Sundowner

by Claremont, Chris

  A lance of horror went through her, as deadly as the real thing, at the image of the Great Old One, who had taken her and shaped her as He had Shavrin’s ancestor—Nicole’s ghost Hal—all those untold generations before, split nearly in two across the whole of his impossible length.

  The SEAL came up with a roundhouse kick meant to crack her skull. She flattened under the blow and planted the sole of her own foot (the good one) full in his backside. He rolled on impact, taking care to recover well short of the edge—he wasn’t about to follow his Hal comrade—a knife in each hand, weaving an intricate, intertwining web, blades clashing sparks as he struck them together and advanced on her. They leapt for her alone or in tandem, strikes meant to harry more than slay, to tempt her into a response extreme enough to leave her vulnerable. Nicole backpedaled as fast as she was able, desperately searching for room to maneuver or better yet a weapon, but her leg wasn’t up to the demands she was making and she stumble-stepped, allowing him close enough to draw blood. He took delight in cutting her tattooed arm, three fresh scarlet slashes to complement the black, plus one across the opposite ribs. He was showing off, confidence in his own skill making him increasingly contemptuous of hers.

  She switched tracks with his next attack, letting her Hal side run the show—and spun away from his blades with a balletic grace that masked an equally remarkable speed. Now, he was off-balance—for no more than a heartbeat, too little time for it to register on those watching—as she pivoted on her good leg, using the other for a hook. It was too obvious a move to actually trip him up, his own reactions were too good for that, but she forced him to jump aside, shifting the impetus of the duel back towards her.

  As she fought, part of her was looking for her companions—noting that Amy and Raqella were effectively out of action, that Ciari was doing nothing but stare at Rossmore, that the Commander was torn between wanting to help his man and the certainty of what would happen the moment he relaxed his guard. Of Ch’ghan, she had no sign, and wondered if that meant he was coming after her.

  There were no more games in the SEAL, no more flash to his approach. The moment he was close enough for a blade to reach her, she was dead. She considered taking a hit, in order to get close enough to do him some major harm, but rejected the idea just as quickly. Any wound he inflicted would be as near fatal as made no difference and he had the advantage of height and bulk. At her best, in a fair fight, she probably couldn’t hurt him worth noticing. The only reason she’d lasted this long was his ignorance of Hal combat techniques, and he was adapting most impressively.

  But she had better eyesight, especially with only starlight to see by. She pitched herself away from him at a sharp angle, came up with a rock and hurled it, in a fair copy of Amy’s throw. The SEAL had learned from that mistake, he slapped the projectile aside. All she’d wanted was that little distraction, and she used it to charge Rossmore.

  It was a perfect blindside. He was so intent on Ciari that he never saw her coming, and the SEAL’S warning served only to startle him. He was flattened while his mind was still trying to focus on the threat. She wasn’t interested in him, though, heaving herself bodily away from the obvious target—Rossmore’s fallen pistol—just as one of the SEAL’S knives ricocheted off the stone. If she’d grabbed for the gun, it would have hit her dead center in the back. Instead, it was Raqella who caught up the blade as it landed close by. Amy held him down, and rightly; he was no match for the trained knife-fighter.

  Besides, Nicole had her own plan.

  Without a glance, wishing for a portion of the holographic perspective she seemed to enjoy during her recent interludes with Hana, she sensed him close behind her and gaining. She put on a last burst of speed, scooping up the mallet a fraction of a second ahead of a sweeping blade, and let go a roundhouse swing against the tocsin.

  The bell was as wide across as she was tall and better than three times her height; she struck it far more strongly than Ciari had earlier—those were taps by comparison—and the sound that followed was as much felt as heard.

  The SEAL was as close as she, but she knew what to expect. The gong was deafening but she ignored the new lances of pain and let fly a second blow. Without a pause, as the man bellowed and clutched his ears in a vain attempt to shut out this new and louder noise, she came around the bell and swung for him.

  The mallet caught him smack on the point of an elbow and she had the satisfaction of hearing bones break. He plucked the knife from his now-useless hand and made a stab for her. But she was already pirouetting away from that thrust, reversing her grip to strike him on the breastbone, hard enough to stagger him. Again, with that impossible speed, she spun the mallet yet again and hammered its head full into his midsection. He doubled over, poleaxed, gasping for air as the shock of the blow paralyzed his diaphragm.

  She wanted to hit him again—Hell, she wanted to pound the man until he was nothing but a smear, standing him as surrogate for the fallen Hal gunman, to pay for the slain Old One—but there was no need. Beyond vengeance. And she was neither that cold- nor that hot-blooded, no matter what had been done to her.

  She felt warmth on her back, a wicked tingle on her belly, and understood immediately. Sundowner. Dayside approach, to burn off all the necessary speed and altitude before crossing the Terminator where such a fire trail would be easily seen. Everyone knew she was coming, but she saw no reason to make it easy for them.

  She blinked herself back to the Mount, to find Rossmore on his feet. He wasn’t the athlete or the fighter his SEAL was—that’s why the bruiser was along—and he had one hand clutching a handkerchief to a cut Nicole had somehow torn in his scalp. It was the other hand, though, that concerned her. The one with the gun to Amy’s chest. She hadn’t heard a shot but from the way Raqella lay sprawled she knew instantly one had been fired.

  “Is this really necessary?” she asked, locking aside the surge of grief. “C’mon, Commander, you kill her, you kill yourself.”

  “You think I’m not patriot enough—man enough—to die for a cause I believe in?” was his retort. No boast in the statement, merely a cool presentation of a fact so obvious it might as well be a natural law.

  “Is that how this has to end?”

  He gave a thin smile and she knew he was a pilot who missed the killing fields.

  “Not really. Why don’t you take her place?”

  Ciari’s hand closed on her arm, her head jerking around in surprise at this first acknowledgment of her presence.

  “Out of the question,” he said for her ears alone. He was standing behind her, oriented out to sea, and she sensed rather than saw the gun masked from Rossmore’s sight by both their bodies.

  “Now you help?” she demanded, with mock incredulity. “And this is what you offer?”

  “Every teacher likes to see their star pupil in action, don’t’cha know?”

  “I need him alive,” she said quickly, in Hal undertone, hoping her words weren’t being overwhelmed by the dirge resonating ever more loudly from the ocean. “I think something’s been done to the Constitution.”

  “I’ll only have the one shot, Nicole.”

  “Leave him to me.” She looked him full in the eye as she said this. She’d been so much younger—in ways that had nothing to do with the six years difference in her physical age from then ’til now—when last they’d been together. The gulf between them—in experience, in the maturity that comes with command—was as much an abyss as the ocean trench leading out of the estuary below. The changes he saw had nothing to do with the markings on her skin, or the first scattering of silver on the autumnal fire of her hair.

  “Your call, then.”

  She stayed directly between Ciari and Rossmore as she strode slowly forward, adding a limp that was only slightly exaggerated. She didn’t want to risk him taking a shot at the Marshal. By the same token, she was also telling Rossmore what was in store if he chose to turn his gun on her.

  “What do you hope to accomplish here, Rossmore
?”

  “Commander Rossmore, Major. I earned my rank. No one made me a gift out of some perverted notion of feminist ‘sisterhood.’ ”

  She almost lost it then and there. It had been a half century since the full integration of the military services—with women finally getting their shot at combat roles—and Nicole thought history alone would have justified the decision.

  He took her by the shirtfront, bundling the material inside a tight fist and lifting, so she was forced to go up on tiptoes. The barrel of his Beretta he tucked snug and secure under the shelf of her jaw. He was stronger than she thought.

  “This is the end, Shea,” he said. “Only fitting, don’t you think? Your life and your precious Alliance, lost in the same action.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “You’re stalling.” Again, that killer ace smile. “There’s no rescue coming, girl. There’s been a SpaceCap in orbit since your arrival, on the off chance Murai would sortie the Swiftstar... ”

  “Sundowner,” she corrected automatically.

  “What?”

  “My plane. It’s Sundowner.”

  “It’s not your anything, bitch. But since that qualifies as a last request, I see no harm in humoring you. Full details of what Shavrin did to you Wanderer survivors have been flashed to the Constitution; that’s why Hobby’s pulling out, he feels his position has been compromised and that he’s alone, in potentially hostile space. He won’t put his ship at risk.”

  “You’re his XO, won’t you be missed?”

  “Who do you think uncovered the critical information? At great risk and very possibly the loss of his own life.”

  “So. You get to go home the hero. Congratulations. I’m one woman, we’re a crew of four. People may be horrified but ultimately our fate won’t make that much difference.”

  “True. But coupled with the destruction of NASA’s premier starship... ”

  “Son of a bitch, that’s your crew!” Hobby was the plank owner of the starcraft, he’d been slated for command since its inception, but Nicole knew that Rossmore had been beside him almost the entire way.

  “This is war,” he said simply, as though it explained everything.

  At which point, as timely as if she’d been waiting for a cue, ripped down off the distant mountains—approaching from the land, where Rossmore had been, expecting her from the sea—as though the plane had suddenly metamorphosed into a ground-attack platform. The flyby was below Mach—but not by much—and speed and mass combined with an obscenely low altitude to create a brutal assault on all the senses that sent everyone diving for cover. It was pure reflex, probably dating back to the time when humanity was small enough—and raptors sufficiently large—that we qualified as prey. Something came at you hard and fast from the sky, you hugged the dirt.

  Rossmore still had his gun, but as he hurried to bring it to bear, Raqella managed to wrap both arms around one of the man’s legs and drive the blade he held into the meat of midthigh. Rossmore screamed, his cry as suddenly choked off by the blow Nicole delivered to his Adam’s apple. The way he fell left his front unprotected and she stomped hard on his solar plexus, driving what air remained from his lungs with an audible woof! The coup de grace was a straight fist to the face, short and sweet, with the force of a piston.

  She plucked the gun from his nerveless fingers, spared the time for a quick, glancing exam of Amy and Raqella—Too much blood, she thought, from both of them—the alternate channel in her skull immediately swinging back towards the promontory, ignoring the returns from the surface-scanning radar as the plane passed over the estuary, and what was being displayed on the ultra-res full-spectrum monitors. Another fast check told her the gun had nearly a full magazine and a round in the chamber. No sign though of Ch’ghan.

  “Shea Shavrin’s-Daughter... ”

  “Not now, Rocky. Got work to do. Rest quiet, boy, you need the strength.”

  “What has happened? What is... happening?”

  “I’m not altogether sure,” which was as significant a lie as it was the unvarnished truth. He recognized it as both but thankfully didn’t press the point. He had the will but no more reserves.

  “Ch’ghan,” she called, and after a momentary pause that brought her no reply, “Ch’ghan! Show yourself, damn you!”

  “Here.” Ciari, not the Hal. “I think you’d better see this, Nicole.”

  He was standing by the tocsin.

  There was better light now, under the glow of the primary moon—once the twin secondaries added their reflections, it would be like appearing in a classic black and white movie, with everything fairly visible but bleached of perceptible color. Beyond the tocsin, the ground started a shallow slope for another thirty-odd meters to the actual lip of the headland. That stretch was considered off-limits, mostly because of the wind; it wouldn’t take much to scoop an unwary visitor right off the edge.

  But that’s where Ch’ghan stood, so close that Nicole didn’t even consider going out to join him.

  He was staring at the sea and when Nicole followed the general direction of his gaze, she understood why. And thought of Kymri.

  She must have spoken his name aloud, because she prompted a question from Ciari.

  “Something he told me,” she replied. “About how, on his own walkabout, nothing happened. His best friend—his sidi’chai—lost his mind, but for Kymri it was just a wilderness stroll. I asked him why he didn’t try again. He said, the way he put it to me, ‘When you ring the bell and God doesn’t answer the door, why push your luck?’ Oh, Ben—what, when He does answer, if you blow His head off?”

  There was no water to be seen, beyond the immediate inshore swell. Only massive bodies, the smallest Nicole could measure—and here she drew on data developed from Sundowner’s brief flyover, not a conscious request, she simply had the need and the answer popped out, same as with any memory—on the order of an ocean liner. She thought of submarines, great, cylindrical tubes of black on black, trailing tentacles that could be double the body length and more, crushing together as though they were commuters on a rush-hour subway platform. But a better analogy came to mind, from her grandfather’s day, the funeral of Robert Kennedy. Gramp stood on the viewing line at St. Patrick’s in New York, one among the multitude, from before dawn to well into the afternoon, patiently waiting his turn to pay his last respects to the murdered man.

  “Where’s your wings?” Ciari asked quietly, speaking English deliberately and colloquially to pull her from her reverie.

  “Ten minutes. Downwind leg along the coast to get beyond the worst of that lot”—she indicated the sea creatures—“then base leg to bring her over land, final to us. Just dirtied the flight profile, deploying flaps and gear. There’s a flat stretch behind the promontory, should be enough for a short field touchdown.”

  “Can we get off after?”

  She shrugged and deadpanned, “Never know ’til we try.”

  “Terrific,” he said, matching her affectation perfectly. “Might be prudent to put some distance between us and them.”

  “Kids can’t be moved.”

  “I know.”

  She gave him the same look as when she’d gone to confront Rossmore. “I won’t leave them,” she said, ending any discussion. The pronoun encompassed both the wounded young folk and the critters beyond.

  “What about the Constitution!”

  “Hana found an anomalous line in the tertiary operating software... ”

  “A line? In the second-level backup?”

  “She wrote the program, Ben, stands to reason she’d notice any glitches. But actually, it was a Guardian Sequence that raised the initial flag. Disappeared after that. If it is sabotage, some kind of stealth virus... ”

  “Have to be, to get around the safeguards on a starship.”

  She nodded, but continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “ ...then the logical point of attack is Transition. Degrade the warp field, the ship simply disappears, with nothing left but a trail of scattered m
olecules the better part of a light-year long.”

  “Nicole, I understand the need for respect... ”

  “No, Ben, I don’t think you do. I started a crash call to the Constitution before touching atmosphere. It’s a long way and we’re on the wrong side of the planet, but they should hear.”

  “And do what?”

  “Hopefully, light off the Runway until they have a better sense of the situation.”

  “Suppose they assume it’s a trap? What d’you mean, you sent?”

  “Long story.” She looked at him. “You were on the water, you’d gotten that far, why’d you quit?”

  He sniffed ruefully. “You’d’a been proud, Shea. I spent a year in Virtual turning myself into a sailor. Practiced when I could on my lake. Had to be careful there, though, in case I was under observation. I got her out to the reef... ” His voice trailed off.

  “I almost turned back then, myself. I wouldn’t wish that kind of launch on my worst enemy.”

  He sounded surprised and the reason made her want to throttle him, inappropriate though the sentiment was under the circumstances. “That wasn’t any problem at all.”

  “So what then?”

  “The wave action,” he explained. “The swell. I got sick.”

  “Seasick?”

  “First time on a boat. In Virtual I had pictures of what to expect, but actually feeling the motion, that’s a whole different ship to fly. I couldn’t stop puking.”

  “Happens.”

  “I tried. I couldn’t hack it, so I headed back. Came over the reef at high, pretty much sailed right in, then trolled around waiting for the water to recede. Beached the Cat, tidied her up, tucked her away with the Homer so—once you showed—you could find her.”

  “And did the rest on foot. Any revelations?”

  “Nothing to compare with yours, evidently—my God!” He finished in the smallest whisper.