by Hugo Huesca
Tal-Kader had crossed a line from which there was no coming back.
Whatever the cost, Clarke had to stop those kinetics.
30
Chapter Thirty
Hirsen
Hirsen’s hair smacked across his forehead as the hovercycle dodged the static traffic of Alwinter’s congested avenues. Above, it was as if the entire colony’s security forces chased the gangers to the landing pad, with the occasional enforcer’s black uniform visible among security’s white in the dome rail capsules. Every time he looked, the capsules closed in.
The butt of Lotti’s rifle jerked when she made a tight turn and hit Hirsen in the ribs. He muttered a distracted curse and grabbed the ganger’s waist a bit harder. It would be a sad end for him to die splattered against a food truck.
Lotti glanced back for a second and chuckled. “Weren’t you a big, mean monk ninja, Deli? This must seem like nothing compared to your adventures.”
“Shut up and drive,” Hirsen advised. He wanted to tell her the death-ratio of hovercycles were well beyond any other civilian transportation method in the Edge, but she’d have only laughed harder at that.
Youth. Some things never changed.
Next to them, Nerd almost crashed against a security drone that flew a bit too low in its attempts to herd them to a nearby blockade. The kid’s vehicle sent a shower of sparks flying in every direction as he drifted sideways to avoid the magnetic tacks the drone spread.
“Haven’t they run out of those prim tacks?” Lotti muttered as she shot Nerd a worried glance. Nerd maneuvered next to her hovercycle and resumed formation with the other gangers, but his own craft sagged a bit.
“Yes,” Hirsen said, yelling to make himself heard over the noise of the engine. “But new capsules keep joining the chase.”
“Spectacular,” Lotti said.
A holo next to the control panel showed the optimal route to the landing pad, but Hirsen and Lotti ignored it. The optimal route was the one AlSec hoped they’d take. The gangers had to blaze their own path without the assistance of Dione’s GPS systems.
Lotti spearheaded a mad dash through a crowded mall plaza.
“Fuck no!” Hirsen barely had time to brace himself when the ganger queen, laughing like a maniac, drove the hovercycle through a clothing store’s front window. The glass exploded in a million pieces, all over his reg-suit and hair. Specks of blood hit his face, coming from Lotti’s exposed arms, now covered in scratches.
The ganger drove the hovercycle through Women’s Winter Season department and used her vehicle’s exhaust port to burn the cloned seal coats to a crisp.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Lotti announced. A nearby flock of makeup-caked ladies shrieked and ran as the gangers stampeded through the sacred domain—now desecrated.
“The Edge’s fucking doomed,” Hirsen whispered.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing! Dear Reiner, careful with that Pomerania!”
Lotti dodged the terrified dog, which was recovered by its equally terrified owner seconds after the gangers’ passing.
“So that’s what they’re called. You know, I’ve always thought dog reg-suits looked saccharine. Fucking rich people, am I right?”
They left the plaza by using a supply truck as an improvised ramp. At that point, the rail security capsules missed their trail, but other pursuers kept joining the chase at every passing moment.
Hirsen’s landing pad, which had been Krieger’s beforehand, could be accessed from the city’s maintenance tunnels hidden near the automated factories at one end of the city.
“It’s like they know where we’re headed,” Lotti commented as she gestured at a new batch of rail capsules.
“Hands on the wheel, please,” said Hirsen. He didn’t bother to confirm or deny Lotti’s suspicions, but as the gangers approached the tunnels, it was true that the number of pursuers rose.
A ganger’s hovercycle exploded when it was swarmed by tacks waiting for them at the turn of a corner. Lotti roared in rage and surprise as the flames hid the corpse from her sight. There was no time to mourn or search revenge, though, because sniper fire peppered the road and the walls of the nearby buildings. Pedestrians turned and ran at the sudden firefight, and drivers abandoned their cars to seek refuge.
“Just keep going, you’ll never hit them!” Hirsen exclaimed when Lotti and several gangers tried to shoot the snipers hidden in the rooftops without stopping to aim.
“They’re killing us!” Lotti snapped back. Another ganger fell, this one close to Lotti’s spot in the formation.
“We’re almost there!”
A drone snapped past Hirsen’s shoulders and floated a meter above the ground, its taser aimed at Lotti. Hirsen drew his gun and shot him down.
“You almost deafened me!” Lotti complained as they passed near the drone’s wreckage.
“Be thankful. Hundreds of years ago, gunshots would’ve ruptured your ear drums,” Hirsen said. “They were much louder back then.”
“I don’t give a proper damn what happened hundreds of years ago, don’t shoot next to my ear again or I’ll wear your balls as earrings!”
So this is why I never had any children. Good call with the sterilization, Newgen. I forgive you for that one.
“We’re here,” said Hirsen. He pointed at a newly visible blockade about five hundred meters away. AlSec and the enforcers had poured in the effort for this one, almost directly cutting the gangers from the tunnels.
“Stupendous. How are we supposed to get past that?” Lotti muttered. She gestured at her gangers to take a nearby corner so they could regroup without giving their pursuers time to catch up with them.
“They’re defending the landing pad,” Hirsen explained. “We can’t bypass them, Lotti. We have to fight.”
They left the hovercraft lying against a wall. Nerd jumped off of his and rushed to Lotti.
“Boss, what are we doing? The capsules are only minutes away!”
“The landing pad’s access is behind the blockade,” Hirsen explained.
“So you say,” Lotti told him, eyes narrowed.
“Either you believe me, or you surrender to the enforcers,” said Hirsen. Without waiting for an answer, he jogged his way to the corner of the street and took a peek at what they faced.
At least three dozen security, ten enforcers. Five patrols blocking the street and serving as improvised cover. Two automated turrets, a flock of drones hovering over it all, like vultures waiting for the feast after the carnage.
They outnumbered the gangers two-to-one, and had better weapons, better armor, and better training.
“Shit,” said Nerd, who had scurried next to Hirsen and reached his same conclusion. “We’re going to die.”
“Like hell we will,” said Lotti. “Everyone, hop on again, we’ll look for another way in.”
“There is none!” Hirsen said. “I know the zone, Lotti. The pad is in enforcer turf, that’s why they’re waiting for us here.”
Major Strauze probably waited behind one of those mirrored helmets.
“You—!” Lotti said, eyes blazing, lips twitching with fear and fury.
“Damn it all, Isabella, I know it’s shitty, but did you think escaping out of Dione was going to be easy?”
She closed her fists and looked away. Hirsen knew she was looking for a third option, one that didn’t involve getting torn to shreds by a hail of bullets.
Hirsen knew of one solution. But he couldn’t say it aloud, or she’d definitely kill him. The gangers had to reach it on their own.
Perhaps with a bit of gentle nudging in the right direction.
“There’s an alleyway near the back of this street that brings us to a side of the blockade. It’s a kill-zone. If we all get through it, the enforcers will mow us down without issue. If they weren’t paying attention, though, a couple of us could use it to set up a flank.”
“A flank with only two people? It’ll do jack to change the result,” sai
d Lotti.
Hirsen shared a look with Nerd, making sure that Lotti didn’t see it.
“Maybe,” Hirsen told Nerd, quietly, so no one else heard, “the distraction could let someone escape. Someone you care about.”
Nerd blinked, soaking up the meaning of the agent’s words. Sirens roared in the distance, the noise growing with every second.
“Is there really a ship?” Nerd asked.
“Yes,” Hirsen said. “I’ve no intention of dying here.”
“You’ll get her to the EIF.”
“Yes. They’ll protect her. More than that. She’s like royalty. She’ll be safe with them.” If they’re still alive. Whatever had been the result of Clarke’s fight with the Defense Fleet, Hirsen wouldn’t know the result until he tried to contact the EIF. The news weren’t saying anything, and they wouldn’t until some higher-up wrote their piece for them.
“So, it’s true? She really is Isabella Reiner. She should be older, right?”
“I’m still figuring that one out.” Hirsen glanced at the gangers, many of which had taken to trading potshots with the blockade with little avail. “You’ll have to convince them about her identity, though. Make them fight for her. No way I can get her to the ship without a big enough distraction. And, to be honest…there’s not enough space inside.”
“Damn, and you never told us?” Nerd laughed bitterly. “That’s devious of you, Delagarza…No, it’s Hirsen, right? You’d have made for a terrible ganger, I think. No sense of loyalty at all. Well, let me tell you something about gangers, mister space ninja. We do know what loyalty is. There’s no need to convince us to die for Isabella Reiner. We’d die for our Boss any day.”
Hirsen smiled and stepped back. His job was done.
Lotti stopped firing at the blockade. “What are you two talking about?”
Without answering her, Nerd reached the gangers and gestured to claim their attention. “Listen, my boys! Our regular friend Delagarza can get our Boss past the blockade. They’ll need a distraction, though, a prim and proper ruckus, I say! AlSec’s hot on our asses and we’ll be spit-roasted between them and the enforcers anyway, so I say we go out there and buy our Boss some space!”
That earned the ganger’s attention.
“Nerd, shut up!” Lotti said, paling as she realized her friend’s plan.
“We’ll get slaughtered out there,” a ganger pointed out. It didn’t deter Nerd one bit.
“Haven’t you heard, boys and girls? The entire Edge will pay attention to what happens today. They’ll see our humble selves, making a grandiose last stand against tyranny or whatever the fuck! They’re heroes, those regular boys and girls, they’ll say! What brave, loyal warriors, those gangers! What colorful fighting spirit—let’s make movies about them! We’ll make it spectacular, boys and girls, we’ll give them something to remember!”
All the gangers surrounded Lotti and Nerd now, their gazes shifting between the two of them. The sirens’ wail was almost deafening now.
“Hell yes,” someone said. “Let’s do it, Nerd, you’ve got style!”
“Stop talking bull,” Lotti whispered. “I won’t allow it. If you jump out there, I’ll fight next to you all, you proper assholes! Haven’t you learned anything! I taught you how to win and survive, not how to get killed in stupid gestures!”
Nerd rejected her words. “Circumstances have changed. You see, Boss, turns out you’re a space princess now,” he looked at all the gangers in the eyes. “You know what that makes of your humble boys and girls?”
Smiles spread as the gangers slowly caught his meaning.
“It makes us your goddamn knights,” Nerd said.
By all accounts, the gangers were street prowlers, thieves and murderers, hustlers and general zeroes to the right of the dot of society’s equation. Hirsen watched Nerd’s words transform them, though. They found something that eluded Hirsen. A secret meaning that gave even people like them an air of nobility. Their backs straightened, their faces brightened, arms and rifles rose as a defiant roar spread among them.
Lotti, in the middle of it all, looked pale and defeated as the ganger’s battlecry drowned her pleas.
On the rooftops, snipers took aim and were repelled by a veritable storm of ganger’s fire. The gangers were motivated enough to try to board the Mississippi for Lotti had they needed to. Maybe they’d have succeeded.
Nerd and Lotti exchanged brief words that Hirsen couldn’t hear. Lotti shook her head. Nerd grinned, told her something else. He stepped away from his Boss and joined the roar. “Let’s do our thing! Lotti’s knights…Charge!”
Hovercycles rushed at the blockade at full speed, Mohawks swaying in the wind, rifles spouting full-auto sprays that hit everywhere but their intended target.
The roaring charge of Lotti’s knights took the enforcers by surprise. From their perspective, it must’ve been like staring down a stampede, all guns and noise and battlecries, the gangers throwing everything they had in their mad dash.
Enforcers and security officers fell everywhere, wounded or dying, with drones bursting in flames above them and raining fire on their heads.
Nerd led the charge, first among many, dual-wielding a rifle and an automatic pistol, both hitting absolutely nothing, but making one hell of a flashy scene.
The knights almost made it. That was the worst of it. Enforcers crumbled, men and women threw themselves to the floor and covered their heads. Shock and awe was the name of it, and Lotti’s knights knew a thing or two about those. Their hovercycles reached halfway to the blockade, and at that distance, even their crappy aim got lucky eventually, and they carried plenty of cheap, plastic bullets.
Then the automated turrets started firing.
Nerd was the first to fall. His chest crumpled and burst when a bullet of a ridiculously high caliber hit him, spewing blood and bone at his brothers and sisters around him. He died with defiance in his face, having died so fast he probably didn’t realize it. His hovercycle clashed against another one and brought the ganger down with it.
The ganger charge broke as charges tend to do when confronted by accurate return fire. Automated turrets cared not a bit about shock and awe, and neither did drones. The miniature helicopters darted and danced among wounded gangers, shooting their tasers before the kids could defend themselves, leaving them easy prey for the enforcers’ counterattack.
And the enforcers, indeed, counterattacked. Short, accurate bursts of rifle fire from behind the cover of the armored patrols cut a bloody swath among the gangers, mixing dark red with neon purple, pink, and green.
The hovercycles did almost as much damage as the turrets when the gangers stumbled over the rides of their fallen comrades. Many lost balance, crashed, and once on the floor, the enforcers made short work of them, while leaving their spastic hovercycles to bring down other gangers.
Lotti stifled a roar as her knights died, one after the other. She tried to go to them, to die with them, killing as many enforcers as they could.
Hirsen caught her, pushed her rifle away, covered her mouth with his palm. She bit at him, kicked, spat, tried to claw his eyes out.
“Stop it,” Hirsen hissed. “If you die now, their deaths are for nothing.”
The ganger squirmed against his arm and shook herself free. Above their heads, the enforcers kept shooting, more carefully now that they had less targets.
“You knew this would happen,” Lotti whispered. If looks could kill, Hirsen’s face would’ve burned as if bathed in napalm and lighted. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? To save your own ass. You told him. I heard you. You told him, motherfucker, and I’ll kill you for that. I—”
“Try to do it later, OK?” Hirsen whispered back. “I’m busy right now. And I still have to pilot the ship, remember?”
“You—”
“Move!” Hirsen said as he ushered her forward. The enforcers’ attention would never be as dispersed as it was now.
Together, ganger and agent bypassed the enemy lin
es and entered the tunnels.
Both of them knew the maintenance tunnels well. They knew the hiding spots, the blind corners, the basic layout that Alwinter’s entrails shared. And the tunnels were lightly defended, with none of the enforcers and few of AlSec wanting to miss on the action happening outside.
“It’s a party for them,” Lotti muttered. The gunshots traveled down the compact corridors no matter how far in they got. “My family is dying and those enforcers act like they’re playing a videogame. They must be keeping score.”
“Let them think whatever they want,” said Hirsen. “You want revenge? Survive. You can come back later, when you own the Edge, and feed them all to a firing squad.”
“Own the Edge?” Lotti’s eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying. Hirsen doubted she could—vat-grown eyes didn’t mesh well with natural tear ducts.
“Just a figure of speech. Keep moving.”
The tiny receiving room seemed empty, the airlock unguarded. Behind its sealed hatch, the prehensile tube extended all the way to Dione’s surface, where the enforcers’ unregistered corvette waited for Hirsen to claim.
The sweet relief of triumph spread across Hirsen’s brain, a rush of endorphins courtesy of his pituitary gland. For so long he had been trapped on Dione, in more than one sense of the word. All for the angry, murderous ganger next to him. Almost died, several times, most of those while the construct had been in control. His stomach tingled as he remembered the pain of the bullets.
Hirsen could understand, now, the suicidal tiredness that had taken Delagarza in the end. It wasn’t a physical sensation, but an almost spiritual one. They had been through so much, the two of them, and the constant paranoia of a long deployment had taken its toll on Hirsen’s mind.
He wanted nothing more than to take a hitch on one of those EIF destroyers. To get as far away from Dione as possible. Perhaps he’d take a vacation—the gods knew he’d earned one. Maybe on Parmenides Station. A month of gambling and whores could do wonders for one’s soul.
