Sightless: The Survivors Series #2 Page 14

  Finally, pressing closer, Loris spotted a body slumped against a corner near a doorway. The young man had been stripped naked, beaten, and had a number of serious cuts around his torso. For a second, his glossy eyes connected with Loris’s before he received a kick in the stomach. The pained howl made Loris’s skin crawl.

  “Stop that. Get back!” Redhook called, elbowing someone to further clear the area.

  Loris saw that the young man was sitting in a pool of blood. He couldn’t tell if it was the same individual he’d seen on his previous visit to the residential area, but he looked a lot like him.

  “He killed my friend! On Nova, that’s a death sentence,” a man nearby shouted.

  The ugliness on their faces repulsed Loris almost as much as the man on the floor, who urgently needed medical help but wasn’t going to get it. His lip had been cut and his mouth was hanging open. Loris guessed that this person had only known life for a matter of weeks and didn’t know how to process what was happening. He didn’t either.

  Panic looked to him for what to do. Though she remained composed, her eyes were getting misty. Loris returned his attention to the young man.

  “I’m so sorry, for everything.”

  Loris pulled the trigger.

  Cheers and more shouts erupted around the area in stark contrast to the ill feeling in the pit of Loris’s stomach. Putting the manufactured man out of his misery was the best he could do.

  Even his remorse couldn’t last long. Screams erupted down one of the adjacent hallways, followed by the thudding of bare feet.

  Redhook and Panic took off in the direction of the noise, leaving Loris to follow behind. After a short distance, they crossed paths with about twenty men and women who were racing in the opposite direction as if their lives depended on it.

  “They’re over there!” someone huffed.

  That was enough to give them an indication that the group of Quade’s creations were roaming nearby, but when they turned the corner, only an empty hallway appeared before them. Farther ahead, Loris could see the entryway to the large echo chamber with its bridges. Somehow the area got awfully quiet awfully fast.

  Still trailing the others, Loris crept forward carefully. Up ahead, one of the men dropped onto the echo chamber bridge before them. He was so large that the hallway walls and ceiling seemed to frame him perfectly. In his hands were a couple of long objects, pipes or something of the sort. Panic and Redhook had their weapons raised as he started toward them.

  “Drop everything and put your hands up!” Panic ordered, but the man continued forward undaunted.

  Loris happened to glance over his shoulder and noticed another large man attempting to sneak up on them from behind. Yet another dropped onto the bridge behind the first.

  “We’re getting penned in,” Loris said in a low voice to the others. With three hand cannons, three enemy combatants carrying melee weapons were no match, but they continued pressing forward anyway. With all of the doors in the hallway shut, a confrontation was unavoidable.

  Turning to face the pursuer approaching from the rear, Loris found himself back to back against his two fellow officers.

  “Don’t make us open fire!” Loris called. The look on the man’s face was like a wild animal. He may not have understood the words, or perhaps he didn’t care. There was even a chance that he was aware Loris had killed his kin from a little blood staining a sleeve.

  Suddenly, the doorway beside them slid open and a number of bodies came rushing out at them, hollering at the top of their lungs. Loris barely had time to pull the trigger before he was slammed against the wall on the opposite side and a forearm was squeezing his head against the hard, creased surface.

  His shot had struck the man coming at them from down the hall in the lower waist, sending him sprawling against the ground in agony. Loris could hear a shot being fired behind him, and a thought crossed his mind about how dangerous it was to fire hand cannons at point-blank range because of the risk of spraying the super-hot material. The shot hit somebody, adding a howl to the chorus of shouts.

  Straining to look to his side, Loris got a glimpse of the man trying to crush him against the wall. Though empty, his hands were dangerous enough on their own. The pressure and the pain were rapidly increasing, and all Loris could do was scrape the arm carrying the cannon against his midsection, lacerating his skin. It wasn’t enough to make him budge, and Loris was forced to try to find a way to fire at close range. He barely managed to position the gun enough to get a shot off at his adversary’s foot, catching his ankle and forcing him to relent.

  That bought Loris enough space to turn around, but there were so many others that he couldn’t move anywhere.

  A scream from Panic got his attention. Loris looked over to see that they had torn away her weapon and were smashing it against the wall. His eyes widened, sure it would rupture the energy cells and leak plasma all over. Even as he took a stiff shot to the ribs, Loris yanked on Panic to get her out of the way before the cannon spilled scalding orange goo over the man breaking it.

  Redhook fared the best out of the three of them. He continued to fire, taking out the two men down the hall, and was successfully fending off a couple more attackers simultaneously. Like a bear, he roared and smashed his elbow into his opponent’s face, getting off another shot that struck square in the chest as the man reeled.

  They were beginning to turn the tide of the fight, and some of the created men were looking for ways to escape. Shedding any sense of regret about the punishment he was inflicting, Loris began firing as often as the weapon would allow, leaving one after another writhing in agony on the floor.

  By the time it was over, the area was a bloody mess and Loris was anxious to get out of there. It was difficult to tell if this was all of the humans Quade had produced, but even if there were one or two left they wouldn’t be able to terrorize and kill like this group had.

  His head hurt and he’d taken a few hard blows, but more or less he was fine. Exchanging glances with Redhook and Panic, he could see that they emerged from the fight intact as well. Redhook was stretching out his arm and even had a smile on his face.

  “Reminds me of being jumped in an alley back home,” he said, laughing.

  They hurried through the residential area, doing what they could to quiet people down and urge them to return to their rooms. Loris had a mind to get back to Lopez, who could be returning through the duct any minute.

  “Do you think he did it?” Panic asked.

  Loris sighed as he continued to walk briskly.

  “I think so, but whether or not it’ll work as intended is another matter.”

  There was no way for them to tell if the ship was slowing down just by walking around in it. They assumed they wouldn’t know if the job had been done until Lopez told them.

  On the way to the room with the duct, the hallway felt different than it had. He passed under a light that was out and couldn’t remember for the life of him if it had been like that before. The fighting had left him on edge and it was difficult to think straight with a pounding headache.

  Coming to the last corner, Loris still couldn’t hear any banging. He guessed that Lopez hadn’t returned yet, but as they came to the doorway there was a streak of blood on the floor. Momentum carried him just far enough in to see Lopez’s space suit and body torn open to the right.

  To the left, hiding behind the doorway, was a large purplish blur that reared into his peripheral vision. The monster snatched Loris’s hand cannon and crushed the nozzle. Staggering back into the arms of his companions, Loris watched Rasher emerge before him. The stiff, blocky face still managed to convey murderous anger.

  CHAPTER 11

  The raging Silica emitted a terrifying yell as it lumbered toward them. It still had Loris’s broken weapon in its hand, though hand cannons were poor weapons to use against them. Their thick, hard exteriors were poor conductors of heat.

  Before getting pinned against the hallway wall, Redhook burst f
orward and slammed into Rasher shoulder first. The fearsome alien was knocked back and took an awkward swing that came over the top of Redhook’s head.

  “Go and get help!” he yelled.

  “I’ll go,” Panic said, immediately taking off as fast as she could go.

  Rasher, with his pincher hands, wasn’t likely to miss twice, and as his arm reached back again to grab Redhook, Loris knew he had to do something. Stepping forward behind Redhook, he leapt into the air to grasp the seething monster’s forearm and prevent it from clamping down on Redhook’s head.

  His arms wrapped around Rasher’s, it allowed Redhook to concentrate on the other free arm by getting a tight hold of its wrist. Now, they just needed to worry about that head swooping in for a bite.

  Loris took what chances he could to glimpse around the room and the area to try to find something they could use to win the fight. The best way to defeat the Silica was with smoke, which locked up their joints. Unfortunately, a hand cannon was a poor tool for starting fires, and other than Lopez’s body and the sheet sealing the duct, there wasn’t anything that wasn’t metallic.

  In his searching glances, he noticed Redhook looking at him with an increasing amount of concern. Restraining Rasher wasn’t going to be something they could do for long, and waiting around for Panic to get back with more people or a better weapon wouldn’t end well. They needed to move to a more advantageous location.

  Signaling with a nod, Loris dropped from the arm and jumped back away from Rasher. Redhook pushed himself away as well, and soon they were walking backward with the creature shambling toward them.

  Redhook fired a few shots whenever it started to get close, the impact of the projectile having more of a deterring effect than the heat or the chemicals. Otherwise, Rasher and the two men struggled to find an opening as they moved along the dark gray floor.

  “Where are we going?” Redhook asked, breathing heavily.

  “I don’t know. If we could get him back to the airlocks, enough of us could force him out of one. There are torches we could use in the Cortes to start a fire,” Loris said, though the idea of a Silica getting anywhere near the interior of their prized fighting ship was frightening. But unless another opportunity arose on the way, it seemed like there was no other choice.

  Rasher didn’t seem interested in letting them backtrack all the way across the giant vessel. As he waved his arms and searched for a way to grab them, he also never missed an opportunity to punch up at the fixtures to knock out the lights. Soon enough they were destroyed to make it seem like the darkness was chasing them back along with their enemy.

  It didn’t seem like anyone was going to get to them soon, and there was still a ways to go before they reached the airlocks when things got dicey. A momentary lapse in concentration left Loris slow to react to a lunge from Rasher, who took a wide swing and slammed his fist into Loris’s hip.

  Immediately feeling like he was going to lose his ability to stand, he had no choice but to grab a hold of Redhook’s sleeve to support himself. It seemed like he was going to hit the floor anyway, but Redhook turned to wrap an arm around his chest and lift him up.

  Redhook’s arm felt like a tree trunk against his chest as Loris let himself be carried down the stretch of hallway. The big man’s labored breathing echoed in his ears, but Loris’s eyes were on the vicious creature picking up speed in pursuit. They weren’t far from the Cortes, but whether Redhook’s strength would hold out was an open question mark.

  It turned out not to matter. When they reached the intersection leading toward the airlocks, Rasher put on a burst of speed and shifted to catch them as they turned right. It suggested he had some knowledge of the layout of the Incubator.

  “No!” Loris hastily called, using his good leg to press against the floor and nudge Redhook in a different direction. The alternatives weren’t particularly good. A ramp began right ahead, which was sure to sap Redhook’s endurance in a snap, and to the left was a pathway through the ship that was completely unfamiliar to Loris. As they took it, Loris wondered about the odds of hitting a dead end or getting hopelessly lost.

  “Loris!” Panic’s voice called from the opposite direction. She’d been returning from the Cortes and had a torch in hand but nothing to burn with it. No one else was with her either.

  Her call got the attention of Rasher, who suddenly found himself torn between two targets. It didn’t take him long to decide to continue pursuing the injured enemy. To her credit, Panic didn’t hesitate to run to their aid, even though Rasher could’ve turned on her at any second.

  It wasn’t another minute or two before fatigue started to drain Redhook’s ability to run. His face was getting red and he became sweaty, but worst of all he was starting to lose speed. A few frantic attempts from Loris to help with his dangling legs only slowed them down further. Turning to fight and hoping to torch Rasher’s joints was beginning to look like their only chance.

  Voices up ahead caught Loris’s ear, and he jerked his head to try to find the source. Someone in the hallway scampered into an open doorway.

  “I can make it,” Redhook snarled, but if he did there was a chance he’d be completely exhausted and unable to fight. The doorway loomed closer, and they had no choice but to take it and hope to find a way to neutralize the Silica bearing down on them. Loris struggled to fend off Rasher’s grasps without getting his hands crunched.

  Redhook ducked through the doorway and looked like he was going to collapse after crossing a finish line. He was hunched over and barely able to pull Loris to the side as Rasher stormed through. Around the room were long tables, large pots, and a few terrified faces. The people had scoops in their hands and buckets of water. This was one of the kitchens, where they mixed the Detonan’s powdered food into what the refugees had been calling baby formula.

  “The powder!” Loris yelled at the refugees in their drab brown garb as Rasher turned toward him and Redhook.

  Scrambling away on his elbows and heels, Loris watched as Rasher knocked over a table and shoved Redhook off of his feet. There was nothing left between them now, nothing left between the claws and his weak limbs. Loris fought through the pain but knew better than to try to turn his back on the Silica and crawl even if he would move faster.

  Rasher stooped over and attempted to snatch at his ankles, which Loris managed to withdraw just in time. The look on that blocky face was the picture of seething rage, and it seemed like the alien was about to dive at him when a thick cloud of dust splashed against Rasher’s back. It billowed through the air, making Loris cough.

  A bright red cone-shaped flame cut through it. Panic had her torch on full blast and was waving it in the air near Rasher’s back, incinerating the powder and turning it to smoke. The sudden appearance of so much material in the air distracted Rasher from making his dive. He knew what was coming because it had happened to him before.

  The monster’s movements slowed down as more of the powder was converted to smoke. The carbon seeped into his joints, clogging them and making the exposed tendons bulge. Rasher’s angry roars had more of a harrowing note in them. He looked frantically at his freezing limbs until his neck too started to lock up.

  His body was leaning forward and began to tip over. Redhook looped an arm around Loris’s shoulder and yanked him out of the way before the heavy creature hit the floor.

  Panic, breathing heavily, deactivated the torch. A relieved grin came to her lips, one that would’ve doubtlessly been much wider if not for the loss of Lopez. She grabbed Loris’s hand and helped him to his feet. He could barely put any weight at all on one leg. Together, they looked at the Silica that had caused them so much trouble. He was harmless now, dead weight. The only thing Loris knew was that he wouldn’t get another chance to come after them.

  It took roughly thirty people who were taking turns over an hour to move Rasher to one of the airlocks. All Loris could do was watch them work and think about how painful losing Lopez was while getting concerned glances from Brina, w
ho thankfully had been far away from all of the chaos they’d been through. Jettisoning Rasher while they were at such a high speed was not possible, but as soon as they slowed down he’d be flushed out.

  When Quade finally reared his head again, he let them know such a time would not be far off.

  “We’re decelerating, but I’m not convinced it was because of anything relating to the control panel. It’s possible the Detonans want us to be nearly at a halt by the time they reach us.”

  Loris knew then that any hope of avoiding a confrontation was lost. There was only one thing left, to fight.

  “Our last stand is coming.”

  Plans and preparations were hastily assembled during a tense few hours. Options were few, as was their supply of weaponry. Even if they had the chance, they wouldn’t have the ammunition to destroy the Detonan armada. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t try.

  Loris found time on numerous occasions to attempt contact with the dark matter fighters. He sent more messages than a clingy girlfriend, telling them everything he could about where they would be, what they were up against, and what would happen to his species if they lost. There was no response.

  Soon the time came for Loris to strap into the Cortes and detach from the Incubator, which had slowed dramatically. From the cockpit, he could see through the windshield where Rasher floated through space like an action figure thrown through the air. It was possible he’d still survive longer than they did.

  He glanced at the console readout that signaled an approaching wave of vessels of all sizes.

  “We’ve already seen that they won’t attack their own ship. We’ll need to buy time and avoid fire from the big carriers by staying behind the Incubator. That should give us a chance to isolate the smaller fighters and take them out,” Panic said over the com. She was already on a shuttle heading back to the Magellan, where she would oversee their defenses.

  “What about after that?” Quade asked. “What about when they surround the Incubator from all sides? What do we do then?”