by Allen Steele
“No, ma’am, I wouldn’t.” It wasn’t fear that Baptiste saw in Montero’s face, but something else . . . a determination that, under other circumstances, he would admire.
“Neither do I. And I’ve been dealing with him for much longer than you have.” Hernandez prodded her lower jaw. “Patch me into Alpha and Bravo,” she told Cartman. “I wish to speak with them directly.”
“Matriarch,” Baptiste said, “may I remind you that this is a Union Guard operation. . . .”
“And may I remind you that I’m colonial governor.” She deliberately turned her back upon him. Cartman looked up and nodded, indicating that she was being heard by the two strike teams. “Diablo Alpha, Diablo Bravo, this is the Matriarch Luisa Hernandez. The mission objective has now changed. Your first priority is termination, not capture. Repeat . . . termination is now the primary objective. That is all.” She prodded her jaw again, then looked at Baptiste once more. “I think that should convince you how seriously I regard this.”
Baptiste regarded her with horror that he hoped his face wouldn’t betray. This wasn’t what he’d been led to believe they were doing. “I never doubted it,” he said, carefully choosing his words, “yet you realize that your orders include the termination of two civilians . . . including your Chief Proctor.”
Her face went pale, as if she suddenly realized what she’d done. There was always time to rescind the order, or at least change it. But then the coldness returned.
“Of course I know that,” she said. “Just do as I say.”
She walked away, and it was in that moment that Baptiste realized just how far her obsession with Rigil Kent had gone.
GABRIEL 76/0846—PIONEER VALLEY
At first, the binoculars revealed nothing save the swaying of tree limbs in the wind. Then a shadow passed across the bottom of the bluffs, flitting across the rockslide. Almost as soon as Carlos spotted it, though, it seemed to vanish; as he continued to watch, he caught a brief glimpse of snow falling off a clingberry bush, as if knocked down by a specter following the tracks he and Chris had left behind.
“Having trouble?” Chris lay against the boulder next to him, a smirk on his face. “I imagine they’re hard to spot in ghost mode.”
“And I bet you’re not going to tell me what that is, are you?” Carlos kept his eyes on the bluffs, hoping to spot any further movement. Yes, there it was again . . . but now there appeared to be two shadows, one just behind the other.
“Umm . . .” Chris thought about it a moment. “Okay, let me give you a hint. You’re looking at them all the wrong way.”
Carlos considered what he’d just said, then laid down the binoculars and picked up his rifle. Peering through the scope, he switched to infrared. Everything went dark, as if twilight had settled upon the forest. He could make out two hulking silhouettes, ill defined yet vaguely man-shaped, resembling eggs with short legs and oversize arms.
“There you go.” Chris chuckled. “That’s their weak point. Their suits are coated with some sort of polymer that lets them camouflage themselves, but they’ve never been able to mask the heat from their power systems. Go IR, and on a cold day like this, you can see ’em . . . sort of.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about these things.” Carlos studied the two figures slowly making their way along the bottom of the cliff. He had led Chris to a large, tooth-shaped outcropping about a hundred yards downhill from the bluff. For a few minutes, they were safe. Just enough time for him to take stock of their pursuers. “What did you call them? Diablos?”
“Diablo Mark III combat armor, uh-huh. Tactical assault gear. Some friends in the Guard told me all about them, but I’ve never seen one until now. Wanna let me take a look?”
Carlos ignored him as he squinted through the scope, lining up the two figures within the crosshairs. He had a clear shot, if he cared to take it. If their shielding was heavy armor, though, it was probably impervious to low-caliber ammo; shooting at them would only expose his position. “Anything else you’d care to tell me?”
“Well . . . if this is a standard hunter-killer team, then it means that the leader is probably sweeping this entire area with his sensor array. So if you think they don’t know where we are, you’re wrong. They’re probably listening to us right now . . . if they haven’t picked up the infrared beam from your scope.”
Carlos felt his blood freeze. At that moment, the Diablo in front turned toward him. A cylindrical shape mounted on its right shoulder swiveled his way, as if taking aim directly at him. He ducked, pulling his rifle against his chest; an instant later, there was a faint hiss as hot flecks of superheated granite stung the right side of his face.
“Oh yeah . . . and they’re armed with particle-beam lasers, too!” Chris laughed out loud. “Oh man, you are so screwed!”
Chris wiped a hand across his forehead and cheek; his glove came away with blood from a half dozen scratches. He cast a baleful look at Chris as he slid down the boulder. If they were fast enough, they might be able to get the rest of the way down the hillside before . . .
“Hey! Down here! You guys, down here!”
Carlos looked around. While his back was turned, Chris had scampered past him up the outcropping. He stood on top of the boulder, waving his arms above his head.
“I got him!” Chris yelled again, then whistled sharply and pointed toward him. “C’mon, he’s here.”
A dozen memories flashed through Carlos’s mind as he brought up his rifle, leveled it at Chris’s back. He tried not to think about all the things they’d done together when they were kids as his finger curled within the trigger guard. He took a deep breath, prayed that God would forgive him. . . .
There was a soft fizzing sound, like a white-hot rod being shoved into a pound of meat; for a half second, Carlos glimpsed a slight distortion in the air. Then Chris screamed and fell back from the boulder, clutching at his left shoulder just above the biceps. Carlos scrambled up the outcropping, grabbed Chris, and hauled him down next to him. He pulled aside his hand, looked closely: a blackened hole in his jacket, about a quarter inch in diameter. The laser had lanced through his shoulder, cauterizing the flesh and leaving an entrance wound that smelled like burned pork. Apparently the Diablo team wasn’t being too particular about its targets. . . .
“Son of a bitch shot me!” Chris winced as he clasped a hand across his shoulder. “I don’t believe it! He just—”
“Shut up.” The falls were only a few hundred yards away, but Carlos needed to slow the Diablos down somehow, or they’d never reach them. “Stay here,” he whispered, then he scrambled up the boulder again, careful to keep his head down.
A quick peek through the rifle scope showed that the two figures were still beneath the bluffs. They were heading in his direction, but their heavy armor and the loose rock beneath their feet might buy him a few seconds. Switching off the IR, Carlos peered through the scope at the top of the bluffs. There it was: an icicle formation, precariously suspended above the rockslide far below. He took careful aim, then squeezed the trigger.
Bullets split through the ice. The formation shattered, plummeted to the ground. The Diablos had no time to react before hundreds of pounds of ice cascaded down on them. The one in front escaped the worst of it, but the rear Diablo was knocked off its feet. Something within its carapace must have shorted out, because it suddenly became visible: a sand-colored golem made of ceramic alloy, its enormous arms awkwardly thrown outward as the man inside struggled to regain balance. As it toppled and fell, the team leader, now rendered tenuously visible by the ice and snow that covered its carapace, lumberously turned toward it.
Good. That might hold them for a few minutes. Carlos slid down off the boulder, wrenched Chris to his feet. “Get going! And if you do anything like that again, I swear I’ll—”
“They shot me!” Holding his shoulder, Chris stared back at the Diablos. “I can’t believe they . . .”
“You’re expecting a medal?” Carlos shoved him. “Hurry up,
or I’m leaving you behind!” He wondered why he hadn’t done so already.
They plunged through the forest, dodging large rocks and fallen timber, branches whipping their faces as they raced down the hillside. Carlos felt ice within his lungs, burning him from the inside out; he coughed, wiping snow from his face with his free hand. The dull rumble of the falls grew louder, becoming a roar; through the trees, he could make out a thin white haze. Chris blindly followed him, staggering with each step he took. They needed to rest, take care of his wound, but that was out of the question. It wouldn’t be long before the Diablos recovered; soon they’d be on them again, tracking them by their body-heat signatures, the sound of their breathing. If they stopped, even for a second . . .
The rumble became a deep-throated roar, and suddenly they were through the trees. A chasm opened before them: a vast gorge, several hundred feet in diameter, an enormous sinkhole deep within the mountains. Sixty feet to the right, Goat Kill Creek plunged into the gorge, a sixty-foot waterfall spilling down upon jagged rocks. Water foamed at the bottom of the falls, churned away into the valley beyond.
Chris stopped, stared into the abyss. “Oh, great,” he rasped. “Just wonderful. Now where are we going to . . . ?”
“This way.” Carlos turned to the right, began making his way along the edge of the gorge. If they hadn’t lost the trail, it would have led them straight to the top of Johnson Falls. As it was, they’d have to bushwhack it. He could only hope that the Diablos were still behind them. . . .
From somewhere down in the valley, the distant chatter of automatic gunfire echoed off the granite well of the gorge. That would be Marie’s group, engaging the other Diablo team. They must have homed in on Constanza’s signal. Yet his sister had the benefit of three armed men at her side, along with a stolen skimmer. All he had was his rifle. . . .
“It’s not too late. . . .” Out of breath, holding on to his shoulder, Chris collapsed against a tree. He gazed at Carlos with red-rimmed eyes. “It’s not too late to give up . . . if we surrender, they might just take us prisoner . . . that’s all she wants. . . .”
“You want to stay here, go ahead.” Carlos searched the wooded slope above them. No doubt the Diablos were homing in upon their voices. “Give her my best regards.”
At first it seemed as if Chris was going to remain behind. Then he apparently thought better of it and staggered to his feet. “Hope you know where you’re going.”
Carlos nodded, turned away. He did . . . but he wasn’t about to let Chris know that.
They continued moving toward the falls. Without a trail to follow, Carlos had to rely on his sense of the land. Over the course of the last two years, though, he’d explored every gully and knob of this valley; the terrain was more familiar to him than the neighborhood in Huntsville where he’d spent his childhood. Somewhere farther up the hillside, he could hear faint noises; the Diablos weren’t very far behind. The sound of rushing water was very loud now. Only a short way to go . . .
A sudden flash of heat against his face, and suddenly a tree branch just above his head snapped and fell, missing him by only a few inches. “Run!” he yelled, and took off, not bothering to look to see where the shot had come from.
They were sprinting headlong through the forest. Carlos couldn’t see the falls anymore; the gorge was somewhere behind him. Chris was right on his heels, panting as he struggled to keep up. Another beam sliced bark off a tree a few yards to their right. The Diablo team knew where they were, but they didn’t have a clear line of sight; they were firing blindly into the woods. All he and Chris could do was stay in motion, hope the trees would foul the Diablos’ aim.
They were above the falls, with the creek to their left and the hillside to their right, when Carlos came upon the trail they’d lost. “This way!” he snapped, then turned to the left, his boots thudding against the soft snow on the path as he headed straight for the creek. He knew exactly where they were now; the rest of the way was clear. If they could only make it a few more yards . . .
There it was: the bridge.
Fifty feet long, a long row of rough-barked planks suspended by taut cables made of coiled tree vine, it swayed above the rushing waters of Goat Kill Creek, faintly obscured by the lingering haze of the morning fog. Two days earlier, he and his team had crossed the bridge while the first flakes of snow of the approaching storm fell upon them. Now the planks were coated with a thin glaze of ice, the ropes collecting snow; the bridge seemed frail and weather-beaten, but it was sturdy nonetheless.
Carlos sprinted past the two blackwood trees around which the support cables had been lashed. The bridge creaked as it took his weight, swayed slightly. On the way back, the shags would have waded across the shallows a little farther upstream while their riders leisurely marched across the bridge, but now the shags were gone and the bridge was his avenue of escape. Glancing back, he saw Chris right behind him. No time to savor the surprise on his face. Just a few more yards to the other side of the creek . . .
Carlos was halfway across the bridge, barely touching the frayed hand ropes as he dashed across the slick boards, when he heard someone shout his name. Looking up, he saw a figure emerge from the woods on the opposite shore, waving both arms above his head. Carlos raised a hand, started to wave back . . .
“Down!”
Carlos barely heard Chris yell before he was knocked off his feet. He went facedown; the rifle fell from his hands, clattered upon the bridge behind him. He glanced up just in time to see a thumb-sized hole appear on the walkway only a few inches away, melting the snow and causing the damp wood to sizzle.
Twisting sideways, he looked back, and for the first time he saw one of the Diablos clearly: a mechanical man, like a robot from one of the Japanese cartoons he’d watched on netv as a kid, only lacking a head. It stood at the end of the bridge, a sensor pod protruding from its massive chest peering at him like a cyclopean eye. The sausage-shaped particle-beam cannon mounted upon its right shoulder swiveled toward him. In that instant, he knew that the Diablo was locking him in its sights. The next shot wouldn’t miss. . . .
“Run!” Chris shouted. “Go!” And then he brought up the rifle Carlos had dropped, opened fire on the Diablo.
Armor pinged as bullets ricocheted. The Diablo staggered, but didn’t fall. Now he could see the second unit, coming down the trail just behind it . . .
“Get out of here!” Chris didn’t look back at him. “Go, dammit!”
Scrambling to his knees, Carlos grabbed the hand ropes. He’d barely hauled himself to his feet when there was a hollow shush! above his head.
What the hell . . . ?
A half second later an explosion ripped across the place where the Diablos had been standing. He turned around to look. . . .
His feet slipped on the wet planks. Off-balance, he tried to grab the ropes, but the bridge seemed to twist beneath him, and suddenly he was no longer on it.
For a timeless moment, he was suspended in midair, a limp doll flying through space. Then there was a tremendous blow against his back, and he was underwater.
A thousand tiny knives stung his face. He involuntarily gasped, and freezing water rushed down his throat. Darkness closed upon him; fighting panic, he began to swim as hard as he could, kicking and clawing his way toward the shimmering blue light above him.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon . . . ! You can’t die here!
His head broke the surface. Coughing up water, Carlos began to thrash his way through the swift current. The undertow clutched at his ankles, threatening to yank him under once more. His thick clothing was waterlogged; it was as if the lining of his parka were filled with wet cement, his boots strapped to ten-pound weights. It was all he could do just to stay afloat.
Pain lanced through his right knee as it connected with a boulder he couldn’t see. Gritting his teeth, Carlos floundered toward shore. It was still more than twenty feet away; and he could hear the roar of the falls as he was pulled toward them. Another dozen yards or so, an
d he would hurtle over the edge, falling into the gorge to be smashed against the rocks far below. . . .
He kicked harder, fighting to keep his head above water, trying to swim with the current instead of against it. Foot by foot, the shore came closer; he spotted a dead tree that had fallen into the creek. He managed to reach it, but when he grabbed at a branch it broke off at the root, and the rapids seized him once again and hauled him away.
The roar was deafening. Water spit at his face, blinding him. Turning his head, he saw the edge of the falls less than a dozen feet away. But his toes were touching sand, the soles of his boots sliding off rocks. If he could only grab hold of something, pull himself through those precious few inches that remained between him and dry land . . .
Another boulder rose from the waters only a foot from shore. The current swept him toward it. He wrapped his right forearm around the rock, held on with the last of his strength. He only had to reach out with his other hand, find something else to . . .
Something grasped the hood of his parka, hauled him upward. It was as if a mighty hand had reached down from the sky to tear him out of the violent water, for in the next instant he was dragged from the creek and onto firm ground.
Carlos lay facedown on the riverbank, gasping for breath as he trembled against the frigid air. So cold, so incredibly cold . . .
He saw a pair of boots, old and worn, with animal skins tightly wrapped the ankles. Someone from Defiance. Probably the same guys who’d taken out the Diablo team. “Man, I’m so glad to see you,” he mumbled as he raised his head. “I thought I . . .”
The face that peered down at him was inhuman.
An elongated jaw, covered with a coarse beard, with yellowed fangs protruding from his mouth. A filthy parka beneath a soiled white robe, a pair of leathery wings rising through slits on its back. Eyes dark but brilliant, kindly yet insane.