The jamming increased dramatically just before the aliens reached the stream. The aliens stopped, bringing their weapons up, and began to spread out. Two ducked down beside some boulders, their infrared signature fading away as their suit’s skin turned black. Both were very difficult to see, even for the sneekbot’s sensors.
“Stop them,” the Doc pleaded. “Morton!”
A beam weapon fired down into the ravine, catching one of the more visible aliens. Its force field sizzled a bright violet, haloing its shape against the rock and foaming water. Another beam weapon stabbed out, punching the radiant force field. Steam began to hiss upward from the surrounding grass as little flames licked around the base of the suit’s shielding. It took a couple of seconds before the force field finally collapsed from the twin energy spikes impaling it. The alien’s armor suit exploded in a dazzling plasma mushroom as its energy cells and ammunition were vaporized.
Light flooded along the ravine, bringing a clarity that even daylight never managed. The two aliens that had gone for cover amid the crumbling boulders started to fire up at the ambush party.
“Shit, they’re losing it,” Morton yelled. He stood up and started to run hard. The suit’s electromuscles carried him easily, amplifying his every leap to send him flying effortlessly over the fallen trees.
“Fuck it!” Rob cried. He jumped after Morton, his pounding suit legs splintering the rotten trees apart as if they were polystyrene.
“I can see the fire from here,” Cat called. “You must be visible to half the aliens at Blackwater Crag.”
Morton winced. Up ahead of him, the ravine was a sharp crack of flickering pyrotechnics against the black foothill. With or without jammed communications, it would act like a beacon to any flyers. His suit deployed the hyper-rifle from its right forearm sheath.
A hefty plume of soil and flame shot up from the edge of the ravine where one of the ambushers was lying. Morton saw a human shape pinwheel through the air, backlit by the raw energy raging inside the ravine.
“Four flyers heading your way,” Parker called.
Morton saw the orange symbols creep into his virtual vision.
“Can you close it down?” The Cat shouted.
“Not a chance,” Morton said. “One of them’s dead, the other two are still shooting.”
“Stop them!” Parker demanded. “How difficult can it be?”
“We’re coming,” the Doc said. “Parker, with me.”
“Oh, Christ.”
One final eight-meter hurdle jump over a horizontal tree and Morton landed on the rim of the ravine, his boots thudding into spongy soil up to the ankles. He was already pointing his hyper-rifle. A simple circular targeting graphic materialized in the center of his virtual vision. The sneekbots were triangulating coordinates for him. An alien armor suit slid smoothly into the orange circle, which immediately flashed green. Morton fired.
The hyper-rifle was designed with one purpose: to puncture the force field projected by alien armor. Even so, Morton was slightly surprised when the small atom laser’s half-second burst drilled clean through the suit, sending the alien flying backward three meters through the air to splash into the stream. Water closed over the dark shape, hissing briefly as the heat produced a small cloud of steam. How about that, the military got something right.
Rob was crouching beside him—presenting a smaller target silhouette. He fired his hyper-rifle. Morton found the last alien and shot it. The ravine was abruptly plunged into darkness again. Just a few serpent shapes of grass embers glowed where the alien patrol had made their stand. The damp night air was extinguishing them quickly.
“Who the hell are you?” a voice challenged.
“The cavalry,” Rob told him. “Your lucky day, huh.”
“Flyer overhead,” the Doc said. His voice was strangely calm. “You’re going to need covering fire, Morton.”
“No!” Cat warned. “Don’t!”
Morton’s telemetry display showed him the Doc launching an HVvixen. The slim missile accelerated at fifteen gees, its plasma exhaust piercing the air behind it like a runaway solar flare. It slammed into the flyer’s force field, flash-releasing its remaining energy. The flyer detonated into an incandescent spherical shock wave that billowed out at supersonic velocity to envelop its three partners. They exploded in furious twisting gouts of sapphire vapor.
“Gotcha, you bastards,” the Doc crooned.
“You retard motherfucker,” the Cat screamed. “You’ve just killed us all.”
“Only these bodies, Cat,” the Doc said lightly. “Your essence will have continuity.”
The dazzling lightstorm began to drain out of the night sky, dissipating into a thousand sparkling contrails that sank slowly toward the ground. Morton’s suit sensors picked out the three armored humans standing in the middle of the scintillation blizzard.
“Nice shot, man,” Parker said admiringly.
“Run,” Morton whispered. “Run now. Get out of there!”
One figure was already moving. The Cat: using her armor suit boost function to its maximum, accelerating her helter-skelter sprint to over sixty kilometers an hour. She was heading up the slope toward the roof of writhing cloud.
“Four more,” Parker said. “Make that six.”
“You mean ten,” the Doc said. “Morton, Rob, get the civilians out of here.”
“Yeah,” Parker said. “Protect and serve.”
The one surviving ambusher was walking unsteadily toward Morton.
“What was that? What is happening?”
“They’re not going to make it,” Rob said.
Five HVvixens shrieked into the night.
Morton jumped toward the survivor as vivid white light silently washed across them. “Get down. Get into the ravine.” He didn’t give the man any opportunity to argue. His suit arms closed around him, picking him up effortlessly. They both tumbled over the edge. Behind them, the devil’s own fireworks display filled the sky with carnage.
“Bad guys falling,” Parker reported, laughing gleefully.
“They found us,” the Doc reported. “More incoming. Shit. Eighteen. Four of them are big. New flyer type for your catalogue, Morton.” His suit’s sensors were relaying a stream of information. The data faltered as several beam weapons locked on to him. “You guys had better go for deep cover. Make this relevant, Morton. I’m counting on you.” He fired another HVvixen. It never got ten meters from his suit’s force field before the deluge of energy from the alien beam weapons ruptured it.
Parker’s screaming was loud in Morton’s ears as he was hurled through the air by the explosion. Telemetry showed him the man’s suit start to falter from the punishing overload.
“Get down to the bottom of the ravine,” Rob was saying. “We’ll be safe there.”
Morton hauled the ambusher along at his side as the two of them hurried down the last few meters of the slope to the rampaging water. He switched to active sensors, confident no one would ever notice. The stream was deep, at least a couple of meters. As far as his radar could see downstream the flow was free from any obstruction.
“Over here,” Parker called. He was broadcasting on every frequency his armor suit was capable of transmitting on. “Here I am, you bastards, come and get me.” Seven of the large alien flyers were approaching him, their weapons lashing out. “Eat this shit, and die.”
Morton plunged into the stream, taking the survivor with him. He expanded his suit’s force field to envelop both of them.
Parker triggered the two tactical nukes he was carrying.
A stratum of violent white light streaked over the top of the ravine, obliterating every color as its thick nimbus irradiated the ground. The churning water of the stream began to steam. Then the air shook, agitating the boulders. Small stones began to bounce down the slopes to splash into the water.
Morton and Rob were already well on their way downstream, tumbling around and around in the swirling rapids. It was a fast and chaotic ride, with t
he pair of them grinding through shallows and banging into the sides only to ricochet back into the main current again. Morton kept hold of the ambush survivor, struggling to keep the man above the foaming surface the whole time they jolted about.
The dreadful sheen of light drained out of the sky, leaving the restless clouds seething with lightning flashes. Ground tremors faded away.
“You okay?” Rob asked. He was ten meters ahead of Morton, riding down on his back, using his arms as rudders.
“Just trying to keep this guy alive.”
“How’s he doing?”
“I think he’s had better days. Sensors show he’s still breathing.” It was more like choking, but at least his weak thrashing showed he was still alive.
“We’re getting goddamn close to the town.”
“I know. But we’re almost at the bottom.”
Another two hundred meters brought them to the end of the stream, where it broadened out to gurgle over a wide, flat bed of stones before emptying into the Trine’ba. Morton came racing out of the last curve to hit the stones on his ass; he plowed through them for a short way before coming to a complete halt.
“Holy fuck,” Rob said. “We made it.”
“Congratulations.” The Cat’s voice oozed sarcasm. “Landed on something soft, did you? That part that does all your thinking.”
“Piss off, bitch.”
Morton’s virtual vision showed him the working sensor disks that were relaying Cat’s signal. There weren’t many left. When he accessed their visual spectrum feeds, they showed him a small crater glowing a venomous maroon where Parker had made his stand. Above it, a hole had been ripped through the clouds, where violet air hazed the swirling gap. Forests and spinnies scattered on the hills above the town had ignited and were now surging into full-blown firestorms; between them the ruined grass was smoldering. Smoke was rising to choke the narrow band of air between the ground and the clouds. None of the sensors reported any flyer activity.
The Cat was sheltering in a gentle fold high above the blast zone. Telemetry showed her suit was intact; its force field had protected her from the blast.
Morton let go of the man he was holding and climbed to his feet. The force field around the alien town was five hundred meters away. There was no sign of any activity nearby.
“I think we’re safe for the moment,” Morton said. “This might be a good time to leave.”
“Amen to that,” Rob grunted.
Morton looked down at the man who was still sprawled on the stones, panting heavily. His black clothes had been ripped in several places; the ebony skin beneath was grazed and lacerated.
“You all right?” Morton asked.
The man turned his head to glare up. “What? Are you making a joke?”
“Sorry. I’ve got a decent medical kit, but if you can walk I’d like to build some distance with Randtown before we stop to patch you up.”
“Merciful heavens, forgive me for what I’ve done.”
“What have you done?”
“Led more good men to their death. I take it you are responsible for that explosion? It was nuclear, wasn’t it?”
“One of my squad mates triggered it. He was stopping the flyers you’d attracted.”
“I see.” The man bowed his head until it was almost in the water. “Even more deaths must be carried by my conscience, then. And it was already a terrible burden. Truly, the fates must hate me.”
“I don’t think any of this is personal. My name’s Morton, this is Rob.”
“Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate you saving me. Much good it will do you.”
“Pleasure,” Rob grunted.
“Who are you?” Morton asked.
The man smiled, revealing bloody teeth. “Simon Rand. I founded this paradise.”
***
The cave was a good hideout, Morton admitted to himself. It had taken them an hour to reach it, scrambling along the rocks of the shoreline, sometimes wading across deep inlets where the mountain runoffs gushed into the rank lake water.
Three people were waiting for their leader, desperate to know what had happened when the bombs went off.
David Dunbavand had been badly injured in an earlier raid. One of his legs had been shattered, its flesh now an unhealthy blue-black mottling, with cuts weeping gray cheesy fluid. His toes already looked and smelled gangrenous. Several other bones had been broken during his brief moment of combat. He was sweating continuously, damp hair slicked back against his skull.
A girl called Mandy was nursing him; she looked tired and worn, prone to tears. There wasn’t much she could do except clean his dressings and feed him a weak broth they’d cooked up from salvaged food packets. She was wrapped up in several oversized woolen sweaters, and a pair of green semiorganic waterproof trousers. Curls of lank hair hung out of a black wool hat.
It was Georgia who had run out of the cave, splashing through the shallows to greet Simon as he limped painfully toward his refuge. “One of my earliest believers,” he said painfully as he introduced her to Morton and Rob. “Georgia was with me building the highway.” She smiled bravely at him, her arm going around his waist to help him over the last few meters of slippery rock. Her face was ruggedly beautiful, rejuvenated to adolescence, with a square jaw and sharp cheekbones. She wore an expensive designer suit on top of several T-shirts and thermal trousers; the semiorganic fabric was smeared with weeks’ worth of dirt, but still offered a degree of protection from the cave’s dank atmosphere and the chill air that seeped in from outside. Once stylish auburn hair had been cut short by scissors and was now covered by a silk scarf wrapped like a turban.
Morton followed Simon and Georgia as they clambered along a ledge that took them back to the main chamber. It was illuminated by a few solar-charged lightglobes, the kind you could buy at any camping shop. They badly needed recharging, producing only a wan yellow glow that didn’t even reach the cave roof. However, there was enough radiance to show him the three bodies sealed in plastic lying along the rear wall.
David pushed himself up onto his elbows, grimacing at the effort. “Where are the others?” He was giving the entrance a stricken look, already knowing the answer.
“I’m sorry,” Simon told him.
Mandy slumped down, and started crying.
“Tyrone?” David asked.
“No. He got one of the aliens, though. He stood his ground to the very end.”
“One!” the injured man exclaimed bitterly. “One out of a million. I should never have stayed here. I should have gone with Lydia and the kids. We’re not making any difference. We’re just being wiped out. Look at us! Four of us, that’s all that’s left. What was the point?” He lowered himself back onto the thin mattress, shaking at the pain, drawing sharp breaths.
“How many of you were there to start with?” Morton asked.
“Eighteen of us remained behind,” Simon said as he sat down heavily. A hand waved around the cave. “This is all that remains of us. I’d like to say that we have taken leagues of the aliens to hell with us, but alas our efforts have been mediocre at best. They are well equipped and excellent soldiers. In truth there’s not much we have achieved aside from our own deaths.” He began to scratch the healskin dressings that Rob had applied to his cuts during the journey back. Georgia sat beside him, her knees tucked up under her chin. Their arms went around each other.
“Eighteen,” Morton muttered. He didn’t want to ask for details; it all seemed such a waste. Not that Cat’s Claws had done a lot better. Not yet.
“Please,” Mandy asked; she looked up pleadingly, wiping her eyes. “Can you get us back to the Commonwealth?”
Morton was glad his helmet was on; she wouldn’t be able to see his expression. “I’m not sure. We weren’t scheduled to be lifted out for six months. I’ll inform the navy you’re here, of course. They’ll probably try and get a wormhole open for you.”
She lowered her head.
“Have you got communications?” David Dunba
vand croaked.
“Sure. The navy is opening a wormhole on a regular basis to receive our messages. We can let your family know you’re okay.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” He smiled, which turned into a cough.
“Let me take a look at you,” Rob said. He took his helmet off and knelt beside the injured man. He waved a diagnostic array over David’s leg and torso.
“We’ve got a decent supply of medical equipment stashed back at our base camp. There should be something that can help.”
“A painkiller would do to start with,” David said. “We’ve even run out of those. The hospital was shut away behind the first force field they generated. We’ve had to make do with whatever we can find in the farmhouses ever since. It never amounted to much, and it seemed selfish to keep what little we had from poor old Napo, even at the end.” He indicated one of the corpses.
“No problem,” Rob said. He took a small applicator pad from his pack.
David gave an audible sigh as it was pressed to his neck. “Damn, I never thought I’d enjoy feeling numb. That’s very kind of you, my friend.”
“My pleasure. Now just lie still and let my e-butler’s medical routine work out what to do with you.”
“How much bandwidth can your communications wormhole handle?” David asked. “We have the memories of our friends; can you at least get them to safety?”
“You’ve got a secure store in here?” Morton asked.
“Their security is our honor,” Simon said. “Every time one of us ventures outside, we transfer our last memories to an ordinary handheld array. Those who remain are sworn to get them to safety back in the Commonwealth. We trust each other, you see. Friendship in these terrible times has forged a bond strong enough to give us the strength to face bodyloss with confidence and conviction.”
Morton wasn’t sure there was anyone in Cat’s Claws he’d trust with his memories. “It would be a slow transfer,” he said carefully. “The wormhole isn’t open for very long. Just a few seconds.”
“I understand,” Simon said. “We have survived thus far, a few more months should pose no problem, especially with your weapons to help protect us.”