Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance (18 page)

Lilly nodded and stepped to the
steering end of the sled. The technician moved away quickly, as if
her closeness might contaminate him. He was obedient enough to his
employer not to say anything aloud, but Catherine could see the
indecision and distaste in his expression.

Lilly got the sled moving and steered
it between Catherine and Brant.

Matsushita took a step after it and
Brant instantly drew his gun. He didn’t quite point it at the man,
but he moved the muzzle, silently telling Matsushita to move
back.

Matsushita took two steps back, his
hands raised. “You force me to cooperate,” he said and contrarily,
he sounded much happier.

“You can tell everyone we stole the
mule at the point of a gun, if you think that will save your
reputation, Girisha. But if I were you, I’d bribe your staff to
silence, scrub the electronic records and pretend that you’d never
met me or taken this commission. That would be the safest course
for you.”

One of the muscle people, the man from
outside the shed, moved around the group of them and bent to
whisper in Matsushita’s ear.

Matsushita jumped like he’d been shot
and glared at Catherine. “The Federation is landing in my fields!
What have you done?”

Fright ripped through her. “That’s not
possible.”

Bedivere turned and gripped her arm.
“Let’s go,” he said urgently. “There was no warning. They’re to the
south of the house, only a kilometer away. It’s a terrain vehicle
and they came in cloaked. Hurry!”

Catherine was the fastest runner out of
the three of them, but she kept pace with Bedivere and Brant as
they burst out onto the dirt track that led directly back to the
ship.

“We have to slow them down!” she said,
as they ran. “We have to give Lilly time to get back to the
ship.”

Lilly was a hundred meters in front of
them, walking at a fast pace with the sled ahead of her, one hand
on the corner. That was about as fast as an automated sled could
go.

“There’s no cover,” Brant said,
glancing around.

“For a while, the house itself will
cover us,” Bedivere said. “Once they move beyond the house,
though….”

“Then we’re going to have to dig in and
pin them down.”

“Dig into what?” Brant asked. “The
ground?”

“Fox holes,” Bedivere said. He’d
grasped her intention. “Brant, you’ve got a grenade or two on
you?”

“Of course.”

“Give me one.”

“You?”

Bedivere stopped jogging, bringing them
all to a halt. He held out his hand.

Brant dug in his pocket and pulled out
a crispy cracker and handed it over. Bedivere activated the sphere
and the electronic warble quickly climbed through the octaves. He
turned and threw it straight up the road, farther north of their
position. It was a powerful throw and the cracker soared in a high
arc and came down. As it landed on the dirt, it exploded.

Sand and rocks erupted upward, mixed
with the incandescent flames that gave the grenade its name. The
sound blast made Catherine wince and turn her shoulder into it,
closing her eyes against the dazzling light.

“Into the crater,” Bedivere told Brant.
“It’ll give us cover while we hold them off. Afterward, the hole
will slow them down.”

They ran for the crater.

Lilly glanced back at the blast, but
kept moving as ordered, stepping up her pace to the maximum speed
she could get out of the sled.

The edges of the hole the cracker had
created were blackened and crumbling. They flaked away at their
touch. All three of them squatted in the meter-deep trench and
watched over the top, looking toward the farmhouse. There was
movement in the yard, but no Federation troops. Yet.

“What else do you have in your
pockets?” Catherine asked Brant, pulling out the dart gun out of
her coat pocket and the mini-fletchette from underneath it. She
laid both guns on the road surface.

“You should go back to the ship, too,”
Bedivere told her. “The two of us can slow them down.”

“Not until that mule is on the ship.
They’re coming for me, Bedivere. If I’m in this hole, that’s where
they’re going to aim for. I’ll run when it’s time to run and not
before.”

Bedivere opened his mouth to respond,
then shut it and nodded. “Brant, do you have another gun? Even a
knife?”

Brant looked startled. Then he shook
his head. “Just enough for both of my hands.”

Bedivere picked up Catherine’s dart
gun. “I can throw rocks and when they get closer this will be
useful.” He dug into the side of the crater, uncovering rocks and
mounding them in front of him.

“There they are,” Brant said. “Coming
around the west side of the yard. Matsushita must have told them to
get off his land, so they’re going around.”

There was perhaps a dozen of them, all
dressed in the Federation’s green field fatigues, with not a stitch
of armor on any of them. “They’re not drones,” she said, puzzled.
“They’re stationed troops.”

“Groundhogs?” Brant said. He studied
them himself. “They’re all bunched up together, in one nice
convenient target. Do you think they’ve even
had
tactical
training?”

Catherine shook her head. “This doesn’t
make sense. If we wait until they’re in range, that last cracker of
yours would take them all out. They can’t be that stupid.”

Bedivere nodded toward them. “They’re
moving fast enough.”

Catherine picked up her fletchette.
“Perhaps a couple of close shots will break them up. Then I’ll feel
better about picking them off.”

“They’re all carrying what looks like
the latest model rattler,” Brant pointed out. “When they start
firing back, you’ll be more inclined to shoot them.”

“That, too,” she agreed and settled
herself properly against the side of the crater so that she could
just see over it. “Bedivere, how far away is Lilly from the
ship?”

“About six hundred meters.”

“It’s going to be close,” Brant said
and settled on one hip against the slope.

They watched the ground troopers make
their way up the road, moving cautiously, but still clumped
together.

“Almost in range,” Brant murmured,
sighting carefully along the gun, which he had balanced on the edge
of the pit.

“Try a warning shot,” she suggested.
“We just have to slow them down for a bit longer.”

Brant fired off a shot, which could not
have reached them, for they were still nearly a kilometer away, but
the effect was spectacular. The dozen men scattered, a few jumping
down into the little creek, the others throwing themselves off the
road and into the only cover they could find—the fields of
manolillies on either side. They dropped down below the level of
the tall flowers, into cover.

But around each trooper, the lillies
rippled into a rainbow of different colors.

“It’s like they’ve painted targets
around themselves,” Bedivere said. It sounded like he was
laughing.

“They’re still Federation troopers and
they are all carrying rattlers,” Catherine said sharply.

“I know. But it’s…” He let out a soft
breath and shrugged. “Four hundred and fifty meters,” he added
before she could ask.

Brant shifted his aim and took a shot
at the three troopers making their muddy way along the creek bed.
The three flattened themselves in the dirt. “Bedivere has a point,”
he said. “This is almost too easy.”

“Have either of you stopped to consider
that these bumbling groundhogs could be here to pin
us
down,
while the real professionals get here?”

Brant glanced at her, frowning.

“We need to get back to the ship and
get out of here as quickly as possible,” Catherine said. “Even if
it
is
easy.”

“They’re moving,” Bedivere said.

The circles of color were easing
forward. The troopers hiding among the manolillies were crawling
closer.

“Throw a rock at one,” Catherine
suggested.

Bedivere grabbed a rock, lifted himself
up on one elbow and lobbed it at the nearest patch of color. One of
the hidden troopers fired a shot in return, but it didn’t come
anywhere near them.

“Bad shots, too,” Brant said.

“Stay focused,” Catherine snapped.
“Even bad shots can accidentally hit their target and those are
rattlers they’re carrying. Bedivere?”

“Four hundred meters.”

They continued to throw rocks and fire
shots, keeping the three troopers in the creek pinned down and
slowing down the progress of the rest that were hiding under the
manolillies. But they couldn’t halt their forward march and it was
clear that very soon they were going to be flanked on both
sides.

“Bedivere?”

“Ninety meters.”

Catherine nodded. “Out of the hole and
run like hell,” she told them. “Fire back every few steps to keep
them down.” She fired off a shot toward one of the circles of color
and watched it freeze.

They scrambled out the back side of the
hole, onto the road and started running. But Catherine felt exposed
on the open cart track, so she angled toward the field. She could
run along the edge and take cover as she needed to.

But her ankle turned on the ploughed
earth and she smothered a cry of pain as she stumbled forward,
trying to keep on her feet. But as her foot thrust forward to take
her weight, the pain tore up her leg and she fell to her knees.
“Damn, damn, damn!” she muttered. A twisted ankle was going to slow
her down way too much.

She got to her feet and tried putting
weight on it again. Pain flared hot, silvery and sharp, right up
through her knee, making her groan and sink back to the ground.

A hand gripped her arm and hauled her
onto her feet and she looked up. Bedivere was looking over his
shoulder as he lifted her.

“Move it,” he said sharply.

Catherine gritted her teeth together
and began to hobble. Bedivere did most of the lifting and carrying.
After a few steps, he gave a hiss of frustration, ducked under her
arm and took nearly all of her weight over his shoulders. “You hold
them off,” he said shortly and began to run in a staggering,
lopping motion that covered the ground more quickly than she would
have been able to do by herself.

Catherine didn’t protest. Instead, she
looked over their shoulders in quick glances and fired when a
trooper tried to lift up and take a look. He dropped back down
again, the manolillies waving around him.

“Hurry up!” Brant cried, not too far
ahead of them. He had to be pacing them, giving coverage. Catherine
didn’t have the energy to look up and check for herself. They
pushed through the rough rows of manolillies, spreading purple in a
swathe behind and around them. Bedivere breathed heavily.

“Get down!” Brant shouted and this time
he sounded even closer.

The alarm in his voice alerted them.
Catherine looked over her shoulder and saw the trooper than Brant
had spotted fall backward and disappear under the buds, as Brant
fired a short shot.

Bedivere abruptly dropped her and spun
around to face their other flank. “No!” He threw out his arms, as
if that would widen the shield.

Horror burst through her and Catherine
reached for him, just as he was flung backward. He slammed into her
and they both went down heavily.

Catherine wriggled out from under him,
her horror morphing into a silvery terror that sang high and sharp
in her mind.

Bedivere lay on the ground, blinking
upward at the cloudy sky. His throat worked, as if he was trying to
breathe, but there was nothing left of his chest that could draw
air.

Catherine bent over him. “No, no, no.
Bedivere…!”

Heavy footsteps behind her. Harsh
breathing. “Ah…dammit!” Brant’s rough voice.

His hand on her shoulder.

Catherine shook it off and turned
Bedivere’s head so he was looking at her. His gaze caught hers. He
was trying to talk.

Her vision blurred and she blinked hard
to clear it. Everything sounded muffled. Distant. Even Brant’s
shots firing from right over her shoulder.

Bedivere lifted his hand. Fingertips
brushed her cheek.

“Bedivere.” She could barely speak his
name past the hot, painful knot in her throat and chest.

His head fell limply to one side.

Catherine closed her eyes and rested
her head against his. For long moments she couldn’t breathe,
couldn’t even move. It hurt too much.

Then the tears flowed and sobs tore at
her chest.

“Catherine!” Brant was shouting and it
sounded like it hadn’t been the first time he had called her name.
“Get up! We have to get to the ship. Now!” His voice was a whiplash
that made her wince.

Rattler shots were firing all around
them. At them. They were much closer now.

“We take him with us!”

“Leave him. You’re already lame.
They’re closing in.
Move
it!”

Instead, Catherine pulled her knife out
of her boot and struggled to turn Bedivere over.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brant
demanded.

“I’m not going without the tether,” she
said and ripped the back of the coat open.

“For the love of Glave…” She heard him
grunt with effort, then the second crispy cracker made the ground
shake and the dim day to brighten. Brant dropped to his knees next
to her. “That will keep them occupied for a minute or two.”

She had the layers of clothing torn
open and rested the point of the knife against his spine, where she
had installed the mesh tether only a few short weeks ago. But her
hand was shaking violently and the tip of the knife skittered over
the flesh, leaving pin prick nicks that showed red, but didn’t
bleed. Of course they wouldn’t bleed. Bedivere was dead.

Brant took the knife from her and
thrust the fletchette gun into her hand. “I’ll do it. Keep them
down.”