Awakening: The First Tale of the Trine (Trine Series Book 1)

by D. B. West

  There was a faint click as a door unlocked, and they heard Aki’s muffled, “’Scuse me” just before Orak pulled them into a room, gently closing the door behind them.

  “It’s about time,” a woman’s voice said in the darkness. With a noticeable quaver, she asked “What the hell is going on out there, and what is this furry thing…is this a dog?”

  “Hold on a moment,” Orak said sternly. The screen on Orak’s armor lit up, and after tapping out some sort of command on the bracer, the entire suit of armor the alien wore began to glow a soft shade of blue. The light from the armor illuminated Tyler and Delmont crouched to the side of the door, while Aki was a few feet further in, having bumped the woman out of the way when he entered. She had a hand on Aki’s ruff, and jumped back from him when his immense form became apparent.

  “What the hell?” the woman gasped, stepping back to put the hospital bed between herself and Aki. “Are you some sort of soldier? I’ve never seen a military dog before, is that thing…safe?” she asked Orak.

  “I am a soldier, of sorts,” Orak said, just as Aki gave a wheezing laugh and said, “I am certainly not safe.”

  The woman stared wide-eyed at the two strange figures, as Tyler stood up and advanced into the room. He stared at the young woman clad only in a hospital gown, focusing on the faint stubble only now starting to appear across her scalp. “Holy shit,” he said. “You didn’t tell us we were coming to save Sinead O’Connor. I get it though, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was hot back in the day.”

  “I’m not Sinead O’Connor,” the woman snapped. “And if I was, I would compare you to a fucking asshole.”

  “That would be a lot fiercer if you said it with an Irish accent,” Tyler grinned.

  “Shut up,” Orak demanded, moving forward. “Aki, Delmont, cover the door.” Approaching the woman on the other side of the bed, Orak continued. “Your name is Katie Dufresne, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s me. Who…what are you?” she replied, as she got a good look at Orak’s white hair and pointed ears.

  “We don’t have time to explain everything. The ‘dog’ and I are aliens, and everything that has happened recently, the reason you are here, is because of an invasion. An invasion that we are right in the middle of in this building. We’ve come to get you out of here while your military is still able to fight, and before the creatures overrunning this place have complete control. Will you come with us willingly?”

  “You’re going out there to try and escape? Shouldn’t we wait on the soldiers to…” Katie began, before Orak interrupted.

  “No,” Orak snapped. “Your soldiers are outmatched, and retreating even as we speak. While the Abbadon…the aliens, push them out of the building, we can escape. But we have to go now!”

  A heavy thud on the door made Tyler and Katie cringe against the wall, as Aki and Delmont shuffled back towards them. Orak said, “Delmont, fall back,” pushing past him. “Aki, how many?”

  “Just one,” Aki said. “It’s a morzot, and a big one at that.”

  “Can you handle it?” Orak asked calmly, as the door began to crack open with the tooth rattling SCREEEE of tearing metal.

  Aki’s ears flickered, either from the noise or from annoyance. “Of course I can. There’s no room in here for blades, so I’ll have to do it the hard way, unfortunately.”

  Orak stepped back to Delmont, who was checking the breach on the rifle he had commandeered. “Be ready, just in case,” Orak whispered.

  The heavy steel door was bent backwards by something just outside of the light cast by Orak’s armor. Two thin, dark plated legs patted their way slowly around the doorframe of the room, just before a four-fanged head eased into the light. Katie’s breath hitched in her throat, and either Delmont or Tyler’s teeth ground noisily. Aki let out a fierce growl, drawing the attention of the monster.

  Spotting Aki, the fanged spider-like head ducked down slightly, then rose up, towering almost all the way to the ten foot ceiling as the creature attempted to scuttle closer. It chittered and hissed at seeing the canine form, and a thick rope of steaming saliva leaked from its maw.

  This Abbadon was huge, Delmont saw, easily twice the size of the one he had killed. He raised his rifle instinctively, just as Aki sat back on his haunches and let out an ear-splitting howl. The spider spread its front four legs wide in challenge, while its rear four scratched on the floor, attempting to push its massive abdomen into the room.

  The spider’s bulky frame lurched backwards as its front four legs suddenly wrapped around itself, pinned to its torso by the force of Aki’s will. The abdomen slammed into the floor as the four lower legs collapsed inward as well, Aki trembling with effort as he brought all of his power crushing down on the creature. The spider screeched in rage, a scream that rose in pitch as its armored torso and abdomen cracked under the pressure Aki was exerting. The unearthly scream became watery as a gout of fluids bubbled up from the creatures maw, just before it collapsed inwards, its shell cracking and greenish bodily fluids splattering grotesquely across the walls as Aki crushed it to the floor.

  Aki staggered sideways and sagged to the floor, panting heavily. “Told you…hard way…” he gasped.

  “What the absolute fuck?” Katie whispered in horror. “That’s not a dog…and that was not a spider.”

  “That was grade-A nightmare fuel, there,” Tyler agreed. “So, you coming with us Mrs. Clean?”

  “My name is Katie, you diseased prick,” she snapped back.

  “I’m Tyler, nice to meet you” he said pleasantly, patting her on the shoulder. “All right, now we’re five!” he continued, clapping his hands together. “Let’s Voltron the fuck up and get out of here!”

  “Aki, are you all right?” Orak said softly, moving to lay a hand on his friend who was trembling on the floor.

  Aki thrashed to get his feet back under him, and stood on wobbly legs. “I will be. Orak, I don’t think I can do another one that size. I’m sorry, I…”

  “Hush,” Orak said gently. “The lab is just down the hall.” Turning to the others, Orak said “We’re going to get my weapon, and I’m leading us out of here. Katie, do you want to come with us?”

  “Of course I do,” she replied. “Whatever it takes, please, if you can help us…”

  “Delmont, Tyler, take her hand,” Orak ordered.

  “What?” Delmont said. “Her too?”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea…” Tyler concluded.

  “Do you want to get eaten?” Orak replied grimly.

  Delmont and Tyler shared a glance, before they both placed their hand on one of Katie’s. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Are you going to lead us out of here on a human chain?”

  “Something like that,” Orak replied, stripping off the armored gloves and placing one hand on top of theirs, the other underneath.

  “What the hell are you…AH SHIT, IT BURNS!” Katie cried, as Orak exerted his will on the three of them. Delmont and Tyler gritted their teeth, having felt this once before. The sensation passed quickly, and as soon as Orak let go Katie staggered backwards into the bed.

  “Oh god,” she groaned “I’m dizzy…what was that? What did you do to me?”

  “I gave you a fighting chance,” Orak said. “Can you walk? Delmont, help her move. Tyler, bring up the rear. Let’s go.”

  Aki looked to Orak and asked quietly, “What are we going to do about Zion? We’ve got the humans, but…should we just leave him?”

  “Zion brought this down on them, and on himself. The Abbadon can take him, for all I care. If they don’t, well…we will deal with that. Your lives are my concern,” Orak told his friend. “Now, lead the way.”

  Aki padded gingerly across the carcass of the monstrous spider he had smashed. “It’s clear,” he growled, before darting out into the hall. He chuffed noisily as he trotted away, trying to clear his nose of the creature’s stench.

  As they moved back into the hall, the lights flickered, then came back on. “They
must have gotten all the soldiers out,” Orak said. “They will start a more thorough room by room search now. We need to hurry.”

  Jogging down to the end of the corridor, Aki led them into a large windowless room lined with shelves and cabinets. The equipment inside had been ravaged, leaving electronic parts littering the floor. Orak and Aki stood in the doorway looking at two long rows of worktables stretching down the left and right sides of the room. Aki sniffed at the air, lifting his muzzle all around the doorframe.

  Delmont helped Katie into the room, picking up an overturned rolling chair for her to sit on. “Thanks,” she said, rubbing at her eyes. “It’s passing now, but I appreciate the hand. That guy…he said your name was Delmont, right?”

  “Yeah, Delmont Jeffries. We’re going to get through this together, you just clear your head.”

  Tyler stepped into the room and pulled the door closed behind him. His face lit up immediately as he looked around, and he ran to a pile of clothing tossed on an exam table. “Hey, these are my clothes! Hot damn, I’m glad we came down here. If I die, it’s going to be in my hoodie,” he said, ripping off his hospital gown and pulling the green sweatshirt on. He zipped it up, then picking up the jeans on the table, quickly hopped into them. “My phone’s here, wallet…shit, where are my keys?” he mumbled.

  Aki let out a low growl, just as Orak said, “Something is in here.”

  The three humans stiffened, turning to look at Orak. “Where?” Delmont whispered.

  “In the back,” Aki growled. “Smells like a…”

  “Get down!” Orak hissed, dragging Delmont and Katie to the floor. Tyler dropped immediately also, holding onto the boots he had retrieved from the table. He scooted along the counter to get closer to the others, then started pulling on his socks.

  Orak motioned to Aki to go around to the other side of the worktables, and peeked over the edge where the group was hiding. They were on the far right side of the room, and Aki crawled past the open middle aisle to hide behind the row on the left.

  Orak signaled for the others to peek their heads up. They slowly rose, quickly picking out what had caught the pair’s attention. At the far end of the long room a scaly, curled tail was bopping along as the creature it was attached too burrowed through a cabinet it had overturned. The tail was tipped with a stinger that was at least a foot long, and dripping a dark ichor.

  Tyler slipped his phone from the pocket of his jeans, and levelling it on the table in front of him, snapped a picture of the grisly appendage. Orak reached over to him and grabbed the phone, then pulled an indignant Tyler back down.

  “Don’t worry,” Orak whispered, “You’ll get it back.”

  The group was startled by a loud rattling as Aki dumped out a drawer on the other side of the room. Delmont and Katie ducked back down, but not before seeing the curled tail stiffen, and the creature begin to scuttle to the source of the noise. Aki padded back around to the group just a moment later, a long curved knife hanging in the air just in front of him.

  “Found it,” Aki announced, dropping it into Orak’s outstretched hand.

  Orak touched foreheads with Aki, rubbing the dog vigorously. “I’ve got this one. Stay down and back me up,” Orak whispered, motioning to the rest of the group.

  Peeking back over the worktable, the group could see that whatever creature the tail was attached to was now investigating just across the room, where Aki had created the disturbance. Orak glanced at Tyler’s phone, turning the volume on the device all the way up. Then, tapping a few buttons, he leaned around the corner of the table and tossed the phone down the central aisle.

  Orak ducked back just as the phone blared, ‘LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!’ and Volbeat’s “A Warrior’s Call” began playing. They could hear frantic scuttling as the creature across the room rushed over to track down the source of these continued interruptions. Peeking over the top of the table, Orak finally got a good look at this Abbadon as it moved into the center aisle.

  The tail and stinger made up at least half of the long armored body. The rest of the creature was a wide plate supported by six thick, segmented legs. It had two forward facing eyestalks, and a cluster of small tentacles on the front of its shell it was using to manipulate objects. Scurrying over to the phone, it picked it up with the tentacles, deftly flipping it around in front of its eyestalks. The phone disappeared under the shell briefly, only to reemerge a moment later dripping with saliva.

  “Ready?” Orak asked Aki.

  In response, one of the pouches Aki wore slung over his back opened, and everyone eased back as half a dozen flat round disks floated into the air, spinning slowly around the canine figure. Their razor edges seemed to split the light from the overhead fluorescents, sending rainbow shimmers across their surface. After a brief glance at his weapons, Aki gave Orak a nod.

  Orak eased around the side of the table, staying low and tiptoeing to within arm’s reach of the bobbing stinger. The creature was still inspecting the phone, busily flipping it around while the song it played covered Orak’s approach.

  Orak held the long knife forward, then in one swift movement snatched the scaled tail just below the bulbous sting with a free hand, before hacking down viciously with the blade. Venom spewed from the stump as the insect gave a piteous screech, hurling the phone away and scuttling to turn towards its assailant.

  Orak had the knife held low, and as soon as the bugs bulging eyes swung around, the knife flashed again, both stalks falling to the floor. The screeching rose to an ear-splitting crescendo that abruptly trailed off in a wet bubbling as Orak jammed the blade deep into the creature’s head.

  “We’re clear,” Orak said, standing up and using Tyler’s discarded gown to wipe a streak of sticky greenish goo from the knife. “It was just a drone, it must have wandered in here looking for food.” Using the gown to pick up Tyler’s phone, Orak wiped it off and laid it back on the table.

  Picking it up with a grimace, Tyler turned off the Volbeat song. “That was epic! Why did you pick that song? That was bad-ass, man!”

  “I didn’t ‘pick it,’” Orak said, eyes narrowing. “I just hit random. You have terrible taste in music”.

  “I second that,” Katie said. “You play that song while you’re flexing in the mirror after your shower?” she asked Tyler.

  “Aw, she thinks about me showering. Hang around lady, and you’ll see all my routines,” Tyler replied with a grin.

  “Settle down, both of you,” Delmont ordered. “Do we have what we came for? Katie, you think your clothes might be in here? I know they won’t have anything of mine, everything I was wearing got shredded before I got here.”

  “No,” Katie said. “I was in a fire…if my hair didn’t survive, I’m sure my clothes didn’t.” She rubbed a hand over the stubble growing back on her scalp, glowering at Tyler. “Lucky bastard,” she muttered.

  Orak and Aki were by the door, the disks Aki had produced still lazily spinning around his shoulder blades. “We’ve got what we came for,” Orak told the group. “Here’s the plan. The motor pool is on the ground floor, two levels above us. We’re going to get up there, get a vehicle, and get out of here. Once we’re clear, we’ll be able to figure out our next move. The stairwell is just outside. Katie, Tyler, you two stay in the middle. Delmont, cover our rear. If you see other drones like that, your gun should work fine. Their species isn’t equipped for combat.”

  “With that stinger, they certainly look equipped for combat,” Delmont said, staring at the corpse.

  “You know what I mean,” Orak snarled. “Now let’s go.”

  Orak and Aki led them to a nearby stairwell, peeking through a small window to make sure the landing was clear. Waving the group forward, they slowly made their way up the two flights of concrete stairs. The silence in the stairwell was unnerving, after the almost constant gunfire echoing through the building earlier.

  A sign marking the ground floor had arrows pointing towards the front desk, administration, and the moto
r pool. Peeking through the narrow pane of glass in the door, Orak motioned for the group to assemble on the landing. “I don’t see anything,” Orak told them “But I know they’re nearby. Stay behind Aki, and stay low.”

  Opening the door, Orak peered around the frame, seeing that the path to the front office was clear. Stepping out into the hallway, the group fanned out close to the wall, and began to ease their way down towards the garage.

  As they approached an intersection, they saw a sign hanging from the ceiling, pointing right towards the exit. Aki paused, lifting his snout to the air and sniffing, as his gaze rose higher. Before he could say a word of warning, a small black form dropped from behind the sign, spreading a set of four multi-colored wings and buzzing loudly. It resembled a beetle, with large mandibles hanging low from its foot long frame. It swung ponderously in the air, and then zipped off down the hall to the right.

  Orak and Aki sprinted after it. “Knock it down, Aki!” Orak hissed, as the pair rounded the corner. The rest of the group followed them closely, skidding to a stop as they came to the intersecting corridor. Orak and Aki were backpedaling furiously, and the others could see that at the end of the hall, only twenty feet away, some sort of gun emplacement was being manned by two more of the huge spider-like Abbadon. The beetle was already down there flitting around their heads, and as the group slipped and skidded back around the corridor, the creatures manning the cannon swung it around to face the hall.

  “Get down!” Orak roared, just as a clap of thunder exploded through the concrete wall beside them, sending the group sprawling. Orak, Aki, and Delmont were all slammed into the far wall, stunned. The three of them watched helplessly as the concrete wall crumbled, huge chunks of the wall falling into the hallway.

  Katie and Tyler had been knocked flat on their backs by the blast. Katie coughed and started to rise as shards from the shattered concrete wall rained down around them. Tyler’s gaze fixated on a huge block near the ceiling as it slowly toppled. Rolling to the side, he braced himself on his hands and knees over Katie just as the block fell on top of them.