Warp World (73 page)

“Wyan!” Cerd lunged toward the action. “How many are coming through?”

“Too damned many,” Wyan shouted.

Cerd saw sparks as more chacks fired in the darkness. His visor-enhanced vision came into range and picked up the full image as Wyan’s team laid down fire.

Wyan’s team scattered as grenades flew into their midst. Two more icons changed shape, indicating two wounded. Cerd fanned his squad out to support Wyan’s squad as the Etiphars poured out of tunnels on either side. Screams and howls echoed down the hallway.

The Etiphars were fighting back, and now Tirnich and his squad were cut off.

The CWA wanted him alive. That was the only reason Seg could find to explain why the sniper in the rider had not shot him. Unfortunately, as long as the rider remained overhead, it could guide pursuers on the ground right to his position. Around him, crowds stared up at the unusual sight and watched the low-flying rider with a wariness borne of the recent uprising. Those nearest could obviously discern, from his brisk flight, that Seg was the rider’s target. They parted away from him, eager to avoid being caught in his consequences.

Ahead, the upward gazes shifted. Heads began to turn in a new direction. His suspicions roused, Seg lifted his pistol. A pair of armored forms emerged, weapons aimed in his direction. One agent carried a simple projectile gun, used for live capture; the other held a hand stunner. The stunner was only good at arms-length but the projectile gun was already in range. Seg dove to the side as the gun
thumped
and the non-lethal projectile struck a Citizen behind him in the face. The man went down in a spray of blood and shattered teeth, too stunned to cry out.

Penned in the middle of the crowd, Seg didn’t have a clear shot at his attackers. To the side, a warden called out as she entered the scene, weapon drawn. The CWA troops ignored her and, seconds later, a shot from the rider removed her from the equation. The warden fell with a gurgling scream. Blood streamed from a shot to the stomach that cleanly punctured her armor. The crowd scattered now, panicked, as the trooper with the projectile gun pumped another round into the chamber and tried to track his target.

Seg had already forced himself back into the fleeing crowd. As he shouldered his way through, he came face to face with one of the troopers closing in from the opposite direction. Face mostly hidden behind the visor of his scuffed helmet, the man blasted foul, liquor-laden breath at Seg as he pawed for a grip on his prey. Smashed together in the frantic press of the crowd, both men struggled to bring their weapons into play. If the trooper had a stunner all he needed was flesh contact to put Seg down. Desperate, Seg twisted his arm, swung his pistol into line with the man’s thigh, and unleashed a shot. The trooper howled in Seg’s face, an ear-punishing cry of pain as he sagged. The force of the surrounding bodies kept the wounded trooper upright as Seg wiggled his arm free and pressed the barrel to the side of the man’s neck. The howl cut off abruptly as blood, flesh, and bits of bone sprayed nearby bystanders. A circle quickly cleared around Seg and he pressed onward.

He looked up at the buildings around him to get his bearings. The damned crowd had swept him away from the Guild Compound and safety. He fought to get his breathing under control as he jogged back toward his only hope for salvation.

Tirnich took one look at the surge of Etiphars coming toward him and his squad and snapped off a burst before yelling for a retreat. The squad fled, pausing occasionally to fire behind them as they ran.

According to the tac display in Tirnich’s visor, they were going to run out of corridor soon.

“Through here!” Tirnich led his men down a side corridor.

They piled through a door. Slopper slammed it shut and locked it. Men looked around wildly.

“Great,” Handlo said. “We’re trapped.”

“But this shows as a third-floor access.” Tirnich pulled up the map on the digifilm as they paced in the darkness.

“It’s just an empty room.” Slopper poked at stacked bins with the barrel of his chack.

They spun at a loud hammering on the door. Outside, the Etiphars shouted and howled their ululating war cries.

“Karg!” Tirnich kicked over a cart. “Handlo, Slopper, cover the door. Everyone else, take this place apart. There’s got to be something here. Those air-blowing tunnels or something.”

The hammering stopped but it was replaced by a hissing sound all the men recognized from their practice sessions back at the warehouse.

“Torches,” Slopper said.

The latching mechanism was already starting to glow in Tirnich’s visor-reading, a sign of elevated temperature.

“Here!” a trooper called. He had pulled aside a stack of bins and found the entryway to a large chute.

“Where does it go?” Slopper said, looking back over his shoulder.

“Somewhere that’s not here,” Tirnich said. The trooper slung his chack and lowered himself into the chute.

“Go, go, go!” Tirnich shouted. The latch began to sizzle and pop. He ushered all the men into the chute, one hand on the cart he had kicked over, prepared to move it in front of the hidden entry.

“It won’t make a difference, they’re going to know where we went,” Slopper said. He climbed into the chute.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Tirnich said. “Now get down there.”

Tirnich primed a grenade as Slopper disappeared, then slid himself partially in the chute. He tugged the cart behind him and pinned the grenade behind one of the wheels so it wouldn’t arm until the cart was moved.

Hopefully, in the dark and confusion the Etiphars wouldn’t notice it, or else they were apt to just kick it right down the chute.

As he let himself slide backward and down, one of Fismar’s lectures came to him.

Anybody ever tell you that you were gonna get out of this alive?

Cerd yanked the depleted battery pack from his chack and popped in a fresh one. His squad and Wyan’s had pulled back to a position where they could hold back the wailing Etiphar attackers. They had learned the hard way that the ventilation ducts could double as passageways after one of the grills had erupted and a screaming berserker had dropped out with a live grenade. Three down and one dead. In the wake of that oversight, Cerd ordered the men to cover all the ducts while he monitored the movement of Tirnich’s squad on his visor.

“What in the name of …?” Cerd blinked. The nine blue icons representing Tirnich’s squad disappeared from his tac display.

Elarn looked up from where he was tending wounds. “Steady, Cerd,” he said on the private channel.

“Third level access secured,” Fismar reported over the comm. “Cerd, Tirnich’s people took an alternate path down. Here.” A carat appeared on the map to indicate the location of Tirnich’s squad. “He’s deep in, you need to push that bottleneck and link up.”

Cerd stepped away from the troops and spoke to Fismar in a low voice. “Etiphars have got the numbers on us.”

“No, it only looks like they do because they caught you by surprise. I read the data off the troopers’ visors when they came in, and you’ve got numbers on them.”

“You did what?” Cerd said. “You can do that?”

“I see everything, Mascom. Now get your troops moving and on the attack. You can do this.”

“I’ve got wounded,” Cerd said, his voice almost pleading.

“Detail somebody to stay with Elarn and get them moved back to the landing zone. Elarn’s been at this for a long time. He knows what to do. Now get moving or put Wyan in the lead and go back up top with Elarn.”

Cerd looked back down the hallway as the chacks sparked blue once more. He swallowed and nodded at the empty air. “Affirmative, Ground Lead.”

The damned rider had spotted him again, as he approached the Guild Compound. From his vantage point, Seg could see the Compound walls in the distance.

He could also see the CWA troops spreading out along the street. Seg checked the charge on his pistol out of habit. Eighty percent. Adequate charge for several more shots, and one in reserve if he was cornered. There were several byways to get through to the Compound from here, but with the rider on him and the CWA troops already moving his way?

Stop thinking. Move.

He turned and ran down an alley. It would be a footrace now. The street had largely cleared and the wail of klaxons announced the imminent arrival of reinforcing wardens coming to investigate and avenge their loss.

If only he wasn’t certain they would turn him over, he could have sought refuge in the wardens’ ranks. He vaulted over a low pile of recycling containers, slipped on a patch of wet bio waste and bounced painfully to the ground. Scrambling up, he gathered his long legs and carried on, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

At least he’d had his time in the wilderness to harden him back into proper physical condition.

As he rounded the alley, he emerged into a gauntlet. Another pair of troopers awaited him, both with projectile guns. He didn’t need to look behind him—he knew what waited there. He lifted the pistol in a two-handed grip and tried to steady his breathing as he lined up the shot.

T
he moment was frozen. Seg twisted his body as his sights settled on the thigh of the CWA trooper aiming at him, the only place he could be reasonably sure of bypassing the armor. Both Seg and his target were moving; both their shots went awry. He heard the distinctive whine of chack fire as he hurried to the dubious cover of a recycling bin. One of the two troopers fell to the ground. The other fell as another burst lashed out. More shots whined through the alleyway behind him. Seg saw an armored form approach, hand waving.