Jake Morrison's Arc

Chapter 53 of 54

The bred creatures poured up from the tunnels. Jake watched the freed prisoners scatter behind him. His ground team stood between the airship ropes and the swarm, cut off. The creatures filled the yard fast, faster than any Jake had fought. They moved smart. They spread wide to close the gap on both sides. "They're between us and the ropes," Marcus shouted. He fired into the front rank. Two dropped. Ten more climbed over the bodies. "We can't reach the deck!" Jake keyed his radio. "Marisol. We're pinned. Get down here." Her flying machine dropped from the smoke above. The riveted plating and exposed coils caught the last light. She swung the gunner pit around and opened up. The fifty-caliber tore a line through the swarm. Bodies flew apart. She held the trigger and carved a lane straight to the ropes. "Go!" she screamed over the guns. "I'll hold the lane!" Jake shoved the last prisoner toward the ropes. His team climbed. The creatures pressed the edges of Marisol's fire, but she swept them back each time they surged. Jake grabbed a rope and looked back. One figure stood in the broken gap of the dome wall, untouched by the swarm. The man wore a white coat over black armor. A patch covered one eye. Steel plates wrapped his arms and shoulders, each one heavy as a machine. He raised a metal fist and the creatures near him froze, then held their ground. They obeyed him. "That's him," Jake said. "The one who breeds them." Marisol turned her guns on the man. The rounds cracked against his armor and spun him back a step, but the plates held. "He's shielded," she called. "I can't punch through." Jake let go of the rope. He ran low along the wall while Marisol pinned the swarm. The scientist swung his armored arm at Jake's head. Jake ducked and drove his shoulder into the man's chest. The heavy suit threw off his balance. They both went down in the rubble. Jake wrenched the man's arm behind his back and pressed a knee into his spine. "Marcus! Rope!" Marcus dropped a line from the deck. Jake looped it around the scientist's wrists and cinched it tight against the armor. "Fools," the man spat. His voice was calm, almost amused. "You broke one door. I have a thousand more." Jake hauled him toward the ropes. "Then you're coming with us." Marisol laid down a final wall of fire and the swarm broke. Jake tied the prisoner to the line and Marcus winched them up. The team followed, boots scraping the hull. The airship rose over the burning dome. Below, the creatures screamed at the walls, leaderless now. Jake pinned the scientist to the deck and stared north into the dark. They had won the yard. They had the man who made the monsters. But his last words sat in Jake's chest. A thousand more doors. The war was not over.