No way we’ve got that kind of time. Unless Kyra brings back a few crates of rifles, and we turn this into a coup…
No. That was a terrible idea. Tired, hungry, scared prisoners against the commander’s ‘shock troops?’ Tris didn’t need to see those guys to know they were bad news. You don’t go adding ‘shock’ to the name of something without a damn good reason.
When they reached an automatic security door, Tris tightened his psychic focus for a few moments and held up two fingers.
Aldur used his tablet to open the door, then hung back while his men surged through it. A brief crackle of energy came from the far side, followed by the thump of collapsing bodies.
“Got ‘em!”
Tris followed them through into a cell block identical to his own. Lukas came in after him, and Aldur sealed the door. His men were already scanning the prisoners — six of them, all in individual cells. Aldur handed flexi-cuffs to Tris, and he and Lukas bound the unconscious guards.
Only four cell doors opened, their occupants stepping out nervously. As Tris was dragging a guard into one, he realised that Lukas was right; the other two prisoners had refused to be rescued.
Damn. I hope they don’t get punished for this! Then again, maybe they’re just in here for stealing underwear, and don’t want to risk upping the stakes.
They finished up quickly, moving out through the big door. The newly-freed civilians clustered together in the middle of the group, though of course they still wore the same grey uniforms as their rescuers. That’s going to get really confusing once the shooting starts…
They managed to empty another two cell blocks in this fashion. There was a brief exchange of gunfire, but it only resulted in minor burns to one Resistance fighter’s leg. Lukas supported the man as he limped back into the lobby — to find Kyra waiting for them.
“I broke a frikkin’ nail,” she complained, dropping a bulging black holdall off her shoulder and holding her hand up as proof. “But they had everything in that armoury. I’m not kidding — it was shop-till-you-drop.”
“I think you’re confusing shopping with stealing,” Tris pointed out. “As usual.”
“Meh. Maybe,” she admitted. “But no-one died, so I call it a successful trip.”
The Arranozapar were already coiled around her waist. She crouched down to open the bag, moving a little more gingerly than usual, and fished out the knife and staff-handle that Tris had inherited from his father.
“Sorry Lukas,” she said, straightening up. “Your shit weighs a ton, so I’m afraid it’s still back there.”
He gave a philosophical shrug. “Probably wouldn’t have time to get into it, anyway.”
As if on cue, the overhead lights died. Red emergency lights flicked on in their place, and a siren began to wail from hidden speakers.
Kyra put one hand on her hip and pulled a face at him. “Lukas! You had to say that?”
“Hey!” he protested. “You’re the one busting open armouries.”
“I covered my tracks.”
Tris finished fitting his knife-stick together and extended it with a squeeze. “Please tell me you didn’t set fire to anything,” he said.
She pouted. “Not yet.”
Meanwhile, Aldur had gathered all nine escapees around him and was busy working his tablet. “That’s everyone’s ID chips disabled,” he announced. “No more life of luxury, I’m afraid.”
The joke fell flat — these people had been scared to start with, and the warbling alarm wasn’t improving their mood. Some were wavering, Tris could tell, starting to wish they’d stayed in their cells. They had to get moving, before panic set in.
Aldur had the same thought. “On me,” he called to his men, and they reformed with the same efficiency Tris had seen in the other troops he’d encountered here. There were some benefits to a lifetime of military service, he reflected, as they moved out at a trot. But I don’t think they get many holidays.
A long, relatively featureless corridor led to another round lobby. The Gift meant they didn’t have to be nearly as cautious as they would have been; Tris could already tell there were several people up in there, but all were unconscious. Four had been cuffed hand and foot, and laid out neatly either side of the entrance. That looked like the work of Aldur and his men on the way in. Kyra’s contribution was a bit more haphazard; her victims were draped all over the place, some still squirming and moaning.
“Lukas, your armour’s in there.” She pointed to a heavy door, which showed no sign of having been forced. Tris decided not to ask what she’d had to do to get in there — he had a feeling it was related to the amount of blood on the floor.
Lukas looked torn for a moment, but quickly made his choice when a volley of laser fire sizzled through the entrance opposite.
The prisoners dived for cover, though some were smart enough to grab rifles from the collection strewn around the floor. Most ended up behind a long counter that bisected the room; Tris and Kyra flattened themselves beside the doorway, with Lukas and Aldur on the other.
“Damn it,” the Resistance leader said, through gritted teeth. “That’s our way out!”
“There’s only four of them up there,” Tris said. “We could storm them?”
“Too far. We’d never make it.”
“Long corridors with no cover or exits.” Kyra shook her head. “It’s almost like they don’t want people to break out of here.” She looked around for Aldur’s men and summoned them with a jerk of her head. “I’ll make a distraction,” she told them. “Get ready — on three.”
All four men murmured their agreement.
“Okay, here we go. One, two… Go, Tris!” And she gave him a such a violent shove that he staggered out into the corridor.
“Wha—?” He glanced around him in surprise. Twenty metres away, the prison guards had already reacted. A storm of blaster fire blazed towards him — then hit the invisible energy shield around his body, splashing off in different directions. He barely had time to register what was happening when Aldur’s men leapt out behind him, their own weapons spitting. All four guards went down, struck multiple times, and the dull thud of them hitting the floor echoed back down the corridor.
A few seconds later, Kyra jogged out of the lobby with the prisoners in tow. The Resistance fighters formed up on either side; every one of them gave Tris a grateful pat on the arm or back as they passed.
Lukas, bringing up the rear, delivered a powerful slap that rocked him onto his toes. “Good job, mate,” he said, then winked. “Women, eh?”
“Yeah…”
Resisting the urge to ask Lukas what the hell kind of women he knew, Tris took a deep breath, and quietly congratulated himself for not shitting his pants. It was great that Kyra was feeling more like herself again, but he’d quite liked the more honest, vulnerable version of her. ’Normal’ Kyra was a lot to take.
You enjoyed that, he accused her.
You make such great facial expressions, she pointed out.
He snorted out loud, and turned it into a cough. You knew I was wearing the Aegis, then.
After Edur? I figured you aren’t dumb enough to make the same mistake twice.
By Kyra’s standards, that counted as a compliment. He decided he’d take it. Still, you could have asked. Just in case.
He caught a flash of mischief. Where’s the fun in that?
The room at the far end of the corridor was rectangular, with wide steps rising to the level above. They were close enough to the street now that they could probably make it out — if it weren’t for the army that had just arrived outside.
“Looks like we’ve got shock troops,” Tris said, “they’re entering the building now.”
A series of muffled bangs filtered down, adding colour to his story. A sudden drumming on the ceiling told of heavy footfalls, moving quickly.
“That way,” Aldur pointed to a small door off to one side. His men were already racing towards it, and the former prisoners didn’t need any more enc
ouragement. They raced through, as Tris and Lukas took up cover positions to defend them if necessary. At the first sign of helmets cresting the next landing, they opened up with everything they had.
Lukas emptied his first rifle on full-auto, then tossed it aside and grabbed his second one.
“Go!” Kyra yelled to him, making shooing motions. “We got this.”
A torrent of laser fire erupted from above, drowning out his response, but Kyra gestured more emphatically and he took the hint.
Tris was firing in bursts to keep his weapon from overheating, cycling powerpacks smoothly as he diminished them one after another. Only the tip of his rifle was exposed; using the Gift, he could get enough of a bead on the enemy to hit them without looking.
“Your turn!” Kyra yelled at him, and he glanced over to see the doorway empty. He was sheltering on the far side of the room; his position allowed him to keep up a steady cross-fire with Kyra, but it left the wide staircase between himself and their escape route.
Being invulnerable makes it altogether too easy to be heroic, he mused.
Firing off one last volley, he dashed across the opening. Kyra covered him, keeping their attackers’ heads down — but then a small steel ball came bouncing down the stairs in front of him.
GRENADE! It probably wouldn’t harm him, unless it went off right underneath him, but Kyra was smack bang in the blast zone.
There wasn’t time to yell a warning. Channelling his frustrated inner footballer, he measured the distance and placed his feet accordingly. He caught the sphere mid-bounce, connecting perfectly with the toes of his combat boot. With a satisfying ‘tink’, the bomb sailed back up the stairs, disappearing from view. He landed awkwardly though, and staggered a few steps closer to safety — when the force of the explosion smashed into him from behind.
Fire blazed all around him, bright enough to blind; the sound was like a jet engine on take-off. The Aegis protected him, funnelling the energy around him like an invisible cocoon — but the shockwave picked him off his feet and threw him the rest of the way through the open door.
He landed on his face, as Kyra slammed the door shut behind him.
“Nice shot. Your dad teach you that?”
“No,” Tris groaned, as he pushed himself up. “That was all me.” He looked around, surprised to find they were in a commercial-sized bathroom. One of the metal floor panels had been removed, revealing a hole in the concrete below; Lukas was currently squeezing his way through it. Of the rest, only Aldur remained. He beckoned to Kyra.
“No way, kid. You get your ass out of here. Don’t worry — I don’t plan on dying in a toilet.” She dropped her backpack with a clunk, and pulled a chunky black weapon out of it. She hit a switch, and the weapon began to hum. “Plasma,” she said, holding it out to Tris. “Very. Dangerous.”
Aldur scrambled down through the hole as Tris studied the cannon.
“One second burst,” Kyra cautioned, “at the first asshole who sets foot down those stairs.” She tested the handle of the door they’d come in through, cursing as she burned her fingers. “Looks like there’s a decent fire out there. That’ll slow them down.” She worked the handle with her elbow. “Get one good blast in, then kick this door closed and hit it with the smallest shot you can manage.” She clapped him on the shoulder as she passed, and was already lowering herself through the hole as the door swung inwards.
A wave of heat slapped Tris in the face, though the accompanying tongues of flame licked harmlessly around his forcefield. The lobby was still burning, but without much fuel the fire was dying down. Crouched in the bathroom, Tris waited, sweat forming on his brow and streaming down his face.
One elephant, two elephant, three…
He sensed the first minds working their way down the stairs. They came more cautiously this time, giving him plenty of warning. He watched as a pair of gun barrels jutted into the lobby, followed a second later by their owners’ forearms…
As soon as he saw their mirrored visors, he squeezed the trigger. A colossal burst of energy tore from the weapon, rocking him backwards. He didn’t wait to see what effect it had — an answering shot pinged off the Aegis bubble as he hooked the bathroom door with his foot and booted it closed. He backed up a few steps before giving the trigger the minutest of squeezes — even this unleashed a deluge of plasma, enough to make the door glow luminous orange and start to droop.
Holy shit! It was a pity to abandon such a deadly weapon, but there was no way he could climb with it. He dropped it at his feet and ran for the hole. Kyra was long gone by now, and he found a portable ladder propped inside the opening. He just about had the presence of mind to grab the loose floor panel, sliding it back into place above him as he climbed down.
That won’t confuse them for long. And the door was pretty much slagged.
Finding himself in some kind of narrow mechanical space, he ducked under pipes and conduits and raced after Kyra’s departing back.
She slowed, allowing him to catch up. “You ditch the plasma?” she called back.
“Had to,” he panted, wiping sweat off his face. He felt like he was melting too, but he forced himself to keep pace with her.
“All good.” She dodged to the left, skirting a thick steel girder.
Jogging along, staring at her back, Tris suddenly realised that she wasn’t carrying the bag. “Oh shit! We left all that gear!”
“Ah, don’t worry about it,” she said, slowing to a halt and turning to face him. She had a sly look on her face, and wasn’t even out of breath. “There wasn’t much worth taking from that armoury. It was all weird stuff. I mean, what use have prison guards got for explosives and remote detonators?”
She held up a silver cylinder the size of a lipstick.
The nature of the device only dawned on him when she clicked the button on top of it.
SEVENTEEN
The sound was immense.
A titanic rumble seemed to shake the entire world, sending plumes of dust billowing along the passage. Tris squeezed his eyes shut and kept his arms up, ready to protect his head — not that they’d do much good if the roof collapsed.
Luckily, that didn’t happen. The strange afterthought of a passageway they were in ran directly away from the prison, and they’d managed to get a reasonable distance down it before Kyra triggered the bomb. A few seconds later, Tris realised they were in the clear. No wall of flame had come racing towards them, as he’d been expecting.
Even Kyra looked impressed, squinting up at the ceiling. “Not a crack,” she said. “They sure know how to build ‘em.”
Aldur retraced his steps to reach them, ducking under a low beam. “What happened?”
She held the detonator up, twirling it in her fingers, then threw it away. “Told you. I cover my tracks.”
Aldur rubbed his forehead. “I did have a plan, you know! One that didn’t involve bringing half the city down on our heads.”
Kyra patted his cheek. “That’s okay, hon. Everyone’s got to start somewhere.”
Moving off with Aldur in the lead, they caught up to the prisoners as they squeezed through a hatch into a ventilation duct. This was the first of many tight spaces they had to navigate, every one of which elicited a groan of dismay from Lukas. Nevertheless, he squeezed his massive frame through all manner of tubes and crawl-spaces, on a complex journey through the bowels of the under-city. Much of it was unlit, and the Resistance fighters used the torches on their rifles to show the way. Eventually they climbed out through another hatch and found themselves in a bare concrete stairwell. Low level lighting was still functional here, and they made faster progress down the stairs, and through a maze of corridors and chambers that seemed like separate structures all fastened together.
At one point they crossed a cavernous hanger bay, their boots crunching through debris. Shadows lay thick in here, with the only light coming from emergency strips set into the walls. In one corner sat the rusting hulk of an ancient shuttle, long since pillaged for
parts and slowly disintegrating.
“No way,” Kyra said, a strange, almost dreamy quality to her voice. “I know that shuttle!”
“You’ve flown that type before?” Tris asked her.
“I’ve flown in that exact one. It was all they had, back then.”
Aldur grinned at her. “I thought I’d bring you this way, for nostalgia’s sake. My mother has always been partial to this pile of wreckage.”
A light came into Kyra’s eyes. “Is she down here? Are we going to see her?”
“You’ll see her.” Aldur’s brow creased, and pain flitted across his face. “She’s in charge down here, as much as anyone is.”
They left the hanger by a door on the opposite side, turning into a different section of the old base. Two of the Resistance fighters were holding up another floor panel — and this one led into darkness.
“Down?” It was Kyra’s turn to be confused. “How much more down is there?”
Aldur squatted by the hole, watching the last of the prisoners clear the ladder inside it. “Quite a bit more,” he said, lowering his feet onto the rungs.
* * *
‘Quite a bit’ was an understatement, it turned out. They passed through levels filled with pipework and defunct machinery, and some that might once have been habitable. Finally, they found a shaft lined with steel framework like heavy-duty scaffolding, and used built-in ladders to descend so deep that Tris’ thighs began to burn.
“Hell of a commute you guys have,” he said, before realising he had a better use for that breath.
When they reached the bottom of the scaffolding, Aldur worked a keypad next to an immense pressure door. The slab of steel cranked open slowly, and Tris knew a moment of panic. Getting buried alive wasn’t something he though about often, but getting trapped behind that thing would have the same effect.
Embers of Esper: A Sci Fi Adventure (Warden's Legacy Book 1) Page 13