by PP Corcoran
Kyle nodded numbly as Dave continued apace with his improvised weapons lesson by pointing to a small block on top of the weapon. “Sights. Same smart glass as your glasses but with a neat trick. Wherever the weapon sight is pointed, you can bring it up in your glasses. Saves getting your head shot off by looking around corners.” The grin on Dave’s face didn’t fill Kyle with enthusiasm, a fact that did not escape Dave’s notice.
“Look, kid, I know this is all coming at you in a bit of a torrent, so let me make it as simple as I can for you. I don’t expect you to be a weapons expert in the next thirty seconds, but we’ve been hunting together in the past and the principles are all the same. You point and pull.” Dave’s face took on a serious expression. “Only this time it’s us that are being hunted.”
With that sobering comment, Dave made his way to the far end of the small room, where a heavy metal door was set into the wall. Hanging on the wall by the door were two small rucksacks. Dave grabbed one and shrugged it on, then threw the other to Kyle. “Water, rations and spare ammo. Enough to last us a few days.” Running his forearm along the side of the door, it slid to one side with a creak and a small puff of dust, revealing a well-lit parking facility beyond. “OK, kid, it’s eight blocks to the pusher-train terminal and that’s our route out of here, so let’s get moving. Remember, just like hunting, we move steady and we move quiet. OK, kid, time to boogie.” Without waiting for an answer, Dave moved off, head moving like it was on a swivel, rifle butt sitting naturally into his shoulder as if this was something he did every day.
Well, it wasn’t natural to Kyle, as he tried to ignore the knots that were forming in his stomach as he set off after Dave at a slow trot, the unfamiliar rifle held in his sweating hands, keenly aware of the sound of explosions and automatic weapons fire echoing dully off the thick walls. A myriad of questions burned in his mind. Two were uppermost. Firstly, how the hell had Dave accumulated this arsenal of weapons that he handled as if he had done it all his life, and secondly… Thoughts of his second question were interrupted as he ran straight into Dave’s back.
Dave’s scowling face locked on him. “Stay sharp, kid, or this is going to be a very short ride for you. Got it?”
Kyle pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind as he swallowed and mumbled an apology to the man whom he had known for much of his life and whom his own life now depended on.
Ignoring Kyle’s apology, Dave checked up and down the deserted street for any signs of K’Tai. He double checked his route displayed on the wrist comm before heading off, all the while scanning the road ahead for danger while trying to ensure Kyle was following closely behind. Today is going to be a long day, Dave thought to himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sue
H HOUR
CALLEY MINE
Sue’s efforts to coral twenty chattering and giggling teenagers seemed akin to herding cats; but, with the help of the ever-smiling tour guide, she managed to account for the last of them. Finally, they were moving in the direction of the large school flitter. As if to prove to their comrades that they were also cool, Sue’s kids, Chris and Jodee, made a point of being last to do anything and, so, they found themselves at the back of the line. The school flitter driver looked on with undisguised amusement. Sue flung him an icy look, which got her a cheery thumbs-up from the man. Suppressing her urge to go over there and rearrange his nose, Sue focused on getting the kids aboard before another wandered off distractedly, delaying their return to the school. Her charges were already nearly an hour late after the Nivens kid had somehow managed to get himself trapped behind one of the vacuum sealed doors in the processing facility, something which Santa the tour guide had thought impossible to do. Obviously, he did not have to contend with teenage children.
A sound like distant thunder reached her ears and Sue tilted her head to look skyward. Only a few scattered white clouds were visible, with no sign of any brooding storm clouds. The sound came again and this time her eyes spotted the source, as dozens of small black specks came into view. Around her the school kids continued to reluctantly move toward the flitter, none of them noticing that Sue had come to a dead stop and stood still as a statue, watching the sky.
The specks high above were resolving themselves into more identifiable forms as they dropped at supersonic speeds. With a deepening sense of dread, Sue recognized the unmistakable shapes of large transport craft, and with the way the smaller shapes were sweeping from side to side, an educated guess would make them fighter escorts. Sue’s mind went into overdrive as she ran through her options. At the rate the transports were dropping, they would be on the mine long before she would be able to get all the kids aboard the flitter and clear the area, but if the flitter left now and the driver drove like a demon, the flitter should at least be able to get beyond the perimeter before the first transport touched down Sue would just have to do the best she could with the remaining kids. Sue began to move, roughly pushing past the strolling pupils still completely oblivious to the impending danger. She stopped at the open door of the flitter.
“Take these kids and get the hell out of here now, we’ve got incoming!” Sue screamed at the driver as she spared a second to turn her head and check on the progress of the wave of transports. The driver ducked his head to get a better view of the sky, now filled with large black shapes. He looked back at Sue, his mouth open, ready to argue with her; however, Sue got the first word.
“Get the fuck out of here now!”
Galvanized by the screaming woman, the driver secured the flitter’s doors and gunned the engine as he applied the power, the lumbering flitter half filled with her pupils headed for the main entrance gate and the road leading back to Gemini City. Sue, accompanied by six confused pupils, including Chris and Jodee, was left standing in a growing cloud of dust as the flitter moved off. Sue ignored the teenagers disbelieving looks at her raised voice… and swearing… as they struggled to understand why the driver had left them stranded. The ear-piercing screaming of anti-grav engines caused all heads to turn upwards to the descending transports which blocked out the sun and landed all around the mine’s outer fence. Sue’s eyes hunted for anything that would provide cover, and found it in the form of a large culvert.
“Everyone into that culvert!” shouted Sue as she struggled to be heard over the engine noise. She reinforced her half-heard instruction by pointing the teens in the direction of the culvert and spreading her arms wide as she pushed them in the right direction. Santa the tour guide stood watching the descending transports, info pad dangling from his hand as the teens rushed past him, and he found himself swept along with them. Sue did not slow her frantic pace as the group reached the edge of the culvert. The Nivens boy was in the lead and unfortunately for him the weight of the bodies following on behind pushed him over the lip of the culvert and he landed in a heap on the rocky bottom, sharp stones and boulders cutting into him, causing him to yelp like a scolded puppy, his pain only increased as he found himself the cushion for the remaining five teenagers and two adults as they piled in after him. Sue ignored the loud protests from the teenagers as her complete attention focused on the first of the transports, as it touched ground in a swirling cloud of dust and small stones kicked up by its engines. The rear ramp barely kissed the earth before a horde of black-clad troops burst from the cavernous interior, their battle cry filling the air with a sound akin to rolling thunder. Sue felt her breath leave her as the full gravity of the unfolding events hit her like a boxer’s punch. There was no mistaking a K’Tai, easily eight feet tall with pale blue skin, eyes of intense ice-blue which bored through you like a laser beam. The K’Tai were not wearing their battle helms and it sent a shiver down Sue’s spine as her brain dredged up one of the few things she had learned, in passing, about the K’Tai warrior code, Rig. A K’Tai believed it was a show of respect for their adversaries to see into the eyes of a K’Tai who would not accept an opponent’s surrender. Which meant that the invaders had orders to kill every person at
the mine, regardless of combatant status. Soldier or civilian alike could expect no mercy. And those transports must contain hundreds of bloodthirsty K’Tai.
Sue ducked her head back down below the lip of the culvert and crouched low as her mind fought to process the information and find a way out for her and her charges. Santa came back to his senses, pushing the kids away from him as he stood fully upright, exposing the upper half of his body above the level of the culvert’s top with a gruff, “What the hell is going on here?”
Before Sue could react, the air filled with the sound of pulse rifle fire, Santa jolted like a puppet as multiple rounds ripped into his large frame before his body dropped back to the floor of the culvert, landing across Chris and Jodee’s legs, effectively trapping them where they sat. Sue lunged for them, pulling their faces tight into her in a vain attempt to hide the bloodied body with its open, lifeless eyes staring at them. All four of the other teens screamed, bolted for the far side of the culvert, arms and legs akimbo and scrambled for purchase on the loose rocks.
“No! Stay down,” called Sue as she tried futilely to reach them and pull them back into the culvert. Again, the sound of pulse fire filled the air, red blotches peppering the children’s backs as the rounds exploded violently from their chests, covering the side of the culvert in thick red blood. All four children slumped lifeless against the culvert’s side.
The sight of Chris and Jodee staring at their dead friends filled Sue with the desire to wrap them in her arms and tell them that everything would be all right, but everything was not going to be all right. In fact, if she did not act swiftly, there was every chance that they would end up dead in the next few moments. Sue had hidden her past from her kids until now, but, she needed to summon the person, she had tried hard to suppress, back to life or the next few minutes could be her and her children’s last.
Ignoring Chris and Jodee’s rush of questions, Sue reached forward, retrieving Santa’s info pad from where it lay abandoned by its owner on the culvert’s floor. Without a second’s thought she wiped the man’s blood from the screen before furiously tapping at its controls until she brought up a schematic of the mine. Flipping it over, she none too gently punched Chris and Jodee’s arms, stunning them into silence as she leaned into her kids’ young faces, demanding their attention. Two sets of wide eyes snapped around to stare at her, the fear in them reaching out for Sue like a physical thing.
“Forget what happened to your friends. I need you to focus and do it now.”
Chris nodded while Jodee turned her whole body slightly, so her back obscured the gruesome sight of her friends’ bodies which were gradually filling the culvert with their blood.
Sue touched her wrist comm to each of the coms worn by her children, a single beep emanating from Sue’s wrist comm as it touched theirs. Without pause, Sue pointed at the schematic on the info pad.
“This is a schematic of the mine. I’ve highlighted this air recycling shaft.” In the display a single shaft, maybe a kilometer from the main entrance, blinked. Chris and Jodee’s heads flicked to one side at the sound of more pulse rifle fire, a sharp cry of pain, then a single shot echoed around the site, then silence. Time was short; the K’Tai were working their way toward them.
“Follow this culvert as far as you can, then make a run for the mine. When you get there, make your way to the air shaft and climb up. The top of the shaft is well beyond the mine perimeter, so there shouldn’t be any K’Tai around...”
“Mom, why are they here? Why are they doing this?” asked Jodee.
“Jodee, I don’t have time to explain, just shut up and listen,” snapped Sue. “Once you’re out, bring my name up on your wrist comm’s address book. I’ve adapted the call program so that when you call mom it will send a single ping to my com so I know you’re out. Then I want you to make your way to the cabin, you’ll be safe there until I can catch up with you. I’ve downloaded the location of the cabin into your wrist comms. It’s probably five days travel on foot. Avoid major roads and any settlements or farms as best you can...” Sue stopped talking as the sound of raised voices came to her ears, K’Tai voices. Out of time. Putting her finger to her lips to silence any more questions. She pushed the info pad into Jodee’s hands before pulling her children into her briefly, holding them close. A second alien voice answered the first. Sue pushed her children away from her and shooed them in the direction of the mine entrance. Chris and Jodee were forced to crawl over the blood slicked stones and over the still warm bodies of their friends and the larger form of the tour guide as they headed away. Chris spared a backward glance and saw his mother crouched down, weighing up a rock she must have picked off the culvert’s base in each hand. Turning his head, he set off after his sister.
#
With Chris and Jodee on their way, Sue closed her eyes briefly as she centered herself, opening the internal box that she thought she had put away for good. She felt the familiar tingling spread through her muscles, the heightening of her senses as her brain activated every physical resource as it prepared the body for the battle to come. As if it had never been away, the old Sue flooded back into every part of her. Unbidden by her conscious mind, the layout of the entire mine complex appeared in her head in perfect clarity. Her mind plotted the locations of the grounded K’Tai troop transports, the direction the K’Tai had been moving when she had last had a visual fix on them, probable speed and distance covered. Time to reach her current location... Sound! Heavy footsteps approaching. Two pairs of feet. Sue’s head turned a few degrees left and right like a radar tracking two separate targets. Fifteen meters... thirteen meters... ten meters... five meters. Sue’s leg muscles shook with pent up energy, which explosively released as her feet pushed hard off the culvert floor, lifting her whole body clear of the lip, eyes snapped open as she zeroed in on her first target, a K’Tai soldier carrying a pulse rifle which he vainly tried to swing around to engage the jumping woman, too late. The heavy rock which had been in her right hand had, seemingly of its own free will, left her hand and struck the K’Tai square between the eyes. The loud thunk signaled a good hit and the soldier dropped to the ground, his skull split open by the heavy projectile. Sue ignored her first target, already writing him off as a threat, landing virtually atop the second K’Tai. Sue’s leg flashed out, catching the surprised K’Tai square on his version of the knee cap. K’Tai anatomy might not be the same as human’s, but the vicious strike to the knee cap had the same effect as that on a human opponent. The K’Tai soldier let out a high-pitched shriek as the bone shattered and he discovered his leg could now bend in a most unnatural direction. The soldier hit the ground hard, the pulse rifle falling from his grip as his hands flew to the sight of the excruciating pain. Sue’s arm swung in a large arc, gaining momentum as she brought the rock she carried down on the hapless soldier’s head with as much force as she could muster. Second target neutralized. Barely pausing, Sue swiftly policed the K’Tai’s body, relieving him of his ammunition belt, pulse rifle, a wicked looking oversized blade and some small metallic oval items with a twist timer on top. A feral grin spread over Sue’s face as she stuffed the grenades into her jacket pockets. In under six seconds the five feet six inch, 115-pound high school teacher had dispatched two of the universe’s most competent warriors. Sue Carter was not all she appeared to be.
From around the mining complex came the sound of sporadic weapons fire. Hoisting the pulse rifle in her arms, Sue set off in a crouching run in the direction she had sent Chris and Jodee. The mother lioness would not let anything hurt her cubs.
#
Reaching the end of the culvert, Jodee risked a peek over its lip. The sweat caused by the exertion of crawling as fast as she could across the sharp stones had plastered her normally perfectly groomed blond hair to her forehead and she used her fingers to pull at the unkempt strands that fell in front of her eyes and obscured her vision. Balancing on one hand, she suddenly found her face pushed into the compacted earth side of the culvert as Chris col
lided with his now stationary sister. Spitting out a mouthful of dirt, she spun to face her younger, by a whole fifteen minutes, twin brother.
“Watch what you’re doing, klutz,” she rebuked him in a harsh whisper.
“If your ass wasn’t so big there would have been room for me to stop,” replied Chris.
Deciding that ignoring Chris was probably the best course of action at this point, Jodee used the sleeve of her jacket to wipe the dirt from her face before sneaking another peek over the culverts lip. Partially hidden by a single-story building which stretched back toward the center of the complex, there was the large, inviting entrance to the mine proper. Chris squeezed up beside her in the culvert’s narrow confines and raised his head also.
“There it is,” he said. “I guess maybe 100, 110 meters.”
Jodee eyed up the distance herself. Chris had called it about right. Jodee had always been the better athlete of the twins, not by much, but enough that it gave her bragging rights around the dining table, running as fast as she could she could probably cover the distance in maybe thirteen or fourteen seconds. A loud explosion, followed by the ground beneath her feet shaking, reminded her that this was not the athletic track back at school. Ducking back into the culvert, she faced Chris.
“You ready for this?” she asked.
Chris gave her the same cheeky grin that had always reminded her of dad. “No. But that ain't going to stop us, is it?”