Vengeance

by Brian Falkner

  The glow of the fire lit the smoke behind them, and from the wide spread, Price was sure that it had already jumped the firebreak. Perhaps the Bzadians had not yet learned about Australian wildfires, she thought. If they had, they would have kept the firebreaks clear. If fire took hold here, and was not kept in check, it could spread all the way to Canberra.

  Several times they stopped when the sound of the rotorbots grew louder, waiting nervously until the sound moved away.

  They came to a crossroad, where a highway intersected the firebreak. This road was much cleaner than the last one.

  “Take it,” Monster said.

  “We can’t risk the roads,” Price said. “We’d be too easy to spot.”

  “We’d make better time,” Barnard said. “And the smoke is still giving us good cover. I think it’s worth the risk.”

  Price wondered if her concern for The Tsar was colouring her thinking.

  “Nothing is worth the risk,” Brogan said. “Stick to the firebreak.”

  “Take road,” Monster said.

  “Why?” Price asked in exasperation.

  “Just feeling,” Monster said.

  “Monster–” Price began but Barnard cut her off.

  “Take the road,” she said. “We’re going too slowly. These wildfires can travel faster than a car in these conditions.”

  Price couldn’t argue with that, but she still wasn’t sure if Barnard was offering the right advice for the right reasons. She eventually nodded. Not so much because of Barnard. It might have been silly, but she trusted Monster’s “feelings”.

  She just hoped she wouldn’t be proved wrong.

  The highway, like the last one, was clearly unused, and covered with leaves, branches and other detritus of the forest that surrounded it. Here and there they had to manoeuvre around large branches, even fallen trees, but it was still faster, much faster, than the rough, undulating earth of the firebreak. It was also noisier, which worried Price more than she told the others. The engine was louder at speed and the knobbly off-road tyres made a constant buzz on the bitumen.

  “Any sign of rotorcraft?” Price asked.

  “No sign of anything,” Brogan said. Her eyes and ears seemed to be almost as good as The Tsar’s now-defunct scope.

  “Great,” Price said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Barnard said. “They’ve been buzzing around everywhere, searching for us. Why have they suddenly bugged out?”

  “Because they’ve given up,” Wall said.

  “Why would they suddenly give up?” Barnard said. “If they’ve gone, it’s for a reason.”

  The easterly wind, which had given them such a boost back on the yacht, had increased in strength even further. Strong gusts were buffeting the truck, bringing with them squalls of black smoke and the heat of the bushfires.

  “Must go faster,” Monster said, glancing backwards.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” Wall said.

  “Not fast enough,” Monster said.

  Price looked back. A huge flickering glow behind them consumed the sky. The fire was catching up to them, fast. The next strong gust brought a furnace-like blast of heat, and if not for their body armour, they would have been badly burned. The temperature was rising and sweat dripped into Price’s eyes.

  “That’s why the rotorbots have disappeared,” she said. “They could see this coming and they’ve got out of harm’s way.”

  “They’ll send them back to search for our bodies later,” Wall said.

  “Any other happy thoughts, keep them to yourself,” Price said.

  Barnard was studying the GPS map on her wrist computer.

  “There’s water ahead,” she said. “Not much more than a stream though. Looks like a tributary to a river. It’s very narrow, but it might be enough.”

  “Enough for what?” Price asked.

  “We get in the water, let the fire burn past us,” Barnard said. “It’s our best chance.”

  “How far ahead?” Price asked, watching the rapidly growing glow behind them. The air was filled with burning embers, swirling on the wind currents. It looked like a scene from someone’s version of hell.

  “About a klick,” Barnard said.

  “I got a bad feeling about this,” Wall said.

  “Try to cheer up,” Price said. “Things could be worse.”

  “How could things possibly get any worse?” Wall asked.

  Before the words had left his mouth, the little truck began to slow.

  “Faster, Wall,” Price said.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  She turned back to the front and saw the massive tree trunk that completely blocked the highway. The roots of the tree were embedded in the high bank on the right-hand side. The trunk had crushed the guard rail on the left side and the tip of the tree hung out over the edge, where another bank led down to a wide, flat stream.

  The swirling smoke in front of them began to glow, then split into two distinct lights. Headlights.

  “I think things just got worse,” Brogan said.

  Kozi did not answer. He had tried the phone she had given him three times, but each time it just clicked through to a messaging system and he had no intention of leaving a message. Not about this.

  He stood at the window of his tiny apartment and stared at the rising pall of smoke to the east. The entire horizon seemed to be on fire.

  In the box had been a salt shaker, the phone, and a brief message written on a flimsy type of paper. When Chisnall tried to pick it up, the mere touch of his hand caused the paper to dissolve, turning it into a small pile of ash-like dust in the bottom of the box.

  But he had already read the message. It confirmed something that he suspected.

  Azoh, the Bzadian spiritual leader, would be attending the meeting today. The message had even given the time Azoh was expected to arrive.

  The message said nothing else. But it didn’t have to.

  When the phone finally rang he snatched it up. The video was dark, and she was standing in shadows, but it was her. She said nothing, waiting for him to speak.

  “What’s in the container?” Chisnall asked.

  “What do you think is in it?”

  “Poison,” Chisnall said.

  “Then why did you ask?” Kozi asked.

  “You want me to kill Azoh?” Chisnall said. The words hung heavily in the air.

  Kozi said nothing.

  “Why?” Chisnall asked.

  “I asked you if you would do whatever it took to stop the war,” Kozi said. Her eyes glinted, sparks amid the shadows.

  “How will this stop the war?” Chisnall asked.

  “It will,” she said. “That’s all you need to know.”

  “You’re asking me to commit murder,” Chisnall said. “I’d like to know why.”

  She moved forwards, bringing her face into the light.

  “Bzadian politics are very complicated,” she said. “There are many races and many divisions within those races. But at the top there is Azoh. When Azoh becomes, a successor is chosen. Should Azoh fall ill or die, the new Azoh, Azoh-zu, is ready to replace them.”

  Chisnall waited patiently.

  “It is a great honour for us when Azoh-zu is chosen from our race,” Kozi said. “When Azoh dies and Azoh-zu becomes, that confers great power onto the leaders from that race. You could say that they control the government. Our current Azoh is from the Corziz people. They are the most warlike and hostile of our races. Goezlin, the head of our secret police, is Corziz. The most peaceful are the Yzeyze. The Yzeyze were opposed to the war from the beginning.”

  She paused, letting the information sink in.

  “Azoh-zu, the successor to Azoh, is Yzeyze. I also am Yzeyze.”

  Bobbleheads, Chisnall thought.

  “You want me to kill your leader, so you can take over the government,” Chisnall said.

  “We must replace Azoh to stop the war,” Kozi said. “Our last Azoh, a great and strong leader from t
he Hezar race, was lost during the landings.”

  Chisnall stared at the phone. Everyone knew the story of the great spaceship that had crashed on entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It had been a slow-motion disaster that had played out over several days and was a key factor in gaining sympathy for the Bzadians when they first arrived.

  “Our new Azoh proved ineffectual, manipulated by advisors and generals,” Kozi said.

  “Why kill Azoh now?” Chisnall asked.

  “Because the war has turned against us,” Kozi said. “That is what today’s meeting is about. Humans have developed new fighter planes. The tide of the war is turning.”

  “Good,” Chisnall said.

  “You do not understand,” Kozi said. “Up until now we have held back our major weapons. We do not wish to destroy what you call the free territories. We want to live in them. But rather than face defeat, our High Council will vote to destroy the Americas. That will be decided in this meeting.”

  “So if the current Azoh lives, then the human race dies,” Chisnall said.

  “But if Azoh dies, and the Yzeyze assume control of the High Council, then we will negotiate for peace,” Kozi said.

  “Bzadia would not dare to use nukes,” Chisnall said.

  “Not nukes,” Kozi said. “Positronium weapons.”

  “Positronium?” Chisnall asked.

  “Weapons beyond your understanding,” Kozi said. “Beside them, nuclear weapons look like firecrackers.”

  “Even so, they would not dare,” Chisnall said.

  “What your nuclear weapons would destroy, a positronium bomb would obliterate. What would remain would be a desert. No building, no road, no tree, no blade of grass would survive. Lakes would be dry beds, hills would be flattened; such is the power of just one of these bombs.”

  “But it makes no sense,” Chisnall said. “You know that we have nukes. Thousands of them, many on submarines that you cannot detect, within a few minutes flight of your coast. You would also be wiped out.”

  “Your leaders would never give the order to fire,” Kozi said. “They would be dead, Washington destroyed, the Pentagon vaporised, before a single nuclear missile could be fired.”

  “How can you be so certain of this?” Chisnall asked.

  “Because our weapons are already there,” Kozi said.

  BOOK TWO – WORLD ON FIRE

  More inhumanity has been done by man himself than any other of nature’s causes.

  – Samuel von Pufendorf

  FIREFIGHTERS

  [0750 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

  [BENANDARAH STATE FOREST, NEW SOUTH WALES]

  They could smell smoke from the fire. They could feel heat from the fire, shimmering through the air towards them. And they could hear it. A continuous roar like that of a waterfall. The heat was intense, leaves already browning on the trees around them. Turning back was not an option. But nor could they go forwards.

  Headlights caught them in a smoky blaze and the oncoming vehicle immediately began to slow.

  It wasn’t a Bzadian vehicle. That was clear even as it pulled to a stop. It was a human vehicle, but that was not unusual. The Bzadians had appropriated many human vehicles when they had taken over Australia. This one was yellow.

  It was Barnard who realised first. “Fire truck,” she said.

  Before Price had a chance to think through what she was doing, or formulate a plan, she stepped down and ran forwards, waving her hands wildly, stopping as she reached the fallen tree. “Help!” she cried in Bzadian, flipping up her visor.

  She got a mouthful of smoke and ended up coughing and choking, but that only seemed to add authenticity.

  One of the firefighters swung himself down from the truck. The leader of the team.

  “Fire coming this way,” Price shouted. That was stating the obvious. But surely that would be the last thing the enemy would say.

  If only The Tsar was okay. He had a way of making people believe him.

  “Are you all okay?” The leader’s visor was open. He had an unusually round face for a Bzadian, with flat, almost Asian-like features.

  Something wasn’t right, Price thought. What was she missing?

  “We have a man down,” she said. “Got hit by a falling branch.”

  “Who are you?” the Bzadian asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “We were part of the ground patrol in Batemans Bay,” Price said. “Our rotorcraft bugged out in a hurry, before we could get back to it.”

  “They should have waited for you,” he said. “Okay, let’s get you out of here before that fire gets any closer.”

  He gave a hand signal to the rest of his team, who stepped down from the fire truck. There were four of them: that made five altogether. The odds were pretty even, Price thought, but the Angels would have the advantage of surprise.

  “Can your wounded be carried?” the firefighter asked, and he made a strange circle in the air with his hand.

  “Uniforms,” Barnard said quietly on the com.

  Too late, Price realised what was wrong. The Bzadians were not wearing firefighters’ uniforms. They were in combat suits. They carried side-arms and coil-guns. They were moving into position, not to help, but to give themselves clear fields of fire. The advantage of surprise belonged to the Bzadians.

  In agonisingly slow motion, she noticed the leader’s hand reach for his weapon release.

  “Dingo,” she cried out.

  The Angels reacted instantly, coil-guns springing over shoulders and into their arms.

  Price dived for the road behind the fallen tree trunk as wood chips exploded above her head. She raised her weapon above the tree and fired blindly over the top of it then glanced back at her team.

  Monster was crouching by the left guardrail. He was totally exposed and must have realised it. He leaped over the rail, using it as a shield. His face and weapon popped back up almost immediately but, as he raised his coil-gun to fire, a line of bullets stitched an uneven path across his chest, throwing him backwards, down into the stream and out of sight.

  “Monster!” Price screamed. “Monster!”

  There was no time to dwell on it. The enemy fire was concentrated now on Barnard and Wall, sheltering behind the garden truck which was rocking under the impact of the rounds.

  “Get away from the truck!” Price yelled. “You’ll attract fire to The Tsar.”

  They split, one darting left, one right. Price put her gun over the tree again and emptied her clip to give them cover.

  Price couldn’t see Brogan, but heard fire coming from up on the tree line, on the right bank. Brogan must have taken The Tsar’s weapon and found an elevated position from where she could fire down on the enemy.

  She saw a small black shape fly through the air towards the bank.

  “Brogan! Frag!” she shouted, a second before a fireball of red and orange blossomed in the trees with a thunderclap of sound.

  The firing from that direction stopped.

  Price grabbed a puffer cartridge from her belt and slotted it into her rifle. Made of a concentrated powder that vaporised on impact, puffer rounds could be more effective than solid bullets that merely cracked the target’s body armour. She risked a glance over the top of the tree trunk and saw one of the Bzadians crawling along the top of the fire truck. He reached the front and started firing. She rolled away as the tree and the roadway where she had been exploded in a fury of bullets. The air above her sang with the zizzing flight of projectiles.

  Price glanced behind to see Barnard’s head snap backwards. She fell in a loose pile of limbs. Wall was already down, his armour shattered, bullets kicking up the bitumen all around him.

  A clump of dead foliage on the tree offered some cover. Price used it. She took careful aim and pumped a puffer round into the stock of the soldier’s weapon, just in front of his face. A cloud of puffer dust enveloped him and the firing from the top of the truck stopped.

  All the firing had stopped. It left an eerie silence, and her ears
were ringing from the previous barrage of sound.

  The leader of the Bzadian squad called out, “Put your weapons on the ground and put your hands on your heads.”

  Price considered the odds. She had four soldiers down, out of five. Injured? Dead? She didn’t know. The Bzadians had at least one down. Anyway she looked at it, the odds were not great.

  While she was still thinking about it, another voice called out, “Change of plans. You put weapons on ground and put hands on your heads.”

  There was silence.

  Price risked a peek above the tree.

  Monster stood behind the Bzadians, beside the fire truck. He appeared uninjured. The Bzadians had their weapons trained on him.

  The fuel tank on the truck was protected by a flame and heat proof cover. That was open. So was the fuel cap. Monster had one hand poised over the opening and he raised his hand slightly so they could all see what he held. A grenade. In his other hand he held the pin. Only the pressure of his fingers on the lever prevented the grenade from exploding.

  “If you drop that grenade, you will die,” the leader said.

  “If he destroys the truck, we will all die,” Price said, standing up. “We have no way to escape the fire.”

  One of the Bzadian soldiers, a female, turned abruptly and walked up to Monster, placing the muzzle of her gun on his forehead. “Drop the grenade,” she said.

  “Bad idea,” Monster said.

  “I will count to three,” she said.

  “Count as high as you like,” Monster said, smiling. “Count as high as you can.”

  “One,” she said.

  Price stared at the leader and shook her head. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Two,” the female soldier said.

  The leader looked around and returned Price’s stare evenly.

  “Three,” she said.

  “Each bomb is smaller than a shoebox,” Kozi said. “They are undetectable. Hidden by Fezerkers. One is within sight of the Pentagon.”

  Chisnall was silent. If what she said was true, and he had no doubt it was, then the human race was closer to extinction than he had ever imagined.

  “Why me?” he asked at last.