Kenopsia (Book 1 of Pandora's Wake: The Nomad Chronicles)
Fire and Fury

The sound of gunfire echoed through the pharmacy as Cherubin grabbed box after box of tablets from the shelves. He stuffed them into his backpack and pockets, cramming every space with more of the valuable medication. The shelves in the hospital’s pharmaceutical stores were heavily depleted, but they were still far from empty. Here and there medicines lay upon the floor where they had been dropped when the hospital was hastily evacuated. The shelves themselves were a shambles, with products out of place or knocked over. In places some were open and tablets or ointments had spilt out, a testament to the frantic attempts to grab what was needed as the last people to leave evacuated.

Once he had no space Cherubin began thrusting medicines at Shamus, who was struggling to stow them away fast enough. Boxes and plastic bottles began spilling from his hands to clatter across the floor.

“Slow down!” the Irishman implored, “I can’t hold them all, give me a second.”

“We don’t have a second!” Cherubin retorted as he moved down the shelves.

“More haste, less speed!” Esther advised him as she peered back at the passageway they had run down to get here. Her pistol was cradled in a double handed grip but pointed at the floor. Her own heart was hammering as she listened to the furious battle in the area beyond. She knew that if the sound of gunfire stopped, it meant their friends had been overrun. If that happened the only escape route she and the others had would be cut off. Taking deep breaths she forced herself to remain calm but she could feel the trembling in her muscles. She had to fight the urge to head back to the dispensary window and add her own firepower to the fight.

Cherubin rounded the corner at the bottom of the room and turned up the second aisle, with Shamus hard on his heals. Two rows of refrigerated units ran the length of the isle, their motors humming again now that the generator was running.

“Look for anything that says ‘voriconazole’” Cherubin called as he moved down the units to their right, indicating that Shamus should check the units on their left.

“What’s that?” Shamus asked

“It’s an anti-fungal medication for treating invasive pulmonary aspergillosis...”

“English doc please!” pleaded Shamus,

“It’s an intravenous medicine, we need it to treat the fungal spores.” Cherubin grabbed two more boxes of something off a shelf.

“What? What’s this lot for then?” Shamus asked as he began his search,

“Steroids mostly. Some antibiotics for the secondary infections, and some voriconazole tablets. If we absolutely have to the doctor and I can make our own intravenous solution by grinding the tablets and re-hydrating in a water solution but it isn’t ideal with the equipment we have upstairs.”

“Doc, I can hardly carry what I have now!” Shamus complained,

“I’ll take it back to the gurney, you look.” Esther offered. They had left the gurney just on the other side of the dispensary window and it would give her a chance to see how the fighting was going.

Nodding, Shamus began handing her the boxes and bottles he was struggling with as she holstered her pistol.

“Just one thing...” Esther asked as she stashed the medicines, “If what you are looking for needed to be refrigerated, won’t it have spoiled with the power being off?”

Shamus froze and looked from Esther to Cherubin.

“With our luck lately?” Cherubin shrugged, “Probably.”

“I’ll be right back.” Esther nodded, as she dashed back towards the pharmacy window.

Looking at the alarmed expression on Shamus’s face Cherubin smiled, “It’s the autumn in Switzerland, you felt how cold it’s been lately? We might just be lucky. If not...” he shrugged and got back to looking for the voriconazole.

“Scheiße!” Kurt cursed. With the sound of gunfire in the distance, the alien insects began to emerge from the laundry. Initially, they came in ones and twos, but as the gunfire intensified the creatures began to swarm out and back the way they had come – directly towards the pharmacy.

“What do we do now?” Davil whispered,

“Nothing we can do.” Kurt whispered back, bitterly

“We can’t just... those things are going to swarm them!” Davil’s pallor betrayed his terror, but he was regaining his nerve – the thought of their colleagues in danger outweighing his fear.

“If we shoot from here, we draw them back this way and we can’t hold them. If they get past us...” Kurt let the idea hang in the air.

“Well,” Father Mathias put in, “If we can’t hold them anyway, we don’t all need to be here. We could send some of us back up the stairs and across to the pharmacy from the ground floor, drop down the way the others went and reinforce them there,” he suggested.

Kurt thought about it for a moment. If the aliens turned back now, they would need someone here to warn the others upstairs, but with what he had here he doubted they could hold the body of the swarm. Reinforcing the others might give them a fighting chance.

“Fuck it!” he cursed in English, “Father, you and Ashley stay here if those things turn back get upstairs and warn Knut. Davil, on me!”

Kurt turned and raced up the stairs with Davil right behind him.

The large insectoid was only an arm’s length from Mathias when the combined fire-power of his shotgun and Ronan’s finally brought the thing down, punching two holes through its carapace near what they supposed was its head. Behind it, three more were closing in rapidly,

“Some help here!” Ronan called.

Cursing, Joanas turned and joined them, opening up with the SAW and filling the air with a deafening level of thunderous gunfire. It shredded the first of the larger creatures, the strange structure their concretions formed through the doorway beyond and half the wall. A second of the three creatures sagged to one side as it lost several of its legs in the hail of bullets. Tapping Mathias on the shoulder he indicated that the policemen should turn and watch their rear. Nodding, Mathias turned and moved off to the position Joanas had just vacated as the soldier opened fire again at the larger creatures that were still coming. As he did a high-pitched shriek came from the door at the far end, a penetrating distress call that they could hear even above the cacophony of gunfire.

“The fuck?” Ronan asked, wide-eyed, as he pumped shell after shell down range. Then, as the plasterboard wall to the room beyond disintegrated under the whithering fire of the shotgun and SAW, he saw it.

Beyond the now ruined wall, the room was littered with sickly beige ovals stacked haphazardly, at the centre of which was a bloated, misshapen creature, like the insects they had seen thus far but far larger and with a distended egg-sack emerging from its rear end. The screeching, keening sound seemed to emanate from this queen as it called to its brood to come to its aid.

“Oh mein Gott!” Joanas gasped as saw what held Ronan’s attention. Swinging the SAW up he opened fire. Several more of the larger insects, seeming to anticipate what was about to happen, threw themselves in front of the queen as he fired.

Behind him Mathias gasped as he saw the main swarm come into view once again, rounding the corner in a mass of clacking mandibles and furiously pumping legs. There was no way he could stop them with just his shotgun.

“Joanas!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, “Joanas! For god's sake, the SAW! We need the saw over here!”

Between the sound of the gunfire and the ringing in everyone’s ears, he knew Joanas couldn’t hear him. Instead, he began backing off towards the soldier, all the time firing his shotgun down the passage towards the onrushing swarm in the hopes of doing some good, but if he did, he couldn’t see it.

Finally, he collided with Joanas.

“Mathias what are...” Joanas cut himself off as he saw the policeman frantically gesturing down the way he had come. Turning he saw the swarm approaching and swallowed.

“Swap places!” he yelled, as the two men virtually pirouetted around one another. Joanas opened fire again with the SAW, pointed now at the onrushing swarm, as Mathias and Ronan desperately tried to stop the last few of the queen’s guards from closing on them.

“Loading!” Ronan yelled, frantically pushing shells into his shotgun as two of the larger creatures closed on them. Mathias fired again, and as his last shotgun shell entered the eye of one of the creatures, the other reached Ronan, its mandibles striking for the Irishman. Racking the shotgun furiously Ronan snapped off a shot, too hastily, the shell-blasted shot into the floor. Time seemed to slow as Ronan saw the wickedly sharp mandibles bearing down, about to eviscerate him. He squeezed his eyes shut just as two rounds ripped out from behind him and over his shoulder, striking the creature at less than a half a metre range they took it in the face and brought it to a shuddering, writhing stop. Wide-eyed Ronan looked round to see Esther, one hand juggling boxes of medication which were spilling from her grip onto the gurney she was half lying on as she hung out of the pharmacy dispensing window. The other hand gripped her handgun.

“What are you grinning at, Tembel?” she snapped, “There are more!” she pointed with her pistol before snapping off another two rounds.

Joanas kept firing, the heavy Squad Assault Weapon bucking in his hands with each one of the rounds he sent downrange as fast as he was able, panning the weapon left to right and back again, not aiming, just filling the passage with hot, flying, lead in the hopes of turning back the swarm as it raced up the corridor towards them.

Ichor, carapace fragments and severed insect limbs seemed to fill the air in a macabre debris cloud as the rounds tore into the insects and blasted chunks from the strange concretions on the walls, revealing small tunnels within the structure and in the tunnels, more insects, using the structure as cover to get closer.

Cursing, Joanas peppered the concretions covering the wall as well, but it was hopeless. Unable to see which parts of the strange structure held insects, how closely packed they might be, and where to aim he succeeded in hitting only a few while those in the corridor gained ground.

Then the SAW stopped firing. Cursing, Joanas realised the first drum of ammunition was empty!

The creatures seemed to sense something had changed as they surged forward with renewed effort. Joanas pulled one of the precious grenades from his belt,

“FRAG OUT!” he screamed as he tugged the pin free and flung the explosive device down the passageway before diving sideways for cover behind the wall where the two corridors met. He wasn’t certain if anyone else had heard, or if he had hurled the weapon far enough to be sure of not harming any of his own people but he had to hope he had. His breath caught in his throat as time seemed to slow to a crawl. It seemed like an age since he had thrown the grenade, but he knew it wasn’t. Often, green troops, the first time they threw one in action would just begin to doubt that the weapon would detonate moments before it went off. Battle had a way of distorting time. Joanas, however,was no green recruit, and as he tucked his head in and laced his hands over it the thunderous rush of air from the blast rushed up the passage past him. Grabbing his rifle he got to his knees and peered around the corner.

The site that greeted him was carnage.

The blast had peeled several metres of the concretions from the walls and shattered it like a hammer blow might break toffee. Here and there, parts of it were burning, and where the flames licked up any insects nearby recoiled, clearly afraid of the flames. In the passage, the creatures lay in heaps where the blast had flung their small bodies. Most were dead, but some struggled to right themselves on shattered limbs, their broken mandibles swinging as if to clack together as they had done before. Some of the more determined creatures managed to stumble onwards, but they were slow now, wounded, many of them missing limbs or sporting huge gashes in their carapaces.

The blast had bought Joanas time and breathing space. Instead of the frantic hail of bullets from the SAW, now he was able to bring his rifle to his shoulder and snap off short, aimed, 3 round bursts, putting those that got too close out of their misery. Behind him he was aware the others were still fighting, firing down the passage towards the tunnel where the larger ones had come from.

Someone dashed passed him from the direction that he and his team had come into the pharmacy, but he didn’t look to see who it was, concentrating instead on killing the remaining creatures in front of him before the survivors could rally and rush him.

“Thought you could use some help, perhaps, yes?” Kurt grinned at Mathias as he and Davil rounded the corner to join the assault team. Dropping to their knees they opened fire, adding their own punishing volleys to those of Mathias and Ronan.

“Took your fucking time!” Ronan grinned, but the relief was visible upon his face.

Esther slid back through the window into the dispensary stores and ran down the aisle.

“You guys done yet?” she called to Cherubin and Shamus. Shamus’s head appeared around the shelves at the far end of the aisle.

“Coming back now!” he answered

“You see any medical alcohol?” she asked, but the Irishman just looked blankly back at her. She wasn’t sure if he had heard her over the sound of gunfire from behind, if he didn’t understand her or if the mental fogginess he had suffered earlier was back.

“Alcohol? Medical? Seen any?”

“Yes!” Cherubin’s voice came from the other side of the shelves, “How much you want?”

“Couple of litres if you can manage it!” she called back.

Moments later Cherubin appeared, his backpack, like Shamus’s stuffed with packages. Both men had armfuls more and tucked under the Congolese man’s chin were bottles of medical alcohol.

Esther grinned and grabbed the bottles from him, grabbing a pack of sterile dressings off the shelf she ripped the dressings open with her teeth and began soaking them in the alcohol.

“Go!” she told the others, “Get to the gurney and get the supplies out of here, I have an idea.”

They didn’t need to be told a second time, glancing at the Israeli woman, Cherubin nodded, seeing what she had planned.

Dumping the armfuls of medical supplies on the gurney, Shamus and then Cherubin clambered out of the dispensary window, took the brake off the gurney and set off down the passage at the run. Cherubin slapped Ronan on the shoulder as he passed, to let the Irish man know that the snatch team was on its way. Understanding at once, Ronan tapped Kurt on the shoulder and signed that he would provide security for the snatch team.

Kurt nodded, “Mathias!” he yelled, “Go with Ronan, you are on security for the snatch team, we will fight the rear guard action!”

Mathias only heard part of what Kurt was trying to say, but his meaning was clear. Pumping two more shots down range he turned and fell in beside Ronan as they jogged down the passage in pursuit of the gurney and the precious supplies.

Sliding out of the dispensary window, Esther leant into Kurt “You got a lighter?” she asked.

“A.. a what?” in the heat of battle the German wasn’t sure what he had just been asked for.

“A lighter, a cigarette lighter?” Esther showed him what she had in her hands.

“Ah!” Kurt grinned, “Ja!”

The passage between their position and the queen’s chamber was mostly clear of living insects now but was awash with ichor and shattered body parts from the creatures. Some still twitched unnervingly with a ghastly semblance of life.

As one, Davil, Kurt and Esther advanced on the egg chamber and the queen, who was keening all the more urgently now as she saw her fate approaching. With one final burst from his rifle, Kurt splashed the creature’s brains across the chamber’s back wall as Esther hurled an open container of medical alcohol into the room. She lit the rag that she had stuffed into the second and threw it in after.

The first container hit the ground and split open, spilling its contents across the egg chamber as Davil fired a round into it, bursting it apart in a shower of the highly flammable fluid just as the second container hit and turned the egg chamber into an inferno.

As the fire flashed across the egg sacks they each exploded with a sickening pop, spewing out a sickly yellow-green albumen. The fire raged for a moment before suddenly, and finally, the hospital’s fire suppression system kicked in. Sprinklers sputtered to life and a high pitched alarm screamed out as the fire sensors triggered them, somewhat belatedly.

By now though, it was over. The eggs had been flash-fried by the heat of the alcohol fire, and behind them, Joanas was finishing off the last of the creatures as the alarm sent them almost mad with confusion. Their natural tenancy to hunt by sound sent into overdrive by the echoing screams of the fire alarm. Those that were still mobile at all had tried to scale the wall to reach the claxons, but few had survived the blast of Joanas’s grenade and now he put an end to the last survivors.

“Shall we leave, gentlemen?” Esther called over the howling of the alarms, and with that, they turned and headed back the way they had all come.

A wave of fatigue washed over Joanas. His legs seeming to double in weight as the relief of the realisation that it was over, the creatures were all dead, sank in. With the medical supplies secured and the basement cleared of whatever these things were, perhaps Doctor Allmendinger would finally be able to start treating the nomads for the fungal infection they had contracted on the road just scant hours before.

Hours. It felt like weeks ago. As he, Esther, Kurt and Davil climbed the stairs after the rest of the raiding party he felt the weariness washing over him and wondered if he dared risk an hour or two’s rest before they had to check the rest of the hospital building for other threats that might be hiding there.

He had a sinking feeling that the answer to that, would turn out to be no.