The Last Mission of the Living (The Last Bastion Book 2) (22 page)

“Relay that to the aircraft, MacDonald. We need them to take a more direct path and not bother circling the area.”

“Yes, sir.”

The large metal door in front of them shuddered to life.

“Let’s hope they actually did store the food to last a hundred years,” the chief defender muttered, “and that it wasn’t just hype.”

As soon as the doors slid open far enough to allow entry, the squad hurried through with weapons raised and ready for whatever lay on the other side.

“We have bodies,” Franklin’s voice said tersely. “Long dead. Not Scrags.”

Lindsey slipped into the building and saw several deceased lying on the ground. They’d been dead for so long, the corpses were mummified. It was clear that all had died to a gunshot to the head.

“Were they Scrags?” Hobbes wondered aloud.

“Possibly,” Torran answered. “Keep alert. You know what to do.”

Lindsey studied the vast room warily. The simulation had been eerily close to the actual storage area except for the corpses and four loaders that were pushed up against the interior doors. The barricades were confirmation as far as Lindsey was concerned that they’d been smart not to enter through the roof entrances. It would have taken far too long to clear out the building.

Towering storage units painted in bright blue rose to the high ceiling. Each unit was designed to maintain the perfect environment for food storage and were not connected to a central power grid. There were plenty of places to hide, but Scrags didn’t like to hide. The minute they detected humans, they stirred to life. Of course, they were a little sluggish at first, so it was better to error on the side of caution. How long would it take for a Scrag who’d been locked up for nearly half century to wake up and attack?

Lindsey hurried with the rest of her team to clear the right side of the room. Row upon row of the storage units filled the enormous room. The remote generator spurred the lights overhead to glow, but there were still disturbingly dark spaces. Quick, precise sweeps cleared the areas as they advanced toward their objective. The small group skirted between a row of containers and the wall. The doors on both ends of the room were closed and had loaders jammed against them. There were several empty spots on the floor where storage units had stood, indicating that during the evacuation some of the food had been moved. So had the crew in the loading area held off the Scrags while the cargo ships carried off what they could? The evidence seemed to support that idea.

Along the way, they discovered more bodies at the base of one of the storage units.

“Shots to the head like the others,” Hobbes said grimly.

Lindsey glanced at the mummified bodies. They were wearing uniforms from the armies of the old days. Flags from long gone countries decorated their shoulders.

“There was no hope.” Franklin pushed one of the bodies over with her foot, then squatted to gaze at the desiccated face. “It was either a bullet or starvation.”

“Shouldn’t they have gone with the others to The Bastion during the evacuation?” Carter, another SWD soldier, asked. He was a wide-set man with heavy features, pale blue eyes, tan skin, and short dark hair.

“There wasn’t enough room,” Lindsey answered. “Some volunteered to stay behind once it was determined that there weren’t enough aircraft in the area to evacuate everyone. There was mass panic when Beta City fell. It happened so suddenly. They never saw the attack coming.”

“So all of these people are the heroes.” Hobbes’ voice filled with admiration.

“The very best of us,” Lindsey said, glancing at Torran across the room.

“Clear on this side, Vanguard Rooney,” Chief Defender Solomon’s voice said through the comm.

“Progressing toward objective,” Lindsey responded, and signaled her group to continue forward.

As the squad advanced, Lindsey focused on the far end to the darkened recessed area where the control room was. There was a lot of concern about this particular spot. It was the only part of the room that the portable wireless generator was too weak to reach with its wave.

“What if they’re in there?” Hobbes asked. “Waiting?”

“Well, there’s one way to find out,” Lindsey said, then struck the storage unit beside her. The clank resonated through the room. “Let’s give them a wakeup call.”

“Vanguard?” the chief defender’s voice queried.

“They’re attracted to sound and movement,” Lindsey answered, then hit the unit again.

The dark space before them remained quiet.

“Light,” Lindsey ordered.

Hobbes pulled a small flashlight from his belt and shone it at the spot she pointed to. One of the other things she disliked about the modified weapons was since they were covered with the same material as the stealth suits, the lights had been removed along with the long-range scopes. The beam barely penetrated the murk, but it appeared that the control area was empty.

Advancing, Lindsey could hear the rest of the squad calling out that their section of the vast storage room was clear.

“Corpse on the floor,” she said, indicating the pair of boots hidden behind a workstation.

Hobbes and Franklin scooted past her, moving into position to charge into the enclosed area. The door was open, which Lindsey hoped was a good sign. With well-practiced ease, Hobbes and Franklin slipped into the control room with Lindsey right behind them. The space was narrow, cramped and devoid of life. Two bodies were on the floor and were long dead.

“Nothing to shoot,” Franklin grunted.

“We’re clear,” Lindsey said, relief in her voice. Relaxing her shoulders, she returned to the main floor.

“We’ve got a schedule to keep. Get to work,” the chief defender ordered.

The Sci-Tech team immediately started their scans of each storage unit as Dr. Curran observed their progress. Lindsey caught the doctor briefly glancing her way with one of her inscrutable expressions. Deciding to ignore the woman altogether, Lindsey directed her gaze at the barricaded doors. The heavy-duty loaders were squat vehicles with long metallic limbs that ended in claws. The arms enabled the driver to pack the vehicle with heavy cargo and cart the products to loading areas. The loaders in front the interior entrances to the storage area had the arms extended and the claws set against the doors.

Torran stepped to her side and gestured toward the loaders. “Why barricade the doors?”

Lindsey studied the barricade before answering. “Interior doors don’t have the high security locks reserved for the outside doors. If the reports of a Scrag outbreak inside the building are true, they had to do what they could to keep them closed.”

“We need those to load the cargo transports,” he said. “Which means moving them away from the doors.”

“And Scrags are still in the building...” Lindsey took a deep breath. “Shit.”

Torran gestured to an entrance across the room. “I checked the doors on the other side. The locks didn’t activate. The only thing keeping the doors closed are the loaders. Can the remote generator get the door locks to work?”

Scrutinizing the four doors that were blocked off and the distance between them, Lindsey shook her head. “It’s too low powered. The wave is keeping the lights on, but it doesn’t have that much juice. The auto-locks should have flipped on before the power went out.”

“But what if they were sabotaged?” Torran raised his eyes.

Lindsey followed his gaze to the area above the storage containers. Scorch marks decorated the ceiling where power junctions had been blown out. “This is bad.”

“Dr. Curran, what’s the status on the storage units?” Torran asked, opening up the comm to the doctor and including Lindsey.

“Only a third are viable,” Dr. Curran answered.

“Why only a third?” Torran asked, his brown eyes meeting Lindsey’s.

“Sabotage took out quite a few of the units.”

Lindsey sighed. She should have known things were going a little too well.

Chapter 21

“Keep us updated,” Torran said, then cut the scientist out of their conversation. Looking at Lindsey, he could see the computer behind her eyes already whirring to life. He trusted that look implicitly.

“The power junctions were sabotaged, meaning they couldn’t lock the doors,” Lindsey said. “They barricaded the doors to keep the Scrags in the building trapped while they got a few of the containers onto the transports before shutting the loading doors.”

That sounded about right, so Torran gave her a quick nod. “So the question is: did they then kill themselves?”

Lindsey glanced at the bodies around her, then opened a direct link to Hobbes and Franklin. “Check all the bodies in the room. See how many have holstered weapons.”

The two soldiers hurried off as Lindsey squatted in front of one of the piles of dead soldiers. A Sci-Tech and his escort were just finishing at the nearby storage unit. The tech marked the unit with a large red X, then moved on. Another sabotaged unit.

Crouching beside her, Torran asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I suspect there was a battle. Some of the people in here were defending the food depot. The others weren’t.” Lindsey pointed at the weapons still holstered in the belts of the bodies in front of her. “Indications are that they were ambushed. They’re nearest the control center. Exit wounds look like they’re in the front of the head, not back.”

“Shot from behind most likely.”

“Killed unexpectedly. Then I think there was a skirmish.”

What she was suggesting seemed to make sense in the light of the sabotage and bodies around them. Torran didn’t like where the investigation was pointing at all.

“Vanguard Rooney,” Hobbes said, running up, Franklin on his heels. “Most of the bodies around the control room had weapons on them, but they were not drawn. Toward the loading docks, those bodies were armed and appeared to have additional wounds other than the head shot.”

“Neither side truly won, but the saboteurs failed. That meant someone managed to kill them before they were able to finish their job,” Torran decided.

“Why destroy the food? Why murder these people?” Lindsey directed her focus to the people at her feet again. “Who would do something like that?”

With a frown, Torran said, “The Gaia Cult.”

“The people who wanted humanity to die?” Hobbes asked.

“People who believed humans had outwitted their extinction event and overstayed their time on Earth,” Franklin amended. “They wanted to save the planet from us.”

“So they destroyed the resources we might need to survive.” Lindsey straightened and glanced toward the loaders. “Maybe they’re the ones who started the Scrag infection in the building.”

The cult had been responsible for opening the gate and letting the Scrags into the valley that surrounded The Bastion. Their ardent belief that humanity’s time was at an end spurred them to horrific acts of terrorism. This seemed to be yet another one.

“It had to have been the Gaia Cult,” Torran decided. “This looks like their work. They just didn’t get to finish. What is beyond those doors?”

“Those are basic interior doors,” Lindsey said. “They swing outward. Enough force will push them open.”

Torran tapped on his wristlet screen and summoned one of the drones. “Then we should be able to peer under it.” He gestured to the tracks in the floor used to move food from the processing part of the facility to the storage. “I got a drone on its way.”

“I have an update on the containers,” Dr. Curran said through the channel to the three in charge.

“Report,” the chief defender’s voice ordered over the comm.

“A little less than half of the containers are still operational and have viable food products within,” Dr. Curran answered.

“That’s a much smaller haul than anticipated,” Solomon groused.

“The containers were sabotaged. There’s not much we can do about that,” Dr. Curran replied, her voice clipped.

“It’ll have to do then. MacDonald, Rooney, what is our status?”

The aerial drone sped past Torran and headed toward one of the doors. Its long spidery legs extended from under its body as it settled on the cement floor. “Running a scan on the hallways. We can’t move the loaders yet.”

“Transports arrive in two minutes,” the chief defender said briskly.

“Understood,” Lindsey said, glancing at Torran. Her expression was very tense.

A small beep in Torran’s helmet indicated he was about to get a new feed. A second later, the data from the small scanner the aerial drone had scooted under one of the doors appeared in the corner of her faceplate. It took several tries with the filters for them to finally get an adequate scan. Torran’s heart thumped harder in his chest.

The image was of countless feet standing perfectly still.

The Scrags were outside the doors. Fear filled his veins with ice. Swallowing the hard lump that formed all at once in his suddenly tight throat, he toggled over to the chief defender directly.

“What is it?” Solomon asked. From across the room, she directed her gaze toward him.

“There are Scrags in the lower left hallway. We’re checking the others w now. We’ll need to move the loaders, which will make sufficient noise to waken them.” Torran kept his voice surprisingly steady despite the dread clawing at his insides.

“I need details within one minute,” Solomon answered briskly.

The aerial drone lifted off and flew to the next door after Lindsey sent it fresh commands. Torran watched the feed as the drone slid a sensor into the narrow space under the door. He exhaled as he saw that the hallway was empty. Lindsey issued more commands and the small drone darted overhead, resembling an oversized insect, to the other side of the room.

“We’ll use the loader in front of the empty hallway to push a sabotaged storage container against the doors,” Lindsey said.

Torran surveyed the barricades, then nodded. “Yeah. That should work.”

“It’ll affect our egress time schedule.” Lindsey slid her pad out of her uniform and started tapping away on the screen.

The drone sent an updated feed.

The next hallway was packed with Scrags.

“Well, that makes it simpler,” Torran said, sarcasm hiding his nerves.

“Fuck,” Lindsey grunted.

The aerial drone skittered just above the floor to the next door. The squad members were busy unlocking the food containers from their storage units, but a few gave the small drone worried looks.

This hallway was filled with corpses. It appeared that someone had set off some sort of explosive device. Bits of bodies littered the hallway and the ceiling and walls had partially collapsed.

“There is a God,” Torran said with relief.

“And She is good.” Lindsey flashed him a smile.

Together, Lindsey and Torran hurried to the chief defender’s side. The woman was watching the final prep for the removal of the food.

“Situation is not as dire as it could be. Southeast door and northeast doors are breach points. One hallway is blocked, the other is empty,” Torran explained.

“The empty hallway leads straight to the granary and only has one other entrance to it. Maybe someone managed to lock it,” Lindsey added. “If we use the loader from the blocked hallway, we can move damaged food containers in front of the doors that have Scrags on the other side. They’ll wake up, but they’ll have trouble getting through.”

“We’ve got six loaders. Two will be needed to block doors. That will affect our load time,” Torran finished.

At that very moment the three aircraft sent their approach status. They were about to arrive.

“Do it. Make it fast. We still have that potential breach in the rear of the facility and the Scrags about to take down the wall on the northwest side. MacDonald, get the doors blocked and the loaders prepped. Rooney, I want you to run a fresh scan on all approaches to the facility. I want to know exactly how much time we have before Scrags are on us,” Solomon ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

Torran gave Lindsey the briefest of glances. He didn’t expect her to be looking his way since she was always so intent on her tasks, but her gaze met his for a second. It was enough to make him feel a bit more grounded. They cared for one another and wouldn’t let each other down.

“Carter, Ramirez, Evins, Yates, you’re with me.”

Immediately the four SWD soldiers hurried to his side.

The aerial drone zipped past Torran and swooped after Lindsey.

Reaching the doors to the blocked hallway, Torran swiftly explained exactly what their assignments were, then signaled for more of the squad to come join him. As he talked, he saw Lindsey leading Hobbes and Franklin toward the front doors. The aerial drone darted around the curtain to the outside. He’d just finished with his instructions when Dr. Curran approached him.

“What’s this I hear about Inferi Scourge behind the doors?” she demanded.

“There was an outbreak in the building. They’re still in here with us, but the doors are blocked off.”

“But the loaders—”

“We got a plan.”

Dr. Curran gave the chief defender across the room a hard look. “I was told this mission was going to be safe.”

“You do realize where you are, right? You’re in a dead world. A world that humanity had to abandon to save itself. Nothing out here is
safe
.” Torran pinned her with his fiercest look. “Don’t ever think you’re safe, or you will make a terrible mistake that may cost not only your life. but the lives of others.”

“Are you done lecturing me?” Dr. Curran asked, lifting her chin haughtily.

“I hope so. Get back to your position. We’re leaving in about one minute.”

Torran made sure the self-important doctor was obeying him before he opened a link to Lindsey. “Rooney, what’s the status?”

“They’re inbound and landing within thirty seconds. Scrags near the possible breach are now waking up. And the storm is about to hit.”

“The curtain...”

“Its usefulness is done. It did the trick, though I wonder if we even needed to project the image. The Scrags are a bit dumb,” Lindsey ruminated.

“Well, better safe than sorry. They’ve been staring at the damn door for how long? Any major alterations may have jarred them awake.”

“You’re a clever man.” There was a beat of silence, then Lindsey said, “Here we go.”

A second later the sound of the massive cargo transports approaching filled the room. The air around the soldiers vibrated as the aircraft neared. The Scrags would definitely now awaken.

It was time.

Immediately Carter started the loader blocking the door on the ruined hallway. It groaned to life, then its long arms retracted from the doors and curled into their stationary position. With a satisfied grin, Carter drove toward the next door where Ramirez waited in the driver’s seat, her fingers nervously tapping on the controls while other soldiers provided cover. Carter edged up behind one of the ruined storage units and a Sci-tech ejected the container. The damaged container slid out of the tall blue cylinder and Carter expertly extended the mechanical arms of the loader to fully extract it.

“How long before they awaken?” Torran asked over the comm.

“According to Vanguard Martinez, it will be within a minute,” Lindsey answered.

The woman he loved and feared for was on the other side of the room, watching Evins maneuvering one of the faulty containers into position. Meanwhile, Yates waited with her loader in front of the door hiding the mass of Scrags. The tension in the air was palatable. Everyone was staring at the doors, waiting for a sign that the Scrags had awakened.

The loader Carter was driving swiveled about toward the door where Ramirez waited to move her loader. The engine revved louder as Carter put some speed into it, expertly weaving around the other storage units. Even over the rumbling engine, Torran heard the exact moment the Scrags awakened.

The terrifying screech of the Inferi Scourge emanated from behind the closed doors seconds before they shook violently under the onslaught of the undead.

* * *