by M. D. Cooper
“Fuck! You, Ramsey!” Letch’s face turned beet-red as he screamed. “We’re taking you in. You’re not H&S, and we couldn’t find your ship anywhere.”
BAMF was already edging around the room, using Letch’s rage as a distraction. Lashes was a few paces on the other side of Ramsey, her hand ready to reach for her pistol.
“Where are you taking us in to?” Ramsey asked. “And is there any chance that you can wait till after the storm? It’s supposed to let up in an hour or so. I’m all nice and dry—be nice to say that way.”
“Get them, already,” Letch yelled at the six goons with him.
They all leveled pulse rifles, and before the first one took a step, Lashes had fired a shot into one man’s side and he went down.
It was then that the yelling, general panic, and mayhem got into full swing.
The smart locals hit the floor, while a few tried to run for cover. Ramsey and his crew wouldn’t take shots that resulted in civilian casualties, but Letch’s troops had no such compunctions—not that pulse rifles were fatal if you were just hit once or twice.
BAMF used the distraction to charge into the closest Getts guard, a tall woman who lost her balance and crashed to the ground when hit. BAMF planted a foot on her chest and leapt at the next guard, a man who was ready for it and fired his pulse rifle point blank into BAMF’s chest.
The mountain of a woman grunted in pain, but still crashed into the man, knocking him to the floor.
Ramsey knocked over a table and switched his carrot to the left side of his mouth as he took careful aim at Letch from behind the makeshift cover. He hit the port supervisor in the chest twice—best to put down the ring leader first off, and then deal with the goons.
Letch staggered backwards, but didn’t fall. An even angrier—if that was possible—expression clouding his face. He leveled his pulse rifle at the table Ramsey hid behind and fired a series of focused shots. The table slammed into Ramsey’s back and he heard it splinter, but it held enough to shed some of the concussive wave.
Lashes said.
Ramsey replied.
“Holy shit,” Greta said as she peered over the bar. “You guys know how to make a mess.”
Ramsey set a few more chits on the counter. “Sorry about the trouble, ma’am, we’ll take care of the trash here.”
He walked over to the door, keeping his handgun trained on the guards, and stepped into his boots. Lashes and BAMF followed suit, one after the other, and Ramsey peered out a window. True to Patty’s forecast, the storm was letting up and the lightening in the sky had decreased to an infrequent flicker.
Two of the Getts were unconscious, one drooling profusely, and another two were down from BAMF-induced blows—likely wishing they were unconscious. Counting Letch, there were five prone bodies and just two unwilling conscripts to haul them out.
“Get up,” BAMF growled at the two guards who were still conscious, and they struggled to their feet under her dark gaze. Between them, they managed to get the other three out of the commissary and into the light drizzle. In front of the commissary rested a ground vehicle with company lettering on it.
They piled the guards in, and Lashes injected them all with one of her special suppression cocktails while BAMF rigged the transport to drive across the island to Port Fenris at five kilometers per hour. Once that was done, she smashed the console and tore the antenna off the transport. With any luck, the guards would be out of communication range and stuck in the transport for a day or more.
Ramsey poked his head back into the commissary as the Getts security transport trundled away. Inside, the patrons were righting the tables and checking one another for any injuries.
“Sorry again for the trouble. I hope this doesn’t come down too hard on you folks. We appreciate your help.”
“I think we’ll be alright,” Greta said. “Letch wasn’t too good at his job, so maybe this will get him transferred out. Either way, it was nice to see him get what was coming to him.”
Ramsey nodded in response and closed the door, turning back to his team.
“Well, let’s get back to the VAN and head up to that outpost. Hopefully Patty’s directions are as good as her weather-sense.”
SHOW DOWN
“Looks like they care about this place a damn sight more than that other joint,” Lashes said as they crept to the top of a rise overlooking the forbidden bay.
Ramsey nodded in agreement and spoke around his latest, rather large, carrot, “Sure looks like it.”
Below them, nestled in the bay Jimmy had described, were several well-maintained ships tied up to a long dock that jutted out into the south side of the bay. Natural rock arms reached around the cove, and Ramsey realized that this was the crater of some long-dormant volcano. It wasn’t surprising; on a water world, islands were almost always volcanic peaks.
Up the slopes on the western side of the bay were several buildings built into the rock, and atop the rise rested the ship they had been chasing, the Gettsbird.
“Well, if he’s not here, then we’re back to square one,” Lashes said.
“Square one isn’t in New Eden,” BAMF said. “How do you plan to get me there?”
“He’ll be here, or somewhere else on the island,” Ramsey said. “This moon isn’t another stopping point, it’s the destination. They’re obviously trying to make some sort of product out of the bacteria that Petra’s brother found.”
“Sun will be up in an hour,” BAMF commented. “We should do this now.”
“How much sun do you think this moon really gets?” Lashes asked. “That fusion burner we saw up there didn’t look top-of-the-line.”
“Darker the better, fool.”
Ramsey hushed them and led his team over the rise and down toward a small building nearby. They all agreed that the buildings were probably connected within the hillside, so the closest would serve well enough.
When they arrived at the white, one-story structure jutting out from the hillside, they discovered it had no entrances. Lashes peered through a window.
“Looks like sleeping quarters of some sort—empty right now,” she said.
“BAMF, see if you can get it open without setting off any alarms,” Ramsey directed as he peered around the far side of the building.
“Shit,” he whispered before ducking back around. “Hurry it up. They have patrols, and one is coming this way…maybe sixty seconds.”
BAMF didn’t respond, but her large fingers deftly worked a series of slides she was using to unlatch a window from the inside. If they were lucky, it wouldn’t be alarmed—given the ferocity of the storms on this moon, that was a real possibility. No one wanted to run off to check all the windows that were rattling every time a storm rolled through.
Ramsey guessed they had fifteen seconds left before the patrol rounded the building and saw them, when BAMF give a deft twist of her wrist and the window popped open. They piled through in rapid succession and landed on the floor in a heap. Ramsey reached up and pulled th
e window shut and latched it while Lashes swore.
“Fuck, Colonel, your elbow is on my boob! Get off!”
“Sorry,” Ramsey whispered as he moved his arm and crouched low, holding the curtains still. Outside, boots crunched on grass and twigs. There were two sets of footfalls, and after a minute they passed by, heading up the hillside to the ancient volcano’s rim.
The trio disentangled themselves and peered over the window sill. No one was visible, and they turned back to examine the room they were in.
Several beds lined the walls, and beside each were lockers. The beds were all plain, with no adornment, except one which had a pink bunny sitting on the pillow.
Lashes picked it up. “Huh, Lavender.”
“Smells like lavender?” Ramsey asked.
“No,” Lashes shook her head and turned the stuffed animal over. The word ‘Lavender’ was written across its butt in black marker.
“That’s relevant, why?” BAMF asked.
Lashes shrugged and grinned. “Maybe we can use her as a hostage.”
“Fool,” BAMF shook her head.
Outside, something smacked against the window, and Ramsey carefully peered around the curtain to see the kid from the commissary outside, frantically tapping against the glass.
“Fuck, it’s…Pete?” Ramsey asked.
“Sam,” Lashes corrected, and opened the window. “Get in here, dickhead.”
The young man scrambled through the window and collapsed on the floor.
“Did they see you?” Ramsey asked with a scowl. “If you blew our entrance…”
“They didn’t,” Sam said between gasps for air. “But they would have…thanks.”
“Want me to cold-cock him?” BAMF asked and Sam scampered away with a hand above his head.
“Please! I just want to find Missy. She has to be here, she just has to!”
“Shhh,” Lashes said. “Keep your voice down, or you’ll find out where they put her the hard way.”
Ramsey looked at Lashes and BAMF, gnawing furiously on his carrot. “He’s gonna have to come with us. No way we can leave him here, or send him back out. He’ll get spotted and then this little party will be over before you can say ‘what the fuck’.”
Lashes nodded and walked quietly to the end of the room. “I imagine they have pretty active monitoring here…remote probes may get picked up. Should we risk them?”
“Didn’t pick us up in this room,” BAMF said.
Ramsey nodded. “We’re gonna need them to deliver nano to suppress any active monitoring they have in this facility. Let’s use it. Push come to shove, we can probably duke it out with these assholes and win.”
“ ’Kay,” Lashes said with a nod and released a capsule of microscopic probes under the door. Provided they could navigate the air currents in the halls, the probes should be able to map the immediate area and send signals back to the team.
“Coast is clear,” Lashes said, and she cracked the door open.
The hallway outside was dimly lit and non-descript. One direction led deeper into the hillside, while the other ran close to the surface. Ramsey directed Lashes to head further in. Chances were that whatever nefarious stuff was happening in this place, it was happening in the furthest reaches.
No one spoke as they crept down the hall. Lashes in the lead, then BAMF, followed by Sam and Ramsey.
Sam kept trying to open every door they passed, but Ramsey stopped him.
“Boy, we can’t check every room. We have to get deeper in and find a console or something that we can access. That’s how we’ll find out where our friend is, and your Missy, too, if she’s here.”
“She is here,” Sam whined loudly.
“Shut up, fool,” BAMF growled, “or I’ll feed you a knuckle sandwich and carry you through this place.”
Sam looked suitably cowed, but still asked, “Can’t you just hack their network?”
“This isn’t the vids, boy,” Ramsey replied. “Places like this have serious security. If we try a wireless hack and get picked up, we’re screwed. Better to do it through a physical terminal and operate it remotely. Then we can be on the far side of the complex if they detect the access.”
Ahead, Lashes had reached a staircase and was peering over the railing.
“All clear,” she whispered. “It’s like no one’s here.”
She placed her foot on the top step, when suddenly alarms blared.
“What the…” BAMF growled.
“It’s not us,” Ramsey said. “It’s a general quarantine alert on their emergency net. Something about sublevel nine.”
They all glanced at the number on the stairwell wall. They were on level five, theoretically fourteen levels above whatever was going on.
“They bring Ben in last night, and today they have an emergency?” Ramsey asked. “That’s where our guy is.”
Lashes resumed moving down the stairs, and they made it two more floors before the sounds of footsteps coming up reached them.
“Play it cool,” Ramsey said. “With luck, whoever it is will just want to get the hell out of there and not stop to chat.”
They made it two more levels before meeting up with the owner of the footsteps. It was a man who was wearing a white hazsuit. He gave them only the briefest of glances before pushing past them, yelling over his shoulder.
“You’re gonna die if you go down there!”
His back was spattered with blood, and a bit of what was probably skin was stuck in his belt.
“Wow, that’s not encouraging,” Lashes sighed. “What say we go back to that bar and get another drink while these guys sort out whatever is happening down there?”
“Keep moving,” Ramsey grunted his reply.
They passed several more fleeing individuals, all wearing hazsuits, all with some amount of blood or gore on them. When they reached sublevel nine, another man burst through the door, bloody like the others, but his suit was shredded on one side, and his eyes were wild.
He paused, as though he were assessing them, then lunged at Lashes who screamed and fell back. BAMF was there in an instant, flinging the man aside, before filling his body with flechette rounds.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Lashes said as Ramsey helped her up.
“Did you see his eyes?” Sam asked, his voice wavering. “They were fucking crazy.”
The man began to stir and BAMF frowned. “I put a whole clip into him.”
With a moan, the man sat up, half-coagulated blood oozing from his chest.
“Is he…?” Lashes asked.
“Fucking zombie,” BAMF said and kicked the man back down before stomping on his head. “I hate zombies.”
Sam looked at BAMF with wide eyes. “You’ve fought zombies before? They’re real?”
Ramsey shook his head. “Only in VR games. This is a new one on us.”
“There’s no way! It can’t be zombie. There’s no such thing!” Lashes said as she approached the man.
Ramsey followed and looked down at the corpse.
“Kinda hard to tell with its face smashed in like that,” he said. “But look at those gashes on its side. They’re deep and festering. Zombie or not, something is going on down here that fucks you up fast and hard.”
“Fuck, this was supposed to be a simple job. Pop in, get the guy, save the day, get the money…” Lashes voice trailed off. “Shit! Think we can get infected if they touch us?”
She began to frantically check herself for scratches `and BAMF placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry, if you start to turn, I’ll put one in your head.”
“That makes me feel soooo much better,” Lashes whined.
“We’d better be safe than sorry,” Ramsey said. “Switch to plasma. Take ’em down, then put one in the head.”
“We don’t have the ammo to take down a zombie horde with plasma,” Lashes replied.
“We’ll manage,” BAMF said, and pushed open the door into sublevel nine.
SUBLE
VEL NUMBER NINE
The lights went out and Lashes swore. “Seriously? This is like a bad vid now.”
“Hey Lashes,” BAMF said.
“Yeah?”
“You have infrared vision, fool.”
“I know…but IR makes things look more creepy, not less—plus, zombies are dead. They may not show up at all!”
“I don’t have IR vision!” Sam exclaimed and grabbed Ramsey’s arm.
“Get off me,” Ramsey growled. “And you two, shut up. Braying like a bunch of dumb donkeys is gonna bring whatever’s down here right on top of us.”
No one responded, and Ramsey nodded with satisfaction. They moved twenty meters down the corridor and came across a security station with an auth arch spanning the corridor. It was unoccupied, but there was a terminal and Lashes sat down to see if she could breach the facility’s systems.
“Well damn,” she said. “Someone left themselves logged in. Lucky us.”
“Fools,” BAMF muttered.
Lashes had begun searching the level’s schematics for the location of any holding cells or research labs, when Ramsey heard a sound echo down the hall on the far side of the security arc. It was a sort of wailing whine, and he readied his rifle, checking its plasma supply.
The weapon fired sabot rounds, which held pockets of plasma in magnetic fields. When they hit a target, the sabot shattered, and the star-stuff splashed out. At over ten thousand degrees, it did a good job of taking down just about any enemy.
Too bad they were so damn expensive or they’d have more.
He saw motion in the hall; it looked humanoid, but it didn’t give off much heat. Maybe Lashes was right about zombies being cold.
Suddenly, it glowed brightly on his augmented vision and charged, letting loose an unnatural shriek.
He fired two shots in quick succession. One hit the figure’s chest, and the other its neck. It crashed to the ground and its head fell off, rolling through the security arch, coming to a stop a meter from his feet.
The face looked vaguely human, but now its eyes were wide and staring, and bloody scratches had torn its cheeks apart. Foamy saliva oozed from the gashes and out of its mouth.