Resurrection (The Inherited War) (25 page)

The ID tag would be invisible to anyone not plugged into their systems but it would send out a signal that their suits would receive and allow them to place a virtual friendly tag over his head.  Cole and Anastacia could avoid shooting near the tag and Split should be safe from friendly fire.

“We copy but are wondering how you plan on surviving the run down the hallway?”

“No sweat, just have some faith in our equipment.”   Split moved over to the left and slowly made his way to the front barricade.

“We are in position.”

Cole didn’t respond, not verbally anyway.  He popped smoke and rolled it down the hallway.  It drew fire from the Esii as soon as they saw it.  Though the fire was mostly just wasted battery power.  The canister was moving too fast and was too small to be effectively hit by their fire.  It made it almost into the room before it exploded into a rapidly expanding cloud of smoke.  By then Cole was almost halfway down the hallway.  The oncoming smoke grenade had so captured their attention, none of them had thought to keep their eyes on the hallway.

Cole’s battle senses kicked in.  Once again his brain flooded with chemicals and adrenaline pumped into his muscles.  He was death incarnate and he was coming for the Esii.  He fired three quick bursts and knocked down the front three Esii before they even had a chance to return fire.  He hit the cloud of smoke and kept on going.  His suit picked up the hum of rounds fired from behind him passing by close to his head.  Anastacia was running and gunning as well.  Split opened up from the Esii left flank.

The Esii began firing wildly all around the room.  Cole felt a few impacts on his chest and legs but none that came close to penetrating his armor.  He continued firing as he ran and when he got to the first Esii barricade, he jumped and vaulted off of the top of it.  He put everything he had into that jump.  He soared through the air and turned a s
omersault so he wouldn’t hit his head on the low ceiling.  He landed deep in the enemy formation.  As he landed, he drew his second pistol and went to work.  With a complete view of the room in his helmet he didn’t have to waste energy and time turning to face a threat.

He trusted Split to have his left flank and Anastacia to hold his rear.   Cole focused on the right and front.  The Esii had lost the fight as soon as they had been distracted by the smoke.  Cole saw them as they all reacted too slowly to defend themselves.  He fired one shot after another and cut them down
where they stood.  It was over in moments.  Eighteen dots had disappeared off of his HUD and two were fading rapidly.  The tunnels air system was rapidly venting the smoke from the room.  It took a few moments and in that time Cole had walked over to the last two living Esii and put them down.  Split had taken up a position on the door leading deeper into the complex.  Cole looked at the carnage rapidly appearing around him.  Then he looked down at himself.  The second set of Skin he had put on had hardly dampened his movements at all but it had suffered badly.  There were rents and holes covering the front and sides of his chest and legs.  They had done their jobs though and added enough armoring to get him through the encounter alive.  Both he and Anastacia had put on the second set of Skin to protect them in their initial charge and subsequent attack.  Now they deactivated them and placed them back in her bag so they could mend themselves for later use.

They did a quick scavenging job and gathered up some of the Esii’s unspent batteries.  “We need to keep pressing on.  We have to hit one position after another.  We can’t afford to let them dig in deeper or fall back to a larger area.  Split go ahead and scout, we will follow but this time by only one minute.”

Split grunted his reply and headed down the next tunnel.  Cole and Anastacia waited the sixty seconds and followed after.  The next hour or so was grueling.  Split, moving undetected, gave them the advantage to meet and overcome the defenses that had been set up to stall their progress.  Split figured there was one to two hundred Esii between them and their goal.  There turned out to be less than seventy-five.  They hit two more large rooms with another twenty defenders in the first and thirty in the second.

They moved ever deeper into the complex.  They checked all off chutes and rooms to ensure no enemy stayed behind to ambush their rear.  At every built up area, Cole and Anastacia stopped to put on added layers of armor.  By the time they got to the end of their road they had used up all the extra armor they had brought with them.  The armor would repair itself given enough time and energy, but it was now useless to anyone who wanted to wear the stuff.

Cole and Anastacia caught up to Split at a T intersection.  “What's the hold up?” Cole asked his scout.

“That way is the machine,” Split pointed a head.  “That way is the door to the area we couldn’t get in.”  He pointed down the left handed passage.  “Which way?”

Cole pondered the question for a moment and replied.  “We keep heading to the machine.  We deal with that first then we find out if there is a way out through that hall.”  Split turned and moved out down the hall to the machine at a jog.  The door was down and sealed and no Esii were in sight.

“I don’t think they know I can open these doors now.”  Cole remarked as they got there.  “And these ones open to the sides so I can stop them halfway and give us some cover to fight from.  Try not to hit too much of the equipment in here, I need it to shut the machine down.”

He heard his friends respond their agreements and then they moved into position.  Cole concentrated for a few moments and found the mental link to the doors.  He opened the doors and stopped them half way.  There was enough room for one person to crouch on either side of the door and for one person to go through the door.  Cole scanned the room and saw it was empty.  Split was up and moving.  After about thirty seconds he reported that the room was clear and that he couldn’t find any other exits.

Cole and Anastacia followed him in.  “I thought you said one to two hundred Esii were guards down here.  I counted maybe seventy-five.”

“There was always more Esii down here during our previous trips.  We think maybe they went into the other area that we have not been to yet.”

“That wouldn’t make any sense.  This machine is the life blood of the Esii.  They would never just abandon it.  Look this thing also supplies power to their planetary shield.”  Cole fired off a couple of rounds into the shield power conduit.  He hoped that was enough to bring the whole thing down.  Cole wandered over to the main controls to the machine.

“What does it do?”  That came from Anastacia.

“Hundreds of thousands of years ago the original people of the Esii came to this planet because it was unique.  This planet didn’t just coalesce the way normal planets do.  It formed around a living entity.  An entity so huge that it takes up the core of the planet.  The entity provides the magnetism, heat and everything else a planet needs to become habitable.  But it also provides something else, something the Esii now need to live.  It slowly radiates an energy that the Esii have used to replace normal nourishment.  The machine aides in bringing that energy up to the living area of the Esii.  Without it they will all eventually die.  Sentient life force can only sustain them for so long.  They need what this planet produces or they starve.”  Cole never took his eyes off of the machine.

“So what do we do?  Turn it off?”  She asked.

“No.  We can’t even just scuttle it.  Given enough time they will fix most anything we do to it.  Except…” Cole trailed off.

“What are you thinking Commander?”  Split interjected into Coles thoughts.

“What is more important to you two?  Leaving this place or ensuring that the Esii, as a species, become extinct.”  Neither responded right away.  “Split, how long has it been since you sent Thalo your last message?”  While they had been recovering in Splits hideout, Split had told Cole about his one-way point to point communicator he had been sending messages to Thalo with. 

“It has been almost the requisite two days.”

“There is no way for us to know if they can even get to us or for us to get to the surface.  Our comms can’t penetrate that far and you can only transmit four words at a time.”  Cole retracted his helm and looked at his companions.  “There is no guarantee that we will survive this, but we can sure as hell ensure the Esii die with us.  Every last one.”  Anastacia and Split also lowered their helms and looked at Cole.  He saw the resolve in their eyes.

“Again we ask, what are you thinking?”  Split asked with a smile.  “We have been living far longer than any two beings should live.  We were made this way to aid you Cole.  When you die, you will not die alone.  Be it here or somewhere else.  Our destinies are linked and that link cannot be broken.”

“I sure as hell don’t want to be the last human in space and I would rather kill all the bastards that killed our people than get recaptured or die without doing what we could.”  Anastasia’s face carried a look of resolve as she spoke her mind.

“Good.  Split, daisy-chain four or five blocks of that explosive you brought with us and arm it.  Anastacia, go back down the hall to the T intersection and take up a rear guard position.  Let us know if anyone starts coming down either hallways.”  All three reactivated their helms and got to work.

Cole looked at the controls of the machine.  He dug into the shared memories of the Esii and found what he was looking for.  His hands started flying over the controls.  He knew if he shut the machine down and even destroyed the controls, the Esii would eventually get it working again.  He knew, from his memories, that the beings that had aided the Esii in turning the machine on, had warned them not to draw too much energy from the entity at one time.  They had also warned them that the entity was extremely fragile and had allowed the planet to form around it as a shell of protection.

Cole knew the pipe that brought the energy up to the surface was straight and it ran from this room to the entity.  If he opened it up all the way, let the energy out at full bore, and if he could keep the Esii from shutting it down, he could kill the entity.  Adding some explosives to the mix was a bonus he hoped would pay out.  He got the machine turned on and started pulling energy at full force.

“When you are ready Split, set the explosives to detonate when they impact.  Done?  Good throw them down the pipe.  Ok, let’s set some more up here and rig them to motion sensing tripwires.”  Split had walked up to the open end of the pipe and dropped the stack of five explosive bricks down the hole.  A push of a button and the release of some minor explosives.  That was all it took to kill a race of beings.

“Shouldn’t have killed my planet, assholes.”  Cole whispered under his breath. “Let's go,” he said louder to Split.  As they exited the machine room, they heard sudden flurry of blaster fire from the direction of the T intersection that Anastacia was guarding.  They both took off at a sprint.  Anastacia didn’t waste any breath or time telling them what they already knew.

The Esii had another way in or had broken through the tunnel collapse and had made their way to their position.  Cole and Split came around the last corner and saw Anastacia poking herself out from around the corner of the intersection and laying down an impressive amount of fire.  The hallway was smoky and filled with the heat of plasma rounds impacting all over.  Cole and Split put on as much speed as they could and hurled themselves into the intersection with Anastacia.

She kept on firing while Cole and Split put themselves back together after their mad dash and jump to cover. 

“Anastacia,” Cole yelled her name over the com, “get back.”  Cole reached out and grabbed her shoulder and forcibly pulled her away from the corner and down the hall, effectively taking her out of the line of fire.  Cole scooted up and took her place.  The amount of fire coming down the hallway made it impossible for Cole to even think about sticking his head around the corner.  He did the next best thing.  He unslung his rifle and turned on its forward video feed.  He levered it around the corner and opened up on full auto.  The situation was grim.

Anastacia had done an admirable job holding the Esii off.  The hallway was littered with their dead.  But more, many more, were coming.  In fact he could now see the front rank moving down the hall with portable shields.  Cole stopped firing and started to lob grenades down the hall.  He didn’t bother to look at what he was throwing he just threw.  In a matter of a few seconds the heavy crunch of explosions could be heard as the grenades detonated.  The fire coming from the Esii slackened for a moment, long enough for Cole to peek his head around.

His liberal use of grenades had thrown the shield bearers to the floor and had inflicted serious damage to the ranks behind them. Cole did a fast change of battery power and let loose on fully auto again.  He mowed the Esii down like weeds.  The hallway rapidly filled with the bodies of the Esii dead.

Cole lost track of time.  He had effectively stalled their advance but was unable to push them back.  He cycled through his weapons and finally ran out of batteries and ammunition.  He saw Anastacia standing just behind him and she was reloading his guns with her ammo.  Split was down on the ground and jackknifed around the corner firing as well.  To have gone through that much ammo and batteries would have taken a while, even at the rate he was firing.

They still came.  They fought and died over the bodies of their own dead.  They never changed tactics they just kept coming.  They were fighting a battle of attrition and it was a battle they would eventually win.