Codename: Night Witch (45 page)

"Kill them!" Harry Jones said. "Kill them all!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
End Game

Hearing the commands of their master Harry Jones, thirty-seven Independent soldiers descended on the guests corralled in their midst. It was a massacre. Screams of terror rose through the hall only to be silenced by the hail of ordnance that fell down on them.

Diving, Sigrid tackled Lady Hitomi to the marbled floor, cushioning her fall even as she shielded her with her body. The only thing that saved them were the dozens of unfortunate dignitaries, plutocrats and hangers-on who stood between her and the firing soldiers. Raising their hands, they cried out for mercy. Dozens fell. And still more bullets came.

Forever at her side was Suko. She was on one knee and firing back with a large and powerful recoilless. One by one the Independents fell in quick succession. Those who came too close tasted the steel of her sword. And she wasn't alone. Flanked by his warrior soldiers, Colonel Bhandari and Victoria charged into the mix. They came in from behind, stealthily and quick. Not one of the opposing soldiers saw them coming. These Independents were about to learn what it was to face the sons and daughters of the Chagatai clan and this strange machine girl from Bellatrix.

In Victoria's hand, Sigrid saw the long silver chain-whip arcing out. On Bellatrix, that weapon had struck terror into her when she was its target. She didn't envy the Independents who faced her now. The heavy, weighted ball on its end bludgeoned a row of six soldiers, while the razor-sharp barbs carved through four more. They scrambled to get out of her way, but Victoria came at them again and again, swinging the whip in an unrelenting series of arcs. One unlucky soul found himself wrapped in its wiry embrace. Victoria pulled back hard on the chain, opening him up from neck to hip.

She could only imagine what was in Victoria's heart. Victoria, perhaps more than Sigrid, knew what it was like to be used by the Independents, to be nothing more than a machine, a tool, something to be used and discarded. With each swing of her barbed whip, Victoria exacted her revenge.

From her side, Suko called to her. "Sigrid, let's go!" She was fighting a retreating action, doing her best to keep the surrounding soldiers at bay as more of the Independents poured into the burning hall.

But Sigrid couldn't go. Not yet. On the landing above them, Sigrid saw the thin form of Harry Jones disappear into the smoke, vanishing, as if before her eyes.

"Go!" Sigrid said. "Take Hitomi. I'll follow you out. There's something I need to take care of first."

Lady Hitomi Kimura clamped a hand firmly on her arm. "Let him go, Sigrid. He's not worth it."

But she was wrong. He was worth it. Harry Jones had killed Mei and Tara. His lies killed Sara. And he was the key to her memories.

"It's not Jones I want, mistress. It's what he stole. I want it back. I want my life back."

Extracting herself from Hitomi's grasp, ignoring Suko's shouts of protest, Sigrid ran. She hadn't forgotten the words of the courier nor the promise of his mysterious patron: "Find Jones. Find him, and bring him back alive." As distasteful as letting him live was, if it meant removing the barriers from her mind, if it meant getting her life back, then it was a deal she could learn to live with.

Of course, she had to find him first.

Rushing after him up the winding stairs, she arrived on the landing only to be greeted by a raging inferno. Entire sections of walls had been blown away; fires burned everywhere, climbing the walls and rolling across the ceiling. The corridor was filled with greasy black smoke. Breathing was out of the question and it was only her optical implants that allowed her to see. But this was precisely what Sigrid was built for. She was in her element, and no fire was going to slow her pursuit.

She was tracking Jones even now, and his signal blazed brilliantly in her HUD. The signal blinked its presence not thirty meters from her. It wasn't moving, she realized. He was waiting for her.

She had him.

Sigrid charged ahead. She rounded the corner of the fiery corridor, ready to face him—when something extraordinary happened. The tracking signal split into three new blips.

"What the…?"

Worse, those three signals split into nine—and then twenty-seven. Twenty-seven separate signals. And then all twenty-seven dashed off, exploding in different directions, moving impossibly fast, impossible to track, even for her.

Twenty-seven?

With fires burning around her, Sigrid stood perfectly still. Slowly, her brain was processing what was happening. Harry Jones was going to get away.

~ - ~

Colonel Bhandari and his warriors poured it on. Firing relentlessly, they kept the surrounding Independents suppressed, driving them back. This gave Suko and Victoria just enough cover to hoist the Lady Hitomi Kimura by her arms and lead her from the burning palace. They had only taken a handful of steps when the first of the burning beams fell from the ceiling. It crashed to the ground not a meter from them and sent up an explosion of sparks and ash.

Suko looked up in time to see the domed ceiling sag. The entire structure groaned its protests, heaved and then collapsed. Doing the only thing she could, Suko scooped Hitomi into her arms and ran. Eight long strides took her across the marbled floor, over the bodies of the dead and dying, the burning rubble and debris. Her final leap sent her crashing through the shattered remains of a great plate-glass window overlooking the courtyard beyond.

She emerged from the smoke, landing hard and skidding across the ice, somehow staying upright, with Hitomi still in her arms. The others were right behind her. Victoria came first, diving through and crashing and rolling to the ground. The colonel's warriors followed next, half-carrying, half-shielding Nuria between them. The colonel was the last out, leaping through the shattered glass even as the entire palace appeared to implode, collapsing in on itself in an enormous gush of flame and smoke.

More fires burned in the courtyard outside. Victoria and the colonel had done a number on the place with their charges. The palace grounds looked more like a battleground than a stately resort. Scores of Cabal and Independent soldiers lay dead around her. But there were survivors as well. Most of the Independent force remained intact, and they were hastily regrouping to form a firing line from which no one would escape.

Three rounds from Suko's recoilless took care of the ones in closest proximity. But there were more on the way. They kept low, steadily moving in while staying hidden behind the cover of the marbled walls and the heaped banks of freshly plowed snow.

Suko emptied another magazine, more out of frustration than anything else. Their situation was deteriorating quickly. The three thousand garrisoned soldiers of the Cabal were descending on the palace grounds. They were too late to save their masters, but they could still wreak havoc on the Independent invaders. If Suko, Hitomi and Victoria happened to be trapped between them, they didn't seem to care.

A stone statue shattered under a barrage of ordnance, spraying them with splinters of rock and dust.

"Our position here is not tactically sound," Victoria stated, quite unnecessarily.

"I know!"

She was right, but Suko doubted the two forces would cease fire long enough for them to make their escape. The battle was only heating up. Outside the walls, Suko scanned an entire squadron of Cabal tanks moving to form a perimeter, cordoning the entire area off. Eight Starlings
flew overwatch in the snowy skies above them. They broke off into two formations, strafing the Independent forces along the ground.

One of them must have seen them. It slowed and swung away from the battle, coming to hover above them. Blinding floodlights caught them in the glare, and a voice boomed out from a loudspeaker embedded in the craft's belly.

"Halt! Don't move!"

Suko raised her recoilless.

"Wait!" Hitomi said. With a cautioning hand, she had Suko lower her weapon. "Not even you can fight that, my dear."

"If you think I'm letting them take us prisoner—"

"Never," Hitomi said. "But there may be another way out of this."

"Diplomacy?" Colonel Bhandari asked.

"Perhaps," Hitomi said. "After all, I am an honored guest. They won't kill me. At least, I hope."

"They might," Victoria said. "Once they figure out who we are—and what we did to their master's palace." She wagged a thumb back over her shoulder. "I think this is beyond a fixer-upper."

"With respect, Lady Kimura," Colonel Bhandari said, "there might also be alternatives to diplomacy."

The Starling drifted lower. The hot jet wash from its thrusters blasted down on them, while two more fireteams of Cabal soldiers hurried their way.

"Prayer, Colonel?" Hitomi said. "If you're suggesting divine intervention, I should warn you, I've never been one to believe in angels."

"My matriarch has been called many things," the colonel said, "but Lady Godelieve is no angel. She is, however, renowned for her preparation and planning. She believes in…
contingencies.
With your indulgence?"

"By all means."

Raising his arm, the colonel swiped the comm unit strapped to his wrist, activating it. With a gloved finger he tapped out a twenty-character sequence and hit the execute button. Flashed and encoded, the preprogrammed signal went out.

Hitomi gave him a sideways glance. "I
saw
what you sent, Colonel. 'Attack Plan: Night Witch'?"

Colonel Bhandari shrugged, though he grinned as well. "As a code word, it seemed appropriate. Don't worry, milady. Our people will understand its meaning."

A low rumbling grew in the distance. It was quiet at first, though it grew quickly in volume. Like an avalanche, it grew in force and intensity until it shook the ground where they lay. Suko's sensors picked up the new targets. Twenty-four heavy transports on approach. They burst over the surrounding peaks, sweeping down over the mountain and moving quickly toward them. They kept low, flying only meters off the deck. They were Kingfishers, troop transports, and they were flying the colors of the Consortium.

The Cabal Starlings
hovering over them had no choice but to turn and engage the newcomers. Small, light and agile, the Starlings sped toward them, descending quickly on the lumbering transports. But the troop transports hadn't come alone. Flying escort were a squadron of Thunderhawks. These gunships were predators, and the sight of the eight attacking Starlings only whet their appetites. They feasted on them, making quick work of the smaller craft, digging their talons in deep before turning their attentions on the forces below, Cabal and Independents alike.

"I shall have to meet this magistrate of yours," Hitomi said. "She seems a most intriguing person."

~ - ~

Ignoring the smoke, the heat and the rising flames, Sigrid kept a careful watch on the twenty-seven retreating signals. One of those fleeing red blips was Harry Jones. But which one? She had to pick the right one, and she had to do it fast.

Fighting the urge to chase madly after them, Sigrid forced herself to work the problem. Everything Harry Jones had worked for was lost. He'd lost Sigrid, but more importantly, he'd lost his wife. His beloved Emily was dead, and it was all Sigrid's fault.

That left one of two possibilities. Jones would come at her hard. He would want revenge. He'd want to kill her.

Sigrid dismissed the idea instantly. Trying to kill her himself was suicide. Whatever Harry Jones was, he was no fool—and he was no warrior, either. He was a master at disappearing, losing himself amongst the crowds. Sigrid might be able to disappear completely, but Jones had the greater power of being able to be seen, but never being noticed. That left only one possibility.

He's running.

It was the only thing that made sense. Jones would run, live to fight another day, and then he would come at her from strength. And if he was running, then there was only one way out of Portillo: the tunnel. The winding tunnel that led down the mountain. If Jones made it there, he would be lost to her forever.

Relying on pure instinct, Sigrid marked her course and headed directly for the tunnel. The fact that her charge took her directly through the burning walls of the marquis's palace didn't matter. Her PCM highlighted the weakest points in the walls eroded by the fires, and Sigrid ran, crashing her way through.

Plaster and wood gave way as she burst through one burning wall, charging into the next. She ran through an abandoned office and then through a suite beyond. A more sturdy-looking brick facade loomed ahead of her, though she was hardly about to let that stop her. Like a battering ram, she slammed through the third-story wall of the palace, hurling herself into the night, more than twenty meters above the frozen concrete of the courtyard below. The ground rushed quickly up to greet her. Sigrid hit hard, tucking and rolling along, only to come up amongst a squad of completely startled soldiers.

They were Independents—the enemy—but Sigrid didn't have time for them. Without breaking her stride, she snagged a brace of grenades from the belt of the soldier closest to her. Popping the tabs, she dropped them at her feet. Her PCM marked the three-second countdown while three great leaping strides took her out of the blast radius. She never looked back. Somewhere up ahead of her was Harry Jones.

The only way in and out of the palace was the winding switchback road they'd taken here. It led all the way down the mountain and out through the town of Portillo. Sigrid made for it, running hard, only stopping as she came to the edge of a rocky cliff.

Crouching on the edge, she had a perfect view of the road below. The single, narrow trail was cluttered with Cabal forces. Troop carriers, trucks and tanks jammed the road. They were making slow progress, nudging their way toward the battle on the hilltop above. The roar of their engines, the shouted commands of men and women, and the clatter of heavy tracks across the tarmac filled the air.