Empire

by John Connolly

  He felt a shift in the grip on his legs. He looked up again and saw that Thula was now holding both of his legs, and Steven and Peris were holding on to Thula, easing him gently over the edge of the walkway until eventually the entire upper part of his body was suspended in the air. Paul felt himself dropping lower. His hand closed on the cable.

  “I have it!” he cried.

  He began dragging it toward him. It made a soft metallic grinding sound against the crates.

  Sound.

  Vibration.

  “Oh, hell,” said Paul.

  The ground was sky, the sky sand. Clouds disturbed it—clouds, and a shimmering like glass.

  “Pull me up!” he shouted. “Now!”

  But Thula’s belt had caught on the edge of the walkway. He tried to free himself by wriggling against it, which caused Paul to shift precariously in his grip.

  “I’m serious!” said Paul. “Get me out of here.”

  “We’re trying,” said Steven.

  “Try harder!”

  From his left came a clanging sound. He twisted his head to see Rizzo standing on one of the lowest rungs of the nearest ladder, banging the edge of a grenade launcher against the metal. Her more insistent vibrations caused the creature to change course, diverting its attention from Paul toward her. Paul could see that she had one leg hooked around a rung of the ladder, and another around the frame. She raised the launcher to her shoulder.

  “Come to Mama,” she said.

  The creature emerged from the sand, its jaws agape. The grenade, set to explode seconds after impact, shot into its gullet, just as Rizzo dropped the launcher and turned her back to protect her face.

  The beast exploded, showering Rizzo with fragments. Paul instinctively closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Rizzo looked like a glass porcupine, her armor and the skin on the back of her neck embedded with shiny spines. Slowly she began to climb back up the ladder. For a moment she stumbled and seemed set to lose her grip, but somehow she kept climbing. Paul rose with her as Thula’s belt was freed and they were both pulled back up to the walkway. Once Thula was safely in place, Steven helped him to drag Paul up while Peris went to see to Rizzo.

  “How is she?” asked Paul, once he had secured the lightweight cable, draping it over his right shoulder. He and the others stood over Peris, who was kneeling beside Rizzo. She lay on her stomach. Her face was contorted in a grimace of pain.

  “Get her armor off,” ordered Peris.

  Steven hit the release straps at Rizzo’s shoulders and waist, and lifted off the rear panel of her armor. It had absorbed most of the impact of the shards, but some had still penetrated her body. There were smaller splinters in her neck, her arms, and her skull. The wounds in her back were bleeding through her shirt.

  “Can you move your legs, Rizzo?” said Thula.

  Rizzo’s feet tapped against the metal of the walkway.

  “No spinal damage,” said Thula. “That’s good.”

  He knelt alongside Peris, and gently tested the splinters in her skin. There were no spurts of blood, which meant no arteries were damaged, and none of the splinters looked like they’d gone in more than half an inch.

  Peris turned to Paul.

  “Why don’t you see about hooking that cable to the platform? Thula will look after Rizzo.”

  Already Thula was searching in his kit for antiseptic, and a blade with which to work on the splinters, if necessary. Paul and Steven left him to it, and set about figuring out a way to secure a line to the shuttle.

  Paul found a loose strut on the walkway’s support rail, and tied one end of the wire securely around it. The shuttle platform was a single sheet of metal, with no holes or slats into which a weighted cable might jam, so their best bet seemed to be to aim the strut for the shuttle itself. It stood on raised landing pegs, not dissimilar to those of a helicopter, so Paul tried for the nearest of those. The first time he missed entirely, and the second and third times he managed only to hit the shuttle itself, even knocking something from its body with the final impact.

  “Was that bit important?” he asked Steven.

  “I’d prefer not to be up in the air when we find out,” said Steven. “Maybe you could try not to reduce the shuttle to scrap metal before we even manage to board it.”

  After each attempt Paul had to draw the strut carefully back across the sand. The last thing he wanted was for one of those creatures to pull it underground, and perhaps him along with it.

  Paul threw again. This time the strut caught beneath one of the pegs. Paul gave it an experimental tug. It held. He leaned back and hauled as hard as he could. Still the strut did not move.

  “That may be as good as we’re going to get,” he said. He fixed the other end of the cable to the walkway.

  “Somebody is going to have to be the first to try it,” said Steven.

  “That would be me.”

  “I’m lighter.”

  “You’re the pilot. If you fall, we’re stuck here.”

  “Peris can fly a shuttle.”

  “Not like you can. Look, I did the throwing, and I’ll take the chance. Once I’ve made certain that the line is secure, you can follow me down. We’ll take the shuttle to the wall and pick everyone else up from the air.”

  De Souza would have to be helped on board, but Rizzo looked like she could make it herself. Thula had removed most of the silicon shards from her flesh, although smaller fragments probably remained, and she was now sitting up and taking water. The back of her shirt was dark with blood.

  Paul was wearing his combat gloves. They’d give him a pretty secure grip on the cable. In an ideal world he’d have a clip to attach to the line, but the world in which they found themselves was far from ideal. Instead he fashioned a support harness from his bandolier. It wouldn’t be much help to him if the line didn’t hold, but if he lost his grip it might prevent him from falling to the sand. In the end, it was a psychological comfort, if nothing more.

  Peris and Thula came over as Paul, seated on the walkway rail, was hooking his makeshift harness over the line.

  “Are you sure about this?” said Peris.

  “No,” said Paul. “Not that it makes much difference.”

  At that moment the wall shook and a section nearby came loose and tumbled to the ground, leaving a massive gap in the wall. Had the wall weakened on the other side, it might well have landed on the shuttle, dooming them.

  “On your way, then,” said Peris. “We don’t have all day. And if you need further encouragement, take a look over there.”

  He pointed north, to where the fierce blue skies of Torma had vanished.

  “What is that?” said Steven.

  “A sandstorm,” said Peris. “It’ll sweep us from the walls, if they don’t collapse first.”

  Paul said a silent prayer, curled his legs over the wire at the ankles, gave the line one final tug, and began his descent. He moved quickly, wanting to spend as little time as possible suspended over the rippling sands. He tried not to think about falling, to concentrate only on dragging himself along the line. His arms were aching already, and he was not even halfway there. His own body, his exhaustion, the heat, all conspired against him. The line sagged above him, dragged down by his weight. He had a vision of the strut shifting, its perilous hold on the shuttle’s peg weakened by the drag of the human being on the wire. Faster now, faster. He could see the shuttle platform ahead. It seemed as if he could already touch it with his toes, although he estimated that he had another ten feet to go.

  And then the strut shifted. He felt it move, and the wire dropped him toward the sand. He waited for the impact, but it didn’t come. He was still hanging in the air, but he was at least a foot closer to the ground. Paul was afraid to move. If he moved, the strut might finally be pulled from its position. But what was the other option—to remain hanging fro
m a line until tiredness took him, or the strut inevitably came loose, regardless of whether he was moving or not?

  He inched forward.

  The strut, held against the shuttle’s peg by only the barest of margins, came away, and Paul tumbled to the sand.

  CHAPTER 10

  Paul’s first thought upon falling was: I am going to die.

  His second thought was: I don’t want to die.

  He rolled as he hit the sand, and was on his feet almost before he registered the impulse that caused him to react so quickly. It was as though his limbs were working faster than his thoughts, realizing what was required of them before his mind could spur them into action. He was aware of sand churning behind him, but he did not look back. The shuttle pad was only a few feet ahead of him, with its ramp raised. It stood about six feet off the ground, so that the pad was slightly lower than Paul’s head. He sprang, gripped the edge, and used his back muscles to raise himself, grateful for the long hours spent performing pull-ups as part of basic training. He heard gunfire as the survivors on the ramparts tried to hit whatever was pursuing him, but by then he had flung himself flat on the pad. He turned on his back, drew his Colt, and prepared to shoot between his knees, but nothing appeared.

  “It’s too short!” shouted Steven. “The creature—it can’t raise itself high enough to reach the pad.”

  Paul sank back on the metal. He tried to swallow, but he had no moisture in his mouth. His head ached from thirst and, he knew, barely suppressed panic and fear. It was all that he could do not to curl into a ball and wait for someone to rescue him, but he knew that he was the rescuer, and his comrades were depending on him, coward or not.

  He forced himself to rise, and saw that Steven was already hurriedly drawing the cable back. One of the creatures made an ineffectual snap at it, but it didn’t seem as interested in the metal as in the humans. Once he had the end in his hands, Steven flung it toward the pad, and Paul caught it before it could slip off the edge. He wound it tightly around the shuttle’s landing, looping the cable back on itself so that it held the anchoring strut in place.

  “All right,” he called to Steven. “Down you come.”

  Steven slid off the rampart, curling his feet over the wire and moving hand over hand down its length. He moved fast—faster than Paul had done. Not for the first time, Paul noticed how his brother’s baby fat had fallen from his body in recent months, leaving him lithe and rangy. He would be taller than Paul when he was fully grown.

  Suddenly the landing pad shuddered. The impact was so strong that it sent Paul stumbling against the hull of the shuttle. The vibration traveled up the wire, but Steven managed to retain his hold on it and keep going. The creatures had felt movement on the pad but were unable to reach Paul. Just as with the walls, they were opting instead to bring him down to them. The beasts were smart, he had to give them that. He’d still happily have seen them wiped out of existence, but there was no denying their intelligence. From somewhere below the sands came a grinding, and the pad canted about five degrees to the right. The creatures were buckling the central support. It wouldn’t be long before they sent the shuttle sliding to the sand.

  Steven dropped down beside his brother.

  “You took your time,” said Paul.

  “Well, let’s just hope they didn’t lock the doors.”

  The blood drained from Paul’s face at the thought that, after all his efforts, they might be undone by some security-conscious scientists, but Steven simply winked at him and hit the door release with his fist. The door opened with a hiss, and Paul permitted himself a ragged breath of relief.

  “That wasn’t funny,” said Paul.

  The pad juddered again. This time, the shuttle seemed to slide slightly to the right.

  “Just get in and fly the damn thing,” said Paul.

  Steven disappeared into the shuttle. Paul followed him. It was much smaller than the Military craft that was now lost somewhere beneath the sand. It could take six passengers and crew at a push, and even then they’d be crammed inside. Paul tried not to think about what might have happened if they’d all survived the initial attack by the creatures. Would they have been forced to draw lots for their lives?

  Steven started the engines, and prepared for a vertical takeoff. As he did so, the shuttle began to slide in earnest, and it didn’t stop. Paul lost his footing, and banged his head painfully against the shuttle’s hull.

  “Hold tight!” said Steven. “This will be a rocky one.”

  He hit the thrusters, boosting the starboard thruster to compensate for the angle. The shuttle seemed to stagger into the air, but Steven kept it under control. Paul looked out of the window nearest to him to see the pad collapse and silicate alien forms thrusting at it in the vain hope that their prey might not have escaped.

  “Not this time,” said Paul, and the faces of the dead flashed before him. “You’ve taken enough of us today . . .”

  • • •

  They got De Souza on board first with the help of Thula and Peris. Still, Paul had to haul him up, and despite his drug-induced sleep, De Souza moaned as his butchered arm struck the door. Rizzo climbed in mostly under her own steam, and only reluctantly accepted Paul’s help at the last. Finally, it was the turn of Thula and Peris, the latter barely getting on board before their section of the wall finally collapsed. Paul closed the shuttle door, and the craft did one final circuit of the platform. Far below, the creatures rose up in frustration, their eyeless heads turned to the sky, their jaws snapping at vibrations in the air.

  But now the storm was almost upon them. It would engulf them if they didn’t find shelter from it. They couldn’t outrun it—there wasn’t enough time. Paul joined his brother, taking the copilot’s seat to give the others more room in the shuttle bay. Steven took them up, then hovered in the face of the approaching wall of sand.

  “What are you doing?” asked Paul.

  “Thinking. Supervisor Peris, sir?”

  Peris came forward.

  “What is it?”

  Steven removed a small cylinder from the inside pocket of his flight overalls. He pressed down hard on the top, and the cylinder clicked open at the other end, revealing a red button.

  “What is it?” asked Paul.

  “It’s the self-destruct mechanism for my lost shuttle,” said Steven. “Permission to activate, sir?”

  Peris looked at him.

  “That’s an expensive facility,” he said.

  “They killed five of us,” said Steven, and Paul noticed that he counted Faron among the “us.” Whatever his faults, Faron had been one of them when it mattered.

  “Yes, they did,” said Peris. He nodded. “Permission granted.”

  Steven hit the button, and held it down for ten seconds as he ascended to a safe altitude. Even then, the explosion rocked the little craft, and the blast was like a new sun being born at their backs.

  Paul closed his eyes.

  Vengeance, he thought. Always vengeance.

  • • •

  To the south stood one of the massive rock formations that dotted the Tormic landscape like the spires of great, primitive cathedrals. If they could find a place to land on its southern aspect, they could wait out the sandstorm under its protection. Steven steered them toward the rock, the storm a maelstrom of impending destruction at their backs.

  “Inform Envion that we’re going to seek shelter from the storm, and then we’ll be on our way,” Peris ordered.

  But the Envion had troubles of its own.

  CHAPTER 11

  One of the reasons why the Illyri had looked upon Torma as a promising source of mineral wealth, in addition to its breathable atmosphere and its apparent absence of hostile indigenous life-forms—now, alas, revealed to be a fatally flawed assumption—was its proximity to the nearest wormhole. The best wormholes were those that opened
close to star systems—although far from the dangers of asteroid belts or collapsing suns—and with easily reachable worlds that could be explored and, where possible, exploited.

  It was now clear, though, that the wormhole near Torma was less gravitationally stable than might have been wished. The exploration vessel that dropped the drilling platform and research team on Torma had sustained minor damage both entering and leaving the system, while the lighter, faster Envion had endured even more of a pounding. Torma, it appeared, would not willingly give up its treasures. While the repairs on his vessel continued, Commander Morev reflected that, when something appears too be good to be true, it usually is.

  He watched while Galton, his chief officer, coordinated the ongoing work, his voice and manner never once betraying his torment at the loss of his lover. The truth was that, with the Envion virtually crippled and the remains of a unit marooned on Torma, there was simply no time for grief. In the end, it might be for the best: the gravity of their situation meant that Galton was forced to keep going, and in doing so perhaps he would realize that he was stronger than he thought.

  The commander noticed that, like so many humans, Galton wore religious tokens around his neck, in his case a medal of Saint Jude, the Catholic patron saint of lost causes, and Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of soldiers. Some among the Illyri hierarchy—mostly the Diplomats—disapproved of such displays of belief, but Morev, being of the Military, knew that all soldiers have their talismans, even among the Illyri. Now he wondered if Galton took comfort from the thought that Cady might continue to exist in another form, instead of accepting that her atoms were merely being scattered and recycled by the cosmos. If so, good luck to him: let him find comfort where he could.

  And now it was Galton who was breaking into Morev’s musings, Galton who was informing him of activity at the mouth of the wormhole.