Starbleached (12 page)

…kill the monster.
Oh, shit. “Is there another way
out of this place?”

“Yes. Back that way. I can—”

“They’re going to kill you. That was the protocol Shawn
agreed on. We can’t…not without letting me talk to them, first. Mich must have
stirred them into a frenzy before they got here.”

“Mich is the man who shot me?” Bryan asked. “My…brother.”
The outpost shook with another explosion. He shook his head, dismissing the
confused look in his strange eyes. “If we don’t leave now, we won’t get out
alive.” 

Adry nodded, shoving everything she might need into her
carry-all. A double thumbed hand touched her shoulder, gently. She turned and
found her gun, the one he had taken from her on
Marel Sanders.

“I am sorry for taking you. I didn’t believe I had another
option.”

She nodded, stuffing the gun into the back of her pants.
“Maybe we can take Mich out the equation.” The doors sectioned open, and she
followed Bryan out of the lab.

The halls were dark. Adry could barely see where they were
going. But when they’d taken out the lights, Shawn’s team hadn’t accounted for
the stubbornness of Overseer tech. Overheads struggled to glow as Bryan passed
beneath them, giving him enough light to see by, and painting his wild hair
bright enough for her to find. Smoke filled the halls instead of mist, and at
one point they passed a flare, slowly fizzling out. The SF on their rescue
mission. No one left behind.

These are my people. These are the good guys. What the
hell am I doing, getting an Overseer out of here?

Bryan sectioned a door open, and the hall beyond dipped
down. There were no signs the SF team had found it. “Where does this come out?”
she asked.

“Near village,” Galina answered.

Bryan walked through without making a sound.

They continued on, finally coming out one by one into the awful
swamp. Bryan helped both Galina and Adry steady themselves on the sodden path.
“I’ll take you halfway to the village. They’ll find you there.”

Adry shook her head. “I’m not leaving this rock unless we’re
on the same ship. All the way to the village. And you’ll wait, goddamn it, for
me to explain things to Shawn.”

He gave her a gentle half smile. “Then I’ll be around. And
when it’s safe to come, I’ll come.”

Why do I not trust you?
She thought. It must be the
glimmer in those awful white eyes.

“The path is this way.” Galina pointed with her good hand.
“It is only safe path to Village.” She started forward.

Bryan pulled something vaguely weapon like out from under
his coat. The wound, she noted with some satisfaction, was mostly healed. He
was a little less gaunt.
Very
little. “Now, where’s Mich?” The
expression on his face was not human in the slightest. Hungry, hurt Overseer,
verses the tiny human idiot who’d shot him? Adry knew who she’d bet on. And she
didn’t feel particularly bad about the probable outcome, either.

“He won’t be with the SF. They’re just here to smoke us out.
He’s out here in the trees somewhere. Probably saw us emerge.”

“He did.” Predatory smile, and slow hissing intake of
breath.

“How do you know?”

Four pale white eyes looked back at her. “Because I sense
him.” The expression on his face was chilling, especially with teeth bared in a
hungry snarl.

“You remember that much of Landry brotherly love, huh?” She
walked forward now, slowly, carefully finding solid places in the murk.

“I remember him putting a gun to your head.” A guttural
rumble accompanied this pronouncement.
Oh, Mich
, Adry thought.
I
don’t think you’re going to survive this one.
“You two will stay on the
path. I’ll be behind you.”

The amazing thing, Adry thought, was how he seemed to melt
into the trees. Poof, gone. Just. Like. That. How could something so big
just…disappear? Nevermind. It was good, somehow, just knowing he was there.
“Come on,” she said to Galina.

She felt deaf, or maybe blind, walking down that path. The
old woman was pale, and obviously in pain, but she refused Adrienne’s offer of
help. She stayed ramrod straight, like steel. Another explosion rocked the
outpost, smoke rising in the distance as the concussion rustled the grass.
They’ll
find his things and information, unless he wiped it all. They’ll be able to
find him, if he runs. But he won’t be--

She would never be able to explain how, or why, or what
tipped her off. It was all jumbled in her memory. A gleam of light off a
gunsight, maybe, or the click of a stick under a boot. But she moved backwards
against Galina just as the bullet parted the air where the old woman’s head had
been. She pulled her own weapon and fired twice into the bushes. Someone
screamed, high and long, and the bush coughed up a pissed off Michel Landry,
moving quickly down the hard path. She fired three times more, hitting body
armor each time. He grunted, but kept going. He swung his arm like a guillotine
and caught her across the neck. Her world lit up in acidic fire as her lungs
burned and no air came in, no air came out. He let her drop to the soil and
pulled another handgun out. He pointed it at Galina.
Hell no
, Adry
thought, and grabbed his arm, twisting so the bullet only grazed the old woman.
Wisely, Galina ran for the brush.

Bryan, where are you?
She wondered, and a boot caught
her in the gut. Mich pressed the gun into her head. “Give up.”

A dark shadow moved in the branches overhead. She smiled.
Bad
blood between brothers.
“Fuck you.” She said.

And Bryan came down from the trees.

He moved cat quick, not human, not caring, and missed Mich
by the barest inch. The smaller man dodged and fired three shots in quick
session. They all hit flesh, bluish blood erupting and then cutting off in the
same breath. Bryan shoved his brother against the tree, awful hand wrapping
tight around his neck. Four white eyes squinted against the morning sun, his
low growl making his intentions plain.

And the color drained from Mich.

For a moment she thought Bryan was feeding. Then she
understood it was shock, seeing Bryan’s face in the alien body and
understanding what it meant. Color returned, high color, amused, and Mich
laughed a sadistic bray that had Adry reaching for her gun.

“It’s not what I wanted!” Mich crowed. “It’s better. Oh,
God, look at you. Look at you. This is so per—” A flex of hand, and Mich’s
laughter cut off with a whimper. But he looked into his brother’s eyes and
smiled. “You wouldn’t dare. You couldn’t live with yourself if you sucked me
dry.”

“I’ll break your neck,” he growled.

Michel laughed again. “I told you. I told you I’d make you
pay for it. Pay for Dad and for Abrams and for always being the best. But they
were supposed to kill you,” gasp, “and let me watch.”

“I guess even they think being one of them is a fate worse
than death,” Bryan said.

Michel chuckled to himself. Gulp for oxygen, gulp of pain.
“In two minutes your battle buddy is going to come down that path and they’re
going to kill your ass.”

“You’ll go first.” The monster growled. “Maybe that’s all
that counts.”

“Put him down, Bry.”Adrienne said, standing on shaky legs.

Bryan turned his head, fixing her with one singular white
eye. Eerily, the others were all fixed on his brother’s face. “Why?”

“One day you’re going to remember who this piece of shit is.
You won’t want his death on your conscience.”

After eternity, the alien hand withdrew, followed by the
rest of him. Very little human remained to his movements. But there were no
nematocyst marks on Michel’s neck. He wouldn’t have to live with that.

Michel stumbled forward a few steps, then grinned, reaching
around back for something, most likely another gun. “You’ll never—”

Adrienne pulled her trigger. The bullet caught him in the
midsection. It would, she thought, perforate his diaphragm and graze a lung, a
ten minute surgery to repair, not immediately fatal. More importantly, it would
shatter his spine at the T7-L1 vertebra. Something that even the Overseers
couldn’t heal. The gun went flying and blood from the grazed lung flowed out of
Michel’s lips. He hit the dirt, hard.

Bryan turned, shocked past reaction.

“I
want
him on mine.” She said. A sudden shout from
behind them brought all their heads around. She turned to Bryan. “Go. I’ll
explain. I’ll fire off a round when it’s safe to come back.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Don’t forget me,” he
whispered.

“Come back, and I won’t have to.”

And once more, without effort, he vanished into the trees.
Adrienne kept the gun on Mich’s writhing body. She felt satisfied when his legs
lay unmoving in the muck.
Serves you right.

Seconds later, Bob Harris came through the brush, followed
by two kids with guns almost bigger than they were. He aimed at Adry, his eyes
widened, and he lowered his gun. Then he registered her pointing a weapon at a
wounded man. “Adrienne?” He said.

“The son of a bitch tried to kill me.” She said. “Her too.”

“He told us the Overseer killed you.”

“He didn’t bother trying to get me out. Which is ironic—I’d
have gone with him if he had. He sold out Holton. He told the Overseers where
to look.”

“We know, Adrienne.” Bob said.

She was sobbing now. “I hoped you did. I hoped that was why
you were looking for him. Do you have him in your sights?” Bob nodded. She
dropped the gun and turned to her medical kit. Bryan’s brother would live. Not
because of the hypocratic oath, or even because Bryan loved him, but because
she wanted Mich to live.

And be paralyzed. The Valkyrie was that kind of bitch.

“Where’s the Overseer?”

“He’s Bryan.” She said, without preamble. “This son of a
bitch gave Holton to the Overseers in exchange for them subsuming Bryan. The
programming didn’t take, he got away, and I’ll explain the rest of it in a
minute. Please fire a shot into the air.”

“What?” Bob looked gut punched.

“I told Bryan to stay away until he heard a shot, to give me
time to explain. Its him, Bob. He’s screwed up, but he’s there. We can get him
back. Please—“

Bob’s radio went off. “Sir, we’ve got activity. Overseer
craft lifting off within fifty feet of your twenty.”

“What?” Adrienne said, shocked. Tools tumbled from nerveless
fingers, spilling to the tainted ground.

“Repeat that, Paget?” Bob announced.

“I’ve got an Overseer craft right hard on your position.
It’s taking off!”

Adrienne saw the light, the exhaust, and started running
after it, screaming, her nerve shattered by a broken promise. Old, bony hands
grabbed her, followed by Bob’s harder, tougher ones. The glowing blue light of
an alien spacecraft’s thrust glowed as it hit upper atmosphere.

It left this strange world forever.

*****

Now:

Shawn Miller sighed. “You realize that, by the book, you’ve
been compromised by the enemy.

“I wanted to save him.”

“He ran.”

“He didn’t know what we’d do with him.”

“He knew we’d keep him alive. Probably a prisoner in a small
cell. Probably studied until we decided to kill him. A fate he probably
wouldn’t enjoy much. And he was an Overseer. You gave him significant
information. The key to the enzyme, for example.”

“Shawn, you weren’t there.”

Cold silence. “You’re right. I wasn’t.”

“He was like a concentration camp victim. You saw that
village. If he was like the rest of them—”

“The village would have been decimated, you would have died,
Mich would have been a bleeding smear on the pavement, and I would have paid
good money to have both their corpses stuffed and mounted. I know. I’m going to
couch the report in the best terms I know. But the facts remain: Mich survived.
You shot him. And an Overseer, no matter how friendly he might be, has the
formula for Landry’s Enzyme.”

“You’re not seriously going to order him killed?” She was
horrified. Slowly, Shawn shook his head.

“No. But we’re going to look for him. If Landry’s behind
half the things we found in that outpost, we can’t afford to lose him as an
information source. It’s worth the risk bringing him back. I’ve given the order
to our contacts. If he shows up, if he makes an overture that we can even
remotely interpret as peaceful, we’re going to bring him in alive. He took some
of the Russians with him. They have families. Odds are, we’re going to find him
through them.”

“Galina’s Village?” she asked.

“We evacuated it, for now. Too close to occupied territory.
If that changes, we’ll take them home. Galina Annakova will need a few more
surgeries to heal that arm, but she and her family, and most of the town are
signing up with us. They’ll pack in with your unit when we make lift off.” He
paused. “It’s still possible we can bring him home, Adry.”

She nodded, and managed to wait until she left his office
before she began to cry.

Hope is good,
Galina had said,
but hard to keep.

Yes,
Adry added,
and always worth fighting for.

*****

Then:

The black foam flats were laid out on a clean tarp, one of
the few the Holton Station survivors had sterilized. Adry packed the golden
vials of Landry’s enzyme into them, twenty to a flat, ten flats to a box. This
was going to be hell. The security protocols and radiation protectives in each
yellow case weighed a ton. It took both Bob Harris and that new kid, PFC
Morgan, to haul them into the transports. She wouldn’t have this kind of
manpower at their destination.

Shawn Miller watched them load. “I’d give you more cover,
but it looks like the Overseers are gonna hit New Houston soon. I can’t pull
anyone off for a med detail.”