Quickly, “Won’t talk about?”
“Yeah. Somebody evidently just got up and walked out. But he’s supposed to be outside.”
“Outside?”
“You know.” Amber shivered, in spite of herself. “Outside.”
“That’s got to be Fritzi.” Jack rolled the information over in his mind. The suit, if it hadn’t sustained damage, would still have enough supplies. Fritzi could still be alive. But he wouldn’t stay that way much longer. He eyed the clock on the wall. They would be coming off first shift about now. From about now, Fritzi was running on borrowed time.
“What is it?”
He rubbed his forehead wearily. “Nothing. I’m just going to close my eyes for a few minutes—I don’t sleep long, remember? So don’t go away. I want you here when I wake up.” The numbing sensation of the sedatives he’d been given swept through him. He ought to call Boggs or somebody and tell them where he thought Fritzi’d probably gone. Problem was, he couldn’t decide if the miner was better off wandering off or not. By the time he’d decided, he was sound asleep.
“We want you out on first shift, whether you ship out tomorrow or not,” Boggs said. He hesitated, then held a hand out to Jack. “Good to have you back.”
“Did you find Fritzi?”
“No, but based on your information, we should. We found where he dug through the other side from the blow-out.” Boggs, hesitated, frowning, his nose and ear hairs bristling in unease. He rubbed a hand over his smooth head. “Jack, I’m sorry. I thought you could keep a handle on him. When they’d sent him back from the dig saying he was causing problems and they couldn’t use him, I thought he was going to be all right. And I figured you could keep the lid on if he wasn’t.”
So now Jack knew why Fritzi’d been paired with him. He felt a wave of remorse. “What happened?”
“We don’t know. We found a third charge that didn’t go off. It looks like someone deliberately sabotaged the tunnels. We’ve never been hit like that before.”
“Inside or outside?”
The wizened man looked at him. “What?”
“Were the charges inside or outside?”
“Outside.”
Jack pondered the possibilities. That meant that someone who could leave the domes had done it, and most miners couldn’t get out once above ground if their lives depended on it. The same conclusion dawned on Boggs’ face.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Damned if I know. If Fritzi hadn’t been trying to cut his way out and weakened the tunnel, the force of the pressure blowout would have done us in, too. In retrospect, we were lucky.” And, in retrospect, someone had to have known those sections were being pressure tested that shift. Unless, of course, someone just wanted minor damage done instead of the havoc that was wreaked.
“Shit, Jack,” Boggs said. “I’m just a goddamn contractor and miner. This stuff is getting too heavy for me. What with the site and all—” he stopped and clamped his thin lips together, having said more than enough. Jack half-smiled. “Got another suit for me?”
“It’s on the racks.” Whatever else Boggs wanted to say to him was drowned out by the crew coming in from the mess to suit up.
Stash strode across the hall, his winged eyebrow up in astonishment. “Mate! You’re back on contract with us?” He shook his head. “Only for a shift or two.”
“Lucky, that’s what you are. I always said you was my lucky charm.” But the look in Stash’s dark eyes didn’t match the tone of his voice. Jack felt uneasy. He felt his bruised back pummeled by good-natured slaps as his fellow workers grabbed for his hand. The clamor of their voices rose and then fell as the com system crackled on.
“Woman on the floor. Woman on the floor.”
“Jeez,” said Perez. “What’s happening now?” The cable worker shrugged aside from Jack as visitors crowded into the barracks.
He should have known it would be Amber. She shouldered her way through, her face pinched up tight the way it got when she was very unhappy or cold or, in his case, he thought as she hugged him tightly, both. Whistles and calls drowned out what she said first, but then he heard, “The hospital didn’t bother to let me know you’d gone!”
“I’m still contracted here.”
St. Colin had made his way through, too. The rough cross on his chest still swung a little from the rhythm of his vigorous stride. “You’re going out on shift?”
“Have to. Until Franken brings the word down.”
“Don’t go.”
Jack loosened her grip around his neck a little. “Have to,” he repeated. “If I don’t, they have the right to force me. You wouldn’t like what they can do as coercion. Besides, I want to work on the blow-up. They haven’t found Fritzi yet.”
Colin pursed his lips. “I don’t think it would be wise for anyone to go out. I have word that the Thraks are changing position this morning. Opinion has it they’re coming in for another strafing run. With the tunnel network already damaged…” his voice trailed off.
Amber had already given in. She said, “Well, if you’ve got to go, then I’ve got a surprise for you.” She pointed across the barracks to Lenska who was struggling to wheel in a large trunk.
Jack recognized the trunk right away. Its presence rocked him. The barracks quieted as Colin’s beanpole of an aide set it up and opened it, pulling out the portable rack inside.
Stash let out a low whistle as the white battle armor gleamed in the barracks’ half-light. “Well, now, mates,” he said. “You’re going to see just what this here man is made of.”
Boggs scratched his head. “What’s going on, Jack?”
Stash prodded some more. “Not just Jack, is it, anymore. No, blokes, you’re in the presence of Captain Jack Storm… currently commissioned in the Emperor’s Guard, he is. One of the newly reformed Dominion Knights. That’s his bloody armor.”
Jack half-heard him, drawn by the armor. He was out of the crowd before he knew it, only Amber by his side, as he reached for it. He could almost see the painted out insignia gleaming on its chest. His fingertips brushed the armor.
*Hi, boss!*
“Suit up,” Amber urged.
“In that thing?” Boggs’ gravelly voiced followed them. “That’s a one-man tank!”
Jack looked over his shoulder. “You’ll need some fire power to clear out the T-section, right? And that’s where Fritzi went out, right?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
Cutting him off and ignoring him, Jack said to Amber, “Is he charged?”
“Yeah and revvin’ to go.”
“All right.” He peeled off his shirt, not hearing her soft cry of dismay at his bruised torso, and reached for the armor, hands pulling at the intricate seam. Bogie fell open, welcoming him.
It seemed to take an eternity, suiting up. The armor was heavy and demanding, much more demanding of him than the deepsuit. But he did it, even up to the helmet, dropping it on and then screwing it into place. Bogie wrapped around him with a powerful and exultant embrace.
Jack put his head back to let out an unrestrained shout of power and joy—but the noise never left his throat.
The tunnels reverberated with the sound of alarm klaxons and men scattered.
Chapter Fifteen
Jack tore off his helmet. “Get them into suits,” he yelled at Boggs, but the crew was already stampeding toward the shop, as the walls shook and the force of a blast echoed down them. He grabbed Amber by the wrist and she cried out in pain before he remembered his capability in the armor and softened his grip. Colin and Lenska wavered behind him.
“We’ve got to get out.” The aide quailed.
“Better off in here. The mining operation is rarely hit,” Jack told him. “But you’ll need a suit if the bulkheads get sealed off.”
His ears popped. The worst he could figure on must be happening. “Hurry! We’ve got no time to lose.”
The doors between the barracks and the shop began to close, the sealing rims in place. He p
ushed Colin and Lenska through, but caught Amber back just before she’d have been cut in two.
They stood alone in the barracks.
“What’s happening?”
“The circulation pumps have either been hit, or there’s been major damage to the tunnels.”
“How do we get out?”
Jack pivoted. The corridor to the mess was already sealed off. He smiled grimly. “We go the hard way. But it’ll be better down in the tunnels until the raid’s over.”
“But—” Amber paled. “What about me?”
He looked down at her, gathering his senses, even as Bogie began to rage. He would walk through walls if he had to. Could walk through walls. Bogie engulfed him as he never used to. Jack shrugged. The suit, once custom fitted to his body, felt almost cavernous.
“Jack?”
His ears popped again. The barracks was either losing air or being shut down by the recycling computers. He reached for her.
“You’re in this with me,” he said, and opened a seam to pull her in with him.
It was not so much that she was riding piggyback, but that she’d been bound to him by the suit, both of them wedged in. He lost the ability to reach one or two of the internal switches because she was in the way or blocking his head movement, but the arrangement would do, for now. It was either that or leave her in the barracks with a steadily dwindling air supply. The double doors of the shop defied entrance at the moment even if he could get her that far.
Amber panted in his ear.
“Relax. We’ve got enough air for both of us,” Jack said, wondering how long the situation would last.
“It’s—not that.” She shivered.
He felt every contour of her body along his bare torso. The fact reminded him keenly that Amber wasn’t exactly a little girl anymore.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Bogie,” she whispered. “He—it’s so strong!”
And the berserker rage filling him at that moment was overwhelming. The creature was incredibly fierce in his joy at having Jack and Amber both within his sphere. Jack had been enjoying the adrenalin rush, being pumped up to do whatever he was going to do next. He’d forgotten her heightened sensibilities and told Bogie to back down.
*But boss—*
Jack pushed. The flood of emotions subsided a little. Amber’s slender arms about his neck tightened as he leaned into motion.
“Where are we going?”
“Not into the shop. It’s been sealed off and if I break through, I’ll ruin the integrity of the area. The barracks is already having problems, so I won’t be adding to the leak or the damage by leaving. We’ll circle round and meet the tunnels at the shop exit.” Even as Jack talked, he savored the strength of the armor. He cocked his fist and pointed a gauntlet finger. The answering ray melted down the seal. Then he kicked his way through, Amber gasping in his ear.
“What about Colin?”
“Let’s hope he’s seen the inside of a deepsuit before. If they’re not panicked, the crew’s a good sort and they’ll help.” Jack surveyed the corridor. Vaguely, like an ear-popping shove, he felt another shock wave. Reflexively, he looked up. The Thraks were merciless this time. He wondered if the main domes were being hit.
And why.
He surveyed his cameras and turned on his heel, heading downward.
“Where are we going?”
“Down. One way or another.”
He stopped outside what had been the shop and the little tram car station to the various tunnels.
“Oh, my god,” Amber whispered over his shoulder.
The lights flickered and in their place, the helmet laid down a wide beam across the operations area. It had taken nearly a direct hit, down one of the elevator shafts. The Thraks weren’t avoiding the mines this time. The shop doors were blown open, metal and plastic peeled back, and inside he could see suits and bodies thrown about. His suit gauge gave an air reading back to him and he knew without going into the damaged room that whoever was in there had not survived unless they’d been suited and hadn’t been shrapneled. He felt Amber bury her nose at the back of his neck.
“What about Colin?” she asked, her voice muffled. It made a moist tickle that he wanted to scratch but couldn’t reach.
*Now we fight.* Bogie said.
“Damn right.”
“What?” asked Amber.
“Nothing. I’ll go in if you want me to, but I think we’re safer down in the tunnels until the raid stops.” His words were punctuated by another blast and the roof overhead fairly danced. Puffs of rubble drifted down around them. “It’s possible Colin got out. There’s not a whole lot left in there. Do you want me to go in?” Even as he talked, he reined in the crimson wave of rage that was Bogie. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…
Amber’s arms tightened and he had the distinct impression she’d squeezed her eyes shut. “No,” she whispered finally. “I don’t think he’s in there.”
He realized what she’d been trying to do. He knew she didn’t like experimenting with the powers that could someday make her a killer, but he respected that she’d had enough courage to try. “But you’re not sure.”
“N-no. I… I just can’t be sure. Please, let’s go.”
“All right then.” He looked across the twisted lengths of tube and pipe that lay down spidery tracks inside the moon. “That way.” He let Bogie’s berserker spirit free. Jack let out a booming laugh as he and Bogie disintegrated the barriers between themselves and their destination.
“Jack! Jack!”
Amber’s muffled voice broke his concentration. He eased his neck and shoulders under the burden of her body. “What is it?”
“Thank god.”
He felt a dampness at the back of his neck. “I thought you’d never wake up,” Amber said. She sniffed. “I’ve been yelling at you for… well, forever.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Didn’t hear me? Dammit, I’m plastered to your back! How could you not hear me?”
But they both knew. Jack hadn’t heard because Bogie had been overriding almost every sense he had. He lumbered to a stop and put the screws down on Bogie’s protest and felt the other’s mind shrink back in respect and fear.
He looked around. They were deep in the network of tunnels. Behind and overhead, the armor mikes filtered in the continuing sound of klaxons, punctuated by an explosion here and there. The strafing raid had turned into an all-out war. Governor Franken must have ordered the laser cannons to return fire. It was a small enough gesture, too little, too late. Hostilities had commenced. All the Thraks had to do was prove their aim accurate enough to blackmail Lasertown into surrendering. It wouldn’t take much to remind Franken of Lasertown’s precarious toe hold on this piece of rock, and norcite ore be damned.
Amber ducked her head dizzily as Jack moved. If she craned her head back far enough, she could get a semblance of the view that he commanded out of the face plate, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to look. He’d done everything but walk through rock and that probably only because he hadn’t considered it yet. They’d just made a heart-stopping journey through bulkheads that closed even as they stepped through, elevator shafts that were no longer operational and had to be jumped, and rock walls that avalanched as shock waves hit them.
Her heart still thumped in the backwash of adrenalin from Bogie. She understood now why Jack had not wished to replace the suit, treacherous though the destiny of the suit and its wearer might be. It was worth the possible outcome to be possessed like this, to walk life on an edge ever sharp and exciting. She knew now that the soul of the alien was a true warrior, lustful yet calculating, and that, to a relatively gentle man such as Jack, Bogie was as necessary as air and water. Or, at least, she thought she understood as she hid her eyes from the dizzying view of destruction behind them.
“Quit moving for a while,” Jack said impatiently.
“Would you like me to stop breathing, too?”
“It’s an i
dea. The face plate keeps fogging. One of us is doing far too much exhaling.”
Amber sniffed sharply. Then her curiosity got the better of her. “What are you doing?”
“Something I don’t do much, even with this equipment.” He turned and faced a tunnel wall. “There should be a parallel tunnel just a few meters that way, unless I’ve lost my bearings. I want to take some soundings to make sure.”
Amber groaned. Now he was thinking of going through solid rock. She felt Jack sigh. “All right, all right. I’ll hold my breath or whatever.”
“Just hold still. I don’t want to miss the readings.”
She closed her eyes and laid her cheek against the back of his neck as he did his work. It seemed a complicated procedure and his sweat trickled down and puddled across her cheekbone as he paced, knelt, drilled a core, stepped back and did a few more things.
Then, he muttered. “Hold on now.”
She felt nothing different, but in a matter of seconds, she could feel the excitement running through his bones. “That’s it!”
“You got it?”
“Yes.”
“Now what are you going to try to do?”
“Find my crew.”
“What makes you think they’re down here?”
“Because, right now, it’s the safest place to be. I can’t contact them because our coms aren’t on the same frequency. If I had enough room in here, I could make the adjustment, but—”
“I know, blame it on me,” Amber said.
“Did I mention any names?”
In spite of herself, she grinned. Once, she had wondered if she would ever banter with Jack again. Impulsively, she hugged him tighter. He made a choking noise. She let go. “What if they are there? That’s rock between us.”
“Not exactly. It’s pocketed throughout this section. And, if I’m lucky, I might hit one of the membranes.”
“Membranes?” She didn’t understand what he was talking about. Jack explained briefly about the tunnels with membranes which could be penetrated briefly and self-sealed. It was possible to get into a tunnel without damaging its integrity.
Lasertown Blues Page 13