by Ian Whates
“It’s gone off like a bomb,” Jen added. “We were caught in the blast wave, but we’re not showing any resultant damage.”
Leesa kept quiet, Cornische noted, concentrating on her piloting, knowing that the more distance they could put between themselves and the picket ship the better. She must have realised, as he did, that the blast wave was the least of their worries. With the sphere destroyed, the buffer between the Iron Raider and the Mark of Mímir had been removed, leaving them vulnerable to the warship’s heavy armaments. Their only ally now was the distraction caused by the remaining two spheres. Cornische just hoped that would prove enough.
Seconds later, his worst fears were realised. A red warning light winked into life, demanding his attention.
He cursed silently. “Don’t relax just yet, folks,” he said aloud. “We’ve got incoming fire from the warship.”
“I see it,” Leesa confirmed from the other pilot’s chair. “Three missiles.”
Despite the acceleration they’d endured, the missiles were significantly quicker.
“Is there any chance we can catch two of them in a single blast by detonating one of them close to the other?” Cornische knew they only carried two anti-missile missiles in their limited arsenal.
“Highly unlikely.”
Of course not. “Fire countermeasures.”
“Missiles away.”
Tense minutes passed as they watched their two ‘birds’ – an archaic term that still prevailed – on the projection. Both flew true and two of the Night Hammer missiles died in a suitably dramatic flowering of flame – the detonations too distant to be felt by those on board the Raider.
The third kept coming.
“Let’s just hope it’s not a hunter seeker,” Mosi murmured.
What else would it be? Cornische thought but didn’t say, reckoning it was the last thing Leesa needed to hear, as she concentrated all her skills on evasion, taking the ship into a corkscrew loop that had them pressed back into their seats again.
The missile adjusted its course to follow them and it was closing far too rapidly. So much for hope. They had seconds left.
“Captain, I may be able to help.”
“Billy? Can you reach that far?” And are you up to it? The second question he kept to himself. For all their sakes, Billy had to be.
“I think so, yes.”
“Don’t wait for an invitation, then, just do it!”
The world lurched, as if the whole of existence stuttered – it was one of the most bizarre feelings Cornische had ever experienced, making the worst crossing into RzSpace seem like a smooth transition in comparison. Nor was this a one-time thing. Just as he thought his ‘self’ was coalescing into some semblance of mental and physical equilibrium, he felt his body wrenched apart again, and then a third time.
“Dear gods,” he heard Jen gasp as fragmented thoughts aligned and reason started to reassert itself. “Don’t ever let me go through that again.”
Somehow, impossibly, the missile was now in front of them rather than behind.
Leesa had clearly coped with the aftermath of Frame’s reality tampering far better than the rest of them, because Cornische knew that he would have been incapable of any coherent action for at least a few more precious seconds while his brain unscrambled, but not her.
The Night Hammer missile came about in a long arc. He stared at it, convinced the image should hold great significance for him, but not quite able to fathom what that might be.
Where he could only watch, Leesa acted.
Before the hunter could complete its turn and arrow in on the Ion Raider again, she triggered the ship’s tight beam energy weapon, doing so while the missile still showed its broadside to them and so offered a larger target. Cornische would never know if the accuracy of the strike was all down to her or if Raider had surreptitiously helped, nor did he care. All that mattered was that the beam lanced straight and true, triggering the missile’s deadly payload at too great a distance to damage them.
A ragged cheer went up from those around him. Cornische merely caught Leesa’s gaze and puffed his cheeks out in relief.
“Frame, good job,” he then said.
“Any more where those three came from?” Mosi asked.
“I shouldn’t think so,” Cornische replied, his composure recovered. “We’ve been moving away from the Mark of Mímir’s position at quite a lick throughout, thanks to the gs Leesa poured on to begin with. We’re now beyond effective missile range. Even if they try their luck and chance sending more missiles after us we’ll be at the jump gate before they could possibly catch up – and that’s assuming the Night Hammers can spare enough attention to make the attempt, with the Xter spheres still harassing them.”
“And where the hell did those spheres come from? Do you think the banks have reached out to the Xters, bringing them into this?
“Maybe.” It was as good a hypothesis as any Cornische had been able to come up with. After all, he had seen delegations of the aliens at First Solar’s offices from time to time, but he wasn’t convinced – he’d heard nothing that would suggest any of the banks worked that closely with the aliens.
“Billy!”
Jen’s shout brought his attention back to the man who had just saved them all. He was slumped in his seat, head lolling forward. Jen was already out of her own chair and across to him.
“I’m… I’m all right,” Billy said, lifting his head, but slowly, as if it weighed a ton. “Just been a long time since I attempted anything that big, if I ever have before. Even with the wristbands, that was tough.”
“I can confirm that Frame is uninjured, but depleted,” Raider reported.
“Billy, go and get some energy supplements from the galley, but don’t hang around. We’ll be at the gate in a few moments.”
“I’ll go,” said Nate. “I’ll be quicker.”
“Okay,” Cornische said, glad to see that Nate was willing to contribute. Perhaps he was going to work out after all. Not that there was much they could do about it if not.
“You all right, Lees?” Jen asked, coming to stand by her friend in the brief respite before they reached the gateway.
“I’m fine. I was just thinking about Saavi. Do you reckon she knew?”
“What, that Billy would save us?”
“Yeah. Without him being here to do his reality fiddling thing, I’d never have targeted the tight beam in time and taken out that missile.”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
“Yes I can. Without Billy here, we’d all have died, trust me.”
“To answer your question, yes, I think Saavi knew. She must have seen it among the potentials she was grappling so hard to understand. What I don’t get is why she went off to find him on her own. If you or I had been there, she would still be with us, I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, but would Billy?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, did you recognise him when you first laid eyes on him?” Leesa asked.
“No, not at all, not looking like that.”
“And we all saw how reluctant he was to come on board. I reckon the only reason he came to the ship at all was to deliver Saavi’s body, because he felt he owed her that much; and he hung around afterwards due to that same sense of obligation, because the debt of Saavi’s sacrifice hadn’t been repaid. If you or I had been there in that alleyway, Cloud would most likely have lived, and we would have returned to the ship without ever realising the identity of the scruffy vagrant whose life we’d just saved. Saavi’s death is what binds him to us. It’s the reason Billy was here when we needed him.”
“That’s deep,” Jen said.
“That’s Saavi for you.”
“I’m not sure I could have done that – gone to that alley, knowing what was to come… She’s the real hero in all of this.”
“Always.”
Eighteen
Cornische recalled his ext
reme discomfort when first taking the ‘elevator’ to the pocket universe where the cache on Enduril II had lain hidden. The sensation had caught him by surprise, his memories of crossings to Lenbya supressed at that point. This time, with his memories restored, he knew what to expect, which didn’t make the sensation any more pleasant.
It was not so much the actual pain, though there was some of that, but rather a sense of intense pressure, as if his insides were being squeezed together in a vice. Just as the feeling threatened to become unbearable, it was gone, and he was able to breathe again.
“For Elders’ sake!” The exclamation came from Nate, who sat doubled over in his seat, retching as if he might be sick. “First whatever Frame did, and then this… What is it with you people?”
“Welcome to the Dark Angels,” Leesa said.
“Raider, what’s waiting for us?”
“You’ll find a breathable atmosphere and Earth-standard gravity. A number of transports occupy the landing stage. The composite and the majority of personnel have moved inward, pursuing their campaign to seize control of Lenbya, but a contingent has remained with the ships.”
“Our welcoming committee, no doubt,” Jen said.
“They have also deployed defensive weaponry to ward off any further ships attempting to land. Before we begin final approach, I will neutralise these, but the soldiers will remain.”
“Glad to hear you’re leaving something for us to do.”
“You will find plenty to do once you have disembarked, Hel N.”
“I’ll bet.”
Cornische took control of the ship, bringing it in to land, Jen and Leesa having vacated the bridge to take up positions by the airlock. As Raider had promised, nothing fired at them on approach.
“All systems in the area have been neutralised,” Raider reported. “This includes any energy weapons carried by the Saflik forces in situ.”
As soon as the ship touched down they were out, Leesa heading left, Jen to the right. Cornische unbuckled from the pilots chair and hurried to join them; Geminum, Ramrod and Frame were with him. The sporadic sounds of gunfire and an occasional scream came to them from ahead via the open airlock doors, but by the time they reached the foot of the landing ramp, the sounds had ceased.
Mosi, who had slipped into his zombie-like trance state, snapped out of it just as Jen stepped from shadow to join them.
“The landing area is secure,” Mosi reported. “All hostiles are down.”
“I could have told you that,” said a silver figure, as she sauntered towards them.
They moved inward without ceremony, entering a broad high-ceilinged corridor that led towards Lenbya’s centre, and passing the first bodies almost immediately – two of them, in Night Hammer uniforms. The signs of conflict came thick and fast after that: jagged holes in the wall with charred edges and melted equipment, smoke curling up from one of them; wrecked vehicles that might have been automated mobile guns at some point; a luminous pink goo that dripped from the ceiling above an archway – beneath it in a pink puddle lay a twisted something that could once have been human – and many more bodies, some Night Hammers and others in plain black uniforms.
“Saflik.”
At first they moved in eerie silence, as if tiptoeing through the aftermath of battle that had flared and burned out, rather than reeling in step by step a conflict that still raged somewhere ahead of them.
Then they heard the distant rumble of an explosion and, as if that were a catalyst, the sounds of battle multiplied from there: the chatter of small arms fire, the whine of more sophisticated munitions, the pop pop sound of small detonations.
By unspoken consent, the Angels broke into a jog, conscious that they were catching up with the fighting.
The way Cornische envisaged this going, the Angels would slow down once they were closer to the battle and attack the enemy from the rear in a co-ordinated manner, catching them by surprise while their attention was focussed on Lenbya’s defences.
Things didn’t quite work out like that.
They came to a junction, with the way ahead splitting. It was difficult to be certain if the sounds of conflict came from one branch or the other or both.
“Mosi, you and Naj check the right hand fork,” Cornische said. “Don’t materialise, no matter what you encounter, just…”
He was interrupted by an explosion; more concussion than fire and shrapnel, but Cornische felt as if he’d been punched by a giant fist. It was enough to fling them all from their feet, even Hel N and Ramrod.
He came up against a wall, momentarily winded, but there was no time to recover as gunfire peppered them. Bullets thudded into the wall beside him and one struck his arm with bruising force, though the stibre in his coat prevented it from penetrating. He scrambled into a crouch, drawing one of his own guns – not trusting his left arm just yet, numbed as it was by the bullet’s impact – and looked for a target.
Figures, advancing towards them through the smoke of the explosion that filled the corridor on the right, targeting lasers seeking out the Dark Angels. Abruptly those figures warped, strobing in and out of view as Billy let loose.
Having so recently experienced the effect of Frame’s ability himself, Cornische would prefer to take a concussion blast any day. The Dark Angels opened up, picking off targets before they could regain their equilibrium. As the smoke cleared, none of the figures remained standing.
“Where’s Shadow?” Leesa said.
Until that moment, no one had even realised she was missing.
Jen hadn’t meant to desert the others, at least not for long. When the concussion round hit she had automatically slipped into shadow, with the intention of doing her bit against the advancing soldiers, but she hesitated when Frame struck. Seeing that the Angels then had the situation under control, she decided to go on ahead and do a bit of scouting.
This was Geminum’s speciality, of course, but Jen had her own methods and there were things she needed to confirm that she couldn’t share with Mosi. Just a quick look, just to see, then she would return to her crewmates.
It soon became apparent that things were more complex than she’d realised. The corridors divided several more times in a manner that didn’t match her recollection of Lenbya, causing her to wonder if Raider’s parent entity had deliberately added to the construction in the knowledge that an attack was imminent, building a labyrinthine approach to hamper the invaders.
She passed several squads of soldiers – Night Hammer mainly but also others – jogging in orderly fashion but not hanging around. It seemed the battle for Lenbya was no longer being fought on a single front but several, which she suspected was another deliberate tactic. Judging by the number of bodies they had passed on the way in, the Saflik advance had been costly. Forcing them to divide their forces this way must mean that they were spread pretty thin, hence the troop movements she’d seen – redistribution of resources as required.
Then she got lucky: a face she recognised. Not a full squad this time, just three of them: senior officer flanked by two soldiers. The fact that command was on the move like this made her wonder if the guardian entity had somehow compromised their communications. She crossed back from shadow around a corner, out of sight of the three, and pulled her mask back so that her head and face were exposed. She wanted the bastard to know who was about to kill him.
Knives drawn, she waited, back pressed against the wall, listening as the rhythmic slap of their feet drew closer. When she judged the moment to be right, with the three almost upon her, she stepped out, blades first, and plunged both into the nearest Night Hammer. Stibre polymer armour: lightweight and tough enough to deflect most calibre of bullet and just about any blade. Not hers. They plunged straight through, to puncture the uncomprehending trooper’s chest.
The bulky gun the man carried clattered to the floor. His body was already following suit as she dragged the blades out and passed behind the officer to engage the woman on his f
ar side.
She felt almost disappointed: this was a combat situation. They should have been alert, but her attack had evidently caught them by surprise. Both were reacting, but too slowly, almost as if they had been lulled a little by the rhythm of their own jogging – three together: safety in numbers.
The woman was trying to bring her gun to bear – trust a Night Hammer to bring a gun to a knife fight – but Jen was already upon her. She brought her right arm up sharply beneath the woman’s left elbow, knocking her arm and the weapon it held upward, taking both out of the equation. She then drove the blade in her left hand deep into the woman’s exposed armpit, a blow that may well have been fatal in itself, but to remove any doubt Jen stabbed her in the neck with her other knife.
Breathing hard but evenly, Jen stepped away from the corpse, a bloodied blade held loosely in each hand, to face the last of the three still standing. He looked much the same; older, of course, but still fit and hard-bodied, his eyes that same ice blue.
“Hello, Haaland,” she said, and smiled. “Long time no see.”
He was staring at her, incredulous. “Mia…? How…? I mean, it can’t be you. You’re supposed to be dead.”
“So are the Night Hammers.”
“Oh they tried. Believe me, they tried. But…” He shrugged.
“You struck a deal.”
It wasn’t a question. Politicians! Jen could well imagine the reasoning. The cost in terms of men and munitions required to take down the Night Hammers for good would have been considerable; far simpler to reach an agreement that saw them simply go away and then claim victory to the public and the media.
“Something like that.”
“Which, true to form, you’re now dishonouring.”
“What can I say? Circumstances change, the balance of power shifts, and options have to be reassessed.”
“And you saw an opportunity – you always did like a gamble.”
“You know me too well.”
Without further preamble, Haaland struck.
From nowhere, he produced a dagger – the standard Night Hammer combat knife, or so it appeared to be, but she soon discovered there was nothing standard about this version. As the blade thrust towards her, a flash of silver light lashed out from beside the fixed metal blade.