Out of options, he needed to move fast. Already the excited cries of the deputies were close. He started to run, and before he made the first thirty meters he knew he’d made a mistake. He recognized that sound, as subtle as it might be. The overhead drone was quiet, but as it passed in front of the sun, a shadow tracked across the broken concrete, and he glanced up.
A Skyhunter drone!
It was maybe a meter across, so unlikely to be carrying any kind of a weapon, except the weapon he feared the most. Exposure. The shadow on the concrete tracked every movement as he dodged and swerved across the open space. Any doubts he had about the speed of the downlink to his pursuers disappeared when it followed his movements. He knew the silhouette well, the same shape as they'd trained against in Boot, a fast, agile quadrotor craft that could track a target autonomously for several hours.
The first shots slashed down from the sky and punched a hole in the concrete. Chunks of masonry ripped up as the projectile detonated in a small blast. A quick glance upward, in time to see the roiling air around the body of the drone as it fired again. He’d been wrong. It carried a pair of military-grade C-22 Stryker carbines, and it was shooting to kill.
Weave.
Noah shifted his course, using the skills he'd practiced many times before. Now the drone was flying lower, weaving in through the buildings, and firing in bursts. The bullets stitched a pattern close to him; a long, symmetrical line decorated the ground as the weapon fired on auto. An onboard discreet guidance package meant the sensors had picked up the fleeing fugitive, and unleashed their built in weaponry. No pretense of any kind of non-lethal force, no suggestion of shooting to stop and stun. The bursts would have taken down a buffalo. He ran toward the two rusting wrecks, and he ducked behind them as the drone came near. A glance back showed the thing coming right at him. He rolled to the right, narrowly avoiding the fire.
Too slow, you bastard!
It was cocky bravado, but it was all he had right now. In that moment he'd seen the front of the unit, its single, lifeless camera at the center that watched like a floating eye. Under the hovering machine were a gyrostabilized mount and the dreaded pair of guns. A single bullet from either of them in the right place, and all of this was over.
Noah gulped, but in a fleeting moment he spotted an iron service cover set into the ground. He only saw it because the lid was tilted at an angle. If a shaft lay below it, he could get out from under the sensors. There may even be a way out, some kind of service tunnel. The gun paused, what he’d been expecting and waiting for. The weapon was loading in another box of ammunition, and that meant he had a couple of seconds at most before it fired again.
Move!
He dove for the cover and wrenched at it to remove it. A burst smacked into the ground around him, and he looked toward the structures at the edge of the ground to find the source. Cops, three deputies leveled their guns, and two of them fired. The shots were wild, and the long bursts raked the structures around him. The guns were powerful, but in the hands of these excitable deputies, they filled the area with bullets and noise. Noah ducked down as dozens of holes peppered the rusting cars. The bullets drilled holes through the thin, steel, tearing up the ragged and rotting remains of the interiors. Some must have hit a damaged fuel cell or perhaps a leaking petroleum line. Whatever it was, a myriad of tiny fires broke out before coalescing around the rusted cars.
For God's sake, give me a chance!
Smoke poured out from burning plastic, enough of a cloud to give him some temporary cover from the cops. The cover wouldn’t move, even with the strength of the limbs they’d given him for new life. The tilt was deceptive. At some time a heavy weight had cracked the iron and jammed it in the frame. Nothing short of a cutting torch would move it, and he frantically looked for another way out. He found the drone just a short distance away. Some sadistic part of its programming had made it drop lower to deliver the final shot, the killing shot. He could see it making adjustments as it was buffeted by the hot air from the fires.
The Skyhunter hovered a mere five meters above his head, the tiny rotors causing the patchy smoke to swirl and start to disperse. He saw the optical glass of the camera staring down, the eye of remorseless killer, without conscience, without remorse, without a Human brain in control. Running would be pointless. It was too close. The smoke was no help. The drone sensors could see through the densest fog. By now, the Skyhunter would be ready to fire.
His body was tense, rigid, and his limbs at rest. His brain refused to transmit, failed to send the signals through the neurotransmitters to the control network. Signals to instruct his legs to break into a fast run in a last ditch attempt to escape. There was no escape. He was about to join his men in death, four years after the devastating airburst over the Martian dust that wiped them out. He looked up, staring into the electronic eye of the targeting scanner, refusing to shy away from last life. He put up a hand in an unconscious gesture, as if to reach out and shake death by the hand, and the shot cracked out.
Something was wrong. The sound came from behind him, not in front. It was another old-style weapon someone had fired, something that still utilized the old brass bullets. Yet they’d missed. His body was intact. The bullet that should have torn through his organs had gone elsewhere, and the whir of the blades from overhead changed.
A hit on the drone, but why, why would they shoot at their drone, when it was about to kill me?
“Over here, you better move fast, buddy!”
He twisted around, and at first saw nothing through the drifting tendrils of smoke. Then he made out the upper body of a man waving to him, half in the ground, and half out. It took a split second for him to react, to move. A drowning man will clutch at anything to avoid that last, lung-bursting plunge to the watery depths. A man facing multiple threats from those who would kill him is no different. He ran.
The stranger held an old style rifle, a Winchester if he remembered right, like the weapons they'd used fighting the Indians so long ago. A wisp of smoke coiled from the barrel. His upper body poked out of a service shaft, this one not protected by a damaged iron cover. He drew near, and the guy shouted, “Follow me. You have two seconds before they draw a bead on you.”
The torso disappeared, and Cage made a final, despairing jump for the hole as renewed firing smacked into the concrete around him. His feet found empty space as they began to drop down the shaft, and his hands grabbed at steel hand and footholds cemented into the walls. He lowered himself down, and at the bottom his rescuer was beckoning to him.
“Follow me into this tunnel, and don’t fall back. You’ll never find your way out.”
“Sure, and thanks.”
“We’re not clear yet. Save it for later,” was the terse reply.
They scrambled along the service tunnel, packed with pipes and cables, two meters high yet so crowded they had to force their way past the tangle of arteries that had carried the lifeblood of the heavy water processing plant, source of the deuterium, once the wealth of the region. Voices came from behind them. The cops had followed them down the shaft, but the shouts were of confusion.
They went on, threading their way past spidery junctions with multiple shafts leading in every direction, but the man he followed took each new tunnel without pause. Cage estimated they’d travelled for a klick underground, when they stopped below an access shaft. Daylight penetrated from overhead, enough for them to see. The man turned to face him.
“We’ll take a break. Every time I do that, it gets harder.”
He nodded and regarded his savior. The guy was black, older, around sixty or seventy years, and big. Around six two, powerful legs, a heavily muscled body, and starting to go to seed. No hair, head bald like a billiard ball. The paunch pushed out his shirtfront, sign of a cramped lifestyle with poor nutrition. Although most people Earthside suffered a nutritional level that was way below optimum. One arm looked strong, the other hung at an awkward angle, a little withered.
Cage nodded. �
�Whatever you say, you’re the boss.”
He held out his hand, and they shook. “Name’s Jackson, Luther Jackson.”
“Noah Cage. You a vet, Luther?”
His bearing altered, and his eyes were looking inward for a brief pause, recalling past days, the glory days. “3rd Company Marine Rapid Response.”
“You were on Mars.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, the first time.”
He meant the First Martian War. The Second and Third had been bad enough, but the First War was a bloody rout. Troopers equipped with little more than fine words from the CEOs of corporations earning fortunes from the military machine, and the politicians who fed them valuable contracts. The Martians negotiated a ceasefire that stripped Earth of materials and technology, and pushed many of the citizens of PanAmerica toward penury, although the corporations continued to thrive. Luther looked like a man who harbored bitterness, with good reason.
“You had a hard time.” He glanced at the arm.
“Railgun, bastard came out of nowhere. Penetrated my armor and ripped the pressure suit. I was lucky. The autoseal was fast enough to hold integrity. Not fast enough for the arm. Martian atmosphere is a bitch and those guns, they'll burn through any armor you have. And back then, we didn't have much."
He winced. “Amen to that.”
“We came back, those of us who made it, and it was like the lunatics took over the asylum. Everything changed, and for the vets…” He closed his eyes for a few seconds, “Nothing. You served?”
“Mars Recon II. Third War. We chewed over a lot of the same ground. Same enemy, same problems.”
The man sighed.
“Another one we lost. When do we win some? That’s what I want to know.”
He didn’t answer.
How can I answer the unanswerable? I wish I knew.
Luther looked him over again, and his eyes creased in puzzlement. “Say, you’ve had…sonofabitch. You’re one of them Lifers?”
He nodded.
“How many times you been, you know?”
“Four.”
“Four. Isn’t that…”
“Yep.”
“Sonofabitch. We need to get you out of here. What happens if you get hit? I mean, a serious wound.”
“You cross me off your Christmas card list.”
“Right. Best make sure you keep your head down. Damn, a Lifer, I never thought…” He stopped and put a hand on Cage’s shoulder, “Hold up there. I can hear…run!”
Luther sprinted along a branch tunnel, moving with astonishing speed for such a big man. Threading his way past spaghetti-like tangles of pipes, cables that hung down in dense meshes, like fishing nets drying on a Pacific beach. He avoided them all, and Cage hurried after him.
He shouted, “Luther, what’s the problem? What’s up?”
“Water. Move it, we don’t have long.”
Water, what’s he talking about? This place is dry. Wait, what’s that. Shit!
He picked up speed. The sound of water pouring through the tunnels was faint at first, but it became a roaring thunder as it came closer.
“They’re trying to drown us. They’ve opened the sluices, used to be an emergency flooding system if things went bad in the plant. That’s what they’ve done, and if we don’t get out of it in the next few seconds, we’ll be underwater swimming.”
The water was already sloshing around his ankles, and it came to his knees. Higher, up to his thighs and over his waist. His pace had slowed to a slow walk. “Luther, how much further?”
“Not much.”
“Are we gonna make it?”
“Maybe.”
He couldn’t suppress a smile at the laconic reply. The water swirled around his shoulders, and still he forced himself through the deluge to follow the big black vet. His neck was wet, and still the water rose, and when it reached his mouth, he took a big breath and plowed on. The final few meters were the worst. Lungs bursting from lack of oxygen, brain willing him to open his mouth, take a breath.
Have to take a breath. No!
It was another vertical shaft, and he swam upward and burst from the surface after Luther, their heads in the air, sucking in huge gulps of the precious air. The flow pushed them up higher toward the top of the shaft, and when they were two meters from the surface, he turned to Luther to thank him for helping him escape the trap. The Marine vet stopped him as his mouth opened before he had time to utter a word.
“Voices, up top,” he murmured.
Cage nodded his understanding. The flow was starting to ease as the water found other parts of the underground tunnel network to flood, and they grasped the iron staples set into the concrete of the wall. Luther went up first, poked his head out, and pulled back a second later.
“Cops.”
“How many?”
They kept their voice low. “I count two, both of ‘em packing military issue bullpups. They’re standing close to each other talking and facing the wrong way, not looking in our direction.”
“Copy that, two cops. I’ll take them. Wait here.”
He eyed him with suspicion. “Both of them.”
“Both. Wait until I’m done.”
“If you’re sure…”
He didn’t reply and was crawling from the shaft. He hugged the ground as he edged toward them. They were oblivious to everything other than their conversation.
“You think he’s still alive, this mother?”
“Hell, yeah, a little bit of water won’t kill that one. Nosirree, Vern Dahmer’s gonna nail his ass. You see this gun I brought along? Vos said I could take it from the station armory.”
“Whaddaya got there, Sarge? That don’t look familiar.”
“You recall the old grenades they used to use, afore they brought in the smartguns for the army? Well, they weren’t effective in the Mars War, so they started making these for the troops."
The man held up a short weapon with a folding stock, pistol grip, stubby barrel, and a massive rotating chamber at the center. He examined the manufacturer’s plate and read off the numbers as though looking at a catalogue.
"The X44MRL. And she's a sweet ass piece of kit."
"How the hell did the boss get one of those? Aren't they..."
He then looked to his colleague and started to whisper, as though their superior might be nearby. The other man cut him off mid-sentence, apparently far more interested in discussing the virtues of the weapon.
"Know what the grunts call them?"
The other man looked puzzled. “Nope.”
"Hogs."
He lifted the weapon and held it at one side with just one arm.
"You see, this thing don't fire no fancy bullets. It’s compressed gas and launches these little rocket things. You want me to show you?”
He was nearly there. Three more meters, and his movements were silent, slow.
A chuckle. “What you gonna hit, Sarge?”
A pause. “You see that old energy station over there? Solid steel casing, yeah?”
“Sure is.”
“Little bitty smartgun would drill a hole all the way through it, am I right?”
“Sure would, Sarge.”
“Watch this."
He grasped the gun with both arms and sighed a little, betraying the fact that holding it one-handed was killing his right arm. He then aimed and lifted the muzzle higher before nodding excitedly to himself. The gun thumped backward with less recoil than either expected. The rocket moved several meters ahead, and then its motor activated, sending a short plume of flame from behind. It whistled away, spinning before it struck the building. The blast was massive. Flames and smoke poured from the structure, and their talkies burst to life.
“This is Sheriff Vos, you boys get him?”
Dahmer answered. “Negative, Sheriff. Thought I saw him, but it musta been an animal. Plenty of wildlife in these parts.”
“Copy that. Watch yourself with that cannon, Vern. You hear me.”
“Gotcha
, Sheriff. We’re on it.”
The talkie went dead, and they grinned at each other.
He catapulted to his feet, crossed the gap, and leapt. His powerful arms locked around the neck of each man, dragging them together. He hadn’t taken into account his soaking wet body, and the grip began to slip. He held onto Dahmer, but the other cop twisted away, and his hand dropped to his holster. Cage kicked out a hard, vicious blow enough to shock him for a few seconds, and he turned his attention to Dahmer.
The Sergeant was tough and streetwise. He slammed a hard left into Cage’s side as he delivered the blow to the other cop, and brought up his knee. Noah had to turn away to stop a crushing blow to his groin, but it opened the door for a stunning punch to smash into his face. He’d miscalculated and knew if he didn’t end it fast, they’d end it for him. The younger cop’s gun cleared the holster, and he kicked out again, a scything blow that connected with the man’s neck. In spite of his programming, the built-in ability to control the strength of his blows, he didn’t hold back. The metal bones and augmented muscles inside his leg went into the blow, and the cop’s neck made a loud ‘crack’ as he connected.
Dahmer didn’t come at him again. He was running, putting space between him and the fugitive, and he began to raise the pulse launcher. Cage hit him like an express train, and he rolled away, arms up, trying to defend himself. The pulse launcher fell from his hands, and he scrambled to retrieve it, but another hard punch knocked him out cold.
He grabbed the Hog as the man had called it and looked for Luther. The vet was peeking out from the shaft, and he shouted, “Get out of there. They’ll be on us any moment. Move your ass. We need to clear the area before they get here.”
Too late, he looked up as a quiet hum reached him, and the drone was back. The sensors had reacquired him, and he rolled away as the first burst punched a black, smoking hole next to him. He cast his eyes around for cover, without success. He was in open ground, and Luther hadn’t seen the aerial weapon. He started to run toward him, but he didn’t go unnoticed. The drone picked up the movement, identified the man as not being part of the law enforcement unit, and made a snap decision. Its standard rules of engagement applied, and it removed the weapon safety to its pair of Stryker carbines.
Last Life (Lifers Book 1) Page 7
