by James Axler
"Bastard fucking 'forcers!" Knuckling the grit from her eyes, Domi sprang out of the shelter of the doorway like a snow leopard pouncing on prey, her Combat Master banging and spitting flame.
Brigid watched in morbid fascination as Domi sought out Magistrates. When one of them loomed out of the misty veils, pointing his Sin Eater directly at her head, Domi instantly ducked and sidestepped. She lashed out with a leg, and her foot clipped him solidly on the back of his right ankle. He went down heavily on his shoulders and back. A staccato burst from his blaster went up into the sky.
Domi cartwheeled up and onto the man, landing on his abdomen. Her right foot, with all her weight behind it, drove up and beneath his visor. The steel toe of her boot impacted like a battering ram against the bottom tip of the Mag's nose. There was a very faint, mushy crunch of cartilage. His crushed nose spewed blood as bone splinters pushed through his sinus cavities and into his brain. Scarlet streaks contrasted sharply with his black armor. The Magistrate went into convulsions, clawing at the ground, his feet kicking spasmodically.
Domi heeled away from his death throes, turned and waved for Brigid to join her.' 'They got nothin'!" she crowed.
Double-fisting her Iver Johnson, Brigid left the building. Smoke rolled down the corridor from the epicenter of the gren explosion. She couldn't be certain, but she doubted the Mags had thrown the gren.
More than likely Kane had done so to discourage pursuit.
A Mag appeared in the murky vapors, assuming a combat stance, Sin Eater held in both hands. Neither Domi nor Brigid could see at whom or what he was aiming, but sighting down the barrel of her blaster, Domi triggered a shot at him. A splash of blue sparks jumped from the frame of the Sin Eater, and he stumbled sideways, shaking nerve-dead fingers.
The black-helmeted head pivoted toward her, mouth opening wide to utter a shriek of pain and anger. Domi calmly shot him through his open mouth. Arms flung wide, he lifted up on his toes and fell to the flagstones, a banner of blood trailing from his mouth.
Brigid did not allow herself to feel horror. As always in a combat situation, her mind seemed to disengage from her emotions, her thoughts functioning in a matrix of reaction and analysis. She turned toward the clangor of steel and saw the blades of the Tigers of Heaven flashing and flickering.
Brigid tried to find Pollard among the drifting scraps of chemical fog and running, screaming figures, but her vision was blurred by CS-induced tears. She framed the nearest Mag in her sights and fired four rounds that smashed dead center into his red duty badge and propelled him backward in a kicking spasm. Hydrostatic shock stopped his heart, and the man was dead before he hit the ground.
She altered direction, racing toward the pool, firing from the hip at the Mag trying to maintain a guard on the prisoners. He returned fire with his hand-blasters, and she felt a bullet pluck at her hair, ripping a few strands out by the roots.
Arms and hands reached up to latch on to the Magistrate''s legs and haul him backward. He fell into the pool with an obscenity bursting from his lips.
A Tiger of Heaven materialized beside her, as if conjured out of the CS fog. When he lifted his faceplate and threw Brigid a grin, she recognized the features of Jozure. Two Mags rushed him from opposite directions, trying to get Jozure between so as to catch him in a cross fire. He danced away, the katana in his hands flicking back and forth, reflecting little white flares of light. The barrels of the Sin Eaters tried to follow his movements.
Jozure made a low, whirling movement, squatted, then propelled his body into the air at the exact microsecond both blasters trained on him. The bores spat twin tongues of flame, and the bullets struck the armored men in the torsos, sending them staggering.
Jozure pivoted, his katana cutting wheels through the fading streamers of gas. His dodging dance came to halt, no more than a yard from Pollard. The moonfaced man's lips writhed back from his stumpy teeth in a snarl of fury. He held down the trigger of his Copperhead, sending a full-auto fusillade ripping into the metal-sheathed abdomen of Jozure.
His lower torso flew apart in a greasy explosion of blood and bowels. The Tiger went over backward, and curled into a ball, the silver sword spinning from his hand, his carbine clattering across the flagstones.
Pollard swung the barrel of the subgun toward Brigid, his little eyes glinting first in recognition, then astonishment. His finger froze on the trigger for a shaved shred of a second as he tried to figure out what a convicted seditionist was doing with a group of armored, sword-wielding madmen.
Although Pollard was momentarily paralyzed by confusion, a Magistrate sprinting up from the direction of the courtyard entrance wasn't so impaired. He directed a clumsy burst from his Sin Eater in her general direction as he ran.
Brigid threw herself forward in a frantic somersault, trying to stay ahead of the deadly stream of lead. Dirt fountains erupted behind her, little slivers of stone stinging her legs. She shoulder rolled across the ground and snatched up Jozure's fallen carbine. She raised it hastily, surprised by its heavy weight. She put it to her shoulder, framed Pollard in the blade sights and squeezed the trigger. The longblaster kicked, the recoil slamming the stock painfully into her shoulder socket, the barrel pulling upward as the shot boomed.
The bullet cleaved the air well above Pollard's head. Gritting her teeth, Brigid set herself, drew another bead on the man and squeezed the trigger a second time. Nothing happened except the firing pin clicked with dry, mocking impotence against an empty chamber.
Pollard stared in astonishment, then an ugly leer twisted his lips.
Bouncing to her feet, Brigid flung the carbine out in front of her. The metal plate of the stock smashed into Pollard's forehead, sending him staggering against the Magistrate standing beside him. Both of them yelled in pain, fury and frustration, but they managed to align her running figure in front of their blasters. Then a small, metal-shelled ovoid landed between her and the Mags.
With alarmed shouts, Pollard and the other Magistrate started to run, but the flash-bang detonated with a brutal, bone-jarring thunderclap. Amid the blaze of light, sand, dirt and pieces of flagstone were flung skyward in a cloud. The concussion slammed into Brigid, picked her up and dropped her heavily. She hitched around on her left side, raking her hair out of her eyes.
Grant lunged through the eye-stinging haze. He stroked a short burst from his Copperhead, but his shots missed by fractional margins.
Pollard and the other Magistrate whirled and ran toward the building. The magazine of the Copperhead clicked empty, so Grant discarded it. He glimpsed Pollard doing the same thing, throwing his subgun aside as he and the Mag raced into the dark mouth of the double doorway.
Grant halted to one side of the opening to reload his handblaster. Taking a shuddery breath, he winced at the ache in his chest. Pins and needles burned through his torso. He coughed, and the contraction of his diaphragm muscles sparked a hot spasm of pain in his right rib cage. It took an iron will to keep from clutching at his side.
Blinking back tears of pain from his eyes, he moved into the building at once, ignoring Brigid's voice calling his name. He crept along the hall, his head swiveling back and forth to peer into shadows, cursing the fact his comm-link to Kane was not online.
He had gone only a few yards down the corridor when his peripheral vision caught a twinkle of light reflecting dimly from an egg-shaped object bouncing down the corridor ahead of him. He dived backward, twisting to land on his shoulder on the tiled, debris-littered floor, sliding along on his side, trying desperately to roll back to the doorway.
With an earsplitting, teeth-jarring crack, the high-ex gren erupted in a flash of orange flame and white smoke. A hell-flower bloomed, petals of flame curving and spreading outward. Spewing from the end of every petal was a rain of shrapnel, ripping into the walls and ceiling. Fragments rattled violently against the floor, and Grant felt a few sharp blows against his upraised, armored arms.
The a
ir went on shuddering with the echoes of the explosion, as ugly black fissures spread out in a spi-derweb pattern on the ceiling. The walls cracked open like overripe fruit. The ceiling split in the middle and folded downward like a double lid.
Before Grant could do more than spit "Shit!" a seething cascade of plaster, wood, insulation and broken rafters poured down. The rain of splinters, planks and steel braces half covered him.
Coughing, blinded and nearly smothered, Grant struggled against the pressure of the debris covering him from upper chest to the toes of his boots. His visor was occluded by smears of dust, and kernels of grit stung his eyes and set them to watering. His right arm, his gun arm, was trapped beneath him, the Sin Eater's barrel snagged on shards of wood and impeded by metal reinforcing rods. Frantically he tried to free himself, but the plaster broke into fragments when he secured fingerholds. He glimpsed a black-armored form sliding out of the dust-laden air, then a heavy weight landed on his rubble-covered chest, nearly driving all the air from his lungs.
"Wasn't sure it was you," the Magistrate said, stomping hard on the layers of plaster and sheet rock covering Grant's chest. "Couldn't be, I told myself. But it is, isn't it? Grant the traitor."
The man's voice rang a distant chord of recognition, and Grant cleared his dust-coated throat enough to whisper, "MacMurphy?"
"One and the same."
Grant repressed a groan. MacMurphy was a man he had served with for many years and with whom he had shared the dangers of the Mesa Verde penetration that had started the chain of events leading to his exile. He had also been forced to shoot him during his rescue of Lakesh some months ago.
"You should've chilled me in Cobaltville, Grant," MacMurphy grated, stamping again.
"I didn't try to chill you," Grant replied, trying to work his right arm loose. "The object was to discourage you."
MacMurphy uttered a snarl. "You managed to do that, you son of a bitch! After you got away, I was booted back down the ranks. I've been pulling PPD for the last six months!"
PPD was the euphemism for Pit Patrol Duty, an assignment performed only by newly badged recruits—or veterans who were being punished through humiliation.
"Could you possibly understand what that's like?" continued MacMurphy, his voice rising to a high, hoarse pitch of fury. "I was in line for an administrative transfer. I should've had it by now. But it was all taken away. Everything! I even have to live in the fucking barracks now!"
The man's Sin Eater slid into his hand. The hollow bore peered down at Grant like a cyclopean eye. "This mission was my one chance to redeem myself, but you fucked it up. But a traitor like you doesn't care, doesn't believe in anything, doesn't understand anything about honor, oaths or duty."
"I understand perfectly," Grant said. Then he shot MacMurphy three times between the legs. He had managed to work his blaster free of the crushing weight just enough to tilt back the barrel and fire through the slabs of debris.
Hie rounds tore holes in the plaster amid little puff-balls of dust and pounded into MacMurphy's codpiece with all the driving impact of a series of jack-hammer blows. Although they didn't penetrate the polycarbonate cup, the kinetic force pulverized his testicle sac.
MacMurphy howled, clasping at his groin. He reeled backward, his feet sliding and seeking purchase on the debris-strewed floor. Raising a shaking arm, he pointed his Sin Eater at Grant. While the air still vibrated with the sound of the agonized scream, Brig-id and Domi fired in perfect synchronization.
MacMurphy's tinted visor flew away in fragments, the bullets tearing through neck ligaments, cartilage and cervical vertebrae. The man's face dissolved in a wet scarlet blur. He fell to the floor very close to Grant. As he watched, MacMurphy's struggles to cling to life ceased and he jerked in postmortem spasms.
Domi and Brigid kneeled on either side of him. "Are you all right?" Domi demanded, her high voice quavering with anxiety.
Grant coughed. "Thanks to you two."
As they helped to dig him out, Brigid tersely told him that the surviving Mags had surrendered to the Tigers of Heaven. Grant kicked his legs free, crawled back a few feet, then rose unsteadily.
"I don't know if giving up will do the Mags any good," he said flatly, shambling out of the doorway. "The Tigers don't seem inclined to take prisoners."
"Kane told Kiyomasa he only wanted Pollard spared," Brigid said bleakly. "And then only for questioning."
Grant paused, looking down the ruin of the corridor. He could not be sure, but he thought a couple of the objects protruding from the heap of rubble were polycarbonate-shod arms or legs. "Where the hell is Pollard, anyway?"
"More importantly," Brigid retorted, her eyes bright with jade glints of worry, "where the hell is Kane?"
Chapter 13
As Kane squirmed and wriggled through the forest of fallen rafters and planks, he heard the pounding footfalls of the Magistrates sprinting down the corridor after him. The barrel of his Copperhead was jammed tight between two boards. He tugged at it, then let the weapon go.
A Sin Eater opened up and a storm of lead ripped into the barrier of wood, punching through it amid clouds of dust and sprays of splinters.
Thumping blows drove hot nails of pain into his back. The jolting impacts of the bullets impaled him from back to chest with lances of agony. However, the sledgehammer blows knocked him through the barricade. He slammed onto the floor, skidding forward a few feet on his stomach.
Gasping, his vision blurred, Kane hitched around and dug into his war bag. His hand closed around another Alsatex, and his thumb flipped away the pin. He flung the gren behind him, not really seeing where it landed, and not caring.
The sharp report of the gren's explosion pushed down the corridor like a deafening wave, and a dazzling white blaze seemed to ride the crest. Behind him, the fallen timbers, boards and stringers crashed apart The splintery shards clattered loudly against the floor tiles.
Dragging himself to his feet, Kane glanced behind him at the boiling cloud of dust. He dared not open up with his blaster blindly for fear of hitting either Brigid or Domi.
The swirl of plaster dust and wood particles convulsed and lit up with dancing spearpoints of flame. Behind it came the steady hammering of a blaster on full-auto. Howling like a blood-mad berserker, the Mag plunged through it, the ejector port of his blaster spraying empty cartridges in a clinking rain.
Kane backpedaled as fast as his legs and throbbing torso would allow. A bullet fanned a splash of cold air on his face, another mumped into the wall near his left arm and two more brushed the sides of his helmet.
Kane wheeled and raced down the hallway, silently enduring the spasms of pain igniting in his back and chest. A storm of shots followed him, the slugs peeling long splinters from the walls on either side of him.
When he came abreast of the first open door, Kane hurled his body through it, kicking his way through the detritus of two centuries. He entered a small kitchen and vaulted over a countertop, searching for another way out A swift look around showed him the foot of a staircase and he bounded to it. He took the steps three at a time, his left hand pressing lightly against the wall for balance. He knew he was being reckless. The risers creaked and sagged alarmingly beneath his boots, and die banister wobbled whenever he touched it.
He reached a landing, paused, saw a door hanging askew on one hinge a dozen yards down the hall and rushed for it. With a clattering crash, the floorboards gave away under his weight As he plunged into blackness, he slapped his hands around a thick strip of ornamental molding running between the floor and the wall. He managed to insert his fingers into the narrow crack between it and the floor. Below him, failing pieces of board clacked and banged against each other.
With his breath gasping through locked teeth, Kane kicked out with his legs, seeking purchase for his feet. The toes of his boots struck an interior cross brace, and for a moment he was able to relieve some of the tendon-tearing strain on his hands and wrists. Muscles quiv
ering with the strain, he pulled his body up to chin level with the edge of the hole. Drifting in from outside the building was the racket of a fusillade, with at least a dozen guns blasting all at once. A few seconds later came the thunderclap crack of an Alsatex.
Desperately, he muscled himself upward. Ail feeling drained from his fingers, but he managed to get his elbows atop the sheared-away floorboards. Behind him came the creak of the stairs beneath booted feet
With a frantic heave, Kane dragged his body clear of the opening, the splintered ends of the boards scraping against his body armor. If he hadn't been wearing armor, his belly and chest would have been severely lacerated. More of the flooring broke away, but he lunged and rolled into the hallway.
Staggering to his feet, he ran to the door. With a single wrench he pulled it loose from its hinge and entered a small room cluttered with the remnants of mops, buckets and push broom. Metal ladderlike stairs climbed the far wall, leading to a square wooden hatch in the ceiling.
Kane swarmed up the rungs and thrust the trapdoor aside. The ladder extended up a square shaft to the cupola housing of the bell tower. To his right was the faint gleam of aluminum air conditioning ductwork inside a maintenance accessway, elevated mere inches above the ceiling panel by rafters and supported by wooden chocks.
Kane briefly inspected the interlocking ceiling panels, then he clambered into the crawl space. There were small crosspieces of two-by-fours joining heavy rafters. He crawled along these, putting his weight on the wood. When the sound of creaking wood and footsteps was audible, he stretched out on a rafter and carefully tugged aside a corner of a panel.
As he had figured, the pursuing Magistrate had jumped over the gaping hole in the floor and was almost directly below his position. Kane inserted the barrel of his Sin Eater into the small space between the tiles. He made sure his body was shielded by the rafter before he squeezed the trigger.
Over the rattling roar and the clink of ejected car-tridges, Kane heard cries of shock, pain and anger. Return fire raked the ceiling, showering him with panel chips and splinters.