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Chapter Thirty Nine
Adreax
For several long minutes, I flattened myself against the wall, waiting before I pressed the button for the inner door to open. When no security arrived to check out who was there, and no shots came in my general direction, I breathed a sigh of relief. That was the easy part, though. The hard part was still getting to Tayla’s location and extracting her safely.
The women in the room looked up at me in surprise when I rushed out of the airlock and darted between their desks, but they didn’t make a sound. Instead, many of them studiously returned their eyes back to their workstations and actively ignored me. I didn’t know whether to be grateful to them for covering for me, or discouraged that they were so robotic in their movements. Either way, I didn’t have time to worry over them because I was bounding up the stairs two at a time, ready to turn the corner at any moment and have a fight on my hands.
I ran down the first hallway, listening for Tayla’s voice. I kept moving, stopping at intersections and waiting impatiently to see if there was any movement in any direction. This ship was a maze, and every hall looked just like the one before it.
Frustrated, I stopped at a four-way intersection, panting. I had no time to waste. A curious tapping sound had started at some point, and now that I noticed it, I couldn’t stop hearing the rhythmic clink. Briefly, I wondered if it had something to do with Herod, and I ran to the nearest window, peering out to see if I could catch sight of him.
Shockingly, when I looked out the window, all I could see was rain coming down in thin streaks. At first, it was only a drizzle, and I could see the Patrol’s guardsmen looking to the sky in confusion, but then there was a flash of lightning, and all hell broke loose. I jumped back from the window in an instant, surprised by the boom that roared through the ship’s body and shook the floors. When I came back to the window, worried for Herod, I saw all the Patrol’s guardsmen abandoning their stations and running for the cover of their own ships.
I started moving again, needing to find Tayla before things got any more complicated for us. It was nearly impossible to hear anything other than the loud echoing of the water pounding down all around us. Lightning streaked overhead, and once in a while, a gust of wind would rock the ship slightly, causing a nauseating mix of movement and flashing lights all around me.
Desperation was seeping into my bones. I raced from one hall to the next, throwing open doors and calling for Tayla at the top of my lungs. I knew I was playing a dangerous game, calling down every soldier in the ship upon me. I didn’t care. I would fight my way through all of them to get back to her.
And then it happened. I turned a corner and saw Tayla in the creature’s arms. The two guards were still a half step behind her. I charged. With a guttural roar, I leapt at their backs, throwing my arms wide to catch them both in the back of the neck before they could fully turn around. The three of us hit the ground, and Tayla screamed in terror. I glimpsed the creature hurrying her away down the hall, but she was fighting back, biting and scratching at the thing.
My two adversaries posed a bigger problem at the moment. I wasn’t strong enough to take them both down on my own. I only hoped to dispatch one of them immediately so I could deal with the other one-on-one. If I let them surround me in the hallway, I was done for.
The guard on my left reached down to draw his weapon, and I kicked his wrist hard, sending the gun skittering across the floor and out of his reach. That was a start. But the man directly under me already had his weapon drawn and ready to fire. Making a blind leap of faith, I launched myself toward the man on my left, and rolled behind him, wrapping my arms around his body and pulling him between us as a shield.
I heard the other guard’s two shots as they rang out in the hall. The guard I was grappling with jerked once and gasped. Something warm ran down my arm and I knew that he’d taken a bullet somewhere in the chest. At least that was one less problem for me to worry about. But the other guard was already up on his knees, ready to take another shot at me if I didn’t move fast.
Desperate to get away, I heaved myself upward with the dead man, shoving him into the other guard’s lap. The guard paused to get out of the way of the falling body, and I felt a twinge of guilt when it hit the ground face first. But I took advantage of that pause and flew at the second guard and his gun, tackling him.
A third report deafened me, and the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling behind me. Lacking any means of killing the man quickly, I wrapped my hands around his throat and tightened my grip. He struggled, trying to bring his gun in close, but I planted a knee on his bicep, holding him firm as I watched his face redden and sweat beading on his forehead.
Taking a moment to look down the hall, I realized Tayla was no longer in sight. That creature had taken her, and if I didn’t hurry, I might not find her again in this place. Cursing the Patrol, I seized the guard’s neck, squeezing and twisting until I heard his spine crack and his body went limp in my hands. It was a grotesque sound, and I hated the way it felt as I was doing it, but I had no choice.
I was back on my feet in seconds, running down the hall, calling after Tayla. I barely had the presence of mind to scoop up a gun on my way. I heard her screams in the distance, and it filled my body with adrenaline. The pounding of the rain overhead became a war drum that matched the pace of my steps as I followed. If I found out that revolting creature had harmed her, there would be hell to pay.
At last, I rounded a corner and found the two of them. Tayla cowered in a heap inside a small room, and her captor stood in the doorway, waiting for me to make my appearance. I hesitated for a moment, coming face to face with the man, but the sight of Tayla on the ground enraged me all over again. I remembered a second too late that I had the gun still in my hand and raised it to fire. As long as he was standing and she didn’t move, I had a clear shot.
“I’m afraid we haven’t met,” the slimy creature spoke softly, barely audible amid the thundering outside.
“And we’re not going to,” I growled.
We had already been in here far too long, and with the weather so unpredictable, I didn’t know if it would hold out as cover. We had to go, and we had to go now.
Without another moment’s hesitation, I started firing. The first bullet went high, and the creature’s face twisted into a demonic smirk. But I couldn’t stop. I fired again and again, blind fury carrying me forward with heavy steps as I rained unrelenting lead on the man. His smirk grew wider as he used some kind of shield to deflect one bullet after another. But I continued, begging his power to run out before my bullets did. And then I saw his smile falter, and the slow spread of bluish-green blood across his chest.
He’d missed one, and in his moment of surprise, his shield dropped, allowing the next two bullets to sail straight into his flesh. I was so entranced by the flow of bullets, I almost didn’t realize that my gun had stopped firing. Now we were face to face as the echoes of shots faded, but he was bleeding out and fell to his knees.
I rushed past him to Tayla, only to discover that she lay unconscious.
