Speed of Darkness

by Tracy Hickman

Ardo swallowed. All they had to do was be here.

  The rotating emergency lights flashed through the swirling, acrid smoke. Jans might just be his ticket out of here, he suddenly realized. If everyone on the command island were dead, then he could pull Jans out to the Dropship. He could tell Tegis that he had been left behind, too. What the hell did he care about the mission or that damn box! If he could get off-world then maybe he could find a way out of the resoc tanks and make his way back to Bountiful. Maybe he could get his life back all over again and to hell with the Marines and their Confederacy! Then, maybe he could find out if his life had been a lie. Maybe, just maybe, Melani was still there somewhere, looking for him, waiting for him. Maybe, just maybe . . .

  Ardo shouldered his weapon. The smoke was still thick in the room, but Ardo remembered where Jans had fallen. He quickly began picking his way across the gaping rifts in the floor. Jans had fallen somewhere near the transmitter console to the left of the command island. If he could just get there before anyone noticed him, he could sip out AWOL in the confusion and then use Jans to get off this rock. He could quit this damn Confederacy and its Marines and get back his life.

  The Marine moved with a wary anticipation. There were still at least two more Mutalisks out there somewhere. Maybe they were dead but more likely they were lurking nearby.

  “Scenic Base, this is the Vixen five miles out from the marker! Jans, please respond! Jans! Please respond . . .”

  Ardo reached Jans. The tech was still out cold where Ardo had decked him.

  Something struck the side of his combat helmet. Ardo did not notice it at first, but it was followed by a second light impact.

  Ardo quickly grabbed his weapon and swiveled toward the command island. Heart suddenly racing, he saw Lieutenant Breanne through the swirling smoke, crouching next to the map table. Merdith was just behind her. Littlefield crouched on the other side of the map table.

  Breanne signaled for Ardo to hold his position. She then pointed her first two fingers toward her own eyes and then pointed at Ardo.

  Ardo understood the standard signal and looked once more around the compartment. The smoke was quickly clearing from the room. Acid had clearly damaged many of the consoles, and there were several melted troughs in the room. Smoke still poured from the hole burned by the fallen Mutalisk, but otherwise the room appeared clear. Ardo looked back at Breanne and shook his head.

  Breanne nodded a curt acknowledgment and then pointed down at the technician.

  Ardo looked down quickly. There was a nasty bruise coloring a rather large knob rising on the side of his head. He certainly didn’t envy the man the headache he’d have later . . . if he woke up. Ardo realized with a start that he did not actually care if the man ever woke up, as long as he could use him to get on that Dropship.

  Ardo looked back at Breanne and held out his hand palm down and level. Stable, he signaled.

  Again, Breanne nodded. She pointed at Jans, then at Ardo, and then signaled the Marine toward the elevator.

  He had forgotten about the elevator! Ardo glanced behind him. The curved door had rolled back and the elevator itself now stood open and ready for them. He nodded again toward Breanne. He reached down and grabbed the unconscious technician by the collar of his fatigue jacket and began to drag him slowly across the floor toward the waiting elevator. His eyes were fixed on the little compartment, brightly lit and welcoming.

  “Jans! It’s Marz! I’m a mile out . . .”

  Ardo glanced through the broken panes of the command deck. In the distance, to the west, he could just make out the Dropship: a dot silhouetted against the multiple contrails of Confederacy transport ships reaching into the sunset beyond.

  “Don’t you . . . orry broth . . . be . . . ith you . . . ust a few . . .”

  Something bright fell between him and the elevator, splashing against the floor plate.

  It was smoking where it landed.

  Ardo quickly looked up.

  A ribbon of molten silver ran in a ragged arc across the ceiling. Its curve continued toward itself, circumscribing a circle in the ceiling directly above the command island.

  “Lieutenant! Move! Now!” Ardo screamed into the com channel.

  Breanne and Littlefield looked up at the same time. The structural cross supports were melting under the rain of acid. Already they could hear the low groan of the metal giving way under its own weight.

  They needed no further urging. Breanne leaped over the console bordering one side of the island. Littlefield grabbed Merdith’s arm and ran for the stairs. He propelled her ahead of him, launching Merdith toward the catwalk around the room’s perimeter before jumping clear himself.

  With a wrenching groan, the ceiling of the Operations Room gave way, crashing downward toward the command island. The weight of the ceiling hull plates and cut structural supports crushed the island consoles with a thunderous sound. The entire communications antenna farm came crashing down with it, twisting into a barely recognizable tangle as the heavy hull plating slid down off the wrecked island and against the acid-weakened floor plates.

  Ardo pulled furiously on Jans, trying to stay out of the way of the massive avalanche of writhing metal. The technician, however, was beginning to struggle against him as he regained consciousness. His timing is lousy, Ardo thought, but he needed this man to make his escape from this hell.

  “Get ready!” Breanne shouted. “They’re here!”

  Breanne had already rolled painfully to her feet. A deep gash on her shoulder was bleeding freely through a tear in her combat suit. Littlefield was on the other side of the ruined island with Merdith. Ardo could see the two of them moving, trying to get around the wreckage to the elevator.

  It was then that he spotted them: winged shapes rushing down through the ragged opening in the ceiling. The Mutalisks had carved a new way into the Command Center, scattering the humans from their protective cover. The prey were in the open now and vulnerable.

  Ardo released Jans quickly beside him. They were at the open elevator. The now listless body lay across the threshold so as to keep the elevator door from closing again. It was all that the Marine had time to do before raising his weapon.

  Merdith struggled to her feet, glanced up and screamed—more out of honest surprise than fear, Ardo supposed. It was hard to think of that woman being truly afraid of much of anything. Whatever the reason, Ardo noted it got their attention. The remaining Mutalisks dove down through the opening, sailing into the room en masse.

  Breanne did not wait. Her assault rifle began chattering away at once, slamming the winged nightmares into the wreckage. Two of them had impaled their wings on the twisted spikes of the broken antennae and support frames. They writhed and screamed in outrage against the indignity of being knocked out of the air, tearing themselves against the sharp edges of the torn metal.

  Ardo had no time to concern himself with Breanne’s fight, however. A leathery darkness of his own rushed toward him with impossible speed. He opened up with his own weapon, knocking it, too, out of the air. The creature refused to stop, however, and began writhing its way across the ruined floor. Ardo shredded its wings, blasting away at the membrane with deliberate effort. Some cool part of his mind took over, a part that he thought he would like to forget but that stepped forward now to save him when he needed it. Ardo ran as he fired, out of the alcove and toward his target. It continued to press toward him, relentless and heedless of the damage it was taking. Ardo continued to eat away at the creature’s wings. A few more feet should do it, he thought. Ardo stepped slightly to his left.

  The Mutalisk suddenly coiled, then sprang.

  Ardo was waiting. He shifted his fire the moment the Mutalisk attacked. The stream of slugs from his rifle slammed against the chest bone of the Mutalisk, pushing it backward in midair and over the gaping chasm its brother had burned through the floor before him.

  The Mutalisk flapped its wings but there was little left of them to catch the wind. It screamed in outrage as it
tumbled down through the hole. Ardo stepped forward, shifting the stream of his fire now to the head as well as the chest and felt strangely satisfied.

  “Thou shalt not kill . . .”

  “An eye for an eye . . .”

  “Love those that hate you . . .”

  A wave of nausea passed over him, but he could not stop—would not stop. He shifted fire once more toward the Mutalisks still struggling to reach Breanne. Their combined fire was quickly shredding the beasts. Caught in the metal framework of the antennae, their own acid blood was working against them. Every wound ate into the metal around them, melting it and causing the antennae to collapse down on them even further, pinning them in place.

  “Run! Merdith, run now!”

  Ardo turned quickly toward the sound. It was Littlefield.

  The sergeant was blasting away at a Mutalisk of his own, but it was dangerously close. Ardo could see from where he stood that the shower of acid from the approaching creature was eating into Littlefield’s armor. Merdith was behind him. They were both on the opposite side of the Command Center.

  Littlefield’s own stream of fire was ripping through the beast, showering the debris between them with smoking bits of ichor.

  Merdith started to run, but the Mutalisk shifted toward her. Littlefield quickly darted between them, continuing his fire. The beast slithered toward them.

  Ardo shifted fire from his own dying targets, but hesitated in frustration. The Mutalisk was between him and Littlefield. If he began firing on it, he would risk not only hitting both Merdith and Littlefield but spraying them with acid from the disintegrating creature. He yelled, “Littlefield! Get out of the way!”

  Ardo could see the sweat beading on Littlefield’s forehead.

  The sergeant glanced at him, grinned, and then leaped directly toward the Mutalisk. Burying his weapon in the gut of the creature, Littlefield reached out with his free hand and gripped the monster by the throat. Enraged, the Mutalisk coiled its razor-edged tail around Littlefield.

  “No!” Breanne roared.

  “Run!” Littlefield shouted, his voice rising in agony. “Run, Merdith!”

  The Mutalisk was coming apart under Littlefield’s fire. The acid pouring from its body was melting the sergeant’s combat suit, merging the two bodies hideously.

  Merdith, the color drained from her face, ran around the wreckage in the center of the room. She joined Ardo on the far side but could not bring herself to look.

  Breanne moved up, shouting, screaming. “Get away, Littlefield! Let go and get away!”

  Littlefield’s weapon continued to fire. Ardo thought surely the flesh from his hand had been eaten away by now. Perhaps only the melting armor of the suit kept the gun firing. The Mutalisk stopped struggling as the pool of acid formed beneath them.

  The floor plates groaned once more, and Sergeant Littlefield with his defeated foe vanished from view.

  Ardo was shaking so hard that he found it difficult to hold on to his weapon. Outside they could hear a different scream, more familiar and higher pitched.

  Merdith looked up toward the sound and then shouted, “Look!”

  The Dropship. The Valkyrie Vixen hovered thirty feet away, its engines shrill and beautiful to their ears.

  Ardo sucked in a ragged breath and turned around. Jans was leaning up against the side of the elevator, dazed but with his eyes open. Ardo stepped gingerly over to him across the buckled floor plates and pulled him to his feet. “Mister, it’s time you got us the hell out of here.”

  They moved quickly toward the remains of the window. Ardo could see Marz through the cockpit canopy.

  Breanne breathed out and then spoke. “We’re leaving.”

  Merdith, standing beside her, seemed troubled. “Lieutenant, how many of those winged horrors did your sentries report inbound when all of this started?”

  “Eight. Why?”

  “Well, did any of your sentries report any kills? I mean, I don’t think I . . .”

  Breanne’s eyes went wide. She turned to the Dropship and began waving at him. She was shouting. “Get out! Go around!”

  He was smiling and waving back.

  “No! Damn it! Get out!” Breanne shouted, waving more emphatically. “What the hell is the tactical channel? I can’t seem to raise him on the—”

  “Oh, no!” Merdith breathed.

  The remaining three Mutalisks soared up over the command center. Marz was too intent on finding his brother to notice. By the time he realized they were on him, the Mutalisks were already disgorging their spawn into the engine intakes and against the canopy.

  Breanne raised her weapon and began firing. Ardo joined her, but it was too little and too late. Desperately, Marz throttled open the engines and the unsuspecting Mutalisks were sucked into the intakes. The acid flowed into the engines, separating turbine blades from high-speed shafts. In moments the Dropship began tearing itself apart.

  Marz managed to get his Vixen only a hundred yards to the west before it exploded, sending shards raining down throughout Scenic Outpost. It crashed into the ravine just west of the base, burning furiously as the hypergolic tanks collapsed.

  Beyond the thick column of smoke, Ardo saw more Confederacy transports arch gracefully into the sky, their contrails glowing salmon-orange against the crimson horizon of the setting sun.

  There were not nearly as many as he had seen before.

  CHAPTER 19

  DEBTS

  ARDO STOOD IN SHOCK. HIS MIND DID NOT WANT to register what he had just seen. Suddenly, it seemed hard to breathe. He began gulping down long, shuddering breaths. What was there left to do? He turned to face Lieutenant Breanne. Her eyes were staring unfocused at the burning hulk beyond the perimeter as though she were seeing completely through it.

  “Lieutenant?” Ardo spoke quietly, somehow afraid to disturb her. “What do we do now?”

  Breanne blinked. She did not—could not—look in his direction. “We . . . I . . . I don’t . . . know. I . . .”

  “What do I do, Lieutenant?” Ardo repeated, his voice shaking with an anger that was welling up from deep within him. “Give me an order, Lieutenant! Tell me what to do, Lieutenant! How do I fix this for you, Lieutenant!”

  Breanne turned toward Ardo. Her eyes were watery and unfocused. “I think . . . maybe Littlefield would . . .”

  “Littlefield is dead, Lieutenant!” Ardo’s voice was loud and shaking. The beast that always seemed caged somewhere in the back of his mind broke free, yelling into the face of his superior officer. “He’s gone! He can’t help you out of this one, Lieutenant! He’s not going to save you. He’s not going to make you look good. And he most definitely isn’t going to keep you alive this time! It’s you, Lieutenant, here and now! You give the orders! You show us the way out of—”

  “Bernelli to command.”

  The tactical channel was still functioning. Bernelli’s voice cut through some intermittent static.

  Ardo stared at Lieutenant Breanne, waiting.

  Breanne swallowed, beads of sweat forming on her forehead and among the bristle of her short-cropped hair.

  “Bernelli to command; Come in, command.”

  Ardo grimaced and keyed the channel open on his own suit. “Bernelli,” he replied curtly. “The lieutenant specifically ordered everyone to stay off this channel.”

  “Not much need, now, Ardo. They’re leaving.”

  “What?”

  “The Zerg. They’re moving on past us to the west. The whole line of them just passed us right up.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Ardo mused over the channel.

  “Sense or not, that’s what they’re doing.”

  “He’s right, Melnikov.” It was Mellish’s voice this time. “I’m watchin’ ’em through the bunker. They went by us like a line of locusts and left us behind. I’ve got a good eye on ’em through these field glasses and they’re all slitherin’ off to the west. I guess they’re all lookin’ forward to a night on the town.”

&
nbsp; Ardo blew softly through his lips. Mar Sara City was to the west, now abandoned by the Marines and essentially defenseless.

  “Cutter, this is Melnikov. I’m with the lieutenant in Operations—or what’s left of it. Where are you?”

  “I’m in Bunker Four on the southwest perimeter. What the hell happened up there? Where’s Littlefield and the lieutenant?”

  “Get up here on the quick,” Ardo snapped without explanation. “The, uh, lieutenant needs you.”

  “Yeah, well, if the lieutenant needs me, she can ask for me, and not some snotty-nosed, trigger-happy preemie of a—”

  “Cut the crap, Cutter,” Ardo barked. “Lieutenant wants you here, so move!”

  “On my way,” Cutter responded in a cold tone. “If nothing else, I’d be interested in seeing you. I hope you’ve kept that woman warm for me, preemie. I’m sure she’ll be glad to see a man after having to put up with you.”

  Ardo angrily keyed his tactical communications to Off, then turned toward the elevator bay. “I’m sorry, Merdith. I’ll see to it that Cutter doesn’t bother—”

  The elevator door was closed. The indicator lights on the panel in the alcove showed the lift descending. A feeling of dread rushed over Ardo.

  Merdith was gone.

  Ardo cast his eyes quickly around the room. The fallen section of the overhead hull now sat at an awkward angle to the floor. The consoles on the left side of the command island were crushed nearly to the floor plates by its weight, but the right side remained elevated. Ardo quickly made his way across the buckled and acid-torn floor plates.

  “Melnikov?” Breanne spoke as though she were just waking up. “Damn it! What the hell are you doing?”

  “It was sitting on the floor just a few feet from me,” Ardo muttered as he leaned forward peering between the consoles on the right side.

  The box was gone, too.

  Ardo roared, his voice a wordless expression of animal outrage. He glanced at the elevator. Too long, he realized. He’d never catch her that way. He turned and pulled himself up the short ladder to the catwalk that now was a ripple of bent metal around the room. Grasping the open pane of one of the shattered windows, he pulled himself forward into the howling wind and looked down.