Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm (27 page)

Same morning, 6:28
A.M.
CET

Cherbourg, Province of France, GG

The
Longstreet
's crewmen extend the gangway, and the four of us make it up to the ship's main deck. Raj meets us halfway and takes Falcon from the limping Brando. Grey and I go up last to cover the group. He and I pop a few rounds into likely hiding places on the dock and near the surrounding warehouses. When we're safely aboard, the crew retracts the gangway. Raj helps Falcon lie down on a stack of rough shipping blankets. Grey rushes up to the bridge to check in with the ship's captain.

“Raj!” I shake the big man's paw. “Didn't you get recalled with all the rest?”

He says, “I was ordered to stay behind in England in case one of the Infiltrators needed me. Then I was sent here to make sure you and your gang got out all right. Some people back home are anxious to see you.” He leans down closer to me. “I heard about your dad. Nice job.”

“Thanks, Rah-Rah.”

Brando's hastily commed after-action report for that mission consisted of the single phrase “Subject retrieved from Carbon facility.” Raj and I both know how dry phrases like that can bury a lot of people. They can also break roofs, beds, and legs.

Raj says to Falcon, “So you're the sniper bird.”

F-Bird nods and winces as Brando adjusts his broken leg. Raj watches my partner work and says to himself, “Sounds like Fredericks got your name right.”

The deck is littered with expended bullet casings and chips of painted metal that have been shot out of the shiny pockmarks in the bulkheads. Two long bloodstains show where wounded men were dragged inside. Several crew members armed with shotguns or pistols crouch along the rail. They're tough-looking sea dogs, but they're prepared for isolated raids by pirates, not a large assault by a paramilitary group. They watch us intently.

Grey returns from the bridge. “All right, I've met with Captain Demet, and here's the situation.” The view from the bridge showed Grey two fishing boats out at the mouth of the harbor. The captain's binoculars revealed that each of those small boats had at least one brownshirt jackoff with a rocket launcher watching the
Longstreet
.

On the landward side, we're dealing with a full company of Purity League militiamen. The captain is sure he's seen some of these men carrying rocket launchers. If it weren't for those heavy weapons, the captain could ram his way out of the harbor and make for open water. Small arms aren't going to slow down a cargo vessel this big. If the fishing boats tried to block his exit, the captain would ram the craft and send the occupants to the hell of drowning in their own pigheaded ignorance.

Brando asks, “Has Captain Demet received any demands?”

Grey answers, “Yes. The terms were the complete surrender of the Jewish passengers and the ship in exchange for the lives of the captain and crew.”

“What did the captain say?”

“Well, it turns out he's part Jewish, which he's successfully hidden, but an entire branch of his extended family wasn't so lucky, and they disappeared into the slavery system. Plus, he owns the
Longstreet
.” Grey pauses. “So he told the militia's commander to shove it.”

I keep an eye on the docks. “Who's the militia's commander?”

Grey shifts his weight from one knee to the other. “His name is Kruppe.”

Brando and I look at each other. “Figures,” we both say.

Raj swings his big head from me to my partner and back. “What, have you met him?”

“Yeah,” I grunt. “A couple times.”

Captain Demet's blunt reply led to the standoff we crashed into. If it weren't for Raj and his 50-mm grenade-spewing Bitchgun, the brownshirts could suppress the ship's defenders, grapple up to the deck, and overwhelm the badly outnumbered crew. Fortunately, the Purity Leaguers aren't professional full-time soldiers. They're ass-faced weekend warriors who are used to beating up on unarmed civilians, not riding the Afterlife Express from fighting a fully enhanced Vindicator like Raj.

The Purity League doesn't want to sink the
Longstreet
unless they really have to. For one thing, the ship is smack dab in the middle of the region's biggest commercial harbor. It won't go over well with the locals—no matter how anti-Semitic they are—if the Purity League fouls up Cherbourg harbor with a shipful of diesel fuel and dead bodies.

The other reason is they still think of the Jewish people on the ship as private property. To them it'd be like destroying livestock. Them critters're expensive!

A week ago, the Purity League's presence in Cherbourg wasn't cohesive enough for an action like this. But Kruppe and his propaganda machine whipped an active minority of the region's citizenry into a proslavery furor. Then he positioned himself as Germany's last hope and took over the whole area. A week from now, hopefully, the Greater German government will have regained enough civil control to enforce the Chancellor's emancipatory edict that freed the Jews from slavery and bounce these buffoons back under their rocks.

But the people on the
Longstreet
don't have a week. Kruppe won't wait nearly that long to make good on his threat to sink this ship—especially if he senses he's about to lose his grip on the city—and local opinion be damned.

Grey asks Raj, “What are your directions from ExOps?”

“To find your team and help in any way possible.”

“How much ammo do you have for that cannon of yours?”

“I only have nine more rounds,” Raj replies. Like us, he's been using borrowed or stolen weapons for weeks. “I was saving the shells I just fired for a special occasion.”

Grey says, in a low voice. “Well, Mr. Vindicator. I'm glad we met your criteria.”

A bullet twangs off the ship's bulkhead a few feet from us. We all flinch. The brownshirts have recovered from Raj's explosive smack-down.

Grey selects a crewman and asks for the gangway to be extended again. “We need to eliminate the threat from these rocket launchers.” He draws his pistol with one hand and his knife with the other. “As senior Level, I authorize unlimited force against these proslavery activists—” He sees the light that prances into my eyes and directs the rest of his sentence at me. “—as long as it helps get this ship safely out of the harbor.” I stifle my beaming expression and join Raj, Brando, and Falcon in a chorus of “Yes, sirs.”

“We'll take care of Kruppe and his boats last.” Grey assigns himself, me, and Raj each a sector of streets and buildings to clear. He turns to F-Bird. “Falcon, can you lay down some cover fire?”

The kid nods. “As long as someone props me on the railing, sir.“

“Good lad.” Grey's eyes go out of focus for a moment. The hair in his eyebrows fluffs out a little.
Weird!
I didn't know other Levels had that happen when they dosed Madrenaline. His voice gets faster, thinner, and a little higher-pitched. “Okay, kids, once we begin our sweep, the brownies will most likely try to sink this ship, so we have to be as quick as lightning. Let's show 'em what happens when you fuck with ExOps.” All of Grey's muscles twitch at the same time, and he leaves a hole in the air.

Raj's voice sounds funny, too. “Man, that trick of his is pretty cool.” His skin is covered in goose bumps, and the hair on his arms is vibrating. He slings his Bitchgun over his shoulders and takes two MP-50s, one in each hand, as he stands up and lumbers down the gangway.

I breathe in the brisk sea air, close my eyes, and tell my neuroinjector to hit me with its maximum dose of Madrenaline. I also have it mix in some Kalmers to keep my teeth from chattering and a touch of Overkaine to numb the pain in my foot, and I'm off.

“Go get ‘em, Scarlet!” Brando comms as I fly down the ramp. I take a hard left toward my sector of the dockyard and switch on my infrared vision.

Two warm blobs lurk behind a flatbed truck directly in front of me. I instruct Li'l Bertha to treat these two shapes as targets. My legs flex and vault me over the truck's cab. I flip my body so I'm upside down as I sail above the heads of the two militiamen behind the truck. One of them sees my shadow and looks up, so he gets a nose job. The second one is too busy with his radio to notice me, so he gets an open-casket funeral as long as his mortician covers the hole I blast in the top of his head.

My body completes its midair flip, and my feet thud onto the pavement. My infrared picks up a man-shaped hot spot on top of a three-story office building that's set right next to the dark water of the harbor. The gunman takes a shot at me, which I dodge easily. Before I can raise my pistol to return fire, the enemy's head kicks back and he falls away from the roof's edge.

“Nice shot, Falcon,” Brando comms.

There's still someone up there. I comm, “Darwin, I'm going up to get the spotter.”

“Roger that, Scarlet,” Brando comms back.

I enter the building and run upstairs. Li'l Bertha and I emerge onto the roof. The shooter's body sprawls face up and eyes open. There's someone else up here, lying flat on the roof, but it's not who I expect. He's a young kid, fair-haired, maybe eight years old. He cries and shakes all over.

“Darwin, I've got a juvenile up here. I think we greased his father.” The boy stops crying and icily stares at me with eyes like scorched ebony.

Brando responds, “Do
not
terminate him, Scarlet. The Circle can't be responsible

for—”

“C'mon, Darwin, I know
that
. What should I do with him?”

“Take him downstairs and tie him up. That way—”

While Brando comms my instructions, the boy stands up. He wipes his tear-streaked face and runs to the dead militiaman. He reaches into one of the man's bulging coat pockets. The child takes out a potato masher grenade—

No, this can't be real.

—twists the fuse on the handle—

I must be imagining this.

—and charges straight at me.

I fling him off the roof so quickly his little hands are still clutching the grenade when it explodes as he splashes into the harbor.

Oh, my God—

The detonation ricochets around the port. I know this nightmare is real when Brando comms, “Scarlet, what was that?”

—oh, my GOD!

“Hey, Scarlet! You all right?”

“Y-yeah … I'm … I'm f-fine.” My comm voice stutters. My lips tremble against my fingers. I get light-headed, and my head threatens to cast off from my body. I slump to my knees and hide my face in my hands.

“Was that the child?”

“Patrick, he … he had a grenade.”

My partner pauses. Everything pauses. Then he comms, “Jesus.”

“I'm sorry, Darwin. I … he …”

Grey breaks in, “Scarlet, stop it! It's not your fault he was brought into this.”

“But—”

“He was so young,” Grey interrupts me. “I know, but he was old enough to kill you. Stay focused on the job, Scarlet. We don't have much time.”

“Yes, sir.” I get to my feet and walk downstairs—slowly, in case I need time to cry. But my eyes aren't wet. I see spots again, though. They dance around when I blink.

Trick appears next to me.

Alix, why didn't you simply take it away from him?

I don't know, Trick. I …

Trick's brows extrude a pair of bug-eye lenses. The shiny surfaces reflect a tortured field of fire and ash.

Trick, I don't want to see that.

He turns into a girl about my height, dressed in black. Her lenses retract. Where her eyes should be is a blank expanse of skin. As she walks beside me, she softly sings the chorus from “Ring of Fire.” Then she claps her hands and disappears. I shiver all over and rush down the stairs.

I get to the bottom floor. Next to the small office building is a huge warehouse. That building is my main target. Once I sterilize it, my sector of the dockyard will be clear.

Later.
I take a few deep breaths and dose more of everything until the spots stop swirling in front of me.

Think about it later, Alix
.

Same morning, 6:44
A.M.
CET

Cherbourg, Province of France, GG

The cargo elevator slowly grinds up to the dockside warehouse's fourth floor. I hide in back under a mound of packing blankets. Finally the car shudders to a halt. The big doors shudder open. German voices call to one another, but nobody gets on the elevator with me.

I peek out from under my cover.
All clear.
I throw the blankets off and march out onto the main floor. The high unfinished ceiling extends away from me in all directions. It's striped at regular intervals with long tubes of fluorescent lights. Rows and rows of shipping crates create temporary passageways and innumerable hiding places.

My infrared vision can overlay my normal sight to help me find warm people and then assess whether they're part of the proslavery militia, but it'll take me forever to physically explore every inch of this warren. I look at the ceiling again.
That's it.
I jump on top of a wall of boxes. Now I can see the entire space.

The people on this floor have clustered near the windows overlooking the
Longstreet
. Gunshots and screams resound across the harbor. Raj and Grey are bringin' the pain, ExOps style. The buttheads looking out the windows all have brown shirts and black armbands.

I comm, “Falcon, you available?”

“Affirmative. What's your 20?”

“Warehouse, fourth floor. I'm about to wake up the chickens, so watch the windows.”

“Roger that.”

Li'l Bertha snuggles into my left hand. I spray the waterside windows with .12-caliber pellets and shatter all the glass out onto the pavement below. Then I switch her to .22-caliber Incendiaries. Small bullets like these generally don't kill people outright, but I've found once an enemy is ablaze, they spend very little time shooting back at me.

My gun and I light everybody up like weenies in a grease fire. The barbequing boneheads run around and hit themselves with their hands to try and snuff out the flames. The churning swarm of manfernos are like beacons for Falcon. His rifle shots smash through the windows and plow through the militiamen's bodies. In moments the brownies are all dead.

“Outstanding, F-Bird! I'll go down a floor.”

Falcon comms, “Okay. Tell me when you get there.”

I hop off the wall of boxes and run to the stairs. My feet zip down a set of metal steps. As I descend from the stairway, I take in my next battleground.

The warehouse's third floor has permanent partitions dividing the floor into six sections. The closest zones are full of refrigerators and washing machines. The areas farthest away are lined with black 55-gallon drums. In between are towers of brown cardboard boxes and smaller wooden crates. A half dozen assault-rifle-toting brownshirts stand near the elevator, listening to the death rattles of the men above.

I comm, “F-Bird, you there?”

“I'm here, Scarlet, but there are boxes along the third-floor windows,” Falcon comms. “I can't see inside.”

Crap.
“Tell you what: start shooting through the windows to get their attention, and I'll do the rest.”

“Roger that. Take cover.” He counts down to give me time to hide. Then a fusillade of bullets crashes through the dock side of the building. F-Bird's shots penetrate boxes, walls, and furniture, and one lucky bullet even hits flesh. All six competitors scrunch down. One of them realizes where the shots are coming from and yells to his buddies. They all crouch behind a heavy wall and stay low.

Now.
I take out a grenade and pull the pin. After a quick two count I chuck my pineapple into the huddled group. It lands with a clunk. Two heads swivel to find the noise. Two mouths open to shout a warning. Two men get a faceful of shrapnel and go flying across the room.

I charge toward the militiamen's hiding place. Another shot zings in from the windows.

“F-Bird, stop shooting!” I soar into the air and nearly scrape the light fixtures with my scalp as I swoop into what remains of the squad of brownshirts. I nail three of them with .30-caliber shots to their heads. One more left.

The last enemy raises his machine pistol, but he's not even close to aiming at me. His gun hand shakes like an autumn leaf while his other hand clutches his stomach. Blood pours out between the fingers holding his midsection. I kick at his gun. His weapon flies out of his hand and thunks onto the floor. My left hand aims Li'l Bertha at the bleeding brownie as my right hand slides my F-S fighting knife out of its holster.

This thing needs a name.
I slash my blade across the militiaman's throat. A red-tinted burst of air escapes from the rent in his larynx. He topples backward onto the floor. A pool of blood gurgles out of his neck. I carve a Star of David into his forehead and clean my blade on the dead man's pants.

As I reholster my knife, my vision goes out of whack again. The blood on the floor is neon-bright red, and Falcon's bullet holes glow like little suns. My hands are glare orange, and Li'l Bertha is a pitch-black silhouette against the pale yellow floor.

“Scarlet, everything okay?”

“I'm fine, Darwin, but something's wrong with my vision Mods.”

“You're still functional?”

“Totally.”

“Okay. Well, Grey and Raj have cleared their sectors. Want some help?”

“Sure,” I comm. “I've still got two floors of these mugs to take out.”

Brando directs the other two Levels to set up outside my warehouse. I scurry down to the second floor. Damn, there's a lot of fucking jerks in here! What'd they do, bring every goddamn racist in Greater Germany?

The second floor is dominated by a hulking pair of metalworking machines. I can't tell if they're installed here or being stored while they wait to be shipped somewhere. They're a problem, though, because they're providing cover for a squad of militiamen who've already spotted me. I stare down the barrels of five bright blue assault rifles and watch them belch out a cloud of brick-red bullets.

I duck behind a rack of long iron pipes and listen to the fog of lead whoosh past overhead. The bozos adjust their aim, and the pipes absorb a clanging broadside of slugs.

The floor begins to vibrate in sync with a ballad of loud bangs and crashes from downstairs.

“Heads up, Scarlet.” It's Brando. “Raj has entered the building and engaged the enemy.”

Like music to my ears.

All the racket down there must be the big man and his Bitchgun. “Darwin, tell him to shoot up, through his ceiling.”

Brando comms back, “Raj, did you hear that?”

Raj's comm voice booms through the noise. “I hear you, Scarlet. Clear the area. Three, two, one.”

I back up. A gigantic hole erupts in the floor from downstairs. Debris ricochets off every surface, smoke fills the room, and my incoming fire drops to bupkus.

I comm, “Raj, shift your aim thirty-five feet toward the water!”

Another inverted crater punches up through the deck and takes everything with it. Raj's shots are so close to one of the big-ass milling machines that the floor gives way beneath it. The monstrous device tips over and bashes a hole ten feet wide in the deck. The joists snap like matchsticks, and the floorboards sag like a hammock. The second machine loses its balance and follows the first one, expanding the instant atrium to a width of fifteen feet.

Three of my opponents get sucked through the hole and cascade into Raj's merciless clutches. I aim Li'l Bertha at the remaining militiamen, but all at once they scream and fall over backward. When the last lummox has dropped dead, a smoky shape resolves itself into the figure of Grey.

He holds his hands up and pretends to surrender to me,
“Nicht schiessen, Fraulein.”
He laughs and wipes his knife on a piece of cloth dangling from a smashed light fixture. I grin at him and walk over to the jagged hole in the floor. Raj stands in the heap of brown-shirted body parts he's created next to the two tipped-over milling machines.

“Knock, knock,” I say.

Raj chortles, “Who's there?”

“Sixteen tons.”

“Sixteen tons who?”

“Sixteen tons and whaddaya get?” I skip through the hole and land next to Raj. I punch his shoulder and say, “Another day older and a mountain of dead motherfuckers.”