by S. J. Madill
44
They advanced along the street, pausing to check behind vehicles or in the boulevard. No words were spoken as they looked upward at the towers that rose around them, smooth glass walls that soared above their heads. Each step kicked up small clouds of grey dust, that swirled away in the breeze sweeping down the street.
At the end of the street they paused, glancing back at one another and ahead into the main thoroughfare. Dillon leaned out for a brief look, then stepped out into the main street.
A broad avenue fifty paces wide, the main street stretched far off into the distance. It was lined on both sides by short, smooth-fronted towers with taller towers behind. The avenue had no boulevard, nothing to interrupt the paved ribbon that cut through the dead city. Along the sidewalks on both sides of the street, in front of the smooth-faced buildings, were regularly-spaced lamp posts: simple cylinders fifty feet tall, half of them still lit and giving off a sky-blue glow.
In the distance, Dillon could see where drifts of grey dust had blown in from other side streets, covering stretches of the road in smooth, flowing dunes. The box-like shapes of abandoned vehicles were parked up and down the street glinting in the thin light.
As the other crew members stepped tentatively into the avenue behind him, Dillon turned his head to look up the street to the right. The street went on for a couple hundred metres before opening into a broad, open square, dominated by a structure of incredible size. A thick, cylindrical black tower soared a hundred storeys into the grey sky, flanked by two thinner towers half its height. It appeared to be made from the same smooth, oily black metal as the cylinder ships, and much of it was illuminated by lights. Tattered remains of twenty-metre-high banners hung partway up the towers, their frayed and torn ends waving in the gentle wind. Though they were faded, the dim outlines of large, stern symbols and characters were still visible.
Saparun’s voice came through their helmets. “I expect that’s the place. The signal is coming from there,” he said, looking down at his datapad.
“What’s all this?” asked Cho, gesturing to the street in front of them.
Between where they stood and the large central square, the avenue was almost completely blocked by a jumble of abandoned vehicles. Hundreds of them, pointed toward the same side of the road, tightly packed together. Some of them had their side doors still open, letting the grey dust collect inside. Small drifts of dust were curled around the vehicles, sculpted by the wind. There appeared to be an opening in the building on the near side of the road, where all the vehicles were facing.
Dillon started walking up the street, toward the abandoned vehicles and the square and the great building beyond. He kept to the sidewalk, very near to the wall. The rest of the team followed, keeping close to the side of the street and the fronts of the buildings.
Stepping through a small drift of dust, the Captain altered his stride to step carefully over a clump of clothing material. The movement of dust disturbed the tangle of metal threads and synthetic fibres, allowing the wind to blow it tumbling away.
He looked up, at the sidewalk in front of him. There was another clump of threads and fibres, and another; the masses of clothing material got closer and closer together until, in front of the open-doored building, the ground in front of the entrance was a solid carpet of glittering metallic material. He sighed, and kept moving up the sidewalk toward the building entrance. Before long, it was impossible to move forward without stepping on matted fibres and threads. Dillon could feel the slight crunch underfoot as he walked across the carpet of tarnished and tangled clothing. Behind him, he saw Cho taking long, awkward steps to avoid treading on anything. Turning back to what he was doing, Dillon stepped next to the building’s open door and carefully peeked inside.
The doors opened into a wide, deep hall, with rows of chairs in the middle of the room and counters around the outside. “A hospital,” he mumbled to himself. Stretcher-like platforms were scattered around the room, several of them on their sides on the floor. Throughout the broad room and into the dark, dust-filled corridor beyond, all the floors and surfaces were covered with a thick layer of the metallic clothing fibres. Where the wind had blown in the door, it had swirled the debris into clumps and drifts, leaving parts of the floor bare.
He heard a soft, strangled noise in his suit’s speakers, and turned to see Cho standing beside him, staring down at the ground, raising his feet as if to avoid stepping on the carpet of empty clothes.
“Cho?” asked the Captain.
The Lieutenant suddenly crouched down, reaching out his gloved hand toward a small, vaguely child-shaped mass of clothing fibres. It fell apart at his touch. He looked up at the Captain, his eyes inside his mask beginning to redden. “All of them,” he gasped. “Children.” He began to stand up, turning to face the Tassali. “You—”
“Lieutenant,” warned Dillon.
Cho spun around to look at him. The Captain held up one finger. “No, Lieutenant. We don’t do that. Ever. We talked about it, back in the wardroom. No one inherits the sins of their ancestors. Right?”
The Lieutenant was about to speak, but stopped himself. He swallowed, nodded once, never taking his eyes from the Captain’s glare. “Aye, sir,” he said quietly. He turned to the Tassali. “Ma’am, I apologise. You had no part in this. I reacted poorly. I need to keep my emotions under control.”
The Palani woman mustered a thin smile in response. “This is a difficult day. You reacted like any normal person would. I do not take offence.”
Cho looked back to Dillon. “I’m good to go, sir.”
“Very well, Lieutenant. Carry on.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Treading carefully on the layer of clothing, Cho started walking up the sidewalk toward the broad square at the end.
Saparun’s voice came through Dillon’s helmet. “Captain, there are a number of low-power signals up ahead. Some of them may be from functioning sensor systems.”
“Okay,” said Dillon. “Did everyone hear that? We’re approaching the headquarters of a civilisation’s military. I expect they had systems to keep aliens like us from doing exactly what we’re planning on doing.”
Amba turned to look at him as they walked. Dillon heard the chirp of a private comm channel opening, followed by her voice. “Doing what we are doing, like walking up to their front door?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Sort of sounds like a dumb idea, now that you put it like that.”
“We do not have the time to be subtle,” she replied.
Lee’s voice broke in. “Sir, may I suggest we pick up the pace? While we’re giving ourselves a tour down here, our fleets are getting ripped to shreds.”
“Point well taken,” said Dillon, starting to jog. “Let’s go.”
-----
They stopped when they came to the end of the street, where it emptied into a wide, open square. They lowered their weapons and looked in wonder at the vast space.
Circular, and half a kilometre across, the entire square was perfectly flat, paved with broad tiles made of the same black sheen-covered metal as the cylinder ships. A sea of abandoned vehicles filled the square as far as they could see. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of the small personal vehicles, haphazardly jammed against each other in all directions. Gently curving drifts of dust and metal filaments were sculpted around the silent vehicles, the dust idly shifting about in the lazy breeze.
Around the square, elegant fifty- and hundred-storey buildings rose above them into the sky. Their smooth surfaces seemed untouched by time, save for the one building to their left that leaned slightly toward the square, several windows missing from its otherwise perfect façade.
Ahead of them, across the square, stood the thick, imposing hulk of a building. Its central tower was buttressed by thin, column-like cylindrical towers, their tattered and ancient banners now more visible. A few symbols were clear, similar to the characters seen inside the cylinder ship days ago.
The dead city made no
sound. Dillon stood quietly, taking in the view around him, suddenly very conscious of the sound of his own breathing. Glancing to his left, he saw Amba looking back at him, the blue of her eyes visible behind her mask. Dillon found himself unwilling to break the silence, so he just nodded once, stepping between two vehicles as he started moving deeper into the square. The rest of the crew, also silent, began to follow him into the ocean of cars, dust and shreds of clothing.
-----
For five minutes they picked their way through the silent jam of dust-covered vehicles, moving as quietly as they could and keeping the massive headquarters building in front of them. Lee, out in front of the group, signalled for a halt. Ahead of them, marking the edge of the sea of cars, was a row of much larger vehicles, parked nose to tail as far as they could see across the square. Beyond, apart from a few small groups of similar large vehicles, the square was flat and bare and empty the rest of the way to the building.
Dillon stopped at the rear corner of one of the large truck-like vehicles. A few feet away to his left, beyond a short gap, Amba was crouched behind the front corner of the next vehicle in the line.
He carefully leaned out, only far enough to peer past the vehicle he hid behind, looking at the square beyond. Large drifts of dust, several metres high, lay across the flat tiles of the square. Beyond the nearest dune, fifty metres away, stood a pair of large vehicles like the ones they crouched behind.
“Huh,” he said, his voice much louder than he expected. “Anyone see anything?”
Lee, crouched behind a truck off to the right, answered carefully. “Nothing interesting, sir…”
“Okay,” said Dillon. “Let’s go.” He stepped out from behind the corner of the vehicle, into the gap. To his left, Amba stepped out with him.
Before he took a second step, he saw brief flashes of light from halfway up the massive building in front of him. Without thinking, he pushed off with his right leg, lunging toward Amba, throwing his arms out to grab her.
A massive blow to the chest abruptly threw him backward. He landed heavily on his back in the dust, his suit making an ominous cracking sound as a weight landed on him, forcing the air from his lungs. A sound like a hailstorm deafened him for a moment, and as his mind swam he heard the patter of small stones and debris landing all around. Lee’s voice was barking brief, profanity-laced orders, which subsided as the pattering debris stopped.
The weight on his chest moved, and when his vision cleared he could see Amba’s face hovering over his, her features inside her mask wearing a grin he’d never seen before. “Feda,” she said, “you are too slow. Are you unhurt?”
He slowly got to his feet, accepting her offered hand. “I’m fine. The Americans have this game they call ‘football’—”
Cho’s voice burst into his helmet. “Sir!”
Dillon pawed at his wrist display, hurriedly checking the channel. “I’m fine,” he said. He looked around, making eye contact with Lee at the next vehicle over. He could see another crewmember at the vehicle beyond that. “So, some automated defences are still working. Everyone okay?”
He saw Lee nod. “Aye sir, all good. Looks like you were kind enough to draw their attention for us, sir. Nice reflexes.”
“Yeah,” said Dillon, brushing dust and debris from his suit. He looked beyond Amba, at the ground between the two vehicles they’d been hiding behind. In the gap between, where they had stepped out, the ground was pockmarked with dozens of closely-spaced gouges, where projectiles had struck the surface of the black tiles. Bits of tile, stone, metal and other debris were scattered all around them.
“How come,” he mused, “my new coffee machine at home craps out after ninety days, but these seven-hundred-year-old guns shoot just fine?”
“Pardon, Captain?” said Lee. “Can’t quite make you out, sir.”
Dillon shook his head. “Never mind that one, Lee. Just muttering.”
“Aye, sir. Your orders?”
The Captain leaned against the vehicle, fighting the urge to peek around the corner. “Well,” he said at last, “we have to go that way. How many guns were there? Three?”
“Yes,” said Saparun’s voice, “three.”
“Okay,” said Dillon. “who among us are the three best shots?”
“Perkins is good,” said Lee. “And Amoroso. I’m not bad, but Perky’s better. Are you a good shot, sir?”
“Nah,” grunted the Captain. “I’m scheduled to re-qualify next month. Wasn’t looking forward to it. Sap? Cho? Tassali?”
“I am mediocre at best,” said Saparun.
“I am proficient, yes,” said Amba quietly. “I have had some training.”
Dillon met her eyes and she grinned; that same grin again. “Okay,” he said. “Perkins, you take the one on the right. Amoroso, the one in the middle. Tassali, the one on the left is yours. See if you can poke your barrels out there without setting the things off.”
“Sir,” said Lee, “we’ll need some way to get the guns to reveal themselves again. I’ll jump between these two trucks, and see if that wakes them up for a moment.”
Cho, out of sight several vehicles away, spoke up. “I’m pulling rank here, Lee. I’m faster on my feet than you are. I’ll do it.”
Dillon saw Lee nod. “Very well, sir.”
The Captain turned back to look at Amba, and saw her carefully leaning past the edge of the vehicle, only the muzzle of her small pistol and half of her helmet poking around the corner.
“Okay,” said the Captain. “Shooters ready?”
Two human and one Palani voice answered immediately. “Ready.”
“Cho, whenever you’re ready. Give a count.”
“Aye aye, sir,” came Cho’s voice. “On three. One, two, three!”
Still leaning his back against the vehicle, Dillon turned his head to look at Amba, whose back was facing him. Far off to his left, he heard the burst of projectiles hitting the ground, like a pail of gravel being splashed across the tiles. In the middle of the noise, he heard Amba say, “There you are,” followed by two soft chirp-like squeaks from her gun. A second later, Dillon could hear two muted explosions.
“The Tassali got hers,” said Lee. “Perkins? Amoroso?”
“Perkins here, sir. Got mine.”
“Sorry sir,” said a disappointed Amoroso. “Mine hit too far right.”
“Damn it,” said Lee, “you’re jerking the trigger again. I keep telling you about that. Captain, another go?”
Dillon nodded, though most of the team couldn’t see it. “Yes. Everyone aim at the last target. Okay Cho, go ahead and taunt it.”
“Aye, sir. One, two, three…”
The sound of incoming projectiles was sporadic and short-lived. “Got it!” cried Perkins.
Dillon stepped over toward Amba, who was still leaning around the back corner of the vehicle. Putting one hand on her shoulder, he stepped behind her, leaning further out into the gap.
Cho’s voice was breathless in their helmets. “Captain! Nothing’s shooting. I think we got them all, sir.”
“Understood.”
Dillon looked past Amba to the square beyond, making a note of the terrain that lay ahead of them. A little over a hundred metres to the front of the building. The square was paved with the usual smooth black tiles, but in many places it was covered in a layer of grey dust. The dust was deep in places, and just ahead of them it formed a drift tall enough for them to hide behind. Beyond that, there was a dozen metres of open ground before a pair of abandoned vehicles, then small patches of open ground from truck to dune to truck again, right up to the building. Apart from the occasional wisp of dust, there was no movement; stillness and silence had returned to the dead city.
“Okay,” said the Captain, trying hard to maintain an even tone though his nerves were in knots. “We’re going to move from cover to cover. Keep your eyes open. Anything that moves, and isn’t us, is probably going to be a problem.”
He took his hand from Amba’s shoulder and steppe
d around her, into the pockmarked gap between the vehicles. He felt her hand on his shoulder, not a touch of affection but a firm grip ready to pull him back, as he stepped forward into the gap. Looking to his right, around the front of the vehicle, he could see along the line of parked trucks, nose to tail across the square, at a distance from the building. He saw Lee looking out from behind the next vehicle over, and the suits of the rest of the crew were visible in gaps further along the line.
“Go,” he said, and took off at a run. The Tassali initially fell behind, but after a dozen more strides they arrived at the dune together, crouching in its shadow, sinking in dust up to their knees.
“No shooting so far,” he said. “That’s good. Moving again.”
He jumped up again, and tried to run over the top of the dune. His feet quickly sunk in up to his waist, slowing him almost to a stop. Beside him, Amba said a word he didn’t recognise as she stumbled and pitched forward, landing on all fours in the dust at the top of the drift.
Up on the ridge line of the dune, Dillon suddenly felt exposed, and panic began to gnaw at him as he quickly stooped and put his hand under Amba’s arm, pulling her up. With his help she shoved herself to her feet and the two of them surged ahead, stumbling down the far side of the drift, leaving a cloud of airborne dust as they hit the bare tiled ground at a run and sprinted to the parked trucks ahead of them. They paused, catching their breath, as Dillon turned to check the progress of the rest of the crew. Lee and Perkins were running for Dillon and Amba’s location, and the others were charging at another group of vehicles some distance away.
“You good?” asked the Captain.
“Aye sir,” said Lee, his voice calm. Behind him, Amoroso nodded.
“Everyone’s okay over here,” said Cho’s voice. Dillon looked over at the other vehicles, and saw one of the suits give a brief wave.
“Excellent,” said Dillon. “We’re halfway there. Everyone see if they can get a better look at the place, and mentally plan your routes from here to the door. Keep moving from cover to cover; I don’t care if everything seems quiet, we might come into range of some different security systems as we get closer to the door. So—”
