“And have you indeed seen to all your wounded? I heard no shots.”
Suzruzh shrugged. “That would have revealed our position after the enemy broke contact. A knife sufficed — and there wasn’t much work to be done, it turned out.”
Jesel nodded, looked west, away from the river. “They will flee in that direction. They will not run back to the river; they can be trapped against its banks. I will take five of my men. I will leave one to remain with you and your survivor.”
Suzruzh flinched in surprise. “I am to stay here? To what purpose?”
“To return to our landing zone and secure our shuttle.”
“But we locked it against all—”
“Suzruzh, shake off the ear-ringing of the rockets; it is addling your wits. When we left our security-locked shuttle, we had clear superiority over our targets. We numbered twenty-nine, with superior weapons, and faced a proximal foe. Now we are down to two Evolved and seven clones, and have no idea where our enemies might have gone. It is entirely possible that they could slip behind us and compromise our craft. Also, whatever went overhead just before we commenced this battle is not ours. It is not impossible that some Slaasriithi craft could be searching for us, which they will do by scanning for the dense metals of our shuttle.”
Suzruzh glanced away, annoyed, but said. “It is wisdom. I shall secure the shuttle.”
Jesel nodded curtly. “And I shall hunt down these Aboriginal mongrels.” He hefted his rifle, gestured for one of his men to join Suzruzh, and nodded to the others. “We shall cut over the streambed farther inland from the river and seek their tracks or trails leading away from the point of assault.” He tossed two orders over his shoulder: “Staggered delta formation. Advance at the double quick.” He nodded to his cousin, then turned and pushed into the shoulder high growth, his men at his back.
Suzruzh stared after them, rubbing his left arm. “We shall travel in a staggered triad. I shall take the second position. We move slowly, carefully, and ten meters off the trail we used when advancing from our landing site. There have been enough surprises this day.”
The clones nodded and complied, falling into the ordered formation. Traveling swiftly, they became increasingly wary of every dense clump and impenetrable thicket. It took them ten minutes to make good their return to the shuttle, which, observed from the edge of the clearing in which it had landed, seemed unmolested. But Suzruzh, never a trusting sort, was even less so this day.
“Alpha-Six,” he ordered the clone that Jesel had assigned to him, “advance to the waist hatchway and examine it for any signs of tampering or attempts at forced entry.”
The clone barely nodded before rising and advancing, weapon to eye, in a fast crouch to the side of the shuttle. He inspected the hatch for several seconds, then waved an all-clear.
Suzruzh rose, led the sole surviving scout from the streambed attack toward the craft. “We will make ready for immediate takeoff,” he ordered as they crossed the fern-spotted clearing. “We must be ready to return to orbit the moment that Jesel and his—”
Suzruzh heard three sharp reports: a high velocity weapon, very nearby—
At that same instant, three projectiles cut through him like hot pokers: one vented his left lung, another pulped his liver, and the last sliced through his descending colon — before they all emerged from his back. He staggered, tried to initiate the venous and arterial constricture reflexes that might keep him conscious, but realized within the same second that the damage was too widespread, too serious for those disciplines to save him.
As he fell, the reports continued as a steady tattoo that dropped his two clones with multiple mortal wounds; unlike an Evolved, they had no way to mitigate or delay either shock or blood loss. As Suzruzh’s vision began to constrict, to become a view through a closing pipe, he had an impression of two armored figures advancing cautiously toward him—
— before the pipe was sealed by unremitting darkness.
* * *
Bannor Rulaine took cover next to the shuttle, sweeping the tree-line as Peter Wu crouch-ran forward to check the target who’d had the better equipment and had clearly been in charge.
Wu reached the bloody figure, turned and shook his head. “Gone. What now, Major?”
Rulaine looked at the figure slumped by the hatch. “Well, given that the leader didn’t let his lead trooper open the hatch, I’m guessing this shuttle is either code-locked or booby-trapped. Either way, we move on and find our people.”
“How? Backtrack where these three came from?”
“That’s a start, but we’ve got to stay off whatever trail they followed here. I doubt they took time to set traps, but this isn’t the time to guess wrong.”
Wu had already risen, entered the span of brush from which their opponents had emerged, found the faint trail they had left. “You think the others in this raiding team have finished their mission? And sent this group on ahead to prepare the craft for launch?”
Rulaine shrugged as he joined Wu. “Don’t know. There’s too much craziness here, as it is: a TOCIO armored shuttle and Optigene clones being used by the same attackers who pounded the crap out of us two weeks ago and knocked a cannonball aside a few hours ago? It doesn’t add up, so I’m not about to make any tactical assumptions. We just move forward and try to get in the game to save our people. That’s all the plan I’ve got right now.”
Wu nodded, looked at the wounds on the dead leader’s arm. “Looks like our people are putting up a fight, too.”
“That’s to be expected.” Rulaine checked his weapon, started toward the trail. “I just wish I knew if they’re still alive.”
Chapter Forty-Eight. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)
The water frothed and fumed above Ben Hwang before he broke the surface of the river. The streamlined compressor he held clenched in his teeth pulled free as the chop of the water buffeted him.
But a moment later, that turbulence was behind — or rather, beneath — Hwang and his three companions. The water-strider on whose back they had ridden rose up quickly, ascending toward the cone-trees clustered tightly along the eastern shore of the river.
W’th’vaathi, whose torso was adorned with four flat, multieyed fish that had affixed themselves to her respiratory ducts, gestured toward the stand of trees with a dripping tendril. “There we shall find the next boat that we have positioned for use along the river. With it, we shall reach the Silver Tower swiftly.”
Gaspard spat out the air line from his own pony tank. “How quickly?”
“Half a day, several hours: it depends upon the wind as well as the current.”
Ben shook his head. “Escaping interstellar pursuers by sailboat; this is madness. Do you truly think machines are so dangerous that it is better to live, and die, like this?”
W’th’vaathi’s tendrils rolled in a waving fan that indicated the world around them. “We do not fear complex machines, but we only use them where necessary. As I explained, they are disruptive to our society.”
“Technology is not evil,” Mizuki murmured, shaking. Although they had only traveled underwater for ten kilometers, it had felt much longer and the currents and cold had obviously bothered her wounds, particularly her reddened eye.
W’th’vaathi signaled agreement. “Indeed, objects cannot be evil. But they have an inducing power of their own, and for us, anything that circumvents natural processes and their tempos threatens to unravel biological balance. But let us turn to practical matters: we will resume travel most swiftly if you help me ready the boat.”