Time Salvager (46 page)
Kuo, so confident of her authority, ignored Levin and kept her back to him. “This is your last chance, Handler. Why are you protecting him? I fail to see value in that misplaced allegiance.”
For a brief moment, Smitt looked resigned, and then, finally, defiant. He lifted his head close to hers and managed a smile. “You’re a fucking monster, you know that? James is my friend, that’s why.” Then he spit in her face.
Kuo wiped the spit from her face with an incredulous look. Before Levin could power his exo and stop her, white light shot up through Kuo’s arm and into Smitt’s head. For a split second, his eyes glowed and he screamed silently, releasing a beam of light as his mouth opened. Then the skin on his face began to smoke and peel. Smitt’s body convulsed until his clothes burst into flames. The room smelled of burnt flesh.
Upon seeing Smitt’s blackened body, something in Levin snapped. He snarled, “You’ll pay for this!”
Kuo turned to face Levin as he barreled into her with the full force of his exo. “You dare,” was all she managed to say. They both lit up as the borders of their exos touched, the orange glow of his hammering against the white of hers, causing static to flare up into the room. Monitor Qem, the only other person in the room, was thrown into the opposite wall as the two opposing power sources expanded. The wall behind Kuo melted and Levin’s momentum carried them both through the entire section of the brig, leveling half a dozen walls until they exploded into the hangar, finally landing and smashing the top of a parked collie.
Levin scanned their area to make sure none of the scattering engineers nearby were in danger. That momentary distraction, however, proved costly. Kuo had recovered from the surprise attack just enough to roll under Levin’s forward force and flip him over to the front nose of the collie, where he bounced off and fell onto the ground. He landed on his feet and retreated to the open space. He eyed Kuo as she took her time and casually followed, jumping off the ship and strolling to the center of the hangar. The two stalked each other like two predators going in for the kill.
Several squads of monitors ran into the hangar and quarantined the area, wrist beams raised. He wasn’t sure which of them they were aimed at; he was unsure of many of the loyalties in the agency these days. Still, this wasn’t a fight any of them should face.
“Stay back. Do not get involved,” he barked. “Clear the hangar.”
The glow of her exo was different from his: whiter, with a bluish tint, compared to his angry orange field, energy more electric and lines more jagged than the smooth curved arches of an auditor’s. Her shield also surrounded her in a sphere, unlike his, which hugged his skin. It offered her more protection while at the same time being more unwieldy and inefficient. Levin’s skin-shield, on the other hand, was much more maneuverable and power-conscious, but could not take as many attacks as Kuo’s shield.
Their expanded exo fields touched briefly and Levin immediately felt the surge-back of her field repelling his. He threw himself into the air and sprouted nine coils, expanding them out in all directions and then focusing them straight at her.
Kuo sprouted only one massive thick trunk that was as wide as she was tall. As his coils snaked around it, her trunk shot out toward him and somehow sucked his coils into it as if by some sort of magnetism. Levin threw himself to the side as her trunk punched the air where he had been moments before. He cut his connection with his coils and regrew another half dozen, pushing them into the ground to sweep up around her feet.
Kuo responded by leveling the ground she was standing on, and expanding a spherical barrier around her that melted the floor away. Every coil Levin shot out fizzled as it touched the white sphere with blue tints arcing and jumping across its surface. Her large trunk hammered down on him again, forcing him to take evasive maneuvers as he ducked and juked, trying to stay out of her range. She was pushing him further and further back, which would soon put her beyond the range of his own attacks.
Levin continued to dodge, waiting for an opening. He had dealt with exos of this sort before, commonly used in space battles where range and power were more important than finesse and versatility. Still, the levels of Kuo’s exos were far beyond anything he had previously encountered. The energy drain needed to generate the trunk had to be massive. Perhaps he could drain her levels and outlast her.
A sudden jolt from the side knocked Levin out of the air. His vision swam as the ground and sky switched places and the landscape became a blur of colors. He careened into one of the transports, smashing through the front portholes and into the cargo hold. Levin wiped the blood off of his chin. His exo had cracked from that last blow. He wasn’t sure how many more of those he could take.
He picked himself up and was knocked down again by pieces of the ship as it began to cave in on him, the metal walls buckling and crinkling as if balled-up paper. Levin steadied his exo and pushed himself upward, only to slam into Kuo’s trunk and fall back again. He tried once more, this time shooting to his left. Again, he was stopped by her energy field. The ceiling and walls continued to close in, and soon he was left with hardly enough space to stand.
Levin shot out a dozen small coils in all directions, probing for an escape. It seemed, however, that Kuo’s trunk had completely enveloped the transport, and she was intent on crushing him inside. He was trapped. He dropped to his knees as the ceiling came closer, frantically searching for a way out. What was left of the transport was shaking as its skeleton failed to keep its form. He placed his hands on the metal grating of the floor to steady himself, and stopped. He peered down at the flat ground beneath him. It would take a tremendous amount of levels but this could be his only chance.
Levin focused his remaining levels and concentrated them on a single point beneath him. He drove straight down into the ground, through the hull of the ship, into the dirt, rock, and underground piping. He descended six meters and burrowed eastward. One thing he knew about these trunk exos was that, due to the tremendous inertia created from their focused attacks, unless their wielder were fighting in open space, they required him or her to hold a solid base to ground the exos’s inertia and thereby maintain position.
He ascended right below Kuo and produced an eruption of earth as he struck her from underneath. She was so taken aback by the attack, her trunk disappeared. This was his chance. That last maneuver had sucked his levels down to 16 percent.
While she was disoriented, he rose into the air and dove straight toward her again, slamming into her with the hopes of piercing her shield for the kill. Her exo flared against his attack and, for a moment, seemed to crack. Then it held. He felt a burning sensation as her white field momentarily receded, then surged forward. It overwhelmed his shield and began to cover his body like a film. His nerves burned and his atmos screamed to his AI band that his body was frying. And then he was through her shield and past the perimeter. Levin reached for her, but suddenly found that he couldn’t move.
“Nice try, Auditor,” she panted. “You almost had me.”
The two stood close together, their noses almost touching. Their exos meshed like oil and water, pushing against each other, small crackles of energy shooting out and producing bursts and arcs. Even without checking, Levin could feel his exo weakening and losing its integrity. He couldn’t match her raw energy output, and now that he was inside her field, she had effectively imprisoned him.
“I warned you not to challenge me,” she continued. “Consider this your official retirement from Chrono—”
A blast from the side knocked Kuo to the ground, and her exo shield flickered. She spun and lashed out, catching one of the monitors in the chest and throwing him back against the far wall ten meters away. The man crumpled to the ground in a heap. Then, another blow struck her, causing her to stumble. Then another. Before Levin realized what had happened, one of the monitors was picking him off the floor.
“You are injured, Auditor. Allow me to assist you,” she said, face grim and determined. “We apologize for disobeying orders, and submit to your judgment after this issue has been resolved.”
Levin watched, eyes moist and pride bursting from his heart, as three dozen monitors beat Kuo back, peppering her with wrist beams. He even saw a few of the engineers joining the fray with more conventional weapons.
Kuo lashed out with her trunk, leveling monitors three and four at a time, but not even her powerful exo could handle the sustained barrage. Levin was about to join the fight and help his people when that same monitor held him back.
“Auditor, you’re injured. We have this situation under control.”
For the first time, he realized his left arm was broken, probably from when Kuo was squeezing the life out of him. The monitor pulled him to the back of the hangar, to five of the engineers, and ordered them to keep Levin there. At first, he was startled that a mere monitor dared order him around. He reminded himself to find that woman’s name later on. Certain monitors’ real mettle came through in moments of crisis. The monitor left to join in the fight. When Levin tried to leave again, the five engineers blocked his path.
“Fine,” he grumbled. His levels were drained anyway, and he would just be a liability. Levin understood the difference between bravery and foolishness. He became a spectator in his own fight with Securitate Kuo, watching as the monitors who saved his life wore her down, taking heavy damage in the process. Kuo was becoming desperate and tried to take to the air to escape. The monitors were ready for that. One of them brought out an exo-chain, most often used to contain fugitive chronmen. The chain hit her exo and latched on, preventing her from escaping its pull.
Eventually, they cracked her exo and pulled her down to the ground. The group of monitors closed in, dozens of wrist beams aimed at her exposed body while four held her by the arms and pushed her down to her knees. The monitors parted as Levin limped—it seemed he had hurt his leg as well—toward her. He stopped and surveyed the hangar. Evidence of their battle was everywhere. At least ten collies were destroyed, and the bodies of dozens of his people lay motionless on the ground.
“It seems your army of ants had to do the job you couldn’t,” she spat, twisting back, lunging at him. “You will pay for this. All of you will.”
One of the monitors standing to the side punched her in the jaw and aimed his wrist beam at her temple.
“No,” Levin said, pushing the monitor’s arm away. “This isn’t our role. We send her scurrying back where she came from.”
“She killed our men, Auditor,” the monitor gasped.
Levin shook his head. “There will be a price to pay for what just has transpired. Be sure that I’m the only one that will pay it. For now, take her to the brig and see that she can harm no one else.” He looked over at the men crowding around him. “We have injured brothers. Get them to the medical ward.” He swung his arm in circles and tested his aching shoulder. It would have to do. His work wasn’t done yet. “Prep a collie and get me a set of fresh bands.”
The warning came just as the Elfreth were coming together for their evening meal in the communal field. Elise had made the journey down the Farming Tower to sit with Franwil and Qawol to discuss her progress. Well, that and to ask for permission to assign Sammuia to be Grace’s assistant.
Currently, without someone officially at her beck and call, Grace had made a habit of expecting Elise to run errands for her, which was an unacceptable setup. That old witch—today was one of their more terse days—was being downright ornery. No sooner did she see Franwil, and beamed her a smile, Grace yelled—she also sometimes had trouble remembering to use her inside voice—into her head.
“Child, they’ve found us. Warn the others. Get everyone underground. Now!”
“Who? Wha—oh no!”
Elise took off in a sprint, narrowly avoiding bowling over a group of children who were playing volleyball with a fish-hide ball. She had taught them the twenty-first-century’s most popular sport out of boredom, and now they played it every chance they got.
“Get inside,” she called to them as she ran up to Qawol. “Oldest, chronmen come!”
Qawol, looking anything but hurried, nodded and laid a hand on Franwil’s arm. “Gather the Old Ones to the shelter. Have each recall their purposes. Make sure Mcllel’s purpose is to cover the escape of the others. I will call the guardians.” Without a word, several of the Old Ones nearby began to corral the children east toward one of the underground tunnels. He looked back at Elise. “How many and how soon?”
“What are we looking at?” Elise thought to Grace.
“Within the hour and according to Smitt, a shit many. I’ve already woken James. He’s still an hour away. The chronmen will be here before he arrives.”
Elise relayed the message and again, Qawol took the news in stride. He barked out a message that was repeated by everyone in earshot. Within moments, the tribe was a hive of activity as the fit men and women appeared with weapons, the elderly grabbed children, and everyone else stowed what valuables they had into buildings or the deep underground tunnels that ran for kilometers under the city.
At the same time, even more assembled with weapons ranging from ancient bows and spears to old projectile rifles to energy pistols. There were even a few wrist beams. She was amazed at how quickly the tribe armed themselves. She guessed they would have to in order to survive so long out here in the wastelands.
It seemed like only seconds had passed before she heard a horn coming from one of the guards standing watch atop one of the Farming Towers. She saw a small speck in the distance, and then she saw another. Within a minute, the sky was littered with them, all growing steadily larger.
The first explosion came a moment later when the bridge over one of the many river tributaries cutting through Boston exploded into a column of wood and dirt. The dam near the common area was the next to go and soon, Elise found herself wading ankle-deep in rushing water. A wave of the flying ships zipped overhead and she saw them turning around to make another pass.
