Task Force (14 page)

Wilton’s rifle sounded, just a soft
phut
, right by Chisnall’s ear, and puffer powder exploded on the Bzadian’s back. He staggered but kept going.

“Just give me one real bullet,” Wilton raged. “Just one full metal jacket and this is over right now.”

“Price, Wilton, on me,” Chisnall said. “We’ll take care of this. You others, get back to the north bank and continue the patrol.”

Chisnall leaped onto his T-board and stamped on the speed switch. It shot forward, and he nearly lost his balance, crouching down to regain it.

He looked back to see Price and Wilton close behind him.

The Demons were arrayed on the far side of the bridge.

“You lost a Puke?” Yobbo called out as they approached.

“You need us to sort it out for you?” Miscreant asked.

“We’ll clean up our own mess,” Chisnall said, dodging around a couple of the Demons, who didn’t even try to get out of his way.

“Send a boy to do a man’s job,” he heard one of the Demons call out behind him.

Chisnall scanned to his right as he raced down the road and caught a glimpse of their prey, running full speed on a side road in the shadow of the railway bridge. A haze of light from a delivery truck blocked his view, and then they were past the side road and the glimpse was gone.

Chisnall tried to picture the area. They had studied a map of it many times in preparation for the mission. That side road led to a pedestrian bridge.

“I think he’s trying to get back across the river,” Chisnall said.

At the end of the road, a looping curve led to the left. Chisnall took it at speed, leaning into the curve, the tires protesting but holding. He had to take the curve a little wide to get around without spinning out but just managed to keep his balance. He looked around to see if Price and Wilton had kept up with him. To his surprise, they were both just ahead of him, having taken the curve slightly tighter and shooting up on the inside. The road took them around the front of the old state library and past the art gallery, now stocked with Bzadian artworks—the
original human artworks, many of them priceless, left to rot in Dumpsters outside.

The parking lot of the gallery led them to a path that ran down to the pedestrian bridge, but already Chisnall could see that he had made a mistake. The bridge was empty.

“Split up,” he said. “Find him.”

Kriz had never intended to use the exposed pedestrian bridge, which offered no concealment. Her plan was to get up onto the railway overpass that curved above the buildings of the city.

The overpass sloped down to ground level just a few blocks away, and if she could get to that, she felt she could make it across the river, hidden behind the high metal walls of the railway bridge.

Passing a construction site, Kriz slipped past the safety barriers and trotted quickly down a footpath beside the roadwork. The machines, the equipment, and even the safety gear the road crew used were sitting in the middle of the road, waiting for work to resume the next day. The thought crossed her mind that in a human society, it would have all been locked away, to avoid the risk of it being stolen. But in the more developed, civilized Bzadian society, stealing was almost unheard of.

She crossed the street and picked up a safety helmet. One of the crew had left behind a jacket. It was a nondescript gray, a perfect cover for her uniform. She put it on, although it was at least a size too large, and picked up a tool. After hefting it a couple of times, she discarded it as too heavy and likely to
slow her down. A laser-measuring meter, about the size of a flashlight, was much lighter and easier to carry. She tucked her sidearm into a pocket and slowed her gait, trudging forward. To watching eyes she would be just a weary road worker, heading home after a long shift. It occurred to her that she was stealing, like a human, but she wasn’t. Not really. She would return the equipment as soon as she was able.

What was going on? Her mind was clearer now but still thoughts collided with each other, making little sense. She forced herself to calm down and try to find a rational explanation for what she had seen.

An armada of fighting vehicles was making its way up the river, destination unknown. Enemy vehicles. They were using the river to infiltrate a force into Bzadian territory. She tried to think of possible targets. The army base at Enoggera? Or the air base at Amberley? She discarded her own headquarters as a target. They had already passed that.

Someone was chasing her. They had to be humans too; nothing else made sense. They must be somehow connected to what was happening in the river. Above her, the tall concrete trusses of the railway overpass began to slope down to the ground. A wire fence blocked access to the railway tracks.

It was high, but she was pretty sure she could climb it.

“Easy does it,” Chisnall said. Wilton had screamed past on a side street and Chisnall was immediately conscious that they were drawing attention to themselves.

He eased the pressure on the ball of his foot, slowing his own T-board down to a fast walking pace. “You’re on patrol, not in a race.”

“Copy that,” Wilton’s voice came back over the comm.

A road worker was ambling down a side street, away from a construction site. A female in a large jacket, wearing a helmet and carrying some kind of equipment. She didn’t concern him. With any luck she would be half-asleep after a hard night’s work. And he was just a soldier on patrol.

It seemed they had been lucky so far. The Bzadian from the bridge hadn’t managed to raise the alarm. If he had, there would be hovering rotorcraft and heavily armed Land Rovers racing around the city.

If this were a residential area, the Bzadian could bang on a door until somebody woke up, but this part of the city was industrial, and the buildings were empty and locked.

Chisnall turned a corner, then another, circling around a city block. The next brought him onto the side road and he saw the road worker again, approaching a high metal security fence that separated the railway from the roadway. He slowed, not wanting to appear suspicious or in too much of a hurry.

You’re a Bzadian soldier on patrol
, he told himself. Just smile and nod.

The road worker saw him as he entered the street. She turned in his direction, waving her arms. She was clearly upset about something.

A soldier patrolling on a T-board rounded a corner just as Kriz reached the high fence.
At last! Thank Azoh! Someone with a radio
. She glanced around and then began to run toward the soldier, wanting to shout but afraid the humans, somewhere in the vicinity, would hear her.

The road worker began to run. Chisnall slowed. Best to hear what she had to say. He stopped as she ran up to him.

“Soldier,” she said, “I am Major—” Her voice broke off. “Chiznel?”

It was simultaneous. The spark of recognition. The flash of understanding.

Chisnall just had time to notice wet clothes beneath an ill-fitting jacket before his eyes met her face. This was no road worker. It was Kriz, the Coastal Defense Command officer he had met via the video screen on the island. There could only be one explanation for that.

He grabbed at the can of Puke spray on his belt. She reached inside her jacket pocket. He was fast.

She was faster.

Kriz did not bother to draw the sidearm out of the jacket. That would have taken time. Her thumb found the safety catch and her finger found the trigger all in one movement. She saw the shock on Chizel’s face as she fired through the fabric at pointblank range at the largest body mass, his torso.

The sound of the shot reverberated from the high walls of the buildings around her, but she didn’t hesitate. Bzadian body armor was designed to shatter, to absorb the shock of a bullet by spreading the impact through the material of the armor. One shot could not penetrate. Kriz fired again as Chizel fell backward. A canister fell from his nerveless hand.

His T-board idled on the road and she grabbed it, throwing it over the fence before discarding the helmet and ill-fitting jacket and starting to climb. Others would be coming. Kriz had to get away before they got here.

The metal rails of the track were too narrow for the T-board and the center of the tracks was a series of wooden planks. But the shoulder was smooth concrete. She jumped on the T-board and jammed her toes down on the speed control. Crouching, she hoped to keep out of sight behind the metal wall of the railway overpass.

Just for a moment the danger was forgotten. At school she had been a champion T-board racer, and the rush of the wind in her hair, the hum of the wheels, and the ground flashing by brought back the thrill of the races.

Nothing made sense. Chizel had been on the island. Now Chizel was here. Something bad must have happened on the island, and now a flotilla of human vehicles was infiltrating her city. But Chizel was a Bzadian, not a human. Why would a Bzadian attack the SONRAD station? Why would a Bzadian assist a human invasion? Why would a Bzadian try to kill her?

There was something else going on here and she had to get
to the bottom of it. But her first priority was to get back to the command center and raise the alarm.

The wheels of the T-board ran across the concrete of the bridge at full speed, sprinting toward the northern bank, toward safety. Wind ruffled her hair, and her calf muscles were beginning to ache, but it was a good ache.

“Azoh! Chisnall’s down!” Price yelled. She had raced to the sound of the shots and found him lying in the street, blood seeping out from beneath his body armor. He was conscious but gasping for air.

“LT?!” she cried, jumping off her T-board and sliding down on one knee beside him.

Wilton arrived just after she did. “Skipper, you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Chisnall managed. “I’ll be all right.”

Price watched the blood soaking Chisnall’s battle tunic and thought that he was wrong. Very wrong. But she said, “Looks minor, just a graze. You’ll be fine.”

Wilton opened his mouth but caught her eye and shut it again.

“Get after her,” Chisnall managed in a voice with no air.

Her!
So it was a female, Price thought. Her hands fought with the clasps of the body armor.

“The railway bridge. Get after her, Price!” Chisnall said.

Price stood. “Stay with him, Wilton,” she said. “Monster, get over here. Come to Wilton’s location. Chisnall’s down. He’s … Oscar Kilo … but you should take a look.”

“On my way,” Monster said.

The “Oscar Kilo” was for Chisnall’s benefit, but her tone made it clear that she wanted Monster to get the heck over there right now.

She ran for the metal fence and threw her T-board over it, then leaped up, grabbed the top of the fence, and swung herself over. “Barnard, Tsar, the target is on the railway bridge, heading in your direction. See if you can get to the end of the bridge and cut her off.”

“On it,” the Tsar said.

Kriz was nearly halfway over the bridge when she glanced back to see another soldier, on another T-board, crest the slope on the overpass behind her.

She crouched lower, grasping the front of the board as she had done so many years ago. Whoever was behind her would not be able to catch up. She risked another look back. Her pursuer was also crouched, gripping the front of the board, either imitating her stance or an experienced racer. Kriz crouched even lower, willing the end of the bridge to arrive and with it the downward slope that would give her even more speed.

A signal box blocked the path ahead. No problem. Kriz jumped the board up onto the railing, sliding sideways with sparks flying from underneath, then leaped back onto the path on the other side.

The end of the bridge approached, and she picked up speed, shooting through a tunnel beneath a major roadway.

Incredibly, the rider behind her was gaining.
That soldier might be younger and lighter
, Kriz thought.
But I still have a trick or two up my sleeve
.

“It hurts,” Chisnall said, although the truth was that the pain was gradually reducing, sinking into a dark pool inside his brain. He didn’t think that was a good thing.

“You’re fine, LT,” Wilton said. If it was the Tsar who said it, Chisnall might have believed him. The Tsar was a much more convincing liar.

Monster spun around the corner on his T-board, dismounted, and ran over to where Chisnall lay. He began to undo Chisnall’s shattered armor.

“Hey, Monster,” Chisnall managed in small gasps. “How’s it looking?”

“Just a scratch, I think,” Monster said.

He wasn’t a good liar either.

“So is this the universe’s grand plan?” Chisnall asked, each word a mammoth effort.

Monster laughed. “For everything bad that happens to you,” he said, “equal amount of good will come.”

“Then it’s gotta be a walk in the park from now on,” Wilton said. “Because this mission has been a real bummer from the get-go.”

“If you focus only on the bad, then you will not always see the good,” Monster said.

“LT, I think we need a new Monster,” Wilton said. “This one’s faulty.”

Monster was exploring Chisnall’s chest. When he took his hands away, they were bright red with blood.