On a Pale Ship Read online

  Tenderly, Tali set her wounded foot on top of the wall. Pain lit her up and she cursed under her breath as she hobbled to the men, pulling comm sets from around their necks and binding their feet and hands with ties.

  "You should turn around very slowly," a thickly-accented voice said from behind her.

  "Groglesnout?" Jimmy asked, picking himself up.

  "Eight-hundred-kilogram amphibian," Luc said, pulling a narrow-bladed sword from his back where it sat in a scabbard next to his bokken.

  "And you're going to go all samurai on it?" Jimmy asked. "I'm pretty sure Roci and me can take care of its cantankerous ass."

  "Can't afford to give away our position."

  "We're five meters into the muck, son," Jimmy said. "If they didn't see the TaunTaun land, I'd be willing to bet they won't be watching for a slugfest in the mud."

  "It is personal," Gob said quietly. "A groglesnout nearly killed his team member."

  Jimmy nodded in understanding. "I can get behind that."

  "Meet me on shore," Luc said. "Ready?"

  Two green dots appeared on Luc's HUD next to Gob and Jimmy's names, the team having adopted the ready-check from Tali's instruction. Without further hesitation, Luc opened the TaunTaun’s hatch and waited, holding onto a bar as water flooded the compartment. They exited the craft, Luc covering his team as they swam for shore.

  The air escaping the capsule had attracted the beast, which looked like a comical combination of crocodile and goldfish. Stubby flat feet like those of a crocodile propelled it along the mud. A sickly white-orange hide covered its bulbous fish body which narrowed to a thin tail that thrashed back and forth, kicking up mud from the bottom.

  For a moment, Luc allowed apprehension to fill him. What must Emilie have felt as the beast ripped her from the Falcon's ejection seat? He used that apprehension to fuel his anger and slid to the side, holding the blade of his sword perpendicular to his body as the beast rushed past, unable to track his quick movement.

  Seemingly unfazed, the groglesnout turned toward him, its fish tail allowing it a greater turning axis than might have been possible outside the water. The beast, however, failed to recognize the danger of its own momentum that had allowed Luc’s blade to split it open. Luc slid his sword back into its scabbard and pushed on his arc-jets, heading for the surface as the now forgotten amphibian rolled away into the mud.

  "That do it for you?" Jimmy asked as Luc joined them on the shore.

  "Move out," Luc said, drawing a path for Gob that led to the entry gate.

  "How are we getting in?" Jimmy asked. "We were supposed to land inside."

  "We'll take the gate," Luc said. "I've been through it once. We can breach relatively easily. They only man with three. The real problem is once we're inside. If those towers aren't taken down, we'll be in the open."

  "That's bad design," Jimmy argued as they jogged along the shoreline behind Gob. "What gate doesn't hold out an invading force?"

  "They're not worried about a small group. The walls are built to hold out a large invasion force and defend against an attack from the sea," Luc said. "Now cut the chatter."

  As the three men approached, Luc's eye was drawn to a searchlight on the northern wall. Due to their position, he couldn't see more, but quietly hoped its presence didn’t mean Tali had been compromised.

  "Contact," Gob whispered into the comm. Luc pushed worries aside and marked the man Gob identified. It was the forward guard who stood outside the gate. On his first visit, Luc had been greeted by a man in that same spot, so it wasn’t a surprise.

  "Jimmy, take him quietly if he alerts on us," Luc said, scanning the open gatehouse. He'd been through the opening once before and knew the great gate could be dropped in place almost instantly by Grünholz's heavy gravity.

  A second man appeared and Luc marked him as primary. The target stood out of the rain and was obviously of higher rank.

  "We're made," Gob announced, just as a siren screeched and bright lights illuminated the entirety of the stone foyer leading to the entry. A moment after his announcement, both their primary and secondary targets dropped, the spitting sounds from Jimmy's weapon barely audible behind the siren's wail.

  "Defensive posture one," Luc commanded as he tried to see past the bright lights. His helmet dimmed the glare, but between the lightning and the rain, he had difficultly locating the enemy.

  Gob reached over his back and pulled a great shield out just as automatic fire chewed into the ground, spitting great chunks of rock and cement into the air.

  Luc and Jimmy crowded in behind Gob as he held off the automatic fire that quickly found them.

  "That's a tower," Jimmy said. "We're pinned down."

  "Corner," Luc instructed, grabbing Gob by the shoulder and pulling him back. They were close enough to the castle wall that for a short time they could gain momentary respite from the fire, but the sirens would awaken many more and the three-man team would quickly run out of choices.

  "Damn it, we can't stay in the open," Jimmy said, ducking out and returning fire on the obscured tower gunner.

  "Copy," Luc said. "Prepare to drop ordnance. We'll have to arc-jet the walls."

  It was his least favorite option. Without their gear packs, they'd be able to get over the wall. The problem was they'd lose the gear necessary to actually breach the cathedral where Luc was certain the children were being held, not to mention where he'd find Marek.

  "Damn," Jimmy said. "I can't get him."

  Chapter 29

  Bang

  Tali raised her hands and set her leg on the ground, hobbling as she turned.

  The guard poked a blaster rifle into her ribs. "You are not very bright, yes? Break into Cauldron? Maybe Khan give you to me as second wife."

  "I don't see it," Tali said. She grabbed the barrel of his gun and pulled it past her side as he fired instinctively.

  She fell due to the transfer of weight to her injured leg, but using her martial arts skills, she pulled him off balance instead. As she fell, a siren pierced the roar of the storm. The alarm was coming from the tower she'd been assigned to take out.

  "Damn," she cursed.

  Tali drove the point of her knife into the guard’s neck as they toppled back. Unable to lever with her injured leg, she found herself trapped beneath the heavy body. She would have preferred not to kill him, but her team depended on her to clean up the mess she’d caused.

  Automatic gunfire was added to the sound of the siren and she scrabbled out from beneath the dead weight. She had a choice to make. The long rifle was a great weapon for taking out an exposed target with relative stealth. That said, it was slow and her team was exposed. Gaining her feet, she grabbed the rifle and limped toward the tower, spurred on by the continuing sounds of automatic fire.

  She looked across to the north tower as a second set of floodlights snapped on. She located two men who were coming up through a trap door in the tower's floor. Mechanically, she raised the long rifle to her arm and fired, dropping both men.

  Upon entering the cover of the building, Tali slammed her hand onto the control that brought up the lights and turned them off. Not surprised but annoyed at being locked out of the turret control she found the ladder that led to the tower roof where the gun was placed. While the automatic targeting system would be computer controlled, the weapon had manual controls in case of critical failure.

  Using arc-jets she pushed through the trap door to the gunner's nest and entered the fray of the storm once again. She clambered into the chair next to the heavy gun and sliced through wires that tied it to the automated controls. Lightning struck the wall a hundred meters away and Tali cackled as she spun the weapon around, bringing the second tower into view.

  Steam rose from the barrel of the gun being fired continuously from the top of the second tower. Tali considered that a good sign, as no one fires on full-auto unless their target is still up. She aimed at the tower and released her first salvo. The weapon bucked beneath her as it pulled
on the thick bolts deeply embedded into the wall's structure, trying its level best to escape. Tali’s first tracer rounds stitched low along the wall, but she corrected and pulled the stream back toward the second tower gun.

  For a moment, the gun stopped firing as the gunner realized something was wrong. Tali grinned sardonically as she stitched a line of death up the wall and into the tower. For a moment, she focused fire on the unoccupied gunner's chair and watched with satisfaction as the turret toppled and fell away.

  A second set of lights came on and she spun the gunner's chair to the only other tower that would have range on her. Before she could fire, the third tower's weapon fired a salvo into the tower beneath her.

  "Guess again, asshole," she screamed over the storm and mirrored their action, obliterating the tower beneath the weapon and then the weapon itself. Pulling zip ties from her waistband, she wrapped the trigger mechanism to an open position and slid from the chair. Without hands to guide it, the chair rotated wildly as it expelled its bullets. The weapon would slag itself in less than a minute and Tali wasn't surprised when she was thrown to the ground as she hobbled away, dragging the long-rifle behind her.

  Luc looked around frantically. Enemy fire from the tower was tearing up the ground. Had they not found refuge behind a corner of the wall, all three would have been torn to pieces. He looked out at the fifteen-meter boats. They might be able to board them and escape, but where would they go and how long could they survive in the choppy waters before Leonidovich ran them down?

  Suddenly, the battle shifted as tracer fire illuminated the sky from the north. The pounding on Gob's shield stopped immediately.

  "Go!" Luc exclaimed, knowing they might only have precious seconds to breach the gate. He slapped a bloop tube beneath his 812 and lobbed two grenades into the entry. It was a calculated move. He might trigger the great gate, but he didn’t want to be held back by resistance at the choke point.

  The three men tore away from the shelter of the wall and sprinted for the gate. As they ran, Gob placed the shield on his back and rotated a short, broad-barreled gun around under his right arm, bringing it up tightly to his shoulder.

  Two guards rounded the corner and pulled up short as they burst through the short passage and turned onto the interior street that ran in front of the wall. Gob didn't hesitate, but lowered his shoulder, looking more like a sports star than a soldier. Jimmy swept Rocinante across and plucked the two off moments before they were thrown to either side by Gob's charge.

  "Now, that's what I call a firing lane," Jimmy exclaimed.

  Luc scanned the two-story buildings they ran past on the way to the cathedral. No sooner did he paint a target than Jimmy brought it down. They'd agreed to use non-lethal rounds on the breaching run. It was a special round Wotton had developed for riot control and other angry civilian-meets-government type engagements. He was pleased that the rounds appeared effective, even against what looked like light armor.

  "Gob, left!" Luc said as a black-caped man jumped out from an alley and fired a fully-automatic weapon. The bullets riddled their point man's chest, stopping Gob cold and bringing him to a knee. Before either Jimmy or Luc could respond, the caped man's head tipped to the side, a red mist trailing behind as he spun down.

  Jimmy grabbed Gob's shoulder and helped him to his feet. "You up, soldier?"

  Gob rotated his arm, freeing his shoulder from Jimmy's grasp. "Fall in, shooter," he growled, the pain of being riddled with bullets matched by his surprise at having taken a mag's worth of fire to his chest.

  Two more pop-ups dropped due to the unseen finger of death and the team crossed the street into the cathedral's courtyard with little resistance.

  "Breach," Luc commanded calmly as they took the granite stairs in two bounds, skipping four treads with each step.

  Gob fired his heavy weapon thrice, spreading the explosive charges evenly across the ornately arched doors. Together, the team burst through on Gob’s tail and spread out behind the tall round pillars, heading to a wide set of granite stairs Luc knew would lead to the basement.

  "Block up," Luc said, painting a position for Gob and Jimmy to hold. Without hesitation, Gob dropped his breaching weapon, allowed it to swing back under his shoulder, and extended his heavily armored shield. Luc pulled a clawed hammer from his pack and swung it into the wall, breaking through the stone façade. Dropping the hammer on the floor, he withdrew the electronic hacking clamp and wrapped it around the thick cables his sensors had located. Once in place, he lobbed an expanding foam pack into the ruined portion of the wall.

  "There you are," Bit's voice cut in on the comm channel. "And I've found the kids. They're all in the basement. I'm sending a route."

  "I know where it is," Luc said, switching back to his tactical channel. "Gob, go." Once they were moving again, he switched back. "Are the kids up? Are we going to have to take 'em down?"

  "Negative, Luc," Bit replied. "Looks like they've been moved to secondary storage. The storage tanks don't have resurrection circuits. Hmm, wonder why … Oh, crap, Luc, new problem."

  "What's that?"

  "Marek and Zoya have been busy."

  "Define busy."

  Bit's response in his ear was drowned out by the sounds of heavy automatic fire as the cathedral's grand entryway exploded in chaos.

  "Cover!" Luc demanded.

  Even in the midst of the chaos, Luc found he had the wherewithal to see an emerging battle in nearly its entirety. A large group of enemies had been lying in wait for them behind the towering doors that led to the building's main sanctuary. Even as Bit had been talking, he'd become aware of their presence and a small part of him had started looking for cover.

  He blinked at his AI's prompt offering a path to wide stairs that led to the basement. His action was immediately transmitted to Gob who attempted to push forward under the heavy fire. The man's powerful shield absorbed the hits, but the inertia of the bullets pushed him slowly back, even as his boots dug furrows into the floor's surface.

  At the same time, Rocinante awoke in Jimmy's hands with a fury previously unseen. The white blaze of light caused by the rapid expulsion of blaster fire from the weapon looked more like a laser than the discrete bolts Luc knew it to be. The lethal fire tore across the advancing black-cloaked men, sending those who were hit reeling away, tumbling into each other. A part of Luc was sickened at the site of the carnage. Jimmy's mastery of the weapon was as horrifying as it was fantastic. In the course of only a scant few seconds, Jimmy had incapacitated or killed an entire score of soldiers. His actions freed Gob to secure much-needed cover.

  "You have more, five minutes out, Luc," Bit's voice called over tactical comms. "There are at least thirty, with more coming."

  "Bit, drop the other TaunTaun. I need it right in front of the cathedral," Luc said. "We're going to need an exit."

  "It's already on the way," Bit said. "ETA three minutes."

  Even with the additional soldiers, the battle had reached a kind of equilibrium. As brave or crazy as the free men of Cauldron were, they were quick learners. Anyone who showed even the smallest piece of their body for a target invited a lethal response from Rocinante. Jimmy’s ability to turn and strike before the soldiers could take aim limited their return fire to blindly aiming with weapons held overhead.

  Luc understood that the momentary standoff would end poorly for his team unless he could successfully press their advantage.

  "Bit, do we have comm with Tali?" he asked, even as he lobbed a flurry of grenades into the groups of stalled free men.

  "She's non-comm but it looks like she's coming to you," Bit said. Luc's AI had to boost her speech over the explosions and screams.

  "We're Oscar Mike!" Luc ordered, painting the Cathedral's ruined doors they'd entered only a few minutes previous and a lifetime ago.

  "The children," Gob complained, even as he bound from the stairwell where they'd taken cover.

  "Resistance is too heavy," Luc answered. "We'll have to come back.
"

  "Mierda." Gob answered quietly.

  Falling in behind Gob, Luc scuttled sideways as he kept firing, covering their exit. His fusillade of grenades had disabled much of the force from the Cathedral's sanctuary, but he knew he hadn't dropped them all. He also knew that with a new force of thirty coming their way, they couldn't afford to be trapped in the crossfire between the split forces.

  Just as they reached the broad steps at the Cathedral entrance, the second TaunTaun dropped perfectly into position in the center of the courtyard.

  "Bit, where's Tali," Luc asked as the three bounded toward the vehicle.

  "Two hundred meters." Tali's team locater dot blinked into existence on his HUD.

  The rain had slowed to a heavy mist and wind swirled violently around the TaunTaun as the team hunkered down next to its heavily armored shell.

  "Damn, this TaunTaun stinks," Jimmy complained as he picked off the occasional free man who dared stick his head out of the ravaged main Cathedral doors.

  Jimmy's comment and the smell hit Luc at the same time. The TaunTaun was completely made of metal and had just dropped through a rain storm. The pod contained no biological material that would account for the smell.

  Luc’s AI warned of movement from above. He quickly turned and raised his gun, only to have it violently jerked from his hands, the strap snapping in two. For a moment, he stared into the bloodshot eyes of a creature with a roughly human form, but who possessed little humanity. White bony fingers held the deformed being onto the side of the pod like a tree frog. Beneath the semi-human eyes, veins bulged and discolored the sagging skin of its cheeks. Lifting its head, the slimy thing loosed a scream of agony and hatred.