Preying for keeps

24

Wheeler dropped altitude quickly, hitting five hundred meters and still plunging. The two heat-seeking missiles the EuroFighters had fired impacted against the heat flares the dwarf dumped out of the tail section. For the most part, the flares did the job of keeping the warheads away, but fragments holed the amphibian in a deadly drumbeat.

At two hundred meters and low enough now that Skater could see the landscape with his low-light enhancement, cannonfire ripped through the right wing, shearing off the last third of it.

"Frag me running." the dwarf groaned. "This is going to get ugly now." He tried to level the amphibian out, but it was no use. The tallest trees in the forest scratched against the Fiat-Fokker's underbelly while white phosphorus flames chewed the amputated wing. The plane flipped, twisted sideways as it sheared through a copse of trees. The amphib pancaked, rammed its good wing into the ground long enough to rip it free of its moorings, then skidded to a stop against a rocky hillside.

The silence after the crash was eerie.

Even with his low-light vision working. Skater had a hard time seeing. Worse than that, his safety harness was jammed. Using a knife he'd stuffed into his boot, he cut through the straps and managed to fall somewhat gracefully.

Wheeler shucked his harness and held onto it as he flipped over to land on his feet.

Archangel managed on her own, then immediately began checking on her deck. Elvis's straps had jammed too, and he finally gave up and ripped them free. Cullen Trey was the first out the crumpled door after Duran kicked it open.

Skater moved to the cargo hold with Duran. He peered into the sky, but not much was visible through the canopy of trees overhead. He hoped it meant the EuroFighters couldn't spot them either.

"Wheeler, how far to the river?"

"Half a kilometer," the dwarf answered. "'We came down just about where we planned it."

Opening the cargo hold with effort, Skater yanked out the first undersea sled and passed it over to Elvis. "Grab your gear," he ordered. "We're going to get clear of this area as soon as possible."

Duran took up a position on the other side of him and began passing out scuba equipment.

"Elvis, you've got point. Archangel, Wheeler, and Cullen are with you. Duran and I will bring up drag as soon as we finish here."

In addition to a scuba tank and flippers, each team member also carried their own gear and a canvas bag of equipment. The trek through the forest was going to be grueling.

"Let me have your airtank," Archangel said. They hadn't brought one for her, but each undersea sled had both an emergency tank and a regulator built in, and all had re-breathers to eradicate the telltale bubbles. "It'll lessen some of the weight while you bring the other sled."

Skater didn't argue.

A cocky grin was on Trey's face. "I guess we'll all gather at the river, then? How pagan." He took off, closing distance with the others quickly.

Skater reached into the hold and hefted out one of the bodies. Duran was busy beating the access panel off the engine area. Once he had it open, the ork knelt down with a broad-bladed knife in his fist. The smell of fuel quickly blotted out the odor of death that had been trapped in the hold.

The ground around the impact area was rocky and hard. The scars from the crash cut deeply into it, revealing shattered white rock.

Skater shoved the first corpse into the cockpit, then followed it with the second in short order. By then the leaking fuel was already making pools on the ground.

"Ready?" Duran asked.

Skater nodded and hoisted the undersea sled over his shoulder. It was constructed of composite materials, mainly polymers and ceramics, and weighed thirty-two point seven kilos. At a meter and a half long and two meters across and triangular in shape, it wasn't hard to lift and carry, but getting it through the forest was going to be slotting tricky. He started toward the river as Duran twisted the cap off a flare.

The fuse lit, and bright, hard scarlet fire burned the night away. He pitched the flare into one of the fuel puddles.

Yellow and blue alcohol flames jetted up from the pool nearly a meter away. They seemed to pause for an instant, then raced toward the broken amphibian.

Flames engulfed the Fiat-Fokker as more of the ordnance did increasing damage. Fiery comets spewed into the air in all directions, and flaming bits of the wreckage hung in the trees and against the hillside.

Despite the terrain and the weight, Skater and Duran made the river in less than five minutes. The first of the Border Patrol helos were closing in on the burning pyre of the amphibian further up the slope. The ground troops wouldn't be far behind.

The other members of the team were already in the cold water. Wheeler was jacked into the sled, the datacord for the machine's on-board computer plugged into his temple. The packs all had buoyancy bladders to keep them from floating or sinking, and Archangel was lashing the last one to the undersea sled. She'd already changed into the black thermal wetsuit Skater had packed for her against the chance that she might change her mind.

"Let's go," Skater said as he dropped his sled into the water. He keyed the ignition, and the electric motor started at once. After punching in the rest of the sequence and pushing the sled further out into the cold water, it sank and sat docilely in one place, using the dog-brain and negating the current automatically.

Wheeler tied onto the first sled, while Trey and Elvis tied on in succession after him, each with a longer piece of line. The dwarf walked them out into the river till the water closed over their heads.

After pulling the thermal lined hood over his head. Skater sealed it and grabbed the undersea sled's control bar. The goggles he wore had infrared and low-light capabilities, duplicating what his eyes could do and more, but providing protection from the water and corrections against the depths.

He slid them on and flicked the menu to IR. Archangel tied on after him, followed by Duran.

The roar of ground-based vehicles was in his ears as he walked out into the water. He shoved the regulator into his mouth and switched on his airtank, then handed the regulator for the emergency tank to Archangel.

She took it, but Skater thought she looked more distant and withdrawn than he'd ever seen. With the fear in her eyes and the uncertainty about what she was doing, she was too human.

Too easy to care about. Skater realized. The distance he'd always maintained to get him through a run was no longer there. They weren't pieces of a chess game anymore.

The knowledge hit him and stripped some of his confidence as he waded out into the water. The current of the river pushed at him as it closed over his head. Oozing silt sucked at his feet. He kicked out of his boots and slid his flippers on. After threading a line through his boot loops and tying them to his belt, he glanced back to make sure the others were ready.

"Do it," Duran said, and Archangel echoed him. Skater accelerated the sled smoothly, gradually taking them all into motion. Peering back toward the bank, he could see the flames of the burning amphibian and the lights of the helos and the ground units through the meter of water that separated him from the surface.

Turning his attention back to the sled's controls, he increased the power again and took them deeper. The cold seeped in to claim him even through the thermal wetsuit. The thought that he might not be able to get the others out of this jam he'd gotten them into made him even colder.

Memory came to Skater as the water glided past him. It was something from one of the last camping trips he'd taken with his grandfather. The old man was sitting across the campfire from him, a rabbit roasting on a spit that he had Skater turning. The firelight illuminated the old man's Craggy face and held back the blush of the stars.

"I want you to think about something." Daniel Ghost-step had said then. "There won't be an answer now or in the morning, or maybe for years." He'd reached down and pinched a bit of the rabbit's flesh off, tasting to see if it was done enough. "Keep turning and listen to this: A man is foolish and yet made strong of heart because he lives with one foot in the past and one foot in what is yet to be. If he does not do these things, he is only the wind and never rooted. When the time comes, and I hope that it will, you'll have to make the decision about being a man or just being the wind."

Skater hadn't understood then. Many Amerinds of the time were trying to figure out their history, piecing it together from half-remembered folk tales and books. In a way, they were as bad as the elves, forging a new past and calling it the Old Way.

But now Skater thought he understood at last. A man lived with his regrets and cherished his dreams, and made peace with life the rest of the time. The wind just blew wherever it went, never remembering, never caring, till it died away.

Inside the Tir, hanging onto the undersea sled like part of a human kite's tail. Skater knew he wasn't the wind anymore.

And he wasn't sure if he ever would be again.

Forty-seven minutes later, chilled to the bone, Skater released his hold on the sled and left it tethered in the water. He swam upward and joined Elvis and Trey at the mouth of a drainage tunnel spewing an impressive deluge of water into the river. The rain brought in by the storm had calmed, but hadn't completely gone away. Thunder still boomed occasionally.

"This it?" Elvis asked, standing in water up to his waist.

Skater swam to where he could stand up, then took the regulator out of his mouth and peered at the markings made on the collar holding the plascrete drainage pipe. "Yeah."

The drainage tunnel was almost two meters up the steep riverbank, and was three meters in height. It jutted out over the river at least another three meters.

The river twisted around them, turning more southerly. The opposite bank was filled with wooden and concrete docks as well as more modern plascrete ones. But the docks way outnumbered the boats. Lights tried to cut through the fog overlaying the river and the banks, but they were only half-hearted attempts.

Archangel surfaced behind Skater, pulling his pack as well as her own. Duran was next, followed by Wheeler.

Storm sounds and engine noises floated over the river. A patrol boat came into view through the fog, lightning illuminating the Peace Force insignia on the prow. Searchlights burned across the banks in a tired fashion.

Skater and the others sank back into the water till the boat passed, evidently on routine patrol and not looking for them at all.

"Sleds are tied up below." Wheeler said. "But the batteries are about geeked. You can forget using them to get back."

"That way is out anyway," Skater replied. "The area's going to be crawling with Border Patrol for hours. We don't have that kind of time to spend waiting." He glanced at Elvis. "Can you give me a leg up?"

The troll laced his fingers together and bent over slightly.

Skater put one foot into Elvis's hands and pushed himself up toward the drainage pipe. The troll helped, almost shoving him into the pipe. Once he had his hands on the lip, Skater pulled himself into the tunnel. Sludge stained the front of his clothing brown and green.

Rats as long as his forearm sat in clusters above the waterline on both sides of the water cascading through the pipe. The thunder of the water rushing through the drainage system resonated, sounding near and far at the same time. Tracked grids ran along the sides of the pipe and he guessed they were for the maintenance drones Archangel had told him about.

In minutes they were all inside the pipe, scattering rats before them. The sludge and the rushing water made footing precarious. Skater led, a half-step in front of Archangel.

Elvis cursed and kicked. Flying rats banged into the metal sides of the tunnel. "Fragging things are trying to climb up on me.”

"I would say something about kindred spirits." Trey volunteered.

The troll gave him a baleful look.

"But 1 won't," the mage promised.

Less than a hundred meters in, Skater stopped and looked at the wall to the right. "Should be about here." He took out his knife and banged the handle against the metal. The echo sounded hollow. "According to the schematics, the pipes touch. Spread out and let's see if we can find the other one."

In seconds the drainage pipe was filled with tapping, until Wheeler called out. "I think I've got it."

Skater tramped through the running water and nearly lost his footing in the sludge. He looked up at Elvis. "Cut it, and let's find out."

The troll nodded and unlimbered the laser torch he had in his equipment pack. He crossed to the wall and thumped it solidly.

"Duran," Skater called out, "see if you can get something over that grate so the laser won't show through."

Duran stripped off his jacket and blocked the grate, leaving enough room to allow the passage of water down the tunnel.

Strapping on a pair of protective goggles and thick gloves, Elvis switched on the laser and moved forward. Skater had the Predator in his fist and kept watch over the mouth of the pipe the way they'd come. There was a clang, then the laser light died away. When he turned, a hole big enough to crawl through was sliced through the pipe. The plascrete around the hole glowed hot orange a few centimeters deep. He holstered his weapon and removed his flash from his pocket, joining Archangel at the hole.

"The pipe's there," Archangel said, "but I can't tell what kind of shape it's in." She pointed her flash into the hole.

Skater added his to hers, but the distance was only illuminated a few meters. "It curves. Those specs didn't show a fragging curve." The light revealed the plascrete twisting out of sight nearly eight meters up.

"They're not that exact," Archangel replied. "They didn't have to be. Maybe it doesn't curve much."

Skater took a roll of ordnance tape from his pack and quickly strapped the flash to his gunwrist. He took off his street clothes and dragged them through the running water at his feet, then threw them across the heated edges of the lasered hole.

The cold water and soaked material hissed when they came in contact with the hot plascrete. The orange dimmed almost instantly, and steam rose up, drifting lazily with the flow of the water.

Skater crawled through the hole and pulled himself into the pipe. The fit was tight; there was barely enough room for his shoulders. Duran, Elvis, and Wheeler would never have made it.

On his stomach with the Predator and the flash aimed before him, he pulled himself forward. Panic whispered in his ear that he was going to get stuck at any moment, causing him to take bigger breaths than he actually needed. Once, because of a deep inhalation, his shoulders did get pinned and he found himself unable to move. Instinctively he took even more air in and found he couldn't. At the edge of losing it, he forced himself to be calm, to breathe out. He became unstuck, then worked to keep moving.

The curve was hard to navigate. He had to turn sideways and bend around it, not breathing till he was through.

His movements had stirred up clouds of dust that obscured the light from his flash. It took real effort to see the other end of the tunnel seven more meters along. A plascrete plug blocked it. He cursed silently for just a moment, then activated the Crypto Circuit link. "Duran, I'm going to need a drain opener. We've got a blockage up here." Skater played the flash over the rough plascrete surface, trying to estimate its depth.

"What are you looking at?''

"Plascrete cap. I don't know how thick."

"Probably only a few centimeters. Builders figured they needed some kind of safeguard to keep rodents and insects from using the pipe as a means of egress."

"According to the blueprints," Archangel said, "'the wall on the other side of it is twenty centimeters thick. That will have to be blown as well."

"Okay, kid," Duran said, "I'll get you a package fixed up. You coming back for it?"

Skater glanced back at the curve and thought about having to crawl through the pipe again. "No. Send it up with Archangel."

He twisted around so that he was lying on his back. His neck and shoulders were already burning from the exertion of keeping his head up. The thought of Archangel being in the pipe with him, blocking the way, was unsettling.

"Elvis sent this along," she said. "He thought it might help shield us from the blast."

Looking down. Skater saw that it was the troll's Kevlar-lined synthleather jacket. "It will. Go back to the bend in the pipe and hold onto it. I'll join you there."

As Archangel wriggled back, Skater moved forward with the explosive in his hand. His elbows were sore from crawling, and he felt the warmth of blood soaking into the wetsuit's sleeve from his left one.

Duran had shaped the charge and put a sticky surface on it. With care, Skater placed the explosive in the center of the plascrete plug. Going backward was every bit as difficult as he'd expected.

He stopped short of the curve in the pipe, knowing he didn't want to be trapped in it if anything went wrong. His nerves were jumping as Archangel passed up the heavy jacket. He wadded it deliberately, making as many layers as he could.

He tagged the commlink. "O.K., Duran. Slow it." He ducked his head into the jacket, smelling the strong troll smell.

Then the world inside the tunnel came apart as the detonation rocketed against his eardrums.