A Hole in the Sky Read Online Free Page A

they climbed up onto the platform and took up positions around the stairs as the rest of the troops came up to join them. Over Voss’s objections, Alvarez, Mason, and Rigg had been assigned to guard Malikov and himself. So wherever they went the others followed.
    “Okay,” Kawecki said over the radio. “Let’s go upstairs and waste some stinks. Over.”
    With a shout of approval, the single-file column of soldiers surged up the stairs, past an empty ticket booth and into the tower itself.
    Voss
heard
the battle before he had a chance to join in it, as the human invaders made violent contact with a force of snarling Hybrids. Heavy fire lashed back and forth, and Voss heard screaming as people began to fall.
    The politician had to negotiate his way around a half-dozen bodies as he and the rest of the soldiers pushed their way into a huge lobby. Voss tilted his head back to see a circular platform with thick supporting columns on both sides of it. A walkway spiraled up and away from the platform. It was connected side-to-side by a network of crisscrossing sky bridges.
    As Steelheads appeared on the platform above and fired Augers down into the crowd below, Lucy jerked spastically and went down. A soldier fell as Kawecki said, “Kill those bastards! Everyone else onto the elevators. Move!”
    Voss had seen the elevators too, three of them on each side of the lobby. He led Malikov, his bodyguards, and a dozen other soldiers over to one of the circular platforms. Mason slapped a control, curved doors slid into place, and the elevator began to rise.
    Malikov studied a brightly lit panel on the wall. “This symbol is for the control room,” the scientist said confidently, pointing at a star-shaped icon. “If ve stay on the elevator it will take us there. Tell the others.”
    At that moment the platform jerked to a halt and the doors opened. “Hold that thought,” Voss said. “It looks like the stinks shut the elevator system down.”
    That prediction soon came true, as
all
of the tubular lifts opened to spill their passengers out onto the circular platform Voss had seen from the lobby below. As the humans exited, they were immediately confronted by the stinks who were already on that level. More of themwere charging down the spiral ramp from above as a swarm of Drones appeared.
    A hellish battle ensued. Wraith miniguns harvested the Chimera like wheat in a field, V7 Splicers chopped the stinks into chunks of raw meat, and an L11-2 Dragon sent tongues of fire up the ramp. But it made no difference, as the now flaming ’brids, Steelheads, and Ravagers charged through the conflagration to grab humans and wrap them in fire. The screams they produced overlaid each other.
    Every time the President tried to advance and join the force at the foot of the ramp his bodyguards cut him off. So Voss assigned himself the task of dealing with the seemingly endless waves of Drones. But no matter how many of the machines he destroyed, there were always more.
    He fired the carbine until it ran dry, reloaded until all of his spare magazines were empty, and switched to the Rossmore. Malikov was firing too. Patrol Drones exploded left, right, and center as empty casings arced away and bounced off the floor.
    But there was no cover to speak of, and the floor was slippery with human blood as men fell in twos and threes. Bodies lay everywhere, and the sound of gunfire started to dwindle as the Chimera began to run out of targets.
    Voss was convinced he was going to die. He was resigned to that fate, when Mason stepped in to clip a rope to the D-ring at the center of his combat harness. Voss opened his mouth to object, but Kawecki was there to cut him off.
    “Mason is going to lower you over the side, sir. We’re sending Malikov down too. Once you hit the floor, unhook the rope so we can use it again.”
    Voss said, “Wait just a goddamn minute,” but that was as far as he got when Mason plucked him off the floorand dumped him over the side.