What caught her eye most of all, though, were the two spots that were heavily patched as if someone had performed amateur road repairs.
Or buried something.
She reached out instinctively, dialing out her cloak’s range almost without thought, and—
“Stop!” she cried.
Nelken complied with an immediateness that said he’d been about to do so anyway and turned to face her. “Can you feel what’s under that pavement?”
Rachel closed her eyes and focused more thoroughly, taking in the small, light metal casings, the odiferous silicon of integrated circuitry, the rampant potential energy of whatever was stored within.
“Something with electronics and a lot of chemical energy,” she finally said. “Maybe mines, but …”
She dialed her cloak out to the max and swept her senses past the pair ten yards ahead of them and farther up to check for more devices.
A voice was rumbling something at the edge of her awareness, too far away for her to catch. She drew back to her physical senses and opened her eyes to a grim-looking Nelken.
“What?”
“He asked if there were more ahead,” Lea said.
Rachel shook her head. “Not that I can feel yet, at least. If we clear that scrap and drive around those two, I can keep sweeping …”
Her unspoken as we go died off in her throat as she took in the others’ looks.
If they still wanted to go, those looks said.
Nelken glanced worriedly back at the convoy drawing up to a halt behind them now, clearly conflicted. He shifted his attention back to Rachel and the others in the rear of the Humvee, looking like he couldn’t quite decide if he wanted their input or not.
“I say we go for it,” Johnny said. “We’ve come this far, we’ve got shit for backup plans, and, for all we know, we could have the Incredible Invisible Insect and his evil pals coming down on us at any minute.” He pointed up the shallow mountainside. “Judging from everything else, this place is probably deserted, and even if it’s not—”
Nelken held up a hand. “Thank you, Mr. Wingard. You make valid points.” He looked around the group. “Do the rest of you have anything to add? Al’Drogan? Lea?”
Lea looked at Johnny and traded a heavy look with Rachel before turning back to Nelken. “We came here for a good reason, and we didn’t do it for free. I say there’s no way we turn back now.”
“If the base should turn out to be held by hostile humans,” Drogan said, already looking bored with the discussion, “then Rachel Cross and I will have no trouble dealing with them, especially not with the assistance of Nans Grohl and Sorba. I would welcome the return to such a comfortable fight.”
Johnny cleared his throat. “Yep. No one mind the trained alien soldier. I’ll just sit over here and watch you guys shake your magic sticks and whatnot.”
Rachel, on the other hand, wasn’t quite sure whether to feel flattered or disturbed that she was the current top pick for Drogan’s bruiser squad.
Pryce shot an uneasy glance at Drogan. “I agree we might as well make the best of it now that we’re here, but I think we already have quite enough past and future violence without adding a hostile takeover into the mix. Maybe we can try talking if there’s someone in there.”
Nelken took this all in silently.
When Rachel looked up, he was watching her expectantly.
“And you, Rachel?”
Rachel raised her eyebrows, having thought it was evident enough by her offer to sweep the path ahead.
“I might have left my brother and my—and Jarek to die by coming here. I’m seeing this thing through. I’ll blow the door down if I have to.”
Johnny cocked his head. “Ehh, I think you underestimate how solid this door is.”
“I dropped a mountain on Kul’Ahgo,” Rachel said. “And I can pick locks with my mind.”
Johnny thought about that and gave her a conciliatory nod. “Okay. Even odds, then.”
Rachel turned back to Nelken. “I’m going in there. I’m making damn sure we have a safe place for our people. And then I’m gonna go find the rest of mine.”
Nelken gave her a serious nod, though his mouth might have twitched with the hint of a grin. “Well said.” He let out a long breath, thinking. “Very well. Lea, Williams, would you mind staying here to guide our people around the road hazards?”
They both gave affirmatives and hopped out of the vehicle.
“And Al’Drogan,” Nelken added, “would you be so kind as to—”
But Drogan had already rolled out of the back and was prowling up to the left side of the ramshackle wall. It only came up to his chest in most places and could have easily been circumvented on foot by way of the steep but scalable hill beside it. Clearly, the wall had mostly been intended to funnel persistent vehicular traffic onto their buried gifts.
Luckily, a pile of heavy scraps wasn’t much of an obstacle for a raknoth to relocate. Drogan actually seemed to enjoy the chance to flaunt his strength as he pitched tires, doors, metal sheets, and even a rusted car frame across the road and down the mountainside.
Rachel climbed up to take the passenger seat Williams had vacated while Nelken busied himself speaking commands to the convoy over the comms’ short-range bands. Soon enough, Drogan rejoined them, and they were off.
Drogan had cleared enough of a gap for their vehicles to maneuver comfortably around the vicinity of the buried explosives, but Nelken kept their progression to a crawl anyway, giving Rachel plenty of time to quest out with her senses in all directions, waiting vigilantly for the first sign of any impending threat.
Even immersed in her extended senses, Rachel couldn’t quite ignore the dead silence that hung over the place.
They made it nearly half a mile before Rachel caught wind of another pair of explosives where the road formed a sharp branch that split north and south. These two were buried far more discreetly. No obvious wall giveaway. Much better road patch jobs. It was almost as if someone had buried the first ones as a kind of confidence booster to lure intruders into a false sense of security.
Nelken waited until the convoy had caught up and asked Pryce and Johnny to stand sentinel in front of the second hazard.
Another slow quarter mile and a wide, looping roundabout later, they were looking at a sprawling parking lot that Rachel assumed meant they were drawing close to the bunker’s entrance.
“How are we looking?” Nelken asked beside her.
Rachel shifted her attention back to her extended senses for several seconds. “Still good, I think.”
“I wouldn’t be upset if you refrained from the ‘I thinks’ for now,” he said as they waited for the rest of the convoy to catch up.
Rachel refrained from pointing out that they were talking about her sniffing out landmines with her mind here and that there was going to be some uncertainty intrinsic to the task. Instead, she busied herself studying the scene ahead.
The lots were roughly half-full, and, at a glance, the vehicles all looked long-abandoned.
That was a good sign, at least.
A few buildings stretched along the mountainside of the bigger parking lot. Old administrative or utility structures, Rachel guessed from the looks of them. The actual bunker entrance, though, she couldn’t spot until Nelken started forward again and they rounded the last bit of bushy hillside foliage.
It was actually kind of anticlimactic. An unimposing, arched tunnel jutting out of the eastern side of the mountain, well behind the line of the buildings and the lots. No giant spiked gates or looming battlements or anything.
Rachel nearly jumped when a low growl rumbled right behind her.
“Drogan,” she gasped, trading a wide-eyed look with a slightly startled-looking Nelken. “Jesus. What is it?”
The raknoth just pointed in the direction of the distant tunnel entrance. “Take a closer look.”
She traded another look with Nelken, and they both tapped on their comms’ zoom displays.
/> A few two-fingered swipe gestures later, she was looking at—
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“That’s … unexpected,” Nelken agreed.
The image was grainy, relying on digital zooming rather than optical, but the subject on the display was unmistakable.
There, above the plain arch of the tunnel entrance, hung a raknoth in full, scaly battle mode, badly scorched from head to toe and, from the looks of it, long dead.
The three of them stared in silence until the rest of the convoy was caught up and waiting behind them.
The vehicle shifted with the weight of someone climbing aboard, then Johnny spoke in a quiet voice behind.
“What’s going on, guys—Oh …”
Rachel finally turned to see Johnny was leaning forward to see her comm display.
“Holy shit,” he said, utterly lacking any of his usual cheer.
“That’s what I said,” Rachel said numbly.
She couldn’t help but think about Alton Parker. Couldn’t help but remind herself that, a couple weeks ago, she’d been so pissed at him and the rest of the raknoth for their role in her mom’s death that some part of her might’ve actually felt some kind of sick satisfaction at the grisly display ahead of them.
That thought alone nearly made her feel more ill than the sight itself already had.
She leaned over the passenger-side door, thinking for a moment she might actually lose it and hurl, but the feeling slowly receded, breath by deep breath.
Footsteps behind the vehicle drew her attention, and she saw Lea, Pryce, and Williams returning to take their places in the Humvee. Johnny brought them up to speed with his own zoomed comm while the convoy idled behind, waiting for Nelken to make the next move.
“This doesn’t change the plan,” Lea said. “Right?”
By way of reply, Drogan hopped out of the Humvee and started trudging in the direction of the entrance tunnel.
“Guess not,” Johnny mumbled, hopping out after him.
Rachel looked to Nelken, her brain apparently still too stunned to form its own opinion on what to think about that.
“Al’Drogan,” Nelken said quietly, knowing the raknoth would hear him.
Drogan, however, didn’t even pause. Not until Nelken spoke again, this time with a less authoritative tone.
“Drogan … Just give us a moment to park the convoy. We’ll go in together.”
Drogan didn’t quite look back, but he gave a faint nod and went to sit on a rock just off the road, Johnny trailing after him with his rifle handy.
Nelken led the convoy to the eastern end of the first parking lot. By his instructions, their people staggered their parking spots among the copious abandoned vehicles enough that the congregation might not be noticed by, say, a passing rakul ship. Not that any of them would be holding their breaths for it to work if that happened.
With impressive efficiency, Nelken picked a dozen men to accompany them into the tunnel and split the remaining ninety or so into teams to either check the surrounding buildings or stick with the vehicles and protect their non-combatants. Their two raknoth, Nan’Grohl and Nan’Sorba, Nelken made sure were posted with the Enochians.
That done, he gestured to Rachel, Lea, and his chosen twelve, and they all started toward the entrance tunnel.
Johnny and Drogan appeared at Rachel’s side as they crept across the quiet lot, both looking ready for a fight.
The silence pressed in on them with viscous pressure, convincing Rachel some manner of explosion was not only imminent but inevitable.
With each passing step, she found herself worrying less and less about mines and more and more about someone—or several someones, rather—popping out from the mountain rocks above with rifles, rockets, and god knew what else they’d used to leave a raknoth looking like that.
There were a few murmurs and whispers from the group as they drew close enough to get a better look at the charred trophy, but Nelken quickly silenced the chatter with a glare and a sharp chop of his hand.
Fifty feet out from the tunnel, Rachel saw something she hadn’t noticed on the comm zoom earlier—a pair of words scrawled across the inner surface of the tunnel wall near the entrance.
Drogan let out a soft growl before Rachel was close enough to finally make out what it said.
Vamps Beware.
“Easy, buddy,” Johnny murmured to Drogan. “If these guys are still in there, I’m guessing now’s not the time to let out the red eyes.”
Easy wasn’t the word Rachel would have used to describe the look on Drogan’s face after that, but he at least stopped growling as they paused outside the entryway.
The tunnel was more spacious than Rachel had gauged from a distance—probably wide enough to squeeze two of their trucks side by side, and tall enough to leave at least a few feet of clearance. She wondered if they shouldn’t have driven into the tunnel. The presence of the landmines outside said probably not. And, when she spotted what looked like tracks for a thick security door near the mouth of the tunnel, that uneasy train of thought only strengthened.
At least until they’d been hoofing it in the dark with comms and flashlights for what felt like half an hour.
To be fair, she might’ve been letting the claustrophobic pressure of yet another underground tunnel and the looming possibility of unfriendlies ahead warp her estimations. In reality, half an hour had probably been more like eight or nine minutes and no more than half a mile.
“Goddamn tunnels,” she muttered under her breath.
Drogan glanced at her but was too preoccupied to take any amusement from her discomfort.
Understandable enough, given the well-done raknoth hanging at the entrance of the tunnel they were currently padding blindly into.
Rachel tried to cling to the hope that they were about to march in to find a perfectly viable mountain bunker with no headaches whatsoever—human or otherwise.
An easy win, for once.
Was that so much to ask for?
The further they progressed, the more she was afraid it might be.
For one thing, Drogan seemed to be sniffing entirely too much for a long-abandoned tunnel. For another, Rachel couldn’t quite push away the feeling that the tunnel had been deliberately made to look like it was in a state of disuse.
Maybe it was claustrophobic paranoia, plain and simple.
Or maybe it was the fact that, despite the dusty silence of the tunnel, there was electricity flowing through one of the cables along the top of the ceiling’s arch. It was faint, barely a trickle, but it was there in her senses—a veritable lit match in otherwise perfect darkness.
When she told Nelken in a low murmur, he pointed out in an equally quiet voice that it might just be a residual system running on some automated, renewable power supply. Cameras, or something along those lines. But he seemed less than convinced by his own words. His telling her to keep an eye out was more than a little redundant.
Finally, their lights touched on a bend in the tunnel ahead. And there, at the elbow of the curve, was what looked to be Johnny’s ridiculously thick door.
“There it is,” Johnny whispered.
Gear and weapons rustled and clicked as their already tense group moved into full-on twitchy trigger finger territory.
Rachel honed in on the door as they approached, anticipatory combat adrenaline warring with her rational mind for control of her focus. As she began to take in the immense door with her extended senses, though, tingling apprehension shifted to hesitant hopefulness.
Because, while those faintly trickling power lines did bore into the concrete above the door and disappear to the edge of her cloak, the door itself and its archaic button panel were completely without power, as far as her senses could tell.
Was it possible?
Could this place really be on ice, just waiting for them with a subsystem or two still puttering along?
Nelken looked around at their assembled group, seeming to wonder the same thing.
“I think the door’s dead,” Rachel said to him, speaking quietly part out of residual fear someone might be watching and part out of some deep hesitance to disrupt the silence of the old concrete and stone.
“Might be a good sign,” he said. “Still …”
He stepped forward and pressed each of the three old buttons beside the door, waiting for a healthy ten count between each button.
A long silence stretched.
Slowly, and looking like he was positive it was an exercise in futility, Nelken raised his cane, gave the door three hard raps, and tried the buttons again.
“Right, then …” he finally said after another long wait. He looked back at the group. “Any ideas?” He focused on Rachel. “Think you could poke around and see—”
“Already on it,” Rachel said, sliding her eyes closed and sinking deeper into her extended senses.
She drifted through multiple feet of steel door and brushed across a seemingly endless number of mechanical tidbits behind.
“Ahh,” came Johnny’s voice, sounding distant as focused as she was. “And so we come to it. Mountain-dropping woman versus nuke-stopping door.”
Rachel opened her eyes and her mouth to tell him she was about to drop a mountain of boots in his ass if he didn’t let her work.
An electronic click sounded somewhere above the door and reverberated down the tunnel before she could.
They all tensed.
Weapons raising. Eyes darting, seeking incoming threats.
A hidden speaker?
If so, what were they waiting fo—
Another series of clicks, these ones mechanical.
Two sections of the flat wall ten feet to either side of the door fell open with a harsh pair of cracks, and suddenly the group was staring down a pair of heavy Gatling guns that looked like they belonged on a giant mech from some old Japanese cartoon.
As one, the guns spun up with a whirring promise of devastation to come.
Retribution: Book Four of the Harvesters Series Page 10