Shadowrun 46 - A Fistful of Data

by Stephen Dedman (v1. 0) (epub)

  Patty smiled, turned and fired at one of the barghests. The front half of the animal exploded, spraying everyone around it with blood, fur and small gobbets of bone and meat. The animal’s haunches remained standing for a fraction of a second, then collapsed. The handler stared at the mess in horror. “But not outclassed,” Patty announced, then muttered into her throat mic, “and you didn’t say nothin’ about not using the cannon on the dogs.”

  Lankin shook his head. “I apologize for my companion. Subtlety is not her forte.”

  Mute smiled, and shot the second barghest through the eye with her silenced pistol. The creature whimpered and fell over dead. The handler stared, then dropped the leashes and unslung his carbine with the growl of an animal in pain. Boanerges’ astral form vanished from sight. Mag-nusson cast a stunbolt at the handler, who dropped the gun and fell on top of it. “He’s not dead!” the magician yelled, but his voice was drowned out by the roar of gunfire.

  Pike spun around as he heard 8-ball come running through the rubble, and squeezed the trigger of his pistol just far enough to activate the laser sight. The beam passed over 8-ball’s head and placed an orange dot on the crumbling wall of the old decontamination showers. The dwarf glanced at the gun, then shook his head. “Aim lower next time,” he suggested. “Come on. Yoko wants you out of there now the—”

  The distinctive boom of an assault cannon made the rest of the sentence unnecessary as well as inaudible. Pike ducked and scrambled away from his post, following 8-ball past the blocked-off stairwell toward the ramp and doing his best to keep his head down. Though barely thirteen years old, the lanky elf was already two meters tall. “What if this is just a diversion?” he asked.

  Carpenter stared through the sight at the elf and the dwarf as they hurried through the ruins. “Chief? I’ve got a peach of a shot.”

  The city spirit manifested in the form of a trash can, and was the most beautiful sight Boanerges could remember seeing. “Guard and concealment on my three friends over there,” the shaman gasped. “Now!”

  “Cease firing!”

  The commander’s voice was painfully loud over his men’s headware radios, and clearly audible over the shooting. 8-ball’s head jerked around; then he turned to Pike. “Get downstairs, and tell Yoko I’ll be back soon.”

  “What?”

  “That voice. It sounded familiar.” He switched his helmet mic on. “Mute, are these fraggers wearing any insignia? Any badges?”

  “No, nothing in infrared or visible light. Maybe in UV ...”

  “How about their belt buckles?”

  There was a moment’s silence, then, “The leader has three stars in a circle embossed on the buckle. One of the humans has a smiling cat face. That’s all I can see from here.”

  “Thanks.” As quickly as he could, he ran toward the north side of the lot. Pike hesitated, then followed him as quietly as he could.

  The meres stared at the empty space where Lankin, Mag-nusson and Patty had been standing a moment before, then looked around warily, waiting for new orders or new targets.

  “Wallace?” came a voice from the ruins.

  Wallace blinked. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

  “If you promise not to shoot.”

  The mercenary commander grunted. 8-ball poked his head up from behind a bullet-riddled rusty drum, then removed his helmet to show his face. Wallace stared at him for a moment. “8-ball? What’re you doing here?”

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” said the dwarf, grinning. “I used to live here. You’re the one who’s a long way from home.”

  “We’ve got a contract,” replied Wallace heavily. “How about you?”

  8-ball scrambled up on top of the drum, and sat in a lotus position. “Nope. Sometimes I fight for free when the cause is good.” He looked at the soldiers: one dwarf, one troll, the rest human or ork. None wore visible rank insignia or name badges, and 8-ball wasn’t close enough to make out the emblems embossed or engraved on their belt buckles. “Any of the old team still with you?”

  “King and Lewis. And Griffin. I don’t think you ever met my new exec, Quinn. She was with us in Damman— well, not exactly with us, but she was there.”

  “The Mighty Quinn? Royal Marine Commandos? Only by reputation,” he said carefully, and saluted her. “What happened to Baker?”

  “Disappeared.”

  “Carpenter?”

  Wallace hesitated a little too long. “He’s still around.” 8-ball nodded. “And the rest of the old squad?”

  “Some got jobs. Some got married. Some got killed.” He shrugged, and raised his visor so that 8-ball could see at least part of his face—a chin like a concrete block, a huge pair of tusks, a mustache like a dirty yard broom and a nose that even Picasso would have found difficult to draw. “Me, I’m too lazy to get a job, too ugly to get married . . . nearly got killed, once or twice, though. How about you?” “A few times,” 8-ball admitted. “Nearly killed, that is, not married. Wallace ... I gotta tell you, if you come any closer, there’s going to be more shooting. There’s a lot of people down there, and a lot of guns . . . but no soldiers. Some of them couldn’t hit the side of a tank from the inside. Some of them are only kids. Is there some way we can do this without people—yours and ours—getting killed?”

  Wallace glanced at where King lay between the bodies of the dogs. “It’s a bit late for that, old friend. I’ve got one man down already and several injured, and you know what happens if we default on a contract.”

  The dwarf nodded, his expression sour. A mercenary team that refused to honor a contract tarnished not only their own name, but that of the profession. The commanding officer would become an unemployable pariah, and would probably be killed either by his own men or by other commanders. The two old soldiers were silent for a moment, then 8-ball asked, “This contract . . . what exactly does it say?”

  “The owner wants the property evacuated by whatever means prove necessary.”

  “So if we go peacefully . . .”

  “Fine and dandy. I didn’t get into this biz to kill kids.” “I know. What if they take stuff with them?”

  “They can take every fraggin’ brick for all I care. Nothing in my contract about that.”

  “Just the land?”

  “Uh-huh. ’Course, we’ve got to make sure it stays vacant until the new owner gets here. What he wants it for, or how long he’ll be here . . .” He shrugged. “Frag me if I know, chummer. You think you can talk them into going quietly?” “Most likely, if we have somewhere to go. But not this minute. Some of ’em need healing, some will want to pack and some are allergic to sunlight.”

  Wallace looked up at the cloudy sky. “This is sunlight?” “Hey, it’s not raining. Welcome to Seattle. So, is there any time limit on this contract?”

  “They're not paying us by the hour,” the mercenary replied, then subvocalized into his headware microphone, “Griffin?"

  “Here, Chief.”

  “What time’s the sun set?”

  “Just a sec . . . eighteen twenty-six.”

  Wallace glanced at the clock readout on his retinal display: 0737. “Think you can have your people out of here by nineteen hundred hours, 8-ball?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Because we’re coming in at nineteen fifteen. We won’t stop anyone leaving, but anyone trying to enter will be turned back.”

  “Wakarimasuka,” the dwarf replied. “Good to see you again, Wallace.” He turned and walked back to the ramp.

  Wallace watched him, then lowered his visor. “All wounded, fall back! Hartz, Lily, take King back to the van. Everyone else, hold your positions. Quinn, you’re in command.”

  * * *

  Carpenter peered through the telescopic sight as 8-ball tramped back toward the ramp, where Pike and Boanerges were waiting. “Quinn?” the sniper murmured.

  “Here.”

  “I heard they got King. That right?”

  “Yes.”

  Carpenter nod
ded, centered the crosshairs on the back of the shaman’s head and squeezed the trigger.

  6

  Magnusson winced as Beef Patty stepped on his foot yet again, and tried hard not to grunt with the effort as he and Lankin held up the wounded troll and helped her to stagger back to the ramp, still concealed by the city spirit. Boanerges looked at her blood-soaked leathers and shook his head.

  “ ’Mokay,” muttered the troll through a mouthful of blood.

  “Drek. Maggie, get her to the doc. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Magnusson nodded wearily, and he and Lankin half led, half carried the still-protesting mercenary down the ramp and around a corner to Czarnecki’s improvised surgery. A moment later, Boanerges felt something smack into the side of his head; he stumbled forward, then dropped onto all fours, dazed. Pike turned around at the noise, and ran toward him. “Sensei? Sensei!”

  Boanerges grunted, and put a hand up to the side of his head. It came away wet with blood. He stared at this for an instant, tried to stand, then rolled down the ramp an instant before Carpenter fired again. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete, narrowly missing Pike. The elf turned to see who was shooting, and a bullet punched through his secondhand armor vest, tore through a lung, bounced off his sternum, and careened back through his heart before coming to rest between two vertebrae. Pike spun around and fell, and never felt his head hit the ground.

  An eye for an eye, thought Carpenter, and reached into his pocket for another clip.

  Lori looked at King’s armor, then at his face as Hartz removed his helmet. It confirmed what the barghest handler’s biomonitor had already told her. “He’s okay,” she said. “None of this is his blood; he doesn’t seem to be bleeding at all. I’m not sure he was even hit.”

  Wallace, who had removed his boot to examine his injured ankle, looked up sourly. “Magic?” he asked.

  “Yeah, a stunbolt. No physical damage. It just puts you to sleep in a very definite way. I saw it coming, but I couldn’t stop it.”

  The commander shook his head. “If he’s okay, let him sleep. They killed Bruno and Sylvie, and that’s gonna hurt more than anything else.”

  Lily and the mage peeled off King’s armored fatigue jacket, examined the khaki T-shirt underneath it and determined that it wasn’t stained with anything worse than sweat and mustard. “How’re you doing, Chief?” asked Lori. “Well, I may never play the violin again.”

  “Good. I’ve heard you sing karaoke. Bruno had more musical talent than you do.”

  Wallace grinned despite the pain in his foot and reached for the medkit. He looked around the Step-Van’s cargo bay. It was cramped and cold and generally made for a lousy field hospital, but at least the walls were proof against small-arms fire. As long as the squatters didn’t bring out the assault cannon again or any heavier artillery, they should be safe. He looked at Knight, who’d taken a bullet in the back of the right knee and was definitely out of the fight, then glanced down at the hole in his own boot and swore. There was at least one annoyingly good shot among the opposition.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t quite bring himself to think of them as the enemy.

  Boanerges tried to pick himself up, and suddenly found himself surrounded by Yoko, Magnusson and 8-ball. “What . .

  Magnusson grabbed the shaman’s chin, turned his head and examined the mess. “You’ve lost part of your ear, and you may be concussed,” he said. “It seems that quickened deflection spell of yours was only partly effective. I won’t know any more until we shave the side of your head.” “How’s Patty?”

  “Not good,” the mage admitted. “I think everyone must have been aiming at her. One bullet hit her in the jaw, and at least half a dozen hit her chest. None of them penetrated her armor, but the blunt trauma would’ve been enough to kill a couple of ordinary-sized people. She has a few cracked ribs despite her bone lacing, and we’re afraid that she may have inhaled a couple of teeth. Doc Czarnecki’s checking her now for internal bleeding. But Lankin doesn’t seem to be hurt, and I wasn’t hit at all.”

  Boanerges glanced at Lankin, who looked down at his long red leather coat. There were two bullet holes in the side, just below the armpit—one an entry wound, the other an exit. “Doesn’t she have DocWagon?” he asked.

  “She let it lapse,” the shaman replied. “She was having trouble paying the bills. Who shot—”

  “There’s a sniper,” said 8-ball. “South of here, and in an elevated position, probably in the old power station. He’s killed Pike. At least, I think he’s dead, but I’m not a medic, and if the sniper is who I think it is, I’m not in a hurry to go back outside and check it out.”

  “You know these people?” asked Lankin.

  “Some of them.”

  “Small world.”

  “Big war,” replied 8-ball flatly. “We went on a couple of peacekeeping missions together, which mostly meant finding weapons and destroying them. Thanks to Wallace, their CO—the big ork out there—we usually managed to do it without any casualties on either side. He’s an honorable man, and his men just about worship him because they know he won’t endanger them unnecessarily or leave them behind. We’d better hope that nothing happens to him, because they’ll take it personal.

  “His new second-in-command, Quinn, is a different matter. I only know her reputation, but she’s supposed to be a fraggin’ good soldier, special-forces training and cyberware. Rumor has it that she’s never lost a fight, from a barroom brawl to a major offensive. Downside is, she’s an adrenaline junkie, and she doesn’t believe in taking prisoners—which is why she’s now a mere instead of posing for recruiting posters back home.

  “Wallace has given us nearly twelve hours to vacate; I don’t know what you want to do with them. Quinn probably wouldn’t have given us twelve minutes.”

  “Is Wallace his first name, or his last?”

  “Both. His mother’s probably the only one who could call him by his given name and live. But Wal’s not the immediate problem; the sniper is.”

  “Do you know him, too?”

  8-ball shrugged. “I’ve met him a few times, if it’s who I think it is. There was a sharpshooter in Wallace’s company named Carpenter; they’ve known each other forever, or thereabouts. Might even be cousins or something. Anyway, give him a good rifle and time to sight it in, and he can hit almost anything at one or two klicks range . . . and that’s as close as most people want to get to him. Except for Wallace and King, the chummer with the barghests. They go back a ways, too.”

  Boanerges closed his eyes and was silent for a moment. When he opened them, his expression instantly changed from pained to stricken. “Pike’s dead,” he confirmed, trying to swallow. “He must have died almost instantly. Fraggit, he was only thirteen ...”

  “He was taller than you are and carrying a gun,” said 8-ball. “That’s all a sniper would have noticed, or cared about, and if he’d heard that some of his own squad were down . .

  “Down, maybe, but not dead!” Magnusson protested. “He might not have known that, either. And stunning these guys isn’t going to do us much good, unless you can stun them all and keep them restrained. They’re not going to go away, and they’re not going to wait forever. I’ve bought us some time; what are we going to do with it?”

  “Can we get the kids out, at least?” asked Yoko.

  “With the sniper out there?” Boanerges said softly, closing his eyes. “And even if we do, is there any safe place for them to go?”

  Severn winced as Lori examined his wounds. “It’s not that bad,” he protested, his Welsh accent stronger than usual. “It’s not like it went . . . Ouch!”

  “It’s nicked the renal artery,” said the mage. “You’re going to need serious healing if you don’t want to lose that kidney. I hope you still have the other one?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good.” She looked at his broad back, trying to find a spot hairless enough to place a tranq patch, then slapped 11 onto his bicep above the dragon tatto
o. Then she looked up at Wallace and shook her head. “I can give him some painkillers and antibiotics, remove the bullet, patch up the hole and cast a healing spell, but he really needs a hospital.”

  “I’m fi—” Severn began, then closed his eyes as the patch took effect.

  “What about Knight?”

  “He’ll be okay, if you don’t need him to walk. Or stand. But that knee will have to be reconstructed or replaced.”

  The ork sighed. “He was thinking of getting new legs, anyway, to match his arm. Griffin can drive them both to Good Samaritan. Everyone else okay?”

  “Within reason. And speaking of reason ...”

  “I was just about to call him,” said Wallace wearily. He walked to the front of the Step-Van and grabbed the phone from the dash. “Mr. Fedorov?”

  The Hatter was eating breakfast in his apartment when his wristphone began vibrating. He’d gone to bed after hearing the briefing from Griffin, sent his latest mistress home at midnight, taken a sedative just after two a.m., and woken again at five thirty. Getting back to sleep, he knew, would be impossible—he felt like a preschooler on Christmas morning. So he’d gotten up and made himself a pot of tea while he waited for the sunrise.

  He put his cup down and rubbed his eyes, then glanced at the name and number on the screen of his wristphone and switched the scrambler on. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Fedorov? This is Wallace. We’re meeting heavier resistance than we expected. They’ve shot down your drone, killed the dogs, and put two of my men into the hospital. They’re much too well armed and well trained to be ordinary squatters. Is it possible that some other organization is interested in this site?”

  The Hatter repressed the urge to scream obscenities. His office was soundproofed, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t bugged. “Are you saying that you need reinforcements?” “No ... I don’t think so. But I was wondering whether we might get further, at less cost, with a carrot as well as a stick.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They claim that hole is their home, that there are kids down there, and that too many of them can’t come out in sunlight. They might be lying, but if that’s all they want, then maybe offering them some form of assistance would be enough to get them to go peacefully. I don’t think they’ll ask for much—”