Page 7 of The Inheritance (Breach Wars #1)
If London made it out of the gate, he would immediately report what happened to the guild.
London and Melissa didn’t stay long enough to see how the fight turned out, so for all they knew, there were still active hostiles in this cave.
Since bodycams only recorded static in the breaches, Cold Chaos would have to rely on London’s testimony, and I was sure that Melissa would confirm whatever he said.
She wouldn’t just suddenly grow a heart and admit that she climbed out of the cave over her guildmates’ bodies.
As she so often told me, she had mouths to feed.
This was going to go one of three ways.
One, London made it out and reported that I was dead. This was the most likely outcome, because otherwise he would have to own up to leaving me behind.
Two, London made it and reported he left me behind. Not likely. If the DDC found out that he bolted out of the cave abandoning me, Cold Chaos would face heavy sanctions. There would be a fine at best and revocation of gate access at worst. Cold Chaos would come down on London like a ton of bricks.
Three, London and Melissa died en route. Like Elena said, this breach was a maze, and we hiked half a mile to get to this cavern. It was possible that something equally terrible burst out of a side passage and killed those two. I doubted that. London was a fucking cockroach. He would survive.
Even if they died, by now carts filled with resources should’ve been coming out of the breach.
The procedure was to grab the good stuff and get it out ASAP.
At least seven hours had passed without any activity.
Even if London and Melissa didn’t make it, the guild knew that the mining crew was either in trouble or dead.
No matter which of these three outcomes happened, protocol required the assault team to be notified. Radios didn’t work in the breach, just like the rest of the electronics, but each assault team carried a “cheesecake.” A beeper stone.
Beeper stones occurred in the steppe and mountain biomes and had a core of denser material running through them.
When shocked with electricity, they glowed and vibrated.
If you broke a piece off and then shocked the core of the main stone, the broken off piece would also light up and vibrate.
Distance didn’t seem to matter. As long as both fragments were in the same breach, shocking the core would activate the other chunk.
The first gate diver who discovered this effect compared it to the Cheesecake Factory’s restaurant pager and the name stuck.
By now Cold Chaos’ guild coordinator would have gone into the breach with a piece of a core stone and shocked it with a taser.
The moment the charge hit that rock, the cheesecake the assault team carried would light up and start humming.
It was the breach equivalent of an SOS signal.
The assault team would realize that a fatal event occurred, and they were being recalled.
They would turn around and head back for the gate.
They were only an hour ahead of us. By now they should have been here to neutralize the threat and retrieve the bodies. Nobody came for the corpses or for the incredibly valuable adamantite. That meant only one thing: the assault team was dead.
Bear whined softly. I reached out and petted her back.
Right now, Cold Chaos was likely putting a new assault team together.
The level of threat in this breach was beyond anything I had seen.
They would need their top Talents for this, and those people were usually occupied.
High ranking guild members made more than celebrity actors, and the guilds worked them to the bone for that money.
Getting them all in one place could take days.
The gate opened eight days ago. Judging by the power readings, Cold Chaos had anywhere between four to eight weeks to clear it. They thought everyone was dead, so they wouldn’t be in a hurry.
There was another unpleasant possibility. If London did own up to leaving me behind, Cold Chaos could choose to deliberately delay. If I was alive, they would face intense scrutiny. Things would be a lot simpler for them if I was dead. Given enough time in the breach, I would be.
There would be no rescue. I was on my own. If I died here, the kids would be alone. Roger would let them go into foster care. I was sure of it. They were living reminders of his failure as a father, and he had very little tolerance for being held accountable these days.
I’d made a promise to my daughter. I would keep it.
Digging through the cave-in was out of the question. The integrity of the cave ceiling in that passage was shot, which meant moving any of the rocks risked another collapse. No, I would have to go around, through one of those passageways.
I glanced at the end of the cavern. The tunnels stretched into darkness.
I would have to go into that darkness, make my way through the breach filled with monsters, ones that probably killed an entire assault team, find the gate, get out, and make sure Cold Chaos didn’t have a chance to stop me. Too easy.
I would need supplies. And a weapon. In a few minutes, the generator would die and take the lights with it.
I had to act fast.
* * *
John Costa, thirty-two years old, honorably discharged after eight years in the Marine Corps.
He and his husband had just celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary, and before the dive, he had shown off the necklace he received as a gift – a clover charm in gold with a small breach emerald in the center. For luck.
John sprawled on the rocks, face up. The left side of his skull and face were sliced off, and the cut was so sharp, it was like half of his head simply disappeared. His one remaining eye stared up at me, dull and lifeless.
I squatted by the body. My leg whined in protest, so I sat on the ground and picked up John’s SIG Spear.
“This probably won’t work,” I told Bear.
Bear enthusiastically panted.
Originally the SIG Spear was developed as a civilian version of the US Army XM7, a multi-caliber rifle that answered the military’s need for small arms with greater firepower.
It offered higher muzzle velocity and better long-range shot placement.
This version of the SIG Spear was developed specifically for the gates.
I knew all of this because I had been briefed on it and taught how to fire it.
There was just one problem.
I turned the rifle on its side and found a small black selector.
It could be turned only two ways: toward a stylized bullet etched into the gun or toward the identical bullet with a line through it.
Fire, no fire. As my retired Marine firing range instructor put it, private-proof. So easy even a soldier could do it.
The selector was in the safety position. John died too fast to fire off a shot.
I flipped the selector toward the bullet, raised the rifle to my shoulder, and pressed the trigger. Nothing. As expected.
A small red light flared on the rifle and faded.
The use of guns inside the gate was strictly controlled.
Only smart guns were permitted, and only combat-rated Talents could carry one.
Nobody wanted the civilians grabbing weapons dropped by their injured escorts and firing them in a wave of panic.
Nobody wanted to hand a working firearm to the enemy either.
That technology needed to stay in human hands as long as possible.
Each smart weapon was keyed to the heartbeat biometrics of its owner. In a pinch, it could be unlocked by entering a code given only to the assault and escort team members. A new code was issued for every gate dive.
They didn’t give me the code. I was a noncombat Talent. I would never need this code, because I had a big strong blade warden with an invulnerable forcefield to protect me.
“When we get out of here, I’m going to punch that smarmy weasel in the face.”
I flipped the gun over to the code lock. The small screen had space for six digits.
123456
654321
000000
111111…
Nothing. I could sit here for hours and not get anywhere.
“If there are more of those four-armed creatures on the other side of the breaches, guns won’t be much of an advantage for us, Bear. They still need a human to aim and fire. Parrying an attack at that speed requires a top-tier combat Talent, and we don’t have too many of those.”
I went through John’s pockets and came up with two energy bars and a Ka-bar knife. I took the knife, his canteen and the bars and moved on to the next corpse.
Anja’s corpse was next. She wasn’t cut, but there were chunks of rock embedded in her chest. Killed by London’s grenade.
She wore the same shoe size as me, 8 in women’s. I took her boots. They were dry.
“I’ve turned into a ghoul, Bear. I’m now robbing the dead.”
Panic crested inside me, and I shoved it back down again. Don’t think, just do.
Fifteen minutes later I’d worked my way around the cavern back to where I’d passed out. There were fourteen human bodies in the cave. Nine of the twelve miners, four of the escorts, and Elena.
George Payne was the oldest miner on the crew.
He was fifty-four, and his years had been hard-won.
He’d brought a backpack. Inside I found Motrin, a Chapstick, some tissues, a small towel, a packet of jerky, a Leatherman multitool, a pair of dry socks in a Ziploc bag, and way too many Tiger Balm patches.
I dumped the patches and kept everything else.
The rest of my haul consisted of eight energy bars, seven 32 oz canteens, two KitKats, one portable first aid kit, and a pack of THC gummies.
I stuffed the candy and energy bars into the pocket of the backpack, shoved the first aid kit in, and pushed as many of the canteens as I could inside.
Only four canteens fit. That and the one on my waist made five.