01-Spark - 8. The Attack

Chapter 8. The Attack

My eyes snapped open when the vibrations coming through the floor suddenly changed, getting much more intense. Andy stirred a second later.

“Bentley's coming closer,” he said, his voice muffled by my chest but already fully awake as well.

Andy rolled away from me and I sat up, stretching. I had no idea how much time had passed but I felt well rested, even though my entire body was covered in painful bruises from the fights. Judging from the feeling, at least a few hours must have gone by already. It felt like a new day. I looked around, expecting something to have changed. Aside from our clothes which still lay scattered randomly nearby, everything was exactly as before. With a slight start of surprise, I looked to the far side of the room and saw the queen standing exactly where she had been before, still pumping spark from her abdomen, her many eyes still taking in everything around her. I’d forgotten she was there.

I shuddered involuntarily.

“What's the matter?” Andy asked me, setting a hand on my shoulder. The hand was cool and soft.

“Sorry. I just realized that she was probably watching us yesterday. As we made love.”

Andy rolled his eyes. “She's just a bug, Rick. A big, mutated, probably sentient, monster, but still a bug. I'm not even sure she sees things the way we do. To her we’re probably just something she would like to try and eat if she had a chance. I don't think she cares at all about what we did together.”

I purposely looked away from the creature. How could I have forgotten about her presence so completely yesterday? I looked at Andy. My eyes traced the masculine angles of his jaw, the dark shadow of his growing beard. Well. I supposed that having such a damn hot guy so close could make anyone forget about a giant bug.

I looked into Andy's eyes and saw that he had also been looking at me. I felt a slow smile spread over my lips in answer to the genuine fondness I saw in Andy's expression and at his frank appraisal of my naked body. I wanted to say something, to tell him how much last night had meant to me, but the words just wouldn't come. How could I even begin to explain to him the crushing loneliness I had felt ever since… well, forever? Not since Jane had I ever felt a connection to another human being. Only now it was so much deeper. I found myself thinking that Jane would be happy for me now, if she could see me.

I took Andy's hand and held it. Then I brought it to my lips and kissed it gently. He was surprised by the gesture, judging from his expression, but he smiled. I said nothing since I could think of no words that would express what I really felt at that moment. But I think he understood.

The louder vibrations from the drill changed in pitch yet again. Above our heads, the ceiling began to tremble slightly.

Andy stood up. “Got to piss,” he said looking at the room. “And no restrooms anywhere. Mind if I go in that corner over there?”

“Not at all,” I said, standing up.

I got dressed and then walked all the way up to the wall closest to where the queen stood. I set my hand to the cold glass and felt the vibrations running through it. Then I looked up. Bits of rocks and small showers of dust were slipping through the cracks in the ceiling, falling down intermittently into our chamber and hers. Behind the glass, I could see some of the machinery vibrating in a way that didn’t seem like part of its normal operation. I remembered when Andy had said, that Bentley was most likely using a giant drill to come here. What did he hope to achieve?

I took a leak as well when Andy was finished, turning the problem over and over in my head but finding no answers. If an entire night or its equivalent had passed, then the lockdown would be lifted in a few hours only. I looked at my watch. It was two a.m. Outside it would still be dark, although I could bet that the entire area would be full of Peacekeepers by now. Ops agents would have been deployed as well, trying to mitigate the impact of the attacks. They would know that all they had to do was wait for the lockdown to be lifted. If Andy's brother had made it to safety and was not hiding from the authorities, then they would also have his intel on the attack.

Suddenly I understood something. For Bentley, there really was no way out now that Andy had decided not to go through with their initial sabotage plan. He could not leave back for the Mainland unless he was positive that the Plant had been rendered completely useless, and that meant making sure the queen was dead. To do that, he would either have to come and personally kill the creature or do so much damage to the structures that there would be no way anything inside would have survived. But something he had said about the bombs suddenly rang a lot more true. If he could drill a shaft all the way down and rig it to explode, then—

A loud screeching sound made me raise my hand and shift my focus to where the queen was standing.

“What the hell?” I said.

Then I saw. The queen was digging her claws into the metal floor on her side, sending sparks out from the surface and producing the horrible noise as her razor-sharp legs scratched it. She was trying to break free. The tubes the surrounding her body were taut in some places, almost to the point of breaking. Her antennae were waving wildly again and I felt something emanating from her, an indistinct but strong aura of urgency that pushed at me in time with the louder and louder vibrations. Larger rocks and pieces of the ceiling began to fall down onto the floor. I was transfixed by the spectacle of the gigantic creature, who was obviously terrified.

“Look out!” Andy yelled suddenly, rushing to me and shoving me roughly out of the way.

I stumbled sideways with the push, a split second before a dislodged large metal rod hit the floor right where I’d been standing.

“Whoa,” I exclaimed, and backed away. “Thanks, man.”

“It's coming apart,” Andy said, pointing out a particular side of the circular chamber on our left. “Bentley has finally made it and something's coming that way. We better back off! “

We hurried out of the way, and it was not a second too soon. I was shocked by the suddenness of the spinning metal cone bursting through rock and glass, screeching and spraying debris everywhere. One instant the underground chamber had been mostly intact. The next, the savagely rotating drill had penetrated the ceiling on the far side of the chamber, tearing the thick glass wall to pieces and crashing down in a heap of twisted metal and the stink of burnt fuel. As it hit the floor, the drill stopped spinning. When the motor driving its jagged spiral head finally died, a deathly stillness settled over the chamber. Both Andy and I were standing ready, shoulder to shoulder, in case something came out of it. Seconds ticked by, though, and nothing happened.

The stillness lasted for two or three more heartbeats. And then everything happened at once.

“The queen!” I exclaimed, at the same moment as Andy yelled, “Look up there! Bentley is coming!”

The sound of a gunshot snatched my attention away from the struggling queen and over to the place Andy was pointing at. There! Coming through the dust and the circular hole left behind by the drill was some kind of cylindrical vehicle with a crystal dome that was smoothly coming more fully into view. Leaning out of it, brandishing a gun, was Bentley.

“Take cover!” I shouted automatically, and sprinted for the wreckage of the drill. Andy was close behind me, and we barely had time to jump behind the red-hot drill cone before two more shots were fired. One of them rebounded in the metal above my head, making me flinch.

“Shit!” Andy shouted. “He's got a fucking gun!”

Bentley fired two more shots and then stopped. The way he was coming into the chamber, descending down the tunnel directly above us, he wouldn't have a clear shot of either of us if we stayed where we were.

“Stay put!” I told Andy, taking hold of his shirt and pulling him close to me, shielding him with my body. “Make him come for us!”

It was nerve-wracking staying where we were. Whatever vehicle Bentley was riding was slowly coming down, and he tried shooting us twice more before giving up completely. Both times, the shots sounded so close to my head that I thought for sure he was going to get me. I hunched protectively over Andy, but when the shots stopped the second time and I heard the unmistakable sound of something big and heavy landing on the floor, I knew we had to make a move.

“I'll go first, draw his fire,” I told Andy. “You get behind him and take him out however you can. You got it?”

Andy hesitated. “But you’ll be exposed!”

“Can’t help that. Come on, we have to move.”

Andy nodded slowly, his eyes darting everywhere before settling down on mine. I could tell he was scared, but now we needed to act.

“Stop hiding!” Bentley yelled loudly, his voice confident and echoing in the chamber. “You made me come all the way down here, at least come out and say hello!”

He fired a shot at our hiding place, the bullet slamming into the floor far too close to where we were. I expected the white-hot bite of a ricochet, but it didn't come.

“You should have helped me, Peacekeeper,” Bentley said, walking slowly around our cover. We had nowhere to go. As long as he kept his distance and his gun at the ready, he would be able to take both of us out with no problems. “Or you, Lake. Either of you could have helped me, and this would have been much easier. Now I’ve had to come all the way down to do your job, gather for myself all the information in the mainframe… Well, I'm here now. Come out!”

“Ready?” I asked Andy.

“I should go first,” he protested. “If you go, he will shoot you.”

I had an instant of the weirdest déjà vu I had ever experienced. Only instead of Andy it was Smith and Jane, hunkered down with me in a trench with our stealth suits useless. Debating who would go out first. I had let her take the lead that time.

Never again.

“You go in behind him, however you can,” I told him. “Use your knife if you still have it.”

Bentley fired another shot, making both of us jump. We inched away from him, partially hidden by the smoke and dust of the drill, but not for long.

I looked at Andy, and nodded. He nodded back. Then I sprang.

I rushed out blindly, head low, charging with everything I had towards the source of the voice. Bentley saw me and turned swiftly, not panicking, already sure of his kill. I had only a second to see him, but his cold demeanor and the smooth grace of his movement told me he was a trained killer. I gritted my teeth and put every last amount of power into my tackle. Bentley crouched slightly, took aim, and fired.

I threw myself towards him just as the gunshot exploded impossibly loud in my ears. I wasn't fast enough. I felt the bullet tear a gash through my right arm, throwing me off balance and causing me to tumble to the floor instead of crashing into Bentley like I had intended.

I thought I was done for. Andy was coming behind me, I knew it, but he would be too late.

Except he wasn't. I had barely hit the floor when I heard his rage-filled cry and saw him do what I had tried unsuccessfully to do, launching himself at Bentley like a human projectile. Bentley fired again, but too late. His shot was off, and it hit the glass instead.

I sprang to my feet, clutching my wound with my good hand. Andy and Bentley were grappling on the floor, rolling around in a flurry of punches in their fierce struggle. I wanted to dive in, but there was no way to do it without hurting Andy or getting in his way. Then I saw Bentley shift the grip on his gun and slam it butt first into Andy’s temple.

“NO!” I roared, and threw myself at the two fighting men. I aimed it so I would fall right on top of Bentley's arm, and I was lucky. I managed to pin it to the ground with my leg, and fiercely wrestled the gun from his grip, narrowly avoiding another panicked shot which Bentley managed to fire before I snatched the gun from his hand. With a weapon in hand, I rolled away and came back up on one knee, cocking the gun in their direction. Andy wasn’t moving. The unfocused look in his eyes told me the blow to his head had left him stunned.

“Bentley!” I yelled, trying to keep the gun steady despite the trembling in my wounded arm. “Get away from him now or I swear I'll fucking kill you!”

Instead of giving up, Bentley took advantage of Andy's momentary helplessness and locked one of his arms around his neck, grabbing Andy’s left arm with the other, pulling him along as he staggered to his feet, using him as a human shield.

“Drop the gun,” he warned me, his voice ragged but his eyes cold and determined. “Drop it or I strangle him, Peacekeeper.”

He meant it. I saw Andy snap to, but by then it was too late. Bentley had him in a headlock, and as soon as Andy started struggling he tightened his grip around his neck, the muscles in his forearm bulging with the effort. Andy's eyes went wide, and his face started getting red from the sudden pressure on his windpipe. He tried to elbow Bentley, but the other man merely shifted his stance and took it. He wasn't even paying attention to Andy. His eyes were locked on mine.

“Drop the gun,” he said again, inching back away from me. “Drop it and slide it to me, or I kill him.”

I still had the gun and I knew I could try taking a shot. But Bentley was smart. He forced Andy to follow his erratic, waving motion as he walked all the way back to the cracked glass wall on the other side of the room, where the queen was standing. He was purposefully blocking my shot, shifting his legs around and particularly his head, making it impossible for me to get a clear angle. My right arm was also trembling from the gunshot wound. I couldn't hold the gun straight and shooting one-handed would almost certainly mean I was as likely to kill Andy by mistake as I was to shoot Bentley.

“Fuck!” I yelled in frustration.

Time was running out. Andy gasped, trying to get air. He was using his one free arm to try and claw at Bentley's face, but he couldn't quite reach. And he was weakening. His face was going darker now, his eyes bulging from their sockets, his struggle for breath ragged and horrible to hear. I had to do something fast.

“The gun,” Bentley said, a single drop of sweat running down the bridge of his nose.

There was nothing I could do.

“Fine,” I said. “But let him go.”

I saw Andy mouth the word no, but I had made my choice. I threw the gun down, and kicked it in Bentley's direction. The gun slid on the metal floor, catching a bit on the debris, but it made it all the way to his boot.

“Smart choice,” Bentley told me. He suddenly let go of Andy, pushing him away and then pushing him again with a kick on the small of his back when he was far away enough. Andy stumbled, then was knocked off his feet by the second shove. He fell to the floor, hard. Quicker than a predator striking, Bentley bent over and snatched the gun from the floor. He pointed it at me.

I think Bentley saw my eyes dart over his head when I saw that the queen was moving. His reaction was instinctive. He kept the gun trained on me but looked behind him at the wall of cracked glass, and then saw it, too.

“Oh my God,” was all he managed to say.

The queen broke free.

She made a hideous sound like a madman screaming, and in a single sudden violent motion tore herself free of all the tubes that were binding her. The machinery behind her buckled, and the tubes exploded all around her, flailing like electrocuted snakes, tearing metal apart, and some launching themselves straight up at the glass wall. Glowing spark gushed from a dozen wounds in the queen's body, and wherever it hit the metal or her own carapace it sparked, crackling with alien brilliance and the terrible energy that gave it its name.

The awful screeching of the queen's legs digging into the metal was overpowered by the sudden bone-wrecking impact as she moved faster than a hunting spider and slammed her entire body against the glass that was imprisoning her. The 02-spark on her body burst into miniature white lightning with the impact. She hit it again, harder. Then there was loud, wrenching groan. And the entire glass wall shattered.

It was horrifying, spellbinding. One moment the wall had been whole and the next a million tiny cracks spider webbed instantaneously over the entire glass structure. Then hundreds upon hundreds of knife-sharp shards burst into the chamber with the force of the queen's assault. I ran three long steps and threw myself to the floor over Andy, then I felt the sharp bite of something slashing through my leg. I cried out, and Andy called out my name in alarm, but then the queen screamed again and I simply had to look at her.

I wished I hadn’t.

Bentley had been too close to the exploding glass wall. He lay on the floor, a bloody and mangled mess. But he wasn’t dead, not by a long shot, and he still held the gun in his hand. He fired once at the queen, and the bullet went right through her. She screamed a third time, but this time the scream was accompanied by a mental burst of animal hatred so intense that I felt as if somebody had knocked the air out of my lungs. Andy choked back what he had been about to say; the mental assault eclipsed our own emotions, so tiny in comparison to her vast, incomprehensible anger.

With deadly agility, she moved through the shards of the wreckage to stand over Bentley. He fired again wildly, and the bullet pierced the queen's body. He didn't get a third chance. The queen lifted one of her razor-sharp legs and brought it down, skewering Bentley’s torso with it. Bentley gave a gurgled sort of cry and then howled as the queen lifted him up clear off the ground, impaled on her leg like a helpless insect. I was struck dumb with horrified fascination, and couldn’t tear my eyes from the carnage, even when she brought her ever-moving mandibles closer and closer to the frantic screaming and flailing form of her prey.

The sharp scythes of her mouthparts tore through the flesh of Bentley’s face. Then he was suddenly still.

The second I knew Bentley had died, the vehicle he had arrived in beeped very loudly three times.

“He had them rigged!” Andy managed to say.

I didn't understand what he meant. Then it hit me: Bentley's failsafe. His ace in the hole.

“Duck!” he yelled, pulling me back down to the floor.

Danger.

There was a sharp, loud skittering of razor claws on the metal floor, and suddenly the queen was standing directly over us, her pulsing and wounded abdomen leaking pure undiluted spark directly on top of us both. A drop of the crackling white liquid splashed on my face, over my open wounds. It burned.

Then the bombs that Bentley had rigged to go off in case he died exploded, a series of incredibly fast skull-jarring booms that fractured my entire world and deafened me with their vicious slam of noise and rock.