Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6

by Chaney, J. N.

  “Who, who, me?” Cyril pointed to his chest.

  Zoll nodded.

  “Well, ya see, I just thought that since—”

  “Get in the damn elevator, Cyril.”

  “Sir, yes, sir. Copy over and out, sir.”

  Zoll reached out and yanked on the kid’s arm, then punched the button for the fourth sub-level. The elevator doors closed, and the pod sank through its tube.

  A small chime indicated that they’d passed by the first sub-level. Three seconds later, another chime sounded for the second sub-level. Then the pod slowed, but the third chime never came.

  “What’s happening?” Zoll asked.

  “Well, sir, you see, that would be the AI,” Cyril replied.

  “Can’t you get it going again?”

  “Not likely,” Cyril said.

  “But you’re a genius, I thought.”

  Cyril snickered. “I mean, it depends on who you ask but, like, the guys in my GAXCHAT forum? They say the real genius is—”

  “For the love of mystics, kid! Can you slice it?”

  “So sorry, sir. Let me see, sir.” Cyril started tapping in the control panel and made discouraging sounds in the back of his throat.

  “And?”

  “I can’t get root access from here, no. Sir, I’m sorry, sir.”

  The elevator started moving again, but this time it was going back up. “Oh no, you don’t,” Zoll said. “Wish, can you stop us?”

  “On it,” she replied. She raised her hands a little, and then a beat later, the pod’s drive system gave a loud whine in protest, sending a tremor into the floor. The elevator shuddered and then began to slow as the sound grew louder. A loud bang sounded from underneath the floor, and the elevator jerked to a stop.

  “Reimer, you’ve still got line, right?” Zoll asked, nodding at the sniper.

  “Roger. How much?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Zoll turned to Longchomps and then pointed to the floor. “We need a hole.”

  The Jujari gave the menacing version of their species’ smile and then began drawing a circle on the ground with his nail. The sound was horrifying but necessary. Like a can opener carving a furrow through soft metal, Longchomps completed his circuit and then punched down on the shoulder-width disc. The circle popped free and then fell into the darkness, clattering as it disappeared down the pit.

  Reimer leaned over the hole and used his helmet’s advanced range finder to determine the shaft’s depth. “Forty-one point eight meters,” the sniper replied. “But that’s to the bottom. I have to imagine the fourth sub-level is somewhere above that.”

  “And you have enough line?”

  “Fifty meters,” Reimer said, patting the spool attached to his back.

  “Run it. We’ll follow.” Zoll looked at Longchomps. “Can you make sure this pod doesn’t go anywhere so Wish can stop working so hard?”

  The Jujari nodded, turned, and then punched the sidewall. His fist left a dent ten centimeters deep. He repeated the blow in five more places around the pod, ensuring that the cart was bound to the narrow shaft it slid through.

  “Try that,” Zoll said to Wish.

  She nodded and then seemed to release her hold on the elevator. When it didn’t move for a moment, she said, “We’re holding.”

  “Good.” When Zoll looked back at Reimer, the sniper fired his cable anchor into the pod’s underside, and then dropped through the floor’s hole.

  “It’s holding,” Reimer said, and then lowered himself down the shaft from his raised left hand. Zoll could hear the gentle whirr of the motor as it let out the nano cable. He watched Reimer’s outline grow smaller as the gladia descended past the third subfloor and then head toward the fourth.

  Unlike regular building stories that were four-meters high, these sub-level stories were far thicker—like Cyril had said, “for good reason.” Breach control and containment were no small things when dealing with the galaxy’s most deadly spores, viruses, and microscopic bad guys. Not for the first time, Zoll even wondered what jeopardy he was placing his team and himself in by gong this deep. Surely, there were safety measures and security protocols that sane people took when coming down here. But now they were punching holes in elevators and descending by cable.

  “Almost there,” Reimer said. “I see the door another fifteen—”

  Reimer’s voice cut off as the sound of metal sliding across metal filled the shaft.

  “What the hell was that?” Zoll asked.

  “Uh ohhh,” Cyril said. “I was worried this would happen. I was worried, and now it’s happening. It’s happening!”

  Zoll clapped his hands once in front of Cyril’s face to get the code slicer to focus. “Talk to me, kid. What’s going on?”

  “Containment breach protocols. The AI thinks there’s something nefarious going on.”

  “Because there is something nefarious going on!” Exasperated with Cyril, Zoll dropped to his knees and shined his headlamps toward Reimer. Where there should have been an open shaft, he saw a flat metal floor about five meters down. It looked like twelve metal leaves had spiraled inward, binding the cable at the center.

  “It’s, it’s, it’s a security wall,” Cyril said. “Presumably shielded. That’s why we’ve lost communication with Reimer.”

  “Let’s just blow it,” Longchomps said.

  “And sever his cable?” Zoll asked.

  “Not to mention blowing that panel straight down on top of his head,” Rix added. “No way.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Cyril said.

  “Bliss, Robillard,” Zoll said. He waited a second before repeating the hail again. “Anyone? You there?”

  “It’s no good, roger copy, sir,” Cyril said. “There’s one of those walls above us too. The AI is trying to close in on us.”

  “So, what now?” Rix asked.

  “Might I try to reopen the passage?” Wish said.

  Zoll felt stupid for not thinking of such a thing sooner. This was, after all, the whole point of having fire teams comprised of individual specialists, wasn’t it? He just wasn’t used to having a mystic’s uncanny powers at his disposal. “By all means,” he said, stepping aside.

  Wish smiled. “I don’t need access to the hole.”

  “Right.” Zoll shook his head. “Of course you don’t.”

  Wish lowered her head, and everyone else waited. Several seconds passed before Wish said, “Okay, I see Reimer. He’s managed to open the doors onto sub-level four.”

  “Excellent,” Zoll said, relieved that the sniper hadn’t sent himself plummeting to his death. “Are you able to speak to him?”

  “Assuming he is settled enough in his mind, yes.”

  “Well—just—let him know we’re coming, and to wait for us.”

  Wish nodded once. “It’s done.” She paused for another second. “All right, he says okay.”

  Zoll sighed. At least that was going right. “Can you open the security barrier?”

  “I’m going to try, yes,” Wish replied.

  “If not, Rix can blow it,” Longchomps said.

  “No,” Rix said. “The blowback alone in this confined space will kill us all.”

  “Not if I help contain the charge,” Wish said. “But let me try opening it myself first. Please, everyone, I need to focus.”

  “Give her some space,” Zoll said. “Come on.” Longchomps, Rix, and Cyril stepped back, while Wish dipped her head again. At first, there was no sign that anything was happening. When the silence continued, Zoll thought of telling Wish to call it off, and then let Rix plant the explosives. But just as he was about to say something, a deep groan came from the barricade below them. Zoll dropped to his hands and knees again and looked into the shaft. “Well, I’ll be,” he said with a sense of wonder to his voice.

  “Is the small mystic opening the hole?” Longchomps asked.

  “Yes,” Wish replied, her voice strained. “But do you mind giving me a hand?”

  Longchomp
s touched his chest. “Me?”

  “You have at least some power in the Unity, right?”

  “Yes. We are raised as pups with a general awareness of—”

  “Join me,” Wish said. “I could use your help. This thing is strong.”

  “She’s really not wrong,” Cyril said. “The hydronic lock on that mechanism is said to make the unit unbreachable.”

  “I can still blow it,” Rix said.

  “Negative,” Zoll replied. “Longchomps, join her.”

  The Jujari nodded and then closed his eyes. He gave a long blast of air from his nostrils and then slowed his breathing. “Do you see my presence?”

  “I do,” Wish replied. “Do you see mine? Down here.”

  The Jujari nodded. “I’m coming to you.”

  “Good. Now, I need you to press along the leaves. Like this.” Apparently, Wish was showing Longchomps something in the Unity down there. It was all very strange to Zoll, but he would be the last person to doubt it if, indeed, the pair could get the shaft opening again. “While you do that, I’m going to try and reverse or disable the locking mechanism. When I say go, I need you to push with all your might.”

  “But Madame Wish, I have not—”

  “Go!”

  Longchomps jerked back in surprise, but then started snarling as he did Wish’s bidding. Watching the entire episode play out in the elevator was rather odd—a former Luma and a Jujari, grinding their teeth and moving their bodies around without anything else going on around them. It was a bit like watching two insane people have a conversation without using words.

  “Almost—got—it,” Wish said, hissing through the mic in her helmet. “Just—a little—bit—more.”

  “I do not think I can hold this much longer,” Longchomps said.

  “Just—a—little—”

  A round boom rattled the shaft, echoing up and down it.

  “Is everyone okay?” Zoll asked, unsure of what had happened.

  Wish looked up Longchomps and placed a hand on his chest. “We did it.”

  “You—” The Jujari seemed at a loss for words. “You are very strong. And I am attracted to you. This unsettles me.”

  “—hear me, come in. I repeat, if can anyone can hear me, please come in.”

  “Reimer,” Zoll exclaimed. “We hear you loud and clear.”

  “Thank the mystics,” Reimer said.

  “I will,” Longchomps replied. He looked at Wish, and then said, “Thank you, tiny pretty human.”

  “I really wonder about you sometimes, Jujari,” Rix said.

  “Reimer, are you okay?” Zoll asked while staring at Longchomps and Wish, curious to see if the mystic would say anything back to the Jujari. The odd pair seemed to gaze at one another for a split second before Wish looked away. Is she being coy with him?

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.” Reimer sounded relieved. “Wasn’t sure if I’d lost you guys there.”

  “Same,” Zoll said. “But about you.”

  “Listen, that barricade split my cable.”

  Zoll balked. “With you on it?”

  “No, no. I was able to descend to sub-level four and then open up the doors with my weapon. But as soon as that barricade opened, the cable came down. It obviously chomped it pretty good.”

  “Just glad you weren’t on it,” Zoll added.

  “Me too. But now we’ve got ourselves another problem.”

  “How to get us down there,” Zoll stated.

  “Right.”

  Wish raised a hand. “I might have an idea. But I’ve never tried anything like it.”

  Zoll asked her to explain it. When she was done, Zoll looked at Longchomps, Rix, and Cyril. “Anyone have any better ideas?” They shook their heads, and Zoll put a hand on Wish’s shoulder. “Looks like it’s up to you again. Knock yourself out.”

  “What a horrible thing to tell her,” Longchomps said. “And after what she just did for us. You humans disturb me.”

  8

  It took three minutes for Magnus’s squad to get off the beach. What had seemed like a bright idea at the beginning had turned into a comedic melee within seconds, as half the squad foundered with the sea skimmers. While the gladias made excellent gunfighters, they made horrible tourists—at least until Azelon turned the training hover plates back on. Everyone circled up and then shot off the beach, following Magnus into the low tide.

  Their departure couldn’t have come any sooner as several bystanders along the boardwalk started pointing fingers at what looked to be rogue sea skimmers driving around on their own. Magnus knew it would only be a matter of time before the police showed up. From there, officials would start connecting the break-in at the Forum Republica with the skimmer theft, and then the Repub would be on their heels.

  Magnus looked over his shoulder at the tail of water shooting twenty meters into the air. His sled ripped across the wave crests, slicing through the white caps with ease, and maintaining speed over 160 kilometers per hour. To his left and right, his squad stretched out in a line 200 meters wide. He’d ordered everyone to keep the crafts’ headlights off and operate using their helmet’s night vision. Doing so would keep them from being tracked visually, both by those on Capriana and anyone watching from Elusian Base.

  While the sea skimmers were capable of traversing the ocean faster with it off, keeping the automated stabilization controls on helped inexperienced riders from tipping over. But Magnus felt it was a fair trade-off—arriving at their waypoint a bit later would be better than only half of them arriving because of crashing. Even at half speed, the skimmer’s drive core produced the characteristic scream known throughout the racing world. Magnus reflected on long walks down the shore as a kid. He could pick out sea skimmers a dozen klicks away just from their telltale wail. Unfortunately for him tonight, the same could be said of any enemies awaiting their arrival on the Elusian atoll.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you,” Awen asked Magnus over a private channel on VNET.

  “How can you tell?” he replied.

  She chuckled. “I can hear you grinning.”

  “Guilty. I forgot how much fun these are.”

  “No, you didn’t. And if I were a betting woman, I’d say we’re not going fast enough for you.”

  “Damn, you’re good.”

  “I know.”

  Magnus rolled his head in an attempt to loosen himself up—physically and emotionally. “Hey, Awen?”

  She chuckled. “Yes?”

  “Yeah. So, I know we haven’t had a lot of time together lately—to talk and stuff.”

  “We’ve been a little busy.”

  “Right. But when we’re not busy—later, I mean—would you like to walk?”

  “Walk?” She laughed.

  “Yeah. I mean, we can eat first, and then find a place to take a walk.”

  She giggled, and for the briefest moment, the sound transported Magnus to somewhere else, somewhere far away from Capriana and war and death.

  “I’d like that,” she replied. “You’ve got yourself a date.”

  “A date?”

  “What did you think you were asking for?”

  “Uh…”

  Awen laughed again. “Don’t answer that, Adonis.”

  “Okay.” That hadn’t gone like he imagined, but it hadn’t gone worse either. He smiled, grateful for the diversion—for hope. Magnus took a moment to feel the fuselage’s vibration rattle his body—to savor the wind and saltwater blasting his visor. “They’re going to hear us coming, you know.”

  “Mm-hmm. I thought of that. How many guards you think they have stationed on the perimeter?”

  “Midnight shift will be light, but I’m guessing more because of what we did in the capital.”

  “They’re on alert then.”

  “And they’re not the only ones,” Colonel Caldwell said—his bushy white mustache appearing in a small window in Magnus’s HUD.

  “Colonel,” Magnus said in acknowledgment.

  The
man must’ve noticed his proximity to the camera. He backed up and nodded at Magnus. “Seems Zoll’s team has encountered more than they bargained for. Turns out TO-96’s nondescript government lab is actually a secure biohazard research facility. Thing’s got a security detail thicker than my sister’s chastity belt and an AI that’s smart enough to know how she gets out of it on the weekends.”

  “That bad?” Magnus asked, marveling at the colonel’s endless treasure trove of one-liners. “Seems we’ve all got our hands full then.” He looked at the mission clock. They had five minutes left before reaching the main island. “You listening, bots?”

  “We are, sir,” said TO-96, appearing with Azelon in their own window. “How can we help you?”

  “Do you have access to any records on Elusian Base’s force composition?”

  TO-96 tilted his head and paused for a moment. “Affirmative, sir. It looks as though the installation can hold one company plus 100 civilian support staff.”

  “That seems excessive,” Awen replied. “What is that, almost 300 people?”

  Magnus grunted. “But that’s maximum capacity, right ’Six? We’re not talking that much strength now.”

  “Oh no, sir. There’s much more on-site.”

  Magnus paused. “Come again?”

  “There’s another company there for training.”

  “Another company?” Awen cleared her throat. “Not to second guess you, Adonis, but are you sure this is the best idea?”

  “It’s still better than trying to break into CENTCOM,” he replied. “We’ve got to try.”

  “To answer both your questions, the 9th Marines, 1st battalion, 2nd company is the second unit on location,” TO-96 said.

  Magnus rolled his eyes.

  “I saw that,” Awen said.

  Damn. Some days, he wanted the old TACNET audio-only setup. “Azie,” Magnus said. “Any chance of us sneaking onto post?”

  “With the sound pressure level you’re currently outputting, not likely,” she said. “However, if you choose to slow your speed by 54% and approach from the south, you’ll be able to make landfall on Cotter’s Island here.” A small island to the south of Elusian Base illuminated on Magnus’s mission map. “Doing so should keep our presence largely undetected, at which point you can swim the channel between the two islands and approach the base in relative secrecy.”