Angel allowed the vehicle to coast forward. She lowered her window and spoke into the metal box outside the gates. “Anyone home?”
Silence.
Angel leaned out of the window again, but before she could get a word out, a familiar voice answered.
“We don’t want any, not interested,” Cryx’s voice answered. “Unless you’re selling cub troop cookies. Then we can talk.”
“Cryx, Cryx, it’s me, Daniel,” I called, leaning toward the window. “Let us in.”
“There’s an alien invasion on our doorstep and this chick is talking about cookies,” Angel muttered under her breath.
“I could use a cookie right now.” Jax shrugged.
“Daniel?” Cryx asked incredulously. “I didn’t know you’d be back so soon.”
“Yeah, you and me both,” I said. “The gates?”
“Oh, right,” Cryx answered. “Opening them now. Wait until you see this place.”
The steel gates rolled back on a track and we were allowed access to the grounds. If it was possible, the yard and building looked even larger the closer we got. The grounds were mostly sand with the large body of water, which the bridge spanned over. The water was clear and clean.
Once we crossed the metal bridge, the sandy ground was decorated with statues of ancient warriors slaying mythical beasts. I saw a hero carved out of stone lifting a great sword to slay some troll in front of him to my left. On my right, a heroine with a lance speared a serpent creature with a series of heads.
“What was this lady into?” Jax asked for all of us.
“Not card games and knitting.” Preacher coughed from the back. “That’s for sure.”
“She was an explorer at heart,” I said, remembering the little I actually knew about the woman. “That’s how she was captured by the Voy in the first place. She was out exploring the far side of Mars.”
Angel rolled the vehicle forward to a set of wooden double doors that had to be two stories tall on their own.
As we approached, the doors swung inward. Cryx and Enoch walked out, both of them with smiles. Cryx actually looked pleased to see us. She wasn’t as strung out from the stim as the first time we met. She even looked like she had gotten some sleep and food in her.
We piled out of the vehicle as Enoch came to each of us and shook our hands ferociously.
“So glad to see each and every one of you,” Enoch said with a broad smile. “Daniel, thank you for providing us this place to stay. It is far more than we need. And there is room here to house so many.”
“Don’t thank me,” I said. “We owe Rose for this one.”
“Yes, of course,” Enoch replied. “But if it wasn’t for the Lord of the Way, you would never have met Rose, and you still had to find it in your heart to offer us this place.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re welcome,” I said, feeling uncomfortable under the gratitude. “Listen, we have an injured man in the back. Do you mind seeing to him?”
“Of course. The mansion is equipped with a state-of-the-art medical wing. We’ll have everything we need,” Enoch revealed, jumping into action.
“Great,” I said as Angel and Jax helped Preacher out of the vehicle.
He looked so much different from the mercenary I had seen in action. Pain lined Preacher’s face. With each step, I knew he bit back every grunt or wince.
“So how about some of that money?” Cryx said, coming up to me with a raised eyebrow. “Rose gave it to both of us.”
“Yeah, you clean?” I asked.
Cryx looked offended. “Listen, I know you met me when I was going through withdrawals, but I’m not some strung-out stim head all the time. I was in a phase of my life. Seriously, you can trust me with the money now.”
“Anyone who says ‘you can trust me with the money now’ probably shouldn’t be trusted with the money,” I answered. “But you do look better.”
Cryx was tall and slender with a series of tattoos over her body and a nose ring. Her hair was tied behind her head with a bandana. She still looked like trouble, but the redness was gone from her eyes and she looked like she had eaten.
“You sound like Brother Enoch,” Cryx mumbled under her breath. “These Way people are so nice, it’s scary.”
While Cryx was talking, my eyes caught motion just inside the building. A man— no, a machine—stood there staring at us. It looked like a human with legs, a torso, arms, and a head, but instead of skin, a shimmering silver glass ran over its body.
The machine, man, or whatever it was wore a black suit. He smiled at me and I grinned back despite myself.
“We have robots now?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s Bapz. He oversees the grounds,” Cryx explained. “You think that’s weird, you haven’t seen anything yet. Rose was my kind of woman. Wait until you see what she did for a hobby. Hey, can you teach me how to fight?”
Cryx was everywhere in her conversation. I had to wonder if the stim had one hundred percent left her system.
“One thing at a time,” I answered. “Let’s get Preacher inside. We have a larger bag of problems to handle than servant robots.”
Enoch led Angel and Jax, who supported Preacher inside the building.
Bapz nodded to them and smiled.
I could see questions on their lips, but right now, Preacher needed help and that kept them moving.
I stepped forward with Wesley and Cryx.
“Well met, Lord of Dragon Hold,” Bapz intoned with a deep bow. “My name is Bapz. I was created by your predecessor to oversee the care of the compound. I answer to you now. Anything you need, you have but to ask, my Lord.”
“We can cut out the ‘lord stuff,’” I told him. “Just Daniel. What are you Bapz? A robot?”
“Indeed, sir,” Bapz said with a comical salute. “I was made by Miss Cripps and her team. My name is an acronym for Battle Augmented Protector of Zen. I take care of the grounds here and anything else you might need.”
I rubbed my temples, trying to figure out where to even start.
The GG’s after Immortal Corp to hide the alien Invasion. The Voy will be here in 5 days’ time. Amber is still out there taken by the Order, I thought to myself. I actually felt my eye twinge. How long has it been since you slept? Since you ate?
“Daniel?” Cryx asked. By the sound in her voice, I could tell this wasn’t the first time she called my name. “Daniel, are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I said, taking a deep breath. “We need to make sure we’re safe here and no one knows that we’re at, at—what did you call this place again, Bapz?”
“Dragon Hold, sir,” Bapz responded. “Miss Cripps came up with the name.”
“Of course she did,” I said. “We need to make sure we’re safe here and that no one knows that we’ve taken up residence at Dragon Hold.”
“I assure you, you and your team are very well protected here,” Bapz answered. “Miss Cripps didn’t want to intimidate her neighbors, but the grounds have a fully functional security system around the perimeter. The turrets, rocket launchers, and force field shield are all hidden but easily accessible. There are other more experimental items of note included in the security of the compound if you’re interested.”
“We are but not right now,” Wesley answered. He looked at me. “You need some sleep; we both do. We should have someone like Angel or Jax monitor Immortal Corp’s back channel. Anyone who’s still alive should meet here.”
I was too tired to argue otherwise. I nodded once again, thinking about Amber and the Order.
“If we call a meeting of the companies here,” I inquired, “do you think they’ll all come?”
“I think by now their own assets have already been bringing them news,” Wesley determined. “They’ll have their own people inside the GG feeding them information. They’ll have hints at aliens and actual proof of the GG going after Immortal Corp. They’ll come.”
“If Jax can monitor the back channel, maybe Angel can set a meeting for
tomorrow night with all the corporations,” I said. “If we can get them to stand with us, then we won’t need the GG at all.”
“Agreed,” Wesley said, moving deeper into the compound then realizing he had no idea where he was going.
“Oh, sir, please allow me to show you,” Bapz said, moving into action. He walked just like any other human I had seen. “We wouldn’t want you taking a wrong turn and ending up in the alchemy room or with the gnomes.”
If I wasn’t so tired, I might have been able to discern if Bapz was joking right now. As it stood, I had no real idea.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” Cryx teased, entering the compound. “I’ll show you to your room.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things in my day, but Sleeping Beauty has never been one of them,” I said, following Cryx.
Soft dark red carpet greeted my tired feet as I traveled into the compound. The ceilings were high and made of stone with dark brown furniture all around and paintings of ancient battles taking place all over what I assumed was Earth.
Our voices echoed inside. The interior of Dragon Hold was so quiet.
“This place is so massive, you’ll need a map for the first few days, maybe even longer. I still get lost,” Cryx admitted.
She wasn’t kidding.
I followed her up a flight of stairs and then another after a few right turns and a left down a hall that was wide enough to allow four people to walk side by side. Massive windows let in the midday sun.
While we walked, we didn’t come across or even hear a single person, another testament to how truly gigantic this place really was.
“X, can you track this?” I wondered out loud. “This place has to be just as big as Immortal Corp.”
“Larger, in fact,” X said in awe. “I’m getting an underground level, maybe more and plenty of secret passages as well.”
“Oh yeah,” Cryx said, looking back at me. “I was leaning against a bookshelf the other day, and the whole thing turned sideways. I fell into a room full of weird armor. I thought it was going to be some kind of personal collection at first, but there was some serious weaponry in there too. They looked taken care of and ready for use.”
We finally made a hard right somewhere on the third floor and ended in a room.
“I already took the one with the best view, but you can have this one,” Cryx said. “It belonged to Rose. At least, that’s what Bapz told me.”
I studied the room. It wasn’t as massive as I would have thought for someone with so much money. A simple bed and dresser pushed up against the left side of the room with a closet on the right.
More windows showed a view of Athens below us on the hill. A washroom was set in the corner with a door for privacy.
“Well, get some sleep,” Cryx suggested, moving out of the room. “No offense, but you look like you’re coming down off your own stim high.”
“You can’t just say ‘no offense,’ and then say anything you want.” I looked at her with blinking tired eyes.
She grinned then closed the door behind me.
I fell onto the bed fully clothed.
“X, I muttered into the soft comforter.
“Yes, Daniel?” X answered.
“Do you think the GG killed the Founders?” I asked with a yawn. “That might be some silver lining in all of this.”
“I think there is a strong possibility, if they knew where they were in the first place,” X speculated. “Daniel, we have to be more careful. Now not only do the Voy want us dead, but our own government.”
“I know, I know,” I answered. I was going to say more, but sleep came for me, and with it, a visit from a new friend.
In this dream, I stood barefoot on the cold desert floor of Mars. All around me, the landscape stayed the same. Nothing but flat desert. The sun was overhead, but it was still cold.
“You’re kind of a magnet for violence, aren’t you?” a woman’s voice asked.
I turned around to see the same tall woman who had visited me in my dreams before. She wore a white dress. Her silver hair was pulled behind her head. Her gaze wasn’t unkind but neither was it warm.
“Story of my life,” I said to her. “Where are we?”
“Mars, in front of the Voy shield,” she said. “I want to show you something.”
The woman extended a hand.
I hesitated.
“I’m trying to help you, Daniel,” she said. “Let me help you.”
I took her hand, somehow already knowing I was going to regret the action.
Her palm was ice cold.
I would have dwelt on that point longer, but something was happening to us. We were sinking into the sand. The soft Martian ground that supported my weight a moment ago was suddenly giving up to it. My boots were fully immersed. The sand was crawling up my thighs.
I panicked, trying to break free of the woman’s grip while pulling my legs up.
“Gently.” The woman held on to my hand like a vise. “This is part of the plan. You must see it with your own eyes.”
Telling me to be calm as the sand crossed my waist and started to climb up my chest was an act in futility. I don’t know who in God’s red Mars would be calm while they were sucked into the ground itself.
I felt someone grab my opposite hand. This person’s palm was warm to the touch.
I looked over to see X beside me.
“It’s okay, I think I know what she’s doing,” X told me. She too began to sink.
I had gotten used to seeing X now in my dreams as well as in unconscious states, or like in Echo’s case, even when we were exploring someone else’s dreams.
In her human form, X was short with shoulder-length black hair. She wore a skintight blue bodysuit.
Holding her hand did give me comfort. The sand touched my neck.
I took a deep breath. My pulse pounded in my head.
You can’t really die in a dream, I told myself. At least, I hope you can’t die in a dream.
The sand filled my nose. I pressed my mouth tightly shut along with my eyes. The sand was cold; not as frigid as the woman holding my left hand, but cold nonetheless.
One moment I was being sucked under by the sand, the next I was falling.
I opened my eyes just in time to land on my butt in a gigantic cavern. We had traveled through the sand to an underground cave system. The cave system built by the Voy had bright white lights built into the walls. Giant stalactites and stalagmites both hung from the ceiling and rose from the floor like giant spikes of death.
I had not been to this section of the Voy encampment before.
The woman on my left, who I was positive was an alien, looked down at me with a faint smile. “On your feet. There is much to see.”
While I found my feet once more, I realized we weren’t alone. I couldn’t see anything in the underground cavern, but I did hear a strange noise. It sounded like something breathing.
Not a person or even a Voy; something large.
I did a three hundred and sixty degree turn, trying to figure out where the sound was emanating from. The light inside the cave walls gave off a bright glow, but that same glow was eventually lost to the darkness.
“That sounds like breathing, but it’s not any kind of breathing pattern I’ve ever tracked before,” X said. “It’s coming from the back of the cavern.”
“Perceptive as you are beautiful, AI,” the woman remarked. “He would be lost without you.”
“Come on, I’m not that much of a mess,” I said as I turned to look at what I thought was the rear of the cave.
X gently grabbed me by my shoulders and turned me in the opposite direction. “The rear of the cavern is this way.”
“I knew that,” I said.
I moved forward before either woman could make a comment. A giant stalagmite rose from the ground, blocking the area where the heavy breathing was coming from. Coincidentally, this was also where the Voy lights lost their battle to the darkness.
“What kind of c
razy alien monster are they cooking down here?” I asked myself out loud.
I walked around the giant rock in front of me. I steeled my nerves, prepared for anything. I wasn’t disappointed. I knew the Voy grew their soldiers from egg-like incubators. I had no doubt they could grow other creatures.
What I was surprised with was the size of the creatures.
Giant pulsating sacks that fluctuated with a blue light inside were the size of large vehicles. Each egg was nearly translucent, showing us a figure inside when the light pulsed brightly within.
The monsters were curled into balls, making it difficult to see what they would be in their true forms once free of the sacks.
Breathing came through the sacks as the creatures’ mouths were attached to tubes that opened outside their wombs.
“This is the true power of the Voy,” the alien woman said. “You had to see it for yourself to know it is the reality you now face. These creatures are ready to hatch at any moment. They will be ready for the invasion. They will grow quickly once out of their sacks.”
“The Galactic Government has no idea what they’re dealing with,” I uttered, running a hand through my hair. Frustration built inside me as an already bad situation went to hell in a handbasket.
I couldn’t even sleep without my day getting ruined.
“Who are you?” I asked, turning to the woman beside me. I wasn’t sure she deserved it, but she was the one bringing all the bad news, so I felt at least a little justified when I yelled at her. “You come with these warnings of doom, placing all of this on us, on me. Who are you?”
I clenched both fists at my side, trying to calm myself.
If I intimidated the woman at all, she didn’t show it.
“My name is Alerna,” Alerna said to me. “I understand you are under a great amount of stress. You were chosen because, at this point, you are the key. You are the one who holds the relationships with the powers that be to give humanity a chance.”
“Can these creatures be destroyed?” X asked as I gathered myself.
“Yes, but they are formidable beasts,” Alerna imparted. “Their hide is thick, and they will be capable of flying once they are born.”
Vendetta: A Near Future Thriller (Forsaken Mercenary Book 4) Page 5