by Adam Matlow
“They seemed conditioned to fear the Legion,” said Vana. “Just another way the Davon maintains control.”
They reached the doorway and entered, which led them onto a stairwell. They ascended three flights of steps, before coming to a door that Marcus recognised.
“This is it,” he said. “The room we’re looking for is on this floor.”
Marcus pulled at the door, which didn’t budge.
“It’s locked,” he said. “I don’t remember it being locked.”
“Must be a new security measure,” said Vana pointing to a card reader next to the push plate on the door.
“Jax, is there anything you can do to get us through this door?”
“Beginning decryption, please stand-by,” said Jax.
“What are you doing here?” boomed a voice from behind them. Marcus wheeled around, to be confronted by a large legion soldier. Buzz cut hair and muscles rippling through his fatigues.
“Do you have authorization to be here?” he continued. “Show me your ID badges.” He tugged at his own, which hung around his neck by a thin cord. The name ‘Smith’ was emblazoned on it.
Marcus raised his hands. “Hey there, I think we’re a little bit lost. We-- um, were looking for the… break room. Don’t suppose you could point us in the right direction?”
“ID now!” repeated Smith. His right hand came to rest on his sidearm.
Marcus looked at the man-mountain, standing at least a foot taller than him and twice as wide.
“Ah crap,” said Marcus.
Smith went to draw his weapon and in the cramped stairwell the only option for Marcus was to throw himself at him. The gun clattered to the ground as Marcus charged the man, but he was quickly thrown off by the man's superior strength, and he crashed into the wall. Vana grabbed Smith’s legs, and wrapped her arms around them and held on with all her strength. Meanwhile Kali kicked and punched at Smith, who swatted away her attacks with ease.
Marcus regained some composure and saw the guards gun on the floor. He crawled over, dodging swipes from Smith, and the flurry of attacks from Kali and scooped up the gun. He stood against the wall and levelled the gun at Smith.
“Hold it right there,” he yelled, pushing the gun forward.
Smith wasn’t fazed and instead dove at Marcus. Instinctively he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The weapon had jammed. Marcus sidestepped the man’s lunge, flipped the gun over in his hand and swung the butt at the man's ample forehead. It connected with a bone juddering crack and Smith collapsed to the floor unconscious.
“Great work Marcus,” mocked Kali. “Truly spectacular. I’m good at thinking on my feet, he says. ‘Let me do the talking’. You missed your calling in life. You should have been an actor or something.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hilarious,” replied Marcus. “So now what? Any suggestions?”
“If I may,” said Jax. “I suggest you try the guard's ID badge with that card reader. He may have access.”
“Good thinking,” said Marcus, snatching the badge. “But what about him? We can’t leave him here, someone will find him.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” said Jax. “A silent alarm has been triggered, the base is going into lockdown.”
“Crap,” said Marcus. He ran over to the door and swiped the badge through the card reader. After what seemed like an eternity, a light above the reader blinked green and the door was released. They all piled through and slammed it behind them.
They turned and found themselves in a foyer, stone pillars ran along its length and yet more offices lined either side of the room. At the far end was the door they were looking for; the one to Davon’s office. Only one large and well-armed man, a scar crossing his temple, stood in their way, and he looked just as shocked as they were at their sudden appearance.
“Ah shit,” said Kali as their eyes met. The guard reacted instantly, raising a rifle and levelling it at Kali. Marcus grabbed the barrel and managed to push it so that Kali and Vana were out of the line of fire. Several shots rang out as the implanted guard pulled the trigger. The barrel heated up and burned Marcus’s hands, but he held on tight, before being pushed to the ground.
The sound of gunfire was multiplied in the enclosed space, leaving Marcus momentarily stunned. He let go of the barrel and staggered back against the wall. Kali pulled her pistol and unloaded the clip into the guard’s chest. He stumbled back a few meters but somehow remained standing.
“Um, shouldn’t he be dead?” winced Marcus, his hands throbbing with pain.
“Body-armour,” yelled Kali.
“Then shoot him again,” shouted Marcus, his ears still ringing from the gunshots. “And this time, not in the armour.”
She ejected the clip from the pistol and loaded another one. She fired several more shots in the direction of the guard, who this time had chosen to take cover behind a stone pillar. Chunks of razor-sharp rock and dust exploded around him as Kali’s shots kept him pinned down. Marcus and Vana were pressed against either side of the corridor, which afforded them little cover from any gunfire that may be aimed at them.
“We can’t stay here,” Marcus shouted over the cacophony. “The whole facility will know we’re here now. We’re gonna have a lot of company, very soon.”
As he spoke, a door at the far end of the room opened, and out burst a group of armed guards, who dived for cover as they heard the gunshots ring out.
“Kali!” yelled Marcus. Using hand signals, he drew her attention to the new arrivals. She ducked back behind a bullet-ridden column and dropped the backpack from her shoulder. A few seconds later she fished out a flashbang grenade, pulled the pin and hurled it down the corridor.
It clattered on the tiles before coming to rest at the feet of one of the guards, who didn’t have time to kick it away before it went off. The corridor erupted in a flash of light and a deafening boom. Glass in the office doors and windows on either side of the corridors shattered and people staggered around, dazed. The guards pulled back and took cover behind anything they could find.
“Now what?” Marcus yelled.
“Look, the door!” shouted Vana. She pointed excitedly at a small door about halfway between themselves and the guard. Marcus recognised it at once as being the door to Davon’s office. A keypad next to the door glowed red.
Jax spoke, his voice barely audible above the gunfire. “The door appears locked, and I have no access to the system on this level to be able to hack it.”
“We have to abort,” yelled Kali.
“But we’re so close!” replied Vana, ducking as a bullet clipped the wall above her head.
Marcus ejected another clip from his pistol and reloaded. “Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it fast,” he cried. “We’re running low on ammo.”
“I have a suggestion,” said Jax through the comms. “The floor plans for this building indicated a generator room on this level. If you can interrupt the power, the door will be vulnerable for several seconds before the back-ups engage.”
“Where is it?” shouted Marcus.
“Approximately 25 meters north-west of your current position.”
“Great. Don’t suppose anyone has a compass do they?”
“There,” pointed Vana. Marcus followed her line of sight and saw, through smashed glass and twisted metal, a doorway at the back of an office.
“I’ll take care of this,” said Kali. She passed the second flashbang to Marcus. “Cover me,” she said, and without giving Marcus a chance to respond, ran straight for the power room, shooting into the corridor as she went.
Marcus pulled the pin on the flashbang and heaved it towards the guards, who this time saw it coming and tried to dive out of the way.
The blast sent the guards scurrying, holding their ears and rubbing their eyes from the grenades intensity. There was a smash of glass as Kali's shoulder barged through what was left of a window and slid to the door. She stood and kicked the door hard, which flew open with a crack and hun
g awkwardly on its one remaining hinge. Kali pulled the pin on her last grenade and tossed it into the room and ran.
A massive explosion rocked the whole floor, and fire belched out of the doorway. The door blew clean off its remaining hinge and buried itself into a nearby wall.
The lights in the room went out just as Kali came crashing back, and with no natural light reaching this floor it was pitch black. The gunfire slowed, muzzle flashes were now the only source of light. He felt someone grab his hand and yanked him up.
“Come on,” yelled Kali.
As he was pulled up, he reached out and took hold of Vana’s arm and pulled her along too. They ran headlong into the darkness as gunfire erupted all around them. He hit a wall, and Vana crashed into the back of him. The wind was knocked from him as he fell through a doorway.
Dim lights flickered into life and he found himself in Davon’s office. Kali slammed the door shut with them all inside, and heard a click as the magnetic locks engaged.
“Stand back,” said Marcus, before shooting the key card reader on the wall next to the door, which exploded in a shower of sparks and molten metal.
“Do you think that will work?” asked Kali.
“I have no idea. It just seemed like the thing to do. What now?”
Vana paced the room. “We’re looking for a computer interface of some kind. Anything that looks odd or out of place,” replied Vana.
The door buckled as the guards outside tried to force it open. Marcus braced it, pushing back with every ounce of strength.
“Whatever we’re gonna do, we better do it fast, this door won’t hold them for long,” grunted Marcus under the strain.
The room was just as he remembered it. The desk was neat, pens, blank paper, and a computer which appeared to be powered off. The rest of the room was featureless.
“What about the elevator?” asked Kali. “There’s only one button.”
“We shouldn’t push it until we have reason to go there,” said Vana.
Marcus searched the desk but could find nothing out of the ordinary. He found the switch to power up the computer and pushed it. After a few seconds, a terminal appeared, asking for a password.
“I don’t suppose you know how to get into this do you?” he said to Kali. “Computers were never my forte.”
Vana set Jax on the table next to the computer.
“Get what you can from that Jax,” she said.
“Certainly,” he replied. “Establishing connection...”
A few seconds passed before Jax announced that he had gained access to the system. “There’s a great deal of data here. Most of it appears irrelevant, but I have found something that may be of use.”
A holographic display appeared over the desk which showed a representation of Earth, complete with debris ring. There were several clearly marked areas labelled in an alien language on the slowly rotating display, areas which Marcus recognised as being the settlements that had missing people. Including New Hope.
“What are these things here?” asked Marcus, pointing to several green dots that floated above the Earth.
“Sentry satellites,” said Vana. “This explains how he was able to find me so quickly. It looks like they are armed as well and according to the logs they were the reason my ship crashed. I was shot down before I even awoke.”
“This is all very interesting, but can you call the ship from here or not?” said Kali
“No. We need to use the elevator, that will take us to where we need to go.”
“You’d better be right about this,” snapped Kali. “We’re fast running out of options. Come on, let’s get moving.”
“Wait,” said Vana, “There’s more here.” Her hands were a blur as she expertly navigated the interface, information spewing past at a rate that made Marcus’s head spin.
The banging on the door grew louder.
“Maybe not the time Vana,” said Kali urgently.
“One moment--” The information on the hologram stopped and Vana stared at it.
“Vana…” said Kali, her voice wavering.
Vana’s eyes grew wider as she read the information, and she gasped. She composed herself and turned to the others.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said. She swiped Jax from the table and tucked him into her jacket. The holographic display vanished.
“What did it say?” asked Marcus.
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”
Kali pressed the elevator button, and the doors opened almost immediately. They all managed to squeeze in and the doors slid closed, just as the main door to the office burst open and the guards flew in.
Marcus was surprised to feel the lift head downwards, rather than up towards the roof as he had expected.
“Where’s this thing taking us?” he asked.
“There’s a control room at the bottom of this shaft,” replied Vana as the doors slid open.
The exited the lift, guns raised as they surveyed the area in front of them. They were in a large high-ceilinged and completely unguarded room. Strips of light covered the walls, emitting a soft yellow glow. They looked familiar, and Marcus remembered how the lights in Vana’s ship had appeared much the same.
Metal pillars reaching to the ceiling were spaced along the length of the room, and at the centre stood a control desk. A section of the floor ahead of them was different; raised slightly and a dark metallic black - large enough for several people to stand on.
Marcus removed his backpack and jammed it between the elevator doors so they couldn’t close, and made his way into the room.
“What the hell is this place?” asked Kali, as she lowered her rifle and slung it over her shoulder.
“This is how Davon has been taking your people,” said Vana. “This machine can transport you from one place to another.”
“But I thought this Sentinel thing was massive?” said Marcus.
“This isn’t the Sentinel, and it can’t transport anything more than a few hundred kilometres. He must have built this when he first arrived.”
“So, he’s been using this thing to kidnap people from settlements? But why?”
“We don’t have time for this,” interrupted Kali. “Let’s do what we came to do and get out of here.”
Vana ran to the console in the middle of the room and pulled Jax from her jacket. She placed him on the console, where he sprung to life, the wavy blue projection of his face popping into existence.
“Jax, help me made the connection,” said Vana, tapping away at the console. They worked for several minutes before Vana clapped her hands together in excitement. “Were in,” she said, a wide smile on her face. “This machine has a direct link to Davon’s ship. We don’t even need to go there, Jax can download the data we need directly from here.”
“That all sounds great, but can we leave now?” asked Marcus. “Can we use this device to get out of here?”
“Easily,” said Jax
“Then let’s do it before—"
A large bang interrupted the conversation, and the room shook violently. Dust and chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling. Kali ran back over to the elevator and listened.
“They’re in the shaft,” she shouted jabbing with the barrel of her rifle. “Everyone take cover.”
“Shouldn’t we get out of here?” shouted Marcus as he skidded to a halt behind one of the large columns in the room.
“The machine needs a few minutes to cycle up before we can use it,” replied Vana.
Kali took cover behind a column on the opposite side of the room to Marcus, while Vana ducked behind the console.”
The ceiling of the lift collapsed, scattering chunks of metal and plastic across the smooth tiled floor. Several legion soldiers dropped in through the hole and charged into the room. Instead of attacking however, they formed a phalanx and held their position.
Seconds later the unmistakable figure of Davon dropped through the elevator roof and strode into the room. He stopped
behind his line of guards.
“Come out,” shouted Davon, “and I’ll make your deaths quick.”
“We’ll pass thanks,” shouted Marcus back from behind his column.
“There’s no way out of here. You only compound your suffering by resisting me.”
“You’re wrong,” shouted Vana. “We’ve locked this device onto your ship’s engine core. If you make any move on us, we’ll rip it from your ship and dump it at the bottom of the ocean. Then you’ll be stranded here with us.”
Marcus looked over at Vana, who winked at him. If this was a bluff it was a good one.
Davon shifted uneasily. “Even if that were true, it wouldn’t matter. I could simply summon for re-enforcements. I wouldn’t be stranded for long.”
“Long enough,” replied Vana quickly. “You may have allies that would come for you but how long would that take? Weeks? Months? I don’t think you want to be around that long do you?”
Davon scowled and appeared to consider what they had said, before replying. “What do you want? Why did you come here?”
Marcus peeked out from behind the column. “I was just in the market for a new secret underground bunker. We were just checking out the neighbourhood. By the way, nice evil lair. Don’t like the colour scheme though.”
“Insolence!” shouted Davon. “How dare you defy me.” He swung his arm against the wall, leaving a deep crack in its surface. Marcus was shocked at just how strong Davon was.
“Tell your men to lower your weapons,” shouted Vana. “Or I’ll rip the heart from your ship and bring it crashing down on your head.”
Davon growled and called his men off. They lowered their weapons and took a step back.
“Good,” said Vana. “We’ll be leaving now. Don’t try and follow us.”
Vana stepped out from behind the console and beckoned for Kali and Marcus to join her on the raised dark platform in the middle of the room.
“Um-- Vana, what are we doing?”
“We’re getting out of here by the fastest possible route. The transporter.”
“That’s funny, because for a second there I thought you said we were going to use this thing here.”
“We are, now come on. Let’s get out of here before Davon changes his mind about how much he’d like to stay here.”