Here we stand, p.30
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Here We Stand, page 30

 

Here We Stand
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  “And I bet they’ll search the house to make absolutely sure this boat isn’t a decoy,” Chris said. “Doesn’t say much for the resolution of their spy sat if they couldn’t identify us, though.”

  “They might be relying on drone swarms instead,” Solomon said. “Fly-sized, much harder to detect. I confess that since my intervention, APS has become less vulnerable to cyberattack. That was inevitable. They’ve had to dust off whatever older technology they can find.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. Hiding’s not an option.” Chris went out on deck to talk to Marc. “They can see us, guys. Are we going to fight it out?”

  Marc was checking something on the probe feed. “Is that four men per raider, Sol?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Okay, let’s ruin their day as much as we can. We’ll worry about the helos when they show up.” He started pulling hardware out of his vest. “Sol, you know what to do. Flood Q or whatever Ingram’s matelots would say.”

  “That’s submariners,” Sol said. “Will do. But it would make it easier if you stopped the boat. We can’t see below deck.”

  Tev gave him a look. Marc shook his head.

  “Pham doesn’t care about collateral damage to women, mate,” he said. “The ladies have to leave, and you with them. We have to use the gate.”

  “That wasn’t the deal, and how’s anyone going to leave now?” Tev asked. “We’re in the middle of the bloody ocean. Where’s the gate?”

  “I was coming to that bit.”

  Marc rapped on the glass. Joni came out of the wheelhouse.

  “Just stop the engines,” Marc said. “Press the button or whatever it is you have to do. Now listen to me and believe what I’m telling you. Tev, go below, get the ladies on their feet at the bow end of the compartment, and watch for something at the stern end that’ll appear in front of you. It’ll look like a patch of mist. A greasy smear. All you have to do is walk through it. I mean just step through. Shove your stuff through first or carry it, whatever, but on the other side of that patch, it’s Nomad Base. That’s how we got there, and how we arrived here.”

  Tev raised his eyebrows, frozen for a second. “I wouldn’t believe that from another living soul.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Well, you didn’t bring a bike, so yeah.”

  “You’ll feel the extra gravity, so mind your step. Sol’s got medics standing by to look after Sera and they’ll run quick die-back scans on you all, but you’ll be safe and well cared for. We’ll worry about the longer term when we’ve dealt with those tossers.”

  “And where will you be?”

  “Right behind you, by about five minutes,” Chris said, joining in the lie. He was sure he knew where Marc was heading with this. Few people passed through a Caisin gate for the first time without dithering, and he had to allow for delays and arguments. Someone needed to hang back and hold off Pham’s heavies until everyone else was through. “Just go, Tev, and take Joni. It’s easy. We’ve done it dozens of times.”

  “I’m not going,” Joni said. “I can’t leave the boat.”

  Tev dug his heels in too. “Too right. How can I leave you two here?”

  Marc grabbed his arm. “Make our job easier and get going. Please, Tev. Do it for me.”

  Chris felt sorry for Tev. The guy wanted to fight because he was forged from the same metal as Marc, but Marc shoved him into the wheelhouse and almost pushed him down the ladder. Joni wasn’t keen to go either, but the last thing Chris saw was his grim expression as he looked through the wheelhouse window at him and the engines stopped.

  Marc raised his rifle and scoped through, looking down at sea level. “Tell me when they’re home, Sol, then close the gate.”

  Marc didn’t sound like he was making a last stand, but Chris faced the possibility of falling into Pham’s hands and was torn between doing as much damage to the bastard as he could or denying him the access he wanted. They could toss their gate locators overboard, too. Sol could still get them out.

  Well, if nothing else, this mission had been a good exercise for using the gate against the Kugin.

  “You never discussed a plan with me,” Chris said, “so I’m guessing my way through this.”

  “So am I,” Marc said. “Are they through yet, Sol?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Tell Tev he might have to push them through.”

  Chris could see the two raiders on his screen but he could also hear a helicopter approaching. Sautu was now bobbing along slowly, dead in the water. The helicopter was probably going to reach them long before the boats.

  “They’re going to try to board, not blow us out of the water, right?” Chris asked.

  “Yeah. They want us alive. And a helo’s vulnerable to ground fire. As is a bloke on a rope.”

  “The ladies have transferred,” Solomon said primly. “No Tev or Joni yet. Tev’s arguing with him about who goes last, but I can’t actually see what’s happening inside the hull. I can only hear voices via Tev’s comms.”

  “Yes, you said that before. I can’t go down there and kick Tev’s arse, Sol. Make him move. Do what you have to.”

  “Very well.” There was a long pause. “Ah. Got him. He’s through now.”

  Marc suddenly stopped and held his aim. It was like watching a cat wriggle its ass and flatten itself when it was about to pounce on something. He had a target.

  “How did you persuade him, Sol?” he asked.

  “He wouldn’t move to the gate, so I moved the gate to him.”

  “You’re a sneaky sod.”

  “No Joni yet, though.”

  “He’ll go. He won’t leave his missus. Chris, go check it out.”

  “I’ve played this game before, Marc. You’re not shoving me through the gate.” Chris could see the helicopter too, and the open door. But roping down to a deck was crazy. They must have known they’d take heavy fire. “How easy it is to hit fuel tanks?”

  “Not as easy as it looks in the movies. And I’ll be shocked if that air frame isn’t hardened.”

  Sol cut in. “Joni still isn’t through.”

  “Can’t you move the gate again?” Chris asked.

  “It’s going to be hard. I could locate Tev accurately by his radio, but Joni isn’t wearing one.”

  “It’s not a football field down there, Sol. He’s in a confined space.”

  “And Fred and I have to be incredibly accurate to move someone I can’t see and who won’t walk through a gate, Chris. I hope it’s occurred to you that we have to place it close enough to grab him.”

  Solomon sounded pissed off. It hadn’t seemed that difficult when he’d yanked Chris away from knifing Pham, but there’d been a probe sending back images for Sol to locate his target. Chris could see the guy in the helicopter’s open doorway, and the guy could probably see that Chris and Marc were ready to open fire. The sea was calm and nobody was going to miss.

  “Steady,” Marc said. “Wait for it.”

  But the guy in the doorway wasn’t the winchman, and he had something in his arms that wasn’t a rifle. He tossed it onto the deck as the helicopter passed overhead. Chris assumed grenades and ducked. Four or five cylinders landed with a muffled thud and the air filled with thick white smoke. It felt like a cold mist on Chris’s skin. For a moment he thought it was some kind of nerve agent, but it wasn’t doing much except obscuring everything. He stumbled his way to the wheelhouse’s rear bulkhead to protect his back. Marc was there already.

  “Those bloody things pump out for ten minutes,” he said. “Persistent non-particulate smoke. Long hang time.”

  “But it’s just smoke, yeah?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s non-toxic. You’ll get your brains blown out, but your lungs will be fine.”

  The helo sounded like it was standing off. It wasn’t going to hover overhead because it’d only disperse the smoke. Maybe they weren’t going to rope down, then. They’d board from the water, over the side. Chris heard the splashes of guys dropping into the sea. He took the port side of the ship while Marc took starboard, sweeping up and down the rail and listening for the sound of rappel hooks on the metal. It was harder to hear with the helicopter around. He put his hand on the metal, trying to feel knocks and vibrations.

  They’re not supposed to kill us. They need us alive. So they’ll have to get up close.

  But the guy came out of nowhere.

  His masked face was suddenly inches from Chris’s. Chris was too close to use the Marquis and the guy knocked him flat on his back and pinned him down. But he couldn’t keep hold of Chris’s right arm, and that was the one that was going to kill him.

  Chris lashed out instantly. He pulled his backup knife from his pants and rammed it into any body part he could reach, over and over, waist and ribs and leg and ass and face, sometimes hitting armour, sometimes penetrating cloth and flesh. He wasn’t going to stop.

  The guy tried to push himself away and that was when Chris had his chance. The blade — four inches, long enough to wound, short enough to use in a struggle — slid in under the guy’s chin. It felt like it went straight into his trachea up to the handle. Blood and spittle hit Chris in the face as the guy choked. Chris held the knife in place and slid it from side to side until the guy wasn’t struggling so much, then rolled him off and just carried on stabbing. It was what he’d wanted to do to Pham. It was cathartic and he knew he’d feel weird about that when he cooled off, but right now, all he could focus on was destruction.

  Shots brought him back to the here and now. He felt like he’d been kneeling astride the guy for ages. He got up to locate Marc, almost fell over another guy lying flat on the deck, and put a round in his head to make sure he was dead. And now he could see Marc. Chris watched him put his sidearm to the head of another guy trying to stand up and fire twice. Chris was sure he saw the blood spray. It was horribly familiar. It was Jamie all over again.

  “Talk to me, Sol. What can you see? Where are they?”

  “One man to your left, coming around from the foredeck, passing the wheelhouse door. No others on board.”

  The smoke was still thick but starting to clear. Chris saw the movement and opened fire with the Marquis. The guy just kept coming, though, like they often did, and that was when Marc crossed the deck, just four strides, and put two shots in his face at close range. The guy staggered and fell onto the icebox held in place by steel rails bolted to the deck. The box was right next to a small metal table, also secured to the deck, where the fish were gutted before they went in the icebox. The man ended up kneeling on the box with his arms stretched across the table, looking like he was at prayer.

  “All down,” Solomon said. “Two raiders still inbound, one helicopter five minutes away, one extra aircraft leaving Vanua Levu. Time to go, gentlemen.”

  Chris was still staring at the weird tableau of the guy sprawled across the gutting table when a massive explosion lit up the sky off the port bow. His first reaction was to drop flat before he was hit by flying debris. But nothing came his way, and he got up again, trying to stop his legs wobbling. He couldn’t hear the helicopter any more. Something had taken it out.

  “Did you do that, Sol?” Marc asked. “I bloody hope you did, or I’ll have to change my mind on religion.”

  Chris looked over the side. The breeze had picked up and the smoke was thinning faster. Something was burning on the surface of the water, trailing wisps of black smoke, and then it was gone.

  “Yes, that was me,” Solomon said. “They’ll think it was launched locally. And the gate’s now proven its capability for missile attacks between remote locations.”

  Marc rolled a body over the side. “You’re a regular fighter ace.”

  “But Joni hasn’t reached Opis. And you have four minutes until another helicopter reaches you.”

  Marc stopped dead. “Christ, why didn’t you say so sooner? Has he been below all this time?”

  “I hope so.”

  Marc looked around the deck. It was the only time Chris had ever seen him look scared. “What are you looking for, Marc?”

  “Bullet holes. Stray rounds. This tub isn’t armoured.” Marc went to open the wheelhouse door. “God, let him be alright. We’ve got to get him out before the rest of Pham’s heavies show up.”

  Chris pulled him back. The last thing Marc needed was to find Tev’s son dead.

  “Marc, I’ll get him,” Chris said. “He’s fine. He’s just been sensible and not gotten in our way.”

  Marc ignored him. Chris blocked the doorway. He was nose to nose with him and it was sobering to try to face down a guy like that.

  “I’ll check,” Chris said. “Don’t make me spell out why.”

  It was a long few seconds and Chris half-expected to be spitting out teeth in the next breath. Marc took a couple of steps away and turned as if he was going to come back and shove Chris aside. “If Joni’s dead —” he began, and suddenly he wasn’t there.

  “I’m getting rather good at that,” Solomon said.

  “He’s going to dismantle you, Sol. I’m going below. Stand by.”

  “Two minutes. Come on.”

  Chris climbed down the short ladder, dreading what he’d see and already imagining the fallout if Joni had been shot. But he was sitting in one of the holds, checking a paper chart. Chris’s gut somersaulted.

  “Sol, tell Marc Joni’s fine,” he said. He tried not to overreact. Joni glanced up, looking guilty for no good reason.

  “I should have come up and helped you two,” he said.

  Chris shook his head. “I’ll explain later why you were right to sit it out, but we’ve got to go now.”

  “I still can’t abandon the boat, Chris. What are we going to do if I can’t work?”

  Chris could hear the helicopter. He was waiting for a gate to open and the chance to push Joni through it. “The boat doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ll find somewhere to hide it. You can come back for me, right? You said you could recover the truck. You need to leave.”

  “I don’t leave anyone behind,” Chris said. Where was the damn gate? “You stay, I stay. I’ve never left a man behind, ever.”

  “You don’t understand, Chris. We depend on this boat.”

  Solomon interrupted. “You’re out of time and I’m moving you now.” There was a smell of burning matches and a sudden silence. Chris waited. “There. I’ve moved you to another area of ocean while we work out a landing site for the boat. It’ll have to be on land because we know that’s safe and the sea isn’t. Stand by for instructions soon.”

  “What happened?” Joni asked. “Was that burning fuel I could smell?”

  Chris went up to the wheelhouse and looked around. The sea was choppier with white foam topping the waves and the sky had become cloudy. Chris didn’t know where they were, but all he needed to know was that they were a long way from their pursuers.

  “We’ve gone through the gate,” he said.

  Joni looked at the screens on the dashboard and then stared at Chris. “We’re three hundred miles east. I didn’t feel anything.”

  “It’s usually like that. The burning smell’s a clue.”

  “Is Sera okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s not like pulling ten G on take-off or anything.” Chris hoped that was true. He switched his radio to speaker so that Joni could hear Solomon. “All clear, Sol?”

  “I’m afraid anyone observing would have seen us vanish, but it’s not the first time Pham’s witnessed that, is it?”

  “Thanks, Sol.”

  Chris ventured out on deck. He could hear nothing except the sea. Sautu was just drifting, engines dead. Joni still looked dumbfounded.

  “We can’t risk dropping the boat in the sea on Opis,” Chris said. “It’s not charted properly yet. She could end up on a reef. That’s why we have to set her down on land.”

  Joni went back into the wheelhouse and pressed something. Chris heard a faint whine from the stern.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m lifting the engines,” Joni said. “If you’re going to put her down on land, we need the propellers out of the way so she can sit on her hulls. But she might still be damaged.”

  “It’s okay. The bots can fix her.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t pitch in and help you guys.”

  “No, that was the sensible thing to do. It’s dangerous enough relying on a glass fibre deck for cover. You’re not armed, you’re not trained, and you had no idea what you’d be walking into, with or without the smoke grenades going off. You could have been caught in the crossfire. You’d have made it a lot harder for us. And Marc would rather die than see Tev lose his son. I don’t need to tell you why.”

  “He’s going to kick my arse.”

  “No, he’s just had a brief fright and he’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Chris had no right to be angry with Joni for risking his life for a damn boat. “We screwed up your lives by coming here. I’m the one who’s sorry. Are we both done apologising now?”

  Coming down off a combat high was something Chris always dreaded. He realised he was covered in blood and he’d pulled a muscle in his forearm, probably from the effort of stabbing. He’d have happily drunk a bowl of Tev’s kava right then just to kill that shakiness. Joni hadn’t said a word about the state of him or the bodies and blood on the deck.

  “I’ll clean up the boat,” Chris said. “I’d better tip those guys overboard before Solomon moves us again.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “No, just worn out.”

  Chris went over to check the three bodies still on the deck and retrieved their weapons, more out of habit than need. Before he tipped them over the side, he wondered whether to find their ID and somehow get word to their families, because their bodies might never be found. He could be stabbing a guy like a maniac one minute and worrying about the widow and kids the next. He wasn’t sure if that was some kind of chivalry or whether he was just fucked up.

 
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