The first two NEA vehicles, a run-down jeep and a Humvee heading for what remained of the prison camp, sped past Alex and Nicole before they had made it more than three blocks. The Humvee drove in the lead with the jeep following close. Soldiers sat close together inside both vehicles. None of the men seemed to notice Alex or Nicole jogging down the otherwise empty sidewalk.
The game’s up, Alex thought.
“Hold up,” Nicole said.
“What?” Alex said as the slowed to a halt.
Nicole turned back toward the speeding vehicles and then waved her hand as if swatting a fly. The front-right wheel of the Humvee broke from the axel and bounced to the side of the road. A stream of sparks erupted from beneath the vehicle as it scraped against the pavement while the remaining three tires struggled to propel it forward. The Humvee swerved and then tipped on before skidding to a halt. The jeep’s driver attempted to veer out of the way but lost control, sending the vehicle up onto the sidewalk and straight into a lamppost.
Nicole chuckled and started off again at a jog. Alex hesitated long enough to see one of the soldiers, bloodied by the crash, crawl out through the Humvee’s shattered windshield. Then she followed Nicole.
They were in the middle of the installation’s inner ring of barracks and residence facilities. Only a few blocks stood between them and the NEA’s headquarters.
How long would it take before the soldiers here fully mobilized against the team and the handful of inexperienced soldiers holed up near the ruined prison camp? The only weapons the men possessed were Nicole’s PDW and seven assault rifles from the guards, probably with only one or two magazines between each weapon. This is going to turn into a shit show pretty quick, Murray’s voice echoed.
Alex flinched at the boom from a distant gunshot. For a moment, she thought one of the soldiers from the crashed vehicles was shooting. But all of those men were walking about in a daze with their weapons on the ground. A second shot followed, preceding a string of automatic fire and then a concussive blast.
“Sounds like that checkpoint finally caught on to the prison break,” Nicole said. “Let’s pick it up.”
Nicole sped up to a run. Alex was already sweating and breathing hard from the weight of her ballistic vest but she kept up without complaining. They turned behind the barracks buildings and arrived at an intersection at one of the installation’s main streets. The source of the installation’s central glow was immediately clear. A rectangular field three hundred meters long and one hundred fifty wide sat adjacent to the NEA’s headquarters. Dozens of generator lights lit the field and revealed hundreds of men and machines. Alex noted the silhouettes of Black Hawk helicopters, Humvees and militarized civilian vehicles, and a pair of Abrams main battle tanks. NEA soldiers shouted and rushed about the area. Some climbed into vehicles while others scrambled in the direction of the team. This was a hornet’s nest of activity, one she and Nicole had stirred.
They slowed near the headquarters building and entered into the crowd of soldiers. None of the soldiers paid them any attention. The gunfire from the north persisted over the commotion of voices and engines and diesel generators.
Alex spotted a contingent of guards beside the entrance into the NEA’s headquarters. Nicole pushed past one of the men without speaking. Alex followed, avoiding eye contact. Then they were through the perimeter and at the doors. They entered the dimly lit interior. Many of the light fixtures on the ceiling were empty or broken with only a few flickering or offering a solid glow. The hallways were dirty with mud and melted snow.
Soldiers rushed through the corridors and between rooms. Alex felt she was swimming upstream against a current of men and women. Would someone recognize them? Did anyone in the NEA even know her face aside from Martin and Webb? Whatever the case, she looked away and hid her eyes each time someone brushed past.
Soon, they diverted into an empty alcove off the main corridor. Alex took a deep breath and pressed herself into a corner. Nicole moved up to her until their ballistic vests touched. “Okay, look,” Nicole said, “I have no idea where they’d be holding your boyfriend. I’d suggest we split up, but—”
Alex shook her head. Nicole smirked. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, we need to find someone – an officer – isolate them, and do a quick interrogation. We’ll have to improvise a lot of this. I need you to keep guard once I find someone. You might have to buy me some time. Get what I’m saying?
Alex nodded.
“All right,” Nicole said. “Follow me and stick close. We’re going up a floor or two. There’s no way we’re managing anything down here.”
They merged back into the current. It took them a few minutes to find a stairwell. As they began their ascent, Alex thought back to the team and the other Directorate soldiers. The members of Echo could make up for the lack of experience within the group. Except that experience wouldn’t count for much once they ran out of ammunition and the NEA surrounded them. “We need to hurry,” Alex said.
“No shit,” Nicole said.
Fewer soldiers occupied the hallways on the second floor. Alex and Nicole paused at the stairwell door and looked up and down the corridor. Suddenly, Nicole grabbed Alex’s arm and pulled her forward. Alex had no idea of their target but she kept alert and waited for her friend to make a move.
The base of Alex’s skull began to tingle. She rubbed at her neck but the feeling persisted. As the hallways emptied, Alex realized they were following a short man with lanky arms and legs and no sign of weapons. The uncomfortable sensation began to spread down her neck and shoulders. She looked around. Was someone following them? If so, she couldn’t tell. Ahead, Nicole sped up toward their target and an open door on the right side of the hallway. Alex tensed and reached toward her holster.
A man emerged from one of the corridors intersecting the hallway and turned toward them. At first, having shifted her gaze down to conceal her features, Alex saw only his uniform’s rank insignia: a white eagle against the blocky gray and black digital pattern. Then she looked up and froze.
“You,” Colonel Aaron Webb said in disbelief.
Her reflection inhabited the black membrane over his eyes. Nicole stopped and stared at Webb. The short man glanced back with a confused look.
Nicole drew her handgun. She was too slow. The weapon leapt from her grasp, clattered to the floor, and slid off down the corridor. Webb reached for his own weapon. Nicole screamed, put her hands to her face, and went down to the floor on both knees. Their short man ran away shouting. Webb raised handgun up and pointed it at Nicole.
Alex started to focus on Webb’s weapon but then stopped; if she used her abilities, that blinding white light and burning spear would pierce through her skull. She would be like Nicole writhing on the floor.
“Stop!” Alex said. “Let go! He can block—”
“Shut up!” Webb shouted. Blood trickled from his right nostril. Alex moved forward but Webb adjusted his aim to her head. “Get down on the ground! Now!”
Without warning, Nicole leapt from the ground and launched herself at Webb. She held a serrated combat knife. Webb pivoted toward Nicole but she was too close. He dropped the handgun, and in a movement that seemed impossibly fast, lunged at Nicole, grabbing her right wrist in one hand and reaching for her neck with the other. Nicole collided with him, shoving both of them to the ground. Alex cringed when she heard the blade tearing through skin and muscle. Nicole and Webb lay still. Then Alex felt relief as Nicole rolled off Webb’s body. Except that relief became horror when she saw the blade in her friend’s stomach. Webb got to one knee, grabbed the knife by the hilt, and ripped it free. Nicole cried out and then coughed a red mist.
“Run,” Nicole mouthed.
Webb stood up, still holding the bloody knife. “Move and I kill her.”
Alex felt the weight of her handgun at her side. Her instincts screamed at her to draw the weapon, point it at Webb, and pull the trigger until the magazine was empty. He was too close to miss. But Webb could disarm her in an instant just as he had done to Nicole.
“I’m going to kill you.” Her voice trembled while her hands shook with the same rage she had felt in Cheyenne Mountain while pursuing Webb through the complex and tunnels. That rage, searing and red hot, had distorted her vision and sent her in pursuit alone against a trained killer. Webb had shot her father, murdered dozens of the Directorate’s personnel, had shot her, and now had perhaps mortally wounded Nicole.
Alex stared into the black membrane and pictured the worm-like eyes hidden beneath. She heard a single pulse like a heartbeat. Then the white flash came like a floodlight shining into her eyes. The pain was instantaneous, a migraine, one that threatened to crack open her skull. But there was something new, something she had not experienced in New York or inside Cheyenne Mountain. Instead of pure white, darkness intruded along the edges of her vision. As she fought to concentrate, to isolate Webb and tear him apart, the darkness reached inward as a tangle of creeping tendrils. Through the pain and light, Webb’s face began to resolve. His brow furled while blood leaked from his nose.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
A clap of thunder wiped away the struggle between the brilliant light and expanding darkness. Alex blinked. The world returned. She collapsed to one knee and then threw up and almost fell on her side. Her nose was bleeding. She reached up to stifle the flow but her fingers came away coated in a black fluid resembling oil.
Webb lay face-flat on the ground. He did not move. A puddle of blood expanded beneath his head. Behind him, Nicole was holding Webb’s pistol. The weapon fell from her hand as the tension in her body went away. She collapsed to the floor and went still.
Alex rushed to Nicole and turned her over. Blood stained the front of Nicole’s ballistic vest and her uniform beneath. Red oozed from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes had lost focus. “Nicki!” Alex said. Nicole mumbled something unintelligible and then closed her eyes. Alex shook her friend. “NO! Wake up! Stay awake!” Nicole remained still and silent.
For an instant, she was back in Kansas City and Specialist Park was bleeding out in front of her while she watched, helpless. That couldn’t happen again. Not here. Not to Nicole. She pulled the release cord on Nicole’s ballistic vest, and the armor carrier fell apart to reveal the knife wound: deep, ugly, and flowing with blood.
Her vision went blurry as tears threatened to spill onto her face. What was she supposed to do? The wound was too big. Her training hadn’t covered anything like this. For all she knew, the knife could have punctured Nicole’s organs and severed her arteries. If only she could scream for help and summon Shepherd or any of the men on the team. But Shepherd wasn’t here and the others were too far away. Furthermore, the soldiers in the headquarters building would soon converge on her thanks to the shouts and gunfire.
Get it together! Nicole’s voice. Alex looked at her friend, but Nicole’s eyes were closed and her mouth shut. She was uncertain if it was her own mind speaking or something else. This is when you fall back on your training. Do what they taught you and stop screwing around like a little girl!
Alex wiped at her eyes and examined Nicole’s stomach wound. Then she spotted the knife. Webb had dropped it. She crawled to the blade, picked it up, and went back to Nicole. She cut a piece of fabric from Nicole’s uniform and then undid Nicole’s belt and yanked it free. She pulled the belt beneath Nicole’s torso, aligning it to the wound. Next, she folded the camouflaged strip of fabric and pressed it hard against the cut. She held the makeshift bandage in place and fastened the belt over it. The dressing was hardly adequate but it was the best she could do.
Alex hefted Nicole and held her in both arms. Webb had not moved, the puddle of blood from his head continuing to expand. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing and didn’t have time to check. She set off at a run.
She encountered two soldiers before she had made it more than halfway to the stairwell. They raised their weapons and aimed at her as she rounded the corner and came face-to-face with them. She concentrated without stopping and saw the M16s, the steel and aluminum, the bolts locked in place against loaded chambers, and the firing pins ready to pierce the bullets’ primers. The men were slabs of flesh, muscles, bones, and organs. They were the same as their weapons – easy to manipulate or destroy. Alex clenched her hand. The rifles disintegrated in the moment before the men rocketed backward and collided with the wall, leaving their silhouettes indented in the plaster. The soldiers crumpled to the floor, unconscious or dead – she didn’t care.
Alex reached the stairwell and rushed down the stairs. Her hands and arms were damp with Nicole’s blood. Hurry. You’re running out of time. Hurry!
The first-floor hallways were empty. An alarm blared from outside. She paused to reposition Nicole. Her muscles burned despite her friend’s short profile and minuscule weight. She looked at Nicole’s face, at the blood trickling from her mouth, and listened for the sound of breathing: it was faint, almost undetectable, but still there.
As soon as Alex reached the exit, she realized why the building now seemed empty. The NEA had established a cordon surrounding the block. The personnel from inside were fleeing or joining the perimeter. She stepped outside without hesitation. Every weapon in the cordon swung to point in her direction.
“Don’t move!” someone yelled over a bullhorn. “Get on your knees and put your hands behind you head!”
Alex examined the perimeter. She counted at least one infantry platoon – nearly forty men and five Humvees each with a turret-mounted machinegun or automatic grenade launcher – standing between her and the road leading to the team. If she had encountered such a force alone in New York or even Kansas City, she would have stopped and complied with the order. But now she understood the extent of her abilities. And she no longer cared about losing control. The only thing that mattered was getting Nicole to the team.
Alex shut her eyes and stepped forward.
The first gunshot sounded from her right. The darkness dissolved as time came to a near-halt. The muzzle flash, a burst of yellow and white fire, expanded from the barrel of an M4. The bullet was halfway between her and the shooter. The round spun through the air on a path that would bring it straight into her neck. She focused in closer and examined the projectile. The round was conical at the front and tapered down toward the rear. It was dark bronze with spiral grooves across its surface. Suddenly, the round flattened into the shape of a coin. The bullet’s momentum struggled to carry it forward. Then the pressure went away and the round fell to the pavement.
The rest of the soldiers opened fire.
Alex tracked each projectile, felt the bullets cutting through the air, felt them slam against her invisible wall. A cacophony of muzzle blasts and shouting and cursing. Men yelling to stop her from escaping. Nothing mattered. A cylindrical 40mm grenade exploded a few meters away. The heat and flash of light registered as mild annoyances while the flames and smoke reflected around her to form a fiery bubble.
The cordon broke as the NEA soldiers began to flee. A few of them continued shooting, expending magazine after magazine in her direction. She ignored them and walked along the road. A pair of Humvees blocked the two lanes. The gunners in the turrets opened fire but then both Humvees blew aside and flew into the surrounding buildings. One of the vehicles exploded on impact and set off a container of explosive rounds. The chain of detonations overpowered everything else as a meteoric rain of debris hurtled across the area.
They can’t hurt you. There’s nothing they can do to stop you. You could level this entire base and all they could do is watch. She could stop right here, turn around, and annihilate the entirety of the NEA’s force at Fort Riley. That hunger she recognized from Kansas City had begun to assert itself over her other desires. If she returned to the headquarters building, she could find Webb and obliterate him and every other soldier who stood in her path. Except she couldn’t turn back; the weight in her arms reminded her of that much. Unless she hurried to the team, Nicole would die. She set off at a jog, fleeing the broken cordon.
At the edge of the installation, fire and smoke rose from the ruins of the makeshift prison camp. She heard a pulsing thrum and a roaring chatter like a revving engine from somewhere in the darkness above. NEA soldiers scrambled about the area, some shooting into the air while others aimed toward the team’s building. An NEA Humvee exploded into an orange plume that mushroomed into the sky. Burning tracers slammed into the pavement, kicking up dust and spraying chips of concrete across the lot.
Alex looked up and saw a V-22 Osprey strafing the NEA positions. The chain gun beneath the aircraft’s nose spat fire, illuminating its lower hull with each muzzle blast. The underbelly and nacelles glowed from the flames below while the rotors themselves were invisible against the night sky.
Alex ran through the destruction and approached the team’s concrete building. Half the structure had collapsed. Bullet holes peppered the walls. A flash and a gunshot came from one of the broken windows, followed a second later by a longer burst. One of the Directorate soldiers was holding an M16 and aiming out at the lot. He noticed her and pointed the rifle in her direction. Without hesitating, she ripped the weapon from his hands. Another explosion sounded behind her. She felt the heat on the back of her neck and the force of the shockwave, which ruffled her blood-soaked uniform.
“Alex!” Wilson vaulted over one of the building’s demolished walls and ran toward her. When he reached her side, he took her by the shoulder. They jogged back to what had once been a doorway but was now a gaping hole. He tried to take Nicole but Alex jerked away, tightening her grip on her friend.
“Hey,” Wilson said gently. “It’s all right.”
Alex forced herself to calm down, take a deep breath, and release the tension and anger. She looked at Nicole before handing her to Wilson. He took her and set her gently on the ground.
“What the hell happened? Did you find Captain Shepherd?”
Alex shook her head. The building was dark. Spent shell casings and broken concrete littered the floor. Two bodies lay in one corner of the room, neither of them her teammates.
“Norm!” Sergeant Atkins shouted as he wove his way through the wreckage. He held Nicole’s satellite phone in one hand and an M16 in the other. Wilson did not look up, already busy examining Nicole’s wound. Atkins stopped when he saw Alex. “Jesus.”
Blood covered the front of Alex’s uniform, her sleeves, and her hands. She sat and stared at her palms. Her hands were shaking. Atkins knelt beside her. “Are you hurt?” Alex again shook her head. She wanted to block everything out, the shouting, the gunfire and explosions and roar of the Osprey outside, the feeling of the blood and sweat on her body, and the sight of Nicole bleeding on the ground.
“We’ve got an all clear from the bird,” Atkins said, glancing between Wilson and Alex. He paused when neither of them replied. He raised his voice. “We’ve got a Black Hawk circling up there. It’s going to land and pick us up. They said they’re not staying on the ground for more than thirty seconds.”
“Tell them to hurry,” Wilson said without looking up from Nicole. “Go tell Pops.”
Atkins put his hand on Alex’s shoulder, gave her a reassuring squeeze, and then he stood and hurried off.
“This is bad,” Wilson said. “What happened?”
“Knife. Webb. He was there. I think Nicole killed him, but…”
“Look, I… There’s not much I can do. We don’t have any medical supplies. The bird might have something, but not enough.”
“Don’t let her die. Please.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Everyone bring it in!” Murray’s bellowing voice overrode everything else. He moved with Atkins toward the center of the building. “We’re getting the hell out of here! Get everyone and let’s move. We’re not leaving anyone behind!”
Jarden appeared from the shadows and picked up one of the bodies. The young lieutenant she had seen earlier retrieved the second corpse. Murray came over to Wilson and Alex. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“We need to go. Can you stand?” He offered his hand. Alex stared at it for a long moment. Then she took it and got to her feet.
Wilson picked up Nicole. He had ripped away some of his own uniform and used it to reinforce the bandage. The men gathered around Murray. He glanced out the nearest window. “Black Hawk’s landing in thirty seconds. Once it’s down, get in, strap up, and we’re out of here.”
The pulse of the Black Hawk’s twin engines mixed with the roar from the Osprey’s turbines. Murray gestured out the building’s exit, and the men ran one-by-one toward the landing zone. Alex followed Wilson, who held Nicole in his arms. As soon as the Black Hawk landed, Alex and the men loaded into the cabin. Murray slammed the door shut, and the helicopter lifted from the ground. Bullets stitched through the hull, snapped through the cabin, and shattered the window on the other side, somehow missing the tightly clustered group of survivors.
The Black Hawk ascended and then sped north before banking toward the west. The Osprey trailed behind, slightly higher and to the right. Alex looked at Wilson who held Nicole steady on the cabin floor. His expression was grim.
She stared at her hands and then closed her eyes. She half expected to see a face: Shepherd, left behind or already imprisoned far away; Nicole, battered and dying; her father; her mother; or even Webb. But nothing came in the darkness.
Alex began to cry.