The Final Battle (33 page)

“Yes,” Michael said, reining in the urge to kick the man in the crotch. “I got a bit close to one of his missile launches.”

“What a fucking idiot.” The man got to his feet with a sigh. “Come on, then.”

• • •

With the use of his hands restored thanks to thin sheets of burnskin, Michael stepped out of the aid center and looked around. The medic had turned out to be anything but an asshole. Mostly the man was pissed. Without ever actually saying so, he seemed convinced that things were going badly for the Hammers.

That was all Michael managed to get out of the man. Even after a lot of bullshit about finding his uncle—a mythical civilian liaison officer with a joint DocSec-marine unit—he had learned nothing that might help him track down Hartspring.

“Shit!” he hissed when he spotted Sergeant Jalevi. He was coming his way flanked by four marines, a determined look on his face. Michael didn’t wait. Turning away, he sprinted down the street, head down and arms pumping.

“Hey!” Jalevi shouted. “Stop or I’ll blow your damn head off!”

Michael kept moving, weaving from side to side. With a good 20 meters still to go before he reached the safety of the next cross street, a burst of rifle fire shredded the air around his ears.

“Last chance, asshole,” Jalevi called, sending another burst Michael’s way.

“Okay, okay,” Michael shouted back. He raised his hands in the air and slowed to a trot. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Jalevi and his marines had slowed too; their guns no longer pointed his way.

With 10 meters to go to the corner, Michael took a deep breath and exploded into a sprint and ran for his life. He’d barely made the corner before Jalevi’s men sent a furious volley of rifle fire down the street. A well-aimed round plucked at the sleeve of his jacket as Michael skidded around the store on the corner.

“Oh, shit!” he muttered. Up ahead, a platoon of marines was scattered across the road in untidy confusion. “Help me! Heretics!” he shouted, pointing back to the corner store, which was being chewed apart by sustained bursts of rifle fire. “Heretics, coming this way! Get up, get up!”

The marines needed no encouragement. They leaped to their feet, unslung their weapons, and stampeded past. Michael slipped a microgrenade out of his pocket; he turned and tossed it high in the air. The small black shape dropped right into the mass of men and exploded with a flat crack that dropped marines to the ground screaming in pain, with the rest of the platoon skittering outward. The men nearest the corner needed no prompting to return fire at the oncoming Jalevi and his men, the noise rising to a crescendo as both sides hosed fire up and down the street.

By the time common sense prevailed and the shooting died away, Michael was five blocks away, holed up in the ruins of a small office building. He lay back, chest heaving as oxygen-starved lungs fought for air, and cursed his luck. It would take the Hammers a while to sort out the shambles he had left behind, but sort it out they would. And when they did, they would come looking for a scruffy man in civilian clothes, of medium height, with a stocky build and unruly brown hair.

There wouldn’t be many of those in Cooperbridge.

At best he had a day. Almost certainly, the marines would assume the man they were looking for was a deserter, which meant DocSec would get involved. And if they did, it was only a matter of time before Colonel Hartspring knew that the man Chief Councillor Polk wanted so badly to get his hands on was in Cooperbridge.

At that point the shit would really hit the fan. He groaned out loud. He was screwed. So much for his plan to slip into the town unseen, find Hartspring, and send him to join the rest of his Kraa-loving buddies kissing ass in Kraa heaven. Much as he wanted to have his revenge, a small shred of common sense told him that this was neither the time nor the place. It was time to abort and get the hell out while they still had a chance.

Hartspring would have to wait for another time.

He was fumbling for the transmit switch on his radio when his earpiece burst into life. It was Kleber. “Banjo, this is Two. Tango located in building southeast corner Harkness and N’debele. Putting surveillance cams in place. Will withdraw to Papa-Six. Acknowledge.”

“Two, Banjo, Tango at Harkness and N’debele, acknowledged,” Michael said, exultant, any thought of aborting the mission gone. “Niner Niner, this is Banjo,” he went on. “Implement chromaflage discipline now. Move to Papa-Six when ready. Acknowledge.”

One by one Shinoda and the rest of the team acknowledged the order. Michael slipped into a burned-out shop and put on his chromaflage cape. After a careful check to make sure that nothing more than a tiny slit across his eyes had been left exposed, he set off to Papa-Six, a derelict factory ten blocks from where Hartspring was quartered.

• • •

Tucked away out of sight behind a pile of scrapped machinery, Michael and the team watched the holovid feed from the holocams Kleber had set up.

Hartspring’s unit was billeted in a school; like many of Cooperbridge’s buildings, it was damaged, though not as badly as some. It still had most of its roof and walls. The yard in front was clear of debris, filled instead with marine all-terrain vehicles mounted with a mix of crew-served weapons: heavy machine guns, light antiarmor and air-defense missiles, and 120-millimeter mobile mortar launchers along with microdrone, grenade, and infrared smoke launchers. As Michael watched, the crews were busily throwing chromaflage netting across all the ATVs.

“Looks like they’ve just gotten back,” Shinoda said, shifting the holocam down into the infrared. “Yup, lot of heat coming off those vehicles.”

Michael nodded, trying to stay positive and failing. “That’s good, I guess,” he said. “Means they should be around for a while.”

“Probably, but we need to do this fast, sir. The cart’s been kicked over. The Hammers will be coming after us.”

“They will. What’s this?” Michael added as a small convoy of truckbots pulled up, black jumpsuited figures spilling out of the back.

“DocSec,” Shinoda said. “Wonder what they’re doing here.”

Mallory leaned forward to look at the screen. “I know what they are,” she said. “You’re looking at a DocSec search team.”

“How do you know that?” Michael asked.

“I worked with them once … in another life. See those boxes?”

Michael nodded. The DocSec troopers were manhandling plasfiber crates out of the trucks and carrying them into the schoolyard.

“The large boxes are perimeter security equipment: laser trip wires and so on. The small ones will be full of searchbots. Let me see … Yes, looking at how many boxes they’ve got, they’ve got enough to seal off and search a couple of city blocks at a time.”

Michael swore. Searchbots were like sniffer dogs, only smarter and with better noses, and they never tried to hump your leg. They hunted for traces of carbon dioxide in the air; no matter where you hid, they’d find you. The only way to dodge them was to wear one of the absorbent face masks the special forces teams used. Since he didn’t have any masks at hand, the only other option was to stop breathing, and even then the bots would find him thanks to sensors capable of detecting warm bodies, body odor, and the smell of fear.

Michael swore some more. He did not like what he was seeing. He did not know what it meant, but his instincts told him it was not good. But what he did know, even if he could not explain why, was that it was time for him to go it alone. He could not—he would not—risk the lives of his team any longer.

Michael swung around. “Okay, guys,” he said. “This is nonnegotiable, so don’t argue with me, because if you do—” He reached into his belt and pulled out his laser pistol, a squat, ugly weapon good only for killing at very short range. “—I’ll shoot each one of you in the damn foot and keep shooting until you do as I say. Understood?”

The shocked silence was total.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” he went on. “Sergeant Shinoda, the team’s yours. If you leave now, there’s half a chance you’ll get out of the city before the DocSec search teams get rolling. Go and go now. And yes, that is an order.”

Shinoda stared back at Michael for a moment. Then she nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said. She turned to the team. “Okay, everyone. We’ll head down Velici to Juliet-Two. Chromaflage capes on until we get there and move slowly; there’ll be surveillance drones over us for sure. From Juliet-Two down Armada until we hit the Kumasi road, then head south. Don’t forget your countersurveillance drills. If we get separated, the initial rally point is Quebec-Four. If that’s been compromised, then head for Mike-Nine. Questions? None? Good. Kleber, go check that our egress is clear. The rest of you wait for me by the old generator room. Go!” she snapped when nobody moved.

“I’m staying, sarge,” Delabi said, her face a hard, stubborn scowl.

“No, you’re not, trooper. You heard the colonel; you’re going even if I have to shoot you myself.”

Delabi gave a reluctant nod and got to her feet. She looked at Michael. “DocSec killed both my grandparents and my brother,” she said, “so I want you to kill the motherfucker for me.”

“I will,” Michael replied.
I’m not sure how, though,
he thought.
Not anymore
.

“Good luck, sir,” Kleber said, and with that the troopers turned and left.

“I don’t like this, sir,” Shinoda said.

“Nor do I do, sergeant, but I might have a chance on my own. You’d best go.”

Shinoda put her hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Just make sure you come back, okay? I don’t want to have to explain to Anna what happened.”

Her words ripped at Michael’s soul. He cursed his one-eyed pursuit of Hartspring. All logic said he should be leaving with Shinoda and the rest. He’d have done better riding shotgun on Anna, and he knew it, just as he knew he’d never rest until Hartspring and Polk were dead. “I’ll be okay,” he said, his voice soft. “I’m a survivor.”

“That you are, sir. Good luck.”

“Thanks. Get the team back safely.”

“I will.”

With that, Shinoda left, leaving Michael feeling more alone than ever. He shook his head. Shinoda hadn’t asked what his plan was. Why would she? She knew full well he didn’t have one unless hoping to evade the DocSec search teams long enough to kill Hartspring was a plan. Who was he kidding? That was just make it up as you go along.

Something will turn up
, he thought as he turned his attention back to the holoscreen.
It always has
.

The Hammers had been busy. The truckbots had parked. The boxes with the tiny searchbots had been opened. The ground was cluttered with small turtlelike shapes, the shells studded with small antennas, stubby sniffer probes, and infrared and acoustic sensors. And for every ten turtles, there was a command bot with comm lasers and antennas on its back to control its flock and provide a datalink to the search commander’s drones orbiting overhead.

As he looked at the scene, something bothered him the way the fact that
ENCOMM
always knew where Hartspring and Team Victor were did. It was him they were after; that much was obvious. But he could have been anywhere in Cooperbridge. So why were the search teams setting up their bots at Team Victor’s headquarters when they had a whole city to search? It didn’t seem a very efficient way to do business. Michael could only assume that Hartspring was the man in charge of the search, and that was what he wanted.

The more he thought about it, the more his confidence returned. All he had to do was be careful, take his time, and stay clear of the DocSec search teams as they ground their way block by block across Cooperbridge. As long as he did that, he would be safe. And his time would come. Cooperbridge might not have been in the front line, but it was too juicy a target for the
NRA
to leave alone. They’d attacked it already, and they would go on attacking it. And that was when he would get his chance. He would slip through the chaos and confusion, kill Hartspring, and be gone before the last
NRA
lander had unloaded its bombs.

An hour later, there was a flurry of activity. Twenty or so of the DocSec troopers dropped what they were doing and grabbed the boxes containing perimeter security equipment. The troopers followed the boxes into the back of the trucks. The truckbots roared off. The minute they’d gone, a DocSec officer—a major from his rank badges and probably the man in charge, Michael reckoned—sprinted across the yard and disappeared inside the school.

Now, what is this all about?
Michael wondered.

Ten minutes later, the DocSec major reappeared, waving his senior NCOs over into what was clearly a briefing. The major did a lot of talking, even drawing a mud map in the dust of the yard. Finally heads nodded, and the group dispersed, moving now with clear purpose, the men galvanized into action with much shouting and waving of arms.

The school’s front door opened, and there he was. Michael’s heart kicked hard when he saw the familiar figure of Colonel Hartspring, dressed like the rest of the DocSec troopers in black fatigues under a combat vest and carrying a stubby machine pistol. He strode out into the yard followed by what Michael assumed were the marines of Team Victor. They made their way to their ATVs and climbed in, Hartspring getting into an APC.

That’s his command vehicle,
Michael thought, looking at its array of aerials and datacomm lasers. Fusion plants came online.

After a short pause, the vehicles set off, some turning right to head west along N’debele and the rest turning left to go east. A moment later, the search teams followed on foot. Again, half went left and half went right.

Now Michael really was confused. If their plan was to start searching the city, they’d have all gone off together and they’d have gone in truckbots. No, they had something more specific in mind, and it was close. They—

It hit Michael like a brick between the eyes.

You are a fucking idiot,
he raged at himself.
They’re not searching all of Cooperbridge. They don’t need to; Hartspring knows where I am
.

Michael’s heart turned to ice. Somebody’s chromaflage discipline must have slipped long enough for a DocSec surveillance holocam to pick up the mistake as the team—
or me
, thought Michael—made its way to Papa-Six. That was the only explanation.