Ordinaries: Shifters Book II (Shifters series 2) (16 page)

Chapter 29

An Ordinary Desolation

–TANNER
–

Ryland is right. That’s the only way to describe them. They’re not like
The Walking Dead
kind of decomposing zombies. They’re more like regular-people-that-look-like-they-have-been-starved-nearly-to-death zombies. Our troops are standing still, dumbfounded. The army the Shifters sent doesn’t look like any Shifters I’ve ever seen. They don’t look like enemies. Are they turning them over to us?

Miles stands up and yells, “Stand down! Don’t attack! They’re Twelvers!”

I realize after Sam, the larger Shifter guy, radioed back to Marcus, the other troops from our ships have caught up to us.

Ryland shouts to Miles, “What does that mean?”

“Twelvers,” a man from behind me says.

Ryland and I turn around. A middle-aged man stands with his weapon in one hand aiming at the ground. “Prisoners,” he says.

I silently mouth, “What?

“Twelve is a prison colony now,” he says plainly, distant.

A younger man steps up and says, “When the resources ran out on Twelve, they converted it to a prison colony.”

“That’s where we go if we’re caught,” the first man says. “To be held . . . or executed.”

Miles walks out and looks at them. He’s holding his gun down.

“Miles!” I shout. “Get down! Something’s not right here!”

He ignores me.

“Maxim?” Miles asks, as he cautiously approaches a zombie-like man in the front.

The man stares aimlessly. Then his eyes begin to dart between Miles, our troops, and our ships. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.

“Ryland,” I whisper, trying not to breathe. “Something’s wrong with them. They’ve done something to them.”

“I know,” Ryland whispers. “Whoever that is . . . it’s not Maxim.” She slowly raises her weapon and trains it on the man Miles is approaching.

“Miles,” I whisper loud enough for him to hear.

Miles shakes his head and keeps his eyes locked on the man while slowly waving us off with his palm low to the ground. There’s a slight breeze, and the only thing that makes a sound is the steady hum of the ships engines.

Miles quietly asks, “Maxim? It’s me, Miles. Are you okay?”

Maxim stares at Miles, examining his face and tilts his head.

Miles reaches his hand out and says, “Brother, come with me. You’re safe now.”

Maxim’s eyes grow wide and his face changes from a blank stare to complete rage. Miles steps back. Maxim screams and charges Miles, who’s frozen in his tracks. Maxim leaps at his terrified former friend as a loud boom rings out, followed by a burst of red. Maxim falls on top of Miles, pushing him to the ground.

Ryland lowers her weapon as Miles cries out, “No!” as he holds the bloody, lifeless body of his brother. “No!” he cries.

My sister looks at me with tears in her eyes. “I had to,” she tells me. “I
had
to,” she tries to explain to the people around us.

I look at our troops staring at us. Then, I see their expressions change to fear. Ryland and I turn and drop to the ground as we hear thousands of zombie voices screaming and coming toward us.

I know what’s about to happen. The Ordinaries of this world will not be able to fight their own people. The Shifters have found a way to defeat us. The Ordinaries will not fight Ordinaries. If we begin killing them, our rebel allies will turn on us. It’s brilliant! Horrible, but brilliant!

Ryland begins to take aim and fire as bodies burst into explosions of red. I lie on the ground and fire at one head coming directly toward me. The blast shoots searing pain into my shoulder, and I shudder as I see his head explode like a macabre fireworks display.

Our Ordinary frontline refuses to fight as the first of the zombie hoard reaches us. They stare in shock as they’re thrown to the ground then scratched, kicked, and beaten. Some cry out in pain before turning into lifeless puppets that the zombies refuse to stop destroying. Others explode as their former allies begin shooting.

I keep my position as I shoot over and over, trying to ignore the pain of my gun’s recoil. I fire, then fire, and fire some more. Each bullet takes what little life remains of our attackers. I hear an enormous battle cry from behind our lines as our troops surge toward the horde of enemies that threatens our existence.

The engines fire up, and the empty ships begin to lift off.

“Ryland!” I yell, hoping she can hear me above the noise. “They’re going toward the base.”

Ryland turns to look at me, then back at the ships. She yells into her radio, “Clay! Take the ships back to protect the base.” She listens and then shouts back in the radio, “Leave me! You have to protect the base!”

–RYLAND–

My stomach is hollow, filled with an empty dread and horror at what I’m being forced to do. I am murdering innocent people simply because they’ve been brainwashed or poisoned or something, but there’s no choice. I keep telling myself that over and over as the ground becomes muddy and sticky with blood.

I try not to see anything around me but zombies. That’s how I think of them. I am in a zombie movie, and if I don’t kill them now, I’ll be bitten and turned and become a monster just like them. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know this will scar me forever. The person I have been is gone, replaced by someone colder and more calculating.

But now is not the time for grief and regret.

So, I take aim and fire.

Over and over, I shoot into the lifeless, rage-filled voids of eyes which once were the windows to souls. I don’t think about how some of them were once mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, friends. I think only of what I must do.

I shoot those that come at me, but mostly I defend the others who are supposed to be fighting alongside me. Miles still stands there in shock. I fire at those who rush at him.

Cooper fights as well, but her aim is shaky and off. At least seven times, I am forced to kill someone stumbling over bodies to attack her. She glances at me gratefully, but her face is so contorted with pain and confusion that I cannot meet her gaze.

I wish I had left Tanner behind. I should have forced him to remain on the ship with Clay. He should be defending our base from those monstrous floating cities, not being scarred by this crazed Ordinary attack.

Mostly, I feel sick as the Ordinaries are forced to turn on people who were once like them. Most of these prisoners were once freedom fighters and members of the rebellion. Whether they knew them personally or not, the Ordinaries are struggling with killing former members of their own group.

Kai, unlike the other members of our group, is not simply defending his position and killing the zombie-like creatures as they approach us. He is advancing on them, gaining ground and fighting through the horde. His cold, calculating eyes make me tremble.

He is pure hatred and fury, fighting like a whirlwind. I wonder if he sees Marques and the other Keepers who slaughtered his parents in front of him. Perhaps he sees Rian and the other Shifters we are fighting against.

I force myself to see the zombies coming at me. I stare into the eyes of a girl no older than Peanut. I can tell that her eyes were once brown and warm like hot chocolate on a cold winter’s eve, but now, they are a dull, lifeless gray. There’s no warmth or love there. There’s only a pure anger, a need to inflict pain.

I pull the trigger. A blue light overcomes her, then a gush of red. And she’s gone. I wonder briefly if she ever saw fireworks in her life, innocent ones, unlike this. I feel a pang of sadness that most likely she did not. Then I look for the next target.

A wall of coldness overtakes me, and I see nothing anymore. There are targets, and I aim carefully to annihilate them all.

My arms are sore and heavy from holding my weapon long before the enemy is gone. The field is so covered with bodies and blood that it seems to be a sea of dead before me rather than a field.

Chapter 30

The First Wave

–TANNER–

“Ryland!” I yell. “Ryland!” I try again.

She’s standing in front of me staring. Not moving, staring.

There are screams and the sounds of mourning all around us. Men are in tears, holding destroyed bodies and crying out. I realize that some of our warriors watched, even killed people they knew. A woman holds the body of a child and rocks back and forth, wailing. She must have known him. He may have been related to her, even her child?

“Ryland!” I yell again.

“What?” she snaps, as she turns to me. Her face is hard, stiff, but tears are streaming down, leaving tracks through the blood and grime.

“We have to get back,” I tell her. “To the base. Call Clay or something.”

“Why?” she asks. “What’s the point? You see what they did! What they made us . . . what they made them do,” she says, looking across the field that’s running with the blood of the Ordinaries.

“That’s why we have to get back,” I tell her. “We have to stop this. We have to stop them.”

“I don’t get it,” Cooper says walking up to us. “What did they do to them? Why were they attacking us?”

“Gather up front!” Kai yells as he runs toward us. “Everyone! Gather here! They’re holding them off at the base. The pickup point is in the clearing. Go! Go! Go!”

Everyone still able gets up and starts running toward the clearing, tripping over bodies as they run. Some stop to retch.

Kai races up to me and says, “You’re on the first ship. Whoever can get on goes with you! The others will have to catch the next!”

“What about Ry?” I ask him.

“Listen,” he says. “You get back there now! Don’t worry about us!” He turns to the crowd and yells, “Tanner’s on first. If you’re by him, jump on. If not, you wait. Got that?”

Everybody just looks at him. They must be as confused as I am.

“You got that?” he yells with more authority than I have ever heard. “Do not slow him down!”

I see several reluctant nods as he turns to me and says, “If anybody gets in your way, shoot ‘em. Just get on that ship!” His face is hard, determined.

I see The Wizard break over the white leaves of the trees and drop down in the clearing. I run toward the ship, along with a group of Ordinaries. Cooper runs up beside me and matches my pace. She’s fast, faster than me. She gets to the ship as its exterior morphs into an opening and she jumps on, reaching for me. She pulls me in, and a handful of others jump on behind me.

The ship begins to rise, leaving several dozen jumping, hoping for something to grab on to.

I turn toward the pilot and scream, “Wait! We need to get Ryland! I need my sister!”

The guy who turns to yell at me is Clay. He looks pained as he says, “We have to leave her! Right now, we need you!”

I stand at the opening of the ship and watch Kai and Ryland stare at me as the ship banks hard, and the opening closes in front of me. I’m thrown to the floor, and then I look up to see Mona facing me.

“Clay!” I yell, as I scramble to my feet. I run toward the cockpit and stop in the entrance. “We can’t leave them there!”

Not Clay, some other pilot shoots me a quick glance and guides the ship north.

“Mr. Tanner,” another Mona-like AI says from behind me. “I have the ships’ plans. Please take a moment to study them. We don’t have much time.”

“What?” I ask. What are they doing?

“We have accessed their systems and gathered this information,” the fake Mona says. “You will only have a few seconds before the attack is devastating.”

She projects a 3D image of the ships that left all the Ordinaries on the battlefield. Flashes of diagrams and plans are displayed around me.

“I can’t make sense of this,” I tell her.

“Just look!” the pilot yells. “You need to figure out something before we get there or
everyone
dies!”

I sit down and steady myself. I think of Sol
é
and Kyle. Jon and Rick’s faces go through my mind along with their sweet mother, Mrs. Langley. Elly and Alli. Thousands of Ordinaries. Alice. Bryce.

“Okay,” I say. “Show me everything.” I don’t think this will work, but I have to try.

The images steady before me, and I concentrate on the schematics. Everything around me quiets and slows. The ship becomes motionless as I concentrate. “Wait,” I say, but everyone around me is frozen. “I’ve seen something like this before.” I realize this is similar to what Viktor built. It’s not exactly the same, but it
is
similar.

I stare at the rendering floating above me. I stand and walk around it, studying. I concentrate on it, and I think I know what to do. The central core, I can control it. I can destroy it.

I sit and strap in knowing I have to slow my body back to normal. The world catches up with me as I yell, “Get me close.”

We come in fast over the trees, and I see the ship. It’s huge. It’s daunting. It’s about to be destroyed. I tell the pilot to go down to the right as I access the scanners. I shut down the near side’s systems.

“Drop me there,” I say, pointing just under the ship.

“You sure about this?” the pilot asks.

“I got it,” I tell him.

The pilot does what I ask, hovering near the ground. “Drop me here. Take them to the far side.” He nods, and I tell him, “Then you go back and get my sister. You got that?”

He nods, and an opening emerges in the side of the ship. I step out and prepare to jump.

Cooper runs up beside me. I scream for her to get back, to go with the others, to be safe.

“No way,” she says as she jumps to the ground.

I shake my head and jump.

The opening seals shut as the pilot maneuvers the ship away from us.

This thing—this ship—above us is huge. I can tell that it and its twin have been firing on the base. There are massive holes in the rock face and heavy structural damage to the building itself.

I force myself to focus inward, to look inside and find the core. It’s a reactor that’s relying on a counter reactor to offset the heat and energy of the first. When I put them out of sync, it will become unstable, unable to hold position. Better than that, the two ships are synchronized. One goes out, the other will follow.

“I can’t guarantee where they’ll fall,” I tell Cooper.

“I trust you Tanner,” she says. “Take ‘em down!”

–RYLAND–

Kai is shouting orders to everyone, but there are still Ordinaries cradling the dead and the dying. Several people were injured when they didn’t react quickly enough to the horrific onslaught of those who were once friends, neighbors, and family. Many of them are lying on the ground, groaning in pain, covered in blood.

The earth is soaked with blood. I wonder briefly if it will stain the ground here, forever marking this as a place of pain and death. I’ve read there are battlefields like that on Earth, places where the ground is stained forever by the blood of the fallen.

I feel nausea creeping up, and I retch. When nothing comes up, I wonder if we ever actually had a chance to eat. I guess not.

Kai calls my name, and my head turns slowly toward him, wondering what he could
possibly
need from me right now. “Ryland!” he shouts again, his voice filling with anger at my slow response. “I need you to get these people ready! Now!”

As though moving through molasses, my legs slowly jerk forward. It’s a strange, shaky movement for something that seems slower than a snail could possibly move. But at least I’m moving now. The thought of gathering the injured, of comforting the broken, somehow gets me going.

I may forever be scarred by this battle. I may never recover from this horror. I may have been permanently altered by this cruelty, but I’m not the one suffering most. Therefore, it’s my job to care for those who are.

That’s what makes me move.

With some, I am able to speak calmly and convince them to move. With others, I’m forced to wrestle the dead from their arms. For the injured, I use every ounce of my strength to carry them one by one toward where the ships are landing.

It’s a mother, weeping over the body of her lost child that makes me stop once more. I am forced to swallow the hollow ache that threatens to overtake me when I see the body in her arms is the girl I killed. Her matted hair, being so carefully brushed back by her mother, is a honey color that reminds me of summertime and home.

I stand there, staring at the all-consuming loss and grief before me, and I’m frozen. How can anyone ever fight against this? How can we ever hope to succeed against enemies like these?

And yet, in the face of this pain, how can we do anything but fight? How can we allow such tyranny and cruelty to exist in this day and age? How can we surrender to pain when this will only allow it to rule?

“Come,” I say softly to the mother before me. Her soft gray eyes meet mine, and I know she sees a mirror there. She sees the reflection of her own sorrow. She stares at me for one long moment, then she takes her weapon in her hand.

Before I can stop her, she pulls the trigger.

I turn away, hoping they are together somewhere. She and her daughter must be grasping once more, wrapping their arms so tightly around one another.

Kai’s watching me, seeing the scene behind me. As I walk past him, he places a hand on my shoulder, but I don’t stop, and his hand slips away.

Just as I am approaching the group of ships, I see The Wizard break through the smoke. It flies low over the clearing as though searching for something. Then it slowly descends ten feet to my right. The door opens, and Clay runs toward me, wrapping me in his embrace.

I stand there for a moment, then pull away. “What’s happening back at the base?” I ask, my tone commanding and strong, the opposite of the hollow and broken person behind it.

Clay watches me for a moment before saying, “Tanner is attempting to take down their ships. In the meantime, we were able to detect two more incoming. Life scans indicate that they are full of Shifter troops.”

“So,” I grin and wink at him, forcing myself to be another person. “It’s finally time for battle?”

Clay shrugs, clearly concerned about me, wondering what I’m really feeling. I don’t let him in. I don’t let him see. I just walk into the ship and strap myself in.

The ship fills up around me, and we take off.

We arrive back at the base just in time to see one of the city ships crash straight into the warehouse. I don’t have time to mourn or think or grieve.

As we land on the outskirts of the tent city that’s in the only clearing around our cliff-side base, I see the incoming city ships looming in the sky. The enemy is landing.

The battle is about to begin.