Critical Strike (The Critical Series Book 3) (11 page)

The tremble in her shoulders told Augustus everything he needed to know: she was scared of him. Good.

“So… what now?” Maria asked, darting her eyes first to Augustus, then away to some mysterious other point within the room.

Augustus waited to respond, enjoying her discomfort. He glanced around and tried to imagine Layla working in here. It had her hallmarks all over it; bland, empty space, with a singular purpose: study. No character or flair.

That was the problem with the sciences, he thought—too objective, too analytical. He’d never met a scientist he liked. Not to say that religious types were much better with their equally dull-witted outlook on life and their hokey faith.

Augustus viewed himself as completely impartial to life and its theories. Whatever was the truth was none of his business. All he knew was that while he still breathed, there were places to conquer, people to mold to his whims.

What was life if not but a grand game?

He asked that of Maria, making her jump with the sudden, unexpected question. She looked down at her hands and picked at the fabric stretched over her knees.

“I… don’t know,” she said, dropping her head.

“No, you wouldn’t, would you, having been created for a purpose that you now have no reason to fulfill. You must spend a lot of time wondering why?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Maria said, raising her chin and looking Augustus squarely in the eye, daring to challenge him. Perhaps this one had hope yet.

“No. I don’t. I’ve never asked myself why. I’ve always asked myself, why not?” Augustus stood and stretched his legs. He was getting tired and needed time to himself to enjoy one of his root cigars, but he wasn’t done here yet. He stepped forward, standing over Maria, letting his shadow devour her.

“I can give you the purpose you crave,” he said, holding out his hand.

Maria hesitated, but eventually held out her hand and took his. He decided against making a show of his domination over her with a tight grip—he’d already established that. Instead, he caressed her soft, warm hand, comforting her.

Lowering the register of his voice and giving her his best practiced sincere face, he said, “There is no reason why in this life. There is no guidebook, no direction. We live in chaos and have to embrace it. What I’m offering you is a safe zone where you can just be, without wondering why. You can just act and enjoy the grand game, knowing that nothing we do matters to the universe. We make it matter to us. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Tears glistened in Maria’s wide eyes. Her nostrils flared and she visibly shook. He continued to hold her hand and rubbed the back of it with his other, encapsulating hers in his completely.

“I would,” she finally said, giving in to a sob.

Augustus went in for the metaphorical kill, pulling her close to his body, and wrapped his arms around her. She clung to him and sobbed into the crook of his shoulder. He rubbed her back and whispered comforting words into her ears before finally saying, “Tell me everything you know about Mike and Mai.”

***

The tracker led his croatoan ally through the woods, both of them stalking Freetown like a fox hunting a rabbit. He noted that the short burst of gunfire had stopped. He didn’t expect it to put up much resistance, sadly. There were good people there, but they just didn’t have time to react any quicker.

Khan reached the edge of the trees and kneeled at the base of a redwood. The woods were hushed as though the remaining animals had decided to keep quiet so as not to risk Augustus’ wrath.

The only movement he could detect was the soft, deliberate footfalls of his partner. Khan looked over his shoulder and nodded toward a tree opposite him. The alien, like Khan, wore one of Unity’s handmade ghillie suits. The shadow the croatoan cast, however, was significantly larger than Khan’s.

Baliska spoke little English, but he knew enough to understand Khan’s general intent and questions.

“Bal, how you doing?” Khan asked.

“Grrr,” Baliska said, which was his shorthand for ‘great.’

Khan had to give it to the big hunter; he was as durable as any living thing Khan had ever seen before. Baliska had now effectively died twice; once at the hand of Charlie Jackson and the other time by Gregor, the latter using Augustus’ poison. They didn’t count on it having an expiration date, however. Baliska’s immune system had shut him down for twelve straight hours in order to expunge the poison.

A full course of root transfusion had seen the hunter up and running again within a day.

Khan, however, wasn’t so lucky. He took a shot to the ribs during the fight at Aimee’s. The wound still plagued him with soreness and restricted movement. With a combination of recovered drugs from nearby hospitals and special application of the croatoan root, he managed to heal enough to do this mission, though he could feel himself getting increasingly more tired. Still, they were here now; they just had one more thing to do before they could retreat.

Looking toward Freetown, the sun nearly setting, casting the place in monochrome tones of dusk, Khan noticed the workshop building was on fire. In the main square, three shuttles stood with a handful of humans and croatoans huddled around one.

Dozens of bodies lay strewn across the complex. Khan shook his head. Such a waste of good people.

He brought his backpack around to his feet and checked inside for his bombs. Three croatoan plasma bombs were packed in it, ready to drop and go. Baliska carried four others on a belt around his muscular waist.

Both of them carried carbine rifles slung over their backs. Khan had a bandolier across his chest containing a mix of smoke and EMP grenades. He tested their fit to make sure they would come loose when he tugged on them.

All seemed in place.

He turned to Baliska. “Ready, big guy?”

“Yeah,” Baliska growled, his eyes narrow and focused on causing maximum destruction. Khan detected a hint of alien glee in those eyes of his.

“We hit ’em hard and fast, take out one of their shuttles and as many troops as possible before heading for the hover-bikes on the other side of the complex. If we get separated or one of us is killed, we don’t stop, you understand? We must return to Unity. The scout will be here soon with the false information I fed him. That means Augustus will be eager to leave as soon as possible. The margins will be tight, but the plan will work if we don’t fuck up.”

Baliska just blinked at him as though he were an idiot. Of course the hunter knew what was at stake and the order of the plan. Through a translator, it was he who had devised the strategy.

The hunter held out his large fist. Khan bumped his against it.

“We go,” Baliska said, spinning out from behind the redwood trunk and sprinting across the square in long, loping strides, his shifting form virtually invisible in the dusk.

When Baliska dropped the first bomb near two of Augustus’ hover-bikes, Khan sprinted toward the square ahead of him in an arcing run that took him around to the left, following the edge of the woods.

By the time Khan pulled the smoke grenade and threw it across the square to obscure the view of anyone in and around the main complex, Baliska’s first bomb exploded with a thundering crack, sending the hover-bikes flying into the woods with a ball of flame.

The boom echoed around the open square.

Men and croatoans dashed in all directions. Baliska withdrew his sword and cut down half a dozen of them as they wandered about, not knowing what to do in the panic.

Khan used the panic to his advantage and planted two of the bombs from his pack at the base of one of the shuttles.

He set the timer and sprinted back to the line of trees.

Using an adapted radio Mai had made for them, Khan warned Baliska and he watched as the shifting, stealthy form of his ally sprinted past the shuttle toward a gaggle of aliens trying to free their weapons from their holsters.

Putting his hands over his ears, Khan watched as the bombs went off with a sound like god himself had cracked the sky in two. The shuttle buckled, the panels bulging from the bottom upwards. The roof splintered up before the entire craft flew ten feet in the air as it split apart into a hundred smaller, burning fragments.

The bodies of those inside slumped to the ground, charred and smoking. Some twitched before becoming still.

Stage one complete, Khan pulled the carbine rifle around from his back and stormed into the square.

The heat of the flames seared his flesh and made his eyes water, but he just focused on Baliska’s swirling form as his sword cut through human and croatoan flesh as though they were made of nothing more than dried twigs.

Two men burst out from one of the other shuttles and fired their pistols at Khan.

One shut buzzed by his ear, making him twitch away.

Another struck the ground near his foot.

He stumbled and rolled forward, but controlled his momentum and came out of the roll onto his knees, where he drew his rifle up and emptied half a magazine in an arcing spray, cutting down the two men in a volley of hollow-point rounds.

“To the bikes,” Khan said over the intercom, receiving a grunt in reply.

The young tracker reoriented his position and headed to the east of the complex for a copse of trees. Buried under leaves were a pair of bikes that Denver had stashed for emergencies.

The main square was a scene of smoke and fire and utter carnage: just what Aimee wanted. The smell of roasting flesh made Khan want to gag as he ran across the square, following Baliska’s large shape.

Khan caught up to him and pointed through the trees. They just reached the tree line when Khan fell face-first into the gravel ground, his right leg giving way underneath him. His heart lurched and he spun over onto his back, not sure what had happened.

He took a breath and screamed when the pain hit him. “I’ve been shot,” he cried between clenched teeth. His leg pulsated as though it too were on fire within the thigh muscle.

“No time,” Baliska growled, tossing his carbine over his back. He loped back to Khan, reached down, picked him up, and slung him over his shoulder. “Don’t die yet,” Baliska barked with his raspy voice.

Khan’s vision swam as the hunter carried Khan to the hover-bikes. Baliska found them easily enough with Khan’s directions. Within minutes, Khan found himself strapped to the back of a hover-bike and ascending through the trees until they broke out of the canopy and headed north to Unity. Baliska hunched over the controls and gunned the engine to maximum.

“We did it,” Khan whispered into his intercom, all the while squeezing his eyes closed due to the burning pain in his leg. He held his hand tightly against the wound, warm blood oozing out. “We need to stop somewhere… My wound… needs dressing.”

“Hold on,” Baliska said as he looked for a safe place to land.

Regardless of the pain now, it would just be one more wound to add to the one on his ribs that even now was hurting again, the applied root poultice having exhausted its active ingredient.

Khan didn’t care, though. The adrenalin and high of a successful mission helped him look beyond the pain. Aimee would be pleased with him, that’s for sure. Maybe then, she would truly see his worth to her.

Maybe.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Denver screamed Layla’s name as the scion prism hovered above her, the green targeting laser finding its target: her heart.

Letting instinct flood through him, he raised the rifle and fired off a full burst of automatic fire while letting out a primal roar. Each round just bounced off the prism, but the impact was enough to knock it back, the laser leaving Layla’s body.

She rolled out of the way and raised her rifle. They were facing each other now. Layla looked into his eyes before shifting her gaze beyond him. She backed away. “We’re surrounded by them.”

Denver spun round just as a pair of clusps slithered out of the long grass. Two more came out from just beyond his vision.

“Fire!” Denver yelled, engaging a new magazine into his rifle and holding the trigger, aiming at the two clusps to either side of him. They were trying to flank him—or herd him… either way, the fuckers were working together.

His spray of projectiles caught one of the clusps in its rear leg, but it didn’t stop the beast as it padded forward on massively muscled forepaws. Its tentacles whipped forward, knocking the rifle from his hand. He pulled himself back to avoid being caught, but the clusp on the other side moved quickly, wrapping its pair of tentacles around his legs.

Layla yelled amid a burst of fire. An animal screech told him that she had at least got one, but then when he spun, trying to free himself from the strong grip of his clusp, he saw the largest of the group pounce on Layla. Its weight knocked her to the ground.

He heard the breath knocked from her lungs. The clusp snapped its jaws at her helmet, but its teeth just scraped against the strengthened polymer.

“Get it off me!” Layla screamed, flailing her arms.

Denver hit the ground as the clusps’ strength outmuscled the servos of his power suit. He punched his fist into the ground and grabbed a hold of some thick roots, trying to stop himself from being dragged away.

“Shit, the scion’s back,” Layla said between heavy pants. Her efforts to hold off the clusp’s attack were quickly sapping her energy.

Denver remembered the knife tucked into a compartment on his chest. As the two clusps continued to pull against him, he used his free hand to retrieve the blade.

On his front, however, he couldn’t reach behind him, so he had to let go of the thick root in order to spin over. As he did so, he shot forward under the tension of his attackers’ efforts, but he was on his back now and he slashed forward, cutting into the tentacle. The thing was pure muscle and it took him three more determined shanks before he managed to cut through the scaly hide.

The animal screeched with pain and stiffened its tentacle, spraying poison all over Denver’s power suit. Fuelled by the small success, Denver gritted his teeth and used his remaining energy to cut through the other clusp’s tentacle.

It too retreated, wanting to protect its limb rather than fight to the death, but the two beasts weren’t giving up just yet. They lowered their heads and stalked forward just as he regained his feet.