Genesis - the Battle Within (Pillars of Creation Book 1) (2 page)

Genesis stood back up, moving swiftly into the area ahead. He wanted to stay in front of the men so he could do all the initial sweeps well before they entered. As good as they were, they were still prone to human mistakes and were nowhere near on par with the sanctions of an Immortal, who were the spearheads of their faith and bred for just such supremacy.

Genesis checked the next area for targets, just as carefully as the last, seeing nothing posing a direct threat. The area was just a long hallway and was completely devoid of—

The Immortal
instantly snapped back into the present –
apparently not as devoid as it first looked
, his second side thought furiously, berating his rashness. He realised instantly he was far too deep into the hallway to try and pull back from sight.

But still all wasn’t lost as he sensed, luckily, he had time to be able to slink back a metre, giving him a brief second and
the advantage of surprise, using the mist which gathered and billowed in front of the side corridor, just beyond him, to his fullest advantage. Genesis remained calm as he watched the swirls and the grey clouds ripple and fan out over his feet, knowing almost straight away what was at the epicentre. From the speed and width of the agitated wisps he utilised his Al, the third voice in his mind, to work out the height, speed and weight of the approaching sentry. All of which he did before his target even rounded the corner.

For a second time his muscles twitched instinctively, knowing what the mist precipitated, and he forced himself to wait for the clumsy movements of the sentry, who was ambling along unaware of what was about to hit him. Genesis used the agonising seconds it took for the Skink to arrive around the corner to decide that his enemy, on the whole, still didn’t realise he and his men were aboard.

The guard didn’t finish rounding the corridor. Genesis lost control of his mind’s division, became impatient and spun around the corner meeting the guard fist first. In a flurry of motion Genesis struck the sentry hard in the neck twice, crushing the man’s throat instantly and quenching his cry for alarm. Then with an even swifter and harder kick the Immortal left him rebounding off the far wall with a smear of the man’s failure splattered across the smooth surface. Quietly the Skink’s form slid inelegantly towards the floor with his eyes rapidly glazing over.

His head snapped up, hearing yet more noise beyond the corridor. It was unusual and gave Genesis cause to investigate. Harnessing the powerful hit and continuing around the unconscious man, he lengthened his strides into an effortless, silent run, unnatural to the human eye.

Moving from the showering quarters, Genesis slipped into the adjoining passage leading into the depths of the enemy’s interior rooms. As he stepped free of the second doorway he abruptly halted, aware of what was making the noise, and in the same instant his split minds and his AI went silent, as his body became rigid and unmovable.

His religion’s infused personality was first to react, cursing his real one.
This is what happens when you try to come along and
synchronise
ourselves in
harmony, he thought fleetingly, annoyed at the series of novice mistakes he’d made.

He’d seen the danger too late to correct, stepping overconfidently into the centre of the corridor and away from the protective shadows he loved so dearly.

Before comprehending its meaning fully, Genesis understood enough of what was going down to know he was in trouble … and he almost felt the sting of his Master’s cuff over his ear.

With a flash of movement, the opposite end of the corridor caught his full attention; his eyes narrowing as the danger grew. With a hiss the door slammed closed behind him, sealing the trap, and at the other end of the corridor, causing all the noise, an older style, manned turret wheeled towards him, dramatically screeching.

His AI pushed in a thought and Genesis immediately knew the noise was from a well-used and thoroughly aged pivot on which the gun sat, probably having caught many before, like him, just as unaware. The turret, which had only just now detected his motion, made up for its excessive noise as it snapped to attention and left him hardly a second’s more pause to work with.

‘
Careless kid,
’ His Master’s words echoed in the back of his mind, adding a fourth voice to the equation, as he tried desperately to concentrate. His real self yelled at the lot of them, “
IN THE SACRED’S NAME WOULD YOU ALL JUST SHUT UP!”

With his effort quietening the voices, and his Master’s scolding pushed from his mind, Genesis took over and sped up all three divisions of his mind, utilising his AI, the infused rift and his own mind, as he’d been trained to years earlier, by the very same man who cursed him in memory. Unfortunately though, as then, like a pupil, he made little progress as the danger overcame him and grew. In despair, Genesis searched for a way out as his Master’s words somehow echoed through his racing mind again, defying even time itself to scold him this, it seemed, soon to be last, time.

‘There’s always Option B, there’s always another way out boy, if you’re not too stupid, or blind; you just have to find it, before time catches up with you.’

His jaw tightened as he shut the thought out, he was trapped directly in the firing line and forced to watch as the cannon snapped up towards him; there was literally nowhere to run.

Craaaap,
there was no Option B here
…
was there?

Time was slowed agonisingly as he watched and saw plans he calculated evade him. The machine somehow seemed to move even slower than it had been designed for, making his fate even more tormen—

Suddenly Genesis realised
there
was his out,
there
was his Option B; his AI had picked it when he first heard it but hadn’t realised it
.
The twin fifteen-millimetre barrels made their long turn towards him in their painfully slow rotation and gave him just a tiny window of opportunity and a sliver of hope.
Come on Genesis
, one of his personalities thought, bolstering him,
only a few seconds before they activate … one chance, one option
…
charge you blind and stupid kid!

Genesis threw himself forward as fast as he could summon, blocking everything else as he ran, squarely focussing on his target.

Sheathing Katana while still sprinting, Genesis pooled all his internal strength through his Rieft ability and pushed the excess energy totally into his legs. Almost instantly he noticed his pace increasing as he hurtled forward in powerful lengthening bounds, not even registering that each time his foot struck the ground it did so with enough pounding force to crack the tiled floor beneath him. He had to outrun it, this was his only hope.

Genesis soon left the remnants of the showering quarter as he sent himself careening suicidally over the metal-plated corridor and brazenly towards his goal. In an instant he became a blur to human eyes, stealth was all but forgotten, he was now tearing through the corridor with no regard for anything other than closing the gap; the gap which meant life or death – he needed to clear the hallway …
now!
Come on Genesis you can do it
, one of him encouraged.

The last few metres closed quickly, the hallway seeming to narrow as he sped to his maximum velocity, and yet still, Genesis realised as his eyes widened in realisation, he wasn’t fast enough – he simply had run out of time, despite the machine’s age and tardiness.

The turret finished its turn, training straight on him, the barrels clicking over as their internal mechanisms fell into place and readied to vaporise all in their path.

Milliseconds before the first shots blasted, his pre-cognition training kicked in and alerted him to his imminent danger. With a sudden jolt, and before he’d even thought of it, his body moved for him, almost unexpectedly, as his instinct training took over.

Genesis twisted impossibly and brutally moved in a different direction at breakneck speed, so fast that it looked as if he had somehow been in two places at once, succeeding in playing havoc with his attacker’s eyes and eluding him. With this, his last plausible chance of escape, the agile Immortal darted hard to his left and curved high along one side of the wall, way above the ground.

Utilising this strange new angle as his runway, and barely clinging to the new surface with his nano-infused body, Genesis bolted along the wall for the remaining few metres. The instant he left the floor, the air directly behind his head rippled as it became punctuated with fire and crackling energy. The noise was accompanied by an intense heat which was so close it sent his ion shields flaring crazily to life as he flinched from their severity.

As his Rieft talent – a strong part of the religion’s personality infused within him – had foreseen, the entire hallway where he’d previously been running erupted into laser fire, arcing wildly through the air leaving gouges in the steel, the shots trying desperately, but failing, to catch up with him.

Right before his deadly pursuer could catch up and with a last concerted effort, Genesis kicked hard off the wall, cart-wheeling through the air and across the passageway to avoid the fast-approaching carnage.

This final leap sent him well over the turret’s field of fire and impressively to his final destination, all accomplished beyond normal human limits and comprehension, still alive and unscathed. Accustomed to such inhuman capabilities, and in a recovering flash, Genesis took the turret’s overseer by complete surprise, landing nimbly in front of the shocked sentry. His surprise soon morphed to terror as the combined blast of his armoured ion-core and the crushing speed with which he’d reached him, sent the broken form flying like a pinwheel over the facility’s railing and into the hangar’s interior a good fifty metres below him. Genesis cringed and turned away as he saw the man’s head pop on the floor like an overripe melon.

Ignoring the cries of the other crew members within the hangar, Genesis wasted no time in the knowledge that his enemy now knew they were boarded and were well and truly under attack. The Immortal quickly gripped the sides of the turret now that he was safely behind it, and through his enhanced strength sent a torrent of coursing energy flowing through the defined muscles cut from his back and arms.

A ripple went through the nanos across his armour as the upper section of the turret gave some resistance for a brief moment, and then finally with a groan tore completely free. Sounds of wrenching metal was heard as the dying turret’s cries echoed down the hall, ringing out loudly towards his squad who were still a good twenty metres away and just entering the passage. Small explosions emitted from within the destroyed electronics as Genesis dropped the smouldering heap to the floor.

Letting his breath out slowly, he watched the squad finally break cover and move towards him. The men checked all their corners as they demonstrated their much rehearsed skill in the face of combat, Genesis wincing as their metallic armour-plated boots clunked heavily towards him, sounding excessively loud through his enhanced senses.

Genesis signalled that all was secure as the men looked at the smoking heap in front of them. In any normal combat situation, all knew a turret as powerful as the one just deactivated would have hampered their assault for precious minutes, leaving half the men, if lucky, to return to battle.

Genesis stiffened yet again as a siren whined from deep within the ship, with the sound of many, far-off boots following soon after. With alacrity he was back into the situation with unshakable focus, the last encounter making his second personality stand up and take full control. It knew their mission was far from over and this ship seemed well defended, highly guarded and indeed worthy of his presence considering it was just a regular Skink frigate. His mind recalled that Intel had suggested there would be eighty to ninety lightly armoured Seekers of Truth troops, however he knew better than to rely entirely on Intel’s Seek-Find-Report droids. They were helpful, yes, but entirely accurate,
not always
. And the fact that turrets had been set up in places such as the showering quarters meant this was no random Skink ship or deployment.

Rotas, the squad’s captain, leader of Delta’s 707
th
Company and Lieutenant Colonel of the SED military, finally caught up, puffing as she spoke.

“Sir!” exclaimed Rotas. Genesis cocked his head and blinked before dredging up his real self.

“Rotas, no need for such formality, we are old friends not new recruits,” Genesis said, raising his hands in a goodwill gesture.

“Sorry Genesis, just following protocol and after watching you do the things you just did it’s hard to not treat you as a superior, young fella; even after all our missions together. We don’t want the Elders getting pissed when reviewing your files now do we?”

Genesis smirked at his friend, even though his armour hid his features, “Rotas, you have my permission to anger our tormentors, you worry about me too much. You don’t see them risking their precious little necks out here do you?” Genesis didn’t wait for a response, “What took you so long anyway? I swear you’re getting slow in your old age old fella,” he joked.

As his visor opened, Rotas feigned offence, “Old,
ha, that’s funny coming from the likes of you … trapped for all eternity looking like you just finished puberty.” Rotas laughed as Genesis frowned, “And I’m not slow it’s just this damn heavy-ass armour. It may take a pounding but in the names of the Sacred it’s heavy, well, heavy compared to your Apocalypse stuff anyway, which I suspect is why we wear our old buckets anyways; you know, to make you old geriatrics able to keep ahead of us an’ look good an’ all.”