A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) (40 page)

*****

The gunship suddenly popped up into view above the buildings and accelerated violently, hurtling towards one of the drones.

The drone, reacted almost instantly, peeling off to one side.

It ran straight into the wall of plasma that LeGault had fired a fraction before, guessing which way it would go.

That’s why I was nicknamed ‘Fluke’
. He grinned as he gunned the engine and streaked away across the city’s rooftops. The remaining three drones rocketed after them in pursuit.

The gunship and the drones had similar top speeds but the drones were meant to be more maneuverable. However, following along in the wake of the gunship, that maneuvering was limited to standard dogfighting jinks and dodges. And even the instant reactions of the electronics were no match for the laze cannon’s light-speed firing solution.

First one, then a second fell towards the rooftops blazing a trail against the night. They crashed heavily amongst the buildings, setting some alight.

Hamilton tried not to think about the additional loss of life that might be occurring below and concentrated on the last of the drones following them. It had gone into extreme evasive maneuvers, but it was returning fire with unerring accuracy.

The gunship shuddered as blast after blast struck its aft quarters.

“We can’t take much more of this!” LeGault called.

“I know!” Hamilton replied. “It’s just too unpredictable. I can’t get a bead on it.”

The drone continued its aerial gymnastics, forming no pattern that Hamilton could discern.

“Wait! I have an idea!” LeGault stated, and the gunship dropped back to just above the rooftops. “Get ready to fire!”

“When?” Hamilton objected.

“You’ll know!” LeGault assured him.

And he did. Flying low over the southern section of the city, the gunship passed directly over a fuel station. It was not much, as fuel stations went, with just a single upright storage container of hydrocarbon fuel for the city’s ground vehicles. Just one of dozens scattered around the city. But it was enough.

As the drone passed over it, Hamilton shot the storage unit, causing a violent explosion that blasted skywards and rocked the city. The drone was caught right in the middle of it but managed to emerge from the flames. It was covered in burning fuel and badly damaged. For a moment, it seemed to continue after them. Then it was arcing down amongst the buildings to smash onto a roadway.

Behind, now quite distant, the flaming station billowed smoke and flame into the night sky, flaming fuel raining down on the buildings around it.

If we weren’t terrorists before, we are now
. Hamilton realized. Even if they resolved the alien crisis in the coming weeks and months ahead, they would still have to answer for what they had done here, this night.

Perhaps Cass is right to look at me the way she did
. He thought.
The violence comes too easily
.

The gunship veered eastwards and began to circle over towards their exit, LeGault dropping it back to a more sensible velocity and altitude.

The drones hadn’t been tremendously successful against the gunship, but they had not been without effect. As they headed to the eastern highway, all three of them could feel the judder in the airframe that had not been there before.

“I’ve got some warning lights up here.” LeGault told them. “Nothing serious at the moment. But we need to be careful.”

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

By the time the AFV headed out of the city along the east highway to Hyperion, the military was well and truly mobilized.

A dozen more drones shadowed them north and south of the road. The two that had followed them from the city remained behind. In addition, the vehicle’s sensors revealed six gunships – Hawks, not Falcons – also shadowing their progress.

“Why aren’t they coming in to attack?” Carl wondered out loud.

Klane stifled a grimace of pain. “They want our passenger alive, remember? They’ll hopefully not attack until they realize we’re about to get away.”

“I hope you’re right!” He muttered.

Over the comms, Hamilton’s voice crackled. “Keep your speed to no more than fifty. We don’t want to get to the rendezvous before the others.”

“Will do.” Carl replied, checking his speed. He slowed down. Out on the open road, the temptation to floor the accelerator was a strong one.

“What happened to you?” Klane asked of Hamilton.

“We thought we’d take out some of the drones. Doesn’t look like it made a lot of difference, though.”

“I’m surprised there’s not more, considering who’s behind this.” Klane said.

Hamilton was silent for a while, considering.

“I don’t much like it.” He responded at last. “I know Walsh wants Tane alive, but to hold off now that we’re in the open is not like him. I expected a lot more resistance.”

“Hmm.” Klane muttered. “Well, let’s make the most of it while it lasts.”

*****

Far above them, in the solitude of orbital space, the orbot came online in response to correctly authenticated command codes. It had been dormant for many years, un-needed and, for the most part, obsolete. But it had not been dismantled or decommissioned. The Empire never threw away anything that was in perfect working order. Especially not if it might prove useful one day.

Back in the early days of Martian colonization, there had occasionally been unrest between the city-states. So the military had installed this orbot and countless others just like it as a hedge against a major uprising. That uprising had never materialized and, just as quietly as they had been installed, the orbots were mothballed.

The dormant state was designed to conserve power aboard the orbot. Its plutonium battery was more than half used up, but it was good for years yet. Slowly, and steadily it came online, checking its systems and its payloads to ensure all was well.

*****

Below, the AFV and the gunship had covered ten miles of the thirty when a familiar voice broke in over the comms channels.

“Hamilton! This is Rames! We’re in position in orbit, shuttle’s on its way. ETA twenty three minutes! Don’t be late!”

A feeling of palpable relief swept through everyone at the sound of his voice.

“Rames!” Hamilton responded. “There’s a lot of military activity. Be careful!”

“We know! We have vessels closing on us right now. Be prepared for a fast pickup, both on the surface and in orbit. We can’t hang around here. It’s too hot! I suggest……”

The comms faded out in a burst of static and squealing.

“So much for our comms.” Klane muttered.

“Jamming and countermeasures.” Hamilton agreed. “At least we know he’s here!”

*****

In orbit, the
Ulysses
was skimming atmosphere again. Having dropped the shuttle and the four Marines, the cutter was trying to throw off a pack of assault shuttles by using the same tactics they had used at Tantalus.

The customs vessel had emerged dead center of the null zone created by Hamilton’s EMP blast. Around them, rescue craft and military vessels buzzed thickly. In the seeming chaos, they had hoped to go un-noticed but it was not to be.

Lacking a working transponder, they were challenged several times in the first few seconds. Unable to respond, they were initially tagged as a possible victim of the EMP. Then automatic systems, which had been logging and marking vessel courses and speeds for hours, noted that they were a new arrival. The tag changed to possible hostile and the nearest military craft was ordered to investigate.

That was the frigate
Artemis
. Abandoning its rescue duties, the frigate rushed to investigate, sending out sensor and comms challenges that went unanswered. Considering that its target was neither lacking power nor maneuverability,
Artemis
assumed the target was hostile and launched assault shuttles immediately.

Luckily for
Ulysses
,
Artemis
was a small ship and had only four such shuttles available. But they were now all hot on the cutter’s heels as it plunged along the top of the atmosphere.

“It’s a good job we got the shuttle away so quickly!” Rames observed, clinging white-knuckled to the arms of his chair as the ship bucked its way along the edge of the Martian atmosphere.

His exo, Grimes, nodded. “We were lucky to get that minute or two before the frigate came after us.”

“I’d call it exceptional piloting, myself!” Veltin told them from the helm. The pilot was once again grinning like an idiot, hands in the control waldos. There was the hint of sweat on his brow, but nothing like when they had escaped from Tantalus Station.

“Can you keep them off us?” Rames asked him.

Veltin nodded. “They can’t get an accurate weapon’s lock on us whilst we do this. We might get a few stray hits, but nothing the old boy can’t handle!”

“Old boy?” Rames frowned.

Veltin nodded without looking around. “Well, you can hardly call a ship named
Ulysses
, old girl, can you?”

“Sensors are losing their view of the surrounding space.” Marten Janes told them from the tactical console. “We won’t know what’s going on in a few moments time.”

Grimes, at the comms panel, frowned. “Looks like the
Artemis
ran our hull config through the database. They’ve identified us as the
Ulysses
. Sounds like a shitstorm of activity is brewing insystem. We’ve got in here, but we may not get out so easy!”

“Don’t worry!” Veltin reassured them. “I’ve got it all in hand. So long as the grunts get down and back up again on schedule, we’ll have no problems!”

*****

Elsewhere, the
Ulysses’
shuttle plummeted like a stone through the atmosphere. Private Torin was at the helm which, after his less than stellar performance helming
Ulysses
itself, was giving the three other Marines cause for concern.

Relax
. Harvan told himself.
He’s flown the shuttle several times. No mishaps. A starship was a different matter.

At least, that’s what he told himself. In truth, the gravity drive the
Ulysses
used and the one on the shuttle weren’t very much different. Yet Torin seemed a lot more confident piloting the shuttle.

He saw Private Alvin exchange glances with Corporal Malik. The junior rank mouthed the words “Six months” and shook his head. Malik rolled his eyes.

Safe or not, though, Torin was bringing them in hot. Half the hull sensors were in the red and the first alarms had begun to sound.

One way or another, they weren’t going to be late for the rendezvous.

*****

The orbot finished its internal systems and payload checks and reported ready. A few seconds later the targeting coordinates came in. The orbot repeated them back and was given confirmation.

In shape, the orbot resembled a simple cylinder that had been adorned with tooth-picks. A cylinder twenty feet long with thirty foot long tooth-picks, that was. Now, one of those tooth-picks began to move outwards from the cylindrical body on an extending pair of arms. Some ten feet away it locked in position.

The orbot itself moved then, adjusting its attitude relative to the planet below. As it moved, so the pointed end tracked across the planet below, moving eastwards at a phenomenal rate. Over mountain and desert its aim point traversed. In an instant its shadow flickered over Olympus and continued on, past the city and on to the road leading to Hyperion. In a moment it past the fleeing vehicles and their military shadow and locked in position, some twenty miles ahead.

There was a last tactical calculation, the satellite weapons platform accepting data from the shadowing military presence on the road below. Then, with utter silence, the spaceward end of the “pick” erupted with flame and launched itself free of the extending arms.

In seconds its velocity was beyond mach ten and still increasing. Hurtling downwards, the spear entered the atmosphere and began to glow, the ablative coating enduring the phenomenal heat of reentry and sacrificing itself to save the cargo within.

At an insane velocity, the thirty foot spear of tungsten carbide plunged towards its own destruction.

*****

On the road, the AFV rumbled along, nicely on schedule for its rendezvous with the shuttle. Above, the gunship maintained pace, occasionally darting ahead to check there were no traps awaiting the AFV.

“I really don’t like this.” Klane gasped. Her face wore a sheen of sweat from her injuries.

“Me neither.” Carl muttered from beside her.

In the gunship, Johnson frowned at her instrumentation. “I think the military are pulling back. They’re, what do you call it? Opening range, between us?”

“Really?” Hamilton frowned. The awkwardness of the belly gunners position was giving him cramps in his back.

Why in hell are they giving us space?
He wondered.
Unless
…

“Philip, climb, now! Klane, Carl, stop the AFV and batten down the hatches!”

“Why what’s going on?” Carl asked.

“Incoming ordnance!” Hamilton cried. The gunship’s engine whined as it climbed frantically.

Below, the AFV had ground to a halt. He could hear Klane ordering the people in the back to strap themselves in. Then…

*****

There was a blinding flash from the cloudbase above them as the fiery spear of tungsten hurtled downwards at hypersonic velocities. It registered as little more than a flicker on their awareness, and then the spear hit ground.

Thirty feet of tungsten, almost as dense as depleted uranium, aided by the huge velocity it had gained coming down from orbit, vaporized instantly on impact. The plasma thus created buried itself in the Martian soil and then expanded violently.

The resultant explosion was as sudden and violent as a tactical nuclear blast. Superheated debris blasted out from the impact point in an expanding ball of deadly shrapnel.

The shockwave grabbed the gunship and threw it end over end through the air. The debris smashed the pilot and navigator’s canopy wide open.