Extremis (89 page)

That was when the second wave of HVMs—just as numerous as the first—jutted skyward. One of the near-relativistic missiles, racing aloft to impale its nuke-carrying target, passed within fifty meters of Iakkut’s command delta. The powerful suction generated by the vacuum of its 30,000-kilometer-per-second passage pulled in Iakkut’s vehicle, tearing pieces off it—a split second before the sudden reconstriction of spontaneously combusting air pincered it, breaching the Security sled’s light hull.

The superheated and burning air rushed into the interior of the craft, discarnating Iakkut so quickly he had no time to revisit the momentary misgiving he had mentally permitted himself while walking to join his waiting forces on Punt’s predawn airfield, Emz’hem’s blood still dripping from his skeerba:

Who knows? Perhaps today I shall not simply fight for the Martyrs, but become one myself.

* * *

As the skies continued to flash violently overhead and the winds tore at the roof of Heide’s topside HQ/OP, he watched the last of the Baldy sleds spew out a torrent of smaller rockets, a good number of which were angling toward him. At the same moment, high above, the few surviving fast movers glittered fitfully: the multiple ignitions of mass missile launches. Then the plumes of the inbound weapons billowed out behind them, ballooning in size as the salvo raced toward the ground.

Heide cleared his throat. “Ensign Montaño?”

“Yes?” came the young voice, tinny through the hardwired commo lines.

“Send this signal in the clear: ‘Well done, all—and Godspeed.’ Set for continuous loop—and then get into your shelter, Ensign.”

If Montaño replied, Heide did not hear it. With a perfect presence of mind, and a strange inner peace, he watched the burgeoning missiles descend toward him.

* * *

Eighteen kilometers away, Marina Cheung waited as the last of the evacuees emerged from the bird-infested smuggler’s tunnel, waving them down into a rocky defile that had overhead blast cover, thanks to a sheltering bluff. She had already heard Heide’s simple farewell message play three times, and, as she snugged Zander’s uncommonly sturdy toddler body close against her own fairly small torso and began racing down to join the others, she heard the announcement start a fourth time—

An intense light abruptly outlined the craggy, sheltering bluff into a sharp black silhouette. Marina heard Heide’s announcement end, cut off by a sharp, rising squeal that was in turn almost drowned out by the sound of a dozen fry pans full of crackling bacon. Then, for the slimmest of instants—silence: the line was dead, the birds were still. But then she heard the roar rising and felt the first tremor shoot through the ground beneath her feet.

As she felt the inexplicable urge of Lot’s wife rise within her, she yelled aloud—as much to herself as the others: “Don’t look back—no matter what!”

* * *

McGee had to grab Jen’s shoulder and pull her back. His fiancée turned around with a wave up the corridor and a vigorous nod. “She’s here, just down this hall. I know it. I can feel it.”

McGee looked at her carefully and then matched her nod with one of his own. “Okay, then, here we go. Igor, you provide our base of fire. Jon, you keep team five back here and hold off any Baldies who come after us. Haika, you and I lead the charge. Jen”—who was ready to protest—“you stay with Harry and he stays with you. Either of you disobey that and I’ll shoot you myself.” He tried to make it sound like a joke: it didn’t help that he was more than half-serious. And now he had to take the single action that, like passing a point of no return, put every last iota of the attack plan on the line: he switched on his radio, triggered a fast, preprogrammed set of squelches, and waited two seconds before sending: “Bullet to Breech, Bullet to Breech: come in Breech.”

“Bullet, this is Breech.” And because the answering voice was Chong’s, McGee didn’t have to ask: he knew. Cap was dead. “Bullet, we are triangulating on your signal now. I estimate we are only four minutes from your current position, over.”

“Breech, we are approximately fifty meters north by northeast of our objective. I say again: fifty meters north by northeast of our terminal objective. Do you copy?”

“I copy, Bullet. We are at company strength now and following your UV-dye trail with black-light and goggles. We estimate—” And then the signal went dead.

McGee looked around at his assault team. “The Baldies have jammed our signal. The main attack wave is maybe five minutes behind us. Are you ready to take it the rest of the way?” Faceless, the remaining sixteen pitted and scarred battle-suits arrayed around him all made a stiff helmet-nodding motion. “Then let’s get going. Igor, start the music.”

Danilenko nodded and leaned out into the corridor: a fusillade of 5 mm bullets immediately spattered off his breastplate. He fired back, his coil gun screaming out fifty 4 mm needles per second. From farther down the hall, it sounded like he had shredded a garbage can filled with wrenches.

Harry smirked. “Scratch one blister. Let’s do this.”

McGee nodded solemnly—and led them around the corner at a run.

* * *

Ankaht ignored Temret’s repeated exhortations that she should retreat behind the table with the rest of the Councilors. She ignored it because she felt something growing, something familiar.

(Eager, desperate, pleading), she sent: “Jennifer?”

Then bullets—heavy, murderous projectiles—started showering through the doorway: the far wall was quickly pocked and then began disintegrating. Her Guardians returned fire, taking what cover they could behind the sole autonomous blister that Mretlak’s technical specialists had approved for her secure use. The blister fired a spread of missiles up the hall—and was then riddled by a sleetstorm of smaller, faster projectiles. It shuddered backward, hammered by the relentless torrent of fire, and then corkscrewed off to the side and into a corner, shedding parts as it tumbled away. The Guardian next to Temret jumped up to return fire—and the top half of his body seemed to explode into a bloody spray.

“Elder! You must get under cover!”

Still oblivious, Ankaht repeated her
selnarm
pulse—but as a terrified scream: “
Jennifer
!”

* * *

Lentsul had heard the firing from up ahead and charged the last two hundred meters.

Or rather, he had meant to. Rounding a corner halfway to Safety Point Three, the advance wedge of his Enforcers went down under a hail of high-power gunfire. One of the survivors—her left cluster blown off in a gruesome amputation—sent an image through her pain, before she lost consciousness and then discarnated: the other end of the hall was guarded by huge, crouching anthropomorphic shapes. Like humanoid robots. But no, this was the combat armor that Torhok and Urkhot and the rest of the self-satisfied
Destoshaz
radicals had confidently asserted the humans could not have on Bellerophon. After all, they had smugly reasoned, the
griarfeksh
lacked the self control to defer the use of such powerful weapons. Lentsul could have spit in disdain:
A pity you are not around to see—and experience—your error firsthand, you
Destoshaz
dolts.

But, as usual, it fell to an orderly
Ixturshaz
to clean up the mess made by just such idiots. “Blisters to the front,” Lentsul ordered.

“How many, Commander?”

“All but five.”

“All but five? But sir, if we encounter further Resistance—”

“
Bilbuxhat
-witted oaf, if we do not push this human rear guard aside immediately, they will reach our Councilors—if they have not already. I say again, all but five blisters: salvo all missiles at any targets. Three seconds after they begin, we charge in behind them. Fire at anything. Do not stop to check if the enemy are dead: press on to Safety Point Three. Are you with me?”

Stunned, the Arduans ringing the diminutive
Ixturshaz
—the smallest one there—sent (accord, resolve, ferocity).

“Then release the blisters: all attack!”

The first of the shining, floating cylinders swept around the corner and into the hallway—where it was promptly torn to pieces by a weapon that fired smaller projectiles, but more rapidly, than the guns which the humans had used first.

Then three blisters went around the corner together, and some survived long enough to launch their missiles.

Lentsul clutched his machine-pistol and thought:
To save the Councilors—that is a little thing. But to avenge you, Heshfet—to achieve that, I will kill all of them.

All
of them.

* * *

Too many things happened for Ankaht to control them all. The humans, largely impervious to the Arduan weapons in their immense armor, charged into the room, killing all the Guardians but Temret—who went down, but Ankaht could tell he was only wounded, momentarily feigning death.

Four of the suited humans advanced deeper into the room: one was very large, the other three were somewhat small.

And in that smaller trio, somewhere, was Jennifer. Ankaht knew it.

But even in that instant, the smaller trio broke apart, two heading toward Ankaht, another one going over to check the bodies of her Guardians.

At the same moment that the one checking the bodies leaned over Temret, one of the two approaching Ankaht undid her helmet—and a lock of Jennifer’s long, light-colored hair tumbled out.

“Jennifer!” Ankaht croaked aloud.

The sound startled them all—and that was the moment of distraction that Temret had been waiting for. His arm whipped his machine-pistol up, slammed it against the faceplate of the small armored human standing over him, and his lesser tentacles squeezed the trigger. At that range, and using armor-penetrating ammunition, even the machine-pistol was able to pierce the visor: it shattered under the high-speed hammering of the bullets. The small human fell backward, limp, landing with a crash against the futile barricades that Temret’s Guardians had erected.

Jen’s mouth was open in the human expression of shock. The other small human spun, and stood rigid as if stunned—but Ankaht could also read a sudden spike of murderous rage. The large human trained his weapon on Temret, just as five other human warriors charged into the room, aiming their weapons in the same direction.

Ankaht sent an (URGENT) command to Temret: “Drop your weapon immediately.”

“Honored Elder, I—”

“Immediately.” And then she croaked out, “Mistake. Killing stops now. Please.”

The humans all seemed to freeze in place—because the vocoder had translated her words perfectly. Ankaht looked behind her. Old Tefnut ha sheri stood there, cradling the translation machine carefully, its pickup aimed directly at her.

“It seemed a prudent moment to activate the device,” he sent.

* * *

Jennifer walked forward, extending a hand toward Ankaht. She felt ambivalence in the Arduan. “I am here to stop this war,” Jennifer sent, worrying that she was so out of practice that she might not have transmitted the concepts clearly enough.

But Ankaht’s eyes registered understanding—even as they looked at the armor Jennifer was wearing and the two carbines she was carrying as part of her load. “You come oddly equipped to speak of peace, Jennifer Peitchkov.”

“I had little choice, Ankaht. We didn’t exactly get an invitation to come and chat. But if it makes any difference, these two weapons are not mine. I refused to kill any Arduans when I agreed to join this mission.”

“Whether the weapons are yours or one of your soldiers, what is the difference? They were brought to kill us. Perhaps—to kill me, Jennifer Peitchkov?”

Jennifer felt her heart sink at Ankaht’s apparent belief that she would agree to carry out such an intent. “Ankaht! Surely you must know better than this.”

“I do now, for your feelings just told me so—and quite clearly. But then, Jennifer—since it obvious you were not killed trying to escape from Punt—why did you not contact me? Why did you not reach out? Why have you let all the bloodletting rise to a flood between our peoples?”

“Ankaht, look into me, into all my thoughts, and know this: I will keep nothing from you. But just as you struggled against reluctance and ignorance from your own people—and threats, as well—so have I. My life—and my child’s—have been threatened both for the sake of my loyalty to you and for the work we did together.”

Ankaht was still for a long moment. “I see and feel this clearly, Jennifer. Although we lived worlds apart on the same planet, we have nonetheless suffered many of the same worries, the same threats.”

Tank loomed behind her and murmured, “Is this her? Is this Ankaht?”

“Yes.”

“How’s it going?”

“Pretty well. Why?”

“Because we don’t have a lot of time. And because it will be good to be able to tell Harry that Haika died for something worthwhile.”

Ankaht looked around: Harry Li was kneeling—almost like a penitent—alongside the small suit of armor with the shattered faceplate.

Ankaht obviously had felt Jennifer’s heart plummet at the sight. Her three eyes closed slowly, reverently. “Dear Jennifer Peitchkov, we must stop this.”

“That’s what I came for, Ankaht.”

“And how do you propose we begin?”

“I must begin by taking you—and all the Council—hostage.”

* * *

Ankaht could hardly send through the shock. “You came all this way, suffered all these losses—just to take the Council captive? Jennifer, the Children of Illudor do not hold our lives to be so precious. Indeed, there are many among the
Destoshaz
caste who would be ecstatic to learn that you are removing us. Such a strategy will fulfill their chief goals. It will silence all of the moderate leadership, precipitate the slaughter of your Resistance, and ensure the demise of the only two of us who have ever been able to really, genuinely communicate. Jennifer, you of all humans must know this.” She stopped and considered the grave, unruffled certainty of Jennifer’s mind. “Indeed, you
do
know this.”

Jennifer nodded. “I know it. All of it. And more. I know that the majority of your people understand that if you—if this Council—were to be destroyed, it would also destroy the last hope of ending this war. Of avoiding the extermination of one or both of our species. It would weaken your people at a time when they can least afford it.”