The Cyber Chronicles VII - Sabre (28 page)

Sabre paused
to consider this. Chances were, Torrian had it mounted on his
bedroom wall, or in his throne room, as a trophy, alongside the
stuffed bear heads and antlers, and, if it was loaded, one power
pack would not be enough to do much damage. There were several
power crystals missing, but they might have been used for training
or pot shots; he was sure Torrian would have amused himself with
his new toys. If not for the stone walls, he could have located the
missing weapon with the scanners, but searching for it would take
far too long and be risky. He still had to get rid of the power
crystals he had, which he had no intention of lugging around. They
were useless without the weapons that used them, and detaching one
of the mounted cannons would be risky, too. He had intended to take
the loose one, but now his plans had changed.

Selecting a
crystal from the box, he switched to normal vision and hurled it at
the far wall. It shattered with a fairly loud bang and a hot flash.
Oddly, the ten-centimetre-long crystals were cool, yet the
amplified light they emitted was super-hot. Sabre threw the rest of
the power crystals against the wall in quick succession, since the
light and noise might attract attention. When three crystals
remained, a warning light alerted him to the scanners information,
which showed a life sign in the doorway behind him. Sabre spun and
reached the sleepy sentry in a bound, sending him sprawling with a
punch. Returning to the box, he smashed the last three crystals,
switched back to night vision and headed for the door. The sentry
struggled to sit up, pawing at his bloody nose. Sabre kicked him in
the head as he passed, knocking him senseless, and sprinted towards
the gate. If one guard was roused, chances were others would be
too.

Several life
signs moved towards the armoury on the scanners, two of them in the
alley Sabre would have to pass through to reach the gate. He might
be able to slip past them in the dark, but the brow band’s lights
would probably give him away. Usually, on a stealth mission like an
assassination, a special cover was fitted to the brow band that hid
the lights whilst leaving the sensors exposed. The control unit’s
lights served two purposes, first to identify a cyber so he was
never mistaken for a normal man, and secondly to provide
information about the host’s functionality and physical status. A
technician could tell at a glance whether a cyber was experiencing
a variety of impairments, and most owners knew enough to glean an
idea of a cyber’s problems by studying the lights. Of course, a
simpler method was to ask the cyber about it, but occasionally that
was not an option. Everyone knew that a lot of red lights meant the
cyber was damaged. He wished bio-status was one of the indicators
available on a brow band, so Tarl did not have to ask him about it
all the time.

Sabre chose
speed instead of stealth. The alarm would soon be raised when the
senseless guard outside the armoury was discovered, anyway, at
which time someone would probably close the portcullis and severely
hamper his escape. He did not fancy having to leap off the
battlements into the moat. It would be cold and wet. He raced
towards the two guards in the alley, who gaped at him, able only to
see a collection of little lights approaching them at high speed,
accompanied by the soft thud of footfalls. Being superstitious
primitives, they leapt aside with alarmed shouts as he passed them.
As he sprinted towards the gate, he regretted not having flattened
them when they continued to bellow in alarm, and two men raced for
the portcullis. A cyber was capable of a flat out run of over
forty-five kilometres per hour, but it would not be enough. A
soldier hit the lever that released the portcullis, and it rumbled
down.

“
Bugger.”

Sabre swerved
and headed for the flight of steps that led up to the battlements,
where men converged to block his remaining escape route. Now things
would get ugly, and possibly deadly. He drew a laser and reached
into the pouch that contained the power crystals he had taken from
the battlement lasers, grabbed one and hurled it at the soldiers.
It shattered on the wall behind them with a bang and flash, making
them jump and recoil with shouts of alarm. Sabre bounded up the
steps three at a time, hurling another crystal to add to the
confusion. The bright flashes would rob the soldiers of whatever
night sight they had, although they also forced him to switch off
the night vision each time. At the top of the steps, he shoved a
man off the battlements and sprinted for the outer wall as the rest
finally drew their swords.

Leaping onto a
crenulation without slowing, he sprang off it. The wall was not
high enough that he would be hurt if he landed on solid ground, and
he hoped he had sufficient momentum to clear the moat. The ground
rushed up at him, and he glimpsed glinting water just before he
plunged into it. Sabre cursed, but let himself sink to the bottom.
Archers had probably been dragged from their beds by now, who would
take pot shots at him as he climbed out if he did so here. His feet
hit a muddy bottom, and he turned downstream and swam up to where
there were less likely to be obstacles like sunken trees that might
snag him. With more than ten minutes of air, he would be far
downstream of the castle before he was forced to surface.

When he swam
to the surface nine minutes later, the fortress was a distant
silhouette, torch-waving men running around on the ramparts. It
reminded him of his escape from the Orokan city, four years ago,
although that had been in a swamp. He swam to the bank, hauled
himself out and made his way to his horse, which he rode to his
camp in the forest. Now he just had to wait for the furore to calm
down, and kill Torrian.

Sabre waited
in the forest for two days while search parties roamed up and down
the river, then invaded the forest, but none came close to his
camp. On the third day, the countryside was devoid of searching
soldiers, and he returned to his shallow knoll to spy on the
castle. Using the brow band’s magnifier, he watched soldiers and
officers come and go from the fortress and patrol the walls,
waiting for his quarry to appear. At dusk, he shot a small buck for
dinner before settling down in his little tent for the night. The
following morning, he returned to his vantage at dawn, yawning and
scratching his itchy scalp. He needed a bath. The river had been
fairly clean, but without soap the dip had done no good. Stretching
out on the grass, he magnified the fort and scanned it for the
pompous, overdressed King.

Torrian
appeared on the ramparts at midday, accompanied by two older men
who were presumably his generals or advisors. The former, judging
by their military air, he deduced after watching them for a few
minutes. The trio wandered along the wall, pausing to pull a
tarpaulin off a now-useless laser cannon.

Sabre smiled
and muttered, “Yup, they’re just useless pieces of metal now.”

To his
surprise, one of the generals drew a glittering power crystal from
a pouch and pushed it into the laser cannon. So, they still had
one, but it would do them little good. Ten full-power shots would
expend it. Still, it was annoying. He drew a laser pistol and
adjusted it to full power and fine, lay down on his stomach again
and activated the cyber’s targeting scanners. Blue cross-hairs
appeared in his magnified vision, and a red cross marked the spot
where his laser was aimed. It was rather like one of the VR games
he had played with Fairen, he mused, only more fun.

“
Time to die, shithead.”

The trio
wandered over to another laser cannon, and Sabre watched them,
curious. The general pulled the tarp off it and produced a second
power crystal, loading the weapon, and the cyber frowned. Just how
many more power crystals did they have? Had Torrian already
smuggled more across the desert? It made no difference, though,
Torrian was still going to die, but Sabre decided to scout around a
bit afterwards and see what he could find out. Raising the laser,
he lined up the red cross with the blue cross-hairs positioned on
Torrian’s head, his aim rock steady. The King faced one of the
officers, side-on to Sabre, and spoke animatedly, gesturing. Sabre
wondered what his last words would be as he pressed the trigger. At
the same instant, Torrian’s head exploded. The officer recoiled as
the red mist sprayed his face.

Sabre smiled.
“Gotcha.”

Torrian’s
corpse tottered and collapsed, and the blood-splattered officer
stepped back, his face stretched in horror. Sabre wondered what was
going through his mind. Perhaps he thought Torrian’s head had
become so swollen it had finally exploded on its own. He chuckled.
He was quite glad to kill Torrian, who had caused Tassin so much
trouble and hurt Dena. Then again, he had a lot to thank the King
for, too, for if not for him, Sabre would never have met the feisty
Queen or got free of the control unit. Nonetheless, Torrian was a
brutish rapist pig, and the world would be a better place without
him. The men on the ramparts ran around in confusion, and Sabre
continued to watch them. The man Torrian had been speaking to
crouched over the laser cannon he had just loaded, and, to Sabre’s
surprise, swung it towards his position.

The cyber
flattened himself as much as he could, and the control unit flashed
a warning in his mind, that the cannon had just gone hot. That did
not unduly surprise him, but he was fairly sure he was pretty much
invisible in the grass, and almost a kilometre from the castle, to
boot. The ground half a metre to his right hissed and turned molten
in an arrow-straight furrow, the grass that edged it catching
alight as a high-powered laser beam cut through it. Sabre rolled
down the slope, out of sight. The man was a fairly good shot,
although he had compensated for wind when it did not affect a
laser. That meant he had used the telescopic sights, which was odd
for a primitive, although not impossible. The control unit flashed
a warning, and he glanced at the scanner info, his blood chilling.
A cyber emerged from the fortress, mounted on an air-bike. It
seemed that Torrian had been in contact with spacers, and Sabre
suspected who it might be. Since he had lost Tassin’s support,
Manutim had probably found a new ally in Torrian.

Rising to his
feet, Sabre sprinted for the cover of the trees five hundred metres
to his right, another hissing furrow of glowing soil slashing the
ground behind him. He was pretty sure whoever had ordered the cyber
to hunt him down did not realise that he was one too, as he risked
losing his expensive hi-tech equipment. He should have, though, for
only a crack marksman with a sniper scope, or a cyber, could have
made the shot that had killed Torrian. Safe behind a tree, he
checked his lasers, both of which were fully charged, while he
waited for the cyber to arrive. He watched him on the scanners and
listened to the approaching whine of the air-bike, which stopped
two hundred metres away, just beyond the trees. The cyber
dismounted and approached on foot. The structural scanners mapped
the terrain between him and his foe, who dodged from tree to
tree.

Sabre crouched
and peered around the tree, a laser aimed. As the cyber darted
between two trees, he snapped off a shot that missed by a hair. He
had little chance of hitting the cyber; he had to wait for the unit
to attack, then he would be forced to break cover. The enemy cyber
stopped behind a tree next Sabre’s, and he tensed, his heart
speeding up. The cyber leapt into the open, dropped into a roll and
snapped off four shots that hit the tree where Sabre had been an
instant before. He was already diving away, firing at the rolling
cyber. His shots hit the ground the cyber had just vacated, and he
dodged behind another tree. When two armed cybers fought, he
thought bitterly, it generally continued without injury until their
weapons ran out, then changed to unarmed combat.

According to
the scanners, his foe had a fully stocked weapons’ harness, so he
had just as much ammo as Sabre. He had no intention of wasting his
ammunition on such an elusive target, however; he might need it
when the rest of the shitheads in the fortress joined the fight,
although he would prefer to forego that pleasure. Changing tactics,
he holstered his weapons and broke cover, racing towards the cyber,
who snapped off four more shots that hit Sabre in the chest. His
skin flamed with pain, but he reached his foe in a few strides,
bowled him over and straddled him. Sabre’s unusual tactic evidently
took his enemy by surprise, since this was not something a cyber
would do. Sabre smashed his fist into the cyber’s face, then jerked
his arms apart as his foe tried to jam his lasers into Sabre’s
ears, bashing his arms away. Sabre punched the cyber in the face
again, smashing his nose flat, and rolled away as his opponent
tossed him off with a powerful heave.

Sabre lunged
after the cyber as he sprang to his feet, tackled him around the
legs and brought him down again. The cyber still tried to aim his
lasers, but Sabre smacked them away each time, whilst inflicting
damage with his fists. The enemy cyber was loath to give up charged
weapons, but as long as he held them he could not use his fists.
The butt of a laser pistol cracked into the side of Sabre’s head,
making stars spin in his vision. His opponent seemed to be a tad
slower than he should be, indicating that he might be a B-grade.
The uneven terrain made acrobatics inadvisable, but the cyber was
unable to shoot Sabre again now that he was close enough to punch
the weapons away.

The fight
continued in a graceful ballet of lunging, leaping, punching,
blocking, rolling and diving, the close combat Sabre forced on his
foe earning both fighters plenty of bruises. The enemy cyber got
off occasional shots that missed, and his lasers died. Since Sabre
stayed close to him, his adversary could not reload, and tossed the
weapons away to free his hands. Sabre charged him, receiving a
powerful punch on his head that made it ring like a gong, but he
flattened his adversary and straddled him again, only this time he
was armed and the other cyber was not. Sabre snatched a laser from
a thigh holster as his opponent grabbed the knife in his webbing.
Sabre gripped the cyber’s throat and pressed the laser to his eye.
The cyber plunged the knife into Sabre’s flank, smashing his laser
away.