Come the Revolution (25 page)

But I did not call her
Avrochka
. It would not have been honest.

“This exotic neurotoxin thing,” I said. “He called it a protein, right?”

She nodded, brow furrowed in confusion at the change in topic. “All naturally occurring neurotoxins are proteins. That much I found out in my background research. That’s what makes them so deadly.”

“Okay. The thing is all six races have unique protein chains. That’s why we can’t ingest the same foods, except some simple sugars and starches, right? We can’t break their proteins down. So if neurotoxins are proteins, aren’t
all
neurotoxins species-specific? I don’t mean really
species
-specific, but specific to some or all the species from one of the six trees of life? Don’t they have to be?”

She thought for a moment. “I think…maybe so. What are you getting at?”

“If there are lots of neurotoxins around, and they’re all tree-of-life-specific, then why is one more such a big deal? Big enough to make CSJ want to rub out the old man?”

She looked at me intently, thinking hard. “You’re saying you don’t think he’s working on a bioweapon?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“What then?”

“I don’t know—yet. And that’s why he travels with us. Find him and meet me at the headquarters building. I’ve got one more thing to take care of.”

* * *

I found the CSJ agent bound and gagged, and under guard, in a metal locker in the back of Moshe’s equipment storage building. I sent the guard to join the rest of his breakout party, told him I’d finish up here. I cut the restraints on the agent’s legs and then helped him stand up. He had trouble at first, the restraints having cut off the circulation to his feet. I led him out of the building, talking as we went. His hands were still bound behind his back, which looked odd, but everyone we passed was in a hurry going somewhere else with a lot on their minds.

“The uBakai Army’s about to come roaring through here and kill every single Human they can find. Afterwards they’ll probably blame it on the mobs, round up a few Gaantist ringleaders and execute them, and express their regrets, but they’ll have made their point and no Human will ever feel safe in Sakkatto City again.

“Of course, when they come in here shooting, they aren’t going to stop to ask if you’re CSJ, and the way they feel about the
Cottohazz
right now I’m not sure it would do you much good anyway. Understand?”

He was still gagged but he nodded.

“Okay. So I can leave you here, in which case you’ll die. Or I can take you with me, in which case you’ll probably try to kill Dr. Naradnyo, and I want him alive, at least for a while. So what do I do about you?”

We walked on in silence, heading toward the underground shelters we’d never used for anything except overflow dormitory space.

“Something puzzled me at first, because I wasn’t using my head. I couldn’t figure out why none of you guys knew who I was, but it was because of the Army jamming, wasn’t it? You can’t access the float out here so your facial recognition software doesn’t work.”

We got to the first hole we’d blown down to the storm sewers, to pump water in case we needed it for fighting fires. The hole was still there, now with a warning sign and a rigid composite panel across it so folks wouldn’t fall in. The pump and hose had been moved somewhere else. People were moving around the shelters, forming up into breakout serials, but we were by ourselves by the hole. Off to the south I heard some single shots, then the stutter of automatic weapons fire. I waited for a moment, listened, but that was all. Maybe just random shooting, maybe the southern assault column running into trouble, hard to say.

I pushed the panel back. I could still hear water running down below, but not nearly as energetically as before. Prayzaat was right about that. I pulled the gag off of his mouth but he didn’t say anything. He just looked at me, waiting for what came next.

“Sit down here, legs in the hole with your hands back toward me.”

He did it and then just stared into the hole, into his personal abyss.

“In case you’re curious, I’m Sasha Naradnyo.”

He turned to me and his eyes got larger with surprise, but just for an instant and then his face was under control again. I grinned.

“Yeah, didn’t see that coming, did you? Well, you’re going to love the next bit. Follow this storm sewer south, which is the direction the water’s flowing. It should take you to Katammu-Arc. Not sure how you get out of it there, but you’re a resourceful guy. I’m going to cut your hands loose as I push you into the hole, because I still don’t trust you not to jump me. But first I’ve got a message I want delivered to Field Marshal Lieutenant e-Loyolaan. Listen carefully.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Tell me a physics joke I can understand or so help me God I’ll kill you.

Sure, Boss. What do you call it when Einstein jacks off? A stroke of genius! Get it?

Yeah. I mean, it’s not very funny, but I do understand it, so I guess you get to live.

Gee thanks! If every boss I worked for was as generous as you, maybe I’d still be alive.

“You
are
still alive, damnit! Don’t give up on me!” I said that out loud and I guess the other stuff was just in my head because even if Moshe were still conscious, he’d never have told that joke.

I struggled pulling him through the low spots in the rubble with one arm, trying to keep my head down, away from the scattered shots that still zipped overhead. The collar of his overalls was slippery with his blood. My left hand slid off. I flexed it to get some circulation back, tried to wipe the palm clean on my jacket front, and got a tighter hold on him. I kept pulling. Then Borro was by my side, pulling on an arm, and we had him behind a low foamstone wall that used to be part of a building.

“Medtech!”
I yelled, unsure there was one within hearing range, or even one still alive this side of the flying monster up ahead. Miraculously, one materialized at my elbow, and started pumping A-stop into the spurting chest wound.

“Is he going to make it?” I asked, probably yelled.

Without taking her eyes off of him, she said, “If the heart’s intact, I can deal with everything else. The entry wound is pretty far to the right, so unless there were some fragments flying around in there, I can at least get him stabilized.”

I hovered there, staring at Moshe’s face, pale beneath the spattered and smeared bright red arterial blood, until Borro pulled at my shoulder.

“Sasha, he will survive or he will not. We have work to do.”

I looked up and then back down the narrow street called Throat-cutter’s Way, illuminated in the overcast night only by fires burning here and there and the flickering light of overhead flares. Four or five of our fighters had shot the uBakai soldier at the end of the block, where the street opening into The Shadowed Way. It earned its name tonight—the overhead maglev tracks keeping the flare light from reaching down into the black velvet void underneath. Halfway to the Shadowed Way, with two bodies beside it, lay the salvo launcher Moshe had been trying to set up.

I looked at the long stretch of open ground between me and it, tasted bile and hot spit, but knew somebody had to do this and if not me, who?

“Not us,” I said to Borro, “just me. If I go, all I’ll have shooting at me is the Army. Everyone’s likely to shoot at you.”

I stood up and sprinted toward the launcher, trying to stay low and run a zigzag course. I thought the uBakai trooper who had shot up the original crew was down, but he had to have friends nearby. I got to the launcher and crouched beside it, that absurd lashed-together impossibility. Borro was only a few steps behind me.

Moshe and the two gunners had brought a couple good-sized foamstone blocks with them and I remembered that was the plan for how to get some elevation. We’d probably need it because there was a gunsled up ahead which had interdicted movement across the Shadowed Way, effectively cutting our breakout column in half. It had been moving slowly down the Way, supporting infantry clearing the buildings to either side. We’d hammered the infantry, driven them back. Now we wanted the gunsled to come to their rescue so we could get a clear close-in shot at it.

I started trying to tilt the launcher back to get some blocks under it but it was heavy. Borro stood up to get better leverage and rock it back on its rear corner.

“Keep down!” I yelled at him.

“There, slide the bocks under the front. Hurry!”

I managed to get them under it just as Borro let go and let it drop, the same time I heard the snap of a gauss rifle flechette. I looked up and saw Borro pitch backwards. I scrambled to his side but knew he was gone before I got there. The flechette had hit him square in the forehead and hadn’t come out the back.

I knelt there looking at him for a moment feeling strange and hollow inside. I’d known him for over two years, but in a way I’d never known him, at least not in the conventional sense. He guarded
The’On
, but he didn’t work for
The’On
, and I’d never been able to find out who he did work for. Now I never would, but I didn’t really care about that anymore. I just wanted my friend back.

Behind me I heard the rising whine of the four ducted fans of a gunsled, knew I had to get off the street now or I’d die here with Borro, and then a lot of other people would as well. I grabbed the trigger assembly, pulled the wire off the spool on the side of the launcher, and let it play out of my hand as I ran for the cover of another low foamstone wall on the south side and about five meters back from the Shadowed Way. I dove over it and then stuck my head up and looked, saw the gunsled ease past the corner, hovering right below rooftop level, the image slightly distorted by the flickering glow of its electrostatic armor field. Its turret swung toward us, as if sniffing for prey. It wasn’t quite in the center of the opening, but I didn’t want the gunner to take out the launcher box on spec. I ducked down behind the wall and closed the trigger circuit.

Deafening noise. Heat. I felt the wall I sheltered behind seem to give and for an instant I was afraid it would collapse on me. Then I was on fire, or at least the right arm of my jacket was. I grabbed a handful of dirt and trash from the street and rubbed the fire out.

By the time I could look over the wall, most of the fireball from the exploded launcher had burned out and the smoke had drifted up, so I could see the end of the street. I’d actually hit the son of a bitch! I couldn’t tell all the damage the launcher did, but it had at least taken out the right rear ducted fan. That side of the gunsled dipped down and the twisted frame of the fan housing dragged along the ground as the other right-side fan whined to high speed to get the sled stable again. Then it slid forward against one of the support columns for the overhead maglev tracks and must have knocked something loose, because the other fan on the near side just disintegrated, sent pieces of blade flashing and sparking off the track support girders, and the sled came down on its belly hard.

It was still dangerous, just sitting there, or it would have been if its weaponry was still operational. The turret wasn’t moving and neither the main pulse laser nor the coaxial VRF autogun were firing. I saw evidence of a couple other strikes on the chassis of the vehicle, but couldn’t tell if the penetrators had punched the hull or glanced off.

Then one of our fighters was running toward it, lugging one of those portable mines the reserve squads were supposed to seed the perimeter with.

“Covering fire!” someone yelled from behind me and I heard flechettes snap down the street and start taking chips off of buildings, I guess in case the sled’s supporting infantry got that close. The guy made it to the crippled sled, but enemy flechette fire started hitting the hull near him. He got the mine up onto the hull of the sled and slid it under the combined weapons mount on the front of the turret before he got hit and knocked down. He got back up, set the timer on the mine, and started running back. More small arms fire from up the street took him down. Then the mine went off and blew the weapons mount right off the front of the turret, and a lot of the unburned PLX must have gotten in the hull breach, because pretty soon the whole vehicle was burning.

I heard the whine of more turbines and a second gunsled came forward, floating over the burning wreck of the first one, its downdraft laying the flames flat against the ground and shooting smoke and burning trash off in every direction. This one started hosing down the alleyway with its autogun right away. The rounds all went over my head but I heard screams of fear and pain behind me, and the sounds of metal and stone structures coming apart. Someone back there was yelling to fall back before the voice was chopped off in midcommand.

I rolled to the right until I couldn’t see the sled anymore, then ran back toward the headquarters building through a narrow twisting alleyway that turned to the left and then right a little, hard left, and then I wasn’t sure where I was going. I stopped for a minute and tried to get my bearings, but everything looked unfamiliar in the darkness. Finally I got a look at the maglev tracks and oriented myself, started down the alley again and soon found people running in panic the other way.

“Wrong way!” I shouted and tried to stop them, but most of them were beyond listening. Four of them stopped by me, looking nervously back, eyes wide and whites showing in the faint light.

“What’s up there?”

“That rapid-firing gun,” an old man said. “It’s churning the ground, cutting through buildings!”

I could still hear it, firing short bursts now, maybe starting to conserve ammunition. Those VRF autoguns just burned through the ammo. Flechettes weren’t that heavy and a sled could carry a shitload of them, since its power plant produced the juice to run the gun system, but there were still limits on how long they could keep shooting. The autogun stopped and I heard a loud sizzling crack, the sled firing its pulse laser.

“Come on. It’s doing grazing fire, interdicting north-south movement. We just need to keep to the left.”

I got them moving again and a little ways farther we found a larger clump of people, maybe a hundred of them, some wounded or injured by flying debris. There were some fighters with them but nobody seemed in charge.

“Sasha?” I heard Aurora call from the other side of the crowd. “Sasha! Are you here?” Her voice had a frantic edge to it. I hadn’t seen her and the old man since the uBakai Army cut the breakout corridor at the Shadowed Way.

“Aurora, I’m over here! Stay where you are, I’m coming to you.”

I pushed through the crowd and I asked the fighters I saw who was in charge, where their squad leader was. “Dead,” one of them said, the rest just shrugged or looked blank. In the middle of the crowd I found the medtech with a two-man stretcher detail and Moshe.

“How’s he doing?”

The medtech nodded and patted him on the shoulder. “He’s weak from loss of blood, but I kept most of the blood out of his lungs and did some quick suction. We need a long-term fix to the lacerated artery, but the A-stop will hold it for now. Get us to a med center and he’ll make it.”

A med center. Yeah, that was going to be a good trick.

By the time I pushed through to Aurora and our father, another party of soldiers emerged from an alleyway behind her. They looked like they were still together as a unit, not just a random bunch of stragglers.

“Who’s in charge?” I asked, and the trooper in the lead stepped forward.

“Squad leader dead. Was assistant, so now in charge. What is hold-up?”

“The uBakai cut the corridor. Mech infantry with gunsled support. Hear that firing? They have a solid hold on the Shadowed Way and I don’t think we can move them.”

“How hard try?” he said, a note of derision in his voice.

I remembered Moshe in a stretcher just hanging on to life, the two guys with him at the launcher who died right there, Borro who died aiming it, the soldier who put the demo charge on the gunsled and didn’t make it back. I almost punched the guy standing in front of me, but instead I took a couple slow breaths to calm myself.

“A squad from one-three and parts of two other squads from one-two took a bite out of them and brought down a gunsled, but then got blown to pieces by its wingman. But you want to try, wise guy, go knock yourself out.”

“Okay, okay,” he said and pushed his cap back on his head. “Be easy. Is just…we did job, paid plenty for it, now everything fucked up.”

“Yeah, everything is. We’re not getting out to the east with the main breakout, and we can’t get north past that grazing fire. Pretty soon they’ll move in and cut off the south and west and that mech infantry is going to be on our ass as soon as they sort themselves out. Weren’t there some yellow flares fired to the southwest?”

“Sure, road open then. But purple flares come, we fall back.”

“You guys found the open road? Can you find it again?”

He scratched his chest through his shirt front and frowned. “Maybe closed now.”

“Well it’s sure as hell closed here. Come on, corporal, get your guys off their asses.” I turned around, not giving him a chance to argue, and I started yelling. “Listen everyone! We can’t go north or east. We’re walking out to the southwest. Any fighter without a unit, report here to Corporal…”

I turned around. “What’s your name?”

“Chernagorov.”

“Report up here to Corporal Chernagorov, on the double.”

There’s nothing like a plan and some clear, simple orders to get people’s heads together after a funk. Six fighters made their way to the front and joined Chernagorov’s five, so we had about a full squad. He moved some ammo around so the three men who were completely out at least had some, and assigned them as our rearguard. Chernagorov picked one of his own men as lead scout and got him started, then turned to me.

“Ready?”

“Corporal Chernagorov,” I said, “lead these people across the River Jordan.”

He frowned and shook his head. “Be lucky get to Wanu River tonight.”