The Seryys Chronicles: Death Wish

by Joseph Nicholson

  No sooner did he close the channel when his aid called again.

  “What now?”

  “Now I have Agent Thirteen on the line for you.”

  “Very well, patch her through.”

  “Sir, I’m tracking Captain Dah to-”

  “DOEMF Eleven?”

  There was a long pause. “Y-yes, sir. How did you know?”

  “That’s not important. Just track him and don’t engage him until I tell you. If Khail survived his fall to Seryys, he’ll be there, too.”

  “I’m on it, sir. I’ll keep the channel open so you can give me the word.”

  “Very good, Agent.”

  Kay was elated. Khai’Xander Khail survived his ordeal on OS 12 and now she was going to meet him in battle. Her mouth watered with anticipation. She would taste his blood and take him for her mate. Captain Dah would be there, too. Him, she would just kill outright, along with that skinny bitch Bria’Nah. She throttled up her ship and soared for the Dah Ore Extraction Mining Facility 11.

  Tander, Tandy and Bria were in Tander’s luxury shuttle, headed for the facility.

  “What the hell is going on, Tander?”

  “I don’t know,” Tander said, taking a sip from an ice-filled glass with amber-colored liquor. “But, in light of what you’ve told me and showed me, I think I know why the military has taken a sudden interest in my operation here.”

  “What’s so special about this mine?” Bria asked.

  “It’s better if I show you,” Tander said, throttling up the shuttle. “And if I’m right, it won’t be long ‘til the military gets there, too.”

  “Should you be drinking and driving?” Bria asked.

  “Look,” Tander said deadpan.” If you knew what I was about to show you, you’d be drinking, too.”

  Within twenty minutes, they made it to DOEMF 11. The place looked deserted, almost ransacked. There was a landing pad on the upper level near the tower. Khai was sitting on it, waiting for them to arrive. The shuttle set down on the landing pad and the side door swung up to open. Out stepped Dack, another Dack in an expensive suit and a girl.

  “What the hell took you so long?” Khai grumbled.

  “It’s still a drive from Tanbarder, you know,” Tandy said. “Anyway, let me introduce you to my twin brother, Dack’Tander Dah and Bria’Nah Briar. Everyone, this is the legendary Colonel Khai’Xander Khail.”

  “A pleasure,” Tander said extending his hand with a charismatic smile.

  “Good. Now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way, let’s get the hell out of here!” Khai said forcefully.

  “No,” Tander replied to Khai firmly. “We need to check on the status of the door.”

  “Relax,” Khai growled. “Your computer told me that the door is holding whatever the hell is in there.”

  “I’m not worried about the strength of the door,” Tander snapped. “The military has a code key to open that door. What they don’t know, is that I have an override code to lock it permanently.”

  “Why would the govern…” Khai almost instantly understood. “What the hell is behind that door?”

  “Let me show you.” Tander moved past Khai into the control room. He sat down the main computer. “Computer,” he called out. “Unlock terminal.”

  “Please provide unlock code,” the male voice spoke back.

  “Tander-one-seven-seven-Tandy-alpha-nine-six-tango-four, enable.”

  “Authorization accepted. Welcome Dack’Tander Dah. Please state request.”

  “Display Reaper.”

  From the hologram projector in the center of the room, a monstrous being appeared.

  “What the fuck is that?” Tandy asked.

  “A Reaper,” Tander responded, his eyes gazing at the monstrosity with a haunted expression. “Killed my whole crew here. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. You’re looking at the original inhabitants of Seryys. Samples taken from the rock in that cavern were dated hundreds of thousands of years ago. We know nothing about them except that they’re incredibly strong, and fast, too. We believe they feed on the little rodent-like creatures that feed on the lichen on the walls; a very simple food chain, by our standards, but an effective one. We also know they’re cannibalistic, as we watched them eat their dead and wounded on their retreat back into the cave. We think, being strict carnivores meant that they had to feed several times a day, but the rate at which the rodents reproduced, they had a nearly unlimited supply of food. As you can see, it hunts by sound and smell, but it knew the layout of the facility well enough to navigate it. So that made us think that they must have had some other kind of sense, like sonar or the ability to sense bioelectric currents. No studies were ever conducted out of fear of one of these things getting out. But the military required that we have a plan to let them out, in case someone, sometime down the road, wanted to study them.”

  “Is this to scale?” Khai asked.

  “Afraid so,” Tander replied.

  The beast was humanoid, about seven feet tall, completely white with no hair on even an inch of its body. The head was elongated slightly from the chin to the back of the head, with a smooth, shiny surface all over. It had no eyes, two small slits for a nose and a mouth full of needle-like teeth. The ears were like small flaps that ran the length of the head.

  Its torso was more humanoid than the rest of its body. Lean and muscular, it had very similar features to that of a Seryysan. They could see the vertebrae of a spine, ribs, collarbones, shoulder blades and muscles. The arms were longer than that of a normal man’s and ended in oversized hands with six-inch talons on the ends of the four long, bony fingers that seemed to have an extra knuckle. The imposable thumb had only a small claw.

  The bottom of the creature was more alien. It had a small protruding tale less than six inches long. The legs reminded Khai of sabercat’s legs. It had thighs, knees and calves. But it had a third joint below the calves that bent forward like a sabercat’s leg and ended in large feet with imposing big toes.

  “Fifteen years ago, we tunneled into a large cavern, several hundred miles long and wide. It ran along the canyon but was several hundred feet from the canyon wall. I was here in the control room watching from the helmet cams of every miner I had in there. The whole area had its own ecosystem. It was like nothing I had ever seen! Water filtered down into large underground lakes from small, inch-wide fissures in the rock. The rock was incredibly hard. We had to develop a new drill bit just to cut through it. Small lichen grew along the rock where the water ran down. This lichen was eaten by these small rodent-like creatures. They were everywhere! They seemed to reproduce at an exponential rate, faster than anything my scientists had ever seen.

  “We brought one back with us and closed it up for the day. This little, harmless creature seemed to have only two purposes: eating lichen and reproduction. And it did so asexually.”

  “You mean, like without-” Khai was about to ask.

  “Without mating,” Tander answered.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Tandy asked jokingly.

  “Anyway, what my scientists couldn’t figure out was why they were there and, more importantly, how their population was controlled. Because at the rate at which they bred, there should have been millions of them down there, but we only found a couple hundred.

  “The next day, we went back in. Things were going fine. Our geological survey team was making considerable progress when one of the monitors I was watching went straight to static. I called out on the com channel to raise the others. Suddenly, helmet cams started going out all over the monitor station. Gurgled cries came from all channels.

  “One of the helmet cams caught a short glimpse of our attackers; that was the first time I saw one. I almost threw up, but I kept my composure and called for military help.

  “The creatures slaughtered my men and started working their way up to the main entrance from the bottom level. I had the door closed and locked, regrettably before all my men got out. The
se creatures were immensely strong and started pounding down the door. Military aid was on its way, so all I could do was pray to the Founders that the door would hold until they got here.

  “It did, thankfully, but the military was unprepared for what they met. Hundreds of those monsters came rushing out of the door when they opened it. I could hear the gunfire from here. The explosives from both my men and the SCGF soldiers shook the floor beneath my feet. I remember specifically a soldier yelling over the com that one got by and was heading up the east stairwell. A soldier fired a grenade into the wall and blasted the stairwell from the outside using thermal tracking goggles.

  “Eventually, the soldiers were able to kill enough of them that they retreated back into the mine. They grabbed their wounded and dead and began eating them on their way. The military held them at bay until a new door could be manufactured and put into place. We lost six engineers during the installation of the door.”

  “You said that you knew why the military was suddenly taking in interest in your operation,” Bria pointed out. “Why?”

  “After the evidence you showed me, I had a bad feeling about this whole thing. If Trall was willing to the use the Hammer Cannon to destroy Seryys City, maybe this was another backup plan. If you released even fifty of the things into the city, they would tear it down brick by brick. And I’ll be damned if those engineers lost their lives for nothing.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Khai asked.

  “We go back down there and permanently disable to the lock.”

  “So then what’s going to stop Trall from just blasting a hole through the canyon wall?”

  “Without a controlled spot to get them out, they would simply rush out and kill everyone. They need the door so that they can manage the flow of Reapers at any given time.”

  “Good point,” Tandy said. “So how do we disable it?”

  “From the source,” Tander responded.

  “Why did I know you were going to say that?” Khai almost shuddered.

  “It shouldn’t take more than-” Tander was cut off by an alarm.

  “What’s that?” Khai asked.

  “Proximity alarm. Looks like we have company. I have a ship—no, two ships—coming in hot. One is definitely military; the other looks almost civilian!”

  “Trall knows we’re here. That supports your theory, Tander,” Khai said checking his 92:30. “You guys go down there and get the door sealed! I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

  They nodded and headed for the lift that worked.

  Khai walked out to the landing pad and could hear the high-pitched sound of engines rushing his way. He cocked his gun and waited.

  Kay caught the military vessel, bristling with weaponry, on her scope the minute they both came within range of the mining facility. She sent them a friendly code and then promptly a cease-and-desist code. These kills were hers and she wasn’t about to let some Neanderthal take them from her!

  “Commander,” a young private called from the com station. “We’re getting a high-authority cease-and-desist code from that civilian contact on our radar.”

  “What?” Commander Hoom squawked.

  “There’s a friendly code followed immediately by the cease-and-desist. I think it’s an Agent, sir.”

  “Hail that ship, private.”

  “Sir,” the private punched in the code and the screen flickered to a young woman—no, a girl!

  “Agent, this is Commander Hoom of-”

  “I know who you are, Commander. I’m telling you to back off and provide support only if I need it.”

  “With all due respect,” Hoom protested. “This is a military operation.”

  “My clearance far outreaches yours, sir. Pull back and wait for my signal. That is an order!”

  Hoom grimaced, furrowing his graying brow. “Yes, ma’am. Pulling back now.”

  “Thank you for following your orders, Commander. I will send my regards to your commanding officer about your superior ability to follow orders.”

  The screen went blank. “Damn! Fucking kids with more superiority than me! I don’t get it!”

  “What do we do, sir?” the pilot asked.

  “We hang back, but just outside the facility. If she shows even the slightest sign of trouble, we swoop in and help her.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Khai watched the military ship break off and land just out of view, but the civilian ship kept coming. Khai popped another painkiller as the ship slowed to a hover about thirty feet above the landing pad. Suddenly a figure emerged from the ship, falling toward him. He wasn’t sure until she landed into a crouching position that she was even Seryysan. But when she did land, Khai had to pinch himself. It was a girl, a little girl. She stood straight up and Khai got a good look at her. She was lean and muscular, wearing a body-tight, black-and-red flight suit.

  She unsheathed a sharp sword called a Kit’ra, a blade originally designed by the Kyyl’Jah Assassins as a remarkably fast and deadly weapon, and advanced in its design. The blade was fashioned from carbon steel by a laser for the sharpest edge possible and then coated in a Teflon-based film to ensure the edge stayed as sharp as the day it was made by easing the blade’s path through whatever it was cutting. Khai wasn’t in the mood for games; he pointed the gun and squeezed the trigger. The girl whipped the sword around and literally blocked the bullet. Ah shit! An Agent! He should have known. Only an Agent would be that young and that deadly all at the same time.

  As an Agent, she was put through rigorous training, pushing her into the peak of perfect physical condition. She was schooled in hundreds of different styles of fighting; she was put through cognitive training to push her reflexes beyond that of a normal person and a cognitive microchip was installed in her brain to give her reflexes that bordered on precognition—the reflex package interface detected bioelectrical signals within the brain and acted accordingly, much the same way bionic prosthetics worked (in fact, they both used identical interfaces); she was beaten relentlessly—sometimes to within an inch of her life—to make her tougher; it was an awful life, but she was faster, stronger, tougher and smarter than the average person. She was faster than Khai, but she wasn’t nearly as strong or as war-hardened as he. Khai holstered his pistol and pulled his knife. He advanced, she matched. They circled. She swung and Khai blocked, their blades crossing. Khai kicked her square in the gut, sending her tumbling back. She quickly got to her feet and grinned. She was enjoying this. Khai took no pleasure in roughing up a child, but it was either him or her. She lunged forward, plunging her sword forward. Khai barely had time to twist out of the way and bat the blade away with his knife. As he spun, he was caught at the base of the spine with a powerful side kick that issued a pained grunt from the old soldier. He somersaulted forward to put some distance between them and rolled to his feet. He was a good fifteen feet away from her and bringing his knife up into a guard position.

  Suddenly, faster than he could blink, she covered that distance and attacked with a lateral swipe with the sword. Khai barely had time to register the attack when the blade sliced into his abs.

  The blade was so sharp Khai barely felt it. It was only when he spotted his own blood pooling up at his feet, that he realized just how injured he was. That was also when he realized she was playing him, feeling him out. She knew from step one that she was faster than him. She was just playing it safe until she knew she could score the final blow. He had only minutes to use his field medic cauterizer before he bled to death. He had an idea. He pulled one of the remaining grenades from his bandoleer threw it at the Agent. Like he expected, she was able to bat the grenade away, but she left herself wide open and Khai made his move. He drew his pistol and put a bullet just below her ribcage. It would have been her head had his head not been spinning.

  She squawked and stumbled over the ledge, falling forty feet to the ground. Khai knew she wasn’t dead, but he now had an opportunity to buy his friends downstairs a little more time. He jumped into the shu
ttle and called Tandy.

  “Hey Dack-uh, Tandy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s an Agent lying unconscious on the ground below the landing pad, I’m taking the shuttle to draw her and the military ship off of you guys to buy you some more time.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Khai fished through his bag and found the cauterizing tool. He bit down on a piece of leather and ran the searing hot tool over the slice in his stomach. He could feel that it was only into the muscle, that it didn’t hit any major organ, but he was still losing a lot of blood. The cauterizing worked and the hemorrhaging stopped.

  Once he was able to regain his composure, he started the shuttle, brought it up on its hover pads and spun it around a hundred and eighty degrees. He punched the throttle and sped off toward Tanbarder. The military ship gave chase and started firing immediately. Khai upped the ante by piloting the shuttle into the canyon. The larger, less maneuverable military ship followed, but wasn’t as agile as the shuttle. The ship opened fire on Khai the instant they were both in the canyon. Khai juked and jinked and the cannon bolts passed by, hitting the canyon walls.

  Finally, a shot found its mark. The bolt of laser fire ricocheted of the hull of the shuttle and struck the canyon wall. Ti’tan’lium hull plating and shields? This guy knows how to ride in style. The pilot of the military ship learned quickly and moved to solid rounds and started peppering the shuttle with bullets. The shuttle bucked and shuddered as bullets lodged into the hull and actually got through.

  “Damn!” He punched the console. More bullets found their mark and he had to pull out some old tricks, tricks he hadn’t used in years. He pushed the throttle to full and took a smaller canyon that shot off to the right. He had to spin the shuttle up on its side to squeeze through the small opening. He looked back and saw that the larger ship simply left the canyon and followed from above. Khai knew it was only a matter of time before the pilot figured something out. Inevitably, the ship rained fire on the shuttle with missiles. Khai pulled up on the yoke and the shuttle left the canyon.