More explosions, more smoke and hellish light boiled up from Dead-End Gorge. Kafari couldn’t tell if they were hearing only guns or if part of the noise was the dam breaking apart. If the dam went, were they high enough to avoid the flood? Kafari wasn’t sure they could climb at all, not with the whole rockface shaking under their bellies.
The sudden silence was a shock.
Kafari froze, listening, hardly daring to hope. More silence, profound and alien. From far, far away, back in the distant gorges closer to Maze Gap, she could hear a pattering of gunfire, but it was sporadic, sounding like a child’s popgun by comparison with the awesome explosions that had crushed them flat for so many terrifying minutes. Then a low rumble came from the entrance to Dead-End Gorge, vibrating the cliff under her bloodied fingertips. It didn’t feel like the concussion tremors from individual legs of a Yavac walking down the canyon. This was a continuous rumble, diffused across a broader base.
The Bolo?
God, was it the Bolo, heading back toward them?
“Lookit that!” Dinny shouted, pointing toward the smoke pouring out of Dead-End Gorge.
Kafari stared. It was a huge, dark shape, ablaze with running lights, like a big freighter moving ponderously toward spacedock. Gun snouts bristled on every surface. It passed Alligator Deep, a mere hundred meters further along than they’d managed to run, then it checked, abruptly. The moment after that, It swung around, ponderously, and headed straight toward them. Kafari gulped.
“Uh, guys, I think it’s seen us.”
That’s a good thing, isn’t it?
They watched in awed silence as the immense machine lumbered through the brimstone ruins the battle had created. Fires blazed everywhere, occluded as the Bolo interposed its bulk between blazing houses and barns and the trail they clung to, ant-like. It pulled up directly alongside, treads grinding like logs in a sawmill. Its topmost turret rose more than a hundred feet higher than their heads. Heat poured from it, from its hull and its guns and some kind of energy screen around it. That screen cut off, abruptly, with a faint crackle and pop. Then the ponderous thing stopped, no more than a long step away, wreathed in heat and smoke and an aura of dark and dangerous power.
A hatch popped open, no more than three meters from Kafari’s feet, in a flat part of the hull that she could easily have stepped onto, if she’d dared such a thing. An instant later, the Bolo’s commander scrambled up, his brave crimson uniform stained with sweat, his dark hair ruffled by the breeze trying to dispel the smoke. Kafari stared at him, locked gazes with his, feeling battered and sweat-stained and ugly as a road-killed toad. A look of wonder had come across Simon Khrustinov’s face, a wonderment that deepened when he saw who was climbing the cliff with her.
“Dear God,” he whispered, glancing into Abe Lendan’s eyes. “Mr. President, if you don’t give this young lady a medal, I sure as hell will.”
Kafari’s eyes started to burn, with more than drifting smoke.
“Miss Camar, may I offer you and your friends a ride?”
The burning in her eyes started to drip messily down her face. He reached across, steadied her as she stepped onto the Bolo’s warhull. The warmth of his hands on hers, the careful strength of his grip, holding her like fragile china, told her more than words ever could. His gaze touched something deep in her soul, something warm and alive that she had forgotten, during the past hour, that she still possessed.
“Careful,” he whispered as her knees jellied. “Steady, now. Can you climb down the ladder, there, while I help the others across?”
She nodded. He helped her through the hatch, then turned to steady Abe Lendan and Dinny and Aisha Ghamal, by turns. She had to crawl slowly down the ladder, not only because her hands were slippery with blood, but because she’d begun to shake so violently, she could barely keep her feet. When she reached bottom, she found herself in a snug compartment, dominated by viewscreens and a huge, powered chair festooned with cushioned straps. There were five smaller couches, evidently for passengers, crammed into the small space, along with storage lockers and huge viewscreens that surrounded the command chair on three sides. She stumbled toward the nearest couch and sank down onto it, shaking.
Metallic clangs reached her as the others climbed down. Abe Lendan appeared first, drooping with exhaustion. Dinny followed him down, eyes wide as he stared, enraptured, at the Bolo’s Command Compartment. Simon Khrustinov came next, bracing Aisha from beneath, so she wouldn’t fall as she shuddered her way slowly down the ladder. Kafari slid hastily to the next couch, making room for the injured woman. The Bolo’s commander eased Mrs. Ghamal onto the couch and got busy with medical equipment, which took her vitals and injected something automatically.
“The auto-doc will take very good care of you,” he said quietly, “while we’re underway. You should be feeling better shortly.”
Aisha’s expression had already relaxed as pain-killing medication spread visibly through her, allowing her to sag into near slumber within moments.
“You’ve all been exposed to radiation,” he added, studying the auto-doc. “We’ll start chelation immediately. Not to worry,” he added with a gentle smile, “we’ve improved anti-radiation therapy, over the years. We’ll cleanse your systems before any permanent damage occurs.”
That was the best news Kafari had heard all day.
Simon Khrustinov was helping the others into couches, webbing them carefully in and swinging the auto-docs into place. When it was Kafari’s turn, she surrendered gratefully to those gentle hands, sighing as a flood of medication hit her system.
“Are those bee-stings?” he asked, frowning slightly.
“They are, indeed,” President Lendan answered for her, voice filled with rust and pride. “When a Yavac stepped on our shelter, we had to clear a whole mess of Deng infantry out of a barn. She threw a couple of beehives into it. She and Aisha did, between them. What the bees didn’t sting to death, we shot down as they ran out, chased by the swarm.”
Simon Khrustinov’s smile started in his eyes and spread to the rest of him, while a slow burn of something shivery and wonderful kindled in Kafari’s middle. He said softly, “That has got to be the most creative way of killing Deng I have ever heard. Eh, Sonny?”
A metallic voice spoke from the air, causing Kafari to jump with shock. “Indeed, Simon. There is no mention of anything like it anywhere in my databases, which include several centuries’ worth of strategems for dealing with an entrenched enemy. I would like to have seen that,” it added, sounding almost wistful.
Simon Khrustinov chuckled. “So would I. That one’s going to go down in the legends of the Brigade, or I don’t know my fellow officers.”
“Welcome aboard,” the metallic voice added. “It is an honor to carry you to safety.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, voice watery and small.
Simon Khrustinov finished adjusting the auto-docs, gave Dinny Ghamal a wink and a grin that lit the boy from inside, then strapped himself into the command chair.
“Okay, Sonny, let’s see if Jefferson’s artillery has finished mopping up, yet, or if we have a few more Deng to shoot down.”
As the Bolo rumbled into motion, Kafari wanted — badly — to keep her eyes open, to watch the viewscreens and savor the way Simon Khrustinov’s hair fell in sweaty waves over the back of his collar. But the medication had spread a deep and wonderful lassitude all through her limbs and the lifting of responsibility from her shoulders, responsibility for the president’s safety and the future of her entire world, left her with drooping eyelids. She was still telling herself to stay awake when the world went blissfully dark and silent, drifting away. Kafari slipped into deep, exhausted slumber, unbroken even by nightmares.