“Coming down on target now, Lieutenant,” Captain Packer yelled from the Command seat.

  Carol met her gaze. “How far away will we be?”

  “Not far,” answered Debra. She unbuckled and moved over closer to the civilian. “Kovach said he got you out of a pretty bad situation down there.”

  Carol just smiled. “Yes, he did. He saved me more than once. He’s a little moody, and he talks to his dog and himself a lot, but they both looked out for me. Both are excellent protectors.”

  Riggs felt there were layers to the truth in the woman’s answer but didn’t press her.

  “He’s not going to make it, is he?”

  The words were low, but in the eerily quiet confines of the dropship, Bayou heard them clearly. Carol’s eyes were heavy with tears. This wasn’t about her son—she was asking about Kovach.

  “I was with him the first time he ran long on his meds. I didn’t think he would survive then. He was in so much pain, I don’t think I would have wanted to survive.”

  Carol gave a small nod. “He said he’d been injured on a mission; he didn’t have a choice, is that right?”

  “Are you asking if he volunteered for the surgery?” Riggs asked. “No one in their right mind would volunteer for the shit they did to that man.” She leaned back against a bulkhead, remembering the battle. “Kovach made a choice, a decision. One he felt was for the greater good but went against our orders. Our bosses made him pay.”

  “That sounds awful,” Carol said, tears now making silent trails down her face.

  “It is, but the master sergeant was a hard man to kill, even before the upgrades. Now I feel sure he will figure something out. You must have ‘faith in the everlasting brilliance that is Kovach,’” Bayou said.

  “Is that one of his lines?” Carol asked, a small smile creeping through the tears.

  “When he starts referring to himself in the third person, you need to look out,” Deb offered as she began to carefully study one of the wall displays.

  Carol’s eyes danced with a sparkle now. The tears were gone. “Thank you, Debra. Thank you for doing this for me.”

  Riggs nodded.

  “LZ is hot, sir,” Packer yelled. “Ma’am,” he amended. “Biologics only, but they’re all over.”

  “Stay here, we’ll check it out,” she said to Carol, knowing the woman would probably still try to race her to the hatch.

  “The vines, they can kill,” Carol warned.

  “We know.” Bayou then motioned for Halo and Priest to join her at the door.

  Priest carried a large backpack, and a mean-looking device they hoped would help clear a perimeter. The hatch lid opened onto a scene of absolute hell. The ground was a writhing mat of the snakelike Thunder Vines. Autocars were being overrun by the overgrowth. The mewling of a baby deer being suspended by the violet stinging vines was the loudest sound they heard.

  “Look!”

  Bayou’s eyes followed to where Priest pointed.

  “Shit! It’s not just the plants anymore.”

  The mass of plants was interspersed with other living things. Things that might resemble animals if they had been designed for a Hollywood monster movie. Snakes with thousands of pairs of legs scrambled over downed trees. Creatures the size of a dog with a bony ridge on their backs and a series of elongated teeth lining a rounded face. Whatever was causing the plants to evolve and attack was now altering the other creatures on a genetic level.

  “Priest, clear us a spot near that car.”

  The soldier stepped out onto a ramp that was still ten feet above the ground and unleashed a gout of flame from the tube he carried. The gel-based fuel covered the ground and instantly scorched an area clear. Bayou was on the ground with Halo beside her in seconds. Halo quickly opened the car that had been identified as the boy’s last location. Bayou stood guard, sending cutter rounds through plant and animal alike.

  “Empty, ma’am.”

  She looked back, disappointed but not surprised. Who would stay here with all this shit moving in around you? The sounds of the baby deer had drowned out her own thoughts. She shot it just to end its suffering.

  “Grab the phone and anything else, you see.” She bent down and scooped up some samples of the vine and one of the smaller animals. It was larger than a rat but smaller than a squirrel and was covered with colorful scales.

  “Gotta go, Boss. Flame pack is running low,” Priest said from high above.

  She tapped Halo on the back and they both jumped onto the remnants of the closest car and then up to rails on the TriCraft’s ramp. Priest hauled each of them up and onto the platform, the pilot already moving the dropship up and away. Riggs had the misfortune of landing face down with her head hanging over the edge. She saw the deer she had killed being torn apart by both vines and other animals. “They’re working together.” Vines, or some other sort of parasites, could be seen and were writhing under the animal’s fur. More of the smaller creatures were using teeth and claws to effectively unzip the flesh from the skeleton. Bayou turned around to get up, only to see the boy’s mother looking down at the same horrific scene. Her face frozen in a look of pure terror.

  They followed the road, assuming Lux would go in the direction the car had been facing. Also, assuming he’d made it out of here alive. Riggs placed the specimens in an onboard analyzer. She then took the car’s phone and placed it on the ship’s AI interface.

  The phone hadn’t had service, but it had still recognized Lux and tried to synch. The ship’s AI overrode the phone’s simple security, and a display of the boy appeared on several of the ship’s display screens. Everyone heard Carol suck in a breath followed by a painful shriek. It reminded Riggs of the sound the deer had been making.

  “Oh, my God, look at him!”

  The kid’s face was covered in dirt, scratches, and bruises, but to Deb, he looked to be in good shape. The clip was only a couple of seconds long. Just enough for the phone to unlock and attempt a synch.

  “He’s alive, Carol,” Riggs said. She couldn’t understand how, though. If he had been on his own since the attack, he was indeed remarkable.

  “Loop that and enhance,” she told the computer.

  She watched it again and again. Lux’s face filled most of the screen. The camera wasn’t great — just a simple system designed for the generic car phone. Despite that, she was seeing something of a shadow behind the boy.

  “There, stop and replay, expand here,” Riggs gestured in the air for the AI.

  “What do you see?” Carol asked, her voice about to break and looking for any sign of hope to cling to.

  “I don’t know.”

  The small portion of the video expanded and expanded but was still just a fuzzy shadow. Was it somebody in there with him? Maybe one of the mutant animals had gotten in the car.

  “It’s fur,” Riggs said, moving in close. “It’s...it’s a dog.”

  Carol shook her head. She was glad her son wasn’t alone, but how did that help, and why was Bayou smiling?

  “Match sensors to the timestamp on this video, then track,” Riggs told the ship’s AI.

  Turning to Carol, she said, “For the last two decades, all domestic pets have been chipped automatically by every vet in the country. It’s illegal to even have an unregistered one.”

  Carol had never owned a pet but didn’t think that sounded true. “Isn’t that just so the vets can identify them if they turn up somewhere else, like a lost dog recovery aid?”

  Riggs nodded. “That part is true, but the sensor chip is fully functional. We can activate it to show a location. All we have to do is find out what animal chip was in that vehicle yesterday with Lux and activate its tracker.”

  Left unsaid was the big ‘if’ of the animal still being with the kid or even still alive. After seeing what those little dagger rats were doing to the deer, who knew?

  “We have a marker,” she said seconds later. “It’s about seven miles ahead.”

  The TriCraft’s displays all showed the ground below. Seeing the huge soundless black triangle moving slowly across the treetops had to be surreal for anyone who might still be alive. On the top of the next ridge, the vines were less dense, but you could tell they had been here.

  “Look there,” Priest said, motioning off to the right side of the road. An old-style, off-road vehicle lay on its side. The remains of a body lay in a smear of red on the ground. Several dozen yards farther down the road was another. The bodies were human, or had been.

  A shower of thumps hit the hull of the ship. “Is that what I think it is?” Debra asked.

  Packer zoomed in a video. “It appears the trees are shooting some kind of dart things at us.”

  It wasn’t the trees. They had already run into these things before. Another of the vines that liked to climb high into the trees and used a modified seedpod as a lethal dart. Every living thing in this new world seemed bio-engineered to kill.

  “Preliminary analysis complete,” the ship’s computer stated. Bayou flipped over to the screen on the forensic analysis of the vine and the dagger-rat.

  “Coming in on the beacon, Boss,” Packer said.

  “What is it, LT?” Halo asked, moving over to the screen she was using.

  The creature’s autopsy report had been heavily redacted by the ship’s AI. Along all the edges was a red border with “Classified” in bold type.

  “What does that mean?” Halo asked, but the gears were already beginning to slip into place.

  “No…shit no, please tell me, no!” Debra yelled.

  She tapped her comms squad channel. “Bayou to Prowler.” Kovach needed to know this.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  KOVACH

  The corridors seemed endless, with countless others crossing at regular intervals. The sound of the tapping sounded more like muted thunder here. It was something we felt more than heard. Sumo raced ahead; I kept looking for the next level of defenses. I knew the brief laser fire in the shipping area couldn’t be all they had. This was a Level-1 DARPA facility.

  Voss came to a sudden stop at the next intersection, and I nearly crashed into her.

  “What…”

  She held a finger to her lips and had an expression that required no other explanation.

  Why was I following her? She could certainly be leading us all directly into danger or certain death. Still, she seemed familiar with the massive complex.

  In a voice that was low but not quite a whisper, she pointed to a steel door down to our right and said, “We have to go down.”

  I’d assumed the factory was multiple levels below ground. That didn’t mean I actually wanted to explore it. I nodded to her before switching to internal comms.

  “Gi, you don’t have to do this. You got me here, and I have no idea what is waiting down there.”

  I could see the man’s round eyes look at me, and then at Voss, who was using her ID card to presumably call the elevator car.

  “I don’t trust her. I’m with you, Prowler.”

  And that was that—we all stepped into the elevator. The damn thing was huge, like three times as wide and high as a normal one.

  I raised my visor to talk to Voss. “Where are you taking us?”

  She looked annoyed, her mind obviously focused somewhere else, somewhere… deeper down this shaft.

  “Why did you try to have me killed? I was bringing you here.”

  She shrugged, “The soldiers had a vehicle. I needed it. I didn’t want Carol to come, and well… you were showing signs.” She sighed, “I doubted you would even make it, and honestly, I figured you would eventually make the decision to go find the boy.”

  That told me a lot. She didn’t ask where Carol was, and she was unaware of Banshee team still being in play. She didn’t want Carol here, but she had abandoned her to the Wraith. The woman’s words didn’t match the facts.

  “Is there even a med lab here?”

  She turned to me; her exasperation was clear—I was right there with her. Nothing was stopping me from reaching out and crushing her windpipe. In fact, the simple thought of it brought me an uncomfortable amount of pleasure.

  “The enemy is here,” she offered as a non-answer. “You need to see what is going on here.”

  I held my arm out toward her. She stepped back in surprise.

  “You see that?” The arm was moving and the hand shaking almost uncontrollably. “Me learning anything new at this point is irrelevant if I don’t survive. My best guess is I have about three hours before I am in a near comatose state.” I didn’t share the level of agonizing pain I would be in just prior to that point. “After that, nothing will save me.”

  My hand lowered, and Sumo licked it. “Believe me when I say my last order will be to have you taken out.” I gently rubbed the dog’s ears. “By whatever means I can still manage.”

  The car stopped dropping, and the doors opened.

  “I’d expect nothing else.” She strolled out into the darkness beyond with the confidence of someone who clearly had all the leverage.

  Our suit visors instantly went to NV mode, casting the cavernous space in an eerie bluish-green hue. The tapping of the bots now seemed to be mostly above us, distant, but still a constant evil, fucking heartbeat of this place. I motioned Gi to go right, and Sumo left. I followed closely behind Voss, who was appearing a little less confident with every step she took. I wasn’t sure how she could even see where she was heading, but soon it became apparent she was using landmarks, columns and machinery. Several times, I watched her reaching out blindly for something she felt was close. Her fingers fluttered and clinched until she made contact.

  “Ada, give me intel on this room,” I mentally asked.

  I felt a pulse emit through my body and knew the AI was using a subsonic sonar wave to help her map out the space. The dimensions updated in my HUD. It was indeed enormous. Almost ten kilometers long and two wide. That can’t be right…can it?

  “Purpose?” I asked, hoping she had a theory.

  “If this is the lowest level, I would assume it is raw material storage. Perhaps excess production inventory.”

  There were thousands of crates, drums, and assorted containers stored on racks that seemed to run the entire length of the space. High overhead, the ceiling appeared to be solid rock. I couldn’t see enough detail to know if this was a natural cave or not, but that seemed less important.

  “Here,” Voss said, her voice snapping through the darkness like a bullwhip.

  The wall where she pointed was filled with prefab rooms and offices. All seemed abandoned.

  “Compounding labs are there; I don’t know what you need, but you have ten minutes before I pursue my own mission.”

  Holy shit, I couldn’t believe the woman actually seemed to be helping me for a change. I was confused. This woman was a threat. She was the enemy… I think. I let one part of my brain calculate the odds of this being a trap, but ignored it and made my way to the labs. Voss blacked out the windows with shutters, then alerted G-force and me to lose the NVs before flipping on banks of overhead lighting. My hand still shook, but this time from nervous optimism as we went through hundreds of shelves of chemicals and pharmaceutical material. Ada had interfaced with Gi’s suit cams as well. If either of us saw any of the exotic compounds I needed, the AI would register it and have us secure the entire supply.

  He and I raced up and down the rows, scanning each shelf in seconds. So far, I’d only located one container of a minor element in the drug mix. It was now in my backpack and my brief sense of hope seemed to be drying up like a desert puddle after a storm.

  “Here’s one,” Gi shouted, tossing me the oversized plastic container. It had a name that was almost too long to fit on the label. I had no idea what it did, but Ada said we needed it. I now knew the entire compound had thirteen different base ingredients. A handful of others were added to make storage better and lessen side effects. We didn’t have time for any of that. Of course, nothing said we had to leave when Voss did. Her reasons for being here were her own concern, not mine. Then the tapping abruptly stopped.

  It had been such a constant that I’d no longer even noticed it. The rhythm had simply become part of the environment, and then it suddenly was no longer there. Voss, who had been keeping a vigil at one window, pulling back the metal shutter every few minutes to peer out into the darkness, turned to look at me.

  “Times up.”

  My heart raced, the tremors in my arms were spreading. We were nowhere near having everything. “What? The bots?”

  “No, something worse,” she answered. Her voice was filled with a sad regret.

  “What else? What in the fuck did you people make down here?”

  In answer, a terrible crashing came from outside. Then the sound of rending metal.

  “Warbots,” Voss whispered. “Titan class, most likely.”

  Gi looked at me for guidance, but I was as bewildered as him. We’d been on battlefields across the planet, but neither had ever encountered a battle droid that carried that designator. I keyed the mic and asked Ada for help. She indicated a computer terminal nearby.

  I silently moved over and placed my gloved hand near the row of input ports. Seconds later, she confirmed a connection, and her data began to update.

  “Oh, no…”

  When an artificial intelligence begins to sound scared, that is usually a good sign something bad is about to happen. Ada’s reaction was the right one. The entire front wall of the labs was sheared away by what looked to be a giant claw. It didn’t appear to be mechanical but gleamed with a deep shimmering blackness in the flickering LEDs that were still struggling to illuminate the space.

  I grabbed Voss just before a second claw swept down from the ceiling. Gi and I were sealed in armor and might withstand some of this, but the woman and Sumo would be chopped in half. I pushed desks and shelving out of the way and raced back toward the elevators. Almost at once, my enhanced brain realized two things: (one) the one giant MechaDroid wasn’t alone, and (two) we had no chance of making it out. Lights started illuminating around the outer perimeter of the cavern. Each was an alcove, and I could see more of the enormous warbots unfolding themselves and disconnecting charging cables.