds, a trail of jacket, shirt and pants lay scattered on the tarmac. Corporal Dunn walked toward the scene of the destruction, doing his best not to look like he was dying.
28
Hayden
“Haeri, wait,” Hayden said, coming to a stop. His eyes darted to the new mark that appeared on his HUD.
“Sheriff, we don’t have any time,” Haeri replied. “The Centurions will be on us in—”
“It’s Card,” Hayden said, looking at the freshly added network connection. An orange circle marked Caleb as injured. “He’s nearby, and he’s hurt.”
“Who’s Card?” Tora asked.
“Long story,” Hayden said. “But we can’t leave him behind.”
“Sheriff,” Haeri started to say.
“Can. Not. Leave. Him. Behind,” Hayden repeated. “He’s the reason I’m here. We have to go back.”
“If we go back, we might not make it out again.”
Hayden wasn’t listening. He twitched his eye to open the comm to Caleb. “Card, can you hear me?”
“Sheriff,” Caleb replied. His voice was weak. “You made it.”
“I take it you were the kamikaze?”
“Sort of.”
“You’re hurt.”
“Yes. Dying.”
“What about your friend?”
“Can’t help. Need a doctor.”
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Haeri asked.
“He needs a doctor.”
“Sheriff—” Haeri started to argue again.
“We need him, damn it,” Hayden growled. “Caleb, I’m on my way. Hold on.”
Hayden didn’t wait for Haeri to agree with him. If he had known Caleb was close, he would never have left the area in the first place. He brought up the tactical on his HUD, the system creating an isometric view of the route from himself to the Marine. The center wasn’t filled in, the interpolation incomplete because of their distance from one another. It didn’t matter. He was going to get to Card.
“Tora,” he heard Haeri say. “Take Nova and Jason and get the car. Keep the escape route secure.”
“Negative, Aeron,” Tora replied. “You get the transport, I’ll help the sheriff. I’m your Nineteen.”
“Okay,” Aeron said. “Good hunting, both of you.”
Hayden started east, back in the general direction of the crash. Caleb was north of the position, moving slowly through a split that led past the barracks. If he hurried, he could intercept him when he reached the end of the split.
“Sheriff,” Tora said, coming up beside him. “I’m here to help.”
“Pozz,” Hayden replied. “He’s crawling in a relative northern direction. We can grab him half a klick from here. You said you have a transport?”
“We left it in the tunnel leading from the outer domes to the base. They’ll be moving to block it off, which means we might actually have the easier job rescuing your friend.”
“Pozz,” Hayden replied. He turned the HRG over in his hand, checking the small LED that showed the ammo count. He had fifty flechettes remaining out of the original three hundred, and no replacement magazine. “How’s your ammo?”
“Seventeen shots loaded, two extra mags apiece,” she replied. “HRG is a nice piece. I’m jellie.”
Hayden tossed it to her. “Ammo’s low, but you might as well finish it off.” He drew his revolver. “I’m a better shot with this anyway. Not that I’m too eager to kill Centurions.”
Tora caught the gun. “Me neither, but not all of them are clean, and the whole planet is at stake.”
“Not only this one. Earth too. We do what we have to do.”
“Agreed.”
Hayden glanced at the small woman. “How do you get to be Code Nineteen, anyway?”
“Put up an impeccable service record,” she replied. “Spend twenty years on a mining rig for a non-existent crime because your CO asks you to, live a life of solitude while waiting for the day you might be needed and live over a hundred years.”
“So you’re a clone. One of the first.”
“Ding. And the prize goes to the Sheriff.” She smiled. “You look like shit, by the way.”
“Feel like it too,” he replied. All the action wasn’t doing any good for his leg. It took effort to keep from limping too badly. He had only gone a few more steps when his grid began to populate as sensors began picking up movement nearby. “We’ve got company.”
“That way,” Tora said, pointing to one of the splits. “We can go around. It’s a little longer, but we’ll have better luck staying out of trouble.”
“Pozz,” Hayden agreed.
He followed her into the alley and between two buildings, emerging in a smaller strand between two barracks. The area was clear, all of the units already involved elsewhere. He was probably worried about shooting Centurions for nothing. Anyone who wasn’t busy dealing with the explosions and fires was likely hunting them for Vyte.
They made it to the split. Hayden looked back, the cameras on his glasses picking up movement in the shadows he would never have noticed without them. Four clones had taken two separate paths in the darkness, sweeping the location.
“Go on ahead,” Tora said. “I’ll take care of them.”
Hayden nodded, continuing down the split to the next strand. He looked back just as the first of the clones reached the split. Tora came out of the shadows, jumping the soldier, grabbing his head, and twisting it violently. He heard the crack across the distance, but he didn’t wait to see the man fall.
He made it to the next strand. The tactical had filled in, showing the layout of buildings around him and marking over a dozen objects as potential enemies. Three of them were closing on the split Caleb was hobbling down.
“Caleb, you’ve got three marks on your six,” Hayden said, trying to warn him.
“Roger,” Caleb replied, voice weaker than before. “I’m skinned.”
That wouldn’t help if he succumbed to his injuries. Besides, if the marks were Vyte’s, they probably wouldn’t care who he was. Hayden picked up the pace, jogging perpendicular to Caleb’s location. He darted across another split, hurrying to reach the Marine.
His ATCS blinked, adding three more marks down the split he had just crossed. Marks that had most likely seen him. It didn’t matter now. He had to get to Caleb before the enemy. He could fight his way back out once he had the Marine secured.
He sped up to a full sprint, closing the distance between himself and Caleb in a hurry. His ATCS warned him when the clones came out of the split nearby, and he ducked into Caleb’s alley only moments before they could get a bead on him.
The quick maneuver left him standing at one end of the split, three more clones at the other end, and a Centurion MP he guessed had to be Caleb in the middle.
The clones reacted to his sudden presence by leveling their rifles. Hayden did the same with his revolver, taking aim at the first one just past Caleb’s left side.
“Sheriff,” Caleb said. “Duck.”
Hayden reacted instantly, dropping onto his stomach as the bullets began to fly. Wayward rounds hit Caleb in the back, his Skin’s shields flaring blue before the projection dropped, revealing Caleb beneath the Skin. Caleb brought his hands up, thrusting them out to launch twin blasts of energy at the enemy coming around the corner behind Hayden. The blasts burned them before they even knew what hit them.
Hayden rolled sideways and back to his feet, opening fire on the clones while they tried to adjust their aim. His large-caliber rounds punched through their combat armor, the well-aimed shots hitting them right below the base of the neck, where their helmets joined their bodysuits. The blasts landed above the main hardened plates of the upper torso, in front of where a khoron would sit if he were infected. All three of them were downed in two seconds, and Hayden quickly dumped the spent shells from the revolver, tucking it under his arm so he could refill the chamber.
“Nice shooting, Sheriff,” Tora said, coming around the corner behind him. “Whoa. Shit.” She reacted to Caleb, HRG coming up in a flash.
“Wait,” Hayden said, putting up his hand to stop her.
She lowered the gun.
Caleb took another step forward and collapsed.
29
Nathan
“Let’s make this quick,” Nathan said, looking through the displays at the approaching terrain. From five klicks out, the rocky brown hills looked like one of the most deserted places on the planet, unworthy of any attention from invading spacecraft—whether xaxkluth, trife or any other living beings that might decide to take a liking to the area. But that was exactly the way the USSF had wanted it. Keeping the generation starships secret was supposed to be the means to keep them safe. And it had worked for most of the ships.
But not all.
A single structure rested at the edge of the hill, a rusted aluminum frame that looked as though a giant demon had torn it open like a tin can, the corrugated roof bent and wavering slightly in the breeze cast its shadow across the hill. Inside its battered walls and tucked beneath the surface was where the survivors of Sanisco had taken refuge. It was probably the last place they ever expected to be.
On a starship going nowhere.
“Coming in,” Isaac said, guiding the damaged Parabellum with a confidence he had gained over the last few hours, during which he had flown them through an unenviable gauntlet. First Hanson, Krake and the reapers. Then an entire army of xaxkluth and Norg. He had proven his mettle as a pilot and a Marine, and Nathan could sense the change in the smoothness at which the dropship’s skids hit the dirt beside the shed.
“Keep her warm,” Nathan said. “We’re only staying as long as we have to.”
“Roger, General,” Isaac replied. “I’m ready to go whenever you say.”
Nathan left the bridge, cradling his damaged augment in his good hand. Another few centimeters and the enemy blast would have torn it clean off. He probably would have preferred that to the dangling mess he had been forced to balance in his lap on the trip down.
“Max, do you have it?” Nathan asked, making his way from the bridge to the hold. The Intellect had been examining the interlink since they recovered it, ensuring it had remained undamaged during the wild ride out of Vyte’s possession.
“Pozz,” Max replied. “Honesty. I’m baffled by the software implementation.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be a super-genius?” Spot asked.
She and Jesse had ridden secured to the bulkhead, rifles in hand and ready in case the enemy somehow managed to get on board. It seemed crazy on the surface, but Nathan was done leaving anything to chance.
“Pozz,” Max said again. “Perhaps too much so.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s like knowing how to use a plasma cutter, but not how to start a fire with a piece of flint,” Nathan answered. “Humans were starting fires a long time before computers existed. But as technology advances, we lose track of the simpler things because we don’t need them anymore.”
“Except when we do,” Jesse said.
“Like right now,” Max said. “The system is primitive. It also uses a genetic component I’m unfamiliar with.”
“Genetic?” Nathan asked.
“It was coded against certain genetic markers. Human, I believe. But not fully so.”
“The goliaths,” Nathan replied. “The interlink was designed to communicate with goliaths. That was its only real purpose for a long time. And it requires a transmitter implanted in the goliath. Hayden told me the Space Force abandoned the project because it didn’t have enough value.”
“I wonder how they would feel knowing they accidentally created a machine that can also control the Hunger,” Spot said.
“They must have used Relyeh genomes to create the goliaths,” Max said. “Human-trife hybrids, like the reapers. Just different.”
“Or something else,” Nathan said. “Something that came to Earth that they never told anyone about.”
“What do you mean?” Jesse asked. “The Space Force didn’t keep secrets.”
“Let’s get it inside,” Nathan said. “Maybe between you and Pyro, you can make sense of the damn thing.”
“Pozz,” Max said.
“Are you sure it’ll be safe there, General?” Spot asked. “I don’t imagine the enemy letting it stay in our possession.”
“No,” Nathan replied. “I don’t think it’ll be safe anywhere for very long. Which is why we’re headed back east. We need the weapons in the cache if we’re going to stand a chance at holding off Vyte’s army long enough for Hayden and Caleb to get back here.”
“What if they don’t make it, sir?”
“Then we’ll switch to plan B.”
“Do we have a plan B?”
“Not yet, so let’s make plan A work.” Nathan went over to the ship’s comm, tapping on the controls. “Ike, give a shout through the combat network if the sensors start picking up anything headed this way. And I mean anything. I don’t want a rabbit moving in on this position without knowing about it.”
“Roger, General,” Isaac replied.
“Max, let’s go. Spot, take the portal. Jesse, grab Krake.” He pointed to the empty ammo locker where they had thrown the dead Axon.
“We’re bringing him inside?”
“His cortex may still provide value,” Max replied.
