They can be beaten. A step at a time, but they can be beaten!
Jack opened up the seams, picked up a probe and began to test circuitry, automatically, out of habit, even though Bogie had been fully powered and tested twenty-four hours ago. He frowned. There were minute power shortages. Bogie had been pirating again. Jack rubbed his temples. The finding strengthened his resolve to get new armor fitted when they returned to Malthen. His old suit was no longer reliable… and there was another being fighting him for control of it. He couldn’t tell Bogie yet nor could he predict what the sentience would do if he found out Jack would no longer share the suit or companionship with him.
Would it be the death of Bogie? Jack knew that the possibility existed, for the sentience was struggling now to regenerate as he had never had to struggle before. Perhaps the being was more closely related to a parasitic Milot berserker than he realized. Perhaps it needed more than Jack’s warmth and sweat.
Perhaps it needed to begin feeding.
Jack jerked the probe out of his suit irritably.
Across the way, Fostermeir, his NCO for this drop, began the countdown. “Gentlemen, suit up! And let’s not forget the dead man circuit, boys. We don’t want any Thraks pulling armor off the casualties to take home and have fun with.”
Premonition prickled at Storm. Well, Jack thought…
“…there’s no time like the present.” Denaro straightened, his helmet under his arm.
Amber shook her head. “I can’t go with you.”
“You damned well can’t stay here. We may have five thousand recruits roaming around now, but I can tell you that they know there’s been rogue activity. It’s just a matter of time until you’re caught.”
Amber’s mouth curved just a little. Denaro glared at her. He threw his shoulders back.
“All right, all right,” he said. “I’ve been a pain in the ass. I have my duty to St. Colin and the Blue Wheel. And I’ll admit I thought you were a she-devil at first, come to tempt me with all your wiles. But I’m a soldier and you’re a soldier, and the emperor’s army is no place to be caught. If you’re going to fight, fight a war that counts. With someone honorable.”
“Jack’s honorable.”
His jaw moved, then the man said, “From what I’ve seen of him. But Pepys is not, and a Knight has to be the emperor’s man. Come with me.”
Amber hesitated. Then she said softly, “No. I won’t leave him. But you needn’t worry… no one will find out from me where you’ve gone.”
Denaro stood poised one second longer as if arguing with himself, but his lips clamped tightly on the words he might have said, and he ducked out of the locker room, leaving Amber alone with the words she might have said.
She stood alone with the echo of receding footsteps and wondered if, when Jack came home, he would come home to her.
Or would he really be coming home to his obsession with the armor and his fight against the Thraks?
Since the day of his speech to the Dominion Congress, her loneliness had been incalculable. It was as though a ten-meter metal plate had dropped between them. She had finally moved out of his bed, into the second bedroom in the apartment, and he had not even noticed.
Or worse, if he had, he had not objected.
“Ah, damn,” she whispered, and the strangled sound of her own voice startled her. What was she lacking? What was it that she couldn’t give Jack? If she could only find out.
She hung her helmet on its hook, thinking that it looked more than ever like a disembodied head, and began to strip her armor from her body.
“Red Wing down! My god, they’re all gone.”
“Pull yourself together, Garner.”
“Jack! They’re gone!”
“I’ve registered the hit, mister. Now pull your team together and get out of there.” Jack moved his chin and took a sip of water that did little to ease the ache of loss he felt. The Thraks were getting used to fighting them again. They were taking a terrible toll.
He moved forward, tall buildings blocking his soundings and his readings on the target grids. Broken concrete and twisted beams prevented him from getting a fix on either his men or his enemy. Tile and fallen brick obscured doorways. Window shards lay scattered on the ground, sliver sharp and jewel bright.
This had been a city once, before Thrakian bombardment reduced it to rubble. Jack moved through it and tried to keep the devastation from moving him to despair.
Bone shards were almost as prevalent as glass shards. Evacuation had come too late for some. Ruins of transports and hovercars lay on their sides, gutted with fire, lanced with skeletal remains. He was all right as long as he did not remember they had been human. The countryside was scarred even worse: the Thraks had spent days knocking out the power systems and the shields. Days before the Knights could get here. Days and nights of aggression against a planet unprepared for the act of war. He did not look down as he strode through an alleyway, his mikes echoing the sound of his own steps back at him.
His gauntlets tingled at his wrists, reminding him they were powered up. Jack halted just before the intersection with the main tube. He had a hunch the Thraks that had taken out Red Wing were now realigned out there, waiting to ambush Blue Wing.
He looked at his mapping grid. “Fostermeier, Blue Wing, count off, with street positions.”
“Yes, sir, approaching corner of Tenth and Galway.”
“Garner, angling up eighth toward Galway.”
“Peaches here, in the alleyway intersecting Mendoza.”
“It’s Aaron, sir, and I’m scaling a foundation… I think I’m near First Street.”
And on down the line, as they all approached Galway.
He called it a hunch. Amber would call it intuition and curse him if he paid no attention to it.
“Don’t enter the tube. I think we’ll run a little interference first. Back off.”
“What is it, commander?”
“I think they’re in the subway junction under the Galway Main tube. Thraks like to go underground.”
Jack felt the rightness of it the moment he said it. Yes, of course, the subway system! Like home to the Thraks. The moment Blue Wing entered the main street, they would boil up out of the subway entrances just like they boiled up out of sand.
The question was, what was he going to do about it?
Static buzzed in his ear. A faint transmission fed in. “Commander Storm, this is Gold Wing.”
“Who’s that? Where’s Captain Bosk?”
“He’s down, sir.”
“Dead?”
“Well… he wasn’t, sir, but the dead man circuit got him when they pulled him out of his armor.”
They wanted armor. And they wanted it badly. That confirmed Jack’s fears. No longer would the Thrakian attitude of natural superiority be on Jack’s side. The Thraks were going to find out all they could about the enemy they were facing.
“Commander?”
The young voice pulled his attention back. “Who is this, mister?”
“Lieutenant Vega, sir. We’re on the outside of the city, near the open country. I remembered the lectures you gave, sir. There’s sand around here somewhere, there’s grit in the wind.”
Already. Jack made up his mind. “Hold on, Vega. We’ll be backing you up just as soon as we can pull out of here.” He toggled onto his main frequency. “Fostermeier, I want a river of flame down there.”
“What?”
“Fossil fuel, whatever you can find. Or, a volunteer with all the grenades he can handle.”
“That’s a death sentence, commander.”
Jack felt the sweat trickling down his back. “Not necessarily, sergeant. I’ll do it myself, if I have to.”
Aaron came in over the com. “Ah… commander? I’m presently standing on the first floor of what appears to be a brewery. The storage tanks are still intact.”
Alcohol? Not a very hot burn, and difficult to start, but their lasers ought to be up to it and it was better than nothing.
“Garner, get over there and help him. Peaches, you, too. I want to funnel it down in flames. The rest of you men, home in on me. We’re going to be decoys. And Fostermeier, if anything happens, I want you to take the rest of Blue Wing out to Vega’s position. Where there’s sand, there’s the main infestation. It’ll have to be taken out. All right, let’s go. We’re on a timetable for the construction crew drop. I want those shields back up before they can bring their mother ships down!”
They formed a wedge. They marched, the shocks from their armored boots vibrating through the asphalt and pavement. Jack smiled grimly. He knew that the Thraks knew they were on their way.
He only hoped they couldn’t count that well.
Garner came on. “We’re set here. Shit, Jack. This stuff is 120 proof… but we can pour it right on top of ‘em. We’ve stopped the storm drains, the street will be full in a second.”
“Then it’ll burn well. We’re almost in position. On my mark… now.” Jack right-angled, making his way toward the brewery.
A fighter streaked overhead, leaving a sonic boom in its wake. Jack craned his neck back, helmet cameras catching its blurry image. At the edge of the city, explosions erupted, and he could see a dark cloud of smoke and glowing ash rise crimson against the destruction.
“We’ve got no time left, they’re bringing in the big guns.”
“It’s on the way,” Fostermeir said.
Jack strode out onto Galway. Two degrees to his left, he could see the cavernous mouth of the subway stairs. He was in a concrete canyon, with nowhere to run if his tactic failed.
Amber liquid washed past him, curling about his boots, and swirling on down the street, blue alcohol flames nearly invisible. It spilled down into the subway, where it burned hotter and he could see the gout of flames turn orange and roar back up from the mouth of the underworld. Thraks filled the stairway. Jack braced himself and began to shoot, cutting them down as they attempted to hurdle the wall of blue and orange flame.
Something slapped at the armor. He staggered back.
*Boss, they’re using projectiles. I suggest we not make a target of ourselves!*
Beside Jack, Fostermeier blossomed. He dropped, visor down, into the dwindling river of fire.
With an angry whine, something slapped at Jack’s armor again. He felt the pinch of crimped Flexalinks along his upper arm. “Sergeant!”
*He’s gone, Boss.*
Jack hit the power vault, clearing the NCO’s still form easily. The alcohol flames, quickly spent, guttered out. He scanned his screen, saw another two of his men down in the street. A field pack lay burst open between them.
With two strides, he reached them. Jack plucked out three grenades. He turned and headed for the subway entrance.
*I don’t think I’m going to like this* said Bogie.
“I think you’re right,” Jack answered. “Garner! Head for the outskirts, now, and that’s an order! Home in on Vega and go for the nest.” He keyed the start sequence on the grenade and, even as he walked into the field of fire, he wondered when Bogie had gotten a sense of self-preservation.
Something slapped him high in the left shoulder, hard enough to pivot him around on his boot heel and leave him staggered. He righted himself and keyed the second grenade, then lobbed them both.
Smells flooded the suit as if he’d cracked his helmet, yet he hadn’t. Sounds followed—an ear-filling chittering of Thrakian alarm. A wall of Thraks reared in front of him as Jack punched in the last code. He rolled the grenade across their front, hit the power vault, and was in the air and behind them when the shock wave hit.
He could smell the explosion. The scorched chitin. The hot ash. As he hit and landed, a racking pain skewered his left shoulder.
“Damn,” he said. “I’m hit.”
*No kidding, boss. You’re leaking.*
Projectiles. The norcite coating on his armor had taken him farther than Fostermeier and his other two men, but he wasn’t completely invincible. Jack got to his knees and then stood up. The constrictions of the armor prevented him from surveying the exterior damage.
From the inside, it felt gooey. He started to look down and thought better of it.
“Get a patch on it, Bogie, and let’s get out of here.”
The chamois which always lay along his back and neck, edged over to his shoulder. Jack felt a gentle warmth begin to drive away the icy pain. He turned and panned the street. It was empty.
He broke into a jog, the battle suit eating up the distance. The throb in his shoulder kept time with the jolt of his boots.
He wasn’t going to go unless he could take the nest with him.
Bogie settled gingerly over the torn flesh. He was cold, always cold now, and the power reserves of Jack’s armor no longer fed him the energy he needed to maintain a status quo, let alone to regenerate.
Blood welled up around him, soaking naturally into the porous nature of the chamois. Bogie refocused from the battle they fought to his own inward nature.
He tasted life. He knew the flavor. It sang in him, gave him heart.
He knew that Jack was dying, even as he sensed that he had begun to live again, for the first time in long, cold months.
It was the blood. The crimson fountaining up from the damaged flesh. It had to be.
He stemmed the life flow. He dared not taste it again.
He dared not.
Jack’s pulse thundered in his senses. He could heal Jack somewhat, set the edge of puckered flesh next to the edge of puckered flesh and begin the healing. Clot the bleeding, scab the wound.
And he could carry Jack to safety within the shell of the battle armor, if there was safety to be found anywhere on this planet.
Or he could touch life himself and grow again.
His soul trembled.
The chamois quivered. Tiny cilia erupted. Hairlike. Feather light. Questing for the life font it desired. No, craving was not strong enough! In every particle of his newly reforming body, Bogie had to have what he had tasted.
Bogie pulled back from the wound, not trusting himself. Jack neither knew nor cared as he cried out hoarsely, “I have the sand targeted. All Teams, all Wings, home in on me, we’re going in!” even as he staggered forward.
Jack’s destiny was moot, Bogie decided. He let the cilia creep forward in quest of whatever life might be left.
Chapter 21
Amber woke screaming, her voice clawing its way out of her throat, her bed covers thrashed and wet with sweat—or was it tears?—about her. She shivered into silence, her throat as lacerated with her terror as if she’d tried to swallow a power blade. Her chest heaved for air, and then she knew.
“Oh, god. It’s Jack!”
She threw aside the covers and, in pitch darkness, stumbled out of the bed. There was no time, no time to waste at all. She opened the com lines to Colin and prayed for a speedy answer.
It was the middle of the night, but the Walker prelate answered on the second ring. She recognized his meditation chamber surrounding him. His eyes were tired, he was still fully dressed, and she realized he’d been working late.
“Amber. What is it?”
“It’s Jack. I know it is. Oh, god,” she got out, before a paroxysm of fear stilled her.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know! Fighting somewhere. But I think he’s dying… or dead.”
St. Colin closed his eyes briefly, as if in remorse, then looked back at her through the screen. “He’s a soldier, dear heart. He knew the risks.”
“He can’t! It’s not his time yet. Not without me. He can’t!”
“What do you expect me to do?”
And in that moment, hope seized her nearly as keenly as the fear had. He had not said, there’s nothing I can do. He’d asked, what do you expect me to do, as if he could do something. With one hand, she swept her disheveled hair back from her face.
“What can you do?”
He winced. “A prayer, perhaps?”
“I’m not rel
igious.
For a long moment, he closed his eyes again, before looking deeply into hers. His deep sable eyes were pensive. “I’m helpless, Amber. If I were with him, perhaps… but he’s far beyond my limited capabilities.”
“I can help.”
“You’d have to be with me. Do we have much time?”
She snatched at the remnants of her dream. “I don’t know—but it’s better than nothing. You stay—I’ll get there.”
Colin keyed off as she broke the connection and his screen went dark. He sat back in his chair. He’d been up most of the night in his meditation chamber, not worrying, barely thinking, merely attuned to the elements of the room. Renewing himself. Perhaps even readying himself. When the natural time for sleep came, he had used a light trance instead, waking when Amber called. Did I know? he asked himself. There were those Walkers who would insist he had… the ones who called him saint. But there were others who would disagree, the same Walkers who would have felt that Denaro had defected. He knew there might be trouble at any moment, precipitated by the militant’s actions. It was only logical to stay alert.
And there were a precious few who would say, what happened, happened. Why question it? Simply accept it as you find it.
Colin rubbed his temples, thinking that he preferred to side with the last group. He knew he had erred in speaking with Amber. A deliberate or an unconscious error? Was it recognition of some unvoiced feeling that if he could save any friend he had, he would save Jack? Perhaps. What was done, was done. He slipped back into his trance and it seemed like a matter of moments before a sleepy, rumpled Jonathan was escorting Amber into the chamber.
Her very presence resonated in the chamber. She wore her Bythian caftan and had tied her tawny hair back in a knot, but tendrils of it had escaped to frame the tense lines of her face. She barely waited until Jonathan left, then she crossed the room and grabbed his hands. Her fingers were chill.
“He’s still there,” she said, and her voice was husky. “But I’m losing him.”
He made her sit beside him, and then he said, “You think I’ve promised more than I have.”
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