Denise halted ten meters from the house. Eren appeared from an intersection opposite. He gave her a small wave.
"Cover the other side," she told him. "A Skin can walk through these walls like they're paper."
"Right." Eren jogged away to the back of the house.
Denise took the electron cluster pistol from her bag. The little unit melded snugly into her palm, giving her an aim alignment that was pure instinct.
More carbine fire sounded as Jacintha and Gangel started a running firefight five streets away. Ragged holes were punched clean through a house twenty meters behind Denise. Jacintha and Gangel shot back with e-c barbs. Sheets of flame roared into the sky as composite walls ignited.
"Ready," Eren said.
Denise swung a leg over the bike and stood facing the front door as it swung about in the slight gusts. This is wrong, she thought, it's too easy. Odel is a properly trained soldier. He won't allow himself to be cornered like this. She looked up at the house's roof.
The solar collector panels were hot from the sun. Infrared was useless. Then she saw scuff marks in the patina of ocher dust.
Denise spun around, her e-c pistol coming up. She was firing as she turned. Tiny sparks of light spurted out of the nozzle, twinkling as they shot away into the sky. Then one of them struck the Skin lying prone on the roof. It punched the bulky suit a couple of meters across the smooth solar collectors, ripping off a segment of the carapace. Two more e-c pulses hit, tearing the Skin apart.
Eren came round the side of the building. "Denise? What happened?"
"He jumped to another house. It was an ambush."
"Hell. Well done."
Carbine fire sounded again. Depleted-uranium rounds tore into the house, shredding huge sections of the paneling. A foundation pier burst apart in a wicked shrapnel cloud of concrete chips. Denise and Eren hit the ground together.
"Crap, I hate those carbines," Eren shouted as he lifted his head.
Denise risked looking back to where Amersy had fired from. "They never used depleted-uranium down in Memu Bay."
Eren grunted. "I wonder why."
Another house ignited from a deluge of e-c barbs. Carbine fire crackled again; buildings shivered and rocked as the rounds chopped through.
"Gangel, he's on your left," Jacintha cried. "Denise, we could use some help."
"On our way."
Eren gave her a reluctant grimace and started running. Denise paced him as they closed on her sister's position.
"He's under a house," Gangel said. "Damn, moving again."
A stream of e-c barbs poured out of an intersection ahead of Denise. She flinched. Carbine fire answered. Denise hit the ground again. Twenty meters away, a solar collector roof ruptured; black, glittering fragments rained down on the street.
"What was he shooting at?" Jacintha asked.
"Who cares?" Gangel said. "He can't have much ammunition left, not at this rate."
More depleted-uranium hammered through five houses. The last one sagged and slowly collapsed inward as its piers disintegrated. Denise had been ready to run forward again. Instead she buried her head in the ground.
"Shit!" Jacintha exclaimed. "He's got us pinned down."
"This is seriously crap tactics," Eren said in alarm. "If Newton comes up behind us, we're dead."
"They can't communicate," Denise told him. She wished she had more confidence. The platoon had worked together for years, decades even. And they were trained soldiers. If anybody could manage without a direct link, it would be Newton and Amersy.
The carbine fired. Her link with the Scarret went dead. "Shit!" She was aware of Jacintha hurrying forward again. Gangel started sprinting from the opposite direction. They were pouring e-c barbs into the house where Amersy was hidden. Denise began to race forward, holding her e-c pistol ahead, sending out a constant barrage of barbs. The house was an inferno, huge, violent flames roaring almost horizontally out of the shattered windows. Its solar collector roof was twisting and flexing as the heat lashed at it. Then flames were stabbing victoriously through the gullies as it juddered and began to sink down.
Another burst of carbine fire came from inside. Even as she flinched down yet again, Denise marveled at how the corporal could keep so cool in this situation. Skin suits might be heat resistant, but to stand at the heart of an inferno surrounded by enemies and still maintain a devastating fire pattern was enviable.
One of the walls collapsed amid a huge fireball. A Skin tumbled through the gap. It was hit by e-c barbs from three directions, bursting apart.
Denise squinted against the glare and fierce heat. There was something badly wrong about the way the Skin had ruptured. Jacintha must have thought the same. She was approaching the remnants, cautious yet urgent, covering it with her pistol.
The solar collector roof finally fell to the floor, throwing out a cascade of sparks. Jacintha raised one hand to ward them off. She bent over the tattered Skin. "Shit!" She was looking around wildly.
"What?" Denise asked. She was closing in, along with Gangel and Eren.
"It's empty. The bastard wasn't in it!"
Denise was suddenly swinging round, her heart thudding in fright as she attempted to cover half the town with her pistol.
Amersy crouched behind a foundation pier, watching intently as the young woman and her companion started running toward the firefight. His Skin AS was firing the carbine in random bursts, maintaining a suppressing-fire pattern. The two ambushers flung themselves flat. He grinned as he scuttled over to the shiny Scarret. Damn dumb amateurs, weren't even checking their asses. He used a power blade to slice through the dashboard, then waited until another carbine burst sounded before jabbing the tip straight into the electronics. He cut through the neurotronic pearls and fiberoptics that were connected to the compensators and brakes. Without AS management (or whatever program was loaded in) the bike would be sluggish. But he could accelerate, brake and steer manually. It was enough to get him back to Memu Bay. That would have to do.
He slung a leg over the saddle and twisted the throttle.
Five houses were on fire around the empty Skin suit, their composite panels hissing and melting as flames licked around them, exposing the steel skeleton. Thick black smoke billowed high into the plateau's calm air.
Still watching the empty streets, Denise went over and hugged her big sister. "I missed you," she whispered.
"We're together now. Everything will be all right"
"I hope so. We're making a complete mess of this."
"He's naked and alone, he won't get far."
"On my bike, he'll get clean away." She couldn't believe she'd been so stupid.
"It doesn't make any difference. He's not a part of Z-B anymore. They won't be sending in the cavalry. Not on this one."
"Okay. That just leaves us with Newton to deal with."
"And the other one."
Denise gave her a surprised look. "What other one?"
"There were four of them in the lead jeep. One of them was in normal clothes."
"Did you see who it was? There's nobody in the platoon left."
"I don't know."
"It could be our traitor."
Jacintha stroked Denise's cheek. "I don't think there is one."
"There has to be! Newton has Prime."
"Our dragon isn't unique," Jacintha chided gently.
"But..."
"Come on, we need to finish this."
The four of them split into pairs to approach the crashed jeep, closing on it from opposite sides.
"Newton was in there when he detected our Prime infiltration," Gangel said. "And that diagnostic probe is still transmitting. Whoever the fourth man is, he's in a bad way."
"Do you think Newton is still in there?" Jacintha asked.
She and Denise were crouched at the corner of the next house along the main street. When Denise inched around the foundation pier she could see the battered rear end of the jeep sticking out of the house. Nothing moved. Heat tr
aces around the jeep were confused and fading. "I doubt it But he can't have got far."
"Okay. Eren, any heat traces on your side?"
"Nothing."
"Stand by. We're going in."
"I'm going in," Denise said. "You cover me."
She scurried along the front of the house, keeping flat against the wall. Her breathing had quickened, the rasping loud in her ears. Heat was flooding out of the jeep, its axle motors gleaming crimson, power cells casting a vermilion glow underneath the chassis. The smashed-up wall was crisscrossed with hot ruby lines where the material had bent and cracked. Denise eased herself through the gap at the side of the jeep, her pistol sweeping across the room. There were thermal tracks all over the floor, leading to the door. Jacintha climbed up behind her and nodded.
Denise flipped around the open door, into the hallway. It was empty. The door at the far end was open a couple of centimeters. She didn't even need infrared. The dust showed two sets of Skin bootprints going straight to it. Only one came out.
Her bracelet pearl pinpointed the diagnostic card broadcasting from inside. The fourth man was definitely in there. Beads of perspiration were building up on her face. It was no good creeping along the hall: the Skin carbines could shoot through walls as if they were fog. She sucked down a breath and sprinted down the hall, bursting through the door. Shock froze her.
Jacintha followed her sister into the end room and nearly knocked into her. Denise was standing rigid in the middle of the room, pistol pointing at the figure slumped in the corner.
"You're dead," Denise croaked. She was aiming at Hal Grabowski's head. The same Hal Grabowski who had faced a firing squad and died. Now here he was again, all by himself in an abandoned house in Dixon. Her pistol arm shivered slightly.
"Who the hell's that?" Jacintha asked.
"Hal Grabowski."
"You mean the Hal Grabowski that you set up in Memu Bay? The one Z-B executed?"
"Yes," Denise snapped. She straightened her arm, ready to shoot. She couldn't do it, not an unconscious man. Then she noticed the writing on the wall beside him.
HELP HIM I WILL KNOW
The diagnostic probe was resting against Hal's abdomen, still transmitting. Denise looked from that to the big medical kit box.
Gangel and Eren slipped into the room.
"Where's Newton?" Eren asked. "And... hey, isn't that Grabowski?"
Denise flashed him an exasperated glance and finally lowered her pistol. Gangel went over to the window. The frame was open. When he pushed at the plywood sheet nailed up outside, it swung out. "Looks like Newton left."
"So what about him?" Eren asked, pointing at Grabowski.
"He's Newton's problem," Denise said.
An explosion went off somewhere in the town.
Gangel was squinting through the gap at the side of the plywood. "That was a smart missile. He just took out the general store building. What the hell did he do that for?"
Denise looked at Hal again. She understood the message now. "He's not asking."
"What?" Jacintha asked.
"Newton wouldn't abandon an injured comrade. He's not asking us pretty please to help Grabowski. He's telling us."
There was a huge explosion outside. The house on the other side of the main street blew apart, fragments of composite panels and solar collectors whirling through the air to rain down over a wide area. Dust and smoke surged up out of the crater, spreading out in a miniature mushroom cloud.
The blast shook the room. Denise ducked in reflex. The glass in the window frame cracked, and the plywood sheet whirled away, allowing sunlight to blaze in. She saw the diagnostic probe had fallen off Grabowski and scrambled over the floor to grab it. She slapped it down on Grabowski's stomach; the display pane began to register his vital signs again. "All right! We'll do it."
Jacintha stared at her. "Do what?"
"Newton's out there with a rack of smart missiles—which he's probably loaded with Prime. He'll keep firing them over Dixon until he runs out. If we go outside, the seeker head will spot us and... that's it. Even we can't deflect one of them. The only place we're safe, the only coordinate he'll never target, is here with Grabowski. And if we don't keep Grabowski alive, guess which house the next missile will take out."
"Sneaky bastard," Gangel said with bemused admiration.
"You said it," Denise grunted.
They all winced as another missile detonated. The flash was close to the maintenance shed. Smoke began to rise over the rooftops.
"He's not kidding, is he?" Jacintha said. She knelt beside Grabowski and lifted his shirt up. "We'd better get to work." She took a dragon-extruded analyzer unit out of her pocket, placing it over one of Hal's defunct medical organ modules. The little plastic rectangle softened and began to mold itself round the module.
"What range have those missiles got?" Eren asked.
"Three kilometers," Denise told him.
"That's not too far. We know he was injured. We can catch him."
"We won't know what direction he took. All he has to do is leave the rack two kilometers away and program it to keep launching at regular intervals. He could be ten or more kilometers away before this barrage stops."
"Shit!" Eren glared at Grabowski. "Once those missiles run out, so does your luck."
"Does it?" Denise gave Eren a quizzical look. "After we spend a couple of hours caring for him, you're just going to kill him, are you?"
Eren banged a fist into the door frame. "No. Guess not."
"We should call the village," Gangel said. "They can send a team out here. With enough support we can tackle Newton."
"No," Denise said. "That's too much exposure. Besides, I know which road Newton's on."
Lawrence was on the edge of town when he saw the bike charge along the Great Loop Highway, about five hundred meters away. Helmet sensors zoomed in. It was being ridden by a naked man whose skin was smeared in pale blue gel.
The bike stopped and the man looked at him. It was Amersy. He raised his fist and punched the air twice.
Lawrence laughed as he gave an answering punch. His rack fired another smart missile back into the town.
Amersy paused a moment, then turned the throttle, accelerating fast along the road.
Lawrence left the rack fifteen hundred meters outside Dixon. He was in the middle of the slag heaps, so he could push it down into the black grainy soil easily enough. Once he satisfied himself it was secure, he departed at a steady jog. The smart missiles would fire at random intervals. Each was targeted on a different house, with the seeker head programmed to watch for human bodies moving along the streets. If it located one, it would divert from the primary target and go after the body.
With the rack's data cable disconnected, he had only one telemetry grid left now: Hal's diagnostic readout. Judging by the way his vital signs had stabilized over the last ten minutes the Arnoon people had worked out their side of the deal. His only worry now was whether they'd keep treating the kid after the missiles ran out.
Sorry, Hal, but what else could I do?
Trying to carry Hal out of the ambush was impossible. They wouldn't have gotten ten meters before those strange weapons cut them down. He'd been puzzled by the little dazzling bullets of light that the ambushers were firing. Once again there was no match in his armaments catalogue file. And not just the model, either, the nature of them was a mystery, too. His one clue was the intense magnetic signature that his sensors had recorded as he'd slipped away. He hadn't stopped to try to get a second reading.
Lawrence increased his pace. There were enough missiles left to last seventy minutes, although that did leave some long gaps between a few launches. But it should allow him to put about twenty kilometers between himself and Dixon if he stuck to a reasonably straight line.
He called up the plateau map file as he ran. After Dixon, the Great Loop Highway carried on in a wide curve through the Mitchell peaks, passing through Arnoon Province almost at its apex. He began to plot out a d
irect course to the crater lake. There was one river cutting across his path, which he'd be able to cross easily enough in Skin. The only real problem was that taking this route put Mount Kenzi directly in the way. He expanded the foothills to try to find a passage around the side.
The slag heaps soon gave way to the plateau's wilderness of crown reeds and the occasional giant tree. He had to slow slightly to go around the crown reeds. Each mature clump varied from two to three meters high. The fat, succulent leaves with their serrated razor edges weren't able to cut his Skin, but he certainly couldn't push through them. The ground underfoot was a thin, brown soil threaded with a low scrub plant that had slim woody stems and tiny saffron flowers.
Fallen Fragon Page 68
