Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) (50 page)

The battle overhead had raged on longer than he had expected, but he was in no hurry to expose himself when the combat appeared to have ceased. He had ignored the call to get on one of the transports escaping the area, delighting in the thought that he would be presumed dead when he was not found among the surviving Dissidents.

He turned from the open doorway and retreated toward his small refuge. He had a cot, an overturned box that acted as a nightstand, and a portable light glowing in the darkness. At the end of the cot sat his pack and a crate of survival meals he had stolen from the base stores. He stuffed his pack with as many supplies as it could carry, rolled up the thin blanket draped across his cot, and tied it to the bottom of the pack with the straps that dangled on the floor.

He dropped the pack next to his nightstand and pulled a tablet out from a side pocket. He sat down, the screen illuminating his face with an eerie blue light. A laser emanated from the top right corner of the tablet and scanned his eyes. A soft chirp was followed by the face of an old woman with grey hair appearing on the screen. Garrett smiled as the lined and weathered face ghosted from the screen to hover a few inches above the tablet in the air.

“What do you have to report?” she asked in a singsong voice. Her eyes crinkled when she smiled at him. Garrett smiled in return.

“The Dissidents have escaped a surprise attack by Olympus,” he spoke with excited words. “I managed to survive the encounter and remain undetected by both groups. I’m just waiting for the dust to clear before I leave here and make my way back to Olympus.”

She smiled again. “Have your true allegiances been discovered?” Her words hung in the air like a cold fog.

“No, grandmother,” he replied with a wicked smile. “They’re still blithely unware of who I am. They’re so wrapped up in their own petty affairs they haven’t an inkling of what we’re planning to do.” He almost danced in his seat with excitement. He reveled in the pleasure of how he and his counterpart had infiltrated two sub-cultures of their common enemy.

“I think it’s time you and your brother-in-arms met in person.” her ghost of a face dissipated into the darkness and a map of Olympus appeared on the screen. A red dot flashed and pulsating, indicating the location of the other insurgent from his homeland far away.

EIGHTY-FIVE

Reynolds trembled with rage as he watched the freighter disappear into the atmosphere. His disheveled hair and charred uniform were insults to the perfect military career that had been marred by his defeat. He stood still within the battered remains of his command center. Bulkheads had fallen all around him. The Leviathan, the weapon of his own design, had become a lifeless hulk of metal. He had only chemical emergency lights to see by until repair teams restored enough power to open the doors and tell him the extent of the damages to his ship.

He grabbed one of the technicians by the shirt and pulled him into within an inch of his own face. “As soon as minimum power is restored, I want the communications link with Olympus fixed at once!” he roared. He shoved the tech away with enough force that he tumbled backwards over a console that had been torn away from the ceiling.

Junior officers and technicians scattered all around him like cockroaches in the light. All eyes avoided making contact as they did their best to do their jobs without drawing attention to themselves.

Reynolds’ only comfort was that he was able to order ground vehicles and troops that survived the crash to close in on the Dissident base. Their orders were simple: destroy anyone and anything they could find.

The main power failed not long after the ground assault team had launched, leaving him without means to contact his ground forces, Olympus, or anyone else. He paced around the command deck like a caged lion waiting to pounce on the first person to present himself as his prey. He needed to be doing something other than sitting around in a useless heap of metal awaiting rescue.

It was hours before the Leviathan’s systems had been repaired enough to make contact with Olympus. He wanted his first call to be to Campbell and begin planning their hunt for the Dissidents off-world, but his report to the Quorum was his primary responsibility. He would have no choice but to contact them first.

They would not be pleased.

EIGHTY-SIX

Sergeant Heather Davis’ agent jogged at a steady pace out in the desert, making her way through the sparse vegetation toward Olympus, her glittering beacon in the distance. Her uniform, still camouflaged to match the terrain, was covered in sand, dust, and fragments of shrubbery.

From above and behind her, she heard the whirring of approaching engines. She came to a stop and spun into a crouch to see what was following her.

In the bright afternoon light, she had little chance of remaining hidden from the vehicle hovering behind her. Her advanced eyesight recognized the markings on the side of the craft, indicating Reynolds’ personal transport shuttle. It must have been carrying General Reynolds back to Olympus when it spotted her running across the desert floor. She had been out of contact with Campbell ever since she lost her interface with Cross’
s
agent.

She felt alone and vulnerable as the shuttle cruised overhead, landing a hundred yards in front of her and blocking her route back to the Cathedral. She set off at a quick run, knowing that the general did not like to be kept waiting. She arrived at the shuttle to find Reynolds standing at the open cargo doors, flanked by two guards carrying heavy weapons. She knew in an instant by his apparel and demeanor that the assault did not go well.

“Was your mission successful, agent?” he asked as she stepped onto the ramp. “Have the Chapels been eliminated?”

She came to attention before him and saluted. He could not see it, but under her hood she was avoiding his eyes. There was no sugarcoating her report, so she related what she knew based on her role as the signal repeater for the other agent.

“The agent had successfully infiltrated the Dissident facility undetected,” she said, inflating her voice with false confidence. “He had entered a secure chamber that contained the targets.”

She paused, unsure how to explain the part where things went wrong. She had reviewed the images in her head, several times, as she jogged across the barren terrain. During her years of experience with the program, nothing like this had never happened before, nor had she even heard rumors of glitches like it ever happening. Reynolds watched her with impatient, expectant eyes.

She pulled herself out of her thoughts and continued. “I don’t know what happened, Sir!” she concluded. “He was about to strike when I felt a burst of pain in my head. I was surrounded by a flash of light and I had lost all connection with him. I stayed where I was, thinking that the connection would return, but a few minutes later I received instructions to return to Olympus.”

An eerie darkness crept into Reynolds’ eyes. His jaw muscles were taught as he gritted his teeth, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side in an attempt to control his rage. He breathed deeply through his nose like a bull about to charge.

She feared he believed she had been withholding information. She added, “That’s all I know, Sir.”

Reynolds continued to stare her down, his eyes boring into hers like lasers although her face was still shielded from his glare. Had she not been an agent Reynolds may have ordered her to remove her hood, but the secrecy of their project had to remain intact, even from his own personal security detail.

He jerked his head to indicate she was to go inside the shuttle. “We’ll continue this in private!” he growled. She walked past him into the cargo hold. Reynolds followed behind her
,
as his guards backed up away from the ramp, ensuring there were no other threats outside. The cargo bay doors closed as the shuttle lifted off the ground, scattering dense clouds of sand and dust away from the ship.

Reynolds led the agent down the narrow corridor of the shuttle towards the cockpit. He stopped at his private quarters, bringing the agent up short. She almost collided with him, but her reflexes helped her keep her distance. He turned to the guards behind them.

“Tell the pilot to get us to the upper landing port immediately,” he barked. “I am not to be disturbed until we reach the port. Is that understood?”

He took the female agent by the arm, shoving her into his quarters. As he turned around to close the door, he caught the inquisitive eyes of one of the guards. “I’ll be debriefing the agent!” he said with a vicious smirk and he closed the door.

One guard remained in front of the general’s door while the other walked to the cockpit to deliver the landing instructions. From behind the door, the stationary guard witnessed the sounds of skin slapping against skin. The loud crunch of a body slamming into a desk was accentuated by a chilling shriek of fear.

EIGHTY-SEVEN

Sergeant Heather Davis was hyperventilating as she lunged out her telemetry tank, splashing water all over the floor. In the several months she had been an operator, nothing could have prepared her for what she had just escaped.

“He can have the agent,” she thought to herself. “I’ll just wait until he’s finished.” Her hands trembled in fear as she tried to cast the images from her mind. Shaken by the experience, she did not notice the additional technicians scurrying around the center. She stood there, shivering from head to toe until her breathing slowed to a normal pace. Her heart was still pounding as she reached into the small locker underneath her tank. She wrapped a robe around herself, pretending to monitor the consoles.

She had heard rumors about the general’s darker impulses, but she never could have imagined the level of depravity he could inflict on someone.

“But it wasn’t
someone
, was it?” she speculated to herself. “It was some
thing
! That’s how he sees them… sees us! As tools, toys, a plaything… objects!”

She took several deep breaths as some of the techs cast sideways glances in her direction. Operators rarely vacated their tank while an agent was outside the safety of the Cathedral, but they were all aware that the agent was secure on the general’s shuttle. It would not require a great stretch of their imaginations to understand if the operator needed a break after such a prolonged operation.

The display of the incoming telemetry next to her empty tank revealed the abuse inflicted upon her agent aboard the shuttle. Heather was grateful that she could escape until Reynolds’ violent episode stopped. She turned herself around, away from the monitors. She could not watch any more.

The sounds of raised voices echoing throughout the room were a welcome distraction from the horrific thoughts surging through her mind. It was when she turned her attention away from the displays that she finally noticed the extra people running around the control room. Her eyebrows knit in confusion.

An unfamiliar tech whipped by, clutching a tablet in his hands. She reached out and grabbed his arm to stop him mid-stride. “What’s happening?” she asked.

He seemed surprised at her question, but he noticed her dripping hair and damp robe and realized she had been in the telemetry tank throughout the chaos. He glanced behind his shoulder to see who was watching. He did not know what intel he was, or was not, authorized to share.

“We had an infiltration,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “An unauthorized AI got past the security protocols and commandeered your partner’s agent. We don’t know how it got past security, but we were trying to destroy it when it suddenly disappeared at the same time the operator’s telemetry tank shut down.”

Heather knew enough about the system to know the tank failure should not have happened. When she lost connection with her own agent in the Evans’s home, her tank continued to function even when there was nothing to receive her commands. The tech gave her an apologetic shrug of his shoulders and he bustled away.

She walked across the floor to Campbell’s closed office door and heard him talking to her partner, Sergeant Cross. Their voices were just inaudible mumbles through the door. She raised her hand to knock, but she hesitated, drawing it back. She knew Campbell needed to have a current report, but she was not ready to give it to him. She heard the voices stop and the scrape of chairs on the floor.

The door swung open, revealing Cross in the doorway. Campbell stood and walked around his desk towards the door. Cross stared down at Heather as Campbell approached.

“Sergeant Cross,” Campbell directed, “I want you to assist in bringing your tank back online, determine the cause of the interruption, and give me recommendations on how to prevent such an attack in the future. I also want you to devise a plan to find whoever discovered and infiltrated our network. This cannot happen again.”

Heather stepped to the side to allow Sergeant Cross to walk past. Campbell waved her in and returned to his chair behind the desk. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Her hands were still trembling as she sat down across the desk from him.

“What is your status?” Campbell asked. Heather knew he was referring to the agent.

Heather fidgeted in her seat, her eyes glued to the floor. She did not want to confess aloud what was happening to her agent on Reynolds’ shuttle just before she disconnected. There was a long, silent pause. She listened to the rattling of the ventilation system and wished she could crawl up inside and hide for a while.

Campbell remained still and stoic, waiting for his operative to answer.

“The agent is on a shuttle with General Reynolds,” she whispered. “He’s on his way back to the crown.” Her report was accurate, but noticeably brief and incomplete. Campbell raised his eyebrows at her lack of elaboration.

“Did the general provide you with any details regarding the assault on the dissent facility?” he asked. He leaned forward in his chair and placed his elbows on the desk, pressing his fingertips together. “Was the assault successful?” he added.

Heather shifted in her seat as she cleared her throat and pulled the robe tighter about her body. She was uncomfortable with the words caught in her throat.

“The general didn’t seem interested in discussing the assault in the desert,” she replied. Her lips pressed together in a tight, thin line as her chin began quivering.

Campbell was an observant man. He could see from Heather’s body language and reserved account that something has shaken her to the core. They sat together on either side of the desk in uncomfortable silence for several minutes while Campbell kept his eyes on his subordinate for subtle clues to explain her behavior.

“He assaulted you,” he said. It was a statement, not a question. Heather’s wide eyes confirmed his words, and she started searching the room for something to look at other than Campbell’s face. She let a moment pass, took a deep breath, and then refocused her attention back to him. He had not moved. He had maintained his tunnel-vision glance from across the desk.

“He assaulted the agent,” she confirmed.

“But,
you
,” he
spoke the word with eerie emphasis, “were there when it started.” Again, it was a statement of fact, not a questioning inquiry. Heather looked down at her hands for a moment, then straightened her shoulders and nodded. Campbell sat as still as a stone for a moment before speaking again.

“Thank you for your report, Sergeant Davis,” he said, his voice colored with a unique tenderness she had never heard before. “I want you to take the rest of the day off. The last few days have been very challenging for all of us. I’ll take care of it from here.”

The sudden softness in Campbell’s demeanor surprised Heather. From his posture, she could tell that she was being dismissed.

“What about the agent, sir?” she asked. “We can’t just leave it on the shuttle.”

Campbell waved away her point. “No one aboard that shuttle is a security risk,” he replied. “It will be fine until tomorrow. You can retrieve it in the morning. That will be all, Sergeant. Please close the door on your way out.”

Campbell turned his chair, facing his back toward Heather as she stood up and approached the door. As her hand reached for the lever, she heard Campbell’s voice softly floating from the chair. “I’m very sorry you were there when it happened, Heather.”

The unexpected, casual use of her first name took her by surprise. He was very formal when it came to his interpersonal relationships - he never addressed a subordinate by their first name. She froze before the door, not knowing how to respond. She wrenched the lever of the door down and walked out of his office. She made her way to her tank and opened up the small locker again. This time she retrieved her personal tablet and took it with her into the locker room.

She had intended to compose her written report once she could sit in the quiet locker room. Once there, however, she removed the robe and her body suit, and she stepped into a shower stall. She pressed the button for a hot stream of water before sitting down on the tiled floor. She let the steam swallow her up, wishing the hot water would wash away the filth she felt in her soul.

Campbell’s stoic mask betrayed a flint of disgust as his fingers danced across the holographic keyboard. With unusual precision and slowness, he typed in a single word: CERBERUS. Tapping the ENTER key, his display launched a security clearance warning to appear and the palm scanner to illuminate. Holding his palm open in mid-air over the scanner, the security warning morphed to a glowing icon of twelve lightning bolts radiating from a central point. A blue or pink dot appeared at the end of each lightning bolt.

Campbell selected the pink dot in the two o’clock position. The dot expanded and then faded out, revealing the face of Sergeant Heather Davis. With a swipe of his hand, Heather’s service record opened in a scrolling text box. Campbell reviewed her record with pride. “I made a good decision by recruiting you,” he thought to himself. “You may be my youngest operator, but you’re quickly becoming the most reliable.”

Opening a new entry field in her record Campbell added a summary of her latest assignment. When he entered the data into the field, the screen prompted him for information on her next assignment. He typed a single word: PURGE.

Campbell then pressed the blue dot in the six o’clock position. The dot expanded and then faded out, revealing the face of Sergeant Oliver Cross. Next to his image, a similar text box began scrolling through Cross’s service record. Campbell added his latest action report to the record, describing the loss of yet another agent to the Dissidents. In the field where Campbell would have scheduled Cross’s next assignment, he typed in one word: RETIRE.

Campbell closed down the display and sat back in his chair, pressing his fingertips together. “Who to replace Cross?” he whispered to himself. Campbell had not needed to replace an operative since recruiting Heather Davis, nor had he spent any time reviewing the TRTV evaluations to hand-select an ideal candidate. However, he needed to find a replacement for Cross fast, and someone with superior investigative skills was ideal. His mind wandered over past evaluations for old candidates that he would attempt to pull from the TRTV pool when a flitting thought drifted in from nowhere.

Silas Graham had the investigative skills Campbell needed. Reopening his display and keyboard, Campbell searched through his secret files until he found the folder labeled as JANUS. Within the folder, he found the string of reports from the security and medical personnel who had interacted with Graham from the moment Celeste called for help until Graham had arrived at the crisis unit.

Images documenting Graham’s skin peeling away from his body opened one by one, as Campbell re-read the notes made by the clinic staff. The final entry made by the attending surgeon, a young doctor named Nathan Park, stood out from the rest of the text.

“The patient has lost all of his epidermis. The emergency tissue grafts just seemed to fizzle and melt off his body as quickly as we could apply it. This patient’s condition is even worse than that of Private Simmonds, who seemed to be making progress, but died inexplicably after a successful skin transplant. We’ve wrapped the patient in sterile bandages and have submersed him in an antibacterial bath with a breathing tube. He has not regained consciousness since his arrival.”

The next file Campbell reviewed contained the counterfeit orders to transfer Graham to the Cathedral for healing and the subsequent falsified certificate of death. At the time, Campbell was only trying to keep a victim of the disease linked to General Reynolds away from the public eye. Now, Campbell realized that Graham could still be useful.

Campbell started formulating the plan in his mind to recruit Graham into the Cathedral’s secret project. For several minutes, each task and responsibility necessary to bring Silas Graham from the dead and into his private fold congealed into a defined strategy.

With his newest secret settled deep into the dark corners of his mind, Campbell pulled out one of his private headsets from the desk drawer. The dull tone indicated a secure connection to the person to whom he needed to report the latest incident.