by Wesley Chu
“Not death, not time, and not a bunch of megacorp assholes will keep me away from you,” he replied, squeezing her back.
“That wasn’t exactly romantic but I’ll take it.” It was what she had come to expect from James. Words of affirmation and love had never been his strong suit, but his love for her was without question.
“I love you, Elise.” He raised his voice and looked at those assembled nearby. “Guardians, let’s move! The enemy shall not step one level higher toward our homes, you hear me?”
“Yes, Elder!” they shouted in unison.
FIFTY-THREE
THE COUNTER
James watched as Elise took one of several smaller groups of guardians up to the higher levels. He didn’t like having to send her into possible danger, but sending her toward the sky was much safer than down to the hell below. The reports from the survivors of the barricade floor were that the battle had been a massacre.
He waited until he could no longer see the mechanoid before turning his attention back to leading the counterattack. The small army of guardians and volunteers with him now filled the floor to capacity, with several of the volunteers waiting for orders in the stairwells. James consulted with Eriao before they agreed on a strategy. It would be impossible to protect every floor, but they had to do their best to keep a single front in order to minimize the enemy’s chances of hitting their people from the rear. To do so, they would have to maintain control of all the stairwells.
James was finishing sorting the groups when he came across Maanx. He pulled the young commander aside. “Shouldn’t you be with your fights?”
The young commander looked anguished. “I was with Chawr practicing your teachings when the enemy attacked. I was unable to reach my people in the chaos. It would be too easy and small a death to try to reach the barricade floor on my own.”
James nodded. “We can use another commander to lead the guardians.”
“Put me where I’m needed, Elder,” said Maanx.
James and Eriao divided the guardians into four groups led by Eriao, James, Maanx, and a guardian named Tidhar. Each group was composed of approximately equal parts guardians and volunteers who wanted to fight rather than hide in the fields. James turned nobody away.
It warmed him to see several familiar faces flock to his group, including all the flyguards. He nodded to Chawr and Hory, and patted young Dox on the shoulder. Laurel snuck in a few minutes later. When they were as ready as they were ever going to be, he signaled for everyone’s attention.
James felt awkward standing before these people, these supposed savages whom a year ago he had disdained. He received a few uncomfortable glances, but that wasn’t unusual. He had gotten those ever since he joined them. It was different now. Before, he didn’t care what any of them thought of him. Now, he wanted to earn their respect, especially after his recent weakness.
“Today, you are all guardians,” he said in a loud voice. “You are all that stands between the Elfreth and those who wish to harm us. Each floor that the Co-op climb is one floor closer to your mothers, fathers, and loved ones. We will not allow them a chance to climb. We will not allow them any floors. We will push them down to the waters. We will drive them out of the All Galaxy. We will chase them until they leave the Mist Isle, until they no longer stand on Manhattan lands. Do you understand, guardians?”
“Yes, Elder!” they roared in unison.
James nodded. “Good. We meet at the barricade floor or not at all.”
The mass of guardians and volunteers cheered and then separated into their groups, each moving toward their assigned stairwells. James led the ones in the north, Maanx the south, Tidhar the west, and Eriao the east. Every stairwell group’s orders were to go down a level and send teams of five out to scour the floor. Once that team reached the opposite stairwell, each would send a courier to the adjacent stairwells. Once everyone received two couriers, they would continue down another level.
The groups went down one at a time. Surprisingly, they found minimal resistance until they reached the infirmary floor just above the barricade floor. Thick Co-op presence stalled their progress. Because they controlled all four main stairwells, the Elfreth were able to surround the enemy who had taken over the medical rooms and rush them from all sides. After twenty minutes of heavy fighting, to his surprise, the remaining Co-op forces surrendered.
James walked through the floor as the dozen or so Valta and ChronoCom personnel were rounded up. There were also three dozen injured Co-op troopers, a near equal number of monitors here, and twice that number from the Nation. He was encouraged by the relatively light casualties among his people until he realized the majority of the Co-op were doctors and medical personnel.
He walked over to one of the injured Elfreth. “Did they mistreat any of our injured in any way?”
The elderly man shook his head. “They moved some of us away to the sides but otherwise left us alone. When Baala over there needed her medicine, one of them administered it.”
“Thank you,” James said, patting the man on the shoulder.
The enemy were lucky they had treated the Manhattans with care. Otherwise, James would have no other choice in how they were handled. He walked over to the small group huddled in the corner. He recognized one of the prisoners, Cail, an agency doctor who commonly administered the miasma regimens to the chronmen. They acknowledged each other, but remained silent.
“Listen here,” he said to the group. “You’re no longer involved in this fight. Stay that way, and no harm will come to you. If you wish to care for the wounded, we’ll allow it, but only if you care for everyone, your and my people both. Agreed?”
The prisoners exchanged hesitant looks before the ChronoCom doctor he recognized stood up. A few seconds later, the rest of the agency medical staff followed suit. Only the Valta personnel stayed sitting on the floor. James nodded to Cail and watched as they got back to work.
He signaled to the nearest guard watching over them. “None of them are to leave the floor.”
He met with Eriao, Maanx, and Tidhar in a corner room as they planned their assault on the main barricade floor. They didn’t know the enemy’s strength and had to assume the Flatirons were completely wiped out if the Co-op controlled all four of the stairwell entrances.
“What about the rest of the Manhattan forces?” he asked.
“Unknown,” Eriao said. “We lost contact once the barricade floor fell. That floor is our only way out. However, the sounds of battle echo all around the block.”
“We can hold the stairwells forever,” Tidhar said. “Why don’t we make them come to us? We still own the farming floors. We won’t starve.”
Eriao shook his head. “The barricade floor is the only way out of this tower. The enemy could just wait us out. Besides, they have already proven that they can reach any of the higher floors if they choose.”
“Then we have to take it no matter what,” Maanx said. “Four entryways. We hit them all at once. Hard. Connect our lines, and push them out of my home.”
“They’ll bottleneck us where we can’t use our numbers. It’ll be a slaughter,” said James.
“What can we do, then?” Tidhar asked.
James stood up and paced. There was so little room for his people to maneuver. The damn Co-op could effectively trap his people up here forever. Hell, the bodies of his dead would clog up the stairwell if the Elfreth launched a frontal attack. He walked up to the blown-out window and looked out at the fog.
It was at least a thirty-meter drop straight down, and the bridges below were barely visible through the haze. He stuck his head out and looked around. The window openings above were just a few rooms over. He checked the bridges on the west end. The nearer one was far enough away he couldn’t even see the bridge.
He turned to Eriao. “How much rope do we have?”
The war chief shrugged. “We use rope for many things. The farmers harvest vine from the bean husks and use them for binding shelter. The elderly use
the same to weave clothing and blankets. It shouldn’t be too difficult to gather up.”
“Grab some. As much as we can,” James said. “I have an idea.”
It took longer than he liked for them to gather all the rope from the upper levels, but in the end, they had enough to send a third of the guardians over the side. James himself would drop with the group at the northeast bridge. Five guardians to a vine. Seven vines to a bridge. James would have preferred to send more, but it would have to do.
Eriao patted him on the shoulder as he got ready to go over. “Five person beats, my friend. Be ready.” The Elfreth didn’t have a solid understanding of time, and their math was based on persons, feet, hands, and individual toes and fingers. One person was twenty beats. In a way, it made perfect sense. It just took James a while to get used to it. My friend. As always, that phrase triggered thoughts of Smitt, and he glanced around. This time, the hallucination was nowhere in sight. Not seeing him made James sad, in a way. He knew it wasn’t real, just a product of his alcoholism and lag sickness, but every time that apparition spoke to him, it felt real. He wondered if he would ever see Smitt’s face again.
“Are you all right, Elder?” Eriao asked.
James snapped out of it and realized he was still straddling the window on his way over the edge of a skyscraper. He nodded. “I’ll see you downstairs.”
“Or dead.”
James grinned. “Downstairs then, either way.”
He took a handful of the stiff vine and wrapped it around his hands. Slowly, he rappelled down the side of the building, trying to make as little noise as possible. When he was a meter down, a guardian joined him. A few meters after she climbed down, another guardian followed.
They continued down until he reached the end of the rope, which was just above the bridge’s opening. It was still a four-meter drop to the bridge and the scattered debris from the barricade littering the floor below made the fall tricky. A bad slip or landing could easily alert the Co-op or cause a broken ankle. He looked to his right and left and waited until all his people were in place. The beats ticked by as they all waited, dangling from the vine.
His thoughts wandered to Elise, and he wondered if he had made the right decision leaving her to fend for herself. Sending her upstairs was the safest choice, even though it meant he couldn’t watch over her. He hated that this was what he had had to do with both her and Sasha.
He closed his eyes and listened. Below, he could hear the sounds of movement, shouting, and general chatter. Nothing that would signal an attack. Three Valta troopers appeared, patrolling out of the All Galaxy and marching down the length of the bridge. They would have to be taken out silently and quickly.
He let go of the vine and dropped right behind the group. He swept the feet of the nearest trooper with a low kick and then lunged for the second, throwing his arm around the man’s neck and dragging him down. A quick snap of his head and the body went limp.
As he turned to engage the third trooper, a sharp crack across the side of his face blurred his vision, and he fell to the ground. He rolled to the side just as blaster fire kicked up fragments of the concrete next to him. He rolled to his feet and took another blow to his midsection, doubling him over in pain. He glanced up at the black muzzle of a blaster rifle. Before the trooper could pull the trigger, a dark shadow fell over him, knocking the trooper to the ground. Several more shadows followed as his guardians came to his rescue.
Hory plunged a knife into the man’s neck and then looked at the others. “This blaster is mine.” Others called out their spoils.
Chawr appeared beside him and offered a hand. “Are you all right, Elder?”
“I’m fine,” he said gruffly, accepting the flyguard’s extended hand. His pride hurt more than anything. These jokers shouldn’t have posed as much of a problem as they had. He was losing his edge.
“Is everyone all right?” he asked.
“I think I sprained my ankle, Elder.” Dox winced, limping up to him.
“Well, suck it up,” James replied.
The sound of shouting inside the building suddenly swelled, followed by the whine of blaster fire. James motioned for the guardians to follow as he crept up to the remains of the northern barricade. He huddled behind the broken pieces of metal double doors and peered inside. Most of the Co-op nearby were surrounding the stairwell entrance off to the side. The Elfreth’s attack must have been less effective than they had hoped. It looked like the Co-op were pushing upward.
“All right, bridge crew,” he ordered. “Ignore the big armored ones. They’ll take too much work to bring down. Aim for just the smaller troopers.” He signaled for the guardians to spread out along the entranceway, grabbing cover when they could or staying farther back so they could hide within the fog. He held up a hand and waited until everyone was in place.
In unison, they all opened fire at the same time, taking out several rows of troopers with the initial volley. His guardians were able to sow chaos among the Valta ranks, but the well-trained enemy recovered and reorganized. A shocker pod appeared a few seconds later and laid suppression fire long enough for the Valta troopers to mount a firing line.
Blaster fire barraged their position, taking out many of his people who hadn’t taken cover. The rest of his crew returned fire as they could. It was chaotic, and most of their fire went wide. The heavy shocker’s concentrated blaster fire, however, was shredding their cover, and pretty soon, several more of his guardians fell.
James had hoped that his team could cause enough confusion to make some inroads into the barricade floor, but as the fight continued, they lost ground. He had far underestimated the enemy’s strength. If his group was having this much trouble, then the ones at the other bridges must be faring equally poorly, if not worse. After a few minutes, he had no choice but to order his guardians to retreat farther back into the fog.
As his people retreated, the shockers strafed several stragglers. James and four others ran forward to drag them back. He picked up a young woman while the others grabbed two men. He had underestimated how close the shockers were. The next time he looked back, half a dozen of them were boring down on him.
A blaster shot near his feet knocked him off balance and he tumbled to the ground. He scrambled for his rifle, but it was too late. The shocker could cut him down at close range or just step on him. He rolled on his side as a large metal foot came crashing down on where he had been moments earlier. He cursed, realizing he had just rolled away from his dropped rifle.
The shocker leveled its massive forearm cannon squarely at his chest. James waited for the end to come, still hoping to dodge the blast at the very last second and scramble to safety. A roar suddenly erupted from somewhere inside the building, and then the white glow of an exo-wielder appeared at the end of the bridge.
“Shocker Pod Six. Recall. Command delta imminent! Now!”
As if on cue, all the shockers stopped in their tracks and retreated into the building. James couldn’t believe his luck. About time something went his way in all of this. Still, it had been too close. He was alive right now only by sheer luck. The chronman he used to be would have scoffed at the many mistakes he had just made.
“Elder, look!” Chawr pointed at a plume of flames rising at the far end of the floor.
More sounds of fighting erupted from inside the All Galaxy, and the ranks of the Co-op seemed to have fallen into chaos. What in the abyss was going on?
The remaining guardians scrambled to his side. “Orders, Elder?” Hory asked.
“I don’t…” James reminded himself that he was never to say that in front of the troops. However, in this case, it was the absolute truth. “Well,” he shrugged, “I guess we do the only thing left to do. Let’s go. Charge!”
His guardians followed him into the building, where all hell had broken loose.
FIFTY-FOUR
THE UPPER FLOORS
Elise and her team entered the south stairwell and made their way up the stairs, joi
ning the flow of civilians fleeing to hide in the fields near the top of the building. It seemed the enemy was hitting them everywhere. Guilt nagged at her as they passed sporadic fighting on several of the floors, even more so as a steady stream of guardians—many with injuries—made their way down as she went up. Elise knew she had to trust the rest of the tribe to do their jobs. Still, the higher she climbed, the more difficult it was to ignore her people. Finally, she caved and began to ask the injured if they needed help.
“Is everything all right? Do you need assistance?” she asked a guardian leaning on a wall next to the stairwell door at the sixty-fifth floor.
The young woman, face bloodied and holding her left arm, shook her head. “They came in through the east window. My team and Gill’s have it under control, Oldest. We took ’em. Gill’s arming his guardians with Co-op guns right now. We’re heading down to the barricades next.”
Elise wasn’t sure if she believed the woman, but nodded and continued up the stairs. Five other times she stopped to ask small groups of guardians about their status. Four of the guardians claimed to have maintained control of their floor, which was surprising. The Manhattan forces must be doing better than she thought. Maybe they had a chance to win this after all.
Her optimism was short-lived, however. She reached the landing balcony on the seventy-third floor. There were a dozen guardians lying in the stairwell leading up to the door and easily another half dozen farther up. The doorway had been blown out. Bodies, scorch marks, and debris littered the area just inside. She found the nearest conscious guardian and asked if someone was in charge. He directed her to a small group huddled in a circle around a table. She signaled for her team to guard the perimeter as she moved in to see what was going on.
