So It Begins (16 page)

  “Pickup will be when scheduled,” said Control, too politely.

  “Either you put Hans on this channel in thirty seconds or I relay what happened on Cascade on a planet-wide broadcast,” said Hastings.

  “You don’t have the signal power . . .”

  “But I can tap into the civilian system and broadcast on all channels. Hans cut me out of
Kyklopes
, but that does nothing for my personal access code for the planetary system,” said Hastings.

  “Maybe if you told me what the information was . . .” The voice on the other end had lost its cockiness and sounded nervous.

  “Keep me on hold another twenty seconds and you’ll find out along with everyone else,” said Hastings.

  In nineteen tocks Benedict was on the line. “Andie, what the hell are you doing? A Host officer even speaking of Cascade can be given the death penalty.”

  “As you know, I am no longer an officer of the Host,” said Hastings.

  “You could still be put to death,” said Benedict.

  “By who? You? That would mean you breaking your word when you promised not to kill any of my crew. Hans Benedict may be a traitor to the Sway, but an oath breaker? Come now,” said Hastings. “Besides the way things are going, I’ll probably be dead before you get your chance.”

  “What do you want?” sighed Benedict. She knew that tone and in her mind’s eye she could see him running both hands through the stubble on the top of his head in frustration.

  “Emergency evac for our civilians,” said Hastings. “Your control boys have been dicking me around. My civilians are about to become deader food.”

  “Andie, I’m sorry but you’ll have to hold the line. There are plenty waiting ahead of you. We have to take largest numbers first. One group has three hundred plus. Two groups have more than two hundred,” said Benedict. “You have sixty.”

  “Hans, I have over six hundred,” said Hastings. The line went to dead silence. “Hans?”

  Dead air broadcast for another minute before Benedict came back on. “Andie, you have my sincerest apology. You were being screwed with by members of my crew who didn’t think my amnesty was good enough for you. I was told you only had sixty. The people who did this are on the way to the brig and you have two Harpies en route to Knob Lick. ETA eighteen minutes.”

  “Good. Tell them to burn fumes.”

  “Andie?” said Benedict.

  “What?” said Hastings.

  “Nice job. I knew you were still in there somewhere. Sorry I pulled a gun on you,” said Benedict.

  “Don’t be. You were right. Maybe having the only man I ever loved threaten my life was what I needed to wake me up,” said Hastings.

  Benedict was notoriously poorly versed in the sharing of emotions normally necessary in personal relationships, being of the actions-speak louder-than-words philosophy. “Andie, I didn’t . . . You never said . . .”

  “Past tense, Hans. Hastings out.” Turning to the assembled townspeople, she said, “Harpies will be touching down in less than eighteen. We will get the weak and injured on the first drop ship, everyone else on the second.” Hastings’ eyes went wide. “We don’t have everyone yet. We have to get Gail.”

  “Ma’am, look at them down there. It’s suicide. We have to wait for the drop ship and use their guns to clear the deaders out,” said Shaker.

  Hastings hesitated, looking out across the field and frowned at what she saw. “She doesn’t have that kind of time. Look.”

  In their frenzy, the reanimated had accidentally knocked holes in the wooden shed the girl was hiding in. In a very human reaction, Gail made the mistake of screaming once. She instantly quieted, but it was enough for a few nearby zombies to turn their attention on the shed. The front and side walls would be kindling before very long.

  “We have to get her,” said Hastings.

  “It’ll be suicide,” said Shaker. “And it would leave the rest of the civies unprotected.”

  “You’re right,” said Hastings. “But I gave her my word. You hold the line. I’ll get her.”

  “Ma’am, I forbid it,” said Shaker.

  Hastings grinned. “Is that an order, James?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is,” said Shaker.

  “Put me on report then,” said Hastings. “Dorna, bring your want-to-be stem soldiers around here. What’s their ETA?”

  “Three minutes work?” asked Dorna.

  “Not really, so you’ll have to try to come behind and get us an exit. Maybe an old-fashioned wagon circling strategy,” said Hastings.

  “Already working on programming the moves,” said Dorna.

  Hastings nodded. “Kline, give me the end of your belt line.”

  “Why?” said Kline.

  “Once Dorna gets us back to the building, I’m going to hook it to Gail and you lot are going to pull her up here,” said Hastings.

  “No, we’ll use it to pull both of you back up here,” said Shaker.

  “Works for me. Just because I’m going on a suicide run doesn’t mean I want to die,” said Hastings. “Everyone but Lao get a rake ready to blow those deaders to hell.”

  Warfare always advanced weapons design. Host soldiers carried grenades and rakes. Each was designed so shrapnel from the initial explosion exploded seconds after contact with oxygen, giving lots of deadly second chances. Smaller bits of metal were also harder for a field surgeon or medic to remove, and nicked more arteries.

  Rocket launchers were still used for heavily armored targets, but for the average soldier in the field they were too bulky. Rakes were the optimal solution, the marriage of missile and grenade. Pulling the pin ignited the formerly inert solid fuel, turning it into a rocket. Sensors in the nose held off exploding in less dense materials like flesh in favor of letting the propulsion system rip enemies to shreds. A rake explosion made a grenade look like a cream pie. They weren’t used without something very solid between the launcher and the target. Each soldier carried a half dozen, one on the outside of each thigh and four on their battle belts. That left room on the belts for four grenades.

  “Why not me? Hell, I can get a grenade as far as a rake. I have the best arm on the station,” said Lao.

  “I know. I saw your baseball stats as part of your academy records before you even arrived on
Kyklopes
. How else do you think I knew enough to pick a ringer for my softball team?” said Hastings.

  “Battlestation champs three years running,” said Lao, flexing his shoulder.

  “The noise of the rakes and the cover fire these three are going to lay down to cover my ass is going to attract deaders by the dozens. I want you to lob grenades off the far side of the building as far away as you can manage at reasonable intervals once our rakes are spent. With luck the dueling noise will confuse them or they’ll go toward the louder explosions, which will hopefully have the added bonus of stopping their destruction of the building. Everyone give Lao three of your grenades. I of course expect you to try for maximum deader damage with each toss rather than wasting them purely for a distraction,” said Hastings.

  “I won’t let you down, ma’am,” said Lao.

  “I know you won’t, Flauker,” said Hastings. “Now let’s tenderize us some deaders.”

  Four rakes did a nice job clearing the field, but they were limited in that the soldiers didn’t want them going off too close to the already weakened walls of the school or the rapidly splintering wood of the tool shed. Human soldiers would be corpses or at least bleeding out after the barrage from the hand missiles. Many of the deaders had lost enough parts to make locomotion difficult, but some were managing, their limbs hanging on by slivers of tendons.

  Hastings lowered herself by her primary beltline to the ground, pulling the end of Kline’s line with her. The first explosion from the far side of the school covered the sound of her plasma round to the pelvis of a deader that had spotted her. It blew apart the bones so the legs had nothing to stabilize them and the zombie collapsed to the ground. A second round to the head stopped it from crawling after her as she cut her line to run toward the shed. The half dozen deaders nearest to the wooden shack were untouched. Getting them would have meant risking killing the girl. None of them left their positions because their primitive brains knew there was prey inside the shed, so they were not distracted by things that went boom.

  Adrenaline pumping through her let Hastings move like a woman half her age, closing the gap and picking off two zombies with as many shots, blowing gray matter in streams through the exit wounds in the opposite sides of their skulls.

  “Gail, it’s me. Get ready to open the door,” shouted Hastings, pulling a deader back by its head before putting a plasma round through its brainstem. At the sound of Hastings’s voice two others turned toward her, forcing Hastings to drop to the ground and roll, shooting out their knees but they fell upon her with hands and jaws, grabbing at her legs in a hunger-driven frenzy. Hastings kicked for all she was worth and stood, stumbling back. The zombies stood and lumbered after her, when suddenly both heads exploded with rounds shot from the school rooftop.

  “We’ve got your back, ma’am,” said Kline on the comm.

  “And to think you only gave me average on my marksman annual,” said Shaker.

  “I stick with that grade. If you were a superior shot, you could have lined up the deaders to take them both with one round,” teased Hastings.

  “That mean you want us to hold back and take multiple targets per round if another deader approaches you?” shot back Shaker.

  “Hell, no. Take as many as you need,” said Hastings. “One left.”

  “Too close to the girl for us to try,” said Shaker.

  “No worries. He’s mine,” said Hastings.

  The remaining deader had made a hole in the shed large enough for his head and torso to fit through. Gail’s scream caused Hastings to lunge forward, but the single shot to the deader’s head stopped her short.

  The sidearm Hastings had given to the girl had more traditional ammunition so the single shot was not enough to destroy its brain, but it caused the dead thing to fall twitching its arms and legs. Hastings grabbed him by the feet, pulled his convulsing corpse back and put a plasma round in his head for good measure.

  “Ma’am, our stemmers are converging on you. Don’t shoot them,” said Dorna.

  “Roger that,” said Hastings. “Gail, open the door. We have to go now.”

  The girl did as instructed and threw herself into Hastings arms. The woman found herself smiling. “You came back for me, even with all those deaders. I thought you’d leave me.”

  “I promised you I’d be back. I was . . . I am an officer of the Host, and our word means something,” said Hastings, scooping up the girl so Gail’s arms were wrapped around her neck with her legs squeezing her waist. “You did good with that gun. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” said Gail with a small smile, which was frightened off her face by ten zombies marching in formation in front of them.

  Hasting comm chirped with Dorna’s voice. “Ma’am, our stemmers are right behind you.”

  “Gail, these are the stemmers from your factory. They are going to walk us back to the building. I’m going to hook you to a line and my team will pull you up to the roof. Two drop ships will be here any minute to take you to the station. I’m going to ask you a favor.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to hold onto me with your arms and legs. Put you head into my shoulders and keep your eyes closed. Can you trust me to do that?”

  The girl nodded, but held the gun up. “But if I keep my eyes open, I can shoot any deaders that try to sneak up behind you.”