A woman then jumped at Seb and he caught sight of her attack in his peripheral vision. Too slow to react, he noticed the woman’s mouth stretch wide as she readied to bite him.
Moments before she sank her teeth into him, a glint of a blade flashed through the air and embedded in the side of her face. Without SA, he would be dead ten times over by now. The fight left the woman as she turned limp mid-flight and crashed at Seb’s feet.
Seb looked at SA. She’d already pulled out a new blade and continued fighting the majority of the crowd. She had them beat by the look of things.
It helped snap Seb out of it. He couldn’t save them all. He swung for the next zombie close to him. The crunch of bone responded to his catching her clean on the temple. Her legs folded beneath her and she turned limp like many of the others.
Every blow hurt Seb’s heart. But they needed taking down. If he had any chance of getting Sparks and the others off Carstic, the creatures in front of them needed to be gone.
Besides, the zombies looked tormented. Twisted masks of suffering, Seb punched another one square in the face, dropping it with one blow like he had most of them. And he couldn’t take them all back to the Shadow Order’s base. Hell, he’d have a fight just getting Sparks back there.
By the time Seb had dropped three or four of the creatures, SA had taken out twice that amount and she didn’t look like slowing down any time soon.
Seb saw his own remorse in SA’s expression, but they were doing what they had to. These things needed to be stopped. He punched the next creature to come near him.
CHAPTER 34
“Only fifteen this time,” Seb said as they stood over the bodies of the fallen. They’d killed every grub to come from their mouths and the air reeked of ruthane and rot.
“Although, I suppose it makes sense,” Seb said. “There would be more of them in the communal areas because there would have been more hosts there. Hopefully we’ve got them all now.”
A cocked eyebrow from SA made Seb nod. “You’re right, we can’t expect it to be free of zombies down there. And the grubs have to be coming from somewhere too, I suppose.”
Seb looked at Bruke and then Sparks. She’d calmed down a little. Now all the grubs had been killed, she seemed far less agitated. The same twist of fury might have distorted her features, but it looked muted compared to what he’d witnessed only moments before.
A nervous Bruke said, “I reckon she’ll give us an early warning when the grubs or zombies are near.”
Not surprising, he felt nervous about that; the mines could have hundreds of the little worms in them still. They didn’t choose for Sparks to be in her current state, but they might as well make the most of it. If she served as an early warning system, they should use it. They needed all the help they could get. Hard not to be facetious, Seb finally said, “Every cloud and that.”
The mine section of the complex looked much more like the tunnel they’d entered through. It had exposed rock on the walls rather than soil. The ground looked to be as infirm and soggy. Wires ran every which way from where they hadn’t bothered to conceal them. Poor lighting from solitary bulbs hung from the ceiling.
“This should be fun,” Seb said as he stared ahead, his voice running down the tunnel away from them.
Silence from Bruke and SA. Although, what did he expect?
“Right,” Seb said, his stomach twisting tighter to look into the gloom. “We need to get this done. Get this place cleared out. Bruke, watch Sparks for any sign of a reaction. We need to get down there, clear the grubs and zombies out, and get back to Aloo. Does anyone have anything else to add?”
A look at SA and her deep frown and Seb laughed. “Sounds like a simple plan, doesn’t it?”
Although SA continued to look at him, her expression remained unchanged.
Before they moved off, Seb said, “Oh, one more thing.” He walked up to Sparks and fished the radio from her top pocket. She snarled and snapped, biting at the space between her and his hand. But Bruke restrained her well enough to prevent her from being a threat.
Once he’d freed the radio, Seb pressed the button on the side of it. It hissed before connecting with the shuttle that had brought them in. “This is Seb. We’re going to need someone to pick us up in about thirty minutes.”
“Why can’t you fly out?”
“Our pilot …” Seb paused for a moment before he said, “She’s hurt. She can’t possibly fly.”
Static hissed from the radio’s speaker for a few seconds and Seb looked at both Bruke and SA. They watched the radio, waiting like him.
“Okay,” the voice finally came through, “see you up top in thirty minutes.”
“Thank you, over and out.”
Despite the vicious Sparks doing everything she could to get at him again, Seb slipped the radio back into her top pocket. Like she’d done only moments previously, she bit and thrashed in her desperation to make any kind of contact with him.
“SA,” Seb said, “you move much more quietly than I do. Can you lead the way?”
Of course she saw Seb’s request as a way to make up for being a douche, but SA nodded all the same and walked with her usual grace into the third and final section of the mining complex. Seb followed her with Bruke and Sparks close behind.
They’d walked no more than five or six paces before Sparks grew more agitated again.
SA stopped and looked back at her.
The small Thrystian’s red eyes had widened and she bit at the air. She twisted and turned, growled and spat.
However, when Seb looked down into the darkness, he couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything either. The usual stampede didn’t come at them. “Maybe she’s not an early warning system.”
Before Bruke could reply, Seb saw it. One at first, it moved over land as a small fat projectile. His world slowed down again just as he said, “Grubs.”
Before the first one had reached them, a wave of them rolled from the darkness behind it. Seb fought against his rising panic and muttered, “Shit!”
CHAPTER 35
Seb had no blasters now they’d entered the next section, and SA couldn’t risk throwing her knives. They waited for the onrushing grubs to come to them. There looked to be an impossible amount and it took all he had not to turn tail and run.
When the first one got close enough, Seb stamped down hard. The creature’s fat little body gave the slightest resistance before it popped like a sauce sachet.
Several more came at them and it took all Seb had to keep his head.
At first they came forward in ones and twos, but soon more and more rushed behind them. Every stamp on the hard ground ran up Seb’s legs and stung his knees, but he crushed five, six, seven of the grotesque things at a time.
One landed on Seb’s shin. A quick bat with his hand and he knocked it away. It left a hole in the fabric of his trousers. To look at it damn near paralysed him. So close to becoming a zombie. But he didn’t have time to think about it. He stamped on several more of the gross little bugs.
The reek of rot hung heavier than ever. The floor glistened with their spilled essence. At least one hundred grubs down already, the pack didn’t show any sign of thinning.
All the while, Seb listened to Sparks fitting behind them. She snarled and growled, riled up by the presence of so many of the parasites. He wanted to go to his friend and calm her down. But the only thing that would do that would be the complete eradication of the grubs. Then he could comfort her all he wanted.
Even when stamping on the parasites, SA moved with grace. A frantic dance, she squashed them in groups. She coped better than Seb. He’d been a fool to think he could protect her.
Another grub landed on Seb. This time on his arm while he’d been watching SA. He looked down to see the back end of it vanish inside his shirt.
CHAPTER 36
Were it not for his world moving in slow motion, then Seb would have gone the way of Sparks. The very slightest sting of the grub bit into his fl
esh. He wedged his fingers in the hole in his shirt, gripped the back of its fat little body, and halted its potentially deadly progress.
Squishy in his grip, Seb dragged the creature out. It writhed and twisted, snapping from side to side. He threw it back down the tunnel with the others and returned to stamping them out.
They’d agreed it would have been better for SA not to use her knives, but as the rush of grubs thinned a little, she launched one behind them in the direction of Sparks and Bruke.
The blade glinted in the poor light as it flew straight through the thick body of one of the grubs. It cut the thing in two, dropping it before it could reach Bruke.
The knife continued to fly at the rocky wall and Seb’s shoulders wound tight. It hit it. Thankfully it didn’t make a spark. A relieved sigh and he looked back at the ever-calm SA. They should have trusted she could use her knives appropriately in the highly explosive mine. The blades were an extension of her and she knew them intimately.
CHAPTER 37
Bruke had been correct to point out how much Sparks helped them in her current state. To look at her calmer, but still furious face made Seb nod. “I think that’s all of them. There may be more farther down, but I think we’re good for the immediate area.”
The floor ran slick with the clear liquid that filled the grubs. The smell of rot hung so heavy, Seb heaved several times, lifting the acidic burn of bile on the back of his throat.
After a look at SA, Seb nodded and said, “You were amazing. Let’s hope this is nearly over.”
SA nodded back, and together they led the way farther down the dank tunnel into the mines.
CHAPTER 38
Other than Sparks, the group moved deeper into the mines in near silence. The smell of the grubs’ spilled essence gave way to a muggy damp reek of wet earth. It smelled stronger than even the agent added to the ruthane.
The soft ground underfoot muted their steps, but the sound of their march still called ahead into the tunnel. Probably a good thing to let the grubs know they were coming. If their behaviour so far had been anything to go on, they rushed at their prey with little regard for stealth. The more noise the quartet made, the more of the horrible little worms they could flush out of hiding.
Seb listened to Bruke’s heavy breaths as he fought against Sparks’ struggle. Sparks offered her own growling, snarling protest. She sounded like an animal possessed. And, in a way, she was.
On the plus side, she sounded much better than she had done when the zombies and the grubs were nearby. Sure, it hurt Seb’s heart to hear his friend in her current state. But they would find a way to help her—they had to—and at that moment, hearing her calmer was the only comfort he could find.
Just as the thought left Seb’s mind, Sparks growled behind him and his entire frame slumped. “Great,” he said, his voice calling down into the gloom ahead of them before he turned back to look at his thrashing friend. To see her increased fury made him sigh. “Just great.”
Several blinks did little to appease the itch in Seb’s tired eyes. He couldn’t see any better into the gloom either. No doubt something would rush them at any moment. The edges of his world blurred and he clenched his fists, his arms aching from the previous battles, his legs leaden as he stopped moving and waited for the next rush of whatever would come their way.
CHAPTER 39
But nothing came.
They waited for a few minutes, staring into the dark and at one another, hunched down and ready to fight, but nothing came.
When SA moved next to Seb, he looked across at her. She walked over to a wall close to them, and he suddenly saw it too. It had been hidden in the poor light, but now he’d seen it, it seemed so obvious.
A pile of fallen rocks—freshly fallen by the look of things—covered what seemed to be the entrance to a cave or alcove of some sort. Seb walked over to it and he listened to Bruke and Sparks follow behind them. The closer they got, the more agitated Sparks became. She spat and hissed, the sound of struggle from where Bruke tried to clearly hold her back.
“Whatever’s in there,” Seb said, “I doubt we’re going to be pleased to see it.” His pulse quickened as he stared at it. “But we can’t leave it. We’ve been sent down here with a mission to clear out this entire colony. I couldn’t care less whether Moses gets paid or not, but I won’t be able to live with myself if another community gets sent down here and they get wiped out too. We have to clear this place.”
A look at SA and she waited. Sometimes, it seemed, he should lead. Seb reached forward and pulled one of the small rocks away from the pile. It revealed a hole no larger than the width of one of the fat grubs.
Tentative at first, Seb leaned towards the hole, his heart pounding as he pushed his face closer, but not too close. He couldn’t give the grubs that opportunity. What better way into his system than through his eyeball?
Behind him, Sparks seemed more agitated. If only she could tell them what she knew.
As much as Seb wanted to peer through the hole, his curiosity could kill him. He turned to SA, pointed at it, and said, “What if there are grubs in there?”
SA nodded at the larger boulders blocking the way.
“Move one of them?” Seb said.
SA nodded, raised her knives, and hunched down to show she’d fight if she needed to.
It made sense to throw the space open wide rather than put his face too close.
When Seb reached down and grabbed one of the large rocks, the voice of what sounded like a young girl came from the other side. “Please,” it said, “leave us alone.”
The sound forced Seb back several paces and he looked at SA. She stared back for a second before they both turned to look at the fallen rocks again.
CHAPTER 40
“We’re here to help,” Seb said to the hole in the rocks.
This time, a man’s voice spoke, catching Seb off guard. “How do we know that? How do we know you’re not one of them?”
A shrug, and Seb half-laughed when he said, “Because we’re not snarling and hissing.”
The man paused long enough for Seb to listen to Sparks behind him. “Okay, she is, but we have her restrained.”
“Why do you have one of them with you?”
“She’s our friend.”
“Half the people in these mines are our friends.”
“But we have just one. It’s easy to restrain one. Especially as she’s not even four feet tall.”
Impatience rode the man’s words. “What do you want?”
“We’ve been sent down here to clear the place of the parasites. To make it habitable again.”
“By who?”
“The Shadow Order.”
“Who?”
“Look”—Seb shook his head to himself—“it doesn’t matter if you’ve heard of them or not, more that you understand why we’re here. We’re here to help. So let us help you.”
“We’re okay, thanks. We’re doing fine as we are.”
“I hate to break this to you, but you’re trapped in a small alcove in a dingy mine with potentially more horrible parasites waiting to attack you.”
The man didn’t reply.
“I’m guessing you’re a little low on resources in there?”
The man still didn’t respond.
“We’re going to move these rocks away.”
Yet more silence.
Seb grabbed the boulder in front of him, but the huge cold rock didn’t budge. As high as it was wide, the top of it stood about a foot taller than Seb.
SA joined Seb and tugged on the rocks, but they still didn’t shift, not even an inch.
“Stand back,” Seb said to the people on the other side, his call running away from him down into the dark mines. A deep breath to slow the world down and he saw the boulder’s weakest spot. Fortunately, it sat right on the front of it. He balled his metal fist and drove a hard blow into it.
The rock shattered under the impact of Seb’s punch, turning into a thousand small shards. T
he other boulders resting on top of it all fell forward and he had to jump back so his feet didn’t get crushed.
Closer to Sparks now, he heard her agitation ring louder than before.
It took a few seconds for the dust to clear, but when it did, Seb saw the man he’d spoken to. He looked to be in his mid-forties. He carried a bit too much weight for his five-foot-nine to five-foot-ten-inch frame. Black hair and a round face. Although all of the details fell from Seb’s mind when he looked at the blaster the man had trained on him.
“You know if you use that, it’ll blow this entire place up, right?” Seb said.
The man still didn’t speak.
What must have been the man’s family cowered behind him in the cave. A small skinny blonde girl of no more than about ten years old, and a woman about the same age as the man. It might have been his wife. They looked tired, dirty, and hungry.
At first, Seb didn’t see it in the poor light, but then he noticed they all had cracked and dry lips. “You look like you need some water. How long have you been in here for?”
The man didn’t answer. Instead, he raised his gun and jabbed it in Seb’s direction. “I’m not afraid to use this.”
“I’m sure, but you haven’t used it yet, so I’m guessing you don’t want to if you can avoid it.”
Sweat beaded the man’s brow and he looked at his wife before returning his attention to Seb. “Get out of my way.” His blaster shook at the end of his outstretched arm. “Blowing us all up has to be better than whatever you lot have planned for me.”
A look at SA and then Bruke, Seb turned back to the man and shrugged. “What do we have planned for you?”
“You look like bad people. I mean, look at you.”
Eradication: A Space Opera: Book Four of The Shadow Order Page 11