Grayson heard the shotgun blasts in the hall outside, but wasn’t sure what to make of them. A few minutes later he heard gunfire coming from a distance, though he guessed it was still inside the building.
Somebody’s assaulting the base. Now’s your chance to get out of here.
He was trapped in a storage room, not a real jail cell, and the walls imprisoning him were nothing but the turian equivalent of drywall. Standing up, he went over to one of the side walls and began to slam the bottom of his foot hard against the surface.
If the guards were still out there they’d see what he was up to on the cameras. But Grayson was banking on them being otherwise distracted.
After a few hard kicks his foot broke through to the other side. He put his eye to the hole to see what lay beyond. It appeared to be another makeshift cell, much like his own. But this one was empty, and the steel door leading out to the hall was open.
He continued his assault on the wall, and five minutes later he had broken away enough of the material to crawl through. No one had come to check on him during his slow-developing escape, so he assumed none of the guards were around. Based on the continuing sound of gunfire from somewhere else in the building, he guessed they had gone to help fight off the attackers. As he stepped out into the hall and saw the two bodies, he realized he was wrong.
A quick look around told him just about everything he needed to know. All the other cells were empty; Gillian and the others were gone. Someone had obviously busted them out…though he couldn’t even begin to guess who it might have been.
Whoever it was, they were kind enough to leave me an assault rifle, he thought, picking up the discarded weapon from the floor of one of the cells.
Grayson didn’t know where he was, but he knew where he wanted to go—he needed to find Gillian. The most logical way to do that seemed to be to follow the sound of the gunfire.
It didn’t take him long to realize that this task was harder than it seemed, and he quickly became hopelessly lost in the building’s nonsensical floor plan.
Lemm darted back and forth between the containers, constantly changing direction, stopping and starting without warning, and never staying in one place too long. His hands clutched his shotgun tightly, but he wasn’t looking to fire at anyone—he was simply trying to make it to the vehicles.
Kahlee was doing her best to cover him, but she was badly overmatched. The one time he’d dared to stop long enough to look back, he saw two slavers firing at her from cover positions behind a pile of containers on the floor, and another two, newly arrived, shooting down at her from the small landing overlooking the garage from above.
The two teams coordinated their attacks, never giving her a clear opening to retaliate. But that didn’t stop her from occasionally popping her head out and firing back.
Brave thing to do, considering she doesn’t even have any shields.
With Kahlee occupying four of the remaining five slavers, that left only one more for him to deal with. Unfortunately, he had no idea where his enemy was. Every time he ran out into the open he could be stepping into a spray of lethal assault-rifle fire.
Don’t think about it. Just stay focused on the vehicle. You’re almost there.
Only a short stretch of bare floor still separated him from the rovers; a quick sprint and it was all over, one way or the other.
He broke from cover and dashed for the vehicle. The fifth slaver was waiting for him, popping up from behind a crate not twenty feet away as he ran past. She opened fire from close range on his flank; clouds of concrete flew up from the floor as she fired low, where his barrier shields were most vulnerable, trying to take his legs out from under him.
Head down, Lemm knew his best shot at survival was just to keep running. He was half a step away from safety when a hollow-point round entered his left calf. It mushroomed then split apart on impact, sending a spray of metal fragments through his lower leg, shredding the muscles and tendons. Screaming in agony, he pitched forward, his shotgun falling from his hand. His momentum allowed him to manage two more stumbling, off-balance steps that carried him far enough to put the metal-plated rover between him and his attacker before he collapsed to the ground.
He rolled over onto his back, clutching at the bloody pulp below his knee that used to be his leg. He heard footsteps coming toward him, and he realized his shotgun had been left behind, skittering across the floor when he’d dropped it after being hit.
A second later the woman materialized from around the front of the vehicle. She smiled and aimed the weapon at him.
Then suddenly she was flying across the room.
Lemm followed the path of her body as it arced high through the air before slamming into one of the walls and crashing down to the floor. She lay there motionless, her neck twisted at a gruesome angle. It was only when he heard Hendel screaming at him that he realized what had happened: the man was biotic!
“The rover! Hurry!”
The quarian knew it would take thirty or forty seconds before Hendel recovered enough to use his biotics again…time they didn’t have. Gritting his teeth and hoping he wouldn’t pass out from the pain, he used the rover’s front bumper to haul himself up. Standing on his one good leg, he pulled the driver’s side door open and crawled inside. Blocking out the pain as best he could, it took him half a minute to override the operator codes and get the engine fired up.
There was no windscreen on the vehicle; it was more like an armored transport carrier, with a navigation screen on the inside to give him the layout of his surroundings. Organic creatures picked up by the vehicle’s infrared and ultraviolet sensors showed as small dots on the nav screen, revealing the locations of everyone in the warehouse, both friend and foe.
The rover wasn’t equipped with weapons, but it was four tons of bulletproof metal. He threw the vehicle into gear, the tires leaving patches of smoking black rubber on the garage floor as he peeled out and spun in a crazy circle, fighting with the steering in his haste.
He careened into a pile of crates, sending the heavy metal boxes flying. He spun the wheel and stomped on the accelerator. Ignoring the agonizing jolt of pain as his wounded left leg bumped against the side door, he headed straight for Kahlee and the others.
Along the way he plowed through the containers providing cover for the remaining two slavers on the ground, mowing them down under his wheels before bringing the rover to a skidding halt, only inches short of running over Hendel.
Lemm threw open the door and the biotic clambered up into the backseat of the vehicle, the still unconscious girl gripped tightly in his arms while Kahlee lay down another stream of cover fire at the last two surviving slavers atop the landing. They returned fire, the sound of their bullets ricocheting off the armored roof and hull in a metallic, staccato symphony.
“They’re loading up a rocket launcher!” Kahlee shouted, tossing Lemm’s bag into the back with Hendel as she leaped into the front of the vehicle. “Get us the hell out of here!”
“You better drive,” Lemm panted through clenched teeth as he tried to slide awkwardly over to the passenger seat.
She glanced down at his mangled leg, then shoved him out of the way as she slid behind the wheel, causing him to scream in pain.
“Sorry!” she shouted, slamming the door shut and throwing the rover into reverse.
She pinned the accelerator and they took off backward. A fast-moving projectile appeared on the nav screen: an incoming missile fired from the rocket launcher. Lemm thought they were all dead, but Kahlee wrenched the wheel to the right at the last possible second. Instead of blowing the rover apart, the missile struck the ground beside them. There was a deep boom as it detonated, and the vehicle bucked hard from the explosion, the wheels on the near side lifting high into the air before crashing back down to the ground.
Somehow Kahlee kept control, using the nav screen to steer as they raced in reverse across the length of the garage, quickly building up speed. Lemm was horrified to see she was
about to send them full tilt into the garage’s heavy metal loading door.
“Everyone hold on!” she warned them. “This is going to hurt!”
They hit the door with enough force to wrench one side partially off its rails, the metal twisting in its frame. The back end of the rover crumpled, absorbing the brunt of the impact. Everyone inside was thrown against the rear of their seat as the sudden deceleration of the crash brought them to an immediate stop.
Lemm’s leg slammed against the dashboard as he was bounced around, and he screamed again, struggling not to lose consciousness. He glanced over at Kahlee, who was lolling to the side in her seat, momentarily dazed from the crash.
“Kahlee!” he shouted. “You have to drive!”
His voice seemed to snap her back to full awareness. Sitting up with a shake of her head, she slammed her foot down on the accelerator once more. The vehicle lurched, still traveling in reverse, and slammed into the door again. Kahlee kept the engine revving as they tried to force their way through the twisted metal sheet blocking their escape.
“Come on, you son-of-a-bitch!” she swore. “Give me all you’ve got!”
The door bent and buckled under the relentless push of the rover’s six churning tires, but it refused to give way completely, leaving them sitting ducks for the next inevitable assault from the rocket launcher.
This is NOT happening!
Pel had been thinking this one thought over and over, ever since he’d heard the first of the shotgun blasts down in the barracks.
Screaming at his team to get out of their bunks and over to the warehouse to cut off that avenue of escape, he and Shela, the only other member of his crew not already in bed, had grabbed their weapons and raced upstairs. They’d arrived to find the guards dead and their biotic prisoners gone.
Racing back down to the landing that overlooked the warehouse, they’d taken a high point above the battlefield, firing down at where the woman, Kahlee, had taken up a defensive position. There was a half-assembled rocket launcher on the landing; a new addition to the warehouse’s defenses. He briefly debated slapping it together, then decided against it; he still wanted to try and recapture one of the biotics alive so they could sell them to the Collectors.
It wasn’t long before he regretted that decision. From his vantage point above the action, Pel had a perfect view as the rest of his team was slaughtered by a mix of Kahlee’s gunfire, Hendel’s biotics, and one of their own rampaging rovers.
This is NOT happening, he thought once again. Out loud, he shouted to Shela, “Get that rocket launcher operational! Take out the vehicle!”
She scrambled to put it together even as he fired in vain at the prisoners piling into the rover, the position of the vehicle preventing him from getting a clear shot. There was only one way to stop them now, and it didn’t involve taking any of them alive.
“Armed and ready!” Shela cried out as the rover began to speed away from them in reverse.
“Fire, damn it!”
The rocket shot toward the vehicle, but the target swerved at the last second and the missile exploded harmlessly into the floor of the garage. The rover continued to accelerate, then crashed into the reinforced-steel loading door with a deafening crash. The door buckled, but held.
“Finish them!” Pel shouted, and Shela took aim with the rocket launcher for a second, and final, shot.
Grayson wound his way through the unfamiliar halls and stairwells for nearly ten minutes, hopelessly lost.
Maybe all that red sand over the years messed up your sense of direction.
The only thing that kept him going was the fact that the sound of gunfire was getting steadily closer, and the knowledge that whoever had broken the others out had taken Gillian as well.
He was on the verge of slamming his fist through another wall in frustration when he heard an incredibly loud explosion, like a grenade or rocket launcher, followed by a tremendous crash coming from beyond the corner just up ahead. Moving quickly but quietly, he rounded the bend to find himself standing on a small landing overlooking a large, two-story garage.
Crates and containers were strewn about on the floor beneath the landing, along with several bodies. At the far end a vehicle had obviously just slammed into the garage’s door. And on the landing not ten feet away, their backs to him, stood Pel and a woman he didn’t know. The woman had a rocket launcher braced on her shoulder.
The vehicle’s engines began to rev as it tried to force its way through the door. Given the situation, Grayson was almost certain that Gillian and the others were inside.
“Finish them!” Pel shouted, and the woman aimed her weapon.
Grayson opened fire with the assault rifle; he had no hesitations about shooting a woman in the back. The stream of bullets ripped through her shields, shredded her body armor, and turned everything between her shoulder blades and belt into hamburger. The rocket launcher fell from her nerveless hands and she staggered forward against the landing’s waist-high railing. Another burst from Grayson sent her flipping over the edge to the floor below.
Pel was already spinning around, trying to bring his own assault rifle to bear, when Grayson fired again. He concentrated on Pel’s right arm, the spray of gunfire nearly severing it from his shoulder as it blew the rifle from his grasp and sent it hurtling over the railing.
His former partner fell to his knees, his eyes glazing over in shock as sprays of arterial blood spurted from his maimed limb. He opened his mouth to speak, but another burst from Grayson silenced him forever. It was the first time in almost twenty years Pel hadn’t been able to get the last word in.
The horrible shriek of wrenching metal from the far side of the garage drew his attention. Glancing over, he saw the rover had managed to push itself against a corner of the loading door so that it bent up and out. Grayson watched, motionless, as the vehicle squeezed through the opening, the rover bursting forth to the other side as if the garage were somehow giving birth to it.
For the next sixty seconds he didn’t move, listening carefully for sounds of other survivors. All he heard was the rover’s engines growing ever fainter as it raced off into the night.
SEVENTEEN
Inside the rover, Kahlee heard the metal door screeching across the armored roof as the vehicle forced its way past and out into the dark streets of Omega. Still driving in reverse, she went half a block before locking the brakes and turning the wheel, sending them into a 540-degree spin. It ended with them heading in the same direction, but they were no longer traveling backward.
They had escaped the warehouse, but their getaway wouldn’t be complete until they’d left Omega well behind them.
“Do you have a ship?” she asked, directing her question to the quarian in the passenger seat.
“Head to the spaceports,” he answered. “Right at the end of the block. Take the third left, then the next right.” His voice sounded strained and thin from behind his mask.
Kahlee pulled her attention away from the nav screen to sneak a quick glance at his injured leg. The wound looked bad, but not life threatening.
“Hendel,” she called out to the backseat. “See if you can find a med-kit back there.”
“There’s medigel…in…my backpack,” the quarian managed to pant out, struggling against the pain.
Kahlee didn’t dare stop while they treated the injury. Fortunately, Hendel had basic medical field training; fixing up a bad leg while bouncing along in the rover would be easy enough.
Following the quarian’s directions, they quickly cleared the close-packed buildings and emerged on the outskirts of the district’s docking bays. Racing along the open ground, the nav screen picked up three small starships clustered together at the far end of the spaceport.
“Lemm, which shuttle is yours?” Kahlee asked.
“Whichever one you want.” His voice sounded stronger now. She noticed Hendel had splinted his leg and wrapped it in sterile bandages to minimize germ exposure, and the medigel would have dulled
the pain even as it began to heal and disinfect his wounds.
She brought the rover to a halt a few dozen feet away from the closest vessel’s airlock and hopped out, then turned back to help the injured quarian. He slid gingerly across the seat to the door, then leaned on Kahlee for support as he stepped out of the vehicle with his good leg. Hendel emerged a few seconds later, carrying the still unconscious Gillian in the crook of one arm and clutching Lemm’s bag in his other hand.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered, staring through the station’s viewport at the shuttle docked just outside. Kahlee couldn’t help but smile when she realized what he was looking at: they were about to steal Grayson’s ship.
The quarian set to work on overriding the vessel’s security system. It took just over a minute before the airlock opened with a faint click and the landing ramp descended with a soft whoosh of hydraulics.
Inside the ship, Hendel set Gillian down in one of the passenger seats. He reclined the seat and buckled her in as Kahlee helped Lemm hobble his way up to the cockpit.
“Can you fly this thing?” she asked him.
He studied the controls for a few seconds, then nodded. “I think so. Everything looks pretty standard.”
The quarian settled into the pilot’s seat and reached out toward the console with a gloved, three-fingered hand. Kahlee was suddenly reminded that, though quarians might look vaguely human, under their enviro-suits and filtration masks they were definitely aliens. And this alien had risked his life to save them.
“Thank you,” she said. “We owe you our lives.”
Lemm didn’t acknowledge her gratitude, but instead asked, “Why were they holding you prisoner?”
“They were going to sell us to the Collectors.”
He shuddered, but didn’t say anything else. A second later the display screens came online.
“No sign of any immediate pursuit,” he muttered.
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