by E. C. Jarvis
Larissa swung her legs over one of the ticket gates and held the lantern up to a map attached to the wall between two tunnels. Kerrigan followed after he was satisfied no one lay in wait, at least not in this section.
“East three stops and then North,” she said after studying the map for a while. She cast her eyes downward and sighed.
“What is it?” Holt asked.
“My apartment is one stop in the opposite direction. There won’t be anything there now, no reason to go back. It’s just…”
“You miss home,” Kerrigan said. He caught the way Holt’s eyes flared up, as if simply talking to Larissa was against the rules. Kerrigan ignored him.
“I do…and my cat,” she said as she looked around her ankles, expecting the animal to be there.
“I thought your ghost thing was still following you about.”
“I haven’t seen him since we arrived in Daltonia. I’m not sure he’s still with me, or if he’s…”
“Come,” Holt said, tugging on her arm as he glanced back towards the entrance stairwell. Kerrigan looked back too. There was no one in sight, but he was more certain than ever they were being followed and their pursuers were not far behind.
They followed a long corridor on a constant downward gradient and eventually opened out in two directions. The sign marked Sallarium West had been damaged, graffiti covering the name of the city and spreading down onto the wall beneath. The sign marked East had been split in two, the city name missing altogether.
“Oh,” Larissa said as she came to a stop.
“What is it?”
“If the city is as abandoned and run-down as it seems, I’m not sure anyone will be working the furnaces to power the cab system… In fact, I think the furnace that powered the infrastructure was located in the Hub.”
“The Hub that exploded?” Holt said.
“Yes. We may have to walk after all,” she said with a groan. “I’m sorry, I should have thought of it before coming all the way down here.” She turned to go back up.
“You’re tired. We’re all tired. I should have thought of it also,” Kerrigan said.
“The cabs can be worked manually. We should not go back. Come.” Holt tugged on Larissa’s arm again.
“Does he always haul you about like that?” Kerrigan asked as he tried not to groan at the thought of operating the cabs manually. After surviving the crash of the Eagle and fighting for hours, his arms and legs ached and his back felt like he’d been hauling a boulder around for days.
“It’s a new habit,” Larissa replied.
The platform leading to the cabs was devoid of life, and the tracks were bare, no cabs in sight. Holt jumped down onto the tracks and motioned for Larissa to pass the lamp. He stomped off up the tunnel alone, bringing darkness to the platform.
“I don’t know if that means we’re supposed to follow him or not,” Larissa said as she back-stepped to stand beside Kerrigan.
“He didn’t bark at you to come, so I suppose not.”
“He doesn’t bark.”
“He barks.”
“I don’t mind it.”
“Have I ever remarked at you being odd?”
“I believe you alluded to it once or twice, Colonel. I’m aware of my oddness. The odd circumstances I find myself in at times seem to draw it out of me.”
The lantern light grew larger as Holt returned, shadows bouncing off the walls with his steps. He marched straight past them and headed down the opposite tunnel, taking the light with him. Kerrigan checked behind; he wasn’t sure if they had been followed all the way down or not. His heartrate increased as the light disappeared almost completely and something brushed his arm—Larissa leaning against him in the dark. He thought about putting his arm around her shoulder, then stopped himself. As much as it would simply be a friendly gesture of reassurance, having Holt angry at him was the last thing they needed. He wasn’t even sure if he should act in such a familiar manner with her. If she had royal blood, surely he should act with more propriety? It was bad enough to know she’d seen him naked. He chewed on his lip, mulling it over, thinking a little too hard about it and quietly aware that he did so to focus on anything other than the fact that they stood in such a dangerous place in the dark.
“Do you hear that?” Larissa whispered.
He listened intently, closing his eyes even in the darkness. Somewhere in the distance, something made a metallic scraping sound, but it seemed too far away to be made by Holt, coming from a different direction. A knot formed in his chest.
“Why do I have the feeling these tunnels aren’t as abandoned as they seem?” Larissa said.
“Because they are not,” Holt said. Larissa squealed and grabbed onto Kerrigan’s chest. He would never admit how close he came to letting go of his bladder.
“Gods, you scared me,” she said.
“I shuttered the lantern. We must proceed in the dark until we are on the cab,” Holt said. Kerrigan felt a hand grope between his chest and Larissa’s arms to prize her away from him. “Come.”
The pair moved away, and Kerrigan could only just sense them in the dark. A moment of panic flittered through his mind, as he had no idea which direction they were going and wasn’t sure where the edge of the platform was. Tiredness was taking its toll. Someone grabbed onto his hand and pulled him along. His first thought was that Holt had been kind enough to think of him. He almost laughed out loud when he readjusted his thinking after realising the hand holding his was small and soft, fingers lacing between his own. At least someone didn’t want to leave him behind.
They slowed as they reached the edge, and he crouched down, jumping from the platform onto the tracks. Larissa pulled him along with her, his feet hastily shuffling through the dirt and grit on the ground.
“Walk quietly,” Holt admonished in a harsh whisper from up ahead.
“We can’t walk quietly in the dark, Holt,” Larissa said.
Kerrigan kept his mouth shut. He wanted to tell her perhaps she couldn’t manage silence in the dark; he was perfectly capable of being as quiet as Holt. As he tripped over a stone, hurting his toe and stumbling noisily through the gravel, he was glad he hadn’t said anything.
They slowed a little, and light returned as Holt opened the shutter on the lamp. They were deep in the tunnel and stood beside a cab car. The open-bodied vehicle had six seats, which looked as comfortable as a bed of nails. Two lines of cable fed through the underside of the cab and attached to the walls on either side, disappearing behind a mesh of cogs and pulleys. Holt set the lantern down on one of the seats, then scooped Larissa up onto the cab, setting her on her backside on the edge.
“Take a seat,” Kerrigan said with a smile.
“Thanks,” Larissa replied. Holt seemed oblivious to the teasing as he set to work pulling on the cable to draw some slack. Kerrigan didn’t need to be told to do the same on the other side, and he walked around to repeat the action. He hooked the pistol onto his belt and rubbed his fingertips together before grabbing the cable and giving a few swift tugs.
“Come,” Holt barked down at him. He’d already jumped up onto the cab and sat in the seat beside Larissa.
Kerrigan couldn’t help the grumble growling in the back of his throat. He was a Colonel, at least as far as he knew. Having been declared dead didn’t invalidate one’s rank, did it? As it was, Holt had been dishonourably discharged and certainly didn’t have his rank any longer. Even if he did, a captain simply did not outrank a colonel, and he would be within his rights to thump Holt on the nose for presuming to order him about.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Larissa said with a gentle smile as he climbed on in silence.
He didn’t know what she was thanking him for. Had she sensed his discomfort with Holt’s behaviour? Was she placating him?
“I was the one who found the cab,” Holt said.
“Yes, thank you too, Holt,” Larissa said. She turned her face forwards and made a point of not looking at either one of them. It seemed their
journey together was doomed to be awkward no matter what.
Kerrigan took the seat beside Larissa and grabbed his cable as Holt tightened his grip on the cable on the other side, and they pulled together. Slowly, the cab wheels turned, metal screeching against metal as they moved through the tunnel. If Holt had wanted a silent journey, this clearly wasn’t going to work.
It didn’t take long for the vehicle to get up to a decent speed far quicker than walking pace. The strain of pulling the cables became easier. The lantern had only one shutter open, so the darkness of the tunnel seemed to loom over their path. The scrapes of metal echoed all around and seemed far louder to Kerrigan’s ears than he would have liked. They were certainly making their presence known to anyone else who may be lurking down in the tunnels with them.
They passed the first station and abandoned the cab, exchanging for another which sat in wait beside the platform. The feeling that they were being followed subsided somewhat as the rest of the station seemed silent. When they made the final switch from the Eastbound track to the North, Kerrigan dared to hope maybe they had lost their pursuers.
The nearer they came to the center of the city, the worse the graffiti became. The walls were coated in black and red marks, the writing barely legible. Larissa looked nervously at the art as they passed by.
“Not to your taste?” Kerrigan asked, trying to ease her nerves.
“It never used to be like this. I can’t help but wonder what we’re heading into,” she called over the noise of the wheels on the tracks.
“Trouble,” Holt said with a wave of his hand to indicate that they should slow. Kerrigan dropped the cable, and after a few more feet, the cab rolled to a stop. “Get behind the cab,” Holt said as he jumped to the ground, almost dragging Larissa off the vehicle with him.
Kerrigan stared down the dark tunnel ahead, straining to see or hear what it was that Holt could sense.
“Colonel, you too,” Holt said, his voice curt.
“What is—” Gunshot cut his question short, and he launched himself over the edge of the cab, crashing into the hard shingle with his hands and knees. He growled between his teeth and slipped behind one of the wheels, putting his back to the direction of the shooter. More shots echoed throughout the tunnel, pinging off the edge of the vehicle and spraying his legs with gravel as the bullets hit the ground. He braced himself and tried to calm his nerves. He was a combat soldier, trained to deal with precisely this sort of experience, not some arrogant Sky Force asshole. He waited patiently, pulling the pistol from his belt, counting at least three separate shooters. They were probably nothing more than thugs or pirates—certainly not trained soldiers who would know better than to shoot blindly into the dark in the hope of hitting a target. They were wasting ammunition.
As the shooting stopped, the entire tunnel plunged into pitch blackness. He couldn’t tell where Holt and Larissa had gone but presumed they had taken cover at the back of the cab. He took three deep breaths, gripped the pistol lightly in his hand, then moved out from behind the wheel, his feet gliding silently over the gravel as he skulked along the wall, knees bent, shoulders low. It didn’t take long before he heard the shooters’ voices nearby.
“They dead?”
“Sounds like it.”
“You didn’t kill that woman, did you?”
“Does it matter?”
Kerrigan’s fingers twitched towards his belt until he remembered that he’d given both blades to Holt and Larissa. He felt an odd smile tug on his lips in the dark. It had been a long while since he’d had the opportunity to truly fight someone. He’d missed out on the majority of the battle in the field. He followed the voices as they moved towards the cab car until he was just a few steps behind the nearest man, taking care to judge his height from the distance of his voice and trying to pick out his build from the heaviness in his steps.
“I’ll still screw her if she’s dead,” the man said.
Kerrigan reached forward, wrapped his arm around the man’s neck, and twisted as fast as possible. An audible crack seemed to echo throughout the tunnel, and he dropped the body to the ground, followed by a thud.
“What the—”
Kerrigan launched forwards, grabbing the next man by whatever chunk of flesh his hand came into contact with and plunging his fist into where he expected to find a face. The hit was perfect, a satisfying crunch of a nose disintegrating beneath his knuckles. He kept his fists moving, striking at flesh, a leg wrapping around his opponent’s knee and sending him crashing into the gravelly dirt. Something solid connected with his shoulder and pitched him forwards. He dug his heels in and braced his body, managing to stay upright despite the weight of a body clinging to his back, trying to bring him down. The tunnel was still bathed in darkness, and as someone in front of him landed a punch to his gut, he realized he had no idea how many people he faced. He doubled over fast, both accepting the force of the blow and throwing the man off his back at the same time. A hand grabbed his leg, another struck his chin, and he fell to the ground, disorientated and stunned.
He rolled, curling his arms into his body, and bumped into something solid. More bodies fell on top of him, weight crushing his ribs, an elbow smashing into his cheek, pain splitting across his face. In the chaos, a male voice nearby called for blood and death, and in that moment, he was struck with an unfamiliar sense of fear.
“Fuck, there’s another,” someone else yelled.
Kerrigan couldn’t process the meaning of the sentence as he tried in vain to fight back at the bodies pinning him to the ground and alternately punching and kicking him.
The sound of gunshot cracked and echoed through the tunnel; a new pain erupted in his shoulder. Finally, some of the weight above shifted. A knee that had been pinning his chest down disappeared, and he took full advantage of the moment, grabbing the nearest leg and yanking it out, sending the man crashing to the ground. His fists reawakened, and he whacked, kicked, bit, grabbed, and twisted at any piece of flesh unfortunate enough to come into his path until the grunting and shouting subsided and the attack ended.
“Larissa, light.” Holt’s voice came from nearby. A moment later, a thin stream of light illuminated the scene. Kerrigan was on his knees in the dirt, a collection of bodies strewn around him—some dead, others out cold but still alive. He counted seven of them. Holt stood at the opposite side of the tunnel, his own collection of bodies at his feet, though his kills were far more gruesome. Pools of blood dripped from the necks of his victims.
Kerrigan and Holt stared at one another for a moment. He did his best not to count Holt’s collection of bodies, but curiosity got the better of him. His heart sank a little when he realized Holt had taken down eight of the grimy bastards. It seemed equally unfair, considering he’d only had his fists to rely on when Holt had possessed a knife. He wouldn’t have risked shooting the pistol in the dark.
“Gods, are you both okay?” Larissa came from the cab and headed straight toward Holt, pawing over him frantically. She had downed at least one man from her defensive position; someone had obviously broken away from the pack.
He felt amazed once again at her bravado. Kerrigan sighed and stood, instantly regretting it. Pain shot through his body. He could feel the warmth of his own blood erupting from cuts on his face and dribbling down his jaw. A new collection of bruises dotted around the place, adding to the already aching collection he’d sustained during the ship crash. Most of all, he was aware of the fresh hole in his shoulder. His hand instinctively moved over the wound, blood seeping through his clothing and coating his fingers, and he turned away from the pair of lovers staring at him.
“Are you all right, Colonel?” Larissa asked once she’d checked Holt over.
A voice at the back of his head answered her honestly. I’m shot, it said. I’m bleeding. I need assistance. I need help.
“I’m fine.” He nodded and turned to walk the last few meters of the tunnel to the platform up ahead, taking every last ounce of his strength to
cover the limp he’d developed. He kept his hand on the wound, applying pressure, already planning how to deal with the injury. If they could get somewhere safe, somewhere with a fire, he could jab a poker in the flame, wait until it glowed red, then seal it shut with the heat. It would hurt, no doubt, and there was a risk of infection from leaving the bullet in place, but every time he considered telling the others, his damned pride stopped the words from emerging.
“Holt, what are you doing?” Larissa’s strained voice came from somewhere behind.
“Finishing the job.”
Kerrigan glanced behind, another bolt of pain shooting through his shoulder as he turned. Holt systematically slashed his blade across the necks of the men whom Kerrigan had taken down. Kerrigan gritted his teeth. He would have done the same if he’d still had the blade. He probably would have fared far better in the whole fight with a knife in his hands instead of a pistol, and he would have no doubt ended up with a bigger pile of bodies on his side of the tunnel.
“Colonel.” Larissa raced to catch up to him.
He turned away and carried on ignoring the pain in his shoulder and the frustration of the whole situation. He didn’t want to speak to her, afraid he would give away his injury the moment he stopped biting down on his teeth. “How much farther?” he asked her as curtly as possible.
“This is it,” she said, climbing up onto the station platform and peering at the sign.
He clambered up onto the platform ungracefully and stumbled towards the stairwell.
“I hope that’s the last of them,” Larissa said, hurrying to catch up to him.
“So do I.”
“Unlikely,” Holt said as he joined them, wiping fresh blood from the blade onto his shirt sleeve.
“Oh?” Larissa asked.
“They knew we were coming. There may be more.”
“Give me back your blade,” Kerrigan said to Larissa, passing her the gun. He would have preferred to keep both weapons in hand but didn’t want to leave her completely defenseless.