by David Ryker
I edged forward, leading with my rifle, and approached the wall of black glass. I reached out slowly and pressed the muzzle gently against it.
The whole thing bowed, like a sheet of black latex, stretching inward under the pressure.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled, retracting the muzzle and gathering myself.
I sucked in a deep breath and stepped forward, pushing harder. The muzzle stretched it in again, and then slipped through it, the sheet enveloping it perfectly without a ripple or a crease. I held steady, not moving, watching as the blackness oozed its way back up the barrel toward my hand.
I withdrew it quickly, watching it slip out of the surface. It left no residue and sealed itself up instantly like nothing had ever touched it.
I was conscious of what I was doing in case there was a Free force on the other side watching some idiot poke it with their gun, pushing it through and then pulling it back. Had I just given myself away? I gritted my teeth and sighed. Only one way to find out.
I drew my remaining revolver and held the stock of my rifle against the hull, bracing it there, both raised and ready to fire.
“You read, Greg?”
“I am always ready.”
“Well, that makes one of us.” I laughed strangely, stomping into the thrusters and blasting through the inky veil.
18
The black wall swallowed me up, and though I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t think it’d be like it was.
Everything blinked dark and then I was through.
I took two steps and felt hands on me, big and heavy.
I bucked instinctively and turned into them, hearing a familiar voice in my ears, loud and frantic. “Red!”
It was Alice — I could hear her. How could I hear her? There didn’t seem to be any interference in here. I stopped writhing and looked around. “Greg — we have comms?”
“Locally, yes. I’m picking up signals from both Pilots Kepler and Sesstis, though we don’t seem to be receiving anything from the surface. It is as though this cave was constructed to block any outgoing or incoming signals. Likely to keep its existence a secret from surface scans or other communications.”
“Red,” Alice asked, not getting a response from me. “You good?” Her mech was staring at me, and standing next to it, Fish’s. She had her arms on my shoulder, and Fish had hold of my other arm.
I opened my comm link. “Yeah, I’m good. What the hell’s going on?” I asked, straightening and pushing my pistol back into the holster on my hip.
“Fish came up the tunnel, found me,” she said, turning back to the room, “said we needed to get down here fast. We waited for you, but when the cave started rumbling, we heard the collapse, and we pushed on. We figured you’d catch up, or—”
“Be crushed to death by falling rocks.”
“There was that chance.”
I exhaled and laughed a little. “Well, the mission comes first, right?”
“It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
I turned to Fish, anxious to know why he was coming up for air. I didn’t much blame Alice — she was right. We were here to complete a mission, and there wasn’t much room for anything else. Mac flashed in my mind for a second and then disappeared. We couldn’t help him now. We needed to keep moving. If I thought he was going to die, I would’ve thought twice about leaving him up there. He’d be fine, and if not, he was giving his life for something important — and that sure as hell wasn’t the Federation.
“What’ve you found?” I asked Fish.
“A… room… big… glowing tree… many soldiers… Tenshi… Fox…” I could hear his throat clicking and squelching in the background, his words modulated in my ear through his translator chip.
I sighed. “A big glowing what? Did you say tree?”
Fish nodded.
“A glowing tree?”
He nodded again. I didn’t know what the hell to say to that, or whether something was getting lost in translation.
“What do you want to do?” Alice turned to me now. I’d always pegged her for taking the lead, but I guessed that on this one I’d been barking the orders.
The both of them looked at me expectantly. I swallowed and thought about what lay ahead. I could see a tunnel stretching out, and then turning right, a dim glow emanating from the corner. It couldn’t be far to the room, but there was no sign of the Free soldiers yet. Whatever this tree thing was, it didn’t matter. We had our objective. “Fish — do they know we’re here? What are their numbers like?”
“Twelve men… two Tenshi… Fox and… man… long hair.”
“The guy from Notia,” I muttered, looking at Alice.
“Sounds like.”
“And they’re waiting for us?”
“Yes,” Fish said plainly.
“Armaments?”
“Ground… Troops… No heavy artillery.”
I gritted my teeth. Going in all guns blazing was one option — but then again, we had no idea what to expect. If it was ground troops, there wouldn’t be too much resistance, but then again what other option did we have? Fish could sneak in, probably, but how quietly could two six meter tall steel behemoths creep up on a pair of superhumans and their armed-to-the-teeth backup? All I knew was that the longer we stayed here, the longer they’d have to get prepped. We needed to finish this, and hitting them fast and hard was going to be how we’d do it. If we could at least get the drop on the Tenshi, we might be able to take them out. And, with our new rigs, I was hoping we’d be a match.
I pulled out the plasma revolver and checked the core for rounds. I’d popped off a lot already, and it was running low.
“Reload now,” I muttered, discharging the spent ionizing core. It pinged out of the revolver and bounced on the ground. “We’re going to finish this as quickly as we can, and I don’t want any missteps. They’ve got two Tenshi and who-knows-what weapons. Don’t hesitate. Don’t stop. And don’t miss.” I snapped a replacement core in and cursed myself for not picking up the second revolver when I’d dropped it.
They both looked at me and started checking their weapons. When they were satisfied, they waited on my go. “When we get in there,” I said, feeling my muscles twitching, the adrenaline starting to dump, “Fish, you flank right, Alice, you go left. I’m going down the middle. You get a shot, you take it. There’s no waiting around on this one.” It wasn’t the normal frantic surging though that came with tingling fingers and a hammering heart. It felt controlled and steady, like I was being drip-fed it to heighten my senses and hone my reflexes.
I stepped between them and headed for the corner, flexing my toes into the thrusters, warming them for the next blast. “Greg — I don’t know what we’re walking into here, but if you see something that I’m not shooting at, you take the shot, alright? I’ll work the right arm, you work the left. We need to be in tandem on this one. I don’t want a repeat of the Notia.”
“I understand, James.”
“Good.” I raised the rifle in my right hand and popped it into the air, quick-swapping the revolver from my left and then catching the rifle. I pulled it into my body and let my left hand go loose, giving Greg guiding control of it. I flexed my hand around the pistol in my right and held it at eye level, ready to take on whatever lay ahead.
I reached the corner and paused, waiting for the others to come up on my flanks. They both tapped me on the shoulder to let me know they were ready and I took one last breath, stepping forward and charging toward the light.
We burst from the closeness of the corridor into a wide cavern punctuated by natural stone pillars that stretched from the floor to the vaulted ceiling like huge tendrils, casting shadows in stripes along the smooth outer walls. I almost faltered, staggered by what I was looking at. All around the room, carved into the stone of the walls, were etchings — runes, writing, diagrams, equations, drawings, symbols, atomic structures… Instructions. Lessons. History. The secrets of the ancients, all laid out and preserved perfectly in a wa
y that computers or hard drives or archives just couldn’t. It’s how they knew. It’s how they did it. The Free had found this place and taught themselves how to create the technology.
In the middle of the huge space, a structure rose out of the ground, easily four or five meters thick, twisting and snaking into the air like a braided rope hewn from purple glowing topaz. The surface was minutely jagged, rippled almost, and below it, the light pulsed upward from the ground, shooting along with twisted limbs of the crystalline tree like blood pumping through an artery. With each burst of light, the ground vibrated, the air fizzing. At the top, it branched off like a tree and the tendrils all snaked into the mountain it lay under, spreading outward toward the surface. The biggest ships in the Federation fleet had Iskcara cores that used synthesized crystal-Iskcara, a hugely reactive and combustible substance that allowed them to create their wormholes — but it was near impossible to make in any sort of quantity. Tiny fingernail-sized crystals took colossal amounts of energy and time to make, but here we were, staring at a natural deposit hundreds of cubic meters in volume — enough to arm the Federation fleet a hundred times over for a million years.
“Stop!” a voice boomed in the cavernous room and we all missed a step, looking toward the person it had come from — Katherine Fox. “Fire on us, and we will all die.”
She was standing in front of the tree, her other Tenshi crony next to her. On either side were six Free soldiers, all armed with rifles in full ops gear and masks. Around them were crates and power tools, but no one was moving or doing anything. Their weapons weren’t even raised, but they didn’t need to be. If we put one shot into the Iskcara, it would all go up like a nuclear bomb. Putting themselves between us and it was the perfect deterrent.
I scanned right and left. None of us had a shot. Fish and Alice had already made up some ground either side and looked at me for confirmation. I kept my pistol and rifle raised, but no one seemed to be doing anything, and the soldiers all stood stoically under Fox’s command, not a hint of a waiver among them.
“Lower your weapons,” she said, her voice dulcet and smooth. “No one else needs to die here today.” She was standing confidently, a pistol hanging loosely in her hand. She was wearing ops gear, like the others around her, but no mask. It seemed the air in here was breathable — at least for a Tenshi. It was their first prerogative, to be able to survive on earth when others couldn’t. I could see Greg running atmospheric checks onscreen but said nothing. She smirked at us, her long blond plait hanging over her muscled shoulders. Her top half was clad in a vest with a flak jacket over it, her arms exposed. They were scarred and cut from a lifetime in battle, but she didn’t look any less dangerous than when I’d crossed paths with her on Draven.
“Why don’t you just come out of there — let’s talk,” she called.
Alice scoffed, projecting her voice outside her rig. “Fat chance. Why don’t you just step away from the Iskcara and give us a clean shot, huh?”
She chuckled. “You take one shot at me, and this whole place goes up.”
“Why d’you think we’re here?” I said gruffly.
She shrugged. “To secure all this for the Federation, no doubt.”
“Wrong. We’re not here on orders, and this isn’t a retrieval mission.”
Fox narrowed her eyes and studied us. “Ah — so on whose orders are you working then?”
“We’re here for ourselves,” I growled.
She grinned, exposing perfect white teeth. Her cheeks dimpled, her eyes glinting blue in the half-light. “That’s cute — but no one does anything for themselves anymore. You’re fighting this war on someone’s behalf.” She looked at all three of us. “And I’d say you’ve just come straight out of Aelock — the same ragtag group of idiots that shit all over our plans on Notia, too, I’d wager.” She laughed and shook her head. “How the hell did you get mixed up with the androids, huh? Bet that’s a story.”
“Something like that.”
“Come on, pop your hatches. I want to see the pilots who’ve turned up on their own accord to blow us all to hell.”
I knew that shooting now would just cause the whole place to blow, and though that was our intention eventually, I was still hoping we might make it out. Killing ourselves along with them was still a last resort.
“Greg,” I whispered, staring out at Fox. “How’s that scan coming? Can we breathe out there?”
“Air quality is average. It appears that this room is sealed from the surface, and as such the atmospheric makeup has been maintained despite the events on the surface. With the nanites in your system, you should find an increased level of strength and stamina regardless.”
I nodded. “I don’t suppose you have a clean shot?”
“The last time that we faced a Tenshi, we were unable to land a blow. Firing on them would likely detonate the Iskcara.”
I grumbled. “And what do you think the chances of me getting my head blown off the second I open the hatch are?”
“I would say significant.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I sighed. “Any other ideas?”
“I trust your judgment.”
“Great,” I mumbled, clearing my throat and thumbing my comms back to external. “How about this, Fox — you and me. We duke this out, one on one, and let that decide the fates of your men. They don’t need to die today.”
“Each and every one of them is more than prepared to die at the hands of Federation scum for their cause.” She sneered, cutting the air with her hand, discarding the proposal. They all stood straighter as if to reaffirm her point. “And anyway, what makes you think I’m dumb enough to believe that the second I put you down your flunkies don’t fire on us anyway?”
“What’s to make me think yours wouldn’t do the same when you’re the one lying face down in the dust?”
She laughed at that one. “You’ve got guts, kid… Though…” She tilted her head a little, narrowing her eyes. “Your voice sounds…” She started to curl a smirk, cutting herself off. “Why don’t you come out of there, let’s talk a little. I don’t see why anyone has to die today.” She pulled her free hand up and pressed it to her flank, just about the hip. She held it there, staring out at me.
She knew who I was. She recognized my voice, and she was letting me know by putting her hand over the scar that she’d got from Draven, when I’d shot her in the cockpit of that Tilt-wing. No doubt it had a wormhole device on it, and I’d just walked straight past. That’s why she’d flown out of there on it. It’s why she was fleeing, to get the ship away from us, to protect their secret and get back to Telmareen. It’s how they’d left Telmareen, too.
I wasn’t about to let her escape for a third time. “How about you go fuck yourself?”
She chuckled. “You’ve got guts, kid — more than the last time we spoke, at least. So what are we doing here? You going to muster the balls to shoot me, or shall we just carry on?”
I stiffened, hearing Alice’s breathing tighten in my ear. “Red?” she said quietly, to me alone. “What’s she talking about?”
I swallowed, not sure who to answer. Alice or Fox. I guessed it was out there now, and there was no getting away from it. I answered Alice by speaking to Fox. “Last time we spoke, I was just a recruit thrown in at the deep end with no idea who you were, or how to pull a trigger. This time, it’s a lot different.”
She chuckled. “If I remember rightly, pulling the trigger wasn’t the issue, it was having the balls to finish the job.” She turned and started pacing a little, being careful never to stray from the tree. She was just buying time, thinking up an exit. If she was going to try fighting her way out of this, then she needed to be sure she could do it. I could see the cogs turning in her head, thinking about an out. I knew she was because I was doing the same. The cave entrance was blocked, so unless they had a contingency — which I was pretty sure they would — we weren’t getting out of this at all.
Alice was in my ear again. “Red — what
the hell’s she talking about? You’ve met her before? Talked? Spill — right now.”
I clenched my jaw, never taking my eyes of Fox. “Back on Draven — I came face to face with her. Had a gun on her. She got out of it, and got away,” I said quickly. “That’s it.”
“She just said you had no problem pulling the trigger. Did you shoot her?”
Should I keep lying? We needed to be on the same team here, but I didn’t think that telling her everything was going to help. Still, if I lied and then Fox said it anyway, it’d be even worse. I exhaled. “Yes — winged her is all… Then…” I sighed. “Shit. Then I let her go.”
“You fucking did what?”
“I let her go, alright? On Draven, when we split up in the corridors in the Free base and you went for the troops, I chased her down, confronted her on her ship, and then…”
“You fucking let her go,” she breathed, her voice like acid in my ear. “You let Katherine Fox, one of the Federation’s most wanted criminals and one of the Free’s top brass just walk away.” She wasn’t asking, but she was incredulous.
“Well, I didn’t know who the fuck she was.”
“Well, if you didn’t have the stones to shoot her, then maybe you should have apprehended her and—”
“Apprehended her? A fucking Tenshi?”
“You shot her, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, and I’m thinking that I only managed to now because she let me. She obviously clocked that I didn’t know who she was, so to protect her identity, she—”
“Let you shoot her?”
“I don’t fucking know! This is hardly the time!”
“You don’t think you could have mentioned this sooner?”
“Would it have made any difference?”
“It could have made all the difference. Look at where we are, Red — look at how fucked we are right now. I think even if it had made the slightest amount of difference, then maybe we wouldn’t be right here right now.”