Resonance 4th Edits - Bleeding Worlds Bk 3 (14 page)

Fuyuko waited for the third guard to move back into striking distance.

She slammed her elbow into the throat of the smug guard, crushing his windpipe. The other two guards were dispatched just as quickly by her team. A satisfied smile curled around her lips. It was like being back on Ansuz—no need to communicate everything, just know the situation and react when the leader does.

She retrieved the keys to the room from the crumpled soldier at her feet.

“Marks, Thoms, Stats, take their guns and ammunition. I suspect Anubis can lock down this whole facility with a Prometheus field. We’ll probably need conventional weapons until we can clear the building. Everyone else take cover in the room. You three, shoot anyone who comes down the hall. Go for head or knees—bullets from those guns won’t pierce their body armor.”

Fuyuko cursed. They’d had to pack the majority of their gear after the operation to maintain appearances. Marks, Thoms, Stats, and herself, managed to keep their own armor under the guise of being the prisoner escorts.

Inside, she used her combat knife to smashed the four cameras. She pulled out her cell and dialed the extraction team number she received at the start of the mission. With Anubis’ treachery confirmed, she needed to warn them. The phone refused to connect.

Are they jamming the signal?

She took a moment to look at the faces around the room. Most looked ready, determined. But the few who’d doubted her, showed fear and confusion. She couldn’t deny she liked most of these people—they’d been her team for years. After losing Ansuz, she’d kept them at a distance—never becoming friends. But did that mean they were disposable?

I’m not thinking straight. I should’ve just left Jason and gone straight for the vans. How many of my team will die because of saving his one life?

But could any of them promise her revenge? She couldn’t turn her back on fulfilling seven years of desire.
 

A pang of guilt sat mid chest.

I’m becoming as bad as Woten.

She felt sick.

Gunfire from the door shook her loose. She couldn’t be filled with doubts now. She’d chosen this path whether it was the wisest course of action or not. Now she had to demonstrate strength and resolve—to lead with the attitude she needed the others to have.

Jason looked at her with glazed eyes. His cheeks were purple with bruising.

She undid the restraints and removed his collar.

“Are you with it enough to heal yourself?” she asked. “Because if you are, you better hurry, or you’ll lose your chance.”

A tug in her gut—the Veil being torn—pulling toward Jason, was his reply.

When the heaviness of a Prometheus Circle activating pressed down on her, Jason’s eyes were clear, but the bruising had yet to heal.

“Look at me,” she said, loud enough so her entire team could hear. “You have two choices, fight along side us, or I put this collar back on and leave you to die. What’s your choice?”

Jason stood up from the chair and rubbed his raw wrists.

“Just give me a gun and tell me who to shoot,” he said.

The doubting looks of her team weighed heavier than the effects of the Prometheus Circle.
 

I should’ve told them
, she thought.
Maybe they would trust him better if they understood.

“Stats, what’s it looking like?”

“No sign of enemies since the first wave. I count about twenty-five men in all.”

“All right,” she said. “Stats, go left, Marks, right.”

She split her remaining team into two, instructing the first group to follow Stats to gather weapons and the rest to do the same behind Marks.

“What do you want me to do?” Jason asked.

“Stay close to me. The others won’t trust you enough to cover their backs.”

His eyebrow raised.

“And you do?”

“More than anyone else. But not because of our past. It’s because I know you need me.”

He turned away, unable to meet her gaze.

“Doesn’t it seem odd,” he said, “they aren’t sending more troops? I mean, even though there might be high casualties, they could easily overwhelm us.”

“It does. You don’t think he would…” Her eyes widened. “Everyone move!” Her feet were already propelling her forward at top speed. “Run toward the garage!”

She and Jason had just turned the corner in the hall when a blast threw them against the wall. Dust reduced visibility to zero and falling pieces of debris and concrete inflicted bruises and wounds.

Fuyuko’s ears rang. She couldn’t hear properly but felt the reverberating pounding of approaching boots through the floor.

She stumbled to her feet and pulled her two combat knives from their sheathes.

Plunging into the haze of dust, she collided with the first of Anubis’ incoming troops.

Fuyuko drove one knife up into the skull of the first soldier, spinning and slashing another across the throat. She left her knife imbedded in the one man’s skull, using the handle to pivot the corpse as a shield and distraction. Another cut throat. A knee blown with a punishing kick. Then true casualties began to rack up as she sheathed her one knife and grabbed the corpse’s assault rifle, hanging from its strap, and strafed the hall in front of her. She grabbed a concussion grenade from the dead solider’s vest and tossed it down the hall.

The sound of the explosion’s rumble and the satisfying groans of wounded enemies filled the hall and signalled the return of her hearing.

“Fuyuko.”

Jason stumbled out of the dust that had finally started to clear. Several others of her team—
too few
—followed behind him.

“Is that everyone?” she asked.

Jason coughed.

“I think so,” he said. Then added in a quieter voice, “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t have time for sorries or mourning. She’d worry about that if they survived.

“All of you, grab weapons and finish off any of these bastards who are still moving.”

More than half her team had been wiped out. The only favor Anubis did was block the hallways at her back. At least they’d only have to worry about what was in front.
 

Moving forward was always easier.

Fuyuko took the lead, taking the assault rifle she’d used from the first soldier she’d killed. The body had collapsed, pinning the rifle’s strap beneath. Fuyuko used her knife to cut it free and searched the soldier for more rounds. She liked this rifle. It was heavier than the ones used by the guards in front of Jason’s holding room. And it punched through armor like it was cloth.

“You should hang back,” Jason said.

“I won’t send any more of my people to die in my place. I’ll face the danger ahead first.”

Jason shook his head.

“Don’t be foolish. You’re too important to risk. I’ll go first.”

She shoved her forearm against his throat, forcing him back, pinning him to the wall.

“I don’t need you walking into my life after seven years and treating me like a fragile doll. I haven’t needed you to survive to this point, and I don’t need you to survive longer.”

Jason held up his hands in surrender.

He fell into coughing fits as she released him.

When he’d caught his breath, he said, “I wasn’t trying to insult you. It’s just you’re right, none of your team wants me at their backs. It’d be easier for you, and them, if I go first. Maybe I can earn a little trust before this is over.”

Her grip tightened on the rifle. She’d spent too many nights thinking life would be better if Jason were still alive. Now that he was here, she realized things were simpler when he was dead.

“Fine,” she said. “Take point. But my rifle and I are right behind you.”

His grin said,
I wouldn’t have it any other way
. Thankfully, he kept his mouth shut.

At a bend in the hall, Jason crouched down and peered around the corner.

“All clear,” he said.

It was the second corner they’d turned unopposed.

“Could you have overestimated the number of men Anubis had stationed here?” Jason asked.

“Anything is possible,” Fuyuko said. “The members of the Pantheon are no different than when they ran Suture—they act like they’re on the same side, but they keep their secrets. There’s no intelligence reports I would trust completely.”

Jason’s mouth set in a grim line.

“So either he’s out of troops, he’s sick of the casualties or…”

“Or his troops are busy with something ahead of us. I sent a team to secure the vans several hours ago.”

Jason nodded his approval.

“I just hope they were smart enough to not rely entirely on their powers.”

“Sparx is a smart kid—he’ll have known about the Prometheus Ring.”

Jason rounded the corner, staying close to the wall. The others followed his lead, dispersing to either side of the hall, guns at the ready.

“Through those doors.” Fuyuko motioned with her chin. “That’s the garage area.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Jason said. “I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.”

“You wouldn’t. The building above us is a Pantheon shell company. It employs hundreds who have no idea it’s an Anunnaki business. A camouflaged door with sound dampening technology hides the entrance to this facility. The idea is to keep the sound of this place from reaching out there.”

Jason approached the door and pressed his ear against its surface.

He shrugged.

“Either nothing’s going on or it’s the best tech I’ve ever seen—I can’t hear a thing.”

He looked to either side of the door.

“How the hell do we open it?”

Fuyuko ran her hands down either side of the door. She turned, looking for any doors they might have missed. It was conceivable doors in the hall used the same techniques that hid the entry outside. Not a single seam along the wall presented itself.

“Camera,” she said after a moment, pointing out the blackened dome hanging from the ceiling behind them.

“So there’s a separate room where they control the door?” Jason asked.

“I guess.”

“I didn’t see anything on the way here. So either it’s hidden…”

“Or it’s on the other side of the rubble back by the interrogation room.”

“I was going to say it could be somewhere outside of here,” Jason said, “but yeah, it could be back that way too. Do we have any explosives?”

“Just some grenades we took off the soldiers. But there’s no way to shape the charge—it would just be a wide spread explosion. We might trap ourselves worse than we are right now.”

Fuyuko walked from one side of the hall to the next, taking in the walls, the floors, and the ceiling. She experimentally smacked the stock of her rifle against the wall—no give. She clicked on the safety, ejected the ammunition cartridge, and, holding the barrel end, smacked the stock against the ceiling, producing a satisfying dent and crack.

“Stand back,” she said, locking the clip back in place and releasing the safety.

She fired a number of rounds into the ceiling, cutting the shape of a rough hole.

“Give me a boost.”

Jason crouched down, cupping his hands together. She stepped up, and he pushed her toward the scarred ceiling. She pulled one of her knives and carved at a few places where the drywall still clung on and punched her way through.

“Does anyone have a flashlight?” she asked.

One of the team came forward, offering a flashlight and a questioning look.

They’re wondering why I’m so trusting and familiar with this “terrorist.”

Explaining it would be one more task to do if they survived.

“There’s a support beam I can grab. Hold on…”

She gripped the flashlight in her teeth and grabbed hold of the beam. Her feet scrabbled against the smooth walls as she tried to give herself a bit more leverage.

Jason’s hand pushed against her bottom, giving her the extra boost she needed.

Several gun safeties clicked open.

“Don’t be such a bunch of prudes,” she called down, “he was just helping me up. If it bothers me, I am capable of shooting him myself.”

Sitting atop the beam, the hidden workings in the ceiling revealed themselves. The blank cavity above the ceiling extended another six feet above the drywall. She could make out the waffled foam baffles that acted as part of the sound dampening to prevent noise going to the upper levels. With this height and however much more space of sound proofing, it was possible the floors above could remain ignorant of the blast that had killed so many of her team.

She trained the flashlight’s beam in the direction of the camera. From here, she could see the guts of the thing and wires running back the direction they’d come.

Dammit. Can’t do this the easy way.

She shimmied along the beam toward the doors.

Maybe if I can cut the power supply, we could force them open.

A solid cement brick wall halted her progress just above the doors. No cables or junction boxes had presented themselves. She shone the flashlight down either side of the door. It was solid, a single piece that rolled horizontally from the right to the left. She could just make out the hydraulics to the right that controlled the movement of the door.

Back at the hole, she reached down.

“Hand me up a couple grenades,” she said, “and then get back from the door.”

With four in hand, she moved back to the door. She popped the safety pins from each, keeping a firm grip on the clips. She aimed toward the open crevice where the hydraulics pushed the door shut. As soon as she started lobbing them, she started counting.

One, one-thousand, two, one-thousand.

With her hands empty, she rolled off the beam, pulling her knees in tight and driving her entire weight against, and through, the drywall of the ceiling.

Three, one thousand. Four, one thousand.

She landed awkwardly on the floor.

Five, one-thousand.

She scrambled on all fours away from the door.

Six, one-thousand. Seven—

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

The walls shook and buckled to her left. Drywall dust rained down, making the hall look like a light fog had rolled in.