Fall of Hades (35 page)

“G
ervaso!” Ian shouted.

I turned around. Ian was paralyzed.

“What happened?”

His voice was strained. “The Elgen got him.”

“What do you mean, ‘got him'?”

“They . . . got him.”

“We've got to rescue him,” I said.

Ian just looked at me, his eyes welling up with tears. “He blew the dock. He's gone.”

For a moment I couldn't speak. Then I leaned over, resting my hands on my knees. “No!” Tears began to fill my eyes, then fall, spattering on the already wet floor. “No.”

“I'm sorry, Michael.” Taylor put her hand on my back. After a minute she said, “You're in charge now.”

I stood back up. I caught my breath, then lifted the radio. In the strongest voice I could muster I said, “Everyone, this is Michael. Gervaso is gone, but he blew the dock. He gave his life for us. Remember that. Don't let him die in vain.”

I could hear Jack scream out over a distant radio. The sound of it made me feel even sicker. Jack had already lost Wade, now Gervaso. Gervaso was his hero. His mentor. A second father. A better father than his real one.

I radioed Jack directly. “I'm sorry, man.”

“I knew I shouldn't have left him,” he said. “I'm going to take them apart myself.”

“I know,” I said. “Just keep it together. We've got a long night ahead of us.”

The radio snapped. “This is Ostin. We're going to need someone to take the tunnel. Gervaso has the gun nest set up but it's wide open. I'm detecting movement near its mouth.”

“I'll take the tunnel,” Zeus said.

“Roger that,” I said. “Zeus has the tunnel. Don't let anyone in!”

T
he
Faraday
docked as close as it could get to the island without hitting reef, about two hundred yards out to sea. I wished I had something to blow it up with. The
Tesla
, the Elgen's landing tender, had begun transporting troops to the reef, dropping them in the water, then returning for more.

More guards came from the west, arriving on rafts and smaller boats. Within a half hour there were hundreds of troops surrounding the compound.

“They just keep coming,” Taylor said. “Like ants at a picnic.”

Suddenly Ian shouted, “We've got two helicopters inbound. They've got missiles.”

“Where?” Tanner asked.

“Three o'clock.”

Tanner lifted his binoculars. “There they are.”

“How far out can you bring them down?” I asked.

“Now,” he said. He reached out his hand.

“Lead helicopter is down,” Ian said.

“I'll get the next.”

“You got it,” Ian said. A moment later he shouted, “Missile was launched!”

A fiery streak hit the outer wall of the compound, exploding loudly and throwing concrete and twisting rebar. When the smoke cleared, there was a hole in the wall the size of a truck.

“There's a break in the west wall!” I shouted over the radio.

“We see it!” Jack shouted. “Concentrate fire at the hole. No one gets in.”

Through the haze I could see fire spewing through the hole from the mouths of Elgen machine gun barrels, answered by our own troops. Then Elgen guards began running in through the hole.

Dozens fell before Jack's forces, but the Elgen kept pouring into the break. Even though the prisoners had stopped hundreds, they were soon overwhelmed, outnumbered, and outgunned. Jack's men were forced to fall back behind the chain-link fences, which separated them from the guards but not their bullets.

Then the Elgen turned their guns on the towers. They couldn't hit me, as I could repel everything they had, but I was concerned for the others.

“Everyone down!” I shouted. “I don't want to deflect something into you.”

The number of Elgen in the yard just continued to grow. Our tower sounded like it was being chipped apart piece by piece, splinters and plaster and dust clouding the air.

I lifted the radio. “Jack, fall back!” I shouted. “Get your men into the buildings. The Elgen have taken the grounds.” I looked out over the flow of Elgen guards. “There's nothing we can do to stop them.”

“They're going to set explosives on the prison walls,” Ian said.

“We're so dead,” Tanner said.

“Shut up!” I shouted. “Stop saying that!”

F
rom the center of our fortress, Ostin and McKenna watched the attack unfold around the compound on a panel of screens. If it wasn't for the occasional sound of explosions rattling the room's walls, it would have seemed more like a movie than an actual battle.

“They've breeched the wall,” Ostin said calmly. “Everyone's falling back.”

McKenna looked at him. “What do we do?”

“In the movies this is when the cavalry rides in.”

“It's not the movies. And we don't have a cavalry.”

The monitors showed guards flooding into the complex by the tens, then hundreds. The prisoners who hadn't made it behind the chain-link fence were shot down. The grounds were littered with bodies. Jack had already lost a third of his forces.

Ostin looked at the screens for a moment, then over at the central control panel. “Battery power at ninety-seven percent, estimated battery life thirty-six hours. That should be enough.” He examined the panel again, then said, “I have an idea.” He looked at McKenna. “Maybe there is a cavalry.”

T
he dark grounds below us were chaos. The screaming of fallen prisoners echoed amid the hellish landscape of rain, smoke, and fire. The Elgen forces flowed in like demon shadows, darkening a courtyard lit only by gunfire or grenades. Occasionally, lightning would strike, illuminating the grounds for a second, like a strobe, capturing the dying and killing in frozen, violent stances. That's when we could see just how many there were of them. It seemed like thousands.

“They're setting explosives on the outer fence,” Ian said.

“That's the last thing keeping them from the building,” I said. “Once they reach the building, it's over.”

“We could have used Cassy,” Taylor said.

“Jack!” I shouted. “Hit those guys on the south perimeter. They've got explosives.”

“Got them.”

Taylor said, “Michael, what's going on over there?”

At the end of the north corridor, beneath the flume of the Starxource plant, a door opened, revealing an intense red glow that seemed to be growing brighter. Suddenly a steaming flow burst from the door. It was glowing orangish-red, like a stream of lava spewed from a volcano.

“What the crap is that?” Ian said.

It was something I had seen before.

“It's genius,” I said. “Ostin is a freaking genius.” Then the sound caught up to us, a loud screech like the painful squeal of a train's brakes. “It's rats. Ostin must have released them from the Starxource plant.”

Even in the mini Starxource bowl there were tens of thousands of the hungry, electric animals. The ravenous rats swept across the yard in a powerful, glowing surge, running at the guards, drawn to them by the smell of death and meat.

The Elgen in front were the first to fall, vainly firing their guns into the mass, which was like shooting arrows to stop a river.

The swarm of rats broke against the men like a wave hitting the shore, covering and devouring them, pouring over each other, as the guards were stripped of their flesh.

The guards at the rear ran to escape the onslaught, some successfully, some not.

It took less than three minutes for the guards to evacuate the complex. At least those who could. Those who didn't make it out were devoured.

The river of glowing fur continued out the breaches in the wall, chasing the guards outside. The sounds of screams and machine guns echoed in the distance.

I lifted my radio. “Ostin, you're a freaking genius.”

“Roger that,” he said. “Tell me something I don't know.”

“I can't. There's nothing you don't know.”

“Well, we emptied the yard for a moment.”

“More than just a moment,” I said.

“It's a reprieve,” he said. “Not a victory.”

“What do you mean?” I noticed that the glow below us had began to dull. I looked through my binoculars. The rats were falling to their sides, steaming and twitching until the entire ground was a gray, writhing carpet of wet, smoldering fur.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“It's the rain,” Ostin said. “Water kills them.”

I looked around. “Jack, let's get the prisoners back out there and collect the Elgen weapons. Let's get their machine guns on the breaches. They'll be back.”

“Sooner than you think,” Ian said.

Just then a loud explosion rocked our perch. At first I thought lightning had struck the grounds, because smoke was rising from below us, but when I looked out toward the fence, I saw a large gap wide enough to drive a tank through. Then another blast hit.

“It's mortar fire,” Ian said. “They're shelling us.”

Another projectile hit the tower to our east and blew it apart, leaving just a few bricks and mangled rebar. Then a second tower was hit.