Crossing the Line (31 page)

“What's that?” he asked.

Qureshi jerked her head round. She registered shock, instant acidic shock. “Oh shit,” she said quietly. “Turn around, sir. It's too late.”

A solid column like a gray
efte
tree had grown suddenly out of the sea to the south. The head of it blossomed into a canopy. Aras had never seen anything like it, except in
gethes
books. Qureshi had scrambled on to her knees to stare at the spectacle.

“Oh, my bezeri,” Aras said. It was his first thought: he thought of the beautiful black-grass island and he thought of the massive shock wave transmitting itself through the sea. “My poor bezeri. I promised them. I
promised
them.”

Qureshi looked utterly defeated. He half hoped that she would give him an acceptable explanation that wouldn't confirm his worst fears. He wanted her to say that it was okay, that humans he had watched over and protected for generations hadn't betrayed his foolish trust and that it could all be put right again.

Wess'har were brutally pragmatic. His hope lasted less than a second.

The billowing canopy was flattening and spreading.

Aras had not experienced helplessness for five hundred years. He was the guardian of Bezer'ej, of the bezeri, and of the island the humans called Christopher. And he'd failed. He didn't even know how.

He grabbed the marine's face in his hands and jerked it up to make her look at him. Qureshi's eyes said that she didn't expect to survive the next few minutes, but she maintained her composure.

“Do you know what you've done? Do you?” His wess'har instinct that told him to freeze and evaluate before reacting to a threat suddenly couldn't override a growing pressure in his chest and throat that felt remarkably like reliving one of Shan's rages. Aras wanted to lash out. It was an alien emotion in every sense but it almost consumed him until he let the sensible wess'har numbing reflex kick in. “You've poisoned the island. You've poisoned the water.”

He loosened his grip so suddenly and completely that Qureshi almost tipped over the gunwale of the shallow craft. He grabbed her before she fell. She wouldn't have survived long in the water with her wrists bound.

She hadn't actually done anything. She had just landed in hostile territory, serving her nation, as he had once done. It was wrong to punish her.

Aras took out the
virin
and looked for the latest reconnaissance images. The high aerial view was from a patrol craft. Aras couldn't see the island at all; it was a mass of flame and plumed tumbling smoke and filth. The cloud of debris sucked up from the blast was drifting south over the sea.

He could feel the swell building as the shock wave pushed out from the island.

“It's neutron bombs, sir. I know it's terrible, but they're designed for minimal long-term fallout.”

Aras couldn't take his eyes off the cube of images. “Is this supposed to comfort the bezeri?”

“It might not be as bad as you think, sir. I'm really sorry.”
EVACUATE
said the
virin.

Aras stood at the wheel again, swung the boat to starboard and opened the throttle. He felt the first spots of heavy rain on his face. It was the promise of a downpour.

The fallout would drop into the sea in the embrace of rain. In the short term, Qureshi need not have worried too much about contamination.

The bezeri, sensitive to pollution, slow breeding, a fragile population at best, would feel it first.

He hoped—no, he
prayed,
in case the
gethes
thing called God could hear, and act—that they would flee.

Lindsay looked at her watch and checked the bioscreen in her palm.

“It's done,” she said. “Christopher's neutralized.”

She had imagined they would have to crawl commando-style through passages to infiltrate the underground colony.

But Josh must have called ahead. The ancient shuttle had been prepared: Bennett looked over the cockpit and shrugged, apparently satisfied at its readiness. When they came through the main thoroughfare, there were a couple of men dragging a crate between them, and they simply glanced at Lindsay, the marines and Rayat, and went about their business.

Bennett and Barencoin, rifles ready, overlapped and covered each other, checking entrances, looking up at the galleries, still as wary as their training in urban warfare made them.

“Would they booby-trap the place?” asked Rayat. Lindsay wouldn't give him a rifle and he was edgy. He was carrying the last ERD in a bergen across his back. It was quite a feat of endurance; and he didn't look especially robust. “You never know with these types.”

“We'll find out the hard way,” said Bennett. “Want to walk ahead?”

It wasn't at all like Bennett to be insolent. Barencoin was silent. Lindsay didn't trust Rayat enough to have him armed with the shuttle a long sprint away. She had no idea what an intelligence officer's skills might be. She wasn't going to test them.

And she hadn't visited David's grave. She wouldn't have time now. She'd never see it again; and that hurt. But the pain was good, because it kept her motivated.

From time to time the sound of falling soil stopped them in their tracks but it was just the walls crumbling. Lindsay stared at the trickle of gold granules.

“I think they've started with the nanites,” said Rayat. “Let's hope the whole place doesn't fall in on us.”

“It won't if you shut up,” said Barencoin.

They stopped at St. Francis. The magnificent stained glass was gone, leaving a clean window-shaped hole. Lindsay adjusted her ballistic jacket, thinking that it felt insubstantial, and checked her rifle. She could feel Bennett's gaze boring into her.

“You ever been hit by a round, ma'am?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “You know damn well I haven't. But I can give as good as I get.”

“Ma'am, it'll still bloody hurt even with the jacket.”

“She'll have a 9mm pistol, not an elephant rifle.”

“She'll have whatever she took off Izzy and Chaz.” He gestured with his own rifle. “If she uses one of these buggers on you, you'll know it. And if she gets a head-shot in, no jacket is going to save you. This is all about timing now.” He held up four candle-sized sticks of dark green metal. He'd made his own private plans, then. “Stun grenades. One's enough to immobilize a room. I think it might take two to slow her down. Once we get her on the deck, we restrain her and get to the shuttle.”

“We need her down and disoriented for at least ten seconds,” said Barencoin. “Look.” He demonstrated the titanium composite straps he'd borrowed from engineering.
Snap, snap, snap
: they locked in place automatically. They were what you used to secure odd-shaped loads in the cargo bay. “This all depends on getting her in a confined space. If you're too close to her when it happens, you'll be on your back for a while too.”

“And if we can't get her positioned right?”

“We'll shoot.”

“Right. That'll be about as effective as a chocolate teapot.”

“It'll slow her down. That's all we need.”

“And you make damn sure you're gloved. She's a biohazard.”

Barencoin tapped one gloved hand on his helmet with a carefully blank expression. Bennett was looking at him as if he had said something out of turn. Lindsay could read him too easily now; he didn't like the idea of hurting Shan. He'd definitely go soft. She'd have to watch him.

“Problem, Ade?”

He shook his head. “Just remember that Shan's used to using a gun and she's trained to avoid situations where she might be jumped. Don't get too confident.”

She wouldn't. If she had to walk up to her and detonate the ERD on the spot, she'd do it. Barencoin had almost certainly told Bennett that she planned to kill Shan.

Or he might have thought it was a ploy to convince Josh she was serious. Either way, she still wasn't sure she could rely on either marine to help her do it when push came to shove.

She swallowed hard and lowered her voice. She really hated deceiving them. They deserved better. “And if anything goes wrong, you get the hell out, okay? Even if that means evacuating with the civvies. Just run. Promise me that.”

They waited.

The interesting thing about a colony of galleries and tunnels, especially one that was now empty of people and sound-deadening materials, was how far sound carried. Lindsay stood in the center of the main passage, looking up and round her, now with a clear plan to run into the church when Shan found her. It was a warren of rooms but she knew her way in and out. And Bennett had his stun grenades.

She thought she heard boots. She held her breath.

Then the sound stopped. Maybe it was a colonist. It was a good way to get your head blown off, but it was too late to yell at them to keep clear. Then the footsteps got louder and resolved into two sets, one heavy, one light, and Lindsay raised her rifle a second after the two marines did.

It was a woman in colony-standard beige overalls leading a small redheaded boy. They looked surprised but not shocked.

“You need to clear this area, ma'am,” said Barencoin, dipping his barrel a little. “It's not safe.”

The woman shrugged. “We're staying.” She took a tighter grip on the boy's hand. “The wess'har aren't going to get rid of us and neither are you.”

And she walked on, the child gazing back wide-eyed over his shoulder at the intruders. Barencoin shook his head. “Silly cow. They'll all be dead in a month.”

Lindsay thought of the ERD. They'd be dead sooner than that. She wanted to go after the woman and tell her to save her son, to run, to join the others and get off the planet. But she drew on the kind numbness of Sandhu's medication and concentrated on her rifle.

Shan had to be coming

She
had
to.

Lindsay glanced over her shoulder, first one way, then the other, to check that Bennett and Barencoin were still in alcoves on either side of the passage. Then she moved into the center of the main route through the colony, defying her, presenting a target.

Come and get me, bitch. I don't need to live through this.

If
she was out there. No, Shan couldn't resist it.

Lindsay wasn't entirely sure what happened next. One second she was on her feet, looking up and around at the empty galleries, rifle ready, and the next, something hit her hard at knee height from nowhere and she was on her back. Her rifle went flying. Something landed hard on her chest and pinned her down. She was looking into a mouthful of needle teeth and then she saw the rest of the ussissi and its weapon.

“Give me a clear shot, Vijissi,” said Shan's voice. “Get off her.”

And Shan was suddenly standing over her with a rifle—an FEU issue rifle—pointed into her face. Lindsay couldn't work out where she had come from. Shan didn't say a word: and Lindsay had expected an awful lot of words from her. Shan just looked into her eyes with that soulless, unbreakable gray stare, pressed the barrel to her forehead—and then there were shots, and a shriek, and
it wasn't her own.

Lindsay thought Shan had fired. She was hammered into the ground and for a moment she thought she was dying because she couldn't breathe. Her ears rang.

The moment was both forever and instantly over.

Lindsay couldn't get up. She floundered on the paving and tried to reach for her rifle but could do nothing but watch. She watched Bennett empty his magazine into Shan, and she watched her drop next to her, facing away.

Then there was silence except for the aftershock of the rifles' report in her ears.

“Shit,” said Lindsay. She got up far enough on one arm to see the ussissi crumpled on the ground. They'd dropped them both.

Then Shan moved. She rolled over onto her stomach and reached into her belt and returned five shots.

Nothing came back at her. Shan got to her feet, unsteady, stumbling, but she was still moving, gun raised, and that was when Barencoin came out firing.

And Shan was still standing.

She was standing right up to the point when she fired again and Barencoin fell. Bennett rugby-tackled her to the ground and almost had her pinned flat when she head-butted him and sent him sprawling backwards.

Barencoin scrambled over to them and threw his weight on her. Between them, they managed to flip her face down and get the straps on. There was a lot of swearing and grunting.

“Fuck me,” said Barencoin. He sat back and nursed his knee. His pants were soaked with blood and he fumbled in his belt, pulled out a primed needle-pack and slammed it into his thigh. Then he let out a long sigh and took the dressing that Bennett was holding out to him. “Fuck me, Ade, she should be dead. You all right?”

“So much for using the stun grenades,” Bennett panted. There was blood streaming from his nose and spattered across his face. His helmet hadn't been much use against Shan's lowtech approach to self-defense.

Lindsay managed to stand up and retrieve her rifle. She limped over to the three of them, feeling as if her ribs had been smashed. Shan was still struggling weakly, face contorted with pain, also bloodied, and struggling for breath. Her trousers, waist to knee, were peppered with holes, and there were a few in her jacket. Bennett had obviously assumed she was wearing her ballistic vest.

“Is that hers?” Lindsay demanded. “Is that blood from her? Show me.”

Bennett was crouched over Shan, all concern. He looked up at Lindsay and his expression was one she hadn't seen before—absolute loathing. He looked very different, not like good old Ade at all, and it wasn't just the mess across his face.

“No, it's
my
fucking blood,” he said. He wiped the back of his glove across his nose and succeeded in smearing the blood still further. “She nutted me. She's not even bleeding from wounds. Look.” He indicated the ground and the near wall. “Just the initial spatter. Are you clear? You were pretty near her.”

“Nothing on me, and I haven't got any open wounds anyway.” Lindsay tried to turn Shan over with her boot, but Bennett raised his arm to block her. She really wasn't in command any more. She wondered if she ever had been.

“You leave her, okay?” he snapped. He turned back to Shan again and put his hand under her head. “Easy, ma'am. You'll be okay. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.”

“You arsehole,” Shan hissed at him. “You frigging idiot. Don't you see what you've done?”

Lindsay thought that Bennett had finally realized, and was now ashamed. It didn't matter. They had her.
She
had her.

Barencoin was silent, adjusting the dressing on his leg but watching her with clear distaste. Rayat emerged from the passage. He looked down at Shan, wide-eyed. “How many rounds did it take to stop her?” he asked. “My God. Think of what—”

“And you can fuck off, too,” Shan said. For a woman with an awful lot of holes in her, she was remarkably vocal. “You shot Vijissi, you fucking bastards.” But she had to be in agony. Lindsay took a roll of gaffer tape from her leg pocket and ripped a length off.

“He's still alive,” said Bennett. “He'll be okay.”

“You shit—”

“I'm going to shut you up once and for all,” Lindsay said. “Hold her head, Mart.”

“No, she won't be able to—” Bennett began, but Barencoin cut him off.

“She'll bring the whole bloody wess'har cavalry down on us, mate,” said Barencoin. “We'll take it off later.”

For a moment Lindsay thought Shan would sink her teeth in Barencoin's arm, but she was seriously weakened despite her stream of vigorous invective. The tape cut off her last expletive, which began with c.

Now that she was immobilized and silenced, Lindsay took out a first-aid wipe and scrubbed at Shan's face. It wasn't concern. She was looking for a wound, any abrasion at all, but there wasn't a mark on her and it
was
Bennett's blood after all.

Shan's expression was murderous. It wasn't cowed, and that both bothered Lindsay and gratified her, because there was no honor in defeating a weak enemy.

But Shan could still give her that look, and it made her remember how much of a disappointment she had been to her mother.

Bennett was fiddling with the fracture dressing that he had placed across the bridge of his nose to stop the bleeding and reduce the inevitable swelling. Shan had given him one hell of a crack.

Rayat crouched down next to Shan and started assembling a sample vial. “Let's get some tissue samples off her now just in case.”

He put one hand flat on the floor for a second. Lindsay stamped down hard on it, heel first. He bit back a cry and glared up at her. Barencoin swung his rifle on him and looked rather keen to see if it still worked.

“Let's not,” said Lindsay. “Let's get the shuttle going instead.”

Barencoin started limping down the passage, herding Rayat ahead. Bennett hung back. Barencoin and Rayat stopped too.

“Go on, Ade,” she said. “Get moving, all of you.”

“I'll help you carry her,” said Bennett. “You won't be able to do it on your own.”

There was no point continuing the charade any longer. Lindsay took out the grenades from her belt-pack. She would have preferred the remaining ERD to be certain, but that woman and her son had disappeared into the warren around them. The grenades would do just fine. She started setting the timers. “Get out of here, Ade. Now.”