Shattered Light

by Fredrick Niles

  The Necrosarks screamed and died as they advanced but they didn’t slow.

  Raquel was standing in the doorway now, rifle gripped in her sweaty hands. She had been in battles before but never one of this scope. From what she could tell, nearly fifty of the creatures had to have been killed or wounded by this point. Hutchens’ platoon stood firm, their shoulders almost touching, but she would have bet good money that they were frightened beyond belief.

  “C’mon,” Byzzie yelled again, yanking Raquel’s shirt. “We have to get inside.”

  Raquel turned to follow, but as she did, a shadow suddenly appeared above them. Without another thought, she spun and fired, knocking a Necrosark off of the side of the wall just above them. The creature screeched and thrashed to the ground between Raquel and Byzzie and more than a few soldiers spun their heads to look behind them. Raquel pumped round after round from her energy rifle into the thing and was joined by Hutchens coming up beside her. Finally, with a shudder, the Necrosark died.

  Raquel looked up to see Byzzie crouching wide-eyed in the doorway, flecks of black blood on her face and arms. She stood back up and said, “I think I need to go find a gun.”

  Just then, a loud scrabbling sound could be heard coming from the roofs above them. Raquel and Hutchens both snapped their heads up and then threw a glance at each other.

  “You need to pull your men back,” Raquel said urgently.

  Hutchens looked reluctant to do so, but then he looked down at the dead body of the monster that had fallen to the ground in front of the doorway and gave a decisive nod. “Fall back, on me,” he barked, reaching down to pull the dead thing out of the way. Raquel stepped closer and helped kick it to the side.

  “Byzzie, tell the others to watch the entrance to the roof,” Raquel yelled over the gunfire. “I think they’re pretty focused on us right now, but they could be coming in any second.”

  Byzzie nodded and darted back into the building.

  They pulled back not a second too soon. The Necrosarks were mere feet away, lashing out with their legs and pincers. The soldiers fired as they retreated, but even so, the monsters doubled their efforts to push in on their prey. Raquel watched as they began throwing themselves forward, their weaponized limbs puncturing men and women even as they themselves died.

  Raquel fired over the heads of the retreating soldiers, trying to keep track of her ammunition. She had spent probably fifteen rounds on the Necrosark she had killed with Hutchens. She had been firing in a nearly blind panic and now had less ammunition than she could have had if she had been thinking. Nothing she could do about that now though. She had switched her rifle to single-fire and was trying to aim carefully for the things’ heads and bodies. They were small targets in comparison to the reach they had with their legs, but she found that a few well-placed shots usually slowed one down, even if it didn’t immediately kill it.

  Two creatures skittered up the wall on the opposite side of the street and Raquel saw one of the Desian men lean out and knock one off with a burst of fire as it passed. The other one turned to pursue the man and Raquel swung her rifle and squeezed off a quick pair of shots. The first one went between two of its legs, but the second hit it square in the back, causing it to lose its footing and tumble to the ground.

  The retreating soldiers were almost inside now but at least eight of them lay dead in the street where they had been cut down. Their deaths had bought the others valuable time but the losses were huge. Just over 2/3 of Hutchens’ original force now remained.

  “Go, go, get inside!” The commander yelled as the last soldier staggered backward, still firing her weapon. The creatures were virutally in their faces now, lunging forward against the combined fire from Hutchens’ and Raquel’s rifles.

  One of the creature’s legs speared through the air just over Raquel’s head as she pumped three rounds into its face and body. Three more were already closing in and Hutchens suddenly reached over and shoved Raquel backward through the doorway. She stumbled and fell to the ground on her side, barely managing to hold onto her weapon. And before she could get back up, she recoiled as a serrated leg punched through Hutchens’ abdomen.

  Raquel pushed herself back to her feet, stepped around Hutchens and shot the first attacking creature. It screamed and died and she pivoted to shoot the other one, pulled the trigger and heard the tell-tale click of an empty magazine. Wasting no time, she slung the rifle over her shoulder, grabbed Hutchens by the arms and pulled him inside just as a pair of pincers snapped the air where his head had been half a second ago. The creature rushed in and Raquel dropped the man to the floor and smashed the metal door closed in the thing’s face.

  People were already running up beside her as the door took a beating from the other side, rattling on its heavy hinges.

  “That’s not going to hold for long,” said a voice Raquel recognized and she turned to see 49. Two women she didn’t recognize were also there, checking Hutchens’ wounds and then lifting him onto a stretcher. “Come on in. I think we found our ticket out of here.”

  12

  Terminal

  It took everything inside of Vanessa to keep from bolting away into the jungle. The monsters behind her had been terrible and every muscle and instinct urged her to get away from them as fast as she could. With a herculean effort, however, she was able to convince herself to stay inside of the building and try to find the administration office.

  It took a few minutes of looking—she ran quickly and quietly from room to room—hoping desperately to avoid any living thing that could possibly be in there—but when she eventually found it, it had exactly what she was looking for: a comm-system.

  The built-in receiver had a boosted signal that most likely had ground-to-orbit transmission range, and as Vanessa began switching through the channels, she was relieved to find that she could hear the chatter between the orbiting ships.

  “This is Light Wire station to all PUC vessels,” she said, keying the mic and cutting into a conversation between two ship captains. “Our forces are overwhelmed. Minister Clark is dead. I need a Tesla bombardment on this location ASAP.”

  “Who is this?” Replied one of the captains.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Vanessa said. “It doesn’t matter. All commanding officers are dead down here. We’ve been overrun by some sort of insect creature that somehow originated from the Light Wire. We can’t shut it down from down here so you have to destroy it. Please, I’m begging you.”

  Vanessa waited for a response. Five seconds passed and she tried again. Nothing.

  It was what she was afraid of. They had no idea what the situation on the ground was, and some unauthorized person asking them to destroy the Light Wire—the very reason they were here—seemed an awful lot like something an opportunistic militia member would do.

  “Fuck,” Vanessa said to no one, pressing her fist against her forehead. She took a deep breath and began trying other channels. Some were dismissive of her claims while others seemed to be dealing with situations of their own. They all blew her off without exception. Some asked for more details than others but the end result was always the same: radio silence.

  Then, after about five minutes of flipping through silence, stubborn captains, and panicked distress signals, she came upon someone she might be able to work with.

  “Please repeat. Did you say ‘destroy the Light Wire?’” said a woman’s voice. The signal was clearer and closer than the ones she had been using to talk to the ship captains.

  “Yes, I repeat. The energy pulse originated from the Light Wire. If we can destroy it then we might be able to stop these things.”

  “Coming around for a bombing run,” said the voice. “What are your coordinates?”

  “They are…” Vanessa quickly looked around the desk that held the receiver she was using until she found what she was looking for. A small foldable map with the current coordinates written in pen in the lower right-hand corner. Someone hadn’t felt comfortable uploading them
to whatever digital database the PUC had been using down here—not when the facility had been built secretly in enemy territory. She checked and double-checked the coordinates against the map and then fired them off into the handset.

  “Coordinates received,” the woman said. “Civilian Class Vessel, designation Leopold coming around for a bombing run.”

  Vanessa felt her heart flutter. The Leopold.

  “You said the Leopold. Is this—” she frantically searched her mind for names, “Raquel? Nadia?”

  “Nadia, ma’am.”

  “Nadia,” she breathed. “Is Byzzie there? Can I speak to her?”

  “She’s not with us but her location is our next stop.”

  “Good.” Vanessa gave herself a precious moment to breathe. To be thankful.

  “Hey, Vanessa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Get the hell out of there.”

  “The Leopold is coming to pick us up,” 49 said as Raquel followed him into the building. “It just needs to make a quick detour.”

  “A detour?” Raquel asked.

  Looking for Ritz, the two of them made their way into a large room. It was clear that this had once been a storage facility that had hastily been transformed to accommodate patients. The two-story building was open up to the ceiling, providing lots of space for storage racking. All along the sides and down the aisles of the racking were people lying in cots with nurses and doctors sprinting back and forth between them.

  “They’re going to destroy the Light Core.”

  “Do you think that’ll work?”

  “It might,” 49 said. “It worked with me.”

  Making up her mind on the spot, Raquel reached out and grabbed his arm. The android jerked to a stop and spun around.

  “Before we go any further,” Raquel said, leaning in and speaking quietly. “You tell me right now what this is.”

  “What do-”

  “Cut the shit,” Raquel said, trying to keep her temper in check. “This whole thing just absolutely reeks of what you did onboard the Mary.” She pulled him in close. “Tell me everything and tell me now.”

  “Raquel, you know everything I know.”

  “Get fucked,” she suddenly shouted, pushing him away from her. The heads of a few nurses snapped around to look at them. Raquel suddenly felt the entire weight of the day pressing down on her. The running and fighting. The killing and death. Image after image of people being impaled or decapitated flashed in a constant reel through her mind. “You know something. I know you do.”

  49 looked around, a look of comprehension slowly sliding over his face. And there was something else. Something like fear, mixed with resentment.

  “See, right there.” Raquel said. The muscles in her face twitched and contorted as she fought the urge to cry. “Right. There. You know something. I saw it in the Jackson house and I saw it near the cages.”

  “What’s going on?” Byzzie said, jogging up to them. She had a sling on her arm and thick pad of bandages where she had been injured.

  “This asshole knows something and he’s not telling us,” Raquel said.

  Byzzie’s curious demeanor immediately transformed into disgust. “I knew it,” she said. She reached down to her hip and pulled out a small pistol Raquel hadn’t noticed. She raised it and pressed the barrel up to 49’s eye.

  “Spill it,” she said.

  “This isn’t the place-” 49 began to say, but Byzzie leaned in, jamming the barrel into his eye and forcing him back.

  The android looked around, worry creasing his expression. Then he finally spoke.

  “I guess I’m not great at hiding emotions yet,” he said, defeat heavy in his voice.

  “I guess not,” Raquel said flatly.

  “That look you saw—back at Byzzie’s place and after I freed you—it was hatred.”

  “Why?” Byzzie said, pressing him. “Because we let you live? Is that it? Because we let you draw breath or whatever it is you do for one moment longer instead of killing you as soon as we could?”

  “The hatred isn’t for you,” 49 responded. “It’s for myself.”

  This stopped them. Raquel didn’t know how to respond.

  “I felt something when I grabbed your hand, Raquel,” 49 continued. “I still don’t understand my own anatomy yet. The Light Core, it—it reacts to energy. It’s why I could detect the Void’s signature on the energy pulse.”

  “So what does that have to do with anything,” Raquel said.

  “At the Jackson house, when you fell and I grabbed your hand, I detected something inside of you. A residual effect from when you cracked the Light Core onboard the Leopold and used it as a weapon against me.”

  “What?” Raquel said, worry edging her voice. “What did you detect.”

  A look of pure shame and sadness washed over the android’s face. “When you were exposed to the Light Core, you were exposed to high doses of radiation. While you recovered fairly quickly from the initial effects, it was enough to leave you with something called Electron Dislodgement Syndrome.”

  “What’s—what is that?” Raquel asked.

  “For all intents and purposes: it’s cancer.” 49 said the words softly.

  Then before she could absorb the words, there was a large bang overhead. Everything seemed to freeze and then a number of armed personnel around the warehouse began yelling to each other.

  “What’s happening?” Byzzie said, looking around.

  “I think we’re out of time,” 49 said.

  Raquel tried to look around the room—tried to figure out what was happening—but all she could focus on were 49’s words.

  Cancer, he had said. Out of time.

  13

  What it Means to End the World

  “We’ve got more bugs coming up on our six,” Nadia yelled as she dipped and dove through the air. Trying to shake the creatures off, she had banked and rolled the Leopold so many times by this point that she was afraid the nuts and bolts holding it together were about thirty seconds away from popping out.

  “On it,” Kit responded. The ship shook as the guns along the side fired.

  After fighting back the first attack, Nadia had abandoned all notions of stealth and began buzzing the city, looking for activity. Since then, they had fought off four more waves of the things and thought they had all been finished off when what seemed like every last one of them descended on the Leopold with all they had.

  The ship’s ballistics system saved their ass. In their quick zips around the city, they had seen more than a few downed gunships. They had all undoubtedly unleashed the full extent of their firepower on the buzzing horde as they were attacked, but the weapons systems onboard the PUC vessels only had machine guns with a fixed line of fire. They had a locking missile system as well, but the bugs were likely too small and fast for a lock. On top of that, the PUC vessels were bulky and cumbersome compared to the slick maneuverability of the Leopold. So, while the gunships were good at attacking ground targets and other fighters, they must have been virtually helpless when the bugs had attacked.

  The Leopold had survived almost strictly on its maneuverability and wide range of fire. No bug stayed on them for more than a few seconds, and therefore had little time to pry their way inside.

  In the midst of the fighting, 49’s voice had hailed them over the comms and given them something more to do than just fight for their lives. Nadia had then whipped the Leopold around and began heading towards town when Vanessa made contact. Bumping her request up to the top of their priorities, they turned around once again and made their way to the coordinates Fleet Commander had given them.

  “Looks like we’ve got a full schedule all of sudden,” Nadia said as she swung the nose of the ship to the right, still trying to shake the huge bugs off. Ever since the pulse wave had hit it seemed like she was desperately trying to keep the ship in the air. The bugs were strong but hadn’t been able to break through the hull yet. What they had been able to do however was bust up some of t
he nav gear and docking ports. In fact, almost anything on the ship that didn’t have a smooth edge had been dinged, dented, or ripped off by this point.

  “Nadia, how are we going to destroy the Light Wire?” Kit asked from beside her. “49’s gone, which means we can’t use the Javelin. And I don’t think these machine-guns are going to cut it.”

  Nadia thought about that for a second and then came up with an idea.

  “You still got the Tesla Arc from your Marauder armor?” Every Arc Suit that the SEU’s had been given was powered by a small Tesla Arc. They weren’t big enough to fly a ship but they might just be big enough to fire a Tesla round: a hyper-condensed bolt of energy that was typically used in ship-to-ship combat and Tesla bombardments.

  “Yeah, but it’s trashed. What about yours?”

  “We need some way to port into the ship. I can connect with my neural drive, but I can’t send that much energy through it without spraying my fucking brains all over the computer console.”

  “So what are you suggesting?” Kit asked.

  Nadia pointed at his missing hand.

  The sound of energy rifles blared inside the storage facility as Raquel raced to the stairs. The sounds of the creatures banging on the doors could be heard coming from multiple directions now and it seemed like no one knew which entrance to run to.

  Judging by the sounds of battle coming from up above them, the people near the roof entrance seemed to be putting up the best defense. The back and front ground-level entrances on the other hand seemed as if they were already fully penetrated. Screams and sporadic gunfire came from either direction and what seemed like an endless wave of people were converging on the middle of the facility.