Rising Tide (26 page)

“You get a count?” I ask.

“Thirteen, I think. Inside the big tent.”

“And the guards?”

He looks up at me. “Four.”

“Four?” I look down, and it looks like he's right. All the guards I had spotted before, patrolling, and that was it. I'd expected more. Of both, sadly. We'd lost more boffins than that at the Core. But it's better than nothing. I'd assumed we'd taken casualties. The raiders who took the place weren't gentle. And the Ferals they'd dropped inside must have done some damage.

“Four,” I repeat. I nod to myself. “We can do that.”

“I know,” Diego says. “The trick is going to be getting in.”

“There's no roof,” I say.

“Yeah, but what are we going to do, lower the ship right down on top of them?”

I smile. “Why not?”

“What if they start shooting the prisoners?”

My smile fades. “What do you suggest?”

“Drop me down outside the fence. I can take out the guard at the front. It should create enough of a distraction that you can get in at this corner.” He points to my map. “If I can take one out and attract another's attention, that will leave two for you.”

“No.” I slam one hand down on the console. “No way. You'll be an easy dinner for any Ferals that happen to be around. No cover. No place to run. Not to mention that your arm is still healing. How are you going to fire a gun?”

“I'm a good shot with one hand. I can do this.” He points to the screen. “There are no places for nests nearby. We looked. And there are no other heat traces.”

“And the minute you start shooting, any Feral within hearing distance is going to come sniffing around.”

“We'll be out by then.”

“Jesus, Diego.” I sigh. “Then I'll be the distraction and you go in.”

He shakes his head. “I don't know the scientists. You're going to have to do it.”

“Damn it, Diego.”

“Ben,” he says. His eyes bore into mine. And I'm thinking,
Don't say it. Just don't . . .

“You owe me this.”

He said it.

I'm aware of how ridiculous this is. I put him into harm's way before, and now he's asking me to make it up to him by doing it again.

I look back at the infrared monitor and the bright figures there. People I couldn't save before.

“Fine. Do it,” is what I hear myself say.

My insides clench up a bit, but it's like I've already flipped the switch to “Go,” and I start positioning the
Dumah
to lower Diego to the ground. “I'm going to have to put you down at a distance,” I say. “Can't risk them seeing us. You going to be able to move okay?”

“I've been exercising a lot, Ben. I may be in better shape than I was before we went to Gastown.”

Like hell
, I think.

I grab his hand, which is now covered with a worn leather glove. “Don't make me regret this.”

I lower him down on the side opposite the gate. It will mean more walking for him but less chance of us being seen. We're dark and quiet, but we still block out the stars. Luckily for us, there's enough cloud cover tonight to help hide us.

Diego hits the ground, and I start moving to the edge of the compound. I flick on the radio and grab the transmitter. “Rosie,” I say.

After a moment she comes back to me. “Yeah.”

“Start moving in. Come in from the north. I want their attention focused there.”

“Where's Diego?” she asks.

My stomach tightens again. “He's busy right now. Just count off five minutes then move in.”

“Okay,” she says.

I huff out a breath, then flip the radio off. Then prepare to lower the
Dumah
so that I can go down to my least-favorite place in the world.

The ground.

My first thought as my boots touch ground is that it smells like shit. Literally. There must be a latrine or something nearby. Figures—you have to put it somewhere. I'm glad my mouth is covered with my scarf. My next thought is how comfortable and normal it feels to be covered from head to toe with clothes. Which makes me sad about how paranoid I am about infection. It also makes me think of Miranda and the two of us naked, and so my next thought is that I need to focus on the task at hand.

I hear gunshots and hope that means Diego is taking out the guards. At the very least it should mean that Diego is still alive. Unless some Ferals have got him and that's what they're shooting at.

Focus, Ben.

I have the revolver out and I'm crouching, moving steadily but not too fast. The first tent is empty. I see a bunch of simple tables inside with stuff on top of them. It's too dark to make them out too well. I find myself wishing for the ability to see in infrared, but of course that's just ridiculous.

But it would be really cool.

The next tent resembles the one I just passed, and the next. I don't see anyone, though I check each one quickly.

It's dark. Really dark. The clouds that helped to hide the
Dumah
are also hiding the moon, and the starlight only does so much. There are fires, though. I can see them off in the direction of the gate. That helps give me my bearings to find the big tent.

I start moving and hear a yell in the distance, but I can't tell if it's from pain or triumph. It makes me freeze for just a second, and that's when someone tackles me and I fall to the ground on my back, the air in my lungs squeezed out by the weight on top of me.

He pins my gun arm to the side, pressing hard. He's bigger than me, stronger. Heavier. Correction—she. I look up into a woman's face, bandana or scarf tied bandit-style across it. A nose broke in several places. One eye scarred at the edges.

The face zooms toward me and then disappears in a blast of pain as her skull connects with mine. Then her fist hits me hard in the side. I reel from the pain and my hand, now freed, wants to fly up to my ringing skull, but instead I send it up to hers.

Not the mouth
, I think.
The eyes.

Her free hand reaches up to grab at mine, and I know she's stronger. And her legs on top of me are squeezing, and I'm still struggling to get enough breath in me. My right hand, with the revolver in it, is already numb. But I keep clawing for her eye.

She starts forcing my hand away and I try to keep it there, but I can't. She's stronger and I'm getting weaker, but as my hand slips away I manage to grab the bottom part of her nose with my gloved fingers. I give it a hard jerk, and for a moment her head moves and I feel her weight shift and, tensing my whole body, I push myself to that side, and she slips a bit off of me.

I manage to get a fist into the side of her face as I inhale and I slam the same fist on her ear and then into her throat. The bandana isn't too thick, and so I hammer her again and again.

She falls back for a moment, trying to suck in breath herself, and her hand comes off of my revolver hand. It's weak, but I bring up my numb hand only to realize I've lost my grip on the revolver.

She hits me hard in the face, and I feel the warm wetness of blood somewhere. I raise my free hand and shift to one side so that the second blow gets me between my chin and chest. It hurts but not as much. I aim my revolver hand for her throat again but she catches it, so I go for her eyes again with my left hand, and this time my fingers find it.

She roars in pain. I manage to roll her off of me, punching and kicking at her where I can. I see the revolver, lying on the ground, and I scramble for it.

She scrambles after me. With a hurt eye and an injured throat, she keeps after me, punching me in the stomach, in the chest, then in the groin, so close to where it would have curled me into pain.

Then my fingers curl around the grip of the revolver, I swing it around, and my finger finds the trigger.

Boom.

The shot is hasty and aimed poorly, but it's so close. It takes her in the space between her shoulder and neck, and the flesh there is suddenly wet meat.

I push her back and scramble away as the blood sprays, blood that may be infected. I have no way of knowing. My ears are ringing and pain is leaping through my body from injury to injury, but I'm alive.

I get to my feet and move toward the tent, this time keeping a firm grip on the revolver. Any hope of surprise is gone.

When I get to the tent, standing in the entrance is another guard, dressed in furs and leathers. He holds a large automatic to the head of one of the boffins, a man I recognize. His name's Anders. For a quick flash I feel a wash of relief, relief that it's true. That the boffins,
our
boffins, are here. Then fear as I realize that I might lose one of them. Then anger at the animal holding the gun to Anders's head. I quickly wrangle the anger under control.

“Drop your gun,” the guard says. And I know I should. But I don't. If he shoots Anders, he has nothing. I'll shoot him easily. And he has to know that. But then again, he looks like he's from Valhalla and I don't know how much reason goes into their decisions.

I'm fighting with myself—
make a decision, Ben
—and I decide to lower the gun. I don't want to take any chances with the boffins' lives. The guard's eyes are on mine, and mine on his. I will my hand to lower.

It doesn't immediately move, so I will it harder.

Then, before I actually move, the guard's hand falters. I don't know whether he suddenly thinks that maybe the boffins aren't important to me, or maybe he realizes the position he's in, but his hand moves for a moment and one of the boffins slams something into the side of the guard's head. At the same time, Anders wriggles free, and as the opening appears, I drop to ground and shoot up at the guard. The hammer comes down, noise fills the air, and my shot hits the raider in the head, blowing his brains out against the back of the tent.

I get to my feet and cross the distance to the tent. Inside I see many familiar faces—dirty and stained, thin and bedraggled—but people I know. “Is everyone okay?” I ask.

Several people say yes; there are a lot of nods. I notice they had almost all dropped to the ground. Smart. Physics is something they understand, the trajectory of the bullet. And they know, possibly more than anyone, how the virus spreads. That had been my fear, that even if they stayed out of the way of the bullet, that someone would get splattered with blood. Because who knows if that guard was clean.

“Stay here for a moment,” I say, then move off toward the gate. I see two dead guards there. “Diego?” I call out.

“I'm here,” he calls back. “Get that door open.”

I exhale heavily in relief and then move toward the gates, opening the first and then the second. Diego comes in, breathing hard. “Did they get you?” I ask.

“No,” he says. He smiles. “I told you I could do it.”

“Yeah, well let's not do it again.”

As we move back toward the large tent, the bulk of the
Osprey
appears overhead.

“Time to get Miranda's people home,” I say.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I
fly back to Tamoanchan alone. Rosie insists on Diego coming back with her. To help with the boffins, she says. She suddenly has thirteen additional people on board and she has to fly the ship. Only eleven of the prisoners are Miranda's people, though. That leaves nine of her colleagues unaccounted for. The other two boffins we rescued were apparently taken from a different facility east of the Rockies. It's nice to know there are others out there looking for a cure.

For the first time in a long time I feel, well, satisfied. We managed to rescue the boffins without any casualties. Diego ended up okay. We're headed back to Tamoanchan, where Miranda and her reunited friends will work on a cure and at the very least are likely to come up with a detection system for the virus. Sure, Valhalla and the Cabal are still out there, but we have a place to go. And for the first time in a while, we have hope.

I'm still feeling that lightness, that sense of buoyancy, as I hit the ground on Tamoanchan—and I'm even smiling when Rosie strides up to me and punches me in the mouth.

I hit the ground, my head still spinning as she stands over me. “Get up,” she says. “Go on, get up.”

“What the fuck, Rosie,” I manage to say. Blood smears across my hand as I wipe my face.

“You let my brother down on the ground without backup? Out in the open? He's injured, you dogfucker. Get up!”

“It was his idea,” I say, though now it sounds a little weak to me. I don't get up, though. Because if I do either she's going to knock me back down to the ground or I'm going to have to fight her, and neither of those options appeal to me.

“Get. Up. Now.”

“No. If you want to hit me again, you have to do it while I'm on the ground.”

“Don't think I won't.”

“Rosie!” It's Diego, running up and pulling her back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”