The End of All Things: The Third Instalment (7 page)

I checked with my BrainPal to see if there was any signal from the
Tubingen.
I didn’t want to try to signal them, in case anyone was listening, but if they were sending to us they might have information we survivors could use.

Nothing.
That wasn’t good.

I stood up, visual camo still on, and walked to where I could again see the lights in the distance.
I applied the visual to the data for ground maps I had in my BrainPal for the mission.
I checked that against the position of the stars in the sky.
I was in the foothills above the suburbs of Omdurman, Khartoum’s capital city.
I was forty-five klicks southeast of the city’s capital district, thirty-eight klicks south of the “undisclosed location” where I knew the prime minister to be, and twenty-three klicks southwest of the secondary extraction point where I hoped any survivors of my platoon were now heading.

I wasn’t interested in any of those at the moment.
Instead I called up my visual cache of the last hour and tracked back to a visual of one of the beams targeting a soldier of mine, and started using the visual information, along with my descent data, to track back the location of whatever was creating that beam.

Sixteen klicks due almost directly north, also in the foothills, near an abandoned reservoir.

“Got you,” I said, bumped up my low-light visual acuity as much as possible to avoid falling into a hole, and started jogging toward the target.
As I did I had my BrainPal play me music, so I would be distracted from thinking about Lambert, or Salcido, or Powell, or any other members of my platoon.

I would think about them later.
I would grieve them later.
Right now I needed to find out who shot them down.

* * *

Six klicks from the target, something knocked me off my feet and threw me to the ground.
I immediately pushed off and rolled, confused because I had my visual camo on, and because whatever hit me and tossed me to the ground was nowhere to be seen.
I had been shoved by a ghost.

Lieutenant.

It took me a second to realize that the voice I heard was through my BrainPal, not my ears.

Directly in front of you,
the voice said.
Tightbeam me.
I don’t know if we’re still being tracked.

Powell?
I said, via tightbeam, incredulous.

Yes,
she said.
She sent me visual permissions on her suit, which allowed my BrainPal to model where her body would be.
She was indeed a meter directly in front of me.
I tightbeamed her similar permissions.

Sorry about tackling you,
she said.

How did you do that?
I asked
.
I mean, how did you know that I was there?

Are you listening to music?

I was,
I said.
So?

You were singing as you ran.

Jesus,
I said.

You didn’t know?

No.
But I’m not surprised.
When I was a musician they had to turn off my microphone at gigs because I would sing along.
I can play any stringed instrument you can name, but I can’t sing worth a damn.

I noticed that much,
Powell said, and I smiled despite myself.
Powell motioned back, to the southeast
.
I came down that direction and started heading this way and began hearing you a couple of klicks back.
I waited until I was sure it was you.

You could have tightbeamed me instead of tackling me.

It seemed safer this way.
If you were on the ground there was less chance of you grabbing your Empee and spraying the brush out of surprise.

Point.
Why are you headed this way, though?
The secondary extraction point is not this way.

No.
But the assholes who shot us down are.

I smiled again
.
It does not at all surprise me to hear you say that.

Of course it doesn’t.
Just as I’m not surprised to find you on the way there.

No, I suppose not.

Shall we go?

Yes,
I said.
We both stood up.

Just to be clear, I plan to kill the shit out of every single one of them we find,
Powell said.

We may want one or two for questioning,
I said.

Your call.
You better point out which ones you want ahead of time.

I will.
Also, Ilse?

Yes, Lieutenant?

What was your job back on Earth?
I’ve always been curious.

I taught eighth-grade math in Tallahassee.

Huh,
I said.
That’s not what I expected.

Are you kidding?
Powell said back.
You try teaching algebra to a bunch of little shitheads for thirty-eight years straight.
The way I figure it I’ve got about another decade before my rage from that gets entirely burned up.

Whatever works.
Ready?

Yes I am,
Powell said.
I’ve got some anger to work out.
And not just from teaching.

* * *

Well, this is definitely not good,
Powell said to me.

The two of us, still in full camo, lay two hundred meters out from a large concrete slab, itself on the edge of a disused reservoir.
On the slab were two missile launchers, an electromagnetic mass driver, and two beam weapons.
One of the launchers was missing two of its missiles, and next to it two specialists had hauled over new weapons to load onto it.
The specialists were not human.

Fucking Rraey,
Powell said, naming the species.
What are they doing here?

Shooting down our shuttles,
I said.

But why?
How did they even get onto this planet?

I think they were invited.

By the prime minister?
I’m going to shoot him twice now.

We still need to bring him in alive,
I said.

I didn’t say I was going to kill him,
Powell replied.
Just that I was going to shoot him twice.

Let’s focus on what we’re doing here first.

All right,
Powell said.
How do you want to do this?

I looked again at the slab.
Each of the weapon platforms had its own set of technicians and operators, which amounted to four Rraey each.
Each of the platforms also had its own power source, the largest being attached to the mass driver, which had to pull some serious energy into its electromagnets.
The platforms were spaced haphazardly, as if they were hastily installed and meant to be equally hastily removed.
And indeed toward the back of the platform were a set of trucks large enough to pack up the platforms and drive them away.
There was a fifth truck as well, smaller than the rest, out of the top of which sprouted various communications receivers.
Inside of it were several Rraey, visible through windows.
Command and communications.
Finally, two Rraey with rifles walked the perimeter of the slab.
Security, such as it was.

I see about twenty-four Rraey,
I said, to Powell.

I check your math,
she said.

I want at least a couple alive.

Fine.
Anyone in particular?

Let’s keep the C&C staff breathing for now.

You’re the boss.

You take the security and the trucks, and knock out the C&C power.

Some of them will still have handhelds.

Don’t give them time to use them.

You said you wanted them unharmed.

I said I wanted them
breathing
.

Oh, okay,
Powell said
.
That makes things easier.

I’ll take the weapons crews.

That’s a lot.

I have a plan.

Yeah?
What is it?

Watch this,
I said, set my Empee for a particle beam, and it shot into one of the missiles the weapons crew was trying to install into the launcher.
I aimed not for the payload, but the fuel.

It went up like holiday fireworks, taking the launcher, its missiles, its crew, and the crews of the adjoining platforms with it.
Everything on the slab crumpled, including any Rraey unfortunate enough to be outside when the missile platform went up.
It was a good thing we still had our masks on; they protected our ears from the blast.

“I thought you might do that,” Powell said out loud, breaking cover and standing up.

“You’re not worried about them seeing you?”
I asked.

“Lieutenant, at this point I
want
them to see me coming,” she said, and stalked off, Empee up.

I smiled, stayed crouched, and waited for any of the Rraey on the slab to start moving again.
From time to time one would start to move away.
I stopped them from continuing to do so.

There was a soft thudding sound; Powell had taken out the command truck’s power source.
I saw her stalk across the slab, toward the truck, shooting truck drivers as she went.
Behind her, one of the Rraey truck drivers had grabbed a weapon and was maneuvering around its truck to get a shot.
I dealt with it.

You missed one,
I sent to her.

I knew he was there,
she sent back.
I knew you were there too.

A Rraey appeared out the door of the command truck’s cabin.
Powell shot it in the leg; it went down squawking.

Keep a couple alive,
I said.

That depends on them,
Powell sent back.
She reached the truck, grabbed the squawking Rraey, and pushed it in front of her as she went through the cabin door.

Things were quiet, at least from my point of view, for a couple of minutes afterward.

I left a couple alive,
Powell said, after those couple of minutes had passed.
But you might want to hurry.

I hurried down.

The inside of the command truck was a mess.
There were three dead Rraey in it, including the one Powell had shot in the leg.
Two more Rraey were at the back of the cabin, keening.
From what little I knew of Rraey physiology, they were both sporting broken limbs.
Powell had stripped them of their personal electronics; the rest of the cabin’s electronics were down.
Light in the cabin consisted of a couple of small emergency lights.

“Any trouble?”
I asked Powell as she entered.

“No,” she said.
“They’re not very good at close quarters.”

“Well, that’s something,” I said.

Powell nodded and pointed to one of the survivors.
“I think that’s the one in charge,” she said.
“At least that’s the one everyone tried to keep me from getting at.”

I went over to the Rraey, who was looking up at me.
I accessed my BrainPal, which had translation modules for the couple hundred species we humans had encountered the most often; the Rraey were in there.
Their language contained sounds that we can’t make, but the BrainPal would pick words that suited our mouths and throats.
I’d tell the BrainPal what I wanted to say and it would offer me a suitable translation.