Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys (23 page)

At that moment two lizard soldiers clattered into the other end of the tunnel. The Minstrel Boy dropped into a crouch, the AK chattering in his hand.

Reave gestured to the three remaining mercs. 'Shaef, Nosmo, Stazio, back him up!' He turned to Billy. 'Can you fix that fire point?'

Bill was already jacking a small cigar-sized smartbomb into the multiplex's launcher. 'If my aura holds.' The weird voices in his head had stopped once the shooting had begun.

Reave scowled. 'Don't get mystic on me.'

Two lizards were twitching on the floor of the tunnel. One of the riders had staggered to his feet, determined to keep coming on foot. He took only four paces before Nosmo blew his head off. No more lizards came into the tunnel. For the moment the militia seemed to be holding the line. Billy craned around the corner of the tunnel mouth, and it was once again blasted with fire. Holding the multiplex at arm's length, he loosed the missile. For Billy, a firefight was the easy part. There was a
crump
as the missile impacted. Flicking the multiplex to heat ray, he very cautiously stepped into the open. To his immense relief, nobody shot at him.

'Okay, the way's clear. Let's go!'

They sprinted for the cover of the big support pillar and took stock of the situation. The smoke of the explosion still lingered, and the broken bodies of a half dozen fifth columnists were scattered all around the base of the pillar. Reave looked at Billy as he turned one over with his foot. Half the man's face had been blown away.

'You really did a job on these guys.'

'What was I supposed to do, slap them on the wrist?'

There was no sign of any other enemy units, and they started moving toward their first fallback position. Other squads of militia were being moved up to the platforms. For the moment the first line seemed to be holding, although Reave did not want to think about the cost. A few officers gave them strange looks as Reave's squad retreated when everyone else was advancing, but once again a look of self-assurance stood them in good stead, and nobody stopped to question them. Their fallback point was up one level, in a sandbagged fire position set up on the steps of the city's central registry building. It afforded an elevated view of the access roads leading to the platform tunnels. The
moment the first line gave way, they would find themselves in the thick of the fighting.

When they arrived there, they found that the position was already manned by a team of skittish civilian volunteers under the command of a regular militia officer, who only just managed to stop his men from shooting Reave's squad as fifth columnists. The arrival of Reave and his people seemed to add to an already confused situation. The officer paced up and down, shaking his head, while his men looked ready to jump at their own shadows.

'I don't understand why you were sent back here. Half the brigade's been moved forward to the platforms.'

Reave just shrugged, relying totally on the military's God-given talent for fouling up.

'Hell, I don't know. I just follow orders, I don't cut them. All I know is that we were in the tunnels, up to our ass in fifth columnists and neoprimitives, and then a runner comes and tells us that we're to fall back to our second position. I wasn't about to complain. It's only a matter of time before the platforms are overrun.'

The officer decided to get a second opinion. The fire position had one of the Krystaleit militia's cumbersome communication sets. In the Damaged World, where no signal could penetrate the nothings and even stabilized reality was awash with energy fog, electronic communication was something of a dying art.

The officer looked at the volunteer operator. 'Are you getting anything on that?'

The operator shook his head. 'Not a damned thing. The whole net seems to be down.'

The officer cursed under his breath and faced Reave. 'I don't know what to tell you.'

There was a series of explosions out on the platforms, and the volunteers looked nervously at each other.

Reave checked the charges on his pistols. 'I figure that at any minute, the question of where we're supposed to be at is going to be pretty damned academic.'

Almost on cue, groups of figures started coming up the access road. First it was medics carrying stretchers and the walking wounded helping each other up the ramp, looking for a secure spot where they could get medical attention. Initially, the retreat was fairly dignified. Clearly, the defenders on the barricades were desperately buying time so the wounded could get out, but
in a situation like that time had a nasty habit of running out all too quickly. In a matter of minutes large numbers of defenders were streaming out of the tunnels and back into the city. Some tried to fight an orderly rearguard action, falling back from one position of cover to another, firing back into the tunnels as they withdrew. Others, however, were simply fleeing for their lives in an unseemly rout, even abandoning their weapons in panic as they sought the apparent safety of the interior of the city.

A militiaman was caught in the periphery of a heat blast, and his armor blazed like a Roman candle. Amazingly, he was not killed outright but staggered forward for a few steps, screaming, with his armor streaming green and yellow flames. Reave's face was grim. The moment he had first seen that armor he had known it was no good. Whoever had issued the damn stuff deserved to be taken out and shot.

The first attackers came out of the tunnels, a howling knot of neoprimitives with blood up to their elbows, plus a handful of the green template monsters. It was Reave's first look at the things. Menlo had not exaggerated. They were ugly as sin. Long, purposeless, saberlike fangs extended down from their upper jaws, and the thick, horny claws at the ends of their fingers must have seriously impaired the use of their hands. They were more the product of some fevered nightmare fantasy than custom-tailored fighting machines. It appeared that the only weapons the monsters were capable of using were wide-bladed scimitars and rudimentary slug guns. They did not even move well. They were ungainly and uncoordinated, and they seemed too stupid to avoid exposing themselves as clear, easy targets. A platoon of militiamen formed ranks across the road and loosed volleys of bolts into the raiders emerging from the tunnels. There was even something weird about the way the template monsters died. When they were hit, they first spasmed crazily as though some elementary electrical nervous system was shorting out, and then they collapsed in on themselves like soft containers that suddenly had been drained of their contents.

While the only attackers were the neoprimitives and the green monsters, the platoon on the access road held its own. Then the mounted men started to come out of the tunnels. As Reave knew all too well, they were the real strength of Baptiste and the other warlords. With their speed, firepower, and mobility, they would
be more than a match for anything Krystaleit could put up against them.

A squadron of lizard soldiers wheeled out of the tunnels and thundered down on the hapless militia platoon. The militiamen stood their ground to the last moment and even took out three of the riders with their final volley of bolts; then the lizards were in among them, and they were scattered and gone. That was all she wrote. A formation of lancers mounted on tall black horses galloped out of the tunnel but clattered off in another direction.

The Minstrel Boy was up beside Reave with an anxious look on his face. 'This post is going to be a major hot spot in a matter of minutes.'

'Don't I know it.'

Already the volunteers were exchanging fire with the lizard soldiers. For the moment the enemy advance had been halted at the foot of the ramp that led to the upper level. The fire post commanded a clear sweep of the ramp. Once again, though, it was only a matter of time. More and more enemy troops were pouring out of the tunnels, and very soon they would have sufficient strength to rush the ramp. They might not make it on the first try, but by the third or fourth the defenders would be all out of both resolve and ammunition. Either that or the attackers could bring up a particle cannon or some other heavy ordnance, and then it would be over very much fester.

Billy joined the conversation. 'So how do we get out of this mess?'

'All we can do is wait for a chance.'

'If we don't get a chance pretty soon, we won't get no chance at all. I can feel the fat lady getting ready
to sing.'

A hail of fire ripped along the top of the sandbag emplacement, and everyone ducked. A volunteer who had overheard a good part of the DNA Cowboys' conversation looked at them in dumb horror. Reave had no time, however, to worry about morale.

'Goddamn it! They're bringing up something heavy.'

The line of lizards at the foot of the ramp had parted to allow passage for a team of foot soldiers hauling a squat metal cylinder on a wheeled mount.

'What the hell is that thing?'

The Minstrel Boy shook his head. 'I've never seen anything
like it, but it looks like it's quite capable of trashing this little redoubt.'

Reave, in no way bothered that he was usurping the militia officer's authority, yelled to the force of volunteers.'Everybody concentrate fire on that cylinder thing. Make it as hard as possible for them to set it up.'

The enemy seemed to have other ideas. With the neoprimitives and green giants in the front, a grimly determined charge started up the ramp. It had no hope of success, but it drew fire away from the cylinder weapon. One of Billy's tiny smartbombs killed the gun crew plus two lizards and their riders, but it did not seem to harm the weapon, and others immediately moved in to replace the crew.

Reave turned on the militia officer. 'Maybe we should think about pulling out. There's no way we can stop them bringing that thing to bear.'

The officer glared at him. In the background there was the sound of firefights from all over the nearby parts of the city.

'You mercenaries are very good at retreating.'

'There are times when it's a lot smarter than standing around and waiting to be killed.'

The officer's face reddened, and his jaw jutted. 'We're going to stand here and fight, you understand me, mister?'

Reave shrugged. 'It's suicide, but whatever you say.'

The officer's rage and frustration suddenly exploded. 'I said, do you understand me, mister?'

'I understand you,' Reave snarled back at the officer. 'I also understand you've got your tin soldier head up your ass.'

For about five seconds it looked as though the officer was going to shoot Reave out of hand. Then he must have realized that if he did that, Billy and the Minstrel Boy would undoubtedly waste him in return. Self-preservation won out over anger. He turned and directed his anger at his men.

'Keep firing at that damned cylinder.'

Billy crawled up behind Reave. 'We should waste that sucker.'

Reave shook his head. 'Just be ready to get out of here when I give the signal. Tell Renatta and the Minstrel Boy.'

There was a shriek like a compacted hurricane, and half the fire post was instantly vaporized. Billy, Reave, and the Minstrel Boy were all alive, if dazed, amid the rubble. Renatta had been
thrown out of the trench but was already up and crawling for cover. The officer and most of the volunteers were gone. Nosmo and Shaef were also dead.

'That thing's a molecular blaster. I didn't know there were any left.'

'I can't hear you. I've gone deaf.'

Reave was up on his feet. 'Let's go, go, go! Inside the registry building. Move it!'

A full-scale charge was coming up the ramp. Renatta and the DNA Cowboys raced up the steps, followed by the handful of survivors from the fire post, running for the shelter of the central registry building as beams and bullets smashed into the stonework under their feet. Just outside the door Billy fell, but he had only tripped. The Minstrel Boy grabbed him and dragged him inside.

'Are you okay?'

Billy nodded as glass from the door crashed around them. 'Yeah, yeah, which way do we go?'

'We'll make for the basements. There have got to be tunnels down there that'll take us down to other levels. We've got to try and avoid as much of the fighting as possible and make our way to the open nothings.'

The fighting was closing on the heart of the city. For the next half hour the four of them made their way through scenes of slaughter, skirting the worst combat zones and heading as best they could for the outside quadrants, as far as possible from the focus of the attack. Despite their efforts, though, they could not completely go around the violence that was gripping more and more of the city as the raiders pressed home their attack with alarming speed. The defenders of Krystaleit appeared to have just one desperate strategy: They held their forces at key points until the pressure became too great and the casualties too numerous, and then they fell back deeper into the city. All the while they drew closer the hub of the city, the vital center of the great sphere, the energy core, the primary stasis generator and the huge integrated biomass. They knew that the raiders would take no prisoners and that there could be no surrender.

The defenders were constantly hampered by the large numbers of refugees who were being driven back by the kill-crazy raiders. Sections of the city that were in enemy hands were already burning. The raiders were routinely torching buildings,
sometimes with defenders or unarmed citizens still inside them. If they intended taking the city as a prize, they seemed perversely intent on leaving themselves little more than a blackened ruin.

In some ways the second wave of the raiders was the worst. They seemed quite prepared to start the looting, raping, and general mindless destruction even before the city as a whole had fallen. The darkened streets were filled with their whooping and yelling, the screams of their victims, and the constant discharge of weapons. The DNA Cowboys were forced to mingle with the bestial mob, doing their best to look like raiders themselves, using the cover of the smoke and moving down streets where dark figures indulged themselves in nameless brutalities against a background of garish flames.

For the first time the Minstrel Boy observed Renatta registering real shock and horror. She looked around at him with eyes that were wide with revulsion. 'It's like a scene out of hell.'

'I think I'd rather choose hell.'

Reave and Billy were a little farther ahead. A smoke-blackened rider with a patch over his left eye grabbed Reave by the arm. The man was on the end of a line of raiders waiting their turn with two unfortunate, terrified women who had been stripped and bound, back to back, against a pillar. Reave's instant reaction was that he had been discovered. He had to stop himself from whipping out a pistol when, a moment later, he discovered that the seeming attack was just an invitation to the party

'You want to join in the fun, asshole?'

Reave, nerves still jangling, quickly shook his head and walked on. 'I got orders.'

The rider's voice boomed after him. 'Fucking snob! You gotta be one of Baptiste's queers!'

Reave gave a slight shake of his head. The bastard did not know how close he was to the truth.

Renatta hissed at the Minstrel Boy. 'Isn't there anything that we can do about this?'

The Minstrel Boy scowled. 'Yeah, we can die trying. Just keep moving. There aren't that many women in this army, and you kind of stand out.'