CHAPTER 28
South Pole
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00
“Man the chain gun!” I yell to Ockham over the noise of the engine. I twist the throttle, and the sled leaps forward.
But the old man is already bringing the massive barrel to bear. A line of Dr?u charge up the hill, carrying plasma pistols. Ockham releases a burst of fire. They fall like their legs have imploded.
“Get in!” I call to Vienne. She jumps down from the knoll into the deck, careful to avoid Jean-Paul’s tarp cocoon, and slides into place while swapping the sniper barrel out of her armalite.
Jet flames erupt from the sled’s turbine. We shoot forward, the force of the sudden acceleration snapping our heads back. The front skies bounce over the knoll, and the weight of the extra ammo causes the rear to lift. For a long second we hang there, teetering between escape and collapse, until Vienne throws herself forward onto the cowling.
I steer hard left, following the path we took into the camp. The Dr?u crest the hill again, and their pistols are primed to fire. With an earsplitting phweee, a wave of plasma globs sail over the sled and sinks into the ice two meters ahead, leaving dozens of holes in the permafrost ahead of us.
“Steer for me!” I yell to Vienne.
While she reaches over to take the handle bars, I pull the detonator from my pack and hit the button. For a second, nothing. Then popoppopopop! The habipod explodes. Fiery debris flies a dozen meters into the air, and the concussive blast knocks the Dr?u’s skirmish line flat. There’s nothing left of the ’pod except a few tattered sheets of corrugated metal and twisted sled parts.
“Heewack!” Ockham lets out a victory whoop. “That’ll show them beasties what the Regulators are made of. Breathe easy, Regulators.”
After taking control of the sled again, I steer over the last of the foothills. The tundra spreads out now, putting distance between us and the horde.
“Mimi,” I ask. “How’s the pursuit?”
“There are no signatures on my scans,” she says. “Yet.”
“Meaning I shouldn’t be breathing easily.”
“Meaning you may not want to breathe at all.”
“What’s that noise?” I ask aloud, then realize that the sled’s engine is straining. I check the tachometer. We’re only reaching fifty percent of potential speed, and the sled sounds like it’s chewing up its drive train.
Only a minute passes before Mimi pipes up. “You didn’t hold your breath enough, cowboy. Sensors are picking up a mass of biosignatures closing fast.”
On cue, Vienne shouts over the silence. “Chief! We have trouble. Bogies at six, eight, and five o’clock. It’s the Dr?u. Riding snowmobiles.”
“More fun for me!” Ockham shouts. Begins loading another ammo belt into the chain gun. “I see ’em!” he shouts. “Ten bogies bearing down hard at seven o’clock. Let the murderous rooters come on! I’ll give ’em a taste of Regulator breakfast!”
“Cowboy,” Mimi chimes in. “At their current rate of speed, they will overtake this sled in approximately three minutes.”
“Damn,” I say, and twist the throttle harder. It’s no use, of course. The sled is already maxed out. It’s the weight, I realize. I packed the cargo bay with too much ammo, and it’s slowing us down.
“Ockham!” I shout. “Dump the ammo belts!”
But Ockham doesn’t seem to hear me. “Eyes on the target! Opening fire!” and he releases a long burst of fire that rains shells into the air. The spent cartridges hit the floor of the cargo bay like falling sleet. I snap my head around in time to see two snowmobiles explode.
There are two Dr?u on each mobile. One driving. One shooting. The last of the mobiles is larger than the others, with armor plating on the cowling. The leader, Kuhru, is driving, but the passenger is the remarkable one—the queen of the Dr?u stands on the backseat, the porcelain mask hiding her face, a mortar launcher resting on her shoulder.
A mortar launcher! If she hits the sled with that, we’re dunny pie. “Ockham! Dump the ammo! Now!”
“He can’t hear you,” Vienne yells into my ear. “Too much noise.”
I look back at the queen. She is sighting us through the launcher’s viewfinder.
“Duck!” I yank the handlebars hard to the right. The sled fishtails, and Ockham stumbles from the turret. He lands on a box of ammo and rolls almost into Vienne’s lap.
“Pardon my buttocks, young miss,” he says.
“Get back on the gun!” she screams. “And dump the ammo!”
A mortar shell flies past our sled and skitters across the ice a few meters in front of us. Then explodes and blows ice chunks across the cowling of the sled.
“They’re closing in!” Vienne yells.
“Hold on!” I bellow as the front skis hit the edge of the mortar crater.
The front of the sled pops up and we jump the hole, the treads throwing up a curtain of debris. The wash hits the driver of the lead snowmobile, who steers into the hole. The ski digs into the crater, and the mobile pole-vaults, slamming the Dr?u face-first into the ground.
“Got one!” Ockham whoops. He tries to scramble to the back of the sled.
Vienne catches him and yells into his ear. “Chief says to dump weight! We’re too heavy!”
Ockham makes the okay sign. “Got it, chief!”
When I accelerate again, Ockham bounds to the back of the cargo bay. He hoists a box of ammunition waist-high, then tosses it overboard. I feel the rear end lift and look back. Ockham is perched on the edge of the sled, his armalite in one hand and a sidearm in the other.
“No Regulator worth his salt,” Ockham yells to me, “wants anything but a blaze of glory, chief! I’ll stop these beasties. You get the girl and this buggy home.” Somehow, he bows and then executes a backflip. He lands on his feet and sprints for the box.
“Man down! Man down!” Vienne shouts. She vaults the jump seat and takes the grips of the chain gun in hand. “Bring her around, chief!”
I pull hard on the handlebars, and the rear end fishtails wildly. Their weight and momentum carries us two hundred and twenty degrees, the sudden swing disrupting the fuel lines to the turbine. The engine stalls. “Damn it! Esena mori poutana! Piece of crap!”
As the Dr?u close in on Ockham, I hit the starter button again. And again. Vienne aims the gun at the approaching snowmobiles. A very quick burst scatters them as they veer hard in both directions to avoid fire.
“Can’t get a clear shot, chief!” she yells back. “Ockham is in my line of fire!”
The Dr?u peel back, out of range of Vienne’s gun. They circle Ockham, gunning their engines, dodging in and out to draw his fire. One snowmobile makes a run at Ockham. The old man dodges easily, the plasma blast bouncing off his symbiarmor and falling, sizzling, to the ice.
Ockham takes aim with his armalite. Fires a single round. Foof! A green mass shoots out of the lower barrel. It strikes the gunner between the shoulder blades. Screaming, the Dr?u reaches behind, twisting, trying to yank the plasma off. A second later the plasma explodes, taking the mobile and the driver along with it.
“There’s plenty more where that came from!” Ockham pumps out two grenades. They find their targets, and two more mobiles explode. Then he turns toward my stalled power sled. “Damn you, chief! Don’t you dare try a rescue. Finish the mission! Finish—”
Crack-a-boosh! A mortar shell from the queen’s launcher knocks Ockham off his feet. Seeing their chance, the Dr?u gun their engines. Roar toward him.
“Chief!” Vienne yells. “Go! Go now!”
Saying a prayer, I hit the starter button again. Nothing. “Come on, you old whore,” I say softly.
Then hit the button again. Ignition! The ski lurches forward, taking Vienne and her gun farther from the Dr?u. She fires out a burst in frustration anyway. The stray bullets send the Dr?u scattering again, which gives Ockham enough time to climb to his feet. He kicks open the box of ammo as a barrage of plasma fire turns his sidearm into a puddle of metal.
Ockham tosses the gun away and brings the armalite to bear. He squeezes off a half dozen rounds of explosives that strike Kuhru’s snowmobile, sending the vehicle tumbling end on end. But the queen is too quick. Before the rounds hit, she leaps from the backseat and comes up firing her mortar launcher. The shell rockets for Ockham, a trailing vapor line in its wake.
“Ockham!” I yell.
At the same instant a second snowmobile rushes him. It crosses into the path of the mortar, and the explosion takes out the driver and the gunner. The rest of the Dr?u swarm in for the kill. But the old man still has one trick up his sleeve. He pumps a light-mass grenade inside the box. Then slams the lid and jumps atop it.
“Reg-u-lator!” he bellows. Chills run down my spine.
Without the weight of its cargo, my sled accelerates to ninety-five percent of capacity. Wind laced with snow rips past my face. Ahead, the tundra opens up like a table, and I don’t look back at Ockham, even when a series of explosions rocks the landscape and sends up a black plume that blots out the sun. My shoulders sag. A beautiful death is what Ockham wanted, and he got it. But that doesn’t soften the blow. Another man down. Another life sacrificed. Another Regulator lost.
A quiet moment passes with nothing but the drone of the turbine and the sluicing of the skies over the packed ice. Then Vienne breaks the silence. “It’s Ockham! He’s still alive!”
Impossible. “Mimi?”
“His signal is still registering, cowboy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
I turn the sled in a wide arc. It’s true. On the rise, one of his arms hanging like a thread from his shoulder, his armor in shreds, Ockham stumbles along. His helmet is shattered. His face burned and bleeding.
“Go back!” Vienne yells.
But I can’t. He’s done for. And the Dr?u are coming. I hear them before I see them, their howls echoing across the tundra. Ockham looks back over his shoulder. Wild fear forces his legs to move, and for a few seconds he’s running. Then they’re on him—a pack of Dr?u. Furious. Ravenous. They ride the old warrior to the ground. Lift him prone over their heads. Mouths open to catch the blood hemorrhaging from his wounds.
Twip! Twip! Vienne snipes two of them.
“Shoot Ockham!” I shout to Vienne.
“I cannot! He must have his beautiful death!” she yells.
“It’s not beautiful,” I yell back at her, “to be eaten alive!” Though my sniping skills aren’t in the same class as Vienne’s, the target is close enough.
“Chief, please,” Vienne says. “Don’t take this from him.”
“I’m sorry.” I take aim. Pull the trigger. Watch the old man’s head snap back. Watch him die at my hand, the hand of a brother.
Vienne looks up at me, her hazel eyes rimmed with red, full of accusation, hurt, and disbelief. “How could you do that to him? He will never reach Valhalla now. You…you took that away from him. How could you?”
I bow my head, ashamed of the way that I have diminished myself. “How could I not?”