First Assault Read online

hands into his pockets, searching for something he could use to carve his way out. “Modifiers…”

  “Exactly. And not just some isolated modifiers we have today, or some that we don’t – like becoming a mover or a telepath, which is absolutely impossible to achieve unless the gods intervene. No, I am talking about god-like powers. With that syringe you can become a mover, a telepath, you can breathe under water. You can be faster than anyone else. Stronger. You can see better, hear better … your bones would become unbreakable … You would become a true God.”

  Ailios didn’t find anything in his pockets. The abominations must’ve emptied them before they threw his unconscious body here. He looked around, mumbling, “Become god. Sounds nice.”

  “If we find this weapon,” said the archeologist, “if we apply it on our troops, we would become unstoppable. Can you imagine that?”

  Ailios turned toward him. “You got any tools?”

  “What? Tools?”

  “Digging tools, yes. You’re an archeologist, are you not?”

  The archeologist stared at Ailios with confusion in his eyes. “I…” He then nodded toward his friend. “I think he has something. Check his side pockets. They didn’t search him.”

  Ailios kneeled and put his hands into the pockets of the other archeologist, quickly groping for whatever he could find. He pulled out some sort of tool from one of the pockets. “What is this?” He pivoted the tool in his hand, trying to realize what it was. It was like a handle for something, long and firm and sharp at one end.

  “It’s a scanner,” said the archeologist.

  “A scanner,” Ailios echoed.

  “Yes. It detects metal objects under the surface...”

  “I know what a scanner is. You’re telling me you guys dig with a scanner?” Suddenly his head hurt even more. How was he going to dig through a wall with a bloody scanner?

  “No, umm, we didn’t take…”

  “Never mind.” Ailios stood up. He gripped the scanner in his hand, pointing the sharp end downward, and he started chopping the wall. Tiny clouds of dirt came down and thin layers of compressed earth peeled off. With that pace of digging, Ailios estimated that he would need at least a year to get on the other side … if the wall was five centimeters thick. Nonetheless, it was all he could do, so he shut his mouth, focused, and pumped his hand up and down.

  The archeologist spoke again. “If you succeed – if you leave this place – you must tell the major that Eve exists,” he said. The dying man moaned again as if to confirm what his colleague said, but Ailios was so focused in his digging that he barely even noticed it. “These abominations know about it. They are looking for it as well. Eve is our only hope if we are to stand against the Cyons … or our doom if the abominations find it first–”

  Loud noise coming from beyond the cell interrupted his words. Ailios stopped digging. He looked around to figure out what caused it. For a moment there was only silence. But then more sounds came from behind the door – bursts in a rapid succession.

  Gunshots. Ailios moved a step toward it, trying to figure out what was happening, who was attacking who down here.

  Ailios was certain he even heard shouts this time. And then everything went silent. Ailios exchanged glances with the archeologist. No more sounds came, no shots or shouts. Ailios reached the door and planted his ear firmly on it, held his breath, focused. Still nothing–

  A blast made the door smack his face and blacken his vision, and before he knew it, he was on the floor, dust raining down on him. His back hurt, his head hurt even more, but he opened his eyes, squinting. There were shouts and buzz – that’s my ears, he realized. His hand went up to keep the dust away, and he blinked rapidly. And then a face showed – a very familiar face that Ailios wasn’t very fond of.

  Luthis. “You are uglier than I remember,” Ailios muttered and coughed.

  Luthis turned to the door. “He’s here,” he called. He then dropped something on Ailios’s chest. “Take it.”

  It was a pistol. Ailios looked at Luthis again, blinking and coughing dust away and waving his hand in front of his face to help disperse the dust.

  “C’mon, move,” said the mover. “We don’t have much time.”

  Ailios rolled to his side and then struggled to get on his feet, one hand holding the pistol, other pushing him off the floor. Luthis extended a naked hand toward him. Ailios grabbed it when he was on his knees and pulled himself up. Luthis yelped.

  “What?” Ailios asked him.

  The mover showed him the hand. His fingers were all broken. Then Ailios realized in horror that his other hand was gone from the wrist down and covered in green liquid. Actually, Luthis’s entire suit was covered in green liquid and was still dripping down.

  “What happened to you?” Ailios asked in confusion this time.

  “There’s no time to explain,” Luthis said and jerked his head toward the exit. Ailios couldn’t leave his fellow prisoners behind. If the archeologist was right about that Eve thing and if there was even a slightest chance that his people might fend off the Cyons, then he had to take it. Besides, there were not many humans left.

  Ailios kneeled and took the dying one by his arm and then brought him on top of his shoulders. “Help the other,” he grunted to Luthis.

  “With what?” Luthis showed his injured hand and naked wrist.

  Ailios cursed. He staggered toward the sitting archeologist and he gave him a prod with his foot. “Hey, stand up. Rescue’s here.”

  The man’s face was gray with dust. He looked up, bright eyes full of despair. “My legs,” he said. Ailios looked down, and for the first time he noticed that they were awkwardly bent at the knees.

  “Gods,” Ailios heard himself mutter. But he didn’t plan to leave him there. He put the pistol in his pocket and he extended his hand. The archeologist shook his head. “Take it!”

  “You must tell the major…”

  “If we stay a little longer, we’re dead,” Luthis called. He was at the doorway, and he turned to see what the delay was all about. “Move dammit, what are you waiting for?”

  Ailios knew he was right. He would have to leave one of the archeologists to die so that the rest may escape.

  “No,” he said. He grabbed the archeologist’s hand. He was going to drag him out if need be.

  With one man on his shoulder, another towed behind, Ailios staggered through the fog of dust. His feet went over something hard first and then over something soft, almost twisting his ankle. He didn’t want to look down as he knew what the soft thing might be. Next he found himself in a tight corridor. Two men lay dead with gunshot wounds on their chests.

  Abominations, he realized. But Luthis couldn’t shoot a pistol with the broken hand of his. He must’ve had help… Faragar maybe?

  On his surprise it wasn’t Faragar.

  “You,” Ailios said, unable to believe his eyes. “You are the rescue?”

  The other man in a blue Bio-suit suit nodded with a frightened smile. “Trust me I didn’t want to come here either,” he said, “but Olivia…”

  Olivia! It was the only girl whose face Ailios wanted to see now – her face and her ship.

  “Never mind,” said Ailios. “Can you carry him?” He nodded at the archeologist on the floor.

  Friseal shrugged. “I don’t know. Strength is not my best side…”

  Ailios let go of the archeologist’s hand, and took out the pistol from his pocket. “One more pistol increases our chances of survival, don’t you think?”

  Friseal didn’t seem fond of the idea to carry someone, but Ailios didn’t leave him any choice. The chameleon kneeled, took the archeologist by his arm, and struggled to get him up on his shoulders. His legs wobbled but he managed to keep standing. That was good enough.

  “This way!” Luthis waved. He was at the end of the corridor, poking his head through a doorway. “Hurry!”

  When Ailios passed through, he suddenly stopped. His jaw dropped in pure astonishment. The entire roo
m was destroyed. Metal tables were turned upside down, glass was shattered, machinery pieces and metal tubes were scattered all over the place. At least a dozen bodies were lying under the ruins.

  Ailios turned to Luthis. “You did this?”

  “Gods, no. I was being tortured. It was him.”

  Ailios avoided the torture thing. He turned to Friseal. “You?” And then snorted. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

  Friseal shrugged and started through the ruins toward another doorway at the far end. Ailios was still unable to accept that Friseal was capable of such destruction. He was the biggest craven Ailios had ever seen. He was a chameleon for gods’ sake.

  Luthis shrugged as well and went after Friseal.

  The next room was also destroyed, and so was the next. Ailios wondered if Friseal was hiding his true abilities, but this was not the time to ask.

  When they reached the fourth room, a gunfight broke out. Burst of bullets riddled the turned tables and chairs inside the room.

  Few metal spikes hurtled beside Ailios. The last one hit something and the archeologist he was carrying flinched. Ailios kneeled behind a table, and then put the man down. The metal spike sprouted from his neck, blood oozed down on the floor. Ailios realized he had a warm line of blood on his own left leg. Quickly he checked his entire left side, to make sure it wasn’t his blood. He exhaled, relieved that it wasn’t. His fingers touched the archeologist’s neck, moved around until he could find a pulse. He touched the bloodied spot and then realized the spike had penetrated deep into