by Alex Mersey
Sean didn’t want to look too hard, didn’t want to remember that conversation over a river-chilled beer one night. But that was the job of the living, to remember the dead, so he slowed and looked, and he remembered what little he knew of James Bressen.
The man was a career soldier.
He had a wife upstate he hadn’t seemed to like much—or maybe it was an ex-wife.
He smoked Marlboro.
He laughed at his own jokes.
Sean turned his eyes forward and picked up the pace again. Goodbye James Bressen, God rest your soul.
He took a right turn and the air swooshed from his lungs. It never rains, it fucking pours. He ducked back immediately, but any hope that he hadn’t been seen was dashed when the corner of the wall lost solidity. The stone swirled into molten rock and then a gaping chunk crumbled into flurries that settled at his feet. It seemed the Silvers carried—or morphed—the same onboard weapons as their battlecruisers.
Look on the bright side, the volume of devastation is turned down about a million levels.
Not wanting to risk turning his back on that end of the passage, Sean lurched in backward steps, his grip on the charging handle tense. How many rounds did he have left in the magazine? Not enough. He needed to get somewhere else, find a place that gave him the advantage and a chance to reload.
He reached Samson and knew that wasn’t going to happen.
The man peered up at him, his eyes sunken from fading consciousness. “That was quick.”
Sean hesitated, still considered getting the hell out of this death passage, but he couldn’t do it, couldn’t leave Samson here in the path of those Silvers.
“Silvers,” he said, moving into position on the other side of Samson. “Two of them.”
Samson grunted and checked his rifle. “You can still run.”
“I considered it,” Sean admitted. He bent a knee and aimed. “You got that set on automatic?”
“Is there any other setting?”
The Silvers rounded the corner, walking abreast with their weaponized arms down at their sides. They obviously expected more smarts from Sean, assumed he’d be long gone by now.
Sean and Samson opened fire together in a blaze of fury. Sean got off two bursts before he ran out of ammo. Samson howled out a war cry that lasted until the semi-automatic rifle had chewed through the magazine.
When the flashes stopped and the smoke started to clear, one of the milky beasts lay on the ground. The other stretched his neck even longer and cocked his narrow head, and pointed the dangerous end of his mutated arm at them.
Sean had managed to unclip a fresh magazine from his ammo belt by then, but neither he nor Samson would have time to reload.
“Fuck you!” Sean sprang to his feet and threw the magazine hard at the Silver.
His bet paid off. Alien instinct wasn’t all that different from human instinct. The Silver’s aim went high and shot at the incoming projectile.
That bought Sean about two seconds to jump over Samson’s legs and dive into a roll across the passage. He didn’t expect to live long enough to come out of that roll, but maybe, just maybe, it would give Samson a chance to reload.
Time didn’t slow, it was more like it expanded to make space for all the thoughts crammed into that roll.
Would it hurt?
He didn’t know, but he knew it would be quick. His skin, bone and flesh would melt into a distorted framework of what he’d once been, and then he’d be a cremated pile of ash on the floor. There’d be no dying breath. No precious moments for his life to flash before his eyes.
To his utter amazement and shock, he came out of the roll, bounced onto his feet. The Silver was pointing at him. Sean jerked to the side just as the Silver fired. The white laser sliced the air an inch from his ear. Jesus. The Silver advanced and Sean backed up down the passage, dancing like a boxer on his toes, feigning left and right, his heart pounding. He couldn’t even think about unclipping another magazine to load. All his focus was on the Silver’s raised weapon, on evading that next strike, on wondering if that were even possible. The last time had been pure luck, he’d already been moving before the Silver fired.
The pulse of lightning shot out and Sean’s upper body swerved like a damned reflex muscle. The laser hit the wall and left a crater-sized pockmark.
Samson finally opened fire. Unfortunately Sean had inadvertently drawn the Silver further down the passage by now and the entire round emptied out onto the side of the bastard’s head. The Silver didn’t seem to notice, didn’t even deign to glance over at the pest pecking at his skull. Or maybe it hadn’t been a total waste, because between the automatic clatter and Sean’s dancing act, the Silver’s next shot went wide.
That was also the moment Sean had a light bolt moment. The laser weapon wasn’t capable of sweeping a continuous beam that vaporized everything in its path. Instead the Silver fired in pulses, with a delay of two to three seconds, as if the weapon needed recharging. Not exactly a win-win for the humans, but it was something and Sean could do a lot with two seconds. He could turn tail and make a dash around the corner, find a crack to hide in while he reloaded.
“Come on you alien piece of shit,” he shouted, wanting the next strike, desperately wanting those two seconds now that he had a plan, needing the Silver to be pissed off enough to follow him rather than setting his sights on the easy prey slumped against the wall. “Why don’t you try aiming next time, huh?”
“Duck!” a feminine shrill pinged at his back.
Sean didn’t duck, he threw himself flat to the fucking floor.
Gunfire rattled overhead. Rat-a-tat-a-tat. A steady stream of three-shot bursts kept coming, measured and consistent without a gap to spare. Beth hadn’t come alone. She’d brought a tag-team and they weren’t giving the Silver a fraction of space or time to react.
The seconds dragged into a minute, maybe two, before the thunderous cracks aborted, the air around him stopped reverberating, and the second Silver folded into a graceful fall.
Sean picked himself off the floor, was still on his way up when Beth rounded on him.
“Taunt the bloody Silver, why don’t you?” Her palm slammed against the ball of his shoulder. “What the hell was that?”
“I had a plan,” he said, grinned into her furious eyes. He couldn’t help it, he’d never been happier to see her. “Yours was better.”
“Now there’s the understatement of the week,” Clint drawled, strolling up to them with a third gunner.
Sean gave them both a nod of thanks and appreciation. Then he turned, breathed out a slow breath when he saw Samson wave his rifle at them.
Clint looked, cursed low.
“He got banged pretty badly,” Sean said. “He’ll need someone to stay and cover him.”
“Don’t go spreading rumors behind my back,” Samson muttered loud enough for them to hear. “I’m doing just fine on my own.” His eyes met Sean’s and held. “That was one stupid ass move.”
“You’re welcome,” Sean said with another grin.
Clint and his man went over, and Sean turned back to Beth. “What’s the status?”
“Listen,” she said, her gaze going wide.
He frowned, listened, took another moment to spot the difference. No gunfire racked the silence.
“Cassie’s taken the main entrance,” Beth said. “We’ve just come from there. Four Silvers down…we encountered the first one just as we came over the wall.”
“That’s why you fired early?”
Beth nodded. “Cassie’s team took the others in the front. We were right about that, the commotion drew them in.” Her gaze swept over the Silvers in the passage. “That makes six.”
A few more of Clint’s men arrived and Sean shifted so they could pass. They regrouped around Clint and Samson, hunched down to talk.
Sean turned his attention back to Beth and their conversation. Six Silvers dead. “There could be more.”
Traces of a grim smile lifted her mouth.
“We found Williams, he’s locked up with the men in the west wing.”
“Thank God.”
“The news gets better,” she said. “He gave us the number six. We’re still checking for army roamers, but we got all the Silvers. It’s over…or almost. Have you come across Captain Davis?”
“No, we haven’t.” Sean thought about the soldiers they had come across. “We only managed to subdue two without harm,” he said, his gaze going to the dead around them.
Beth’s eyes followed his, and her expression tightened.
We had no choice. The words caught in his throat. The high and low of the last few minutes crashed the adrenaline in his bloodstream. Against all odds, he was alive. The battle was as good as over. And now…now he wasn’t sure. Could we have done this differently? Should we have taken more time to assess, found a better way to get our people out?
“What about Alli?” Beth said, cutting into his useless regrets. “We heard the explosion.”
“It didn’t work, they’re—”
“—caged, yeah, we didn’t even bother setting our C4.” Her eyes turned down. “I thought, maybe…”
“We’ll figure it out, Beth.”
“Did you see her?”
“I spoke to Lynn,” he told her. “She said both Johnnie and Allira were with her. They have a couple of rifles, and I left Jackson and another guy there to guard them.”
Beth took a visible breath. “Okay, thank you.” She gave one last glance down the passage. “I need to see her.”
“Go,” Sean said, pointing the way for her, down the passage the way he’d come with Samson. “Just take care, okay? We don’t know how many hostiles are still around.”
“Always,” she snorted and stepped around him.
Sean turned with her, reloaded his carbine as he watched her go. Two of Clint’s men had Samson on his feet, practically hanging between them with an arm draped around each shoulder.
“We’re putting the dead and wounded on the tactical,” Clint said, coming up to him as the men walked Samson out the passage.
“How many?”
“Us or them?”
Sean looked at the soldiers on the ground. James Bressen. Forced himself to harden. It’s not over. It’s not over until we get our people out of those cages. “Us.”
“Five dead, that I know of,” Clint grunted, shrugged. “And a fuck lot wounded. Though not as bad as that poor bastard,” he added, nudging a look after Samson.
“I’m sorry,” Sean said.
Clint gave him a bemused look. “You saw this going down any other way?”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Sean glanced up the passage, down, orientated himself and started for the west wing. When Clint jogged to catch up, he slid the man a grim smile. “I really am sorry for the losses you took, but I am grateful. We couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Save it,” Clint said, a scowl deepening into the weathered lines of his face. “This wasn’t a damn mercy mission.”
“Yeah, you did it for the vehicle and guns.” Sean peered cautiously around a corner before taking the turn, before sending Clint another look. Sometimes he thought the man had more heart than he’d ever admit. Other times Sean seriously believed that kind of foolish optimism would only get him killed, probably at Clint’s hands. “You also said you’re not paid mercenaries.”
“You have no fucking idea what you paid for us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Clint hung a look on him that was dark and disturbing.
“Dammit, Clint, answer me.”
“It means…” Clint’s jaw worked, then he looked forward, shrugged. “It means you need to toughen up, McAllister, else you’re not going to survive this new world. Hell, God even knows how you made it this far,” he added snidely and strode up ahead, disappearing around a bend.
Just Clint being his usual contrary self. Still, tension pulled the chords of Sean’s neck. He rounded the bend after Clint and into view of the cage. The men behind the bars had been quiet, but now a simmer of what sounded like discontent arose.
“Shut up,” Williams said, his voice not raised, yet carrying down the length of the passage between them.
Sean’s gut told him he hadn’t heard the end of this, the meaning behind Clint’s dark and disturbing look, but he packed that worry aside for now and picked up his pace.
- 20 -
Sean
Sean and Clint were back in the passage with the three dead soldiers and two fallen Silvers. It was a long shot, but after hearing what Williams and some of the other men had had to say, it could well be their only one.
Clint bent and grabbed beneath the Silver’s left arm. “I’ll eat this damned milk log if it works.”
“With or without salt?” Sean muttered, grabbing the Silver by the other arm so they could drag the seven-foot dead weight along the ground.
He was putting a lot of faith in Jackson’s theory, and of course there was no guarantee the cyborg brain would still function—even if it wasn’t damaged—without living organic mass, but it wasn’t like they had anything to lose.
Sean hadn’t quite realized the level of skepticism in the cage until they reappeared with the proof.
“What the fuck, man?”
“That’s a dead Silver right there!” A whoot went up from a thick-chested, tattooed man. “He damned went and killed himself a Silver.”
“So that’s how this partnership’s going to go,” Clint said, tone rich with amusement despite the heavy lugging. “I do all the work and you get all the credit.”
“Maybe they’re referring to you.”
Clint snorted. “They wouldn’t sound half so surprised if that were the case.”
They reached the fence and most of the men retreated a healthy distance.
Sean let his side of the Silver drop and looked at Williams. “Now what?”
Williams demonstrated, using the compact assault rifle in his hand to drag a loose S-shaped wave down against the fence. “The metal melts apart.”
“And the doorway stays open,” Chris added from beside him, “until the Silver’s moved a good couple of feet away.”
“You shoulda brought a live one,” another man said with a disapproving huff. “Don’t see as how you think a dead Silver’s gonna open anything.”
“Yeah, well, we killed them all,” Clint said sarcastically. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“It wouldn’t matter,” Sean told the man and anyone who was listening while he went down on a knee to tuck his shoulder beneath the Silver’s armpit. “We wouldn’t be able to take one of these alive.”
Clint followed his example and, between them, they hauled the Silver up against the fence.
Nothing happened.
“Try the hand,” suggested Williams.
Sean took hold of the long arm flapping over his shoulder, felt the shift in focus threaten to buckle his legs beneath the Silver’s weight. He locked his knees in. Had no free hands to wipe the sweat from his brow, sweat that had nothing to do with physical exertion. If this didn’t work…
He pressed the Silver’s limp wrist against the fence, the fingers bumping awkwardly as he dragged downward in a curved flow and, shit, a vertical line in the chain links contracted to open a narrow doorway.
The silence inside the cage, and outside, could be pricked with a pin.
Until Williams said, just enough inflection in his voice to betray his disbelief, “Well.”
An abrupt laugh choked up Sean’s throat. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Williams deadpanned a look on him. “You actually thought this would work?”
“Hell, no!”
They dropped the Silver, left him lying in the doorway and it seemed Chris was right, the opening didn’t close.
After that, there was no maintaining order. The men poured out, demanding to know where their wives, daughters, sons were. Some didn’t demand, they just took off.
“There’s s
till armed soldiers on the loose,” Sean called out and, when that made no impact, “At least grab any weapons you come across! Dammit, do they even know where they’re going?”
“They’ll figure it out,” Clint said.
Sean turned back to the small huddle that remained. “We need to get a Silver to the other cage. For all we know, there could be a time limit on how long the brain functions after death.”
“I’ve done my menial labor for the day,” Clint said, not that Sean had been looking at him. “I’m curious about those other missing persons, though. I’ll see if I can hunt them down.”
Chris stepped forward. “I’ll go with you.”
“No, you won’t,” Williams said, latching onto his arm.
Chris tried to shake him off but Williams held firm, bent his head to look him in the eye. “You stay with me.”
“They took Doc Nate,” Chris said, still struggling.
“I’m going, too.” Another kid stepped forward, Brandon, the linebacker friend who’d taken a bullet at Sunrise Farm. “They took my dad.”
“You’re welcome to do as you please,” Williams told him, then to Chris, “I’m not letting you out of my sight again. That’s the way this is going to go.”
They glared at each other another long second, then Williams allowed Chris to shake free.
“One hundred and one ways on how to not survive the apocalypse,” Clint observed with an eye on Williams. “Come on, kid,” he said to Brandon. “I’ll make a man of you.”
Chris’ face flushed red.
From anger or humiliation, Sean couldn’t tell and he had no intention of interfering. He‘d walked in Williams’ shoes, misplaced people he felt responsible for. It wasn’t an experience anyone would want to repeat.
They left the Silver on the ground in favor of collecting another, closer one along the way. Chris bristled as they walked, as only a teen who’d been woefully wronged could, but then they reached the passage with the dead soldiers. Chris paled visibly, seemed to shrink in on himself a bit, and he moved closer to Williams.
Sean looked around through the kid’s eyes. The walls were splattered in blood and brains. The bodies were torn apart by the automatic gunfire, spilling internal organs and exposing bone.