“And that includes killing in cold blood?”
“No!” She faced him angrily. He was twisting her words. “That’s not what I mean. You can’t blame Cane for what he did. They were the enemy. Given the chance, they would have done the same to us.”
Emmerik didn’t speak for several seconds. “I don’t blame him,” he said at last. “But if he ever turned against us—”
“He won’t,” Roche cut in quickly, although even as she spoke she could feel her own reservations. They were slight, but they were there. “He promised to support us,” she said with more resolve. “And he will. I’m sure of it. I don’t know much about him but I do know he is honorable. You yourself said that much.”
Emmerik gestured to the makeshift graves below. “Needless killing is never honorable, Commander.”
“That at least I can agree with,” Roche said. “Perhaps we only disagree on our definition of ‘need.’...”
Together they fell into silence, watching the dawn tighten its grip on the world. The sky lightened to its familiar yellow-red, and the radiance of the Soul dimmed in comparison. The only blemish was a dark shadow looming over the crater’s northern wall. Moving perceptibly, it seemed to creep over the lip, spilling into the bowl of stone to flood the town. Its speed surprised her. Although she had experienced once before the terrible power of a dust storm, she still had trouble comprehending the sheer ferocity of the front. The turbulent shock wave riding at the fore of an atmospheric war.
“Fodder for the Soul,” said Emmerik, following her gaze. He caught the look of confusion on Roche’s face and smiled. “It’s something we say when a particularly bad storm is about to hit. Sort of a presage of doom. You see, some people believe that the Soul is made up—”
“—of the spirits of those that have died here,” finished Roche.
Admiration flashed briefly in his eyes. “Exactly,” he said. “Anyway, one myth has it that these storms are the hands of a god collecting spirits to illuminate the Soul.” He glanced up at the sky. “Somebody invariably dies whenever one hits, so maybe there’s some truth in it.”
Roche stiffened. “If it is a god, then it’s working with DAOC.” She pointed in the direction of what else she had seen, hovering at the edge of the cloud. “Look!”
A tiny speck of light flickered as clouds of dust rolled around it. An instant later, it disappeared entirely, tossed by the unpredictable currents that had briefly brought it into view.
There was only one thing it could be: a flyer attempting to use the front as cover for an approach to the town.
“Quickly!” Emmerik gripped her good arm and dragged her away from the wall. “We have to warn the others!”
They climbed down from the top of the wall and started running through the empty streets of the city. The moaning of the storm was distant at first, but growing rapidly louder. Beneath it, Roche imagined she could hear the nasal buzzing of the flyer, swooping toward the city to catch them unaware.
“Do you think they saw us?”
“Undoubtedly,” replied the Mbatan without breaking stride. His heavy legs pounded the pavement relentlessly, and it was all she could do to keep up. “But they knew we were here anyway, otherwise they wouldn’t have come.”
“It couldn’t be a routine patrol?”
“No.” Emmerik slowed his pace as they rounded the final corner. The looming shadow of the storm spread across the sky ahead of them, beyond the two towers and their grisly mascot. The day—not even half an hour old—began to darken. Again Roche felt the numbing despair that had crippled her the previous day, but this time she was ready for it and therefore able to resist it. Lightning flashed in the brown cloud with increasing frequency, as though the elements understood their predicament and actively encouraged a sense of emergency. “Flying a storm front is dangerous,” Emmerik gasped. “Not to be undertaken lightly. Only a lunatic or a soldier would attempt to approach the town this way.”
“I thought you said they wouldn’t attack.”
“They never have before. Perhaps that’s why they’re using this method of approach: to hide from eyes other than ours.”
Even as he said this, a siren like the bellow of a dying animal sounded in the distance, seeming to come from all directions at once. Emmerik stumbled to a halt, listening, as the ululating cry resounded eerily across the town.
“They must have noticed it too,” he said. “Good. Perhaps now we have a chance.”
“Who—?” Roche used the pause to catch her breath. It seemed that she had been gasping ever since setting foot on the planet, and she wondered if the thin atmosphere was entirely to blame. “Who’s making that noise?”
“The keepers of the city,” Emmerik replied.
Roche remembered the strangely robed figures who had confronted her the previous night, when she had reached out to touch one of the cemetery-rifles. “The keepers? You mean the descendants of the Dominion colonists?”
“They have guarded the city for over five hundred years,” he said. Then, with a wry smile, added: “They are also responsible for the rumors of it being haunted. If it is attacked, they will defend it.”
“But they won’t enter the city, you said.”
“Not normally, and perhaps not on this occasion either. At the very least, they will repel a ground assault, should one be attempted.” The Mbatan grabbed her arm again and dragged her forward. The first of the rebels had appeared in the foyer of the tower, summoned by the wail of the siren. “Come on.”
Neva, still slightly sleep-fogged, led the evacuation from the tower, followed by Veden and Maii. Two rebels escorted Cane with pistols at the ready. Catching sight of Emmerik, Neva hailed him loudly, with words that belied her obvious relief at seeing him.
“I leave you on duty, and look what happens. You unlucky bastard.”
Emmerik gestured helplessly at the storm. The massive clouds had almost reached the northern wall of the city. The wind had picked up to the point where its noise made speech difficult. Briefly, he explained the situation to Neva while Roche went to check on Cane.
“The underground, then,” Neva said when Emmerik had finished. “That’s our only hope.”
“Let’s pray there’s enough time.”
“But not too much.”
“Aye.” Emmerik grinned slightly. “It’s cramped enough down there without Enforcement teams getting in the way.”
Cane’s ankle shackles had been removed, but his hands remained firmly pinned behind his back. The muscles of his shoulders flexed restlessly, as though he could sense the coming battle and yearned to be free. His face, however, betrayed none of this tension; his smile was casual, relaxed, when Roche approached.
“You’re okay?”
A thin smile broke his easy expression. “Fine.”
“Did you sleep?”
“No. I didn’t need to.”
She studied his face. He showed no sign of fatigue, despite everything they had done in the previous day. She reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, and a bright spark of static electricity snapped between them.
“We don’t have long,” Neva said.
Roche raised her head. The storm was on the far side of the tower, but she could feel its rumble in the air and through the soles of her feet. The sky had darkened to the color of dried blood.
As she stared, a flyer swooped around the towers, flying low over the buildings, scanning the area. The high-pitched scream of its motors was barely audible over the noise of the storm. It dipped its nose suddenly, swooped even lower, and dropped a handful of objects into the town: armored Enforcers, drifting on jets of gas onto the streets.
Neva gestured for them to move. As one, they began to run.
At that moment, the storm front hit. A solid wall of dust struck the tower and was bisected, each half curving around the circular wall to strike Roche and the rebels from opposite sides. All was instantly confusion, with opposing gusts of wind meeting and forming a giddying vortex around them.
Someone grabbed Roche’s arm and tugged her along. She let herself be led, confident that the rebels knew where they were going and that the dust would hinder DAOC as much as it would them.
The imposing shadow of the Mbatan drifted closer, and he pressed something into her stomach. Shifting the valise to her injured arm, she grabbed at the object and felt the grip of a pistol enter her hand. The stocky projectile weapon was primitive, but she was grateful to have it nonetheless. At least she wouldn’t be totally defenseless.
Neva led them along one of the arterial routes away from the towers, heading roughly east. After half a kilometer their route switched to narrower streets and alleyways, winding circuitously between empty buildings. Skull-like, empty doorways and windows gaped fleetingly at them as they passed, glimpsed and then gone in an instant, swallowed by the thick, choking dust.
Roche stumbled in a clogged gutter and lost her grip on the valise. The thin cord tangled, causing her to trip and wrench her shoulder. The pain was blinding, and she hardly felt Emmerik’s hands lifting her to her feet, pressing the valise to her chest, and helping her along once again. The fall cost them seconds, during which time the others had disappeared from sight.
“It’s okay!” Emmerik bellowed into her ear, his mouth only centimeters away. “I know the way!”
With her eyes protected by the dust-specs that Emmerik had pressed upon her, Roche peered into the thick dust and frowned. She could barely make out Emmerik, and he was standing right there beside her. “How...?”
He couldn’t have heard her half-muttered word, but he must have read her expression of bewilderment. “Trust me!” he shouted, and quickly moved on.
Roche stumbled along with him, grateful for the Mbatan’s guiding hand on her shoulder. Together they rounded another corner, then another, and finally caught sight of a figure struggling through the wind.
Roche sighed with relief, despite Emmerik’s assurance that he knew where he was going—until she realized that the figure approaching out of the gloom was wearing full ceramic battle armor and carried a cocked percussion rifle in both hands.
She instinctively ducked to one side and dragged the startled Mbatan with her behind a nearby pillar. The domed helmet of the Enforcer, its visor a deep nonreflective black, turned to scan the area around it. She tensed as the impassive gaze swept over their hiding place, then relaxed as it drifted past.
The suit’s gloves tightened on the rifle’s handgrip, and the Enforcer continued onward, heading away from them. “Too close!” she shouted to Emmerik. “Worse than that!” The Mbatan pointed in the direction the guard had headed. “We have to go that way!”
“The others—?”
“I’m afraid so!” Emmerik turned. “We’ll have to get around the Enforcer somehow, to warn them!”
He lumbered off with Roche firmly in tow, heading down another route. The path they followed was even more elaborate, avoiding as it did any connection whatsoever with the road along which the Enforcer and the rebels had traveled. Roche kept her eyes peeled for other Enforcers searching the town, looking for them.
So intent was she on this task that she automatically ducked when a voice spoke into her ear:
Her internal voice wanted to shout, as her actual vocal cords needed to, but she resisted the impulse.
An explosion ahead cut the Box off in mid-sentence, followed by the high-pitched scream of a low-flying vehicle arcing over their heads and away. The muted thud of percussion rifles pierced the aural veil of the storm and made the Mbatan’s hand grip her arm even more tightly.
Abandoning stealth, he led her along a wide thoroughfare to the source of the noises. Shadowy figures crossed their path—more bulky armor, crunching heavily across the road—but quickly disappeared. Swerving to his right, Emmerik ducked through a narrow alleyway with Roche in tow. At its end, a small courtyard exploded into light as an energy weapon discharged into a wall, splintering the dust-laden air with a short-lived corona of sparks.
They stumbled to a halt and began to retreat. Out of the gloom, before either of them could dodge, an Enforcer appeared. The suit had lost its balance, and seemed more to fall into them than attack, knocking Roche to the ground. Emmerik kicked its left leg out from beneath it, dodged a flailing arm and fired two shots through the matte glass of the visor.
The Enforcer twitched, and the powered armor magnified the motion into a body-racking spasm. One heavy boot caught the Mbatan on the hip and sent him sprawling. Roche fired wildly at the thrashing figure, not caring where she hit. Sparks and spatters of blood issued from the smashed visor until finally the massive body fell still.
Roche clambered to her feet and helped the Mbatan do the same. As he rose, Emmerik grabbed the fallen Enforcer’s percussion weapon. Shadows moved at the edge of the square, and this time she dodged quickly enough to avoid another armored figure as it staggered by, firing its percussion rifle in random, furious bursts.
A second figure danced out of the gloom, catching the armor square in the chest with one firmly planted foot, employing both balance and strength to tip it over its center of gravity. Roche and Emmerik fired as it fell. Black explosions flared on the armor’s ceramic exoskeleton, stitching a ragged path from groin to throat, until something shorted in the power-assist mechanisms and the armor became still, locking its inhabitant in a coffinlike embrace.
Cane, who had delivered the overbalancing blow, nodded appreciatively at the Mbatan, then turned to go.
“Wait!” Roche called him back, then turned to Emmerik. “Free his hands!”
The Mbatan hesitated for an instant, obviously weighing the ease with which Cane, even with his hands shackled, had overpowered two Enforcers in full combat armor.
“Emmerik!” Roche shouted. “We need him!”
With a faint and uncertain shrug, Emmerik placed the muzzle of the rifle against Cane’s outstretched wrists and severed the mesh chain with a single shot.
Cane smiled his gratitude at both of them. Then, leaving the second percussion rifle for Roche, he dashed off into the gloom with Roche and Emmerik vainly trying to keep up.
The sharp whiplash of projectile fire became increasingly loud as they ran, interspersed with shouts for help and cries of anger. Then, more ominous still, another sound rose above that of the wind: a deep, bone-tingling rumble that seemed to come from no particular direction. As it grew in volume, the smoke and dust around them began to agitate from side to side—not swirling as it normally did through the streets and openings in the buildings, but vibrating in confined circles. The sharp smell of ozone was almost overpowering.
A pair of Enforcers darted through the oscillating clouds, boots crunching as they came. Emmerik and Roche separated as the Enforcers’ percussion rifles swiveled and spat at them. Returning fire, they ducked and weaved around the pair, using their small advantage of mobility over the suits’ inertia. The Enforcers followed swiftly, however—the whine and clank of power-assist an atonal accompaniment to their every movement. The short hairs on Roche’s scalp stiffened as a bolt narrowly missed her. She rolled to one side with the valise clutched to her chest, wishing she’d had time to strap it to her back, out of the way. Firing over her shoulder, she weaved across the courtyard as though heading for an inviting doorway, then ducked into an alley at the last moment. Running furiously, not knowing or caring where she was headed, she concentrated solely on putting distance between herself and the Enforcer, hoping to lose herself in the dust.
Pursued by the whirring armor, she burst out the far end of the alleyway and ran headlong into a
nother person. Limbs tangled as she fell skidding to the ground. She scrambled to her hands and knees, feeling in the dust for the fallen rifle, while the person she had collided with fought for breath nearby.
The crunch of heavy boot treads arrived at the end of the alley at exactly the same moment that the bone-tingling rumble reached a peak. With a strange sensation—as though every item of clothing on her body had suddenly inflated—the dust around her vanished.
Blinking in the suddenly clear air, she looked up. Hovering not twenty meters directly above her, all black carbon fiber and armored struts, was a troop carrier—slightly smaller than a salvage craft and shaped like a flat-bottomed bullet. The concave panels of the field-effect generators that striped its underside looked like ribs on the belly of some deep-sea beast.
The troop carrier was using its field-effect to clear the dust. “Roche?” Emmerik’s distant shout distracted her from the sight hanging above her. Blinking, she turned away, and belatedly realized that the footsteps of the Enforcer following her had ceased.
The armored figure stood at the entrance to the alley, not five meters from her, its rifle already rising. Her own rifle lay just out of arm’s reach, too far away for a desperate lunge, and the nearest cover was farther away still. The Enforcer would shoot before she reached either. Yet she didn’t feel any fear, just a vague anger for the undignified manner in which she was about to die: on her knees in a dusty square of some forgotten town on a backwater planet.
The black eye of the Enforcer’s rifle stared at her for what seemed an excruciatingly long time before the Surin’s words whispered in her thoughts:
She reached for her rifle and trained it on the Enforcer. “I owe you one, Maii,” she said, preparing to fire.
Her finger froze on the trigger.
The Prodigal Sun Page 16
