Sly Mongoose (32 page)

The initial swarm were not very accurate, either. But the Aeolians fell back, trying to avoid both gunshots and bites. But the Swarm did not rush as a whole, only the armed members moved forward at the Aeolians in the running gun-battle.

Defenseless Swarm jumped off the edge of the walkway, a waterfall of humanity.

Some smacked into tubes or catwalks. Others continued to fall until tiny white puffs of cloth opened up.

“Parachutes,” Katerina said. “A Swarm airborne assault.”

Down on the street level, a cloud of Swarm landed and moved with single-minded purpose toward citizens. From above, the footage
demonstrated a fast pincer developing, herding the city’s people into a large and tightly packed group.

And then the catwalk the Aeolian forces fought on exploded, three precise detonations in the middle of the Swarm.

As the long ribbons of metal failed, the Aeolian defenders fell out of the sky along with debris.

“There is more, but it’s much the same. The Swarm is able to adapt to varying situations, as you just saw. It does not rely on infection and vectors anymore, it is using pincer movements, feints, weapons if it can get its hands on them. Obviously, since it waited for the parachuted Swarm to check in, it’s using radios or equipment to communicate, not just the touch communication we’ve seen. That means it can spread out further and talk between itself faster. Which brings us to the next order of business.”

Katerina addressed the pipiltin. “The Consensus has something else it would like permission to use. One of our defense airships has a nuclear device it managed to get off one of the cities. We include you in the discussion because your city is the dominant part of this action. We are not sure how to include your votes, so it was decided to let the pipiltin speak for all Yatapek.”

“You have nukes?” Pepper was impressed. “I never heard that.”

“Sometimes, even the Consensus can keep a low-level secret.”

Amminapses looked distressed. “A nuclear device? Brutish, yet worthwhile. The Swarm uses touch for higher bandwidth, its effectiveness is reduced when separated. The electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear charge would prevent it from having high bandwidth communication. But it would also sever my ties to this drone. That is unacceptable. I need to be here to help coordinate against this threat.”

“It would affect us as well,” Katerina noted. “The Consensus is held through this. We understand what we are asking. If it slows down the Swarm, then it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Still unacceptable.” Amminapses shook Claire’s head.

Pepper crouched down and opened the case and looked at the small vial with a tiny injection cap on it. He shut it again and addressed the Satrap. “We’re not asking you, the pipiltin will decide. Unless you have
a compelling force that can take to the air? I see just one Nesaru warrior with you, hardly a compelling force. We have the antidote, we’ll deliver it.”

He looked satisfied with what he held, and a large bit of the tension in Timas’s posture dissolved. They had some sort of chance against the Swarm. Sure Amminapses believed that they were fighting to slow the Swarm down, but Pepper now held the tool that could defeat it.

“You all frustrate me,” Amminapses said.

“You have less to lose,” Timas said. “Right now you have a wormhole down in the underground chamber. You’re getting ready to sneak back down it to safety somewhere else. We’ll be the ones left up here.”

“There is a second wormhole? On the surface?” Katerina was shocked. As was everyone else. It was news to everyone in the room.

“There is no way to evacuate you all.” Amminapses saw what sprung into everyone’s minds. “We don’t have the capacity.”

“Some of the Aeolians have craft that can get down there, some could be saved,” Katerina said, her head cocked, listening to commands. “The Consensus sees this as an interesting development.”

Amminapses backed up slightly. “I have hundreds of thousands to get out to safety. They are my responsibility.”

“There are children that deserve the right to escape this final showdown.” Katerina’s voice sounded gritty as she channelled the anger of the thousands of people in airships all around the city, the remnants of the once millions of the Aeolian Consensus. Timas watched as she stepped in front of Amminapses. “You are telling us you will leave us against the Swarm.”

“You are ungrateful.” Amminapses drew itself up, regal, arrogant, and sounding like they’d just confirmed a deep suspicion it had about humans.

“
We’re
the ones dying.” Katerina stood up just as straight to the Satrap.

“If you insist, then keep the counter-infection and fire your nuclear device. We will warn the cavern and I will take my drone and move back far enough that my equipment isn’t hurt. I will return to observe.”

Timas wondered why the Satrap was not as upset as Timas expected
it would be at being defied. He’d seen it react down in Hulbach. Angry. Here it seemed to expect a script, almost.

Maybe Timas had been thinking wrong, assuming Yatapek was the most important section of this creature’s plan to delay the enemy. They had been given the counteragent, but what if Amminapses had lied, and had made more?

Timas slowly backed out of the room as Katerina updated the clear screen to represent the Swarm’s continued approach.

Outside Timas ran for the docks, sliding down rails and tearing across gantries until he got to the sphere.

Several Jaguar scouts had it surrounded, rifles slung at the ready. But they recognized him.

“I left my timer in there. It was a gift from my father when I became xocoyotzin,” he said. A lie, he’d left the timer down in Hulbach. But they didn’t know that, and let him through.

The hatch had shut, but Timas closed his eyes and mentally ran back the numbers he’d seen Skizzit tap to open the hatch.

It worked.

The hatch rolled open, and Timas pulled himself inside and let the hatch close. There were places under the seats to store things. Maybe Skizzit, or another drone, had hidden something there.

He slid doors open and checked under the seats, moving quickly.

The hatch opened and shut behind him.

Timas turned around to face Skizzit. The Nesaru’s quills prickled up. It very deliberately blocked the way out. “What are you looking for?”

The hatch hadn’t, Timas saw, shut all the way. If he could run, it would just pop open.

“My timer, I left it here. I had it on my neck, it had sentimental value.”

Skizzit cocked its head. “You lie. You left it in Hulbach, and did not seem overly emotional about it. I repeat, what are you looking for?”

“Nothing.” Timas tried to dart around the alien. It slapped him with the side of its flat arm, driving the edges of the quills into his shoulder.

Timas dropped to his knees. Blood dribbled down his chest and arm as Skizzit forced Timas to sit down. “I think,” it said, “that you are up to no good. Again, what are you doing here?”

The hatch flung open and the entire craft rocked as a pair of giant metal hands grabbed Skizzit. Pepper hunched in the opening, not able to fit through to get inside. The Nesaru twisted, writhing to get away. It threw quill-backed punches at Pepper, who fended them off with his armored limbs.

Skizzit aimed higher, for Pepper’s unprotected face. Pepper yanked the alien out, leaving Timas holding his shoulder alone inside the craft.

He stumbled forward to see Pepper and Skizzit face each other.

Skizzit pulled its gun free of the pouch and Pepper leaped into the air, higher than a person stood, and slammed both fists down on the alien’s torso. He crushed the alien, stomping on it with metal boots, once, twice, and then one last time for good measure. Clear fluids and entrails burst across the grating and dripped down between the metal slots. A hand jerked, a foot splayed out at a right angle from the destroyed torso.

Pepper stood up, shaking goop off a metal hand.

Amminapses appeared at the edge of the dock. “You killed one of my vassals, why?” Its angry voice projected across the entire dock.

Pepper stepped backward to stop it from getting into the craft and near Timas. “Your pet Nesaru tried to shoot me.”

“It probably had a good reason.” Amminapses stepped over the corpse without a second glance and folded its arms in front of Pepper.

“Timas, you mind explaining why Skizzit just tried to kill us?” Pepper asked. Timas faced the back of the man’s dreadlocks, and looked directly over at Amminapses.

“Why only one dose of counter-infection? I don’t trust Amminapses. I wanted to see if there was more in this ship. Maybe it plans to use some of us, like Katerina, who can access lamina, to be its drones to go forward and infect the Swarm.”

Pepper grabbed Amminapses. “Is there a second cure?”

Amminapses struggled to get free. “Let go.”

“Where is it?”

“You think you accomplished anything, boy?” The Satrap froze. “I am, right now, launching three more craft into the sky, all loaded with counter-infected drones. The Swarm needs to be infected early, not late in this stand. Before it gets over the storm. You are being too tentative.”

“We infect them once we get into hand-to-hand combat,” Pepper said. “That way the Swarm can’t blow the counter-infection out of the sky before it even reaches it.”

“You still dream that you will all survive it. I doubt this will happen.” Amminapses shrugged. “We have chosen our directions. I have maximized my chances of spreading the counter-infection, with you as backup. Yes, there are extras. Take them. It means little in the end.”

Pepper waved at the nearest soldier. “Tie it up, put it in a cell, whatever you have, make sure the Satrap’s ‘representative’ doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Is this how you treat an ambassador?” Amminapses snapped.

Pepper’s dreadlocks fell forward as he leaned in. “I don’t trust you being up and around. You have your own agenda, for now it’s similar, but that is never a guarantee with the Satrapy, is it?”

“I work for the benefit of all.”

Pepper saw to it that Amminapses was dragged off. Katerina, the pipiltin, and Timas’s parents now stood staring at them.

“I think they’re a bit unhappy with us,” Pepper observed with a wry grin. He pointed at the warriors. “Tear the inside of this ship apart. We’re looking for an extra vial.”

They looked uncertain. Pepper strode forward, the grating jumping with each powerful step. “Now! Get moving.”

Several scurried to the sphere. Timas followed Pepper. “What about Hulbach?”

“What?”

“The cavern under the Great Storm.”

“Ah.” Pepper waved Katerina over. “Tell any Aeolian with a craft to get to the surface, start seeing if they can get people in groundsuits to get into the cavern down there. At the very least, the cavern might be a better place to hide the youngest.”

Katerina nodded. “We’re already working on sending down some crack teams with them, whoever we can spare, in case they try and shut us out.”

Timas moved closer to Pepper. “But how are we going to save the other three people that the Satrap is going to kill?”

“We don’t. You want us to risk airships, lives, to try and intercept those three? No, they’re already dead. And maybe they’ll get lucky and get through. Or maybe they won’t. Either way, kid, you saved one life. Be happy with that. When we fire off that nuke, when the Swarm gets close enough we’re not wasting it, maybe she’ll even thank you for it.

“Take what wins you can get, because they will be few and far between from this point on. Now, I’m off to get ready, we have a little over an hour before the main force hits.”

Pepper walked away. As he passed the pipiltin he jerked his head in the direction of Timas. “Have someone clean the dead alien off the floor, too, when you get a chance.”

The stunned leaders of the city just nodded.

B
ack at the communication room Pepper looked at the board. The crescent of approaching Swarm on the clear status board had been updated. The radio handlers worked via instructions from Aeolians calling in the new guesses as to where the edge of the Swarm was. Katerina had left to see what happened on the docks.

Pepper took the radio.
Midas Special
was there, and Jack was upset. “We can’t pick you up, we getting ready to break orbit. League ships coming in from all over.”

“Peace, brother. I’m not bubbling up, and it’s probably too risky for you to have tried to dip in and back out just for me.” Pepper licked his lips. “How bad is it up there?”

“They doing the same thing as all we Raga, you know? They using merchantships, with armed crew. Look normal, but they been juggling schedules, hiding extra ships in the DMZ. Now here they all is.”

“How many?”

“Over the air and in the clear?”

“We all know each other’s cards now.”

Static washed over the radio for a moment, an edge of jamming, but then
Midas Special
punched through. “. . . fourteen ships, all that into consideration. All light. Nothing coming through the wormhole yet, but we can expect it.”

Fourteen. Pepper knew the Ragamuffins could spare four armed merchantships like the
Sheikh Professional
. And maybe two real attack ships, made for the expensive pursuit of war in space.

There’d been some serious clashes in establishing the DMZ, back in the days after the uprising. The League played for keeps, but once it started having trouble in its own backyard keeping down alien counterrevolutions and human breakoff movements, the DMZ became practical.

So how hard was the League playing now? This handful of merchantships hardly seemed like a vast attack force. The League had fought over the DMZ the first few rounds with much larger numbers.

Pepper toyed with the mic. If this was a feint, and they’d managed to hide League ships anywhere near New Anegada, he would risk an entire planet with his next request. The land of Aztlan and the land of Nanagada, all at risk.

Yet, to throw Chilo to the League . . .

“
Midas
, tell the Dread Council we have a Satrap on the surface. Tell them a whole nation of aliens is hiding under the Great Storm, it’s what the Swarm is trying to get to, in addition to taking everyone else down for the League to mop up later. This isn’t a feint against New Anegada, it’s all about Chilo and the aliens here. It’s worth the fight, tell them Pepper said so. Get clear of orbit, come back bristling, you hear?”