CASUALTIES OF WAR
Toro crept through the gardens. His eye peered through the mist for some sign of Montana’s squad in the mist before him.
“There is a warm body up ahead,” Atalanta literally whispered in his ear. “It’s very still and may indicate someone lying in wait.”
“I see it,” he replied. “Becoming clearer now.”
He found a soldier sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning back against a raised bed. Tomato plants hung over him, heavy with plump red fruit. He was wet through with the mist, but sat very still, his hands clasped on top of his head. On the deck before him was his assault-weapon, broken open, the clip removed, the shells scattered on the floor.
“Please don’t shoot me,” he said.
Toro stopped, his weapon ready, and peered down at him. He noted the broken weapon. He slung the machine-gun over his shoulder.
“I won’t shoot you,” he said. “No reason to.”
“I don’t want to know anything,” the soldier said, “but I assume you’ve been hired by the Belters. My guess is you’re stalking Montana, but I know you’ve killed three of us. I don’t care what happens to Montana, or Cuchillo either. I figure I’ll wait here until the Belters find me. At least I won’t starve.” He jerked his head toward the tomato plants above. “You can take my gun if you want to, if you’re worried about me trying to sneak up behind you. But I’d have to be fucking crazy to try that.”
Toro thought a moment. “Keep it. Turn it in to the Belters when they find you. That’s a good way to begin.”
“I’ll do that. Listen, there are two others left, and we’ve been talking. I think they’ve headed off down the torus and are hiding somewhere. I told them they can’t hide from you. They can’t hide from Montana either, but he doesn’t care about us. He wants to meet up with Cuchillo at the safe room. I imagine Montana’s capable of taking down whatever barriers they have, and I don’t want to think what he’ll do to them.”
“I’ll do my best to stop him. Thanks for the information.”
Toro moved on, vanishing into the mist.
The soldier was startled by the sound of woman’s mellow voice coming from a speaker on the wall near a gardening-tool bench. “I have informed the Belters of your location and your wish to surrender. You are not the only one wishing to do so. I’m sorry your companions were killed. I never want such a thing to happen, but I understand why Toro felt he had to do it. Also, I understand why you had to follow your Captain’s orders, and why you now feel it has to stop. My name is Atalanta, incidentally.”
Perhaps it was her lovely voice, but the soldier began to cry softly.
They were very near the end of the garden torus, close to the safe room, when Toro found Montana waiting for him. Montana’s weapon rattled and bullets clanged as they bounced off Toro’s armor. He ducked behind a raised flower bed, hauled out his own machine-gun. But he heard Montana’s weapon hit the deck with a clang and saw him step forward out of the mist with a great iron bar in his hands.
“Oh, we’re going primal, are we?” Toro dropped his weapon and ripped a steel support off the end of the raised bed next to him. It was not as thick as the battle-ax Montana had, but he had seen Loris use something no thicker than this to devastating effect.
“Why are you serving these people?” Montana demanded. “They don’t care about you. Why should you care about them?”
“I have friends here.”
“We don’t have friends, you and me. Certainly, nobody gives a damn about me.”
“I wonder why.” Toro said.
Montana rushed forward and they began to belabor each other with blows that echoed in the domed gardens. They blocked as well as they could, but metallic parts were dented, and human flesh began to bleed. Toro knew what delicate systems and fragile flesh had to be protected, but he was being badly battered. One leg gave way and he fell to one knee. Montana broke his left arm. It spat sparks as its systems failed. Montana brought the great steel bar across the side of his head and Toro’s brain rang like a bell inside his steel skull.
Montana looked down at Toro as the latter sat up and leaned against a raised bed, blood running down into his eyes. Systems in his body began to burn out and lights faded to darkness. He tasted his blood in his mouth.
“Pathetic,” Montana said. “How satisfying that was. I look forward to seeing what this primitive weapon would do to fragile humans.” He raised the great steel bar over his head, prepared to bring it down and crush what remained of Toro’s skull. He left his solar plexus open to attack, and Toro noticed that a portion of his left chest plate had come loose.
He picked up the long, slender rod with its sharp torn end, drew back his powerful human arm, and thrust it into Montana’s chest between the gaping plates, straight into his humming heart. The delicate device snapped. Sparks flew. The hum was stilled. Shocked and disbelieving, Montana fell to his knees. Toro lifted his unbroken leg and struck Montana below the chin with his heavy magnetic boot. Montana’s head snapped back, and he collapsed. Toro watched the lights go out in his enemy’s eyes and a moment later, his died too.
***
The train stopped at a station and the doors slid open. Suddenly, the lights in the station and on board the train itself winked out, one by one. Shadow swung down from the roof of the car, through the open door, and into the two raiders standing before her. Her feet collided with their faces. They fell back against the wall behind them and bounced forward, and they screamed. It was a few seconds before the others in the car, who had barely witnessed the attack in the darkness, could recover from their shock and surprise. They whipped out their weapons but dare not fire because of the danger of hitting each other.
The lights came back on, but there was no sign of Shadow—only two men lying on the floor of the car, bleeding from knife-wounds in the heart. Then the doors slid shut and the train picked up speed.
Soldado raised his weapon and filled the ceiling of the car with bullet-holes. The reports were deafening in the small space. Light poured down through the holes and the gun smoke swirled in the light-beams.
“What the hell was that?” someone yelped.
“Put your lights on.” Soldado said.
The men switched on the lights attached to their weapons.
“Do you think you got whatever it was?”
“No. He wouldn’t wait on top of the car for me to fire through the ceiling. He’d move down the train, either forward or backward. Right now, he’s on the roof of another car, but he’ll be back.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s what I’d do.”
“Lieutenant, should we move out through the train? Maybe shoot up a few more ceilings?”
“And leave each other isolated? We’d better stay together.”
The train sped down the track and pulled into the next station. The doors opened and it sat there. The doors closed and the train picked up speed.
The lights went out again and the train stopped suddenly in the dark tunnel. Soldado’s men were thrown off balance by the quick stop. A window shattered and two men screamed. When the lights came on again, they lay on the floor, their skulls cracked open by a powerful blow.
“Jesus Christ!” Soldado said as the train began to move once more.
“I saw her,” one man said. “In my weapon light, moving like a panther, all in black, so fast I wasn’t sure what I was looking at.”
“It was a woman?”
“A fucking gorgeous redhead. What are we going to do? There’s only three of us left now.”
“Spread out. You go to the forward door and stand next to it. You go to the rear door. I’ll take the middle of the car.”
The two soldiers moved to opposite ends of the car and waited beside the doors, weapons ready. Soldado stood in the middle. He put down his rifle, drew his two pistols and waited, one in each hand. He was ambidextrous. The train slowed and pulled into a station. The doors opened, then closed again, and the train moved on. They glanced at each other in silence.
Suddenly, there was a lurch and the previous car uncoupled and their own car rolled to a stop and settled down on its magnetic track. To a man, they glanced through the window of the door toward the departing train. The rear door opened and the man standing next to it toppled forward and slid to the floor, his throat cut. By the time they looked, Shadow was no longer there.
“And now what?” a corporal bleated. “Lieutenant?”
“We get out and walk through the tunnel.”
“Oh really? Why don’t we just shoot each other!”
“All right.” Soldado put a bullet into the corporal’s brain. He opened the door, the car silent and motionless now, climbed down onto the levitation track, and walked through the black tunnel, his rifle ready, his senses heightened, looking about him in a random pattern, listening to the slightest sound in the darkness. He arrived at the last station without incident, climbed the stairs, and walked down the platform toward the ramp to the end-cap. The train, minus its last two cars, sat silently at the station. A red light flashed, warning it not to reverse direction as the track was blocked, but there was no sound but his own footsteps until he heard a woman’s voice.
“Soldado!” she said.
He whirled about but there was no-one there.
“Who the hell are you? Show yourself!”
“I am Shadow. I am protecting these people. Put down your weapon and surrender and you will live to stand trial before the Belter Council at Ceres.” She stepped out of the gloom and stood facing him at the far end of the platform.
“You’ve murdered my men. Why should I be the one to live?”
“They were all murderers, as you are. But your trial will have more impact.”
“You’re enhanced, Shadow. You’re a supersoldier.”
“Yes, I am. Perhaps the last.”
“No, you’re not.” Soldado whipped up his gun and fired with amazing speed. Shadow grimaced in pain and dropped her weapon, shot out of her hand. Her other hand whipped down and rested on the hilt of her commando knife, but even she could not throw a knife such a distance faster than Soldato could shoot, and they both knew it. Already a laser-point was resting between her breasts. She calculated how quickly she could dive off the platform, but the result was the same.
“It’s a shame to take you out like this,” Soldado said. “There are so few of us left.”
There came a roar that echoed through the station. Soldado whirled about, the uniform on his back a ruin of black fabric and blood. Chi-Chi Li cocked her shotgun again and blew his heart to ribbons. He collapsed on the platform.
“Arrogant bastard,” she said.
Shadow fell to her knees, clutching her hand to staunch the blood. Li slung the shotgun onto her back and ran to her, fumbling in her voluminous pockets. She hauled out a Martian Liberation Front med-kit and knelt before Shadow to treat her broken and bloody hand.
“Thank you,” Shadow said.
“I’ve always had good timing,” Li said. “Kind of makes up for my lack of good sense. Anyway, you think I could face Karil and Loris if I let you die? There, stopped the bleeding. I imagine you’ll recover in record time, but you’d better let the Friendship Infirmary look at it when you can.”
Shadow kissed her and hugged her tightly. She’d had more hugs in the last month than during her whole previous life. “I have to get to the safe room,” she said.
“Of course.”
Shadow ran off in a series of long graceful strides.
“That’s all right,” Li said to herself. “I’ll just follow you, shall I? On my short little legs?” She trudged up the ramp.
***
Karil crept through the deserted streets of the village. It was strange to see the parks and playgrounds empty of children, the pubs and taverns silent, the clothing flapping on the clothesline with no-one chatting nearby. A cat appeared and rubbed against Karil’s leg as if asking what had happened to everyone. He bent down to pet it and a bullet chipped a bit of plaster off the wall above his head. Somewhere, a man cried out and died, killed by a bullet from the sky. The cat had vanished.
Karil was looking for Cuchillo, who had come this way. He chose the holster on the left which contained his laser-pistol instead of the one on the right, which held the antique pistol that Professor Kelley had given him. The laser was less romantic, but it killed instantaneously.
He was passing a shop called Bikes, when he heard a roar and a motorcycle bore down on him. His laser-shot went wild as he threw himself aside so as not to be struck by the huge, careening vehicle. He rolled to his feet and prepared to fire, but the bike had already vanished behind a stone wall. Then he saw it in the distance, racing down a lane between hedges, only occasionally visible and already out of range. The quickly attenuating laser beam would do little damage that far away. But he did see little puffs of dust rising from the lane as rifle-bullets from the Aerie followed Cuchillo up a hill, across the road, and into the forest. Then he heard the explosive reports from above.
“Sorry, Karil,” he heard Aaron say in his ear. “He’s under too much cover. I can see his body-heat, but my shots can’t get through the trees.”
“Where is he going?”
“He’s turned on the Forest Road, headed for the end-cap. He’ll probably stay close under the trees until he enters the tunnel at the far end, then take the Ring Road around to the left to the Safe Room.”
Karil knew that a corridor ran all the way around the circumference of the cylinder in the end-cap. It would be a much faster track than the narrow, wandering lanes of the landscape, where a motorcycle would be constantly decelerating and turning. In the Ring Road, it could run flat out, if one was a skilled rider, as Cuchillo seemed to be.
“Is he anywhere near Loris?”
“We’ve alerted her,” Kelley said in his ear, “and she’s headed in his direction, but I doubt if she can get to him in time.”
“That’s all right. I’ve got an idea.” Karil ducked into the Bike Shop and in a minute roared out astride a motorcycle virtually identical to the one Cuchillo had taken. He sped up the lane toward the forest, the wind in his long hair. He grinned with pleasure.
***
Loris raced through the woods, eating up the ground with great strides of her long legs. But she was constantly dodging tree-trunks, ducking under branches, avoiding clumps of undergrowth, and she was not making good time. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man with a rifle drawing a bead on her. She whipped out her laser-pistol and burned a hole in his chest, then spun the pistol back into its holster like Karil and kept running.
She heard the motorcycle coming as she approached the road. As she burst out of the trees onto the grass along the side of the road, she saw it roaring toward her. Desperate, she yanked the kendo-rod out of its clip on her back, extended it, and launched it like a javelin toward the oncoming cycle, hoping to jam it into the spokes of the rear wheel as Cuchillo passed and flip him off the machine. But he put on a burst of speed, and the rod clattered on the roadway. She watched Cuchillo vanish around a bend and heard his laugh.
As she was scrambling to her feet and brushing herself off, she heard another roar and Karil appeared, screeching to a halt before her.
“Want a lift, Gorgeous?” he asked.
She snapped the kendo-shaft onto her back again, threw her leg over the bike and wrapped her arms around Karil’s warm body. The motorcycle took off with screeching tires and a great roar, accelerating like a bat out of Hell in pursuit of Cuchillo. As the forest whipped by with dizzying speed, she began to wonder if this was really a good idea.
“When we get to the Ring Road,” Karil shouted back to her, “we turn right.”
“But that’s the long way around the ring.”
“Yes, but it’s counter to the spin, which means it creates less artificial gravity. The motorcycle weighs less and goes faster. We’re not far behind him and we’ll be more likely to catch up.”
“Uh-huh. Didn’t somebody tell me you used to do this as a kid on High Africa?”
“Oh, yes. I loved it.”
“Didn’t you break two arms and a leg that way?”
“Well, yes, but I was a novice and weighed less and it was a huge motorcycle. I’m a lot better biker now. It’s true there’s less contact between the wheels and the road and the bike has a tendency to go airborne if you’re not careful. I’m thinking the weight of the two of us will help to keep it steady.”
“This makes no fucking sense, you know, Karil.”
“But what a surprise for Cuchillo when we come at him the wrong way. I’m sure he can hear us coming now and he’ll expect us to follow him up the safe side behind him. In fact, he might stop to ambush us in the corridor.”
“Yes, and if we bust our skulls, he won’t have to bother.”
The forest road plunged into a tunnel in the end-cap. With a screech, Karil slowed down and made a sharp right turn. They roared up the Ring Road and Loris did indeed feel her weight dropping away. The bike wobbled and swerved wildly as the wheels barely gripped the corridor floor, and Karil concentrated on keeping the motorcycle upright and flying straight. Loris put her head on Karil’s shoulder, closed her eyes, and kept very still. She waited to die.
“I always knew you were going to kill me one day,” she said.
***
Cuchillo slowed as he approached the entrance door to the Safe Room Suite and came to a stop before the huge doors. He listened but heard no sound of pursuit. Perhaps they had had an accident. But he was troubled by the emptiness of the corridor. He had arrived at Friendship with a platoon of troops and sent them into the interior along several routes, but no-one was here to regroup before the safe room doors as ordered. There was supposed to be no resistance at all here.
All right, then, he would open the doors himself. Cuchillo figured he was perfectly capable of holding his own single-handed against a bunch of cowardly pacifists, elders, women, and children. Kill a few and they would fall into line. He shifted the machine-gun on his shoulder, pulled out his laser, and began to melt the lock. The doors were heavy—lead-lined to protect from cosmic-rays, though clad in wood veneer—but the lock was simple.
In a matter of minutes, he had melted the latch and cut it through. He took down his machine-gun, cocked it, and held it in attack position, then kicked open the doors and strode into the room, expecting to see the whole colony cowering in fear. He stopped, dumbfounded, and stared.
All the pews of the meeting-room had been arranged in a half-circle about the entrance. Behind them seemed to be the entire adult population of the colony, all armed with rifles resting on top of the wooden backs of the benches. Every weapon was aimed at his heart.
One man spoke up, a young man, but with the voice of someone in charge.
“Senor Cuchillo,” Thomas said, “no doubt you are surprised to find us armed and ready to defend ourselves. These guns are the gift of a benefactor, who has trained us in their basic use. Most of them are loaded with blanks, but many contain armor-piercing bullets. I’m sure you know that ancient firing squads were loaded with one blank round so the shooters could imagine they were the one not not killing the man. We debated this and decided that if God wanted you dead, he would see to it that at least one bullet would reach your heart. Uncomfortable as we may feel about it, our survival is at stake here. Please place your weapons on the floor and surrender, or we will be forced to pray for God’s assistance in this matter.”
A woman’s voice came from behind Cuchillo. “I’ll take those,” she said. “Put them on the floor.”
Cuchillo resisted the urge to turn and look at her. He could not bear to take his eyes off the sight of some fifty or sixty rifles aimed at his heart by extremely nervous novices. He placed his machine-gun on the floor, drew his laser and carefully placed it beside the other weapon.
“Kick them toward me.”
He kicked them behind him, although they did not go far. Shadow crept forward and reached for them. She heard the sound of a motorcycle coming down the corridor, followed by screeching tires and a crash, and was distracted. Suddenly, as if by magic, there was a steel-hard hand gripping her wrist and a commando knife at her throat. Her arm was bent painfully behind her back, and she found herself helpless in a grip stronger than hers. A bead of blood appeared on the curve of her lovely throat and ran down the knife.
“You too?” she said, astonished.
“You’ve met Soldado, have you? He came with me from the school, and we came up together through the ranks. Easy for us. But you’re the big surprise. I thought you were in an unmarked grave with the others.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t recognize me? Of course not. I was much younger and had a different face. He put his head beside hers and whispered, with chilling intimacy, into her ear. “Surely you remember a young student-teacher coming to visit you in the dorm at night. You were beautiful even then, with your red hair and young budding body. Even after they shaved your head, you were desirable.”
A tear coursed down across her cheek and ran into the blood at her throat.
“Cuchillo! Step away from her!”
He dared to turn toward the door, dragging Shadow with him, and saw a tall dark woman and a handsome younger man, holding laser-pistols.
“You might as well put those away,” he called out. “You’re not going to use them. I’m as fast and even stronger than she is. I’m guessing you don’t want to see her head sliced off, and these good people are not about to cut her to ribbons with gunfire just to send me to Hell.”
Others appeared in the corridor outside—a young Asian woman, who had to be grabbed to stop her from launching herself against Cuchillo, and two tall men.
“How did you get here so fast?” Loris asked.
“Hang-gliders,” Kelley said. With the ring of command in his deep voice, he spoke up. “What do you want, Cuchillo?”
“I want my ship brought round. I know the layout of this suite—meeting-room, theater, and emergency docking port. I know you’re in control of this whole colony somehow. I want my ship, my cargo, and my men. In exchange, I will not come back here. Is it a deal?”
“Your ship is gone, Cuchillo,” Kelley said. “It’s on its way to your last stop with your former prisoners. Your men are not aboard. All of them, I believe, are dead or defeated. None of them will be joining you.”
“Well, then,” Cuchillo said. “I guess I have no choice. I’ll slice this pretty white throat and you can cut her dead body to ribbons with my live one.”
“We can give you a ship and you can escape to wherever you want to go, if you leave her behind unharmed,” Loris said. “We need only contact the harbour crew.” She had to get the man away from all these potential victims.
Cuchillo thought for a moment. “Well, I guess that’s acceptable.”
“Atty?” Loris called.
“Yes, Loris.”
“Send a ship to the safe room docking port. Send an automated ship so Cuchillo can fly it alone.”
“I understand.”
Atalanta lifted off from the colony superstructure and sped along its length to dock at the far end. Dragging Shadow with him, Cuchillo backed through the crowd, ignoring the looks of disgust and hatred, until he was at the emergency escape lock. Both hatches irised open behind him, revealing an empty cargo hold.
Instead of pushing Shadow away, he flung her through the hatch and somehow produced a small machine-pistol from his body armor. He fired randomly into the Belter crowd, and they dove for cover, amazed at his speed. He threw himself back through the hatch, which was pelted with bullets and laser-fire from the crowd as it closed. He slammed the inner lock controls with his hand and dove through the closing iris into the hold as Atty detached from the colony. The crowd scrambled to its feet. Mary wailed in horror and despair. They found Thomas dead on top of her, where he had thrown himself when the shooting started.
***
Atalanta turned away from the Friendship Colony. Shadow tumbled against the bulkhead on free-fall and kicked off toward Cuchillo. But she was not trained to fight in zero-gravity and with his superior strength, he soon had her under control. A blow in the solar plexus knocked the wind out of her and the next thing she knew, she was hand-cuffed to a grab-bar on a bulkhead.
“Ahoy, the ship,” Cuchillo called out.
“Yes, Captain,” Atalanta replied in an uninflected voice, her imitation of a not-too-bright robot.
“Correct. I am a captain with the Quasi-Police. This is my prisoner. Take us to the nearest Quasi-Police ship.”
“Yes, Captain.” Atalanta’s drivers roared into life, and she moved off at one-third gravity. The aft end of the ship was down, now. Shadow hung painfully from her shackles and Cuchillo looked her over.
“You’re a bit older than I like them,” he said, “but still… I’m about to explain to the Quasi-Police how the Achilles was boarded by Belter pirates and my troops slaughtered. I managed to drive them off. I can even describe them. I’ll offer to torture you for information and soon enough you’ll be telling them whatever I want you to tell them.”
Shadow looked directly into the sensor over the cargo hatch through which Atalanta would be looking at her. She made a little spinning circle with her finger above her head, where her hands were cuffed, hoping Atty would realize that this was a suggestion she accelerate. At the same time, she distracted Cuchillo by trying to kick him in the balls.
He stepped back to avoid her kick. “It won’t be long before my enemies are killed on sight and I am reinstated, with another ship. I can even keep you as my reward, if you’re still beautiful by then.” He reached up and fondled her, avoided another kick. “You know, I can provide you with exquisite pain without damaging you in the slightest. Hey, Ship, what are you doing?”
“I am taking you to the nearest Quasi cruiser, as fast as possible, as ordered.”
“Well, slow down.” He began to slide aft as the ship accelerated and the gravitational pull increased.
“Speeding up. Yes, Sir.”
Atty boosted her drivers and Cuchillo was thrown against the cargo hatch. “Stop it!”
“Speeding up. Yes, Sir.”
Cuchillo was spread-eagled against the hatch. His weapons were torn from his hands and pinned against the hatch as well, just out of reach. Shadow pulled herself up to the bar where she was shackled and raised her legs to hang from it, while she felt the cuff with her sensitive fingers until she found the correct pressure-point to pop them open.
“Atty,” she said, “please open the hatch.” She was not sure Atalanta would do it.
The hatch irised open behind him and Cuchillo grabbed the edge of the opening, struggling to keep himself from being dragged inside. Shadow leaped, turning over in the air, and crashed into him with both feet, pushing him into the lock. She grabbed a nearby handhold as the hatch irised shut behind Cuchillo and the acceleration stopped. Shadow drifted away.
Trapped in the lock, Cuchillo roared. “What the hell are you?” he demanded.
Atalanta spoke in a strange new voice, , and her words were chilling. “What am I? I am Death. Loris is my handmaiden. Karil is my demon lover, my Dark Lord. Shadow is my sweet child.”
“What?”
“See you in Hell, Captain,” Atalanta said. “Bye, now.”
The outer hatch spun open and Cuchillo flew out into vacuum with the expelled air. His breath was forced from his lungs in a scream. As his body began to freeze, his commando knife tumbled past, just a bit too far to allow him to die a less horrible death. Still reaching out for it, Cuchillo drifted off into darkness.
There was silence in the ship as Shadow pulled herself toward the bridge.
“Atty?” she called out.
Still, there was only silence. Shadow opened the comm and contacted Friendship, asking them to send a ship. Atalanta drifted in silence.