AntiBio: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (28 page)

The charges will do, he assured himself. They have to.

An echoing roar startled him back a few steps, followed by a burst of weapons fire near the main entrance.

Shit
…

He drew his SX-90 rifle and crouched against the canyon wall.

Kalak.

They
’d spotted him. He was sure of it. And now he was trapped in the middle of an open canyon without a way up or out aside from the main hangar entrance. Until he planted the charges, he wouldn’t be able to get through to the cave, either.

Breathe.

He exhaled and squeezed the rifle against his chest.

There was another series of loud reports from a weapon that was far too powerful to be a standard-issued fleet rifle.

Conor risked a quick glance toward the watchtowers and held his breath.

There was only one Kalak watchman up in the towers, and, by the looks of it, the alien had gone mad. It was shooting at three giant, reptilian creatures scurrying across the canyon floor.

More Kalak.

Two of them were running down the third, who was scrambling like hell to get over the fence and away from the gaping hangar entrance. None of the ground trio had weapons, but the watchman
’s rifle, powerful as it was, didn’t seem to have much effect on them, either. Bullet after bullet tore into their chests, arms, and legs, but they kept running toward the fence, never once taking their eyes from the lead runner or faltering in the least.

Steady.

It looked like the lead Kalak was going to beat the others over the fence, and that meant trouble for Conor. Once it was on his side, they’d be practically on top of each other. And even though the runners were unarmed, it was never easy to face a Kalak head on, let alone three. They were too big. Too powerful.

This is it, Conor thought.

He didn’t have a prayer.

Then, the lead runner made it over the fence, bleeding from the neck. The pursuers were bleeding, too, and they were having much more difficulty negotiating the climb.

He could almost smell them.

One way or another, Conor knew he wasn
’t getting out of the canyon alive. If those three bastards didn’t tear him apart and the watchman didn’t shoot him, one of them would at least sound the alarm and the whole goddamned base would be on him in a heartbeat.

Fuck it.

Might as well go down fighting.

No longer worried about stealth, he stepped out of the shadows, scowled, and raised the SX-90 at the approaching Kalak.

Here we go.

His hands took over before his brain had a chance to slow them down.

Slow and purposeful.

He targeted the lead runner first. It took two quick shots to the head from seven meters but the big bastard fell with an unsettling look in its gray eyes, far too close to relief for comfort. Conor didn
’t waste time worrying over it. The lead hadn’t even hit the cracked canyon floor before he swung the barrel of the SX-90 around and pointed it up at the watchmen.

Nothing wild. No nerves.

He pulled the trigger.

To Conor
’s surprise, the guard was even easier to pick off than the lead Kalak because it was stuck in the tower and hadn’t seen him yet. In fact, it never even stopped firing at the other two runners. It only took one steady shot this time and the Kalak flipped over the side of the watchtower onto the top of the canyon wall.

He was only halfway through, but at least the runners were still stuck on the other side of the fence.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Conor was damned impressed with himself.

First mission jitters my ass.

He quickly pushed the thought aside. It was too early to celebrate. If the runners got back through the open hangar door, he’d be in even bigger trouble. The shots from the guard had been loud, and so had Conor’s. For all he knew, a whole battalion of Kalak troops were about to storm into the canyon with a hurricane of bullets, ready to pulverize him into a glob of dark flesh on the cracked ground.

Letting the runners call down the thunder certainly would make his job more difficult.

“Hey!” Conor yelled to them, trying to distract them in case they gave up on the fence and decided to return with reinforcements. “Fuckface!”

The bloodied Kalak turned and looked at him, growling so loud and low that Conor could feel it in his tailbone. It almost made him pull the trigger before he was ready.

Wait for it. Calm down.

He jogged the last few steps towards the fence and took aim.

They were much more frightening up close than he’d thought they would be, but he’d never seen a Kalak before in his life. The gaping bullet holes in their necks and temples were particularly gruesome and terrifying. So were their enormous jaws and the gore dripping from their chins.

Incredibly, they were so frenzied that they ran full speed into the fence over and over to reach him. Their teeth were bared. They didn
’t even use their hands to protect themselves from the impact.

Conor jerked back in alarm, expecting either the fence to give or one of their giant hands to break through and grab him even though the holes were too small. They stepped away again and roared instead.

“Come on!” he shouted back, masking his fear with rage. He needed to bring them in close one more time to feel confident with his aim. His hands were shaking too much to trust.

“
Fuckers!”

In the heat of the moment, he
’d slipped into English rather than Standard Galactic Speak. Judging by the blind hunger in the runners’ eyes, though, he didn’t think they would have understood anyway. There was one thing on their minds.

Blood.

Steady hands, he thought. He forced himself to take a deep breath.

The runners charged again.

Bringing the SX-90 up to bear, Conor trusted his instincts and pulled the trigger. Again, his hands didn’t fail him. He had just enough time to realize that the two Kalak runners didn’t have breathing masks before their skulls imploded beneath the concussive force of his assault rifle spray.

Blood splashed the surface of his helmet, covering the glass.

How are they breathing?

He kept shooting until they stopped tearing at the fence. It took a lot longer than he thought it would, even for a couple of angry Kalak soldiers.

As soon as they hit the ground, he turned his rifle toward the gaping hangar door and backed into the shadow of the canyon wall. He expected to see a full complement of pissed-off lizards rushing out with their massive assault rifles ready to tear him to shreds, but the doorway was quiet on all fronts and he didn’t hear any alarms or approaching footsteps.

They weren
’t wearing masks, he thought again.

How the hell were they breathing?

For some reason, that mystery was much more chilling than the number of bullets it had taken for him to take down the two crazed runners, and that was forgetting the tower watchman’s contributions. The climber hadn’t taken nearly as many, but it had also been wearing the thin oxygen apparatus the Kalak strapped over their snouts. No real mystery there, or in the watchman’s fall from the guard tower.

But why were they attacking each other?

What the hell is going on?

He supposed he
’d find out soon enough, so he made sure there weren’t any other guards in the watchtowers and turned back the way he came. He might have been able to climb the fence and save himself some work finding an alternate route into the facility, but he didn’t trust the emptiness at all. Or the fact that the hangar door was still open to the merciless elements.

Strange. Very strange.

Things didn’t add up at all. But at least his combat training hadn’t failed him in the heat of battle. Yet. That was something to be grateful for, he supposed. Two hours earlier, he would have put his chances for taking down a quartet of Kalak troops, even with three of them unarmed, at slim to none. And he hadn’t had the high ground, either. It was a good thing his SX was up to the task. At six feet tall, one hundred ninety-five pounds, he wouldn’t have had a prayer of overpowering even one of them in hand to hand combat.

Come to think of it, even that asshole Sergeant Wilkins would be damned proud.

He guessed there was a reason Commander Chalmers had recruited him straight into the Aidric Ground Team, after all.

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