Countdown (The Shadow Wars Book 9)

by S. A. Lusher

  “Good point,” Allan murmured in reply.

  “Got something,” Genevieve said.

  The pair went back inside and gathered with the other Spec Ops troops around Genevieve, who stood before a large workstation that had been sprayed with frozen blood and sported the mechanical black eyes of several broken screens. She pointed to one of the few remaining functional screens, which was displaying a holographic topographical view.

  “We're here,” she said, pointing to a rough circle. “We need to get here.” She moved her finger down a lengthy tunnel, past another huge opening, down one more tunnel and then into another, somewhat smaller cavern. “Unfortunately, from the reports I've read, there's some kind of 'alien city' in that huge cavern, in between us and our destination. There's little data on it, but what data there is seems to suggest that it isn't as long dead as it should be. There's weird power signals coming from all over that place. I'm guessing that whatever ripped this camp apart came from that alien city, and when they were done, they probably went back there.”

  “Fantastic,” Allan muttered. It was always something, wasn't it? “Well, not like we got a lotta choice. Chances are if there's anyone left alive, they'll be where we want to go and probably in a rush to get the job done. Which means we need to be in a rush.”

  “Sounds right,” Callie replied.

  “So let's move out, people,” Allan said.

  They left the command module and made their way quickly out of the Rogue Ops outpost. Up ahead was the mouth of a huge tunnel, easily thirty feet high and wide enough to comfortably drive a dump truck through. Work-lights had been strung up along the walls, though most of them were broken and some were flickering, casting an eerie, unpleasant light on the rock walls. Allan tried to keep his head clear as he led the way down the center of the immense tunnel, but it was difficult. Questions kept surfacing, like bloated corpses rising to the surface of a lake. Where was Rogue Ops? Who had wiped them out? Were any of them even still alive? Who had built this city to begin with and why, for what purpose?

  Probably the biggest question that haunted him was why the hell did he keep ending up in situations like this?

  It was ominously silent in the tunnel, no thanks to the lack of atmosphere. If there were any sounds, Allan wondered what they might be. What might be lurking in the shadows ahead, what might be waiting for them in the alien city...

  As they drew closer, an uncomfortable purple light began to fill the tunnel. It made Allan bristle, touching something deep down and primal, a throwback to caveman days when it was nothing but blood and teeth and pure survival. The dim light was the color of deep bruises. Allan rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen up some of the tension coursing through his body like a low-level electrical current, but it wouldn't abate.

  Soon, the tunnel dropped away, the walls disappearing to their left and right as they stepped into an immense cavern. Dead ahead was the city. Allan stopped and stared at it for a long moment. Great, jutting, blocky structures shot up towards the ceiling, which soared several hundred meters overhead. Their edges were ill-defined and slightly vague, like they weren't really there or he was viewing the city through a nearly-invisible heat wave. Near the bottom of the monolithic structures were dozens of squat, square buildings.

  Despite the purple light, the whole city seemed to be shrouded in shadows, except for their intended path. It looked like Rogue Ops had lit a path straight through the city with a couple of hundred work-lights. All they had to do was walk in a straight line through the city. Yeah, easier said than done. Allan was finding it difficult to take another step.

  “Come on,” he said finally, more to get himself moving than anything else.

  It at least got him going. He put one foot in front of the other, resisting the urge to look behind him and see whether or not the others were following him. Before long, he led them to the city's edge. As they drew closer, he had a better view of what the city was made out of, and it didn't do his imagination any better.

  “Jesus,” Robins muttered as they came to stand before one of the monoliths. “What is that stuff?” he asked quietly.

  Allan wasn't sure he wanted the answer to that question. The material in question was a very dark blue, almost black, and although it glinted under the work-lights like metal, it seemed to have the texture of skin.

  “We shouldn't linger...” Callie said.

  Allan agreed and broke off his focus on the structure. Probably the oddest thing was that he didn't notice any doors or windows, any way actually into the structures. He struck off once more, staying in between the string of work-lights planted at regular intervals along a central pathway through the city, pointed outwards, shining like beacons in a dark, purple light. What made the whole thing even worse was that he couldn't get a real sense of where the purple light was coming from. There were no sources, it simply...was.

  They made it perhaps halfway through the city before Martel reported seeing something. Allan froze immediately, turning in the direction she'd indicated, probing the ominous structures with his sharp gaze. For a long moment, he simply stood stock still and stared intently. Nobody spoke, nobody moved. Allan finally began to release his breath when he caught movement as well. He didn't like the way everything seemed to be hidden in deep shadows that his visor couldn't comfortable penetrate. He saw something moving in between two structures.

  Whatever it was, it seemed to be large and dark and bulky. It moved quickly, scuttling deeper into the shadows, disappearing completely.

  “Shit...maybe if we leave it alone, it'll leave us alone,” Allan said hopefully.

  “Come on, has that ever worked for us?” Callie replied.

  “No, but our only real choice is to keep going and get to our destination. The less amount of time I have to spend shooting and running, the better, so let's get a move on,” Allan said.

  They set off again, this time at a more brisk pace. Occasionally, they all reported seeing movement off to the right, hidden in a nest of shadows. Whatever the thing was, it was following them. Not very encouraging. The other tunnel, their way out of the alien city, was actually in sight when the thing following them finally decided enough was enough. Allan could sense the abrupt change and called for everyone to get ready.

  They hardly had time to turn and face their attacker before it burst from the shadows with a horrible speed. Allan barely had time to see what it was before it landed on Robins. He heard the man begin screaming, the sound painfully loud over the radio, a horrible, keening death wail that was cut off very abruptly.

  He was dead.

  “Open fire!” Allan screamed as soon as he internalized that fact, knowing that he no longer needed to worry about accidentally hitting the pilot.

  Everyone opened fire at one, six streams of bullets converging on the creature. There was no sound as the thing's blood, which was a brilliant phosphorescent blue, sprayed on the air. As their magazines ran dry, the thing suddenly stopped moving and collapsed to the ground. Allan slapped a fresh magazine in and kept his gun trained on the creature, but it was totally still now. He studied it as he slowly approached.

  For all of him, it looked like...a giant spider. It was immense, bigger than Robins, with eight thin legs sprouting from a spherical body. As he drew closer, he realized that it seemed almost mechanical in nature. But it was bleeding...was that blood? Could it be oil of some kind? The texture of the creature almost matched the odd, skin-like quality of the buildings around it. Was this an inhabitant? Or perhaps a guardian?

  “Allan, we should go...now,” Callie whispered.

  Allan's gaze snapped up. To the left and then to the right, he spied more of the giant spider creatures. Easily a dozen of them, clinging to the oddly crafted buildings around them. “Run,” Allan said quietly.

  They ran.

  Allan tossed a pair of grenades over his shoulder in quick succession, hoping to slow the spider things down at least a little bit. He had a rough idea that they might at least make it
out of the city, get to the tunnel and maybe make some kind of a stand against the things. They at least knew that they could kill them, but it seemed to take a great effort. And there was a good chance that wouldn't be able to face down a dozen of the creatures. Allan glanced back over his shoulder and cursed. They were gaining on them.

  And they were still a good fifty meters from the tunnel.

  Right as he was beginning to really worry, he saw something, a dark form, overhead. As he prepared himself to be leaped upon and torn into pieces, figuring it for another giant spider that was leaping down at him, he actually looked up and saw that it was something totally different. This thing was flying and seemed somehow fundamentally different than the spiders. Besides the fact that it could fly and it actually looked like a fly, it seemed smooth and almost crystalline, more machinelike than the spider's half-machine/half-organic look.

  Ignoring him and his group completely, this fly creature buzzed directly towards the lead spider. It landed on it, snatched it up and lifted it high into the air. The other spiders stopped and seethed, twitching their limbs violently, seeming to track the progress of the fly. Allan kept watching as he ran. The fly had long, prehensile appendages beneath it. It used these to begin ripping the limbs off of the spider-thing it held. Phosphorescent blue blood and body parts rained down from overhead as the fly reduced the spider to pieces.

  Allan noticed more of the flies coming down for the spiders, who seemed to have lost all interest in him and his group. One of the spiders reared back and then leaped into the air, attaching to one of the flies as it came too close. The spider brought the fly down, using its body as an anchor, and when they both hit the ground, another pair of spiders joined in and began ripping the fly apart. Dark black fluid flew on the air as it was murdered.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Callie asked as they kept running.

  “No idea, but I get the feeling we're caught in the middle of an old war,” Allan replied. “Let's be thankful and finish our objective.”

  They ran on, coming out of the alien city and plunging into the tunnel.

  CHAPTER 14

  –Buried–

  They left the chaos of the alien city behind.

  The fly-machine and the spider-creatures seemed more interested in murdering each other than giving chase to them, which suited Allan just fine. What was bugging him, however, was how many ancient mysteries they were coming across in their galactic scramble to stop Rogue Ops from turning on their apocalypse machine. How many enigmas were they just racing through? How many ancient puzzles were they shooting their way past? Allan imagined that this was probably a job better suited to an anthropologist or archaeologist.

  He was just a guy with a gun and a suit of armor, blasting his way through the bad guys to get at the objective. But there was no time to really think about it. There was never any time. As the sounds of battle faded behind them, the opposite opening at the end of the tunnel came into view. A stark white glow came out of it, the color of work-lights. Obviously, Rogue Ops had been busy. Allan made sure his guns were in working order and that his suit would stand up to more combat, then had the others do the same.

  They weren't done yet.

  Allan spotted a few boulders and rocky outcroppings along the divide between the end of the tunnel and the beginning of the final large cavern. He also saw movement in the room beyond, at least a couple of dozen men and women in black armor moving about. Allan made quick hand gestures to the others, indicating they should get dug in and prepare for a serious firefight. He was just going to get into position himself when a sniper rifle round seared past him.

  “That's close enough.”

  Allan stood his ground and stared ahead. Maybe fifty meters away was a large, circular platform in the middle of the cavern. It was Cyr in nature, gleaming white metal, and it was exactly what they were looking for. Enzo stood atop it, holding the rifle. Around him, on the ground, the troops scrambled to get to cover among makeshift barriers and rock outcroppings.

  “Why don't you give up, Enzo? You know how this is going to end,” Allan replied, keeping his rifle aimed at Enzo.

  “Like it ended the last two times? With me getting away?”

  “Come on, Enzo. You can't really believe in what Rogue Ops is doing. This is nuts. I mean like, really, bugfuck nuts.”

  Enzo sighed heavily. “What do you want from me, Allan? I've got nothing new to say. I'm not going to apologize for trying to help myself. I know you think you know what it's like to be in pain every day, but you don't...not really. No one else on the team does. You got a lot of people killed, that sucks, we've all fucked up, but...it's nothing compared to how I feel all the goddamned time. I did what was necessary.”

  “It still hasn't worked yet, has it?”

  “...they're working on it,” Enzo replied.

  “I considered you my friend.”

  “I know. And I considered you mine. Which is why I'm going to give you the opportunity to leave. There's a side passageway about thirty meters behind you, to the right. It leads to the surface. You can go, right now.”

  Allan hesitated for a second, then squeezed the trigger, shooting the sniper rifle out of Enzo's hands. “Fuck!” he snapped. “Fine, we do it the hard way! Kill them all!”

  Allan dove behind cover with Callie. All around them, the Rogue Ops troops were opening fire, spraying their position with a rain of deadly lead. Allan waited for the initial wave of fire to die down, then, as they were reloading, he leaned out around the outcropping and began looking for targets. He sighted one of them and squeezed the trigger, catching him in the neck just as he was trying to pull back behind cover. Even before that man hit the ground, Allan turned and squeezed off another three-round burst that shattered the faceplate of the guy next to him. Beside and around him, the other warriors on his squad were doing the same.

  He burned through his magazine, putting down six more of the bastards, watching the blood and glass fly on the air. All of this a nearly silent ballet of death and mayhem. Slapping a fresh magazine in, he zeroed his focus on Enzo, who was still on the platform. He was punching something into the console.

  Not good.

  Allan opened fire, narrowly missing his head, the bullets flying just in front of his faceplate. Enzo ducked instinctively, then tried to keep working. Allan fired again and was rewarded with a hit. He saw Enzo go down, a small burst of blood flying from his left arm. He began to try and finish the job, sad that he had to put Enzo down, but the man gave him no choice. Then a spray of rocks and sparks flew in front of his visor as another Rogue Ops trooper hit the rock outcropping dangerously close to his face. Allan cursed and fell back.

  “Got him!” Callie said.

  Allan thanked her quickly and popped up back around. There were still a good dozen or so Rogue Ops troops left and as far as he could tell, none of his squad had gone down. But the hostiles were putting up a hell of a fight. Allan zeroed his sights on the raised platform again and felt his heart leap into his chest as he saw Enzo was back on his feet, working at the console. Allan cursed sharply and began considering his options.

  That was when something new happened.

  As he tried to sight up another shot on Enzo, abruptly, a fly-machine came down came down from the ceiling, picked up a Rogue Ops trooper and carried him into the air. At the same time, a half-dozen spider-creatures came crawling from the far left like a tide of sentient bio-mechanical death. Allan glanced up and saw another dozen fly-machines in the air and, to the right, even more spider beasts. He grinned. Perfect.

  “Cover me!” he called.

  Callie began to ask why when he came out from behind the rock and started sprinting across the battlefield towards the main platform. The spiders and the flies were keeping the soldiers busy. They hardly even noticed as Allan raced across the cavern. They were too busy trying to stay alive. Allan ducked under a giant fly as it came particularly close to him, then dove over a spider, narrowly avoiding it and using a
ll of his suit's amplified strength to clear the giant thing as it suddenly appeared in front of him.

  Halfway there.

  He saw that one of the troops had taken notice of him and the man was leveling his weapon at him, preparing to open fire. No way Allan could get his gun up in time. He prepared to dive out of the way, but there was another spider to his right. Suddenly, the man's faceplate disappeared in a spray of glass and blood and he collapsed soundlessly to the ground. Either Callie or one of the others had just saved his ass.

  Allan counted his blessings and ran on. Almost there now. He could see Enzo working the controls. Allan brought his rifle up and took aim. He began squeezing off three-round bursts, all of them missing, but he gathered Enzo's attention at least. As the man turned, Allan fired off the final three rounds in his magazine and clipped Enzo's chest, sending him sprawling backwards. Allan let his rifle hang and pulled out his pistol. He took aim and opened fire, but grunted as something hit him from behind, sending the pistol flying from his hands.

  Enzo took the opportunity and suddenly dove forward, off the platform, directly into him. Allan grunted, falling back on what hit him from behind, what must have been a corpse. Enzo made a fist and drove it towards his faceplate. Allan jerked to the side, narrowly avoiding the fist. He tried to shove Enzo aside, but the bastard was stubborn. He wrapped his hands around Allan's throat and began choking him.

  Allan felt panic set in immediately as his airway closed off. He needed to something now, something immediately...

  He made a fist and drove it into Enzo right shoulder. Behind his faceplate, he saw the man's face scrunch up in agony, but still he held on. Allan punched again, and again, putting as much force as he could behind it. The armor covering his shoulder cracked and began to vent atmosphere. Enzo finally relented, falling back. He began scrambling backwards while Allan got his breath back, grateful for the fact that the neck part of his suit wasn't made of metal and regained its shape after being squeezed. He sat up, groped for his gun.