Stormfall - Chapter 9

“Are we high enough yet?” I asked. We went up three more floors from the one where we found what was left of Saber-Three. 

By now, the arcology’s structural decay was all the more apparent. It was like something big had stirred the guts of the building just enough to break stuff without shattering it. The stairwell had entire chunks missing out of it, and there were more than a couple large impact spots. The rusted railing of the stairs was warped and twisted like something massive tore through here.

”Should be.” Fleff called from behind me. “There’s a maintenance hall up one more floor. Saw it on the map.”

”Where the hell did you find a map of this place?” More importantly, why wasn’t I shown? As the leader of this particular expedition, that would’ve been quite nice to have.

”You didn’t see it back at that mall area?” 

“No…” I was distracted by other things like being attacked and the dead corpses of our comrades. Or what was left of them, anyway.

Black Dog paused at the top of the next set of stairs with his hackles raised. “Joy.”

”What?” I asked under my breath.

”The scent’s stronger. Concentrated.” He looked back to me and his tail whipped toward the stairs’ door. The frame itself had several scratches along it like something with really long claws had been through here. “This place reeks of them.”

”Yup.” Of course it did. I raised a hand to the squad. They slowed on the stairs behind me and spread out into a looser, more cautious stack.

“I got it.” Johnson moved up past me and motioned to the squad. A silent count went off and then—

Bang!

He kicked the door open and backed out of the way. Nothing on the other side. Just a shadowed door with even deeper shadows cast by a combination of flashlights and Black Dog’s fire.

Speaking of Black Dog, the hound stalked forward and entered through the door first. Light bloomed across the space, revealing it to be much broader than I originally expected. The entire machine hall was gutted with broken parts laying everywhere. Up above, wide catwalks spread across the space with tangled cabling drooping from them like vines.

”Hold positions.” The squad entered behind me and spilled out to take firing positions around the room. They instinctively ducked behind mainly just control consoles of various kinds.

This entire space was a ball of stress from me. There were too many parts, too many shadows, and way too many spots to easily drop down on us. It was quite frankly the ideal spot for an ambush.

“Nice.” The radioman pushed up toward a central console and knelt next to a junction box. It cracked open with a quiet snick as he ran a knife along the lid of the box. He then patched in a power cell to juice the thing back up, and plugged in his radio. “Just give me a minute to isolate the signal.”

A minute—yeah, yeah we could totally do that. Black Dog moved further into the area and cast a flickering glow. I trailed the catwalk above us for out of place shadows, movement, or much of anything—

“What is that?” Ivanova asked. 

It wasn’t just me. We all—except Fleff—turned. Beyond the range of Black Dog’s light, where the shadows flickered erraticly, something clung to the catwalk above. It was invisible, but the shadow it cast showed misshapen limbs and deadly looking claws. 

“I see it.” Johnson lifted his grenade launcher and pulled the trigger.

Thump!

The shell cleanly arced through the air. It detonated on the ceiling just above the creature, sending it flying to the ground in a spray of rubble. It didn’t even have time to screech.

”Contact right!” Johnson spun and laid down a wall of fire down a corridor between two massive water pumps. Metal sparked and screeched as bullets tore along the machinery.

Francis took the other side. “Heavy, help me suppress the left.”

“Copy.” Kozlova joined him and started spraying with her gun on something moving fast on the other side of the space. I couldn’t quite make out what it was from this distance.

Something slammed hard just behind Fleff and covered the man in a shadow. It shimmered faintly, and moved like it had lethal intent. “Fleff!”

The air shimmered—and Black Dog slammed forward like a comet of white flame, knocking it to the ground. Fire filled claws scarped against scales. Bones snapped with a sickening crunch, and the camo broke after he collided with the creature. For a moment, I got my first real look at this place’s natives. 

Reptilian of some kind. Dark scales covered sinewy limbs. Legs were bent at weird angles too sharp to be human. But it looked human. Pyre, it looked so much like a person warped and twisted almost beyond recognition. An elongated jaw ripped open and a high pitched screech broke through out of its throat.

I unloaded several rounds into the thing’s face. The pinned reptile stood no chance between the two of us, and its head splattered open like an over-ripe watermelon. The entire time, Fleff kept up work on the junction box.

Another lizard-thing vaulted over a rail along the catwalk and dropped down toward us with claws outstretched. A burst of white flame flicked off of Black Dog’s tail and slammed into the thing’s eyes just as it hit the ground in front of me.

While it was blinded I kicked forward and slammed it center mass with my foot. Although the creatures looked intimidating, they were actually quite light and small. It offered no resistance to my kick, and launched back to the ground while scraping at its eyes.

This close to the creature, I didn't even have to worry about accuracy. When it stopped twitching, I stopped pulling the trigger. Then, as if to ensure it was dead, my wisp tore the thing’s head clean off with his teeth.

On the other side, gunfire continued to erupt from the rest of the squad. A couple of them closed the gap to get close and personal with Francis and Kozlova. Both of the reptiles were put down with little fanfare, though both suffered slight lacerations from our ambushes.

After reloading, I joined in and sprayed bursts at the flickering shadows between the machinery. The invisible targets were deceptively fast. And they were no longer closing the distance toward us.

Up close, Black Dog gave me the slight edge. Hitting the cloaked lizards from far was difficult, though. Bullets were, of course, faster. They moved just quicker than I could lock on and aim, though. The rest of my squad had better luck—or nanites closed the gap enough for them to be a much bigger threat than I was.

My loyal hound stuck next to me the entire time and watched the ceiling. That freed me to shift my focus purely toward the ones circling around the machine room. “I thought you said there were three of these bastards.”

”They all have the same scent.” Black Dog’s fire trembled across his body. “Maybe three kinds?”

That was a horrifying thought. This looked like it was a much bigger nest than I first thought. I ejected my mag and slapped another one up into my rifle. I pulled back the charging handle and fired more bursts out toward a flickering shadow.

”Got it!” Fleff tossed his radio back onto its sling and pulled up his rifle. “Twenty-three floors up. If we take out the center of the array, the whole interference field drops.”

”Tactical retreat to the stairs!” I called out over the constant gunshots. 

I tapped Kozlova's arm and moved up behind her. The woman jerked her LMG off the back of the console and backed away, giving up her spot as she retreated. I took over covering fire while she backed away.

 The squad slowly but steadily moved back to the stairs. Ivanova took the lead and recleared behind us. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she panned around the space with her flashlight. “Clear!”

”Move it!” We all poured back into the stairwell while firing out toward our distant reptilian stalkers. They just stayed in the shadows and watched us fall back without attempting to close the gap again.

Johnson took up the rear. Just before coming through the door, he fired a grenade up to the floor and brought down a shower of rubble to block the doorway. He ducked back and dropped the launcher for his rifle.

Even with the rubble blocking the way, we stayed up and ready for an attack. Scratching and skittering came from the other side of the blocked off door. For the moment, at least, we had time to breathe and reload.

Everyone was still breathing. “Sound off.”

”Green.” A chorus of answers came back from the other five. Black Dog—there he was. He was halfway up the next set of stairs and already watching for more attackers.

We all made it. Massive bonus there. Kozlova, Francis, and Ivanova were a bit scratched up, but nothing too major. More than anything, ammo was a worry. We just restocked off of Saber-Three, though, so we should be fine.

Johnson smacked his grenade launcher and dumped out an empty shell. “What the fuck were those things? Lyzar?”

“Lyzar aren’t so stupid looking.” Kozlova dropped an empty box mag to the floor and went about the lengthy process of reloading her LMG. “What’s the plan, Squire Joy?”

I sighed and rubbed some blood off of my vizor. Theirs of course. I had yet to be hit. ”Twenty-three floors up, Fleff?”

“Roger, ma’am. Should be somewhat close to the atrium. Looks like some kind of dedicated jamming array.” Fleff said.

That was a lot of stairs. Oh joy. Each floor could be a potential ambush point too, and every door we passed could turn into a dagger primed at our back. I had more than enough scars on my back already, thank you very much.

Fall back? Or strike while the iron’s hot? If we back off, they could regroup and prepare a larger ambush for us. The reptiles showed some level of intelligence, so it was possible.

If we got up there, though, and then they blocked our way back… maybe we could go down through the atrium if push came to shove. The rest of the Stormfall mercs should have Force Dispersal Nanites. It was a standard strain for shock troopers with the orbital drops and all that. They’d probably survive a fall. Barely.

I’d have to figure something else out. Assuming we even got up there in the first place. Could we just blow up the building and avoid this all together? No—this place was massive. It’d take an orbital strike, or a really big bomb to pull something like that off.

There was definitely a nest here somewhere. So far we’d only seen the invisible type. If Black Dog’s theory was right, there were two other types here, though, which was worrying. 

Honestly, I was wondering how Saber-Three was wiped out so quickly. If it was just the camo lizards, then the initial ambush would’ve been quite deadly. They had time to regroup and call for help, though. They would’ve been prepared for another attack. Something else lurking here made sense.

I rubbed my arm. The sooner we had this taken care of, the sooner we could leave. There’d be no reason to stick around the arcology and deal with these things after we took care of the interference, anyway. We could regroup with the larger force, and hopefully be off planet by the end of the week. 

”We keep moving.” I didn’t like it, but waiting here or in the arcade meant waiting for them to come again. Maybe next time we wouldn’t be so lucky.