Skyline Severant (The Consilience War Book 3) Read online

  What happened to the grenade?

  He hadn’t heart it go off beyond the door.

  Very likely it was defective, a dud. Even the best soldiers sometimes failed to keep their field gear in perfect condition, and Omen Yatz had been far from the best.

  No matter. He had many more ways to hurt and maim.

  “I'm coming through, Ubra” he roared at the door.

  He aimed at the hinges and shot them away with four bullets.

  The door stood still for a moment, almost anticlimactically. Then, it collapsed inwards.

  He went through, into the dark.

  Ubra and Farholt split up. She felt bad for the addled old veteren. He had no ability to run or navigate obstacles at speed. But she could not leave the baby, and that would slow her down almost as much.

  They'd tried to escape out the front door, the one that led to the train platform, but the door was locked. No doubt someone had the key, but that someone was either dead or nowhere to be found.

  They were trapped in this building.

  Farholt had ducked into a psychopathology ward, and was hiding under the bed. It was a terrible hiding place. He would be found in a second if Wake stuck a head through the door. But she was beginning to realize that they were all terrible hiding places.

  She ran from room to room, looking for somewhere to escape Wake. There was nowhere. There was nothing.

  The hospital had been designed along the guidelines set by bland governmental beaurocracy. Perfect square lines. Surfaces designed to be transparent to the eye and easy to swab with bleach. There were no hidden recesses, no concealed chambers.

  It was a shooting gallery, and they were the targets.

  Yalin cried and cried, louder than Ubra had ever heard her cry in her life.

  Quiet, she thought, panicking. You're going to lead him to us.

  She heard footsteps coming down the hall, and Wake's voice.

  “Give me the baby, Ubra!” he snarled. She heard him kicking over chairs, and smashing everything he could get his hands on. He was utterly berserk, a blind engine of destruction. There was no reasoning with him. To get in his way was to be obliterated.

  She tried to hide.

  Wake systematically moved through the hospital, building by building.

  He checked the rooms to the left and the right of the main doorway, found nothing.

  The admissions center was likewise devoid of human life.

  Then he kicked his way in to the pathology ward, and knew he’d hit gold.

  There was a nightlight above the bed switched on, and the shadow it cast beneath the bedframe left the unmistakable shadows of human shoes.

  He was silent, and could hear human breathing. Fear-accelerated. Irregular.

  He realised he could just shoot through the bed and turn the man into bloody spaghetti. But then he had a different idea.

  The man must realise that he is visible from his position. Unless he’s suicidal, or blind.

  Moving quickly, he reached for Vadim’s briefcase, and started rifling through his case notes, looking for clues. It was very odd to read actual paper documents after a lifetime spent perusing holographic projections.

  Within seconds, his eye caught the word “blind”.

  SOLAR ARM DEPT OF PSYCHIATRIC MEDICINE

  RESIDENT PHYSICIAN: DR VADIM GOKLA

  DATE OF INTAKE: 11/05/2130

  PATIENT NAME: LUCAS FARHOLT.

  DOB: 01/12/2063

  HEIGHT: 183cm / WEIGHT: 80kg

  IDENTIFYING FEATURES: opto-haptic neural rangefinding technology over eyes to mitigate patient's combat-inflicted blindness

  INITIAL STATEMENT

  LUCAS FARHOLD (hereafter "PATIENT") is an 80 year old Caucasian male with a history of schizophrenia, referred for psychiatric evaluation following a series of disruptive actions in public places.

  GENERAL REMARKS

  The Solar Arm's illegal use of Black Shift technology on soldiers in the 2080 Mars insurgency remains a black mark on the government's human rights record. Thousands of veterens had their memories removed, and were indoctrinated in a religion-themed new identity where their commanding officer was God, and the Martian rebels stationed in Valashabad were demons/agents of the devil. This cohort suffered extremely high rates of mental illness, as well as hundreds of suicides when they learned that their reason for living was a lie. More than fifty years later, PATIENT refuses to accept that this learned identity was false. He still believes that he is a soldier fighting for God, against hordes of demons. PATIENT is extremely impressionable and suggestive, and his delusional fantasies have led him to commit unprovoked assaults against a large number of...

  Wake put the paper down, and stared at the terrified man and his gently shivering boots.

  “For behold, the lord will come in fire and His chariots like the whirlwind,” he quoted from memory, “to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For the Lord will execute judgment by fire, and by his sword on all flesh, and those slain by the lord will be many.”

  The breathing was getting faster and faster.

  “Do you know who I am, Farholt?” he whispered, striding towards the bed. “I am God. I am the Lord of Hosts, the Alpha and Omega, and I have come for you, O faithful servant.”

  Farholt was hyperventilating under the bed.

  “How long before you understand your chains are made of glass, Farholt?” Wake said. “Will you smash them, and join me in the war?”

  “Oh God…” Farholt whispered. “It can’t be you. I’ve had so many doubts. I’ve had so many moments of disbelief…”

  “And your disbelieving heart will stand and fight at the end times, this I promise you, Farholt.”

  He helped the man to his feet, and tried to take stock of him.

  Except for the odd contraption of wires and lenses wrapped around his face, he was completely blind. His eyes had been closed long ago – perhaps from acid burns, perhaps from shrapnel.

  The man was old, but he was wiry, nimble. He could hold a gun, and fire it. Hitting a target would be quite a different story, but Wake pressed the second Meshuggahtech into his hand.

  “Come, good and faithful servant,” Wake whispered in his ear. “Go and kill.”

  Wake moved from the pathology ward, attracted like a lamprey. The sound of his daughter’s cries were now coming from the kitchen, and he followed.

  He stopped when he realised that the baby’s cries were coming from a pantry, on the far side of the kitchen, opposite a table.

  The pantry was a ceiling-height walk-in one. Does she think she can hide from me there?

  He thought of scything through the pantry door with gunfire, in line with Ubra’s stomach. If she was holding the baby in her arms, it would escape the bullets.

  But she’ll drop the baby, he though. It might get hurt.

  He tried to open the door, but he felt someone tugging from the other side. The baby’s wails tantalized him, added strength to his arm. “Give the baby to me, Ubra.”

  The door opened outwards, inch by inch. She could not resist him.

  Then, over the sound of the infant’s cries, he heard her voice.

  “You’re already dead, Wake.”

  Suddenly, the table exploded. A grenade tore it apart.

  If he’d been directly in his path, the frag grenade would have torn him to pieces. As it was, the shards were blocked by the table. But there was still a massive amount of kinetic energy that had to go somewhere.

  Wake was hurled straight into a wall, his head connecting against a mortar join. He fell down.

  Ubra kicked open the door, and pounced on him. He struggled, and with five more seconds might have made it back to his feet. But Ubra only gave him four.

  He looked in the pantry, and saw that the baby was tucked into a corner. Ubra had both arms free.

  He had twelve inches of height and nearly eighty pounds. But she freed a gun from his belt and held it to his head.

  “Pull th
e trigger,” he challenged her. “Just like on the planet. I couldn’t do it then, so let’s see you do it now.”

  She pressed the gun harder and harder against his head, as if trying to brand him with the gun bore. Her hand was shaking. She unclipped various items from his belt – grenades, something that looked like a polyfleshing device. The finger on the trigger tightened…tightened…

  And then, Farholt came charging in.

  It was like the rest of his life – spectacular, deluded, tragic.

  He had a Meshuggahtech assault rifle in his frail arms, and he fired it in wide, raking arcs.

  “She’s a devil, Lucas,” Wale shouted over the din. “Finish her.”

  “OUT, SATAN!” he roared, blazing away without any accuracy or restraint. Bullets pounded into the mortar.

  She rolled free of Wake and hit the ground, feeling a polonium-jacketed round buzz overhead. She dashed back to the pantry, scooped up Yalin, and ran to the back of the kitchen.

  The shooting was overwhelmingly loud in the confined space. Broken plaster stung Ubra’s chest,

  Wake was still on the ground. Either the grenade had crippled or paralysed him, or he was biding his time.

  Farholt had almost no vision, but he didn’t even care about precise aim. His bullets just devastated the entire room.

  Why didn’t you shoot him, why didn’t you shoot him, why didn’t you…

  She snatched up Yalin. The girl was giving huge, throaty, phlegmy wails.

  …And this lead Farholt right too them.

  Echolocating the girl, he started shooting furiously in their direction.

  One bullet tore into Ubra’s bicep, and she screamed.

  Then one thudded into her chest. She felt no pain whatsoever, and there was momentary triumph.

  Then she remembered what was in front of her chest, and what had stopped the bullet.

  She screamed to wake the dead.

  It had hit Yalin.

  Her next movement was an explosion of rage. She brought up the gun, and fired.

  The shot planted itself like a dark seed right into the center of Farholt’s forehead. His head snapped back, and the Meshuggahtech fell from his hands.

  There was a thud.

  She noticed that Wake was gone from his place on the floor. She didn’t follow, didn’t even think to follow. She could vaguely hear him moving away, kicking down doors on his way out of the building.

  She couldn’t even think about him.

  She just cradled her dead child in her arm, and sobbed. Blood mingled with tears.

  The insane veteran had taken her baby, riding on the wings of a delusion.

  They’d had happy times. Sharing war stories. Playing cards.

  “Fuck you!” she shouted, firing her gun empty into Farholt’s chest. The reverberations of shooting disappated, leaving the gnawing emptiness, the patch of blood spreading over her breasts.

  She found the polyflesh device she’d stolen from Wake’s belt, and held it before the blood-soaked little bundle.

  Don’t bring back the dead, Ubra, a voice in her head told her. That’s how all of this started. Terrible things happen. You will never get your baby girl back.

  “I don’t fucking care,” she snarled.

  The polyflesh device crackled and sparked. She would bring Yalin back. Pull her back from the grave, hold her in her arms, never let go.

  The New Empire – June 14, 2143, 1200 hours

  Rosemary Rohilian was at the mouth of the tunnel to Arrakhia Mountain, listening to the message over and over.

  “Attention all active personnel: the Reformation Confederacy launched a surprise attack against our peacekeeping envoy in the Terrus/Mars boundary. They claim this is in retaliation to an attack made on their territory by Solar Arm troops. General Sybar Rodensis was killed in space, along with all of his cabinet. There were no survivors. Repeat, there were no survivors. We have presented papers of surrender to Raya Yithdras, and she has accepted them. Occupying forces are arriving at every starport on Terrus. Do not resist and do not fight. Conduct yourself with dignity and honor, though we know not what tomorrow will bring. Thank you.”

  It was a cold day, and wind swept the rocky crags. She shivered beside the derelict wreck of the maglev van her team had used to make their patrols, before the maglev grid had failed.

  The tunnel entered the side of the mountain, like the empty eye socket of a corpse.

  She was completely alone.

  As the days had passed, her command had deserted, little by little, as the magnitude of the disaster became clear. Finally, she stood alone.

  Just replaying that message.

  Occasionally shell-shocked survivors stumbled past, and she’d have company for a few minutes. The news they brought from the city wasn’t good.

  Rumors of mass internment camps, and brutal treatment by the invading army. It was an extremely bad time to be a soldier serving in the Solar Arm Defense Force.

  She’d tried to contact her girlfriend, Yves Gullveig. No luck.

  She’d tried to contact her commanding headquarters. No luck.

  So far, the most prudent course of action was to just stay where she was, away from the urban centers.

  “Attention all active personnel: the Reformation Confederacy launched a surprise attack against our peacekeeping envoy in the Terrus/Mars boundary. They claim this is in retaliation to an attack made on their territory by Solar Arm troops. General Sybar Rodensis was killed in space, along with all of his cabinet. There were no survivors. Repeat, there were no survivors. We have presented papers of surrender to Raya Yithdras, and she has accepted them. Occupying forces are arriving at every starport on Terrus. Do not resist and do not fight. Conduct yourself with dignity and honor, though we know not what tomorrow will bring. Thank you.”

  Most disturbingly of all, her attempts to contact Vadim Gokla inside the hospital had not been successful.

  One of the soldiers under her command had been kept there with a broken wrist. She’d been hanging around the area, hoping to have him back. But the research facility was completely incommunicado.

  Finally, she’d journeyed through the gloom, several kilometers into the black coal-lined veins of the mountain.

  The train, apparently, was no longer running.

  The artificial barrier had been closed, but someone had blown it open. Looked like a grenade. Whether it was an attacking force going into the facility or a

  She found the bodies of several orderlies and guards, lying in the tunnel. They’d been torn apart with heavy automatic gunfire. None had gotten a chance to resist.

  One had scratched a message on the ground with a dying finger. THE WIPE.

  She didn’t know the meaning of that.

  She’d wandered a few kilometers more, and realised that she might be dooming herself.

  Either an attacking force had stormed Arrakhia Hospital, or someone from the inside had broken out and escaped into the world beyond. Either way, there was only death and desolation waiting for her.

  So she’d returned, and waited beside the maglev van. Hoping someone would come and tell her what to do. And in a way, that’s exactly what happened.

  “Attention all active personnel: the Reformation Confederacy launched a surprise attack against our peacekeeping envoy in the Terrus/Mars boundary. They claim this is in retaliation to an attack made on their territory by Solar Arm troops. General Sybar Rodensis was killed in space, along with all of his cabinet. There were no survivors. Repeat, there were no survivors. We have presented papers of surrender to Raya Yithdras, and she has accepted them. Occupying forces are arriving at every starport on Terrus. Do not resist and do not fight. Conduct yourself with dignity and honor, though we know not what tomorrow will bring. Thank you.”

  She didn’t think there were any survivors inside the building. But she heard shuffling footsteps resolving themselves out of the dark, and there were two.

  A woman, bearing the signs of recent pregnancy. And she had a ba
by in her arms.

  Incongruously, she was dressed for war. She was wearing a nanomesh suit, and there was a gun at her hip.

  Babies and guns, Rose thought. Beginnings and ends.

  “Oh, thank God,” the woman muttered. She sounded crazed, delirious. “A person. And it’s a woman.”

  “Who are you?” Rose asked.

  “He’s killed everyone, except us. Did you see him as he left?”

  “I haven’t seen anyone.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then he’s still out there. I can still find him.”

  Rose shook her head in frustration. “Listen, who are you, and what are you talking about? Los Neo Angeles is now under military fucking occupation. Go out there looking like a soldier and you’ll end up in a barbed-wire box. And who’s ‘he’? Who’s this person you’re looking for?”

  “He has two names,” she said. “The first is Andrei Kazmer, the second is Aaron Wake. He’s done the worst things that have ever happened to me, and if he’s not stopped, he’s going to do more. Are you sure you know nothing about him?”

  Rose was about to say she didn’t, but then she realised she did.

  “I was the one who brought him here,” she said.

  “Then you owe me a favour,” the strange woman replied. “I need someone to look after my baby girl, Yalin. Just for a short period of time.”

  Rose squawked protests as an infant child was forced into her arms.

  “I have synthetic milk in a bottle, as well as various other supplies,” the obviously insane woman slung a knapsack full of items on to the ground beside her. “Something’s happened to Yalin, I’m not sure what. I think she was hurt while Andrei Kazmer was escaping. Not killed, certainly not killed, but she was hurt, and although I healed her, I don’t think she’s the same. I haven’t heard her cry, not even once. I haven’t heard her laugh, either. Maybe it’s just a phase. A baby thing. Do you know much about babies?”

  Rose cut across the deranged monologue. “Listen, what are you going to do when you find Andrei Kazmer?”

  She tapped the gun. “I’m going to hunt him. No horizon is far enough. And when I find him, I’m going to kill him.”

  The woman started walking towards the sun with a mile-eating soldier’s stride. Rose couldn’t think of a single thing to say as the baby stared at her, mute and soundless, watching her with cold gray eyes that were like flecks of poisoned ice.