Shadow Heart (10 page)

He grinned, “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she couldn’t suppress a smile as she pulled
Novus Vita
from its place at her side. “Let’s go.”

The doors flew open and they filed out in formation, greeted by a gentle breeze as they stepped into night’s embrace. A low bridge connected the building they had just vacated to a taller building a few yards away, and they used it for cover as they made their way to the latter structure. Grace’s gaze shifted to the left and beheld their target: an odd structure that stood out from the other ruins nearby. The floors, each one smaller than the one below it, formed a stair-step design that made it appear unfinished—like only one piece of a puzzle that the inquisitive mind longed to complete. Appropriate, as she remembered it had once been a library.

But it was completely open terrain between the stair-step puzzle and the tall building under which they hid. If the Spectorium was out there, that would be where they would spring their ambush. “Be cautious,” she whispered. “Should we fall under attack, you know what to do. Go.”

The team moved slowly and purposefully out from cover and toward the target, eight sets of eyes sweeping the vicinity for any sign of a threat. Darkness limited their vision, but she hoped it limited their ability to be seen as much as it did their ability to see.

Grace and the colonel took positions at the front as they reached the stairs: the first set of two. They glided down silently, like phantoms, and reached the midpoint of the trek. Grace felt a brief panic rise in her chest, but no ambush came. They were clear.

They made their way down the second set of stairs and trod lightly over the broken concrete, passing a large seal that represented the institution to which all these buildings had once belonged. It was cracked down the middle, the words
agriculture
and
commerce
barely recognizable from years of erosion and neglect.
All flesh is like the grass
,
and all its glory like the flower of the grass
, Grace quoted in her mind.
The grass withers. The flower fades
.

The team of Silent Thunder operatives ascended the stairs up to the ornate doors of the library, and Grace pulled them open. They shuffled inside to the second doorway and stepped through the frame, the glass shattered long before by looters or other Undocumenteds who had passed this way over the years. The shards cracked beneath their boots as they made their way into the dismal foyer.

Grace pressed a finger to the comm in her ear, “We’re in.”

“Good,” Crenshaw’s voice answered from the other end. “Tell me what you see.”

“We’re in the foyer,” she replied. “An old desk is to our right, looks like a checkout counter. There’s a stone staircase on the left, and it looks like there might be another on the floor above us.”

“Take them.”

The team followed as Grace led the way up the two stone staircases—weathered, but still sturdy—and came around to the main part of the floor. “Now we’re in a wide hall. I see a few large rooms on either side…maybe a couple of hallways. There are doors at the end that lead back outside.”

“The package is on the top floor,” Crenshaw said. “You’ll have to find some stairs.”

“Got it.”

“Grace,” Crenshaw went on sharply. “Davian and his team just reported in. They do not think that the Spectorium took the bait. They’re on their way back to the rendezvous now.”

“If the Spectorium isn’t tracking him, it’s likely they are tracking us.”

“Yes.”

She hesitated, “We’ve come too far to abort.”

“I know,” Crenshaw said. “Get in and get out as quickly as you can.”

“Understood.”

The connection on her earphone died, and she answered Traughber’s concerned stare with a lighthearted smile, “Another day at the office?”

Colonel Traughber nodded, “So it would seem. Let’s be quick.”

The team made their way into the hall and headed swiftly for the stairs, urged onward by the warm breath of their enemies that wafted threateningly down their necks.

-X-

Specter General Tony Marcus ran a line with his finger down the right side of his face, feeling the long scar that was now his defining feature. The man from whom he’d received it was dead, but those who drove that man to his treachery were still alive and well, a constant thorn in the System’s side that had yet to be eliminated.

He smiled darkly as he approached the building into which the rebels had entered, his subordinates formed up behind with impressive discipline. He still marveled at how quickly they had been able to raise Specter from the ashes of 301-14-A’s betrayal. All but two had been slain in the Central Square that day—the Grand Admiral and himself, though he had escaped death by a mere inch. He still remembered waking on the cold concrete of the Square in a pool of his own blood, and shivered. To escape the reaper so closely…it was something from which he would never recover.

Marcus had lost his partner and his companions in arms that day, but he had also inherited the leadership of Specter. He looked to his right and to his left at those deemed the greatest and most deadly warriors in all the World System. They had never met an enemy they could not defeat, and had established themselves as a nightmare for all who would oppose them.

They were the Spectorium.

While their counterparts in Specter assisted the Great Army in countering the moves of the Imperial Guard, the Spectorium’s focus lay in the mission that at long last seemed within their grasp: the complete and total destruction of the Silent Thunder rebellion.

“What are our orders, sir?” one of his captains asked.

Marcus was not thrilled with the orders he had been given, but he knew better than to question. As great a fighter as he was, there was still one man far greater than he. To defy his wishes was tantamount to suicide...at least for now.

“We wait,” Marcus replied harshly. “Cover all the exits. No one goes in or out.”

G
RACE PASSED SEVERAL ROWS
of books as she made her way across the top level, breathing shallow so as not to inhale the dust rising from the floor at her every step. Countless volumes lay scattered and destroyed on the floor, discarded by those who had looted the library over the years. She had trouble judging them for that—what could be more valuable to a fallen civilization than the knowledge of the one that came before it? No doubt many had entertained notions of rebuilding the planet with such knowledge, herself among them. But no amount of books could remove the greatest obstacle to the Old World’s return: Napoleon Alexander. For him, there could only be bullet and blade.

Traughber shadowed her steps as the rest of the Silent Thunder operatives fanned out to secure the area. All were silent as phantoms, chosen for their skills in stealth from among the dozens that had volunteered for this mission. Bringing the full force to a confined area with the Spectorium on their heels had been too risky, so a small team was dispatched instead. It had been Davian’s idea, though he had not been happy when she told him that
she
would lead them, not him.

She spied a door at the end of the aisle between the stacks, and motioned to Traughber. He made several hand signals, and the other operatives converged on their new objective. That was when she felt it: a shift in the air, a general feeling of wrongness that warned of impending danger. By the time the first shot pierced her ears, the bullet passed through the neck of the operative on Traughber’s left, spraying blood on the dusty shelves.

The rest of them scattered as their comrade fell, and Traughber grabbed Grace’s collar, pushing her into the stacks and out of the line of fire. More shots rang out, and she prayed they found no more of her companions. Angry, she reached for her Gladius.

Traughber stopped her, “You must continue on your own, Commander. You can make the door if I cover you, and we will provide a screen to give you time.”

She shook her head, “I’m not going anywhere, Colonel. I don’t order men to fight battles I can’t fight myself.”

“The entire Spectorium could be on the way,” Traughber argued. “There’s not much time, Grace. We will do our part here. Now you must do yours.”

Grace had seen the expression currently on Traughber’s face many times, and knew there would be no swaying his decision. In her time as commander she had learned that there were times when a leader could hand out orders, and others when she could not.

“Good luck, Colonel,” she said. “I expect to see you when I am done here.”

“Block the door once you are inside,” he raised his sidearm. “Ready?”

She nodded.

“Go!”

They sprang from hiding, Traughber emptying his clip in the direction of the shooter as Grace raced for the door. She took hold of the knob and threw it open, allowing her momentum to carry her inside before pulling the door shut again behind her. Shots continued to fire on the other side, muffled, as she scanned the room for some means to block the door. In the end she tipped over a relatively full shelf of books so that it leaned against the doorframe, and turned to the task at hand.

Breathless, she counted off her steps just as Crenshaw had instructed, and arrived before a bare stretch of wall. Slight discoloration suggested there had been a painting there of some kind, but it had been taken—with little thought to what its presence concealed.

More sounds came from the other room, but not gunshots this time. Nothing could make that noise but the clash of two Spectral Gladii. So, the Spectorium had found them. She needed to hurry, or all would be lost.

She ran her hand over the wall, wiping away years of grime, and frowned. There was nothing there. She fought an urge to scream. To have come so far and sacrificed so much…for nothing. She started to turn away, but a glint of the light caught her eye. She reached out and wiped away a wider swath of the grime, and sighed with relief. There upon the wall, barely visible lines joined together to create the intricate design of a rose—the symbol she had been instructed to find.

Grace reached into her pocket and withdrew Crenshaw’s cutting tool, feeling a stab of guilt at the memories it brought to mind. This had been the tool he used to carve countless names on his Memorial Wall—a wall that she had summarily destroyed in the wake of her anger and grief over Elijah’s death.
Oh, well
, she thought.
Nothing I can do about that now
.

She traced the lines of the rose with her fingers and drew close to the wall, straining her eyes in the darkness to find the clue within the clue.
At the very center of the rose
, Crenshaw had explained,
You will find a triangle whose sides curve inward. Within that triangle, the package should be hidden
.

Once she found the triangle, Grace turned on the cutting tool and set to work. A thin red laser sliced into the wall, trailing smoke as she drew it along the perimeter of the triangle. In a matter of seconds the small piece of drywall came free and tumbled into her hand. On the back, a small gold piece of metal no larger than a hangnail had been securely attached, covered with some sort of protective filament to keep it isolated from the elements.

Whoever holds it may as well hold the fate of the world,
Crenshaw had said. Somehow, it didn’t seem that impressive.

Grace switched the frequency on her earpiece, “Colonel, the package has been acquired. It’s time to go.” Nothing but static answered her. It occurred to her that all noise on the other side of the door had ceased as well. She whispered again, more forceful and desperate, “Colonel!”

He still did not answer, and somehow she knew that he never would.

-X-

The last of the Silent Thunder rebels fell lifeless to the floor, joining his comrades on their bed of dust among rotten books and pools of blood. One man remained alive—a man who had single-handedly dispatched the entire Silent Thunder team. His boots echoed ominously from the walls as he strode calmly past the bodies of those he had just killed, the white fire of his Spectral Gladius gleaming hungrily beside him.

“Marcus,” he spoke aloud. “She isn’t here. Tell me you did not fail me again.”

“We’re tracking one more on the top level, sir,” Marcus replied through his comm. “In the room ahead of you.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, sir…alone.”

-X-

Grace placed both the cutting tool and the gold chip in her pocket and backed away from the wall. Her team was dead, she was sure of it, and Colonel Traughber along with them. She shook off the stab of grief she felt for him—too much was at stake now to pause and mourn the dead. It seemed she had experienced so many similar goodbyes in the last year. Every time she wondered if this would be the one to break her.

The sound of wood splintering underscored the urgency of her situation, as someone broke down the door and stepped over her makeshift blockade. She should have known it would avail little against a Spectral Gladius. She heard boots land softly on the floor, only one set...just one man. And yet, he would not have made it inside unless he had managed to kill all of her men.

Her first instinct was to destroy the chip, but it was much more valuable to them intact. She just needed to figure out how to get it out and back to Crenshaw. She couldn’t go the way they came in, which left only one option: the roof. She spied a window just a few feet away and breathed in deep in preparation to lunge.