by Tom Kratman
John needs me not to hide . . . and so does Hans . . . and Ling . . . and those poor children down in the other castle waiting to be murdered. And perhaps even, too, my grandmother, long dead but with a bitterness and hatred in her heart for the masters who ruined her life . . . perhaps she, too, needs me not to hide but to fight.
And Besma? She'll never be able to strike on her own, now. I owe it to her to . . .
Petra picked up a detonator in her left hand, wrapping her delicate fingers around it. With her right she flicked off the thick wire safety that would keep the squeeze lever from closing. Her right then took control of the other detonator. With her right thumb she flicked off the safety on that one.
"Wait . . . wait . . . wait," she whispered to herself as the column of trucks grew closer to the point she was supposed to set off the mines.
"Wait . . . wait . . . wait . . ." Petra scrunched down into her hole with just the top of her head and her eyes showing.
She misjudged it, just slightly. Or perhaps Hans had misjudged the proper spot to mark where she should squeeze the levers of the blasting machines. Whichever was the case, the mines detonated splendidly, all twelve of them, sending roughly eleven thousand half- ounce steel cylinders skipping gleefully along and across the road.
Men who had been sitting or standing up in the backs of trucks were scythed down with a collective moan, their organs and blood spilling across the truck beds and the road. Drivers and co-drivers, sitting up front, fared no better. As for the trucks, tires were blasted out, gas tanks were ruptured, lights and windscreens smashed. One truck, its front tires blasted off, went nose down to the roadbed, twisted to the right, and began a body-spilling roll that ended only went it struck a tree, broadside. Still another exploded in a fireball as the steel fragments not only spilled its liquid fuel but struck a spark off of the frame. Another of the five trucks struck went slightly off road until running head on into a tree. One, too close to a mine, was blown on its side. The last truck, with no living driver at the wheel, plowed into the truck before it.
Though there were men left alive in the kill zone, and even men left unhurt, there was no one left unshocked. It was a massacre.
Except, unfortunately for the lead truck. It had gotten just out of Hans' preplanned kill zone a quarter of a second before Petra finished squeezing the handle on the blasting machine.
The corbasi cursed himself even as he cursed at the driver to "Move, move, move, you fool!"
Of course the filthy infidels had someone out to block the roads. I was an idiot. Idiot, idiot, IDIOT! And I've lost more than eighty percent of the men I brought with me. Shit. Should I go back and try to save any survivors? No . . . no. The important thing is still up ahead. And that ambush was thorough. There'll be a team of men there.
"Faster, dolt!"
It was the worst sound she'd ever heard. Men screamed, wept, and begged for aid. And most of them, she suspected, were as blond- haired and blue-eyed as she was.
Petra covered her ears with her hands against the sound. In the process, a small device, no bigger than a hearing aid, was knocked to the dirt below.
She'd expected to take some satisfaction in striking a blow against the Caliphate. All she felt was a desire to vomit. Their only fault was that someone took them young, just the way that someone took me. Poor boys. And yet, there's nothing I can do to help. Worse, if I don't get out of here John and Hans will finally come to the sedan I'm supposed to hide in, find that I'm not there, and come looking for me.
I'm sorry, boys, she thought at the stricken men out on and around the smoky roadway. I'm so sorry. But I can't help you.
With that, Petra crawled out of the hole onto her belly, her submachine gun clutched tightly in one hand. She kept crawling, skinning hands, elbows and knees, and getting a little mud in the submachine gun, until the light from the burning truck was dim. Then she got up to a crouch, glanced all around like a hunted animal, turned to her right and ran.
She never noticed that she'd left her radio, ground by her own feet into the mud and dirt of the hole, behind.
Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
Perhaps a hundred people lived in the village below, crowded in behind a rickety and crude wooden fence. As the airship settled down just outside that fence, Matheson's voice came over the public address system.
"Infidels," he said. "Infidels, assemble to be counted and assessed."
Lee/Ling looked at Matheson as if to ask, What the fuck does that mean?
Matheson's answering glare said, Who cares, so long as it sounds suitably impressive and threatening?
Fearfully, the doors to the little shacks opened up and people began to step out.
"That's our cue," Matheson said to the newly armed and just liberated cargo slaves. "Follow me."
Each man, Matheson and the two slaves, had wrapped themselves in bed linen to simulate robes. On their heads they wore checked tablecloths held in place by short pieces of rope, tied in the back.
Matheson had his pistol strapped to the outside of the robes. The slaves carried his and Ling's submachine guns authoritatively.
Lee lowered the starboard side passenger ramp just in time for Matheson and his two escorts to debark. They walked over to the fence briskly. Forcing the gate open, Matheson demanded, "Who is the headman here?"
A stoop shouldered German advanced cautiously. At a distance of about six paces he got to one knee and answered, "I am, master."
Matheson swung his pistol in a broad arc, taking in the entire populace of the town. "Your people are needed for emergency work. Get them aboard. Now. On your head if so much as a single wretched soul escapes."
"But our crops—" the headman began to protest, pointing to where the airship had crushed the shoots in the fields.
"You will be compensated; that, or receive a tax remittance. Now cease your whining and get loaded. Bring your children. You will be gone too long for them to care for themselves. Food will be provided."
"Was that really necessary?" Lee asked, while awaiting word from Shanghai that the two hunting jets were gone.
Matheson shrugged. "If we'd tried to hold them there, some one of them might have doubted our official status and gone running to report. As is, they're convinced of it...even if some of them are still hiding in the village, they think they're hiding from the authorities. No chance then that they'll go to the authorities. Unfortunately—"
"Unfortunately, now we're stuck with them," Lee finished.
"Will that affect the flight?"
Lee shrugged Ling's shoulders. "Seven tons of emaciated Christians? I think not. It just seems unfair to risk them."
"To risk what?" Matheson sneered. "Lives lived in slavery aren't worth living. At least with us they'll have a chance at real life."
Lee/Ling stiffened. "Shanghai says the fighters are turning for home. Communications intercepts say they took off with the fuel in the tanks . . . and nobody had bothered to make sure the tanks were full when they parked them. How did these people ever get control of a continent?"
"Someone without the will to keep it gave it to them."
Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
Latif went first to his office, just off of the entrance from where outside stairs rose above the mosqued courtyard, and entered the castle. The former gate guard of Honsvang followed as the brothel keeper waddled as fast as he could.
"There is a loudspeaker system," Latif told the janissary. "We haven't used it in years but—"
We're fucked, thought the janissary. No fool, he; he knew that if the thing hadn't been used in years then it probably couldn't be.
"—if the Almighty sees fit," Latif continued, "we can summon your comrades in a quarter of the time . . . a tenth!"
We're totally fucked, the janissary amended. Still, one never knows. Perhaps, just this once, Allah will lend us his aid.
Alas, it wa
s not to be. Latif waddled briskly down the interior hallway, pushed open his office door, and sat down at the dusty desk holding the controls for the public address system. Pushing away some cobwebs he flicked a switch to power up the system.
And was rewarded with some crackling, and a fair bit of smoke pouring from the control box.
"Get your slaves to start knocking down doors," the janissary commanded. "And what do you have in this place for arms?"
That question spurred a thought. "Forget the slaves, except for those you send for arms," the janissary said. "I have a quicker way."
With that, the janissary left the office, trotted down the corridor to a spot near the center of the castle, took his rifle in hand and began firing the rifle methodically into the high ceiling. Janissaries began pouring out of rooms even as smashed plaster and bits of masonry poured down from above.
Castle Honsvang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
It hadn't taken much to get the captive renegades to give him the combination to open the vault containing the virus. Hamilton had simply asked, "Now which of you does not want me to shoot him in the balls?" and they'd fallen over each other in their haste to volunteer.
The three renegades now sat, taped to chairs and facing away from each other. Their mouths were likewise taped. Hamilton and Hans had removed their shoes just before taping their legs to the chairs. For the nonce, Hans was occupied in the control room, watching the perimeter through the one closed-circuit television screen that was still useable, while keeping one hand poised near the switch to detonate diverse of the mines, if necessary. The slave boy liberated by Hamilton sat quietly nearby.
Not far away, in the lab, Hamilton spoke to the renegades while circling them slowly, not appreciably different from the way a shark might.
"I was taught this by Imperial Intelligence at Langley," Hamilton announced. "They called it 'musical chairs.' You'll see why in a moment.
"Here's rule number one: If any of you turn your heads to look at another, I will break one of your feet. If you understand, nod vigorously." Hamilton brandished a hammer he'd picked up in a closet off the main lab. If he hadn't found one, he'd have broken another chair to make a club for the purpose.
All three heads began bobbing like those of the children and whores the renegades had used and abused over the years.
"Very good. I'm now going to show you something. If it is part of the virus—of the virus project, rather—you will again, and without looking at each other, nod vigorously. If it is not, you will shake your heads to signify 'no.' If there is any disagreement I will smash one of each of your toes to bloody pulp. I'll then ask again. If there's any disagreement, I'll smash another. Again, in case it wasn't clear enough, if you try to consult, I'll break your foot. For starters. I can be a lot more imaginative if necessary.
"You see now why we call this musical chairs, gentlemen? It's because you sing."
Hamilton walked to a refrigerator and took a vial from it. He returned to the triangle of chairs and began to circle again, even more sharklike than before. "Is this part of the project?" he asked, with a calm all three scientists found utterly terrifying.
Hans heard Matheson's voice in his earpiece. "What's the situation?"
"We've got the castle," he reported. "We've got the scientists. The kids are still locked up except for one who was outside. We've the keys for their pen. Hamilton is interrogating your renegade scientists. So far, except for a short-lived attempt to batter down the main door, the local security, what's left of it, is just concentrating on keeping us in. It makes me wonder if they haven't got something coming to keep you from evacuating us by air."
"They did, Hans," Matheson answered. "We ducked it. They might . . . probably will . . . be back in a couple of hours."
"A couple of hours will probably give us the time we need," Hans said. "Unless . . . oh, oh."
The corbasi's truck pulled up outside the gate and stopped. Armed janissaries began to spill off of the back, each man racing for cover behind whatever could be found. The colonel himself got out quickly, then hurried forward toward the gate until stopped by the sergeant of the guard.
"Sir, no closer," the sergeant said. "Whoever is in there set off the modular mine packs. The road's covered with the little bastards."
The colonel stopped immediately in his tracks, then crouched down low to present as small a target as possible. "What the fuck is going on in there? Where the hell is ibn Minden?"
"We think he's probably dead, sir—"
"Damn!"
"Yes, sir, he was a fine young officer. Anyway, there's been no sound of fighting for a while. The last was when one of them shot three of my men as we were trying to batter down the main gate. Whoever it was who shot them is probably up there still. But he can't see much of anything from the tower I think he's in."
"How are your men who were shot?" the corbasi asked.
"Dead, all three, sir."
"Dammit."
"I've sent for aid from the platoon that was on break up at the bordello. They should be along in half an hour or so, inshallah."
Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
The still-cursing baseski formed the janissaries into four ranks, three of squads from the platoon and one of the company headquarters, in the reception hall above the castle's courtyard. Troops still filtered in, stumbling as they pulled up trousers and hopping as they tried to fit heavy boots to feet. None of them seemed actually drunk, the first sergeant was pleased to see.
Unfortunately, likewise were none of them armed, except for the one gate guard who had summoned them from their revels with sustained rifle fire. The baseski stifled a curse at fate.
Latif, hands clasped in worry before him, paced the hallway, likewise cursing. He'd sent two slaves, one to his own quarters and one to his guards, for whatever arms the castle might provide. He knew well enough how paltry these would be.
"Where are your stinking slaves with the weapons?" the first sergeant demanded, standing a couple of feet from the brothel keeper.
"Coming, Baseski, coming," Latif assured him.
Even as he spoke, the first of the slaves stumbled down the hall with an appreciable pile of weapons in his arms. He stopped next to the first sergeant and Latif. The sergeant took one glance at the pile and sneered.
"Shotguns? You have only shotguns in this place?"
"No, sir," the slave corrected. "There are two hunting rifles and also two automatic weapons."
"And where is the ammunition?"
The slave looked crestfallen. "You didn't say anything about ammunition," he said to Latif.
"Put down the weapons," the first sergeant ordered the slave. He then called out two names and ordered, "Go with this slave back to wherever he found these and bring all the ammunition there is to be had." The baseski shook his head with disgust. "Fuck! What does Allah have against me?"
Castle Honsvang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
"God has turned his face from us," Hans whispered, as he watched the janissaries pour out of the back of the truck. "And what's happened to Petra? If these got through, are the others hunting her like an animal through the woods?"
He'd called for his baby sister many times on the communicator he'd snagged days before. She didn't answer. This ate away at him, causing a rise of nausea in his stomach. He was certain she'd have answered if she were still alive. He thought back to the day the tax collector had taken her away; felt anew—as fresh as if it were just yesterday—the humiliation of being unable to defend her.
Taking a last glance at the security board to ensure all the perimeter mines were still functioning, Hans checked his submachine gun, stood and walked out of the control room and toward the lab. He walked as if going to his death as, indeed, he felt he was and perhaps even should be.
"Boy," he said to Meara's toy. "Boy, follow me."<
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"Are there any other samples of this virus anywhere in the Caliphate?" Hamilton asked. He'd already placed every sample identified as virus or useful to creating the virus into the containment unit he'd been given back at Langley. Immediately, the three heads began shaking "no" in unison. From Meara flew tears, so hard did he shake his head.
Cleverly, Hamilton had asked mostly innocuous questions to begin. After a dozen of those, and three pulped toes each for the renegades, he'd trained them not to lie. From there he'd gone after the rest of the lab samples. Now his questions were oriented toward the spread of the danger.
"Bernie? Hamilton," he sent over his communicator. "High degree of confidence that there are no other samples anywhere in the Caliphate. How far out are you?"