A/N: Since we'll be seeing things during the Age of Strife on Terra. Here are a few terms and technologies that might need to be clarified beforehand. This interlude is essentially an Imperial Guard-esque story where we see the horrors of the Warp from the ground level.
A/N2: Thank you Skyborne for reading through this chapter.
Xozer Patrol Suits: These are heavily padded atmospherically sealed NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) suits. You can use a Tempestus Scion Carapace Armour as a reference for your imagination. The outer padding is laced with lead fibers, and serves as protection from radiation and insulation against heat. Underneath this padding layer is an airtight slip layer that isolates the outer padding from the inner skin layer, as well as reduces friction between the two layers. This dual layer design keeps the potentially contaminated outer padding from the inner water recycling systems. Water is taken from the wearer's sweat and other excreta, and filtered before being deposited in a water bladder situated around the back of the waist. This suit is also equipped with a disposable grappling hook on the left arm that is used to abseil down tall objects. The cable is composed of liquid resin that hardens as it is ejected from spinnerets on the user's wrist. These spinnerets weave the liquid resin into strong wires, similar to how spiders weave their webs. This cable can extend for several dozen meters before the tension begins to tear it. The user will have to either drop the rest of the way, or re-attach to a surface with a new hook and create a new strand to continue dropping down.
Cherenkov radiation: It's the reason for the blue color you see when a nuclear reactor is on. You can wiki the physics yourself.
Cauliflower ears: A deformity of the ear cartilage and skin that happens from repeated physical abuse of the ears. This usually happens when someone gets punched in the head a lot, and is a sure sign that whoever has these ears is used to regular violence.
CQB: Short for Close Quarter Battle. AKA CQC (Close Quarter Combat) Military acronym for situations where both melee and ranged combat are expected in close quarters situations.
302: HTTP status code for a temporary redirect to another server. 302 usually occurs when websites are taken down for maintenance, content updates, or redirection to a region-specific version of a site. In the situation it is being used in the story, this is a response coming from a gateway to the city network. (This is just a reference. I'm not actually seriously stating that HTTP will somehow survive almost 15 thousand years into the future.)
Xozer Squad Level Military Organization:
Point Man: A position in formations taken by the best marksman in the squad. The necessity for spotting things from far away, and making split-second decisions that can impact the entire squad makes many who fulfill this position tightly wound and at times overly aggressive.
Rifle Man 1 and 2: The nomenclature remains from when soldiers still used rifled weapons. The usage of Volkite Calivers makes these soldiers sniper, rifleman, and squad automatic support. These soldiers have yet to gain a full aptitude and psyche eval to be deployed in more specialized roles.
Grenadier: These soldiers carry an extra grenade launcher with their gear. Their job is suppressing targets behind cover, and general crowd control. They also often serve as a dual purpose mechanic and demolitions specialist.
Medic: The second most important member of the squad. In addition to first aid and triage, they carry several injectors full of stem-cells with them. These stem-cells that can be primed with a built in chemical concoctions to replace almost any cell in the body. Medical knowledge is needed to identify what tissues have been damaged within the patient, how to prime the stem cells, and how to inject them into the body to get them to the point of injury ASAP. They also serve as the second in command, taking charge when the Squad leader falls. The requirement to remain calm under stress has many of them operating almost mechanically.
Squad leader: The squad leader's duty is to make tactical decisions for the squad, although strategic ones may be made if central control is lost. They are also trained to look after the squad's mental health, and ensure unit cohesion remains.
Tolu Abdullahi shouldered his Volkite Caliver and fired downwards from the 6th wall. The shields had suddenly given out, and the Urshite berserkers were already crawling out of the cracks of the 7th wall like termites.
'And just after I got rotated from the 1st to the 6th wall.' He cursed to himself as he fired.
"Squad! Focus targets. Don't spread your fire!" He called out to the 5 others assigned to this section of wall.
"They just keep coming, Sergeant!" Mandla, the man to his right yelped.
"Oh grow a pair Mandla! At least they aren't shooting back at us!" Fatima, one of the two women assigned to Tolu's squad, shouted back.
"Shut up! Keep firing!" Tolu silenced the both of them before tapping the side of his helmet to activate the short wave communicator in his helmet. "Control! ETA on the laser recharge!"
"Hol- … po-... contact… in-de… city trans-. Tac-... co-..."
"Fuck!" Tolu swore as nothing but jumbled garbage came back.
"Whadda we do Sergeant?" Kamau called out in his deep voice as he fired with the rest of them, cutting through the armor of a berserker and blowing up several of its armored fellows with the explosion.
'What do we do?' Tolu thought to himself as he switched targets with the rest of the squad.
"Sergeant!" Kwame, the man on the furthest left part of the line formation Tolu and his squad were in, called out. "Contact on the walls! three o'clock!"
"Shit!" Tolu yelled, and he turned to his left. He and his squad were positioned on the south eastern part of the 6th wall. If enemies were coming from the east, it meant that their defensive positions had been breached, and their enemies were on the wall as well.
Tolu's reinforced eyes scanned down the line, and caught sight of several armored soldiers on six-legged steeds trampling his fellow snipers in the distance.
"Squad! Get off the walls!" Tolu ordered.
"Sergeant?!" Mandla yelled. Their last orders had been to hold their positions for as long as possible. Falling back without orders was a guaranteed court martial.
"Just do it!" Tolu yelled as he pressed a switch on the left sleeve of his patrol suit. A small disposable grappling hook popped out of the wrist, and he shot it into the city-side lip of the defensive wall.
The wall was too narrow to fight armored cavalry. Only two or three snipers could fire side by side for a shot. More might be able to shoot if they could stagger the line by having the front snipers kneeling, but with so many other squads in the way it was all only theoretically possible. What was worse, with control being unresponsive, even if they did manage to stop the cavalry charge, the damage was done. That section of wall was now defenseless, devoid of their snipers. More Urshite soldiers would appear, and they no longer had the numbers to keep them at bay.
Tolu checked that the rest of his squad had shot their grappling hooks into the wall, then made a cutting motion with his hand.
"Drop!" He ordered, and all six of them began to abseil down the wall. Reinforced struts in the left sleeve and shoulder padding of their patrol suits held their weight, allowing them to travel down with only one arm. After a couple dozen meters, the wires released from their wrists began to groan, and they paused to prepare another grappling hook. They fired it into the wall before them, made sure the new cable was taught, then cut the older straining cable to continue abseiling down.
"Sound off!" Tolu ordered once they reached the ground, cutting the latest wire and loading a new hook into the mechanism.
"Chiamaka, medic here."
"Fatima, pointman here."
"Mandla, RM (Rifle Man) one here."
"Kwame, RM two here."
"Kamau, grenadier here."
Tolu nodded. "We've lost all comms with control, and the 6th wall has most likely been breached. All the other walls no longer serve as defensive weapons, so we'll be stuck fighting in the city."
Fatima and Mandla swore at that. The inner parts of Xozer were heavily urbanized. Twisting alleys and maze-like roads would obstruct their shots. It took time to drill through the Urshite Wrathskin. Without enough distance, the berserkers and other Urshite soldiers could close upon them before their Volkite weapons could detonate them.
"Do you have a plan, Sergeant?" Chiamaka asked calmly.
Tolu remained silent for a while before looking up. He could see bodies and body parts of fellow snipers falling from the walls.
"Xozer is lost." Tolu said.
Kamau let out a tired sigh as Kwame simply shook his head. Meanwhile, Fatima scowled and Mandla shivered while Chiamaka stared at Tolu, waiting for him to continue. They all had a bad feeling ever since the battle started. When the first mushroom clouds rose, the feeling only grew worse. Now, their Sergeant merely voiced what they all thought.
"I'm not fucking surrending." Fatima growled. "You know what they'll do to us."
"We're not surrendering." Tolu nodded. "But we can't leave while the city is surrounded."
Fatima swore again, kicking a nearby garbage can hard enough to dent it.
"Then what should we do?" Chiamaka asked. Her eyes were as cool and calm as her voice. Combat medics such as her were usually like this.
Distant to the point of being aloof, they were almost mechanically professional when on the job. Tolu didn't know whether it was due to their original temperament or their training, but he was thankful for it nonetheless. That was one less person he had to worry about losing it.
"We hole up somewhere in the city." Tolu said. "The inner parts of the city are denser than the outer ones. They won't be able to search every building, even with their numbers. Once most of their forces have moved past our position to attack the inner parts of the city, we run for it."
"Run where, Sergeant?" Mandla moaned. "There's only desert out there."
"Whadd'about the Europa-side garrison forts?" Kamau said quietly. "They're to the North of here. They should still be standing."
"Nah, that place is a death trap." Kwame quipped. "If the Urshites keep invading, we'll be pinned between them and the Mid-Terranean basin. I've been there on patrol once. Whatever's in that basin eats through everything. Even its fumes are enough to take out low altitude flyers. We'll have nowhere to run, with even less defenses. We should head over to the Atlan wastes. I've heard some of the black market traders from the Mericas know a way across it."
"And where the hell are we gonna find one of these traders?" Fatima snapped sarcastically. "Most of 'em up and left days ago when Ursh started their invasion."
"Cool it people." Tolu said. "We'll think about where to go once we've left the city. For now, we need to find a place to hide."
"Whadd'about the city transport hub?" Kamau suggested. "The rails bridges are higher up than the walls, so they won't be able to see us from above or below. With all them trains docked at the stations and the garages, we'll have clear firing lines to shoot down if we set up in between them stations."
"Yeah, and we can raid the maintenance lodges near there." Kwame said, nodding to himself. "The crews usually have snacks and ration bars for the mid-night shifts. Joined them once during a night patrol of the city for a drink. Might still have that bottle of Amsec there as well."
"Is alcohol the only thing you think of?" Fatima sighed.
"They don't call it the water of life for nothing." Kwame shrugged back.
"Alright… Squad!" Tolu said firmly, and the other 5 soldiers straightened up. The banter was over, and they were about to receive their orders. "We're moving to the south-east transport hub station. Once we're there; we'll move to the maintenance lodge outside the station, collect supplies, then set-up a lookout in between the stations. Now, let's move it people! I want a patrol formation. It'll take a while for those armored assholes to finish climbing the walls, but they'll outrun us once they do. If the East-side wall has fallen, they might already be in the city. Keep your eyes and ears open."
The rest of the squad nodded, and they began to head into the alleyways of the city. They traveled in a staggered line formation, jogging quickly to save their stamina while maintaining speed. Fatima was first in line with Mandla right behind her. Tolu was next, with the squad's medic Chiamaka close behind. Kwame and Kamau took up the rear.
They passed through the first few streets without incident. However, as they proceeded further into the city, the quietness began to set off their instinctual alarm bells.
"Where are the refugees?" Fatima muttered. "They were packed in here like canned meat."
"Can't hear them either." Mandla whispered. "If they broke into one of the hab-towers, we should hear the fighting."
"Alright people, keep an eye out for an ambush, but stay moving." Tolu ordered. "Kamau, prep a smoke. Anyone comes up behind us, blind'em."
"Aye Sergeant." Kamau replied, slinging his Volkite Caliver over his back, and switching to a pump-action grenade launcher.
After several minutes, the squad made it to one of several sets of dual-helical staircases. One was for going up, while the other was for only going down. Both had signs of being used.
"You think the refugees left these?" Mandla asked as they climbed up the stairs. There was a small mound of broken suitcases and crushed bags around the staircase itself. It looked like they had been all dumped here from a great height, splattering them like rotten fruit on the pavement.
"Someone must have gotten the same idea as Kamau." Kwame replied.
"At least we know anyone at ground level won't see or hear us." Chiamaka said. The stairs and streets were quiet, and the railway bridges showed no sign of occupation. If it weren't for the belongings strewn around the stairwell one would have assumed this place to be abandoned.
The south-east transport hub station was a massive building. Dozens of trains could be docked at its multiple platforms, with room to spare for food courts and other amenities. However, Tolu and his squad tensed the moment they entered it. The entire building was both dark and deathly quiet.
"Squad, pushing-wedge formation." Tolu ordered, and Kwame moved up to join Mandla so they could cover Fatima's flanks, allowing her to focus on the front. Kamau moved up closer to Tolu and Chiamaka, preparing to suppress any targets that came from behind them with his gas grenades.
The group was silent as they moved past the trains, and headed to the unoccupied tracks. The torn remains of clothes and shiny sheen of spilt body fluids could be seen reflecting the dim-light of the station.
There was a rattle from one of the stalls, then the skittering of something hard and pointy on the polished floors.
"Ignore it." Tolu whispered as Mandla jumped and began to turn behind them; following the direction of the noise. "Keep moving forward. Get to the maintenance lodge."
Mandla obeyed silently, letting his training take over and suppressing the panicky emotions that had begun to bubble up. They could all feel the clammy touch of something staring at them from the shadows. The feeling reminded them of their patrols in the wastes outside Xozer, where the cannibalistic Technobarbarians roamed. Those men and women had no means of producing their own food and water, so they took their sustenance from the bodies and belongings of other humans. The same hungry eyes could be felt, wandering over their bodies as slick tongues wetted thick lips that smacked together with expectation.
Suddenly, Fatima raised her left fist by her head, making the sign for an immediate stop. "Shadow, 200 m ahead."
"Squad, box around point." Tolu ordered, and the other members took positions around Fatima, keeping a lookout around her as Tolu moved up beside her.
"What is it?" He whispered to Fatima.
"I don't know." She whispered back. "Between 30 to 40 cm tall, but can't get a good look. It's squatting on the floor behind that chair. Might be a child."
"A child?" Tolu asked back. "In all of this?"
The missing refugees, the torn clothes, and the spilt blood made that possibility unlikely. Whatever happened here had not been peaceful. There were too many signs of violence to believe that a defenseless child had somehow survived all of it.
"Your call to make, Sergeant." Fatima replied. "Do I take the shot?"
"No." Tolu shook his head. "The Volkite flash will dull our eyes in this darkness. Get back in formation. Let's mo-"
There was the screech of chair legs on smooth tiles as the shadow that had been squatting behind the chair pushed it out of the way. Hard claws clacked against the floor, and a sickly green ball waddled its way into view. It was a lumpy thing, like a sack of potatoes that had grown twig like arms and fat toddler legs. A pair of horns jutted out of the top of its squashed head with no neck. Sickly yellow eyes leered at them above a mouth fixed in a gaping grin, showing the cracked and rotting teeth inside.
Neither the creature nor Tolu moved for a few moments. He was frozen, unable to understand how something so obviously dead and rotten could still be moving. He could see maggots and worms crawling under and over its skin. He saw holes revealing intestines that had been randomly crammed inside its body like cotton in a stuffed animal.
"Sergeant." Chiamaka nudged him, rousing him from his shock. "We have movement."
Tolu shook his head, clearing it of the creature's nauseating image. He looked around, and saw Fatima and Mandla were still frozen still, forced to stare at the misshapen ball of rotten meat and maggots. Kwame, Kamau, and Chiamaka had avoided seeing the creature, having been looking away from it when they took up the box formation. He shook Fatima out of her stupor by the shoulder, while kicking Mandla's leg.
"Move!" He ordered. "Get to the tracks! Get out of the station!"
He could now hear the click clack of claws on tiles, and the rattling of steel girders as unseen things ran amongst the supports near the ceiling. They were being surrounded on all sides. He shot a look at the creature that had appeared before them, only to see it lick its lips hungrily.
As they ran past the train, the doors to each car opened in sequence. More of the things flooded out behind them, quickly obscuring the floor with their mass.
There was a thwump from behind him, and some of the creatures splattered apart as a gas grenade went through them. Kamau pumped the slide of his grenade launcher, shoving another grenade into the barrel and fired again. Blinding gas began to fill up behind them, obscuring the mass of ball-like creatures.
However, Kamau grimaced as the creatures crawled after them, eyes wide open and mouths even wider.
"Gas won't slow 'em down Sergeant!" Kamau yelled as he switched back to his Volkite Caliver.
Tolu looked behind him again and swore. The things were surprisingly fast, rolling and bouncing over each other to gain speed. They were beginning to overtake them on their flanks, surrounding them on both sides.
"Fatima, Kwame! Go ahead to the maintenance lodge!" Tolu ordered as they jumped off the platform and onto the tracks. "Kamau, Chiamaka! Go with them and cover their backs! Mandla! You're with me! Buy them the time they need to get the lodge open!"
All 5 soldiers followed his orders, and 4 of them ran ahead as Mandla and Tolu turned back.
"Suppress the right flank! I'll take the left! Ignore the center until I say so!"
The two men fired in opposite directions, creating a series of explosions that tore up the station floor as the creatures exploded like grenades, wiping out several dozens of their sibling creatures. Tables, chairs, stalls, and carts were thrown back or into the air with the explosions. Yet, more balls of rotten meat rolled over the rubble and flames to replace them.
A ruptured gas tank from a food stall caught fire, then exploded, spreading orange flames across one of the train platforms. With the new light, Tolu saw what happened to the refugees. Bodies were piled up inside the trains, thrown on top of each other like bags of grain in a larder. Bits and pieces of them were carried by the creatures.
A hand there, a fistful of liver there, a length of intestine strung up like a jump rope between three. They waved their gruesome trophies in the air, taunting the both of them; as if to underline what exactly the creatures would do to them once they were caught.
"They're too many of them!" Mandla shrieked.
Tolu turned in his direction, and saw something strange happening with Mandla's targets.
The yellow-ish orange beams of his Volkite Caliver were not detonating the creatures on contact like Tolu's. Instead, it had to drill into them for a bit as if their skin was covered in armor. Bit by bit they were pushing Mandla back, overwhelming him.
A jolt of panic passed through Tolu as he turned back to his own flank, and found his own weapon decreasing in efficiency. Before, the creatures vaporized like drops of water on a heated metal pan. Now, he too had to hold the beam on target for an extra second to detonate them, allowing the creatures to close the distance.
"Mandla, fall back!" Tolu shouted as he tore open a flap on the back waist portion of his patrol suit, revealing a large bladder of water that was linked to the suit's recycling system.
Mandla took one look at what his Sergeant was doing, and ran as fast he could out of the station.
Tolu fired into the swarms approaching him as he counted to ten. Hopefully that was enough time for Mandla to get out of the station. The blast should dissipate quickly once out in the open.
As thousands of clawed hands reached for him, Tolu exhaled as hard as he could and loosened his jaw. Then he tore the bladder from the tubes attaching it to his suit, and threw it over the creatures. His genetically enhanced eyes sighted the bladder, then he jumped backwards as he fired.
The bladder detonated like a bomb upon contact with the Volkite beam. Superheated steam sterilized the station, boiling away most of the small creatures in front of Tolu, and scattering the swarms behind them with the shockwave. The ceiling supports and steel girders buckled, then the front half of the station collapsed, burying the tram exit under rubble.
Tolu flew backwards like a bullet from a gun, and skidded along the bridge like a skipping stone before rolling to a stop. He coughed and choked as blood came up out of his lungs; bruised by barotrauma. Then he almost vomited. The blast had torn open one of his air seals, and he could now smell the stench of rot and decay in the air around them.
"Sergeant!" Someone shouted, and he felt hands slip under his arms.
"Get his feet! Carry him gently!" Tolu's blurry vision looked up to see Kamau carrying his top-half while Mandla took the bottom. Chiamaka was issuing orders as Fatima and Kwame kept a lookout.
Relief washed over him, and he let go of his consciousness.
Tolu woke up about a half-hour later. He had been stripped of his patrol suit and laid down on a table that smelled of cleaning alcohol. There were several terminals and binders thrown on the floor, suggesting this was the administrative office of the maintenance lodge. The make-shift operating table he was on was made by pushing several office desks together.
Chiamaka had treated his internal wounds with a stem-cell cocktail primed to replace the damaged tissue in his lungs and throat. The injection went into a vein in his left arm to ensure the cells would be taken to where they were needed as quickly as possible.
"You should be able to move now." The medic said after she was done inspecting his throat, ears, and nose. "The barotrauma you suffered from that explosion thankfully didn't blow out your eardrums. However, expect chest discomfort, shortness of breath, and mild tinnitus for at least two weeks. Of course, the bruising is going to hurt for a while as well." She pulled out a handheld injector from her medical pouch and swiftly inserted the needle into his upper arm. "This should manage the pain temporarily." She said as she pulled out the injector and detached the disposable needle.
"Thanks Chiamaka." He replied as he got off the sterilized table.
"You're welcome." She replied, packing up her medical equipment. "Fatima and Mandla are keeping watch outside. Kwame's collecting supplies and Kamau's fixing your suit's water recycler. Give them a word once you're ready."
"Sure." Tolu nodded as he stretched his limbs, testing their mobility.
"What do we do now?" Chiamaka asked. There was a slight quiver in her voice, a crack in the professional armor showing the tinge of fear beneath as the clink of injectors going into pouches and zippers being shut came from her hands.
"What do you mean?" Tolu asked back.
"Those… creatures in the station. What do you think they were?"
"I don't know."
"Do you think they are some new Urshite gene-weapon?"
"No." Tolu shook his head. "The transport hub-station was behind us, and those things had enough time to butcher those people before we got there. Whatever they were, they came from inside the city."
Chiamaka's hands stopped, as the buzzing fluorescent lights illuminated the partially packed medical pouch.
"What do you think that means?" She whispered.
Tolu closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know. But, it doesn't matter. The plan doesn't change. We're getting out of here."
"Are you not worried about what this implies?" Chiamaka asked as she turned towards him.
The failure of the shields. The sudden appearance of the creatures from within the city. Both were too sudden to be coincidence. Something more sinister had shown its face here, shuffling out of the shadows of Xozer to snatch at their souls. They could hear the voices of the hierophants whenever the images of the things appeared in their minds. The droning voices of the tri-hourly sermons rang in their ears, while the laughing faces of the rotten balls of gangrenous skin stuffed with haphazard gizzards danced under their eyelids.
"I am. But, now isn't the time to think about it."
The dying city that they had decided to abandon might be trying to take them with it, but that didn't change what they were going to do. Tolu wasn't going to die here in this godless place.
This was no holy city. It was no different than the ruins that lay half-buried in the desert sands far out in the radioactive wastes, in nature as well as fate. After everything was over, all that would remain would be another blackened and melted ruin buried by sand. Once again, humanity tore at itself, reducing it and all it had created to nothing.
"I wish I could be as single-minded as you are." Chiamaka said softly as her hands resumed packing the medical pouch.
Tolu paused for a moment.
'Single minded…' he thought to himself. 'I just don't want to die.' He turned to Chiamaka. Her brown hair was in a tight bun revealing a teardrop shaped face. Her features were soft and her cheeks smooth. Only her helmet was removed, but he knew the shape of the soft body underneath the thick protective patrol suit and its lead laced fibers.
Tolu shook his head. 'I don't want to see anyone else die either.'
"We'll get through this." He said softly to Chiamaka, then he changed his tone to the harsher military one reserved for giving orders. "Once you're packed, get Kwame for me. Tell him we move in 5."
"Yes Sergeant." Chiamaka nodded as the mechanical professionalism provided by her training hardened her features and optimized her movements.
Tolu headed into the back of the maintenance lodge, passing through the door that separated the office area from the workshop in the back. Kamau was bent over Tolu's patrol suit with a small annealing tool, closing the broken air seals with melted filaments of resin.
"Sergeant!" Kamau laughed as he saw Tolu come in. "Good'ta see you back on your feet. Gave us all a scare when you blew up the station."
"Glad to see you're in good spirits." Tolu muttered, then changed the subject. "How's my suit?"
"Fixed as much as it can be." Kamau shrugged. "I got the water recycling fixed, but the protective plates in your chest and back are cracked."
"So it won't stop as many bullets or blades as before." Tolu sighed. "Anything else I should know?"
"There's this air seal, but if it holds, you have nothing else to worry about." Kamau said as he put down the annealing tool and sealed the suit helmet on. An air tube ran out of the back of the helmet to a pump, and there was a whine as it began to fill the suit with air. The suit inflated like a balloon in a few seconds. Kamau then shut off the pump and then pulled out a massive drain pan filled with water from under the workbench. He submerged the entire suit, and the two of them stared at the pan for a few moments.
"Good." Kamau nodded to himself as no bubbles rose from the suit. "All better. You wanna put it on?"
"Yeah." Tolu nodded. "Help me in."
"Aye, Sergeant." Kamau nodded back.
"Thanks Kamau." Tolu said as he took his helmet from the larger man. "You ready to move?"
"Yah. Any time Sergeant." Kamau nodded, picking up his grenade launcher and Volkite Caliver from a shelf in the workshop. "Can't take any of the stuff from this workshop. All built into the building." He gestured to the various appliances he had been using earlier. Everything was connected to the wall via tubes or cables.
"Alright. Let's get back to Kwame and get ready to move." Tolu said as he put his helmet on. "I'm not too comfortable staying so close to where those things are."
"You think there're still some left?" Kamau said as he put his own helmet on.
Tolu paused for a moment. He knew there were more of the rotten creatures. The explosion hadn't killed them all. Most of them had simply been knocked back by the shockwave.
"... Better safe than sorry." Tolu said instead. "Now come on. Let's go."
"Aye, Sergeant."
Tolu's mind replayed the events in the station as he and Kamau walked out of the workshop and into the empty office space. The things started to become resistant to his Volkite beams the moment he noticed them resisting Mandla's. It was as if the very idea that their weapons wouldn't work against the creatures had infected him, passed along with the panic he felt from Mandla.
Logic told him such an idea was insane. But, logic didn't allow for things made of rotten skin and mashed up guts to move.
If his theory was correct, then it would be safer to say as little as possible of things. The less the others knew of what the things could or couldn't do, the better. That way, their weapons should work as well as they expect.
That was, if Mandla had kept his mouth shut.
Tolu bit back the tinge of irritation he felt to the youngest member of their squad. Then shook his head.
There was no point trying to fight those things anyway. There were too many to kill. It would be better to run away when possible.
The two men entered the kitchenette of the maintenance lodge, and saw 6 bags of various make stuffed with food and water. A couple rolled up magazines could also be seen shoved in between the straps. Chiamaka was standing by the far wall with her arms crossed while Kwame was tightening the straps on a backpack.
"Good news." Kwame said as he gave one final tug. "Someone here was gonna have a late night birthday party, so the entire place was stocked with snacks and other bites. Even found a bottle of Amasec." He tapped a glass bottle strapped to the side of the backpack. A birthday card was still tied to it with a ribbon.
"Kwame…" Tolu grimmaced.
"What?" Kwame shrugged. "It's not like they're going to come back for it."
Tolu sighed in response and grabbed two of the bags. "Kamau. Grab a bag for Fatima or Mandla. Let's go."
Kamau grabbed two bags with a frown. The petty thievery of a gift didn't sit right with him either. However, desertion carried a heavier penalty than minor looting.
Kwame shrugged and shouldered the backpack with the Amasec, then picked up a shoulder bag and handed it to Chiamaka. The medic also gave him a look through narrowed eyes before taking the bag.
Tolu pushed upon the door of the maintenance lodge. They were several hundred meters away from the collapsed end of the station. Fatima and Mandla were keeping watch in opposite directions.
The rail bridge they were on was wide enough to allow several pairs of tracks, and stretched off into the distance all the way to the center of Xozer. It was an open field with clear lines of sight in almost all directions. The only thing obstructing their view were the gray walls made of concrete, metal, and resin that bordered it on either side like guardrails.
"Fatima. Mandla. See anything?" Tolu asked as he handed one of the bags to Fatima.
"No Sergeant." Fatima reported, shouldering the bag. She then leaned in towards him, turning off her short range communicator and speaking to him by pressing her helmet against his so the vibrations could pass between their face plates. "Mandla's been awfully quiet ever since the station. Hasn't said anything actually."
"I'll talk to him." Tolu said quietly, then pulled away.
Mandla was taking a bag from Kamau, and the others were walking out of the maintenance lodge.
"Squad!" Tolu shouted and they stood to attention. "We are leaving the maintenance lodge and finding a place out on the bridges where we can secure clear lines of fire, while remaining hidden as possible. We also have some sort of hostiles inside the city as well, so keep your eyes wide. I want a herringbone formation. Fatima, Kwame. You two are in the front. Mandla, Chiamaka, I want you two in the middle. Mandla and I will take the rear."
Everyone in the squad saluted, and moved to their positions.
As they were walking down the tracks, Tolu opened a private channel with Mandla.
"You alright Mandla?" He said as he slowed his pace so the two of them marched side by side.
"It's… nothing." Mandla replied.
Tolu sighed internally. Mandla was the youngest of the squad, and the most cowardly. Ironic, given that 'mandla' meant 'strength' in one of the ancient Nord Afrik dialects. Perhaps that juxtaposition of his name and his nature further complicated the issue.
But, he was still part of Tolu's squad.
"Alright then." The sergeant said. "Then I'm just going to shoot the breeze here so feel free to jump in whenever you want." Tolu looked around to make sure everything was clear around them, then started talking. "I gave you an order and you followed that order to the letter. You did what you were supposed to do. That's all I can ask anyone in my squad. If you feel guilty for feeling relieved when I ordered you to run, then don't. Anyone would be scared from all of that."
"But you weren't, Sergeant." Mandla said suddenly. "You stood your ground, and even blew yourself up."
"Well, don't do what I did." Tolu huffed. "I don't recommend it. I've got weeks of chest pains and bruises to look forward to."
"But you still stood your ground. Why?"
'Why?' Tolu thought to himself. 'I'd like someone else to explain that to me…'
He himself hadn't had time to come to terms with what had just happened. In that adrenaline fuelled moment, he simply ordered and acted with his training and instincts. Now, without the overriding rush of his survival instincts, he could feel the clammy touch of fear creeping out of his memories and chilling his skin.
"I don't know." Tolu admitted. "I don't know why I did that, or even whether I'd be able to do the same thing again. But…" Tolu stepped towards Mandla and punched him lightly on the arm. "Don't go being a hero. That's the last thing I need. You're part of my squad, and if you get stuck somewhere trying to make-up for this, it becomes my job to pull you out. Okay? I'm the sergeant here. There's a reason I get paid more than you guys."
The two men let out a light laugh. The difference in their salaries wasn't that big, and it was a moot point anyway. With Xozer fallen and them having deserted their posts, the chances of them getting any pay at all was reduced to 0 twice. The joke wasn't really funny, so it was more an acknowledgement that humor had been displayed. Still, the sound seemed to lift the mood around them.
Then there was an explosion in the distance. Bluish-purple light began to rise from a section of the city several kilometers away.
"Dirty atomics." Tolu muttered, then switched to the squad wide channel. "Alright people, we're going into a high-rad zone from here on. Helmets on at all times, and take deep slow breaths to make your air last longer!"
"Patrol suits won't save us if we run near that, Sergeant." Kamau said. "Fallout dust could build up in random places. We need a Geiger-counter to navigate safely from here."
"Nearest one is probably the req-hall." Kwame replied. "We'll have to get off the bridge, but this place is a dead end now. Fallout will probably reach us in a few minutes. Our air will probably last us another couple hours, but we have no idea if the Urshite encirclement will be loose enough to escape through before then."
Tolu's teeth ground together in frustration. They had just been through hell to get up here. Now, they had to go back down into the compacted alleys of the city. They could run into the armored soldiers of Ursh down there, as well as other nightmares like the swarms of creatures in the station. But death approached them from above and below now; in the form of radioactive dust and monsters made of flesh or steel.
"Sergeant!" Fatima suddenly called out from the front. Tolu turned in her direction, just in time to see the massive distillation towers in the center of the city crumble. His gene-sculpted eyes saw rot and rust spread across the building, eating away at them from inside and out. Black clouds began to rise, spewing out of the punctured centrifuge buildings like a fountain of inky tar.
The entire squad was silent as they watched the artifacts that allowed the city to exist collapse. An immense sense of loss shot through them. Xozer had just committed suicide, rather than allow its treasures to be taken by the Urshite invaders. It was an act of spite that left a bitter taste in their mouths. Thousands of years of knowledge, research, and engineering had gone into those artifacts. Now, all that was left of them were rusted ruins and the black cloud rising above them.
Tolu stared up at the cloud, and watched it begin to rain down on the city.
At first it was only a small sound, barely noticeable amongst the cacophony of war. But every hair stood on end when Tolu realized the new sound filling the air.
Screams.
Bloodcurdling screams of uncountable numbers and painful magnitude came from the city. The sound of the unholy choir spilling their lungs out into the air was like the shriek of metal wheels on rails. Tolu's mind conjured up an image of an out of control train skidding to its dooms as its frantic conductor slammed the broken brakes repeatedly.
Tolu ran to the side of the bridge, and looked down at where the cloud had fallen.
"We have to get off the bridge, now!" Tolu shouted. He could see the blackness spreading outwards, revealing itself to be composed of countless insects of all kinds. Locusts, flies, beetles, and moths were descending upon the city. New screams rose wherever they fell.
"Where?" Kamau yelled back. "The station is buried, and we're too high up to jump."
"What about the maintenance lodge?" Mandla said.
"Won't work." Kwame shook his head as he and Fatima joined the others near the side of the bridge. "Building codes require all workshops to be well ventilated. We need someplace that can be sealed airtight."
"Then we need to find a hab tower." Chiamaka said nervously, eyeing the approaching cloud. "The hab towers need to be able to seal themselves whenever the winds blow in from the rad-wastes or the Europa border. Hopefully their air seals can keep those things out."
"Wherever we're going to go, we need to get there fast." Fatima warned. "I give us twenty minutes before that shit's all over us."
"We'll have to use our grappling hooks again." Tolu shouted back. "We'll find the tallest building possible, and drop down over it as far as we can go." He pointed at a pillar shaped like a cylindrical pillar with several boxy structures atop of it. "That one. That's the tallest one closest to us."
"That's still a drop of several meters." Chiamak muttered as she looked down as well.
"It'll have to do. Come on! Let's go!" Tolu yelled as he began to run along the bridge until they were directly above it. "Remember. Slow descent." He said as the rest of the squad followed him. "Go too quickly, and you'll snap the cable. When you hit the ground, drop and roll!"
He turned back to his squad once they were directly over the building.
"Kamau. Ditch the grenade launcher and ammo. It's just extra weight from here. Fatima. Take his pack. You're the lightest and he's the heaviest. Kwame, take his weapon."
The three carried out his orders. Kamau was the largest and heaviest of them. Hene, he was the one who's cable would be strained the most. There was no way to know exactly how far a single cable could sustain any of their weights, but leaving one of their own behind wasn't an option.
'Ironic.' Tolu thought to himself as he fired his grappling hook into the train bridge's wall. 'We abandon the city, yet not each other.' The punishment for desertion, as well as the immorality and dishonor of the act itself was beaten into him as well as every other soldier. Deserters were said to be scum, only out to save their own skin.
'I don't feel a single spec of remorse leaving this city, but not once have I thought of leaving anyone behind.'
This place was a place of lies. Its history was based upon a myth, and the spiritual rot brought on by that fake superiority complex had begun to manifest itself in reality.
Tolu shook his head, and turned to his squad to make sure they too were ready to make the drop. This was not the time to ponder philosophical thoughts. Perhaps the fear was beginning to tire his mind out; disassociating from the things around him and looking within itself.
Tolu shook his head again, bringing himself back to the problem at hand. 'Focus.' He said to himself. He was a more practical man than this.
"Remember! Slow descent! Drop and roll when you hit the ground!" He reminded his squad again.
" "Aye/Yes, Sergeant!" " They all said back as they placed their weapons around their neck and shoulders on slings.
Tolu nodded, then stretched out his left arm to its full length. "Alright! Drop!" He ordered, and they stepped off the bridge. There was a moment of weightlessness. He heard the wind rushing past as he fell below the bridge wall, then his body was snapped back by the cable. He grunted as he felt the supports built into his suit dig into his armpit as all of his weight concentrated there. Seconds passed as they slowly stopped swinging to and fro. Now, they dangled from the bridge like silkworms hanging by a thread.
Slowly, their cables began to lengthen, dropping them downwards towards the cylindrical building. There was a raised metal hatch on the roof, angled diagonally to allow water or dust to fall off of it with gravity. It was about one and a half meters long and maybe 90 cm wide.
The boxy structures on top were bee hives. He could see various planters and plant pots on the balconies of the floors below, and flowering vines were wrapped around the base of the building.
"Shit's getting awful close Sergeant." Fatima called out.
Tolu grimaced. The black cloud was getting closer and closer. He could hear the buzzing of wings and the scritch scratch of hairy insect legs rubbing together.
"We're almost there!" Tolu shouted back. "Keep still and drop slowly!" He wasn't sure whether he was talking to them or reminding himself. The cloud was only a few kilometers away. Focussing his eyes upon it exposed his mind to the mass of insects that formed it, bringing up bile from his guts. Yet, pulling back from it and seeing it as a whole froze his insides. He could see the cloud swallowing entire buildings and engulfing the train bridge like a thick fog. It was as if the blackness of the night sky had come alive, turning into a massive amoeba. Millions of hair-like pseudopodia wrapped around anything it touched, smothering them before digestion.
Tolu's cable began to groan, and he thought he heard the twanging of snapping fibers. Tolu checked the others, and made sure they were at the same elevation as he was.
"Get ready!" Tolu called out, positioning his Volkite Caliver across his stomach with its sling so it would be parallel to the ground.
Tolu tensed as he felt the cable give, then dropped as it snapped. He positioned his feet shoulder width apart and bent his knees as the building roof hurtled towards him. He kicked forward the moment he felt his toes touch the ground, attempting to convert the pull of gravity into a forwards motion. He rolled, then there was a crashing sound. His vision grew bleary; consciousness wavering from the pain of the impact and the shock of slamming into something. He looked around and saw the remains of wood and beeswax around him. His forward roll had sent him into one of the bee hives. He tensed instinctively, preparing to be assaulted by hordes of stinging insects but nothing came. Looking down, he saw all of the occupants of the bee house were dead. Tufts of white fungus grew out of their joints, and small mushrooms were growing out of multiple hexagonal cells.
"Sound off!" Tolu shouted, groggily getting to his feet.
"Medic here." Chiamaka groaned.
"Pointman here." Fatima shouted, unshouldering Kamau's bag of supplies and tossing it to the big man who was nursing a sore shoulder on the floor.
"RM one here." Mandla called out.
"RM two here." Kwame said as he checked his bag for the bottle of Amasec, and nodded to himself seeing it wasn't broken.
"Grenadier here." Kamau muttered, still rubbing his shoulder. "And give me my weapon Kwame." He growled.
Kwame unslung Kamau's Volkite Caliver and handed it to him before offering a hand to help him up.
Tolu let his squad pick themselves off the roof as he jogged over to the hatch. He put in the administrative passcode given to all soldiers, only to have the lock beep angrily at him.
"Shit." He cursed quietly, and held down three numbers simultaneously for a few seconds. A window with lines and lines of numbers popped up with the numbers 302 displayed on the second to last line.
"SHIT!" Tolu swore. "Kwame! Get over here!"
"Problem with the lock?" The man said as he jogged up to the sergeant.
"We've got a 302." Tolu growled as he moved out of the way so Kwame could take a look at the logs on the screen. "Someone redirected the building's networks to a different server."
Kwame took a look and sighed. "Server address looks to be local. It's probably in the building. Someone must have set-up the redirect so the building's system wouldn't re-ping the network when they took it offline."
"Fuck." Fatima swore as the rest of the squad moved in around the hatch. "That means our passcodes won't work."
"For the moment." Kwame nodded. "City network would sniff this sort of trick in a couple hours. Redirects are only used when something has to be taken offline for maintenance. Smugglers like to use this trick to keep people out of their business dealings. Handovers of goods, haggling. Anything they only need a short amount of privacy for."
Tolu looked at the approaching cloud. They had another 10 or so minutes at best. "Any idea how to get through this?" He asked.
Kwame shook his head. "Nothing we can do from here. If command was still up we could have them ping the building. That's assuming it's still physically connected to the city network. If they've cut all physical connections, then you're going to need a battering ram or a blow torch to get in."
Tolu shook his head. "If we cut our way through, we breach the air seals of the building. Plus, if someone disconnected this building from the network, that means there are people still inside."
"We're worrying about the people of the city now?" Kwame snorted.
Tolu was silent for a moment. They were deserters. Whatever responsibility they had to the city was gone the moment they left their post. Everyone in this city might as well be an enemy to them.
He took a look back at the approaching cloud.
"We ring." Tolu said. "If we don't get an answer in 5 minutes we cut open the door."
Kwame stepped out of the way as Tolu pressed the digital buzzer button on the keypad.
Seconds passed, and the buzzing sound of insects grew ever louder. The squad pointed their weapons at the door, preparing to cut their way through the metal and glass.
"Who are you?!" A male voice suddenly blared out from the speakers.
"We're part of the Xozer defense force." Tolu replied. "Open the hatch."
"The defense force? What in the world are you doing up there?"
"Listen, we don't have time to chit chat here!" Tolu yelled back. "There are hostiles closing in. Now open the hatch!"
"Hostiles? Why do you think that hatch was locked in the first place! Find somewhere else to take your problems. We've got hostiles of our own here!"
Tolu grimaced. They were running out of time, and the occupants were less than cooperative. He gave a look over at Fatima and she shouldered her Volkite Caliver, preparing to fire into the door to cut through it.
"Tolu! Wait!" Kwame suddenly shouted. "Hey, is that you Hadidi?"
"Kwame? That you?" The voice adopted a friendlier tone as soon as Kwame's voice was heard.
"Yeah! It's me!" Kwame shouted back. "Let us in!"
"Hold on a minute." Hadidi replied. "We put a barricade up there as well. It's gonna take a while to move it out of the way. Just stay there."
The intercom went silent for a while, then they heard the sound of feet running up steps followed by the slow screech of something heavy being pulled across a floor.
"Friend of yours?" Tolu asked as he lowered his weapon.
"Remember the black market traders I was talking about?" Kwame said. "That's one of them."
"Thought they all left by now." Fatima said as she lowered her weapon as well.
"Must have gotten stuck here for some reason." Kwame shrugged. "Let's just thank our lucky stars for this break."
"I'm more worried about what they said about a barricade." Chiamaka spoke cautiously.
Tolu looked back at the remains of one of the bee hives, and the fungus that grew out of the insects. "Keep your eyes peeled." He warned. "We might not be alone here."
Several minutes passed uneventfully. The squad was in a box formation around the hatch with their weapons shouldered. They could still hear Hadidi and whoever else was in the building working to clear the way, but the hatch still remained closed.
"Sergeant, we're running out of time." Fatima said as she eyed the approaching cloud.
"Too late to cut our way through." Tolu replied. "We have to hold this position."
Suddenly, there was the tearing sound of velcro, and the squad turned to see Kwame pulling out the bottle of Amasec he had taken from the maintenance lodge.
"Whadda you doing Kwame?" Kamau asked, expressing the question all of them were thinking.
"Relax. I'm not getting this out to drink." Kwame said as he pulled out a book from his bag of supplies. "It's a 170 proof bottle of alcohol. The flash point is below room temperature. Unscrew the bottle, plug in some paper for a fuse, and we've got ourselves a homemade fire bomb." Kwame worked as he spoke, raising the makeshift molotov cocktail when he was finished.
"You think a little fire is going to keep us safe?" Fatima snorted.
"Better than nothing." Kwame shrugged.
Tolu looked up at the cloud of insects, let out a breath and then tightened his jaw.
"Alright squad, hostiles are in range! Weapon's free! Fire! Fire!"
Yellow-ish orange beams cut through the incoming cloud, opening holes that they widened by sweeping their weapons up and down, left and right.
The cloud began to surround them, and the droning of insectile wings drowned out all other sounds. Their Volkite beams continued to tear through the darkness, slowly forming an indentation within the cloud that descended upon them.
The hatch behind them hissed, then opened outwards.
"Get in!" A man wrapped in several layers of clothes cried out.
"Fatima! Kwame! Go!" Tolu ordered.
The two stopped firing, and ran down the stairs in the hatch. The swirling masses of insects drew closer, now only a dozen meters away.
"Clear!" Fatima called back.
"Kamau! Chiamaka! Go!" Tolu cried out.
Two more Vokite Calivers stopped firing, and the sphere carved out by their beams shrank again. Now, only the continuous fire from Mandla's and Tolu's weapons held the insects back.
Tolu grimaced. The insects would swarm them the moment they stopped firing. One person couldn't cover enough angles to maintain the perimeter, but the hatch was too thin to allow both of them to step back through it. Whoever stepped through the hatch last would have to face the blackness alone.
"Sergeant! Go!" Mandla shouted. "They need you more than me!"
"Shut up Mandla!" Tolu yelled back. Their timing would have to be perfect in order to retreat through the hatch safely.
"Hurry!" Hadidi shouted from the hatch. "They're surrounding you!"
Tolu looked down on the floor, and saw worms and maggots crawling across it. He swore, but couldn't bring his weapon down to burn them. It was all he could do to keep the flying insects at bay.
Suddenly there was a blur of movement beside him. Mandla was charging into the swarm, firing his weapon as he went. The insects around them followed him, swooping in on his exposed back and away from Tolu and the hatch.
"Mandla!" Tolu shouted after the rapidly vanishing figure of the youngest member of his squad. "Mandla!" He shouted again, as the silhouette began to vanish in the blackness.
Something bright flew past his head at that moment, and shattered on the ground. The chime like note of splintering glass was followed by the fwoosh of rapidly expanding flames. Then the electric hum of Volkite Calivers came as the rest of the squad came back out of the hatch.
"Grab the kid!" Kwame yelled at him as the other 4 members re-expanded the perimeter of safety with yellow-ish orange beams of energy.
Tolu ran towards Mandla. The heat and light of the fire bomb had driven away the insects that had surrounded him, but he just stood there, seeming to be in shock.
"Come here!" Tolu yelled, grabbing the man by the arm and violently dragging him back to the hatch. He cursed internally. They were back to square one and down a man. The flames from Kwame's improvised fire bomb were already starting to die out, and there were more insects than before. Their weapon's fire couldn't keep up.
As his mind raced to find a solution, a giant figure in a white bodysuit with a mesh faceguard stepped out of the hatch. "Get behind me!" A deep grizzled voice said, then he raised a massive tube attached to a series of tanks on his towards the swarm. White smoke began to spray upwards into the cloud of insects, and the swarms' movements slowed. "Get a move on!" The man said, and Tolu's squad jumped down the hatch.
Once they were all through, the man too stepped backwards through the hatch, continuously spraying smoke as he went. Another figure in a white suit hit a switch on the inside of the hatch, and it swung shut and there was a heavy thunk as locking bolts and air seals slammed into place.
"Tfou…" The man in the beekeeper suit cursed, expressing his disgust in an ancient dialect. "You alright?" He said as he took off the mesh faceguard and attached hood. A thick curly beard covered a square jawed Arabic face. Both of his ears were disfigured and wrinkled, like heads of cauliflower.
"Yeah. Thanks." Tolu replied, panting. He could taste blood in the back of his throat. Running to get Mandla and the shouting before that had irritated his bruised lungs. "I'm sergeant Tolu Abdullahi."
"Nasir Al-Karar." The man answered with his own name. "If you'll excuse me, we have other problems to deal with. Hadidi. They're your responsibility." The man turned, taking the other figure in the beekeeper suit with him. Tolu's eyes caught a red white and black sign of a skull and crossbones on their backpack tanks.
"Looks like it's my turn to pull you out of trouble, eh Kwame?" Hadidi said as he slapped Kwame on the arm while Tolu watched the two in white walks down the stairs. They were on a wide landing above several flights of stairs. Lights lit the area brightly, and there was a pile of various pieces of furniture shoved to one side. The beige floor tiles were scarred white, bearing the drag marks of various table legs and other sharp corners.
"Seems like it." Kwame shrugged then turned to the rest of the squad. "This is Hadidi. He's a smuggler from Europa. Crosses the Atlan wastes and comes up over the old western cliffs."
"And why is he here?" Fatima asked pointedly.
Hadidi raised an eyebrow at her tone, and looked over at Kwame.
"This is Fatima. Our pointman." Kwame said.
"Ah, that explains the anger." Hadidi shrugged, dropping the cautious look on his face. "I was taking one final job, but the war got here before I could finish preparing. I've been the guest of my client ever since, although I do provide some technical services to earn my keep."
"So the lock was your handiwork?" Kamau grumbled.
"Kamau. Our grenadier." Kwame continued the introductions. "That's our medic Chiamaka, the squad leader Tolu, and that bouzbal on the floor is Mandla."
"Pleasure to meet all of you." Hadidi bowed. "And yes, it was I who locked the doors. My client wanted to make sure the building was safe from those outside."
"And what about this talk of hostiles?" Chiamaka asked. "Are there enemies in the building?"
"It's quicker if I show you." Hadidi said as he turned towards the stairs, then turned back towards them. "Kwame. My client let you and your friends in partially because you have better weapons than they do. But, that's also why we didn't let you in the first place. Don't make me regret vouching for you."
"We'll keep that in mind." Tolu answered instead. Nasir was no stranger to violence. His burly physique and disfigured ears showed the hardship he had been through.
The 7 of them began to walk down the stairs. Tolu gave Mandla a once over and simply told him to follow. There would be a better time to dress him down for his suicidal heroism. They were still in danger at the moment.
"Where are the other occupants of the building?" Fatima asked.
"You'll see them." Hadidi replied. He wrapped several layers of thick cloth over his face, only leaving his eyes exposed.
They stepped off of the stairs onto another landing which led to several apartments. All of the doors were open, allowing them to see inside. Various bags containing cans, ration bars, and water were stacked up, as if the occupants had been packing for a long trip for some time.
"There were a lot of sick people here. Lot of farm hands who came running from the outer colonies came back to live with their families, and they brought a sickness with them." Hadidi said as they went down the next flight of stairs. "At first they thought it was just the shock of losing everything. A temporary depression of their mood and mind. But when their bodies began to turn pale, and the smallest wounds gangrenous, they knew it was something else. Nasir and the other people who were still healthy quarantined the infected in their own homes. They didn't report what happened to the city out of fear of being locked in here with them. It was around this time Nasir contacted me. He wanted me to get his family out of the city. It was a matter of time before the city found out what happened, and he wanted his family to be out of here when they did." Hadidi sighted. "I don't deal in people. It's too messy and the punishment for getting caught is a lot worse. But, Nasir is a good customer. I made an exception for him. Unfortunately, being unused to this, it took longer than usual for me to make the preparations. That's how I got trapped here."
"What does this have to do with the hostiles?" Chiamaka asked pointedly, irritated by the roundabout way the story was going.
Hadidi stopped at one of the apartments. The door was locked, but typing in a passcode opened it. "A few hours ago, the sick stood up again and began attacking everyone they could. Insects spilled out of their mouths with every breath, and a single scratch would rot your flesh." He opened the door, and led the squad into the apartment. The smell of sterilization agents and cleaning alcohol wafted out of it. The living room had been converted into a make-shift operating theater. On the dining table was a rotted corpse. Its hands and feet had been nailed to the wood. The hair had sloughed off with the body's scalp, revealing yellowed bone. Cataract eyes stared at them upside down from the lolling head.
The squad paused for a moment, unsure what the body had to do with anything, then it moved. Its mouth opened and closed, while it arched its back trying to pull its hands and feet off of the nails.
"This is one of the first who turned. We managed to pin him down, and even tried to find a cure at first. Then the rest of the sick started attacking us. We used up most of the weapons I had prepared for the journey across the Atlan wastes fighting them off. Even then, almost everyone in the building was infected." Hadidi said bitterly, glaring at the moving corpse. Then motioned for the rest of them to leave.
"Did you kill the rest?" Tolu asked as Hadidi shut the door of the apartment behind them.
"If only it were that easy." Hadidi snorted. "Tell me, how do you kill something that is already dead?" He didn't wait for Tolu to answer as he descended down the next flight of steps. "I have seen many things in the wastes. Technobarbarians cannibals. Ancient weapons powered by Abominable Intelligences. Gene-monstrosities that worm their way into your mind. Yet, I have never seen a corpse move." The next landing they arrived at was occupied by Nasir and two more individuals in beekeeper suits. They were spraying the pesticides from earlier down the stairwell, filling the floors below with poison gas. The stairs themselves were blocked by beds, desks, tables, and other furniture. "We barricaded the stairs, and secured ourselves in the upper levels." Hadidi said. "We're safe for now, but food and water are limited here. On top of that, there's that swarm of insects outside. I'm not sure how much time we have left."
Hadidi turned to the soldiers, as if to say that there was nothing else to say.
Tolu looked down at his feet.
Another dead end. Another place without rest. It felt like the city itself was trying to tell him that escape was impossible. Even in death, they would join the walking corpses and wander the cadaver of Xozer like maggots in fetid meat.
Tolu shook his head.
"Do you have a way out of the city?" He asked instead.
"I did…" Hadidi sighed. "Although all the fighting and insanity going on outside has probably rendered it unusable."
Chills began to creep up his legs, and he felt it clamber upon his back.
No hope.
No escape.
No rest.
"Tolu?" Chiamaka said to him, and he felt her hand placed on his back.
The chill receded where he felt her touch, as if her body heat melted it away. It was physically impossible for that to happen. The padding of his suit and her glove ensured they were insulated from each other. Yet, he felt warmth spread from the point of contact between her hand and his back.
He turned back to Chiamaka and gave her a reassuring nod.
"My squad and I are going to get out of the city." Tolu replied. "Do you want to come with us?"
"You want to go back outside?" Hadidi snorted. "I've seen what those insects can do to you. The walking corpses exhale them with every breath. The corpse you saw is only safe because it was drowned in insecticides and antiseptics. Believe me, it would be better to jump off the roof than let those insects take you."
"But we can't stay here either." Tolu replied. "You said so yourself. You have no idea how long we have left."
Hadidi remained silent, so Tolu continued.
"Our weapons can hold those swarms back temporarily. If we move fast enough, we may be able to keep on cutting a path through the insects."
"And where would we go?" Hadidi asked. "The swarms spread across the city, but there is no guarantee they will stop at its limits. Even if it did stop at the outermost walls, that's several dozen kilometers of open ground without cover that we will have to cross."
Tolu remained silent for a while. What was said was true. There was no guarantee that the swarms had not swallowed the entire world. Yet, he met Hadidi's gaze when he answered.
"You may be right. There may be no escape outside. But, I do not know that for certain. What I do know is that at this moment, we are on borrowed time. Whether it is the food, or the water, or even the very walls and windows of this building itself, something will give out. We cannot stay here. We must move on."
The two men locked eyes, then Hadidi let out an amused snort.
"I'm just a smuggler." He said. "But, I've seen many many things in the wastes and various cities across the globe. You don't survive this long in this trade by being still. We are on borrowed time, but the decision to move is not mine to make." Hadidi gestured to the burly man in the beekeeper suit. "Nasir is my client, and it is he who decides whether to leave or not."
"Awfully loyal for a simple smuggler." Fatima snorted.
"Perhaps." Hadidi shrugged. "It is my way of drawing a line between being a man and becoming a monster." He pulled his sleeve up a bit, revealing metal components embedded in his flesh. "Now, go to Nasir. He will probably want your help holding back the dead. Although, you'll have to deal with them anyway if you wish to leave this place. They have taken over the bottom floors, after all"
"Alright." Tolu nodded. I'll talk to Nasir. In the meantime, could you get my squad a place to rest? We've got our own food and water. We just need someplace to sit."
"I'll take them to one of the open apartments. There should be plenty of room. Only Nasir, his wife, and his daughter are left."
"Thank you." Tolu nodded, then motioned for the rest of his squad to follow Hadidi. He turned towards Nasir as his squad went back up the stairs
"Nasir?" He spoke to the large man's back.
"Just a moment." He said as he sprayed a mote of bugs that had risen above the pesticide mist filling the lower floors "Layla. Keep smoking them." He said, allowing the second figure in the beekeeper suit to smoke the floors below. "I overheard what you said to Hadidi." Nasir said.
"And your answer?" Tolu asked.
Nasir sighed then motioned for Tolu to follow him. They walked over to a couch set up on the landing. Nasir sat there while Tolu stood before him. "Tell me Tolu. What happened to the other soldiers?" He asked suddenly.
Tolu grimaced beneath his face mask. "I don't know." He said truthfully.
"Of course you don't." Nasir snorted. "You are a deserter. No normal soldier would appear on the roof of a building at random. Command wouldn't order something so outlandish. So, you were there without orders." Nasir removed his helmet, revealing his rugged face underneath the mesh mask. "And you were without orders because you deserted your post." He glared at Tolu for a moment.
Tolu returned the look stoically.
He had deserted his post.
He had left the other soldiers to die.
He had allowed the enemy to get past him and into the city.
But, there was no guilt there. He had done what was needed to keep himself and his squad alive. If there had still been a chain of command, and a concrete plan to protect the city, he might have stayed. Yet, there was nothing. There was no reason given to him to stand at the wall and serve.
So he left. That was all.
However, that was all sophistry. The fact of the matter was, he was still a deserter. He could not refute the accusation that he had run to save his own life. So, the only thing he could do was stand by his decision.
No guilt. No shame. No regret.
Finally Nasir snorted and broke eye contact.
"Stay calm." He said, waving his hand. "One time I would have cared very much about that fact. Now, not so much." He sighed and leaned back on the couch, staring up at the landing above them.. "Two of my sons were in the defense force." He said suddenly. "You would not know them. They were out guarding the outer colonies. I have received notice of their deaths several days ago."
"I am sorry for your loss." Tolu replied.
"Forty years I worked for this city." Nasir almost whispered. "First as a farmhand, then as an overseer."
Tolu listened patiently. The extreme nature of the situation they were in had overstressed Nasir's mind. Cracks were showing in his psyche, revealing the more vulnerable parts of his soul.
"I rose up the ranks with age, married, and had a family. I even set up a couple of bee hives to enjoy as a hobby for my retirement." Nasir spilled his thoughts, unburdening himself of the loss and despair.
"Now it is all gone." He said finally, resigned and exhausted.
There was a pause between them for a moment. Finally, Tolu broke it.
"What are you going to do?"
Would he sit here in despair until the monsters outside and inside overwhelmed them?
Nasir snorted and looked back at Tolu. "I'm not dying here like some rat trapped in a box." He spat out. "You want to get out of the city? Fine. We'll join you. But, listen well." He growled. "My family comes first. They are all that matter to me."
"Fine." Tolu nodded. "I may have abandoned my post, but I'm still a soldier."
He had no lofty ideals of protecting and serving, but that did not mean he was without morals. He was a soldier, but not because he had to. There were other occupations his genetics could have got him, but in the end this was the one he chose.
Truth be told, his younger self had joined mostly for the adventure. It was a chance to see the world outside the walls, and escape from the boring monotony of everyday life.
But, even after witnessing what was out there, he stayed. Even as some of his compatriots left the force and returned to the fields, he stayed.
'Why?' He thought to himself.
Was it fear? The fear of one day facing the things outside the walls without a weapon?
…or was it some heroic aspiration that he still had from his younger days?
"Good." Nasir said. "But before that, I need your help clearing out the dead. Hadidi showed you the one in the apartment?"
"He did." Tolu replied, cutting short his introspection.
"One of my neighbors was a doctor. She tried to treat them." Nasir said tiredly. "Her corpse is probably shuffling around on the lower floors with the others. End their suffering."
"We will." Tolu nodded.
Tolu separated from Nasir in order to talk with the rest of his squad. He needed to speak with Mandla about his actions.
After that, they would have to organize a meeting with Nasir and his family in order to deal with the dead.
His squad was resting in one of the apartments. Fatima was checking their weapons at the dining table with Kamau. Kwame was checking the supplies making a list of what was in each bag. Chiamaka sat in one of the corners with Mandla and an unfamiliar woman. Hadidi was behind her, watching them all.
Tolu approached the three, and they turned towards him.
"You are Tolu, I guess." The woman said as he approached.
"Yes, and you are?"
"Aya. I am Nasir's wife and Layla's birth mother." She stood and bowed slightly. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Likewise." Tolu bowed back. "Can I speak with Mandla for a moment?"
"Of course." Aya replied. "If you would like some privacy, the room in the back is free."
"Thank you. Mandla. Come with me."
The two of them left the group. Tolu shut the door behind them, then motioned for Mandla to sit.
"So…" He started out. "How're you feeling?"
"I'm…" Mandla paused. "... fine." He said.
"Right." Tolu sighed. "If you don't want to talk about it, then just listen to me for a bit." He leaned back a bit and took in a deep breath.
"You're one of my squad. Even if we deserted and there's no worry about court marshals or demotions, that hasn't changed." He put a hand on Mandla's shoulder. "I told you before, I don't need you to be a hero."
"But, was there any other way back then?" Mandla suddenly replied.
"What?" Tolu's brow furrowed.
"It was just the two of us out there. You're the squad leader. You're the one who makes sure everyone works together. In that situation, isn't your life more important than mine?"
Tolu remained silent for a while. When he spoke next, his voice bordered on a growl. "Do you want to die, Mandla?"
Mandla shied away from Tolu, wilting under his gaze like a dying flower.
"I don't know. Ever since the station, I keep seeing things, thinking things." He whispered. "I keep thinking about what happens when I die. Will I be forgotten? Will there be anything left?" His pupils widened as he spoke, eyes glazing over. "When I dove into the insects, I was afraid. But, at the same time, I was relieved."
Tolu let out a long sigh, then grabbed Mandla by his collar and slammed him into the nearest wall.
"Mandla." He said quietly. "What you're saying makes you a scumbag. You know that right?"
What Mandla had attempted was suicide, not self-sacrifice. He had wanted his death to have some purpose, so he ran into the first opportunity that presented itself to him. Yet, that was a selfish act. To wish for his death to have some meaning meant inflicting trauma and guilt on those he left behind.
"I… I can't help it." Mandla sniffled. "If I have to die, I don't want to die in vain."
Tolu took in another deep breath to calm himself, then let go of Mandla's collar and collapsed onto a nearby stool.
"If you wanted to die with honor, you should have stayed on that wall." He said dryly. "There is no honor with death. Even when the city was still standing all you got was your name on a plaque, and maybe a small state funeral. Now, there won't even be that." He let out another sigh. "There will be nothing left of this city, or the people who died trying to defend it. Death is meaningless."
Mandla slid down the wall, as his legs bent like deflating pistons. "Then what should I do?" He said as he lay slumped on the floor. "I'm the weakest link here. I don't want to be a burden."
Tolu snorted at that.
"You think the rest of the squad out there is strong? Each one of them has their own issues. I have my own issues."
Tolu knew all of their issues. It was his job to do so. Fatima had anger issues, and suffered from PTSD from the firefights she had survived. Kwame coped with his problems by engaging in mild kleptomania outside the squad. Kamau was weak to peer pressure, and Chiamaka shut her heart to almost everyone else after seeing so many die in her line of work.
"Nobody is asking you to be strong." Tolu said, standing up from the stool. "Stick with the team, and holler when you see or hear anything strange. That's all we can do for eachother." He leant down and extended a hand to Mandla. "We need you, Mandla. Don't go dying on us."
Mandla sniffled, then reached up and grabbed Tolu's hand and allowed his squad leader to pull him up from the ground.
"Mandla." Tolu said sternly in his harsher military tone. "You will follow me and my orders." He ordered.
Mandla blinked once, tightened his features, and saluted. "Yes, Sergeant!"
Tolu nodded, then gave the younger man a slap on the arm. "Come on. We've got work to do."
As the two exited the room, Kwame turned around to face them.
"Had your little talk, Mandla?" He called out.
"... Yes." Mandla replied nervously.
"Good." Kwame smiled. "Because you owe me a bottle of Amasec."
"You and your Amasec." Fatima snorted as she worked on one of their Volkite Calivers.
"Don't doubt the power of a good drink." Kwame huffed at her, then turned back towards Mandla. "And don't think you'll be out of this debt by kicking the bucket. I'll come down there and kick your arse if you do, honest."
Mandla looked surprised for a moment, then laughed. "Then I better keep an eye out for a bottle then."
The rest of the squad laughed lightly. The joke wasn't funny. There was no punchline. But, they laughed a little just so there would be no awkward silence. The atmosphere in the room lightened a bit, warmed by their mirth.
"Alright people." Tolu ordered. "We've got work to do and we need a plan to do it."
Tolu and his squad met up with Nasir and Aya to plan the purging of the lower floors.
Now Nasir and Kamau, the two biggest men, were pulling apart the barricade on the stairs. Layla continued spraying pesticides down the stairwell to keep the bugs away, while Hadidi and Tolu stood behind Nasir and Kamau with long poles made from broken bed frames.
The rest of the Squad stood back several meters away from the four in front, while Aya stood behind them with a fire extinguisher.
"Not much left." Nasir grunted as he lifted a chest of drawers and threw it over the banister. They could hear the wood shattering as it smashed against the stairwell before being obliterated on the ground floor.
"Remember, once they start coming through, just turn and run." Tolu reminded the two.
Suddenly, the barricade began to creak as something started pushing from the other side.
"Fallback!" Tolu ordered as he and Hadidi moved forwards, ready to shove the dead back if they broke through with their poles. Volkite beams detonate their targets, meaning they could not shoot the dead while the two removing the barricade were near them. It was their job to buy Nasir and Kamau time to get to cover while remaining at a relatively safe distance.
A hole opened in the barricade as stacked dressers and tables began to splinter apart. Rotting hands reached out, and deep death rattles echoed out of it like the baritone croaks of a thousand toads.
"Go! Go!" Tolu shouted at the two of them as the rest of the barricade crumbled. They passed him, and he threw his pole at the approaching dead, knocking several of them back and blocking the stairs with their bodies. He turned back and ran up to the stairs, and dove into the entrance of an apartment. "Fire!" He yelled, and Volkite beams shot down the stairs.
There was an explosion, and the building's fire alarms began to scream. Some of the sprinklers in the stairwell turned on, and Tolu heard the sizzling of water on flames.
"Alright, plan phase 2!" He called out. "Nasir. Hadidi. Stay here with Layla and Aya. Kamau, come with me."
The two soldiers returned to their squads, and recovered their weapons.
"Alright squad! Remember the plan! We're going into CQB with unsure footing. I want two pairs and two on overwatch on the landing directly above us at all times. Fatima, Chiamaka, that's you two. Remember, we'll be working with only the laser component of our Volkite Calivers, but the heat will still boil any target we hit. Keep your distance."
" "Aye/Yes, Sergeant!" " They answered back.
Tolu and Kamau began to descend the left side of the stairwell, with Kwame and Mandla walking down the right. Tolu and Kwame were the pointmen, while the others were the wingmen. Each wingman braced their weapon against the point man's upper arm or shoulder, ensuring they couldn't accidentally hit their paired partner.
The stairwell was cracked, and blackned. The metal banister had been shredded apart, and splinters of wood and lay scattered around where the barricade had been. There were a few pulverized bodies, smashed by the pressure wave that lay collapsed further down the stairs.
Tolu fired the laser component of his Vokite Caliver in short bursts, burning a hole through each joint and the head. They couldn't be sure the corpses were dead, and they couldn't burn them with the fire extinguishers overhead. The next best thing was to disable them.
Water slicked the stairs, forcing them to make each step slowly and carefully. Like fencers gauging their distance, they moved forwards step by step.
They slowed as they came to the first apartment, and Tolu lowered his weapon slightly, hiding his profile as Kamau moved up beside him and turned 90 degrees sideways. The larger man's elbow moved in front of Tolu's, as they prepared to expose themselves out of cover while they moved past the door.
Kamau's elbow shoved Tolu backwards. A flinch-reaction transferred from his body pushed Tolu back, just in time to avoid something pink and fleshy blur past their heads.
A tongue. A massive tongue had just whipped right passed them from inside the apartment.
"Contact!" Kamau yelled a moment later.
"Back up!" Tolu ordered, and they stepped away from the apartment. They could hear the squelch of soggy feet approaching them over the fire alarms.
A cracked horn appeared first. Rot brown and sickly white, it resembled a dead tree, then the rest of the creature crawled out from the apartment. Misshapen, slumped, and covered in weeping boils, a one-eyed four legged thing appeared. It looked like a toad; bloated in appearance with a huge mouth.
Red laser fire rained down from above, burning holes in its already mottled complexion, as Fatima and Chiamaka began to suppress the creature. Tolu and the other three retreated backwards up the stairs, carefully but quickly.
The toad shivered and scratched at its pockmarked face with its forearms under the laser fire. Then it jerked backwards, its single eyeball exploded from a direct shot from Fatima.
"Clear!" Tolu shouted as he and the others retreated far enough away from the toad, and the red lasers raining down on the toad were replaced by beams of yellow-ish orange. There was a flash of light, and the roar of an explosion, then there was nothing. Glowing partially melted concrete was all that remained of the toad.
"Alright people, form up!" Tolu shouted. And the squad retook their positions.
They were only half-way down to the next floor.
Tolu's squad cleared out the rest of the apartments in similar fashion. The entire operation took about two hours. The dead and the toads hid in the apartments, waiting in ambush, but they cleared each room without casualty.
The insects spawned from the corpses were either burned by their lasers, or died in the pesticides, finally freeing Layla from her constant vigil.
Now, Hadidi, Nasir, and his family stood across from Tolu's squad in one of the apartments. Both sides were bent over a map of the city spread across a dining table.
"We saw Cherenkov radiation west of this location." Tolu said, pointing to the sector they saw bluish-purple light rising from the dirty atomics. "You don't have any radiation proof clothing here, so whatever route we take it'll have to avoid this entire area." He drew a circle around the map that covered the shortest routes to the city wall.
"Then the only route left is to the east." Hadidi muttered.
"But that creates another problem." Tolu replied. "Command is no longer operational, meaning the gates most likely can't be opened. We either have to look for a breach in the wall, or climb over."
"Climbing won't be a problem." Hadidi spoke up. "The cliffs of the west where the oceans once were are taller than your walls. I have the equipment for that. However…" He gestured to one of the windows where the swarms of insects were. The cloud was thinner than before, but still present. "We would need constant covering fire while we are getting over."
"We can't guarantee that." Tolu shook his head. "The wall is too high to effectively cover with our weapons from the ground, and splitting our team between those on top and those down below might cause one or the other to get overwhelmed. Not to mention the friendly fire risks."
"Then the only option is to look for a breach." Nasir sighed.
"Or a better place to bunker down." Chiamaka said.
The rest of the people at the table looked at her quizzically. The entire point of this discussion was to find a way to escape. If they needed to hide, there was no reason to move.
"Our chances of finding a breach are completely up to chance." Chiamaka continued speaking. "We have no guarantee we'll find an exit to get through, and the circumference of the city is so large we would cover a tenth of it at best before the day ends. On the other hand, we know of several guard posts and bunkers within the city itself. If this cloud of insects does not abate, it may be better to secure a location for us to rest. That way we can search for an exit over several days."
Tolu grimaced. The idea of spending days in the dead city was not one he wished to entertain, but Chiamaka was right. Searching blindly for a breach in the wall was a plan based on nothing but hope.
Deep rumbling laughter echoed in his ear, and he froze instinctively.
There was something behind him.
He heard the sound of a fat wet tongue licking thick lips, and the slow drip of viscous saliva. The world seemed to dim and ripple, as if he was on the verge of falling asleep.
"Tolu?" Chiamaka's voice brought him back from the darkness, returning him to the table. Everyone was looking at him worriedly.
There was nothing behind him. There was no laughter, nor licking of lips.
"Sorry…" Tolu apologized as he wiped his brow with the back of his hand. The glove became slick with sweat. "We'll head for the wall first." He said finally. "There's no guarantee any of the bunkers are still functional. If we get stuck there, we truly will be backed into a corner. At least the areas near the walls are more open."
The bunkers would be in the city itself, amongst the numerous twisting streets and paths. They would be forced to take any threat in close quarters. It would be safer to maneuver near the walls.
They had seen the mechanical cavalry come from the east side. Surely the Urshites would have created breaches in the walls for their other forces to follow through?
Tolu justified his reasoning as he shook off the cold touch of whatever exhaustion induced hallucination had gripped him.
"Even so…" Chiamaka said. "We should keep the bunkers and depots in this area in mind. If we do not find a breach, we will need a fallback plan."
To charge forward blindly, hoping to find salvation.
To retreat into supposed security, in the attempt to buy time before death claimed them.
Hope and fear clashed within Tolu's brain, making him wince as a headache began to throb.
"Alright." He finally said. "If we don't find a breach, or have to retreat from the wall we'll get back into the city and check the bunkers and depots one by one."
He had always valued the input of his squad. This decision was no different. Even if he personally wanted to escape as quickly as possible, what Chiamaka said made sense.
"We'll move as a group." Tolu continued, changing the discussion from a strategic to a tactical one. "Nasir and co will be in the middle. Fatima and Kwame will be up front. Kamau and Chiamaka will be at the rear. Mandla and I will take up the middle. We'll keep the swarms at bay from the front and above while we're on the streets."
The rest nodded or saluted in response.
"Alright, pack your bags and get ready to move."
The doors to the apartment building opened, releasing a thick mist of pesticide gas. The insects swarming around it fell to the ground dead, and were quickly trampled by 9 pairs of feet.
Tolu and the rest moved as far as they could through the mist, then opened fire as they exited the white cloud of poison. The swarms were thinner, and less organized than before, but they still surrounded them from every angle. Still, their Volkite Beams incinerated them all the same, opening up the darkness like beams from a powerful flashlight, illuminating a path in the night.
As they ran, the swarms of insects suddenly receded, falling backwards like the waves of a lowering tide. Tolu looked up at that moment, and saw a massive sword raised above the city. The blackened blade split the sky, tearing a hole through the green smog clouds above them. His body froze as he felt the murderous rage radiating from it like the heat of an open furnace.
Then the sword began to fall.
"Get down!" He managed to yell, then the ground threw him into the air.
He and the others were thrown about like cups and cutlery on a table slammed by an angry fist.
"Get up!" Tolu yelled.
He could feel something was coming. The air in his lungs seemed to burn with each breath, despite the air coming from his suit's internalized air tanks.
There was a buzzing sound, and he looked up to see the insects heading towards them again. All 6 of them opened fire, burning away the insects and surrounding them in orange embers.
"Keep on moving!" Tolu yelled.
The perimeter they had carved was all that they could see. Everything else was obscured by ash, burning bugs, or writhing insects. Slowly, they backed away down the streets vaguely in the direction of the walls.
Suddenly, the swarms parted. They fell away, like the exhausted waves of a spent tsunami, retreating back into the city. There, several meters in front of them was a giant figure in blackened armor. Spikes jutted out of their shoulder pauldrons, and knee guards. The optics in the helmet glowed red, bathing everything it saw in crimson, as if their very gaze stained the ground with blood. The claw-like fingers on each gauntlet were dirty with gore and bone fragments.
Tolu's mind had a moment to process the almost paradoxical nature of the giant's armor. It was so hostile and dangerous that it was more a tool of murder than protection.
He saw Mandla jerk backwards and raise his weapon out of the corner of his eye, and grabbed the weapon, forcing it downwards.
Mandla stared up at him incredulously, and for one moment Tolu didn't understand why he had acted as he had.
His brain accelerated endlessly, lengthening a single moment to infinity, as it worked feverishly to figure out why his body had acted the way it had.
That was not a man. It was an avatar of murder. It was killing incarnate. The moment they engaged it would be the moment they died.
That was a man. Bloodthirsty and brutish, he was the leader of the Urshite forces, and the general who had orchestrated the death and destruction of Xozer.
Violence was meaningless. It was spawned from it and fed off it.
Violence was meaningless. They were too close, and his armor was too thick.
Conflicting yet concurrent information flowed into Tolu's mind from his eyes. A dull pain shot through the muscles holding his pupils and lens in the proper position.
The being before them was barely human. Its genetic enhancements and mechanical improvements went far beyond what was scientifically possible.
There was something else there… something unnatural that did not follow the rules everyone else was bound by.
The stench of smoke and taste of metal filled his mouth, even though his suit was still sealed.
'We can't fight that thing.' His mind caught up with what his instincts had told him, and he knew why he had forced Mandla's weapon down.
All that transpired in the time it took for him to blink. The time it took for him to start then stop the assimilation of optical information.
A massive headache dyed Tolu's sight red. He grit his teeth, holding in a scream of pain.
The giant was still before them, staring at them hungrily. Tolu could not see the giant's face, but he could read his intent as the giant moved like a cat preparing to pounce.
He could see it in the subtle way the giant's body shifted as he turned towards them.
He could see it in the slow straightening of the tilted helm, righting itself as the giant gave them his full attention.
He could see it in the red glow of both optics that had locked onto him and his squad.
Behind the giant was a massive crack in the wall. Beyond it lay the desert. They only had to push past the giant. Fight it head on, and breakthrough to freedom.
'But, violence is not the answer.' Tolu thought to himself.
That was what had brought them here in the first place.
That was what the being before them wanted.
Then, there was only one thing left to do.
Tolu relaxed the tension in his muscles, and straightened his back. Both his overtaxed eyes and exhausted brain strained, but he stared back into the glowing red optics of the giant.
'Let us go. There is nothing left to fight over.'
He willed to the giant.
The giant had won. Xozer was dead. They were deserters and refugees. Xozer was as much an enemy to them as it was to the giant.
They did not want revenge, or retribution. All they wanted was to live.
Tolu watched as the giant's head tilted downwards, as if the being inside the armor was grimacing. Then it drew a blackened and knocked sword from a scabbard at its waist.
'I am not done with you, or your city.' He felt the words although none were spoken.
Tolu's muscles tensed, preparing to push Mandla back as he saw the giant prepare to lunge forwards…
Then a shadow fell over all of them as a giant gangrenous creature with a bloated belly and twisted antlers crashed down out of the swarms above them. The ground shook once again, causing all of them to stumble, and dusty winds washed over them. Foul burbling spilled forth from the gangrenous creature's mouth, but whatever it said was silenced mid sentence as the giant cut off the bottom half of the creature's face.
Tolu didn't wait to see what would happen next. "Go! Get back! Back into the city!" He shouted, pushing Mandla as he went.
"But Tolu!" Mandla started to object, looking back at the breach in the wall they had been looking for.
"We can't fight that thing! Come on! We'll find another way out! Now move!" Tolu shouted back, as they fired into the swarm, cutting a path back into the city's corpse.
They ran, firing their weapons into the black swarm as they did, but the streets of Xozer were no longer simply dark dingy pathways. Puddles of grime and sewage stuck above blocked drains began to bubble and boil. Embers filled the air around them, lighting everything in an orange glow. The roars of primal beasts sounded from behind them, as well as the baying of hungry hounds.
Tolu felt vomit rising up in his throat as he ran. He could feel something beginning to worm its way into his head. Twin voices of sickening burbling and frightening roaring were echoing between his ears. Hot and cold pangs of emotion shot through him, robbing him of his body heat at one moment, before injecting liquid fire into his veins.
"Come on, keep moving!" He yelled, as much as to himself as to the others. It was all he could do to hold onto his sanity.
If they didn't fight, the swarms would consume them. If they stood their ground, the roaring baying creatures brought into the city by the giant would devour them.
Fight and flight. Both instincts were activated as they fought against despair and fled from rage.
Suddenly the swarms parted, revealing a clearing full of bodies. Armored warriors from Ursh lay on the ground, Wrathskin cracked open like the carapaces of half-eaten shellfish. Two Urshite soldiers stood their ground, back to back. Melta weapons were in their hands, and they fired conical blasts of thermal energy at the misshapen monstrosities holding rusted cleavers in their hands.
Tolu saw one of the Urshite soldiers turn in their direction for a moment, before snapping back to the swarms of rotting monsters around them.
Deep rumbling laughter echoed in his ear once again, and it was joined by a crackling chuckle that sounded like the pop of wet branches in a bonfire.
Tolu's feet stopped, and the others following him did so as well.
The enemies that had killed Xozer lay before him, surrounded on all sides and utterly at his mercy. He may not have been its most zealous defender, but the city was still his home. The faces of friends and family that had died due to the actions of Ursh flowed to the forefront of his mind. An alien anger began to bubble up inside of him, filling his chest with a pressure that screamed to be released.
Another part of him stood back, sedentary and sadistic.
'Let these barbaric fools suffer the consequences of their actions.' it said.
'It was they who unleashed this evil upon the world. A Volkite shot would be too quick. Let them be consumed like their comrades by the minions of despair.'
Tolu could feel his cheek muscles pull his mouth apart into an insane grin.
Attack them, or abandon them. It made no difference. They were dead anyways.
They were all dead.
That was the only explanation for the insanity around them. They had all died at some unknown moment, and ended up in hell. These were the demons of that realm, and they had come to reap the evil mankind had sown.
The Urshite soldier who had looked at Tolu fired again and again, but the demons drew closer between each shot. Overwhelmed by their numbers, the Urshite let off one final shot. Then, a rusted cleaver swung from overhead, and was barely parried by their melta weapon. Tolu saw the demon laugh as its reddish brown blade began to corrode its way through the black metal of the gun. Inch by inch, it began to dig its way through towards the Urshite's head.
The deep rumbling laughter was louder now, triumphant over the crackling chuckle. The rage he felt earlier was dying out, and it was replaced with a chilling apathy towards everything.
As his body began to grow cold, an image he had seen out on patrols flashed through his mind. The sight of ancient buildings in the sands, jutting out like tombstones in a graveyard.
That would be all that was left of Xozer, and the people within it.
A different heat flooded through Tolu's body at that moment. A burning drive to do something, anything. A fighting feeling that made him lift his Volkite Caliver up and fire.
The laser popped the demon's head like a water balloon, and the Urshite soldier kicked the headless corpse backwards. The swarms of demons were momentarily knocked back by the body. In that moment of relief, the Urshite soldier dropped their melta weapon and drew a chain-bladed sword.
"Squad, assist them!" Tolu ordered, as he fired into the turned backs of the rotten demons. His squad followed suit, tearing into the demons as the Urshite soldiers counterattacked with conical blasts of fire and a roaring blade.
He would not be buried under the buildings of Xozer, with their skeletal remains as his only tombstone.
He would not die for this bastion of lies, and decay.
He would fight against death, run from war, and survive this man-made hell no matter the cost.
To hell with old adversaries. To hell with vengeance and revenge. None of that mattered in the grave. On top of that, if this was all the afterlife had to offer, he would work with the very mass-murderers that destroyed everything to escape it.
The demons were all destroyed after several minutes of fighting. Sandwiched between the ex-defenders of Xozer and the invaders from Ursh, there was not much they could do. The insects hovered above them, held back by the rising updrafts from the burning bodies of the demons.
The two Urshite soldiers turned towards Tolu and his squad. Neither group moved for a moment, then Tolu stepped forwards.
"We're looking for a way to survive." He said simply. "Do you want to come with us?"
There was no response from the two soldiers, and several awkwards seconds passed in silence. Then the soldier wielding the chain blade lunged forwards, motorized weapon roaring. Tolu jerked backwards, raising his gun, only to have the blade cut the air above his head and clash against a spiked blade wielded by a horned demon.
The other Wrathskin enclosed soldier ran forwards, putting themself in between Tolu's squad and a pack of hound like creatures made of exposed muscle and bone. Their melta weapon fired twice, reducing the pack to ash in twos and threes, then the hounds were upon them. Their fist punched through the first hound that snapped at them, only to have their outstretched arm snagged in the jaws of another.
"Fire! Fire!" Tolu ordered, and he and his squad blew apart the hounds that had surrounded the soldier wielding the melta weapon as the other dueled in melee with the horned demon.
Tolu's eyes barely kept up with the blurring blades of both demon and genetically enhanced human. The only thing he could clearly see was the sparks flashing whenever the spikes of the demon's sword met the chained teeth of the soldier's blade.
As the last Flesh hound fell, Tolu turned his weapon and hit the horned demon in the eye with a single laser. That was all the distraction needed for the soldier to slip their blade under the demon's arm, and saw it off. Disarmed, the demon stepped back, but not quick enough to avoid an armored boot that kicked it to the ground. The demon's head vanished in a flash of melta fire from the other soldier, and the battle with the demons ended for the moment.
Both soldiers turned back towards Tolu, and lowered their weapons. Neither spoke, but stood at ease, as if waiting for orders.
"... Alright." Tolu said, slowly realizing their silence was not something they kept willingly. These two were muted by their masters, who sent them into the city as cannon fodder. But, despite their expendable status, these two would not die. They had fought against the demons of despair within Xozer, and had now taken up arms against the monsters of war that had motivated their creation.
They were not simple slaves, nor genetically enhanced biological automata.
They were human, trapped in the insanity that was this hell around them.
"We're going to head to the nearest bunker." Tolu said slowly. "The world has gone to shit, and demons are flooding into the city from the outside. We need to find a place to rest and plan what to do next." He cast a glance towards Nasir's family. All three were disheveled and visibly exhausted, as if the life had been drained out of them. His squad too was breathing heavily and he could see fatigue shivers shaking their limbs. All of them looked up to him. He was the one who was giving the orders, and leading them on. It was through him they were able to ignore their own personal fears and doubts, following him in the hope that he could get them out of this.
Tolu turned around, and began to march deeper into the city. The others followed him, focussing on his back in order to blind themselves to the madness and monstrous corpses around them.
They reached the bunker without incident. Its mechanical systems functioned as expected, and the entire group could finally sit down and rest.
Layla and Aya collapsed in Nasir's arms, mentally spent. They clung to him like drowning people would cling to driftwood. He in turn wrapped his arms around their shoulders, shielding them like a bird guarding its chicks with its wings.
Tolu ordered everyone, including the two Urshite soldiers to rest. His squad was barely able to respond with the 'Yes, sir.' of their training. That was never a good sign. Such lapses in the ingrained reflexes drilled into them indicated that their psyche was hanging by a single thread.
Tolu watched as his squad collapsed into the various bunks and cots inside the bunker, and abandoned themselves to the oblivion of sleep. The two Urshite soldiers sat down in one of the corners, and stopped moving like machines that had powered down for the day. He himself was also tired, but the feeling from before would not let him rest. A sense of urgency pushed him forward, filling his body with adrenaline and endorphins.
He checked on the locks on the doors, opened up maps of the surrounding area, and puzzled over what to do next. It was only the sound of light footsteps behind him that broke his concentration.
"Are you not tired?" A feminine voice came from behind him.
"Chiamaka…" Tolu let out a sigh. "I could say the same to you."
"I had a couple hours of rest." Her voice hardened slightly with her next sentence. "You haven't stopped moving at all."
"Has it been that long already?" Tolu muttered to himself. He hadn't realized the passage of time at all. Perhaps he was more tired than he thought.
"I'll take the next watch." Chiamaka said softly. "Go to sleep."
Tolu shook his head at that. "No… I can't sleep. Not now."
"Why?" Chiamaka asked. He could hear the narrowing of her eyes and furrowing of her brow through the tension of her voice.
'Why?' He didn't understand it either. But, something inside him was driving him forwards.
Was it some survival instinct? Some base desire to live, to exist no matter the cost.
Was it some rebellion against his old home, and the lies it had told?
The image of the ancient wonders of old mankind went through his mind again.
"We cannot end like this." He said to no one.
They were once a united people on this planet. That was the only way they could have created wonders so durable that they resisted the heat of atomics and the abrasive sands of centuries.
They were once masters of all they could see, and their empire reached up beyond the stars. Their bodies could be rebuilt at a genetic level to do exactly what they wanted it to, and there was no stigma attached to investigation and ingenuity.
To have everything end like this.. the ending of their legacy as the playthings of creatures from nightmare and insanity…
He now knew in his heart that the deep laughter he heard in his head was no hallucination. There was something out there, laughing at him. It wanted to see him squirm, to see him lose hope, to submerge him in misery and despair.
There was another thing out there. That crackling chuckle belonged to it. It wanted him to lose control, and strike out at everything around him.
Warm arms embraced him from behind, and Chiamaka's cinnamon sent a pleasurable shiver up his spine.
"Calm down." She whispered into his ear. "Your shoulders are getting stiff."
Tolu realized the tension going through his muscles, and took a deep breath.
"Not everything rests on you, Tolu. We will be with you, as we always have been."
A warmth grew in his breast, different to the all consuming fire that had spurned him to act.
He leaned back into Chiamaka's embrace, enjoying the softness of her skin and breasts with the back of his head.
"What should we do?" He asked her. He could feel the madness spreading outside. He could see it through the walls if he wanted to, and observe the nightmarish battle between rage and despair. They were still trapped in hell. This bunker was only a temporary haven. One accidental step by the greater demons outside, and this bunker would collapse like an anthill trodden on by a toddler.
"I do not know." Chiamaka admitted. "But, whatever happens, I will be with you."
A faint smile crossed Tolu's face, and he leaned back into her arms. Warm sleep came quickly, and its dreamless darkness provided his mind respite from all that had happened that day.
5 days passed in the bunker. The first two were spent cleaning the place up, sorting through food, and setting up the water recycling units they brought with them. The rest were used to talk, sleep, and keep busy with menial tasks.
The two Urshite soldiers, Riya and Ananya, remained slightly apart from the rest. Kamau and Kwame attempted to remove their armor so they could speak, but quickly abandoned their efforts. The machine was bound to their flesh in such a way that it was almost a second skin. Tearing it off would kill them through blood loss, if not infection. In the end, the two groups had to make do with basic hand signs and gestures.
Surprisingly, both were women.
Tolu watched the war outside through the walls. Neither side seemed to gain the upper hand. Endless killing and corruption repeated itself, as the demons cut each other apart. He told the others what he saw, and what he heard. He spoke of the laughing and chuckling creatures that had infiltrated his mind at times, and the others shared similar experiences.
The Urshite who lost her melta weapon, Riya, described feeling guilt and self-disgust when she saw him. She had been conscripted from a province far to the east of the Nord Afrik. The inner portions of Xozer reminded her of the hives she had come from, and the sight of them filled her with self-loathing. She had been part of the army that had invaded and destroyed their homes. Her death at the hands of these demons was a just desert for her. The moment that thought crossed her mind, the demons overwhelmed her.
When Tolu and his squad saved her, she was filled with a warm feeling.
'Absolution.' Riya wrote when asked to describe what she felt. 'I felt I had been forgiven for what I had done, and I wished to make my repentance by helping you. That was why Ananya and I stood in front of you as the demons of Khorne came. You saved us from dying a miserable death. That was the first time I was glad to have the enhancements they forced me to undertake.'
Tolu shared his theories of emotions and belief being connected with the demons. The creatures in the station became stronger when they lost hope, as did the demons that surrounded Riya and Ananya.
"They win when we give up." Tolu said to the others as they sat or stood around one of the tables in the bunker. "If we abandon ourselves to despair or rage, they win. It won't matter how many weapons we have, or how great our defenses are. But they are not harmless without our emotions either. A blade is still a blade. Fight them like any other enemy. Treat them with no lesser or greater concern than the Technobarbarians or Abominable Intelligences. Stick together. Trust each other. We've survived one trip through hell already. We can make another out of it."
On the 6th day, Tolu saw the world ripple. As he watched the demonic war outside, his vision warped. Shapes stretched outwards, then inwards as if the sight before him was an image on a melting mirror whose metal was bubbling and boiling.
The same sense of urgency began to fill his breast. A fire began to burn in his heart that refused to go out.
"Alright people, this is it!" He called out to them. "Pack everything up. We move in five!"
Their food was running out, and they would still need supplies to cross the Atlan wastes.
Now was the moment they needed to run.
Tolu felt it in his bones, and in his soul. If they did not leave today, they never would.
"Ready?!" He asked as his squad and the others assembled behind him at the door.
They all nodded, and he saw hands tighten around bag straps and weapon grips.
"Whatever happens, don't stop." Tolu said. "Just follow me."
The doors of the bunker hissed, and slid open on their hydraulics.
They exited their refuge onto an alien world. The streets of Xozer were layered with pus and blood. The skyscrapers that towered over them were coated with brass, and fire jetted out of the factory chimneys like the belch of a series of volcanoes.
The smaller demons they saw from the station were dotted all around them. They were all running, rolling, or splashing in puddles of viscous sewage like children playing in the rain.
Manta ray-like creatures flew over them in flocks that resembled schools of fish.
The ground shook as a hoofed foot, as wide as a man is tall, slammed down next to them. The bat winged demon it belonged to bellowed as it stumbled backwards from an gangrenous obese demon of equal size.
"Come on!" Tolu yelled as he ran between the two demon's legs. They were too occupied with each other to notice them, and the other smaller demons would not approach while the two fought.
The smaller demons began to surround them, and Tolu's squad opened fire as they ran. Volkite beams lashed out, cutting a path through the swarms, while the last melta weapon roared behind them, keeping their rear clear.
Suddenly, the ground shook. The world flowed backwards, reverting from the alien world of the demons back to the mundane streets of Xozer.
Tolu stared dumbly at the familiar sights before him, then a blinding flash obscured everything.
Bombs were going off around him, obliterating the city bit by bit.
Swarms of gray dust then appeared, eating away at every surface. He watched his arm dissolve into nothing, and barely had time to scream before the next vision assaulted him.
Death and destruction repeated itself before him a thousand times over, then he collapsed to his knees back in the alien world of the demons composed of green rot, red blood, and shiny brass.
A giant demon stood before them. Antlers jutted out of its head, and a second lipless mouth grinned from its pot-belly. Both orifices licked their exposed gums, wetting brown chipped and broken teeth.
The demon before them laughed, and Tolu recognized its voice. It was the same laugh he heard back in Nasir's apartment when they were deciding what to do.
He stared up into its eyes, and despite its wide eyed grin, there was no mirth in its eyes. Hate burned within each orb. The emotion was only matched by the sadistic glee that made each eye glow with a green light.
He had resisted the will of this demon.
He had not played the part it had planned for him.
He had cared for his team, instead of only himself.
He listened to his reason and training, instead of his fear and desperation.
He had kept their hope alive, instead of allowing that hope to become fertilizer for fresh despair.
Now, it was done with him. This demon would take things into its own hands. He, Tolu, would serve as a living reminder to all who defied the Plague Lord Nurgle and his Greater Daemons.
Tolu retched as his eyes read the name from the demon's gaze. It was a name he was not supposed to know, yet he could not help but learn it.
The daemon reached down towards him with a pudgy hand. It would tear him apart in front of the others, and do the same to their hope. Yet, he would not be allowed to die. There would be no rest in the Garden of Nurgle.
A bolt of Volkite energy struck the demon's face, forcing the hand away.
"Get up!" Chiamaka shouted, grabbing him by the arm.
"Come on Sergeant! Which way?!" Kwame asked, joining Chiamaka's Volkite fire with his own.
Mandla, Kamau, Fatima all joined it, shooting the demon in the face while Ananya fired her melta weapon at the swarms that had begun to surround them.
"This way!" Tolu shouted, and turned towards the center of the city.
He did not know why he turned that way. He moved only on instinct now. His eyes saw something there. Something golden. Something bright. Whatever it was, it was the only thing unlike the rest of the nightmares.
A shadow flew over them, and a bat winged Bloodthirster slammed its hooves down in front of them.
All 12 of them skidded to a stop before the demon.
Tolu turned towards the rest of them, and saw that the group had broken apart.
Nasir kneeled in the street, hugging his wife and daughter to him as he closed his eyes, preparing for the end.
Fatima, Kwame, and Kamau were back to back, firing into the swarms of Nurglings around them, prepared to go down fighting.
Hadidi had pulled out a strange pistol, and each shot fired something that obliterated any demon it touched.
The two Urshite soldiers raised their weapons, preparing to charge the Bloodthirster in order to open a path for Tolu and the rest.
Chiamaka stood there, staring blankly up at the sky.
'It can't be helped.' Tolu thought to himself, as he watched them splinter apart. 'We no longer think there's a way to survive.'
They were sandwiched between the two greater demons, with Nurglings and Screamers to their sides and above. He himself saw no way out of this.
The only thing that could save them was a miracle.
But there was no god here to save them.
Tolu joined Chiamaka, staring up at the green, red, and purplish clouds thundering above them.
Then the clouds parted.
A blazing sun appeared above them. Golden and blinding, it burned away the filth surrounding them, and forced the greater daemons to their knees. Smoke rose from their bodies as they gurgled and roared in pain.
Tolu and the others huddled together, unsure of what was going on. They all stared upwards in awe at this new presence that was purging the nightmare from the world.
The Bloodthirster stumbled to its feet, and lifted its axe. It would smash these paltry humans who had denied it. There were two amongst their number who belonged to it. Its massive shadow covered them as it raised its arms and spread its wings. Then, a golden spear pinned it to the ground, slamming it face first into the concrete and asphalt street.
An angel stood atop the pinned demon. Winged and armored in blazing auramite, there were no words to describe it other than beautiful.
More and more angels rained from the sky, engaging the flyers in the sky and cutting down the demons on the ground.
The others kneeled before the angel, struck by an all consuming awe. They no longer saw anything else but the golden figure before them, and prostrated themselves at its feet.
But Tolu remained standing.
He stared up into the blindingly beautiful face of the angel.
His eyes could not understand the features it wore, and perceived it as a white light.
His brain understood that as something beautiful.
But his heart beat faster and faster in his breast.
Adrenaline pumped into his blood, as a chilling sensation gripped every inch of his skin, raising gooseflesh as it went.
This was not what it seemed. The same skepticism he felt whenever he heard the sermons of the hierophants niggled in his mind.
This was too good to be true. A good God would not wait till the last moment to save them. Why had this angel appeared before them right at the moment all hope of escape was lost, and the death and destruction of this place was inevitable?
With that realization, Tolu's eyes pierced the blinding halo of the angel's aura.
What he saw constricted every blood vessel in his body, and froze him to his core.
The beautiful features of the angel were twisted with rage, and weeping in despair.
