Jet made her leaps a little longer, hurrying now.
She caught traction easily on the rough cement pipe walls at each step, unlike in the real world, where she probably would have hit a slimey spot, or a slippery-smooth segment by now. The consistency both unnerved her and gave her a small thrill of confidence.
Within a handful of seconds, she found herself less than a body-length behind him.
Then half of one.
Moving as silently as she could, Jet swung the sword right as he reached the edge of that sharper turn in the pipe. He moved his head right as she did, but she managed to compensate well enough to get him in the throat before he could let out a cry.
Even so, when he fell into the water, the sound was loud.
Louder than Jet accounted for with her half-assed plan. He fell loudly and heavily to his knees, making gasping, choking sounds as he clawed frantically at his throat. Luckily, Nirreth had the equivalent of a carotid artery in the front part of their necks.
It didn’t occur to Jet until she’d already dealt the blow that it easily might not have worked. Rather than dropping him on the first cut, she could have missed the artery altogether, forcing them into a loud, hand-to-hand battle that would have called the others back.
She tried to catch ahold of the creature’s upper body before he could collapse forward, and it grasped at her with one clawed hand, its dark eyes pleading.
Fighting a sudden, sharp, sinking feeling as she looked at a seemingly living being that didn’t want to die… Jet found herself hoping desperately it was just a VR projection. The idea that she might have just killed something or someone merely for sport on Nirreth national television was more than her mind could really think about, at least right then.
Shoving aside her reaction, Jet felt over the front of his person as the Nirreth’s strangled breaths began to slow, as his clawed hands loosened their grip on her arms, as the gill slits on his neck stopped moving altogether.
She managed to wrestle both a pulre and a sandblaster from the Nirreth’s shoulder strap and front holster, the sandblaster being a lot more difficult since it was bulkier and wrapped around him as he slumped over.
She got the sandblaster off him eventually though, and managed to sling it over her back, well enough, she should be able to use it, even if the kickback threw her into a wall.
She patted the Nirreth over to see if he carried anything else useful, even as she fought to control her own panting breaths.
She found a communicator, which was close to worthless for her, given that her facility with Nargili was still pretty nonexistent.
She almost left the communicator behind, then grabbed it anyway at the last minute, as it occurred to her she might still be able to pick up a few things, if she listened without trying to speak. She found a few of those quarter-sized explosive discs they spun sideways with deadly accuracy, and pocketed those as well.
She also found a map, and it was different from hers.
On it, the Nirreth command ship was clearly in the harbor, and maybe a dozen blocks from where she stood, if she’d estimated distances correctly. She’d either have to find a way out through the sewers, or get back to the surface and swim for it.
Without really admitting it to herself, she’d already decided to go for the ship.
She stuffed the map into one of the zip-pockets of her vest.
It hit her that the sound of splashing ahead had stopped, and she didn’t know for how long.
Just then, the radio she’d snatched from around the Nirreth’s neck sparked into life.
“Ratente?” it said. “Yilili doon ullilli di?”
Ratente must be its name.
The one she’d killed.
The only other word she got out of that next bit was doon, which Jet was pretty sure meant “where.” They must be past the curve in the pipe.
They couldn’t see her, or the dead Nirreth, but they were looking for him.
Even as she thought it, Jet heard the stomping splash of booted feet as at least two of them began jog-walking back towards the segment of pipe where Jet crouched over the now-dead Ratente.
Feeling her heart stop somewhere in the vicinity of her throat, Jet resheathed Black, adjusted the sandblaster’s strap around her head and shoulder, and pocketed the pulre.
Then she immediately jumped back up on the cement sides of the pipes, balancing briefly with one foot planted on either side before she began leaping and running––all out this time––down the pipe in the direction from which she’d come.
She’d made it most of the way back to the alcove with the stagnant pool, when she heard an exclamation from one of the Nirreth, then a furious hiss and series of growls.
They’d found the dead soldier.
Before she could think about diving for cover, a shockingly bright light flashed down the tunnel, so quickly, Jet barely had time to rip the pulre out of the holster on her thigh and aim it in that general direction. Thanking her lucky stars that her uncle had once shown her how to operate the stone-shaped weapon, Jet fired directly into the light, even as she leapt towards the opposite side of the cement pipe.
The pulre’s kickback threw her backwards as she leapt.
She slammed heavily into the cement, right where the pipe curved sharply to the left, and well past the alcove. Picking herself up as fast as she could with a banged skull, her back, arms, and shoulders feeling wrenched, she half-crawled, half-walked through the foul-smelling water to get around the corner and out of range of their guns.
She heard a cry and more shouts from the other end of the tunnel.
The light went out, extinguished somewhere in that chaos.
Panting against the wall, Jet strained her ears to listen.
She’d hit someone, if not several someones with the blast.
It occurred to her she couldn’t use the pulre again until the weapon recharged, and that the sandblaster, which still hung around her back and shoulder at an awkward angle, was only good at close range.
All the rifle had done in this fight so far was create a gun-shaped bruise on her back when she slammed into the cement wall.
Jet had the quarter-sized grenades.
That was it, for the next minute, if not longer.
Not trusting her accuracy with the grenades, or really knowing for sure how to trigger one, she decided to run. She’d try to make it to one of the ladders.
She needed to make it before the rest of the Nirreth regrouped––or worse, sent for reinforcements to pin her down.
Even as she thought it, a hard whine filled the narrow tunnel, echoing down the cement right before a shocking blue and white flash blinded her.
Wading and splashing as fast as she could down the corridor through the deeper water, Jet gasped involuntarily when the pulre blast hit. It impacted on the curve in the cement wall behind her, sending chunks of rock, cement and debris in both directions down the long pipe.
Jet got hit in the head, back and arms with sharp pieces of shrapnel from the pipe wall, then doused in another wave of sewer water.
The latter made her lose her balance and fall, face-first, into the water.
The same rancid-smelling water filled her mouth, nose, and lungs, making her choke, retch, and cough for air.
Fighting her way back up to the cement walls of the pipe, she wobbled a bit for balance with the gun on her back, then got it arranged right and began to use to the walls to make her way faster down the pipe, heading for the ladder.
She hoped like hell it was one of the real ones.
One more turn, and she could see it.
Right as she grabbed hold of the metal bars and swung herself up on the first few rungs, she heard the echo of booted Nirreth feet through the water behind her.
Dang, they were fast.
The pulre had to be recharged by then, but she decided to wait until she really needed it.
Dragging herself up the ladder hand-over-hand before she could get her feet situated on the low
er rungs, she shoved up the manhole cover at the top without even checking to see what lay beyond it. She was jerking her legs up through the opening and into the bright, overcast light of day when a second hard whine of a charging pulre echoed up from below.
Jet jumped to her feet, then leapt across the sidewalk and out of full cover without thought, right as the blue-white flame exploded against the rim of the tunnel below the street.
The blast threw her forward, stumbling and sprawling into the middle of the road.
It also sent something heavy, probably the manhole cover, skimming not far above her head. She felt it fly past, even as smoke and debris filled the hole, then the air around her.
Jet heard the crash as whatever-it-had-been smashed through a plate-glass window on the first floor of an office building.
She watched the glass fall, dazed, as she coughed out smoke.
Then she was dragging herself to her feet, looking around for cover before the Nirreth underground radioed in her location to the nearest culler.
Again, she almost forgot she was in a simulation as she scanned the skies.
But she remembered well enough to remind herself why she was here.
She hit the talk-button on the human-made radio as she ran.
“I’ve found it,” she said, as soon as the human voice surfaced, panting as she ran down the street towards Vancouver harbor. “It’s in the harbor,” she added between breaths. She tried to remember her call sign and couldn’t. “This is Digger-something,” she said after another pause. “Do you read me, Base 2?”
“Base 2 here,” an impatient-sounding voice surfaced. “Do you have the exact coordinates of the ship’s command deck?”
Jet frowned, seeing a culler ship hovering over a building a few blocks to her left, its lines outstretched towards the ground, past where her eyes could see.
“How precise do you need?” she said into the radio. “I have a Nirreth map of the area, but it didn’t have a layout of the ship, just its location.”
“We need the ship’s orientation under the water, Alpha-10. We need to be able to bullseye the command deck.” The voice turned openly exasperated. “Alpha-10, you know how big these things are. This was your plan, right? The second we hit it anywhere, they’ll target our guns from all sides. We’ve only got one shot at this…”
Jet nodded, realizing she’d known that, somehow.
“Can you get inside?” the base leader asked.
Jet shrugged, giving a half-smile to no one in particular.
“I guess we’ll find out,” she told him.
20
Great White Bear
Jet stayed against the larger buildings with eaves, ducking into alleys whenever they sloped in the right direction.
She gradually made her way to the water, aiming for the odd conglomeration of sail-like tents where the old recreational cruise ships used to dock.
That’s what Everest told her, anyway.
Stopping a few times to check the map, Jet ran into the burnt-out, underground parking structure below the tented building. The structure was well-lit; cloudy, gray sky peered through holes in the concrete from close-range blasts from one of the larger Nirreth ships.
From the size of the holes, that had to have come from a warrior class ship, versus one of the cullers.
As she looked around, a more desperate wave of feeling landed in the pit of her stomach. It hit her again that this was over. All of this. It was just… over. The war had been lost. It had been lost decades ago. Something about playacting humans who didn’t know that yet brought up a grief in her unlike anything she’d ever felt.
She knew that’s probably why the Ringmaster did this.
They must have known it would mess with her head.
He must have known.
Forcing the emotion back, knowing it probably already came up in a scan, she shook her head to clear it. No ships waited at the docks of Vancouver Harbor; the few cars parked in the massive, concrete parking structure looked abandoned and dead-looking.
Instead of the cheerful crowds of humans depicted on posters all the way up the ramp, waiting in line to go on vacation, Jet saw only rats scuttling in and out of broken pieces of cement, and what looked like the remains of a dead seagull.
The glass-fronted building, with the rusted and smoke-stained CUSTOMS sign over the doors, looked like the blackened husk of a broken bottle at the bottom of a skag campfire.
Already, Jet glimpsed feral dogs sleeping in clusters in the dry areas of shelter on the raised concrete. She knew at night the pack would come alive, fighting for territory and food and attacking other animals and people if they caught them alone.
Behind the shelter of one of the concrete pillars, outside the glass-enclosed building, Jet stopped again to make sure she’d fully memorized the Nirreth map.
In her mind, she laid it over the human one, comparing the two.
At the same time, she tried to orient herself in the real, physical layout of the course. She had no idea how much time she had left at this point, but she had a feeling she’d already been out here for more than a few hours, which meant she had very little time left.
She also hadn’t earned enough points yet––probably not enough to get a positive vote from the Rings Board on her overall performance.
For better or worse, Jet had given up on going out looking for places just to collect points. It was too late to find the main point runs now.
She’d already blown that.
Knowing she’d screwed up their strategy, she’d decided to ignore Richter’s words and bank everything on completing the task within the timeframe and “winning” the game.
She could only hope that, even if she bombed the rest in terms of points and bonuses, they might let her squeak by into the next round if she managed to complete the main objective they’d set for her character.
Which was pretty much the exact opposite of what Richter and Laksri told her to do.
But it was too late to change course now. She was pretty sure they’d boot her if she didn’t end this with a bang, considering how few actual kills she’d managed.
Once more envisioning the arena components in her head, she shied away from the temptation to superimpose them over either map, knowing they would be forced to adjust the scale and proportions of the projections dramatically to fit the different physical objects they required.
Besides, they would have changed everything around while she’d been traveling underground.
The only thing she had, really, was the location where the ladder popped up onto the higher level, and they’d already likely adjusted her orientation a number of times, to better accommodate the needs of their virtual course.
No, she would have to wait until she ran into one of the arena’s stationary components and map it from there.
Until then, she was stuck with the projection, along with the two VR maps.
Checking her pockets and vest to make sure the explosive and the small disc bombs and the pulre were still where she’d left them, Jet shoved everything back into zippered pockets and hoisted the sandblaster back over her shoulder.
Then, her fingers resting lightly on the hilt of Black, she ventured into the darkened building, and its entryway covered in broken glass.
According to the Nirreth map, the command ship lay deep in the water just past the end of the Canada Place pier.
Jet knew that in real life, human vessels dotted the bottom of the harbor, especially closest to the city. She’d occasionally seen them while fishing out there with Anaze, and even witnessed a few Nirreth salvage operations from the inside of buildings along the shore.
She’d never actually seen a Nirreth command ship before.
She’d also never seen a fully-intact human cruise ship––not outside movies and story books. She hoped like hell she could tell them apart, well enough to go to the right place.
She didn’t know how cold the water would be, but assumed it couldn’t be too cold, not if
the alligator was any indication.
Then again, maybe she shouldn’t expect logical consistency in the Rings, not for much of anything. She’d heard the ops controllers meticulously researched details, but they also operated with total impunity in their designs. Which meant they could omit or change any of those details they wanted, from the size of an alligator to the temperature of the water.
She didn’t know how long she’d be able to hold her breath.
Or how toxic the water might be.
Richter warned her they would probably make swimming a requirement in a lot of her matches, since she’d registered as being able to swim, and the whole swimming thing was deeply exciting for Nirreth.
The Nirreth fascination with water seemed virtually endless.
They seemed to view swimming the way humans viewed flying––like a magical power of some kind, something they all felt they should be able to do, as part of their birthright, but somehow couldn’t.
Walking through the hush of the old cruise ship loading terminal, Jet passed half-burned posters of wild animals that used to live in the lands far north, the ones her mother told her stories about as a kid, and where Biggs and Jet used to pretend they lived. They even had a picture of the white bear god, the same kind as the skull Chiyeko had on her front door.
Some of the animals shown in the posters still existed, even in Jet’s time.
Foxes were slowly coming back as the rabbit populations increased, and the great eagles with the white heads that her mother told her used to be considered magical animals as well, spirits that lived in the totem poles and canoe heads of their ancestors.
Jet walked past the last of those kiosks and into the segment of building that led out over the water. On that end, as with the parking structure, most of the glass was gone, letting in wet, salt-filled sea air and the smell of brine and dead fish and seagull scat.
Jet walked inside the building for as long as she could, then picked her way through piles of broken glass and charred wood to reach the deck outside.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 37