“Ma’am?” Akhragan said again. “What are your orders?”
Chen rubbed her palms into her eyes, hoping to drive some sense into her brain. She started to tell him that she didn’t know, that she was having questions, but quashed that impulse quickly. That wasn’t what Akhragan wanted to hear. It wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear. One thing she had learned from Paramo was the importance of appearances. Even if you were tearing yourself up inside, you couldn’t let it show. Not the leader, anyway. You had to present a calm face, a reassuring voice, and a clear purpose. Otherwise your people lost faith in you. And that was worse than making a mistake, even worse than costing some lives, because once they lost faith they’d be just as lost as you were.
“We’re going down,” she announced, sitting and tapping in the commands for open broadcast. “Attention, all hands,” she announced. “This is Lorelei Chen. We are going down. I repeat, we are going down. Prepare for insertion, heavy gear, full combat mode. Expect opposition. It’s going to get hot down there.”
She clicked off the mike and stood up. Well, we’re here, she told herself as she exited the bridge and headed for the armoury. Time to get down there and take a look.
Planet Erebos was every bit as ugly in reality as it had been in her dreams, Chen decided as she hopped down from the Rynex. Her boots crunched into the surface, sending small puffs of ash swirling up around her ankles, and she was glad for the rebreather covering her nose and mouth and the attached goggles covering her eyes. She’d considered wearing a full-on Rãvier suit but had decided against it – though the suit would have given her extra strength and augmented her abilities, it wasn’t good in tight spaces, couldn’t defend against projectile-based or melee weapons, and had only a limited power supply. Besides, she’d seen Combine golems cut right through Rãvier armour. She was better off relying on her trusty combat suit and her natural agility.
Squinting against the setting sun, she studied the landscape. Bleak; that was the word for it. Ash and rock as far as the eye could see, topped by smoke and more ash and some flame. No plants, no animals, nothing moving but her and her people, who were all off the ship now and clustering around it, forming discrete units within the whole. That was exactly what she’d instructed before they touched down. She didn’t want an army down here – too easy to attract attention. Better to split into small groups and scout around, figure out what was where. Hopefully one of them would spot the Swarm and find Kim without getting noticed.
“All right,” she called over the command channel. “All crews, stay alert, and keep your eyes peeled for our target.” She bit back a sigh, the harsh landscape already depressing her. “Let’s hope this trip wasn’t a big mistake,” she muttered, then hoped they hadn’t heard that part.
Shaking it off, Chen shouldered her hybrid Lat’ari rifle and motioned her crew closer. If someone had tailored a planet to be inhospitable they couldn’t have done a better job. She’d felt the futility of this place through Kim’s dreams, and it was worse now. But she had two things going for her that she hadn’t had in those nightmares.
First off, she was awake and alert and armed.
Second, she wasn’t alone.
She planned to use both advantages to their fullest.
“I want a sweep of the area to our northwest,” she told Lady Zou, the sergeant she’d picked as her second-in-command here. “Quiet and careful. We don’t know where they’re hiding.”
“Yes, sir.” Zou snapped off a quick salute and began organising the others into pairs, then assigning them sections on the grid. Calm and efficient, Zou never seemed to get riled, which Chen appreciated. She’d heard Paramo talk highly of her a few times, and had been pleased when she’d joined this mission. On the Rynex she was easygoing, friendly, almost playful, but down here she was all business, and only minutes after they’d landed she had everyone moving out, canvassing the ground for any trace of their foes – or the woman they’d come to rescue.
“Sir, you need to see this!” It was one of her troopers, Tover Prosik, a short older man who’d been a career soldier during Paramo’s tenure as Warmaster. He was one of Chen’s top choices for a mole, and she kept the man close to keep an eye on him, but so far Prosik had proven to be nothing but an asset. Now he was standing with his partner, Ari Patel, on either side of a small crevice, guns out and at the ready. Chen stepped up beside them, Zou right behind her.
“Check it out.” Prosik gestured toward the crevice, and Chen studied it. It was small, barely three feet across, and perfectly circular, with a raised lip around a deep hole. It wasn’t so much a crevice as a sinkhole or a crater – or an entrance. The ash was thinner here, exposing the black rock beneath, and the inside was rough and lumpy. But the edge was razor-sharp.
“Small volcano,” Zou suggested, crouching to get a better look. “Planet’s probably riddled with them. We’ll have to watch our step.”
“Hm.” Chen squatted as well, still staring at the hole. “Could lead to caverns, though,” she suggested. She knew what that meant. During her years fighting them, the Combine had shown a clear affinity for the underground. If this hole did lead to tunnels beneath the surface, it probably also led straight to the Swarm.
Zou eyed the hole. “Too small for us,” she decided finally. “Too easy to get stuck.” She frowned. “Too small for the enemy, too.”
Chen nodded and stood up, absently brushing ash from her combat suit. Adriana was right. Nothing could fit through that. The hole might lead to the Swarm but it wasn’t going to provide Chen and her crew with access, or be a way for the Combine to sneak up behind them.
“Drop a sensor,” she told Prosik, moving away from the crater. “We’ll keep an ear on it. Good catch, though.” The soldier saluted, already reaching for the pack at his side. Each of the troopers had at least one sensor, and they were all keyed into everyone’s else’s comm unit. If the Combine crept past this crater they’d all hear it.
They kept moving, Zou making sure the pairs were spread out across the grid. Chen stayed beside her, disruptor at the ready, but most of her attention was taken up listening to the other squad reports.
“Got a hole!” one announced.
“Too small,” they called back a moment later. “Dropping a sensor.”
Others had the same results. This area had seen strong volcanic activity not too long ago and the ground was still pocked with the resulting craters. That pattern of discovery and dismissal lasted for a full ten minutes.
“I’ve got Combine!” someone shouted. Chen immediately pinpointed the individual. It was Afinoo Gens. Chen was running toward Gens’ location even as she shouted for Zou and the others to follow.
It took Chen only ten more minutes, running full out, to reach Gens. She was afraid she’d be too late, but the young trooper was still standing when she skidded to a halt.
“Where?” Chen demanded, searching all around, her Lat’ari rifle barrel following her eyes. Gens pointed down, and Chen realised there was a crevice between them. This was not a crater like the others but a narrow split in the ground, and she could see deep into the earth below it. And, somewhere down there, something was moving.
Zou was beside her by now, with the rest of their squad falling in behind. Chen dropped to her haunches to peer into the crevice. Yes, she could hear the familiar, distinct sounds of marching golems, and buzzing motobugs. It was definitely Combine. Not close, and perhaps not even aware of them, but definitely there.
“All right, we’ve got Combine,” she announced, standing up again. “They’re not coming up through here but we know they’re below us. We’ve got to assume they know we’re here, too. I want the squads to double up,” she told Zou, who nodded. “Defensive formation. Continue the scouting, though. We need to find a way in.”
While Zou organised the others, Chen squeezed the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, trying to will away the headache she felt forming. She shut her eyes – and found herself alone, the sky turned darker, t
he sun vanished but the moons high. Her rifle was gone, as was her disruptor pistol and even her boots. She stood there, the ash drifting between her toes, and watched the horizon darken further, but not from the onset of night. This was a more organic darkness, a wave of creatures moving toward her, their dusky hides drowning the light as they came.
In what seemed an instant they were around her, and she spun, searching for a way out. She had none. They were everywhere, surrounding her and then pressing in upon her, her flesh taking numerous cuts from the spikes and blades and claws on every side.
Motobugs…
Golems towered over her, trapping her in their shadows, and she shuddered even as a wave of relief rippled through her. Not just relief, but pleasure, excitement – she was happy to see them! She was glad they had found her, glad they were so close, glad they were touching her. Motobug limbs tangled about her, making it difficult to tell where one ended and another began, and she was glad of that as well. Glad she was one with them. One of them.
“Sir?”
The touch on her arm startled her, and Chen fought back the reflex to fire, shoving her rifle point away from a surprised Zou. The others were arrayed behind her, waiting. Gens, who had been crouching beside her at the crevice edge, was still straightening up, as he had been when Chen had shut her eyes.
A second, maybe two, she realised; that’s how long I was out. It seemed so much longer. Long enough for the dream to reach me. Was I asleep? Or is it just that much stronger here?
“Let’s go,” she told Zou, and the second-in-command nodded, whatever concerns she’d had vanishing before the task at hand. They set out again, troops circling the centre, never leaving a quadrant unwatched or uncovered. It was slower this way but much safer, especially now that they knew the Combine were below them. Chen wasn’t taking any chances.
It had been several hours now. They hadn’t found a single entrance they could use, though they’d seen plenty of craters and several more crevices. The Combine were still down there, visible through some of the cracks, but if the Swarm had detected their presence they weren’t attacking yet. Either they didn’t know or they had something more important to do, Chen thought.
“We got a hole!” someone shouted, and Chen shook off the foreboding to scramble toward the trooper. It was Deke Cavez, the youngest member of her team, tall and slight and fast enough to run down a hoverbike on foot. Cavez was standing by a crater with his partner, Melinda Trion, and Chen could already see that this one was larger than the holes they’d found before. It was at least five feet across and its lip rose a full three feet from the ground, creating a short cone. The sides were rough and ash-covered, but the interior glittered a glossy black.
“It’s big enough,” Zou confirmed, peering into the crater. “Looks like it runs all the way down, too. We should be able to…” The rest of her sentence was cut off as she stumbled back, barely avoiding a scythe blade that lashed out and up from inside the crater.
Chen caught her as she fell, shoving her farther back as she brought her rifle to bear, its barrel rising along with the snakelike creature that sprang up from the hole, flared head darting about to study them, scythe-arms already twitching for a second attack.
A Cephlack. Chen had seen them before – hell, many times over the past three years – and she hadn’t gotten away unscathed. She opened up with her Lat’ari rifle, firing a row of white-hot plasma bolts deep into the snakelike Combine’s head, followed by a sharp burst of projectile rounds. It toppled to one side, exploding, the impact driving it to the ground, the glow already fading from its eyes. It hadn’t seen Chen yet and she hoped it had died before revealing their location to the rest of the Swarm.
“Right.” She glanced over at Zou, already back on her feet. She nodded. “All teams, converge. We got us a hole. We’re going in, but be warned – the Combine are already down there, and they know about this entrance. Let’s just hope they don’t know we’re coming.”
But somebody does, she thought as she watched Cavez and Trion leap into the crater, followed by Prosik and Patel. Kimberley must know we’re here.
I’m coming, Kim. I’m coming.
Then it was her and Zou’s turn, and, shouldering her rifle, Chen jumped feet first into the darkness.
17
The crater turned out to be the top of a long, straight chute. The sides had cooled long ago, but the lava that had erupted through it had been hot enough to melt the rock to glass, and the walls were water-slick and perfectly smooth. Chen plummeted like a stone, bruising arms and legs whenever she bumped against the sides, careful to keep her head tucked in and her limbs wrapped around her rifle. The fall felt endless but it was probably less than a minute before she spied a glow below her, and then she was curling into a ball and striking the floor hard enough to leave her dizzy and gasping.
“All right, ma’am?” Cavez offered her a hand, and after a minute she took it. The youngster looked unfazed, but then he’d jumped in first and so he’d had a minute to recover. Chen did her best not to show just how wobbly she was - wouldn’t do to let her people see her collapse like a little girl.
“Fine, thanks,” she rasped, clambering to her feet and leaning back against the wall while she waited for her vision to clear. Behind her she heard a thud and a groan that could only be Zou, following her down. Prosik was there to help her up and move her out of the way and suddenly Chen knew she didn’t need to worry about looking weak. They’d all need a minute to recover. It was one hell of a drop.
She glanced around, squinting to see better. Two glowsticks lay on the ground nearby, producing the light she’d seen, and she realised they’d been lit to provide a clue to the sudden stop at the end. It was a smart move, and she wondered which of the four troopers had thought of it.
The glow wasn’t much, but as her eyes adjusted she could make out more of the space where they’d landed. It was broad and high, at least four feet above her head and wide enough for four people abreast. She’d have preferred something narrower, since that would have kept the Combine from mobbing them, but it couldn’t be helped. The rough corridor extended in both directions without branches, and she noticed it had a slight incline. The lower end pointed back the way they had come.
“Which way, sir?” Zou asked, wincing slightly as she popped her neck and worked her right shoulder back into joint. Two more pairs had arrived, one fourth their crew, with the others still topside.
“Not sure yet,” she admitted, pushing off from the wall and walking a little ways down the corridor. If the Combine were in this tunnel they hadn’t noticed them yet or were too far away to be detected. She had a feeling they weren’t here – the chute had been long enough to get them down here but that didn’t mean it ran all the way to whatever level the Swarm was using. She knew they liked it deep. But the lava had flowed up from here, which meant there had to be a way down from this point. She just had to find it.
“All right, Kimberley,” she muttered. “I’m here. Now where the hell are you?”
Closing her eyes, she was instantly thrust back into the nightmare version of this world. This time the monsters already had her surrounded, and as she lifted her hands to shield herself she saw that her skin had darkened, but unevenly, her flesh now blotchy and grey, almost green, clearly unhealthy. Yet her body felt strong, capable, powerful. Energy thrummed through her, invigorating her, setting her hair on end – and Chen forced her eyes open again, cutting the dream off abruptly. It had been waiting there for her behind her eyelids, ready to spring the instant she fell into darkness. She was almost afraid to blink, in case it came back into that space and pulled her away. But her gamble had worked. The dream was stronger here than it had been on the surface. Kim was closer.
Walking past her curious troopers, she stalked a dozen paces in the opposite direction and closed her eyes again. One of the Combine motobugs was touching her, its scythe-like limbs poking into her mottled flesh, but it was not attacking. There was no force behind the thrust,
no aggression – it was merely a way of making contact.
And through that contact came a voice, deep and cold, a voice that resounded through her bones and sent chills up her spine. Yet for all that, it felt strangely comforting.
“Welcome,” it said to her. “The Swarm embraces you.”
The shock of that message popped her eyes back open and Chen stood there a moment, gasping, before turning back to her crew. “This way,” she told them, barely able to spit the words out. The dream had been stronger this time than before. Part of that was the urgency, she knew, some impending event that Kimberley was desperate to avoid. Part of it was simply that the dreams were getting worse, their story playing out to an unpleasant end she desperately tried not to acknowledge. But part of it was proximity. She was sure she was right. Kimberley felt closer this way. She was leading her team in the right direction.
The corridor dead-ended a hundred paces farther down, but just before that point Cavez spotted a branching. A narrow passage split off to one side, its sharply angled walls and irregular path evidence that it was a natural fissure. The rock here was slate grey rather than black and they could see a darker patch at the far end, either volcanic rock or an opening. Either way it was their best option, and they headed toward it, creeping along single file. Prosik took the lead, with Patel right behind him.
“It’s another passage,” Prosik called back, and sounded like he was about to elaborate when he let out a wheeze and then a short gasp. Patel’s plasma rifle sounded, the report deafening in that narrow space, and Chen cursed from her spot four men back. It had to be Combine!
And here they were, unable to retreat, unable to form ranks, emerging one by one like peas popped loose from a pod. This was likely to be a slaughter.
She had to do something fast to even the odds, and she did it. Grasping a heavy sphere from her belt, she primed it and lobbed it overhand. The grenade flew past her, over Zou and Cavez and Trion, and disappeared into that darkness where Patel had ventured after Prosik.
The Complete New Dominion Trilogy Page 69