"Desist," said the other Soldat, drawing a combat knife. "We are to locate and terminate the GI. You must follow the kolonel's commands."
Heat lanced through his chest and arms, radiating out from the epicentre of the bio-implant, cramping every one of Bagman's muscles. "I gotta get this outta me..." he hissed through clenched teeth. "Nnnnnn! I ain't one of you no more!"
The las-scalpel in his hand blazed into life, the blade beam extending to its full magnitude. Bagman swept it around in an arc of yellow light, cutting cleanly through the wrist of the first Soldat. The second trooper should have ducked backward - that was what a seasoned soldier would have done - but instead he tried to turn inside Bagman's reach. He was ready and the las-scalpel tore open the other Soldat's throat. Green fluid spattered all over Bagman, burning him like acid.
He reached up to wipe the blood away and realised that some of it was his own; the G-Soldat's knife jutted from Bagman's ribcage. How had he missed that?
He stumbled onward, leaving the disarmed clone to bleed out in the dirt.
FIFTEEN
WILDFIRE
The pain in Ferris's leg was growing worse and he tried to put all thought of finding more no-shock ampoules out of his mind. As much as they would help, he wanted to stay sharp and focused. He wasn't about to accept Rogue's dead buddies back into the fold as easily as the GI did.
"Definitely a hopper," he said. "What's left of one, anyhow." Through his binox, Ferris could see a wing poking up from the twists of wreckage in the near distance. He glanced at Rogue; the GI had spotted the aircraft spiralling down out of the sky. "Did you see a missile?"
"Negative," said the GI. "But the pilot of that thing was dead before it hit the dirt."
"You think Helm or Bag were aboard?" said Gunnar.
"Can't be sure." Neither of them said what they were thinking. If their comrades had been in the hopper, they would surely have been killed and with no one around to save the biochip, they would stay that way.
"There's still, uh, bad guys out there," said Ferris. "You got a plan?"
Rogue gave a shrug. "I'm making this up as I go."
Gunnar gave a guttural snort. "Nothing changes."
A voice echoed down from the ridge. "Trooper? Sound off!"
"It's Purcell," said Ferris.
The Southers were tired but wary and the ragged group emerged over the top of the shallow valley with their weapons primed. Purcell had salvaged a gun from one of the G-Soldats and she held it like she was itching to use it. Zeke, Sanchez and three more men came with her into the embankment cut by the crashed atmocraft.
Sanchez surveyed the wreck and made a spitting noise.
"What's going on?" Zeke demanded of Rogue. "I saw a hopper go down. You do that?"
The GI looked back, impassive. "Threw a spanner in the works. Right now Schrader's realising that the rules of her hunt have just changed."
"With all due respect," Purcell broke in, "that psycho blond can go chew on a torpedo for all I care." She looked at Ferris. "Forget Schrader, let's get airborne."
Sanchez gave a hollow laugh. "Good luck."
Ferris blinked and the words came out in a rush. "The G-lifters are trashed. It wouldn't fly even if you strapped an orbital booster to it."
Purcell's face turned red with rage and she went for him, grabbing Ferris by the throat. "You civvie prick! You said you could fly it!" Ferris flailed and choked, pulling at the soldier's grip.
"Let him go!" Zeke snapped. "Purcell, you'll kill him!"
"Damn right I will!" she shouted. "You let us down, you stupid dink!"
Rogue took Purcell's arm and applied pressure at a nerve point; she gasped in pain and let the pilot go. "It's not Ferris's fault. We knew the wreck was a long shot."
The woman shook off Rogue's grip and gave him a fierce look. There were tears of exasperation and anger in her eyes. "So what are we supposed to do now, blue-boy? Throw rocks at the Norts until they decide to bomb us into the mud?"
"Hunters will get us before that happens," Sanchez said in a low voice.
Zeke turned on the other soldier. "Why don't you shut your damn mouth? I'm getting sick of hearing nothing but dead air every time you open it!"
Sanchez shrugged, unconcerned. "Just saying, is all."
"Norts!" The shout broke through the tension. One of the other prisoners, a gaunt figure in a Navy-issue chem-suit stabbed a finger, brandishing a small auto-pistol. "I see a green skin!"
Rogue loped up the ridge and pushed the Souther aside, bringing Gunnar up to bear. "Full sweep," he told the rifle.
"Check," replied Gunnar. "Movement, three o'clock."
The trooper's eyes narrowed as a figure moved around the hulk of a destroyed staff car. It was a G-Soldat all right, but a GI helmet capped the broad, expressionless head. The clone soldier was unarmed, but he sported a familiar, boxy backpack. The gear seemed incongruous on an enemy soldier.
"Helm?" said Gunnar, spotting the biochip slotted in the brow of the helmet.
Rogue drew a bead on the Soldat's eye, he wasn't going to take any chances. "Hold it right there," he called.
The figure glanced up and noticed him for the first time. Rogue saw thin streams of blood at the corners of his mouth and the patch of distended, wet flesh on his flank. The NexGen was trying to hold closed a wide, deep wound. "Hey, Rogue. Knew I'd find ya."
"Bagman," Gunnar grated. "He's hurt bad..."
The Soldat slipped to the ground. "Ah. Here we go again, huh?"
Rogue shouldered his weapon and came to Bagman's side. "Helm, you in there?"
"Yeah." The voice from the helmet was sullen and distant.
"What happened?"
"Heard you calling..." Bagman tapped his head with a finger. "Whatever you did, it worked." He coughed out a mouthful of blood. "Helm... Took a skydive without a grav-chute..."
"I had Norts to break my fall," the synth replied with gallows humour.
"Got to him in time," Bagman gave a lolling nod and removed the helmet. "Here. Don't seem right without you wearin' it."
"Rogue, he's got major internal bleeding. A Nort put a fractal-edge blade through his guts," Helm said flatly.
Bagman pressed something into Rogue's palm with blood-slick fingers. "Your turn now," he gave a faint, pained smile. "My turn, I mean." Bagman touched his head. "What goes around, comes around, huh? Get me outta here."
Rogue looked down at the las-scalpel in his hand and nodded. He thumbed the activation stud and the blade flickered into life.
"I say we ditch the freak and head for the Quartz," said the Souther in the scum-sea war gear. "We get into the Glass Zone, we're home free."
"In your dreams," Ferris frowned. "You want to leave Rogue behind in this hell-hole? You gotta be out of your mind, he's the only fighting chance we got."
"What makes you think you're gonna get a vote, civvie?" said Sanchez. "This is a military unit and you're just a punk-ass independent."
The pilot sneered. "Listen to you! Well, Major General Brigadier whatever the hell you wanna be Sanchez, maybe you haven't noticed, but this little happy band isn't exactly parade ground material!" He pointed an accusing finger at the soldier.
Sanchez stroked his revolver. "Like I said, what makes you think you get a vote?" He tapped the barrel of the gun to his faceplate. "Maybe I just put a round in you and take those nice binox."
"Shut up, all of you!" Zeke barked. "If we want to get out of this alive, we'll stick together and that includes the GI."
"You followin' his lead now, Sarge?" Purcell looked away.
Zeke's face soured. "Shut up," he repeated, with less force than before.
The sailor stood up, clutching at his captured Nort assault weapon. "The civvie's right about one thing, there ain't no chain of command in this place. I'm getting outta here and I'm not letting that freak stop me."
"You go right ahead," Purcell's tone was sarcastic.
The Souther turned on her. "What? You gone yellow too? I'm not going
back to that Norty zoo, you read me? The GI gets in my way, he's dead! We could take him if we hit him together, he's just one man-"
"You're wrong." Rogue's voice cut through the moment. He stood on the lip of the ridge, just as he had when he'd rescued Zeke and the others from the Soldat snipers. The straps of his backpack framed his chest and in one hand he held his rifle. "I'm not just one GI. I'm all of them."
The sailor's face fell as he met Rogue's wolfish gaze. The Souther looked away, his will to protest vanishing like vapour.
"There's still another hopper out there," Gunnar's synth was clear and direct. "It must have put down somewhere nearby."
"We can find it," added Helm.
"We take out the pilot and the flyer is ours," finished Bagman.
Zeke watched the GI carefully; the clone soldier seemed different now, harder and more focussed. "If we stay low, we could make for allied lines," said the sergeant.
Rogue shook his head. "We're not going to run."
"He's right," said Ferris, flinching as another dart of pain ran through his wound. "This place is laced with sensors. The moment Schrader realises that we've taken the hopper, we'll have a dozen rad-seekers up our tailpipe and boom! Titanium rain. We'd never get out of the test range alive."
"Oh, this I gotta hear," Purcell said. "So what's your suggestion then, Trooper?"
"There's gotta be a hundred or more prisoners of war still in Domain Delta, long-range atmocraft too. We go back and get them out and then everybody leaves."
"And what about the ice queen?" Sanchez said. "Schrader isn't going to let you steal her toys just like that."
"I'll handle Schrader. We got unfinished business."
Zeke gave a slow nod. "I'm in."
"Guess I am too," added Ferris.
"You're out of your mind!" said the sailor. "We go back there, we're dead for sure!"
Zeke rounded on the Souther. "Who's yellow now?" he demanded. "You were in the dome longer than us, you know what it's like in there. You think you'll be able to sleep at night knowing you left the rest of those poor buggers behind?"
The sailor went pale as the sergeant's words hit home. "Ah, shit."
Rogue scanned the motley group. "Gather all the weapons and kit you can find in the wreck and divide them up between you. We're taking out Domain Delta once and for all."
Volks approached the central dais in the command centre with trepidation, clasping the digi-pad in one hand. Kolonel-Doktor Schrader was silent and unmoving, her hands placed flat on her control console, her eyes never leaving the projected wall map of the test range. Numbers and symbols marched across the display as the concealed sensor pods buried in the dirt attempted to provide a coherent picture of the area. Volks could only give out probabilities on what was happening inside the battleground.
Schrader remained rigid, locked in place like a statue as Volks came forward. The kapten knew her moods better than any man in the dome, but even he could not predict the caprice of her nature. He was always on edge around her; she was cold toward him one moment, solicitous the next. Volks hated himself for it, but he feared her as much as he desired her.
He had expected Schrader to explode with rage when the disruption signal reappeared but she had said nothing, watching the flickering blips that may or may not have been the whereabouts of her Soldats and their prey. He cleared his throat self-consciously. "Kolonel, hopper one has returned safely, and the battle computer appears to indicate that hopper three has made a landing." She did not speak or even acknowledge his presence. Volks continued. "The observers report that the second flyer seems to have suffered some kind of malfunction. It crashed in sector five, close to the tangler pits."
"I underestimated him," she said quietly. "That was an error on my part."
Volks glanced at the digi-pad where the raw data from the range sensors was scrolling by. "Audio trackers registered explosions congruent to multiple grenade detonations and sporadic weapons fire in several locations." He paused, fearing her reaction. "The... jamming field prevents an accurate reading of the G-Soldat's med-status locators."
"They're dead," she announced. "He killed them. He truly is the finest of his breed. The ultimate survivor." The woman spoke as if she were giving a soliloquy, speaking alone to an empty room.
The Nort blinked in surprise. "Kolonel, that cannot be. Three units, nine newly decanted G-Soldats against one old-model GI... The odds of the Rogue Trooper's survival are practically zero."
Schrader smiled ruefully. "Now it is you that underestimates him." She turned and Volks saw emotion in her eyes. "You were correct, Johann. I should have listened to you. I should have terminated him when I had the chance." She reached out a hand and tenderly stroked his face. "After all I've done to you, you still put my welfare before yours."
Volks's mouth worked but no words came out. He had no frame of reference to deal with this new aspect of the woman, no way to understand the real Lisle Schrader.
Her hand dropped away. "Rogue is coming here, Johann. He's coming to destroy my work."
"I won't allow-"
"I am going to take steps," Schrader spoke over him, pushing past. "I have allowed myself to become distracted. The time has come to take my work to the next level." She left Volks standing there as she made her way to the elevator bank.
"Kolonel!" he called, suddenly unsure of what he should do.
She granted him a brief, real smile. "You've been very loyal, Johann. I'm sorry it has to end this way... But there's no other alternative, you see?"
The lift doors closed on her and Volks felt a sickening sensation in his stomach. For the first time, the officer truly understood that the woman he loved was utterly and completely insane.
"Unit three to Delta, respond." The Nort pilot tapped the communicator inside his chem-suit, in the vain hope that it might improve his signal reception; nothing but jammer-laden static greeted him. "Domain Delta, do you read? This is hopper three requesting status check, over."
He cursed and returned to the radio, fiddling with the frequency selector, searching fruitlessly for a channel that was less garbled than the others. As his orders had stated, the pilot had put down his aircraft at the edge of the target zone and waited for instructions. He was to await the return of the G-Soldat hunters with the body of the Souther Genetik Infantryman, but the orders never specified how long he had to wait. The grav-engines hummed in standby mode, ready at a moment's notice to lift the hopper back into the sky. The pilot felt cramped and uncomfortable, fidgeting in his seat. To be parked here, as a static target on the ground, was against every bit of his training. Perhaps, if it had been any other commanding officer giving his orders, the Nort might have risked showing a little initiative. He wouldn't dare buck the kolonel-doktor's commands, though... Other men in his unit had done so and found themselves flung into the prison, or worse, the labs.
A glimmer of movement brought his attention from the console and he looked up to see a knot of shabby figures coming out of cover toward the hopper. The Nort pilot's hand reflexively darted towards the G-button but then a laser bolt entered his skull through the middle of his forehead and flash-boiled the meat of his brain.
Ferris ducked reflexively as the whine of the las-round came to his ears, despite the fact that the sound of the beam's passage arrived instants after the shot had been fired; had the bolt been meant for him, he would never have heard it coming. "Whoa," he said, covering his twitch.
Zeke gave an appreciative nod. "He's got a dead eye, I'll say that for the trooper. Put that kill shot right through the cockpit plexi and on the bull."
"That's a GI for you," Purcell gibed. "Best money can buy."
Behind them, Rogue stepped out from behind the broken spar of wreckage he had used for a makeshift firing stand and approached. "Your show now, Ferris. Get us in the air."
"Copy that," said the pilot, flipping open the gull-wing door to the cockpit. The Nort dangled at an odd angle, held in his seat by acceleration straps. Gingerly, F
erris began to unlatch the corpse. The dead man's head lolled like a bag of thick fluid; Rogue's shot had popped open the pilot's skull with internal pressure from the liquefied brain matter.
The Southers piled aboard the hopper in a sullen mob, Sanchez automatically looting the craft's interior for anything of use. Purcell positioned herself near a pop-up pintle gun and checked the ammunition. Ferris took the pilot's position and revved the engines. "Good to go!" he shouted over the sound of the thrusters. Back in the saddle again, it was easier to ignore the slow burn from his leg wound.
Rogue was the last to embark, scanning the ground one last time. He turned his back to step into the hopper cabin and in that second a green shape exploded out from under a concealed pit, a camu-cape flickering as it flew away in the downwash.
Ferris stamped on the rudder, yawing the flyer around, but he was too slow. The G-Soldat slammed into the hull of the ship, striking at the GI with a bloody stump, his intact hand clawing a tear in the metal.
"This creep won't stay dead!" Bagman snarled.
The ground fell away from the aircraft as Ferris poured power to the throttles. For one long moment, Rogue teetered on the lip of the cabin door; the Soldat shouldered its way into the cabin, wrestling with the GI. In the cramped interior, it was like a knife fight inside a phone booth.
He was too close to shoot. Rogue spun in place and brought Gunnar down on the Soldat's face, the butt of the rifle breaking the reinforced bones in its jaw. A gun discharged; Sanchez fired wildly, the bullet ricocheting off the hull. The Soldat's stump hit Rogue again, the club of meat ringing his skull like a bell. Dimly, he heard Ferris shout something over the scream of rushing air.
"Hang on!" The hopper's fuselage moaned as the pilot made a vicious turn, standing the flyer on one stubby wing. Rogue saw the opportunity and took it, one hand gripping a restraint harness to hold him steady. He kicked out with both feet and hit the Soldat in the chest. The Nort GI lost his grip and fell away, tumbling over and over. Rogue watched him drop until he hit the ground in a heap of broken angles.
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