Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  “But you could arm it easily enough,” Travers added. “Just take the chain guns off a gunship, and slap ’em right on.”

  “If you had access to the gunship,” Shapiro argued.

  Marin jinked this way and that across the sky. The Jiantou was closing the distance, no matter what he did, until the two craft were in dangerous proximity. “So you’re saying,” he said, breathless with sheer effort, “whoever configured this thing either has no access to weapons systems … or chose not to use them.”

  “Right.” Shapiro paused. “Which begs the question –”

  “Who?” Liang finished. “Who the hell is he, Harrison? Your enemy or mine? Or ours,” he added in a winded voice, as Marin slammed the Magister to starboard again, knocking the air from his lungs.

  Travers had been thinking the same thing. “Who’d be after you, General, and why? Answer that, and you’ll know the rest.”

  “Or after me,” Liang panted, “and it probably comes back to the same answer. Harrison?”

  “The Confederacy,” Shapiro said acidly. “They have to know I’m up to a lot they can’t access, because my encryption codes are all Resalq. Just the fact they can’t read my data is enough to tell them I’m doing something … and nobody’s security is perfect. A whisper gets back to Fleet Sector Command, back on Darwin’s, and suddenly I’m under surveillance.”

  “Are you?” Liang’s tone was sharp.

  “Of course I am,” Shapiro said dismissively. “Damnit, Robert, we all are! But I’ve been too careful. The Confederacy couldn’t prove one damned thing, and if they dragged me in front of a military tribunal a good defense could make it last years before charges were dropped for lack of evidence. So –”

  Again, Marin pulled the Magister up so fast, so hard, the red warning lights flashed and the AI said, “Structural integrity at fifty percent. Land immediately. Fuel conduits compromised. Engine harmonics unequal. Arago generators at eighty percent. Starboard engine in thermal overload. Land immediately. Land immediately.”

  With a soft curse, Marin reached out and hit the mute. “Perlman?”

  “One minute,” Perlman told him grimly. “You’re all over the sky, Curtis, I’m trying to catch you … and you don’t look too good. You’re venting something.”

  “Engine coolant.” Marin was frowning over the instruments. “Damn.”

  “Arago generators at sixty percent,” the AI said calmly. “Starboard engine shutdown imminent.”

  “I’m going to have to put this thing down,” Marin said, hoarse with effort and stress. “Perlman, get a lock on us.”

  “You’re scan painted, I won’t lose you,” she promised.

  Travers’s fingertips stroked the navdeck once, twice, bringing up the groundscan and overlaying the GPS mapping. The Magister had run south, far away from Scott’s Harbor. She was at ten thousand meters, and the terrain was all low hills and woodland now, punctuated by a scattering of outlying farms. “You’ve got some open space,” he offered, “if you can make it.”

  “Arago generators at forty percent,” the AI reported in that infuriatingly calm voice. “Land immediately –”

  “We’ve run out of time to be choosy.” Marin glanced at the display, and then reconfigured the Magister deftly. “Tighten your harness and brace yourselves. We have to get down fast, it’s the only chance we have, so we’re going to fall like a brick. I’ll catch us on repulsion. It’s still going to be the landing from hell, and when we hit, you have to be ready to get out and run, just as hard as you can. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Shapiro said, bleak and cool. “Robert?”

  “Just get it done,” Liang muttered.

  “Perlman?” Travers called into the loop.

  She was there at once. “I heard, boss. Forty seconds, give or take, and you’ve got trouble right behind you. The Jiantou isn’t shooting at you, but it’s going to climb all over you, first chance it gets. I heard Curtis. The second you try to land, you’ll be wearing that thing!”

  “We know,” Marin whispered. “It’s a drone, it’s got one objective.”

  “Mid-air collision,” Perlman said sourly. “Hey, Neil … good luck, man.”

  “Thanks.” Travers shot a glance at Marin. “Go.”

  It felt to Travers as if the air had fallen out from under the Magister. He had logged scores of hours in the simulator, flying storms in which wind shear and low-pressure pockets literally plucked his aircraft out of the sky. Almost every time, the crash was catastrophic, and his heart was in his mouth as Marin shut off the failing repulsion and let the Magister fall like a stone.

  And the Magister was a car, not a plane. The handling characteristics were very different, even if one engine had not quit the instant before Curtis had shut off the Aragos – and even if the repulsion generators had been working properly, which they were not.

  If Travers had been the kind to pray, he would have been praying as he watched the altimeter. He left his belly behind, somewhere in the descent – and then his brain seemed to rattle in his skull, his eyeballs seemed to compress, as Marin throttled the Aragos to their redline, with a scant sixty meters of clear air under the Magister’s floor.

  The jolt was much more gentle than any impact with the ground, but still Chandra Liang cried out. He had never done military service, never done the training flights, real or simulated. Travers had done this, bailing out of a burning gunship in the lightstorm over a city – deploying fins and airbrakes to avoid flak which was tracked and plotted in his helmet displays – taking damage to the chute which should have soft-landed him, and piling into the city ruins hard enough to bruise every muscle, though the hardsuit would save his bones. Shapiro had done all this, but it must be decades ago, and Travers chalked up a mark to the older man. Not a sound passed his lips, not even a curse as the Aragos redlined.

  The Magister wallowed like a pig and skidded in high grass, plummeting toward a stand of tall trees. Marin slammed the single functional engine into reverse, extended every airbrake, and as the speed decreased he popped the gullwings. The Magister was still moving when he released his own harness and bawled,

  “Out – run!”

  Shapiro needed neither instructions nor encouragement, but Travers twisted around, ready to help Liang get out of the harness, and out of the vehicle. The Magister careened to a dead stop with its nose plowed into a drift of grass and dirt, not ten meters from the trees, and Marin was already out. He was watching the sky, looking for the Jiantou. The Zamphir was primed, braced in both his hands, but it was pitifully inadequate.

  “There it is,” Shapiro barked as he and Travers hoisted Liang out of the seat between them.

  “I see it,” Marin assured them. “Move, for godsakes – it’s still out of range of this little thing!”

  All at once Liang seemed to snap back to his senses, and scrambled out of the car. Travers was sweating in the heat of the Aragos and engines, all of which had far overrun their design specifications. The Magister sat in a shimmer of heat haze, big and bright to any thermal tracking system. The cab lights flickered, ruining his night vision, and he looked away, squeezed his eyes shut, as he clawed out his own weapon.

  He could hear the Jiantou now, and as Shapiro and Liang began to run, he joined Marin in a flat sprint toward the scant cover of the trees. Blundering through the underbrush in near total darkness was insanely dangerous, but they were out of options. He listened to the drumbeat of his heart as the Jiantou’s engines began to scream, overloading his ears, in the seconds before it hit.

  The drone pilot drove it into the wreckage of the Magister at full throttle. Thirty meters’ distance between fugitives and inferno, and a double-line of dense spruce, were barely enough. The blast picked Travers up bodily and threw him. He caught sight of Marin, diving in the same instant the shockwave hit them, as if he could control the direction of the fall, the angle of his landing.

  Then Travers was only aware of the fallen log that came up out of the darkness and sma
cked into his shoulder and right side. His senses dimmed out to gray for long, dizzy seconds. He thought he might have lost consciousness completely for a moment, because the next he knew for sure, Perlman was yelling over the comm and Marin’s voice was a groan, somewhere off to his right.

  “Travers! Travers! Neil, goddamn it!” Perlman was shouting.

  “Still here,” Marin was saying in an odd grunt. “They’re all moving, but they’re hurt.”

  “What about yourself, Curtis?” Perlman insisted.

  “I’m all right,” Marin said grimly, “but I think Shapiro’s taken some damage. Where are you?”

  Travers rolled up to his feet and shook his head as if he could physically sweep the fog out of it. His vision was better, and the wreckage was burning brightly, casting enough light into the woodland for him to see between the dense shadows. Chandra Liang was up on his knees, holding his head. Shapiro was still down, lying on his side, but he was moving.

  “We’re twenty seconds from your position,” Perlman was saying in a grim voice, “you should hear our engines … and you’ve got company. There’s a vehicle heading toward you, fast, stump-jumping, just coming in at hedge-height. Can’t tell what kind, but it looks like a car.”

  “Could be locals,” Travers said groggily. “They must’ve seen the crash – wondering if there’s anything left worth rescuing.”

  “It could be,” Marin agreed. “Have a look at Shapiro … Perlman?”

  “Just look up,” she reported. “Where do you want us?”

  “Put it right between us and the incoming vehicle,” Marin said in an ominously quiet tone. “Fargo?”

  “Yeah,” she said, a whisper over the loop, “I think you’re right, Curtis … hey, Tim, grab your hardware. You fancy some night hunting?”

  She and Inosanto had been among the best sharpshooters Bravo Company ever fielded, in any conditions. Travers was confident to turn his back on the incoming car, leave them to do their job. His eardrums were still protesting the explosion, and the engine roar of the approaching lander seemed oddly muted. He leaned down over Shapiro, cursing the shadows, which fell directly over him, making it difficult to see anything, much less details.

  But there was no mistaking the hot, slick feel of blood, and his nose picked up the iron tang of it at once. “General? General!” The man was moving, but without light Travers could not tell where he was bleeding, or how badly. “Shapiro!” he barked, hoping to reach him through the shroud of red mist that would surely have settled over him. “Shapiro! Harrison, damnit, do you hear me?”

  Whether through the proximity, the volume or the familiarity, Shapiro returned to his senses with a rasping cough and said hoarsely, “I’m all right. Nothing’s broken. Let me up.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Travers warned.

  “I know.” Shapiro’s breath caught in pain as his body folded at the waist. He twisted, caught Travers’s shoulder and pulled himself up with a curse.

  The storm of engine noise, the gale of the lander’s repulsion, filled the night now. Perlman was holding the ship on its Aragos, and as it dropped in to just a few meters the floodlights kicked on and ramped up, casting harsh blue light around the full three-sixty. Over the loop, she reported, “Fargo and Inosanto are down … I’m seeing the car. It’s stopped, over on the road, on the far side of the creek. Keep your heads down, Neil – you’re well inside shooting range. Curtis?”

  “Yo,” Marin responded. “I’m on the deck, between the wreck and the road.”

  “I see you,” Perlman assured him. “I’m going to put this thing down where it’ll give you some cover. “Neil, you need a medic?”

  “Yes,” Travers began.

  “No,” Shapiro grunted. “I can get myself aboard. Travers, get Liang moving. Lieutenant Perlman, exercise extreme caution. That vehicle could be civilian – and while you’re at it, get that damned fire out!”

  Mercury 101 had settled on its repulsion cushion. The ramp was whining down, and a single drone deployed from a hatch in the aft dorsal plating. It whirred like a big insect in the floodlights as Travers stooped to haul Chandra Liang to his feet. He was propelling the man into the glare of the lander’s lights when the drone issued a piercing hiss, like escaping steam, dousing the wreckage in rust-red fire retardant powder. In moments the blaze was out, and Travers swore as his sinuses began to smart.

  “Try not to breathe it,” he told Liang. “If you have to inhale, hold your sleeve over your nose and take shallow breaths.” He twisted his head around, looking back for Shapiro. “General!”

  He was a few paces behind, shoving himself from tree to tree to keep himself upright and moving. Travers had taken a quick breath to shout at him to stay where he was and wait, but before he could speak a figure dove down the ramp, out of the lander.

  Jon Kim had a breathmask on his face and another in his left hand as he hurried back to Shapiro, and over the comm loop his voice panted, “Stay put, Harry. Don’t breathe this crap – it’ll rot your lungs. They’re setting up the trauma unit – where are you hurt? Damnit, you’re bleeding like a pig!”

  He had run wide around Travers, hurrying to get to Shapiro. Just short of the foot of the ramp, in the hot bluster of the repulsion cushion, Chandra Liang seemed to recover his wits and pushed Travers away. “I’m all right. Get Harrison aboard.”

  “If you say so,” Travers said acidly. “Perlman?”

  “Right here,” she called.

  “Get Mister Liang strapped down. Kravitz!”

  “Yo, Sergeant … I mean, Major,” Kravitz said with bleak humor. “We’ve got trauma set up. You want me to take a look at our VIP?”

  “Do that,” Travers agreed. “He looks shocky to me, but I don’t think he’s hurt. Standby to receive Shapiro – and he’s going to want full-on med support. He’s blood up to the eyeballs, I don’t know where from.”

  “Copy that,” Reuben Kravitz responded crisply.

  All the while, Travers was listening to the loop – listening specifically for Marin, and as Liang staggered up the ramp he heard Curtis say in cynical tones, “It’s a plain gray vehicle, looks like a Rand of some kind … no markings, so it’s nothing official, and the paint’s still shiny-clean, so it’s not from one of these farms. You thinking what I’m thinking, Fargo?”

  She sounded equally as cynical. “It has to be the bastard who launched the Jiantou, come to make sure there are no survivors. And if there are, fix that little problem.”

  “You got a clear shot?” Marin was asking. “I’m in a bad place. Stick my head up to get a shot, and they’ll take it off at the shoulders.”

  “I got a shot,” she told him. “You want a big bang and wreckage, or somebody to interrogate?”

  “Disable it,” Marin said grimly. “General Shapiro, are you monitoring this comm?”

  The man’s voice was wheezing, thin, taut. “I am. You’re the expert – Dendra Shemiji. Your call.”

  And Marin: “Fargo, you still have the shot?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her voice purred with concentration.

  “Take it,” Marin invited in a low voice.

  Travers had no line of sight to the car. Mercury 101 was between him and it, but he heard four single shots in rapid succession, coughed out of a service rifle, and away in the night, a shriek of ripping metal. He held his breath till Tim Inosanto said crisply,

  “One car, going nowhere. You want we should pick the bastards up?”

  “Arrest them,” Marin said with sour humor. “That’s the term, isn’t it? And for chrissakes watch yourselves. They won’t hesitate to –”

  He was surely going to warn that the man, or men, in the car would not hesitate to shoot, but before he could finish the sentence, big caliber rounds were whanging off the lander’s armor while Fargo and Inosanto cursed fluently over the comm.

  “Neil,” Curtis called calmly. “Neil, you hear this? They’re not going to make it easy. Somebody’s going to die, if we’re not bloody damned careful. They know whe
re we are – either we’ve been scanned or they pinpointed our position from muzzle flashes.”

  “Copy that.” Travers was watching Kim and Shapiro on the ramp. “What do you need?”

  “Get into cover,” Marin told him, “or get on the lander. Perlman, kick up to a hundred meters, take these bastards before they hurt somebody.”

  “My pleasure,” Perlman responded. “Neil, where are you?”

  At that moment Travers was making his way into the darkness of the trees. “In cover. Do like the man said.” He was trying to circle around, find his way to Marin’s approximate position, but the briar was dense, sharp, and the dress uniform was hardly well designed for this work.

  The ramp whined up at once, and the Aragos began to hammer under the lander. It lifted fast, floods strobing among the trees. Travers covered his eyes to safeguard his night vision, and looked for Marin, Fargo and Inosanto. He could not see any of them as Perlman said softly into the loop,

  “There’s two of the buggers … and it looks like you did an oopsie, Judith. One’s face-down on the road. Looks dead as dog meat to me.”

  “Sorry, guys,” Fargo said with mock contrition. “The other one –?”

  “Good enough to be up his feet and shooting at me.” Perlman sounded mildly amused. “Curtis, you said you want this idiot alive?”

  “If you can,” Marin advised.

  “I’ll try,” she mused, “but the caliber I’m shooting is going to make a mess, no matter what I hit.”

  “Best shot you can get.” Travers was in the lee side of a massive fallen tree trunk. “We’ll pick up the pieces. Kravitz, Choi?”

  They were monitoring every word, and Choi groaned. “Standing by with a handtruck, boss.”

  As he spoke, Perlman tripped her triggers just once. The low whine of the lander’s nose cannon murmured over the roar of the Aragos, and Travers’s ears picked up a scream, brief, high, from the direction of the road. “Choi, you stay with the general,” he said quickly. “Kravitz, get that handtruck organized. Curtis?”