by John Appel
Chijindu’s gloved hand moved with the smoothness born from long practice. He plucked the grenade free, pivoted on his left foot to step into the corridor, planted his right, and tossed the grenade underhand. It was textbook-perfect, like a scene from a training vid. He pivoted back around the corner as bullets whined past; someone in the command center must have mistaken him for an attacker.
The tactical routines on Toiwa’s djinn recognized the grenade and started the countdown timer. She watched the digits tick down.
Four.
Three. With a flick of thought she marked her targets on the overlay, the five to the right of the command center entrance.
Two. She placed her finger over her trigger.
One. Her body tensed, ready to spring.
BOOM.
Light and noise flooded the corridor. Toiwa’s visor polarized briefly but the overlay laid the corridor out for her in wireframe. Chijindu leaped across the hall, reaching the other side in a single bound. Toiwa followed, her weapon up. Her target reticle flashed green as it crossed the target and she fired twice, hitting her target in the back of their legs. With scuttling steps, she moved up along the wall, crouched as low as she could manage. Chijindu’s shotgun boomed. Hostile icons flashed red as he hit them. She swept her pistol left and she fired twice more as the reticle flashed green, recoil kicking the weapon up and her hands bringing it back down without conscious thought.
Chijindu fired again and again as he advanced up his side to the next corner, and each time a foe collapsed. Toiwa reached the intersection just behind him and snapped off two more shots before sidestepping behind cover.
Six down. There had to be more than ten hostiles in the headquarters. How many more were there? She shook her head. One problem at a time.
Chijindu leaned out into the hall and fired again. Another hostile icon went dark. Only three left here, and she and Chijindu had them neatly trapped in a crossfire. If the attackers turned to engage threat to their rear, they’d expose themselves to fire from within the command center. They could do this. She could secure her command center and get proper control of things.
She leaned out to line up her next shot and a hammer blow struck her chest, staggering her as it drove the breath from her lungs. Fierce pain radiated out from the point of impact as she stumbled backwards, falling hard on her ass. She flopped onto her back and struggled to breathe in despite the torment in her ribs. She heard the boom of Chijindu’s shotgun again and again, the rattle of more pistol shots, voices shouting.
At last, the spasming muscles unlocked and she could inhale. Her left hand groped its way up across her body. Her overlay updated but she couldn’t make sense of it; the fire in her chest consumed all her attention. She gasped shallow, frantic breaths as her fingers probed her chest, then yanked them away as they brushed against something searing hot.
The glare of the overhead lights was blotted out as Chijindu knelt over her, his visor open. His big hands were gentle as they moved hers aside. “Boss? Commissioner? Stay with me, ma’am.” With exquisite care he unsealed her fatigue shirt and flipped it open. “You’ve been shot, boss, but the vest caught it. Probably broke some ribs though. And you might have lung damage. Medic’s on the way.”
She tried to nod but only managed to twitch her head. “Zinsou?” she gasped out. Damn, did it hurt.
“Here, ma’am,” said one of the shadows over her.
With an effort, she forced herself to focus despite the pain. One step at a time. “Rally our people,” she said. “Secure this floor, then work down.” Several shadows detached themselves to turn her will into action. Her chest still hurt, but breath came a little more easily each time.
She looked up at Chijindu. “Get me into the command center,” she ordered. “This is our patch. No one’s taking it away on my watch.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Noo
Moonstrider Gorge,
Ileri
Noo hurt all over. Well, maybe not all over; but it damn sure felt like it. As she climbed the long, shaky ladder back to consciousness, she became aware of something even more wrong: she was very, very wet.
Light flashed up front and washed out the dim red glow of the emergency lighting. The darkness outside deepened, and the rear compartment where she sat—hung, really as the car was tipped over onto its right side—was cast into shadow. She could make out Teng, strapped to the seat in front of her, and the dark forms of Zheng and Fari below, to her right. Something hammered incessantly at the car’s body and what remained of the windows on the left, now upper, side. Rain, she realized, as drops splattered onto her face. She smelled blood and fried electronics and a few scents she couldn’t recognize, sharp and musty at the same time. A loud, rushing sound came from behind her. Water, moving fast, and lots of it.
The car jerked suddenly, the tail shifting position a few centimeters, and a fresh spray of water coursed across Noo’s face. She hawked and spit and with a groan raised her dangling hands to wipe her eyes.
“Someone awake back there?” called Ogawa from the front.
“Me,” Noo said, trying to project over the cacophony from outside.
“Me too,” Zheng said. Noo saw movement beneath her and heard splashing noises. “Shit, I’m lying in water.”
Fari groaned, then cried out sharply.
“The pilot’s injured,” Ogawa said from up front. Noo reached out and poked Teng, who began to stir, eyes flickering. “I think we landed on some rocks. They smashed the windows on that side of the car. I think she banged her head on one.”
“Are you in water up there?” Zheng shouted. Noo heard more splashes and then metallic clicks, and suddenly Zheng stood beside her. “Grab onto me and I’ll undo your harness,” Zheng said, and Noo wrapped her arms around the younger woman. Zheng was just as wet as she was. Noo pulled her close and felt the warmth of Zheng’s breath against her cheek as she smacked the quick-release on Noo’s chest. Her feet dropped to the floor and into several centimeters of water.
“No, not really—wait.” She heard splashing. “There’s a little, towards the back. Makes sense since the rear is lower.”
Noo shook out her arms and hugged herself for warmth as Zheng squatted down to deal with Fari’s harness. Fari cried out again and Zheng cursed softly. “Okereke, give me a hand here.” Noo crouched down and Zheng looped Fari’s arm over Noo’s shoulder. “We need to get her up. The water is rising.”
Fari moaned as they heaved her upright. Her arms clenched around their shoulders as she snapped fully conscious. Teng roused and asked what was going on in a bleary voice. Noo held Fari up, bracing her against the rear wall of the compartment while Zheng unbuckled Teng.
With a loud thump, the car jerked a few centimeters sideways, accompanied by a dreadful scraping sound. Noo almost dropped Fari but her partner grabbed hold of a dangling strap. Fari teetered on her left leg. “What’s wrong with your right leg?” Noo asked.
“Fucking hurts,” Fari hissed back through clenched teeth.
“She had a bloody great splinter of rock through her thigh,” Zheng said. “I pulled it out.” She looked at Noo, then at the still-blinking Teng, then back at Noo. “I think we crashed right on the riverbank. We need to get out of this thing before it fills with water or it gets swept away.”
Noo wiped her eyes clear again. “Why would it fill up with water?”
“Storms like this cause flash flooding,” Ogawa said. “Narrow river gorges are prone to them.”
The sense of dazed numbness Noo had felt since coming to vanished in a sudden flash of rag
e, and she stood straighter, hauling Fari another centimeter higher. “I fucking hate coming down the cable,” she spat.
Fari barked out a hoarse laugh, and Zheng’s teeth shone in the darkness as she grinned. “Can you grab Tahir’s other arm?” Zheng asked Teng. He nodded and scooted under Fari’s right, taking the bulk of her weight in the process. Zheng cupped her hands in front of Noo. “If I boost you up, can you push the door open and climb out?”
“One way to find out.” Noo slipped out from under her partner’s clutch and put her hands on Zheng’s shoulders. She could feel Zheng’s muscles bunch and tense as she took Noo’s weight. The constable dropped her hips as Noo pressed her hands against the door. Noo’s hands fumbled for the release, found it, and popped the door mechanism, Zheng straightened her legs with a grunt and Noo pressed as hard as she could.
The door popped free and Noo was glad whatever mechanism held the gull-wing doors open on the ground still functioned. She got her hands onto the door frame, then scootched her ass onto it as rain lashed her face. She looked right, towards the rear of the car, and gasped. “What is it?” Zheng demanded. The constable squatted down again, fumbling with something under the bench seat.
“You were right. The back of the car’s in the water,” Noo shouted back down. She couldn’t see the riverbank well, but she got an impression that it was made up of stones and gravel, sloped at perhaps fifteen or twenty degrees down towards the water. Even in the darkness she could see how the torrent swirled angrily as it flowed past the car. She looked forward and saw trees, perhaps ten or fifteen meters away.
It wasn’t the most graceful landing and she nearly face-planted on the rock-strewn riverbank. She remembered her long-ago fight training, though, or at least the part about never trying to break one’s fall by sticking out your arms. Instead she twisted and her right shoulder slammed into the gravel. She yelped at the impact, tasted blood, and realized that she’d bitten her lip when she hit. She spat blood, scrambled to her feet, and half-staggered to the front of the car.
At least she’d managed to hold onto the torch. She flipped it on and played it over the front of the aircar, locating the winch under a bit of aerodynamic fairing that would have concealed it had the car not been laying on its side.
Noo spotted the lever and was reaching for it when she heard a BANG from the car’s rear, and the whole vehicle seemed to fly away from her by a good quarter-meter. She heard the cries of her companions even through the relentlessly pounding rain and the constant rushing of the river.
Ogawa sent.
Noo got the picture. She scooted forward and wrapped her cold, shaking hands around the lever, and leaned back. Nothing happened.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Noo said aloud, and pushed the lever. The tightly wound cable relaxed as the drum unlocked. She found the heavy metal tow hook and unclipped it. Zheng snapped orders to the others over the team circuit as she organized their evacuation from the car. Noo clutched the tow hook in both hands and pulled.
Fuck, this is hard. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she drove backwards with her legs, her whole body shaking with the effort. One step. Two steps. Slowly, slowly, the cable uncoiled from the drum. The muscles in her thighs screamed with the effort. Somewhere, as if from a great distance, she heard Teng shouting, but her world narrowed, just Noo and the damned cable and the never-ending rain. Another step backwards and her shoulders ached. Another and her elbows answered with sharp, bright pains of their own. She felt hands, large hands, wrap over her own and heard Teng’s voice in her ears, close as a lover’s. “Together now. Heave. Heave. Heave.” Her left foot slipped off of a water-smoothed rock and she stumbled, caught herself before Teng could assist. “Heave.” Perhaps it was her imagination, but the cable seemed to move more easily now. Was that because Teng was helping her? Because of something Ogawa had done?
It didn’t matter. Step by step, every muscle in her body seemingly on fire, she drove herself back, her hands locked around the tow hook as if her own life depended on it. Not that she thought about it; there was no room for thought, for reflection, nothing but the tension in her arms, her shoulders, the treacherous footing beneath her feet, the fire in her legs and hips and back and really, her whole body, as she pulled the damned cable up the stone-covered riverbank as rain pounded against her head and shoulders, against every part Teng’s body didn’t cover.
Her right foot slipped across the top of some rain-slicked stone again and this time she didn’t recover, her foot flying high as if she was kicking a game-winning goal. Off-balance, she fell, and she felt the new pains of every river stone beneath her biting into her muscles like hungry rats. Her breath whooshed out and she struggled to breathe, panic rushing up from wherever she’d banished it as fire rose from the back of her head, from her back, her ass, from every part in contact with these thrice-damned rocks scattered across this shore. Rain pelted her face and her eyes closed instinctively. Distantly she heard Teng grunting as he took up her load, somehow keeping his own grip on the cable as she’d fallen.
The fury of the rain’s assault on her face lessened, and she opened her eyes. “Are you hurt?” Ogawa asked.
Noo found she could breathe again. “I’m OK,” she tried to say, but in her depleted state she couldn’t voice the words. With a herculean effort she lifted her right hand up over her body and gave Ogawa a thumb’s up. Ogawa reached down and took Noo’s hands in her own. She pulled back and Noo felt the fire in her whole body as the spy pulled her into a sitting position.
Ogawa crouched down. “We’re all out,” she said. “Teng is securing the cable around a tree but I don’t know if that’s going to matter. The car’s filling with water and I wouldn’t be surprised if it pulled the tree out with it when the river finally claims it.”
“Fuck,” Noo said. “Fari. She out?”
“Everyone’s out of the car,” Ogawa repeated. “We’ve got Fari and the pilot up by the treeline. Seems reasonable that the river won’t flood that high, at least not before we can move. Zheng’s scouting for shelter.” Ogawa crouched down and Noo could tell she was being scrutinized. “Can you move? We should get to higher ground with the others.”
Noo tried to take stock of her condition but the combination of fatigue, pain, and what some distant, rational part of her brain recognized as shock, conspired to overwhelm her. She finally managed to nod, and Ogawa hauled her upright. The Commonwealth woman was her age, near enough; how did she still have the reserve of strength to pull Noo up like that? Ogawa slipped under Noo’s arm, wrapped her own around Noo. “It’s all right. Just one step at a time.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Toiwa
Constabulary Headquarters, Ileri Statio
n,
Forward Ring
“Commissioner, the hardline is up!” Zinsou called from his watch position in the command center.
“Finally.” Toiwa started to lean forward but was brought up short by a twinge from her bruised chest.
The bullet had indeed fractured two ribs and likely bruised her lung, the medic told her. The medic wanted to take an X-ray but Toiwa waved a trip to the infirmary off. After receiving an analgesic patch and a blood-oxygen sensor, Toiwa took command back from Zinsou. The medic departed to treat other wounded, of which there was no shortage.
Kala Valverdes was one of those. Ze’d taken a grazing wound to the head but was fine aside from a potential concussion. The medics insisted ze remain off duty until morning, however, until they could evaluate zer for a possible traumatic brain injury. Toiwa missed having her chief of staff, but Zinsou proved a reasonable substitute.
Maddeningly, she’d had no word about Eduardo or the children. She guessed that he’d taken them to the medical center, so he could do his job while ensuring the kids were looked after. But the center was in one of the rebel-held parts of the north ring.
The best way you can help them is to restore order across the station. Getting in touch with the government is part of that.
She forced herself to relax, physically at least, and leaned back into her chair. “See if you can get Colonel Carmagio, or the High Commissioner on.”
“It’s someone at Fort Ali, ma’am,” said a technician with her right arm in a sling. That made sense; the hardline communications system ran through the station’s hub down the space elevator cable to its terminus on the surface. Fort Ali was part of the downside complex. It connected with but did not pass through the military headquarters in the station’s hub. Still, she was glad to have a link to someone in authority.
Maybe that person would know what the fuck was going on.
Less than a minute later, the head and shoulders of Defense Minister Vega materialized in the command center’s main display field. Toiwa straightened involuntarily in her seat, grimacing from her injury. Vega had been career Army before her shift to civilian life and politics and was well-known for her military bearing. “Minister Vega. It’s good to reach you, ma’am,” Toiwa said. “I was afraid Miguna had gotten to you.”
