The alien died before he reached the hole in his belly, and the commander turned toward the others, who now crouched at the foot of the far wall. They’d covered their heads with their hands, and some tried to cover smaller versions of themselves with their bodies.
Their efforts were utterly futile. Between the flame throwers carried by the commandos and the lightning wielded by the Talents, none of them survived.
“Is that all?” the officer demanded and looked around the room.
The head Talent nodded. “My people took care of those waiting in the corridor. This level is clear bar the technicians—and they have barricaded themselves in the control room.”
Remembering the screams from behind a closed door, he looked at her.
“Can you deal with the technicians before we open the door?” he asked.
“Of course, as soon as I am close enough to sense their minds.”
Remembering that she had no armor, he signaled her to fall in behind him. “Follow me.”
The other two Talents moved to stand beside her, and his men closed in to guard the rear. As a tight squad of six, they trotted to the corridor’s far end.
“Tell me when to stop,” he ordered and kept his voice low.
She didn’t respond, but when he glanced at her, he saw her brow furrowed with concentration—as if she was human and couldn’t focus on two things at once.
He snorted softly and the impossibility of that—she would never be human.
“You can stop,” the Talent murmured. “I can sense them now.”
She reached out and touched each of the other Talents’ shoulders lightly before they all bowed their heads and screams erupted behind the closed door.
The commander had the foresight to plant his boot against the base of the door and lean into it. Something pounded into the other side, and the scream became a shriek that seemed to linger long after the sound had stopped.
When the echo of it had died and he realized how quiet it had become, he moved his boot away and pulled the door open.
There appeared to be ten bodies in all, although it was hard to tell. Some had melted together. As he crossed to the control panel, the Talents followed him in and stopped to admire their handiwork.
The two juniors reached across the pile and high-fived each other. Their superior smiled indulgently and shook her head, her brown eyes solemn as she scanned the room.
The commander wondered if she was scanning him too and decided she wouldn’t dare. Such invasions of human personnel were illegal and punishable by death.
He opened a communications link to the ship.
“We’re in.”
“It’s been four minutes and the shields are still up. What’s keeping you?”
With a scowl, he signaled to the Talents and pointed at the controls.
“Your field will be down in five…four…”
As he began his count, power surged over the Talents’ arms and they raised them palms up, facing the control panel.
“We can also destroy the generators,” their leader informed him, “but after that, we will need assistance to return to the dropship.”
“Do it,” he ordered, and their eyes blazed and lightning surged from their hands.
Sparks and smoke erupted from the control panel, and the senior Talent turned to him. “The generators are at the other end of the corridor.”
He moved toward the door and checked to make sure the corridor was clear before he allowed his team out. It was unoccupied, as was the generator room. After a moment’s thought, he decided he didn’t want to carry an unconscious body, so he glanced at the Talents and raised a hand.
“Why don’t we let the engineers handle this? You look about out.”
That earned him a grateful smile, and the senior Talent signaled her juniors to stand down. They moved out of the way of the commandos.
“Give us five minutes to get clear and turn them into scrap,” he ordered.
The engineers nodded and went to work.
“You can have more of a head start if you leave now, sir,” one of them said when he noticed the commander was still there. “We’ll catch up.”
He took a moment to think about that, and then nodded and snapped a look at the tired Talents.
“Follow me,” he ordered and activated his comms as he took them to the stairs.
“I need an escort for three Talents,” he said when Operations Central came on the line.
The comms officer’s first question made him scowl.
“What? No. Of course not, but they’re almost tapped out, and I don’t want them to fall over until they’re somewhere safe.”
They reached the foot of the stairs and he jogged up, aware of the Talents struggling in his wake. He didn’t look back, though. They needed to be at the top of the stairs and on their way to the entrance by the time the engineers caught up to them.
There was no way he wanted to explain to his boss how he’d managed to blow up three of the Regime’s prized Talents before a major battle. There were penalties for not taking care of Navy equipment.
They were half-way to the foyer when the engineers caught up.
“We have to hurry, sir,” one explained as he slowed long enough to drag a Talent’s arm over his shoulder.
His colleague did the same, which left the commander to deal with the senior Talent. He dropped back and wound an arm around her waist to pull her close as he looped her arm over his shoulder.
As he ran down the corridor with her, he couldn’t help but think while she obviously wasn’t human, she gave a very good imitation of it. He kept his arm around her as they cleared the foyer and ran down the steps of the main building.
The scene that greeted them reminded him of hell. The blue skies had turned a dirty yellow and dark smoke billowed from several of the surrounding buildings.
A small group of men jogged out of the buildings to meet him.
“Where’s the rest of your squad?” their leader demanded.
“With the medics,” he replied and hoped it was true.
As he spoke, the earth shook beneath his feet and he turned. The building behind them rocked and shuddered, then crumbled inward as the ground gave way beneath it.
One of the engineers cleared his throat and began to shuffle toward the edge of the square. “We need to go, sir.”
His partner was already moving closer to the same position, taking his Talent with him. The commander followed and kept his Talent close. Perhaps he should look her up when they both had some downtime.
The thought hadn’t occurred to him before, but it did now for some unaccountable reason. He hauled her to the edge of the square and waited until the escort squad caught up.
Another rumble behind them was loud enough to draw their attention, and one of the engineers whispered, “The shields are down, sir.”
The commander relayed that to the ship and turned to the leader of the new squad. “I need reinforcements.”
The man glanced at his group and jerked his head toward the gate. “I’ll see if there are any spares the medics think are fit. Most of the squads have been changed about.”
“There are no hostiles left in this area,” the senior Talent told them.
“Are you sure?” the new squad’s leader asked his fellow commander.
“She hasn’t been wrong yet.”
They took his word for it and the twelve of them hurried to the dropships. Before they could reach them, the ship above opened fire on the remaining wall turrets and the sky burned with new flames.
Light flashed in several sharp beams and sections of the wall exploded. Gun crews screamed as they were flung into the air. Those who the beams caught directly vanished into the destruction.
The commander followed his escort to the Talents’ dropship and made sure they clambered inside. He turned away as they buckled themselves in, but only after he’d seen them close their eyes. They’d been wearier than any of them had indicated.
“Where
to now?” he asked and turned his attention to his fellow commander.
“Command ship,” the other answered shortly. “That’s where I’ve ordered the spares to gather.”
They returned, unaware of the scene playing out on the other side of the outpost where Navy forces had found the humans.
They’d taken note of the alarms and headed to the bunker that had been built to keep them safe. Halfway there, they’d seen men in green uniforms advancing through the smoke and scattered, and each found a hiding place in the nearest house.
One such group had taken shelter in a classroom, huddled close to the wall under the window as heavy boots tramped through the building. As they drew closer, one of the women pointed to the door at the rear of the room and gestured toward it.
As they started to shift away, she picked up the blaster she’d placed on the floor beside her.
“Go,” she whispered to the boy who remained close to her side. “Go on now.”
She hugged him and dropped a quick kiss on his head before she pushed him after the other families. One of the men hesitated.
“Em…” he said, and she scowled at him.
“We both know you can’t use one of these, Dex. Keep my boy safe.”
He looked like he might argue, but the door rattled, and Em ducked behind the barricade of desks she’d made. She didn’t look back but raised the blaster and sighted on the door.
Neither did she notice when the others reversed and slowly returned to the room behind her, not until Dex bumped into her.
“I thought I told you to go,” she snapped, but his fingers prodded her shoulder and she looked around in irritation. Her gaze noticed the rest of her group, all of whom now looked at the door behind them. “What is it?” she whispered.
“They’re outside,” Dex told her. “Waiting.”
“Waiting?” Her heart sank.
“Yeah, they were watching the door. We couldn’t get past.”
“Well, we can’t—” she began as the door crashed inward.
Em whipped her blaster up and wondered how many she could eliminate and if she’d be lucky and only face a few. The soldier that came through the door made her breath catch with relief.
“Thank God! You’re Navy!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The woman looked at the group behind her. “We’re saved.”
The soldier raised his blaster and fixed her squarely in his sights. “Not exactly, ma’am.”
She turned to him and her eyes widened. “But…we’re human. Aren’t you here to save us?” She looked at the other soldiers who’d filed in through the back door while she’d talked. “Well, aren’t you?” Her gaze settled on a soldier whose battle armor bore the stripes of a commander. “You’re not…with the pirates, are you?”
“No, ma’am.”
Relief flitted over her features. “Then you must save us. We’re human like you!”
Her voice took on a desperate edge as the commander raised his blaster.
“Like you, we are human, and here to further the cause of Humanity,” he told her, and his gaze noted the way the group’s uncertainty began to give way to fear.
He pulled the trigger to leave a gaping hole in her chest and spray those behind her with blood.
“Since you chose to live amongst the enemy, your sacrifice is all the support we require.”
Taking his shot as the signal they needed, the rest of the team opened fire. The commander smiled and walked his shots across the group to the next man, then the next—a woman whose mouth formed a horrified O.
They spared no one.
As the last colonist fell, a behemoth transitioned into a much quieter part of space. Having scanned the area for habitation, communications equipment, or any other sign of sentient life, the captain sent out an all-ship alert.
On every deck, work paused and crews gathered around the nearest screen. Many drew sharp breaths when their captain came on screen.
The distinguished old man who had led them for the last decade and a half was still there, but some of the lines in his face were less distinct.
“Does his hair look darker to you?” one woman asked
“Yeah…maybe?” her male colleague answered.
“You think he’s started rejuve?”
“That has to be a first.”
“It was way past due,” seemed to be a common sentiment murmured through the decks. “I thought we would lose him.”
Some of the older hands exchanged glances, nodded, and sent covert messages to medical. If the captain needed to be at his peak, so did they.
The whispers fell silent when Emil stepped toward the camera and began to speak.
“As you know, we received a request from the Meligornians.”
Again, the decks rustled with hushed voices and again, all murmurs fell silent.
“They’ve asked us to pick up a VIP vital to their security and ours. This information is ultra-secret and I need you to make sure it stays that way.”
The crew stared at him, hushed as they waited for him to say more. After a short pause, he obliged.
“Furthermore, each and every one of you will be tested before we arrive." He fixed them with a grave stare. “Those who fail will be allowed to return to Dreth or Meligorn on the next major crew update—and there will be one.”
He fixed the pick-up with a stern stare and reminded them more of a hawk than the wolf for which he’d been named. The impression remained as he continued.
"No one will be exempt from this testing. No one will be allowed to avoid it—and that includes me. Be prepared.”
He gave them all one more eagle-eyed stare, then ended the transmission and left them to ponder the nature of the tests and what they had to do to pass them.
Back on Hrageth’s Run, the Navy dropships lifted. Some returned to the waiting cruisers, but others touched down in the hills and at the mines from which the colony had made its living.
Not everyone had been at home when the attack began. Mixed teams of Regime Marines and commandos advanced into the mines with Talents in their midst.
One by one, they found and eliminated every living being they could find. Mine shafts, offices, and daycare facilities—nothing was spared. Only when the Talent could find nothing more did the squads depart, but not before teams of engineers planted enough explosives to turn viable ore deposits into nothing more than piles of rubble.
When they were finished, the soldiers returned to the sky, and the world breathed a sigh of relief until the sky darkened once more and the flagship descended.
Larger than a cruiser, she dipped into the atmosphere, opened a multitude of turrets, and cruised low over every area the dropships had visited. Fury rained onto the land below, and the heat of a multitude of missiles boiled the land and turned rubble into rivers of molten rock.
The pirates were known for stripping a world before they turned its settlements to slag and enslaved its inhabitants.
Now, there was nothing to say they hadn’t.
Chapter Six
Ivy walked through the room where she was able to change her avatar.
“This is new,” she said, and Roma glanced at her.
“Have you ever been in the Virtual World before?”
She shook her head. “Last time was the first time.”
“And I brought you in as a patient,” Roma said, her voice understanding. She gestured to the room around them with its array of weapons, armor, and other equipment all neatly racked on shelves. “This is where you usually get to prepare your avatar.”
“Avatar?”
“The construct that represents you in the Virtual World while your real body rests in the pod.”
“Oh. But…” She fell silent when she realized that she hadn’t thought about the transition between real and virtual. “So, I choose something here and everyone else I meet inside the computer sees me with it?”
“That, and if you don’t select something here, you won’t have it in the V
irtual World.”
“So, if I want a gun or my hacking gear…”
“Exactly,” Roma confirmed. “Anything you think you might need for the scenarios or the meeting must be selected here. When you are ready, tell me to take you to training, or your session, or the scenario, or whatever.”
“But we’re only doing testing, right?” Ivy asked and tried to pin the facts down.
“We are,” the AI said.
“And I’ll have an instructor.”
“Yes.”
“Then how will I know what I need?” she asked her. She gestured to the weapons racked nearest her. “How do I know not to take this…this…uh…”
“Rocket launcher.”
“Rocket launcher to the next session which happens to be…I don’t know…”
“Knife practice,” Roma suggested helpfully.
“Exactly. How mad will my instructor be if I arrive at knife practice with a rocket launcher?”
“Well, it is Frog,” the AI told her, and the girl rolled her eyes.
“He’d probably confiscate it and use me for target practice.”
“So you don’t want to take anything?”
She looked longingly at the battle armor and decided on training fatigues instead.
“I hope I’m dressed appropriately,” she said.
Roma turned and inspected her. “You’ll be fine,” she assured her, and Ivy pressed her lips together. “You will.”
Although she had her doubts, she kept them to herself. The AI did not press her and the world twisted to deposit them in the high-ceilinged training room she had seen before.
“So,” Frog said from the center of the room and stretched his arms over his head. “I hear we have some work to do.”
Ex-admiral Amaratne looked at the pod—and he swore the pod returned the look.
“These are…new,” he commented.
“They were the latest designs we were able to create from Stephanie’s suggestions,” Roma informed him.
“And did she test it?”
“We were able to ship several to the Knight in the final supply run,” the AI told him, “so I assume she has used one by now. Those installed at the Remediation Centers are the last ones on the planet.”
Michael Anderle - [Heretic of the Federation 03] Page 9