Absolute Zero (The Shadow Wars Book 4) (17 page)

Instead, other blades fed the strips into the central mass.

This continued for perhaps thirty seconds, half a dozen blades sailing smoothly over the twists, the turns, the contours of the corpse, never nicking muscle, never cutting into bone. Just like that, it was done, and the body was skinless.

The meat was dropped to the ground with a wet splat.

“What was that?” Tristan hissed, still watching his back.

“I...oh
shit
!” Trent shouted.

It had taken notice of them.

It was coming for them.

Trent backed into Tristan as he scrambled to get out of the hallway. He tried to get the door shut, but there was no time. The Flayer followed them into the room they had come to.

“Jesus
fuck
!” Tristan cried, staring at it.

They opened fire. Trent was horrified to see that most of the bullets easily ricocheted off the blades, rebounding into the walls, floor and ceiling. A few of them hit home, cutting into the central mass and spraying dark blood. A high-pitched shriek was issued and the thing began to come for them. Trent spied an opening in the central mass, something like a mouth, and a plan was tossed together in his head.

He began enacting it before he could think better of it.

While shouting for Tristan to run, he tore a grenade free from its bandolier and raced towards the Flayer. Priming the grenade, he reared his hand back. As he came within arm's length of the unknowable creature, Trent punched the grenade directly into the opening. He instantly began trying to get away.

One of the blades touched him.

He felt it slice through his armor like it wasn't even there, then felt the tip of it cut into his chest. He screamed but kept going. When the explosion went off, Trent had his back to the monstrosity and had managed to make it a handful of feet away. The eruption picked him up and threw him across the room, kicking him in his injuries.

He cried out as he landed, then rolled a few times and came to a stop. Moving slower than he wanted to, he managed to get on his hands and knees and looked up. A small laugh escaped him as he saw the result of his plan.

Without his suit, he'd have easily been killed.

“Holy shit,” he groaned.

There were blades everywhere. They stuck out of the ground, the walls, the floor. Bits of black gore and flesh were sprayed liberally in with the mess. Trent hauled himself slowly to his feet, spying Tristan coming for him.

“That was brave. And stupid,” she said. She glanced down at his chest. “You're bleeding.”

“Yeah. But it was effective,” he replied, unclipping his medical kit.

Tristan waited while he shoved a tube of anti-coagulant and anti-bacterial paste into the cut. He grunted as the initial pain bit into him, then relaxed as the localized painkillers took effect. Snapping the kit closed, Trent clipped it to his belt, then pulled out a suit repair kit and sealed up the incision the Flayer had opened.

“Glad that thing is dead,” he said as he tossed the used up kit aside.

They began walking towards the door again. “Yeah, now let's just hope that that was the only one,” Tristan replied.

“Now there's a nasty thought,” Trent murmured.

They moved through the door once more, this time finding nothing waiting for them. The pair hurried down the passageway, made the turn and kept going. A few moments later, they found the room in question. It was small, almost regular-sized, which Trent though odd. Everything he'd seen about the Cyr so far seemed to be writ large.

There was a single pedestal of metal residing within, in the exact center. When they approached it, a light-pad with buttons of curious symbols and runes popped into existence. Trent watched the door while Tristan approached it.

“I'm in place,” she said over her radio.

“We just got here, too. I'll walk you through the procedure. Are you ready?”
Trevor replied over the link.

“Ready,” Tristan said.

Trent listened to the man describe a series of symbols and tuned the conversation out. He felt tension singing through his body. They were getting closer to getting off this hellhole of a world. All they had to do was go push the button and then haul ass. He heard a sound behind him, a soft tone that seemed to speak of completion.

“Did it work?” he heard Tristan ask.

“Yes. It worked! Okay, that's one thing out of the way. But we've got a new problem. We need to meet up and discuss it-”
His voice abruptly cut off.

“Trevor?” Tristan asked. “What's the problem? Trevor?”

Nothing. Dead silence.

“Fuck these goddamn radios!” Trent snapped suddenly.

“Come on, let's get back down underground and see if we can link back up,” Tristan replied.

They headed out of the room.

* * * * *

Trent and Tristan managed to get back to the hatch they'd originally taken up without running into much besides a handful of Harvesters and Spitters. Trent was personally reluctant to return to the room they'd been ambushed in, but it seemed that Dark Ops had their hands full once more. The room was empty, save for corpses and spent shell casings.

Trent was just deciding that the area was safe when one of the doorways opened to admit an old horror, come back to haunt them once more. The Carnivore, with its massive jaw and long limbs, stalked into the room.

There was no time to react.

It leaped across the room, grabbed Tristan by her shoulders and bit down before Trent could even raise his weapon. Her head disappeared into its monstrous maw. There was a sharp snap and the creature took a step back. Trent stared in unmitigated horror as he saw Tristan's body take a few awkward, lumbering steps, blood spraying out of the stump of a neck like a fountain gone crazy, and then crashed to the ground.

Trent flipped it to full auto and emptied the magazine into the broad body of the Carnivore, which let out a roar, flecks of flesh and blood flying from its massive jaw. He didn't even take time to reload. The hatch they'd originally come through was still open. He turned and ran for it, dropping down the hole.

Grunting from the impact that drove rods of pain up his legs, he hit the ground running. The Carnivore roared behind him, the sound so loud it seemed to rattle his bones. Trent kept running, thinking of nothing more than escape.

* * * * *

He found an empty storage bay and threw himself inside, locking the door behind him. The first thing he did was reload his weapon. Then he let his rifle hang by its sling and put his back to the nearest wall. There was blood on his visor, he realized. Reaching up, he began trying to wipe it away, but only succeeded in smearing it, making it worse. With a sigh, and hands that weren't quite steady, he found a cleaning rag that came standard with all pressure suits and slowly, methodically began cleaning away the blood.

She was gone.

Just like that.

Trent made himself calm down. He'd seen this before, dozens of times at least.
A friend or fellow merc would die. Gone in the blink of an eye. That was just part of the job. You played dice with your life whenever you grabbed the gun and went to work for a paycheck. Trent took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Already, he was calmer. Doing this kind of shit for twenty years
did
help build up an inoculation against panic. Even in a situation where inhuman monsters roamed the corridors and ate your friends. Trent decided to try the radio.

“This is Trent, anyone out there? Anyone at all?”

Nothing. Silence. Dead air. He tried for another few moments, then gave up. For whatever reason, the radio was gone again. All he could hope to do was get back to the rendezvous point and pray that someone else was there.

Trent gathered up his courage and stepped back out into the corridor. He'd made it a couple meters before a loud roar tore through the area, chilling him. He hesitated. The Carnivore was still out there. Lethal and deadly, more so than most things in this frozen hellscape. It would be hounding him now. He didn't know how he knew this, only that it was true. Trent looked down at his rifle. He wanted something else, something more powerful.

When he saw a terminal, Trent hurried over to it and booted it up, finding a map of the underground region. He studied it for a long moment, then smiled as he saw something. Apparently, the people that ran this place were more than a little paranoid. And with good reason, considering how it had all turned out.

There was a heavy weapons armory in the underground region, not far from his current position. Trent memorized the route and then set off towards it, hoping to beat the Carnivore there. The pervasive sense of being stalked in the crimson glow of emergency lighting had come back, stronger than ever before.

He'd made it perhaps twenty meters before he heard a loud huffing sound. Something reeked of carrion and decay, making him regret opening his suit vents, but he needed to conserve oxygen, just in case. Trent swallowed nervously and pressed on. He made a turn and broke into a light jog, moving down the next passageway. Just a few more twists and turns, then he'd at least be at the armory. Of course, there was absolutely no way to know if that armory had been cleared out and picked clean by the others.

Or if there might be a Dark Ops reception waiting for him. He considered Dark Ops as he hurried on. They seemed pretty odd, given the nature of the Galactic Alliance. He knew about Spec Ops, which ran extremely risky operations, usually hostage rescue or demolition, shit like that. And he knew that there must be some level above that, some shadowy agency that ran the truly dark shit, like assassinations and biological warfare, something that the companies didn't have control over or knowledge of.

At least not officially.

Dark Ops had to be it, but this was kind of extreme. Was there something going on here and Trent just wasn't seeing it?

He wasn't always known for reading between the lines.

Trent turned a corner, came to a crossroads and took a left. As he plunged down another corridor, behind him, he heard a short, sharp growl. He picked up the pace, glancing over his shoulder, then
really
picked up the pace as he caught sight of movement, back in the darkness. Trent ran the rest of the way there and slammed his fist on the open button of the armory. He rushed in, closed and locked the door behind him and looked around.

His heart sank briefly. There was practically nothing left in the armory. The gun lockers hung open and empty. The shelves were practically bare. Trent began moving swiftly along the room, playing his light across the area. He grinned as it came to rest on something, a dark shape resting on a shelf along the back of the room.

Hurrying over to it, Trent heard heavy footfalls just outside the corridor. He snatched it up and saw that it was, in fact, a rocket launcher. He checked it, found a rocket already loaded into it. That's when the Carnivore tore through the door, sending bits of metal flying everywhere. Trent spun around, raised the launcher and, without thinking, fired.

The Carnivore was standing dead center in the doorway, roaring, its massive maw fully open. The rocket hit it directly in the mouth. Trent managed to catch sight of flame, bits of blood and the whole bodily structure of the Carnivore begin to come apart before his vision whited out and his hearing overloaded.

He was slammed forcibly into the back of the wall so hard that he realized he must have passed out, because the next thing he knew, he was lying face down on the ground. He tried to push himself up but his arms ached almost beyond his ability to tolerate. Crying out, Trent forced himself up. He saw flaming bits and pieces of the Carnivore splattered across the interior of the armory. A small laugh escaped him, followed by a low groan.

He'd hit that wall pretty hard. Slowly, painfully, Trent stood up. After a quick check of his major bones to see if any of them were broken, (none appeared to be), he injected himself with a painkiller and then set off to find the others.

Chapter 15

–
The Rescue Op
–

It took him nearly half an hour, but Trent finally heard familiar voices as he honed in on the fork in the corridors where they'd originally split up. For a second, he was uncertain, positive that it must be Dark Ops. But the voices lacked the telltale mechanical filters and then he heard Drake's voice, which was unmistakeable.

“I'm coming up on you guys, don't shoot me,” Trent called.

All the voices ceased, then he came around the corner and felt relief wash through him as he saw the others. Drake, Gideon and Trevor all stood in the corridor. They all seemed a bit bloodier, more tired, worse for the wear, but they were still alive. Trent and Drake laughed with relief as they realized the other was alive.

“Where's Tristan?” Gideon asked.

Trent shook his head. “She didn't make it, but we managed to kill two of the unique bastards. The one that was going around flaying everyone, and the Carnivore. That was the one that got her. Bit her fucking head clean off.”