“Everybody hold where you are,” Price said.
She shifted just slightly on the rough surface of the road. A stone that she hadn’t noticed when she lay down now seemed to be burrowing its way into her back.
“Oh crap,” The Tsar said. “It’s heading back.”
“Oh, now there’s a surprise,” Brogan said.
Price scanned the sky above them but all she could see was the boxy grid of the bridge girders and the faceless smirk of the moon.
ROTORBOT
[0550 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[BATEMANS BAY, NEW BZADIA]
The rotorbot hovered just above them, so close that Price felt she could hear every swish of its rotors. She kept her eye pressed to the spyhole, watching the blur of the blades, feeling the downdraft as it hovered over her.
It had flown over the top of the bridge the first time, but then had returned much lower, inside the box girder construction of the main span of the bridge. It had passed over once, then returned.
Clearly something had disturbed it. Perhaps the odd lumps on the otherwise flat surface of the road.
“Think it knows we’re here?” The Tsar asked, his voice little more than a murmur in Price’s earpiece.
“It knows something’s here,” Barnard said. “It just isn’t sure what.”
“If it knew, it would have blown us all to hell by now,” Wall said.
“It will be relaying pictures to its base for analysis,” Barnard added.
“So we can expect company any time soon,” Price said. “We need to get out of here.”
“You move a muscle and the rotorbot will chew you to bits,” Barnard said.
“Any chance it will get bored and go away?” The Tsar asked.
“Poor to none,” Barnard said. “Once it has detected a possible threat it will stick with it. Unless it detects a more direct threat somewhere else.”
“How do we kill it?” The Tsar asked.
“Not easy,” Barnard said. “They’re well-armoured underneath. The brains are on top, in the middle, where you can’t get a shot at them.”
The rotorbot moved lower, hovering barely a metre or so above Price. She stopped talking. She stopped breathing, not wanting the slightest movement to be noticed by the killing machine above her. But there was movement. The downwash of the rotorbot was rippling the fabric of the camo sheet. She gripped the hand and footholds in each corner, stretching the sheet as tautly as she could.
The rotorbot came even lower, caressing her body with cold hands of air. One of its needle-guns turned slightly, aiming right at her head. Could it see her eye through the tiny pinhole?
To the south end of the bridge she saw a slight movement.
The Tsar had taken advantage of the rotorbot’s focus on Price and had crawled out from under his camo sheet. What is he doing? It will see him for sure.
It started to turn in his direction and, without really thinking what she was doing, she let go of one of the corners of her camo sheet.
It rustled and flapped in the wind and the breeze from the rotor. The rotorbot immediately turned back.
She snapped the sheet tight and froze as the rotorbot prowled around her like a dog sniffing out a bone.
The Tsar climbed onto the railing of the bridge. It was rusting and brown flakes crumbled under his touch, but there was no sound as they drifted to the ground. Above him towered a tall girder, easily wide enough for him to hide behind, if he could reach it before the rotorbot turned again.
Price did not dare move. The rotorbot was already way too interested in her little patch of the roadway.
Even as she thought that, the rotorbot jumped up as if startled and shot back to the southern end of the bridge. Someone else had had the same idea, Price realised. A slight movement. Enough to catch the machine’s interest without attracting fire.
She moved her head just slightly so she could see the tower through the spy-hole. The Tsar was gone, hidden behind the girder.
What was he thinking? She couldn’t figure out his plan, if he had one. She looked up.
In the centre of the tower hung a massive concrete weight, a counterbalance for the weight of the centre span. Parts of the tower had fallen away, but an enclosed ladder remained. It led up to the top of the span and the remains of the bridge’s control cabin. Now she saw it. His plan was to get above the rotorbot.
The rotorbot spun around in her direction and she froze again.
It drifted back to where The Tsar had been, to where his camo sheet lay flat on the road. It seemed agitated, if an automated surveillance rotorcraft could be agitated.
She realised what it was doing. Exactly what Barnard had said it would do. It was comparing before and after shots of the same area of the bridge. One of the lumps in the roadway was gone. It probably wasn’t smart enough to work out what was wrong, but it knew something was different.
It stayed in that location, but spun around to face the southern end of the bridge. The second it was facing away, The Tsar was moving again. She saw him put a foot on the first rung of the ladder, testing it. It held, and there were no creaks, squeaks, clangs or other noises. He took a firm hold of one of the higher rungs and swung himself onto the ladder. He still hadn’t attracted the attention of the rotorbot.
He went up a few rungs quickly then froze as the rotorbot again rotated in his direction, needle-guns probing the darkness. It began to move towards Price and she willed it back. Somehow it worked. It reversed its course.
A few more rungs, then a few more, and The Tsar was level with the machine. Still it faced away from him. He reached the top of the span, where a narrow walkway led across to the control cabin. He was above the rotorbot now, out of view of its camera.
The Tsar drew his sidearm. The rotorbot hovered just below him. He kneeled down to steady his aim and reduce the distance. The rotorbot moved; The Tsar aimed again. He fired. The needle-gun hissed.
The rotorbot moved just slightly as he pulled the trigger, changing position by a matter of millimetres. It was enough. Price heard the shot hit the metal hull of the craft and ricochet out over the side of the bridge.
The rotorbot reacted instantly, sensing that it was under attack. From the sound and direction of the shot, it must have worked out exactly where its attacker was. It ascended, trying to get above The Tsar, but quickly realised that it was constrained by the top span of the bridge. It was only a metre below him and The Tsar tried to line up on it again. Before he could fire, the rotorbot’s brain figured out what it had to do.
It swept back along the bridge, towards clear air, where it could rise up higher and bring its cameras, and its guns, to bear.
The Tsar whirled, trying to get off another shot, but with such a small target, moving so rapidly, he had no chance.
The rotorbot reached the end of the enclosed section but as it did, there was a shout, and movement on the bridge below.
Price looked down in horror to see Wall running back along the bridge, yelling at the top of his voice. Her first thought was that he had panicked and lost it. But surely not. Not Wall. He was as tough as nails. He was distracting it, she realised.
The rotorbot swivelled and began to chase after him, again passing right below The Tsar, crouched on the rusted metal walkway.
He twisted around and over the side of the walkway, dropping down between two of the girders. The armour on his left arm rasped against one of the girders with a metallic shriek but there was no longer any need to be quiet.
He landed squarely on top of the rotorbot as it flew underneath. Price heard the hissing of its needle-guns as man and machine fell from the sky, the combined weight far too much for the small rotor-blade engine.
It recovered slightly, lifting up a little as its rotors shifted to maximum power. But only for a moment. The machine dropped, wobbling, and The Tsar slipped sideways, desperately grabbing at its edges. It bucked in the air like a rodeo bull. Its needle-guns began to fire, a constant staccato hiss, some kind of automatic defe
nce mechanism, spinning and firing at random. Price flinched as a needle made a hole in her camo sheet, centimetres from her face.
The rotorbot skidded sideways in the air, slamming into a girder. Was it an attempt to knock him off? Was the brain of the machine that smart? Probably not, but intentional or not, the impact with the bridge flung The Tsar sideways and off the edge of the disc. The only reason he hadn’t fallen was that one hand, fingers clenched like a steel claw, had latched onto the glass dome in the centre.
It was like a living creature. A creature of metal not flesh, with a brain of circuits instead of synapses, but a creature that did not want to die. And somehow it sensed that The Tsar’s one goal was to kill it.
The crash set the rotorbot spinning, dropping at the same time, The Tsar on top. The rotorbot hit the roadway with a crunch. With one last burst of energy the machine whirred, jolted and lifted, tossing The Tsar to one side. Price was already there, throwing her weight on top of the rotorbot. Monster was there too, coil-gun in hand, his combat boot trapping one edge. The three of them held the injured beast down, but still it tried to rise until the stock of Monster’s coil-gun came down on the glass dome in the centre, shattering it. He reversed his weapon, inserted the muzzle and fired. There were sparks and a flash from inside the rotorbot and it plunged back to the ground, its rotors slowly wailing to a halt.
“Good work,” Price managed, gasping for air.
“Now let’s get the hell out of here before the Pukes come to find their missing toy,” Wall called as he came running back from the other side of the bridge.
“Is everybody okay?” Price asked. “Angel Team, check in.”
Everybody was not okay. The Tsar lay where he had fallen, half across the side of the rotorbot. A dark pool was spreading slowly under his head.
“Oh no. Oh God, no,” Barnard said.
THE TSAR
[0610 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[BATEMANS BAY, NEW BZADIA]
“Tsar? Tsar!” Barnard was the first to The Tsar’s side.
Monster pushed her out of the way, pulling at The Tsar’s armour to examine the wound. He removed The Tsar’s helmet and checked his neck. The others gathered around. The Tsar seemed to be unconscious and that surely was not a good sign.
“Status?” Price asked, dropping to a knee beside him. He’ll be okay, Price thought. He had to be okay. It was her decision to cross the bridge. It was her decision to camo down. The Tsar had to be okay, or it would be her decisions that cost him his life.
“Not so good,” Monster said. “Unlucky. Armour is soft at neck. Needle got through. Now stuck in throat. He bleeding very badly. Maybe artery.”
He pulled a mediscope from his belt pack and began to scan The Tsar’s neck.
“What can I do?” Barnard asked. “What can I do?”
“Will ask if need,” Monster said.
“Give him room to work,” Price said and Barnard reluctantly eased backwards.
Barnard’s face was a mask of horror and desperation and, seeing that intense emotion, Price realised what she had missed. The constant bickering between The Tsar and Barnard was a disguise, a facade that hid a deep caring for each other. Why hadn’t she seen that before? How would she feel if it was Monster who lay there bleeding? That didn’t bear thinking about. They both knew that their relationship could be ended in an instant, by a bullet or a bomb. But knowing that wouldn’t make it any easier when that time came.
Price straightened, moving to Barnard as Monster attended to The Tsar.
“Are you okay, Retha?” she asked.
“Of course I’m okay,” Barnard said, too loudly, too quickly. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? It’s The Tsar who’s not okay. Worry about him, not me.”
“I am,” Price said, putting a hand on her arm.
Barnard snatched her arm away.
Is she blaming me for what happened?
“We need to get out of here,” Wall said. “The Pukes just lost a rotorbot. They’re already on their way.”
“Are you suggesting that we just leave The Tsar to die?” Barnard snapped.
“We’ll all die if they get here and we’re still here,” Brogan said.
“Barnard, what are we facing?” Price asked.
She already had a pretty good idea, but wanted Barnard to focus on something other than The Tsar.
Barnard stared at her for a moment, then took a deep breath.
“There’s a ready reaction force in Canberra; they’re the closest,” she said. “But they’re part of the capital’s defences. I doubt they’d send those. We’ll probably get a couple of scout ships real soon, or they may just redirect other rotorbots if they have them in the area.”
“What about regular forces?” Price asked.
“They’ll send teams from Melbourne, or Sydney, or maybe both,” Barnard said. “That’ll take them a little longer. But Wall’s right. We have to get out of here. It’s going to be touch and go, even if we leave right now.”
“Can you move him?” Price asked.
Monster looked up and nodded. “Too dangerous to extract needle. Will tape needle in place and bandage. Can move.”
“How are you going to move him?” Barnard asked. “You can’t …”
Monster could, and did.
He reached down and hoisted The Tsar up in a fireman’s lift.
“Jeez, Monster,” Price said. “That can’t be good for him.”
“Worse is staying here,” Monster said. He lurched into a run, doing his best to give The Tsar a steady ride.
“Okay, Angels, we are Oscar Mike,” Price said. “Move, move, move!”
Wall picked up something off the road. It had been lying under The Tsar’s body. His scope. Wall showed it to Price. The screen was cracked and dead.
“Damn,” Price said. She ran to the dead rotorbot.
“Give me a hand with this, Wall,” she said.
Wall took one side, lifting it easily. Price struggled with her end, but managed to raise it and together they eased it over the side railing. It hit the water and sank with little splash, only a stream of bubbles indicating the location. Even as it was sinking, they were running.
“Left or right, LT?” Brogan called. She was first off the bridge.
To the right a road led into a residential area. To the left was a small, overgrown park and parking lot. Behind it was an area of forest.
“Left,” Price said. “Better cover in the trees.”
“Everybody down!” Brogan yelled.
Price had heard and seen nothing, but dived into a nearby bush, wrapping her camo sheet around her. A second later, two fast movers roared overhead, low and fast.
“That’ll be just an initial recon,” she said. “As soon as they’re out of range, get moving. We have to get to that forest before the slow movers get here.”
The jets made a second sweep before disappearing off to the north in a blaze of noise and afterburners.
A narrow dirt track through the park led up a rise towards the wooded area. It was densely overgrown, and they had to push through it.
Although only minutes, it seemed like hours before they reached the comparative safety of the trees. Price found a fallen tree branch and went back to erase their tracks, scratching out boot steps and straightening stalks of grass. She caught up with the other Angels, gathered around The Tsar, who was on the ground at the base of a large tree. Its heavy branches and leafy foliage gave good cover from any overhead watchers.
Barnard held an IV bag, which was dripping clear fluid into an opening on the arm of The Tsar’s combat suit. Bzadian suits had automatic IV tubes at the elbow for exactly this kind of situation.
Monster was using the mediscope to examine The Tsar’s neck. He clearly didn’t like what he saw.
“Monster?” Price asked.
Monster shook his head. “Needle has nicked carotid artery. He lose a lot of blood. If I leave it there, he die.”
“And if you pull it out?”
“He die qu
icker,” Monster said. “Needle stem blood flow.”
There was a long silence as the team considered the implications of that.
“Gotta leave him,” Brogan said.
“Get puked, Brogan,” Barnard said. “You and the horse you rode in on.”
“We leave no one behind,” Price said. “Unless they’re dead. And The Tsar ain’t dead.”
“He’s going to be,” Brogan said. As Barnard clenched her fists and moved towards her, she added, “Just telling it like it is.”
Price took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm, to act like a leader. Brogan was probably right, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“What to do, LT?” Monster asked.
“We must …” Price started, but trailed off. She didn’t know what to do.
“Leave him here,” Brogan said after another silence.
“No,” Barnard said.
“It’s your choice, LT,” Brogan said. “Either we carry on with our mission, and he dies, or we give up on our mission. And he still dies.”
“You’d leave him here to die?” Barnard asked.
“Here’s as good as anywhere,” Brogan said.
“A fellow Angel dying alone in a forest?” Barnard said. “You really are a cold-hearted cow.”
“He’s not conscious,” Brogan said. “He doesn’t know he’s alone.”
“We know he’s alone,” Barnard said.
“Take him with us,” Wall said. “When we get to Canberra we can leave him at a Puke hospital or something.”
“Like that wouldn’t jeopardise the mission,” Brogan said.
“It would save his life,” Barnard said.
“It makes for no matter,” Monster said. “He would no survive journey.”
Barnard stepped right in front of Brogan, eyeballing her. “We’re not leaving him,” she said.
“I know he’s your special friend,” Brogan said, with that infuriating smile, “but he’s going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Barnard’s arm drew back to strike, but Price, behind her, reflexively caught her elbow.
“Wait a sec,” Price said. “There’s nothing we can do about it. But you can?”
Vengeance Page 6
