William Dietz - Resistance - The Gathering Storm

“What do you want, meat-thing? You’re dead, yet you speak.”

A horrible odor enveloped Grace then, and he felt his gorge rising. However, he knew it was important to take control.

“I was told that you are rational—and capable of communicating with the Chimera. If that’s true, and you’re willing to cooperate, then you will continue to live. Otherwise I will have you killed.”

Daedalus felt what amounted to a pinprick as one of the scientists on the observation deck sent electricity coursing through the electrode buried in his flesh. It was meant as a reminder. An order to mind his manners. “I listen,” Daedalus promised as his mind jumped to the battleship hovering above.

“Good,” Grace replied firmly. “I have a message for the Chimera… A message I want you to deliver. I—that is to say we —have killed hundreds of thousands of Chimeran forms, and will continue to do so unless all of them withdraw from North America and leave us alone. But if the Chimera pull their forces out, we will not only agree to a truce, but allow them unfettered access to the rest of the world.”

Daedalus had already begun to laugh—a hideous, mind-bending sound—when the steel door located behind Grace rumbled open and Hale stepped into the huge cell. As part of the security team, it had been a simple matter to walk down a flight of metal stairs and enter the huge cube.

“Like hell we will,” Hale growled as he raised the carbine. “Traitors don’t speak for the citizens of the United States. This is our planet and we plan to keep it.”

Most of the shadow people looked the same to Daedalus. But some—like Hannah—were unforgettable.

“Hale?” Daedalus said, the words coming more easily now. “So you’re still alive… Who are you going to shoot?”

The Sentinel looked from one to the other, made his choice, and corrected his aim. Grace’s eyes widened in response, and the President’s lips started to form the word “No” as Hale’s finger squeezed the trigger. The sharp crack echoed off the walls and there was a sudden spray of blood and brains as the body fell. The empty casing made a tinkling sound as it bounced off the floor and rolled away.

Then Hale was swinging the weapon around, hoping to put a bullet into what remained of Daedalus’s human brain, when a bolt of mental energy killed three people and brought every other human being within two hundred yards of the cell to their knees. That included the scientist who had her hand on the dead man’s switch that had been installed for just such a situation. As she fell, 5,000 volts of electricity arced between the nearest wall and the electrode located inside Daedalus. He screamed, and the stench of burning flesh filled the air, until the circuit was automatically broken.

Hale was lying on his back, his mind still reeling as a powerful bolt of plasma struck the top of the cell and blew it open. Chunks of concrete rained down, some of which struck Daedalus as his body rose steadily upward. He—or more accurately it—looked like a gas-filled balloon which, having escaped a child’s hand, was free to roam.

But a shuttle was waiting to receive Daedalus a few hundred feet above—and the Chimeran battleship was there to take the smaller vessel aboard.

All hell broke loose as a vengeful Daedalus must have given orders for the battleship to rake the area. Most of the base was belowground, so while it suffered some damage, the city of Sheridan soon ceased to exist. Then, having accomplished its mission, the huge ship sailed north, seemingly oblivious to the Sabre Jets that sought to bring it down.

Hale recovered enough to stand, locked his hands behind his neck, and stood impassively as Blake and two dozen security people flooded into the roofless cell with weapons drawn. Six of them were Secret Service agents, but the rest were Sentinels. A doctor knelt next to Grace’s bloodied body, and felt for a pulse, but knew it was hopeless.

He looked at Blake and shook his head. “The President is dead.”

“God damn it,” Agent Stoly said angrily. “What are we going to do?”

There was silence for a moment as Blake considered what Grace had been willing to do. Finally he spoke. “Get the Vice President on the horn. He has a country to lead. Do you have a problem with that?”

Stoly scanned the faces around him. There was a whispering sound as his .38 Special slid back into its holster. “No, Major,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

Blake turned toward Hale. “As you were, Lieutenant. The stinks may take this planet,” he said grimly, “but we sure as hell aren’t going to give it to them.”

Hale bent over to retrieve his carbine. It was, the Sentinel decided, the one thing he could count on.

Resistance: The Gathering Storm is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Del Rey Books Mass Market Original

Copyright © 2009 by Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

RESISTANCE is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-345-51347-2

www.delreybooks.com

v3.0