The Enclave (The Verge)

by H. M. Clarke

  I’d better hurry my arse out of here. There will be people waiting somewhere for the guards to show dragging me in tow.

  Tom briefly closed his eyes and concentrated, letting his Ontolic energy spread out invisibly around him, searching again for Katherine’s familiar presence and in the space of a heartbeat he found it. She was just around the bend in the corridor; the only problem was that Tom could sense two more people standing between them.

  Nothing in life is meant to be easy

  Tom slipped his arm through the strap of the rifle and braced the weapon against his shoulder. He then changed the nature of the Ontolic field about him, setting it to modulate its frequency so as to dampen any noise Tom made as he moved. He was now on silent running.

  Darting silently down the corridor until he came to the octagonal bend in the corridor, he flattened himself against the wall and sidled up to the corner. Tom’s senses told him that the two men were standing on either side of the door leading to the room that contained Katherine. There was another presence in the room with her that could only be Daniel.

  Tom will deal with these men the old fashioned way, a quick burst directed at each from a gun. It took less effort than using Ontolics but gave the same result.

  He pointed the nose of the rifle barrel around the corner and fired. A stifled groan followed by the muffled slump of meat hitting the floor told Tom that he had hit his targets. He ducked around the corner and crossed to the cell door, carefully stepping over the crumpled forms of the dead men. Tom looked at the door. A Gentec scanner controlled its operation; normally it would be near impossible to get through, but an adept of Ontolic ability such as Tom would be able to manipulate it to think he was an authorized user. This time Tom had an easier method at hand.

  A hand curled like a dead spider by Tom’s foot. He reached down and grabbed the dead man’s wrist and roughly pulled the hand to the same level as the scanner. The flesh was still warm as he peeled back the index finger and jammed it onto the scanner.

  The Gentect scanner came to life as it sampled the dead man’s hand and Tom had an anxious moment’s wait as the machine queried its database to see if this DNA was on the access whitelist.

  The scanner chimed and changed the lock status from red to green. The door opened.

  Katherine turned to the door at the sound of gunfire; it did not last long and the ominous silence that followed began to kill the faint hope of rescue that sparked in her mind. If it were Steve and Alpha Team, there would be more noise than this. A muffled beep came from the door and Katherine jumped into action.

  ‘Quick 56; against the wall. This could be our chance to escape.’

  Both leapt to the wall on either side of the door just as it began to open. Katherine crouched into a tackling stance and waited for the first bastard to come through. Daniel did the same on the other side. But the doorway remained empty. Katherine frowned. Then she felt a familiar tidal nudging.

  “Tom, get in here!”

  “Yes ma’am.” Tom appeared in the doorway grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Steve and the others are on their way down.”

  Tom looked untouched from his capture; if the guards had decided to take the opportunity to drop a few kicks on him while unconscious it did not show, unlike herself. Her ribs felt as if someone had dropped a few kicks once her armor had been removed and her arms and legs were covered in bruises. The bastards can wait.

  “We’ll have to find a way to join up with them.”

  “Track suit looks nice,” Tom said as he unslung the spare rifle and handed it to her.

  “It suits you as well idiot.” Katherine accepted the ammo belt and clipped it around her waist. Tom tried to give her the spare pistol but she nodded in Daniel’s direction. “Give it to him.” Katherine noticed Tom’s hesitation. “Just give it to him. He can use it just as well as we can.”

  As he passed the gun to Daniel, Katherine felt herself smile. Now that she and Tom were back together, everything felt achievable. Katherine knew the feeling was probably the work of Tom’s Ontolic energy but she did not care that he was manipulating her. Not this time.

  “Let’s get moving before someone comes to check on us. We’ll head for the stairs, with luck we’ll meet Steve coming down.”

  As Tom and Daniel moved the bodies of the guards into the cell, Katherine checked the action and ammo clip of the assault rifle Tom had handed her. Satisfied with the weapon, she waited outside by the scanner for the two men to leave keeping an eye open for any unwanted guests that may come along the hallway. They did not want to leave dead bodies lying in the open to trigger any sort of alarm that would stop them meeting up with Alpha Squad.

  Tom and Daniel came back into the corridor and Katherine closed the door.

  “Let’s go.”

  ‘56, you are okay with using a gun aren’t you?’ Katherine asked as they moved away from the door and continued around the corridor towards the stair exit. Tom took point while Katherine was rear guard leaving Daniel as the piggy in the middle.

  ‘Course I am. You know I’m ex Alliance military. I still can’t believe that even knowing that, you still took me with you at Yunga.’ He carried the pistol pointed down, along the line of his leg, showing that he had not forgotten his training.

  ‘No one gets left behind 56, especially my friends.’

  ‘Thank you’

  ‘Don’t thank me. It should be me thanking you. If it weren’t for you we wouldn’t have been able to leave Yunga in the first place.’

  ‘I would still like to know why the Alliance wants us back so badly.’ Daniel changed the subject, he probably hated dwelling on the past as much as Katherine did.

  ‘If we run into Doctor Barkley again, we may find out.’

  Katherine was hoping that they might run into Doctor Barkley again, but she had no plans to question him about why they were here. She did not want him to be able speak at all except to scream.

  A single footstep echoed behind them and Katherine spun around in time to see a single guard walk around the corner. The man halted in surprise as he saw them and reached for his holstered sidearm.

  “Stay where you are!”

  Katherine reacted instinctively. Her Keckler XAR30 assault rifle was charged and ready; she squeezed the trigger and one round sped away from the barrel and smashed into the nose of the startled guard.

  The three then turned and ran.

  On level one, everything had gone crazy.

  No sooner had Steve Tran and Alpha Squad rounded the octagonal bend in the corridor when a stream of gunfire raked the bare rock wall behind them.

  “Varden, Sam, watch the other side of the T junction. Make sure there is nothing coming up our arse,” Steve barked over the Tac Net. The two moved away and Val Myra moved to stand next to Steve and Reed.

  “How many are there?” he asked.

  “I saw five.”

  “Great,” Val Myra muttered.

  ‘Sir, Lieutenant Shepherd has reported that he and the Skipper are now coming up via the stairs,’ Varden reported over the Tac Net.

  “Sergeant, warn the Lieutenant that they will be meeting an unknown number of hostiles in the stairwell.”

  ‘Affirmative.’

  Another spray of bullets slammed into the wall at the end of the corridor causing a shower of stone chips to shower over the three men.

  “Grenade!” Sam’s voice echoed down the T-junction.

  Steve spun to see Sam and Varden come charging back towards him. Steve also caught a glimpse of a fragmentation grenade bouncing into the corridor not far behind them.

  “Fuck.” Steve turned, looking for cover, his eyes settled on the long entrance tunnel they had just descended by.

  A familiar sound came from the corridor next to Steve and he turned and saw another grenade tumble out and come to rest against the wall of the T-Junction.

  “Just great!” Steve’s eyes went wide. Both ends of the T-junction were now blocked. “Get up that tunnel. NOW,” Steve
screamed. He grabbed Val Myra by some armor strapping and they both bolted for the tunnel quickly followed by Reed. If anything happened to the Val Myran Ambassador, the Skipper will have his guts for garters.

  Steve shoved Joshua up the tunnel and hurled himself after him; he then peered back out to hurry the other two up. Reed rushed passed and pushed the Val Myran further up the tunnel; at least Steve did not have to worry about him. Varden slipped past him but Sam was not behind her. Instead Sam was sliding head first along the floor of the T-junction.

  Steve watched helplessly as Sam frantically began to pick himself up off the floor while looking anxiously back at the grenade sitting at the end of the T-junction.

  Steve judged that Sam had a few seconds, no more. He felt his stomach knot.

  Sam wasn’t going to make it. The solider made a final desperate turn and looked at Steve, his eyes white with fear. He did not have enough time to get to safety and Sam knew it.

  Then, with thunderous intensity, the two grenades unleashed their fury and Steve ducked back up the tunnel and saw a thousand glistening metal shards whip past the tunnel entrance in both directions.

  Sam did not stand a chance. The shards and shrapnel had rained down on him from all sides with terrifying intensity. He had fallen under the weight of the hailstorm of metal fragments.

  Steve looked out from the tunnel at the now unrecognizable face of his teammate. Sam’s body armor had been effective in protecting his body from the blast but his face…No exposed tissue could have survived such a bombardment and none had. The storm of shards had ripped every inch of exposed skin from Sam’s face. And for a brief moment Steve could do nothing but stare at the raw meat face of his friend.

  And then someone pushed past him. Steve turned and saw Val Myra sprint to the end of the left tunnel of the T-junction, his armored boots crushing the fine metal shards protruding from the floor. And he had one of their damn frag grenades in his hand.

  “Val Myra!”

  The ambassador turned and tossed a grenade to Steve who caught it deftly with his left hand. “Kath took these from them earlier. I think we should return them.”

  Steve looked at the grenade and then a feral grin scratched across his face. He ran to the other end of the tunnel. It looked as if a metal echidna had exploded. Fine metal needles protruded everywhere, able to be brushed aside by the sweep of a hand. The shards were only deadly when travelling at high velocity.

  “Throw on my signal Val Myra.”

  ‘Affirmative.’

  Steve ducked his head around the corner. The blast of needles from the grenade had peppered the length of the bend. Steve could see nothing of the enemy. But he could hear them. Steve turned the grenade in his hand and adjusted the timer before locking it. It should be just enough to get them.

  “On three. One, two, three!”

  As Steve called out three he ran forward around the octagonal bend, activating the ignition switch on the grenade, he had to get in close. He heard startled cries as the Alliance soldiers saw Val Myra’s grenade come tumbling around the octagonal corner and he stopped running just as he came around the bend in his own corridor and threw the grenade with as much force as he could before high tailing it back to the T-junction. He felt the concussion as he made it back around the bend; luckily he was out of range of the shards but that still felt a little too close for comfort.

  “Let’s clear them out and go get the Skipper. Varden, Val Myra, go left. Reed and myself will go right.”

  Everyone called back an affirmative and Reed and Steve took turns covering each other as they made their way quickly around the track of the corridor. Every surface of the corridor was decorated in small metal needles as well as the impact points where the hard grenade casings were imbedded in the stone. The cleaners are going to be really pissed when they see this.

  They met no resistance and as they came around the corner, they were met by a bloody nightmare.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Two

  Katherine used her arms to cover her head as a rain of grit and dust blasted out from several levels above them.

  “Not grenades again,” someone groaned.

  She shot Tom a sharp look from under her arm. “At least we know where Alpha Squad is.”

  “There are others coming.”

  The dust had finished settling and Katherine lowered her arms and looked at Daniel. “Where?”

  “From above. I can hear them.”

  “Hear them?”

  Katherine raised a hand to silence Tom. “Do you know how many?”

  Daniel closed his eyes a moment. “There are fifteen men about to come out from the second floor.” As he finished speaking, the sound of a door opening came from above them. The three looked up through the centre gap and saw soldiers streaming out onto the stair from the second floor entry and head directly up to the first floor.

  “How the hell did you do that?”

  “It doesn’t matter Tom,” Katherine said as she pushed past him, her Keckler up and ready. “They don’t know we’re here. Let’s go up and surprise them.”

  Tom and Daniel scrambled up the flight of stairs after her. They passed the third floor entry with no incident but Katherine slowed as she came onto the landing to the second floor.

  “Tom, are you able to screw with the scanner to stop anyone else from coming out behind us?”

  “Just a mo.”

  Katherine felt a small swirl of Tom’s energy as he focused it towards the door and then he smiled.

  “Done.”

  Gunfire echoed loudly from the open door to level one and as they bounded up the stairs to the level one landing, they noticed the pale light of the stairwell glittering from hundreds of fine metal needles buried in the walls.

  “Filament frags.” Katherine glanced back at Tom and Daniel.

  “Bastards,” Tom hissed.

  The sounds of heavy fighting suddenly stopped. Katherine crept to the stairwell door that, despite the buckling from the grenade explosion was still hanging on its hinges, and ducked her head into the corridor to see what was happening.

  She quickly pulled her head back in followed by a spray of bullets that impacted against the doorframe.

  “Shit,” Katherine gasped. “We’re caught right in the middle.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve got shitheads on the left and the cavalry on the right. We get caught in the crossfire if we poke our noses outside.” Katherine turned to Tom. “Are you able to tell Varden that we are in the stairwell? See if they can lay down some covering fire to let us get to them.”

  A hand latched onto Katherine’s arm, startling her. She turned to see Daniel who was standing on a lower step staring up at her.

  “Is Joshua out there?”

  “What?”

  “Is my brother out there?”

  Katherine was momentarily taken aback. She had forgotten all about Joshua Val Myra, forgotten to tell Daniel that his family had not forgotten him. Shit!

  “We don’t have time for this,” Tom said.

  Katherine ignored her lieutenant. “What makes you ask?”

  “I hear him. He’s not happy, especially not happy with you.”

  “He’ll learn to live with it,” Katherine muttered. She took a deep breath. “Well. You’re right. Your brother is out there. But he’s with my team. He didn’t want to sit waiting around for us to bring you home.”

  Daniel smiled. “Sounds just like him. Always likes a bit of risk and action.”

  “Skipper, Varden says that Steve is happy to have you back. He’s ready to go when you are.”

  “Good.” Katherine hefted her rifle, Tom and Daniel did the same. “When I give the command we all keep low and go right. Alpha should give us enough cover so we don’t have to worry about the other crew.”

  “As long as Alpha doesn’t hit us, I’ll be happy,” Tom said.

  “Tell them to start laying down fire now. And tell them to aim high.”

  “Done K
ath.”

  Gunfire rattled down the corridor a moment after Tom Spoke and the three tensed, ready to leap out of the stairway door into the danger zone. There was no return fire.

  “Now. Go, go, go,” Katherine yelled and pushed Tom then Daniel out into the corridor. She quickly followed them.

  Katherine saw Daniel begin to slip but recover his footing as he ran. She felt her own feet slide about under her but ignored it. She was focused only on reaching the familiar figures providing the high level barrage of bullets thrumming above their heads. She watched as Tom reached Steve and turn back to help Daniel around the corner and out of the line of fire.

  It was then that she heard gunfire come from the enemy. Something knocked her shoulder causing a flare of pain to streak across her back from the burn. But Katherine ignored it. She was close to the corner so she dropped into a baseball runner’s slide to bring her low down and harder to hit and used the slippery mess on the floor to slide around the corner.

  “That was too close for comfort,” Katherine gasped as she collapsed against the far wall next to Daniel.

  “Welcome back Skipper.”

  “It’s nice to see you too Steve.”

  Steve finished his clip and slipped back around the corner. Enemy gunfire slammed into the end wall and Steve and Varden quickly retreated away from the hot zone.

  “Kath, you’re bleeding.” Tom immediately began to check the leg that was in contact with the floor. It was covered in a red sticky substance. “No, it’s fine Tom. This is what made the floor so slippery.” Katherine rubbed her fingers in the wet material as she spoke and her hand came away sticky and red. She bought her fingers to her nose and sniffed them.

  “It’s blood.” Steve knelt down beside her. “We used those grenades you gave Val Myra.”

  “The ones they tried to use on us,” Katherine answered as Varden let loose with another clip down the corridor.

  “We thought they were just frags but they also turned the men into liquid goo. And I’m bloody glad they didn’t get to use them on us.”

  Katherine wiped clean her fingers on her T-shirt. It was not the first time she had been covered in foreign blood and she doubted that it would be the last. Katherine then realized that they were all sitting in the T-junction. She looked to the far end and saw Reed and Joshua taking turns in keeping whoever was lurking in the corridor pinned down. Joshua did not look aware of the new arrivals. But Daniel was already watching the figures at the end of the junction.