Dave divided his element into two sections of ten, separated them by fifty meters and falling in with the first group, they moved cautiously forward. They were now some twenty-five kilometers from the main body, walking forward aided by the light of one flashlight. Those in passive vision could see several hundred meters forward. Those in IR would see warm bodies as soon as they came around a corner.
The COMdes of all the SUBs broke communications silence simultaneously as everyone heard the near panicked voice of Chuck. "Dave get back here!" Behind his voice, they heard shouting, then gunfire. "We're under attack!"
The sound of the battle was now audible to every SUB. It was faint and distant, but it was the all too familiar sound of gunfire, nonetheless.
"Back!" Dave shouted, and everyone started running back toward the main body.
They all ran as fast as their SUB bodies would allow. As they closed in on the small side tunnel they had passed before, Dave ran up alongside the young captain. "When we get to the tunnel to section four, you and your ten fall back and protect it. We have enemy at both ends of this tube, so that smaller tunnel is our only escape."
When Dave and his ten approached the main body, he could see muzzle flashes and sparks as bullets ricocheted down the tunnel. The sound of the gun fire was now a constant roar.
Dave could see a boiling mass of shadows rushing toward him. It was the survivors of the main body. As they flooded past him, he noted they were not moving as a wild screaming disorganized route. The Bios passed him first, the SUBs having formed themselves into a screen to protect the Bios. All were moving in a quick but orderly manner past him. "Keep going," he shouted, "you'll be directed farther on."
Dave watched as the CDF moved away into the darkness. Back toward the front, the gunfire had not diminished. The CDF had left a rear guard. As he started forward, he saw two figures moving toward him. A SUB whose identifier was CDF – CYB – 1098 – Robert, A. Hindman – PFC. He was assisting a wounded bio. As they drew closer, Dave could see the wounded man was Chuck.
Dave rushed forward. "Chuck! Where are you hit?"
"It's nothing, flesh wound. Listen, they blew a hole in the ceiling and dropped down by the hundreds, firing indiscriminately. We took a lot of casualties, a lot. Dave…they shot the wounded. They don't just want to stop us—they want to eradicate us."
"We’re in a tight spot, here, Chuck, they're coming from the other end of the pipe as well. We have one avenue open to us, a tube that leads to an old reservoir outside the city."
"Dave, the rear guard is mostly SUBs, about eighty of them, and about thirty Bios. They are buying us this time, but there's no way they can hold. The mercs are pouring in like water."
"Come on, let's go." Dave reached out. "I'll take him now, Private Hindman."
"Dave, just set me down will ya, and hand me a rifle."
"What?" Dave was incredulous. "I think you've seen too many old movies."
"Okay," Chuck winced. "I'm wounded in my lower intestine. I'm bleeding out, Dave. Leave me here where at least I can take a few with me."
"Chuck, we have medics and med supplies, they can—"
"They can't operate on me on the run, buddy."
"Well, I am not leaving you here. Let's go!"
"Dave, please!"
"Shut up!"
"Dave…it hurts like hell."
Dave paused a moment only. "I'm sorry Chuck; you're just going to have to suck it up."
Dave, carrying Chuck, ran down the tunnel as fast as he could without causing Chuck too much additional pain.
At the side tunnel, the captain and his ten men were still at their posts.
"Sir," the captain shouted as he recognized Dave, "we have a medic up ahead with a stretcher team."
Dave looked the captain in the eyes, "Wait here for the rear guard," he ordered. "Buy us all the time you can."
"Yes, sir."
"But Captain…don't you die here. You get your people and as many of the rear guard as you can and get your ass down this hole! That's an order!"
Dave ran forward into the smaller tube which ran southeast. The medic and his stretcher team had been notified by COMde and were rushing back. When they met up, the stretcher was opened and Dave laid Chuck gently on it. He was covered with an emergency blanket, the medic lifted part of the blanket out of the way and cut Chuck’s clothes open to see the wound. He glanced quickly up at Dave then gave Chuck an injection for the pain. The stretcher bearers, two tireless SUBs, picked up Chuck and started moving forward again. As the medic started working, a delirious Chuck reached up and took Dave's hand. "I'm slowing you down.”
"You're not going to be one of those kinds of patients, are you?"
"Put me down." Chuck’s voice was weak.
"No," Dave said, emotion overtaking his voice generator, "I can't, and I won't. You stay with me, Chuck, dammit. Do you remember that night back on JILL in the Crater House when you introduced me to Matt and Susan? Mitch and Cassie were there, too. Chuck, I only had one friend before that night, Hugh Pacherd—you remember Hugh, fell into that huge rift in the Moon during the quake, died saving all those scientists? He was a good guy, Chuck."
"Dave," Chuck looked up at him; when he spoke, his voice was tired and filled with pain. "I was married once…Cynthia, we had two kids…but then we let our jobs get in the way of our marriage. Our professions ruled our lives…sounds funny now…but our jobs destroyed our happiness, and we went our separate ways. I wish—" Before he could finish, his eyes closed.
"Chuck? Chuck!"
"He's all right, Major," the medic said. "It's the pain meds I gave him, he's just unconscious."
"Is he gonna make it, Doc?"
"I don't know. If we were in the dispensary…but here…sir, he needs a real doctor."
"You're all the doctor we've got. I know you can do it."
"I'll do my best, sir."
"I know you will."
○O○
After clearing the gate in the city wall, and running, under fire, across the field and tarmac, Kathy, Zolna, and Le’ha now stood outside the wall of New Roanoke itself. Kathy stopped at the door to the airlock and looked over her left shoulder. Le'ha was a good six meters away, looking dejected. The instant Kathy made eye contact with her, she turned her head. Kathy went to her. "Le'ha, what's wrong?"
"You go now where I cannot follow."
"Oh…the atmosphere. I'd forgotten. Damn."
"Go, Kathee. I know that mission is your life and nothing else matters; go." There was no sarcasm in Le'ha's voice, only complete earnestness.
"Le'ha, that's not true. The military's motto is mission first, people always."
"First is mission…go…I know that it is very important to you."
Kathy bowed her head, then looked up at Le'ha. "I do care about you, and about Zolna. I cared about Dave too, but—"
"Kathee…you cared for Dave…yet, in life, you never told him so. And in death, you have not told him, that he might pass into onellametsa. You do not know love or how to tell others of love, do you?"
"Le'ha…I've never been in love."
"How can that be, you are a nine'ana Hopeerlun E'meset, yes?"
"I'm sorry, Le'ha, I don't understand."
"I ask if you are not a woman of the metal bones. Have you not the heart of nine'ana?"
"Le'ha…I just don't know. I am a woman inside these metal bones, but I've just never had time for…any of that."
"I weep for you, sister. Lu'aya tells us that life is like Ourinco," she pointed toward the sun, "moving all the time toward the shadows. One of your shadows may reach out and take you at any moment. Do not be swallowed into that darkness before you lay your head on the pillow of sudamine."
"Well, Le'ha…I think my pillow is in the forest of great joy, with Dave."
Le'ha knelt and wrapped her long arms around Kathy and whispered into her ear, "He is not yet beyond the gate." Then she stood.
Kathy stood open mouthed. The hug had shocked her bu
t it was during this expression of friendship that Kathy realized that she had opened up to Le'ha as she had seldom ever opened to anyone in her life.
"Go," Le'ha urged. "Find your general, and bring meaning to your life." She was again being honest; perhaps these people only knew honesty. Kathy felt exposed and vulnerable before her.
"Listen…ah, where will we find you?"
"You will not. I will find you."
"Le'ha, I want to thank you for your help, your honesty, and thank you for your friendship."
"Kathee, you are a hard Ukse to like. But I will make of you a nine'ana, and together, we will be sisters and find sudamine cansa kariecardy."
Kathy broke a small smile and looked up at Le'ha. "Whatever you say, sis."
Le'ha walked over to Zolna. She laid her hand alongside his face and said softly, "Do not become hurt…my little Zolna."
He smiled uncomfortably up at her.
Kathy and Zolna entered through the airlock and into the CDF section of New Roanoke. They crept slowly along in a combat crouch with their minds and bodies in complete combat mode.
The place was in shambles, and dark. Bullets had ripped the place to pieces. Worse, several bodies were scattered about. Both SUBs and mercs lay dead on the floor where white sulphide lithium super ion conductor fluid mixed with red blood.
A little farther on, Kathy spotted a weak identifier floating above the floor. It was a CDF soldier, "CDF – CYB – 169 – Wolfgang Eberstark – Gefreiter." Kathy rushed to his side as Zolna kept a watch.
"Wolfgang," she gently lifted the boy's head, "Wolfgang, it's Lieutenant Colonel Selina, can you tell me what happened here?"
The boy opened his one good eye and smiled up at Kathy. Struggling to form the words, he said, "Kommen hier—Söldner—getötet jedermann."
Zolna glanced down at Kathy with a confused look.
"He said mercenaries came, and killed everyone." Kathy translated and looked again at the soldier and asked, "Wo ist der general?"
The soldier's eyes slowly turned into black marbles as he whispered, "Unter…erde." Kathy gently laid him down and closed his eyes.
"What did he say, ma'am?" Zolna asked.
"I asked him where the general is…he said underground."
"What did he mean by that? The general is dead and buried?"
"I have no idea."
Kathy looked around, reading the battlefield. She called up her map of New Roanoke. Three high speed avenues of approach entered this sector. She was standing at the one farthest west. She examined the barricade and recognized it as copies of those Matt Strum had constructed when they defended the Moon base.
She and Zolna proceeded east to the next barricade and then on to the next. At each, the scene was the same. At the last barricade, the armies of maintenance robots were busy as ants cleaning, clearing, and rebuilding. It became obvious to her what had happened; she understood how the mercs had gotten around them.
Just a little east of the center corridor, inside the area the CDF had been defending, they came upon a passage entirely blocked to the south by a wall of solidified beige foam.
"What's this?" Zolna asked.
"This is EFS, designed to seal massive breaches in the pressure hull quickly. This must be the room we saw explode." Just then, the distant sound of voices caught her ear. It was coming from down the hallway to her left. She increased the sensitivity of her hearing and listened closely.
"No! We are not going to tell Wilmington they got away!" a voice said.
"Got away, hell, we must have killed eleven hundred of 'em."
"He said all of them. Now you get down into those pipes and personally reorganize that rabble, and then follow the remainder of the CDF to wherever it is they're going."
"Look, the boys are afraid to go down that narrow pipe. Down there, the CDF can put as many guns on the front as we can."
"We have more men."
"Sure, but these guys know that dead…they can't spend their money."
"Okay. I'll provide you with say, thirty of Wilmington's personal ExCon. With them behind you that scum will do as their told."
Kathy grabbed Zolna and they returned to the area where they had entered. “‘Down into those pipes,’ he had said. ‘Afraid of the narrow pipe.’ Zolna, there must be some system of pipes under the city large enough to accommodate a large group of people."
"I don't know anything about that, ma'am."
Kathy searched her mental maps of New Roanoke looking for clues.
Just as she was examining her last map, she sensed a door inside her mind open and close. Through it she received a file over Ismay. This file contained a completely new set of maps.
"Ismay?" Kathy gasped aloud. Ismay had not worked since Wilmington discovered their reconnaissance mission.
"Ah…ma'am did you just—" Zolna mumbled.
"Yeah, I just got it… Maps of the old aquifer system. Where did they come from?"
"Ma'am—look." Zolna pointed to a scorched and bullet riddled corner of the room. There, a small cylinder, a centimeter in diameter and two centimeters tall, was attached to the ceiling. On it a tiny blue light was flashing.
"Ma'am, it's Indra." Zolna was flummoxed.
"Yeah, I see that."
"It knows we're here."
"Yeah."
"Ma'am, Indra must have sent the maps! I smell a trap."
"Wait just a minute. He sent us the maps without comment by means of a data burst over Ismay, all but undetectable except to the receiver. Then he silently revealed himself to us through a small light. Why? Because he does not want to be discovered, which means he's keeping secrets from Wilmington. Zolna…Indra has had a change of heart."
"Ma'am, between Wilmington and Indra, we're dealing with two very smart cookies. I still smell a trap."
"Indra is a very powerful AI, with a directive to do what is best for the colony. There are certain moral protocols and, of course, the Human Protective Governors that mandate the protection of human life. Between the two, and all the carnage he's witnessed he must have figured out Wilmington is a nefarious character."
"Ma'am, that's a huge supposition on your part," Zolna was looking all around them as if expecting to be attacked.
"Sometimes, Zolna, you just have to have a little faith. Let's go."
"Go where, ma'am?"
"Look at the map. Right under where we heard the voices runs a large tube, but at grid reference 346 785 there is an intersection with a smaller tube that runs out of the city to an old reservoir. That's where they're going. And we have a longer trip than they do because we're going back out and around the outside of the city."
"What about the guard towers?" Zolna asked.
Kathy looked up again at the sensor in the corner, the little blue light was still flashing. "Indra has already taken care of that."
"I hope you're right, ma'am, or this is gonna be a short trip."
Chapter 22
Pulling Rank
Dave ran forward through the survivors, many of whom were wounded, until he finally caught up with the general. The general was moving slowly, and thus setting the pace. He really couldn't have moved any faster, because of the wounded, but now it seemed the general was staggering forward under the weight of his command.
Dave trotted up to him, and the general looked up. Dave saw the deep furrows of depression and concern on his face.
"General," Dave called as he approached.
The general looked over his shoulder then turned to Dave. "I made a serious mistake," the general said, his voice low.
"Sir?"
"I've lost over half my command. It's entirely my fault. If we'd stayed and—"
"Sir, if we had stayed in Khe Sanh we'd all be dead now. You took the only decision possible," Dave insisted emphatically.
"The responsibility is mine."
"Yes, sir, but the man who ordered this massacre is Wilmington, and his mercenaries pulled the triggers. Our responsibility now is to get these people out
of here to a more defensible location."
"Our responsibility?"
"Yes, sir, all your officers share the responsibility. It's our job."
"I don't have many officers left, and when this tunnel ends I'm going to have a lot less. Do you know what we'll find when we get to the end?"
"According to the captain, it ends at the side of an old reservoir. There are ten round, metal doors, each a meter wide. They were designed to allow water into this pipe from the reservoir."
"It's a dead end?"
"Sir…I'm confident there will be a way out when we get there."
The general raised his eyebrows and looked forward, "The only other option is to turn around and fight. What is it you Americans say…we'll go down swinging?"
The tunnel ended in a large rectangular room thirty meters wide, ten deep, and forty tall. Low on the opposite wall were the ten metal doors. They had not been opened or serviced in years, based on the corrosion and rust stains descending from each.
As everyone examined the decaying doors, Dave's eyes scanned the entire room very quickly. In the corner to his left, the concrete was stained with more rust trails. The lights they were carrying were very poor at this distance. "Pardon me, sir." Dave’s voice echoed in the huge empty chamber as he reached over and took the general's flashlight. He directed the light into the far corner, which allowed him to see what the Bios couldn't. The rust stain was produced by a number of metal rungs anchored into the wall. At the top, was a large, square, metal door and at its edge, where the rungs reached the top, a smaller manhole-type hatch was visible.
"Well, sir," Dave commented with a smile, "let's make sure all the Bios have operational respirators, and then let's get the hell outta here."
A rear guard of SUBs was left behind to hold off the mercs, should they catch up. All the Bios volunteered to stay as well and demanded to share the danger. Dave explained that the SUBs could get out quicker, and that was the only rationale behind the decision.
Dave insisted on being the first up the rungs, the first to emerge above ground, where he could ensure it was safe to proceed.
At the top of the rungs, Dave found the manhole cover to be a hermetically sealed hatch, one not opened in years.
The Vampires of Antyllus Page 30
