A platoon of green-clad militiamen left the shelter of a concrete storage facility and ran toward the quad. Kattabi tripped, rolled down the ramp, and came up firing. One of the legionnaires screamed, two of the opposing soldiers fell, and dirt geysered into the air.
Fykes made it to the top, felt Obuchi move, and heard her voice. “The Gatling is operational! Keep your heads down!”
Servos whined as the six-barreled weapon extended itself upward, tilted in the direction of the oncoming solders, and opened fire. The remaining militiamen were snatched off their feet, tossed backward, and cut to ribbons. A guard shack disintegrated, a hover truck exploded, and bullets tunneled halfway through a duracrete wall before the weapon fell silent.
Deafened by the noise, Fykes grabbed the T-shaped handle, jerked Obuchi’s brain box, and jumped to the ground. Kattabi was waiting. “Well done, Sergeant Major. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The general turned, saw the gate a hundred feet to the north, and waved his troops forward. “Vive la legion!”
They were halfway across the open area when a second armored car poked its nose around the comer of a building, paused, and opened fire. General Mortimer Kattabi, Sergeant Major Raymond Fykes, and a half dozen more died within seconds of each other.
One of the bodies fell on top of Sergeant Carolyn Obuchi’s brain box, and four hours later, when the complex was liberated, so was she. A victory had been won ... and the price had been paid.
Maylo felt her head bounce off the window, was stunned by the pain, and felt hands close around her neck. Qwan’s face filled her vision; his
features were contorted into a grim mask, and she could smell his expensive cologne. The pistol! She had to reach it!
Maylo brought her knee up, felt it connect, and heard Qwan grunt. His grip weakened. She twisted away and made for the briefcase. It was on the other side of the office, below the fish tank, what seemed like a world away.
Qwan swore, saw the case, and guessed what it contained. Maylo was four feet away by then, but he lunged forward and grabbed her shoulders.
That was the moment when Sola managed to reestablish contact, seized partial control of Qwan’s mind, and squeezed with all her might.
The executive screamed, grabbed his head, and staggered backward. Sola felt the connection snap, sent a warning to Maylo, and tried to recover.
Maylo “heard” Sola’s voice, rammed her hand into the briefcase, and felt for the handgun.
Qwan threw himself onto her back, felt Maylo collapse, and experienced a sense of triumph. She was his! The bitch was his!
The 9mm spilled out onto the floor. Maylo grabbed it and tried to turn. Qwan straddled her, tried for the weapon, and felt the alien counter his efforts.
It was then, as Qwan fought for control, that Maylo rolled onto her back. She remembered how he had leered from the bottom of the tanklike cell, the way the water had risen around her shoulders, and squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot was loud, louder than Maylo had expected, and Qwan looked surprised. The first bullet struck his chest, the second tore a hole through his throat, and the third took the top of his head off. He tumbled backward.
Sola felt darkness close around her, broke the contact, and let the other being go. She wanted to run, wanted to hide, but forced herself to remain.
Maylo made it to her knees, fired two shots at the door, and heard the bullets flatten themselves against the fireproof metal. The executive made it to her feet, stepped over the body, and locked herself in. The resistance was on the way, or was supposed to be on the way, and she had things to do.
Someone hammered on the door as Maylo sat down at the computer terminal, entered the codes Sola had plucked from Qwan’s dying brain, and went to work.
The fly form threw a cross-shaped shadow onto the land as it followed the ribbon of concrete toward the west. There were only two beings aboard: the pilot, who was a cyborg, and Colonel Leon Harco, who was tired. It had been three days since he had slept, really slept, and his thoughts flowed like thick syrup.
He looked back, searching for the exact moment when the first mistake had been made. The problem was that he couldn’t identify it, which suggested that he had been going downhill from the very start, or that he was too tired to think properly.
The legionnaire allowed his head to rest on the window, felt the engines through his skull, and let gravity control his eyelids.
The column looked like a long, multicolored caterpillar as it followed the expressway into the mountains, gathered in the turns, and seemed to surge into the straightaways. Batons crackled, the smell of burnt hair hung in the air, and the children made a keening sound. There were no words, no cries of anguish, just a moan similar to a steady wind.
There were fewer children now, and the Free Forces were starting to hem him in, but Pardo was free. Well, sort of free, since he wasn’t in custody. There weren’t many options, though ... not good ones. That’s why he continued to ride in the car, and it continued to move.
A deal? Sure, if the Free Forces were willing to make one, but nothing so far. Nothing but threats.
Surrender? The thought had occurred to him dozens of times. But what then? The first prison sentence still awaited, and there would be more, many more, if they allowed him to live.
Suicide? Yes, if he had the guts, which Pardo knew he didn’t.
What did that leave? An escape, if he could manage it.... Bail out of the car, let the Free Forces follow it east, and hide next to the freeway. But how? Every move he made was captured by the RFE, not to mention the clumps of people who monitored the column’s progress.
What he needed was a diversion, something that would draw attention away from the car and allow him to escape. Kill a few of the children, perhaps? Up toward the front of the column? Yes! That would almost certainly work.
Excited now, and eager to implement his plan, Pardo stood. A servo whined as the roof hatch opened, and the ex-soldier stuck his head out.
The air was warm, but not
too
warm, and pressed against his face. The children moved slowly, heads down, slogging their way upward. The older kids were silent, but the younger ones, those who had survived, made a whining sound.
Pardo directed his eyes to the road ahead, gauged the terrain, and looked for the right opportunity. The Legion had taught him quite a bit about escape and evasion. This was the time to use it.
Then, as the ex-officer scanned his surroundings, something caught his eye. A fly form! Coming in from the east. The Free Forces? Or the rescue team he hadn’t dared hope for?
His heart beating like a triphammer, uncertain of what to do, Pardo watched the aircraft grow larger, felt the air press down around him, and plugged his ears against the whine of the engines.
The fly form fell like a hawk, grabbed the car with a set of belly clamps, and snatched it right off the road. The engine revved, and the wheels spun as they lost contact with the pavement. The cyborg’s belly was only five feet away.
Pardo drew his sidearm, realized how stupid that was, and put it away. Someone had him. The question was, Who?
Meanwhile, down on the ground, the column had stopped. Heads turned, eyes sought the fly form, and chaos followed.
Unsure whether their leader had abandoned them or had been snatched out of their midst, the militiamen fled toward the east.
The robots, still under orders, continued to march. But they could be dealt with, and would be, the moment the Free Forces arrived on the scene.
Frantic to learn what his fate would be, Pardo fumbled with the com set. That’s when his driver opened the door to the passenger compartment, started to say something, and took two slugs through the chest.
Pardo restored the weapon to its holster, chose the most likely freq, and keyed the mike. “Who the hell are you? And what do you want?”
The response was calm and deliberate. “This is Leon Harco.”
Pardo bit his lip. Harco had no reason to help, but who could tell? The asshole was an idealist and capable of damned near anything. A positive approach seemed best. “Harco! Thank God. Where are we headed?”
“To Los Angeles,” Harco replied calmly, gazing out the window. “To turn ourselves in.”
“Turn ourselves in?” Pardo asked incredulously. “Why would we do that? I have a ship. She’s small but fast. We can break out, make a run for the rim, and live like kings. I have friends out there, lots of them, and we can start over. What do you say?”
“I say no,” Harco answered laconically. “There are rules. We broke them. We have to pay. It’s as simple as that.”
“No!” Pardo shouted. “I won’t go!”
“Really?” Harco inquired. “I think you will. Now shut up. I’m tired.”
The following ten minutes seemed to last an eternity, from Pardo’s perspective anyway, as the fly form flew toward the sun. Plans stuttered through his brain, dozens of them, but none were realistic.
Then something changed. The aircraft slowed, turned, and hovered in place. Were they preparing to land? Pardo looked out of the car’s window, frowned, and climbed up through the hatch. The view was better from there ... and he knew where they were: about five thousand feet over the Imperial Coliseum. The same place where he had put fifty-eight people to death. Something clicked, he knew what Harco intended to do, and the scream emptied his lungs.
Clamps sprang open. The car fell free and plummeted toward the ground. Harco didn’t bother to look. He touched the intercom. “Take me to the academy ... or what’s left of it. I’ll surrender there.”
They cyborg obeyed, and the fly form banked away.
Meanwhile, down on the ground, a robot trundled out toward the center of the enormous playing field. Some sort of unauthorized structure had fallen out of the sky and buried itself in the turf. Standards had been violated, rules had been broken, and there was work to do.
The Chien-Chu executive jet left the city of Geneva in what had once been the country of Switzerland, turned to the southeast, and flew out over the Mediterranean.
Maylo had the passenger compartment to herself and enjoyed the privacy.
She worked for the first couple of hours, checking key indicators, monitoring the health of the business.
Then, well after the blue was replaced by brown, her thoughts turned elsewhere. Exactly sixty-two days had passed since the fall of the so-called Independent World Government. Things were better, not perfect, but better.
With Patricia Pardo off-planet, and her son safely buried, the previous government had no clear leader. Not only that, but Colonel Harco’s surrender, followed by the militia’s collapse, left no power base from which to rule.
Now, with the installation of her uncle as interim governor, and the restoration of military discipline, life was returning to normal.
Yes, there were odds and ends to be dealt with, not the least of which would be the investigations focused on those accused of war crimes. Colonel Harco’s trial was sure to attract a lot of attention, as would Eli Noam’s, and a dozen others. The process would be painful, but the planet would get through it.
All of which meant that the economy had stabilized, commerce had returned to something approaching normal, and the process of rebuilding the company had begun.
That being the case, Maylo had granted herself what she deemed to be some well-deserved vacation time.
That made sense. What didn’t make sense, or
might
not make sense, was her spur-of-the-moment decision to join Booly in Africa.
Like her, the officer had been busy at first, assuming Kattabi’s responsibilities and working to fold most of Harco’s force back into the Legion.
There had been com calls—hesitant, sometimes awkward conversations that often seemed more painful than pleasurable. A natural outgrowth of the fact that they really didn’t know each other all that well.
Booly had been attentive, though, going out of his way to see her on three different occasions, filling
all
of her offices with flowers, and once, when she was headed into an unpacified region of Europe, assigning a team of Naa commandos to accompany her.
So, while those things were nice, Maylo continued to worry. What if Rio’s magic was just that? What if they weren’t compatible? What if he snored?
“You
snore sometimes, so why shouldn’t he?” the voice asked, and Maylo felt a surge of joy. “Sola! How
are
you?”
“Better, now that I can go home,” the Say’lynt replied. “Earth is a dangerous place.”
“Yes,” Maylo agreed. “It is. So, snoopy one, how ’bout it? Are Bill and I made for each other?”
“Such determinations are beyond my competencies,” the alien answered carefully, “but I can tell you this. You aren’t due for an hour yet—and he’s at the airport.”
Booly felt stupid in his civvies, glanced around to make sure that no one was looking, and consulted the badly cracked mirror. The man who looked back had two halves, one slightly larger than the other, both dressed in a short-sleeved blue sport shirt, khaki trousers, and casual shoes.
He heard the sound of a plane, forced himself to walk slowly, and made his way over to the open command car. It stood in the shade, so the seat was relatively cool. He started the engine, pulled out onto the apron, and watched the jet land.
The plane taxied toward the rather dilapidated terminal and came to a stop. Booly drove across the tarmac, got out, and waited while they opened the door.
Maylo ducked under the top of the doorway, squinted into the sunlight, and waited for her eyes to adjust.
Suddenly there he was, standing next to a military vehicle, grinning like an idiot. What he thought, what he felt, was plain to see.