by C. G. Hatton
Hil was cursing, urging him on and dragging him forward. Yells and shouts echoed, the immense downdraft joined by the roar of tank engines, gunfire and more screaming.
He could feel his vision going, struggling to process what little energy he was pulling in. “What…?”
Hil was glancing around. The noise of the tanks and the gunships without their suppressors activated was deafening. And terrifying. Cries that sounded like kids joined the racket, some wailing, others just shouting, adult voices demanding everyone get down on their goddamned knees.
Hil grabbed his jacket, hustling him aside and into an alleyway, pulling a gun from its holster and raising it, turning and yelling as figures appeared in front of them and behind. There was no way out.
He was vaguely aware it was Hilyer at his back, pushing him down onto his knees, rough, shouting to the others, “This one’s mine, goddammit. I’m taking him in. He’s not part of this crew.”
LC folded in on himself, not fighting.
It didn’t wash. He could hear footsteps thunder up to them, a gunship circling overhead, searchlights scanning in circles that swept past in flashes of bright light.
Hil was jostled aside, arguing, frogmarched away by a guy demanding his ID, as another soldier took LC by the scruff of the neck and pushed him up and out into the main street.
A child who’d broken free and tried to run screamed as she was grabbed by an armoured fist and unceremoniously dragged back to the group.
LC blinked, eyes watering from some kind of acrid gas drifting out of the building they were assaulting, staggering as he was shoved forward.
Around eighty civilians had been herded out into the street where the collaborating soldiers began separating them. Any old or infirm, any kids too young to hold a gun, were being pushed to one side and then ordered into the back of trucks. Anyone who looked of fighting age was being forced up against the wall, stress position, a rifle butt to the head if anyone struggled, before being loaded onto drop ships bound for god knows where.
LC kept his head down but glanced around. There was a cordon around the street, tanks parked at each end, human tanks, not Bhenykhn, death squad soldiers with rifles up and aimed, fingers on triggers, scanning back and forth. The only Bennies in sight, a couple of grey cloaks overseeing the menial operation but revelling in the terror.
He was slammed up against a wall, a harsh voice screaming in his ear to get his hands up. He could still hear Hilyer protesting, swearing, throwing in unit names and command details but they weren’t buying it.
Someone kicked his feet apart, twisted his hands behind his back and shoved his head forward to impact against the wall. He closed his eyes and scanned round, gently nudging, just reading the surface thoughts of the humans who had chosen to side with their new Bhenykhn masters, avoiding the civilians, especially the kids, and reaching wider, trying to figure out what was coming.
There was another squad of Bhenykhn incoming. And something else. Snipers. But not like these others. There were other figures creeping close by through the buildings, taking up position.
He shifted his head, trying see Hilyer, and got a blow to his back that sent him to his knees. He was hauled upright and turned around. Someone pulled his jacket open, checked the brand on his arm and started shouting, gesturing, something about him being the one. Shit.
Whoever it was holding him pressed a gun into his neck.
Someone yelled, “Keep him alive. Shoot the other one.”
In an instant, the street lit up, gunfire strafing, sniper rounds taking out the death squad soldiers as they moved to round up the civilians. The guy holding him fell and LC flinched away from shards of masonry as rounds hit the wall next to him, the sound of the impacts resounding in his ears. He blasted the cuffs and twisted free, trying to grab as many kids as he could and get them out of the line of fire.
Hilyer was shooting, yelling him to get into cover. The people who’d been restrained were running, several falling as they got hit, the kids screaming.
A gunship roared overhead. The Bhenykhn were closing in. The tanks were turning their guns to point into the street.
They were going to get annihilated.
LC focused, breathed, identified where each enemy was, human and alien, and blasted an overloading burst of energy at each one.
The implosion of vacuum from the slaughter he felt inside forced him to one knee, doubled over, retching, vaguely aware of Hilyer shouting in at least three different languages. There was more shouting, footsteps. Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him up, pulling him forward.
He heard someone yell, “The tunnels. Get these people into the goddamned tunnels.”
He couldn’t breathe, blinking and trying to see what was happening. Someone jostled him.
The street lit up with more beams of white light as another gunship swooped overhead, circling.
He heard Hil say, “Shit. We need to…”
Then he froze. Intense pain spiked between his eyes, the full weight of the Bhenykhn hive crashing in to send him spinning. He couldn’t move, tried to open his mouth to speak, to warn Hil, but it felt like his throat was squeezed shut. He screamed a silent, ‘Screw you,’ back at them, tried to shut it off, fight back somehow but they had him.
The pain went beyond unbearable fast, like his brain was melting. They laughed.
Something hit him hard in the temple and he dropped.
The smell of baking bread filtered into his senses. A warm, familiarity that threw him back to Latia’s house, waiting there half asleep for his grandmother to shout to him that it was time to get up, expecting to open his eyes to a dusty room with shafts of sunlight lancing through the broken slats of the window blinds.
He was underground. The air had that bitter tang of recycled chemicals to it. Not quite fresh enough to be shipside. He was clean, warm, naked, could feel dressings on his back, stomach and chest, a tight bandage around his thigh, but he wasn’t hooked up to anything. Not in a medical facility. Just a bunk with a thin sheet.
Someone was sitting with him, holding his left hand. His right hand was numb, wrapped tight down to his forearm. He blinked, struggling to focus, head fuzzy.
He heard someone say, “He’s awake.”
Footsteps.
The hand squeezed his and let go, whoever it was moving away to be replaced by someone else who sat beside him.
“Hey.”
Hilyer.
“We still on Earth?” His voice wasn’t much more than a croak.
“Still in Beijing,” Hil said.
They sat quietly for a moment and he started to drift back under. He wanted to ask if they’d heard from Yarrimer, if Elliott was there, what they were doing, what they were going to do… but it all blurred into nonsense.
He felt a hand on his chest, warm, rubbing softly, and heard a woman, same voice as earlier, say gently, “We need you to wake up now, Luka.”
His head was clearer, the aches not so bad. He still felt like he’d been hit by a truck and he didn’t want to think about his hand which was hurting. But the rest of him was starting to feel like he could get up.
The alien hive was there but distant, muted somehow. He rebuilt and reinforced the barriers in his mind carefully and moved to sit.
The woman was wearing a medic armband. She helped him up and offered him a drink. His eyes were sore, even the dim light stinging painfully.
She was thinking it was hard to believe all the trouble they’d had over the last week was over a kid who looked younger than her own son.
The last week?
He took a sip of the water, awkward, struggling to swallow it. “It’s been a week?”
She nodded.
“How come they haven’t found us?”
“We’re safe down here. Relatively.”
“Because the Bhenykhn won’t come into the tunnels?”
“It’s more than that.” The woman perched next to him. “We think it’s the rendering plant. It covers around a thir
d of the original city. From the intel we received before the first wave hit we know they can detect humans by brainwave activity but their own structures are organic, living things, and they hold tens of thousands of prisoners before processing.”
He had to work to keep his expression neutral, stomach queasy just hearing her talk about it.
“We’ve assumed the sheer scale creates some kind of mental background interference. A psychic white noise if you like.”
“Making you invisible?”
“As long as we stay in the tunnels directly underneath it. Honestly, we don’t know, but it’s worked for us so far.”
“But?”
“They send in the death squads to flush us out. They’re spineless bastards. They have no real fight in them. We kill a few, they pull back, we move to another location.”
She stopped herself saying anymore but he could read it in her thoughts. The attacks had intensified since they’d turned up. They’d been fending them off for a week, taking heavy losses.
She managed a weary smile. “Come on, let’s get you sorted. They want to talk to you.”
She gave him well-worn but clean combat pants and a tee shirt to wear, found him some boots that just about fit then she asked him to sit and started to check his hand. She was gentle, but he kept his eyes closed as she changed the bandage and asked if he needed anything. Help tying the laces on the boots, but he didn’t say that. He shook his head, keeping his emotions shut down, energy levels low, and was shown into an area that looked like some kind of common room. Hilyer was sitting at a table with five others, talking quietly, intently.
They looked up as he walked in, the talk dwindling to nothing. Hil looked furious. He had a fresh black eye and a field dressing around his upper arm, his expression softening somewhat as he met LC’s eye.
There was a horribly ominous feel to the atmosphere.
“What’s going on?” he said. “Apart from the fact we’re trapped on a planet under alien occupation with no obvious way out.”
Hilyer fixed him with a stare. “Anya Halligan is here.”
He could feel the desperation.
“She’s having them broadcast on all channels and make announcements in the streets that NG and two hundred of their prisoners will be executed tomorrow unless we hand you in. And from everything we’re hearing, the Bhenykhn aren’t just listening to her, they’re following her orders.”
Chapter 34
“Rats scurrying through tunnels… And Nikolai’s dear daughter pulling their tails and making them run. In all my attempts to reproduce Nikolai’s DNA…”
“My DNA.” Sebastian slotted the power pack into place.
The Man nodded solemnly. “In all this, she is my greatest success. She is the most powerful of you all, the most ruthless. Her hate has no bounds.”
“Because of what you did, to her mother, manipulating Nikolai to send her away. You contrived every dire, despairing moment of her life.” He narrowed his eyes, looking up. “You sent her to Zang.” It wasn’t a question, it was a realisation. “You fuelled her hatred, her obsession, her infatuation with a boy she could never have. All to further your own ends.”
The Man gave a small shake of his head. “No, I must admit, I don’t take credit for that. Luka managed that all by himself.”
•
He didn’t recognise the other people and he hesitated to join them but Hil cast him a quick glance and said, “Sit down. Welcome to the resistance, or at least what’s left of it. And before you say it, no, we’re not handing you over.”
They had a couple of ration packs spread out on the table. LC slipped into a seat, keeping his bandaged right hand nestled in his lap under the table, and shook his head at the soup pouch offered. He did take the mug Hilyer slid across to him. It was some kind of tea, hot, a hit of that sweet, sickly liquor that burned the back of his throat as he took a sip, ignoring the stares from the people he didn’t know. They couldn’t believe it was him sitting there. That he hadn’t croaked it, for one thing. That this was the infamous LC Anderton, for another.
An older guy wearing a ragtag mix of combat gear was thinking they needed to hit the Bhenykhn hard, go all out, to hell with it. They were dead anyway and it was only a matter of time. There was also a bounty hunter at the table, a damn bounty hunter, young, slick, same mould as Dane McKenzie, wondering how much the black joker he had in his pocket was worth. Another guy was thinking they couldn’t take much more of this shit, glowering at him as if he was to blame for the whole invasion.
The death squads and the Bhenykhn had been scouring the city looking for him. That was the shit they’d had, he could read that loud and clear. But whatever Hil had offered these people, it had been enough to win over their loyalty and a steadfast determination to hide them in these tunnels. Despite the cost. And it had been high.
His hand started trembling so he put the mug down. He shook out the fingers of his left hand under the table and listened as they resumed talking, about casualties, territory lost, people that had been taken.
“Anya is here?” he muttered quietly to Hilyer.
Hil glanced at him and nodded.
“So what’s the plan? What are we…?”
He stopped as more people walked in.
A woman with command flashes on the remnants of her battered battledress uniform walked up to the table and threw down a map.
“Whatever you’re going to do,” she said, a strong scent of sweat and gun oil drifting around her, “do it fast, because we’re taking a pounding out there. We have wounded, if you want to help.” She turned and looked, pointedly, at LC. It was easy to read her surface thoughts. She was the commander of this band of resistance, former military, JU for Christ’s sake, and she knew all about the guild and the alien virus.
“You don’t want anything I have to offer,” he muttered.
She stared at him. She was looking at his eyes, thinking they were an incredible colour, and wondering if he was reading her mind. “We’ll take odds of fifty-fifty. It’s better than what the Bennies are offering us right now.”
“Not any more. Last time anyone tried my strain of the virus, it was lethal. Guaranteed lethal. They must have killed a thousand people trying it.” He held out his left arm, wrist up, black tendrils winding in that insane pattern that was showing no sign of fading. “You’re welcome if you want to give it a go.”
The JU officer wasn’t that easily dissuaded. She leaned on the table and said in a voice that was used to getting what it demanded, “We’re in this shit because of you. Two hundred of our people are going to be executed because of you.”
LC didn’t back down. “If they’re in there, they’re as good as dead already. Or wishing they were.”
She stared, incredulous, then glanced at Hilyer.
“He’s serious.” Hil stood. “We know Anya Halligan. We give up LC, she’ll take him and enjoy killing your people anyway.”
That got the message across.
“So what do we do?” She was pissed. In a shit situation, that had got a magnitude worse because two of the most hunted people in the galaxy had just landed on her doorstep. And she couldn’t tell if they were potential assets or a massive liability.
“You get out,” Hil said. “We have ships incoming. You just have to get out of the city.”
“We set foot outside these tunnels, they’ll slaughter us. So long as we stay beneath the rendering plant, we have a chance of hiding. But we’re losing people at a rate that means we’ll be finished in about two weeks.”
The older guy tapped on the map they had spread out. “If we can get everyone to the Shijingshan district there’s a possibility of a pick up in the hills but if they set up a checkpoint or roadblock here, we’re screwed.”
“We still have Fengtai,” the woman said. “If a ship can get in, it’s possible to make a landing there at the old station. Some of the old metro tunnels are still passable.” She stared at him, thinking they’d make it if it wasn’t for him.
LC couldn’t listen anymore. He pushed away from the table, muttering, “Hil, I need to talk to you,” and walked off, trying not to limp. Hil would follow him or he wouldn’t, but he wasn’t going to sit there at that table with people he didn’t know. Or trust.
He walked through dimly lit tunnels and ended up in a space that had been converted into something resembling a storage area with a trestle table and some folding chairs. A deck of worn playing cards was scattered on the table but the players were long gone and the area was deserted. He dropped into a chair, folded his arms and put his head down. He heard someone sit next to him, no lifesigns so it was Hilyer, who nudged his elbow and slid the mug back in front of him.
LC sat up. “These people are getting killed because of us. Because of me.”
“They’re getting killed because they refuse to roll over and die. Are you okay?”
He’d never heard Hil be so patient. Considerate, yes. Patient? Not really one of Hil’s strong points.
LC looked up, checking no one else was in there, wishing they could speak through a secure tight wire.
The muscle in Hil’s jaw was twitching. He blew out an exasperated breath and scraped together the cards on the table. Started shuffling.
“Mean queen,” he said, dealing out two hands. “Aces high.”
LC ignored his cards. He leaned forward and said quietly, “How the hell did Anya find out NG was here? She didn’t know it when we were at Zang’s place on Winter. I would have known it if she had. And I didn’t find out until after she’d left. How did she find out?” His heart was sinking into his stomach as he said it and he said, “Drake,” at the same time as Hil said it.
He swallowed against the lump in his throat, dragged the cards together with his left hand and neatened them into a stack.
Slowly and obsessively.
He’d led Anya right here.