Hard Drop (22 page)

Tyco gave a quick nod, and Hog let the doors slide open.
 

Tyco stood, moving past the others and leading the way out onto the platform. He stepped out cautiously at first, his feet grinding against the weathered sand that littered the metal underfoot. The station was empty, the wide stone arches at the entrance giving way to the sunny, narrow street beyond. A hundred feet out of the station, a hundred yards to the hillside, and half a mile up the stairs, no more, no less. Tyco considered it carefully, letting the contingencies wash over him. Ultimately, he knew, they didn’t have time to do it cautiously, but that didn’t mean they had to be reckless.
 

“Let’s move.” Tyco said, and darted quickly across the platform and into the station, moving without pause until he had reached the street. The team had almost caught up to him when movement below caught his eye.
 

The soldiers they had left in the station below had not been idle. Two army trucks now blazed their way up the hill, headed directly and unswervingly for the Old City. An armored personnel carrier rolled on behind them, slower but the more menacing for it.
 

Tyco sighed and glanced back at Hog.
 

“One of these days,” He said, shaking his head, and left it at that, knowing Hog
 

would understand.

“One of these days.” She echoed, unconvinced.

The guns opened up the instant the team broke cover. The bullets flew by wildly, smashing into the buildings around and spitting up flakes of sand and stone. Tyco ran, at the head of his team, streaking for the stairs.
 

Thankfully, the road up the hill was uneven and potholed, and their pursuers had trouble aiming as they fired. The narrow street slowed the vehicles still farther, hampering their progress until they were crawling up the hill, loosing a round at random here or there, but largely holding their fire.
 

The distance to the staircase closed quickly, and soon the team was storming up the slick rock steps as fast as they could. The stairs were old, steep, and well-worn: remnants of another time, probably, from the early days of colonization. The stairway had a natural bend to it, following the rock as it snaked up the hill. Tyco ducked low as he followed its bend, sheltered by the natural rock formation against the gunfire below.
 

The soldiers below had left their vehicles and were taking up pursuit on foot. Their small arms fire kept up a steady patter, whistling by the troopers and smashing against the rock, but they were wild and inaccurate, just close enough to keep the blood flowing and the legs moving.
 

Shelley was holding well; he met Ghost’s concerned glances with his own, condescending fury, pushing past the pain in his legs to prove his ability insistently.
 

The stairway flew by quickly, almost hypnotically underfoot, and the tension in Tyco’s legs gave way to a pleasant, welcome burn. He smiled and gritted his teeth, looking back only momentarily to see a thin line of soldiers creeping ant-like up the first few steps below. Tyco leaned across the ledge without aiming and fired, sending a volley into the advancing soldiers, scattering them momentarily and slowing their advance.
 

Ghost surged past with Shelley, and Tyco waved them on, reloading quickly before firing again.
 

Chip crouched next to Tyco, dropping to a knee as he reloaded his rifle.

“You want to leave this to the professionals, Cap?” He asked, without the slightest hint of humor.
 

Tyco fired another burst before he answered. “Take it easy, Chip.” He said. “That’s two for me.”
 

Chip sighed, and leaned over the ridge, calmly squeezing off a single shot.
 

“So’s that.” He said, and smiled. Tyco shook his head. Ceding his position to the sniper, he shouldered his rifle and took off after Ghost, leaving Chip to bring up the rear.
 

Ghost was nearing the top of the stairs ahead, his pace steady and slowing as he neared the plateau above. The long run had taken it out of him, and now that they were near their goal, he could afford to rest his legs. He looked back down past Shelley to Chip, who was hard at work, keeping their pursuers at bay. The armored personnel carrier had reached the old city below, and was now forcing its way up the twisting cobblestone roads. Its machine gun chirped intermittently, but the motion of the vehicle was too severe, and the shots were nowhere near accurate. Nor were the soldiers on the stairs much of a threat. Even now, Hog was throwing a fresh grenade down the stairs, letting it bounce off the stone walls before detonating in the midst of the pursuing horde.

They had made it, he noted with deep satisfaction. Ghost took the last step easily and turned slowly to face the structure –
 

The explosion from above rolled like thunder down the steps. Tyco sprinted around the corner and stared upwards in horror. At the top of the stairway above, the smoking double barrels of a heavy, blood-spattered metal shotgun extended from the grasp of a leering soldier, the Möbius scar on his neck as grotesque as it was obvious. Ghost tottered on the top step, clutching his stomach, red blood already seeping through his uniform where his body armor had been insufficient.
 

The soldier was reloading, turning bloodthirsty eyes on Shelley, even as Ghost still swayed on his feet, rocking slowly backwards on the top stair.
 

Tyco made his choice in a split second, diving to cover Shelley, knocking him aside even as the shotgun fired again. The rounds glanced off his own armor and sent him rolling along the flat ground above.
 

He slid to a stop on the hard asphalt and looked up immediately, watching helplessly as Ghost’s legs gave away. He watched him fall in a wide arc, blood spilling from his wounds, legs buckling under him and then slipping from their holds on the ground below. His torso turned in a sickening spiral, away from the long staircase and over the cliff's edge, falling backwards into the waiting city below with a hollow groan on his lips.

And then he was gone, and Tyco had no time to follow him, no time to help or even mourn, because the rebel had reloaded once more. He stood over Shelley with a furious scowl, pointing his shotgun directly at the man's face. Tyco gathered himself painfully, preparing to throw himself once more, in desperation.

A hail of gunfire interrupted him, cutting down the rebel where he stood. Chip and Hog stood at the top of the staircase, guns leveled and smoking, ready to fire again at the slightest sign of life.
 

There was none. The soldier fell with a deflated gurgle and collapsed in a heap, riddled with bullet holes.
 

The plateau fell silent.
 

The diminished team stared at each other, at the dead rebel on the ground, and up at the structure in front of them. Now that they were here, it seemed even more enormous than it had looked from the ground: the stone carving extended all the way around the hill, dominated by two massive, thick security doors carved directly into the mountain. A long, wide highway curled tightly around the facility, cutting through a colonnade of tall stone pillars that reached up to the overhanging rock, and disappearing into the mountainside behind. There was no knowing how far back it went, no knowing how deep the facility was cut, but what they saw – clearly only the tip of the iceberg – was gigantic.
 

Chip’s reloading broke the silence, his empty shell casings hitting the floor with a hollow jingle. And then Shelley rose to his feet, red-faced and furious.

“Twice!” he shouted. “That’s
twice
, Commander, that I’ve almost been – “ He couldn’t bring himself to finish it, and took a deep breath. “If this is your idea of
protection
– !“

The words froze on his lips, interrupted by loud shouts from the facility. Faces, grim, dirty, and bloodied, appeared out of the dark, staring suspiciously towards them, guns raised. The rest of the dead soldier's patrol had come to look for him.

A challenge was shouted, too loud to be distinct, hurled emphatically in Tyco’s direction, followed by emphatic posturing with the guns. Tyco got to his feet with slow, restrained fury, gritting his teeth in response to the nervous rebels.

"Chip-" Tyco said, ready to give the green light, ready to avenge Ghost immediately and with interest.

A loud flapping interrupted him, the unmistakable sound of rotor blades slicing through the air. The guns pointed at them across the dark highway rustled, hesitating, and then broke away, disappearing as quickly as they had appeared, the patrol scattering up into the hillside.

And Tyco turned with grim reckoning, as if he had known all along this would happen, watching as the flapping, enormous blades of the helicopter gunship came spinning malevolently into view. Slowly, like a predator considering its prey, it rose form the city and turned towards them, its weaponry gleaming in the bright sunlight.
 

“One of these days…” Tyco muttered to himself, quietly.

SIXTEEN: INTO THE SILENCE

Flip awoke slowly, groggily, bloodied and dizzy. Light streamed in through the shattered windshield in front of her.
 

The bright greenery outside confused her. After spending half a day on the mountain, the colors of the world below were disorienting. Flies swarmed around the overturned vehicle, their buzzing sounding loud and grating over the pounding in her head. She groaned, took a deep breath, and rolled across the crumpled hood with effort, pulling herself through the window and out onto the hard dirt.
 

The snow around the crumpled vehicle had melted in the sun, leaving little puddles of water in their wake. The hillside above her was a mess of uprooted trees and boulders. The rocks had been dragged along by the ferocity of the avalanche, leaving long scars in the earth behind them. The truck, too, had carved a deep groove, and it showed: the hood was smashed and crumpled, the roof was caved in, and every window was cracked and shattered. The wheels, strangely, were still intact, spinning slowly in their wells. She was lucky to be alive.
 

She had not escaped uninjured, though: her side felt like it was on fire as she reached gingerly through the broken window for her weapons. She raised them to her shoulders with effort and stood to full height, gasping as the pain shot through her. Her rifle readout came to life, still working despite what it had been through. The beacon flashed close by, and Flip sighed with tired relief. At least she did not have far to go.

A stream gurgled ahead, rolling down the last few hundred feet of hillside and disappearing down the hill. The city lay beyond it, shrouded in a cloud of dust and smoke. Flip followed the path of the river, staggering along the water’s edge, picking up speed as she slowly found her footing.
 

The riverbed was soft and muddy, her boots slipping a little with every step. This close to her goal, the stinging pain that came with pulling them out didn’t slow her down, and she slogged onwards, to the end of the hill, ready to see what she’d come this far for.

Gunfire sounded ahead.

Flip groaned inwardly. There would be no element of surprise, then. She crested the hill and stared down expectantly, just as Hog and Chip emerged from the staircase, guns blazing. She saw the soldier drop, saw Ghost fall down into the city, and saw Tyco get to his feet as Shelley started shouting. She raised her rifle as the rebels spilled out of the facility, ready to ambush them in support, and then watched, perplexed, as they melted away again as quickly as they had appeared.
 

And then the gunship rose above the staircase, and she smiled in spite of herself.

“Oh, hell no.” She said, and brought the launcher back to her shoulder. It was barely a hundred yards to the spinning rotor blades. It would be her second point-blank shot of the day.
 

The gunship exploded above Tyco as the rocket knocked it sideways in the sky. He stared as it burst into flames overhead, blades still spinning with wild futility as it dropped out of the sky, roaring down towards the staircase behind him. It bounced high and then dropped, hard, scything through the pursuing soldiers viciously, slicing through their ranks. It landed, at last, in the old city streets, exploding in a fireball far below.

He looked up the hill, staring at the figure still holding the launcher. He recognized her almost at once from the drop bay. It was
her
, the mousey new recruit with the killer’s eyes. How she had made it this far alone, he didn’t know, but he was certainly glad that she had. Chip raised his hand in greeting tentatively. She waved back, then started down the hill towards them, limping slightly as she came.
 

Tyco nodded towards her gratefully, then turned away with a heavy sigh and walked to the cliff's edge.
 

There was no sign of Ghost below. He was gone, disappeared without a trace into the smoke and rubble of the old city. Tyco lingered for a long second at the edge of the cliff. He made a fist with his right hand, then silently tapped it against his vest pocket in tribute.
 

“You alright, sir?” Hog asked from behind him.
 

“Yeah.” Tyco answered, curtly, and stood, still looking down into the city. He brushed past her, moving quickly on to the facility. There was no time to waste.
 

Flip caught up with the group as they entered the colonnade ringing the facility’s main entrance. She saluted Tyco shyly as she approached.

“Nice work, Private.” Tyco nodded, with a distinct edge of gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Thank you sir.” She responded. “I was worried I was going to have to sneak in.”
 

Tyco smiled at that in spite of himself, but the look faded quickly as he stepped towards the sealed security door. The stone was thick, at least a foot deep by the looks of it. Bullets and explosions had marked the wall, all of them failing in their absurd inability to do much more than scratch it. The door was set directly into the stone, mounted on heavy runners that ran the length of the opening and stretched from floor to the stone ceiling thirty feet above. Tyco wondered what they had brought through these doors that required such immense dimensions, and what more still lay beyond them.