by M. ORENDA
“Niri---”
“You are wise enough to understand. I know you are,” she says, peering through the shine of his visor, focusing on his hair, his eyes. She lifts her hand, stroking her fingertips experimentally along the plastic.
He sways back out of reach.
“I know you,” she whispers. “I know you will not abandon me. I know you will not let them kill me. Other humans will come here to destroy me. They will hunt me as they hunt each other, but your leaders have chosen a different path for your species, a different future. They have chosen cooperation with us. Not all of them are wise, or truthful. Not all can be trusted, but they accept what must change. They have made this decision. They have bridged our worlds, knowing what it would mean, but they cannot protect me from those who would destroy me, and I will not survive without you.”
He struggles with that, knowing it’s a manipulation of sorts, and that he’s in serious trouble because the image of this woman gets to him in ways he can’t even describe. He’s looking at her now, and it’s impossible to believe that Niri is not in there somewhere. It’s impossible to believe that it’s not her asking for his help… because maybe it is.
“I’m part of a team,” he offers, trying to focus back on what she’s said. “I follow orders. Colonel Voss told me to take you---Niri---out of here, if I was asked to do so. I was not asked to do that.”
“You follow the Asura.”
“What?”
“Your loyalty is absolute.”
My… “Yes,” he says. “To my command, yes.”
She holds his gaze, her expression burning with emotion, the way Niri’s often did, then it eases, and she turns her head, as if listening. “I understand.”
Understand?
She lifts her gaze back to the starlit ceiling, watching her Milky Way melt into darker blooms of color, lips pressed tightly together, a hint of fear maybe.
Logan frowns. “Niri---”
The airlock seal hisses, the door retracting.
Dr. Williams steps out onto the rock, unsure if she’s welcome or not. She forces a tight lipped smile, bows her head in respect to Niri. “My sincerest apologies, Devas. The corporal is urgently needed in another part of our station. He will return as soon as he can.”
Logan nods, first thinking that it’s an excuse, then seeing in the doctor’s face that it’s clearly not. Something’s wrong.
Neilson is waiting for him on the observation deck, pale and nervous, amped up to the point where he can barely talk. He gestures that Logan should move faster, but he doesn’t speak, just leads him to the row of holo screens placed in front of the cavern windows. Logan catches panicked glances from the handful of staff members huddled in chairs, faces peering up at him in desperation as he follows the director.
“They’re going to break through the monitoring station,” Nielson says, his voice sharp, pitched with disbelief. “They’re breaking through it right now.”
“What? What are you---”
“Some guys, Earthbounders. They landed in the hangar and blew open the elevator shaft, along with the car at the bottom. Now there’s shooting, and I… I can’t even tell what’s going on, but… it’s bad.”
Logan glances down at his wrist, seeing that all the comms are down. No green bead for Gojo, No bead for Voss. No one.
What the fuck?
The team was engaged while he was down here, useless, and unaware.
Now the enemy is already through the hangar, which means Voss might be dead. Wyatt might be dead. And Gojo… Who the hell knows where he is, but he’s either fighting for his life, or dead too.
Not those guys. Not my guys.
Lock it down.
Do your job.
Nielson crosses behind one of the desks, pointing to one of the holo screens. “There was an explosion in the elevator shaft. The communications are out, but there’s still vid.”
The images on the screen are grainy, but Logan can see the fight raging. He ignores the smoke and shattered glass, focusing on the dark outline of guards changing positions behind control consoles. There’s no sound with the images, just quick, pixelated movements, a continuous attack coming from beyond the view of the camera.
One station guard drops in a lifeless fall against the cabinets.
They’re getting overrun.
Logan shakes his head, pushing the words out. “You have control over the second elevator?”
“We’re in lockdown. It won’t move.”
“Is there another way up?”
Nielson looks at him, . “You can’t go up there. You have to protect us down here. Those were your orders.”
“They’re blowing through doors. You took all my guns. What am I supposed to protect you with? I have to go up there to prevent them from coming down here because I’ve got nothing.”
“There’s an evacuation kit. It has an axe.”
“An axe? They have assault rifles. Do you know what a gun is?”
Nielson struggles, losing his mind. “I don’t think… I don’t know. Maybe someone has a plan---”
Another station guard goes down.
Too late.
Larger figures fill the screen, all of them Earthbounders in matching Bounder armor, but without helmets, as if there’s been a malfunction. Maybe an EMP, a gift from Voss.
They spread out from a tight stack, mowing down sectors, and clearing the control deck like they know what they’re doing.
“Shit.” Logan watches, unable to react as the fighting in front of the camera stops. The attackers move forward, and pass out of view, chasing gunfire that’s coming from another direction.
Some of the station guards are still alive, still engaged, and holding their ground off-camera, though maybe not for much longer.
They’ve lost control of the station.
A moment passes before another figure appears in the view, taller than the rest, with his long hair tied at the back of his neck. The guy is clearly in charge, and yelling orders. He sits down at the console and starts pulling up screens.
“They’ve already hacked in,” Logan says. “They’re going to lift the lockdown, restore elevator function, and open all the doors.”
“But---”
There’s nothing to say. It’s already done, already eating up whatever seconds it takes to disarm digital barriers, spread false authorizations through computer systems… it’s in progress.
Think. Think.
Logan looks up at the cavern windows.
The colony’s cold light seeps through the glass, its towering basalt columns teeming with color. Watery aquamarine patterns move over the rock. The tunnel structure branches out beyond the pools, forming two separate passages, each leading in different directions.
“You’ve mapped this place, right?”
Nielson hesitates. “The cave system, yes. It gets more complicated the further you go, and---”
“Get your people in suits,” he says. “And get out there. Take Niri.”
“Hide from them?”
“Yes.”
Nielson wets his lips. “And you?”
“I’m staying here.”
“Alone? You’re going to fight them alone? With nothing?”
Nothing… yeah, hopefully not. “What about all these countermeasures, the nozzles in the hallway? In the elevator. What are they for?”
It takes Nielson a second. He glances toward the shadowed doors on the top level of the observation deck. “The elevator systems are equipped for fire, but they’re controlled at the monitoring station because we always assumed the threat would be moving from the caverns to the surface, and that was safer. But the nozzles in the hallways are non-lethal gas, tear gas.”
“Just tear gas?”
“We didn’t need anything more,” Neilson says, defensive even when he’s scared shitless. “If something happened with the women we have here… it’s more than enough. They’re not Assaulters trained to deal with physical distress. Their biology makes them inc
redibly sensitive to fear or pain. Tear gas is more than enough to immobilize them in the hallways, should there be some disruption, some problem---”
“Can you control it from here?”
“The gas? Of course, I can activate containment measures in the hallway, but there are alarms, they can see it going at the monitoring station.”
Logan nods, thinking that one alarm----amid a chorus of alarms---might just get missed. He glances toward the antechamber leading to the cave, trying to remember how many extra air tanks he counted in the storage racks by the suits.
From the upper level of the observation deck, the glass doors unlock with a loud hiss and retract. The entrance corridor brightens, switched from emergency lighting to the everyday glare of a medical facility.
They’re coming.
“Do it,” Logan says. “Gas the hall by the elevator… and give me the axe.”
The artificial descent gauge streams in one corner of Voss’s visor display. It’s going at a half-meter per second, slower than a descent on Earth, the numbers scrolling upward with the hiss of the line through his armor’s carabiner. He rappels as well as he can in full kit, awkward on the line as he drops into the darkness.
The details of the shaft are indistinct in thermal, a mixture of colorless pipes, and laddered braces, some of it old tech, welded joints and cold rivets.
One hundred meters.
One hundred fifty.
Rhoades and James are following his lead, their boots pinging softly off the metal as they skim along the shaft after him. They’re maintaining the silence, though occasional grunts spit through comms, bursts of panicked breathing.
Two hundred meters.
Noises filter up, a thin patter that grows into a clattering roar of gunfire, full engagement. It’s happening out of sight. No tracers. Nothing coming at them, so he guesses it’s station guards versus Bounders, and no indication of who is where. Voss pushes away from the supports, sailing down as far he can to peer down the shaft.
Two hundred and fifty meters.
Three hundred.
The end of the channel appears from the blackness. The roof of the elevator materializes in murky greys as shreds of torn metal, its top panels torn open and exposed. The rappelling lines stretch directly into what’s left of the car underneath it, a dark, tight space that is maybe clear, maybe not.
Voss slows his descent, and slides his boots up against one of the supports, then entwines them with the line.
Lean back. Let everything shift.
Now he’s upside down in a tactical rappel position, his head and shoulders pointed toward the bottom of the shaft.
His rifle’s slung and secured---too big---so he unsnaps Wyatt’s pistol from his holster and draws the weapon out, easing the line tension with his free hand. He descends smoothly, gun first, to pause above ruptured panels.
Light filters up from the opening, along with the sound of rage unabated. The gunfire is somewhere in the hallway.
The two recruits pause beside him, neither of them adept at tactical rappelling. “Unhook,” Voss tells them. “Drop in after me.”
“Sir,” Rhoades descends and sets his boots silently down on the elevator car’s roof. He unhooks and balances himself against the wall of the shaft, out of the way, and ready to jump in.
James perches opposite, his breathing loud through the active channel.
“Going,” Voss says, allowing the line to slip.
He angles the gun through the hole and slides down with it extended in front of him. Two targets appear in the hallway by the elevator’s blown doors, Bounders tasked with watching the bottom of the shaft.
One of them turns his way.
It’s automatic. Voss fires three rounds, clipping the guy in the shoulder then punching two rounds through his chest. The Bounder falls back, but the second shooter turns around, ready with the rifle.
Voss fires through the pistol’s magazine and the Bounder retreats, scrambling for cover.
Voss slips the line, and he’s down in the car, scrambling to unhook. Bullets start tearing up the elevator entrance, pinging through metal, and forcing him to duck against the side wall.
He transitions from his pistol to the assault rifle, then crouches down, edging into the fray to fire back. His weapon bursts suppressed rounds, hitting consoles. The Bounder fire pauses. He edges out further, keeping it controlled because it’s going to get worse before it gets better. “Rhoades---”
He doesn’t have to finish because the kid’s through the hole and behind him in two steps, weapon raised. James botches the landing, and falls back against the wall, but pushes himself up quickly.
“I’m low,” Voss says, gesturing to James before he completely runs through his magazine.
James starts shooting.
Voss pulls back, exchanging magazines.
He checks Gojo’s bead, and it’s still dark.
Where are you?
“Pop smoke,” he tells the other recruit.
“Sir.” Rhoades is nervous, stress making his voice hoarse, but he keeps it together, fumbling two smoke grenades out of pouches.
“On three.”
“Yeah.” Not the right response, but Voss hardly hears it.
“One… two…”
Voss swings out to the right of James, both of them firing to keep Bounders down. Rhoades raises the grenade, pulls the pin, and hurls it. He does the same with the second. The canisters bounce, spewing white plumes though all Voss can see in thermal is a splashing shower of embers. The smoke itself is nearly invisible in thermal.
He gives it just enough time to fill the hallway, create a thick fog.
“Going,” he says, taking the lead.
Voss moves forward, tucked in the low-ready stance, one hand gripping his weapon’s barrel shrouds.
In thermal, he can see the Bounders at the security consoles.
They’re firing blindly at the elevator, the sound of it deafening. They think he’s still there. He’s not. He’s on their right, advancing toward them, over the remains of a devastated gate and a thick layer of broken glass. It’s movement they might hear if they weren’t so busy shooting at nothing.
Three shapes appear on the floor inside the gate.
One of them is in Assaulter armor.
Voss crosses the distance and crouches down, finding Gojo slumped over a dead guard, his helmet cracked, armor plates broken in the shoulder and ribs. He was close to a blast. Whatever tore through the gates, tore into him too.
The damaged suit’s comms blink on, recognizing the proximity of the team leader. The computer starts streaming data into Voss’s visor display.
Pulse: Steady.
Condition: Unresponsive.
The tech sergeant’s still fighting, still breathing.
Voss signals James to stay in place, and guard Gojo. Then he rises, steps over the tangle of men because if he slows down, everyone dies.
Surprise. Speed. Violence of Action.
He leads Rhoades toward the monitoring station.
He counts five Bounders popping up and down behind the consoles.
Violence of Action.
Ice for blood.
A quick breath through clenched teeth.
Move.
He charges into the destroyed control room. He sees the Bounders turn---that instant of surprise---and savors it. One guy stumbles back in panic. Guns swivel in Voss’s direction, but he’s already firing. He rips four rounds into the closest guy, pivots and refocuses, punching another two into the next one.
Rhoades is at his side, firing a stream of suppressed rounds.
The Bounders go down, dead or dying.
“Clear,” Voss says.
“Clear.” Rhoades echoes, leaning down to toss enemy weapons.
Voss changes out magazines.
Gunfire continues to ring from down the hallway, confirming that the other Bounders have moved on and are encountering resistance from the surviving station guards.
Vos
s moves past the consoles, and Rhoades follows, slipping up behind him. In thermal, the hallway stretches ahead.
The elevator doors have already been blasted, and presumably the car at the bottom of the shaft too. Kazak doesn’t want to risk losing control of the station and getting stuck in one.
Voss can see the rappel lines secured at the top, and another small group of enemy fighters---he counts six this time---protecting the shaft entrance. They’re crouching together behind a table they’ve dragged into the hallway, exchanging fire with the station guards through compartment doors.
Speed. Violence.
He ducks close to the wall, making himself a smaller target, weapon raised. Their fluttered knot of movement aligns in his sights. He pulls the trigger, announcing his presence, and it starts.
Two of the others turn toward him, yelling, but now they’re taking fire from two sides now. And there’s too few of them. Voss keeps the focus. First one. Second one. And he’s moving forward, advancing toward them with the glare of absolute purpose because he’s exposed, and there’s no other way.
Speed.
Rhoades matches every step, every shot, a stream of non-stop fire.
The Bounders collapse, some hit and trying to crawl away.
The station guards stop firing.
Voss and Rhoades stop firing.
The hallway falls silent.
“Friendly,” Voss calls out, not wanting to get shot by a station guard when he comes into their line of sight.
“Yeah,” one of them replies from inside the open compartment in the hallway. “Good. Come out where we can see you.”
Okay.
Voss signals Rhoades to stay back, and then moves forward, keeping his weapon raised. He passes in front of the compartment and sees the station guards watching him. They’re protecting the pilots, and a few of their own who’ve been hit. Some are busy administering aid.
The station chief stumbles up, gun in his hand forgotten. “Colonel.”
Voss leaves them and focuses on the Bounders, moving to assess the dead and wounded, take weapons away.
The closest shooter is still writhing on the floor, injured, and hiding behind the stack of equipment the group was using for cover. Voss approaches, kicking his gun out of reach. It skitters away.