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

plumes of smoke and fire poured from a support shaft beside the main pit.

“Shit!” Torrio dropped his cleaning tool and raced across the yard through a scrum of scrambling aliens toward the explosion. Sure enough, something down the shaft had gone horribly wrong.

“Get that hydro processor online now!” Torrio barked to a Cochkala nearby.

The alien froze.

“Move your ass, Badger Boy, or we’re all gonna be barbecue in the next 30 seconds!” Torrio shouted.

The Cochkala sprinted to a nearby machine and threw a series of switches on the dashboard, eliciting a series of groans from the equipment. A moment later, the crate-sized device sputtered to life, while Torrio unhooked the valve hose from its side, then raced back toward the shaft. He aimed the hose straight into the inferno’s teeth and let fly.

A pillar of steam billowed from below as, little by little, the flame began to subside.

“Nice save,” Taylor said once the hydro processor had quieted. “Where’d you learn to handle yourself like that?”

“The New York City Fire Department.” Torrio returned the hose to its cradle and walked over. “I was a volunteer firefighter for almost eight years before I moved to North Florida.”

“I didn’t know that,” Taylor said.

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Torrio said. “You would, though, if you and your cronies had treated me with a modicum of respect when you executed your takeover of Steeldriver.”

Ordinarily, Taylor wouldn’t have felt compelled to justify his command decisions to an outsider. In this instance, however, and given the colonel’s actions with the fire, he decided to make an exception. “I’m sorry, Paulie. I’m sorry for the way things went down between you and the Eagles. For what it’s worth, we strongly considered you to lead San Marco Company when we organized the new command chain.”

“And?” Paulie asked.

“And Commander Blaylock had just as much experience as you, but without the baggage.”

“And what baggage might that be exactly?”

Now Taylor was starting to get annoyed. “If you know anything about me, you know I ain’t one to blow smoke up somebody’s ass to spare their feelings. I shoot people straight. Always have, always will.” He shifted his stance. “In case you haven’t noticed, Colonel, there’s a whole bunch of folks who don’t like you. Whether that’s because of your attitude, your way with command, or the way you look down your nose at people, I don’t know. I also don’t give a damn. What I do know is, I didn’t need that kind of poison on my command staff, period. You wanna know why you got busted back to sergeant? Well, there’s your answer.”

Torrio turned aside and snorted. “Typical Duval redneck crap. You people always stick by your own, no matter what.”

“Listen, Paulie.”

“No, you listen.” Torrio stabbed out a finger. “Two weeks prior to your meeting with Carnegie when he handed you the keys to the Ryley Osyrys, he and I had a talk of our own. His current XO had accepted a job with the Danville Express, and Ron wanted me to fill the two slot, with a new, unofficial title — colonel-in-waiting.”

Taylor’s eyes widened.

“That’s right, you North Floridian prick.” Torrio patted his own chest. “I was next in line to command the Steeldriver Defense Group when Carnegie retired. Not you. Me. Then you went off to Rukoria and got tangled up in whatever the hell happened out there, and all that went by the wayside.” He stared at the ground and huffed. “From executive officer to staff sergeant, and this fargin guy thinks I oughta be grateful. What an asshole.”

Neither man spoke for a long moment, especially Taylor, who hadn’t known any of this.

“Everyone! Get back to work!” Several KzSha began ordering the shift laborers back to their posts.

“Welp. Looks like break time’s over.” Torrio sighed and headed for the bathroom huts. “Come on, newbie. These turd tubs ain’t gonna clean themselves.”

* * * * *

Chapter 18: Stung

The next three days underground played out in much the same fashion as the first. Taylor would wake from what little sleep he could manage in the cage, then be shuffled out at stinger-point with the other workers to be herded onto a train bound for yet another shift in the mine. Sometimes Taylor lucked out and nabbed an assignment to one of the cleaner duties, like supply running or loader operations. Mostly, though, he drew the crap duties—literally, in the case of sanitation work. Clearly someone had seen to that.

By the time the fourth morning arrived, Taylor hardly knew what day it was, much less the time. He only knew that he was tired as all get out, and nasty as sin, not to mention physically and emotionally exhausted.

The call came early on day five, when two KzSha guards arrived at Taylor’s cage before sunup. At least, he thought it was sunup.

“Out,” the lead guards ordered.

Right. Out. Gotcha. Taylor took a second to shake the cobwebs out of his mind, then pulled himself upright to go. From there, he was marched from the confinement area and out to the terminus platform where, just like always, a Croon chauffeur waited to take him into the tunnel.

Wait, where is everybody else? Taylor glanced around. Only eight other slaves were being rousted from their cages for work. That ain’t nearly enough to flesh out a shift crew, not by a long shot.

One of the guards shoved a large Besquith into the open. “Move!”

The wolf alien snarled in protest, prompting the guard to raise its stinger. The Besquith bowed his head immediately.

Whoa. In all his years in the merc business, Taylor had never once seen that sort of behavior from a Besquith.

“Out, now,” another guard said to a pair of Lumar workers.

Beginning to feel like the runt of the litter, Taylor filed onto the passenger car and