by Dan Abnett
He could see nothing unusual. The mine was productive, certainly. There were clearly big deposits in parcel 25211. High-gain stuff, rare metals, even traces of extrotransitionals. A decent, hard working outfit could make a decent hard working fortune out of a site like this. If Seberg's four hundred investments in the Gunbelt range had yielded just a half-dozen locations as productive as 25211, then Ocean Exploratory would have turned a very handsome profit within a decade, and a serious return for its investing partners in two or three. More than enough to get you mad as hell if the SO fucked you around. Enough to make you fight it in the courts, throw money at appeals.
But nothing like enough to drag the US and the Bloc into a shooting war. The good stuff had to be hidden, or classified. Like Fred and its rumoured riches, there had to be more than met the eye. Maybe he was reading it wrong. Maybe, via Cleesh, Apfel's people could explain to him what he was missing in these bald, percentile lists.
Maybe it was just politics? Deep-seated Bloc/US agendas that the SO was ringfencing? Maybe Seberg's little speculation was just a good excuse to settle something less material?
"Come on, then," said Rash. He had walked into the office behind Falk. He had another self-heat can of food on the go. It smelled like curry.
"I don't know," said Falk. "I thought I'd find something here, but I haven't."
"You thought you'd find the reason we're fucking killing each other?" asked Rash.
"Yes."
"You're more of a fucktard than Preben," he said, and took a spoonful of curry. "Why here?" he asked, chewing. "Why this place? You've got stuff you're not saying."
"I thought the fight was about mineral exploitation," said Falk. "I thought it was the Bloc getting pissy because the SO had shut them out of some big mining action."
Rash shrugged.
"It doesn't add up," said Falk.
"And you, an SO shavehead, can tell this, being an expert on such things?" Rash asked.
"I don't have to be an expert," said Falk. "Casus belli. It's always about stuff. What I've got and you haven't. What you've got and–"
"I get it."
"So, it's also got to be big, then, right? Not just any stuff. Big stuff. After all this time, to finally start a fucking fight? Come on, just frustration, you think? Just doing what we've secretly always wanted to do?"
"My reading of history," said Rash, taking another spoonful, "and understand I do not pretend to be an expert of any kind, Bloom. My reading is wars are always started for ultimately stupid reasons. Reasons just like you said, big reasons even, but ultimately stupid ones. They always look like they could have been avoided, if someone had shown the presence of mind to communicate the right notion. We put up with a lot of shit from each other. Why stop?"
"So you're saying it's stupid trying to look for a reason that makes sense?" asked Falk.
"I am. They'll blame this on minerals. Well, great. It isn't the fucking ground's fault, right? It's probably some giant domino effect. Some asshole somewhere said the wrong thing to another asshole at some fucking summit, and then some other asshole didn't get his preferential deal, and so he cut the profits on yet another asshole's contract and then… and then… and then… and it's a giant rolling ball of shit coming downhill and sweeping everything up. And that giant rolling ball of shit's called history, Bloom, and we were standing in its fucking way."
Falk wandered back through the rooms. In the other office, Preben was sitting at one of the planner desks and doing a takedown and clean on his M3A. Valdes was idly playing with an informatic console that was giving nothing back. The girls were asleep, except Milla, who was keeping Mouse's bag valve going.
He went outside. The rain was fresh and cold, and the wind was almost too uncomfortable to bear. He walked as far as the closest excavation pit. Most of it had filled with water, like a dirty swimming pool. Along the edge of the quarry there was a metal walkway with a rail, and evidence of a small pump house and pipe system, installed so that rainwater wouldn't become an issue. It hadn't run in a long time, and the rain was winning.
The surface of the flooded excavation shivered with each gust of wind and dimpled with the raindrops.
"What are you going to do, Falk?" Cleesh asked, her voice in the beat of the rain.
"I think it's way past time we devised an exit strategy," he replied. He folded his arms to keep his hands warm.
"You mean unplug you?"
"No, I don't. I mean find a way out. It was worth chasing for a bit, but this is getting insane. You didn't see. You didn't see what happened, Cleesh. Fighting our way out of that house. It's not a fucking game, Cleesh. It's not a fucking assignment, either."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm wealthy," he said. "I'm golden, Cleesh. But Bigmouse isn't, and we can't keep him alive much longer. And the others don't deserve to be stuck in this shit if there's a viable way out. Can you talk to Bari? Can you find out if GEO can get a transport in to us?"
"Of course."
"We're at parcel 25211. We're right up in the caldera range, Cleesh, a decent way from the main hot zone."
He waited for her to answer.
"There's a no-fly advisory on that whole region," she said after about a minute. "Absolute. SOMD has stamped control jurisdiction across the whole western half of the Northern Territories."
"I thought they might have," he said, trying not to sound disappointed. He tilted his face up, let the rain hit it, eyes closed.
"This is getting bigger by the hour, Falk," Cleesh said, some of her words turned inside out or see-through by static. "Even with the com blackout, it's clear how hot things are. There are reports of major fighting at Antrim and Hall Valley. They can see the smoke from that depot fire at Furlow. Our SO source says that there is an expectation that the Central Bloc fiefs will issue a formal declaration in the next thirty-six hours. Which will be, you know, a red letter day in the history of our proud species."
"Yeah, okay. Well, what if we keep going? Take the track across the range, head east as far as we can get. It may take another day or so, but is there somewhere a transport can meet us? Somewhere closer? Just a hopter with a scrambled medical team."
"Whoa, whoa, lose the misery," she said. "I said it was no-fly. I didn't say it was wouldn't-fly. Bari's looking into it. GEO leases some private airfields in the west. He thinks they might be able to sneak a bird up to you in the next three or four hours. Strictly off the books, a look-the-otherway job. They wouldn't be able to file any kind of flight plan, and they'd have to move low and slow to avoid attention, but it's possible. Bari thinks he can get the fuelling and prep done under the cover of general contingency. GEO has told the SO that as things degrade, they will be implementing policy to extract GEO personnel from the zone. He also reckons he knows a few crews who are crazy enough to want the adventure."
"How certain is he that he can pull this off?" Falk asked.
"I kinda like the look on his face right now."
"Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Cleesh. Let me know how it develops."
"We'll know in an hour or so what's practical. You–"
"What?" he asked.
"You're drawing a blank with Heligo then?" she asked. He could hear her smile.
"Yeah. It looked promising, but it's a mess, a bunch of nothings. If I get out of here, you and I can probably put everything we've got together and come out with a good, solid series about SO bias and mismanagement. Something pretty damn ballsy. Just not the great bit I was hoping for."
"You will get out of there," she insisted.
"Actually, let's assume I'm not going to, Cleesh."
"Oh, yes, let's! Let's be really freeking® pessimistic!"
He blinked raindrops out of his eyes.
"I'm serious," he said. "Listen to me. There's a girl, an affiliate for Data-Scatter. Her name's Noma Berlin."
"Okay."
"She's got a place in South Site. She was the one who brought the Letts story to me. I was going to give her stuff from this in return.
Get it all to her, Cleesh."
"Serious? All of it?" Cleesh asked.
"Yeah. Feed her everything. Help her like you'd help me. Help her get the story out. Tell her, tell her to use the contact she made. Jill Versailles at Reuters. We couldn't do much better than that."
"Okay, if you like. Is this girl that good?"
"I don't know," he replied. "She's a pain in the ass, actually. But she might be. Yeah, I think she really might be. But all that matters is she's in the exactly the right place."
"Is she the one you had so much sex with it broke your hip?"
"Ha ha. No comment," he said. He suddenly became aware that he wasn't on his own. Tal had appeared, hands in pockets, head down against the rain. She wandered along to the quarry edge to join him and stared down at their wobbling reflections in the pit water.
"Who do you talk to when you talk to yourself?" she asked.
He shot her a look.
"You talk to yourself a lot," she said, with as much of a shrug as having her hands in her pockets would allow.
"I just think through things," he said. "Talk my way through things."
She nodded.
"I do that," she said.
"Like how best to survive a situation," he said.
She nodded again.
"We'll probably have to keep moving," he told her. "Keep running. It'll be quite a distance before we're clear of trouble."
She looked at him. The wind pulled at her fringe.
"Running is not so bad," she said. "At least if you are running you are doing something. We should have learnt to run a long time ago."
"You had nowhere to run to," he said.
"Do we now?" she asked.
"I hope so. We'll vouch for you. If we reach SO protection, or get an extraction, we will make sure the authorities understand the situation you were in. We'll make sure they take care of you."
"For myself, I don't care so much," she said. "For Lenka, she never deserved any of this."
She looked at him. He liked the bones of her face, the lean strength. Her cheekbones were high and her jaw was tight and heart-shaped. She reminded him of the wind vanes at the hill farm. Relentless, driven by the wind, but never knocked down. She managed a half-smile, like it was something she was allergic to, or a movement that caused her pain. He could almost hear the whup-whup of wind turbines.
The chop got louder and became real. Tal glanced at him in alarm and they both turned and looked up.
The rotorcraft swept in over the cliffs surrounding the site, coming from the north. It was moving fast and low, its hull leaning to port as it banked in on a broad, passing curve. The moment it cleared the clifftop, the chop of its proprotors became painfully raw. There was no barrier between them and the noise source. The rock cavity of the Heligo site made a sound box that echoed and amplified the clatter, turning it into the noise of a hundred rotorbirds.
It passed over, and disappeared from view, taking its sound with it. Falk and Tal were already running back towards the site offices. Behind them, it returned. It had turned and powered back, much slower now, body upright, paired tilts rising to a support angle as it appeared over the cliffs. It drifted in above the flooded pits of the quarry complex, hanging, inquisitive.
From the very first moment, Falk had known it was a Kamov. A Bloc gunship, an 18, like the one that had buzzed them at the house.
"You," said Tal, as they ran. "You and trouble are great lovers."
THIRTY-ONE
In the refab, everybody was on their feet. Valdes was at one of the windows, pipe in hand, pulling the blind slats aside to peer up at the hovering rotorcraft.
"Time to go," said Falk as he and Tal burst in.
"No shit," replied Rash.
"Did they see you?" asked Valdes.
"Pretty sure, yes," said Falk. "We were out in the open, and they were just overhead suddenly."
"Fuck," said Preben.
"Just pick up Bigmouse and get him out to the truck," said Falk. "We'll blow and go, right now."
"That fucking thing'll scorch us," said Valdes. "Come on, man, that gunbird will chew the truck up."
"But a static target like a refab is much harder to hit," snapped Falk. "Come the fuck on!"
Outside, the Ka-18 rotated slowly, fifty feet up, its bellicose chin out-thrust. Without explanation it accelerated away north and vanished behind the cliffs.
"Fucking move!" Falk said.
Rash moved into the bunk room with the girls to collect Mouse.
"Get the SObild running," Falk said to Preben. Preben ran out of the refab's side door.
"Valdes, we're getting the gate," Falk said.
They exited through the front into the yard and the angry wind. Rash and the girls were already shuffling Mouse to the back exit in his sling. Lenka was crying again. This time, Falk could hear her.
He ran across the yard with Valdes, both of them lugging their pipers. The rain hit them hard, coming down in big heavy drops. They reached the gate, grabbed a frame halfeach, prepared to drag.
"Fuck it, man!" Valdes exclaimed.
Through the gate link, they could see down the gabioned throat of the gorge all the way to the track. A pair of SObild trucks just like the one they were using had just pulled up at the mouth. In daylight, they could see the little red star decals on the cab doors. Falk wondered if the truck they had been driving around in all night had red star decals on the cab doors too.
"No exit!" groaned Valdes. He let go of the gate.
"Why aren't they coming down?" Falk asked, more to the air than to Valdes.
"Falk? What's happening?" Cleesh asked.
Falk saw why the trucks had stopped. They were giving way. Something bigger came into view. Its drive plant was making big, throbbing, revving sounds. Even without the trucks getting in its way, it didn't seem feasible that the Bloc MBT would fit its immense grey bulk down the entrance gorge.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Valdes wailed.
The tank throbbed out a huge grunt of power and accelerated into the approach towards them. It was a T22, a massive tandem-turret fighting machine. Falk neither knew nor cared about its variant specifics. Its vast adaptive track systems and hydropneumatic suspension gave it a running sound that was almost a soft purr, like a beautifully oiled, antique wooden escalator in a classy department boutique. The Uralvagonzavod fusion plant growled like an emphysemic demon. Its aft turret, small and high, mounted twin hardbeam pipe weapons. Its forward turret, the big main cap, was low and flat and seemed to look at them down its giant coldbore gun.
"Great. Great!" murmured Falk. "And what the fuck do we do now?"
"We show them our A game, man!" cried Valdes. "We show them our fucking A game!"
"Get real, Valdes!" Falk spat.
They started to run back across the yard. They had almost reached the refab when the SObild drove into view, Preben at the wheel. He had everybody else on board.
"Back! Back!" Falk yelled at him.
Preben braked hard, curling up a fat wave of muddy brown water, and began to reverse, swinging the truck around to head back into the site. Falk and Valdes ran after it.
They heard the hopter coming back. It had brought a friend. The two Ka-18s ran in over the northern cliffs in formation, and began to descend towards the centre of the biggest yard space. Their rotors were stacked almost vertically to bring them down. Valdes raised his weapon to shoot at them.
"Don't be a fucking idiot!" Falk told him.
They ran for the line of the sheds, willing themselves into a position where there was something between them and the Bloc units.
Kissing the mud almost simultaneously, whisking up counter-patterns of spray, the gunships opened their carrier doors and men leapt out, dispersing wide. They were dressed in black blate, weapons high and ready. Bloc special forces. Scorpions, perhaps. Black Butterflies. As soon as the fireteams had deployed, the Ka-18s lifted off again, doors still gaping, noses down as they ascended.
The T-22 came throug
h the site gates. Through them. The chainlink frames scrunched and collapsed like sugar icing under its tracks and armour skirts.
The first gunfire came from the special forces. Valdes and Falk heard the hard rounds and beam shots banging into the end wall of the refab as they came around the side heading for the quarries. One hardbeam cut clean through two fibreplak sidings and blew out the windows of the refab behind them.