Sons of Abraham: Pawns of Terror (2 page)

“We’re firing now, Sir,” Janys replied.

Bear watched the tower, knowing that the nearest aerial assault cannons lied to the north of the building. He expected to see a shot launch into the night sky. What he got, instead, was more verbiage on his neck com.

“The towers aren’t responding Sir,” Janys offered. “I’ve tried twice, but there is no return call.”

“Damn it!” Bear snapped, slapping his palm into the frame of the open door. “Can you override the system from Central, Janys?”

“Negative Sargent,” the male’s voice replied. “We don’t have network control over the defensive grid from here. The same goes with…..”

The lights from the upper half of the walls, as well as the annoying yellow strobe lights, all went dark at the same time. Sargent Bearden took one last look through the binoculars before shoving them back into his vest.

“…..the power grid,” the man finished.

“Yeah, so someone shut it down manually?” Bear replied.

“They’d have to Sarge,” Janys interrupted. “No way anyone could gain remote access the system. It would have to be done manually as well.”

The Sargent took a second to size up the two guards at the opened door, weighing his options. The loss of power, as well as the non-compliance of the defensive systems, meant there was either saboteur within the compound or a traitor in the mix. Protocol dictated that Lieutenant Harris would be in charge with the Major off-world, but the lack of the Lieutenant’s voice on the com system meant that Bearden had to take the lead.

“Watch this door,” he snapped at the guards. “Get someone from maintenance here with a magnetic clamp and get the doors shut. I don’t care if you have to cut the lines, shut em, and then weld them. If I come back here and these doors are open, I’ll start a barricade with your carcasses as the base. Got me?”

“Yes, Sir!” one of them replied.

Bearden watched the other guard pull out his com and start the scanning process. There were only five channels on the system, but the coms were designed for sixty. It could take hours to get on the correct channel. As much as technology had advanced, it was sad that coms without direct channel selection were still considered an option from those who crunched the budget.

Heavy boots smashed into the concrete surface as Bear double-timed it to Central. The last time he’d checked, there was over a mile of halls between Central and his current location. He hadn’t timed himself lately, but he suspected he wouldn’t cover the distance as quickly as he’d used to. The massive man was pushing forty now, his prime years behind him. The emergency lights lit his path as he pushed and dodged the stragglers in the halls. He stopped twice to usher civilians to shelters and once to ask a platoon if they’d seen the Lieutenant. Harris was less than capable in his view, but it wasn’t like the Lieutenant to be absent when needed. In fact, Harris was quite the opposite. He was usually the first to enter a meeting room, the first to eat, and the first to arrive for his shift. Bear had been quietly waiting for his dull voice to come over the neck com, asking where the Sargent was taking a dump instead of being at his post.

It took the man eight minutes to reach the Central hub of the facility. He estimated he lost no more than thirty seconds dealing with the traffic in the halls, thus meaning he was a full minute slower than his last physical. He made a mental note to cut back on the beer after his shift was over.

“Sarge,” Janys shouted as she waved a long, pale arm in his direction.

Bear didn’t need to see her pasty arm waving to know where she was. Being a foot taller than anyone else was an advantage in situations like this. For his elevated view, he could see the people scurrying down the aisles between the two dozen lines of monitoring stations. The dim glow of the emergency lights didn’t help with the chaos, but the Sargent could easily make out the ghost image of Corporal Janys James in the back right corner.

“Gimme an update James,” he muttered, trying not to sound out of breath.

“Not much to say here, Sir. We’re running blind,” Janys muttered.

Bear stepped to the windows of the Central hub, his view distorted from the tower that now stood between him and where he’d last seen the harriers approaching. The lights from the two moons above, as well as the floodlights outside that operated on solar cells, offered him a view of the spider web that made up the Divinity station on Ulland, a moon base of Parasus with minimal climate and gravity control.

“How many have reported in?” Bear asked, still looking at the horizon.

“Sixty-four,” she stated. “As well as seventy-two civilians.”

“That leaves three soldiers, including the Lieutenant, who didn’t report,” Bear grumbled. “I can’t keep track of our civ population. What was the last count?”

“Eighty.”

“Three soldiers and eight civs. I like our odds.”

He scanned the room, mentally noting how many soldiers occupied the Central hub. His saw twelve, not including him and Janys. There were five exits that were likely covered by two soldiers per, as well as units at the Tower. The numbers weren’t adding up. There shouldn’t be any more than ten soldiers at the Tower. There were a few other places that were deemed necessary to guard during a lockdown, such as the barracks, med-bay, arms depot, and the garage. The garage was massive, calling for five guards, the other places called for three each. There were ten whose duty was to patrol the hallways, leaving sixteen unaccounted for whom should be at Central.

“Did you get the distress call out before the power died?” he asked, turning to the short man next to Janys. He’d call him by name if he knew it, but Divinity changed operators so often that he gave up learning who they were a long time ago.

“Just barely,” the small man replied. “I got half the message out, but I did get the bounce-back from the ring just before we went dark.”

Two men caught Bearden’s eye. Both were guards, the ones from the fight he’d broken up last night. One had a black eye, the other had tape over his nose. Bear wasn’t ashamed to admit that the broken nose was his doing. He had a habit of reacting poorly whenever someone drove an elbow into his face. He considered himself old-fashioned in that sense.

“Carter, Mullins, you’re with me!” he shouted over the crowd.

The two men caught site of the Sargent, but neither was in too big of a hurry to race over to him. They methodically traced a path through the crowd, working their way towards their commanding officer.

“I’ll take these two and check out the power station,” Bear started. “You grab three and head to the defensive grid. I want this place on lockdown as soon as we get power restored. You see anyone at the controls, you shout back to me. I want to know who they are before you take them down.”

“Take them down?” Janys asked, looking for some soldiers to accompany her. “Shouldn’t I confront them first?”

Bear turned back to her, stepping in close enough to whisper.

“You can ask politely with your rifle, you got me, Soldier?”

Janys nodded, seeing a cluster of three guards with potential in the middle of the room. She checked her rifle, then slipped through the crowd. Bearden turned to Carter and Mullins, waiting for their eyes to lock into his. Carter didn’t take but a second. Mullins, the one with the taped nose, never looked up from his boots.

“Alright you two shits,” he started. “Both of you are on me.”

The Sargent shoved through the crowd, making for the hallway to the power relay station. He hadn’t done the math in some time, but he guessed there to be no more than a mile between them and the station. As they rounded the first corner, the buzz from worried conversations slowly faded behind them. The group took the next left, heading the opposite direction of the tower.

“Either of you know whose sposed to be on the station?” he muttered, barely turning his head back to the trailing soldiers.

“Dixon and Mullins,” Carter offered.

“Mullins?” he replied. “You mean you’re supposed to be down there?”

“No Sir,” Mullins stammered. “My cousin Jimmy. I tried calling him twice, but all I got was static.”

Bearden thought back to what Janys had stated earlier about how she was getting nothing but dead air when she’d called the defensive grid. It was easy to picture Mullins stammering over the com link, desperately trying to get a word back from his cousin. Bear had two of his own family that's passed through the station at one point or another. He always made it a point to keep tabs on his family every hour they were stationed with him. Soldiers were brothers, but family is family. They’d just passed the hallway to the barracks when something on the floor drew his attention. In the corner, a series of dark drops rested on the concrete. He knelt down, shining his light with his left hand and reaching out with his right to swipe up the drops. The drops left a thick, red streak on his massive fingers. Carter and Mullins both saw the blood, each taking their holsters off their shoulders and turning the safeties off.

“Heard you say we had harriers incoming,” Carter started. “They look like Earth military?”

Bear thought back, but he had to admit he could see little other than the lights on the wingtips of the planes. He was only able to guess by the faint light hitting the nose of the first ship that it was a harrier. Then, the image of the blue-gray paint job on the nose slapped his brain.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “First one was blue-gray. Sounds like an Earth harrier.”

“Watch the news last night?” Mullins asked, looking back to the empty hall behind them.

“Nah, I was wrapped up with something,” Bear replied. “Why?”

“The Cybers laid waste to a military courtroom yesterday,” Carter replied, his eyes wide and alert. “They said the entire Cyber division took down over sixty people. Then they all jumped the planet.”

“Fuck!” Bear snapped, rising up from the crouched position. “How many Cybers we got here?”

**************

Abraham dropped the scanner on the table when the same line flashed on the screen for the seventh consecutive time. He’d spent the entire night attempting to gain access to Cybill’s memory core, but the result was a severed connection. The black discs over his eyes folded outwards and slid back into the cases on the sides of his temples. His internal processor informed him it was now morning, according to the standard time stamp from Earth. For eight hours, he’d attempted to awaken his daughter from her cryo-sleep, but it seemed that fate was not favoring him in his endeavor.

“You been at it all night?” Jenna asked from the doorway.

Out of instinct, the black, circular discs returned from their home, covering over the mirror coating of his scanner eyes. His hands pressed against the table as he turned his head towards the question. He wanted to smile, but fatigue forbade him from the gesture.

“I have,” he muttered. “With no success to show for it, I’m afraid.”

Jenna slipped through the doorway to the makeshift lab, attempting to ignore the hum of the Hopper’s engines. Her youthful frame edged around the table Abraham was working at, her hand tracing the leg of the Cyber resting upon it. She stopped when she reached the head, leaning in to further examine their newest shipmate.

The eyes of Cybill had faded, the bright blue light fading to black. The female’s face was wide, her nose upturned, and a wide mouth to match the cheeks. Her ears were tiny, a short neck, and a stocky body. Jenna wouldn’t consider her fat, but Cybill was clearly heavier than Jenna or Sandra. It was difficult to tell what was muscle and what was fat underneath the jumpsuit that Abe had dressed her in when he removed her from the cryo-coffin.

“So what’s wrong with her?” Jenna asked, standing up straight.

Abraham pulled the datapad off the table, handing it to Jenna without saying a word. The Cyber returned his attention to the workstation behind him, analyzing the endless stream of data upon the computer’s screen. Jenna looked at the data pad, but she hadn’t a clue what she was looking for.

“Alright Abe,” she muttered, looking up from the pad. “You need to remember that I’m a beginner. You still have to explain EVERYTHING to me.”

“There is a break in her data stream,” he replied, still looking at the workstation. “I can’t know for certain without doing a scan, and I lack the proper equipment needed for such a diagnostic. Until I find the equipment I need, I’m afraid Cybill is lost to me.”

“She’s broke, huh?” Jenna asked, looking down to the lifeless woman. “I’m sorry Abe. Can’t imagine how hard this has to be on you.”

Abe turned around, scanning the young woman who stood next to his daughter. Her hands leaned on the corner of the table, one leg crossed over the other in an awkward stance. Her skin was pale like her older sister’s, likewise for the black hair, brows, and the same cheekbones. Sandra often preferred to keep her hair tied back in a tail, but Jenna preferred to sweep her hair to one side, waving up and around one side of her face. Today, she had the hair tied over one shoulder, a look Abe hadn’t witnessed in some time.

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Abraham replied. “However, it is unnecessary. I was astonished to find her in this condition.”

“Really?” Jenna stamped. “How’d you expect to find her?”

Abraham looked down to his daughter, brushing a pale finger against the side of her face. A faint smile formed on his tight lips as he withdrew his hand and folded his arms over his narrow chest.