Dominant Species Volume Three -- Acquired Traits (37 page)

Habershaw
pushed the stick forward. Keeping the altitude steady at just a half meter, the
shuttle raced down the side of the rig. He hoped John and Rachel were still
flat on the ground.

The
shuttle cleared the end of the rig, and Habershaw turned hard left, throwing
Donna against the window. One of the mercenaries turned as the speeding shuttle
approached, and Habershaw saw that the man wasn’t a soldier, but Greg Lavachek.
Habershaw saw his mouth open in a silent scream as the shuttle hit him
squarely.

“Shit!”
Habershaw blurted out.

The
hurling shuttle slammed into the bodies in a series of quick and sickening
thumps, leaving blood splatters on the windscreen. It was a clean sweep and
over in a literal instant.

“Yes!”
Donna yelled.

Habershaw
turned hard again, stopped, and then crept back toward the scene of mayhem.
Bodies and guns were strewn at random, and the only bodies moving were those of
Rachel and John.

“You
couldn’t have done that any better,” Donna said grinning. “Look at that!
Perfect!”

“Yeah . .
.”

“Oh,
c’mon! Didn’t that feel good?”

Sure.

“Hey,
you’ll get over it.”

“I killed
Greg Lavachek.”

Donna
couldn’t have cared less. “Lavachek was bad news,” she said. “My guess is he
turned John and Rachel over to the Council. You did the right thing. Park right
here. We’ve got to hurry.”

They
opened the cargo door and jumped down into the mud to get John and Rachel.
Donna did a quick appraisal of each patient, checking pupils, pulse, and
respiration. She could see no wounds or other apparent damage. “They don’t look
injured. We’ve got to move fast.”

Habershaw
took John by the arms and started to drag him toward the open door.

A few
meters away, one of the soldiers stirred, then regained enough of his senses to
slowly raise his rifle and point it at Habershaw.

Donna saw
it. “Watch out!” she screamed, kicking at the weapon.

The rifle
discharged a short burst through the open door and into the shuttle’s cockpit,
missing Habershaw cleanly. Donna wrenched the rifle out of the weakened man’s
hands, turned it on him and fired. The man’s body jerked once then was still.

“Hurry!”
she said. “Those shots’ll bring the whole damned nest down on us!”

They
wrestled John through the door, then went back for Rachel. They dragged her
roughly into the shuttle’s interior, slammed the door and hustled to the
cockpit.

When
Habershaw put his hand on the stick, he knew they were in trouble. One of the
soldier’s bullets had passed right through the shuttle’s control device,
shattered it and left a mangled mess of colored wires on one side. “We got a
problem,” he said.

“What?”
Donna asked urgently.

“The
stick’s fucked up—bullet hit it. I don’t know if this thing’ll fly.”

“Try it
anyway,” she said.

“Here
goes,” he said and turned the system on. With a lurch, the shuttle began to
move forward without any assistance from Habershaw. He held his hands up off
the sticks for emphasis. “That’s not good,” he said.

“You’d
better make this thing fly,” she said pointing out the front window. “We got
company.”

Heading
straight at them was a troop transporter, mud flying off its tires in a thick
wake.

Habershaw
pushed the stick forward.

The shuttle
lurched ahead, then began to spin violently, sending Donna against the window.
When Habershaw tried to stop the spin, the shuttle’s nose plunged into the mud,
sending a spray of goo over the window.

“Shit!
This is impossible!” he said.

He
touched the stick again and the vehicle lunged forward.

Habershaw
tried to get it off the ground, but the shuttle began to dart from side to
side. Struggling for balance, Donna glanced over her shoulder to see John and
Rachel rolling helplessly back and forth. “Christ!” Habershaw yelled. “I can’t
control it!”

The
shuttle continued to lurch and buck and swing out of control, occasionally
speeding forward, hopping and pounding the ground.

The
transport continued to roar at them, changing its course to intercept.

“They’re gonna
ram us!” Habershaw yelled, struggling for control. “Dammit!” The shuttle
lurched ahead in a straight and final collision course with the transport.
“Shit!”

The
transport and shuttle collided with a sickening crunch that buckled metal and
tossed Donna and Habershaw into the window. Stunned, they fell tangled to the
floor.

Donna
shook her head to gain her senses and heard hissing and hot, creaking metal and
the sound of gurgling in a tank somewhere. For a moment, none of it was real.

“Damn,”
she said.

“Are you
all right?” Habershaw asked.

“I . . .
think so,” Donna said, grimacing and climbing off him. “We gotta get outta here
. . . get John . . . Rachel . . . get out . . . get out . . .”

There was
a sound like metal being bent and torn, and she heard heavy footsteps and
clamoring in the cargo bay. Through the thick haze in her head, she thought it
might have been John, now awake and coming to help them, ready to help all of
them. She looked up to see a ruby-cheeked and overweight soldier standing in
the doorway to the cockpit, rifle pointed at her. His shirt was parted at his
mid-section from the sheer size of his gut, exposing pink flesh. She looked
over at Habershaw who was propped on one elbow, trying to pry himself from
between the seats. The whole thing was suddenly funny to her.

“Fuck
this,” she said with a wide, sardonic grin. “Fuck this.”

The sound
of a single shot from the soldier’s rifle, and the explosion of Habershaw’s
head were one and the same.

Habershaw
now sat slumped between the seats, his arms limp and his ruined head down,
blood dripping from the gaping hole in the back of his skull.

“Nice
shot,” she said.

“You want
one, too?” the soldier asked menacingly. His voice was high-pitched, like a
girl child’s.

“I don’t
care. Go ahead, Squeaky—shoot me. I just don’t give a shit.”

“Climb
out of there,” he said in his mean little voice. “Get out or I’ll drag you out
by your dang hair. Move it.”

Another
soldier appeared behind the first. She recognized him as the gung-ho partner of
Mahoney, the guard she’d killed. In addition to killing her, she figured this
one would probably want to hurt her in some special way as payback for killing
his buddy. What he did next shocked her. He stepped up behind the chunky
soldier and lunged forward with his rifle butt, striking him in the head. The
fat soldier made a high-pitched little grunt, and then fell in a soft heap to
the floor. A sweet, sweaty smell reached her as if it had been puffed out of
him by the impact.

Donna was
confused. Her mind raced. Why? Like a ball in a roulette wheel, the thought
finally came to rest.

Great. Of
course. This one wants me all to himself. “Come on,” he said offering a hand.
“I’ll get you out of here.”

“What?”
she asked, blinking.

“Let’s
go. I’m here to help you.”

“And take
me just where, soldier boy?”

“Out of
here. But we have to go now. Come on.”

“What
about my friends? I don’t have many—and I don’t leave behind the ones I have.”

“We don’t
have time,” he said. “They’re sending another transport right now. We don’t
have time. We have to move. We’ll have to get them later. I know where they’re
going. They’ll be all right for a while.”

“Why are
you doing this?” she asked.

“Let’s
just say you’ve got a friend you didn’t know you had.”
 

“Oh,
yeah?”

“Yeah.
I’m Paul Kominski, Mike’s brother.”

18

P
aul drove the armored
transport down the road at least two kilometers; and when he was sure they
wouldn’t be seen, he picked a level spot with not too many trees and turned
into the jungle. The powerful transport’s six tires crunched through the thick
foliage as if it weren't there. He didn’t go in far, just enough to be hidden
from the road.

“This’ll
do,” he said. “They’d have to be looking for us to see us in here.”

“But
won’t they be?” Donna asked.

“Maybe,
but I doubt it. They’ve got what they want.”
 

“You mean
Rachel and John, don’t you?”

“Yes.
Rachel especially. We have specific orders to take her alive.”

“Why?”

“Jacob.
He’s obsessed with Rachel. She’s not to be hurt—not so much as a scratch.”

“I don’t
get it,” Donna said, shaking her head. “What is his fascination with Rachel?”

“He’s
evil.”

“He’s
dead. That’s what he is,” she said with a snort of satisfaction.

“Dead?”

“That’s
right. Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard
what? He’s not dead.”

Donna
blinked. “Of course he is.”

“You’re
mistaken. He’s as alive as you or me. I saw him this morning.”

“You’re
sure?”

“He’s not
the kind of man you’d confuse with somebody else. Oh, it was him all
right—limping around, whispering orders like always.”

“John
must have just wounded him,” she said. “And thought he was dead. Shit.”

What was
the use? She was so tired. All she wanted to do was get her family back. She
wanted John and Rachel and Eddie and herself together again. She wanted to
build a nest, safe and secure and well-feathered. She wanted a fresh start, a
simple fresh start without the burden of hatred or the fear of tyranny. It
would be hard enough to live on this planet without a stream of supplies from
Earth. The hideous human baggage they’d brought with them from their home
planet only made it worse.

“Tell me.
Where are they taking them?” she asked. “Tell me what they plan to do—these
bastards called The Sacred Bond.

“They’ll
take them to a cell about midway down corridor and stash them until Jacob is
ready.”

“Ready?
What do you mean, ready?”

Paul
looked at her and wondered if he should go on. “What?” she asked. “Keep
talking.”

“Jacob
and the Council’s scientists are using the alien technology to make
things—horrible things.”

“Yeah. I
know that part.”

“What you
don’t know is why. I got this from a Council member’s concubine. She used to be
a lab tech, but she couldn’t stand what they were doing and quit. It almost got
her killed, but the Council member protected her. So this comes from a pretty
good source.”

“How do
you know her?”

“We had a
relationship. It didn’t last very long, but long enough for her to tell me all
about what they’re doing in there.”
 

“Speak.”

“Are you
sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes.”

“She says
Jacob has this idea that a man and woman should be literally glued together
forever, cleaved is the word she used because that’s what they call it. Cleaved
one to the other— something like that. She says Jacob is completely obsessed
with these things. They somehow modify the brain’s pleasure centers to run at
full speed, out of control. Then he . . . he . . .”

“Mates?”
she offered. “Is that the word you need—mates with these creatures?”