Tanik’s voice joined theirs a moment later. “Is there something you would like to say to me?” he asked. “Perhaps we can all stand around and chat about it while we wait for the Crucible’s security teams to find us?”
“Sorry,” the Marine sergeant replied. “Everyone shut up!” he ordered, and the comms fell silent.
Darius switched his focus to their immediate surroundings. A clean white corridor stretched out ahead of them, curving up and away with the curvature of the ring-shaped station.
Tanik motioned for them to follow him, and set out at a brisk jog. The Marines ran after him, and Darius struggled to keep up. Their mag boots sounded like thunder as they ran, but Darius supposed they couldn’t hope to maintain the element of surprise after blowing the station open with missiles. Someone was definitely expecting them.
They ran past doors lining the walls of the corridor, and Darius began to wonder what was behind them.
He asked about it over the squad channel. “Shouldn’t we check those rooms for tributes?”
“No,” Tanik replied.
Suspicion raised the hairs on the back of Darius’s neck. “Hey, you said—”
“I said we’d get your daughter. There are tens of thousands of children aboard the Crucible. We can’t rescue them all. Only the Revenants. Do you understand?”
“The what?” one of the Marines asked. Apparently they hadn’t got the memo yet.
Darius didn’t like the thought of leaving thousands of innocent children behind. “There has to be a way to rescue the others.”
“There isn’t. There’s no time. You want to save your daughter or not?”
“Yes, obviously, but—”
“Then be quiet while I lead you to her.”
Darius clamped his mouth shut and tightened his grip on his pistol, thinking, You’d better not be lying about her.
A door appeared in front of them, and the corridor curved around it. Tanik slowed as they reached the door. A moment later, a molten orange line raced swiftly around the door in a circle. A bang, sounded from the other side, and the center of the door fell into the corridor, revealing a Marine with a cutting torch.
“Captain,” he said, and gave a brisk salute.
“At ease. Form up.”
Another squad of Marines came streaming through and joined the others. Tanik led the group around the hangar to a bank of elevators. One of them opened as soon as Tanik hit the call button. He crowded in with four Marines and said, “Meet us on C deck.”
Darius watched the elevator doors slide shut. The rest of them had to wait for the next elevator, and then the next....
It took four trips to get them all up to C deck, and as usual Darius was bringing up the rear. By the time his elevator arrived, it opened into a dark corridor littered with bodies and flickering lights. Some of the bodies were Marines, while others were wearing simple blue jumpsuits, and still others wore nothing but the coats of fur or scales that they’d been born with. The majority of the dead were aliens.
Crucible security forces? Darius wondered, blinking in shock. The Marines from his elevator fanned out, using hand signals rather than comms to communicate. Darius crept out after them, but he was having trouble seeing in the dark. He was about to turn on his headlamps, but he noticed that none of the others had done so. They were all creeping along quietly, sticking to the shadows and trying to stay hidden. Darius couldn’t turn on his helmet lights without revealing them all. They were probably using some kind of light amplification equipment.
Good for them, Darius thought. He was wearing a flight suit, not power armor, and he had no such equipment. He ended up stumbling around blindly, and making a lot of noise. Up ahead, he spotted Tanik’s glowing armor, and used that to guide him.
He hadn’t gone more than four steps when he heard a loud screech that sounded like it was right behind him. He whirled around, but there was nothing there. To the fore he heard the crackling reports of laser rifles, and he spun back around to see the previously darkened corridor now flashing brightly with laser beams. Those lasers tracked toward six-legged shadows racing along the walls and ceiling. Banshees.
One of the Marines screamed, and his gun fell silent. Followed by another. And then two more. Darius struggled to pick a target in the dark, but he was afraid he’d shoot one of the Marines by accident.
“Fall ba—!” one of the Marine sergeants screamed, only for that scream to die in a gurgling noise.
Tanik came racing back, his armor aglow, and with what looked like a luminous white sword raised above his shoulders. The blade flashed and shimmered in the dark, and Banshees let out blood-curdling screams as they burst into flames and literally disintegrated into glowing piles of orange embers.
A dark shape ran by Darius, limping and screaming, its tail on fire, and two of its six legs missing in glowing orange stumps. Darius took aim and fired at it as it ran by, hitting the creature twice, just above the shoulder.
The Banshee collapsed with a piercing wail and went skidding across the deck. It thrashed, struggling to get back up as Darius stared stupidly at it.
Tanik ran by in a dazzling silver streak. His glowing sword flashed through the creature’s neck. The beast’s head and shoulders evaporated in a puff of bright orange embers that fluttered briefly through the air on unseen currents before fading to black.
“Let’s go,” Tanik said.
Darius shook his head. “What is that?” he asked, jerking his chin to the sword.
“It’s a sword. What does it look like?” Tanik replied.
“That doesn’t look like any sword I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s a Revenant weapon. It serves as a focal point for our shields. We can’t fire ranged weapons while we’re shielding ourselves. The shots will bounce off the shield and kill us. Swords, however, still work just fine.”
“I can see that,” Darius said, still staring at the weapon. He hadn’t seen Tanik bring a sword with him, which meant that he must have found it on board the station—or maybe stolen it from one of those Banshees? Darius wondered, as he stared at the headless remains of the beast Tanik had just killed. He shuddered at the thought of encountering a Revenant Banshee.
“Come,” Tanik repeated and nodded down to the end of the darkened corridor. “Your daughter and the others are just up ahead.” With that, Tanik ran off in that direction, taking the luminous glow of his sword and armor with him. Seeing as how Tanik was lighting up the corridor without a second thought for staying hidden, Darius activated his headlamps and ran after him.
Just three Marines joined them. The others were dead, their armor pried open by Banshee claws and their guts shining in bloody red smears under the beams of Darius’s headlamps.
They reached the end of the corridor, and Tanik sliced the doors open. Bright light flooded out, momentarily blinding Darius. He blinked spots from his eyes to see what appeared to be a large dormitory, crowded with bunk beds. At least two dozen children were huddled on and under those beds, human and alien alike.
Darius shoved his way past a pair of Marines and activated the external speakers on his helmet. “Cassandra!” he yelled.
“Dad?”
A familiar face appeared: delicate features, long brown hair, and blue eyes, the color of a cloudless sky.
He couldn’t believe it. Darius’s eyes blurred with tears. Cassandra stared uncomprehendingly back at him, and he realized she couldn’t recognize him with his helmet on. He hurriedly reached up and cracked the seals to pull the helmet off. He still had his oxygen mask on, but Cassandra recognized him instantly.
“Dad!” she leapt off the top bunk, fell over and stumbled to her feet in the half gravity of the station. A split second later, she slammed into him and wrapped him in a desperate hug. “You found me,” she whispered.
“We need to go,” Tanik said softly. Then he bellowed: “Everybody up! Let’s go, let’s go! Right now! We’re getting out of here!”
Not paying Tanik any mind, Darius sh
ook his head, blinking tears as he held his daughter in a fierce hug. The muffled sound of Cassandra’s sobs reached his ears—adolescent pride be vixxed. He spared a hand to rip off his oxygen mask and kissed the top of Cassandra’s head. He buried his face in her hair. “I thought you were dead,” he breathed.
“Can’t kill a rock,” she replied.
At that, both of them burst out laughing. As their laughter died down, Cassandra withdrew and flashed him an accusing look. “You left me.” Then she punched his arm, hard. “I thought I’d never see you again!”
Darius offered an apologetic frown. “I never should have left, but I’m here now.”
“So am I,” a deep, growling voice added from the open doorway. That voice was speaking in Cygnian, not Primary.
Darius spun around to see a black-skinned Ghoul brushing the ceiling with its head. All four of its eyes were ice blue, and its mouth was bared in a jagged grin of interlocking nine-inch teeth.
Everyone stared stupidly at it as it drew four short black blades from scabbards wrapped around its torso, one for each of its four hands.
“Shoot it!” Tanik screamed.
But it was too late. The Ghoul’s skin went from oil-slick black to a ghostly, luminous white.
Darius finally realized why they were called Revenants.
The Ghoul’s four blades now shone and shimmered with the same light as Tanik’s, looking like frozen laser beams.
The three Marines opened fire, but it was too little, too late. Their lasers flashed impotently against the Ghoul’s shield, and it let out a sissing peal of laughter, as if they were tickling it.
Chapter 60
Darius gaped in shock as he watched Tanik run straight up to the Ghoul with his own sword flashing. The creature blocked and parried his blows easily, but somehow, Tanik forced it back, away from the door.
“Take them back to the Deliverance!” Tanik said, and as soon as he was through the door, it slammed shut with an echoing boom that left the door crumpled on one side. Darius stood frozen in shock, wondering what to do next. They couldn’t just sneak out through the door with Tanik and the Ghoul Revenant locked in a life and death struggle on the other side.
Cassandra tugged on his hand to get his attention and pointed to another door that he hadn’t seen on one of the other side of the dormitory. “Over there,” she said.
One of the surviving Marines went to investigate. “It’s locked from the other side,” he said. “But I should be able to blast it open.”
The surviving Marine Sergeant pointed to the corner of the room farthest from that door. “Everybody over there!” he said, and then ushered the children into that corner. Darius hurried over there with Cassandra, scrambling to put his helmet and oxygen mask back on. He was going to need them later.
Another Marine went around knocking over bunk beds and piling them in a protective barricade between them and the door.
“Charges set!” a third one said.
And then all three of them came running behind the barricade. “Cover!” one of them yelled, and Darius wrapped his body around Cassandra to shield her.
A mighty boom shook the room, followed by a plinking hail of molten shrapnel.
“Move out!” the Marine sergeant said before Darius’s ears had even stopped ringing. “Everyone stay behind us, and keep your eyes open!”
The group rounded the makeshift barricade and ran after the Marines, through a red-hot hole in the wall where the door had been. They all hurried down yet another gleaming white corridor, this one unmarred by debris or dead bodies.
As they ran, Darius spared a few seconds to study the group of children with them. He noticed plenty of familiar aliens along with the unfamiliar ones—there were black-furred Lassarians, shape-shifting Vixxons with their solid white eyes, lizard-like Sicarians, white-furred Korothians, the shiny-skinned Dol Walins, a Murciago, like Tik, and even...
Darius blinked in shock at the sight of the small, six-legged brown creature with four glinting black eyes.
A Banshee. His pistol swept into line with the monster’s head.
Cassandra pushed the barrel down to aim at the deck. “Don’t,” she said. “He’s one of the nicer kids.”
“Nicer...!” Darius exploded.
“Shut up, Commander!” the Marine sergeant snapped over the comms. “We’ve got company.”
Up ahead, an adult Banshee and six humans in blue uniforms stood blocking the corridor. All of them except for the Banshee were carrying hefty black rifles, but so far none of them were firing. Afraid to hit the kids? Darius wondered.
“Let us pass,” the Marine sergeant said in an amplified voice.
The Banshee screeched unintelligibly and then came bounding toward them, literally bouncing off the walls as it went. All three Marines opened fire, tracking it, but they only scored a handful of hits before it reached them. It fell on the sergeant and bit off his head, helmet and all. The other two Marines shot it in the throat as it spat the head out, and the Banshee collapsed with black blood spurting between its teeth.
The children screamed. Then the humans in blue uniforms opened fire.
“Take cover!” one of the Marines shouted.
Darius pasted himself to the wall with Cassandra and the other children. He wrapped his body around Cassandra again to protect her from any stray shots.
He risked glancing up to return fire, but the corridor was so full of flashing lasers and smoke that he couldn’t be sure if he hit anything.
The enemy security forces were firing in controlled bursts, but the Marines were firing in steady streams. Darius saw the Marines stagger several times as they got hit, but they both remained standing, cutting down the unarmored security forces one after another. In a matter of seconds, the screeching reports of lasers died into echoes.
Now only one of the two Marines was still standing, and he was limping. The armor on his leg and the whole left side of his torso was badly blackened. He pulled out a patch kit from a compartment on his utility belt and slapped it against his leg; then he bent down beside his fallen squad mate and stole a second kit to patch his torso armor. That done, he looked up and gestured with his rifle to the end of the corridor.
“We need to find an elevator and get back down to the hangars,” he said.
Darius eyed him dubiously, but nodded his agreement, and the Marine limped off down the corridor. They all peeled away from the walls to follow him. After a while, they came to a bank of closely-spaced doors with call buttons between them. Darius punched one of the down arrows, and everyone waited for the elevator.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Who was that man you were with?”
“That was Tanik Gurhain. He’s the one we went looking for on Hades.”
“But he’s one of them,” Cassandra said. “A Revenant.”
Darius arched an eyebrow at her. Apparently she already knew something about the Revenants. “Yeah, he is,” he replied, “but he’s one of the good ones—I think.”
Cassandra nodded. The elevator arrived and the surviving Marine stood guard while Darius piled in with Cassandra and as many other kids as possible. They ran out of room with a dozen kids inside, and a dozen more waiting outside.
“I’ll take the rest of them down in the next elevator,” the Marine said. “Meet you at the bottom.”
“All right.” Darius studied the control panel inside the elevator, looking for the right deck. Deck A seemed to be the lowest one, so he selected it. The elevator doors began sliding shut, but just before they did, Darius saw a shadowy pair of eight-fingered white hands, the same color as the walls of the corridor, reaching down from the ceiling above the Marine’s head.
“Watch out!”
Those hands seized the Marine’s head and twisted it all the way around. The Children around him screamed, and then fell silent as the elevator dropped away. Darius blinked in shock, his heart pounding in his chest.
“What was that!?” Cassandra asked.<
br />
“One of us,” the Banshee child replied in a growling whisper. Darius glanced at him to see that his previously brown skin had turned a matching white, the same color as the inside of the elevator.
Darius had to reign in another impulse to shoot that child monster between its beady black eyes. He looked back at the door of the elevator, and his legs began to shake at the thought of what might be waiting for them at the bottom. He’d come too far and gone through too much for it all to end here.
The elevator doors slid open, and Darius burst out with his pistol in hand, searching for more camouflaged Cygnians.
But this corridor seemed clear. “Let’s go!” he said. “Everyone follow me!” He grabbed Cassandra’s hand and ran for his life.
Before long they came to a stretch of corridor that Darius thought he recognized. He dashed around a bend to find what he hoped was the hangar where he’d landed his fighter.
He stopped in front of the inflatable airlock and looked around quickly to make sure there weren’t any Cygnians creeping up on them.
There weren’t.
So far so good.
“All right...” Darius scanned a small crowd of expectant adolescent faces, his thoughts racing. None of them were wearing pressure suits of any kind, and the hangar on the other side of the airlock was wide open to space. Darius chewed his lower lip, wondering what to do next. The Marines had to have had a plan for this!
“I’ll be right back, okay?” he said.
“No...” Cassandra replied in a trembling voice. “Don’t leave me here.”
“I have to. You can’t go through that airlock without a suit on!”
She grabbed his arm to stop him from leaving. “Then let’s go find space suits!”
“And risk running into more Banshees?” He shook his head. “I think we already have some. I just need to go check, all right?”
But Cassandra shook her head vigorously. “Not again. Last time you left me you didn’t come back.”
Darius grimaced. “This time I will. I promise. Let me go. Quick, Cass!”
Her face screwed up in a pout, but she let go of his arm, and he darted through the airlock into the hangar. He looked around quickly and found his fighter there, clamped to the wall just above the doors. So close, but still too far to reach, and besides—it could only take two. There were a dozen kids waiting in the corridor behind him.
Broken Worlds: The Awakening (A Sci-Fi Mystery) Page 32