At the End - a post-apocalyptic novel (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) (33 page)

“Come on, let’s get back to the controls,” I
said. I ran off and Tortilla trailed behind. I grabbed a headset to
communicate to the spacesuit. “Burnhammer, this is Maggy, can you
hear me?”

“A little too loud,” Burnhammer said.

“What?”

“You’re a little too loud in my ear, take it
down a notch,” she replied.

“Sorry. How is outer space?” I asked,
excited to hear a personal account.

“It’s a bit spooky,” she replied. “I can say
I’m not a fan. But everything is moving along. I’m almost done
cutting the hole.”

“Well try not to worry us too long,” I said.
I fidgeted, twirling my thumbs around each other. She gave no
reply. I got up and paced back and forth. The space was cramped,
and I could only take a couple of steps from one side to the other.
“You think she’s all right?” I asked Tortilla.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” he responded calmly.
“She’s secured to the ship; she’s not going anywhere.”

“Fine? Don’t you know how dangerous space
is? A little tiny pebble could kill her, and it wouldn’t even have
to be going that fast. And the explosions . . . those particles
could pierce a hole in her oxygen, or cut her tether . . .”

I could tell he could see the anxiety
festering in my mind. “There’s nothing we can do for her. Just
relax.”

I hated when people told me to relax; it
never helped. In fact, it had the opposite effect it was supposed
to have on me, tensing my muscles even more. “I don’t like this
small space. I didn’t mind the Apocalypse Room because I couldn’t
see, but this . . . we’re in space!”

He sprung from his chair and wrapped his
arms around me. He must have held me for fifteen minutes, or close
to it, and when I realized how long it had been, I heard the hatch
door close. I sprinted to the aft compartment. The door to it was
still shut, but I could see through the window.

Burnhammer stood in the far right corner,
putting away the gear, dismantling the suit with several CLANGS,
which I had thought was the hatch. She noticed me and waved me
in.

I hit a button and the door unlocked. “Did
you do it?” I asked.

She pointed to the open hatch door. “We’re
connected and pressurized. It’s a go.”

“You’re amazing,” Tortilla said, inspecting
the tubing that joined our ship with the alion’s. “It didn’t even
take you long, less than an hour.”

I walked over and began helping her remove
the suit. “Pretty impressive, I agree. Especially since you’ve had
no training. Your nerves must be made of neo-plastic.”

“Thanks.” She slid out of the magnetic
boots. “But everything had directions on how to handle and set up
the equipment. It really wasn’t much . . . I need to rest before we
board those bastards though.”

“Sure. Can I see the signal?” I asked.

She withdrew the PocketPad from a pouch and
offered it to me.

I accepted it with greedy fingers. “Thanks.”
I zoomed in on the signal emitted from Jelly’s locator beacon. It
was close but farther than I had hoped. I showed Tortilla.

“Well I’m ready to kill every last one,” he
said with ire in his tone.

Burnhammer got up after a half hour or so.
“Gather your weapons, we’re goin’ in.”

“If only I still had my axe,” I said,
saddened by the thought. “But I guess a submachine gun will do.” I
grinned at Tortilla.

“You mean two submachine guns.” He nodded at
the second one I held in my left. He raised both of his KRISS VP55s
to his narrow shoulders.

“Well I heard two is better than one when
killing alions,” I said, laughing. “If the futuristic Gimli were
with us, I bet he’d say: ‘Let’s hunt some alion!’ don’t you
think?”

He laughed as he checked his pockets for
spare ammo. “That’s certain.”

“You two ready?” Burnhammer asked.

We nodded.

“Stay behind me unless I say otherwise.
Clear?”

“Clear,” we said simultaneously.

“Then let’s hunt some alion!” she shouted in
an animated voice. Assault rifle in hand, she ran off to the hatch,
then down the ladder, falling three meters or so through the
tubing.

Tortilla and I stopped at the hatch, staring
down at the drop. The ladder didn’t extend nearly far enough, which
meant chance stepped in the rest of the way. “I’ll go first,” I
told him. I climbed down until I was hanging from the last bar,
nervous about the descent. “All right, here I come.” I released my
fingers in a flash of boldness. Burnhammer tried to catch me, but I
dragged her down to the floor. When I glanced up at Tortilla, he
was smiling.

“Fun?” he asked.

“You’ll find out,” I said. “Hurry up.” I
clambered to my feet, using a wall to steady my shaking body.

He dropped like a boulder, despite his
feathery weight. Burnhammer and I both had our hands out ready to
catch him, but we still managed to fall to the floor. We all jumped
to our feet.

“Rough,” he spoke in a hushed voice.

I nodded at him, then turned my attention to
Burnhammer, who scouted out the next room.

She returned. “It’s just an empty hall like
this one. I guess you were right about the detectors being down,
unless they’re waiting in ambush somewhere else.” She paused, her
head bent down and her ears cocked up, listening. “Come on,” she
grunted a moment later.

We were at her heels through the next four
corridors, until we came to a long, long hall with sleek black
capsules. I gasped when I saw what lay trapped inside: humans; they
were men, women, and children of all ages. Placid eyes stared at us
through transparent white doors. No plea for release fought its way
out, as if content.

I put my hand to the capsule. The eyes did
not follow. “So this is what they do with us,” I said, shocked and
horrified. “Should we try to free them?”

“Of course we should,” Tortilla shouted. “We
can’t let them stay here . . . not like this.”

“Look, there’s a console.” Burnhammer
pointed to a station with buttons that were lit up. She pressed a
couple, but nothing happened, then she hit them all, earning the
same results.

“We’ll just have to break them open,” I
said.

Burnhammer nodded and struck the nearest
capsule with the butt of her rifle. The white material was thick
and strong, and it did not break with the impact. She smashed it
repeatedly. It began to look like a cracking eggshell, until at
last, the material gave, and a blue fog rushed out, dissipating
soon after. She began using her gloved hands to clear the jagged
pieces, creating a hole large enough for the man within to climb
out.

An alarm rang out: RAWRK . . . RAWRK . . .
RAWRK.

The man’s body started to violently
convulse. Burnhammer grabbed him and pulled, but he was stuck
inside, secured by some unknown means. It was a painful sight,
watching his body contort within the cell. Then he lay motionless.
She checked his pulse. “He’s dead.”

I gasped. “We killed him.”

“He was dead already,” Tortilla said.
“Trapped in there, waiting for the alions to consume him . . . he
was dead already.”

“We should move. This area will probably be
crawling with alions soon,” Burnhammer predicted. She headed down
the corridor, turning left at the end through an open door.

We rushed right behind. “Won’t we get lost?”
I yelled.

“The PocketPad is mapping out where we go,
so we should be able to find our way back.” She shifted down
another corridor filled with capsules. When we entered the next
hallway, a group of alions stood at a console, touching a display
with their humanlike hands. Burnhammer unstrapped a grenade at her
hip and tossed it in the middle of the room, spinning on her heels.
“Back, back, back!”

Smoke filled the room behind us as we
hurried into another corridor. Burnhammer followed the signal on
the PocketPad, pressing buttons on its touch screen. “We’re getting
close, should be just a few more rooms away,” she apprised us.

The alarm faded into nothing.

In the next corridor, two alions guarded a
door, their guns raised. In a panic, I pulled the triggers of my
guns. The bullets punctured the alions’ furry chests. The door was
locked, so we backtracked until we found an open route,
circumventing the barred door.

We met opposition in every room after that,
bullets whizzing in the confined space. Their black bullets bounced
off the Dragon Scale armor.

I dodged a blue orb, as Tortilla aimed a
stream of well-aimed shots at the threat. The alion flew back from
the force. It slammed into a wall, collapsing to the grating under
our feet. “Thanks for the save.” I kissed his cheek, a quick peck
like a viper strike. That’s all I had time to do.

An alion burst through a door, wildly
shooting.

Burnhammer took care of the alion with one
bullet to its head. She had switched over to the smaller assault
rifle with the folding stock. It proved effective in the tight
quarters, especially when she needed to whip around and fire in the
opposite direction. Her skills in combat comforted my trembling
nerves.

We stopped before a locked door. She
stretched her hand holding the PocketPad so that we could see. “The
signal is coming from inside this room, I’m sure of it.”

“How are we going to get in?” I asked. I
slid my fingers across the door, feeling its smooth texture. “Can
we shoot the door open like Henderson did.”

“No, that was a special round, designed for
human doors with human locks,” she responded. She studied the door.
“These doors are all reinforced and slide into a gap between rooms;
they’re not the same at all.”

“So we can’t open it?” Tortilla asked, his
hopes audibly sinking.

“I didn’t say that.” She unlatched a square
container from her jacket. Opening the box, a light brown block
waited to fulfill its purpose. “A more powerful version of C4.”

“What if it kills them?”

“It shouldn’t, but it’s our only way in,
unless you have a key.”

I hung my head.

“They would rather die in a rescue attempt
than be eaten by these beasts,” Tortilla said. “Do it.”

Burnhammer attached the explosive to the top
and bottom of the door. “Get back.” She ran to the end of the
corridor. Once we had found cover, she blew it. The detonation
filled the room with wisps of smoke. We ran up to view the damage.
The door was blown off, fallen less than a meter away in the other
room. She rushed through the gap, rifle primed.

I followed with Tortilla behind me.

Four alions crouched underneath large blue
slabs of shiny metal. Reacting, we all fired our weapons, releasing
a wave of death.

I gasped, pointing.

“Darrel.” Tortilla rushed to one of the
slabs where Jelly lay, still, as if sleeping. “Bromigo, wake
up.”

I hurried to Jelly’s other side and shook
his shoulder. “Wake up . . .”

“He must be sedated,” Burnhammer said,
drawing a pen-shaped object from a pouch. “This will wake him.” She
gripped his arm and stuck the needle end into his elbow. A brief
pressurized sound filled my ears.

Jelly shot straight up, screaming. He was
loosing curse after curse. His eyes didn’t seem to notice us, as he
blankly stared ahead.

“Jelly, it’s all right. Calm down,” I said.
“We’re here to rescue you.”

He began wheezing, which quickly transformed
into a harsh cough. He whipped his head in my direction and fell
back, as if utterly shocked to see me. “I’m dead!” he shouted. “I’m
dead, I’m dead, I’m dead!”

“No, bromigo.” Tortilla grabbed Jelly’s
hand. “You’re not dead. Snap out of it.”

Jelly squinted at us, skeptical of our
presence. He calmed his breathing, focusing hard on a routine. “The
alarm,” he said suddenly. He scanned the room this way and that.
Most of the electronics were dead.

“The explosion must have fried some of the
systems,” Burnhammer observed. “But it’s still unwise to stay here
for much longer.”

Jelly glanced at all of us. “You’re really
here to save us.”

“Yeah,” I spoke softly. “We’re really here
to save you. Now get your butt in gear.”

He slid from the slab. “Penelope!” he
squeaked as he ran to another slab.

Penelope lay unconscious on the blue metal,
her chest rising and falling peacefully. A shoe was off her foot,
and her skin was marked with black lines running from between her
toes to her ankle.

“What were they doing to you in here?”
Tortilla asked.

“Experimenting, torturing . . . at least
that’s what they did to others,” Jelly explained. “I think they
were going to cut open her foot to map out the structure of it.
They did that to another woman . . . but,” he stammered. “But it
was her brain . . .”

“Do you have another one of those pens?” I
asked Burnhammer, but she was already snagging it from her
pouch.

She injected the substance into Penelope’s
elbow, and instantly her eyes popped open.

Jelly stood over her, gently stroking her
arm. “Hey . . . it’s okay. We’re finally getting the hell off this
ship.” He smiled at her.

Her breaths were relaxed and regular
“Darrel?” she said, as if her mind was catching up to her senses.
She glanced around. “Maggy? Félix? How?”

“They found us . . .” He turned to me. “How
did you find us?”

“Your signal,” I replied.

“Signal? The locator beacon . . .” He
reached into a pocket and pulled it out. “They didn’t take it; they
must have missed it when they took everything else.” He replaced it
in his pocket and turned his attention back to Penelope. “We’re
going home.”

She smiled. “Or die trying,” she rasped.

“Or die trying,” he echoed.

Burnhammer handed her a canteen of
water.

Penelope drank a few sips and gave it back.
“Thanks.”

“Ready to move?” Burnhammer asked.

All of us nodded.

Burnhammer dispensed her handguns to Jelly
and Penelope. “The route back is going to be rough since we made
such a ruckus to get here. We came across a lot of locked doors, so
we only have one path—”