Critical Path (The Critical Series Book2) (27 page)

Baliska eased the pressure on Gregor’s throat and stood up, turning to Aimee for directions. Gregor, anticipating such a move, grabbed the syringes of poison from a protective case in his pocket, and jabbed through the tough scaly hide of the alien, plunging the full complement of poison into the damned thing’s bloodstream.

The alien howled and bent its head back. It extended its arms as its muscles began to contract against its will. But then it seemed to gain control. It bent down and lifted Gregor by the throat, squeezing his windpipe, making him choke.

Kicking with everything he had, Gregor started to panic. Had Augustus tricked him? Was the poison ineffective? Had he known this and hoped Gregor would die at Hagellan’s hands?

Stars and splotches of colors appeared in his vision as he strained for breath. Tension left his body and he started to close his eyes, fighting the oncoming unconsciousness.

But the alien’s grip weakened.

Gregor heaved in a deep breath, refilling his burning lungs, bringing both pain and much-needed oxygen. He fell to his feet, collapsing against the wall. Aimee looked on in horror as Baliska staggered back, clutching its chest. Like a great redwood, the beast fell, hitting the deck with a thud.

Its arms flopped uselessly by its sides.

Nothing moved. Its chest did not rise. There was no sound from its breathing apparatus. It worked!

Aimee knelt to the alien as she screamed, “No!”

Taking the opportunity, Gregor staggered to the door but jumped back when another pair of guards entered. Human this time. A grizzled-looking woman lifted a gun to his head.

Before Gregor could say anything he felt two sharp points stab into his spine. A bolt of electricity shocked him to the ground, where he lay shaking with muscle spasms as the electricity held him in place. Eventually, Aimee relented. Blood dripped from Gregor’s nose and mouth. Every limb ached with pain.

“Take this bastard to the cells,” Aimee ordered the guards.

Gregor could do nothing to stop them. He had no energy and no control of his limbs. He mumbled something, trying to insult Aimee, but she just watched on as the guards lifted him up.

Stepping forward close to him, Aimee slapped him hard in the face. “You’ll pay for this, newcomer. In Augustus’ place, you’ll fight this afternoon in the arena. But trust me, it won’t be a fight. It’ll be a slaughter. Get him out of my sight and fetch some cleaners to clear this mess,” Aimee said, indicating the blood and bodies in her room.

As they dragged Gregor away, he saw her wipe a tear from her eye. How could she cry over the aliens? If he were to be slaughtered, he’d make sure he’d take out as many as he could before he went.

This place was an abomination.

Hell, the whole world was now.

The thought of leaving it and joining his family in whatever afterlife, if there was such a thing, awaited him brought him a sense of comfort.

He was looking forward to the arena. He was ready to leave this world; he couldn’t change it on his own, and if humans wanted to coexist with the bastards that enslaved them, then more fool them.

They were welcome to reap what they sowed.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Mike’s old back creaked and generally protested his foolhardy maneuvers through the wreckage of the mother ship.

With no time for him to recover a sense of calm after the short battle, his chest heaved under the effort of clambering over twisted hunks of metal and ducking through caved-in tunnels constructed with ship detritus.

The two small aliens led him through, their scaly hands supporting him as he struggled to maintain his balance in the dark of the wreckage. The smallest one, that he had decided to refer to as Blinky due to his rapid blinking when he was thinking about stuff or being spoken to, stopped in a narrow section.

Using his flashlight, Mike swept the tight confines. Blinky and the taller one, whom Mike had decided would be Grumpy on account of his surly shoulder shrugging, pressed against his legs as they struggled to fit.

Blue flashes lit up sections of the ship from somewhere further into the wreckage. A hum permeated the place and was joined by the smell of ozone and something earthy yet metallic.

“What is it?” Mike prompted, wondering why Blinky didn’t go through the hole in the dark. It looked like a doorway had collapsed and the floor of the level above sunk down to join this one, creating a triangular, narrow entry.

Blinky blinked.

Grumpy shrugged.

“Well?” Mike said, pushing forward to see what the fuss was. He twisted sideways and stepped through the confining space as Grumpy eased out of the way. Mike ducked down to Blinky’s level and looked through the small hole into a hallway beyond.

“Oh,” Mike said when he saw the problem.

The hallway must have stretched some five meters long and a couple wide. The roof had caved in at various sections. A group of six aliens, small, like Blinky and Grumpy, lay dead in a heap, the infrastructure having crushed and pierced them to death.

This was the source of the strange smell.

Their corpses were rotting, yet no flies buzzed.

Mike stepped back and placed his hand on Blinky’s shoulder.

In another time he would have shuddered with revulsion, but watching the small alien’s face twist into sadness and seeing the first lot of bodies inside only reminded Mike of what it felt like to lose a loved one.

He remembered seeing the bodies of those who worked on the Roanoke dig site, and later, upon returning to Manhattan, the office workers who had perished in the first raids when the EMPs and the ground force swept through North America, with their chemical and cold fusion bombs.

Despite everything, these small aliens, born long after the initial invasion, were no more to blame for what happened than modern-day Germans were for the Holocaust.

But it didn’t make it any easier.

Sure, he could sympathize. But even now, with Blinky’s obvious sadness, Mike still couldn’t fully trust them.

He still didn’t even think Hagellan was necessarily telling them the truth.

But if Charlie could get onto the ship, and if Mai completed her work on the bomb, then at least they would have some insurance.

Grumpy stepped up behind Blinky and lit up the hallway with his own flashlight. He made a grunting noise followed by a series of clicks and whistles. Blinky nodded and slipped forward, leaving Mike’s hand to drop by his side.

It seemed neither species were entirely comfortable with this setup.

Despite that, the two engineers continued to lead Mike through the wreckage.

As he squeezed and pushed himself through narrow corridors and crouched beneath broken crossbeams, Mike couldn’t but help focus on the details.

He wanted to stop and examine everything, but knew the clock was ticking.

Alien metals, new elements, technology that came from an ideology so different to humans, it all appealed to his sense of wonder and a desire to learn.

Just what secrets could he uncover if he had more time to analyze the pink-glowing lights within the crushed, transparent cabinet. Rings of these lights thrummed quietly up and down a tube, creating an effect that Mike couldn’t discern.

Could be a power supply; could be a processor of sorts, who knew?

The walls of the ship were made from a multilayered honeycomb of what looked like woven tungsten.

Through his journey into the center of the wreckage, heading for the central power unit where the parts Hagellan required were to be found, he saw more of this construction.

In places it had held firm, supporting a number of levels above. In other places it had collapsed into what he guessed were planned crumple zones, for the walls and ceilings had rarely crashed into areas of mechanical significance.

Given the number of bodies in the ship’s wreckage—much lower than he anticipated, it seemed the alien engineers had developed a ship that could withstand a lot of damage before it killed those inside—or at least those that were important.

“Hey, wait up,” Mike called.

They led him into a small dark room.

A sliver of a doorway, on its side to his left, indicated where they’d gone, but Mike stepped forward cautiously.

Each footstep made the structure creak and groan under his weight.

It shifted violently as he neared the doorway, forcing him to throw out his arms in front of him as the momentum pushed him forward. He struck the doorframe with his shoulder; the impact made him wince and suck in his breath. He collapsed to the floor, dropping his flashlight. It fell through a gap into a level below.

Smoke drifted up through a holed section, carrying the stench of burning oil of some kind. He coughed and reached to grip the doorframe of the narrow entry point and hauled himself to his feet.

The low roof collapsed behind him, pinning him to the wall.

“Help!” Mike called out, pressing his face through the half-meter-wide gap.

A pair of shadows moved out of sight.

“Hey, I’m stuck. Help me!”

No response.

The skin on his neck and face prickled with the dawning that they’d abandoned him. Had they led him here on purpose?

The smoke continued to fill the tiny space, making his lungs burn with every breath.

More creaking and rending of metal screeched just beyond the fallen ceiling that pressed Mike against the wall. It sounded like the whole thing would collapse on him, entombing him in alien metal. And he couldn’t even reach his radio, his arms pressed through the gap and the radio crushed behind him, attached to his belt.

Spots began to flash in his vision.

His tight chest made it difficult to breathe, and even then, with each lungful of inhalation, he brought with it the cloying, choking smoke.

“Fuck,” he whispered, closing his eyes as he tried in vain to push back and make some room for himself.

He didn’t know how long he remained in that position, having given up hope he would get out. He thought of Mai and the time they’d spent together. He thought of Charlie and Pippa and their time during the ice age. He saw her face, bright and smiling even though they lived through hell.

A welling-up of grief and sadness made him cough and thrash out his hand through the gap.

He touched something, recoiled his hand and opened his eyes.

“Blinky… help me,” he said as the small engineer looked up at him with wide eyes. For a moment the useless thing just stood there watching, but then, as though finally getting the situation, turned and waved Grumpy back while he ducked out of view. He returned with a pole and passed the end through the bottom of the narrow doorway. He and Grumpy pulled on the other end while Mike leaned his shoulder into the door in an attempt to help.

Nothing budged, despite their efforts.

From just behind the fallen ceiling piece a loud crash came, and the whole ship rocked, jolting the structure. It proved to be useful, however, as with another pull on the pole, the two engineers shifted the door open another foot.

Mike screamed out as he pushed with all he had, driving his shoulder into the door. Something in the mechanism gave, and it finally sprang open, sending Mike crashing forward to the floor with the momentum of his efforts.

The two aliens dropped the pole and dragged him forward.

He spun over just in time to see the door smash closed, just inches from crushing his ankles.

With their help, he managed to stand and regain his balance.

“Thanks, little guys,” Mike said.

They did their blinking and inclined their heads, clicking to each other in short bursts.

With no more exchange of pleasantries, they turned their backs and headed off, consulting a small screen attached to their wrists. They were reading Hagellan’s directions of how to reach the main engine bay’s maintenance section.

Through a dozen more tunnels and levels, twists and tight turns, Mike felt every year of his age in his bones and muscles.

Sweat dripped from his face, and he breathed heavily, wishing he hadn’t volunteered to come along.

Because the engineers were born in Unity, they hadn’t been trained in the proper way of the aliens brought over from their home planet or ones born on the ship. In truth, they weren’t even engineers, Mike just used that term to classify them due to their smaller size compared to the soldiers and the larger still hunters.

With their claw-like hands, they didn’t have the delicate dexterity of humans, especially as they weren’t trained to use the croatoan tools like the original engineers who had perished in the crash and subsequent battles.

Mike’s own tool kit hung around his front in a makeshift sling.

He had no idea if what he had brought would be enough for the task at hand, but if Charlie needed this part to get the ship airborne and stop the threat—if it were real—then Mike would do his best to deal with the situation.

The two aliens stopped in a dark passageway in front of a sheer surface at least two meters high with a meter-high gap at the top.

“Through there?” Mike said, pointing to the gap.

Blink, blink, nod.

Grumpy showed him his screen. A high-res image of a corridor leading to the maintenance room corresponded to what they were looking at now, only this was on an angle and the obstacle in the way appeared to have fallen through the ceiling, blocking access to the tunnel.

“I’ll lift you up,” Mike said, pointing to them and raising his arms.

Blink, blink, nod.

“Right then. Blinky, you first.”

Mike approached cautiously and held back his revulsion as he grabbed the four-foot-tall alien by the waist and lifted it up until it reached out its hands and dragged itself into the gap. “Now you, Grumpy.”

Mike repeated the movement.

Lifting the aliens reminded him of lifting Denver as a toddler when Charlie first brought him back to their shelter in the cave system. This was just before Pippa was killed. Despite everything they had lost at the time, having Denver with them renewed their hope and desire to carry on, if not for themselves, then for the next generation.

And Mike realized this was exactly the same situation.