Xantoverse Shadowkill (8 page)

Kina knew they’d be playing into their hands, but that’s the only real way of confronting a Wraith. If you waited for them to come to you, you wouldn’t see them and then you would be dead. At least this way, she and Tai were buying themselves a chance, albeit small, that they’d get an opportunity.

“It’s clear,” Kina said. “You take right, I’ll take left. Go.”

Tai nodded and slipped round into the corridor, aiming his Kraken to the right. Kina followed, preparing to shoot if anything decided to jump out on them from the cabins. Most of the doors were shut—jammed into place by the collision, but she didn’t want to count on some enterprising individual burning a door open and using it to spring a surprise.

A tense minute later and they reached another bulkhead. This one led to a drop-shaft. With no power running on the ship, there’d be no pods to take them down, or up—they’d have to climb the emergency ladders.

“Which way?” Tai said. “Up or down?”

“Down,” Kina replied. “We start at the bottom and work out way up. Open her up. I’ll cover you.”

Tai slung the Kraken over his shoulder and heaved the heavy hatch open. The scent of carrion and pungent sweat wafted up the shaft. Through her green-tinged night-vision she saw the glistening dark of something wet on disintegrating metal deck.

“Vuls,” Kina whispered as she bent down touched her finger to the liquid. It was drool. She’d recognize that stench anywhere. “Seems like our Wraiths didn’t want a fair fight after all and hired some vuls to slow us down.”

Kina wiped her hand on her nanoweave suit and moved forward into the opening ready to climb out onto the ladder. A dark shape fell from above and behind her from back in the corridor.

Freck
!

“Tai,” she called out. She didn’t manage to say, “Behind you,” when the barreling form of a large male vul, on all fours and snarling with bloodrage leapt at him.

Its great paw knocked the Kraken from his grip as Tai sidestepped and fell backwards out of the way. The vul’s momentum took him beyond Tai and into the hatch, knocking Kina off the edge of the deck.

Her feet dangled in air as she tried to find some purchase.

She reached out her free hand, grabbing the edge of the deck, stopping her fall. She gripped her fingers into the broken wounds of the deck’s surface. Blood welled up making her slip.

The snarling snout of the vul appeared over the edge, its lips curling up to expose bloodstained fangs. “Meat,” it said, butchering the word, but the intent was clear. It reeled back then launched at her face.

She brought up the Piercer and fired two vertical shots with a double-tap of the trigger. Near-silent, suppressed shots fired out, connecting with the underside of the vul’s jaw and exploding out the top of its skull. Gore covered Kina’s face, smearing the lenses of her goggles.

“Tai,” she screamed as the vul’s dead body collapsed onto her arm, breaking her grip. She scrambled for a handhold, but she continued to slip down into the shaft. The ladder was too far to the side for her to reach without dropping the gun…

Tai dove on to his front next to the vul and grabbed her arms, preventing her fall.

“Freckin’ hell, Tai, I thought that was it…pull me up, there’s a decent chap.”

“Good shot, girl,” Tai said as he helped back up to her feet.

She stepped back from the hatch and placing the gun on the ground for a second, pushed the vul’s body out into the shaft. It took eight seconds for the thud to echo back up.

“One down… hell knows how many more to go.” Kina grabbed her gun and checked above her to make sure there wasn’t another vul in waiting. Retrieving his Kraken, Tai also swept around.

“Let’s go,” Kina said. “We’re clear here.”

When they both climbed out onto the ladders, Tai, below Kina, stopped and whispered up to her. “You hear that?”

“No, what it is?”

Despite Tai’s penchant for loud, outdated revolvers, somehow he always managed to retain a keen sense of hearing far more sensitive than even Kina’s. “Listen,” he said.

Kina held her breath and stayed still. She closed her eyes and concentrated.

Between the peaks of her pulse she did hear it… a kind of scraping noise coming from below them and beyond the other side of the shaft. “I hear it,” she whispered back. “Level below?”

“Yeah, I think so. We go slowly. I’ll take point; you cover. Watch above you.”

In synchronized movements, they descended the ladder, both placing their feet on the metal rungs with care so as not to make too much noise, though the falling vul would have likely alerted anyone waiting for them anyway. But then this was the Wraith’s domain, nothing was certain anymore.

Tai stopped at the next level of the Selestion. Kina halted just above him . Hooking her arms around the ladder she looked up and scanned around, trying to discern anything in the shadows. Nothing.

“All clear here,” she whispered.

“I’m going in.” Tai reached over from the ladder and onto the extruded section of the deck and disappeared inside silently. His head poked out a moment later and he waved her across. When she stepped inside the corridor she noted they were in the mess hall.

Tables were overturned and silver trays lay strewn about the floor. The noise they heard was louder in here. Tai removed one of the stun grenades from his pouch and slung the Kraken over his shoulder, preferring to wield his Dorian in his free hand.

Kina kept both hands on the Piercer and crouch-walked through the debris toward the sources of the noise beyond the far wall at the back of the mess, all the while scanning around and above her, concentrating through the green-algae light of the night-vision.

The place smelled of dust and more carrion.

She didn’t think that was of the Wraith’s doing. She’d heard tales of murder victims being dumped here. Given the gang signs sprayed on the walls in white and lurid yellows, that didn’t seem to be too hard to believe.

Tai took the right side of the room and covered their rear as Kina took the left and focused forward and up. Her foot hit something heavy and soft. She stopped and stepped back bringing her aim to a shape in front of her.

She kicked it. No movement beyond a swarm of flies that made her swat frantically as they bounced off her face and goggles. A ruined covering came away from the shape to reveal the rotten corpse of a long-dead man. His eyes appeared to have been cut out.

“Sick freckers,” she said under her breath and moved on, hoping their fate wouldn’t be so gruesome. If she were to go, she’d prefer it be clean and preferably without her knowing about it. Tai reached the end of the mess and waved her forward.

He gave her the sign for human—the walking fingers—and pointed to the dark hole in the wall that used to be a door before someone had clearly blown it out with explosives, given the inward-facing jagged edges.

She quietly and quickly joined Tai on the other side of the door, transferring the Piercer to her left hand, she draw a dagger with her right. Silently, Tai pointed to the stun grenade in his hand and held up five fingers—five seconds. He mouthed each second, counting down. When he reached two he pulled his arm back ready to throw the grenade through the hole into the room beyond.

An explosion erupted from behind the wall. The blast and debris through Kina onto her back. Tai dropped the grenade as he too fell away. The grenade bounced once, twice, rolled to Kina and exploded with a loud crack, making her ears pop and whistle. The bright flash of light blinded her. She scrambled to her feet and fell back, dizzy and unable to balance properly. She struck the body, but managed to stay upright until she clattered into a table.

She hit her head hard on the metal deck, sending bright spots of light to flash in her overloaded vision. “Tai,” she screamed, “you hear me?” Her words were muffled and far-off sounding.

“Kina, down!” he yelled back before opening fire. She couldn’t see who or what he was shooting at, she just recognized the sound if his Dorian emptying a full cylinder.

She crawled forward, never letting go of the Piercer as it clanged against the deck. She reached the body, and using it as a reference, vaulted over and roll to the left side beyond the blasted wall. Her body crunched over debris making her wince as her spine hit a section of hot steel. With her vision slowly returning to her, she wiped the dust from her goggles and got her bearings while bringing the Piercer up in front of her, ready to shoot.

But there was nothing. No Tai, no enemy… nothing but an empty room beyond the blasted hole in the mess wall. She stepped through, careful not to tangle in the wire that snaked from a dark black smoking section of wall to farther into this other room.

The room widened toward the end. Through the flashes and blotches in her vision she made out more gang signs scrawled on the walls. Panels had been pulled off and salvagers had stripped wires and other infrastructure.

“Tai,” she called out with as much volume as she dared. She arced her vision around the entire space. Where the hell had he got to… To her right she saw more explosive materials and another door.

She just caught sight of Tai’s booted feet being dragged away through the opening.

Shaking the dizziness from her head, Kina set off in chase, but came to a skidding halt. She spun round and looked up, having the sense that someone, or something moved behind her. Above her, she hadn’t noticed before, there was a second level that led off into the gloom. Standing up on the edge, wielding a katana, Lanat looked down at her with an expression of utter disdain.

The Wraith held out her hand palm up and flicked her fingers closed twice in a ‘come and get me’ way. Kina aimed her pistol and fired of a single round, knowing she’d miss. Lanat already disappeared into the gloom before the bullet struck the edge of the deck.

Kina had a choice: go after Lanat, or get Tai.

The bastards had planned this… but then they must know that she’d never leave Tai behind. Before she ran to find him, she briefly considered going after Lanat, calling their bluff, but she wouldn’t put it past them to know her so well that they would have anticipated that.

Freck, caught with indecision, she let loyalty win out over vengeance and dashed through the doorway, turning left and running down the corridor to try to save her friend and ally.

She came to an open junction of the ship. A central round meeting area of sorts. A dozen passageways led off in all directions. With her hearing still affected by the explosion she couldn’t hear anything, no dragging or voices, nothing to give her any indication of where they’d taken Tai. Assuming he was even still alive.

“Tai!” she screamed with frustration, not caring who or what heard her. Her voice echoed up the high ceiling and down the corridors. No reply. Not even a mocking laugh.

“You think you’ve won?” she shouted, hoping to taunt them into action. “You think you know me? You will never know me, you hear? You can hide in the shadows all you like. I’ll find you… soon enough, I’ll find you!”

Kina turned on the spot in the middle of the room holding the Piercer out in front of her. When her echo finally died she waited for what could have been a lifetime. Her muscles and tendons were taut with tension like a coiled snake ready to attack.

She knew they’d be looking on from somewhere—why didn’t they just strike and be done with it? They knew too much not to be so rash. Hating herself for it, she returned to the room where she saw Lanat, knowing she’d never find Tai now if they didn’t want her to. She might as well play the game and get this over and done with and take the opportunity if it came.

Tai would do the same—had done the same before.

She had faith in his abilities…

Kina climbed up the bent and twisted wall panels to get to the next level where Lanat had stood. Yet another corridor stretched off with a number of rooms branching off it. Only this time they had left her an obvious clue. The third door on the right spilled light from its frame, shining like a beacon on her night-vision goggles.

Stepping foot over foot with the Piercer aimed in front of her, she approached slowly, scanning above and all around her. Ten or so meters at the end of the passageway she saw the shadow of sideways movement. She fired off a round the instant she noticed and dropped down into a crouch.

A shattering noise came soon after the bullet struck… what the… a mirror!

Kina spun round, brought her gun up, but too late.

A shock-stick hit her in the ribs, sending a disabling charge of electricity through her muscles, making her drop the gun and hit the deck. A continuous spasm paralyzed her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t will her hands to grab the stick and remove those charged forks from her muscles.

A shape stood over. Smiling down at her was the grim aspect of Dzagnev.

Kina tried to scream at him, but her throat and jaw were too tense.

He pressed a needle into her neck and injected something into her. Taking the shock-stick out of her ribs, she reeled in horror as she realized she was still paralyzed. Her limbs were heavy useless lumps of meat.

Dzagnev leaned in close. She got a scent of his sweat—it wasn’t acrid like most humans on Haven. She tried to talk, scream, anything, but nothing came. She watched on almost as if she were a bystander as he removed her weapons and dragged her into the door that spilled the light.

Inside, Lanat waited. Her pony tail lay over one shoulder as she smiled at Kina. At one time, Kina had considered her a friend, but soon realized she was no such thing. Wraiths had no friends they had told her. That would be do her undoing.

Lanat produced a curved twenty-centimeter blade and held it casually by her side as Dzagnev lifted Kina up and placed her face first against a wooden board propped up at a seventy degree angle. Her arms were bound behind her back. A strap running around the board clasped closed around her waist, pinning her to the board.

Stepping close, and smelling sweet like slow-wine, Lanat whispered into Kina’s ear. “I’m going to skin you alive like I skinned your little whore.”

Kina mouthed the word why.

“Why?” Dzagnev said, raising an eyebrow. “Because you just weren’t good enough.”