Cataclysm.

  We were on a rise, a jetty that extended out of a mountain. From a distance I saw a huge battalion of Omegan ships and troops. They converged on us with the ease and coordination of a python that slithered for an easy kill. Norg stood nearby and fired his rifle at the Omegans along with the rest of the troops. Then, I was whisked away over to one side of the field and saw another group. All of them had long mangy hair, and they wore torn outfits, or in some cases no shirts at all. They looked coarse, but their faces and eyes were as attuned as a panther perched to strike its prey. And at the front of this group, more disheveled than I’d seen her before but with eyes as animated as I’d ever seen and her face twisted in a battle cry, was Ana. With her in the lead, they barreled toward the Omegan forces. Just when they were about to collide, the sound of a thunderbolt popped me back, and there was Kado, his hand firm on my shoulder and a concerned look on his face.

  “What happened to you?”

  Beads of sweat cascaded about my face, and I huffed to catch my breath, but it was no use. Kado offered me a canteen, and more of the metallic sour water, but at that point it tasted like a mountain stream. I jammed my eyes shut and took a few slow gulps.

  “Kado, it just happened again. I don’t know why. Either it’s got to do with me being here in the first place, or this device, or something else. But I’m seeing things, more than just the Pull to Cataclysm.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Places, people. Things I hadn’t seen, and it makes me wonder if they’re the future.”

  “What people are you seeing?”

  “Usually they involve Ana. I see her with Treg, and just now saw her in the woods with someone, about to cut their throat.”

  “The device I gave you is a stabilizer. You are the only person who’s been this far from his base time for this long. Your body was not meant to be displaced for this length of time. We found this out after we started making these Verge jumps and a few people came down with it. We called it time sickness. It went away not long after the person returned to their base time. But we’ve never had someone away for more than a week or two. You’ve been here more than a month now, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I’m not telling Kaitlinn this, I’m still not sure about her either. But that deal over there is scary.”

  “I’ve seen some bad cases of time displacement sickness, Nelson.”

  “How bad is mine?”

  He paused and checked notes. “Pretty damned bad. Look, we can’t wait for Kaitlinn to be ready for strategy. She’s got her own battles to fight. We also can’t wait for Ana; she may not even be able to make a run. We need to take care of this.”

  “I can’t go with you, Nelson.”

  “What, why? Come on, we may still have a chance to leave now. They aren’t here yet.”

  “You don’t understand. She’s got a tracker on me. If I leave an assigned area, she’ll know. I’ll only be a liability for you.”

  “I don’t think we should wait any longer for them to arrange the trip to the Range,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t disagree. But Kaitlinn won’t provide support. If you and I break for Cataclysm on this, we’re on our own, and she won’t let you slip away that easily.”

  “I wouldn’t think she would. But if we had some extra help, like Norg, we could make a better run for it. Think you could get some kind of comm up to Ana in the meanwhile? She should know about this deal.”

  “It’s dicey at best.”

  “She’s alive, I’m sure of it. I can feel it.”

  Kado smiled. “Much as she’s been through, I’m sure you’re right on that. Even if Treg got zapped along the way, I feel bad for the person tries to take her down.”

  “But your tracker, maybe we can disable it?”

  “She hooked it to the Link. New tech.”

  “I thought that was shut down.”

  “The old one was, but this is tech that came online outside of that. Bloodborne microtransmitters. Removing them would involve some massive hemorrhaging, so no.”

  “Damn. Well, we’re gonna go.”

  “I’ve got notes. I’m giving you everything I’ve seen written and stolen about Cataclysm. You’ll need it, and I’m hoping it will make some kind of sense to you.”

  “Judging from the way I’ve seen foreign words and things appear as familiar, there’s a chance.”

  “Alright, enough stalling and waiting. I’m going to grab whatever I can from here and load up. Kaitlinn will be contacting Charista for a report and status, so that should give us enough time to make a break for it. We get Norg and Ashton and whoever else from the Action and make a run for it.”

  “I’ll get a Landcrawler. It’ll get us going, but I won’t have time to disable the security algorithm. If they tap it, we’ll be on foot.”

  “It’s better than waiting on foot.” I shrugged.

  The Pull came back stronger. It stung like an electrical shock, but as soon as I stepped in that direction, every little bit I progressed that way, the better I felt. I just hoped that what I’d seen of Ana was in fact the future and not just some wishful daydream. She had to be alright, she just had to.

  Kado closed up his P-LAD and put it in his bag. I took another drink of water before I gathered everything I could. The sight of Ana, alive and fighting, spurred me. The feeling I’d had of falling to earth was replaced with the sensation of my feet planted firm and me ready for another fight, like Ana would’ve been.

  If we could just get to the Range and Cataclysm, it stood there, just urging me to get to it. My bargaining chip, their leverage. My ticket home.

  “Kado, I’m not waiting anymore, I’m going for Cataclysm now.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded. “Kaitlinn agreed to send me with a unit after I showed her how much I know about that area and where Cataclysm is, but she still wants to wait until her regiment is situated before we make a move. I can’t shake the feeling I won’t come back if she sends me with her people anyway. We need to get an upper hand here while there’s one to get.”

  “Who’s going with you?”

  “So far, Norg. Would be great if we could get some help from you as well.”

  “Well, I’d feel better about getting these units moving, but if we can nab Cataclysm, so much the better.”

  I told Kado the rest of the plan, about the Valentium bait and going for Cataclysm.

  “They want this Delivery, let’s get it to them. They’re glorified scavengers. They haven’t been interested in killing us as much as they want their Valentium, so we’re gonna deliver it to them,” I said.

  “Well, if that works, and we get Cataclysm in our hands, we’ll really be sitting pretty. We won’t be answering to anyone anymore.” Kado grinned widely.

  “Just better watch our end too,” Kado said. “We’ve been through enough already, we need to be smart about this. There are enemies on all sides, even our own.”

  Chapter 9 (Ana)

  T he footsteps headed out of the room when the same voice burst over Eben’s comm, this time doused in fear:

  “Eben, get here now! Raiders!”

  We looked at each other and wondered what that meant. Had Jacobs changed his mind and back tracked to us? Were we close to the Storehouse after all?

  Our room guest’s steps picked up downstairs and then there were loud pops from outside. After the noise, a roar built. Treg slid the door to the closet open and we crept back to the window for another look.

  A large group of people appeared from the direction of the woods and moved toward the Omegans. Whoever they were, they weren’t Jacobs’ group. These soldiers looked ragged, with tattered clothing, most with faces twisted in anger. A few wore breathing masks. The roars and shouts came from them at random. A few carried pulse rifles, but most of ‘em just had simple sticks or clubs.

  “The hell kinda weapons are those?” Treg asked.

  As we watched the makeshift weapons they carried, Dawn explained, “I told you, these groups are all over the Outlands. They do, take, and make whatever they need to survive, and that includes weapons.”

  Whatever rifles they had couldn’t have been any better than the tech the Omegans tested. They descended on the Omegans like a pack of wild wolves, with no regard for the fact they were outgunned in every possible way.

  The ones with pulse rifles aimed them at the Omegans, but they fired nothing. They must’ve been hit by that Darkness too. The Omegans laid down heavy fire on the ragged group, but that never fazed them. They chucked rocks and whatever they could at them, and charged right into the hail of pulse fire.

  It was unreal.

  One of the stones connected with the Disruptor, smashed it and sent it to the ground in several pieces. The barrage of Omegan fire hammered the ragged group and threw a few of ‘em off balance. Some fell, but each one who could got back up charged more, even the wounded ones.

  Were they even human?

  One of them shouted, and the whole group took off in a sprint toward the Omegans, their voices raised in a collective war cry. Whoever they were, they had nothing that ID’ed them as Action or Coalition or even Lebabolis troops. I figured this was it; they’d be wasted in a quick heartbeat for that kinda behavior. But no, they kept up their fast pace, a loud chorus of yells and whoops. With no vehicles or heavy weapons on them, they ran blindly toward the Omegans.

  If someone had described what I was looking at then, I’d have laughed in their face.

  Yet there it was.

  They ran forward, not walked, not headed for cover; they ran. The only thing they had going for them was more numbers. Even with their filthy appearance, their stance, the way they moved as if they were almost mechanical. Their motions looked like Radomet, but instead they were real flesh and blood.

  How had we missed that big a group, just the three of us alone in the woods? And also, how had they missed us, and how would we be seen? Another enemy to be destroyed?

  The ragged troops collided with the Omegans, and the brawl that erupted kicked up a cloud of dust like a low lying fog. Soon the scene was just a mixture of dirt, swung arms, shouts, loud smashes of stick, rock, fist and heads making contact. A few pulse shots from the Omegans rang out, but then came the cracking sound of pulse rifles snapped in two. The ragged troops broke rifles, theirs and the Omegans, with their bare hands.

  Finally, a small group of Omegans, including the tall and short ones who’d checked on the Disruptor, peeled away from the melee and found their vehicle and hauled ass in reverse, but not before they fired a few shots back toward the wild ones.

  The Omegans who weren’t as fast got pummeled even more by the ragged soldiers, who laid them out on the ground. The rest of the Omegans piled into their vehicles and beat a hasty retreat.

  “Who the hell are they?” I asked.

  Dawn squinted toward the strange troops. “Nobody important. A random tribe of scavengers from the Outlands like we talked about.”

  Treg shook his head at the pile of mangled Omegan corpses. “Those aren’t scavengers. I’ve fought scavengers. More to the point, I’ve chased away scavengers. They’re human vermin, and they run at the first sight of trouble. This group didn’t have a working pulse rifle, but they overran a unit that could’ve wasted them all. Not only that, they crushed a few—see those bodies, Dawn? Those skulls are crushed. That’s brawn, muscle, sheer force. Those Omegan troops had explosives, enough to blast a square mile around us into vapor, but they were frightened. Whoever the wild ones are, they’ve been trained.”

  “I agree. That kinda crazy takes learning.”

  The ragged troops joined into a large crowd near the remains of the Disrupter and shouted; some of it was cheers, other parts a bit of a song. Then, in the middle of the crowd, a thin soldier swung a pole around in an arc with a tattered and faded flag attached to it. The flag was twisted at first, but it opened up as it waved.

  It was the flag of the Valkyrie.

  I pointed to the flag and eyed Dawn. “They’re nobody, but they just happen to have a Valkyrie flag?”

  “I’m telling you both, they’re scavengers. Treg, maybe you never happened upon some of the more violent ones before, but that’s what we’re looking at here. Yes, Ana, that’s a Valkyrie flag. Don’t you realize, scavengers steal whatever they can? Why do you think we protected Lebabolis all those years? To keep people like them out. They’re barbarians.”

  “Or they’re the ones Lebabolis expelled because they couldn’t be controlled.”

  “You’re not going to believe that’s the Guard, are you?” Dawn laughed for a second, until she saw Treg and I hadn’t joined in. Her smile faded. “Any scavenger or deviant could’ve found that flag out here. Think about it. How much did the Action steal from Lebabolis over the years?”

  Dawn’s eyes pleaded with me. I watched the celebration. “I’m interested in ‘em. They annihilated a disruptor and made short work of a better armed unit with a few rocks, sticks, and their bare hands. At least we hate the same people.” I shrugged.

  “You realize they might not even know what Lebabolis or the Omegans are? How do you know they aren’t here for what we are, food?”

  “They were all over the fight. That was just brute force; maybe they were scavenging for food but they aren’t right now.”

  “Fine, I’ll suppose for a minute that they are the Guard. Look at them. They look crazy. What makes you so sure they won’t attack us too? It would take no time for them to knock off three more people.”

  “She has a point, Ana. Besides, if they’re really the Guard, Lebabolis threw them out. Why would they help us? To them, we’re more of the same. They have no idea what the Action is, much less the Coalition. We’d look like Lebabolis military to them.”

  “I got you both. But they could just as well come up here and start rooting around like the Omegans were. We’ve made our play, and now we’re here, dumb as it was. I say we face ‘em. We’re bound to come across the Omegans again. Wouldn’t it be better having more numbers when we do?”

  “You’re reaching here, Ana. Letting them leave is prudent.”

  “Nah.”

  Dawn folded her arms. “So tell us how you expect to convince an angry mob you’re a friendly.”

  “With this.” I flung the knife up between Dawn and myself, then flipped it and caught the blade in my hand. I held the Valkyrie emblem to her face. “See, we got a matching set.”

  “You can’t resist throwing yourself in it, can you?” Dawn asked.

  “Honey, I’ve been in it. I want a way out. Hiding in some damned closet and cowering is what I did back in Lebabolis, and look where it’s got me.”

  I blew past Dawn’s extra warnings and curses and headed outside. My throat clenched up a bit. Sure, there wasn’t any telling what they’d do once they saw me. They charged soldiers that out gunned them without any hesitation. What would they do to a single soldier? But something in me just said go.

  The soldiers stood in a tight group and shouted when I approached. A few caught sight of me and their cheers melded into a distinctive growl. I held my arms up and walked up a few steps. I felt their eyes on me. Soon I was in the middle of them, a sea of vicious faces with smoky colored eyes that glared out at me like a sea of angry crystals.

  The air was a nasty mix of body odor, blood, and from the look at their mouths, whatever these people ate for food. The pack of faces around me tightened in on me like wild animals ready for their next feast. I swallowed the tightness in my throat, took a breath, and heaved some words out over the roar of their bellows. “I come in peace—I’m against the soldiers you just smashed.” They answered me with more grunts and groans like a pack of mad dogs.

  Several of ‘em glanced over my shoulder, and the voices picked up volume. I looked over to Treg and Dawn by the outside of the circle.

  After a few minutes, a tall soldier made his way from around the others until he stood a foot from me. His gaze knifed into me. I swallowed hard but held steady.

  The tall one eyed me up and down. His face was a collection of scars and cuts. His pulse rifle was slung across his back, not unlike how Treg carried his. He nudged a finger into the Coalition insignia on my chest plate. His voice was as ragged and gravel sounding as he looked. “What’s that?”

  “The Coalition.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a truce between Lebabolis and the Action.”

  “The Action? Never heard of it. But we know about Lebabolis. You some kinda patrol?”

  “No, Lebabolis is under Lock Down because of the Omegans.” I gestured to the bodies on the ground.

  “Oh them. Yeah, we come up on them sometimes and get the bastards running. They get off some shots and we take a few hits but not enough to stop us none.” He let out a raspy laugh. “So Lebabolis... You’re one of theirs, huh?” He laughed more and then swung his rifle down underneath my chin. “I hate Lebabolis. They threw us aside.”

  The cold steel of the barrel dug into the flesh of my neck. I felt the rattle of my pulse in my throat.

  His nostrils flared. “We been scrapping for whatever and screwing up what we feel like just to make them regret the day they lost us. Fighting troops on the ground and shootin’ their Hell Hawks outta the sky keeps us sharp, I ‘spose. More so to be a knife in Charista’s ass.”

  His eyes darkened as he pushed the barrel into my chin. The cool metal dug further into my flesh, and I felt my jaw press harder against the roof of my mouth. Around me, the growls increased. Through it I heard Treg’s yells for them to back off, but it was useless. What the hell was I thinking?

  Scarface’s eyes widened in curiosity, and the barrel of the rifle pressed harder. Treg scuffled nearby and shouted, “We’re fighting Omegans too; we want to destroy them!”

  “Easy, boy,” the tall soldier muttered. “How good a job you been doin’ when they’re still around?”

  “We’ve got two Regiments of Lebabolis Warrior Products in maneuvers against them.”

  Scarface laughed more. “You’re dreaming, all of you. You ain’t stopping that lot.”

 

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