Gridlinked

Cormac looked at Stanton estimatingly. There was something in his voice. Something he perhaps might not have been able to discern when he was gridlinked. It struck him that this was sincerity.

'We have heat traces,' came Aiden's voice over the com.

'That'll be them,' said Stanton.

Cormac hit the recall and shuriken grudgingly returned. He held up his arm and it snicked into place in the holster. 'John, get over here, now.'

Stanton broke into a jog and ducked down behind the wall with them. He looked with a kind of tired curiosity at the dracoman clinging to Cormac's arm. Cormac pointed at it.

'This fella is very anxious about my security. Understand that he'll rip you apart if you try anything.' Cormac nodded to Thorn. 'Search him.'

Thorn quickly and efficiently ran his hands through Stanton's clothing. He pulled aside a ripped trouser leg to expose the empty sheath there, then nodded at Cormac before ducking back down. Stanton crouched as well.

'What have you got now, Aiden?'

The Golem's voice sounded different now. Cormac realized that this difference stemmed from the fact that it was no longer speaking. It was broadcasting directly.

'Trace blurring now. They are dividing. Five bodies… Dracoman gone… We are going for cover now.'

'Remember, fire only when they reach the camp. Which of you has that stun gun?'

'I do,' said Cento.

'Well, put it away. We no longer need a live one.' He turned to Stanton. 'What will they have?'

'Assault weapons, a mortar and a few laser carbines. One of them has a Devcon loaded with seeker bullets.'

'Passing us now,' said Aiden.

Suddenly there was a scream, then the stutter of a pulse-rifle. Garish flashes lit the trees. One tree was blasted to flinders. The scream ceased.

'That cuts it,' came Arn's annoyed comment.

'Damn! Hold fire until you've identified your targets. I don't want one of you hitting Cento or Aiden.'

A flare went up through the trees and a man was halfway across the clearing before the light gave him away. He opened fire on the tents. Flames and smoke revealed the beam from a laser carbine. There was the blue flash of a pulse-rifle and he went face-down in the dirt. More firing, then a horrible hornetlike buzzing. Two explosions in the buildings to the right. A horrible sucking gasp over the com.

'Shit! Seeker bullets!'

'Heat flares!' shouted Cormac.

Like the finale of a fireworks display, orange flares shot in every direction amongst the buildings. The buzzing continued. Two flares went out and a nearby explosion rained flakes of rubble down on Cormac's head. The dracoman pulled him lower and he swore at it. Another stuttering pulse of light.

'They're back to the lasers,' said Arn.

'Where are you, Cento? Aiden?'

'Moving clear,' they replied simultaneously.

Then Aiden said, 'There's one to the left of the carrier operating a mortar. Can't get a clear shot from here.'

'Got him,' replied Thorn.

There was a purple flash and loud crack. A white explosion split in two a tree with a trunk a metre thick. Subliminally Cormac saw something, which might have been a man, blacken, disappear.

'There's one just beyond that burning tent - no, the dracoman's on him.'

The scream was horrible. Cormac saw two shadows grappling. One shadow folded the other to the ground. He was sure he could hear bones breaking.

'Only one left, I take it,' said Cormac acidly.

'Up and running,' said Aiden. 'Dracoman's after him. You want me to get him?'

'Leave it,' said Cormac, and let out a tight breath. He looked over the wall at the spirals of smoke. Over to his right someone was talking in a low monotone. To his left there was a sudden stuttering of pulse-gun fire. He swore and dropped back down.

'I said leave it,' he said into his comunit.

'Something in the trees,' came Goff's reply.

'Aiden, you getting anything?'

'Nothing now, but there was a trace just then. Moved too fast to be a bird,' the Golem replied.

'Surveillance drone?'

'Possible.'

'Any other traces?'

'Nothing:'

On that last word the second dracoman released Cormac's arm. He pulled away, dropped his comunit in his top pocket, and then turned on the dracoman.

'Do that again and I cut your rucking hand off,' he said.

The dracoman showed its teeth. It could have been a smile.

Cormac left it and went to find out who had died.

Two of the regulars were dead. Seeker bullets had ripped through their body armour and the pressure vessels they contained had exploded with messy results. Cormac was told one of them was the soldier Cheng. Cormac had what remained of the men scooped up and put in body-bags, then shallow-buried at the perimeter of the camp. The three recoverable bodies - the men the dracoman had killed - were brought in and laid out. Cormac recognized none of them. He turned to Stanton, just behind whom stood Thorn and Sergeant Arn.

'Locally hired,' he said.

'Yes, but Pelter has four you know with him,' Stanton replied.

Cormac looked at him questioningly.

Stanton went on. 'Corlackis and his brother, Svent and Dusache.'

'When will they come in? Soon?'

'No, Pelter won't want it over that quickly'

Cormac nodded, then looked at the sergeant. 'Take him into the carrier, strip-search him, then tie him up.'

The sergeant obeyed wiui a kind of grim relish. Cormac wondered if he expected entertainment in repayment for the deaths of his two men. He would be disappointed. He noticed that Stanton went without protest. The man seemed broken, grieving. He'd have to get the full story from him later. Right now he wanted everything organized, precise. Much as he was inclined to believe what Stanton had told him, he still was not prepared to relax defences here. With Thorn at his back he walked towards Aiden, who was crouching by the wreckage of what had been a tree before Thorn's attentions.

'That dracoman back yet?' he asked.

Aiden glanced up and said, 'No, but we have an AGC coming in directly.'

'Scatter!'

The men ran for cover. Cormac turned to Thorn. 'Get in the carrier. If it fires on us, use the turret weapons.'

Thorn nodded and ran for the carrier. Cormac watched the Sparkind leap Stanton, who was now facedown on the ground, with Arn tying his wrist behind him. That was covered, then. Cormac jogged over to Aiden, thinking to take cover behind the wrecked branches of the tree. The familiar pad of feet behind him abrogated that intention for the moment. He turned and drew his shuriken as the remaining dracoman came trotting in.

The dracoman halted.

'One step closer. Go on - just one.'

The dracoman seemed to find this amusing, then boring. It looked up at the sky for a moment, then turned and trotted away. Cormac ran for the tree and dived down beside Aiden. He looked about and saw that everyone else was concealed.

'The AGC is coming right in,' said Aiden.

Cormac looked up into the red night and saw that the car had its running lights on. It was an Aston Martin replica, but with its underside constructed like the hull of a speedboat. Whoever was driving it seemed to be having some problem with the controls. It swayed to a halt above the camp, then slowly started to descend. That descent speeded at the last moment and it slammed down in the middle of the camp. Cormac had shuriken in his hand, even though he knew that plenty of other weapons were pointed at the AGC. The door clicked open and the missing dracoman stepped out. Cormac swore, stood up and walked over to it. Had the other one known?

As he drew close, Cormac saw blood on the inside of the car's windows. A glance inside revealed to him a body slumped in the back seat with its head nearly ripped off. He went closer and saw it was a woman, a great mass of tangled hair spread about her, soaking up the blood. It was no one he recognized. She had to be the one that escaped. He would have to ask Stanton. He turned to the dracoman.