A series of sharp, electronic cracking sounds echoed down the tunnel. Then the power died, casting the entire tunnel into pitch-black darkness so deep that even the extended spectrum of Fela’s optical sensors couldn’t offer much illumination.
“—let them knock all our defenses offline?” Jarek finished for the raknoth in a low mutter.
Al switched on Fela’s external lights before the light trill of panic crept too far up Jarek’s spine.
The raknoth were silent for a long second, listening.
Jarek did the same, and his heart quickened at what he heard. Heavy, loping steps. Quadruped.
Very large quadruped.
“The door,” Krogoth hissed.
They all set off at a sprint.
Krogoth was shouldering through the door to the entrance tunnel when soft red light flooded the space. Emergency lights.
They kept running.
Speakers snapped on along the tunnel and someone—that Mayor character, Jarek thought—managed a few words that sounded a whole hell of a lot like bad news. The speakers and the emergency lights cut out before the voice could finish telling them just how screwed they were.
They kept running, the raknoth flipping on what lights they had to add to the pool of illumination Fela cast out around them.
Ahead, the first of the two heavy vault doors stood half-open, leaving them plenty of room to slip into the front antechamber. And also plenty of room for the first nard-shriveling roar to reach their ears as they approached.
“Back!” someone was shouting up ahead. “Fall back!”
It didn’t sound like such a bad idea. Jarek charged through the breach alongside Drogan and Krogoth anyway.
Just as the giant hairless wolf-beast, Kul’Harga, plowed in straight through the men and raknoth who’d been trying to pull the main door shut on the other side of the antechamber.
Harga roared and snatched up one of the men with his powerful jaws. Krogoth snapped orders, and he, Drogan, and the other two raknoth fanned out around Harga as the big hairless beast padded into the room, holding the lifeless body in his jaws like a chew toy.
On Krogoth’s orders, the human soldiers fell back to get ready to close the huge secondary door. They just needed to keep Harga from shouldering into The Complex with them.
Jarek drew his sword and was stepping to join the raknoth when Al spoke in his ear.
“Sir, there’s something else in here.”
Al had barely finished the sentence when two of the men working beside Zach at the door controls were yanked violently and inexplicably into the air, bloody wounds appearing out of nowhere as if they’d been snagged by a pair of invisible meat hooks.
Al tweaked the spectrum on Jarek’s display, and the faint red shape of what looked something like an enormous praying mantis appeared behind the two men—it’s shape oily and uncertain even in the infrared, as if light simply didn’t behave as it should around the thing.
Was this the Kul’Shimo Rachel had told him about?
It hardly mattered. Chaos was taking the room.
Flashlight beams danced through the darkness as their allies scrambled to action. The raknoth harried Harga as a pack. Zach’s and Krogoth’s men frantically rushed for the entrance tunnel or to the futile aid of the two men dangling from the sharp, spiny forelegs of the invisible insectoid.
Shimo tossed the two men aside and impaled another for his efforts. Jarek stepped around a fleeing soldier and darted in to make the Kul pay for it.
He swung for the closest of Shimo’s stalky legs, which numbered four, not counting the front two which were only half-regrown after having allegedly been ripped off by Drogan. The Kul was fast. He scuttled clear of the strike and responded with a jab of his own, which scraped the armor of Jarek’s left shoulder as he barely twisted clear.
Whether it was a problem of duration or multitasking—or maybe just a point of pride or intimidation—Shimo dropped his camouflage as they moved into a rapid-fire exchange blows. It was difficult, trying to fight something that wasn’t even marginally humanoid. Jarek had no idea what to expect—how Shimo might move and attack, when his best chances were to catch the Kul off balance. It was all alien.
Jarek nearly paid for his unfamiliarity several times in the first few exchanges alone. And the throaty bellow of another Kul approaching the main door from outside reminded him that their situation was only about to get worse.
They needed to get out of the antechamber.
He was opening his mouth to suggest they do so with gusto when Shimo sprang forward unexpectedly.
Jarek staggered back, raising his sword to deflect the incoming stab. But Shimo jerked to a violent halt a few feet short.
“Now, Jarek Slater!” Drogan roared from somewhere behind the Kul.
Jarek was already stepping into a heavy diagonal cut, aiming to cleave Shimo’s buggy little face clean through between his big, bulbous eyes.
Shimo pivoted and swiped a hopeless foreleg up to slap the blow aside. Azure light flashed, and the Kul’s foreleg hit the ground, smoke rising from its severed end.
Jarek aimed another swing at Shimo’s head to silence the grating shriek for good, but the Kul bucked free of Drogan’s grip and scuttled clear.
Drogan planted a kick on Shimo’s thorax that sent the Kul sailing into the wall with a thud, and they whirled to evaluate the battle raging to their left. And not in their favor, it turned out.
Kul’Harga had Krogoth pinned on his back, eager jaws and gleaming fangs a mere foot from the raknoth’s head, held at bay only by Krogoth’s strong hands on the Kul’s throat.
“Go!” Krogoth roared at the two raknoth preparing to rush to his side.
Krogoth was strong, but Harga was stronger. The Kul’s gaping jaws were slipping closer and closer to engulfing Krogoth’s head.
Jarek and Drogan exchanged a single glance, painfully aware of the sounds of Shimo recovering behind them and yet another heavy Kul nearing the main door. Then they rushed for Krogoth and Harga, side by side.
Krogoth, seeing them coming, gave a great, roaring heave and managed to get his feet up and planted under Harga’s thick chest like the world’s most terrifying leg press.
Harga growled and snapped his jaws, crimson eyes burning brighter as he redoubled his efforts.
Then Krogoth kicked.
At a rough estimate, Harga must’ve weighed at least three or four tons. That didn’t keep him from nearly hitting the high ceiling of the antechamber at the end of his flight.
Krogoth was already rolling to his feet. Drogan grabbed his arm, Jarek grabbed the other, and they pulled Krogoth along against his growling protests, hurrying back for the second security door.
The ground shook with the force of Harga’s landing behind them. The patter of Shimo’s scuttling legs drew closer. A bellow erupted from the main door, where their reinforcement—Ogrin, from the sound of it—had arrived.
Krogoth wasn’t resisting now. Together, the three of them darted through the crack of the security doorway. Krogoth’s raknoth were waiting on the other side to pull the enormous door shut as soon as they cleared it.
Something that sounded Harga-sized slammed into the door, followed a second later by another angry Kul. The door wavered with each hit—not exactly loose on its hinges, given the sheer mass of the thing, but definitely not locked either. And without power …
Another floor-shaking thud hit the door.
With the threat of death relegated from immediate to just uncomfortably close, Jarek’s adrenaline and Drogan’s waning stimulant cocktail dipped enough for the throbbing ache in his leg to reclaim its spot as profoundly unpleasant.
They needed to get the damn door locked.
“This is where we could use an arcanist,” Jarek muttered.
“But we do not have one here,” Drogan said.
“Yeah, thanks for that, Stumpy.” He looked around. “Anybody else got a bright idea?”
“We should be able to get some of th
e systems back online in utilities,” Zach said. “Enough to lock the door at least. Depending on the damage back there. Until then, though, we’re sitting—”
Krogoth lunged forward with a deep roar and punched straight through the multi-inch thick acrylic that paneled the back of the enormous door. That done, he jammed himself arm-deep into the door’s internal cavity and started manually shoving the thick steel tumblers in place, one by one.
“Yeah …” Jarek said slowly. “That works too.”
“Rally the others,” Krogoth said to Jarek and Drogan, deadly calm. “And you,” he added to Zach, “You restore your systems. I will see to it the door holds until then.”
Zach bristled at being ordered around by one of the creatures whose kind he’d apparently taken to be actual demons up until only a day ago. But apparently he was pragmatic enough to recognize this wasn’t the time to argue. Or maybe he’d just been whipped unnaturally hard into shape by “Mayor Dillard” in the past twenty-four hours. Either way, Zach took his men and hurried back to the main body of The Complex.
Jarek and Drogan followed and quickly passed them.
He was about to ask Al to try to get Rachel on a short range comm channel when he remembered he had a much more direct method running right beside him.
“Can you radio ahead to Rachel, Stumpy?” Jarek asked.
“I have already informed her of recent developments,” Drogan said.
“Great. What’d she say?”
“That the Enochians have perished.”
Jarek nearly fell over as he whipped around to face Drogan. “What?! What do you mean, perished?”
“I do not yet know,” he said, frowning. “She is … quite distraught.”
“You think?” Jarek cried.
If the Enochians were really gone …
“We would be wise to get over there promptly.”
“No shit,” Jarek muttered, shaking his head as they reached the next door.
Whatever happened, he’d meant what he’d said the other day.
Nothing was going to tear him away from Rachel again.
Whatever happened, they’d face it together.
So Jarek pushed through the doorway, ignoring the periodic jolts of pain in his leg, and kept running.
31
Jarek’s mind was a screaming torrent of long shots and hopeless prayers as he loped painfully along beside Drogan. He’d been more than a little skeptical about Operation Enochian Super Soldier since Rachel had first explained it to him by comm a few weeks ago. But he’d trusted Rachel when she’d told him she believed it was their best hope at gaining a surprise advantage. He’d even started to believe himself once he’d seen the changes Haldin and Elise had gone through.
And now the rakul were here in force, literally pounding down their front door, and the Enochians simply perished?
“Teach me to ever get my hopes up again,” Jarek muttered.
“As I tried to explain to Rachel Cross,” Drogan said, not breaking stride, “it is possible that this is a part of the process.”
“Possible or likely?”
Drogan hesitated. “Possible.”
“Great. Real helpful.”
“There is hardly adequate precedent by which to judge,” Drogan growled as they barreled into the tunnel Jarek was pretty sure was the right one.
Snippy. Apparently Jarek wasn’t the only one who’d been starting to hope. And he certainly wasn’t the only one who was on the verge of losing it.
The feel inside the Enochians’ barracks was one of rampant panic. Jarek had heard the thuds before they reached the door. As he stepped in, he saw that Rachel was pounding on Haldin’s chest, and Franco was similarly applying rhythmic compressions to Elise’s.
At the sound of their entrance, Johnny and Phineas whipped around and trained weapons on them, their eyes shocked and frantic behind the sights of their rifles.
Jarek spread his hands, and they lowered the weapons, looking no less panicked. It wasn’t the threat of intruders they feared right now.
Rachel and Franco hadn’t looked up—hadn’t noticed them at all, occupied as they were.
“Rache,” Jarek said softly, sliding in behind her.
She kept at it. Rolled her shoulder out from under his hand when he touched her.
Jarek looked back at Drogan, who was leaned over Elise, inspecting her closely. Franco broke away from his compressions to shoot a desperate look at Drogan.
“Will compressions help?” Jarek asked the raknoth.
“I do not know.”
Jarek stared dumbly at Drogan for a moment, then turned and gently shouldered in past Rachel. “Here, let me.”
She fought for a second, then scooted aside and leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh. Behind him, Jarek heard Drogan similarly take over for Franco, though Franco didn’t collapse to rest—just hovered there, frozen in shock and horror.
For a long stretch, no one said anything, and there was nothing but the rhythmic groans of protest from the pair of cots and the sounds of distant tumult out in the tunnels.
Haldin’s chest gave about as readily as steel plating. It was a wonder Rachel hadn’t broken her fists pounding on it like she had been. Maybe she had.
“What’s our next step?” Jarek forced himself to ask as he worked, trying to keep his voice level, confident. “We’ve got three at the front entrance, already past the first door. We’ve got at least two more outside, probably more than that.”
He paused to see if anyone would add their input.
They didn’t.
Not until Drogan spoke up.
“I am in communication with my kin. They believe they are converging on the last of Kul’Vermaga’s insurgents. Our allies have restrained the others afflicted. And the people of The Complex are busy at work restoring the essential systems.”
“We’ve gotta do something,” Jarek said. “I have a feeling that door’s not gonna hold for long.” He looked at Rachel, trying to catch her eye.
She was too busy staring at the floor, dejected.
“You said there’s a back door, right?” he asked. “A private lift?”
Rachel closed her eyes, seemed to pull herself back from somewhere far away, then met his gaze, somber but resolute, and nodded.
“You wanna go out there?” Johnny asked.
“That is madness,” Drogan agreed.
“Madder than waiting to face down a giant wolf, a ’roid-raging gargoyle, and the praying mantis from hell in an enclosed tunnel?” Jarek shot back. “God knows who else is about to join the party. Gada can’t be far behind.”
“Perhaps you have a point,” Drogan said.
“It’s not like we’re gonna be able to work the funnel angle in here. Not against them. But we’ve got the agility.”
“You have a hole in your leg,” Drogan said.
“You’ve got the agility, then. And the rest of your kin, too. At least out there you can use it. We go up. We get to open ground, lead them south. Maybe we even give our bystanders a chance to slip out the north portal.”
“And what about my daughter?” Franco asked, his tone so flat and lifeless Jarek couldn’t help but wince.
Drogan gave Elise another three compressions before answering, slowly. “If this state is an intended part of the process …” He seemed to rethink his words with uncharacteristic restraint. “Al’Braka and Shieth’Lietha would not have deliberately ended the process without a plan. And if it was unintentional … Even if Haldin Raish, Elise Fields, and my kin yet live in some capacity, I do not believe there is anything in our power left to do for them.”
Jarek glanced back and immediately wanted to turn away from the raw, shocked pain radiating from Franco’s pale face. He looked like he couldn’t remember how to breathe. Like a father who’d just realized he’d lost his daughter—for good this time.
Drogan had stopped applying compressions.
Jarek realized with a tinge of guilt that he’d stopped compressing Haldin’
s chest as well, almost without thinking about it. Rachel looked for a second like she wanted to argue, but she couldn’t.
The two Enochians were cold, pale. Utterly still.
Whatever had happened, if there was still any flicker of life in there, it was up to them now. But every moment they sat here was one less moment to do something before a squadron of rakul burst into The Complex and annihilated what few of them were left to resist.
So Jarek forced himself to stand, suppressing a wince of pain, and offered Rachel a hand. She took it and rose nearly as stiffly as he had.
“What … What do we do with them?” Johnny asked softly. He stumbled back and dropped heavily onto a storage crate, looking as dejected as Franco, his empty gaze locked on Haldin. “We can’t leave them here.”
“No,” whispered Franco quickly, desperately. Then, more loudly, “No. We take them with us.”
Drogan wordlessly began to scoop Elise up, but Phineas stepped in and bade him move with a stoic stare. Drogan stepped respectfully back to allow him room.
Judging from what he’d felt of Haldin’s build and what he knew of the density of the average raknoth, Jarek was guessing Elise, who’d already been tall and built like a warrior, must weigh nearly three hundred pounds now, if not more. Phineas didn’t complain, though. Just hefted her laboriously up across his beefy shoulders with a little help from Franco, stumbled once, then stood waiting, resolute and ready to move.
Right, then.
Jarek glanced at Johnny, seeing if the Enochian had any ambition to try to do the same with Haldin. He probably would’ve liked to, but he seemed to understand it wasn’t physically feasible, especially loaded with weapons and gear as he was. So Jarek scooped Haldin up over his armored shoulder and turned for the door.
His guess about Elise had probably been close enough. At a rough estimate, Haldin weighed a good three-hundred and fifty pounds. It should have been bizarre, but Jarek was getting used enough to dealing with raknoth by now. The much more important question was where they were headed and exactly what they were going to do when they got there.
Retribution: Book Four of the Harvesters Series Page 28