'Thirty minutes to estimated contact,' the voice from the PA announced.
The waiting had peaked. Along with five other mercenaries, Billy, Reave, the Minstrel Boy, and Renatta crouched in the H-quadrant access tunnel that led out to the nothings. In front of them, out on the open platform, the first-line defenders, militia and civilian volunteers alike, stood to in the shelter of hastily erected fortifications. Although the big stasis field that surrounded the raiders was being clearly and continuously tracked and plotted by the central biomass, there was still no clue as to where on the Krystaleit perimeter the first blow would fall. As the raiders had drawn nearer, other questions had been raised. The most pressing was what would happen when the large and powerful reality of the raiders actually touched and then merged with the city's bigger and even more powerful field. For some hours strange things had been happening. Certain kinds of electronic hardware had ceased to function for no detectable reason, domestic pets had started to show signs of extreme agitation, a large number of lights had simply winked out, and a power substation had spontaneously combusted. Now the nothings had started to flash with white fire as though the nonmatter were being overcharged with some form of alien nonenergy. The defenders and fortifications around the edges of the external platforms were thrown into stark, flickering silhouette, and an irrational terror of the unknown was laid on top of the very real fear of the enemy. Some groups of Krystaleit's philosophers were making dire predictions, and the word 'cataclysm' kept being tossed about. To make matters worse, Billy had started to hear muffled, indistinct voices inside his head. He did not know if that phenomenon was a brand-new symptom of stress orwhether it was a result of the physical conditions that were growing more weird by the minute.
'I wish to hell they'd get here — anything's got to be better than this,' he complained.
'Twenty minutes to estimated contact.'
The Minstrel Boy checked the AK 5000 for what had to be at least the twenty-eighth time since they had been deployed in the tunnel.
'What's the betting that they hit right in front of us?'
'The way our luck's been running?'
Renatta was unconsciously chewing on her lower lip. The Minstrel Boy had to admit that despite the way he had been bad-mouthing her over the last few days, she was standing up very well for someone who had never faced combat before. She sighed and flexed her wrists, easing the weight of the laser bracelets.
'This has got to be the worst.'
The Minstrel Boy nodded toward the nothings, where patches of the nonmatter fog had become an incandescent white. 'That's the worst. You could really believe that it was the end of the world.'
Reave, who was nearest to the mouth of the tunnel, glanced back. 'Will you all keep that down? You'll end up shooting each other.' He had dropped naturally into the role of squad leader.
The space became eerily bright as the section of the nothings they could see at the end of the tunnel pulsed blinding white and then faded slightly again.
'You think this is them?'
'If it is, they're early.'
The voices in Billy's head were louder, but he still could not make out what they were saying. 'I don't like this at all.'
'I told you to put a cover on the negative comments.'
The very next moment not even Reave could hold back a gasp of amazement.
'Holy shit!'
Pseudopods of brilliant purple plasma danced out of the nothings and played over defenders and defenses. They seemed particularly drawn to metal. A militiaman cut and ran in panic as the glowing plasma coursed over his bronze armor. He was trying to brush it off with his hands as though he were on fire.
As far as Reave could see, the plasma did not seem to be doing him any actual harm. His sobbing terror was purely a result of the man psyching himself out.
'Everyone sit tight. I think that stuffs harmless.'
In fact, he was certain that it was harmless. It looked exactly like the glowing purple energy he had seen attach itself to the Old Metal Monster inside the ziggurat just before he had deserted from Baptiste's raiders.
The plasma was inside the tunnel, scooting toward them along the floor, walls, and ceiling. It shimmered over their weapons and even the metal fittings on their clothes. Everyone stiffened at its touch, but once they all found that it did not seem to be doing them any damage, they were able to relax slightly; still, none of them seemed to be exactly happy about having bright, cold witchfire dancing on their guns and belt buckles.
'Fifteen minutes to estimated contact.'
The plasma vanished as quickly as it had appeared: It just retreated into the nothings and was gone. Reave wiped the sweat off his face. He did not want to let the others see it, but the waiting and the uncanny special effects were also getting to him.
There was a rumble of thunder from back inside. Everyone stiffened, and heads whipped around. Had the enemy hit on the other side of the spherical city? Back down the tunnel sheets of static were arcing between the buildings. They flashed brightly, and there was another loud clap.
'Okay, okay, it's just an electrical storm inside the city.'
A mercenary called Rat Barstow, whom Reave did not particularly trust and did not particularly want in his squad, was staring back down the tunnel with wide, scared eyes. 'There are never electrical storms inside the city.'
Reave scowled. 'Well, there are now.'
'You think the enemy is doing this to soften us up?'
'Seems like it's working on you.'
Renatta looked at him sharply. 'You do think they're doing it?'
Reave angrily shook his head. 'No, I don't. They don't have the technology. It think it's what happens when two big stasis fields come together.'
'Ten minutes to estimated contact.'
There was something disturbing about the calm of the vaguely feminine electronic voice that was running off the countdown. Reave glanced back at the squad again.
'No more talking from now on. That means everyone.'
Something new was happening. The nothings had started to dim. They were also changing color. From bright white, they faded to a diffused pearly pink that in turn darkened to a deep magenta. Thunder and lightning crashed and boomed inside the city. And then the nothings started to clear. It was like a hole appearing. A vast abyss of empty, clear-air reality was materializing in the nothings.
'This is it! Be ready.'
The voice from the PA spoke for the last time. 'Contact has been made.'
The lightning stopped, and the thunder ceased to roll. In moments it was clear that the abyss was not empty. It had a floor of plain red ocher, basic rock matter that stretched back as far as the eye could see, and on that floor an army was starting to move.
Barstow let out a low whistle. 'Goddamn it to hell, there are thousands of them, and they're coming right at us.'
Above the army there was a bloodred pseudosun that made the parting of the nothings resemble a grim satanic dawn.
Reave nodded. 'It's going to be a long day.'
Billy Oblivion's face twisted in a lopsided grin. 'Let's hope we see the end of it.'
Reave had expected the enemy to be all over them the moment the nothings opened. Instead, whatever combination of warlords that was in command of the army had made their men stand back, leaving maybe a thousand yards of dusty no-man's-land between attackers and defenders, putting them beyond the effective range of the majority of the city's weapons. It was a strange, almost formal move. The initial wave of attackers would have to advance into a hail of concentrated fire. If Reave had been running things, he would never have played it that way, but he guessed that there was no accounting for the insane. The warlords seemed more concerned with grand martial spectacle than with casualty figures. Neoprimitive impis were the first line of assault, a dark mass crested by a sea of waving powerspears, spread out over a broad front. They had no long-range weapons, and very soon they would move forward at that inhuman highspeed run. Possibly, Reave reflected, one of the warlords did not feel too assured of their savage loyalty and wanted to see their numbers thinned out a bit.
Men were coming down the tunnel from inside the city. Reave turned in alarm. His first reaction was that it was a fifth column attack, but it turned out to be nothing more than squads of militia moving over from the quadrants that would not be taking the brunt of the first attack. Reave doubted that the raiders who were already inside the city would make a move until that first shock wave of neoprimitives had dashed itself on the defenses. The neoprimitives were notorious for their very imprecise concepts of friend and foe.
The noise was the first thing to hit: the amplified crash of steel drums, the braying of horns, and the deep-throated, cooing war cry of the neoprimitives. The last grew into a great roar as the impis began to move forward, slowly at first but rapidly gathering speed. The two flanks spread out, curving forward at the extreme ends in the traditional buffalo horn formation, while the center, the head, was compressed into a solid unstoppable mass. All along the barricades on the rim platform, officers were shouting for their troops to hold their fire until the attackers were well within range.
The thousand yards was cut to five hundred, then four, and then three. A mortar shell burst in the air above the leading edge of the assault, and the battle was on. A particle cannon opened up, scything through the impis' front line. At 250 yards, the orders were given and firing began in earnest. A withering blanket of small-arms fire smashed into the howling press of neoprimitives, but they were barely slowed down. They continued to run like roaring maniacs, leaving their dead sprawled in the red dust. With the gap between the opposing forces narrowed to just two hundred yards, the impis received a little help. Three red biplanes rose from somewhere in the rear of the army and buzzed toward the platform fortifications. They made a wide, high turn, staying out of reach of the defenders' fire, and then made a low, fast strafing run, hitting the lines of defenders with cannon fire and small airlite rockets. The crew on the particle cannon struggled to elevate their weapon and managed to loose a burst at the last of the planes as it roared back the way it had come. They must have hit something. The plane did not go down, but it started trailing smoke. A ragged cheer went up from the barricades.
The celebration was short-lived, however. It took what was left of the impis just eight seconds to cover the last hundred yards. They hit the platform like breaking surf, and the defenders were engulfed in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. The spears stabbed and stabbed. The neoprimitives were masters at such brutal, close-quarters combat. As more and more of them poured over the fortifications, the volunteers and the militia were increasingly forced to give ground.
The line broke in front of the tunnel, and a dozen or more of the attackers burst through before the gap could be plugged. It was Reave's first look at the enemy. The neoprimitives were tall, olive-skinned men with highspike hair, feathered kilts, and scarlet battle paint; their powerspears hummed loudly as they raced for the mouth of the tunnel. Reave leveled his pistols and screamed the order.
'Fire!'
The crash of weapons was like a psychic release for the DNA Cowboys. Whatever happened from then on, there would be no more waiting. Billy's multiplex alone took three of the neoprimitives in the first burst. Only two of the dozen actually made it to the tunnel's mouth. One of them was felled by a two-armed sweep of Renatta's lasers, while a second was brought down by a short x-pando burst from the Minstrel Boy's AK. As he fired, he noted that Renatta was exceedingly good with the wrist lasers and wondered where and in what circumstances she had learned the complicated art.
In the wake of the neoprimitives, the rest of the enemy army was moving forward. The most immediate threat was the squadron of lizard riders that was kicking up a dust cloud across the rock surface, charging hard down on the platforms. A particle cannon fired a long barrage, and a cluster of riders came down in a tangle of thrashing legs. By far the majority of the defenders, however, were still engaged with the neoprimitives, fighting for their lives. They had no time to bring their weapons to bear to slow the charge. Reave spotted running figures in among the high-tailed, high-stepping lizards, awkward angular things, too tall to be human. They had to be the green template monsters created by the one who called himself Max Zero.
He glanced back at the Minstrel Boy. 'They can't hold much longer. When those lizard soldiers hit, the front lines are going to be overrun.'
'So what do we do? Move up and reinforce? The idea doesn't thrill me.'
'Me, neither. I intend to try and get us out of this alive and one way is to do the minimum that won't get us shot as deserters.'
'So?'
'So when the lizards hit, we fall back to the second position. Be ready.'
'Just give the word, I'm always ready to retreat.'
A bomb went off somewhere inside the city.
'Nulites?' the Minstrel Boy wondered.
Reave shook his head. 'I doubt it. Not unless they're working for the enemy.'
Two militiamen in bronze armor fled from the fortifications with five neoprimitives in hot pursuit. A pair of powerspears were thrown as one, and the fancy armor offered no protection. One blade stood out a good twelve inches in front of the first man's chest, and the look of horror on his face as it continued to hum at pain vibration inside him was something that Reave did not think he would be able to forget for a long time.
The first lizard came over the barricades. Its rider wore black samurai-style armor and wielded a pair of long pistols similar to Reave's. He seemed to be in the throes of a suicidal frenzy, wheeling his mount from side to side and firing into the fighting pack around the fortifications. He shot four defenders before he was dragged from his saddle by their comrades to be hacked and beaten to death.
Reave gestured to his squad. 'Okay, fall back. Fall back to the second position.'
The squad needed no further urging. They ran back down the tunnel, away from the fighting. Barstow and another merc called Natch were the first out into the open, and they were immediately cut down by a burst of fire from a nearby walkway. The others stopped dead in their tracks.
The Minstrel Boy looked around anxiously. 'Now what?'
Reave edged up to the mouth of the tunnel and peered around the stonework. The wall beside him was spattered by more fire. He quickly pulled his head back. 'There's a bunch of fifth columnists. They've set up a fire point by the big support pillar over on the left.'
At that moment two lizard soldiers clattered into the other end of the tunnel. The Minstrel Boy dropped into a crouch, the AK chattering in his hand.
Reave gestured to the three remaining mercs. 'Shaef, Nosmo, Stazio, back him up!' He turned to Billy. 'Can you fix that fire point?'
Bill was already jacking a small cigar-sized smartbomb into the multiplex's launcher. 'If my aura holds.' The weird voices in his head had stopped once the shooting had begun.
Reave scowled. 'Don't get mystic on me.'
Two lizards were twitching on the floor of the tunnel. One of the riders had staggered to his feet, determined to keep coming on foot. He took only four paces before Nosmo blew his head off. No more lizards came into the tunnel. For the moment the militia seemed to be holding the line. Billy craned around the corner of the tunnel mouth, and it was once again blasted with fire. Holding the multiplex at arm's length, he loosed the missile. For Billy, a firefight was the easy part. There was a crump as the missile impacted. Flicking the multiplex to heat ray, he very cautiously stepped into the open. To his immense relief, nobody shot at him.
'Okay, the way's clear. Let's go!'
They sprinted for the cover of the big support pillar and took stock of the situation. The smoke of the explosion still lingered, and the broken bodies of a half dozen fifth columnists were scattered all around the base of the pillar. Reave looked at Billy as he turned one over with his foot. Half the man's face had been blown away.
'You really did a job on these guys.'
'What was I supposed to do, slap them on the wrist?'
There was no sign of any other enemy units, and they started moving toward their first fallback position. Other squads of militia were being moved up to the platforms. For the moment the first line seemed to be holding, although Reave did not want to think about the cost. A few officers gave them strange looks as Reave's squad retreated when everyone else was advancing, but once again a look of self-assurance stood them in good stead, and nobody stopped to question them. Their fallback point was up one level, in a sandbagged fire position set up on the steps of the city's central registry building. It afforded an elevated view of the access roads leading to the platform tunnels. Themoment the first line gave way, they would find themselves in the thick of the fighting.
When they arrived there, they found that the position was already manned by a team of skittish civilian volunteers under the command of a regular militia officer, who only just managed to stop his men from shooting Reave's squad as fifth columnists. The arrival of Reave and his people seemed to add to an already confused situation. The officer paced up and down, shaking his head, while his men looked ready to jump at their own shadows.
'I don't understand why you were sent back here. Half the brigade's been moved forward to the platforms.'
Reave just shrugged, relying totally on the military's God-given talent for fouling up.
'Hell, I don't know. I just follow orders, I don't cut them. All I know is that we were in the tunnels, up to our ass in fifth columnists and neoprimitives, and then a runner comes and tells us that we're to fall back to our second position. I wasn't about to complain. It's only a matter of time before the platforms are overrun.'
The officer decided to get a second opinion. The fire position had one of the Krystaleit militia's cumbersome communication sets. In the Damaged World, where no signal could penetrate the nothings and even stabilized reality was awash with energy fog, electronic communication was something of a dying art.
The officer looked at the volunteer operator. 'Are you getting anything on that?'
The operator shook his head. 'Not a damned thing. The whole net seems to be down.'
The officer cursed under his breath and faced Reave. 'I don't know what to tell you.'
There was a series of explosions out on the platforms, and the volunteers looked nervously at each other.
Reave checked the charges on his pistols. 'I figure that at any minute, the question of where we're supposed to be at is going to be pretty damned academic.'
Almost on cue, groups of figures started coming up the access road. First it was medics carrying stretchers and the walking wounded helping each other up the ramp, looking for a secure spot where they could get medical attention. Initially, the retreat was fairly dignified. Clearly, the defenders on the barricades were desperately buying time so the wounded could get out, butin a situation like that time had a nasty habit of running out all too quickly. In a matter of minutes large numbers of defenders were streaming out of the tunnels and back into the city. Some tried to fight an orderly rearguard action, falling back from one position of cover to another, firing back into the tunnels as they withdrew. Others, however, were simply fleeing for their lives in an unseemly rout, even abandoning their weapons in panic as they sought the apparent safety of the interior of the city.
A militiaman was caught in the periphery of a heat blast, and his armor blazed like a Roman candle. Amazingly, he was not killed outright but staggered forward for a few steps, screaming, with his armor streaming green and yellow flames. Reave's face was grim. The moment he had first seen that armor he had known it was no good. Whoever had issued the damn stuff deserved to be taken out and shot.
The first attackers came out of the tunnels, a howling knot of neoprimitives with blood up to their elbows, plus a handful of the green template monsters. It was Reave's first look at the things. Menlo had not exaggerated. They were ugly as sin. Long, purposeless, saberlike fangs extended down from their upper jaws, and the thick, horny claws at the ends of their fingers must have seriously impaired the use of their hands. They were more the product of some fevered nightmare fantasy than custom-tailored fighting machines. It appeared that the only weapons the monsters were capable of using were wide-bladed scimitars and rudimentary slug guns. They did not even move well. They were ungainly and uncoordinated, and they seemed too stupid to avoid exposing themselves as clear, easy targets. A platoon of militiamen formed ranks across the road and loosed volleys of bolts into the raiders emerging from the tunnels. There was even something weird about the way the template monsters died. When they were hit, they first spasmed crazily as though some elementary electrical nervous system was shorting out, and then they collapsed in on themselves like soft containers that suddenly had been drained of their contents.
While the only attackers were the neoprimitives and the green monsters, the platoon on the access road held its own. Then the mounted men started to come out of the tunnels. As Reave knew all too well, they were the real strength of Baptiste and the other warlords. With their speed, firepower, and mobility, they would be more than a match for anything Krystaleit could put up against them.
A squadron of lizard soldiers wheeled out of the tunnels and thundered down on the hapless militia platoon. The militiamen stood their ground to the last moment and even took out three of the riders with their final volley of bolts; then the lizards were in among them, and they were scattered and gone. That was all she wrote. A formation of lancers mounted on tall black horses galloped out of the tunnel but clattered off in another direction.
The Minstrel Boy was up beside Reave with an anxious look on his face. 'This post is going to be a major hot spot in a matter of minutes.'
'Don't I know it.'
Already the volunteers were exchanging fire with the lizard soldiers. For the moment the enemy advance had been halted at the foot of the ramp that led to the upper level. The fire post commanded a clear sweep of the ramp. Once again, though, it was only a matter of time. More and more enemy troops were pouring out of the tunnels, and very soon they would have sufficient strength to rush the ramp. They might not make it on the first try, but by the third or fourth the defenders would be all out of both resolve and ammunition. Either that or the attackers could bring up a particle cannon or some other heavy ordnance, and then it would be over very much fester.
Billy joined the conversation. 'So how do we get out of this mess?'
'All we can do is wait for a chance.'
'If we don't get a chance pretty soon, we won't get no chance at all. I can feel the fat lady getting ready to sing.'
A hail of fire ripped along the top of the sandbag emplacement, and everyone ducked. A volunteer who had overheard a good part of the DNA Cowboys' conversation looked at them in dumb horror. Reave had no time, however, to worry about morale.
'Goddamn it! They're bringing up something heavy.'
The line of lizards at the foot of the ramp had parted to allow passage for a team of foot soldiers hauling a squat metal cylinder on a wheeled mount.
'What the hell is that thing?'
The Minstrel Boy shook his head. 'I've never seen anythinglike it, but it looks like it's quite capable of trashing this little redoubt.'
Reave, in no way bothered that he was usurping the militia officer's authority, yelled to the force of volunteers.'Everybody concentrate fire on that cylinder thing. Make it as hard as possible for them to set it up.'
The enemy seemed to have other ideas. With the neoprimitives and green giants in the front, a grimly determined charge started up the ramp. It had no hope of success, but it drew fire away from the cylinder weapon. One of Billy's tiny smartbombs killed the gun crew plus two lizards and their riders, but it did not seem to harm the weapon, and others immediately moved in to replace the crew.
Reave turned on the militia officer. 'Maybe we should think about pulling out. There's no way we can stop them bringing that thing to bear.'
The officer glared at him. In the background there was the sound of firefights from all over the nearby parts of the city.
'You mercenaries are very good at retreating.'
'There are times when it's a lot smarter than standing around and waiting to be killed.'
The officer's face reddened, and his jaw jutted. 'We're going to stand here and fight, you understand me, mister?'
Reave shrugged. 'It's suicide, but whatever you say.'
The officer's rage and frustration suddenly exploded. 'I said, do you understand me, mister?'
'I understand you,' Reave snarled back at the officer. 'I also understand you've got your tin soldier head up your ass.'
For about five seconds it looked as though the officer was going to shoot Reave out of hand. Then he must have realized that if he did that, Billy and the Minstrel Boy would undoubtedly waste him in return. Self-preservation won out over anger. He turned and directed his anger at his men.
'Keep firing at that damned cylinder.'
Billy crawled up behind Reave. 'We should waste that sucker.'
Reave shook his head. 'Just be ready to get out of here when I give the signal. Tell Renatta and the Minstrel Boy.'
There was a shriek like a compacted hurricane, and half the fire post was instantly vaporized. Billy, Reave, and the Minstrel Boy were all alive, if dazed, amid the rubble. Renatta had beenthrown out of the trench but was already up and crawling for cover. The officer and most of the volunteers were gone. Nosmo and Shaef were also dead.
'That thing's a molecular blaster. I didn't know there were any left.'
'I can't hear you. I've gone deaf.'
Reave was up on his feet. 'Let's go, go, go! Inside the registry building. Move it!'
A full-scale charge was coming up the ramp. Renatta and the DNA Cowboys raced up the steps, followed by the handful of survivors from the fire post, running for the shelter of the central registry building as beams and bullets smashed into the stonework under their feet. Just outside the door Billy fell, but he had only tripped. The Minstrel Boy grabbed him and dragged him inside.
'Are you okay?'
Billy nodded as glass from the door crashed around them. 'Yeah, yeah, which way do we go?'
'We'll make for the basements. There have got to be tunnels down there that'll take us down to other levels. We've got to try and avoid as much of the fighting as possible and make our way to the open nothings.'
The fighting was closing on the heart of the city. For the next half hour the four of them made their way through scenes of slaughter, skirting the worst combat zones and heading as best they could for the outside quadrants, as far as possible from the focus of the attack. Despite their efforts, though, they could not completely go around the violence that was gripping more and more of the city as the raiders pressed home their attack with alarming speed. The defenders of Krystaleit appeared to have just one desperate strategy: They held their forces at key points until the pressure became too great and the casualties too numerous, and then they fell back deeper into the city. All the while they drew closer the hub of the city, the vital center of the great sphere, the energy core, the primary stasis generator and the huge integrated biomass. They knew that the raiders would take no prisoners and that there could be no surrender.
The defenders were constantly hampered by the large numbers of refugees who were being driven back by the kill-crazy raiders. Sections of the city that were in enemy hands were already burning. The raiders were routinely torching buildings,sometimes with defenders or unarmed citizens still inside them. If they intended taking the city as a prize, they seemed perversely intent on leaving themselves little more than a blackened ruin.
In some ways the second wave of the raiders was the worst. They seemed quite prepared to start the looting, raping, and general mindless destruction even before the city as a whole had fallen. The darkened streets were filled with their whooping and yelling, the screams of their victims, and the constant discharge of weapons. The DNA Cowboys were forced to mingle with the bestial mob, doing their best to look like raiders themselves, using the cover of the smoke and moving down streets where dark figures indulged themselves in nameless brutalities against a background of garish flames.
For the first time the Minstrel Boy observed Renatta registering real shock and horror. She looked around at him with eyes that were wide with revulsion. 'It's like a scene out of hell.'
'I think I'd rather choose hell.'
Reave and Billy were a little farther ahead. A smoke-blackened rider with a patch over his left eye grabbed Reave by the arm. The man was on the end of a line of raiders waiting their turn with two unfortunate, terrified women who had been stripped and bound, back to back, against a pillar. Reave's instant reaction was that he had been discovered. He had to stop himself from whipping out a pistol when, a moment later, he discovered that the seeming attack was just an invitation to the party
'You want to join in the fun, asshole?'
Reave, nerves still jangling, quickly shook his head and walked on. 'I got orders.'
The rider's voice boomed after him. 'Fucking snob! You gotta be one of Baptiste's queers!'
Reave gave a slight shake of his head. The bastard did not know how close he was to the truth.
Renatta hissed at the Minstrel Boy. 'Isn't there anything that we can do about this?'
The Minstrel Boy scowled. 'Yeah, we can die trying. Just keep moving. There aren't that many women in this army, and you kind of stand out.'
They started to cross the Laurel Bridge, which spanned the Elitespace and the Elgin hanging gardens. Hallway across, theyhad to press back against the guardrails as a troop of lancers trotted across, driving a dozen frightened women and four young boys in front of them, goading them on with the sharp tips of their lances. Several levels below, a line of four vehicles with a large escort of lizard riders and horsemen was driving slowly up the broad expanse of Khedive Boulevard. Reave recognized the armored car that was second in line.
'That's Bapiste down there.'
'How do you know?'
'I know his car. I figure Protexus, Taraquin, and Zero are in the other vehicles.'
'So the warlords have entered the city.'
'The end can't be long now.'
Billy caressed the multiplex and looked down, judging the range. 'I've still got half a clip of smartbombs left. We could finish this right here and now.'
Reave also looked down. 'We'd never get out alive.'
'I could take them all out at once.'
Reave regretfully shook his head. 'The army would destroy the city anyway.'
Billy put away the smartbombs.
They were approaching the front lines, and there appeared to be no way to their destination without passing through the fighting. Then the Minstrel Boy had an idea.
'You figure the sewers and conduits are still open?'
Billy nodded. 'It's worth a shot. This fighting's been pretty simplistic up to now, all blood and dash. It's possible that they haven't considered the sewers.'
'So we go through the sewers like Harry Lime?' Renatta asked.
The three of them stared at her.
'Who's Harry Lime?'
She shrugged. 'It doesn't matter.'
As Billy had predicted, nobody had considered the sewers. The only things there were the rats and the marls. Almost bent double, they made their way through the semidarkness. The sewers in Krystaleit ran through the actual thickness of the various city levels, and they could tell when they were passing under the shifting combat zones by the impact vibrations that shuddered through the stone and concrete. At one point they halted as a major explosion shook cascades of dirt and dust from the roof of the tunnel.
'I feel like a goddamn mole.'
'Better a goddamn mole than a dead hero.'
The impact vibrations began to decrease, and it seemed that they were actually behind the lines of the defenders.
'I think we should try the surface again.'
They crawled on until they reached a vertical shaft that ran up to a manhole. Reave took the point, climbing the iron rungs that were set in the wall of the shaft and hoping first that the cover would not be locked down and second that it would not open up on a new firefight.
He put his shoulder under the heavy cast-iron cover and pushed up. At first it stuck, but as he applied more pressure it slowly lifted. The first thing he saw was three pairs of solid military-style boots standing around the hole. As he pushed the cover back farther, he found that he was looking into the muzzles of three weapons. For a gut-wrenching moment he thought they had come up on the wrong side of the line. Then he saw the militia uniforms behind the guns.
'Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We're on your side.'
One by one they climbed out of the manhole under the watchful eye of three very nervous militiamen. They seemed to have emerged into a hastily established command area right in the shadow of the core. The sound of heavy fighting was very close, and the troops that were moving around had the grim if hopeless determination of men who were preparing for a last stand in which they had only the most remote chance of prevailing. There was no attempt to disguise the fact that the preparations being made were for selling their lives at the highest possible price. The last of the heavy ordnance was being ranged along a tight perimeter. A half dozen of the heavily armored troopers stood waiting to be deployed in the final last-ditch effort. Close by, a team of technicians were setting up a complicated communcations unit, while groups of officers clustered around looking worriedly at maps and three-dimensional biode displays. The overall atmosphere was one of single-minded concentration on the tasks at hand. Nobody wanted to think about the future when only a miracle would allow them to live to see it. The DNA Cowboys were left in no doubt that they had once again crawled into the frying pan.
Two of the militiamen kept them covered while the third hurried off to find an officer. As they waited, a familiar armored figure powered in on dorsal jets, touched down briefly, had a fast conversation with a group of officers, and then took off again. The DNA Cowboys looked at each other in blank disbelief.
'Jet Ace?'
'What the hell is he doing here?'
'Seems to be on our side.'
'Hurray for us.'
'I think it's confirmation that the world's gone crazy.'
Their exchange made the militia guards even more nervous. The one with a noncom badge snapped at them. 'No talking.'
Renatta tried to reassure them. 'Just take it easy. We're the good guys.'
A short, harried-looking junior officer hurried up. His expression made clear that the last thing he needed was the arrival of the DNA Cowboys.
'Who are you people?'
Reave did the talking. 'Free-lancers. We were separated from our unit, and we've been making our way back through the sewers and conduits.'
'How do I know that you're not enemy infiltrators?'
'You don't, but I doubt that the enemy needs to do any more infiltrating.'
'What's the name of your commanding officer?'
'Reft Zill.'
The officer looked around. 'At least that is easily settled.' He called across the area. 'Master Zill, could you come over here?'
Reave sighed as Zill came waddling up. He could not think of any situation that could be improved by the presence of Reft Zill. 'Hi, Reft. Still alive, I see.'
'I could say the same for you.'
'Do you know these men?' the officer asked shortly.
Zill nodded. 'Sure. They're mine. In fact, I've been trying to locate them.'
'Can I leave them with you?'
'By all means.'
The officer and the three militiamen hurried away. Zill looked the DNA Cowboys up and down.
'So where have you been skulking?'
'Skulking? I'd lay bets that we've been closer to the fighting than you have.'
Zill made a dismissive gesture. 'This is all beside the point. I have a new assignment for you.'
Reave raised a suspicious eyebrow. 'An assignment? Now? What are we supposed to do? Form a suicide squad?'
'Our contracts have been transferred.'
'What are you talking about?'
'You get yourselves to the quadrant J platform. The last we heard, it hadn't fallen to the enemy. If that's the case, transportation will be waiting.'
'Transportation?'
'I thought that would get your attention. If you can make it there alive, you'll be getting out of the city.'
'Why us?'
Zill shook his head. 'Don't ask me. The biode came up with your names. You'd have been the last ones I would have chosen.'
Reave still could not believe what he was hearing. 'We can get out of here?'
'You've been selected to escort a party of the city's metaphysicians out to Palanaque.'
'Palanaque?'
Zill nodded. 'Anywhere's got to be better than here.'
Reave grunted. 'So the rats are leaving?'
'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.'
Reave half smiled. 'Have you found a way out, too?'
Zill's eyes hardened. 'That's none of your fucking business, Reave Mekonta. Just get your ass to J platform and thank whatever miserable gods you may believe in that you've been given a second chance.'