Unknown

by Microsoft Office User

  Almost instantly, the phalanx was corrupted as a barrage of mallets came at it from two directions, and three enemy Sprints were blown out of the sky. Others took evasive action, returned fire to the unexpected enemy.

  Janise turned to the fry wall. It was stunningly deceptive – a totally invisible barrier that invited anyone without proper reconnaissance to simply walk right in. But she saw the boundary clearly on viop support, and she and Lange positioned themselves in a defensive posture less than three meters from the edge of the northern wall. She saw Hammerstein, who successfully made his way to the pylon, but was ducking a hail of bullets as he placed a hand-held register within inches of the meter-tall block of steel.

  “Your status, Hammerstein?”

  “Registering now, sir. Narrowing focus. Coming in at ...”

  A laser mallet flew over his head, missing him by little more than a foot, and it smashed against the fry wall, leaving a wide splatter of flame that quickly disintegrated. She saw Grant and Palmerston, and they were fully engaged with the advancing enemy, switching off between supermachine gun and mallet launcher. There were explosions and yelps, but it was impossible to tell if her men were hitting their targets.

  “How close, Hammerstein?”

  “Narrowing, sir. Narrowing. Band reading ... locked! I have a lock!”

  Hammerstein ducked a storm of bullets and rolled back several feet from the pylon, raised his mallet launcher and aimed.

  “Firing and ... ugh.”

  Hammerstein jerked twice, and his suit exploded just beneath the collar brace on the back of his neck. He was dead.

  “Fuck this!” Janise said. “Lange! Cover me!”

  But as she started to sprint into the open, one of the enemy Sprints came around for a pass, and it dropped a laser mallet directly between herself and the body of Hammerstein. The heat wave of the explosion flung back both her and Lange, and she could feel the power of the blast trying to incinerate her body armor. There was nothing between herself and the pylon that wasn't fully engulfed. She heard the continuation of ground-level weapons fire, but she could no longer see Grant or Palmerston.

  She glanced at the viop support. The northern Guardsmen were practically upon them.

  The sky seemed to be falling down upon them, the night becoming a celebration of light, and fireworks filled the darkness as Sprints fired upon each other in dogfights, the chase now extending to other perimeters of the PAC facility.

  “Lost anterior struts,” came the voice of Dance2's commander. “Can't maintain attitude. Shifting to correct as ... yaaaah!”

  Dance2 erupted in a massive explosion as it collided with the eastern face of the fry wall, sparklers of flame and debris showering everything within the vicinity.

  Almost simultaneously, another Sprint gave off a shrill echo as it dropped clumsily from the sky and plowed into the side of the mountain. At that instant, Janise's comm unit to the Sprint flickered off, and she knew air support was lost.

  “Let's go!” She told Lange, and without hesitation, they sprinted into the fire.

  The heat was devastating, and for the first time, the effects of the bullet wound could be felt. Her chest tightened, and her breaths became labored as she ran at full speed, finally ducking as she emerged from the fire and next to Hammerstein's body.

  Lange was still at her side.

  She looked for Hammerstein's band register, and Lange spied it first, three meters from the body. “I'm on it!” He said, and Janise raised up to provide cover fire.

  The spotlights of the enemy Sprints, now regrouping and advancing, were trained upon the heart of the ground battle, and there were no more shadows. They might as well have been fighting at high noon on a clear day.

  Bullets and laser mallets were crossing each other's paths through the jungle, and Janise could see easily a dozen enemy soldiers within pick-off range. She sprayed death at as many of them as she could muster, but as she was doing so, two bolts of yellow energy passed close by, raining from the sky.

  Grant and Palmerston never even had a chance to acknowledge their pain or the horror of imminent death. Their bodies simply were tossed in every possible direction, and a severed hand slammed against Janise's face shield. As it dropped, it left behind a smudge of red.

  “I've got it! Frequency is 311.6.4.” Lange shouted.

  He backed out of the way and covered as Janise turned her launcher and aimed, set the frequency to match that of the pylon.

  60

  C

  ol. Dana Travert could not contain her excitement as she watched the climax of the battle unfold, safely underground. The schematic board told everything – there were now only two of the enemy alive, and they were dangerously close to the pylon.

  “Sir, I strongly advise against a launch,” the lieutenant said as Travert smiled, noting that the launch bay's ceiling had fully retracted, and all vehicles inside were firing vertical thrusters.

  “Close in on those two!” She said. “Isolate.”

  The lieutenant complied, and the schematic board highlighted the energy signature of the two rebels. “I wonder if it's possible one of them is her. The bitch who used to be in the Guard. Her.”

  At the instant the PAC vehicles were off the ground, Travert turned to the lieutenant.

  “I want her to see what she came for. Release the pylon!”

  “Sir?!”

  “Release it or I'll snap your neck, lieutenant.”

  He did, and a klaxon sounded to indicate a breach in the fry wall.

  “And now, come and get your prize, bitch! It's what you want. I know it's what you want.”

  61

  J

  anise fired her launcher, and the pylon disintegrated. She gave a kick on her back foot and sprinted, knowing if she was wrong, the fry wall would still be intact and her life would end instantly.

  She and Lange hurled themselves past the pylon and through lightly crackling palmettos that bordered the facility. Nothing in front of them provided a barrier, but there were shouts from behind and on the other side of the flames, and they could hear the rapid advance of enemy troops.

  The structures of this facility were nondescript, and there were only a handful of them. Janise knew which one to target, and all she had to do was to round the corner of this long, one-story structure closest to her, and she knew she'd be in range.

  She jerked, her frontal body armor taking a hit.

  “What?”

  She quickly saw the streamers coming from an SCH atop a tower more than 40 meters away, and she aimed.

  Lange turned, provided cover against the advancing troops.

  They were out in the open.

  “Lange, come on! We can't do this! They'll tear us apart where we stand!”

  She picked herself up, felt lightheaded and she stumbled forward.

  Lange started to turn, but six of the enemy appeared from out of the flames, and their SCHs were on full spread. They were less than 20 meters away, their weapons concentrating on the single target.

  “Sir, I'm ...” He gurgled as he wriggled uncontrollably, and before his body armor would give way, his face shield splintered. The glass imploded, and he screamed in terror as it tore apart his face. The pain lasted only a second, however, as bullets entered without resistance and blew apart his head inside the helmet. He dropped.

  Janise did not linger, and she focused upon the only possible moment of glory that she still might have.

  She rounded the corner of the first structure, and she beheld a sight that almost had her believing that it was a fantasy. The PAC's only orbital shuttle was clearing the facility's largest building, and surrounding it were six Sprints. It was easily three times the size of any individual Sprint, and Janise dropped her Schnelling gun, propped her mallet launcher against her right chest and aimed.

  Warm blood filled her mouth, and it began to dribble between her lips. She convulsed. The last round of bullets as she entered
the facility did more damage than she thought, and she now realized her body armor was shredding just above her waist. At least two more bullets penetrated.

  Positioning the shuttle within the crosshairs was difficult, and once she got a fix, it was impossible to hold it for more than a split second, as Janise was unable to steady herself. She was sweating profusely, and she squinted. A rush of footsteps from behind preceded the familiar rattle of automatic SCH fire.

  She cocked, she pulled back her finger and felt the trigger button. It was less than a second, and yet it was years.

  And as she lovingly grabbed hold of the image of her father serving her French apple pie for her birthday, or loathed the memory of a derelict named Brenn Fuller, or wondered whether love for a man like Bryan Drenette would have been so terrible, or held out hope that her descendants in this war would see justice in the world, Janise Albright pressed the trigger button and fired a single laser mallet at the vehicles in flight.

  As soon as she released the button and felt another surge of blood rise up through her throat, something very large and very hot drilled into her back, and her eyes closed.

  The battle was over.

  62

  B

  ryan knew she was gone. He also understood what happened in the Caribbean underports, and that a black hole could only be created by someone with Gold-link clearance to the Grid. Namely, members of the Senior Council.

  He was certain the genetic chasers did not fall upon him by accident. They would have had to dismantle extremely proficient nanite hunters in order to break through to him. Thus, they had to represent a program far exceeding any of the standard security blocks.

  He always knew there was a strong possibility even his best efforts would not leave him unscathed, but he never anticipated such a melodramatic maneuver as a black hole.

  Why such extremes? He pondered. Releasing this thing will draw attention to the region! The risk makes no sense.

  He was nervous and confused. But mostly, he was in pain. The headache still echoed of the night screams that accompanied the black hole, and although the pain was subsiding, it remained excruciating. He spoke into the tiny comm-sphere on his desk.

  “Are you still here, James?”

  His aide did not respond. All Bryan wanted was a quick alleviation of the pain, and he knew a single swab across the forehead from an Adeno-pad would end the suffering in seconds. He thought of stepping outside, rummaging through his aide’s workstation. But he chose vodka instead, this time a double shot.

  After he hurled back the liquor and wiped his lips dry, Bryan said: “Computer, disengage SS cross-link and restore my protocol matrix authorization to this workstation.”

  Action was not immediate as Bryan attempted to return to the mainframe system all the security clearance programs he used to enter the Caribbean grid through his Fountain. He knew something was wrong even before the computer responded.

  “PRIORITY LAYERS 31 THROUGH 34 OF MASSGRID INTERFACE DO NOT EXIST,” the mechanized voice warned.

  “What?”

  “ACCESS CODES ARE STRIPPING.”

  “No!”

  He raced behind his workstation, triggered the viop sphere and saw the damage for himself. Hundreds of layers of encrypted computer language were vanishing.

  “Quickly. Provide highest clearance for security authorization Delphi-19477771-Drenette-001.”

  “DRENETTE-001 ACCESS MAXIMUM AT LAYER 27. LAYER 26. LAYER 25.”

  Bryan Drenette knew the score: The game was lost. It couldn't have happened this quickly, unless ...

  “Computer, display entire internal security grid on both cycloramas. Mosaic.”

  The enormous screens which decorated the eastern and southern walls of his office and which provided him many hours of a virtual panorama of the AFD, now profiled video feeds directly from Dome security. He studied them at a glance – more than 200 angles, and the mosaic changed every few seconds. He latched onto one image in particular, ordered the computer to enhance it, and then he walked back to his desk, fell hard into the leather chair.

  His free hand reached down, his fingers searching just beneath the desktop. As he pressed a well-hidden tab, a compartment dropped down and emerged over his lap. Bryan studied the R-40 blast gun, as well as the large, white capsule next to it.

  He dropped his hand and spoke clearly, firmly to his LifeSquire.

  “Matilda?”

  “YES, BRYAN.”

  “I have one last thing for you to do.”

  63

  T

  he lights were dim in the regent suite, except for a single lamp that cast a strong glow upon a dining table and the man who sat there all alone. He sank a huge serving spoon into a shallow casserole dish and scooped out steaming eggplant parmigiana, producing bridges of mozzarella until he split the umbilicals with a knife. He sunk a fork into the entree and blew cautiously before he ate it, and a smile of deep satisfaction ringed his face.

  He spoke with childlike giddiness to the hologram of a woman who was hovering inches from his face, her image originating from inside his steam amp.

  “Enjoyed yourself, Dana?” President Jonathan Travert asked.

  “Simply thrilling, Daddy. The final moments were the best. An amazingly seductive sensation.”

  “You do have a talent for the game, Dana. My little girl to the end.”

  “Hah! I think I have a lieutenant here who's probably still cleaning the shit out of his underwear. This was wonderful, Daddy. I can't thank you enough for letting me play.”

  “You'll be here later? We can celebrate with your mother tomorrow.”

  There was an audible hum, and the man was distracted as his daughter replied.

  “Dinner at 6:30, just like always, Daddy.”

  “All my love, Dana!”

  He tapped his Fountain and said loudly, “Enter.”

  A man marched into the suite, his gait of military influence. He was bald, about 30 years old, and he stood at attention as he addressed the man who was eating dinner.

  “Mr. President,” he said.

  “Good evening,” Travert replied. “You have a report for me?”

  “Yes, sir.” He paused, cleared his throat. “We have him, sir. We have Drenette.”

  “Well, of course you do. And it wasn't as hard as you predicted, now was it?”

  “No, sir. We have an overwhelming volume of chaser proof, and the emergency protocols you ordered should be in place by now.”

  “Wonderful. Why don’t you have a seat. Look at this enormous casserole! You probably haven’t even had a proper dinner.”

  Tentatively, the man pulled back a chair and sat down as the President of the Senior Council poured a second glass of white wine.

  “This is quite the vintage. '06. Napa. Wonderful, wonderful texture. I suppose you’ll need a new job tomorrow. I doubt you were satisfied being Mr. Drenette’s aide anyway.” Travert raised a glass, waited for his guest to do the same. “To a winning team. A victory to relish. And let a new game begin first thing tomorrow.”

  64

  S

  o, this is how it ends. Sam Raymonds was arguing within himself, but he didn't care. He was a man truly alone now, with any degree of victory far beyond his grasp. In fact, he was quite ready to think about how he would die.

  The war room was empty and dark. Rand McNichols had given up the interrogation surprisingly soon, his disgust at Sam's non-answers quite evident as he stormed out, taking the uptech Tom with him.

  In a way, the absolute darkness was settling moreso than terrifying.

  Sam remained on his side, crumpled on the cold floor, leg and handcuffs locked.

  He tried to clear his mind of the rambling arguments, the debate over how he might have carried out his mission more efficiently. What especially irritated him was his decision to hijack New Terra. At the time, it seemed like a stroke of brilliance: He could hand over to the PAC a precious gift – p
roof of his success – and assure himself of being well clear of the mountain before the explosion. There were no other planned Sprint departures that night, and it might have been impossible for him to get clearance on a “recruiting” venture under such short notice. The hijacking seemed logical.

  So, I won't get the V22,000 per quarter or the shares in the Marshall Subgroup or the BluCard redress. Could be worse! I could be looking at a lifetime in this hell.

  He shook off these reevaluations, then told himself to count back, calculate the current time. He knew the straddle bomb had to be in the final stages of its countdown.

  By his best guess, there couldn't be more than 30 minutes remaining for any of them to live.

  He opened his eyes, stared into the darkness and tried to envision how the chain of events would unfold.

  The initial explosion would occur in the primary enviro-control gateway unit, where Sam had placed the device not two minutes after killing Benyard Crantz. The chain reaction, or “straddle effect,” that the bomb was known for, would cause an immediate meltdown of the hydrothermic regulator units. As temperatures throughout the underground complex would soar up to 30 degrees Celsius in less than 30 seconds and the oxygen supply would rapidly be enjoined by lethal levels of carbon dioxide, a more significant problem would occur. The hydraulic containment systems of the internal reservoir would explode, and more than 80,000 gallons of water would be released into the complex, a tidal inrush that would rain electronic murder upon most of Second Sunrise's prized technology. The command pod, he estimated, would be worst hit, with outlets being ripped from their wall anchors, the water spraying into the pod with the ferocity of fire hydrants turned wide open.

  And then there would be the fire. This is what Sam expected would claim him.