Gamma Nine (Book One)

by Christi Smit

Step after step he took, his mind wandering as he headed for the door. The final trail to come was to be his ultimate test. He had come too far to fail on this final step. He could not afford to stumble now. Everything he had suffered through and everything he had done to get here, he was determined to succeed. He silently hoped he was watching.

  Christian finally reached the door, taking a deep breath as he turned the handle to open it.

  Now or never, he thought, stepping into a new room.

  Chapter One.Two

  Labyrinth

  “The Titans called it the Labyrinth. Only they could enter, and only they could come out alive on the other side. Rumours about the creator being a madman was common in the halls and corridors of Beta Facility. His creation was a merciless gauntlet of ever-shifting walls and traps with the sole purpose of pushing every Titan to its very limit. It succeeded in every possible way.”

  -Anonymous, Beta Facility, New Horizon

  The room was shrouded in darkness, a darkness the tactical vision could not penetrate. As soon as he had entered the room he heard the door lock behind him, there was definitely no going back now. He still had to get accustomed to the ease of movement he felt inside his new suit. Some steps were unreal at first, the feeling of detachment ever present, as if he was controlling a robotic version of himself.

  He spoke the words to activate his dark sight, bathing the entire room in a blue-green hue. Shadows retreated back from him, leaving no hiding spots behind. His new mode revealed a flat slab of concrete in the middle of the room and another door across from him. On top of the slab were three items, items he recognized from training manuals and stories told by veteran soldiers during his basic training. Items specifically designed for the Titan Project.

  The first item was an automatic rifle, a short stock and short barrel variant based on old Earth’s Bullpup design. It was only a little longer than his lower arm. Its official designation was the BM-40 but Operators referred to it as the Kicker, possibly due to the fact that its recoil on full auto kicked like a Morkhal - New Horizon’s equivalent to Earth’s horse. There were no attachments on this one, no Nova grenade cannon, not even an aiming modification of any kind. Christian lifted the rifle, checked its magazine and shouldered it to look through the stock iron sights. He was surprised to find it easy to aim down the sights. He had thought the bulky helmet would require an Operator to compensate for the offset, but instead the helmet, shoulder, chest and arm plating made the rifle fit perfectly for maximum accuracy. He moved the rifle over his left shoulder and it automatically clipped itself via magnetic clamps to the left side of his back plate. His hand on the grip would automatically release the rifle should it be needed. Four extra magazines were supplied, clipping them to his magnetized belt plating as he picked up the next item.

  Next to the rifle was his combat blade, a basic weapon only used when there were no more bullets or the Beast wanted to get up close and personal. Melee specialized Titans carried better versions with broader and longer blades. The basic version was as long as his thigh, and made from an amalgamation of metals to increase durability and maintain its razor-sharp edge. Two horizontal clamps in the small of his back accepted the weapon with another click, its mechanism the same as the one housing the rifle.

  The final item’s outer layer was made from Anctinium, its inner layer from a glassy crystal substance, in the middle a rotating mechanism with a hand grip at the end moved as he tilted it. The small clips on the outside plating of his forearms matched the accepting clips inside the mechanism. It was oval-shaped like an ancient shield with the longer sides edged flat. Nearly the size of his torso, this was the only thing between him and certain death should he ever be put on the back foot. It also added extra protection to his precious back plate and all of its attachments. He tested it by clipping it to his arm and holding it as it should be used in combat. The Anvil shield made him feel safe, able to stop a rushing horde of enemies in its tracks. He nodded to himself; it was his favourite out of the three items. It played more to his defensive nature, rather than wading in balls first like a fool. He unclipped it from his arm and held it over his right shoulder. A small magnetic arm detached itself from the middle of the back plate to secure it. It fit over his weapons without a problem.

  Just as he felt the shield lock into place a voice spoke to him over the radio in his ear pieces.

  “The shield is my favourite as well, that one is special, one of a kind,” Sam said, it sounded like he was eating something.

  Another crunching sound filled Christian’s ears. The sound of Sam’s devouring started to grate on his nerves.

  “A few things to know about what’s through the last door Corporal Quinn. First, be on your guard at all times,” Sam said through a mouthful of what sounded like gravel being crushed underfoot. “Second, there are live enemies on the other side, from here on out you are weapons free, shoot to kill or be killed.”

  Christian knew the weapons were for something, but he had no idea there were live targets inside. “What is the classification of the enemies in there?”

  “Beast, Mutated human variants of different shapes and sizes. Nothing you can’t handle.” Sam went silent. “Hopefully,” he added after a few moments.

  “Your faith fills me with rainbows and moonbeams, Sam.”

  “Of course it does. What else would it fill you with?”

  Christian decided to recheck his weapons just in case. He unsheathed his blade, checking its edge before sliding it back into waiting clamps. He unclipped his Kicker and checked the sight again, checking if each extra clip was magnetically locked to his belt as he replaced the rifle over his shoulder. He didn’t need to check his shield, Sam’s comment made him confident that it would work as intended, perhaps better than intended.

  Christian flexed his hands and balled them into fist. “Ready. Open it,” he said to Sam over the radio.

  A different voice answered him. “Corporal Quinn. Your task is simple, find the exit and don’t die while doing it.”

  “Who is this?” Christian enquired.

  “Captain Locke, Operator.”

  “Sir, I...It’s an honour.” Christian was shocked. The leader of the Wolves was here watching his trials.

  “Brown nosing will only work if you survive this day. You have twenty-four hours to complete your final trial. If you take longer, we will presume you are dead and send in the cleaners.”

  “Yes sir! No dying. Roger that.”

  “Good luck. Your twenty-four hours,” Captain Locke paused and Christian could hear the distinctive beeps of a clock being set and started, “starts now.”

  A red timer appeared in the top left of his visor display. It started counting down the moment the door on the other side of the concrete slab unlocked and opened. On the other side a dimly lit corridor waited.

  Christian vaulted over the slab that had held his weapons, landing and sprinting for the open portal to his final trial in one fluid motion. He needed to be fast. He had something to prove to someone.

  “Tactical mode,” Christian said, the door closing behind him as he slid to a halt, scanning his surroundings as he went down on one knee. “Intel,” he waited before continuing, “Labyrinth.” Detailed information on the gauntlet he was about to face scrolled down his visor. His internal suit system responding to his voice commands as he searched for a specific entry. Ammo cache locations were immediately highlighted on his map. There was a footnote regarding the caches hidden throughout the death-trap.

  There is a fifty-fifty chance that marked ammo caches have moved or have been destroyed. Resupply not guaranteed, it read.

  He tried not to think on it as the entry he was waiting for scrolled past his vision. He didn’t drop his guard for a second, still scanning the low-light corridor that stretched out in front of him.

  “Activate suit OS vocals. Load entry, Labyrinth-Beast.”

  His suit spoke with a robotic voice, playing the entry he had chosen. “Labyrinth, Beast, clas
sified as hostile and dangerous. Captured enemy combatants are low to medium threat level. Suit systems will protect against ninety percent of damage from enemy combatants. Hostiles classified as human or similar size before infection, and are able to pierce inner layer of the Titan suit with enough force.”

  This made Christian reach for his rifle. He wrenched on the slide and shouldered the weapon, it was better to be prepared rather than be surprised.

  The suit OS continued. “There are a minimum of ten enemies located in the Labyrinth, starving and aggressive, approach with caution. The best course of action is to put them down before they come within melee range. Hostiles are agile and rely on stealth to ambush targets. All enemy classifications track their prey with heightened senses of smell and hearing.

  Be fast, but be quiet, he thought.

  “Deactivate vocals. Close entry,” he said, there was no point in listening to more. It was dangerous enough already, he did not need to make things psychologically worse for himself.

  He moved forward at a slow pace, checking the shadowed ceiling with every step. The corridor started to open up, becoming wider as he progressed down it. The floor was covered in a fine, grey powder. He crouched down and picked up a handful of it, its texture would ensure quiet movement, at least for now.

  “Dark sight,” he said. His vision changed instantly to blue-green. Shadows disappeared and revealed door-less rooms on either side of the ever widening corridor. He immediately dropped the handful of grey powder and levelled his rifle in the direction of the first one. “Remember to check your corners,” he mumbled to himself.

  Christian felt a strange wave of cold wash over his entire body, he almost panicked thinking it was fear or something even worse. A few moments later he realized it was his suit’s cooling system compensating for his sudden rise of adrenalin. The cooling systems were actively trying to stop him from sweating. It felt especially strange in his groin, breezy yet pressurized. He felt slightly ashamed of liking it even a little - this was not the place for such things.

  He shook his head to clear his mind just as he reached the first darkened room to his right. Christian put his back to the wall on the opposite side of the door frame. It was empty from what he could see of the room, with no sound emanating from within.

  “Reap sight,” he said as he moved to enter the room, he needed to be sure that there was nothing there.

  In the void above New Horizon hung a colossal capital ship, its black armoured hull reflecting the stars to whoever set their eyes upon it. It was the size of a small city, with thousands of weapon batteries pockmarking the giant vessel. One of only three such ships still in active duty, its starboard side was decorated with gold lettering, naming the vessel that brought more than just fear with it. Wherever it went, death followed. The Stygian Council was more than just a killer; it was capable of destroying anything it encountered, a murderer of ships, and a reaper of planets. It had enough firepower to pound cities to dust from orbit, in the age before the war its fusion cannons could decimate planets, but luckily the weapon was empty, the ammunition for such a terrible weapon was lost forever behind enemy lines or liberated by rogue parties and secreted away from the rest of the star kingdom.

  It was out of place above New Horizon, the ship’s orders were to protect Earth’s solar system, and there was no reason for it to be in the planet’s orbit. The Stygian Council had arrived without notice, drifting into place next to the Hyperion. The only transmission it had sent was an acknowledgement to the captain aboard the Hyperion, and had remained silent ever since.

  The myths and rumours connected to the vessel had the sector’s defence forces on edge. It was not only the unexpected and silent arrival that was unsettling, but the man that commanded the vessel was the main cause of everyone’s concern. No-one dared hailing the vessel after its arrival, its commander was known for a short temper and a sadistic tactical mind. The man that commanded the Stygian Council had no interest in risking vital equipment in the dead zones, and he had even less interest in saving humans trapped by the enemy. All of them were potential hostiles, and he would rather kill everything in his path to keep Earth safe from the Beast than waste time on a hopeless cause. Kill a planet and leave nothing alive to fight back later.

  Born on Earth and raised as a nobleman from an ancient royal family. His lineage gave him free reign to do has he saw fit, he was a man without a superior or equal, and he knew it. He commanded more than just his prized vessel. Thousands of elite soldiers lived in the belly of his capital ship, soldiers that were ready to act on his every command, soldiers that never asked questions, the only kind of good soldier - those that just followed orders.

  This very man sat on a throne of gold and velvet on the bridge of his giant vessel, watching a screen in front of him with increased interest. He sat with his sharp chin resting on his interlocked hands, dark eyes darting left and right as he listened intently to the figure moving and talking to itself on the screen. His jet-black hair slicked back by what looked like engine oil or saliva. He was not an attractive man, his face spoke of arrogance and intelligence.

  On the screen the figure braced its back against a wall, rifle in hand while scanning a dark room with practiced precision. The man was never a supporter of the Titan Project. It was a waste of resources and man power. Things that were in short supply in the galaxy were used to make these avatars of hope. Pointless wasting of precious commodities he could put to better use. His lips curled into a smile as he thought about the report he had read earlier. It filled him with silent glee that this could be last of these expensive armoured experiments. They would not squander any more of his wealth in pursuit of a futile goal.

  He pressed a gold-ringed finger to a button in his throne’s armrest. “Find Gabrielle Locke,” he never took his eyes off the screen as he spoke, “I wish to speak with him.”

  The person on the other receiving end of the message had only a second or two to respond. “It will be done, my Lord Vincent.”

  The first few rooms were empty, nothing but a few loose ceiling boards and damp spots spreading on the floors. All of them made Christian think of abandoned habitation blocks he saw as a child on his home planet. Here and there he could hear the drip-drip of a burst pipe leaking fluid inside the walls. By the fifth room his guard started easing up slightly, there was nothing here, just empty rooms and no threats.

  A sudden sound made Christian jerk his rifle to the door he had just entered from, it was close, almost outside of the room to the right. It had sounded like metal scraping against organic material, as if a knife was being dragged out of a human corpse. His suit systems boosted his hearing beyond normal human levels. Prey sight also highlighted the sound with a sonic pulse across his vision, determining the source of the sound with high accuracy.

  He froze as the sound repeated, closer this time. It was moving towards him, the third repeat of the sound confirmed that it was just outside of the room. Christian was aware that he was trapped inside the room, he remained absolutely still as the sound repeated again, this time almost above him.

  There, he had heard breathing, the distinct sound of lungs drawing breath. He knew what was coming before it happened.

  Christian acted without thinking, his muscles tensing and releasing as he started to move. He had guessed that the walls were not too thick, he was correct. He lowered his right shoulder and broke through the wall in front of him with ease, like a thrown rock parting tissue paper. The moment he broke through his stealthy enemy burst from the ceiling, splintering boards and pipes on its way out. Christian lowered his shoulder further into a dive, rolling forward over his shoulders. The force of the roll helped him to avoid the worst of the ceiling collapse. He had rolled back onto his feet by the time his foe landed, bringing his rifle up to face the hole in the wall.

  The mutated ex-human looked at him from the hole in the wall, growling at him like a hungry predator, its skin was almost completely gone or torn where mutated muscles had bu
rst through. Its eyes had shifted to the sides of its face, its nose now a blood covered snout. It limbs were elongated, each one ending in claws that were once hands and feet. The creature should not have existed in reality, but it was real, and it was watching its new prey.

  Whatever human it had been before infection was all but gone now, all that was left was a feral nightmare, aching to feed on Christian’s flesh.

  Christian pulled the trigger of his rifle, controlling the recoil as the Kicker’s full automatic mode spat bullets in the direction of the monster. To a normal human the sound emitted by the Kicker would have been deafening in such small room, but Christian didn’t notice it at all, his focus remained on the target.

  The Beast acted faster than he had expected, stepping out of view with blinding speed, only a few rounds had hit home, not enough to kill or incapacitate it. It moved out of the room it had fallen into and came at Christian from a new angle, rushing through the door of the room he was firing from. Its steps were lightning fast, soaking up the hail of bullets in its oversized muscles. Christian kept firing, the monster finally staggered back as his clip ran dry. He had only a few moments to reload his rifle before his foe would renew its attack.

  Before he could reach for the new clip, a second foe pounced on him from the hole in the wall. The first monster’s assault was a decoy, masking the presence of the second and probably more deadly foe. It was smaller in size and stocky with more teeth than a chainsaw. The new threat had no sharpened claws at the end of its limbs. Instead, it had club-like mutated growths that could bash him to a bloody pulp. It moved just as fast as the first monster; Christian had just enough time to draw his blade before the second monster steam-rolled into him. He was hit by a force that would cripple any normal human, swinging the blade with his left hand while being lifted from his feet, his rifle gripped tightly in his right hand. He could not afford to lose his weapon now. The blade bit into the shoulder of the monster as both of them broke through the wall behind Christian with a titanic crack. The nightmare duo’s plan was clear - the fat one would render Christian immobile, giving the gangly one time to finish him off.