by David Bishop
"What was-" Riff began, but his question was cut short by the scream of metal and rockcrete when the H-Wagon crashed outside.
"Sweet Jovus, what's going on out there?" Conchita wondered. Mikell Fields ran down into the basement, pointing behind himself.
"Somebody just took out an H-Wagon! It's crash-landed outside the lobby. No survivors!" he gibbered.
"Terrif," Conchita hissed as she strapped a flame-thrower to her back. "They couldn't maintain discipline, could they? Our fight is with the aliens, not the Judges! Now the whole department will come down on us."
Riff picked up a discarded gas mask and looped it over his head. "What are you going to do?" he asked the Citi-Def leader.
She noticed the hovercam was still watching her. "In every battle there are casualties. But our war with the aliens is just beginning. Let's go!" Conchita ran up the stairs, a gas mask in one hand and a heavily laden carryall in the other. Riff went after her, determined not to lose his place on the front line.
Miller was changing into a fresh uniform when the news about the H-Wagon reached Sector House 87. She ran to the briefing room where all available Judges were being assembled at Caine's request. The Sector Chief was visibly shaken by what had happened but warned against retaliatory action. "As far as we know, the attack on the H-Wagon was an isolated incident by a single individual from the Oswald Mosley Citi-Def. Make no mistake, they will be made to pay for what they have done. But our first priority is to restore law and order in that block. Punishments will be handed after that is achieved, not before or during. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes ma'am!" the gathered Judges yelled back at her.
Caine nodded her approval. "All right, now Dredd's the only helmet still alive on the scene. Others nearby are scrambling to his position. But we need a cohesive strategy to retake control of Oswald Mosley. Miller?"
"Yes ma'am?"
"I want you to form a strike team. Choose two dozen of your colleagues and get suited up. The Citi-Def members have obtained access to the block armoury, so they've got enough weaponry to start a small war. Your job is to stop them. Prepare for the worst. Got it?"
"Yes ma'am!"
"Everyone else, listen up. If this lawlessness spreads, we can kiss this sector goodbye. Miller and her squad will be fighting it at the source. Your job is making sure nobody else takes this incident as a sign that we're fair game or that the Law has forsaken 87. Crush all resistance, be utterly ruthless. At least a dozen Judges have already died tonight. Don't let those deaths be in vain. Show the people of this sector and this city who is in charge. Dismissed!"
Dredd emptied Washington's utility belt to replenish his own supplies of extra ammunition, stumm gas grenades and other equipment. Using a tool from his bike he disabled the palm recognition unit on her Lawgiver so anyone could fire it safely. He then added a fresh clip of ammunition. After switching his motorcycle to voice-activated remote control, Dredd lowered the respirator on his helmet. He rolled three canisters of stumm gas into the lobby of Oswald Mosley, the interior quickly filling with the noxious yellow gas. No doubt the Citi-Def members were wearing masks but the canisters' contents would still obscure the vision of those guarding the entrance.
"Dredd to bike," he snarled into his helmet radio, "Enter the lobby - now!"
The Lawmaster revved its engine and roared into the gas cloud. A hail of bullets blazed past the motorcycle, uselessly passing through the air where its rider should be. But their direction gave a good clue to the location of those inside. After letting his bike draw the enemy out, Dredd ran into lobby, both Lawgivers blazing. His remorseless advance was rewarded with the screams of men and women dying. Dredd was taking no prisoners.
Conchita and Riff had already reached the fiftieth floor when Dredd launched his attack on the lobby. The Citi-Def leader received a brief progress report from Fields, who was guarding the ground floor entrance with half a dozen others.
"Maguire, we're under attack! At least two Judges, maybe more. We can't hold them back, we-arghhhh!" The radio cut to static, then the sound of heavy boots approaching. Someone picked up Field's discarded radio.
"This is Judge Dredd. Who am I speaking to?"
"Conchita Maguire, leader of Oswald Mosley Citi-Def. We have taken control of this block and are ready-"
"Listen to me, Maguire. Stand down your teams or you will all suffer the consequences. A dozen Judges have just been murdered by a rocket attack launched from within this building. The penalty for killing a Judge is death. Surrender now, all of you, and I'll commute that sentence to life in the cubes. Otherwise I shoot to kill. What's your decision?"
"You're just one man, Dredd."
"But dozens of other Judges are on their way here now. You've got two minutes at most before Oswald Mosley is surrounded and your precious block becomes your tomb. I'm giving you one last chance. What do you say?"
Riff could hear Dredd's words, utterly implacable. The Judge would kill them all if necessary. Riff willed Conchita to listen to reason, but she was already shaking her head.
"This is our block now. The Justice Department refused to help rescue my daughter, so Oswald Mosley no longer recognises your authority!"
"Wrong answer," Dredd replied. "You just signed your death warrant."
The radio cut to static. Conchita switched frequencies. "Maguire to Citi-Def members. Judge Dredd has entered the building and is threatening to kill all of us. The solution is simple - kill him before he kills us. Maguire out!"
"Are you sure that's wise?" Riff asked.
Conchita drew a pistol and aimed it at Riff's head. "Are you questioning my judgement, Maltin?"
"No, no! I just-"
"Then you better take this." She threw the handgun to him. "You're going to need it to get out of here alive. Now come on: we're going to the one hundredth floor and nothing is going to stop us!"
Having cleared the lobby, Dredd broke open the Oswald Mosley environmental control box. Inside were all the building's failsafe systems, including secondary power, air conditioning and the anti-suicide nets.
"Dredd to Control, I need the judicial override invoked for air conditioning within Oswald Mosley."
"Roj that. Overriding system now."
"Got it. Dredd out." He was now able to vary the contents of the air being pumped into each con-apt and corridor. After the anarchy of Block Mania more than two decades before, the department had installed concussion gas cylinders in each citi-block. The contents could render every citizen inside a building unconscious for hours. Dredd began flooding each floor with the gas. Those Citi-Def members who kept on their masks would not be affected, but it should keep all the other residents out of the way while the block was subdued.
On the top floor of the building Nyon was arguing with the other alien families: two R'qeen, one from Wolfren and Gruchar the arthropod. The explosions had woken and frightened them all. But when they tried to leave they were dismayed to find themselves barricaded in, trapped on the one hundredth floor by Nyon's conflict with the human residents.
The argument had raged for many minutes and showed no signs of abating. It was only the gas seeping in from the ventilation shaft that stopped it. Gruchar was the first to react, his head lolling forward and his limbs sagging sleepily. Eventually the arthropod rolled over to his back and stayed there, snoring loudly. Nyon realised what was going on.
"Something in the air!" he shouted. "The humans are trying to gas us all! Quickly, use your respiratory bypasses." All R'qeen had the ability to breathe by two distinct methods: taking air into their lungs like humans or by filtering air through the fat tendrils of flesh that hung from the back of their heads. The latter method required much more concentration and was only used in environments where the atmosphere was close to poisonous.
The family of creatures from Wolfren had no such capacity and quickly succumbed to the concussion gas seeping onto the top floor. Nyon returned to his con-apt to find Kasey also out cold, being nursed by Misch and Llec
cas. They had realised what was happening and were breathing via their tendrils. "Who is doing all this?" Misch asked.
It was then that the first wave of bat-gliders began attacking the top floor.
06:00
Billy-Bob had volunteered to lead the bat-glider attack on the one hundredth floor, hoping to redeem himself after the incident in Conchita's con-apt. That slitch might believe he was a redneck who liked to kill first and think later, but he wanted to show the others he was the right person to take her place. Billy-Bob had his doubts Conchita was getting out of this mess alive, especially if he got the chance to take her out amidst all the confusion. Being leader of the 76-100 team wasn't enough anymore; he had higher ambitions.
Bat-gliders were cumbersome pieces of aerial equipment that looked much like they sounded, transforming the person inside the suit into a cross between a bat and a glider. Put one on, jump off a high building and extend your wings to fly - it was that simple in theory. In reality becoming proficient at bat-gliding required years of practice to learn how best to use the up-drifts and air currents around every citi-block. Prospective Citi-Def members were required to take a proficiency test with the equipment before being admitted to the squad.
Billy-Bob's second-in-command Aaron had passed the test with flying colours. The only problem was somebody else had snatched Aaron's specially enlarged bat-glider from the armoury before he arrived. The big man now found himself wedged inside a suit made for someone much smaller. It was all Aaron could do to keep the wings out level.
Once snug inside his own suit, Billy-Bob led the two dozen bat-gliders up to the ninetieth floor which had a special launching area built into a public balcony. The first wave of twelve flung themselves off the balcony, Billy-Bob at the front. They let the warm up-draft catch their wings and send them soaring towards the higher floors. The second wave was Aaron's responsibility but he fell like a stone after leaving the balcony, dropping twenty storeys until he got control of the under-sized suit.
"Aaron, what the hell are you doing?" Billy-Bob demanded. Each suit's flying helmet included a tiny receiver, transmitter and microphone for ease of communication.
"Just... coming," Aaron gasped, his breath stifled by the tortuously tight harness. He didn't have any children and Pressland doubted he would still be able to after this, such was the pressure applied by the crotch straps.
"I'm going in," Billy-Bob announced to the others. "First attack wave, follow me down!" He flipped one wing of his suit up and went into a steep dive, flinging himself towards the windows of the top floor con-apts. To the east the sun was just appearing over the horizon, light rising from beyond the Black Atlantic in the distance. Morning was breaking over Mega-City One.
In the lobby Dredd had used his judicial override to lock down Oswald Mosley's turbolifts, restricting the Citi-Def squad's movements. But solving one problem created another; how was he to gain access to the aliens on the top floor? Getting them out of the building would help defuse the situation, the sooner the better. "Dredd to Tek-Judge Brady, can you hear me?"
"Brady receiving. No answer yet about who supplied the armoury code."
"Acknowledged. I need a fast alternate route to the top of Oswald Mosley. Turbolifts are locked down and the stairs are perfect ambush territory."
"Hold on - I'll call up the building's blueprints." Seconds later Brady offered a solution. "Try the cleaning probe. It's a small platform that scuds up and down a tube at the side of the block, scouring the ventilation shaft. I'm sending a visual to your bike computer now."
Dredd strode to his Lawmaster, activating the small screen positioned behind the handlebars. It showed a tiny circle rising and falling just inside an exterior wall of Oswald Mosley. "Doesn't look very big," Dredd noted.
"It's not," Brady agreed. "Just over half a metre in diameter. You'll have to shed your shoulder pads, probably your elbow pads too to squeeze yourself in. When the probe reaches the top or bottom of the shaft, it pauses for six seconds before moving again. Makes the trip up and down once a minute, travelling at about ten metres a second."
"Sounds like being stuck inside a bullet," Dredd said.
"That's not a bad analogy. You wanted a fast alternate route - you never mentioned comfort."
"Roj that. Dredd to Control: where's my back-up?"
"It'll be there soon," Control replied. "However Sector Chief Caine has imposed a no-fly zone around Oswald Mosley. Says she doesn't want to lose any more H-Wagons to rocket attacks. So your back-up is coming by road, not by air."
"Well, I can't wait any longer. Dredd out!"
Lleccas screamed when the first bat-glider thudded against the floor-to-ceiling window. Billy-Bob used the suction pads on his knees and elbow pads to cling to the exterior, his wings a frightening silhouette in the dawn's early light. With his hands free, Billy-Bob pulled a laser-drill from his belt and began slicing through the glasseen of the window. More and more of the bat-gliders landed beside him, swarming over the outside of the building.
The other R'qeen families ran into the con-apt, looking for Nyon. "You brought this upon us," one of the broodfathers said accusingly. "What do you suggest we do now?"
Nyon looked at his pairling who was still hugging Misch and the human child to herself. "We fight back!" he vowed. 'Lleccas, take all the broodlings into one room and keep them there. We will stop the humans as long as we can."
She nodded hurriedly and began ushering all the offspring away. Nyon followed her, pressing a laser-knife into her hand. "You saw what they did to Keno. If we can't keep them out..."
Lleccas took the laser-knife and kissed her pairling. "I understand."
Dredd pulled open an access hatch to the cleaning probe. Inside was a smooth circular shaft, cool air rushing outwards from it. Dredd leaned in to peer upwards but hastily withdrew his head. The probe was racing down the shaft towards him. It paused briefly in front of the Judge then shot back up again. Brady had been right, the interior was just only large enough to accommodate a human passenger. Dredd hastily began shedding the bulkier elements of his uniform, aware he only had one minute before the probe returned.
Fifty seconds later the air began whistling past Dredd again, indicating the probe was returning. He stepped back two paces and prepared to throw himself into the space. The probe arrived and Dredd flung himself at it, just pulling his arms and legs inside before he was shooting up the inside of the shaft, metal screaming past him in a blur.
Billy-Bob smashed in the section of window he had been cutting, the glasseen dropping into the con-apt's main room. The aliens had retreated to other parts of the top floor but they would soon be found, Billy-Bob was confident of that. He punched the clasp on his chest, letting the wings of his now redundant bat-glider fall away. Billy-Bob drew a bulging Deathbringer machine pistol from the holster at his waist and signalled the others around him. "I'm going in. Follow me!" He lowered both his legs inside the hole and dropped to the floor of the con-apt before scuttling across the main room like a beetle. More and more of the Citi-Def bat-glider squad dropped in behind him.
A shape raced past the front door of the con-apt, a blue blur of movement. Billy-Bob began firing, his Deathbringer spraying the doorway and the wall beyond it with bullets. Others joined in the shooting, happy to have the chance of using their training for once.
"Cease firing!" Billy-Bob shouted. By now nearly a dozen of the Citi-Def had joined him inside. Billy-Bob could see Aaron and the second attack wave circling overhead, awaiting the order to come in.
"Aaron, you and your boys hang back for the minute. We don't know how much resistance we're dealing with here."
"Affirmative," Aaron replied.
Billy-Bob sent half his men up one wall of the con-apt and the rest up the other side. As they reached a doorway two of the Citi-Def would burst in, guns blazing. But the con-apt had been evacuated, with no targets emerging so far. Billy-Bob stood up, relaxing his grip on the Deathbringer. "All right, everybody knows the drill. We
secure the floor room by room, going two by two. Check all the corners and watch each other's backs. I don't want any nasty surprises!"
Billy-Bob stopped as a long drip of mucus fell on the barrel of his weapon. "What the drokk?" He looked up in time to see Nyon and the other R'qeen clinging to the high ceiling of the con-apt, their three-fingered hands adhering to the surface above them, razor-sharp talons growing from each finger like knives. "Sweet baby Jovus..."
Nyon screamed an attack cry and the R'qeen dropped on their prey.
Dredd checked the clips in his two Lawgivers as the probe hurtled upwards, the g-force pulling at his facial muscles. Then the air-piercing noise began dropping pitch as the probe's upwards momentum decreased. When it reached the top, there would be only seconds to get out or die trying. Abruptly the probe stopped, throwing Dredd up into the roof.
Five seconds. He slumped back down to the floor, still trying to get his bearings. Four. Dredd kicked out with his boots, smashing away the exterior access hatch. Three. The probe would slice him in two if he wasn't all the way out when it began descending. Two. Dredd had one leg and one shoulder out, but his twin Lawgivers were caught on the side of the access hatch. One. Wrenching his weapons clear, the Judge threw himself away from the probe. Zero. The probe flung itself downwards again, wind whistling past Dredd as he lay gasping for breath on the floor.
Once the probe was gone, he could hear screaming and gunfire nearby. The Citi-Def must have found its own way up to the top floor. Dredd was too late - the slaughter had already begun. Pulling himself to his feet, Dredd ran towards the sounds of death, both guns ready to fire.
Aaron watched in horror as the aliens attacked his friends, tearing at the Citi-Def members' protective clothing, slicing through metal and flesh. As the first gout of blood coloured the air, Billy-Bob's bellowed command almost overloaded Aaron's helmet radio.
