Scum of the Universe (Fire and Rust Book 7)

by Anthony James

  “Here goes.”

  The door opened and the shooting began, seemingly from all directions. Atomar’s chain gun thudded out a fusillade of bullets, its silencer degrading with each shot. The room was similar to the last and Conway got a shot into one of the Raggers inside.

  Return fire clattered against the frame and enemy bullets struck the wall opposite. The heat was too much for Atomar and he was forced into full cover.

  “Grenade,” he said, pointing forcefully past Conway to indicate the direction. “Six meters.”

  Conway ripped one of his grenades free, activated it and hurled it through the doorway without exposing anything more than his hand and forearm. No sooner had he thrown the first than Conway had a second ready and on its way after.

  The first grenade went off with a whump.

  “Hostiles towards the lift, sir,” said Lockhart. “Numbers unknown.”

  The second grenade went off and Conway charged into the room. He felt something skim past him at the same moment as he was aware of the discharge sound.

  “No inbound fire coming from the other way,” said Barron.

  Conway saw movement amongst the rapidly dissipating smoke. It was a Ragger, firing from behind a floor-mounted console, its shots wild and badly aimed. The grenades had gone off on top of the console, scarring it with heat, but hadn’t done the job. He crouched as low as he could and crawled awkwardly over the body of a Ragger with most of its head blown off, doing his best to avoid becoming smeared in gore.

  The living Ragger dropped out of sight and Conway heard a magazine sliding free. He scrambled across the floor and around the console, just as the enemy stood once more. The Ragger pointed its gun towards the door and fired.

  It doesn’t realize I’m here.

  A single shot in the head and it was down, leaving the room clear.

  “Freeman!”

  “On my way.”

  Freeman could piss about infuriatingly at times, but here he was all business. He walked rapidly around the room’s perimeter, stopping twice to make a closer inspection of the Ragger consoles. When Freeman dropped into a crouch and peered at one of the panels, Conway thought they’d hit gold.

  “Shit, not here, sir. I thought for a moment…”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  The gunfire in the passage was in a lull, though Conway wasn’t fooled. The facility defenses were mobilizing and his squad would be overrun quickly if they didn’t find what they were after and then get away.

  Once he exited the room, Conway ordered a sprint for the next door - this one twenty meters beyond the last. Lieutenant Rembra went first, wide enough to fill much of the corridor. Conway wasn’t far behind when the Fangrin ran into something – a Ragger soldier – coming the other way. Rembra must have weighed nearly twice as much as a Ragger and he recovered first, sending a five-second burst from his chain gun along the corridor.

  Then Rembra was moving again, his feet skidding across the blood-slick floor. Conway stumbled over an unseen corpse, righted himself and almost fell again, his momentum too much to control. With an effort, he steadied himself and made it to the door. He heard gunfire from ahead, answered by a storm of bullets from Rembra.

  “Let’s get this.”

  The ten seconds required by the intrusion software felt like a lifetime and Conway grimaced, expecting the sporadic gunfire to become a fusillade at any moment.

  “Done.”

  With a muffled whine of motors, the door slid open and Conway’s finger tightened on his trigger. He swore at the sight of steps leading up to an open space a few meters above. A sign bore the same word that he’d seen earlier. Receiving. Like fate was taking him there and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  Conway sprinted up the steps and saw enough to believe that this was as good a way as any – certainly better than being caught in a crossfire back in the corridor.

  “In!” he shouted.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The area at the top of the stairs looked as if it was meant to fulfill an important function, though Conway didn’t know what that was. Consoles in different shapes and sizes crowded the floorspace and a row of six huge screens received feeds from other parts of the facility. One caught his eye at once – the display showed a squat cylinder covered in the same glowing patterns as the pillars outside. He guessed it was either the teleport power supply or the teleport hardware itself.

  Conway didn’t spend more than a split second on the feeds. The room was busy with Ragger personnel and they looked agitated. Without remorse, Conway shot those who were closest, prioritizing the few who carried guns. The aliens fired back, but they didn’t know where he was and their bullets went wide. A part of Conway’s mind recognized that the entrance was hidden from the main floor, meaning the Raggers had been taken by complete surprise.

  Kemp, Torres and Barron were next up the steps and they assisted Conway. The suppressors on their rifles weren’t providing much sound deadening anymore and the Gilner discharge was loud.

  The job was done before the rest of the squad made it up the steps from the corridor and Conway had already spotted a row of interface ports on the console nearby.

  “Secure the area,” he said. “Lock down every exit.”

  Two further exits led from the room and members of the squad hurried over. The intrusion software could disable locks as well as it could open them and Conway wanted to buy some time for the data extractor to do its work.

  “My time to shine,” said Freeman, shrugging out of his pack next to the console.

  “This is what we need, right?” asked Conway.

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  Freeman tugged a few cables from the extractor pack and sized up the interface port.

  “Don’t tell me – either too big or too small?” asked Conway impatiently.

  “This one’s just right,” Freeman answered, pushing the end of one cable into the port with an audible click.

  With that done, he stooped and plugged the other end into the data extractor. Conway looked at the top-mounted display, which currently read Inactive. 0%.

  “Let’s get this baby working,” said Freeman, pushing a green button on top.

  He stepped back and pointed at the display. Conway looked.

  Extracting. 1%.

  Conway requested a channel to the Raider at the same moment as Lieutenant Rembra announced that all three of the exits were sealed.

  “We’ve started the extraction,” he said. “Corporal Freeman isn’t able to estimate the time to completion – something to do with file types and encryption.”

  “Do you have a clear run to the exit?” asked Kenyon.

  “I don’t think it’s going to be easy. Not since the alarm went off.”

  “Once you’re out, make your way to the deployment area. That’s the place we’ve got the most chance of escaping notice.”

  “You reckon?”

  “Maybe. Who knows?”

  Conway shut off the channel and resisted the urge to check the extractor’s progress, knowing it would drive him mad.

  “Four percent, sir,” said Freeman, trying to be helpful.

  “Is that good or bad?” Conway growled.

  Freeman shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. Sorry, sir.”

  Rather than stand watching a data cube, Conway walked away to check on his squad and to see if the room held anything of interest. His soldiers were in good order and the kit in the room was as alien in function as he was accustomed to. Something caught his eye – a Ragger lay face-down on top of a flat-topped console and it was holding an object he recognized. Conway stepped closer and spotted other objects that he also recognized, these ones resting on top of the console.

  “Shit!” he said. “Freeman! Get your ass over here. Now!”

  In the few seconds it took Freeman to cross the floor, Conway ripped the tablet from the Ragger’s death gri
p. It was a ULAF handheld, complete with ULAF writing on the screen. He put it down and reached for a ten-inch cube on top of the console. At first glance, he’d believed it to be integrated with the panel, but now he saw that it was just resting there, connected by a wire.

  “This looks like our stuff, sir.”

  “That’s exactly what it looks like.” Conway read the display on top of the cube. “Null, null, null. Why is it saying that?”

  Freeman ripped the wire from the cube with a sharp movement of his hand. The display changed to Input Access Code?

  “The Raggers were attempting to decrypt the contents of this cube, sir.”

  “Were they successful?”

  Freeman’s expression was uncertain. “I don’t know, sir. I think maybe we got here in time.”

  “What about these other pieces of ULAF tech?” said Conway, pointing at the handheld. “And there are more tablets over here.”

  He organized a search while leaving enough soldiers to watch the entrances. In less than two minutes, they’d located three more data cubes and another half-dozen handhelds.

  “There won’t be much on the tablets,” said Freeman. “They aren’t used for data storage. These cubes on the other hand…”

  Conway eyed one of the cubes. It was heavy and he didn’t like the idea of carrying four of them out of the facility. “If it’s got our data on, we won’t need them back. How can we destroy them?”

  “I don’t think we can, sir. You could put a dozen bullets into one of those things and the Raggers might still be able to pull some data out of it.”

  “We’ll bring them with us.”

  “How’d they get here, sir?” asked Freeman.

  “Damned if I know.” Conway gave it some thought. “We felt the teleporter activate. Maybe the Raggers teleported them in. That’s why they haven’t got through the encryption yet.”

  “They must have stolen them. I’d be interested to find out where.”

  “Me too, Corporal. I don’t think there’s much we can do about it from our current position.”

  Conway hurried to the data extractor. It was still going and the display informed him it was 48% full.

  “It’s filling up faster than I expected,” said Freeman. “These Raggers aren’t accustomed to species who fight back – their security encryption is shit because they don’t expect anyone to come and grab their stuff.”

  “Sir, I can hear noises this way,” called Sergeant Lockhart from the top of the steps. “Crap – the door’s heating up.”

  “They’re about to cut through,” said Conway. “What about those other doors?”

  “Nothing here,” said Lieutenant Rembra.

  Atomar’s report was the same. “Clear this side.”

  “How long on that door, Sergeant?”

  “It’s a thick piece of alloy, sir.”

  “Does that mean you don’t know?”

  “That’s exactly what it means, sir. I’ll shout up when I have a better idea.”

  “Private Lester! Plant some charges, ready for remote detonation.”

  “Yes, sir. Any target in particular?”

  “All of it.”

  The data extractor crept up another eight percent. Having come so far, Conway was reluctant to leave without taking maximum advantage of the opportunity. He stood near to the extractor, drumming his fingers and watching the feeds in case they gave away the movement of the Raggers.

  “I think these buttons tap into different feeds, sir,” said Freeman, pointing at a row of buttons. It was difficult to make out their color in the red alarm light.

  “Reckon you can get a map out of this thing?” asked Conway, pressing one of the buttons.

  “Not this one, sir. That one over there.”

  “Because I don’t think we’ll be going back the way we came, Corporal.”

  “I’ll get on it.”

  Conway pressed another button and the far-left screen changed to show a corridor somewhere in the facility. A squad of Raggers hurried towards the monitoring sensor and disappeared from sight. The next feed gave a similar story. Any chance the squad would escape was diminishing rapidly.

  “Corporal Freeman, have you located that map?”

  “No sir. It’ll require more than the twenty seconds you gave me.”

  “You missed your chance. Pick up that extractor – we’re getting out of here.”

  The soldiers knew the danger and they were ready to move out in seconds. Conway pointed his finger at four volunteers and told them to take a data cube each.

  “The rest of you grab one of those handhelds. I don’t see why we should leave anything behind for the Raggers. Private Lester, how are those charges coming on?”

  Lester’s head popped up from behind a console. “I’m not done, sir.”

  “Don’t waste time hiding them. Just put them somewhere.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  While Lester finished up, Conway watched the volunteers pick up the data cubes. They were an encumbrance the soldiers didn’t need.

  “Screw it – put those data cubes underneath that console over there. Lester’s charges will be enough to destroy them.”

  As he spoke, Conway looked questioningly at Freeman.

  “Yes, sir, those explosives will do the job.”

  “Good.”

  While the others slid the data cubes out of sight, Conway approached the southern exit from the room. It was locked against the Raggers but the intrusion software could unpick its own knots easily enough. He checked the positioning of his squad.

  “When I open this door, put a few bullets through the opening.”

  The Ragger teleport hardware activated first. Pressure built suddenly and Conway tensed in preparation for the discomfort. It came and he shrugged it away angrily.

  Keeping to one side of the door, he disabled the lock and commanded the door to open. The soldiers fired a short burst and stopped.

  “Clear,” said Rembra.

  Conway looked around the corner into a short corridor leading to another door and gritted his teeth at the sight.

  “Cover me.”

  He sprinted along the ten-meter length of the corridor and stopped at the door. Ten seconds was enough to have it open and Conway hurled himself through in order to minimize his chance of being struck by inbound fire. He heard weapon discharge – a mixture of Ragger, Fangrin and human all rolled into one.

  With his brain struggling to make sense of his surroundings, Conway scrambled clear of the doorway. He was in a room of horrors – a scattering of human bodies dressed in the vacuum-proof suits of Unity League scientists lay on the floor in front of him, blood crusting around the wounds on their bodies.

  Following a short exchange of gunfire, six Raggers added to the dead and when Conway heard the all-clear, he clambered to his feet and looked around. The room was longer than it was wide at five meters by ten. The human corpses lay in front of three open doors which led to what Conway imagined to be cells. He looked inside one – it was compact, furnished with a bench, and not much else.

  From this main room, an exit led south.

  “The Raggers are not kind to their prisoners,” said Lieutenant Rembra, gesturing with the barrel of his gun.

  “They might have been kinder if we hadn’t come this way. These were killed recently.”

  “That is not our burden to carry.”

  The Fangrin was right, but Conway didn’t feel any better for hearing the words. He crouched next to one body – a woman dressed in a different uniform to the others - and turned it over so that he could see through the visor. Conway’s intention was to record an image of her face, in order that the ULAF could identify the members of the group later.

  He blinked at the sight.

  “I know this one. It’s Captain Holly Christensen – she did a presentation that I was obliged to attend.”

  “And now she is dead,” said Atomar. “She cares no longer.”

  Conway did care, though he’d hardly said m
ore than a few words to Christensen. With a sigh, he rose to his feet and took photos of another two of the dead personnel and saved the images to his suit databank. At least the Raggers hadn’t started feeding. Conway wasn’t sure he could have handled that right now.

  He ordered his squad to seal the doors behind and then updated the crew of the Raider about what they’d found in the facility. Lieutenant Kenyon had questions and Conway told him the answers would have to wait.

  When the channel closed, he ordered Private Lester to set off the explosives. The two intervening doors were enough to contain the blasts, though Conway heard the sound well enough.

  With the data cubes out of action, and hopefully a few dozen Raggers likewise, he was left wondering how he was meant to get out of the facility with a horde of enemy soldiers on the lookout. As usual, it would come down to shooting aliens.

  It was a task for which Conway felt entirely suited.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The squad exited the holding area, leaving the murdered science team behind, and entered a series of crisscrossing passages, with many rooms and steps leading up and down. Conway relied on his sense of direction and led the soldiers across two intersections, listening carefully for stealth-suited Raggers. The task was made harder by the movement of other Raggers – these ones were visible, but they carried guns and were on the watch for intruders.

  So far, the enemy gave every indication they didn’t have any solid intel on exactly what was happening and Conway planned to make the most of their confusion.

  “I don’t think they know we have stealth suits,” he said. “That last group went straight up the middle of the passage. They should run three abreast so we can’t sneak by.”

  Conway had no idea how he’d ever survived without his stealth suit. It was the same trap the Raggers had fallen into long ago and he gave himself a mental poke. This was a reliance that could see him killed once the crutch was gone.

  “We really stirred this place up,” said Barron.

  Conway looked around the corner of a side passage and into the main corridor. Left, Raggers. Right, more Raggers. And those were only the visible ones.