Bolo Brigade (41 page)

But if there were human prisoners being held here, they would be in that building, and Freddy had tailored his destructiveness to punching an opening through the wall at the first-story level, and no more.

The Malach field command HQ, Donal recalled, would likely be in this building. He hoped Freddy's display had left them sufficiently shaken and disorganized.

For several moments, Freddy continued battling with Malach forces in the castle. There were no walkers here that Donal could see, just ordinary infantry, armed and on foot. Freddy burned them down with a ruthless, blunt efficiency as he backed carefully out of the hole he'd bulldozed into the residence wall.

"Okay, Freddy," he said. "Hold the fort." He winced at his own bad pun, then added, "Sorry." Moving to the back to the Fighting Compartment, he pressed a hand panel and opened a small arms locker. Inside was a Concordiat powergun, Mark XXX. He removed it, checked the power cell, and adjusted the beam to high-energy needle. He also paused to don a combat armor vest and a helmet with built-in commo suite and enhanced optics visor, and attached several concussion grenades to his harness.

"I am uncertain of the wisdom of your exposing yourself to the Enemy in this manner, Commander."

"Combined arms, Freddy. There are still a few things a man can do that a Bolo can't."

"I understand, Commander. Please remain in radio contact."

"Count on it! Open up!"

The military concept of combined arms was an old one, dating back at least to twentieth century warfare. The earliest combat fighting machines—
tanks
, they'd been called, weapons preceding the earliest Bolo marks—had been slow, poorly armored, haplessly vulnerable things. Toward the end of the twentieth century, in fact, there'd been serious doubt that tanks or similar large military vehicles would find a place in what then passed for modern warfare. When a single, poorly trained infantryman could carry and fire a shoulder-launched anti-armor missile that had a decent chance of destroying a vehicle costing many times as much as the launch system, then tanks were clearly on the verge of becoming obsolete.

Combined arms tactics had been evolved to counter this threat, deploying infantry in close joint operations with the tanks to protect them from missile-wielding enemy infantry. In fact, there were plenty of combat tasks that a tank simply couldn't perform—like clearing a house without demolishing it, or locating and clearing an enemy tunnel complex.

Hostage rescue was another. The aft hatchway dilated open and the rear ramp went down. Donal vaulted clear of the Bolo, striking the ground on his shoulder and rolling to the cover of some fallen stone blocks, weapon raised and ready. No one shot at him; the courtyard was empty of any save dead Malach. The opening Freddy had smashed into the wall of the castle residence gaped open, black and uninviting. Hurrying past the motionless Bolo, Donal plunged inside, his helmet visor automatically adjusting to feed him light enough to see by.

He picked his way over a spill of stone blocks, noting several dead Malach crushed by the rubble. One Malach advanced toward him, stumbling blindly; Donal aimed the powergun and squeezed the trigger, sending a hot, blue bolt searing into the alien's chest. Another Malach screamed, and in seconds, four . . . no, six of the aliens were rushing him, crowding through a flimsy door as he calmly took aim at one after another, drilling each before it could break free of the press and attack him. Freddy, he thought, would have appreciated his tactics, forcing the enemy to funnel through a narrow choke point where they blocked one another and could be taken down by surgically precise fire. The room was too cramped for him to use grenades, but so long as his handgun's power pack held . . .

An explosion demolished a nearby wall and he spun, firing wildly as yet more of the saurian invaders spilled through the smoking gap, trying to reach him.

Seconds later, the Malach were dead. Listening, he could hear snarls and rasps that might be Malachs shouting in the distance.

The first floor of the residence had been fitted as a series of comfortable, wood-paneled rooms, including a kitchen, sitting rooms, servants' quarters, and the like. The Great Hall, he was pretty sure, was upstairs, where it could be accessed directly from the towertop landing pad, and there was another level above that, with the family's sleeping quarters. These rooms, equipped for human comfort, were probably of little interest to the Malach, and he didn't have time or resources for a careful search. He moved toward the noises, picking his way over the mound of reptilian bodies.

As he came through a door into what looked like a large pantry or larder, a Malach soldier took a stance in front of a large and solid-looking wooden door. Donal shot it before the Malach could raise its own weapon, drilling it cleanly through that massive, scale-armored head.

Swiftly, he jogged across the stone-cluttered floor. If that Malach trooper had been standing there even with the castle falling in around it, it had to be because it was on guard . . . and probably guarding something pretty important. Donal tried the door. Locked. Stepping back, he dialed the Mark XXX down to a tight, hard, low-powered but very intense beam and sliced through the metal bar that locked the door shut.

The door sagged open. Beyond, more stairs led down into darkness.

And children.

"Who . . . who's there?" a young voice called.

"It's okay," he called down to them. "I'm human. Come on out!"

They came up the stone steps slowly and with some hesitation, blinking in the light. Most were younger, anywhere from six to twelve or so. One looked older, a teenage boy with black hair and an expression of grim determination. They must have been swept up in the refugee camp, he thought.

"Okay, everybody," Donal called. It looked like there were about twenty kids all together. "We're going to get you out of here. Is this everybody?"

"The deputy director!" the older boy said. "She's not here! They have her in here, somewhere!"

Donal felt a horrible, inner shock. "What . . . Alexie? Alexie Turner?"

The kid nodded. "They captured her down at Simmstown. They were questioning her upstairs someplace when the walls came down!"

"Okay." He took a deep breath, steadying himself, then clapped the boy reassuringly on the shoulder. "Okay. What's your name?"

"Johnny. Uh, John Sarlucci, sir. I'm from, I
was
from Wide Sky."

"Okay, Johnny. This is important. Can you take charge of everybody here? The younger ones need someone older to look after them, get them where we need them to go."

He nodded.

"Okay. Count them, so you'll know how many you have."

"Twenty-one, sir."

"Good." The kid was on the ball. "Take them up those stairs, go right, and look for a big hole in the wall. You can't miss it. You'll see a Bolo out there."

"A
Bolo
? Wow!"

"Yeah, but you stay away from it, and keep the kids away too." Freddy's hull was probably low-grade hot after that blasting he'd taken with the tactical nukes. "Go past the Bolo and out of the castle. Most of the wall there is down." He stopped. He needed a place for these kids to hide. Maybe . . . "You a pilot yet, Johnny? Personal flitters? Speedsters? Anything?"

The dirty face creased in a smile. "Heck, yeah! You name it, I fly it. I
am
fifteen."

"Standard? Or Skyan?"

"Skyan. That's sixteen standard."

"Well, actually I was wondering about how you were with boats."

"No problem! I worked for my dad, back on Wide Sky, y'know? Working the pinkjack schools out of Fortrose."

"Great! Go outside, and down the ramp toward the water. You'll see a submarine moored to the pier. Got that?" Another nod. "It's a civilian job, like a yacht. The hatch is standing open. Its controls will be just like a boat, and most have automatic defaults."

"Sure! I drove a Mod 20 Deepstar back on Wide Sky, for my dad!"

Of course. The Wide Sky fishing industries tended to be family affairs, and kids brought into the business would learn young. "You're in command, then, Captain Sarlucci. Get these kids aboard that sub. Make sure you get all of the lines cast off before you back into the fjord."

"I told you I know—"

"And I'm making sure you know. When you're clear of the fjord, submerge and let the automatics take you. Follow the coastline south. I don't think the lizards will be able to spot you, and even if they do they won't take any interest in you. They're going to have other things on their minds."

"Where should I go?"

"If you can find Kinkaid, head for the big bay there and find a marina. If not, well, just find any seaport or coastal ship facility you can. Just make sure it's at least fifty or sixty kilometers south of the fjord." He didn't want Johnny bringing his passengers to shore in the middle of enemy-held territory. "The sub'll have a good computer map that'll plot things for you."

"You can count on me, Lieutenant, uh . . ."

"Call me Donal."

"Where are you going to be, Donal?"

"Upstairs, looking for Alexie," he replied.

"I might be able to tell you something about the place," Johnny said. "They had me up there once, a few hours ago." He shuddered.

"Okay, Johnny, tell me. But make it fast."

He wanted these kids out of here.

Minutes later, he made his way to the foot of the stairway Johnny said led to the big stone room upstairs. An infinite repeater shrieked, and Donal heard explosions and falling masonry. After talking with Johnny, he'd raised Freddy on his comm unit, warning him the kids were coming through and telling the machine to provide cover for them if necessary. The kids would be safe enough until they got clear of the place. He hoped.

It was all he could do, working on his own. If Alexie was in the Great Hall, though, he wasn't going to leave her behind.

The Great Hall lay beyond the door at the top of the steps. Part of the north wall had tumbled down, and Donal saw three Malach lying motionless on the stone floor, dead or stunned. Others were still very much alive, clustered around a pile of debris as though trying to scramble underneath. A square-sided pillar had fallen across a stairway on the opposite side of the room, creating a low and cramped cave between the pillar's base and the partly collapsed stairs. The surviving Malach—there were five, he saw—appeared to be trying to get at something underneath the fallen pillar.

Dropping to one knee, Donal took aim with the powergun braced in both hands and squeezed off a shot . . . and another . . . and another. Two Malach were down before the others realized where the fire was coming from and turned to face him. A third went down trying to bring its curiously shaped weapon to bear.

Two were still standing. One fired, the beam snapping into the wooden door beside Donal's head and igniting it with a crack and a shower of glowing embers. He returned the fire, hitting the Malach in the chest just above a complex buckle holding its black leather harness in place. A red light winked on the back of the powergun. Charge drained! He
might
have enough juice for another low-power shot, but . . .

The last remaining Malach raised its weapon. . . .

Donal pitched to the side as the Malach fired, diving behind a fallen block of sandstone, the bolt glancing off the side of his helmet with a crackling hiss. Pain seared the right side of his head. He yanked the damaged helmet off and pitched it aside.

Without the helmet's optics, the room was dimly lit, but plenty of light filtered in through the tall, narrow windows in one wall. He reached for a grenade as the lone remaining Malach took a step forward, and then suddenly its head pitched sharply up, toothy mouth gaping. Smoke curled from a gaping, ragged hole in its back as it collapsed face-down on the floor.

Now what?

A human, a
woman
, crawled out from under the fallen pillar, clutching one of the alien weapons.

"Alexie!"

Her eyes widened as she turned toward his voice. "Donal?
Donal!
"

They clung to one another, savoring the hug. Until that moment, he'd not realized just how much she'd meant to him. He held her off at arm's length, looking her up and down. Her only clothing was the leather jacket he'd seen her in last, torn and dust-covered. She was barefoot and bare-legged, and she looked exhausted. A nasty cut on her forehead was bleeding freely, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes.

"What happened to you?"

She grimaced and tried to tug the jacket a little closer about her body. "I was lucky to keep this much. The Grand High muckety-muck took it into her head that I
couldn't
be female because I'd surrendered, and they decided to perform a little strip search just to make sure. I got them to let me have this jacket back, after they'd searched it, by claiming I'd freeze to death if they didn't. No scales to keep me warm, y'know?"

"Wait. You said the lead lizard was a female?"

She pointed to one of the bodies sprawled on the floor . . . one of the ones dead already when Donal had entered the hall. "That's her. Yeah, they're
all
female, Donal. A race of Amazons. I don't even think the males are sentient."

"How did you learn that?"

She pointed at another body, one of the ones Donal had shot. "That one could speak our language. Well, sort of. It was hard to follow her, but I picked up a lot of things. Donal, they're so
different
from us."

"That's why we call them aliens. I'm afraid you're in for a rather extensive debriefing when you get back to Kinkaid, young lady."

She closed her eyes. "Oh. Just so I can have a bath, clean clothes, and about twenty hours of sleep first. . . ."

He chuckled. "I'll see what we can do." He took her by the arm, turning back toward the doorway leading out.

That was when he saw them.

They were hanging on chains lowered from a ceiling beam, ten naked and blood-covered corpses, each suspended by a hook driven up under the chin and out the mouth, shocking in their contrast to the civilized and faintly decadent paintings still on the wall behind them. Two more bodies lay where they'd fallen beneath their hooks. One of those still hanging was the red-headed nobleman, Lord Delacroix, the former owner of Glenntor Castle. Next to him was the body of Elena St. Martin, the woman at the party who'd talked about getting to know the Malach.