by C. G. Hatton
“You care,” the Man said. “Don’t lose that but do not forget what is at stake.”
“I know. We deserve the reputation we have. Our people are good and they make their own luck. It’s hard to stand by and watch when that luck fails us.”
•
Hil could smell oil as he came to. The type of lubricant the grunts used on their hydraulics. He heard the whirr of an actuator and opened an eye in time to see an armoured hand sweep in for a malicious backslap across his cheek.
“You walk,” an electronically-enhanced voice instructed and he was pushed upright and thrust forward.
He staggered a few steps and fell to one knee, expecting to be hauled upright again. He wasn’t, he was kicked while he was down and the guy wasn’t compensating for the increased gravity and increased momentum and increased son-of-a-bitch pain that his goddamned armour could inflict. They must want him alive, Hil decided smugly, otherwise he’d be strung up dead over someone’s shoulder already. He stayed down and then they hauled him up and pulled him along between two of them, each holding his arms at the shoulder socket too tight to show any concern for his wellbeing. Alive, but not necessarily in one piece, he thought dismally. The pain in his right wrist had increased by several levels of magnitude to almost unbearable – whatever damage had been caused in the crash had been aggravated, when he hit the wall probably. It hadn’t done his head any favours either.
They took him over the roof, past the burning wreck of a ship that was mangled in the remains of the tower. He couldn’t help but stare and wonder which ship it had been and who else had bought it down there because of him.
They stopped at the edge of the landing zone and left him propped up by only one guard. There wasn’t much he could do though, the guy’s grip on his arm was backed by the power of hydraulic actuators. Hil managed to stand without wobbling and kept his head down.
“Kase? You there?” he sent tentatively, not completely sure they didn’t have hardware that could overhear.
“Hilyer, tell me you are worth this.” Martha sounded more pissed than he’d ever heard, pissed and disconcertingly upset.
“Someone thinks I’m worth it. What’s happening down there?”
“We’re getting our butts kicked,” she sent quietly. “We’ve lost three ships and we haven’t managed to regroup. There’s four of us down that I know of and Kase is in a bad way. They’re pulling back for some reason. I sent a team to the roof a while back, are they there?”
Hil kept his head down and tried to look up, eyes stinging and eyelashes dripping with raindrops.
“No,” he sent through the connection. “But I know why these guys are pulling back.”
She must have sensed something in his tone and it snapped her back to her usual charming self. “Oh, don’t tell me. No, wait, you don’t need to, we can see you. Well, isn’t this something? You don’t look so good, sunshine.”
It had been humiliating enough the first time when he’d had concussion. Now he felt so wretched, he just wanted her to waltz up and whisk him away to a comfy bed. They’d been a cute couple when they’d been an item. He felt almost nostalgic.
“Hil,” she sent quietly, “don’t move.”
It was hard not to tense as soon as she said it but his body was well trained, abused though it was at that moment.
He stood motionless and didn’t even twitch so much as a single muscle when the guy holding him suddenly let go and fell to the ground.
It was timed immaculately. No other soldiers were looking in their direction.
There were only three people in the guild who could have made that shot, a high velocity armour piercing round, from god knows what range, through the weak spot between the visor and neck guard of the helmet. The guy hadn’t had a chance and Hil was sure he could bet his twenty six million on Martha having taken it.
He ducked down and quickly checked the guy’s armour for insignia, rank, anything that could reveal where they were from. There was nothing. The armour was like nothing he’d seen before. It was a translucent black brown and glistened in the rain, smooth except for hinged joints. The pistol the guy had been holding to the back of Hil’s neck lay discarded, half submerged in a puddle. It was flashing a half charge.
Hil grabbed it and ran.
He made it into cover before any of them noticed but getting away completely was seeming more and more difficult.
A wracking cough sent him to his knees, clutching his chest and feeling like every spasm was going to make his head explode. He tried to keep quiet but the more effort that took, the more he ended up retching in agony, spots behind his eyes and oblivious for a time to anything around him.
He fell more than walked into another tangle of pipes and sitting tight, nestled in close to a valve that was venting steam and keeping his back warm, Hil watched the flashlights dance in a coordinated, precise pattern.
The pistol was cold to the touch, intricate machining and elaborate mechanics. He was no weapons expert but it was unlike anything he’d seen or fired before. The grip was too big for him, designed to be used with armour, but he reckoned he could fire it if he had to. It was a weapon at least.
Whoever these guys were, they were well equipped and well trained. The guild was a formidable organisation, but they were getting their butts kicked and he could hardly keep his eyes open, let alone make it out of here on his own. And he had a ticking time limit that the tightness in his chest wasn’t going to let him forget.
Martha was quiet despite a couple of attempts he made to talk to her. Genoa wasn’t there for him and god knows what had happened to Kase. He felt bad about that. But at least he knew now why this was happening, even if he didn’t understand what it was about. And as much as he couldn’t put any of it right, he knew how to get Anya back. And even LC maybe. If he could just get off this goddamned roof. He glanced at the band on his wrist. If he could get off the roof before it was too late.
Another loud explosion jerked him awake again. He gasped and held his head, willing the pain to stop.
“Hil,” Martha broke into the private party going on in his head. “There’s an escape ladder on the far side of the landing pad. Can you get down to ground level?”
He closed an eye and tried to focus with the other through the steam. “Yep,” he sent back confidently, feeling anything but. “What then?”
“Just get there.”
He could see the ladder and he could see a way to it.
Lightning was flashing across the sky by the time he made it to the escape. Twice, he’d frozen, lit up as if he’d been caught in the beam of a searchlight. It was the worst freaking thing to do. Freeze and you die. It was something they trained for, time and time again, taking a beating from the grunts every time the wrong instinct kicked in and you didn’t move fast enough. Move, you stay alive.
He moved, anger at himself fuelling a forward momentum that got him to the other side of the building. Martha was yelling at him by the time he made it. He tucked the pistol into his waistband, made a left-handed grab onto the handrail and swung over, half falling down to the first level, feeling exposed on the open gantry. Shots pinged off the rail and he dropped down another level, pausing when Martha screamed at him to wait, nearly yanking his shoulder out of its socket when she yelled at him to move. Each rung was an effort and every breath was a fire-laced agony of wheezing. Eight or nine rungs from the ground and a spattering of shots sparked off the ladder.
Hil curled in tight and yelped as he felt an impact hit his back, jarring his right shoulder. All feeling in that arm vanished and he dropped. He hit the ground and rolled, kicking out as he sensed more than saw a body close by reaching down to him. They were too fast and before he knew where he was, he was being hauled aside, gloved – not armoured – hands holding him tight. He felt a sharp pain in his neck.
“Hold still,” Martha hissed at him. “Quit fighting me, you moron. If we get out of this alive, I swear I’m going to kill you.”
She was an angel at times.
She pulled him to his feet and slung an arm around him, about all that was keeping him upright. A minute later, he felt a flood of warm strength tingle through his muscles. He’d never had a shot of any of the crazy drugs they used on the dark side – he’d never had to, field-ops didn’t need to – but feeling the clouds clear inside his head and a bounce come back to his knees, it was hard not to wonder why they didn’t. He muttered a thanks and managed to stay standing when she spun him around and started prodding at the sore spot on his back.
“Thank me when we’re safely on a ship out of here,” she said. “How bad is the poisoning?”
He checked his wrist and coughed. “Bad enough that if I don’t get a shot of antidote within about thirty minutes, you’re going to have wasted your time coming down here for me.”
She glared at him and grabbed his wrist to take a look for herself. The numbers scrolling on the band were still higher than anyone ever wanted to see.
She cursed and grabbed his shoulder again. “Well, whatever they hit you with, it hasn’t penetrated. They want you alive. Pity they’re not so concerned about the rest of us chumps who are stupid enough to be out here trying to save your ass.”
“What happened to Kase?” Hil asked. “Is he alright?”
She glared at him, then glanced out suddenly as if she was listening to something. She crouched and pulled him down.
“He broke cover to shoot a guy that was taking a bead on you,” she sent through the link.
Crap.
“I don’t know how he is because I’m here with you and he’s over there, bleeding onto the goddamned tarmac. The whole situation has gone to crap. I don’t believe it. You really screwed us up going solo like a fucking rookie up there on the orbital. Who the hell are these people?”
“They have Anya,” he said abruptly, out loud. It felt like he should explain, like someone should know. “Not these people, the ones that took me on the station.”
Martha had her gun up. She kept her aim steady but turned her head to look at him. “What?”
“Mendhel’s daughter,” he said and tried to stifle a cough. “That’s why we took the tab.”
“For fuck’s sake, Hil, I don’t care why you did it, or what you did. I don’t care who these people are. Just shut the fuck up and try to stay alive for me. Can you do that?”
“I don’t…”
She cut him off with a hiss, eyes now firmly fixed on whoever it was she had in her sights.
She took the shot, stood up and grabbed his arm. “C’mon.”
He ran after her, feeling like his legs weren’t his own. They ran faster than he could coordinate and he felt invincible, chest on fire and vision down to a narrow tunnel edged with black, but feeling like he could run all night.
They splashed across an open area and made it to a small group of buildings that were shrouded in darkness. They cringed in close to a wall as a searchlight swept past. A ship flew close overhead.
“We’re screwed,” Martha muttered out loud.
They could see the end of the runway from where they were. There was one ship there, listing to one side with smoke streaming from it. He could just make out figures guarding it. The main building was shielding their view of the rest of the runway, but they could hear shots still, distant and echoing in the night air.
“Are they guild?”
Martha shushed him again and stood head cocked to one side like she was listening to someone. Presumably she had a link with the other teams that she hadn’t included him in on. It was probably best, he couldn’t handle another voice in his head right now. The drug was wearing off already, he could feel the edge of it slipping away. His fingertips were tingling and it was getting even harder to keep his eyes open.
Martha swatted at his cheek.
“Stay with me, sunshine,” she said. “We’re going to make a run for it. They’re going to give us a diversion. I’ve told them they can have a share in your twenty six million. Think you can make it?”
Hil blinked, not entirely sure he could even if he tried.
“Oh for god’s sake,” she said and another sharp pain hit his neck. “Hil, listen to me.”
She gripped his arm tightly. “Another one of these will kill you – if the electrobes haven’t already. Do you understand? We have to make a run for it. They can’t hold much longer. Ready?”
Another surge of warmth blossomed through his limbs but this time his head didn’t clear, it began to pound in time with his heartbeat.
“C’mon.” She pulled at his arm and they broke cover. As they ran, the sky beyond the building lit up with booming explosions. He could see the ship up ahead and that became his whole world. One foot after the other, cringing each time there was another crash of thunder or bomb detonating around them. Ships screamed overhead and shots began peppering the ground around them. Martha held onto his arm and pulled, stumbling at one point so it was him pulling her along. If they didn’t want to kill him, someone hadn’t got the message.
Halfway there, the ship ahead of them erupted in a ball of flames.
Chapter 16
The Man stood up and walked round to the cabinet on the far wall. The flames of candles flickered frantically, dancing for survival, as he passed. He took out a bottle and walked ponderously back to the desk.
“How wise,” the Man said, “was it to send so many extraction teams into such a volatile situation?”
And there it was. Again, with hindsight he should have known. NG shook his head. “It wasn’t. We lost some good people.” What else could he say considering what happened?
The Man picked up a pinch of black powder from a small round pot and sprinkled it into the empty glass jug. He poured wine from the bottle into the jug and swirled it as the reaction of the liquid and the powder heated the wine and steam began to circle upwards. He filled both goblets.
“I was trying to limit the damage already done,” NG admitted. “I could have sent the guild’s entire security forces to get Hil out of there but at the time we were still trying to play down the situation and I wanted to know who they were. I decided that a contingent of extraction teams could do the best job of running a discrete operation. I was wrong. I just didn’t realise why. And I didn’t anticipate the size of the force they’d be up against.”
•
Hil threw a hand over his eyes, feeling the heat even at this distance. Martha didn’t slow. She changed course, dragging him with her, away from the runway and back towards the darkness they’d left. In his periphery vision, he could see the red pinpoints of laser sights closing in on them.
Then with a thunderous roar, a mass appeared above them and they both fell to their knees as the massive weight of a ship swept in from behind them, too close overhead, displacing the air with a violence that left them gasping. It landed and skidded, metal screeching, sending shrapnel flying, sparks flashing. Wire fences crashed and tangled, lines breaking and whipping loose.
The ramp crashed open before the ship had come to a stop, scraping across the ground as the vessel slewed off ahead of them.
“Get down,” Martha yelled at him, pulling his arm and throwing them both to the ground. He covered his head with an arm and put complete trust in her, lying there and waiting.
A burst of energy rippled out in a ring from the ship. He felt the heat from it as it raced over their heads and spread out behind them. He heard yells and screams some distance back, and looking back over his shoulder he could see figures caught in an agonising pulse of static time and energy before disintegrating in a spray of molecules.
Then Martha was up and dragging him to his feet and they were running towards the ramp.
The landing gear was trashed so the ramp was skewed at an angle, and rain was flooding down it, so they had to slip and scramble up into the ship. Martha punched the button to close the ramp and yelled at him to get inside as she guarded them, rifle barrel scanning the gap as the ramp rose and slammed shut.
Hil stood shaking and shivering, roote
d to the spot. He didn’t know which ship they were on and any fight or flight instinct he had left was in such conflict that he began to shut down. He looked at the band on his wrist. It was the longest and worst he’d ever been exposed. They’d all heard horror stories of electrobe poisoning and they laughed in the face of it but right now, as breathing got harder and the weight pushing against his lungs got heavier, he gave up, sagged and closed his eyes.
“No, you don’t,” Martha snapped and pulled him along towards the bridge. “Genoa, where the hell do you keep the medical kit?”
Martha pushed him into a chair and gave him a double dose of antidote. She thrust the medical kit into his hands and waved another pack of something he couldn’t make out in front of his face.
“Take these when you wake up,” she said tucking the pack in next to him and firing another shot of something into his neck. “Genoa, get him out of here. I’m going back for Kase.”
And she ran out.
Genoa flew them up into orbit, taking a couple of hits along the way that knocked them sideways and at one point threw them into a dive that felt endless before she managed to pull up.
Hil sat and shivered, soaking wet and chilled through, feeling his eyes get heavier and heavier. Extracted for a second time sucked worse than the first time. He sat with the massive pistol resting in his lap and persuaded himself to reach a hand into his pocket to feel the cold outline of the implant there. At least this time, he had something more substantial than a concussion to show for his efforts.
He must have flaked out. Regaining consciousness in the middle of a fire fight was a new experience. Hil felt his stomach lurch as the ship dropped and rolled and he almost called out to Skye before his brain caught up with the fact she was firing weapons so it was Genoa, not Skye. Proximity alarms were screaming then she pulled a manoeuvre that almost made him pass out again. She accelerated then jumped without warning. They jumped twice more and each time, he felt like his head was going to implode.
