by Jake Elwood
Tim said, "Does it involve being beaten to death by you, Mansoor?"
"Give the man a pat on the back."
She continued the lesson, showing them how to switch between single shot and burst mode, and how to extend a stock at the back and a long barrel at the front. The barrel didn't make the gun any more accurate, but it made the weapon easier to aim.
"It's an energy weapon," Mansoor said. "Nothing ballistic. It fires alternating pulses of laser and coherent energy. If someone's got anti-laser mesh, the energy burst will put a hole in it. There's no sustained laser beam, but burst mode will do all the damage you need." She peered at the side of the gun. "Looks like it's fully charged, so you've got about a thousand shots. In theory you can recharge the gun by shaking it, but it uses a lot of energy. You'd be shaking all day."
She found a tab on the underside of the gun, pulled it, and extended a thin black ribbon. The end of the ribbon clipped to the underside of the gun at the back, making a sling. She put the gun over her shoulder. "I'm not that worried about the guards," she said. "There's only six of them. I'm more worried that one of you is going to shoot me by accident, or shoot one of our friends who's still down there. That's why you're going to keep your fingers away from the triggers, and you're going to think before you shoot. Every single time. Right?" She glared at the others until they nodded.
"Good. Now go get a weapon. Make sure the safety is on. Familiarize yourselves with it. Anybody takes the safety off …" She thumped her hand against the stock of her stinger, a fleshy sound of impact that made it quite clear what she meant.
The ship touched down less than a kilometer from the line of packed sand that marked the road from the mine to Dawn City. A low compression ridge kept them hidden from any passing vehicles. Chan checked the time.
Two hours until shift change.
He stretched and tried to make himself relax. "Well, so far, so good. Any word from Uncle yet?"
Rhett said, "He has not contacted us."
Chan laced his fingers behind his neck and closed his eyes, trying to force images of blood and mayhem out of his mind. "Well, there's nothing to do now but wait." Wait and hope that the searching Orbital Guard ships didn't spot the Raven. Wait and hope that the guards inside the base didn't check on the prisoners and find the hole in the back wall of the hut. Wait and hope that a thousand other disasters didn't occur.
Five unbearable minutes dragged past. It was almost a relief when Rhett said, "There is a problem, Captain." He crossed the bridge, leaned over an unoccupied console, and tapped a panel. A woman's scratchy voice emerged from the bridge speakers.
"… hole in the back wall. The tracks go into the desert."
"It's code orange." The new voice was a man, as emotionless as if he was discussing the weather. "Round up the prisoners."
The woman sounded tired as she said, "Rufus, Jorge, follow the tracks and see where they go. Sarah, make a tour of the perimeter. They might have doubled back. The rest of you come with me."
The radio went silent.
One of the rescued prisoners said, "Maybe it's all right. Maybe they're just going to keep an eye on everyone."
The expression on Mansoor's face was bleak. "And maybe they know the clock is ticking and they only have a short time to kill everyone and bury the bodies in the desert." She shifted the stinger on her back and headed aft, saying, "I'm going in. Whoever's coming with me better get your helmets on."
Chan looked at Liz, then at Joss. Joss was leaning over her console, saying, "I repeat. We're attacking the mine site right now. Get here as fast as you can. Bring as many people as you can. We'll leave the extra guns right beside the road. But we can't wait any longer." She straightened up. Her face was pale, but she looked more determined than afraid. "What's the plan, Captain?"
How the hell should I know? What do I know about revolution? Practice had made him good at smothering his emotions. "I'm going with them. You three pilot the ship. Provide air cover."
"Nothing doing," said Liz. "You need me on the ground."
"Liz, you're the pilot. We need the Raven."
She jerked her thumb at Rhett. "He's better at multi-tasking than I am. I bet he can identify targets and avoid friendly fire better than I can." She colored slightly and said, "I tend to get carried away."
"Maybe Rhett can pilot," Chan said. "I still need a gunner."
"I used the rail guns once, in the asteroid belt, right after we got the ammo!" Liz snapped. "It's not like I'm an expert."
"I am," said a voice behind them. Chan turned. The speaker was a burly man with brown skin and black hair. "Five years in Solar Patrol before I decided to chuck it all and come to Mercury."
"All right, then," Chan said. "You're our gunner." He turned back to Liz, but she neatly ended the argument by leaving the bridge and joining the crowd jamming the corridor.
"Buddha save us from our own folly," Chan muttered.
"It'll be fine," Joss said. She bit her lip. "I'm not really good with guns, Captain."
"I need you right where you are," he said firmly. "I need someone on board who knows the Raven and how to keep her flying during a firefight."
Joss nodded.
"Buddha save us," he muttered one more time, and went in search of his helmet.
"Okay, NOW." Joss's voice came over Chan's helmet, on a frequency he hoped the guards still weren't monitoring. He stood, and eight prisoners saw and rose behind him. He charged over the crest of a low ridge and ran toward the mine.
Ahead he saw the Raven swoop down until her belly was at the level of the big cloth disk. The aft hatch was open, and Rhett crouched on the ramp, one hand locked around a safety handle, the other hand stretching down. The robot caught the edge of the fabric and the ship accelerated. Chan saw Rhett lurch as the cloth pulled tight. Then the nearest pole leaned over, held for a moment, then burst from the ground.
One pole after another pulled free as the Raven flew across the pit. When every pole for several hundred meters was loose the cloth began to tear. The Raven kept going, several square kilometers of fabric trailing behind her, and the ragged crescent of fabric that remained sagged down like a deflating balloon.
In a masterpiece of timing Rhett let go of the cloth just in time to let it fall over the multi-story office building on the far side of the pit. The building vanished, completely engulfed in fabric.
Chan and his amateur commandos bounded across the gray rock. A couple of hundred meters ahead, he saw a group of about ten prisoners in their distinctive rust-colored vac suits, gaping up at the suddenly-exposed stars. Three guards stood with them, rifles in the crooks of their arms, also staring upward. Chan headed straight for the group, hoping the sight of nine armed people would be enough to discourage the guards from resistance.
Someone finally noticed the rushing commandos. A prisoner pointed, a guard glanced in the direction of the pointing arm, and all three guards swung their rifles up.
"Down!" Chan shouted, forgetting that he was on a different frequency. He threw himself flat, skidding on his chest, and commandos hit the dirt all around him. Either they'd seen the danger themselves or Rhett had passed along the order.
"Hold your fire," Chan added. The prisoners were mingled with the guards. The last thing he needed was an excited commando killing everybody.
He couldn't see the laser beams when the guards fired, but a clump of sand fused into glowing glass a dozen meters in front of him. Some of the prisoners stood frozen, but others were diving to the ground. One stocky figure went from person to person, tugging at people, getting them to drop. Chan fumbled for the laser pistol on his hip. They'd have a clear field of fire in a moment.
The stocky prisoner dove forward, tackling the nearest guard. The two of them went down in a rolling heap, and the closest guard turned, pointing his rifle at them. Fire from at least two stingers tore into him. Visibility was extremely good when there was no atmosphere in the way. Chan saw an eruption of vapor as the guard's suit blew apart, then a
spray of fine red particles that travelled a remarkable distance before he lost sight of it. The guard toppled onto his back, falling in slow motion, his legs swinging up in a way that would have been comical if it hadn't been so horrible.
The last guard dove to the ground. A couple of prisoners swarmed him before he could shoot again.
Chan pushed himself up, then reached for the commando beside him, tugging the woman's arm. She was staring past him, though. It looked as if she was screaming inside her helmet.
One of Chan's commandos writhed on the ground, a terrible cut extending from her shoulder and down her left side. Her friends were clustered around her, pulling emergency seals from pouches on their legs and trying to close the cut.
"Joss. Get over here. We've got wounded." Chan made himself turn away. He grabbed a couple of commandos, shoved them in the direction of the prisoners who were still grappling with the guards. He ran, and they followed.
The Raven was a kilometer away, dropping Liz and four more commandos beside a parked ore truck. As he ran, the ship lifted off, heading toward him. He couldn't hear the injured woman screaming, but he could imagine it. It had to be unnerving the rest of the team, who were on the same radio frequency. He had to concentrate on the larger battle, though.
Two guards were dead by the time he reached the knot of prisoners, one by stinger fire and one with his helmet torn off by outraged prisoners. The third guard fought ferociously, flinging prisoners off as fast as they could leap back on him. As Chan stood there trying to decide what to do, a commando to his left took careful aim, then touched the trigger of a stinger. Vapor erupted from the top of the guard's boot. He kept fighting for another thirty seconds or so, then sagged to his knees. No one tried to patch the hole in his boot, and the prisoners clinging to his arms gave him no chance to patch the hole on his own.
He didn't struggle long.
A kilometer away, the parked truck exploded in a silent burst of light. Chan flinched instinctively, then dropped into a crouch. His merchant marine days were more than a decade behind him, but some of the training was coming back to him. The commandos and rescued prisoners were clumping up and standing still, making them a beautiful target. "Rhett, tell these people to move. Split up, before someone shoots them. Send everyone who's unarmed or injured back to the road."
All around him people straightened up or tilted their heads as Rhett spoke through their suit radios. Chan ignored them, shifting a couple of paces to one side in case a sniper was trying to line up a shot. He shifted his attention to the truck.
It hadn't actually exploded, he realized. The four commandos, tiny dots at this range, seemed to have scurried behind the truck. Meanwhile, fire was coming in from across the pit. The truck tilted forward as the tires on one side were shredded by whatever destruction was being unleashed.
Chan looked around at his party of commandos. "We'll be next," he muttered, "and we don't have a truck."
He'd lost most of his team, he saw. Only two of the commandos had followed him. Both of them looked as if they wanted to go with the retreating former prisoners. When he headed toward the pit, though, they followed.
When he was close to the edge of the excavation he felt the rumble of an approaching truck through the soles of his boots. It rose majestically from the depths, rolling along according to its programming, oblivious to the war raging around it. Chan led his little team to the top of the ramp, where they crouched and waited. As soon as the truck reached them they shuffled along beside it, using the vehicle for cover.
He was half way to the beleaguered team when he saw three grim figures marching around the far side of the pit. He picked up his pace, edging past the front of the truck, and felt a cold hand squeeze his stomach.
Combat robots. Huge, steel-plated, and carrying enough firepower to wipe out Chan's pitiful army several times over.
"Oh, Buddha's bloody-"
"We're on it," Joss said, her voice sparkling with excitement. The ground erupted around the marching robots and a dark blob of shadow appeared as the Raven dove out of the sun. One robot lurched, an arm tearing away from its torso to go bouncing across the sand. It lifted its remaining arm to return fire. The other two followed suit, pointing lasers and particle beam weapons at the diving ship.
"Not my ship, you bastards," Chan yelled, and ran ahead of the truck. He opened fire with his laser pistol, swept the beam back and forth until he saw a line of sparks appear on one metal torso, then did his best to hold the beam in place.
The four commandos behind the shattered truck, realizing they had a brief respite, moved out from behind the vehicle and opened up on the robots. Chan could see bits of metal flying from the chest of the nearest robot, but the thing kept firing.
The Raven swept past, leaving one robot twitching in pieces on the ground. As the ship rose the laser turret fired, slicing a second robot neatly in half.
Chan and all six commandos opened up on the remaining robot. It fired a small rocket at the truck, then turned toward Chan and his two-person team. Chan lunged to the left, scooting behind the truck which fortunately had pretty much caught up with him. He saw a flash of light as energy blasts slammed into the far side of the vehicle, and bits of glass and metal bounced from his vac suit as bullets shredded the cab. One of his commandos fell thrashing, and Chan rushed to her side.
He found a young woman grinning up at him through her faceplate. The side of her helmet was badly scorched, half of her faceplate was white and opaque, but the suit was intact. He hauled her to her feet and they ran to the back tire of the truck.
The truck rolled to a stop and Chan peeked around the back of the tire. The robot stood motionless, weapons pointed at the ground, as shot after shot poured into it from the team behind the other truck. He winced, wondering how quickly the commandos were draining the stingers.
When a puff of dark smoke came rushing out of the robot's chest the firing died away. Chan couldn't hear the cheer that went up, but he saw all four commandos pump their arms in the air. One stinger went off by accident, scorching the side of the truck box, and that commando lowered her arms, glancing around furtively.
One commando glanced to the side, then stiffened and pointed. Chan followed the direction of his pointing arm. Another truck raced around the perimeter of the pit, coming from the direction of the office building. Commandos began lifting stingers and taking aim. The shot that disabled the truck came from behind, though. An eruption of dirt and sparks burst from beneath the huge vehicle and one tire disintegrated. The truck slewed sideways and figures in rust-colored vac suits spilled from the back.
Fleeing prisoners.
Chan swore and started for the truck at a run.
A prisoner ran toward him. All he could see was a tiny human shape, mouse-sized in the distance. The prisoner made three bounding steps, then a fourth. And an energy blast from behind hit the running figure and blew the little body apart.
Chan staggered to a halt, searching for the source of the shot. There were great burns and cuts in the vast tent of fabric covering the office building. An armored personnel carrier sat in the middle of the burned area. He could see a turret on top of the squat machine. The range had to be close to three quarters of a kilometer, but with commandos cowering behind three different trucks, Chan realized he was the only decent target.
He started to run, sideways this time, the direction that made him hardest to hit. He angled backward a bit, toward the four commandos behind their shattered truck. In the corner of his eye he saw a crimson flicker at the tip of the barrel on the turret. It could have been imagination, but the back of his head felt warm for an instant. He threw himself forward, landed hands-first on the ground, and did a forward somersault, something he never could have done in higher gravity. He wanted to hug the ground and lie still, but that would just give the gunner time to line up a nice clean shot.
Chan came up on his feet and kept running.
The Raven dove again, and rail guns raised sparks from the
armor plating. The barrel swiveled up, and Chan pushed it all from his mind. The sooner he reached cover the sooner the Raven could stop taking wild chances.
"Oh, hell," a man's voice said, "that's a hull breach."
"I'm on it," said Joss.
Chan kept running.
"Okay, we're airtight."
"Not for long. I'm making another run."
The Raven's shadow whipped across the ground an instant before Chan reached the truck. It was a blast-shattered ruin, but the commandos were doing their best, peppering the distant armored truck with stinger fire.
"Rhett, tell them to save their ammo." The commandos were already lowering their guns, though, now that he was under cover. "Never mind. Tell them thanks." Why did I think it was a good idea to be on a different channel from the ground team? He shrugged inwardly. He didn't have time to fiddle with his suit radio now.
"We're setting down behind the office for a moment," Joss told him. "Holler if you need us. We'll pop back up when we've worked out a plan."
The armored personnel carrier started rolling again. It headed straight for the newly-disabled truck. Prisoners were still picking themselves up from the ground. A couple of people took an inert prisoner by the legs and dragged him behind the body of the truck. No one was willing to run, not with the corpse of that first prisoner lying in pieces just a few strides away.
Closer and closer the APC came, until it rolled to a stop just a few meters from the disabled truck. The surviving prisoners huddled on the opposite side.
A hatch retracted on the armored behemoth and a man in a scarlet vac suit stepped out. He wore a pistol around his waist, but he didn't draw the weapon. He circled wide around the ruined truck, until he could see the pathetic huddle of prisoners. A good dozen meters separated him from the front of the truck, and Chan grimaced as he recognized the tactic. If the prisoners tried to rush him, the turret would shred them.