by M. R. Forbes
“That way,” Bastion said, pointing. “But there is one minor complication.”
“Which is?” Hayley asked.
“It’s connected to a Sentry Station.”
“Of course it is,” Tibor said. “We wouldn’t want anything to be too easy.”
“The terminal was unlocked,” Hayley said. “That’s our only bone today.”
“There is another tube two klicks that way,” Bastion said. “But it’s going to take us out of the way a bit.”
“We can’t waste any time. Once these guards wake up the whole damn planet is going to be looking for us.” She started down the corridor toward the closer tube.
They slowed as they neared the Sentry Station. From the service passages underground, it was little more than a hatch at the end of the corridor with the logo of a Sentry helmet stamped onto the metal.
“It would be nice to see what’s inside,” Tibor said.
“Why don’t you go on ahead?” Bastion asked. “Get arrested.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Hayley said. “But I don’t think Xolo’s the right individual for the job.”
“Forget it,” Bastion said. “I did my part already.”
“Don’t worry; I wasn’t thinking about you. I don’t have tactical eyewear, but I do have a camera.” She tapped the side of her head. The camera for her TCU was tucked beneath her hair. “They probably won’t know what to make of me.”
“Yeah, you go,” Bastion said. “Good idea.”
“I’ll mark the targets. Xolo, you’re in charge of the assault. Remember. No guns. No killing. Take them out nice and easy.”
“Roger,” Tibor said.
Hayley released some of the naniates, allowing them to leave the tattoos on her arms and flow back to Eleison. Then she handed her sidearm to Bastion. She was still suspicious as hell in a military lightsuit, but the less dangerous she looked, the more likely they would hold her for questioning instead of blowing a hole in her.
“Stay ready,” she said before walking toward the hatch. She tried to keep her approach nonchalant, certain there were cameras watching the outside of the station.
The door opened before she arrived, a pair of Sentries behind it, rifles already up and at the ready.
“Don’t move. Hands up.”
She did as they said, stopping and putting her hands behind her head.
“Who are you?” one of them asked. “What are you doing here?”
Hayley turned her head, trying to look past them. She could see another short hallway behind him that opened up into rows of desks lined with displays. The Sentries there weren’t armed or armored. They were monitoring the video feeds in the area, watching for signs of trouble. Had they seen what happened at the terminal?
There were doors on either side of the larger room, as well as at the back. She didn’t know which led to the tube, and she didn’t know how many more armed Sentries might be deeper inside.
“Answer me,” the Sentry ordered.
She didn’t respond, shifting her head to make it look like she was staring at him.
“Don’t want to talk? What’s your game?”
He produced a nerve stick from his belt, holding it near her, while the other Sentry snapped a shock bracelet on her wrists. If she separated her hands too far apart, the pain would convince her to put them back together.
“Bring her inside,” the Sentry said. “We’ll scan her and throw her in a cell. Let the Chief handle this.”
“Copy that,” the other Sentry replied. “Move.”
Hayley walked ahead of them, into the station. The desk jockeys lifted their heads as they entered, looking confused by her appearance. They probably never saw much action.
They probably never saw any action. The Worldbrain was the most secure planet in the Republic. It was hard enough to get to the surface in the first place.
The thought careened recklessly across Hayley’s mind. The Sentries were trained soldiers, sure. And there were a lot of them on the planet. But how well did they keep up with their training?
How dangerous were they, really?
“Over here,” the Sentry said. He took off his helmet, putting it down on a table next to a scanner. It matched the one the inspectors had used at the Hauler launch site.
The other Sentry guided her toward the first.
“Hold out your wrists.”
She did as he said, putting her wrists out, keeping them together so the bracelets wouldn’t shock her.
He moved the scanner toward her. She didn’t want him to scan her. He would know she came from the Mary Dawn. The Cargo Movers would be detained. The Hauler would be detained. It would turn into a big mess.
They were expecting the mess, but not until after they had the Oracle.
“Sorry,” she said, her sudden vocalization causing the Sentry to hesitate for only a moment.
A moment was all she needed.
She shifted her weight, throwing a hard punch with her right hand that caught the Sentry completely off-guard, the lightsuit-enhanced blow catching him in his unguarded temple and knocking him flat. She cringed as the bracelets sent out their shock, passing waves of energy through her nerves that might have knocked out most individuals. Overuse of the Meijo was much more painful than the jolt, and she shook it off, spinning and kicking out, hitting the second Sentry square in the chest with her foot.
The rest of the room exploded with activity, the desk jockeys rising in a blend of confusion and anger. One of them already had a weapon in hand, and they started firing, sending incapacitating shock rounds at her.
She was already moving, shifting her body to avoid the shots, following the qi and the lines of kinetic energy as the bullets zipped past. She bounced forward, taking in the qi of the other Sentries as she landed on the man’s workstation, lashing out and grabbing his wrist. He tried to pull her down, but she went with the motion, using it to help flip herself over him, coming down at his back.
She kicked him in the back of the leg at the same time she pushed his head forward, knocking him down and bouncing him off the workstation. She grabbed his gun as he fell to the ground, unconscious.
An alarm started sounding within the station. Hayley swept her head across the room before ducking behind the workstation, avoiding more shock rounds and transmitting the coordinates to the other Riders.
“What happened to getting arrested?” Tibor asked.
“It didn’t go the way I planned,” she replied. “I could use a little help.”
“They battened down the hatches,” Bastion said. “We’re locked out.”
“Shit.”
She looked back to the hatch, her vision shifting as a form moved in front of her.
The armored Sentry put his rifle against her head. “Don’t fragging move!” he shouted.
She looked up at him. Like that was going to happen.
She sent the naniates out, using them to create a blinding flash of light in front of his face. She was already moving to the side when he fired the rifle, more shock rounds pinging off the floor of the station. She got behind him, pulling his helmet up enough to stick the muzzle of her gun under it and firing. The shock bullet hit him at close range, digging into his skin and sending a jolt through his body, leaving him bleeding and unconscious. She broke away from him, bouncing laterally as more Sentries shot back at her.
She dove and rolled, coming up behind another workstation, rising on her knee and pivoting. She fired, two rounds catching two of the desk Sentries and knocking them out. The door controls had to be close. She ducked back behind the station, avoiding return fire. Then she bounced up and off the desk, twisting in the air, landing near another guard. She avoided his weapon, moving aside, grabbing him and using him to catch the rounds headed her way. His body convulsed from the hits, knocking him out.
“We’ll wait out here,” Bastion said in her comm. “Don’t worry about us.”
They could see the targets dropping through their TCU feeds.
She slipped sideways, barely avoiding a nerve stick as it sliced down toward her. She spun, staying ahead of her attacker, getting behind her and hitting her hard in the side. She grabbed the nerve stick, her lightsuit giving her the strength to overpower her opponent and jab the end of the stick in the woman’s neck.
She broke away, freezing as a half dozen Sentries poured out of the doorways on each side of the room, raising her hands and dropping the nerve stick and the gun.
Eight soldiers were down around the room, taken out in a matter of seconds.
It didn’t matter.
She had fragged the whole thing up.
Quark would be so pissed.
24
The Sentries came toward her, slowly and as a group, not taking any more chances.
The supposedly locked-down hatch opened behind them, letting the rest of the Riders in.
It took two heartbeats for them to notice. By then, Tibor was already airborne, rushing toward them with claws out and ready.
The Sentries shouted, two of them knocked down by the Goreshin as he landed, hitting them with the back of his large hands and throwing them to the side. Hayley didn’t miss the beat, spinning to the guards at her back, kicking the rifle away from one and jumping up to get her legs around the other, spinning and pulling them to the ground.
Eleison sprinted through the station like a dart, leaping and flying toward one of the soldiers. She grabbed his arm, spinning and flipping him onto his back, a flash of the Light knocking him out. She somersaulted forward, coming up and hitting the second Sentry in the chest, another flash at the point of contact jolting the guard and knocking them down.
Just like that, the Sentries were all incapacitated. The station fell silent. Bastion turned off the alarm, while Narrl lifted one of the guards and dragged him over to a workstation.
“Tell them you have everything under control,” the Curlatin said.
The Sentry looked at him, shaking his head in refusal.
“Xolo,” Narrl said.
The Goreshin walked toward them, baring his teeth. Hayley was used to him, but to anyone seeing a Nephilim like him for the first time; he was demonically terrifying.
“Control, this is Sergeant Wilkins,” the man said. “The alert is canceled. We have everything under control here.”
“Copy that, Sergeant,” the voice replied. “Do you require any further assistance?”
“Negative. Negative. It was just some nutjob who spent too many hours at a terminal without getting any sleep. Hallucinating or something.”
The man at the other end laughed. “It’s always something like that, isn’t it?”
“Roger, roger,” Wilkins said.
“We’re canceling the alert planetwide. Reference code Foxtrot Alpha Seven.”
“Thank you, Control. Acknowledged. Enjoy the rest of your shift.”
“You, too. Control out.”
Sergeant Wilkins leaned back in his seat, looking at the Riders around him. “Who are you guys?”
“Eleison, put him to sleep,” Hayley said.
The Seraphim held her hand out toward the Sergeant. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped in the chair.
“Thanks for hacking the lock,” Hayley said to her.
“I didn’t hack the lock,” she replied.
“Oh. Who did?” She looked around at the other Riders. “None of you?”
“It just opened,” Tibor said.
“It had to be the Oracle,” Hayley said. “Sorry gang, I fragged up. I thought I could handle them, and I was worried about them scanning me so soon.”
“We all make mistakes,” Bastion said. “Mine got me sent to Hell. No harm done.”
“Action now, regrets later,” Narrl said.
“Good advice,” Hayley replied. “Where’s the tube?”
Bastion pointed, and they hurried to it. It dropped them in a Sentry motor pool, a garage filled with vehicles and equipment.
“Perfect,” Hayley said. “All we need to do is grab a ride, and-”
The outer doors to the garage exploded inward, the metal bending and launching back toward them. They threw themselves out of the way, knocked down as the doors slammed into the wall with a deafening crash.
Hayley looked up, the red-gold of the Venerant obvious at the front of the garage. An army of Children poured in around him, changing form as they entered.
“Hayley!”
The voice split her head, distracting her from the Nephilim. It was frightened and desperate, and powerful enough to keep her on the ground.
“Hayley, they’re taking me!” the Oracle screamed. “Hurry.”
“Taking you where?” she asked, pushing the question out as if she were commanding the naniates.
“I don’t know.”
She heard a snarl, and then Xolo was rushing toward the Children, grabbing one of them and hurling it into a car. He dove onto a second, teeth and claws digging into it and dragging it down.
A wave of red-gold energy hit him, a burst of flame digging into his side and pushing him away. He yelped and rolled on the floor, putting the fire out. His entire side was purple, but it was already starting to heal.
“I hate these fragging guys,” she heard Bastion say.
He was crouched behind one of the cars, and he rose and started firing into the Children. One of them jumped to the hood of the car, standing over him and howling. Eleison flew up toward it in a powerful, naniate-powered bounce, Uin flashing as the weapon sliced through the Goreshin’s neck, decapitating it.
An instant later, Eleison was down, caught by the Venerant and thrown to the floor.
“I’ve got the Venerant,” Hayley said. “Keep the rest of them away from me.”
She pushed herself up, rolling to the side to narrowly avoid a Goreshin’s claws, lashing out with her foot and catching it in the face. It barely flinched as it grabbed her ankle. She flicked open her Uin, using its grip to roll up toward it, slicing deep as it rushed to let go of her. She flipped back on her free hand, coming up straight and turning away from the Child.
Gunfire echoed through the garage at the same time gouts of flame launched from the Venerant, enveloping the Sentry vehicles around them. Hayley bounced ahead, rushing toward the Nephilim.
The Venerant saw her coming. He didn’t even try to use the Gift on her, pulling a gun and opening fire. She dodged the shots, his qi betraying his aim and giving her a chance to avoid the rounds. He switched to a long knife as she reached him, bringing it up just in time to block her Uin.
She pressed the attack hard, Uin skipping and dancing, whispering through the air as she sought to guide it around the blade. He kept up with her attack, red-gold naniates flaring to give him added speed and strength, allowing him to meet her pace.
The Riders fought back behind her. Tibor was back on his feet, and he growled and tackled another Child, digging his claws into its chest and ripping out its heart. He jumped to another one, catching its attack and breaking its arm, sinking his teeth into its neck.
A third went down beside him, a series of rounds digging into its tough hide and momentarily dropping it. Eleison was on it before it could heal, slicing off its head with her Uin.
She continued to struggle against the Venerant. His Gift couldn’t hurt her, but damn he was a good fighter. His blade was always there to block her Uin, his feet always in a position to keep his balance. His qi was red and red-gold and dark in concentration. She couldn’t afford to let up at all, or else he would turn the attack in an instant.
She slashed down, blocked. She flipped the Uin and backhanded. Blocked. She swung low, turning the weapon and slashing again. Blocked. She started getting frustrated, even more so when she heard Eleison cry out in pain.
She bounced back, sepa
rating herself from the Venerant. He smiled, thinking he had the upper hand. He threw his palm out toward Tibor, a fresh blast of energy racing toward her friend.
“No,” she said, reaching out to the Gift.
It redirected toward her, coming to settle on her tattoos. She hated the feel of it. The wanted it gone the moment it touched her. She threw it back at the Venerant, forcing him to meet it and deflect the invisible attack. She trailed behind it, the split in his attention giving her the break she needed. She batted his blade aside, grabbing his other hand when he tried to get it in front of her, twisting it and holding while she cut off his head.
The Venerant collapsed. She did too, falling to her knees, weak and sick. She threw herself aside as a Goreshin slashed down at her, saved when Tibor tackled it and crushed it beneath his powerful hind legs.
“Hayley!” the Oracle cried out in her head.
She looked out into the street. The surface of the Worldbrain was as sterile as the underground. Everything was clean and organized, modern and sleek. She could only see the base of the spires through the qi of the individuals nearby, but the shapes suggested their height.
A rumble at her back caught her attention. A large transport emerged from the smoke, with Bastion behind the controls.
“Need a lift?” he asked.
25
“They’re moving her,” Hayley said, climbing into the vehicle through the open hatch on the side. The other riders were already there, sweaty and disheveled and mostly unharmed.
“It’s a good thing the Sentries didn’t notice that attack,” Bastion said from his position in the cockpit. “Oh wait. Scratch that.”
She hurried to the front of the transport, falling into the seat beside him. Whorls of color raced across her vision, but she could see the heat of the Sentry vehicle’s thrusters coming toward them.
“It’s a good thing you asked me to help out,” Bastion said. “Hang on to your ass.”
The transport shifted and accelerated, pushing her back in the seat. She grabbed the restraints, snapping them into place.
“Get to the spire where they were holding the Oracle,” she said. “They can’t have gotten far.”