The dreadful sheen of light drained out of the sky, leaving the restless clouds seething with lightning flashes. Ground tremors faded away.
“You okay?” Rob asked. He was ten meters ahead of Morton, riding down on his back, using his arms as rudders.
“Just trying to keep this guy alive.”
“How’s he doing?”
“I think he’s had better days. Sensors show he’s still breathing.” It was more like choking, but at least his weak thrashing showed he was still alive.
“We’re getting goddamn close to the town.”
“I know. But we’re almost at the bottom.”
Another two hundred meters brought them to the end of the stream, where it broadened out to gurgle over a wide, flat bed of stones before emptying into the Trine’ba. Morton came racing out of the last curve to hit the stones on his ass; he plowed through them for a short way before coming to a complete halt.
“Holy fuck,” Rob said. “We made it.”
“Congratulations.” The Cat’s voice oozed sarcasm. “Landed on something soft, did you? That part that does all your thinking.”
“Piss off, bitch.”
Morton’s virtual vision showed him the working sensor disks that were relaying Cat’s signal. There weren’t many left. When he accessed their visual spectrum feeds, they showed him a small crater glowing a venomous maroon where Parker had made his stand. Above it, a hole had been ripped through the clouds, where violet air hazed the swirling gap. Forests and spinnies scattered on the hills above the town had ignited and were now surging into full-blown firestorms; between them the ruined grass was smoldering. Smoke was rising to choke the narrow band of air between the ground and the clouds. None of the sensors reported any flyer activity.
The Cat was sheltering in a gentle fold high above the blast zone. Telemetry showed her suit was intact; its force field had protected her from the blast.
Morton let go of the man he was holding and climbed to his feet. The force field around the alien town was five hundred meters away. There was no sign of any activity nearby.
“I think we’re safe for the moment,” Morton said. “This might be a good time to leave.”
“Amen to that,” Rob grunted.
Morton looked down at the man who was still sprawled on the stones, panting heavily. His black clothes had been ripped in several places; the ebony skin beneath was grazed and lacerated.
“You all right?” Morton asked.
The man turned his head to glare up. “What? Are you making a joke?”
“Sorry. I’ve got a decent medical kit, but if you can walk I’d like to build some distance with Randtown before we stop to patch you up.”
“Merciful heavens, forgive me for what I’ve done.”
“What have you done?”
“Led more good men to their death. I take it you are responsible for that explosion? It was nuclear, wasn’t it?”
“One of my squad mates triggered it. He was stopping the flyers you’d attracted.”
“I see.” The man bowed his head until it was almost in the water. “Even more deaths must be carried by my conscience, then. And it was already a terrible burden. Truly, the fates must hate me.”
“I don’t think any of this is personal. My name’s Morton, this is Rob.”
“Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate you saving me. Much good it will do you.”
“Pleasure,” Rob grunted.
“Who are you?” Morton asked.
The man smiled, revealing bloody teeth. “Simon Rand. I founded this paradise.”
The cave was a good hideout, Morton admitted to himself. It had taken them an hour to reach it, scrambling along the rocks of the shoreline, sometimes wading across deep inlets where the mountain runoffs gushed into the rank lake water.
Three people were waiting for their leader, desperate to know what had happened when the bombs went off.
David Dunbavand had been badly injured in an earlier raid. One of his legs had been shattered, its flesh now an unhealthy blue-black mottling, with cuts weeping gray cheesy fluid. His toes already looked and smelled gangrenous. Several other bones had been broken during his brief moment of combat. He was sweating continuously, damp hair slicked back against his skull.
A girl called Mandy was nursing him; she looked tired and worn, prone to tears. There wasn’t much she could do except clean his dressings and feed him a weak broth they’d cooked up from salvaged food packets. She was wrapped up in several oversized woolen sweaters, and a pair of green semiorganic waterproof trousers. Curls of lank hair hung out of a black wool hat.
It was Georgia who had run out of the cave, splashing through the shallows to greet Simon as he limped painfully toward his refuge. “One of my earliest believers,” he said painfully as he introduced her to Morton and Rob. “Georgia was with me building the highway.” She smiled bravely at him, her arm going around his waist to help him over the last few meters of slippery rock. Her face was ruggedly beautiful, rejuvenated to adolescence, with a square jaw and sharp cheekbones. She wore an expensive designer suit on top of several T-shirts and thermal trousers; the semiorganic fabric was smeared with weeks’ worth of dirt, but still offered a degree of protection from the cave’s dank atmosphere and the chill air that seeped in from outside. Once stylish auburn hair had been cut short by scissors and was now covered by a silk scarf wrapped like a turban.
Morton followed Simon and Georgia as they clambered along a ledge that took them back to the main chamber. It was illuminated by a few solar-charged lightglobes, the kind you could buy at any camping shop. They badly needed recharging, producing only a wan yellow glow that didn’t even reach the cave roof. However, there was enough radiance to show him the three bodies sealed in plastic lying along the rear wall.
David pushed himself up onto his elbows, grimacing at the effort. “Where are the others?” He was giving the entrance a stricken look, already knowing the answer.
“I’m sorry,” Simon told him.
Mandy slumped down, and started crying.
“Tyrone?” David asked.
“No. He got one of the aliens, though. He stood his ground to the very end.”
“One!” the injured man exclaimed bitterly. “One out of a million. I should never have stayed here. I should have gone with Lydia and the kids. We’re not making any difference. We’re just being wiped out. Look at us! Four of us, that’s all that’s left. What was the point?” He lowered himself back onto the thin mattress, shaking at the pain, drawing sharp breaths.
“How many of you were there to start with?” Morton asked.
“Eighteen of us remained behind,” Simon said as he sat down heavily. A hand waved around the cave. “This is all that remains of us. I’d like to say that we have taken leagues of the aliens to hell with us, but alas our efforts have been mediocre at best. They are well equipped and excellent soldiers. In truth there’s not much we have achieved aside from our own deaths.” He began to scratch the healskin dressings that Rob had applied to his cuts during the journey back. Georgia sat beside him, her knees tucked up under her chin. Their arms went around each other.
“Eighteen,” Morton muttered. He didn’t want to ask for details; it all seemed such a waste. Not that Cat’s Claws had done a lot better. Not yet.
“Please,” Mandy asked; she looked up pleadingly, wiping her eyes. “Can you get us back to the Commonwealth?”
Morton was glad his helmet was on; she wouldn’t be able to see his expression. “I’m not sure. We weren’t scheduled to be lifted out for six months. I’ll inform the navy you’re here, of course. They’ll probably try and get a wormhole open for you.”
She lowered her head.
“Have you got communications?” David Dunbavand croaked.
“Sure. The navy is opening a wormhole on a regular basis to receive our messages. We can let your family know you’re okay.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” He smiled, which turned into a cough.
; “Let me take a look at you,” Rob said. He took his helmet off and knelt beside the injured man. He waved a diagnostic array over David’s leg and torso.
“We’ve got a decent supply of medical equipment stashed back at our base camp. There should be something that can help.”
“A painkiller would do to start with,” David said. “We’ve even run out of those. The hospital was shut away behind the first force field they generated. We’ve had to make do with whatever we can find in the farmhouses ever since. It never amounted to much, and it seemed selfish to keep what little we had from poor old Napo, even at the end.” He indicated one of the corpses.
“No problem,” Rob said. He took a small applicator pad from his pack.
David gave an audible sigh as it was pressed to his neck. “Damn, I never thought I’d enjoy feeling numb. That’s very kind of you, my friend.”
“My pleasure. Now just lie still and let my e-butler’s medical routine work out what to do with you.”
“How much bandwidth can your communications wormhole handle?” David asked. “We have the memories of our friends; can you at least get them to safety?”
“You’ve got a secure store in here?” Morton asked.
“Their security is our honor,” Simon said. “Every time one of us ventures outside, we transfer our last memories to an ordinary handheld array. Those who remain are sworn to get them to safety back in the Commonwealth. We trust each other, you see. Friendship in these terrible times has forged a bond strong enough to give us the strength to face bodyloss with confidence and conviction.”
Morton wasn’t sure there was anyone in Cat’s Claws he’d trust with his memories. “It would be a slow transfer,” he said carefully. “The wormhole isn’t open for very long. Just a few seconds.”
“I understand,” Simon said. “We have survived thus far, a few more months should pose no problem, especially with your weapons to help protect us.”
Morton lifted his helmet off. After the filtered air he’d been breathing, the smell in the cave seemed exceptionally strong. Something he couldn’t place: raw meat but with a sugary tang. It was strange. “What is that?”
“The smell?” Mandy said. “Whatever they’ve been polluting the Trine’ba with. It’s been getting worse for weeks now.”
“Any idea what it is? We saw the refinery they’ve built.”
“I took a few samples earlier on,” David said. “It’s like an algae of some kind. They’re bioforming the Trine’ba.”
“I believe it to be the first step in converting this planet to one that is host to their own biological heritage alone,” Simon said. “They certainly show no interest or respect for any existing organisms. It is an imperialism which seems to extend down to a cellular level.”
Rob took out a couple of vials from his medical kit, and slotted them into the applicator patch. “I’m going to put the leg into a healskin sheath after this,” he told David, and put the patch on the man’s discolored thigh. “I can’t set the bones properly, but the sheath and the biovirals should help stabilize you until we can get you back to a Commonwealth hospital.”
David coughed. Tiny flecks of blood settled on his lips. “Hope Lydia’s keeping up on my medical insurance payments.”
“You will survive, David, I promise you that,” Simon said calmly. “I will carry you to the wormhole on my own back if necessary.” He broke off at the sound of someone splashing their way along the entrance fissure.
The Cat waded up out of the water, and removed her helmet. Her purple-tipped hair was sweaty, rising in a multitude of tiny spikes. She grinned broadly, and her wide blue-gray eyes took in the cave with one easy glance. “Nice,” she observed. “Hello, boys, did you miss me?”
“Like stale vomit,” Rob said. He turned back to stripping the dressings off David’s leg.
The Cat strode into the middle of the cave. “Well, my dears, that was an impressive first six hours, wasn’t it. Two of us dead. We didn’t save two refugees. We set off some nukes that did no damage whatsoever. And most of our sensor disks are gone. Talk about making an impact.”
“And you were a big help,” Morton said.
“You heard what I said. You chose to ignore it.”
Even though it was a perfect fit, Morton relished taking off his armor suit. He rubbed at every part of himself he could reach, easing itchy skin and stiff muscles. The semiorganic fiber one-piece he wore underneath repelled the cave’s cold moisture, keeping him reasonably dry. There was nothing he could do to stop the smell.
After living on scavenged packets for weeks, the Randtown survivors welcomed the food Cat’s Claws had brought.
“Manufactured corporate pap full of sugar, badly modified genes, and toxic additives,” Georgia said as she stuffed a fishcake straight from its heating envelope into her mouth. “God, it tastes good.”
“Our way of life has truly ended,” Simon said. He accepted a vegetarian lasagne from Cat, inclining his head in gratitude.
“It’s not from a Big15 factory farm,” she told him. “I wouldn’t fill my body with that shit.”
Morton watched Rob open his mouth. Their eyes met, and Rob turned away.
“We have to decide what to do,” Morton said. “I think our first priority is to get you clear.”
“What about David?” Simon asked. Dunbavand had been wrapped in Morton’s lightweight sleeping bag, protecting the healskin from the cave’s rancid humidity. He was sleeping fitfully as the drugs and biovirals did what they could to assuage the damage.
“We can load him in one of our bubbles and remote drive it out of here,” Morton said. “You’ll be safer up in the Dau’sings.”
“Yes, the aliens seem to be centered around Randtown and the valleys immediately around Blackwater Crag,” Simon said. “We should be safe in the highlands.”
“What about our mission?” Rob asked. “We’re supposed to be making life intolerable for the aliens.”
“We will,” Morton said. “We’ve got six months.”
“I hate to disagree,” Simon said. “But you saw the new force field generators they were building. Once those are operational there is very little even you will be able to do to harm their primary installations, I suspect. This is the third expansion and protective upgrade they have made since they arrived. Each time the force fields are larger and stronger.”
“We tried to get inside at first,” Georgia said. “Five of us were caught going through the sewers. They didn’t stand a chance. The aliens must have been expecting us to try and infiltrate their station. They’re not stupid. And poor old Napo led a dive team that was going to use an underwater route through the old aquarium. Nothing works. They’ve got every route covered.”
“There are no routes, not anymore,” Mandy said. She was chewing listlessly at a bacon sandwich. “They’re already outside the old town boundaries. All the utility tunnels and storm drains are inside the force field now.”
“You boys aren’t thinking,” The Cat said. Her voice cut clean across the cave, ripe with mockery. Morton gave her an intolerant glance. She was doing her yoga, one foot tucked in behind her neck.
“You have a solution?” Morton asked.
“It’s obvious.”
“Want to share that?”
“Nuke them. That’s all we can do.”
“We can’t nuke them. We can’t get to them.”
She closed her eyes, put her hands into Dawn Sunlight position, and breathed in deeply.
“There has to be a way in,” Rob said. “What about caves?”
“No,” Simon said. “We performed a full seismic survey before we started building Randtown. I didn’t want us to suddenly come up against subsidence problems after we were established. That would have been too costly.”
“Do you have anything that could dig underneath the force field?” Georgia asked.
“Alamo avenger,” Rob muttered with a small private smile.
“No,” Morton said. “We didn’t come equipped t
o mount a frontal assault. We’re supposed to harass and disrupt, to make them waste time and money looking over their shoulder the whole time.”
“A nice theory,” Simon said. “But they’re a very centralized species. The activity out in the valleys is susceptible to the kind of campaign you’re talking about, but I doubt it would ultimately have much effect on them. To hurt them, you must strike at the structures inside the force field.”
“It’ll have to be an underwater approach,” Rob said reluctantly. “Even if a dump-web doesn’t work underwater, there must be some route in. An arch in a reef, an inlet pipe. Something!”
“Oh, this is painful,” the Cat said. She slipped her foot out from behind her head. “I thought you were executive management class, Morty. What happened to that ‘don’t download glitches, upload fixes,’ corporate speak you’re so fond of?”
“Just tell us what your idea is, please,” he said wearily.
“The aliens keep expanding the area they’re developing around the refinery station, right? So what we do is put a nuke outside the existing force field, and inside the border where the new one is going to be. When they switch on the new force field, the nuke is now inside their defenses, and it goes off. Any questions?”
Morton wanted to kick himself it was so obvious. He put the lapse of clear thought down to the shock of losing Parker and the Doc. “Simon, do the aliens turn off the old internal force fields once the new ones are up and running?”
“Yes. They have so far.”
“Oh, gosh, boys, are we really going to use my little old idea?” The Cat batted her eyes.
“Yeah,” Rob said. “I don’t suppose you fancy staying with the nuke and detonating it once we’re sure everything is peachy in there?”
The blast from Parker’s last stand against the flyers made things difficult. There was virtually no cover left on the foothills above and behind the town. That left them with the eastern side, where the low ground had been slightly sheltered from the blast wave. Even there, the trees had been completely flattened and incinerated. Large patches of terrestrial GMgrass had smoldered away before the eternal sleet and drizzle extinguished their paltry flames.
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 152