by Allen Ivers
Aaron reached down to the prostate man, plucking two fresh magazines from the man’s vest. He pocketed one, slapping the other home in the rifle.
The creature hissed somewhere behind him, its hot breath buffeting around his bare neck. Aaron looked back at the beast, with its scarred skull fan and a fresh wound. Its blank expression scanned him over, waiting for some instruction. Where to, how far, and who was in their way?
He looked back at their captive, as he shouldered the rifle, “Empty hands. And keep your head down. Whatever you do, don’t look back. Go, now.”
Aaron marched away, leaving the frustrated Jergad to give one last threatening hiss before falling into tow. That man would have to clean his face of spittle before he could think about moving.
Exiting that hallway might have been the single worst decision of Aaron’s brief and terrifying military service. Sounds of battle echoed up and down as though it came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
The warm tone of discharging lasers and cracks of ballistic fire were the rhythm to a cacophony of screams, fear, and frenzy in equal measure, metered only by the dull echoes muted against the stone walls. The occasional ring of falling brass shell pierced the air, but most of the ordinance being delivered went without the corresponding report.
Heavy footfalls filled the empty spaces, dozens upon dozens, so as to blend into one continuous march. But those were not human boots challenging the gunfire for command of the air.
The Jergad had brought their full force.
Beyond the sound, a dull haze hung on the air, a blend of the cement dust kicked up by the collapse and the sulfide moisture leaking up from below, clinging to any particle it can find in a yellow mist, like toxic veils.
Aaron had no idea if the Jergad was going to have issues with this, but he had to get up and away from that lethal cloud.
Aaron took the stairs two at a time, his uniform pulled over his mouth as a makeshift air filter. The taste of it hit him in the back of his mouth, stinging his throat and coating his tongue like it was wrapped in an acrid paste. It felt like someone had jammed a rusty spoon in his mouth -- blood.
He didn’t think the thin fabric was doing him much good, but he wasn’t about to lower what little defense he had.
He passed holes in walls and cracks thick enough to shove his arm through. The building had been riddled with damage before it was dropped onto bedrock. Lord knows how the building was still standing at all.
Of course, he found his high-minded escape stopped short. The stairs to the top floor had collapsed, the brittle and aged struts finally sundering under the abuse. After all, a building had slipped a full twelve feet into the ground, and no part of it was built for that kind of stress.
Aaron would have to find another way up.
“On the left!”
He knew that voice, strained, dry, almost like it was being shouted through a fan.
Keira. His friends were somewhere on this floor.
He turned, darting between chunks of fallen detritus. He probably looked a tad ridiculous with the organic tank rumbling behind him.
It was his Fifth Floor dormitories -- his old home – crumbling walls and titled furniture. If he hadn't committed its brand of mess to memory, he would not have blinked, but the blood and gore added a new texture to this horror show.
Corpses littered the hallway, almost a dozen armed and armored Imperial Regulars. It was like a spirit had come through and drawn their souls out of their chests through a series of high caliber exit wounds.
He saw the muzzle flash before he saw anyone, pale yellow strobes illuminating the hallway’s distressed edges. Hidden from view somewhere in the rubble was a shooter, and an aggressive one at that. The rifle reports came in brisk chirps, groupings of hostile cracks.
As violent and random as it might have appeared, there was careful trigger discipline, letting off only short controlled bursts despite the constant fire.
He saw her red hair first, thinning at the scalp and stringy at the ends.
“Oy!” Keira barked, as she poked her filthy grimy skull out from behind the rocks. “You made a friend.”
Aaron threw a glance at Scar behind him as he took stock of the carnage around him, “You seem to have things handled.”
Solomon popped up from their little hole, facing the wrong way like he was presenting himself for a headshot. His hair was smeared in other people’s blood like he’d been massaging his neck with the stuff, “Who is it?”
“It’s Aaron!” Keira pointed, and Solomon spun about.
Aaron’s jaw dropped, seeing the ‘war paint’ Solomon had adopted. He had actually smeared it on his neck, under his eyes and nose – and done so with care.
Scar purred somewhere behind him – its reaction was far more delighted than Aaron's was.
He tried to shake off the sight, “Where’s Riley?”
“No idea,” Solomon said, pointing down the corridor to the pile of bodies around him, “Maybe good ol’ Ugly there can sniff him out?”
Aaron looked back at the Jergad -- perforated skull fan, missing an eye, and despite its hideous countenance, was able to cock its head like a confused shepherd dog.
Did these things even have a sense of smell? Scar sure as hell wasn’t going to say, but Aaron’s memory of the mountains implied otherwise.
Movement beyond, past Solomon and Keira. He recognized the threat by their uniform. An Orbital officer rounded the corner, their curious laser rifle tucked against their hip.
The impressive little bunker of rock and debris that Solomon and Keira had taken refuge in was about to be as effective as plaster.
Even Aaron’s personal bodyguard wouldn’t do much against that.
And, of course, Scar hissed at the new threat. Without a word, Aaron looked back at Scar. With a chitter and a twitter in response, it plowed right through a wall and out of sight to the left, off to flank its new threat.
The Oskie raised his rifle, thumbing the capacitor. As dangerous as Aaron might be, they couldn’t let that Jergad flow freely through the battlefield. A tight beam no broader than a pencil drove through the wall, guessing a path where the beast had to be.
Aaron didn’t hear any protest from Scar, so the shot must have been wasted.
But the beam - or Scar for that matter - must’ve sawed through something of import, as the building lurched again, sagging in its muddy foundations. Everyone stubbled and staggered, trying to find their footing in a building rapidly losing its own stability.
Keira surged from her hole at the stumbling Oskie.
The element of surprise was damn near insignificant. Her hand found their rifle, and they seemed to pirouette the damn thing out and around her hands. They were so fast, she mostly discovered where they were before they blinked away again.
She was twice their size, but found their hand at her throat, heaving her up into the air.
They studied her like a curiosity more than a threat, carefully presenting her to the world as a shield. Aaron could swear he heard the augmentations and implants grind to life, tiny servos leveraging chemical batteries for the impressive strength.
Whatever alloy bands held those arms taut, whatever motors and processors lent their aid, made them more than mere man.
Solomon saw the Oskie and saw Keira -- saw her in danger. It was like a switch flipped, or a string snapped. He didn’t make a sound, as he lunged forward, coated in blood like an archon of death. He hopped in the air, reaching out with his rifle to find an angle around Keira’s large frame.
He found it and fired. Adorable.
The Oskie stepped forward, simultaneously lurching out of the shot’s vector and slamming Keira into Solomon, sending them crashing back into their foxhole. One -- if not both of them -- had probably broken some ribs.
Aaron snapped his rifle up, snug to his shoulder. He had seen Riley step out of the way of a shot trained on the back of his skull. He had seen Holmst throw a grenade before Aaron could open his mouth. Was i
t even worth the trigger pull?
Do it.
Aaron tapped off a shot, center-mass. The muzzle brake spat fire up and to the sides in a three-pointed star, like he was brushing aside the fresh dust with tongues of flame. The vibrations shook the walls, a knock on the doors of Hell.
The Oskie watched it come in, the copper jacket just another particularly annoying family pet. They pulled to the side only just far enough to let the bullet slide harmlessly past their shoulder, the sudden jerk launching a curtain of dust in the air like a billowing cloak in their wake.
The focus in the eyes was electric and hypnotizing, as they tracked a dozen items in just a blink, almost soothing in their hyper-perceptive state. Aaron swore he could see flashes of yellow light in the dark of those pupils.
They lowered their rifle, training on Solomon and Keira without even turning his head.
Aaron snapped off more shots. He didn’t have a prayer of hitting the Oskie, not at this distance. Each shot was met with more blurs of motion, but he was noticing something -- the Oskie was gasping for breath. They may be more than man, but they were hardly machines.
Aaron might not be able to break this stone, but he could wear it down.
“Keep up the pressure!”
The Oskie heard the order as much as his allies did. They squeezed the trigger and blasted the makeshift cover shielding Solomon and Keira, scorching the stone to a black powder -- along with anything hiding there.
Comforted by the lack of blood-curdling screams, Aaron snarled and resumed his fire, forcing the Oskie back to his own cover. But it was a short time before Aaron’s weapon clicked empty in his hands -- and Scar was nowhere near close enough, still barreling through apartment walls.
The Oskie leveled his weapon at Aaron.
And found Keira charging in again, this time swinging her rifle like a bat.
The Oskie slid deftly out of the way – slamming on Solomon’s quick knife, rammed to the hilt into the Oskie’s gasping open mouth.
The Oskie gurgled and choked. Solomon held two fingers to his lips, shushing the croaking pains.
"Checkmate, friend," Solomon said, like a good sportsman shaking the hand of a worthy opponent.
The tip of the blade had punched clean through and actually lifted the Oskie’s helmet off of the nape of their neck.
Keira had forced the Oskie to move or be hit -- and Solomon was waiting at the only place left to go. It was a teamwork pinch at its finest.
Scar peeked around the corner, and Solomon cocked his head: monster meet monster. Solomon clucked his tongue, like he was calling over a horse.
The Jergad stomped over, towering over the kill. Solomon nodded toward the Oskie, “For obvious reasons, I can’t let ‘em loose. Would you mind?”
“They don’t really speak--”
Aaron stopped as the Jergad slammed a claw into the Oskie’s chest.
Solomon plucked his knife from the impaled victim, wiping it on his sleeve like he might a camping blade. Keira slumped against a wall, favoring her side, “Like I said, I think we got this handled.”
Scar slid the corpse off its claw like it was dumping laundry on the floor. Solomon smirked at the display, the mess left by a pet too adorable to scold.
He glanced up at Aaron, “Go find the others.”
Aaron nodded, tapping Keira on the shoulder as he jogged past Solomon’s kill. That psychotic pair was going to be just fine, long as they had each other. One held up the other, always. It might even be romantic if there wasn’t quite so much carnage and mayhem.
Aaron slid to a stop at the end of the hallway, half inspecting his surroundings and half scanning his memory.
Scar nudged him along, tapping his leg with one of its mandibles. Now that was a strange feeling, like being tapped with a length of leathery pipe.
"What do you want, the stairs are out," Aaron said.
Scar reached up.
"Don’t—“
Too late. Scar stabbed its claws into the ceiling and pulled, tearing a chunk of roof down. Thankfully, the rebar reinforcements only bent, and the slab propped up as a steep ramp.
Scar cocked his head, with a deep cooing coming from high up in its head.
Aaron shook his head, but another voice chimed in before he could, "What the Hell, Aaron?"
Eden’s abrasive voice was undercut by the wide smile on her face, “Get up here!”
Aaron scampered up the steep incline, snagging his fingertips on the ledge above. For the briefest of deja vu, he thanked Bray for enforcing all of those timed obstacle courses.
He scrambled against the ledge, working to pull himself up. Eden gripped his forearm, her soft fingers biting in with uncommon strength. More vice than hand, she braced and heaved him up through the hole.
The two crumpled together beside a table, to gather their breath and composure.
It was Riley’s basecamp, now a few floors lower than before. Computers were dark, glass scattered everywhere, a power line swinging impotently, quietly the most dangerous thing in the room.
Eden gave him a once over, "You gave yourself another concussion?"
“Good to see you too,” Aaron murmured.
“So much brain damage,” Eden said, smiling wide, “I’m going to get you a helmet. A dorky one.”
She was glad to see him, glad to see him alive, glad to see him unhurt. Just glad. Thankful.
Scar whined below them, sensing their distress. He coiled up.
“Oh, no, no - don’t!” Aaron tried to warn the critter. With all the structural harm, there was no conceivable way the floor would hold the tonnage of a full grown and angry Jergad drone.
But it was not to be dissuaded. Scar leapt up through the whole, clearing the gap and clean over Aaron and Eden’s post. Its landing was almost graceful, still shaking the entire floor.
"Friend of yours?" Eden asked from between the beastie's legs.
"I mean, we've met before."
Snaps and cracks of bullets skipping off the ground around them, ripping and chunking through the wood like the mere inconvenience it was. They had cover from sight, and that's about it.
The only defense they had was that they weren't the target.
The shots were deafening, the sounds echoing off the walls and bouncing back to marry with more, making for louder and louder chaos.
Scar dropped its head low, assuming a defensive stance with its skull fan up and face unnervingly close to Eden's. It somehow roared with a thunder to challenge the fusillade, forcing Eden to clasp her hands over her ears.
It crawled over the cover like it wasn't even there, advancing on the unseen threat.
The Jergad was offering protection, both literal shielding and drawing some focus.
Time to go.
Aaron took off running, Eden close behind, as the barrage peppered into Scar’s leathery hide. Whatever harm the beast was absorbing, it had little concern for its own safety. Its life belonged to a greater whole, to which Aaron also belonged now.
Aaron could see the shooters now: three Regulars huddled behind their own table, barely sighting in as they sprayed entire magazines at the marching demon. They might not have had accuracy, but they were doing enough.
Scar stumbled as a round drove through its knee. The titan whimpered and chittered, dropping onto its face. It tried to prop itself up, drag itself forward, onward. Refusing to die.
The Regulars crept out from cover, ready to finish the job.
“Hey, assholes!”
Whatever half-second pause that offered was enough, as Nora popped out from behind a pillar, steel rebar in one hand and empty pistol in the other. She went to work, smashing heads and legs.
This was no fluid ballet; this was an angry woman who had grabbed anything at hand.
One Regular went down hard, dropping within Scar’s reach. The beast reached out, snagging the poor sod with a claw and dragging him into range of the half dozen weapons it had available. The term wheat thresher came to mind, as it reduced
him to a pulp in seconds.
Something about the violence -- maybe the adrenaline or the sheer force of will -- brought Scar back up onto his crippled legs, exerting years of hatred down onto one man.
Nora finally met resistance, as the Regulars remembered their training -- fire and tenacity were no match for actual hand to hand skills.
With the element of surprise removed, they soon had her gunpoint.
"Capital bitch!"
She just smirked back at her executioners, bloody gums and pearly whites. For they had forgotten about the rest of the room.
Aaron and Eden fired two shots, so synchronized they sounded like one, and the Regulars fell. Nora flinched a bit, as a chunk of lead split through the wall over her shoulder.
The Regulars hadn't even hit the ground before she was complaining.
“You almost hit me!” Nora shouted, pointing at the impact.
“Somebody did,” Eden said, pointing at the deep gash in Nora’s thigh.
Nora looked down at the stained red patch of flesh and cloth, with even some black scoring from the muzzle flash etching a scatter pattern. One of the Regulars, here or in some former skirmish, had gotten off a lucky shot.
She cursed the wound, more out of her level of stupidity than out of pain, “Yup. Yup, now I feel it.”
She reached to prop herself against a wall and found Scar's hide. She favored the leg, electing to lean completely against the Jergad's massive frame.
Scar chittered some apology, almost a purr. It's only then Nora recognized what it was. She stared at the big beast, wary of it, fully able to read its intent but months of conditioning urging her to beware.
“You’re losing a lot of blood, lady,” Eden scolded, “But it just skipped off your quadricep. Nothing primary.”
"I'm bleedin', you're bleedin'. Tell me something I don't know. Like," Nora must've felt the Jergad move again, as she popped off of him, "What is your deal?"
Scar murmured something. Did that big guy just shrug?
That was Keira, Solomon, Nora, Eden. Who was missing? Aaron stepped up, “Anybody seen Jensen?”