Solipsists in gaudy uniforms crawled all over the tangled necklace of torn-open boxes that was the Lesson Learned. A couple of light tanks and five half-tracks sat tilted on the grassy banks around the central valley, engines idling noisily.
A group of stunned Sons of Depletion sat on the grass, hands clasped at their necks, guarded by two Solipsists who appeared to be naked apart from skin-paint. Bodies lay near one of the still-smoking carriages.
Roa’s head appeared from a smashed window; she reached down and helped pull him out. He carried a small briefcase and her satchel.
`This is yours,’ he said, handing the satchel to her.
`Thank you,’ she said, putting the strap over her head.
Roa and the other Solipsist who had rescued her stood looking round the scene, then Roa shrugged.
`Let us go,’ he said.
They climbed down through the carriage’s suspension components to the ground. All around, men in gaudy uniforms and body-paint were staggering from the wreck to their own vehicles, loaded with booty.
She followed Roa as he ducked under one of the Land Car’s buckled connecting corridors to the other side of the wreck, where a big, open half-track was waiting; a radar unit revolved on a thin mast above the vehicle. A blonde face grinned down from the rear of the vehicle as Sharrow approached.
`Okay, I believe you about the Solipsists now,’ Zefla called.
`Hey, kid!’ Miz shouted, turning round.
`These are your apparences?’ Elson Roa asked as he climbed into the half-track behind her. Sharrow was hugging Zefla; the others were dressed as she was in dark prison overalls. Miz blew her a kiss; Cenuij tutted and patted at a cut forehead with a handkerchief and Dloan sat massively, grinning at her.
Keteo, the driver who’d taken her and Roa into Aïs City a month earlier, was sitting in the vehicle’s central seat, clutching the wheel. He turned round, saw her and closed his eyes, making a humming noise from beneath his magenta and white-painted steel hat. His combat jacket was bright pink. A body-painted Solipsist - naked except for a beret - sat to Keteo’s left, clutching a microphone.
Yes,’ she said, smiling at Roa and still holding Zefla.They’re my apparences.’
`Oh, thanks,’ Cenuij muttered.
`Then we’d better take them, too,’ Roa said, frowning.
Keteo turned round, looking annoyed.
`Molgarin didn’t say anything about-’ he began.
Roa slapped him on the top of his armoured hat. `Drive,’ he said.
Miz stood up from the half-track’s rear seat, wanting to hug Sharrow too, but was forced to sit back down as the half-track lurched off across the grass. Sharrow and Zefla were thrown back onto the seat, laughing. Roa clutched at the half-track’s roll-bar, which held a small holo-screen, a pair of heavy machine guns and an empty, soot-smeared rocket launcher.
The half-track thumped and crashed over the uneven ground, heading down the valley towards some trees. Roa studied the holoscreen, then tapped the body-painted Solipsist in the front seat.
`Tell everybody there are aircraft coming,’ he told the shivering man.
Attention everybody!’ the body-painted plan shouted into the microphone. He paused.Watch the skies!’ he screamed, then he threw himself down into the footwell, leaving the microphone on the seat.
Roa shook his head.
A Solipsist dressed in violet and lime, dragging a long, black box, ran towards them, waving. Roa banged Keteo’s tin hat again; the halftrack skidded to a stop, ploughing turf with its tracks and sending everybody sliding out of their seats. Roa went, `Oof!’ as he was thrown against the roll-bar. He glared at the back of Keteo’s tin hat, then reached down to pull the long, black box into the half-track. He tapped Keteo’s helmet again and hung on grimly as the half-track leapt away.
Sharrow hung onto the radar mast behind the seat, looking back to watch the Solipsists run from the wrecked Land Car and tumble into their half-tracks. The two garishly painted light tanks were already bouncing across the grass, following Roa’s vehicle.
`You all right?’ Miz shouted to her over the noise of the machine’s engine.
`Yes,’ Sharrow said.
An aircraft screamed overhead. She ducked instinctively. They all watched the sleek grey shape disappear over the sunset-rouged summits of the hills to their right. Another three planes flashed across the valley, higher up.
`Oh shit,’ Cenuij said.
Roa readied the twin machine guns.
The half-track skidded off the grass onto a narrow wheel-grooved track leading down through a small forest. Dust tumbled into the air behind them.
They heard the noise of the jets again, then a series of flat, crumping sounds. The half-track’s radio made squawking, screeching noises.
The track steepened and started to twist as it followed a rocky gully downwards. Keteo avoided a large boulder lying at the side of the track by a centimetre or so, skidded and almost sent the machine over the edge of the ravine, then hauled it straight again and gunned the engine.
Roa turned round and looked back up the track to where the first light tank had appeared in its own cloud of dust. A series of sharp explosions came from behind it. Keteo drove off the track and along a stretch of grassy bank to avoid a dead bird lying in the road.
`Interesting driving technique,’ Miz shouted to Sharrow, nodding approvingly.
Cenuij closed his eyes. `I felt safer in the fucking Land Car.’
Behind them, smoke rose into the dark-blue sky above the trees. The track left the forest and ran along the side of a wide grassy valley crossed by stone walls and bisected by a stream that appeared from a small side valley. The end of the valley was about half a kilometre away.
`Oh-oh,’ Dloan said, turning to look behind them.
Cenuij was looking suspiciously at the long black box by Roa’s feet.
Roa reached under the roll-bar and lifted the microphone off the front seat. `Hello, Solo-’ he said.
A great roar of noise slapped down on them; they all ducked again. Sharrow saw the jet tear overhead. Roa threw the mike down, grabbed the machine guns and fired at the already distant aircraft, scattering cartridge cases into the rear footwell.
`Where are the missiles?’ Roa yelled.
`Under the seat!’ Keteo yelled.
The air filled with a humming noise. Sharrow glanced at Dloan; he’d put his hands over his eyes.
There was a flash of light from behind them. Sharrow halfheard, half-saw a blur of movement to one side as something fell into the grass by the side of the track. Then the half-track’s long hood exploded.
Everything stopped. Silence, as the wreckage tumbled out of the sky around them and what was left of the half-track ploughed into the track in a wave of dust and small stones.
Sound came back slowly; her ears began ringing. There were several other muffled explosions in the confusion as the broken half-track crashed to a stop. She was in the footwell, picking herself up; Roa was above her, looking stunned, his face bloody.
Smoke everywhere.
She saw Miz; he pulled her to her feet, shouting something at her. Dloan helped Zefla down from the vehicle. Cenuij sat, blinking, looking surprised.
Then she was out on the grass, staggering and running. She thought she’d left the satchel behind, but it was there, flapping against her hip. She followed Dloan and Zef; Miz ran at her side. Further back up the track the two light tanks burned fiercely, pools of bright orange fire beneath bulb-headed columns of smoke.
Another plane screamed overhead. Explosions crackled throughout the valley. She kept her head down, hearing shrapnel zizz through the air and plunk into the grass.
They ran towards a small stone animal-pen by the side of the stream. Dloan and Zefla dived over the pen’s stone wall. Cenuij vaulted; she jumped, falling into the grass circle within. She looked over, back to the wreck of the blazing half-track. Miz was helping Keteo carry a long, heavy-looking kitbag. She wiped sweat from her eyes and looked up.
In the sky above the hills, a large plane flew in front of red, sunlit clouds. A line of ruby-tinged shapes fell from the rear of the plane, becoming dark as they fell into the shadow of the hill, and blossoming into parachutes before they were hidden by the hills themselves.
`Definitely safer in the Land Car,’ Cenuij muttered.
`Excellent response time,’ Dloan murmured.
`Recognise them?’ Zefla said.
‘No,’ Dloan said as Miz and Keteo - limping heavily, face covered with blood - heaved the kitbag over the wall of the pen and then collapsed over it.
`Who we dealing with here?’ Miz said, breathing hard.
Just saying,’ Dloan said.Contract army; couldn’t recognise them.’
`Where’s Roa?’ Keteo asked, wiping blood from his eyes.
Zefla looked over the top of the stones towards the wrecked halftrack.Can’t see him,’ she said. She looked back at Keteo.What about the radio guy?’ she asked.
Keteo shook his head. `No more,’ he said, then knelt, looking over the stone parapet. Miz was tearing the kitbag open, in between glancing up and around.
`What hit us?’ Sharrow said.
`Down!’ Miz shouted. The scream of a jet came almost instantly. The ground pulsed beneath them and rocks tumbled off the pen wall. They waited for the pattering debris to stop falling, then looked up. A crater had been blasted in the river bed twenty metres upstream; water was pooling into the steaming, smoke-shrouded hole.
`Shit,’ Cenuij said, holding his leg.
`Debris?’ Zefla asked him, sliding over to him.
Cenuij grimaced. He lifted his leg up, flexed his ankle. `I’ll survive.’
`Tank sensors . . .’ Dloan said, his voice trailing off as he watched Miz pull a large gun out of the kitbag. Keteo went over and pulled another tube-shaped weapon out. Dloan joined them, eyes wide.
Sharrow shook herself; she opened her satchel and saw the HandCannon. She pulled the gun out and searched through the spare clips in the bottom of the bag. Her red-head wig was down there too, but she ignored it.
`Shit, here’s another one,’ Cenuij said.
The plane swooped, barrelling straight towards them. Miz lifted the gun he’d found, trying and failing to make it fire. Sharrow found the HandCannon’s bi-propellant clip but it was too late. Something fell from the plane, tumbling. She fired up anyway as the plane tore overhead, the gun thud-thudding in her hand as the jet swept over. Something whistled through the air, just ahead of the zooming jet’s roar.
She hugged the ground. Detonations rippled through the earth and grass; a noise like a million firecrackers burst overhead. The debris was tiny and sounded metallic. She raised her head first. More detonations crackled downstream.
`Terrible aiming,’ Dloan said by her side as he took up a large gun. He pulled a magazine out of the kitbag, then another and another.
Cluster bombs!’ Cenuij said, gulping as he looked at where a last few explosions were flashing and cracking down the valley.Are they legal?’
Keteo banged the side of the tube-weapon he held, muttering.
They become legal,’ Zefla said.When you do something like attack a Court-licensed Land Car.’
Sharrow threw the empty clip away and emplaced the bipropellant magazine.Think they’ll stop bombing?’ she said, digging for the other rocket clip in the satchel.Those paras must be pretty close.’
Miz checked the gun he had. `You’ll be lucky,’ he said.
`These rounds are all the wrong calibre,’ Dloan said, digging through the kitbag. He sounded disappointed.
`Two more,’ Zefla said, looking up the valley.
Two sharp, dark shapes turned against the fading evening light, then seemed to hover there, growing larger.
We should have taken that box,’ Cenuij said.That black box. The Court-’
`Solo!’ Keteo yelled. He pointed down the valley.
Sharrow saw two flashing lights; they rose into the air on two masts above a large dark shape. More lights glittered, and the dark shape became a large ACV, two - then, as it slewed briefly, four - large propellers visible above it.
Keteo whooped.
Dloan stared at the hovercraft. `How did they get that up here?’ he asked.
`Rivers!’ Keteo said cockily.
Sharrow looked back to the two approaching jets as they bellied down, each leaving two thin grey tubes of vapour behind them, curling from their wingtips in the humid evening air. Miz tried to fire at the planes, but the gun wouldn’t work.
Shit,’ he said.This thing needs a fucking power pack . . .’
Dloan turned to look at the jets and put down the gun he was holding, watching the aircraft as a third shape turned in the air above the valley head and started on the same bombing run. He shook his head.
`No matter,’ he said softly.
The planes floated closer. Sharrow held the HandCannon in both hands, ready. Two black shapes hung under each of the planes’ wings. The canisters detached and started to fall, tumbling through the air towards them.
`Aw, fuck . . .’ she heard Miz say.
`Bye,’ Dloan said softly.
Then both planes became cerise spheres. The falling canisters pulsed bright pink in the same instant.
The light was too bright. Sharrow closed her eyes, not comprehending. Dloan shouted something, then he thudded into her, on top of her, putting the light out. The world pulsed and quivered, shock waves hammering into her already ringing ears.
The weight on her lifted. She opened her eyes. Dloan was standing above her, eyes bulging, mouth hanging open.
Dloan!’ she shouted.Get down!’
Dloan swivelled, mouth still hanging open. Keteo stood up beside him, his mouth open too. He was staring back towards the halftrack. Sharrow got up on her knees beside Dloan.
The two jets had disappeared. Tiny glowing bits of wreckage were falling all about, landing smoking in the surrounding grass, hissing in the water and clunking into the stones of the animal-pen like some bizarre hail. Zefla yelped and brushed one red-hot shard off her arm. Echoes rumbled round the valley. There was a .long smoking crater on the flank of the hill across from them, tattered wriggles of smoke guttered from a scatter of small fires downstream from the pen, and from the dip beyond a dark black cloud was rising on a shaft of smoke and flame, partially obscuring the view down the valley towards the Solo.