Legacy

by A D Starrling

  ‘His name is Armistad,’ said Asgard coolly.

  ‘I don’t care if it’s called Mittens! That thing belongs in a museum!’

  Further metallic noises followed.

  ‘You’ve all got swords?’ barked Reynolds.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s part of our gear,’ said the Bastian team leader calmly.

  The ground started to tremble. Sand and pebbles danced across the surface of the desert. Uneasy murmurs broke out among the soldiers.

  ‘Major?’ said Asgard. ‘Tell your men to keep their fingers off their triggers.’

  ‘They always have their fingers off the trigger,’ Reynolds replied stiffly. The tremors intensified. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You’re about to witness some of that supernatural phenomenon your superiors warned you about,’ said Asgard. ‘So do me a favor, will you? Tell them to keep their fingers off those triggers. We wouldn’t want anyone to get hit by friendly fire.’

  Reynolds grudgingly gave the command to his men.

  Heat blossomed inside Ethan’s chest. He directed the formidable elemental energy throbbing through his blood at the ground before him.

  A five-foot fracture tore through the desert. It widened rapidly, sending spidery arms across the land. Giant chunks of rock and dirt rose across a twelve-foot area. They drifted silently in the air before crashing down a short distance away, making the ground shudder once more.

  Ethan exhaled slowly and walked to the edge of the crevasse. Metal screamed as he peeled the roof off the ventilation shaft below. Sunlight streamed inside the dark channel.

  ‘We’ll have to climb down.’

  Reynolds stared at him, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. The rest of the soldiers gaped. Most had tightened their grips on their automatic weapons. The immortals seemed duly impressed.

  Ethan checked his guns and unsheathed his blades. ‘Shall we?’

  Madeleine limped along the passage, Howard’s arm wrapped firmly around her waist. They were on Level Two of the facility.

  Olivia walked ahead of them, her steps steady. She had placed the rest of the suspension pods they’d found in the cave on basic life support mode before destroying the other research labs on that floor.

  Madeleine’s gaze roamed the deserted rooms and passages around them. This level was larger than the ones they’d ascended through and seemed to contain the staff’s living quarters. More soldiers rushed into their path and quickly collapsed under Olivia’s psychic influence. Some tried to use tranquilizer shots again, but none of the darts came within striking distance of the Seer.

  Even if they did, I know how to reverse the effects now, she thought.

  Howard lifted a couple of MP5s off the unconscious soldiers and passed one to her. Madeleine looped the strap around her neck and gripped the weapon firmly.

  Scoleri glared at the image of Olivia Ashkarov advancing ruthlessly through the upper level of the base. She was almost at the command center.

  ‘Where are the super soldiers?’ he barked.

  ‘They’ve been deployed on Level One and at the exits, sir.’

  ‘Get three of them down here,’ said Scoleri. ‘We need to stop that woman!’

  He checked his weapons, grabbed a couple of magazine belts from an ammunition cabinet, and slid his sword into the harness at his back. He was about to storm out of the room when one of the men at the control terminals called out to him.

  ‘Sir, we appear to have a breach in one of the ventilation shafts! Pressure’s dropped right off the charts.’

  Scoleri twisted on his heels and walked to the workstation. ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s one of the air ducts to the west.’ The soldier indicated a pipe on the map depicting the facility’s ventilation system. ‘We detected four helicopters in that area twelve minutes ago.’

  Sweat pooled on Ethan’s face and trickled down his back as he ran in a half-crouch along the gloomy conduit, the flashlight attached to his tactical vest illuminating the path before him. Asgard and the rest of the men followed in his wake, their boots raising faint vibrations on the metal floor and their breathing echoing against the narrow walls.

  The tunnel forked up ahead. Ethan slowed to a stop and scrutinized the two passages.

  Asgard turned to the Rangers’ intelligence officer. ‘Which way?’

  ‘The one to the right goes straight to the second level. This one should take us to the top floor.’

  The sergeant indicated the channel on the left.

  ‘I’m detecting a hell of a lot of heavy equipment and weapons up there,’ said Ethan.

  ‘Let’s split up,’ said Reynolds.

  ‘Agreed,’ muttered the Bastian team leader.

  Asgard looked at Ethan. ‘Your powers would serve us best on the upper level.’

  Ethan hesitated. Although his every instinct was telling him to go to the second floor, he knew the Bastian noble was right. He nodded reluctantly and watched the immortal step inside the tunnel to the right.

  ‘Asgard?’

  The immortal paused and looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Olivia is on Level Two,’ Ethan said quietly. ‘Howard and Madeleine are with her.’

  Asgard’s eyes flared in the gloom. He dipped his chin jerkily.

  Ethan watched him disappear with half the Rangers and the immortals. He turned and headed up the passage on the left with Reynolds and the remaining men.

  They had traveled some two hundred feet when a detonation suddenly shook the walls of the ventilation shaft. Ethan froze.

  A dim light appeared up ahead. The floor trembled as it grew rapidly in brightness.

  His mouth went dry. Incandescent flames filled the passage and raced toward them in a deadly roar.

  ‘Get down!’ he barked.

  The men around him dropped to the ground, Reynolds cursing colorfully.

  Ethan moved to the front of the group, sheathed his swords, and focused his powers on the approaching wall of fire, his heart pounding erratically against his ribs.

  Let’s see how much stronger I’ve become.

  The blaze shrieked as it collided with the wave of energy he projected. The fire started to slow, flames bucking and stuttering. Ethan clenched his teeth and raised his hands in front of him. The inferno came to a shuddering halt some ten feet from where he stood, crackling and spitting angrily against the elemental force opposing it. Heat licked his skin and brought a layer of perspiration to his brow. He curled his fingers and concentrated on manipulating the mass of burning energy before him.

  The fire retreated, slowly at first, then accelerating as rapidly as it had stormed their way. Shadows filled the tunnel once more as the flames disappeared with a low rumble.

  Ethan swallowed, somewhat stunned by what he had just accomplished. He lowered his arms, filled with a sense of urgency once more.

  ‘Let’s go!’ he told the men behind him. ‘And don’t touch the walls.’

  Reynolds glanced at the glowing sections of metal as he started after him. ‘Did you just stop that fire?’

  Ethan did not reply. He could see another light in the distance. This time, it wasn’t the flames from an explosion. He accelerated.

  Olivia cocked her head to the side. Her soulmate was drawing closer. She could feel it in her heart. Fierce joy coursed through her, dimming some of the rage that had filled her soul since she’d awakened. She studied the room she stood in and crushed the remaining camera monitors and computer terminals lining its walls and floor. The men and women who had been working at them already lay unconscious, guns lying uselessly by their still bodies.

  Many of the soldiers and civilians had been immortals and half-breeds. Despite Howard and Madeleine’s help, the effort it took to physically knock them all out had sapped some of her strength. She found herself slightly out of breath as she wielded her newfound powers.

  Steel doors bounced noisily against the walls behind her. Olivia turned as three colossal figures stepped inside the command center she had j
ust destroyed.

  Howard paled as he stared at the men. ‘Shit. Looks like some of the test subjects made it out of Phase Three after all.’

  Madeleine clenched her jaw.

  Olivia assessed the super soldiers with a frown. They were twice the size of an average man, their powerful bodies bulging with overdeveloped muscles and their frames augmented by drugs and genetic manipulation. Their faces looked bullish, the flesh bloated as a result of the experiments they’d undergone.

  Although their physical presence was a cause for alarm in itself, the thing that worried her the most was their minds. They were different from the ones she’d encountered inside the base so far. Neither human nor immortal, and not quite like the half-breeds she had sensed either. Their chemistry was all wrong. And they weren’t responding to her psychic will.

  Anxiety flashed through her when she registered their thoughts. They were focused on one thing and one thing only: to accomplish their mission, at all costs.

  ‘Oh God,’ Madeleine mumbled.

  Her gaze was locked on one of the soldiers.

  Olivia studied the dark-haired giant on the left and heard the words in Madeleine’s mind. ‘Do you know him?’ She paused. ‘His name is Mason Hofstadter?’

  ‘Yes,’ Madeleine replied shakily. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s the husband of Gillian Hofstadter, the woman Asgard and I visited in Carson City.’

  Olivia felt the faintest flicker then. The soldier had had a sliver of a reaction to his wife’s name. It disappeared in the next moment.

  ‘You will come with us,’ Hofstadter stated in a deep voice.

  He raised the automatic weapon in his hands. It looked like a toy in his grip.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Howard leveled the MP5 and fired at the soldiers.

  At such close range, most of the bullets thudded into their bodies. They didn’t move so much as an inch.

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ Howard whispered. ‘They’re wearing body armor?’

  ‘No. It’s not just body armor.’ Madeleine stared at the blood oozing out of several wounds on the men’s bodies. ‘I don’t think they’re capable of feeling pain.’

  Olivia shivered at her words.

  Hofstadter depressed the trigger on his weapon. She flinched as the shots bounced off the psychokinetic bubble emanating from her body.

  The three soldiers followed the bullets’ deviated trajectories with their eyes. They laid down their weapons and started across the room.

  They’re fast learners.

  She was shocked they could even move in the face of the pressure wave she was projecting. She fisted her hands and drew on her powers.

  The men stopped. They leaned forward, as if facing a gale. One of them lifted his foot and took a step forward. His boot landed heavily on the floor.

  The gap between the super soldiers and the place where she stood narrowed. Alarm darted through Olivia. She took one step back.

  God, help me stop these men!

  She became aware of a mass of different thoughts approaching the command center, a mix of humans, immortals, and half-breeds. One group appeared to be fighting the other. Her breath caught in her throat when she recognized one of the many streams of consciousness.

  ‘Asgard,’ Olivia whispered.

  Asgard punched a soldier in the jaw, ducked beneath a swinging blade, and drove his elbow into his assailant’s stomach. The man grunted then gasped as the arming sword penetrated his chest with a single thrust. The Bastian noble pulled the blade out of the falling body, stabbed another enemy soldier in the gut, and slashed a deep cut into a third’s neck. He glanced at the battleground around him, where Rangers and immortals engaged the adversary in close combat.

  They’d heard a faint detonation just before they reached the end of the ventilation shaft that had brought them to the second floor of the facility. Asgard had no time to give any thought to Ethan and the men with him when he saw the wave of enemy soldiers and immortal agents who stood waiting for them.

  Two men rushed him. Asgard dropped beneath a dagger, jabbed a knee in the first man’s groin as he came up, and drove the hilt of his sword into the other’s jaw.

  The Bastian team leader punched someone in the face next to him and reverse-kicked another soldier in the head. ‘We’re close to the command center!’

  Asgard saw the sign he indicated above a corridor to the left. He turned and fought his way toward the passage, stabbing and striking the soldiers in his path with renewed resolve. Olivia was there. He knew it somehow.

  A doorway appeared up ahead. He knocked out the last man in his path and stormed across the threshold a moment later.

  Asgard reeled back at the wave of pressure that washed across his skull. He recognized his niece’s psychic energy. Unlike what he’d experienced when they’d escaped from the mansion though, he could feel no pain. It appeared she had gained a new level of control over her abilities.

  He rocked to a halt, his gaze moving from the destruction around him to the unconscious bodies littering the floor and the six people still on their feet.

  Olivia seemed both frail and incredibly powerful where she stood in the middle of the room, her expression determined.

  The three figures she faced were nearly twice as tall as she and three times as wide. The fabric of their uniforms strained against their muscular torsos and limbs. Their hands were the size of shovels and their necks as broad as an average man’s thigh.

  Alarm knotted Asgard’s stomach. Super soldiers.

  The men’s faces were curiously blank as they stared at the Seer. One of them took a slow step forward, his body tilted slightly as if pushing against an invisible wall.

  Lines furrowed Olivia’s brow.

  A computer monitor sailed past her and smashed into the super soldier’s chest. The man’s eyes moved briefly to the woman behind Olivia.

  Madeleine yanked a printer free from its wires. She favored her right leg, raised the device above her head, and threw it with a grunt. A crimson patch widened on her left flank.

  The soldier batted the machine away like a fly.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Anger flooded Asgard when he registered the bruises and blood streaking Madeleine’s face. Mixed with it were intense relief that she was alive and a flood of other emotions he did not want to name.

  Howard looked similarly beat-up next to her. He grabbed a computer from the workstation next to him and hurled it at one of the other soldiers. It struck the man with a thud before smashing to the ground. The giant continued his advance unhindered and crushed the remains of the device under his foot.

  Asgard raised his arming sword and bolted in the direction of the closest figure. Olivia’s alarmed gaze moved to him. He heard a panicked Stop! in his thoughts.

  The soldier turned and ducked just as the immortal reached him, his movements stunningly fast for his size. A hammer-like fist swung up toward Asgard. The Bastian noble flung himself backward. The blow glanced off his right shoulder and sent numbing pain down his arm. He landed on his back, his sword striking the ground with a clatter. A shadow swooped above him.

  He gasped and rolled out of the way of the soldier’s boot. It landed on the ground with a solid thud inches from his head.

  A group of Rangers and immortals dashed inside the command center behind him.

  Asgard jumped to his feet and gripped his sword with both hands. ‘Be careful. These men are—’

  ‘Watch out!’ Howard yelled from the other side of the room.

  One of the super soldiers grabbed two automatic weapons from the floor with a lightning-quick move and swung them at the men by the door. Asgard dove for the floor and steeled himself for the shots that were to come, his heart slamming against his ribs.

  Olivia raised one hand in the air just as the giant depressed the triggers.

  The bullets swerved upward and thudded into the ceiling, raising a cloud of plaster dust. The guns crumpled in the super soldier’s hands, crushed by the same unseen f
orce that had thwarted the course of the projectiles.

  Shock echoed through Asgard. She can manipulate metal?

  Yes, said Olivia inside his head. I can access some of Ethan’s powers.

  Asgard looked into his niece’s eyes and saw the staggering truth reflected in their blazing depths.

  The super soldier studied the ruined weapons in his hands. He dropped them and turned toward Olivia, his face still impassive.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ The Bastian team leader stared, open-mouthed. ‘Did that—that girl just stop those bullets?’

  ‘That “girl” is my niece,’ said Asgard. ‘And those aren’t normal soldiers.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ muttered one of the Rangers. ‘This supernatural shit is piling up mighty fast. I feel like I’m in the world’s worst nightmare right now.’

  ‘It’s not over yet,’ said Asgard grimly.

  Ethan blocked two strikes to his head, crushed the swords swinging toward him, and delivered a series of rapid punches and kicks to his attackers.

  Reynolds stood his ground a short distance from him, his face a focused mask as he fought several dark-clad men.

  They’d exited the ventilation shaft onto a steel walkway above an immense cave carved out of the mountain rock. Four access tunnels were visible at the corners, along with vast storerooms holding hardware and ammunition. Rows of military vehicles and crates dotted the two hundred thousand square feet of concrete floor space. It was also currently full of enemy soldiers and agents.

  Ethan hook-kicked a man to the ground and glanced around. With half their forces still en route to the site and the other half engaged in a fierce confrontation at the main entrances and exits to the facility, the Rangers and the immortals were heavily outnumbered.

  Sporadic gunfire punctuated the sounds of the battle. Although he had destroyed as many of the enemy’s weapons as he could, more kept appearing as their adversaries drew upon their extensive cache of arms.

  And that’s the least of our problems.

  Ethan looked anxiously across the cavern to where a group of Rangers and immortals fought twelve colossal figures. Despite their superior strength and fighting skills, even the Bastians were no match for the super soldiers. The Crovir noble gritted his teeth as he watched four Rangers and two immortals go flying to the ground. He drew on his powers and started toward them, casting aside the men who stood in his path with a wave of elemental energy.