“You let him live?”
Kahn struggled vainly to free himself, but the iron grip just tightened on his battle leather. “Father – Lord Shinnock – he could not be stopped…”
“I have no use for excuses!” Shinnock roared, and flung Kahn across the room as effortlessly as if he were a child’s rag doll.
Kahn crashed against a wall in a tangled heap, gasping as the air went out of him.
“We have broken the sacred rules to open the Portal!” Shinnock hissed. “If the Elder Gods learn of our plot, we shall both suffer the consequences.”
“I do not understand.” Kahn gathered himself up off the floor, his face still contorted with pain. “How can you fear the Elder Gods?”
“Until the sixth day has passed, we can take no chances with Rayden and his mortals. Do not underestimate the power of the human spirit. Do you understand?”
Kahn nodded slowly. “I will not fail you, Father. I have another plan for Rayden and his champions. A plan that will lead them straight to their destruction.”
Shinnock watched him from beside the throne.
He stood there regarding his son another moment, and then slipped back into the shifting shadows from which he’d materialized.
Kahn waited until he was sure he’d departed, then turned back to the battle pit, his attention snared by the moist squishing noises coming from inside – sounds curiously unlike the busy clicking and grinding of the mouth parts belonging to his hungry pets.
His eyes widened.
Both vulko crabs were lying upside down on the bottom the tank, clearly dead, the worm that had been their intended meal dripping slime over their motionless carapaces.
Within moments, its acidic secretions having softened their exoskeletons to a kind of soupy, semidigested mush, the worm consumed them whole, sucking them through a yawning orifice in its head.
Again there was silence in the chamber.
Kahn stared into the tank, hardly able to credit his eyes.
Could what he’d just witnessed hold some meaning he didn’t understand? Some ominous significance that related to his father’s warnings? He shook his head in vehement denial. It was a curious reversal, certainly… a fluke. But he was no believer in portents. Why take it as any kind of sign?
Still, nothing like it had ever happened before, nothing…
After a very long time, he pried his gaze away from the tank and strode out of the great hall, heading for the stairs that lead down to his war room.
Several levels down, Kahn’s ruling council had assembled at a long table in the war room, a circular hall lined with crude tile mosaics depicting scenes of battle and carnage. All around them, guards in bionic armor stood at stiff attention, their staves and plasma lances upright, their eyes never shifting from the center of the room, alert for any command from their superiors.
“My squads have already claimed thousands of innocent souls on Earth,” the masked general at the head of the table boasted, pointing to an ancient map of the Earth.
“I would have claimed millions,” Motaro said.
Sheeva gave the Centauran a disdainful look. “By now, you would be behind bars, on display in a zoo.”
“If the bars could keep you away, I would welcome it,” Motaro replied.
Her temper pricked, Sheeva sprang at him, grabbing him around the neck with all four hands.
“Why Kahn tolerates you two wretched mongrels I cannot fathom, but I will advise him to have you put to death as quickly as possible,” Queen Sindel said, watching them in disgust.
Oblivious to her comments, their struggle intensified with grunts and growls. They were still grappling minutes later, when Kahn entered the room.
“Silence!” he said, his angry tone of voice finally getting their attention. As they subsided, he strode to the head of the war table and faced the general. “What is your report?”
“Two of Earth’s best warriors have already been taken,” the general said with open pride. “Kabal and Stryker.”
“And did you make them beg for their lives before you destroyed them?”
The general shrank a little under his burning gaze.
“Well?” Kahn said.
More of the general’s confidence had drained away. “But master, I thought if I let them live that we could–”
Kahn’s features suddenly clenched with rage, his eyes becoming fiery and inhuman.
“I have no use for excuses!” he bellowed, and without warning lifted his war mallet off the table and slammed it into the general’s midsection. Folding in half, the general went flying across the room, hit the wall, and slid to the floor in a lifeless slump.
The others at the table looked at him, stunned by his murderous outburst.
“It does appear I am in need of a new Extermination General,” he said. His voice had dropped in volume, becoming superficially calmer, but they could sense the fury just beneath the surface, threatening to erupt like a geyser of steam through a thin layer of topsoil.
Motaro and Sheeva exchanged uncertain glances. The dubious benefits of leadership aside, they had ample evidence of the risks lying in a broken heap in front of them.
“To die in duty, or here at my hand. Let the decision be yours,” Kahn said.
The venomous look in Kahn’s eyes was enough to make Motaro think the better of his reluctance.
“Centaurans are known for their hunting prowess,” he said hesitantly. “As your general, I will hunt down every single human soul and spare no one.”
“Motaro can’t be trusted,” Sheeva said. Motaro having stepped forward, she did not want her loyalty to look weak by comparison. “Long ago I proved myself as the personal protector of Queen Sindel. Your orders are mine to follow.”
“Was it not under Sheeva’s watchful eye that the Queen killed herself?” Motaro said, his words dripping with sarcasm.
Kahn looked between them, stroking his beard, clearly enjoying the conflict.
At last he said, “No. You are both too impetuous for such important work. Sindel will be my new general.” He grinned meaningfully at Sheeva and Motaro. “Unless you have another point of view?”
Their eyes turned to the inert body of the Extermination General, but they remained silent.
His point of view being one that neither of them was at all anxious to share.
CHAPTER SIX
Entering the velosphere with Rayden, Sonya was surprised to notice there were neither controls nor seats – and that feeling only intensified when the immortal began fastening leather straps around her wrists.
“You will be moving so fast… it will be as though you are not moving at all,” he said.
She cocked an eyebrow. “That’s comforting.”
Rayden turned so they were standing back-to-back and strapped himself in. On the platform outside the sphere, Liu was trying not to seem worried – with only partial success.
He inched closer to the contraption and grabbed hold of its frame. “What if Kitana and I don’t make it to Mount Gaia on time?”
“We will wait,” Rayden said. “Without Kitana, we cannot close the Portal.”
“Are you sure there’s no other way?” Kitana asked from where she stood beside Liu.
“If there is, only the Elder Gods will know,” Rayden said. He looked at Sonya, impatient to get underway. “Roll to your left!”
She shifted her weight, adding it to Rayden’s, and with virtually no further effort the velosphere rolled off its pedestal. Sonya realized the globe was spinning rapidly although they were not, and assumed they were being stabilized by some sort of concealed gyroscopic mechanism.
His concerns unallayed, Liu was still holding onto the vehicle as it teetered on the lip of the funnel track.
“Wait!” he said. “What if you are not at Mount Gaia, Rayden?”
“Follow your instincts, but trust no one. For you will be the target of all Kahn’s fighters,” Rayden said above the noisy swell of the wind. “Remember there are no rules this
time.” He tiled his head toward Sonya again. “Once more, to the left!”
A moment later the velosphere dropped down into the track. Their clothes flapping around them in a tremendous wash of wind, Liu and Kitana stepped back and watched it rocket away into the darkness of a tunnel.
“They are faster than I remember,” Kitana said, half to herself. She turned to Liu. “I’m glad I am not alone.”
Liu took her hand in his and gave her a smile that he hoped look reassuring.
Then, together in silence, they started toward their own velosphere.
Their backs pressed against each other, Liu and Kitana grasped their handles as the velosphere abruptly stopped gimbaling in the windstream.
“What’s going on?” Liu said. “Where are we?”
Kitana was peering out at an oncoming wall of tunnel vents. Above each opening was an iridescent hieroglyph.
“The interchange!” she said urgently, scanning the ancient symbols. “Roll to your right! Hard!”
Liu did as she’d told him and the velosphere changed trajectory, angling right and down and then popping into a lower tunnel vent, veering into its entrance so sharply it clipped the wall and shed a trail of rock fragments.
The jolt caused one of Kitana’s handles to break, hurling her into Liu’s arms.
“Liu!” she said, clinging to him for balance.
Keeping one hand securely strapped, he tore his other arm free and wrapped it around her, pulling her against him.
Her sudden closeness made Liu flush and sent wildcat tingles up and down his body.
“Hold on,” he said.
And she did, tightly, as they were swept along by the dark subterranean wind.
Boooosh!
The velosphere carrying Sonya and Rayden shot from the mouth of a tunnel, soared over a bubbling river of magma, then zipped into another tunnel opening and spun off in a new direction.
After a long, dizzyingly high-speed ride, they reached a chamber much like the one in which they had entered the sphere – the most notable difference being that they had been carried halfway around the world.
Though it was a short hike to the surface, Sonya found herself getting increasingly winded as they made their ascent… which struck her as more than a little odd, since the incline wasn’t especially steep, and it had seemed reasonable to expect that the uppermost stretch of the passage would be filled with air from above. The temperature also seemed to rise with each step she took, and by the time they reached the end of their climb she was covered with perspiration.
Pausing beside Rayden in the mouth of the cave, Sonya was no longer merely breathing hard but actually gasping – one look at the shimmering horizon told her why.
As far as she could see, the terrain was a primordial, steaming hell, devoid of life, crisscrossed with rivers of molten rock and blanketed by a haze of volcanic ash and smoke. In the distance, a series of low metal buildings sent up darts of reflected sunlight.
“You will take the same track back, and turn where I showed you,” Rayden said.
“I’ll figure it out,” Sonya said, clapping her hand over her mouth. The sulfurous stench in the air was overwhelming. “Is it like this everywhere?”
“With each hour that the merger grows closer, more of Earth will die.”
Sonya stood without response, squinting across the blasted flatlands. Then she started toward the faraway steel structures – knowing they housed the military complex where she would find Jax, scarcely able to believe that just days ago they had been surrounded by lush green fields of grass.
“Sonya!”
She spared a glance back at Rayden.
“I’m very sorry about Johnny,” he said. “But it wasn’t your fault. You need to remember that.”
She nodded silently, turned, and resumed walking.
The square metal plate was hot from the unremitting sunlight, and Sonya felt her palm sizzle painfully as she brushed a film of sand off it, then began prying it open. It lifted easily, black tar spurting up around its sides, revealing a thick grating underneath. She flung aside the plate and went to work on the grating, hooking her fingers through the bars and heaving upward with all her strength.
Within seconds it came loose, and Sonya was peering down into the entrance to a ventilation duct – one that was darker than any of the underground tunnels Rayden had led her through earlier.
As far as she’d been able to tell from a quick inspection of the area, it was the only way into the otherwise perfectly sealed compound.
She squatted on her haunches, catching her breath. To her immediate right, the windowless military dome gleamed radiantly in the super-heated air, its familiar appearance only emphasizing the transformation that had occurred everywhere else she looked. All around her lava moved across the terrain in burning, runny tributaries. Here and there she could see jets of steam erupting hundreds of feet in the air, spitting off glowy particles of ash and dust.
Sonya’s lips tightened into a resolute line. She couldn’t afford to stay out in the open much longer. Not unless she wanted to be spotted. And besides, it couldn’t be any worse inside the base than where she was right now.
Right, an inner voice said. Sure thing, girl.
Without further hesitation, she slid down into the narrow shaft.
The earsplitting blare of Klaxons greeted Sonya as she slid down the shaft to the facility’s basement level, then dropped quietly from the ceiling to the floor, going into a smooth tuck-and-roll to break her fall.
Springing up from a crouch, she scanned her surroundings with cautious eyes. The alarms were at full volume down here, and though they’d been installed for the purpose of alerting security personnel, that wasn’t her concern right now. In fact, she would have found the sight of American soldiers more than welcome, given the evidence of a lethal struggle everywhere around her.
Fires burned in a nearby hallway and filled it with a spew of choking gray smoke. Doors hung off their hinges. The walls were scorched and gouged from explosions. Charred, battered steel desks lay toppled on their sides, the contents of their drawers scattered across the floor in random heaps. Whatever its source, the wave of violence that had rolled through the facility had left very little untouched.
Sonya moved down the deserted hallway on the balls of her feet, looking left and right, her trained senses keyed for any sign of enemy forces. The siren whooped with steady shrillness. She slipped around a corner, turned another, then cut into a third corridor. Now she could hear hurried footsteps and the crump of small explosions. Close, very close.
She edged along the wall, peered around another bend, and glimpsed an Extermination Patrol continuing their sweep of the base, throwing over shelves, kicking open doors, firing plasma bursts from their otherworldly weapons into the rooms beyond. Her heart racing, she waited until the group had disappeared down a T-junction and moved further into the hallway.
The sound of a mechanical voice coming from one of the rooms stopped her in her tracks. Hugging the wall again, she approached it and peered warily through the entrance.
A breath hissed out between her teeth. Inside the room, some sort of bizarre robotic ninja was hovering over a man in U.S. combat fatigues – a man who had been caught in a pulsing green energy net, the line of which was being held in the ninja’s hand. Clearly the product of state-of-the-art cybernetic wizardry, the robot’s slitted, inhuman eyes gave off the distinctive ruby red glow of optical sensors. Wearing a hooded red gi, it looked as if it were designed to be the perfect martial arts warrior. Emotionless, tireless, without the limitations of flesh and blood.
“I seek Major Jackson Briggs,” it said, tightening the net with a hard jerk.
Sonya watched with growing dismay. So the monstrosity was after Jax. It damn well figured, didn’t it?
The soldier produced a ragged groan of pain, but his expression remained defiant. “I am Sergeant Joseph C. Taylor of the United States Army,” he said. “My serial number is three, two, two–”
“You now cease to exist,” the cyborg said flatly, yanking the net again.
Then, as the net began to brighten and hum before her eyes, Sonya realized that the cyborg’s repeated jerks weren’t merely tightening it, but somehow activating it. Whatever advanced nanotechnology had been applied to its creation went to work then, its fibers tearing through the soldier’s clothes, heading straight for his flesh, buzzing louder and louder over the sound of his agonized screams…
Sonya suppressed a rise of nausea and raced down the hall. There was nothing else she could do for the sergeant. But if she hurried and found Jax before the cyborg did, maybe she could spare him from enduring a similar fate.
She sprinted from door to door, slamming open one after another, shouting Jax’s name. At an abandoned nurse’s station she rifled through the scattered paperwork, searching for documents that might reveal his whereabouts within the facility. Nothing. She flipped through a register book and tossed it aside. Still nothing. She rummaged through a stack of papers in a desk drawer, scooping them out by the handful. Zip, zilch, nada. Then something caught her eye. Over to her left. A file cabinet with alphabetized tabs on the drawers. She sprang over to it, pulled open the drawer for the letters A-G, flipped through the manila folders it contained… and found one labeled “Briggs, Jackson.” Inside was an admission form with the room number he’d been assigned.
Room 34, Sublevel 1.
“Bingo,” she murmured, and went flying down the corridor.
There were two engraved metal plates on the door to Room 34. One said BIOTECH LAB. The other had a circle with a diagonal line going through it over the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Sonya pushed on through.
Jax, a tall, muscular African-American with skin the color of strong Ethiopian coffee, lay unconscious on a chrome operating table under muted fluorescent tubes. He was bare-chested above the waistband of his green uniform pants, revealing lightweight cybernetic sheaths around his arms from wrist to shoulder. Banks of sophisticated computer consoles lined the walls, their flat-screen displays flashing through preprogrammed numeric sequences.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation Page 3