More shooting then-more muffled than before, apparently from several levels down. She accelerated, risking the next couple of corners before smashing open the stairwell door and skidding down at speed, peering through the narrow gap within the central well to scan below ... still nothing registered on tac-net, clearly it wasn't any friendlies being engaged. Shooting seemed loudest on level two, and she kicked the steel door off its hinges, peering a telescopic eyepiece around the corner ... and got it shot off. So she knew she was in the right place, anyhow.
"Jane!" she yelled, pumping the suit mike up several notches for greater amplification. "It's me! Time to give up!"
A grenade thumped, and she ducked back, crouching to a ball as the explosion tore the outer doorframe, showering her armour with fragments.
"Maybe next time with less sarcasm?" Rhian suggested mildly, still three steps up the stairway with that effortless calculation of an AP grenade's effective radius that all close combat vets acquired in time. Sandy mentally set a delay fuse on her next two grenades, then fired both at where tac-net displayed a bare length of wall, one high, one low. Each ricocheted and exploded in turn, without exposing her gun muzzle to Jane's fire ... amplified hearing made out footsteps and the clatter of an evasive roll, and Sandy spun about the corner, Rhian immediately at her back, covering the opposite direction within the cramped doorway.
"Go," said Sandy, and ran, Rhian running more backwards than sideways, trusting Sandy to deal with Jane. A reply cracked off the corridor wall ahead, then exploded over their heads as both Sandy and Rhian hit the floor. Sandy's rifle never wavered even in falling, and fired at the first sign of Jane's movement, clipping the rifle barrel. The gun muzzle vanished, then rapid footsteps retreated down that corridor. "One pair," Sandy observed, as they rushed back to their feet in unison. "They're splitting up. I've got Jane, you get Takawashi. Don't hurt him."
Rhian dashed off down that cross-corridor, Sandy heading for the next, and Jane's route of departure. Flattened herself to that corner as she arrived, watching Rhian's position dart down the adjoining cor ridor, and wondering if it were a ploy to get Rhian isolated and deal with her separately ... except that she'd gone the wrong way, away from the docks, where Rhian had gone toward them, down Takawashi's most obvious route. Trying to lure Sandy away. Which still meant she had to think Takawashi's protection had a chance against Rhian. The bodies of several Fifth Fleet marines were sprawled upon the decking-the evident source of the earlier shooting.
"Watch for traps, Rhi," she remarked as she risked the rifle muzzle around the corner. Armscomp saw nothing, and she moved around in full. "Just get between him and the docks and don't let him past."
"I have it," Rhian replied. There was a tone of mild reprimand in her voice. Meaning that she knew exactly what was going on, and Sandy should know better than to think she didn't. Deep in those regions of the brain that were repressed under combat-reflex it didn't stop her from worrying.
Rather than following Jane down that corridor, Sandy ran on along her present one. Follow-the-leader through tight spaces was tiresome. If Jane wanted to play escape and evasion, she'd let her. It only became an interesting contest when neither player knew exactly where the other was. She snapped a tac-net sensor into a doorframe as she went. It never hurt to have more coverage.
Upon the broader tac-net display, Stockholm vanished in a blinding, pyrotechnic display. Either the captain hadn't been able to implement defensive manoeuvres properly, or he'd seriously underestimated Callayan technology. The missiles' reaction-drive manoeuvring/propulsion system not only pinpointed targets less than two-metres diameter, she'd been informed by an eager starship-component-manufacturer-turnedweapons-maker, it actually anticipated the target's evasive patterns according to a new, multispectrumed quantum integrated logic system (QILS, in military parlance), perfect for the kind of over-the-lighthorizon warfare found in high-velocity space combat. Fleet could say what it liked about Callay on other matters, Sandy had often reckoned, but when it came to raw technology, Callayans ruled. Two years for an untested, cutting-edge, antiwarship, planet-launched missile system? No problem-from blueprint to final, secret testing within eighteen months, in fact. Fleet's main Earth contractors couldn't have done it within three years. That Callay could evidently hadn't occurred to them. But as always, big companies lagged small ones in only knowing what they did do, not what they could.
She moved fast, down a narrower corridor, then paused to listen before doubling back through a side room, out the far door, and along another passage. Too much thinking did not help. She knew the layout. Jane did too. Each knew the other's capabilities. Manoeuvring was instinctive, like breathing. Too much thought only brought self-doubt. She moved on automatic, letting the lines and angles of the tac-net schematic wash over her. Feeling for the rhythm, for the inspiration of motion, knowing only that Jane was trying to draw her away from Takawashi, and allow him to escape. Why that should be so, she did not have time to fathom ...
Movement as she rounded a corner, leaping as she fired, return fire thundering past, an explosion of sparks and metallic impacts against the wall behind. Sandy flattened herself to the corner, aware that Jane had ducked back in time to avoid most of her own burst ... difficult to maintain accurate fire and dodge behind a corner simultaneously, lest the weapon hit the wall. Further along, decorative wall panelling tore further under its own weight, ripped by Jane's fire and now hanging across the corridor, exposing cold steel and cabling beneath.
"Takawashi's bodyguards are no match for my friend," Sandy called, double-checking her rifle's mag-charge, naturally cautious of a static-jam. Switched it to her left hand, and undid the strap on her pistol, attached across the chest of her armour webbing. "If you're trying to protect him, you're not doing a real good job out here."
"You've no legal reason to pursue him," came the reply from around the corner. Calm, as always. Doubtless rechecking her own equipment. Sandy pulled a grenade from another pouch, and set the timer with a flick of the soft-tip of her armoured thumb. "He's a League citizen. He hasn't broken your laws."
"You have." Jane was quoting law to her? If she'd had the time, and her helmet visor wasn't commanding so much of her attention, she might have shaken her head in disbelief.
"Fine," came Jane's reply. The sound was coming from the open doorway of a room, before an adjoining corridor. Jane would dare not duck around that corner. But tac-net schematics showed a spot on the walls of that room where a structural doorway had been deemed unneeded, and walled over with the same panelling that was hanging loose across from Sandy's position. Jane's schematics were doubtless as thorough. "Try and take me. But leave Renaldo alone."
Renaldo? "That sounds suspiciously like concern for a fellow sentient being," Sandy remarked. "What did he promise you?"
"More than you can."
"Considering I'm offering you a choice between violent death or imprisonment, that's not saying much. The man's a megalomaniac. So sure, maybe he's perfect for you."
"I'm a GI," Jane retorted. For the first time, Sandy thought she could detect the faintest trace of emotion in her voice. "I seek my creator."
"So go to church."
"Be serious," came the mildly scornful retort. "Religion is for the lost. I know who I am."
"You'd be the only one." Sandy stepped far enough forward from the wall to clip the rifle to her back armour. "Creating us doesn't make him worthy of whatever it is you think you're looking for."
"I seek only my own kind. I'd thought perhaps that meant you. Clearly I was mistaken. Renaldo knows me. He respects what I am. Together, we find a commonality of purpose. He treats me as I deserve."
"Hey, bitch-I know you. And I know exactly what you deserve." Hands now free of the rifle, she took the pistol in her left hand, the grenade in her right.
"Your analysis lacks precision," Jane replied. "You have become ragged and uneven. A flawed tool. It shall be your downfall."
"Tell it to someone who cares.
"
"I'll tell it ..." and broke off as Sandy flipped the grenade about the corner, on a low trajectory, then went high and left-handed with the pistol. Jane shot the grenade in midflight, but was simply not quick enough to target the simultaneously emerging pistol as wellSandy fired an explosive volley, tearing the rifle from Jane's hands, then charged, holstering the pistol and ripping the rifle from her back in milliseconds, discharging two grenades through the open doorway through which Jane had vanished.
They detonated with a crash, followed by a volley of fire as Jane softened the weak wall panelling, then a crash as she dove through into the adjoining corridor ... Sandy pulled up short as a second volley whistled through where her head would have been had she stuck it around the corridor corner. She ricocheted a grenade off the wall instead ... it tore wall panelling rather than bouncing cleanly, so she risked a peek with her rifle muzzle only to snap it back as Jane put a bullet through the grenade launcher, then several more. Then nothing, light footsteps springing up an adjoining corridor, and Sandy dashed in armoured pursuit.
The array of grenade debris told her that Jane must have taken fragments, probably from all blasts ... she switched hands approaching the next corner, and shoved the rifle butt out instead of the muzzle. Two shots hit it, the burst cut short prematurely as she heard the pistol go empty, and stepped around the corner into calm, plain sight, with a swing of the rifle to underarm-level like a cricket batsman stepping up to the crease. Jane was already running, but fast as she was, she was two metres and forty-five hundredths of a second short of the next corner, and wearing no armour.
Sandy fired low, shots striking thighs and calves. Jane hit the decking and rolled hard for cover. Sandy ran after, hearing more shots ahead as Rhian engaged Takawashi's group just short of the docks. Targets appeared on tac-net, only to vanish, panicked yells and Rhian shouting at them to stop or else. She gave the next corner a wide berth, seeing blood on the deck plates ... and realising that somehow, she'd fired low. She couldn't remember making that conscious decision at all. A single burst between the shoulderblades would have solved everything. But now, the corridor was empty, and the engineering door was forced open. Damn it.
She ducked within, eyes and rifle muzzle darting within the dark metallic space. Two closed hatches along the right wall, and a larger one through a reinforced bulkhead straight in front. Sandy kicked through it with a resounding wham! that proved nothing was hiding on the door's far side. Beyond, a dark, narrow space of low overhead pipes, and the reverberating hum of aircon and station systems. Sandy moved forward at a low crouch, tracking multiple places where a body could hide up ahead, and eyeing the occasional blood spots on the decking that she knew could be deceptive ...
A grenade flashed to her side, blinding, and Jane was on her barely before the shockwave had finished smashing her into the wall, tearing the rifle from her grasp and sending her flying headfirst into a pipe brace, the visor imploding to shattered white. Her countermove swept arm and leg simultaneously, predicting Jane's counterbrace and switching to a simple, right-fisted punch that sent her crashing backward. Sandy's next blow went straight through the pipe as Jane whipped away and rolling, steam erupting as Sandy ripped the pistol from her webbing.
Jane came up and grabbed it faster than even a high-des GI had a right to, considering the state of her legs ... Sandy simply let her have it, releasing the pistol and punching her in the face with that hand instead. A straight's head would have smashed like a melon. Jane's snapped back, in that fractional, time-frozen moment, eyes wide in desperate, rapid-time processing as her brain tried to catch up with events. Disbelief, Sandy saw. Shock. Sandy's kick smashed her into the wall, an armoured elbow smash bounced her artificial skull off the pipes, and her overhead hammer-blow drove her straight into the deck ... where she grabbed Sandy's legs and pulled her feet from under her.
Sandy twisted and kicked on the way down, but only succeeded in imparting greater velocity upon Jane's new dash for a side exit. Sandy stayed long enough to retrieve her pistol, then scrambled after. Down the cramped side passage was a metal ladder descending through a manhole ... she heard the movement below, grabbed a hold and slid down one handed, the other hand aiming the pistol as she hit the deck below. Fired a shot that clipped Jane's arm as she fled stumbling through yet another side door. Sandy ducked rolling through that one, darting a look both ways past the blur of her shattered visor. Jane was headed dockward in a flashing, strobing wash of red emergency light-jacket flying, legs straining to control the limp as synth-alloy myomer calves and thighs screamed in protest, contracted to steeldensity and impact-shocked, and now struggling to loosen for running. Sandy took aim between the shoulder blades, as Jane approached the final corner, and let her have a full ten rounds in a half second.
Jane's head snapped back, hair flying as her body was thrown forward, back muscles erupting to super-hard density under compression, contorting her entire posture. She hit the ground and rolled into the corridor mouth, a straining hand held desperately toward the sign and arrow on the wall, pointing toward Berth Twenty-five. Sandy advanced at a walk that felt no faster than slow motion in knee-deep mud. Jane did not look back, her desperate, wide-eyed stare focused instead up the hallway, toward the docks. Body rigid, arms outstretched, fighting the agonising tension of bullet-strike on unprotected muscle. Arms and legs tried to lock out, fingers straining like claws, teeth bared in an animal snarl.
Then, she began to get up. Like some broken puppet, attempting to rise on its own once the strings had been cut ... an awkward, stag gering motion of stiff legs and precarious balance. Sandy's finger hovered over the trigger. Somehow, she did not fire.
Jane staggered off, limping forward like a wounded automaton, eyes fixed only upon her goal. Further up the hallway, Sandy heard commotion, and Rhian's voice shouting for someone to keep still. A cry of anguish, surely Takawashi's. Then Sandy rounded the corner herself, Jane staggering frantically ahead, making no inconsiderable pace despite the horror of her injuries. Desperation, Sandy realised. Beyond, she saw Takawashi, a gaunt, ghostly figure in a silvery robe. Arms outstretched to Jane, advancing toward her. Rhian behind, several bodyguards crouching nearby with hands wisely on heads, several others sprawled in bloody ruin having failed to do likewise. Rhian was yelling at Takawashi to stop. Takawashi did not seem to hear, eyes only for Jane. Somehow, Sandy could not seem to hear the words.
"JANE!" she yelled. The pistol was not assault-rifle calibre, to which Jane owed her briefly continuing life. But another burst, in the same spot as the last, would surely, finally penetrate. "You surrender now! I don't need another excuse!"
Jane did not stop. Takawashi surely had a weapon under those robes. And besides, the moment had been a long time coming. Sandy fired. Jane lurched, and crashed forward like a falling statue. Takawashi cried out in anguish, trying to run on aged, slippered feet, but managing no more than a rapid, agonised shuffle.
He reached Jane's side as Sandy approached, pistol ready for any sudden movements. Slowly, and with great, shuddering effort, he managed to turn Jane onto her side. There was blood in her mouth, Sandy saw, and she breathed with difficulty. The eyes were stunned, seeking only Takawashi, who knelt at her head and clawed helplessly at her shoulder. One brown, skeletal hand found hers, and clasped. Even in Jane's state, she could have crushed it. Drops of blood stained the shimmering white kimono. Her bloody lips struggled to move.
"I ... I'm sorry," she breathed to him. "I failed you." Sandy unclipped the helmet faceplate with one hand. The breather came away, then the shattered eyepieces lifted. Cold air filled her lungs, tinged with acrid smoke.
"No!" Takawashi had tears in his eyes. A gnarled hand stroked at Jane's cold, pale face. He smiled through the moisture. "You were magnificent! You nearly matched your sister, despite all her advantage of years. There is no shame, my dear. No shame at all." A thumb and forefinger pulled Jane's eyelids apart, peering at her irises. "You have exceeded my wildest expectations."
/>
"She's better than me," Jane murmured. Takawashi felt for the back of her torn, bloody jacket, fingers seeking the location of the holes. "You told me. I didn't want to believe it. But she is."
"Now, now, what did I tell you? We all learn our greatest lessons from our failures, not our successes. Your problem is that you have been too perfect! You never failed, and so you never learned."
Further down the hall, Rhian had approached. Watching curiously, her expression invisible behind the helmet's visored mask. The three suited guards crouched against the wall might have been hopeful, with her back turned ... except that somehow, Rhian's left hand kept the rifle levelled dead-straight, even behind her.
None dared move.
"I would have liked to have seen Ryssa," Jane managed to breath. "I've never ... belonged. It would have been ... nice to belong. With you."
"Come come, my girl," Takawashi retorted, a new, firm purpose restoring itself over his emotions. "I won't have defeatism, do you hear me? Come on, we're going to get up. Up, do you hear? You're not finished yet, I command you to rise!"
He struggled to his feet, grasping helplessly at her arm. Jane tried. Sandy stood, and stared, watching her try. Feeling ... numb. It was hope. Plain, desperate hope. And it was the last thing she'd wanted to see. Takawashi waved desperately to his cowering guards, as Jane tried to get a knee beneath her, and then a foot. The guards exchanged nervous, sweating glances.
"Come on, come on you fools!" Takawashi snarled, straining breathlessly. "They're honourable soldiers! They won't hurt you!"
"Cap?" Rhian questioned by uplink as the guards slowly rose, keeping their hands in plain sight. Sandy didn't reply, watching Jane's attempts, dumbly. The guards edged cautiously past Rhian, her rifle tracking them all the while, then ran to Takawashi's side. Together, they lifted Jane. When half-upright, they linked hands beneath her for a seat, and lifted. "Cap?" Rhian repeated, audibly this time.
Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel Page 43