Night's Pawn (16 page)

"Everything shipshape, Captain?" asked Chase as he approached.

"Yeah, seems so," he said, rubbing a hand through his stubby hair. "Fragged if I know how they do it."

Chase looked over his shoulder at the repaired, freshly painted turret halfway to the rear of the T-bird. From its front protruded a long, slender gunmetal barrel. Chase recognized a sophisticated gas-vent and flash-dampening system at the end of it. "What is it?"

"Maxwell chain gun. It's actually aircraft ordnance, but what the hell?"

"Where'd you find it?"

"One of the choppers over at White Base a few klicks up the road got trashed a couple of nights back. I wasn't sure, so I checked, and sure enough they still had her chain gun and needed cash bad."

Chase turned toward Blanchard. "How's it compare to the old autocannon?"

The black man shrugged. "Well enough. It's lighter caliber, but has a higher rate of fire. It's also less bulky and lighter overall, so the turret'll track better. I was a little worried about the anti-air servos, but the two Richs seemed satisfied."

Chase nodded and noted Gordani looking around. "Seen Freid?" he asked.

"No," said Blanchard. "I slipped a note under her door last night, so she knew we'd be prepping before seven. I didn't want to bother her. She sounded preoccupied."

"I haven't seen her either." Chase had learned about the T-bird's morning departure from that note and knew that Freid had seen it.

"Great," said Gordani to his gunner. "I hope she got enough sleep."

Blanchard shrugged.

Chase resisted the temptation to say more, wondering instead where Cara was. When he'd returned to their quarters barely a few hours ago, she was sleeping restlessly against one wall. Blanchard's note to them had been left conspicuously on Chase's blankets. Cara had seen it, and knew he hadn't been there.

Her movements had awakened him just after dawn. She was stuffing some clothes into her bag and zipping it up when he stirred. He could tell she'd heard him, but didn't look over.

"Take my bag to the T-bird," she said. "I'll meet you there." She stood up and left the bag on one of the chairs. What little light there was from outside blinded him as she left. He could feel the day's temperature rising already.

Before he carried the bag over, Chase had checked to see if her simdeck case was there. It was, as were the chips. He didn't think she'd try running away without them.

Gordani's voice intruded on his thoughts. "I've checked with Katie and she says Azzie activity's been real low this morning. She thinks most of the units that bothered us yesterday pulled back south of the Rio Grande sometime last night."

"That'd be good," said Blanchard. "We ain't got enough chain-gun ammo to be playing too many games."

Gordani nodded in agreement. "Here comes Freid."

Chase looked up and caught sight of her rounding one of the larger buildings that doubled as a makeshift hangar. She was wearing the same black leather flight suit he'd first seen on her yesterday. Chase no longer worried how she stayed cool in it; it was the same way she kept her quarters comfortable: magic. He'd learned a lot about that last night.

Cara was with her, walking alongside, hands thrust in her pockets and head down. She'd picked up a tan army jacket somewhere. Freid seemed to be saying something to her, but Chase couldn't hear the words over the protesting engine of the air-cushion vehicle. Cara glanced at it once as they passed, but Willie was half-buried in the engine housing. She looked down again, nodding at something Freid said. The mage patted her on the shoulder, then quickened her already long stride.

"Morning, guys," she said, coming up to them. She smiled at each one, seeming to hold Chase's gaze for just a moment longer. It was hard to tell behind the dark glasses she wore. "Everything running?"

"Wiz and clean," said Blanchard. "I think you've been teaching the Richs a little sorcery on the side."

Freid laughed. "They'd rather eat snake." She hoisted her bag over one shoulder. "Well, let me stow my gear and grab the databoard."

"Yell when ready," said Gordani.

She nodded and headed off toward the access hatch. Cara was walking toward them, wincing against the light.

"Don't worry," said Blanchard, laughing. "It's pretty fraggin' dark inside the T-bird."

Cara almost seemed to smile. "Good."

Chase started to ask her if she'd eaten, but a sudden voice in his ear stopped him. It was soft, quiet, breathy, and seemed to be made from the wind. It was Freid's voice. "Don't worry," the voice said. "I spotted her while I was out running this morning. Something's gnawing at her. I couldn't find out what, but I don't think it was you."

As nonchalantly as he could, Chase turned and tried to find the source of the voice. Freid was nowhere in sight, having already stepped inside the T-bird.

"She's got a bit of a wisher for you, though, so I wouldn't tell her about us last night," Freid's voice went on. "She thinks you stayed out because you were angry.

Apparently she's used to the guys she likes being temperamental jokers."

Chase scanned the body of the LAV for an open window or port, knowing that to work a spell on him she must actually be able to see him. The only exception to that was the special magic of ritual sorcery, but that took hours to prepare. He saw nothing, no openings of any kind.

"Confused?" she said. "Look at the top of the turret."

He did and saw the glint of coated, non-glare glass seated deep inside a small device set atop the turret. As he watched, the whole device rotated slightly.

"Optical targeting system. It's my eyes outside the T-bird while we're running. Because it's pure optical, no cameras, I can cast magic through it."

"Church."

Chase turned in response to Blanchard's voice. He wondered how long the gunner had been trying to get his attention. "Sorry," he said. "Thought I heard something."

"Yeah, my voice yelling in your ear."

Chase chuckled.

Cara was looking at him a little oddly and seemed to want to say something, but Gordani unknowingly cut her off. "I want you and Cara here to pay close attention as we pre-flight the T-bird. Most of it'll mean nothing to you, but I want you to hear the names of things and listen to what we're doing. If something goes wrong, it could save your butt."

"I guess I should tell you I don't know anything about one of these things," Cara confessed. "I can barely work a telecom."

"You can program a synth though, right?" asked Chase, hoping his choice of words didn't sound too much like an attack. "You told me you played keyboard."

"Well, yeah, but…"

Blanchard smiled. "Little difference in some regards. Don't worry. You'll do fine."

Cara smiled slightly at him, then turned toward Chase and tried to smile a little more.

Chase heard Freid's voice again, but this time it was her real one and it was coming through the external speakers.

"Okay, chummers, let's run through this. I got a date in Denver and I plan to keep it."

Chase laughed and remained standing next to Cara as the crew went to work. Lost in thought, she seemed to be a million miles away.

13

Chase leaned over and helped Cara adjust the position of the bulky headgear Blanchard had given her. She was having trouble with the friction straps that were designed to keep the gear on the wearer's head no matter what happened. The helmets were heavily padded to protect the head, and contained a headset and microphone combination that linked into the T-bird's internal communications system. She and Chase were seated on single-person, removable padded couches back near the cargo lockers.

Freid sat in a similar seat, just forward of Cara, but hers also had a control panel on each arm pad. Through them, she could operate various optical and electronic targeting and tracking systems to locate a potential enemy. Freid also wore the same basic headgear, but hers had goggles linked via fiber-optic cable to a kind of periscope on top of the main gun turret. Chase had learned that there were two other optical ports, as she called them, on the vehicle, both along the centerline, one forward and one to the rear. Using her armrest controls Freid could swap the visual feed to her goggles between any of them.

If she chose, and if Blanchard agreed, she could also slave any of the
Rapier's
weapons to her optical sensors. Though the opticals were not as sophisticated and effective as the high-tech electronic sensors Blanchard commanded, she could engage additional targets if necessary.

At her command, the chair swiveled, and Freid looked at Chase and Cara through a small optical camera mounted on the goggles. The goggles covered nearly her whole face and the optical lines connected to the camera. "Ready?" she said loudly over the thrum of the LAV's power plant.

Cara nodded slightly, obviously intimidated by what was going on.

"I think so," Chase said. "Any last-minute changes?" Though both he and Cara wore headsets, Gordani hadn't yet connected them into the comm network.

Freid shook her head. "No. Gordo's been talking to Katie at the radar and she says everything is pretty quiet. She also thinks that one of the other bases has launched a run carrying medical supplies south toward Monterey. We'll hold off and let them get some distance before we head out."

"How long will that be?" asked Chase.

"Not long," came Blanchard's voice over the comm net. Chase saw Cara flinch and manually lower her set's volume. "They're already over and in, so we're just waiting to see if they set off any of the sensor lines or pickets. If they do, we go under the cover of the distraction. If they don't, we go anyway."

"Got it," said Chase.

Blanchard's position in the vehicle was directly in front of Chase, but slightly farther forward than Freid's. He sat on a small platform raised a step above the main floor of the cabin. His own light-acceleration couch reclined even further than Chase's or Freid's, giving him enough clearance for the suite of video and data display monitors in front of him. They were there for emergencies, as was a similar set near Freid.

Blanchard himself was cybernetically connected to the weapons and sensor system. Every piece of data the sensors obtained was fed directly into him. He was aware of it, and processed it at the speed of thought. The weapons responded to him in the same manner, quick and deadly. The system told him everything he needed to know about the vehicle's movement, the wind conditions between the T-bird and the target, the barrel condition of the chain gun, its ammo status, and dozens of other pieces of data that affected the shot. He knew everything he needed to know.

Gordani was not visible, seated out of sight in a black plastic cocoon at the farthest point forward of the tight cabin, barely five meters from Chase. Called a rigger tank and just slightly larger than a coffin, the cocoon completely isolated him from the rest of the vehicle. It was sound-dampened to prevent distraction, and in it Gordani sat suspended on a bed of body-temperature gel-cushions that gave him the sensation of floating. He was rigged into the vehicle like Blanchard, but he was almost exclusively concerned with steering the
Rapier's Touch
. The sensor feeds he received cybemetically were his only eyes and ears to the outside world. For all intents and purposes, he
was
the T-bird while rigged into the vehicle's systems. The sensors told him what was around him, the internal systems fed him continual updates of its condition, and the vehicle's control systems responded instantly to his thoughts. It was only that level of control that allowed the vehicle to fly at nearly six hundred kilometers an hour only a meter or so off the ground.

Chase knew they were moving, following a complex, distracting, pre-run holding pattern on the Canadian American States side of the border. The vehicle's path had been carefully planned to conceal the T-bird by taking advantage of the natural and manmade terrain in the area. If the Azzies happened to be expecting a run, the less they knew about its initial course the better. The T-bird's path followed a section of the Aztlan-CAS border forty kilometers long.

Gordani's voice came over the comm net. To Chase the voice had the same odd, distorted sound as had Lachesis' days ago. That wasn't surprising, for in some ways the differences between a rigger and a decker were minor. Both experienced an artificial reality. For a decker like Lachesis it was the Matrix, designed to bring a degree of reality to the artificial world of computer networks and data. Gordani's was made from the hyper-realistic data flow of the T-bird's internal and external sensors. Both rigger and decker were at their best when reality was filtered for them.

"Looks like we're green. The other run should be well clean of the border sensors by now, and nothing. So we go." The sound of Gordani's voice reminded Chase that Lachesis' detailed report on Cara was probably ready and waiting. He'd have to read it in Denver. Maybe he'd even see her personally.

The
Rapier's Touch
lurched slightly, knocking him to one side. He noticed that Freid and Blanchard's chairs seemed to compensate automatically; there was barely any movement from either of them.

Adjusting the position of her headgear slightly, Cara smiled slightly and leaned toward him. "Do you think it'll be rough?"