Vengeance (9 page)

It recovered slightly, lifting up a little as its rotors shifted to maximum power. But only for a moment. The machine dropped, wobbling, and The Tsar slipped sideways, desperately grabbing at its edges. It bucked in the air like a rodeo bull. Its needle-guns began to fire, a constant staccato hiss, some kind of automatic defence mechanism, spinning and firing at random. Price flinched as a needle made a hole in her camo sheet, centimetres from her face.

The rotorbot skidded sideways in the air, slamming into a girder. Was it an attempt to knock him off? Was the brain of the machine that smart? Probably not, but intentional or not, the impact with the bridge flung The Tsar sideways and off the edge of the disc. The only reason he hadn’t fallen was that one hand, fingers clenched like a steel claw, had latched onto the glass dome in the centre.

It was like a living creature. A creature of metal not flesh, with a brain of circuits instead of synapses, but a creature that did not want to die. And somehow it sensed that The Tsar’s one goal was to kill it.

The crash set the rotorbot spinning, dropping at the same time, The Tsar on top. The rotorbot hit the roadway with a crunch. With one last burst of energy the machine whirred, jolted and lifted, tossing The Tsar to one side. Price was already there, throwing her weight on top of the rotorbot. Monster was there too, coil-gun in hand, his combat boot trapping one edge. The three of them held the injured beast down, but still it tried to rise until the stock of Monster’s coil-gun came down on the glass dome in the centre, shattering it. He reversed his weapon, inserted the muzzle and fired. There were sparks and a flash from inside the rotorbot and it plunged back to the ground, its rotors slowly wailing to a halt.

“Good work,” Price managed, gasping for air.

“Now let’s get the hell out of here before the Pukes come to find their missing toy,” Wall called as he came running back from the other side of the bridge.

“Is everybody okay?” Price asked. “Angel Team, check in.”

Everybody was not okay. The Tsar lay where he had fallen, half across the side of the rotorbot. A dark pool was spreading slowly under his head.

“Oh no. Oh God, no,” Barnard said.

[0610 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

[BATEMANS BAY, NEW BZADIA]

“Tsar? Tsar!” Barnard was the first to The Tsar’s side.

Monster pushed her out of the way, pulling at The Tsar’s armour to examine the wound. He removed The Tsar’s helmet and checked his neck. The others gathered around. The Tsar seemed to be unconscious and that surely was not a good sign.

“Status?” Price asked, dropping to a knee beside him.
He’ll be okay
, Price thought. He had to be okay. It was her decision to cross the bridge. It was her decision to camo down. The Tsar had to be okay, or it would be her decisions that cost him his life.

“Not so good,” Monster said. “Unlucky. Armour is soft at neck. Needle got through. Now stuck in throat. He bleeding very badly. Maybe artery.”

He pulled a mediscope from his belt pack and began to scan The Tsar’s neck.

“What can I do?” Barnard asked. “What can I do?”

“Will ask if need,” Monster said.

“Give him room to work,” Price said and Barnard reluctantly eased backwards.

Barnard’s face was a mask of horror and desperation and, seeing that intense emotion, Price realised what she had missed. The constant bickering between The Tsar and Barnard was a disguise, a facade that hid a deep caring for each other. Why hadn’t she seen that before? How would she feel if it was Monster who lay there bleeding? That didn’t bear thinking about. They both knew that their relationship could be ended in an instant, by a bullet or a bomb. But knowing that wouldn’t make it any easier when that time came.

Price straightened, moving to Barnard as Monster attended to The Tsar.

“Are you okay, Retha?” she asked.

“Of course I’m okay,” Barnard said, too loudly, too quickly. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? It’s The Tsar who’s not okay. Worry about him, not me.”

“I am,” Price said, putting a hand on her arm.

Barnard snatched her arm away.

Is she blaming me for what happened?

“We need to get out of here,” Wall said. “The Pukes just lost a rotorbot. They’re already on their way.”

“Are you suggesting that we just leave The Tsar to die?” Barnard snapped.

“We’ll all die if they get here and we’re still here,” Brogan said.

“Barnard, what are we facing?” Price asked.

She already had a pretty good idea, but wanted Barnard to focus on something other than The Tsar.

Barnard stared at her for a moment, then took a deep breath.

“There’s a ready reaction force in Canberra; they’re the closest,” she said. “But they’re part of the capital’s defences. I doubt they’d send those. We’ll probably get a couple of scout ships real soon, or they may just redirect other rotorbots if they have them in the area.”

“What about regular forces?” Price asked.

“They’ll send teams from Melbourne, or Sydney, or maybe both,” Barnard said. “That’ll take them a little longer. But Wall’s right. We have to get out of here. It’s going to be touch and go, even if we leave right now.”

“Can you move him?” Price asked.

Monster looked up and nodded. “Too dangerous to extract needle. Will tape needle in place and bandage. Can move.”

“How are you going to move him?” Barnard asked. “You can’t …”

Monster could, and did.

He reached down and hoisted The Tsar up in a fireman’s lift.

“Jeez, Monster,” Price said. “That can’t be good for him.”

“Worse is staying here,” Monster said. He lurched into a run, doing his best to give The Tsar a steady ride.

“Okay, Angels, we are Oscar Mike,” Price said. “Move, move, move!”

Wall picked up something off the road. It had been lying under The Tsar’s body. His scope. Wall showed it to Price. The screen was cracked and dead.

“Damn,” Price said. She ran to the dead rotorbot.

“Give me a hand with this, Wall,” she said.

Wall took one side, lifting it easily. Price struggled with her end, but managed to raise it and together they eased it over the side railing. It hit the water and sank with little splash, only a stream of bubbles indicating the location. Even as it was sinking, they were running.

“Left or right, LT?” Brogan called. She was first off the bridge.

To the right a road led into a residential area. To the left was a small, overgrown park and parking lot. Behind it was an area of forest.

“Left,” Price said. “Better cover in the trees.”

“Everybody down!” Brogan yelled.

Price had heard and seen nothing, but dived into a nearby bush, wrapping her camo sheet around her. A second later, two fast movers roared overhead, low and fast.

“That’ll be just an initial recon,” she said. “As soon as they’re out of range, get moving. We have to get to that forest before the slow movers get here.”

The jets made a second sweep before disappearing off to the north in a blaze of noise and afterburners.

A narrow dirt track through the park led up a rise towards the wooded area. It was densely overgrown, and they had to push through it.

Although only minutes, it seemed like hours before they reached the comparative safety of the trees. Price found a fallen tree branch and went back to erase their tracks, scratching out boot steps and straightening stalks of grass. She caught up with the other Angels, gathered around The Tsar, who was on the ground at the base of a large tree. Its heavy branches and leafy foliage gave good cover from any overhead watchers.

Barnard held an IV bag, which was dripping clear fluid into an opening on the arm of The Tsar’s combat suit. Bzadian suits had automatic IV tubes at the elbow for exactly this kind of situation.

Monster was using the mediscope to examine The Tsar’s neck. He clearly didn’t like what he saw.

“Monster?” Price asked.

Monster shook his head. “Needle has nicked carotid artery. He lose a lot of blood. If I leave it there, he die.”

“And if you pull it out?”

“He die quicker,” Monster said. “Needle stem blood flow.”

There was a long silence as the team considered the implications of that.

“Gotta leave him,” Brogan said.

“Get puked, Brogan,” Barnard said. “You and the horse you rode in on.”

“We leave no one behind,” Price said. “Unless they’re dead. And The Tsar ain’t dead.”

“He’s going to be,” Brogan said. As Barnard clenched her fists and moved towards her, she added, “Just telling it like it is.”

Price took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm, to act like a leader. Brogan was probably right, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“What to do, LT?” Monster asked.

“We must …” Price started, but trailed off. She didn’t know what to do.

“Leave him here,” Brogan said after another silence.

“No,” Barnard said.

“It’s your choice, LT,” Brogan said. “Either we carry on with our mission, and he dies, or we give up on our mission. And he still dies.”

“You’d leave him here to die?” Barnard asked.

“Here’s as good as anywhere,” Brogan said.

“A fellow Angel dying alone in a forest?” Barnard said. “You really are a cold-hearted cow.”

“He’s not conscious,” Brogan said. “He doesn’t know he’s alone.”

“
We
know he’s alone,” Barnard said.

“Take him with us,” Wall said. “When we get to Canberra we can leave him at a Puke hospital or something.”

“Like that wouldn’t jeopardise the mission,” Brogan said.

“It would save his life,” Barnard said.

“It makes for no matter,” Monster said. “He would no survive journey.”

Barnard stepped right in front of Brogan, eyeballing her. “We’re not leaving him,” she said.

“I know he’s your special friend,” Brogan said, with that infuriating smile, “but he’s going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Barnard’s arm drew back to strike, but Price, behind her, reflexively caught her elbow.

“Wait a sec,” Price said. “There’s nothing
we
can do about it. But you can?”

“Maybe.” Brogan shrugged. “Fezerker medical training is pretty intense.”

“That’s true,” Wall agreed.

“Then you do it, Wall,” Price said.

He shook his head. “I wasn’t a medic. We all had specialties.”

Attention turned back to Brogan.

“Can you help him?” Price asked.

“Maybe,” she said again. “If you trust me.”

[0630 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

[GOVERNMENT BUILDING, CANBERRA, CENTRAL MEETING ROOM]

Nokz’z entered the meeting room to find it humming: delegates chatting in small groups, chefs placing platters of food on the tables.

Commandant Goezlin, the head of the secret police, the dreaded PGZ, was in a huddle with two or three others. He must have flown in from Uluru very early that morning. Or perhaps he was already in Canberra on other business. He looked up when he saw Nokz’z enter, and broke off the conversation, walking, seemingly casually, in Nokz’z direction. But nothing Goezlin did was ever casual.

“Colonel.”

“Commandant.”

“I hear you have lost a rotorbot,” Goezlin said.

Nokz’z took his glasses off and polished the lenses. How typical that Goezlin knew this before he did. He replaced his glasses and nodded. “I am waiting for details to come through as we speak.”

Someone will be severely punished for this
.

“Am I correct that it was lost on the coast, east from here?” Goezlin asked. “Batemans Bay?”

Nokz’z considered that. The bay was south-east of Canberra.

“Your information sources are impressive,” he said. “I had ordered extensive patrols of that area due to the loss of the Razers earlier this morning. But a lost rotorbot could be a malfunction. We have lost them before for this reason and I am not going to jump into any rash action before I have full details.”

Goezlin shook his head. “But as you undoubtedly know, it was operating in alert mode, tracking something, before it was lost.”

Does Goezlin know everything?

“My people are on it,” Nokz’z said, trying to salvage some dignity from the situation.

“Yes they are,” Goezlin said, but the small upturning of the corners of his lips said
a shame you were not
. He looked around, a little distracted, Nokz’z thought, his attention taken by one of the chefs working on the tables around the room.

The chef finished what he was doing and turned, walking past them and out of the room. His eyes flicked over both Nokz’z and Goezlin as he passed. He had no reaction to Nokz’z, but when he saw Goezlin there was a slight widening of his eyes, a subtle hitch in his stride. This chef recognised Goezlin. That was unusual. Very few would know Goezlin’s face. He was a man of the shadows, a dark creature of the night. Unless of course this poor chef had once been unfortunate enough to earn Goezlin’s attention.

Goezlin turned back to Nokz’z as the chef left. “What are your plans to deal with this intrusion?”

“I am awaiting further information,” Nokz’z said. “We do not yet know if it is an intrusion, and if it is, we do not know their target.”