Absolute Zero (The Shadow Wars Book 4) (12 page)

Suddenly, the importance of this mission, the secrecy, the real reason why he suspected they were never meant to survive the mission...it all slid into focus. This could be the find of the century. And whichever company Sharpe worked for, if they could properly exploit whatever secrets lay locked away within it, would be catapulted to the forefront of galactic power, policies and politics. Trent frowned as he began wondering further.

“How the fuck did you guys manage to cover this find up? Cyr tech automatically belongs to the government,” he asked.

“Do you actually expect me to give you an answer?” Sharpe replied.

“No, I guess not. I mean, it's just...this is totally nuts. You guys obviously had absolutely no fucking idea what you were playing with here.”

“Look, I'm just a glorified gun for hire. I'm here to do a job. I want to do it and get out. However stupid the scientists and bureaucrats that work for my corp might be, I don't really give a fuck as long as I get paid and stay alive,” Sharpe replied.

Trent was impressed. It was probably the most honest thing she'd said so far. They crossed the immense room and came to the far door. There was a numbered pad that seemed to be projected holographically next to the door. Only they weren't numbers, Trent realized as he focused harder on them, but strange, cryptic, runic symbols. Sharpe stared at the pad for a moment, hesitating, then she reached out and pressed one.

The door slid open. They came to a much smaller corridor, though it was still large by human standards. It was broad enough to drive a truck down and easily twenty feet in height. Trent hunted for any obvious origin of the soft amber light that somehow was easy on the eyes and yet perfectly illuminated everything.

But there was nothing. No strips, no holes, no bulbs.

Nothing.

The battle had come and gone here, too. The corpses, bullet markings, pools of blood, it all looked extremely out of place in the high-tech, glossy environment.

“Fuck, this is creepy,” Drake muttered.

“We just need to get to the end of this corridor,” Sharpe replied. “Then you cover me while I do my thing.”

“Wonderful,” Trent replied.

They kept going. Trent couldn't help but feel a sense of tension slowly building in the air, almost like a string note drawn out to hair-pulling proportions. He thought of the strange heartbeat, the odd feelings of being watched, the general dislocation that the whole base seemed to permeate. What did it all mean? What did it add up to?

He supposed it didn't matter. Whatever it was, it was bad.

They reached the end of the corridor and come to what appeared to be some kind of control room. A Cyr piece of equipment dominated the center of the room. It was roughly rectangular and looked as though it was lying on its narrow side. All of its surfaces were covered with softly glowing white light-pads. Along the walls were human terminals and workstations. Sharpe ignored the Cyr tech and moved to a large workstation beyond it.

“Okay, I'll need about ten minutes,” she said, opting to stand as she set to work.

“Fine,” Trent replied.

He looked around. Besides the way they had come in, Trent spied another three entrances. Two along the left wall, one along the right. He sighed softly. It couldn't be simple, could it? Of course, there was a chance of nothing happening the whole ten minutes, he supposed. Almost as if reality itself had somehow picked up on this thought, one of the doors opened to admit a small clutch of lizard men. Four of them raced into the room, shrieking as they sprinted towards Trent and the others.

Drake snapped a shot off, blowing the top of one's head off in a spray of silvery blood. Trent put a three-round burst in another one's central mass, punching a trio of neat holes in its dark-skinned chest. It collapsed to the ground, still shrieking, and he silenced it permanently with another three-round burst that entered through its chin and blew out through the top of its skull. Tristan put down the other two with well-placed single shots.

“Think we've got company,” Trent said.

“Deal with it,” Sharpe replied.

Behind them, another door opened. Trent spun around and stared in mute horror as a pair of what he had come to think of as chest-holes stalked in through the door. He had no wish to see if his armor could stand up to whatever the hell was in their chests. He raised his weapon and fired. He blew the arm off of the first one, and the second went down under a hail of gunfire from Drake and Tristan. Another door opened, then another.

Trent cursed sharply and got to it. He'd been in situations like this before, and was at least grateful that none of them could fire back. Of course, as soon as he thought it, one of the doors opened to admit a small wave of beetles.

He hastily reloaded, set it to full auto and let them have it. Their midnight blood sprayed across the walls, floor and equipment as they squealed their dying shrieks. Behind him, he could hear Tristan and Drake dealing with their own problems. Trent emptied his magazine, reloaded, ducked and narrowly avoided a needle spat at him, then put the last of the beetles down. He began to worry as he realized the tide of enemies wasn't slowing down.

If anything, it was speeding up.

“How much longer!?” he called.

“Six and a half minutes!” Sharpe called back. Whatever she was doing seemed to have become automated, because suddenly she joined the fight.

The room quickly became a hectic battlefield. Lizard men, chest-holes and beetles crawled into the room, all eager to get at the fresh meat. A small part of Trent's mind that ran during times like this like background software on a terminal was wondering why they were suddenly so coordinated. It was things like this, like when all the doors had opened simultaneously and let out a wave of beetles, that made him feel there was someone, or, perhaps more likely, some
thing
in control of the situation.

Something that liked toying with them.

Trent burned through four more magazines before switching to his shotgun for some up close and personal combat. He blew a hole in the chest of a lizard man, then turned the head of another into a plume of silver gore. He kept pumping out shells until the shotgun ran dry, didn't have time to reload it and pulled out his pistol.

He went through three magazines on it before the tide abruptly ceased. The last of the hostiles fell and Trent automatically took the time to reload. He shoved a fresh magazine into his pistol and holstered it, then fed ten more shells into his shotgun, let it hang and reloaded his rifle. He heard the others doing the same behind him.

“What the fuck was
that
about?” Drake asked.

“Don't know, don't care. I have what I came for, now let's go,” Sharpe replied.

Trent took one more look around, standing amidst a sea of corpses, and then moved after Sharpe as she headed out of the room. The others followed.

* * * * *

The ride back to the first building was, thankfully, uneventful.

They hardly had to leave the trams themselves, just getting out onto the antechambers and transferring over to other trams. Trent was grateful. After that last shot of adrenaline from the intense battle, he was coming down and feeling tired. He wanted to take a long nap after a longer soak in a hot tub with a redheaded sex goddess.

But that was still a long ways away, and not guaranteed.

Trent laid his head back against the inside of his helmet, and that up against the wall behind him. He closed his eyes. They were on the final tram, headed back to the original structure. They hadn't run into more than a handful of nasties. There was hardly any conversation between the mercenaries at this point.

Trent was grateful.

He honestly couldn't muster the mental energy for conversation, even the basic back-and-forth bullshit that tended to be the subject of mercenary squads. Trent turned his thoughts to Lovelace Station and that club Red. He'd only ever been once, but they had private apartments in the back where you could rent it and a girl out for the night. Or hell, two or three girls if you wanted. It was expensive, but far more than worth it.

The tram came to a halt, jarring Trent from his thoughts. He sighed as he stood and shouldered his rifle, ready for whatever else this place was ready to throw at him. He followed Sharpe out of the tram and into the little antechamber. The others shuffled out behind him. They moved back to the tram station and found nothing waiting for them.

As they walked back through the building, Trent couldn't help but feel they were getting off easy. There was some part of him that refused to believe that they would be allowed to simply walk out of here. There was still the nagging feeling of the other survivors. They had only found Sergio's body and hadn't even heard from the others.

Could he just leave them?

A cold but firm part of him said that yes, he could. If it really came to down to it, he was looking out for himself and Drake. That was it, honestly. That was the hard truth of being a mercenary, or a soldier. Sometimes, you left guys behind.

They came into the main lobby, and stopped.

“Stephen?” Drake asked.

Trent blinked in honest shock. The man before them looked like he'd been through hell. His armor was bloodied, dented and burnt. All he had on him was a pistol and his eyes were nearly bugged out of his skull. He moaned with sick relief and nearly collapsed, lowering the pistol he'd been pointing at them when he realized who it was.

“Oh, thank
fuck
,” he groaned, breathing heavily.

“What the
hell
happened to you?” Sharpe asked. “Where's everyone else?”

“I...God, it was horrible. This thing, it was like...blades. That's all it was, man. It was just
blades
. It jumped us. Carved up Sergio. We bugged out when we couldn't put it down, got separated. I decided to make for the ship...it's gone.”

“
What
?!” Sharpe cried.

“The ship...I got there, stole a vehicle and drove out. It's been destroyed. I saw it happen. These ships came in right after it got destroyed. It was hit with some kind of missiles from orbit, I think. These ships were coming in, didn't know who they were, but I headed back here right away. Caught sight of these guys in black armor. They're coming here now.”

“Oh fuck,” Sharpe groaned.

“Do you know these jackasses?” Trent asked.

“I might,” she replied reluctantly.

“Why didn't you contact us?” Drake asked. “Are any of the others alive?”

“I
tried
, man. The fucking radio didn't work! And I didn't actually see anyone else die, but I haven't heard shit from anyone since I booked it. What are we gonna do now?” Stephen replied, his voice becoming hopeless and despairing.

“Okay, listen up,” Sharpe said suddenly. “This is what we're going to do.”

Trent was actually pretty interested to hear what Sharpe was going to say. Unfortunately, that was the exact moment that the far door literally exploded open to admit a new horror. Trent barely had time to look at it.

He caught a hint of something huge, something that had to duck to fit in through the doorway. Something that stood with a hunch, even despite its height. There were limbs that flashed like blades and a maw, some immense jaw stuffed with teeth.

And then it was among them.

It was confusing after that. Screaming. Muzzle flares. Shrieking.

Trent was smashed into before he really had a chance to do anything. He felt himself fly across the room, smash into something that gave. He just had time to process that he'd been hurled into a vent and that now he was falling into the underground.

Could the day, he wondered briefly, possibly get any worse?

Chapter 11

–
The Escalation
–

Trent was falling.

Twisting, turning, flailing.

He banged against the side of the vent once, twice, three times. Then crashed into something–a vent grate, his mind told him with a flicker of thought–and smashed into something a lot more unyielding.

He landed on his back and though the suit cushioned him from the worst of the blow, the breath was driven from his lungs. He gasped, rolling over to the left, spying nothing but a length of empty, dimly-lit corridor, then over to the right.

A lizard man was coming towards him.

Still gasping, he groped for his weapons. His rifle was somewhere nearby, nowhere within reach, and his shotgun had laid against his back. He gripped his pistol and tried to tear it free. It caught on the holster. He tried to scream in frustration, but his lungs were still recovering, and he only managed a weak noise of impotence.

The lizard man pounced for him.

At the last second, Trent ripped his pistol free, brought it up and emptied half the magazine into its chest. The force of the blasts sent it flying back, spraying the walls with silver blood. There seemed to be nothing else alive with him in the corridor, so Trent rested on his back once more, just trying to get his breath back.