by Mel Odom
Hella pointed her left hand at the torso as it sailed by and hammered the ApZero with a flurry of shots. She scrambled to another position, staying constantly in motion while trying to keep Stampede, Riley, and Daisy all in sight.
The second wave of attackers took her by surprise. Low and lean, the mutated prairie dogs launched themselves into the fray with ear-splitting squeals. The animals probably weighed about twenty kilos and were all wiry strength and speed. Metal collars glinted at their necks. She'd heard that the 'Chine could slave some animals to them.
Hella fell back immediately and carved out space with her guns blazing. If she'd been a regular person with normal weapons, she would have gotten overrun during the time she'd have needed to reload. Instead the line of furry, dead bodies in front of her grew.
Light suddenly blossomed around her, turning the darkening world into a series of garish yellow, white, and black images that flickered movement. When the acrid stink filled the air, sharper even than the stench of burning meat, Hella guessed that Stampede had fired a phosphorus grenade into one of their attackers. She ran and vaulted to the top of a boulder during the brief respite and took stock of the battlefield.
Half of the 'Chine were down, sprawled out powerless or scattered in body parts or mechanical parts. Flames danced in the lower tree branches, leaping across the area as it sought out ropes of hydraulic fluid that had spread through the trees and brush. More fires pooled across the ground.
Hella morphed one of her hands back to normal, and she plucked an HE grenade from her belt. She pulled the pin with her teeth, slipped the spoon, and heaved the high-explosive sphere into the mass of 'Chine. "Grenade!"
Stampede threw an arm up over his eyes. Riley's face shield would automatically darken to protect him from the flash.
Turning, Hella dropped over the side of the boulder to take the protection it offered. She morphed her hand back into a weapon, closed her eyes tightly, and ducked her face into her right elbow.
The grenade detonated and filled the immediate vicinity with bits and pieces of 'Chine and roasted prairie dog. When she dropped her arm and blinked her eyes open, a slavering prairie dog with its back sheathed in flames lunged at her. Hella fell to the side, and the creature crashed into the boulder. Before the fear-enraged animal could recover, she shoved a hand to the base of its skull and fired a round that emptied its head.
She got to her feet and fired into the flaming mass of 'Chine at ground zero. Despite the flames clinging to them and the fact that many of them were burning down, the survivors continued the attack. Most of the prairie dogs lay in smoldering heaps.
"Ready, Red?" Stampede sounded calm, but his voice was hoarse with the smoke."
"Yeah." Hella knew her system was still processing firepower just fine, but the backpack she carried and siphoned raw materials from was running low. If she didn't get another backpack from Daisy, she'd have to rely on her rifle.
Stampede lifted his foot and stomped the ground. A quiver ran through the earth and buckled the ground where the surviving 'Chine stood. They flew in all directions as the ground betrayed them.
Blinded by the HE grenade, Daisy pressed back against the tree line with her forepaws raised in front of her. Anything that neared her would get crushed.
Hella took a breath and focused. Before the ground had completely stopped quivering, she ran forward. As she let the nanobots flood her mind with information, push away her human senses, and rewrite her reflexes and responses, she grew afraid. All her life, all of it she could remember at least, that programming lay on the fringes of her mind, ready, willing, and able to take over. Allowing the nanobots to interact with her on that level was easy. Pulling back from them seemed to get harder each time.
Fleet as a deer, she ran across the buckled earth and the dead bodies. Totally locked into the nanobots in her body, she was a flitting gun sight. Ranges and cross hairs burned into her vision, and she reacted with precision and speed that nothing human could ever equate. When she fired, 'Chine died or ApZeroes shattered.
A 'Chine caught her left foot. Before the dying thing could lock its hand, Hella threw herself into the air and flipped, arms thrown wide as the nanobots filled her head with target acquisitions. As soon as she fired, she flicked her wrists and found the next target, blasting away as soon as she'd locked on. When she landed on her feet on a bare patch of ground, she'd killed the 'Chine that had seized her and blasted three prairie dogs that closed in on her like heat-seeking missiles.
When she stood finally, shaky with the adrenaline that filled her and warred against the control demanded by the nanobots, Hella was the only thing left alive in the fire zone. The burning trees and grass lit up the gruesome scene. The stench of burned flesh and cooking hydraulic fluid filled her nose with acrid smoke that made her sneeze. She forced the nanobots' control back from her mind and body, and that was the hardest thing she could ever remember doing.
Pistols at the ready, the rifle slung over his back, Stampede walked forward slowly. He kicked one of the 'Chine, but the dead thing flopped over on its back without response.
Flames reflected from Riley's face shield when he stopped in front of her. "How did you do that?"
"It's what I do." Hella kept her voice level even though she wanted to scream. She felt the nanobots buzzing around her thoughts, demanding to have more control again. "All part of the service."
"I've never seen anything like that."
Ignoring the man, wanting to be away from the questions and the fears, Hella went to Daisy. She talked to the mountain boomer in a soothing tone and got past the panic the sudden blindness had caused in her. She morphed her hands back to human and stroked Daisy's hide, taking as much comfort from the lizard as she gave.
"You all right?" Stampede spoke low and gentle as he stood behind Hella.
"I'm fine." Outside the perimeter of the camp, in the privacy afforded by the darkness, Hella took off her blouse then unfastened the chain-mail shirt. She wet a towel from her pack with water and cleaned as much of the blood, smoke, and machine fluids as she could from the armor.
"You went pretty far into it, Red. Maybe Riley was really surprised by what he saw, but I've never seen you move like that." He paused and she dried the chain mail.
"I know. I was me but I was more than me."
"I shouldn't have asked you to do that."
"If you hadn't, I'd have told you I was going to do it."
Stampede growled angrily. "I was thinking."
"Bad things happen when you do that."
"These people are scientists. They know more about things than we've ever seen. Maybe they could—"
Hella pulled the cold chain mail back on and turned to face Stampede, interrupting him. "What? Lie to us some more? They've lied to us about everything so far. Or kept us in the dark. We're supposed to suddenly start trusting these people?"
Stampede looked at her with his liquid brown eyes. Tenderly he drew her to him and hugged her. His massive heart beat deeply within his body, and he felt warm and reassuring.
"I don't want to lose you, Red. Not to anything out here in the wilderness, and not to anything that's lurking around inside your mind."
"You won't." Hella curled her fingers in his fur and wished she were that little girl Stampede had found years before. Back then she hadn't known much about the nanobots, hadn't realized they had different thoughts than she did, and hadn't known that they wanted to control her. "It surprised me tonight."
"What?"
"How easy it was to let them slip into me. I was still in control. I was still me. But I felt like I was standing at the precipice of being someone else."
"Who?"
Hella didn't answer right away. "I don't know."
"You're going to be okay, Red. I promise."
"You can't make that promise."
"I just did."
"You can't keep it."
"Try me."
Hella pushed back from him and looked him in the eye. "I
do want you to make me a promise."
"Sure."
"Remember how those 'Chine died? The way their flesh died but the hive mind kept their bodies running?"
Stampede's face hardened and from the sadness in his eyes, she knew he suspected what she was going to ask. "Don't." His whisper was almost lost in the darkness.
"If something happens to me." Hella could barely get the words out of her mouth, but she had let them go too long unsaid. "If something happens and I'm not me anymore... don't let the nanobots take what's left of me."
Stampede looked away from her. "That's never going to happen."
"You know it could. So did Faust. I think that's one of the reasons that Faust didn't stay with us."
"Faust was looking for an easy job. He was a slacker."
Hella managed a laugh, but her vision was blurry with tears. "Faust works hard. He's chief of security at Blossom Heat, and trade camps come with their own dangers. He just didn't want to be around to see me slip away." She knew that was true. "He made his decision to leave us only a few weeks after the first time I linked with the nanobots."
That time she'd managed to save their lives as well, and the merging had been necessary if they were going to live. At times when the nanobots felt threatened, it was even harder to stay out of the link.
"I need you to promise me that, Stampede. Tonight was harder to get back than it has been before. And I just can't stop thinking about the hive mind controlling those dead 'Chine. So promise me."
Instead Stampede wrapped her in his arms again, and she felt swallowed up in parental love. She didn't know who her parents were or if she'd even had them, but she knew who'd loved her and raised her.
"You got my promise, Red, but I promise you this too: there'll be a lot of dead people before I let that happen."
By the time Hella finished changing into fresh clothing and returned to the camp, Stampede stood bathed in firelight from the cook fire. Pardot paced angrily in front of him, shaking his head vociferously.
Hella had taken time to clean her other clothes as best as she was able, soaking the jeans, blouse, and underthings with cold water so the blood wouldn't set into the fabric, and finally washing them with hydrogen peroxide that she and Stampede carried for that purpose. There were too many things in the Redblight that could track potential prey even by the scent of old bloodstains.
"—and letting them get away with it is out of the question." Pardot stared at Riley as if everything were his fault.
"Dr. Pardot, those..." Riley's voice failed him. "Those 'Chine are incredibly dangerous. We were lucky to escape with our lives."
"They ambushed you, Captain Riley. I understand that. But I—we—didn't come all this way to lose that device now." Pardot swiveled his attention back to Stampede. "There were only three of you."
"And all of us lucky to be alive now." Stampede stood relaxed, one hand wrapped around the barrel of his rifle while the butt rested on the ground.
Colleen Trammell sat cross-legged on the ground. She wouldn't meet Hella's gaze and didn't respond to Hella's thinking about her. Not that Hella wanted any mental contact with the woman. Having the nanobots buzzing around inside her head earlier was enough.
"Surely we can catch those things and retrieve that device." With the firelight flickering over Pardot and the exo encasing him, Hella thought he looked a lot like one of the 'Chine. She wondered if they would think so as well.
Stampede shook his head. "They move fast and at night they see as well as we do in the day. Chasing after them in the dark would be suicidal."
"In the morning, then. If you think we can make up the lead they get tonight."
"Dr. Pardot." Stampede kept his voice polite with effort. "Even in the daylight, those things are dangerous."
"You say they communicate through a common radio frequency."
"Some kind of frequency."
"What if I said we have a low-yield EMP device that will knock that system off-line? At least for a time. Do you think we would have a chance then?"
That surprised Hella. She knew what electromagnetic pulse devices were from discussions at trade camps, but she'd never heard of one small enough to be used in a localized area.
Stampede shifted his attention to Riley. "You have something like that?"
Riley gave a tight nod. "We do."
That would definitely tilt the odds, but Hella still didn't relish the idea of clashing with the mechanical zombies again.
"Questioning what I tell you is disrespectful." Pardot clanked over in front of Stampede.
Snorting in disgust, Stampede pinned Pardot with his hot gaze. "Risking my partner and my neck is my business. Getting dead lasts a whole lot longer than getting disrespected. Are we clear on that?"
Pardot trembled with rage, and the body movement translated to the support exo, causing the servos to whine in distress as they tried to interpret the reaction. "We're clear." He paused. "I can offer a bonus at this point. A successful recovery of the device will net you twice what we'd agreed upon."
Stampede kept his broad face impassive, but Hella knew he was just as taken aback as she was. It was more money than they'd ever had at one time.
Please. Hella heard Colleen's desperate plea inside her head an instant before an image of the woman's daughter dead or dying in the lab formed in her mind's eye. For Alice.
"Take it." Hella spoke quietly but her voice caused every head at the cook fire to turn in her direction.
Stampede hesitated only for a moment, glancing from Hella to Colleen with dark suspicion, then nodded. "All right. We'll get your device back. But we'll do it on our terms."
CHAPTER 16
Pardot didn't like the terms. He fought tooth and nail, and he almost walked a rut into his side of the cook fire, but when Stampede pointed out that if he and Hella didn't get any rest, they couldn't ride out in the morning, Pardot finally gave up and angrily retreated to his tent.
Hella squatted on one side of their private cook fire and heated a ham. She could have just as easily eaten the meat cold, but after everything she'd been through and the chill of the semidry chain mail touching her skin after the washing, she wanted something hot. When the meat was warmed through its core, she sliced it, put it on bread, added cheese, sliced apples, and served all of the food on the tin plates they carried in their gear.
"What's the occasion?" Stampede sat across from her.
Since they were leaving in the morning, Riley had volunteered his men to stand watch. Neither Hella nor Stampede thought there would be any more trouble with the 'Chine. Usually the mechmen stuck with one action or another. They didn't tend to repeat things.
"I wanted a meal. Not just something to eat."
"Okay." Stampede picked up an apple wedge, gave it a test sniff, then popped it into his mouth. He chewed with relish. "So why did you want to take Pardot's money?"
"It was a lot of money. And if he has the EMPs like he says he has, it will make things easier."
"Easier but not easy."
"With the 'Chine, nothing is easy."
"Getting dead is." Stampede looked at her levelly.
"You can get dead anywhere in the Redblight." Hella picked up her sandwich and savored the taste of the grease and bread and meat.
"How much did the woman have to do with your decision?"
"Not as much as you did."
"You spoke before I said anything."
Hella smiled at him. "Let me play it out for you. In the morning, if not tonight, Pardot would chase the 'Chine anyway. The only way we weren't going was if we decided to quit the expedition. You're not ready to do that yet."
"I'm not? That's news to me."
"It's a challenge. Us against the 'Chine. Only now we have the EMPs, which we've never had before. In the past, we've always wiped out the 'Chine wherever we crossed paths with them."
Stampede scowled. "They're as bad as cockroaches. Multiply every time you turn around."
"They also feed on traveler
s coming through the trade routes, so any we leave behind we might have to encounter in the future. It's better to take them now, when there are fewer numbers."
A fierce grin lit Stampede's face in the darkness. "We did wipe out a lot of them tonight."
"So they're weaker. And you also get the chance to push Pardot back, remind him who's playing on whose field."
"Have to admit there's a certain satisfaction in that."
Hella licked ham grease from her fingers and took another bite. "Getting our fee doubled was just icing on the cake. It didn't really enter into what you had already decided, but you let Pardot think it did. That way he's underestimating you, letting him think he can buy you off."
"And why would I want to let him think that?"
"In case you decide that whatever he's after is too dangerous for him to have. Things that come through the ripples generally aren't a cause for celebration. If you think whatever we recover is a bad thing, we can lose it somewhere."
Stampede's grin was broad. "Sometimes, Red, I think maybe you know me too well."
At first light, Riley joined them while they were breaking camp. The captain carried a Kevlar ordnance bag. "The limited-field EMPs." He handed them to Stampede.
Stampede took the bag, inspected the contents quickly, and passed it to Hella.
Squatting, Hella opened the bag and peered inside. Six gray-green egg shapes lay nestled in the bag. All of the spheres were stamped with some kind of scientific or military code. Two recessed buttons were on the sides. One was beside a digital timer, and another was alone.
"There are two ways of setting off the EMPs." Riley took one of the devices and held it gingerly. He pointed to the button alone. "This one is like a grenade. Depress it and it starts an internal three-second fuse. Get to cover because there's also an antipersonnel layer wrapped around it. Should help kill whatever's left that's human on those things."
