Dragon Rising

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “And if it’s the Dracs, that’s fine.”

  Get control. “Where are we going?”

  She started off again. “You’ll know when we get there.”

  * * *

  As they neared what Fusilli thought must be a summit, he had a sense of a clearing just ahead, and it was cooler. Seconds later, his ears pricked to the gurgle of water. They followed a stream, then veered right. A short time later, Dasha gestured to a natural blind: a huge root-ball from a toppled pine. Fusilli hunkered down next to her. “What is it?” he whispered.

  Dasha held up a hand for silence. Cautiously, she peered round the root-ball. Ducked back. “Ahead, about fifty meters.”

  His NVGs picked up the unambiguous signature of a cooling engine that resolved into the outlines of a lone soft-topped, wheeled vehicle. A military ambulance: There was a dark cross drawn against a much lighter background. Then his gaze sharpened on an icon on the driver’s door. “Dasha, they’re DCMS!”

  “No, they’re friends.” Still, she leveled her rifle at her right hip and thumbed off the safety. Almost as an afterthought, she pulled a handgun from a hip holster and handed it, grip first, to Fusilli. “Just in case.”

  “You’re not worried I’ll shoot you in the back?”

  “Shakir, you do that, you’d better not miss,” she said. “Because I sure as hell won’t.”

  * * *

  Two men appeared, also wearing NVGs. They stood perfectly still, weapons at the ready, as he and Dasha approached. He did not believe these were DCMS soldiers or resistance fighters. Mercs? No, Dasha had called them friends. Mercs had no friends. So these were allies. From where?

  When they were about six meters away, Dasha flipped up her NVGs and tapped Fusilli on the arm. “Let them get a look at you.”

  He did what she said. Instantly, he was plunged into darkness, a disconcerting result of having used the NVGs. He waited for his vision to clear, aware as each second passed of his disadvantage. Then he was dazzled by the sudden flash of a torch. He heard one of the men: “Who’s the guy?”

  Accent. Fusilli concentrated, trying to place it. Heard this before . . .

  “New recruit.” Dasha’s face was bone-white in the glare. “Shakir.”

  “You’ve never brought anyone before.”

  “You got two packages.” Dasha shrugged. “So I got me a mule.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet he’s a real nice ride. A real bull.” His laughter was nasty. “All right, c’mon over.”

  Got it. The light moved off Fusilli’s face. He blinked away purple afterimages burned onto his retinas. Tikonov. Flipping on his gun’s safety, he tucked the weapon into his waistband at the small of his back. His vision was clearer, and when he got close, he heard the tick-tick-tick of the truck’s muffler. So, these two had arrived not too long ago.

  The taller played his light over the ground. “There you go.”

  There were two large, bulky green rucksacks on metal frames. Shouldering her rifle, Dasha knelt by one sack. Her deft fingers worked the straps from metal cams, flipped back the flap and reached inside. She tugged out a rectangular case that was perhaps one hundred centimeters by forty by ten. The case was plastic polymer, like a small suitcase, and had twin metal clasps that Dasha flicked open. She lifted the lid with both hands and, in the glint of the flashlight, Fusilli caught a glimpse of a metallic cylinder perhaps eighty centimeters long in an eggshell foam cutout.

  “Give me your light,” Dasha said. The tall man handed his over, and Dasha hefted the cylinder, fanning light along its length.

  Fusilli spotted a seam around the cylinder’s middle. Canister . “What is that?”

  Dasha didn’t reply. Instead, she replaced the canister, snapped the lid, slid the case back in and cinched the sack. The second backpack held an identical case and canister. “Okay,” she said to the tall man, and handed him his light. Hoisting one sack, she hefted the pack to her back and motioned for Fusilli to take the other sack. “We’ll take it from here.”

  “Suits me.” The tall man and his partner placed their goggles over their eyes. “We got to get this back to the hospital before anyone misses it.”

  Hospital. Fusilli shrugged on the second sack. The rucksack was very heavy, and that, plus the added bulk of his armor, made him feel as if he’d sunk into the ground up to his ankles. Spies who’ve infiltrated the base? Then he thought of the accent. No, probably civilian. McCain must’ve loaned the ambulance. But that meant Tikonov operatives were in the city.

  He was so busy working the problem that he didn’t notice the change in the air. The change was subtle, like a . . . gathering. He went still, every nerve tingling, aware that this wasn’t quite a sound but more like air being pushed and bunched. That sound, this feeling, he knew this . . .

  “We have to get out of here.” He turned to Dasha. “Right now.”

  Dasha froze, her hand halfway to her NVGs. “Why? What’s wro—”

  “Something’s coming.” Frantic, he tugged his NVGs into place and craned his neck back, scanning the sky. “From the air. I hear it. I feel it.”

  “What the hell . . . ?” said one of the men.

  “Quiet! It’s there, it’s . . .” Frustrated, Fusilli concentrated on the feeling, reeling in data from his senses. No rotor or engine noise, just the impression of something moving. Whatever it was, it was moving fast. Something light, highly maneuverable and lost in all that dark . . .

  “Black,” he blurted. “It’s a black copter, stealth mode. They’ve rigged a copter to run virtually silent. Not totally, but it’s been too high for us to hear. Only I feel it getting closer. They must be tracking us with thermal imaging. That ambulance, the engine’s still hot. We’re lighting up down here. We’ve got to get away,” he said, already tugging at Dasha, trying to get her to move, move! “There, there! You hear it? Do you hear it now?”

  “I don’t . . .” Then she gasped, and now Fusilli could tell from her expression that she did hear what he’d detected before any of them—because he was accustomed to the sound and knew it well: the faint whupwhupwhup of a copter thumping air. “I hear it,” she said. “Could it be reinforcements? Dracs going for the convoy?”

  “No. Those Doppler crescendos mean it’s getting close!”

  “I hear it,” the taller man said grimly. His hands fisted around his rifle. “By God, I hear it.”

  Now they all could: the long blades of a main rotor slapping air in an irregular rhythm. “Oh, God,” Fusilli said. His NVGs revealed the unmistakable outlines of a Warrior H-7: a premier attack helicopter used by the Lyran Commonwealth. Autocannon and LRM 4-pack . . . If it uses anything, it’ll be the autocannon. Even as he watched, the Warrior bumped, porpoising up and then down in an attack dive. Bright orange spurted from the nose.

  “Come on, come on!” he cried, catching her by the arm. “Dasha, we need to . . . !”

  A thin, high-pitched scream, like the dying agonies of some magnificent bird, sliced the air, and then the forest erupted with a roar.

  32

  The blast punched his chest, sent him flying. Hot wind sheeted his body. He smelled the acrid stink of scorched hair and burnt metal as superheated gases licked his face. He landed on his back, the metal rucksack and heavy case smashing his spine. A bolt of pain whip-cracked up his back, and he wheezed a half-scream, half-grunt of pain.

  Somehow he made it to all fours, pulled air into his lungs, gagged against pain. His goggles were gone. The autocannon incendiary slug had exploded perhaps fifty meters shy of the ambulance, igniting the trees. The air was alive with the crackle and hoosh of flames. Streamers of sparks erupted like fireworks. Fire backlit the ambulance. One man was down. He didn’t see the other. Above the sputter of the fire, he made out the dull whupwhupwhup of the Warrior as it circled, maybe in a search pattern.

  They had a small advantage. The ground and trees were too wet to sustain a fire for long. Already, gouts of dense black smoke billowed from the forest floor where the fallen pine nee
dles stubbornly smoldered.

  “Dasha?” He tried to remember where she’d been standing when the blast came. To his right, just behind . . . Where was she? He willed himself to his feet, and his head swam. Swaying, he grabbed a spindly ash and clung to it until the dizziness passed. The left side of his neck and jaw were wet, something trickling. He wiped his neck with his arm and then gaped at the black stain on his sleeve. His fingers crawled to the base of his scalp. His black hair was matted and sticky, and he winced as his fingers found the edges of a jagged wound perhaps five or six centimeters long. Shrapnel, all this wood exploding, it’s like needlers going off all around.

  He had to find Dasha and get them out of here. He stumbled, wrestling with the pack to keep his balance. For just an instant, he was tempted to leave the pack, but he remembered those weird cylinders and knew they were important. Certainly of enough value that Dasha had mounted a diversionary raid to cover this exchange. “Dasha, for God’s sake, can you hear me? Where are you?”

  Then, over the pop and hiss of the fire, weakly: “Shakir! Here!”

  He pivoted right, squinting against dancing shadows. Then he spotted movement near the shadowy hump of that root-ball. As he staggered over, she lifted her face. His breath hissed through his teeth. “Oh, God,” he said. She lay sprawled on her stomach, pinned by the weight of the backpack. Blood slicked her face. “Can you move, Dasha? Can you get up?”

  “N-no.” Her voice hitched with pain. “I can’t . . . right . . . leg . . .”

  God, no, not broken, please . . . No bone that he could see, but there was a ragged hole in her camis along her right thigh and a lot of blood. “I’ve got to turn you over,” he said.

  As he rolled her to her back, she moaned and then struggled to her elbows. “What . . . ?”

  Fusilli was amazed at how calm he sounded. “There’s a large piece of wood in your thigh, like a spear. I think it missed the bone, but . . .”

  “Is it pumping?” Her face, shiny with blood, twisted in pain and, now, fear. “If it’s an arterial hit . . .”

  He was already stripping his belt. “I don’t know, but I’m not taking chances.” Wrapping the belt around her thigh, he cinched it down as tightly as he could. Dasha’s teeth showed in a grimace, and the cords of her neck stood out like ropes, but she didn’t utter a sound. When he was done, he said, “Make a deal with me.”

  “What?”

  “When we get back, I want you to show me what’s in that locket.” He smiled down at her as his fingers closed on the jagged wooden dagger. “Okay?”

  “The locket? Well, I don’t . . .” She broke off with a sudden scream.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Fusilli said, and then he showed her the wood he’d jerked from her thigh. The shard was almost as long as his hand and half as thick. It glistened in the firelight.

  “Damn you,” she said shakily, trying to smile.

  “Is that any way to talk? I still want to collect.”

  “Maybe.” She was panting now, the effect of blood loss and shock overtaking her. “You’ve got . . . got to get out. There’s no time, you . . .”

  Her words were cut off by another burst of autocannon fire. The incendiary slugs shredded wood, and two trees erupted in flames. Fusilli threw himself over Dasha as splintering wood nipped his arms and back.

  As the Warrior swooped away, he heard a gargling screech of agony. Fusilli’s gaze jerked left, snagged on the tall man who was lurching for the ambulance. Then he fell, his rifle discharging as he hit, a wild spray of muzzle flash spitting harmlessly into the sky: bapbapbapbapbap!

  Fusilli looked down at Dasha. “I’m not leaving you. It’s not an option.”

  “It has to be!” Dasha’s words rode on hisses of pain. Her hands scrabbled over, then fisted in his shirt, and she pulled him down until their faces were only centimeters apart. “We arranged all this ahead of time. My people pulled back . . . once we were clear. I . . . I don’t know what went down back there . . . but they’re waiting for me to call through on my microcomm, then they pick us up. I can’t make it, but you can. Take the microcomm, get these packs to Yamada. They’re important, they’re everything, they’re . . .”

  “No,” Fusilli said roughly. “You are.” And then he gathered her to him in a fierce, desperate kiss. He felt her stiffen, tasted her blood, but then she returned his urgency, answering his hunger and need with her own. When he pulled back, he was breathing hard. “I’m not leaving without you.” His voice was hoarse with fury and emotion. “You got that? You understand? It’s not negotiable.”

  “Yes.” She sounded out of breath. “Okay. But the packs . . . there’s no choice about those either. Trust me, Shakir, there just isn’t.”

  “What’s so . . .” He began, but then his voice was cut off by the roar and rumble of an engine. Not the Warrior, but what . . . ?

  Dasha gripped his shoulders. “The ambulance! It’s moving!”

  The other man, Fusilli realized. He must’ve made it back to the vehicle and kicked it to life, hoping to escape. Of course, he should have thought of that. Fusilli let go of Dasha and twisted round. “Hey!” he shouted. He waved an arm. “Wait!”

  But the ambulance was already lurching away, wheels spitting dirt and rock, engine straining to pick up speed. There was a squall of metal as the vehicle jounced against wood, and the ambulance shimmied, as if on glare ice, slewing sideways. But somehow the driver wrenched the vehicle out of its skid, and then he was moving off.

  “There’s no cover that way,” Dasha said. “He’ll run out of trees in about three hundred meters. They’ll get him as soon as he’s in the clear.”

  “That must be what the Dracs want, why they’re driving us south. We’ve got to double back. Come on,” Fusilli said.

  She tried to take as much of her own weight as she could on her left leg, but she was weak, and the weight was crippling. Still, Fusilli pushed on, half-dragging, half-carrying Dasha. Without his goggles, he had trouble finding his way. Then he heard a gurgle and knew where they were.

  How long had they been walking before they hit the stream? He couldn’t remember, but they were headed downhill. There was the stream, so this must be the right way. But was this the right thing to do? Even if it was, might not Dasha’s people be dead?

  No choice, he had to hope someone had survived. He labored on. Sweat poured down his face. When he slicked his lips, he tasted watery salt and clotting blood. They were moving into the wind. Though the breeze was very light, he was reasonably sure that the fire, at least, would not be chasing them. In fact, the fire was guttering, its orange-yellow flames no longer arcing heavenward, and there was more smoke. The Warrior hadn’t touched off more trees, so it was clearly pursuing the ambulance, which it should overtake, and very soon. That might have been its mission all along: run black, follow them to the meet, then take the am—

  He stopped dead. “Wait a minute,” he said. “If they followed us, they’ve got thermal imaging, and if they’ve got that then . . .”

  Then the farther they were from the fire, the more visible they’d become. They’d likely be visible well before the fire was out.

  But . . . why was he running? These were his people. He could give them Dasha. She was Yamada’s second. She knew a tremendous amount . . . like what was in these packs, why they were so vital.

  He stood, uncertain, his heart hammering in his chest, his mind running in circles until his thoughts were a tangle he couldn’t unravel. Or maybe he was—finally and perhaps irrevocably—making a conscious choice that did not depend upon the whims of an unseen master.

  “Dasha.” Urgency pulsed in his voice like the throb of blood. “Dasha, where’s your microcomm? Do you have it?”

  It took her a moment. Her head hung so her loosened hair fell across her face. “Yes,” she said, but her voice was a whispery slur. “But they’ll hear . . . they’ll . . .”

  “I know.” They couldn’t risk the microcomm just yet. They had to wait until he was certain t
hat the Warrior had moved off. All he had to do was wait. And figure a way where no one could see them from the air.

  * * *

  Shadow never had to fire another shot at that ambulance. The vehicle emerged, and he urged his Warrior down. Orders were to take the merchandise, maybe prisoners, if he could. Torching just enough trees was tricky, but he thought he’d managed it. The fire seared an irregular C-shape against the surrounding darkness, belching streamers of dense smoke that twisted into black columns. As Shadow watched, the ambulance lurched, jerked. Halted. It didn’t start up again. Whoever was behind the wheel had either passed out or died. He didn’t really care which.

  Instead, he vectored back and slewed east. His forward-looking infrared had detected what looked like two separate targets, blossoms of bloodred haloed with yellow. But he couldn’t see them now.

  Damn. He cut north to south again. Could’ve sworn . . .

  But the only thing he saw moving was the fire, and that didn’t count.

  * * *

  Shuddering with cold, Fusilli listened to the Warrior crisscross the sky. Now that he knew what to listen for, he wasn’t having as much trouble tracking it, though the rush of the stream was very loud. But he thought that the copter’s search radius was increasing, passing in wider and wider arcs.

  Meaning he can’t see us. Relief surged through his body and almost beat back the cold. It worked, it actually worked.

  Then Fusilli was seized with another shiver so violent his teeth chattered. The shivering would continue because his body was trying to generate enough warmth to keep him alive. He was a strong man, in good condition, but he knew that physical strength was no match for hypothermia. So he hoped he wouldn’t have to wait too much longer. His feet felt like blocks of ice, his legs were numb. Worse—he didn’t know what the cold was doing to Dasha. “Dasha,” he said, then again, “Dasha?”

  “C . . . co . . . coal . . . cold,” she said very faintly. Her head rested on his left shoulder. She shuddered weakly in his arms. “Cold.”