Amersy used his speaker. "Hang on, Karl, we'll have you out of there right away."
"We'll have to turn it right over," Lewis said.
"Shouldn't be a problem." They took hold of the jeep. "Ready?" Amersy said. "Okay, lift." The jeep began to emit labored metallic screeches as they slowly tipped it up. One of Lewis's hands slipped, and the vehicle sagged back a few centimeters.
"Hell," Lewis grunted as he found another hold. "The tank's split, this thing is dripping in hihydrogen."
"Great."
They had almost got it on its side when Amersy's sensors detected the little projectile. An intense blue-white spark hit the jeep. The hihydrogen ignited immediately, enveloping the entire vehicle. Amersy and Lewis let go, sending it crashing back down.
"Down!" Amersy ordered. He was already flinging himself flat.
The fuel tank exploded.
Lawrence was unconscious for an unknown time. When the pain pulled him back he guessed it couldn't have been long. Dust was still swirling round the wreck. Amersy called him, and he said he was okay, though he was lying. The end of the steering column was still jutting into his side. The Skin's medical program was scrolling up information: the damaged tissue, chipped pelvic girdle, the suppressants it was pumping into his blood. He placed both hands flat on the dashboard and pushed. His body moved back, sliding off the steering column.
Even with the drugs, Lawrence wailed at the pain as it withdrew. Then his Skin muscles were realigning themselves, sealing up the wound. The suit's internal layer discharged antiseptic, anesthetic and clotting agents into the tear. The whole area turned blissfully cold.
He turned around to see what had happened to Hal. "Oh, sweet Fate." The kid was sitting against his safety straps, head hung forward. All of his medical modules had been burned out by the e-bomb. Lawrence's Skin AS couldn't get a response from any of them. Small patches of blood were staining the kid's shirt where the jolt of their impact had dislodged modules.
"Sergeant?" Odel limped out of the house. There was something wrong with the shape of one leg. "Are you okay?"
"Sure." He levered himself out of the driver's seat. "You?"
"Not a problem."
"Good, let's get Hal out."
"Where's Dennis?"
Lawrence looked around. There was a Skin suit lying in the middle of the street, badly mangled. The second jeep must have hit it full on. "Shit!" Dennis's telemetry grid was flatlined.
Don't grieve for the newly dead—they never thank you. Secure the platoon. Lawrence could hear Ntoko growling it out.
He released Hal's safety straps and lifted the kid out of the rear seat. "Bring the medical kit," he told Odel.
An explosion rocked the street. Lawrence saw a fireball burst out of the second jeep as the wreckage levitated off the ground.
"Amersy, get to cover. We've been ambushed. Seek and destroy."
"Roger that."
The two Skins lying flat on the ground beside the blazing jeep scrambled to their feet and sprinted for the nearby houses.
Lawrence wrapped one arm around Hal, lifting him gingerly, then reached down into the passenger seat for the smart missile rack. He stepped into the house through the demolished wall.
The room inside was empty. He kicked the door open and went through into a dark hallway. There were six identical doors and a stairway. He hurried down to the far end and kicked the last door open. It was another empty room. Tiny cracks of light leaked around the boarded-up window. He eased Hal down in a comer.
Odel put the medical kit down and snapped the top open. "Have we got anything that'll help?"
"I don't know." Lawrence picked out a diagnostic probe and switched it on. He was relieved when the small display pane lit up. The em pulse hadn't damaged electronics that were off at the time of the attack. Data began to flow into his AS.
There was the sound of a carbine firing in the distance. "Odel, go help them."
"You bet."
"Hey, be careful out there. These bastards look like they know what they're doing."
"So do I."
Amersy ran along an alleyway leading off the main street. There wasn't a lot of cover. The prefab houses were spaced a regulation twenty meters apart. The grid of streets almost allowed him to see from one side of town to the other. It also gave the ambushers the same field of vision. And he didn't know where they were.
Lewis had ducked away at the second house, heading off down a side street. Amersy raced on for a little while, then took a turning. He called up the Dixon map file, inertial guidance plotting his position. The Skin AS gave him a rough estimate of where the little projectile had come from. His link with Lewis gave him the other man's location, plotting that on the map as well.
"Lewis, we need to pincer them. You getting this tactical data?"
"It's online, Corp."
"Keep going straight on for a hundred and twenty meters. I'll be three streets to your left. They should be between us."
"Roger."
Lewis jogged along the route Amersy's AS had provided. His carbine slid out of its arm recess. When he got to the intersection he stopped and peered around the corner. There was a flash of motion two houses down. His AS replayed the image. It was a woman in her mid-twenties, dressed in jeans and a yellow T-shirt. She was carrying some kind of pearl-white cylinder in her left hand. The AS couldn't match it to any weapon in its catalogue file.
He switched carbine rounds to depleted-uranium and fired straight through the wall. The composite paneling in front of him disintegrated as the high-penetration rounds went straight through. Nothing in the houses was solid enough to stop one. His Skin AS gave him a spread pattern that had a high strike probability. He stopped firing and started to run to the corner where the woman had disappeared.
"Got a hostile, Corp. In pursuit."
"Roger that. Did you get them?"
Lewis reached the end of the street and jumped. It was a trajectory no hostile would be expecting. He flew past the end house, a meter and a half in the air. Carbine pointing down the street, sensors sweeping. There were puncture holes in the houses left by the depleted-uranium rounds, three foundation piers had shattered, but no body. His feet hit the ground and he was still running. He dashed behind a house and crouched beside a foundation pier.
"Shit, I missed, Corp."
"Okay. Let's close in, they're here somewhere."
Lewis got to his feet and turned down the street toward the corporal. He'd gone maybe ten paces when his neat display grid dissolved into a jazz of indigo lightning bolts. "What the hell...? Jesus, not now." His Skin's neurotronic pearls must have taken a bigger hit from the em pulse than he'd thought. He waited for the e-alpha fortress to reboot the crashed software. Instead the indigo swarm evaporated, leaving him without any data at all. "Son of a bitch."
He'd almost come to a halt when the woman stepped out from behind a house twenty meters ahead. She just stood there, watching him.
Lewis snarled, bringing the carbine up. Even without targeting graphics he could hit a pebble at this distance. The carbine didn't fire. He squeezed his trigger finger twice, three times, an impulse that was linked directly to the weapon. Nothing.
He started to run toward her. If she was counting on him not using brute force against a woman, she was about to find out the hard way just how big a mistake she'd made.
All of a sudden his legs weren't making any progress. It was as if he were wading through thigh-high mud. In dismay he realized his Skin muscles had stopped supporting him. His ordinary leg muscles were having to move the entire Skin suit.
"Corp!" he yelled, hoping his speaker was still functioning. "Corp, the fucking Skin's crashed. Corp!"
It became impossible to move. The Skin muscles had solidified, entombing him. He toppled over. For whatever reason, his visual sensors remained online. The side of his vision field showed him the woman walking toward him at a leisurely pace. She stopped beside him, the toes of her worn sneakers almost touching his shoul
der.
Lewis was having to suck every scrap of air down into his lungs. The fail-safes! What had happened to the fail-safes? He wanted to shout up at the woman to help him, to open the Skin suit. But there was no air.
The woman leaned over slightly, as if she were studying him. Then she held a hand out above his helmet, fingers spread wide. She slowly closed the hand, fingers curling in to make a fist.
Lewis felt the Skin muscles flex. For an instant he believed the e-alpha was finally rebooting the entire suit. Then the Skin muscles began their contraction. He found enough air to scream as his ribs cracked. The last thing he saw was the hand above him squeezing tight.
Lawrence's AS had come up with very little to help Hal. What the kid needed was a whole new set of medical modules. Some of the ones he was using were so specialist that Lawrence wasn't even sure Memu Bay had replacements. All they had in the kit was field-aid systems and capsules of the drugs that the organ support modules used.
The diagnostic was showing abnormal blood chemistry. Lawrence's AS produced a list of drugs to combat the condition. But he didn't know if that blood chemistry was wrong given Hal's state. In the end he settled for injecting small doses.
Hal groaned, his head moving slowly from side to side.
Lewis dropped out of Lawrence's telemetry grid. "Amersy, what the hell's happening out there?"
"He's gone. I don't know what..."
Amersy's voice faded. His telemetry grid was breaking up. Then a warning Lawrence had never seen before flashed up. It took him a moment to recognize the symbols. His Prime was expanding into the Skin's neurotronic pearls, replacing the standard AS program.
"Amersy, Odel, listen to me. Your Skins are being infiltrated with a very powerful subversive software. Close down and reboot. Do not use the communications links again. They've been compromised. Repeat, don't use the communications links."
Odel's telemetry vanished.
"Oh, sweet Fate." He requested a status summary from Prime and read the indigo data as it scrolled. Prime had immediately blocked the attempt to infiltrate his own Skin. The ambushers had tried to use their own Prime to subvert his AS. In which case, he decided, the ambushers had to be from Arnoon Province. They must have bought their Prime when they were on Earth—not that it mattered now.
He could hear a carbine firing again. If they could intercept the Skin communications link, they'd have his position down to a millimeter. He snatched up the smart missile rack and plugged its data cable into a port on his Skin. Prime entered the missiles.
Lawrence stood up. Prime was displaying maps with tactical scenario overlays. Just as he turned to leave, Hal groaned again. Lawrence gritted his teeth.
Amersy did exactly as Lawrence ordered, shutting down his entire Skin immediately. For a wretched moment he was locked solid in airless dark. He hated how vulnerable he must be, a big figure standing motionless in the middle of the open street. Then the AS began its reboot. Sensors came back online.
This whole mission was going too wrong, too quickly. Whatever the Arnoon ambushers had, it was an easy match for Skin. Amersy knew Lawrence had seriously underestimated them. The remains of the platoon were never going to reach their pot of gold now; all those lazy dreams of coming down from the plateau with enough money to buy out were dead. Survival was all that mattered.
As soon as he got limb movement back he ran at the nearest house, shattering the door as he went straight through. When he was inside he ordered the Skin to open. He started instructing the AS as he wriggled out.
Denise was doing nearly a hundred kph when she charged past Dixon's outlying buildings.
"Amersy's stopped transmitting," Jacintha said. "Gangel, see if he's still active."
"I've got Odel's last position," Denise said. "I'll take him."
"Be careful," Jacintha said. "We know the Prime hadn't infiltrated his Skin. Damn, Newton's good."
"Don't we know it."
"Eren, help Denise out, please."
"I'm thirty seconds away," Eren assured them.
Denise slowed the Scarret and skirted the main square. Odel could be down any one of half a dozen side streets. Fortunately, a Skin was easy enough for her to spot: its heat signature left a trail in the sandy soil that was as strong as a neon sign. She sensed Eren walking down a street parallel to hers. Seventy meters ahead, hot footprints glowed on the ground. They led into one of the houses. Its front door swung loosely on its hinges.
"Got him," Denise said. She slowed the bike to walking pace and closed on the house.
Carbine fire echoed over the deserted town.
"Amersy is still with us," Jacintha said dryly. "Those were depleted-uranium rounds. Careful, everyone."
Denise halted ten meters from the house. Eren appeared from an intersection opposite. He gave her a small wave.
"Cover the other side," she told him. "A Skin can walk through these walls like they're paper."
"Right." Eren jogged away to the back of the house.
Denise took the electron cluster pistol from her bag. The little unit melded snugly into her palm, giving her an aim alignment that was pure instinct.
More carbine fire sounded as Jacintha and Gangel started a running firefight five streets away. Ragged holes were punched clean through a house twenty meters behind Denise. Jacintha and Gangel shot back with e-c barbs. Sheets of flame roared into the sky as composite walls ignited.
"Ready," Eren said.
Denise swung a leg over the bike and stood facing the front door as it swung about in the slight gusts. This is wrong, she thought, it's too easy. Odel is a properly trained soldier. He won't allow himself to be cornered like this. She looked up at the house's roof.
The solar collector panels were hot from the sun. Infrared was useless. Then she saw scuff marks in the patina of ocher dust.
Denise spun around, her e-c pistol coming up. She was firing as she turned. Tiny sparks of light spurted out of the nozzle, twinkling as they shot away into the sky. Then one of them struck the Skin lying prone on the roof. It punched the bulky suit a couple of meters across the smooth solar collectors, ripping off a segment of the carapace. Two more e-c pulses hit, tearing the Skin apart.
Eren came round the side of the building. "Denise? What happened?"
"He jumped to another house. It was an ambush."
"Hell. Well done."
Carbine fire sounded again. Depleted-uranium rounds tore into the house, shredding huge sections of the paneling. A foundation pier burst apart in a wicked shrapnel cloud of concrete chips. Denise and Eren hit the ground together.
"Crap, I hate those carbines," Eren shouted as he lifted his head.
Denise risked looking back to where Amersy had fired from. "They never used depleted-uranium down in Memu Bay."
Eren grunted. "I wonder why."
Another house ignited from a deluge of e-c barbs. Carbine fire crackled again; buildings shivered and rocked as the rounds chopped through.
"Gangel, he's on your left," Jacintha cried. "Denise, we could use some help."
"On our way."
Eren gave her a reluctant grimace and started running. Denise paced him as they closed on her sister's position.
"He's under a house," Gangel said. "Damn, moving again."
A stream of e-c barbs poured out of an intersection ahead of Denise. She flinched. Carbine fire answered. Denise hit the ground again. Twenty meters away, a solar collector roof ruptured; black, glittering fragments rained down on the street.
"What was he shooting at?" Jacintha asked.
"Who cares?" Gangel said. "He can't have much ammunition left, not at this rate."
More depleted-uranium hammered through five houses. The last one sagged and slowly collapsed inward as its piers disintegrated. Denise had been ready to run forward again. Instead she buried her head in the ground.
"Shit!" Jacintha exclaimed. "He's got us pinned down."
"This is seriously crap tactics," Eren said in alarm. "If Newton comes up behin
d us, we're dead."
"They can't communicate," Denise told him. She wished she had more confidence. The platoon had worked together for years, decades even. And they were trained soldiers. If anybody could manage without a direct link, it would be Newton and Amersy.
The carbine fired. Her link with the Scarret went dead. "Shit!" She was aware of Jacintha hurrying forward again. Gangel started sprinting from the opposite direction. They were pouring e-c barbs into the house where Amersy was hidden. Denise began to race forward, holding her e-c pistol ahead, sending out a constant barrage of barbs. The house was an inferno, huge, violent flames roaring almost horizontally out of the shattered windows. Its solar collector roof was twisting and flexing as the heat lashed at it. Then flames were stabbing victoriously through the gullies as it juddered and began to sink down.
Another burst of carbine fire came from inside. Even as she flinched down yet again, Denise marveled at how the corporal could keep so cool in this situation. Skin suits might be heat resistant, but to stand at the heart of an inferno surrounded by enemies and still maintain a devastating fire pattern was enviable.
One of the walls collapsed amid a huge fireball. A Skin tumbled through the gap. It was hit by e-c barbs from three directions, bursting apart.
Denise squinted against the glare and fierce heat. There was something badly wrong about the way the Skin had ruptured. Jacintha must have thought the same. She was approaching the remnants, cautious yet urgent, covering it with her pistol.
The solar collector roof finally fell to the floor, throwing out a cascade of sparks. Jacintha raised one hand to ward them off. She bent over the tattered Skin. "Shit!" She was looking around wildly.
"What?" Denise asked. She was closing in, along with Gangel and Eren.
"It's empty. The bastard wasn't in it!"
Denise was suddenly swinging round, her heart thudding in fright as she attempted to cover half the town with her pistol.
Amersy crouched behind a foundation pier, watching intently as the young woman and her companion started running toward the firefight. His Skin AS was firing the carbine in random bursts, maintaining a suppressing-fire pattern. The two ambushers flung themselves flat. He grinned as he scuttled over to the shiny Scarret. Damn dumb amateurs, weren't even checking their asses. He used a power blade to slice through the dashboard, then waited until another carbine burst sounded before jabbing the tip straight into the electronics. He cut through the neurotronic pearls and fiberoptics that were connected to the compensators and brakes. Without AS management (or whatever program was loaded in) the bike would be sluggish. But he could accelerate, brake and steer manually. It was enough to get him back to Memu Bay. That would have to do.