“I see your point,” Jack said. He did see it. His duty to the passengers of the SoD was not yet fulfilled. Once you save people, you’ve got to keep on saving them. “OK. I’ll pick you up on my way back. But that pod can only support life for what, a day or two? If you’re staying here longer, you’ll need extra consumables.”
They unloaded oxygen canisters and water sacks. Time was ticking away. Jack surveyed the pathetic supply dump next to the base of the engine bell, where the Homemaker’s crew had dug out tanks for the powdered aluminum and LOX that fueled the engine. Keelraiser had tethered the mobility pod to the onboard computer housing. Cables undulated between computer and pod.
Jack didn’t have the heart to say goodbye. He juiced his wrist rockets and floated away.
Head down in the computer housing, receding, Keelraiser said, “I want you to adopt my children.”
“Your … children?”
“Zhenya and Ithrilip.”
“Right, they’re your biological children. Alexei might have something to say about that.”
“Yes, of course, they’re his in every sense that matters. But if anything happens to him and Nene …”
“Don’t be silly. Nothing’s going to happen to them, or to you. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.” Jack now knew that Keelraiser didn’t expect to survive this. He flew back to the Dealbreaker and settled into the cockpit. Working mechanically, he edged the shuttle away from the asteroid chunk, until he could no longer see the small figure toiling over the computer.
He leaned back, covered his face with his hands and said, “Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.”
Please clarify, said the Dealbreaker.
“Nothing.”
He ignited the MPD engine and burned towards Earth.
The Liberator, of course, spotted his drive plume and hailed him before he had travelled a thousand klicks.
“I don’t know what any of that means,” Jack told the Rristigul-speaker on the other end of the radio. “At a guess, it was something along the lines of ‘Who the fuck are you?’ Am I warm?” The Dealbreaker informed him that a targeting laser had painted its hull. Jack’s mouth dried out. He had no defense against the Liberator’s charged particle cannons … except words. Staring at the lethal needle far below him, he said, “My name’s Kildare, and I’ve got bad news for you, motherfuckers.”
*
Hannah poured herself some more champagne. “It’s pretty, in a way,” she said. She and Tshaveg stood side by side at the wall that ran around the roof of the multistorey parking lot, watching the flood surge over the airport terminal buildings.
Tshaveg laughed. “Isn’t it! A Shiplord must have a taste for destruction. Perhaps you are a proper Shiplord, after all.”
“Have the shuttles delivered the virus yet?”
“They are still in the air. I will let you know when they carry out their mission.” Suddenly, Tshaveg’s hair stiffened. “Excuse me,” she said, and then, amusedly: “You’ve got to hear this.”
A voice spoke in Hannah’s head. Tshaveg was rebroadcasting a transmission that must already have been rebroadcast several times, from the Liberator to the Beauty of Destruction—now in the air with its deadly cargo—to the comms set in the police van.
Hannah had heard this voice thousands of times over the SoD’s intercom. It didn’t sound much different now than it had then.
“… bad news for you, motherfuckers.”
“Jack?”
Pause.
“Hannah?”
“Oh my God. Jack. I don’t believe it.”
“Where are you, Hannah?”
“On the roof of a parking lot at the Brussels airport.”
Jack did not say sorry or are you OK or too bad about the end of the world. He was not that kind of guy. He said, “How high is the water?”
Hannah leaned over to check. “Up to the fourth storey.”
“How many storeys are there?”
“Six.”
“Is it still rising?”
“Yes. All I can see is water in every direction. It’s like we’re way out at sea, with boats all around, but they aren’t boats, they’re buildings.”
“Right. Well, I don’t think it’ll rise much higher at the present time. The primary was about 80 meters high when it hit Belgium, and your elevation is 60 meters, so you should see the water begin to retreat soon. But you’ll want to watch out for the reflection off England.” Jack hadn’t changed a bit. Hannah forgot all the reasons she had once been wary of him, and smiled tearfully, overcome with nostalgic affection. “Anyway,” Jack said, “I was actually trying to call the Liberator.”
“Its Shiplord is right here beside me.”
Tshaveg had listened to this exchange with her lips quizzically parted. She said in English, “Well? What is it, human?”
“I am presently targeting your ship,” Jack said. “I’m prepared to assault it with overwhelming force. Did you see what happened to the Homemaker? We broke it in half. But that wasn’t really a satisfying outcome. I like explosions, you see. I’d have preferred to hit the reactor, watch it cook off, and then take pictures of the debris cloud. And that’s what will happen to the Liberator, unless you do precisely as I say.”
“Jack, she’s planning to wipe out humanity with an airborne virus!” Hannah screamed.
Tshaveg hit her. Her champagne mug flew out of her hand, down to the flood below. She staggered and fell on her ass. Her cheek felt numb for a second, and then pain throbbed through her whole face.
“Wow. Good thing I called when I did,” Jack said pleasantly, far away. “So that’s why all those shuttles are buzzing around? Call them off. Tell them the party’s cancelled.”
Sitting on the wet concrete, feeling the parking lot shudder beneath her, Hannah then heard Jack say precisely the wrong thing.
“Tell them that it turns out humans are smarter than you, after all.”
Tshaveg’s lips sealed in a line. She said, “My ship can see you, human. You’re in one of those wretched repair jobs from the Lightbringer. Who’s flying it? Iristigut, I suppose. Tell him that his weakness for humans has ruined him. But perhaps all he really wanted was to die like a human. I can help him with that, and he needn’t even crash his ship into the Liberator. Those shuttles haven’t got any armaments whatsoever.”
Hannah knew that they actually had. Assuming this was either the Dealbreaker or the Hairsplitter, it had a reverse gauge field beam weapon. She had put it there. But the shuttle would need to be close enough to the Liberator to spit on it before that would do Jack any good. Meanwhile, the Liberator’s cannons were effective out to tens of thousands of kilometers.
“My gunners are targeting you now,” Tshaveg said, “and will vaporize you on my command.” She stared out at the surging water.
“I knew you’d think I was bluffing,” Jack said. “But there’s something you’ve got to understand. I’m not a rriksti. I’m no damn good at lying. If I say you’re doomed, I mean it.”
Tshaveg shrugged. “Destroy him,” she said.
“Oh, no,” Hannah whispered.
“Well, I tried,” Jack said. “OK. I’m just getting my camera out … gotta make sure I get these pictures. They’re going to be historic. Goodbye, Shiplord.”
*
Jack, of course, did not really have a camera. His beloved Nikon had been lost with the SoD. But it was the thought that counted.
He broadcast an empty burst on the maser channel. That would tell Keelraiser, listening, to launch the asteroid chunks. Wheeeeeeeooow…. wheee … End transmission.
Jack. Charged particle discharge detected, the Dealbreaker said.
Jack reconfirmed his course. There was no point dodging. You can’t outrun particles that travel at the speed of light.
You can’t see them, either.
Coronal discharges lighting up the darkness? Only in the movies.
But neither can you see Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts.
To hit the Dealbreak
er, the Liberator would have to fire through those zones of energetic particles captured in Earth’s magnetic field. The radiation belts would attenuate, defocus, and misdirect the charged particle beams.
Jack rated his chances pretty highly. Of course, if he was wrong, he’d never know it, because he’d be dead.
Floating in his straps, he watched the Liberator glide east across Asia. The alien behemoth took about two hours to circle the planet at its orbital height of 160 klicks. In another twenty minutes it would be hidden behind the limb of Earth.
That’d be Jack’s chance to nip down to the surface.
If he survived that long.
Charged particle discharge detected.
“Jesus …” He wished he’d asked Keelraiser to give back his rosary.
CHAPTER 49
Hannah sat on the rooftop. The ash-laden rain trickled down her face like dirty tears. The parking lot seemed to be swaying back and forth, as if it were a ship afloat on a filthy, rubbish-strewn sea. She imagined the water eating away the foundations, shoving at the support pillars. And there was no sign of anyone coming to rescue them. Maybe Tshaveg would end up drowning with her. That would be something.
The remaining guards stood at the four corners of the rooftop, scanning the watery horizon. Suddenly one of them shouted in Zhigga.
*
On the fourth floor of the parking lot, Kuldeep eyed the water swirling up to the top of the ramp. “We’re gonna have to go higher,” he said to Skyler and the SEALs.
They had barely made it into the parking lot before the surge swallowed the bridge from the overpass. They’d abandoned the jeep on the third floor, wary of alerting their targets. Since then, they’d just been sitting here with their thumbs up their asses … trapped between the rising tide below, and the heavily armed rriksti on the roof.
They’d radioed their location to the Chinooks on the way in, but got no response. Kuldeep had to assume the choppers were lost. The president was probably dead, too.
They were on their own.
They had one advantage. The rriksti didn’t know they were here.
But that advantage would only last until they exposed themselves. The SEALs had argued for charging the rooftop. Kuldeep had vetoed that. “Remember those energy weapons?” They’d all seen just how accurate they were, how deadly. Four guys emerging from the ramp, zero cover, armed only with a couple of M4s and Kuldeep’s own .38 … they’d get mown down.
That wouldn’t help Earth, and it wouldn’t help Savannah, far away in Africa, or her unborn child.
As he glanced indecisively up the ramp to the fifth floor, a wave swelled up the down ramp and swirled around his legs. He jumped back, swearing. The SEALs laughed their asses off.
They stopped laughing when the wave reached them, and kept rising, splashing around the support pillars.
“Holy fuck, that’s coming in fast.”
“It’s the reflection,” Skyler said. “First we got the primary tsunami. Now it’s hit Britain, and it’s splashing back at us.”
“Up to the fifth floor,” Kuldeep said, the decision made for him.
They climbed the ramp, slipping on the wet concrete, the water surging at their heels.
Now, when he looked up the next up ramp, Kuldeep saw daylight.
An armored rriksti prowled across the top of the ramp. It did not glance down into the shadows of the fifth floor. Kuldeep pulled his guys back anyway. His face felt swollen with fear. He never had overcome his terror of the aliens. He’d die shitting his pants. He glanced at Skyler, wondering if he was scared, too.
Skyler grimaced. “WWLD?”
“What would Lance do?” Kuldeep interpreted. Skyler nodded. “He’d have brought a flamethrower.”
Skyler laughed. “Wish he was here, for real.”
“Me, too,” Kuldeep said. “But maybe he’s looking down from up there … rooting for us.”
*
The guards clustered at the edge of the roof. Hannah went to see what they were looking at.
“A boat,” she said in amazement.
An honest-to-God boat, zipping over the tsunami, jinking around floating houses and barely-submerged rooftops.
Hannah laughed out loud. It was such a brilliantly obvious idea. So the world’s going underwater? Get in your boat, like Noah.
But this was no ark.
A small boat, with a low, streamlined cabin.
Blue hull. White cabin. Antennas sticking out of the roof.
A Belgian police boat.
She glanced at Tshaveg, wondering if this was the rescue the Shiplord had been waiting for.
Apparently so. Tshaveg’s hair lashed, and her mouth gaped in an almost wanton, weekendy grin. Her voice dripped with pleasure as she spoke to her aides in Zhigga. Hannah forgot sharing champagne with her, forgot their tentative rapport. She hated the other Shiplord with a passion so intense that adrenaline surged through her body.
The aides and guards jogged back to the van, presumably to get the comms set and whatever else Tshaveg wanted to salvage. Two guards remained with Tshaveg and Hannah.
The boat came closer.
The water had got a lot deeper in the last ten minutes. The boat rounded the parking lot and nosed into the lee of the structure, where an eddy of debris had collected. Hannah made out the shadowy forms of several rriksti in the cabin. One of them climbed out onto the foredeck. He had blue hair, so was probably a Lightsider. Balancing, he threw a line. One of the guards looped it over a parking ticket machine, mooring the boat to the building.
Tshaveg strolled across the rooftop to the improvised anchorage. She said carelessly to Hannah, “You can come if you like. There’s more champagne back on the Liberator. Wine, too, and all kinds of spirits.”
“And you do like a drink, don’t you?” Hannah said. “It comes with being Shiplord.”
“You’d know.”
“Nope. I was an alcoholic to start with. Being Shiplord has actually helped with that.”
Four more rriksti burst out of the cabin.
They vaulted onto its roof, which was now level with the roof of the parking lot. They leapt across the gap, easily clearing the wall.
They carried heavy-duty US Army carbines with two barrels each.
The one in the lead fired as his feet hit the roof. Flame spouted from the lower barrel. The nearest Lightsider went down.
Their battle armor was really made for blocking energy beams. It couldn’t stop rocket-propelled grenades at point-blank range.
The other rriksti off the boat fired their RPG rounds from the rifle barrels of their carbines, taking out several more guards, and then charged the Lightsiders emerging from the police van. Those upper barrels were shotgun attachments. Pellets shredded Lightsider flesh, riddled the side of the van. The noise drowned out the continuous groaning roar of the water.
Tshaveg grabbed Hannah, held her in front of her—a human shield.
Hannah hung in the other Shiplord’s grip, staring in joyful disbelief at the leader of the rriksti off the boat.
Ripstiggr.
*
“That’s gotta be our boys!” one of the SEALs said—or rather shouted, over the noise. Both SEALs charged up the ramp to the roof.
Savannah, this is for you, Kuldeep thought. Overcoming his terror, he ran after them. He wasn’t encumbered by an M4 and ammo belt, so he overtook them on the ramp.
And Skyler?
Weakened by his years in space, he couldn’t even climb the ramp. He had to crawl. They left him behind.
*
Ripstiggr lowered his carbine. He said to Hannah, “I came for you.”
“You were supposed to come for me,” Tshaveg said. “And where are the people I sent with you?”
“They walked into a gas explosion,” Ripstiggr said. “But not to worry. They died quickly, and so will you. I’m through with cycles of punishment. I’ll make it clean.”
“Not before she dies.” Hannah felt a tickle at the back of her neck. “
Along with every other human on this planet.”
Hannah gasped, “She’s not kidding, Ripstiggr. She’s ordered her shuttles to disperse a deadly virus. If we kill her, who’ll call them off?”
“Cancel the attack,” Ripstiggr said, raising his carbine, aiming at Tshaveg’s face.
“That’s already been tried,” Tshaveg said. “Drop the gun, Darksider, and take a running jump.” She edged sideways, forcing Hannah to shuffle along with her, towards the boat.
As they turned, Hannah got a better view of the rooftop. Most of the Lightsiders lay dead, and so did two of the rriksti off the boat. The blue-haired one had herded the surviving Lightsiders—the aides, not the armored guards—into a huddle.
But Hannah only had eyes for Ripstiggr, who was facing the decision of his life.
“All right.” He tossed his carbine down. “You win. Give me Hannah.”
Tshaveg started to speak.
Then she coughed, an actual sound from her mouth—“H-huh.” The arm pinning Hannah’s arms to her sides went limp.
Hannah staggered away, spinning.
A knife clattered to the rooftop.
Tshaveg lay on her back, spasming, coughing blood.
A few meters away, a hoodie-clad Indian man stood with a pistol in his hand, looking from the weapon to the fallen Shiplord, gaping as if he couldn’t believe he’d actually done that.
Two beefy, tattooed Americans pounded across the rooftop. “Get down, ma’am!” one of them yelled at Hannah, as he halted and levelled his carbine at Ripstiggr.
“No!” Hannah screamed. “Stop! These are the good guys now!”
The carbine spoke.
Ripstiggr bent over. It looked as if he were trying to duck the rifle fire. Then he crumpled.
Time stopped for Hannah.
She saw a fourth human crawling across the rooftop. Skyler. He was calling out to her.
But he seemed to be far away, on the other side of a sheet of glass as uncrossable as the vacuum.
She dropped to her knees beside Ripstiggr, shaking him desperately. “Wake up! Honey! Baby, come on!”
Ripstiggr blinked up at her. His huge, beautiful eyes reflected the cloudy sky.
Killshot: A First Contact Technothriller (Earth's Last Gambit Book 4) Page 34