Time Siege (59 page)

James ordered his guardians to take a position at the shadow of the entranceway. Staying low, he moved forward on his own and snuck into Crowe's office off to the side. He hoped the old man was safe, but anyone who'd been on this floor when the Co-op attacked was probably dead or captured. Since the enemy had first attacked, he had not seen any of the Flatiron fights, and that saddened him. That meant their entire tribe's blood was on his hands. Just like Oldest Qawol's. Just like Smitt's.

He entered the room and silently crept along the near wall, hiding behind one of Crowe's wingback chairs. The Co-op had turned this room into a makeshift guard tower. A rack of blasters was laid neatly next to the door, and there were stacks of energy magazines next to it. Next to the fireplace, if James didn't know better, he would have sworn was a coffee machine. For a second he wanted coffee badly. It had been months since he last drank a cup, and going clean only made his body want another vice to latch on to.

Someone at that far end of the room coughed. James froze and peered over the side. A figure stood in the shadows with his back to him. How James hadn't notice the man in the white uniform was beyond him. His senses were failing him, forcing him lately into several mistakes, careless ones that could get people killed. That had already gotten people killed. He counted a few beats as the trooper whistled and continued loading energy magazines into blaster rifles and then racking them against the wall.

James waited. A window of opportunity came when the trooper knocked over a small stack of the magazines and got distracted. James leaped out from behind the chair and closed the distance. One hurdle over Crowe's desk, and he was on the trooper, swinging once with his rifle to knock him down and then raising the butt of it high into the air to bring it down on the man's face.

James slammed the rifle down to crush the trooper's skull and stopped centimeters before it would connect. The initial blow had knocked the trooper's white helmet off. He was a teenager, a young one at that, probably the lowest ranked of the Valta forces relegated to this guardhouse. It brought him back to the Nazi soldier he had killed at Königsberg Castle, the unknown young man who was just about this kid's age. He wondered only one thing at this very moment.

“What's your name, kid?”

The young trooper, terrified, eyes squeezed shut with one hand trying to protect his face, pried one eye open. “Wh … what?”

“Your name. What is it?”

“Es … Estan.”

James took a step back. “Get up, Estan. Are you armed?”

The young trooper shook his head and scrambled to his feet. “I … my…,” he stammered.

James pulled the boy to his feet and motioned to the door. “I'm going to let you live. Dying here is shit for someone so young. Stay out of this fight. If I see you again, I'll kill you, so just go.”

“But I'm contract bound to—”

“Get out!” James pushed the boy hard until he tumbled into the hall. The young trooper fled, whatever else he was screaming lost in the chaos of the battle outside. James looked over to the bridge entrance and signaled for his guardians to join him. His twenty survivors, staying low, scrambled into the room a moment later. James handed each one a blaster rifle as they walked in.

“Why did you let that Valta go, Elder?” one of the guardians asked.

James shrugged. “Just paying a ghost back.” He gave them all a quick crash course on how to handle the Valta rifles. “Better versions of the crap you've all been using. It's a little heavier, but there's no recoil like the projectile weapons. You also shouldn't have to worry about reloading as often.” He gave the group about a minute of practice before urging them out of the room. Chances were, that young trooper had not heeded his advice and had gone to find help. James would hate to have to kill him so soon after letting him live.

It seemed he didn't have to worry about that, though. Whatever chaos was unfolding on the other end of the cavernous room was spreading. Eriao led a large group of guardians out of the eastern stairwell and punched through the Valta lines. The northern stairwell was experiencing a similar surge, though the enemy line there held for the moment.

James climbed onto a stack of containers hugging the east wall and looked to the south. His mouth dropped. How could this be possible? The Valta soldiers were fighting ChronoCom monitors! He looked over to his left, where the guardians at the north stairwell struggled to make headway. He should be there with them right now. However, something bigger was happening.

“Elder James,” Eriao said, running up to him. “It is good to see you still breathe.” A crowd of his guardians from the eastern barricade rushed past him toward a group of troopers holding back the northern stairwell guardians. “Shall we join them? If we can merge your group with mine, we might stand a chance of pushing the enemy back.”

James couldn't take his eyes off the south end of the building. The fighting there was the heaviest, and the monitors were slowly losing. The only reason the Elfreth had any chance right now was because the Valta forces were so focused on the monitors. Once defeated, the megacorporation could just turn around and wipe out the Elfreth.

He grabbed Eriao by the sleeve. “Listen, we need to help those people over there.”

The war chief frowned. “The monitors? Why? Let them kill each other.”

James shook his head. “The only reason we've made any headway here is because they're fighting. Once Valta wipes the agency forces out, they'll crush the Elfreth.”

“What's to say if the monitors win, they won't crush us as well? Let them weaken each other, and then we take our chance with the survivor.”

It was a tempting plan, but James's gut told him otherwise. Eriao was rightfully biased. The agency was responsible for the attack on the Farming Towers that killed many of the tribe, but things had changed. The man who had led the attack on the Farming Towers now actively salvaged for the Elfreth. The woman they had taken in as a refugee now led them. Something Levin had told him before he left for Earth Central rang in his head: they couldn't do this alone. Elise, Grace, Levin, the Elfreth, all of them, needed help if they were going to survive and make any of this work.

“ChronoCom isn't the real enemy,” he said. “They're the lesser of the evils.”

Eriao was not convinced. “These same people were killing us only hours ago.”

“Take control of the guardians at the north stairwell.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I need to find a way to get in touch with the monitors. We need to work together. That's the only way we can we beat Valta.”

“Are you sure, Elder? Is this really the right choice?”

“I don't know,” James admitted. “But I believe so.”

Eriao grimaced and then finally shrugged. “How do you intend to reach them?”

“I'm not sure,” James replied. “Sneak or fight my way.”

“You'll never make it alone. Valta controls the entire center and has those monitors completely surrounded.” Eriao put a hand on his shoulder and pointed to the east side of the cavernous room. “There is where their lines are thinnest.” A dozen pods of Valta troopers were positioned from near the center of the floor all the way to the wall. There were still fifty meters of troopers he needed to get through to reach the monitors, but that was far fewer than the hundreds of troopers and shockers battling the monitors and Elfreth on the other parts of the floor.

“I guess that's where I'll try,” said James.

“I will send guardians to help you clear a path,” Eriao said.

James shook his head. “A few won't make a difference. It'll just attract more attention.”

“Then I will send all of them.”

“Wait, no,” James protested. “You need them to relieve the guardians at the north stairwell.”

“If you truly believe what you say is critical to our survival, then they will have to hold a little longer.”

Throughout most of his life, James had always been ready to die: when he was a teenager trying to survive at Mnemosyne Station, when he was just an initiate at the ChronoCom Academy, and when he was a chronman for twenty years. He was ready to lay his life down for Elise and even the Elfreth. For them to do the same gave him pause.

“It'll be a massacre,” he said quietly.

Eriao looked around the room. “Look around, Elder. It already is. Let us find a way to end it.”

Within a few moments, the war chief had rallied all of his guardians and ordered them to strike at a single point in the Valta line and drive a wedge between the troopers on that line to the monitors on the other side. James watched as the guardians lined up and prepared to charge the Valta defensive positions, humbled at their faith and bravery. The crew that was with him at the bridge lined up at the front. The surviving flyguards pushed their way through the crowd until they were at his side, his honor guard. Chawr stood to his left, Hory to his right, and Dox right in front.

James leaned in to Chawr. “You know, you can't die. Who's going to maintain the
Frankenstein
?”

Chawr grinned. “Why, you, Elder.”

Eriao screamed at the top of his lungs, and then the large mass of guardians charged at a full sprint, shooting as they covered the distance between the two forces. The troopers opened up on them, and the first line of guardians fell. A few seconds later, the guardians crashed into the makeshift line of crates the Valta forces hid behind, and then the two sides meshed into a general melee.

James, keeping his blaster rifle working, taking out troopers as he moved, sidestepped, fired, and moved again. Dox fell first, taking a shot to the chest meant for James. Hory disappeared a second later, pulling a trooper to the ground. James wanted to stop and help him, but Chawr pulled him forward by his shirt.

Something struck James from his blind side, and two troopers towered over him, whaling on his arms and chest. He dodged a blaster shot and took out a trooper's knee with the end of his rifle. He rolled to his side to avoid a stomp and then tripped the other. He got to his feet and finished off both with two quick shots.

He turned to his left and came face-to-face with a new attacker. It was the same young trooper he had spared at the guardhouse. He still wasn't wearing a helmet, but he had somehow managed to find a blaster. The two stared at each other, both waiting for the other to make the first move. Something in James hoped desperately that the boy would retreat. Instead, the boy raised his rifle.

James got his shot off first, instantly killing him. He stood over the young man and shook his head. Even when he tried his best to spare a life, death somehow claimed what was due. He looked around for Chawr and found his flyguard's bloodied body lying on the ground. Blood dripped from his mouth and from a gaping wound to his stomach.

James felt his knees buckle. He had lost many men under his command, both as a chronman and as an elder, but this one hit him the hardest. He remembered the first time they had met. Chawr had offered him booze in return for bringing the Elfreth supplies. He had also been the first to volunteer to learn to work on the collies. He was also the one who had protected Elise when ChronoCom had attacked the Farming Towers and James hadn't been there. And now he had died protecting James.

James wanted to sit there with the boy, but didn't have the luxury of mourning properly. The best thing he could do to honor Chawr was to make his sacrifice count for something. He took a deep breath and continued on. The Elfreth charge had stalled, and they were slowly moving the wrong way. However, they had thinned the Valta ranks enough that James, staying low, was able to sneak through a maze of tents and containers until he reached the monitors' ranks. He was immediately apprehended by a squad of monitors.

A wrist beam blast narrowly missed him. James raised his hands. “Don't shoot. I need to speak with the lead monitor.”

The man approached, arm held up. “A savage that speaks Solar English? What do you want?”

The monitor next to him did a double take. “That's James Griffin-Mars.”

“Black abyss,” a third monitor said. “I can't believe you're still alive.”

“Take me to the lead monitor now!” James exclaimed. “If you want to beat these Valta assholes, you're going to need to work together with the wastelander tribes.”

“Isn't he a traitor?” the first monitor asked.

“Get your priorities straight, monitor,” James snapped. “There's no time. People are dying, and you're losing right now.”

The second monitor nodded and signaled for James to follow. They escorted him to a tent where several lead monitors gathered around a crate they used as table. James recognized the one in charge. Pollock was several years younger and had failed to reach the tier. Since then, however, he had made a name for himself within the monitor ranks and was seen as a potential successor to Moyer one day.

He frowned. “Chronman James Griffin-Mars. This is unexpected. What are you doing here?”

“What happened between the agency and Valta?” James demanded. “Why are you fighting?”

“There's been a coup at Earth Central,” Pollock said. “We're taking back the agency from the megacorporations.”

“Auditor Levin involved?”

Pollock looked surprised. “How did you know?”

“No time,” James said. “The wastelander tribes out there want to ally with you against Valta.”

Pollock frowned. “Have you spoken with their leaders?”

“I'm leading them. Right now, they're desperately trying to break Valta on the east side. We can help each other.”

“How can we trust you?” Pollock asked. “You betrayed the agency.”

“Did I?” James replied. “Perhaps we're both finally on the right side. There's no time to debate this. We need to work together, or none of us will make it out alive. If we coordinate, we can pincer them between us.”