Forager (21 page)

Ten minutes later, Nanako and I, along with four teams of Custodians, drove to the secret entrance that was a hundred metres south of the western gates. We had been given Custodian helmets and bulletproof vests, an Austeyr automatic-rifle for Nanako, and a pistol and flare gun for me.

"Right, time is of the essence," the captain announced once we disembarked from the G-Wagons. He pulled open the concealed concrete door and said, "Okay, Ethan, you've got point. Show us what you can do."

"Thank you, Sir. Radios off everyone, and follow me," I responded. Without further ado, I ran straight through the doorway and into the night, with Nanako on my heels. I held the pistol in my right hand, and kept my left hand in my pocket. The flare gun was hanging from my belt.

As I ran towards the riverbank, I let rip with ultrasonic flash sonar, hoping the Custodians didn't have ultrasonic sensors in the walls.

The returning echoes effectively lit up the night, allowing me to see as clearly as in daylight. As I suspected, the Skel had set up an ambush in between the gates and the wharf. There were around two dozen of them, which was far more than I expected. To make matters worse, some had guns, though single shot rifles, not semi-automatics like the Custodians. All the same, twenty-four Skel against sixteen Custodians was gonna be ugly.

We reached the riverbank without incident and crouched down. Spotlights illuminated the town walls but it was so dark out here that without flash sonar I could only just make out the faces of those clustered around me, and silhouettes of those further away. Steel weapons glinted in the starlight.

I could almost smell the fear emanating from the Custodians. They were afraid of encountering Skel in the daylight, so they would be absolutely petrified right now.

"Captain," I whispered, "Give us a sixty second head start, then spread out and follow us as quietly as you can. When you see the flare go up, come on in shooting. Nanako and I will hit the Skel the moment they turn to engage you. Just don't shoot us by accident, okay?"

"Understood. Now go!" he ordered.

Touching Nanako's hand to make sure she was ready, I moved off silently beside the gently sloping riverbank towards the Skel, who were about a hundred metres ahead.

"I'm scared, Ethan," Nanako whispered as she advanced quietly beside me.

"Me too," I whispered back. I'd never been this close to so many Skel before.

"Are the Skel really there, outside the gates? I can’t see anything, but you're using your echolocation, aren't you?" she asked.

I almost tripped at that question, and slowed my pace to talk to her. "You know about that?"

"Of course I do, silly."

I must admit it was a stupid question – she was my wife. "There's about two dozen of them, some with rifles, and, oh no!" I whispered in alarm, "They've got an oxy-acetylene torch! They’re cutting into a hatch at the stern of the sub. And they've got a whole satchel of explosives. We'd better hurry!"

The submarine and wharf were normally lit up as bright as day but were lost in darkness tonight, so the Skel must have shot out all the lights.

With the sixteen Custodians advancing twenty metres behind us, Nanako and I drew close to the Skel hiding in ambush. The closest were ten metres to our right, with their backs to us. They hunkered down behind trenches hidden behind bushes that faced the town gates, armed with crossbows, old rifles, and the usual assortment of homemade clubs.

I pulled out the flare gun and was about to fire when a Custodian spotted the oxy-acetylene torch flame and shouted, "Captain, they're cutting into the sub!"

And with that, the plan fell to pieces.

Alerted to the Custodians presence, the Skel ambushers spun about and opened fire with crossbows and rifles, dropping a couple of Custodians and wounding others. After that, they grabbed their hideous hand-to-hand weapons and screamed obscenities as they ran towards the now thoroughly frightened Custodians.

I tried to fire the flare so that the Custodians could see their assailants more clearly, but nothing happened when I pulled the trigger. Two further attempts got the same result – the gun was so old it wouldn't fire. Typical Newhome efficiency. Things were not maintained unless they were regularly used, and still not even then.

This was a disaster; the Skel would cut the Custodians to ribbons in the dark.

"It's a dud, it won't fire," I whispered to Nanako as I discarded the flare gun and grabbed my pistol. "I have to save them. Cover me."

Nanako seized my arm, "You can't go running into the middle of that melee! You could be killed!"

"I can see clearly and the Skel can't, that'll give me an edge."

"Ethan..."

"I have to do this."

"Fine. I'll cover you."

So with Nanako at my back, I ran after the Skel as they collided with the Custodians, swinging their lethal weapons left and right like farmers scything through tall grass. Some Custodians screamed in agony and fell while others fired frantic and ill placed shots at the nightmarish skeleton-armoured brutes who hacked away at them in the dark.

Into the midst of this insane swirling melee I ran, the only combatant who could 'see' what was happening as long as I kept shouting ultrasonically. Nanako ran as closely behind me as she could so she wouldn't mistake me for a Skel or Custodian. I fired my pistol, seven, eight, nine times as I ran through the Skel, aiming at their necks and throats. I was careful to avoid the wild shots sprayed about by the Custodians. Seven of the monstrous apparitions went down – seven shots hit their mark while two struck hardened-bone armour and ricocheted off into the night. That immediately changed the odds of the battle, but more Skel were running towards us.

I ejected the empty clip from the pistol, withdrew my left hand from my pocket and grabbed another clip. Before I could slam it home, a Skel smashed a metal-studded wooden club into my stomach. The bulletproof vest took the brunt of the impact and saved my life, but it was still like getting hit with a sledgehammer. I was smashed off my feet and landed on my back, almost passing out from the pain that exploded through my chest from my previous wound. Winded, I rolled onto my side and gasped for breath while I waited for the pain to subside.

The Skel who hit me was a massive brute – taller than Michal and with goat’s horns adorning his human-skull helmet. He stepped forward and was about to finish me off when Nanako, wearing a bulletproof vest several sizes too big, darted forward and fired her assault-rifle at him on full auto. She was looking out for me just as she promised. Riddled with bullet holes, the Skel collapsed towards me, but Nanako threw herself against him, knocking him off balance so he fell away from me.

That particular Skel would not be getting up again. I rolled onto my stomach and crawled towards the ammo clip I dropped earlier. I noticed that at least half the Custodians were down, but those still standing were fighting back with almost fanatical fervour, using their guns like clubs and firing whenever they found an opportunity.

Nanako shot down another Skel who charged us, but then her gun made an ominous click as it ran out of ammo. At that moment, a smaller, quick-footed Skel knocked Nanako's weapon out of her hands with a sweep of a converted pickaxe. The Skel bellowed a string of extremely offensive insults in a high-pitched voice, revealing herself to be female. I crawled as fast as I could manage to retrieve the ammo clip so I could come to Nanako's aid.

I saw her duck and dodge two great sweeps of her opponent's weapon, after which she jumped forward and delivered a knife-hand strike to the side of the Skel's unarmoured neck. She followed this with an elbow to the throat, sending her opponent staggering backwards. Although choking and gagging, the Skel shook her skull-adorned head, readied her pickaxe adorned with rusty metal spikes and charged Nanako again.

I retrieved my ammo-clip, slammed it home and put a bullet through the Skel's throat, sending her tumbling to the ground and out of the fight for good.

Nanako retrieved her gun, slapped in a fresh ammo clip, and rushed over to me as I slowly regained my feet. "Thanks, that was too close! Are you hurt?"

"The vest saved me," I assured her. I didn’t tell her that the fall had reopened the wound and it was bleeding again. My stomach was going to be black and blue as well.

"We've got to get to the sub, they must be almost through by now," I said as I stood.

"Lead the way, I've got your back." She couched the assault-rifle to her shoulder.

I jogged as fast as I was able for the wharf, firing my pistol at three Skel who tried to stop me. The two I failed to bring down were finished off by Nanako as she followed close behind.

The skirmish behind us had fallen silent. The Custodians had overcome the surviving Skel, although at great cost – only five of them were still standing, and that didn’t include Captain Smithson. With King in the lead, the Custodians advanced cautiously behind us. I tried to blot out the disturbing sounds of the wounded and dying who littered the ground like broken, discarded dolls.

I ran onto the concrete wharf to which the submarine was moored, and past the corpses of four Custodians – the security detail that had been guarding it.

As I hurried over the metal decking that lead from the wharf to the sub, I heard Nanako trip and fall, her gun clattering from her hands to the concrete.

"Nanako?" I called out anxiously, terrified she'd been shot.

"I'm okay – go, get those Skel!" she called back.

Holding my pistol before me, I stepped onto the sub and carefully navigated the narrow decking that surrounded the conning tower. I moved quickly between two large missile launch tubes, and then straight for the two Skel at the sub's stern. One was crouching down with the oxy-acetylene torch, which lit up the surrounding area and the two bone-armoured Skel with an eerie glow.

I was tempted to shoot the oxy-acetylene gas tank, but had no idea what effect such an explosion would have on the satchel of explosives. I slowed to a walk and fired a shot at the Skel instead, dropping him to the submarine's decking plate with a clatter of bone upon steel.

The second Skel whirled around, spotted my silhouette in the dark, and madly fiddled with the detonator's timer. I tried to shoot him before he could, but I was out of bullets. While I quickly reloaded the pistol, the Skel dropped the satchel, grabbed a club and charged me.

Afraid that he may have set the detonator to go off any moment, I rushed straight for him while firing my pistol. The first three shots didn't even slow him, but the fourth sent him careening off the top of the submarine and into the water, where he sank like a rock.

I holstered my pistol and fell to my knees beside the satchel. It had a glowing red timer, which was at twenty-two seconds and counting down.

I didn’t know if the explosives would damage the submarine if it went off on the upper deck, but I couldn't risk finding out. And that meant I had to fling the bag as far as I could into the river. I stood and prepared to do so, but the bag was heavy and my chest was in such pain that I doubted I could even manage to toss it over the side.

Heavy footsteps bounded up behind me. I turned about and found myself face to face with Lieutenant King – who had his assault-rifle pointed at my head.

We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, but could not have been more than a couple of seconds. I knew what he was thinking – if he put a bullet through my head now, no one would ever know the truth. He would claim the Skel shot me or that I’d been hit by a stray Custodian bullet. It was an opportunity too good to pass up.

Well, it was until we heard Nanako's light footsteps as she ran up behind King. Even in the darkness, she could recognise what was going on, so she aimed her gun at King and said, “Don’t even think it, Lieutenant.”

Realising his opportunity for getting away with murder was gone, King lowered his gun. As he did so, my mind switched back to the present and I turned the satchel around to show him the glowing timer, which was down to eight seconds.

In one smooth motion, King dropped his gun, grabbed the bag, and swung it around once and then far out into the river. "Hit the deck!" he shouted, and we complied without hesitation.

The satchel hit the water and exploded in a massive pyrotechnics display, creating a small tidal wave that dumped water over us and rocked the sub violently from side to side.

And then, all was quiet.

Disguising it as a yawn, I lifted my head and let off one last ultrasonic shout as I glanced about, checking to see if any Skel were left standing. Once I saw that they had all been accounted for, I surrendered to the pain and overwhelming exhaustion that wracked my body. I collapsed back onto the sub's deck.

Nanako was at my side in a heartbeat. I tried to convince her that I was okay, but she saw straight through the lie.

After he got his breath King switched his radio on and reported our success to Custodian HQ. They replied with the encouraging news that the Skel had just started withdrawing from North End. They must have had a Smartphone equipped scout watching the battle for the sub, and he must have reported the failure to destroy it to the Skel in the town.

As I lay there shivering in my soaking wet clothes, I pondered how the Skel had managed to get their hands on Smartphones, guns, the oxy-acetylene torch and explosives, even the ability to drive the captured Bushmaster. And there was also the ambush they sprang on Councillor Okada, and their astounding feat of managing to ambush all of our foraging teams on the same morning.