Black Hole Sun

by David Macinnis Gill

  A few seconds later my davos appears—Fuse coming from the tunnels, Ebi from quarters, and Jenkins from the miners’ quarters, looking blurry-eyed and dragging the chain gun behind him.

  Vienne is last to report, her foot in an air cast, using a pair of crutches. Even wounded, she carries herself effortlessly.

  “You need to be resting,” I tell her.

  In response, she pulls off the cast and tosses the crutch aside. She pulls on her boot, which was tucked under an arm. “I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

  I start to argue when Mimi interrupts. “Sensor readings suggest that she’s using painkillers.”

  “Are they working?”

  “I just provide information, cowboy. You get to make the decisions.”

  It would be easier to pin a diaper on Jenkins than tell Vienne she can’t fight. And my plan depends on her.

  “Regulators,” I greet them when they’re at attention. “We have a situation. Dame Bramimonde has left Fisher Four.”

  “Mother!” Ebi says, and Vienne cuts her a look.

  “I’m tempted to let the Draeu have her, but it looks like Jean-Paul’s followed her. As much as I’d like to throttle his skinny little neck, he’s still an acolyte, which makes him one of us. Maybe.”

  “Mother, how could you!” Ebi says, bowing her head quickly, an odd ring to her voice. “Chief, I am humiliated by her actions. I swear to—”

  “Later,” I say, because I’m not buying it. “There’s a job to be done. Here’s the plan. Vienne and Ebi, follow the main tunnel out, then head northwest along this bearing for one half click. Scout for a trail, but don’t go beyond a half click, got it?”

  “Go.” I turn to Fuse and Jenkins. “You two, same distance, but take a heading of fifteen degrees to the north. Stay on the main tunnels. No side trips, no chigoe holes. If you run into any trouble, signal me.”

  “This could be an ambush, chief,” Fuse says.

  “Keep your eyes and ears open, Fuse. That’s exactly what it could be.” Or it could be an evil old crone doing the worst possible thing at the worst possible moment.

  “Yes, chief,” Fuse says. “Come on, Jenkins. And stop dragging that chain gun. The squealing noise is killing me.”

  “Mimi,” I say when they’re across the Zhao Zhou Bridge. “Monitor all their signatures. I need to know the second anybody’s out of range.”

  I open a private vid link to Vienne. “Let me know if anything odd happens.”

  “Yes, chief.”

  “I mean it, Vienne. Keep an eye on everybody. Trust no one. Not even me.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00

  I hear the echo of the shots before anything else. They come from the main tunnel, I think. But with these acoustics, I can’t be sure. For twenty minutes I waited alone on the Cross, perched on a skyhook container turned on end, the stillness of the air weighing on me, the stinking bones of the fire annoying me, waiting to hear from my troops.

  At twenty-one minutes I receive a broken message from Vienne. “Chief, we’re…fire…”

  “Say again,” I say. Then wait.

  Nothing. Just a ringing sound in my ears and the fear that I made a huge tactical mistake, because the Draeu are about to rain down on us at any moment. “Mimi,” I say. “Get a reading. Are they all still in range?”

  “Yes, chief, all accounted for—wait. I am now reading signatures for Dame Bramimonde and Jean-Paul.”

  “Pinpoint their location.”

  “I cannot. There is too much chatter on the sweep. I…uh-oh.”

  “Uh-oh? What is uh-oh?”

  “You are not going to like this.”

  “I already don’t like it.” I walk to the edge of the container for a wider view. “Spit it out!”

  “I am picking up multiple unknown signatures along the perimeter of my field. Dozens. It is the Draeu. They didn’t wait for the deadline.”

  “Jumalauta. I carking hate when guests come early for the party.”

  Using a metal pole, I swing to the ground and pull one of the alarms. The sound of whooping horns brings the miners out of their quarters, yanking on their boots and coveralls as they run. Among the first out are Spiner and Jurm.

  “Tell me this is a drill,” Spiner says.

  “It’s not a drill,” I say. “The Draeu are attacking now.”

  Jurm shields his eyes. “Where? I didn’t see none when I was busy putting on my drawers.”

  “The Regulators,” Spiner says, ignoring Jurm. “They’d got in position already?”

  “No,” I say. “I sent them on a scouting mission. They’re not back yet.”

  “Scouting for what?” Jurm asks.

  “Dame Bramimonde,” I say. “She’s missing.”

  “You’d sent out soldiers for a useless crone?” Jurm whines, ignoring him. “What’s the sense in that?”

  Spiner pulls up his bootstraps. “There’s no use crying about it, Jurm. Chief, what d’you want us to do?”

  “Just like we planned,” I say. “Get the operators on the cranes. Line up the rest in the chigoe holes. Wait for my signal.”

  “Gotcha.” Spiner starts calling orders to the miners.

  They snap to it and move quickly to their places. Not military precision, mind you, but good enough in a pinch. And better than I’d expected.

  “Mimi,” I say, “what’s the story?”

  “Two separate mass signatures. One approaching from twelve o’clock. The other from nine.”

  Since I’m facing dead north, she means the corridor leading to the Zhao Zhou Bridge. But to the west? There’s no entrance from that direction. “We closed all of those tunnels down.”

  “Maybe the miners missed one,” Mimi says.

  “Where?” I say, noting the twin minarets and the zip line running between them, and two others running to the ground. Alongside them is the tall crane I noticed on the first day, also an important link in the chain. That’s where Vienne and Ebi are supposed to be stationed. Without them, my defensive plan has a much lower chance of success.

  “Indeterminate.”

  “Determine it, then, and alert me when you know.” I turn to Spiner, who is still standing beside me. “Don’t you have a post?”

  “Yep. I’ll take it when the Draeu is here.”

  Damn these obstinate, thickheaded, stubborn pains in the ass. “Trust me. They’re here.”

  “I still dint see nothing,” Spiner says. “Wait…uh-oh. Reckon I’ll find my post now.”

  Uh-oh. I’m beginning to despise that phrase. Through the scope of my armalite, I see Jenkins and Fuse running for the Zhao Zhou Bridge. Each of them is carrying a body. Fuse, who has Jean-Paul, is in the lead. Jenkins, the Dame tossed over his shoulder like a sack of synthetic flour, brings up the rear.

  When Jenkins reaches the edge of the bridge, he plops the Dame on the ground. Then opens fire on the pursuing line of Draeu with his chain gun. To support him, I fire several bursts into the lead fighters. The result is predictable. And messy.

  Between the two of us, our bullets take down a half dozen Draeu. The rest of skirmish line retreats, pulling the casualties with them. But Jenkins isn’t finished. With the barrel of the chain gun spinning empty, he charges toward the mouth of the tunnel.

  “Jenkins!” I shout via the vid. “Retreat, you whacker! Get Dame Bramimonde to safety!”

  “Aw,” he says, and returns to the Dame, his shoulders slumped in disappointment. He slings her limp body over his shoulder again. Then trudges off toward safety.

  “Is she dead?” I ask him on the link.

  “I wish. She just had a fainting spell. The boy’s hurt, though. Took a round in the gut. Or the butt. Whichever.”

  “Fuse,” I say. No response, just static. “Mimi, check the link with Fuse.”

  “Link is down,” she says after a few seconds. “And his symbiarmor is not responding to telemetry pings. That’s odd.”

>   That explains a lot. “Jenkins,” I say, while keeping suppressing fire on the tunnel to cover their escape. “What happened to Fuse’s symbiarmor?”

  “It’s fragged. He took a punch to the back of the head from that Kuhru.” By then Jenkins reaches the end of the bridge. He spins Fuse around and points to me. Fuse nods, and they join me near the edge of the bridge.

  “They ambushed us,” Fuse explains after I demand an explanation as we retreat to the Cross. “It was her doing. The Draeu were waiting, and she was leading them right back to us.”

  “What about the boy?”

  “You mean, did he betray us, too? Not if being bound and gagged and forced to walk barefoot over sharp rock is a sign that you switched sides.” He touches the back of his head. “Sorry about the suit. I can reboot it when I get back to quarters. That Kuhru got me with the stock of a battle rifle before Jenkins could kill him.”

  We reach the courtyard, and I do a quick scan for hostiles. All clear. “So he’s dead?”

  Jenkins laughs. “I put a hundred rounds into his belly. If that don’t kill you, won’t nothing kill you.”

  About time. We owed that rooter some payback. “Get them both to the infirmary,” I tell Fuse and Jenkins, “and report to your stations double time.”

  “Chief,” Mimi says. “I have determined the exact location of the secondary entrance.”

  “Finally!” I say, stepping up on the statue dais. “Some good news.”

  “I am not sure this constitutes good news. Look up.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00

  The first two bodies out of the hole are both human. Ebi falls first, followed by Vienne, who fires her armalite as she plunges from a height of over a hundred meters. She pulls the clip then drops the gun.

  Halfway down, she and Ebi both tuck into a ball. Cover their heads with their arms. Rotate so that their backs will strike the ground first. I hold my breath. Ebi hits first. And hard. Her armor takes the impact from the courtyard tiles, but she comes out of the tuck too soon. Her arms flail. She rolls over to her stomach, groaning.

  Sprinting, I reach her at the same time that Vienne lands. She shoulder rolls and lands on her good foot. Then grabs the nearby armalite and begins spraying the roof with fire.

  “Get up!” I shout at Ebi, who’s rising slowly. Too slowly. “Is she injured?” I ask Mimi.

  “Her symbiarmor isn’t signaling distress,” Mimi says. “No broken bones. No internal injuries.”

  “Regulator!” I yell at Ebi. “You got the wind knocked out of you. Move! Before they kill us both.”

  Ebi shakes the cobwebs loose. “Yes, chief.”

  “Fall back!” I call to Vienne.

  She nods. Backs up toward us. Firing until the clip is empty. That’s my Vienne.

  “Or mine,” Mimi says.

  The three of us retreat under the safety of the arcade, where I open a vid link. “Jenkins! Status report.”

  “They’re back. And they got sleds.”

  I expected that. So we have a little surprise for them. “Tell Fuse to execute step one—but only after two of the sleds cross the bridge.” I switch off the vid, knowing that I can count on Fuse, even as I hear the gunning roar of the sled’s turbines. Above us, the Draeu start firing. Plasma rains down on us.

  “We’re pinned down!” Vienne shouts as she and Ebi take turns firing. “We have to stop their fire!”

  “Fine with me!” I say. “I’m open to suggestions!” Neither of them has one, except to keep firing. In the distance I hear the sound of a power sled revving, which means the sled drivers are about to make their move. Where, I wonder, is the queen? I look up at the ceiling again, trying to do a head count. Five, maybe ten Draeu are looking down, aiming at us. It is hard to tell.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the tall crane sitting idly by. In the cockpit Spiner sits back with his feet on the panel, eyes closed, oblivious to the fact that he is only a few meters from a barrage of ammunition. “Give me some cover,” I say, ready to make a run for the crane.

  Vienne and Ebi stand, their rifles trained on the blackness. I take off. Race to another column. Then to the far corner. Behind me, I hear a crack. A Draeu falls to the ground. But I don’t stop to celebrate as a round of plasma dots chase my trail. Out the back corridor. Across a tiled patio that leads to the closed tunnel.

  Finally I reach the crane. Dive behind the treads just ahead of a large plasma blast, which explodes beside the cockpit and sends Spiner sprawling backward in surprise. “Out!” I yell as I swing open the door. Then pull Spiner from the cockpit. “And stay down!”

  Grabbing the pilot’s seat, I sweep the hook over the container. The hook drops down, and the magnet attaches. I lift the container. Swing it between the crane and the hole to block another barrage of pulses. “Stay under cover,” I order Vienne and Ebi through a vid link. “This thing’s going to start swinging.”

  The crane cable groans as the container swings back and forth, a three-ton stone. I yank back on the brakes, and the container sails high. It hits the cavern ceiling—huge chunks of rock cascade to the ground.

  “Kusottare!” I yell. “Missed!”

  With the container out of the way, the Draeu start firing on my crane. On the ground Vienne and Ebi return fire, giving me another chance to bring the container around. “Mimi,” I say, “give me a hand, will you?”

  “I believe that you are the one with the hands in this relationship.”

  “You know what I mean. Calibrate an angle that will ram this hunk of steel into that hole, then use the symbiarmor to guide my hand.”

  “It will be painful.”

  “Sorry it’s going to hurt you.”

  “Not me, cowboy. You. Countdown. Three, two, one.”

  My back arches against the armor, which goes rigid to hold my body in place. It hurts, and I grunt. Only my arm and hand move, controlling the stick so that the container swings eight times like a pendulum, its massive weight causing the boom and the attached cable to groan.

  On the last upswing, the magnet releases, and the skyhook container shoots straight to the ceiling and slams into the hole. Taking several Draeu with it. “Who says you can’t put a square peg in a round hole,” I say, and try to shake off the effects of Mimi’s control. “You do good work.”

  “Technically, it is a rectangular peg. But thank you. A girl always enjoys a compliment.”

  “Either way, it’ll hold them for a while.” I jump down and race back to the courtyard to join Ebi and Vienne. “You two, man your positions on the minarets.”

  Vienne directs Ebi to the sniper nest on the minaret, and I run in the opposite direction, down the corridor toward the Zhao Zhou Bridge.

  Boom-ba-doom!

  An explosion rips through the cavern, and the shock knocks me to the ground, dust raining down on me.

  “Was that Fuse’s handiwork?” Vienne asks via vid link.

  “Hope so,” I say.

  At the end of the tunnel, I find the source of the explosion. A fifteen-meter-long segment is now missing from the Zhao Zhou Bridge. It’s been dropped into the gorge by two C-42 charges, courtesy of Fuse.

  The Draeu’s main force is stranded on the far side of the gorge, which is good. But they have two power sleds, which is bad, because each sled has a gunner, and they’re spraying bullets at the miners.

  “Jenkins,” I say through the vid. “Status?”

  “Fuse says to please shoot the fossickers shooting at us!”

  “Will do.” I call to Vienne and Ebi. “Snipers, take out the gunner.”

  Through my omnoculars I watch them raise their armalites in unison, sight a gunner, and squeeze their triggers. Each bullet finds its mark at the base of the Draeu’s skull, and the targets collapse over the barrels of the chain guns. Twip! Twip! Twip! Twip! Four more Draeu on sleds go down before Vienne takes out the remaining two.

  “She stole my kil
l,” Ebi says.

  “Get used to it,” I say.

  I bounce down from the container and run across the tops of the other containers until I reach the next crane. Áine is operating it. “Time for stage two. Drop the container.”

  She salutes. The boom swings around, and the container, which is missing both of its doors, drifts over the gorge. After two minor adjustments, Áine settles it above the gap that the C-42 has created.

  “Jenkins,” I say into the vid, “you and Fuse get those miners inside.”

  “Can I bring in the sleds?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Whoop!”

  I signal the second operator to lift a container, which creates a gate, and the miners pour in, with Fuse and Jenkins behind them in the captured sleds. When they’re safely inside, Áine drops her container into place.

  “Think they’ll take the bait?” Fuse asks me.

  “They’re not as stupid as we thought,” I say, watching them as they begin to move en masse to the container. “But they are as bloodthirsty. I don’t think they’ll be able to help themselves.”

  “Won’t their queen keep them back? She’ll know it you’ve set up a trap.”

  “Haven’t seen her at all.” But I know she is out there. Somewhere. It isn’t like Eceni to miss the action.

  “Here they come!” Vienne announces from her high-vantage point. Then she abruptly fires several rounds into the area where the sled is parked. Ebi follows suit.

  I tap open the vid. “Vienne! What the blazes?”

  “They’re back on their feet, chief. The Draeu we shot. Five of them are on their feet and moving into firing position.”

  “Did you miss?” I ask.

  “No. Body shots to the heart and lungs. All on target.”

  Merda! “Keep shooting then.” I tap out of the vid and have Áine swing the boom around. After I step onto the hook, she lowers me to the ground inside the maze. There, Fuse and Jenkins are waiting. They’ve stripped the chain guns from the sleds, which the miners are now hiding inside two of the containers.