It didn’t stop him from doing his job, though. He clocked the first IXTF agent who climbed out of the rear car – Martin the vegetarian – in the face, hopefully knocking the guy out. The next guy, a perpetually chuckling older gentleman named Nate, raised his pistol at Roen before Marco clubbed him with the butt of his rifle.
On his left, Roen saw Sheck run up to the Penetra van and the ambulance and shoot out the tires on both. Marco charged over to the overturned car in the middle as another of the IXTF agents tried to crawl out of the driver’s side window. He hauled the man out – Valentine, the rookie of Kallis’s team – and threw him on the ground, knocking him out with a punch to the temple.
To his left he heard a gunshot and then another. Roen saw Kallis standing there, blood streaming down the side of her face. She was aiming somewhere behind Roen. He looked back and saw Chase fall. Cursing, Roen charged her, covering the distance between them as she turned her attention to him. One shot went high left; the second missed his face by sheer luck when he lowered his head and tackled her. He felt the bullet scorch the air as they collided.
Roen had thought he could take out the smaller woman easily, but Kallis was no slouch. She hooked her arms around his waist and twisted left upon impact. Both of them fell and rolled on the ground. Roen got to his feet just in time for her to kick at his face. She missed and nailed him in the neck instead. He felt his throat constrict as he stumbled backward.
Kallis scrambled for her pistol, which had fallen to the side. Knowing he wasn’t going to beat her there, he dove forward and tripped her as she ran. The two exchanged blows. He could tell right away she had a Marine Corps Martial Arts Program background. Back and forth they went as she pressed. Roen defended as he examined what was going on in the rest of the fight. His team had secured all of the IXTF’s vehicles by now. Elias and Helen were opening the ambulance doors. Marco was approaching Roen and Kallis, rifle drawn.
“No,” Roen yelled, shaking his head. The momentary distraction earned him a kick to the groin that doubled him over, then a combination of punches and kicks to his head and body. He ate the first few strikes and backpedaled, studying her cadence. He had to admit; she was good. Better than he gave her credit for. But not good enough.
He slipped outside her guard and tried to force her to the ground with an elbow lock. Kallis escaped and rewarded his efforts to peacefully incapacitate her by flurrying his face with punches, causing his head to bounce forward and backward like a speed bag. Finally, fed up, he growled, palmed her face and chopped her legs from under her.
“You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” He spat blood from his mouth onto the floor. “Stay down.” Then he felt the adrenaline dump, and the pain in his groin made its presence felt. He hunched forward and clenched his body. He wasn’t going to walk right for a few days. She thrashed at him while he kept her pinned down.
Marco had the rifle trained on her face a moment later. Kallis froze, and Roen let his grip on her face slacken. He stood up and limped backward, gasping. “Holy cow, that hurts.”
She took one look at his sunglasses and hoodie, and spat on the ground. “You must be the Rayban Ghost. I knew your greasy fingers would show up here. My men…”
“…are all still alive,” he said, “which is more than I can say for one of mine. Now stay down before I even the score. On your stomach!” He tried to keep his voice low and guttural, but he knew he was walking a fine line. He took out sets of plastic binds and tied her arms behind her back. She squirmed as she glared at him. The rest of the IXTF agents were bound in a similar fashion.
He turned to Marco. “Did we secure the package?”
Marco nodded, pulled out a pistol and handed it to Roen. Roen took it and pointed it at Kallis. “How’s Chase?”
Marco shook his head and Roen swore. “Get ready for transport then,” he said, his eyes never moving away from Kallis.
The death was on Roen; he knew that. He was the one who had pleaded with the team to try to avoid casualties. It still hurt every time Roen lost a guy. It felt personal this time, because he had tried to accomplish Prophus goals without injuring good people. Now, Chase had paid the price. Tao would have called him an idiot for being so soft.
You should have focused on your people and your objective first.
That’s what Tao would have said, and he would have been one hundred percent correct.
It seemed his noble efforts weren’t lost on Kallis either. “Rayban Ghost, you held back there. Why?”
“You noticed?”
“Been in enough fights to recognize when a man is pulling his punches.”
Roen knelt over her and tapped the ground with the pistol. “By the way, you owe the Eureka Animal Shelter another ten grand for the lives of your men.”
He looked over at the ambulance and saw his guys wheel Prie around the corner. Then Marco and Sheck came back to retrieve Chase. He grimaced as they picked up his limp body and took him away.
“We’re all saddled up,” Marco said through the comm. “On our way back to base.”
“Giving you guys a five-minute head start,” Roen replied. “Use it wisely.” He checked the time. Pretty soon, someone was going to notice this mess on the airfield. He needed to make sure his guys were as far away from here as possible. He looked over at Kallis squirming her way to her side. With a grunt, she bent her knees forward and wormed her way so she faced him lying down sideways.
“So, Rayban,” she said. “Are any of my guys hurt?”
“Not my concern.” He checked the time again. In the distance, he heard the faint howling of sirens. He had to get moving.
“You’re a bastard, you know that, Rayban Ghost,” Kallis called. “I’m going to hunt you for the rest of your God damned life.”
“Oh no, not that.” He shrugged, scanning the perimeter. “Guess it’s a burden I’ll have to live with.”
Her eyes widened. “A heavy burden?”
Roen gave a start and realized his mistake too late. He took off at a sprint, heading the opposite direction of the sirens.
“Hey, come back here, Rayban!” he heard her scream. “Rutherford!”
Roen stumbled, cursing himself for making such an idiotic mistake. In his self-loathing for losing Chase, he had turned one mistake into two. This one could have serious consequences as well, not just for this mission, but for a long time.
Well, no matter, it had happened. Roen had to move on. Even if he had accidentally given himself away, what’s the worst she could do? They had Prie now. The attack on the catalyst facility would happen in a couple of days, and by week’s end, he’d be out of her reach forever.
34 Reunited
As honorable as the Prophus’s intentions seem, the truth about the Quasing is much less so. The reality is that the Genjix really are the real Quasing. You see, if I was to equate our species to any on Earth, I would say we are locusts. We are a swarm of trillions of creatures moving as a giant organism from solar system to solar system, consuming resources and mutating planets to our will.
Tao
What should barely have been a three-hour drive from Eureka to Fort Bragg took Cameron and Alex over a day. It seems there had been a reason that Mustang was in a garage. After they got through the stop-and-go traffic out of Eureka, which sorely tested Cameron’s ability to shift manually and the poor car’s transmission, they discovered a painful high-pitched grinding any time they went over thirty miles per hour, no matter what gear Cameron tried for. Five hours later, they were still forty miles away from Fort Bragg when their next misfortune hit: the frail muscle car ran out of gas. The two teens decided to camp one last night under the stars and finish the trek the next day.
Dusk was approaching by the time they finally reached Fort Bragg. Both of them were exhausted. Alex in particular was in a bad mood. She looked preoccupied and even nervous as they crossed the bridge over the Noyo River. Cameron, on the other hand, was getting excited. He could see the RV park on the cliff overlooking the bay to his right.