The Street Survivors (The Guild Wars Book 12) by Ian Malone (great books of all time TXT) 📕

Taylor chewed his lip. “Havin’ the slave pens underground is gonna be inconvenient, especially since we’ve got no comms down here.” He explained his attempts to reach the others.

“Well, that’s a problem,” House said.

“It really is,” Taylor agreed. “What are the odds we can shimmy down that hatch without givin’ away our presence?”

Jack considered. “Hard to say. On one hand, we could flip the thing open and find nothin’ but an empty hole on the other side. At the same time, flippin’ that hatch could be like kickin’ a board off a termite nest.”

“Breach their sanctuary, and they all come scurryin’ out,” House said.

Jack pointed a bingo gesture at the corporal.

“Well, then. I reckon that only leaves us with one option.” Taylor pulled the rifle from his back by the sling and started for the exit.

“Hold up,” Jack said. “It might not be a bad idea to get one of these trucks runnin’ and aimed in the right direction. That way if things go south and we end up tossin’ a bunch of grenades down that hole, we’ve got a ride ready to take us the hell outta here.”

“Ayew. Makes sense.” Taylor turned to Frank.

“Really?” the Buma exclaimed. “First you drag me through the frozen tundra from hell to get down here, then you toss me aside like a ragdoll, while you and the Farts run headlong into the fire against a horde of man-sized, slave-trafficking bugs?” He shook his head. “That ain’t right with Jesus, man. It just ain’t.”

Taylor put a hand on the Buma’s shoulder. “You’re the best wheelman in the outfit, Frank. Take it as a compliment.”

The Buma wasn’t convinced.

“Remember, boys, we don’t have comms down here to talk via pinplants, so hand signs only from here on in,” Taylor said. “Let’s move out.”

The group fell in line toward the warehouse exit while Frank manned the driver’s seat of the nearest carrier truck. Once at the door, the group slid the barrier just far enough open to get through, then proceeded to the hatch Jack had spotted from inside the warehouse. At roughly six feet wide and twelve feet tall, the opening was barricaded by a set of double doors, which weren’t locked.

“Jack’s on point, with Stan in the two spot,” Taylor signed. “I’m in three, with House bringing up the rear. Ayew?”

The others nodded.

Taylor and House stepped back and trained their rifles on the hatch, while Jack and Stan opened the doors. Nothing happened.

“Let’s go,” Taylor signed.

Jack and Stan cleared the opening, then stepped down onto the first of what turned out to be several steps leading underground. The tunnel inside was pitch dark—so much so that Taylor thought of popping a light from his helmet once the doors were closed again but opted against it for fear of betraying their position. With one hand on his rifle and the other on the wall to track their trajectory, Taylor moved along with the others until a distant light pierced the blackness ahead.

“Scout,” Taylor whispered.

Jack nodded, then scurried ahead on his own and vanished from sight at the tunnel’s end. He returned a few seconds later. “You’re gonna wanna see this.”

Taylor, Stan, and House followed the cowboy toward the light, then out into the open, where the group took cover behind a decent-sized boulder patch just outside the tunnel’s mouth.

The cavern below was unlike anything Taylor had ever seen. Measuring roughly 60 feet tall from dirt floor to stalactite-covered ceiling, the capacitor-lit cave covered a couple of acres, easy, and was filled with prisoner cages.

“Check it out.” Jack pointed to cluster of passages in the nearside rock wall. One of them was larger than the others and featured what looked like train tracks, which connected to a terminus in the main prison yard.

“I’d wager there’s a whole network of tunnels throughout this entire complex,” Jack said.

“It’s like a damn hive,” House noted.

Taylor reached into his tac vest and retrieved his goggles for a better look at the scene below. The entire holding facility had been organized into a sort of loose grid consisting of four quadrants. Each quadrant held 10 to 12 cages, with every cage housing six to eight occupants, including bed pallets and bathroom pots. There were also several standalone pens lining the cavern’s perimeter, but most of those were unoccupied.

Those must belong to the current shift. Taylor shifted his goggles toward a third tunnel on the cave’s backside. This one sported tire tracks in the dirt instead of rails. Interesting.

The clanking sounds of metal grinding against metal echoed from somewhere down rail tunnel one. The entrance to one of the small structures beside the terminus swung open, yielding a single form.

“You are one ugly mother…” House trailed off.

Coming in at almost six feet tall with matted yellow and black fur, the KzSha guard was exactly as Stan had described—a giant insectoid the size of a human and the gnarly, bug-eyed features of the world’s nastiest wasp. The alien’s body consisted of four sections: the head, which was oblong-shaped; the thorax; the abdomen; and the stinger tail Taylor had seen up close and personal outside the dome. He also counted four wings, which were laid back flat across the aliens’ spine while at rest, and two bladed middle arms that looked tough enough to cut steel.

Three more KzSha exited the guard post and began speaking with their comrade via the antenna light flashes Stan had described in the warehouse.

The rumbling sound inside the tunnel grew closer. A few moments later, a small engine car pulling two open-air passenger cars halted at the terminus, operated by a Caroon.

“Please!” a voice wailed from one of the cages. “Please, just leave us alone!”

A trio of Pendals huddled at the back their cell, eyes wide in visible terror.