Chapter 15
Ethan
The southern door blew inward with a muffled whump, followed by a sweep of flash-bang concussions that lit up the dark like a dying star. I went in behind the Atlans, ion pistol drawn, senses keyed to every whisper of movement.
The warehouse was colder than it should’ve been. Sterile. Almost too quiet.
The Warlords moved in formation—fluid, trained, deadly. I wasn’t sure how many years they’d spent fighting in the Hive war, but they knew exactly what they were doing.
There were only two guards. They were dead within seconds.
Egon grumbled over comms, “Where are they? This is too easy.”
From elsewhere in the building, one of the Prillons responded. “We’re clear. Where did they go?”
The hair rose on the back of my neck. Felt like we were being drawn into an ambush.
The thermal readout in my helmet showed a flicker of activity on the basement level below us. There one moment, then gone. “You see that?” I asked.
Jenkins tapped my arm, pointed to a door with a large glass window. Behind it, a wide hallway the led to the loading docks.
“Bahre? You see that?” I asked.
The Warlord was leading the others up a flight of rusted metal stairs along one wall in the main room. Jenkins and I stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching their backs. I scanned the level above us but didn’t see anything.
“Switch to density scans,” Bahre ordered.
“Density scan?” I thought perhaps the NPU was malfunctioning until the targeting screen inside my helmet shifted at my voice command.
The visual field changed into areas of darkness and light.
Air was less dense than the stairs based on pure atomic density.
When I looked up to scan the level above once more, I could clearly see the darker shadows of concentrated mass where the enemy lurked, their bodies smudges of condensed darkness.
The Warlords were dense smudges as well, their implants and weapons clearly visible as streaks for pitch black, much darker than their living cells.
“Holy shit.” Jenkins waved his hand in front of his helmet. “This is incredible.”
“Great on ships. Doesn’t work in caves,” Egon warned us as he moved past us up the steps. “Fucking Hive love their caves.”
I would probably never see a member of the Hive. Still, I filed the information away, just in case.
Just then, the Prillon team leader’s voice—I think it was Krag’s—came through on comms. “Bravo heading to the basement. We’ll take out the stasis pods.”
“Affirmative.” Bahre didn’t stop charging up the stairs to give his orders. “Humans, cover the stairs. Warlords, with me.”
Lyra’s sweet, feminine voice joined the charge. “I have line of sight. You want me to take them out?”
“No.” Bahre’s laugh was that of a cat playing with a mouse he intended to eat for supper.
“Don’t fire unless we’re in trouble.” Bahre raced into battle, moving way too fucking fast for a man—alien—that big.
Egon and Kovo stayed with him, all three moving like a well-oiled machine.
There would be five of these Scion guys on the two levels above us.
But if they were the same guys I’d met in the morgue, they looked just as big and mean as the fucking Warlords.
The Prillons were going below to wipe out the two cyborgs in their charging stations.
Sounds of combat drifted down the stairs as Jenkins and I stood like lame ducks on the now empty main level. There was nothing here but empty space large enough to fit a fleet of tour buses.
“Nothing like standing around with our dicks hanging out,” Jenkins muttered.
I shrugged. Let the aliens kill each other. As long as I got to stand over the dead body of my brother’s killer and then go home to Lyra, I was content.
Two seconds later the lights overhead sputtered like dying stars.
Then came the clang—like steel jaws snapping shut.
Thick blast doors slammed closed above us, trapping the Atlans on the upper level.
The lights died completely. Darkness swallowed everything.
“Shit,” Jenkins muttered. “These things have night vision?”
They did and the world turned into tones of sepia beige and muted green.
Then came the sound. Not boots. Metal sliding on gears. The sound of an elevator or pulley system.
Two shapes rose on platforms from trap doors in the floor—tall, armored, eyes glowing faintly silver. Their weapons were incorporated in their flesh, if that’s what you wanted to call the silver that moved and shifted over their skin and muscles as if they were composed of living metal.
“Ethan, look out!” Lyra’s voice exploded in my comm as the cyborgs turned in perfect synchronization to face us.
“That’s him.” Jenkins tone was cold as death itself.
My skin tingled like I’d touched a live wire as I stared into the massive, brutish face of what had once been an Atlan Warlord. I knew that face. I’d watched the video of him throwing my brother into the Atlantic hundreds of times. Over and over.
Watched him tear Jenkins’ wife and daughter into pieces with a brutal ferocity I’d never seen before or since, not even in a wild animal.
Jenkins and I hit the ground and rolled down just as they fired their first rounds.
Whatever they were shooting at us arced and danced through the air like lightning.
Pain detonated across my chest like a live wire exploding under my skin. It knocked me back and sent my senses ringing. My entire body went numb, useless, like I’d been hit with a taser. Beside me, Jenkins took a hit and let out a guttural curse, collapsing to his knees.
If we hadn’t been wearing the Coalition battle armor, we’d both already be dead.
The second shot streaked past my face, a flash of electric blue that sizzled like plasma, hit the wall and left a scorch mark just like the one Jenkins and I saw at the crime scene. They definitely weren’t firing bullets.
Jenkins dragged in air between clenched teeth. “Fucking bastard,” he hissed.
I shoved back with everything I had until my back hit the bottom stair. I used the leverage to sit up. Lifted my ion blaster. To my fried muscles, the damn thing felt like it weighed fifty pounds. Grunting with the effort, I aimed. Fired.
Didn’t even make a dent.
Beside me, Jenkins did the same as I checked the weapon, turned it to its highest, most powerful setting. Fired.
Nothing. “We’re under attack.” We were going to need some help. We were holding them back but doing zero damage. Jenkins lit them up as I looked around for cover. Anything we could use. “The cyborgs aren’t in their stasis pods anymore.”
“Fuck. We’re on the way.” That was one of the Prillons.
The giant cyborgs took another step toward us as explosions and the roars of Warlords in battle came through from the level above. The Atlans had their own problems. I had no idea where the Prillons were or how long it would take them to reach us.
Too long.
The effects of the initial shot were fading.
Every muscle tingled and burned as the nerves came back to life, but I could move.
I grabbed Jenkins and pulled him toward the door that led to the rear loading docks.
Maybe, if we could make it into that corridor, we’d have a chance. Maybe meet the Prillon team halfway.
The monster who killed Eddie shot some kind of flying blade from his body. It whirled like a boomerang before slicing Jenkins’ thigh wide open. I dragged him away from the cyborgs as I continued firing.
“We’re fucked,” Jenkins shouted.
I spoke to the whole team. The Atlans were still fighting above our heads. Add these two to the mix and those boys were in serious trouble. “We’ll lead them away. Draw them into the corridor. Krag, you guys know where we’re headed?”
“We’re almost there.”
Good. He heard me. We’d all memorized the layout of the building. If Jenkins and I couldn’t kill this motherfucker ourselves, at least we could lead him to his death. Assuming we survived long enough to meet up with the Prillon team.
I had a feeling this was not going to end well. “Lyra—I’m sorry.” I hoped she could hear me, hear in my voice what I’d never had the balls to say to her. That I was in love with her. That she made everything in my life better. That she was everything I’d ever wanted, and I wished we had more time.
A weighted silence settled over comms as I dragged Jenkins toward that fucking door. The two cyborgs seemed bored. Emotionless. More machine than man. No urgency in their movement or actions as if they already considered us to be dead. No threat. Irrelevant.
“Fuck you.” I fired the blaster at the giant on the right while Jenkins attacked the one on the left. We didn’t stop shooting, the impacts seemed to be holding them to a consistent distance. Maybe our weapons would do more damage up close and personal. A theory I didn’t want to test.
I’d never really hated the fact that I was human. I was taller than average. Fast. Strong. Average looks. More intelligent than most. I’d been walking around taking everything for granted. I’d never wanted to be someone else.
In that moment, I wished I was one of them. An Atlan Warlord. I would have put my mating cuffs on Lyra’s wrists and claimed her like they did. There would have been no need for her to hide herself from me. Lie. Compromise her needs, settle for handcuffs when she craved heavy metal cuffs.
I’d satisfied her in every other way. Made her come with my dick buried deep. Heard her beg for more. Held her as she slept. Taken care of her. I might be human, but she was mine. The truth settled in my bones.
Her voice, calm and lethal, slid through my comms like silk wrapped around steel. “Don’t move.”
I froze in place. A heartbeat later, something whizzed over my shoulder to hit the cyborg closest to our position, the one in front of Jenkins. The smaller of the two.
A hole exploded in his chest, where I imagined his heart used to be. The edges of the wound sizzled and spread, made him look like the business end of a lit cigarette. When the wound had expanded to the size of a basketball hoop, he finally fell to the ground and didn’t get back up.
I expected the second cyborg to charge, finish us off.
Instead, he tilted his head and looked through me. Past our position.
If the Coalition helmets could see through walls, this monster probably could, too. I knew exactly what—or rather who—he was looking for. Lyra.
As if on cue, the cyborg turned from us like we didn’t exist and ran toward the front entrance we’d breeched minutes ago.
“Lyra, get out of there. He’s coming for you.” I dragged Jenkins three steps over and leaned his back against the wall. Checked his leg. The adaptive armor had sealed around the wound, would at least keep him from bleeding out.
“Lyra?”
“I see him.” Her calm, calculating tone made my blood run cold.
“Get out of there!”
No response. Fuck.
“Go.” Jenkins leaned back and closed his eyes. “Go. Kill that fucker.”
I walked over to the dead cyborg and ripped the blue lightning shooter from the still warm forearm—grunted with satisfaction when I felt, and heard, bone break. Gore clung to the device. I ignored it. Fired a couple test shots as I ran. Blasted a hole in the far wall.
Fuck, yeah. Now we were in business.
Hang on, Lyra. I’m coming.