Maung’s shoulders slumped with relief when Nang gave him a thumbs up, and she was already patching her suit; she must not be hurt badly. But he couldn’t tell what was happening with Nam. The old man had held on, but wasn’t moving upward.
“I have my own problems, Than,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do next. Plug your suit and help Nam and Nang, then head for the Chinese drop ship.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Fall.”
At first it was a gentle drop but soon he moved faster. Maung estimated he only had seconds before it got out of hand, but there was almost two meters between him and the nearest building—too much space for him to grab at a window.
“I should have run the numbers on this before I did it,” he whispered.
Maung unslung his coil gun. The Sommen rifle was in one hand, which meant he had only the other to use, and he tried to work as quickly as possible. He squeezed the trigger. Maung kept firing until the last fléchette streaked out and then he flung the gun away from himself as hard as possible before looking to see if it worked—hoping that he discarded enough mass to propel him back toward the structure from which he’d jumped. The windows moved quickly now. He slowly drifted toward them until finally he was close enough to reach out and grab a ledge, instead clamping onto the edge of a broken window.
The window rim was sharp; its seal had been designed to hold thick slabs of clear plastic and the rim provided enough of a sharp angle to give Maung a place to grip, but a loud hiss came at the same time the rim bit through his glove. He winced at the sensation of freezing metal cutting into his skin. A few seconds later Maung climbed through and into an empty room, where he paused to seal his glove while ignoring the agony. His hand had to wait. Already the blood pooled around his fingers, the warmth and stickiness letting him know the injury was severe.
“Than, are Nam and Nang OK?” he asked.
“Nang is fine; her suit is sealed and a few fléchette nicks is all. Nam’s hurt, though, Pa.”
“I’m on my way back up now.”
Maung tucked the Sommen rifle into his suit straps and leaped back out onto the building face, jumping from window to window, his semi-aware stimulating the production of biochemicals to counteract the searing pain from his fingers.
“Let me find my way back to the control room, you Tatmaw idiot,” Nam said.
Maung smiled; if he was arguing, it couldn’t be that bad. “I thought you were dead,” he said.
“So did this fool.” Nam lay on the rooftop, the front of his suit covered with blotches of sealer. He pointed a finger at Than. “He wants me to wait here. Not with those spiders running around.”
Than clicked onto a separate frequency so Nam couldn’t hear. “Maung, he has five fléchettes in his chest and abdomen. His suit’s med unit is saying he’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Is he going to live?”
“Maybe. It’s fifty-fifty either way. If he moves he could make it worse, but if he stays here he could go into shock and bleed out.”
“We don’t even have a doc anymore,” Maung said.
“No, but there’s an old medbot there. It should be able to do at least the basics.”
Maung helped Nam to his feet and walked him to the edge. “Think you can make it?”
“I’m sorry, Maung. I wanted to get my boys back.”
“I know.” Maung nudged him gently off and watched to make sure Nam descended normally, dropping from one window to the next. Then he turned back. The other two were already pushing off side to side, building up speed and heading for the drop ship landing site. He caught up and passed them. The building’s roof was almost even with the crater rim, and Maung leaped upward, rising at least ten meters into the air so he clipped the rim with his feet and rolled against the black rock before coming to a stop. He raised his Sommen rifle. From this distance the huge spherical drop ship was dime sized, resting on a cage-like structure and Maung observed a long line of figures moving underneath it. Even though those might be the guards, he had to take the chance; the fighter might be close and if he failed to immobilize the vehicle now, they’d be lost forever.
His first shot missed. The figures scattered from the craft and Maung saw the glow of engines, four of them warming on the ship’s underside, about to touch off. He settled his breathing and willed himself to calm down. The gun fired again. This time it hit the tip of the craft, blowing off metal plates that scattered and turned, floating gently down toward the rock and landing at the same time the engines stopped. Maung fired three more times to guarantee the ship stayed put and by the time Nang and Than caught up to him, he knelt behind cover.
“It’s decided to stick around,” he said.
“Now what?”
“Now we go get our guards back and kill the rest of the Chinese.”
But before they could move the ship exploded. At first Maung thought the fighter might have arrived and fired on the Chinese drop ship without warning, but Nang assured him that it couldn’t have arrived yet. They bounded toward the ship as quickly as they could. Several Myanmar guards hid in nearby cracks and craters, and after gathering all of them together he counted only about twenty. Motionless Chinese figures dotted the landscape, with their spider-like carapaces blown open from the inside. There was no sign of any Americans.
Nam asked, “Did these Chinese blow up because of your hits?”
“No. They all blew themselves up because they’d rather die than be caught. We’d better get back; I just changed out my last oxygen.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nam and Nang slept, recovering in a corner of the chamber while strapped loosely into beds where Maung watched Nang’s chest rise and fall; a pressure disappeared from his chest. She had been wounded in the shoulder and would recover. He smiled through a tear and closed his eyes to mumble a prayer for them both, and when he looked up he saw all the remaining Burmese kneeling at his feet. There were so few now; Maung could tell they expected something from him. The men were quiet and as soon as he turned to face them they bowed deeply, touching their foreheads to the floor at the same time they tried not to bounce into the air.
Maung stepped back, a feeling of shock numbing everything. So many of his countrymen were in sick bay, waiting their turn for the overworked medical bot, but the Sunny Side guards still hadn’t shown up so the only non-Burmese in the room was Nang, who woke up and gripped his wrist—startling him.
“They want to pray with you,” she said. “I didn’t really understand you were capable of these things, Maung—what you did out there just now. You saved all of us.”
“I’m sorry, Nang.” His memories—of villages and massacres—swamped his thoughts. “I’m so sorry if I hurt your people and for not telling you sooner about what I really am. What I was, I mean.”
“We can talk about that later. It’s not like I don’t have secrets either. But right now I think these guys expect you to lead them, and a good place to start would be in prayers for the dead. You’re more than a Dream Warrior to them. And soon the Chinese will attack in force so I have to admit: It’s nice to have someone like you on our side.”
Maung closed his eyes and searched for the right prayer. When he decided, he swept his chair aside and knelt beside Nang’s bed, bowing to the floor so his forehead pressed against the cold plastic.
“I bow down to the youthful Arya Manjushri,” Maung said, continuing the prayer to its end and repeating it ten times until his back screamed in pain. When he finished, he stood. One by one the Burmese came and hugged him, bowing and pressing their foreheads against his hand and each one said the same thing, “—Pa-Maung.”
When it was Nang’s turn she leaned in and kissed him, pulling Maung in tightly so she could whisper, “I’m fine. Come lie next to me, Pa-Maung.”
Maung, Nang, and Than recovered in the control room. The holo-map spun in front of them and Maung studied it so carefully that he soon dropped into a trance, oblivious of the conversations around him and energized by th
e calculations that ripped through his consciousness; he overrode a warning indicator that he needed sleep and additional medical attention; eight of his fingers had been stitched back together. Something else tugged at him, though. Maung waved his hand, annoyed at the distraction, until he eventually grasped that Than was pushing on his shoulder, trying to get his attention.
“Maung!” He shouted.
“What?”
“We patched the control room’s airlock doors and found four of the Chinese nano-traps but they’re not activated; we can use them,” said Than. “After those are gone, it’s just coil guns and your Sommen rifle.”
“And my Sunny Side guards are arriving any minute,” Nang said. “That Korean is leading them, Kim Su Michael. They call him Mike.”
“He’s American?” Maung asked.
“As American as cheeseburgers,” she said. “Doesn’t speak a word of Korean or anything that isn’t English.”
Maung nodded. He dreaded the arrival of the 127 Sunny Side guards even though he needed their help, to be followed soon by the rest. They may as well have been Chinese. Koreans were arrogant—wouldn’t follow his orders—and so the addition of their numbers meant little in the sense that when the fighting started, chaos could result from their refusal to act on his commands. Maung knew the fastest way to fix this: break their leader. Maung would do it in front of his men to show who was in charge, but it would damage the man and could create thousands of less probable, but potential unwanted results. He shook his head at the insanity of what was about to happen and then glanced over at Nam when the old man entered, taking his usual seat at the desk.
“Well, Pa?” he asked. “What next?”
“You should be in bed, old man. And I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
Nang grinned and poked Maung’s side. “Why? I think it’s cute. Pa.”
“Our guys are all resting, Than, right?”
He nodded. “All in their bunk, sleeping like babies.”
“Fine,” said Maung. “Nang and I have to go; you and Nam start coding the drifters. When the Chinese attack again I want all the able-bodied prisoners out in the port, spread out everywhere, with whatever they can use as weapons. Plasma torches, demolition equipment, the works. And turn off their beacons so the Chinese can’t track them too.”
“What should we code them to do?”
“To kill anything moving that isn’t human.” A red light flashed on his heads-up, which meant a motion detector at the prisoner transport had activated. He caught Nang’s hand. “Our Korean friend has arrived.”
“Maung!” Nang said, so that Maung paused until she caught up at the door. “Your suit ring hides your wetware port, but be careful. They don’t know what you are, and you want to make sure they never find out.”
Maung and Nang bounced in the corridor, watching the guards approach. Their gear made Maung angry. All of them wore clean white environment suits covered with a layer of ballistic nylon riot plates that protected their arms, torsos and thighs, and their coil guns were the latest models—shorter and lighter than the ones the Burmese carried, with integrated sight packages that linked to their heads-ups. The Burmese guns used ancient, down the axis green-dot sights.
“Hey, look,” said one; Maung recognized his voice—the Korean, Mike. “It’s Tatmaw and his little Laotian.”
“You’re on Dark Side now,” said Maung. He ignored the insult, trying to keep his voice calm. “This area belongs to me but I’ll gladly take you under my wing.”
Mike’s smile disappeared; he drifted closer to Maung and stopped himself with a handhold. “We own Karin, by order of the warden. There’s nothing about my taking orders from you, and to be honest, I don’t know why it’s so important to defend Dark Side anyway; only the shit gets assigned here.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot.”
“You Burmese piece of—”
Maung seized Mike’s helmet ring and yanked down as hard as he could while holding himself in place with a free hand. He jerked his knee upward—the same way he’d done to the Singapore Sun crewman. A loud crack echoed through the rock corridor when his knee impacted against Mike’s downward moving face, and droplets of blood drifted down onto the man’s white suit, dotting its surface with scarlet.
“I’m Myanmarese, asshole,” said Maung. “And now your suit is finally broken in. You should be wearing your helmet, not carrying it.”
He let go of Mike to let him flip end over end, then forced his semi-aware to take over, following its anticipation of hundreds of possible defenses and reactions for the guards while it simultaneously plotted attack vectors. Mike righted himself with an outstretched hand and faced Maung again, pulling himself forward and closing the distance.
“You don’t even know who you are,” Maung continued. “A Korean pretending to be American.”
“I’m going to kill you, Tatmaw.”
As soon as he was within range, Maung kicked at the Korean’s arm, his semi-aware pinpointing the area where it was weakest; the bone cracked. Mike screamed and clutched it with his free hand, which sent him tumbling again and when Maung looked at the other guards he recognized their anger; in a moment they’d attack.
“And since you don’t know what a drifter is or what we found that the Americans thought was so important . . .” He took hold of Mike’s hair and twisted, turning him so that he faced away, then jerked back to expose his neck; Maung yanked out a knife and placed it against the man’s exposed throat. “I don’t really think you’ll be of any use to us.”
“Maung, no!” Nang yelled.
Mike’s nose was broken, and blood continued to flow from it, settling slowly onto the front of his suit. “Please,” he said.
“Please, what?”
“Please,” said Mike. “Don’t kill me. We’ll take orders.”
“You and your men will do as you’re told?” Maung asked.
“Yes.”
“And you understand that the second you don’t, or the second I catch wind of any plans to shoot me in the back, you’re a dead man?”
“Fine,” Mike said, his breathing ragged. “Just let me go to sick bay. Where’d you learn to fight like that? I can feel the bone sticking out.”
Maung scanned the group. He glared at the other guards, trying to guess their nationalities; there were some Japanese and some Filipinos—maybe a few more Koreans—and all of them glared but none of them looked brave enough to do anything now that their leader had surrendered. Maung let go. He and Nang moved to the side, letting the group file deeper into the dark side and toward sick bay.
“We’ll meet in one hour,” Maung called after them. “I’ll give your orders and an orientation briefing from my men, the Burmese. Welcome to Dark Side.”
“Why did you do that?” Nang asked.
“He never would have respected me if I didn’t. He’s a coward and they need to be expunged or brought in line. How much longer until the Chinese ships arrive?”
Nang shifted her helmet to rest under the opposite arm while they made their way back to the control room. “I don’t have any new data and the last time I tried linking to Sunny Side systems, something was blocking all the readings. But I’d say a day, given their last location and heading.”
Maung figured there was time to spare. He towed Nang into a storage facility and sealed the door, peeling off her suit; he’d never felt skin this soft. Nang was lean—almost bony. Maung imagined he could snap her in his arms so he was gentle when he slid her against the wall and heard her breathing stop for a moment.
She smiled and said, “Maung, don’t be so gentle. I won’t break.”
“What took you two so long?” Nam asked.
Nang’s face turned red and Maung shook his head and muttered for Nam to never mind. “Is the drifter coding done?” he asked.
“All set. As soon as you give the word, we can have them in position within an hour; it will take time for them to work their way out into the port.”
�
�Good,” Maung said. “And make sure they have enough oxygen to stay out for hours, just in case.”
“What happens to the prisoners on Sunny Side?” Than asked.
They all looked at Nang.
“With nobody there to watch them,” she said, “I would guess they stay locked up.”
Maung’s eyes went wide. “What about food? Won’t they starve to death?”
“If we don’t get back to them in a few weeks,” she said, shrugging, “then . . . yeah. But first they’ll turn to cannibalism.”
Maung shook the thought from his mind. There was nothing they could do about it, so he focused his thoughts to finalize a plan his semi-aware had been analyzing since the moment they destroyed the Chinese drop ship. Part of him heard Nang talking. But her voice disappeared when all his resources shifted into calculation mode, billions per second, and he imagined that it looked odd to the others—him staring into space with a dead expression, in a trance that resembled a coma. Finally he finished.
“Where’s the closest place I can link to Sunny Side systems?” Maung asked.
Nam pointed to his console. “Right here. But look around, Maung. The Chinese cracked this place more easily than anyone thought, even with all the security features of a prison. We might want to move to a better location soon.”
Chinese fléchettes had chewed up the walls and spent ones still drifted on the floor in the dust. And Maung knew it took the Burmese hours to repair both airlock doors, which had been cut down the middle as if someone took a blowtorch to them. The corridor outside was the same. Defensive positions that the Burmese had rigged in their last stand lay shattered and disintegrated, blown to bits by Chinese rockets and grenades, weapons that none of the guards had. They couldn’t defend against that kind of firepower. This was why Maung’s plan was perfect, he figured, except for the fact that he couldn’t use the Sommen weapon—one of the only two strategic advantages they had.
“Nang,” he said. “Come here.” When she did, he handed her the Sommen rifle.
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