Africa Zero (17 page)

“We
are going to have fun,” I said, and stood up.

As
we went into the back of the gun ship I squatted by the bound pilot.

“Now,
which Family are you a member of?” I asked him.

He
just stared back at me, white-faced and defiant. I reached down, got hold of
his shattered wrist, and gave it a squeeze. He yelled, but refused to answer my
question. Gurt moved up behind me.

“If
you hang them by their feet they don’t faint when you skin them,” said the
sauraman. It was the longest speech I had heard from him.

“I
know,” I said, “but sometimes they die before you can get answers.”

“Was
never after answers,” said Gurt.

The
pilot looked wide-eyed at Gurt. I squeezed his wrist again to get his
attention.

“Which
Family?”

“Fuck
you!”

I
squeezed again and asked again. It was on about the fourth occasion that he
fainted. I stood up and looked down at him.

“By
his ankles,” said Gurt.

I
nodded then said, “Bring him along. Try not to damage him too much.”

“Skin
him now?” Gurt asked.

“No,
there’s easier and less messy ways. We’ll take him to the complex,” I said.

* * *

The
tank started first with the droning of the hydrogen turbine that got the
allotropic uranium up to speed. The batteries were at full charge as I always
kept them and had more than enough power to get us to the complex, but they’d
not last long if, as seemed highly likely, I started using the energy cannons
or any of the esoteric carousel weapons. Gurt ungently taped the pilot in the
chair for the satcom and wrapped extra tape round his mouth. I had the sauraman
sit in the driver’s chair. I sat at the weapon’s console. As in the gun ship,
the weapons console could be slaved to the driver, but I thought Gurt would enjoy
the experience of driving a ceramal battle tank. It seemed just his sort of
thing and it was unlikely he could damage it. I pointed at the two joysticks.

“One
for each tread,” I said. “Push them forwards and we go forwards. Pull them back
and we go back. One forward and one back and we go in a circle—”

“I
understand,” Gurt interrupted. He squinted at the grey bulkhead before him.

“That
pad there,” I said and pointed at the touch pad clearly labelled ‘front
screen’. He hit the pad harder than necessary and the bulkhead effectively
disappeared as the front screen came on. He grinned out at the interior of the
cave and tightly gripped the sticks.

“When
we get out of the cave head south southeast,” I said, pointing at the face of
the gyrocompass. “Try not to knock over too many trees and avoid large
boulders.” I sent the signal to the door in the cliff and it revolved open.
Gurt thrust forward with the controls and with a rumbling drone the tank surged
forwards. As we came out into the sunlight I hit another screen button and the
ceiling, side walls, and rear bulkhead disappeared. It was almost as if we were
riding on an open platform. Gurt grunted and looked about in surprise, then he
grinned at me with delight. He seemed to be adapting to the technology very quickly.
I grinned back at him then put radar, laser bounce, and air perturbation
detectors online. Gurt immediately drew back on the joysticks and brought the
tank down to a crawl when faced with the forest of dwarf water oaks. He looked
an enquiry at me.

“Take
us through,” I said. He looked for some sort of track, saw none, shrugged and
pushed the sticks forward. The tank hit the trees at about twenty kph and did
not slow. Trees shattered before it and rode up over the roof. The tank lifted
a little over some of the bigger stumps where trees broke off, but mostly the
trees were torn right out of the ground and shoved aside. The noise was hideous
until I muted it. We were in a chaos of shattered wood and branches for about
five minutes before we broke out onto an upslope. Small boulders on the slope
broke with dull explosions under the treads. At the head of the slope we rode
up then came down with a crash on level veldt thick with elephant grass.

“Open
her up,” I instructed, most of my attention on the detectors. Gurt pushed the
sticks all the way forwards and the tank accelerated to its full speed of
eighty kilometres per hour. From the grass came a constant hiss as of fire and
it built up in clumps on the front of the tank before riding up over the roof.
I kept watching the detectors.

At
fifty kilometres and about one kilometre up I had four signatures. The computer
decoded them and flung up a schematic of a lunger gun ship in the corner of the
screen. There was no concerted movement from them for ten minutes. They seemed
to be following a search pattern. Then as one they started to come in our
direction. A quarter of an hour and they would be on us. I guessed they
wouldn’t attack right away as they had no idea who was in this tank. I also
guessed that someone higher up the chain of command would have an idea and
eventually order an attack. I had the computer target the ships at that extreme
range and selected the missile launcher. I put the shield on auto and diverted
half of the power from the U-charger to its laminar storage capacitor. As they
only carried energy cannons they would not be able to attack until close in.
The tank slowed as soon as I did this and Gurt looked at me.

“Nothing
to worry about,” I told him, watching the detectors for a moment longer before
selecting the scope. It had just occurred to me that there was an outside
chance that these were friends and it just wouldn’t do to go shooting them out
of the sky. I used the laser bounce to sight and focus, as the gun ships had a
coating that made them invisible to radar. Shortly I had a picture on my screen
of the four ships. Like the one back in the cave and the ones I had destroyed,
these were without markings. My hand paused over the launch control and I felt
a twinge of guilt. Damned if I know why. I yielded to this and selected only
one missile. Then I tapped the launch control.

As
if by magic the missile launcher appeared suspended over our heads. It turned
and spat a single missile from the side of its post-box launching mouth. That
missile shot away without pause for acceleration. Its engine ignited when it
was some distance towards the horizon. The launcher operated as a mini rail gun
to sling the missiles out. It had been discovered in a war some centuries back
that the pause for acceleration in the old style missiles had allowed enough
time for a laser to target, and missiles had often been detonated only a few
metres from their launcher. The launcher disappeared from the overhead screen
and I called up the scope picture again to watch the show. Gurt slowed the tank
so he could watch as well.

The
four gun ships were cruising at full speed about fifty metres above the ground.
Abruptly one of them tilted and turned violently. The pilot must have picked up
on the incoming at the last moment. He did not move his ship quickly enough.
The missile went in so fast it showed only as a flicker of a line on the
screen. The explosion gutted the ship with fire, blasting out through its four
limbs before disintegrating it completely. Red-hot hull plates and distorted
structural members rained out of the sky. To one side I observed a thruster
motor, still firing intermittently, hit the ground and disappear in a hot blue
explosion. The other gun ships had gone into avoidance manoeuvres and the
screen tracked on only one of them. I clicked on the radio.

“Consider
that warning enough. Come no closer,” I said.

On
the laser bounce detector I observed the three remaining ships pull away and
hold at a distance ten kilometres out from where I had destroyed that one. No
doubt they were asking for instructions and hoping the instructions they
received were not: “Go in.”

“They’re
going to need a sieve to find what’s left of you, Mr Collector,” someone hissed
at me over the radio. Checking a couple of readings I could see that I had
screen or holovisual if I wanted them. I selected screen and looked into the
angry face of one of the gun ship pilots. He was angry at me. The cheek.

“Ah,
a talkative one,” I said. “Your friend doesn’t say much.” The pilot looked
confused so I turned the screen so he could see my prisoner over my shoulder.
His confusion went away.

“You
bastard,” he said.

“That’s
hardly fair,” said I. “I didn’t start this. Perhaps if you tell me what this is
all about we can sort things out amicably.”

The
pilot shut off communication and I turned to Gurt.

“Keep
us moving. I think the shit’s about to hit.”

Gurt
immediately understood the ancient euphemism and had us pelting across the
veldt as fast as the tank could manage. I got all my detectors online and
watched for movement. I was tempted to take out the three remaining gun ships
but thought that might be a waste of missiles of which I might have sore need.
The tank only carried fifty, after all. As we hurtled along I observed more
blips on the screen, which the computer identified as more gun ships. It also
informed me that some of these gun ships were carrying missiles.

“Why
you waiting?” Gurt asked, and for the life of me I had no answer for him.
Perhaps I was getting soft in my old age. I quickly targeted the ships with
missiles and launched. I think fingers must have hit firing buttons
simultaneously because as my missiles sped away the computer picked up on
incoming.

“Ah,”
I said, and made a selection on the carousel. It was something I’d always
wanted to try. At the back of the tank the carousel whirred and clicked and an
object like an iron camera thunked up into position, tracked, and fired. The
muted sound that came from it was as of escaping compressed air. It tracked
again, fired again and again. The object’s title was MMG, which stood for
mega-multigun. It fired ceramic bullets five millimetres across at a rate of
one million per minute. There was not much else as effective at stopping
missiles. I watched my screen and saw approaching missiles disappearing. I also
noted that the same was happening at the other end but not as effectively. My
missiles were being brought down by lasers. Three got through and three gun
ships disappeared from the screen. One of their missiles, obviously with its
targeting out, hit about ten metres from the tank. The blast slewed us sideways
and a sheet of fire and debris momentarily covered us. Gurt got the tank back
in line and kept us moving forwards. On my screen I got an error message and
looked up at the multigun. It was gone.

“Fuck,”
I said, called up the laser from the carousel, and activated the ionic screen.
I launched two more batches of missiles as the remaining gun ships with
missiles launched theirs. Suffice to say that after that exchange they no
longer had the capability of firing missiles at me. The tank, unfortunately,
dropped to a power level that shut off the engine, and we sat there in the
burning elephant grass with the U-charger whining at full load as it struggled
to restore power. I should have expected what happened next.

“Collector,
you are an anachronism and a pain,” said someone, and I noted that there was no
visual transmission. I waited and the voice continued. “Admittedly you’re
resourceful, but in the end your resources are limited. I would guess that
right now you’re running out of energy.”

I
looked at the screen and noted that the gun ships were pulling away. I’d
expected tactical nukes next and reckoned I had enough armament to field them.
It didn’t look like that was going to be the next. I thought fast and came up
with only one conclusion. I pulled up the microphone and held it in the palm of
my hand, then I leant across and set Gurt’s joysticks to drive. As soon as the
U-charger had stacked up enough power in the batteries the tank would take off.
I looked Gurt in the eye and nodded towards the door. When he sat there looking
puzzled I turned the microphone off.

“Get
out and run. I’ll be with you in a moment. No questions,” I said, and turned
the microphone back on. Gurt got out of his seat and picked up the APW and a
hand gun. He opened the door, leapt out, and set out into the burning grass
land at his steady loping pace.

“Who
am I speaking to?” I asked as I quickly set the defence and weapons systems on
automatic.

“What
does that matter to you now?” the voice asked, relishing his victory.

I
was out of my seat and through the door in a moment, the microphone still in my
hand. My captive watched me go with stark terror in his features. I guessed he
knew what was coming.

“Look,
I’m carrying enough armament to take out anything you’ve got. Perhaps we should
discuss this. What do you want of me?”

By
this time I was running into the grassland after Gurt. One of the advantages of
not having to breath is that you can talk quite calmly while making like an
Olympic sprinter.

“What
I want of you, Collector, is your absence. Goodbye.”

I
was about a hundred metres from the tank and fast catching up with Gurt when I
heard the tank start moving. It’s all very well rolling across the veldt in a
high-tech battle tank, but there comes a point when you begin to think you’re
invulnerable. That is something you should never think and was the kind of
attitude that had got a lot of my kind dead. Behind me the tank started
discharging its load of missiles. The carousel was operating as well, shooting
out the black erratically flying spheres of smart bombs. I reckoned a few more
gun ships would bite the dust before it was all over.

The
sound was like the sea and the entire area was bathed in crimson light. I came
up behind Gurt and brought him down to protect his body with mine. There was a
brief roaring as the ionic shield came full on for a moment then collapsed. At
that moment I crushed the microphone I held, then, with my eye shutters up to
filter radiations that might damage my more delicate optics, I turned my head
and looked back. The armour went from red to white in an instant then the tank
exploded flinging chunks of ceramal in every direction. The smoke and fire
picked out the shape of the laser beam like a nacreous column rising into the
sky. It bored into the ground for a moment then shut off. Where my tank had
been was now a crater lined with cooling glass. I rolled off Gurt and allowed
him to sit upright.