by Mike Sheriff
Nehjal checked her chronoglyph. “Ninety minutes. And we’re three miles from the southern border.”
“That’s six miles in ninety minutes to make the rendezvous,” Tor said. “Even Jiren Laoshi could make that timing.”
Laoshi snorted. “Nice to know you can add.”
Tor gave him a rare smile. “Jiren Vandarian I’m not so sure about. We may need to leave him behind, the poor old cudd.”
Vandarian huffed in disdain. “This poor old cudd will leave you in the dust.” He leveled his sonic rifle at his waist, index finger curled around the trigger. “And I don’t mean in terms of my pace.” He jerked the rifle backward, emulating the kick-back from an imaginary firing.
The weapon’s shoulder stock thumped against a console. The rifle jerked to a stop.
A deafening report pummeled the chamber’s walls.
A single concussive round streaked past Tor’s head and slammed into a console screen. The screen erupted in a shower of sparks and shattered glass. The reverberation shook the floor.
Laoshi bunched his shoulders. The report and the impact must have been heard throughout the relay center.
Tor cursed under her breath. Nehjal leveled a stunned gaze at Vandarian. “Sapient Sha,” she said. “What have you done?”
Vandarian stammered. He gaped at his rifle like he’d never seen it before. “I . . . I’m sorry sireen. I—”
“Get down!” Nehjal shouted up to Dominus, no longer guarding the volume of her voice. “We need to move out of here!”
Laoshi glanced up and met Dominus’ wide-eyed gaze. His friend jumped off the beam.
The flexglass line whirred as it streamed through the belaying cam. Laoshi let it run free, allowing a near-free-fall descent. He leaned back and applied the belay an instant before Dominus’ feet touched the floor. Laoshi slung his rifle over the mongrel tunic while Dominus stripped off his climbing harness. They shared their angst through their silence.
Tor raced to the hatch leading into the southern corridor. She gripped its circular handle, straining to spin it. “It’s locked!”
Vandarian tried the adjacent hatch. Its handle didn’t budge either. “A guard must have locked them out.” He leveled an accusing finger at Tor. “She was too slow in dropping her target!”
Tor sneered at him. “Or maybe firing a sonic round into a console activated the locks!”
Nehjal darted to the hatch leading into the northern corridor. It remained ajar from the earlier breach. “Through here! Move, move, move!”
Laoshi followed the other members through the hatch. They sprinted up the corridor and reached the switchback stairs. A pell-mell descent led into the northern vestibule on the surface level.
Muffled shouts and high-frequency hisses leached through the door leading to the intersection Laoshi had traversed earlier. Nehjal raised a finger to her lips and placed her ear to the door. She grimaced. “Sounds like they’ve powered up a few levicarts.”
Laoshi nodded. “I saw three of them on my way in.”
“That rules out using the northern exit,” Nehjal said. She shifted to the hatch leading into the northern corridor. “Laoshi up!”
He moved forward and joined her. The corridor beyond the vestibule ran two hundred feet to the open hub. From the hub, they could reach the southern corridor leading to the security door—their only escape route.
She grabbed Laoshi’s collar. “I need a minute to program the auto-detonator for the sonic charges. Get to the end of the corridor before the mongrels bottle us up.” She yanked him closer. “How many proximity charges do you have?”
“Only the four on my webbing,” Laoshi said. The ovoid devices hung from the straps covering his ribcage, two per side. Each weighed half-a-pound and fit comfortably in one hand. They could deliver lethal overpressure out to a twenty-foot radius. The trick was to throw them far enough to avoid being caught in the blast.
Nehjal tugged two devices off her webbing and thrust them into Laoshi’s hand. “They’re set for a two-second delay. Use them wisely, but make sure you reach the end of the corridor. We’ll be right behind you.”
He hooked the charges onto his webbing. “I will, sireen.”
“Go!”
Laoshi surged up the corridor. His boots pounded the walkway as he ran, gaze scope-locked on the corridor’s terminus. He passed the halfway mark without seeing any mongrels.
He reached the three-quarters mark, the echo of his footfalls his sole companion. His lungs burned from the exertion. Only thirty feet to go. . . .
Four black-and-gray figures appeared at the end of the corridor. Shocktroops. Armed shocktroops. They hoisted their weapons.
Laoshi thumped to a stop. He tensed, ready to receive a hail of sonic rounds.
The mongrels didn’t fire. Instead, they lowered their weapons.
Laoshi recognized the cause of their hesitation—thanks to his bianfu, they thought he was a fellow mongrel.
He shifted left and drove his shoulder into the wall. His sonic rifle came up to his other shoulder on instinct. He squeezed the trigger.
The rifle’s reports were ten times louder in the narrow corridor. Sonic rounds streaked toward the mongrels massing beyond the terminus, concussive contrails stitching the air.
Debris sprayed from their bodies—anechoic armor and flesh rent from bone. If the mongrels screamed, he never heard them over the rifle’s horrendous chatter.
Sonic rounds whizzed by his cheek—the mongrels were returning fire. He dropped to a knee and dug his shoulder into the wall, taking advantage of a jutting protrusion to shield his head and torso.
Another cluster of rounds flashed past, closer than the first. Their supersonic crackle reminded him of sporadic applause.
Laoshi yanked a proximity charge from his webbing. He primed the device and lobbed it down the corridor.
The device clattered, rolling past the corridor’s terminus. It detonated a second later.
The blast’s overpressure condensed water vapor from the ambient air, creating a sinuous veil of fog. The shockwave’s leading edge struck his exposed shoulder. It twisted him sideways, nearly stripping the sonic rifle from his hands. He righted himself and gazed up the corridor.
No shocktroops were visible in the hub. The proximity charge had created a lull.
Laoshi twisted to the vestibule. “Move up!” he shouted. “Move up!”
Nehjal and the rest of the team entered the corridor. Vandarian was last out.
Laoshi grimaced. From his perspective, they made prime targets. Enfilading fire from the hub could wipe them out in a heartbeat.
He tugged another charge from his webbing and primed it. He raised his hand to toss it.
The mongrels in the hub loosed a half-dozen rounds before he could throw it.
Sonic rounds streaked along the corridor. Nehjal, Tor, and Dominus threw themselves onto the walkway. Vandarian was caught flat-footed.
Two rounds struck his chest, stopping him in his tracks. A third round took off most of his head. He sank to his knees and pitched forward, convulsing.
Laoshi winced. Down the corridor, Tor made no effort to go to Vandarian—he was beyond saving.
Laoshi lobbed the proximity charge. Its detonation suppressed the mongrel counter-fire. He broke cover and advanced up the corridor, crouching to minimize his cross-section. He paused five feet from its terminus, sonic rifle at the ready.
Beyond the corridor, a dozen mongrels splayed out upon the hub’s floor, bodies torn and bloodied.
Laoshi inched forward, sweeping the area for living targets.
“We’re moving up,” Nehjal called out. “What can you see?”
“Nothing living,” Laoshi said.
“Hold there.”
Laoshi held in position, a few feet from the terminus. The rest of the team reached him a few seconds later. Dominus gave him a grim nod. He returned it with an equally dour expression, but in truth it felt better to have his friend at his side again.
“Good work suppressing the mongrel fire,” Nehjal said.
“Not good enough to save Jiren Vandarian.”
She grunted. “No matter. I’d have culled him with my own hands if he’d lived through this.” She edged closer to the corridor’s terminus. Laoshi joined her.
The octagonal hub appeared deserted, but more mongrels could be massing in one or more of the corridors feeding into it. The southbound corridor leading to the security door loomed across from their position. It was vacant, but to access it they’d need to transit fifty feet of open ground.
A classic cull zone.
Nehjal sighed. “There’s only one way to do this. We exit in two teams of two. One goes left, the other right. One member of each team leads with proximity charges and clears the corridors. The other member mops up any stray mongrels with sonic rounds. Each team works its way around the hub’s perimeter and we meet at the southbound corridor.”
“What are the teams?” Tor asked.
“I’ll go left with Laoshi,” Nehjal said. “You and Dominus go right.” She handed the rest of her proximity charges to Laoshi. “You seem to be proficient with these. I’ll stick to my sonic rifle.”
Laoshi nodded. He slung his rifle and hooked the extra charges to his webbing. Including the one in his hand, they gave him a total of six. Going left placed three corridors between them and the one leading to the security door. That meant two charges per corridor. It would have to be enough.
Tor gathered up the proximity charges for her and Dominus. Apparently, she’d be throwing them despite her skill with a rifle. Ten of the devices hung from her webbing, all within easy reach.
Nehjal took a deep breath. “Remember, we are Jireni. Lead with a proximity charge, then move quick and deadly. Let’s give the mongrels reason to regret this meeting.”
Dominus extended his hand to Laoshi. “I’ll see you on the other side, my friend.”
Laoshi grasped it. “On the other side.”
They shook; one palm up, one palm down.
“Toss the first charges on the count of three,” Nehjal said.
Laoshi and Tor inched forward to the end of the corridor. Laoshi cocked his arm, ready to fling his charge to the left. Tor mirrored his movement on the right-hand side of the opening.
“One . . . two—”
Percussive reports cut off her countdown. Sonic rounds flashed past Laoshi, hammering the canted walls. Chunks of shattered piping peppered the ceiling.
Nehjal rocked to the side. She grunted and cursed before finding her footing. “Go! Go! Go!”
Laoshi flung the first charge to the left. Tor pitched hers to the right. Twin blasts shook the hub to its foundation. Laoshi burst from the corridor the moment the shockwaves had passed.
Sonic rounds saturated the air, white contrails criss-crossing the hub like a hundred flexglass lines. He advanced around the perimeter, pausing at each corridor to activate two charges before heaving them into the maw. Screams and wails provided sickening counterpoints to each blast. It was the longest thirty seconds of his life.
By the time he reached the safety of the southbound corridor, he’d lost track of Commander Nehjal. He turned and scanned the hub.
Debris and bodies littered its floor. A sonic blast erupted to the left, clouding the air.
Tor and Dominus emerged from the fog, faces twisted with a blend of shock and awe. They surged into the corridor and halted next to him, breathless.
“Where’s Commander Nehjal?” Laoshi screamed.
Dominus opened his mouth in reply.
High-pitched ringing marred his response. Laoshi yawned to clear his ears. “Commander Nehjal,” he repeated. “Where is—”
Nehjal stumbled into the corridor. Flecks of blood stippled her forehead and cheeks, coloring an otherwise colorless face. She slumped against a wall.
“Commander!” Laoshi said. “Are you all right?”
Nehjal didn’t respond—at least not directly. Her lips moved as she mumbled something under her breath. It took a moment for him to recognize the words.
She was offering a final petition to Sha. She slumped to her knees and flopped onto her side.
Laoshi retched.
Her left arm and most of her shoulder was gone. Blood geysered from the wound.
“Sapient Sha!” Tor said, eyes widening.
“Go . . .” Nehjal said. “Get to the rendezvous. I’ll—”
Her eyes rolled back. Her chest huffed in chaotic spasms, then stopped.
Tor crouched at her side. She looked up a few seconds later, eyes welling. “She’s gone.”
“We’ll all be gone if we don’t move out of here!” Dominus said.
Laoshi grabbed Tor’s shoulder. “Give me your proximity charges,” he said. “I’ll cover you and Dominus.”
Tor handed over four charges. She rifled through Nehjal’s webbing for other items they might need.
“She has the auto-detonator for the charges on the junction boxes,” Laoshi said. “Make sure you grab that.”
Tor pulled the rectangular detonator from a pouch. “Got it!”
“Good thinking,” Dominus said. He pounded Laoshi’s shoulder. “Don’t stay here too long.”
“Only long enough to use up the proximity charges. Now go!”
Dominus yanked Tor onto her feet. They sprinted along the corridor.
Laoshi tarried until they were halfway down the corridor before lobbing the first two charges into the hub—one angled left, the other right. Two withering blasts followed.
He backtracked and tugged the second-last charge from his webbing. He set its delay for forty-five seconds, then tucked the device behind a protrusion on the wall.
Laoshi covered the two hundred feet to the vestibule faster than he’d ever run. He thumped to a stop before Dominus and Tor. They covered him while he extracted the passkey from his pocket. He swiped it against the nullglass door. Blue lights traced its seam.
They exited an instant before the hidden proximity charge detonated.
7
Exfiltration
LAOSHI DASHED ACROSS the open cloister, the mongrel tunic like dead weight on his shoulders. Ten feet ahead, Dominus and Tor ran hunchbacked, bodies swaying from side to side.
A hundred feet to the south, scattered structures rose from the ground, dark outlines tracing the leaden sky. To the east, a hazy loom of light tinted the horizon.
Laoshi grimaced, but only in part from the exertion. Sunrise was sixty minutes away and they were three miles from the southern border—and another three miles from the rendezvous point. They’d have to maintain a brutal pace if they were going to—
Percussive reports exploded to the left. He spun his head to the din.
One hundred yards away, a dozen gray-and-black figures dashed closer, firing from the hip.
Laoshi hoisted the rifle to his shoulder. “Contact left!”
He squeezed the trigger on the run. Sonic rounds streaked from the rifle’s muzzle.
Two mongrels screamed and fell. The rest sought cover behind a structure’s stubby outcropping. Their harassing fire resumed a moment later.
Laoshi kneeled and squeezed off another burst. The rounds pummeled the outcropping, hammering its nullglass panels.
A cannonade of reports erupted to the rear.
Ten feet away, Tor staggered. She crumpled to the ground with a gargling squeal.
Dominus pivoted beside her and dropped to his belly. His rifle chattered, unleashing a savage burst of suppressing fire toward the new line of threat.
Laoshi crawled toward Tor. Sonic rounds stitched the ground, a few feet to his right. Hard-packed sand exploded, showering him with grit.
“What’s her status?” Dominus shouted between bursts.
Laoshi grabbed Tor’s webbing and rolled her over.
Her unblinking eyes sat fixed in their sockets. A single penetrating round had left a gaping wound in her throat. Bloody froth filled the oozing crater, still bubbling from the air escaping her lun
gs. “She’s dead.”
Dominus edged closer, stopping within arm’s reach. He scanned for targets. “This is an ill position. They have us bracketed.”
Laoshi may have been the newest Jiren on the team, but he knew the odds of surviving an L-shaped ambush. He hugged the ground and shifted his orientation to the relay center. He raised the rifle’s scope to his eye.
Dark forms lined the structure’s roof. Muted flashes signaled weapons’ fire.
Sonic rounds peppered the ground, ten feet to the front. Contrails streaked inches overhead—rounds fired by the mongrels behind the outcropping to the east.
Laoshi’s heart thudded against the hard-packed sand. The mongrels atop the center could range in on him and Dominus while the mongrels to the east kept them pinned down. It was only a matter of time before—
The solution struck like a bolt from the sky. Laoshi reached for Tor’s webbing and extracted the auto-detonator from her pouch. “I’m activating the sonic charges in the junction chamber.”
Another volley cratered the sand, eight feet to the front.
“No argument here,” Dominus said.
“Do you think we’ll be clear of the blast radius?”
More rounds smacked the earth, closer than the last.
“I think it’s moot,” Dominus said. “They’re ranging in on us!”
Laoshi keyed the passcode into the detonator. He navigated to its command menu and overrode the delay timer. Reseting the command for remote detonation took another five seconds. A dozen sonic rounds razed the ground to the left and right, churning up jagged furrows.
Dominus squeezed off a four-second burst. “Better hurry!”
Laoshi confirmed the remote-detonation sequence. He curled his finger around the detonator’s firing trigger. “Firing now, now, NOW!”
He squeezed the trigger. Four impulse blasts bounced him off the ground.
The relay center vanished behind a shimmering bubble of sonic energy. Nullglass panels shattered and rocketed into the air. Mongrels atop the roof arced skyward, screaming and tumbling en masse.
Laoshi tucked his head. The fog-tinged pressure wave blasted over him, buffeting his bianfu and stripping the air from his lungs. He glanced over at Dominus once it had passed. “We’d better move!”