They moved past the smoking heap of bodies. Another alien came for them from the rear, and Kaye blew its teeth in, reloading as they pushed on.
Another corner turned, more dark tunnels branching off. Alien cries echoed, a single weapon fired, three, four shots elsewhere in the compound. The shots were from something small, semi handgun or splatter gun.
Ng started them down the main branch, using the incinerator to take them around a blind corner.
“Running low,” Ng rumbled.
Kaye nodded, but didn’t respond. When the fire ran out, it ran out. Hopefully, they’d be close enough to the safe room to shoot their way in.
Another corner turned, another blast of flame to drive back any XTs—and suddenly Ng went down in a rattle of gunfire, rounds slamming into his throat, into the vulnerable place just above the chest armor. He made a sharp, gurgling cry and then fell silent, crumpling heavily to the ground.
Borkez and Graham both opened up, the shooter’s body jerking as round after round tore into him. He collapsed, real blood washing over the red tear tattooed on his face.
“Cover me,” Kaye said, dropping next to Ng. “Trade reloads.”
He wrestled the incinerator out from under Ng, looked briefly at the throat wound, blood spilling from the shredded suit material like a pulsing fountain, already slowing. Kaye pulled the mag pack off Ng’s belt, the bang strip off his shoulder harness, and stood up again. Kaye had been more worried about the XTs than the Fantasians, and Ng had suffered for his lapse.
Save the self-recrimination. Move.
“I’m point,” Kaye said, stepping forward with the incinerator. “Standard trio. Corners, we sweep high and low after the fire burst. Move out.”
They went as fast as they could, following the splashes of green paint. A half-dozen more aliens were killed—one of them made it close enough to hiss spittle on Kaye, when the incinerator finally ran out—and twice, they saw screaming humans carried away. Kaye kept them tight, didn’t waste time thinking too much.
The sirens and audio loop finally shut down, just as they were hitting the final leg of their tour, according to Kaye’s calculations. Someone had resealed the compound, which wasn’t necessarily good news. It meant no more new XTs, but also suggested that someone in standoff had taken control. The sudden lack of noise allowed them to move faster, though, the aliens sometimes not a stealthy breed; they heard their final targets hissing and screeching well before they saw them, clawing at a metal door at the very end of the main corridor, trying to get in.
“Borkez, get us inside,” Kaye said. “High-low sweep when it comes up. Remember that they’ve got incinerators in there, at least.”
They both nodded, Borkez stepping over a hissing mound of alien limbs to get to the door. She pried the covered control panel off the wall with a metal pop-twist tool from her belt, immediately hooked her palm decoder into their system, started tapping. They’d been warned that a standard leech wouldn’t be enough, and had come prepared.
Graham and Kaye covered the section of corridor, catching their breath. There were still XTs loose in the compound, they could hear the angry trills and screams echoing through the tunnels, but there were no more human cries.
“Got it,” Borkez said.
Kaye and Graham backed closer to the door. Kaye raised a hand, nodded at the last two members of the res team. They nodded back.
He dropped his hand, and Borkez punched it. The door shot up and Kaye dropped low, Borkez and Graham flanking up and out—
—and a huge man barreled into Graham from the left, knocking him down. They rolled across the floor.
Kaye swept the room in an instant—two people huddled against a wall, no XTs, no weapons apparent—and then dove in to help Graham, knocking at the attacker’s head with the butt of his pistol. Graham’s weapon discharged and the two men stopped moving, Graham pinned beneath the huge, limp body of the assailant.
“Borkez, keep us covered,” Kaye said. He rolled the drug worker’s giant, tattoo- and scar-covered body off of Graham—the big man had taken several rounds point-blank to the chest, no worries there—and seen the river of blood, too much of it pouring out of a vicious slash in Graham’s gut. The knife itself was buried to the hilt up and under his breastbone.
Kaye flipped Graham’s mask up, saw the confused pain in his gaze, the eyes looking past him, seeing elsewhere. He died before Kaye could get the morphine patch out of his harness kit.
Kaye stood up, turned to Borkez. She was barking questions at the two people sitting on a bench against the wall, a pretty young woman and a thin, scrawny man with a wandering eye. Kaye moved back to the door, closed it, and locked it down before joining Borkez. Their captives both seemed entirely subdued, the woman crying and shaking.
“Is there anyone else in here?” Borkez asked, nodding toward the racks of equipment and supplies that dominated the back of the large room.
Both man and woman shook their heads. The woman started talking, gasping out words in a teary, throaty voice.
“Yen, he was new, he was crazy,” she said. “I told him not to do anything stupid.”
“She did,” the thin man affirmed, nodding.
“Don’t kill us, all right?” she asked, looking to Kaye. “We don’t got guns, okay? I’m just a sss . . . sex worker, and he’s a chemist, we’re nobody. I don’t want to die, okay?”
She started sobbing again, and Kaye searched for his fiery, righteous anger, and came up empty.
He looked back at her, at them, and sighed. Behind him, a new group of XTs had made it to the standoff door, were beating and clawing for entry—but for the moment, for the first time in what seemed like eons, there was nothing in front of him to fight.
Time to reassess, he thought.
* * *
Fucking fuck! Frank thought, charging out into the brilliantly lit, icy, airless corridor between the ship and the rocks, the dark overhead pressing down. He saw the fish brothers chasing Lee, and saw Didi running and Trace shooting, and then something jumped on his back, something big and heavy and screaming.
“Fucker!” Frank screamed, hitting the rocky ground, feeling something in his back snap. He couldn’t breathe, there was no air, and the something that had hit him, bug, a fucking bug, was grabbing him up and slinging him over one hard, sharp shoulder.
He gasped for air, felt himself lifted up, felt the powerful body beneath his gut tensing, coiling, springing forward. He beat at the bony body with his muscular arms, his legs strangely dead and silent.
“Fucker,” he whispered, and there still wasn’t any air, and it was fucking cold, and it just fucking figured, didn’t it? Just his fucking luck. It was his last conscious thought.
* * *
Frank Cole screamed an obscenity behind them, but Pete didn’t stop running. The incendiary grenades had turned the narrow area between the fallen ship and the rocks into the brightest day, Fantasia’s shadows blown apart by the icy hyperlight. The bugs that still ran the ground had become the shadows, and they were everywhere.
“Ray!” Didi screamed, running for the rocks, and the rocks split apart—camo, Trace said something about camo— and there was a man with a gun standing there in a squared lock, firing out at the chaotic, screeching shadows.
Tommy and Pete stuck to Lee, dodging around him as he fired. Tommy grabbed Pete’s arm, pulling him toward the hidden lock. The confused mass of creatures did the same, running for the opening, and the man who’d stepped out—Ray?—was already backing in, firing, Didi stumbling past him, he was reaching for the controls—
—never make it, never—
—and Pete couldn’t catch his breath but Tommy was strong, kept dragging him along even though they didn’t have a chance. That was when Pete saw Trace fire at Ray, saw Ray fall forward, his expression one of dumbfounded shock, saw one of the bugs grab him up and run, screaming in victory. Trace turned, fired into the press of alien bodies, just enough time for Tommy and Pete to stumble past him, for Lee to
half-fall after, one leg severely lacerated by a claw or a tail.
Pete fell to the floor, gasping, felt a burning on his right thigh, a patch barely the size of his hand, the feeling intensifying exponentially with each rapid beat of his heart. He started to panic, beating at the spot, barely aware that Lee or someone had shut the door, that Tommy was grabbing a piece of deflect suit up from somewhere, was pushing it onto his burning leg, telling him to take it easy.
The pain was agonizing, raw and throbbing, but the treated fibers of the suit stopped it from going deeper. Acid for blood, Pete thought numbly. He wondered if he was in shock.
He finally looked up, saw that Frank Cole was gone. Moby, too, of course. Lee and Trace both had their weapons trained on Didi, who had her arms folded tight, her face flushed with high color.
The expression on Trace’s lean face was intense, astonished hurt and disbelief. Lee just looked determined.
“Why?” Trace breathed.
Didi squeezed herself tighter. “You know why.”
“I love you,” Trace insisted, his eyes welling. “I give you fucking everything, and you—God, how long? How long, you bitch?”
Didi shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. She seemed suddenly tired. “Just kill me, all right? Make it so I don’t have to listen to you talk anymore.”
“You think I won’t?” Trace stepped toward her, pointing the gun at her head.
“If he doesn’t, I will,” Lee said, his voice cool.
While they spoke, Pete pulled himself to his feet, leaning on Tommy, looking at Didi. Miserable, beautiful Didi, who’d obviously known about the camouflaged ship, who’d risked all of their lives to get to it. Lonely Didi, who’d asked him not to talk last night, when he’d tried to tell her how beautiful she was. She’d turned out the lights, then, used her hands to show him what she wanted. It had been hard and silent, pressed against the dusty table in her empty studio. Pete took a deep breath, strengthened his stance although it hurt like hell.
“Don’t,” Tommy whispered, deliberately pulling his arm back.
“Do it,” Didi said to Trace, and she meant it, it was all over her. She sounded sad and frustrated and entirely resigned. “You think you’re the god of fuck, and I’m your queen or something, but it’s not true and I can’t be with you anymore. Maybe this is the only way you’ll let me go. I betrayed you. I wanted you to die. I fuck people you don’t even know about, just to pretend that I have control over my life, and Ray said he could fix things but he’s dead now, so just pull the trigger, just do it.”
Tommy was right, wasn’t his fucking business, he’d be an idiot to open his mouth. He was just one of those people she’d fucked. And he didn’t want to die.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Trace shouted, hitting the side of his head with his free hand, letting out an agonized groan. “You’re my girl! I’d never hurt you!”
“So you might want to stop pointing your gun at her, then,” Pete said, and then Trace was pointing his gun at Pete.
14
Borkez kept up with the questions, which Jessa Saers was quick to answer, eager to make nice to the only people with weapons. The aliens kept up a steady assault against the heavy door, probably encouraging the sex worker’s cooperation. Wes Allen had been quick to explain that he was new to Fantasia, and therefore knew nothing helpful—but that he was happy to comply with any armed authority in the current situation, even if it resulted in a later conviction. He was, in a word, weird.
“. . . And the station over there handles the lock controls, and, like, the life support,” Jessa said, pointing to a small computer setup near the door.
“Can we tie in to the main system from there? Files, I mean?” Borkez asked.
Jessa looked stricken. “I—don’t know. I would think so. You can try, right?”
“Let’s talk a minute,” Kaye said to Borkez, and nodded them away from the two Fantasians. She walked with him at an angle, keeping her weapon at hip level, watching the captives.
Except they’re not. No more than we are theirs.
He kept his voice low. “This station is a burnout already. Anyone worth keeping alive is gone. Get whatever you can access, we’ll pack some supplies and then get back to our ship.”
“I’m not sure we can fix it,” she said.
Kaye nodded. He was actually fairly certain that they couldn’t, not without Aaronson and Puente to talk to the computers, but he didn’t see that they had much of a choice.
“What about them?” she asked, tilting her head to indicate the two workers.
Kaye looked at them unhappily. Neither was worth much to Neo-Pharm. Kaye had taken the job expecting to kill drug manufacturers, ethically corrupt monsters. Wanting to kill them. He’d seen his handful of top-notch, well-trained professionals torn to pieces, or carried away to be impregnated or eaten by creatures that Msomi had deliberately bred to protect his death factory, and throughout, he’d worked to hang onto his focus, his drive: Jack was dead. Jack had overdosed, and these scumbags had made it possible.
The problem was, he couldn’t seem to work up any energy for it. Worse, he’d already seen enough of the two workers to start thinking of them as human beings. They’d survived—along with the man who’d killed Graham, Yen—only because they’d been in their bunkrooms when the alarms had gone off; apparently, no one else had been close enough to standoff to make it in time. Dumb luck. Allen had freely admitted to being a chemist, but he also seemed mentally unbalanced. Not in a villainous way; if anything, he was incredibly polite, his monotone speech almost overly formal. Something was actually wrong with his wiring, which just made Kaye feel sad for him. How hard would it be, to manipulate someone like that? Jessa was a good-time girl, she knew what she’d been into, but she was also pathetic in her eagerness to avoid being shot—and he couldn’t keep watching her and feel nothing. She was literally shaking with terror.
“We could kill them,” Kaye said slowly. “Or leave them here. I can’t rationalize taking them with us. The chemist, maybe . . .”
Borkez only watched him talk, her gaze flat. She didn’t care, he realized; he’d managed to forget that people like Borkez didn’t suffer from conscience pangs.
“Excuse me!”
Wes Allen had stood up, was holding his hands in the air, taking a tentative step toward them.
“May I interrupt you?” Allen asked, and continued without waiting for an answer. He edged closer, stopping at a careful distance. One eye veered away from whatever he was looking at, presumably the two of them.
“It occurs to me that you’re probably wondering what to do with us. Discussing it, I mean. And I think our best chance at survival—I mean this lady and myself, and the two of you, of course—is to take one of the armored transports out to the drug carrier. I believe that there may be another ship there, one that was unaffected by the electromagnetic pulse.”
“Why’s that?” Borkez asked.
“My theory, at this juncture, is that the two of you—obviously corporate funded—were victims of poor timing.” He smiled, paused—as if he’d told a joke—before continuing.
“You see, when your ship arrived, the drug carrier was leaving at precisely the same moment. And both of your ships were felled by the same pulse, but it seems obvious that there was only one intended target. Since so far as I am aware, this compound has no EMP device—”
He looked at Jessa, who shook her head slowly, her eyes wide with trying to follow Allen’s strangely methodical narrative.
“—and that implies that a third party was responsible,” he said. “One that meant to disable only the carrier, in order to steal from it. I don’t imagine they’ll stay long, though, so I think we should consider leaving post-haste.”
Kaye looked for holes, found none. Jessa had already babbled out some of the lead-up to the “attack” on the compound, that two ships had gone down, that even part of Ops had been effected. Kaye hadn’t stopped to consider the implications, too busy ch
ecking out the compound’s armory. It was locked down, but they’d had the tools to get inside. Ten hand cannons, .357 Mag revolvers with speed loaders, and a case of ammo. Three grenade launchers, with an assortment of lethal launchables. And the prize, in Kaye’s recently informed opinion, a half a dozen flamethrowers, industrial grade. Not as powerful as the incinerators the res team had carried, but close.
Now he nodded, acknowledging the likelihood of Allen’s theory—and thinking that his plan was worth a shot. It was perhaps their only shot.
“You said you had a flyer, right?” Borkez asked, and Jessa stood up, waving one hand as she ran over to join them. She didn’t notice Borkez tracking her with the barrel of her low-slung rifle.
“I totally forgot!” she half-yelled, stumbling over her words in her haste to be accommodating. “Yen, he said that Trace and Didi went out in the flyer together, he said he saw Trace suiting up to go out when he was getting out of the shower? Yen, I mean, not Trace. I thought he was wrong, that he forgot the names, he just got here, but maybe he was right, maybe they’re out there, too! Trace, he’s the manager, if you want to, like, interrogate someone or something, he’s the guy.”
Honor among the sub-trades.
“I’m certain I could handle a firearm,” Allen said. “Not that you would want to trust us with weaponry, of course, but I can assure you that you have nothing to fear from me. I only want to survive this ordeal—and your survival is my best chance.”
Jessa nodded. “And if they are out there, you could use us as, like, hostages, right? We’d be your ticket inside!”
“You can get us to the ATV lock?” Kaye asked.
“Sure!” Jessa said, casting a horrified look at the door, the aliens still beating against it. “You bet, they’re real close!”
Kaye looked at Borkez again—no help there—and made the decision. Their arguments were sound, but it came down to the simple realization that he didn’t want to kill them. Not that they didn’t deserve to die . . . But who was he to say? He just didn’t see the point.
The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 19