Chapter 10
The security feed was still offline, but Gabriel’s passive scans showed no additional threats between him and the target room. The room where he hoped to find answers. Where were Knowles and Biermann? Who were these gunmen? And why the hell were they trying to kill him?
He ran at a medium pace, feeling the strength in his legs with each step. The nano machines had done their job. He felt different from head to toe; his muscles felt almost refreshed, like just waking up from a nap and taking a long, slow stretch. In fact, he thought as he ran, he was waking up from a nap. A very long one.
This was a zero point for him. He was different. Stronger, faster, more capable. He only hoped he’d live through whatever this was to be able to use all his newfound abilities.
He slowed as he approached the last elevator bay. He could see the door just past the bay. It was closed and had a simple palm lock. It was very nondescript, like most others he saw on Cielo, but behind this one was his target.
He took one last passive scan of his immediate surroundings and walked slowly around to the other side of the elevator bay. Suddenly a flashing icon popped up in his Mindseye. His neuretics threat assessment algorithm had detected movement, but his scans were clear. He froze and brought the rifle up. Again the icon flashed, but had no vector or location.
Gabriel spun around, rifle up and armed, but the corridor was clear behind him. He looked up at the ceiling, but saw nothing. The dim light wasn’t preventing him from seeing; his scans enhanced his vision far better than even radar would be, but he still saw nothing. He queried his neuretics to pin down the source of the movement, but his systems couldn’t. Something was moving, close, but it was invisible.
Make them react. A voice from his past echoed in his head. His instructor back at RTC Great Lakes, showing recruits how to flush out an unseen enemy. Don’t be predictable, be unconventional. Draw them out by forcing their hand.
Gabriel pressed his back to the wall of the corridor and slowly reached down and pulled the two frag grenades from his thigh pocket. They were close-quarters models, smaller than ones used for room clearing, and both easily fit into one hand. He used his thumb to flick both arming switches. He threw one down the corridor he had just come from, and one a few feet past the door he was approaching. Both rolled to a stop around twenty-five feet from him in opposite directions. He was now in the middle of the explosion zone of two grenades, and he hoped he remembered the correct blast radius of these particular models.
Gabriel dropped to his knees and covered the sides of his head with his forearms. He heard a muffled curse just before the grenades went off.
The blasts were within a split second of each other, sounding like two firecrackers going off. Gabriel heard the corridor walls get peppered with shrapnel as the grenades dispersed their anti-personnel contents. He had calculated the distance properly; only a few pieces of metal struck him, and none with enough force to cause any damage. The same couldn’t be said for his unknown and unseen companion.
Gabriel’s neuretics lit up with a bright red icon, just a few feet before the target door. Stealth suit, he saw. The hostile stumbled away from the explosion, his electronics and heat blocking suit shredded from the impact of the frag grenade shrapnel. In the dim light, with the stealth suit’s capabilities, the man was invisible to anything short of a full power active scan, and almost had the drop on him. Almost, Gabriel thought as he stood up from his crouch and started towards the man.
The hostile recovered quickly. The suit offered some protection from projectile impact, so his disorientation was only momentary. He pulled a wicked looking curved blade from a hidden pocket and lunged towards Gabriel.
The distance was too close for Gabriel to use the rifle as anything more than a club, and the mag pistol was tucked away behind his back. He flipped the rifle backwards as he moved, grabbing the barrel, and parried the blade arm of the hostile.
The man grunted as the rifle stock struck his arm, but he held the blade securely, and Gabriel lost his grip on the smooth rifle barrel. It fell to the floor behind his attacker. Now that Gabriel was up close and personal, he got a better look at the man. He was tall and broad, about his own size, and the head covering of the stealth suit was torn in several places, showing part of his face. The man wore a cruel leer as he swung the blade in a wide arc towards Gabriel’s head.
Gabriel stepped back as the blade whooshed through the air in front of him. As it passed, he lashed out with his free hand and struck the back of the man’s elbow, and was rewarded with a sickening crack as the bone snapped.
The man howled in pain, and quickly shifted the long blade to his good hand. Gabriel began to reach behind him for the mag pistol, but the man stepped forward and flailed with his broken arm, apparently oblivious to the pain. His hand caught Gabriel’s wounded arm just as he pulled the pistol from his waistband, and a shock of pain staggered Gabriel. The pistol, like the rifle, fell to the floor. He stepped back, as did the hostile, and each man warily eyed the other.
Gabriel was now unarmed, wounded, and apparently evenly matched size-wise with his attacker. Evenly matched except for the blade, which reflected the dull blue light as the man waved it in front of him. The two were just outside of arm’s reach, and both of them dripped blood from multiple injuries. Gabriel knew he’d have to end this conflict quickly, as whoever was behind the door was well aware of his presence at this point and could be preparing for an assault.
Realizing this, he ran a full active scan on the room, all the while staring into his attacker’s eyes as they slowly circled each other. Gabriel was now on the door side of the corridor as they changed positions. The scan showed two people in the small room, no sign of weapons, no electronics save for a reading from a basic comm terminal. Whoever was in there wasn’t likely a threat. Whoever was running this show was counting on the five — no, six, he thought as he eyed the blade again — mercenaries to take him out before he ever opened the door.
Suddenly the other man stepped forward, inside the arm’s reach area, blade outstretched. Gabriel calmly deflected the slow move to the side, but was caught off guard by the man’s foot crashing into his lower leg. He grimaced in pain as his knee collapsed inwards, feeling his tendons stretch. He dropped down onto that knee.
His attacker took another quick step in and swung the blade down. Gabriel raised his left arm to block the incoming blow, and then saw his own opening. As the blade arced downwards, Gabriel lashed out with his right fist deep into the man’s stomach. The blade fell from his grasp and bounced harmlessly off Gabriel’s left shoulder, and the man doubled over. Gabriel fired his open left hand upwards into the man’s chin and heard teeth shatter as his lower jaw smashed into his upper.
With a grunt, the man toppled over onto his side, blood leaking from a corner of his mouth. His eyes squeezed shut and he moaned in agony. Gabriel, still on one knee, grabbed the fallen knife and held it to the man’s throat, leaning in.
“Who sent you?” he asked in a low tone. He had the distinct feeling of deja vu from his questioning in the lab not ten minutes ago. It felt like days.
The man only moaned in reply. Gabriel repeated the question, and finally the man opened his eyes. To Gabriel’s surprise, he smiled, his mouth a mass of bloody gums and gaps where teeth had broken off.
“The devil,” he ground out. A wet chuckle came from his throat. “I’m from hell.”
Gabriel pressed the knife further, drawing blood. Before he had a chance to speak again, the man’s arm shot out and grabbed Gabriel’s fallen pistol. His broken arm came up from the other side and grabbed Gabriel’s knife hand and pulled.
Gabriel cursed his lack of focus and caution as he lost his balance on top of the man. He rolled off away from the pistol that was swinging his way, pressing the man’s broken elbow into the floor in the process. He felt a lump under his upper back as he rolled, and knew immediately what it was. He continued the roll and as he came off the lump, his right arm gr
abbed his fallen pulse rifle. Before the man had gotten the pistol fully aimed, Gabriel squeezed off a three-round burst. The attacker’s arm slumped to the floor as wisps of smoke rose from the side of his body.
Gabriel clenched his teeth against the pain from his twisted knee and pushed himself to his feet, using the pulse rifle as a crutch. He ignored the pistol; with one injured arm, he only wanted the burden of one weapon. And the scans he was still running showed no weapons from behind the door. Or so he hoped.
He limped over to the door and checked the pulse rifle to ensure it was charged and armed. The door’s entry pad must have been on backup power as it was illuminated and appeared unlocked. He took a deep breath, and palmed the pad.
The door slid aside. He rolled into the room, popping up on his good knee, and sighted down the pulse rifle’s barrel at the location of the two icons. His eyes widened in shock and his jaw dropped at seeing who stared back at him.
“Welcome, Lieutenant Gabriel. What took you so long?”