Robot Blues (49 page)

Xris readjusted
his weapons hand to fire a laser. “I’m going to try to circle around behind
them. You keep them busy.”

“No, Xris!” Tess
said. “They’ll—”

The moment Xris
moved, one of the bodyguards looked that direction, shifted his aim, fired.

Xris went down
flat, hugging the deck, Tess at his side. The blast took out a chunk of
bulkhead behind them.

“—spot you,” Tess
finished. “The light reflects off the metal on your arm! To say nothing of
those flashing doodads. What about one of those Corasian-killing missiles of
yours?”

“I have three
left. We’re going to need them once we’re out of there.”

Another blast
burst over them. Tess scrunched down. “Times like this, I wish I was
flat-chested!” She shook her head. “Look, Xris, if we don’t make it out of here
alive, we won’t need those three missiles!”

Xris conceded she
had a point. He aimed, was just about to fire when a smothered giggle and a
hand on his shoulder interrupted him.

“Excuse me, friend
Xris. Don’t shoot.” Raoul, crawling on his hands and knees, was pointing at
something in the semidarkness. “But would you look at that? Did you ever see
anything so silly? He’s going to get himself killed!” Tears of mirth rolled
down the Loti’s cheeks.

Xris looked. The
Little One, raincoat flapping around his ankles, had done what Xris was going
to do, had circled around behind the two remaining bodyguards. The Little One
was visible only intermittently, small body showing up vividly when the laser
light flashed, vanishing into the darkness when the light died.

“What the hell—”
Tess began. “He’s not even armed.” She started to get up.

“Wait!” Xris
caught hold of her arm, pulled her back down. He yelled, hoped the comm would
pick up his command. “Tycho! Quong! Fire high! Aim for the ceiling!”

The Little One
took up a position directly behind one of the bodyguards. The small figure
reached his hand into a pocket of the raincoat, pulled out what appeared to be
a stick. He clapped the stick to his mouth.

The bodyguard,
intent on his battle, probably never felt a thing. Or, if he did, he might have
thought it was a sliver of flying metal from a ricochet burst.

It wasn’t. The
bodyguard suddenly ceased firing.

In the next flash
of light, Xris could see the man slumped over his gun.

The Little One
moved on, creeping up behind the second bodyguard. Quong and Tycho were keeping
the guard busy, though he must have been wondering what had happened to their
aim, for the laser blasts were now bursting on the overhead, raining down
showers of sparks.

The Little One
made the same motion—hand to mouth with the same result. The guard lurched
forward, head first, toppled over in a heap.

“What Tess was
mystified.

“Blowgun. Poisoned
darts. Come on!”

Xris jumped to his
feet, helped Tess to hers. He took a moment to assess the situation. The only
light remaining in the meat locker now was coming from the trapped Corasian,
crawling all over the inside of its robotic case. By the red glow, he could see
Harry wedged in the door opening, Jamil standing outside, keeping watch on
another red glow that was growing in intensity. Tycho and Quong were up and
heading for the door. Xris started in that direction, remembered. He turned,
reached down, snagged a handful of Raoul, hoisted the Loti to his feet.

“Can you walk?”
Xris demanded.

“No,” said Raoul
in a lilting voice. “But I can dance.”

“Great! Waltz over
to the door! Make it fast or you’re going to be an appetizer.” He shoved Raoul,
staggering, in the general direction of the door, waved at the Little One, who
was already scurrying back to retrieve his friend.

“Ah!” cried Raoul,
and made a dive for something lying on the deck. “My handbag!”

He slung the strap
of a dampener rifle over his shoulder.

Having seen Raoul
in action on a firing range, Xris’s first thought was to take the gun away. His
second—that this would entail a fight. Raoul was very possessive of his purse.
Xris let it be.

He joined the rest
of the team, gathered around Harry and the door.

“Here’s the plan,”
Xris said.

“We have a
plan?
” Quong was impressed.

“The PRRS is down
the corridor, to the left.” Xris looked to Tess for confirmation. She nodded. “About
one hundred meters away. When we get out of here, the rest of you make a run
for it.” He flourished his weapons hand. “I’ll take care of the rear. Okay,
Harry, you can move.”

“Uh, that’s gonna
be a problem, Xris,” Harry said, his face glistening with sweat and extremely
red. “I’m stuck.”

“Stuck!” Xris
swore.

“Could you hurry,
Xris?” Harry continued plaintively. “It’s kinda hard for me to breathe.”

“They’re coming,
Xris!” Jamil reported from outside in the corridor. “Corasians! I can count ...
four, five ... maybe more after that.”

“You can bet there’ll
be more after that,” Xris muttered under his breath. “Did you find the controls
for the door?”

“Yeah. No luck. I
think the door’s jammed.”

Xris put his
cybernetic foot against the metal hydraulic door and shoved.

The door was heavy
and it wasn’t moving. Harry panted and gasped. A burst of laser fire lit the
corridor outside. The range was short, but closing rapidly.

“Hand me one of
those dampeners!” Jamil called.

Quong passed his
through the opening, above Harry’s head. Jamil grabbed it, twisted around,
opened fire. He wasn’t aiming at the Corasians, he was aiming at the supports
of a large piece of metal ductwork on the ceiling.

Xris braced his
back against the wall, planted his foot against the door, and, drawing on all
his reserves, battery-powered and flesh and blood, he shoved. The door held a
moment, then gave way, sliding on its track so suddenly that Xris landed on his
back.

Harry, with a
groan, staggered out the door. Quong caught him, supported him. Tycho dove
through, gun blasting, kept Jamil covered. He blasted away at the ductwork.

The ductwork
sagged, dropped at one end. Another few rounds, and it fell, crashing to the
deck, blocking the corridor between them and the Corasians. Xris regained his
feet.

“Go! Go!” he
shouted. “I’ve got the Little One!” He scooped the empath up under his right
arm. “Follow Tess!”

Tess ran for the
end of the corridor, yelling and flashing her nuke lamp so that they could see
her in the darkness. Harry waved off Quong’s assistance and broke into a run.
Quong grabbed hold of Raoul, who was doing the tango, and hauled him along.
Tycho and Jamil fired one more burst each, then they took off, racing toward
the docking bay.

The Corasians were
momentarily halted by the fallen duct, but their robotic arms were already
grappling with it, shoving it aside. Xris fired one of his special missiles
into their ranks. He heard it explode, didn’t wait around to see the results.
The red glow grew appreciably dimmer, however.

He dashed down the
corridor. The Corasians fired after him, but they appeared more intent on
removing the ductwork. Xris hung on to the Little One, who was clutching his
fedora with both hands, and followed the gleam of Tess’s nuke lamp. The rest of
the group had disappeared inside the docking bay, were probably already
climbing aboard the PRRS.

“By God,” Xris
said to himself, “we might just actually make it!”

He hurtled through
the docking bay door, ran headlong into the rest of the team, who were bunched
up together in the opening.

“What’s going on?”
he demanded. “Why the hell aren’t you on board?”

“On board what?”
Tycho’s translator screeched.

“There’s nothing
here, Xris,” Harry said.

“She lied.” Jamil
was grim.

“And we are nicely
caught in a cul-de-sac,” Quong added.

“I want you all to
know that I am not the least bit amused. I don’t find this at all funny!” Raoul
burst into noisy, gulping sobs.

Xris activated the
nuke lamp on his arm. flashed it around the docking bay.

Empty. Not a
spaceplane in sight.

Make strategic
plans for encircled terrain.

Sun-tzu,
The Art of War

Xris dropped the
Little One.

“Tycho. You and
Jamil cover the door.”

Behind him, he
could hear the ductwork barricade scraping across the deck. Xris grabbed the
nuke lamp from Tess’s unresisting hand, shone the light full on her.

“I swear, Xris! I
swear—the PRRS was here! It should still
be
here! I left Jeffrey Grant
on board and—” Tess stopped, put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes grew wide. “Oh,
dear God! Grant! He stole the plane!”

“Again?” Harry
shook his head. “That man’s a menace.”

“Xris, they’re
coming!” Jamil shouted.

Xris shut off the
glaring white light, tried to think. There had to be another way....

“Harsch’s plane,”
he said. “He had a plane, didn’t he? He didn’t walk on board.”

“Yes!” Tess
clutched at him, nearly knocking him off balance. “Yes! Harsch flew here in a
Scimitar! I know where—a level above! There’s an access from here, the
maintenance door!”

Xris switched on
the nuke lamp, flashed it around, shone it on a crude lift.

“We can use that!”
Tess said. “Come on—”

She started off.

Xris stopped her. “Why
the devil should I trust you?”

“No reason,” ‘less
answered softly. “None at all. Except ...”

She didn’t finish,
looked back out the door where Jamil and Tycho crouched, firing down the
corridor.

Except Xris filled
in the blank—you don’t have a whole hell of a lot of choice.

He started to give
the command to move out.

Something large
and metal clunked on the deck.

“Take cover!” Xris
roared. He threw Tess away from him, literally picking her up and tossing her
as far as he could before he hit the deck.

The explosion was
brilliant, blinding, deafening, numbing. It lifted him up off the deck, slammed
him down again hard. Shrapnel flew through the air. A thin, piercing scream
tore into his head, hurt worse than the bits of metal slicing through his
flesh.

And then
everything was dark and silent, except for a terrible bubbling sound and, from
somewhere else, a groan.

Xris shook off the
concussive force of the blast, heaved himself to his feet. A stabbing beam of
light aimed at nothing in particular. The nuke lamp Tess had been holding lay
on the deck a few centimeters from Xris’s hand. He bent over to pick it up,
nearly passed out. lie staggered, steadied himself, tried again.

Retrieving the
light, he flashed it around, searching for Tess. He found her. She was on her
hands and knees, shaking her head muzzily. But she was alive. He continued
searching. The bubbling sound had ceased. The groaning continued. And out in
the corridor, the red glow pulsed brightly.

Xris stood in the
door to the docking bay, aimed at the glow, fired another missile. One left.

The missile hit
one of the Corasians standing in the center of the group. Perhaps that Corasian
had been carrying more grenades, because the resulting blast was far greater
than it should have been. The red glow flickered and died. The corridor was dark.

But there were
more Corasians. Once they found out that people were still alive down here,
there would be lots more.

“Report in!” Xris
gasped. He licked his lips and tasted blood. He could still hear, in his
memory, that shrill scream. “Who’s hurt?”

“Xris! Bring the
light! Over here!”

Xris picked his
way through the debris left by the explosion. He found Jamil lying propped up
against the bulkhead, one leg stretched out in front of him, a pool of blood
beneath. Xris played the light on his friend’s face.

“You okay?”

Jamil’s face
glistened; he nodded, said, “Not me, Xris. Not me.” His eyes shifted.

Xris followed with
the light. “Bloody hell!” he whispered. “Damn it all to bloody hell.”

He crouched down,
reached for Tycho’s wrist, but he knew he’d feel nothing. Not with a wound like
that. He held on to Tycho’s thin-fingered hand—about the only part of Tycho
that was intact—and yelled savagely, “Doc!”

He heard a crash,
a curse, and Bill Quong’s cool voice. “Hold the light so that I can see, my
friend. I will do you no good stumbling around blind.”

Xris held the
light, not sorry to move it from the bloody mass that was all that was left of
Tycho.

“You hurt bad?”
Xris asked Jamil.

“Shrapnel tore
through my leg. I won’t be running the marathon anytime soon, but I can walk.
You?”

Xris looked down.
The sleeve covering his good arm was torn and bloody. He couldn’t feel
anything, for the moment.

“I’m okay. If we
have company, keep them occupied.”

Grunting, Jamil
twisted around to lie flat on his belly, the dampener rifle held in front of
him.

“It was a grenade,”
he said.

“Yeah,” Xris
responded, holding the light steady. He could see Quong moving about in the
darkness, could see Tess pausing beside Raoul. “We were lucky. Whatever that
machine is over there contained most of the blast.”

“Tycho wasn’t
lucky,” Jamil said. “Strauss led us in here. She led us into a trap.”

“I keep hearing
voices,” Raoul was saying querulously. “Someone’s talking inside my head. And
this small and unknown personage in a raincoat keeps hugging me.” He paused a
moment, then demanded loudly, “Where am I? What am I doing here? Why can’t I
remember my name?”

“Amnesia,” Quong
said, making his way to Xris. “He was hit in the head. We can only hope it is
temporary.”

Xris sighed
inwardly. Raoul’s mind was like a butterfly net at the best of times. Now the
net was cut and the butterflies were fluttering about loose. God only knew
where they’d land.