by Various
Hollett sat up shakily. ‘The Drop will act like a natural fire break,’ he said. ‘You see that tall hill beyond the bridge?’
‘Only just.’
‘The comm relay is at the top of it.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ She dropped down with a heavy splash.
The three of them followed the lip of the canyon westward until the bridge was nearly in front of them. A large stone archway anchored it on this side, with a similar structure on the opposite end. From the tops of the arches, huge curving cables ran down to the deck. A low guardrail ran along each side. Shadowsun surmised that the structure was wide enough to accommodate only a single vehicle at time, or perhaps four people walking abreast.
There was no sign of anything or anyone else, and so they began to cross. A cool wind blew up from the canyon below. Hollett and Shadowsun both breathed it in deeply. The bridge swayed slightly beneath them. Hollett saw the look of panic that instinctually came over Shadowsun’s face, and laughed.
‘It’s supposed to do that. If it was built completely rigid, then the wind would cause it to crack.’
‘How long has it stood here?’ Sabu’ro asked.
‘It was built during the first settling. The support structure is made of whiskered adamantium though, so I wouldn’t worry. It would take a melta weapon to do any damage to it.’
‘Still, this must be terrifying to drive over,’ Shadowsun remarked.
‘That’s why anyone who has to come out here does it by Valkyrie. There’s a landing pad on the far side of the relay station. Your people can use it when they send a shuttle to come get you.’
They approached the midway point where the four enormous support cables came to their lowest point. Sabu’ro wandered over to touch one. He tried unsuccessfully to peer over the top. ‘How far down is it from here?’
Hollett laughed again. ‘Far,’ he said.
Shadowsun froze. The sensor suite in her battlesuit had sprung to life with a half a dozen indicators. Without a head-up display, she couldn’t identify them easily, and so she peered into the orange-hued night.
‘What?’ Hollett asked. ‘What is it?’
Another sound was steadily rising on the wind, a high-pitched whine that all three of them recognised from their first night in the forest. Aircraft were approaching fast and from somewhere high above them. Hollett searched the skies in a panic.
‘I can’t see them!’ Sabu’ro wailed.
‘They must be high up,’ said Hollett.
‘Moving fast,’ Shadowsun confirmed. ‘They’re nearly on top of us.’
The three of them broke into a run, desperately dashing toward the far side of the causeway. The turbine engines screamed somewhere above them, and then faded slightly. A multitude of new sounds came rushing towards them, like hands being run quickly over a silky fabric. Ten gue’la soldiers dropped out of the sky in a perfect formation, blocking their path. They wore heavy combat armour. Their helmets had bright-green lenses for eyes. A stubby machine poked up over each of their shoulders, connected to a power supply worn on their backs. Their rifles were short and heavy looking.
‘Don’t move, xenos!’ one of them barked.
Hollett stopped short and whirled around, only to find that twice as many men had come down behind them. ‘You!’ they hollered. ‘Hands up where we can see them!’
A wash of bright lights stabbed onto the scene from above. A Valkyrie was slowly twirling its way down to the deck. It landed behind the team in front of Shadowsun. The stubby wings of the machine grazed the suspension cables to either side of it. Shadowsun squinted in the harsh light as a lone silhouette emerged from a door in the vehicle’s side.
‘I told you that we’d meet again,’ called a voice from beyond the glare.
‘Falkens,’ Shadowsun sneered.
The colonel sauntered forwards as a man might walk through a garden. His hands were clasped behind his back. He wore a uniform much the same as Hollett’s, with a sabre of some kind that banged against his hip as he moved. In the backlight, Shadowsun could barely make out a hawkish nose, a pointed chin and high cheekbones. To either side of him trailed yet more troopers. By her count, there were now at least forty of them, all heavily armed and armoured.
‘Colonel Falkens,’ he corrected in his smooth, almost seductive voice. He shifted to one side slightly. ‘Hollett?’
‘Hello, sir.’ Hollett’s voice was very low.
‘So that was you we saw down by the Lake of Tears. Some of the boys here said so, but I told them they must be mistaken. There’s no way that Cordell Hollett would allow himself to be captured. He’s much cannier than that.’
There was a ripple of laughter among the soldiers. Falkens stepped close enough that Shadowsun could see his entire face. His eyes were bright, and there was a smile on his lips, but the expression was cold and merciless, a predator toying with a cornered prey. ‘Damn, but you’re predictable, Cordell. Aside from the main colony, this is the only place worth heading for on the entire continent. Did you really think that I wouldn’t anticipate such a move?’
‘Actually,’ Hollett said, ‘there was a small part of me that hoped you might be out trying to stop the fires. You know, like we’re supposed to?’
Falkens dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. He turned to Shadowsun and studied her features. ‘How about you? Would you care to surrender? Throw yourself on my mercy, perhaps?’
‘I would not. Nor do I actually believe that you would spare me if I asked.’
Falkens leaned back on his heels. ‘Yes. You’re right about that. Still, it might be entertaining.’ Again the soldiers laughed. A few called out insults. Falkens drank it in merrily. ‘No? Are you certain? All right then.’ He spun and started to rejoin his men. ‘Bit of an anticlimactic ending to things, but so be it. Squad one, squad four, ready weapons!’
Twenty rifles jerked into position. Hollett and Sabu’ro were dumbfounded. Shadowsun was not.
‘So that’s it? You’re just going to have your men shoot me down?’ she called to Falkens.
‘I believe I’ve already established that,’ came the smug reply. ‘First rank, second rank, aim!’
She spread her arms wide in invitation. ‘Why don’t we finish this properly then, one commander to another?’
Falkens gave a dismissive snort. ‘I wouldn’t dirty my blade.’
‘I guess it’s true then what they say about the Mountain Men. You’re not warriors. You’re just uniformed gardeners.’
The crowd went silent for a moment. Then one of the soldiers near Falkens shouted, ‘Go get her, colonel!’ and the others responded in kind with shouts and chants. Falkens stepped forwards once again. He drew his sword from the scabbard with an exaggerated flourish. Tiny blue sparks, like miniature lightning bolts, ran up and down the blade.
‘At ease, boys,’ he yelled. ‘Enjoy the show.’
Shadowsun took several steps back. Outside of her battlesuit, Falkens would have a definite advantage over her. Humans were, she hated to admit, possessed of faster reflexes than tau. The augmented movements of the suit however, made her faster and stronger than any normal gue’la. Even so, when Falkens lunged at her, it was with a swiftness that nearly caught her off guard. She pivoted to the side. The blade thrust past her chest, slicing only air. Falkens recovered, and Shadowsun followed by plowing a hoof into his lower abdomen.
The colonel flew backwards and hit the deck of the bridge with a loud thump. The bystanders gasped and cursed. Falkens kicked himself upright. His eyes flicked to the dent in his chest plate, and then he glared at Shadowsun. Behind him, the troopers shouted encouragement. He approached more cautiously this time. The two combatants began to circle one another.
‘That’s one, little girl,’ he scowled. ‘There will not be another.’
‘You talk too much.’
‘Do I?’ Falkens’s blade slashed the air twice more. Each time Shadowsun managed to evade it.
‘You understand mont’ka,’ she retorted, ‘but your arrogance makes you sloppy.’
As if to prove her wrong, Falkens thrust his sword towards her left hip. Shadowsun once more moved to dodge, only to discover too late that the colonel had been throwing a feint. With a twist of his wrist, the crackling sword flipped over and cut high and to the right instead. Her integral forcefield was also fooled, it seemed. The armour near the top of her arm parted effortlessly. Blood spattered across her shoulder, and began to rain down her arm.
Falkens leapt back gracefully into a guard position, his body turned to one side and his sword before him protectively. Shadowsun charged. The colonel dropped low, rolled out of the way, and slashed at one of her legs.
Shadowsun whirled around. She caught a glimpse of Sabu’ro and Hollett standing nearby, their faces etched with fear. Two indicators were blinking wildly on her battlesuit collar. She glanced down and realised to her horror that her left leg was deeply cut. The interior padding of the suit expanded to put pressure on the wounds, but too little avail. Blood was gushing freely from a long rent in her leg plates.
Falkens’s men were cheering loudly now, their passions roused by this unexpected entertainment. The colonel’s face was a mask of concentration, with no hint of levity. Shadowsun went back on the offensive, closing the distance between them in a heartbeat. They were nearly chest to chest as she began pummelling him with the flat edges of her fusion blasters. His personal shield flared brightly again and again as it absorbed the blows. She drove a knee into his gut, and when he doubled over, she tried to flip him over her shoulder.
Falkens somehow twisted out of her grip and rolled away to the side. He came up low, but disoriented. He reached out with his free hand and steadied himself against one of the bridge’s massive suspension cables.
Shadowsun’s leg was buckling beneath her as she turned to face him. She couldn’t feel the fingers of her right hand anymore either. The cuts were very deep, she suspected. Perhaps all the way to the bone. Her battlesuit evened the gap between them, but she had to concede that Colonel Falkens was simply a more skilled melee fighter than she. Without thinking, she aimed both fusion blasters at him and fired.
Falkens’s eyes went wide. The back of his coat burst into flames as he barely managed to dive out of the way. The trunk-like cable against which he had been crouched melted clean through. There was a titanic crack as it snapped free of the bridge and flew up into the night sky. Shadowsun rotated to find her target, but as she did, the entire bridge rocked violently, as if some giant, invisible hand were suddenly shaking it. The world pitched to the right, and her leg seemed to liquefy. She fell to one knee, and looked up just in time to see Falkens. He was backlit by the harsh floodlights of the Valkyrie. A nimbus of white surrounded his head and shoulders. He wound back, and drove his sword downwards.
The blow was so precise, and the blade so wickedly sharp, that for a moment there was no pain. Falken’s planted a boot on her chest and jerked his sword free. Shadowsun tried to stand, but all the air seemed to have been sucked from her lungs. She collapsed to the pavement and lay there gasping, while on her collar an amber warning light flashed.
The watching soldiers went into hysterics. Falkens raised his gore-stained weapon in the air triumphantly, and smiled. He turned in a circle, basking in their praise. His coat-tails were still on fire.
Shadowsun managed to draw a breath, only to cough. Blue blood shot out from her mouth and nose. Falkens strode over the top of her, his sword lowered towards her neck. He swept his arm back to deliver a decapitating blow, and that was when she heard Hollett cry out.
The major dove, tackling Falkens around the waist and driving both of them to the deck. Electric sparks flew from the places where their two shields touched, and Hollett began beating the colonel about the head and face. Falkens tried to raise his sword. Hollett grabbed his wrist. With barred teeth they grunted at each other savagely.
Falkens planted a heel in Hollett’s stomach and kicked out. The major sailed up into the air and hit the pavement hard. He scrabbled away on his hands and knees, and quickly got to his feet. Falkens rose and wiped his bloody nose on the back of a gloved hand. ‘You traitorous heretic!’ he screamed. ‘Collaborator!’
Hollett held up his hands. ‘You can’t kill her, Emmett!’ he cried. ‘You don’t understand…’
Falkens didn’t reply. He simply charged and cut the air with his sword. Hollett scampered back, but the bridge was now sagging diagonally, and he tripped. Falkens kicked him in the side. Hollett, his fists clenched together, swept the colonel’s legs out from under him and pounced. Falkens rolled and sprang to his feet, panting heavily.
‘Look who found his spine,’ he spat.
‘I never lost it.’
They charged one another. Hollett grabbed Falkens’s wrist again, and twisted, trying desperately to keep the crackling blade away. Falkens, grimacing like a wild man, slammed his forehead into Hollett’s nose. The cartilage snapped with a sound like a gunshot, and Hollett’s face became awash with blood. He staggered back, stunned. Falkens lunged and drove his sword through the centre of the major’s chest, paying heed to neither armour nor shield.
Hollett made a gasping noise and went to his knees first. Falkens withdrew the sword and stepped back. The major slumped over on his side. An arm’s reach from him, Shadowsun continued to fight for every breath.
Falkens did not bask in triumph this time. He did not parade before his men, nor do anything to enhance the theatricality of the moment. He simply stood there, bent painfully at the waist, as breathless as his vanquished foes.
‘Don’t…’ Hollett struggled to say. ‘Emmett… you’ll kill us all…’
‘No,’ he said as he righted himself and placed his free hand over a wound near his hip, ‘not all. Just you. You, and your two friends.’ He hobbled closer, his sword nearly scraping the surface of the bridge.
‘Hollett-la,’ Shadowsun managed to say. ‘Grab hold.’
Rolling over, Shadowsun aimed both of her weapons at the second suspension cable. The beams were blinding as they vaporised their target. Tiny residual explosions ripped up along the length of the support structure. The bridge shook.
Falkens jerked his head around, trying to piece together what had just been set in motion. His jaw went slack. ‘Get off the deck!’ he screamed in a voice that was far from controlled. He turned and began to sprint back towards the Valkyrie. ‘Oh, God Emperor! Get clear, all of–’
Then, with an ominous grinding noise, the entire bridge began to fall. The end closest to the wildfires heaved and pitched sharply downward. The remaining support cables, anchored on the side of the communications array, groaned and stretched. Wide, jagged cracks raced up towards the Valkyrie. In several places, the rockcrete surface exploded outwards as metal support struts and huge, iron-red girders erupted through it. Within seconds, everyone was sliding.
With a burst from her suit thrusters, Shadowsun slowed her descent enough so that she could catch a jutting beam and not be impaled upon it. She hugged it with both arms. Between her hoofs she could see Falkens’s men, the ones who had blocked off the way they came. They flailed helplessly, scrambled to find something to save them, and fell headlong into the black depths of the gorge.
The bridge lurched and fell again. It was nearly vertical now, a roadway built by a madman, with one end attached to the top of a cliff and the other hanging freely in space. She craned her head upwards. From her perspective, it was raining bodies. Hollett had managed to latch onto a guardrail, wrapping a forearm around one of the bars, and jamming his foot between two others. His other hand was clenched in Sabu’ro’s. The shas’la dangled perilously.
With agonising slowness, the Valkyrie toppled and began to slide. It plowed over at least twenty of Falkens’s eli
te troopers before becoming caught in a tangle of wires and beams. Some troopers bounced along the blacktop, screaming. Others impacted against the tumbling wreckage with sickening wet sounds, and then plummeted silently into the Drop.
The Valkyrie engines roared to life. The transport lurched again and twisted slightly. Like a bird caught in a net, it rose up only to have the cabling of the bridge drag it down again. Through the cockpit glass, Shadowsun saw Falkens at the controls, manically trying to extricate it from the collapsing structure.
She refused to let him get away. Not too far above her she noted a place where part of the guardrail had bent inward. Three of Falkens’s men had lodged there in a twisted heap. She let go of the beam from which she was hanging and rocketed upward with a long burst from her battlesuit thrusters. She landed amidst the bodies on the little shelf, fell on her hands and knees, and spit a wide, blue stream of blood from her mouth. Then she wearily pointed both her fusion blasters directly at Falkens.
The colonel pulled back on the Valkyrie’s controls with such ferocity that the cords in his neck stood out. The awkward machine whined in protest, but began to finally move up and out over the gorge. Bits of stonework and cabling were caught up in its landing gear and wrapped around its wings and tail.
As it passed over her, Shadowsun fired.
The beams struck the transport’s belly. The armour-plating simply ceased to exist as its molecules flew apart. White-hot lines of heat radiated out from the impact point. The very air inside the cockpit and passenger compartments became superheated and caught fire. The Valkyrie spun like a child’s discarded toy. Shadowsun was certain that she caught a glimpse of a hand pressed against the pilot’s canopy before everything exploded in a mass of shrapnel. Huge pieces of machinery fell into the Drop, trailing auburn flames behind them. When they at last hit bottom, the sound was distant and muffled.
How long she lay there on the makeshift alcove she didn’t know. It was a labour just to breathe, and the night breeze felt cool and refreshing against her skin. Finally, she heard Hollett calling out to her from somewhere nearby. She lifted her head.