Burden of Sisyphus (27 page)

           
For a moment, Keryn thought he might’ve taken her offer to leave.
 
However, she wasn’t able to pass up an opportunity to goad him one last time.

           
The Uligart launched at her, throwing a clubbing fist downward toward her head.
 
Sliding easily to the right, she watched him slam his fist painfully into the solid bar.
 
As he howled in pain, she extended a knuckle on her right hand and struck the side of his neck.

           
Zalide jerked, as the muscles in his neck seized, leaving him unable to turn his head.
 
Keryn immediately followed that up with a swift knee to his abdomen.
 
Clutching his stomach, he doubled over in pain, as she moved behind him.

           
She delivered a series of blows to his lower back.
 
The Uligart grunted in pain, tears rolling from his eyes, as she alternated open-handed palm strikes and close-fisted punches to the delicate area.
 
Slowly, his knees buckled, and he slumped against a barstool.
 

           
Her vision red with anger, Keryn only partially heard yells of surprise.
 
They reached her ears as if she were under water.
 
Figures approached from the corner of her vision.
 
Finished with Zalide, she drove her knee into the back of his neck, disrupting his nervous system and dropping him unconscious to the floor.

           
Moving quicker than she anticipated, a figure slammed into her side, lifting her from her feet.
 
The two landed heavily together, their limbs intertwined, as the attacker tried to pin her to the ground.
 
Lashing out with an elbow, she caught his jaw and sent him reeling backward while freeing her.

           
As she slid away and fought to regain her footing, she noticed the dark, black pants and matching uniform jacket of an instructor.
 
He cupped his mouth, blood seeping from between his fingers and dribbling down to his jacket collar.
 
He glared at her with venom.

           
“Cadet Riddell!” a familiar Avalon voice yelled, cutting through the commotion.
 
“You’ll stand down at once.”

           
Victoria stood in the doorway, her wings tucked tightly to her side, her hands on her hips, as she glowered at Keryn from across the room.
 
Though she was many feet away, Keryn shrank back from that malicious look.

           
Victoria turned toward the few members of Sasha’s group who remained.
 
“You three will take your two cadets and my instructor to the infirmary immediately.
 
Do I make myself clear?”

           
The three girls nodded and rushed forward.
 
Though Sasha and the instructor were able to stand and walk, Zalide was dead weight and had to be carried from the bar.

           
“Cadet Morven,” Victoria told a quickly sobering Iana, “you will head straight back to your room.
 
Don’t let me catch you deviating from that location in the slightest.”

           
Iana gave a furtive shrug toward Keryn before slipping past Victoria and the two instructors flanking her.
 
The bar was empty except for Keryn and the instructors.
 
Even the bartender was gone.

           
“As for you,” Victoria said, her singing voice marred by anger, “I thought we had reached a pretty clear understanding.
 
I thought you had potential, but now you’re making me think I was wrong about you.”

           
As Keryn’s warrior instincts fled, and her adrenalin stopped pumping, her blinding fighter’s rage was quickly replaced by embarrassment.
 
Again, she felt tears sting her eyes.

           
“You’ll accompany me immediately to the dean’s office.
 
He’s more than eager to have a word or two with you.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

           
Vance, breaking from cover, ran up the ruined street, dodging the larger piles of rubble.
 
The outpost was still ten blocks away—an incredible distance even with the way cleared by Halo’s bombing of the city.
 
He fired a couple rounds at any Seque foolish enough to emerge from the alleyways along his path.

           
The loss of the alpha male left a void in the Seques’ hierarchy and made them hesitate, as their prey ran past, but Vance knew it wouldn’t last.
 
He and his soldiers took advantage of the opening to cover a lot of distance toward the military structure.

           
The group labored during the run.
 
Smoke still hung like a blanket over the city, stinging their lungs as they rushed for safety.
 
The smoke, a combination of concrete dust and ash from still-smoldering plasma, watered Vance’s eyes.
  
Tears streamed unwillingly from his eyes, leaving tracks down soot-covered cheeks before pooling in his beard.

           
After they ran for nearly three blocks, the Seques finally broke from their stupor.
 
At first, only one or two broke from alleys or leaped from rooftops to impede the escaping soldiers.
 
Though resilient, a steady hail of gunfire brought the more-daring Seques down, leaving them writhing in pain on the ground.
 
Steadily, however, more and more Seques attacked the group’s fringes.

           
Without stopping, Vance cringed, as he heard screams of surprise and pain, as his soldiers were attacked and killed by the monsters.

           
“Ainj,” he called into the radio over the din of gunfire and screams, “we need cover fire.
 
I don’t care how bad a view you have through the smoke, find a scope setting that’ll penetrate the smoke and start firing.”

           
He ran on, waiting for sniper fire that never came.
 
“Ainj, do you copy?”

           
Atop a skyscraper, a Seque clamped its jaws on the thigh of the body under it, planting a clawed hand on the abdomen for leverage, and tore a strip of bloody meat from the corpse.
 
Slurping, it sucked down the dripping meat and sunk its head down again, its razor-sharp teeth ripping into the exposed stomach.

           
The Seque looked up, as a distant voice called out.

           
“Ainj, are you alive?”

           
It spoke in a language the Seque didn’t understand.
 
It tipped its head in confusion.

           
Pushing the corpse aside, it stalked across the roof, searching the source of the sound.
 
Sniffing the air, it glanced back and forth, unable to locate it.

           
After a brief pause, the voice rang out again.

           
“Answer me, Ainj.
 
Tell me you’re alive.”

           
The Seque finally located the noise near the edge of the building.
 
Near the lip of the roof, a voice spoke from a discarded headset and speaker.
 
Sniffing the radio, Seque flicked its hand and sent the headset cascading off the top of the roof.

           
Turning away, the beast returned to its meal.

           
Vance cursed and kept running, firing at the growing group of Seques emerging from all side streets to block their way.
 
Without Ainj, one of their best aces in the hole was gone.
 
Vance felt their chances slipping away like grains of sand in an hourglass.
 
He pushed on, praying they’d make it to the safety of the outpost.

           
The group of soldiers, which began their spring for safety in a tight group, slowly spread out, as the stronger runners outdistanced their slower teammates.
 
Vance, Decker, Dallis, Yen, and Eza kept pace at the head of the group, but Vance was concerned about Ixibas and Tusque, who lumbered slowly near the rear of the pack.

           
Seques broke from cover halfway through the group.
 
Covering long distances in their pounces, the monsters landed on a trio of infantry soldiers, burying fangs and claws into their soft flesh.
 
A lone Seque charged into the midst of the runners, bowling over two before wrapping itself around a third.

           
Both soldier and Seque slammed into the wall of a building across the street.
 
Already on its feet, the Seque unleashed a brutal flurry of teeth and claws, stripping away the protective armor and mauling the doomed Uligart.

           
Tusque and Ixibas slid to a halt, as the Seques separated them from their teammates.
 
More monsters spread out in the widening gap, cutting the two cover-operations soldiers and their small band of infantry from those still running for safety.

           
Raising weapons, the soldiers unloaded a deadly barrage at the Seques, killing three.
 
For every one that fell, however, another emerged from the side streets to take its place.
 
A scream from behind alerted the duo to trouble.
 
Monsters filled the streets behind them, finally catching their elusive prey.

           
As Tusque turned toward the new threat, he realized his mistake, as one of the Seques separating the two groups launched itself high into the air.
 
It came down on Tusque, raking his back with its claws.
 
As he rolled aside, it sank its teeth into his calf.

           
Vance heard a deep rumbling scream that could only come from the throat of an Oterian.
 
Stopping briefly, he turned and saw the group had become separated.
 
To his dismay, two of his teammates were lost on the far side of the widening void, made only larger by the masses of Seques filling the gap.

           
“We have to help them.”
 
Vance pulled out a grenade and tossed it into the midst of the advancing creatures.
 
The explosion tossed the Seques aside, leaving smoking corpses face down on the sidewalk.

           
Eza grabbed his arm and pulled him forward.
 
“We can’t do anything for them.”
 
His frustration was obvious, as drops of green blood fell from his ax.
 
“I want retribution as much as you do, but this isn’t the time or place for an epic last stand.”

           
Vance stared for a second longer, then Yen ran past him.
 

           
“They’re coming from everywhere,” Yen said.
 
“If we don’t move now, they’ll trap us again.”

           
Looking back with disappointment and deep sadness, Vance turned back toward the outpost and ran.
 
Four blocks ahead, he saw the sturdy fence and rising stone walls of the military compound.
 
The front wall was damaged, collapsed either from an assault by the Seques or Halo’s cluster bombs.
 
The way to the central building was clear, but that wasn’t what Vance wanted.

           
Located on the building’s exterior, guarding both sides of the door and at nearly every corner of the structure, mounted turret guns were set to open fire on any creature that didn’t emit an Alliance ID code.
 
Implanted in every soldier’s arm was a small microchip that emitted the correct frequency.
 
If the group could get close enough to the building, the turret guns would activate and start eliminating any Seques that came close enough while simultaneously avoiding hitting Vance’s men.
 
It was their last chance for survival.