Viekko came up behind him with both guns aimed at the small of his back and shouted, “Halifaco! Stop right there. Put that thing away, tell your people to stand down and come with us.”
Halifaco, with his back to Viekko, didn’t move or flinch. “Viekko. It is dangerous here. You should not have come.”
“Stop! Everyone, stop!” yelled Isra waving her rifle at the Perfiduloi men and women executing Halifaco’s orders. She released her grip and let the weapon hang by a strap around her shoulder. “Halifaco. Listen to me. There is another way.”
Halifaco turned and smiled at her with the look of a condemned man who has accepted his fate and was looking forward to the next world. It was a strange, calm smile that made Viekko’s trigger fingers twitch.
“There is no other way,” said Halifaco. “The Houston and his people only see us as slaves. As animals to work and die. Vi ciuj daurigi!”
At the order from Halifaco, his people went back to opening and shutting valves. Isra raised her gun and held the barrel just a few centimeters from Halifaco’s face. “Tell them to stop. I will kill you.”
Halifaco looked down the barrel of the gun as if daring her to carry out her threat. “Do what you must.”
That’s where they stood for several seconds. Eye to eye, both people sizing each other up and measuring their resolve. But you didn’t need to have Isra’s preternatural ability to read people to see that Halifaco had a death wish and wasn’t going to budge.
Isra lowered her gun. “Please. We can help your people.”
The frantic activity among the others stopped and one of them shouted, “Kompleta!”
Halifaco’s smile grew and he turned to walk away from Isra. “All promises. Endless promises.” He reached a spot on a pipe with a ball valve lever as long as Halifaco’s forearm. He stopped there and gripped the lever. “My people do not need promises. They need freedom.”
Viekko, still keeping his guns trained on Halifaco for all the good it would do, said, “Don’t do what I think you’re gonna do. Didn’t you hear Cronus earlier? Don’t you understand that you will destroy all of Titan?”
Halifaco cocked his head. “That is what you say. That is what the Houston says. How can I trust any of you?”
He paused, waiting for an answer. Viekko looked to Isra who seemed to be scanning the entire contents of her brain for a response. Halifaco shook his head and sighed as if he knew there was no answer she could give nor one he wanted.
“We have ships!” Isra blurted.
Halifaco stopped and looked at Isra, confused. Viekko lowered his weapons as well, waiting for an explanation for that outburst.
“We have ships,” Isra repeated, “To take you to Earth. Or elsewhere. We have enough space for all Perfiduloi. We can take your people away from this place.”
It was an act of desperation. Isra couldn’t honestly believe there was a way to persuade Laban to shuttle every single Perfiduloi off this rock. But Halifaco paused as he considered it. It gave him some time and Viekko took in the entire situation. The rest of Halifaco’s people watched now and a couple of them, Viekko noted, were cradling assault rifles taken from marines. In this place, a few stray bullets could be as disastrous as what Halifaco had in mind. He’d have to work fast to incapacitate the madman and get in a position where he could disable the ones carrying guns.
More shouting somewhere in the distance drew everyone’s attention. It came from the direction of the Ligeia Mare. The invasion had begun.
Halifaco turned to glare at Isra. “I will not trade one slave master for another.”
Before Isra could stop him, Halifaco opened the valve.
The rush of moving liquid made the pipes vibrate and a deadly silence was punctuated only by the hiss and whirr of the machines and the shouts of the Corporation marines getting closer and closer. For a moment, Viekko thought Cronus could have cooked up the story about ‘catastrophic failure’ as a means to deflect from his apparent treachery. Or, at the very least, it was an exaggerated product of an overactive mind.
Then every tank, pipe, condenser and boiler groaned and rumbled. The ground shook as if a sleeping giant from somewhere below had just woken up with a major hangover.
“Iru! Kuri!” yelled Halifaco, and he took off before either he or Isra could react. The five Perfiduloi sprinted after him.
There was a loud pop like a firecracker going off followed by the sound of crashing metal. Above, the tanks and smokestacks started swaying.
“What is happening?” asked Isra, turning her eyes upward to the shuddering towers.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think we wanna be the last folk here tryin' to figure it out. Go! Run! Now!”
Viekko turned and sprinted back the way he came. He leapt over banks of pipes and charged through whatever open areas he could. Behind him, the metallic screech of steel being torn apart seemed ever present and getting nearer. Somewhere above, the sky lit up as one of the smokestacks belched flame into the air. Viekko resisted the urge to look at the destruction behind him and kept his mind focused on the path ahead.
He left the tight confines of the refinery and paused. For a moment, he worried about Isra. He focused so much on getting himself out that he never stopped to check if she was still following. She was and she wasn’t far behind him. She sprinted past him nearly taking flight across the open field. Viekko turned and ran after her. The EROS suit felt like it was ripping his muscles apart with every movement and the place where he took a scrap of shrapnel to the side flared up like he tore it open again. Even so, he pushed himself harder.
The first explosions from the refinery echoed off the wall. Viekko reached it in time to give Isra a boost over. When he scrambled up the side himself, the whole world was lost in a flash of bright white light. The force of the shock wave threw him the rest of the way over and he fell head-first into the soft ground on the other side.
When Viekko’s eyes refocused, he saw the remains of a fireball form a mushroom cloud towering over the grey wall. Althea’s face appeared over him and she yelled something he couldn’t hear above the ringing in his ears. Gradually, his hearing recovered enough to hear, “Viekko! Viekko! Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Viekko coughed and sat up. The ground was covered in scraps of metal and clumps of earth. The shockwave pushed the hovercraft several meters back into a tree and the windshield was shattered. Isra was already in the driver’s side trying to start the engines.
Halifaco and his people were clustered together against the wall a few meters away. The rebel leader of the Perfiduloi propped himself up on his elbows and gazed in absolute wonder at the destruction he created. Two of the warriors pulled him to his feet, but he never looked away from his apocalyptic handiwork. He patted both of his men on the back and spoke to them. Viekko didn’t have to understand the words to realize that he was congratulating them on a job well done.
Viekko got up and brushed himself off. The light was fading but there was just enough to see something rising from the direction of the city. They were specks at the moment, but there were dozens of them and they rose as one like a swarm of wasps looking for the poor sod reckless enough to throw rocks at their nest.
Viekko pulled Halifaco back by his fur cloak, “You damn fool! You went and brought the Venganto down on you. They’ll kill every single one of you.”
Halifaco pulled himself away, “Neniu! My people will defeat those demons. They will not be able to hurt my people after this night. We will no longer be forced into slavery by fear.”
Viekko grabbed Halifaco again and tried to pull him towards the hovercraft. “Althea! Come on, we’ve got to go before those things get here!”
Isra struggled with the controls when they arrived. “Come on you…you bastard! Work!” she yelled pounding the control panel.
Halifaco pulled himself away again, “I will not leave. I created this battle. I intend to fight it.”
Viekko jumped into one of th
e back seats and leaned forward, screaming above the roar of the explosions, “Ain’t nothin’ good gonna come out of staying here! Come with us or you will die.”
Halifaco turned back to the burning refineries. “Then it is the will of the Kompanio.”
Isra fired the engines and the hovercraft lifted off the ground.
“The Houston was right about outsiders after all,” said Viekko. “Nothing comes from them except more death and destruction.”
Isra throttled the engine and sped south, leaving Halifaco looking at the fire and clouds of smoke with an air of triumph. He and his men turned and ran into the trees as the throng of Venganto grew close.
Isra gunned the engines around the wall and the burning refineries and steered out into the open sea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The true genius of the Corporation lay in its precise, mechanical nature. It has no passion, no hate, no love, no sympathy. Any slight against it can be healed with enough money and it uses that to buy the hearts and minds of anyone they wish.
It is wealth that motivates it and wealth alone. Its entire goal is to own all that can be owned. Because of this single-minded drive, the world has known no conqueror more pure, focused and enduring.
-from The Fall: The Decline and Failure of 21st Century Civilization by Martin Raffe.
Viekko held on to the side of the loader as Isra maneuvered it into steep banks, rapidly accelerating over the Ligeia Mare and in between the wreckage of Laban’s amphibious assault force. The shockwave from the blast created a tidal wave that sent the hovering troop transports and gunships slamming into each other. At least one of the transports was damaged completely and sunk beneath the black, frigid water, sending whole platoons to an icy death. A few others had just enough power to stay above the water but escape was impossible. Hoverships that could still move retreated. Isra had to weave and dodge between the larger craft to get out of the area.
And that drive became more pressing by the moment. Viekko looked behind him to see the last flicker of the sun’s disk disappear behind the raging fires that were all that remained of the refineries. At that point, it was impossible to tell if the last flickers of light were from the final remains of the sun or the inferno. The light reflecting off the clouds of Titan revealed the Venganto soaring toward them, preparing to take their last revenge for the destruction of the planet.
In the back seat, Althea faced the rear and watched the fires through the scope of an assault rifle. “It’s gone. All of it. The whole coast is burning.”
Isra took a hard left turn and Viekko braced himself in his seat. Well, this was it. To hell with this frigid Eden and its higher-than-average collection of psychopaths. Maybe humans would return here someday, sift through the wreckage and wonder what happened to a settlement of this size. Civilizations vanish and nobody knows exactly why, but if Titan was any indication, unadulterated human stupidity and insanity were to blame.
Isra steered the loader out over open water just as the Venganto reached the remains of Laban’s fleet and started dropping their first firebombs. They were so close already that Viekko could make out the wings against the shifting light reflecting on the clouds. So close that he could see their awful humanoid form.
Viekko shouted over his shoulder, “We gotta go faster, Isra. Those things are comin’ and comin’ on fast.”
Isra jerked the controls to avoid an escaping equipment hauler and nearly sideswiped a group of marines on a smaller craft. “There are too many hovercraft on the water. We will hit one of them if we go any faster.”
Viekko watched the fast-approaching horde through his own assault rifle. “That ain’t gonna cut it. At this rate, we’re gonna to be knee deep in a firefight in just a few moments.”
Isra took a sharp turn to avoid running over the remains of a sunken troop transport and the bodies of dozens of marines frozen stiff in the sea. “Althea. Take the controls.”
Althea made her way to the front of the loader. She handed Isra the rifle and sat down in the driver's seat.
“Viekko!” yelled Isra, raising the assault rifle. “Four coming in fast. 7 o’clock high. Viekko!”
“Omkhi baas!” yelled Viekko turning in the direction Isra indicated.
Four Venganto flew in close behind them. Against the darkening orange haze of Titan’s sky, they looked about as long as a man and had a wingspan to match. They had two legs, and two wings. Other than that, they were just dark, flapping shapes in the fog.
The creatures dove in formation toward the loader. Viekko fired first into the middle of the group, causing them to scatter in all directions. Isra aimed and fired next. If she tried to lead the flying creatures or aim in any way, it didn’t help. She might as well have closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.
Viekko looked up just in time to see a Venganto dive close to the edge of the loader. It was so close that, for an instant, Viekko saw a snarling face and eyes that burned red like the fires they left behind. A sphere the size of a tennis ball shot from the creatures open mouth and plunged into the sea a few meters behind them. Light shone off the creature’s black skin as it pulled up to avoid the blast that jolted the hovercraft and nearly sent Viekko into the water.
Viekko braced himself. “Keep it steady, Althea!”
“Well, keep the bloody bastards off of me!” she yelled back.
Yep, this was bad. Althea never swore.
Isra emptied the rest of her clip at the creatures circling overhead. “They move too fast. I cannot get a decent shot.”
Viekko watched another creature break away from the group and start a dive. Viekko aimed and fired. The creature pulled up to avoid the bullets, but the deceleration gave Viekko a clear shot. He fired three more rounds and hit the creature at least twice in the chest. It tumbled over backward and fell into the sub-zero ocean.
“Isra!” yelled Viekko. “Watch for their attack dives. You’ll get a window if they pull up.”
Another Venganto dived at Isra. She fired several bursts but the creature never flinched and a bomb flew out of its mouth. Just as it fell into the sea, Isra yelled, “Althea, hard right!”
Althea jerked the controls just as a spray of water crested the sides of the loader.
“Try again” shouted Viekko wiping the stinging water from his face. “Aim just below their dive and open full automatic.”
Another Venganto started toward the front of the craft and Isra raised her rifle. She waited a moment and then fired two short automatic bursts. The Venganto pulled out of the dive at the last moment but the bullets shredded the creature’s wings. Althea throttled hard and the hovercraft passed beneath the creature as it dropped into the water, as if it was never meant to fly in the first place.
The last two Venganto gained altitude and started a gentle glide, letting the loader and its occupants go. Viekko dropped back into his seat while Isra scanned the sky through the scope on her weapon.
Once the two creatures were nothing but black dots in the distance, she sat down hard in the back seat. “Looks like they are giving up on us. The rest will be at base camp in a matter of minutes.”
The last flicker of light and color in the clouds faded. One of the icy moons overhead bathed the planet in a dim, silver glow.
Viekko sighed. “I just hope that, for once in his life, Laban listens to reason and doesn’t try to stop the evacuation. It’s the only chance for any of us to get off this rock.”
They arrived to find the evacuation in frenzied progress. Marines, engineers, and workers ran between the camp and the shuttles with boxes of equipment, cases of supplies, and anything else that could be moved in a hurry. The transports that escaped the carnage made directly for the holding bays. The familiar computerized female voice echoed from the loudspeakers: “Attention all personnel. Shuttle lockdown in fifteen minutes. Any person not on board must proceed immediately to the shuttles and prepare for liftoff. Repeat, shuttle lockdown in fifteen minutes...”
/> Viekko jumped out of the loader just as Althea parked. “Just in time. The fireworks will be more fun in a high orbit.”
Cronus ran up to the hovercraft nearly vibrating with excitement, “You guys are back! What happened? We heard the shockwave in the air and felt it in the ground. Even this far away. It was Halifaco, wasn’t it? He started the war. What of the city? What of the pyramid?”
Viekko adjusted his hat. “The City is fine. The pyramid will likely outlive everyone else on this awful moon but I don’t see much sense in hangin’ around to find out. Let’s get to the shuttle before things get out of hand.”
“Out of hand?” asked Cronus.
“Relatively speakin’, of course.”
Viekko joined the mad rush of marines and other Corporation personnel towards the shuttles. He risked a look back to see Althea and Cronus running behind him. Isra was still back at the hovercraft looking in the direction of the City.
Viekko stopped. “Isra! We gotta go! We’ve got to get on board now!”
For a moment, he assumed she didn’t hear him. She looked at the camp with a strange longing before she slung the assault rifle over her shoulder and walked away.
Viekko stopped Althea. “Hold up, I’ll see to Isra.” He ran back, knocking over a few crew members running the opposite direction and yelled, “Isra! Where the hell are you going?”
Isra kept walking. “I am staying.”
Words failed him as he ran to keep up with her. He eventually settled with, “Have you completely lost your damn mind?”
“I cannot let this civilization self-destruct. I am going to put a stop to this before it is too late and there is nothing to do but sift through the ruins.”
Viekko grabbed Isra, spun her around and pointed at the Venganto cresting the horizon. “Have you missed the entire series of events up to now? Titan is dead and its civilization with it. It’s over. We have to go.”
Saturnius Mons Page 27