At the next room, Conway went through the same routine to check for the presence of defenses. Once again it cost time and no gun emerged from the ceiling.
“This passage here,” he said, aiming his finger to the north.
No sooner had he lowered his hand than he felt a pressure increase in his head. For a moment, he thought it was another death pulse coming. He quickly realized it was something else – this pressure was different and built up much slower.
“Sekar,” said Torres.
“Which way?” asked Warner, looking around him.
The room had a total of four exits including the one through which they’d just entered. Conway was torn between running for the teleporter and holding position. He squinted north into a passage that disappeared into the darkness the same way they all did. The light spheres were so dim as to be useless and they gave away nothing beyond fifteen meters.
“We’re going for the teleporter,” said Conway.
“What if the Sekar come through it after us?” asked Kemp.
“Or maybe we’ll run into more of them on the far side,” added Lester.
“We’ll handle what comes.”
This was an unusual situation, but every one of the soldiers had experience of fighting in enemy facilities. They knew how to move fast while not letting down their guard. Lockhart shouted a few orders and Rembra snarled at the Fangrin soldiers. In seconds, the squad was ordered into a column three abreast, and ready to move.
They didn’t make it to the north passage. The scratching sound of many claws reached their ears, approaching fast. A dark swarm of Sekar emerged from the south passage at a full sprint. Conway was at the front of the column and he twisted to see what his squad was facing. The enemy were so closely packed that it was impossible to make out any more than the odd fleeting detail. Talons scraped the ceiling and floor and heavily muscled limbs rose and fell.
The last rank of soldiers crouched and fired into the pack. After an intentional pause, the soldiers behind them did the same, aiming over the heads of those crouching. Tharniol-coated rounds tore into the aliens, cutting them down.
“Look out west!” shouted Lockhart.
More Sekar poured from the west corridor. Nixil opened up with his chain gun, shredding the enemy as they raced closer. The Fangrin guns could sweep a room clear in seconds and the Sekar tumbled, their momentum and the surge from behind forcing them ever closer.
“Move!” yelled Conway.
The squad obeyed, taking advantage of the early carnage to sprint as a unit towards the northern exit.
Lockhart knew the moment. “Fire!” he called with the back rank no more than a few meters into the passage.
As one, they stopped and the shooting resumed at maximum intensity. The first three soldiers to open fire stopped to switch magazines, while the second rank gave covering fire. Conway listened anxiously for signs that they were about to be overrun. The first mag change went smoothly and he heard six guns firing instead of three.
“Coming our way, sir,” said Private Kemp.
Conway saw it at the same time. The light, already dim, almost died completely. In the corridor ahead, more of the Sekar came. Conway dropped to one knee and fired at the same time as Kemp and Barron. He heard the whine of gun motors and Rembra opened up with his chain gun, shooting straight over the top of Conway’s head. The passage filled with a sound which reflected from every surface. To Conway, it felt like it beat against him, rising like it would never stop.
He emptied his magazine. “Reloading,” he said. Kemp and Barron’s guns ran dry at the same moment and all three executed the swap with expert precision.
The new magazine clicked home and Conway squeezed his finger against the trigger and the Gilner thumped once more into his shoulder with a rapid thump-thump-thump. The Sekar swarmed the passage, like a wall of seething darkness.
New recruits might have wavered and broken beneath the onslaught, but Conway’s veterans did not. With each passing second, the Sekar dead piled up closer and closer to the lines. The bullets didn’t stop chewing through the enemy bodies, turning them into corpses as quickly as they came.
“Reloading!”
Conway switched magazines again, his eyes hunting for movement. The shots from the rear become more sporadic and then died off completely. Sergeant Lockhart shouted the all-clear. Up front, it also seemed like the attackers were dead and the firing stopped completely.
“Are we clear?” Conway asked the rank of soldiers standing behind. “I can’t see over these damn bodies.”
“There is no visible movement,” said Rembra. “I hear nothing either.”
“We can’t piss about waiting,” said Conway. He knocked the front of his helmet with a clenched fist. “Still got the pressure.”
“Me too.”
He didn’t want the soldiers behind accidentally blowing his head off when he stood and he ordered them to hold fire in case they hadn’t already got the message. With that done, Conway rose and advanced rapidly towards the bodies in front. The Sekar had nearly overrun his squad and the nearest ones had come within a couple of meters. They were piled chest high on the left side of the corridor and waist high on the right.
Conway checked his magazine was full and went to the right. It was difficult to climb with a Gilner in one hand and it felt like the corpses were eager to slither away beneath his weight.
“I can hear something,” said Lockhart. “We’ve got more incoming.”
It was time to move. Conway scrambled down the far side of the corpse pile and shouted for Barron and Kemp to follow. The guns of the back ranks remained silent, though Conway didn’t expect them to stay that way for long. Barron joined him and the two of them advanced to give the others room. If any more of the Sekar were coming from ahead, Conway couldn’t hear them.
A thumping and a movement prompted him into a half-turn. The heaped bodies behind him came tumbling like a wave of thick crude oil. Rembra and Hacher came with the wave, using their enormous strength to open the way for the soldiers following.
“Still clear up front,” said Barron nervously.
Someone at the back fired again – three shots and then silence.
“Sorry,” said Freeman. “Getting jumpy.”
No sooner had he spoken, than two more guns fired and then came the roar of a chain gun. The rear soldiers called out reports and Lockhart yelled orders as he tried to direct the withdrawal.
“Come on,” said Conway to Barron and Kemp. “We’re finding that teleporter.”
The facility map indicated their destination was in the next room. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so easy to guess the distance. Conway hoped it wouldn’t be far and his pace increased. From the comms and the lessening of the gunfire, Lockhart’s efforts to marshal the withdrawal were going to plan.
The quantity of dead Sekar lessened and their corpses were joined by those of Raggers. Avoiding them all was tough and Conway felt bones crunch where he stepped on thin, frozen Ragger arms and legs. It drew his attention away from the passage and he snarled in anger when he stumbled.
Another twenty paces and a room came into sight at the extremes of visibility. Conway glanced behind once and saw that his squad were in good order and not too far behind. From the comms updates, he knew that the back rank was past the worst of the obstruction and following everyone else.
Two separate noises came to Conway’s attention at the same moment. He heard the whirring of a chain gun motor and the clattering of hard talons. The humanoid shape of a Sekar came into view, this one so broad across the chest that it seemed almost too wide to enter the corridor. Without hesitation, Conway put half a dozen shots into its torso, with Kemp doing likewise. The creature crumpled like a rapidly deflating balloon and another appeared to take its place. Conway shot this one as well and a third appeared. It tried to sweep the first two corpses aside and fell to a hail of tharniol-coated slugs.
“Reloading,” said Conway.
Kemp and Barron cut
down a fourth of the humanoid Sekar and then Conway took over while they also reloaded.
The room had once been sealed by a door, though it was open to allow the aliens to run freely through the facility’s interior. Conway stepped across the threshold, while a ceiling-mounted automated chain gun continued spinning fruitlessly, its ammunition supply long since spent.
“There’s a door,” he said, nodding to indicate the direction.
“Still got that pressure,” said Barron.
The pain in Conway’s head hadn’t subsided either. It was a constant, nagging ache that pissed him off and gnawed at the edges of his concentration. He stepped deeper into the room and again nodded to indicate which of the exits Kemp and Barron should watch. Behind him, other soldiers entered the room.
“All good at the back?” Conway asked.
“All good,” Lockhart confirmed. “Nearly with you.”
The Sekar weren’t done and once more they came, like a tide of life-sucking filth. They raced out of the corridors and Conway noted with horror that these new ones were massive – bigger than all the ones he’d shot before this. As they emerged from the passages, these Sekar appeared to swell and grow, like they’d squeezed their forms into the confines of the walls and only in the room were they able to attain their full size.
The ceiling was far too low for the aliens to stand and they dragged themselves across the floor with repulsive, jerky movements which put Conway in mind of grotesque slugs – slugs with thick arms and claws. He shot them, putting eight or ten bullets into the closest. The tharniol rounds produced gaping holes in the Sekar, like their flesh couldn’t abide the substance.
“Like salt on a slug,” said Kemp.
“Just what I was thinking,” said Conway grimly.
Step by step, the soldiers made their way towards the door behind which Conway fervently hoped they would find another transport cubicle. The huge Sekar died in the same way as the others, but more came from behind, pushing the bodies deeper into the room. To Conway, it seemed almost as if the walls themselves were closing in, forcing him and his soldiers to retreat.
“Where’s a death pulse when you need one?” asked Freeman, his voice a little higher in pitch than normal.
Nobody answered and when Conway’s magazine readout hit zero, he crouch-crawled beneath the guns of the other soldiers and made it to the door. It was free of markings like the last one and he raised his hand towards the frame, hoping the access panel would be in the same place as before.
It was – the security-breaker in his combat suit got a link and Conway activated the override software. In seconds it was done and the door opened. On the far side of the door, Conway saw another compact room, the same as the one which had first brought him to the facility.
“Inside!” he shouted. Conway grabbed the arm of Private Calhoun, who was in the middle of fumbling his reload. With a heave, he sent the soldier headlong into the teleporter. Private Berg walked backwards past Conway, still firing.
A grenade went off somewhere to the left and a second followed, each explosion producing a muted flash and a percussive wave. Lockhart yelled at the squad to hold the grenades, since they didn’t contain anything that would hurt the Sekar. A third grenade went off regardless and Lockhart repeated his order, louder this time.
Suddenly, the careful withdrawal turned into a rapid retreat. The soldiers piled into the transporter. It was a tight fit, especially given how much room the Fangrin required. Conway was second last, while Lieutenant Rembra stood outside, spraying chain gun fire in a wide arc. The gun cut off and the Fangrin joined the others inside. The moment was here and Conway was ready. He activated the door and it slid closed.
“Tharniol-lined,” said Corporal Brice, acting calm. “We should be safe.”
“As long as there’re none of these Sekar assholes waiting at the far end,” said Torres.
The air thrummed in the same way as last time and the same metallic scent joined with the different odors spilling from the hot barrels of the soldiers’ guns. The temperature inside climbed from the heat and anyone with the room to put a hand in their ammo packs did their best to swap magazines or jam a couple of rounds into half-empty ones. Conway did a quick mental count and guessed he’d used up more than half of his own ammunition. If this mission wasn’t over soon, they’d be reduced to throwing empty guns and pissing on the enemy.
Twelve seconds after the air started throbbing, it settled and Conway knew they’d arrived.
Chapter Twelve
When the door opened, Conway was more than half-expecting to be faced with a room full of Sekar. Instead, he found something else.
Outside the transport cubicle lay another room, this one larger than those on the upper level of the facility. Conway stepped onto the metal plate of the floor, noticing that the pain in his head was completely gone. The arrival place was much-better lit – almost bright – as if this area was free of the suppression effect found elsewhere.
“Secure the room,” he ordered, leaving the management of it to Sergeant Lockhart.
The squad exited the transporter, while Conway took in the details of the room. Around the perimeter, he saw numerous tables and chairs. They were basic objects, like they’d been made cheaply or mass-produced in a hurry. A row of panels was fixed to the left-hand wall near to one of the four exits. Each panel had buttons, a screen and a slot near the bottom.
In the center of the room was something else and, at first, Conway didn’t quite believe what he was seeing. He walked between two of the tables in order to get a better look. It was an ornate metal fountain, about five feet tall and with a similarly wide circular base. Patterns had been etched into it – swirls, curves and spirals which appeared basic, yet also somehow wondrous and conveying great skill and thought.
Conway stopped right in front of it. A dozen or more nozzles protruded from a central post and a blue fluid, frozen into jagged pillars, descended into a pool beneath which was also frozen. Something about the fountain filled him with sadness and he turned away.
“Looks like a mess hall,” said Kemp.
“Not a mess hall,” said Barron. She wasn’t far from Conway and had one eye on an exit tunnel and the other on a bowl resting on one of the tables. “This is civilian.”
Conway didn’t question her certainty, since he felt the same. This room seemed like it was a meeting place for the people in the facility – maybe social or maybe more formal. He walked over to a different table, upon which he found a single plate with some frozen scraps of what he guessed were food.
“Sir, look at this,” said Kemp, waving for attention.
The soldier was over by another exit passage, dividing his attention between lookout duty, reloading one of his magazines and the panel on the wall nearest him.
“What is it?” asked Conway.
“Food station, sir.”
“You hungry?”
“Not for what comes out of these.”
Conway didn’t give the panels much more than a cursory glance. He was sure Kemp was right - this facility was turning up new things all the time. Each discovery offered a tiny additional glimpse into the lives of the species which had once lived or worked here, and Conway was beginning to feel this was a hideout – a sanctuary of sorts. And if this was a sanctuary, the only possible threat he could imagine was that of the Sekar. It seemed likely they’d already made this unknown species extinct, or at least driven them far away from here.
“Let’s get going,” he said. The data arrays weren’t here, only the clinging sadness of death.
Using the transport had screwed with Conway’s understanding of where they were on the map. He pursed his lips and chose a direction he thought would take them to the next transporter.
“What’s ahead?” asked Barron.
“More passages and more rooms.”
“I’m glad the pressure in my head is gone,” she said. “Do you think the death pulse went off while we were mid-teleport?”
&nbs
p; “I don’t know,” said Conway. He checked the timer since the last pulse – it was more than twenty minutes ago. “Maybe we’ve got one due.”
The passage he chose headed west. It travelled in a straight line and ended at a door, in front of which lay a heap of dead Raggers.
“Looks like this door was on a different security system to the others,” said Conway. “And these Raggers couldn’t get it open before the death pulse caught them.”
“That seems likely,” said Rembra. “If true, it will work to our benefit by limiting the movement of the Sekar.”
“What if there’s a zillion of them waiting on the other side?” asked Torres, when she saw Conway lift his arm to override the security.
“I don’t think tharniol walls block the pressure,” said Corporal Brice. “Maybe.”
“I’d like to find out,” said Conway, turning to find many rifles aimed towards the door. He crouched low to the side and his override program linked with the door security.
“Doesn’t the override only work on the Ragger tech?” asked Lester.
“It worked on the teleport door,” said Conway with a shrug. He planned to try it anyway.
“Ones and zeroes,” said Rembra. “These numbers underly everything, and that is what the software targets.”
“If you say so,” said Warner.
The override software worked, though it took more than ten seconds before it came up with the goods. Conway sank lower and brought his own rifle into a firing position. Then, he opened the door.
Through the opening lay a chamber lit in a subdued blue. From his position near the floor, Conway gauged the ceiling to be three meters high and the opposite wall was somewhere far in the distance. The chamber was partitioned into many rows by other walls, each about two meters wide and starting a short distance from the door. From his position, Conway couldn’t see much more than that.
There was no sign of the Sekar, so he pushed himself upright and leaned into the room. In both directions, the room continued for hundreds of meters, until the rows created an unusual optical illusion that made the outer wall seem to curve inwards.
Refuge 9 (Fire and Rust Book 5) Page 10