“No time to argue. We’re breaking up. Get going!” Jack grabbed the two of them and steered them toward the belly of the hold.
Maussaud and Rodriguez needed no urging and fled past him. He reached out and stopped Colin in the passageway. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? Get a chute on, you’re dropping with us.”
Colin smiled secretively. “We have some baggage on board we might want to take with us.” He turned and trotted toward the forward hold.
This was no time to be touring the corsair, but Jack followed him. He stopped in the portal as a familiar sight met his eyes. “Holy shit. These fellas were gunrunners.”
The Walker patted the casing of a mobile laser cannon. “Do you think you could hold onto one of these?”
Jack threw a chute at him. “You go first. I’ll follow.” He bent and hefted the equipment. When the Talons came at them, he would have something slightly more effective than stones to throw at them. He caught up with the prelate. “Do you think Jonathan knew about this?”
Colin’s voice was muffled as he stepped into the cargo hold, where Garner had opened up the bay doors. They were already so deep into the stratosphere that the ground below could be seen breaking through the cloud cover. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he replied.
Garner and Aaron still held the unconscious blue Knight between them. “Commander, I think you should know—”
“Can you manage his chute between you?”
The two veterans nodded. Distracted, Garner looked up and sputtered, “What th’ hell have you got there?”
Jack grinned. “Firepower. Altitude?”
Rodriguez was nearest the gauge. “Twenty thousand and dropping.”
“How close?”
“Ten thousand should bring us closest to our original target area.”
Aaron made a funny sound. Then he said, “How are we going to get off dirtside?”
“The Walkers have facilities here. They’re just having a little trouble with the Thraks.”
“Eighteen thousand.”
The wind whistled into the open bay as the corsair plunged downward. Jack’s armor grew cold. Bogie complained.
“There!” Colin pointed. An orange flare pierced the horizon. “Denaro’s responding to my transmission.”
“Fifteen thousand.”
“Shit!” Garner broke in. His gauntlet pointed. Jack could see a brace of Talons outpacing them on each flank. Any man chuting down would be an easy target.
Jack put the laser cannon down. He reached into his equipment belt and pulled out a grenade. He keyed the firing sequence.
“Ten thousand.”
“Go, go, go! I’ll keep them busy.”
Colin shuddered as Rodriguez and Maussaud pulled him out of the bay, their armor and his deepsuit arrowing into the high winds. Then Garner and Aaron went, dragging Skyler between them, who showed groggy signs of coming around.
Jack felt the chill inside the armor bite into his grin.
He tossed the grenade into the back of the hold, picked up the cannon, and jumped.
The corsair exploded into a fiery ball behind him, taking one Talon with it and sending the other into an out of control plunge. Jack wasted precious seconds freefalling to watch it go. Then, one-handed, he was very busy popping his chute and guiding it after the others. Much heavier than the others, he dropped like a rock. He was the first to see the third Talon sweeping in after them even as they approached the dissipating orange smoke of the flares. The Talon curled around them, and he could see the shots that took out Aaron and made Garner dance in the air like a broken puppet.
The warplane rolled in midair and swept around for a second run.
The ground came up fast. Jack braced himself and hit it running. He ripped off his chute so the ground winds couldn’t carry him over. The rest of the chutes came tumbling down.
Rodriguez hit a cliff.
Then there was only Maussaud and Skyler ripping off their chutes and helping St. Colin to his feet. Jack felt his throat squeeze shut for a split second. Then he hefted the cannon and broke into a run to meet them.
Skyler’s helmet had popped off and lay on the ground. The Knight hadn’t bothered to replace it yet, too busy untangling Colin from his chute. The Walker’s complexion had grayed, but he kept insisting, “I’m all right. I’m all right.”
Amber didn’t stop fussing over him until she had the chute off and could pat down the deepsuit for herself. The fierce ground wind of Colinada ripped at her long tawny hair, so Jack could not see the expression on her face as she turned when he joined them. The whine of the approaching ATV overrode his first words.
He didn’t repeat them, but, instead, reached out and grabbed her in a fierce hug. She mumbled, “Garner and Aaron tried to tell you. I knocked myself out in the John. They must’ve put my helmet back on and dragged me to the bay. Shit, Jack. They didn’t have a chance.”
He curled his gauntlet and traced a gouge along her blue Flexalinked shoulder. “You didn’t have much more of one.” He swung on Colin. “Did you know about this?”
The prelate was hanging his helmet on his equipment belt. He looked up. “Cross my heart, I didn’t,” he said. With a devilish grin, he added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Jonathan did, though.”
The ATV braked to a screeching halt in a hail of dust and gravel. Denaro stood up in full armor, broadcasting, “Here they come again!”
Jack panned the sky. He could hear the high-pitched whine of a Talon descending rapidly.
“Let’s go!”
They hung onto the ATV wherever they could fit as Denaro ground the gears and put it back into motion. Colin said mildly, as they bucked across the wilderness, “How do you keep going?”
“We’ve gone underground. They strafe us daily, but we’ve got a fix on the site, your eminence. We may never get out of here, but we’re going to see what it is they don’t want us to.”
“What about your ship?”
“Intact. But with them guarding the windows, it would be a suicide run to try to leave, sir.”
Jack ground his teeth against a hard jolt, then said, “We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”
“What?”
He looked at Amber. “Lure the Talons in, damage them, then the mother ship will get mad enough to come close. I ought to be able to singe her a little with our contraband friend here.”
Denaro looked back to see the cannon, then wrenched the wheel, narrowly avoiding a rather solid looking tree. Its lower branches whipped about the battle suits. Sparse forest gave way to outcropping, and Jack could see the sod-roofed underground installation. The ATV skidded to a halt.
Denaro reached for the cannon. “I’ll take that.”
In the flush of sunlight, Jack reached for the cannon, and Bogie stopped him.
*Let him have it.* The sentience wrapped around him, quelling the movements of his gauntlets.
Denaro looked at him, then took the cannon gently. “I’ll get you the homing beacon.”
“Tell him it won’t be necessary.*
Jack could feel Bogie swelling along his shoulders. “What is it?”
*It calls to me, boss. This is one of the memories I’ve been dreaming of. I know where it is.*
The site on Lasertown had had its siren song, too, pulling unwary miners to their death trying to answer it. Jack hesitated.
Amber looked at them. “What is it?”
“Mutiny, I think.” Jack swallowed. “Denaro, give me your armor.”
“You can’t ask him to make a stand without a suit!”
But the Walker militant was already stripping. He stepped out of the dark armor proudly, clad only in his trousers, and Jack was reminded of those moments on Harkness’ freighter and of the young man who’d been undefeated even in that time of retreat.
Jack climbed out of his white armor. He sealed it back up and strewed the helmet on. “It’s all yours, Bogie.”
Maussaud scrambled back in shocked silence as the
battle armor animated. Colin watched, his expression masked by the deepsuit helmet, as Jack’s armor began to move. Its contortions were herky-jerky for a moment, then the suit walked off ten paces. It beckoned.
“God’s balls,” Denaro said, then flushed. “What have you got there?”
His elder pointedly ignored him. His helmet swung toward Jack. “Sentient computer run?”
“Not exactly. If we get through this, I’ll try to explain it to you. Just take it that we need all the firepower we can get, and he’s a big boy now.” Jack stepped into Denaro’s suit, the only armor big enough to accommodate him.
Amber unscrewed her helmet and popped out a small circuit board. “Synthesizer,” she said as she palmed it. “So you wouldn’t recognize my voice.” She went to the opalescent battle suit, took off the helmet and installed the card. She talked for a few minutes and Jack wondered if she was explaining to Bogie how to utilize the circuitry. She screwed the helmet back and stepped away.
“Follow me,” said Bogie within the armor. His voice was not the deep, grating voice Jack knew, but basso prof undo, melodious—and joyful.
The Talon swooped over them.
“Get out of here,” Denaro yelled, and dragged the cannon into position by the outcropping that hid the Walker installation. Maussaud hesitated, then said, “I’m staying here, commander.”
Jack nodded. “All right.”
They ran after Bogie.
It was like running after a child who’d just begun to walk. As they approached the hills, Bogie gained ability. He stopped only once, to spread his gauntlets as if drawing down the sun’s rays to him.
“What’s he doing?” Amber asked, her voice breathy as she tried to catch her breath.
“Refueling, I think.”
Colin said nothing, but went to one knee, with his head bowed. Jack could hear him gasping over the com lines.
“This is no time to pray,” Amber said, and tried to help him up.
The older man shook his head. “You’ve got power suits. I’ve got nothing. Forgive me, Amber, but I’m still an old man.”
She looked at him in shock, then began to strip the vacuum suit off.
“What’re you doing?”
She met Jack’s stare. “It’s no protection to him now! It’s just weighing him down. And this way, we won’t have to carry him as soon.”
There were dull explosions in the background. As Jack pivoted, he saw the golden lance of the laser cannon’s reply. The Talon veered off sharply.
Colin coughed. “It had better be worth it.”
They looked over the horizon. They’d come up a steep incline of shale, and now looked out over a meadow lush with spring grasses and tiny yellow flowers. Bogie began to stagger down the slope, heading toward the mountain facing on the valley’s far side.
“I’m here!” he cried out.
Jack reached for Colin’s elbow and Amber took the other side as the air thundered over them. The three of them looked up. The Thraks were determined that this discovery not be made. If Denaro failed to hold the enemy, all of them would die here in this valley. They ran as the white armor ahead of them fetched up against a wind and rain exposed cliff, with eons of time written in its stratas.
Bogie scrabbled away at the sod and rock until he found a fissure, then tore at it with his gauntlets. The cliff face peeled away as though it had been chiseled to do so, in one slab which went to dust and pebbles at the battle armor’s feet.
Amber caught her breath, but it was Colin who murmured, “Good God Almighty.”
The white armor froze for a moment, its glove curved over the monstrosity exposed by the soft ground.
“What is it?”
“It’s what we saw on Lasertown,” Jack told Amber. “At the digging site, before it was destroyed.”
Bogie’s curved gauntlet fell downward in a gentle caress over the mummified being. A sound came over the suit mikes, a sound Jack had no other word for but wail, yet it was short and smothered.
“It called to him,” Colin said. “Just like the dig site at Lasertown called to so many unfortunates. Even after death. Even these hundreds, maybe thousands of years later.” He turned to look at Jack. “What is that inside your armor?”
“A gift from Milos.”
A hissing intake of breath. “Berserker?”
“No… I don’t know. I don’t think so, but whatever it is, it’s regenerating itself from a square of hide, a chamois, inside my armor. It’s a small bit of flesh, but it thinks—and cares.”
“And interacts with your circuitry.”
“That, too.”
“Alive,” Colin murmured. “And aware, and called.” After a slight hesitation, he moved forward to touch the mummified creature himself. Bogie’s gauntlet went out as though to stop him, and then fell back.
It was saurian. No doubt of that… the skin retained its scaly pattern even through its crust of age and dirt. It looked upward, as though destruction had rained from the sky, catching it unawares. The head was broad, the eyes like a horse’s… no sight directly to the front or rear, but well-set for vision otherwise. The teeth, bared in a death grimace, were sharp at the corners but well rounded otherwise. Colin touched them.
“Not carnivorous, at least, not strictly. These are for grinding, not tearing. Look at the hands.”
For hands they were, not paws or toes, fully exposed as the find reared up.
“Bipedal?” Jack said and moved forward, as drawn by the beast as Bogie and Colin were. Amber stayed on point, watching the scene over one shoulder.
“It looks as if he was. And look at this.” Colin reached for something wedged in the dirt, something held in the hand on the far side. It came loose easily from the beast’s fingers.
“It’s a nonbiodegradable polymer satchel.”
Amber made a faint noise. Jack grinned. “It’s a plastic bag,” he told her.
She mouthed an indistinguishable curse.
Colin held it in his hands for a moment. Jack saw that they trembled. He looked up at Jack.
“Should I open it?”
“And have what’s inside disintegrate when the air nits it?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” The Walker looked out over the hills, toward the reddening sky. “We may never get away from here to open it under better conditions.”
Amber muttered, “Just seeing it may have to be good enough for you. Jack, I’m picking up blips on the long-range target.”
“ID?”
“Not yet. We’re out here in the open.”
Bogie mobilized then. With movements almost too swift to follow, gauntlet fingers chiseled out the body and he lifted the fragile remains in his arms. “Boss, let’s get out of here.”
“You can’t take that with you!”
“I feel him in my mindsong. I was meant to come here, to find him, to bring him… home. Jack—” and Bogie held out his arms, pleading.
The mummified form seemed to shift in the cradle of Flexalink sleeves. Jack sensed it and lunged forward too late. The mummy began to cave in upon itself, dust unto dust, ashes unto ashes, and rained through Bogie’s helpless fingers as the sentience cried.
He did not stop until the mummy had finished disintegrating and was nothing more than particles upon the ground. Bogie stood still, his arms outstretched toward Jack.
“I’m sorry, Bogie. The exposure… it wasn’t meant to be.”
Amber said, “Jack.”
Bogie turned his gauntlets over, emptying dust from his palms.
Then Jack added, “Your helmet cameras recorded the find. We’ll have pictures, at least.”
Then Bogie spoke, from the hollowness of the armor he inhabited. “At least,” he echoed. He looked up. “Amber is right. We’ve been targeted.”
Jack felt the rumbling then, a deep subsound that prickled the hairs on the back of his neck. A rumbling like the one that had awakened him in the middle of the night when warships firestormed Claron. Or the rumbling a soldier hears just before a dr
op of enemy troops. By the time the sound became fully audible, it would be too late.
“Shit.”
He grabbed Colin by the elbow. “It’s time to think about getting out of here.”
Amber loped by them, her armor glinting in the first blue rays of sunset. “Past time,” she muttered.
Bogie shadowed Jack. “Boss, I’m getting three blips. Two gunboats and a third, much larger ship.”
The broken terrain made any speed difficult. He kept a hand out to Colin’s elbow as the older man stumbled now and then, and a too bright flush pinked the prelate’s face. His thin fringe of chestnut and gray hair ruffled in the wind, and he puffed a little as he endeavored to keep up with Jack. But the Walker kept a death grip on his plastic bag.
He could hear the sky’s envelope giving way to the gunships that were streaking in. Colin staggered to a slow jog.
“Don’t stop now.”
“How far?”
“Far enough.” Jack looked over the hillocks. He said to Bogie, “Which ones are going to reach us first?”
“The third ship, at this rate.”
He stooped and looked up. “Then I think we’re going to be okay.” He pointed as the Ash-Farel swept over and the Talons disintegrated in its wake. His shout of welcome was swallowed by the thunder of its passage. He frowned then.
“How did you know?” Amber breathed
“I didn’t,” Jack answered her. “And I’ve changed my mind. We may not live to tell the tale.”
Chapter 32
He thumped Colin on the shoulder and grabbed Amber by the elbow. “Run for it. We need to get as far underground as possible.”
“What is it?”
He took off his helmet and hung it from his equipment belt. Denaro’s armor fit him well, but he didn’t wish to meet Colin’s gaze through the sunscreen darkened visor, “Curse me for a farming boy—Amber’s right. I’m too thickheaded to play these games. We’re just part of the bait in a trap.”
Overhead, thunder rumbled, but the sky did not smell of rain. Soon, it would stink of battle. The three of them, tailed by a shambling Bogie, began to walk out of the valley.
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