Devastation Class

by Glen Zipper

  Nick slowly pushed himself up and watched them die. Light from crisscrossing Strikers beamed through the observation window, setting his eyes ablaze. His chest angrily heaved, pulling in deep, gulping breaths of air.

  His name spilled from my lips in a faint, disbelieving whisper. “Nick.”

  Fuller, not nearly as weak as he had led the Apexus to believe, stepped over the soldiers’ hollow, flesh-leaking armor and helped Nick off the table. “His speech index is still repopulating. He can’t speak.”

  Standing before me naked, the scars of his vivisection completely healed, Nick smiled at me reassuringly.

  “What is that thing, Doctor?” I asked, looking at the obelisk over Nick’s shoulder. “And how did it get in my head?”

  Fuller laid his hands on both of us and bowed his head. Blood slowly trickled from his shattered nose and oozed from the deep laceration across his neck.

  “We need to get Nicholas to the California. Once we’re there, I can explain everything.”

  CHAPTER 48

  VIV

  THE HAIR ON THE BACK OF MY neck stood on end as Gentry, Bossa, and I cautiously led everyone down the corridor. Liko and Julian followed right on our heels while Bix, Anatoly, and Ohno evenly dispersed inside our tightly packed procession.

  It was five corridors from the armory to the docking platform, and we had made it four without encountering a single Kastazi. With their numbers so few, I knew their raid was likely spontaneous. Maybe a roving patrol responding to anomalous sensor readings, or, more distressingly, a traitorous leak from inside the base.

  A bead of sweat dripped off the tip of my nose. I was so tense that I literally flinched when it hit the floor, as if the sound of the tiny bead of moisture hitting stone would be loud enough to expose us.

  Breathe, Nixon.

  Breathe.

  I raised my fist, giving our group the signal to stop as we approached the final turn. “Probably a choke point around the corner,” I whispered.

  The fourth corridor was a hard ninety degrees off the fifth, and a thick emergency bulkhead sat recessed in the rock above the perpendicular intersection.

  “How many you thinking?” Gentry whispered back.

  “If we’re only up against a rover unit, most of them are probably sweeping the interior. That would mean maybe a handful stayed behind to guard the platform.”

  “Agreed.”

  “A handful?” Julian asked. “Doesn’t that change things?”

  “Still only one way onto the platform. If I’m right, it just gives us a better chance of getting through.”

  “You really believe the students are going to run into the line of fire?” he skeptically replied, perhaps more concerned for himself than for them.

  I turned to Liko, inviting his response.

  “Some will,” he answered. “But when the first Eradicator blast goes whizzing by their heads . . .”

  Glancing away, I noticed Bix’s and Ohno fiddling with a small junction box mounted on the wall. Anatoly stood apprehensively beside them.

  “Keep everyone settled. I’ll be right back,” I told Liko. “Gentry, Julian, with me.”

  Breaking from the line, we hustled to the wall, where Bix’s and Ohno’s hands were deep inside the box, picking through a tangled mess of wires.

  Bix pulled up a thin red one. “Emergency bulkhead?”

  Ohno inspected it closely. “I think so, yes.”

  Reaching behind the morass, Ohno pinched a thick-gauged yellow cable. “Primary power coupling?”

  “Looks like it,” Bix responded.

  “Talk to me, guys.”

  Ohno tugged the yellow cable to the limit of its slack. “Shorting this will throw off an electromagnetic pulse. However many Kastazi are waiting around that corner, it should power down their Eradicators and fry the support charge in their exoskeletons. They’d have to jettison their armor off just to move.”

  “What’s the catch?” Gentry asked.

  “Catch is, the only way to get a strong enough pulse is to concentrate it in a confined space,” Bix replied, massaging the red wire between his fingers. “We’d have to send a few people into the next corridor and drop the emergency bulkheads on either side of them.”

  “So they can take out the Kastazi soldiers guarding the choke?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  Julian shook his head. “That’s not an idea. It’s a Hail Mary.”

  “The odds would be evened,” I responded. “No weapons. No armor. They’d have to take us on hand to hand.”

  “What if there are ten of them? Or twenty?”

  “If there’s twenty, we’re dead already.”

  “We’re not talking about a bunch of sparring Synths here,” Julian protested. “We’re talking about combat-ready Kastazi soldiers. They’re trained to fight. And kill.”

  “So are we,” Gentry answered, unbuttoning his uniform jacket.

  Taking his cue, I did the same. “Can I count on you in there, Evan?”

  “I won’t let you down again.”

  Dropping our jackets to the floor, we turned to Julian.

  “Are you with us?” I asked.

  Julian looked past me, peering at the corner’s break. “Watch your low block.”

  “What?”

  “When you low block, you drop your head. Almost every time we spar. I never exploited it. When we’re in there, the Kastazi won’t be so kind.”

  “Noted.”

  We positioned ourselves at the very end of the corridor, our backs flat against the wall’s jagged rocks. So close to the edge, I could hear Kastazi soldiers talking just out of view. I just couldn’t pick out how many.

  Bix stood by the junction box, at the ready.

  Prayer was little more than ritualized superstition to me, but I found myself praying nonetheless.

  Please don’t let there be any more than we can handle.

  Please, no more than three of them.

  Julian exhaled deeply. “Ready?”

  “I am,” I answered, brushing my fingers across the smooth stones of Safi’s bracelet.

  “Remember, their Eradicators will reset themselves in three minutes,” Gentry warned us. “So that’s all the time we’ve got.”

  I raised my fist in the air. As soon as Bix nodded back, I began my silent countdown. Three fingers. Two. One.

  The bulkheads dropped faster than I expected, and Gentry narrowly missed having his legs crushed as we rolled underneath.

  I quickly counted five Kastazi. So much for prayer.

  Bix released the pulse just as the soldiers turned to face us, freezing them where they stood. I charged before they could eject from their armor, smashing one in the chest with a leaping tiger kick. He crashed against the wall and bounced back into my waiting shoulder check. The second blow sent him flying off his feet.

  As soon as he hit the deck, his helmet and exoskeleton jettisoned with a powerful hydraulic burst. I dropped my knees on either side of his unprotected neck. Pinned, he looked up at me in fear. Confronted by his mirrored eyes, I broke his neck with a single, sharp twist of my hips. The sickening crack lapsed me into a momentary stupor. It was intoxicating and revolting all at once, unlocking a capacity I never knew I possessed, let alone ever wanted.

  Hearing footsteps behind me, I snapped up and spun around, but stepped right into a punch to the throat from another Kastazi. As I fell, he caught me by the hair. Dangling over the floor, I could see Julian fighting for his life just behind me. Ducking a sloppy haymaker, he bounced up to land a vicious uppercut under his opponent’s chin. His Kastazi fell backward into mine, jostling him just enough for my fingertips to touch the ground. I locked my elbow and spun on my hand’s axis to deliver a sweeping leg kick. The blow took out my opponent’s feet and sent him crashing to the floor.

  Both our opponents were flat on their backs. His lay still while mine slowly rose back to his feet. A few paces ahead of us, Gentry flailed against two soldiers at once.

  “Help
him—I’ve got this.”

  “Vivien . . .”

  “Go!”

  Julian ran to Gentry, and I bent my knees, readying for attack. I threw my best exploding jab, but the Kastazi caught my wrist and nearly twisted my arm out of its socket. Helpless, restrained in his armlock, I winced as he lifted me into the air by my neck. I instinctively clawed at his hands, but his grip was unrelenting.

  Sucking in a labored breath, I mustered the strength to box the Kastazi’s ears with a rocking wallop. Stunned, he lowered me to eye level, allowing me to drop a devastating head butt on his orbital bone. A bleeding red halo expanded around his pupil as he stumbled backward in agony.

  Taking back my wind, I followed until his back was against the wall. Steadying him by the collar, I finished him with a swift elbow strike to the skull. His blood spattered on my face like war paint.

  I promptly spun to orient myself. Julian was still engaged in combat, but Gentry lay prone, a soldier ferociously pummeling his face. With each blow, her sweaty black hair whipped violently about her head. It was only then I realized that she was human.

  “Hey!” I yelled, getting her attention.

  She stiffened and looked over her shoulder at me as I marched toward her.

  “You look at me like I’m a traitor,” she said, slowly rising off of Gentry. “I’m not.”

  “No? Then what are you?”

  “A survivor.”

  I crouched into snake position, bending my body backward and raising my head up to strike.

  She lunged at me as if shot out of a cannon. I was ready with a Wing Chun punch, but she adroitly evaded and hit me with a spinning backfist to the temple. It was no arbitrary strike. She intentionally targeted my trigeminal nerve to disrupt the blood flow to my brain. Right out of the Alliance Field Combat Manual.

  Disoriented, I dropped my hands, leaving myself vulnerable. I took two palm heel strikes to the chest and one to the chin. I struggled to stay on my feet as blood spilled over my lips.

  She came at me again. I blocked high and center mass, directing her blows to where I knew I could take the most punishment. Playing into my hands, she adjusted to pound the meatiest parts of my torso with a series of stinging left and right crosses. Excruciating as it was, it kept my damage to a minimum. Stumbling back, I drooled a string of bloody mucus and doubled over in exaggerated pain.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” I taunted her.

  Anticipating a cut kick to the stomach, I focused on her midsection. At the first twinge of her hips, I tensed my abdominals slightly. The jolt to my gut pushed me three meters back, more than enough runway for her to think she could finish me.

  I swayed on my feet and drooped my eyelids for effect. Sprinting toward me, she dropped her head slightly. It was only a split second of vulnerability, but that was all I needed. I knew what was coming next. She was cocky, and that made her predictable.

  Springing forward, I grabbed her arm and used the force of her own acceleration to vault myself up onto her shoulders. Locking my knees under her chin, I leaned back with all my weight. Like a tall tree severed from its roots, she fell over backward, sending us crashing to the floor together.

  She tried to right herself, but I smashed my elbow down upon the bridge of her nose. Even in the heat of the moment, the cracking sound made me gag. Her head fell limply to one side, a foamy white residue leaking from the corner of her mouth.

  Pushing myself off her, I saw Julian in the final throes of asphyxiation, the last standing soldier choking him from behind. I limped three or four steps toward them before the Kastazi buckled and fell. Gentry stood over him, a long, jagged fragment of armor in his hands.

  The corridor fell eerily quiet absent the sounds of mortal combat. Exhausted, Gentry let the armor slip through his fingers onto the unconscious soldier’s chest.

  Julian ran to me, seemingly numb to the damage he had taken.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, gently caressing the stinging edges of a deep gash above my eye.

  I pushed his hand away. “Please don’t do that.”

  Gentry pulled the manual release lever on the first bulkhead, and it began to gradually recede.

  “If anything ever happened to you . . .” Julian said to me, his lips quivering.

  Just then he noticed something and froze. Well over three minutes had passed since Bix unleashed the pulse. Enough time for the Kastazi’s Eradicators to charge back through their power cycles.

  In the open, a sitting duck, I pivoted to see what was waiting for me.

  It was the human. I should’ve finished her.

  Before she could fire, a powerful jolt threw her onto her back. Behind her, a Kastazi soldier walked under the still-receding bulkhead, throwing a long, exaggerated shadow over her fast-disintegrating remains. On either side of the soldier were two more.

  The Kastazi made no allowances for failure. Summarily executing their human confederate for letting us get this far came as no surprise.

  I set my feet and raised my fists to fight. Taking my cue, Gentry and Julian followed suit. As futile as it was, it offered a more dignified alternative to dying on our knees.

  With the docking platform and the California just on the other side of the bulkhead, it felt like fate was delighting in cruelly toying with me.

  So close.

  We were so close.

  Having reached the center of the corridor, the soldiers removed their helmets, sending a hydraulic hiss echoing off the walls. And then came their faces.

  “I don’t believe it,” gasped Julian.

  I didn’t say it out loud, but I had the same exact thought.

  Left and right were JD and Fuller. In the center, Nick, holding an Eradicator. Like all of Fuller’s Hybrids, he possessed the ability to replicate a Kastazi biosig.

  Every tightly spasmed muscle in my body relented all at once and my knees buckled as JD ran over and embraced me. The sharp edges of his Kastazi armor stabbed at my skin, but his touch still felt perfect.

  He was alive. He was next to me. That’s all that mattered.

  Over his shoulder, I stared in wonder at Nick’s face. To see him alive, literally resurrected, took my breath away. “Nick. Thank you.”

  He smiled but didn’t speak as our full contingent spilled underneath the bulkhead.

  “He can’t talk. His speech index is repopulating,” Fuller said.

  “Vivien Nixon, Doctor Samuel Fuller. Doctor Fuller, Vivien Nixon,” said JD, providing us our battlefield introduction.

  “And now?” Liko asked as everyone circled around us.

  JD pointed to the bulkhead separating us from the docking platform. “Now we open it and go through.”

  Gentry wearily ran his fingers through his bloody hair. “Let’s not and say we did.”

  “Was that a joke?”

  “I think it was.”

  “I’ve been waiting three months to hear you say something funny.”

  “Everything you hoped for?”

  Indulging a moment’s gallows humor, JD cracked a smile.

  “Listen up,” I announced. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side. Whatever you’re thinking, presume it will be worse. You have one mission. Run to the California. Run as fast as you can. If you fall, do not cry out for help. If a friend falls, leave them. Whatever happens, do not stop.”

  “I’ll open the bulkhead on your mark,” said Gentry.

  “Copy,” I answered. “Everyone line up and get ready.”

  “C’mon, let’s go, let’s go,” Liko barked, urging the students forward.

  “Where’s the Delphinium?” Bossa called out to us, splitting through the mass of bodies falling in toward the bulkhead.

  “One berth past the California,” Fuller volunteered.

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “So that’s it?” JD asked Bossa.

  “You expected me to stick around?”

  “Our world’s falling apart, Bossa. We’re in this together now.”


  “Your world had already fallen apart, cookie. You just had the blinds drawn.”

  “Forget it,” I interrupted, pulling JD away. “He’s a lost cause.”

  Bossa’s eyes tracked us as we walked away. I saw something different in them. Something far more vulnerable than anything they’d revealed before.

  Settling in at the center of the line, I positioned myself between JD and Julian. “Ten seconds!” I shouted.

  Unbeknownst to each other, they both rested a hand on my back.

  “Five seconds!”

  I surveyed our ranks one last time. Beside us one student placed her trembling fingers against the bulkhead.

  “Now!”

  Gentry pulled the release lever, and the bulkhead began to retract. The first thing I saw were armor-clad boots. Dozens of them. And then, as the bulkhead retracted farther, I saw the rest. Two full battalions of Kastazi reinforcements surrounding a unit of Resistance soldiers—at least forty human, Aeson, and Xax—submitted on their knees. Staxx stood defiantly before them, a live phasing grenade peeking out from either side of his grip. Both ends pulsated with bright-blue swells of light.

  The general acknowledged our arrival, nodded to himself, and squeezed. The blue swells immediately faded to yellow.

  “Your end begins today,” he called out to the Kastazi, squeezing again. Then the swells went dark red.

  A second later the grenade exploded, releasing concentric circles of energy pulsing sequentially outward. The first wave instantly ran through Staxx and his men. The second incinerated more than half of the Kastazi. The third blew anyone left standing off their feet.

  “Run!” I screamed.

  We ran through the smoke like a herd of stampeding cattle. My ears still ringing from the blast, I heard the muted sound of Eradicator fire all around me, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Disoriented, I tripped and fell over the body of a dead Xax soldier. Nobody stopped to help. Before I could get up another body fell beside me. It was one of our own, but I couldn’t make out who. An Eradicator blast had already devoured them beyond recognition.

  I jumped up and resumed sprinting. My feet nearly slipped out from under me as I ran through another puddle of decimated remains. My lungs burned as I pumped my legs harder and harder. An awful feeling of dread knotted in my stomach. Lost in the smoke, I didn’t know if I was even running in the right direction.