Shadow on the Sun (17 page)

CHAPTER 32

Southbound on Bishop's Highway

ANNOS MARTIS
239. 2. 16. 04:52

 

 

The Scorpions attack in the last hour before dawn.

Although Vienne's symbiarmor keeps her warm, the cold air has numbed her cheeks, and her nose feels like it's made of ice. For hours, she has kept her scope aimed on the caravan. Now, as shadows start to move on the ridge overlooking the camp, she snaps to attention.

This would be easier with a night vision scope. But she lost hers long ago, and she'll have to make do with a laser dot for aiming. The key to the laser, though, is to turn it on the second before firing because its red light shines like a pinpoint beacon.

Come on, she thinks. They're moving single file, moving under an outcropping, using it to hide their numbers.

A flame flickers.

A torch is lit.

A banshee scream sends prickles up Vienne's neck. But she doesn't know if the sensation is from the sound or the exhilarating rush she feels as a dozen more torches blaze. The Scorpions tear out from their hiding spot, screaming, brandishing their weapons, and making a run for the Noriker.

She waits, waits, waits, until the face of the leader, a wild-eyed fury in white war paint, fills her scope.

Then the squeeze.

Phht
.

He stops and looks up as if something has tapped the top of his head. Then his eyes roll back, and he crumples to the ground.

“Forgive me,” Vienne whispers. “May your soul find the peace that this world could not give you.”

Phht! Phht!

Vienne takes out two more and then sights the one closest to the camp. Then, out of the corner of her eyes, she sees a line of shadows moving behind the torches. She tracks them to the tankers laden with petrol.

“Very smart,” she whispers. Clearly, the Scorpions aren't as mindless as Nikolai would have her believe. She empties her clip. “Forgive me,” she repeats with each shot fired.

As she flips the clip to reload, a cry from the watch goes up, and an alarm sounds. Truck lights flick on. Near the Elder's Noriker, the Scorpions are bathed in sudden light. They throw their hands in the air, blinded and confused.

“Throw down your weapons!” someone yells.

But as Vienne watches, the Scorpions panic. The closest one charges the truck and is met with a spray of gunfire. Behind him, the others turn and run for the ridge. The guns open up.

Vienne lifts her eye from the scope and looks to the stars. There was a time when she didn't think about her job, just performed it with deadly accuracy because that was her duty. But she can't think that way anymore. The people she's protecting aren't mindless animals, and neither are their enemies.

After a moment, she throws the armalite over her shoulder and begins the trek back to camp. The whole area is lit up now. She hears a Gorgon bike, then sees Nikolai riding to the front of the caravan. Mother Koumanov steps down from the back of the Noriker. She yells something and points toward the ridge.

You needn't bother, Vienne thinks. They're all dead.

A few minutes later, she reaches the tankers. On the ground are the eliminated Scorpions. Four of them, male and female. She checks for pulses.

None.

She rolls them on their backs, pushes their legs together, and crosses their arms. One Scorpion's eyes are still open. She shuts them gently and then stands to say a prayer.

“What is girl doing?” Nikolai demands as he stomps into the circle of tankers.

“Praying,” she says without opening her eyes.

“For Scorpions?” he says. “They are enemy!”

“They were. Now they are just children.” She opens her eyes. “Do you see why it was a really bad idea for us to stop?”

“
Jaa
,” he says. “Bad idea. But was Tahnoon's orders, not Mother's. He even pick place. But not problem, hey? All Scorpions are gone.”

“All Scorpions are
not
gone. This was a scouting party.” She points at their faces. “Look at the war paint. All new initiates. They were sent to test our defenses and to steal whatever they could, which, by the way, was going to be one of the tankers. So we should increase security because the Scorpions won't let this ride.”

“All war paint looks same to me,” Nikolai says. “But I will tell Mother your suspicions. She will decide if plan needs changing.”

“If?
If
plan needs changing?” Vienne throws her arms wide. “Are all of you Ferro dense? I tell you not to camp, you camp. I tell you we're going to get attacked, we get attacked. I tell you there are more out there, and you ignore me. What kind of hold does this woman have on you?”

“Mother Koumanov,” Nicolai says, shaking his head, “is only reason Nikolai and Brothers Koumanov are still live.”

“So? I owe my life to lots of people, and you don't see me blindly following their orders!”

“
Nyet!
This I will not hear.” He shakes his finger. “I have news flash for girl—all Brothers Koumanov are not real brothers.”

“News flash?” she yells. “I already knew that!” She whips the hair out of her face and catches herself. She can't believe she let this . . . this fop get under her skin. Focus, Vienne. Focus. “When you speak to your mother, please ask her to make sure the Scorpion dead are treated respectfully. They are human beings, even if they didn't act like it at the end.”

“I will tell her,” he says, “when I tell her that you have shot so many. You see, this is why I hired you. You are born killer.”

“Don't you ever call me that again,” Vienne says, and slaps him across the face. The sound rings out across the camp.

She walks away, bound for her Gorgon. It's been a long night, and she needs to grab some sleep before the caravan starts moving.

CHAPTER 33

New Eden

ANNOS MARTIS
239. 2. 16. 12:19

 

 

This time, there is no sneak attack.

Three kilometers outside the walled city of New Eden, the hills beside the highway fall away, and the terrain becomes a wide, flat plateau.

If a vehicle is moving at posted speeds, crossing the plateau takes only a few minutes.

If a vehicle is part of a caravan of refugees, however, crossing the plateau takes forever, making it the perfect place for an ambush.

“Scorpions!” Jenkins bellows as he roars back to the caravan from scouting the road ahead. He pulls up to Vienne and Nicolai and points to the south. “Bunch of 'em! Twelve o'clock and closing!”

“Ha!” Nikolai laughs. “Crazy man is seeing mirage. Scorpions do not attack in daylight.”

Jenkins isn't the brightest star in the sky. In fact, he's more like the moon of a distant planet during an eclipse, but he has faced down Draeu in the black tunnels of Fisher Four, and he doesn't scare easily.

“You're sure they're Scorpions?” Vienne asks him.

“Roger that,” Jenkins says. “Ones got a humongo Mohawk, and they're on bikes. Do I get to do some shooting now? My trigger finger, she's getting itchy.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Vienne says.

“Them fossikers ain't listened to you yet,” he says, scratching the growth of beard on his cheek.

“This time will be different,” she promises.

She drives back down the road. About fifty meters from the lead truck, she slams on her brakes and parks the Gorgon in the middle of the road, hitting the kickstand with a flourish. She holds out a rigid hand, silently commanding the Elder's vehicle to stop.

The Noriker driver lays on his horn.

Vienne doesn't flinch.

The driver stands on his brakes. The truck shudders to a stop, the front bumper a few centimeters from Vienne. She steps up on the bumper, pulls the driver's door open, and throws him to the pavement.

“Now see here!” barks Tahnoon from the passenger seat.

“Get out.” Vienne puts the truck in gear. “Or get ready to die.”

Eyes wide, Tahnoon throws the door open and jumps to the ground.

As Vienne steers around the bike, Jenkins pulls up to her door. “You're driving?”

“Man the minigun!” she yells.

“That's the stuff!” He dumps the bike and leaps in the truck bed. “Move it, Mother; Jenkins is on the job!”

Mother Koumanov swings from the bed to the passenger side running board, wind whipping into her face. “What do you think you're doing?”

“My job!” Vienne says.

Mother shakes a finger at Vienne. “Any damage comes out of your share.” She jumps from the truck and slams the door.

“Meaning any dead refugees.” Vienne yells through the sliding rear window, “Ready, Jenkins?”

“Heewack!” He throws the tarp off the gun. “Jenkins was born ready, baby!”

Vienne moves the gearshift into neutral, then, with the truck rolling forward, steps out of the cab, takes aim at Jenkins's gut, and fires a round from her armalite.

“Hey!” he yells, his feelings hurt more than his body. “What's that for?”

“Nobody, but nobody calls me
baby
! Got that?”

“Got it!” Jenkins salutes. “But why's everybody so touchy all of a sudden?”

“Quit yapping and move!” she yells as she slides back behind the wheel.

She pops the truck into gear. With a lurch that almost whiplashes Jenkins from the gunner's nest, the Noriker chews up the highway.

Up ahead, right where Jenkins said they would be, a line of Scorpions on turbo bikes is waiting. In the middle is a chopped-down motorcycle, driven by a rider with a silver skullcap.

“You're mine now,” she whispers.

Vienne floors it, just as a horn sounds beside her.

She looks out the passenger side window. A Noriker pulls even with her, and Pushkin gives a salute. “Hey,
lapochka
! Want to drag?”

“You idiot!” Vienne yells. “You left the refugees unguarded!”

“Guard from what?” Pushkin yells back. “All Scorpions are here. Zhuk wants to shoot gun, too!”

Zhuk fires the minigun into the sky, and Pushkin's Noriker roars ahead.

“Fossikers,” Vienne says. She knocks on the rear window. “Ready with that cannon?”

“Ready!” Jenkins bellows.

“Prepare to fire!”

“What about the Koumanovs?” he yells.

“Try to miss them!”

“What if I can't?”

“Oh well!” she says, and accelerates, aiming straight for the chopper.

Jenkins opens up. His bullets rip through the pavement ahead, causing the chopper to swerve. The biker gives way to another Scorpion vehicle—a big-wheeled turbo bike with a sidecar rider, a green-haired mop-top girl holding a grenade launcher.

Poom!

With a puff of smoke, Mop-Top fires a grenade. It hits the roof of Vienne's Noriker with a thunk and bounces off to the side. Two seconds later, a small crater opens up on the highway.

In the rearview, Jenkins is grinning. “Missed me!” With a chattering of the chain feeder, he returns fire. His bullets ping off the sidecar.

The driver swerves hard to the right, and the Scorpion reloads the launcher.

Vienne jams the pedal hard against the floorboard. She crashes through the pack of Scorpions at full speed. Two riders swerve to miss her and slam into the berm. Riders and bikes somersault into the air and off the highway.

That's two
,
Vienne thinks, and slams on the brakes, cutting hard to the right to chase the chopper.

The tires chatter as she whips the wheel before letting it slide back through her hands. A cloud of blue smoke stinks up the air. She jams the accelerator again as Pushkin shoots past.

“Go, go, go!” Jenkins yells.

The engine kicks in, and they are on the chopper's tail. The minigun chatters happily in Jenkins's hands. Bullets rip through tires, and before he has to reload, a third of the Scorpions are out of the fight.

In the side mirror, Vienne sees Pushkin coming up beside her again.

“Oy,
lapochka
!” he yells as his front left tire explodes, and his truck slams into Vienne's side.

“Back off!” she yells back, and cuts hard to the right as the Noriker gouges the side of her truck, ripping the steel metal in half with its bumper, which falls to the ground as Pushkin screams and veers sharply behind Vienne.

Thunk!
His bare rim hits the berm, and in less than a second, Pushkin and Zhuk are out of the fight.

“Stupid gits,” Vienne says, and pulls the Noriker back to the road and cuts across the line of turbo bikes. They slam into the left side of the truck, and she hits the brakes, shaking them off. Ahead, the lead Scorpions are going straight for the caravan.

“Watch out!” Jenkins calls from the rear. “Three o'clock!” He fires a few rounds before the belt runs empty. “I'm out of ammo? How can I be out of ammo?”

A turbo bike with Scorpions riding tandem pulls up beside her. The driver aims a blaster through the open window. Vienne yanks the wheel to the left, then right, slamming into the bike.

They hang on.

Then swing back in for another pass.

Then Mop-Top chucks a grappling hook inside Vienne's truck and screams, “Hard right! Hard right!”

With a massive length of cable trailing behind, the driver veers sharply to the right toward an overpass support. He slams the brakes. The bike whips around the support, and Mop-Top jumps out and quickly anchors the cable.

A few seconds later, it goes taut—and rips off Vienne's passenger door.

In the back, Jenkins bends down to search for another belt, but the cable's sudden yank knocks him off-balance. He throws his arms into the air and stumbles to the side. He pitches out of the truck bed and onto the highway.

“Jenkins!” Vienne stands on the brakes. The Noriker skitters to the side as it slows, and in mid-skid, she steps out of the cab. She hits the pavement firing.

Bullets rip through the Scorpions on her tail.

The clip empties.

She reverses it and empties it again.

Four bikes go down.

The riders lie wounded on the road.

Vienne runs to the first bike. Its engine is running, its wheels still spinning.

She hauls it up, jams her left foot on the riding peg, and guns it as she slings her right leg over the seat.

Ahead, the skullcapped Scorpion brings his chopper to bear. He raises the rocket launcher to his shoulder and fires. As the shell whistles toward Vienne, she swings wide, then leans on the handlebars, raises her armalite, aims down the sights, and fires.

Click.

Empty.

She wedges the stock against her hip. Steers with her left hand.

Skullcap fires again.

Vienne does not swerve. The shell zips past her head. Behind her, the air explodes. That's two rockets. He's got one left.

Skullcap's chopper is ninety meters ahead. Tearing toward her at a hundred kilometers an hour.

Seventy meters.

He lowers the launcher. Taking aim.

Forty meters.

She lifts the armalite.

Twenty meters.

Get ready,
she thinks.

Ten meters. He fires.

The rocket—

—launches.

She lets go of the handlebars, and the front wheel flips high. She drops onto her back, rolls again and again, and comes up as the rocket strikes her bike, blowing shrapnel and fuel into a cloud that the chopper blows through.

A smile is forming on the rider's face, Vienne notes as time seems to slow for her and she flips her armalite into the air, grabs it by the barrel, and swings.

His body stops.

His bike keeps going.

He falls
whump!
to the pavement.

Vienne raises her armalite. “Had enough?”

Skullcap cups his hands to his mouth and lets out a yipping scream.

Down from the embankment come more than a dozen children, all of them tattooed from head to toe, all of them wild and feral, and all of them bearing wicked-looking weapons.

This, Vienne thinks, is not good.

She's fought Scorpions before, at the Favela with Durango. If you hit them harder and faster than they can hit you, they'll scatter, and you won't have to shoot them.

The first boy she takes out with a lancing front kick to the chest, then she drops the second and third with a rapid succession of punches to the solar plexus, chin, and side of the head.

The next boy rushes in.

She greets him with
r
oundhouse kick that decks him.

“Stop!”

Vienne shakes the hair out of her face. The largest Scorpion, a rangy boy with a shaggy Mohawk and rings piercing every centimeter of his ears, his chest tattooed with scenes of carnage and bloody fangs, stands over an unconscious Jenkins, a razor-sharp pike pressed against his jugular.

“One twitch,” he says, “and Billy Boy will split this wanker in half.”

“Billy Boy? Is that the best name you could think of?” she says as she walks nonchalantly toward him. “You know, I really despise people who refer to themselves in third person. Especially ones with Mohawks.”

“Kill her if she takes one more step!” Billy Boy shouts at the Scorpions.

Vienne takes one more step. And another so that she's within striking distance. “I don't think they heard you.”

She grabs Billy Boy by the Mohawk. She rams his face into her rising knee and spins him around. Then pulls the knife from her sleeve, pressing it into his throat. “Tell your people to scatter.”

Seeing that Billy is beaten, the Scorpions start to back away from Vienne. Then they turn and sprint for the embankment. In a few seconds, it's as if they were never there.

So much for loyalty,
Vienne thinks. “Surrender,” she tells Billy, “and I'll turn you over to the Sturmnacht. Refuse, and I'll throw you to the refugees to take your chances.”

“Scorpions never surrender,” he says. “We die first.”

“That's ignorant, and not true in the least. Your friends ran off faster than you can count to three.” She shoves him into a seated position. “Lean forward so you don't choke on your own blood. I'll give you a couple minutes to think about it, but don't take too long.”

She yanks off his belt and binds his hands. “Don't try to escape,” she says. “It'd be a shame to shoot you after all this.”

He grunts and spits. Vienne waves her arm toward the caravan.

A moment later, Nikolai arrives on his bike. “You need help?” he asks.

“Not me,” she says. “Him. Get a medic.” She looks back at the wounded strewn down the highway. “These people need first aid.”

“Him?” Nikolai points at Billy. “He is leader of Scorpions. He tried to kill you. Why waste medicine?”

“Under that war paint,” she says, “he's still a child.”

“As you wish.” He calls for help on his radio. “But medicine comes from your share.”

She throws her armalite over her shoulder. “Wouldn't have it any other way.”