Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5) (43 page)

I will beat him.
I will win. I will prove once and for all that I am the supreme being. I proved
it to myself. I proved it to the fox. Now I will prove it to Samuel Berhane
.

Once Sammy was dead, no one would dare rise up
against her. Once he was dead and she saw the discs from the blitzer open up
his skull, only then would it all be over. Down there was her destiny. Her
power. Her freedom.

She had set herself on this path long ago. It had
taken her to the school. To the prison. To the fox. And now to an elevator in
the bowels of the earth.

To face Samuel Berhane.

* * * * *

It took Sheep Team over twenty minutes to reach the tank. Enemy
sniper fire sent them running for cover until the geese could locate the
snipers and take them out. Sneaking behind a low wall, Brickert’s team flanked
the massive tank’s left side.

“We need to watch this beast and see if we can
figure out any weaknesses,” Brickert said.

“Sir,” said one of his team. Brickert flinched at
the word. “It’s almost 0800. If we wait just a few minutes …”

Sammy and Commander
Byron will activate the kill code and take out most of the CAG forces.

“Copy that,” Brickert said. “Hold tight and wait,
Sheep Team. Eyes out for enemy fire. Let’s see what happens at 0800.”

The tank continued to launch shells over the
blockade at Horse Team. Brickert flinched each time, hoping that Justice’s team
would be all right.
Come on, Sammy. Come
through for us.

He checked the time again. 0758. Ten seconds later a
deep boom echoed from the west. It sounded like thunder but the sky was clear.
It was immediately followed by a second boom and a third.

“What’s happening?” Brickert asked.

“The charges on the bridges just blew. All bridges
leading into the city are down. Hawks are targeting the swimmers and boats in
the Potomac. All eagles are heading to the river to protect the marchers.”

Brickert kept one eye on the clock. 0759.

Any second now
…

The rest of his team sensed his anxiety. They were
quiet and tense, waiting, hoping. The tank fired off two rapid rounds.

“Sheep Team!” one of the geese called over the com.
“Horse Team is taking more casualties.
Get
that tank!
”

0800.

Brickert breathed a sigh of relief and waited for
signs of the kill code taking effect. The tank fired again, shouts came from
the other side of the wall, more gunfire filled the air. In the distance
Brickert heard the roaring of cruisers. A drop of sweat ran down his cheek.

“Sir,” one of Sheep Team said, “I don’t
think—”

Brickert nodded. According to mission planning, if
Sammy and Byron missed the 0800 kill code time, the next one wouldn’t be until
0815, then 0830, and so on every fifteen minutes. But for all Brickert knew,
Sammy or Commander Byron’s team was dead or captured. No matter the case, one
fact was apparent: it was up to Brickert and Sheep Team to save Horse Team and
help the marchers get past the blockades.

* * * * *

The Queen landed on the body of 13F712072-Jane.
Traitor
. The Queen spat on her pale face. Beneath the dead girl
were dozens more corpses. Blood and bits of Thirteen spattered the white walls,
ceiling, and floor of what was otherwise a very boring white room. Two tall
white columns stood erect in the room’s center, and along the junction of the
back wall and floor was a long, coffin shaped rectangular projection, the only area
in the room that bore no traces of the battle. Between them stood Sammy and his
blonde whore. The Queen noted the sag in their stances, their labored
breathing, the uncertainty in their eyes. A low laugh erupted from her gut.

“I respect you, Sammy,” she admitted. “Your
performance against the parade I sent you has earned it, regardless of our
previous meetings. You are a true warrior.”

The Queen saw how his muscles tensed. He was ready
despite his fatigue. The girl … it was hard to tell. The Queen had never met
this one before, she couldn’t read her quite as well. “I respect you so much
that I will let you choose who dies first. You can watch her go, or I will
spare you the horror and kill you first.”

Sammy did not answer. Perhaps he did not have the energy
to spare. It made no difference. The Queen’s mini-blitzer stayed at her side in
its holster. She didn’t want to reveal her blasting capabilities to Sammy. Not
yet. She relished the moment when he realized what she had gained—that
she had become his equal.

“If you won’t pick, then I’ll do it for you. I don’t
care if you hurt while it happens, Sammy. I don’t care if it’s fast or slow. I
just want you to die. You’re the last person in the world who has beaten me at
anything. Once you are gone, I will transcend the world itself. Like the
phoenix I’ve always known I am.”

The Queen moved first, a quick lateral step. She
wanted to see how they would respond, how they coordinated their defense and
attack. Her body vibrated with energy, her earlier injuries forgotten. This was
reality. This was freedom and purpose. This was life in its most pure and
refined state.

Sammy attacked first, charging at her only to use a
jump blast over her while the girl shot three rounds at the Queen’s chest.
Using her superior speed and perception, the Queen noted the specific angle of
the gun, and threw herself to the right, giving herself plenty of distance
before the gun was even fired. Any blasts Sammy might have fired at her back
went wide. The Queen responded by ripping her mini-blitzer from its holster and
firing.

The blonde girl tried to blast shield, but the disc
went through the blast and took off two of her fingers. Gasping silently in
shock, she clutched her cauterized hand. Sammy barreled into the Queen from
behind, but she let the momentum flip her over and landed on her feet.

“If that’s the best you got,” she taunted, ignoring
the dull sympathy pain pulsing in her own fingers, “it’s going to be a short
fight.” Then she smirked at the girl. “Are you okay? Since I don’t know your
name, I’ll call you Stubby. Is eight your new favorite number, Stubby?”

The girl attacked again, and the Queen imbibed her
rage as though it were cool water. Sammy tried to blindside her, but the Queen
dodged and fired at the blonde girl again. This time she missed, or thought she
did until she saw a nasty cut along the girl’s cheek. This seemed to infuriate
Sammy even more.

“Not so pretty now, is she?” the Queen asked. “Not
like me.”

Sammy narrowed his eyes, but did not attack.
Good, Sammy, get angry. The madder you are,
the more I’m winning
.

Unfortunately, she was wrong. Sammy and the girl
seemed to draw strength from each other’s pain, and communicated more
coherently without words, silent or otherwise. The Queen held off as long as
she could without using her blasts until the two Fourteens worked her into a
corner. At that point it became blast or die.

She wished that she could witness the shocked
expressions on their faces as she flipped over them with a powerful jump blast.
It would have been a feast for her spirit. But by the time she landed and faced
them, they were already reacting, adjusting, maneuvering.

“Really, Sammy?” she called out. “You have nothing
to say? I know I just shocked the hell out of you.”

Still he favored her with no words. She pushed them
back with blasts, using her speed, skill, and intellect to keep her distance.
But the Psions would have little of it. They pressed back, never letting her
rest. So she changed her tactic to one of patience.

The Queen was fresh and they were not. Twice more
she caught the girl with the blitzer discs, first across the left forearm, then
deep in the right thigh. The girl could hardly walk after that, let alone
fight. When Sammy’s friend became a liability, he could not move fast enough to
protect her.

Seeing them struggle filled the Queen with glee, and
she savagely beat Sammy across the room, deflecting his blasts aside like the
weak, pathetic things they were. “I thought you’d be better than this! You have
no one left to dive in front of you and save you. Remember the boy, Sammy? I
do! I can still smell his guts splattering the inside of that cruiser like
gelatin.”

Sammy’s face filled with rage.

“I’m going to do the same thing to your slut!” the
Queen crowed. The girl was limping along, groaning and trying to get behind
her. “Isn’t that right, Stubby?”

Without so much as a glance, the Queen whipped the
gun behind her and shot the girl through the throat. The disc nearly took off
Stubby’s head, but instead blood spurted through her windpipe as she grasped
and clutched at it in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding. The Queen laughed
as she jump-blasted backwards, soaring over the scene like a hawk.

Enraged, Sammy shot after her like a bullet, hands
outstretched, blast after blast after blast flying past her or bouncing so
weakly off her own shields that she couldn’t even feel them. When he finally
drew close enough, she feinted right and then sent a powerful blast into his
right knee with her left foot. His joint buckled backward, and then the great
Samuel Berhane fell. Seeing it was like watching a mighty redwood fall to the
earth. Before he could recover, the Queen pulled the trigger on her blitzer and
sent a disc through his stomach.

“NOW DO YOU SEE?” she screamed. Her chest heaved
from the effort. She hadn’t realized how much energy twenty minutes of pure
fighting could cost.

Sammy’s eyes darted left and right, searching for
help, desperately looking for something to save him in the very last hour.

“Now do you realize, you stupid, worthless …
nothing
? Do you see just how
insignificant you are compared to me? You were nothing but a product. An
aberration! I am
the Queen
!”

Sammy stared at her, barely breathing. Now his eyes
locked on hers. The Queen’s stomach lurched. Her airway was tight and restricted.
Empathy
, the fox had said. Her gift
was empathy.
Not a gift. A curse
. She
would beat it as she had beaten everything else.

“Say something, Sammy,” she said, choking back a sob
of pity as she looked at his dying form. “SAY SOMETHING!”

But he said nothing.

The Queen swore and cursed at him, taunted him, but
he remained silent as he lay on the ground, beaten, red pooling around him,
tears dripping down his face. Queasy, emotionally and physically drained, and
ready to be done with it all, she pointed the gun at his left eye as she had
promised herself she would. “You weren’t worthy after all.”

And she fired
.

Tuesday, November 11, 2087

THE BATTLE WAS not winnable. All bridges crossing the Potomac and
Anacostia Rivers had been wiped out, leaving only the north and east as viable
routes to reach downtown D.C. However, the northern and eastern blockades
remained intact, and most resistance teams had suffered heavy casualties trying
to destroy them. Help would not come from NWG air support. The battle in the
skies had rapidly turned in favor of the CAG due to their overwhelming number
of cruisers. If Sammy or Byron had failed their mission, the resistance and NWG
would need as many marchers as they could get to swarm the blockades. But the
longer the CAG delayed the crowds, the longer the CAG could hold the city with
their superior air support.

Brickert’s attention was on the tank. He and his
team had come up with a plan. Squad C drew the tank’s attention by lobbing
grenades while Brickert used several blasts to get on top of it. As he
expected, the tank had an electrified hull, but Brickert used a hover blast to
avoid electrocution. While hovering, he jammed his hand against the commander’s
machine gun as it rotated toward him. When the machine gun fired, Brickert’s
blasts jammed the barrel and sparks exploded from the sides. Thick black smoke
erupted from the gun.

Using a canister of blue goo, Brickert made a ring
of blue around the top hatch. After the goo set, he used two strong foot blasts
to separate the entire hatch from the tank. The pops and sizzles told him that
the damage to the hatch had short-circuited the electric current. Gunshots rang
out when the hatch fell, but Brickert had his shields ready.

“All squads to me!”

The rest of his team climbed onto the hull and
assisted him in clearing out the tank’s occupants. Once they were in control,
Brickert called the geese on his com, “We have the tank. Where do you want us?”

“You—you
have
the tank?” one of the snipers asked.

“And it’s fairly functional.”

“Excellent work, Sheep Leader. Destroy the
blockade.”

One of Brickert’s team had a basic knowledge of how
to operate the controls, so she drove while Brickert and his team worked out
how to fire the main gun. Once they had that down, Brickert left three
operators inside and bailed with the rest of his team. At first the agents
behind the blockade thought nothing of the tank’s presence, but when Brickert ordered
his team to fire their mindset changed.

The blockade’s defenses quickly fell apart under the
assault. “Tell Horse Team to pull back from the blockade,” Brickert told the
geese. “We’re going to ram it.”

When Justice’s team saw the tank mowing through the
barricades and towers, they attacked from the north. Within minutes the two
teams had obliterated the blockade and its defenders. Justice had lost both
coms and half his team, but had two men who were well-equipped to operate the
tank. “You want it,” Brickert told Justice, handing him a spare com, “you can
have it. Where are we needed?”

“Pig Team is in shambles on the east side,” Justice
said. “We need you over there to open the blockade while we clean up the
north.”

It was exactly where Brickert wanted to be. “Is
Natalia …?”

“I don’t know much. Take Sheep Team down there and
find out.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * * * *

“These clones are as stubborn as the real Sammy,” Albert complained.
And for good reason. The last three Hybrids wouldn’t die. They were too sharp.
Too fast.

One more minute
, the commander
told himself.
One minute, and I can see
Emily
.

He saw her face clearer now. It wasn’t the face of a
teenager, but a woman. Long, healthy brown hair, bright eyes both fierce and
kind, and lips that always had a grin hidden in the corner. He remembered that
beaming grin the first time she held Albert after his birth. She looked up at
Byron and laughed.

“He’s got your chin already!” she exclaimed. “See
it?”

Soon.

Albert bled from his hand, a fleshy hole right through
his palm from getting a blast off a moment too late and catching a jigger.
Blood still covered his face from the elevator accident. It covered him so
badly that Byron wondered how his son could see.

Do not worry
about Albert, Emily. I will make sure he gets out of here alive.

Byron had taken another wound too—a glancing
blow to the left shoulder. Unlike Albert, he had no body armor. His whole left
arm was on fire. He kept the arm raised for fear that if he lowered it, he
would never raise it again. He kept it raised for Albert. For Samuel. For his
granddaughter. He had accepted that he was deep in death’s clutches, but he
would not allow it to get his boy.

At 0759, Byron asked the computer to check the
status of the network again. The computer responded that the network was still
inactive.
Something is wrong.
Something has gone horribly wrong
.

As blood dripped from their wounds, the Byrons stood
and fought their tireless foes. Shielding, pushing, blasting them back. Always
on defense.

“A Psion’s bread and butter is his shields,” he used
to say back in the old days to his Psion Corps.

“
Her
shields,” Emily would correct him.

“We are going to need to hang on for fifteen more
minutes,” the commander told Albert, shaking himself back to the present.
“Network is still down.”

“Come on, Sammy,” Albert said. “You can do it.”

The three remaining Hybrids made a strong offensive
as though they could sense their time was running short. Hand cannons fired as
they jump-blasted up and around, but not quite over. Albert met them in the air
and blasted them down while Commander Byron protected his son from below.

His left arm nearly dropped, but he clenched his jaw
and fought through the pain and exhaustion. Albert kicked his legs up and
pushed one of the Hybrids back far enough that it gave the commander an
opening. He drew his syshée with his right hand and fired four times, hitting
the Hybrid twice in the ribs.

The remaining two Hybrids redoubled their efforts,
guns and bodies flying at Commander Byron. The commander took a deep breath.
You can do this. If Samuel can fight five,
you and Albert can take two.
He stopped thinking and let instinct dictate
his movement. This was what he’d trained for, what he’d been born for.

A shot from one of the Hybrids found his leg, but
the limb was bionic. A Hybrid tried to dive under him, under his blasts, so
Commander Byron broke his face on the metal limb. Before the Hybrid could
recover, Byron aimed and pulled the trigger, but all he heard was a click.

Reload.

Back in the day, Byron could reload as fast as
anyone. Less than a second sometimes. Today he was a second too long. Albert
jumped blasted again to push the last two Hybrids back again, but took a shot
to his unprotected leg, up near his waistline. The commander jammed his magazine
up into the grip, pulled back the slide, and fired in one smooth motion.

One left.

“Come on, you bastard!” Byron bellowed at him,
partly in anger, and partly to get his own blood pumping. “You think I am going
to die alone?”

He glanced back at Albert, who had too much blood
flowing from his leg.
The femoral artery
.
“Use the goo!” the commander ordered his son.

“I’ll be fine,” Albert hissed through his teeth.

“
Use the goo!
”

Drops of blood fell from the commander’s own body,
mostly from his left arm, but also his leg. The Hybrid standing across from him
was whole. Byron’s arms sagged, begging to fall by his side. The stubs of his
legs were sore and weary. Each hot breath he took stung all the way down to his
lungs.

“Computer,” he called out at 0813, even as he stared
down the last Hybrid, “network status.”

“Network connected but inactive.”

Come on, Samuel.
You have to come through for us. You have to.

“I told you to come and get me,” he growled at the
Hybrid. “Are you deaf?”

The Hybrid roared and pounced. Byron ran at him.
Their shields pressed against each other. Byron tensed up and summoned
everything he had left and pushed harder. The Hybrid slid back and let out an
unintelligible scream. As he pushed back, Byron almost lost his footing.

“You are a waste of good DNA.” Byron leaned in more
and continued to blast as powerfully as he could with his hands.

The Hybrid kicked out a foot and tried to blast the
commander’s foot out from under him. As the Hybrid did so, the commander jerked
his body aside. The sudden loss of pushback caused the Hybrid to fall over. He
pulled his gun out as he fell. The commander did likewise. Each pointed the gun
at the other and fired. The commander’s syshée connected with the Hybrid’s
face, leaving behind a nasty mess. But the Hybrid’s bullet found the
commander’s soft unprotected belly.

* * * * *

Brickert’s team raced eastward on foot. As they ran, they received
intel from the eagles and geese where to go. “… last spotted at the
intersection of 7
^th
and Pennsylvania,” one goose reported. “Pig
Blockade is still standing.”

“Marchers are going to come through the Monument
Mall,” another one informed. “Leaders are trying to reroute them. That area is
a kill zone.”

The CAG cruisers launched missiles in the distance.
Very few NWG cruisers remained. This worried Brickert. They ran almost two
kilometers through the streets until they reached an old Navy Memorial plaza
with a huge globe etched into the concrete walk. The blockade here was lines
and lines of razor wire supported by concrete crowd control barricades and gun
towers. Almost a dozen drone guns had been mounted near the front and CAG
agents with rocket launchers sat on nearby rooftops.

“Do we have any air support available to help with
this blockade?” Brickert asked the goose nest.

“You keep asking for air support, man. We’ve lost
almost all our eagles. You gotta make do. I can lend you two snipers.”

“Fine,” Brickert responded, “tell them to take out
the rocket launchers first.” Then to his team he said, “We’ve got to get
through this maze. Use the concrete barricades as cover. Our top priority is
the drone guns. Once they’re down, we’ll move forward over the blockade to find
Pig Team. How many grenades do we have?”

“I’ve got two,” a woman from Squad D reported.

“I’ve got one,” a man from the same squad said.

“If anything happens to those two, make sure we
recover their grenades,” Brickert told his eight remaining team members. “We’ll
use them on the drones as soon as we’re close enough. Squads A and C form Squad
A, Squads B and D are now Squad B. I’ll go with Squad A since it’s smaller.
Squad B, head north to the fountains for cover. We’ll go right and draw their
fire. Signal when you’re in position to hit the drones.”

Brickert led his team in the opposite direction.
“How are we doing on those rocket launchers?” he asked the goose nest.

“Sorry, we’ve got a new target. Can’t help you at
the moment. Word is that the marchers are headed down Pennsylvania Ave toward
the blockade. You need to clear the path for them.”

“How many marchers?”

“I don’t got a number. Just clear the path.”

“They’re going to get mowed down by the drones!”
Brickert protested. “Send them in from the north. The northern blockades are
clear!”

“It’d take hours—” An explosion came from
above, one of the rooftops of the towers overlooking the battlefield. Brickert
swore under his breath. The goose nest had just been destroyed. No response
would come now, nor would any help come to take out the rocket launchers.

His squad had moved in thirty meters when they were
spotted. The first rocket flew toward them in a curling pattern, hissing like a
viper and trailing hot white smoke. Brickert shot blast after blast at it with
one hand while shielding their exposed flank with the other. “Come on,” he
muttered. “COME ON!”

Finally he hit the rocket and it exploded less than
fifteen meters away. The force of the explosion was strong enough that it
almost knocked him over. The Aegis holding the rocket launcher prepared to fire
again.

“Move! Move!” Brickert told his squad.

* * * * *

Duncan Hudec sat on the goose nest, watching the battle through the
scope of his sniper rifle. Up high, through the scope, it was an entirely
different battle. It reminded him vividly of his days in the Elite Black Ops
when they had stormed terrorist strongholds in the desert mountains. From such
a vantage point, the entire battle became nothing more than ants scurrying
around from hole to hole. And with the sniper rifle in his grip, Duncan assumed
the role of the boot.

Hudec was one of three men stationed at his location.
All in all there were four nests and fourteen snipers. Between CAG snipers and
cruiser missiles, they’d already lost two nests and half the gunners. And he
was pretty sure that one of the cruisers wheeling around in the air had just
spotted his location.