Jordan Summers - [Dead World 01] (4 page)

She inhaled, taking the hot desert air into her lungs.
It scalded like an oven left unchecked.

The coppery-sweet tang of blood and burned flesh
assaulted her nostrils, blotting out the
unknowns' odor. Her
black
combat boots stuck to the scorched ground,
making
suction noises
as she shifted her weight from
one foot to
the other, in an attempt to displace the dry
ing
blood.

Crap, now she'd have to get a new pair.

The pistol in her hand glowed green and hummed as
the charge
reached full strength. Her fingers tightened instinctively, knuckles turning
white from her tense grip. She glanced down at the rookie's lifeless body, as
he lay prone at her feet. The blast had cauterized
the outer edges
of the wound, meaning there was minimal blood. Somehow that seemed worse than
when there was blood everywhere. Like this, Red could almost pretend her
colleague wasn't real. As if he hadn't been covering her back and laughing
about catching his first bad guy only moments ago. She swallowed the lump in
her throat that threatened to choke her. Sympathy right now would get her
killed. She'd have to grieve later.

Red watched the smoke rise from
the massive hole
where the man's chest
had been. Another body lay
several feet
away: just as bloody, just as dead. At least
her backup took a few of the unknowns with him be
fore he
checked out. That meant fewer criminals to watch out for in the future.

Where in the hell was the rest
of the tactical team?
By the time they
arrived the fight would be over.

Again.

A warehouse rose a few yards in the distance. Its
old-fashioned
tin
roof glowed in the harsh morning
sunlight, giving off what
appeared to be mini solar flares. A side door of the building stood wide open,
swaying with a gentle squeak, betraying where the remaining unknowns slipped
through only moments ago.

Red stared at what used to be an
agricultural area.
She
shielded her eyes in order to take in her surround
ings. There were lots of places
for an unknown to hide,
but she doubted they'd survive for long without shel
ter. If the thinning ozone layer didn't get them, then
the animals would. The sun had turned the
once green
fields into a barren
waste. The skeletal remains of a
forest
lay farther in the distance. She scanned the hori
zon again for the
tactical team, but couldn't see nor hear a vehicle's approach.

Damn. she'd have to do this one on her own.

Again.

She snaked her way into the warehouse, her footfalls
silent on the cracked red clay earth. Two unknowns were in here, waiting for
Red to make a mistake. But that wasn't going to happen. Not today.

She inhaled the air once again, relying on her nose's
sensitivity in hopes of learning their whereabouts. Unknowns always emitted a
peculiar odor, like eggs baking in the hot sun. Only about 2 percent of the
population could detect it and she was in that small minority. The ability to
ascertain their scent had kept her alive on more than one occasion.

Her job was to terminate the unknowns' criminal
careers.

Red took her job
very
seriously.

The building was quiet: not even a creak came from the
rafters.
Where are you? I know you're in here.
Red cocked her head to listen.
Metal and faux wood split near her cheek as a laser blast narrowly missed its
target. The clanging sound reverberated under the tin roof, making the noise
near deafening. Her ears rang.

"Son of a bitch!" Red bellowed, then dove
behind the steel containers stacked near the wall. She rolled
forward and came up firing. The unknown shot
again,
nicking one of the barrels on the end. Something hit the ground
with a splat.

Red kicked the barrel closest to
her. Liquid sloshed.
She didn't dare
glance down to check the contents.
"Shit!"
She didn't need to be bathed in radioactive ma
terial and have to go through detox. Her skin glowed
green for a
month the last time that occurred. Some days it didn't pay to get up and come
to work.

The two unknowns shot simultaneously.

Her mind snapped back to
attention and she fired in
the direction of the closest laser trail before it faded. The blast
illuminated the darkness for an instant. The
unknown's eyes widened, then he screamed and crum
pled near the rafter.

One down, she thought, scanning for movement.

The second shot came from above and had been
close. Damn close. If the bastard's hand hadn't
jerked,
she would be missing a head.
Red stared into the shad
ows. Nothing moved. Her gaze canvassed the
area, attempting to pinpoint the origin of the blast.

"Throw your weapon out now
and surrender peace
fully. This is your
only warning!" she shouted.

Silence met her.

Just once it would be nice if someone surrendered.

The faux wood near the door smoldered as tiny
flames licked hungrily at the beam. Red glanced at
the flames, willing them to go out. She didn't have time to
fight a fire
and
the suspect.

She scanned the loft area. The shot came from above
and to her right. At least she was pretty sure it
had
...
but at the moment she
couldn't discern the
unknown from the darkness shrouding the rafters.

"Move, damn you," she
muttered. "Give me some
thing to aim
at."

Dust motes from the earlier disturbance danced in the
sunlight. From where Red took cover, the un
known
had her pinned down no matter which direction
she moved. Her heart remained calm and her mind focused as she listened
for the sound of humming en
gines.

Where in the hell was the tactical team? She'd radioed
"man down" over thirty minutes ago.

A glint of metal caught Red's
eye as sunlight
filtered
through the
holes in the roof. With animal-like reflexes, she swung the barrel of her
pistol around and squeezed the trigger. Blue light snaked out toward her
intended target. The scream that burst forth shattered
the silence,
but was abruptly cut short by death's embrace. The man toppled from the rafters
and landed with a thick thud onto the ground. The showdown was over.

Red didn't bother to check and see if either man
survived. There was no point. She never missed.

She stood, slipping the pistol back into the suction
grip
holster
strapped to her thigh and walked to the door. She grabbed the canteen clipped
to her belt and doused the wood frame. Smoke coughed into the air as
the flames gasped for breath. The fire sizzled, hiss
ing one last time, before extinguishing.

Red stepped out of the warehouse into the heat and the
smell of death dissipated. The second her boots
made contact with the dirt, the
hair on the nape of her neck rose. She released a heavy breath, her hand resting
on her pistol. Red turned to find the rest of the
tac
tical team approaching her position
from the north.

About friggin' time.

"I see we're late again," Lieutenant Bannon
Richards quipped as he looked at the bodies on the ground. 'This was supposed
to be an
eyes only
patrol
in the
southwest quadrant. I sent you and the rookie to
this part of the
boundary because I thought it would keep you out of trouble. I see I was wrong
again."

At first glance, Bannon seemed attractive with his
blond crew cut squaring his jaw, deeply tanned skin, and a body mass three
times her size. But there was a hint of cruelty lurking behind his pale blue
eyes. That look could leave any woman with a case of frostbite.

Bannon never missed the opportunity to throw his
weight around or remind Red that he was the one in charge. Technically, he
wasn't her commander, since she was a lieutenant, too. Unfortunately on-site,
due to a one-month difference in seniority, Bannon had final say ... and
control of the patrol schedule. That's why Red had been spending more and more
time on bogus patrols that took her hours away from tactical team headquarters,
when she could've been sent out on real calls.

She glanced at the bodies lying around them. Okay,
maybe today's assignment hadn't been a waste of time. And the dead rookie was
certainly real
enough. Yet those tiny
details did not make up for all
the other days she'd spent driving for
hours, staring at sandy rubble, and it certainly didn't earn Bannon her
respect.

'There are two inside. One perched near the rafters,
the other on the ground." She pointed, not bothering to spare Bannon a
second glance. She covered the short distance to where her backup lay lifeless
next to an unknown. Flies buzzed and landed on the bodies. It wouldn't be long
before they planted their
larva.
Red swallowed hard, forcing her mind to clear.
Nothing killed an appetite quicker than a body full of
maggots.

Bannon barked orders to the various team members.
Red listened with one ear as he began directing
the
scene investigation
so it would be finished before the
cleanup crew
arrived.

"It's nice to know you're still living up to your
rep, Red
,"
he called out from somewhere behind her.

She grimaced, shifting her feet once more, debating
whether to ignore his gibe. Her shoes were sticky from
the crimson pool. The unknown's lifeblood dried quickly in the sun's
harsh rays. Soon he'd be nothing but a hard shell, not worth recycling.

Bannon
approached, his head bent as he looked at her
backup. "McCallan was a good man." He paused.
"They
all
were. And you wonder why no one
wants to
work with you." His biting tone hit its mark.

"Screw you, Bannon," she snarled, checking
the charge
on her weapons. "I get the job done. If you guys
hadn't taken your sweet-ass time getting here, I
wouldn't have been left to clean up your mess."

"Mess? Is that what you call
this bloodbath?" Ban
non crowed, looking around at the carnage, his mallet-sized
fists resting on his hips. "That's rich
coming from someone
who got their nickname from all the blood
they
manage to spill. If it were up to me, you wouldn't be
on this team."

"But
it's not, is it?"

Bitterness infused his tone, "No, the commander
wouldn't allow it. Not his precious little—"

"Leave him out of it," she snapped, cutting
him off.

Bannon sneered, his thin upper lip curling in disgust.
"Next time, try waiting for backup.'"

Red glanced at the
soon-to-be-recycled body on the
ground.
Her stomach churned with barely contained
rage
as she fixed Bannon with a flat stare. "'If I'd have
done that, my body would be right next to
McCallan's
and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"That's a chance
I'm
willing to
take."' He grinned,
causing the scar on his chin to split
obscenely.

Red bit back the reply forming
on her lips. Bicker
ing with Bannon, the
bastard, was always a waste of
her time.
He'd been a prick ever since she told him she
didn't fuck outside of her species and refused to sleep
with
him. He wasn't going to change anytime soon.

There were reports to fill out
and weapons to check. The cleanup recycling crew would arrive on scene any
moment. Once they got here, she'd be able to leave.
Until then, Red would try to be civil.

The unit worked around her, documenting the crime
scene. Lasers measured distance, while DNA scanners attempted to identify the
unknowns' bodies.
So far, trace found soil
samples from the Republic of
Arizona in two of the unknowns' shoes.

Red raised her hand, flipping open the navcom on her
wrist to reactivate voice capabilities. The mobile A.I. unit, or navcom, linked
by satellite to the main compunit at headquarters, allowing her instant access
to information.

The screen glowed eerily, then blanked.

"You've broken me again," the unit's
artificial in
telligence told her in a
slightly nasal sounding female
voice.

Red punched button after button and grimaced.

"Hitting me repeatedly will not fix the
problem."

"Shut up, Rita," Red said, addressing the
unit by the name she'd given it as a child. Her grandfather had the unit custom
made for her. Instead of upgrading to the latest navcom model, Red insisted
that Rita be
re
paired. She knew one day the tech department would run
out of parts, but until then, she'd keep the old girl running.