Gudsriki (38 page)

Nel was stronger and faster than the man she was chasing, but he seemed to know his escape route well. He adeptly jumped past Cetaceans and their kiosks from deck to deck. She followed every step with superhuman reflexes. Before she caught up she glimpsed his face and ran it through her memory banks. It was Tahir. As she came closer, she could see he was watching her from two of Niide's spare eyes behind his ears. She also remembered that he had rocket launching systems in his artificial legs, seconds before he used them.

Two missiles flew past her and splintered the wooden walls with concussive force. Vibs ducked as she approached to avoid the shrapnel. Tahir was shooting because he was about to be cornered, his escape route having led only so far. Nel was nearly on him when Kabar revealed his presence. He stabbed her with his dead Tikari.

She caught the knife between two panels of skin and deprived him of it, then hit him with the handle, knocking him unconscious and through a partition. She had calculated nonlethal force carefully. Vibs ran past her and spotted Tahir as he joined yet another Valkyrie: Kalashnikov. She had sparred with Kalashnikov once and did not want to try again.

“We're Valkyries!” Vibs shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You're Valknut team,” replied Tahir. “We're killing you!”

He launched a vicious assault that Vibeke couldn't defend against on her own. Nel came to her rescue at inhuman speed and broke Kalashnikov's arm. Tahir and Kalashnikov's remaining limbs attacked the couple full force. Vibeke tried to say more, but the fight took over her lungs. They could talk once they were on top. She set another charge on the detonator and slipped it past their rivals, letting it explode feebly behind them, and giving Nel an advantage as the opponents flew shockwaved into her fists. The fight was settled but structural integrity was another story. Leaks were growing in the broad market hallway.

“Veikko fucked us too! We're here to kill him.”

Tahir and Kalashnikov looked at her. A wall gave way and water began to flood toward them. They agreed to hear their side of the story. Nel picked up Kabar by his shoulders and ran. The wooden walls began to break down. The five barely made it to a hatchway before water caught up. Nel forced the door closed, and they were left ankle-deep back in the atrium where the first charge went off. Tahir tried to speak as he caught his breath.

“What did Veikko do? Where have you been?” demanded Kabar.

“Veikko hacked us to hijack a nuke to destroy the Ares in the ravine. The nukes in the silo he picked turned out to be wave bombs. When I dismantled them GAUNE must have thought they were launching and retaliated.”

“So you
did
cause this war.”

“Deal with it. Veikko killed one of the Geki and stole her fire implant. He tried to use it and burned down an arcology. Varg killed him, but Skadi had Dr. Niide fix him. Halfway. He's in the ravine, holding it together. If he dies, if he leaves, the Ares hits the ocean.”

“So you want the Valkohai to deal with it.”

“They've never fired a shot. We have every reason to believe they'd use the Ares only as a deterrent.”

“I don't necessarily disagree. What's that thing? It sure as hell ain't Violet.”

“She died on the mission to Dimmuborgir. I had Niide make another one.”

Katana laughed, the others looked disgusted.

“You grew a fake Violet? Are you deranged?”

“Yes, I killed fourteen billion people and—”

“More like sixteen.”

“I killed a lot of people and grew one that shouldn't be, no offense, Nel”—the robot shrugged—”and now I'm turning the ravine over to the fish. Got a problem with that?”

“A few, but right now we need to deal with the Valkohai.”

“We already met with their—”

“I mean those Valkohai.”

Vibs turned to see a platoon of very angry Cetacean warriors, who did not look at ease with the humans who had just blown up a chunk of their home. Behind them, unseen by all, something half resembling a spider and half resembling a tanto blade watched.

 

 

G
ORGO
MONITORED
from her Tikari. “They're all in the brig now.”

“Pathetic,” said DeMurtas.

“They might have a strategy in being there,” said Ragnar.

“Strategy my ass. They went after V, and V fucked 'em.”

“I don't believe V is as evil as you suggest,” said Galder.

Gehenna looked into her Tikari. “I'm at Qosqo now. It's intact.”

“Great, so what?”

“So we may have more allies than we thought.”

“Like I said, so what? K and T are already taking Valknut down. What else is there to do?”

“Mark my words,” said Electra, “Valknut will prove innocent, and once we know their purpose in doing the things they've done, we'll have ours. Now what news of M team?”

“Still expanding against the old rules. There's Molotov, Marko, Motoko, Moloko, Marvin, Margot, and Magorian. And then there's Mary, Mace, Mist, and Marcus, along with Mason, Massive, Mork, Mindy, and Massif, and Madrid and Morten. M's its own army, and growing.”

“Good for them.”

“Hellhammer, update?”

“Luna teams are intact.”

Heckmallet added, “But stuck. There's no traffic. Nobody's willing to pay for a space flight anymore. We expect Luna and Mars are going to be cut off for decades.”

“Lemmy and Lord Worm checked in yesterday. They've got
Old Baleful
fueled up and ready to fly. Laiho and Luzie are trying to fix the
Leeroy Jenkins
, but they say it's mostly compromised. They can't just run screaming into battle with it.”

“These meetings are bullshit,” said Nails. “There's no point anymore. No ravine, no civilization, only ruin. I think we should go back to my original plan and—”

“We are not having an orgy until we all die of exhaustion.”

“I'm just saying, with the world over we—”

“I'm with Nail Fungus, we should go out with a bang. A gan—”

“Do shut the fuck up, Flux.”

“Death? You're senior Valkyrie now without K here. What say you?” asked Pork.

Death sat thinking for a moment. “We wait for K's verdict on Valknut. If there's reason behind all this, we see their mission through.”

“And if they just went rogue and fucked shit up?”

Death smiled broadly. “Then we make them suffer like nobody in this world has ever, or will ever, suffer again.”

 

 

T
ASHA
AND
Trygve were already in the brig when they arrived. Tahir, Kalashnikov, and Kabar were thrown into the adjacent cell, and Vibeke and Nel took the third. Seconds after the bars were locked, Risto entered.

“It wasn't enough you abused my assistant. You dragged the damn war down here with you! You endanger us. You have gone too far, and for what? You're all on the same side, you damn dirty apes! You blew up half the atrium! You breached the wall. A Cetacean would be banished for this! I had to beg the assembly not to execute you on the spot! And we don't even have a death penalty!”

“Sorry about—”

“Silence! You should bow to my damn negotiation skills. I convinced the assembly that there would be more of this if we didn't help you.”

“So we have your—”

“What part of ‘silence' do you apes not comprehend with your tiny primate brains? Silence! You do not have our help. We will have yours, your absolute compliance as we move to take over your pit. Understood?”

“We'll show you when we get there.”

“You won't get there. You will spend the rest of your mortal lives in these cells. We will head north on your intelligence and do the work as gentlemen. You will serve us in gratitude for fixing your damn mistakes, and for not impaling you on harpoons to bait ourselves nine mutant tuna!”

“Sir, forgive our bloody ways, but we are not the sort to be left in a cell when—”

“You want to fight? That's the trouble with you. No one who wants to fight should be allowed the opportunity. War is the domain of men who regret it. It is no place for bloodlust and barbarism!”

Vibs was about to launch a very well-worded retort when Kabar spoke up. He was technically the senior Valkyrie there, and that still felt like it meant something.

“When you're done with Veikko, are we free to leave and take the rav—”

“No.”

He left. Now all nine were left alone in three cells of the brig. Kabar spoke softly.

“Wait two hours; then we escape.”

“Time to talk,” said Vibs. “How many Valkyries are left?”

“Allies are dead or out of contact. We think a couple teams are hiding out in Sogna Valley, but we can't find or contact them. Other teams are probably out there somewhere, but we don't know which or where. Nobody knows who to trust. With the links down its all haywire. Expect other teams to be trying to kill you, though. It was just our luck one Tikari was monitoring your gate.”

“Where's Varg?”

“Dead,” said Vibs. “He got back in and killed Pelamus; then he died. Then he…. He's dead.”

“And Veikko?”

“In Niide's unfinished A-1 system, a monster. Nel here's a real improvement.”

“Thank you,” she said.

They exchanged stories and tales, possibilities and losses, and filled the two hours. When they were satisfied they weren't being watched and no further contact was likely, they began to devise an escape. They elected not to leave through the door and set Tahir's foot thrusters to work on the ceiling. They cut a large hole into a steerage zone and climbed up. They couldn't be seen. They didn't want to harm a single Cetacean. Those two limitations made it all difficult. There were no vehicles within the city, no air duct system until the ninth below deck, no way outside without being seen by hundreds. That made it all impossible.

They began the impossible by risking a Tikari outing. Vibeke couldn't stand to let Bob out. Katyusha sent hers up first. They made their way in a tight cluster to any spot the Tikari called clear. They made it two decks up in four hours that way. When they saw a sign denoting that the surface was 228 decks away, they decided on another method.

Despite its ergonomic design, the city still had cargo needs. Cargo was handled in bulk by intricate hemp line and pulley systems. They found one such system in a tall chamber that served fifty decks. Kat's Tikari sought out empty crates and found some of the hexagonal masses to be empty and on their way up. They snuck across wooden catwalks and planks and cut into the boxes, and fit inside easily. Then they hoped nobody checked the weight.

It seemed nobody did. The crates were carried up from chamber to chamber, fifty decks at a time. T team detached their oxygen generators and passed them around, allowing everyone to inhale hyperbaric oxygen to combat any decompression sickness. When they were ten decks from the surface they were delivered to a dock. Here the Tikari, still keeping watch outside the crate, saw that they were destined not to leave the city but to be loaded with more materials to be sent back down. When they were delivered at the dock, they broke out of the crates and hid behind several others.

There was no way onto the cargo boat, all the labor was done by hand. They followed the bug the slow way into some dock offices. They were still too deep to survive a water escape, and the crowds were too thick to sneak out conventionally. They couldn't pass for Cetaceans or talk their way clear. They'd have to break through the last few decks.

A klaxon sounded. Their escape had been noticed back in the brig. It was now or never.

Nel and Tahir had tough enough Niide body parts to crack the wooden decks. The rest had strong enough human bodies to climb. They started from the office and burst straight up. They moved horizontally just enough to avoid any metallic ceilings, and made good time. They passed seven decks before Tasha caught a harpoon through her leg. She was in pain, but plus one harpoon. Tahir pulled her up, and Vibeke used the harpoon to ward off guards from giving them another.

More guards assailed them, but the fish were simply no match. The Valkyries were able to defend and move without having to injure any of their opponents. They broke through the last canvas. In the sunlight were hundreds of Cetacean guards.

They were on a platform for human trade and commerce, the tip of the iceberg where humans used to deal a few Cetacean deals and where thousands of them now begged to be let underwater to escape the war and radiation. The guards were all facing the oncoming mob. Nobody cared about the teams. They didn't wait for that to change. Kat took her Tikari in and they ran the shortest distance to water and jumped off the planks and canvas.

After hitting the sea they spotted the nearest human boat. It was an old Ulver boat whose owners wanted to head underwater. All nine climbed on board. Two of them were recognized from the now famous Mouvant fortress security video.

“You! You! It's the girls who assassinated King Kray! It's them!”

Vibs took one by the throat.

“Yeah, does that mean you love us or hate us?”

The man considered carefully.

“I love you?”

“Good answer. Take us north.”

He complied. The boat left the begging human masses and headed to Sverige's coast.

 

 

“Y
OUR
BROTHER
constituting a conflict of interest, Rear Admiral Taitamaton will be placed in charge of the Ares mission. Taitamaton will control seven subs, four surface ships, sixteen surface boats, two satellites and a pogo squadron, taking them north to secure the Ares, and arrest Loki Turunen by any means necessary. To that end, four more engineering vessels and full material support craft will be joining them. Unless there are any objections?”