CHAPTER 35
Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00
“Not on my watch,” Mimi says through the static.
Reflectively, my hand shoots out and grabs Ebi by the wrist. A numbing shock of electricity shoots into her symbiarmor. Her eyes roll back into her head, and a small moan escapes her lips before a burst of bullets leaves her gun, striking me in the chest. They bounce off, leaving me unharmed, as I hear a second noise—the crack of a single shot—and Ebi falls backward and topples off the cargo box.
“Who shot her?” I say.
“Three guesses,” Mimi answers.
“Vienne.”
“Fast work for a wee little brain.”
And I look across the line of cargo boxes, up on the minaret, where she stands holding her Armalite, scoring the barrel with a combat knife. “Thanks,” I tell her via aural vid.
“My job,” she says. Then uses the zip line to reach the ground, absorbing the landing with her good leg but coming up limping. “I never did like that girl.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” I get to my feet.
“I often do,” she says. “It’s really not that difficult.” Limping, she joins me, and we move to the courtyard. The queen has deserted the sled, leaving it parked in the open and still manned by the Dr?u.
“Where is she?” I say aloud.
“Chief,” Vienne says, looking through her scope. “I have lock on the targets. Permission to fire?”
“Wait. I want to take them both out at the same time.”
“Affirmative,” she says. “I have both targets locked.”
“Both?” This, I want to see. “Fire at wi—” Twip! One bullet leaves her rifle. Two Dr?u fell.
“How did you do that?” I say in awe.
“Large-caliber ammunition and two targets willing to keep the bases of their skulls in the same line of fire.”
“Don’t tell Jenkins. He’ll have to take out three just to prove he’s better than you. Come on, let’s flush out the queen.”
We jog slowly to the sled to examine Vienne’s shots. Both are clean kills, right through the base of the skulls. “Mimi,” I say as we disable the chain gun, then move away from the sled. “Where is the queen?”
I scan the chigoe holes while waiting for an answer. So many places to hide in the Cross. She could be anywhere.
“Cannot pinpoint her location. The signal is erratic. I—cowboy!”
Foosh!
A mortar shell slams into my stomach, blowing me off my feet. I land hard, dazed, eyes full of static.
Vienne? I think, gasping for breath. Where’s Vienne? Then I see her, safe, near the sled.
Foosh!
A second rocket! It slams into the bishop’s statue. Chunks of marble rain down, and I cover my face as the bishop’s decapitated head slams into my forearms, then bounces away, rolling across the tiles.
Luckily, I, unlike the statue, am still in one piece.
“Look,” Mimi says, “‘a shattered visage lies.’”
“Keats?”
“Shelley.”
“I always get them confus—”
Eceni isn’t finished. A third rocket shoots from the launcher. For an instant I’m relieved because it looks like a misfire that flits impotently toward the high ceiling of the cave. Then it hits, and a cloud of black dust explodes into the air. With the squeal of grinding metal, the container wedged in the hole breaks free. Above me, the ceiling cracks open. The shipping container that Mimi expertly placed for me earlier slips from its hole and comes crashing down.
“You should move,” Mimi says.
But I don’t. I lie there watching it fall, mesmerized by the way the metal rectangular box rights itself as it falls, the floor of the container on a collision course with my skull.
“Durango!” Vienne dives across the tiled flooring as the container falls. She slams into me. Her momentum should knock me out of the way, but my suit absorbs the blow, and we huddle together in an awkward embrace.
“Go!” Mimi shocks me, and I start to move, but too late.
Silently, Vienne aims her weapon at the bottom of the container, and one, two blast shells leave her armalite. I grab her, pull her to my chest, and brace for impact.