Sanctuary

by Ken Lozito

  “Alright, let's do this by the numbers. We’ll check out each of the buildings and clear them before we proceed. I want to hear you all call it out," Captain Fletcher said.

  They repeated their orders and fanned out. Breaking up into teams of four, they approached the nearest building. The NEIIS preferred a rounded architecture that Maddox had seen before. He had no idea what kind of creatures would create this type of building and it didn't matter to him. He only cared about whether there was anything dangerous inside.

  Maddox took point for the first team and approached the door. The door controls were easily visible and the panel glowed at his approach. Apparently, this place still had power. The panel showed NEIIS symbols and the internal translator appeared on his helmet’s heads-up display. A suggested NEIIS sequence appeared for opening the door and Maddox pressed those buttons in the order advised. The door started to open and then froze in place, showing only several inches of gap. Maddox waved the others forward and together they pulled the door the rest of the way open.

  The interior of the NEIIS building was dark but for the light coming in through the doorway. There was a short corridor ahead that opened up into a small atrium. Maddox took point and led the way inside. They quickly reached the atrium and saw that several consoles looked to have been recently activated. One of them still had sparks coming from the bottom and the other two had scorch marks. The signal they’d detected earlier had probably triggered an overload.

  "You're up, Chief Spencer," Maddox said.

  Chief Spencer detached himself from the group and brought out his tablet. He approached the most intact console and glanced at the control panel on the bottom. Maddox watched as the chief opened the panel and started rooting around inside.

  Chief Spencer looked at him after a few moments. "This is going to take me a few minutes, sir."

  Maddox nodded. "Carry on then," he said and opened a comlink to Captain Fletcher, apprising him of the situation.

  The small atrium wasn't more than fourteen meters across. His helmet's heads-up display enhanced his vision so the otherwise darkened areas appeared as clear as day. He switched the visual spectrum to infrared and glanced around the room. Other than the CDF soldiers, the only heat signatures he detected were from the NEIIS consoles in the room. There was still power here and the source appeared to be located under the floor.

  "What’s your status, Chief?" Captain Fletcher said as he entered the room.

  Chief Spencer was elbows-deep into the NEIIS control console and he glanced up at Captain Fletcher. "Just need another minute, sir. Almost there.”

  Captain Fletcher nodded and then walked over to Maddox.

  "Sir," Maddox acknowledged.

  "We may have to cut this short. I sent an update back to Command Central and received an instant reply reiterating our previous orders," Captain Fletcher said.

  "They didn't have any reaction to the signal we detected?" Maddox asked.

  Captain Fletcher was about to reply when Chief Spencer called out to them.

  “Captain, I’m ready to power this thing up," Chief Spencer said.

  Captain Fletcher headed back toward the NEIIS console and Maddox followed. "Go ahead, Chief," Captain Fletcher said.

  Chief Spencer activated the NEIIS console and the mesh interface immediately started to glow. Just then, Maddox heard something move in the far corner of the atrium. He swung his gaze toward the noise and held his weapon ready. There was nothing there, but he kept his AR-71 trained on the spot where he thought he’d heard the noise.

  "Is there a problem, Lieutenant?" Captain Fletcher asked.

  Maddox did a quick sweep of the different visual spectrums with his helmet and couldn't see anything. Maybe the noise had come from outside. He could hear several CDF soldiers speaking outside.

  “Nothing, sir. I thought I heard something, but it's nothing," Maddox replied.

  Captain Fletcher nodded and then walked to the other side of the NEIIS console to get a better look at the mesh screen. The glow coming from the screen became brighter and an NEIIS map appeared. Maddox heard someone gasp and glanced over.

  Corporal Lasky was looking at the far corner of the atrium where Maddox had heard the noise before, his eyes wide with terror.

  Ryklar!

  "Contact!” Maddox shouted and brought up his assault rifle.

  He fired his weapon where the ryklar was hiding. There was a snarl and then a roar as several ryklars launched themselves from the walls above. A ryklar slammed into Captain Fletcher, knocking him onto his back. Maddox aimed his weapon and an incendiary round burned through the creature's head. Another ryklar charged forward, attempting to reach Captain Fletcher. Maddox switched his AR-71 to full auto and began spraying the area, making wide sweeps. He heard the others doing the same and the far side of the atrium blazed under the barrage of superheated slugs. Several ryklars were caught in the crossfire and fell. Another ryklar dropped from overhead and slammed its claws into Captain Fletcher's chest. Maddox heard Fletcher cry out in pain and charged forward, throwing his body at the creature. The ryklar rolled away and Maddox was instantly on his feet again. He was about to fire his weapon when Corporal Lasky took it out. The room was silent but for several dying ryklars, and Maddox made quick work of them.

  "We need a medic in here!" Chief Spencer shouted.

  Maddox turned around and saw Chief Spencer kneeling at Captain Fletcher’s side. There was a river of blood flowing from the captain’s chest, and Maddox saw that the ryklar’s claws had pierced his body armor. Maddox knew the smart-mesh undershirt must have sensed the injury and constricted around the area in an attempt to stifle the bleeding, which was the only reason Captain Fletcher was still alive.

  Captain Fletcher groaned in pain and tried to get up, but Maddox held him down. "Just lie still, Captain. You’ve been wounded. Corporal Gibbs is on his way," Maddox said.

  Captain Fletcher winced in pain and Maddox did a quick check to see if there were other wounds. He found more on the captain’s side below his armpit.

  "Make a space!” Corporal Gibbs shouted and Chief Spencer immediately moved out of the way.

  They pulled off Captain Fletcher's outer layer of armor and found two more wounds they couldn’t see before.

  God damn ryklars, Maddox thought.

  Maddox opened a comlink to the rest of the squad. "Do a sweep of the area using the sonic wave detectors. The ryklars set up an ambush. If any are detected, take them out. Maddox out."

  He watched as Corporal Gibbs assessed the wounds. He applied medipaste to the one on the side and brought out a handheld scanner to assess the deep wound on Fletcher’s chest. The captain groaned in pain and Corporal Gibbs administered painkillers.

  "There, that's it. Just relax," Corporal Gibbs said.

  Captain Fletcher closed his eyes and became still.

  "How is he?" Maddox asked.

  “He’s got several deep lacerations. Medipaste can stop the bleeding, but I need to give him a full dose of medical nanites to repair the internal damage. They’ll take care of the broken ribs, too. Then we'll have to wait and see," Corporal Gibbs said.

  Maddox opened a comlink to Lieutenant Mitchell and ordered him to bring the Hellcat back to their position. He left Corporal Gibbs with Captain Fletcher, telling him he'd send a stretcher once the Hellcat arrived.

  Maddox headed outside and Sergeant Flint ran over to him. "Sir, no ryklars in the other buildings or in the immediate area. What the hell happened, sir?”

  “It was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. The ryklars waited for us to get inside and lower our guard. I didn't detect them with infrared," Maddox said, and noticed Corporal Lasky standing off to the side. “How did you know they were there, Corporal?"

  "I did a sweep of the visual spectrum and then switched to sonic wave detection. That's when I saw all of them. There were so many. I’m so sorry, Lieutenant. I froze . . ." Corporal Lasky said.

  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, Corporal
. If it weren't for you, we'd all be dead," Maddox said.

  It was the truth and Maddox itched to shoot something, but he knew better than that. If there was any failure to be found, it had been with him. Corporal Lasky was always trying to make himself useful to the squad. He'd followed standard protocol when the rest of them hadn't.

  The Hellcat landed nearby and a stretcher was brought out for Captain Fletcher. The rest of the soldiers gathered outside the main building and looked at Maddox. He was second-in-command and now had to decide what to do.

  "Corporal Gibbs has informed me that Captain Fletcher is in stable condition. He’s given the captain a treatment of medical nanites that will repair his internal injuries, but it was a close thing. We got caught with our pants down and that shouldn’t have happened," Maddox said and looked at the rest of the CDF squad with flinty eyes. "Our orders are to investigate the NEIIS signal that led us here. The console was able to show us a map, and according to Chief Spencer, there was another location identified. However, we’ll need to make camp here since it's so late in the day and Captain Fletcher needs time to recover from his wounds. Then we’ll continue on in the morning. I want a mobile camp set up within the next fifteen minutes. Sergeant Flint, I want two sets of guards on duty at all times. Standard deterrent measures are to be set up at once. We don't need any more ryklars ambushing our position."

  "Yes, Lieutenant," Sergeant Flint said.

  As the soldiers started setting up camp, Maddox caught Corporal Lasky looking at him strangely from time to time. Maddox went to the Hellcat and opened the comms systems. He recorded a video log of what had happened and what their current status was. He then set a timer to delay sending the update for another six hours. He wanted to be sure that by the time Central Command received the update they wouldn't order Maddox to return right away. They might try, but Maddox intended to be well on their way to the main NEIIS site they’d seen on the map. To give his report more gravitas, he included that Corporal Gibbs had recommended not moving Captain Fletcher for the next twelve hours even though no such recommendation had been made, but Maddox didn't much care. He wasn't returning to Sierra anytime soon. He wanted payback. He wanted to hunt ryklars.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Civilian-class aerial transport vehicles, or C-cats as they were commonly referenced, weren't that difficult to steal, and Dash hadn't been too concerned with acquiring some type of transport for their long-range field survey expedition. He’d found it amusing that Connor had tried to lock him out of all vehicle systems at Sanctuary. He'd expected it and hadn’t been too surprised when Jim confirmed it. But Dash wasn't foolish enough to use his own credentials to access a transport vehicle because he knew that would send an alert to Field Operations and Security, who would then inform Connor that an attempt had been made. Such action would bring the former CDF general down on him quicker than a landrunner in full stride across the Great Plains. What had surprised him was that he and his companions were all on a Field Ops and Security watch list. This was also a shock to both Merissa and Selena, finding themselves in the same boat as Dash. He’d had a good laugh about it and welcomed them to the dark side. Merissa seemed to take this in stride, but Selena still appeared bothered by the whole thing.

  They'd waited a whole day before setting off on their own. Nothing had changed and Field Ops still had the travel ban in place. Dash had expected as much and had already started stockpiling the supplies they'd need. But the method he’d used to gather their supplies had impressed his small group of rebels, and he was actually surprised none of them had thought to use drones as a means of transporting equipment to a predetermined location they could later pick up. No one closely monitored drone activity in the immediate vicinity of Sanctuary, so when he temporarily appropriated a small army of them, no one was the wiser. To anyone monitoring them, the drones had just taken a more circuitous route on their final predefined patrol.

  Together, the four of them left various supplies on the rooftop of the Research Institute. The drones would then pick up their supplies and whisk them a few kilometers outside Sanctuary. Dash had the drones working throughout the night, so when it came time to leave, they had relatively little to bring with them in their “borrowed,” newly minted Field Ops C-cat. Apparently, there had been a delivery of five C-cats from the fabrication units at Sierra. They hadn't even been registered with Sanctuary’s computer systems yet, which allowed any one of them to use the vehicles without tripping alarms. The C-cat they’d borrowed was an airbus model that was capable of transporting up to twenty people comfortably, chosen so they'd have plenty of room for their supplies.

  Jim was in the pilot’s seat, flying them toward their first destination. They'd elected to travel to one of the NEIIS locations farther east than they'd originally planned. Hoping there would be less of a chance of encountering any ryklars at the more remote locations, they were traveling about six hundred and fifty kilometers north of Sanctuary’s location. Since they’d left later in the morning, they wouldn't reach their destination until well past the middle of the day. They were flying “low and slow” as Jim liked to say, making his voice sound deeper than it normally was, so it was likely they hadn’t been missed yet.

  "How long do you think it'll take them to realize we’ve flown the coop?" Jim asked.

  Dash had been glancing behind them, trying not to glare. They had an extra passenger he hadn't anticipated would be joining them.

  Jim had to repeat his question and then snap his fingers to get Dash's attention.

  "What?" Dash asked in a slightly annoyed tone, but Jim just looked at him. "I don't know. Probably pretty soon. We’ve been gone for three hours and I know Connor’s keeping tabs on us."

  Dash glanced behind them again and almost scowled at the sleeping form of one Brad Kelly. Merissa had decided they could use the help of one of the technical engineers working at the archives, and she and Selena had “happened” to run into the one technical engineer who was intrigued by the work they were doing. Dash hadn’t wanted anyone else joining them, at least until Merissa kindly pointed out that they could use the help of an expert in NEIIS technology. Dash had to admit (if only to himself) that bringing a tech expert with them was actually a good idea, but why did it have to be Brad? And why did Merissa have to look at him like she’d just been served her favorite dessert?

  Brad wasn't the stereotypical technical engineer. He had perfect blonde hair, blue eyes, and a chiseled chin, with a charming dimple in his cheek thrown in for good measure. Dash actually entertained a cheerful vision of Brad being horribly scarred by a tragic hiking accident but then immediately dismissed the thought as being beneath him. It wasn't Brad's fault he was good looking, and if he was being honest, Brad wasn't a bad guy. He was just the competition.

  "You've got to get over it already. He's here, and if you keep acting like an idiot, she's gonna notice—if she hasn’t already,” Jim advised.

  Dash glanced at his friend. When there weren’t any pretty girls around, Dash actually appreciated Jim’s generally useful advice. But even in this case, Dash had to admit that Jim was right. Perhaps he was overreacting just a bit. Brad was here. Still, Dash didn’t have to like how Merissa seemed to go all doe-eyed when the guy simply laughed. Did the C-cat have an ejection seat?

  A message appeared on the heads-up display that indicated a general broadcast had been sent from Sanctuary. The message required their acknowledgment and Dash frowned. "If we acknowledge that message, can they trace it to us?" he asked.

  Jim shook his head. "They shouldn’t be able to. It’s just a broadcast. Maybe we should ask—"

  “Don't you dare," Dash said.

  Jim shrugged.

  "Hey, we've got a message," Merissa said as she made her way toward them at the front of the C-cat. "Aren't you going to acknowledge it and see what it says?"

  “We’re not sure if it can be traced," Dash said.

  Merissa peered at the message. "Let's just ask Brad,” she said and called ba
ck to him.

  Dash rolled his eyes and Merissa frowned at him, confused.

  The technical engineer woke from his slumber and rubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to wake up. Then he joined them at the front. After hearing their concerns, he cocked his head to the side and thought for a moment.

  "I can check the message header to look for any latent protocols used for tracking. They’d likely appear just beneath it," Brad said.

  Dash climbed out of the front seat so Brad could sit there and use the C-cat's computer systems. Brad brought up a command window and checked the initial message. After examining the raw code that Dash had no hope of understanding, he closed it up.

  "It's just a standard message without any tracers. It should be safe to download," Brad said and stood up.

  Merissa glanced at Dash for a moment and then brought up the message. It was from Dr. Bishop. The short message was a simple request for them to check in, along with an advisory that requested they return their borrowed C-cat.

  Dash reread the message, looking for some kind of hidden meaning in it. Then he closed it and cleared the screen.

  Merissa's brows drew up in concern. "Aren't you going to reply to her?"

  "Not right now," Dash said.

  Merissa closed her eyes and sighed heavily. "What's the harm in sending a reply?”

  "The only thing I can send back now is that we received her message. I'd much rather have an update to send back after we reach our destination," Dash said.

  Merissa pursed her lips together as she thought about it. "Alright, I see your point, but we should send some kind of reply back later then. Agreed?"

  Dash nodded. "Sounds good to me. We’re almost there so let's start getting ready."