Gridlinked (49 page)

'Shit! Needles again! Where the hell did he get this kind of armament?'

A silver torpedo shot from the burning treetops, turned in an erratic arc up into the sky, where the turret guns blew it to pieces. Another object shot through, and there was an explosion to Cormac's right. It happened too quickly for there to be a scream. All that was left was a burning foxhole and a few scattered pieces of gory body-armour. He looked up as the fourth missile came through and nosed overhead like a hunting pike. This one was larger. This was the one the others had made a way for. The carrier. Pulse hits crackled along the back of the missile and its flight became erratic. At the last it tumbled through the air and hit underneath the carrier. The carrier lifted on the blast, turned in flames and a cloud of falling earth, and crashed down on its roof.

'Oh fuck,' said Thorn.

Another explosion left another burning foxhole.

'Cento? Aiden?'

'I… tried,' came Cento's broken reply.

Two more detonations silenced the autoguns. In the trees were flashes of proton-gun fire. Something came running from the smoke and flying debris. For a moment Cormac thought it was Aiden, but even Aiden was not so tall. This figure was dressed in a long and tatty coat and had a wide-brimmed hat on its head. Mr Crane. Pulse fire hit the android from every side, but did not slow it. It came amongst them with its clothes on fire. Cormac saw it pause over a foxhole, its hand stab out. Then, all around the nearby foxholes, smoke started coiling into the air.

'Lasers!' someone yelled.

Cormac was about to ask where from, but the smoke revealed the red beams stabbing from beyond the carrier. He had miscalculated. Someone had come in at the back, using what litde cover there was there. Abruptly Thorn replied to that fire. A purple line cut from the slab and there was a white detonation beyond it. The firing immediately halted. Cormac was out of his hole, reaching for his shuriken, as the android turned to him. He saw a face of polished brass. He threw. The shuriken thrummed through the air with vicious confidence. A brass hand smashed it to the ground.

The android came at Cormac.

'Hit it! Hit it!' Cormac heard the sergeant yell. Then Aiden came flashing in from the side and hit Crane with the force of an out-of-control AGC. Both of them hit the ground and slid about three metres. But even as they slid, they exchanged blows with frenetic speed. The sound of combat was like that of a log-chipping machine. Suddenly they were on their feet, apart, then slammed together again. Shreds of clothing and syn-theflesh fell as they hit at each other. Cormac turned to movement at his left. Cento came from the trees at an erratic run. The syntheflesh was burnt from the upper half of his body to expose blackened metal. One of his arms was missing. He seemed to be blind and navigating on hearing alone. In a moment he leapt into the fight. Cormac saw him wrap his legs around the android and his remaining arm around its neck. Aiden proceeded to take it apart.

'As far as you go, Agent!'

Cormac turned. Pelter stepped out from behind a tree, and raised a Devcon assault rifle. Cormac reached for his thin-gun as the rifle fired. A whirring, as a steel hornet shot towards him. Slower than a normal bullet, but fast enough for Cormac to know he was dead. But in that moment, that fraction of fatal seconds, there came another whirring. An explosion rattled fragments of metal against Cormac's helmet. The seeker bullet was gone.

Shuriken hung in the air before him, flexing its chain-glass blades.

'Fuck you, Cormac!'

Pelter fired the remainder of the clip from the Devcon. Shuriken blurred through the air and took out those five seeker bullets in a chain of explosions. Pulse-fire hit the trees, but Pelter was gone, the Devcon abandoned on the smoking ground. Cormac stood where he was for a moment, too stunned yet to take in what had happened. He stared at the ground and wondered how the hell a small rubber dog came to be lying there. Then he shook himself and looked round. Cento and Aiden stood over the dismembered android. Cormac turned back to shuriken and hit the recall on its holster. Shuriken continued to brisde its chipped blades in the air for a moment, before returning to its home with a fractured hum.

'Thank you, Tenkian,' Cormac said, and headed for the trees.

Ultraviolet.
A huge burst of ultraviolet. There was only one sort of weapon that kicked out that much, and Jarv-ellis had last seen one in the hold of the
Lyric.
If John was still alive, he would be there. If John was dead, then Pelter would be there. She tilted the ion engines of the shuttle and put her foot down. It leapt from its recent approach vector and arced towards the distant lights.

'Lunatic shuttle pilot. I suppose I would be wasting my breath in telling you that you're heading for an area that has recently become restricted to all air traffic'

You don't have breath, Jarvellis thought, then ignored everything else the runcible AI had to say. She flicked the side screen to infrared, and saw she was getting quite a picture from that as well. Had to be them.

In the foxhole, with its only other occupant a survival suit filled with crash foam, Mika wrapped her arms across her chest and waited with grim patience. When this was all over she would have to clear up the human wreckage. There was one she knew she would be doing nothing for. The two suited killers, who had opened up with laser carbines from a spread of low scrub just beyond her, had not reckoned on Thorn being on that slab. Mika closed her eyes on the vision of one of them crouched with his carbine at his shoulder, then silhouetted in the white flash, and flying apart. His companion had let out a horrible moaning scream. He must have found some sort of cover, because Thorn did not fire again. Soon, soon it would be over. A close hissing crackle made her open her eyes. The stuffed man was smoking, a hole burnt through his back. Someone dropped into the foxhole beside her.

'Hello, pussy,' said Mennecken, resting his carbine next to the edge of the hole.

Mika did not pause for conversation. The study and saving of life was not all she had been taught on Circe. She pushed herself up with her elbows, turned, and kicked. Her foot slammed up under the mercenary's chin. Mennecken staggered back, then reached up and rubbed at his jaw. He smiled.

'Want to play?'

When he came at her he came straight into the blow

Mika hammered at his sternum. She gasped - body-armour. She chopped with her other hand at his neck, but he tilted his head and the blow caught him across the ear to seemingly no effect. His hand closed on her shirt and with casual contempt he threw her against the edge of the foxhole. She tried to come back at him, but the slap he delivered just knocked her to the ground. Next thing he was astride her and drawing a chainglass knife.

'They killed my brother, and I'll kill them,' said the mercenary. 'But there's always time to play, little pussy'

'Playtime's over, old chap,' said another voice.

Mennecken turned his head to look, and his head disappeared in a wet detonation. Making horrible bubbling sounds the corpse dropped to one side. Mika pushed at it almost in panic and struggled away. She looked up at Thorn as he holstered his pulse-gun. The front of the Sparkind's uniform was soaked with blood.

'You injured?' he asked.

Mika shook her head.

'Very good. I'm… not so good,' Thorn said.

Mika climbed from the foxhole and supported him as he swayed. She looked back once at the headless corpse draining its blood into the stony earth, and then helped Thorn return to the camp.

Through the shattered window Stanton had been presented with a perfect view of the action, albeit an uncomfortable one. His wrists were still tied by the bunk - only the bunk was now above his head. He looked around inside the carrier for some way of freeing himself. Pelter was getting away! That just must not happen.

The gunner would be no help. The turret had taken full weight as the carrier had come down and the man was now folded in a tangle of metal and seat padding. The sergeant was unconscious. Stanton looked outside again. The more badly damaged of the two Golem had taken something from what remained of Mr Crane. It held that something up, before tossing it on the ground. Stanton recognized the long lozenge shape of a Golem's mind. The other drew a pulse-gun and fired. The mind shattered and the two Golem moved off. Now, that had been something Stanton was glad not to miss. He focused his attention on the scattered brassy remains and couldn't help but wonder where the suitcase was. It then occurred to him that amongst those remains lay the solution to his dilemma.

Stanton nicked the ring on his finger and twisted his right hand round so it was out and open. What was left of Crane's coat jerked into the air, and the Tenkian dagger through and away. It hit the shattered window and went straight through, turned in midair and slapped its handle into Stanton's hand. Stanton turned it and began sawing through his bonds.

'Cormac'

Cormac turned and put his back against a tree. His comunit was still on.

'What is it, Aiden?'

'What are you doing?'

'I'm after Pelter.'

'I will be with you shortly'

'No, you won't. You'll secure the camp and sort out the mess there. I can handle this.' There was a moment of silence before Aiden replied.

'Very well. As you order, Agent. You had best be aware then that the shuttle Viridian informed us about has landed a quarter of a kilometre in on the course you were following. It may be that this is how they intended to escape.'

'Thank you. I'll be back with you soon.'

Cormac turned the unit off, then set out again. Within minutes he found the AGC transporter, with burns all across its hull, and what remained of Dusache clinging to the wrecked missile launcher. The ground was smoking and the air acrid. Cormac approached cautiously, then crouched when he saw movement beyond the platform. A shadow flitted through the trees and the smoke ahead of him. He fired once with his thin-gun. There was a yell, and pulse-gun fire returned with startling accuracy. Cormac hit the ground and tasted leaf-mould and lichen. His sleeve was smouldering. He rolled to the side, behind an oak, as the leaf-mould and lichen caught fire. Still rolling, he fired past the other side of the tree. There was a scream, the sound of someone stumbling, then falling. A smell similar to that of roast pork wafted on the smoky breeze.

Cormac rose to his feet with his gun still pointed where he had last fired it. To one side there was a tree. From behind it he could hear someone gasping raggedly. He approached.

The man lay with his back against another tree, his pulse-gun in his hand. His body was burned from neck to groin. Cormac had hit him once through the shoulder, but the wound from that was a neatly cauterized hole. These other burns were from the flare off high-energy turret-gun hits on the transport. Cormac moved in slowly and quietly. When he was less than a metre away, the man turned and attempted to bring his gun to bear. Cormac kicked it from his hand.

'Svent,' he said, 'where's Pelter?'

'Stupid… stupid,' said Svent.

Cormac just watched him and waited. Svent looked up.

'Should have got out. Could see that… when it was off.'

'What?'

'Aug…'

'What aug?'

'Scaly

'I'll ask again. Where's Pelter?'

'Ain't tellin' you that… Why should I tell you that?'

'Because if you don't, I'll kill you,' Cormac suggested.

Svent glared at him, then his glare turned into a nasty smile.

'Don't turn,' said Pelter. 'You don't know where I am, and you won't be able to turn faster than I can pull this trigger.'

It had never been Cormac's way to think too long about such situations, nor to throw himself on the mercy of any enemy. If Pelter had seen how it had been for Angelina, he would have known this and immediately shot him in the back when he had the chance. Cormac dropped to one side taking one snap shot from under his left armpit as he went. Something slammed his left biceps and he smelt burning as he rolled, then dived, snapshooting at a half-seen figure. He heard Svent scream as he reached cover behind the tree. Pelter had hit the little mercenary with his wild shooting at Cormac.

Behind the tree, Cormac inspected the burn on his arm. It was not serious, but that arm would soon be useless. Nevertheless he would wait. He stood up with his back against the tree, holding his thin-gun up beside his face. Any moment now…

Pelter could not believe it; you stood still when someone with a gun was demanding it. You did not run for cover in the hope they would miss. He backed up, firing single shots off at the tree while his mouth seemed to turn ceramic. The ache in his head, since Mr Crane's destruction, was growing in intensity, as if striving to fill the void left by the android's absence.

No Mr Crane now. No one left at his back. Nothing now between him and that thin-gun.

'Fucking die!' he shouted and blasted at the tree again.

Three times.
Three times he'd had the agent in his sights, and three times he had failed to kill him. Maybe they had been right at the start… maybe Ian Cormac was some kind of android.

Pelter stopped firing and continued to back away. He kept his weapon directed towards the side of the tree where Cormac had disappeared. When the agent stepped from its other side, he stepped straight into Pelter's nightmare - straight into that vision ever imprinted on his missing eye.

The barrel of the thin-gun seemed attached to Pelter's forehead by some invisible rod, and he seemed to feel the searing extension of that rod through his forehead and out the back of his skull. He pressed down on the trigger of his weapon and tracked fire sideways. But the time it took him to redirect his aim was not time enough. Silver light flickered in the barrel of the weapon the agent held.

Pelter saw only blackness.

With a puzzled frown, Cormac walked over and looked down to examine Pelter. Apart from the hole burnt cleanly through the Separatist's forehead, the man was already a mess: not only was the link suppurating in his head, but his clothing was ragged and filthy, and he stank. This was not the Pelter Cormac had known; this was a man ravaged by some daemon. What else could account for such lack of self-regard? Cormac wondered just what had driven Pelter to become this thing that lay before him.