“Two levels down is the one we want,” Haid said. “Do you think the cables will take your weight?”
Roche shrugged. “We’ll soon find out.”
The four of them slithered down the shaft, Cane more speedily than the others. When they reached the right floor, he had already levered the doors open and was waiting to help them through. Roche thudded with relief onto the solid floor. Despite the strength of the suit’s grip, she had experienced a few moments of apprehension on the way down.
The smoke was thicker on the twenty-third floor, and smelled strongly of burnt insulation. The suit lights struggled to penetrate the gloom, and she eventually gave up looking for the most part, relying on hearing to tell if there was anyone ahead. As yet, however, they had encountered no one in the ruins.
“Almost too quiet,” said Emmerik, echoing her thoughts.
“No sign of anyone at all,” Haid agreed.
“I can hear people,” said Cane. “Not close, though.”
“This level?” said Haid.
“Perhaps.” Cane closed his eyes and cocked his head slightly. “It’s hard to tell.”
Haid nodded. “Okay. You and Emmerik wait here. Roche, come with me.”
Roche obeyed, following the rebel leader through the shadows, her chest lights burning circles into his back. He led them down the corridor a short way, then turned left. Fifty meters farther, they came to a locked door.
“Good,” he muttered, fumbling with the manual lock. “It hasn’t been disturbed.”
“What hasn’t?”
“Munitions dump.” He glanced over his shoulder, his artificial iris constricting as Roche’s lights stabbed at him. “We need everything we can get to tackle the landing field. Seeing as we’re already down here...”
The door opened with a click, and Haid waved her inside. The small room contained a single crate, from which he handed her a number of small items. Stowing them carefully in the suit’s chest and thigh compartments, she mentally recorded each item: grenades, mortars, ammunition for the projectile rifles, gas cylinders, pistols, power packs, pressure mines...
When the suit was full, Haid stowed an armful in his own clothes and led her out of the room.
“Back doors and arms caches,” she said as they began to walk back the way they had come. “Has anybody ever told you people that you’re paranoid?”
“You have to be,” he replied. “An underground movement is always under threat—especially one as established as our own. Long-term survival is inevitably more important than short-term gains. What we lost in the past by diverting arms to secret caches is more than compensated for by the possibility that we might survive now.”
Roche smiled to herself, remembering her Tactics teacher at college, many years ago, whose words Haid had unknowingly echoed: “Show your true face to your enemy, and expect to have it slapped. Give everything you’ve got, and expect it to be taken away from you. Never feel so superior, or inferior, that you can afford to relinquish your most valuable weapon: deceit. A war is won only when at least one of the parties loses the ability to lie...”
The younger Roche had always thought her teacher slightly cynical. Now she had to admit that his point was sound, in practice.
Cane and Emmerik were where they had left them. As one, they headed along the corridor toward the headquarters’ back door—the place where Sabra had died. Halfway there, Roche remembered the final expression on Sabra’s face. The bewildered horror and despair in the woman’s eyes, as victory had been suddenly turned to defeat, was a potent reminder that nothing should be taken for granted.
Part of the roof had collapsed near the end of the corridor. As they climbed over the obstacle, Cane announced that he could hear fighting up ahead.
“Gunshots, energy weapons—” He peered forward through the gloom, as though willing the smoke to part. “And voices.”
Roche could hear nothing. “How many?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Quietly, then,” said Haid, shrugging his rifle into a more comfortable position. “Lead the way, Cane. Roche, turn your lights off.”
They continued along their way with Roche at the rear. Presently, she too heard the sounds Cane had reported: the occasional sizzle of energy weapons, the angry crack of rifles.
When they reached the end of the corridor and entered the maze of corridors, their progress became even more cautious.
“I estimate ten Enforcers,” Cane whispered over his shoulder to Haid. “Maybe the same number of your people defending the exit. The Enforcers lie between us and the others.”
“With their backs to us,” the rebel leader finished.
They came to a halt near a corner. Flashes of light issued from the branching corridor every time an energy weapon discharged. Explosions echoed through the confined space, almost painfully loud.
“Lights back on, Roche,” said Haid, stepping aside. “They’ll think you’re one of them long enough for us to get close.”
Roche activated the suit’s chest lights and strode forward. The three men waited a moment, then followed in her shadow. As she turned the corner, she quickly surveyed the scene.
Seven armored Enforcers filled the crowded corridor, using debris for shelter where it was available. Beyond them, across a short section of no-man’s-land, a rough blockade protected the entrance to the room where Sabra had died. As Roche watched, a projectile rifle was fired from behind the blockade, sending ricochets sparking along the walls. She automatically ducked before regaining her composure and moving on.
Barely had she taken five steps when the Enforcement squad noticed her. Recognizing her armor as one of their own, they turned back to the fighting. She swallowed, and raised her rifle.
Before she could fire, Cane rushed past. Snatching a percussion rifle from the hands of the nearest Enforcer, he turned it on the armor, blowing holes in the tough ceramic and killing the person inside instantly. The rest of the squad, belatedly realizing that they were being attacked from behind, scrambled for cover.
The corridor quickly dissolved into chaos. A hail of bullets and energy filled the air. Silhouetted against the firestorm were the combat suits, powerful shadows jerking from side to side, trying to locate targets in the mess of motion.
Roche’s rifle kicked in her hands. A lucky shot shattered an Enforcer’s visor. Pressing the advantage, she rammed the butt through the starred plastic. Screaming, the Enforcer dropped his percussion rifle, and Roche stooped to pick it up. Firing quick bursts, she backed away. Blinded, the Enforcer staggered forward with his arms outstretched until the suit failed completely and he collapsed spread-eagled to the ground.
Emmerik heaved the suit into a sitting position and used its solid bulk as a shield. A second Enforcer fell under Roche’s fire, and a third. Cane dodged in front of her, firing a stolen rifle at its owner. Haid joined Emmerik, and together they picked off the remaining Enforcers.
Within moments, the skirmish was over. Haid climbed over the ruined suits to meet his fellow rebels behind the blockade, trailing a streamer of blood from a flesh wound in his left leg. Roche and Cane gathered the undamaged weapons from the bodies and did the same. Emmerik waited until they were through before following.
“Emmerik!”
A battle-worn Neva pressed forward to take the Mbatan by the arm. Her face was grimy and blackened, but otherwise she seemed none the worse for wear.
“We made it.” Haid held a cloth to staunch the flow from his leg.
“Not a moment too soon,” she said. “Maii told us to wait, but I don’t know how much longer we could have held them off.”
“That you did for long enough is all that matters.” The rebel leader urged Roche forward. Opening one of the suit’s compartments, he retrieved a grenade and primed it. “You go with the others. I’ll catch up with you in a moment.”
Neva led the way through the doorway with the damaged sign above it. Another flight of stairs greeted them, this one easily wide enough for the
suit and lit by baleful red emergency lights.
Roche performed a quick head count: herself, Cane, Emmerik, Neva and a half dozen surviving rebels. Eleven people, four of them with Enforcement percussion rifles, only one with combat armor.
“Are we all that made it out?” she asked Neva.
Neva shook her head. “I sent about twenty ahead. There may be more who came before us, too. The exit was open when we reached it.”
Roche nodded. The number was still small, but not as bad as it had seemed at first. Enforcement had been looking for her, after all, and she didn’t want a massacre on her conscience.
A muffled detonation from the base of the stairwell made her ears pop. That was followed by the sound of falling masonry. Moments later, Haid limped to join them, shaking dust from his clothes.
“The exit is blocked,” he said, grimacing. “If anyone’s left down there, they’ll have to take the subway out.”
Neva put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Your leg...?”
“Is fine,” he said, looking around at the party. “Am I the only one wounded?”
“No.” Her gaze shifted to Emmerik, who nodded, then to Roche. “But we’ve made it this far. That’s the main thing.”
Emmerik grunted—a sound that might have been laughter. “For now,” he said.
* * *
The rebels’ back door opened into a disused building in an abandoned lane. Sun and Soul burned brightly after the darkness below ground, and Roche took a moment to adjust. The air was dry and dusty, as always, and a light wind cast short-lived eddies about her legs. From the southeast, in the general direction of the main entrance to the subterranean headquarters, the air carried the scent of smoke.
The city was quiet, however: no gunfire, no buzz of aircraft. Just the occasional bleating of pack animals and the throaty roar of poorly tuned chemical engines. Life went on, even in the middle of a revolution.
“We’ll need a truck,” said Haid through gritted teeth. His wounded leg had pained him toward the end of the journey up the stairwell; while Emmerik carefully bound it to staunch the flow of blood, he concentrated on their ongoing mission. “Maii and Veden should be waiting for us not far from here, but there’s no way we’ll be able to walk into the landing field. At the very least we’ll have to ram the gates, and—”
“If something goes wrong on the way in, we’ll be in trouble,” said Roche, remembering the plans of the landing field she had studied in her cell. “The distance from the Enforcement compound to the administration and MiCom buildings is roughly one hundred meters. Even at a run, we’ll be sitting ducks.”
One of the rebels, a woman named Jytte, said, “We’re attacking the landing field?”
“No one is under any obligation.” Haid limped forward, testing his weight on the leg. “You don’t have to come along if you don’t want to.”
Jytte shook her head uncertainly. “It’s just that—I mean, the landing field...?”
“It’s not as stupid as it sounds,” said Haid. “Enforcement’s distracted, the Dato landing party is busy, and we have the element of surprise. Yes, we’re outnumbered, but we’ll always be outnumbered. It doesn’t really matter. We either succeed with what we’ve got, or we die trying. It’s as simple as that.”
“Exactly,” said Roche, “but we do need a vehicle of some description.”
Haid nodded. “We used to keep a reserve vehicle near here, but it’s unfueled and therefore useless.” The rebel leader glanced around the survivors, one by one. “Now’s the time to call in favors, if you have any due.”
No one spoke immediately.
Then, from Cane: “What about a flyer? If we could commandeer one—”
“No.” Haid quickly dismissed the idea. “We don’t want to tip them off too soon.”
“I can help.” Emmerik stood up unexpectedly. “There’s an old solar-powered van we use sometimes to ferry equipment into the desert.”
A short and uneasy silence followed as Haid glanced from the Mbatan to Neva. “I thought I was supposed to know about things like this.”
“You are, but...” The Mbatan shuffled from foot to foot in discomfort. “It’s just that some disagreed. Not me personally,” he added quickly. “But some of those outside the city—”
“The wild ones,” said Neva evenly. “They see us as city people, Ameidio, and what trust we gained from them came grudgingly. But you they’ve always been suspicious of.”
Haid’s apparent hurt dissolved after a moment and became a grudging smile. “You indies will never change, will you?” he said. “So where is this van?”
“Not far.” Emmerik and Neva exchanged glances briefly; then the woman turned back to the rebel leader. “I’ll show you.”
“Fine,” said the Mbatan. “And I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point. I have to organize the...” He hesitated. “The other matter we discussed.”
Haid nodded. “Will an hour be long enough?”
“It should be.” Emmerik shouldered his percussion rifle in a perfunctory salute, then headed off along the alley.
“What other matter?” Roche asked, sotto voce.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Haid. “You’ll know when it happens—if it happens at all, that is. And that’s up to the indies.” Something in his eyes revealed that he was more deeply concerned about the indigenes’ mistrust of him than he showed, and Roche sympathized: for all his work over the last few years, the rebel organization remained at heart divided. And wherever division existed, weaknesses could form. Sabra’s death had clearly proven that.
She changed the subject. “What about arms? Any more caches up here?”
“None, I’m afraid.” He looked pointedly away, as though she had inadvertently touched upon another sore point. To the group as a whole, he said, “Let’s go, people! The sooner we get out of here, the safer we’ll be.” Then, as an aside to Roche, he added, “Relatively speaking, of course.”
* * *
The rendezvous point was empty when they arrived. Haid steered the ancient van to an abrupt halt in a disused lot where it wouldn’t attract attention and turned to the five people sitting in the back. Cane, Roche, Neva, and the two rebels faced him in unison.
“We’ll wait a while,” he said. “The sight of us approaching might have been enough to send them to ground.”
Roche thought that was a distinct possibility. The van, with its ripped vanes and irritating whine, was enough to make her nervous. Only a disproportionately solid construction and regular, if roughshod, maintenance had kept it operating this long; it looked as though anything more substantial than a strong gust of wind might send it to pieces. The movement of her suit alone was enough to make it shudder.
Still, the van had survived the desert for decades without failing. And as Haid had said, they had to make do with what little they had. It wasn’t too late to turn back, but the number of alternative courses of action open to them was dismayingly small.
Sure enough, minutes after the van had come to a halt, they heard a gentle rapping at the rear panel.
Neva leaned across to open the door. “We were beginning to wonder if you’d made it.”
The fact that he was even conscious—given his previously comatose condition, and the lack of medical resources available to the rebels—amazed Roche. And, much to her surprise, she realized that she was relieved.
As though he could sense her staring at him, he opened his eyes and nodded in recognition.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Roche,” he said with disdain—although something in his eyes su
ggested to Roche that his contempt was superficial. “It looks like I’ll be pulling through, after all.”
“No, I—” Roche started in embarrassment, wondering when her feelings for the Eckandi had changed.
Veden didn’t give her a chance to consider. “I hear you’ve been taking good care of Maii,” he said.
“Trying to,” she replied, conscious of the others watching her. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” Veden touched the bandage lightly with one hand, and closed his eyes again. “And a little ill, to be honest,” he said. “So if you’ll excuse me, I need to rest.”
Embarrassed by his weakness, Roche turned away, focusing her attention instead upon Maii’s account of their escape.
“Where?” asked Haid sharply.
“Useless,” Haid muttered. “Still, it’s another diversion.”
“Followed by a witch hunt tomorrow, no doubt.” The rebel leader shook his head. “I’m all for long-term survival, but squatting down and waiting to be killed is something else entirely. As I see it, the only way out is to attack now, before we have nothing left to attack with. That seems obvious to me. Or have I lost it?” The last was directed to Neva, who smiled reassuringly.
The Prodigal Sun Page 27
