Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse (28 page)

Water, mushrooms, and air? There’s more. The rattuses have to come from somewhere…

“Well then,” Perez started, “I have another task that I would like for you to carry out.”

The younger woman looked up at her. Due to Perez’s height, she had to bend her head also, to keep it from bumping into the cave’s ceiling. A small smile came to her face—she was clearly happy that she found someone who would assign her something that would not be seen as insulting.

“Liliana, I want you to run as fast as you can to Legate Legionis Clematis and Centurion Dea Data. Let them know of our discovery and that you were asked by Immunes Perez to bring them here. Make sure you tell them I want them well armed,” Perez said. The young woman’s eyes lit up as she realized she had been given an out from heading blindly into the cavern.

“Yes, Immunes! I will run like the wind!” she said. She was about to take off when Perez grabbed her arm and spoke to her again quietly.

“Make sure you tell them to come
fast
and
well armed
. Your intuition, Liliana, may be well placed. Never doubt your gut. Run!” Perez ordered.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the stocky young woman was off. By the time Perez turned around, the hole was big enough for two people to crawl through—bigger than she really wanted. Hydra pushed everyone aside to make room for Perez. Without hesitation, Perez moved to the hole with her weapon drawn.

“Hydra—bring flares. Five of you come with me, one remain on the other side of this entrance, and two remain inside this chamber. Move a wagon close by in case you have to block the entrance.”

Perez moved to go through; Hydra was right behind her.

“Do you expect trouble, Immunes?”

“I expect that a habitat that can support life will have life. And with so few rattuses above these days, I have to wonder where they went,” Perez answered.

It took less than a minute for her to clear the short tunnel in the stone and to enter a brave new world. Perez stood fully erect and looked in all directions. Her weapon already drawn, she kept it in front of her, scanning in whatever direction she looked. Expecting complete darkness, she was surprised to find that the cavern was actually dimly lit. She looked up to see several vents and fissures in the cavern’s ceiling, hundreds of meters above, that provided light. They walked several meters to take in the expanse of it all.

Standing on a flat perch, she took in a panoramic view. She looked to see if she could see perimeter walls, but she saw a grand range filled with massive rock outcrops that seemed to cover the cavern floor several meters down an incline. The rocks were surrounded by green vegetation similar to ferns and moss. In addition to large, round fruits, she made out massively size mushrooms that were all white and perfectly spherical with thick trunks that supported their huge caps. Sounds of distant thunder and flashes of lightning created frightening shadows in this humid, heated underworld.

Distant rivers of red liquid added to the surreal picture. Perez immediately suspected they might be actual lava from what she guessed was the base of Mors Mente, a mountain several kilometers away on the planet’s dark side and across a vast frozen ocean. And while the grand mountain looked dead on the surface, below, in this underworld, it was alive with hot rivers that glowed red even at a distance. Salt, sulfur, and mold overwhelmed her sense of smell, along with mint and…rotten flesh.

Movement on the cavern’s floor, twenty meters below, caught her eye. A flare flickered to life behind her and cast an eerie red-and-white glow over the scene as Hydra cast it down. Rattuses. Large-jawed, long-snouted rats with dark eyes and long, scaled tales scurried away at first but held their ground just outside the glare of the flickering light. They were bigger than Terra’s recently acquired dogs, and their razor-sharp teeth flashed in the shadows as their spear-like tails were raised and poised to strike.

“Hydra, light another flare and hold it steady. Everyone else, slowly back to the entrance,” Perez said.

Her hand gripped her weapon tightly as she backed up. She heard someone running back and was about to say something about slowing down and being quiet when a sudden wind and a flapping noise came at her from above. Without hesitation, Perez dropped down and trained her weapon at a black form that just missed her—but caught Hydra. There was no scream or sound except the shifting light from a dropped flare on the ground and wet liquid that splattered Perez’s exposed skin. She grabbed the flare with her free hand and worked her way back. She tripped over someone and fell on her bottom. She heard two screams from behind her, shouts, and the clanging of waving picks trying to fend off whatever was flying above them. As Perez picked up her flare, she caught sight of Hydra—her head had nearly been severed from her torso, and her eyes were still open from the sudden assault.

“No! No! Not you!” Perez screamed. Visions from her battle years ago against three monster rattuses flooded her. The adrenaline and the anger of being relatively unarmed at that time surged through her again. She looked into Hydra’s eyes and her fear mutated into anger. Hydra had been so proud to be part of the expedition, and it got her killed. The guilt she felt at being responsible for Hydra’s death exploded into more anger.
No! Her death will not be in vain!

“You want a piece of me, you sack of shit? Let’s go!” Perez screamed. She bolted up from the ground and onto her feet. She was probably ten meters away from the entrance, where she heard screams and saw arms waving flares. She saw one of the workers being lifted up from the ground. Perez discharged her laser in a long burst of directed fire, aiming well above the worker. The woman was unceremoniously dropped and a large-winged rodent crashed to the ground. It was thinner than a rattus, all black with a webbing the width of its entire wingspan. It possessed the claws and long snout filled with teeth of a Terran rattus, but its sight triggered a memory of a similar species on Earth—though on a profoundly larger scale. The creature quivered as if it might still move.

“A bat? Son of a bitch!” Perez moved around the head of the creature’s still-flapping body and cut its throat swiftly to ensure it was dead. She turned to face the screaming workers and saw another dark creature flying right at her. Again, she fired a sustained laser blast. This struck the dark creature in its torso, causing it to flail backward. She turned to make sure there was nothing behind her, just in time to see two large rattuses pulling the winged rodent’s body away for an easy meal. Perez ran to the opening. Only three of the five workers that had followed her in were still alive. Other than Hydra, though, there was no body.
Not a good sign
, she thought. One of the women sat on the ground, shaking uncontrollably from some injury. The other two were by her side.

“Do you need help?” a voice called out from the other side of the wall.

“Block our entrance and hold ground! Winged rattuses and hundreds of others in this cavern! You must defend that entrance until troops arrive! These things cannot leave here!” Perez shouted back. All the women around her looked at her as if she had condemned them to death. The sounds of heavy metal dragging across the rock floor reverberated to their side, confirming that the entrance had been sealed and that they were alone. Perez immediately gave one older woman her laser and unsheathed another.

“That one has four or five short shots left. Three sustained at the most,” she said to the first woman. She turned to the other woman, who looked as if she were going to scream at her, and handed her a sword and a short blade.

“Stay with her,” Perez said as she nodded to the woman on the ground. “I need you to be a lookout for us. Stay low and don’t use flares near you. That allows them to center in on our location.
No flares
—let your eyes adjust to the light and pick your targets carefully.”

Both women reluctantly agreed and tossed their lit flares toward the incline. Huddled in darkness, they watched the flares fade and the dim light from the vents above slowly take over. Dripping water, the scattering of rodent feet, and distant thunder could be heard. The hurt woman’s ragged breathing became gradually more shallow and gulping until there was a slow exhale and then nothing.

“Damn it,” Perez said quietly. A few more moments of relative silence passed until another breeze came in from her right side. As she turned to fire her weapon, a vice-like talon clamped on to her arm and pulled her off the ground. The sharp, cutting pain instantly deadened every other sensation in her right hand. She drove her left hand into her waistband and pulled out a large, serrated knife. She jammed it upward, above her head. An alien screech shrieked above her and she felt herself being let loose. She fell to the ground. While she had not been lifted very high, she hit the ground hard—followed by a massive, flapping bat that landed just in front of her. It looked as if it were scrambling to get up. Although she was dizzy and exhausted, she realized she was still holding on to her knife. She got to her feet and ran at the creature before it had a chance to run at her. Without thinking, she jumped onto the creature’s head—and heard a satisfying crunch. She then repeatedly stabbed the creature and could feel its blood spewing all over her as she did.

“Die, you piece of shit! Try to kill me and my people? I’ll kill you all!” she screamed. In her frenzy, she saw a rattus sneaking up on her left side. Perez lashed out, cutting deep into the rodent’s eye. She twisted the knife and motioned to pull yet another knife from her right side, but felt nothing. She moved her arm and hand where she thought another edged weapon might be holstered—still she felt nothing. With a dead, winged rat below her and the large rattus clawing at the knife in its eye, Perez looked around and saw her laser weapon right beside her on the ground. She reached for it with her right hand, though, and once again felt nothing.

She looked down at her wrist in the dim light, only to find that her hand was completely gone. In its place was a stump covered with congealed blood and skin atop of crushed bone. She might have stared at it longer, but she remembered where she was. Perez picked up her weapon with her left hand and fired it point-blank into the still-struggling rattus. Right behind it was another oversize bat—it appeared truly demonic as it stood above her with wings outspread and its long snout and dark eyes flickering in the distant lightening strike. Perez fired a sustained blast at the creature’s torso and ran the line of fire up to its head.

“That’s for Hydra, bitch!” Two more dark forms came swooping in from each side. Perez was about to shoot the creature on the left when a series of laser shots came from multiple vectors behind her. Even as she watched the creatures being hit, she pushed herself off the ground and looked for more targets. Two rattuses obliged, and she took careful aim and fired. She looked beyond them to make sure they were at bay and found herself getting even angrier. She wanted more to kill. They took her friend and took her hand. Adrenaline, hatred, fury, and rage blinded her as she moved toward the cavern floor in search of more targets. There was no noise or sound—except for the sound of her heart in her ears and the hum of more laser fire. She caught another target and fired.

She felt something coming up on her left side and turned to fire. Someone faster than she was caught her weapon before she could discharge it. She turned violently and pulled for her knife with her right hand, but remembered she couldn’t feel for it. Perez looked up into Legate Legionis Clematis’s worried eyes. Perez became suddenly aware that they were not alone anymore. A large number of armed Milites and Immunes—all soldiers firing weapons, hurtling javelins, and using swords to kill both land and winged rattuses.

“Immunes? We are here. No need to fight more,” she said. Her expression was one of concern and surprise. Perez felt herself being held tightly by Clematis. She peered over her shoulder and saw Dee Dee and Dux Cloelius using recently developed enhanced bows and arrows as they advanced. Perez nodded and brought up her right arm’s stump to show Clematis. She felt suddenly exhausted, as if she had been instantaneously drained of life.

Perez uttered two sentences; even as she spoke them, she realized she had no idea what she meant. “This is my world. I want my hand back.” Her vision faded and a gray-black curtain seemed to close around her while she floated away.

The world is afflicted by death and decay. But the wise do not grieve, having realized the nature of the world.
—The Buddha

“All I am saying is that if you wish to have intercourse with Immunes Perez, why don’t you just seize him? He will more than likely comply. What is with you Earth women and your mates? Your different gender, same gender, and intersex gender hominids appear to be so different in terms of lifestyle, but then when it comes to initiating courtship and eventual mating, it all appears the same to me. Bella and Pax agree with my assessment, should that make a difference,” Lux said into her earpiece.

Reich closed her eyes in agony at Lux’s more-than-chatty use of the communication link. While Lux was in Topeka, Kansas, overseeing a refit of their underground home, Reich was waiting for Inspector Arthur Bradley to join her. She was on the street overpass above the new Pier Four Restaurant, which was built on stilts above Boston Bay and an array of walkways right on the water to where boats were moored.

Just minutes ago, she had given Anthony Perez her most recent intel on General Farrell, and was waiting for him in the establishment with a minimum of security while Bradley, Middleton, and Spenser provided another level of safety, and the Boston Police Department ringed the outer perimeter. She felt useless in the observation role. No sooner had Perez left than Lux had gotten on the link from her master computer and seized the opportunity to express her thoughts—which she did often, typically unsolicited.

“Lux! You need to stop. He’s shown no interest in me, romantically. We’re just good friends,” she said quietly. Passersby in business suits and professional wear were all around her. The sun was nearly at its zenith, even though it was an hour before lunch. She fit in well, though she was sure her skirt was a bit tighter than necessary. She was all in red, including her pumps and blouse, and she felt like she was better dressed than most. Truth be told, she knew Perez liked red and she had caught him looking at her once when she had worn a similar outfit. She shook her head, disapproving of her own rationale for her wardrobe choice.
I’m going to feel really stupid if things go south.