A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) (41 page)

Hamilton felt the turret transparency crack, then shatter as something struck it with terrifying force. Dust and scorching heat filled the gunship interior.

Below, the AFV suffered almost as badly. Picked up like a child’s toy, it was thrown a hundred feet or more backwards, tumbling end over end by the tremendous blast front. The turret ripped off and the hull bent and dented under the assault.

*****

“I think I just detected an explosion in the vicinity of the rendezvous point.” Marten Janes announced to the bridge. “A big one.”

Grimes hurried over and looked at the screen. The data fluctuated wildly. It was almost impossible to get a clear view of what was going on either on the planet or in the space above them. But then the screen cleared a moment.

“Oh, good God!” Grimes muttered. He pressed at several buttons on the console.

“What is it?” Rames looked worried. He’d never heard his exo curse, even mildly, before.

“Someone threw down a Thor javelin at the rendezvous site!” Grimes looked stunned.

“Thor javelin?” Rames scowled. “You mean there’s an orbot lurking around someplace?”

Grimes nodded. “If the sensors were clearer I could get a fix on it maybe.” He glanced meaningfully at Veltin.

Rames nodded. “Mr. Veltin, give us a clear line of sight, if you please.”

Veltin nodded. “You realize the assault shuttles will be on us if we climb up too far?”

Rames snorted. “I’m sure you can walk the tightrope. Think of it as a challenge!”

Veltin grinned. His hands twisted in the waldos.

*****

The orbot never got to launch the second shot it was lining up. Powered up and essentially undefended, it was an easy mark for the missiles the
Ulysses
fired at it. It blew apart rather unspectacularly.

*****

In the atmosphere below the gunship had ceased its gyrations but it was in terrible shape. The blast and debris had ripped it apart.

“Altitude dropping!” LeGault called. “Engine’s failing. I can’t get a safe landing out of this!”

Hamilton, half blinded by dirt and choked by the stifling heat of the blast called back. “Eject! Both of you! That’s an order!”

In a clear moment in the swirl of dust, Hamilton looked back up to the cockpit to see LeGault craning his head around to stare at him. He knew.

“You heard me!” Hamilton repeated. “Get going! Now!”

LeGault held his gaze a moment longer, then nodded. He addressed his next comment to Johnson, who looked shell-shocked and clearly had no idea what had just happened. “Red button on your right, then reach between your legs and pull the yellow handle. Got it?”

Johnson didn’t reply, but she fumbled at the button to her side, eventually pressing it. A faint warning chiming filled the gunship.

“Go on!” Hamilton called. “Yellow handle! Pull it!”

Still half stunned, she reached between her legs, grabbed the handle and with a bang the canopy’s remains blew off and a moment later Johnson and her navigator’s chair were gone.

LeGault armed his seat and gave a last look back at Hamilton. He nodded once, then straightened himself in his seat. With a bang he was gone too.

Hamilton reflected that picking the belly turret was probably going to be his last ever bad idea. No ejection mechanism. Not even a parachute.

With a thump, the gravitic engine failed and Hamilton felt the gunship start to plummet.

Odd
. He thought.
I always thought I’d see my death coming, in the literal sense
.

The remains of the gunship were thick with dust and debris. He could barely see anything, much less the ground rushing towards him.

No
. He chided himself, remembering correcting something similar that Johnson had said.
It’s not the ground that’s moving. It’s me.

*****

When the AFV stopped rolling, there were two dead people aboard.

One was the ImpSec agent. There simply hadn’t been time to secure her in one of the seats. Not that the seats had helped much.

Jones’ own seat had torn free from its mountings and he’d been thrown around like a rag doll. From the agony he was feeling, both of his legs were broken and his left arm as well. The ImpSec agent had been flung around as well, but she did not have an armored seat attached to her offering some protection. Her neck was very clearly broken. And most of the rest of her bones too, by the looks of things.

The other casualty was Tane. The old man, psion or not, was too old to suffer the abuse that had been heaped upon him by the violent explosion and subsequent battering inside the AFV.

Perhaps my chair struck him
. Jones thought sadly. The old man stared sightlessly, his skull caved in above the left temple.

In the crew compartment, Carl came round with a start. He had a headache and his vision refused to clear. There was a lot of blood on his face. His own, he hoped. There was something loose in his mouth – the comms thing – he spat its broken remains out, along with a tooth and a lot of blood. Glancing blearily across he was relieved to see Klane in one piece. She moaned softly, as she slowly regained her wits.

“Let’s not do that again.” She murmured, reaching for her safety harness. Undoing the quick-release she seemed to fall upwards.

It was only then that Carl realized the AFV was upside down. Klane crumpled up on the ceiling of the compartment.

She gasped quietly for a moment then said. “Ow!”

Carl freed himself and then tried the driver’s door. To his surprise, given the hammering the AFV had taken, it opened.

Outside, all was swirling dust and stifling heat. It quickly infiltrated the compartment and he had to work mostly by feel to get Klane out. Reaching back in, he managed to get a couple of breathing masks from a cabinet behind his seat. He put one on Klane, who was not looking so good, then put one on himself.

A weak banging from the rear alerted him to Jones’ presence. It took some time to prise the rear access door open, but he managed it.

The thief had broken most of his bones, it looked like, but at least he was alive.

“Shit!” Klane muttered. “All that effort and he’s dead!”

“He…told me some stuff. It…might help.” Jones wheezed.

“We could have used his mental talents, though.” She mourned.

“How long until the shuttle gets here?” Carl asked wearily.

“We’re short of the rendezvous by some miles.” She answered. “Assuming the blast didn’t take them out, too!”

“Do you still have your comms transmitter?” Carl asked. “Mine broke in two.”

Klane shook her head. “I think I swallowed it. Jones?”

“Swallowed or spat out, I guess.” He replied painfully.

There was little else they could do then but sit there and wait.

At least
, Klane thought.
The military can’t get in here for a while
.

*****

Ten minutes later, the thickest of the dust was settling. They all wore breathing gear still, but at least they could see some of their surroundings.

That was when they noticed the wreckage of the gunship not a hundred yards away.

Klane and Carl staggered to their feet, then remembered Jones.

“Stay here.” She told him.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Jones said through gritted teeth.

Together, her leaning on Carl heavily, the pair made their way painfully to the crash site.

*****

The gunship was barely recognizable. The stubby wings were gone as was most of the nose and cockpit. What was left was the engine assembly and the underside of the craft. Like the AFV, the remains were upside down. The engine was mounted high in the rear, so, lacking any kind of control or power, the carcass of the gunship had fallen engine downwards, hence it being upside down.

Had it fallen on its belly, Hamilton would have been crushed instantly. As it was, he lay on his back in the now uppermost part of the craft.

For a moment, Klane thought he was merely unconscious. She could see his chest rising and falling, if erratically.

How in hell did you survive that?
She thought.

Then she saw that he hadn’t.

Hamilton was still alive, but one of the titanium support struts that lined the belly had sprung free in the impact with the ground and had impaled him completely, from one side right through to the other.

Shaking Carl free, and ignoring her own pain, Klane clambered up onto the wreckage to look closer.

Hamilton’s eyes flickered open. They cast about for a moment, but it was clear he couldn’t see anything. He was too far gone for that.

“Is someone there?” He croaked.

She nodded, swallowed heavily then recalling that he couldn’t see said. “It’s me. Me and Carl.”

His lips tried to curl into a smile but all that happened was that a rivulet of blood ran out from the corner of his mouth. He grimaced in pain. “Glad you made it.”

“What was it? What hit us?” She asked.

“Thor javelin.” He wheezed. “A big one. Much bigger than the one that…”

She nodded. “I know. Rest easy. We’ll get you out of there in a moment.”

He shook his head. “I’m done for. I can’t see, or feel anything much below my chest. Stop pretending. We both know it.”

“I won’t leave you. You didn’t leave me.” She objected. From somewhere above, there was the whine of an engine.

“That’s the shuttle.” Hamilton croaked. “The others? Did they make it?”

For a moment, she thought about lying. But he deserved the truth. “Jones is badly hurt, but alive. There’s no sign of LeGault or Johnson. The ImpSec agent and Tane are dead.”

He was silent and still for a while as the shuttle grew closer. She began to think he had died on her. Then.

“Carry on the fight. Don’t let Walsh win if you can help it. But don’t waste your life either. Don’t end up like this.”

She felt tears forming in her one good eye. “James, I….” She had no idea what to say to him. “I can’t leave you. You didn’t leave me!”

“Go. That’s an order!”

She smiled weakly. “You can’t order me around. I’m staying.”

“Klane…..Kate. Don’t watch me die.”

She reached out then and put her hand on his face, causing a genuine smile from him.