Darklight Pirates

by Robert E. Vardeman

  "Several. But, Mama, where do we go? The house is a hundred kilometers from the capital. The nearest town is Eastminster."

  "There. We can disappear there. It's big enough."

  "There are several hundred thousand residents," Bella said.

  "We can disappear in a city that size. We need to recruit a solid cadre to fight Weir. There's a university at Eastminster. Students will be easy sources of both expertise and a way to find those who will protect us."

  "Papa always worried about the Lost Generation movement. They think they've been passed over in both education and opportunity." Bella frowned. "Papa thought they were closer to becoming violent than any other protest group."

  "Then we find them and organize opposition," Kori said. "We can expand to the university later, once we have the Lost Gens under our thumb."

  "That's a big step to take. What makes you think they'll accept you when they were formed to oppose Papa?"

  "Revolutionaries only want to revolt. Give them a strong leader and they'll destroy anything in front of them. All we have to do is be certain they are pointed in the direction we want."

  "You, Mama? You'll be the strong leader?"

  Kori slapped her when she laughed.

  "Someone has to keep the memory of your father alive."

  The argument died when the carrier dropped with stomach-churning suddenness and skidded along, coming to a halt only a few meters from a seawall.

  "We ran out of fuel sooner than I thought. We're about a kilometer from the house." Scarlotti popped the doors, letting in cold, wet sea air. "Get out and I'll push the carrier out of sight if they use drones."

  "Of course they're using spy drones." Kori snorted in disgust at the man's naivete. She dropped to the uneven ground. She swallowed hard when she saw how close they had come to smashing against the seawall. Another few meters and the carrier would have been crushed into an accordion, both in shape and length.

  The wind whipped her long red hair into a banner that fluttered and snapped. Kori turned and faced the wind, closed her eyes and let the bracing cold invigorate her. Her determination hardened. Life with Donal had been trying, and she had never settled gracefully into the life as wife of a man joined body and mind to his job. Purpose surged in her now. She had loved him. She would bring down the man who had assassinated him.

  "Help me push the carrier into the water."

  She opened her eyes and turned slowly to deny Scarlotti this small bit of aid. Her ire grew when she saw he spoke to Bella, not her. The two of them hunkered down, put their shoulders to the prow of the carrier and began applying all their strength against it. The landing wheels turned slowly at first, then dropped off the side of the composite walkway where Scarlotti had landed. The carrier tumbled down the slope into the ocean, where it caused a small splash and then half submerged in the surf.

  "The drones will spot it," Kori said, looking down at it and guessing what an aerial surveillance drone would see from five hundred meters above.

  She spoke to empty air. Both Scarlotti and her daughter had run along the path, going through a break in the seawall, toward the distant house perched on a promontory. Kori hesitated going after them. If she left now, Weir's commandos would eliminate both Scarlotti and Bella. By the time they came from Emerald Isle or, more likely, rallied the soldiers at Cork, she could be in Eastminster seeking Lost Gen agitators or another group to oppose the government. She even took a step down the path away from the house, then reconsidered. Bella knew the Blarney Stone and might even open the control algorithm to reprogramming. Her father had been teaching her to take over from him. Was the CA the last thing he would have shown her or the first?

  Kori reversed her direction and walked quickly after the others, cursing under her breath. Bella was her daughter, and leaving her behind was wrong. With luck, Scarlotti would sacrifice himself to save Bella, giving her and her daughter a chance to get away when the military arrived. And they would. Weir dared not let her and Bella reach a newser if he didn't control the entire news distribution. One thing Donal had insisted on was press uncontrolled by the master computer. That had bothered her but now looked to have been a smart move─if she could contact any reporter not beholden to Weir.

  She reached the front door, left standing half open. She started to push it all the way open, then froze. She took a deep breath and caught the hint of burned carbon composite armor. She listened hard but heard nothing of Bella and Scarlotti. They would be making all kinds of ridiculous noises, her daughter congratulating the man she loved for being so forthright and brave. Kori backed away, then slipped along the front wall of the house. She pressed her fingers against it. Fake stone. Scarlotti didn't even invest in the real item. The plastic looked right but felt wrong.

  Just as the open door and lack of sounds from within had felt wrong.

  Kori chanced a quick look around the side, then ducked back. A strong breeze blowing off the sea caused her hair to flutter. She caught it in one hand and tucked it under her collar before chancing a second look. An armored soldier stepped into view, scanned the region at the side of the house, then stepped back into cover.

  Weir had sent his killers here immediately. Any time Scarlotti had hoped for to gather their senses and supplies was gone.

  She stood frozen with indecision. Escape made sense. The soldiers had already taken Bella and Scarlotti prisoners. She could do nothing to save her daughter from armed troops, even if she had a weapon. Being at the summer house as she had been, she had no reason to go about armed, and she sought the weapon she had taken from the safe room. Somewhere she had dropped it. That doomed her daughter now. The best she could hope for was to get away, then barter for Bella's life later, though that seemed a dim prospect. Weir wouldn't leave loose ends after killing Donal and Cletus.

  She knew going down the side yard to the seawall only brought her trouble. The guard actively scanned or possibly received constant updates from monitors hidden across the yard. How she had approached on the main walk without being caught made her frown a moment, unless Scarlotti occupied his captors and had distracted them. Retreating that way was out of the question.

  The salt-laden wind picked up, making her shiver. Not only had she left without a weapon, her thin clothing did nothing to protect from the increasingly damp, cold breeze. She stepped a pace from the house and looked up at the upper stories. Anywhere on the grounds meant capture or death. The best defense was always a good offense. She moved along until she found a portion of the faux rock front that had come unfastened after years of onslaught from the sea. Working her fingers under the edge pried it away enough for her to make a toehold. The facade gave her enough support to pull herself up and drive her toe into the shallow depression.

  From here it was a matter of being careful not to make too much noise or fall as she worked to a second story window. Entry here would be unexpected. She pulled herself up to peer into the room. Darkness hid the room's purpose. It might be a bedroom or a study. She got the sense of coziness, as if it was small. A second quick peek confirmed her guess. The door from the room into the hallway beyond stood open now, letting in a sliver of light.

  The door hadn't been open before. She knew that. Trying to edge along the dubious edge atop the false rock would land her in a heap below. She had to chance this window or give up and attempt entry elsewhere.

  But the door. Had someone entered the room or had they left?

  She decided to try the next window when the rock facade began to give under her weight. Her fingers strained to get a decent grip on the windowsill. When her right hand secured her weight, she ran her left hand under the window. Like the front of the house, the wooden window was actually textured plastic. She ran her fingers back and forth until she found a nick at the bottom. Clenching her teeth, she rammed her fingers into that small crack, then heaved so hard she almost lost her balance.

  The window opened a centimeter. She felt the rush of wind from her back into the room. Anyone laying in
wait would feel the blast of air. Listening hard, she heard nothing, either in the room or the hallway beyond. Working her fingers under the window, she pried it up until she opened it far enough to pull herself up and flop through onto the floor. Kori wanted nothing more than to lie there and regain her breath. Her heart hammered, and the pulse in her neck warned of an explosion.

  She knew better than to rest. She reached over and pulled down the window. The fresh air in the closed-in house would be noticed. The soldier she had spotted had worn armor but not full breathing gear. They weren't worried about poisonous gas but wanted to protect against a laserifle blast. Unless a special unit accompanied the squad, narco gas was out of the question. Still, dealing with an armored, armed soldier was dangerous when all she had were her wits.

  Her priority was to get a weapon suitable for attack, then find Bella and get away.

  She came to her knees and looked around. Her guess proved accurate. A study. The walls were covered with darkened viewscreens. On hands and knees she went to the desk positioned to face the screens and not to see out the window at the panoramic view of the sea and found the right-hand drawer. If Scarlotti kept a weapon, it would be where he could reach it quickly. Kori stifled a cry of triumph when she found a small lasepistol.

  She grabbed it, whirled about and sat with her back against the desk. She looked out the window at the rain beginning to pelt against the seaward side of the house. Rain worked in her factor. The soldiers' sensors would be confused by the half-frozen rain, giving her and Bella a slim chance of escape.

  It was quite a ways to Eastminster in the rain, but her odds improved second by second. She thumbed the lasepistol into its charging cycle. When the small green light on the butt popped on, she was armed and deadly.

  Still on hands and knees, she went to the door and peered out. A soldier stood at port arms at the head of a staircase leading to the foyer. The lasepistol was deadly. That soldier's laserifle was a real weapon. She steadied her hand against the doorframe, took aim at the soldier's eye and touched the firing trigger. A thin lance of greenish blue stabbed out.

  The soldier crumpled without making a sound. Kori pushed open the door and stayed low as she hurried to the dead trooper. She pried the laserifle free and pressed the charging stud. Nothing happened.

  "It was keyed to the soldier so the rifle would be useless if an enemy picked it up."

  At the words, she flopped onto her back and used her pistol. The beam splashed off chest armor. Then the pistol clicked off, needing to recharge. She dropped it to the floor and raised her hands. In addition to the soldier who had spoken to her, three others had their laserifles trained on her.

  Kori had no doubt these keyed weapons pointed at her head had all been activated.

  Chapter Eleven

  Explosions all around rocked the warbot, but Cletus felt no danger. The antiaircraft artillery was not meant to take out rapidly falling objects but rather those crossing from horizon to horizon.

  "There are no anti-ballistic missile defenses capable of damaging our warbots," came Leanne Chang's reassurance. "Keep a close watch on the type of sensors trained on us, though. Kick out countermeasures when you see lidar. Don't worry about radar. It's not accurate enough and doesn't respond quickly enough to aim their kinetic weapons."

  Cletus nodded, in spite of Leanne not being able to see him. Lidar meant a laser-based weapon. It would track them all the way to the ground, unlike the artillery which hit safety stops at about thirty degrees above the horizon. Fall under that angle and they were safe.

  "Where's it coming from? I can't tell." He turned his head from side to side reading all the HUD virtual panels possible.

  "Mobile artillery. Tanks? I cannot tell, either."

  That admission caused him some concern. She didn't know? Or she couldn't tell? A tank could fire on them all the way to the ground, unlike the antiaircraft artillery. Leanne, expert in the usage of the powerful robotic fighting suits, should have given him a precise answer. At it was, he found it impossible to keep up with the flood of data pouring into his displays.

  The flashing lights evaporated and only two panels remained dancing in front of his eyes. He panicked. A shell must have damaged his warbot.

  "I muted your HUD. You should concentrate on these alone and let the auto system deal with everything else. It is a robot, Cletus. Let it operate as such. If serious damage occurs, you will know right away."

  "Thanks." Cletus settled down tried to enjoy the ride, but he found it disconcerting that the ground rushed up at him so quickly. His father had instilled in him distrust of AI─and that guided all the systems not under his direct control. He saw lights flashing red on muted panels and then the warriorobot set down with a huge crash.

  The legs bent to absorb the landing shock that braking jets did not cancel. He went to one knee, reached out with his left arm and supported his huge robotic shell. He looked up and panicked when he failed to see the expected military base.

  "We're near Scarlotti's house! We're at the coast. What happened?"

  "During our descent corrected, the target was located more accurately. The Shillelagh's ranging equipment needs recalibration."

  "We're two kilometers from the house. We should get there as quickly as we can." Cletus got to his feet and performed a quick scan. From all the fire they'd taken getting here, he expected to be in the middle of the Cork Low Guard base, not near the CIO's home.

  "I detect a carrier half submerged in the sea a few hundred meters from the house."

  Cletus squinted as Leanne transferred her view to his screen. He identified the carrier model but had no way of knowing if this had been Scarlotti's. A fast examination showed only superficial damage from sliding down the embankment.

  "It wasn't hit by drone or aircraft fire," he said. "They fared better than we did."

  "From the method of landing and the skid marks, it ran out of fuel." Leanne cut off her view and returned control of his screen.

  He matched her long stride along the seawall toward the house. Barely had he reached rocket range when laserifles opened fire. If his readouts hadn't alerted him, he would never have noticed. A quick scan showed where three snipers had set up shop. He shrugged and sent a 10cm rocket blasting into each enemy position.

  "Don't waste your rockets," Leanne cautioned. "Use your energy weapons. Lasers. Save the aurora guns for heavily armored targets."

  "The soldiers wore armor." Even as the cocky words escaped his lips, he saw that not even a smear of carbon remained where each rocket had impacted. The craters were a meter deep and nothing human or human-built remained. To be sure, he let the warbot analysis unit run a spectrographic analysis of the atmosphere. In the rain and wind, even carbon vapor was whisked away, as if the soldiers had never existed.

  "The house has four units, no more." Leanne stopped. Cletus saw her lasers charging. He duplicated the move as he came even with her warbot. "What should we do?"

  "If I read the sensors properly, all four are armored. I don't see anyone else inside. My mother and sister wouldn't have armor. Scarlotti might, though I doubt it."

  "We need one for interrogation."

  "How do we go about that?" For the first time Cletus realized the overwhelming power in the mechanized suits. Destroying the opposition was simple. Taking one of them alive might prove impossible because he was hitting a tiny insect with a nuke.

  "I am unfamiliar with your coded signals. Which is the officer?"

  Cletus started to say he couldn't tell, then realized one soldier had to be able to contact the other three, but those three might not be set up with a duplex between their peers. The fog of war included the intense static caused by dozens or hundreds of soldiers trying to contact one another. Standard procedure let the commander speak with each of his unit, sometimes on a tight band only to his squad leaders, who in turn passed orders along to individual troopers.

  "That one," Cletus said, moving a green cross along his HUD to mark the squad leader.
His polarizer cut in when Leanne fired three beams that took out each of those in the leader's squad, leaving him alone.

  "Your life will be spared if you surrender." Her offer sounded lame to Cletus but not to the squad leader.

  "I surrender. Don't shoot! I'm putting down my laserifle."

  "Come out of the house and stand ten meters away."

  Cletus watched the shimmery form on his sensor screen come down stairs and step outside where it firmed into a distinct image. The man wore light armor that would fail with even the lightest of shots from a warbot laser.

  "Do you have them prisoner?"

  "The captain took them ten minutes ago. Are you going to kill me?"

  "Where are they being taken?"

  "To the fort outside Cork. A troop carrier landed and left."

  Cletus cursed under his breath. They should have ignored the new Intel and gone directly to the base where they could have cut off the carrier as it approached a well-defended position.

  "How many were there? How many prisoners?" Cletus' finger tightened on the laser cannon trigger. The wrong answer would result in a greasy, molten blob.

  "Three. Two women and a man."

  On a tight security band, Cletus asked Leanne, "What do we do with him?"

  The single dazzling beam from her lefthand laser removed the problem.

  "He was a prisoner! He'd surrendered!"

  "Did the Highlander think to take prisoners? You are in a war of extermination, Cletus."

  "No, it's not like that. This ..." His voice trailed off. She was right. The attack on the Shillelagh had been unprovoked and only providence had saved them.

  "The soldiers took prisoners. That must mean something."

  "Your mother and sister will be tried and executed publicly? Weir is not the kind to allow opposition to persist long. He tried to kill your father and you. What are two women to him?"

  "He won't execute them publicly," Cletus decided. "He'll do it secretly to avoid unwanted explanations after he's learned all he can from them. His address to the citizens spoke of a Drop error destroying the Shillelagh. An accident killing both my mother and Bella would be too much of a coincidence." Cletus turned grim. "A few citizens might wonder what became of them, but not many."