“Look!” Jenkins says, hefting a chain gun in each arm. “Twins!”
“Glad you’re having a double date. Fuse, stay close to me. With your aural link out, I can’t open a vid, and this next part gets dicey.”
Fuse agrees, and we take position for Stage Three. Jenkins remains on his mark, growling to psyche himself up.
“What’s next?” I say.
“Tell the cranes to drop the second wall.” Fuse mentally measures the spot where the containers would go. “And you might want to step back two point two meters.”
“Let’s make it three.” I signal for the cranes to be dropped behind Jenkins. Creating a second wall. Leaving me as bait. Then I order Vienne and Ebi to stand down. We want the Draeu rushing the gate, not dodging sniper fire.
“Yes, chief,” Vienne says, sounding disappointed.
From her crane, Áine shouts, “They’re charging across the bridge!”
“Let a couple dozen cross unharassed!”
“They’ve already crossed!”
“Then lift the carking box off the bridge! Keep the rest of them on the opposite side.”
The cables tighten on her boom, and I hear the sound of metal scraping as the container lifts.
“Done!” she shouts. “About twenty of the beasties crossed. The rest are caught in the box or—wait! One’s hanging from the edge of container. You’ve got to get it off. It’s throwing off the balance.”
“Vienne,” I say, “take out the dangler. But let the other targets inside the gate before.”
“Yes, chief.” Twip! “Dangler down.”
We’re interrupted by the sound of twin chain gun fire and Jenkins’s gleeful roar.
“Heewack!” Jenkins roars.
“Get him out of here!” I order one of the crane operators.
A hook swings down, and Jenkins latches on, somehow wrapping his knees around it while holding onto both chain guns. As he clears the top of the containers, Jenkins steps off and swings the twin guns to his broad shoulders. The flashing blue lights from the cranes cast a purple shadow on his face, blanching the ruddy color away and highlighting the pockmarks on his cheeks. When he speaks, his voice full of the sound of gravels and dust, I don’t know him. “I’m Leroy Jenkins, you cark-sacking cannibals! Bring it on!”
“Fuse,” I say. “Step Four?”
“Right,” Fuse says, intent on the Draeu who rushed in to kill Jenkins. “Close the front gate.”
I make the call. Two containers drop. Boom! Boom! Trapping the Draeu inside. Howling in rage, they begin firing. But they have no targets.
“Chief,” Fuse says. “We need the Draeu to spread out of the middle. Pronto. So we can drop the next containers.”
“Jenkins,” I say, “pin them against the walls.”
Now safely unhooked and atop the wall of containers, Jenkins steps to the edge and opens fire. The Draeu dive for cover, spreading themselves like a layer of aminomite along one side of the maze.
“They’re out of the middle,” I tell Fuse.
“Let’s drop walls one through three,” Fuse says. Then shouts, “Miners! Keep ’em separated!”
I signal the cranes. “On my mark. One.” Boom! “Two.” Boom! “Three.” Boom! The maze is now divided into four equal sections, Draeu trapped in each one. They scream in unison, a sound that makes the hair on my neck stand on end. On the other side of the gorge, the other Draeu howl in answer.
“On my order,” I call into the vid as the last container falls into place. “Vienne, your target is area one. Ebi, area two. Jenkins, three. Fuse and I will cover four.” Taking a deep breath, I pray that this is going to work. There has to be some way to kill these monsters—maybe filling them with lead was the way to do it. “Open fire!”
Two dozen Draeu. Their weapons useless against our cross fire. Penned in. Trapped. The maze turns into a slaughterhouse. Some try to scale the walls, their great leaps taking them halfway up the sides. But they’re cut down before they can even get a handhold. Others close ranks and fire at us until their plasma weapons run out of charge. Then our bullets find them.
This is not who we are, and it shames me. The Tenets teach us to respect our enemy as we respect our friends, to honor ourselves, our ancestors, and our children with our actions. There is no honor here, just the killing, the need to destroy the enemy utterly in order to survive. Father would understand this action, would say that the Tenets were written for old-fashioned before days Mars, not the planet we’ve become. But it sickens me, and up on a minaret, I’m sure that Vienne is refusing to watch, her scope directed at the Draeu on the far side of the gorge. Her voice is in my ears: You are less the man I thought you were. I am less the Regulator for serving under you.
Finally, when the chain guns are empty and the screams have died out, I call for a cease fire to assess the damage.
“Mimi, scan the hostiles.”
“Cowboy, you shouldn’t feel—”
“Just the scan, please.”
“No detectable signs of life.”
“All targets are down,” I say. “Let’s clean it up.”
The operators lift the containers, and the remaining miners, who’re waiting safely in nearby containers, rappel to the ground. Their job is to remove the bodies before the next wave of Draeu is let across the bridge, and they take to it with gusto. On command, an operator drops a container in the middle of the maze. Quickly the miners load the Draeu carcasses to it.
“Cowboy! Alert! Alert! Multiple heartbeats registering! The Draeu!”
Down in the maze one of the miners yells and pulls out his wrench. “It’s moving! The beastie’s still living!”
“Mine, too!” another calls, and they all began to back away. The looks on their faces ask the same question I have: How can something so full of holes be alive?
“Get out of there!” I shout, finally understanding. The Draeu are coming back to life. I tap in Vienne. “Eyes on multiple targets in the maze. Take out the Draeu that regenerate.”
“Negative, chief,” she responds. “Too many friendlies in the line of fire. I can’t get a clear shot. Get the miners out.”
“Will do.” I shout into the maze. “Everybody out! You’re in the line of fire!”
Easier said than done. The cables the miners rappelled down aren’t attached to cranes. They have to climb out. Too many miners in the hole. Too long to get them all out.
“Jenkins,” I say. “We need you on deck for backup.”
“I’m going in,” Jenkins says, recognizing the problem as soon as I do. He’s about to jump into the mix when a reviving Draeu reaches up from the ground and grabs a miner by the ankle. Instinctively the miner swings his heavy wrench at its head, smashing the base of the skull.
“Tch,” he says. “Would y’look at that.”
The other miners gather around him. They nudge the Draeu with the toes of their boots. One kicks it in the ribs. Then rolls it over. A huff of air escapes its lungs, and the eyes roll back into its head.
“It’s dead,” the miner says.
“It is. A knock with a wrench is all it took.”
They get the idea quickly, and the real slaughter begins.
“Chief?” Vienne says.
“Stand down,” I tell my davos. All men have a breaking point, and this is mine. “Turn your backs. All of you. Let them finish but don’t become part of it. Ebi, abandon your station. We’re going to need another short-range gunner in the maze.”
A few minutes later a cheer goes up. The container full of slaughtered Draeu, its doors sealed and locked, is lifted out of the maze and then dropped into the gorge. The miners climb up the cables one by one, their overalls blotted with blood. They start singing. I look into Fuse’s face and see the same expression that must be on my face, a mix of horror and shock.
“Know what they reminded me of?” Fuse says.
“The Draeu when they’ve got fresh meat?”
“Yeah.”
“One difference between us and
the Draeu,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“Our bellies are still empty.”
“That’s a mighty thin line, chief.”
“It’s the thinnest lines that define us, soldier.”
“Oy, that’s very wise. D’you make that up on a lark?”
“No, I say, “I stole it from my father.” Turning to Áine’s crane, I signal her to drop the container across the bridge. Time for the second batch.
Ebi comes running across the top of the maze. “Ebi reporting, chief.”
“Stay close,” I tell her. “Don’t fire until I give the signal.”
Mimi pipes in, “A mass of signatures gathering at the bridge.”
“Battle stations, Regulators,” I say through the vid. “Here they come again.”
Áine lowers the container, and the rest of the Draeu roar across the bridge, intent on reaching their comrades. When they are past, she raises the box again, trapping them.
They’re screaming for blood as they rush like a flood toward the gate. “Open it!” I order. The Draeu stream inside, blind with bloodlust, too berserker with rage to stop their charge. Their eyes are mad, and they’re frothing at the mouth, their faces wild and terrible to see. It’s insane, insane. But I’m counting on their strength being their weakness.
This time there is no need to use Jenkins as bait.
“Close the gate?” Fuse asks.
“Wait,” I say. “I want to make sure we’ve got them all. I don’t want us to go through this more times than we have to.”
“Got it.”
“Mimi,” I say, “scan the perimeter for signatures.”
“Yes, cowboy,” she says. “Wait. I am picking up a unique signature on the far side of the bridge and closing fast. It is—”
“The queen!” Vienne yells through the link.
I turn as a power sled emerges from the tunnel, its turbines blazing. Two Draeu ride with the queen, one of them driving and the other manning the gun. She straddles the jump seat, the mortar launcher on her shoulder and two bandoliers of ammo draped across her chest.
“She’s going to jump it,” I say.
Ebi scoffs. “Impossible.”
The sled hits the end of the bridge and goes airborne. The front of the craft lifts, the heavy engines tilting its approach angles upward. It lands hard but with several meters to spare. The rear end fishtails, flinging the gunner from his post. As he tries to stand, Vienne takes him out with one kill shot.
The queen maintains her balance perfectly, firing a mortar at Áine’s crane. The shell hits the thick plexus window, cracking it. Then it falls onto the hood, where it detonates.
“Áine!” I yell above the din, though I know she can’t hear me.
Fuse starts toward her. I check him with a halt sign. At the same time the driver steers toward the opening and the Draeu that wait inside.
“Drop the gate!” I shout. “Don’t let the power sled in!”
Too late. The gate falls a second after the sled skids inside. Seeing their queen, the Draeu roar louder. The driver, obeying a silent command, guns the engine and heads toward the back of the maze.
“Drop the rest of the containers!” I yell.
Boxes one and two fall into place perfectly, trapping most of the Draeu. But as the crane dropping number three swings into action, the queen fires another mortar. It strikes the boom.
The cable snaps and the box swings free, crashing into the back wall and knocking it down. The driver sees his opening. He drives the sled between two fallen containers and disappears from the maze.
“Where is she going?” Ebi asks.
I know exactly where she’s going—the treasure. “Fuse, you’re in command of the maze. Drop another back wall now. Take these rooters out. I’ll get the queen. Vienne—” I start to say and then reconsider. Her wounded foot will slow us down. “Ebi, you’re coming with me.”
Seconds later Ebi and I are running along the top of the maze, headed toward the Cross. Behind us, the shooting begins. So that was her plan all along, I think. Distract us with mad rushes, then go for the treasure when our hands are full. Simple but brilliant. And it shows that she doesn’t care about the Draeu. They’re a means to an end, a toy to be played with until it’s outlived its use. I know how they feel.
“Mimi, where is the queen?”
“Signatures are stationary. They are fifty meters ahead.”
In the Cross. Ebi and I sprint down the tops of the cargo boxes. For an instant I pause, taking it all in, feeling the rush of…something. Old memories? Déjà vu? At battle school, I commanded my own acolyte davos, and my first skirmish was against Eceni. She won that time. She won every time we matched up. But this is a real battle, not a student exercise. When we reach the edge of the maze, I signal Ebi to halt. We drop low, and both of us scan the Cross for targets. That’s when Ebi shoots me in the back of the head.
The force of the blow knocks me forward, and I fall to hands and knees. Roll to my back.
“Permission to fire now, chief?” Ebi says.
“Mimi,” I say, my head a hive of noise. There is no answer. “Mimi?”
“My name is not Mimi,” Ebi says, pointing the barrel of her armalite at my head. “It is Bramimonde, Jacob Stringfellow, from the proud House of Bramimonde that men like your father destroyed.”
“No.” I try to rise, but my thoughts are full of bees. The symbiarmor is sluggish. Where is Mimi?
“Oh yes.” Stomping my chest, she drives me hard onto the top of the cargo box. “But the queen is going to change that. When she finds the treasure, she’s going to return the Orthocracy to power, and I will be able to realize my true destiny.” She spits in my face. “The added benefit will be killing you. Remember when you disgraced our home with your presence, dalit? I said I would repay you one day, and that moment is now.”
CHAPTER 35
Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00
“Not on my watch,” Mimi says through the static.
Reflectively, my hand shoots out and grabs Ebi by the wrist. A numbing shock of electricity shoots into her symbiarmor. Her eyes roll back into her head, and a small moan escapes her lips before a burst of bullets leaves her gun, striking me in the chest. They bounce off, leaving me unharmed, as I hear a second noise—the crack of a single shot—and Ebi falls backward and topples off the cargo box.
“Who shot her?” I say.
“Three guesses,” Mimi answers.
“Vienne.”
“Fast work for a wee little brain.”
And I look across the line of cargo boxes, up on the minaret, where she stands holding her Armalite, scoring the barrel with a combat knife. “Thanks,” I tell her via aural vid.
“My job,” she says. Then uses the zip line to reach the ground, absorbing the landing with her good leg but coming up limping. “I never did like that girl.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” I get to my feet.
“I often do,” she says. “It’s really not that difficult.” Limping, she joins me, and we move to the courtyard. The queen has deserted the sled, leaving it parked in the open and still manned by the Draeu.
“Where is she?” I say aloud.
“Chief,” Vienne says, looking through her scope. “I have lock on the targets. Permission to fire?”
“Wait. I want to take them both out at the same time.”
“Affirmative,” she says. “I have both targets locked.”
“Both?” This, I want to see. “Fire at wi—” Twip! One bullet leaves her rifle. Two Draeu fell.
“How did you do that?” I say in awe.
“Large-caliber ammunition and two targets willing to keep the bases of their skulls in the same line of fire.”
“Don’t tell Jenkins. He’ll have to take out three just to prove he’s better than you. Come on, let’s flush out the queen.”
We jog slowly to the sled to examine Vienne’s shots. Both are clean kills, right
through the base of the skulls. “Mimi,” I say as we disable the chain gun, then move away from the sled. “Where is the queen?”
I scan the chigoe holes while waiting for an answer. So many places to hide in the Cross. She could be anywhere.
“Cannot pinpoint her location. The signal is erratic. I—cowboy!”
Foosh!
A mortar shell slams into my stomach, blowing me off my feet. I land hard, dazed, eyes full of static.
Vienne? I think, gasping for breath. Where’s Vienne? Then I see her, safe, near the sled.
Foosh!
A second rocket! It slams into the bishop’s statue. Chunks of marble rain down, and I cover my face as the bishop’s decapitated head slams into my forearms, then bounces away, rolling across the tiles.
Luckily, I, unlike the statue, am still in one piece.
“Look,” Mimi says, “‘a shattered visage lies.’”
“Keats?”
“Shelley.”
“I always get them confus—”
Eceni isn’t finished. A third rocket shoots from the launcher. For an instant I’m relieved because it looks like a misfire that flits impotently toward the high ceiling of the cave. Then it hits, and a cloud of black dust explodes into the air. With the squeal of grinding metal, the container wedged in the hole breaks free. Above me, the ceiling cracks open. The shipping container that Mimi expertly placed for me earlier slips from its hole and comes crashing down.
“You should move,” Mimi says.
But I don’t. I lie there watching it fall, mesmerized by the way the metal rectangular box rights itself as it falls, the floor of the container on a collision course with my skull.
“Durango!” Vienne dives across the tiled flooring as the container falls. She slams into me. Her momentum should knock me out of the way, but my suit absorbs the blow, and we huddle together in an awkward embrace.
“Go!” Mimi shocks me, and I start to move, but too late.
Silently, Vienne aims her weapon at the bottom of the container, and one, two blast shells leave her armalite. I grab her, pull her to my chest, and brace for impact.
Black Hole Sun Page 22
