Lunar Crisis: Age of Expansion - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Shadow Vanguard Book 2)

by Tom Dublin

  Staring down the black interior of the barrel, Phisk screwed his eyes shut. An icy chill coursed down his spine.

  Then came the BOOM! Deafening within the confines of the tiny office. Several of the hostages jumped and cried out…and the poker chips inside the glass case clattered as they fell from their carefully positioned display.

  For a few seconds Phisk's senses were at war. His ears rang, his skin prickled, he tasted bile in his throat, and his nostrils burned with the fumes from Malfic's gun.

  That only left his sight.

  After sending the command for his eyes to open Phisk turned his head to left, which brought Thavo Domp into view.

  Or more specifically, the smoking red crater in the center of the casino owner's forehead.

  Planet Taglen, Lymak City, The Plant

  "Twelve," hissed Adina as she lowered her communicator and reviewed the snippet of video Solo had recorded through the dust-coated window of the control room's door. "We've got twelve individuals inside."

  "Why so many?" questioned Callis.

  Adina shrugged. "I guess in case they're called out to collect corpses elsewhere in the city," she theorized. "The temple isn't the only place to worship Persha in and around Lymak. Dabriel said there were a number of smaller churches dotted about the suburbs."

  "And they'll need a core team to stay behind and watch over this place," added Draven. He glanced back over the immense warehouse. "Although I doubt this lot are likely to rise up and rebel against their jailers anytime soon."

  The trio had searched the racks of coffins for the one containing the remains of Merfel Strumm, but as Adina had pointed out it was like looking for a needle in a huge stack of identical needles.

  Each of the caskets was labeled, but only with a code comprised of letters and numbers—not with the incumbent's name. It could take them days to stumble across the right box if they were to simply pry off each individual lid and peer inside.

  Doing so had rewarded Draven with a shirt to replace the one soaked with his blood, though. The stab wound on his chest was still healing and he knew he was likely to experience discomfort for some time to come, but the only real harm was the loss of one of his favorite wardrobe items.

  "Trust me to wear an expensive shirt on the day I volunteer myself as a knife victim," he commented as he stripped the top from a corpse of a similar size and build to his own.

  "Thanks, fella!" He patted the dead man on the shoulder and stuffed his bloodied garment into the casket beside him, then replaced the lid.

  "I don't like it," said Adina.

  "What?" questioned Draven. "Is it the color? I can't really tell in the dark, but I reckon I've always suited teal."

  "Not the shirt!" retorted Adina. "This whole set-up. Taking the bodies of the dead and grinding them up as food for other people."

  The group had found the doors leading to the processing area of The Plant but had decided not to explore that particular wing of the facility. Other departments listed on a site map affixed to the wall beside the entrance had included Kitchen, Packing, and Tasting.

  "This place gives me the creeps," Adina had said with a shudder.

  "Nothing a handful of carefully-placed high-explosives wouldn't solve," Draven had pointed out. "I know this lot are already past the living and breathing stage of their existence, but this entire concept proves there are indeed things worse than death."

  They continued exploring the building, searching for some sort of filing system or even a computer terminal so they could locate Merfel Strumm.

  "Did everyone here self-sacrifice?" asked Callis. "If so, there's an awful lot of sinning going on."

  "According to what Dabriel said, anyone who dies from anything other than a natural death ends up here," related Adina. "Even being the victim of murder is considered contrary to the laws of their precious goddess."

  "I hope Jack and Tc'aarlat are able to get their hands on that high priest guy," said Draven. "I wouldn't mind having a brief one-on-one chat with him in a locked room."

  Eventually they came across a doorway with light streaming out through a small circular window near the top. They heard several voices inside, and by removing her communicator Adina was able to record the scene. The room appeared to double as an office for those collectors assigned the overnight shift and, judging by the banks of computers and multiple screens along the far wall, a central control room.

  Adina slipped the communicator back onto her wrist. "We need a way to neutralize all twelve of them."

  "I could invite my wolf to the party," suggested Draven.

  "No!" Adina insisted. "We need a non-lethal strategy. If we kill them we become as bad as them. I'm not doing it that way."

  "I wasn't suggesting he kill them," explained Draven. "We just use him to scare them a little; keep them occupied while you two get in there and search the system."

  Adina's eyebrows raised. "You can restrain your wolf like that? It would just hold them back without attacking?"

  "Absolutely," promised Draven. "And my wolf is a 'he,' not an 'it.'"

  "Okay, what would he do if those goons decided their best course of action was to team up and attack him? What then?"

  Draven frowned. "He wouldn't do anything. I can control him."

  "Completely?"

  "Completely!"

  Adina shook her head. "I can't risk it. If you lose your temper—"

  "It wouldn't happen."

  "I don't believe that."

  "Why?"

  "I... I just don't!"

  The pair fell into an awkward silence, the argument having reached an uneasy stalemate.

  Callis raised a finger as an idea occurred to her. "They can't attack the wolf if they're unconscious..."

  19

  Planet Taglen, Lymak City, The Plant, Control Room

  Garr Kilb slapped a spread of four cards down on the table and grinned. "Read 'em and weep, sucker!" He laughed, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip from his bottle of soda.

  Rog Rye peered at his colleague's cards, lips moving as he did the mental arithmetic required to work out just how much he had lost. "Twenty-eight exactly!" he groaned. "How the fuck did you manage that?"

  "A little thing called skill!" responded Kilb, holding out his hand and rubbing his thumb across his fingertips. "Pay up."

  "Skill, my ass!" grumbled Rye, digging into his pocket and counting out a number of copper coins, each worth a hundredth of a credit. "You're cheating somehow. I don't know how, but you're definitely cheating!"

  The two friends had been playing Make Twenty-Eight for the equivalent of pennies five nights a week for several years now. Over time the amount each man won or lost had remained roughly the same, but Kilb's recent rash of winning hands was beginning to make his pal suspicious.

  All around the room, the night-shift collectors passed the time in their usual ways between pick-ups. Mart Pell read horror novels, Stev Hender quietly twiddled away at a stringed instrument, and Aln Borl connected digital bubbles into rows of three or more in order to pop them and win points by saving trapped animals on his tablet.

  The night was passing exactly as so many others had done before. Until, that is, the door swung open and a teenager with some kind of green bird perched on her shoulder stepped into the room.

  "Excuse me," she began, smiling. "Does anyone have the correct time?"

  SKAWWWWWW!

  Each of the twelve men stopped what they were doing and stared. Rog Rye dropped his coins. Mart Pell lost his place in his book. And Aln Borl's tablet played a brief consolatory tune to accompany the 'Game Over' text spinning in the center of the screen.

  The young female turned and ran out of the room, disappearing into the darkness of the warehouse beyond. For a split-second no one on the night shift moved, then they all leaped to their feet as one and gave chase.

  Excluding the brief but comical moment when they all attempted to squeeze through the doorway at the same time, the speed at which they pursued th
e trespasser would most likely have pleased their superiors.

  But that was nothing compared to how quickly they came to a halt when the large wolf stepped out of the shadows and snarled.

  The creature was covered with sleek golden fur, its eyes were a fierce bright yellow, and its razor-sharp teeth glinted almost as much as its equally lethal claws in the shaft of light escaping from the control room behind them.

  This standoff continued for a few seconds, broken only when Rog Rye reached out to snatch up a heavy crowbar from the nearest shelf and took a hesitant step forward.

  A burst of blue light exploded in the blackness behind the wolf, briefly lighting up the face of a second female—this one clutching a gun in both hands—before streaking across the short distance between the two sides and striking Rog Rye in the chest.

  Crying out, the collector collapsed to the ground. He was out cold.

  Then the chaos began.

  Together, the remaining eleven members of The Plant's night shift charged at the wolf and the woman, their faces twisted in expressions of rage.

  The gun spat blast after blast of blue light, taking down whichever of the men happened to be at the forefront of the group at that particular moment.

  Aln Borl spotted movement in the shadows to his right from the corner of his eye and turned to find the teenage girl watching the attack play out.

  Breaking off from the group, he ran toward her with his arms outstretched, ready to grab her throat and squeeze until she dropped to the floor as unconscious as his fallen colleagues.

  He didn't get that far.

  As he neared her the green bird sitting on her shoulder took flight. Spreading its wings wide, the hawk soared through the air, outstretched claws almost mimicking the way Borl held his hands.

  Before the collector had time to reconsider his attack the bird's talons dug deep into the skin of his face, ripping and tearing at his flesh. Borl screamed as the hawk began to stab at his wide, terrified eyes with its sharp curved beak.

  There was a noise like air being sucked out of a balloon and a blast of blue collided with Borl's chest, throwing him backward and mercifully sending every last drop of consciousness running for safety.

  The final collector hit the concrete as he wrestled with the wolf, his hands pressed to the sides of the animal's head, elbows locked, as he fought to keep the powerful snapping jaws as far away as possible.

  As the echoes of the attack died away, the werewolf padded over to where Adina was standing.

  She took a step away.

  Draven trotted away into the darkness of the casket stacks.

  By the time he returned, now looking decidedly human and once again fully dressed, Adina and Callis had tied up ten of the dozen men.

  "They won't come around for at least another hour," Adina informed them. "We'll be long gone by then."

  Nodding, Draven strode past the women toward a computer terminal in the control room. It took him a couple of minutes to familiarize himself with the operating system, but before long he had gained access to the database of current occupants.

  "Merfel Strumm, stack ten, shelf eleven," he read aloud. He pushed back his chair and stood, then paused to pick up a discarded book. He checked the cover and read the blurb on the back, then set the novel aside and left the room to rejoin his teammates.

  Thirty minutes later he, Adina, and Callis had finished loading the unconscious men into the back of one of the facility's trucks and parked it a half-mile down the access road that led to The Plant.

  Switching vehicles, they stowed Merfel's casket on the back seat and they took off.

  Shortly afterwards a large enough cloud of gas had escaped from the pipeline they had severed to reach the playing cards and broken pieces of string instrument they had left burning in the control room's wastepaper basket.

  The trio did not look back at the explosion that destroyed The Plant.

  Moon of Hann, The Blue Diamond Casino, Rear Loading Bay

  Tc'aarlat finished unscrewing the metal grille covering the vent for the casino's air conditioning system and climbed off the stack of abandoned beer crates he had used to reach it.

  "After you," he said, tossing the grille aside. It clattered as it hit the ground.

  "Are you trying to attract attention?" Jack demanded, climbing onto the crates and lifting himself into the metal duct beyond. "Because if you are, you're doing a great job."

  "Thanks!" proclaimed Tc'aarlat, missing Jack's sarcastic tone as he climbed into the duct behind his friend. "I'll admit I consider myself to be biumphant when blending in."

  Jack crawled forward a few feet, then paused. "What?" he queried over his shoulder. "What the fuck is 'biumphant' supposed to mean?!"

  "It's like 'triumphant', but not quite as good," explained the Yollin.

  Jack continued crawling deeper into the system. "Run that one by me again..."

  Tc'aarlat sighed, his mandibles tapping together as he followed. "You humans have the word 'triumphant,’ right?"

  "Right."

  "A word which means you've won or been successful at something."

  "Yes..."

  "But if you don't quite achieve that level, the triumphant level, you'd be one step down from there. Logically that would be biumphant."

  Jack blinked as he crawled. "My brain hurts."

  "Hey, don't blame me," insisted Tc'aarlat. "This is one of your weird human expressions we're talking about."

  Jack reached a junction and opted to take the left-hand tunnel.

  "How is it weird?!" he asked.

  "Well," said Tc'aarlat, "tricycles have three wheels and tripods have three legs, right?"

  "I guess."

  Tc'aarlat's mandibles spread wide. "Following that logic, ‘triumphant’ must mean the word has three 'umphs’."

  "What the fuck is an 'umph?’"

  "How the hell should I know?"

  "OK, whatever," said Jack. "But, I do know the 'tri' part of triumphant doesn't refer to the number three."

  "Then what does it mean?"

  Jack thought for a second, but that only confused him further. "I... I've no idea," he admitted at last.

  "So, it might mean three."

  "Three umphs?"

  "Exactly!"

  "I suppose. But then, why have three of them?"

  "Who knows?" replied Tc'aarlat. "Maybe an 'umph' is a cheer?"

  "A cheer?" mused Jack. "How'd you work that one out?"

  "Three cheers!" responded the Yollin. "If they're triumphant at whatever it is they've set out to achieve, humans often give three cheers."

  "True."

  "So, three umphs might mean three cheers."

  "And if you're not quite as successful you only give two cheers?"

  "You got it!" exclaimed Tc'aarlat. "You're biumphant!"

  Jack paused again, this time to wipe his hand across his face. "You're rather scarily starting to make sense," he sighed.

  Tc'aarlat grinned. "Well, as you humans like to—”

  Suddenly, the floor of the air-conditioning duct fell away beneath them, sending them crashing to the floor in the room below.

  As the dust settled around them Jack sat up, wincing as pain exploded down his back.

  They appeared to have fallen into some kind of storeroom filled with broken slot machines, gaming tables with torn felt covers, and chairs with damaged or missing legs.

  Thankfully they had missed striking almost all of the items in need of repair in the fall and landed on one of the empty areas of carpet.

  "Well," said Tc'aarlat, pushing himself up on his hands. "We made it inside in one piece. How does that make you feel?"

  Grimacing, Jack pulled a handful of cracked casino chips from beneath his butt and tossed them aside.

  "Monumphant."

  Moon of Hann, The Blue Diamond Casino, Stairs To The Roof

  Jolio Phisk dropped the feet of the late casino owner, Thavo Domp, and reached around to rub his aching back.

  "Co
me on!" urged Sergeant Randy Barber, a few steps farther up the flight. He’d hooked his hands under Domp's armpits. "You heard Malfic. We've got ten minutes to do this or he'll start shooting the others. One for each minute extra we take, starting with the women."

  Phisk sneered. "You must be confusing me with someone who cares."

  "What?!" snapped Barber. "You're willing to let the others die?"

  "So long as it's not me he's murdering."

  Barber's lips curled into a snarl. "Persha's ass!" he spat. "You're fucking despicable!"

  The high priest pointed an accusing finger in Barber's direction. "Blasphemy!" he cried. "You took the goddess's name in vain! It is only right that you now self-sacrifice!"

  "Suck my Persha-pounding dick!" growled Barber. "Now pick up your end and let's get this guy up on the roof before I use my badge to carve you a second asshole!"

  Reluctantly Phisk did as he was told, grunting as he lifted Domp's feet and the pair continued up the stairs.

  "Seven minutes," announced Barber as they staggered through the fire exit onto the casino's rooftop. Carrying the corpulent corpse to the edge, they heaved it onto the low wall separating them from the four-story drop to the pavement.

  Breathing hard, Phisk leaned over the side and waved his arms wide. "Hey!" he yelled. "Up here!"

  Barber dragged him away from the edge. "What the fuck are you doing?!"

  "Don't you get it?" hissed Phisk. "This is our chance to escape! If we can attract their attention, they can call the fire department or get a ladder or something."

  "And leave the others behind?"

  "Don't start on that again!" chided Phisk. "It's a dog-eat-dog moon out there, officer, and I do not intend to end up dead on a ledge like this fat fucker!"

  Working hard to control his temper, Sergeant Barber grabbed one of Phisk's wrists, spun him around, and twisted his arm up behind his back.

  "OW!" yelled the high priest. "What the fuck are you doing?"

  "Saving lives!" growled the cop into Phisk's ear. "We've now got less than ninety seconds to get back to the office. If so much as a single hair on one of those girls' heads has been harmed when we get there, I'll tell Malfic you called his mother a flat-titted, ball-sucking whore. You hear me?"