Flight (27 page)

"Spread out and line up, take out the front with massive offense, and once we start moving do not fucking stop. Junco, if you find anyone lagging behind, shoot them in the head for being worthless."

I smile at Tier's threats to keep the Unwanted in line, but snap off a curt yes, sir over the external coms.

Braun sprays a stream of liquid fire and the screams signal the start of the first battle. Rapid fire from projectiles begins while I pick off one sensor at a time from each amalgabot. They don't go down and they don't reassemble into anything else so it must be safe to hit them in the sensors as long as we don't blow them up.
Sera, tell Arel and Moju tactical strikes only, hit sensors to stop them from reassembling
. I watch the letters type over the screens and then the firepower coming from Moju and Arel dampens down and is exchanged for single rifle shots.

We begin to accelerate and the bike jerks forward just as I snap off another shot with Big Boy. I blast my target's top two cylinders completely off and it falls. "Shit, I downed one." I watch, desperately trying to see what it turns into, but we move away too fast. Braun and Rikan are still blasting liquid fire out in front and everyone else is picking them off from below or against the walls.

We fly and we don't fucking stop. And no one lags behind.

The next blast door is also partially closed and we are only about a mile from the intersection that will split the tunnel and allow us to take it up into the mountains when the children appear.

"Holy fucking shit! They got mutant avians down here!" I scream it over the externals before I can stop myself and people start freaking out.

Tier's voice takes over. "They fly so do not fucking hit my team or I will rip yer heads off, ya hear me, Subs? You aim up or you aim down, you do not aim at us."

They don't fly right away though.

They peek out as we pass and stay on the ground, maybe the headlights stop them, or maybe the noise of the bikes, maybe their own internal sense of self-preservation.

But anyway, they don't fly.

They just follow.

"We got company behind, guys. The sewer rats are on our tail."

I watch Moj and Arel switch back to launchers. Chances are biological enemies don't self-replicate, so we can splatter them all over the fucking dank wet ground.

The things hang back, following us, but they must be out ahead as well because the guys in front are busy clearing the way with liquid fire. After a few minutes the frontal assault stops completely and I hear Braun come online. "Where the fuck did they all go?"

That's not something you want to hear in battle.

The avian muties fly up in a flurry and plasma fire crackles from the barrel of every Unwanted Sub's rifle in unison. To their credit, they only shoot up and down. I rapid-fire into the throngs and briefly consider taking out my SEAR and flying up to chop them to pieces. Sera and Isten are both in my head simultaneously screaming no at me, and then, just as fast as the muties appeared, they are gone.

Four Subs are lying motionless on the ground, their grav bikes smoking and drives whining, and just as I wonder whether or not we should check on them, mechanical legs clack along the ground and whisk their bodies away into previously unnoticed crevices where the wall meets the floor.

"Forward, now." Tier barks out the orders and we lurch forward once again.

"Fuck it, you guys, I'm gonna pick off everything I see back here, OK?"

I hear a crackled sigh as Moju answers first. "Better play it safe. I agree."

Arel's response is a succession of rapid plasma-cannon bolts that sets the thick oily sheen on the surface of the tunnel on fire. An inhuman wailing wells up and I have an almost uncontrollable urge to vomit.

Isten reads me. "Breathe, Junco. Do not remove that helmet."

I push it down. "Yeah, OK. I got it."

We move forward and I watch on my helmet map as the blip that signals the turnoff up the mountain moves closer and closer. There is chatter on the Subs' coms and I look down at what they're talking about.

The floor is moving.

I watch carefully and Sera jacks up my vision and enhances my helmet with maximum infrared before I can really get a handle on what it is.

"Uh, we have a problem, people." My voice crackles out over the interior coms.

"Speak, Junco." Tier's voice has a bit of strain. "Quickly. We've got problems up front too – the fucking blast door is closed."

I speak on the external coms. "Whatever you do, do not land. The floor is alive."

"Keep an eye on it, Juncs," Tier answers as he maneuvers himself and Arel up front to talk to Ashur.

What is it, Sera?
I speak internally instead of on my vision screen so Isten can hear us.

Silence as we wait for her.

I'm just about to ask again when Gideon comes on the internal coms, startling me. "It's a beta sheet, nano-tech used to clean up the Peaks after the nuke. Yukichi creates them. It's not happy about the drives on the grav bikes."

"What the fuck is it doing down here?" Isten comes across calm, but I can feel his internal irritation at Gideon's intrusion into our private conversation.

"Who cares," Gideon answers before switching to the external coms. "Everyone hover at maximum height. Stay off the floor, it's stimulated by the small radiation signature on the grav bikes. Probably because of the two that crashed farther back."

"What kind of range does it have, Gid?" I look over at him with a worried expression as Isten takes us up higher.

"Sorry, Juncs. They can assemble as high as they need to go. But if you don't stimulate them, they tend to stay on the ground to conserve energy."

How does he know this?
I ask Isten privately.

"I've worked with Yukichi on many occasions, Junco."

Isten's thoughts come through this time.
What the fuck are you doing in our heads?

Gideon smiles at us before talking over the crackly com. "I'm tied to Junco, Isten. Was tied to her the day she was born. So, looks like you're not so fucking special after all, are you?"

Moju bursts out laughing and I put a hand up to Isten's face. "Not the time, Is. Really, not the time, OK?"

I look up front and the rest of the 039 is staring back at us. "Never mind this shit, Tier. Just get us the fuck out of this trap before those mutants come back or that goddamn curtain of evil rises up and kills us all."

They turn back and I watch Tier maneuver his bike so Arel can reach the data panels when he stands up.

Sera? Goddammit, Sera, answer me!

Junco, behave.
Her voice in my head is admonishing.
I'm busy with Arel now. You're not so special either.

This time Gideon laughs, but I have to actually put my hand on Isten's shoulder to keep him in his seat. "Stop, it's not important right now."

I hear the growling and my head snaps to look over my shoulder.

The pack is more than a dozen strong as they slink out into the ebbing light that leaks out behind us. If I had to bet my life on it, I'd have said that even that leftover light was enough to keep the nightdogs at bay.

I would've lost that bet.

The light doesn't bother them in the least. I grab the 50 cal and spin up the laser to pulse them in the eyes, but it has no effect.

"They're blind, Junco." Moju's voice comes over the internal coms. "We got blind nightdogs back here, guys. Anytime now would be great."

They pace below us, walking over the beta sheet thing with no consequences. We continue to hover and some of the Unwanted Subs get antsy and nervous when their bikes show signs of fatigue from staying in position. Our bikes are military grade, they can probably hover another hour or so before the stress becomes a problem, but the bikes the Subs are on are practically recreational. Only Gideon has the same quality as the 039.

"Hurry, Tier. The Subs aren't gonna be able to hover much longer."

I hear the whine of a blown motor just a fraction before the bike falls to the ground, splattering the soldiers and the bike into pieces from a height of at almost sixty feet. The Yukichi nano-tech wakes up and slithers like a wave across a pond as it moves to engulf the invaders, the slight radiation signature of the drive just enough to spur it into action. This causes the nightdogs to scatter, but not before several are engulfed by the phagocytic tech.

The Subs start shooting before Tier can call them off and the Yukichi bucks up in defense as the plasma creates energy arcs across its surface. The remaining nightdogs, smelling the blood from the fallen Subs, slink in and begin fighting over the bodies.

I watch in horror as the two team members are ripped to pieces. The rest of the Subs begin spinning to keep their unsuitable bikes from overheating in the hover and the entire scene erupts into chaos as Sera and Arel open the blast doors.

The only thing that saves us is the extreme height of our hovering pattern, because on the other side of the door are dozens of mutant avians.

Even in the semi-light of the bike lamps I can see their gleaming rows of needle-like teeth as they come at us. The Subs swerve and retreat as we blast them from above.

The mutants and I come to a realization at the same time.

They figure out we're up high.

And I figure out that Lucan was wrong. These things are absolutely sentient.

They plotted to trap us behind this door and attack. And now I can almost hear their thoughts as they reorganize.

Blasts in the form of liquid fire, rapid fire, plasma, grenades and rockets are raining down on the little bat-winged bastards flying through the air and they scream and writhe as they burn, literally like demons in hell.

The heat is almost unbearable as the noise rings in my ears. Over the coms I hear Tier screaming to move forward into the next tunnel and Isten surges forward so fast I have to grab hold of his shoulders. We pass through as Braun and Rikan hold them off with rockets that blow a good portion of the tunnel down on top of the flitting mutants, and then Sera and Arel close the door behind us.

The fight continues on the other side, but the little bodies scuttle into the crevices and disappear.

"Full speed, now. Turn right at the intersection and start climbing."

We see more as we travel but they hide again, the hissing becoming stronger as we progress towards the turnoff. When we get there the door is once again closed, but Arel and Sera have it worked out now and they open it a crack to let everyone through after Tier, Ashur, and Mish go forward and scout it out.

When the door close behind us we don't even take stock of the Subs we lost, we just haul ass up the mountain.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The tunnel morphs as we push west up the mountain. It begins dank and dark but as we press on the smell of mold and dead things that make their way through the filters dissipates. The suffocating stillness of the atmosphere fills with currents from unknown places that cause my helmet screen to blink with random wind speed readings. The barest glow of light seeps out from previously unseen flood grates near the floor, and my sensors go crazy trying to figure out the source.

I shiver and Isten's hand sweeps back to pat my helmet.
Eyes peeled, Snowbird. They're here.

Gideon is off to my left, keeping back from Isten just enough to be level with me, and Moju is standing, a full-sized plasma in each arm and propped against his stomach, ready for attack.

But there is no attack.

Just the thrumming of grav bikes, the scuttling of small rodents across the now dry tunnel floor, and the hissing that comes out from the dark cracks, faceless creatures that find a place in my memory and that will haunt me in nightmares for the rest of my life.

The incline is steep and for a moment I feel myself in my Goat, going up the midway hill towards the Stag to meet my fate, the moment before my life changed.

We reach the first blast door but we don't stop. There's no need – that fucker is wide open. As we pass, still cruising at our regular pace, I watch the children and shudder involuntarily. They scurry out from the shadows and chatter in a language that sounds a little too much like a flock of starlings over winter.

Moju catches my attention. "I see them, Juncs. Just stay alert and don't waste time on that sniper rifle, just fucking blast those things if they come at us."

"Yeah." I swing the 50 cal rifle to the side and cradle my rapid-fire in my right arm while slinging the plasma over my left shoulder. "I'd dual-wield it along with ya, Moj, but I'd never hit anything that way so, fuck–"

I'm reeling from the pain of the smack and falling off the bike as the last word leaves my mouth. My wings unfurl and soar into the air currents as I catch myself and fly back up. Plasma fire erupts above me and my attacker falls past as I get back on the bike. The Subs are so strung out they fire on the dead thing for several seconds before Tier gets them back under control.

"What the fuck was–"