Isolation (Forgotten Vengeance Book 2) Read online

  “Let’s go!” she shouted through their networked comm. The side hatch to the ship slid open, revealing the ground ten meters below. She dropped the climb wire, passing the other end to Bennett. “Hook it to the stairs.”

  “I’ll keep you covered,” Isaac offered, dropping an empty magazine and exchanging it for a fresh one.

  “No,” Rico said. “You’re the VIP.”

  “I’ve got this,” Isaac replied. He didn’t want special treatment, especially in the middle of a firefight.

  “I wasn’t asking,” Rico snapped, grabbing his arm and yanking him toward the hatch.

  Bennett made it to the stairs, wrapping the wire around it and clamping it together. The xaxkluth reached for him again, and he dove behind the steps only moments ahead of a tentacle snaking through the space where he’d stood.

  “Damn it. I can help!” Isaac shouted.

  He felt the change in the air as incoming plasma fire streaked down from the sky, large bolts slamming into the first xaxkluth. It groaned in surprised pain, turning its central mass in the direction of the shot. Isaac did the same, catching sight of the dropship out of the corner of his eye. It was dropping fast, coming in too close to the action.

  “The Parabellum is here!” Able said, her voice barely audible over the din of gunfire and the weakness of her slow death.

  “Time to go!” Rico growled, turning Isaac and shoving him toward the hatch. “We did this to get you to Sheriff Duke alive. You had damn well better make it alive!”

  He stopped arguing, feeling sheepish as he grabbed the line and quickly rappelled down the side of the ship. He could hear more xaxkluth nearby and watched as one went past in the direction of the Parabellum.

  He hit the ground, Rico right behind him and the rest of the Centurions right behind her.

  “Get clear,” Able said, coughing into the comm. “I’m gonna blow the ship.”

  Isaac ran toward where the dropship was coming down a few hundred meters to the north. It started firing on the xaxkluth, pounding it with plasma.

  “Let’s help them out!” Rico said, shooting at the creature from behind. The other Centurions joined her, their rounds hardly enough to distract the thing.

  Isaac looked at the world through his helmet’s heads-up display, noticing the grid in the lower corner and the red blobs filling it behind the green marks of the Centurions. There were at least six of the Relyeh monsters behind them, and while most were still intent on crushing the Capricorn, two others had peeled off to chase them toward the other dropship.

  “We aren’t going to make it,” Drake said, noticing the activity behind them at the same time Isaac had.

  “Just keep running!” Rico replied.

  The Parabellum spun in the air to reveal its open rear ramp and then lowered to the highway. Isaac nearly stopped in his tracks when a large metal humanoid raced out, clutching one of the largest rifles he had ever seen. A human in combat armor followed behind it with a plasma rifle, firing into the alien creature.

  The armor started shooting, its rifle whining loudly as it spat hundreds of rounds into the xaxkluth, ripping off four limbs in a blink and tearing through its central mass. The xaxkluth screamed and tried to defend itself, but the resurgence of fire from the Parabellum's cannons burned into it and it finally collapsed—dead.

  “Up and over!” Rico snapped. “Let’s go, Centurions!”

  The armored mech leaped from the dropship, landing on the dead creature’s carcass. Isaac’s HUD flashed, indicating it had requested to join their network. Rico accepted the request, and two more green marks appeared. The armor was marked as General Stacker. The other Deputy Hicks.

  “Move, move, move!” Stacker roared into the comm, unleashing hell from his rifle at the xaxkluth on their tail. The Parabellum bounced into the air, hovering at twenty meters and shooting over the General at the approaching creatures.

  Rico reached the dead alien first. She leaped over the tentacles, bouncing off the meter-thick mass easily with each armor-augmented bounce. Isaac was right behind her, but he barely cleared the first tentacle and stumbled over the second. He didn’t have the extra athleticism of a clone and he had spent the last month in the hospital.

  “I’ve got you,” Lucius said, coming up beside him and taking his arm. He helped Isaac make the next jump, and the jump after that.

  They cleared the dead xaxkluth. Deputy Hicks waited on the edge of the ramp, shooting at the other creatures between offering each soldier a helping hand on board. “Aim for the eyes!” he shouted, more careful with his shots than Stacker.

  Isaac turned, using the armor’s combat system to help him aim. He started shooting, but the xaxkluth brought a tentacle up in front of its face to block the shots.

  The Parabellum stopped blasting them, coming back to the ground as the rest of the Centurions arrived. The two xaxkluth would be on them in seconds. Too soon for them to get on board and lift off again.

  Then the Capricorn exploded.

  7

  Caleb

  Caleb woke up.

  He knew instinctively he wasn’t truly awake.

  The place he was in wasn’t the last place he had been. It wasn’t a field, a dropship, a bunk, a latrine or anything else that resembled anything he was familiar with in the human world.

  This place was a dark, blank slate. One he had visited before. A part of the Collective.

  The blankness faded. He stood on a black stone ledge, looking out at a black waterfall spilling into a black river. The banks on either side were blanketed in black grass and black flowers, the shades just variant enough for him to make out the details of the different elements, but only barely.

  He didn’t want to be on the ledge. He wanted to be down there, next to the river.

  He stepped to the edge and looked down. The river was passing him, flowing off into the darkness. He didn’t need prompting or thought.

  He jumped.

  There was no sensation of falling, and when he hit the water and went under, there was no sensation of being wet. He kicked to the surface and looked around. “Ishek, are you here?” he asked softly, treading water. He could access the Collective through his Relyeh symbiote, but normally they both couldn’t enter it at the same time. He just needed to be sure the rules hadn’t changed.

  As he expected, there was no reply.

  He swam toward the waterfall and the pool at its base. It wasn’t deep, allowing him to stand. He remained fixed there. Waiting. This was a Relyeh Construct, a pocket universe inside the mind of an ancient. It was a difficult concept to grasp, so he didn’t even try. The Hunger were hundreds of thousands of years old. They didn’t operate under human concepts of physics or technology. They knew things about the universe humankind would likely never begin to imagine.

  He was here, and that proved this at least was possible.

  He was here, and that meant the ancient had found him in the Collective and brought him here.

  He might have resisted if he were capable. Walt. She had done something he never expected. She had seized control of the xaxkluth, freezing them in place. She had succumbed to his demands to keep herself open to him, and then she had displayed a power he didn’t possess. She was no khoron. He was sure of that much.

  So what was she?

  Who was she?

  Her actions had saved their lives. But when he had tried to access her mind, to discover how she had brought the xaxkluth up short, she had rebuked him, putting up a wall so solid he wasn’t able to break through. He hadn’t sensed malice from her, but rather fear. She was afraid to be discovered. Whoever she was, whatever she was, she hadn’t been lying when she told him she was hiding.

  From who?

  From what?

  Was this place the source of her concern? Had her efforts failed, and the ancient she was running from discovered that he knew something?

  Or was this her construct?

  Was she a Relyeh ancient?

  That didn’t seem possible
. Why would one of the original Hunger need to hide on Earth disguised as a follower of another?

  The back and forth had tired him out, enough that he had lost consciousness. It must have worn out Ishek too, or he would have resisted the ancient’s call. Not that he could. Not forever. While they had learned to firewall themselves from the whole of the Relyeh masses, the most powerful of the race could always find a crack to break through.

  They just didn’t often take notice of anyone as insignificant as he was.

  So he stood silently in the pool, listening to the roar of the waterfall and waiting. He had been brought here for a reason. It was pointless to fight it or to grow impatient. It was better to simply accept.

  It seemed like a long time, but time didn’t pass in a Construct the way it did in reality. Hours here were seconds there. Maybe when he woke, he would still be in the field near the dead xaxkluth, with Sheriff Duke and General Stacker nearby.

  He noticed a change in the fall of the water to his right, and he glanced toward it. A woman appeared there, moving through the water and its mist. She was albino white, with a slender frame, a narrow, oval face; large eyes and long white hair that sparkled without a light source. The only color came from her eyes—a light gold.

  The waist-high water, ran from her body like ink, giving her an appearance of marble. Her expression was flat, her lips pressed together, her jaw tight. Her eyes registered curiosity.

  And anger.

  Caleb stared at her without speaking as she walked toward him, stopping less than a meter away. He fixed his eyes on hers, trying to solve her identity before she spoke. He could feel the pressure in his head now. Their minds were connected through the Collective. She had edged into his mind. She could see everything in there. His memories, his history, his experiences. She knew what he had gone through to get back to Earth. She knew what he had done before he came.

  And she knew what he had returned with. The package Riley Valentine had embedded in his psyche for delivery to Proxima Command.

  “I should kill you,” she said. Her voice was sweeter than Caleb expected, and combined with her words, took him by surprise. She could do a lot to him through the Collective, but he didn’t think she could make good on that threat.

  “I’m too valuable to kill,” he replied.

  She stared at him. His response wasn’t what she had expected. Good. That’s why he had said it.

  “Presumptuous.”

  “Honest.”

  She smiled. “I like you.”

  “I don’t care. Who are you?”

  You know who I am.

  Her voice boomed into his mind, while her avatar gazed at him in silence.

  “Nyalarth,” he said, the name coming to him.

  The woman, the waterfall, the pool all vanished, fading away and leaving him floating in a sea of nothingness. It was replaced a moment later by a new darkness.

  Caleb stood in a corridor or cave of some kind. Black fibers stretched across the small expanse, some thicker, some thinner, all of them moist and dripping a viscous black fluid.

  A grunt to his left got his attention. He pivoted, just in time to see a Relyeh pass him by. A Norg. A large, stocky humanoid with a large, bulbous head and a mouth surrounded by tentacles that writhed as it breathed. It wore a simple black robe over its leathery flesh, a four-fingered, slightly clawed hand hanging out from the sleeve.

  It didn’t see him because he wasn’t where it was, and it wasn’t where he was. Nyalarth had constructed the scene. She wanted to show him something.

  “Follow it,” the alabaster woman said, appearing beside him. She was naked, but lacked any sign of reproductive features. No female genitalia between her legs, no nipples at the end of her breasts. No hair beyond her head. It was as if she were wearing an Axon Intellect Skin. A white one.

  Caleb didn’t argue. He trailed the Norg along the corridor. It became more familiar to him as he walked. This was a Relyeh environment, dark and damp. “Where is it going?”

  “To feed its prisoner.”

  Caleb glanced at Nyalarth’s avatar. “Who is its prisoner?” He paused. “Don’t tell me Valentine is still alive.”

  She didn’t respond to the statement. “Follow.”

  He did, continuing behind the Norg, trailing it along the corridor to a wall of fiber and mucus. It stretched aside as the Norg approached, pulling away like a living thing and revealing a dark mound in the center of a room. A soft diffusion of light shined through tiny holes in the floor.

  The mound was as damp as the rest of the area, its outer shell gelatinous and still. Caleb followed the Norg into the room, pausing just inside the opening before it closed off again. The Norg grabbed its robe and lifted it over its head, tossing it aside. The alien creature was naked beneath, a short tail that split into multiple tentacles flowing from the top of its buttocks. He was glad he couldn’t see the front.

  It stood in front of the mound, waiting.

  Caleb waited too, Nyalarth’s avatar beside him. He still had no idea why he was here, or why she was showing him this.

  The mound shifted. Only slightly. A blue light appeared in the center of it. The Norg took a step back, its body suddenly beginning to shake. A second light appeared. Then a third. Each one illuminated the room a little more, and by the time the sixth light appeared Caleb could make out some of the mound’s features.

  Dozens of tentacles were coiled around it, still static in the darkness, while a mouth began to split from the bottom of the mass, revealing thousands of teeth.

  The Norg started grunting and turned toward Caleb, suddenly terrified and desperate to escape. Caleb moved aside as the Relyeh passed through him to grab the fibers of the door. It started tugging at them as if it were strong enough to break free.

  The mound began to rise, lifting itself on its tentacles. Caleb realized then that the lights were its eyes, and they intensified as they gazed at the frightened Norg. Blue beams reached out from them, catching the squid-faced alien and yanking its arms and legs out as if they were ropes. The Norg cried louder, the blue beams pulling it toward the mound and the waiting teeth.

  Caleb turned away as the Norg was brought to the creature, tentacles lashing out and grabbing it to help guide it into the open maw. The other Relyeh devoured it within seconds.

  “Why are you showing me this?” Caleb asked, glaring at the avatar.

  “The prisoner must be set free,” she replied.

  “Even if I knew where this was, I wouldn’t set that thing free.”

  “You will.”

  Caleb Card. Set me free.

  Nyalarth’s voice echoed in his mind again. He clenched his eyes against the sudden pressure, the truth of the monster’s identity nearly breaking his will to resist. That thing was Nyalarth. The real Nyalarth.

  “You’re attacking Earth,” Caleb said. “If you’re imprisoned like your brother was, then you’re right where you belong.”

  No! I’m not attacking your planet. I saved your life. Set me free, and I will spare your world.

  Nyalarth saved his life? That wasn’t...Sergeant Walt. It had to be. But how?

  Set me free, Caleb Card.

  “I don’t even know where you are.”

  The monstrous mound thrust forward suddenly, its head coming right up to Caleb’s face.

  I am—

  The entire scene vanished before his eyes, the Construct suddenly turning black and leaving him floating in the nether again. What the hell had just happened?

  “Nyalarth,” he called out. “Nyalarth.”

  There was nothing. The avatar was gone. The prison was gone. Even the waterfall was gone.

  He was alone.

  Completely alone.

  And he didn’t know how to get out.

  8

  Hayden

  “Nat!” Hayden cried, using his augment to break through the door to their apartment. “Ginny!”

  He didn’t need to go very far. He noticed the carriage was missing as s
oon as he entered. Of course Natalia wouldn’t sit idly by while all hell broke loose in the city. And Heather had gone to see a movie with Deputy Solino, so she had to bring Hallia with her.

  But where were they?

  Law?

  No one was answering the comms in Law.

  The building shook again. Hayden raced across the apartment to the window, looking outside.

  He threw himself back as a giant tentacle snapped up toward him, sending him tumbling over the couch surrounded by shards of freshly broken glass. He landed on his knees, the tentacle’s eyes finding him and darting toward him.

  He grabbed the end of it behind the mouth, preventing the xaxkluth from taking a bite out of his face. Another tentacle smashed through the pane beside the first, darting toward him.

  He managed to get the plasma rifle up to the tentacle. He fired directly into its face, blasting it off. The tentacle writhed and shrank back, and Hayden rolled to the side as the other one came at him, missing and stabbing into the floor. He used his free hand to pound it, smashing the face against the floor before stepping on it and firing down into it to finish it off.

  Two more tentacles appeared as Hayden backed up, trying to get out of the apartment. Another pair joined them, smashing through the next two window panes as the first tentacles tore at the frames, clearing an opening for the rest to enter. The central mass appeared outside the window—it groaned at him—but Hayden didn’t bother shooting it. He slipped through the doorway and back out into the hallway. Tentacles blasted through the wall by the door and flailed around, reaching for him.

  Hayden was already running down the hallway, the noise continuing behind him. Stopping to kill the xaxkluth didn’t even enter his mind. All of them were meaningless to him, nothing but noise until he found his family.

  He returned to the stairwell, rushing down. There were only a few places Natalia might have gone. The Law Office, her lab or the hardened bunker beneath it all. Except…