“Mama, it was you who taught us the stories of the Trail of Freedom,” cleoroCASS broke in. “Why did you never tell us you were comeRIE’s partner?”
“I don’t like to brag, love.”
“I do,” I said as I pulled my pistols and shot the assassin peering in the window. The armoured helmet absorbed the shots, but he fell to his knees as I marched forward, shooting both pistols and assembling Old Number Seven.
“I’m taking fire, helmet sensors damaged,” he shouted as I pushed the nasty end of Old Number Seven through the broken window. Don’t know why, but armoured killers always like everyone to know their situation and status.
“Drop the gun or—” Was as far as I got. He turned his gun on me and I delivered the or at point blank range. The explosion hurled me back and buried an armoured leg in the wall next to a holo-pic of a nine-year-old schoolgirl.
“Sorry, Marshal, you can’t stun through armour,” I said when my ears stopped ringing. I clambered to the large hole that used to be a window and ran scans. “I see four armoured attackers on the ground and more in the sky. They have jetpacks. They are shooting anything that moves. I hoped they were here just for us, but I don’t think so.”
“The killer has decided to erase his past,” Marshal Harry said. She was next to me, leaning through the hole. “But how did he get this much pull with the Auld Gowks? Unless… of course, that’s why they needed to crash the space yacht. It was a theft disguised as murder.”
“It was what now?”
The emergency signal bleeped and I answered it. My dashboard indicated the marshal, LB, and the ACM were online.
“You’re not going to believe this one,” LB began. “We found payments from the Old Gowks to a mercenary band. They are to find that town and raise it to—"
“I believe it because you are four minutes late with that news,” I said. One assassin was firing into a house. My first shot struck his chest and staggered him. A second shot blew a hole through his chest.
“Their armour is top of the line,” I said.
“I’m heading for the railhead,” the ACM interrupted. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
An explosion shook the room and brought part of the roof down. The airborne were bombarding the house from above.
“We won’t be here twenty minutes,” I said. “There’s too many, too heavily armed.”
“Then we will avenge the fallen,” the ACM said.
“She had to say that, didn’t she?” Marshal Harry said. “It is bad luck to say that on Earth.”
“We’re not on Earth,” I said. “You beat it out the emergency exit. I’ll go out the window and keep them busy.”
“There’s too many of them for you, and we won’t get far on foot,” the marshal said.
“Let’s take the car then,” mamaBEN said.
“The… car? The car?” I asked. Glass smashed in the kitchen and I realised they were flanking us. I pointed Trembling Bob at the door. “Lead the way.”
“No, please mamaBEN, you promised you’d never drive that thing again.”
“This is an emergency, love,” mamaBEN said, heading for the basking room. The marshal grabbed the group holo-pic off the wall and rolled it up.
“All I ask is, if you have to fire that trembling thing in the house,” mamaBEN said, “you give me a warning. Took me two days to recover the last time you fired it indoors, and I was a lot younger then.”
cleoroCASS looked at me. “Why, what does it do?”
A shell hit the wall and burst in on us. I staggered through the dust, aimed up, and fired at two armoured figures through the hole. One of them crashed into the ground, bounced, and started to rise.
“I hate that armour,” I admitted. “Fingers in ears, love, Trembling Bob does this!”
A shell came through the roof, I was blasted back, hit a wall, and dropped like a rope. Scrambled my brains nicely. I seemed to have dozens of legs when the marshal found me, scooped up Trembling Bob, and announced honestly to whoever was in the kitchen: “Don’t make me use this, I really don’t want to pull this trigger.”
Darkness. Light and sound returned, the marshal was tucking Old Number Seven into its holsters.
“Don’t try to move,” she said. “You got a large piece of wall upside the head.”
“You owe me for half a house,” mamaBEN said as she grabbed my tail end and heaved.
“Miss CASS, help mamaBEN with that,” Harry said. Lights out.
Lights came on and I was in a garage. mamaBEN was firing my pistols through a door before the marshal slammed it shut.
“That should give us breathing space.”
“Reboot from disk,” I said, and realised my voice box had been scrambled. I saw the car, an AirCobra 5, long, low, and black, and centuries old. We had made the Kettle Run in it: me, lanaTEN, and comeRIE. Good days, a long time ago. I decided to do something useful and crawled in. There was a me-shaped slot in the back. I was fitting my body into it and pulling the safety straps on when cleoroCASS climbed in beside me.
“I always wondered what that funny-shaped seat was for.”
“Flibble your wassack,” I explained before turning the voice box app off and then on again.
The marshal and mamaBEN were in the front seats shouting at each other. I realised I’d been turned off and on again, gave my head a shake, and told my brain to pull itself together.
“The door opening gizmo isn’t working,” mamaBEN said.
The seats were red. The upholstery was different shades of red, I was relieved to notice. My own eyes don’t see in colour, so at least my cybernetics implants were undamaged. I scanned Harry and was relieved to find she was all present and correct, although her uniform was covered in plaster and dust.
“I’ll open the door,” Harry said, pushing the car door open. “You guys hit the power and go.”
“No need,” I said, grabbing my duckfoot pistol. “I’ll remove the doors.”
“No!” mamaBEN shouted as an assassin smashed through the inner door. “If anyone’s breaking my door down, it’ll be me.”
She rammed the throttle to the end of the slide and the AirCobra leapt forward. The door slowed us a second and there was another bump when an armoured assassin got a five-ton car in the small of the back. We were accelerating rapidly when he tried to twist round and point his gun at Harry over the bonnet.
CHAPTER 20
“We’re a couple thousand metres high already,” Marshal Harry shouted at the assassin. “Do you really want to risk shooting the driver?”
“Got a jetpack built into my armour,” he called back as his gun arm twisted round to aim into the car. I found Old Number Seven holstered at my side and drew.
“I’ve got armour-piercing rounds.” I leaned over the front seats and fired.
“Oh shi—” His voice cut off as the head went one way and the body another. Blood painted the bonnet and showered through the shattered window.
“That’s another image my shrink will love,” Marshal Harry said.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Sorry I was useless back there.”
“A wall fell on your head,” Harry explained. “I’m just relieved you’re still in one piece.”
“That might not last long,” I said, looking out the rear window, “because five assassins are coming after us with jetpacks.”
“I’d be able to see where we are going,” mamaBEN shouted, “if someone hadn’t shot out the windscreen.”
They launched missiles. I drew Pistol Pete and the duckfoot pistol. The small fast missiles were at point blank range when I fired an electromagnetic pulse. The duckfoot took out the rear window and three missiles, just off our bumper. mamaBEN swerved and dropped, running straight at a low ridge of giant ferns. The big car muscled through fronds, bounced off a trunk.
“This isn’t working!” the marshal shouted over the scream of the engine.
“Must be… they’ll never find us in here,” mamaBEN said. She turned onto a broad trac
k and accelerated.
“They’re going over the top.” Our pursuers were running above the fern tops and closing the distance.
“That’s cheating,” mamaBEN complained, looking over her shoulder. “They’re supposed to follow us into the forest and hit the trunks.”
“These guys must have seen that movie,” I said. I fired two more rounds with Old Number Seven, but the assassins were zigzagging and the shots missed. “I don’t have unlimited ammunition.”
“Hold on, I’m gonna try something,” mamaBEN said.
“Please no,” cleoroCASS said. I grabbed upholstery and bits of car with as many claws as I had to spare. mamaBEN put the car on its butt and aimed the nose at the sky. Its climb rate was slower, but jetpacks don’t carry a lot of fuel. I shot another missile, noticed the charge was getting low.
“How many shots did you fire while I was unconscious?” I asked.
mamaBEN glanced over. “I lost count. Sorry.”
I pulled Trembling Bob.
“Not that thing again,” cleoroCASS said, putting her fingers in her ears. “It was horrible the last time.”
“We’re running out of options,” I pointed out. “If we could get them to cluster together, I could finish this with one shot.”
Trembling Bob didn’t have sights, making long range shots difficult. I holstered the pistols and waited for the armoured figures to close on us. They dropped back, diving low to save fuel when they realised the AirCobra could outclimb them. The next problem was—
“I’m fr-freezing,” cleoroCASS complained.
“It is cold at 20 thousand metres,” Marshal Harry said, hugging herself.
“I’d turn up the heating,” mamaBEN said, “but someone shot out the windows.”
“Will you let that go?” I cried. “I had no choice.”
The assassins tailed us, keeping the car in sight.
“Can you get us back to the railhead?” I asked mamaBEN. “The marshals can meet us there.”.”
A hologram of the ACM’s head appeared above our car. It was fifty metres across and roared angrily: “Surrender now and I’ll see you pricks get a fair trial. Don’t surrender and I’ll see you dead.”
“I wish she wouldn’t use that kind of language,” the marshal said.
The assassins opened fire. I shot three missiles. Pity about the fourth. The boot of the car disappeared in flame and smoke. We flipped. My front two segments hung in space until I pulled myself together. The car righted and I looked around. Harry was curled up, arms over her head.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Somink hit me,” she slurred. I scanned her.
“You’ve a nasty bruise and cut on the back of your head,” I found. “Nothing broken.”
I scanned cleoroCASS.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Something went right passed my face. Missed me by a whisker.”
“Yup, bruises but no breaks. We’ve been lucky.”
CASS pointed at my side. “You’ve lost a leg!”
“Thirteen’s my lucky number.” I scanned myself, stemmed the flow of ichor, and took a shot of painkiller with my cybernetic add-ons.
“The car’s on fire!” CASS yelled. I looked over the ragged hole that used to be the boot. The carpets were burning, flame spreading to the seat upholstery.
“mamaBEN, where’s the fire extinguisher?” I asked.
“In the boot,” she yelled. She was pulling and pushing controls, but a look forward showed the ground coming straight at us.
“It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?” I said.
“I’m stuck,” CASS shouted. She was in a panic, pulling at her safety harness as the fire burned towards her.
“Get us down!” the marshal yelled as the car spun.
“Down isn’t the problem,” mamaBEN cried. “Down is happening all by itself!”
Armoured figures shot passed. The armour was dark blue with Marshal Service logos. Their weapons fired. The assassins broke and dropped close to ground level for extra speed. It did not help. The Heavy Squad had the ACM with them; that’s enough motivation for anyone to charge headlong into battle.
“I’m burning!” cleoroCASS yelped. I got my head back in the game, chewed through the straps, and dragged her to my side of the car.
“At least you won’t burn,” I said. There was nothing I could do to stop our death dive. My stomachs dropped as the ground came at us.
“I’m going to trigger an emergency power surge,” mamaBEN warned. “It will push all remaining power io the engines in one go. In three… two…” I wrapped arms around CASS and gripped the remnants of the seats. “One!”
The engine screamed. People screamed. Something hit me and the world wandered off down a black tunnel. For a moment, I could see sky way down there. The light went out.
I returned to consciousness and moved my head. The light was too bright. I ran checks on my body, found three long cuts and cracks across my third segment, leaking yellow goo. “I hope I don’t need that.”
Red warning symbols covered my cyber dashboard, but the gist was I was alive and going to stay that way. I stood and looked around. The seats were above me. cleoroCASS was on hands and knees outside the driver’s door, trying to free mamaBEN who hung upside down in her harness. I started to panic when I realised there was no sign of Harry.
“You’re crushing me,” she gasped. I looked under my third segment.
“Sorry. My carapace has no sense of touch.” I gripped bits of metal and carefully hauled myself out of the wreck. The front was mashed into a tall fern and the boot was on fire. I spun and stuck my head back in the car.
“Get out! The car’s on fire.”
“I can’t move my legs,” Harry said.
I scanned her up and down. “Your left knee is dislocated and your right lower leg is fractured,” I said. “The bad news is I have to drag you clear of the fire.”
“Get the others out first.”
“No.” I grabbed clawfuls of uniform and reversed out. Harry yelled and bit her lips shut. I got her to cover behind an uprooted trunk and turned back. I found cleoroCASS still trying to unbuckle mamaBEN’s safety harness.
“mamaBEN won’t wake up.”
“Let me scan her first. Moving could make her injuries worse.”
It couldn’t. The steering wheel had pushed in her ribs and damaged her lungs. There was a bruise on her forehead that could mean brain damage. I activated the marshal emergency medical channel and broadcast. “This is Deputy Marshal Chunglie, I require medical assistance. I hope one of you guys brought your med kit.”
“We didn’t have time to bring medical personnel,” the ACM answered. “There are four armed assailants inbound to your position. They are on foot. We are moving to intercept.”
“Move faster,” I said. “The car is burning and we cannot move the injured—”
“How many in the party are injured?”
“Four. Two can’t be moved, including the marshal.”
I heard gunfire. The ferns were fifty-metre-tall trunks thick enough to interfere with my scans.
“ACM… ma’am?” Nothing. I checked over cleoroCASS. Battered, beaten, and bruised but mobile. “Go take care of the marshal. Keep your head down. Keep her head down, too.”
“I can’t leave mamaBEN.”
“You can because you are unarmed and I’m not. I’m staying with her until help gets here.”
She left, glancing back at the car and the fire. I checked the immediate area then scurried to the boot, pulled up divots of grass, and packed that onto the flames. The smoke billowed into the sky, marking our position, but at least the fire was out.
The shrubbery moved. I glimpsed a black outline behind a fallen trunk. I pulled Old Number Seven, noted there was one charge left, and drew Trembling Bob simultaneously.
“Anyone northwest of the smoke, hit the ground now. I may have to cut loose with Trembling Bob.”
“We are all northwest of the smoke,” the ACM said
. “Holster that gun. I repeat, holster that damn gun now.”
A hand grabbed me and I almost jumped out of my carapace.
“S’appening Chunglie?” mamaBEN panted. “You making another last stand?”
“Looks like it,” I said. The assassin rose, gun in hand. I shot first and blew him back into the ferns. Headshot, but I didn’t think one shot would keep him down.
“Can you guys retreat about a mile?” I asked the ACM.
“No. We are engaged in a fire fight on two sides.”
“I’ll catch my breath and we run for it,” mamaBEN said. “Just like the old days.”
Her breathing stopped. I memorised every crease of her face, trying to hold this moment. Her body began to cool. I gave the yashrak call to the sky. CASS repeated it as if her soul was splitting, and out in the woods, other Qoh Modes took up the mourning call.
I’ve always been better at anger. I spun and went into the bushes at a dead run. The assassin was rolling over and looking for his gun. A Moordenaap by the shape of the armour. Saw me coming just before I piled onto his back. We rolled across the ground.
“I am gonna end you, bug.”
Thirteen claws and I couldn’t find a way into that armour. The faceplate was dented but intact. He punched my middle but I kept hold, top and bottom.
“Get off me. Get off. I hate bugs.” I wrapped the helmet in four limbs and yanked with all the strength I had left. He shut up.
“I’m not keen on you either,” I said as I crawled back to the car with his gun. I found the marshal questioning cleoroCASS.
CASS looked round with tears in her eyes. “mama’s really gone?”
“Yes.”
“The marshal is badly injured,” cleoroCASS said, hiding her face. “I think she is in a lot of pain, but she won’t stop asking me questions.”
“Got a murder to solve,” the marshal said. Her voice sounded weak. I scurried over and looked down at a small pale face. Paler than usual. She still had the holo-pic roll clutched to her chest.
“If you had the full cybernetic implants,” I pointed out, “you’d be able to turn off the pain centres of your brain.”
When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set Page 33
