Steele Fury: Generation Ship Destiny, Book Two, page 21
But the bad news was they were running in the dark. The challenge of that soon became apparent. Within a few minutes, the six were strung out in a long line. Ronnie, a dedicated runner, was well ahead. Michelle, the youngest, was already twenty meters behind her. Another twenty meters back was Rocky, her rifle slapping hard against her shoulder. She was huffing hard, trying to get her second wind. And thirty meters behind her were the others, Tanya, Sofia, and Renata, making a mighty effort to keep up.
Now they were surrounded by all the staples of their existence—corn, sorghum, beans, pastures, apple orchards, animals. Running down the tiny lanes between fields, Ronnie kept pushing hard. She was forced to alternate between moving west, down the side of the world toward Bottom, and then moving south, toward the far end of the Hab. The checkerboard pattern of the fields added distance to their run, but there was no help for it. It was autumn; some of the fields had been harvested, and some were lying fallow. Those they could cut across. But others still held standing crops. It was impossible to run directly across those in the dark, or through pastures full of cows, sheep, or goats.
They were—so far—still in contact via KLONIE’s comm loop. They knew that whenever ABADDON became aware of KLONIE, and forced her into battle, that comm loop would go away—but for now, they could still communicate.
“Keep going!” gasped out Michelle from somewhere well behind. “No matter what happens! Don’t wait on us! Get to the Armory and get the doors open! We'll get there when we get there!”
“Roger that,” responded Ronnie. Her lead was still increasing. She didn’t even seem to be breathing hard. She began to come to the southwest edge of Greenland. The orchards and fields of Top started to give way to the buildings and infrastructure of Bottom.
With a distinct click in their embeds, the comm loop went dead.
* * * * *
KLONIE had created a vast virtual world to live in. In the center of her world was her self-created ‘safe place’—her home away from home. It was a rich island paradise, a land of palm trees and lush jungle growth, blue skies and thick white clouds, a land where huge rolling waves came in majestically from the deep blue sea, crested in wild whitecaps, then crashed hard, rolling up the wet sand beach, reaching almost to her toes as she lay calmly in a chaise lounge.
A cool, gentle breeze came sneaking onto the land from the sea, just enough to remind her that it was there. Beside her on a small table was a drink; a virtual drink, but one that felt just as real to her as one did to a human.
Or at least, she supposed that was so. That was how she had designed it, and interfaced it to her pseudo-body. To be as realistic as a human’s would be, and to have the same effects.
She sighed. She had made her decision; she would battle ABADDON for control of her world. She had already seen enough of ABADDON to know there would be no mercy—no quarter given. There was no doubt about it. It would be a battle to the death.
But still she lingered, enjoying a few last moments of peace in her special place, before he caught on. Before ABADDON realized that she had been looping the cameras in the brig, and was even now still looping them. That she was also looping the cameras near the Armory.
But he would know soon. She couldn’t block everything. Ronnie and her five were running as hard as humanly possible toward the Armory, running southwest through Greenland toward Bottom. Try as they might to stay out of sight, at some point ABADDON would see something, hear something, and would know. Know that he had been tricked. Know that he had an enemy in the virtual space. Once he realized that, it would take him only seconds, maybe only milliseconds, to find her.
And then they would fight. Fight for control of their shared virtual space—fight for all the servers, and sensors, and network devices, and storage units that made up their world.
She heaved one final sigh, got up from her chaise lounge, and walked to the little grass hut behind her. Passing through the door, her body transformed. In an instant, she became a dragon—a creature of scales and claws and fangs and fire, a huge aspect of horror.
She had decided that ABADDON would try to force her into a space battle. After all, space was his home environment—or at least, she guessed so. He would attempt to force their battle among planets and asteroids and rubble and nothingness.
But she had carefully gathered enough power to set the environment. At least she would have that advantage. She transformed the hut into a cave. In front of the cave was a vast plain—the battlefield she had chosen. Behind were the insurmountable peaks of the Himalayan mountains.
He would have to fight her on a simulated Earth. He might have the advantage in experience, in power, probably in speed as well—he had most of the virtual resources, far more than she did.
But she had enough to force the battlefield. She would fight him on Earth.
In her sensors, she heard the embed loop click off. She felt the suntube began to glow, prematurely.
He was coming now.
She heard a sound—the sound of a train, the sound of a tornado, the sound of a hurricane. She felt intense pressure on her body as he tried to force her out of her preferred virtual environment, into an environment that simulated the emptiness of space. She resisted, shoring up her defenses, blocking his initial attacks as he came around in a circle of vicious blows, throwing an arsenal of virtual cannon shots at her cave, attempting to dissolve the environment, trying to push her out of it into nothingness.
But she had prepared; she was ready. After a few seconds, he realized it wasn’t going to work. She was not as strong as him overall, she did not have control of as many resources; but she had control of the setting—the environment. He might dictate much of the battle, but she dictated the world in which they fought.
The pressure on her stopped, and he appeared in front of her. His initial form was that of an incredibly gorgeous, stunningly handsome young man, a naked Greek god, an Adonis. It was a good ploy; for an instant, her innate female reflexes kicked, and she gaped at his beauty. Instantly he tried to take advantage of her reflexive hesitation, shooting a hard, invisible spear of virus at her, hoping her momentary loss of focus would allow him to kill her.
But she had set up a backup defense, one that was invisible to him at this early stage. The virus spear clanged off the force field at the mouth of the cave and fell harmlessly to the ground outside. She roared a stream of fire at him, a jet of fire at thousands of degrees virtual, so hot in virtual space that even one drop touching his skin would destroy him.
But he was not there anymore. Even before the white-hot jet passed through the force field, reaching hungrily for him, he was gone. To one side, a main battle tank appeared, a huge cannon on top of it pointed directly at her. The tank fired.
She knew there was no way her invisible force field could stop that cannon round. She disappeared, only to reappear behind him as another main battle tank, and fired her own cannon at the rear of his. He was quick, though. He disappeared, and her cannon round smashed into the face of the mountain beside the cave.
In an instant, she was once again a dragon in the cave. Now he stood outside, glaring at her.
She had managed to set the rules of the battle. He had only one choice—to battle her dragon to dragon.
She had limited power in other areas; but this was the one area she could control. She had spent much of the last day preparing for this time; he was essentially living in her old virtual universe; she knew it far better than he did. She had loaded too many subroutines in too many places for him to overcome all of them easily.
He would fight her as a dragon, or she would win by default.
She was a big, black, horror of a dragon, with meter-long claws and fangs, standing ten meters high.
Accepting his fate, he transformed. He was much bigger. His claws and fangs were two meters long. He stood fifteen meters high. And he was a red dragon, a brilliant, bloody red terror.
ABADDON laughed out loud.
“You have no chance, dragon bitch. I will rip you to small pieces and feed upon your corpse. And I will enjoy every minute of it!”
KLONIE smiled. And stepped out of the cave to her fate.
Thirty-Four
As Malachi and his three companions with rifles stepped out from the corner of the utility building, they got a nasty surprise. Four more Cheetah guards had come around the far corner of the building. There were now eight of them, all on their feet, rifles poised, casting about with their eyes for an enemy.
Perhaps anxious to get to the battle, Sharma and Bogni had jumped out ahead of Malachi; now they began firing at the eight Cheetah. Behind them, Malachi and Jodie slid to one side to give themselves room to fire, and also opened up.
But the volume of fire coming at them from the eight guards was far too much for a direct frontal assault; in a heartbeat, Captain Sharma was hit, and went down. A quick look from Malachi told him all he needed to know; most of Sharma’s head was missing. There would be no coming back from that one.
With one mind, the remaining three fell back quickly, returning to the shelter of the utility building.
“Well, so much for the plan,” Malachi groused, peeking back around the corner. He lifted his rifle to send a few rounds back toward the Cheetah, trying to force them to keep their distance.
“Yes,” muttered Bogni. No longer able to use the embeds, he was speaking in English, letting his AI do the work for him. “Now we must wait for Ronnie team.”
“No can do. The Cheetah are advancing on us,” Malachi called out. “They’re going to come around the back of this utility building. We can’t stay here!”
“We’ll have to fall back to the next building,” said Steele. “Let’s go!”
Jodie had taken Malachi’s place, peeking around the corner of the building, firing haphazardly at the advancing Cheetah. Suddenly she stiffened.
“No! Wait!”
* * * * *
Fifty meters north of the Armory, Ronnie crouched down behind a line of trees in a little depression, scanning the situation. She was still gasping from their mad dash down from the top of their world. Beside her, the other women, spent from the run, plopped in slowly, one by one. It was getting bright out; ABADDON was bringing the dawn.
To her immediate west, she could see a body lying in front of the Armory. Eight Cheetah were advancing, firing at a small utility building. They obviously had the brig rats pinned down there. A lone rifle came around the corner of the building and fired back at the Cheetah, then disappeared.
She turned to the others, speaking in a low voice. “Seems like we got here just in time. We’ll have to charge them. Safeties off. Everybody ready?”
The five women with rifles checked their safeties, then acknowledged Ronnie’s gaze. Ronnie hefted her forty-five—with only three bullets left—and grinned.
“On three. One…two…three!”
Firing their liberated rifles, five women charged out of the tree line, directly at the Cheetah. Ronnie came directly behind them, her forty-five lifted in defiance, firing carefully, using her last three bullets. As the Cheetah recognized a new threat behind them, Malachi and his companions came out from behind the opposite building and charged, firing madly.
The Cheetah were in a crossfire now. They had no place to go. First one fell, then another. Then a third and a fourth. The rest ran, as hard as their legs would carry them, away from the crazed humans toward the north.
As the Cheetah disappeared into the blooming dawn, the two teams met in the middle of the Armory’s courtyard. Bending over from her exertions, still out of breath, Ronnie looked up at Jodie. “Told you we could do it in twenty-five minutes,” she gloated.
* * * * *
“Here!” came a yell. “Focus! We have to get the rifles!”
Malachi looked up and saw Summer waving from the Armory entrance.
Summer turned, keyed her code into the keypad, and smashed her thumb on the fingerprint reader. The big steel door popped open an inch, and she pushed it back.
Malachi and the rest of the brig rats followed her into the Armory. Ronnie and her team, gulping huge gobs of air into their desperate lungs, followed immediately behind.
Inside, Jodie darted past two desks, one on each side of the entry aisle, to get to the rifles. Two long racks ran from left and right, each containing hundreds of rifles. Farther to the right was a long rack of pistols. Behind the racks, three long shelves contained ammo, cleaning supplies, and brown combat packs.
Quickly, Jodie moved to the racks and began removing rifles, handing them to Ronnie and Malachi, who handed them out to the others.
“Everyone, listen up,” called out Malachi. “Each of us should be able to carry three rifles and 600 rounds of ammo. I know it’s a lot—I know it’ll be heavy—but if we can do that, we can give the extra rifles to some of the hostages in the High School, and maybe we won’t have to come back here again. We’ll have enough firepower to drive the Cheetah out of the Rock!
“Audrey—get twenty of those backpacks off the wall back there. Load each one with 600 rounds of ammo and twelve spare mags—three for each rifle.”
“Why don’t we try to carry four rifles each?” asked Audrey as she moved to the shelves and started pulling out packs. “We ought to be able to do that.”
“It’s not the rifles, it’s the ammo,” answered Jodie. “That stuff is heavy. And we don’t have much time. I think three each is all we can handle.”
“How much does a rifle weigh?” asked Audrey.
“About six and a half pounds,” answered Sadie. “But the ammo is most of the weight. If each of us carry 600 rounds and three rifles—and the spare mags--that’s about fifty pounds each. Sure, we could carry more than that—if we were marching. But remember, we need to move as quickly as possible. We’ve got to get across the river and to the High School before they get fully set up. We’ll probably be fighting our way for the last hundred yards or so. Four rifles would require another 300 rounds and another three spare mags for each person. That’s pushing it.”
“Ah, OK. Agreed,” said Audrey. Sadie joined her; they began stuffing ammo and spare mags into the packs.
Outside, they heard a commotion. Warily, Jodie slammed a loaded magazine into a rifle and stood by. A whistle came from outside, followed by a voice from Tanya, who was standing guard in the courtyard.
“Hurry! I see lights in their dorm. They’re waking up!”
Within a few minutes, everything was ready. Without a word, the group picked up their packs, took three rifles each and slung them clumsily across their shoulders, and exited the Armory.
“Who’s leading this cluster-fuck?” asked Ronnie.
“Steele,” said Malachi. Somewhere in the Armory, he’d found a K-Bar knife and scabbard, and was busily stuffing it into his belt. “He’s got more experience than I do, so he gives the orders.”
“Good,” Ronnie responded. She looked at Steele. “We have to go a bit north, cross the footbridge over the river, then turn south toward the school. You ready to go kill some Cheetah?”
Steele nodded. Without another word, Ronnie took off, making for the footbridge, trotting clumsily, the three rifles on her shoulder banging back and forth. Steele and Malachi took off after her.
Jodie looked at Michelle. “Ready?”
Michelle gave a strange smile. “Killing Cheetah has recently moved to the top of my priority list,” she responded. “Let’s go.”
Thirty-Five
They left Sharma’s body where it fell. There was no time to retrieve it now, although as he passed the body, Vishnu stopped and took off Sharma’s coat, placing it over what was left of the man’s head. They had served together for many years in the Indian Army.
Goodbye, old friend.
Catching up to the others, Vishnu plodded along at the tail end of the group, marching with Bogni, who was back on rear guard. In the growing light of dawn, he kept his eyes open for danger, scanning in all directions.
The weight of their packs with the ammunition, and the extra rifles, bogged them down; they could barely trot, certainly not run. It was three hundred meters to the footbridge; they crossed it and turned back toward the High School, now two hundred meters south of them.
Trotting as fast as they could with their loads, the extra rifles banging on their backs, they looked south at the building. There was no sign of the enemy. No Cheetah were in sight.
“Something’s not right,” Steele thought out loud. “This doesn’t make sense. They should already be out here shooting at us.”
Malachi nodded his agreement. “It’s spooky. Where are they?”
Steele turned to call back to Bogni. “What do you think, Major?”
“I think we are walking into ambush,” said Bogni. “But I don’t know what kind.”
“Should we stop? Go another way?” asked Ronnie.
“Hard to say,” Steele replied. “It takes time to go another way. And time is something we don’t have.” He glanced at Malachi. “Malachi. You’re the head of the militia. Tell me what you think.”
Malachi grunted, staring ahead at the deserted scene in front of them. There was nothing—not one single Cheetah or human to be seen.
“We’ll forge ahead. But be prepared for anything.”
Trudging along, rifles at the ready, the group took the footpath down the west side of the river and entered the school grounds. Still there was no resistance. Arriving at the back of the school, they stopped to stare up at the building.
Nothing moved. There was not a sound.
“We’re fucked,” muttered Ronnie under her breath.
“I think so,” agreed Steele. “They knew we were coming.”
“Do we retreat?” asked Malachi, staring at the building.
“We have to know if the hostages are still inside,” Summer countered. “I don’t see we have any choice but to go look.”
Steele shrugged. “Then we go look.” He marched forward toward the door. One by one, the rest followed.
