Emerald

by Brian January

  Shouldering the shotgun, she ran an eye over her three companions. Each wore a tactical vest whose pockets were loaded with grenades. Flinders and Rachel carried AK-47’s, while Skarda had his Barrett.

  And Rachel had filled an ammo bag with extra grenades. “These might come in handy,” she said.

  April nodded in satisfaction. The distant boom of explosions reached their ears over the insistent wail of the klaxons. “It looks like we’ve got a war going on up there. But our objective is to reach the command center and stop them from firing the lasers.”

  She turned to Rachel. “I rigged the satellite dish to blow. Is there any other way Tomilin can activate the lasers?”

  Rachel thought about it for a few seconds. “I overheard him talking about a second dish on Roman-Kosh. If you wreck this one, they can probably use that.”

  April shoved explosive frag rounds into the AA-12. “I guess we’ll just have to stop him the old-fashioned way.”

  ___

  Reaching the top of the stairs, April stepped into a short corridor that led to doorways on either end. On their left was the doorway to the Great Hall. Through the opening they could hear gunfire and the screams of dying men echoing from the marble walls.

  Skarda glanced at his Stealth. “Six minutes,” he said.

  Pulling out the remote detonator, April pressed the button.

  Nothing. Even with the battle raging, the explosion on the roof should have been audible.

  “The walls are shielded!” she yelled. “I’m going to have to go outside and blow it from there.”

  She took off down the stairway.

  ___

  A wind-driven snow howled around Belisarius’ bare head. Ragged plumes of breath shot from his nose and mouth as he staggered over the uneven ground, struggling with the gold-laden case. His eyes were fixed on the landing strip and the Dussault Falcon, barely visible through the curtain of snow. It had been years since he’d flown a plane, but with Jaz gone, now he had no choice.

  The muscles of his arms ached and his legs felt like sticks of lead.

  But he was carrying a fortune.

  He bent his head against the storm and drove himself on.

  ___

  April hauled herself to the lip of an eroded slab of rock, then swung her legs onto the flat roof of the fortress. Wind lashed at her. In her head a mental clock was counting down the seconds to the firing of the laser.

  Less than a minute left.

  About thirty feet in front of her the satellite dish was a bulky gray shape in the night.

  She reached for the remote detonator.

  Then she froze.

  An Atlantean soldier in a bulky parka had moved out of the lee side of a boulder, heading for the dish. Even through the snow he must have seen the block of C-4 attached to the base.

  Thirty seconds.

  She lifted the AA-12—

  A rifle muzzle jammed hard against her spine.

  Another solider had sneaked up behind her, the sound of his approach muffled by the wind.

  Twenty seconds.

  His blunt voice snapped out a command in Russian. She couldn’t understand his words, but their tone was clear: drop the weapon. Gloved fingers reached out and ripped the detonator from her hand.

  At the dish, the other soldier yanked off the block of C-4, holding it out in triumph to show to his companion.

  Ten…

  April dropped straight down in a crouch, ramming the back of her head into the man’s crotch, hearing him bellow in pain. She struck back with the point of her right elbow, connecting with his kneecap.

  Five…

  A howl of agony burst from the guard’s lips as the bone shattered with an audible crack, his finger involuntarily twitching the trigger. The rifle rattled, loud in her ears, firing a burst of slugs at the sky.

  At the dish, the other soldier whipped his rifle in her direction.

  Two…

  But she was already launching herself toward the rock wall, yanking the snout of the AA-12 towards him.

  One…

  She pulled the trigger. The mini warhead streaked toward the Atlantean, rocketing towards the block of explosive.

  It hit dead center.

  With a booming roar the C-4 detonated, blowing the soldier into bloody slabs of meat and sending a storm of metal fragments sizzling through the air. A section of the parabolic antenna shot free, spinning like a frisbee. It sawed through the kneecapped soldier’s neck with a grisly tearing noise, severing his head from his body.

  Before his corpse hit the roof April had disappeared over the wall.

  ___

  In the command center, Tomilin swore. “You’re sure it’s offline?”

  A technician looked up. “Signal’s dead. The dish isn't functioning. It’s totally shut down.”

  “Did the laser fire?”

  The man shook his head. “We can still access the dish on Roman-Kosh.”

  “Do it,” Tomilin said. “And make it fast.”

  SIXTY-FOUR

  FROM the shelter of the doorway, Skarda glanced into the Great Hall. The destruction was staggering. Clouds of smoke drifted above shattered marble. Through the haze muzzle flashes licked out like lightning bolts. Men yelled and screamed, their voices muffled by the crack of gunfire and the thunder of explosions. Charred corpses in red and black uniforms littered the floor.

  Hearing footsteps, he swung around to see April bounding up the stairs. “Done,” she said. “Now we need to take out Tomilin before he can access the other dish.” She pointed out across the hall at the open doorway that led to the western wing. “The command center’s through there, so that’s our target. They’ll have armed men, so it’s not going to be easy.”

  Pulling out his Stealth, Skarda typed out a message to Candy Man: “Need status update on satellites.”

  The words “NO SATELLITE SIGNAL” flashed across the screen.

  He glanced at April. “No good. We need to be outside.”

  Peering around the edge of the doorway, she eyed the expanse of open ground between the safety of their position and the entrance to the T. “I’m going to make a run for it. Cover me.”

  From the doorway on the opposite wall men in red jumpsuits burst into the hall, their rifles spraying lethal rounds at Charbonnet’s commandos. One of the Atlanteans stopped, crying out a warning as he spotted April. Shouldering an XM25, he aimed it and fired.

  “Back!” she yelled.

  Dragging Flinders and Rachel to the floor, Skarda threw himself next to them, flattening his back against the wall. Its trajectory set by the laser-guided rangefinder, the 25mm grenade exploded ten feet from the doorway, sending a hail of metal fragments flying into the stairwell, tearing up the hallway.

  April waited for a count of three, then stepped out into the open, bringing up her Barrett in a blaze of fire. Bloody wounds ripped across the soldier from head to thigh, driving his riddled corpse back through the doorway. Across the hall AK-47 fire stuttered and the wall next to her splintered into chips of stone. A line of bullets slashed across the marble at her feet.

  Leaping back, she sprayed the hall on full auto just as the drumbeat of helicopter rotors rose above the hellish din of the firefight. Skarda scuttled out, craning his neck, seeing the two Atlantean Mi-25’s circling outside the blasted ceiling, swinging into firing position. Their Gatling guns rattled, the armor-piercing rounds tearing through Charbonnet’s troops. Men fell, their bodies twisting in obscene dances as the heavy bullets shredded their body armor and tore through muscle and bone.

  One of the black-suited men snapped a LAW rocket launcher to his shoulder and fired. The missile streaked toward the nearest chopper. From the nose of the Mi-25 a laser beam shot out, striking the rocket. Its instrumentation scrambled, the missile veered off course and blasted into the ceiling, blowing up huge chunks of stone that crashed to the floor with earth-shaking force.

  Another man jumped out into the open and raced for the wall, shouldering a LAW
. From this vantage point he could look up at the underbelly and pilot canopy of the gunship. He aimed and pulled the trigger. The rocket zoomed almost straight up, too close for the operation of the laser.

  The pilot saw it coming. Desperately he yanked back his cyclic, at the same time pulling up on the collective control to increase altitude. But it was too late. The rocket struck the chopper at the bottom of the canopy, blowing the windshield and pilot’s compartment to fragments and igniting a yellow-orange fireball that roared over the gunner, engulfing the entire nose of the gunship in a sheet of fire. Smoke poured from the engine cowling.

  Yawing left at a crazy angle, the Mi-25 seemed to flip in mid-air, driven by the force of its main rotor, tipping over and ramming the second chopper broadside with an ear-deafening roar of secondary explosions. Two men toppled from the cabin door, screaming, their arms flailing as their bodies smacked against broken columns. Then both aircraft dropped in violent spins, smashing against the fortress ceiling and wall, tearing away the already-weakened masonry as another blast blew the side of the building apart. The rotor of the first gunship detached, spinning through the air in a devastating arc, finally striking the marble floor with a screech of metal against stone and plowing a lethal path of destruction through the men, Atlantean and attacking force alike, cutting bodies into bloody chunks like a giant meat cleaver.

  In the midst of the carnage Zandak stood tall, urging his men on.

  A wave of aviation fuel gushed across the floor, igniting, sending up a chain reaction of fire and oily black smoke.

  “Now!” April yelled.

  Breaking from cover, she raced across open ground as Skarda, Flinders, and Rachel swept the hall with covering fire from the cover of the doorway. Turning, she let loose with the AA-12, firing the mini-warheads into the crush of men.

  Explosions blew apart stone and flesh.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Zandak spin around, his AK-47 spitting flame in her direction.

  Throwing herself to the left, she dove for the floor, her right hand flashing down and out. One of the Fusion Fulcrums sliced through the air. Its ceramic tip grazed the soft flesh at the base of the Atlantean’s neck as he leapt away, but not before a line of 7.62mm rounds from his rifle tracked across her chest, spinning her around just as two more of the slugs tore away the flesh of her left tricep and shoulder. Spurting blood, she staggered, dropping the shotgun. Then another burst of bullets smacked into her, stitching an arcing line across the face of the vest, striking unprotected flesh just under her left armpit.

  Skarda cried out. With his finger yanked back on the trigger of his Barrett, he leapt out into the open, the rifle spitting out a deadly arc of fire until the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Unhit, Zandak staggered backward on the blood-slicked floor, ducking to a crouch. Throwing away his rifle, Skarda stooped to snatch up the shotgun as Zandak shoved up from his haunches, his finger locked on the trigger of his Kalashnikov, spraying a stream of bullets. But his aim was off and the slugs burned the air over Skarda’s head, one gouging a furrow on the top of his skull and another nicking the hairline above his left ear. Blood welled up instantly, sluicing down the sides of his face.

  Wiping away the blood, Skarda whipped up the snout of the AA-12 and pulled the trigger. The warhead streaked toward the Atlantean in a direct line, but the tall man dove to his right, falling out of sight behind broken marble. The warhead exploded against a fallen column behind him.

  Grabbing April by the armpits, Skarda ground his heels to find purchase on the blood-slicked floor, dragging her to safety. Bullets smacked against the slabs at his feet, showering him with needle-pointed chips of marble that stung his exposed flesh. At his back, Flinders and Rachel kept up a withering barrage of fire from the doorway.

  Inside the shelter of the stairwell, he laid her on her back, dropping down beside her. She was unconscious, her face ashen. His searching eyes inspected the damage. The chest hits, shielded by the vest, had only knocked the wind out of her, but the wounds on her arm and flank were gushing blood. He could see the exposed muscle on her tricep. With shaking hands he ripped open trauma dressings and applied them to her wounds, then wrapped her in compression bandages.

  Flinders hurried to his side. “Is she okay?”

  “She’ll be fine. She’s a tough one.”

  He ignored the look of horror on her face as Rachel joined them, the barrel of her rifle still smoking. “We’re out of ammo.”

  Solemnly he nodded. “We have the pistols and the grenades on our vests,” he said. “Plus your bag of grenades.” He scuttled forward, snatching up the AA-12, breaking it open. It was out of shells. “April has some more in her vest—“

  Then he whipped around as boots hammered on the stairwell. Zandak burst into view, his face and jumpsuit splashed with blood, training his AK-47 on all three of them.

  Skarda didn’t even take time to think. Lunging forward, he heaved the shotgun at the Atlantean with all the force of his arms.

  Not breaking stride, Zandak stepped back, swinging his rifle to bat the gun away before it struck him. Skarda leapt at him, throwing his arms wide, wrapping the taller man in a bear hug and knocking him off his feet. The rifle skittered away, clattering down the steps. But the Atlantean was like an eel, using his height and slim build to wriggle loose, smashing the side of Skarda’s skull with a brutal head butt, and springing to his feet in one fluid motion.

  Blood gushed down the sides of Skarda’s face, the flap of flesh covering his bullet wound ripped away. Zandak kicked him in the jaw. Pain shot through Skarda’s head like jolts of electricity. Again Zandak lifted his foot to strike, but Skarda rolled toward him, reaching out and grabbing his ankle with both hands.

  But instead of trying to step out of the way, Zandak bent over, reaching down and picking Skarda up with both hands, the muscles and tendons popping from his arms like steel cables, his veins bulging. A sound of animal rage escaped his throat as he lifted Skarda up and threw him against to the floor with a meaty smack, his hand snaking down to pull out a pistol.

  But then he lurched forward as both Flinders and Rachel leapt on his back. The pistol went flying from his grip. For a moment he staggered, snarling, then he backpedaled, smashing them against the limestone wall. Crying out, they fell away and the Atlantean leapt at Skarda, his fists hammering.

  Bringing up his knee, Skarda drove it into the taller man’s groin.

  It only served to make him madder.

  His fists drove at Skarda, plowing into his head, his stomach. The back of Skarda’s head slammed against the hard floor, sending sparks showering in his vision and making his ears ring. Another blow...and another. His face contorted in agony. Through a haze of pain and nausea, he tried to think.

  Out of the corner of his vision he saw the shotgun.

  But it was out of shells.

  Think...

  Zandak’s hand had closed around his fallen pistol. But instead of firing, he was using it as a club, striking Skarda again and again, his face distorted by hate and blood lust.

  Skarda groaned, his vision swimming.

  Then an idea...

  Forcing his arm to move, he willed his fingers to search for the hump of a grenade in a pocket on his vest. Found it! Ripping open the flap, he pulled the pin, knowing that the tight confinement of the pocket space would keep the spoon firmly in place.

  But Zandak didn’t know that.

  Parting his bloody lips in a grin, he brought his hand up and showed the Atlantean the pin.

  “Five...” he counted down. “Four...”

  Fear clenched Zandak’s face. With a choked cry he leapt away, his feet pounding for the staircase. He stooped to snatch up his fallen rifle, then bounded down the steps.

  Rolling to his stomach, Skarda yanked the grenade from its pocket and tossed it over the railing. Seconds later he heard another awful cry and a sharp bang echoed through the hallway, followed by billows of acrid smoke.

  Flinders and Rachel ran t
o his side, helping him up. His legs felt like they were made of rubber. Blood streamed down his face and bolts of pain seared through his nervous system.

  “Oh, my God!” Flinders cried out. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  Reeling, Skarda tried to grin at her, but it was all he could do to stay on his feet.

  Then a noise came from the stairway.

  Flinders recoiled, letting out an involuntary cry.

  Swinging around, he saw Zandak lurching up the steps, his jaw a bloody mess where shrapnel had torn away flesh and bone, his left shoulder and arm missing, leaving only a ragged red stump.