Lasertown Blues Page 4

  “You’re needed at the palace, Captain Storm.”

  “I heard. Garner, come with me. The rest of you, mop up here. We want all as prisoners except this gentleman.”

  “How did you—how did you get in without being heard?”

  Jack smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. “We were here first,” he said. “Waiting.”

  Colin nodded abruptly, and turned away, to give silent thanks that his prayer had been heard.

  Jack used the Purple’s security code to bypass the systems and bring the hover car down on the roof of the Emperor’s wing. He got out and Garner followed him. Garner had his helmet off and tucked under his arm like a second head. His spiked hair had been squashed and was just now fantailing back up, like a once crinkled piece of shrink wrap.

  “What are we doing up here?”

  “The fastest way in is down.” Jack leaned over. He sought, and found, the terraces outside the main ballroom. “Chances are most of the security systems have been circumvented. Anchor here and rappel down to that balcony.”

  The second man leaned over. Even in the darkness of the night, his face took on a shiny pallor. He quickly donned his helmet.

  Jack anchored the rope. He wrapped it around his gauntlets and gave a quick jerk. The test-weight had been chosen to bear up to the weight of the battle armor, but Jack had his doubts. He snapped the rope a couple of times and then mentally shrugged. Once he was over the side, it was all moot anyway. He fashioned the rappel loop and sling and took his position on top of the retaining wall, back to the drop.

  He waited until Garner joined him and they pushed off together. The first drop put a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach until the loop tightened and he slowed himself, then brought his feet up and braked to a stop. Garner bounced, twirled at the end of his line, then scrambled to brace himself, a shuddering twin to Jack. The com came on.

  “How much farther?”

  Jack looked back and down. He smiled grimly though the other couldn’t see it. “Another good drop should do it.”

  He thought he heard a gulp as he swung his arm back and let the rappel loop him downward.

  He hit the balcony a little harder than he wanted, and even though the suit took most of the jolt, he still felt it clear to his kneecaps. Jack moved fast, shrugging out of the rappel sling as fast as he could. Garner plummeted to a stop next to him and began shedding his lines as quickly.

  Here the ballroom walls sparkled at them, half-lit even at night. Jack went to the panes of glass in the outside door. He cocked a finger. The laser played a low beam over the glass.

  “What’re you doing? We can just walk through here.”

  “Different alarm system. I don’t want to set it off if I can help it.”

  The glass sloughed off under the beam and puddled its way down the door. Jack reached in and gently opened the door. He stepped through, Garner at his heels. He may have set off the silent system, but not the klaxons and that was the main idea. The assassin would have to work his way down this corridor to get to Pepys and Jack wanted the advantage of surprise.

  “How do we know if he’s gotten past us or not?” Garner asked when Jack told him, as they peered into the outer corridor.

  “We don’t.”

  “But then—” Garner’s voice staggered to a halt as Jack cut him off.

  He swept a quick look over the interior of his helmet. With a side movement, he chinned on his infrared screen and then scanned the hallway. In front of them, minute patches of heat glowed, rapidly fading.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Check your infrared. And then shut down and stay quiet. I don’t know if the assassin’s monitoring frequencies or not, but I don’t want to chance getting picked up. Follow my lead and if you don’t know what you’re doing, then stay out of the way.” Jack shut off the com. He felt himself frowning. The assassin was getting careless. Maybe, this deep inside the palace, he didn’t feel the need for caution. He went after the “footprints.”

  Garner hesitated, then followed. He watched the man in the white Flexalinks, realizing that Jack moved with a confidence in the battle armor that he could only hope to achieve someday.

  He had no chance for another thought as, in front of him, the assassin jumped Jack.

  It would take a better mind than his, Garner thought, to describe the mayhem that followed next. Black shadow fought white in the narrow confines of the corridor, dark water trying to drown out a bright sun. No matter how supple and fluid the murderer was, Jack outstepped the kicks, jumps and handblows. The stiffness of the armor flowed away into a grace that made Garner drop his jaw in astonishment.

  As the whirling, death-dealing assassin moved, Jack was there to counter it. Wrist to wrist and foot to foot. The assassin seemed unaware he fought armor, not mortal man, and then Garner saw the gleam of instruments in his hands and knew that the assassin could rip Jack open like a can if he wished—if he could just get ahold of Jack.

  White divorced black for a second. The assassin crouched, hunched over and panting like a madman. Then, as if realizing he was defeated, he whirled and dove toward the corridor’s end, determined to get to the Emperor. Jack cocked his hand and pointed.

  With the flare of laser fire, the alarms blasted and the lights came on.

  Garner took off his helmet and squinted at Jack in the harsh light of the palace’s outer corridor. His nostrils flared at the smell of singed flesh as he stepped over the heap of assassin Jack had just cut down. “Did you leave enough for Intelligence?” Jack gave a short nod. He turned away and took his helmet off, and carried it under his left arm.

  Garner skirted the growing puddle of blood. He caught up with Jack. “That was—uh—pretty good.”

  “Good?”

  He flushed. “Well… thorough. I guess we got the group and the assassin pretty cleanly. I guess the Emperor’s going to be pleased with us. I, uh, want to thank you for letting me be in on this.”

  Jack’s eyes glittered. He answered, “No thanks necessary.”

  “I, ah, also want to apologize for the hard time I gave you in Basic. I guess I was wrong.” Garner had taken off his helmet and now examined it as he held it awkwardly between his hands.

  “No apology necessary,” Jack said crisply. “Consider this a reward for being able to recognize a dangerous man when you see one.” He turned on his heels and left as the rapidly marching footsteps of the Intelligence unit coming in to pick up the pieces could be heard swiftly approaching them.

  Garner stood, weight balanced slightly on one foot, in wonderment.

  “Congratulations, Captain Storm, on a good job.” Pepys beamed. He held a 3-D structure in his hands that might have been a game, or a new project, Jack couldn’t tell which. The Emperor set the object down. “St. Colin was well pleased, as was I. Intelligence informs me that, had it been necessary to attack the main base, we would have been facing a wall of women and children first.” The Emperor shook his head. “A massacre would have taken place.” He ran a wiry hand through his frizzled red hair. The electric green eyes held his a moment, and then the Emperor smiled, almost apologetically, in response to something he saw in Jack’s face. “Yes, Jack, I’m afraid I used you somewhat. My sources had already reported trouble before Colin came to me. I’m glad that he did. We knew each other years ago and I’d hate to think ill of him now. I thought this was a good opportunity to see what the Guard was made of.”

  Jack’s stomach shifted. He thought of a wall of religious fanatics, women and children, for his suit to wade through. “Thank you, sir,” he said stiffly. The collar of his dress uniform scratched at his neck.

  Pepys nodded. “At ease, captain. And remember that I owe you one.”

  Dismissed, Jack turned and left the antechamber. He tasted sourness at the back of his throat. He would collect one of these days.

  With that thought in mind, and the realization that he needed someone to talk to, he turned out of the palace and headed for his quarters.
Amber hadn’t seen them yet. He thought of calling her.

  Entertaining that pleasant idea—along with the realization that he would have to make it a special occasion and Amber cared little for budgets—he made his way to his private quarters.

  The battle armor was hanging inside, cleaned and powered after the last encounter. It tugged at him now, calling for him with thoughts of victory and invincibility. Jack shrugged the call aside. He was still in command of the suit, but he should probably ask Amber for additional reinforcement. He punched the handlock and pushed his door open. As he crossed the doorway, he heard an almost imperceptible snap and then a rush of air. He panicked.

  Jack reeled and hit the floor face first.

  PART II

  Chapter Four

  Sand. Everywhere, the rolling, waving hills of sand. Jack ran his tongue over his teeth, feeling the grit across his enamel. Intelligence reports said that a microbe inhabited the sand, a tiny, living being that Thraks fed on the way whales did plankton from the ocean. He didn’t know about that, but he did know about chiggers, and the sand affected him the same way once he took the suit off.

  He straightened, feeling naked without his armor, and looked out over the dunes. He shouldn’t be here. He knew that. And it was cold, very cold, so that with every step he took, he broke a crust of ice over the sand, sending it crackling away from his boots.

  He was alone and unarmored, fighting a war he knew had long since ended. Jack scrubbed at his face. The corners of his eyes were crusted as though he’d been asleep.

  Sleep. His heart made a thump in his chest. He looked at his hands and saw they were whole again, and knew a second of blind panic. He was dreaming—he’d been locked into cold sleep again.

  And it was a dream from which he could not wake himself.

  “Lieutenant!” A heavy hand pounded his shoulder. “Repair says th’ suits are ready to go.”

  Jack knew the voice of his sergeant. Reality slipped away from his grasp as he was locked into repeating the last fateful days of his battle on Milos. “All right, sarge. Tell ‘em to suit up. We’ve been ordered to make a drop.” Was that what he’d said? Exactly? Would he get it right this time? Or could he skew it around and change it—Jack swung around.

  Staging met his eyesight, with his platoon standing around in various levels of readiness. His sergeant pushed a laser rifle into his hands and said, “Need any help, lieutenant?”

  “No. No thanks, sarge.” Jack turned away, bile acrid in his throat. His suit waited for him, swaying on an equipment rack. He said nothing more, but inside he was screaming. He was caught in an endless loop of memories in which there was no glory and no victory.

  “You don’t have to do it. They can’t make you.” Amber materialized next to him, swinging her tawny mane of hair with customary defiance.

  “I’m locked in.”

  “Aw, c’mon, farm boy. You know better than that. The two of us can do anything together. I got the street smarts and you’re the white knight—remember?” She looked at him with pretended wide-eyed innocence. “You mow ‘em down and I’ll pick their pockets, right?”

  Jack blinked. Thraks didn’t have pockets. He reached out to touch her shoulder and she crumbled into a pile of beige and pink sand. He leaned over and picked up a handful, letting it run out of his fingers. Unlike everything else here, the sand that had been Amber was warm. At his back, the platoon kidded each other with warm obscenities while they suited up. Then, there was silence as Jack stood.

  A growl pierced the air. It set the hair on Jack’s neck on end. He forced himself to turn around.

  They stood in rows like gaming pieces upended in the sand, in armor that might as well be empty for all the animation they showed. The face plates were screened, reflecting a charcoal emptiness back at him. Jack forced a swallow down a dry, constricted throat. He was afraid, deathly afraid, because he knew what was going to happen next. “Sarge? Sarge!”

  The armor groaned. It was a sound that came from deep in the earth under their boots, vibrating upward through stone layers and sand. Jack shuddered to hear it. He felt sweat beading his brow. He needed to get into his own armor, for protection and power, but he stood, rooted.

  As Knights, they’d painted insignia on their chests. Family logos, symbols, irreverent gestures. The armor facing him represented men he’d trained with and led and he knew every beige, white, black, khaki, and brown Flexalinked man he faced.

  But these were no longer men. Jack brushed the back of his hand across his forehead, smearing the sweat, and heard the noise of the armor tearing apart, as the beast within burst out.

  Huge. Bigger than the armor, cloaked in shreds of bone and flesh that had once been human, the great gray-green reptile burst out. White teeth flashed and red eyes burned, and a frill went up as the berserker charged him.

  Jack closed his eyes and screamed, but the sound never left his throat.

  He was alone, walking the sand dunes of Milos, where grass and a forest had once grown. The Thrakian sands crunched under his feet like glass because it was cold, terribly cold, and he knew he’d been trapped in cold sleep again.

  Amber felt chilled by the night air as the Purple’s hard hand closed over her elbow, guiding her through the compound. She’d had time enough to throw a robe on, but her feet were bare. She asked no more questions, because she knew that he wouldn’t answer any more than he already had. All she knew was that something had happened to Jack.

  She stumbled across a rough tile and stifled the pain in her throat. The Purple was tense and angry and she wondered if he blamed her for whatever had happened.

  They reached the officer’s quarters, deep inside the Emperor’s private grounds. Light beaconed across the walkway, spilling out from an open door. She saw uniformed men standing around inside… other bodyguards and, her lips thinned, World Police. She had little regard for the intelligence squad. She’d have to mind her manners. Jack would expect it of her.

  But, to her relief, she saw no sprawled corpse on the flooring as the Purple guided her in.

  The Guard straightened and snapped out a salute. The Purple returned it. “Anything definite?”

  “Just this, sir.” One of the intelligence officers held out a tiny plastic capsule. “We found it rigged just inside the overhead venting.”

  “What was in it?”

  Amber stared at the capsule pinched between the Purple’s fingers. Gas. Potent, too, from the size of the capsule.

  “As near as we can tell, it wasn’t toxic. Knockout, probably. Lab reports will tell us more.”

  Her gaze skimmed the room. There were no signs of a struggle. Bogie stood on a rack in the corner gleaming in the artificial light. She’d wait until the room had been emptied, then see if the suit had sensed anything. Its growing sentience flickered in and out of awareness, usually only alive if Jack occupied the armor… but she was willing to try anything, even if it meant coping with Bogie’s belligerence.

  “Have we had a ransom call?”

  “No, sir. Not yet.”

  The Purple looked down at Amber. “I think it’s safe to assume that Jack is still alive, or he wouldn’t have been taken alive. We’ll find out why whenever they want us to know.”

  She looked up. “And that’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”

  “We’ll have to examine the sentry tapes, see if our cameras recorded anything.”

  The World Police officer said stiffly, “It’s already been done, sir. There’s no record of any breaking or entering. No one was in these premises except for the captain.”

  Amber snorted. She looked around. Chances were the tapes had been altered, or wiped, or the cameras circumvented. Any amateur could do as much. She wasn’t impressed.

  The Purple dismissed the officers. He stood in the doorway. “You can’t stay. This is a high security area.”

  She flopped down in an armchair. “You mean it was a high security area. Just for a little while. I know him better than anyone. Th
ere might be something here we’ve overlooked. Maybe the gas didn’t get him. Maybe he’s gone out after someone.”

  The silver-haired man looked at her. His deep brown eyes accented his tanned face. The expression wasn’t the humorous expression she remembered. He looked, she reflected, worried. “All right. I’ll give you an hour or two, but then call for an escort and go home, all right?”

  Amber nodded. “All right.” She swiveled the chair around as the front door closed. She looked at Bogie.

  His hands burned and his left foot was in agony. Jack writhed in the darkness that surrounded him.

  “Careful there. This man’s had frostbite injuries before… look at the amputations. Couple of toes here and a finger there.”

  “Cold sleep?”

  “I doubt it. Anyone that cold generally doesn’t wake up.”

  Jack struggled. He could feel hands roaming over him. He swam through the blackness and held his breath, trying to break surface.

  “Breathing’s irregular.”

  “He’s coming out of it, doctor. It’s the drowning syndrome.”

  Voices washed over him fuzzily.

  “All right then. Watch him. Keep an eye on the monitor. We could still lose this one to de-fib. I don’t like the reaction.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jack twisted, then relaxed, as a warm sheet covered his body. He began to shiver violently, out of control, his teeth chattering. He still couldn’t get his eyes open, but he clenched his teeth.

  “Take it easy.” The woman’s low voice soothed him. He felt the weight of another thermal blanket being draped over him.

  “You… found me.”

  “Found you? No, you’ve been right here, berthed with everyone else. Just lie back until you’re warmed. You’ve had a tough time coming out of it.”

  Jack felt the blankets being tucked in. He tried to move a hand and found it strapped down. “Lost. We’ve been lost.” His eyelids flickered. He’d been lost for seventeen years, asleep, and now was found again. He relaxed as the shivering abated. He was awake again, found again. Claron and rangering would be awaiting him. He’d dreamed the firestorm. Life would be good and green again. Everything was fine. Nothing would go wrong this time.