Merillian: 2 (Locus Origin)

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Merillian: 2 (Locus Origin) Page 29

by Christian Matari


  Of the other two contestants, one was a dwarf-sized Banthalo with a pointy ridged nose and heavily scarred skin. He was holding the end of a chain which was fastened to the collar of a hulking Golan behemoth, larger even than Jakunu had been. The gigantic beast wielded a nasty-looking spiked club the size of a lamppost. Cybernetic implants protruded from his skull, clearly dulling his wits and increasing his aggression. He snarled as they approached, resulting in a quick yank of the chain from his master, who eyed them all suspiciously, sizing them up before the ensuing battle.

  “Are you alright Serena?” Marcus whispered, sensing her tension. “It’s not too late for you to turn back.”

  “I’ll be ok,” she replied, her eyes fixated on the Golan berserker. “I can’t believe anyone could do something so hideous to such a gentle creature.”

  Marcus gripped her firmly by the shoulder in reassurance. Raven’s body armor was a bit of a loose fit, but as much as he expected otherwise he hoped there’d be no need to test its durability.

  A team of slender, masked Sheshen organizers were there to greet the contestants, making sure that everything was in order for their entry into the arena. Surprisingly, their carbines, sidearms, and grenades passed inspection. Even Jago’s massive laser wasn’t prohibited in the Urdak Nor.

  The midget Banthalo and his hulking slave entered the first poorly-constructed cage, which creaked loudly with each step. The loud clanking noise as the decaying metal frame began to descend was nearly as chilling as the wailing of the Golan inside it as he thrashed about nervously.

  “So it’s all of us against those two?” Marcus asked, sizing up his team and suddenly not feeling quite so timid.

  Taz shook his head apprehensively. “I think the game’s already started. We’re latecomers.”

  “What are the rules?” Reid asked, drawing blank stares from a pair of organizers, who apparently understood no Gaian.

  “There are none,” Taz told him. “Whoever’s holding the shiny medallion at the end of the game is the winner.”

  “We’re not here to play,” Captain Mitchell whispered, reminding them of their objective. “We’re just entering the game so we can reach the R.V. Don’t go doing anything stupid. Just stay alive and follow me.”

  “Tell that to them,” Serena muttered, staring at the descending cage.

  “You sure you want do this, Serena?” Captain Mitchell voiced. “If you want to go back to the hotel, it’s not too late.”

  “I’m sure. You might need me to interpret,” Serena affirmed. “And besides, Taz is more of a girl than I am.”

  Jago let out a roar of laughter.

  “Just make sure to stick to the rear and stay in cover if anything happens,” Captain Mitchell commanded.

  They entered the second cage just as a pair of Nerokan mercenaries led a small group of malnourished slaves of various humanoid races bound in heavy chains onto the platform, fresh fodder to appease the crowd. Their bleak expressions were a testament to their despair.

  The ride down was nerve wracking. Shimmering barriers on each side, erected between the towering skyscrapers, kept the poisonous gases at bay, but they could still see the roiling green-tinted atmosphere only a short distance away. Muffled roars and cries of pain and suffering could be heard over the creaking chains. Somewhere in the distance, a barrage of laser blasts tore through the battlefield below them. The ride seemed to last forever, the level of anxiety rising almost palpably with each crank of the chain. Thunderous explosions rang through the air every so often, throwing up clouds of dark smoke.

  Below them, a debris field of cracked cement walls rose out of the night, spreading out between the massive trunks of the skyscrapers, choked with rubble. The ground was littered with all manner of discarded barrels and crates, and even the occasional discarded vehicle or ship’s hull. Some areas were lit by powerful floodlights, and there was more than one fire burning. Still, most of the area was in perpetual twilight, the artificial light of the city above filtering down from above, diffused by the thick atmosphere and protective force fields.

  Marcus could see shadowy figures dashing back and forth in running battles, some cowering in fear, others snapping of volleys of projectile fire from cover. The most aggressive swung exotic blades, clubs and axes at anything that moved in ferocious charges. As they neared the ground, a walled-off area immediately below them rose into view, enveloping a small oasis of calm before the ensuing madness beyond, its only exit a bottleneck of death and mayhem where a scattering of bodies had already been claimed by the games.

  “Ape, you’ll have to provide suppressive fire so we can get out of that death trap,” Captain Mitchell gestured towards the bottleneck.

  A disk-shaped drone a little less than half a meter across came hovering up beside the cage, its absurdly-large central lens recording everything that transpired and broadcasting it out to the masses.

  “Yes boss,” Jago muttered.

  Marcus thought he caught a slight hint of glee in his voice.

  The walls rose outside the cage, which clanked to a halt in the midst of a small courtyard floored with mud, enclosed by semi-circular cement walls five meters high, a small sanctuary amidst the carnage.

  A pair of armed Nerokan overseers waited anxiously for their arrival. While one opened the cage, the other poked and prodded them with the butt of his spear, cackling maniacally as he ushered them out to join in the games.

  Ahead of them, the towering Golan hunched as he strode through the bottleneck, dragging his club behind him as he stumbled towards the thick wall that provided cover for emerging players. His master produced a small laser pistol and fired haphazardly into the air, frothing at the mouth as he tugged on the huge beast’s reins.

  “Let’s give them a moment,” Mitchell suggested

  The Golan was far removed from the peaceful creatures they’d grown to know and care for on Ga’ouna. Not only had his behavior obviously been significantly altered, but judging by the scars on his back he’d undergone extensive surgery, presumably to make him a more worthy champion for the games.

  “Captain,” Reid sighed. “I’ve got an-”

  “-an itch,” Captain Mitchell interjected. “So have I, Albano. So have I.”

  After a brief pause, during which the Nerokan overseers grew even more restless and began urging them out onto the field with increased fervor, the squad begrudgingly stalked towards the bottleneck, weapons raised at the ready, prepared for the worst. Marcus felt a surge of adrenalin flow through his body as every muscle tensed up and his focus narrowed, filtering out all other concerns. Serena stayed in the rear, shielded behind Reid and Doc Taylor.

  Jago and Taz went on first, with Marcus and Captain Mitchell following quickly behind them. Taz ran up to the head-high barricade in front of the bottleneck, peeking over it to check that the Golan and his master were looking the other way before jumping up and rolling quickly over the barricade’s broad top, disappearing into the rubble beyond to scout their route. The rest of the squad moved up behind him, settling in behind the wall and waiting for his signal.

  A sudden trail of smoke and fire blew clear through the small clearing beyond the wall, originating from a mound of debris on the opposite side of the cramped space. The rocket-propelled grenade impacted on the other side of the barricade with a bang, blowing up a thick cloud of dust and smoke as shrapnel tore through the area.

  Serena gave a short shriek of terror as she huddled between Reid and Taylor, one that was quickly drowned out by a deafening roar as the Golan berserker began smashing through the surrounding debris with his overgrown club, tossing and turning, flailing his chain about with no regard at all for his master’s safety.

  Crouched safely behind a toppled hovercraft, Taz looked on in horror as the small Banthalo was slammed helplessly into one pile of rubble after another. His cries for help went unheard and soon turned to a wailing sob of pain which quickly died out altogether.

  Debris was thrown left and right from the
Golan’s furious blows as its master was reduced to a bloody pulp. Free from authority, the berserker soon lost interest in the surrounding wreckage. Having either killed or scared off whoever had fired the explosive, and any other opponent in the vicinity, it staggered off in search of more.

  In the sudden silence, Marcus noted a swarm of recording drones hovering overhead, monitoring the scene from every angle. After a moment, Taz softly called the all clear.

  “Let’s move!” the captain bellowed, “Alternating fire teams, left and right.”

  They poured through the opening to the left of the barricade, making sure to navigate the field as far away as possible from the direction the berserk giant had taken. As they moved, Marcus pressed a series of buttons on his new wrist computer, calling up a holographic map of the surrounding area. A glowing dot near the far edge of the field indicated the location of their rendezvous point with Lishan’s contact.

  * * * * *

  Hanan Aru clung to the chains as the throng of wailing slaves below descended through a thin mist of clouds. The chameleon function of his suit made him virtually invisible to onlookers above, and the unfortunate inhabitants of the cage hanging below him had more to worry about than a hidden stowaway.

  He adjusted his visor to show the heat signatures of those below, making sure to compensate for the handful of flaming infernos strewn throughout the field. He quickly spotted his targets – the only large group moving with military cohesion – entering the small clearing below, rushing into cover behind one of the mounds of wreckage.

  Quickly calculating the trajectory for his jump, aligning himself with the far wall, Hanan Aru eased himself down onto the roof of the cage, crouching still for a moment. Once he was ready, he flung himself into the air, the force of his departure sending the cage swinging back and forth and drawing a chorus of sobs and woeful wails from the wretches inside.

  It was an impossible leap, nearly fifty meters in the open air and a drop of almost twice as far. He prepared himself for the impact, adjusting the hydraulics in his suit to receive the blow. The suit’s built-in A.I. systems were so remarkably intuitive that he need only think of a command and the suit would carry it out to perfection.

  The impact nearly shattered the stone wall, sending cracks rippling out across its surface all the way to the ground, two stories below. Before the Nerokan overseers had a chance to inspect the cause of the crumbling, Hanan Aru was already on his way, dropping to the muddy floor in one smooth motion and lunging through the debris field like a nimble predator catching scent of its prey.

  Chapter 42

  The squad had trekked through the smoldering ruins and decaying rubble for the better part of an hour, doing their best to steer clear of lurking gladiators in the dim light. There was no telling how many other combatants were still fighting, but judging by the amount of gunfire and screams echoing through the concrete jungle it was safe to say that there were indeed a fair few.

  Taz had taken point, scouting ahead to stop them from falling into an ambush, Marcus not far behind him, controlling the squad’s route. Reid kept a constant eye on the mounds of debris and lower levels of half-collapsed buildings, watching for hostile marksmen as they slowly made their way to the rendezvous point.

  They’d already traversed more than a third of the arena in this formation, with little more than a couple of very brief skirmishes under their belts. Few other players had teamed up as they did, and a force their size did not prove easy for the picking. Most of their assailants had abandoned their assaults, simply running off at the realization they’d bitten off more than they could chew, searching for easier prey. Despite the relative ease of their passage, Marcus had the uncanny feeling that they were being watched at every turn, and had no trouble keeping his guard up.

  Taz led them around the remains of a five-meter tall circular cement structure with rusted iron poles sticking out of its walls at odd angles, most of them bent and twisted out of shape. They rounded its bulk in tense silence, emerging in the mouth of yet another small clearing, this one littered with small blocks of rubble. Smoke trailed up into the air at the opposite end of the roughly-rectangular space from the burning husk of a dead body, its race and gender unidentifiable. On the ground, no more than a dozen meters away, a disc-shaped metallic object about twenty centimeters across lay undisturbed in the dirt, a lone green light in its center blinking periodically.

  “Trap?” Marcus asked softly, eyeing the device suspiciously.

  “Trap,” Mitchell agreed. “Reid, how’s our flank?”

  Reid’s long rifle peered over a nearby mound, the sniper stretched out behind it on his stomach, scanning the arena.

  “Looks clear, Sir. I’ve some commotion over to the south-east, and there are a couple of roamers not too far north from here, but nothing we can’t handle.”

  Doc Taylor knelt down to grab a small lump of debris, which he then threw straight at the device. The rock bounced right off its casing, making a loud clanking noise, but having no other visible effect.

  “Seems safe to me,” he grinned, using the reprieve to jam a cigarette into his mouth between his helmet’s chin-plates, lighting it with a flourish.

  “We’ll go around,” Mitchell snapped at the grinning medic, looking back over his shoulder as he pondered possible routes.

  Instinctively, Jago made for the device.

  “It’s no problem, boss,” the huge man declared as he strode straight out into the clearing. “It’s just a-”

  “Ape, no!” Marcus yelled, but it was too late.

  Jago turned to see why they were making such a big deal out of such a small object, just as the disc’s biosensor triggered the explosives within. With a deafening boom, the explosion tore through the clearing, hitting Jago square in the chest and hurling him through the air and into the mound of tumbled rocks next to the others. Marcus had never seen something so big fly through the air with such ease.

  Their ears still ringing from the blow, the squad jumped into action. Reid and Taz flung themselves into cover to protect the rest of the squad, and by the time Marcus reached the huge man Doc Taylor was already at Jago’s side, staring at a thick, rusted metal rod that had pierced clean through Jago’s hip, pinning him to the rubble. His armor was badly scorched and cracked in several locations, and he was covered in dust, dirt, and blood.

  “Idiot!” Captain Mitchell roared, rushing to his aid.

  “Is he dead?” Serena cried from the sidelines.

  “He’s alive!” Taylor pronounced. “Help me get him free.”

  It took the four of them to pull him lose, and as worried as Taylor was that removing him might cause more damage to his wound, he knew they couldn’t simply leave him in the arena. Blood was gushing from the wound, but after careful inspection, the medic was reassured to find that no major organs had been punctured. He had his hands full trying to cauterize the wound, but luckily Jago was unconscious, making it easier for him to work.

  “So much blood,” Serena gulped, clutching her hands to her chest.

  “You ok?” Marcus asked her gently, laying his hand on her shoulder in a comforting manner. “The Ape’s tough, he’ll pull through.”

  “Why do you have to call him that?” she snapped angrily, pulling off her helmet to wipe away her tears.

  “What, ‘Ape’?”

  “It’s so demeaning!”

  Marcus had never really thought about it. It was just a name that had stuck since the very beginning.

  “I…” he stammered. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  He was prevented from saying more by a sudden flash of light as a pulse of energy burst through their ranks, searing through a fractured piece of hull plating embedded in the mound of rubble.

  “Contact!” Reid shouted from on top of the mound, immediately returning fire.

  “Take cover!” the captain roared, jumping over a nearby block of cement and crouching behind it.

  The team scattered. Marcus grabbed hold of Serena and dra
gged her to safety just as another bolt of energy slammed into the captain’s shelter.

  “How many?” Marcus shouted, pinning Serena down behind a slab of cement.

  Another shot went overhead, flying wild.

  “Two shooters on the north bank, range one hundred and twenty meters, just right of that red drum!” Reid yelled. “A third circling!”

  “We’ve gotta get the Ape into cover!” Taylor shouted, crouching behind a broken steel pillar.

  Jago’s body lay face down in the dirt next to the spike that had held him impaled. From what Marcus could see from his precarious position, the big clone didn’t seem to be breathing.

  “Stay down!” Mitchell yelled.

  Reid fired a couple of shots, desperately attempting to keep their assailants’ heads down.

  “Reid, covering fire!” the captain ordered. “Taz, Marcus, back out and see if you can find a way to flank them!”

  “Are you crazy?” Taz objected. “There’s no time!”

  “Do your job!” Captain Mitchell roared at the scout, whose attention was focused on their wounded comrade.

  Instead, Taz dropped his weapon, grabbed a pair of fragmentation grenades from his harness and prepared to sprint. Meanwhile, Reid began firing as quickly as he could.

  “Taz, no!” Captain Mitchell yelled.

  Reid sent a barrage of bullets screaming through the air.

  Taz burst from cover, sprinting like he never had before, dodging left and right at random to throw off their opponents’ aim. Just as he reached the end of the clearing, he threw the two grenades over the lip of the opposing mound of debris, sliding into the dirt as he flung himself, feet first, into a sliding dive that took him behind a large lump of what had once been a metal bulkhead.

 

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