Beyond Hades: The Prometheus Wars (13 page)

Talbot was taken aback, and his step faltered, tripping him forward. Instantly the commando's hand whipped out and grasped his upper arm, pre-empting his fall in a vice-like grip.

"Watch that step, Doc," drawled the Australian casually. Talbot's heart thudded in his chest.

"Thank you," he gasped.

Wes just shrugged. "I'm your babysitter now. Wouldn't be much good if I let you get all fucked up on the doorstep now, would it?"

"I guess not," replied Talbot.

"Anyway, like I was sayin', how you gonna fix this thing?"

"I honestly have no idea," said Talbot, the enormity of the question dropping upon his shoulders like a giant sandbag.

"Hope you think of something soon," grunted Wes. "Otherwise we're all fucked. These things are hard to take down, trust me. If more than a couple come through this planet is done. For people anyway."

"I wish my brother were here," murmured Talbot despondently.

"Yeah, Thomas was a good bloke, funny bastard. Got fucking embarrassed every time I swore, how fucking funny is that?"

"Um, yeah," replied Talbot.

"Kind of like you," said Wes cracking a sly grin.

Talbot glanced at the man and almost tripped again, catching himself on the side of the tunnel, his hand coming away covered in a thick slime. He grimaced and wiped the grime onto the leg of his pants.

"Yep. He was a bit of a sissy too," mused Wes amicably.

Talbot bit back a retort. "How do they keep the ocean out?" he asked instead, changing the subject.

"Big fucking noisy shit, that's how," responded Wes. "The pumps just about shake this fucking place apart, but they keep us dry... sort of."

His vagueness merely annoyed Talbot. He decided against further attempts to gather any facts from the soldier; his universe obviously began and ended with killing people.

"Sad about your brother. Those bastards really hung him out to dry," said Wes suddenly.

"How do you mean?" asked Talbot.

"Leaving him behind and all that. Pretty fucked up if you know what I mean."

"They had no choice."

Wes grimaced. "There's always a choice. Those useless bastards just didn't like that one."

"How so?" queried Talbot.

"Well, I wasn't there, but from what I heard, they just ran like rabbits when that fucking dog thing tore through them. Your brother had done something to slow down whatever the hell it was chasing them, and they left him behind. That's pretty fucked up. They never went back in to see if he was alive or not, just locked down the rift and came looking for you."

"Are you serious?" Talbot's hands began trembling, but for once it wasn't from fear.

"Yep. Anyways, this time it'll be different. You won't get left behind."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Talbot.

The Australian commando's eyes narrowed, and his face adopted an expression so vastly different from his former casualness that Talbot's breath caught in his throat. There was something very predatory about that look.

"Because this time I'll be there," he said simply.

Talbot found the words somehow reassuring and terrifying at the same time.

***

The first person they met was General Sharpe, recently escaped from Base Alpha. "It's good to see you're okay, Doctor," the general said. "This mission would be doomed if you were to fall."

"Like my brother
fell
?"

"Exactly."

"Why was there no rescue attempt to retrieve Thomas?" demanded Talbot.

General Sharpe's glare shot daggers at Wes, who simply leaned against a wall and yawned.

"It was deemed too risky to reopen the rift. The decision was made due to the high improbability of your brother's survival. Any rescue attempt would endanger this entire base of operations as well as the lives of those involved. Every time one of those things gets through the rift, it tears its way out of here through the very walls. Each breach is a risk the entire place will collapse, and the rift will no longer be contained."

"Surely if it's at the bottom of the ocean, anything to come through would drown?" argued Talbot.

"No, Doctor. These things don't breathe air. They move through the ocean easier than we walk on land."

Talbot swallowed heavily at the thought. "What do you need from me?" he asked, though he knew the answer would be the thing he dreaded most.

"We need you to find a way to close the rift from the other side. We believe the answers lie there, within the realm of Tartarus."

Talbot thought through the general's words. He really didn't want to help them after they'd abandoned his brother to die, but the image of Captain Benedict kept returning to haunt him. Even though he had been among those who had supposedly abandoned Thomas beyond the rift, the man's sacrifice remained, and Talbot felt obliged to repay the debt he owed.

"You keep talking about the rift being secure. How do you secure it?" he asked the general.

"I couldn't give you the details, but our scientists discovered that if we concentrated enough electricity on it - and I'm talking about more power than a city the size of Los Angeles uses - we could narrow the gap enough so that only smaller denizens of Tartarus could sneak through. Most of these we are able to take care of, but enough get past us that we have the problem of them escaping out into the world."

"How do you generate so much power?" Talbot asked.

"We transported a prototype nuclear reactor several months ago. It's a fraction the size of a regular reactor, but also more... how shall I say... unpredictable. It occasionally lapses, and then we have a problem like that cyclops back at Base Alpha, or the gryphon that attacked your Super Stallion. We need to close the rift from the inside, Doctor. There is no other way."

Talbot cursed inwardly.

"You'll be right mate," chimed in Wes, lifting a M4A5 Carbine assault rifle before slamming in a full clip and chambering a round. "Those little fuckers won't get within pterodactyl-farting distance of you, I promise."

Exasperated, Talbot spun to ask what he meant, but noticed the predatory look had returned to Wes's eyes. It was an expression of such intensity Talbot was forced to drop his gaze.

"When do you want me to go?" he asked softly.

"Now," answered General Sharpe.

Crap.

***

They stood in the rift chamber, and Talbot gazed around in wonder. The area revealed the scars of several battles, including repairs to sections of the walls - obviously areas where the creatures had escaped by tearing through the very stone. These were now braced against the pressure of the ocean by massive steel girders and thick plating.

Surrounding Talbot stood some sixty marines; ferocious-looking warriors armed to the teeth, tense and ready, their expressions set and determined. They each carried rifles, their barrels flared out at the end like a trumpet, reminiscent of the ancient blunderbuss. The weapons were hooked via cable into a self-contained power pack which each marine carried on his back, shoulder straps securing the load and making it as comfortable as possible.

In stark contrast to these formidable combatants, Wes lay stretched out on the ground, apparently sleeping, his M4A5 resting across his chest, its under-slung M203A1- 40mm grenade launcher seemingly in wait of action. Talbot could hear him snoring slightly.

Talbot gazed at the rift; the source of all their problems.

It stood around sixty feet high, a swirling void occasionally crackling loudly from the electricity concentrated on it. He had been expecting something spectacular, but apart from the fact it hung unsuspended vertically in the air, the rift itself was quite boring to look at.

Irregular edges constantly swirled and changed, framing nothing. That was the best explanation for it: nothing. It was so hard to actually focus on; his eyes seemed to slide away from it, fastening to the walls behind or ceiling above. The rift wasn't even black in the sense of the word, but black was the closest thing he could liken it to; it seemed to leech the light from around it, sucking all illumination into its cavernous maw.

A startling ripple of color flowed suddenly over the darkness, like a trapped rainbow. Starting innocuously along the bottom, left edge, it flowed up from the blackness, flitting across the surface of the inky pond to the top edge, and then it was gone.

"All right, gentlemen," the general's voice intoned from the control room. "We will be disabling power to the rift in thirty seconds. Stand ready."

The soldiers instantly raised their weapons to their shoulders, and a strange humming filled the room.

"Better stand back here with me, Doc," cautioned a voice in Talbot's ear making him jump. Spinning, he came face to face with Wes, clear-eyed and bearing an intensity upon his features Talbot immediately equated with danger. He motioned for Talbot to follow him, his eyes never leaving the rift.

Talbot moved to comply, wondering at this strange man who could go from a deep sleep to being instantly alert within seconds. They stepped to the back of the room - closest to the emergency exit, Talbot noticed.

"If I tell you to move, get through that door and keep running until I give you the all-clear to stop. Understand?"

Talbot nodded, unable to question this figure of authority who, up until now, he had begun to think was merely a smartass - albeit a smartass who might just happen to be good with a gun.

Wes - whoever the hell he was - was turning out to be a whole lot more than that.

Alarms sounded, and every weapon in the room aimed directly at the rift. Red lights flashed, and the tension became almost unbearable.

A new voice - not the general's - came over the speakers. "Cutting power to the rift in five... four... three... two... one!"

The rift instantly stopped crackling and seemed to expand slightly, as though released from chains. No one seemed to breathe.

A howl echoed through the area. The lights flickered.

"Oh shit," whispered Wes. "Run.
Now!
"

Talbot turned just as all of the lights in the room exploded, spraying the marines with glass. The howling pierced directly into his brain, causing him to pause.

"I said run, you fucking idiot!" roared Wes, grabbing him and propelling them both through the thick steel door. The SAS commando spun and hit a button on the wall as the door slammed shut. Heavy bolts slammed home inside the steel door, and a solid latticework grill shot down, smashing into the ground. The buzz of electricity ran over it, crackling and popping.

Wes turned back and frowned at Talbot, who promptly bolted off down the long corridor with Wes's boots slapping the stone floor right behind him.

"Where are we going?" yelled Talbot over his shoulder.

"Away from what was about to come through that fucking rift."

"What was it?"

"Something bad. Something very, very bad. It got out the first time we opened the rift and killed half the soldiers here before they were able to drive it back. I had to bring your brother this exact route to get away from it."

"Maybe we should just wait here until they stop it," suggested Talbot.

The door far behind them shuddered as something smashed into it from the other side. It would not hold for long.