On My Way to Paradise (64 page)

The thought of trying to run the gauntlet of remote
defenses unnerved me. It was a task I hadn’t trained for, one I’d
witnessed only in simulation, and that single episode of viewing
the city’s defenses had shown my weakness. I did not want to go
south.

Abriara suggested, "Let’s head inland, see if we can
find sign of Garzón. If they’ve headed into the city, they should
have left a trail of blown puff mines and fried ANCs."

Abriara veered through the trees.

It took two hours to navigate through ten kilometers
of jungle, but then the jungle thinned into arid grassland.

I was fumbling in my pockets with nothing better to
do when I found the stone I’d picked up at Kimai no Ji. I looked at
the little cauliflower ear of ruby.

Mavro asked, "What is that?"

"A ruby," I said. He turned his attention to me. "I
found it at Kimai no Ji. Apparently, they are very common here. All
the metals in the planet. Rubies, emeralds-they’re just quartz
crystals with copper and iron in them. They’re nothing here."

"Hah!" Mavro said, "A real ruby? Perhaps there’s gold
in every river, rubies in every backyard lot, and we just don’t
know!"

As we traveled, I wondered if maybe he wasn’t
right.

That night we traveled three hundred kilometers in a
great semicircle through bands of jungle, then came to a thick belt
of forest that bordered a wide river. We were certain it had to be
the river that flowed through Hotoke no Za. We followed it south
and east, feeling our way toward the city and its remote defenses.
Abriara would often say as if to herself, "We’re going to make
it!"

An hour before dawn we came round a wide bend and the
river channel before us went straight. No trees impeded our
southeast view along the channel and we saw a great light from a
city set on a hill, but the lights were red and reflected off
clouds of smoke.

The city was on fire.

Abriara watched the dull red billows above the city.
"What’s going on? Did Garzón attack early?"

"Maybe the Colombians accepted Garzón’s offer," Mavro
suggested, "and they’re burning the city. Or maybe they’re fighting
the Yabajin and the plasma fire has set the city aflame."

The fire was very distant, perhaps eighty kilometers
off.

Perfecto said, "There’s no fighting. If there were,
we’d see laser flashes in the clouds."

"Then it is the Yabajin women burning their homes,"
Mavro said. "They know we are coming. They want to leave us with
nothing."

His words struck me as truth. They would be burning
their homes tonight, just as the people of Motoki had burned their
houses and committed mass suicide.

Abriara suggested, "If the Yabajin are burning their
homes, then the Garzón must not have been able to convince the
Colombians to join us. Otherwise the city would already be ours, or
there would be some sign of battle. If Garzón is still preparing to
attack, he’ll be downriver."

She pulled back on the throttle. The hovercraft
climbed into the air as she brought the speed to full. Mavro and
Perfecto began to fire plasma in the air, and the entire river was
bathed in light.

Abriara shouted, "Angelo, throw all the food and
water overboard—any excess weight. There might be some unexploded
mines in the river, and I don’t want to find them the hard way.
Pull all the laser rifles out and keep one handy. If we have to
take a swim, hold onto your rifles."

I began pulling up floor panels and dumping
everything we didn’t need—blankets, an extra turbo, water and
food. I handed out laser rifles, and we slung them over our backs.
It took all of five minutes, and then I stuck my head over the edge
of the hovercraft and watched trees go by.

We followed the river; the next half hour passed
silently. My heart pounded in my chest and my breathing became dry
and ragged.

Perfecto tapped his helmet. "Do you hear that?" he
asked. "We must be getting close to the army! I hear chatter over
the radio. We’re right behind them. They’re going in!"

Almost immediately I heard gunfire; lasers began
flashing over the city, making pinpricks against the clouds,
against stone battlements set on the hill. The sun hadn’t yet
risen; daylight was imminent. We were twenty kilometers north of
the city and Abriara pulled back on the throttle as hard as she
could; we picked up speed. Everywhere the sound of distant gunfire
crackled in a steady barrage.

"Ten minutes till we hit their defensive perimeter,"
Abriara shouted. She began shouting a comlink code, jacking in a
call to someone I didn’t know. She called her name and asked for a
status report.

Perfecto began yelling at me, "Little Brother, I
think we will be going in at the tail, so do not have many worries.
If you hear the metal squeal or the sound of crackling paper, it
means we’re taking a hit from a neutron cannon. You jump out of the
hovercraft quick, okay? The ANCs only hit things that move and take
up a space that covers .008 degrees on its horizon, so it will
choose the hovercraft for a target instead of one of us. If we take
a hit, you jump—then look for that cannon, and burn off its
sensors. If you land in the water, get out of your armor quick. The
insulation on your laser rifle will make your gun float. You swim
to your rifle and carry it ashore with you. And if you hear a high
whistling sound, it’s weasel rockets. Shoot them from the air. The
city’s defenses are spread pretty thin, but when we present a
front, all their mobile defenses—the weasels and cybertanks—will
pull toward us."

Perfecto made it all sound so easy. But nothing is
ever so easy. The Yabajin had been beating us worse than we
anticipated all the way—from the plague aboard the ship to the
destruction of our defensive perimeters at Kimai no Ji.

Only once had we surprised them with superior
weapons, and they’d had five days to remedy that inequality. Even
if they had only women fighting, those women would be armed with
weapons equal to ours.

Abriara abruptly reversed all thrusters and the
hovercraft floated slowly over the dark water.
"Muchachos,
I just got a status report: Garzón’s plan has failed. The Yabajin
saw what we did to Motoki, and they never shuttled the Colombians
into Hotoke no Za. They didn’t trust them. The Yabajin overthrew
what was left of Motoki. Our defenders here shot down six Yabajin
zeppelins, but three more were able to bypass our defenses and land
yesterday morning. They may have as many as three thousand samurai
defending the city, as well as thirty-five thousand civilians. They
may have been able to upgrade their weapons. Perhaps even their
armor."

"Then what are we to do?" Perfecto asked.

"We have no choice. Garzón chooses not to believe
there are three thousand samurai in the city. We must fight to the
last man. Take no prisoners."

She was right. We couldn’t back away. If the Yabajin
were given time to regroup as a nation, we’d never be able to hold
out against them. The only hope was to attack with everything we
had.

"Let’s do it," Mavro said.

Abriara jerked back on the throttle and we hummed in.
Ten kilometers from the city we came in upon the first ANC—a
smoldering pylon hidden behind some logs. A dozen of our craft were
floating in the water. There was no sign of our compadres.

Abriara picked up speed. We came to a bend and for a
moment could see the city once again: on the sides of the mountain
the morning sun struck Hotoke no Za and the whole city gleamed
golden. The city was set upon a stately granite hill and all along
the hilltop were factories and homes. But these weren’t the thin
paper houses of Motoki; they were neat brick domes in earth tones
of cinnamon, yellow ochre, and dull green; gracefully curved with
palms and green grasses in the yards. Everywhere, smoke poured from
the large domes at the interior of the city. Even at ten kilometers
we could see hundreds of our hovercrafts, tiny dots, racing to the
hilltop to meet the Yabajin.

Our men swept in upon the southeast side of the city,
and I thought it odd. They should have been coming in from the
northeast, from the river, and I wondered if perhaps the river
turned south around the mountain.

Perfecto shouted, "Abriara!"

Our hovercraft began to crackle and scream. Abriara
vaulted into the air, and Perfecto grabbed my right arm and nearly
ripped it from its socket as he leapt from the craft.

 We’d taken a hit from an automatic neutron
cannon. I clamped onto my flechette rifle. We hit the warm water
and our hovercraft forged ahead a hundred meters and exploded in a
fireball.

I gasped. Water began seeping into my armor. I
stripped off my leg pieces and unbuckled my chest plates with one
hand, still holding my rifle. The others were doing the same. The
chest plates dropped away and the laser rifle slipped from my back
and bobbed to the surface like a cork. I grabbed the strap to the
laser rifle and the flechette and held them in one hand, kicked off
the ankle locks and pulled off my left hip pad. My right hip pad
still had three loaded clips in a pocket. I tried keeping it on. I
kicked toward the south bank, but my armor dragged in the
water.

Perfecto swam to me holding a laser rifle in front of
him like a life jacket and grabbed my arm and pulled.

"Hold onto my rifle a minute," I said, pushing the
flechette into his hands, "I’ve got to get my ammunition."
Perfecto took the weapon and I opened my leg pouch and pulled out
my clips, wrapped them in my shirt.

Perfecto swam closer and grabbed my right arm,
twisting it. He looked in my eyes and whispered, "Tell the others
you are injured! Tell them you can’t go on! Don’t risk assaulting—
the hill, Little Brother, or I will be forced to hurt you!

Perfecto’s eyes were dilated, spooky. He twisted my
arm again and pain lanced through my shoulder. He was intent on
protecting my life even if it meant wounding me.

I gasped. "All right!" I dropped the empty leg piece
and kicked to shore slowly, conserving energy, protecting my
injured arm. I was still very weak from my illness. The river
flowed sluggishly and the water smelled brackish. Abriara got to
shore first and sat for a long moment, studying the bushes along
the riverbank ahead of us. Then she flipped on her targeting laser
and aimed. A moment later a thin ray of smoke boiled up as paint
burned off a well-camouflaged ANC pylon.

We swam up beside her. She was breathing heavily. "My
fault," she said. "Garzón must have turned off into the brush. He
knew this river would be riddled with ANCs and cybertanks up
ahead."

"Sí" Perfecto said. "I saw the trail they left just
before the ANC hit us, but you were looking up at the city. The
trail is back here! But I think Angelo is hurt on his gun arm. I
don’t think he can go on!" Perfecto helped pull me from the
river.

Abriara studied me with obvious concern.

I rubbed my shoulder. "I’m all right," I offered.

Perfecto stared at me a moment with great sadness.
His fists clenched and I thought he’d hit me, do anything to stop
me from going forward. He took my flechette and said, "Follow me!
I’ll take point."

He began limping upriver through the tangled brush. I
didn’t like this. He was placing himself in jeopardy for me,
offering his life the way that Lucío had done for me.

We soon found the trail that the others had blazed.
Plasma had rained through the forest as they forged ahead, knocking
out puff mines.

The ground was burned and scarred, the foliage
annihilated. Just inside the brush line a dozen hovercrafts were
down, blown to scrap by an ANC. Broken bodies littered the trail,
but the tangled foliage was so amazingly thick that you never
noticed a corpse until you had to stumble over it.

Perfecto walked fifty yards ahead of Mavro. Abriara
and I followed at fifty-yard intervals behind.

We scavenged the broken bodies of our comrades,
piecing together armor as best we could. Neither Mavro nor I could
find helmets that would seal, and I soon gave up. We were only five
kilometers from the front.

Every dozen meters we’d cross a pit where a puff mine
had blown, and twenty times we found downed hovercrafts, empty of
occupants. A dozen black cybertanks lay scattered by the wayside,
and I am sure that for every one I saw, four more must have been
hidden in the jungle, for I often saw gaping holes in the foliage
scarred by intense gunfire.

The sound of gunfire raged in the distance. All of us
remained quiet. We concentrated on our tasks—watching the ground
before us, studying the foliage for any signs of movement.

Perfecto shouted for us to halt and stood staring
ahead. There had been an empty stretch with no sign of puff mines.
The Yabajin had chosen to cover the perimeter thoroughly at a
certain distance rather than spread the mines out and hope to
surprise us, so when we’d gone ten meters without seeing any sign
of a mine, it felt like something was wrong.

Perfecto reached down and scooped up a hand of
dirt.

He tossed it ahead. A mine exploded under the
impact.

Perfecto shouted, a smile in our voice. "It was nice
of our compadres to sweep this area so well—very few mines, no
weasels."

I looked to Mavro. Sweat was streaming down his
forehead and his eyes were blank. The sweat of
mugga,
of
perfect concentration, was upon him.

We exited the jungle at the base of a hill. Rifles
still crackled ahead and I could make out the small shapes of men
in green bug suits scaling the slope.

Like ants they streamed through a gap blown into a
high wall, and on into the city. I was surprised to find myself so
close the battlefront. Five black cybertanks lurched out of the
jungle, washing the hill with fire. Men with lasers sprawled before
them, frying off sensors on attacking tanks.