Death Cry

Grant crouched beneath the computer desk and began unplugging connections, including the jury-rigged power that the millennialists had attached to get it running in the first place. “Insane or not,” he told Brigid, “would you trust your life in anyone else’s hands?”

Brigid didn’t even need to think about it. A dozen images jockeyed for position in her mind’s eye, situations where Kane had covered her back, taken care of her and saved her life. A hundred further instances were rushing through her head as she helped Grant unwire the base of the computer. Photographic memory could be a double-edged sword when you wanted to be mad at someone, she decided.

“Any idea how we’re getting out of here?” she asked as they discarded leads and Grant pulled the blocky computer from the desk.

“None at all,” he told her, smiling broadly, “but I’m not worried. Kane’ll do something. He always does.”

Brigid grabbed the TP-9 pistol from where she had placed it beside her on the desk, and she and Grant walked briskly across the room to the double doors and out into the corridor.

Kane was waiting for them just by the door, the gunmetal flask back in his hand. Grant took one look at the flask and shook his head. “That’ll never work,” he warned his friend as the lights flickered above them.

Kane started off toward the hole in the wall at a fast trot, trusting the others to keep up. “Oh, I’ve added a little something-something this time,” he said, grinning maliciously as he stepped over the unconscious gunman on the floor and headed for the large gap in the wall that led into the boxed tunnel.

Grant was right behind him, hefting the computer under his left arm. The black, metal-covered unit stretched from beneath his armpit right down to the curled tips of his gripping fingers, and he was forced to keep his arm straight to carry it. They had left the monitor and keyboard behind, knowing they could substitute these items when they reached their headquarters at the Cerberus redoubt. “This thing is going to throw my aim off,” Grant advised the others. “I can keep you covered, but I don’t think I can do much pinpoint work.”

“Won’t be necessary,” Kane assured him, still clutching the flask. “Baptiste and I will handle things, won’t we?”

Brigid sight-checked the chamber of her TP-9 before answering. “Can’t wait,” she said grimly.

With that, the three-person reconnaissance team began to jog along the shaft, making good speed without exhausting themselves as they worked their way up the muddy incline.

They didn’t meet anyone along the shaft, but as they turned a slight corner close to the exit, they suddenly found themselves assaulted by a volley of bullets. Kane urged his companions backward, and the Cerberus trio waited just around the corner as a stream of bullets peppered the wall across from them.

“Told you,” Grant said quietly as the stream of bullets slapped the wall.

Taking point, Kane edged forward to the turn in the shaft, answering Grant without looking back. “They’ll get bored in a minute.”

Kane drew his right arm back and stepped two paces forward before tossing the gunmetal flask ahead of him like a baseball pitcher. The flask hurtled through the air toward the entrance to the mine shaft. Still tucked behind the curve in the shaft, Brigid and Grant heard the astonished cries of Millennial Consortium guards as they saw the projectile fly toward them.

Kane ducked behind cover as a stream of steel-jacketed bullets poured into the shaft. “Look away,” he instructed Brigid and Grant. “Close your eyes and look away!”

All three of them turned to face the underground lair that they had just come from. A second later an almighty noise assaulted their ears, and even from behind lidded eyes they could see the bright flash of an explosion.

Moments later, Grant and Brigid were chasing after Kane as he led the way, Sin Eater in hand, up the last part of the shaft and into the open air.

“What the hell did you just do?” Grant asked, incredulous.

Kane snapped off a shot from his pistol, and the bullet swept the legs out from under a millennialist guardsman who was rubbing at his eyes, his own pistol forgotten in his limp hand. “I stuffed the flask with flash-bangs,” Kane explained as he darted out of the entrance and continued running, head low, across the snow-carpeted ground.

Once outside, they could see that the millennialists had arranged themselves in a crescent shape across the open entrance in a determined bid to trap the Cerberus exiles inside the shaft and, presumably, contain the expected explosion when the dead man’s switch was detonated.

Brigid loosed three shots from her TP-9, catching two of the dazzled millennialists in the chest and clipping the gun hand of a third. A few paces ahead of her, Kane was firing 9 mm bursts from his Sin Eater, mostly as warning shots rather than aiming at specific targets. The way he saw it, they were pretty much home free with the opposition blinded by the flash-bangs; it didn’t warrant unnecessary deaths now.

The flash-bang was a little explosive charge that provided exactly what its name implied: a big flash and a loud bang. Kane and Grant carried various different types of the little capsules, some able to generate copious amounts of smoke or a foul stench upon breaking, and they used them for distraction in favor of actually hurting an enemy. The bright glare of the flash-bangs could temporarily blind an unsuspecting opponent and make his or her ears sing, but it wouldn’t leave any permanent damage.

Grant didn’t want to think about how many of the little explosive spheres Kane had packed into the flask, but he could see that it had dazzled the millennialists into submission. “Vintage Kane,” he muttered as he chased across the snow after his colleagues, his rolling gait compensating for the weight of the computer unit.

The snow was falling heavier than when they’d entered the shaft, thick flurries obscuring their sight as they rushed up the low hill and past the fir tree that Kane had used for cover. Kane took point with Brigid and Grant a few paces behind. As they ran, their boots leaving heavy tracks in the deepening snow, they heard the familiar report of a gunshot, and a bullet zinged past Grant’s ear.

“What the—” Grant yelled as he spun back to look over his shoulder.

The gunman he had encountered inside the underground lair had awakened and was running after them out of the square shaft entrance. Grant threw himself at the ground, using his right shoulder to cushion his fall as he saw the gunman sight and fire again.

A spray of bullets zipped past over Grant’s head as he sank into the soft snow, still clutching the computer base unit to his side. “A little help here, guys?” Grant called as he clambered up the hill amid a further hail of bullets.

Kane and Brigid stopped running, spinning on their heels and sighting the gunman outside the boxy entrance. Their guns blazed in unison as bullets flew over their heads, and suddenly the gunman’s head snapped back in a spray of crimson.

Kane leaned forward to give Grant a hand up. As he pulled the big man back to his feet, a movement caught Kane’s eye. He looked up, over Grant’s head, and spotted the large black object moving between the ridges of snow like a prowling panther. It was a Scorpinaut, one of the tanklike vehicles that the Millennial Consortium employed for field operations, and it was heading their way.

“Troops,” Kane began, “we’ve got bigger problems.” He pointed a little to the left of the minelike entrance, and Grant and Brigid looked where he indicated. Suddenly, the dark shape came into view between two mounds of snow, weaving around a copse as it headed up the slope toward them.

“Must have been looking the other way when you set off the flash-bangs,” Grant speculated. “Got any ideas?”

Kane’s mind raced as he calculated the various factors that were now in play. “The Mantas are about a click away. We could get there in under five minutes without that computer slowing you down.”

Brigid gasped and looked at Kane with pleading eyes. “No, we can’t leave it behind after everything we just went through to get it.”

“Nobody’s leaving anything behind, Baptiste,” Kane told her. “Just need to find a way to give Grant a head start. You guys go on, and I’ll catch you up as soon as I’m able.”

Just then, the amplified voice of a well-spoken woman split the air, and they realized that it was coming from a speaker unit set on the hull of the Scorpinaut. “Attention, runners,” the woman’s voice said, “you have stolen properties that belong to the Millennial Consortium by right of salvage. Please cease and desist your current actions and return the property immediately, or we will be forced to reclaim by any means necessary. We urge you to swiftly comply.”

Grant started trekking up the slope, shifting the computer beneath his arm as he did so, struggling to secure a firmer grip.

Brigid turned to join Grant, the TP-9 still in her hand, then she stopped and turned back to their team leader. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

Kane shook his head, watching the Scorpinaut navigate up the slope. “Play chicken with five tons of heavily armed wag, by the look of it,” he told her, shrugging out of the white jacket he had worn for camouflage. Then he was off, a dark shadow against the white snow, running back down the slope toward the approaching Scorpinaut, the Sin Eater held in his upraised hand.

Kane half ran, half jumped down the snow-covered incline, his legs and arms pumping as he made his way toward a group of low trees off to the right of the approaching vehicle. He saw the foreclaws of the unit whirr in readiness, and then they were spitting fire in his direction as a stream of bullets began cutting through the air. Kane leaped and weaved, always moving, giving the crewof the Scorpinaut the least possible chance of getting a bead on him.

Bullets clipped the ground at his feet, ricocheting off trees and rocks all around him, cutting lethal tracks through the snow as they sought their target.

Still running, Kane held the Sin Eater across his body and reeled off a quick burst of gunfire. The 9 mm bullets zipped through the air in the direction of the Scorpinaut before slapping harmlessly on the armor plate at the front of the vehicle in a shower of sparks. Kane kept running to his right, checking over his left shoulder to make sure the vehicle was still following. Wearing the black shadow suit, he wouldn’t be hard to spot, and having taken a few shots at the Scorpinaut, he figured the crew would be just about mad enough to forget about his colleagues until they had finished with him.

Over to the right, at roughly the same height on the snowy bank as he now found himself, Kane saw a pair of trees. Their trunks were thin and their branches loaded with snow like cotton wool. Head down, he forced himself to run faster, kicking his legs high to get clear of the snow that threatened to pull him over or slow him. He aimed his body toward the trees, a plan forming in his mind.

At that moment, a loud crack split the air and a 40 mm shell hurtled over Kane’s head, slamming into the snow-bank twenty feet above him and exploding with an almighty crash. Kane felt the shock wave of the explosion as it slammed into the right side of his abdomen, and dislodged snow tumbled past him as it slid down the slope.

Kane looked back over his left shoulder and saw that the Scorpinaut crew had brought the tail cannon into the fray. The flexible cannon arm was doubled back to shoot over the main body of the vehicle, launching its massive shells in his direction. While the crew could not get the swivel arm low enough to hit its target, if enough snow was dislodged or one of those trees cut down so that it knocked Kane off his feet, then he was done for. He whipped his head back and pushed his body harder, limbs pumping, determined to keep ahead of the approaching vehicle.

Bullets riddled the ground as the Scorpinaut’s foreclaws spit lead at the running figure. Kane skipped to one side, his breath coming heavily now, the cold air burning his nostrils and throat. He was almost at the trees, and the Scorpinaut was just behind him. In fact, it was so close that suddenly he found himself inside the foreclaws’ arc of fire and he realized, horrified, that the millennialists would be just as happy to mow him down.

The snowfall was turning into a blizzard now, everything becoming white on white, so heavy that Kane could barely see two body lengths ahead as he ran. He glanced behind him once more, the dark shadow of the approaching Scorpinaut an ominous presence just a few feet away, its grinding engine loud in his ears. He heard the drums of the machine guns in the foreclaws spin as they reloaded and prepared to shoot once again, and he looked ahead once again to see the two thin trees just feet away. As the machine guns began blasting, Kane threw himself forward, diving between the tree trunks and hurtling face-first into the cushion of the thick snow, bullets racing overhead. There was a sudden, resounding crash, and Kane felt the jarring impact as the Scorpinaut slammed into the thin tree trunks in its way. They were thin but Kane had judged that they had to be hardy, growing there in the harsh wilds of North Dakota.

Still lying on the ground, Kane looked behind him and saw that the Scorpinaut was tangled between the sturdy trunks, its foreclaws still spitting leaden death into the air. It had become wedged at an angle, its claws tilted and pointing into the sky at thirty degrees; good now only for shooting birds, there was no way that the crew would be able to target anything on ground level. Kane heard the angry spluttering of shifting gears as the driver attempted to reverse or move forward, desperately trying to disentangle the vehicle from the trap he had driven into at full speed.

Kane smiled, his breath clouding before him as he watched the millennialists struggling to free their vehicle. Then he pulled himself up, brushing snow from his shadow suit and rolling his shoulders to loosen them after the hard landing. Kane holstered his Sin Eater and made his way back up the hill at a fast jog and continued in the direction of the Mantas.

The snowstorm was so heavy that Kane almost ran straight past where the Mantas were stowed close to a clump of trees. Kane had assumed he would recognize the formation of the trees, but by the time he got there they had been covered with thick snow, blending into the white landscape.