The carbine fired. Her link with the Scarret went dead. "Shit!" She was aware of Jacintha hurrying forward again. Gangel started sprinting from the opposite direction. They were pouring e-c barbs into the house where Amersy was hidden. Denise began to race forward, holding her e-c pistol ahead, sending out a constant barrage of barbs. The house was an inferno, huge, violent flames roaring almost horizontally out of the shattered windows. Its solar collector roof was twisting and flexing as the heat lashed at it. Then flames were stabbing victoriously through the gullies as it juddered and began to sink down.
Another burst of carbine fire came from inside. Even as she flinched down yet again, Denise marveled at how the corporal could keep so cool in this situation. Skin suits might be heat resistant, but to stand at the heart of an inferno surrounded by enemies and still maintain a devastating fire pattern was enviable.
One of the walls collapsed amid a huge fireball. A Skin tumbled through the gap. It was hit by e-c barbs from three directions, bursting apart.
Denise squinted against the glare and fierce heat. There was something badly wrong about the way the Skin had ruptured. Jacintha must have thought the same. She was approaching the remnants, cautious yet urgent, covering it with her pistol.
The solar collector roof finally fell to the floor, throwing out a cascade of sparks. Jacintha raised one hand to ward them off. She bent over the tattered Skin. "Shit!" She was looking around wildly.
"What?" Denise asked. She was closing in, along with Gangel and Eren.
"It's empty. The bastard wasn't in it!"
Denise was suddenly swinging round, her heart thudding in fright as she attempted to cover half the town with her pistol.
Amersy crouched behind a foundation pier, watching intently as the young woman and her companion started running toward the firefight. His Skin AS was firing the carbine in random bursts, maintaining a suppressing-fire pattern. The two ambushers flung themselves flat. He grinned as he scuttled over to the shiny Scarret. Damn dumb amateurs, weren't even checking their asses. He used a power blade to slice through the dashboard, then waited until another carbine burst sounded before jabbing the tip straight into the electronics. He cut through the neurotronic pearls and fiberoptics that were connected to the compensators and brakes. Without AS management (or whatever program was loaded in) the bike would be sluggish. But he could accelerate, brake and steer manually. It was enough to get him back to Memu Bay. That would have to do.
He slung a leg over the saddle and twisted the throttle.
Five houses were on fire around the empty Skin suit, their composite panels hissing and melting as flames licked around them, exposing the steel skeleton. Thick black smoke billowed high into the plateau's calm air.
Still watching the empty streets, Denise went over and hugged her big sister. "I missed you," she whispered.
"We're together now. Everything will be all right"
"I hope so. We're making a complete mess of this."
"He's naked and alone, he won't get far."
"On my bike, he'll get clean away." She couldn't believe she'd been so stupid.
"It doesn't make any difference. He's not a part of Z-B anymore. They won't be sending in the cavalry. Not on this one."
"Okay. That just leaves us with Newton to deal with."
"And the other one."
Denise gave her a surprised look. "What other one?"
"There were four of them in the lead jeep. One of them was in normal clothes."
"Did you see who it was? There's nobody in the platoon left."
"I don't know."
"It could be our traitor."
Jacintha stroked Denise's cheek. "I don't think there is one."
"There has to be! Newton has Prime."
"Our dragon isn't unique," Jacintha chided gently.
"But..."
"Come on, we need to finish this."
The four of them split into pairs to approach the crashed jeep, closing on it from opposite sides.
"Newton was in there when he detected our Prime infiltration," Gangel said. "And that diagnostic probe is still transmitting. Whoever the fourth man is, he's in a bad way."
"Do you think Newton is still in there?" Jacintha asked.
She and Denise were crouched at the corner of the next house along the main street. When Denise inched around the foundation pier she could see the battered rear end of the jeep sticking out of the house. Nothing moved. Heat traces around the jeep were confused and fading. "I doubt it But he can't have got far."
"Okay. Eren, any heat traces on your side?"
"Nothing."
"Stand by. We're going in."
"I'm going in," Denise said. "You cover me."
She scurried along the front of the house, keeping flat against the wall. Her breathing had quickened, the rasping loud in her ears. Heat was flooding out of the jeep, its axle motors gleaming crimson, power cells casting a vermilion glow underneath the chassis. The smashed-up wall was crisscrossed with hot ruby lines where the material had bent and cracked. Denise eased herself through the gap at the side of the jeep, her pistol sweeping across the room. There were thermal tracks all over the floor, leading to the door. Jacintha climbed up behind her and nodded.
Denise flipped around the open door, into the hallway. It was empty. The door at the far end was open a couple of centimeters. She didn't even need infrared. The dust showed two sets of Skin bootprints going straight to it. Only one came out.
Her bracelet pearl pinpointed the diagnostic card broadcasting from inside. The fourth man was definitely in there. Beads of perspiration were building up on her face. It was no good creeping along the halclass="underline" the Skin carbines could shoot through walls as if they were fog. She sucked down a breath and sprinted down the hall, bursting through the door. Shock froze her.
Jacintha followed her sister into the end room and nearly knocked into her. Denise was standing rigid in the middle of the room, pistol pointing at the figure slumped in the corner.
"You're dead," Denise croaked. She was aiming at Hal Grabowski's head. The same Hal Grabowski who had faced a firing squad and died. Now here he was again, all by himself in an abandoned house in Dixon. Her pistol arm shivered slightly.
"Who the hell's that?" Jacintha asked.
"Hal Grabowski."
"You mean the Hal Grabowski that you set up in Memu Bay? The one Z-B executed?"
"Yes," Denise snapped. She straightened her arm, ready to shoot. She couldn't do it, not an unconscious man. Then she noticed the writing on the wall beside him.
HELP HIM I WILL KNOW
The diagnostic probe was resting against Hal's abdomen, still transmitting. Denise looked from that to the big medical kit box.
Gangel and Eren slipped into the room.
"Where's Newton?" Eren asked. "And... hey, isn't that Grabowski?"
Denise flashed him an exasperated glance and finally lowered her pistol. Gangel went over to the window. The frame was open. When he pushed at the plywood sheet nailed up outside, it swung out. "Looks like Newton left."