Reaping The Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 3) (30 page)

“Godammit.” Jack knelt down and gently closed Kiran’s eyes. He wanted to close his own eyes and fall into a deep sleep. Maybe that way he could wake up from this nightmare.
 

Then he caught sight of a furry white form lying still on the floor nearby. “Oh, no.” He pointed. “Koshka.”

Naomi knelt beside the Turkish Angora that had been with her through the worst times of her life. “No. Oh, no, no.”

The cat’s eyes were closed. There was no blood, except for a tiny trickle that had run from one of Koshka’s nostrils. One of her rear legs was bent at an unnatural angle, but other than that there was no external sign of injury.
 

But hers wasn’t the only blood in evidence. Her mouth and the fur under her chin, as well as the fur of her toes around her claws, were covered with harvester blood.

Jack watched the cat’s chest. “She’s still breathing,” he said. “She’s alive.”

“Thank God.”

Jack’s attention was drawn to the body of a woman lying on the floor nearby, with another body, that of a man who’d been shot, next to her. Like some of the others Jack had seen, the woman’s head was missing. Leaning over, he picked up her ID badge.
 

“Who is it?”

Turning to Naomi, Jack said, “It’s Harmony.”

Naomi shook her head. “I thought…I thought she’d been killed with the others in the stairwell.”

“Maybe this guy,” he gestured to the body of the lab worker that lay nearby, “hauled her out of that mess, only to die over here.” He thought a minute. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Moving quickly, he searched the lab for more bodies. He found four others, all senior researchers, and their bodies were still intact. Their heads, and their memories, hadn’t been taken.

“What is it?” Naomi asked when he returned.

“Maybe nothing,” he said. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Here, sir,” one of the Marines came in and handed him a stainless steel lab tray. “Maybe you can put the cat on this.”

“Great idea, Marine.” Jack took the tray and set it on the floor, and together he and Naomi carefully slid Koshka onto it.
 

With Naomi carrying the cat, Jack led her back to the corridor while the Marines finished the sweep of the labs.
 

He was surprised to find Carl, Howard, Boisson, and some FBI agents he didn’t know, waiting for him.
 

“Where’s Renee?” Jack asked.

“She’s okay,” Carl told him. “She took a bullet in the ass, but she’ll live. I left her upstairs with Ferris.” He looked around, his sourpuss face streaked with soot and gunpowder residue. He looked at Naomi. “I know you haven’t had time to sort things out, but I need a gut reflex yes or no answer: is there any way you can see to put this place back in operation?”

“In the time we have?” She shook her head. “No. SEAL-2 is finished.”

Carl looked around at the bodies. “We’ve failed, then.”
 

“No.”

Everyone turned to stare at Vijay.
 

“We may not be able to continue the work
here
,” the harvester said, “but we have not failed. We know what must be done. We can engineer a viral RNA payload that will alter our species for the benefit of all.”

Carl’s eyes narrowed. “But it won’t kill them?”

“It will help you defeat those that are non-sentient,” Vijay said. “It will also do what we all need most: deactivate our unrestricted reproductive cycle.”

Jack looked at Naomi. “What about the larvae?”

“Nothing we can come up with will kill them directly,” she told him. “They would simply dissolve it, break it down into its most basic compounds like they do everything else. We’ll have to kill them the old fashioned way.”

“Do you believe them?” Carl asked her.

Naomi nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, I do. I’ve seen the code myself. We couldn’t have done it in so short a time, but the blueprint they put together is sound. All we need is to put the finishing touches on it, integrate it with the viral delivery system we already have, and replicate the hell out of it.”
 

“All right, then,” Carl said. “Let’s get topside where we can figure out what to do next. I’m tired of being in this tomb.”

“There’s one thing I want to know, first.” Jack knelt beside one of the harvesters dressed like a solider, he said. “I want to know why they didn’t go poof when we hit them with the Dragons Breath.” This one hadn’t burst into flame. In death, the malleable tissue oozed from the uniform sleeves and the cuffs of the pants. More came out from between the uniform collar and helmet. Running his hands over the mask, he could feel tiny craters melted into the surface of the rubber by the Dragon’s Breath. But the particles were so short-lived that they hadn’t melted or burned their way through.
 

Pulling the mask aside, grimacing at the bruised-looking tissue that had once formed a human-looking face, he saw that the thing had some sort of olive drab colored ski mask pulled over its head and tucked down into the turned-up and buttoned collar of its uniform, which was itself covered with body armor and a stuffed-f-of-ammo combat vest. He untucked the ski mask and found another garment under the uniform.
 

“Son of a bitch,” he cursed. “They’re wearing Nomex under their uniforms and over their heads. The same with the gloves. And the gas masks protected their faces. That’s why the Dragons Breath didn’t do much.”

“Nomex?” Carl asked.

“It’s a flame retardant material,” Jack explained. “The flight suits worn by military pilots are made from it. These things must have got their hands on some and figured it would be good against the Dragons Breath rounds.”

“It worked,” Howard said. “We hit them over and over again, drenched them in flame, and it didn’t do squat. The only thing that had any effect from the shotguns were the slugs.”

“Great,” Carl spat. “Just what they need. Another advantage over us, and one that we engineered for them.”

Making their way to the entrance, they found some familiar faces.
 

“Jack!”

Melissa came running toward him, a bundle of pink bandages in her arms. Jack gathered her and Alexander up in an awkward hug, the big cat squirming unhappily between them.
 

“It’s good to see you, kid. You too, you big fuzzball.” He rubbed Alexander on the forehead, which was one of the few places he had much fur remaining.
 

“Hathcock didn’t make it,” Terje said quietly.
 

“Damn,” Jack breathed.

“Jack.”

He turned at the sound of Naomi’s voice. She nodded toward the harvesters, who had come to stand in a close semicircle around him and the girl. They were staring at Melissa with frightening intensity, and Jack felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Back off,” he said to Vijay, raising his rifle, pointing it at the harvester’s face. “Back off, I said!”

The harvesters finally stepped back when the Marines around them raised their weapons.
 

“She is…like us,” Vijay said softly, “but not like us.” He tore his gaze from the girl to look at Jack. “What is she?”

Melissa hid behind Jack and Terje, and Alexander growled. “Keep them away from me!”

“She’s none of your business,” Jack said. “Angie, would you mind moving our friends here over by the wall and keeping them out of trouble?”

“With pleasure.” Boisson turned to Vijay and the other harvesters and gestured with the muzzle of her rifle. “Move it, bugs.”

“That was creepy as hell,” Renee said as she limped over and gave Jack a quick hug.

“Sir. Director Richards.” It was Captain Lowmack, who’d dismounted from his LAV.
 

“What is it?”

“We have a count on survivors, sir.” He looked ill. “Fifty-seven, including my Marines.”

“Dear God,” Howard Morgan breathed.

“That’s it?” Carl’s voice caught in his throat. “Including us?”

“Yes, sir. That’s everybody. Minus them, of course.” He nodded toward the seven harvesters lined up along the lab building wall. “Most of the security detachment, except what was out in the field with us, were killed. And the personnel in Tent City…” He just shook his head.
 

“I want to start getting people out of here,” Carl said. “Ferris, crank up that Black Hawk. We’ll evac to Grand Island, then…”

“No fucking way,” Ferris said in a brittle voice. “The bird’s engines are toast, and I’m not going back to Grand Island, not even if you put a gun to my head.”

“Grand Island’s gone,” Boisson explained. “The airport. The town. Everything.”

“The fucking things were everywhere.” Ferris was shaking. “They’re swarming north from the river. And the interstate, I-80, it’s…it’s…”

“There were lots of casualties,” Boisson said in a dead voice. “And the things are heading this way.”

“Yeah, we ran into what must have been the leading edge of the herd on our way back here,” Jack told her.
 

They both turned to Richards. “What’s the plan, boss?” Jack asked.
 

“We pick up our sorry asses and try to find a refuge somewhere. SEAL-4 in Denver is probably our best bet…”

Ferris laughed. “That’s four hundred goddamn miles! We’d have to go by road. We’ll be eaten alive.”

Jack said, “Can’t we just call in some evac birds?”

Boisson shook her head. “The comm center’s gone.”

“The cell network is out, too,” Lowmack added. “Even the portable satellite phones can’t get through to anyone. All that’s left is the HF and VHF radios in the vehicles, and nobody who can help us has responded.” He grimaced. “All we’ve heard is just more poor schmucks like us who need help themselves.”

Carl stood there, silent. The muscles along his jaw twitched.

Naomi carefully set down Koshka, then stood up to face the others. “We’re too close to give up,” she said. “We’ve got all the pieces for our weapon, we just need a lab where we can assemble it and put it into production.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, girl,” Ferris said tightly, his eyes sweeping across the burning remains of SEAL-2, “we’re kinda short on that sort of thing right now.”

Howard cocked his head at Naomi. “What about Lincoln Research University?”

She nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. We’ve got to go back to where this all began. Everything we need to put an end to this is there, assuming the place is still standing.” She looked at Carl. “It’s the only chance we have left.”

EXODUS

Everyone except their harvester allies wore a haunted look, and an air of imminent defeat hung over the burning remains of SEAL-2 as the survivors made frantic preparations to leave. The person who seemed least affected and had immediately taken charge of organizing the exodus was Howard Morgan. Once Carl had given the green light to Naomi’s plan, Howard had transformed the group into an efficient machine to sift through the wreckage for anything that could be salvaged.

“What do you think our odds are?”

Carl had said very little to anyone since the attack, and his question caught Jack off guard. “I think that if we can get Naomi and the harvesters to the lab in Lincoln,” Jack told him, “we’re going to be able to beat these things. I don’t have much left to believe in anymore, Carl, but I believe in her. If she says she can do it, she can.”

Richards glanced away, then looked back at him. “You have no doubts? No reservations?”

Jack shook his head. “None. She’s the rock that I cling to, my friend. If she told me the sun was going to rise in the west tomorrow, I’d believe her.”

Carl’s mouth turned up slightly at the corners. “That just makes you a gullible dumb-ass, Dawson.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, good enough. Getting there is going to be the tough part.”

“No, shit.”
 

The two of them were standing on the rear deck of Lowmack’s LAV, which would lead the other vehicles out. The column of vehicles they’d managed to salvage from the motor pool was lined up in front of the lab building at what Jack hoped was a safe distance from the blazing personnel buildings.
 

“Morgan’s turning this into a damn circus,” Carl grumbled. “He’d have brought along a Humvee for every one of us if I’d have let him.”

“You should be happy. We’ll need the extra vehicles.”

Behind their LAV were the other four LAVs, two of them bringing up the rear of the column. In between were ten Humvees and four six-wheeled MTVR trucks. Two of the trucks were towing fuel bowsers and had their cargo beds loaded with Jerry cans full of water and cases of MRE meals. The other two were towing one hundred kilowatt generators in case the lab in Lincoln was without power, and had their cargo beds loaded with spare tires and parts for the vehicles.
 

Two of the Humvees near the rear of the column, sandwiched in between a pair of LAVs, carried the harvesters. Over Carl’s protestations, Jack had insisted that they be armed for their protection. So they had been given four shotguns loaded with Dragons Breath ammunition. Jack figured they couldn’t do too much damage with those to any of the other vehicles before the escorting LAVs blew the Humvees to bits.

Every vehicle, even those with the harvesters, carried as much ammunition as the vehicle could hold.

“I think it’s about time we left, sir,” Lowmack told him. “The scouts are reporting a lot of bugs heading our way.”

“Roger that,” Jack replied. He heard the crump of a mortar firing. Some enterprising Marines had salvaged one of the 81mm mortars from the roof of the lab building and crammed it into the back of one of the Humvees, packing the rest of the vehicle with white phosphorus and high explosive mortar rounds. Lowmack had sent the vehicle out to scout out the enemy and start raining on their parade.

“We’re ready,” Howard reported. He was riding in one of the Humvees toward the rear of the column.
 

“All right,” Carl said. “I guess I better get to my ride.” He stuck out his hand. “Good luck, Dawson.”

“You, too.”

Carl climbed down and headed for his Humvee where Renee was waiting for him.

Terje poked his head out of the LAV’s troop compartment. “This should be fun.”