Approaching Oblivion (Jezebel's Ladder Book 4)

by Scott Rhine

  For a long while, Yuki and Pear Blossom kept up with the whooping child by running along shore. Then the mother had to take a brief rest. Several other students saw her white fur in the distance and rushed to accompany the well-known leader. Others were drawn by what they called the singing fish.

  After shadowing the group farther back until their next resting point, Yuki decided her job was done. They were safely beyond the impending doom. She grabbed a large branch on the shore, waded into the water, and surrendered herself to the current. Feeling Taoist, she allowed the river to return her to the shores of Elysium.

  ****

  Toby didn’t react well to the request. “It’s always the same with those bastards. When I’m there, everyone says how much they hate me, but the moment there’s trouble, they all come begging for me to save the day. I’m good enough to rescue the world, but no one wants to sit next to me. Well, screw them.”

  “I sit by you . . . on you, whatever,” Yvette said lightly. He smiled, thinking of their last night together. “I’m on spook patrol. We’re all working on the defenses in our own way. You were just in the right place at the right time. Herk can’t make the climb without being seen, or he would. The team has faith in you. They all believe you can do this.”

  “I’m not a commando,” Toby warned. “If I don’t succeed, they need another plan. They can vent the cold gasses from the freezer and distillery and make a cloud for cover.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Yvette said. “You’ll make it back in time.”

  “Whenever you leave the base, carry at least two flash-bang grenades like I do,” Toby suggested. “Don’t take any chances.”

  “I won’t.”

  He took a deep breath. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. For you, I’ll try.”

  “I’ve never given up hope for you, no matter what you did,” she replied. “I’m proud of how far you’ve come.”

  Yet she never used the word ‘love.’ She couldn’t lie. That one lack crushed every illusion he’d built. Mechanically, he said, “For the sake of the charter binding our mission, I need you to use the official phrasing.”

  Yvette said, “We are at war with the Bloo tribe. The sniper and all Magi weapons present a clear and present danger.”

  “Danger acknowledged. Baatjies out,” he said, terminating the call.

  Typing the coordinates into the rover controls, Toby rode until he was within a kilometer. From here, he would have to remain silent on the hunt. He called to talk to Yvette one last time.

  “What comes next for us?” he asked.

  “We’ll take the shuttle into orbit. Sanctuary is already on the way, but we may have to wait up to a day. Lou will scoop us up, and we’ll go through decontamination. Every injury we sustained here will be wiped away. Mercy said that on the ride home, we’ll close our eyes and the rest of the way will be stasis. She’ll refuel once we’re all safe. We’ll be back to Earth in the blink of an eye.”

  “If I don’t make it back, promise me you’ll go through the deep-clean cycle,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Our pair-bonding could be fatal to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “If the Magi reset your memory, you won’t waste away.” She would also forget the modifications he’d made to Oleander’s gene therapy. He had learned so much studying the alien bones from the cave. Pregnant women couldn’t pass through pod decontamination. The new DNA sequences should give Oleander a smooth pregnancy and provide a nasty surprise for any Magi still aboard Sanctuary.

  “What’s really going on?” Yvette asked.

  “I’m so sorry I hurt you. My biggest regret in this life is some part of you will always see me as that monster. If you can’t remember what I did, maybe you can be the one person who loves me. Someday.” Toby terminated the link, trying to shut down what little emotion he had.

  Toby programmed the rover to follow him at a distance of 200 meters, unless he sent the ‘come’ command. He also enabled the standard failsafe. If the pandas drew too close, the vehicle would explode, destroying both evidence and witnesses. Out of his helmet, he cut the friend-foe transponder, the device that prevented the rover or other Elysium defenses from using weapons on him. Lastly, he put the wrist computer in his pocket so he couldn’t read the messages.

  Walking to the edge of the world, he looked out with bare eyes. The edge wasn’t climbable without pitons he no longer carried. The rover’s rope wasn’t long enough to reach the slopes below. According to his charts, the nearest descent point was the mass grave. Not including the climb, that would be an extra three hours of walking. Waiting for him would doom the entire team, but he would have risked it for one word from his wife.

  But Persephone never did love Hades. She tolerated him so the gods could have peace. They never had children, though the daughter of Spring loved them dearly. His sins could be forgotten with help from Magi technology.

  He peed in a sample bag. If he had to run, he wouldn’t want the distraction. The scent may even prove useful.

  Closing his helmet, he tested the wind and put his thermal sensors on their most sensitive setting. Finding the large party of pandas was not difficult. The sniper had ten elite soldiers with him, each with shoulder straps the same color as the weapon’s glow. They also had a trio of sand dogs, but he confounded them by approaching from downwind.

  He spoke Pandanese poorly, but decided that his last words should be in his own voice, not Mercy’s. “You have offended the Lurker in the Dark.”

  When he incapacitated half the spearmen with the flash grenade, they routed. One ran off the cliff blind. Their leader struggled to maintain discipline as Toby crept up on the sniper, hopping from rock to rock. The dogs were going wild, pulling at their leashes. Still downwind, Toby flung the bag of urine at the sniper’s back.

  The soldiers set loose the dogs, and they immediately charged toward the urine scent.

  The sniper saw the attack coming and shot the lead animal. This ruined the night vision of the other half of the spearmen and theoretically made the superweapon useless for a short time while it built up another charge.

  Toby fired his Über Taser into the gunman, and the remaining dogs couldn’t resist the helpless, alien-scented target. It was child’s play to hunt the soldiers in the confusion and steal more weapons. He killed three before a huge bruiser connected with a wild swing. The panda broke several of his ribs. Rather than face his foe, Toby stabbed the panda behind him with a spear. The wound wasn’t fatal, but he made it appear as if the bruiser was the culprit. Panda fought panda savagely with fangs and claws, each convinced he had the granith.

  Blood spattered on his armor, making his right leg and hand visible as he killed the injured survivor with a dagger thrust. Standing alone, Toby dropped his final grenade among the dogs before he scooped up the Magi rifle.

  He wasn’t counting on the sniper still being alive. The panda toppled him toward the steep slope, and Toby barely caught a patch of pine bramble on the skid down. His ankles dangled off the edge of the precipice. If the dogs or sniper recovered, he wouldn’t make it back to the top.

  “Come,” Toby ordered the rover, his secret weapon. The resulting explosion would take out all the remaining enemies.

  A considerate man would’ve scanned every centimeter of the blaster so engineers could replicate it. Instead, he pocketed the power gem and allowed the heavy rifle to slide over the cliff. He heard the device skitter over the edge and saw it smash to bits like a snowball on the rocks below. The thought of his bones sharing the same fate made him pant with anxiety.

  The sand dogs above were whimpering and shaking their heads. He could hear the whir of the dune buggy as it approached—too close. Dirt sprayed him in the visor as the vegetation he was hanging from popped loose from the crevices. Crap. If he moved, the dogs would see and shred him. If he stayed put, the detonation might shake loose the only shrub holding him in place.

  Over the hel
met radio, he said, “If I fall off the edge of the canyon, I’d appreciate if you push the button on my failsafe before I hit bottom. I don’t want to suffer.”

  Oleander responded, “I can’t do that.”

  Angry, Toby said, “Explain to Snowflake that I have a mahdra crystal and the DNA analysis of the bones from Crown Island in my pocket. My armor will run out of power before I can reach the camp. If any part of me survives, the hand will be seen.”

  Chapter 44 – Fire in the Sky

  The pandas besieging Elysium grew so tired of climbing the spiked, stone wall that one of them chopped a tree down on top of it. So many pandas fell asleep on the anesthetic moss that their companions were able to roll them out of the way and establish a safe walkway. The defenses were designed for pandas who stumbled across the mesa by accident, not an army. Herk killed seventeen individual warriors in the hour before dawn, and then they made an effort to swarm his first choke point. The moment the first panda reached the other side, he blew the drawbridge, sending a dozen to their deaths. Then he opened up on the remainder with autofire.

  Over the listening device the team had by the throne, Lou heard mention of almost two thousand troops coming this way. He triple-checked the definition of each word. Evidently killing graniths gave a chief big juju. Herk didn’t have enough ammunition to kill them all, even if they kept lining up like this.

  Oleander announced on the radio, “At your two o’clock, a hundred meters out, the Bloos are already cutting down a tree to bridge the gap.”

  “Got it,” Herk replied, finding the threat on his night scope. He itched all over from those damn nettles Toby had covered the slopes with, and it was ruining his kill ratio. “Whoever thought of giving these maniacs saws needs to have their heads examined.” He emptied the clip into the woodsmen.

  “I heard that,” Risa replied.

  “Boss?” Oleander called. “We have a—”

  When Herk heard the explosion on the rim, he thought the fuel tanks had blown prematurely. Then the second burst went off a second later, lighting up the sky. “What the hell?”

  Over the radio, he could hear a woman screaming in the background in the control room. Shit, not another one. Oleander said, “Risa, get her out of here. The doc is already on the shuttle. See how Nadia’s doing on the repairs. Yuki, you’re pulling a second shift. Guard my ass while we calm Yvette down.”

  “Are you kidding?” Yuki complained. “I just wiped out a kill team sent after Pear Blossom. Then I had to beat the charge of the black-and-white brigade over our bridge before Herk detonated it. I’ve earned a rest.”

  “Toby just committed suicide by telling the truth to the Magi,” Oleander said.

  “I’ll be right up,” Yuki agreed. “Hopefully Rachael transitions through the phases of grief soon to ‘Kill them all and let God sort them out.’”

  Oleander cheered, “Go Amazon Corps.”

  When Yuki reported in to the command bunker, Risa handed off the full gauss rifle and set to work repairing the armor. “How did you manage to break this?”

  “Some guy grabbed my breast. I discouraged him,” Yuki said, stripping off her wet shirt and hanging it on a hook on the back of the door. She shucked the armor bottoms next.

  “Your weapon is plugged with mud. You can’t use it like that,” Risa noted.

  “It was empty anyway.”

  “At least the sun’s coming up soon,” Herk said. “Tell me we’re going to have lucky fog or a sandstorm.”

  Yuki laughed. “Let me check the weather report from our satellite. Hmm. Nope, weather prediction is dead. Aerial view is dead too. Only the telemetry is still broadcasting. Fuck me black-and-blue! It’s coming down.”

  “Crashing?” asked Oleander.

  “No, under control—not ours. Lou, is this you guys?”

  “Not Olympus. Snowflake is—” Static cut off the rest of the reply.

  “Damn aliens,” Herk muttered. “Where is Zeus’ eagle coming down?”

  “Somewhere in our neighborhood,” Yuki muttered, typing like mad. “It’s screaming in from the south pole. I don’t know yet whether it’s going to hit the Bloo throne or Toby’s dead, smoking corpse. He pissed them off pretty bad.”

  “Never mind. How long do we have before impact?”

  “An hour,” said Yuki.

  “Really?” Herk said. “Cut me a break. Okay, everyone into the shuttle. I’ll hold the natives off while Oleander sets the timers. Go.”

  Oleander hit the klaxon to warn the others that it was evacuation time.

  “You need me to watch the cameras,” Yuki said.

  “Fine,” Herk replied, sounding too tired to fight. “There were four more empty slots on that blaster gun rack, people. At least one more is coming after us. Someone tell me how we’re going to get off this rock if there’s another sniper out there somewhere?”

  Park spoke up. “We’ll be exposed for less than a minute. I can drop over the opposite side of the mesa and use it as a shield. I’ll accelerate like crazy, and by the time we reach open air, they won’t be able to fire fast enough to hit us before we curve around the next bend in the canyon.”

  Oleander agreed. “Toby’s camera did show about a ten-second delay between pulling the trigger and the flash.”

  “How can we distract these guys for that first minute?” Herk asked. “What if they paint us with a pink spot while we’re taxiing to the edge?” He switched clips and shot two more pandas who looked like they were planning something.

  “They should be staring at a pretty light in the southern sky,” Yuki said.

  “Trace back the target beam and shoot them with our sniper rifle,” Rachael said suddenly.

  “And she’s back,” Herk said. “Great idea, but I can’t hit him with the first shot at that range.”

  “Then I’ll shoot,” Rachael said. “We don’t need to hit him, just get him to duck for a few seconds.”

  “No. He’d let the ship go, but the sniper would cook you, lieutenant,” Herk decided. “If I switched to my combat armor, it might shield me long enough for us to fly clear. We’d need to aim the airlock that direction first for me to provide cover and a proper target. Changing from stealth armor to the exoskeleton will take twenty-five or thirty minutes.”

  “Then it’s agreed—I’ll put on Yuki’s sneak suit and hold off the assault until you’re ready. Give me ten to gear up,” Rachael said. Turning to Oleander, she said, “Specialist Dahlstrom, once the timers are set, change into your spacesuit and head for that ship. That’s an order.”

  Auckland said, “As executor, I read the recent addendum to Toby’s will the moment he was reported killed in action. Oleander is relieved on medical grounds. The child she’s carrying—”

  Someone shut off the speaker at the security desk.

  Herk ran for the command bunker, cursing. When he arrived, Oleander was gone. “What did you do to Ole?”

  “Nothing,” Rachael said coldly. “She’s on the shuttle already. Some part of Johnny is going to survive this.”

  Herk suspected that Oleander saving her life from the sniper had more to do with the sudden change of heart.

  “First we need to get off this rock. The timing is going to be tight,” Yuki warned.

  Rachael grabbed the gauss gun and all remaining clips. “Well, since we can’t take these toys back inside Sanctuary, I’d better use everything I can here. The pandas on the cameras are swarming up the path again. I’m making a stand at the second bridge, 50 meters from the summit.”

  Herk said, “Don’t get too cocky with the gauss gun. On the lowest setting, it creates a lot of noise and makes a great deterrent, but it takes a lot to actually kill a panda at long range unless you hit him in just the right place.”

  As Herk and Yuki helped Rachael into the shimmer armor, he commented, “There are dents and scratches all over this suit.”

  “Yeah. I forgot those bastards are born ninjas.”

  As Rachael ran out the airlock into the hosti
le atmosphere, Herk looked worried.

  Yuki said, “Don’t worry. She’ll be back.”

  “How do you know?” Herk asked.

  “I had to toss my air filter a while back, and the suit has no oxygen left,” Yuki noted. “She won’t be able to stand that soup they call air for more than thirty minutes.”

  He laughed as the Japanese woman helped him change. “The lieutenant will be pissed.”

  Yuki shrugged. “Oxygen deprivation makes stubborn people easier to rescue.”

  ****

  Once everyone else was safe in the shuttle, Herk strapped himself into the open airlock, facing the cliff where Toby had died. It was over ten kilometers closer than the other side, and the place Herk would have picked to shoot from. The shuttle would have to fly at a diagonal to keep him guarding their flank, exposing them to enemy fire for a full forty-five seconds once Ascension started moving. He knew that his role was more of a distraction that anything else, so in addition to the space armor, he hooked up the external speakers to his microphone. With a bit of pro-wrestler theater, Risa had drawn a thick panda mane on his helmet and placed tassels on his elbows to intimidate the natives. He also traded the sniper rifle for a noisy gauss gun.

  Park waited until the glow of the plummeting satellite lit the southern sky. The moon Talus, named for the murdered nephew of Daedalus, rose in the west. The suns were already obscured by the gas giant, casting an orange tint over the mesa. Blast off was unimaginably loud from the open door. The engines thundered, and the wind plucked at the strap holding him in.

  Seconds later, a pink light sprang up on the tail of the craft. No you don’t! he thought. Over the speakers, Herk shouted, “I am the Vengeance of Shuulagar!” He unleashed the needle launcher and roared in primitive challenge.