by T. R. Harris
All the Salifens stopped and turned in their direction.
“I am Milok Dosnin,” Adam announced, using the name of the drugged-out Sol-Kor who had died from an overdose of Human painkillers earlier in the day. “I and my associate are wearing these masks to hide our identity since we are on a very secret mission. Do you understand?”
As was the habit of the Salifen, they all answered at once. “Yes.”
“Who is your leader?”
The aliens looked at each other, confused. Then the one closest to the Humans said, “You are.”
Taking the lead, Adam nodded. “That is correct, and I now appoint you as the voice of the Salifen in the room. No one else speak. Is that understood?”
No one spoke.
“No one speaks, except you,” Adam clarified, pointing at the standing alien.
“Yes, I understand.”
“That’s better. Now, I will be testing your knowledge of your surroundings. It is important that you answer honestly and in detail.”
“Honestly…I do not understand the word.”
“Just answer me in detail.”
“That I understand.”
“Is this room located at the base of the largest pyramid on the mountain?”
“Yes.” The alien hesitated before realizing he was to provide more detail if he knew it. “M-1, it is referred to.”
Adam nodded. “Very good. Are you familiar with the Sol-Kor known as the Queen?”
“I have heard the term before…I have not seen such a master.”
“Do you know where the Queen is located within the pyramid?”
“I do not know.”
“Is there an area of the pyramid that is restricted to only certain of the Sol-Kor?”
“There are several.”
“Where are they?”
“There is one two levels above, and then more at the top.”
“How would I reach the top?” And then he added, “Without being seen by other Sol-Kor?”
The mouth of the Salifen fell open. “I…I do not understand. If you wish to reach the top, there are transports that will take you to the restricted areas. I do not know how you could do so without being seen by other masters.”
“I understand,” Adam said. “Where is the nearest transport located that will take me to the top of the pyramid?”
“L-191.”
“Where is L-191?”
The alien blinked several times.
“Can you show me on a map?”
“Yes.”
The alien turned and approached one of the display screens in the control room. He tapped a key and a diagram appeared. Adam and Riyad leaned in close. Acquiring a map to the entire pyramid would be a godsend.
The Salifen pointed to a block of rooms at the bottom of the screen, then traced his finger along until stopping at a solid black block. “This is L-191.”
The elevator—if that’s what it was—was located down the corridor on the same level, past another twenty or so rooms of comparable size to the control room.
“Can you zoom out—show more of the pyramid?”
“Of M-1, yes?” A few taps and the entire shape of the structure was now displayed, although it didn’t do the Humans any good because now interior detail was lost.
Adam pointed to the pinnacle of the shape. “This is restricted area, even for the Sol-Kor?”
“Not all Sol-Kor. You asked about most Sol-Kor.”
“And we can reach it by entering here, at L-191?”
“That is the closest access point. There are others.”
“You have been very helpful…and you have passed the test,” Adam said. The creature displayed no emotion at the announcement. “Now I will order you—all of you—not to mention our presence here or the questions that were asked. It is part of our secret mission and you are forbidden to speak of it. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” said the alien. Adam looked at the others in the room. They all stared back at him with blank expressions.
Adam shrugged and then nodded for Riyad to follow, and then they left the room.
“Let’s see what this L-191 is all about,” he said.
“I can’t get over how gullible the Salifens are,” Riyad commented.
“Just be thankful they are.”
The rooms they had to pass were marked by closed doors, with no other glassed-in control rooms along the way.
But halfway down the corridor, a Sol-Kor appeared from one of the doorways, and after just a casual glance in their direction, turned away from the two Humans. But then as he continued down the hallway, his pace began to slow, until he eventually stopped and turned to face them.
Adam and Riyad continued to approach the alien.
“You…you are not of the Colony,” the native managed to say, then Adam placed a lightning-quick right jab into the center of his ribcage. The creature exhaled sharply, his eyes wide. He staggered backwards, while Riyad raced around behind and caught him before he fell to the floor, gasping for breath.
The native was too concerned with breathing to protest when Adam scooped up his legs and he and Riyad hustled him through the next doorway down the corridor. As was expected, there were other Sol-Kor in the room, and they stopped what they were doing when the trio entered.
It was an office of some kind, and all the aliens in the room—five of them—were seated at four-legged tables with monitors atop them. Three of them stood.
Adam and Riyad lowered the alien they were carrying to the floor and turned to the room, swinging their M-91 assault rifles from behind their backs. They fired from the hip, spraying the room with deadly lead projectiles. The muzzled short-barrels were greatly muted, but still it was heard in other parts of the room. Two more aliens appeared from a side room and quickly met the fate of their brothers.
Adam and Riyad split up, moving to each side of the room, clearing adjoining rooms of hostiles before meeting back up in the main room.
Adam flipped one of the desks on its face and pulled it towards the door. He ordered Riyad to stack several of the dead on the underside of the table, held in place by the two legs at one end. Then he opened the door and looked out into the corridor.
“Lean the table against the door.”
Riyad obliged, seeing what Adam was attempting to do.
With the table propped against the open door at a forty-five degree angle, the two Humans moved back into the corridor before Adam closed the door behind him. An accompanying thud was heard as the heavy table slammed to the floor on the other side.
“That should keep anyone from getting inside, unless they’re really determined.”
“You do know we’re leaving quite a trail behind us. Once the bodies start being discovered, the Sol-Kor will put two and two together and beef up security around the Queen.”
“That’s why we have to act fast. Get back to the others. I’ll continue to the elevator and secure it. Get the men here as fast as you can. So far I haven’t seen any Sol-Kor with weapons. We may have to fight the rest of the way, but this tip-toeing around is pissing me off.”
“Now that’s the Adam Cain we all know and love.”
“We’ll see how all this turns out. Now move!”
********
Adam was alone in the hallway, M-91 assault rifle in his hands. He hugged the right wall until he came to a wide opening with a bank of elevators. Two Sol-Kor were waiting at the doors, and they turned when they sensed his presence.
“Fuck it,” Adam said under his breath, and opened up with the rifle, placing two quick shots center mass into each alien. The door to the elevator then opened; inside were four more Sol-Kor.
Without hesitation, Adam rushed forward, bathing the inside of the elevator with gunfire. The elevator car was huge, capable of holding a dozen or more of the tall aliens. Adam grabbed one of the dead by the collar and threw the body across the entrance, keeping the door from closing. He pulled the other two dead aliens into the car, after which he ducked insi
de and assumed a lookout posture to the right of the doorway.
From here, since the elevator was set slight off to one side of the large room, he could only see about ten meters down the corridor he’d just traversed. He dropped to one knee and brought the stock of his rifle up to his cheek as he heard movement coming from that direction.
Lieutenant Rock Johnson came briefly into view, before quickly ducking back for cover.
“Clear!” Adam called out. Then the entire team raced from the corridor towards the elevator.
Adam moved aside, and within three seconds the elevator was full of sweaty, foul-smelling Humans. Adam grimaced. If the trail of dead Sol-Kor didn’t give them away, the smell surely would. He pulled the dead alien away from the doorway.
“Where to, Captain?” Johnson called out.
“The top.”
There were three rows of white push panels, each with strange symbols on them. Johnson lifted a small table computer to the array and pressed a button. The image was absorbed by the device and the translation program quickly deciphered the symbols. Even then, it didn’t help much. They were names, along with other labels, but no numbers. Taking a guess, the officer pressed the first panel on the first row.
The door slid shut…and then promptly reopened.
Johnson shrugged, and then pressed the bottom-most button in the third row.
This time when the door closed it remained so, and the car began to move upward.
“What’s the plan, Captain?” Johnson asked.
“Taking a wild guess here, but I’m assuming the Queen will be at the top of the pyramid. This ride should end at a restricted area, so the aliens we find there should be armed. When the doors open, we go in blasting. Riyad and I have been here before, so we’ll be on the lookout for anything familiar. They won’t be expecting us, so that’s our only ace in the hole.”
“Yeah, that’s what she said,” commented Sergeant Alex “Ace” Harbison from back in the crowd of commandos.
“How do you know it was a she who said it, Sarge? We know how confused you can get at times.”
“There are some things that are hard to mistake—”
“Knock it off,” Adam commanded. He glanced at the panels on the wall of the elevator car and noticed them lighting up at each floor they passed. They were quickly approaching the last one. “Get ready. We’re almost there.”
The team separated to each side of the door, pressing against each other so as to give anyone outside the elevator a clear shot. When the car bumped to a stop, the door slid open smoothly.
From his vantage point crouched down to the right of the door, Adam immediately spotted four Sol-Kor, two seated at utilitarian tables and two others standing nearby. The two standing had holstered flash weapons on their hips.
The Human rushed the room, making short work of the four guards. To the left was another cluster of desks with about a dozen Sol-Kor spread between them. The bulk of the team split off and rushed this part of the room. Two of the aliens managed to get off two flash bolts—neither impacted the commandos—and within five seconds of the elevator doors opening all the hostiles were down.
Adam glanced up and noticed what looked to be security cameras at each corner of the ceiling. He took them out with bursts from his weapon.
“Someone’s monitoring those cameras. Time to move.”
Fortunately, there was only one main exit from this room, and it was through a pair of tall glass doors with an extremely wide corridor beyond. When they tried the glass doors, they were locked—a rarity among the Sol-Kor, but what one would expect within the chambers of the Queen. The men stepped back and took aim.
From the results of the initial barrage, it was evident the glass was intended to be shatter-proof—for the first burst. The cracked and splintered material gave way to a second round of hard lead slugs.
The team rushed through just as two squads of aliens rushed from side rooms, weapons ready. Their first flash bolts were wild, though a few struck the commandos, doing little damage to the reinforced armor they wore, which was just the opposite result their M-91 fire had on the unprotected bodies of the defenders. Even fourteen guards were no match for the charging Humans, and the team soon left the carnage behind, moving further down the passageway.
Riyad was next to Adam. “These corridors look familiar, if only because of their width. But this could be anywhere.”
“I agree. Here!” he yelled, ducking into a side room where a number of unarmed Sol-Kor were quickly cut down, all except for the one Adam shoulder-butted to the floor. Sitting down atop the alien’s chest, Adam placed the hot barrel of his weapon against the scaly skin of the creature’s face. The Sol-Kor jerked away from the hot metal.
“Where is the Queen!” Adam yelled at his captive, unambiguous as to the alternative for not answering.
The creature frowned. “The Queen…she is not here.”
The confused look and spontaneous response made Adam believe him. “Where is she?”
“In her chambers, where else?”
Adam burned the alien again with the barrel of his weapon. “Okay, smartass, where are her chambers?”
“My name is not smartass.”
“Where is she!”
“Below…as she has always been.”
“Where below?”
Sensing another touch from the hot barrel if he responded with the obvious, the alien provided more detail: “She is at ground level—but you will never penetrate.”
“Why are her chambers at ground level?” Adam asked, confused and not the least bit upset with himself for assuming the Queen would be at the top of the pyramid.”
“The chambers are what all other parts of the M-1 is built around. Without my Queen, there would be no M-1.”
Adam felt a sour taste in his mouth. “That makes too much sense,” he said to the alien. ”I should have thought of that. Is there an express elevator to her chambers from here?”
“Express…I do not understand.”
“Is there a quick way to get from here to there?”
A defiant look now came to the face of the alien. “I believe you wish her harm, so I will say no more. You can kill me, but I will n—”
At such close range, Adam was bathed in the alien’s blood, something that had become common in the life and times of Adam Cain.
He stood up. “Sorry, guys, but we have to go back down.”
All of the men had heard the brief interrogation within their visors, and as Adam removed his visor to wipe away the alien blood, they exited the office and began moving back to the elevator.
A soft alarm could be heard now, a slow, cyclical wailing that was so soft as to be almost silent. It seemed to be coming from very far away.
“Maybe the alarm is sounding in the Queen’s Chambers and not all the way up here?” Riyad offered. He notice the sudden grimace on Adam’s face. “Don’t blame yourself, my friend. I would have made the same guess. For Humans, we always prefer the top of anything.”
“But we have to look at this place as a hive. The Queen will be at the very center, or if not, then the most-protected part. She’ll be at the very center of the pyramid, and—as I just learned—on the first floor.”
“So much for the element of surprise,” Birdman Drake said over the comm.
“Drake’s right,” Adam said. “But we still have superior weapons and fighting skills. Just be judicous with your ammo. There’s a lot more targets here than we have bullets.”
They were back in the elevator lobby and no other Sol-Kor had come in. “There are four elevators. Let’s split up and take two of them, stagger our arrival at the bottom. If the first squad runs into trouble, the second should be able to help. Load up.”
Adam was surprised the elevators hadn’t been locked down, until he realized that the Sol-Kor, especially within their main hive and on Kor, had very few security concerns. There was no crime within the species, and any other aliens on the planet were mindless slaves, hardly a thre
at. The Sol-Kor simply didn’t have to make security arrangements, at least not throughout the bulk of the structure.
But they did when it came to their queen.
As Adam had guessed, when the elevator car reached the ground floor and the doors slid open, fifty flash bolts splashed off the back wall. It was here that the first men fell, as Specialist Juan Garcia and Master Sergeant Javier Hernandez bought the farm. Even with their enhanced armor, bolts to the head were very hard to overcome.
Adam was in the first car and did his best to spray the corridor with gunfire. The makeshift shelters behind the Sol-Kor’s ubiquitous table-desks proved to be very little defense against the M-91’s heavy 7.62mm slugs.
Then Adam heard the plop of a canister grenade launched from the underbarrel attachment of an M-91. The resulting explosion slowed the incoming fire to a trickle, and when the second elevator car arrived with Riyad and the other half of the team, they met little resistance before moving quickly into the room to silence the last of the defenders.
They were once again in a large security room, from which two solid doors led to places unknown. Fifty dead Sol-Kor littered the floor, thick smoke hanging near the high ceiling as a result of the grenade explosion.
Adam turned toward the tall and wide double metal doors set in the right wall. There were no other doors like these along the hallway, so Adam assumed these had to lead to someplace important. He cocked the grenade launcher on his weapon.
“Fire in the hole!” he yelled. The resulting explosion and concussion knocked several of the Humans to the floor, but they managed to crawl away before a second grenade struck the thick metal barrier. It took four more hits from other members of the team before the doors became a mangled mess.
Flash bolts burst through the thick smoke surrounding the doorway immediately. The team returned fire, six more grenades, and the bolts through the jagged opening ceased.
Neo Anderson and Wizard Kaczynski were the closest, making them the first through. Gunfire erupted on the other side; a grenade exploded, and thirty seconds later all the commandos were on the other side of the breach. The smoke wasn’t as thick here, even as the floor was littered with the bodies of over a hundred dead Sol-Kor.