William felt his heart rise just a bit. This was it. In a matter of an hour they’d move on the objectives and purchase that most priceless of things, freedom. He only hoped that the butchers bill wouldn’t be too high.
The morning clouds came in fast and low, dancing through the dim orange light. North wind brought the first tides of the coming winter and a chill that crept into every man. The upper reaches of the refinery were hidden in the folds of the clouds while the blackness of the elevator disappeared into the heavens.
William waited outside of the abandoned stamp mill. A slight hiss rain whipped around him. A gruff looking civilian led Dzavi out from the darkness and into an alley. The mercenary locked eyes with William as he was led into shadow.
In William’s jacket was stuffed what few spare nanite ammo slabs they had left, a pair of the wonderful wire grenades and rough cloth. Vito had turned his nose up at the cloth, but thought it better to have something to bind a wound than nothing at all. The pistol rested heavily against his breast with the polymer blade close by. The knife, of everything he carried, was the most personal.
Avi walked up and stood before William with a puffed chest and a face blackened by soot. “Mr. Grace, I’ll be your escort today,” he mocked as he strutted like a bantam chicken.
“Are we ready Avi?”
“Yes Sir,” Avi nodded with a smile.
The pair stood in the mist and waited for the rest of the crew to walk up. Two columns stood and departed in silence. Vito shrugged lightly and waved to William. “We’ll keep the coffee warm!”
The elevator was a squat complex of stone, iron, and alloy. The ribbon of coal black nanofibers burst into the clouds. Every window and door was sealed close with firing ports scattered about.
The assault team waited behind a set of shipping containers and waited. There was decent cover all the way up the complex itself. What they’d do when they got there was a different story. A roar cascaded through the clouds as the assault on the refinery began.
“Move it up. Keep it tight. Hess, Tik, keep it covered.” Selim said as he peered around the corner.
Tik watched, angrily, as the rest of the assault team bounded from one container to the next before arriving at the edge of the yard. Then the defenders opened up. She strained to be with them.
“Can you see anything to shoot?” Von Hess asked.
Tik bit her lip and scanned over the top of the assault rifle. There was damn little to see that offered a shot. Whoever was inside had no intention of trying to get out. Nor much intention of preventing an assault. They just had to stay buttoned up.
The assault stalled even before it really got moving. With nowhere to go the assault team shifted from one point to the next. All entrances were sealed. Both sides had accomplished their goal, one side had protected the elevator while the other had kept that team engaged.
Tik stood behind the container and cracked her back. “Fuck this.”
They trekked through the awakening hovels to the sounds of angry men. The men who once governed now spoke of freedom, toil, slavery, and the future. The men from the stars moved in silence to the edge of the slag field and waited.
The rabble that caroused down the street was adorned in every manner of jacket, coverall, helmet, and suit. The weapons they hoisted ranged from iron pipes to industrial tools designed to remove slag. One large woman had an iron plate strapped to her chest and a pair of cruel hooks in her hands. David was in the middle of the pack, he gave a tired wave and followed the mob.
Peter ran up with a dirty bag hanging from each hand. “Here! You might need these.”
William took one of the stained bags and Xinhu the other.
Xinhu grasped the bag and peeked inside. “Explosives?”
Peter, with a slight whiff of stinging alcohol, gave out a bellow and joined the mob.
Sebastien pointed to the rise and the crew fanned out. They watched the mob in silence until they passed from view.
William looked down the slope and saw the spot where he had stabbed the man to death just a few meters down the road. He couldn’t see into the gap where he knew the body would lie. Part of him wanted to rise and look, while another was satisfied knowing that the man wasn’t in the refinery.
A tinny voice echoed into the sky from beyond the rise. Sebastien raised a hand to keep the men silent. The loudspeakers were pointing to the gate and away from them.
William strained to make out any words. Nothing came through except the fact that someone was saying something, but he had no idea what. He sighed and shifted his weight in the slag. He tapped his chest and felt the reassuring weight of the pistol.
“They’re telling them to stand down, they want to negotiate, uh, hmm, claim we are here to enslave the population.” Sebastien strained himself up as the wind blew. “Something about corruption, the truth, it’s all bullshit now.”
“Would they surrender?” Xan asked.
“Not bloody likely,” Crow replied as he slid himself higher onto the rise. “Oop, they’re making towards the complex, everyone get ready.”
Gunfire rang out. It echoed off the low clouds and the sound bounced off the superstructure.
William scrambled up to the top of the rise. His clothes were thoroughly soaked as the light mist gave way to a steady drizzle. He’d have shivered except for the adrenaline pumping through him.
The booming of grenades was muffled. William realized that they had been set off inside of the building.
“Let’s go!” Sebastien yelled as he rose and disappeared over the rise.
William rose up and crawled over the peak and slid down the backside. A service access through the fence was busted open and he followed everyone through and into the grounds of the refinery. Before them lay an open stretch with a blank wall rising into the mist broken only by an occasional door. He kept himself hunched and scurried forward.
A new noise broke the morning that had never sounded before. The drone alarms howled a terrible noise. Far above in the mist the pods of razor drones cracked open and loosed the horrible cargo.
“Set those charges,” Sebastien yelled as he pointed to a rust fringed service door.
Xan slid on his knees to the base of the door and pulled out a gray cube with a simple strip on the side. The strip had one tab with minutes on it, with another tab to set it. He pulled off the one minute tab and ripped off the set tab. It beeped every second. He slapped it against the door frame.
The crew slid back away from the door and peered up into the mist expecting the drones to arrive at any moment. The sporadic gunfire from the front of the refinery still called out but was answered with heavy automatic fire from within. Screams drifted through the mist.
William turned his head away and counted with the beeps. The final beeps came quicker, faster, until it gave a steady tone. His ears rang like a chipped bell and he realized that the charge had gone off. He pulled out the pistol and followed behind Avi.
The interior of the building rose in a pillar of industrial equipment. Pipes, stairwells, drums, and silos occupied the entire building. Above was a large squat control booth ringed with tinted windows. Towards the front lie barricades with the Samoans firing out into the daylight beyond.
William sprinted with Avi and took cover in a section of pipe flanges and manifolds. His heart was beating loudly in his ears. He couldn’t hear anything else but a ringing sound.
Withering fire raged towards the Samoan defenders as they turned in surprise. Sebastien fired in rapid bursts as the main line of defenders tried to shift. They had set up expecting the gate to be assaulted, a wide area of empty ground separated them from the next safe cover.
The civilian assault was hammered by the razor drones outside and the heavy weapons fire inside. They fled inwards away from the drones and into the confusion. Men scooped up rifles from the dead and fired at razor drones behind and the defenders in front. The Samoans were pinched, but the Civilians were being flayed into the fray.
The crew slid into positions and moved into better cover. The area around them was a forest of steel and fixtures painted a dim green. Returning fire pinged off of the surrounding fixtures but the surprise had taken it’s toll. The Samoans were breaking and abandoning the position, and the wounded, while they sprinted for cover.
“Pick em off!” Crow yelled as he held the stubby assault rifle up and sent bursts into the fleeing mercenaries. The rifle was loud and blasted out an angry orange flame out of the muzzle.
William raised the pistol and remembered the futility of driving rounds at such a distance. He instead focused on scouting beyond and watching for new threats. The command area loomed out of the wall and he watched it carefully. The only way to shut off the drones was inside that cube.
The civilians screamed as the razor drones continued the assault.
The smoked glass in the center of the control area spidered and shattered. Behind it emerged a stubby rotary cannon that swung towards them.
“Autocannon behind us!” William yelled as he rose and ran deeper into the machinery.
The autocannon shattered out a ripping sound as it showered a rain of steel cored rounds and explosive shells. They shifted the fire away from the heavy cover of the machine and towards the wall of Civilians fleeing the drones.
“Anyone see a way up?” Sebastien asked as he poked his head quickly around a pipe.
Aleksandr rose up in his heavy armor and dropped back down quickly. “Da, I see stairwell.”
“Hit it,” Sebastien said as he rose and took position behind Aleksandr.
The heavy armor was blocky but oh so precious in an assault. Aleksandr started slow but gained momentum as he approached the stairs. The rest of the crew bounded after. The autocannon took a moment to adjust before it began to fire at them.
William ducked his head and gritted his teeth as the rounds exploded around him. He caught himself just as he was about to fall and instead rolled up against the cold wall out of the view of the autocannon. His eyes focused on a body laying in the center of the corridor in a pool of red. Xinhu was crumbled like a broken wreck on the grey concrete.
“Xinhu’s down!” William shouted.
Crow snapped his head back to look and returned his attention to the stairwell. “He’s dead, keep moving!”
William looked behind him once more at the unmoving form. How many more would he leave behind him? He wanted to dash out, pull him to safety and check, just check, and see if he was alive. The form of the man was so still in the violence surrounding it. He felt a hand tugging on his shirt and he turned to reluctantly follow Avi.
The assault team hunched near the stairwell that led up to command center. The hulking mass above them provided cover from the relentless autocannon. Behind them the Civilians continued to stream in, eyes wide with panic. The razor drones were slicing there way through those outside while the autocannon hit those inside.
Peter sprinted up and slid next to Sebastien. His cheek was a ragged crimson mess and one arm useless. The razor drones had struck. “You need to get moving! We’re getting torn up above and below. What the fuck?” His eyes were wide with adrenaline and anger.
Sebastien peered up the stairwell and shook his head. “Not through there we’re not.”
“We’re dying for you!” Peter pleaded.
“And if we go up that stairwell we’ll die for nothing,” Sebastien replied.
Crow pointed along the edge of the wall. A set of piping and a covered ladder rose skyward. “Can we pop the comms, kill the drones that way?”
Xan nodded slowly as he clutched a wounded arm. “There’ll be a comms array up top, knock it out and they should power down.”
“Should?” Crow asked. He turned the stubby weapon slightly and checked the drum.
“Those boys upstairs are smart. They’re not going to move an inch, they’ll let the drones and the virus do the work,” Sebastien said with a snort. “William, Avi, get upstairs and knock that thing out. We’ll take our chances that it might knock those drones out. If anything it opens up some options.”
“Let’s go boss!” Avi called out as he stood and raced towards the piping that rose upwards.
William nodded to Sebastien and followed after. He turned to look and saw Crow and Aleksandr in the heavy pattern armor move closer to the stairwell.
The two men took flanking positions and ducked forward, then back, egging on those above. They advanced a step, then another, then in unison tossed grenades up the stairwell. They sprinted back to the edge and were greeted with a half dozen grenades coming down the stairwell. The explosions rattled off in successive concussions. Crow sprinted in and tossed a pair more before running back.
“C’mon!” Avi called down to William. He was already climbing the white ladder that was tucked inside of the process piping.
William turned his gaze from the breach and assault and began climbing his way upwards. He had never, surprisingly, had much love of heights. Floating free above a planet never evoked anything, but a wobbly ladder would make him lightheaded. This, he thought, was going to take his mind off all of the people with guns.
Sebastien sprinted up and slid next to Aleksandr. The stairwell before him was filled with smoke and scarred with shrapnel. So far he hadn’t seen anything besides the bounce of a grenade.
“I’ve got a pair left,” Aleksandr said.
Crow slid up along the opposite edge and peered up the edge of the stairwell. He raised his weapon and let a burst fly into the upper reaches. He was rewarded with a cry and a grenade bouncing down the stairs.
The detonation was too far up the stairs and didn’t do much except make more smoke.
“Ideas?” Crow said as he watched up the stairwell with his weapon on his shoulder.
“Not until they run out of grenades,” Sebastien said simply. As long as the defenders could rain down explosives there wasn’t much he could do. From above the sound of the autocannon blasted through the refinery.
“Charge them?” Aleksandr asked.
Sebastien shook his head. He hoped William was having more luck. Once the drones were out of the sky the Civilians would become a force multiplier. He turned his head and caught a glance of the carnage behind him. “Negative, we wait for the drones to drop.”
Avi and William climbed slowly, methodically, arduously up the never ending ladder. After what felt like an eternity of rough rungs they reached a small platform with another ladder. They took a brief breather and peered down below them. The command bunker was spewing out fire onto the civilians below who still continued to stream inside. Women and children were huddled behind giant containers of stamped ore.
“Good god,” Avi said. “The drones are driving everyone inside.”
“Let’s go,” William said as he took the lead. It was one thing for the drones to repel the attackers, another for them to terrorize the population.
They reached a second platform that was darker. The piping below them spidered out into a lattice only an engineer could appreciate. The sounds of gunfire was eerily muffled. They turned and continued to climb.
Williams hands throbbed. The arches of his feet felt like they were seared with a rolled iron bar. He scanned to his side as the piping slid away and into various silos and process equipment. An elevator tube was in the middle of the wall 100 meters away. It dropped down into the top of the command center.
The open car was rising upward with a pair of men looking out to the carnage below.
“Avi!” William hissed. “Stop, stay still.”
Avi, experienced in enough combat situations, locked himself still into the shadows of the ladder and hugged it tight.
William closed his eyes to the tiniest slit and watched as the men in the elevator reached the roof. Something seemed vaguely familiar about one of the men. The pair continued to climb up to the hooded roof access.
They reached the raised cupola with a steel lattice floor. A narrow door led outward. Avi checked his weapon and William drew
his pistol. Avi leaned forward and slapped William on the shoulder.
“You ready Mr. Grace?”
William nodded with a slight smile. “Yes, I’m ready.”
“You pop the hatch, I go first and we both get to the nearest cover. If we’re close to the comms you get that first and I’ll keep you covered, if not we’ll nail the two guys.”
“Avi, let’s do it!” William said with a wide grin. He reached out a hand and popped the latch.
The air from the inside of the building rushed outwards in a whooshing gust blasting the door open. White light streamed inside that was dulled only by the cloud cover above. Avi jumped out of the hatch and burst into a dead run.
William followed immediately behind pumping his legs like he’d never run before. He could almost feel the eyes on his back, tickling, teasing, as he expected to get shot. A square box was bolted to the roof with a slender stack rising upwards. Ten more meters. Almost. His knee burned like it was on fire.
“Hey hey!” A voice called out to his right and the gunfire began.
William ignored the call and slid himself behind the metallic cowling and clutched the pistol to his chest. He trembled slightly with the adrenaline dancing. He peeked around the edge and saw a man in blue coveralls sprint past, 10 meters away.
“Avi, he’s coming at you!” William called. He turned his head in time to see the other man roll onto his side and level his weapon. William tucked himself back behind the cowling just as the thuds of weapon fire echoed against the metal. He hoped that whatever it was wouldn’t punch through the supports.
Gunfire rattled through the forest of pipes and vents. William could hear Avi firing, and someone firing back at Avi. He rolled to the opposite side of the cowling and turned his head just for a moment.
The man rushed from around the cowling with a stubby rifle at his side. His face showed surprise on top of determination. If he sprinted a step more and he’d be in position to hide from William and mow down Avi. But only if William missed.
William turned, raised the pistol with an extended arm, and fired. The pistol recoiled lightly. His nose tickled with the tang of burnt nanites as the wind blew in his face. He wasn’t sure if he hit the man, the target had moved so quickly.
Trial by Ice (A Star Too Far) Page 17