Critical Path (The Critical Series Book2) (6 page)

The crowd cheered as Halkstan strode toward Charlie, sword raised.

Charlie dropped the net, knowing he’d be useless with it, and held the trident forward with both hands, focusing on his opponent. He blocked out the shouting above him and the fear of death, and thought about previous croatoan attack patterns. They usually went for a quick kill, wide swings—arrogant and impatient.

Halkstan sprang forward, bouncing in Charlie’s direction at pace. It jumped in the air and swept the sword downwards, its great bulk moving slowly—or perhaps the root’s effects were given Charlie faster reactions. He jumped to his right.

The blade whistled past his ear and thumped into the sand. Charlie backed away, keeping the alien out of sword’s reach by jabbing the trident toward its ugly, snarling face. He kicked sand at the alien, trying to gain an advantage. It shook its head, growled, and leapt in the air again.

Charlie smiled as he staggered back. This was his chance. He planted his feet and thrust the trident at the alien’s torso, using the beast’s weight and momentum against it. But it ignored the wound and arced the sword down, chopping the wooden pole in two.

Frenzied voices rose around the arena. People got to their feet, sensing the battle was reaching a climax point.

Charlie was left with little more than a half-meter-long sharp stick. The beast roared and stalked forward, pushing Charlie until he backed into the wall.

Halkstan chopped down directly at his head. Charlie dived to his left and skidded across the sand. The sword clanked against the concrete wall. Small stone chips sprayed against his back.

Dashing back to the center of the arena, Charlie knew he needed to finish this quickly. Simply trying to avoid Halkstan’s attacks would eventually lead to defeat, the other having much greater stamina.

The alien advanced in typical fashion, building into a bouncing run. It sprang at him and pulled the sword behind its head. An opportunity presented itself.

Charlie waited until the last moment, his muscles tensed.

Halkstan grunted and slashed the sword forward. Charlie dived feet first and slid between the alien’s legs, immediately jumping up behind its back. Using both hands, Charlie rammed the sharp end of the pole into Halkstan’s exposed neck and drove it deep into the alien’s body.

Yellow blood squirted around the pole. Halkstan let out a strange buzzing noise, dropped the sword, and sank to one knee. Charlie grabbed the sword, pressed the point against the back of Halkstan’s head, and looked up to the veranda.

The crowd fell silent.

Aimee remained expressionless and handed her fan to Augustus. She held her thumb out sideways. Charlie knew she probably wanted her champion to fight another day, but he didn’t care and wasn’t waiting for her decision.

He reached around the front of Halkstan and ripped the two tubes away from its face. Hearing a collective gasp gave Charlie a sense of satisfaction. The alien wheezed and toppled onto its side. The only good croatoan was a dead one, and he refused to show mercy.

The two armed men rushed through the gate and positioned themselves either side of Charlie.

“Drop the sword. Now,” the blond one said.

Charlie turned and stared at him. With a shrug, he tossed the sword on the corpse, smiled, and looked up to the veranda.

Aimee and Augustus were in conversation. They both kept glancing over. Eventually she held her thumb out, paused and turned it up. A light ripple of applause quickly died out. Augustus rose from his seat. “Take him back to the ludus. Put him in with our wounded prisoner.”

The crowd filed down the external staircases, and the whole place emptied within a minute—this wasn’t what they had come for or expected. Charlie estimated around two thousand spectators had packed into the arena. He felt satisfaction that he had disappointed them. He wouldn’t be their entertainment, not like this. Of the crowd, he estimated there were perhaps four hundred humans. Most of a younger appearance. The two aiming rifles at him couldn’t have been more than eighteen years of age.

“I take it my bed plans have changed for this evening?” Charlie said to the one aiming his rifle at him.

“Don’t count your chickens just yet,” the blond man said. “Get back through the gate.”

Two croatoans appeared from Halkstan’s entrance, carrying a stretcher made from canvas and poles. They hopped over to their fallen comrade and rolled it onto the stretcher and quickly returned to the gate.

“They don’t seem too bothered,” Charlie said.

“Halkstan was a bully,” the guard said. “He went around kicking their asses. I doubt they give a shit. You probably did them a favor.”

“He? You mean it.”

“Whatever,” the blond man said. “Put your hands on your head and start walking, or you’ll be joining him as crop fertilizer.”

Charlie rolled his eyes and clasped his hands behind his neck. He wished he’d found Unity before he took down the mother ship. The cheeky fucker with the blond hair was crying out to be taught a lesson. They all were here. How could they live alongside the species that all but wiped out the human race? He couldn’t understand that thinking at all. It felt like a betrayal by his own people he fought for. He didn’t go to the lengths he did to rid the world of the croatoan menace to end up living with the damned things.

***

The men directed Charlie around the edge of Unity to the ludus. Nearly all the buildings in the central area looked scruffy and medieval, not like the more modern hybrid ones on the steps around the edge of the basin. Despite setting up a new integrated society, it didn’t take them long to build a class system. Some things never change.

The first group that noticed him pass by sat around a barrel, drinking from metal cups. They stared over and whispered to each other.

Just before they came to the ludus, Charlie glanced into what looked like a makeshift bar. The raised chatter stopped as he passed. A man and a woman at a table next to the open entrance glared at him before continuing their drinks.

None of these people appreciated the fact that he saved their lives—they probably didn’t even realize the extent of the threat with hiding up here out of the way. All would have perished without him doing what he did, leaving the croatoans as the sole owners of Earth. And this was how he was thanked.

He passed through the ludus gate into its small courtyard. One of his guards swung it closed behind him. The cells covered three sides of the courtyard, fifteen in all. He stood facing the main building: a two-story structure made from wood.

Augustus walked out of the main entrance. “It’s time we got you reacquainted with an old friend.”

Charlie’s heart raced. He hoped it wasn’t Denver or Maria. Gregor and Layla flipped sides, but they’d spent enough time with the aliens to make their capture more acceptable in his eyes.

Augustus gestured left with his bony index finger. “Put him in number two.”

A rifle muzzle jabbed into Charlie’s back. One of the guards opened the cell door.

He stepped inside and heard chains rattle to his left. A huge familiar-looking croatoan in battle dress thrust toward him but abruptly stopped short, held by its restraints. It had a stomach wound and dried yellow blood on its left leg. The hunter he fought in the forest! He could have sworn he killed the beast.

The cell door slammed behind him. Augustus’ mask appeared in the small window. “This is Baliska. I believe you have history? You’re cellmates now; isn’t that just a wonderful twist of fate? The gods couldn’t have planned it any better.”

Charlie turned to look at the alien. Dust puffed from the wall as it tried to bust out of the chains again, pure hate burned in its eyes.

The feeling was mutual.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The early afternoon sunshine cut through the orange-tinged clouds, bathing the courtyard in a warm glow.

The heat warmed Gregor’s face as he pulled the last rope over the hover-bike’s seat and tied it off, ensuring the pack of ammo and supplies were secure. The movement made his shoulder sore, tweaking the muscle in a way that he hadn’t experienced for years.

Sleeping at Freetown overnight on their hard beds had taken its toll. His back felt every day of his fifty-six years.

Age crept up on him in the night like a thief, stealing his vitality. He needed another shot of root before they left.

The stuff Alex was harvesting back at his original farm wasn’t as good as it was when the croatoans were working with it—the effects just weren’t as long lasting as before, requiring larger, more frequent doses.

The aliens knew its secrets far better than either he or Alex. When they were refining it, the effects were far greater.

But still, with Layla and the other self-appointed assholes deciding to eradicate it and its use, he couldn’t exactly be choosy about it. Besides, even with the inferior human-made product, it put him in a strong position.

He who could control the flow of root would have a lot of power in this new human order. He did it once to build up his crime empire; he could do it again.

One thing he had learned from those days was that there were always customers for the hard-to-get and the addictive.

With a lack of general medical supplies beyond the basics at the farms, when people got sick, or tired, or just wanted to improve themselves, it would be Gregor Miralos they’d come to.

Beside his bike were two others. Each one took two passengers and had space for luggage. He considered sabotaging Denver’s.

Both he and Layla would be travelling together, and it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for him if both of them were to crash into the forest at full speed.

The thought brought a smile to his face.

They were like bloody twins these days—joined at the hip and speaking for one another. In a way, Gregor was disappointed with Denver. After Charlie did his thing with the bomb, it looked like the kid would find his own mind, but no, instead of playing copycat to Charlie, he now did that with Layla.

It didn’t suit him.

Pain still throbbed in Gregor’s jaw from the kid’s jab. The bruise looked ugly in the mirror—a mix of purple and green that hinted at Gregor’s age and inability to fight as well as he could.

A few years ago, he’d never be beaten to the punch like that.

Still, that aside, Denver rarely showed what he was capable of anymore, preferring to wander Freetown after Layla like a lovesick puppy. Ironic considering his own dog had decided to abandon him and run off to the wild.

Sabotage would certainly be an option—if he could only figure out how to do it. The bike’s internals were well sealed off and the tech so advanced compared to the motorcycles Gregor had worked on in the past that he hadn’t the first clue as to how to go about it. Even the throttle mechanism used digital software controls, and hacking into alien computers wasn’t exactly his forte.

As he thought about what to do, double doors swished open from the complex behind him. He turned. Denver approached in his lanky, loping gait of his. With a few strides, he ate up the ground and joined Gregor by the bikes.

He wore his bug-out kit: camo combat trousers and waist jacket with a dozen pockets containing various tools he and his dear old pa had made, walking boots that looked to have been repaired a dozen times with the hides of various animals, and a near-bald shaved head.

Without his beard he looked like the prototypical American US soldier.

“You’re looking shifty,” Denver said as he placed his backpack on the rear end of the bike. “What are you up to now?”

“You’re a suspicious little shit, aren’t you? Just like your old man. Do you even have your own personality?” Gregor leaned back against his bike and folded his arms across his chest.

Brushing his taunt off with a shrug, Denver quickly and efficiently tied his pack down with a length of rope, using a knot system Gregor hadn’t seen before— probably another one of his old man’s little survival tricks he’d learned out of a National Guard manual.

“What are you even doing here?” Denver asked when he had finished securing his supplies. “You can’t stand the sight of me or my dad, let alone the aliens. Why bother coming with us?”

“You know me, Den, I like a bit of an adventure. Besides, your little happy group needs me. You’re getting soft.”

“Your face says otherwise.”

Smiling made Gregor’s face hurt, but he grinned anyway. He always did enjoy a bit of banter, especially when it made Denver angry. “Fancy going another round, kid? It was kind of a cheap shot yesterday. At least your old pa would fight like a real man. Learning how to fight from Layla now, eh? Or perhaps Mike taught you a few things? His wife perhaps? I heard she’s pretty lethal with that tai chi of hers.”

The fist flew half an inch high as Gregor ducked.

Denver’s long reach caught him off guard, but the boy was definitely slower this morning. Gregor shifted his weight on to his right foot and bobbed under a straight left jab.

Noticing Denver had unbalanced, Gregor launched forward and rammed his shoulder into Denver’s ribs, forcing him back against the edge of the bike.

Denver twisted as he fell away and grabbed hold of Gregor’s denim jacket’s lapels, pulling him to the ground.

The two men hit the hard surface with a thud.

Gregor leaned up and slid his legs over Denver’s beneath him, pinning him to the ground. He grabbed his throat and squeezed, making the younger man choke for breath.

Denver’s long arms pushed up against Gregor’s face, but the Armenian knocked them away with his other hand before slapping Denver hard across the side of the head as his face started to turn purple with the lack of air.

“You’re weak,” Gregor taunted. “Don’t you see what Layla’s done to you? You’re pathetic. Where’s your strength now, eh? You need the root, boy, you know it, and I know it. You want to grow old and infirm like Mike?”

Denver kicked out and twisted beneath Gregor, but the older man continued to squeeze his neck until he stopped struggling.

“You’re right,” Denver gurgled as he became limp, giving up. “I’m weak.”

Gregor had him where he wanted him, and despite not feeling great himself, it appeared that Denver had gone quite some time without the root and was far weaker than even he realized.