Vengeance (The Kurgan War Book 4) (17 page)

“Damn it,” muttered Sheridan, growing more frustrated by the second. “I need to speak with Admiral Oshiro before things get any worse.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like we can’t talk to anyone outside of the station,” explained Cole, holding up his watch.

Sheridan looked down at his watch and saw that Cole was right. Where a signal strength indicator should have been was now blank. “This has to be local interference. Whatever is happening on Earth is happening here too.”

“How true,” said a curly haired man as he stepped past a couple of bar patrons and brought out a pistol from behind his back.

Elba reacted first. She clenched her fist and sent it flying into the man’s throat. With a wet thud, she shattered his windpipe. The stunned man’s eyes widened. He dropped his weapon, fell to his knees and reached up for his throat.

 
A shot followed by another rang out.

Sheridan and Cole drew their pistols and brought them up to fire. People saw the weapons, screamed, and panicked to get out of the line of fire. In the confusion, it was impossible to tell their attackers from the people running for cover.

Automatic gunfire ripped through the air as a couple of station guards fired on a woman in red coveralls with a pistol in her hand. She fell to the floor dead before she could fire. A split second later, the guards were brought down by another gunman who had just stepped out of a bar across the corridor. Sheridan and Cole opened up on the imposter, sending him tumbling backward.
 

Elba and Blackstock drew their pistols and ran for cover. They came to a sliding halt behind a stack of crates waiting to be carried into a nearby shop. No sooner had they taken cover when a woman with blood splattered on her face walked toward them.

“Help me,” pleaded the woman.

Blackstock turned about and waved for the injured person to move to them. When she was less than a couple of meters away, the woman dropped to her knees and threw a knife she had hidden in her sleeve of her right arm straight into Blackstock’s chest. Her injuries had been a ruse. With a smug grin on her face, she reached behind her back for her concealed pistol.

“No!” screamed Elba when she saw the knife sticking out of her friend’s chest. She and the Chosen imposter both rushed to raise up their pistols. Elba was a millisecond faster than her opponent and fired off a burst into the other woman at point-blank range. She never watched her adversary die. Elba dropped to the floor and cradled Blackstock’s head in her arms. A bloody froth had already begun to seep from her friend’s mouth.

“Sorry,” said Blackstock. “I should have seen that one coming.”

“Hush, don’t say another word,” consoled Elba as she tenderly ran her fingers through Blackstock’s hair. The knife had penetrated the heart. She knew he was going to die and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Tears filled her eyes. A feeling of loss and fear gripped her soul as she rocked Blackstock in her arms.

Sheridan fired off a burst at a man trying to use a pillar in the middle of the corridor for cover. Chips of plaster flew from the holes the bullets tore into the fake rock column. He moved to his right slightly and saw the foot of the imposter just sticking out from behind the base of the pillar. He took aim and pulled back on the trigger of his pistol. The rounds struck the floor at the man’s foot. Most of the bullets missed but one hit home, shattering the gunman’s ankle.

With a howl of pain, the Chosen imposter staggered back. Sheridan fired once more and struck the man, who fell back with three gaping holes in his chest.

Like a sudden summer storm coming to an end, the firing came to an abrupt stop. Aside from the sounds of several terrified people crying in fear, the corridor was silent.

Sheridan warily moved out of the front entrance to the bar. He kept his pistol up in front of him in case he had to engage another target.

Cole walked over beside his friend. Both men scanned the crowd for any sign of another attacker hidden in their midst. They were about to lower their weapons and go check on Elba when an armed man stood up, grabbed hold of a terrified teenage girl, and pulled her close to him.

“Get out of my way . . . or I’ll kill this girl,” stammered the man.

Sheridan lowered his weapon and walked slowly toward the Chosen operative. “Let her go and I promise you no one will hurt you.”

“You’re lying . . . now step aside and let me get into the nearest elevator.”

Cole stood fixed in place. He watched every move the imposter made and followed him with the barrel of his pistol.

“The elevators have all been locked,” explained Sheridan. “Please believe me when I tell you that you’re not going anywhere. So why don’t you let the girl go?”

Nervous, sweat poured down the man’s face. He glanced over at the elevator trying to see if he was being lied to.

“Look, I’ll put my gun down,” said Sheridan as he got down on one knee and placed his pistol down on the carpeted floor. With his hands held open to show that he was unarmed, Sheridan stood up.

“What about the man behind you? He’ll kill me the instant I let the girl go.”

“He’ll only shoot if you do something stupid. Now, what do you say? Lower your weapon and release the girl.”

For a second, the gunman seemed to hesitate.
 

Sheridan thought he was going to surrender when he let out a yell and turned his weapon toward him. His heart froze at the sound of the pistol firing. He expected to die. Instead, he saw the Chosen’s head snap back with a hole right between the eyes. The terrified hostage screamed and pulled the dead man’s arm from her shoulders and ran to her mother. Sheridan couldn’t believe that he was still alive. He turned his head and saw blood gushing from a wound on the bottom of Cole’s left ear.

Cole lowered his pistol and reached a hand up to check the damage. When he saw his hand covered in blood, he grimaced and shook his head. “I guess I should have ducked.”

“Let me grab something to staunch the bleeding,” said Sheridan as he dashed into the nearest bar, grabbed some clean towels, and gave them to Cole to apply to his wound.

“How’s it look?” Cole asked.

Sheridan grimaced. “I think you’re missing the bottom of your ear.”

“Better that than another piece of machinery, if you catch my drift.”

Sheridan shook his head. He looked around at the scene of devastation. When he couldn’t see Elba, his heart began to race. He called out, “Anne, it’s me, Michael, are you okay?”
 

“Yes, I’m over here,” she replied.

He heard the sorrow in her voice and ran to her side. He clenched his jaw when he saw her sitting on the floor holding her friend in her arms. It was obvious that the man was dead. “What happened?”

“He was murdered by a Chosen traitor.” Her eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears.

Sheridan looked over and saw the dead imposter lying face up on the ground. He let out a mournful sigh and placed a hand on Elba’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m going to check on Master Sergeant Cole’s wound. Take a few minutes here if you like.”

Elba nodded, lowered her head, and carried on rocking Blackstock in her arms.

Sheridan turned about and noticed the two dead guards’ bodies lying in front of a shop. He walked over and picked up their compact assault rifles and all of the ammunition he could find. Sheridan checked that both weapons were loaded. Half the size of a military assault rifle, the R-76 Carbine had a three-hundred round drum along with an optical and laser sight. By the time he made his way to Cole’s side, his friend was being looked after by an off-duty nurse who had cleaned and dressed his wound. He handed Cole a carbine and two extra drums of ammunition.

“How’s Anne?” Cole asked.

“She’s okay, but her friend is dead.”

“Damn. How’s she taking it?”

Sheridan shook his head. “Not well.”

Cole felt for the young woman. He took a deep breath, jammed his spare drums away, and checked that his weapon was on safe. “What I’d like to know is, how did they find us? I thought we were all but invisible with the stuff Vlad sold us.”

“Perhaps someone got lucky and identified one of us from an old picture. Doesn’t really matter now. Harry knows we’re here and that’s all there is to it.”

Cole looked up at a camera on the wall. “You could be onto something there. I think there are more cameras per kilometer up here than back down on Earth.”

 
“Sir, what are we going to do now?” asked Elba, joining the discussion. In her hand was the scanning device Blackstock had been using to look for the virus.

“Okay, here’s what we do know. Here on the station and back home on Earth there have been targeted attacks against government and military installations by Chosen insurgents. What they hope to achieve in the long run is still a bit unclear.”

“I can’t see any of the attacks down on Earth succeeding,” offered Cole. “Sure they’ll inflict a few casualties but in the long run, our forces will cut them to ribbons.”

“Casualties aren’t their focus. For now, fear and doubt among the civilian population is what they are after. What I don’t understand, at least not yet, is why they bothered with Tranquility Station.”

“It’s the virus,” said Elba. “It’s here. Sean believed it and so do I. At some point, perhaps just before our people try to retake the station, they’re going to infect everyone here. If this place isn’t isolated, it will spread like wildfire through the human population killing billions and leaving us open to invasion by the Kurgs.”

“She’s right,” said Cole.

“Did your friend have an idea where the virus was being stored?” Sheridan asked.

“He thought it was lower down in one of the station’s warehouses.” She held up her scanner. “He said he could find it with this device.”

“Well, we’ve got to get you down there then,” said Cole, eyeing the nearest elevator.

“But they’re locked.”

“A lock is only a deterrent to an honest man.” With that, Cole walked to the nearest fire station, opened the metal case, and removed an ax. He swung it around in the air for a few seconds to get a good feel for the ax before stepping over to the elevator. “Step back,” he warned as he brought his arms back and then swung the ax right between the two closed halves of the door, splitting them open.

Sheridan and Elba saw the opening, dashed over, grabbed the doors, and pulled back with all of their might. As soon as the doors were a shoulder width apart, Cole flipped the ax around and jammed it between the doors, holding them open.

“Voila, our way off this floor,” announced Cole, pointing to a ladder bolted to the wall of the elevator shaft.

Sheridan turned around and looked into the crowd of curious onlookers. He spotted a station guard, barely out of his teens, and waved him over. “What’s your name?” he asked the young man.

“Crewman Rodger Ng,” replied the guard.

“Well, Rodger, I’ve just drafted you into federal service. I need you to accompany Staff Sergeant Elba while she looks for a deadly virus possibly hidden on one of the floors below us.”

Ng’s eyes widened. “Did you say a virus, sir?”

“It’s a very nasty one too,” added Cole. “Now, you can wait here for it to be released or you can go with the good sergeant and help save not only your life but the lives of a quarter-million people.”

Elba looked over at Sheridan. “Are you not coming, sir?”

“No. I need to find out what is really going on up here and maybe stop whatever they’ve got planned. If Cole and I fail, then it’s all up to you and Rodger to prevent the virus from being used.”

“Good luck, sir,” said Elba, holding out her hand.

“You too, Anne,” Sheridan replied as he shook her hand. He watched as Anne and Ng climbed out onto the ladder and began to climb down into the depths of the station.

“So, what do you have in mind?” asked Cole.

“What’s the easiest way to take a building?”

“That’s easy. From the top down.”

“Precisely.”

Cole stuck his head in the tall shaft and looked up. “You do realize that we could climb for a week and still not reach the top of this thing.”

“Why climb when you can fly?”

Cole grinned. “I like where this is going. There are several airlocks below us on the loading docks on the outer ring.”

“What are waiting for?” said Sheridan as he reached out and grabbed hold of the ladder.

Cole waited until his friend was a floor below him before joining him. Before starting his climb, he grabbed hold of the ax and yanked it free. With a hiss, the elevator doors slid closed. He jammed the ax as best he could inside his coveralls and began to climb down. The only thing going for them, he thought, was that they were at least climbing down and not up to the loading docks.

Chapter 22

Solari bit the end of the nail on her thumb while she paced back and forth waiting for the signal from her accomplices that Dorset Station had been secured. The seizure of the command and control centers on
Tranquility
had gone far smoother than she had expected. With a war on, she had anticipated additional security guards to be placed throughout the vital areas of the installation. Yet when they struck, most of the sentries were not at their posts. Most had left their duty stations early to mingle at the bars with the civilians in the lower decks. If Colonel Rutland hadn’t been shot by Harry Williams, he would have been brought up on charges of negligence and dereliction of duty by the ADF when the dust settled.