As he struggled with the gun, Nathalie, Elizabeth, and Heidi ran up, Nathalie flinging her arms around him despite the awkwardness of the hardware slung around his neck.
“Oh mon Dieu, mon Dieu! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe you are here!” Despite the situation, John swept her into his arms and kissed her. When Nathalie broke away, she gasped in surprise. “You are so thin! You are all bones!”
John cracked a wry smile. “Yeah, starvation does that to a bloke.”
He grabbed Elizabeth next and hugged her close for a long moment. “I’m so proud of you,” he whispered in her ear. “So proud.”
Elizabeth broke away, but instead of tears in her eyes he saw a fierce gleam.
“Come on, Dad! We’ve got them on the run!” she said, and turned toward the mine entrance. “Come on!”
John wavered but gave in to the moment. He struggled again with his unwieldy weapon and gave a grunt of satisfaction as the slide mechanism snicked into place.
He set off after Elizabeth, followed by Nathalie and Heidi. He too wanted to end this now. He skidded to a halt by the mine entrance, boots kicking up a spray of gravel, and snatched a look into the shaft. Strip lights running down the center of the ceiling provided light, but the glare of the midday sun obliterated anything beyond the first few meters.
John swiped the sweat out of his eyes. “We’ll just have to chance it.” He lifted his gun and plunged into the semi-darkness, running perhaps ten meters before flattening himself against the wall and straining his eyes to see further. The others scrabbled into place behind him, still breathing hard from their headlong sprint to the mine entrance.
As their eyes adapted, they saw no one in front. They could see another twenty meters until the shaft took a dogleg to the right to follow a seam of ore worked out years before.
They crept forward, the raw rock of the shaft wallpapered in shadows cast by the harsh ceiling lights. John led, his blood roaring. He fought hard to resist the urge to run, to finish it.
Another snatch-glance and again the way looked clear until the next bend to the left. The walls of the shaft seemed to swallow all sound except their own ragged breathing, which surely must be loud enough to alert their enemy. John signaled with his hand they should advance, an unconscious accord there should be no speaking now. They made their way to the next bend, hugging the wall for the scant cover it provided.
This bend was sharper and the floor dropped as the mineshaft twisted to follow the seam once more. John cursed himself for not thinking to fabricate a camera sight for his rifle as he once again risked a glance around the corner.
Again, nothing. Again they advanced, descending with the shaft. This mineshaft was different to the mines of old, which followed a pattern of straight, regular tunnels; rather it moved to chase the seams of ore with a precision human miners couldn’t match. Robots with scanners missed not a gram of ore as they ground their way into the planet.
The mineshaft descended and divided, one branch going left and the other continuing straight for a few meters before heading to the right. This left them exposed and in need of a decision – should they go left, or right?
As they neared the first branch, they found they had no choice. Heidi had trailed behind, and they heard the slightest of scraping sounds – the sound of a boot on loose gravel – coming from behind her.
She pivoted and started at the sight of someone rounding the corner. Her trigger finger tightened as she reacted to send a shot back up the shaft. She didn’t hit anything, but she did encourage their pursuers to pull back and alert the others to their presence.
As Heidi caught up, the four of them ran to the other side of the shaft and formed up to face the new danger. This saved their lives, as a hail of fire erupted from the right-hand shaft, their former quarry turning to the attack.
The hunters had become the hunted.
“Bugger!” John said, “The bastards led us into a trap!”
He turned to return fire forward, while Heidi encouraged the followers to keep their distance. This left Elizabeth and Nathalie to consider tactics, and it didn’t take them long to decide their only chance was to take the left shaft.
“Dad! Heidi! I’m crossing over to shoot forward! Go left when I do!” Elizabeth said, again surprising John with her assertiveness.
They had no time to argue. Elizabeth waited until John let loose with another burst before leaping across the shaft and following up with a shot of her own. She gained a better angle and saw their quarries waiting for a chance to return fire. She snapped off three quick shots and forced them back, providing them with the few seconds’ respite they needed.
“Go, go, go!” she shouted.
John, Nathalie and Heidi needed no second invitation and sprinted down the left-hand shaft. Elizabeth followed, throwing herself to the ground in her haste to escape the firetrap. She scrambled to her feet, fumbling to retrieve her gun, limbs like lead just when she needed speed the most. She followed the shaft as it curved to the right but collided with John and Heidi, standing with their backs to a sheer rock wall. They had run down a blind shaft. They had nowhere to go.
“Shit!” John said, almost spitting the curse. “I wished I’d paid more attention to where these fucking shafts went.”
The left shaft must have been a detour to capture a bubble of ore.
Elizabeth didn’t waste time on recriminations, instead edging back up the shaft, weapon held shoulder-high in both hands. John and Nathalie exchanged a glance that asked the same question: When did our daughter turn into a warrior princess?
A hail of bullets greeted Elizabeth when she rounded the curve back to the main shaft. She hurried to withdraw, dropping to the ground to take cover as the bullets ricocheted off the walls.
“Look out!” she said.
John shoved Nathalie to the ground against the right-hand curve of the shaft, covering her with his body. Their luck held, as the rock walls absorbed enough impact energy to stop the bullets.
They had little time to count their blessings. As soon as John regained his feet, a small object clattered off the wall to his right, rolling to a stop at his feet.
“Holy shit!”
The words weren’t out of his mouth before he reacted, bending to scoop up the grenade.
The cricket fields of John’s youth saved them. Almost without thinking, he sent the grenade flying back with a flat sidearm throw straight back down the shaft. He didn’t think about direction other than away. As fortune would have it, the grenade struck the far side of the main shaft to the right. Its oval shape sent it ricocheting in that direction, back toward their pursuers.
“Down!” John dropped to the ground and covered his ears. A deafening bang echoed off the hard rock walls of the shaft.
There were cries for help, followed a shriek of pain; a woman from the sound of it.
They huddled in their short bolt hole, trying to keep to a zone that shielded them from direct fire and away from the danger of ricocheting bullets. They may have neutralized their pursuers, but they were far from safe. Their dead-end shaft may well become their tomb.
“I’ve got an idea,” John said, whipping out his phone. “Can you guys see if you can keep their heads down? We have to stop them chucking another grenade in here. We won’t get that lucky again if they count longer before letting it go.”
Elizabeth nodded and crawled forward on her belly, hugging the wall to present as small a target as possible. Soon they heard the sound of gunshots.
John punched away at his phone.
“What are you doing?” Heidi asked.
“You’ll see.”
The smell of dust and gunpowder hung in the air and the noise of Elizabeth’s staccato gunfire rang in their ears, drowning out the sounds of sobbing from back up the shaft. Nathalie crawled forward to help her daughter, the sound of her own gun soon adding to the din.
John stopped stabbing at his screen and looked up with satisfaction – but his expression soon changed
to despair.
“Shit. There’s no signal in here.”
“Are you sure? The light strip …”
John motioned upward with his eyes. In all the excitement, they hadn’t even noticed the darkness in their section of the shaft. A stray bullet had killed their lights and the radio repeater that went with them.
John grabbed his rifle. “Have you any …”
Heidi understood at once and produced a roll of duct tape from a pocket in her cargo pants.
John grinned. “Of course you do.” Heidi returned his grin. She and John were no longer partners in love, but over the years their professional rapport had deepened to the point they could almost read each other’s thoughts.
Heidi advanced to crouch just behind Nathalie, holding her gun away from the wall and squeezing off a volley of shots in the general direction of the enemy. John meanwhile taped his phone to the end of his weapon with quick motions and came up to stand behind her. His thin muscles strained to take the weight of his weapon as he pushed it forward as far as he could. If all went well, the phone would resend the commands he had tapped in. He wouldn’t find out if he’d succeeded any time soon, though. Their enemy had found the target the phone offered and a hail of bullets shattered it, jolting the gun out of John’s hands.
“Did it work?” Heidi asked, the whites of her eyes contrasting with the griminess of her face in the subdued light.
John shook his head, uncertainty in his eyes. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Elizabeth shuffled back a little to change clips, Heidi covering her with another volley. “This is my last clip.”
John nodded, holding her eyes for a moment. “Make them count.”
They hugged the wall as a furious hail of fire came through. Heidi wasn’t sure what John had done, but whatever it was, if it didn’t work they would soon have to risk something dangerous. They couldn’t stay where they were.
Quiet fell, punctuated only by the soft sound of weeping from the wounded pursuer.
Both sides seemed to have become weary of the fight and sought a brief respite, the adrenalin of battle draining away.
Then came a new sound. From far away, they heard a rustling, a scraping, a hint of something increasing in intensity second by second.
Something was coming.
John grinned. “Thank God. The signal got through.”
Heidi looked at him, raised eyebrows asking the question.
“Wait. You’ll see.”
Closer and closer it came: a skittering and a scratching of metal on stone. The low sobbing from up the shaft became a scream, then shrieks of pure terror as the sound of the oncoming thing grew louder and louder. John crept forward and looked out into the main shaft, followed by Heidi, Elizabeth, and Nathalie, peering over his shoulder. The shooting had stopped. Whatever approached must have spooked the insurgents further down the shaft to their left.
The screaming from the wounded woman intensified. A horde of mining robots, the little helpers that looked like giant spiders, burst into view around the bend.
The harsh light glittered from their silvery hides as they poured through, some climbing the walls in their haste to get by. The pounding of their feet sent vibrations through the rock, raising the hair on the backs of their necks.
Heidi drew back in horror, bumping into John. In the semi-dark, they looked all too like something out of a nightmare, and the continuing screams of horror echoing down the shaft did nothing to change that impression.
“I thought they couldn’t harm humans!”
John grinned, a feral, humorless expression. “They can’t. But they don’t know that.”
He hefted his weapon and charged out into the main shaft.
“Come on!”
Elizabeth fell in behind him, and after a moment’s hesitation Heidi and Nathalie followed, chasing the last of the robots down the shaft.
The sound of automatic gunfire greeted them as they rounded the bend and found two men and a woman shooting at the robot swarm, their shots wild.
“Drop your weapons!” John shouted above the mechanical clamor. “Put down your weapons or die where you stand! Now!”
The robots continued on their headlong rush and the gunfire tailed off as the shooters realized the danger wasn’t from the robots, but the humans. Two of them raised their hands over their heads. The third did not.
Heidi stepped forward, pistol at the ready. “Is she worth it?” she asked. “Is she worth your life?”
Maxim glared back at her. One heartbeat. Two.
The fight died in his eyes as he considered her words, and he too raised his hands.
“Drop them!”
Two of them jumped as John interjected, and they all hastened to comply.
“Turn around! On your knees, hands on heads!”
John was in no mood to negotiate. All three of them complied.
“Cross your legs behind you.” He looked at Heidi and inclined his head toward their weapons. One by one, Heidi kicked them back to John. She produced her roll of duct tape once more, this time binding their hands.
“On your feet, now!” John said.
They struggled to their feet, assisted none too gently by the four people they had tried their best to kill only minutes earlier. One of the prisoners raised his head and Nathalie drew her breath in sharply when she saw who it was.
Sheldon Owen.
He dropped his head again, unwilling to meet her gaze.
John shoved Maxim back toward the shaft entrance. “March!”
The prisoners shuffled forward, heads down, defeated.
They soon came to the wounded woman, and the body of another who had borne the brunt of the blast. Nathalie looked away, covering her nose with her elbow. Blood had splattered everywhere, and the smell of excrement from the dead victim’s shattered bowels permeated the air. The second pursuer, the lucky one, could thank her companion for her life. Although shielded from the blast, she hadn’t escaped unscathed, and lay in agony on the ground, one leg looking like hamburger wrapped in shredded denim.
Sheldon retched.
“Not so fucking funny now, is it?” John said. “You arseholes are lucky this isn’t you.”
He turned to Heidi without waiting for a reply, not that he expected one. “See if you can do anything for her. I’ll be back as soon as we deal with this lot.”
Heidi wrinkled her nose but nodded, and drew her medical kit from a pocket. She couldn’t fix a wound this big, but she could staunch the blood and give the woman some pain relief.
John prodded Maxim with his gun. “Move.”
He received no argument. They all seemed glad to leave the grisly scene.
11
“Over there.” David pointed to a growing mound of boulders, directing the bot carrying another load.
Everyone had pitched in to build defenses for the assault David felt sure must now come. A line of tents stood behind a barricade looping out from the western wall of Haven at the end of the wild lands. A straggling line of people walked back and forth from the main settlement, bringing food, water, clothes. David recognized fear reflected in the eyes of many, resentment in others.
They didn’t sign up for this. They don’t know what’s coming, what will happen to them. If we win, who might die defending our colony? If we lose, what would life be like under Carla?
Some stood with David carrying guns. Kevin – lean, tanned, and strong. His assault rifle fit him like a glove. He carried it as if he’d be born with one in his hands, frightening in his casual menace.
Simon, his muscular bulk and broken nose painting the picture of a hard exterior that belied his gentle nature.
Sabine, standing next to Simon with one hand on his shoulder. She’d shed her demure wife persona like a grasshopper molting a skin no longer needed. Once more she sported vibrant purple hair, and a sequence of tattoos snaked down her right arm in a new sleeve.
If possible, Simon seemed more smitten than ever.
&nbs
p; Nigel and Josh stood nearby. Nigel looked calm as always. Josh shifted from foot to foot, his rifle an uncomfortable foreign object. David wished he didn’t need to rely on them. They were scientists, not warriors. They had no place in the front line of a battle.
“Maybe they won’t come,” Josh said, his face questioning.
David shook his head. “They’ll come. Carla’s committed herself.” He looked back at their preparations. “Best case, the kids will have a new fort to play on.” He hoped his smile seemed reassuring. “Better safe than sorry, though.”
Sometimes silence shouts the loudest. The waterfall could be heard everywhere in Haven. Nearby, a steady roar as water burst from the feeder tunnel and plunged into the catch pool, swirling in white-foamed fury. Far away, a rumble like the thunder of a distant storm. The sound of falling water had become the backdrop to their lives. Tuned out, invisible.
Until it stopped.
David’s head snapped up, his mind processing the implications. He jumped to his feet. Carla had outsmarted them. “They’re here! They’re coming through the waterfall!”
He turned to Kevin and Vasily, both already primed to act. “Go!”
Kevin set off. Vasily, Tobias, and Christian followed, Vasily impassive as always, but fire smoldered in his gray eyes. The two ex-security men were eager to distance themselves from Carla. David knew he could rely on them to support Kevin and Vasily to the hilt. Steve Pickard brought up the rear. The big Australian was a warrior in business, not war, but he had volunteered to do his part. David put him with Kevin as Steve seemed to respect his tough, no-nonsense approach.
David turned to Nigel and Josh, whose faces painted a grim picture. “Time to head to the shuttle bay.”
Josh opened his mouth to protest, but David shut him down. “This might just be a diversion. The main attack might still come from the shuttle bay. We can’t afford to leave our back exposed.”
Serendipity Page 15