Shadow Fall (The Shadow Saga) (28 page)

But Crenshaw didn’t get a chance to say anything more about his plan or Shadow Fall, as Davian appeared at the door behind him and nearly lost his balance as he tumbled inside.

“Forgive the interruption, Commander—”

“Can you give us a minute, Davian?” she asked, barely registering his flushed skin and wide eyes.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said breathlessly. “But you’re needed in communications immediately. Center 3 is under attack.”

Grace’s concern over Crenshaw’s secrets melted away, blood thumping in her ears as she followed Davian out of the room and toward the stairs. Only vaguely aware of Crenshaw trailing them, she became lost in thoughts of worst-case scenarios and desperate denials. Surely the World System could not have found them. They were always so careful, so intent on every detail. Even the power for the communications systems in the room they entered at the base of the stairs did not pull from the main power lines, for fear the energy drain might reveal their presence. The Command Center used Solithium generators for the more energy-intensive military equipment. But if Center 3 was compromised, did it end there? Were the others in danger as well?

“Lieutenant!” she shouted upon entry. “Report!”

The officer at the communications helm did not turn from his duties as he replied, hands flying frantically over the console, “Assault underway on Center 3, Commander. Strength of opposition unknown; progression of battle unknown. We received a distress call from Commander Jordan and then…nothing. I am preparing to broadcast a signal to destroy their landline.”

Grace grimaced in momentary panic. If the World System took the facility—inevitable, even if they managed to stave off the first attack—they would find the communications cable leading back to the Command Center. And from there they could locate every other base and put an end to Silent Thunder. They could destroy the cable, but...

“When my father explained the underground web, he mentioned that the destroyed line may leave traces. Will they be able to track us back here?”

“If they know what to look for, then yes,” Davian replied. “The line will leave scorch marks after it is destroyed. The marks will be even more minuscule than the line itself, nearly undetectable in the dark. A soldier would have to be lucky indeed to find it…but again, it is possible.”

“How long has the center been out of contact?” Grace asked. She didn’t want to give the order until absolutely necessary. Only the commanders and a select number of their officers knew the path back to the Command Center. The rest didn’t have a clue. Once they burned the line, those operatives would be on their own.

“Two minutes,” the lieutenant replied. “Frequency is calculated, Commander. Ready to broadcast on your command.”

Grace’s jaw tightened, “How many souls in Center 3, Davian?”

Davian did not pause before answering, no doubt already running every name and face through his head, “Eighty-nine operatives, some of whom brought their families with them from the Wilderness. Perhaps a hundred and twenty souls, Commander.”

She fought competing urges to curse and to cry. All those people…what would become of them? Would they all be killed or would the government take some captive as slaves? She shivered at the memory of her own capture, sitting hopeless and humiliated in that dark cage. She would go back in a heartbeat, though, if only to save another from that fate.

“I understand your hesitation, Grace,” Davian said. “But you don’t have a choice. Cut the line, and there’s still a chance they might escape to the Wilderness. Do nothing, and the Great Army will eventually find that cable and follow it back here. They will take us out and move on to the other centers—over a thousand people all told. You have to protect them now.”

Crenshaw placed a hand on her shoulder, and when she turned to look at him he nodded sadly, “Davian is right, Grace. There is no other way.”

Grace gritted her teeth in frustration.
This is the World System I know, Crenshaw. Not one that works, but one that kills and destroys. The one that slaughters children and tortures the innocent
. “I will make sure they all pay for this,” she hissed. “Cut the line.”

A loud beep sounded repeatedly from the main console, and the lieutenant turned back to them, expression grave. “Too late. The line was just burned from their end. But they…they transmitted a final message just ahead of the frequency.”

The room went very still.

“What does it say?” Grace asked.

When he hesitated to answer she stepped forward and gazed at the console, seeing the last request of the operatives in Center 3 flashing on the main screen:

Do not send reinforcements. No survivors.

22

301
STRODE THROUGH THE
Silent Thunder compound, the melancholy aftermath of battle nearly overwhelming him as he surveyed the carnage. The Great Army had arrived first on the scene, and the chaos rained down upon the compound had spread throughout the entire city block. The worst, however, had fallen here at the epicenter.

Smoke still rose from the weapons of Great Army soldiers, both living and dead, as the former continued to sweep the compound for survivors. Spectral Gladii lay humming in the hands of their lifeless owners, whose bodies were most often cast before the fallen forms of unarmed women and children. The scenes left little to the imagination as to what had transpired.

“No restraint,” 301 shook his head, turning to Derek. “No mercy, no honor, and no humanity. Did all of these people deserve this, Derek? Is this justice?”

“Justice has nothing to do with it,” he replied. “This is about following orders. The Great Army is a machine of death, Captain. This is what they do.”

“And if we had gotten here first?”

“Then you would be dead,” Donalson said from behind them. 301 faced the entrance of the compound’s main gathering room—a sort of makeshift lobby—as the grand admiral approached them. “No room for restraint and sympathy in war, gentlemen. If you had arrived first there would be eight more bodies and just as much work for my men. Though I can’t say either of you would be missed.”

301 balled his hands into fists, but he had long since learned that any response to the grand admiral’s taunts was nothing but a waste of breath. “What of the children? Have you found them?”

Donalson gestured around cruelly, “I see many children, Specter Captain. The promise to bring them back was yours, not mine. The only traitors still living now wait in the compound’s meeting room and will join their comrades soon.” He grinned. “You’re welcome to search among them for your quarry, but I wouldn’t set your hopes too high.” He left them and walked back into the lobby, headed for the meeting room.

301 spared an aggravated glance for his partner before following. If there was any chance Elena Wilson’s children were still alive, he had to know. He had made her a promise and he intended to keep it, if he was able.
But how many lives did that promise cost
? He wondered.
How many other children died because he convinced her to tell him about this compound
?

Their blood would forever stain his hands.

They arrived in the meeting room to find six prisoners kneeling with their hands bound above their heads. Two Great Army soldiers aimed assault rifles in their direction, their faces as merciless as stones. Only one of the prisoners was a child, and at sight of his dark hair 301 knew he was not Elena Wilson’s son. The rest looked to have resisted capture to some degree. One man might not survive the night even if he didn’t face the firing squad.

Donalson began barking questions as soon as he entered, but 301 could see from the prisoners’ faces that there would be no answers. They were prepared to die. He stole a glance at the little boy and did a double-take. It was Eli, kneeling with the others, hands on his head, staring at 301 with a look of utter terror. His mouth opened and he mouthed the words,
Help me.

“Captain,” Specter Marcus diverted his attention briefly as he entered the room from a side entrance, and when 301 looked back at the kneeling figures he saw only five. Eli had gone.

“What is it, Marcus?” he asked.

Marcus moved closer to them and gave the Great Army soldiers in the room a suspicious glare before answering, “We may have a lead on the main Silent Thunder compound.”

An image of Grace lying dead like those in the hall flashed briefly through his mind, but he shook it off. “Tell me.”

“The rebels made their last stand in a room they set up as a communications hub,” Marcus whispered. “I spoke to a soldier who survived the struggle, and he thinks they managed to send out a signal of some sort before being subdued. But I checked with the Halo-4s monitoring this block, and they report no broadcasts of any kind over the airwaves.”

“Are you certain the signal was sent?” 301 asked. “Perhaps they didn’t have time.”

“It was sent and uploaded to the communications log along with the tagline
terminal frequency
. We attempted to make another broadcast to trace its destination, but the hub is either damaged or highly encrypted. We haven’t been able to figure out how to send anything.”

“What about RF signals?” Derek asked.

Marcus shook his head, “The hub doesn’t appear to have that capability. That leaves only one possibility.” He paused and sighed, as though he knew they weren’t going to take him seriously. “They must have been using Quantum Comms.”

Derek let out a short laugh, but stopped when he saw Marcus was not joking. “Quantum Comms,” he repeated flatly. “Devices that broadcast through space-time.”

“Don’t look at me like that!” Marcus spat. “Listen, after Doctor Ryder’s disappearance from the Weapons Manufacturing Facility, Admiral McCall had me look over the facility’s inventory. Quantum Comms were listed. The rebellion could have stolen them before setting off that bomb, covering up the theft!”

“Quantum communication is just an outlandish theory,” Derek said. “What you saw on the inventory must have been part of a research project, but I assure you that kind of technology does not exist. And even if it did, these rebels would not know how to incorporate it into their communications hub.”

“Then what’s
your
theory, Blaine?” Marcus asked defensively.

“You go immediately to the most complicated solution,” Derek said. “When faced with a problem, you should consider the easiest solution first. They aren’t broadcasting by air, so that leaves…?”

Marcus shrugged his shoulders, prompting Derek to sigh and shake his head in annoyance, “Landlines. Every compound must be connected by communications cables, presumably underground. If we find the cable, it will lead us to their main base…and Grace Sawyer.”

Derek aimed his last words at 301, but the Specter Captain did not acknowledge them. If Derek was right, and the rebels communicated by a landline that could lead them straight to their base, then not only would the blood of these people stain his hands, but the blood of hundreds more…one of them the woman he loved. But there was nothing he could do to stop it—he could only hope Derek was wrong.

“There is a hatch in the main lobby,” Marcus nodded. “We think that’s how they travel between compounds, using the tunnels beneath the city. It may even be how they got in to begin with. If there is a landline that’s where I think we might find it.”

“Blaine and I will go,” 301 said. “I need you to start looking through the bodies of the rebels, see if you can identify Elena Wilson’s children. Get a couple of the others to help you, then get out of the way so the Great Army’s cleaners can do their job.”

“Understood, Captain.”

301 and Derek returned to the lobby, catching sight of the hard iron hatch that stood open in the back corner of the room. The light cast that corner in shadow, shielding the hatch from view. On his first trip through the room 301 hadn’t even noticed it.

They stepped over the dead as they made their way to the hatch, and 301 peered down into the deep darkness of the underground. He expected a poignant stench, but all he got was a whiff of stale air. “These aren’t the sewers?”

“No,” Derek shook his head. “Subway tunnels I expect, from where we are on the city grid. A primary form of transportation in the Old World...largely abandoned, now. The System still uses some to transport supplies, but no passengers.”

301 nodded. The majority of those living in any of the world’s surviving cities had unlikely ever visited another. Those that had may not recognize them now, as every city had changed significantly since the Persian Resurgence and the World System’s subsequent rule. Transportation from city to city was forbidden without explicit orders from the hierarchy, and even transportation within a city was tightly controlled, situated above ground where darkness could not serve as an ally.

“Clever,” Derek nudged the hatch with his toe. “This would look like any other manhole cover from below, and if someone tried to open it they would just assume it had been sealed, and move on. No one ever sees them come and go, or even knows they’re here at all.”

“They aren’t here,” 301 said absently. “Not anymore.” He grabbed hold of the ladder and set his foot down on the first rung. “Got a light?”