by Arnot, C. S.
He straightened up again. Though it took all of his will not to tear into the man in front of him, Aiden managed a smile. He could taste blood. He was sure it would be on his teeth.
“Where is Fredrick?” demanded Elias again.
“I told you, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since last night.” Aiden spat some blood on the floor. He noticed Elias flinch back a little. Worried about getting blood on his boots. They were very nice boots, after all.
“And where was he last night? Who was he with?”
“He was at the party. With just about everybody else in the town.” Aiden didn’t see the next blow coming, either. It was from the other side, a fist this time, connecting with his cheekbone. Aiden staggered a little, only to be shoved back towards Elias by the marine behind him. He felt his cheek begin to swell.
“You mock me,” said Elias, his voice dead calm. “I do not like to be mocked.” He drew an ornate pistol from a holster at his waist. Then he walked across to the lanky Armenian and pointed it at his head. The marine behind the prisoner sidestepped out of the way.
“I will ask you once more,” Elias said to Aiden. “Where is your friend?” He cocked the pistol’s hammer. On the Armenian’s face was terror. He was sobbing silently, his eyes squeezed shut. Sweat and tears washed little streaks of grime from his cheeks.
Aiden’s heart pounded. He couldn’t betray his friend and he couldn’t let Elias kill that innocent man - a man who had helped Aiden in a time of need.
But then, if he told Elias where Fredrick was, what could he do about it? As far as Aiden knew, all of the surviving marines were inside the town hall, surrounded on all sides by the Ashtarak militia. The marines’ aircraft was sabotaged and their pilot was dead. They couldn’t get to Fredrick, even if they knew where he was.
“Okay! Okay!” said Aiden, gesturing to Elias to lower the gun. “Fredrick was at the tavern on the outskirts!”
“There,” said Elias. He didn’t lower the pistol. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it? I expect he will be heading for the aircraft, yes? Is he cold-hearted enough to leave you and make a run for it?”
“Yes. He won’t wait for me.” Aiden held his hands out, pleading for Elias to put the gun away.
“Well. Isn’t he the intelligent one.” Elias shot the Armenian in the head. The sharp bark of the pistol rang around the hall. The lanky man fell backwards with a clatter, his shoulders in spasm. There was a brief rustling as the body jerked and twitched nervelessly, then it was still. An awful silence filled the room.
“I apologise,” said Elias, quite calmly, “his smell offended me.”
There were confused shouts from outside. The militia had heard the shot.
Aiden couldn’t believe it. He’d given Elias what he wanted. Another man was dead, and he felt sick again. There were no words.
Elias walked back over towards the ring of chairs. Azarian’s shoulders were slumped. He looked defeated. Tovmas’ brother was crying softly. The other, younger man was muttering quietly to Azarian, a hand on his shoulder.
“Corporal!” Elias said curtly. “I wish to thank you for bringing this criminal to me. I trust you left a detachment to guard their aircraft?”
“Well, Mr Prosper, eh, no, actually. When we heard the shootin’, I brought the prisoners straight back here. I brought both of the grunts with me, in case you folks needed the help.”
“I see. So you needed one marine per prisoner, am I correct? Even though you have automatic firearms?”
“Well, eh…” stammered the burly marine. Elias shot him between the eyes. His armoured form crashed to the floor just like the Armenian, as the piercing echo of the gunshot lingered for a moment.
Elias strode up to the corpse and nudged it with his boot. Then he stooped, as if spotting something interesting.
“Well,” he said, “it appears the late corporal did in fact have brains, contrary to prior evidence.”
Aiden swallowed back bile. Somehow seeing somebody killed was worse than doing the killing. Even if it was just a marine.
“Maddox!” Elias shouted. “You are henceforth the acting sergeant of this unit. I shall put in a commendation when we return ship-side. It seems the herd has been thinned. The fat has been trimmed.” He pointed to the shadowed wall, at the propped-up form of what Aiden assumed to be the previous sergeant. The figure was clearly dead; its head hung low and a caked stream of blood ran from its nose and mouth. Aiden realised it had been the source of the earlier moaning.
“Somebody raise the carrier pilot!” Elias ordered the marines. “Tell him to prepare for take-off. I need him to disable that aircraft if it tries to make an escape. Tell him not to destroy it, just to force it to ground. I will have that fugitive alive!”
At this, Aiden felt a slight stir of satisfaction. The pilot wouldn’t be reached. Fredrick would get away. Aiden had saved his friend.
One of the marines in the shadows started trying to contact the pilot. He tried over and over, the same radio call, pausing for a moment between. A few minutes passed. Clearly the marine was unwilling to admit failure to Elias. It was understandable, considering the fate of the corporal.
Eventually he stopped. “Mr Prosper,” he said, “There’s no response from the pilot, sir.”
Elias was still for a moment. Then, without warning he strode across the hall to one of the windows, a rising growl in his throat. The growl turned to a scream of frustration and he fired his pistol wildly out of the window. Then he walked back into the middle of the hall, seeming to ignore the angry hail of return fire. Everyone else ducked the ricochets and stone chips that buzzed and whined from the walls and ceiling.
When the shooting stopped, it was replaced by the cursing of the marines and the whimpering of the men in the middle of the circle. Aiden and Nardos elected to stay squatting on the floor, wary of more gunfire. Aiden’s ears rang.
“I suppose it is time for the proverbial plan ‘B’,” muttered Elias. He changed his pistol’s magazine. “Maddox! What explosives have we?”
A marine next to the window by the door spoke. “We have some grenades,” he said.
“That’s all?”
“Yes sir.”
Elias was silent again for a moment. “Maybe they will do,” he said at length. “A little bit of shock and awe is just what we need here.”
Hurled from the lower windows of the council hall, the grenades exploded amongst the besieging militia with tooth-rattling blasts and showers of shrapnel. The marines seized the moment by bursting from the council hall in a tight formation, with carbines pointed in all directions and the few hostages held as shields in front of them. Only Aiden and Elias walked in the centre of the phalanx: Aiden hunched and flinching, Elias striding calmly forwards with his silver-wrought pistol drawn.
Gunshots cracked across the square, though wild and inaccurate, and the marines responded with trained steadiness, firing in short bursts to suppress and kill. They advanced steadily into the dust and smoke, over the shredded bodies of the fallen militiamen. Aiden tried not to look at them.
As some of the smoke cleared, Aiden could see the militia falling back up side streets and into buildings, driven off in disarray by the sudden assault. Only a few paused to shoot at the marines. Even then, only one marine fell, shot through his unarmoured thigh. His comrades did not stop for him.
It was Azarian who fell next, tumbling to his knees with a stomach wound. His aide cried out and ran to his side, only to be hefted back into position by a marine and dragged along with the formation once more.
As they left the open space of the square, the marines fanned out on the street. At Elias’ order, they began to run. Aiden had no choice but to run too. Nardos now jogged alongside him. He gave Aiden a meaningful sideways look. Nardos wanted him to draw his pistol.
Then he heard it: the drone of engines. In a moment the streamlined form of the Iolaire roared through the air above the town, bringing the marines and Elias to a halt. Carbines barked and tracers fl
ickered skywards as the Iolaire made another pass, this time with its tail gun blasting at the street ahead of the marines, hemming them in. More shots snapped along the street from the edge of the square, where the militia had reformed in cover. Elias and his men were caught between the Iolaire and the furious locals. If he hadn’t been so terrified for his life, Aiden would have laughed.
The marines, huddled into what cover they could find on either side of the street, looked to Elias and Maddox. They knew they were in a hopeless position. Elias nodded to Maddox. Maddox roared to his men, “Open fire, you cowards! Cut them to pieces!”
The street became a deafening nightmare of gunfire. Tracers streaked and dust leapt, while the Gilgamesh’s marines threw all they had at the advancing militia. Aiden cowered behind a hand cart and became as small as he could. The fight was intense. Bullets skipped from the road and blew chunks from the wall above his head. Two more marines were cut down in the whirlwind of lead.
Then suddenly, a pair of thunderclaps shook the ground. Aiden looked skyward and saw two great clouds of smoke near the Iolaire. The Iolaire banked hard and hurtled away to the north, as another pair of shells exploded behind it. The tail gun fired now at some unseen target. Not long after, a huge aircraft thrashed across the sky in pursuit. It was the Sokol. Koikov had found them.
“What fresh hell is this?” cried Elias. “Maddox! Is that one of ours?”
“I don’t recognise it, Mr Prosper! It’s not from the Gilgamesh!”
The gunfire on the street died a little as heads turned to watch the aerial fight: the bulky, powerful form of Koikov’s aircraft chasing the sleek Iolaire far to the north. Streaks and beams of light raced between the two as they exchanged fire. It wasn’t long before they were out of sight altogether. Aiden whispered encouragement for Fredrick and Vika.
“Maddox!” shouted Elias again. “We must get to the carrier! Let us use the lull!”
Maddox shouted to the rest of the marines, and more or less as one, they upped and fell back along the street. Azarian’s aide lay bleeding on the road. Maddox himself grabbed Aiden by the shoulder and pulled him along with the group. Another pair of marines used Nardos and Tovmas’ brother as shields as they covered the rear of the formation, backpedalling along the street. The militia held their fire, seeing the hostages.
Aiden knew he was running out of time. When Elias and the marines reached their carrier and found it inoperable and the pilot dead, he reckoned their resolve to take him alive might waver a bit. All it would take would be a single marine to lose his temper. No doubt Elias would skin the bastard afterwards, but that wouldn’t be much use to Aiden.
He had to take the first chance he got. There were eight marines left: still far too many to even consider trying anything. He’d only get himself and the other prisoners killed.
As the buildings began to thin, Aiden knew they were getting close to the carrier’s landing site. He was looking down alleys and into houses as he jogged past: looking for anything that might let him get away. But then, as they rounded a corner and saw the squat carrier in the distance, he heard engines once more.
He craned to look over his shoulder, and saw the brutish form of the Sokol thundering towards the town. It was trailing flame from one of its engines, and another was belching thick black smoke. Vika was a natural gunner.
The great aircraft circled the town once, leaving a ring of smoke, before it reared and started to descend, not far from the carrier. It must have spotted the landed aircraft from the air. With an undignified crunch, it smashed down onto its landing gear in a field, and the cargo ramp flopped open. A dozen or more men came pouring out of it, all armed, and once they reached the road they began moving towards the marines. Both groups approached warily, with their weapons raised. Nervous looks were exchanged between comrades, carbines were set to auto and fingers hovered over triggers. The groups converged at the carrier.
The corpses of the two marines and the pilot still lay where Aiden and Nardos had left them: slumped by the road and laying at the foot of the carrier’s cargo ramp. Elias looked furious, but it was hard to tell what the marines made of it. It was still early in the morning, and they had already lost half of their comrades. If they hadn’t been murdering, pirating bastards, Aiden might have felt sorry for them.
The engines of the huge aircraft cut out, still smoking, and the only sound left was the whine of the big rotors spinning down. The two parties faced each other, no more than twenty metres apart.
Suddenly a loudspeaker activated on the big aircraft, and a drawling voice with a Russian accent crackled across it. “My name is Oleg Koikov,” it said. “I claim this craft for salvage. The parts are needed for repairs to my aircraft. Please leave in peace.” As if to punctuate the demand, the barrels of the aircraft’s two nose guns spun up. They held their fire, but the threat was clear. Not even the armoured marines could take them on.
Elias’ face looked perfectly calm. He held his hands up, and his pistol was nowhere to be seen. He edged forwards a little. “Very well,” he said. “Perhaps I could retrieve some personal items from the aircraft first? Then it will be all yours.”
The lead henchman on Koikov’s side put a finger to his ear and said something in Russian. “Of course,” said the loudspeaker.
“Thank you,” said Elias, walking towards the marine carrier, still with his hands held high. He gingerly stepped over the corpse of the pilot. “Mr Koikov is a true gentleman.”
Elias disappeared from view for a moment, leaving the two parties still silently bristling; every so often a nervous eye would dart to the carrier. Aiden was uneasy.
Soon, Elias’ voice was heard from the hold again. “A true gentleman indeed,” he said, emerging from shadow, with a long, wide tube in his hands. “My deepest thanks!” he cried, raising the tube to his shoulder. There was a thunderous blast from the back, and the dark blur of a missile shot over the heads of Koikov’s men. With deafening concussion it exploded in flash and smoke and metal shards, obliterating one of the nose guns and its operator.
Everybody apart from Elias ducked. Pieces of aircraft showered both sides of the standoff, and a fuel line ignited somewhere on board, belching black smoke and flame amongst the twisted metal.
There was a roar of anger over the loudspeaker. Elias had drawn his pistol and was marching towards Koikov’s men. Both the marines and Koikov’s henchmen opened fire. Aiden threw himself to the ground amidst the hail of bullets, pulling Nardos down with him. Many of the marines did the same, dropping to their bellies as they fired, though many were hit already. The breeze had blown the black smoke of the wreckage across the road, engulfing everybody and intensifying the chaos. Aiden saw his chance.
He drew the pistol and pulled Nardos to his feet. Staying crouched they darted for the roadside, slipping unnoticed behind the line of marines, hidden by the choking cloud of smoke and the chaotic shooting. Reaching the roadside ditch, they threw themselves into it. The lip of the ditch jumped and sprayed as rounds skipped across it. “I need a weapon, Aiden!” shouted Nardos, over the screams and gunfire. Aiden just nodded. He peered across the lip.
“I can’t see anything!” he shouted. “The smoke is too thick!”
“We should run, then!” said Nardos. “Find the militia!”
Aiden nodded again. The pair climbed out of the ditch and ran at a crouch all the way back until they were amongst the buildings. The fighting still sounded deafeningly close. Looking back towards the road, tracers flickered back and forth through the smoke, illuminating it from within.
Nardos lead the way. He was running towards the town centre, towards the militia and Tovmas. He stopped suddenly.
“Aiden,” he said, gripping him by the shoulders, “you have to go.”
“What? Why?”
“Ashtarak will want someone to hang for this.”
“But-”
“It doesn’t matter if you are responsible or not, you are an outsider! That might be all the reason they need!�
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“Where do I go?”
Nardos turned his head to the west. “The landing pad. Goriun’s car should still be there. Take it and go north, find your friends. You can’t stay here!”
Aiden hesitated. He didn’t know anything about what lay to the north. Georgia, yes, but how far? Where would Fredrick have gone?
“OK,” he said. He took Nardos’ hand and pulled him into a short embrace. “Thanks, brother.”
Shouts, growing louder, came along the road from the town.
“Go now!”
Aiden nodded and sprinted away, down a side street and off towards the landing pad.
20.
Engineer
“You boys isn’t gonna believe this! Tell them where you was today, Hammit! Tell them what you told me!”
Hammit fidgeted with his spoon. He hated attention. Why he even told Morley… Maybe if he ignored him, he’d go away. Everyone knew that Morley was as twitchy as a garbage fly.
This time though, Morley was determined. He sat down across the table from Hammit, looking at him like he owed him something. Hammit kept his eyes on his slop. He stirred it with his spoon. Today it moved like axle grease: Cook was probably in one of his moods.
Other folks sat down with Morley. A couple sidled up to Hammit, and everyone looking and expecting.
“Tell them!” whined Morley.
Hammit finally looked up. A row of oily faces looked back at him, all eyes and streaky creases. He sighed through his nose.
“I’m eatin’” he said, shovelling a spoonful in. It was salty and meaty, in that order, as usual. There wasn’t much to chew on, but he chewed anyway, just wasting their time.
“Oh come on, Hammit! You got to tell them why you was late for slop!” Morley looked about ready to strop. “Well if you won’t, I will!”
Hammit waggled his spoon. Go on.