Trident's Forge (36 page)

Theresa's words hit home, and Hallstead's attitude sank back into the depths again. “That's what I thought. Listen, Yvonne, work with me and I'll do what I can to keep you down here and away from them. I can't let you walk, you're way too deep for that now, but I can try to keep you from getting the death penalty and safely away from them. Just give me the bigger fish.”

There was another knock on the door. Epstein looked in sheepishly. Theresa flung the door open. “Dammit, What now? I'm working in here.”

“I'm really sorry, chief, but Mr Feng is on the line for you. He says it's urgent.”

Theresa threw up her hands. “Fine!” She jabbed a finger at Hallstead's face. “You. Think about what I said. The offer's open for the next ten minutes. After that, it's out of my hands.” She stormed out of the sweatbox and back into her office and answered the call. She didn't even bother to sit down.

“What?”

“Theresa,” Feng's face was taunt, stressed, as if in shock. “You have to get those knuckledraggers of yours on a shuttle right now and burn for Atlantis.”

“You too now?” she yelled. “I just got this shit from Merick. I'm busy with an interrogation.”

“No, you don't understand.” Feng grabbed the camera and drew it to him until his face took up the entire display. “Bryan's alive. He's alive and he's in a metric shit-tonne of trouble.”

T
he standoff collapsed
with the suddenness of a sinkhole. One of the Dweller warriors, no way to know which, tried to return Kuul with a well-aimed spear. They nearly succeeded. Only a shouted warning from Mei allowed Kuul to spot the spear in flight and get zer head out of the way. In a fit of rage, Kuul plunged zer dagger into the hollow of their prisoner's shoulder, severing zer nerve streams and sending the limp body tumbling into a heap on the ground amid a spray of blood.

Now, they were running.

Fortunately, Benson had somehow managed to get zer gun working again without an eyeblink to spare. Its thunder echoed through the canyon with every shot. Without it, the entire caravan would have already been overrun, but the dweller warriors were wary of the strange weapon that boomed like lightning and killed with invisible spears, though not wary enough to end the chase.

The Black Bridge was still a quarter stone away, and Kexx knew Benson's gun would run dry eventually. So they ran among the rain of spears and sling stones, they ran until their legs and airsacks burned with the effort. Kuul led the warriors of every village as they grabbed up the stones and spears that landed at their feet, then turned around to throw them right back at their pursuers to keep at least some of the attention off Benson and zer deadly gun. They fell into a rhythm, Kuul threw a spear, then Benson shot the Dweller whose attention was fixed on trying to get out of the way.

Warriors on both sides fell to the ground, writhing in pain or motionless as they returned to Xis. Then, the Dwellers' trained injri joined the fray, diving on Kexx and the rest of them, clawing at their faces and arms. One unfortunate creature made the mistake of targeting Mei, who quickly hacked off one of its wings with zer butchering knife, but not before it left three ragged claw marks across zer cheek.

“We have to keep moving,” Benson shouted between short bursts from zer gun. “I can't hold them back forever.”

“Warriors wait for us on the other side of the bridge,” Kexx shouted back. “We will be attacked on two sides.”

“I can hold them on the bridge while you deal with the scouts.” Benson wiped sweat off zer forehead with an arm. “They can't come at me more than a handful at a time.”

Kexx nodded and turned back for the enormous black rock slab. But something at the top of the canyon's far side caught zer eye. Figures, fullhands of them, too far away to make out in any detail, stood at the top of the cliff.

“Benson!” Kexx shouted, then pointed at the cliff. The human detective spotted the figures and whirled zer gun around, peering through the small far-seeing tube perched on its top. Ze pulled back in disbelief, then looked again.

“It's Tuko,” Benson said. “And hundreds of other warriors armed to the teeth. They're already starting down the cliff.”

A thrilling jolt of hope surged through Kexx's body. Tuko must've rallied the rest of the villages on the road network. Kexx couldn't believe they'd gotten here so fast. They must've run dozens of dux'ah through the night to catch up so quickly.

They were not alone. The Dweller warriors on the other side of the bridge would be cornered on both sides as well. Now all they had to do was survive long enough for Tuko and zer forces to climb down the cliffs. Kexx saw the Black Bridge, remembered a strange, almost unbelievable conversation ze'd had with the human days before, and knew ze could save them all.

“Benson!” ze yelled across the battle. “Can your ship's light-spear destroy the bridge?”

Benson looked over zer shoulder. In a glorious moment of understanding, zer eyes grew huge and zer mouth erupted in a wide, carnivorous grin.

“Why yes. Yes it can.”

S
hould've come
up with it myself
, Benson thought. As big and impressive as the Black Bridge was, the Ark's navigational lasers had been designed to knock around dino-killer sized asteroids like billiard balls. They'd slice through it like a hot knife through margarine. Now all he needed to do was convince whoever was in charge up there to pull the trigger, and make sure everyone down here was on the other side of the bridge when the hammer came down.

They continued their leapfrogging retreat toward the bridge. Sprint, stop, turn, fire, repeat. Even through the sweat, blood, and screams, Benson couldn't help but be impressed. Outnumbered ten, maybe fifteen to one, his people weren't cracking. They'd never trained together, hell, hadn't met one another before a handful of days ago. Yet here they were, fighting and moving together. Not with the rigidness of military precision, but organically, like a school of fish cutting through the water. Gaps closed almost as soon as they appeared. Everyone kept pace, taking their turns to stop and throw back whatever they could pick up at their pursuers. Nobody broke ranks to run for the bridge by themselves. They were learning and adapting at an incredible rate.

Unfortunately, so were the Dwellers. Their initial shock and fear at Benson's rifle faded. They grew bold, tested the perimeter. Benson had lost count of how many of them he'd already dropped, but they simply didn't care. They'd just pick up the fallen's spear and step over the body.

“Kexx,” he shouted. “I need to reload. I'm running ahead to the bridge to get set.”

“Go,” Kexx yelled back. “Kuul,” ze pointed at Benson and yelled something in Atlantian. Kuul flashed acknowledgment, then dropped alongside Benson, grabbed his shoulder, and started to run. Even exhausted, Benson easily outpaced the warrior in a sprint. Their omnidirectional joints were great for climbing, grappling, and a hundred other uses, but it made them unstable in a run. By the time Benson reached the middle of the bridge, Kuul was already thirty meters behind him.

Benson dropped to a knee and checked his magazine count. Three rounds left. He put the rifle up to his shoulder, cranked up the scope magnification to max, and picked a target. Kneeling gave him a much more stable and accurate firing platform. He couldn't think of it as a person, even one that was trying to kill him. He imagined it as part of a movie.

Bang
.

Two hundred meters away, the stuntman fell down on cue as the special effects guy triggered the exploding blood pack taped to the side of his head. Benson moved on to the next in line.

Bang.

Another perfectly acted death.

Bang
.

And he was empty. Benson ripped the dry magazine off the top of the gun and let it clatter onto the black rock and over the side. Kuul reached him then and took up a guard position, zer crests flying high and flaring bright red and purple, screaming challenges.

Benson slapped a fresh magazine home, his last, and cycled the bolt closed with a
thunk
. He exhaled. The rest of the caravan's survivors caught up with them and flowed around him and Kuul like rocks in a stream. Benson caught sight of Mei and gave her a nod. She slapped him on the back as she passed.

That was when Benson realized he'd overlooked something
really
important. He could shoot, or talk into his link and coordinate with the Ark, but not both. He looked up at Kuul. There was nothing for it.

“Kuul,” he said, handing the rifle up to the confused warrior. “Cover me.” He pointed at the rapidly-closing mob. Kuul didn't understand the words, but ze didn't need to. Ze dropped zer spear and took up the gun, shouldering it in as close an approximation of Benson's stance as zer arms could manage. Benson cranked the scope magnification back down to one power. No need to confuse the alien further. He set it to single fire to make the fifty-shot mag last as long as possible. Benson pointed into the reticule, then pointed at his eye. Kuul looked inside, found the glowing crosshairs, and nodded. After the shortest firearms training session in history, Kuul lined up the muzzle and fired.

The rifle bucked in zer hands, kicking back into zer shoulder and making zer flinch badly. But the warrior tightened up zer grip, put eye to glass, and fired again. Benson slapped zer on the shoulder and walked several paces away to call the Ark.

“Bryan?!” an excitable voice jumped out from the link.

“Chao?” Benson asked. “Why the hell are you on this line?”

“Ah, I'm sort of in command at the moment.”

“You're
what
?”

“Well, Acting Captain Hitoshi tried to order your rifle relocked. I objected and ordered him to submit to a BILD scan. He refused. I arrested him. There was some fighting. I stunned some people. It's been a busy few minutes up here.”

Despite the gunfire and spears filling the air like a swarm of hornets, or maybe because of them, Benson couldn't stop himself from laughing. Kuul was settling into zer groove as the bottleneck at the foot of the bridge forced their pursuers to approach no more than four abreast. With less than a dozen shots under zer belt, Kuul had already dropped a half dozen Dwellers. Ze was a quick study in death. The bodies piled up, creating a temporary fence that slowed them even more and gave Kuul more time to aim zer shots.

“Chao,” Benson yelled into the link. “Listen carefully. I need you to warm up a nav laser and fire on this location, full power.”

“What? That's insane.”

“No time, Chao. Target this link and fire as soon as you can.”

“But you're right there!”

A spear sailed centimeters from Benson's face, close enough to whistle as it passed. The Dwellers were spreading out across the cliff and trying to take them out from range. “Trust me, I won't be here for long.”

“I'm going to have to testify before the Cultural Contamination Committee over this, aren't I?”

“Time is money, Chao!”

“OK, sixty seconds. Get your ass moving.”

“I owe you one.”

“You owe me several. Leave the link open.”

Benson left the line active and locked the screen, then quickly dug through his pack to his first aid kit and ripped off four long strips of medical tape. He slapped the handheld onto the hot black stone of the bridge and taped each side down in turn. His head snapped up. “Kuul, we got to mo–”

Benson spotted a spear thrown from the right side of the bridge arc through the air in a perfect parabola, spinning as it flew. He tried to shout a warning, but it was too late. The spear found its target and plunged through the warrior's lower abdomen, shredding skin, muscle, and tendons as it burrowed through zer body before its tip erupted out of zer right hip.

Kuul fell, screaming in agony and fury, yet somehow managed to stay up on one knee. Ze didn't even drop the rifle. Emboldened by zer injury, the Dwellers that had held at the foot of the bridge pushed the bodies of their fallen comrades out of the way, sending them tumbling into the raging river below to open a path to the critically wounded Kuul.

“Oh no you don't, motherfuckers.” Benson was on his feet in a second, running right for Kuul. He sidestepped one spear in flight, another. Then he was on top of the fallen warrior. He tried to grab the rifle, but Kuul's grip tightened on it. Ze jabbed a finger toward the other side of the bridge, telling Benson to run.

“Not happening.” Benson grabbed Kuul's left arm and dragged zer up onto his broad shoulders into a fireman carry, the spear shaft in zer waist sticking almost a meter up into the air. Kuul shouted something angry, but Benson ignored zer. Ze was heavy, but still lighter than he'd expected an adult Atlantian to be. Benson actually managed a jog even under the awkward, unbalanced weight.

Even as they bounced across the bridge, Kuul, impaled and groaning in pain, kept firing into the advancing Dwellers. Each step sent jolts of agony through zer wounded hip, but it only fueled zer rage. Benson ran straight ahead in disbelief as Kuul sent round after round downrange from zer perch on his shoulders. He saw a flash of the future. God help anyone who faced these lunatics once they were properly trained and equipped.

They passed his link taped to the bridge, and Benson said a little prayer to the universe that nobody kicked it off before the Ark sent a seven-hundred megawatt beam of coherent light down to vaporize the rock behind it. In space, the nav lasers could boil off enough mass from a ten kilometer asteroid to subtly nudge it into a safe orbit. Down here, against an object less than seven meters across, Benson expected the reaction to be quite a bit more energetic.

How many seconds had already burned away? Twenty? Thirty? He had no idea. If his plant was still active, he'd have set a countdown. It didn't matter. Knowing how much time was left wouldn't change the fact that all of his concerns and responsibilities in the world had shrunk down to running as fast as he could right now. On the other side of the bridge, Benson could see Kexx, Mei, and the rest of the warriors of the village network holding their own against a handful of the scouts they'd spotted on the way in. The rest of them must've moved off to the cliffs to engage Tuko's forces as they climbed down.

There was a chance this was going to work.

From his shoulders, Benson heard his rifle click. Kuul shouted out in frustration as ze threw the empty rifle over the bridge and spinning into the chasm.

It didn't matter.

Only running mattered.