Adamanta Complete Season 3 (Adamanta Seasons)

by T. Y. Carew

  “Won't leave her,” Vitaly moaned.

  “Xander, we need to go,” Drew said, and Matt shot him a dark, angry glare.

  “I know how you feel,” Xander said, ignoring the tech. Every minute counted so he didn't have time to be delicate or dance around it. The inevitable reprisal from Kelton when he heard would have to take a backseat to saving this man. “That woman, Matilda Adair... I love her.” He expected some kind of murmurs or gasps from the crew, but all they did, apart from Matt, was look anywhere but at him or Vitaly. Matt stepped forward gingerly, and her fingers squeezed his shoulder. “I don't have the time or the words to tell you what it is she makes me feel, except that she does. And if something happened to her, I'd want to stay with her too. But Vitaly, sometimes what we want for ourselves isn't what our loved ones would want for us.”

  “I'd want him to keep fighting,” Matt said.

  “I'm a chef. I don't fight. I don't matter. She mattered.”

  The other civilian hefted a laser pistol, checked it uncertainly, and held it loosely by her side, barrel pointing down at the ground. “That's not true, Vitaly. You mattered. Or else Mia wouldn't have loved you. And believe me, that woman loved you.”

  “Fighting doesn't just mean killing. Matt helped me remember that,” Xander said. “It's about understanding why mankind deserves to exist in the first place. It's about finding some goodness in the world and giving that to others. You want to fight? Remember Mia. Remember the goodness she gave you, and pass it on to someone else. But you can't do that if you die here.”

  A distant, hollow boom shook the walls of the room. Xander glanced up, then back at Vitaly. “Our time is up. I'm not going to force you to leave her. But for her sake, I hope you keep fighting, Vitaly.”

  He stood, and wrapped an arm around Matt for a brief moment, despite the rest of the crew right there. “Trey, Tyra, I want you to take the route Reilly detailed back to the Exemplar. Round up the wounded and as many civilians as you can. Drew, Matt, you're with me. We're going to hunt down Ramos first, then Cardew. Priority is still the safety of the civilians. Drew, when we have them separated, escort them back to the Exemplar and aid Trey and Tyra where they need it. Matt, judging from what Reilly showed us, we should be able to intersect where Cardew is heading. We save Simon and the rest, plant the last of our charges, and we get our asses back to the Contessa. Let me get a 'yes, sir.'”

  Every single one of them said smartly, “Yes, boss!”

  He shook his head and sighed. “Close enough. Let's move, people.”

  Xander, Matt, and Drew hustled towards the door leading in Ramos's direction. Xander glanced back once over his shoulder. Reilly offered her hand to Vitaly, and the snuffling man actually took it and stood up. Good for him, Xander thought, privately glad his lie about being able to leave Matt behind stuck in the civilian's mind.

  ***

  Simon snatched up one of the security shields. The top-of-the-line resin coating had nearly been destroyed already by laser fire, but it would have to do. He planted it in front of Lieutenant Lawrence and grabbed her under the armpits as a stray beam nearly parted his hair. Her eyes fluttered open.

  “Just let me sleep,” she croaked.

  He shushed her. Most the civilians they'd come in with had taken up arms and were fighting with Cardew and Kingston against the Beltine, but one of them, a mildly pudgy man with a shock of neon purple hair, cowered behind a trough of some kind, perhaps used to feed the Dairos. Simon whistled for him as one of the guards took down a Kyraos, whooping before his heart was vaporized by laser fire.

  Simon recognized the purple-haired man as one of the ship's analysts, there to help with the supposed mining studies. Tom, he thought, then just as he was about to shout the man's name, a snatch of something one of the crew said came to him—“Thomas, he likes to be called Thomas because he thinks it makes him more important.” Simon had snickered about that, but now the man was all-important, and he'd call him Sir Thomas the Magnificent if it meant the man would help him.

  “Thomas,” he shouted.

  The analyst glanced over, sweat washing down his forehead. “Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God...”

  “Over here, quick. We can get out of here. While they're distracted.”

  The man glanced between the Beltine and Simon, and frantically nodded. In a move that would have made Simon bust a gut laughing just a few hours ago, Thomas rolled—literally rolled—along the floor, whimpering the whole way until he slapped against the shield and darted behind it as best he could. Together they lifted Avery under the shoulders and dragged her towards the exit.

  Errant laser fire sought them out, but both sides of the fight were too engaged to bother with a few escaping civilians. Simon stopped only to grab up the laser pistol Lieutenant Lawrence had almost used to free themselves. He stuffed it into his belt and helped Thomas the rest of the way back into the hallway.

  Screams, loud ones, followed them. The muscles in Lawrence's face worked, and she opened her eyes again. “Don't need... to drag me,” she muttered.

  “I'm not going to just leave you,” Simon said.

  Lawrence arched an eyebrow and coughed out a chuckle. “And I don't want you... to. I've got one big... hazard pay check... coming.”

  Simon laughed, an unexpected sound that seemed almost sacrilegious among the death and carnage. Something boomed behind them, and Lawrence pointed upwards. “Lift me.”

  They obliged, but it wasn't easy. Thomas shifted too much of her weight and she screamed as the foot on her bad leg scraped along the floor. Her eyelids drooped and Simon snapped, “No. Stay with us. We can't do this if you're unconscious.”

  Her throat worked and her head fell forward. Simon thought the lieutenant was out, but slowly her chin bobbed up and down. “I'll have to hobble—”

  Something roared behind them. Two Dairos, the thin, hard-scrabble kind they'd seen scattered around the facility, sprinted out of the last refinery room. One branded a laser rifle, the other a long hunk of metal—the Beltine equivalent of rebar, Simon's mind whispered analytically even as he fought to try to grab at his gun.

  Lawrence, despite her pain, was faster, and snatched the pistol from his belt. As the Dairos raised their weapons and skittered towards their prey, she aimed, her arm still draped around Thomas's shoulder as the two men held her upright. Her first shot was wild, the second only grazing the one holding the rebar. The other Dairos's finger neared the trigger, but the third shot took him in what passed for a Beltine groin. It didn't stop the creature, but it did punish its aim, and the Dairos's first short burst fired harmlessly at the ground. Now with a better idea where the gun was pointed, Lawrence fired again, and this time she took the same Dairos in the chest. It stumbled backwards, shoving the barrel of the gun towards its partner, and crumbled, down and out.

  The other Dairos ignored its companion's fall and charged them, the rebar already coming down. Thomas shrieked and let go of Lieutenant Lawrence to cover his head and duck instinctively. It was a damn good thing, too, because the steel striking his back might have caved in his skull. It still drove the man to the ground, but Lawrence twisted and shot the Beltine in its neck. The rebar clattered to the floor as the Beltine toppled sideways.

  “You okay?” Simon asked Thomas.

  “That is the dumbest question I've ever been asked,” the man howled, holding his back as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “No, I'm not okay.”

  “Can you help, then?” Simon snapped.

  Thomas nodded, brushed away tears rolling from the corners of his eyes, and hefted Avery up again. With her hopping on her good leg and holding up her bad one as gingerly as she could manage, they made faster progress, but not by much. Somewhere close by was more gunfire, more booming. Liquid seeped from cracked, squirming worm-like pipes in the ceiling, and Simon had little doubt they were fighting time now as well as the Beltine and Cardew. He wondered numbly which one would kill him. Survival wasn't even a hope.

  ***

 
; “Hold the line!” someone bellowed ahead, and Xander held up a fist. Stop. To Matt, he gestured ahead, and she nodded, understanding without having to be told. From a pouch came one of her Adamanta eyes. She focused and sent it flying as Drew brought up the sensor array on his arm-mounted personal device.

  Down a long corridor splattered with blood and gore as well as a few bodies, human and Beltine, the sensor array whirred. A breached door lay warped on the floor of what looked like some kind of command room, full of rounded monitors and strange techno-organic control devices that resembled tall trackballs, old Earth tech still used by some pilots. A man in a finer jumpsuit than the others with a field of bars across his breast fired over the top of a metal crate. His blind shots didn't strike any of the nearly two-dozen Dairos and Kyraos on the other side of the room, but he was at least giving the Kyraos something to think about. His companions looked on the verge of collapse, and fired just as indiscriminately as Captain Ramos. A few Beltine were hit here and there, but purely by accident. As Matt snapped the sensor array around the room to get a better angle on the enemy, four of the Dairos charged forward as one, guns up. They were doomed to fall, but that wasn't the point. The concentrated fire from the crew of the Exemplar focused on them, and they didn't watch for the obvious flanking maneuver. These people, by and large, had no military experience.

  One of the Kyraos, a hulking Elite, broke to the left behind a trio of Dairos. Ramos shouted for his people to watch the corners, but they were too focused on bringing down the four Dairos charging the guts of the room. Ramos himself leaned out, his rifle finding one of the Kyraos' protectors, then a second. But by then the Kyraos was firing too, and Ramos fell. His little part in the mutiny was done, his eyes staring lifelessly across the room.

  What was left of the Exemplar's crew panicked and ran. They flooded the door and some were chopped down from the rear by Beltine who had nothing but a clear shot on their backsides. Xander darted through them, seeking cover beside the door, and his people followed him, ignored by the screaming civilians and guards. That same Kyraos charged the door, not having seen the newcomers yet, along with a dozen of the remaining Dairos. Matt dropped the sensor, no longer needing it that close to the action, and instead drew her blades. As Xander and Drew fired into the Beltine, she hurtled her weapons at the Kyraos. It had just enough time to cock its head like a curious dog before they found their mark in its chest and neck. Some of the Dairos stopped, but the majority took cover on the opposite side of the same crates and equipment the Exemplar's crew had just been using. Matt hadn't been pushing herself too hard yet, but now she whirled her blades as fast as she could among them, trying to cut them down before they could kill or injure any more of the civilians.

  Between a Dairos and an already-wounded Kyraos, the door on the far end of the room slid open and more Dairos stormed through, followed by something towering over the other Beltine. Beside Matt, Xander visibly blanched, and Drew swore as he unloaded a full clip into the Dairos swarming the room. Matt barely noticed. Her attention was solely on the grotesque creature in front of her. This one had been wounded sometime in the distant past, one of its arms missing and several scorch scars across its abdomen.

  “Adamanta,” the Anassos growled, its mandibles spreading wide in a facsimile of a human grin.

  For a response, Matt tried to shove her blades towards the thing, but the Anassos was fighting her for control now, and what few inches she managed to wrest from the thing made her head swell like an overripe cantaloupe. She reached for the wall to support herself as Xander and Drew fired into the Dairos ranks. Some of the guards must have regained their composure because several more bursts of laser fire joined their own, pouring into the room. The Dairos didn't seek cover this time, crowding the entrance to the hallway, falling as they tried to break the Exemplar's last bit of resistance.

  Matt's blades jerked free of the mental molasses, but her control over them was brief. A sharp spike of pain drove through her skull and she instinctively fell, gasping and clutching at her skull. The white-hot rod of fire in her mind scorched away every trace of conscious thought except that she had to keep fighting. Xander shouted something in fear. Her blades clattered to the floor as Matt tore at her hair, trying to make the pain stop.

  I have you.

  The Anassos's voice inside her mind was smug, yet distant. It felt... distracted. Uneasy. Matt pushed against it, conscious thoughts quavering like gelatin. A blast of laser fire grazed her shoulder and Matt barely noticed. Drew jerked her away from the entryway. Something was in his hand, another flashbang. As Xander fired, Drew tossed it underhanded right underneath the Anassos. It looked down, raised its foot, and the world exploded.

  Matt hadn't covered her ears, but neither had the Anassos covered the holes and stubby bones that passed for its. Her mind peeled away from the Beltine, the mental spike lessening, lessening. Matt hadn't been staring into the room when the grenade went off, so she still could see well enough to jerk back up the Adamanta blades with her mind. There was nothing fancy about the way she threw them at the Anassos. Six blades flew at the creature. Six blades pierced it. Six blades sliced it apart.

  Still the spike hurt, but Matt could control herself, could think. She reached out for the wall to balance herself and found Drew instead. He helped her steady herself as her hearing slowly returned. The Dairos and Kyraos under control by the Anassos stumbled around or fell still, looking at nothing, reacting to nothing. Some of the guards charged back in, lasers cutting them down effortlessly. Matt drew her blades back to her, and prepared a pair of zappers, uneasy about what would happen now that the Beltine were dead or dying. The thought of taking down humans was never easy on her soul.

  When the guards finished their grisly work, they turned, rifles raised, and Matt thought that was it, they'd either have to kill these people or be killed by them in turn. But instead, one of the guards stepped out in front of the others and lowered his weapon. Xander came towards him, his pistol still raised, ready to fire, but the others followed suit and slowly fell to their knees.

  “We surrender,” the man in front said. “Please. Mercy, Adamanta.”

  The other men cast uneasy glances at the fallen Anassos and Matt realized why they'd given up. She could have laughed. Here she'd been terrified of them, and they were practically wetting themselves.

  Xander slowly lowered his pistol to an angle where he could bring it back up in a heartbeat and fire if need be. “We're evacuating your people back to the Exemplar. Help whoever you can along the way. Drew, take them there and lock them up.”

  “What about you two?” Drew said, gesturing with the barrel of his pistol for the guards to get up. They dropped their weapons and stood, hands behind their heads.

  “Plan's still the same. We're going to set the last of the charges and...” Xander glanced aside at Matt, who rubbed at her temples with her thumbs. “...and try to find Cardew and Simon.”

  “Xander...” Drew said hesitantly. “Maybe Matt should go with the prisoners.”

  “I'm fine,” she muttered. “Whatever's happened to Cardew, I have to know. Either she's alive and she comes back with us to face trial or she's dead and that's a weight off my mind.”

  “The two of you alone, if there are more Kyraos, that’s a suicide run.”

  Xander’s voice was weary and distant. “Go, Drew. That's an order.”

  The tech's salute might have been a bit flippant and his eyes bore a sting like he'd been slapped, but he unslung the explosives, handed them over, and his next steps were towards the prisoners. Xander nodded at Matt and they stumbled for the largest control console as the prisoners and Drew shuffled out of the room back in the direction of the Exemplar. Xander dug out the next charge, primed it, and settled it at the base of the console. From a pouch, Matt found a bandage for her arm, and he helped her with it, tongue pressed against his cheek. His eyes looked haunted with the things they'd already seen and had to do on this hellish mining outpost, so Matt tried to sm
ile for him. It felt fake even to her. Whatever had twisted this place had its grip on both of them.

  They walked down the next corridor, expecting no more functioning Beltine. But the next room was another mirror of the horrible conveyor belt facility they'd cleaned out earlier. Instead of working, though, these Dairos were in the midst of a full-blown strange battle among themselves. They thrashed and fought and bit at one another, making high, keening sounds, none of which were quite the same. The cacophony only let up a little when one of them spied the newcomers and pointed a long, skinny finger at them. The door behind Matt and Xander slammed shut, opened, slammed shut again, opened a third of the way, and slammed shut once more.

  Xander fired, and Matt worked two of her blades through the room, trying to ignore the drops of blood sliding down across her lips from a nosebleed. It didn't feel like she'd been pushing herself, but the fight against the Anassos must have drained her more than she realized. It was everything she could do to hold the swords up with her mind, let alone use them in the one-sided fight.

  When the last of the Beltine fell, Xander checked the bodies, making sure they were all dead. Matt collected her blades, sheathed them, and leaned against a wall, taking the precious few minutes to recover as best she could manage. Xander rejoined her and they stepped into the next corridor, away from the bodies.

  She dug out gauze for her nose, and Xander murmured, “Let me.” He wiped at her face, his motions ginger and delicate as his gray eyes searched hers. When the bleeding stopped and Matt's face was clean again, still he stood there, just inches apart.

  “Something's still here,” she said.

  “I know. I can sense it too, now,” Xander replied. He tossed away the gauze. His hands hovered in the air like he was unsure what they were or what he was supposed to do with them, but Xander seemed to make up his mind about something and gripped her waist gently.

  Eyes closed, Matt asked, “Feels like the end, doesn't it?” Her eyes fluttered open again.