Page 21 of Resolution
The APCs were gaining on the truck, from which blaster fire exploded, the bolts bouncing harmlessly off the military vehicles’ shielding.
“Fire a megacannon round ahead of them,” Jeff ordered Cody.
He did so and their quarry rocked unsteadily from the explosion, veering wildly to avoid the new crater in the road. As Jeff watched in frustration, the groundtruck tipped over and then rolled across the road, ending up in the ditch and bursting into flames.
Jeff swore. “Get as close as you can,” he told Zach. “APC2 stay back until we’ve cleared the scene.”
As soon as APC1 was close to the fiery wreck, Jeff was out the door, blaster at the ready, Cody on his heels. They ran to the ditch but the flames were too intense to allow them to get any closer. One man had been thrown clear but his neck was broken.
“Nothing we can do, boss,” Cody said, watching Jeff as he checked for a pulse anyway and rose, shaking his head. “If the idiot driver had stopped the way you ordered him to?—”
Joining him, watching the flames lick at every part of the truck, Jeff kicked at a rock. “Son of a bitch, I can’t believe we had them and lost them. Those men could have explained some things. They must have had a lot to hide, reacting to us the way they did.”
“Yeah, we do resemble a kind of planetary authority,” Cody agreed. “And they had no way to know you were on board. No one at Glastine got a good look at us or the APC’s. Guilty consciences for sure.”
“All right, we should be on our way again.” Jeff walked back to APC1, pleased to see no one else had exited either vehicle, per his orders. Les and Devora were proving his trust in them as team members was valid. “The fire will burn itself out eventually. I would say it’s a sad waste of life but if those guys were involved in this shady research facility kidnapping of my wife and countless others, justice was served today.”
Soon the APC’s were barreling down the road but Jeff couldn’t relax. Still no answer from Melly on the subaural com and he had to compartmentalize his worst fears about what might be happening to her at the mysterious research facility ahead. He prayed to the Lords of Space to arrive in time to save her from whatever had been planned for her.
The blows kept coming. After they’d taken a lunch break and allowed Mike, Jenny and Buddy the dog to have a few minutes to run around and burn off energy, the APC’s were once more on the road when Cody said, “Bad news, boss.”
Jeff braced for the update. Cody had had his drones ranging far ahead and the timing was right for them to be at the research facility now. “And?”
“There’s nothing there,” Cody said simply. “Except ruins and infected.” He broadcast the holo from his drones into the well of the APC and Jeff stared in disbelief.
He’d expected a facility like Glastine, with force fences, and had been strategizing how he could gain entry and rescue Melly. Instead what he was looking at was burned and blown up buildings, apparently devoid of survivors, and maybe twenty infected standing here and there, waiting for new prey. “What the seven hells? This didn’t happen in the last two days.”
Cody sent his drones swooping closer to the buildings and zipping across the grounds. There were badly decomposing bodies here and there and other signs the attack had been a while ago.
“Why would Quantike send people up here, if there’s nothing here?” Zach asked.
“And who did this?” Cody said. “The infected didn’t bomb them from the air.”
Jeff could only shake his head and fight the despair washing through his mind. “We’ll continue to the location and see what we can learn from being onsite. There aren’t any other options at this point.”
He studied the holos as the APCs continued their journey. Once they arrived at the site, he had Zach drive into the center of the ruined compound and before anyone left the safety of the armored transport, he ordered the two megacannon operators to pick off the infected, who were now converging on the APC’s.
“Quite a few Watchers,” Cody observed. “More than the usual ratio to ordinary infected.”
“Nothing makes sense about this,” Jeff replied, impatient to get his boots on the ground and search for intel. Any slightest clue as to Melly’s whereabouts would be helpful.
The drivers moved the APC’s away from the stack of dead infected, the wheels rumbling over a few of the corpses in the process, and once Jeff was satisfied with where they were parked, close to what remained of what had probably been the admin building, he authorized the team to deploy. Mike, Jenny and Buddy came last, guarded by Les, Devora and Tamsyn, all armed. The three adults kept the children and the dog on the other side of the APC’s away from the corpses and dead infected.
The soldiers spread out, examining the scene.
Jeff sent Cody and Ryan inside the ruined building, hoping they might find a system the cyborg could hack into. He himself walked through the open space, eyes peeled for anything which might indicate Melly had ever been here. He found the truck’s tracks and multiple footprints in the dust close by. One set was deeper as if the man had been carrying something and on a hunch he followed those tracks. They ended in a curious circle, as if a person had been on the ground, surrounded by infected who hadn’t chosen to attack. There were muddled footprints in the middle which were small and he hoped they were Melly’s.
Boss, got a helluva big impression of a flyer having landed here, not too long ago, Trent reported, waving his arm from his position across the open space.
On my way. Jeff jogged over the hard packed ground. Cody, anything?
Nothing. It’s all been destroyed systematically in here maybe even before the place was attacked from the air. I wonder if the scientists and doctors staged a rebellion and then whoever is behind all this came in and wiped them out?
Makes as much sense as any other theory, Jeff replied. We need to know so much more. All right, meet me outside, Trent’s found something.
He arrived at the soldier’s side and gazed at the large indentation in the dirt and foliage, where a sizable flyer had obviously landed and taken off again. “Not any configuration I recognize,” he said, analyzing the outline. “Certainly not one of ours.”
A bit of color half buried in the dirt at the edge of the ad hoc landing pad, where a ramp might have been extended, caught his eye and he walked over, scuffing at the loose soil with the toe of his boot. Heart pounding, he bent over to scoop up his find—a badge inscribed with ‘Dr. Jericho’. “She was here,” he said in triumph. “This is hers from the Glastine medical facility. She must have dropped it to leave a clue for us.” He clenched his hand on the pin and pivoted, searching for Mike Jericho. “Hey, kid! Your sister was here.”
