Son of Orlan (The Chronicles of Kin Roland Book 2) (13 page)

“Move beyond the battle, then signal the Shock Troopers when
we’re clear,” Raien said. Despite her words, she lagged behind. Kin tossed her
over his shoulder and ran as fast as he could.

“I should be carrying you.”

Kin grunted. “I’m not falling into that trap.”

“I’m hurt, Kin. You don’t think I’m a delicate flower?”

“You’re a pit bull, and you’re heavy.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

He moved into the first pass, dropped Raien, and gasped for
breath. She staggered to Orlan’s side to watch the battle. Rebecca’s Mech unit
burst through the opening.

She opened the enormous helmet and approached Kin.

“Rebecca,” he said.

“No time. Take this.” She handed him a small navigation
device. “Don’t stray from the coordinates unless you seriously want to die.”

“What about you?”

She smiled for an instant. “We have a plan. Randal can’t
hold long, so you will just have to wait and see how it turns out.”

“Let me help,” Kin said. He was going to lose her again.
This time it would be forever.

“Don’t worry, Kin. You still owe me a kiss—and several
gambling debts, come to think of it. I mean to have it all.” She closed her
armor and charged into the night. Before she had taken two steps, the chain gun
on her shoulder roared.

“THIS is her brilliant plan?” Orlan
asked.

Kin stepped back from the underground passage. “It looks
clear. Crashdown is a big place with miles of tunnels. The Slomn can’t be
everywhere.”

Orlan shook his head. “I’d rather fight the rest of the
Imperials.”

“Take the lead for a while. I need to read the rest of
Becca’s message.” He viewed the navigation device as he walked, glancing up
from time to time to be sure he didn’t run into a wall or fall down a hole.
Becca hadn’t typed during the battle, because the words were careful and
considerate.

She began with coordinates and the warning not to venture
deeper than the rendezvous point, because the Slomn wormhole opened in the
heart of the planet. Then she spoke of times they spent on Earth VI and when
they were children. Heartfelt stories brought memories of her brothers and her
father, of his decision to volunteer for the Hellsbreach Campaign, and her dark
years after his escape pod was lost.

Briefly, she apologized for the extended radio silence,
explaining that her Shock Troopers were in close contact with both the
Imperials and the Slomn. She hinted that Laura and the others were alive, but
didn’t elaborate.

“That must be some message,” Raien said.

“Rebecca’s been busy.”

“She’s good. Didn’t realize she was that good, but she was
always better than Randal and those other jerks.”

Kin didn’t argue. If Rebecca survived, it would be through
teamwork and sacrifice.

Orlan stopped.

Kin moved to his side and put away Rebecca’s one attempt to
explain.

“Are you in the game now?”

“What game?”

Orlan laughed and studied William over Kin’s shoulder. “He
changed. I knew he could change. Just wish he didn’t like being a damn Reaper
so much.”

Kin thought of the angelic child he had seen while Orlan was
preparing to attack the Imperial guards.
Better to keep that a secret
.
He wondered why the boy revealed himself. Perhaps he wanted to show someone his
real face before he died.

He’s a brave child. Even Orlan must see that.
Kin
thought the trooper had made remarkable progress toward humanity. He almost
seemed a decent person. His concern was predictably psychotic, fierce as
everything the Hero of Man did, but welcome nonetheless. Maybe Kin had been
meant to see Orlan’s true face before he died, just as he had seen William.

“I’d rather he take a Reaper form than a Slomn.”

Orlan laughed. “Sure, Kin. I guess I should be happy about
that.”

“Let’s move out. I’m tired and hungry.” Kin felt the effect
of constant running and fighting like a blanket of fatigue. The rest of the
group seemed ready to quit. Raien talked as though she had never been captured,
but she’d lost twenty pounds during her short captivity. Dark circles around
her eyes made her look sick and each time Kin turned she was sipping water from
a canteen tube.

“We can take a break, Captain,” Kin said.

She nodded. No arguing, no excuses, just a quick step to the
wall where she sat and leaned her elbows on her knees.

Kin slid down beside her. “We need to talk about our
prisoner.”

Raien glared at Nander. The Imperial trooper stood where
Orlan told him to—facing the wall like a naughty school child or a recruit
being hazed.

“If he’s a Class II Soldier, I’m Queen of the Milky Way,”
Raien said. She sipped water and nibbled on a ration bar.

“Do you think he is a spy?” Kin asked. He explained how they
stumbled into the man and how Orlan uncharacteristically saved him.

Raien shrugged, capped the water tube, and clipped it to the
harness. “Seems like a lot of trouble to insert a spy. First, they’d have to
locate you in all this bullshit. Then stage the battle, risk losing the spy to
Reapers or worse, and sacrifice a platoon of troopers. And when it was done,
they’d have no contact with the agent.”

Kin agreed with her.

“That’s not the biggest reason I doubt he is a spy. Why
would they go to so much trouble to infiltrate a group consisting of one
convicted traitor, one dangerously unorthodox sergeant with medals he doesn’t
deserve, and a weakling Reaper? Maybe they think one of you know where
‘Commander Westwood’ is.”

“Sorry about that,” Kin said.

Raien looked at William annoyed as she answered Kin. “Not
your fault.”

“I did warn you.”

“Don’t reminded me. That thought was on my mind more than a
few times at the bottom of the Imperial cell.”

Kin handed her another ration bar and a Crashdown fruit he
had snagged two days earlier and shoved in a pouch. She bit in without looking
at the hard-skinned apple-berry.

“I hope Rebecca knows what she’s doing,” he said.

Captain Raien stared. “We’re on
borrowed time. The only reason I’m still fighting is that no one from my family
goes down like a chump. They can wipe out the 11th LRC, but it’s going to cost
them full price.”

KIN checked the coordinates ten
times. Before she became a Shock Trooper, Rebecca had been training to be a
navigation officer. It was one of the twelve disciplines needed for high
command in Earth Fleet.

What happened to you Rebecca? What changed you into
killer?

Kin understood grief and the need for vengeance. Rebecca’s
family had a code of honor equal to anyone with landholdings on Earth. She grew
up listening to her big brothers talk tough. Elite military families possessed
their own culture, their own microcosm of psychology.

Obvious explanations were always traps, dead ends, or false
positives. He didn’t know Rebecca. The image he held for years wasn’t reality,
though he used it as a template when thinking about her. Despite all he knew of
his childhood friend, he couldn’t believe she was an Earth Fleet Shock Trooper.

The message on the navigation data tablet explained her
reasons for joining the Shock Troopers, but didn’t reveal the emotion behind
them. The feelings she expressed were fond memories of better times. She was a
professional soldier now, and didn’t mix business with pleasure.

Kin checked the device again. Rebecca wouldn’t give
incorrect coordinates, so the error had to be his. He understood Crashdown was
large and honeycombed tunnels. But Becca sent him deep into the planet. She
promised Laura and the others were safe. Her message had mentioned a vast cache
of supplies and water, which had made little sense at the time. Now he saw why
Becca had wasted valuable lines of encrypted code to reassure him.

This far down, there was nothing but rock and darkness.

And Slomn.

Kin came to a corridor blocked by heat and light he dared
not approach. He sensed a Slomn. Barely noticeable vibrations crept into his
bones. Resonant atonal melodies blanketed his senses. The memory of the first
Slomn loomed large in his imagination, oddly comforting as a known versus
unknown image of the creatures.

He stopped moving and held up a fist to signal Orlan and the
others.

“We can’t turn around every time we see a pretty light,”
Orlan said.

Kin moved back from the corner and faced the trooper. He
looked at Nander, finding no clues. The Imperial didn’t seem as terrified now.
Kin thought the man almost seemed cocky, as though he expected them to run from
the Slomn.

I have news for you. I take risks
.

“Are you going alone?” Orlan asked.

Kin surveyed the passage and checked his balance. The eroded
corridor descended steeply, which required him to lean uphill or slide. “This
isn’t a good place to rest. Take the others back to the landing and wait for
me. I’ll meet you there when I know more.”

“Roger that.” Orlan waved his hands for the group to start
up the sloping tunnel.

Nander stood from where he had been resting. “What are you
doing?”

“It’s called reconnaissance,” Kin said.

Nander scowled. “You will bring the wrath of the Slomn. We
must find another way.”

“Why are you stalling Nander?” Kin asked.

“He thinks the tracking device is leading his friends to
us,” Orlan said.

Nander seemed worried. “You’re paranoid.”

“Maybe,” Orlan said, “But you’re screwed.” He held up a
microchip.

Nander felt the back of his neck, picked at a scab, and
leaned against the wall. He tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come.

“I told you not to sleep,” Orlan said.

Nander looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You said you
were going to kill me in my sleep.”

Orlan shrugged. “I lied. You never lie?”

Kin stepped between them. “Why didn’t you say something,
Orlan?”

“Tracking chips are common. I knew he had one. Didn’t think
he was using it and it seemed his unit wasn’t bothering with a rescue mission,
but I thought I’d be careful for once.”

“Keep an eye on him. Don’t let him out of your sight. I’ll
be back.”

“I don’t sleep,” Orlan said. He rolled his eyes toward
Nander. “So don’t get any ideas.”

Kin proceeded through the underground warren with his
flashlight off. Ambient light reflected around corners, and though it was
faint, his vision adjusted. The source of the illumination retreated. When the
light stopped, he stopped. But after a time, he realized there were glowing
streaks on the wall. Above ground, even at night, the marks would have been
nearly invisible. In the lightless underworld, the faintest glimmer dazzled the
eyes.

He marked each intersection with his knife, thankful his
vision had adapted. In an FSPAA he would have optics capable of gathering the
smallest trace of illumination.

Many spaces he crawled through were too small for full
armor, so he pushed thoughts of armor aside. The oppressive feel of being underground
eroded his confidence. No amount of technology could change that.

Something rasped on stone around the next bend in the
tunnel. He approached, and found a hole. The space became a shaft twenty feet
deep before leveling out. He waited, noticing more frequent marks on the wall.

Silence.

His heart beat in his chest. He looked the way he had come,
holstered his pistol, and began to climb. A Slomn was knowingly or unknowingly
leading him deeper. Kin wanted to abandon his pursuit, slow as it was, but the
course of the creature led toward the subterranean coordinates Becca had
transmitted to him. Only a fool would ignore the coincidence.

This is crazy
.

The tunnel angled down and to the right at the bottom. He
looked up the shaft before continuing, wanting to return to the others and
discuss a new plan.

There was nothing to do but continue.

Beyond a long, gradual curve, he came to an enormous cavern
crisscrossed with bridges and ledges. Glowing walls illuminated a maze of
structures below, above, and across. The farthest was perhaps one-thousand
meters away.

On the bridges, Slomn warriors patrolled. They seemed to
ignore each other. He studied them, hoping they didn’t look toward his hiding
place. A pattern emerged as he tracked their movements. Each of the
half-serpent, half-man giants worked downward, bridge by bridge, ledge by
ledge. He saw one enter a tunnel similar to the one Kin occupied, then emerge
later through a lower opening.

He couldn’t detect the far wall. In that direction, darkness
resisted the light of mineral deposits and the Slomn who glowed like fire
between their scales and their eyes projected light in twin beams through the
subterranean gloom. Shadows moved like armies, retreating when confronted by
the creatures.

Fascinated, Kin watched the scene for a long time. He sipped
from a water tube that connected a bladder worn on his back. Even this small
movement made him nervous. He spent the time wondering how salamander men
commanded both darkness and light. He wondered how they found Crashdown and why
they crept through the cavern. As sleep courted his mind, he learned the
answer, or least part of the answer.
I should have destroyed those wormhole
beacons
.

Of course, they weren’t Imperial devices. Clavender’s recent
problems with the anomaly had nothing to do with the Mazz Imperials. If that
were the case, they wouldn’t be so keen to capture her. They wouldn’t need her.
Evidence suggested a squad had tried to destroy the beacons and failed. Failed
and died.

A large shape descended from above. The cavern, he now
realized, was a gigantic shaft stretching downward to blackness. Beyond where
he estimated the ceiling to be hiding in shadow, a ship moved.

Wrong again, Kin. There’s no end to this place
.

Tendrils of light slipped off the hull of the spacecraft
like steam—red, purple, orange and bolts of wormhole energy dissipated.

At first, he thought the vessel emitted no sound, but as it
passed him, he heard quiet engines turning inside the machine. There were no
thrusters visible. The ship hovered lower and lower.

Soon he was looking at the top of the vessel, trying to
memorize the subtle patterns in the surface that didn’t seem to be metal. He
saw no windows, no sensor arrays, nothing that seemed to steer the ship or
provide propulsion.

The disc stopped.

He waited. The ship rose back into the darkness. Only the
faint illumination of mineral deposits and the tracks of the monsters remained.

Kin worked his way lower and lower, closer to the
coordinates Becca provided. He rushed across bridges and slowed when the
footing became treacherous. He had been gone a long time and wasn’t sure what
Orlan and the others would do if he failed to return.

With no choices left, he continued toward Becca’s
coordinates.