Dragon Quadrant (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 2)

by Michael Wallace

  “Seems to be letting up, don’t you think?” he asked, his tone ironic. “Expect soon it will be a drizzle.”

  “Took you long enough.”

  “Sorry for the delay,” he said. “Had a few other stops to make on my way.”

  “You’re here, that’s all that matters. Get me to my ship and we’ll call it good.”

  “Absolutely. I’ve got to look after my best client.”

  “What, are you afraid I’ll fly off without you?”

  “Yeah, that is about the shape of it, Tolvern. I don’t mean to let you out of my sight. The buzzards are here, and I won’t be left behind.”

  “What’s that green light?” she asked.

  “Nothing good, not if you assume the Singaporeans know what they’re talking about. Green light—bad. They all agree on that much. Means the buzzards have landed and are looking for a snack.”

  He maneuvered, keeping away from the light. As he drove, he explained that thousands of refugees were fighting their way through toads and floodwater to rush the yards. His men were holding them on the road a mile or two from the perimeter, but they couldn’t hold the mob indefinitely.

  Ships had been blasting off from ports all over the planet, filled with human and Hroom alike. An Apex fleet was in orbit, sending landing craft down and killing, disabling, or capturing fleeing vessels, but a fair number were slipping through the cordon and breaking for deep space.

  Tolvern found some hope among the grim news. If she could get Blackbeard into orbit, she could take advantage of the chaos to fight free of the planet. Strike a couple of blows, take charge of whatever forces were struggling against Apex, maybe even drive the buzzards off.

  Be honest, there’s no hope of that. Get up, get free. Then run, leave Samborondón to its fate.

  The truck hit a floating tree, but powered over the top of it and continued on its way. They were making good progress, now only minutes away from the spaceyards, according to Rodriguez. And the rain seemed to be letting up. What had once seemed an impossible dump of water had become merely a downpour.

  And then they ran aground. Tolvern hadn’t buckled her restraints, and flew forward, slamming into the dash. Rodriguez tried to tear the vehicle loose, but the truck wouldn’t reverse, and when he dropped the wheels, that wouldn’t get him out of the mud, either.

  He cursed. “I’ll have to call another vehicle to winch us out of here. And we’re only about five hundred meters from high ground, too.”

  “We could swim it.”

  “It’ll be faster this way, trust me.” He touched his ear. “I need a truck out here—we’re wedged in.” He switched to Ladino, a rapid-fire stream of syllables, then back to English. “I don’t care. Get someone out here now.”

  The vehicle shuddered. Shouts from the passengers in back. A dark shape smacked into the windshield, and a huge, bulbous eye peered in. Another toad.

  The gun up top chattered. The toad flailed and bellowed in pain. Rather than retreating, it tried to scramble and hop to the top of the truck to get at its tormentor, but the machine gun unloaded too much firepower even for such a massive beast, and it soon stopped shuddering. Its bulk completely covered the windshield, blocking their view, which brought fresh curses from Rodriguez.

  “Dumb beast,” he said. “Now we’ve got to winch you off, too.”

  The truck shuddered again, this time from the back left side. Another toad, apparently testing them out for a meal.

  Rodriguez touched his ear. “Diablos. I don’t care what’s happening, I need a truck out here now. We’re stuck in the mud, are you listening to me? And I’ve got the captain and first mate of Blackbeard here. You get that?

  “I want off this rock,” he said when he’d hung up. The truck was still shaking, but he seemed unconcerned with the attacking toad. “I’ll trade my fee for evacuation, but I’m not going to let those buzzards get their beaks into me. Take my crew, as many as you can hold—we’ll be good for your fleet—but we need to get off of Samborondón before it’s too late.”

  Rodriguez’s words came out in a rush. Tolvern hadn’t intended to renege on her deal, and was scarcely paying attention.

  “What’s wrong with your gunner?” she asked. “Why isn’t he taking care of that toad?” As if to punctuate her words, the bus rocked again, more violently this time.

  “Maybe it will do us a favor and knock us out of the mud.”

  “With his dead friend lying on top of us? I doubt it.”

  The port to the gun shield was directly overhead, up a metal ladder. Tolvern scaled the ladder, unsealed the hatch and pulled herself out into the rain. Rodriguez’s gunner was dead, that was what was wrong. The first toad’s tongue had found the gap beneath the gun shield, snaked up, and wrapped itself around the man’s neck and face. The gap wasn’t big enough to pull him through, but the tongue had yanked him through up to the shoulders. His body hung limp, his neck broken and still encircled by the pale, grub-colored tongue that gleamed obscenely beneath the pounding rain.

  The dead toad itself lay across the front of the truck, shoving it down with its bulk. The machine gun had ripped open its enormous, bulging belly, and the contents of its most recent meal oozed out. Among the remains was a crocodile-like creature, several large, scaly fish, a bird that looked like an egret, and a human body. Or half a body—specifically, the legs and torso.

  A second toad, nearly as large as the first, was trying to get its mouth around the back end of the truck. It pressed its bulk against the side of one of the spines, using the thick plates on its back to try to snap it off. The truck was twice its size. Did it really think the vehicle was alive, and if it were, that it would possibly be able to swallow it?

  Moving slowly, she took position at the gun turret and swung it around. The movement caught the eye of the toad, and it opened its mouth, ready to shoot its tongue. Tolvern fired. Gunfire lashed out and caught the toad across its horny snout. It bellowed in pain. Unlike the dead toad draped across the front of the truck, this one didn’t fight, but vanished in the water.

  Capp popped up through the hatch at Tolvern’s feet. She looked around, squinting against the rainwater that drained through the gaps in the gun shield, then glanced at the dead gunner as she climbed up.

  “I hate being wrong.” Capp nodded down into the truck. “Should have been this idiot, instead.”

  “Hey!” Ortiz protested, coming up after her. He ducked under the canopy to get into the open air beyond the protection of the gun.

  “The whiner should be the first to go,” Capp said. “One of the rules of the universe. It ain’t fair when some other bloke goes first.”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Tolvern asked Ortiz.

  “Ah, let him, Cap’n. Maybe the toads will do us a favor.”

  “What do you think?” Ortiz said. “I’m trying to get us the hell out of here.”

  “And how will you manage that?” Tolvern asked. “Lasso a toad and ride it out of here?”

  The downpour continued to let up—from deluge to torrent, and then to something that felt almost like normal heavy rain—but the water was deep and flowing, and she couldn’t spot the spaceyards, though they must be close.

  Others climbed the ladder, starting with Carvalho and Oglethorpe. Tolvern didn’t think the danger from toads had passed, but they were all armed, and she wanted to get a better look at their surroundings now that she could see a little, so she didn’t send them back down. They followed Ortiz out from behind the gun shield.

  The green light was stronger now, most prominently to their right, across the waterlogged forest and plains. It was moving, shifting.

  “The yards are the other direction,” Rodriguez said. “Look, you can see the flashes. Can you hear that?”

  “Is that you shooting, or are you taking fire?”

  “Must be the enemy. No way we’re shooting up at the buzzards. I’ve got a few heavy guns, but if I take aim at their ships, they’ll bombard us from space. I meant
to save them until it was time to bust out of here, then use them to cover our escape. We’d better hurry, though.”

  “I’ll take you,” she said. “And twenty of your crew. No, make it thirty. Any more than that . . . well, we’re not a refugee ship. I’ve got to get up there and fight.”

  “Understood.”

  Rodriguez’s face was grim, and she could already see him calculating, deciding who to take and who to leave. He was a mercenary man; he wouldn’t be choosing based on sentimental reasons. Good. That served her purpose too. Give her the most highly skilled, irreplaceable workers.

  The nearest of the green lights swung toward them, and the source of the light emerged from the rain. It came from a massive machine that stalked west, toward the yards. The thing was as tall as a tree, at least eighty feet in height, and walked on a pair of slender, stilt-like legs. A half dozen tentacles, some thicker than others, dangled from a rounded belly. They seemed to be pulsing, throbbing with movement. Up top, a turret with a gun and a light like an eye, glowing green.

  The light swung right and left, but it wasn’t bright enough to be a spotlight. What could it be? One of the tentacles snaked out and slapped at the water. When it recoiled, it was thicker and longer than it had been. Another tentacle slapped the water.

  “Hold still,” Tolvern said. “Nobody move.”

  It looked for a moment like the walking machine would keep going until it vanished into the rain, but the turret swung in their direction, and she saw now that there wasn’t one, but two green lights. They seemed to be scanning the water. Again, one of the tentacles swung down at the water.

  “King’s balls,” Oglethorpe said. “Will you look at that.”

  A splash drew Tolvern’s attention before she could see what he was indicating. Ortiz’s head bobbed up in the water, and he immediately began swimming away from the truck in long, powerful strokes.

  “Get back, you arse!” Capp yelled. “You’re going to die.”

  Oglethorpe grabbed Tolvern and yanked her toward the gun shield. A second walker strode up behind the truck, much closer than the other. It limped, and fire smoked on its chest, evidence that someone had offered resistance.

  Two lights came out of the turret on its head, probing the water. Staring up at it, Tolvern had the sensation that she was looking at a living creature, not a machine. A wounded, angry creature feeding, as had the giant toads, on the victims of the rising floodwater. One of its legs lifted, a knee-like articulation bending forward as the foot cleared the water. She got a better look. It was a clawed bird foot.

  And then everything changed. The turret was really a head, the green lights eyes, something both mechanical and organic. The gun emerged from a beak. The plates of armor were huge, rigid feathers. The legs were real legs, belonging to a giant bird. And the tentacle-like appendages dangling from the belly?

  The giant bird cocked its head as Ortiz swam away from it. His strokes turned frenzied, panicked. The light fell on him. Instantly, he stiffened and began to sink. One of the tentacles darted for him and came up holding his limp, dangling figure. The giant bird turned its head, and Ortiz came back to life, thrashing and fighting. The tentacles were a mass of writhing, struggling bodies.

  The harvest. Live sacrifices for the queen commander.

  All of this happened in an instant, and already Tolvern and the others were moving. Bolts clicked, grenades popped into the back of hand cannons. Capp scrambled for the machine gun. The giant bird turned toward them, the lights of its eyes moving in their direction.

  It smelled of feathers and burning plastic. A viscous, tar-like substance drained from the smoking wound on its chest. The green lights swung toward them as the bird cocked its head. It was only a hundred feet away. Two strides and it would be upon them.

  Tolvern flipped her rifle to full auto, lifted it to her shoulder, and let loose. The men and women on the surface of the truck opened up around her. Gunfire lashed at the bird, with two flashes of light as the hand cannons fired their shots. The heavy chug-chug-chug from Tolvern’s left announced an attack from the machine gun, accompanied by Capp’s cursing threats as she fired.

  The green lights fell upon them even as the first shots struck it in the chest. Tolvern’s limbs went limp as the light hit her, and she fell. A sound like static filled her ears, and electric currents raced to her extremities, until they felt like they were on fire. But she lay motionless, not so much as twitching as she slid off the truck and plopped into the water.

  Tolvern’s thoughts remained coherent as she slowly sank. She was screaming inside, trying to regain control of her body, trying to fight and struggle to the surface. The water churned, and something thick and rubbery wrapped around her waist and hoisted her up.

  She regained control of her body the instant she came out of the water. She struggled, trying to free herself as a tentacle dragged her up, tightening around her waist like a python gripping its prey. Capp was below her on the tentacle, thrashing and screaming, and Carvalho, O’Keefe, and Oglethorpe were on another tentacle, fighting and kicking as the giant bird bent to Rodriguez’s truck and tore it open with its beak. It sent in a rubbery appendage, seemingly oblivious to the gunfire that lit up the interior of the truck to drive it off, and emerged with several more victims.

  Then the bird lifted a leg and began to stalk away from the ruined vehicle. Its tentacles squirmed with victims.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tolvern kept struggling. How could she have been so stupid? Capp had been taken, too. Oglethorpe and Carvalho. Who would fly the ship? Smythe and Nyb Pim? Would they be smart enough to take off, or would they wait until it was too late? She shouldn’t have been caught out like this. She cursed her stupidity.

  But that fury gave way to terror for what came next. Apex would know her, they would identify her as captain of the Albion warship. Her companions would die gruesome deaths, but a special sort of torture awaited her. Not knowing its specifics made her all the more desperate.

  The coiled tentacle pinned her right arm against her side, but the left was free. She scratched at the tentacle, beat it with her fist. Tried to bite, but she couldn’t get her mouth around it, and it seemed to be made of rubber. Only a few feet below her, Capp fought her own struggle, accompanied by curses against God, the king, the country, and the universe, for good measure. The others from the truck were all around, crying out, trying to fight free.

  This particular creature had dozens of people in its tentacles, and the majority were fighting to free themselves. It was the writhing that she’d spotted below.

  The creature was limping worse than ever. The tar-like blood ran down its chest. It had taken gunfire and hand cannons, and tossed its head, squawking as if in pain. It fell behind the other birds that stalked their way toward the base.

  But though it was injured, the monstrous creature was no mere animal. And it wasn’t so injured that it didn’t keep turning its head from side to side as it paced through the water, looking for more victims as it worked its way forward. The bird crossed an elevated road, now only a few feet above the water. One of the spike-covered trucks from town came racing toward the bird as it straddled the road. Green light fell on the truck, which spun out of control and crashed into a guardrail.

  The bird climbed onto the road and pinned the vehicle with one claw, like an egret holding a crab, then tore at the truck with its beak. It plucked off spikes and peeled back the roof. A tentacle snaked into the interior and came out with several writhing, screaming people.

  Tolvern couldn’t pry herself loose of the tentacle wrapped around her waist, but she could do something with her left arm besides pound futilely. She reached around the tentacle and, groping, found her sidearm. It was still in its holster, thank God. Hanging nearly upside down, a painful pressure on her waist, she was terrified of fumbling the gun and watching it disappear into the water below, but she got it out without dropping it.

  Capp had stopped struggling below her, and craned her neck to
look up. “You’ll never injure it with that peashooter, Cap’n. Shoot yourself, get it over with. No, wait, shoot me, first. Then yourself.”

  Tolvern ignored her first mate and steadied the gun. The bird kept swinging its head from side to side. The next time it spotted a victim, she’d shoot. Wait until it held its gaze still and get one good shot against one of the green eyeballs. Maybe shoot them both if she were especially lucky. Blind the creature, let it drop them.

  You’re fooling yourself.

  Of course she had no hope. Bombs from a hand cannon had bounced off its chest, doing little damage. Capp had squeezed off twenty or thirty shots from the .50-caliber machine gun atop the truck before the green light paralyzed them. If that couldn’t do anything, there was no way that a single small-caliber bullet—even one fired directly into the eyeball—would do any damage. This was a genetically engineered war machine as much as a living creature. But she had to try.

  The bird reached the outskirts of the base, where the land rose up the hillside to get the yards above the floodwater. It waded forward, the water growing shallower with every step. Several other birds were already at the perimeter, tearing down the barbed wire with claw and beak.

  A machine gun opened fire from a guard tower. One of the giant birds opened its beak, and its own gunfire blasted out. It unfolded wings, and a pair of small missiles blasted from either side, where the wings met the breastbone. The tower disappeared in a flash of fire and smoke.

  The bird holding Tolvern cocked its head as it reached the shallows. The green light came down and illuminated something churning up from the mud. It was one of the toads, a massive, warty figure nearly as tall as Rodriguez’s truck. The green light fell upon it but seemed to have no effect on the creature.

  The toad spotted the bird’s moving legs, opened its mouth, and chomped down on the nearest. The bird squawked and darted down with its beak. It thrust, pecking at the toad, pounding at the warty armor on its back. The toad stubbornly held on and tried to drag the giant bird into the depths, where it could pull it underwater and devour it.