The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) (18 page)

“Prime Minister, he will be ready for questions just as soon as that injection kicks in,” the young man said as he rose. “Not enough juice to kill the pain, just wear the edge off.”

Kimraig watched him disappear into the darkness. It did not seem as if the medic was right about “whatever” med he had received; the pain he was suffering was much worse than he had ever experienced. There was company with him also—stick woman and doughboy.
Best watch my manners.
Prod again, seeking his attention.

“You know who we are, Builder?”

“Yes, Miss. Prime Minister Painter and Commander Budge.”

“That is Painter-Richards to you,” she said probing him again for emphasis.

“We saw you knock your Queen down before the attack. You probably killed her.”

“Easy Missy, he walked over unarmed to meet us,” Budge repeated, favoring his heavily bandaged arm.

“We will have answers now. Talk.” She used the prod again for emphasis.

Her prod never far from his groin, they talked. Well, they asked questions for which he had no answers. Without answers, Stick Woman became anxious and her prod strayed way to close for comfort. When Commander Colt Budge recognized Kimraig’s cooperation, he politely relieved his Prime Minister of her prod. Everything calmed down.

Colt began to explain what he knew about the building next to One Nine. As he did, he opened Kimraig’s canteen and tilted it to his lips, talking as he monitored the flow of water.

The building where the recent attack occurred was an annex to the target building One Nine. At the top, five stories above the street, a temporary bridge connected the two. The main bridge on the third story no longer had flooring, opening it up to a three-story fall to the buckled pavement below. The flooring was stripped away probably during the first days after the bombs. One Nine had been under constant attack by someone, but it was long ago.

Kimraig had been over every inch of this building and he had not seen the temporary bridge connecting it to the annex: must be new, maybe even for this meeting. Bradley had taken a lot of time setting this trap. Colt asked Kimraig to help find their missing leader.

He and stick woman argued. She refused to listen, preferring to believe Kimraig knew her husband’s location.

Tired of the impasse, Colt spoke first. “We have twenty six fighters with us, the most we could spare. I expected an attack at home when you Builders discovered we were gone. Three need to stay with Miss...ah, the Prime Minister.” He held his hand up for her silence until he could finish.

“Counting Dog and Cat, she has an escort of five. She must head back home,” he paused with a finger to his lips to halt a retort from his leader.

“Me and them will take care of getting Loyal back from that building. You must go home.”

“Like hell I will,” Missy said already yanked rigid over her canes.

Kimraig watched Colt walk to her side. Holding her in his one good arm, he bent down to whisper in her ear. No sound carried to him, only the anguish of the women’s shudder. Was it a sob? Colt drew back, holding her. Her face was blank, masking incredible loss.

“I propose a temporary truce between us,” Kimraig said trying to defuse the situation. I have at least four going back in a single SHORT.”

Realizing they may not know what that was, he added an explanation. “That is the name of the vehicle we arrived in. We could combine into one force and leave more people here.”

“No. We go back by the tunnels, not in an iron coffin.”

The Prime Minister was back in charge now, regardless of what she and Colt had discussed.

“Riding is safer than walking,” Kimraig said.

“She does not walk. She is carried.”

Colt had seen Kimraig’s eyebrows go up at the mention of her using the tunnels.

“Who will we join on the trip back home?”

“Mistress Breen’s Queen Brody-1, with her Hunter Curtis o, and also Rachel, who goes by the name of Rat. Each is well known in the Buildings, which will help them plead our case for a relief force.”

He did not fully trust Rat, but she would gather their people. What she chooses to do with them was another matter.

Colt, with a knowing grin spoke first.

“So get rid of the Queen who stomped you, as well as her lover. Add in that woman who betrayed you to Mistress Ann, and what we have is a puzzle wrapped in a tidy little kit. Such a fine plan, but it holds nothing for us. You are going to have to explain that before we bite.”

At Kimraig’s startled expression, Colt explained.

“Saw it all. Installed cameras in your home building and in the buildings where we just met as soon as Mistress Ann suggested we form a unified nation.”

“You were the ones who tried to force the garage doors when we were locked down?”

“Not likely. Loose too many good people crossing that open space. We planted a closed circuit video pickup to watch you. It beams real time events straight over to us.” As Colt spoke, the two animals diverted their attention to darkness and silently disappeared out of the flickering light.

“Sit tight,” he said as he followed, seeping blood dripping from his arm.

Not a word passed between Kimraig and the Prime Minister while Colt was gone. Dog escorted Colt back inside. He started to confer privately with Missy, but instead spoke.

“Marta says Ergots found us, blocked the tunnels. No clearing it with our small force.”

“Steel coffin it is,” Kimraig smiled. “Just what are Ergots?”

“I do not really know. Leave a dead soldier down anywhere and they disappear just like our people did in the room
across the street
—no trace but they always left the armor.” Colt was working up a mad.

A tall slim figure carrying double tanks on her back appeared at the edge of the light. Dog was with her. Cat rose and moved to her side, draping her muzzle over one boot.

“Kimraig, meet Luna. She already knows you.”

He walked to Missy and they spoke softly for a moment.

Kimraig knew of the woman also. She had been one of the escorts for the Crosser doctor who had come to demand a male baby as a bribe for safe passage to One Nine.

Finally Missy spoke. “We go in your machine.” Then she turned to Colt. “If I go, you go also. That arm needs tending.” Her tone adamant, she would not take no for an answer.

Negotiations began with a give and take between the male and female Crossers that Kimraig found hard to understand. Prime Minister Painter-Richards and Commander Colt actually seemed to respect each other.

He was almost speechless at their treatment of him. They treated him as an ally. It left him suspicious of their reason for sharing weapons, along with instructors to demonstrate the equipment and its operation.

The instructors were Marta, who would command, and Luna who would be his “second set of eyes.” She would be with him only until they found Loyal or they were all three dead. Then he got the gist—no Loyal, no Kimraig.

Well, that seems final to me,
Kimraig thought with grim humor.

Colt had called it right. He wanted Brody-1, Hunter Curtis, and Rat gone because he no longer trusted them.

The Prime Minister had loaned him her canes, so getting himself back
across the street
to the Annex was no problem. The moon had gone behind an adjacent building, leaving the street in darkness. No one could see them, but broken glass would announce their intensions well enough.

The two Crosser soldiers escorted him, one in front the other behind. He was not sure if they were protecting him or guarding him. The transition was smooth, as if they had always been a team. He knew they would prove to be an asset.

Kimraig wondered at the use for the twin tanks, joined by a rod in the middle, which rode heavily on each of their backs. He would discover their purpose soon enough.

Once they were back inside, his injuries let him know he would not be in charge much longer. Marta had come prepared with another half dose of painkiller. He resisted, did him no good. The rest was a blur. He remembered his instruction to Rat and Brody-1 to escort the Prime Minister and his brief plan for reinforcements.

Marta took command. She and Luna knew how to clear buildings. They had chased Builders out of their own several times when they had tried to colonize Crosser territory. They had each assessed the strength and weakness of individual fighters in the other contingents as they arrived for the meeting with Bradley.

With that in mind, Luna carefully explained the details for the attack. Those plans leaned heavily on the strength of the two Hunters who looked identical to the father Kimraig. Using them would give the illusion that Kimraig’s legend could be in two places at one time.

First, Marta had to get her Prime Minister, Colt, and the Builder reps back home.

In the Annex garage, the large double doors rattled up part way. The noise would have awakened the dead if the Ergots had not eaten them. A single SHORT, with lights on and at full throttle, powered through the open doorway into the night. The heavy wheels scattered the frothing bubbles drawn to the sudden noise. They gathered themselves and charged the open doorway just as the doors began to descend.

Unfazed by the unexpected froth, Cullen stood alone facing the doorway with Luna’s canisters on his back. The bar in the middle was a wand much like a two handed lance extended before him. Flexible hosing attached the wand to both canisters, all controlled with a hair trigger.

As the first cleared the threshold, the lance spit a grout of sticky fire into the opening. Only a few were foolish enough to continue their attack. The heavy door crunched down to full lock, squishing puddles of water and at least two piles of smoldering rags.

“Whoa, that works. Damn, that stuff smells like burnt Choker weed,” Cullen said. Then to his helmet mike, “Go. Go. Go.”

The first phase of their attack had gone without complications—next would be the Annex stairs. Progress up to the first floor became brutal immediately. Both types of darts fell in volleys from above. The shields deflected most down the opening between the flights but footing was treacherous in the flickering torch light. At the first turn, debris—accurately aimed from above—fell on the troops climbing the stairs. The concentrated barrage attempted to break the link between lower shield edge and the banister that braced it.

The crunching thump of concrete on shields, the grunts of soldiers and troopers absorbing the blows, the wheeze of tortured lungs as they sucked dust, echoed in the stairwell. Marta realized they should have waited for daylight.

On the main floor landing, they came. The stairwell above and below quickly filled with boiling bubbles. They were merely a screen for the Outsiders attack. These ragged, lurching men quickly met with the steel tools turned spears; they were skewered and spitted, but not for eating. The smell and ooze made gruesome work. The remains disappeared just as quickly as the bubbles descended on the fallen.

The heat of battle left little time to question the appearance of bubbles.

As expected, the door from the stairwell remained blocked from the hallway inside. Luna removed a flat patch from her weapons belt. She molded the patch against the steel doorway, pulled the attached tab and stepped back. The patch burned fierce for a blink than smoldered. Door and frame were now one, protecting their back.

The next two landings were the same. It was clear to Luna, that the Ergots were leading them up to the top floor—dangling victory, then quickly snatching it away.

On the fifth and last floor, Luna’s weapons belt was almost empty. She climbed the access ladder and quickly jammed the roof trap door with a piece of stair railing; then she dropped back to the doorway below. Short-term fix, they did not need much time.

Luna let Hunter Curtis lead the way. With one thrust, Hunter Curtis and five Troopers burst through the doors with shields at the ready and the long steel bars leading the way. The Ergots did not bother to put up a fight, they ran for the window opening, where the temporary bridge bumped and swayed. Their mass squirted across to One Nine, as few lingered at the window daring them to follow.

Hunter Curtis chased only as far as the opening. When the room was clear, Luna breathed into her helmet mike. “Go. Go. Go.” She repeated it once, and then banged out the open stairwell door. Hunter Curtis cut the ropes holding the temporary bridge in place and watched as it fell.

Too bad for you Ergots, we have no intension of following you across that bridge even if you were kind enough to lead us here.
At the thought, Hunter Curtis led his group back down the stairs. Next stop, One Nine.

No one had mentioned his brother Cullen seeing bubbles instead of these large blobs.

* * *

On the fifth floor of One Nine, Bradley’s currier barged in the door.

“I ordered you to knock. Get out. I am very busy,” he raged. Having his brutal mauling of Breen’s body rudely interrupted could get the man dead.

“This not gonna’ wait. Them troops not about to cross the bridge, so we not gonna’ dump ‘em in the street. Some left in one of the vehicles. The rest is chewing up the Ergots bad. We lost a couple guys, more wounded.” The man slumped as if too many sentences had depleted his energy. It seemed he knew Bradley’s anger from before and did not care.