Everyone staggered or found themselves jolted towards the starboard side of the Aircar; Brad jumped back into the pilot seat, grabbed the Navigation Sphere as it reappeared and pushed it left. Chelsea fell against the double doors and looked out through the Transplyous to see a few fractured concrete blocks dropping away from the unfortunate building as it receded from view into the heavy swirling snow.
“Sorry!” Hawk called out.
Karen dropped into the seat next to his and called up several displays, data and graphs – colour-coded informatics perfected by centuries of experience – and shook her head with relief. “It’s okay, everyone, no damage to Magic Wagon… we’d better remember that building, though; one day, when this is all cleared up, the owners may want to know who knocked a chunk out of their property!”
“Alors!” Sophie came up behind Kirrina’s ‘Captain’s chair’ and leaned down, planting a kiss on the hair that – somewhat ironically – reminded her of her own, a few minutes earlier, but now contrasted with the dark waves that fell to briefly surround the crown of her rescuer’s head. “I found that… so much, in my mind!” She expressed herself a little disjointedly to the blue eyes now looking straight up at her.
Karen twisted around, noticing the total limpness of the staid clothes for the first time. “Oh, I’m sorry too! I should have got the Medic programmed to fix the clothing, like the one in Citadel does.” I bet it’s not very comfortable, either! She picked up Mrs. Trathad’s response as she took one hand into her own, finding that Sophie was indeed most uncomfortable, as her underclothes fit even less well and even her bedroom slippers were too large for her rejuvenated feet, now that she had been restored to a state equivalent to her most toned and slender self – plus that special ‘extra’ that the Medic had given her for the first time in her long life.
“I’ll wait – this mission sounds too exciting to worry about such things.” Sophie pulled her hand away and pointed at the view – such as it was – ahead. “I didn’t catch what the reason was for this weather…” As she said this, she realised that the platinum blonde beauty had indeed provided that information in their brief ‘tête-à-tête’. “Oh…”
“Sophie, Sophie,” Kirrina murmured. “Please, take a seat, we have a few minutes. Let your mind relax… you’ll find that a lot more will surface, if you give it space.” She saw that her message was accepted – the deep brown eyes looked forwards, into the storm and the even darker hair that framed the face in gentle waves moved as she nodded, her lower lip pulled in and her expression now more calm and introspective.
Brad glanced around, confirming that their newest accomplice was returning to a seat at the back of the Aircar. Ahead, the area visible through the large front Transplyous window became almost impossible to see – the snow continued its apparently horizontal course, twisting around each sky-scraper and pushing at Magic Wagon – each course deflection was countered now by his hand, cupped around the sphere that, like the snow, seemed to stay up, without any obvious mechanism to support it.
“This must be it,” Ruth whispered, having reclaimed the space behind Karen.
Hawk took them around the corner of the building, onto the perpendicular course that led along Fifty-Seventh Street, directly to ‘The Morrison’, the building where Terry resided. Visibility was now less than a hundred metres, with moments when nothing could be seen at all. Beside him, Kirrina was busy typing on an unearthly suspended block of keyboard-like proportions. A slightly red image became visible as she finished, superimposed on the uninformative view, showing the edges of the buildings with crisp clarity.
“That’s a part-radar, part computed extrapolation frame.” Mrs. Fletcher nodded with satisfaction. “It’s probably good to about a metre or so, so don’t rely on it completely.”
“I ’spect I’ll see enough of the structure when I get really close to avoid knocking any more bits off!” Hawk’s moustache twisted as he recalled the moment of embarrassment with chagrin. I sure am glad it isn’t a ’copter! He cruised upwards, almost to roof top height, experimenting with the characteristics of the turbulence.
Karen, looking at his profile, caught the emotion of his comment without any special effort or skill but refrained from commenting. Can’t risk making my first saviour neurotic, now, can I? She watched the whiteness slide past, counting the sub-structures as they were delineated by the application she had created.
“This is it.” Brad turned the front end of the Aircar, pointing Magic Wagon at the rooftop a few metres ahead, though the outline was distorted by the encrusting icy snow as well as the storm. He circled around to the crossroads in front of the structure, adjusting again to a height which was level with the flat roof, and pointed Magic Wagon at the twenty four story building from this angle. This façade was protected by the prevailing wind direction and the horizontal surfaces were clean and clear. “Looks nice, except for that strange lumpy bit on the roof there.”
Everyone inside Magic Wagon looked at the distorted roofline, wondering what could have caused this, until a brief gleam on a long, thin, plank-like protrusion revealed the truth.
“Copter.” Hawk’s expression hardened as he thought about the pilot and crew of this very familiar transport. He glanced at Karen, wondering if there was any hope for them.
“I can’t detect anything alive in it.”
Eric quickly checked, scanning with the infrared detector. “Nothing above the average in temperature inside it, either.”
Brad pushed gently down, taking their much safer craft down to the eighteenth story and pushing his thoughts about the crash aside, too. “He lives on this floor.”
“I think everyone must have left the building when that crash happened. I can’t find – no, wait, there are some people lower down, on the first few floors, a few on the ground level, and in the basement… yes, this Terry is down there – he’s watching over two others sleeping nearby.”
We’ll have to land and go in on foot… Hawk pushed down on the Navigation Sphere, tilting the Aircar slightly so he could see what the conditions on the ground at the front of the building were like as he took them down.
“There’s no one around with weapons?” Eric questioned, his hand already on his trusty M-16 again as he got into a crouch, ready to leave the safety of their craft.
“Everyone close enough to be a risk seems to be sleeping.” Kirrina’s eyes hardened to battleship grey and a sheen appeared on her forehead as the floors slipped by outside. “Other than Terry in the basement, there’s no one on the ground floor that’s awake – at least within the building. The ones either side seem to be empty.”
The Aircar settled onto the snow – wind-packed into an icy hardness – with barely a crackle of the toughened cold solidity that contrasted so dramatically with the ocean waters which this craft had traversed during its first trips on Earth, long before the Narlav attack.
“As we don’t have any winter coat or shoes for you, I suggest you wait in here.” Karen twisted to look at the most recent addition to their craft, taking in the European ‘feel’ of the finely sculpted face, noting how the stylish waves of almost black hair seemed to harken from an earlier period. She must have pictured herself according to the fashions when she was young. “It will soon warm up again after we close the doors.”
Sophie nodded from the back, her arms around herself in a tight, hugging grip as she anticipated the cold.
Karen popped both doors and jumped away from the opening, Eric close behind her as the panels slid silently sideways. Brad, Ruth and Chelsea followed close behind, closing up their winter coverings hastily. The doors started to close again as Karen walked towards the foyer a few metres away, her gleaming weapon in her right hand. Eric’s darker rifle was in a ‘nose down’ configuration, though his trigger hand was covering the guard.
“At least this bit is sheltered well.” Mrs Buchanan smiled at Ruth, her small-talk designed to put the still-nervous late addition to their expedition at ease.
Karen collapsed, t
hrown sideways, her grip on the laser pistol lost as the unexpected transverse force took her breath away. The sound of an automatic weapon confirmed the pain she belatedly felt as Eric also took several bullets to the body and fell, partly covering her. I didn’t feel anyone… I can’t - can’t…
Brad brought his own Narlav laser rifle up into position as he threw himself to the ground, taking Ruth with him as the hidden weapon continued to fire. Behind him, Chelsea staggered, falling to one knee as a bullet hit her in the shoulder. Todd, a few feet behind his wife, dived forwards and pulled her back, but a series of bullets hammered into him and he dropped, motionless, as she groaned and struggled to raise her head.
Movements slowed and faded in the calm, cold air, leaving only the inexorable deadly conclusion, mere moments away.
Chapter Twenty
Vive la Resistance!
Mrs. Sophie Trathad delivered an ineffectual, soft ‘slippered’ kick at the doors as they continued to swing close. When that attempt failed, she grabbed another Narlav laser rifle and jammed it into the remaining space in time to prevent the mechanism from completing its task. Dropping to one knee behind the shielding protectiveness of the rearmost door, Sophie pulled the weapon into a horizontal position, her hands feeling the strange structure as her mind supplied the information she so desperately needed to operate it. Her right hand twisted around the firing mechanism as the left swung the weapon up until it was pointing at the framework of the building above the entrance. Brilliant laser light erupted, hitting the surface and burrowing in. She swung the weapon slowly to the left, taking it to the end of the foyer, and then back to the right. Vaporised concrete and rock filled the air, creating a kind of smokescreen. Several bullets hit the outside of the Aircar, making a dull, ringing sound, but she continued to fire, moving the weapon across the boundary between the ground floor and the floor above. Suddenly the structure started to move, gravity aiding and abetting its acceleration until the thunderous crash of concrete on the foyer sent small fragments flying in all directions – some even impacting on Magic Wagon, although the Aircar was several metres away from the destruction.
Sophie pushed the doors open one at a time, the black weapon held now with a single-handed nonchalance. No one could survive that. Her expression was initially grim but startlingly clear recollections of ‘la Resistance’ made her smile at the memories. I would have loved one of these back then!
She stepped out, the cold forgotten, as she reached for Todd and turned him over. His eyes stared up at her, lifeless. Too late! She dropped down beside Chelsea, finding that she was bleeding heavily from several bullets in the lower part of her torso as well as the one in her shoulder. The lovely, coffee-coloured face moved, though the effort to cause this motion was clearly colossal. Sophie leaned closer, as Mrs, Buchanan seemed to mouth something.
Medic! Sophie realised what was being said and found her intense sadness was gone, as if vaporised by laser power. She dragged the mortally wounded woman back towards the opening in the side of the Aircar, though the movement clearly caused greater pain.
“Restore!”
Taxi bounded to her feet, blood still dripping from her coat onto the wind-blasted section of bare sidewalk between Magic Wagon and the foyer as she moved back towards the others. “Come on, we can save them all!”
Brad was trying to stand, his right leg shattered by the lead that had impacted him there, his breathing laboured, his stomach an agony of fire. Ruth rose uninjured, protected by Hawk’s body, blood smeared on her from his torso injury, and supported him as he slowly moved back to the Aircar.
Sophie caught the full implications, the wondrous truth of this unearthly Medic solution, as the situation stirred another portion of the messages imparted by Kirrina into her consciousness. Allez! Working alongside Chelsea now, the two of them pulled Todd’s lifeless body back until it was almost touching the frame of the Aircar entrance, repeating the command with even more spectacular results.
Moments later, Ruth said the powerful word for Brad as she and he neared the grounded vehicle. She watched with intense relief as his leg reformed before her eyes. Woah!
“Well done, Ruth!” Hawk’s eyes raised briefly as he acknowledged Mrs. Hardy’s contribution – bringing him back from near death. I looove this Medic! In fact, I love it almost as much as I love Tracy!
Todd almost knocked them over in his haste to rise. “Taxi, let’s get Karen.” He and his wife found they had to pull the impressively heavy dead weight of Eric off the comparatively diminutive form of the one he had previously thought of as invincible. Helped now by Brad, they dragged him back. A few seconds later, Eric was bounding over to the rubble left by the demolition of the entrance, Brad by his side. They picked up the motionless body of the fallen Mrs. Fletcher – she had been leading, so was closest to the wreckage – and carried it back, placing it against the side of the vehicle. Ruth was horrified by the blood, like a veneer, covering the coat and by the lifeless pallor of her confidante – this was a hyperbole of her typically pale complexion. Sophie supported the head of her one-time rescuer, preventing it from lolling forwards as she pronounced the key word with relish.
Kirrina came to herself propped against the rearmost door, her lovely winter jacket stained and soaked with blood, a view of the dust still billowing from the structural collapse directly before her eyes. Her mind reached out, confirming her companions were already Restored.
“Merci…” She looked up at the ‘old’ fighter crouched before her, recalling the French history which she had somehow picked up in her mind merging with what was then a little old lady, bare minutes earlier. She was suddenly reminded of one truth and made aware of another: nothing happens by chance… and there are ‘opaque ones’ here on Earth, too!
“Brad, get in Magic Wagon and get the Aircar-mounted laser ready. That was a very unusual person manning that gun – he is one of a very small percentage of people that I can’t sense at all – there was only one like that, that I knew of, on Fepnine.” And he nearly killed my blood brother, Paranak! “I didn’t stop to think that there could be any here on Earth. However many there are, there is now one less, thanks to Sophie. The others in the gang were all sleeping. We can be sure that they are now woken up! Anyone that comes around the left there, out of the neighbouring building, is one of them. We’ll take the ones coming the other way.” She looked at Todd and got an affirming nod. Chelsea gripped a laser rifle, her agreement obvious.
Eric checked his weapon, making sure it was not damaged or blocked by the fall to the sidewalk or the ice which now thinly coated it.
“Try not to destroy any more buildings!”
Sophie just grinned as she gripped her trusty Narlav weapon. Vive la France!
“Here they come! The first ones will get to the end of the building in a few seconds.” Kirrina crouched, one knee on the cold concrete. Ruth dropped into a crouch beside her, a laser rifle cradled awkwardly in her arms, her previous fear frozen and forgotten. Kirrina touched her wrist just above her gloved hand, providing the instructions for this strange weapon. Eric crossed behind the Aircar, taking a position across First Avenue, where the snow was deeper and a half-buried car provided excellent cover for the skilled shooter. Todd and Taxi formed up each side of Karen and Ruth, but Sophie stood behind them, looking in the direction of the area covered by the weapon controlled by pilot Hawk.
“Thanks, Sophie,” Karen called out. “You’re right; there is a very small possibility that there may be another ‘silent’ one.” Especially if that one had a brother.
“I’ll take the point behind Eric, but I’ll be looking at higher floors, too.” The once-upon-a-time freedom fighter slapped the front end of Magic Wagon, got a nod from Brad inside and dashed across in front of his ‘hot’ weapon to the impressively equipped Kirouac. “I’m your rear-guard,” she announced as she dropped behind him.
“The windows all look closed. At least, I thought so. If there are any that are not…” Eric pulled off his
winter coat in one fluid movement, draping it around the shivering shoulders behind him. “Sorry about the blood. It’ll wreck your dress.”
“Never wearing this old thing again.” She slapped his still warm back with one hand. “Thanks! What size are your boots?”
Eric grinned. “I could give you one, and you could probably put both feet in it.”
“I never tried that in the Resistance…”
“’Shoulda’ guessed. Thought you were old enough to have been in that one.” Eric knew somehow that she would understand his reference was to the Second World War.
“Yes, I was old, wasn’t I? It’s funny; I never knew how many we killed. They were just ‘les boches’, symbols of the Third Reich – to be cut down. I got pretty good with guns, but the explosives were the best – quicker, more destructive, impressive. That’s where I got the idea for taking out ‘Mr. Invisible’. Ah!” She spotted a head, the tip of a gun barrel showing lower as the body paused at the edge of next building, still out of view of the Aircar. “Gottcha.” Sophie lapsed into the American English she had been using since she had relocated to the States in the early 50s. A brief flash from her laser and the weapon-carrying terrorist dropped slowly to the ground, his chest penetrated by the powerful beam which she so accurately wielded. She looked over and saw Brad nod his congratulations from his warm post. There’s Bloomingdales not too many blocks from here… haven’t been able to walk that far for years. Maybe I can get some decent shoes or even some winter boots, once we finish these ‘Yank low-lifes’ off.
Eric’s weapon stuttered. Five bullets. Three more.
Sophie slipped the coat on, grabbing the treasured laser rifle up from the snow bank a moment later. She saw some movement at the corner, but the head pulled back.
Kirrina pulled out the ‘mental stops’, firing a powerful message at the patient Hawk, dismissive of the cost to her in terms of personal energy lost in the process. Take off. Engage the holographic system. Go around the corner and catch them!
Cavalry Page 18