Black Hole Sun (16 page)

South Pole
ANNOS MARTIS
238. 4. 0. 00:00

“Man the chain gun!” I yell to Ockham over the noise of the engine. I twist the throttle, and the sled leaps forward.

But the old man is already bringing the massive barrel to bear. A line of Dræu charge up the hill, carrying plasma pistols. Ockham releases a burst of fire. They fall like their legs have imploded.

“Get in!” I call to Vienne. She jumps down from the knoll into the deck, careful to avoid Jean-Paul's tarp cocoon, and slides into place while swapping the sniper barrel out of her armalite.

Jet flames erupt from the sled's turbine. We shoot forward, the force of the sudden acceleration snapping our heads back. The front skies bounce over the knoll, and the weight of the extra ammo causes the rear to lift. For a long second we hang there, teetering between escape and collapse, until Vienne throws herself forward onto the cowling.

I steer hard left, following the path we took into the camp.
The Dræu crest the hill again, and their pistols are primed to fire. With an earsplitting
phweee
, a wave of plasma globs sail over the sled and sinks into the ice two meters ahead, leaving dozens of holes in the permafrost ahead of us.

“Steer for me!” I yell to Vienne.

While she reaches over to take the handle bars, I pull the detonator from my pack and hit the button. For a second, nothing. Then
popoppopopop
! The habipod explodes. Fiery debris flies a dozen meters into the air, and the concussive blast knocks the Dræu's skirmish line flat. There's nothing left of the 'pod except a few tattered sheets of corrugated metal and twisted sled parts.

“Heewack!” Ockham lets out a victory whoop. “That'll show them beasties what the Regulators are made of. Breathe easy, Regulators.”

After taking control of the sled again, I steer over the last of the foothills. The tundra spreads out now, putting distance between us and the horde.

“Mimi,” I ask. “How's the pursuit?”

“There are no signatures on my scans,” she says. “Yet.”

“Meaning I shouldn't be breathing easily.”

“Meaning you may not want to breathe at all.”

“What's that noise?” I ask aloud, then realize that the sled's engine is straining. I check the tachometer. We're only reaching fifty percent of potential speed, and the sled sounds like it's chewing up its drive train.

Only a minute passes before Mimi pipes up. “You didn't
hold your breath enough, cowboy. Sensors are picking up a mass of biosignatures closing fast.”

On cue, Vienne shouts over the silence. “Chief! We have trouble. Bogies at six, eight, and five o'clock. It's the Dræu. Riding snowmobiles.”

“More fun for me!” Ockham shouts. Begins loading another ammo belt into the chain gun. “I see 'em!” he shouts. “Ten bogies bearing down hard at seven o'clock. Let the murderous rooters come on! I'll give 'em a taste of Regulator breakfast!”

“Cowboy,” Mimi chimes in. “At their current rate of speed, they will overtake this sled in approximately three minutes.”

“Damn,” I say, and twist the throttle harder. It's no use, of course. The sled is already maxed out. It's the weight, I realize. I packed the cargo bay with too much ammo, and it's slowing us down.

“Ockham!” I shout. “Dump the ammo belts!”

But Ockham doesn't seem to hear me. “Eyes on the target! Opening fire!” and he releases a long burst of fire that rains shells into the air. The spent cartridges hit the floor of the cargo bay like falling sleet. I snap my head around in time to see two snowmobiles explode.

There are two Dræu on each mobile. One driving. One shooting. The last of the mobiles is larger than the others, with armor plating on the cowling. The leader, Kuhru, is driving, but the passenger is the remarkable one—the queen
of the Dræu stands on the backseat, the porcelain mask hiding her face, a mortar launcher resting on her shoulder.

A mortar launcher! If she hits the sled with that, we're dunny pie. “Ockham! Dump the ammo! Now!”

“He can't hear you,” Vienne yells into my ear. “Too much noise.”

I look back at the queen. She is sighting us through the launcher's viewfinder.

“Duck!” I yank the handlebars hard to the right. The sled fishtails, and Ockham stumbles from the turret. He lands on a box of ammo and rolls almost into Vienne's lap.

“Pardon my buttocks, young miss,” he says.

“Get back on the gun!” she screams. “And dump the ammo!”

A mortar shell flies past our sled and skitters across the ice a few meters in front of us. Then explodes and blows ice chunks across the cowling of the sled.

“They're closing in!” Vienne yells.

“Hold on!” I bellow as the front skis hit the edge of the mortar crater.

The front of the sled pops up and we jump the hole, the treads throwing up a curtain of debris. The wash hits the driver of the lead snowmobile, who steers into the hole. The ski digs into the crater, and the mobile pole-vaults, slamming the Dræu face-first into the ground.

“Got one!” Ockham whoops. He tries to scramble to the back of the sled.

Vienne catches him and yells into his ear. “Chief says to dump weight! We're too heavy!”

Ockham makes the okay sign. “Got it, chief!”

When I accelerate again, Ockham bounds to the back of the cargo bay. He hoists a box of ammunition waist-high, then tosses it overboard. I feel the rear end lift and look back. Ockham is perched on the edge of the sled, his armalite in one hand and a sidearm in the other.

“No Regulator worth his salt,” Ockham yells to me, “wants anything but a blaze of glory, chief! I'll stop these beasties. You get the girl and this buggy home.” Somehow, he bows and then executes a backflip. He lands on his feet and sprints for the box.

“Man down! Man down!” Vienne shouts. She vaults the jump seat and takes the grips of the chain gun in hand. “Bring her around, chief!”

I pull hard on the handlebars, and the rear end fishtails wildly. Their weight and momentum carries us two hundred and twenty degrees, the sudden swing disrupting the fuel lines to the turbine. The engine stalls. “Damn it!
Esena mori poutana!
Piece of crap!”

As the Dræu close in on Ockham, I hit the starter button again. And again. Vienne aims the gun at the approaching snowmobiles. A very quick burst scatters them as they veer hard in both directions to avoid fire.

“Can't get a clear shot, chief!” she yells back. “Ockham is in my line of fire!”

The Dræu peel back, out of range of Vienne's gun. They circle Ockham, gunning their engines, dodging in and out to draw his fire. One snowmobile makes a run at Ockham. The old man dodges easily, the plasma blast bouncing off his symbiarmor and falling, sizzling, to the ice.

Ockham takes aim with his armalite. Fires a single round.
Foof!
A green mass shoots out of the lower barrel. It strikes the gunner between the shoulder blades. Screaming, the Dræu reaches behind, twisting, trying to yank the plasma off. A second later the plasma explodes, taking the mobile and the driver along with it.

“There's plenty more where that came from!” Ockham pumps out two grenades. They find their targets, and two more mobiles explode. Then he turns toward my stalled power sled. “Damn you, chief! Don't you dare try a rescue. Finish the mission! Finish—”

Crack-a-boosh!
A mortar shell from the queen's launcher knocks Ockham off his feet. Seeing their chance, the Dræu gun their engines. Roar toward him.

“Chief!” Vienne yells. “Go! Go now!”

Saying a prayer, I hit the starter button again. Nothing. “Come on, you old whore,” I say softly.

Then hit the button again. Ignition! The ski lurches forward, taking Vienne and her gun farther from the Dræu. She fires out a burst in frustration anyway. The stray bullets send the Dræu scattering again, which gives Ockham enough time to climb to his feet. He kicks open the box of
ammo as a barrage of plasma fire turns his sidearm into a puddle of metal.

Ockham tosses the gun away and brings the armalite to bear. He squeezes off a half dozen rounds of explosives that strike Kuhru's snowmobile, sending the vehicle tumbling end on end. But the queen is too quick. Before the rounds hit, she leaps from the backseat and comes up firing her mortar launcher. The shell rockets for Ockham, a trailing vapor line in its wake.

“Ockham!” I yell.

At the same instant a second snowmobile rushes him. It crosses into the path of the mortar, and the explosion takes out the driver and the gunner. The rest of the Dræu swarm in for the kill. But the old man still has one trick up his sleeve. He pumps a light-mass grenade inside the box. Then slams the lid and jumps atop it.

“Reg-u-lator!” he bellows. Chills run down my spine.

Without the weight of its cargo, my sled accelerates to ninety-five percent of capacity. Wind laced with snow rips past my face. Ahead, the tundra opens up like a table, and I don't look back at Ockham, even when a series of explosions rocks the landscape and sends up a black plume that blots out the sun. My shoulders sag. A beautiful death is what Ockham wanted, and he got it. But that doesn't soften the blow. Another man down. Another life sacrificed. Another Regulator lost.

A quiet moment passes with nothing but the drone of
the turbine and the sluicing of the skies over the packed ice. Then Vienne breaks the silence. “It's Ockham! He's still alive!”

Impossible. “Mimi?”

“His signal is still registering, cowboy.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“You didn't ask.”

I turn the sled in a wide arc. It's true. On the rise, one of his arms hanging like a thread from his shoulder, his armor in shreds, Ockham stumbles along. His helmet is shattered. His face burned and bleeding.

“Go back!” Vienne yells.

But I can't. He's done for. And the Dræu are coming. I hear them before I see them, their howls echoing across the tundra. Ockham looks back over his shoulder. Wild fear forces his legs to move, and for a few seconds he's running. Then they're on him—a pack of Dræu. Furious. Ravenous. They ride the old warrior to the ground. Lift him prone over their heads. Mouths open to catch the blood hemorrhaging from his wounds.

Twip! Twip!
Vienne snipes two of them.

“Shoot Ockham!” I shout to Vienne.

“I cannot! He must have his beautiful death!” she yells.

“It's not beautiful,” I yell back at her, “to be eaten alive!” Though my sniping skills aren't in the same class as Vienne's, the target is close enough.

“Chief, please,” Vienne says. “Don't take this from him.”

“I'm sorry.” I take aim. Pull the trigger. Watch the old man's head snap back. Watch him die at my hand, the hand of a brother.

Vienne looks up at me, her hazel eyes rimmed with red, full of accusation, hurt, and disbelief. “How could you do that to him? He will never reach Valhalla now. You…you took that away from him. How could you?”

I bow my head, ashamed of the way that I have diminished myself. “How could I not?”

South Pole
ANNOS MARTIS
238. 4. 0. 00:00

The sled slams into a snowbank ramp. Sails over the barricade. Threads churning frantically. Turbine pouring vapor jets.

We're going to die,
I think, and cling to the handlebars.

Vienne pumps a thousand rounds into the Dræu, whose snowmobiles weave like choreographed dancers in a mechanized tango. Three mobiles charge into range of the gun, and Vienne feeds them a strafe of bullets as we land.

Hard.

The nose of the sled hammers the ice, and the handlebars almost rip loose from my hands. Behind us, two Dræu snowmobiles hit the snow ramp. They soar high into the air—engines and drivers screaming—then crash, scattering the savages like grotesque rag dolls across the permafrost.

They're all dead, I think.

Until one of them stands up. Raises a battle rifle to his shoulder as my sled bears down him—Kuhru!

“Vienne! Get down!”

Kuhru fires a three-shot burst.
Brrrp! Brrrp! Brrrp!
The barrel burns orange, and the bullets whistle past my head.

“Wà kào!”
I curse. “That was close!”

Then Vienne stops firing. “I'm hit!” she yells and leans against a box, a hand covering her heel, one of three weak spots in symbiarmor. Blood seeps between her fingers. Then I see a laser sight dance across her face.

“Down!” I bellow, and veer right.

Kuhru's second burst whistles past. But now his mouth drops open, the sudden realization that the sled's not stopping. He fires wildly, panicked, and breaks into a run.

“Qù sui!”
I bellow. “Nobody shoots my crew!” Then slam the brakes.

The sled whips around, and the treads slam into Kuhru, knocking him out of his boots. His body floats off the ground, then falls, as if a giant hand has lifted it gently and placed it on a row of rusted-out generators that are half buried in snowdrifts.

It's a beautiful death. Too beautiful for a killer, I think as I veer toward the mine entrance, where Fisher Four opens like a black mouth.

As we reach safety, I sneak a glance backward. The queen stands atop her machine, marshaling her forces, shouting for them to form up. Clearly she's not ready to give up and go home.

Then I turn my attention to the pitch-black tunnel ahead, steering between fallen boulders and wreckage.

“Status report,” I ask Vienne. “How's the foot?”

“It has shrapnel in it.”

Ask an obvious question, get an obvious answer. “How bad are you bleeding?”

“I'm bleeding pretty well.” She's leaning against an ammo box. Her knee's propped up, and she's applying pressure to the wound.

“Mimi,” I ask, navigating around several hunks of scrap metal. “How is she?”

“My scans suggest that the injury is minor.”

“Signs of shock?”

“Affirmative. She should administer a dose of epinephrine.”

“I'll be sure to tell her you said that.”

A junked mine car appears ahead of the sled, and I cut hard to avoid it. The passageway is getting too bumpy, so I cut power. Letting the Dræu catch up.

“Stupid miners!” I shout. “Don't they ever throw their crap away!”

Then the lights come on. The tunnel is swamped by floodlights placed high in ceiling. I can make out the shape of the rocks as we pass, the colors of the stone walls, and the shapes of the shrapnel still stuck into my armor—it's going to take hours to pull all of it out.

“Greeting party ahead,” Mimi says.

“Please tell me they're ours?” I say, taking a worried glance at Vienne, who's beginning to shake.

“Affirmative. It's the good guys.”

Beyond another broken-down harvester, Jenkins, Fuse, and Ebi are positioned in a skirmish line. They kneel behind a concrete partition, ready to fire.

Mimi opens an aural link with them. “Regulators,” I bark. “The Dræu are crawling up our backs! Hold position. Do not advance!”

Fuse confirms the order. “Hustle your buttocks, chief. The miners say there's fifty Dræu heading this way. At least fifty. Might be more. You know the miners and their lack of counting skills.”

Fifty? Impossible. There were only about a hundred in the base. How many did we take down? Twenty? Thirty? Makes no sense.

“Mimi,” I ask. “Am I counting wrong?”

“Negative, cowboy. I estimate thirty-nine Dræu fatalities and twenty-one wounded.”

“Then the miners really can't count.”

“Negative,” she says. “Sensors now indicate several dozen Dræu biorhymic signatures.”

Damn. A moment later we pull up to the concrete barrier. “New plan,” I tell them. “We're bugging out. Now!”

Fuse takes one look at Vienne and runs to the back of the sled. “What's happened to you, love? You look pale as a dungy worm.”

“Don't…call…” Vienne's head wobbles to the side. “Shoot…you…”

“She took shrapnel,” I say, and give up my seat. “Fuse, you drive. Jenkins, Ebi, get on this bucket!”

Fuse slides into the driver's seat. “In the heel. That's where they always get you, innit? You'd think the minds sharp enough to dream up bioadaptive cloth could figure out how to make a decent boot.”

“Shut up and drive!” I bellow.

Ebi helps Vienne into the jump seat, then joins me at the back of the sled. “Did you find Jean-Paul?”

“He's wrapped in that tarp.” I have to fight the urge to give it a kick. “Check his pulse or something. Make sure his worthless hide is still intact.”

“Yes, chief.”

Jenkins vaults into the cargo bay, his arms thrown wide. “Oh, baby, it's been too long. Come to papa.” He hugs the chain gun. “You're so beautiful. And look at all this ammo. It's like Christmas, and Jenkins's been such a good boy. Yes, he has.”

“Re malaka,”
I mumble, then shout, “Fuse, get us out of here!”

“What about Ockham?” Fuse asks, revving the engine.

“We lost him on the tundra,” I say. “He's dead.”

 

Because Fuse is a better driver than either Vienne or me, we quickly reach the Zhao Zhou Bridge and the wide gorge it spans. A contingent of miners, led by Maeve, Spiner, and Áine, is waiting when we cross the long bridge.

Fuse kills the engine. Ebi hops down from the seat and draws her armalite. She takes position beside the sled while Jenkins aims the chain gun at the black hole of the tunnel.

Behind us, the sounds of the snowmobiles grow louder, then fade.

“C'mon, c'mon, you fine cannibals,” Jenkins mutters. “Baby's itching to dance. C'mon, ain't you wanting to dance?”

“What happened?” Áine says when she sees the blood on my hands. “You've got yourself hurt. I knew it! I knew you couldn't ride off without coming back in pieces.”

“It's not me. It's Vienne,” I say, then brace for impact as Áine throws her arms wide.

And slams into Fuse. Lays a great sloppy kiss on him. “You're safe! I'd got afraid that it was you'd been shot.”

Fuse, embarrassed, unclasps her arms from his neck. “Not now, lovey,” he says. “We're on the job.”

“Step to, people! The Dræu are crawling up our ass!” I sweep Vienne up in my arms. Her head lolls to my shoulder, the touch of her forehead on my cheek colder than it should be, and her teeth are chattering. “She's going into shock.” I say, turning to Maeve. “We need to keep her warm and get the bull—”

Maeve bunches up her face. “I've been pulling metal of one kind or another out of miners for twenty plus annos. I know shock when I see it. Spiner!”

Spiner opens his arms, motioning for me to hand her off. “We'll take care of her, chief,” he says.

But I can't let go. She's so light in my arms, so fragile, even as her whole body shakes against me, and I find myself wishing that I could draw her inside my suit, let my armor wrap around her, to protect her the way that Mimi protects me. The Dræu are coming. My davos needs me. But how can I just give her away?

“Chief,” Mimi says. “Her vitals are distress—”

Yes, I know,
a broch
! I know. “Be careful,” I tell Spiner as I slide her into his arms.

“We'll get her right,” Maeve says. She pats my arm and smiles sympathetically as they hurry Vienne away.

Brrppt!
A burst from Jenkins's chain gun gets my attention. “Heewack!” Whooping joyously, he sends bullets flying into the tunnel, where a Dræu advance party has emerged into the light.

I grab the omnoculars. Like before, the Dræu are screaming and leaping around, jumping on one another's backs, growling and raging like they're in the last stages of rabies. I can almost smell their feral stink from here.

“And some things never change,” I say. “Jenkins, hold your fire. You're wasting ammo.”

Fuse leans over to me. “So Ockham's carked it?”

Vienne's accusation rings in my ears.
How could you do that to him?
“That's what I said.”

“Heads up, chief!” Jenkins barks. “Looks like the beasties brought the heavy stuff.”

Jenkins points to the tunnel on the other side of the
bridge. In the cover of darkness, the Dræu have gathered silently, showing restraint that's definitely not barbaric. They march out in three lines. The first line drops to the ground. The second line kneels behind them. The third line stands, and they all aim their weapons at us.

“Ha!” Jenkins snorts. “Like them plasma dots can make it halfway across the bridge.”

“Is that her?” Fuse asks as he points toward the slim, dark-haired figure striding from the tunnel, a mortar launcher on her hip.

“One and the same,” I say.

Then I watch frozen in awe as she hops onto the back of kneeling Dræu. Then vaults to the shoulders of the tallest Dræu.

Raises the launcher.

Fires.

“Move!” I yell.

We sprint away from the sled. Jenkins, reluctant to leave his chain gun, is the last to go. His boots hit dirt as the shell strikes the bow.

The explosion flips the sled. It catapults. Slams against the stone walls. Slides down with an earsplitting squeal, coming to a rest on its side. Fuel begins to leak out, and the stink of it fills the air.

“My gun!” Jenkins starts toward the wreckage.

“Wait!”

But Jenkins doesn't listen. He runs to the sled, and with
fuel pooling under his boots, begins throwing boxes of ammo aside, trying to reach the latches holding the gun to the sled.

“She's about to fire another mortar, Jenks!” Fuse shouts.

“Take cover!” I gesture for them to get behind a rock formation. “Jenkins! Hit the deck!”

Foosh!

The mortar leaves a stream of bluish exhaust at it roars toward the sled and Jenkins, who is working on the fourth and final latch.

“It's all bent up, I—” he says.

“Incoming!”

“Outgoing!” Jenkins yells.

He forgets the latch. But not the gun.

With the shell bearing down on him, he rips the chain gun from its last latch, then dives across the slick stone floor. His momentum and a burst of accidental fire push him ten meters from the sled as the shell lands.

A spark lights the fuel, and as it burns, the air swells in an ever-expanding series of pockets that move so quickly and violently that it breaks the sound barrier. The explosion throws the sled twenty meters into the air, a twirling, whirling twisted metal mass that seems to hang like a kite for a few seconds, and then falls with a woofing sound into the Zhao Zhou gorge.

“Gah!” Jenkins cries out, and I think it's just a reflex reaction to being so close to death.

Then I do a double take. The explosion has also ignited the trail that Jenkins left in his wake. Fire rips toward him at lightning speed. Flames hit his boots. Ignite the soles.

“Gah!”

He stomps his feet. Tiny fireballs fly out around him like he's dancing on fireworks. The flames race around to the back of his symbiarmor and flare out on his buttocks, whereupon he starts jumping around and smacking himself on the rear end, alternating hands when they get too hot.

Mimi starts laughing.

“Is he in danger?” I ask.

“Only to himself.” She cackles. “The suit is fireproof, you know.”

“Stop dancing!” Fuse says. “It'll burn out, you great barking fop.”

“It's hot!”

“Jenks always says he has a hot butt,” Fuse says, laughing. “Now he has proof.”

“This is not the time for humor!” Ebi fumes as she fires a few rounds toward the queen, who ignores the gunfire as if it can't hurt her. “We are being attacked!”

“Au contraire, mon ami,”
Fuse says. “Things are always funnier when you're under fire.”

I'm about to tell Jenkins to roll around to put out the flames, but they die out before I can. Jenkins is smoldering, inside and out, his gloves blackened with soot and his face red with rage.

“Fragging rooter cannibals!” He hoists the chain gun, aims in the general direction of the Dræu, and opens fire. The bullets bounce impotently along the Zhao Zhou Bridge. A useless waste of ammunition. But a good show for the Dræu. Let them see that we're not going to lie down for them.

When the belt is empty and Jenkins's rage is out of ammo, the queen comes forward out of the darkness, striding ahead of the Draeu. She's confident, I'll give her that much.

Then she rips the mask from her face and tosses it aside, and the porcelain shatters on the stone. She lifts her chin proudly. Her face is as beautiful as the mask.

I feel myself gasp. That face.
Vittujen kevät ja kyrpien takatalvi!
I know it.

“Jacob Durango,” the queen calls out. “The queen of the Dræu would parlay with you.”

“She knows your name?” Ebi raises an eyebrow.

Fuse looks shocked. “Oy, chief. Your first name is Jacob?”

“What did you think it was?” I ask.