The Seraphim Sequence: The Fifth Column 2 Page 28

  Mark II shocktroopers aren’t so tough after all, Jay thought.

  Then he noticed another shocktrooper appear in the penthouse lounge behind Damien.

  ‘Behind you!’ he yelled.

  The shocktrooper fired—not rounds but a vortex ring grenade. Damien was thrown clear of the penthouse balcony, straight through the adjacent balcony and into the hotel room Jay had entered through. He tumbled over the double beds and crashed unseen into a wall. Jay immediately laid down cover fire, only pausing when he heard boots coming closer. The marines were about to hit this level.

  Nasira pulled at him roughly from behind. ‘Through here!’ she hissed.

  He followed her as she sprinted through the hotel room—scorched black from an explosive—and out over the balcony. There was no railing so she just stepped off, landed effortlessly on the balcony below, then climbed over and jumped to the swimming pool area below that.

  ‘Marines are on this level!’ Jay said to Damien. ‘Get—’

  Damien burst into the room behind him and fired a few rounds down the hall. ‘Yeah, I hadn’t noticed,’ he yelled.

  Jay landed on the balcony below, losing grip on his subcarbine. It bounced off the balcony. Fuck it, he thought. He jumped off the side, giving Damien room to land in his wake. He didn’t see the subcarbine so he took off after Nasira, who was sprinting across a small bridge over a swimming pool. He checked over his shoulder, glad to see Damien ten paces behind him, UMP still in hand.

  Nasira pushed through the crowd that had gathered, knocking five people onto their asses. Jay leaped over the space they’d created, kicking up sand as he weaved through palm trees. Nasira was moving directly toward a bunch of jet skiers who had paused near the shoreline to inspect the situation at the hotel. He watched as she pointed her MP7 and shouted at them. Compliant, they staggered off their jet skis. Nasira mounted one and rode it closer to the water’s edge. Jay sprinted across the wet sand and hurled himself onto the ski, arms around her stomach.

  ‘Go,’ he said between breaths.

  She waited a moment, MP7 resting over the handrail, covering Damien as he carved a path through the water for his own jet ski. As soon as he mounted it, she took off with a sudden lurch. Jay hung on tight, watching their side for any pursuing shocktroopers. There was no one as yet. He hoped the marines had slowed them down.

  Wiping the salt water from his eyes, he pulled out the smartphone and showed it to Nasira. It only took her a moment to memorize the RV coordinates before she pushed it back into his hands. He buried it in his jeans pocket.

  Nasira had quickly moved the jet ski out to deeper waters—still calm and aquamarine—and was now whisking them at breakneck pace along the western coast of the island, over the northern tip and down to the eastern side, Damien in tow.

  She elbowed him softly. He followed her arm as she pointed across the water. He could make out a spindly fishing boat in the distance, bubbling along the azure surface. That was the rest of them, he thought. Or what was left of them, anyway.

  Something broke from the water. At first Jay thought it was a whale, but the formation was too rigid and precise. A cluster of vertical pipes glinted in the sun. They surged upward, followed by a gunmetal gray structure, flat and long. It took him a second to realize it was the sail of the nuclear submarine they’d traveled in across the South Pacific. The submarine looked like an oversized cigar, its rudder and sail protruding sharply. Water surged excitedly around it, expelled from the forward and aft tanks.

  The fishing boat endured the choppy water next to it, crawling closer until it bumped against the sub’s port side.

  Jay tightened his grip around Nasira as she rode a wave into the air, smacking back down hard enough that he almost banged heads with her. He wiped the salty water from his eyes, blinked, and looked over Nasira’s shoulder. He could see DC throwing a rope onto the bow of the submarine. Chickenhead was leaping onto the side. He reached the deck where it was flat and easier to walk, then looped the rope around a pair of knob-shaped protrusions.

  Nasira slowed as she reached the sub’s bow, then abandoned the jet ski, climbing the slick curved surface with her MP7 in hand. She ran for the door on the port side of the sail, which opened as she approached.

  Jay turned to Damien, who was idling alongside. ‘No one?’

  Damien shook his head. ‘No pursuers.’

  ‘Not for long,’ Jay said, noticing a figure in the distance, running across the sand. He pointed so Damien could see. ‘Shocktrooper?’

  Damien remained silent. He didn’t know.

  ‘Keep an eye in that direction,’ Jay said. ‘If he gets any closer, yell out.’

  He crawled up the submarine. It was as slippery as soap and he almost fell back into the water. When he reached the deck, Chickenhead and DC were already carrying Sophia on a makeshift stretcher along the port side and into the sail, using the railing bolted to the sail for extra balance.

  Sophia saw him and stretched out her hand. ‘Jay.’

  ‘Yeah, we’re here,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  Her eyes were glazed. She was whacked out on morphine.

  ‘I need you back,’ she said.

  He gave her a grim smile. ‘We never left.’

  Chickenhead and DC moved carefully alongside the port of the sail, each with one hand on the stretcher and the other on the handrail to keep themselves from slipping. They balanced the edge of the stretcher on rail to keep Sophia from tipping over. It was then Jay noticed movement behind the sail, on the sub’s stern. Quick, furious movement. Cloaked.

  He started for it. ‘Hey!’

  Behind DC, there was movement. DC saw it too and reached for his tachi sword, unsheathing it halfway. He was just in time to catch a knife slicing toward his neck. With one hand on his tachi, DC quickly snatched the stretcher with his other hand, stopping Sophia from toppling overboard.

  Jay blinked into infrared. A shocktrooper was standing behind DC, knife-hand hard up against DC’s half-brandished tachi. The knife gleamed in the sunlight. In the shocktrooper’s other hand, a pistol, leveled.

  ‘He’s armed!’ Jay yelled.

  DC released his tachi so it slipped back down into his saya, and swung his elbow outward, knocking the pistol off aim. The shocktrooper fired. Jay hit the deck. There was no room to get past Chickenhead, the stretcher and DC, so he ran around the sail. As he reached the other side, DC’s tachi was out again and cutting toward the shocktrooper’s torso. The shocktrooper was no longer cloaked. He dived under the blade, into the water between the submarine and the fishing boat.

  Grace, still on the fishing boat, was tracking the shocktrooper as he swam under the submarine. Damien was firing his UMP from the jet ski. Everything was going to shit.

  ‘Get Sophia inside!’ Grace yelled.

  DC and Chickenhead shuttled the stretcher through the sub’s entrance, leaving Jay with just enough room to cross back to the bow. He checked the beach. Clear. The north coast of the island where they’d come from. Clear. The water around them. Through the infrared spectrum, he saw four bodies swimming toward him, surrounding the submarine.

  ‘Fuckgiraffes!’ he yelled.

  DC was back outside, tachi gleaming beside him. ‘What now?’

  ‘Damien,’ Jay said, ‘get the fucking fuck up here!’

  He ran across the deck and slid over to Damien, extended a hand and started hauling him up. As he did so, a cloaked shocktrooper rippled from the water in front of him. The shocktrooper moved with brilliant speed onto the deck and aimed his pistol at Jay’s head from a safe, accurate distance.

  DC’s tachi was silent as it sliced through the arm, hesitating slightly as it struck bone. The pistol clattered down the side of the submarine and into the water. The shocktrooper—minus a forearm—kicked DC in his side. Jay watched DC fly across the submarine and into the water. Goddamn exoskeletons.

  Jay grunted as he got Damien onto the deck. He cast one last glance back at the water, still in infrared v
ision. Three shocktroopers were closing fast on DC, who was unarmed and hilariously outmatched.

  Damien fired a burst from his UMP and hit nothing. The shocktrooper on deck, still cloaked, moved for him.

  ‘Where is he?’ Damien yelled.

  ‘On your ten, incoming,’ Jay said.

  Damien adjusted his aim according to Jay’s directions and fired another burst. Jay scooped up DC’s tachi and brought it over his shoulder in a downward strike. The shocktrooper broke from his advance and rolled to one side, uncloaked.

  Jay was back to back with Damien. Two shocktroopers dived toward one side of the submarine, and a third crawled up the other side of the sub.

  ‘Tell me you have rounds in that peashooter,’ Jay said.

  ‘If that’s a euphemism …’ Damien said.

  ‘No.’

  Damien fired another burst. Jay heard the slide lock back.

  ‘Then no,’ Damien said.

  Jay still had Sophia’s P99 pistol but no rounds to chamber. He breathed deep to oxygenate his blood, then stepped toward the two shocktroopers. He could barely handle one and here he was approaching two. It had seemed so easy shooting them on the balcony back there, but up close and armed only with a sword was a different story entirely.

  They saw him and didn’t bother reaching for their pistols. Now that they were out of the water, he had enough reach with the tachi to chop their hands off. Instead, they dived back under again. He hesitated, waiting for them to emerge.

  ‘Grace,’ he yelled. ‘DC’s in the water.’

  Grace tightrope-walked the rope from the fishing boat to the sub. ‘Keep them busy,’ she said.

  A shocktrooper emerged on the stern of the sub, UMP firing down the port side of the sail. Grace darted past just in time, unscathed. Jay pulled in behind the sail, sword in both hands, which wasn’t exactly going to stop bullets. He figured the two shocktroopers would surface on the stern side and move around the sail to take them by surprise. He hoped he could lure them around the corner, then remembered they could see through walls. Scratch that idea.

  Near the bow, Damien was busy using his UMP as a shield against a shocktrooper’s knife attacks. Jay left him to that while he hurled himself against the sail, near the open door.

  ‘Close the door!’ he shouted.

  He hoped someone was there to close it from the inside. The last thing they needed was a shocktrooper inside the submarine, ripping everyone, including a defenseless Sophia, to shreds.

  He heard the door moan. ‘On it!’ Chickenhead yelled from inside.

  Jay risked a glance over his shoulder. A single shocktrooper was on the fishing boat, furiously wrapping an improvised tourniquet around his severed arm. Without a firearm, he wasn’t a threat.

  Jay peeked around the corner of the sail, past the closing door. A shocktrooper was there, one hand on the railing, the other aiming a pistol. He fired at Jay. Jay ducked clear before the round took his face off.

  He heard the door stick and Chickenhead swear. Jay hurled himself around the corner, tachi swinging, to see the shocktrooper with one boot and elbow against the door, his exoskeleton-augmented arm keeping it half-open. He aimed the pistol inside at Chickenhead and fired.

  Jay’s blade came down on the shocktrooper, who reeled, avoiding the sharp steel. His pistol dropped into the water. Jay advanced with another swing, this one lower. The shocktrooper retreated further, almost slipping into the water. Jay saw the expression on his face shift from concern to focus. Jay knew what that meant. He brought the tachi sword back over his head, seeking the shocktrooper sneaking up behind him. His blade struck metal with a resounding clang, hitting nothing but submarine. The shocktrooper behind him had withdrawn and was now aiming his pistol from the corner. Jay moved quickly toward him, his boots sliding across the sloped edge. He cut the tachi across the pistol, but the shocktrooper withdrew and rolled back.

  DC surfaced, aiming his P329 at the shocktrooper, waiting for him to get back to his feet and provide a nice big target. On the fishing boat next to the submarine, Jay noticed the one-armed shocktrooper searching the deck for a weapon. Jay pointed his blade at the shocktrooper. DC nodded and disappeared under the water.

  Jay moved his sword back to the shocktrooper near the sail door, keeping him from getting too close. Beyond him, Jay saw DC surface alongside the fishing boat and open fire. Rounds punched through the back of the one-armed shocktrooper’s skull and he collapsed.

  The shocktrooper in front of Jay, pistol in one hand, knife in the other, tried for Jay’s exposed arm with his blade. Jay leaped from the sail, running onto the bow of the submarine. He found himself inconveniently in line with the shocktrooper Damien had been fighting. Not ideal.

  Jay thrust the sword forward in a clean stab. The shocktrooper leaped to one side, avoiding him. Jay instantly regretted it. Now the knife- and pistol-wielding shocktrooper was right beside him, crouched low and pistol aimed. Jay swept his sword across. The shocktrooper pulled his pistol into his chest and rolled under Jay, kicking his feet out from under him. Jay found himself in the air, upside-down, the tachi in one hand. He extended his other hand and planted it in a handstand, then let the momentum carry his feet into the wall of the sail. He pushed off with one foot, sending him back the way he’d come. Once he was the right way up again, the shocktrooper took careful aim. But Jay had been tracking him during his airborne maneuver and knew precisely where to cut his blade—right into the pistol. The pistol bounced along the deck and teetered on the edge.

  Jay was about to finish the shocktrooper where he stood, but Damien’s shocktrooper had moved in right behind him. Jay swept his blade behind, catching the shocktrooper’s knife. He pushed the knife aside and swung the sword in a savage full circle, forcing both the front and rear shocktrooper to dive clear. He watched with satisfaction as they both dived into the water.

  Grace reached the side of the sub, DC coughing and spluttering beside her. He looked barely able to breathe.

  ‘Use your electricity!’ she yelled.

  Jay grabbed DC by the arm and dragged him up the sloping edge. His body knocked the shocktrooper’s pistol into the water. Grace collected it and fired repeatedly at the submerged shocktroopers. They closed around her.

  ‘Hurry up!’ she yelled.

  ‘Get out!’ Jay yelled back at her.

  She dropped the pistol into the water and climbed up DC’s leg. Jay checked around him. Damien was still fighting one shocktrooper, but the other two were in the water, each on opposing sides of the submarine. Grace’s boots were clear of the water.

  Jay dunked the tip of the tachi blade into the sea. His grip clenched and every muscle in his body tightened involuntarily. Beside him, he felt Grace slip and drop down the side. DC rolled over and snatched her. The voltage shot down Jay’s sword and he watched helplessly as Damien and the other shocktrooper tumbled down the other side of the sub, into the water with an unceremonious splash. Their splash cleared, leaving both figures eerily still. They started to sink.

  ‘Damien!’ Jay yelled.

  He dropped the sword and dived into the water. Bubbles from his nostrils obscured his vision as he propelled himself downward to the two entangled bodies. He hooked one elbow under Damien’s armpit and used his other limbs to pull him to the surface, leaving the shocktrooper to sink.

  Jay broke the surface, lungs burning. He looked over to see Grace in the water, unconscious.

  ‘Get her!’ DC said, taking Damien from him.

  Jay dived again, this time for Grace. He pulled her back to the surface. Each second felt like a minute. How long could they last before they died? A typical person, maybe a few minutes, but with the Chimera pseudogenes he had no idea. He hoped longer.

  Nasira reappeared from the sub’s entrance and rushed toward a still unconscious Damien. Jay passed Grace’s lifeless body to DC, who dragged her up onto the deck.

  ‘Cardiac arrest,’ DC said.

  Jay left him to attend to Grace and began to give Dam
ien rapid compressions. Nasira delivered rescue breaths. He continued with the compressions: thirty on the chest.

  ‘They won’t make it,’ Nasira said. ‘Motherfucker.’

  DC locked eyes with Jay. ‘You need to do it.’

  ‘Do what?’ Jay said, fingers wrinkled and trembling.

  ‘Defibrillate. You can control it.’

  Jay shook his head. Salt water ran into his eyes. ‘No way, I’ll kill them.’

  DC’s voice rose suddenly. ‘The worst that can happen is you fuck up their hearts! You’ve already done that so just do it again!’

  Jay placed one hand on the right side of Damien’s chest and the other below his heart. His lips were shaking. He bit them until they bled.

  ‘How much?’ he said.

  DC shook his head. ‘I don’t know, three hundred, maybe five hundred volts. A couple hundred joules.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ Jay yelled. ‘I don’t even know what that measurement is!’

  ‘Just a little jolt!’ DC yelled back.

  ‘Just a little jolt?’ Jay screamed. ‘Just a little jolt? I’ll try a little jolt then!’

  He gave Damien a small concentrated zap. It seemed to have no visible effect. Damien didn’t seize up like he’d expected.

  ‘Did you do it?’ Nasira asked.

  ‘I think so.’ Jay shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  Damien still wasn’t breathing. Jay checked his heart. ‘It’s stopped completely!’

  ‘That’s good,’ DC said.

  Nasira gave Damien a couple more rescue breaths.

  ‘Go! Compress!’ DC yelled.

  Jay worked the compressions. Tears mixed with salt on his face.

  Damien’s eyes opened. His first breath was ragged, weak. DC and Nasira helped him upright. He coughed and spluttered water, but he was alive. Jay couldn’t believe it.

  DC pulled Jay toward Grace. ‘Go! Go!’ he yelled.

  Jay noticed the water rising along the side of the submarine. ‘Wait, they’re sinking. They can’t do that!’

  ‘That’s because I gave them a warning,’ Nasira said. ‘They’ll seal the door, now get a fucking move on!’