Countdown (The Shadow Wars Book 9) Read online

  “Flashlights on the hole!” he screamed as he scrambled to his feet.

  Luckily, his team didn't ask the obvious question of 'what?' Instead, they trained their flashlights on the opening Donovan had made. A long moment of sudden silence went by and Allan thought he saw a darkness trying to push its way in. The lights dimmed noticeably, then stopped, dimmed a bit more...then held.

  Allan breathed a sigh of relief.

  “That was...really smart,” Callie said. “What made you think of it?”

  “I just...it popped into my head. All the work-lights, they were so bright and they were everywhere. I figured maybe these things couldn't take the light.”

  “Good call,” Parker replied.

  “Donovan, do your thing,” Allan said.

  “On it,” Donovan replied.

  While the three of them stood there, keeping their flashlights trained on the opening, Allan took the opportunity to study the room they'd come to. Like the others, the walls, floor and ceiling had uncomfortable angles and everything was cast in dark metal. Unlike the other rooms however, brilliant, stark white technology coated several surfaces. Cyr technology. It looked completely out of place and almost the polar opposite of the rest of the ship. Allan wondered if the Cyr research staff had felt the same terror while investigating this place.

  Donovan walked up to the most likely looking piece of tech: a large, cylindrical node of glistening, pristine white metal with several screens on one side. He set to work, and within a minute had found a slot for the transcriber.

  “Downloading,” he called. “Looks like it should take...five minutes.”

  “Great,” Allan muttered.

  He felt faintly ridiculous, standing there, training the flashlight mounted on the end of his rifle on a hole in the wall like his life depended on it...probably because it did. But it was getting the job done. Seconds ticked by and slowly bled into minutes. Allan kept scanning the peripheral of the room, expecting the shadow creatures to find some other way to get inside, a vent or another exit or something, but there didn't seem to be anything. The walls, floor and ceiling seemed relatively solid. Of course, it was difficult to see with the low light level.

  An odd, alien whispering began to build outside the hole. A horrible, hair-raising sound that turned Allan's guts to ice.

  He realized it must be the shadow things.

  “So, any thoughts on what these things could possibly be?” he asked as they waited for the transfer to finish uploading, trying to drown out the whispering.

  “They really don't seem natural,” Parker said.

  “You think they're created?” Callie replied.

  “I imagine so. They're the perfect shock troopers,” Parker answered. “I mean look at those things. I'm honestly deeply curious about how they even exist and what their method of murder is. What they do shouldn't even be physically possible.”

  “I'd like to know more about whoever the hell built this ship,” Allan said. “It's so completely difficult from what we find normal that they must have been a truly unique race. I mean, how old even is this wreck? Where did they come from? Were they from this galaxy or another one? Where's the rest of their race and what happened to them?”

  “These are all things we'll very likely never know. It looks like the Cyr didn't even know,” Callie replied, glancing around.

  “Done!” Donovan called.

  “Oh, thank god,” Allan replied. “Let's get the hell out of here.”

  Donovan joined them, adding his own light to the beams and passing Allan the modified infoclip. “What's the plan?” he asked.

  “Flash-bangs,” Allan replied, stuffing the device into one of his reinforced pockets. “How many do we have?”

  Allan had two more. Callie had two. Donovan and Parker had one between them.

  “Okay. Parker, throw yours through the hole first, then we'll use it to cover our exit from this room. The rest we'll have to make last through the rest of the ship. It's a dead sprint for the Rogue Ops vessel. Questions?”

  There were none.

  “Okay. Then go!”

  Parker threw her flash-bang through the hole. The second they heard it go off, the four of them scrambled through the opening. Allan was up first, immediately sighting and putting down any of the shadow things he saw. Dozens of chambers had opened now. They had cleared a good ten meter space around the opening with the grenade, but there were still dozens of them. Allan burned through another magazine and slapped a fresh one in as he covered the others. Once they were all through, the quartet began sprinting down the blue-lit pathway.

  All around them were more shadow creatures, horrible, rail-thin things constructed of darkness and nightmares, all coming for them, staring with blue eyes the same temperature and temperament as deep, dead space. They ran at a dead sprint down the length of the enormous room, managing to make it to the other door without any trouble.

  Then, Donovan tripped.

  It was a death sentence.

  Allan just had time to look back as he reached the hole, preparing to offer cover fire for Callie and Parker. He saw the technician go down, saw him struggle to get up. Allan provided cover fire for him, screaming for him to hurry, but there were simply too many. One of them slipped passed his covering fire and leaped onto Donovan, disappearing into his suit. Over the clamor of combat and the horrible, odd whispering noise of the shadow things, he heard the sound, that horrible audible thing that indicated the instant removal of all flesh, all muscle, all organs. Everything save for bone. And then Donovan was gone.

  Allan primed and tossed a flash-bang grenade, then dove through the opening.

  “Go! Go!” he screamed as Callie helped him to his feet.

  The trio continued sprinting through the vessel, coming back into well-lit territory. Allan felt an immense relief sweep through him as they ran down a lengthy passageway had been lit up brilliantly by the work-lights.

  A wave of darkness rolled through the corridor as the work-lights flickered, came back to life, flickered again, then died.

  “You have got to be shitting me!” Callie cried.

  “Keep running!” Parker snapped.

  Allan didn't need any more prompting than that. His body responded and he shot off down the corridor once more, pushing his suit to its limits, running as fast as he could, feeling his muscles burn in response to the continued action. Behind them, a cascade of whispering chased them down the corridor, intensifying.

  They hit the Rogue Ops outpost and blasted through. Allan primed and tossed his last flash-bang as they made for the far door, not far from the airlock now. As it went off, the whispering abruptly cut off, but it began building again before too long. He, Callie and Parker burst into the initial room a minute later and raced across it, all but throwing themselves into the open airlock. Allan slammed his fist on the cycle button and Callie tossed one of her two flash-bangs through the gap in the doors before they fully closed.

  “God, I hope they can't get through walls,” Allan whispered.

  “We seemed to be safe in the Cyr outpost, we'll probably be okay here,” Callie replied.

  It seemed to take ages for the airlock to cycle through, but when it finally did, Allan led the way, glad to at least be off the alien vessel. Finally, the opposite door opened. The trio hurriedly made their way through the ship.

  “This is Gray to the speedship, come in.”

  “I've got you, Specialist Gray. What's the situation?” one of the pilots replied.

  “We've got the data and are down two men. I want you to fire up the missile pods and be ready to go as soon as we're onboard.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Missile pods?” Callie asked.

  “I'm blowing this ship to hell,” Allan replied. “No sense in leaving anything for Rogue Ops if they come looking.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They finished making their way through the ship and were soon floating back out in space. As soon as they were onboard their
own ship, Allan let out a sigh of relief he hadn't even realized he'd been holding in. Once they were cycled through, the three of them walked through the ship and onto the bridge. Allan joined the pilots at the front.

  “Blast the Rogue Ops vessel, full spread,” he said.

  “With pleasure,” the pilot replied.

  He watched as the view swung around, the stars spinning until they were at a safe distance away and facing the Rogue Ops cruiser and the immense, dark bulk of the alien vessel. Once the ship finished settling into place and orienting itself, the pilot looked up at Allan and asked for confirmation. Allan nodded sharply.

  “Do it.”

  The pilot pressed a button. A series of small tactical missiles leaped from their pods built into the speedship's frame and shrieked through open space. They converged on the Rogue Ops vessel and blew it to hundreds of thousands of free-floating pieces. The alien ship, on the other hand, remained more or less intact.

  Allan stared at it for a moment, then slowly reached up and disengaged his helmet. “Get us back to the Atonement,” he said.

  “Gladly,” the pilot replied, going back to working his control panels.

  Allan turned away from the pilot and looked Callie and Parker. “Why don't you two go relax? I'll, uh, I'll report in to Hawkins,” he suggested.

  Parker nodded, turned and left. Callie lingered.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Allan nodded. “Yeah, I just...that was a close one. A really close one. I'm a little rattled,” he replied. “But I'll be okay.”

  “All right...I'm going to go take a shower. Don't make me wait too long.”

  Despite his current state, Allan smiled. “I won't. I promise.”

  She left the bridge. Allan moved over to the communications console and fired it up. A moment later he was staring at the head and shoulders of Director Hawkins. “How'd it go out there Allan? Give me some good news.”

  “We recovered the data and Rogue Ops didn't. They're all dead, but we're down two men. Donovan and Malone didn't make it,” Allan replied.

  Hawkins frowned, but he didn't look nearly as displeased as he would if Allan had told him the mission was a failure. “That's grim news...but ultimately a win for us. What happened? How did they die?” he asked.

  “We encountered some kind of...shadow creatures. I'm not sure what the hell they were beyond the fact that they were completely unlike anything any of us has ever encountered before. They were, by far, the deadliest hostiles on the list.”

  “Jesus...talk about a nightmare. Well, you got it done, Allan. Thank you. It's nice to have a real win for once,” Hawkins replied.

  “Yeah...well, we're headed back. How are the others doing?”

  “They've arrived at the safe house and are currently scouting out the colony for signs of Enzo,” Hawkins replied.

  “All right. See you when we get back.”

  “Affirmative. Out.”

  The link was cut. Allan stared at his pale reflection in the blank screen for a long moment before turning and leaving the bridge.

  * * * * *

  Allan laid back in the bed, took a long pull on the joint and blew out a formless cloud of blue smoke. He stared up at the ceiling, the only light in the room being provided by a lamp on the bedside table on its lowest setting. Callie shifted next to him, rolled over and rested her smooth, naked body against his.

  “My turn,” she said, hand out.

  Allan passed the joint to her. He'd picked up the habit from Greg and Eve, who swore by it. They'd said that with all the ridiculously stressful situations they were forced through, they needed something to take the edge off after a hard mission. Laying here, after the frantic sex with Callie and the shower, Allan was discovering that he was right. Sex and a shower were great stress relievers all their own, but a little weed was going a long way toward helping him really unwind. He was grateful that he'd given it a shot, and even more grateful that the speedship came equipped with two very small bedrooms at the back of the ship.

  “How you doing?” Callie asked.

  “Better now,” Allan replied. “I was just thinking, wondering, I guess.”

  “About what?” Callie asked, passing the joint back.

  “About how the others are doing.”

  “I'm sure they're doing good,” Callie said.

  Allan took another pull, then rolled over, stubbed out what remained of the joint and killed the light. He rolled back over and wrapped an arm around Callie.

  “Here's hoping.”

  CHAPTER 08

  –Obsidian Skies–

  They were going to a place called Grimsfall.

  From everything Greg had read about the miserable place, the name seemed entirely appropriate. It was a recently founded colony, built officially off the Galactic Alliance grid and out of their territory five years ago by an odd conglomeration of mercenaries, shady investors, salvagers and colonists. The Spec Ops portfolio said that a handful of medical and pharmaceutical companies had discreetly paid for the colony to be established. They wanted an intentional black market there, a playground for new medicine beyond the legal boundaries of the government.

  Those companies were top providers to the military and had had several breakthroughs in the past decade, so no one looked too closely. Greg wasn't sure how to feel about that, so he simply shoved the thoughts aside. Right now, dealing with Rogue Ops and monsters from beyond time and space was enough to deal with. Greg glanced out the window, watching the atmosphere burn by. They were making planetfall.

  He, Eve, Drake and Gen were all tucked away in their own private cabin aboard an inter-system commercial ship, meant to leap between systems and planets. Hawkins had at least been nice enough to allot them the funds to travel in style. Greg had had two very nice in-flight meals and had been spending most of the time talking with Eve. Neither Drake nor Gen seemed in a very talkative mood and about halfway through the flight, Drake had gone to sleep. Greg was worried about them. He knew they were all worried about the pair. But they at least seemed to be talking to each other, and they had their loss (and their rage) in common.

  Greg reviewed the plan once more in his head as they entered the final portion of the landing at Grimsfall. Spec Ops had a safe house on the planet, since they, and other branches of the military and government, frequently had agents that needed to travel to the dismal colony for a variety of reasons. One of the men manning the safe house would meet them at the spaceport and appraise them of the situation on the drive back. Apparently they had a little bit more data on the whereabouts of Enzo Rains.

  Or so they claimed.

  Greg glanced out the window again. The clouds were gone and now he could see the city below him. The day was gray, bordering on night-like, and rainy. The colony was drenched in a neon haze. It all looked pretty miserable. But he had to admit, it was a step up from isolated locations where the walls were coated in blood and genetic monstrosities roamed the corridors, looking for blood. If all they had to deal with was some rain and Enzo, then Greg decided this whole mission was pretty much a vacation.

  The ship began its final docking procedures.

  * * * * *

  The landing was routine...at least, Greg had to assume it was. He'd never been on a ship like this before. Or, he didn't remember being on one. His landings usually involved a lot of screaming and crashing, or jumping out of an airlock if things went well. All this one consisted of was standing up, grabbing his bag from the overhead compartment and walking out of the ship and into the terminal they'd linked up to.

  “You know,” Eve said, taking his hand as they walked through the crowded, noisy terminal, shoving their way through the other disembarking passengers, “someday, I'd like to take a real vacation, to somewhere nice.”

  “Me too. Mezzanine was great,” Greg replied. “Maybe we could go there.”

  “Maybe. Rent a cabin on our own private island for a week. I'm sure our boss would be willing to foot the bill after we pull this off.�
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  “If we pull this off, I plan on leaving for like a month at least. I've got a few loose ends I'd like to wrap up out there in the galaxy.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “Well, meeting my parents for one.”

  “Oh...I thought you weren't sure if you wanted to meet them or not.”

  “I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I guess it's kind of a thing that I can't avoid. But I'm still worried. They probably think I'm dead...but what would be worse? Having a dead son, or a live one who doesn't remember you in the slightest? But, if they're anything like me, which, they should be, knowing is always better. Or...maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm fundamentally different now than I was before, maybe they'd be better off not knowing...”

  Eve squeezed his hand. “I'll come with you, when you go...if you want.”

  He squeezed back. “I'd like that.”

  They finished getting out of the receiving bay and began making quick progress through the main thoroughfare, heading for the front exit. Rain was coming down in sheets, beading and running on the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows that showed the wet, gray field of landing pads beyond the terminals. They had traveled light, just a duffel-bag apiece, mainly stuffed with clothing. Hawkins had promised that the personnel at the safe house would provide them with the necessary hardware to get the job done.

  Greg hadn't liked going anywhere unarmed.

  He still felt vulnerable as he moved through the crush of the crowds, constantly scanning for any threat. Everyone around him looked, to varying degrees, miserable, determined and angry. This wasn't exactly a happy place. They finally managed to make it to the row of front exits and headed out into the rain, hurrying for the parking garage. The intel had given them a level, a row and a parking space to be at. That's where the Spec Ops representative would meet them. They crossed the roadway in front of the terminal and came into the parking garage. Greg kept scanning the area and the people around them for danger, but he felt like they had really slipped the noose this time. Were they that lucky? Were they actually here undetected?