Jennings grunted. “Not picking up any life readings.”
“Why should you? They must have died.”
“Not necessarily, Vincent. We have to go out there and check. I need closure on this.”
Ramra pointed at the holoview. “Fleeing figures at 6 o’clock. By that dilapidated tenement.”
“Well, I’ll be a fucking baboon. Ramra, zoom in.”
He flipped the holo’s controls to show better resolution: two figures, one man, one woman, staggering like wind-tossed scarecrows along a black line of debris for shelter.
“It’s him,” muttered Regers. “I’d know that husky ratfink and his boring face anywhere. We go in—on foot.”
“Hate to tell you, Regers,” said Jennings, “but that last hit knocked out our gyros. We’re going down.”
Regers hissed every lewd word ever to leave human lips. “Land this crate then, you fuck—We’re going in on foot.”
“Then what?”
“Shut up! Just land it.”
A jerky landing jarred them back in their seats. The impulse engines sputtered then hissed a dying lament as they came to a shaky halt before an overturned air taxi. The smoking underbelly landed struts down about a hundred yards from the ruins of Vrean’s crumpled mantis craft.
“Bastards must have slipped into the walled slum north,” muttered Regers. “The alleys’re too narrow to fit our ship anyways. Deakes—you, me and Vincent are going in as a team. Jiminy, what’s the status of the amphibious portable vehicle Dez outfitted us with?”
“Sensors show it’s operational.”
“Good. Ramra you take the APV and cover us.” Ramra’s mouth worked while Deakes and Vincent griped about being on land patrol. “Don’t trust those bugs not to waylay us. Jennings, you guard the ship in case we can fix it. No, wait—” He scowled. “Don’t trust you with Grendel on your own. Better you come with us. We’ll set the electro shock mechanism on the exterior to discourage any scavengers.”
They hopped out onto the dusty ground. The rust-brown, camouflaged APV whirred at Ramra’s touch. It floated over the four standing beside the defunct Grendel. Ramra, sitting in the pilot’s seat, saluted Regers through the glass. He turned to give them a wink and a thumbs up.
“Give a kid a toy to play with and he’s happier than a pig in shit,” muttered Regers.
Deakes squinted. “Think he can handle it?”
“He better.” Regers shrugged. “Whether he can or not, Deakes, is besides the point. I need you and Vincent on the ground with me. Still don’t trust Jennings here enough to drive an assault vehicle.”
“Why don’t you get one of us to—”
“I told you already.” Regers said briskly. “It’s decided. Deakes, Vincent, Jennings. Let’s go.”
Chapter 26
Yul and Cloye dogged it in a slum city within a city, now a prime target of the Mentera slavers with the dome breached. Sounds of mayhem and blaster fire echoed from the soot-grimed stone. Yul cringed, his ears rebelling at the sounds of wartime terror: shrieks, screams, cries of dying, pain and mad laughter turned to heart-wrenching sobs. Stun bombs dropped from Mentera scout raiders on various parts of the city. Hordes of the population lolled dazed. Trams, monorails, air buses came to a standstill as private air-cars fell out of the sky. Communications went dead as the Mentera pulse waves fell upon the city along with the brunt of the Force 2 jammers. The city was a ravaged war zone, a booby trap waiting to happen: buildings reduced to ruins, fallen live wires, thousands dead in the streets.
The survivors were easy pickings for the locusts after the blitz, the signature Mentera-Zikri MO, same as the last planet. Men, women and children who’d escaped the stun blasts fled through the streets in wild, mad panic. They sought any shelter, from dark holes amidst the fresh rubble, to open sewers blasted open by enemy guns. Other more intrepid defenders grabbed up guns and whatever weaponry they could—mostly chunks of metal from the heaped-up rubble. They organized themselves into makeshift vigilante groups, fighting Mentera stormtroopers as buildings toppled and power stations crackled and smoked. The fraternal street gangs had the best chance of surviving, but Yul reckoned those groups were too few and far between to make any appreciable difference in this free-for-all apocalypse. Endless streams of locusts poured out of the landed lightfighters or wide-bodied convoys, clutching lumo blasters or stun guns in pincers, scouring the streets and buildings, dragging fresh captives into slave ships.
A city turned mad within moments by hideous creatures from far worlds. Looting and rapine. Crimes committed by no less unscrupulous domestic scavengers. The ugly underside of the modern city had reared its warted head.
What happens in an orderly world when every day routine goes to shit? When hard-working citizens are thrust into topsy-turvy madness, anarchy, dark impulse. When quiet, mild-mannered Ned on your neighborhood block becomes a killer and rapist overnight? When the good at heart, and the sensitive soul, realize that every breath, every moment of life is a waking luxury?
Is it all just illusion? Yul remained locked in a semi-daze.
Show your face, ghoul of nightmares past. Don’t be shy…There’s a bucket of blood for everybody…He shook his head, urging his brain to snap out of its weary funk.
“Yul, you okay?” Cloye grabbed his arm, steadied him.
“I’m okay. Everything good.”
“For a second you looked half zoned out, like you were losing it.”
“Yeah, just feeling woozy. Probably when we hit that wall.”
She held his head in both hands. “We’re alive for the moment. I don't know why we’re still standing on our two feet.”
“Because we’re survivors, Cloye,” said Yul hoarsely. “Part of our nature.”
Cloye sucked in a heavy breath.
Yul’s vision swam. He snapped himself back to reality as another bleak space threatened to wash over him. He had experienced such washouts before, fighting out in war zones, battling squids in The Dim Zone, defending the crippled Albatross from ambush, caught between
