Cyborg Strike (9 page)

Where the bodies of the three nanocommandos
had been, now he could find nothing but craters. It looked to him
like twenty kilos of semtex or C8 had been detonated there,
vaporizing the bodies, though that was clearly impossible.
Hell,
it must have been in the bodies,
he thought.
Clever, Spooky,
clever. Almost got me.
It must have been something new, and ten
times as powerful, to fit into nanocommandos and not impair their
functioning.

If all of the attacking nanocommandos were so
equipped – and he had to assume there were dozens, if not hundreds
– then Central Authority was doomed. The black-clad attackers had
to be going through this fortress like shit through a goose, and
one damaged cyborg simply wasn’t going to turn the tide.

As soon as his hybrid brain-chipset agreed
with this assessment, his minder code insisted he reprioritize and
preserve the life of his principal. Because he’d already decided on
that himself, he was already heading toward Ms. Smythe’s office,
and avoided any warning pain.

Fewer of the defenders clogged the corridors
this time, and he didn’t have to harm any of them at all before he
reached his goal. Bursting through the door, he did not wait for
acknowledgement before saying, “We must exfiltrate immediately,
ma’am.”

Smythe stared at him, obviously startled by
her naked metal golem’s appearance, but she had not gotten to her
position by freezing under pressure. “Agreed,” she responded, and
stepped from behind her desk to follow him. In her hand she carried
a compact pistol.

“Follow me,” he said, and paced himself to
her jog. It was only a short distance to the VTOL hangar, where the
two slim flying darts waited with their internal rotors already
spinning. A pilot sat in each, waiting for their passengers to
load.

“Twenty seconds,” he said, and bolted for the
ready room door, leaving Smythe standing there. Seventeen seconds
later he returned, dressed now in a flight suit and carrying two
flyers’ helmets. He tossed another coverall at her. “Put this
on.”

Normally Smythe would probably have taken
exception to this kind of abrupt treatment, but the threat of death
must have made her decide to forego her usual umbrage. She slipped
the garment over her clothes and then received a helmet from the
cyborg’s hand.

Next, the metal man took off his facemask and
tucked it into his suit, revealing his human visage, relatively
well preserved except for some bruising around the edges, from the
explosion. He walked over to tell one of the pilots to get out of
his craft. The man did not argue, but ran over to take the
copilot’s seat on the other bird.

Waving Smythe toward him, the cyborg took the
pilot’s seat and pulled on his flight helmet, bringing up his
piloting overlay template and double-checking the aircraft’s
status. Once Smythe had settled into the copilot’s seat of the
little attack bird, he pressed the button that sent the signal to
open the roof.

***

Surprise blossomed in Spooky’s racing mind as
the ground began to move beneath his feet. It seemed a hill grew
under him, and he ran downward to find stable earth. As soon as he
could, he turned to see a squarish rupture, sharply cornered, doors
with a thin layer of dirt and plants over them for near-perfect
camouflage.

Something coming to the surface.

Nguyen backed away, looking around for his
troops, but none were closer than half a football field, of any
nation’s rules. With the HUD he called several to him, and marked
the new threat on their displays. Then he hefted his own weapon, a
heavy PW-20 loaded with Needleshock, worthless against most
vehicles. He felt no great concern; any ground car or truck to
emerge could be handled by his commandos or, if need be, by his
aircraft.

Instead, one slim VTOL blasted skyward from
the opened doors, then another. “Bring them down!” he ordered
immediately, and several weapons of various sorts – anti-aircraft,
heavy machinegun, Armorshock – let loose after them.

The lead vehicle took a missile into the
engine housing, forcing its pilot to put it down immediately onto a
hillside before he lost all control. Its twin lit up with the
discharge of an electromagnetic pulse cannon, which froze all of
its systems. Nosing over in the air, it tumbled when it struck the
ground, coming apart by bits and pieces.

“You two check that one,” Nguyen said to the
nearest commandos, pointing at the first crash, the biggest mess.
Over his suitcomm he ordered, “All others on the surface within
sight of it, converge on the downed craft and capture those in
it.”

Then he ran.

As he was not the closest, he was far from
the first to reach the crash site, and so was perfectly positioned
to witness the death of one of his people. Too eager and
insufficiently cautious, the man died in a burst of 20mm fire from
the nose of the aircraft.

Its pilot had brought it in to pancake in
some scrubby trees, and thus preserved most of its structure,
apparently taking the opportunity to use the heavy weapon to shred
the first grunt to walk in front of it.

Stupid
, Nguyen thought.
Never
assume a weapon is not functional. Darwin wins again.

Neither he nor the seven or eight others
approaching made the same mistake.

Because of his capture order, his people did
not simply send in rockets to blast the fuselage, but one of them
carried an electrical cannon, useful for dealing with a number of
problems. Not only vehicles but also nano-infused personnel would
fall to its overwhelming charge.

That commando fired its lightning bolt into
the VTOL, and the aircraft’s electrically-operated 20mm cannon
burped one abortive burst before jamming. Residual lights inside
the helicopter-like vehicle went out, and as the blue shimmers
dispersed, all were plunged into darkness.

Switching to IR allowed Nguyen to see a
figure moving weakly inside. “Leave it to me,” he ordered, and
approached alone on cat feet, PW20 at the ready. Hopefully, a
couple shots of the heavy nonlethal round would allow whomever it
was to be taken into custody. He could always use brave,
resourceful people on his own team, if he or she could be persuaded
to give up any hard feelings.

The copilot he could see shuddered wounded,
her visage hidden by the aviator’s face shield. Red blood soaked
her flight suit, her breathing labored. The male pilot next to her
sat unmoving in his seat, face down on the cyclic stick.

“Get the pilot out. She’s wounded, and I want
her alive. Make sure she is disarmed,” he instructed. Unfortunately
he’d chosen his commandos for aggression and capacity for violence,
not their ability to take prisoners.

Moving to the other side of the cockpit, he
kept his own weapon pointed at the unmoving man slumped in the
seat. Reaching for a piece of tubular metal wreckage, he used it to
prod the body, seeking signs of faking injury or death. The chest
did not rise and fall, so he tossed the rod onto the VTOL’s floor
and fired one round into the figure’s thigh, where it burst with a
spark.

No reaction. Satisfied, he turned to look at
the team ministering to the injured pilot.

Spark?

Only Dadirri saved him, long hours ever alert
to his old teacher Maka’s walking stick, blows that would come at
him from every blind direction until he could
feel
them
before they fell, merely by the way they disturbed the air.

Flexing at the waist, Spooky dropped his
helmeted head below a powerful swing of the very tube he had just
discarded and continued the motion, rolling and coming smoothly to
his feet beyond, facing the aircraft. Firing instantly, he put five
rounds into the chest of the figure even now rushing for him.

Mistake!
He could see no effect, and
by then the man got too close. Blocking another strike of the
enemy’s improvised bat only rendered his own weapon useless, broken
in half by a blow like a pile driver. Then he recognized the one he
faced: from his size and speed, this must be his pursuer from the
assassination attempt.

Pride nearly undid him then, temptation to
have his vengeance, and to tell the others,
this one is
mine,
but he believed he had long ago moved beyond such idiocy.
Survival and victory came through outthinking and outfighting, not
though heroic gestures.

“Kill him,” Nguyen ordered.

Weapons from the half-circle of onlookers
ripple-fired, but their target changed direction suddenly, faster
than expected, causing them all to miss. Bullets and rockets plowed
the ground as the figure, still anonymous in his helmet, charged at
the downed pilot and the two commandos giving her aid.

One instinctively rolled out of the way,
weaponless and wise with discretion.

The other snatched up a grenade launcher, but
even nanite speed failed to bring the weapon on target before the
attacker shot his foot forward in a blurring, precise kick. The
commando’s head snapped backward and lolled as his body tumbled,
dead or dying.

More shots crossed his path and one
Armorshock round struck with its characteristic discharge. The man
stumbled, slowing, and other projectiles hammered him to the ground
until he lay still.

Even more cautiously this time, Nguyen
approached, not relying on any firearm. Rather, he held his hands
in an open combat stance, and took light steps that would have
impressed Kwai Chang Caine’s blind Kung Fu teacher.

Dadirri saved him again, as well as a
lifetime of training, as incredibly, the man surged to his feet
scarcely slower than before. His shattered helmet fell off of
him.

Now Nguyen could see the face of his
attacker, which turned to face him. A face he knew, that he’d
studied so long ago in his nephew Vinh’s intelligence dossiers. And
he never forgot a face, even one he thought long turned into
Edenhood and therefore cured of his penchant for sick cruelty.

“Miguel Carrasco.”

“Spooky Nguyen.” The man’s voice sounded like
something a machine would make, but his face showed a very human
rage.

“What is this about?” he asked. “What did I
ever do to you?” His racing thoughts already had a theory, but if
Spooky had any weaknesses, curiosity might be one of them, so he
let the man talk rather than ordering him killed.

“You wanted to kill me, there on the floor of
the lab. I appreciate that.”

“Yes?” Spooky’s theory took a hard left turn.
“You would rather have died?”

“Yes! But that do-gooder Markis and his tame
bitch had me shot up with the Plague.” Carrasco’s face twisted with
hatred and reflected agony.

“Ah. I see.” And now he did. “No longer could
you take pleasure in rape and murder. What was it – nightmares?
PTSD? Guilt?”

“It was pure
hell
. I swore I would
find a way to get myself back and hunt you bastards down…and now,
here we are.” Carrasco smiled. “Are you still a chickenshit gook
slope who can’t face a
man
?”

Anger surged within Spooky, an emotion he
thought he’d dispensed with long ago. It caused him to give in to
pride.

“Leave him to me,” he ordered his troops in a
low, grating voice. They shifted uneasily, forming a circle. Spooky
wondered what kind of a man would carry a grudge for more than a
decade, when he could have rehabilitated himself in any number of
ways. He also wondered what technology it was that allowed the man
to operate with a dozen obviously fatal wounds.

More than a nanocommando.

Shadow Man?

Cyborg?

Carrasco’s attack confirmed his supposition,
raining lightning blows powerful enough to break bones, using arms
and legs sheathed in metal visible at wrists and ankles.

Spooky dodged and, when necessary, deflected
the strikes with his own armored limbs. Even with such protection
he was driven back, laterally, and around.

Like a tiger after a bobcat the metal man
come on, implacable, his eyes suddenly glowing a visible red, a
demonic thing of deliberate terror. Each blow missed by mere
millimeters as his quarry moved out of the way. “You cannot survive
against me,” the nightmare voice crackled.

“On the contrary, you cannot survive at all,”
growled Spooky, risking a strike to the man-thing’s knee. It felt
like kicking a metal pole, and did not slow his enemy in the least.
Apparently the cyborg felt no pain. Damaging that armored joint, or
any other, would take a powerful blow from exactly the right
angle.

“I’m going to rip your head off and shit down
your yellow neck,” his enemy said.

“I think not,” Spooky responded from within
his cold rage, unleashing a combination designed to set up the
spinning mule kick that would break that knee. He arranged it
perfectly, finishing with every ounce of his nano-enhanced strength
and speed, driving his heel sideways into the man-thing’s leg.

Instead, he felt his own fibula snap and his
tibia shatter, shocking him utterly as he stumbled and fell, pain
shooting throughout his body.
I am a fool,
he thought as he
scrambled in the dirt.
I discarded all the lessons of Dadirri in
the heat of my emotion, and started brawling. I deserve to
die.

Carrasco stumbled too, his leg knocked from
under him though not damaged as planned. He fell heavily, then
rolled toward Spooky, reaching with clawed fingers, intending to
finish the job. As he did, a blade shot out from the cyborg’s arm,
spearing six inches into the smaller man’s calf, causing him to
jerk reflexively and pull the leg back, leaving a gaping wound that
poured blood and dragged an enormous flap of flesh.

This thing could kill me,
Spooky
realized with dawning belief. Belatedly, he recalled the first and
most obvious lesson Maka had taught him:
where one fails, many
succeed
. “Kill it!” he roared, somersaulting backward and out
of the way on three good limbs.