Catalyst (Book 3): Ghost Country

by Franks, JK

  Chapter One Hundred One

  Thunder Ridge Protectorate

  They couldn’t survive another attack from above. Some of the larger drones were equipped with tank-buster missiles. The first two attacks by the drones were devastating. General Daly lost half of his armored division in the first forty minutes. As each tank went down, it created a hole in the line. A hole that the infected used to great success. No longer being repelled by the sound generators there, they surged back through going after artillery gunners and then the general infantry. Hundreds of casualties turned into thousands, but still, his men fought valiantly.

  The way forward toward Thunder Ridge was all but blocked by the terrain and the forest. Several access roads were being used, but the wreckage of burning APCs and tanks were causing havoc for the ones behind. “We are lined up here like ducks in a shooting gallery. Captain, where are our birds?”

  “Still fifteen minutes out, General.”

  He was fresh out of ideas, guessed his forces were down 30% already, and overall effectiveness was plummeting. Pushing the infected had seemed like a good idea, but the enemy wasn’t out in the open, they had burrowed in too deep. They needed to open a door into those bunkers to flush them out. He heard automatic weapons fire and saw tracer rounds coming from the ridgeline above. The bullets tore through soldiers and infected indiscriminately. The fire was precise and measured. “Goddamnit, take cover, you idiots! Charlie-2, target those emplacements!” he yelled into the handset.

  To his left, three of the M1-A1 massive barrels swung and began firing. The protectorate camps’ computer-guided guns’ targeting began to fail, then ceased as the shells found their mark.

  Solo crawled forward pulling at the collar of the injured man but got no response. The infected were closing in on him, but he knew this man was needed. He sniffed at the man’s missing arm. A bone jutted through the meat. He didn’t smell like the others who were filling the forest. They had a sickness the dog could smell but simply did not understand. Large hands reached in, “Come on, Owens,” Nez said. Owens just moaned. “Solo, pull back.” one of the other soldiers yelled from cover. The mini-drone lay in pieces where it had been shot from the sky. “Those guns are going to start firing again any second.”

  “Where is it, did he get it placed?” Rollins' voice rose higher as the panic began to take root.

  “Negative,” Krychek said. He pointed to where Owens had fallen. The bottom portion of the man’s arm was lying in a small clearing. The marker beacon he’d been trying to place was just beyond. The men had faced difficulties before, but this mission was going sideways in a hurry. Between the infected continually surrounding them to the gunfire and artillery and other counter-intrusion devices, the situation looked hopeless.

  “Space toasters are heating up again,” Rollins yelled. The large, green, flat panels began to turn. They had learned that the microwave generators had to recharge or cool down every few minutes. Two of them had already gotten glancing hits from the beam and had severe burns. Rollins on his back and shoulder, and Owens on his face and arm. The arm burn would no longer be an issue for him, though. All of them scrambled for cover. The need to be covert was long gone. The Army showing up and the horde of infected had rendered any need for stealth rather pointless.

  “Did anyone see where the auto-fire system was that got Owens?” Krychek asked.

  Nez pointed, “Two of ‘em. They got him in the crossfire.”

  The places he pointed to were at least fifty yards apart, and the entire perimeter was beginning to fill with the infected. They watched as several entered the small clearing and were cut down by the barrage of fire. Others began to squirm as the space toasters, as Krychek called them, began cycling heat rays at them. Soon, those were on the ground, hair and clothes smoking, skin charring and then catching fire.

  Rollins, Krychek and Nez all looked at one another. They knew what had to be done, the question was who would venture out there to activate the beacon. “He’s gone,” Nez said, pulling fingers away from the Ranger’s neck.

  “Shit,” Krychek said.

  The guns started firing again, more of the infected moving through. One fell directly on top of the homing beacon. “The guns…” Rollins began, “they only rotate left and right. Appears they are firing at about half a meter off the ground.”

  Krychek nodded, “So one of us could crawl out there and get the beacon between space toaster pulses.”

  It was a suicide mission, they all knew it. Rollins looked at the two others, both men were much larger than he was. He doubted either man crawling would be below the line of fire. Wordlessly, he started stripping off his pack and gear. “Y’all try and keep those creatures off of me long enough to activate the beacon—ok?”

  They both nodded grimly, and Nez repositioned a few feet to one side for better covering fire.

  “It’s been an honor gentleman,” Rollins said handing over the small sound generator before lowering himself to the ground, waiting for a pause from the heat panels and then low-crawling quickly toward the middle of the clearing.

  At the sight of Rollins, the infected became hyper-agitated. The numbers breaking into the clearing tripled in minutes. Even the auto fire guns couldn’t keep up with the numerous targets. Krychek and Nez downed any that made it close to the now defenseless soldier. Rollins’ back was covered in the blood and gore of the infected. He was only halfway to the beacon when one of the infected who was severely injured crawled close enough to bite deeply into his thigh pulling away with a strip of flesh hanging from its mouth. A bullet sheared off part of the creature’s face and jaw. Rollins fought every instinct to jerk upward from the pain. “I will not quit,” he said, repeating the mantra drilled into him since SEAL training.

  It took him several minutes to compartmentalize the pain and continue on, only to realize his way forward was blocked on all sides by the numerous bodies. To go over them would place his body into the fire line. “Shit,” he said grimacing from the pain and beginning to suffer from the blood loss, the bullets ripping just over his head like angry bees. Part of one of the infected landed on him causing him to flinch, a bullet tore into his raised shoulder, shattering the bone. “The only easy day was yesterday,” he told himself through gritted teeth. Slowly, he dragged first one, then another of the bodies to the side. Nearly impossible to do without raising up for leverage. He chose the smaller bodies which he could just move with the strength in his uninjured arm.

  “Toasters!” yelled his fellow SEAL, Krychek.

  He was well and truly fucked, out here in the open. Unlike the guns, the microwave panels reached all the way to the ground. He saw the infected approaching him begin to suffer from the heat rays. The beacon was still more than ten feet ahead. Rollins did the only thing he could think of and pulled more of the infected bodies toward him, shielding himself with their bodies. As the panels swiveled toward him, though, the heat was still unbearable. The bodies he was hiding behind began to boil, some rupturing, disgorging vile gore which quickly congealed and cooked. He felt his injured arm get hot and grow numb, then watched as it reddened and then blackened and began to smoke. His vision in that eye clouded, then went dark, and he felt warm liquid draining from his eye socket down his face.

  His mental clock was counting down the power cycle as the panels finally shut down one by one. His body was done, but he forced his one good eye on the body atop the beacon and pulled himself forward with his remaining arm. He heard his friends still shooting and urging him on. With his last bit of strength, he made it to the fallen woman and reached beneath her to retrieve the device. Jamming it into the ground, he stabbed at the power button and missed. He tried again, realizing he forgot to enable the system. His energy was spent, and his body broken. Another memory from his early days floated into his mind. ‘In the worst of conditions, the legacy of my SEAL teammates steadies my resolve.’ His sacrifice was for them, those that battled before and those that might come after.

  Bring
ing his face close, he pushed in the correct keys and activated the power button. A steady green light shown from the bottom. He heard first Nez, then Krychek yell, “Out.” A wave of infected was pushing through the gunfire toward him. He lowered his head, deciding his fate should not be that. Getting torn apart by these creatures was not how he would go. He pushed himself up to his knees, letting the auto-gunfire rip into his chest and head.

  “Sir, we have a beacon.”

  “Send the coordinates to Garret and redirect all fire to that location,” General Daly said. God, I hope those boys are out of there.

  Chapter One Hundred Two

  Scott faced the locked door trying to find a way in. He looked up at the display map again. Some of the labs were interconnected where one discipline might dovetail into another. He’d passed a medical lab. Looking at the map, it had an access corridor into Lab-4. He peered back around the door and saw three guards with flashlights working their way toward him. He ducked low and, hidden by the tables and workstations, made his way through the main room back to the entrance to medical. That door opened soundlessly, and he slipped inside.

  The stark white room was sterile and empty. It reminded him of the research labs he and Gia worked in while in college. The moment of nostalgia bit deep into his soul causing him to blink away tears. He found the entrance to the corridor connecting to Lab-4 and froze. Like a macabre exhibition, the walls of the hall were a menagerie of preserved lifeforms. Like the sea creatures, nothing about these were natural either. All were formed from the maniacal nightmares of a maniac or the result of the worst medical experiments imaginable. If most started out as anything natural, discerning the base genome was a near impossibility. Scott's pace slowed to a near crawl as he marveled at each vessel.

  An animal similar to a wild tapir with a long snout and pig-like head which was attached to a slender muscular body covered with iridescent scales and tiny winglets with hook-like claws at the middle joints. A small fur covered animal slightly larger than a rabbit with vicious looking teeth and claws and an armored spiked tail. He looked at row upon row of the curious specimens until he came to something that was vaguely reptilian in appearance but with hands and arms that were distinctly human. In the last containers were humans; each appeared to be infected, but all were different. They floated in what he assumed was formalin due to the slightly pinkish tint.

  They were experimenting here, but why and on what? Genetic experiments, surely, but this went way beyond the search for a treatment. He went back to the last container; at the bottom a sign read SA-1297. Something about that seemed familiar. The naked female suspended in the tank looked angry and horrific even in death. A door opened behind him, he lightly ran to the entrance to Lab 4 and waved his badge. The light stayed red. He heard footsteps and saw the passing beam of a light back in the medical lab. Shit, shit, shit. Think, man, think. On a coat hook near the door, several lab coats hung, probably left there when the alarm sounded. He quickly searched each, and on the third, found what he was looking for. In his rush to evacuate, one of the scientists had left his badge clipped to the coat. He waved it in front of the security panel and the light changing to green was accompanied by a nearly silent click. He pushed the door open and slipped inside.

  Unlike the other rooms, Lab-4 had a double door entrance. The lab was negatively pressurized with a self-contained air system. He knew from past conversations with his fiancée, this was standard for biological research labs. The blast of air and disinfectant above was normal, too. Once the system cycled through, the inner door clicked open. He stepped into the room with his weapon raised, ready to engage. At first glance, the lab looked as empty as the others, but at the far end, he saw a lone figure bent over a microscope.

  “Scott, we need to talk,” Skybox’s voice from the tiny speakers almost lost behind the pounding in his ears. The figure was female, in a lab coat. A hint of red hair fell from a surgical cap, the protruding stomach the final clue. She turned and studied him with confusion…then a look of rage.

  “Why are you in here?” she shouted. “Get out immediately!” She didn’t sound like Gia, but it was unmistakably her.

  “Scott, I’m coming to you. If you find Gia, stay away. I just got a message from Tahir.” Scott could hear him panting, apparently running. He remembered his helmet. She thinks I’m one of the NSF guards keeping her here. Skybox was talking again, “Gia is…” but Scott had already taken the tactical helmet off and let it drop to the floor.

  The woman's face seemed to morph through disbelief to utter relief as she finally recognized him. “Scott?”

  He ran to her and took her in his arms, the sheer relief of finding her overwhelming him. “What are you doing here?” she asked kissing him.

  Still holding her tight, “When I found out they took you, I had to find you. I love you, I’m so glad you’re ok.” He placed a hand on her stomach. “How is the baby?”

  She pulled away from him with a start. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  He wasn’t sure until this moment he would actually find her, but this would not have been a greeting he would have ever expected. “Gia, what’s going on? We need to get out of here now. The Army…”

  “Fuck the Army, Scott, they will be dealt with. No one gets into or out of this place.”

  He heard the faint noise of the decon chamber cycling behind him. Instead of the NSF guard, a bloodied Skybox burst into the lab, gun at the ready, scanning for threats.

  “It’s ok, Sky, it’s just us,” Scott said.

  Gia groaned, “I should have known. Hello, Michael. So, you are the P5 Archangel selected?”

  “Michael?” Scott asked confused.

  Skybox aimed at the woman’s head. “Hello, Ms. Levy.”

  She smiled, “Finally figured it out, did you?” She walked around the edge of the table, her pregnant belly even more obvious than before. “No, you didn’t, as impressive as you are. You just aren’t that bright. Even my sweet Scott here, who is that smart, failed to see it, but alas...he would have in time. Who then…Tahir?”

  Scott looked back and forth between the two, a look of total confusion on his face. “Will one of you please tell me what is going on?”

  Gia took his arm gently. “Your friend is trying to tell you I am not who I seem. I am his boss, and I run this place. I am the Levy, my precious Scott.”

  “Your name isn’t Gia Colton?”

  “No, that is actually accurate. Levy is more a title than a name.”

  “She is the one who started all this, Scott,” Skybox said clicking the safety off his weapon. “We need to end her now. She killed the president, she released the virus and imprisoned all those Americans.”

  “Technically, I only engineered the virus, the blackout released it…the first time anyway. I did, however, set up the camps before that idiot Chambers lost her grip and started gassing them with 1297.” She leaned heavily on the worktable. “So, technically, yes, I am the evil bitch you have been hunting.”

  Chapter One Hundred Three

  Scott turned slowly to see four of the armed guards entering from the adjacent lab. “Scott…sweetie. You are going to need to put the gun down.” He began to comply as she turned to the guards, “Go ahead and kill the commander,” pointing at Skybox.

  The Praetor commander leaped sideways as one of the men began to fire. Scott dropped, spun and came up with the Glock faster than even he thought possible. One of the guards went down when Scott fired. He felt more than saw Gia retreating to the rear of the lab. Skybox dove for cover but caught a round in his left shoulder. Time seemed to slow as Scott stood and ran at the remaining three guards. The shock registered just before his bullets tore into two of the three.

  The slide locked back on Scott’s pistol, he dropped it and unsheathed the knife tossing it to his unarmed friend who slid into the lone guard’s legs like he was sliding for third base. He sliced the man’s Achilles tendon causing him to lurch forward, then thrust the knife up at his inner thigh
. The razor-sharp blade found its mark, slicing open the femoral artery generating a momentary fountain of blood across the bio lab.

  The guard dropped his pistol and grasped awkwardly to stop the flow of blood leaving his body. He tumbled to the ground already growing weaker. Scott turned from the carnage to see Skybox going after Gia; the back of his uniform was covered with a dark crimson stain.

  “Block the doors, Scott, more will be on the way.” He caught a glimpse of red hair as Gia fled from the lab mere feet ahead of Skybox.

  Scott’s mind raced as he ran forward and pushed a locking bar down for each of the doors. Things began to click, finally. Gia is Levy? The soul-crushing truth was not something his mind could fathom. This would mean that she, as much as the CME, was responsible for so much of the misery and death in the world. It just couldn’t be. He grabbed the sub-compact H&K from the floor as he raced after the two into the admin section.

  The echoing footsteps ahead and a trail of blood from Sky’s wounds made following the pair easy. Unlike the other sections of the compound, no people seemed to be in this area. Why is she this way? Can I save her? Had she ever loved me? The litany of thoughts thundered through Scott’s tortured mind like panicking wild animals heading toward a cliff. The real gut-punch came when he thought about what Skybox would do when he caught her. He kills her, he kills my child, too. He wiped away stinging tears as he ran.

  He turned through an open gray door into what was a large office. The space was carved into the very rock walls of the cavern. Skybox was approaching Gia with his knife drawn. The color was gone from his face. It was replaced by a mask of pain and determination. Gia watched the approaching man with a detached look of pity.