Earthfall (21 page)

That suited Andrews fine. He was going to make the warrior suffer every moment until one of them was dead.

***

The tremendous din of the roaring crowd led Mulligan and the others to the arena like sharks following a trail of blood. The array of torches that illuminated the great ring caused their night vision goggles to wash out, so Mulligan whispered into his headset and ordered everyone to remove them. They had more than enough light to operate by, and with the vast majority of the opposing force focused on Andrews, the group could move with unexpected freedom.

He and Choi planted their charges on two stout I-beams that the big sergeant major judged were primary load-bearing components for the civic center. While eight pounds of C4 might not be enough to bring the house down under normal circumstances, it was his hope that the accumulated stress of surviving a nuclear attack, earthquakes, and changing weather might have weakened the structure enough so the blast would cause at least a partial collapse. As they made their way back to where Laird and Kelly waited with Rachel, Choi motioned to the arena, where Andrews and the impressively huge warrior continued their battle. Spencer lay motionless near the arena’s center, surrounded by a pool of dark blood.

“Hey, shouldn’t we do something about that?” Choi asked, not even bothering to keep his voice low due to the volume of the crowd.

Before Mulligan could respond, a filthy young man hurried out of a dark corridor, carrying a torch. His hair was long and matted, forming a natural set of grubby dreadlocks that hung down over his sallow face. The man stopped when he saw Mulligan and Choi crouching down only a few feet away. His mouth dropped open, and for a moment he gawked at them. Then he spun around and made to run back the way he had come. He didn’t make it. Mulligan reacted instantly, grabbing a handful of his dirty, oversized shirt and yanking him off his feet. The man dropped his torch and struggled; his shout was cut short by Mulligan’s knife sliding into the back of his neck. The man kicked once, then went limp. The odor of urine made Mulligan’s nostrils twitch, and he dragged the body to an abandoned refreshment stand. He hurled the corpse behind the concession counter.

“Damn, man! I thought we were going to give these people a chance!” Choi said, his eyes wide with shock.

Mulligan pointed to the arena, where Andrews and the big warrior were circling each other while the riotous crowd hurled all manner of debris at Andrews. “Yeah, like they did with Spencer? That plan’s off the table. Use your head, boy!”

Choi considered that, then nodded. “Roger that, Sergeant Major.”

Mulligan spoke into his tactical headset as he hurried down the corridor that ringed the arena. “Laird, this is Mulligan. Over.”

“Go ahead, Mulligan. Over.”

“Charges planted, and we just had to service one target. We’re heading back to you now. Get ready to move out when we arrive. Party in thirty. Over.”

“Good copy.”

Mulligan abandoned stealth for speed and set an aggressive pace. They were living on borrowed time—even though there were no signs of firearms among any of the survivors, he knew that at least four assault rifles were somewhere in their possession, along with a multitude of bladed weapons that could be just as deadly if wielded by experienced hands. Though he would have liked nothing better, Mulligan’s goal was not to get into a protracted fight—they had a greater mission to accomplish, and that meant the team from Harmony Base had to avoid becoming decisively engaged.

When he and Choi linked up with Laird and the others, he found they were still crouching in the darkened hallway that fed into the main corridor surrounding the arena. Laird was oriented toward the bleachers, M416A3 assault rifle at the ready; it was outfitted with an M320A1 forty-millimeter grenade launcher under the barrel, a double-action device equipped with its own pistol grip that allowed for more precise fire. Kelly Jordello’s assault rifle was in a similar configuration, and she covered the rear of the hallway. Rachel Andrews had a vanilla assault rifle with no additional modifications, as Mulligan hadn’t had the time to school her in the grenade launcher’s use. She was in the center of the formation, and when Mulligan saw her staring at her husband fighting for his life down below, he wondered if he hadn’t made a tactical error by not leaving her in the SCEV.

Mulligan motioned for Choi to stand guard while he squatted down beside Laird. “All right, it looks like Spencer’s down, and Eklund’s in that booth about fifty meters downrange. I want to go for her first, because I’m pretty sure things will get loud when we do, and that should pull some of the heat off Andrews. What do you think, sir?”

“Agreed,” Laird said immediately. Either he had already formed the tactical picture by himself, or he was willing to do anything Mulligan suggested, as he was the expert. Mulligan didn’t care which; he was just glad they weren’t going to get into another debate.

“We have to help Mike!” Rachel hissed.

Mulligan fixed her with a seething glare. “We will. You stay here and hold this hallway, because we’ll need it for our retreat. Are you ready to pull the trigger and ice some of these stinking fuckers, Andrews?”

She nodded immediately, with no hesitation. Mulligan liked that, but he had to be sure she was ready.

“They will likely come this way, or come up from behind you. You’ll be on your own, and you might have to kill women and children. I’m going to guess that when you open up, they’ll fade and try to get away from you. But you’ll probably have to kill some of them. Are you
sure
you’re ready for that?”

“Yes. I’ll kill anyone I have to, Sergeant Major,” Rachel said, her voice strong.

Mulligan pointed at her rifle. “Safety off, keep the weapon indexed until you have to shoot like I showed you. When it becomes necessary, put your booger hook on the bang lever and squeeze it. Shoot for the center mass, and do
not
hesitate—taking a second to think will only get you killed, and that just makes things harder for everyone.”

“Yeah, getting killed would be a matter of importance to me too, Mulligan. Anything else?”

Have to admire the can-do attitude on this one.
“Negative. Good luck, and if things turn south, contact us over the radio.” He turned to the others. “Follow me. Remember your tactical spacing, and let’s move fast.”

He rose and started down the main corridor at a good clip, his rifle shouldered and held at the ready. Choi followed, then Laird, with Kelly bringing up the rear. They adopted a staggered formation, two hugging the right side of the corridor, two staying to the left. They moved at a jog and Mulligan dreaded every step, wondering if he was going crazy trying to pull off a rescue like this when the stakes were so high. He knew he had no choice, though. Even if the others could be convinced to cut their losses and resume the mission, Rachel Andrews would flat out reject the notion of not attempting to rescue her husband. And she had leverage—she was the one who had to decide which core supports were good enough to take back to Harmony. Returning with items that were damaged or the wrong size wouldn’t help anyone back at the base.

They made it to the broadcasting booth’s door without incident. Surprisingly, it was unguarded, even though Mulligan thought they must have known he had escaped. Had they thought he would just flee into the wasteland? That was a tragic miscalculation on the part of the city survivors, but he doubted they had to deal with incursions into their territory very often. Fine by him—their ignorance made his life easier.

Mulligan motioned Choi forward. “You get the door. Laird, you’re in with me. Orient right when we go in, I’ll go left. Jordello, rear guard. Everyone set?”

“Hooah,” Choi said.

“Good to go here,” Laird responded.

“Roger,” Kelly said.

“Do it, Choi.”

Choi reached for the door and turned the knob. Nothing happened. He tried again, turning it the other way. It wouldn’t budge. He turned back to Mulligan.

“It’s locked, Sarmajor. How do you want to play it now?”

“Get the fuck out of the way,” Mulligan snapped. Choi obediently stepped aside, and Mulligan walked up to the door and kicked it with all his might. And this time, damn if the door didn’t truly snap right off its hinges.

***

Leona was seated right next to Law, staring down at the pit below. Andrews and the hulking warrior clashed, kicking, punching, and charging. It was obvious the giant had strength on his side, but Andrews had skill and maneuverability. He was able to wind his way through the field of stakes sticking up from the arena floor with greater agility than the warrior, and he would close, strike, and retreat before the warrior could respond. And the giant warrior was tiring. His huge torso was slick with a sheen of sweat that gleamed in the torchlight, and even from her distant vantage point, she could see the warrior’s chest heaving as he pulled in great breaths. Beside her, Law fidgeted and muttered, clearly agitated as he remained fixated on the fight. He had been initially elated when Spencer had gone down, an action that had brought Leona to her feet with a shocked cry. Law had laughed at her, reveling in her distress as one of her foul-smelling guards forced her back into her chair. He groped one of her breasts at the same time, gripping her painfully. She tried to shrug him off, and that made Law laugh even more.

But now, the gigantic warrior’s assured win was no longer quite as certain. Leona could see that the deformed giant didn’t have the same endurance as Andrews. He had probably never fought a well-nourished combatant before, much less one that had been formally trained in both down and dirty hand-to-hand combat as well as some of the more refined martial arts. Not that Andrews was in the best of shape, himself. He had clearly been beaten during his abduction, and he’d already suffered at the hands of his opponent; the cut on his temple was still bleeding, and a trail of blood had dripped across the front of his uniform. The giant was slowly herding him out of the center of the arena, which meant he would be at some peril from the crowd, who continued to try to pelt him with all manner of debris. But the tide of the battle had changed, and Law had become sullen and impetuous. Leona enjoyed his discomfort immeasurably.

Then the door behind her exploded inward.

Law was out of his seat in an instant. He charged through a side door as small arms fire filled the broadcast booth. The filthy degenerate who had groped her went down like a sack of potatoes from a single bullet to the head. Leona threw herself out of her chair, coming to rest on the cold concrete floor next to the man’s still body. Two more shots rang out, and the second man guarding her crumpled. From her vantage point on the floor, Leona could see his right foot twitch erratically for a moment before a deep stillness settled over him. She realized she had just watched two men die—and she couldn’t have felt happier.

A moment later, she was roughly hauled to her feet. “Eklund, you all right?” Sergeant Major Scott Mulligan asked as he produced a knife and sawed through the rough twine that bound her wrists together.

“The one that got away … he’s psionic!”

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Mulligan said, and to Leona it appeared he had just decided she’d lost a ton of marbles.

She struggled to discover some frame of reference that Mulligan could understand. “Listen to me! He has mental abilities—he can cause you to feel pain just by
looking
at you! And he’s absolutely insane, he thinks we’re some kind of war party!”

“Good to know,” Mulligan said. “Thanks for the hot tip.” With that, he grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her toward the exit. Jim Laird fell in behind her, and from outside the booth, Leona heard a raging furor begin to build.

***

The gunfire sent a wave of shock through the entire crowd, and for a long moment, they seemed to forget all about their champion and his struggle with Andrews. The warrior himself turned in the direction of the shots, which came from somewhere behind him. Andrews looked past the giant’s shoulder, and he saw commotion in the broadcast booth. Law bolted out of the cubicle through a side door and ran down a corridor without looking back, his arms and legs pumping. Through the booth’s window, he saw someone haul Leona to her feet. It was Mulligan, and beside him, Laird stepped toward the opening and lifted his rifle to his shoulder, ready to fire on anyone or anything that might turn into a threat.

Dude … get this over with!

Andrews grabbed a nearby metal stake and pulled with all of his strength. Only its point had been sharpened, so he was in little danger of slicing open his palms and fingers, but the picket was stuck deep into the earth. He was elated to feel it give, bit by bit, until he had pulled almost three feet of rusted metal out of the dry earth. Holding the implement like a pike, he charged toward the warrior just as he started to turn back to him. He rammed the stake through the giant’s neck, feeling the rusted metal grate against cervical vertebrae as it passed through soft tissue and tougher tendon. The giant shuddered with a gurgling cry as blood fanned into the air from a severed artery. He tried to fling Andrews off, squirming and thrashing like a wounded beast. Andrews hung on, pushing the stake even further into its neck. A gout of blood spurted across his hands and arms. The gigantic warrior shuddered once again and fell to his knees with a choking shriek. Andrews wrenched the stake from side to side, causing as much damage as he could. The warrior silently fell face-first to the arena floor, his limbs twitching as life fled his body. Andrews stood over the fallen brute and stomped on his head, again and again, throwing as much strength into each strike as he could. When the giant finally stopped moving and a pool of blood began to spread beneath his shattered skull, Andrews got control over the seething rage that filled him.

Spencer…

Several survivors leaped into the pit as Andrews moved to Spencer’s side. He grabbed Spencer’s wrist, seeking a pulse; finding none, he pressed his fingers against Spencer’s jugular. He couldn’t feel any trace of movement, and he looked down at Spencer’s face. In death, the crew chief’s expression was slack, as if dismayed by his demise.