“Son of a bitch,” Rifleman Curry said. “Why aren’t we all like you?”
The Pathfinder smiled. “The drugs within my system have a very short lifespan,” he said. “You boost for a few minutes, at best, and then you have to cope with the side effects. I can use other drugs and enhancements to handle the effects, for a while, but it comes at a cost and they’ll catch up with me sooner or later. There’s a very good chance I won’t survive long enough to take retirement.”
“Thanks,” Curry muttered.
Haydn cleared his throat. “What now?”
“This way,” the Pathfinder said. “I’m currently telling the security systems a handful of comforting lies, but they won’t last forever. We have to be out of here before the bastards realise what we’re doing.”
They hurried down a corridor and into an underground garage. A pair of trucks were sitting in the middle of the chamber, looking surprisingly new. Haydn guessed the security forces had grabbed the first models, rather than letting the troops have them. The marines scrambled inside, then started the engines. A moment later, they were gliding up the ramp and onto the streets.
He stared at the Pathfinder. “Isn’t anyone going to stop us?”
The Pathfinder laughed. “Why should they? We have official authorisation to be on the streets. We’re in more danger, right now, from insurgents than the security forces. That’ll change, when they realise what we’ve done, but by then we should be well away.”
Haydn had to smile. “They just let you walk in and rescue us?”
“They trusted what they read in the datanet,” the Pathfinder said. “And that was their fatal mistake.”
Haydn said nothing as they drove through the streets. He was no stranger to chaotic cities, but this city was a nightmare. People were glancing east as they walked, as if they feared a giant monster was about to come over the horizon. The giant viewscreens - so large they covered entire buildings - were dark and silent. Thousands of men in uniform rushed from place to place, waving weapons around so frantically it was clear it was only a matter of time until they had a friendly fire incident. Haydn understood, finally, what the Pathfinder had meant. The marines could go anywhere, as long as no one saw their uniforms.
He frowned as they reached a warehouse. “We’re going to need to change our clothes.”
“Already arranged,” the Pathfinder assured him. “Will you have a problem wearing enemy uniforms?”
“No,” Haydn said. The enemy would be perfectly within their legal rights to shoot them, but ... they’d also be within their rights to shoot escaping prisoners. They were within the enemy’s city, in the middle of a state of emergency ... “I don’t think we have a choice.”
“No,” the Pathfinder agreed. “You don’t.”
***
Colonel Nancy Braithwaite had never liked visiting the Security HQ. The guards were leering monsters and the prisoners, most of them, were worse. One didn’t wind up a permanent guest in the cells unless one had crossed practically all of the lines. The prisoners had nothing to lose, save perhaps for the marines. She gritted her teeth as she strode out of the aircar and advanced on the gate, cursing her superior under her breath. The last time she’d visited, the guards had found an excuse to strip-search her. And they’d laughed when she’d complained.
Her eyes narrowed as she approached the checkpoint. The guards looked as if they wanted to run around like headless chickens. A pair of senior officers stood just behind the barrier, arguing in low voices; a handful of others were visible by the doors, looking as if they wanted to be somewhere - anywhere - else. Nancy wasn’t sure quite what had happened outside the city - the datanet hadn’t told her anything useful - but she doubted the guards gave much of a damn. It was far more likely that something had gone terribly wrong inside the HQ.
She held up her ID. “Colonel Braithwaite, here to see the prisoners.”
She’d expected some kind of reaction, from mockery to sarcasm and bitter indifference. She hadn’t expected fear. The guards stared at her, as if she’d suddenly grown two heads. Or if there was someone higher-ranking behind her. She kept her face as impassive as possible, pushing her sudden advantage as far as it would go. She owed the security troopers a little payback for how they’d treated her.
“I have authorisation from the Board of Directors to see the prisoners,” she said, calmly. “Take me to them at once.”
The guards glanced at their commanders, who looked as if they were on the verge of calling someone higher up the food chain. Nancy hid her amusement, and her growing concern. She had all the permissions she needed, right from the very highest levels. The guards should have taken her into the building at once, without hesitation. Instead ...
“Do I have to call your superiors?” She allowed a trace of irritation to slip into her voice. “I have strict orders ...”
An officer - she didn’t recognise him - stepped forward. “The prisoners are gone.”
“What?” Nancy was sure she’d misheard. “Gone?”
Her mind raced. General Gilbert had told her, in confidence, that the security forces might just make the POWs disappear. They were practically a law unto themselves. They might try to get intelligence out of the prisoners, then kill them and burn the bodies to make sure no evidence survived. Nancy believed him. If the guards were willing to sexually harass, if not assault, an army officer ... there were probably no limits to their depravity. She shuddered in bitter memory. They might just have killed the prisoners themselves ...
She met his eyes. “This is no time for games,” she said, curtly. “I need to see the prisoners.”
“They’re gone!” It was the hint of naked fear in his voice that convinced her he was telling the truth. “They just walked out!”
“Impossible,” Nancy said. She tried hard not to sneer. “I suppose you left them with their weapons? Perhaps you forgot to shackle them? Perhaps ...”
Another officer - his nametag read NILES- came over to her. “If you’ll come with me, please?”
Nancy nodded and followed him into the building. The lobby was in utter chaos. Officers were shouting at each other, while the enlisted men kept their heads down. No one moved to insist she went through the scanners as she walked through the chamber and into a small office. An open bottle of alcohol sat on the desk. A pistol rested beside it. Niles had been drowning his sorrows, she recognised dully, when she’d arrived. She wondered if he’d been considering suicide. The security forces would be looking for a scapegoat soon, if they weren’t already.
She tried to keep her voice under tight control, speaking as gently to him as she could. “What happened?”
“We don’t know!” Niles sat behind the desk and poured himself a glass. He didn’t offer Nancy any. “The local datanodes have been scrambled. We just don’t know.”
Nancy frowned. General Gilbert had kept her busy hand-carrying orders all over the city, warning her in no uncertain terms not to use the datanet any more than strictly necessary. He didn’t trust the system any longer. If the enemy had gained access ... her mind raced. She’d deleted the handful of messages that had arrived in her inbox, unwilling to risk answering or reporting them. Messages were one thing, but this ...? She didn’t want to think about it.
“They escaped,” she said. How the hell had the trick been done? Someone on the inside? General Gilbert had hinted as much. “Where did they go?”
“We don’t know,” Niles said, again. “We just don’t know.”
“I see.” Nancy thought, fast. “I have to report to my superiors.”
She stood, brushing down her trousers. General Gilbert was unlikely to believe the truth. He’d want to believe the security forces had killed the marines, rather than let them escape. She found it hard to believe herself. If she hadn’t been sure Niles was telling the truth ...
“Put out more patrols and track them down,” she advised. If they were lucky, the marines would be caught before they could do any real damage. She dre
aded to think what they could do, if they were given time. “Quickly.”
There was a sharp knock on the door. Niles’s hand reached for his pistol, then fell into his lap. “Come!”
The door opened, revealing a grim-faced woman. “Sir, we found two bodies, shoved into makeshift hiding places,” she said. “One of them was Lieutenant Boris Timbisha. He ... he was showing Commander Archer to the prisoners.”
“What?” Nancy stared. She knew Commander Archer. It was quite possible there was more than one, but ... somehow, she doubted it was a coincidence. “Commander Archer?
“Yes,” the woman said. She wore no rank tabs, suggesting she was high enough up the ladder for everyone to know who she was. “According to the guards, he had authorisation to visit the prisoners. He had all the paperwork and everything.”
“That can’t be right,” Nancy said. Archer was loyal to his superior, she thought, but a complete idiot otherwise. He would have been replaced if there hadn’t been a constant shortage of trained personnel. “Commander Archer wouldn’t have any such permission.”
“Then it’s time we had a few words with Commander Archer.” Niles stood, picking up his gun and returning it to his belt. “And you can accompany us.”
Nancy nodded. She’d have to alert her superior, as quickly as possible. He wouldn’t thank her for letting him be surprised. If Commander Archer really was a spy, working for the internal or external enemy, it would reflect badly on his superior officer. She couldn’t let that happen. He’d take it out on her.
She took a breath. “It will be my pleasure.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
So why did it go so wrong?
- Professor Leo Caesius, The Rise and Fall of Interstellar Capitalism
Julia felt cold as she walked into the conference room.
She’d been right. She knew, now, she’d been right. And yet, being right was no protection when her superiors had been so badly embarrassed. No, they hadn’t been embarrassed. They’d been defeated. The advancing army had been hammered so badly there’d only been a handful of survivors, if the reports were accurate. The entire city had seen the flashes of light as the kinetic projectiles smashed the army flat.
They lured us on, again, she thought. And we walked straight into their trap.
She kept her face under tight control as she took her seat and waited. The director had scolded her as one would scold a child, something she’d found maddening. How dare he not take her seriously? She supposed, politically, he’d had little choice - her branch of the family had practically disowned her, despite her heroism in saving the director’s life, but it was still maddening. And she’d been right. She was tempted to be genuinely childish and hold her breath until she got an apology, but she knew it wasn’t going to work. If there hadn’t been tight controls on people moving in and out of the city, she would have retired to the country estate and tried to make her peace with whatever government arose from the ruins.
“There’s no time for the formalities,” the director said. His voice was so flat it was easy to tell he was shocked. “General, what happened?”
“We overextended ourselves,” General Gilbert said, tonelessly. “They deployed stealthed KEW platforms into the high orbitals, then divided their fire between the PDC and our advancing forces. The PDCs largely protected themselves. The advancing forces got hammered.”
“Crushed would be a better word,” McManus said. He’d been pushing for more power for weeks. The crisis spelled opportunity for him, if they survived long enough for him to make use of his new power. “Were there any survivors inside the blast radius?”
“Only a handful,” General Gilbert said. “We lost.”
Julia felt her heart sink at his blunt words. She was tempted, very tempted, to remind the board that she’d warned them. The urge to say ‘I told you so’ was overwhelming. But she knew better. The board would start looking for a scapegoat shortly, if it wasn’t already. She couldn’t logically be blamed for anything - it wasn’t as if she’d been anything more than an advisor - but what did logic and reason have to do with anything? The board would sooner avoid the blame itself, rather than face up to the sheer scale of the disaster.
“We lost,” Maryanne repeated. “How badly did we lose?”
“The forces we carefully husbanded over the past two weeks are gone,” General Gilbert said, flatly. “We lost thousands of trained men and almost all of their equipment. The marines are plunking away at a handful of surviving tanks, as they ready their own forces to resume the offensive. In short, we have effectively nothing between the marines and the city walls.”
“And so the only hope of a realistic defence rests in the hands of my men,” McManus said, coldly. He looked at the director. “I request full control over all deployable military forces within the city.”
“Your troops are good for beating up unarmed civilians,” General Gilbert said. He spoke with the air of a man so far gone he no longer cared about anything. “The marines will make hash out of them.”
“We’ll be holding the walls,” McManus said. “They’ll break the walls, of course, but that will lead them into a maze of defences that will wear them down. They’ll be wiped out before they get anywhere near this place.”
He waved a hand at the walls. “We can stop them, sir,” he said. “We just need the authority to do it.”
Julia leaned forward. “Do you think they don’t know it?”
McManus snorted. “Whatever do you mean?”
“The marines know the dangers of being lured into a city fight,” Julia said. She was aware she was making an enemy out of the most dangerous man on the planet, and someone known to be vindictive, but she owed it to her family to try. “They’ll do everything in their power to avoid it.”
Like wheeling around and seizing the industrial nodes instead, she thought. They’ll win without ever fighting their way through the city.
“They have no choice, if they want to win quickly,” McManus said. He looked at the director. “Sir, there’s still time for the fleet to regroup and retake the high orbitals. We can still win.”
Julia tasted desperation in the air and knew McManus was going to win the argument. The board couldn’t imagine a situation in which they could lose, despite everything that had happened over the last six months. They certainly couldn’t imagine contacting the marines and trying to seek terms ... not, she supposed, that the marines had any reason to offer terms the board might accept. They were standing on the cusp of total victory or crushing defeat. If the fleet returned and regrouped in time, they might still come out ahead ...
If, she thought. The fleet wasn’t concentrated. The ships would return, one by one, and fly straight into a trap. They don’t have anything left to bargain with.
It wasn’t entirely true, she knew. They still controlled the industrial nodes. But their control was starting to slip. Parts of the giant megacity were already rising up against the central government. The workers were already looking beyond, to the days when they would have to deal with a new government. She knew, better than most, just how much resentment lurked behind their bland expressions. They had a chance to take power for themselves. It was foolish to expect them to waste it.
“Yes,” the director said. “Can we stall?”
He looked at Julia. “Can we?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Julia said. “The marines might listen, if we tried to offer them terms, but they have ...”
She broke off. They wouldn’t thank her for giving them more bad news. And besides ... she looked from face to face, accepting - deep inside - that it was over. The corporation’s days were numbered. Even if they won the war - somehow - the population control system had been shattered beyond repair. The entire planet was on the verge of rising against them. It was only a matter of time before a spark ignited an explosion. The forces they’d need to keep the chaos under control were gone.
“I think we should at least try to stall,” she said, carefully. She dou
bted it would work, but it would keep them focused on an attainable goal. “If they agree to talk, we can keep them busy dickering over the size and shape of the table ...”
The director’s wristcom bleeped. “Excuse me.”
Julia felt cold. No one, absolutely no one, would interrupt the meeting unless it was truly urgent. The board was supposed to debate in absolute privacy ...
“I see,” the director said. “Come.”
The door opened. A mid-ranking military officer - a staff officer, judging by her uniform - stepped into the chamber. She was pretty, her uniform neatly tailored to show off her curves, but she looked as if she were sweating bullets. Julia had no difficulty spotting a social climber, one who’d just come face to face with the simple fact her climb up might have been derailed by circumstances beyond her control. She tasted bile in her mouth. The newcomer and Julia had a great deal in common.
She doesn’t have so far to fall, Julia thought. Does she?
“Nancy?” General Gilbert sounded astonished. “What are you doing here?”
“Sir, there’s been a development,” Nancy said. “Ah” - she saluted the table - “Colonel Nancy Braithwaite, reporting.”
“Report,” the director said.
“The marine prisoners have escaped,” Nancy said. She sounded as if she expected to be shot on the spot. Her eyes flickered to General Gilbert, then looked back at the table. “They were aided by Commander Archer or ... or someone using his ID.”
“Commander Archer?” McManus smirked, eying General Gilbert with a predatory stare. “One of your staff officers?”
“A man on my staff, yes,” General Gilbert said. He sounded completely astonished. “Nancy, report. What happened?”
The Halls of Montezuma Page 33