Helix Wars (34 page)

The carrier was barrelling along at speed, forcing D’rayni vehicles off the road in its haste. Even so, Ellis and Kranda kept pace with the ambulance, running through the fields alongside the road.

Half a kilometre away he made out two dozen geodesic domes, the illuminated hemispheres arranged in a circle around a compound. Ambulances entered the compound, unloaded the injured, then sped back to the front line. Judging by the extent of the field hospital, he wondered if the Sporelli anticipated suffering considerable losses in the fight for the Krajnac mine.

They arrived at the domes minutes later, crouched and peered through the hexagonal panes. The dome was a storeroom, piled with containers. They moved on to the next dome, which was evidently a temporary morgue. Dead Sporelli troops, or bits of them, had been piled up without ceremony. The third dome was another charnel house, and only in the fourth did they find what they sought.

Injured Sporelli troops lay on serried cots, some tended by their own medics while others were ministered by Phandran Healers. Six of the diminutive figures moved from patient to patient, caressing, laying on hands, their demeanour calm and unruffled.

None of the six was Calla.

Ellis moved on to the next dome, another casualty ward with the same arrangement of cots, Sporelli medics and Phandrans.

“Well?” Kranda said, at his side.

Ellis shook his head and darted to the next dome. Here, surgeons worked on badly mutilated Sporelli troops, while Phandrans flitted here and there to provide what assistance they could.

They moved from dome to dome around the circle, and Ellis scanned the tiny figures of the Phandrans with increasing desperation. At one point a Phandran stepped out and crossed to a neighbouring dome.

Ellis saw Kranda dart past him and snatch up the Phandran. She returned, murmuring reassuring explanations to the tiny alien.

“We are friends, come to help you. We mean you no harm.”

They crouched behind a dome, Kranda deactivating her varnika’s shield to reveal herself. Ellis did the same. The Phandran stepped back, eyes wide and staring.

He spoke, hesitantly, and Ellis’s translator kicked in. “Who are you?”

“We are friends of the Phandrans,” Kranda said. “We have come to take you from here.”

The tiny alien’s reply surprised Ellis.

“We... we are healing. We cannot cease our ministrations.”

“But you’re here under duress,” Kranda snapped. “The Sporelli killed and maimed hundreds of your own people.”

“Regardless, our duty is to heal, no matter who. Our place, for now, is here with the sick and injured.”

“We’ll get nowhere with him,” Ellis said to Kranda. He looked at the Phandran. “I am seeking a Phandran named Calla,” he said. “Calla-vahn-villa.”

The alien blinked, regarding him. “Calla was with us, but she was taken with others to another medical centre to the east of the town.”

Ellis swore to himself.

Kranda said, “Do you know where, exactly?”

“Only that it is a short distance to the east of here,” the Healer said.

Suddenly Kranda reached out, gripped the Phandran’s stick-thin arm and pulled the shocked alien towards her. Ellis laid a restraining hand on Kranda’s arm.

“Now we go,” Kranda said. “And be warned: say nothing of our presence to anyone. Understood?”

The alien nodded mutely. Kranda released her grip and dismissed the Phandran. He hurried away and, with a quick backward glance at Kranda, slipped into the neighbouring dome.

They activated their shields and sprinted away from the field hospital, heading east.

Beside him, the Mahkan said, “That, Jeff, I was not expecting.”

“Nor was I. But knowing the Phandrans, I’m not at all surprised at their selflessness.”

“But working for the enemy?” Kranda spat.

“That is a measure of their... altruism,” he said, and hoped that Calla would see sense and agree to leave this world with them. If, of course, they could locate her amidst all the mayhem. “You should not have shown your anger...”

Beside him Kranda grunted, but said nothing.

They came to a highway packed nose-to-tail with slow-moving Sporelli vehicles heading north. Kranda found a gap between a tank and a troop carrier and darted through. Ellis followed her, his heart hammering with apprehension as he slipped between the grumbling vehicles.

On the other side of the road, Kranda said, “See there? A kilometre straight ahead?”

Ellis made out a line of domes similar to the field hospital they had just left, each geodesic illuminating the glow of the distant battle like a glittering gemstone.

They crossed the intervening fields at speed and arrived at the first of the domes a minute later.

This proved to be a far bigger centre of operations than the last one. Troop-carriers came and went with the injured, as well as a constant procession of fliers which landed in the circular clearing, disgorged the dead and dying, then took off again. The air clamoured with the sound of a hundred engines and loud Sporelli commands. Ellis counted fifty domes before giving up, and despaired of ever locating Calla.

They moved from dome to dome around the outside of the vast circle, finding the same scheme of storerooms, wards and operating theatres. As before, Phandrans moved among the injured as if quite content to be pressed into the service of the tyrannical Sporelli.

They arrived back at their starting point, the ground marked by their scuffed footprints. Ellis said, “This is useless. I might have missed her. I’m going into the domes for a closer look.”

“Foolish,” Kranda counselled. “Amid such chaotic movement, the varnika’s processor would struggle with adopting the ambient camouflage. You would run an increased risk of detection, and what would that gain?”

“Okay, okay.” He felt impotent, frustrated. “So what do we do?”

Kranda thought about it. “There might be other field hospitals. We need to ascertain this.”

“Kidnap another Phandran?”

“Can you think of a better way?”

“Off the top of my head, no.”

“In that case...” Kranda fell silent.

“What?” Ellis said. He stared at the disorganised outline of the Mahkan, wishing he could make out Kranda’s features.

She said, “We have overlooked the Phandrans working in the compound itself. Look.”

Ellis turned and stared through the gap between the nearby domes. As the fliers landed and carriers came to a halt, they were met by emergency teams which included Sporelli medics and Phandran Healers.

Ellis crept closer, Kranda at his side. They crouched between the domes and stared across the clearing.

He scanned the dozen Phandrans, hurrying along beside the stretchered casualties being ferried from the fliers, and dismissed each one in turn: many were male, others too tall...

He started again, desperate to find her, but finally admitted that she was not among the dozen Phandrans meeting the injured as they arrived.

A big flier stood to one side, rotors drooping, its solidity and stillness in complete contrast to the surrounding turmoil.

And beside the flier, huddled in the shadow of its engine cowling, was the tiny figure of a Phandran.

His heart kicked.

He increased his magnification, fearful that he was mistaken – and Calla’s calm face leapt into focus and he almost cried out in joy.

He reached out, found Kranda’s arm, and gripped it tight. “There!”

“You sure? She looks just like all the others.”

Ellis laughed. “I’m sure.” He stared across the clearing, recalling their time together fleeing the Sporelli on Phandra. He willed her to look up, to sense his presence among the raging chaos around her.

He said, “Why is she there, Kranda, and not helping the injured in the domes?”

A quick, cold fear gripped him.

A Sporelli officer marched from a dome beside the flier and crossed to Calla, reading something from a screen as he went. He snapped a command, ordering her to move, and uncertainly she made her way to a hatch in the bulging flank of the flier.

A cry rose in his throat. He said to Kranda, “I’ve got to...”

But even before the intent had fully formed in his mind, he’d leapt from between the domes and sprinted across the clearing.

“Jeff!” He heard Kranda’s cry in his ear-piece.

He collided with a Sporelli medic, knocking him off his feet and sending him spinning across the ground. The medic cried out and Ellis regained his balance and ran on. Cries sounded behind him, then shouted commands.

“Calla!” he called.

She turned as she was about to clamber aboard the flier. The Sporelli officer was at her side, gripping her arm.

“Jeff!” she called out. “They are taking me away, to Sporell. Their leader, he is dying. They think...”

The officer stared at Calla then turned suddenly, his eyes focusing on where Ellis had been just a moment earlier. He yelled something, raised his pistol and fired. The bullets missed Ellis by a fraction and Calla cried out in alarm. A soldier within the flier reached out and grabbed Calla, dragging her aboard. She struggled, feebly kicking her feet, but she was no match for the Sporelli soldier. The last Ellis saw of her was the pathetic sight of her bare feet, scrabbling futilely, before the hatch swung shut with a hydraulic sigh.

He barged into the startled Sporelli officer, knocking him off his feet, and made to grab the hatch.

The flier rose, its downdraft battering him, and another shot rang out behind his back. He registered a visual disturbance at his side, felt a strong hand on his arm, and before he knew it he was being dragged away through the chaos of milling Sporelli troops, all attempting to obey the officer’s orders and apprehend the insurgents.

“This way!” Kranda cried, and hauled him from the clearing between two domes and out into the open countryside.

Orienting himself, Ellis looked up and saw the flier sweep overhead and disappear into the darkened skies to the south.

Behind them, troops spilled from between the domes and began firing. Ellis looked back, saw a Sporelli with a shoulder-mounted device.

Kranda said, “A heat-detector, Jeff. All we can do now is run.”

Ellis kicked, upping the pace, until he was sprinting, imparting volition to the exo-skeleton that carried him across the open fields at ten times the speed he would have normally achieved.

Bullets sang around him, but less numerously now, and minutes later the only sound was the regular rhythm of his breathing and the distant roar of the battle for Krajnac.

“I won’t begin to tell you how stupid that was,” Kranda said.

“In that case I’m grateful,” he said. Then: “I’m sorry. I acted without thinking. I had to do
something
.”

“There was little, in the circumstances, we could have done, short of killing the Sporelli and taking the flier.”

“Why didn’t you suggest this at the time?”

“I considered, and discounted, the action. The Sporelli would have brought us down with ease.”

Ellis swore. “So we give up, just like that?” Even as he spoke, some traitorous voice deep within him suggested that that would be the easy option.

“Or we make our way to Sporell, find the ailing dictator, and rescue Calla.” Ellis almost laughed, but sensed that Kranda was deadly serious. “We can do that?”

“My flier is on its way back, having safely deposited the Phandrans. We will gain high ground and rest until it arrives in... in approximately three hours.”

“This is crazy!” Ellis cried.

“Nevertheless, human, I have a debt of honour to despatch. I said I would help you rescue the Phandran called Calla, and I will. This way.”

They left the fields behind them and headed into the hills.

3

T
HEY CLIMBED THE
escarpment and halted at the top, looking back across the plain they had traversed. The bombardment of Krajnac continued, though the replying plasma bolts were growing less frequent.

Ellis considered Calla, and where the Sporelli were taking her. While she would be away from the dangers of the battlefield, who knew what new dangers she might face on the homeworld of the Sporelli, ministering to the needs of the dying dictator? If she failed to save his life, what then? They were conscienceless killers, as he’d seen for himself.

They sat side by side on a fallen log. Kranda deactivated her shield and pulled rations from her backpack. She passed him an energy bar, which he wolfed down. Until coming to rest five minutes ago, he hadn’t realised how hungry and tired he was. His recent exertions were beginning to take their toll. When Kranda’s flier arrived, he promised himself, he would snatch a few hours sleep on the flight to Sporell.

He looked at the Mahkan. “Do you really think we can do this?”

She turned her scaled face to regard him. “Fly to Sporell, locate the dictator, and in so doing find Calla? Why not? We came all this way and located her, yes? And but for your foolhardiness we might have devised some means of effecting her rescue.”